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What we cover: “Failure doesn’t move us back. It moves us forward. Failure tells us what is no longer working.” – Jen Grisanti

As a VP of CBS Paramount, overseeing Current Programming, Jen Grisanti was exactly where she wanted to be, or so she thought. Then, one day, the unthinkable happened, and without warning, she suffered a big crash when her professional reality was turned on its head and she was let go. The ladder she had been climbing collapsed from underneath her. But guess what she did? She did what Aaron Spelling -- yes that Aaron Spelling -- her long-time business mentor taught her to do: She found the gold in her story. Jen’s career began working side by side with Aaron, ultimately as head of Current Programming for Spelling Television. She was instrumental in shaping many of the shows we love today – 90210, Melrose Place, Charmed, Seventh Heaven, you name it – and in this capacity, she started to see that great stories in fiction share the same qualities as great stories in life, and vice versa. We have a hero, we have a dilemma, we have a goal, we have that rock bottom moment, and we see that hero rise again. So when Jen’s career as she knew it tumbled down around her, she knew she had two choices – to be a victim of circumstance. Or to learn from it and blossom. She chose the latter.

Hers is by no means a story relegated to those in the entertainment industry. Not by a long shot. Hers a story that is universal. The specifics may not be the same, but the message is.

I love this episode, I love this woman, I love her story. And you know what? As a sucker for Charlie’s Angels, Love Boat, Fantasy Island, I loved hearing firsthand what Aaron Spelling was like as a person. Self-made and accessible and a lover of Pink’s Hot Dogs.

Today, Jen Grisanti is principal of Jen Grisanti Inc. She provides feedback and guidance – notes, as they say in the bizz – to writers who are developing projects. Forty-two of her writers have gone on to sell their series as pilots, which is huge. She’s an instructor with NBC’s prestigious Writers on the Verge program. She’s an internationally sought after speaker – having spoken in Australia, Israel, London, Toronto. And she’s the author of three books: Change your Story, Change your life; Storyline: Finding the gold in your life story; and the TV Writing Toolkit.

Our talk specifically focuses on how we can all find the gold in our own story. You may think you’ve hit rock bottom, but with a perspective shift, you will see you haven’t. Where you really are is one step away from an “a-ha” that is going to rocket you to greater heights -- if you are willing to identify it and take action. That’s the key.

Despite the fact that Jen is probably one of the busiest people in Hollywood, she made time to meet with me on a Saturday morning in LA. And it was pure perfection. She speaks candidly about the collapse of her marriage, and the fact that, had she not lost the things she thought she “needed” in order to have “arrived” that she’d never be where she is today. And that is a place of authentic arrival -- a life built entirely on her own terms, using the gifts she has accrued from a 25 year career shaping the stories that have captivated millions of people around the world. When you talk to Jen and you talk about heart ache and heart break and disappointment, you soon realize that she sees those as the gold -- the “all is lost” moment, as they say in Hollywood, when truly good things are just around the corner.

What we cover: Autumn Reeser knew at a very young age exactly who she was meant to be – an actor. But despite this clarity, she has learned to face a sometimes cruel industry -- the rejection, the heartbreak, the dashed hopes – with grace and perseverance. In the process of her journey, she has realized that the key to it all is learning, quite simply, to be kind to ourselves. You may know her as Taylor Townsend from the hit series The OC, or as Lizzy Grant from her two seasons on Entourage, or as Dr Gabby Asano in Hawaii Five-O. You may recognize her in the recently-released feature film Sully – starring Tom Hanks and Laura Linney. Regardless, there are a lot of reasons you might know Autumn Reeser. And her upcoming series The Arrangement is sure to be amazing.

Whatever of our profession or path or passions, there’s unity in the theme of our stories. We fall, we get back up. And Autumn is no different. She has a really evolved perspective on things – on what it takes to continue on our climb. For example, Autumn made the decision early on that the process of going out on auditions would be empowering, not a time of vulnerability; another chance for her to hone her chops. Hers is a message that reminds us we all own our own perspective and can shift it in a flash.

And when we do find ourselves in times of darkness, Autumn shares her “self-cleaning oven” metaphor. In other words: Take some time completely on our own. And just shut the door, and purge out the goop.

What we cover: "Ever tried? Ever failed? No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better." -- Samuel Beckett I have known Elle Wild for the better part of the last two decades. She and I were ad copy writers together in Vancouver. And what I most admired about Elle, was that she always had a side project on the go. She always had a screenplay underway, a radio show to produce, or a treatment she was drafting. At a time in my own life when I desperately wanted to be living a more creative life on my own terms, which is one of the pitfalls of a career in advertising – for as fun and exciting as the work can be, at the end of the day, it’s a business and you are working for your client -- Elle felt light years ahead of me. I have been so proud to sit back and watch her blossom into this incredibly well-respected figure in our nation’s literarti scene and this past fall with the release of her debut novel Strange Things Done, a title inspired by the opening lines of the Robert Service poem "The Creation of Sam McGee", I was one of the stoked attendees at the book’s launch. In the days since, Strange Things Done has gone on to be a #1 best seller on Amazon in Canada, for its genre – which, if you know Elle, is all about “noir”.

The afternoon she and I chatted, she was on her way to a glamorous event to witness the unveiling of the nominees for the prestigious Arthur Ellis Awards, and sure enough, Strange Things Done was indeed shortlisted, and she will find out on May 25th at a ceremony in Toronto if her book is the winner of Best New Novel. Ironically, and a little bit of background, in 2015, Strange Things Done won the Arthur Ellis Award in the category of Best Unpublished Crime Novel. Well, now, it’s published and it’s out there doing its thing, and it was nominated again.

Ours is a conversation less about the specifics of the book, although we certainly do cover that, and I assure you, it’s a page-turner and a nail-biter, and all those other things we say about books we just can’t put down, but more than that, ours is conversation about what it requires to take a creative risk. To leave a career trajectory behind and to throw caution to the wind, and to head to Canada’s north to write a crime novel. Writing a book is the ultimate metaphor to tackling any big goal – much in the same way that running a marathon serves as a symbol to life’s big undertakings. So whether you have artistic longings, or athletic longings or entrepreneurial longings, this is a conversation that is universal in nature.

"There are strange things done, in the midnight sun

By the men who moil for gold.

The Arctic trails have their secret tales,

That would make your blood run cold." -- Robert Service's The Creation of Sam McGee

MJDionne.com

What we cover: “You cannot synthetically produce passion.” – Brent Johnson

Part Two in a Three-Part Series

Every once in a while, you have a conversation with someone who is legitimately hilarious. Legitimately insightful. And legitimately fascinating. And you want to bottle it and crack the formula and then multiply it and sell the patent. But since you can’t, instead you pop it onto the cyberwaves and you call it a podcast episode.

Brent Johnson.

There aren’t a lot of names in Vancouver that are more, or even as, synonymous with greatness, with leadership, and with humility than his.

So of course it was my dream to get him to sit down and chat with me. And, because he’s as generous as they get, when I reached out to him, he responded in under two minutes with an all-caps ABSOLUTELY. Brent, just so you know: I am framing that email.

Brent is about as respected an athlete as they come. The Vancouver Sun once said of Brent: “He is humble, polite and straight-shooting by nature. He was not a football player whose validation and self-worth were tied up in his job, or whose ego contained lopsided control over who he is.”

As an 11-year key member of the CFL team The BC Lions, Brent has lots of shiny hardware to his name. He has two Grey Cup wins. He was presented with The CFL’s Most Outstanding Canadian Award. He’s been named a CFL All-Star more than once. He was the recipient of the CFL’s Most Outstanding Defensive Player Award. And, most recently, he was inducted into the BC Lions Ring of Honour, the highest honour they can give a player.

But despite all of this, this is not a conversation about football. At least, not in the traditional sense. Of course it comes up – it’s the thread. But more than anything, this is a conversation about life. About vulnerability. About commitment. About what Brent identifies as “giving yourself over to something entirely.” It’s a conversation that is ripe with insights.

He talks openly about what he sees as being his role as a dad when it comes to guiding the opportunities for his own young son. He talks openly about the loss of his mother, in a tragic car accident, when he was just 12-years-old, and how that event, in many ways, impacted him. He talks openly about the intensity of 5-years playing with Ohio State, his stint with the NFL, and ultimately his journey to an impressive career with the BC Lions. He talks openly about the “if onlys” – those events in all of our lives that make us pause and take stock. And more than all of this, it’s a conversation about what it means to be passionate – what does that look like, and how do we tap into it. Because, as he says, passion cannot be “synthetically” produced. It needs to boil and bubble and generate from deep within.

This conversation is fast-paced and super-charged – because that’s what Brent brings to the table. He’s warm and witty and charming and, to be honest, when we eventually wrapped up three hours – yes, really – three hours after he arrived, I swear I was vibrating at a higher frequency for a few days after.

Catch all three parts of this awesome chat, one where we continue the drill down into greatness and what that means to Brent. It just so happens, he’s got a lot of unforgettable thought-provoking perspectives on the matter.

MJDionne.com

What we cover: "Take the past for what it is. And then, focus on moving forward." -- Kevin Reynolds

Today's guest is Kevin Reynolds. He is, of course, the Canadian figure skating super star who won silver at the 2014 Olympic Winter Games in Sochi, as part of the mixed team event.

According to the official Olympics athlete site, he is the first skater in the world to ever land a quad-triple-triple combination, and in 2010 he became the first man ever to land two quadruple jumps in the short program – and we talk about all that goodness.

But this is by no means just a talk about skating. You don’t have to be up on your figure skating lingo to follow along – despite the fact that many of us will be up on it on account of we Canadians following the recent success of our own ice dancers, Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir. This is a conversation about getting up after we fall – figuratively and literally. It’s about recognizing what Kevin calls that “glimmer of hope” in order to set the wheels in motion and turn a dream into reality. It’s about harnessing the adrenaline we’ve all felt at one point or another, and turning that into something positive. It’s about learning to replace the question: “What if it all goes wrong?” with “What if it all goes right?”

It’s a peek behind the curtain of the present-moment focus that is required to compete and perform at this elite a level.

And, it’s a conversation about the Top 5 skating movies in pop culture, and I’ve posted that complete list at MJDionne.com, under the podcaster tab. So there’s that.