#279: The Most Curious Man in Hollywood — Brian Grazer
The Tim Ferriss Show
The Art and Craft of Meetings
Heaven Can Wait was built on a material called Mr. Deeds Comes to Town, I believe. The art and craft of getting these meetings is something I want to talk about. Do you recall at all the approach or what you said that will get the door? Well, I have a system now that's much more refined because it was then. And so I started off like that. So I had a prop. Props are very, very, very important. That's why you've got a lot of calls.
Brian Grazer (@BrianGrazer) is an Academy Award-winning producer and New York Times bestselling author (A Curious Mind: The Secret to a Bigger Life, with Charles Fishman) who has been making movies and television programs for more than 25 years. Grazer and his longtime friend and business partner Ron Howard began their collaboration in 1985 on the hit comedies Nightshift and Splash, and in 1986 they founded Imagine Entertainment.
In 2002, Grazer won an Oscar for Best Picture for A Beautiful Mind (shared with Ron Howard). In 2007, he was named one of Time's "100 Most Influential People in the World." His films and TV series have been nominated for 43 Academy Awards, and 131 Emmys.
In this episode, we discuss:
- Brian's "supertool" that helped him earn opportunity.
- How to pitch people to open doors and opportunity.
- Favorite failures and lessons learned.
- Brian's criteria for choosing what movies to make.
- How to develop better decision-making abilities.
- And much, much more.
This episode was recorded in front of a live, sold-out audience of about 2,000 people at Summit LA17 in Los Angeles. Enjoy!
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