AMPLIFY Your Talent With Hollywood Agent Joel Zadak

I really think it's imperative, you know, at least for me. And the kind of the way that I represent people, that they are content generators. They're not just what I may call a vendor, someone vending their acting services or someone vending their writing services. I want. If they're a writer, I want them to also direct or perform what have you. Because I really love multiple points of entry, and I love those artists who can be not only the visionary, but also the implementer, meaning the person who comes up with the idea and then also executes the idea. Because as we talk about in all of these groups, ideas are cheap, execution is expensive, and if you can do both, then you will have a long future in this or any business.

Welcome to the Capability Amplifier, the show for business owners and entrepreneurs who want high performance upgrades for their brains, bodies, and bank accounts. Today's guest is Joel Zadig. Now, you might not know who Joel is, but I guarantee you, you know a whole bunch of his clients because is an Emmy award winning executive producer and he represents talent including Tiffany Haddish, Jordan Peele, Randall Park, Ronnie Chang from the Daily show, and Crazy Rich Asians and Jimmy Oyang from Crazy Rich Asians and Adam Conover from Adam ruins everything. Now, what you're gonna love about this episode is not the fact that Joel works in, of course, one of the most exciting fields in the world, which is entertainment, but you're gonna love how he thinks. So without here is Joel Zadig. All right, Joel, thanks for being here. It is an absolute pleasure.

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

I think the best way to start is why don't you talk a little bit about what you do and what you call yourself, because you've been in the entertainment industry for a long time, you're an Emmy award winning executive producer, but you really do a lot more than that. So give us your commercial.

My name is Joel Zadak. I am a talent manager and a producer. My office is in Beverly Hills. I represent artists. I represent writers, directors, comedians, actors, producers. Pretty much every single person on my client list is funny, meaning that they have a high card in comedy. Some of them do more than comedy. A lot of them aspire to do more in comedy, but they really got their start in comedy by being funny and wanting to do that for a living and do it in Hollywood or New York or Chicago, what have you.

Why or how did you know or when was the moment or time when you knew you were going to be in this business?

I first kind of realized I was going to be in this. I always enjoyed comedy. You know, I grew up really appreciating movies like Animal House and I loved Cheech and Chong. I loved two guys clearly making each other laugh, making my dad and I laugh. My dad have a twin brother. And you know, we have many fond memories as kids, but I think the fondest is when my dad introduced us to rated R. Comedy is on HBO and the Movie channel on cable when we were like 8, 9, 10 years old, like far earlier than the average parent would allow. And that made me feel special and I loved to laugh. So then after college, I grew up in Chicago. I lived in the city and there was this place called the Second City, which is a theater and it's a comedy theater. So many of the greats, from Gilda Radner to John Belushi to Tina Fey and Amy Poehler and Steve Carell, and the list really kind of goes on and on for the people that came out of that theater, they had shows in Chicago and I would go see them and then when I didn't have any money, they would have a free improv set at the end of their show. So my friends and I would go sit in the audience and watch what they did. So then after college, I got into writing, creative writing a little bit, and I started taking classes at the Second City because it's a. In addition to being a theater, it's a really big school. It's a training ground for future artists. So I took classes there for a year. And while I was doing that, I was also taking some classes screenwriting. And I wanted to write comedy. I wanted to write comedy movies. I wanted to write the next Kingpin or the next Animal House or what have you. And I took classes there and I decided that Los Angeles is where I wanted to be and I moved to la. I applied to the grad program in screenwriting at ucla. I got in and then I moved to LA thinking that Los Angeles would be just like Chicago, which is a nine to five cities. So I figured, oh, classes at ucla start at 7:30. I'll get a job 9 to 5. Why don't I get a job in the entertainment business? Because then I'll learn during the day, I'll get a job in entertainment, and then I'll be able to go to dinner and then go to the gym and then go to class. So I got a job assisting a manager. And a matter of fact, the manager that I was assisting managed the Second City for film and television. So I'm like, great, there's already a kind of a familiarity there. He represented Eugene Levy, who's still one of my favorite performers of all time, and a couple others greats. And the very first day he had a meeting at 4:30, I was his assistant. He had a meeting at 4:30 outside of the office. And so he left. And at 5 o', clock, like a true Chicagoan does, I packed up my book bag and left. And the receptionist is like, joel, where the hell are you going? I said, I'm going home. Like, did David, who's my boss at the time, tell you you can go home? Like, no, he's in a meeting, he can't even ask. And she's like, get back to your desk. And I quickly realized that Hollywood is not a 9 to 5 town. It is, you know, much longer than that. It can go from anywhere from nine to nine. So I had to make a decision. Do I want to keep this job or do I want to continue to be enrolled in ucla? So I dropped out of that program because I kind of wanted to try my hands at this job. It was a smart decision because two months after I started, my boss formed his own company. And two months after that, he promoted me to manager. So here I am, four months in the business. Assistants typically take anywhere from three to five years to get promoted to an executive. I took all of four months. And my very first year, my boss just told me, go out, sign people, make money. So I relied a little bit on my Second City connections back in Chicago, some of my instructors who taught me to find out who's coming from Chicago to Los Angeles. That way I at least would have a commonality and being from the same city and having like a history of like being at the same training ground. And through that connection, I met Fred Armisen, signed him, put him on Saturday Night Live. I met Seth Meyers, signed him, put him on Saturday Night Live. I met Lance Barber, who is now the dad on Young Sheldon on cbs, which is going to do at least two more seasons. And I met a few other people. And my very first year as a manager, through my connections, before I had the job, I was signing people, making money, and I was profitable. And then four or five nights a week I was going out and seeing live comedy at the Improv, the standup club, or at the Improv Olympic or the Second City, some of the improv theaters and sketch theaters. And then I was reading incoming scripts. So, you know, my first four or five years in the business, I was seeing tons and tons of acts and I was Also writing reports, because the company I worked for had development deals at various studios. They had 1 at 20th Century Fox Television and one at ABC Studios. And they were studios that were serving the network. So 20th served Fox. ABC Studios obviously served ABC. And they were looking for the next big comic. We were really, this is 1999, 2000, which was still kind of the end of that era in television comedy where standups were ruling the roost. You know, you took a stand up off the stage, you developed a show about his or her life, and you had a hit show. People like Brett Butler, Tim Allen, Jerry Seinfeld, Ray Romano, the list kind of goes on and on. Kevin James, that was like the formula. Find a great stand up, put them on television. And at the time, one of my bosses at this new company, he booked the entire chain of the improv comedy club, so he knew most of the comedians. And another one of my colleagues booked this comedy festival that HBO had sponsored in Aspen called the US Comedy Arts Festival. It was a terrific festival. So between those two people and me and a couple of my colleagues going out four or five nights a week, we were uniquely suited to be kind of the visionaries, the recruiters for who the next big comedian would be. So I would write reports. So in the very, like, first day as a manager, I'm evaluating talent based on whether or not they could either be a TV show, they had an act within, they had a show within their act, or they were a great writer who could serve as a writer. Because obviously someone like Larry David was a writer first for Jerry on Seinfeld, and then obviously became a star after that. So a writer or an actor, somebody who was a funny stand up or a funny sketch performer, who could be what John Belushi was, what Chevy Chase was, you know, what Amy Poehler, who's not necessarily like a, you know, a stand up was for the next future. So I would evaluate all these people, I would write them, I would rank them. And that really gave me a really good eye, because in addition to seeing a ton of people, I was writing comedy, or at least trying to write comedy. I had performed a little bit of comedy. So I had a unique level of expertise in that. In my previous jobs before entertainment, I was in insurance, I was in ad sales, I was in book publishing. I really loved the. I loved the office environment of going to a place that there was a lot of people there. The phones were constantly ringing. If I had a question, there was somebody in my office next to me that I could ask, or there was somebody else that had a level of expert that could offer me some ideas. I love that environment. I loved artists, but I was never gonna be built to be that person who sits at home waiting for the phone to ring, which is 95% of people pursuing comedy in Los Angeles until they break. And I was not built for that. I believe I would have pulled out all my hair and I would have spent most of my time trying to pop pimples that weren't even there, and then probably would have had a porn addiction, and I'm glad none of those exist. I have all my hair, very few pimples, and my porn is completely, completely under control.

You gave me a lot of material to work from here, so I'm going to dissect this a little bit, because that's one of the goals, is give our listeners an operating system upgrade and learn how to think like you think. So I'm going to start, though, with a little bit of flash, which is. You mentioned Fred Armisen and Seth Meyers, but who are your biggest stars right now?

Biggest stars? The people I work with are Jordan Peele, who is a writer, director, and a performer. He and I, I came up with an idea years ago for a show called Key and Peele based on my clients at the time, Keegan, Michael Key and Jordan Peele. It was the least original idea I've ever had because my idea was for them to do a sketch show, and they had already been doing a sketch show for five years called MADtv on Fox. My idea was simply do your own, which was not original, but it was brilliantly executed by them. So I came up with the idea, I wrote the treatment, I gave it to them. They made it their own. We hired a client of mine named Peter Atencio to direct it, and we hired clients of our company, Ian Roberts and Jay Martel, to be the head writers of it. And we went five seasons. We won an Emmy on that. So Jordan Peele is probably even better known for his two recent movies. One is get out, which he won an Academy Award for Best original screenplay. And then his most recent movie, which is currently in theaters, called Us, which is a horror film that he wrote and directed. But he's also producing a lot of television. He's producing and starring in the Twilight Zone at CBS All Access. He has a show called weird City on YouTube. And we're doing a show called the Last OG with Tracy Morgan and my other client, Tiffany Haddish, on pbs, which is about to hopefully get its third season ordered. So another Big client is Tiffany Haddish. She is somebody who I first met when I was producing a movie called Keanu with Keegan, Michael Key and Jordan Peele and Peter Artencio also directing. We cast her in that movie. She was amazing. When I first met her, you know, pretty much everyone I worked with on this movie thought this girl is either gonna be a huge star or she's going to jail. And she's a huge star. So, you know, she was probably my, you know, of the people that I've been a part of, the most meteoric rise. She went from making X when I first started working with her to I don't even want to, you know, tell you what the multiple of X is, but it's enormous. It's way bigger than 10x. And she obviously is one of the biggest female comedic stars in the world. And she was the first black female stand up comedian to host Saturday Night Live. So she's another big one. I represent one of the best artists in the business, a guy named Randall park, who is the lead of ABC's Fresh off the Boat and he stars in Ant man and Aquaman and has been in countless movies from Neighbors to Five Year Engagement to many, many more. And he's got some really terrific projects coming up, including a Netflix movie that he wrote and stars in with Ali Wong called Always Be My maybe, which premieres in late May on Netflix. I mean, there's so many clients from Ronny Chang, who's on the Daily show in Crazy Rich Asians, to Jimmy O. Yang, who's on Silicon Valley, and also in Crazy Rich Asians, to Ike Barinholtz, who has been in movies and he's a great writer in addition to being an actor. He wrote that hit movie Central Intelligence. Lance Barber, who I mentioned, who is the dad on Young Sheldon, John Ross Bowie, who's the dad on Speechless on abc, Nicole Byer, who's a comedian and the host of the Netflix hit reality show Nailed it. I mean, the list really kind of goes on and on, including some great information driven comedians like Adam Conover, who has a show on TRUTV called Adam Ruins Everything. It's also available on Netflix. It is a really, really cool info driven show. He is the person who I represent, who I get the most incoming emails from random people from college professors to high school teachers to scientists, because, you know, everything that he does on his show is really kind of taking down common myths about things in the world and shedding a new light on that to, you know, a guy named Raphael Bob Wachsberg, who created a show on Netflix, the first animated series, BoJack Horseman. That's one of a bunch of awards. The list really goes on and on. But it's a lot of really talented people and pretty much everyone I work with, and it's pretty much a prerequisite for me, is that they have interests and talents in multiple fields. So writer performers, writer directors, director performers, stand up comedian, and an actor. You know, I really think it's imperative, at least for me. And the kind of the way that I represent people, that they are content generators, they're not just, you know, what I may call as a vendor, someone vending their acting services or someone vending their writing services. If they're a writer, I want them to also direct or perform what have you. Because I really love multiple points of entry, and I love those artists who can be not only the visionary, but also the implementer, meaning the person who comes up with the idea and then also executes the idea. Because, as we talk about in all of these groups, ideas are cheap, execution is expensive, and if you can do both, then you will have a long future in this or any business.

That was awesome. So let's get into some of your skills, some of your superpowers. And one of the things that you said your first boss said to you is network and sign people. So I think a really important question before I get to another one that I think is equally important, but. But how do you network to sign people and make money in Hollywood? Because there's so much bs, there's so many people who are gonna. They're there just to build their own career or visibility. But, like, what are the biggest problems you run into? How do you sift and sort? How do you gain access to real deals so you can do what you do?

Are you asking how do I find new clients or how do I find the best people?

Let me frame this a little bit. So. So you've been doing this for how many years? 20, 20 years. Okay. So you built up a hell of a lineup of clients. Maybe a place to start will be. How long did it take for you to get your first big break that you would say, made your career as it is right now? Can you think of that moment or a story you can tell?

I mean, I think that my first big break came in at probably 12 years in the business. And that was when I sold Key and Peele, and we got it ordered to series. I love that show, Key and Peele. And when it went from a television show to Putting the sketches on YouTube, it was really, really big. So that was my big break. And the reason it was my big break was that it was a show that everyone had very, very easy access to. And they could watch one sketch and say they were a fan of the show, or they can share the sketches with other people. And people in the business look to that show and say, holy shit, those guys are making mini movies on a sketch show. They're so talented. The writing is so good, the performance is amazing. The directing is amazing. So being a producer of that show, it gave me credibility in all of those areas, from performing to writing to directing, even though I didn't do any of it. But I represented the people who did that. The show was my idea, the execution was not mine, but I represented the people who executed it. And that gave me a lot of credibility. And for a lot of people coming up, that was their favorite show at the time, and that was what inspired them to do more. And the beauty of what that show was, we were not bound by the same characters in every single episode. We could do a sketch about NFL end zone celebrations, to a sketch about slavery, to a sketch about airport security, to another one about the way men and women in the dating scene interact. So we were able to make so many touch points and touch so many people, and we did it very, very well on a relatively low budget that people were then looking to that show as, like, kind of the cornerstone of modern, high quality comedy. So once that was established, people were coming to me saying, do that for me, or, I want to, you know, I want to be a part of this. I want to be. I want to work with Keegan Michael Key, I want to work with Jordan Peele, I want to work with Peter Atencio and work with, you know, Ian Roberts and Jay Martel. And I was kind of the gatekeeper to that. But also the real big break on that show was witnessing how things were done. Well, that show, the reason that show is so brilliant, beyond the fact that they had talented people, they had talented people who were terrific collaborators, who truly valued collaboration. I learned how to listen as a human being by watching the people who worked that show. And it was truly incredible. And it was also one of those magic moments where everybody who worked on that show, from the writers to the director to the performers, had something to gain by it being successful. It's much like I represent Jimmy O. Yang and Ronny Cheng, who were in Crazy Rich Asians. And that movie was an enormous hit last year. And they mentioned, they talk about how everyone was in it together. They banded together to be that movie, to be the first Asian, all Asian cast of a studio release since the Joy Luck Club. And it was magic. It was magic on Key and Peele that way. And I think for the rest of my career I will be seeking that fix again of trying to find people who are great collaborators, great listeners who truly want to see the success of other people and want to collaborate and make something amazing that hasn't been done before, or if it has been done before, be the best version of what has been done previously. So I was blessed by it by being witness to those people working on that.

So I think this will help me ask the other question I had for you better now, which is if you think again about your 20 year career, that quote unquote big break took 12 years. So you spent a lot of time setting the table and lining up a lot of dominoes. For something like that to occur, it had to have been a combination of whatever your unique ability or superpower is combined with the network you developed. So the way I'm going to frame this question then is imagine right now that you had an opportunity to reinvent yourself, build the career as you have it right now, but instead of taking 20 years, you'd be able to do it in five or even less. If you were going to think through like what would you do differently or what have you learned now? That if you compress time and accomplished what you've done in a shorter period of time, what do you think that would look like? What kind of networking and connections would you need or do? What would you focus on?

I would have, if I had a chance to do it over again, I would have worked on my mindset earlier. I think that my filter of who the right fit client for me was took 10 plus years to develop. I really wish I would have spent more time at the beginning of my career sharpening the axe. That is my client filter. And what I mean by that is when I first started off my metrics for who is a client is number one, do they not have a manager? Number two, are they funny? And number three, do I think I could sell their talents? And now those are, you know, I also those earnings included in my filter. But my filter is a lot, a lot bigger now. It involves mindset, it involves appreciation for collaboration. It involves having materials that have a really, really strong point of view. It involves kind of an evaluation of who their connections are, who their friends are, who are the people that they could potentially collaborate with. Additionally, it is, do they want my services? Previously, I just assumed that everyone needed my services. That was foolish. I mean, yes, maybe they need my services, but only when they truly want what I do for them. Are we going to have a good relationship when, you know it's raining outside, Are they going to want to pick up the phone and call me or vice versa? Or when, you know, on the heels of bad news, and by the way, managers deliver a lot of bad news, you're not getting the job, your script is not going to sell, they are letting you go from the show, or the show has been canceled, is more frequent with my clients, and then you're letting them go. And if they want you around, then it's all about how do we rebuild or what's our next step, as opposed to if they need you around, then they feel disappointed and looking for people to blame. Carol Dweck has one of the best books I've read in the last 10 years called mindset. And it's a difference between fixed mindset and growth mindset. And all my clients, any new client has to have a growth mindset where they value learning over looking smart. Short answer is I would spend more time sharpening my ax on the client filter in my early years to have signed people who were going to work for what I do well, better. And then I also would have spent more time getting very clear on my superpower. I didn't know what it was. I just thought it was charm and persistence and going to see a lot of people live and meeting them face to face as opposed to, you know, what my superpower is now, which I think is infinitely more valuable to the right artists.

Well, let's talk a little bit about that. I want to go back to the other one, but so if you were going to define in the fewest number of words your superpower, unique ability is what?

Right now my superpower is my identification of talents and interests of artists and helping them turn that into meaningful work, a project. And once we figure out what that idea is, that is married to what the market is looking for. It's strategizing on how to make it real. So it's basically a vacuum of ideas that are going to be that which the artist is passionate about and is going to want to work on even when it's raining, and that the market is also going to likely going to receive coming up with that strategy of how to sell it, selling it, and then the further strategy of making it something of high quality that sticks around, that's outstanding.

I love that. That's so precise. It just goes to show how much work you've done. So that gets us back again to networking, meaningful networking in Hollywood. How do you sift and sort like, what's your strategy or technique right now and your mindset for getting what you need to get done? And of course, that's changed as you've evolved from the early you to the now you. But what does that involve?

Well, that really kind of involves if you're asking, like, who I need to network with in order to reach my goals.

Yes. And how do you filter? Like, what's. What's your filter going in? You've got some way of verifying that who you're talking to is real. Checking on reputation, determining, you know, how far down a rabbit hole you're gonna go before you go, Matt, this isn't gonna get me where I want to go. And it doesn't fit my values or whatever your filters are. I'm curious how you filter and network.

That's a good question. You know, in Hollywood, there are, you know, I'm a talent manager. And so there's a bunch of other talent managers at other companies. There's talent agents, there are studio executives, there are network executives. There are a certain number of companies, reputable agencies, obviously, studios and networks, Reputable studios and networks, and then other managers. So I know that if you are a member of one of those organizations, you are probably worthy of my time. Where the filter comes in is people who are artists or want to be artists or producers or want to be producers. Who. I don't know who they are. I don't know their credits or their credits aren't that significant. Because, you know, there is. There is a Multiple sources like IMDb Pro and Studio System, which are, you know, online software packages that will list somebody's credits and what they've done and who they are and you know, what their contact information is. If they're not on that, then they're probably not worth my time unless they are the next coming of a terrific artist. And, you know, part of what my filter is, if they're reaching out to me via phone or via email, is what their approach is. Are they understanding that my time is valuable? Are they trying something clever and interesting that I can probably tell that they're a good storyteller. That's the other thing. That's one of my filters. Are you a good storyteller? Because one thing that has been true in entertainment forever, good stories stand the test of time. If you are a good Storyteller that is imperative to being successful in this business. So if you're already telling me a great story but trying to reach out to me to get my attention, then I'm listening. If you have a bullshit story, which most people do, you know, storytelling is definitely a skill, then I'm most likely not going to spend time on what you're trying to reach out to me for.

Very good.

Right now, Hollywood is in all sorts of tumult between what Netflix and Amazon have done to the industry. As of right now, there's this big writer challenge that's going on. What do you see as the biggest dangers, both in Hollywood and in your business right now, that are also opportunities?

Well, you're calling me on basically business day two of the disagreement between the talent agency and the Writers Guild. So the Writers Guild has instructed all of their members, all the writers, to fire their agents because the agents are at the major agencies are refusing to sign a code of conduct. That is chaos because there is a bunch of, like, rules or regulations or kind of concepts that nobody has ever dealt with in the history of Hollywood. I certainly haven't dealt with it, which is, what do you do with writers right now who have deals to be made? The agencies are saying that only agencies can make deals, that managers like me and attorneys can't make deals. So there's a big kind of pause, but a pause that is very ambiguous on the business. It is a very chaotic week this week. I think that's kind of Paramount. But the business model has changed significantly in television and film in the last couple years. There are a lot more shows in television now than there have been in the past. And these shows are fewer episodes per season, oftentimes fewer seasons. So there's a lot more opportunity for artists to get jobs. There's fewer opportunities for artists to get crazy rich and have those kind of gigs that give you the fu money so that they can, you know, basically live comfortably for the rest of their lives. I kind of appreciate it that way. I don't think that artists need to be making hundreds of millions of dollars. I'd much rather see more artists working and having a living and creating great art than just people getting very, very, very, very rich. So that is exciting to me. But I think what's going on, what's going to change here and what's going to happen in the next couple weeks is people are going to start seeing how valuable the other people in their lives are. They're going to start seeing what is the value of agents. It could go to the point where agents are valuable, but only at a certain price point. Or they're going to say, oh my God, I never realized how much my agent did until they were no longer around and I was no longer allowed to call them or they were no longer allowed to to make calls or send emails on my behalf or do any type of work on my behalf. So we'll see how that shakes out in the next few weeks. But you know, there aren't many other industries where you see like the value of certain services truly being put to the test.

That makes sense. So I'm going to just see if I can interpret this through another lens, which is if the agencies are being challenged on whether or not they can be the only people making deals, isn't this an opportunity for a big disintermediation play? Kind of like what Uber did to taxis or Airbnb did to hotels. And is this a fight for power and control?

I think so. I think it's a fight for power and control. And one thing that's absolutely just like people need to get from point A to point B in cities or suburbs. There needs to be transportation. And there are people who are out there willing to do that and maybe aren't wanting to go through the make it a full time profession and get a license and you know, buy a medallion that's really expensive and put it on the hood of your car. There are going writers are going to need their deals done. Studios, networks are going to need to hire writers. This can only go on for so long and I think that the longer it kind of persists absent, I think the more people will start realizing that other people could do this job maybe not as well. You know, obviously it's like when you take an Uber and if you're in New York City, you take an Uber versus taking a taxi. Obviously you get in those taxis and some of the people are just unbelievable drivers. They know the routes absent of like using a ways or anything like that. They get a certain get out of jail free card with like cutting corners and cutting people off. People just know that like this guy's got a job to do. This Ubers are just like any other drivers. They can't expect to know everything that they that a taxi driver knows. So there's going to be a little bit of that. You know, when you're in New York, there's something, there's almost no substitute to stepping outside of a building, raising your hand, catching a cab. You know you're going to get there Faster than if you were to, like, go on an Uber, wait for someone to show up, you don't know who that driver is, what have you. So I think that agents are still in this business, the most qualified to do the job that they've been doing. But they may soon find out that other people will take it or that the principles that govern their agencies will change.

How about if you look at the lens right now of opportunity from your point of view. Obviously, as you've evolved and you've built your reputation in 21 years gaining opportunities, more of them come to you. But what are some opportunities you're super excited about given the fact that the industry's changed considerably, that you have your, you know, your heart set on, your passion set on now that you've got, you've earned what you've earned, what's out there and how do you think about opportunity?

This is the way I've been thinking about opportunity lately, is that, you know, my passion in this business is to use humor to express important points of view, important information. And in the past, when, you know, and I think the current landscape allows for that because there are more niches and there's value in the niches and between all the various buyers and, you know, pretty much every single month there's a new place popping up that doing new program, there's new shows out there. I think that there's going to be more niche targets of it. And I think, you know, previously, if you wanted to do a comedy, it would have to be on abc, cbs, Fox or NBC. And they had their rules of what works for their demographic. And they were trying to get. Get anywhere from 12 to 24 million viewers a night on a show. So then you had to work in a certain box. And now that that network model is now that it's a mere fraction of what it used to be. And people are going to anywhere from FX to Comedy Central to TBS to Netflix, Hulu, Amazon. Apple is going to come out with a new one, cbs, All Access, Disney is doing. There's going to be more program, so there's going to be more opportunity to do a niche programming. And I'm very excited about trying to marry all the things that I'm learning through the coaching that I'm, you know, involved in with, you know, with the various mastermind groups that I'm a part of and trying to get important views out there. And, you know, one of the things that I've noticed in my life is you look at someone like Jim Rohn or Anthony Robbins when they're firing on all cylinders, they're funny. Like they have a sense of humor. They're getting people laugh and see that they're human. And I think for us to, you know, and you know, one of the things I loved so much about Jordan Peele's movie Get out is that there's moments of laughter in that movie. So he was able to entertain on, you know, he has some pretty serious issues about race and microaggressions in that movie. And, you know, how we can almost never really feel safe no matter who we are with, if we look different from the person that we're hanging out with. And he did beautiful things with comedy in that movie. Used comedy as an ingredient. And I think that what excites me about where I'm going and where business is going is because there is an allowance for more niche programming that we could use comedy as an ingredient to get important material out there. I think that especially in this, you know, when, listen, the country's been divided as long as I've been alive, but it's like maybe near an all time high with our current president and people feeling passionate for him or passionate him. In Hollywood, everyone feels passionate against him, but no one really wants to be lectured to. And if you want to get your ideas out there, entertainment is one of the best ways to get ideas out there. And if you want to get people to lower their guard, comedy is a great way. Getting people to laugh and learn and see that we're more alike than we are different is really important, I think, because there's more outlets, there's more opportunities to tell stories. And additionally, in the last few years, there's been an enormous push for diversity and the Telling of Untold Stories. Where predominantly you looked at cbs, NBC, abc, it was mostly all white casts on their show. And now, like, it's almost highly frowned upon to have an all white cast. So what's cool is that there's more opportunities for more. You know, much of my client list is diverse. I didn't necessarily do that because I saw the, the wave coming. Oh, people of color are gonna have more opportunity. I didn't do it that way. I did it because I was really attracted to their stories. And I think they were telling stories that weren't being told because people. Networks weren't buying stories about Asian Americans about a lot of the, you know, kind of specific African American issues or Latinos or what have you. And now they are. And women's issues as well. I think it's. We're in a time where people want to hear great stories no matter what it looks like, and because the referees now are allowing for more diversity, I think we're in a really great time. Despite the fact that maybe I would never make $100 million.

Here's another question I think is important to understand how you think. And that is if you're going to tell me a story right now or tell us a story of the worst thing you've had to deal with that just about either sunk your career or made you want to quit, what was it? And then how did you solve that problem? How'd you turn it around?

I think in terms of bad things that have happened to me and where I was at my lowest point, it's typically when I've done a lot for somebody, be it a client or a colleague or somebody else in the business and then they want to get rid of me or fire me or end the relationship.

And it's there a specific story you can tell or are you purposely avoiding a. I'm not going to tell any.

Specific stories because these are relationships like in Hollywood things. And people who are working together one day and are not the next are back working together soon, I think. What? But it happens to everybody from. From any artist who has a canceled show or loses the job or doesn't get something they want. It's when there's a long standing relationship that gets ended by something and it hurts because we're human beings and sometimes it's challenging to recover. But the way that I've been getting over it lately, and I've been getting over it very well, is I've come to learn that my biggest successes have come on the heels of a failure. And what a failure did was allowed me to learn quite a bit. But more importantly, I know that I failed previously a bunch of times. And almost immediately after the failure, I had a big win. And so I'm looking at failures now as the ladder to my next big win. And then additionally, when someone who I spend a lot of time with and work very hard leaves my life or leaves my daily duties, I all of a sudden have free headspace. So I have free time. And that free time I will say, okay, for the first time in six months or a year or two years on this big rise of this client, I finally have some free time. What am I going to do with that free time? And it's going to be something big. And one of the things that I've noticed about my career and I've just noticed it Recently. So I say that I was using the analogy of artists like a really fast car. So a really fast car can do 160 miles an hour.

And they accelerate really fast. So there are people in this business that are really good with artists going from 0 to 30, like the beginning of their career. They can help them out, they can get them some opportunities, and then once they kind of break a little bit, then they aren't really a value anymore. And there's people that can go from 30 to 60 that are really good. And there are people that go from 0 to 60. Where I've really realized that I'm great is from 60 to 100, where you already have a bunch of speed going and then you hit that gas. You already have a bit of a platform. I can get you from a platform. A platform is 60 all the way up to 100. I could probably even start at 30. Sometimes once you hit 100, that 100 to 160, those are some of the most ambitious people in the business. Like, I would love to have 20 clients who are driving 90 miles an hour and I'm in their life and we're having a great time. Once you hit 100, once you become your Beyonce, before she got really big, but she was still pretty big, or, you know, your Jennifer Lopez before she got huge, that 100 to 160 is when, that's when the wolves come out. That's when you go from, you know, you go from being somebody who is famous to being a superstar. And everyone wants a piece of the superstar. So if you're in somebody's life and they become a superstar, however, unless you're that person's spouse or you're at that person's side 24 7, your time with that person will be reduced. And I know that, you know, Mike, you've obviously worked with some pretty high level people in your past and you know that once they reach superstar status, your relationship changes usually. So they're going to start listening to a lot of people. There are going to be a lot of people who are above them, who are finally noticing them for the first time. And it can be very intoxicating for a big star to be then approached by someone who they've looked up to for 15 years. And if that person who they've looked up for 15 years gives them advice, they're probably going to listen to it. And it may be the exact opposite of what I would tell them to do. So the relationship changes and it becomes a different job at 100 to 160. And one of the things that I've learned is that I'm not in love with that job from 100 to 160. I love the job from 60 to 100 or even 30 to 100. And if I just identify myself as being super cool with doing that for people, I'll still have a terrific career. I will be my authentic self, and I won't have to change what I do or spend a lot of time what we call playing defense. Just to make sure that those people who you help build are still in your life on a daily basis, because it still. It may be outside of your superpower. It's outside of my superpower to play defense on a superstar. It's in my superpower to turn them from a good artist into a superstar. And that's what I'm gonna live for the rest of my career, I believe. Or the rest of my life.

Beautiful.

So I'm gonna ask you one more question, and that is this. If you're gonna think back at the craziest, kookiest, funniest thing that comes to mind that's happened, and if you can think of a particular artist, someone you've represented or still do, and I can see you're smiling right now. What is it?

All right, I'll tell it. It is inappropriate, so I'll couch it in a way. So I represent an unbelievably funny comedian who's had a challenging life. And this person is so talented, such a great storyteller. And I got a call one day from this person's significant other. And this is. I want to say, five years ago, this is when, you know, kind of like at the dawn of Twitter, and the two of them were in a fight, and they were fighting over Twitter. These are two people who are. They're dating each other, and they're fighting each other over Twitter. So they're having a very public fight. And it was right around Halloween, and the significant other, not the comedian, the significant other, just got a gig to perform.

The person was a model and got a gig to perform as a dancer at a private party in San Francisco. The couple was living in Los Angeles, and the person who offered the model the gig sent a private plane. So I don't know if you've ever flown private. Not many people have really ever get the chance to fly private.

It's fun, it's a blast, and it's meaningful. Obviously gets your attention.

Yes. And the client of mine had never flown private, so the client's significant other gets an invite to fly private, and the significant other takes the gig. So my client, you know, the model posts on Twitter that she will be at this party dancing in San Francisco, Come see me live dance. And my client made a comment about that, and then she made a comment back at him and went back and forth a bunch of times. It got out of control, I'll put it that way. It got out of control to the point where not only did the significant other call me, but her attorney called me and said, could you have your client take down what was just posted? And it was a. The significant other. The model questioned the manhood of my client, and my client posted a photo of proof to.

Combat that statement. And it was wildly, wildly inappropriate. And certainly, I don't know what the rules were at Twitter, but they definitely violated the current rules of Twitter. And I think, as before, people were taking a lot of screenshots and what have you, but it was wildly inappropriate. And then I called my client, and by the time I reached him, he'd already taken it down. But I'm like, wow, that happened. And social media is going to be dangerous. It's one of the things that you people in general, but artists in particular, immediate gratification, super important. Especially when you're somebody who is continuously getting rejected. You want to fight rejection with some type of, like, immediate gratification. And social media does that. I have a client who is very, very funny comedian, very successful artist who likes to mix it up online, as he puts it, and recently got into Jiu Jitsu. And his wife had kindly asked him to please stop talking about Jiu Jitsu, because he talks about Jiu Jitsu all the time. And I asked him, like, what is it? Do you like Jiu Jitsu? He's like, I love it. And ever since I started doing it, I no longer feel the need to mix it up online. And that's been better for me. So it is a bit of picking your poison and picking up your instant gratification. And, you know, I know anybody who's part of an addiction support group or what have you, or is close to somebody with addiction, they know how intoxicating instant gratification can be, and anything you can do to combat that would be great.

It's a good story. Thanks for that. For anyone who wants to learn more about you, Joel, follow you. Where should they go and how would they learn more?

That is a great question. So much of what I do is I represent artists, and part of, you know, my job is to allow them to be the stars. And I'm on social media sparingly. I really. I have a private Instagram account where I post pictures of my kids. And I, you know, I do try to make it more about my clients than about me. So I'm not really on social media. And, you know, it's interesting. We talk about, you know, when I go to an event like Genius Network or I talk to people in Strategic Coach, there is a lot of people trying to grow their client list, grow their sales base, and I'm not looking to do that. What I'm really looking to do is, you know, it's interesting is that, you know, sometimes if you are selling cars in the state of Ohio, then you want anybody who's in the market for a car to come and buy your store and buy a car from you. I am looking for a very particular artist who is not only really talented, but also is really strong collaboration, wants my services, is referable, has a growth mindset, has really, really good skills, and has a good network of people that they could collaborate with. And I only want to have a certain number of it. So I'm not really looking to have somebody reach out to me and say, hey, would you. Can I have your services? So, yeah, I'm not really on social media, but you can watch the Last OG on tbs, which I produce. And I have a movie that doesn't have a title yet with Rose Byrne and Tiffany Haddish coming out in January from Paramount. You can go watch that. You can support any of the clients who I mentioned. That's how you can follow me.

Great. I think the answer is I will put in the show notes links to your clients and their most current work so you can do what you do, which is you build their careers and turn them into the 60 to 100 superstars that they're meant to be. Fair enough.

Yes. Thanks so much.

All right, well, you've been absolutely terrific. I really appreciate it, Joel. And again, for listeners, make sure you just comment. Share this episode. Tell Joel in the comments how much you love him and follow his clients. But thanks for another great, great episode. And tune in for the next one where Dan and I are actually going to talk about how Joel thinks. Thanks a lot.