Let Your Values Guide You - Rickey Bevington's Journey
I don't have a 5 year career plan even today, and I certainly didn't when I was 21, 22, graduating from college. I know my values. I know what I'm interested in. I know that I wanna work for people with integrity and with people with integrity and a sense of service, that has always been my career plan and I'm sticking to it.
President Leocadia Zak:Hello, and welcome to Agnes Scott College's podcast, Journeys to Leadership, where we explore the paths of inspiring women leaders from around the globe. I'm Leo Kediasak, president of Agnes Scott, and the host of this podcast. I hope that our guest stories not only encourage you, our listeners, and leaders of today and tomorrow, but they also inspire you as you take the next steps in your own journey. Today's guest was named best on air personality by the Georgia Association of Broadcasters and was the award winning Atlanta based host of NPR's All Things Considered. She has interviewed a wide array of icons, including filmmakers, singers, UN ambassadors, and more.
President Leocadia Zak:Her journalism has garnered awards from the Edward r Murrow Awards, the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Southeast, the Society of Professional Journalists, and Public Radio News Directors Inc. In 2015 2016, Georgia Trend Magazine in the Atlanta Business Chronicle named Bevington among the 40 under 40 leaders making a positive impact in Georgia. She's a journalist, broadcaster, public speaker, advocate, and so much more. Please join me in welcoming the Emmy Award winning journalist and president of the World Affairs Council of Atlanta, Ricky Bevington. Welcome to Journeys to Leadership, Ricky.
President Leocadia Zak:We're delighted to have you.
Rickey Bevington:It's so great to be here, Lee. Thank you so much for having me.
President Leocadia Zak:On journeys to leadership, we understand that leadership doesn't just happen. It's a journey. During our time together today, we want to explore your journey. The ups, the downs, the surprises, all of it, or as much as we can get into today's segment. So let's begin.
President Leocadia Zak:Tell us a little bit about where you grew up, Ricky.
Rickey Bevington:Well, I was born right here in Atlanta in Piedlau Hospital Hospital to 2 native Atlantans. When I was 11 months old, they whisked me away to the northeast because they were both went to graduate school in the Boston area. So I ended up being raised in the northeast. However, both sides of my extended family were in Atlanta.
President Leocadia Zak:You had the best of both worlds. You had Atlanta and the northeast growing up.
Rickey Bevington:I did. Boston, Atlanta. Boston, Atlanta. A lot of flights back and forth. Summers with grandparents in the south.
Rickey Bevington:So I really do call myself really a a hybrid, but I was born to Atlantans in Atlanta.
President Leocadia Zak:That's fantastic. So what was it like growing up?
Rickey Bevington:Well, you know, my parents were really hardworking people, really, academically ambitious and professionally ambitious. But I had a, you know, just a suburban little girl upbringing. I had an older brother. We spent most of our time outside playing, so I was such an athlete. I was a super tomboy, roller skating, riding my bike, pick up soccer, regular soccer, just running around in the woods, actually.
Rickey Bevington:We used to play all these games, like chase each other as though we were marines in the woods. So I just had a a very simple I mean, I don't wanna say it's idyllic. I don't know if an idyllic childhood exists, but, certainly a safe and supportive childhood in a in a lovely bedroom community outside of Boston. And mostly doing athletics. And, you know, I'd get my homework done and then as soon as I got my homework done, I could go out to play.
Rickey Bevington:And I enjoyed growing up in the northeast. When I left the northeast, I thought, well, now I'm gonna really discover what America's like. So I highly recommend that people not only travel, but even live in other parts of the country because it's in many ways, our country can feel like different countries just regionally. So I I'm grateful for my multi region background.
President Leocadia Zak:So when you were growing up running around in the woods and playing, did you imagine, oh, I'm gonna be a major broadcast journalist, or I'm gonna run the World Affairs Council. What was your dream?
Rickey Bevington:My only dream was to be a model, and the caveat of being a model was I would never be a Pepsi spokesperson because that was a betrayal of Coca Cola.
President Leocadia Zak:Absolutely.
Rickey Bevington:That was so when Michael Jackson was dating myself in the eighties was the Michael was the Pepsi spokesperson. I just thought terrible, terrible decision making on Michael Jackson's part. So I mean, that's really the extent of my ambitions. I had no ideas about my future, which I think is what childhood should be. To have the pressure of worrying about your future is not what being 8 years old is for.
Rickey Bevington:Being 8 years old is for worrying about what shoes you're wearing to school the next day or winning soccer game on Saturday. So, no. I you know, Lee, I never, I've always just followed my gut. I am not a planner. I don't have a 5 year career plan even today, and I certainly didn't when I was 21, 22 graduating from college.
Rickey Bevington:I know my values. I know what I'm interested in. I know that I wanna work for people with integrity and with people with integrity and a sense of service. That has always been my career plan, and I'm sticking to it.
President Leocadia Zak:So you're grounded in your values, but tell us a little bit about your path. I mean, so how did you get here?
Rickey Bevington:Well, I ended up going to a private boarding school in Vermont in my sophomore year of high school. And I that really started me, I think, on a path to leadership. I had I just wasn't really thriving. I didn't fit in in my public high school and in my town even though I'd grown up there. I mean, every teenager for a you know, you fit in or you don't.
Rickey Bevington:There's all sorts of pressures. So I needed a smaller community. So I went to the Putney School in Southern Vermont, which is on a dairy farm. I think there's 200 students total. So I had a class of 40.
Rickey Bevington:And
President Leocadia Zak:Okay. Wait. I have to stop you, Ricky. I have to ask you a question. So did you ever milk cacao?
Rickey Bevington:That was part of the curriculum.
President Leocadia Zak:Alright.
Rickey Bevington:So the the the part of the the educational philosophy of the Putney School dates back to post World War 1 America. And the idea that the Industrial Revolution was drawing us away from some basic skills, whether it be raising our own food, even entertaining ourselves. So the educational philosophy of the Putney School is that you do it all. We milk the cows. We fed the chickens.
Rickey Bevington:We tap trees for the maple syrup. We grew the lettuce. We cleaned the classrooms. In addition to an incredible arts curriculum, whether it be welding or ceramics or weaving or photography, and then, of course, a rigorous academic curriculum. Needless to say, it was very, very busy, and I think it's a really smart approach for teenagers.
Rickey Bevington:Just keep them really busy. Get them up at 5 AM. They've got them off the cows. They're too tired to get into trouble. So it was really nice.
Rickey Bevington:So, from potting, I went to I was ready for the city after 3 years in the countryside, and I went to Barnard College in New York City.
President Leocadia Zak:A woman's college, I might say.
Rickey Bevington:A woman's college. And I'll tell you, Leigh, I knew right away that I wanted a women's college. It was actually never a doubt. My junior year of high school, you know, there's probably 20 kid maybe 20 kids in my physics class. My one of my best friends, he's still a friend, he kept interrupting me in physics class.
Rickey Bevington:And I remember thinking, is this what I hear about, you know, men kind of having more confidence in science and math than women? I've read read these articles. This must be what that's like because I wasn't very strong in physics, but I when I had somebody to contribute, I wanted to be able to finish my sentence. And so I thought, well, maybe if I just was in a class with women, I would just feel more comfortable to make mistakes or maybe not get interrupted as much. And, so I actually applied to Barnard early decision.
Rickey Bevington:And I knew that obviously, it's a larger Columbia University community, so my social life would be very big and rich and diverse, and New York City is obviously big and rich and diverse. But inside the classroom, I wanted small classes and I just felt that my learning would be best sustained and supported by having women in the classroom.
President Leocadia Zak:And then what happened? How did you get from there? And is that where you found your voice? And then how do you use your voice after that?
Rickey Bevington:That's such a great question. Where and when did I find my voice? I and sometimes I feel like, well, I may not have found it till my late thirties. I loved my thirties because I really do feel like I finally found myself. But you're asking about sort of college.
Rickey Bevington:No. I was I was deeply intimidated in college and I felt, not that I didn't have a voice but I was just New York City was a big place and it was I was intimidated and still figuring out who I was and, what I wanted to be when I grew up. My my job in college was a paid internship at Sundance Channel. I knew that I liked broadcast media. I knew that I liked the medium of communication, a visual medium.
Rickey Bevington:So I was working for Sundance Channel and then after I graduated, I got a job at Showtime Networks. 911 happened actually the day after I signed my first job out of college. So Monday, September 10th, I signed the papers to become an employee of Showtime. And obviously September 11th, Tuesday morning with the terror attacks. And living in New York City through 911, well, it changed the whole world, but it changed me, first of all, to be that close to feeling like I was we were I mean, we didn't know.
Rickey Bevington:We thought we were under attack. I remember sitting on my couch going, well, I guess the nuke is next. 2 planes had hit. What was the 3rd what was the 3rd strike gonna be? So I kinda looked around and said, I guess this is it.
Rickey Bevington:But what happened that day, Lee, is where I found my voice which is that I took a little camcorder. This is long before smartphones and I went outside and I started interviewing people. 1000 of people, millions of people had to walk home because transportation had shut down. And I just started asking people what their where did you come from? Where were you when the plate you know?
Rickey Bevington:And later in the afternoon, a Boston radio station somehow got me on the phone. There was no cell service because the towers were all tied up. And I, I guess I kind of reported, if you could call it that, they effectively just asked me questions for an hour or so. What was it like to be in the city? What did you see?
Rickey Bevington:What did you hear? What did you smell? What are you feeling? I could talk about some of the interviews that I had done. And I think that that's when I discovered that this is a service that I'm providing to people.
Rickey Bevington:When people are in need of information and true information and current information, it's a very powerful position to be the person relaying that information. And that planted the seed that it took a couple more years for me to formally join journalism, but that's where the seed was planted of a mission that has been my career mission ever since to empower people with information. That has always been my guiding, goal in my whatever career I've been doing. That's been it. I was doing it as a journalist.
Rickey Bevington:I'm doing it today at the World Affairs Council.
President Leocadia Zak:And sometimes as you're doing those interviews, it must be very stressful. It must be difficult and emotional. How do you handle that, and how do you capture the true information and relay it to others?
Rickey Bevington:You know, well, like anything, you just have to it's practice. Journalists learn how to detach from the content. I mean, you're you're never not a human being. You never stop having opinions or emotions or feelings, but you're do you're there to do a job. It's probably similar how police officers do it and firefighters and doctors.
Rickey Bevington:It's an incredibly charged moment, but you have to do a job. You're there to to provide a service, And that's what a journalist is there, to provide a service to its to to their audience. And so, I didn't know that on September 11 because I wasn't a journalist then. I was experiencing it with everybody else. However, I can share with you that, you know, fast forward 20 years with the pandemic, and I am a professional journalist, I had to report on the pandemic with a little bit of detachment.
Rickey Bevington:Even though I was experiencing the trauma and the confusion and the chaos alongside everybody else in my listening audience, I had a job to do. I had a service to provide and that's what I did. Broadcasting from my kitchen during the earliest days of the pandemic, live for 3 hours and it was a it was a time when everybody needed the information and I was there to give it to them.
President Leocadia Zak:It often could be the time when you may need support. Do you have a means of support as you're doing this work? And are there people who have supported you in your career?
Rickey Bevington:Well, I'll tell you. I think that I'm delighted by all of the conversations that that that we're having around mental health, especially after the pandemic. And I don't think that there are enough mental health resources for journalists in particular. We are retraumatized every day by the political coverage, the the discourse we're seeing on social media, having to go to dangerous places to cover dangerous events. I mean, we are at risk very, very often in our work.
Rickey Bevington:I would love to see more mental health services for working journalists today that I had access to. Today in my career, I'm not on the front lines of journalism anymore, although I can tell you lots of scary stories about covering scary situations. I have a community of women. In fact, Lee, I just got off a call right before I logged on to this with my board of advisers. It's 4 women, 4 of us, and I got to know them through a formal fellowship program through the International Women's Forum.
Rickey Bevington:They are executives. There's one in Canada, one in Mexico, one in the Middle East. And we check-in with one another regularly to hear about what's working in our careers, what isn't, our personal life, whatever it is that we need support on. It's a very safe space. It's a small group.
Rickey Bevington:We are on WhatsApp in between, supporting each other, celebrating each other. All of us owe it to ourselves to actively curate supportive communities. And if somebody's not supporting you in your personal professional life, how do you have time for them? You don't got time for that. No.
President Leocadia Zak:Well, I so appreciate you sharing this. And I'm curious, what made you transition from journalism, which you clearly love, to the World Affairs Council?
Rickey Bevington:Well, a couple of things. I will fully first of all, the my career mission has not changed to empower people with information. When the opportunity to join the World Affairs Council came about, I didn't focus as much on the work itself as on the fact that I would still be fulfilling my what makes me tick as a professional person, which is to educate people about international affairs, to empower early career professionals in their careers to become global leaders, to connect people in Atlanta in a community of like minded people who wanna talk about global issues and events. All of that was so attractive to me because that's what I was doing for 20 years as a journalist. Obviously, it's a very different type of job, but the fire in my belly is the same.
Rickey Bevington:And I think I would encourage anybody, the fire in your belly has got to be there whether you're staying in a career for 50 years or changing. So there's that. It was an I was running to an opportunity rather than ditching an old career or a bad opportunity. Right? Anytime you make a big change in your life, it's gotta be a positive toward something great rather than just trying to run away from a bad situation.
Rickey Bevington:Not that we haven't all done both, but, it was certainly on my mind. I wanted to make sure. Because I was coming out of the pandemic. And journalists working on the front lines of the pandemic, again, it was a hard 2 years. So think of 2020.
Rickey Bevington:March 2020, the pandemic hits. We all are sent home. April, May 2020, the Ahmaud Arbery Tabor has revealed George Floyd here in Atlanta, Rayshard Brooks. So we have incredible pain in public discussion of race, racial violence, equity, inclusion. Is so raw, and we're all still also it's piled on top of the pandemic, then we get into the presidential race, the 2020 election.
Rickey Bevington:And in Georgia, as we know, was a battleground state, and we've got 2 senate campaigns and a presidential race happening in Georgia. And then we have the fallout of the 2020 presidential election into senate runoffs. And by January 7, 2021, I think a lot of journalists kinda went, oh my gosh. What just happened? Where did the last year go?
Rickey Bevington:And that's when I started to think, you know, maybe I've got another 30 years of work left. Maybe there's something else for me. But I will tell a story, Lee, of I think it was June 2020. I was downtown covering a Black Lives Matter protest. I don't even know if we were calling it that at that point.
Rickey Bevington:It was right after the Rayshard Brooks murder. And I was wearing a KM 95 mask, carrying all of my audio equipment and video equipment, And it was so scary to be in the middle of the tear gas and the protesters throwing bricks at the police, trying to avoid the tear gas while listening to orders from the police. Whoever was running the riot police were actually giving journalists instructions on where to stand and where to move. They were warning us, like, we're gonna advance so you need you know, trying to keep it all straight, trying to interview protesters. People were so angry.
Rickey Bevington:Understandably, I was also experiencing all of my own personal emotions. And I finally said, sun's about to go down. I better get out of here because I it's not safe for anybody at this point. So I ducked into a business kind of an entryway of a business and there's this all these protesters are running, running, running, running, running. I don't wanna get stampeded.
Rickey Bevington:And there's this huge tear gas cloud kind of roll rumbling down the street because you can see it. And I turn around and there's a man with a machine gun. I mean, a big gun. I mean, it wasn't a huge machine gun but it was a it was a big gun. And he just looked at me and he said, time to go.
Rickey Bevington:So I took off running. I kind of merged into the crowd, kind of like the running of the bulls. That's kind of what it felt like. And my face is burning because I'm wearing a mask and when you get tear gas under your mask, you know, your skin burns. And I thought, I just might be too old for this.
President Leocadia Zak:I don't think you were too old for it, at all, but I definitely can see where you might decide it's time for a change. During your journey, what did you learn about yourself? Was there anything that has surprised you about yourself?
Rickey Bevington:You know, what has surprised me is my I don't wanna say my capacity for growth, but I I become more humble somehow because I I'm confronted with such new challenges. So for 20 years of my journalism career, I got better and better and better. Right? I was really good at a lot of things. But when you change careers, you start over in so many ways.
Rickey Bevington:New types of just new problems. Right? And I feel like I've it's really been very humbling. I don't wanna say humiliating, but there's been some real moments of, gosh, my mind is blank. I don't know how to handle this, which is uncomfortable for someone who considers herself a high achiever and someone who considers her who likes to be the top 10 percentile of anything she does and to actually learn how to be the worst at something.
Rickey Bevington:That is what has been surprising to me. It's been an identity shift to say, not only do you not know how to do this, but you're actually bad at it. And that's okay. It's okay to be bad at something. Right?
Rickey Bevington:But it's now your job to learn slowly. You know, you can Google things. You can do trainings. You can call people. You've got mentors.
Rickey Bevington:But now it's my job to actually build this skill set from 0, maybe not 0, but from very low. It's really surprised me that I've had that capacity. And as I say it, it's like, well, that sounds really self congratulatory, Ricky, but I I didn't know that I had this capacity for growth. And I think it's what's gotten me this far to just stay open, stay curious, stay humble.
President Leocadia Zak:Well, I have to tell you that that is very inspiring. And, Ricky, it's been such a pleasure having you on the show. Are there any last words of encouragement or advice that you'd like to give to our listeners?
Rickey Bevington:Well, I would say all I can speak to is what has worked for me, Lee, and that is to let my values guide me in my career. And that's always worked for me. It's never failed me. My values don't change. My experience changes.
Rickey Bevington:My perspective changes. My environment changes, but my values don't. And, I wouldn't encourage anybody to to stick with that.
President Leocadia Zak:Ricky, thank you for sharing your time and your story with us. To our listeners, I hope you were encouraged and inspired by Ricky Bevington's journey. It is one of many that we are thrilled to share with you. If you'd like to know more about Ricky and the work she is doing for the World Affairs Council of Atlanta, check out their website at www. Wacatlanta.org.
President Leocadia Zak:Thank you for joining us, and thank you for listening. And thank you to our producer, Sydney Perry, for making this podcast possible. I am Leo Kadia Zak, and this is journeys to leadership.
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