Camera Ready & Abel

One of the best parts of having a podcast is getting to talk to interesting people about topics I find interesting.   According to research, you and I will have up to seven careers in a lifetime with an average of 12 different jobs (I think I'm on career #5) so I was fascinated when I read an excerpt in The Guardian from my guest Nick Duerden’s new book, Exit Stage Left: The curious afterlife of pop stars because career transitions are tricky enough without public scrutiny...so where do you go once you’ve known pop stardom?   Think about this: When my dentist or accountant says they are closing up shop to do something different and pursue their bliss I may temporarily think damn! I've got to go find a new one but I never, ever think, it's so sad you failed as a dentist.   Yet, we judge performers, particularly pop stars, differently and often harshly.   Nick Duerden set out to answer the question where do you go once you've known pop stardom and came back deeply inspired and reeling in admiration because despite many stories of overcoming serious life challenges like divorce, bankruptcy and addiction every one of the 50 people Nick interviewed had an air of positivity he says we can all learn from.   My other big takeaway from our conversation:   Every single person Nick interviewed dared to dream big and had the courage to follow their dream.   Nick is a writer and journalist whose work has appeared on both sides of the Atlantic in publications like Billboard, Nylon, Blender and Spin. He has interviewed artists like Paul McCartney, Brian Wilson, Beyoncé, Kanye West and Adele (and lots of less successful - but still terrific in their own right – pop stars); actors like Daniel Day Lewis, Daniel Radcliffe and Daniel Craig; and writers including Zadie Smith, Curtis Sittenfeld, Lee Child, Salman Rushdie and James Patterson.    In addition to Exit State Left, Nick's books are: Dishing the Dirt: The Hidden Lives of House Cleaners The Smalling Things: On the enduring power of family Get Well Soon: Adventures in Alternative Healthcare A Life Less Lonely   Visit Nick's website   ...and read Nick's Guardian article that inspired me to reach out for an interview.

Roni Selig and Marcie Mulé are legends in the unscripted television world and you'll understand why after listening to this episode presented by the 3 Rs to Building a Sustainable and Successful Career: Rugged, Resourceful, and Resilient. Creatives that they are, they couldn't stop with the 3 R's and added these words to the conversation: Endurance, stamina, energy, discipline, impact, risk, trust and lucky... ...because Television Production is rugged terrain. Roni describes working 3 days/nights to produce a ground-breaking series with Dr. Sanjay Gupta and Marcie recalls scaling multiple mountains on location to get the perfect shot.  And they do it all with heart, soul, passion, integrity - and humor. Roni is a multi-Emmy-winning producer whose credits span from GMA to CNN most recently launched a new digital platform for The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and executive produced The Call to Unite, a 24-hour global livestream event, hosted by Tim Shriver in response to the COVID 19 pandemic.   Marcie is a two-time Emmy-winning producer for the Bravo series Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List and the former co-founder of Picture This Television, a full -service production company that created programming for Bravo, Lifetime, TLC, Food Network, MTV and PBS.   Now Roni and Marcie have joined forces to create RonMar Studios Inc, producing innovative unscripted content from long form documentaries and reality programs to digital fundraisers, live streams including and musical performances. Learn more about RonMar Studios Inc. by visiting their website at www.ronmarstudios.com and check out their impressive body of work.

Owning it means taking responsibility for your thoughts and actions, and in the camera ready world owning it is essential to how you show up. I'm thrilled my dear friend, casting director, coach, actor and documentary filmmaker, Sean De Simone, is here to go deep with stories of transformation and practical tips into... Owning your: Talent skillset ambition uniqueness superpowers mistakes ...and owning the room vs taking over the room (and why that matters) Sean is an expert in TV Host and Brand Spokesperson casting, having worked extensively with QVC and the Home Shopping Network as well as numerous beauty, fashion, home, cook, and fitness brands. After years of being behind the scenes, Sean has begun to study acting and has returned to his roots as a filmmaker. Learn more about our one-of-a-kind workshop HOSTING FOR HOME SHOPPING & BRANDS and visit Sean’s website at seandesimonecasting.com and follow him on Instagram at @sean_desimone_casting.

Budget maybe one of the, um, least sexy words in the Camera Ready & Abel lexicon but one of the most essential. A key to success is treating your career like the business that it is and that requires a budget. My guest for this episode, Stacey Linderman, founder and principal consultant at A6 Financial and Business Optimization says,"your budget is a road map to your destination. If you're not typically a "numbers person," you're in luck because Stacey offers straightforward advice to make sure the career road map you are plotting actually gets you to where you want to go. After all, a budget is all about leveraging your resources. It’s about creating choice, not limiting it. Do you wonder: Am I charging the right price? Am I worth that price point? Do I have to outsource my finances? ...then give a listen and drop me a line to let me know what resonated with you or left you wanting to know more To work with Stacey and get more of her insights visit www.a6finbiz.com.

Connection is one of the essential C's to being camera ready - connection to the camera, to the content, to the audience and connection to yourself. I first met my guest for this episode, Kamie Crawford, when she was a 19 year-old college student, working model and recent Miss Teen USA with big dreams of being a television host. The minute she walked into my office I knew she was someone special. Spoiler alert: Kamie turned her dreams into goals and is now a hugely successful content creator, model, activist, mentor, entrepreneur, Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition Rookie of the Year and host of Catfish on MTV plus her podcast Relationsh*t.  But it didn't happen overnight. It took ten years of hard work and soul searching.  With enormous candor and vulnerability, Kamie explains how she struggled to learn how to connect to herself in order to connect to the camera, the content and the audience to build her career.  Key takeaways: It's okay to say I'm not ready  Learn the difference between caution and fear Focus on doing the work of developing your craft - and stick with it Build connections and find people who can help you When you are ready mentally, emotionally and physically the dots will connect and opportunities will come to you Have fun and keep up with Kamie at www.kamiecrawford.com, on Instagram, in Sports Illustrated and her Relationsh*t podcast.

My guest for this episode, Bill Brand, is a storyteller par excellence. He began his far-ranging career in local news with stops along with way at VH1, Lifetime, HSN and Carnival Cruise Lines before becoming CEO of fashion retailer Rue 21 with 700 stores in 45 states, a robust ecommerce business and millions of social followers. When I asked Bill to be on the podcast, I wanted him to talk about leadership because he's seriously the best boss ever, but he insisted the it's really, simply, all about storytelling: Engaging and respecting your audience whether that's a news story, lifestyle program or retail experience. Bill delivers a tour de force masterclass:  The audience is always the hero of the story. Brands run into trouble when they lose sight of this. Content + Community = Commerce Living aligned with your values creates stories worth telling When you feel you can make an impact somewhere you know you are doing something right There’s a formula to storytelling that makes it a skillset accessible to all Keep up with Bill Brand on Linkedin at www.linkedin.com/in/bill-brand.

Making change means taking creative action to solve a social problem and my guest for this episode of Camera Ready & Abel, Cindy Gallop, Founder & CEO of MakeLoveNotPorn, is making change to how we think about sexual values and behaviors in her necessary and trailblazing platform. The tagline reads: Pro-sex. Pro-porn. Pro-knowing the difference and Cindy goes deep pointing out we are raised by our parents to behave well with good manners, a work ethic, sense of responsibility and accountability but we are rarely taught to  behave well in bed with values like empathy, sensitivity, generosity, kindness, honesty and respect. Key takeaways: Everything starts with living your values Realize what matters shared values plus shared action equals shared profit, both financial and social. Cindy, like so many of my guests, is an accidental entrepreneur - and thriving. Cindy Gallop is a graduate of Somerville College, Oxford, whose background is 35 years in brand-building, marketing and advertising - she started up the US office of ad agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty in New York in 1998 and in 2003 was named Advertising Woman of the Year.  She is the founder and CEO of IfWeRanTheWorld, co-action software  launched in beta at TED 2010  and subsequently written up and taught as a Harvard Business School case study, which enables brands to implement the business model of the future – Shared Values + Shared Action = Shared Profit (financial and social). She acts as board advisor to a number of tech ventures and works as a personal brand/life/executive coach and a consultant on brand and business innovation for companies around the world. BusinessInsider named her one of 15 Most Important Marketing Strategy Thinkers Today, alongside Malcolm Gladwell and Seth Godin, and cited her as number 33 on their list of 100 Most Influential Tech Women On Twitter, and number one on their list of Top 30 People In Advertising To Follow On Twitter- which you can do at @cindygallop.  Cindy has published ‘Make Love Not Porn: Technology’s Hardcore Impact on Human Behavior’ as one of TED’s line of TEDBooks. Visit makelovenotporn.tv and see what ‘the social sex revolution’ is all about!

From birth it's estimated we hear the word no 400x per day. It's amazing we try anything new because that's a lot of negative and limiting conditioning. In this episode, the dynamic polymath, Angela Marie Hutchinson, explains the life skill I wish I'd learned a lot sooner: How to redirect your no's to Create Your Yes.  Angela, who is a showrunner, screenwriter, producer, television host, working mom and former talent agent, created this actionable 12-step strategy for success based on her TEDx talk Create Your Own Yes, When You Keep Hearing No. Her advice is both inspiring and practical. My key takeaways are: Progress is success Track your success and look for patterns so you can replicate what works for you Measure your inchstones instead of the milestones Get unstuck by showing up and being generous Don't just look ahead - use your peripheral vision too For nearly a decade, Angela has produced a diverse portfolio with her media company, BiH Entertainment. She also works as a career coach, public speaker and business consultant. Angela’s clients call her The Dream Builder. In 2005, Angela founded BReaKiNG iNTo HoLLyWooD, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that helps entertainment professionals pursue their careers. Repped at The Gersh Agency, Angela is actively developing and producing numerous projects with active development deals at a top production company. Angela is also the creator and executive producer of the 2021 Facebook Watch series, “Asking for a Friend,” hosted by Vanessa Simmons. As a filmmaker, Angela wrote, produced and cast the feature film, “Hollywood Chaos,” also starring Vanessa Simmons. Angela has been recognized as a media and arts trailblazer by the U.S. Congress, Los Angeles mayor and Los Angeles city council. Follow Angela on Instagram and Twitter at @livewithangela and check out her work at www.createyouryes.com. For more insights on how to work through no's listen to producer Dave Noll's epsiode on positivity. In Dave's experience, it takes 29 no's to get to your yes.   https://www.abelintermedia.com/podcasts/positivity-dave-noll/

Alex Yaro, mediator, executive coach, conflict resolution expert and my guest for this episode, boldly asks on the home page of his website, ConflictYes.com: How much energy do you waste avoiding conflict?  If you've never stopped to think about this - and how it impacts your life - you're not alone. If you're a recovering pleaser, like me, your answer might be a somewhat sheepish a lot… Alex was born in Ukraine when it was part of the Soviet Union and has lived in Asia, Europe and North America which gives him a global perspective and special appreciation of cross-cultural communication. Re-thinking how you approach conflict - a natural part of daily life - transforms how you communicate and therefore how you live and show up in the world. Per Alex, the key to making our challenging conversations productive is Emotional Intelligence - an essential leadership skill that we can all develop. Emotional Intelligence, also known as EQ, is the ability to understand and manage your own emotions in positive ways to relieve stress, communicate effectively, empathize with others and overcome challenges and diffuse conflict. According to Daniel Goldman, who wrote the book on it, the five characteristics of emotional intelligence are self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy and social skills - all hugely important in the world of media and camera readiness. A key takeaway this episode is the power of asking clarifying questions: What, when, where, who, how...but reframe WHY??? into a less-charged walk me through or help me understand your thinking... Resources mentioned in this episode:  EQ by Daniel Goleman The Atlas of Emotion by Paul Ekman Drive by Dan Pink Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg Having lived in Asia and Europe, Alex has a global perspective and special appreciation of cross-cultural communication. He created several courses on managing challenging  conversations. His coaching style blends support with risk taking. He encourages clients to experiment with new perspectives, welcome feedback, speak directly, diplomatically, and effectively.  Learn more about Alex at www.conflictyes.com or connect with him on LinkedIn.

Suchi Reddy is a poet of space. Long before I met Suchi, I fell in love with her work when I experienced the Connective Project in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, an installation of 7,000 glorious, yellow, flower-like pinwheels that filled me with happy. Years later when I met Suchi through our mutual friend, Stacy Fass, Suchi dropped the phrase form follows feeling into the conversation and right then and there I asked Suchi to be on the podcast. I needed to explore this idea and share it with you. Form follows feeling - a design ethos informed by neuroaesthetics (the study of how the brain responds to the design of our surroundings) - is the guiding design principle for Suchi and her firm, Reddymade Architecture and Design. This strong belief that good design, calibrated carefully to the human, positively influences wellbeing, creativity, and productivity informs all of Suchi's projects from conception to details. She believes in the power of joy and whimsy and making the invisible, visible. Suchi really made me think about my home space and my work space, and how important it is to ask myself how I want to feel in those places; that they are living and breathing, in order to support me every day. Suchi's curiosity and sense of possibility are inspiring as is her diverse range of work from the aforementioned Connective Project to Me + You, Suchi's interactive installation blending emotional AI, sculpture, physics, neuroscience and data technology at the Smithsonian, to the Google store in Manhattan to beautiful, serene residential spaces which I love to follow on her instagram. Suchi was appointed the Plym Distinguished Professor at the University of Illinois School of Architecture, Champaign–Urbana for the Fall 2019 semester, where her work focused on contemporary architectural experience through the lens of neuroaesthetics, neurophenomenology, and sensory design. She sits on the board of the Design Trust for Public Space, Storefront for Art and Architecture, and Madame Architect; and she is a member of the Dean’s Board of Advisors at Detroit Mercy School of Architecture.   Learn more about Reddymade Architecture and Design at www.rmdny.com and follow on instagram at @reddymadedesign.