by Kyle Wilson
CHAPTER 2
The Fish That Swim In Rectangles
by Robert J. Ott
G rowing up in Hamilton, a small town in Ontario, Canada, my family would make an annual summer pilgrimage to the northern lakes cottage country as is the custom for many in the area. At times while there, we fancied ourselves fishermen, though the actual size of our catch seldom matched the accompanying tall tales. If we were lucky enough to reel in anything of regulation size, it was often not enough to make a family meal.
In anticipation of a dinner, we’d hold fish that fit the requirements in the shallows in a rectangular net enclosure that allowed them to swim in their natural waters. As often happened when our fishing prowess failed to deliver on promise, we’d release the fish as we prepared to return home. I was charged with this duty and, as a result, witnessed a fascinating phenomenon.
The freed fish would swim around in open water in the shape of the rectangular cage from which they had been released. Their very real, but temporary, physical boundaries had become boundaries of the mind. This experience left a deep impression on me as a child, and as I grew older, I resolved to be vigilant about ideas that were a construct of my own thinking or imposed by others without inspection. My application of this philosophy was sometimes flawed at the outset according to my parents, who didn’t believe that the concept of cleaning my room required debate. In time, I came to the perspective that I would view my dreams through the lens of outcome rather than the inherent obstacles, and that I would believe in their manifestation. I was determined not to be “the fish that swim in rectangles.”
Though I was ambivalent about institutional learning, it was at school that my excitement about music was galvanized. A guitar player at my high school would sit in the hallway and perform songs as loudly as permissible. There was a magic about his creating emotion out of thin air that captivated me and ultimately inspired me to take up the guitar. By the end of high school, I was fronting a band and playing shows of my own. I learned that my enthusiasm for music was not just about the listening experience, but also about creation and connection.
As my mother astutely noted, creating music motivated me and inspired work ethic for the first time. And so, my music business ambitions started at age 18 when, despairing of my lackluster performance in high school and consequent failed attempt at college, she informed me about a music business school program in Toronto.
I left my safe, small-town life to move to big-city Toronto to learn about an industry for which I had no points of reference or network. Harking back to what I learned from the school of fish and their imagined constraints, I began to act on the truism that you have to leave your comfort zone and push your boundaries to learn about your abilities and the quality of your mettle. I was more afraid of becoming stuck where I was than I was of moving forward, regardless of the emotional and sometimes physical discomfort that would entail. A friend called it “leaping from tall buildings,” and it was something that I’d do often in the years ahead. I had decided what I was going to do with my life, and that was invigorating. I was going to pursue a career in music and eschewed all recommendations of a plan B. It was almost as though having a fallback would undermine the purity of my intention and run contrary to the universal rules of manifestation. Absolute commitment to my new goal inspired a perseverance in me that was unwavering.
My days in Toronto opened my eyes to a greater world and a bigger life. Everything you do and experience is energy that becomes a part of you and shows you through new doors that you have not seen before. Through learning, happenstance, and connections gained in Toronto, I began managing bands and artists professionally, started my first music publishing company at 19, and embarked on my career in music and business.
I had become profoundly excited about songs, their creation, and this art form of the ultimate short story. Songs could profoundly change your emotions in 3:30. They were truly the shortest distance between hearts and a universal language. Then there was the commerce of this art, music publishing, and the whole idea that royalty payments would appear in your mailbox after the song became popular. It seemed like some version of winning the lottery. I was hooked. Of course, nothing is that simple; but who would start anything if they fully understood what it was going to take? The main thing was that I was excited and willing to work harder than anyone else to realize my vision. The lazy dreamer was awakening to a whole new world.
It was an eerily still Toronto winter night: one in which your spit would freeze before it hit the ground. It had been a year since I finished my schooling, and things had not been going well. No one seemed very interested in an inexperienced albeit ambitious kid and the music business lacked obvious, structured paths. I’d walked the half mile from the grocery store with what little food the contents of my change jar afforded me. I’d been wishing―no praying―for a car, a home with more than one room, companionship, money in amounts that required a wallet, or any indication that my admittedly lofty aspirations were working out. My friends back home seemed to already have these things and were moving their lives forward. As I approached the door of my cramped basement apartment, I slipped on the icy, slick steps. I had hit rock bottom. Literally. Stunned from the fall, I lay there on my back, limbs splayed, on the uneven ice at the foot of that dark, cement stairwell. The grocery bags, that had moments earlier been cutting into my frozen hands, were strewn everywhere. I looked up at the stars and thought, “There must be something better.” Maybe the naysayers were right and my dreams of making it in music were only that.
I had landed hard but fortunately with everything but my pride intact. I felt no self-pity, I was simply angry. This couldn’t be life for me any longer. I had to do things differently if I wanted a different result. I rose determined to figure out what different meant and what actions were required to start living that way every day.
That spring, prompted by a friend, I traveled to New York to attend the 11th annual New Music Seminar (NMS), a pioneering music conference and festival. In the movie Straight Outta Compton, there’s a scene where a brawl breaks out in the Marriott Marquis in Times Square during NMS. Somehow, in my pursuit of an available payphone on a seemingly quiet conference floor, I found myself in the middle of that melee as it occurred in real life. The world later found out that the combatants were rival supporters of Los Angeles rap artists Above the Law and Ice-Cube. So began a surprising and magical week in that great city. Anything it appeared could and would happen in a New York minute. What I experienced there opened my eyes to America: its scale, speed, energy, and anything-is-possible attitude. This great city had, through the generations, spawned so much notable pop culture, catalyzed societal and business change, and, in part, founded the American dream.
I'd had a taste of how things worked in an epicenter of pop culture and that fall boarded a plane bound for Los Angeles. I’d decided that I should live there for the next year. I was visiting the city for the first time and had no job, no contacts, and no place to live. I wasn’t sure what I was doing but was hoping that motion would beget motion. I remained convinced that I could manifest the crazy dream that I had in my mind, though I was still not sure exactly how. I felt I was on the threshold of a new life and setting out on an adventure of unknown dimensions in one of the music capitals of the world.
Looking out the window as we landed, I was transfixed by the view. The five thousand square mile sea of lights below was like nothing I’d ever seen. I felt insignificant and wondered how I’d ever be noticed or accomplish anything in this vast urban jungle. I had arranged to stay at a hostel in East Los Angeles, a reportedly violent part of this sprawling metropolis that at night was akin to a war zone. The reports were true, and as soon as the sun went down, the sound of sporadic gunfire was predictable. This lawlessness was something I had never experienced, but the clean room and board for $15 a day was all I could afford. I can’t titillate you with LA-style stories of partying and personal drug use. I couldn’t afford either on m
y spaghetti and hotdogs budget. I was focused on networking and gaining an understanding of the business I had come to learn about. Through a cold calling campaign, I met with and began assisting some successful songwriters, drawing on my growing knowledge of music publishing and earlier forays into artist management.
In the end, no single remarkable event marked my stay in LA, but it was a trial of self-sufficiency and caused a tectonic shift in my thinking about how to pursue my career.
My attitude, knowledge, and situational awareness had ascended to a new level. My narrow, small-town viewpoint was forever altered for the better.
There had been quite a few epiphanies that came from rubbing shoulders with a variety of people: those who had been to the top and wanted to get back there, those who were seeking to make it to the top for the first time, and those who had made it and were leaving the field of their own accord. I’d now encountered people embodying every version of success and failure, and that foretold every part of my intended journey. I saw that what I dreamed was no longer imaginary but rather possible and even probable.
When I returned home to Toronto, my perspectives were completely altered. That translated into a more confident persona, which opened new doors for me. I parlayed my new outlook and networking acumen into a job interview for a position as the head of BMG Music Publishing Canada. I was chosen for the role and could hardly believe that for my first legitimate job in the music business I had landed in the leadership of one of only four multi- national music publishing companies. The vision I’d related to my parents and friends so many years before was coming true. I was where I had dreamed of being and was determined that I would never look back.
I spent seven years at the helm of BMGMP Canada learning about music publishing and international business on the scale afforded me from my chair in that relatively small market. I was happy and would have been satisfied with that achievement had life not conspired to shake things up. It became clear near the end of that period that the company was to be sold and that it was time to push my boundaries once again.
A staffer in the sales department, who had enrolled in a weekend MBA course, introduced me to a fellow student who worked in the private equity sector and had asked in class about the annuity-like nature of song royalties. The classmate and I met for lunch, and upon hearing that the financial sector was looking for vehicles to achieve non-correlation to the stock market, I realized my next move.
I related the conversation to my good friend, the late Tim Laing, while sitting in his garage, where we often wrestled life’s challenges to the ground over a glass of scotch. Tim then set a meeting with a contact in the financial sector that he believed might have the vision to appreciate the concept.
It was apparent from the outset of that meeting that we were in the right place. We were invited to present a business plan, which we did. 18 months and some 50 presentations later, we achieved $40M in startup funding for ott-laing enterprises, or “ole,” as we came to name our new company. I had a new job! Over the next 14 years, ole became a bona fide multi-national music company with offices in three countries, that had invested over $550M USD, and raised nearly $1B in capital.
The company welcomed to its roster iconic artists such as Rush and Timbaland and the representation of songs by artists like Taylor Swift, Jay-Z, Beyonce, and many other household names. ole racked up multiple GRAMMY Awards and other creative accolades while becoming an impressive vertically-integrated juggernaut. We truly influenced every facet of global music entertainment and became the home of a world-class team of professionals and a culture that proudly served creators.
I sold my stake in ole in 2018. Looking back on 36 years in the music industry, I learned how powerful dreams and ideas can be and how they can change lives when realized. The self-actualization inherent in conceiving of and building a company, is one of the most gratifying experiences one can imagine. A great company brings so much to the world beyond profit for its shareholders. A great company fulfills dreams, creates and supports communities, provides a venue for the learning and development of the individual, and can be a great force for good.
The hidden struggle for self-mastery known to those that venture into the deep waters of entrepreneurialism is eased by constant truths that are a comfort in times of uncertainty. They say that living is in the journey and that the entrepreneurial path is one of the greatest there is. It is to rise every day and continue to believe and move forward, regardless of obvious reward. Persevering not for a day or a week, but, potentially, for years is the divide between the winners and the also-rans.
Dream big and don’t take advice about risk from those that have not been willing to take risks in their own lives. Life isn’t a contest with others or a matter for their approval; it is an internal voyage through which you learn your person and what your contribution to the world should be. You will manifest what you truly believe in, think about, and work hard at. Though you will encounter adversity and the unexpected, those things exist to teach us important lessons necessary to our evolution. I, for one, am grateful for every great moment and every difficult one that has delivered me to this place and a new beginning outside the rectangle.
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TWEETABLE
Dream big and don’t take advice about risk from those that have not been willing to take risk in their own lives. Your life isn’t a contest against others or a matter for their approval; it is an internal voyage through which you learn about yourself and what your contribution to the world should be.
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Robert J. Ott is CEO of RJO Enterprises. He founded ole, one of the world’s biggest music companies with over 200 staff and 8 offices in the US, UK, and Canada and capitalization of almost 1B USD. Robert is a 3x Grammy-winning music publisher and 17x CCMA Music Publisher of the Year and has achieved the Leonard T. Rambeau Award for International Achievement. ole artists include Rush, Timbaland, and Jordan Davis, and ole has published songs for Beyonce, Justin Timberlake, Eric Church, Jay Z, Taylor Swift, and more. Contact Robert at [email protected]
CHAPTER 3
Mayday! Mayday!
From Helping Real Estate Syndicators
Raise 100s of Millions to Asking One Question: Why?
by Mauricio J. Rauld, Esq.
“M orphine! Morphine! Give me some [expletive] morphine!” Completely out of character, I screamed through the intercom as I lay there at USC Hospital exactly five days following “routine” surgery. The excruciating stomach pain overwhelmed me as I pleaded with the nurses to give me what I knew was the only remedy that would put me out of my misery. “It’s just gas pains,” the nurse explained. “Morphine won’t do anything to help you.”
It was July 4, 2018, a day meant for celebration of the land of the free, the home of the brave. But I didn’t feel too brave as I screamed at the poor nurse receptionist listening at the other end of the intercom and cried to the nurses to provide me with some relief. The next 72 hours are a blur, as the doctors eventually determined I had become septic, a condition caused by widespread infection in the body which carries with it a 30% chance of death. In my case, the staples used to reconnect my surgically-cut and reconnected intestines had ruptured, spilling venom into my body, causing it to go into shock.
The next several weeks are hard to piece together. I have a vague recollection of being in the ICU, my wife, Heidi, praying for me, and my parents looking desperately concerned. I had lost 62 pounds and was closing in at a paltry 113lbs as my appetite was non-existent and my body was physically rejecting food. I spent two months being fed intravenously as my “concentration camp” look was becoming more and more of a medical concern.
What followed over the next five months was a string of 10 surgeries and constant re-admittances to the hospital with bouts of infection. Even when home, life was non-existent as I spent my days sleeping or sitting on the couch, anxiously waiting for the time for my meds, watching YouTube videos, and waiting for the day to en
d. Waking up with nothing to look forward to is quite a miserable existence, especially for someone who loves to set goals and tends to live in the future. Every time Heidi and I felt we were starting to turn the corner, another setback: another stint in the hospital, another procedure, another five pounds lost.
Throughout this process, both in the hospital and during my home-recovery, one thing stuck in my head. One question kept creeping into my mind.
Being someone so optimistic, someone who prides himself and studies personal development, a glass-half-full kind of guy, it was a question that I had never had to ask before: “Why?”
Why was this happening to me!? What did I do to deserve this nightmare?
“Am I being punished?” I’m a good father, a good husband, a good and productive member of society. Someone who tries to leave this place better than how he found it. Someone who likes to think of himself as a premier syndication attorney, one who helps real estate investors raise hundreds of millions of dollars for the betterment of their families and the communities they invest in.
I had done enough good in this world that the universe had always looked out for me. Things just worked out for me. I grew up in a loving family, got to travel the world and live in multiple countries, and got to attend one of the best universities on the planet. When I dreamed of having an amazing family, the universe blessed me with Heidi, the most beautiful and amazing soul who later became exactly what I had envisioned as my wife, and mother of my children. When I dreamed of quitting my law firm job and starting my own law practice, the universe introduced me to the “little purple book” (Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad Poor Dad) which revolutionized my thinking and led me to meet The Real Estate Guys and ultimately become part of their world as their general counsel and corporate attorney working on all their real estate syndications and asset protection needs. That opportunity then led me to start my own practice in 2006.