Finding My Rithm (Part One)

Premieres, award shows, green rooms, parties, after-parties….all access. Interacting with some of the biggest stars in Hollywood while millions of dollars were exchanged on a daily basis.

This is where talent representation lives.

Agents seek and secure work for artists and entities. They translate creativity into opportunity through dealmaking. At its best, it’s advocacy fueled by passion and grit. At its worst, it can distill down to money and status.

I’ve seen both ends of that spectrum after spending more than a decade inside some of the biggest talent agencies in the world.

Company-wide meetings were a front-row seat to the future. Information wasn’t just power; it determined relevance. It set agendas, ignited deals, and crowned the next taste maker. Inside these walls, you were one phone call away from the world’s most influential people – one call that could change everything.

It was a pressure cooker. Trying to move faster than the competition because someone was either going to eat your lunch or fire you. Always on edge. Careers were hunted like big game.

It was a lifestyle with very few boundaries, but endless opportunities.

This version of the story skips how I got there…and at what cost.

I moved from Long Island to Los Angeles in 2015…well, the San Fernando Valley, technically. Less than a month after graduating from Boston University, four other guys and I rented a three-bedroom house in a lovely cul-de-sac in Van Nuys.

My confidence was nearly as thick as my accent. No one in my family had ventured outside of New York…let alone California for show business. I flew across the country with my degree to vie for a lauded position….in the mailroom.

I landed at ICM. Pushing a mail cart through the halls with bright eyes and bushy tail, I made sure to learn everyone’s name, and what they were excited about. I didn’t know exactly where I’d end up, but I knew I was a comedy guy.

Comedians have always mattered to me. They are truth-tellers. They say things others won’t. Through humor, they unite people across backgrounds and belief systems. Comedy shaped who I am and how I relate.

I spent three years assisting highly strung agents who booked actors in TV and film before moving into the concerts department, booking comedians live. Most assistants wanted out of agency life as soon as possible. I wanted in. And once you’re in, the stakes only get higher.

I had the work ethic, hunger, and the people skills. I craved the custom-tailored suits and suave car…more so, I wanted to be important and recognized for it.

Agency politics are a multidimensional chessboard layered with red tape and a deep institutional memory. Timing mattered. Reputation mattered. Presentation mattered.

One misstep didn’t just slow you down, it brought you to a dead end.

I made agent in 2020…notoriously, the most impactful year for live events. In 2022, CAA absorbed ICM. I leveled up! Throughout my career as an agent, I noticed a lot of the same questions were arising:

Who should we be watching?

What’s trending?

Where are they selling tickets?

How many followers?

How do we make more money?

Few stopped to ask…why?

By why, I don’t mean career trajectory or market share, but intention. Purpose. Impact beyond metrics and money. The responsibility that comes with shaping culture at large through voices and storytelling.

I didn’t ask that question at first. I was too busy chasing the success I thought I wanted.

One thing I forgot to mention..

Early in my career, I fractured my collarbone during a drunken New Year’s Eve in New York City. I flew back to Los Angeles the next day to start my first, prized assistant role…never slowing down to assess the damage. Months later, I realized the ramifications of that night.

Doctors deemed surgery was optional. The real question was:

Could I live with it?

Taking time off felt unthinkable. Showing up in a sling felt worse…the optics alone. The embarrassment around how it happened added shame to the whole thing.

So, I chose to live with it.

Physical therapy fell by the wayside. Work continued to be the priority. Pain and discomfort became a part of my life…

Ignoring my body wasn’t an isolated decision – it was a pattern. One rooted in people-pleasing, proving worth, and prioritizing perception over truth. Patterns shaped long before Hollywood from my own family dynamics, inherited expectations, and never feeling like enough.

Carrying it all—literally—on my shoulders.

Nearly ten years later, after deep personal work and with my partner’s support, I chose surgical intervention. This time, it wasn’t just about the fracture. It was what I had normalized – focusing on work and others over my well-being.

As surgery approached, the question that had followed much of my career resurfaced:

What happens if I step away?

Recovery would take three months. Three months off of work! In an industry that moves fast and forgets faster…

Irrelevance isn’t abstract – it’s a real fear.

The surgery happened in June 2025. Within forty-eight hours, it became clear: this wasn’t just physical recovery. It was a break.

Not a vacation…a forced exit from the machinery I’d been running inside. And in that stillness, the exhaustion caught up to me.

I was burned out.

Part Two