Happy April

Happy April!!

May April bring lots of showers for all of our May Flowers!

Awesome Article

There has been so much on our minds about our future.

What to do?

Can we do it?

This article really puts everything into perspective..or it makes the decisions all the more difficult...

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Do you have a 5 year career plan?

If so, there’s one thing you can plan on – very little will go as planned.

I never planned on being in the Entertainment business. I was singularly focused on becoming a 
teacher. I was a student at New York University pursuing an MBA. I already had my Juris 
Doctorate, my BA, and Master of Laws degrees, when an Executive Vice President from 
Columbia Pictures came to recruit what they thought would be “the best and the brightest.” 

While I absolutely wasn’t interested in a career in Entertainment, the business school felt it was 
a necessity to take interviews with these large companies who often endowed them. During 
our meeting, I was completely transparent about my passion for teaching and a lack of interest 
in the movie industry. She respected my candor and our conversation moved to hockey – a 
topic I was very passionate about.

It just so happened the Executive Vice President had a spare ticket to a professional hockey 
game at Madison Square Garden and invited me to go. As a student with financial constraints 
who couldn’t otherwise afford such a ticket, this opportunity was not to be missed. Her 
conversation continued. Remembering my interest in teaching, she exhorted that teaching in a 
classroom wasn’t the only way to teach. You could reach, touch and open the minds of an 
audience of millions more people through filmed entertainment than you could ever do within 
the walls of a single classroom. I was curious. They asked me several days later to interview and 
have lunch with the President of the company whose offices were on 5 Avenue uptown. Heck, 
that sounded like a cool lunch and I save money. That led to their invitation to fly to California, 
a location I had not been, but I reminded them that I really wasn’t interested in the movie 
business. They said that was alright, come anyway. I hadn’t been to California so that was an 
offer I could hardly refuse.

The trip to California ended up to be a stay for the next 35 years. If I hadn’t been open to the 
interview and the serendipity of a hockey game, my incredible journey in the Entertainment 
and Sports industries, which continues today, would never have happened.

Is there an icing on this cake? Yes! Within six months of my new start in Hollywood, I became a 
guest lecturer at UCLA which led to a professorship at both UCLA’s Anderson School of 
Management and its School of Theater, Film and Television. It’s during the courses that I teach 
in these schools where I often invite highly accomplished executives to converse with me and 
engage with the students and myself, that I discovered many of these folks also had very 
circuitous career paths.

In one of my current graduate courses on winning in the business of sports, Emmy-winning and 
Oscar-nominated producer-director-writer Mike Tollin, whose credits include Radio, Coach 
Carter, Varsity Blues and the documentary Hank Aaron: Chasing The Dream, admitted to never 
laying out a career path. His advice to our graduate students was that everything leads to 
everything and that you have to trust that the “dots will connect,” even though you may not see the connection at the moment. He shared that they must take every opportunity they get 
as “make or break” and leave nothing on the table.

Pacific 12 Conference Commissioner, Larry Scott, thought he’d follow his Harvard education 
with a career as a CEO of some large company, never anticipating he’d end up in the sports 
business. He told our UCLA MBA students that he never had a five year plan and later 
recognized that luck and believing that he was always at the right place at the right time 
factored into where he is today.

Bob Bowman, President & CEO of the hugely successful Major League Baseball Advanced 
Media, encouraged students to always work for the best person rather than focus solely on the 
right career path. He advised if you’re given the choice between a great, great job for a less 
than great person and what appears to be just an ok job for a magnificent and talented person, 
bet on the stellar person every time, even if the money or job is not as good as it will pay off for 
the rest of your life.

So what does all this mean for you and your career plans?

*Opportunity is always lurking. Don’t be an ostrich with your head in the ground! You 
must do your job, but you must manage your career which means being constantly 
vigilant for opportunities. This doesn’t mean you’re an opportunist, but that your career 
is in your hands. There may not be a straight line to what you believe is your ultimate 
goal. By being flexible, however, often you discover new avenues that may lead you to 
your final destination. Or you may end up somewhere totally unexpected, but find this 
new experience highly rewarding.

*You don’t always need experience, but experiences. While relevant experience is 
desirable, having an employee with a background of diverse experiences demonstrates 
that they’re not only well-rounded, but they may offer a unique lens based on these 
experiences that gives a fresh perspective on innovation, problem solving and 
management – all areas critical to driving competitive advantage. In this world, 
interdisciplinary experiences can provide a bouquet of resources and a larger 
opportunity horizon to demonstrate your talents.

*You never know who knows who. Relationships are critical to your career path to success. 
Everyone you meet is an opportunity to demonstrate your passions and your personality – two 
critical components that are often the deciding factors in people recommending you or sharing 
their enthusiasm about you. You never know if and when they, or someone they know, may be 
asked about you. During these encounters, be generous in offering your help to them. As they 
say, “what goes around comes around. ”

Posted by: Peter Guber
CEO, Mandalay Entertainment, Owner Golden State Warriors and Los Angeles Dodgers

Loving: Family Time!

Linking with WILW

My handsome teenage brother playing baseball for the high school team against their rival high school

Hanging with my mom

Santa Monica with my husband and his parents!

Life is great!

Bloglovin

I have made the switch to Bloglovin!

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Fire Le Missiles

So I know that this video is super old and everyone has seen it....but it is that funny!

( I just had to re share)

Loving: Weekend Lunch Dates

What I'm Loving Today:

Over the weekend I got to catch up with one of my greatest friends!

We walked around, window shopped and enjoyed brunch with bottomless mimosas.

We had brunch at Areal on their cute patio outside and shared a couple of menu options.

When we get together, we usually share a few items from the menu so we can taste more things!

Vanilla Dipped French Toast

(Dessert for breakfast = this dish!)

House Made Veggie Burger

There was hummus instead of mayo on this = to. die. for.

My lovely friend and I!

Linked up with This kind of Love

Booking Travel

Source: stylemepretty.com via LaTache on Pinterest

Rich and I have been wanting to go to Peru for months..no, no, years!

Our plan has always been to go to Cusco, or Cuzco (depending on who you talk to), hike part of the Inca Trail and see one of the world's most amazing sites: Machupicchu.

Planning a trip is stressful.

Especially to a country that has a different currency, language, culture and is all around totally different than you are used to.

That is the thrill of travel, though, right?

Right!

Fortunately enough for us, two of our friends have been to Peru, even hiked parts of the Inca trail and even visited this beautiful site that we so desperately have wanted to visit.

Or maybe not so "fortunately"?

When we traveled to Switzerland and Paris for our honeymoon, we had no guidance.

We picked up a few travel books, watched some PBS documentaries and went on our merry way
(ha! get it?)

It was tough.

It was an adventure.

It was the best vacation I had ever been on, up to that point.

We were newlyweds.

We were together.
We left the USA with our backpacks packed, some swiss francs and euros, and 2 swiss rail tickets (which we actually forgot at home and had to buy again once we got to Switzerland).
We left hoping that when we got to Switzerland we could find out way.

After some trials and tribulations, we did find our way.
We saw beautiful sites, visited ancient landmarks and ate delicious breads and cheeses.

We went places we may not have gone had we actually planned a day of the trip.

It was magical.

Now we are on to planning our next trip.
We have decided to go to Peru and visit Machupicchu.
My only fear is that because we have such great resources for this trip, we will over plan it.
Where is the spontaneity in that?
Where is the adventure?
Where is the excitement?

I guess we will see.
Let the planning begin!

Are you a trip planner? If so, any suggestions?
Or do you go with the flow? If so, how did it turn out?

SPD: Italian Garlic Bread with Gorgonzola

This is my first time linking up with Saw it. Pinned it. Did it.

I was hanging out and perusing pinterest and found this recipe.

Source: daydreamkitchen.com via LaTache on Pinterest

My mouth instantly began to water.

I knew I had to make it.

It too me a while to put this together.

Its kind of hard to do!

Anyway, this was a total hit!

We ate this bread along with some wine.

Rich said that it could be served at a restaurant, it was that good!

I added all of the herbs in the recipe(and all dried): parsley, oregano and basil.

It is cheesy and perfect!