My family consists of one dog, one son and one wife. All three play a part in this story.

On a particular day not long ago, the TV was on and a commercial for “Finding Nemo 3D” caused my two-and-a-half-year-old son Kase to stop dead in his tracks and tune in. The commercial ended, and Kase simply said, “Fishy, like,” and continued with whatever it was he was doing.

My wife was savvy enough to catch this “Nemo moment” and swiftly added “Finding Nemo” to the number one spot on our Netflix cue. (Once again, “Waiting for Superman” has been demoted for a cartoon.)

When it arrived, we smartly used it, as any parent would, as a tool (...

If you are going about it the right way, pivotal junctures should sprout up throughout a career more readily than Lindsey Lohan gets sworn in, but without the side effect of a rap sheet.

On the front end of these moments come opportunities … opportunities that you must create for yourself. And on the back end are the decisions you make that will dictate the direction of your career path. All in, the outcome will produce the defining moments of your
career.

I’d like to focus on the opportunity portion of this equation, since without opportunity, you’ll have no decisions to make. Opportunities are not handed out in Hollywood like gold stars in fifth grade, they come as a direct result of hard work, countless hours and intense persistence. All too often people new to the industry start to figure out what they’re...

Ever find yourself dressed in a Disney-esque dog costume in the dead of summer at an American Red Cross blood drive? 

What about lost in the Valley driving a 12-passenger van at 5 a.m. filled with muscle-bound, spandex-wearing, American Gladiators named Zap, Thunder, Hawk and Ice heading for a press junket?

Or working on the “VH1 Honors” and being told last minute that Prince no longer wants to be known by his (already fake) name, resulting in you having to replace his name on all the press materials with some new symbol?

These are just a few highlights, or lowlights, from my career. Times when I’d have a moment of self reflective clarity and ask myself … what the "F" is happening to my life? How is this helping my career?  Is this really what a college degree gets me? 

There...

The following are undisputable facts: Leaked sex tapes lead to international stardom, the toilet flush in an airplane bathroom is scary loud and making contacts in Hollywood is hard.

There’s an art to making contacts, keeping the contacts you make and making your contacts amount to something tangible. And you can never take a knee or rest on your laurels because, much like an "SNL" sketch, the task of making new contacts never ends. 

Years ago, before I had a credit to my name, I was trying to sell a TV show I created. I thought the show would be perfect for VH1. I didn’t know anyone at the network, so I submitted the treatment and a presentation tape with a cover letter via mail and it was returned to me. I learned that nobody in Hollywood accepts unsolicited material and the cool part (I’m being facetious) was that the lesson...