Today is the last day that the Seattle Post-Intelligencer is publishing its print edition. It will reduce its staff of 140 down to 20-25 employees as it moves to an online only newspaper.
Three years ago I received the letter below from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. (click the image below to view the letter).
It notified me that I didn't get accepted to their internship program.
Around this time, I got the same types of letters from editors at Newsweek, the St. Louis Post Dispatch, and many other daily newspapers and magazines.
Hindsight has allowed me to realize that I applied to these types of internship programs for the wrong reasons.
- I had no vision; I didn't know what I wanted to do or become.
- I was denying the fact that newspapers were a dying industry, even though the writing was on the wall.
- I was applying because it was safe. I had worked at magazine for 4-5 months and was a J-school student.
In retrospect, I was glad I caught on at a startup company called BuySelf Realty, and had the opportunity to change the way people sold their homes. This was in May 2006, around the time that flat-fee real estate services were becoming popular, and the housing bubble was in full swing.
I learned more about business there than I would have doing fact-checking at the P-I.
The takeaway
When you don't get what you were hoping for, try to remember why you wanted it in the first place.
Is it truly what you were looking for, or were you trying to convince yourself it was what you wanted when it really wasn't.
Hindsight brings clarity. Vision can do the same.
