Uploaded July 2023 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
My friend Ram Bergman is a big-time producer at the near-Star Wars level. When I first met him, twenty years ago, he was fetching coffee on movie sets for six bucks an hour.
How does success really happen?
Your friends help you. Friends you made when you and they were broke and starving. Your friends rise in their careers … and they bring you along.
Here’s director Ernie Pintoff, advising me as a young screenwriter to plunge into the pool with no mental reservations.
“Keep working,” Ernie said. “Don’t turn anything down. Porn flicks, slasher movies, free stuff for friends. Don’t get precious. You’re young, you’re learning. Keep working.”
Ernie cited three reasons:
“One, working means you’re getting paid. Every buck means you’re a working pro, you’re toiling in your chosen field.
“Two, when you work, you learn. Everybody has something to teach you. A grip will show you something about lighting, an editor will drop some pearl about what to keep and what to cut. Even actors know something.
“Three, you’re making friends. Some kid who’s schlepping coffee today may be a producer tomorrow. An actress you do some free work for today may get you hired for a rewrite six months from now.”
This is how any career REALLY works. Dance, theater, photography, financial planning. Even the military works like this.
But before this network of friends and mentors can help you up the ladder, you have to be there. In person. In the flesh, where you can make these friends and find these mentors.
A couple of final things - don't think things are beneath you. My girlfriend started as a receptionist and ended up a VP at one of the biggest fashion companies in the world. She did business with people she met when she was a receptionist. Nothing was beneath her, not making copies, or getting coffee. She learned something from each of those things that made her better with each subsequent job she got.
And before the comments roll in – I know everyone’s friends from home aren’t just “getting stoned” but they aren’t always the ones that can or will help you move forward in pursuit of your own dream.
My friend Ram Bergman is a big-time producer at the near-Star Wars level. When I first met him, twenty years ago, he was fetching coffee on movie sets for six bucks an hour.
How does success really happen?
Your friends help you. Friends you made when you and they were broke and starving. Your friends rise in their careers … and they bring you along.
Here’s director Ernie Pintoff, advising me as a young screenwriter to plunge into the pool with no mental reservations.
“Keep working,” Ernie said. “Don’t turn anything down. Porn flicks, slasher movies, free stuff for friends. Don’t get precious. You’re young, you’re learning. Keep working.”
Ernie cited three reasons:
“One, working means you’re getting paid. Every buck means you’re a working pro, you’re toiling in your chosen field.
“Two, when you work, you learn. Everybody has something to teach you. A grip will show you something about lighting, an editor will drop some pearl about what to keep and what to cut. Even actors know something.
“Three, you’re making friends. Some kid who’s schlepping coffee today may be a producer tomorrow. An actress you do some free work for today may get you hired for a rewrite six months from now.”
This is how any career REALLY works. Dance, theater, photography, financial planning. Even the military works like this.
But before this network of friends and mentors can help you up the ladder, you have to be there. In person. In the flesh, where you can make these friends and find these mentors.
A couple of final things - don't think things are beneath you. My girlfriend started as a receptionist and ended up a VP at one of the biggest fashion companies in the world. She did business with people she met when she was a receptionist. Nothing was beneath her, not making copies, or getting coffee. She learned something from each of those things that made her better with each subsequent job she got.
And before the comments roll in – I know everyone’s friends from home aren’t just “getting stoned” but they aren’t always the ones that can or will help you move forward in pursuit of your own dream.
