In case the About page wasn’t enough and it actually left you wanting to know more about me, I thought I’d share more with you here:
Like I mentioned on the About page, I’m from Chicago, graduated from the University of Michigan and the Chicago-Kent College of Law. Because I’ve always been a big believer that success is when you don’t know whether you’re working or playing, I chose to follow my dreams rather than chase the biggest paycheck I could find after graduation. Starting in college, I wanted to be in the music business. My goal was to work with my rock star heroes and to manage bands that I loved. By the age of 25, I was managing one of my favorite bands and working on a Rolling Stones tour! Such a blast….
I had a really fun run in the music business that included band management, marketing at a major record label, sales and licensing at a music publishing company and sales at a dot com. I have great stories about meeting most of my heroes and got to do a great mix of work that used the business and creative sides of my brain. The week the music dot com I worked for went under in the 2001 market crash, my mom was diagnosed with terminal cancer. I moved back to Chicago to be her caregiver as she fought for her life. After recovering from the lost battle, I returned to L.A. ready for a fresh start.
The next chapter:
I got active in and eventually joined the all-volunteer board of a great, grassroots cancer research non-profit called Concern Foundation. Founded in L.A. in 1968 by 15 couples in their 30s who were losing a friend to breast cancer, Concern has raised over $42 million and funded over 550 scientists, giving them their start in the cancer research community. Their mission is to develop new methods for early detection, better treatment options and a more effective way for cancer patients to manage their cancer, with an eye towards finding a “cure”. Concern funds cover all types of cancer, granting $.95 cents on every net $1 to research at major institutions across America and around the world! I hope the work we do will spare others from going through what my mom, my family and millions of others have had to go through.
Ready for new challenges that fit the skills and interests I’d discovered and developed over time and no longer feeling interested in the music industry, I sought out a career change. This mission led me to the world of attorney recruiting. I joined a great attorney recruiting firm in downtown Los Angeles. I fully connected with this new path and found the fit, emotional reward and money I was looking for. I eventually opened my own search firm in Century City and finally had the kind of entrepreneurial success I had been chasing in previous (more creative) self-employment ventures. Eventually, I wanted to shift my focus to working with more senior-level attorneys (law firm partners). I decided a bigger platform would help my success with that new pool of professionals. Right after getting an offer to join the partner placement group of one of the world’s best search firms, an exciting opportunity presented itself that I couldn’t pass up: a business development executive role with a smart team that was building online communities for music stars. I still had the dot com itch to scratch….and I missed reaching the large audience that my music work always provided. I decided to close my company and jump on board. Then, only half a year later, the company was eliminated upon the parent company’s shift in strategy!
Today
Today I’m excited to be returning to the career consulting space and combining that with the online community building of my latest professional adventure. I intend to reach and help significantly more people through Careers Out There than I could in the role of a recruiter. That’s the beauty of the internet!
I’d been wanting to do Careers Out There since the days before blogging and YouTube; but once the technology was there, I had my hands full with my recruiting business. Thanks to the fact that I love writing and I usually have something to say, I started blogging in 2003 at the insistence of my friend Andy Gadiel. Now I’m looking forward to adding video to the mix and providing a service that my dorky concert reviews never could! Thanks to Andrew Warner for taking the time to share his insights on this format with me and for proving how great it can be via the top-notch job he does on his site for entrepreneurs. Overall, I’m most fired up for the opportunity to help people via the interviews we’ll be featuring. Our guests will have a lot to share with you. Between my music business and recruiting careers, I’ve gained personal experience with so many of the career-related themes we’ll be covering on this site. I look forward to helping you by sharing my experience and bringing that perspective to the table when speaking with all of our guests. See you soon…