You may know Adrian as the star of Entourage and The Devil Wears Prada, but he also has a lengthy history as a documentarian and entrepreneur who’s made a lifelong habit out of going around, over and through the various gatekeepers that stood between him and his goals. You’ll hear a lot of familiar themes come up in this conversation that are very core to me: the critical importance of building a community of peers who will motivate, inspire and help each other; how mentorship can be a catalyst for progress; and the drive for continuous and never-ending self-education.
Today on the podcast,
- Why Adrian is a passionate learner, yet dropped out of college when he found that the traditional educational system wasn’t actually educating him
- We get into his history as a documentarian – for example, how he got the call for Entourage while trying to sneak into Cuba to make a documentary
- How creativity can play a vital role in driving social change. Our special guest Dune Ives of The Lonely Whale Foundation talks about how engaging the sense with visuals, music and rich experiences is the key to unlocking empathy – and once unlocked, that empathy is a powerful force for change
Enjoy!
Institutional education limits education to its four walls, and even after school you’ve got to keep learning.
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Some Questions I Ask:
- What does it mean to be an advocate for social good? [2:00]
- Do you have any siblings? [3:27]
- Tell us about the Rec Room. [6:28]
- How has mentorship shaped you and what role do you play in mentoring others? [8:20]
- Have you had any great mentors? [10:21]
- How do you think about being “Hollywood” or “un-Hollywood”? [12:08]
- What’s the short pitch of Teenage Paparazzo? [14:30]
- What kind of shit did you take for turning the cameras back around on the paparazzi? [15:31]
- How do you look at the new ecosystem of creativity? [18:17]
- How do you give the folks at home a sense of purpose if there’s no glory in fame or success? [21:36]
- What is your purpose? Do you have a mission statement that you live by? [23:09]
- What was it like to all of a sudden having your own show? [25:36]
- Was Entourage written for you or was it a coincidence that the show was written about a guy from Queens who moves to LA? [28:45]
- Did you make enough stuff to get noticed or did you just get lucky? [31:42]
- What about Entourage made the show work? [32:32]
- How much of the show was improvised? [33:39]
- How is it playing someone who is way more famous than you are in real life? [34:17]
- Do you have a morning routine? [35:59]
- Is there something that you do every day to be creative? [36:40]
- What kinds of failures and vulnerabilities have you experienced? [37:51]
- Is it the act of making and building that you’re drawn to? [39:51]
- Talk about How To Make Money Selling Drugs. [40:42]
- Do you see yourself producing a lot more films? [43:45]
- How did you two get connected and what attracted you to the project? [50:27]
- What’s in store for the foundation and how can people get involved? [53:07]
- How can we all, as individuals, contribute? [54:47]
- Where can people go in the real world to learn more about this? [58:02]
- What kind of VR experience are you developing? [1:00:00]
- How far and wide does your initiative go? [1:02:47]
- How do you activate around music? [1:05:51]
- Is there anything else that you want to tell us about the loneliest whale? [1:10:51]
- Talk to me about The Skins. [1:11:30]
- Does the EP have a name yet? [1:13:46]
- How old are The Skins now? [1:14:28]
In This Episode, You Will Learn:
- How Adrian’s mom shaped his drive for social responsibility. [2:39]
- What Adrian asks of his friends for letting them stay at and use his house in Brooklyn, aka “Friendbnb”. [4:19]
- The “why” behind Adrian’s entrepreneurial pursuits; giving people the tools to be more of what they are. [6:44]
- Why learning things on your own may be fun, finding mentors is easier and arguably a more efficient way to learn. [8:57]
- How Adrian used his own meta experience with fame to make the documentary, Teenage Paparazzo and what he learned about being a celebrity is not what’s sold to the public. [13:03]
- How you can use Adrian’s cure to celebrity to live a more fulfilled life; build real relationships. [13:53]
- How the media is like the blob and what to do about it. [15:48]
- My story of being vilified for sharing the photography industry’s secrets. [16:48]
- The Mushroom Theory of Power; keep them in the dark and feed them shit. [17:15]
- Why Adrian dropped out of college and started his self education. [23:19]
- How Adrian got into acting which eventually led to Entourage. [26:55]
- How to make it in the movie industry. [31:24]
- Adrian’s approach to routine; patience and don’t sweat the small stuff. [36:57]
- Why Adrian feels like he’s never succeeded in anything ever. And why it’s okay with him. [38:33]
- Why we should invest less in swat teams and imprisonment and more in education and inspiration. [43:06]
- The story of the loneliest whale in the world. …and other fun whale facts. [45:00]
- How Adrian uses the language of the people to talk about big problems to reach more people and make a bigger impact. [47:48]
- What The Lonely Whale Foundation is and how it impacts you. [48:40]
- Three very simple things that you can do every day to help the whales. One of which is saying no to straws. [56:35]
- Whales are the only other species, besides humans, that can travel the entire globe. [58:42]
- Dell is trying to use the plastic that’s bound for the ocean in their products. [1:02:32]
- You can unlock empathy through smell. [1:06:10]
- How music was used to start the movement to save the whales. [1:07:07]
- How Adrian came to be a band manager and how he uses his connections to offer a unique band management style. [1:11:30]
- The Lonely Whale gang sign. [1:17:21]
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