Transcript

00:00 My polish grandmother could convince anyone of nearly anything once I saw her successfully sell her neighbor a three-legged chair. On this chair you can lean back better when I said grandma seriously. How is it you you always seem to get what you want how do you do that she just smiled and said my bubala. Sometimes it helps to show the soup in a different Bowl years later. After I went to film school I moved to Los Angeles. I didn't know anybody but inspired by my grandmother I figured I'd find some way of breaking into working behind the scenes in show business. For years I took any and every job that I could find slowly working my way up sometimes writing sometimes directing. But what I really seemed to have a knack for was producing movie trailers and promos for new TV shows. The problem was the work was always freelance and my dream job has always come with a parking space and a 401k so when I landed a job interview for a full-time position at NBC. The home of Seinfeld and Friends and Frasier in law and order I really wanted this gig.
01:28 I just wanted everything for the interview to go perfectly so in preparation. I went out and I bought myself a new tie and then I decided I'm gonna print. My resume on the very best paper that I can possibly find so I went to a stationery store remember. Those and at that stationery store I found really nice thick paper. I mean my resume on this paper looked beautiful all right. So it's the big day there I am at NBC and being interviewed by an executive vice president. We'll call him Jim and he says to me you know Dean I've taken a look at your reel of past work and it's really quite good and I've called your previous employers and they say impressive things about you and now after reviewing your resume it all looks perfect maybe just a little too perfect you see.
02:29 The thing is things here get messy I need somebody who's willing to push up their sleeves get their hands. Dirty I don't think you have the right style to be a success here and then he takes my resume the one that I had worked so hard on and he starts banging it against the desk. Going I mean what is this resume made out of cardboard. I walk out of there. I can't believe I goofed this up. So it's the next day and Jim arrives at his office to find a Federal Express envelope from me and when Jim rips open that envelope and sticks his hand inside all he finds is one slightly wrinkled slightly coffee-stained cocktail napkin and on that napkin I've written dear Jim. It was great meeting you yesterday I'd love the opportunity to work at NBC and thanks for your advice about having a less perfect presentation. Jim hired me that day and I've worked at NBC ever since. Sometimes it helps to show the soup in a different Bowl when I sent Jim that dirty napkin it was a form of storytelling. After all it was fake. Sloppiness believe me it took a lot of work to make that dirty napkin look perfectly attempt number four too much coffee. On it attempt number seven. The ink was too smudged but number 12 mom. This art of getting what I want at first I didn't have a name for it. I saw it first in my grandmother and later in myself and then I realized it's producing producing sounds fancy right but it may not be what you think okay in general.
04:27 The producer is the boss overseeing all the aspects of putting a show together think of them. Like a general contractor of a big build. They may not be the guy pouring the concrete but they can fire anyone who steps in it. Producers producers the problem solvers trying to prevent anything that might derail the story they want to be told now. Sometimes don't all of us want to be able to do that when you're at a crossroads in your life with your business when it really matters how do you shape your decisions and take charge of opportunities that govern your life. The answer is an approach to problem solving that I call the producers perspective in life you can produce the story you want to unfold and you do it by filtering any situation. Any obstacle. That's in your way you look at it through a producer's lens. At these five areas of production plot dialogue appearance theme and editing now of course. There's many other aspects of producing budget permit cast and crew. But when we're talking about your life focus on these five areas. First nowadays whatever I'm working on whether I'm producing a Super Bowl spot or something at Radio City Music Hall I get help with the many other aspects of producing so that I can focus on these five you can do the same for anything in your life.
05:58 For example. Let's back to that job interview number one is plot. I thought about what I wanted to happen or the arc of the story my goal. Next I prepped what I was gonna say which is dialogue oh remember to taste your words before you spit them out. Next is appearance now appearance includes your location or what your surroundings look like. Appearance also includes what you look like your costuming I had on my new time. Appearance also includes anything that you might be carrying on you which are props like a purse your phone. A resume on stupidly thick cardstock number four is theme. Now theme is the important internal stuff more than just my outward appearance. My theme and that job interview was to show what I had to offer my potential value to Jim and the company my experience my skills.
06:54 It's what's called the audience takeaway or the main theme of a story. When you see a movie and a scene makes you cry. It's because they're tapping into something that feels real but it's not real. It's actors on a soundstage saying memorize lines but the as audience members we suspend our disbelief because the underlying theme behind all that Hollywood magic feels genuine and authentic. The theme of whatever story you're trying to convey that's essential and number five is editing. When I sent Jim the dirty napkin. It was to edit or adjust his opinion of me in producer terms. This is called reading the room or responding to feedback from the audience. It's how you improve on what you've already done because it's a sure bet if I had started my job interview by handing Jim a resume written on a dirty napkin. I wasn't gonna get hired. You have to do all five parts as a producer. I've learned to use these five things to manage what happens in your own life. You can do the same to produce the results that you want because if all the world's a stage your life hack is to be a producer.
08:04 A few weeks ago I was with some friends and we were at a museum where there was going to be a free concert with open seating well. We were waiting at the back of the line you know waiting to get in. So my friend said Dean go produce the moment well my goal. My goal was to get us better seats. So I thought it might help to have a change in appearance from a friend I borrowed a blazer for location. I went walking around the side of the building looking for an unlocked door and once I got inside the lobby I saw a bunch of volunteer asurs. Now they were an older looking group probably in their late 60s early 70s so in a moment of editing I thought trying to look like an authority figure. You know wearing a blazer isn't gonna work for this audience. Instead I saw a box of concert programs on the ground. I went over picked it up hiked it up onto my shoulder walked over to the group and said are we supposed to hand out programs. As everyone comes into the lobby or do you prefer me to put a concert program and each see inside the theater well. When my friends eventually got in. They were happy to see that the Blazer that I had borrowed was laid across the front row seats reserving them for us. But they also saw me handing out programs escorting people with walkers helping move wheelchairs out of the way. Yes I had reserved seats for us but I had also recast myself as a volunteer.
09:34 The world is just so much more malleable when you use a producer's perspective think of it. This way you can't just declare yourself a champion ice skater dress in a sequin jumpsuit and finagle your way onto the Olympic skating team on the other hand. If you want to learn to do a triple axel. You gotta at least show up at the rink and it never hurts to have a sparkly outfit and here's the crazy thing each and every one of you. What do you realize it or not. You are already a producer you're producing the scenes that happen in your everyday life. For example when you go on a date you're choosing your location is it gonna be a romantic restaurant or let's just split. The bill type of place your dialogue is what you talk about you're already making decisions so why not learn to leverage them to your advantage.Of course. The producers perspective is not a cure-all if you're struggling with serious issues. I'm not proposing that this framework is gonna solve everything but there's always a way of making even the worst situation. A little bit more bearable when my dad got ill. No amount of me wearing the right outfit or trying to set the scene could fix his being sick. But I did use a producers perspective thinking through the goal of each medical test prepping what to ask each doctor and talking to my dad about his needs because I was responsible and appeared competent rather than stay in the hospital. They let my dad go home when someone you love is sick. When my family was in an unpredictable and an emotionally charged situation. It helped immeasurably to have a tool for feeling in control and more than anything else. It empowered my dad. Together we were able to adapt and to make decisions based on definitive information all organized in tidy categories and that alone was worth something solid during a time when everything else in the world felt shaky the moral the story is you have more control than you might think go ahead use a producers perspective to get what you want. Your life is your story to produce my bubala. It's your soup you choose the bowl you.