#279: The Most Curious Man in Hollywood — Brian Grazer
The Tim Ferriss Show
I'm in the Very Lowest Job Working for Edgar J. Sherrick
"I'm going to take a job like as the lowest assistant and be happy with it," he says. "Which was kind of an epiphany, but I... well, it was epiphany,. but it was also reality." He recalls working for Edgar J. Sherrick on ABC's "The Wild World of Sports" The writer-producer sold two stories that were turned into TV movies at 25.
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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