We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Eric Schmidt a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Eric, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

I went to a performing arts high school in Florida and did some TV/Film coursework in college but never thought anything like that was a realistic career choice, but then I moved to New York and just a few months in, while on the job search, my Mom called and told me that my cousin’s friend had worked at the Late Show with David Letterman in the page program and asked if I might be interested in doing that. At the same time, I was offered an office job that paid more, but would have been WAY less rewarding. I made a list of pros and cons and the office job totally won, but I was like “eh, I’m gonna do the Letterman thing anyway.” I was a HUGE fan. So, I went to work there and it was the best work experience of my whole life. It led me down the TV/Film/Comedy route that I am still on to this day. I met some of my very best friends while working there and just got back from a wedding in Italy for one of them. Golly, ain’t life great!

Eric, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’m pretty much just a regular guy from Florida who has stumbled into a pretty amazing life. I got very lucky in that I landed a great first job out of college at the Late Show with David Letterman as a page. It didn’t pay jack, but I made so many valuable connections and have worked in TV/Film/Comedy since then. I’ve done everything from casting to accounting, but now I’m focused more on writing and performing. I perform standup comedy in New York. I just finished my first screenplay. My voice has been featured in a few nationally televised commercials. And my comedy writings have been featured in the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, Esquire, Buzzfeed, Cracked, and probably more. I have been producing a popular live standup comedy show for almost a decade and I host a podcast where I interview artists (mostly comedians) who have been featured on Conan, Letterman, Fallon and more.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

My friend Jason Chatfield is a cartoonist and comedian, and he told me to work from a calendar instead of a to-do list and that has been great at boosting my productivity and limit the time I spend distracted by twitter, TV, and the like.

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

The New York Public Library is an amazing resource. I don’t know why I waited so long to join, but as an artist, I don’t have a ton of money to spend on books, so being able to check them out for free is fantastic. It’s so modern now too. You can check them out electronically to your phone. They even have audiobooks. I told a friend about it and he was like “Sounds good. I’m in. How much?” For the library. Disclaimer: he’s from Florida too.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://www.schmidteric.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/talkingschmidt/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/talkingschmidt
• Youtube: I had a public access talk show in New York and we posted to Youtube but that was a decade ago
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/user_details?userid=jTqOHmMCJz-DpIF3EBpAcA&utm_source=ishare
• Other: My main social media outlets are Instagram and Twitter. My podcast links can be found here- https://linktr.ee/ericschmidt I’m also on tiktok as TikTalkingSchmidt but I keep getting banned cuz my jokes are about drugs or violence or something

Image Credits
Photos by Mindy Tucker (@withreservation)