Ten years ago today

I always say a prayer on take-off and landing. Statistically, I'd been told years earlier, that's when a plane is most likely to crash. I don't remember where I heard that and never confirmed it, but I still pray.

I said “Thank you, Lord,” on September 11, 2001 as my plane touched down in Nashville at 8:48 a.m. Eastern time. I heard an answer back in my head that said “Your prayer was answered,” with an emphasis on the word your. I remember thinking it was a little odd but didn't give it another thought as I rushed off the flight and bought a bus ticket to the resort where I would be attending a convention of television news directors. The ticket was purchased at 9:03 a.m. Eastern time. I didn't think about the significance of either time until later when I was reviewing my credit card receipts to fill out an expense report. Today I realize I was very lucky to be in those places at those times.

I waited outside for the bus to arrive on that beautiful sunny morning. No one else was outside the terminal yet and there was no confusion. When the bus finally pulled up, the driver told me there had been a plane crash at the World Trade Center in New York; he thought it was a private plane. He loaded my luggage and invited me to sit in the air conditioned bus while he ran inside to assist other passengers. His radio was on. I heard ABC radio saying there had been a second hit. Then I knew.

I got off the bus, grabbed my bag and went inside. By then, lines were forming at ticket counters, rental car desks and around TV's. I tried to call my work and my husband several times before finally getting through to the WEWS TV assignment desk. By then I was in line for a return flight but already knew then, 20 minutes into this, that any additional flights were unlikely. The assignment editors told me to stay on the line; they knew I would not get through again if I hung up. They called the Cleveland Plain Dealer and held the phone up so I could talk to my husband. They told me about the Pentagon. They told me they had information a plane was being held hostage on the tarmac in Cleveland, and they were trying to confirm this information. By then I'd made my way to the front of the line at the Continental Airlines desk. I told the agent I worked in TV news in Cleveland and asked whether he knew anything about one of their planes being held hostage. He assured me it was not true. “Don't go with that information,” I told our desk while I asked him to get me out on the next flight. He printed me a ticket but told me he expected all flights would be grounded. In fact, he said the air traffic controllers outside Cleveland were in the process of landing some 700 planes wherever they could do so safely. That was another story of calm heroism that would not be made clear for weeks to come. At that moment for me, it was just plain scary.

The agent turned his screen around so that I could see the problem in Cleveland was only because there were no gates; as each plane landed, it had to wait for gate space so passengers could disembark. He was a clam and reliable source of information over the next two hours while I stood in car rental lines and talked by phone with my assignment desk, general manager and his assistant, Judy Shaw, another clam presence on that day which I will always remember and be grateful for.

It was Judy who finally landed a rental car for my nine hour drive home. I won't tell you how many times I had to stop at pay phones once my cell phone died – I now travel with a car charger even for trips to the grocery store – and how kind everyone was at gas stations and rest stops that day.


I heard small town radio stations in their finest hour as they brought in spiritual and political experts to reassure their audiences. In those little towns, blood drives were already beginning. I think I'd been on the road only a couple of hours when Clear Channel radio stations began their remarkable national simulcast.

I could not wait to be home again to my husband and dog but there was nothing I could do about it.

Once I arrived in Cleveland I headed directly to work to at least lend a hand to the exhausted overnight team. When the morning news was over I drove my rental car home for a much needed shower and a few hours' rest.

Driving into my subdivision, I remember thinking, “This can't be.” It was all still there. I don't think flowers have ever been more colorful. The sky was so blue, the grass so perfectly green.

I was not in the newsroom on the day I thought my team at WEWS TV needed me most, but this was also the day I learned that I was unnecessary. The team, the best breaking news unit anywhere in that time, did an excellent job without me. On September 11, 2001, I learned I was not important, but that all mankind working together can and will be a bigger force than a team of terrorists who don't really know God.

That's the feeling we all need to have and communicate today. It's been pushed to the back of our minds for many holiday seasons, triumphs and other tragedies. But it must never be forgotten.

If you have a flag, fly it today to remind the world that Americans remain united against terror.

Failure has a Positive Image -- when it's fixed.

Rule number one about calling a product "successful": It's only good if the target audience buys it.

Successful people know how to create what customers want. They also own it and move on when no one's buying.

Few if anyone gets on base every time they step up to the plate. I can't think of any entrepreneurs who haven't struck out a few times. Maybe their idea was ahead of its time. Maybe their idea wasn't sustainable with the resources they had to execute it, maybe the economic or political climate changed at the wrong time and made their idea irrelevant. Maybe their idea just plain sucked.

Those who own ideas that suck see one of two things happen: they learn from the experience and create a winner in their next at-bat, or they salvage part of their original concept because they divorce themselves from the notion that they are all-knowing. Then they accept good feedback and assistance.

This is what Howard Schultz did so effectively with Starbucks. He knew the atmosphere had changed, that some of the food service was sending more people away than it was bringing in, that staff needed to reconnect with customers. He took it back to basics and put it back on the road to success. Not only was this good for Mr. Schultz' bank accounts, it kept thousands employed. It probably also gives him some street creds with his current “No Labels” campaign – a movement to freeze political contributions until The President and Congress take responsibility for the budget mess. It's another example of an opportunity to look in the mirror, own the meltdown and fix it.

It's a good case study for those stubbornly cemented in continuing to run their not-so-brilliant ideas into the ground, taking hard workers with them.

If you are working for anyone besides yourself and more importantly if you have employees, you have an obligation to be successful. Measure your success through research, customer feedback, social media input, whatever it takes to know whether what you're offering is working for the public. Look in the mirror and respond to the information.

If you have money to burn and months to waste, then it's probably OK to be married to your own ideas—as long as you're playing with your own dime and your own time. When you have investors and employees,however, you are showing reckless disregard for their funds and their futures.

There is no shame in failure, but denial is a crying shame. Ask anyone laid off recently because a bad idea didn't get fixed.