Tyrese Gibson’s Message to PR Students: Faith, Fire, and Focus
Tyrese Gibson’s Real Talk to CSULB students: Protecting Your Dreams and Pushing Past ‘No’.
Photo credit: Journalism and Public Relations Department, CSULB
Do you ever feel like you want to lay in bed and watch Netflix instead of planning your PR event or writing your campaign pitch for your new homework assignment? Me too. Personally, it takes a lot of hard work, motivation, and encouragement to really get the job done.
For Tyrese Gibson, actor, singer, and 6x Grammy nominee, he struggles with this too.
I was so excited to hear that Tyrese was coming to visit the journalism and public relations department at California State University, Long Beach on March 13. I wasn’t sure what to expect, however getting to hear him speak as himself and not just as a character was so much more motivating than I imagined. Tyrese inspired me as an aspiring young public relations professional to really utilize my faith, fire, and focus as methods of success in my career and life.
His Message
Tyrese is worried. He is worried about the success of students who have dreams but never act on them. He is worried about our new generations giving up, quitting when things get tough, and thinking, “Maybe, this isn’t for me.”
As a South Central LA native who grew up around gang violence and the lifestyle of the Crips, Tyrese is an advocate for students of all diversities striving to be the best versions of themselves. He encourages them to follow their dreams and pursue their career goals. There is so much we can take away from his message, and help us thrive in our own, future PR careers.
Understanding Our Faith
“If y’all keep your ideas and dreams inside your head, you’re doing a disservice to the world.”
—Tyrese Gibson
Photo credit: Journalism and Public Relations Department, CSULB
I get it. As students we can feel like we want to give up on our classes or careers and that can be hard. However, when we lack encouragement, what do we have to believe in?
PR professionals will work through a range of different situations throughout our careers. In order to succeed, we have to truly have faith within ourselves and our peers around us. To do this, we need to know that believing in our hard work and never giving up can be our ticket into our own success.
For us, we might all have different interpretations of what faith looks like. Whether that be faith in ourselves, a higher God, or those we work with, we have to have faith in something in order to persevere when the job seems too tedious. You might work with clients who have a large emphasis on their culture, religion, or quality of work that can seem unfamiliar. Working within unfamiliarity is part of the job, and I promise if you have faith that you can do it, you will.
I’m here to tell you you can do it. Life can be hard, and micromanaging will be prominent, but as Tyrese persisted in South Central LA to gain his success today, we too can push through hard times. All we have to do is remind ourselves why we chose to go into this industry in the first place and find the belief that we can help others thrive in their businesses and lives. Once we have gained this faith, working hard to provide our clients with better solutions so that they have that same faith in us is just one way we can help them reach their full potential, as well as our own.
Using the ‘Fire’
“You are not like everybody else. You are specifically here to do something. So impact the community or make a decision. The scariest thing about creators and dreamers is when stuff happens back to back and it makes people quit or hit the parachute button. Don’t be that person.”
—Tyrese Gibson
Photo credit: Journalism and Public Relations Department, CSULB
As kids, we were born with a fire inside of us to work to become an astronaut, a doctor—or even a dinosaur—if we could imagine it. But as we get older, we realize that those dreams are a lot of work and we might stop trying because we are afraid of failure.
In the PR world, our goals are to foster credibility, enhance communication, and promote effective messaging. Knowing this, we can challenge the fear-ridden mentality of failure. Being confident in our communication to our publics and setting objectives for ourselves will help us overcome this failure mentality and help the job seem achievable.
To ensure this, we need to connect to media contacts that have proven results and do extra research for our clients to display our commitment to them and maintain our own motivation within ourselves while doing so. We need to work against fear and use our fire to make an impact on the world to promote an environment where failure isn’t an option.
When things get really tough with a client we are working with, whether they misstep or the campaign doesn’t go the way it was planned, we can’t just give up. We can’t lose that fire inside of us to work hard and do better for ourselves and our clients.
We have to find the passion and motivation within ourselves to present creative solutions to carry our mission and goals. As Tyrese said, “We have to work our butts off.”
Another concept that can really help us with personal incentives and unlock our fire is to recognize our individuality. Knowing that we individually worked hard to gain the skills and work within this career, can be a great method of motivation to persevere through the bedridden mindset.
We’re always going to receive “no’s” from potential clients or project ideas, but it's what we do as a result. that really defines our success as leaders. We know that nobody else has our ideas, so instead of waiting for a “yes”, we can recognize our own individuality and create our own paths and make the decision to do something great.
To help us understand this more in depth, Tyrese used a diagram to show us how to take a “no”, from a job, a friend or really any situation in life and use that to turn the fire inside us on. In other words, we need to use the pushback we receive and internalized fear as fuel to take control of our own success.
“People aren’t reliable. Everybody wants to see you do good, but nobody wants to see you doing better than them.”
—Tyrese Gibson
Photo credit: Journalism and Public Relations Department, CSULB
Utilizing Your Focus
The world today is emotional; we lead with our hearts. This is such an amazing strength to have as a society, but we also have to remind ourselves, in work environments especially, to not let those distractions and expectations deter us from becoming problem-solvers.
Instead of losing sleep over the feelings of guilt. or the “no’s” we receive, we can redirect that energy to something more productive and positive. We have to create our own paths of success and not lose our focus.
A way that we can achieve this is by actively listening to knowledgeable people and utilizing our connections to learn more about what the priority of our focus should be. This is a really important part of succeeding in your career. It’s all about your network and the work experience you gain from them.
However, when utilizing these relationships, we can’t only rely on them for our own success as professionals. Keeping our own goals and focus in mind, is the most important word of advice I’ve received from any PR professional. By focusing on what matters, it allows ourselves to give our clients the best work through carefully curated campaigns.
On a personal level, try not to let your friends or romantic relationships deter you from your goals or diminish your own value. In PR, things change quickly, and we can’t lose sight of our focus and motivations in life when working for a client.
According to Tyrese, people who don’t support you are known as “dreamkillers”. His word of advice is to surround yourself, both in professional and personal environments, with people who will lift you up and not tear you down. This is essential for staying focused and avoiding unnecessary distractions.
Key Takeaway
As motivational as I felt from Tyrese, and I’m hoping you feel now, I say all of this with caution. The ultimate goal isn’t how much money you make, it’s about the impact you can have on the world. Always remember to stay on task and to never stop working hard for your dreams.
As you move forward in your career and start to feel unmotivated, ask yourself what Tyrese once did; “Have I truly done enough?”
