This is Not a Dress Rehearsal

A short course in writing your own script for success in business and life

Michel Masquelier

• Publisher: Practical Inspiration Publishing
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781788603133
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business Biographies
• Index: Business

This Is Not a Dress Rehearsal is an open and honest account of the personal and professional journey of Michel Masquelier, the man who went from being a lowly intern to the Chairman of the media division of IMG, the world's largest sports management company.

This unique insight into the life of someone who was at the very heart of the sports industry for 35 years is filled with colourful, larger-than-life anecdotes, as well as advice about how to balance professional success with a passion for life and about how – ultimately – the ingredients which help you build a good career can also bring you profound personal contentment.

Masquelier opens his heart to the reader, reflecting on many intimate and deeply moving experiences which have shaped his life, as well as providing up-close portraits of the giants who have shaped the sports industry over the last three decades.

Be inspired and seize the day!

CHAPTER 1

WHERE THERE’S A WILL, THERE’S A WAY:
TAKING TO THE STAGE

Let’s set the scene. It’s summer 2013. As the sun sets over Manhattan, I’m looking out across Times Square from the global headquarters of Morgan Stanley. The bank is one of two financial institutions, along with Evercore Partners, that has been appointed to sell IMG Worldwide, the world’s largest sports management agency.

There are maybe 20 people in the lavishly appointed boardroom. Representatives of the two banks and the heads of all IMG divisions are on one side of the room. On the other are executives from the talent representation agency William Morris Endeavor (WME) and their team of bankers, analysts, lawyers and consultants.

It’s not hard to see why IMG is such a catch. The company represents and manages the world’s greatest athletes and fashion icons, stages hundreds of live sports events globally every year, is the largest independent producer and distributor of sports media globally and represents the interests of the most famous sport federations. This is the latest meeting in the ‘road show’ organized by IMG’s owners, private equity firm Forstmann Little & Company. For the last few weeks, between the offices of Morgan Stanley and Evercore, we have been making our pitch to a dozen or so of the biggest venture capital firms in the world.

My part is explaining the segment I manage: IMG Media, the very attractive, fastest-growing division of the organization. I am almost certainly the only person in the room who has grown up not speaking English. At first the presentations were a little daunting, but now I’m in my stride, enjoying the process. I’m on my feet, running through my slide deck, laying out my vision of where this business is heading. The Q&A that follows is forensic in its detail.

There’s definitely an appetite in the financial world for a business that brings together the number one passion point for nearly everyone – sport – with media, the vehicle that brings it into our homes. There’s also appetite for a business that delivers continuous growth. But I notice something different about the team from WME: their hunger seems keener, their passion more palpable. Everything about their approach shouts ‘more!’

If you are familiar with Ari Emanuel, chief executive of WME, this hunger and passion is not surprising. You may not know the name, but you might well know Ari Gold, the uber-agent from LA-based comedy-drama series Entourage, whose larger-than-life character was based heavily on Emanuel. The real Ari is a visionary who has long harboured the desire to marry the world’s largest sports management company with the world’s largest talent representation company. To make that happen, he has brought in the financial backing of Silver Lake, a technology investment firm with over US$75 billion of assets under its management.

In the end, it takes just a few weeks for the lawyers to iron out the contract wrinkles before we can unveil one of the biggest mergers in entertainment history: WME and Silver Lake have paid US$2.4 billion to buy IMG.

It has been an incredible journey for me. Working at IMG has been a mind-blowing experience and I’ve been living my passion every day. But for a moment, while rubbing shoulders with these high-flying financiers, I can’t help thinking back. My journey here, to one of the high points in my career, was not a straight line. In that moment, I marvel at all the twists and turns and think back to the first tentative steps I took on that journey, 30 years earlier.

Going is easy, leaving is harder

Only 84 miles (135 kilometres) of English Channel separate the Belgian port-town of Zeebrugge from Dover in England, but as I closed the door on my battered Ford Escort and climbed the stairs from the ferry’s car deck towards the passenger lounges, the distance could have been a million miles and I wouldn’t have cared. With my few belongings in the old banger, and just enough money to last a month, I knew this was a journey where the destination was not just England, but my future. Just four and a half hours at sea separated the life I had known and the life I wanted. The fact that I spoke not a word of English and had no friends to welcome me and nowhere to stay didn’t matter. What counted was that I was on my way. I had no fear, no apprehension, just a big heart.

I am from Liège, Belgium, a small town in a small country. Until the day I set out for England, I’d lived a reasonably comfortable life. I certainly didn’t feel it was my destiny to be thrown onto the world stage and embrace an international management career. I had struggled to pass my law degree, but it was a degree that would have guaranteed me a reasonable job and a steady career. My uncle was a successful notary in my hometown, where our family was known and respected. The road had been mapped out for me: Tonton Yves was going to take me under his wing, and ultimately I would succeed him. I would have been able to afford a comfortable lifestyle, with time to socialize with friends. I would have met a fiancée from a similar background and raised a nice family on my home soil.

For many, such an outcome might seem a great achievement on all fronts. But it was not my calling. It may have been the destiny others planned for me, but it was never one I was going to endorse. I could hear the call of a different kind of life and so I found the energy and courage to avoid the safe but ultimately unsatisfying future and embark on a more challenging path. I wanted to see the world, to fly the nest and live the life of an adventurer. I put the degree I had grafted for aside so I could live my passion. I was determined to give it a shot.

My favourite poet and singer-songwriter is that rarest of things: a Belgian role model. His name is Jacques Brel. He was a constant source of inspiration to me – a true rebel who thrived on challenges. Brel once said, ‘What is difficult for a guy from Vilvoorde who wants to go to Hong Kong is not going to Hong Kong but leaving Vilvoorde.’ Vilvoorde is a very small town in Flemish-speaking Belgium; even if you don’t know it (and you probably don’t!) you’ll know somewhere like it. Every country has its Vilvoordes. Going to England was easy for me, in some ways, but leaving home was hard.

However, a determination to succeed had encouraged me to set my course for England and a new life. I was facing more uncertainty than I had ever encountered, but I summoned all my resolve: I would allow no barrier to prevent me from realizing my dream and breaking the mould which had shaped my life, whether that was my lack of English, my lack of money or the very real prospect of loneliness.

Widen your stage

Throughout my early years, I had suffered – as many people do – from the claustrophobic restrictions of society and the school system. Have you ever been told you are not good enough – not good enough at school, not good enough at work? Have you ever been told you are not good enough by a sports coach, or even by your parents? Perhaps you have been told this so much that you have begun to doubt yourself and your own abilities. I’ve certainly been there – especially as a teen.

But in my early twenties, I found my own sense of direction. Part of this discovery I attribute to a widening of my world – especially formative for me was a month-long visit to the United States during one summer at university. In our little world, the United States was a kind of Promised Land, a place I had to see. I arrived on the East Coast, then went where the wind blew me. Bourbon Street in New Orleans, the mecca of jazz. Then a Greyhound bus to California, where distant cousins of my family had a son playing professional tennis.

From there, another Greyhound to the south of the state, and a visit to friends of these cousins who had a ranch close to the Mexican border. It was meant to be just a hospitality stop, but I asked for a job and they gave me one. For two weeks, I would spend the whole day with the mostly Mexican workforce, digging out weeds from a vast bean plantation. I loved hanging out with them after work, swimming in rivers and driving in their incredible pimped-up rides, with their giant horns at the front. We’d walk for miles across the ranch picking those weeds, followed by our own mobile toilet. You can imagine how it looked by the end of the day, and as the young, visiting newbie, you know who drew the short straw! I was there with a hose, blasting away. It was one of those rites-of-passage moments that I would often think back on later in my career to remind myself how far I had come.

From the fields of south California, via the casinos of Las Vegas and Los Angeles, and then a flight to New York. Wow! This was a different world again: the noise, the sirens, the hustle and bustle. I was like a kid in a candy store! A month later, I returned home to finish my studies, but this trip had ignited my wanderlust, and proved to me that discovery was written in my DNA.

When the time came for me to make my big move, it could easily have been another trans-Atlantic journey, given the impression that the United States had made on me. But it wasn’t. I was drawn to England because of its lifestyle and its culture. I loved the rock bands, the provocative fashions, the sport and that uniquely British mixture of the traditional and the avant-garde. As a youngster, I had been able to pick up a signal to the BBC. It was a window onto a world of the Rolling Stones, Benny Hill, Manchester United. I was astounded by the endless coverage of cricket on prime-time national television. And snooker – a sport I did not even know existed. Everything was iconic and inspirational to me. I was also captivated by the British sense of humour, something I shared with my friends, which was evident whenever we got together.

Departure had meant saying goodbye to my family. I still recall the profound disappointment on my father’s face: he simply didn’t understand what I was doing, or why. He was hoping I would live the life he had lived, and in bilingual Belgium, his priority for me was to learn Flemish rather than English. With his friends ready to take me on as a trainee in a major insurance company, he could not understand why I did not capitalize on my hard-earned degree to start a career straight away. He saw the world through the lens of his own experience and felt I was wasting years during which I could have been earning towards a big pension and my retirement package. Now I recognize the sense in that viewpoint – even if I don’t necessarily agree with it still – but back then I was just starting my life. Thinking about the end of it was the last thing I wanted to do!

An inspiring legacy

My father was strict when it came to good manners, but he could be overpowering at times and he wasn’t the greatest listener. He was risk-averse. Our perspectives of the world clashed. My mother, on the other hand, embraced my adventurous vison of the world. She had lived through a more challenging upbringing, having been raised in Africa.

There was one relative I took positive inspiration from: my maternal grandfather, Nicolas Guillaume. He was a true adventurer, a risk-taker and a positive thinker. ‘Bon Papa’ came from a modest farming family in Lanaye in Belgium, a tiny village on an island in the river Meuse, south of Maastricht. He was one of three sons. Only one of his brothers was sent to school, which was something of a privilege in that area. He and the other two had to make their own way and learn from the world around them.

Nicolas became an entrepreneur, learning the trade of road building in rural Wallonia, the French-speaking region in the south of Belgium. He lived through World War II and had to get into all sorts of chicanery and wheeling and dealing to survive the German occupation. He never said as much, but we were fairly sure he had been a partisan – a member of the resistance. That generation didn’t talk about their war experiences much.

In 1949, Bon Papa took his family to what was known in those days as the Belgian Congo, and what today is called the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He had no job to go to, but from a hotel in Kinshasa, the capital city, he began making contacts and establishing himself. Gradually, he started winning contracts to build roads across the country. His major breakthrough was the deal to build a military base at Kamina, in the deep south of the country.

By the late 1950s, things had changed. This was a period in the country’s history that would eventually lead to independence on 30 June 1960. Against this background of unrest, and with my mother pregnant with her first child, my parents decided to return to Belgium. I was born in Brussels in 1959, but I like to say I was made in the Congo. Throughout my youth, I absorbed my grandfather’s inspiring stories about his challenges in central Africa. He was a pioneer, and his example made me determined to be a pioneer in my own way. That spirit he passed down to me was far better than anything he could have left me in a will.

From the fringe to the West End

When I arrived in London on a cold day in early 1985, I slept the first night in my car. The next day I was put up at the Alliance Française, the French cultural centre. Soon I found a room in a house owned by a 92-year-old lady who charged me £52 a week for half-board. Although I cannot honestly praise her cooking, my landlady was extremely helpful in other ways. I discovered that, over the years, she had accumulated a treasure trove of vintage books and leather luggage, which were cluttering up her loft and gathering a thick coat of dust. She hadn’t been up there for years. By now, I had been in London long enough to have been drawn into the magic of the markets in Camden and Portobello Road, and I sensed an opportunity. When I asked whether I could empty her loft of bric-a-brac for a split of the profits, she was only too happy to agree.

This became my first independent business venture: selling a suitcase. I found a couple of guys who had an antiques stand in a street off Portobello Road, and I brought them the vintage books and leather cases that I had polished assiduously in the evenings after my English classes in Highgate. This was fun. In partnership with my new Rasta friends, I was living the street trader experience and learning to integrate into one of the world’s most multicultural cities. For the first time in my life, I had my own money – albeit not much. But there was enough for me to reward myself with a luxury: a ticket to watch Tottenham Hotspurs playing at home. I loved the atmosphere in football stadiums, but I’d never heard anything like the passion and singing at White Hart Lane.

My market trader life and my English classes didn’t last long. After a month or so, I became frustrated at the speed of my progress, and had had enough of learning the language in an academic setting. I figured it would make more sense to learn by offering my services in a professional environment – to take the full immersion approach. But where should I start?

London’s law firms clearly needed to know I was in town! After all, I had grafted for a degree in law! But I quickly learned another lesson: London was not Liège. This was a city of 10 million people, not 300,000, and it had a lot of law firms. Not to be daunted, I decided to open the Yellow Pages at L and start calling law firms and asking for their addresses. This was tedious, but not half as tedious as handwriting my rather skeletal CV countless times. I felt like I was throwing darts at a dartboard with no idea of the rules of the game. But I was committed and determined. I was asking for an opportunity; I was confident I could take it from there.

I very soon caught a lucky break; even if it was ‘lucky’ in the Gary Player sense of the word. Remember the legendary South African golfer’s famous line? ‘It’s funny, but the harder I practise the luckier I seem to get’ – a quote that resonates with me to this day. He meant, of course, that if you put in the hard yards, you are more likely to get the results you want. In my painstaking quest for an interview, I really had put in the work – so I was in the right place to be able to make the most of the good fortune I received.

One of my CVs found its way to Nabarro Nathanson, at the time one of the most reputable law firms in the country. A hugely respected firm, it would grow to have more than 400 lawyers in six offices before it was absorbed in the largest ever merger in the UK legal sector. To put things in perspective, the biggest firm in my hometown had four partners at the time. Incredibly, the company offered me an interview.

You can imagine my trepidation and excitement. I was on my way to the first interview of my life, hardly able to speak English, but absolutely determined to make the most of this opportunity. I dressed as smartly as I could afford and borrowed a pair of glasses to give me a more serious and academic look. Filled with positivity, in the late evening of January 1985 I was welcomed by one of the senior partners. He didn’t waste time with small talk. He began by asking what I could do for them. I replied that I was keen to learn English, to understand common law and to have the opportunity to work in his environment. I told him I was so keen for a chance that I was offering my services for free. I would do any type of job from filing to delivering mail to being the tea boy. If I proved inefficient at any of these things, I said with a smile, I would even clean the office after hours.

I guess he liked my ballsy approach and sensed my determination to do whatever it took to get my foot in...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• About the author
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Where there’s a will, there’s a way: Taking to the stage
• 2 Who are you?
• 3 Think positive: Face boos or applause with a smile
• 4 Find your X-factor
• 5 Thinking with your heart
• 6 Networking without limits
• 7 The expert was once a beginner
• 8 The search for meaning
• 9 The business of love
• 10 Thin line between light and dark
• 11 No dress rehearsal