The Entrepreneur Sessions: René Syler
Randy: Hello, this is Randy Kaufman from Aker Advisors. Welcome to the third episode of season two of “To Grit with Grace,” stories of perseverance to jumpstart your month. This year, we’re hosting “To Grit with Grace: The Entrepreneur Sessions.” Each month, we release a podcast. Please join for the stories, the music, and the lessons learned.
Rene Syler co-hosted CBS’s “The Early Show” from its October 2002 four-anchor format debut until 2006. She has interviewed First Lady Laura Bush, former President Jimmy Carter, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, Senator John McCain, as well as celebrities including Melissa Etheridge and Price.
Hair, which Rene speaks about, is how we bonded. Well, not just any hair, but curly hair specifically.
It was 2015, I was in one of my favorite New York state towns, Saratoga, at one of my favorite conferences of the year, put on by a college friend and colleague to this day, David Deutsch. I was about to head out. It was a long, hot day, Saratoga was beckoning, and all I wanted to do was a little shopping and grab a glass of wine. But I saw this glowing African American woman — head held high, radiating confidence — walking to the podium.
I turned on my heels, and I said, “Well, this is a speaker I just may want to hear.” I was awestruck. I ran up to meet Rene right after the panel, and we bonded immediately over our struggles with being asked to straighten our curly locks to conform to a look for decades, over our struggles with cancer, and over our stories of surviving the valley of death to live to see other days.
After a meteoric rise, her career shattered before her eyes. As I know all too well, slowly and then all at once, your life can fall to pieces. Like me, Rene had a script in her head that successful people don’t ride rollercoasters. Now, I know that all successful people ride screeching rollercoasters, and they do it again and again and again and again. That’s how they succeed.
Meteoric Rise
Rene: I was a local news anchor for a number of years. I got my television career started in Reno, NV. My trajectory was somewhat meteoric. I had worked in Reno, then I worked in Birmingham for two years, then I went to Dallas, and I was a morning anchor at the ABC affiliate there.
Then I had a contract dispute — the first hiccup in my career. We agreed to go our separate ways.
I was pregnant with my daughter. That was fine, timing worked out great. Then I went back to work at a TV station across town. I was there for about four years, and then I got tapped by CBS to come do their morning show.
CBS has always been searching for the formula in the mornings. When I got there, they were trying out this four-anchor format. It was Harry Smith, Hannah Storm, Julie Chen, and me, Rene Syler. We did that show in that format for three years, and then they went to renegotiate our contracts — which was great, because, we’re talking renegotiation, that means they like us.
In the midst of that renegotiation, however, there was some upheaval at CBS.
Bang!
CBS had a show called “60 Minutes 2,” which was on Wednesday night. At the time, there was a story that they had done on George Bush dodging the draft. Dan Rather voiced it, and it turned out that there were a lot of untruths in that piece. The producer got fired, Dan Rather got fired, the president of CBS News got fired, and here I am, in the midst of a contract renegotiation, thinking, what now?
At the time, they brought in a new president, and he’s the one that was doing the contract renegotiations. And he was not a fan of our four-anchor show. I didn’t know that I was necessarily in the crosshairs, but I knew something was going to happen to our show. Because the ratings weren’t there.
One day, I was at work, and I noticed an appointment pop up on my calendar, one that I hadn’t made. It was with the president of CBS News. Immediately, my stomach started to twist and turn, because — why do they wanna see lowly old me?
The place where we taped the Early Show was across town from the broadcast center. The broadcast center’s where all the bigwigs were, so that’s where the appointment was. That morning, I don’t know how, but I was able to get through the broadcast, hopped in a cab, got over there, walked into the office with the president of CBS News, and lo and behold, my immediate supervisor, the executive producer of the show was there as well.
There’s a scene in a mob movie where Joe Pesci walks into the place where he’s about to get whacked. As soon as he lays eyes on the empty room, with the plastic on the floor, he utters an expletive, because he knows what’s going down, and then bang. That’s how I felt.
What Now?
Now, the thing about being fired in television is, everybody gets fired. If you haven’t been fired in television, you haven’t been in television long enough [laughs]. That is the truth. I understood that, except that I’d never been in a situation that was so high-profile and so painful for me.
Your head will tell you the logical element — what I just said: everybody gets fired. But your heart is a different thing.
I remember at the time just thinking, Don’t cry. Stay calm. Be gracious. They never remember how you came in, but they do remember how you went out.
When the meeting was over, I stood up, I thanked them for their time, and I walked out. I walked down the long hallway to the exit of the broadcast center, and the entire time, Do not cry, do not cry, do not cry. Deep breath [inhales]. Do not cry, do not cry — I said it a thousand times. It wasn’t until I got into the cab to go back across town to my office that I let it out.
And I cried. And I cried, and I cried.
I mean, obviously I was sad, but there was so much uncertainty. And Randy, you know this about the markets, the markets hate uncertainty. So do I. As a human being, I hate uncertainty. And that was my big thought: What now?
Personal Losses
My mother was a breast cancer survivor and so was my father. My mom’s breast cancer was just a result of her aging. My father’s, however, because men don’t have the hormones and that sort of thing, that’s the one that doctors were very concerned might have a genetic component.
Up until that point, I had been having a mammogram every year, which would be followed by either a stereotactic biopsy or a surgical biopsy. So I had four biopsies in four years. I had to make a decision: Do I wanna be on a surgical table every year? Or do I wanna be proactive? And I decided that I wanted to be proactive.
So, in June of 2006, I made a decision to have a preventative double mastectomy. So, we made an appointment for January of 2007. That was when we were gonna have the surgery. And in December of 2006, that’s when I got fired.
In 2007, I had a book that came out, called Good Enough Mother. I went on a book tour, and I got sick. I ended up with bronchitis and being hospitalized. When I got out of the hospital, my hair was like straw.
In television, Black women have long had to conform to a certain look. We typically had to all wear hairstyles that were pleasing to the white, middle-aged, male managers: short straight bob, so that it wasn’t distracting. As a result, I had to relax my hair every six weeks or so.
Chemical relaxers are very hard on your hair. And not just your hair, your whole body. You look at the studies, Black women have had numerous issues that they believe are linked to having these chemicals put on our hair. So I did that from 16 on, and when I got to CBS, I was adding a ton of heat. I would wear it curly, like in ringlets, but those ringlets were made. It wasn’t my natural hair. When you couple the heat, the chemicals, and the stress of the job, my hair was just not very healthy.
After I got sick, I thought, oh, well I have to go get my hair relaxed. Now, this is after all the medication, and years of heat and chemicals. This time, my hair was like, Oh no, we’re out! As I was combing my hair, hair was falling down into the sink.
In that moment, I decided I was never going to put another chemical in my hair.
The Final Nail
I had an interview at a network who shall remain nameless. I was super nervous. Now, keep in mind, I’ve been reading off a teleprompter since Jesus was a baby, so I know how to do this. But when I got there, I was so nervous because I had to go back into that box that I’d been set free from.
So I put on my armor, which was my suit, but by this time, I’m wearing my hair natural. No longer relaxed straight in the anchor bob, but naturally curly. When I got there, they tried to pat my hair into a brown helmet. And they basically did.
So I went out on the set, and they had me reading and doing some ad-libbing, and I was so uncomfortable. My suit was too tight, I was having a flop sweat, and my hair was a brown helmet.
When it was done, I walked into the office of the news manager who had overseen this audition, and she said, “What happened to you? Where is the Rene Syler that I used to watch on TV at CBS?” And I wanted to say, “Lady, are you kidding? Do you know what I’ve been through in the last two-three years?” Instead, I smiled, and I thanked her, and I walked back to the train station. The whole time, beneath these big, dark sunglasses, I was crying.
I wasn’t crying because I was sad. I was crying because that was the final nail in my news coffin. I was done.
Don’t Quit
I had this huge job and I knew I was gonna get a paycheck every two weeks. It was so great, but there’s also something stifling about that. Trying to get decisions made is like trying to turn around an aircraft carrier. Right now, I’m a dinghy. I can do whatever I want, whenever I want, I can move, I can wake up in the morning, and say, I’m gonna try this, and in the evening, it’s done. It just makes you feel so great — and alive.
I’m my own production company. I know how to interview people. I know how to get the best out of people. I know how to edit videotape, which I learned in my first TV job in Reno, NV. I know the principles of that. I know how to shoot my own video. I know how to record podcasts and edit podcasts. Every single one of those things, I used in my career in television. Now, I’m using it for me.
It sounds so cliche to say, You don’t know how strong you are until you have to be strong, but the fact is, when you’re not struggling to pay bills, or trying to find creative ways to make money, you don’t have to be strong. It’s when you’re really down and out that you have to think outside the box.
Don’t quit. Don’t quit. I search for peace like it’s a job. What’s wrong with putting your own health and wellbeing first in your life? Here’s the answer: There’s nothing wrong with it.
Randy: Thank you Rene for sharing your remarkable story. Thank you to Dustin Lowman, my marketing manager, for producing and editing; to Aker Advisors and Heron Wealth for their financial support; and to all of you, our listeners. If you like what you hear on “To Grit, with Grace,” please share this podcast with others. We’ll be back next month with another speaker’s tale of entrepreneurial struggle and perseverance. Until then, with grit, with grace, with growth, and with much gratitude.