Of course, no two situations are alike. There’s a big difference between giving feedback to a seasoned director like J.J. Abrams or Steven Spielberg and someone with much less experience and confidence. The first time I sat down with Ryan Coogler to give him notes on Black Panther, I could see how visibly anxious he was. He’d never made a film as b

Maybe this is the case for many of us: No matter who we become or what we accomplish, we still feel that we're essentially the kid we were at some simpler time long ago. Somehow that's the trick of leadership, too, I think, to hold on to that awareness of yourself even as the world tells you how powerful and important you are. The moment you start

When hiring, try to surround yourself with people who are good in addition to being good at what they do. Genuine decency-an instinct for fairness and openness and mutual respect-is a rarer commodity in business than it should be, and you should look for it in the people you hire and nurture it in the people who work for you.

Hold on to your awareness of yourself, even as the world tells how important and powerful you are. The moment you you start to believe it all too much, the moment you look at yourself in the mirror and see a title emblazoned on your forehead, you've lost your way.

Be genuine. Be honest. Don’t fake anything. Truth and authenticity breed respect and trust.

Fear of failure destroys creativity.

My former boss Dan Burke once handed me a note that said: "Avoid getting into the business of manufacturing trombone oil. You may become the greatest trombone-oil manufacturer in the world, but in the end, the world only consumes a few quarts of trombone oil a year!" He was telling me not to invest in small projects that would sap my and

Don't start negatively, and don't start small. People will often focus on little details as a way of masking a lack of any clear, coherent, big thoughts. If you start petty, you seem petty.

Maybe most important, I learned to tolerate the demanding hours and the extreme workload of television production, and that work ethic has stayed with me ever since.