Today, we’d like to introduce you to Karen Lustgarten.
Hi Karen, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
You’ve heard the trendy advice about finding your life’s work, “Follow your bliss.” Or the commonsense career advice, “Do what you’re good at.”
Ideally, if the two match (not always), you will be traveling on a rewarding and successful career path. And to get there fast, “Find a mentor who can save you years of mistakes.” Great advice.
That’s not my story.
I followed my gut to meet my bliss minus the mentor. Gut led me down meandering, manifold paths to three universities and eight diverse careers in three states before becoming a video writer/producer/director with my own production company in South Florida.
Each career shared a common thread, media/communication: creative writing, interviewing, TV and cable, an entertaining teaching technique, moderating panels, PR, and telling someone’s story in reports, newsletters, newspapers, and video. It happened without degrees or previous experience, only a work ethic based on commitment, focus, and persistence.
I graduated from U.C. Berkeley with a B.A. in psychology (to be a child psychologist) that I never used. Got a Lifetime California Teaching Credential (Elementary) used for one semester as a fifth-grade public school teacher in L.A. At the end of the semester, I asked the students to list on a piece of paper without their names what they liked and disliked about my class. I saved the stack; to read it, you would think I was a role model and pro with a calling to teach.
My gut said nope, confined to a classroom is not your calling.
Since my original intent was working with children, I applied to be a Social Worker in the Aid to Families with Dependent Children unit in Hollywood (it’s not all glamour). Because I could speak decent high school Spanish, I was assigned one of the first Cuban refugee caseloads. The clients were mostly upper class, the first to flee Castro’s regime when their wealth was confiscated. Captivated by their stories, I’d weave the interviews into the obligatory reports to humanize each Cuban recipient. I felt their stories should be told.
On a whim, after a visit to San Francisco with my boyfriend, my gut said we should move there. We quit our jobs and relocated to what turned out to be a city with minimal housing and employment options. After a week of cold calling, I discovered an opening as a Spanish-speaking Adult Probation Officer in San Francisco in the criminal child support unit. I had no education or training in this field, but job openings were slim to none. A stranger gave me a tip: The department head was looking for someone who could speak Spanish, and social work was close enough experience.
It took a few days to realize that the essence of this new job was to listen non-judgmentally to both parents’ complaints before recommending in a written report to the judge if the father should be granted probation or go to jail for lack of child support.
Here, I appreciated the importance of accuracy in getting both sides of a story because the father’s life was hanging in the balance. I aimed for thorough interviews and clear written reports to the judge that would be unbiased and fair. It was a type of journalism only with recommendations that bore consequences.
After four years, the gut said enough of confined courtrooms and contentious parents.
Seeing firsthand the effect of antagonistic relationships on children, I applied and was accepted to UC Berkeley’s prestigious School of Public Health for an M.A. in Family Planning and Population Control. The challenge was finding a way to support myself through the Master’s program. I had a semester to figure it out before enrolling.
The gut sent a light bulb to the brain: teach dance and exercise to make ends meet.
Since childhood, I took dance classes after school –ballet, tap, jazz—which became a lifelong avocation that led to performing in L.A. on weekends with a dance troupe. I knew all the latest dances and the dance exercises that create a toned body. I just never taught them before.
This part-time side venture would involve developing a teaching technique and a curriculum based on dance warm-ups for beginners, intermediates, and advanced abilities. The core of the technique was to convey the joy of exercise and dance. To me, there was no drudgery in exercise; it was sexy and fun to perform to the right music.
But where would I find a rent-free space to teach? Voila! The unused cobwebbed basement in the S.F. apartment building where we lived could become a modest dance-exercise studio! The landlord gave permission for me to fix it up to improve his property.
My first students in the basement were colleagues from the probation department. I listed in local “free universities,” and word spread that classes were fun and exhilarating. Before long, the basement room was filled with students. They requested that I write down the sequence of exercises and dances so they could practice them at home (no Internet). I set out to write a pamphlet and a handout for them based on my teaching technique.
One student questioned why a pamphlet, just write a book of the exercises and dances you teach that we like. My brain said no way. It was too intimidating, and I’m not an author. To me, authors were revered writers, and manuscripts were automatically accepted by publishers.
A book would require a major commitment to writing and becoming an expert with something new to say about this field. My student insisted I had something different, and there was a good literary agent in the city who could at least look at the manuscript when it was completed. Too intimidating, I thought. The manuscript would have to be perfect to be accepted.
The gut said to start writing.
Mornings in S.F. are foggy and overcast, a cozy time to curl up with a cup of coffee and write until the sun breaks through. Then, I’d prepare the lessons for classes, do my own dance and exercise workout, audition music for each segment, and research and prepare lesson plans before teaching evening classes. It was a focused routine with the potential to grow. I was earning more from basement classes than expected.
The semester was about to start. Which path should I take?
The gut said to stay in the basement; there’s a future here.
I declined to enroll in Berkely and chose an entrepreneurial path not traveled instead. Within a year, I outgrew the basement and taught in larger venues. I wrote manuscripts for three books on dance and exercise that were published by Warner Books and Fawcett Books.
The first one, The Complete Guide to Disco Dancing, was noted as “a runaway best seller.” It landed on the NY Times Best Seller List and was translated into three languages. I had broken down the dances (and made up several) into bite-sized steps and moves for my students so they could learn the dances easily. Therefore, I codified disco as a legitimate dance form that could be taught rather than the “do your own thing” method, which no one could learn.
Two exercise books followed, and I was sent around the country on book tours, became a weekly exercise columnist syndicated in 15 cities, and was invited as a regular guest on morning TV shows.
A friend who worked at a local TV station in S.F. gave me a tip that a new TV magazine show was in the works, and the producer was looking for experts who could be regular “tipsters” on the show. He suggested I write a proposal to perform entertaining exercise tip segments.
Oh, sure. I had never written a proposal for anything before, nor had I had a TV audition. It was intimidating to think about it.
The gut said to write it, do it!
A year later, I was nominated for a Northern Calif. Emmy Award as an On-Air Talent/Co-Producer for the entertaining exercise tips I wrote and performed twice a week while still teaching. Becoming a local celebrity earning a living doing what I loved– gut and bliss had finally merged.
A couple decided that I should have my own disco-spa facility in S.F. with my namesake as a now-known personality. The facility was a new concept that could be syndicated. They became my backers, commissioned beautiful renderings of the concept by a prominent architect, secured a building in S.F., and raised the necessary funds to start construction. It came a hair’s breadth from reality, but alas, there was an unforeseen glitch, and it didn’t happen.
This career path culminated before the U.S. Postal Service decided to issue a disco stamp commemorating an icon of the 1970s. They contacted me to consult on the writing and image for the stamp. They wound up using the same photo of me on the disco book for the stamp’s image. I became the only living person on a U.S. postage stamp with a photo taken at the actual time in history that represented the era.
The gut said it was time for a change.
I moved back to Hollywood and began a new career path. After taking a course in broadcast journalism at UCLA Extension, I contacted a TV news producer to become an intern at a local station. My gut and bliss agreed that TV journalism would be an exciting path for me.
But after my turn in the big city, the news producer was obliged to rotate interns, “Come back for a job after you’re successful in smaller TV markets.”
The gut said there was no way of working for years in the boondocks.
The executive director of a nonprofit organization where I volunteered recommended me for the associate director job open at Women in Film in Hollywood, a professional nonprofit membership organization for women working in film and television. Among other titles and responsibilities, I was asked to create and write a newsletter interviewing interesting members for cover stories: women directors, producers, camera operators, talent agents, and actresses.
One day, I arrived home after work and was greeted by three stuntwomen waiting to tell their stories about the profession for an article. They provided a great behind-the-scenes glimpse of how to write a cover story. Cover profiles like this one have created a buzz in the industry. Along with other articles inside, the newsletter grew and became a popular industry-wide read.
Simultaneously, a friend gave me a tip that a local society tabloid was looking for a part-time columnist to cover major Hollywood events. I was hired to write a monthly round-up column mainly about film premieres and awards shows: the Oscars, Emmys, Directors, Producers, and Writers Guild Awards.
The gut said you’re on to something.
By day, I wore suits; by night, sequins. I interviewed celebrities and shy beginning screenwriters who never dreamed their first script could be a blockbuster movie (Grumpy Old Men, Thelma and Louise). Then, a video production company needing access to celebrities and awards events hired me to work the red carpet with a microphone. It felt like another calling.
What fun while it lasted, gut and bliss meeting again! But alas, within four years, the production company folded, the publication ceased, and the organization’s new board chair fired everyone.
The gut said it was time for a change.
A friend in Florida offered to fly me out for my birthday to consider a fresh start in a new state. I thought just for the summer and was hired at a PR agency, then hired away by a philanthropist, then hired as a PR consultant for several nonprofit organizations, and then hired by a niche publication as a lifestyle and special sections editor/writer. The summer trial became a permanent stay.
Coming out of Hollywood, the Palm Beach Film & Television Commission director referred me to a video production company seeking a good writer. I was hired as a video writer/field producer for clients all over the country and later around the world.
The gut said this is it.
There are few careers that meet my eclectic, adventurous, and storytelling touchstones. Interviewing to discover the essence of a story and the people involved comes naturally. Each unrelated video subject was and is interesting to me, whether about new trash compactors for landfills (the first video I produced) or road construction (currently). There is a story in everything; the challenge is to show and tell it well.
I remained at the production company long enough to write/produce videos on six of seven continents (missing Australia). I didn’t want these eclectic adventures to end. Again, gut met bliss and talent (doing what you are good at). A couple of productions won national video awards; I was in my element.
The company started a video series about humanitarian organizations working around the world. After producing a few of these videos, I proposed setting up a division for them devoted to this theme. I called it Cause Celebre Worldwide, inspired by Cause Celebre: the News of Capitol Causes, the publication I founded in Washington, D.C. The proposed series fulfilled my penchant to tell meaningful humanitarian stories in video.
The owners said to go for it and set me up with a desk, a phone, and a talking points sheet. Creative ideas flowed, but I was stumped by cold-call selling. A fundraising colleague in S.F. believed in the concept and identified some donors there. We set a start date for an event to announce the series. Alas, funds fell short, and the series didn’t happen.
The gut said to stick closer to home and open your own.
I incorporated Multi-Media Works (previously Lustgarten Communications) to solicit video work with the Federal government and from clients needing videos, PR, content writing, journalism, and social media. The business started from referrals and from networking at Chambers of Commerce. I built a small team by hiring with my gut—professionals who felt like a fit– no piles of resumes with endless interview call-backs. It’s a terrific team.
Running a business is a challenge for me because it detracts from the creative aspect of video production and working with clients to present their vision. Fortunately, we made it through Covid, won several local awards, and enjoyed great client relationships.
The gut said that’s not all folks.
Over the years, I wrote many essays documenting social changes as I experienced them in each city. The essays began as newsletters to communicate with friends around the country, typed and later online. A few are posted on the Website as Essays from the Epicenter.
There’s a body of work—personal essays– sitting in a file cabinet and in folders online, waiting in the wings to become a book, From the Epicenter. All that’s needed is the time to review and organize them, which is nonexistent currently. Maybe AI could do that?
The gut has no comment. Photo retrospective of career highlights.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.multi-mediaworks.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Multi-Media-Works-Inc-568232006625862/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/multi-media-works-inc./
- Youtube: www.youtube.com/klustgarten
