A Bit of Optimism - Family with Ari Emanuel

Episode Date: November 23, 2021

In show business, Ari Emmanuel is the consummate insider. The founder and CEO of the Endeavor agency, he represents some of Hollywood’s biggest stars. He’s a mover and a shaker and a philanthropist. So obviously, I called to talk to him about…family. This is…A Bit of Optimism. For more on Ari and his work check out:   https://www.wmeagency.com/story/ https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/04/26/ari-emanuel-takes-on-the-world 

If you ever saw the TV show Entourage on HBO, if you remember the character Ari, well, he was based on the real-life Ari Emanuel, the CEO and founder of WME Endeavor. Ari is a Hollywood agent and has been for many years, and he comes from a pretty remarkable family. His one brother is Rahm Emanuel, the chief of staff to Obama in the White House, who later became the mayor of Chicago.

And his other brother, Zeke, is a world-renowned doctor and bioethicist. So we talked about what it's like to come from such a remarkable family and the unique pressures that come with it. And it's just fun to talk to Ari. This is a bit of optimism. Most people would expect, if I have the Ari Emanuel on the podcast to talk about the future of entertainment. But that's not what I'm actually interested in. The thing that I'm really interested in is parenting.

And not you as a dad, but you as a son. Because you are one of three brothers and your family is ridiculous. Your brother's a famous doctor, one brother. The other brother is a big macha in politics. Right. And former mayor of Chicago. And you run one of the most influential

entertainment organizations in the world. What did your parents do? I want to know. I can't really say except that my father was always curious, always blocked trends. He, when he was a young doctor, he went against the AMA about lead in the paint and kids. And he had been an immigrant and he had just come to Chicago

and he's going up against the AMA. My mom was a bit the Jewish version of a tiger mom. She would take us to demonstrations. She would not care about what people said. And they did a very good job of showing us the world as opposed to having us sit in a room. They took us to Israel when Israel was just forming and sent us to camp, run around, and just let us be and have to adapt. And those little things that are hard to quantify or say what the parenting is,

I think exposed us to running your own path, not worrying what people think about you, using common sense, and having very good self-esteem. Who was stronger, your mom or your dad, as an influence in the house? Both pretty strong. You want to know a funny story about my mom, which is classic my mom, which is why I love her to death. So I haven't seen her in a year, year and a half as, you know, because of the COVID situation. And I've gotten double vaccinated. She's gotten double vaccinated. I'm going to fly into Chicago. So plane is late. I get in like 45 minutes late. And I call my mom. I said, I'm going to be late. And she goes, well, I'm disappointed in you.

I'm like, I go immediately to the being the 13 year old, like, and I'm like, what? She was pissed off, you know, and that's my mom, you know, you, you have to hit standards, right? And that, I think, actually, pushed us, and then gave us the engine to push ourselves post my mother it was at the time about grades but then about business and being very competitive and i think with three boys close in age i mean rom and i are 16 months apart rom's november you know they're they're a little bit more than 16 months but. ROM's November, you know, they're a little bit more than 16 months apart. We were competitive,

so that kind of went over into kind of our lives. The thing that I find so fascinating is like there are families where parents do stuff and one of the kids like pops, you know?

But the fact that all three of you have gone on to do remarkable things and be leaders in your respective industries, I mean, it's pretty unique. Were you treated differently? Because obviously you're different personalities and your parents didn't treat you all exactly the same.

I mean, they did some of this stuff. You said your mom sort of pushed you to do this. Dragged us all to Israel, dragged us to demonstrations. Yeah, I mean, you did all that stuff together, and I'm sure it had a dramatic impact. I mean, Jewish mother, you know, every Jewish mother wants their kid to be a lawyer or a doctor. You're neither. Let me just be very clear. When I said to my dad, and I had gotten into like, I was going to come back to Chicago. I had done summers at the Merck in Chicago, and I was going to go to business school at night and work during the day at the Merck. And I said to my dad, no, I'm going to go into the mailroom of CAA and make 15 cents a mile. I mean, I think he almost plots, right? And he goes, what? They can't take

the piece of paper away from you. For those who are listening, that's collapsed. Yeah. And I said, no, dad, I think this is what I want to do. And to his credit, he said, go for it. And he was always that guy, even though he might not agree and question it. If that's what you wanted to do, that's what you did. for most of us, they're completely involved in our lives from the day we're born until if you leave the house to go to college or move on to do whatever at around 18, right? And they know everything about us up until that age. And then I realized that when I left for college, I continued to mature. I continued to grow, but my parents were missing it all. They'd get it for like a week here or a weekend there when I would come home. Different now. I mean, you got parents FaceTiming all day long. I know. And I wonder what that does, because one of the things that I recognize about me is I would be 20-something years old,

30-something years old, 40-something years old, and they would still talk to me as if I was 18, because that's where that capped out. And it took a long time for them to sort of adjust to that i'm not that like you and your temper simon is like i haven't had a temper in a very i think since i was about 18 my son noah was 24 or 25 you know slapped me around figuratively we were talking about something and i kind of like became the parent when he was 16 he goes you're not doing that and immediately i kind of got it i was like you know i'm not going to do that he wants to tell me certain things he tells me what he wants to tell me i'm going to ask if he doesn't want to answer cool it is what it is and i think my

parents kind of like for sure my dad did he just proud of me, asked me a bunch of questions. And he was good with it. But yeah, my son Noah kind of put me in my corner. Like, I don't know, about three months ago, we were talking about something and he goes, uh-uh, you're not doing that. It was really, it was actually good. It kind of, you got to be their friend now.

You can't be their father. And you can be their father when they ask you to be. You were treating him like the 18-year-old and he was 20-something. 16. 16, yeah. I'll tell you a crazy story I just heard about an 18-year-old kid. His parents were so involved in his life where helicopter parents couldn't do anything without mom and dad's help. And his parents weren't there to remind him to take his diabetes medicine and he died because he forgot to take his meds. You know, I mean, I've heard stories of kids who miss class

because their parents didn't call to wake them. At what point does a loving, well-intentioned parent... That's not a loving parent. Well, that's just it. I mean, it's like the parents who were wrapped up in the Varsity Blues scandal. The argument was, I just want to do what's right for my kid. Like any parent, I'm trying to do the best for my kid. But the problem is there's a line.

And at what point does a parent who quote unquote cares about their kid recognize that they're actually hurting their kid by being overly involved. Let's just be very clear. You have now, okay, I couldn't stand it when it happened. I can't stand it.

You get the awards for losing. Yeah. Here's the trophy. Everybody should get a trophy. I mean, what the fuck are we talking about? And then there was a college. It's Father's Day. It's Father's Day. It's Mother's Day.

My parents barely, I don't even know. They definitely didn't take me on the college tour. Like, no way. Right? My brother, Zeke, drove me when I was on the East Coast. Other than that, I took myself around. I'm not sure they moved me into college, to be candid. I don't remember it.

I think maybe they did. They didn't come to visit ever. Now, you got Father's Weekend, my parents, like, what are we talking about? As you said, some of the stuff that they did, times have changed. They could not do today. But the question is, are we teaching our kids independence? And learning independence, you could argue, teaches you confidence. Yes. So what's exciting you these days?

Well, I'm learning a ton about being a public company. How's that? And? What's exciting for me is thinking about where the world's going and what we should be doing in it. I think we're a unique company in all the positive things about what that means about being unique. And I think we're ahead of the curve and making sure that we stay ahead of curve and the culture kind of breeds that is not easy when you're a public company. I know all my partners that own stock are looking at the stock.

It's actually complicated. It's harder to take a long-term view on the company, isn't it? Because the CEOs that I admire of public companies, they take a long-term view and they say, buy us or don't buy us, this is what we're doing. Yeah, that is my mode. That's how I'm operating the business. My favorite new quote, I was listening to Billie Jean King yesterday on CNBC. She says in her book or whatever, she says, pressure is a privilege.

It only comes to those who earn it. And I love that quote because you should be happy that there's pressure on your life. And you've earned it and kind of enjoy it and think about what that all means. And there's no straight line to success. It's a wiggly, gobbly goop of stuff that gets you to the top. And you've got to be willing to take the body blows. That's one of the things I actually admire about you. I mean, you said it before that you don't care what other people think and your parents raised you to not care what other people

think. And look, it's a blessing and a curse, right? It's a double-edged sword. Oh, I care, but I just don't, I'm not going to let it, like, it affects me, but I'm not going to let it affect me to that I'm not going where I think is the right place to go. Of course, it affects everybody. I'm not a robot, but if I have a point of view, and I take a bunch of information in, and I have a lot of trusted people, and I still have that point of view after a bunch of all the kind of... I'm still going where I'm going. And it's not comfortable, because you could be wrong, whatever that means wrong. So how do you teach your kids, but also how do you teach your, those who work with you on your team? I sent that quote out to the whole company. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Hopefully I tell stories about the pressure we had when we had to make the UFC deal, the pressure we had when COVID hit, the pressure we have and how to kind of handle it.

You just have, by example, like my father did, like my mother did, here's how I'm operating. Reiterate it, reiterate it, reiterate it. Let them be in their position. When they ask you for help, give them help. And, you know, let them know it's okay if you don't hit the objective. I'm trying to change my vocabulary about failure, not hit the objective. I don't believe in the word failure. I mean, I've learned so much in the process of making that decision that didn't work out how I thought. That whole learning curve enables me to the next one. So it's not a failure. That whole learning curve enables me to the next one. So it's not a failure.

It's just a learning process. And in that gobbledygook of success. And if people look at it that way, I think it's better. That's how I look at it, that I'm not sitting here failing. I just didn't achieve the outcome I want. I think the word, you know, and it comes from tech, you know, this idea of fail fast and accept failure and fail off and all this. And I agree with you. I think the problem with the word failure is it's like the word cancer, which is if you have a mild melanoma or you have stage four liver cancer, we call both

those things cancer. And the problem is they are not the same thing. And I think it's the same thing with the word failure. When most people hear the word failure, they think catastrophic collapse. And then we come in word failure, they think catastrophic collapse. And then we come in and say, fail often, fail fast. I mean, you got to be nuts. And so I think what we need is a new word to capture the thing that people are talking about. And I like to use the word falling, which is I reject failure. I do not want to fail, but I fall. And I fall often. And I judge myself by how quickly I get up. We all have to figure out a new vocabulary here. I just don't think it's failure because I would say to you. Falling isn't scary.

Failing is scary. In every scenario where I have not achieved what I wanted, I have fallen. It has enabled me to gain relationships, thought processes, and then for the next one, get better. What I'm learning about you from this conversation, which I really love, is that you have a very long point of view. And you said, of course, it affects you, you know, what people think about you, of course, but it's your ability to stay focused beyond the horizon that allows you to stay on the path as opposed to be pushed and swayed by the opinions of those around you who would push and sway the rest of us? Well, I don't have Twitter. I don't have Instagram.

I do a lot of reading. I'm very curious as it relates to that. I talk to a ton of people. I constantly am asking opinion about stuff and where the world's going and how to think about it. I organize myself with a lot of different voices around me so I can get true objective feedback and then iterate as I go forward. Do you have a vision that exists for the future that is not related to the company? You know, as I said to my brother, he wants to die at 75, right? I want to die, even though this has ethical ramifications to the world. Never. God help us, Ari.

I enjoy my life. I'm having fun. I have a blessed, blessed life. But that's you. How will the world be a better place? What do you imagine when one day, if it ever happens, your time comes and you can lie on your deathbed at 496 years old and say, you know what? That was worth it. It was worth it already. You know, I freaked out three months before 60. And then when 60 came, I was like, what were you freaking out about? I don't have to race to anything right now. I've come to the conclusion that,

you know, when you're dyslexic and I'm severely dyslexic, severely dyslexic, I'm not as dyslexic anymore, you know, because I've worked very, very, very hard at it. You always think somebody's going to pull the blanket off and say, you're an idiot. You're not smart. I'm actually comfortable that, you know, my ideas are pretty interesting. I can organize people for whatever reason. I've achieved a lot and I'm not done. I'm not even close for my own internal engine right the engine is kind of revving constantly is there an end point in mind no one thing i am going to do i want to build a school for kids that my all three of my boys were dyslexic and they got the privilege of going to a school that specialized for people with dyslexia and other things. I do want to build that and start that.

Because if you think about kids that have dyslexia, there's two paths. They're either very athletic, the arts, creative, business competent, or they end up in jail. I mean, there's not a lot. And I think there's a bunch of kids that haven't gotten the privileges that my kids have gotten that deserve it. Because dyslexia is not that you're not intelligent. It has actually zero to do with that, actually. I'm a great believer that the solutions we find to the challenges we have when we're kids

become our strength as adults. I also have ADHD. And when I was a kid, it wasn't a diagnosable thing. I just had no attention span and got yelled at for not finishing my homework and not reading the books and whatever. How do you read books now? I actually don't read a lot of books. The joke I make is I've written more books than I've ever read. And I've been saying that since I wrote Start With Why. I love the idea of books because I love learning and I'm insatiably curious. And so I buy books and I start all of them and I get distracted and then I just, they get put down and it really upsets me. And I learned this as a kid because I couldn't get through school because I didn't do the reading ever. And so I had to learn

to ask questions and listen. I had to, I had to go to class. And when I got to college, I couldn't take the classes where you could just go study the text, skip class, and come and take the test. I had to have good professors. And since high school, I would always go after class and talk to the teacher just to learn. That was your process. That's my process. And so to this day, my learning comes from calling the people. And this has been forever, just meeting people and talking to people who are doing interesting things.

And then I can put together... That's why your podcast is important. Yeah, the podcast is much more for me than it is for you. And it's true. Every podcast I've done, I'm actually learning. What advantages do you have because of your dyslexia? I think that whole phrase, perfect does not lead to progress. I think that I trust people

to do their jobs. So my head's a department, I trust them. I trust other people that, you know, I'm involved in picking that they're doing their jobs. And I understand that a lot of them are not going to get it all the way to where I would have gotten it. But again, if you're just going to go forward just based on perfection, I would have been four people, 1995, and not move forward. But that doesn't answer the question what advantage you have. It enables me to build teams. When you're dyslexic, you need a lot of help from a lot of different people when you're young.

And therefore, you have to put a lot of people in your lives, get to the next level. And then when you move to business, you have to put a lot of people in your lives to get to the next level. And trusting that other people can do stuff, that it doesn't only lead to you to do it. And I say this to a lot of my associates who don't share, I would say, or that haven't shared in the past. Why wouldn't you let that guy in New York do that? What are you doing? I'm showing you that I'm giving clients to other people, letting people do certain things that are better than me at doing them. And I got better grades

because of it. How I learned, I learned visually. So how I built my life when I was younger enabled me to build a team that I trusted to go forward that enabled me to go even farther. I'm having an insight here, which is as a dyslexic kid and a kid with ADHD, you had no choice but to ask for help and rely on other people and build networks. And for me as a kid with ADHD, I had no choice but to ask for help and rely on other people. And I think one of the

things that the helicopter parents do by removing the pressure and by filling in the gaps, we disallow a child to learn to ask for help and build a team to help them get through school and work and through life. And so what we end up doing is dropping kids in life and they either lack the skill or lack the actual network of people to lean on and rely on and ask for help other than their parents. And so what they actually have is loneliness and they feel like they have to do it alone. And the irony is you and I consider ourselves independent. And the irony is, is we actually rely on people more, whereas kids who actually are independent actually become incredibly dependent. Yes, I think that's true. That's actually a very good conclusion. And so now it raises the great question, and it goes back to Billie Jean King,

which is then what mechanisms do we as parents or as leaders have at our disposal to help our teams learn what we call independence, but in reality is the confidence to ask for help. You know, this is, I think, goes back to my father and my mother. You just have to let them be and fail and by osmosis teach, say certain things. You know, I send out emails, I send out quotes, I send out articles, creating these whole places where hopefully by osmosis they're absorbing what you're trying to get like hey team build architect all the things that you do as a leader whether how you handle a client or how what you're asking them to read or how you handle yourself that is permitting them to say it's okay for me to try and it's okay for me to try. And it's okay for me to make a misstep and get back up and learn from that.

But I'll go back to what I said a moment ago, which is we do all those things, but the expectation is not that they'll learn how to do it. The expectation is that they'll learn to ask for help and build a network of people around. That's the actual expectation. And I just love this, this irony that being independent actually means the confidence in oneself and one's ability to ask for help, to be confident that I'm an idiot. And if I'm confident, if I'm proud and confident that I'm an idiot, then I have no problem asking for help. And that actually helps me weather the opinions and pressures put on me by others because I'm okay being the idiot and that they disagree with me. Whereas when we quote unquote teach our kids independence, it's actually the opposite. They only become dependent on one group or one person, their parents, or maybe not even that.

And they have no network of relationships to lean on, to ask questions about, to ask for other expertise in how they would have handled, how they handled, because those people also are in the same place that they are with just one or two people at the top of their lives this is so good this is all right i gotta go i love you i love you i'll talk to you soon bye bye and that's it he's gone that's how a Ari ends phone calls. If you enjoyed this podcast and would like to hear more, please subscribe wherever you like to listen to podcasts. Until then, take care of yourself.

Take care of each other.