Episode 29: Passion Meets Action: Designing A Dream Career With Mike Woodward
Mike Woodward
Mike Woodward is a multi-media ideation consultant and producer who has sold award-winning commercial concepts to national consumer brands. Mike has over two decades of experience in the entertainment industry, his journey includes notable positions in Entertainment PR for 10 Las Vegas Strip hotels and involvement in the planning and execution of the Sochi Winter Olympics' Opening and Closing Ceremonies.
In 2013, Mike joined The ATS Team (ATS) as a Production Manager when the company had a staff of six. Over the next five years, he played a crucial role in the company's growth, witnessing the team size and his own responsibilities double each year. Having meticulously managed the production of hundreds of shows and events worldwide, Mike currently serves as the President of Originals and Production at ATS. In this role, he assumes the responsibility of shaping the company's creative direction and driving sales through business development, forging partnerships, and producing captivating content for unscripted competition series, events, and live attractions. His most recent accolade in this role was Executive Producing, Clash of Trades, an Award Winning branded competition series.
Lastly, Mike is a welcoming LGBTQ+ member and pushes for diversity and equality within the workplace and local community.
Embark on a captivating journey where dreams become realities and passion fuels the pursuit of the ultimate career in this exhilarating podcast episode. In this conversation, we delve into the inspiring journey of Mike Woodward, a true embodiment of crafting a career around one's passions. Join us as our host reflects on Mike's exceptional ability to embrace possibilities and take decisive action in life. Using Mike's impressive experiences and thought-provoking ideas as our springboard, let us explore the transformative power of releasing and nurturing ideas, emphasizing the importance of continuous invention. Unveiling the pitfalls of holding ideas internally, we discover how to harness the energy, inspiration, and engagement found in the areas that truly resonate with us, leading us into a state of flow. Mike's story also reminds us that pursuing our dreams may require sacrifices along the way. Prepare to be motivated and uplifted as we uncover the secrets to designing a dream career and embracing the boundless opportunities that await in the entertainment industry and beyond.
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Passion Meets Action: Designing A Dream Career With Mike Woodward
Mike Woodward is a multimedia ideation consultant and producer who has sold award-winning commercial concepts to national consumer brands. Mike has decades of experience in the entertainment industry. His journey includes notable positions in Entertainment PR for 10 Las Vegas Strip hotels and involvement in the planning and execution of the Sochi Winter Olympics' Opening and Closing Ceremonies.
In 2013, Mike joined The ATS Team as a Production Manager when the company had a staff of six. Over the next five years, he played a crucial role in the company's growth witnessing the team size and his own responsibilities double each year. Having managed the production of hundreds of shows and events worldwide, Mike serves as the President of Originals and Production at ATS. In this role, he assumes the responsibility of shaping the company's creative direction and driving sales through business development, forging partnerships, and producing captivating content. His accolade in this role was executive producing Clash of Trades, an Award Winning branded competition series.
Mike is a welcoming LGBTQ+ member and pushes for diversity and equality in the workplace and his local community. Mike and I also went to undergrad together. We are Utah Utes, and I have been watching him build this career and focus on his passions. I am so excited to have Mike on the show. Mike, welcome to the show.
Thank you so much for having me.
It's going to be so much fun because I know that you're a thrill seeker. I want to get this question out of the way first. I have two. What is the scariest movie?
I have so many. I'm a huge horror buff. I'd have to say the Conjuring universe, there are nine films now. Number 1 and number 2 are probably the scariest. Fun fact, the Conjuring was the first movie to get an R rating based on scares alone. There's no sex, violence, nudity, or gore, so that's pretty crazy.
That movie was scary, too. That was a good answer. Thank you. We're going to watch that, be scared, and auto-rate at our level. What is the best theme park?
I've been to so many. I'd have to say Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio. It's a magical place. It has thrilling rides and the most rollercoasters in any theme park. It's an awesome place.
We're going to watch The Conjuring and then go to Sandusky, Ohio to check out Cedar Point. Your bio alone, I forgot that you did the Sochi Olympics opening and closing ceremonies. Your career has been such a journey. Up until this point, you've done so much from public relations, entertainment, competitions, producing, and events on a global scale. It seems so much. How did this smorgasbord come together? How'd you get here?
At a very young age, I was one of those traditional people of following the pathway of what they wanted to do. I remember being recorded on the home video camera for my dad, and I hated it. I hated to be on camera, but the moment I got that camera in my hand, it was game over. I was making short films, I was recording family outings, and editing. From then on, I knew that I wanted to be in the entertainment industry in whatever facet. As a kid, I wanted to be a rollercoaster designer. Again, still within the entertainment industry of pleasing and entertaining people in general.
I guess I never put two and two together where the theme parks fall under the bucket of entertainment. When you think entertainment, you think TV, movies, and concerts. That's awesome.
The music industry, touring industry, which is concerts. Entertainment in general is a multifaceted industry.
You wanted to be behind the camera. I was the opposite. I wanted to be in front of the camera, so we get along. We went to undergrad together. Something that you were very open and passionate about is film and entertainment. It seemed like you had your site set on a graduate program too pretty early on. Can you talk about the move to California?
It came pretty early on. I got my start in film and TV at a young age. It was a sophomore in high school. I slowly got my way into the film industry there in Utah. During undergrad, I went to film studies program and business. I wanted to make sure that I was taking care of the left and right brain to make sure that the logistics and the producing side were being handled.
I went to undergrad. Shortly thereafter, I got in with the Disney original channel movies. High School Musical II and a bunch of others were filming at that time. At the time, I was still young in my career and I was working for free as an intern. At that stage, I was able to pivot myself out of production assisting and chase a department in which I wanted to work in. At the time, it was camera. From there, I worked my way up into Second CA-ing, which is a Second Camera Assistant. In the off-season, I was also working at the Sundance Film Festival. I was always trying to figure out what is next on my agenda.
The film industry died when the economy tanked out. The housing crash happened in 2008 and 2009. That's when I had my eyes set on moving out to LA. I was either going to move out cold turkey, or I researched all the film schools and I found the one that I wanted to go to, which was Chapman University. It was a place where it was conservatory, so you are working with various different facets within the programs.
I was in the film and TV producing program, and then you had the directing program, the screenwriting program, and the DP or Director of Photography program. You also owned all of your projects, which was important to me. If we were investing all of this time and this money, it wasn't going to be owned by the school. I applied and got in. That was it. You set your mind to something and either move cold turkey to LA, start from the ground up, or get into school and see if you can work up your network that way.
I like your comment about left brain and right brain too. People get stuck on spinning wheels where they're focusing on the wrong things. From that part of your story, I heard that you were finding and collecting all of these different skills along the way.
That, to me, is super important. It's super important to me to train and exercise my brain in a creative fashion, which I love. I also love the logistics. Give me a crazy show that has X amount of locations and how we're going to do it in two days. It's something that's exciting to me. In a way, it's also creative, figuring out the money aspect of things and the financials.
Let's talk about that then. What's the craziest project you've executed?
There are so many at our company. I love everything about the entertainment industry. Another industry that I always wanted to work in is music concert touring. In this case, I was brought on to production manage American Ninja Warrior. At the time, we were doing a national tour of seven cities. I was taking 7 to 9 semis across the country with all of our gear working with the cities and the production company that was hiring us to make sure that this was functioning.
The setup for American Ninja Warrior is unique in that it's a character in and of itself. Without that set piece, there is no show. To see that from the early development stages of prototyping an obstacle with inside testers and producers to seeing it fabricating, loading up on the trucks, going out on tour, and being erected and constructed on a city lot was one of the coolest things ever.
That's so interesting. I never would've thought of the set and the obstacles as being one of the characters of the show. That's interesting. It's like you're the talent manager taking the transformer all across the country.
If the obstacles fail or if they're too difficult, what is the show?
Let's talk about ATS a little bit because I don't know if everyone associates ATS with American Ninja Warrior. It seems like you guys do a lot more than that. Can you introduce us to ATS?
ATS is a phenomenal company. Its real title is Alpine Training Services. In 1999, we got our start as a canyoneering guide group company in which we were taking tours around the world. Some of our patrons were producers for The Biggest Loser. At the time in 2006, they outgrew their challenge team. They remembered the adventures that we took them on and said, "Can you help embellish and bring more dramatics and theatrics with a challenge obstacle mind to our show?" From then on out, The ATS Team was formed and became the go-to company in the competition reality space.
What's interesting about that story is you hear a lot of stories of companies that get large, like ATS where they started as something else, but then they pivoted to where the demand was, where the flow is going, and where the interest was. I love that it started as a canyoneering company or a guide group, and then it's evolved into the go-to global resource for challenge competitions.
Personally, before I understood what you were doing, I don't think a lot of people give much thought behind, "Who builds that? Who goes and sells it? Who makes sure it all works?" How do people find you? Is it more inbound inquiries, like if the bachelor wants to repel people off the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas? Are you chasing business? How is that give and take in terms of that business development?
It goes multiple different ways. Because we are one of the go-to companies in the industry within this space, we are very well known. However, we do need to chase jobs as well. We do have competitors now, so it's important to stay ahead of our game and make sure that we're continually inventing and finding ways to bring costs down without affecting the overall creative. It goes two ways. News travels very quickly. The entertainment industry, especially in LA, is very small. The more people you work with, the more people know you or you start getting a reputation.
It is important to stay ahead of our game and make sure that we're continually inventing.
It's the traditional business development that we do in sales. It's just you're selling something robust, complex, and complicated.
Also, talking them through the process. When Holy Moley came to us, it was already sold at ABC. At the time, some of the creative was very dangerous. They don't think through that when you're creating the show. That's why you hire professionals such as The ATS Team of getting these challenges off of the paper in a safe way, but not affect the creative too much.
What an interesting business model. You just said it in terms of the industry being small, but I was thinking about this too as you were talking about your time in Utah, and then your time at Chapman. It seems like networking is crucial to the success of any person in this business.
I may be skipping ahead now, but my new job in the last few years is I've now taken on a separate division of the company, which is ATS Originals and ATS Productions. I'm doing a lot more networking because it is a new and very young company. There is a lot more sales-oriented, and networking is involved to make people understand that we do have a lot of experience within this space as well, not just in set design and construction.
Can you give an example of what you're going out to sell with the role? What are you actually selling?
Dream Career: News travels very quickly. The entertainment industry, especially in LA, is very small. The more people you work with, the more people know you or you start getting a reputation.
Not only am I selling our name and our experience, but we're actively developing our own concepts within the competition genre. The competition genre is massive for TV. It stems from food competitions to talent competitions, like America's Got Talent and American Idol all the way to physical competition such as American Ninja Warrior or the Titan Games with Dwayne the Rock Johnson. We are actively creating shows within that space.
Something funny happened. The ATS Team is usually one of the first people on a budget because we need to figure out if the show is even doable. Networks, which are your NBC, CBS, ABC, or Netflix, they started realizing that and started coming to us directly being like, "We know your creative is scattered throughout all of these shows. What are you guys working on?" That's when we went, "This is serious. Let's start investing in a division whose main job is to come up with shows within this space. Let's bring them out to the networks directly, or to celebrities, or other production companies, and see what we can do."
You've been spearheading those divisions for the past years?
Correct.
I understand the origin story of how it happened. Now, you have a network or a client coming to you saying, "What are you working on?" Now, you have something to go pitch. What happens next?
We have a small development team. Ideas can come to us in any way. We get unsolicited requests, our staff members' requests and even our internal team develops. When we like an idea, we will spend time and we will get the format done, which is all the bits of a show that need to happen. What does an episode look like? What happens at the start? What's the midpoint? What's the end? From there, we take the concepts and create pitch material. We create your deck and sizzle, which most of the time is ripped from online existing videos to at least get the tone and the thematic elements down. It then goes out via our agent or even ourselves through our network. That's the process there.
You can't bring every show out to every person either. There's some strategy there of where does this show go. We receive mandates, which are what the networks are requesting at any given time and what they're looking for to fill their slate or their primetime slots on their channels. We take those into heart too as we're developing. The biggest thing here is developing quality, but quantity as well. We don't want to hold ideas. I used to be one of those people that held their ideas internally. That does no one any good.
Holding ideas internally does no one any good.
Here's what can happen with an idea like that. An idea can either sit there in someone's head and never leave, or it can come out. Maybe it's not the best idea, but what happens if another idea that can merge with that idea to make it bulletproof? We love using that term at our company. "What can we add to these concepts that make it even better?" That's what entertainment's all about, which is keeping people's attention.
As you're talking, I have four follow-up questions. Thread one, as you're going through it, you're just talking through a sales cycle as executing and producing a show, from the idea to the concept, "Is this real?" to the pitch and the sizzle, to being strategic about who you're selling it to and what their needs are and understanding what their gaps are in their business. I see a lot of synergies there. I love the idea of getting the idea on the table and making it bulletproof or brainstorming upon it.
When I think about an abundant mindset versus a scarcity mindset, I would see this in sales all the time. People would hold their relationships close to their vest. They wouldn't want to share a mistake they made because they didn't want to make it seem like they didn't know what they were doing. All you're doing is limiting yourself and others to grow from that situation. I love the brainstorming concept so much because that's a tangible takeaway that people can take and run with in any industry they're in.
Once you learn how to release those ideas and nurture them, it's freeing, to be honest with you.
Do you have an example that you could share?
This may not be the best example, but during my internship, we were in development teams. At the time, it was like, "I got to protect this because someone's going to steal that idea." Again, how is somebody going to steal an idea if they don't even know what the idea is? There's a strategy for releasing and trust in any industry, but you got to go with your gut. Most people are good out in the world. There are bad apples anywhere you go, so you won't know until you release it.
From what I see from your whole career and the projects, you are the man of a thousand projects too. It's like you turn the corner and you have a new Instagram account or you have a different project you're working on. You have so many balls in the air, but one of the big things is the idea is fine, and adding onto it is great, but the only thing that makes it real is acting on it and taking action behind it. Can you talk a little bit about taking action and not waiting for perfection?
That's tough. When you're working on a show, a deck, and a sizzle, you literally could work on that thing for all infinity. At some point, you got to end it and let it spread its wings. An interesting thing that happened was a project that I was chasing for over five years went to full execution. I talked about how much I love theme parks and entertainment in general, but I created an American Ninja Warrior attraction where general patrons of an entertainment venue could go and try three of our most iconic obstacles that are ripped straight from the show. This wasn't a thing that we wanted to change it or make it easier. We wanted you to go and try this.
I got inspired when I was at a theme park and I saw there was a three-point game challenge, a basketball court that's at most theme parks. I said, "How can I utilize that space and bring the American Ninja Warrior brand there?" Not as only an upcharge game attraction to potentially win stuff, but for the general public or passersby to watch. It's such a spectator sport. It's fun to just see if you don't even want to try the stuff.
That sat on our table. I kept pushing it. I am one of the innovators at our company. We took one of those personality tests, and I'm one of those where the ideas just flow out, but it wasn't the right time. Until we had the opportunity to work straight with NBC and Army in this integration. I finally brought this out, we pitched it to them, and they said, "Let's do it." It was a huge success. We've now met with the licensing team at NBC. Hopefully, we can get this thing out to theme parks and entertainment venues around the nation.
That is so cool. That's a demonstration of your left and right brain coming out too because you have the creative and the attraction, but then you're driving traffic to Universal. I'm sure it made them money, it's got more brand exposure, you have more spectator sport, and now you have the licensing agreement. That one idea now has 5 or 6 different spokes coming off of it.
That presentation was fun for me to put together because I wanted to know what was the ROI on something like that. If a small park had X amount of people and paying $15 to try this game out, when do they break profit? What are the licensing streams for NBC? Where are the profit streams for the park? It was fun to put together.
How did people do?
Everybody loved it. What was great is that we did have simpler paths within the actual obstacles, so you could choose which one you wanted to do. We ran 250 people. It was up for two days at CityWalk at Universal Studios Hollywood with 250 people each day. Capacity is pretty good.
Did you have any people that tank it?
I did. I also threw out my shoulder.
Those challenges are not for the weak of heart. They're pretty intense.
They're legit.
One thing that people forget about is the revenue streams and the real-life cost behind it. Prepping for this interview, I watched Clash of Trades. I thought it was such a clever show. Before I pitch this question, would you mind introducing Clash of Trades?
Clash of Trades has a very close part of my heart. We were introduced to this project from a company called Project MFG, which means Project Manufacturing. They collaborate with the US Department of Defense in trying to get more people to understand the different types of trade jobs that exist within the industry and our country. There are not only just blue-collar but there are white-collar jobs within that. I believe it's within a couple of years, we're going to face something like a $2 million job deficit within the trades industry if we don't bring note to what is happening and what jobs exist.
Project MFG created this event called the Clash of Trades. It happens every year. They have even other spinoff events to engage trade schools and people in general to get excited about the trades. They built this awesome competition around it. Clash of Trades gives away $100,000 annually to the winning trade school and the participants that are there. It's an awesome event. How we are involved is we bring the competition aspect to it. We were brought on to produce the competition series and make it exciting and hopefully make it go viral. It is another stream of how you can get out the messaging within social media marketing. That's how we were brought on for that.
I watched the show and I enjoyed it. I was smiling the whole time too. It was super interesting. One of the things that I liked about it is you had four different teams. I could see the ATS fingerprints all over it in terms of the competition because, right up the gate, they had a challenge. It was like survival style. If you get this challenge, you have an advantage over the rest of the competition. There were some twists and people made mistakes and that set them back. You could tell that the tensions were high.
What I enjoyed about it is I truly didn't realize how many jobs are out there. You hear the term tradesperson or manufacturing, and it's this blanket term. I was pretty blown away by the skillset that the individuals had on the show. What I also thought was interesting about the competition that's reminding me of what we were discussing at Universal CityWalk with the American Ninja Warrior Partnership is they had to make this a real-life environment, including how much it cost to produce the product that they manufactured, like the team of 3 versus the team of 4 was less expensive. Some of the real-world things that were incorporated in the competition, I thought that was clever because it seems like that's what happens in real life too.
They created a real-world competition.
I thought it was super clever. One of the other things that I enjoyed about it was I'm watching this TV show knowing I'm going to talk to the person who helped produce it, the executive producer of the show. I was thinking, "I'm so grateful that this gets to be my work now. I get to learn all of the stuff that I would've never watched the show if I just thought I was going after my own regular run-of-the-mill TV shows." I learned so much from it and I got so much out of it. It made me excited about the career I'm designing for myself.
When I think about someone who has spent their time crafting a career that's all around their passions, I think of Mike Woodward. You have taken all of your passions and bundled them into a career, including the role that you're in. I'd like to learn a little bit more. How did you fine-tune what passions you liked and which ones you dropped? How did you get to this point where you were picking up those passions and making them part of your role?
For me, I'm all about going with my gut. I follow the trade winds, I get on the ship. The important thing too is sometimes you got to get off that ship and get on another ship. It's okay to make those very difficult life decisions, but always have that end goal in mind. Even if you don't have that end goal in mind, it's okay. For me, it was a little bit easier because I knew that entertainment was my path. It didn't matter to me, and it still doesn't, which avenue I take with entertainment. As long as I'm getting pleasure out of it, I enjoy working, and I still have that drive and determination. Those are some important keywords for how I've gotten to where I'm at.
You're talking about having the end goal in mind, but it's okay if you don't know it because you didn't know that the President of Productions and the Originals were the roles for you because it didn't exist. It seems like you had to spearhead your own way and make that role for yourself.
I work at one of those companies where it's like, "I guess somebody has to do that." I couldn't have imagined a better pathway for me in this role. I've been here for several years. It's the longest I've been with any other company. It shows you that I do enjoy working here. Back when I was a kid, I remember putting on these stunt shows and building obstacles that were based on Double Dare and Legends of the Hidden Temple in my backyard for neighborhood kids or my cousins. It's such a full-circle round for me.
I said so many favorite shows that I worked on, but one of those a-ha moments for me was when I was developing a kid's show for Nickelodeon. We had slime and we had everything. It was one of those moments where I had to peel myself back. It was a very hard show, but I had to pinch myself every now and then being, "I feel like your younger self knew you were headed here in some capacity." I love when those moments happen when you pull back and give yourself a pat on the back of, "How did you know that what you were doing as a kid would somehow develop your creative mind for your career?"
I think about it too. That's living with intention and being intentional with the actions that you take. If you find areas that energize you, inspire you, and you're engaged, that's when you can get into that flow state. Going with where the trade winds take you becomes a lot easier. I love that you shared that. Thank you. You designed a job where you're going to play with slime. How many people can say that? Also, build theme park attractions.
If you find areas that really energize, inspire, and engage you, that's when you can get into your flow state.
One of my biggest regrets is I didn't jump in the slime shower because it was so freezing on the stage. I was like, "I can't," but I regret it still to this day.
Knowing you, you're going to have another slime opportunity in your lifetime. What advice would you give for people that are either in roles that they love and they want to double down, commit, and start to build areas where they're passionate and/or if someone's not in a role that they like and they want to follow your passions? What additional advice would you share on top of what you've already given us?
Everybody's so different. I already said it, but I'll say it again. It's okay if you don't know what you want to do. Sit back and meditate. I call them stress naps. I had one where it's literally where you turn off your brain. You're going to be thinking about something because you're still stressing about it. Use that time to hone in and focus exclusively on that.
If you're unhappy in your job or if you see yourself going on another path, take that stress nap, focus, meditate, and figure out or outline where you're going to be. What do they always say? 1, 3, 5, or 10 years from now is the big dream. That's super important. I do it every year in my notepad. That's another suggestion I would probably add for anyone to do. Ten years could be whatever you want it to be. "I want to own a yacht," whatever it is.
Dream Career: If you're unhappy in your job or if you see yourself going in another path, take a stress nap, focus, meditate, and figure out where you're going to be.
I did this when I was 35, and so in 10 years, I would be 45. I envisioned my 45th birthday party on a yacht in the South of France. You're invited. You are on the invite list, but it's all of my friends and family celebrating a birthday on a yacht. That's my ten-year vision. I don't know how I'm going to get there, but that's the vision. You have to put it out there.
Sometimes that's all it is, too, just putting it out in the universe. You don't know what energy is going on around you that can manipulate. It's very powerful.
When I was a kid in Utah, for my fifteenth birthday, I asked my parents if I could paint my room. I painted waves all over the walls of my room. I painted a beach and painted a tidal wave. As soon as we graduated from undergrad, I moved to California. Later, I literally just painted my whole room in California. I did it and I got here. It's funny how the childhood stuff does come and show its face in later years.
You did have one of the coolest living quarters I've ever seen. It was perfect for you, right on the beach.
Sometimes getting off the ship, you have to make some sacrifices to get to where you want to go. I know I'm in a different part of my journey now, but I appreciate the advice on stress naps because when time is difficult or if you can't see the how, holding onto the vision and having faith that you're going to get there can be challenging for people.
Dream Career: Sometimes getting off the ship, you have to make some sacrifices to get to where you want to go.
Another way that I get around that is by having multiple projects going on at once. If something isn't inspiring you right then and there, it is fun to push that aside just for a second. Shelve it and come back to it later, but start working on your next little baby and juggle those as you see fit.
That's great advice. It also gives people permission. I have probably four major projects I'm working on now, and sometimes I pick myself a little bit because I'm like, "You're spreading yourself too thin," but it is helping me stay engaged and energized. I like having multiple projects to refocus and reframe as needed.
What do they say? Rome wasn't built in a day. Go back and chisel at it for a little bit. When you're tired of it, go on do something else. It will finish itself over time.
I feel like you shared the American Ninja Warrior mini course or attraction at Universal CityWalk.
It's a full-on guest-facing attraction.
That took you five years, you said, to get it off the ground from inception?
It was developed a few years ago. We would slowly hint at NBC that we had it, but it took the right place, right time, and the right person to get it over that hump, which is very similar to sales and especially the concepts that we create. It isn't about the concept. It is about all of it together.
You have to do so much business development to get that lift off the ground. What is your balance of time between business development, ideation, and execution? How are you managing all your time?
We were able to get a coordinator who now helps take off of the actual creative development or creating the decks. That was such a time suck. Having that off my plate is huge. Now, it's split in a way, 50/50 of networking and also creating.
It's like a sales and marketing duo.
It totally is. Our division is very similar to a marketing department. In fact, we do also house the marketing within this division, including social media as well, because it is so closely related.
That makes a lot of sense. Now, you're leading that team and division. Can you share any sneak peeks of what's coming next?
We stray away from this because of the litigations and the difficulty of everything. I was playing this board game at a friend's house, and I was like, "Holy crap, there's a show in this." Everyone around me, all my friends were like, "You're crazy. What?" I'm like, "No. There's a show in this. Trust me. We developed this show. We wooed a very popular musician who co-created this game and we just signed the deal. We're about ready to lock the creative on it and we're going to take that out this fall." I can't say who the celebrity is or the game, but it was a pretty big feat of ours of licensing an IP and working with the creatives behind the game to collaborate on a reality TV show from a board game.
I feel so energized by you. I feel like you are someone who walks the talk. You truly put yourself out there. You put ideas out into the universe, and then you bring them into reality. That is so cool. I feel so grateful to be your friend. I feel so grateful to have you on the show. Is there anything else you'd like to leave us with and/or how can people find you?
First of all, the feeling is very mutual. You have been one of those inspiring factors of me picking your destiny and your pathway. To see you blossoming is so magical and inspiring as well. Where you can find me, the best place is through LinkedIn, Michael Woodward. If you have a show idea, I'd love to hear it. We have submission forms for outside submissions. If you wanted to talk about the entertainment industry in general or anything else, I would love to hear from you.
You are someone who supports other people's dreams. That's another piece. When you start to go after it, more people come into your orbit. You never know where the next idea's going to come from. You never know who you're going to sit next to on a plane. You are someone who inspires us to be open to those possibilities and follow the winds and where it takes you. Thank you for sharing your journey with us and thank you for being on the show.
That's key, bringing up everybody around you and building up your foundation within your core friend group and network.
Perfect advice. Thank you so much for all the takeaways, Mike.
Thank you.
