More from Jarl Mohn

As painful as it is, failure has been my friend. And it can be your friend too.

JM

Jarl Mohn

USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism Commencement 2009, 2009

11:55

Video starts at 11:55 — the moment this quote was spoken

The Story Behind This Quote

Mohn shared a string of spectacular failures. He was fired from a Miami radio station after three months, which was soul-crushing but led him to a program director's job, then a business partnership building a group of radio stations. Later, he was pushed out of MTV after putting Andrew Dice Clay on the Video Music Awards, which got the highest ratings ever but cost him his job. Two days after losing MTV, HBO called about running a struggling cable channel nobody wanted. Desperate for a CEO role, Mohn took it, moved to Los Angeles, and relaunched it as E! Entertainment Television. He stayed nine years and grew it into a hugely valuable business. It would never have happened if he hadn't been fired from MTV. Each failure opened a door to something better.

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