Jeff B. Cohen, Managing Partner | Ten Essential Tools For Business

Welcome to the success story podcast, I'm your host, Scott Clary. On this podcast, I have candid interviews with execs, celebrities, politicians, and other notable figures, all who have achieved success through both wins and losses, to learn more about their life, their ideas, and their insights. I sit down with leaders and mentors and unpack their story to help pass those lessons onto others through both experiences and tactical strategy for business professionals, entrepreneurs, and everyone in between. Without further ado, another episode of the success story podcast. Thanks again for joining. I'm sitting down with Jeff B. Cohen, who is the co-founder of the Beverly Hills based law firm Cohen Gardner LLP. He co-founded in 2002, it focuses on transactional representation for clients in entertainment media and technology verticals. Now he's been named by variety to both its deal makers impact list and legal impact list. Cohen Gardner LLP, some of their clients include director writer producer Bong, June Ho, recently won four Oscars, best picture, best director, best screenplay, best foreign film at the 2020 Academy Awards for his film Parasite, amongst many other notable clients. Now Jeff has also written the book, the deal makers 10 commandments, 10 essential tools for businesses forged in the trenches of Hollywood published by American Bar Association and is available on Amazon. And I'm going to link that book in the description, I want to go into that. Jeff received his address doctor from UCLA, emphasis on business law, his undergrad degree from Berkeley, Haskell of Business, and while at UC Berkeley, he served as president of associated students of the University of California, unique background. Jeff has a unique background growing up as a child actor in the entertainment industry. Most notable role was playing Tunk in the cult Richard Donner, Steven Spielberg Film Goonies, which was added to the National Film Registry in the Library of Congress in 2017. And he asks that you don't hold that against him. So thank you. Thank you for having me, Scott, I'm happy to be here. Thank you for having me. It's my pleasure, it's my pleasure. When I first reached out, I was like, oh, prominent lawyer, you know, I want to speak about, I want to speak about your book, I want to speak about negotiation, I want to speak about the business and the work that you're doing, and I'm like, oh, by the way, he also is a child actor turned lawyer. So that's probably the best possible outcome of becoming a child actor. I'm not going to lie, you're probably, you're doing it right, you're doing it right. Thank you. Thank you. It doesn't always have to turn out this way, it doesn't always, you know, being a former child actor is not always a recipe for success, it's not always the secret sauce for winning at life, but ultimately it feeds me up pretty well for what I do. So man, walk me through, walk me through your life, your career. We can start as young as you want to go, but I do want to tee up what brought you to the work that you do now. Sure, of course, of course. So yes, you know, a former child actor, a cultural icon, you know, that's another way to say it. You know, the, you know, the Jerry Garcia of my generation, yeah, you know, some people say that is the burden heavy, sure, you know, is it tough to have such adoration and, you know, cultural weight in addition to my own girth as a, as a professional fat kid. You know, I, you know, I grew up in the San Fernando Valley in the suburbs of Los Angeles. And I was kind of a, you know, hammy little fat kid. And I love the three stages and I love the little rascals and I love watching old, you know, black and white comedies and that's kind of what I wanted to do. So I got into the business when I was a little kid, which is easy to do in LA, you know, in LA, everyone either has a screenplay or as an actor or some combination thereof. So, you know, I don't think my writing was that good at the time. So opted to be a kid actor and, you know, kind of get all the 80s, you know, sitcoms, like family ties and facts of life and kids incorporated and all that kind of stuff. And then ultimately in 85 did the film The Junies directed by Richard Donner, who's the best, who's remained, you know, kind of an inspiration and a mentor and a friend throughout, you know, my life. And I'm kind of very fortunate to kind of, you know, rely on his guidance and Dick Donner directed such remarkable films as Superman and the Omen and all the lethal weapons and of course, Goonies and, you know, produced all the X-Men films and all kinds of, you know, fantastic stuff. And so then, yeah, did Doonies, when I was 10 and of course, I was directed by Dick Donner for a produced, you know, written by Spielberg and Chris Columbus and yeah, that kind of was pretty cool and did its thing and then, you know, hit puberty and then you look different and it's harder to get work. The shelf life, I love entertainment and I love show business. I just love the fact that, you know, you can do something like I did Doonies in 85 and now it's, you know, 35 years later and people still like it. People will watch it with their kids, you know, in our kind of COVID world where theaters are having trouble. They'll have like private movies and they show Goonies to drive with movies, which is I think really fun. So what I love about art and entertainment is that you can do something and it has legs, you know, like Shakespeare wrote his plays 500 years ago, but they have little legs. So, you know, even 500 years later, we still read Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet, it's like that. You know, 100 years later, or I guess 80 years later, we're still watching, you know, Casa Blanca, you know, so cats, I thought cats would last longer because in the 80s, man, that was a big play. That was a really big musical, cats, not holding up so good. I still thought it was pretty cool. I like the movie, actually. I actually didn't see it. I saw so much negative about it. I couldn't bring my, I'm gonna, but I haven't yet. But yeah, I don't know. You know, it's funny, like, like, and I don't have any clients associated with cats. So I'm able to freely discuss cats. When I watched it, and everyone had hated it so much, but I was like, dude, this is the play. That's the same. Like, I remember the kids being cats in the theater in the 80s, I'm like, it's kind of the same exact thing. Like, what? How can everybody love this so much then and hate this so much now? But anyways, yeah, I don't know. But anyways, you know, kind of, you know, love that element of entertainment that, you know, it can kind of help push culture forward and kind of, you know, bring a lot of joy. So, you know, when I was acting to pan out, because you look different, you have kind of a short shelf life as a kid actor. It can work out for some people. But you know, it certainly didn't for me. I was very fortunate that Richard Donner, who directed Goonies, you know, took me under his wing. You know, every summer, I would work for Dick Donner at his office as a Warner Brothers. And I went from being an actor to, you know, cleaning up lunch after everybody was done and being a production assistant and going on runs throughout the city to pick things up. And Dick Donner showed me that there's a whole different side of show business, that there is the studio executive and there's the producers, you know, and there's the, there's the directors and there's kind of this whole other, you know, there's a distribution executive and the financiers. There's kind of all these different elements to it. And kind of, you know, at that point, I knew that kind of my way to improve my life or to have a shot was, was academics, was to get into the best college that I could get into. Because I kind of, you know, I had good grades and I worked hard and I was looking for, you know, a way to kind of, you know, open up my horizons. So, you know, I got into UC Berkeley, which I was really excited about. And it was fun for me growing up in LA to, you know, go to school outside of LA. So, I love the Bay Area, you know, I'm still in the big Berkeley guy, you know, Go Bay Bears. A whole house, you can see a golden bear actually over there in the corner like a whole house. That's right. Yeah, we're the mighty California golden bear, Go Bears. So I actually decorated my house with weird stuff like Scarface's throne, Tony Montana's throne, golden bears, very, very mature stuff. But you know, went to Berkeley, studied business and, you know, trying to find myself and like, okay, what, you know, if you're, if you're a, if you're an out of work actor, what do you do in California and it's politics, you get into politics, you know, that's kind of the normal path. Arnold Schwarzenegger of course became our governor, Ronald Reagan out of work, you know, became the governor as well. So I was like, hey, you know, people love voting for X actors. So at Berkeley, I got really involved in student government and I was a student senator and then I became president of the student body. So anyways, you know, in June of 2002, I started my law firm with one of my colleagues from Universal Studios, a Jonathan Gardner. We formed Cohen Gardner, got an office in Beverly Hills, the cheapest office in the, in the most remote portion of Beverly Hills, you know, it's certainly a bootstrap situation. But yeah, you know, we've been going for 18 years and, you know, we're very fortunate to represent great writers and directors, producers, production companies. And you know, basically we're transactional attorneys. So what we do is we negotiate their deals, whether it's for talent services or for writing a film or, you know, directing a film or, you know, distributing financing of film or television or digital content for that matter. So yeah, that's what we do. And you know, so obviously like a huge, you didn't even work for a major firm to start. You had a little bit of business experience, but then you just sort of went out on your own and did it and you sort of bootstrap for lack of a better term from the ground up. Well, there was, I did gloss over a period of about 18 months when I think I got fired three times. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think we all gloss over that stuff. I tried to make it more elegant, Scott, but thanks for just twisting the knife. I was fired from a big firm. I was fired from a small firm. And then I was fired from a medium firm. So I think I was fired from every level of firm. How do you start it? How do you start it? I mean, basically what I realized is again, I had issues with authority and I'm a terrible employee. And I think I'm a pretty good boss. So I figured that's the only way to not get fired anymore was to start my own business because then you can't really, I mean, you can't get fired, I suppose, but you really got to work at it. So I was, you know, I kind of, there were, you know, large and small firms between that little window, between universal and starting my own firm, but realized pretty quickly, I, you know, if I worked for me, I would have fired me. So it's totally no hard feelings, completely reasonable, you know? No, that's fair. So starting your own business, essentially starting your own business, you know, you had a couple of follies and whatnot, but how do you, how do you go about building a firm from the ground up? Because I assume that, and correcting from wrong, I think that most successful individuals probably start a much later on in their life, right? They don't, they don't jump into it as their first venture or the first venture is not successful. And that could just be, you know, me drawing assumptions. But still I'm curious, some of the struggles that you went through and how you sort of overcame those to build out home gardener to the point where now you're what, 18 years and successful. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's, you know, there's a, there's a, there's an idea that actually failing at a young age is a great blessing. And I think that's true for me, anyways, that was really true because as a kid, all I wanted to do was be an actor, like, that's what I love, I mean, I wanted to be spanky from the little rascals. I wanted to be curtaily from the free stages, like that was it. And I had a taste of it. And then as a kid, you don't realize, like, oh, things end, you know, there's that other idea that the beauty of first love is the ignorance that it will ever end. That's why it's so beautiful. So to kind of have something that I really wanted and then kind of have it slip away and kind of go through that experience, I think was really, for me, as a human being was very fundamental. And also when I, you know, when I started my law firm, I realized that, you know, the greatest secret weapon is no alternative. No alternative is the best secret weapon. It's, you know, it's, it's that sun-su idea that, you know, when you, when you invade another land, you know, you park your ships on, you know, your park your ships, all the troops get out. Then you set the ships on fire because the troops know if they don't win, they're going to get pushed into the ocean, you know, so, so for me, you know, I love show business. And you know, the thing with show business is it's very fickle, you know, it's very hard. And that specific industry, I mean, a lot of industries, you know, but in that industry specifically, it's very hard to have one longevity. So where I think a kid actor has kind of the shortest shelf life, unless they can transition and become something fantastic, like, you know, Jodie Foster or Josh Brolin or something like that, you know, in show business, the other end of the spectrum, who has the longest, you know, shelf life is actually an entertainment lawyer, in my, in my opinion, because it's one of the few places in entertainment where you want someone who's old. You want someone, you want to wizard with a white beard who lives in the castle and, you know, in the, in their weird wizard tower and have seen everything and that, you know, so one thing to me that was appealing about entertainment law is like, oh, they actually want you to be old. You know, they want that experience. Yeah. They want that experience. They want you to have been through all these battles. And one of the, you know, something that I saw when I was at Universal is how hard it is to have longevity at a studio, because if you're not kind of the top of that pyramid, you know, there's so much, you know, you know, change it. When there's a change in regime, it's very easy to get fired when it's completely not your fault. When you didn't do anything wrong. So for me, I was like, wow, entertainment law, you know, A, I love entertainment. It's fun to work with artists and help them kind of create cool stuff and be an advocate for them. I care about that. And with my own business, I can kind of build it the way that I think it would be, you know, that it would be best. The, you know, certainly early on, it was rough going, you know, for about the first year of the firm, I literally, you know, not, not, no embellishment. I actually slept at the law firm. Like I couldn't afford both an apartment and my half of the rent for the law firm. So I had an air mattress and, you know, I haven't, you know, built a Scotch in the evening when everybody went home. Everybody being me and my law partner wasn't a huge, it wasn't a huge group. Inflate my air mattress, go to sleep, get up early before anybody came in. I would go to the LA Fitness by the 10 freeway and then La Siannaga, which was not too far from our office, I would work out, I would, you know, jump in the shower and rinse and repeat. And I did that for about a year because I, I, I had to make it work, you know, I had to make it work. And fortunately, you know, we've had some great success, you know, I'm, I'm very excited for the clients that we work with and kind of the projects that, you know, that they've, you know, done and continue to do. And ultimately it's a great place to be. I love the story. Um, I want to bring up one point that, that you didn't touch on, but I think, uh, sort of alludes to your success in your business, as well as, as, as well as the reason why you wrote the book that you actually wrote, because you mentioned I was, you mean this book? Exactly. Exactly. Exactly that. An environment. Amazing. Are you available? I said, so funny. I just have to be brushing up on my B.O. Maker's 10 Commandments available on Amazon in hardcover, uh, audio book and the Kindle, the kids love the Kindle. You can, and I actually read the book on audio. You did the, you did the voice to yourself? I did the audio. So exciting. Uh, back, back, back on top as a performer once again. Uh, so if you like these beautiful, dulcet tones, I will actually read this brilliant book to you. You're welcome. So you're welcome worlds on that topic. I'm sorry. I interrupted Scott. No, that's where I was going because, because you mentioned, I was reading some notes. You mentioned that you found, uh, you, you found Machiavelli's book, The Prince, which then sort of opened your eyes to business. And then that, you know, fast forward eventually led to your success book and career. So what, what did you learn out from there that sort of has shaped the book, the way you pursue business, the way you pursue life, the way you, you know, you deal with negotiations on a daily as a lawyer? I'm curious about that. Of course, um, deal makers, commandment, one, spoiler alert, uh, spoiler alert, um, absolutely ripped off of Machiavelli, but I give him credit, uh, it is better to be feared than love. Um, and of course, uh, in the book, I give a warning, uh, in the beginning of the book that this is for your professional life, not your personal life. So, you know, things can get, I know fairly rough and what I do, you know, um, it's, uh, it's a lot of combat, um, it's people's economic well-being on the line, um, so things can get, you know, fairly rough. Um, so basically, uh, when I was in college, the, uh, I read, you know, it took the intro to polyside class, because I was interested in political science, and I read the book, The Prince, by Nicola Machiavelli, um, and it blew me away. It absolutely kind of altered my, you know, world view. It was a real game changer for me, um, because prior to that, I very much had a performer's mindset, um, which is great, but, you know, the point of being a performer is to be loved, you know, is to entertain and enlighten and hopefully inspire, um, and, you know, in exchange for the applause and the adoration of the audience. Um, so that was the mindset that I was, was, was used to, was like, well, try to be loved, try to be loved. But with this book said, it said that if you want to gain power, and if you want to wield power, if you have a choice between being feared or being loved, it is better to be feared. The reason being is because people fear you because they have to, and they love you because they want to. And if you want to build your house of bricks, it's preferable to, uh, you know, build with something that you control, um, so what I learned from a deal-making perspective was that in order to, uh, get a deal, uh, to kind of come out, you know, and, and, and, and the best, for the best result for your client, the first analysis is, is the analysis of fear. You know, we're negotiating against large corporations, um, you know, sometimes we're David, sometimes we're Goliath, you know, we're mercenaries, we have standards, but they're low and flexible, um, you know, but, but when you're, when you are, when you are negotiating against a much larger, uh, opponent, you have to get in their mind and think, okay, what are they afraid of? You know, what, what is the button that I need to tap in order to create wealth and some sort of creative control, uh, for my client? So what, what Machiavelli discusses, you know, in the context of being a prince in Renaissance Italy, uh, is how do you acquire power, how do you manage power, um, and how do you deal with, you know, those around you? Um, so for me, the book, The Prince, was fundamental and in kind of structuring what I do as a business person and as an, as an attorney, uh, you know, being a vigorous advocate for my client, um, Machiavelli really kind of opened up my whole world because for me, the, the mindset was always being loved, but I was like, oh no, if you're feared, um, then you're able to actually do better results for your client. So even though it's not elegant or polite, it's, I found it to be necessary, especially when you're negotiating against multi-billion dollar corporations who are tough and savvy upon it. I love that. And I think that people that don't go into business on their own, don't see that all the time. And I think that the, the rose colored glasses stay on, but the second you go into entrepreneurship or the second you go into doing deals where you are the stakeholder and you're the main decision maker, I think a lot of this stuff is very important so that you protect your assets, you protect, you know, you really protect your assets, be quite honest so that people don't take advantage of you because people do play this, people play these power games in business in law and especially in politics, but I don't, I would never even go there, but you see these types of games being played. And I think that the more, you know, like other entrepreneurial books that I think are good for people than business or just entrepreneurs like the, the hard thing about hard things, like things like that, like books that really paint life the way it is, not to be pessimistic, but just to be like eye opening and aware. That's what I really appreciate when people write books like that. That's really why I'm, you know, you mentioned the prints and I thought it was interesting just because that the lessons, like are all the lessons somewhat in line with things pulled out of that book or are they all of your own experiences? Sure, what I tried to do, and I actually, I very, it's great that you bring it up because I very much patterned the book after the print, A, because you'll see it's short, it's a short book, it's about 130 pages because the prints were about 110 and I have a very short attention span. So I wanted, you know, I very much did not want to waste the reader's time. I wanted to, you know, kind of put those lessons together. What I tried to do is basically combine, you know, the philosophers and the political scientists and kind of the business books that I like, you know, everything from, you know, you know, rich dad, poor dad to Nietzsche, to, you know, Machiavelli, to my own personal experience, of course, without revealing any specific details, because of course, attorney client privilege is fundamentally important to what we do. And kind of also, of course, my own experience, kind of building my law firm, representing my clients and kind of going into battle, you know, there's that idea that, you know, being a professional, no matter what your business is, but being a real professional actually means you have a deep knowledge of the ugly side of your business. And I think that's correct. That's what actually being a professional is. Part of it is that you get paid for what you do, but the other part of it is no matter what your business is, business is top, business is rough, business is, business is combat. So being a professional means you've seen the ugly side of it and your, you know, you have some sort of calluses regards to that. So I totally agree. And part of the reason I started my own business, and I enjoy advising other, you know, business owners who are my clients, you know, who have their own production companies or their personal service companies, et cetera, is, you know, I, I, when I worked at a studio, I saw people who I really cared about, who I thought were great, you know, executives get fired. That wasn't their fault. They were, they didn't do anything wrong. It was just some numerical calculation, they're like, oh, if we fire this person, we can hire two people who are 20 years younger and can do, you know, two thirds of the work between the two of them, you know. And I found that to be very unfair and it drove me nuts and it made me sad. And I didn't want to personally selfishly, I did not want to be in that position. So that's why I felt that in life, there isn't much stability. This is always, you know, is always combat and, you know, is always precarious, but at least when it's your own company, you have more control because, you know, as a capitalist, you allocate capital, right? That's what you make those decisions. So, you know, it's funny, actually, I won't say his name specifically, but I was able to speak to a kind of a well-known billionaire and, you know, I asked him, this is very early on, you know, decades ago. I'm not old, I can actually say decades ago and it can be, it's just weird, damn, I'm old. But I wanted some advice, you know, there's a self-made billionaire, it's pretty remarkable. And he gave me two pieces of advice, gave me two pieces of advice. The first, he said, control your capital. He said, don't let someone else control your capital, you have to control your capital. So for me, you know, co-owning my own business with, you know, you know, my great law partner and I have, that I co-founded the firm with and I have another law partner who's great as well. But being an integral part in deciding how we allocate capital, which markets we're going to go after, how we control our overhead as support. The second thing, he said that, when you succeed, if you succeed, people will say, oh, you just happen to be in the right place at the right time. And he's like, that's true. He's like, but why were you in the right place? How did you put yourself in the right place? How did you know it was the right time? How did you make the right decision when you were in the right place at the right time? So I think that was also great advice to really recognize, like, you know what? Once you solve the problem, it's easy. Once you have some success, it seems easy, but man, when you're sleeping at the office that year and drinking yourself with some red, you know, Johnny Walker red label, not the black label, certainly not the blue label, not even green label or gold label, the red label, let's be honest, maybe Cutie Sark was even there for God's sake. And you know, at the time, it seems, it seems really hard. And when you have some success, people will just kind of be like, oh, yeah, it was meant to be. But when you're the person actually in the arena, it feels somewhat different. You have to give yourself some credit in a way that other people can't, because you actually went through that experience. So anyways, I think that this is a, these are a whole bunch of knowledge bombs that you're dropping right now. So I appreciate it. And they're great. Like, dropping knowledge bomb. Yeah. 100%. Yeah. And I'm telling you, the clips are going to be awesome. Because now I get all these little life less than insight segments that I can post on social slide. Appreciate it. Seriously, man. This is awesome. Out of these, out of these 10 commandments, you know, you got the first one and then you brought in some other stuff. But are there any others that you think would be good to highlight without giving away the whole book? But just things that are, you love, you love one of these in particular for whatever reason. Yes, I do. Scott. Thank you for asking. So do you make us commandment one? It's better to be feared than love. Machiavelli. He'll make us commandment five. And it sounds silly. But it's really important. It's really important. No pig wrestling. He'll make us commandment five. You heard it here first. No pig wrestling. Do not wrestle pigs. Because you get dirty and the pig enjoys it. No pig wrestling basically is how one should view combat. Because in your mind, combat seems clean. It seems easy. I'm a much bigger opponent. They're a much smaller opponent. I'm going to hit them once. I'm going to hit them and they hit the floor to hit. But if you've ever actually seen a bar fight, any bar fight, they are not elegant affair. They are always ugly and always goes away in a way that you don't expect. And out of all the things that you can do as an entrepreneur, as a business owner, combat is the most expensive. It takes mental energy. It takes, you know, it takes a treasure. It takes resources. And energy that you're spending in combat, if it's not the right fight, is a complete weight. And part of that is only fight larger opponents, if you can't. Because if you fight a smaller opponent, you can only lose. Because if you win, who cares? You seem like a bully. And if you lose, you're doomed. So the funny thing is, I actually, you know, I view combat as honor. When you engage in combat with someone, you are bestowing honor upon them. You know, in the old days, a knight would never joust against the squire. A knight would only engage in combat, you know, with another knight. A CEO is not going to negotiate a deal against an intern. A CEO is going to engage with another CEO. So picking the right fight and choosing who to honor with, you know, who to honor with by engaging in combat with them is very important. Because if you do that wrong, it's really easy to get into a terrible fight, where then your pride's on the line, money's on the line. And history is laden with people engaging in, you know, this combat that just ruins the empire from Rome on, you know. So no pig wrestling, viewing combat as honor and finding the right fights to get into is very important. I think coming from an attorney, that's well heated advice. Because if you are, if you're saying that, how many, how many entrepreneurs, well, they do, they look at their businesses, their baby, right? So it's so emotional to them. And they pick fights with absolutely everyone that threatens that, but they lose track of their North Star metric. I think that that's a huge issue. Absolutely, absolutely. And, you know, like there's that saying, beware of the man of one book. You know, you have to beware of the client with one idea. You know, if, like, for example, if we're representing a producer, and they have a script that they've been very passionate about, and they have a place and out into the marketplace and out into the marketplace. If it hasn't sold, you know, sometimes you got to move on. Sometimes you got to say, you know what, I love this. I'm passionate about this, but you have to kind of respect the marketplace. So for me, for my example, personally, like, I loved acting. I wanted to do it, but I looked different. I kind of didn't have the heart for it. And I kind of didn't have the, I guess the tenacity to be able to continue to go out and kind of make myself horrible like that. I had to say, okay, well, I have to respect what the market's doing. What else am I good at? Well, I have kind of, you know, I'm good academically. I like to read. I love dealing with artists. I love helping them. And I kind of found something else. So, you know, being able to kind of realize, like, oh, you know, you know, walking away from the table down ten bucks instead of down a thousand bucks. You know, so that's leaving the table is tough. You know, there's actually a, you know, I think it was Orson Wells. And the quote is, there's nothing more difficult than leaving the table a winner. And it is hard. You're Vegas, you know, one hundred bucks playing Blackjack, leaving the table a winner. That is tough. That is tough. So kind of being able to cut your losses and kind of, you know, nobody, and I guess there's two other quotes that I think about. One is nobody ever went broke making a profit. And then also you only have to get rich once. I think that one's actually really important. You only have to get rich one, which of course, you know, tons of investment advisors from Jim Kramer to Golden Sachs, whoever say that. And it's really true, you know, once you, you know, have enough money or you feel like, hey, I'm wealthy. Like, you know, do your thing, take risks. But, you know, is it worth it to put it all on the line? Probably not. Probably not. Because that's something I think about as well. What, you know, you're, you're a really big fan of quotes. Where do you? Yes. Is it reading? Is it like, what's your, what's your driver? Because I know people to quote. I like, I love quotes. But I definitely don't memorize as many as you do. So I'm curious where that comes from. Um, I would say first of all, short attention span. And I love that, you know, I love that like a quote, a great quote can have so much information packed into a small amount of time, you know. Um, also, I think it's like a unique way to kind of look into the thought process of socrates. And Nicole Machiavelli and, you know, Nietzsche and Abraham Lincoln and, you know, Rockefeller. Like, it's, it's a really, you know, I love intellectual property generally. Like, I love book and I love music and I love video games and I love plays because I think it's so fascinating. What are people, you know, what do they care about so much about that they're really going to, you know, put their time into it? As far as books, you know, quote books, you start with Bartlett, you know, Bartlett's, you know, book of familiar quotations. It's a big fat book, but it's marvelous. I think that was one of the first ones I've read, you know, from cover to cover, which is great. And then there's just tons of, you know, there's the Oxford Dictionary of quotes, which is also great. Um, and it's, you know, it's great bathroom reading. It is. You know, I, I, I, I learned a lot of information in the bathroom. You know, it's great bathroom reading and then you kind of circle the clothes. It's like, oh wow, this is really interesting. Um, so I, I love quotes. I think it's, I know some people hate them, but I think it's a great way to get a ton of information in a, in a small amount of time. It's like a snapshot of somebody's mind. Yeah, for sure. I love it. It's very good. No, I just noticed you ring them off. Like you, like, I'm watching and you're not reading them off a sheet. And I know the people have quotes when I do these and they read them off sheets. Because like, it's tough to remember all these like, you know, you don't want to mess it up. You don't want to, you don't want to miss quote. You don't want to say the wrong word, but you, you have them like a right off top of your head. It's very impressive. What is it? Um, and I, a, you know, short attention span, B, I hate things that waste my time and quotes do not waste my time. You know, you're like, like knowing what Abraham Lincoln thought about something or his cake on getting harangued in the past or something is remarkable. So I do love clothes. Very. And tons of quotes in my book. Yeah, I know. I, yeah, so we're going to say and I'm going to, I'm going to link that below in the show notes. Um, what was I going to say? I wanted to, I have a couple rapid fire questions that I like to check on before we teed up. But before we go there, was there anything in the book or otherwise in your life where you're going next with your firm, what you want to do next in your life that we haven't spoken about? Um, you know, it's, uh, I would say with my firm, you know, knock on wood, I'm, I'm there. I feel very fortunate and we represent some great artists, you know, Bung Jun Ho, uh, remarkable director and writer and producer, just one for Oscars, for his film, Parasite, best picture, best director, best screenplay, best horn film. We also have a director named Ryan Cougler, who's a remarkable talent. He won Sundance for his film, Fruitvale Station, which is more relevant now than ever. Um, you know, uh, wrote and directed Creed or co-wrote and directed Creed. Also Black Panther 1 is now working on Black Panther 2. Um, you know, I'm very excited. I think we're working with great artists and, you know, the, the one nice thing, you know, technology always has, you know, good things and bad things. But the one nice thing about technology now is, you know, anyone who's creative is able to have worldwide distribution as long as they have an internet connection. So I love that in our current environment, all of these artists that otherwise we never would have, you know, discovered are able to create something interesting and distribute it. So being an entertainment lawyer and kind of helping companies and people do that is really, I don't know, it's a great place to be. So, you know, I'm very fortunate for kind of the trajectory of our company. Very good. Do you see, do you see massive changes in content creators and personalities going online because they're forced to stay home? Yeah, it's very interesting. Um, the, the big question. I think kind of in our current, in our current kind of pandemic. People are consuming more content than ever. But it's challenging to create content. You know, we have kind of home productions, zoom productions, which are great. Um, you know, studios and producers are starting to figure out how to kind of quarantine a crew and a cast and start, you know, kind of creating production and starting to fall out. You know, live performance is a big question, whether it's, you know, music or theater or speaking tours or, you know, sports. So I think kind of the real question right now is live performance. How is that going to work out? Um, you know, I think ultimately, you know, limits are kind of good for artists because it requires a kind of compels them to innovate. And, you know, artists, you know, art finds a way. So people are creating really interesting content now from all over the globe, which is marvelous. And I just hope once we're on the other side of this, you know, damn pandemic. Production and live performance can begin an artist and we could, you know, hopefully they'll be a boom. Yeah, no, agree. Regardless, there's going to be a massive shift in various industries, various sectors, various ways we consume content. It's just, I think there's going to be a huge shift for some industries for the better, for some for the worst for sure, but it's going to be a massive massive shift. Okay, so rapid fire questions. Great. First one, one lesson that you would tell your younger self. We're sunscreen, but I stole that. I stole that from somebody else, but I was wearing sunscreen. You stole that from me. Trust me. I turned into a lobster in the sun. I have no hair to protect me. I stole that from someone somewhere. I think it was a graduation speech or something. Let's see. If I were to give my old self one piece of advice, it would be by the deal makers 10 commandments and learn from someone else's mistakes. I guess I would say, if you can ever learn from someone else's mistakes, take that opportunity. Because it is a way to kind of jump to warp speed. You don't have to miss those mistakes yourself. Read biographies. Read history. If you could learn from someone else's mistakes, you save yourself a lot of time and experience, which of course is a nice word for mistakes that you've made over your course of your life. It's a good answer. Very good answer. And the next one, you're not allowed to answer with your book. But this is okay. What's a book or an audible or a podcast or even a person, a mentor, the you would recommend people go check out the you've learned from. Let's see. You know, there's a marvelous book. There's a marvelous book and it's about show business specifically, but I think it can apply to kind of any arena. There's a great, he passed away, but there's a remarkable producer and manager named Bernie bros. And Bernie represented Jim Henson and helped build the Muppet Empire. He represented John Belushi, Yolte Radner, Bill Murray, Lauren Michaels, the entire kind of original SNL, you know, cast. He produced the sopranos. He had a remarkable career. Any as a book, which is called, you're no one in Hollywood until someone wants you dead. I love that title. You're no one in Hollywood until someone wants you dead by Bernie bros. So anyone who wants like a fun kind of interesting, inspiring read with show business lessons that are applicable to anyone as an entrepreneur. That's a great book. You're no one in Hollywood until someone wants you dead by Bernie bros being great book. Very good. Thank you. Thank you. And then lastly, where do people go to get more of your book, you, your social, your website, all that. Thank you. Well, the book is available on the old ye old Amazon and it's available in hardcover audio book and also Kindle. I'm on LinkedIn as Jeff B is in boy Cohen. I'm available on Twitter as Jeff underscore B underscore Cohen. Also on Facebook as Jeff B Cohen Esquire. Yes, Q. So between those, you'll get plenty. You'll get more Jeff Cohen than you ever thought that you needed. So those are all great places. That's all for today. Thanks again for joining me on another episode of the success story podcast. You can download or stream this podcast wherever podcasts are available, including iTunes, Spotify, Google, Stitcher, I Heart Radio and many others. You can also watch this podcast on YouTube. If you haven't already, please subscribe and share this podcast with your friends, family, co-workers and peers. Please leave us a rating on iTunes. It takes about 30 seconds as it allows other people to find our podcast and let's our amazing guests reach even more people with their message. And remember, any rating is fine as long as it contains five stars. I'm Scott Clary from the success story podcast signing off. You