>> good evening. from los angeles, don't adjust your t.v. setry king. tonight and tomorrow night, i'll turn the tables on tavis for a conversation about his life, career and his 20th anniversary in broadcasting. tavis is the author of a forthcoming book detailing 20 mistakes he's made in his life and how those mistakes have impacted him personally and professionally. the book is called "fail up, 20 lessons on building success from failure." we're glad you've joined us. part one of my conversation with tavis is coming up. right now. >> all i know is his name is james, and he needs extra help with his reading. >> i am james. >> yes. >> to everyone making a difference -- >> thank you. >> -- you help us all live better.

>> nationwide insurance supports tavis smiley. with every question and every answer, nationwide insurance is proud to join tavis in working to improve financial literacy and remove obstacles to economic empowerment, one conversation at a time. nationwide is on your side. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. [captioning made possible by kcet public television] >> it's great to be here on pbs for a couple of night sitting across from one of the really talented broadcasters in my generation. tavis is celebrating his 20th year in the business and is about to release a new book

called "fail up, 20 lessons on building success from failure." and the book will be available in stores on may 1. mr. smiley, it's great to have you with us as a guest as i host this show. tavis: it's an honor to be on your program. i have to start by saying -- >> you can't stand it! tavis: how honored i am to have you do this on the occasion of these 20 years. i know you have ties older than i've been doing television. >> you're a blip. tavis: thank you for doing this, number one, but the high point of my 20-year career was sitting in for those nights when you were off and you gave me a chance to sit in your chair. >> i loved having you do it. when they asked me who do i want to pinch-hit for me and i said you immediately. why is failure important? tavis: we have to start seeing failure as a friend. >> that don't mean you encourage

it. tavis: you don't encourage it but you can't avoid it, either. anyone who is successful in any field of human endeavor, if they're being honest, will tell you they've learned more from their failures than they have from their successes. the problem is, when you get to be larry king or tavis smiley or whatever, nobody wants to show the bad and the ugly about their career but i think if you can expose that, it can help other people. >> how much in life is luck? or do you agree with brant schticky, the great baseball manager, who said luck is the residue of design. tavis: i agree more with my grandmother who put it this way, it ain't no good luck, it's a good god. i don't believe in good luck, i believe in a god that is merciful and gracious. >> each chapter has ray on a

title like "stay humble." when did you learn these lelessons? >> . tavis: the lesson about humility, i learned as a kid. when i was a child, i had a major humility problem. you grew up in a all white community and because i was the only african-american kid and my family was the only african-american family in that trailer park in indiana, you always felt less-man, the odd man out and we were the poorest family in the trailer park and i'm walking around with cardboard in my shoes and i have nine broisters. i always felt like the odd man out so i would take on -- i was a big fan of ali, and you know ali, interviewed him many times, ali, with all that braggadocio, the way i found to navigate my space in that community was to

take on that attitude by bragging about my intellect or this or that. >> when someone experiences failure, loss of a job, something bad happens, they tonight say to themselves, this is a good day. so when are you able to reflect? you have to have years, right, to look back? you couldn't have written this at age 30. tavis: no doubt about it. ii have come to accept failure s a friend. i didn't think it was a freand. when i ran for city council here in l.a., i came out here to work for tom bradley, i thought i was going to be an elected official, i thought i would be barack obama back in the day. a senator from indiana, my home state, i wanted to go back to indiana and run for the u.s. senate. politics was my first love. when i ran for that city council seat in l.a. and lost, i thought, at 26, my life was over. i did not see the failure as a friend÷ then. now, imagine if i won that city

council seat, i might still be filling potholes on sunset opposed to sitting here talking to larry king. >> can you therefore accept failure today or are you beyond it? tavis: lord no. you have to accept failure. the whole point of the book is that i believe you can fail up. i don't know anyone who hasn't failed their way to the top. i mentioned barack obama, our president, a moment ago. when barack obama ran for the united states senate and walked basically into the senate, people forget that a few years prior he got the brakes beat off of him by a guy named bobby rush who is still a congressman. >> but he had a terrible opponent. >> and people kept dropping out and things work in your favor sometimes but at the same time, obama wouldn't be president if he hadn a senator and he wouldn't be a senator if he hadn't been a senator if he didn't run for the house seat and losost it first.

>> how do you define failure? tavis: i think failure is a setback that at the moment might seem debilitating, setbacks that seem debilitating at the moment. let's be honest, i think in life there are certain things that are failures. i don't think that failing makes you a failure. i don't think failing makes you a failure. we're going to have failings from time to time. it doesn't make you a failure unless you choose not to learn the lesson o whatever that failing was. if you learn the lesson, you can fail your way through it. >> but failure can be the error that the third baseman makes, he failed to pick up the ball and a man reached first, as opposed to being a poor kid and the only black one in the neighborhood. that's not a failure. >> but babe ruth once said, every strike gets me closer to the next hr. next home run. that's how i see life.

every strike you make gets you closer to the next home run. >> how important to you, then, is god? tavis: supreme. >> you totally believe there's someone watching. tavis: absolutely. i have a whole chapter, the last chapter is called "father knows best." somebody once said that we plan and god laughs. i've had so many plans for my own life that didn't go the way i thought they would go. i've learned over the course of the years that sometimes a dead end is a finish line and sometimes rejection is redirection. i believe that somebody greater than me is looking out for me every day. i don't use that as a crutch but i have to have somebody in my life to call upon when i've done all i can do. >> how did you make that leap? tavis: that wasn't a leap. i was raised that way. my mother happens to be an evangelist minister. i was preacher's kid, but it wasn't my father, it was my

mother. >> you didn't have to believe. tavis: i didn't have to believe but when that's all you've ever known, you tend to lean in that direction until a good question -- your questions are always great. i believed initially because my family believed, my mother believed, my father believed, i was raised in a church of believers so i believed initially connected to their faith but you live long enough and you find yourself in situations and your mom and dad can't help you and when you have to develop your own faith and that's what happened to me. >> what do you say to people who do believe and you're telling them, fail up, to someone in the gulf or in haiti or in tavis: that's a great question. i think what we lose sight of in life is that things can always be worse, as difficult as things are, things could always be worse, as long as you're alive, there is hope. as long as you're alive and you get a chance to wake up the next day and do it better, to get it right, try again, things can

always be worse so whether you're talking about japan or haiti, there's always a worse situation so you have to be thankful for the days you do have and make the most of them. >> isn't it easy to sit here and say that? tavis: i wouldn't say it's easy to sit here and say that because i've had days when i didn't think there would be another day. >> you've had a personal haiti? tavis: i've had a couple of them in my life. i talk about hurricane katrina and there are hurricane katrinas that happen in our individual lives every day, tsunamis come into our lives every day. there are moments you don't think you'll make it to the next day. you've had heart issues and surgeries we've known about and there were times you didn't think you would be around but here you are. >> you continue to use this strong belief even though, don't you ever say, if he's omnipotent, why would he allow the tsunami? tavis: that's always a great debate to engage in, why does

god allow this or that to happen. >> you don't have an answer, do you? >> i. tavis: i have a great answer but an honest answ people only ask why would god allow x, y or z to happen when x, y or z happens. when something good happens, a., b, or c, they never ask, why did that car miss me in the intersection, when i got that raise on the job, why did i get a raise? nobody asks god, why did you allow it to happen when it's good, but when something bad happens, how did god, if he's omnipotent and all-knowing, how could god allow this to happen to me. >> you think there's a plan? because if there's a plan, then you're not controlling it. tavis: yeah. i think the plan for our lives is -- and i want to be very

clear, for persons who watch this program who happen to be agnostic or atheist, i'm not mad at you but for my life i believe god has a plan for me and i can move in that plan, or out of that plan and we plan things for ourselves that are not a part of his perfect will for our lives but i think the plan is the same for all of us, to do the best we can with what we have where we are and favor follows us if we do those things every day. >> let's break down these chapters, "stay humble." your mom taught you to stay humble with a wooden pencil holder. what did she do? >> i had a humility problem because it was the only way i could navigate. i learned to be humble. i wasn't making friends because i had taken on this ali sort of attitude, i'm smarter than you, i can recite statistics better than you can. i had a decent intellect as a

child. that was my way defending myself and it was just me showing insecurity. my mother sat me down one day and said to me, tavis, you have a humility problem and she brought me a wooden pencil holder from brown county, indiana. she was concerned about me while she was away on a brief break. the pencil holder said, i hard to be humble when you're as great as i am. she gave that to me and at first glance, receiving this as a gift, i smiled and said, yeah, yeah, yeah, and she said, read it again. i read it a second time. i didn't get it. read it a third time, i didn't get it. read it a fourth time. i didn't get it. she had no slow down and read them carefully and slowly and then i got it. my mother wasn't giving me a compliment, she was spanking me, you have a humility problem and we have to figure out how to get this in check or this is going

follow you for the rest of your life and she hit me the scripture from proverbs, "let another man praise me, and not thine own lips, let another man exalt me and not mine own mouth." she said go to school the next few days, don't brag about anything and if you keep doing good work, someone wille it. >> ali was just using it. tavis: sell tickets. two, "cheaters never win." never win? cheaters never win? [laughter] tavis: maybe in the short run. but not in the long run. in the short run, not in the long run, i don't believe so. >> you don't get it away with in the end. tavis: not forever. in the short run, but not the language long run that. behavior catches up with you and is ultimately not a way to live

a life. i've cheated in my life and i talk about that in my book but i discovered when i win in an earnest and fair way and as an african-american male, i've had strikes against me. oftentimes i'm in competition. there aren't a lot of black folks that do what i do on television and black folks deal with this every day, sometimes there are strikes against you through no fault of your own and you get tempted to cheat but when you win through cheating, it's not winning. >> you're a black american, why aren't you angry? tavis: i am angry about a lot of things. >> don't act it. tavis: i try to turn that anger into fear. i try to turn the anger that i have, not into fear, the anger and the fear into energy. i'm afraid of certain things, i'm angry about certain things, but i think that what i've come to realize is that that anger can become righteous

indignation. it used to be anger. i try to take that anger and turn it intos indignation. i try to take this anger and apply it to problems in the world that matter to me so that there's some good that comes out of that anger. >> you use it. tavis: for good, i hope. >> chapter three is "don't ask for too many favors." you don't say, don't ask for any favors. tavis: exactly. if i said no favors, you wouldn't be in that chair tonight. >> you have to ask favors. tavis: exactly. but the reason why, i'd like to think one of the reasons, besides the reason that you agreed to sit here when my staff asked is because the 20 years i've known you, i haven't been asking you a lot of favors. jim brown taught me this listen. i lived with jim when i came out here. jim was a family friend and when i came to l.a. i stayed in his guest house for a few months and

it's my first time in l.a., i'm working for tam bradley and get my career off the ground and hanging out at jim brown's estate and celebrities are coming to the house and jim's kets and access to everything and every time i saw jim doing something, i asked jim, jim, can you get me tickets to this, can you get tickets to that? he went off on me one day about begging so much and always asking for favors. he sat me down after he cussed me out, had a nice c with me and said to me, you don't want to live your life that way in this town or anywhere elsewhere you're constantly asking forr favors ad people see you coming, they'll run the other way. develop your own system, make your own goals, accomplish your own achievements and you'll have what you need but stop asking folks for favors. >> very wise. your next one is "you're always

on."in the internet age, there o privacy. how does one deal with that in the failing up when sometimes failures are minute and sometimes failures are only known to you or a small circ will. failures now are known. tavis: on a global scale. and that's the whole point. i tell a story, speaking of television, when i was on b.e.t. years ago, long before pbs, i was interviewing a guest one night and i tell the name in the book, robert townsend, actor, director, producer. he was on my b.e.t. show. i was in d.c. and he was on a satellite feed in l.a. and long story short, he'd done a movie that halle berry was in. i thought it was a horrible

film. i didn't like the movie so one of my camera guys, we're about to go on the air, one of my camera guys goes, did you see the movie? i said, it was horrible. i love robert's work but i hate this movie. long story short, my microphone is open and robert's sitting in l.a. and hears everything i'm saying about how bad i think this movie is. it made for a very contentious conversation when we went live on the air five minutes later. that was the mistake my sound guy made having my mic open but i learned an important lesson, even when you think nobody's listening, somebody's listening. now, stuff we think is private on cell phones and internet, email, all the stuff you think is private can go public pretty quickly. >> isn't it therefore harder to fail up when everybody knows you failed? >>

tavis: i never thought about it that way. in some ways yes, in some ways no. it depends on what the failure is and how you respond to that failure. since we're talking about b.e.t., some years later i was fired from b.e.t. when i was fired, it a ruckus in black america, on the radio, on the internet, on television. >> why were you fired? tavis: about an interview that i sold to abc when somebody thought i should have sold it to cbs. i offered it to cbs, cbs turned it down. i sold it to abc, and when it aired it kill cbs in the ratings that night and the folks realized doesn't this guy work for b.e.t., whom we own. so i was fired and it was a very public firing. got fired immediately, all over the news, "new york times," time

"time" magazine, washington post. so it was very public but i found that the public appreciated what i was doing every night on television in a real and significant way that that kind of ground swell is what led to pbs being interested in me and npr and cnn, i used to co-host talk back live in the day at cnn. all those networks came to me because i could see the following i had on b.e.t. and they were, like, if this guy can do o.k. at b.e.t., we should give him a shot so that's how i failed up. >> you believe we're all have an act ii? >> i think we do, but i think we're determinative of that and how we respond to the failures determines whether or not we get another shot at it. >> another chapter says, "spend, save and invest wisely."

you were arrested for writing bad checks in college. tavis: i was. i'm not sure my mother knows that but she knows now. there are two things in my life that have happened that i have tried to keep from her. >> why let her know it now? tavis: because if you're going to write a book, you have to be authentic and real, otherwise, why write it. this book is about the 20 mistakes i've made in my career and how i've learned along the way. one of the worst things i did and i regret it to this day, i had a checking account as a college student sooner than i should have, i didn't even know how to balance a checkbook so i'm around town writing checks and i wrote the same check every couple nights for the same amount of money. there was a place in boomington, indiana, called pizza express. i ordered a $7.14 pizza every

night. you write a few of those checks over time, they add up to a few hundred dollars if you're not putting the money in to replace it. i thought i had overdraft protection and i didn't. >> pizza express dared to charge you? tavis: imagine that, pizza express. i think they're out of business now. anyway, i get a knock on my apartment door one day living off campus at the time, the guy says, tavis smiley? i said, yeah. he said, you're under arrest. what for? and he said, check kiting. i don't own no kites. i didn't know what check kiting was. so i get arrested, booked, i sit in the cell for, like, all of a few minutes before my roommate who was at the apartment at that time, he immediately got in his car followed me down and bailed

me out immediately so i didn't spend real time in jail but going into that cell for two seconds made me understand right then i'll never go to jail again and i'm going to manage my money right for the rest of my life so with my company today, we don't play with our money. >> people are under arrest. is anybody ever over arrest. i just thank you very much of that. why is it under arrest? another thing that drives me nuts is these planes had a near miss. you mean a near hit. a near miss is a hit. anyway, join us tomorrow night for part two of my conversation with tavis, his forthcoming book, "fail up, 20 lessons on building success from failure" in stores may 1. you can order your copy now on amazon. good night from los angeles. i'll be back here tomorrow night with him. captioned by the national captioning institute ---www.ncicap.org---

>> for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley at pbs.org. >> i'm tavis smiley, join me next time for night two of our special conversation featuring larry king. >> all i know is his name is james and he needs extra help with his reading. >> i'm james. >> yes. >> to everyone making a difference -- >> thank you. >> -- you help us all live better. >> nationwide insurance supports tavis smiley. with every question and every answer, nationwide insurance is proud to join tavis in working to improve financial literacy and remove obstacles to economic empowerment one conversation at a time. nationwide is on your side. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.