A Theatre Geek's Guide to Disney, Google, & the NFL

What it Takes to Land a Job with the World's Most Sought-After Companies

Brett N. Axler

• Publisher: Morgan James Publishing
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781631954870
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Personal Success

Ever wonder what it takes to land a job with the world's most sought after companies? In A Theatre Geek's Guide to Disney, Google, and the NFL, Brett Axler pulls back the curtain to reveal the steps from his journey and the lessons he learned along the way. From his early years in community and regional theater to landing his first job with an NFL-team, Axler shares the simple and normally overlooked steps applicants can take to land their dream job. He busts the classic experience and education requirement myths and outlines the powerful alternatives that make applicants stand out from the crowd. Using his own personal victories and defeats along with stories from the dozens of students and young professionals that he's mentored, Axler shares the step-by-step do's and don'ts of navigating a young career. Through his years at Comcast and Disney to his recent adventures that led him to Google, Axler shares his insights about education, professional networking, job searching, applying for the job, getting a resume to the top of the pile, and nailing an interview. With A Theatre Geek's Guide to Disney, Google, and the NFL, buckle up for a wild story full of priceless know-how from a theatre geek that accidentally found himself in professional sports and corporate America.

Chapter 1:

Why Me?

Why am I writing this book? More specifically, why am I writing this book in my late twenties, just a few years into my professional career? What gives me the right to pose myself as some type of expert people should listen to?

To be honest, those are the same questions that weighed me down for the past year since I started trying to convince myself to write this book. As I mentioned in the director’s note, I’ve had friends, family, and coworkers asking me to write a book. Of course, friends and family would ask to be supportive. After all, they’re friends and family. I would hope they would be supportive of my career, and I appreciate that they’re impressed with what I’ve accomplished. But coworkers, professors, and bosses … why were they asking if I was planning to write a book and share my career insights?

The more I thought about it, the more I realized how much I was already sharing my career insights. I have met with dozens of college students and young professionals seeking career advice. Most were looking for insight into what internships they should focus on in college or asking how they could improve their resume and cover letter to land an interview, but no matter who they were or where they were in their career, they all had at least one thing in common: They were seeking advice from someone they looked up to as an established professional. I could not be more flattered that they thought of me that way.

I absolutely love having those conversations and coaching sessions. I am honored that people of any age or at any stage in their career come to me for advice, but I love meeting with aspiring professionals most of all. And that’s who this book is for. It wasn’t that long ago that I was in high school dreaming of being a technical director on Broadway or working for Disney, and I was running out of people to ask for advice. Any time I ran into someone who was remotely connected to where I wanted to be, I was thrilled and beyond thankful when they would take time out of their busy schedules to give me advice.

DIRECTOR’S NOTE:

Always make time to return the favor and give to others what was given to you. A simple conversation for you may mean the world to somebody else.

While many of those conversations with industry professionals likely weren’t anything special to them, for me, those conversations were groundbreaking moments that I clearly remember to this day. There are a few of those moments that stick out above the rest as turning points that greatly shaped the course of my career.

As I share the story of my career journey—and the lessons I’ve learned along the way—I will call out the key lessons that have stuck with me over the years. These are the lessons I have found to be most impactful to both my career and personal life. Take them as you will.

“DIRECTOR’S NOTES” are the career lessons and takeaways I have found impactful.

“Blocking Notes” are personal lessons and/or funny occurrences.

The “SHOW NOTES” at the end of each chapter sums up the key takeaways. Feel free to grab a pen, a highlighter, and a stack of sticky notes to mark up the ideas that stand out to you. Or if that’s not really your thing, you can always refer back to the Show Notes to review the ideas I highlighted throughout the chapter.

Besides my love of paying it forward, I am all too familiar with how most people who reach out to me for career advice are feeling. As early as grade school, I clearly remember having specific career goals and wanting to ask professionals how they got there. I remember the excitement every time that a professional would take the time to answer my questions and speak about their career. It amped me up and inspired me to keep pushing forward.

Now, as a professional who’s worked for the NFL, Disney, and Google, to name a few, I make it my personal goal to take the time to provide career advice to students and young professionals—just like those who took the time to speak to me. While I do not consider myself any form of an expert in the realm of career coaching, I have been around the block a few times and I’ve learned some amazing lessons along the way. I would be doing a disservice to others not to share.

I also find that being young, still navigating the early years of my career, helps me connect better. As inspiring as it is to hear from an accomplished professional over twenty years into their career, they’re a lot less relatable than someone just five to ten years into their career. Still being in my twenties, I grew up in the same technology-driven time as most of today’s high school and college students. I understand the stress that social media and the potential for endless scrolling adds—the pressure to be connected all the time and the seemingly unattainable bars that have been set.

To my younger readers: I hear you. I feel you. I understand. Please, trust me, it gets so much better. We’ll get through this together.

***

When I was a junior in high school, my family took a trip to Los Angeles over the summer. Among the other usual LA tourist destinations, we spent a few days in Disneyland. Up to that point, I was pretty settled on studying technical theatre in college with the goal of landing a job as a Technical Director or Lighting Designer on Broadway. I had always been a fan of Disney, but I hadn’t been to the parks since I was very young, so I didn’t remember them well. During the trip, I spent a ton of time walking the parks and looking at all of the technology, from the lights along Main Street to the hydraulic lifts that supported the show technologies for Fantasmic on the Rivers of America. I was enamored by the details and the sheer size of the technology in the parks. To me, a high schooler who loved touring theatres and event spaces to check out the technology, Disneyland was like one enormous playground (but for a much different reason than in the eyes of most guests).

Loving any and all theatre, I attended as many shows as I could while we were there. I was primarily focused on the big shows, but having worked at Six Flags as an audio and lighting technician, I appreciated even the less complex technologies that supported the simpler shows. The first night we were there, we planned to see Fantasmic. I got to the front of Rivers of America hours before the sun set just to watch the crew transitioning Tom Sawyer Island from daytime guest destination to nighttime performance venue. There were technicians loading pyro on the water, acrobats checking the ropes on Captain Hook’s ship, stage managers checking headsets at the front of house console, and, what I found most impressive (Honestly, I still find it just as impressive to this day), the thirty-plus-foot hydraulic lifts emerging from the ground, supporting dozens of lights, audio, and special effects equipment.

I was obsessed with all the choreographed work that went into preparing for this show every single night. It took a small army just to prepare for the show, not to mention the performers and crew who ran the show seven nights a week. I stood in awe imagining what it would be like to work on that crew. Little did I know that about five years later and 3,000 miles away on the other side of the country that’s exactly what I would be doing.

That night, my family and I watched the show, and I was absolutely floored. I loved it. All I wanted to do was go back the following night and watch it again. However, fate (and my mother) had different plans. The next morning, we arrived at Disney’s California Adventure. This was back when it still had that funny-looking Golden Gate Bridge over the entrance and the park was under heavy construction preparing to transition to its new concept. When we entered the park, my mom picked up a map and entertainment guide. She saw there was a new nightly show taking place as part of the soft opening of the park’s new entertainment offerings. I asked what time it was at and of course it conflicted with Fantasmic, which I was not thrilled with.

The brief description of the show described it as a new nighttime spectacular featuring fountains and video. It’s not that I was completely uninterested in seeing it, but it sounded like it lacked the magic of a live performance. I had seen similar fountain and light shows and they were just alright. I really wanted to rewatch Fantasmic so I could pay closer attention to elements of the show I had missed the night before. I hoped to take some inspiration home with me for the designs on my high school’s next show.

Despite what I had planned, I ended up following my parents to the new show that night. With the lagoon area still mostly under construction and walls from what would eventually be The Voyage of the Little Mermaid protruding into the viewing area, we were all packed pretty tight against the railing of the lagoon. As I looked out over the dark, empty lagoon, I couldn’t wrap my head around the idea of Disney putting on a fountain and light show. Even at that age, I knew that Disney was known for their enormous spectacles that involved groundbreaking technology, fireworks, and, most importantly in my opinion, live performers.

The lights from the other side of the lagoon reflected off the calm, dark water before the pre-show announcement began. As the announcement came to an end, the lights blacked out and half a beat later the classic soundtrack of the 1960s Walt Disney’s “Wonderful World of Color” echoed through the lagoon as a small, short rainbow of backlit fountains sprayed to life in a line in the middle of the otherwise dark lagoon. I rolled my eyes in protest to the unenthusiastic opening of the show. But half a second later, the fountains were out, it was pitch black once again, and out of nowhere, a 3D image of Tinker Bell flew across the center of the lagoon trailing pixie dust that spelled “World of Color”. My mouth dropped to the ground.

Putting this into perspective, this was 2010. The iPhone had been out for less than two years, HD-TVs were just starting to be standard on the market, and the Nokia Tower 3D show that made projection mapping world-famous was still over a year away from happening. Watching a perfectly video-mapped image of Tinker Bell skirt across a water screen in the middle of a lagoon followed by a perfectly legible trail of video and lasers spelling out “World of Color” was an insanely big deal. As the show carried on for another thirty minutes, I was in absolute awe of the array of perfectly choreographed technologies on display. As soon as the show came to an end, I looked over at my parents and said, “I’m going to work for Disney.”

From that moment on, my college and career focus completely shifted from Broadway to Disney. I spent countless hours researching the show’s technology, finding out who the design teams were, what third-party vendors were involved, and, most importantly, what I needed to study in college to land a position at Disney working on designing these types of shows. This is where I started to run into problems.

Throughout most of high school I had connections in Broadway and professional theatre to reach out to for advice. I had spent years developing relationships, gaining access to priceless firsthand experience and an inside look into the field I planned to study. Now shifting my focus to Disney, I didn’t know anyone who had worked there who could provide me any advice, and I didn’t have a clue where I should focus my attention to gain experience. I drove myself and my parents nuts during the college application process because I did not know what I wanted to study. While there were endless opportunities in technical theatre and radio, television, and film programs, I didn’t know if any of those programs were what Disney would find desirable in an applicant.

I found every book, article, and video I could get my hands on about working for Disney and the education path that would best set me up to successfully land a job with them. At the time, I would have done anything to even get a fifteen-minute conversation with anyone who had experience working for Disney just to pick their brain for advice. I remember going as far as finding an IAmA article on Reddit published by a former technician at Walt Disney World sharing his experiences working in the parks. While it wasn’t very useful advice for an aspiring professional, it was at least some insight into life at Disney.

About a year later, opportunities started to present themselves in the realm of Disney. The first was during my senior year of high school when one of my old bosses moved down to Orlando and started as a Parade Manager in Magic Kingdom. Luckily, I had stayed in touch with him, and I already had a trip planned to go down there with my high school senior class. I reached out to him and less than three months later I was standing in the middle of the castle hub meeting with my old boss talking all about what steps I could take to make it to Disney. At that point, I had already signed with the college that I was going to attend but I still had so many questions for him.

That was one of the first fifteen-minute career chats that I will never forget. To him, it was just fifteen minutes out of his day speaking to a former employee, but to me, a high schooler getting the chance to talk to a professional in the career I was aspiring toward, it meant the world. (Thanks, Frank!)

DIRECTOR’S NOTE:

Always stay in touch. Professional networking is just as much about keeping existing connections alive as it is about making new ones. Staying in touch in the twenty-first century is easier than it has ever been before. From a quarterly email or a friendly ping on messenger to posting “Happy Birthday” on an old friend’s Facebook feed or sending a holiday card, whatever method you choose is better than losing touch. Personally, I find it a lot nicer to ask or be asked by someone for a connection or lead who I’ve been in touch with recently than someone who’s reaching out to me for the first time in years simply wanting something from me. (I’m looking at you, high school classmates!)

A second opportunity came a few weeks into my freshman year of college, I was sitting in a class where local entertainment and production professionals were invited to speak about their careers. Debbie, a local freelance producer, spoke about her experience working as a producer and stage manager for concerts, events, and parades around Philadelphia and New York City. At the end of the lecture, she mentioned that she was looking for a few volunteers for the Thanksgiving Day Parade. I ran right up to her after the lecture and asked how many volunteers she needed. We exchanged email addresses and, six weeks later, I found myself and five classmates I recruited standing on the parade route...