You Don't Need to Step on Heads

This is another rule that I live by. When one is forging a career, we can either be fueled by scarcity and fear, or we can allow abundance and faith to take over.

I have subscribed to both over my several careers, but for the past couple of decades, I'm happy to say that faith has won over and my business has blossomed as a result. Stepping on faces to get ahead is something I have never subscribed to. In fact, I am pretty much always believed that it is our duty to pass our knowledge on.

This is part of my core belief system and it's something that I've experienced firsthand. I've seen it all. Thankfully, I learned very early on that the more you give away, the more you ultimately enrich and grow your career.  

Real estate, especially in central Los Angeles, is incredibly cutthroat. People will stab you in the back. The commissions are gigantic, so I get it, but it’s just not the way I operate or have ever operated. I recently had lunch with one of the biggest CEOs of one of the biggest real estate companies in the United States. He was amazed at how cutthroat this scene is here.

Let’s go back in a time machine. When I was a young guy in London, I was what we called a tea by in Britain. I was the lowest of the low on the totem pole in a London recording studio.

I was around when the guys that worked with the computers and the samplers were called programmers. I really wanted to get into programming. But I was just the tea boy. I took the trash out and night and went and got sandwiches for people. I was the first there and the last to leave. And there were two breeds of guys that came into that studio. They all had aluminum cases full of floppy disks that had all of the sounds they’d sampled. Of course, I was always drooling over them. One group of guys would say, “Don’t touch my shit.” And the other group would say, “Take whatever you want, just put it back where you got it”. I never forgot that.

Some of the latter group went on to become the biggest record producers of that decade. The other group?

They faded away.

That really resonated with me and being able to get those original sounds is also what helped launch my career.

It’s all in the culture

Company culture is huge. Surrounding ourselves with like-minded people who know you, who you can trust, and who you can share with is really powerful. In many companies, there’s a mentality of “what’s mine is mine”. I’ve experienced this quite a bit in the corporate world—not so much in the creative world. True artists like to help other artists. That’s why, when we set up PLG, we formed a culture of sharing and abundance.  It has enriched our company and it has enriched me.

What would Joe do?

When I was green in this industry, a fantastic agent named Joe took me under his wing and showed me the inside. Thanks to him, I was able to get a really firm and fast grip on a very complicated part of my career, which helped to propel me. And I would never have done that without Joe. He died of a brain aneurysm about 14 months ago. Young guy. He is an example to me and he also kind of guides me whenever I need to make decisions. I ask myself, what would Joe do?

I had some friends in the United States when dance music exploded in the early nineties. They rose up the ranks, came from nowhere, and had massive hits. They subsequently burned a lot of bridges in the dance music community. And I remember one of them telling me, “You’re going to have to step on heads if you want to succeed”.

That’s the exact opposite of my belief structure.

It is counterintuitive, but I promise you if you give away what you have learned without expectation—I don't know what it is, Cindy calls it Karma, but whatever it is—when you give it away and extend your hand to someone without expectation, the universe seems to reward it.  Now, it's fine and dandy that the universe rewards it. But my philosophy is this: regardless of whether or not it's rewarded, it's just a better way to live.

I don't want to be looking over my shoulder. I would rather give it away. I'd rather give away the knowledge, give away the secrets, and give away the tips. This is what I do on a daily basis anyway, and when my head hits the pillow, I can say I've had a good day.

I'm not driven by money. Of course, I want to be successful and I want to make money, but money is not the object. Satisfaction is the object for me. Money comes and goes. But ambition is something that's delicious and can be sculpted. It can be sculpted in the right way and it can be sculpted by poison.

Knowledge is never owned. It is only borrowed.

If I know something that will help make someone’s job better, I’m going to share it. Not because I expect something back form the universe or karma, but because it enriches who I am. It allows me to put my head on the pillow and think, “That was really good. I had really good day today.”

We live in the United States. With that alone, when you open your eyes in the morning, you’ve already won. You’ve already hit the jackpot.

We do not need to step on heads to be successful. Quite the contrary, we need to give it all away.