Douglas Greenlaw, MTV President of Sales and Promotional Marketing

doug greenlaw Part 3

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And has been inducted into the United States Military Hall of Fame for his service as a 1st Lieutenant Infantry, Platoon Leader, and Infantry Company Commander in Vietnam. War is brutal, bloody, and graphic. Doug will share some of his experiences as these have profoundly influenced his thoughts and actions following his return from the war.

In addition to his military accomplishments, doug has an incredible career in the entertainment industry. industry, having served as the former president of MTV. He has a passion for the outdoors, and just simply relaxing in nature.

He believes in the tremendous power of positive thinking and embracing life at any age.. As a veteran, his words resonate deeply across every continent and nation. "All gave some, but some gave all." Douglas Greenlaw, I salute you with the absolute utmost respect. Welcome to the show, Douglas Greenlaw. Doug, hello.

Now you went on, you, you got your education degree, you went and you taught high school and then you entered the corporate world. Pat Robertson,

It stands for Christian. Well, we don't want to buy a Christian. Blah, blah, blah. So we convinced him to change it to the Family Channel because that's what we had. We had the Rifleman and, uh, Wagon Train and Andy Griffith and all those classic old shows. And we got big ratings. We got more ratings than ESPN and MTV did.

Uh, so it was a real successful run Pat, I, I got to know him real well and he's a great person. I miss him. He's very, very, very smart guy. So I'm hanging on. He told me that God will come to me. Okay. My first job was, I went to work for a rock and roll station in Indianapolis as a ad salesman.

And I, I did a great job at that because it was such a great station and, uh, had a wonderful time there.

And then I, I graduated up, you know, into management and ended up working at Pat's, network.

I was doing more revenue with the Family Channel than anybody.

We were number one in cable, uh, in, in revenue. More than ESPN, more than MTV. The only one that challenged us was Nickelodeon because they had big ratings

30 percent on little numbers is easy to do. 30 percent on big numbers is pretty hard. So we had 30 percent increases every year I was there. And it was a wild ride. It was a lot of fun. And I got some stories about some of the celebrities I met, , there and, and how they, how they behaved. So I had good

experiences.

I got two favorites. Uh, Michael Jackson and Bruce Springsteen, different times. And because we were MTV, we had ringside seats at all the functions. If I had a table, an MTV table, we were right up next to the stage. The Video Music Awards at MTV.

A big deal.

Well, every year we'd go to that and we'd have our table. And so I met, Bruce Springsteen there. what happened was our table was right up by the stage and after the awards were given, all the talent would come up onto the stage and jam. So I looked up at the microphone and there's.

On the microphone is Mick Jagger, Paul McCartney, Billy Joel, he was on the, piano, Elton John, uh, these are super, there's billions of dollars, six feet away, and I'm sitting there and all of a sudden somebody's, Scooting a chair up next to me on in our table, and we paid a lot of money for this table.

I say I'm thinking of myself from the financial side, not somebody who came in from the audience all the way down here to get on our table. I turned around. It was Yoko Ono, John Lennon's wife. And, and she was real nice and quiet. And, you know, she said, do you mind if I sit here? And I said, no, no, I made , made everybody scoot around.

We sat her right at our table. And I looked up there and, and, uh, at the singers and both, Paul McCartney and, Mick Jagger gave me a thumbs up because they saw me make room

And, uh, I couldn't help myself as soon as we, he, we locked eyes for some reason, he's looking around like I was, he looked at me and I looked at him when we locked eyes, I got up and I walked over and introduced myself. And I said, uh, I'm probably one of your biggest fan. I know I sound like a teenager, but I grew up, you know, in the Vietnam era, you know, you, when you were real popular and you're very young at that time.

I said, , when you, when you wrote, uh, what was the song? Born in the USA. Yeah. And I said that song meant a lot to us, uh, because we were over there fighting the yellow man, like you said in your, one of your verses. And he stood up and, embraced me and shook my hand. He shook my hand like, , a brain surgeon would.

In my mind, it was not a grip, not a hard grip. It was a soft, but not. Not too soft, a nice, gentle grip of a handshake. And it's one I never forgot because it represents him. He's such a nice, sensitive guy,

does so well and everybody loves him and he loves everybody back out. And that's what he did to me.

I never forgot it. The chairman of MTV uh, Viacom, Sumner, Redstone, didn't like to be with celebrities. He got nervous around them. So when he'd have one that would want to come up and thank him for everything that Viacom does for their, Album or whatever it might be, he would call me and say, Hey, you want to, you want to meet such and such?

Yeah. One day he called. He said, you want to meet Michael Jackson? I said, yeah, I'd love to meet Michael Jackson. So you come on up. He's going to be here in about a half hour. So I went up. Michael Jackson walks into his office and I was shocked. I thought he was a little little guy. Well, he's six feet tall.

He's got big legs, a big ass. He's a dancer. You know, he's like an athlete. , I was impressed. And he was real quiet and real shy. And, uh, Sumner, the chairman said, Michael, we've got a photographer out in the lobby. You mind if we bring him in and take some couple of pictures? He says, no problem. No problem.

Photographer comes in and two of his Bodyguards are with him all the time. And these guys are like six, eight, you know, 280 pounds, solid muscle, big, strong guys, just by their presence, nobody comes near him. So he snaps his finger. And one of them hands has a wooden box in his hand. It's about a 12 by 12

wooden box, square box, maybe four inches high. And he puts it down in front of Michael and he stands on the box because he has to be the tallest person in the photograph. I thought that was amazing. One of the photographs later, he was the tallest guy.

And the things these people do to protect their image, you know, is pretty astounding.

So we focused on one, instead of a big demographic, we focused on an individual for MTV. We did the same with Nickelodeon for kids. So uh, and it worked out real well.

Would come up to me at MTV and say, man, I want your job. You got the best job in America. I want your job. And I said, well, you can have it, but you, you got to do what I did to get here. I worked hard to get here and I started right out of college at the lowest level salesman you could be.

And I worked my way up. I was always the first one in the last one to leave. And of course I had just out of the army. I had my discipline and I was in good shape. So but they started they started trailing off when I tell them how hard it is to get where I was and that's true They don't they don't hand these jobs out, you know to anybody I always loved Ross Perot Remember Ross Perot.

I do remember Ross

We had good times, good times. And then I went on to CEO roles from there.

, I've been a leader since little league baseball when I was nine years old. And I say, as I say in the book, my, I, I am my mother. I mean, my father gave me my physical abilities, uh, and uh, my work ethic. My mother. is me. I'm exactly like she's a five foot two short little feisty, uh, Scottish lady.

I learned a lot from her. And when I was nine years old, there's a picture of me in the book at nine years old at a business dinner where she took me along with her and her job. She was head of marketing for a

small firm and, uh, that sold advertising. She brought me along early. So I always had that confidence in me from day one, I had a good, solid mother , she never knew a stranger. She never took any crap from anybody, uh, in a good way. And so I had a good start. And then I had the military, which I had a chance to express my leadership

and a lot of leaders came out. I'm not the only one. A lot of them did. Uh, so I'm just one of them. , like I'm part of the, the story, you know, I'm the story of the average kid. That was me. , I never thought I was better than anybody else, but I never thought I was worse either. So I always had this strong sense about me and I noticed other people have it too.

I had to stare down with him he told me to hire his daughter.

He called me up and he says, uh, Greenlaw, uh, I was surprised he even knew who I was. He said, Greenlaw, I want, uh, you run a good marketing organization here. Uh, I want you to hire my daughter. She's smart and I just want her to get some training. I figured this would be good training for her to start with a marketing position.

I said, I'll be happy to talk to her. He said, no, no, you don't understand. I'm not asking you to talk to her. I'm ordering you to hire her direct order. I said, have her call me. So she did, she called and we set up an appointment for the next morning. She walks in like she's walking down the street in central park.

You know, she's casual. She had too much makeup on, she could use a shower, I'm thinking to myself, ooh, this is not going to be easy, and she was cocky and arrogant, and, and, uh, you know, remember who her father is, right?

Sumner Redstone, one of the toughest guys in the world, was her father, so she took after him without any credibility and, uh, I'm thinking to myself, I can't get her out of here fast enough. I'm not hiring her. We had people like you on staff, which I had, I had, uh, Karen Zolman and, uh, I had a couple of senior vice presidents that were fantastic and they knew how to dress.

They knew how to act, they knew the numbers. And I, so I was going to put her, cause I, I, he wants me to hire, I'll hire her. I'm going to give her a low level job and she's going to work for, uh, Sandy Shepherd and Karen Zolman and together, see, they can talk the talk. I can't. I can't tell her to go wash her hair.

I mean, I can't, even if it's just by modeling with, with Sandy and Karen, she'd get it. And, you know, in a year or so we'd promote her to a sales assistant. And then another year, maybe she would be, if she still is good, we'll promote her to a marketing person.

She refused that. She walked out, didn't even look at me. Didn't say any words to me at all. Just got up and walked out. So the next morning Sumner calls me. He says, get up here, Doug. I want to talk to you. I'm thinking, Oh, great. Same thing as the captain in the jungle. Right? I walked into his office. I had on my best Armani suit, silk tie, man.

I strode into his office, shoulders back, chin down. And before he could say anything, he was giving me the dirtiest look you've ever seen. I said, Sumner. I couldn't hire her, and I told exactly what happened, and he looked at me, he wasn't blinking, we had our eyes going, and he finally blinked, and he looked at me and sort of, gave me that little smile, and he said, ah, hell, I wouldn't have hired her either,

but, uh, so that, you know, I did that before just stand up for yourself.

I knew that she wasn't ready I always had that feeling that I was doing the right thing, even if I was wrong. I thought I would, and I've been wrong quite a few times too. I've, I've hired some bad people, you know, you don't stay with them, but it happens.

Things, bad things happen. But also good things happen. So I thought that that structure I had from my mother and in the military gave me the confidence to stand up if I thought I was right.

So standing your ground and using that experience and, and keeping level headed. So I love that you have enough ego.

To keep that confidence up. Ego is

important.

in my honest opinion, we go around once in this life. , so while you're here, you need to do the best you can in an honest and truthful way. And to me, one of the worst things you can be is a liar to say something, you know, is not true. Live a good life, take care of your family, take care of yourself, , things will work out because you're going, you're going to make more correct decisions than you are incorrect.

One correct decision weighs a lot more than five incorrect. The correct ones count big time. So just do the best you can, embrace life, stay healthy, and tell the truth.

It's my honor. Thank you. I appreciate it.

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