Michael Stein

Abadak Inc.

Stein Media

Michael Stein was diagnosed with a “learning disability” when he was a child.  He is now the founder & CEO of Abadak Inc.  Michael started the company while he was a broke filmmaker and nearly homeless. Since then the company has made over 100 million dollars. 

He has been a writer, director, producer, actor, comedian, worked with academy award winners and some of the most powerful people in the entertainment industry. 

He continues to build his company Abadak which is the leading tarps supplier in the USA and has donated over a one hundred thousand tarps to the homeless.  Michael is the host of the podcast Long Shot Leaders.  The podcast features the stories of high achievers that have overcome high odds and reached success.

https://longshotleaders.com

www.marlanasemenza.com

Audio : Ariza Music Productions

Transcription : Vision In Word

Marlana: Michael Stein is a long shot, who went on to work with some of the most powerful people in the entertainment industry and built his company Abadak to over $100 million. He is also the host of the podcast Long Shot Leaders. Welcome, Michael.

Michael: Glad to be here. Thank you so much.

Marlana: So first of all, tell us why would you consider yourself a long shot?

Michael: I come from a long line of long shots. My grandmother escaped the Russian concentration camps on the way to America. My dad was in New York homeless street kid, became a multimillionaire, only to become homeless again. And he never finished eighth grade and I was born premature, all kinds of health issues. I had ADHD; they didn't know what it was back then. I was sent to the hospital a couple of times; I couldn't figure out what's wrong with me. I was put in a school … for special needs kids. I just really had a lot of issues, and you grow up with that, my mom who has an interesting sense of humor who was struggling with a crazy marriage with my dad always, I was the youngest in the family. She joke around say, "my son, he's the youngest. He’s, my dessert. I drank, I ran up and down the stairs, I smoked, I..., but he survived." So, Mom, you don't have to tell everybody, just tell me…ranch or blue cheese with the meal, but that's what I grew up with. Hearing like you're lucky to be alive. I had to sleep in the same room with my grandmother until I was nine years old because my dad made all that money and lost it, but we grew up in Encino. It was a big house, but I was the youngest. So…I’d hear that story about her being a Holocaust survivor, and waking up in the morning, that's what I used to hear as my bedtime story and waking up alarm clock. So, you grew up with this appreciation of like you're lucky to be alive. This is what how it is for other people, and I really didn't find any success until I got two people laughing at me as a kid, I'd laugh, I'd make fun of things, and I was a hyper kid. So other than that, I was just a basket case. I never felt like there was anything like I was when I wasn't winning. So then one day, I see the movie Rocky, like most American kids, and I was 11 years old. I said, "here's a guy like me, he doesn't succeed a lot. He keeps on trying, he's not smart, or people think he's not smart." But the one difference between Rocky and myself is that he was physically fit, and I was not. So, I said, "I'm gonna make fitness my thing" And five years later, I just went hyper focused on that, like the person does. I became a physical fitness trainer when I was 16, and I said, "this *** can work. if I really do something, I see the ebb and flow of failure and success at an early age." Then I became president in a school leadership program and I said, "I'm going to be an entrepreneur like my dad was, I'm going to graduate high school, and I'm going to become successful." So, I said, I'm gonna be an entrepreneur, actor, and comedian. And my High School tutor says, you should maybe work with your hands, because not everybody's meant to do what they want to do. I said, Screw you! So, I started a business the day after I graduated high school, I failed miserably. Two weeks later, it didn't work out. But then I decided, Okay, I'll go to City College for six months, practice psychology, acting, entrepreneurship and business. And within six months, I did standup comedy when I was 19, my first, and I brought a lot of people there. I said, if I could do this, I could do this …which is really big in the late 80s. And then six months after that, I became the number one nightclub promoter in my age bracket in Los Angeles. That was when I stepped into AWS and my story where I open the floodgates. I became an actor, my first role was playing Dirk Diggler in the Dirk Diggler story, which became Boogie Nights, which I appear in as well, I became a filmmaker, did a lot of documentaries, that some of the biggest promotional events in Hollywood for movies like the Batman movie 89, which is a 4000 person event, and I left my nightclub business, then I said, I'm gonna be a filmmaker, an actor, and I made an award winning short film that got bought by HBO and I almost got close to a movie deal for one of my screenplays. But then nothing, no deal. Two years of development, how I'm broke, I'm in debt, no more nightclub business! So, then I said, I'm going to make my own movie screw Hollywood. I'm gonna make a movie that they don't want to make because they want to make this gambling casino movie, which I did. I did it underground gambling Centre in LA when I was a promoter. So, I wrote a screenplay about what they want to do, but it just fell through. So, I was making movies nobody wants to make, but I was dead broke. So, I started a company, the company I have now, and I started it when in debt. I was breaking and I didn't have any money. Within six months, made half a million dollars and was able to produce a movie called Love Hollywood Style with Faye Dunaway, Andy Dick and Coolio and acting, producing, directing it. Basically, it almost bottomed out my business and I made the movie successful for what it was. But then I said, I'm going to choose my opportunity over passion, and I grew this business, and I kept with that business. And it made over $100 million since and I said if I'm ever going to do a podcast, it's going to be about somebody that shows the ebb and flow of failure and success…I am closely related to psychology, personal development, which I became heavily involved in when I was in my early 20s. And really exploited, passion and opportunity, success, and failure. That's why I do a podcast called Long Shot Leaders.

Marlana: love it. Let me ask you this, when people come at you and they give you all kinds of excuses as to why they can't do this or can't do that, what would you say to those people based on your story?

Michael: Well, yeah, cuz that's my creed. There is no excuse, you're lucky to be alive. my dad was put in an orphanage when he was like eight years old, and he ran away from the orphanage. So, he was homeless, he slipped that alleyway in second St, Mark's on Lower East Side. And you'd hear that story all the time, so, my first knee jerk reaction towards that, forgive me, it's just Pavlov's conditioning. For me is like, there's no excuse, I can't, it's hard to hear an excuse. Because, I should be dead, three times over, I shouldn't be alive, but I don't want to be tendentious - to use that fancy word, for other people, want to be open minded to see for every scenario. So, it's important for me to be fluid, but I do say that my first intuition is, look! You got to gravitate towards pick up your bootstraps. There's got to be a way because where time plus effort equals into critical mass. There's got to be inevitable, somewhat a modicum of success that you can build upon. That's my philosophy.

Marlana: What's your thoughts on seizing opportunity versus creating opportunity?

Michael: Well, you can, it doesn't really matter. I like to hit the Zen Buddhists things like, ones a Buddhist wearing white, one wearing black, they both jump off of 100 story building, which one hits the ground? First? What difference does it make if you facilitate your own opportunity, or opportunity comes in…? It depends on what your broad, you step back for scope, whatever your broad concept is of success. And you step way back, and you say, what's going to get me from point A to point Z, the quickest way for my ultimate goal is that congruent? Or am I just telling myself, I really want to do this, but there's cognitive dissidence, that like is going adverse to that? It really doesn't matter to me, whether something comes along, you're ‘but I facilitated all this success in one area’. It's like, Wait, something just came along, that's going to meet your end goal? What difference does it make, just go for that? So, I follow your opportunity, but long as it meets the end goal, but you got to be clear on your scope first.

Marlana: Yeah. And I know that you have a 10 point recipe that sets you up for success. So

Michael: you looked at that? I don't think anybody looks at that.

Marlana: I look at everything.

Michael: I'm not a personal development person that makes money off of that, I'm an entrepreneur, but I put that that's what I, I said, I'm gonna put something together that, that is successful for me. And the first thing is scope., that's the first thing I put on there, I believe, right? And to understand the whole, who you are, what you want, why you want that, the total five why's and then implement that, Why is that? and then understand your situation first because can't go anywhere? Unless you know where, you understand why you're going,

Marlana: What about changing where you are being… let me put it this way, being open to changes and morphing into something because I know somebody had said to me once be rigid on the goal but flexible on the method. Right? Do you believe that?

Michael: I have a wonderful metaphor for that actually. It reminds me of standup comedy., which I've done off and on for, since I was 19. And the most important thing Greg Dean who's been on my show will tell you is one of the foremost like greatest comedy, standup comedian coaches in the world. The most important thing when doing standup comedy is that you want to learn your set, you want to know what you're going to talk about, you want to know the objectives, you want to get so comfortable with the subject matter, and use pictures, sounds and feelings to get attached to it emotionally. But the most important thing, when you performing to an audience, whether you and I, as podcast, people, the most important thing an act is the rapport with the audience, the band, a loop of what we're communicating with each other, that's the most important thing. So, what was the metaphor for? Rigid on your goal, but flexible on your vision.… So would you drop all the material, you learn it, set it, and then forget it and drop all the material. And then, realize that look at something else comes along, can't be so rigid. The rapport, the audience is most probably in sound, how do you have to be willing to take everything in a different direction, because the most important thing is the end goal, which is to make people, have that bandha loop, the most important thing with your goal is that end result. So, anything that you have to be hone your craft, another great metaphor is like Bruce Lee be like water, your bottle could be ice, it could be fluid, be fluid to be ready for anything. But that doesn't mean that, I'm not going to do any work, I'm not going to like to prepare, you got to prepare and prepare hard, so then you could forget, so you're ready for whatever can happen. Whatever you need to be,

Marlana: how difficult is standup comedy,

Michael: it is extremely difficult. It's like one of the most difficult things you could ever do. Because it's like being an athlete, anybody can imagine, but focus on you walk on a stage. If you're just starting out, there could be over 100 people, and you don't have any instruments…anything other than you and a microphone, and it is your job to get lpm (laugh per minutes), X amount, at least maybe three laughs per minute. And you need to be able to get those people to emotionally trigger into laughter in a succession that will get this and also keep a rapport. It's extremely difficult but that's the technical part of it. You just need to do your reps. So, it's seven days a week if you want to be the best, if you want to dabble fine, but then you're going to screw up and be careful because the great is great in comedy, but the worst is much better when you bomb. So, I was terrified not to prepare and then actually be in the moment. It's really difficult.

Marlana: How has humor helped or supported you throughout your journey?

Michael: There's a lot of pain, a lot of comedians, not all of them I guess Seinfeld, maybe he's well adjusted, but most of us are just poor sad sacks that have gone through a lot of pain. So, when you talk about the relationship between laughter and when you first got people to laugh and why you got laughed, every comedian will have a knee jerk reaction of tears in the end if they're honest with themselves and I'm no different. So, the relationship is my first bit of success, my way to survive, my way to talk myself out of fights. I've never been in a lot of fights, I've had aggression myself, but I've never really picked on me because I've been on both ends of the spectrum. I mean, it's a tool that when your girlfriend's cheat on, your dad doesn't show up, or you get beat with a wooden hanger, or whatever it is, things that traumatize, you choose that, and you know what it works because it's called an NLP (neuro linguistic programming). You can now reframe, you got to be careful with comedy. When I got heavily involved in person development, I had a coach when I was in my 20s and everything was a joke trigger response for premise punch line. And she goes Whoa! Whoa! Wait! you gotta be careful what you're focusing on because your focus, your physiology, and your words are going to the triad of emotions, are going to determine a metastasize a certain result. So, I said wagon better invents something like the third eye a comedy to realize what I'm saying, something or doing something that I have a trigger says my guts a joke is premise punchline. You can't always believe everything, but it really helps you to reframe kidding me. Comedians helps them to reframe a situation. And now it gives it a new meaning and it's not pain.

Marlana: But you went on to do a lot with a lot of big names and things in Hollywood. So how did you make those connections? Because I know, a friend of mine says, nobody steps on to the roof. You always get there by a ladder. So how did you start to make those connections?

Michael: I think your journey starts with making friends, that's why I do a podcast, that's why I'm connection driven. That's why I want to be a standup comedian.  I didn't have a lot of friends because I was feeling alienated. So, I start doing parties in high school, I start doing standup comedy, I do a nightclub. Once I start doing a nightclub, then things really change because you're running for president without the education. You meet 1000s of people seven nights a week, seven days a week, you have a full force; and that really opened up for me to meet a lot of people. The way I got to meet some of the biggest people in Hollywood is my love for calves. So, I see this girl, I don't know who she is. I said, “you have great calves”. I just love the girl with great developed calves. So, my wife also has good calves. So, she says thank you, and she just brushes me off, finds out that she kind of liked me, so two months later, she pursued me and called me got my number that we started dating, and I didn't know who her dad was. But her dad was Peter Guber, who was just finishing up the final touches on Rain Man producing Rain Man, which he won the Academy Award for that year as Best Picture. And he was also preparing to do the Batman movie in 1989, which became the biggest blockbuster and he's one of the, as partners, John Peters, Barbra Streisand's ex-husband. And so, I read, I walked into this situation, and I grew up in a wealthy neighborhood as a poor kid. So, I was used to that even in Encino. That's where I grew up. But walking into Bel Air, Peter Guber, who was voted the most powerful man in Hollywood. And I walked into that, that's what happened, everything kind of changed., I ended up getting a lot of doors open, I've never been on private Learjet got to do that. So, a couple of times, go to Aspen, and, and just see a warm part of the world. So, I meet people. And that changed my life and also got me to see how a really, truly successful person does what they do, and see how they operate and see how they think. So, I got to do the Batman movie. That was my idea to do a big promotion because I was a nightclub promoter. So, let's do that. And there's a great story behind that because John Peterson was kind of like me, he felt like an outsider. He and I teamed up in Aspen with this concept to do a Batman a big party, big event for the Batman movie. That's why I met Paul Thomas Anderson, because his girlfriend was Jody Gruber, and my girlfriend was Elizabeth Gruber. Then he kept saying, I want your hilarious, I want to put you as a short film concept, I have to play Dirk Diggler in the Diggler story. And that became Boogie Nights, which I appeared in and, and so, that was you put yourself out there. I wasn't phony, I was a person operated with integrity. I think people have power always like that, and that just came natural to me, as to where I didn't try to pull a lot out of people, and sometimes to the detriment sometimes not enough, but that's part of my big journey. And then I've always really appreciated the quality relationships, I've met a lot of powerful people that I've not friends with, just because they're powerful, but I've met a lot. The people I hold on to appreciate me, and I appreciate them because integrity and honesty which is the antithesis of Hollywood culture, sometimes not Hollywood, the places great, so where I was born, but the culture is a little different. So that's my encapsulated concept on meeting people of power and…the relationships.