It is impossible for me to estimate how many of my early impressions of the world, correct and the opposite, came to me through newspapers. Homicide, adultery, no-hit pitching, and Balkanism were concepts that, left to my own devices, I would have encountered much later in life.
You should get as close to the power when you're pitching something. I got my two biggest breaks with the man who owned CBS and the guy that owned Paramount, because I was dealing with the guy who would say yes or no.
Pitch tip: Speak confidently about your product, but be able to admit when you need more information, and get it to the people you're pitching quickly after the meeting.
Entrepreneurs are more likely to be successful if they're able to be present while pitching their ideas. It's about maintaining presence during big challenges - very high stakes moments with some component of social judgment. Everyone has them, whether they're entrepreneurs or not.
I'd say any good set or any comedy that I've worked on, that's worked, has been comedians pitching ideas back and forth to each other. A lot of like, 'What if you say this? What about this?'
Sometimes offense wins. Sometimes pitching wins.
The family on my mom's side, their whole business is inventing and pitching stuff. My grandfather is in infomercials. He's a pitchman, so if you're ever watching TV late at night, you'll probably see him pitching knives. My great-grandfather also invented the plastic cheese grater.
The first sport I played was baseball. I remember being on the Little League team and someone pitching the ball to me for the first time. I was ready to no longer hit the ball off the tee, and an adult pitched it to me underhand.
In the '90s, you couldn't say the word 'nerd' to someone when pitching a show. They would have considered that too niche and wouldn't have listened.
In baseball I was very singularly focused. If I was pitching it was me versus the hitter.
