Who Am I?

I didn’t have the intention of writing a newsletter. At first, it was going to be a book.

Or like, a memoir. Songwriters, stand-up comedians, sculptors… what is being an artist other than turning your struggles and strength into stories?

I know what you must be thinking…

How precocious, how self-absorbed one must be to write about living a more “creative and conscious” life, right? 

But much like a scientist, who has a hypothesis and must experiment…

It is in the writing of this newsletter that I will determine if my years of deep thinking, living, and research about this topic hold true. As I share it with you…

What This is Not:

This isn’t “self-help.” No one, not even those who have written a self-help book or newsletter have it all figured out. 

I get disillusioned when I read or listen to self-help gurus or self-proclaimed success stories, and then I find that they don’t even follow their own advice.

Or their own ego becomes so large, they aren’t the same person they were when I started listening to their advice in the first place.

Truthfully, one of my purposes in writing this is to help myself. 

In the introduction of one of the most popular non-fiction books of all-time “How To Win Friends and Influence People,” author Dale Carnegie is as earnest as I hope to be. He reveals that even though the book is a culmination of his entire life’s study, he barely remembers any of it and admits he needs to re-read it every single year.

A Quick How I Got Here:

You might know me - or have found me - on social media. 

Before this, I worked at VICE Media during a chunk of its heyday. It was the craziest and most fulfilling time of my career. Mainly because we were just making everything up as we went along. (More on that later…)

Before that, I developed and produced reality TV. (More on that later too). 

I graduated from UCLA with a focus on Theatre Arts and Creative Writing. I was also the president of my Jewish fraternity. And I was briefly a DJ. (More on all that too). 

I grew up in a part of the valley in Los Angeles called “Studio City” named after its many television and movie studios, in particular CBS, where most of their sitcoms are filmed. Also, Universal Studio is just around the corner.

My grandpa and Dad (who unbelievably created “The Brady Bunch” and “Gilligan’s Island”) started their careers by selling individual jokes to famous comedians… or like eggs, by the dozen. Quite literally, our family’s sense of humor has been our currency.

My Mom always says if I grew up on a farm, I’d be a farmer. So does that mean I’m destined to be a writer? 

It was always assumed I would go into entertainment, whether it was ever spoken out loud or not. My Dad says that when I was younger, he told me I could be ANYTHING I want. To which I replied, “Like an actor or a writer?” and he shook his head and said, “No, like a doctor or a lawyer.” 

Back to the Newsletter:

Sure, it sounds cliche that I’m talking about writing a newsletter… while writing a newsletter… 

(MTV used to say in pitch meetings: “Please don’t pitch us another reality show about a musical artist making an album. It’s boring and it doesn’t work.”) 

The truth is, I spent a decade-long career as a creative director, but I always found myself imitating art more than making it. Somewhere along the way, I got distracted.

As a child of the ‘90s, I started falling for the trap. I started consuming too much. I started judging instead of acting, and I lost myself instead of expressing myself.

Which lead to feeling overwhelmed, which lead to being over-consumed, which lead to…

OVERCONSUMED:

My newsletter. My theory. My new way of looking at things, maybe forever.

What it boils down to is this. I believe that we are all consuming too much of everything all the time, and it’s making us miserable.

“Overconsumed” means that we must start creating more and consuming less. 

It’s that simple. Simple, but not easy. 

Start creating and you won’t see through the lens of frustration or envy anymore. You will see that everyone has their place in the world.

You don’t need to do everything, you simply need to do something.

The goal of this newsletter is to help you give something to the world rather than simply take. To consume less, to create, contribute, and collaborate more.

I’ll share what I’ve learned being in, around, and consumed by the entertainment industry… as well as being a millennial trying to write the first real thing in his life.