I keep saying “attitude is altitude.” I’ve talked a lot about what attitude you should not have. Now here’s the attitude that will help you thrive in the business.

• In life, you get exactly what you give. Don’t think because you don’t have stature or money that you have nothing to give to Hollywood! Time and simple talents are great assets to everyone. And don’t think that because you do have stature or money you don’t need to give (”I got mine!”). You stay relevant in entertainment by staying connected and useful to everyone around you.
• You’re not competing with anyone. No one can do exactly what you do. You are competing against your own level of ambition, work ethic and self-identity. Concentrate on that, and you will succeed. Get distracted by someone else’s opportunities, and you just lost your own game.
• No one owes you anything. Let that sink in, please. No one owes you a script read, a job, a promotion, a chance, a contact, a way in, their time or even basic respect. If someone gives you any of those things, in any form, recognize that as a gift and THANK THEM. When you let go of what people can do for you and empower yourself instead with what you realistically bring to the table, the world around you makes a giant, fantastic shift. You start to control your experience in this industry instead of reacting to someone else’s.
• If you’re not having any fun at all, stop. There are so many amazing things to do in this world. If you’d met me twenty years ago, you would be shocked to see me now, not being a world-changing United States senator and future president. Be open to change. I was.

You can best get someone to help you by helping yourself then offering to help them.

This is a business of know-how and know-WHO. Spend time learning everything you can, at every level you achieve, and helping everyone you can, whatever level you are at. Your peers are your greatest resource; cultivate them! Unless you’re an Oscar winner yourself, Denzel and Julia are not the people you need to meet; they already have a pile of people they already are indebted to and taking care of. Instead, do everything you can to help your circle of peers achieve because when they do, they are going to open the door to bring you in with them. And if you are the one who gets through a door first, bring the people who have taken care of you in with you - at their level of competence. Don’t offer or accept jobs that greatly surpass someone’s (or your) ability; everyone loses.

Don’t let your opening line to anyone be “Can you do ____ for me?” Ever. This is not a taker’s market. It immediately sets you up as an energy drain, and it shifts the balance of power between you and that person. Equally as awful, don’t ever have a conversation with someone and not know who they are and what they do if there was time to find out. Go see their film or watch their show or read their book or visit their Web site before meeting them. When I’m on a speaker’s panel, I spend the days before researching my fellow panelists so I can draw their experiences into a discussion point or have a conversation with them afterward about something they’ve done that I’m dying to learn more about.

Don’t think I don’t know that mentors are wonderful. But they are not the people to break you into the industry! Your mentor(s) will show up when you are already just in the door, working your hardest, making everyone’s life easier around you. Believe me, someone will approach YOU to offer you assistance and guidance. You have to earn a mentor and an advisor just like you have to earn everything else in this industry.

If you want to break in and have no contacts, you are going to be a production assistant (PA) somewhere. That is our industry’s entry-level position, and it pays about $500/week. YOU WILL NEED A CAR. So work all you can to get some savings a buy a car of some kind before you jump in. And once you battle your way into that PA job, be the best PA that company has ever seen! You are being evaluated on your work ethic at every level of this industry. Learn new stuff on your own time, not the company’s. You will get a shot at a promotion because of your attitude, not your skill set. Show them you are a person who invests in your company and its projects, and they will want to keep you around - or give you a great referral for your next position.

I want you to ask yourself if the real question you are asking is “How do I start making BIG money in this industry?” And the answer is, you invest years of time and sweat equity, and you will be rewarded. It might be one year; it might be ten. But getting filthy rich won’t be the very first thing you do. Those American Idol winners didn’t come from nowhere to get a record deal. Look at the backgrounds of every single winner. There are years of toil and training and passion behind that victory. It just LOOKS like they got handed their dream. They earned it, and so must you! And earning it is FUN because, hey, this is Hollywood!

Throughout your time in this industry, whatever level you are at, don’t prioritize fame and funds over fulfillment. It will cost you dearly, both professionally and emotionally. If you are in ANY business just so everyone will know you and be envious and want to be just like you, you are in a world of trouble. Your self-worth is low (yes, it is! YES IT IS.), and no amount of outside adoration or material things will make you feel better. In fact, it will make you feel worse because any success will make you feel like a fraud (which is why drugs and alcohol consume so many people in this town). Fix all of that in therapy, not the production office. And don’t sell me or anyone else out by creating, funding or green lighting stereotypical, embarrassing, dangerous or flat-out wrong images about entire groups of people so that you can make a quick buck. A conscience is better currency than cash in the long haul in this industry. You will not be at the top every minute of this ride. Sometimes you will have dry spells, and your reputation and honor and goodwill will take you farther than your savings account ever could.

Not that money doesn’t matter! This business costs cash to survive. You have to pay to live, to be in professional organizations, to learn at seminars, to enter competitions, to network and entertain, to make a reel, to have a car (please have a car), etc. If you don’t have the money to do all of that yet, get a second and third job if you have to. Don’t sit on the sidelines saying you can’t jump into the business because things cost too much. And really don’t spend all of your time writing a script instead of working nine jobs, especially if you haven’t earned the cash to take the classes and read the books and meet the people who will teach you how to write a script you can actually sell! Work at the mall, answer phones, work at Best Buy (get that employee discount!), just pay your bills, and invest every extra dime in your career!

This is for anyone trying to enter the business: be sure you are not getting things backwards. Imagine an attorney saying, “If I can just win enough high-profile cases, I can earn enough money for law school.” Or a doctor trying to do enough high-paying plastic surgery so he can pay for med school! That’s what the industry hears when you are spending all of your effort and limited funds trying to start at the top of the game by directing a film or selling a script to the top company in Hollywood or selling a show to a network. What I want you to consider doing is getting a job and learning and earning you way to the top. Because it will be so much harder for anyone to knock you down if you are standing at the top on a strong foundation. Put your money and time into education and preparation and EXPERIENCE. The success and money will come.

Just to prove that you don’t have to always act or be perfect to succeed in this industry, let me just dive right in with some examples of where I have wholeheartedly failed!

In one of my first jobs as a “rescue” producer (hired to fix a broken show), I inherited a existing staff. And that staff was happily working at a slow pace, in an inefficient way, with a lot of last-minute cleaning up to do. So I quickly examined the production process and threw the whole model out. With my new model, we were completing way more work in far less time, meeting the deadlines, going home at better hours, delivering the right things to the network the first time out…and my staff was miserable. They didn’t care about efficiency and deadlines! They just liked to come to work with each other. And I hadn’t respected or valued the importance of friendship and loving where you work. I wasn’t respecting the environment I worked in. I had to change. So there were more staff lunches and happy hours and funny cards and gifts, etc. Not everyone came around because I’d upset them so much with the changes. Others followed me to other jobs and started incorporating my system into their own shows.

At another job, several years later, I again inherited a staff. They were miserably working at a manic pace, in a stress-filled environment, and they hated coming to work each day. I tried introducing more fun things to the work experience. They still hated it. I met with them to hear what wasn’t working and custom-designed solutions to fix the problems they struggled it. They hated the show more, and now they hated me, too. I made it through the first season and never made one dent in the staff’s experience or attitude. It was just misery for all of us. But for my part, I wasn’t respecting the fear they were feeling. The show was too big, the new systems were too foreign, the deadlines were too brutal. I simply could not fix their fear. And this time, I couldn’t change myself to make things better. So instead, I changed my deals. I no longer accepted a show unless I got to hire my own staff. I wanted to surround myself with people who weren’t afraid of making TV in a different way. On other shows, sometimes that worked, and sometimes, it failed, too.

Even though some of my hardest efforts have been failures in the small picture, with problems I couldn’t fix or even made worse, they all were huge advances for me personally and professionally. I talked in depth with my network exec on one show about what I could do to make the staff’s life less awful, and he became a confidante and advisor to me after that show. He trusted my compassion for my staff. I learned how to deal with people on their own terms…and when to stop investing in people who didn’t want to be helped. I learned to change as quickly and as adeptly as I needed to so my shows and my staffs could thrive. I grew so much in every victory and letdown because I was, and still am, dying to learn things I didn’t already know.

Can I also add why I think some people succeed? Success happens when you learn before you leap, work yourself dizzy because you love what you’re doing, contribute more than you reap and recognize even the small moments as gigantic blessings. Again, “attitude determines altitude.” Don’t think you’ll be the person who can bypass that formula. Consider adopting it just to prove me wrong by failing. You won’t.

Hands down, the easiest way to move up in Hollywood is to thank the people who help you.

No one in Hollywood ever gets thanked. And I don’t mean an e-mail that says “Thank you.” Not because that’s not perfectly lovely and appropriate, but because it’s rarely an equal investment on your part for all someone has invested in you. If someone gives you something valuable, like a job or a referral or fifteen inspirational, guidance-filled minutes of their time, then give them something valuable in return (a gift certificate, a volunteer day, a donation to their charity, etc.). At the beginning of a job, I usually give a gift to whoever referred me for the job. And at the end, I usually give gifts to my bosses - who have paid me thousands and thousands of dollars and given me an awesome production credit. Do you know how many other staffers gripe instead about not getting gifts from their bosses?

People will remember the gestures you make that say “I give you the return gift of my time.” That might be walking to a coffee shop to send someone a gift card. Or it might be coming to their office to file on a day their assistant leaves early. Actions speak louder than words…and time speaks way louder than e-mails.

I have to keep going on the “attitude determines altitude” theme for people who are trying to rise in entertainment. Some people think that looking successful will actually replace being successful - or working hard to get there! So the question I want you to ask yourself, if you find yourself getting nowhere in your Hollywood dream is…

DO YOU FRONT? COME ON NOW, DO YOU?

• Do you wear sunglasses inside, when you are not blind, even when you are speaking to people? Psssssst. You look young and unexposed and unsure of yourself. That’s true even if you are famous. If Sidney Poitier and Kathleen Kennedy and Mira Nair can work a room without shades, so can and must you.
• Do your business cards say “Executive Producer” though you have never raised the funding for a produced film? That means if you meet a real executive producer, they might see you as competition instead of a fantastic new talent they can groom or give advice and mentorship to.
• Is your first question in every interview, “How much am I being paid?” Enough said.
• Do you stubbornly defend your writing and professional and creative choices to anyone who offers you feedback on them? If you are intent on presenting yourself as already knowing all there is to know…no one will ever want to teach you what you’d love to learn.
• Are you leasing a luxury vehicle or watching a 42″ plasma HDTV on your leather couch but do not have a top of the line computer and all of the software, tech gear and media components you need to make it in this industry? Sell off the lease. Buy a camera and audio and lighting equipment and hard drives and Microsoft Office and Final Cut or Avid Express and First Draft, etc.

The sooner you start to embrace the attitude of being successful rather than the appearance of it, the sooner people’s perception of you will shift. The attitude is not, “Hey, I’m a big man! Check me out!” It’s “Hey, I respect what you do and am making my way through this maze. How can I contribute to your dream with what I have to offer - ’cause I know I’m going to learn something along the way?”

When I talk to people who are just starting out, they think that their biggest obstacle will be successful people holding them back or not helping them up. WRONG. Your biggest barrier is your attitude! Are you here to learn, earn and return…or do you want to get as much as you can for as little effort as you can expend?

So many people want to start at the top or rocket there after only a few gigs. They have such fantastic talent and ambition, but they open by founding a production company or looking for a three-picture deal. Based on what experience and contacts? Don’t do it! Not just because it’s extraordinarily entitled, which is horrifying to the industry people you meet who have invested years in learning their craft (and might otherwise have happily helped you), but also because if you get a big break too soon, you’ll have no skills or contacts to make it pay off for you (”Grand Opening…Grand Closing” - thanks Chris Rock).

No, you don’t have to start at the bottom if you know the right people. But there’s no point in anyone taking a helicopter to the top of Mount Everest just to get to the top as fast as you can. You’ll have no idea how to survive in that brutal climate. And what’s really interesting to anyone who meets a mountain climber is the actual story of how they got to the top. That’s where you’re going to learn all you need to know to work the heck out of that mountaintop when you get there. The people who created “Amazing Race” and “CSI” didn’t start as the show runners! They entered at their level of knowledge and worked their way up inside of their own hit shows! Where do you think they are now? Running their own hit shows, with the well-earned respect of their staffs.

Not everyone registers the “work your way to the top” approach when I say it. A screenwriter friend goes nuts when people argue back with examples of the “exceptions” - about some crappy movie that still got made, about someone who didn’t know what they were doing but got handed a deal, etc. Unless you have the same deep industry connection or demographic desirability those “exceptions” had, plan on making it on talent and hard work instead - it’s more fun anyway! Besides, if you are invested in making it by breaking all of the rules of the game, you are missing out on all the great opportunities to enjoy tremendous success by playing the game exactly how nearly everyone else is playing it. Why miss out on the great big Hollywood party by hoping to bypass gaining experience and meeting mentors and shaping a creative project from the floor up and passing your experience on to the next group of talented filmmakers? All of that is the good part!

Here’s more insider information adapted from my interview with Twyman Creative.

Question:What do you need to know to succeed in the industry?

DMA’s Answer: After more than a decade in the industry and attending or speaking at countless conferences, festivals, seminars, etc., this is what I’ve found consistently to be the source of guaranteed failure: People at every level of this game fail because they don’t know, respect or believe how the industry operates. It’s that simple and that unfortunate. Here are the biggest areas where I think people truly soar or crash in this industry. This is not for the defensive or faint-hearted: I really want to state frankly what I mean!<

FAIL OR FLY REASON #1: DO YOU KNOW AND USE INDUSTRY LEXICON?
I talk to filmmakers (emerging and established) as often as I possibly can, and I tell everyone to learn the language of the industry (”beat sheet,” “line producing,” “first look deal,” “turnaround,” etc.). No one trusts you as a doctor if you don’t know what the word “scalpel” means, and no one trusts you as a filmmaker if you don’t know what the acronym “E&O” stands for or where to get it. If you know the language and the proper spelling and meaning of important names and events, at any level of success, people take you more seriously. The best classroom is a J-O-B. Get one in the industry at whatever level you’re truly qualified for, and watch what happens.

FAIL OR FLY REASON #2: ARE YOU ALWAYS LEARNING MORE ABOUT THE INDUSTRY?
This is the only industry of the many I’ve worked in where people are proud that they know nothing and think natural talent and big plans are all they need. Imagine if your attorney took that approach…and still wanted to be paid well just for being “passionate” about the law, despite never having gone to law school or been inside a courtroom!

Go online and read about the studios and production companies (look at the credits of films you watch and write names down to see who you want to research). Watch great films in and outside of your generation, favorite genres and cultural connections. Read the trades to see which companies are doing what and who the movers and shakers are today (I read five every day, and I will keep reading them until I no longer work in the industry). Attend seminars and truly listen to what you are being told; I attend easily a dozen seminars a year and take notes and read further when I get back to work the next day. It always impresses me when people have information far beyond what they need to know to do what they do. It makes me think they are certain of and prepared for bigger futures.

Hands down, the best way to learn is to get a job in the industry! The education and contacts will be more valuable than the money at first.

I recently did an interview with Twyman Creative about working in Hollywood and enjoyed answering the questions so much that I wanted to share them here. Here’s the first tip:

Question: What do you recommend for people getting in the industry?

DMA’s Answer: VOLUNTEER TO DO SOMETHING USEFUL FOR SOMEONE WHO CAN TEACH YOU SOMETHING. The only way to get jobs in Hollywood is to know people. The best way to get to know people is to help them achieve their goals. Then they will help you achieve yours - if only by letting you see firsthand how a job is done right!

It’s completely self-defeating in the entertainment industry to be about what you can get from others; people smell a user or a bloodsucker a mile away. Know what your strengths are and volunteer them. If you can type, help someone update their database. If you have a car, offer to drive someone around town on a day they have back-to-back meetings. If you have Internet access, help someone post film announcements at all the hot sites.

When I was a political aide in San Francisco, Tom Bradley was running for governor, and he was coming to town from Los Angeles. I called his office and said, “I’d be happy to drive Mayor Bradley anywhere he needs to go.” They cleared it with him and my boss, and I spent about sixteen hours talking politics and personal history with a legend. He offered to give me a great reference for grad school, too.

It’s frustrating how often I’m offering free advice to a Hollywood newcomer, and the recipient cuts me off by saying, “So who are you? Have I ever seen you before?” That single statement says that the entire standard for validity in that person’s world is having a famous or recognizable face. Welcome to our culture of celebrity - and to your biggest obstacle to making your entertainment dreams come true.

Let me please say that I have never been and don’t have any goal of being famous due to a career in entertainment. I am, instead, fulfilled due to my career in entertainment. At one point in the past 20+ years, I have met my own standard of validity and success - I have paid my rent/mortgage, car note, grocery bills, utilities, supported my french fry habit, socialized with friends and traveled extensively thanks to steady professional income in show biz. That includes runway modeling, acting, singing and songwriting, screenwriting and now television producing. I love what I do, though I confess I don’t always love doing it.

You know what I DO love? Always? Mentoring people. I’ve had some amazing supporters in my life, and it means a great deal to me to help other people see the real entertainment industry, warts and more, and find a place inside of it. I’ve seen people soar here…and I’ve seen people really burned out and hurting. And the difference between those two spaces is who you believe you are, what you are here to achieve, and what you can learn about achieving it.

I want to help you see, accept, experience and thrive in this very tough business. And for that, you don’t need to know who I am. You need to know what I know.

Read on.