and as it turns out for me at least it’s
a lot simpler than I thought but right
from the beginning right from my roots
the answer would be seated my mom and
her family immigrated from Egypt in 1970
my grandfather intent on moving to Los
Angeles stopped in Racine Wisconsin to
visit his brother and never left my
father’s family survived the Holocaust
and had my father in Europe he came over
on the boat to America and travelled
around the country for a little while
until he saved up enough money and
purchased a small apartment building in
Milwaukee Wisconsin where they lived the
rest of their lives and my parents met
working at American Motors in Kenosha
Wisconsin where I was born and raised a
male Muslim American first-generation
to be honest most of my childhood
outside of the fact that my parents got
divorced when I was 2 was pretty much
like Pleasantville I would go out and
play baseball in the summer and the
streets with the neighborhood kids until
my parents would call me in for dinner I
was in the Boy Scouts my whole family
lived within walking distance and I
honestly believed it said this was the
path my life was going to take for the
rest of my life it didn’t really start
shifting until I was about 11 years old
my my mom and stepdad got divorced and
just under two years after that perhaps
one of the most profound events occurred
in my life that brought me right back to
that question who are you I was sitting
in class watching the horrible events
unravel on TV the morning of September
11th I couldn’t even understand what I
was seeing and as I was sitting there I
heard a voice from the girl sat behind
me that I had known for years say thanks
thanks a lot
That’s not me that’s not even close to
Who I am and I’d soon realized that I’d
spend a lot of time hearing about who
the world and society thought I was as a
Muslim that had no bearing in my own
reality now as many of us do we start
looking for ways to express ourselves
and I turned to the only obvious choice
music I picked up a couple of
instruments that started playing and
fell in love in fact that cemented a
dream in my head at that time that I was
now going to be the next big
singer-songwriter and I spent the rest
of my adolescence pretty much spending
all my time writing music with a very
close friend of mine named Tim and I
held onto that dream very tightly in
fact right up through college
and of course at that point I’ll be
honest with you I sort of looked at
colleges this thing that was just going
to keep me from getting out to Los
Angeles to get some job to pay the bills
and start pursuing my real dream busking
on the streets waiting to inevitably get
discovered my mom ever is supportive as
a mom could be said to me honey that is
a great dream you should pursue that
also maybe just get like a college
degree it seems useful you know just in
case it doesn’t work out and I
begrudgingly enrolled in college and I
ended up at Columbia College in Chicago
where I lived for six years and to be
quite honest my theory was I should at
least get a degree in something that I
find useful for my career path in this
music industry so I started studying
music engineering and production I
thought this way I could produce my own
albums I walked into class one day and
my professor is standing there turns and
looks at the entire class and says you
will never get a job in this industry we
were moving from analog to digital but
it stopped because vinyl was cool again
and all the people who were supposed to
retire aren’t so it’s gonna be another
ten to fifteen years before anything
opens up for you okay well this is
supposed to be my safety plan so I
should probably figure out something
else to do so I tried a couple of things
out but I couldn’t find anything that I
could do that would get me out in the
same
time because again in my head this is
just holding me back from the busking so
what I ended up doing was walking into
my advisors office and I said you know
what these are the tokens I’ve won so
far what prizes do you give out and he
said if you switch a couple of classes
serendipitously he says you can get a
degree in advertising production well I
will never use that but if it gets me
out in time I’m in and so I did I got my
degree and almost immediately after
getting my degree I packed my car up and
drove across the country to Los Angeles
so I could start with the bus game of
course and my head I’d already had an
internship in Chicago so I could
certainly get hired for an entry-level
job right wrong they will not hire you
at least in Los Angeles for an
entry-level job until you have
experience well what do you do with that
if you’re me you take on five
internships at the same time so no one
could ever say to you again that you
don’t have experience and as I started
rolling through those internship
experiences I finally got a phone call
from a post-production house in Santa
Monica and they said hey listen we’ve
got an internship opportunity for you
it’s three months long if everything
goes well though it’ll turn into a
paying gig
I was reeled finally I could just get
some money in the door and then go to
the busking except that I had one other
conversation happening with my cousin
who introduced me to someone that he’d
recently worked for named Ben singer Ben
was a manager for an up-and-coming
artists and that seemed a little bit
closer to my dream and who I saw myself
being then the post house so after
emailing Ben to see if there might be an
opportunity there for some work
Ben emailed me back and said I’m looking
for an office manager why don’t you
email me on Monday
great no problem I waited until Monday I
followed up he sent me an email back and
said thanks for following up why don’t
you come in on Thursday and you could
start I’m sorry did this guy just hire
me without ever meeting me I was
freaking out I literally jumped off of
the couch I know people say it but like
I jumped off of the couch and I ran over
to my cousin with my email I was like
this is how I’m reading it are you
reading it the way cuz I’m reading it
this way and I don’t know if he’s saying
what I think he’s saying this is what I
think he’s saying and my cousin’s like
yeah I think that’s what I’m reading too
I freaked I called the post-production
house I apologized I’m sorry I can’t
take the position if it could be quite
frank I’ve got a paying gig and what I’m
not telling you is also this seems a
little bit closer to who I really am so
I went in on Thursday to meet with Ben I
sat down and Ben looks at me and says so
the internship is on Tuesdays and
Thursdays so I didn’t want to let on I
waited a moment and calmly said hey what
happened with that office manager thing
and he said oh yeah Stacy I hired her
she’s fantastic and in that moment I
realized what he meant when he sent the
email which would have made more sense
than hiring someone you’d never meant to
run your office was I’m in the middle of
trying to hire an office manager so I
really have time to talk about this
internship so let’s talk about that on
Monday now having absolutely nothing to
lose and still seeing the opportunity to
be in a field that was much closer to
where I saw myself I took the
opportunity taking that position would
change everything every day I’d walk in
and Ben would say to me hey do you know
how to edit videos yeah do you know how
to design concert posters for sure can
you make VFX why not can you design
concert tickets you bet I didn’t know
how to do any of it
but as soon as he would ask I would bury
myself into a dark little room right hop
online I’d look up some tutorials and
some columns and read some things and I
teach myself sort of autodidactic Lee
how to do it I’m gonna get it done and
I’d walk back I’m like Garrity’s and it
was great and Ben said to me at the end
of the internship you are the best
intern I’ve ever worked with and I’d
love to keep you here but I can’t afford
to
so he said I have this artist this
up-and-coming artist who’s getting ready
to go out on tour named Andy Grammer do
you want to be his tour manager let me
be very very clear I had no business
being anybody’s tour manager so I
immediately turn around said yes and we
went out on the road now at the time and
he was still up and coming he was
opening for other artists so I had to
wear a few more hats than just one and
one of those hats was creating content
and as I started to do that I kind of
started to really fall in love with it
of course as we would tour the the
country we would come back and
inevitably wind up near Los Angeles
where we had lived and his family and
friends and some of his roommates would
also reach out and ask to get on the
list so that they could come see their
friend play unbeknownst to me this is
actually also the first time I would
meet my future business partner so in
hello Wow okay so after three tours and
II was getting ready to headline his
first tour and we all knew that it was
about time that they hired a tour
manager who could meet the demands of a
headlining tour and I also at the same
time recognized that I had found this
new passion and I decided to make a
career shift I decided to start focusing
on creating content see I had recognized
the power of condon to connect with an
audience and help change a narrative in
fact I’d grown up observing one of the
most powerful narratives being crafted
and sold through the media I grew up
hearing a narrative that I hated that
every time you hear the word Muslim the
and I thought if I could just get out
there and somehow create content that
was inherently good maybe I could start
shifting some of this conversation maybe
the world would start seeing me the way
that I saw myself so I started with my
cousin who had just been laid off we
decided to start a little production
company and of course I told Ben and
everybody that I knew what we were doing
and Ben called and said I’ve got a
little show that Andy’s doing at a
recording studio is doing a live album
from it do you want to come and film it
of course we said yes we had no
resources we had $500 but everything
somehow came together and it was
beautiful we had an amazing experience
and Ben called again we need signed a
new artist and said I’ve got another
artist and I need an electronic press
kit for you want to do it of course we
said yes but this time the difference
was for some strange reason this had
never happened before
they needed a DVD to screen at some
event that they were doing so I got
everything ready and I called Ben’s
managing partner Josh and I said hey man
the DVD is all ready to go so Josh said
great I just so happened to be on your
side of town and I also happen to be
with the director of the music video
Justin do you mind if we come by he’s
got his DVD he needs to test it as well
I said yeah of course and as they came
into the door so too does Justin Baldoni
who was the director of the music video
Andy’s roommate that I had met
and as I saw Justin I said to him I had
making this career change this is what
I’m doing my life I really want to make
content that can change the world and he
said that’s what I’m doing too so we
started testing the waters in fact we
started by doing some reshoots for a PSA
music video for the Union rescue mission
in downtown Skid Row and what would
happen next would lead me right here to
this stage in fact what we started doing
was picking up shots for another series
that was a micro documentary series
profiling those experiencing
homelessness so that we could share
their stories in hopes that people would
stop walking past them as if they
weren’t human and we had a great time
doing it putting it together and he
called me and said am just starting this
series called my last days do you want
to do it together
it’s a doc series about living told from
the perspective of people who are dying
so we did it together we partnered with
our friends at SoulPancake
and we did seven episodes and the last
episode was about a young kid named Zach
Sobiech what happened next we could
never have anticipated over 15 million
people watched just Zak’s episode it
crashed upworthy site and those views
turned into Sachs song clouds going
absolutely viral and because zach at 17
was wise enough to attach the royalties
of his music to an osteosarcoma research
fund it raised over a million dollars in
research for osteosarcoma and that
actually just towards the end of last
year turned into raising money for a new
drug trial that will hopefully stop
osteosarcoma
you know as I was reading through some
of the comments on these videos to see
what people were saying there was one
that I mentioned often that hit me this
young guy was watching and said today I
was gonna commit suicide but I watched
this and I now understand the value of
my own life and I will no longer take it
for granted
we were stunned and I knew I had found
my life’s purpose in fact that didn’t
really have anything to do with
producing necessarily what it did have
to do with was recognizing that I was
here to use the talents that I was
giving of storytelling to be of service
to others
we started our production company then
Wayfarer and ever since we’ve been
creating what we lovingly call
disruptive inspiration we have our
series man enough that just started last
year which is all about creating a
conversation around a dinner table
amongst men to explore with a mythical
masculine identity has been and how to
uncover the truth of what it really
means to be a man today that has been
getting letters back in droves from men
who are saying this has changed my
relationships it’s getting letters back
from women who are saying that it has
helped the men that they love heal a lot
of their deep wounds then we started a
series called project upgrade to help
empower young women pursue a viable
career opportunity through stem and
understand that even though they were
underrepresented now perhaps tomorrow
they could be more well represented
where they deserve to be
and my last days has turned into an
annual television network special on the
CW network which by the way will be
premiering this year May 25th on CW so
watch out for it and just last year we
sold we partnered with some friends of
ours from Canada and we sold a show to
CBS called little mosque on the Prairie
a show that will hopefully help change
the narrative of how Muslim Americans
are represented in media and when I look
back on all of this when I look back at
how I got here a male Muslim American
with polish Ukrainian roots Egyptian
this and that and all of the other it
starts to become really clear that Who I
am is exactly who I was at my roots
roots turn into trees and trees give off
oxygen they provide shade they give us
building materials or food and they do
it from a place of pure love meaning
they don’t give to be given to they give
and just like those roots we as humans
were meant to be of service to one
another to lift each other up and to
love each other not because we are
getting something in return but because
we were meant to be of service
to one another because it’s who we are at our roots thank you
a lot simpler than I thought but right
from the beginning right from my roots
the answer would be seated my mom and
her family immigrated from Egypt in 1970
my grandfather intent on moving to Los
Angeles stopped in Racine Wisconsin to
visit his brother and never left my
father’s family survived the Holocaust
and had my father in Europe he came over
on the boat to America and travelled
around the country for a little while
until he saved up enough money and
purchased a small apartment building in
Milwaukee Wisconsin where they lived the
rest of their lives and my parents met
working at American Motors in Kenosha
Wisconsin where I was born and raised a
male Muslim American first-generation
to be honest most of my childhood
outside of the fact that my parents got
divorced when I was 2 was pretty much
like Pleasantville I would go out and
play baseball in the summer and the
streets with the neighborhood kids until
my parents would call me in for dinner I
was in the Boy Scouts my whole family
lived within walking distance and I
honestly believed it said this was the
path my life was going to take for the
rest of my life it didn’t really start
shifting until I was about 11 years old
my my mom and stepdad got divorced and
just under two years after that perhaps
one of the most profound events occurred
in my life that brought me right back to
that question who are you I was sitting
in class watching the horrible events
unravel on TV the morning of September
11th I couldn’t even understand what I
was seeing and as I was sitting there I
heard a voice from the girl sat behind
me that I had known for years say thanks
thanks a lot
That’s not me that’s not even close to
Who I am and I’d soon realized that I’d
spend a lot of time hearing about who
the world and society thought I was as a
Muslim that had no bearing in my own
reality now as many of us do we start
looking for ways to express ourselves
and I turned to the only obvious choice
music I picked up a couple of
instruments that started playing and
fell in love in fact that cemented a
dream in my head at that time that I was
now going to be the next big
singer-songwriter and I spent the rest
of my adolescence pretty much spending
all my time writing music with a very
close friend of mine named Tim and I
held onto that dream very tightly in
fact right up through college
and of course at that point I’ll be
honest with you I sort of looked at
colleges this thing that was just going
to keep me from getting out to Los
Angeles to get some job to pay the bills
and start pursuing my real dream busking
on the streets waiting to inevitably get
discovered my mom ever is supportive as
a mom could be said to me honey that is
a great dream you should pursue that
also maybe just get like a college
degree it seems useful you know just in
case it doesn’t work out and I
begrudgingly enrolled in college and I
ended up at Columbia College in Chicago
where I lived for six years and to be
quite honest my theory was I should at
least get a degree in something that I
find useful for my career path in this
music industry so I started studying
music engineering and production I
thought this way I could produce my own
albums I walked into class one day and
my professor is standing there turns and
looks at the entire class and says you
will never get a job in this industry we
were moving from analog to digital but
it stopped because vinyl was cool again
and all the people who were supposed to
retire aren’t so it’s gonna be another
ten to fifteen years before anything
opens up for you okay well this is
supposed to be my safety plan so I
should probably figure out something
else to do so I tried a couple of things
out but I couldn’t find anything that I
could do that would get me out in the
same
time because again in my head this is
just holding me back from the busking so
what I ended up doing was walking into
my advisors office and I said you know
what these are the tokens I’ve won so
far what prizes do you give out and he
said if you switch a couple of classes
serendipitously he says you can get a
degree in advertising production well I
will never use that but if it gets me
out in time I’m in and so I did I got my
degree and almost immediately after
getting my degree I packed my car up and
drove across the country to Los Angeles
so I could start with the bus game of
course and my head I’d already had an
internship in Chicago so I could
certainly get hired for an entry-level
job right wrong they will not hire you
at least in Los Angeles for an
entry-level job until you have
experience well what do you do with that
if you’re me you take on five
internships at the same time so no one
could ever say to you again that you
don’t have experience and as I started
rolling through those internship
experiences I finally got a phone call
from a post-production house in Santa
Monica and they said hey listen we’ve
got an internship opportunity for you
it’s three months long if everything
goes well though it’ll turn into a
paying gig
I was reeled finally I could just get
some money in the door and then go to
the busking except that I had one other
conversation happening with my cousin
who introduced me to someone that he’d
recently worked for named Ben singer Ben
was a manager for an up-and-coming
artists and that seemed a little bit
closer to my dream and who I saw myself
being then the post house so after
emailing Ben to see if there might be an
opportunity there for some work
Ben emailed me back and said I’m looking
for an office manager why don’t you
email me on Monday
great no problem I waited until Monday I
followed up he sent me an email back and
said thanks for following up why don’t
you come in on Thursday and you could
start I’m sorry did this guy just hire
me without ever meeting me I was
freaking out I literally jumped off of
the couch I know people say it but like
I jumped off of the couch and I ran over
to my cousin with my email I was like
this is how I’m reading it are you
reading it the way cuz I’m reading it
this way and I don’t know if he’s saying
what I think he’s saying this is what I
think he’s saying and my cousin’s like
yeah I think that’s what I’m reading too
I freaked I called the post-production
house I apologized I’m sorry I can’t
take the position if it could be quite
frank I’ve got a paying gig and what I’m
not telling you is also this seems a
little bit closer to who I really am so
I went in on Thursday to meet with Ben I
sat down and Ben looks at me and says so
the internship is on Tuesdays and
Thursdays so I didn’t want to let on I
waited a moment and calmly said hey what
happened with that office manager thing
and he said oh yeah Stacy I hired her
she’s fantastic and in that moment I
realized what he meant when he sent the
email which would have made more sense
than hiring someone you’d never meant to
run your office was I’m in the middle of
trying to hire an office manager so I
really have time to talk about this
internship so let’s talk about that on
Monday now having absolutely nothing to
lose and still seeing the opportunity to
be in a field that was much closer to
where I saw myself I took the
opportunity taking that position would
change everything every day I’d walk in
and Ben would say to me hey do you know
how to edit videos yeah do you know how
to design concert posters for sure can
you make VFX why not can you design
concert tickets you bet I didn’t know
how to do any of it
but as soon as he would ask I would bury
myself into a dark little room right hop
online I’d look up some tutorials and
some columns and read some things and I
teach myself sort of autodidactic Lee
how to do it I’m gonna get it done and
I’d walk back I’m like Garrity’s and it
was great and Ben said to me at the end
of the internship you are the best
intern I’ve ever worked with and I’d
love to keep you here but I can’t afford
to
so he said I have this artist this
up-and-coming artist who’s getting ready
to go out on tour named Andy Grammer do
you want to be his tour manager let me
be very very clear I had no business
being anybody’s tour manager so I
immediately turn around said yes and we
went out on the road now at the time and
he was still up and coming he was
opening for other artists so I had to
wear a few more hats than just one and
one of those hats was creating content
and as I started to do that I kind of
started to really fall in love with it
of course as we would tour the the
country we would come back and
inevitably wind up near Los Angeles
where we had lived and his family and
friends and some of his roommates would
also reach out and ask to get on the
list so that they could come see their
friend play unbeknownst to me this is
actually also the first time I would
meet my future business partner so in
hello Wow okay so after three tours and
II was getting ready to headline his
first tour and we all knew that it was
about time that they hired a tour
manager who could meet the demands of a
headlining tour and I also at the same
time recognized that I had found this
new passion and I decided to make a
career shift I decided to start focusing
on creating content see I had recognized
the power of condon to connect with an
audience and help change a narrative in
fact I’d grown up observing one of the
most powerful narratives being crafted
and sold through the media I grew up
hearing a narrative that I hated that
every time you hear the word Muslim the
and I thought if I could just get out
there and somehow create content that
was inherently good maybe I could start
shifting some of this conversation maybe
the world would start seeing me the way
that I saw myself so I started with my
cousin who had just been laid off we
decided to start a little production
company and of course I told Ben and
everybody that I knew what we were doing
and Ben called and said I’ve got a
little show that Andy’s doing at a
recording studio is doing a live album
from it do you want to come and film it
of course we said yes we had no
resources we had $500 but everything
somehow came together and it was
beautiful we had an amazing experience
and Ben called again we need signed a
new artist and said I’ve got another
artist and I need an electronic press
kit for you want to do it of course we
said yes but this time the difference
was for some strange reason this had
never happened before
they needed a DVD to screen at some
event that they were doing so I got
everything ready and I called Ben’s
managing partner Josh and I said hey man
the DVD is all ready to go so Josh said
great I just so happened to be on your
side of town and I also happen to be
with the director of the music video
Justin do you mind if we come by he’s
got his DVD he needs to test it as well
I said yeah of course and as they came
into the door so too does Justin Baldoni
who was the director of the music video
Andy’s roommate that I had met
and as I saw Justin I said to him I had
making this career change this is what
I’m doing my life I really want to make
content that can change the world and he
said that’s what I’m doing too so we
started testing the waters in fact we
started by doing some reshoots for a PSA
music video for the Union rescue mission
in downtown Skid Row and what would
happen next would lead me right here to
this stage in fact what we started doing
was picking up shots for another series
that was a micro documentary series
profiling those experiencing
homelessness so that we could share
their stories in hopes that people would
stop walking past them as if they
weren’t human and we had a great time
doing it putting it together and he
called me and said am just starting this
series called my last days do you want
to do it together
it’s a doc series about living told from
the perspective of people who are dying
so we did it together we partnered with
our friends at SoulPancake
and we did seven episodes and the last
episode was about a young kid named Zach
Sobiech what happened next we could
never have anticipated over 15 million
people watched just Zak’s episode it
crashed upworthy site and those views
turned into Sachs song clouds going
absolutely viral and because zach at 17
was wise enough to attach the royalties
of his music to an osteosarcoma research
fund it raised over a million dollars in
research for osteosarcoma and that
actually just towards the end of last
year turned into raising money for a new
drug trial that will hopefully stop
osteosarcoma
you know as I was reading through some
of the comments on these videos to see
what people were saying there was one
that I mentioned often that hit me this
young guy was watching and said today I
was gonna commit suicide but I watched
this and I now understand the value of
my own life and I will no longer take it
for granted
we were stunned and I knew I had found
my life’s purpose in fact that didn’t
really have anything to do with
producing necessarily what it did have
to do with was recognizing that I was
here to use the talents that I was
giving of storytelling to be of service
to others
we started our production company then
Wayfarer and ever since we’ve been
creating what we lovingly call
disruptive inspiration we have our
series man enough that just started last
year which is all about creating a
conversation around a dinner table
amongst men to explore with a mythical
masculine identity has been and how to
uncover the truth of what it really
means to be a man today that has been
getting letters back in droves from men
who are saying this has changed my
relationships it’s getting letters back
from women who are saying that it has
helped the men that they love heal a lot
of their deep wounds then we started a
series called project upgrade to help
empower young women pursue a viable
career opportunity through stem and
understand that even though they were
underrepresented now perhaps tomorrow
they could be more well represented
where they deserve to be
and my last days has turned into an
annual television network special on the
CW network which by the way will be
premiering this year May 25th on CW so
watch out for it and just last year we
sold we partnered with some friends of
ours from Canada and we sold a show to
CBS called little mosque on the Prairie
a show that will hopefully help change
the narrative of how Muslim Americans
are represented in media and when I look
back on all of this when I look back at
how I got here a male Muslim American
with polish Ukrainian roots Egyptian
this and that and all of the other it
starts to become really clear that Who I
am is exactly who I was at my roots
roots turn into trees and trees give off
oxygen they provide shade they give us
building materials or food and they do
it from a place of pure love meaning
they don’t give to be given to they give
and just like those roots we as humans
were meant to be of service to one
another to lift each other up and to
love each other not because we are
getting something in return but because
we were meant to be of service
to one another because it’s who we are at our roots thank you
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