We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Patrick Stack. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Patrick below.

Patrick, appreciate you joining us today. Was there an experience or lesson you learned at a previous job that’s benefited your career afterwards?

The most important lesson I ever learned was from my father. He told me that no matter what it says on your business card, or, whatever your job description is, we are all in sales. A job interview or an audition for a part is sales 101. Actors, writers, and anyone else in the Creative Arts does not often understand that concept. So, quite simply, if you give an agent, a producer, or a director something they need, then you get what you need…the job. That is effective selling. It’s not the other way around. Walk into a room with an air of entitlement or desperation and you have lost the sale. Go into a room with determination and confidence and fulfill a need , then you will be much closer to getting hired.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I was floundering my Freshman year in college and the Vietnam War was grabbing up anyone who flunked out of school. My mother suggested I take an acting class because I always liked the attention. I got bitten by the bug and I realized I could pursue this business as a career. I moved to New York after school and started living the dream…as a bartender. After a few years of the grind, I got lucky and signed with a big agency and started going back and forth from NY to LA. Commercials, Day Player parts and a short run on a soap opera led to my first notable film role. I played the hapless National Guard leader Lt. Clinton Morgan in Rambo: First Blood. After that some years were good, some years were lean. I wanted to get married and start a family but the business had become so erratic for me, I took a break from show biz and got a job selling this brand new thing called Internet Advertising. Again, I got lucky and got with a fledgling company called Yahoo. Right time, right place. After a great run in internet ad sales, I wanted to get back in the entertainment world. So I opened a production company called Out of Pocket Films, Inc. and set up shop on the Sony Lot in Los Angeles. Since then I have produced a number of films ( Welcome to Paradise, Cat City among others), have several projects in development, wrote for Television, produced a popular storytelling series called The Hollywood Stories, and created All The Right Moves, a one day workshop for people who don’t realize we are all in sales.

Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?

Very simply, your Net Worth is your Network. Meet as many people as you can and constantly develop relationships. People want to help. But if you ask for a job, you will get advice. If you ask for advice, oftentimes it can lead to a job. Remember, if you can give people what they need, you get what you need. Always be learning, stay qualified and be looking for ways to help. Get good at that and you get known as someone who can fill a space that needs filling.

If you can dream it, then you can achieve it. You will get all you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want.

Zig Ziglar

Contact Info:

• Website: https://OutofPocketFilms.com