Borscht Belt circuit. Unfortunately, even though Clive Davis coincidentally happened to be a childhood friend of a family friend, I was not destined to be discovered during the High Holidays. The famous record producer (rightfully so) focused on eating his chicken soup with matzah balls rather than listening to my rendition of “Spirit in the Sky.” (I loved singing that song at this Jewish place with the lyric, “You gotta have a friend in Jesus!”)
As fast as the waitstaff hustled at Triplets, I realized the restaurant gigs were bringing me back to my “Fat Larry” days—where I was constantly surrounded by food. That’s when I seized the next 180 degree opportunity—in publishing. At the age of thirty-three, and taking a forty thousand dollar annual pay cut from Triplets, I took a temp job answering phones in the publicity department of Villard, a division of Random House. I was searching for a career change. I tinkered with the thought of designing baseball caps of all things; however, my friend and awesome publicist, Sharyn Rosenblum, presented the PR temp job to me. She and her boss, publishing dynamo Jacqueline Deval, weren’t necessarily looking for someone “invested” in the “opportunity”—they simply needed a body to pick up the phone and say, “Hello,” by the second ring. This gig was a little “administrative,” but I did not leave it every night smelling like chopped liver or singing to thugs with guns! I remember Sharyn silently suffering because I was so awkward in the traditional workplace—Jacqueline got a kick out of me, I think. I had never worked at a publishing company, let alone read a book since reading 1984 in high school. (Incidentally, 1984 was the year I was performing in London—yet surprisingly, wasn’t mentioned in Orwell’s book.)
The people in publishing seemed a helluva lot more honest than the musicians and kitchen staff I had encountered—even if the publishing set in general were a bit snooty and very impressed with their college degrees. For whatever reason, no one in the industry ever questioned my educational background; I guess I looked like someone who went to school—albeit just high school and one (or was it two?) years at NYU.
#Typing well, without grammatical errors,
can get you into publishing. (At least in those days.)
That’s how I broke into the book business—seizing an opportunity with bright eyes open and without a college degree or any experience other than an interest to learn, a passion for showing up on time, an ability to type documents, a knack for organizing storerooms of books, some fun stories about performing music in London, and a will to see beyond a temporary position. Less than thirteen years later, I ended my corporate publishing career as a Senior Vice President, Executive Marketing and Publicity Director for Regan Media (run by the colorful Judith Regan), after enjoying other great job opportunities at William Morrow, Broadway Books (Bantam Doubleday Dell), Ecco (HarperCollins), Running Press, HarperCollins, and Atria (Simon and Schuster).
During my time at William Morrow, I saw firsthand just how powerful PR can work for some. Maybe you’ve read, or at least heard of, the Penguin Group’s best-selling book, The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother by James McBride. I was surprised to learn that McBride’s mother was my mom’s first cousin, a fact which my mom learned when she heard an interview on NPR that had been set up by the author’s book publicist. Through the power of this PR interview, McBride’s mission for his book—reuniting his mother with her relatives—was accomplished.
After all my colorful corporate PR opportunities, I took another bold leap and launched my own PR firm—from my bedroom. In 2016, Mouth Public Relations celebrated its tenth anniversary in business; in March 2017, we rebranded to become “mouth: digital and public relations.” Now operating out of offices in lower Manhattan, Mouth has represented over five hundred clients in the “entertainment,” “beauty/health/wellness,” “nonprofit,” “food/nutrition,” “consumer/lifestyle,” “wedding,” “B2B,” “author,” and “social media” categories, to name a few.
It seems as if the Higher Power said to my mom (before I came out of her womb), “This one’s going to go on a quirky path, but he’ll be a late bloomer and everything will be alright.” Whether I knew it or not, over my career’s twists and turbulence I built up an arsenal of street smarts, communication skills, gut instincts, a talent for rebounding and surviving, and a keen sense of how to stay relevant without getting a beer bottle thrown at me. I learned how to get out of my own way.
So, leveraging all the moxie I’ve built up, here’s my promise to you: I can help you come to terms with whatever is hindering and haunting you from finding your close-up. Are you tired of sitting back, fed up with reading and watching other people’s success stories cut and pasted over the Internet? Are you at the point where you’re not going to accept that life is passing you by? You have been a bored audience member for way too long, but now it’s your turn to shine bright.
#If the people around you are holding you back,
say goodbye and walk out.
If your conscience tells you, “The only thing holding me back is myself, and I’m tired of getting in my own way,” listen. Then, do something about it. Walk on.
If you really want to throw out the notion you must be perfect to be successful or let go of the myth you have to have some special talent to dream big, I promise you will love reading onward.
No one gets a free pass to live another hundred years just because they’re a Clinton or a Trump or because they won an Oscar. Our clocks tick in sync with every human being, no matter who and where they come from. And that’s also the crux of the Get Out of Your Own Way Guide to Life: to understand that, when all is said and done, we are all blips on a screen with lives that can be filmed in Technicolor or in a grainy black & white—it’s our choice. In all reality, our lives that we have worked so hard or so little on can be summed up in a line or two that our family can etch in a tombstone once we have passed. But before we croak and bite the big one, let’s work on spinning the storyline differently—especially since we’re alive and not ready for anyone to write a sympathy card with our names on it just yet.
If I can carve out a slice of personal success, you can too. I want to encourage you to bask in your own kaleidoscope, and I don’t want your jaded conscience to edit your fortune either. Living a life in color might still sound a bit bullshitty, but why should you (or anyone) apologize for tooting your own horn if you really, really know deep down in your heart that the horn you’re blowing rings true?
#It is NOT a crime to admit you want to be happy.
Aren’t you and the life you are living worth it all? Now it’s time to make the donuts. Take a breath and strap yourself into the roller coaster, because you’re going to have a great ride. Please read on.
—Justin Loeber
Step One:
Dream Big!
Let me start you off with a big bang (and not the kind I saw at Club 1018).
Draw the curtain up and listen closely:
Dream big, my friends. Do it. Go higher than high.
Don’t listen to the doubters, and don’t fall in with the “Negative Nellie” crowds that don’t want you to succeed. Knock those doubting, bobble-headed booby traps you call “friends” off their spring, and get focused on you. It takes as much energy to dream as small as a pea as it does to dream as big as Mount Everest. Dreaming big gives you the gas to drive your emotional car up out of the pitfalls of your own way—it’s also a roadmap to rise up, get over yourself, and stop the doubt that has held you in suspended animation.
#Dream big and let the sun finally shine
