share my life pivot with you back in
1993
when I was 29 years old I quit my job as
a crime busting federal prosecutor in
New York City packed my bags and I moved
3,000 miles away to sunny Los Angeles
California to try to make it as a
Hollywood talent agent I basically
traded in my Justice Department badge to
try to become a real life Ari Gold and
enact my own real life entourage that
was my life pivot and I think it’s it’s
instructive to think about the word
pivot in connection with what I did with
my life and when you think about pivot
and basketball somebody plants their
front foot and turns and changes
direction and gives themselves a chance
to change the entire complexion of a
game if you think about pivot and
business startups use the word pivot to
talk about a change in direction or a
change in focus for their business they
may have originally been focused on one
concept and based on what they learn
change direction to focus on something
else Instagram Twitter some of the
biggest successes in business succeeded
after pivoting now my pivot may not have
led to success on a scale of Twitter or
Instagram but it certainly led to a
fulfilling life for me and I thought it
would be instructive to share with you
my story and some of the lessons that I
learned along the way from the time I
was a kid I always thought I wanted to
be a lawyer and and to me law seemed
glamorous fancy suits beautiful offices
advising people on important matters
it was glamorous to me it was romantic
to me my grandfather had been a lawyer I
looked up to him that was a path I
wanted to take and I also found that
when people asked me what I wanted to be
when I grew up and I told them I wanted
to be a lawyer that was met with
acceptance and approval and and that who
doesn’t want to be accepted and who
doesn’t want the approval and we’re all
raised to get the approval of our
parents and our teachers school
administrators code
his bosses we’re all taught to sort of
seek approval of others and so it was a
very sort of natural extension of my own
interests and my own sense of myself at
that time to pursue that path so I did
well in high school and I got into a
good college and when I got to college I
took the liberal arts equivalent of
pre-law English classes history classes
philosophy classes political science
classes I did well took the LSAT I
studied hard for it I nearly got a
perfect score on the exam had great
grades was Phi Beta Kappa had that high
score on the LSAT I applied to all the
top law schools I got into every single
one of them Harvard Yale Stanford I went
up going to Harvard Law School again
right on my path everybody thought they
knew me and knew what I was about and
knew where I was headed and I and I
thought so too and I got to law school
and I was interested in law enforcement
and trials and I did a trial advocacy
workshop that I enjoyed and I I did an
internship in the Cambridge DA’s office
which was a lot of fun and I decided I
wanted to be a prosecutor when I got out
of law school and so I did a little bit
of research and found out that the way
to do that was to clerk for a federal
judge if you could and then get some
litigation experience potentially and
then apply to one of the top prosecutors
offices and hopefully get a job i short
cutted that a little bit i clerked for a
federal judge i applied out of my
clerkship to the United States
Attorney’s Office in the Southern
District of New York which is the
federal prosecutors office in Manhattan
and I was lucky enough to be accepted
and 24 years old right out of my
clerkship I was the youngest person they
accepted in the office was very unusual
to accept somebody who didn’t have law
firm experience for those of you that
aren’t familiar with it the United
States Attorney’s Office in the Southern
District of New York is the premier law
enforcement organization in the country
it is the elite of the elite four
prosecutors it’s the most prestigious
job you can get in law enforcement as a
lawyer and so I was extremely proud to
get that job and I really really enjoyed
that job in many respects except for the
law part got into that job love meeting
the FBI agents and the DEA agents and
looking over evidence
interrogating you know criminals and and
giving opening statements to juries but
when it came to doing the real meat and
potatoes of the law sitting in a law
library late at night researching cases
writing memoranda to reply to Fourth
Amendment
you know challenges from defense lawyers
all the sort of real legal stuff my eyes
glaze over didn’t love legal writing
didn’t love legal research didn’t love
what really was required to be a
terrific lawyer and so I really started
to think after several years in the job
even though it was prestigious even
though when I went to cocktail parties
and people said what do you do for a
living and I said I’m a federal
prosecutor and people would be like wow
and it feels great to have the wow
factor in your job you know again it’s a
point of pride in it and it makes you
feel accepted and approved and and it
gives you a certain status and so I was
feeding off of that and maybe feeding
off with getting the G ride on the
weekends which was the government car
that you could take all around the city
and never get parking tickets a few
perks of the job the badge you get into
any nightclub you wanted you know they
put you right to the front of the line I
mean I wasn’t my mid-20s I still you
know had certain kid-like tendencies I
liked to go out at night here and there
tear it up but um but I can admit that
now I think the statute of limitations
is long long pass but because I wasn’t
really satisfied with a key aspect of my
job and also because I knew that the
next stage for me in my career was
supposed to be to go to one of these big
private law firms make a bunch of money
maybe defend criminals advise
corporations and put to use all of these
legal skills that supposedly I had
developed at the US Attorney’s Office
because I didn’t want to do that and
actually didn’t think I was very good at
that and I was surrounded by people by
the way who were excellent at it you
know I was honest enough with myself in
analyzing and assessing my skills and my
capacity to see that there were other
people that were better at this than I
was and if I would get into you know the
law business with them after the US
Attorney’s Office they were going to eat
my lunch because these are these are
folks that like sitting in a law library
at 2:00 in the morning reading some case
from the Seventh Circuit Court of
Appeals it might apply to a case in the
Second Circuit Court of Appeals that
might allow them to get some evidence
into a trial that they otherwise
wouldn’t get they lived and breathed to
solve that puzzle at the same time that
I was starting to take a nap you know so
so it led me to start to reflect on what
else I might do it opened my mind to a
whole range of possibilities one of the
things that I thought about was the fact
that I’d always loved watching TV going
to the movies
reading books listening to music playing
and watching sports which started my
mind thinking about whether there was
something possible for me in the
entertainment business and so I started
to reach out to my own network of
friends and colleagues I knew the son of
one movie producer in New York I had a
buddy from college who was a writer out
in Hollywood writing screenplays and TV
shows so I reached out to some of these
contacts for advice and my friend from
college introduced me to his agent I
took a week’s vacation I flew out to LA
stayed on my buddy’s couch and and met
with his agent and when his agent
described what he did it was like a
light bulb went off in my head and it
just felt like a great fit for me he
talked about spotting talent reading
scripts putting projects together
advising clients on how to navigate
their careers through Hollywood you know
he talked about how entrepreneurial it
was how much freedom he had in making
decisions all the surprises that
happened along the way how creative it
was how it was also very much a business
job because he also made the deals for
his clients once his clients got the
jobs and and all of that to me sounded
amazing and I said to him in that
meeting wow that sounds like something
I’d really like and he said well we’ll
hire you and I said well if you hire me
I’ll take the job and so I came back
from that trip in January or December of
1992
January of 1993 and I resigned from the
US Attorney’s Office and decided I would
move out to LA now that decision was not
met with the level of support or
acceptance or approval or enthusiasm
that my decision to go to Harvard Law
School
or clerked for judge Connor or go to the
US Attorney’s Office have been met with
people thought it was crazy
and it made people really uncomfortable
because it challenged their
understanding of me it challenged in
some instances their understanding of
themselves because with my colleagues in
the US
office here was this guy who had done
the exact same things that they had done
and then on the same path they had been
on who was essentially rejecting that
path which called into question their
own decisions that they’d made for
themselves which for some people is a
very threatening thing and so in
thinking about the the theme of defying
people’s expectations this was a
critical moment in my life where in
order to do what I thought I wanted to
do and needed to do to be fulfilled
I had to withstand the scrutiny and the
negative judgment of others which
luckily for me I had no problem doing
even if it was at times uncomfortable
and also forced me to take them even
harder look at my own choices and so I
wound up moving out to California I had
been working in the government you know
for five years I had no money I borrowed
$10,000 from my best friend who was
working on Wall Street making a fortune
and told him I he knew where to find me
I pay him back I promise and I failed as
a as a Hollywood agent I could always go
back to practicing law so you know he’d
get his money back no matter what and he
was a good friend and and you know was
loyal to me and loaned me the money and
yes I did pay him back and and offered
interest he wouldn’t take it I bought
him a watch which he still has never
worn because he doesn’t wear watches but
it sits in his dresser it’s a good
memento and and so I I moved out to Los
Angeles and and to cut to the sort of
end of the story which for me has a very
happy ending I wound up having some
early lucky breaks as an agent at this
agency which was called Broder Kurland
Webb after I became a partner with the
founding partners after five years and
ultimately it was renamed Broder Webb
shervin’s Silverman we grew and built
that agency over the next nine years and
wound up selling it and a very lucrative
deal to a private equity firm in 2006 I
then transitioned over to ICM partners
which at the time was called ICM I
became the head of worldwide television
then four years ago I and a buyout group
bought the company back from private
equity I’m one of the founding partners
now of what it has been renamed ICM
partners which is one of the four
largest and most important talent
agencies in the world with offices in
Los Angeles
New York and London so for me there is
definitely a happy ending to the story
but I also wanted to share some of the
lessons that I learned along the way the
first was to be honest and insightful
about yourself I think it takes a
certain level of discipline to look at
yourself and admit to yourself what
you’re not good at so also to admit to
yourself what you don’t want to do even
if the people around you
have have fit you into a neat little box
and maybe even in your own mind you’ve
put yourself in that box which which has
been comfortable on some level but you
really have to sort of if you’re going
to take that step to fulfillment take a
good hard look at yourself and really
know yourself and admit to yourself kind
of where you’re at the second piece of
advice is to be willing to explore and
dream again when you’re in that box and
you’re on that narrow path there’s a
tendency to have blinders on it’s really
important to realize it’s a big world
out there it’s more accessible now than
ever before with the internet and other
tools of discovery you can know more
about more things and really really
embrace the possibilities in in more
concrete ways now than ever before and
so I think you know exploring and
dreaming is a big part of it now being
stubborn and ignoring others doubts is
another big part of it
people like to judge you and people
judge you based on a whole range of
criteria that they have nothing at all
to do with what’s good for you or what
you want to do for yourself but it’s
still really really tough to withstand
the scrutiny the negative scrutiny of
others that’s something that I think you
know takes the strength of character it
takes inherent self-esteem as opposed to
borrowed self-esteem you’re not
borrowing it from the approval of others
you’re really looking inside and saying
Who am I you know I trust myself I like
myself I believe in myself I’m going to
pursue what I want to do I’m not relying
on what others think of me that’s huge
another big part of it is being humble
you know when I got out to LA from New
York nobody cared that I went to Harvard
Law School and graduated with honors
nobody cared that I went to Amherst
College and graduated Phi Beta Kappa
nobody cared that I was the youngest
prosecutor hired in the US Attorney’s
Office nobody cared that I never
lost a case all those things which I was
extremely proud of and in New York legal
circles were a big deal to people nobody
in Hollywood cared about that
it took some humility for me to realize
that in the in the Hollywood community
there were a whole other set of things
that you could do and achieve that would
gain you the respect of your peers but I
hadn’t achieved any of those yet and so
I had to really start over again and
sort of throw away all of those things
that I thought had made me me on some
level and really you know eat some
humble pie and stand and start to build
rebuild myself as a professional in the
Hollywood community to attain people’s
respect and in doing that that humility
led me to think about well how you know
how do I do that taking concrete
practical steps was a big part of it who
do I call who do I ask for help not
being too proud to ask for help putting
my ego aside making new friends finding
mentors you know one of my partners to
this day Chris Silberman was the first
friend I made we’ve been working
together now for 24 years and he really
gave me a crash course and how the
entertainment business worked because
he’d grown up in Los Angeles and he’d
been in the mailroom in a major agency
and he lived and breathed the
entertainment business his whole life so
he was able to help educate me and
Elliott Webb my first boss and later my
partner was really my mentor I watched
what he did I saw how he signed clients
how he managed clients careers how he
packaged television shows and I pulled
from that and figured it out for myself
with his help with Chris’s help and the
help of a lot of others but again it
took some humility to realize I didn’t
know anything and I wasn’t gonna figure
it out on my own
you know takes a village that that
cliche is true and I found my village
and that really helped me work hard and
I put that in all caps because the one
thing I knew about myself forgetting
everything else was that I had capacity
for hard work I could outwork anybody in
my mind and I was willing to and I
remember back to moving out here I got
an extra legal job on the weekends from
a law firm so I could make a little bit
extra money to help pay my rent but that
didn’t stop me from filling duffel bags
with scripts and driving I was living at
the time in West Hollywood
we drive down to Manhattan Beach and
plant myself in a cheap beach chair and
just read script after script after
script and I kept a journal and I take
notes in that journal and I would you
know literally just immerse myself in
sort of all things Hollywood I had books
I had magazine articles you know there
was no internet back then I don’t want
to date myself but what can I tell you
so I didn’t have the easy tools of just
you know hitting hitting Google and you
know and pressing enter I had to really
sort of you know compile things but I
did and I and I put my social life on
hold for the most part no more G ride no
more badge
no more clubbing at night you know and I
sort of refocus myself and committed to
working hard and these these last three
I think are a little bit less concrete
but also really really important
enjoying the learning I’ve always loved
to learn I think that’s a part of why
I’ve always loved to read because I just
love finding out about stuff and how to
stuff work and getting to know new
people learning about new places and new
things and just that whole process of
learning has always been an essential
part of me and and and by moving out to
California and trying to make it in
Hollywood as opposed to being in law
enforcement it set up this entire new
world for me to learn similarly there
are no guarantees about how things turn
out you know in my case everything
turned out great I wound up succeeding
as an agent finding great clients
packaging hit television shows making a
bunch of money building and selling a
company buying another company I’ve had
all this success but I could just as
easily have failed there wasn’t there
was no way of knowing at the beginning
how the end would turn out and not
everybody has the same tolerance for
risk and uncertainty I discovered along
the way that I did and I’m really
thankful for that and it’s something I
would share with everybody here which is
it’s a big part of going back to the be
honest and insightful about yourself how
much tolerance do you have for risk and
uncertainty I think the more you have
the more you can sort of get to that
last part which is make it all an
adventure have that adventure make your
career an adventure make your life an
adventure one of the things I’ll leave
you all with at the end here is I call
this my life pivot as opposed to my
career pivot because although it was a
career too
that led me to move from New York to Los
Angeles even though I still think of
myself as a New Yorker in many ways but
now I’ve been in Los Angeles 24 years
that choice transformed my life it
wasn’t you know defying everybody’s
expectations about who I was not just
this East Coast establishment lawyer but
something very different you know a
Hollywood agent transformed me entirely
it’s how I met my wife it’s it’s how I
discovered that I fell in love with
Hawaii and spent a lot of time in Hawaii
it’s how I started playing golf in
tennis you know I grew up playing ice
hockey in boxing and doing martial arts
all of a sudden I’m playing golf and
tennis it gave me an understanding of a
community in Los Angeles that I never
knew or expect that I would know when I
was living in New York I got involved in
charitable endeavors I was involved in
an amazing charity that built libraries
and public elementary schools and
trained volunteer readers and I’ve got
trained as a volunteer reader and I got
to read in an LA Unified district public
elementary school for ten years every
Friday with fourth and fifth graders
something I’m very very proud of that
all stemmed from that initial honesty
that I really wasn’t gonna make it as a
lawyer in the way that I wanted to this
insight that I didn’t want to do it even
if I could do it and and the courage to
defy other people’s expectations about
me to conquer my own self-doubt to
withstand the risk and uncertainty and
to take the adventure and it’s been an
unbelievable pivot for me and so in some
ways maybe I am my own individual
Instagram or Twitter thank you very much [Applause]