Today I feel particularly grateful. I have been able to make a living in the music business as an entertainment attorney for 30 years. When I was in my late teens and early 20s I used to jokingly tell my band-mates that when I grew up I wanted to be a rock-and-roll hippie musician lawyer. One of those band mates recently said “You became what you always said what you wanted to be.” Well, sort of. I never really was a hippie but I was certainly in agreement with the liberal and idealistic values of my generation. Age and experience have tempered a lot of my “rock and roll” attitudes (as well as my politics). Nevertheless, career-wise I am doing what I always said I wanted to do. Not as powerful and famous as I thought I might be (except occasionally in the mind of a younger me) but certainly happy and grateful that I have the skills and a client base that keeps me busy and allows me the freedom of a lifestyle I enjoy.
As I review my career path it is almost as if I envisioned who I wanted to be and then went on cruise control. Quite by happenstance I found myself more than once to be in the right place at the right time for my career as an entertainment attorney to get launched and advance. Today upon reflection and with the benefit of 20-20 hindsight, I believe that my journey has been in the hands of a higher power all along (rather than happenstance) although I would not recognize that for many years.
I like what I do. I enjoy transactional work. I want you to hand me the contract you were given and let me apply my experience and skills to negotiate the best deal possible for you given your relative marketplace strength. Or, if my client is the drafting party then I love preparing the first draft to the specifications given me by him or her. The work is hard, time consuming and often emotionally difficult, but at the end of the day worth the effort.
Today I feel particularly grateful.