What I Learned When I Almost Died: How a Maniac TV Producer Put Down His BlackBerry and Started to Live His Life

Written by Chris Licht

Narrated by Chris Licht

Equal parts Mitch Albom and Jerry Maguire, Chris Licht tells the tale of a brilliant career nearly cut short by a brain aneurysm—and how that near-death experience changed everything.

Chris Licht was a “killer” at his day job as the executive producer in charge of running MSNBC’s must-watch politics and morning news show Morning Joe. A thirty-eight-year-old control freak who thrived in the high-octane world of media, he had spent years sacrificing relationships with family and friends in the fiercely driven pursuit of his career. But that was before a brain aneurysm nearly killed him. Suddenly humbled, Chris is forced to recognize the richness of the life he nearly lost and to reckon with his family and career. This is a story of a man who nearly died—and found a way to remove what doesn’t matter and wound up more in love with his work and his family than ever.

What I Learned When I Almost Died brings to life the set of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, plunging into the competitive world of television and revealing all the egos and adrenaline it takes to create a popular cable TV political show. Licht also flings back the curtain to one of the nation’s most prestigious emergency rooms as his life hangs in the balance, detailing the extraordinary courage and professionalism it takes to bring him back from the edge.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
• Release date: Jun 15, 2021
• ISBN: 9781797128917

Chris Licht

Chris Licht is the recently appointed chairman and CEO of CNN Global. Previously the executive producer of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Licht was also vice president of programming at CBS News and the executive producer of CBS This Morning. Licht has also been the co-creator and original executive producer of Morning Joe—the popular daily morning show on MSNBC hosted by Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski, and Willie Geist—as well as the executive producer on Scarborough Country. He lives in Manhattan with his family.