How might you bring about happiness in your work life? Just ask Spencer Christian, who has weathered and thrived with a long and successful television career.
Spencer Christian is an American weather forecaster, author, and television personality. He works as a meteorologist at KGO-TV, Channel 7, an ABC network television station serving San Francisco, California. Spencer is best known for his work as a weather forecaster for ABC’s Good Morning America for over a decade — from 1986 to 1998.
He was a key member of the Good Morning America on-air team that toppled The Today Show in 1995, and before that, an anchor for Eyewitness News on WABC/7.
Currently, he is the weather forecaster for ABC-owned KGO-TV in San Francisco. Christian has also written several books for children.
Learn more about Spencer Christian:
Overcoming obstacles in life, with Spencer Christian
Steven Chan: My name is Steven Chan. I am one of the hosts for the Imagine Talks podcast: Achieving Success, Overcoming Obstacles, and Social Impact. And we’re here today with Spencer Christian on our podcast, who has been in the TV show business for 50 years.
Spencer Christian: 51 now.
Steven Chan: 51, right? You’ve been across the country in the United States. You have been in Richmond, Virginia. You started in Richmond, Virginia.
Spencer Christian: That’s correct.
Steven Chan: New York, nationally for Good Morning America. And now here since 1999.
Spencer Christian: That’s right.
Steven Chan: In San Francisco, Bay Area. And you’ve been with Imagine Talks as well. You’ve given talks and most recently, an interview with Francis Kong.
Spencer Christian: Right.
Steven Chan: And I’d love to get into some of the nuts and bolts of how you decide to do things, [and] any advice you’d give to people who may want to follow in your footsteps.
Spencer Christian: Right.
Steven Chan: And you’ve talked so much about how you’ve overcome obstacles yourself in life, but also dealing with a lot in life. So maybe we can start with just sort of a day-to-day getting things done, thinking about your daily life. You deliver the weather every evening.
Spencer Christian: Yes.
How to bring happiness to your day
Steven Chan: So you’ve spent years in front of the camera. What kind of tips and tricks do you use to get through the day?
Spencer Christian: Well, that’s a great question because I’m pretty much doing the same thing now after 51 years, to prepare myself mentally and emotionally for the day that I did at the beginning of my career. And it has to do with— actually the theme of your program, Imagine Talks — whatever you can imagine is something you can turn into a reality.
So when I was a kid growing up in a poor rural area of the segregate itself, there were very few opportunities for growth or very few things for a poor Black kid in the Old South to aspire to.
But my parents always taught me to follow my imagination, to dream great dreams and to think positive thoughts, to be self-confident but not shallow, phony self-confidence. Your self-confidence should be built on learning and growing, and gaining knowledge. And as you gain knowledge, you gain confidence.
So I had a wild imagination as a kid. I imagined that I could do special things in my life because I got this positive reinforcement at home. So that’s what led me to believe as a kid coming out of college in 1969 or 70 that I could become a television newscaster. And so that same hopeful, imaginative aspirational view of life that propelled me into this business 50 years ago is how I start my day.
A key to happiness is to start your day with an active imagination
Spencer Christian: Now I wake up every day curious about: what my next assignment will be? What am I going to report on today? What can I say today about climate change that will get people to take it seriously, to think about how it affects their lives? So, yeah, I wake up every day with my imagination being active.
Steven Chan: And it’s like I hear in your story that, despite any sort of setbacks, despite any sort of negativity, you think about all the possibilities.
Spencer Christian: Yes.
Steven Chan: That’s the part of your creativity and your inspiration.
Spencer Christian: That’s the word I’m looking for, Steven: possibilities. Because I was talking about dreaming great dreams and using your imagination. But if you have a curious mind — and I think to be a journalist, you really have to have a curious mind — you’re always exploring possibilities. How does this work? Why did that happen? How can I make it better?
So if I were to offer a tip for anybody who wants to come into this business, I would say: be curious, be curious about everything, especially if you want to be a journalist. There are journalists who specialize in certain things, like, for example, on the news, we may have the education reporter or the consumer reporter or the political reporter, but all of these people have a curiosity about things beyond the areas they specialize in. Like me, my specialty, for the most part, is weather.
Spencer Christian: But I have a curiosity about everything: the arts, politics, the history, world affairs. And so I would say if you are curious, if you approach the world with a curious mind, you will create your own opportunities.
How to keep up happiness and positivity in life
Steven Chan: How do you do that then? Because 50 years [in the] news business, you must have been exposed to a lot of sort of I would say: trauma, disasters, human suffering. How do you sort of bring about that positivity in life and keep that creativity or curiosity going?
Spencer Christian: Well, it’s not all internal. I can’t take credit for maintaining this positive attitude on my own because, as you mentioned, I’ve seen human suffering and disasters. As a weather person, I’ve reported in places that were devastated by hurricanes and tornadoes, and floods. And I’ve seen people lose their homes. I’ve seen people lose loved ones and they’re grieving. And when they’re first struck with this disaster, I’m sure they’re wondering,
“How do I survive this?”
“How will I get over it?”
That’s very disturbing when you witness that. But I have seen these same people somehow find the courage, the strength, the resolve to move forward, to rebuild their lives. Or, maybe been in places hit by floods and earthquakes and hurricanes where maybe one person’s home wasn’t damaged, but his next-door neighbor lost everything. And I’ve seen people take people into their homes to help them get back on their feet.
And when you see that kind of concern for your fellow man, it reinforces your positive feelings about humanity. Even though I’ve witnessed a lot of trauma and disaster and heartbreak. I’ve also witnessed some extraordinary examples of people coming together to help each other, and that inspires me and reinforces my positive view.
Coping with computer crashes
Steven Chan: You also mentioned earlier, I think there are...even the minor setbacks. I think you had a snafu, a technical snafu. Was it two weeks ago?
Spencer Christian: Two weeks ago.
Steven Chan: So that was where you—were the screen blacked out? Or tell us about that. There was a chroma? Chroma issue?
Spencer Christian: Yeah. Chroma key issue. Generally, when the anchor is tossed to me to do weather, I’m standing initially behind a desk. And then as I begin to talk about the weather, the director in the control room will punch a button that takes the camera in front of the chroma key, which is where I stand. As you know, it’s a blank green wall.
Steven Chan: That’s the green screen, right?
Spencer Christian: But all the graphic images that I’ve built before going in the air are superimposed over that screen. So it looks like they’re right behind me. But in order for that to happen, there’s a huge bank of lights that have to come on in that area, right? So in this particular instance, two weeks ago, they tossed it to me to do weather. I started to walk over to the green screen, and all the lights went out. It was, like, completely dark. So it was impossible then for the control room to project those graphic images. There was nothing there to project.
Solving technical difficulties with happiness
Spencer Christian: So I simply said, “Hey, folks, we just had what looks like a partial power failure.” I said, “The lights or in the area where I normally stand have just gone out.” So I’m going to walk back to where I originally was. I went back to that little desk I stand behind, and I said, “I’m going to describe to you what you would have seen if you’ve been able to...” So I said, “We had an image of the jet stream showing that it was flowing well to our north, which is why we’ve been dry.” And I also had an image of the radar showing that there was no rain coming in our direction. So I went on to describe the things I had prepared that weren’t visible at that time.
Steven Chan: Yeah.
Spencer Christian: And because I was comfortable doing that and I had a little fun with it, I think that makes the viewers at home feel comfortable. But if I had seemed tense or uptight or unsure of what to do next, I think viewers at home would have felt uncomfortable, too, as they’re watching me.
Steven Chan: I think someone who would be starting out the first time — if that happened to them — that probably would have been their reaction.
Spencer Christian: Exactly.
Steven Chan: They probably would have said, “Oh, my goodness, it’s over. How am I going to get through this in an instant?”
How to cope with unsupportive bosses and negative people in work and life
Steven Chan: There are technical difficulties you face. I imagine that you’ve seen people you’ve described people who would face disasters in their life, people who maybe face powerlessness at work or in society unsupportive bosses, or unsupportive society in terms of racism. You were describing that earlier. What should such people do in the face of just feeling unsupported?
Spencer Christian: I would just encourage everyone to try to find a source of positive inspiration in their lives. Now, for me, it started with my parents at home, even though we were poor and my parents had to work very, very hard just to make ends meet. And, of course, we had to face the racial discrimination that dominated society.
When I was growing up in the South, I knew that when I went home from school every day or home from wherever I was outside the house, I was going to go home to a loving, embracing, supportive family. That gave me a very positive foundation. But then I’m also a person of faith. We’re Christian, and that foundation of faith is an important source of strength to lean on when you’re facing difficulty.
Now, everybody doesn’t embrace the same faith. Some people embrace no religious faith at all. That’s okay. If you don’t, then try to find some source of positive reinforcement in your life. For me, it was two-pronged. It was a dual— it was my faith and my family.
But if you’re not growing up with a foundation of that faith in your life, then at least find a relationship with someone who cares about you and someone you care about that can reinforce, give you the positive reinforcement you need to face adversity, and challenges and setbacks in life.
Steven Chan: That makes sense.
Why you deserve happiness and support
Spencer Christian: I had a very supportive boss, my first job in this business. I don’t know if you’ve ever watched old reruns of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, but Mary Tyler Moore worked for a news director named Mr. Grant, Lou Grant. My first news director who hired me, the beginning of my career was just like Lou Grant. He seemed to have a gruff exterior, but you could tell me he had a soft, kind heart, and he was a mentor for me. And he gave me so much positive encouragement in my early years, when I was learning the ropes, he allowed me to make mistakes, but he still encouraged me that it’s okay, you’ll learn from this, and it’ll make you a better reporter.
So rather than feeling like I was being criticized or beaten up all the time, I felt encouraged by that. That was very positive for me.
Steven Chan: Did you know that you’d have such a supportive figure when you’re going into...?
Spencer Christian: Never imagined it. In fact, I didn’t know what to expect before I got into the business in terms of the people who would be my supervisors, because early in my career, I was probably only the third person of color, certainly only the third Black person to be a newscaster in Richmond, Virginia, which was the capital of the Confederacy.
Steven Chan: Oh goodness gracious.
Why it’s important for your boss to back you up
Spencer Christian: So this is going back 1970-’71. But the fact that when I first met the man who hired me — Doug Hill was his name — we hit it off right away, and I saw the Lou Grant quality right away. So I felt comfortable with him. I felt that he was someone who was not going to be overbearing and who was not going to be temperamental and screaming, yell if you made a mistake. And in fact, he wasn’t that way, he would point out your mistake, and he would say,
“This is something you need to improve on. But let me tell you how you might be able to do that.”
And that was so helpful. I mean, I was so fortunate to have someone like that who was more of a mentor than a boss, and that gave me confidence.
Steven Chan: Have you ever had any not-so-good bosses?
Spencer Christian: I have, but by the time I had people who were like that — not so supportive — I had already reached a point in my growth, in my professional growth where I had the confidence to not let their personalities bother me. But yes, I have encountered people like that in the business and management positions. I’m just very fortunate that I didn’t start my career with someone like that, unfortunately. Fortunately, I began my career with a Lou Grant.
How curiosity leads to success, happiness, and positive life
Steven Chan: Yeah, absolutely. I imagine there are so many folks who have looked up to you. You’re an author. You are a public figure. What kind of advice would you give to folks who say, would want to follow your footsteps. They want to travel. They want to be able to meet new people, be in the forefront of current events... Any sort of advice?
Spencer Christian: Yeah. I think I mentioned something earlier about being curious. I think if you want to have that kind of professional experience where you travel, you have exciting assignments — as I have been fortunate enough to have — you not only need a curiosity about things, but you need to have a thirst for knowledge. It’s one thing to ask questions, it’s another when you find those answers, to digest those answers and hold on to the knowledge you’ve gained.
I don’t mean this to sound self-serving, but as a young kid, I was very curious about everything —I wanted to read about science, and I wanted to read about space travel, I wanted to read about medicine, I wanted to know about history.
But as I asked questions and got answers, I held on to that information and tried to build a base of knowledge about things in the world, which obviously was a good foundation for me as a reporter. Because when you come into the news business, your assignments can take you anywhere. Initially, people who first come into the business don’t usually have an area of specialization. You’re a general assignment reporter, and you might find yourself covering like, a four-alarm fire one day, or a governor’s press conference the next day, or interviewing an author who’s written a history of a historical profile the next day.
Happiness can also come from humility
Spencer Christian: It’s good to have a curiosity and to want to develop a broad base of knowledge that can serve you in almost any kind of assignment you may get.
Steven Chan: I imagine, though, that there would be some whiplash. Because if you’re going from one event to another, just continuous changes, and yet you’re having to project confidence in front of the camera, but also stay curious. Is there a particular way that you’d keep that confidence in front of the camera, yet still really humble? Is that something that’s important?
Spencer Christian: That’s a really good observation, because there are so many people, not just in my business, but in all professions, where they gain a position of prominence and become widely recognized. And some people lose their humility when they reach positions of prominence like that.
Steven Chan: Why is that?
Spencer Christian: I think it’s a part of human nature. I think some people tend to feel that when you reach a certain level of prominence and recognition that you’re somehow special, that it separates you from the masses. And that’s a terrible way to think, because if that becomes part of your personality, then other people will see that in you, and they will not find that appealing, and then you gain a bad reputation.
My parents taught me humility. Well, the circumstances in which I grew up taught me humility. The first 20 years of my life, living under Jim Crow segregation laws, of course, I was considered by the larger society to be a second-class citizen, but my parents always taught me, along with biblical teachings, to be forgiving. Father, forgive them for they know not what they do and to treat other people the way I want to be treated.
Don’t allow prominence to warp your personality
Spencer Christian: Now, I know it sounds kind of corny, but basically, if you can develop an approach to life—anyone—in which you treat everyone else you meet, no matter what their station is in life the way you would want to be treated, then you will not allow fame to go to your head. You will not allow prominence to warp your personality.
Spencer Christian: And I think one of the highest compliments that I have received in my life is from people who recognize me as a television personality. But then when they get to know me, they often say—again, I don’t mean this to sound self-serving—but they often say,
“You’re just a regular person. I thought you were going to be like some movie star caught up in your ego.”
And I always say, “I hope I never become that way.”
So I don’t know how you teach someone to be that way. I think it’s just a part of your value system. If you grow up with a value system in which you accept everyone as an equal and you don’t look down on anyone just because they haven’t achieved what you’ve achieved or they don’t earn what you earn, then you’re not going to become that conceited person.
Steven Chan: I think you were also alluding to that earlier before we started recording. It was easier to catch, what is it—more flies with honey.
Spencer Christian: Yeah, than with vinegar. Right.
Taking advantage of opportunities
Steven Chan: And I think that’s why you have such a wonderful following, too. At the same time, there’s also, like, I imagine so many opportunities have come up in your life. How do you choose what to do? Do you do research on the people beforehand? Or do you kind of just dive in and just say, “Yes! I’ll go for that.”
Spencer Christian: Yeah, that’s a great question, because sometimes the opportunities have chosen me. For example, when I came into this business as a news reporter, I imagined that I was someday going to be an anchorman and I would be running the newscast and be the lead person. And I had no interest in doing weather. I knew a bit about climate science and climatology just because I have a curiosity about everything. But I never thought I would end up being a, quote, “weatherman.”
And then a couple of years into my career, the person who had been the main weather person at my station in Richmond, quit unexpectedly. And the news director came to me in a bit of a panic and asked me if I could fill in on weather, not full-time, just fill in until they found a new weather person.
Steven Chan: So what did you say?
Believe in yourself
Spencer Christian: I said, “Yeah, I could do that.” And he knew I could because, again, I had done a lot of science reporting. So he knew that I had enough knowledge about how the atmosphere works, that I could talk knowledgeably about the weather, even though I wasn’t a meteorologist. Well, as it turns out, two weeks into my filling in, the station manager came to me and said,
“We’ve auditioned a lot of people, but you’ve become a hit. You’ve developed a following already. We’d like you to be our full-time weather person.”
And I said, “Only on the condition that I can continue doing other news assignments because I don’t want to become pigeonholed as just a weatherman.”
And they said, “Okay.” And then because I was in this position on the news that was more prominent than most reporters out in the field, I became more widely recognized and stations in larger markets like New York started offering me jobs. So then I ended up in a couple of years, just moving up to New York with ABC and then onto Good Morning America. And I was very fortunate that when I got to GMA, the management there said, “We want you to do the weather every day, but you can do any other assignments you want if you want to go cover a World Series or a Super Bowl.”
Steven Chan: Well, you interviewed a bunch of presidents!
Spencer Christian: Yes.
Steven Chan: How many presidents? Six. Is that right?
Spencer Christian: Yeah. Nixon, Ford, Carter—in fact, I have a personal relationship with the Carters—Nixon, Ford, Carter, Bush I, Senator Obama before he became President Obama, and long long before Trump became President, I interviewed him when he owned the casinos in Atlantic City.
How to overcome “FOMO”— fear of missing out
Steven Chan: Yeah.
Spencer Christian: So anyhow, I was just saying that making the point that written a long-winded fashion that sometimes the opportunities chose me. It wasn’t like I saw options, and I said, “I’m going to do this.” Sometimes the opportunity just presented itself surprisingly, and it led to something great.
Steven Chan: So serendipity: you were in the place, you’re in the right locations when the opportunities presented themselves, and you were open to accepting those opportunities.
Spencer Christian: Absolutely.
Steven Chan: Have there been any that you have— there’s this concept called FOMO, fear of missing out. Have you heard of this?
Spencer Christian: I have.
Steven Chan: Have you ever had to turn things down and how do you end up doing so? Have you ever had to do that?
Spencer Christian: That’s a great question. I actually have not been in a position where I’ve had to turn down something greater than what I already had. When I got to ABC in New York, for example, before I was full-time in Good Morning America, there was a station in LA that made me an offer, but I thought, well, I’m already in the number one market, and LA has an image of glamour and all that glitz and glamour, but it’s not New York. New York is the number one market. So I turned down that offer, but it wouldn’t have been an advancement for me at all. It might have been more like a lateral move.
Steven Chan: That’s good. That’s a very good key thing to know is that you don’t have to say “yes” to everything.
Spencer Christian: Right. Exactly
Steven Chan: You can weigh whether the benefits and the cost, certainly. That makes total sense.
How to jump-start happiness with exercise and self-care
Steven Chan: So we’ve covered quite a lot of ground. We covered how you make decisions, how you overcome adversity, how you take advantage of opportunities, and then how you start your day in your day-to-day life. And I think that that’s wonderful for our audience. So we just want to say thank you so much for all the advice. Any parting words, or any sort of last-minute advice that you want to give to listeners?
Spencer Christian: I guess the one thing I didn’t mention about how I start my day is that I love to exercise!
Steven Chan: Talk about that.
Spencer Christian: Yeah. So I have exercised all my life, and I’m going to be 75 this year in July. But I have always exercised enough to maintain a certain level of fitness and energy. I’m not a fanatic about any of the things I do to stay fit, but I try to eat food that’s good for you. I don’t have a sweet tooth, so that’s easy for me to avoid desserts. But I like fruits and veggies. I limit my red meat intake: very limited.
And I exercise. I go to the gym. Sometimes I run under the treadmill. Or sometimes, maybe three days a week, I’ll go out on the road and do what I call walk-run intervals, where I will walk briskly up steep hills, and then when the pavement levels up, then I run for a half-mile or a mile.
And that not only energizes me but it sort of clears my mind, it helps me to be more focused on what I have to do that day so I’m a huge proponent of regular exercise. It doesn’t have to be severe or extreme just enough to stay fit.
Self-care leads to happiness
Steven Chan: Get the blood going and energy going. I think that self-care certainly is important. I know that a lot of folks who end up being really busy really kind of overworking themselves thinking that that’s going to be helpful, it ends up being detrimental. So I think this is a very good reminder that taking care of yourself will actually increase your ability to do things in life and also it sounds like enjoy it.
Spencer Christian: I do enjoy it. It improves so many things in life. It improves your mental focus. Obviously your physical conditioning but it helps you to sleep more restfully at night. People who exercise regularly get more restful sleep and therefore wake up more energetic the next day.
Steven Chan: Yeah. Wow. This is a lot of really good advice really helpful tips, tricks, but also just mindsets—mindsets on spirituality, your faith, how to build resilience with family and friends, and your relationships. Spencer, I just want to say thank you so much for being with us today.
Spencer Christian: Thank you, Steven. My pleasure.
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