Show Notes

• America’s favorite addiction
• PR and media in the post internet world
• Credibility versus visibility
• How to get attention
• Michael’s start in public relations
• What separates the best from the rest
• Over prepare, over check, over communicate
• Characteristics of the super successful

Connect With Jerry Meek

✩ Website – https://boundlessmediausa.com/
✩ LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaellevinepr

Summary

Michael Levine is an icon in the public relations business with a client list that includes 58 Academy Award winners, 34 Grammy recipients, and 43 New York Times bestselling authors. He is the author of 19 books, and has shaped PR strategies for Hollywood’s elite for four decades. Michael shares specific strategies for getting attention, and the common characteristics of his super successful clients.

Full Transcript

Brian
Welcome to another episode of LifeExcellence with Brian Bartes. Join me as I talk with amazing athletes, entrepreneurs, authors, entertainers, and others who have achieved excellence in their chosen field so you can learn their tools, techniques and strategies for improving performance and achieving greater success.

Michael Levine is an icon in the public relations business. His client list reads like a who’s who of the entertainment industry, and includes 58 Academy Award winners, 34 Grammy Award winners and 43 New York Times bestselling authors. For four decades, Michael has shaped the PR strategies for clients that have included superstars like Michael Jackson, Barbra Streisand, Prince, David Bowie, George Carlin, Joan Rivers, and Charlton Heston. Michael has not only represented leading talents, but he has also authored 19 books, including “Guerrilla PR,” the most widely used introduction to public relations. He has delivered lectures at prestigious institutions like Harvard, Oxford, and UCLA, demonstrating his unrivaled expertise and opinions that continue to shape public perceptions and industry standards. It’s truly an honor to have him on the show today. Welcome, Michael, and thanks for joining us on LifeExcellence.

Michael
Well, thank you, dear friend, and thank you for the privilege of sharing your valuable audience.

Brian
Absolutely. It’s wonderful to see you. Michael, you’ve influenced perception of and for your clients – Hollywood’s elite – your entire career. You certainly understand how public perception works as well as anyone. Why are we so obsessed with celebrities and with fame, something one author calls America’s favorite addiction?

Michael
Well, it would seem to me that going back maybe a decade or two, Americans became increasingly aware of some of the quiet desperation of their own lives, that Americans started to reflect on what their own realities were and became intrigued by transcending the quiet desperation of their own lives by immersing themselves in the world of celebrity; living their lives in a certain way through the prism of the celebrity. Now, this became even more heightened as social media became more prevalent and so in the last ten years, I think the whole celebrity experiences quadrupled in terms of its impact to general society.

Brian
Sure, today, really with social media, everyone has a microphone and virtually everyone’s able to publish information. So from your vantage point, Michael, how does that change your job? How has public relations changed, compared to when you first started in the field pre-internet? Basically, certainly, pre-social media.

Michael
First of all, let’s acknowledge that the metabolism rate of the world has unalterably changed, things are going faster and faster and faster and faster and faster and faster and faster than ever before, by quite a big amount. So one area of change in the public relations field is the metabolism rate of the world. There is a necessity to go faster. I’ve had a fondness for telling people that in the world of the media a day is a week, a week is a month, an hour’s a day; it’s all a race to stay with or ahead of the news curve.

Brian
And so what is the race for? Is it a race for attention? Is it a race for relevance? (Michael: Yes.) What what are you racing toward for your clients?

Michael
Both real relevance and attention. I was quoted, Brian, in the Wall Street Journal in August of last year saying that in the modern world – not the world of your father or mother, but the world of today – it is impossible to be credible without being visible, that visibility and credibility have connected like an umbilical cord between a mother and a child. And so when you raise your visibility, using the umbilical cord metaphor, you raise your credibility. So I think that’s an important issue and an important change because 40, 50 years ago, the way you became famous is that you did something notable. You created a vaccine for polio and the next week you’re on Time or Newsweek. Today, you don’t have to do much of anything to be notable. You can be Kim Kardashian or Monica Lewinsky or Paris Hilton. You don’t have to do almost anything to become famous today.

Brian
Michael, Monica Lewinsky did something to become famous so I would just push back on that a little bit. Kim Kardashian, you’re right, she’s famous for being famous. When you talk about credibility, as you first started talking about it, I was thinking about somebody who’s well educated, somebody who maybe is a college professor, is educated, is an expert in his or her field and you’re talking about that connection between visibility and credibility. It’s almost when you say credibility, it’s in some instances perception of credibility, isn’t it? It’s not actual credibility, it’s perception of credibility – or am I splitting hairs there?

Michael
Look, I think fundamentally, people in modern life have to ask themselves a question. Both statements are true but the question becomes which is more true. In modern life and the world of today, which is more true? A. that perception creates reality or B. reality creates perception. Now, they’re both true but which is more true? I think that there’s enormous amounts of evidence to suggest that in today’s modern world, the first is more true. Perception tends to create reality more than reality creates perception. So there it is and so it is and so it goes. Now, that may or may not be a good thing but the question is not whether it’s a good thing, the question is whether it’s true and so it is, and so it goes.

Brian
So given the reality today, in this ever changing media landscape, what specific strategies can our listeners and viewers deploy to, I guess – to use your words – to create that perception or to stay relevant to get attention and to use that to either get attention for themselves and/or their businesses?

Michael
Well, there’s a whole series of answers to that question. That’s a good question. The first is that I think that anyone trying to connect to relevance in the early part of the 21st century would be wise to know what’s going on. In the soulful words of Marvin Gaye, what is going on? You got to know the news. You got to watch the news. You got to see what’s going on. A friend of mine called me up about, I don’t know, two, three days ago and said, Michael, did you know that OJ Simpson had died? Now OJ Simpson had died two or three days earlier. This person is not connected to the news. You’ve got to be connected to what’s going on. So in the soulful words of Marvin Gaye, what’s going on? Second, I think that [one should] fish where the fish are. If you and I decided tomorrow to go fishing, we have a choice, I guess we could go to a pond in which there were a lot of fish or we can go to a pond in which there were not many fish. I guess we could even go to a pond where there are no fish, we could stick your fishing pole in your bathtub if we wanted to. The problem is that I don’t think we catch many fish in your bathtub. Now, if we were going to go fishing, I think it would probably be wise to go fishing on a pond that had a lot of fish. So where are there a lot of fish? Well, in the interconnection between you and trending news stories, trending information. That’s an important piece of this; fish where the fish are, and you can’t fish where the fish are if you don’t know where the fish are. That’s an understanding of the news, being able to be part of a trending news cycle.

Brian
So is that the role that you play as a publicist for your clients?

Michael
I do and it’s one that people think has brought me a somewhat unique perspective. If somebody listening to this show is an attorney or a real estate broker or an entrepreneur and they want to be relevant, they have to maybe consider, well, how can I use my knowledge as a realtor to interface with some trending news story currently in the news about real estate or about real estate mortgages, values or something. If, on the other hand, you’re an attorney, then you have to figure out how you can use your body of knowledge as an attorney to interconnect with trending stories having to do with the legal system in America and their legal stories all the time.

Brian
That makes sense. How did you get started in public relations?

Michael
I came to LA on September 16, 1977. I had barely graduated high school, I had a disability all my life called dyslexia. I also grew up in a not very good home, an alcoholic home, and so I guess the reality of my life was I didn’t have very good cards growing up. I came out to LA to get a new canvas and a new start. I was born in New York City, born about two and a half miles north of Ground Zero. So off I went at age 22 to this new city to look for a new start, preferably in the entertainment industry. Now, one of my problems – I had a number of problems at the time – but one of them was that I didn’t have any particular skills. I didn’t even know what public relations was. So through a friend of a friend of a friend – and this is important, Brian, because who you know and who wants to know you is very important to how your life is going to turn out – through a friend of a friend of a friend, I met a woman who was working in the publicity department of Paramount. Now that was very uncommon at the time because women were principally secretaries in that era. But nonetheless, she was working in the publicity department. I have always been deeply inquisitive. I don’t know why that is. It’s probably a very good trait to have to succeed in life. I asked the woman what she did for a living, I knew she worked for the publicity department, but I said what do you do every day? The woman stopped and paused for what I thought to be a pretty good long time and she said, what do I do all day? I said, yeah, what do you do all day? And she said, well, I kind of bullshit on the phone. And I said, you know, I think I can do that. And that’s how the whole damn thing started.

Brian
Obviously a lot of people in public relations are novices. There are a lot of people playing at a very high level, which is where you are.

Michael
There are not a lot of people playing at a high level. There are a lot of publicists but…

Brian
Oh, is that right? Okay. Okay.

Michael
Like any other industry, Brian, just think about that. Look, there are hundreds of thousands of podcasts, right? The problem with podcasts today is not that my gardener has a podcast. The problem with podcasts today is my gardener’s juvenile delinquent son has a podcast. But if we look at the data, there are probably a dozen, two dozen that really dominate. And you know, that’s an interesting note for your listeners, Brian, if I might suggest. This is a fun way of putting it, I think. But it’s an interesting thing, Brian, in the end, men lie and women lie but accurate numbers never lie and always tell a story. And so that’s important, isn’t it? To think about men lie, women lie but accurate numbers never lie and always tell a story. It’s important to know what story they tell.

Brian
So there are, let’s say, several very good publicists operating at a very high level. Lots of others. What, Michael, have you done throughout your career that sets you apart from all the others in your profession?

Michael
Well, I mean…I’m not sure…first of all I had a fairly sober understanding of my lack of greatness in the beginning, so I said, look, since most people that are doing this are better than I am, my only chance to keep up – forget about excel, I’ve just got to keep up – is I’m going to have to work a seven day week. See, if my other friends that are more talented than I am, they’re working five days a week, I’ve got to go seven, because I have a lot of ground to catch up. I did learn something, Brian, some of this is metaphoric. I learned something interesting when I began. In my first year, I was really having a hard time keeping up so I made a decision. I don’t know why I did, but I did. I made a decision to go into my office, which we still had offices then, I went into my office, I said, I’m going to come in on Saturday at 10:30 in the morning and I am going to sit there and work till 2:30 in the afternoon. So that’s a total of four hours. I learned a bunch of interesting things doing it. The first thing I learned is, Brian, easy parking. Easy parking. Not many people there on Saturday, easy parking. Second, there weren’t many people around so it was pretty quiet. Those interruptions that exist all day long? They don’t exist that much on Saturday. So I came to find out that the four hours that I devoted from 10:30 to 2:30 were, in reality, four hours in full productivity. They had a value of eight hours because it wasn’t being interrupted. Those four hours really translated in take. Now I’d go into work Monday morning nine o’clock with my other more talented friends and I had an eight hour lead on them in week one. Now they were smarter than I was, they were able to catch me by the end of the week. But I did something even more interesting, I went back on Saturday 10:30 to 2:30 and I did the same damn thing. Now I had eight plus eight. That’s 16. Now at 16 hours, could they catch me? Well, I wasn’t very good so they could. But then I went in the next Saturday and put in another eight. That’s now 24. And with that 24 they were having a tough time catching up. But I went in the next Saturday and that was 32. I think you’re getting a picture. Now a question for you, Brian. I’m just going to ask you, and you don’t know but I’ll ask you to guess and your listeners can guess along with you. Did I keep going in on those Saturdays? Brian, what do you think?

Michael
I’m guessing that you did, Michael.

Michael
I did. I did. I kept going and now your listeners know the secret. I kept going in. Now Brian! Brian! Here’s a question for us and the listeners. What if one of the Saturdays was Halloween? Did I go in then?

Brian
You probably went in on Halloween.

Michael
I went in, I went in. Okay, now, what if one of the Saturdays was my birthday? My birthday, Brian, my birthday?

Brian
I think you probably did.

Michael
Brian, you’re good at this. You’re good at this. See, son! You’re good at this. What if one of the Saturdays was Coachella? Or Burning Man? Or Comic Con? Did I go in?

Brian
You certainly did.

Brian
Brian, you’re good at this, son. You’re really good at this. So there it is. The story was a story of drive of will, of determination, of sober reality about my own inabilities. What is the old [saying]? Mastery begins at 10,000 hours. Now, that’s a phrase that we’ve all heard or many have heard; mastery begins at about 10,000 hours. Now, if you’re going to do an hour a week, 10,000 is a long time. But if you’re going to do 10 hours a week, it’s still pretty good. You’re going to do 100 hours a week, now we’re starting to make some progress. So there you go. Life really begins, personally and professionally, with one question that has two parts. I’m going to ask the question of your audience. Obviously, I’m not going to hear their answers but it’s an internal question. It’s one question with two parts. It’s how the journey begins both personally and professionally. Here we go. What do you most want and what are you willing to give up to get it? If you’re not willing to take mega doses of vitamin N, which means “no,” you got to hear a thousand “no” to get one big “yes.” Think about these things, friends, think about them. You may not be pleased with me as you’re hearing them. You may disagree. You may be cross with me. The question is not whether you’re cross with me, the question is whether these are true or worth considering because the people who defy these natural laws then have to hold themselves exposed to Dr. Phil’s great question.

Brian
That’s great. That’s great advice. Obviously, the willingness to do what other people in your field weren’t willing to do put you ahead in your own profession.

Michael
Right. And by the way, Brian, it’s a little bit easier for our younger friends today in certain ways, not all ways – in some ways it’s harder. But it’s easier. Why is that? Because our 24 and 25 year old friends have been born into a generation exactly the moment in human history in which most of their competition is stupid and lazy. Now by stupid, I don’t mean academically stupid. I mean, stupid in that they’re so distracted with nonsense. That they’re functionally stupid. They’re not paying attention. Every email they’re reading – about 60% of the time – on their phone. They’re reading the email on their phone while they’re combing their hair, drinking an energy drink, texting a friend, smoking cigarette, listening to a podcast, and their mind has been effectively shut down. Genius or greatness is born of contemplation, and contemplation is born of time. Let’s do that again if I could, for the audience, let’s think about that. Genius or greatness is born of contemplation, contemplation is born of time.

Brian
So say a little bit more about that, just to make sure we understand that clearly.

Brian
Look, if you’ve got a speech to give, you can devote a half hour to preparing it…one, you can wing it, just go out and wing it. Second, you could devote a half hour to preparing for it. Third, you could devote two hours to preparing for it and then another choice is you can devote five hours and write it well and rehearse it several times, and so forth and so on. Now, which is more likely to give you the great result? Well, probably the one where you’ve invested a little more time. Now middle class Americans today or above have everything they need except time and peace of mind. That this curse, this disease, this curse of distraction is as dangerous to the mental process as crack cocaine. It is a form of crack cocaine in a way. And so there we go. Concentrating, listening, thinking, considering, preparing. We have three models at our company, we have three central sacred models. Number one: to over prepare, number two: to over check, and number three: to over communicate to an unreasonable degree. We don’t want you communicating reasonably, we want you communicating unreasonably. And why is that? Because we hope to God that your dreams are unreasonably large. If you want to achieve unreasonably large dreams, you’ve got to put unreasonably large effort. Reasonable buys reasonable, unreasonable buys unreasonable. Pick your produce, whatever you like.

Brian
You’ve really provided a great prescription for success. I encourage our listeners and viewers to go back and listen to that last segment.

Michael
Well, thank you, thank you, Brian. Here’s what I would like to do along with you. First of all, I think you’ve made a great contribution to your listeners because you were wise enough and disciplined enough to say now listen, I’d like to encourage you to go back and listen a second time. Isn’t that interesting? Now, where we might differ, or I might just accentuate your own thinking, is I might encourage you to write it – listen a third time and write it the hell down. And do it please, please do it with your phone off, without your dog in the room, without texting. Listen, pay attention as if your life depended on it. Because it does, son, it does. Concentrate! If somebody had a prescription for you or advice for you that could save your life, would you listen carefully or frivolously? Me? I’d listen carefully and I’d write it down and then I’d take what I wrote down and I’d read it every day for about 30 days. Might put it up on my refrigerator too, depends on how bad you want to live.

Brian
That’s great advice. I’m tempted to stick with this topic of nuggets of wisdom because you have not only been in your business for a long time, but you’ve also been around lots of successful people. Are there maybe one or two other things, maybe not even in your own life but things that you’ve seen with your clients that they’ve done especially well, given the level of success that they’ve achieved, that you would add to your list?

Michael
Well, Brian, a couple of thoughts around that. First of all, let me tell you, and I’m talking to your listeners as well, and that’s so important, people I may never meet and all that, also interesting. The first thing I’d like to tell you is that of all the super successful people I’ve ever met in my life – and I’ve met many; I’ve given advice to three US presidents in both political parties, I’ve worked with 58 Academy Award winners, 34 Grammy Award winners, 43 New York Times bestsellers – here are some phrases never used to describe super successful people. Here they are. Number one: laid back. Number two: chill. Number three: relaxed. They don’t spend a lot of time – in modern vernacular – “kicking it,” these are people that are as focused as a bullet in flight. Listen up. Second, I want to remind you, Brian, and I think I may have told you this privately. I’m not very bright. I’m really not very bright. But I am above average at watching what bright people do. And you know, Brian, that’s been damn helpful. Now, if I can share another secret with you, maybe with your audience, as good as I am watching what bright people do – and I am above average there – I’m even better at watching what dopey people do. That’s been even more valuable. If you can observe carefully what bright people do and if you can observe even more carefully what dopey people do and dedicate your life to doing more of what the bright people do and less of what the dopey people do, you’re going to be just fine. You’re going to be just fine. I did a lecture a couple years back in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It was at an entrepreneurs event, about [what] looked like 300 Shark Tank contestants in an audience, young people in their early 30s. They were young entrepreneurs, had just started a business two or three years ago, so anxious to hear me talk and give a speech. At the end of the speech about maybe a dozen – out of about 300 maybe a dozen…15 – hang around at the end. The rest go into the bathroom, go outside, drink, whatever they’re doing. About 15 hang around, backstage and they said that was great, it was just wonderful. I’d talk to them for a few minutes about what they’re up to. I might very well say, young man and lady, you’re an interesting person. You’re really doing something cool, and fun and you have an interesting energy to you. I’m really proud of what you’re trying to do, and are doing, to start your business a couple of years ago. May I trouble you for a business card so I can stay in touch with you? Brian, you’re not going to believe this, but I would say 90% of the young folks – and by young I mean 30-35 years old – say to me the following, oh, oh, I don’t have a business card. [Laughter, giggling.] I said, what are you laughing at? Well, you know how it is, I don’t have a business card, I have text. Give me your number. Now, Brian, probably at this moment in time do you want to invest some of your hard earned money in buying stock for that kind of leadership? That’s probably not a good deal. Son, why don’t you have a business card? Well, you know how it is? No, I don’t know how it is. Well, nobody carries them these days. Yes, some people do carry them. They’re called leaders of Fortune 500 companies, they carry them just fine. Isn’t this interesting.

Brian
That’s great. Very good. Michael, as you know, our show is called LifeExcellence. I’m curious, what does excellence mean to you?

Brian
Well, look, we’re all put on this earth for some reason or another and we’re not here for that long, relative term. Sometimes it feels long, doesn’t it? But, you know, if you live to be 80, you get 25,500 days, if you live to be 90, you get 29,200 days. That’s it, game over. And I think it’s very important that we try to figure out what in God’s name we’re supposed to be doing down here during that relatively brief time God gave each of us – God, universe, however you like to word it – a calling of some type or another. I think excellence is trying to figure out what it is we’re down here to do and how to do the very best, and I mean, the very best we’re capable of. Who we are is God’s gift to us. The universe, if you don’t like the name/word God, use the universe, however you like to word it. Who we are, is God’s or the universe’s gift to us; who we become is our gift to God or the universe. We all have a potential to do something. Now my something might be very different than yours, something that might be very different from 200 people or 500,000 people listening to the show. Say somebody might make the best Chinese chicken salad the world has ever known and I can’t make a Chinese chicken salad but other people might be called to something else. Figuring out what you’re called to do and then do it with extraordinary desire to be your best self, not be the best in the world. Be your best Brian. All I want is Brian to be the best Brian the world has ever known. That’s it. I don’t want him to be the best Henry, the best Philip, the best Michael Jordan, just the best Brian. Invest doesn’t only mean professional success, it means acting with impeccable integrity. Keeping your word…nobody’s perfect. When you hear impeccable integrity, you hear, well, I’ve got to be a saint. No, you don’t. You just got to keep your damn word. If you say you’re going to meet me for lunch at 12:30, hat means 12:30, it doesn’t mean a quarter to one. If I call someone on the telephone and leave a message for them, doing your best means returning that call within 24 hours, not shooting them one by email. Do me a favor, Brian. Don’t shoot me one if I call you. Just pick up the damn phone and return the call. By the way, to our young friends, I know you have young listeners, Brian, if I could offer one little piece of advice and it sounds kind of fun. A lot of stuff I say may sound a little bit funny but I’d like to actually offer two pieces of advice to anyone listening to the show who is under 35. Okay, fun thing, I don’t know who’s going to be listening. I don’t know how many are under 35 but here are my two pieces of little advice for people under 35; that’s probably for people older than 35 too. We’ll just start with number one, my friends, my dear valued friends, my younger friends, I wish I were your age, by the way but I’m not. Here’s a thought. Friends, do yourself a favor. Please, I’m asking for your benefit, not mine. See, I already did pretty well but I’m asking you for your benefit. Stop hiding on Planet email, stop it. Stop it. Stop hiding on Planet email. If you want to have a coffee with somebody, a friend, there’s no need to send 14 emails back and forth to arrange it. Just pick up the damn phone and say, hey, hey, Henry. How’s Tuesday? Here’s another crazy thought for you. This is particularly for our younger friends, 30-35. I’d like to challenge you, in the next 90 days, to reduce your texting by 95%. Wow, what? I’d like to challenge you in the next 90 days to reduce your texting by 95%. Now, some of you will say that’s crazy. What? I’ve talked to young people, how many text messages do you send and receive a day? Oh, I don’t know about 200. What are we doing? Son, daughter, sisters, brothers, sisters, children of the night, what the hell are you doing? You want me to read them for you, I’ll look at them. Let me tell you how many of them are valuable. How many are going to bring you what you want in the future. And by the way, an emoji is not…come on, come on. First of all, if you’ve got friends that are texting you messages of that grave importance, you’ve got the wrong friends. If somebody in their life dies and they inform you by text, wrong friend, that’s the wrong friend. And that’s another good thought for our younger friends. Here’s a piece of homework for you. Ready? Fire your flaky friends, just fire them. They’re gone. Anyway, those are a couple of wacky little thoughts for you to think about. And, Brian, I don’t know if I mentioned this to you but one of the things I’m starting to do…on the 17th of April, I turned 70, I’ve decided that in addition to our very, very active PR branding firm, I’m going to do some consulting with people, businesses, and some personal coaching for people that may desire the help or need the help. Because the only way I can keep anything I’ve got is if I’m willing to give some of it away. That’s a strange, paradoxical law of the universe. You can’t keep it unless you’re willing to give it away. I know you believe some of that because I know you do some of that. And in fact, maybe this podcast is some of that. Isn’t that interesting? Maybe this podcast is some of that.

Brian
Well, it definitely is. Michael, I am so appreciative of you being on the show and sharing your insight and wisdom. I will say that your delivery was a bit unorthodox but I hope, especially for the young folks, that they don’t dismiss your delivery and that they take time to listen to the message. Because one of the things that I talk about a lot, one of the things I tell our kids, and we have four children, is if you can’t think of a strategy, just do the opposite of what everybody else is doing and that’s a pretty good start. A lot of the things that you were talking about would – if our listeners and viewers heed your advice – we’d be doing the opposite of what most people in society are doing and that’s a pretty good start on our way to success. Michael, thanks again for your time. I appreciate you, my friend. It’s been great.

Michael
You’re my friend and thank you for sharing your valuable audience, and listen, to your valuable listeners, I care about you even though I haven’t met you. I want to see you do some good things. You’re capable of it. Now, that doesn’t mean everyone’s going to be Michael Jordan, whatever, but you’re capable of doing some good things. Let’s get it going. Let’s get it going because time is short. All right, it’s an honor to talk to you, Brian. Bye.

Brian
Likewise, Michael, thanks. Thanks to our listeners and viewers. Thanks for tuning into LifeExcellence. Please support the show by subscribing, sharing it with others, posting about today’s show with Michael Levine on social media and leaving a rating and review. You can also learn more about me at BrianBartes.com. Until next time, dream big dreams and make each day your masterpiece.