Ted Turner, a fiercely competitive and hardworking businessman, achieved high goals and great success by the time he was 43 years old. Ted Turner is probably best known for his Cable News Network (CNN), which many people believe has become the global broadcast-news authority. He launched a second nationwide all-news network, Headline News, purchased the Atlanta Braves baseball team, and became the world's best yachtsman when his boat Courageous won the America's Cup in 1977. In 1982 he was included in the first edition of the Forbes 400 list, naming him one of the 400 richest people in the United States. Turner was named Time magazine's "Man of the Year" in 1992. How did Ted Turner accomplish all of this at such a young age?
Ted Turner's father, Ed, grew up in an impoverished family. During the Depression they lost their cotton farm and were left penniless with no source of income. Starting with nothing, Ed Turner built a billboard company into a successful business. A man of great drive and ambition, Ed Turner was a self-made millionaire who demanded that his only son try to achieve similar success. He instilled in the boy a strong belief that hard work was good. Turner's father required him to read a new book every two days.He also charged his son rent at home during summer vacations from boarding school. Ed Turner was a strong influence in his son's life.
As a child, Ted Turner lived a very lonely life, often separated from his family. During World War II, his father served in the Navy. Ed Turner took his wife and daughter with him so they could live nearby but left his 6-year-old son behind in a boarding school in Cincinnati, Ohio. When Ted Turner was in the fifth grade, his father enrolled him in a military academy. Even though Turner had friends at school, it didn't make up for the absence of his parents and sister. Eventually Ted Turner enrolled at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. He attended college off and on, became involved in sailboat racing, and became a member of the U.S. Coast Guard for a while. In his early twenties, he became general manager of one of his father's branch offices -- the Turner Advertising Company in Macon, Georgia.
Two years later, when his father suddenly died, Ted Turner took over the company. He soon discovered that he was more skilled than his father in managing the business. A spirited man, Turner exhibited much of his father's enthusiasm and was strongly determined to become the man his father wanted him to be. Ed Turner had always impressed upon his son how important it was to be a success, but Ted Turner always feared that he would not be able to live up to his father's expectations. During the next twenty years, Ted Turner worked hard to accumulate enough power and money to fulfill his father's dream.
Reflecting on his father's death, however, he realized that it was dangerous to put too much emphasis on material possessions. Rather than devoting his energy only to building an empire, he decided to change his life and allow things other than financial success to be his measure of worth. He decided to use his hard-earned influence to serve the public. Concerned about the environment, Ted Turner established the Better World Society in 1985. The purpose of this organization was to produce documentaries to educate people about pollution, hunger, and the danger of building weapons of mass destruction. In 1986 he began sponsoring the Goodwill Games to promote world peace by bringing together an assembly of the best athletes in the world to participate in competition during non-Olympic years. The Turner Tomorrow Awards were created to encourage writers and thinkers to focus their attention on solving world problems. The Turner Family Foundation was established in 1992. Board members meet twice a year to decide which charities will receive money donations.
Rather than allow ambition and greed to continually define his role, he shifted his attention to global pursuits and environmental issues. By directing his energies toward making life better for others, he has discovered a different way to achieve new levels of success.
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