What's Next: Talent Agent, News

This week, Lacey sits down with Divya, an accomplished talent agent in the news and broadcasting industry. They first met at the start of their careers as Agent Trainees in a talent agency mailroom, and Divya has since grown into a powerhouse agent in the news department. With a mission to support her clients and shape the future of news, Divya shares her journey and the challenges she’s overcome along the way. Listeners will enjoy an insightful conversation about ambition, perseverance, and what it takes to thrive in a competitive industry. Enjoy! 

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Hosted, Edited and Produced by Lacey Dikkers.
Cover Art by Andrea Tamayo.

Transcript

Welcome back to What's Next with Lacey, the podcast, where I interview young professionals about their career journeys so far. 

So this week I sat down with my wonderful friend Divya. Divya and I actually met at the very start of our careers. We were fresh out of college and ready to take on the world. Watching her career flourish has been nothing short of incredible. From our early days as agent trainees in one of the big three talent agency mailrooms to now her current role as a full fledged agent in the news department, Divya has certainly become a powerhouse. She is a woman on a mission to make her clients happy, to help shape the news industry and so, so much more. I truly have no doubt that we will be seeing some amazing things from her in the years to come. It was such a joy to chat with her and hear about her journey so far and I am very excited to be sharing it with you all now. So I hope you enjoy my conversation with Divya. 

Welcome to What's Next. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. 

Of course. Thank you so much for having me. I am so, so excited to talk to you today. 

Good. I'm so glad we actually go back quite a few years, like five years. We started our career in the entertainment industry together. We went through the trenches of Assistant Hood together and you have now come out on the other side, emerged as a full fledged badass superstar agent. Firstly, I want to say I am so unbelievably proud of you. I have obviously watched your career and it I am just cannot, cannot imagine anyone who would be more successful at this job. And I'm so unbelievably proud of you. But let's start with how do you feel and how do you think younger Div would feel? 

I love you for that, by the way. Thank you. I appreciate that. I'm blushing. You can't see it, but I'm blushing. I am feeling very, very good. I am at a point now in my career where, to your point, you know, we really did go through anything and everything together. And I feel like, you know, it can be so rewarding to come out the other end. And I'm now seeing that I have a long way to go. Let's be clear. But I am working on being content and satisfied with where I am at each point in my career as I move through it. And I think that's a really big thing that I'm learning personally as well. So younger Div would be thrilled. I think honestly, it's been a dream. I had a vision I set out to achieve it and knock on wood and by the grace of the universe and hard work, I've been able to get to this point and she's feeling good. 
So let's dive in. You are an agent in the news department at a big three agency. I want to start with simply the basics. What is an agent and what is the goal of your job? 
Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, look, you don't go to college to learn how to be an agent, right? You don't have a major. And maybe this is the case now, and I might be dating myself. But I do think that, you know, especially for us coming up, it wasn't a degree. It wasn't a major it wasn't a course curriculum that you could go study. I do think that having gone through the education system, you know, I think figuring out that I wanted to be in entertainment on my way up through life and then going through college, I went to a communications program. And within that program, I also managed to take on a business degree and a political science degree. And within the communications school we had a broadcast program. So I ended up doing television, radio and film there. So in my head it kind of all came together and I was like, okay, look, this makes sense. I want to help be an agent of change for folks and in the entertainment industry. And what better way to do that than go be a talent agent? And I kind of piece it together in my head. I know that there are classes now for folks that are interested in this stuff, so I do highly recommend kind of leaning into that, if that does seem of interest to people as they move through their careers. But the basics of what it means to be an agent really, really change, I think on a day to day in terms of responsibilities. But essentially what being a talent agent boils down to is that you're identifying talent in the entertainment and media industry and you're helping to orient and elevate their careers and help them achieve their goals so that you can help them achieve success essentially. So you're out there trying to find talent that you believe are the next changemaker, is in society, in the industry, and speak to you on a personal level, but also folks that you think speak to the greater audience. And it's just helping people be happy in their lives, in their careers. Honestly, what. 
Does your day look like? What are your hours? What are you spending your time doing while making people happy? 
I think in terms of a day to day, it's never the same. I'm sure you've heard this from folks before, but it truly changes every single day. You never know what's about to come. So some days I'm focused on fully sourcing and identifying talent, where I'll go on deep dives, whether it's on the Internet or watching the news, turning on the TV and watching legacy news networks and just identifying talent that I think is standing out as well as on social media. There's a lot of space in this digital age now which, you know, hopefully we'll get to talk to because I really have a passion for kind of sourcing talent in this new shifting media landscape. But you find talent everywhere. Talent is around you at all times in every part of the industry. I happen to sit specifically in news and broadcasting, so I'm looking at news talent. And so some days I'm sourcing talent mainly. Some days I'm helping to create the marketing materials that I use to kind of push talent out to buyers and network executives and different outlet executives to see that talent and either hire them or find out what their next home might be. And other days, I am focusing on events for the industry in terms of events that I need to attend, events that I need to plan, events that I want to put to put on. I recently helped plan a bunch of events this year, so I've been working on a lot of that as well. Some days I'm knee deep in the legalese of contracts and talent contracts with our business affairs team and helping source and figure out what the nitty gritty of a talent contract looks like, making sure that I'm getting the best language possible for my client, and also making sure that I'm working in tandem with the buyer as well as the client to make sure that everyone's happy at the end of the day, because my job is sort of to be that middle person who can speak both languages. 

Well, you're really a jack of all trades in this profession. You are really doing so much. 

You really you really do. And I think it's exciting because of that, too. Because like I said, no day looks the same and because you have to do so many different things, you can find what speaks to you the most. And if that's what excites you the most, you can really lean in on that part of the job. 

Yeah, absolutely. Does it also then look different for every single agent, even if you're in the same department because you're all essentially running your own book of business, right? So I'm sure it's a little bit different for your for your colleagues as it is for you. 

You're so right. I think the nature of this job is so entrepreneurial. And funnily enough, I had mentioned one of my degrees is in business and it's specifically in entrepreneurship and emerging enterprises. And it really speaks to me that the nature of this job is so akin to what you want to do and what your goals are, even as a personal, even in my own personal life. Right? So while I'm trying to help figure out what the goals are to help achieve those for my clients, at the same time I'm doing that for myself, which keeps every day super exciting. And I think because of that, every single person in, whether it's my department, adjacent departments within the agency, all talent agencies and management companies too, because I think representation finds that these skills are transferable. You're finding yourself in your own little niche, and that means you get to focus on things you find that you're passionate about. So my day to day could look a little different from the person sitting next to me. But at the end of the day, the core competencies and the core values of what the job is remain the same, which is, again, like I said, to identifying source talent to help them achieve their goals, market them appropriately, create those marketing materials, and help get everyone past all of these points to the finish line. 

What do you look for in a client? How are you going about finding clients, signing them? Is it cold calling? Is it using your network? How are you doing that? 

Yeah. So like I said, talent is everywhere, right? So it can kind of feel a little daunting at times to be like, Where do I start? What am I doing? And I think that's where it kind of boils down again to what drives you as a person. And so for me, I'm really excited about people who are thoughtful, passionate, driven, have something to say, and I want to listen to them say that if you can keep me interested, you can keep me engaged. I know I've found a voice that speaks to me and I'm interested in learning more and talking to them to understand how I can best help them achieve their goals. 

Do you think that there's something different that you're looking for, for new specifically than necessarily other departments that I know of as a you're only working in news and broadcast, but just from being in this space, like, does everyone have their own different requirements for that client for what they're looking for in a client? 

Absolutely. So I keep going back to what drives me as a person right in my personal mission statement. And I think that, again, I have to lean in on that for this question because I do feel like my M.O. has very much been since I started this job and through the end of my career, whenever that may be, it will always be to help amplify and elevate underrepresented voices in whatever capacity that is. And it's a personal story that speaks to me and my identity as a person. And I've always envisioned growing up that I want to be able to understand that what I'm consuming in front of me, whether it's in the media landscape, entertainment landscape, is directly reflective of some aspect of who I am as a person, as the media. And I feel as though being able to now sit in the driver's seat where I have the opportunity to help influence that has never felt more important. So in news specifically, as we all know, news and media is definitely an influential industry. It influences the way that people are civically engaged. It influences their consumption of the media and news and what's happening in a day to day lives. It influences consumption of policy in the States and honestly, I think for the greater good of society in some ways democracy. So, you know, I do think there's a much larger purpose to this job, and that's what drives me in the news space. So when I'm looking for talent, I'm looking for people that are, you know, really trying to tell the truth. And they're telling the truth in such a powerful and loud way, and they're not afraid to do it. And I want to help support that. 

Yeah, I think you also very much hit the nail on the head. And in terms of what also this job is, it's about you lifting those voices that people don't often see on the screen. You are changing the landscape of the industry because you are working to do that. You are bringing up these voices that can then bring up other voices and then just completely change the landscape that we're looking at, which needs to be done. So I think that it's more your job is more than just making people happy. You are also influencing this entire industry. 

Right? And I think that what makes news so different than the overall entertainment landscape is that, you know, you can say that news is a part of entertainment, right? In some way, shape or form. It is TV. At the end of the day, you know, these are on air talent for the most part, because we work with broadcast talent. We also work with, you know, talent across all factual spaces in the broadcast group. But I will say what makes news so different, in my opinion, within entertainment as a whole, is that diversity, as I mentioned, and helping to amplify and elevate underrepresented voices is extremely important to me. But I don't look at it just from the element of diversity, of identity and background and experience. But I also look at it from the element of diversity of thought, and that is so, so, so important in the factual media landscape, which is what I work in. And I don't want to just boil it down to news and broadcasting because I truly think the lines are so blurred in today's world because everything is changing so quickly that I can't just say I only work in news and broadcasting. I'm representing factual voices that are, like I said, really doing their part to tell the truth. And that could look very different. It could look like a legacy broadcast client on legacy media. It could look like a client who's focused on the social aspect of things and digital, and it could be anything in between that. And so at the end of the day, diversity of thought is extremely important to me. 

That's a whole different podcast episode to talk about the news space and the influence that it has on on thought and indeed like you said, policy in this country, on democracy. Simply on a base level. What is the future of a career of an agent? Like what? What comes next for you? How do you grow? You know, from the outside it's like assistant coordinator, agent, right? So what's next? 
Right. So the pipeline is, as you mentioned, I mean, you know, you can start as an intern, then you kind of either are a trainee of sorts where you're an agent trainee. That means being an assistant, being a coordinator, which is essentially a junior agent and then an agent. And then I guess you're an agent. And then after that, you know, maybe you make partner or maybe, I don't know, you go through the natural pipeline of what it means to be at a at a company and kind of level up. But I think in terms of the job itself, it's kind of touching upon what we talked about earlier with the entrepreneurial nature of it. It never stops changing and it never stops shifting in the way that you want it to shift. So even though I am an agent and technically I've completed all like the exact titles that I needed to to get to this point, the job is going to continue to change this landscape is shifting so much specifically within news, where we're finding that there's a lot of creator driven content that's popping up. And this wasn't the case even five, ten, 15 years ago, even two years ago. Right. It's really become a thing now where creators in digital and all these non-traditional platforms and non legacy media platforms are finding their voices and they're finding new and innovative ways to put out their content and to help influence whatever part of society that is engaging with them. Right? And so I think that because of that, I'm super focused on finding those voices, helping to figure out what their passions are, and then aligning it in a way that makes sense with the factual nature of the news broadcast industry in a way that maybe doesn't necessarily reflect what the broadcast industry even look like five, ten, 15 years ago. Because like I said, it's changed so much. All this to say the news is ubiquitous, news is here to stay. News is not going anywhere. People need information and they need it quick. And that will never change. And that is one thing I absolutely love about this industry is that you always need to be someone that is in a student. You always need to be a student. You always need to keep educating yourself and you always need to keep looking for the right sources, the right people and folks that are telling the truth. And you need to consume that and you need to understand that. And you can you can digest that however you want to to help influence your life and the people around you. But at the end of the day, we never stop learning. And news is at the driving forefront of that. 
Absolutely. I am, on a personal level, so curious to see the future of news, the future of how people get that information. I think you're so right. The digital landscape is becoming so popular for for a place where people get that news. And I'm I am so, so curious to see how that turns out and how successful that is and how that builds like, yes, if you can just post on that platform, but maybe something more is coming down the line, I don't know. But I am so, so curious to see how it works out. 

I think in that vein, what I truly think the next part of this is going to look like is super brand driven, super identity driven, very much rooted in who talent is as a person. I think we are finding a shift in the way that information is message, not just with the talent that is associated with certain platforms and certain networks and certain outlets, but now it's very much about the talent as themselves and the audience loves to engage with people that they either relate to or they feel comfortable with, or they feel like they see some part of themselves represented in. Right, which kind of goes all the way back to my point of wanting to help amplify and uplift underrepresented voices. Because I understand that on a holistic level, on a very fundamental level as a person, and I've always hoped and wish that the talent that I'm looking at watching consuming is reflective of me. And I think it's very, very it boils down to that for most most people and most audiences. So what I think we're going to be seeing in this digital shift of media is that it's very much talent driven as opposed to platform driven. I think there needs to be synergy that we find moving forward and we're going to get to that point. It's very much shaking out in real time, which is super exciting. But what we'll find is that people resonate more so with the talent themselves. So people need to focus on building their platforms, building their own brands, making sure they're taking the right steps to help achieve their personal truths in a way that's extremely authentic and the rest will follow. 

Yeah. What is the biggest challenge that you face in in this job in being an agent? 
The biggest challenge that I've faced in this job has been learning that not everything is about you. Personally, I can't stress that enough. And when I say that, I don't mean that from some sort of way where I'm, you know, making everything about me. I know I would never do that. But I think it's so important to understand that nothing is personal. And you learn that in the entertainment industry as a whole. I think as you pointed out, we came up together as assistants. And when you come through the pipeline of being talent, that's grown up to the point where you're at, you know, you do go through a lot of junior levels of, you know, job roles and responsibilities and titles. And with that comes the territory of, you know, having to do things and, you know, experiencing things that you probably didn't realize were part of the deal, part of the package. And a lot of the times and I don't think this is just akin to this industry or this job. I really do think this is transferable across all industries. But when it comes to career, when it comes to job roles and responsibilities and anything in the professional realm, it's not personal. It's just not personal. Don't take it personally because you'll make it about yourself and then you'll feel you'll feel some type of way. If if it's good, it's great. If it's not good, it's so bad. And you shouldn't, as best as you can, let that emotionally affect you because it's so important to separate the emotions from the craft. 

And then on the flip side, and I always love asking this question, and I think you've touched upon it, but I would be curious to still hear your answer. What is the part of this job that you love the most? 

I did touch upon this. I did the part of the job that I love the most is making people happy. It's truly that moment when I have seen from start to finish. I've had the conversation with talent that I'm pursuing that I've reached out to found some way, shape or form and find interesting. And I sit down and I have the conversation and I learn about them and I learn about their goals and their dreams and their aspirations and who they want to be, what they want to do. And it's really exciting stuff, honestly, It's a really exciting conversation to have with people, and I love to just understand them on that level and then being able to be with them and support them and help them achieve their goals that they mentioned to me how many our months ago, weeks ago, whatever, however long it takes to then help get them to that end point, that finish line, that entire process and journey makes me so, so, so happy. And then look at the smile on their faces at the very end. It sounds so cheesy and cliche, but, you know, I clearly have some sort of mission here. It's been pretty evident throughout this entire podcast. It's like, yay, peace and love, happiness. We love that. But truly, I mean, this from the most genuine part of my being. It is just so incredibly rewarding to watch people be happy. And when you realize that, you've helped them be happy. And I think that's that's something that I can't ever take for granted. Yeah. 

I want to turn to your own journey to being an agent. We touched upon that. The steps, but what drew you to being an agent? I know you talked about, you know, the courses that you took and what you studied, but how did you even find out about it? Was there a moment where you were like, Yeah, I want to do this? Did you talk to someone? How what drew you to this path? 

I love this because it is truly a testament to how wholesome the nature of my entire journey has been. Truly and why I also feel extra passionate about driving it forward. Because I kind of fell into this. Truly, I have to rewind and say, okay, while I did sort of fall into it, I also sort of entirely manifested this for myself at the same time. So I can't say that I fully only fell into it, but the honest truth is when I was 12 years old, I came across a talent agency website and it was because I genuinely was so intrigued by Disney Channel and the characters and the shows, and I was like, That's going to be my next big thing. I'm going to be that person drawing the Mickey Mouse ears on Disney Channel. How does someone get to that point? I was so fascinated. How do we find these people? How do we find this talent? And I was particularly obsessed with Disney Channel to the point where, you know, I really made it my entire identity. But that's that's beside the point. But I heard a casting call on the radio while I was out with my mom one day. Truly, I was maybe like 1011 at this point. And I was like, Oh, okay. So they do casting calls for radio. They're doing it for these Disney Channel shows. So I tried calling the number and you know, it was a bit of a dead end. It wasn't real, but it got me thinking. And then I thought I thought I thought and I kid you not at 12 years old. I then finally stumbled across the talent agency website and I was like, This is super cool and awesome and bold and bright and exciting and I just went down this rabbit hole of looking through everything and learning what it meant to be part of a talent agency. And I never really heard of that before. I didn't realize there were people that helped position and put folks on TV in movies, whether it was music, theater, publishing, news. I didn't realize that at all, let alone realize that there are folks that are representatives for journalists. I just thought that someday some people woke up and were like, I feel like talking about the news today. And then they ended up on TV and I thought that was really cool and it was very exciting. And I grew up watching a lot of news. Truly, I come from a very news driven household and it was like real just entertainment for me. I loved it. And before school, after school, I'd flock to the news channels. This is a long winded answer, but yeah, I didn't understand what it meant to be a talent agent and I don't think most people did. Truly, I found myself at this intersection of my three degrees with television, radio and film, entrepreneurship and political science, where in my head it made sense because it was part of the entertainment industry while having a foot in politics and policy and understanding how all of that works. As well as just the entrepreneurial nature of what it means to be able to champion your own book and your own business. And ultimately, I ended up working as an intern at a management company and I learned about representation. And at that company, a lot of folks had come from being agents or on the pathway to becoming agents, and they decided that they actually wanted to be managers instead. So they went to go work at a management company and I did multiple information deals with them. I sat down, I grabbed coffees where I could. I took a lot of meetings. I think the number one thing to do is to keep learning, to keep educating yourself. And that means just taking meetings, even if it's 5 minutes. If you can get 5 minutes from someone to learn about their journey about them and the steps that they took to get to where they're at, if you're inspired by them, goes a really long way. And so that's when I truly learned about what it meant to be an agent, because I heard from folks who had done it and pivoted. And that, I think, is such a true reading of what it's like because you're getting perspective from someone who tried it and decided they didn't want to do it anymore, as opposed to someone who's just super in it to win it. And I really appreciated that perspective. And so I then applied to the agency that I work at, and I decided to come ground up and essentially see how things went. And that's where I had the pleasure of meeting you. And it's been how many years now. But you went through the pipeline and grew ground up through the agency and got to experience it on all different levels. And I think really building that foundation and having the time to build a foundation coming up was super, super important. And now I'm at this point and I know that my experiences leading up to this truly are what helped me get here. 

That is such a great story and it does contain so much excellent advice that you all constantly throughout your career. You do have to just keep on learning, keep on talking to people, and one day you will get to, you know, where you are. Now. You mentioned your internships and that and that's how you initially got your foot in the door. It is known in the entertainment industry that it is notoriously hard to get these internships to get, you know, your first step, whether that's into the mailroom, whether that's being an assistant, whatever it is, it's so hard to get your foot in the door. So what do you think you did that got you your first foot in the door? 
That's a great question. It is incredibly difficult in a lot of ways. And I think that a lot of us have experienced that in our own ways. And it's a very personal story. But I think, you know, as someone who went through every single round of interviews and then some to get all of the jobs that I've had, I understand the grit and the amount of exhaustion that comes with that as well. Right. It's it's a mental process where you really have to psychologic really build yourself up to understand that things may go your way or things may not go your way. And the biggest lesson that I learned is to just say, yes, I think that a lot of times we kind of put ourselves in a corner in a hole thinking, I need to achieve this exact thing at this point in time and it needs to be done in this way, this shape, this manner. And that's just not how life works. I think you have to be open to what comes your way and you have to be accepting of things that you are willing to accept and just say yes and do the thing. And as you say, yes and you do more things, more doors open up for you, more opportunities open up for you, and you never know what's going to lead you to the next part of your journey. And for me, while I took this management internship, I took it not necessarily knowing if I wanted to be in management, if I wanted to be in representation. I thought it was interesting. It was born out of my, you know, want and need to be drawing, you know, Mickey Mouse ears on Disney Channel, but ultimately got me to this point. And I couldn't be happier. And now it's my full time job. It's what I get to do every single day. But it's all because I said yes to something I didn't necessarily know too much about, but wanted to learn more about. So you always have to be curious. 
Yeah. We touched upon at the top how Assistant Head is really being in the trenches. It is tough. It is a lot of hard work. So I've got to ask, how did you survive Assistant being an assistant? What tips do you have? 
Yeah, 
I think there's a couple of things. I think the best way to survive, to come up the journey, is to never take things personally. It is not personal. I think the moment you can understand that, the moment I was able to understand that for myself, it truly felt like a weight was lifted off my shoulders. Because no matter what part you're at in your career, what level you're at, you will always run into good things and bad things, right? You know, it's all a work in progress. And I think in as much as you shouldn't take the good things for granted, you should also not take the bad things personally. That is my number one lesson. I think the second biggest thing is that you need to learn to walk before you run. And I will say that again. You have to learn to walk before you run. I think that is so, so, so crucial because so many times we get ahead of ourselves and we're trying to get to that endpoint and we're trying to rush the journey. And it can be very frustrating. It can be very time consuming, it can be mentally exhausting, physically exhausting to have to do all the little things to get you to that end point. And I am nowhere near close to what that endpoint might look like for myself. But I know I'm on the journey and I'm on the path to get to that point and who knows what that looks like, right? But I know that every single day I'm curious to learn more and to achieve more and help be a better version of myself. So if I can get the fundamentals down right and I can do my job correctly, everything else will come as it will. And as an assistant, you really have to learn how to be an assistant first and then everything else will come. And some of the stuff that you don't understand, why you're doing or why it makes sense, or you didn't go to college for or you didn't pay so much money to go to college, you're like, Why am I doing this? You just have to learn that it will shake out at the end of everything and it will finally make sense one day. You have to trust the process. 
What do you think you did while you were being an assistant or while you were a coordinator that put you in the position to be promoted? 
What I did was I stayed curious. I was always asking questions, which sounds so vague, but I think ultimately I always just wanted to know more. I wanted to consume more and I wanted to learn more. And as you educate yourself, you start to kind of find out what works for you, what doesn't work for you, what you want out of this job, what this job wants out of you. And you end up learning from a lot of different people. Because for me personally, I asked questions and I asked them of everyone that came across my path. I didn't stick to a specific group, a specific person, a specific mentor. I tried in as much as folks had the time and would allow to have a conversation. I tried to just ask everyone everything all the time. And ultimately I think that that curiosity really helped open a lot of doors for me and people started understanding more about who I am and when it made sense to tapping into things, they were able to tap me into things that made sense for me to do. And that's how you naturally grow and progress. And you start to get utilized as an employee a lot more. And when you find yourself in more conversations, more spaces, and you've made more room for yourself in these rooms, you then become a part of the conversation in a greater way than you ever had before. 
Right? That's actually such a good point that from you asking questions, people are then like coming across something on their desk and they're like, Oh, wait, did he was asking me about this? Why don't I bring her into the conversation, Let her learn, let her see, and then you are that number one person that people think of and then that and that can just help you, help you learn, but also grow. That's such a good point. I hadn't really I hadn't. I haven't ever thought of that before. I think that's I think that's an excellent piece of advice. So then on that note, because you were so curious, because you were learning constantly and I will say also, I so value that. I think that that is such a key part of your career is to just constantly be learning and constantly be growing. I think it's just so fundamental and there is no point in life where you ever stopping learning. You are ever stopping learning, and you should never think that you know everything. So that's my side point of I just say louder. 
Louder people in the back. 
Exactly. I think it's such a fundamental point of careers. But on that note, do you feel like you were ready to be an agent when you got promoted from coordinator? 
That's a great question. I have thought about that a lot because I think as someone who I mentioned had to work for literally everything that I've gotten achieved to this point in my life and hopefully will achieve further. I understand the grit that it takes. Right? And I think that with that comes an element of questioning sometimes yourself where you're like, Do I belong in these rooms? Do I belong in these spaces? I think that's a question that most everyone asks themselves, especially when they find that they're on a path to success and they're growing and they're elevating. And if it's rather quick, which again, I think things have worked out well, whether it's according to the universe of my hard work or whatever you want to call it, but I feel very blessed to be on the path that I've been on. And I think that it does come with a certain level of doubt. And I don't think that that has anything to do with me not respecting my capabilities or abilities or myself. I really do value that. But I think that in those moments I've just had to recalibrate and I've had to ground myself and understand that I do belong here. I am supposed to be here. I am in this conversation. It's about me as much as it's about everyone else. And I still find myself doing that every single day because the one thing that people cannot take away from you is your perspective that is so unique to you and who you are as a person. My perspective will always be different than yours. We may agree on things, we may disagree, but the experiences that we both bring to the table are so uniquely different. And that's so special. And no one can take that away from you. So baseline, you belong in every single room that you're in. 
Yet you've already given us so much advice throughout throughout this podcast, throughout this conversation. But I want to get some more. I can't let you leave without getting some more of your excellent advice. Firstly, what advice do you have for people just wanting to go down this path, wanting to be an agent, wanting to start as an intern and end up as an agent? 
The number one piece of advice for folks trying to become an agent or work in representation as an industry is to find talent that they think is exciting, to understand what their palette is because it's different depending on the person and every individual. Every agent has talent that they may be like over others and maybe their taste doesn't match with their colleague next to them. And that's totally fine. There is someone out there for everyone, and I strongly believe that if you start honing in on what that looks like for you and what your unique perspective is in the industry and who you want to work with and who you want to align yourself with, it'll make it a lot easier for you as you're applying to these jobs and you're trying to get your foot in the door when you can speak to that because the number one thing anyone's going to want to know when you're interviewing is why do you want to be here? And if you can answer that confidently, because you have a point of view and you have done the work to get that point of view, it will be obvious. 
Absolutely. I remember asked that question all the time, right? So yeah, that is to have that answer prepared. Excellent advice. And then what advice do you have for simply just surviving this industry? This industry is tough. The entertainment industry is sometimes kind of toxic. It has a lot of the old guard that are, you know, not as up at the times and not as appreciative of the work that you are doing and so on and so forth. So what advice do you have to simply survive in this industry? 
I think it's really important to take time for yourself to just unplug and understand that it's not all about this all of the time. I think there are so many things going on in life. Life as a concept is quite the intricate thing, as we all know. And you know, I'm on a journey myself personally. It's a work in progress to kind of figure out what I feel like I want to do outside of even my career and just who I am as a person. And that's never going to stop. That's a process and a journey that I'm always going to be on. And I think the best way to survive the entertainment industry, to survive any type of job in the industry, is to understand that outside of the job, you are your own person and you have an identity outside of that. And while there are no set hours for this type of work, there is no 9 to 5 situation. You do the work as it comes, as it calls you, and that can be exhausting at times and that can be a lot. And it's very important to take the vacation when you can take the vacation to say it's okay for me to put my phone down because it's 9 p.m. on a Friday night and I deserve to have my weekend. And these are all lessons that I learned from my seniors coming up and are very valuable and I'll never forget them. And to this, if I ever feel bad about unplugging and taking time for myself, I just remember what they told me because first and foremost, you have to help yourself before you can help anyone else. And at the end of the day, the theme of this job is helping other people, isn't it? So when I help other people, you got to help yourself quickly. Take the time and be happy. 
Yeah, you are no use to anyone if you can't function exactly like truly. I also I also used to say to myself, it's not brain surgery when you are getting those tags at midnight when you were, you know, working every weekend at one point, you do just have to say to yourself, it's not brain surgery. That is not the industry we work in. So remember that when you are doing this work. Definitely. And then finally, what is the best career advice you've ever received? 
The best career advice that I've ever received is that everything at all times is about managing expectations. And I really, truly understood that to a core level at this point, because you always have to understand that whether it's at work or it's not at work, everything in life is about managing expectations. And if you set yourself up for success, you will find that success. If you set yourself up for failure, unfortunately, you may find that failure. It's all about the way that you position yourself and therefore it starts ground up. So if you know how to level set, you know how to manage those expectations and you know how to manage expectations versus high hopes, because those are two very different things. I think if you learn how to make everything work for you in tandem, you'll find that you're the happiest and best version of yourself, and your clients are the happiest and best versions of themselves. 
I'm so glad I have put you on this podcast so that everyone can hear because everyone should hear the incredible advice that you have. I think, yes, it's obviously very patterned to the entertainment industry, but can expand beyond that. The advice that you have for just simply careers and existing and life. You should write a book. Thank you. 
You're so sweet. If I write this book, I hope you're not the only one that buys it. So maybe you can promote it on this podcast and then we can make it work. But now I truly appreciate you, and I think that it's very important that you're giving folks a platform to be able to talk about this stuff because it is a very daunting and can be a very scary journey to try to find a job, to figure out what it is that excites you enough for you to do it every day until you retire, right? Yeah. No one talks about that. The last time we had summer vacation, who knows when we just had time off where we had no responsibilities and nothing to do. And I think that as I've grown up, I've understood that. I don't think I took that for granted. But in some ways I'm like, Did I take that for granted? Because you pretty much work every single day until you don't and you have to love what you do. You have to make sure that it's serving you in a greater purpose than just the professional aspect. And that's why you really lean in on the life stuff. And again, I thank you so much for doing this, for having this podcast. I wish I had this podcast as I was coming up through my job search and you're truly an angel, So thank you for all of the work that you've done that you continue to do. And yeah, to what's next. Never stop listening. 
Never stop, never stop listening. Never stop learning. As you have rightly, passionately. I do have one more question for you. Oh, okay for you two. Yeah. What's next. 
For me? What's next, Lacey? No one's ever asked me this before. 
I know. It's impossible. It's so intimate between us. 
What's next? What's next? I feel very excited about the prospect of finding new voices in this ever changing world that we're living in. When it comes to news specifically, there's a lot going on at all times, and I'm very excited about finding the next voices, I should say, that are helping to effect change and be thought leaders in this space. And it's looking different by the day. It looks very, very different than it did even when I first got into this business. And I think the ever changing nature of this job is what keeps me so thrilled on a day to day basis. So I'm just really excited to see who pops up on my feed next, who pops up on my TV next, who pops up in front of me, around me in these meetings, in these conversations, in these events, and I want to work with them. 
I love it. Well, firstly, thank you so much again for coming on. Thank you for speaking so kindly about the podcast, about what's next, and thank you for all your incredible, incredible advice that you have given us in this conversation. I am so appreciative of your time and of your knowledge. And yeah, thank you for going. Thank you. Alright