Do the Hustle with Don Kurz

Your life can change in one play, one decision, or one diagnosis. When it does, the real question is whether you cling to the old story or build a better one with what’s left.

We sit down with Don Kurz, a former Johns Hopkins lacrosse champion turned Studio 54 hustle regular turned entrepreneur and creative agency leader, to unpack how reinvention actually works. Don shares what it feels like to lose an athletic future to a brutal knee injury, why the disco era became more than a party, and how dance helped him rebuild confidence and joy when he hit a low point. From there, we trace his path through a Columbia MBA, a decade in management consulting, and the leap into entrepreneurship that led to taking a company public on NASDAQ.

Along the way, we dig into practical leadership and healthy living lessons: how to develop focus when your attention is scattered, why team-based goals can be a powerful source of motivation, and how to stop wasting years chasing bitterness or “justice” that never restores what you lost. Don also explains why he wrote his book, Do the Hustle, as a lessons-driven story instead of a standard business memoir, and what he learned from an 18-month writing and editing grind.

If you’re searching for resilience, mindset coaching you can actually use, and a clear framework for navigating career pivots, setbacks, and personal change, this conversation delivers. Subscribe for more, share this with a friend who’s rebuilding, and leave a review with the toughest reality you’re ready to accept and embrace.

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Transcript

Welcome And Guest Backstory

SPEAKER_01 0:12

Well, hello, and welcome to the Healthy Living Podcast. I'm your host, Joe Grumbine, and today we've got a special guest. His name is Don Kurz. And Don's an entrepreneur, a former championship lacrosse player, a dance instructor who regularly danced the hustle at Studio 54. He's been a senior partner in a major international consulting firm and successfully taken a company public on NASDAQ, started a hedge fund, and currently is the executive board chair and principal shareholder of leading creative agency OMLET LLC. He's got a new book, Do the Hustle, Life Lessons from Studio 54, The Champion, La Crossfield, and the Boardroom. So it sounds like we've got a lot to talk about. Don, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

Thanks very much for having me, Joe.

Falling In Love With Lacrosse

SPEAKER_01 1:05

Well, it's my pleasure. You know, we have a wealth of variety of guests out here. And, you know, we we talk about healthy living, you know, mind, body, spirit. And, you know, a lot of times we get into things like, you know, people get stuck. They get into a bad space. They they can't make good decisions. They fail and they let it get them down. And for those of us, I'm an entrepreneur as well, not nearly as successful as you, but I love building things from scratch and and you know, failing is my graduate school, and it's okay. And why don't you tell us a little bit about your you know, your earlier days? You know, lacrosse is not a sport you hear a lot about, yet it's been around for since ancient times, and it's uh in its own circle, is is hugely popular. How did you end up to be a championship player?

SPEAKER_00 2:02

Well, I went to high school. I was born in Queens, New York, and then moved when I was five to a place called Elmont, which is the first town uh in Nassau County, Long Island. And I was always interested in sports. And as it happened, my football coach in junior high, and then through high school were both the multiple coaches, were all lacrosse players. And indirectly, they would basically say, You want to play on the football team or you want to start on the football team, you better get into this thing called lacrosse, which was very unusual. And and again, it wasn't quite a quid pro quo, but that was the implication. And I was I loved baseball like many of us growing up, playing in little league, and right to be a baseball player and and uh big Yankees and Mets fan. And it was you you play lacrosse in the spring, you don't play baseball. So lacrosse, as you I'm sure know, Joe, is is is kind of a mix of hockey, soccer, football, quite a bit of contact, a lot of speed in terms of just they call it the fastest game on two feet. Right. And so it's a nice blend of both running and and fluid movement, but also the ability to hit and hit pretty hard. So I took to it, I really enjoyed it. I'm not a very big guy, so I wasn't gonna be a Ohio State middle linebacker when I graduated high school. But lacrosse is a while the people are big, you don't have to be necessarily 6'2, 220 to play it because speed and agility and hand-eye coordination are essential.

SPEAKER_01 3:47

Yeah, I mean, uh hand-eye coordination to me seems like it would be a big part of this. You're trying to catch this real fast moving thing in a little net that's about as big as your hand, and you know, you got this pole you can throw it on, and it gets moving. Excuse me. And uh, you know, to me, I would think if you're really good at that, you you'd be like uh a Wayne Gretzky and just kind of slide around through everybody and zip that thing around.

SPEAKER_00 4:18

Yeah, man, many of the top college and pro players are were high school hockey stars, and they had to make a decision because many of them are Canadian. There's some of the best lacrosse players are Canadian. Of course, that's a hockey is so big up there. So you're exactly right. Same core skill.

SPEAKER_01 4:37

Yeah, absolutely. So what happened? How how did you go? You know, what what happened to your aspirations of, you know, staying with that?

Johns Hopkins And A Championship Run

SPEAKER_00 4:47

Well, I fortunately got recruited by a number of the top lacrosse schools, and I ended up choosing Johns Hopkins, which most people know as a great place for medicine and to become a doctor. Yeah. And that's its brand is most known for it. But also lacrosse. A fun fact, it has the most national championships of any college team in history. It has been playing for over 130 years and 44 national championships, including N, sorry, nine NCAA in the playoff NCAA year championships. So when they recruited me, it was like that is the dream. It's the equivalent of if you're a football player going to Notre Dame or Alabama. And so I was fortunate enough to to get recruited there and then become a regular player as a freshman, and I was part of the 1974 dating myself national championship team as a freshman. So it was quite a run, and I was just all in on lacrosse and aspiring to be an all-American, given my strong freshman and sophomore year. And then that dreaded thing called Astroturf, which came on the scene in the 70s.

SPEAKER_01 6:06

And I think red roadburn with that stuff.

SPEAKER_00 6:10

Oh, particularly the early iterations of it. Uh, it was it was brutal. And at the University of Pennsylvania Franklin Field, where the Philadelphia Eagles played at the time, I got a bad ACL and MCL knee tear. Oh no, the first scrimmage of the 1976 season, which was my junior year, which was my anticipated breakout year. And then I ended up trying to come back for the playoffs three months later, and I tore it again the first, the first practice back. So my lacrosse career, again, I'm not a big guy, so my entire ability to be faster and more agile than the others, you know, you start to lose a step with those knee injuries. So I had a pivot, and I went from the low point of my life, which was my world was destroyed because of my lacrosse career was over, to falling into this crazy thing called disco in the late 70s of New York. Yeah, which was just fortunate and lucky because who knew that that thing would emerge? And then this club called Studio 54, and then the movie Saturday Night Fever came out, and all this thing emerged. And I happened to meet a young lady who was a dance instructor at a place called New York Hustle. Can't make you can't make that up. And I got into it and and you know, became a regular at Studio 54 with some of the top celebs you'll ever imagine, from Mick Jagger to Truman Capote to Andy Warhol to Jackie Onassis, you know, just collection.

SPEAKER_01 7:52

Yeah, absolutely. And so, you know, from that experience, were you able to uh create any relationships or you know, take that and and and make anything from it?

SPEAKER_00 8:04

Well, I I wish I could say became friends with all those celebrities, but that's not the case. But I I was hanging out and dancing on the floor with them, and but what it did do was allow me to get this dance teacher career launched while I was going to graduate school at Columbia, and I became a dance instructor for the students and and their friends, and then I taught at Arthur Murray, which some of your listeners might know is a big ballroom dance. Oh, okay. National dance chain. And that just opened up tons of doors. I knew I wasn't going to be a dance teacher the rest of my life, but the people you meet, the experience, the kind of joy of of just dancing in the midst of whatever the problems are around you was a very special time.

SPEAKER_01 8:57

Nice. And and so what obviously you're not doing that anymore. What what what got you as the next move?

SPEAKER_00 9:08

Yeah, well at Columbia getting my MBA, I ended up spending my first semester at Studio 54 in teaching dancing and not much time in the classroom. And I was very close to flunking out. So I had a real defining moment of, hey, dude, you're not going to be teaching dancing. You shouldn't, you don't need degrees from Johns Hopkins in Columbia to be a dance instructor. You better get serious. So I took the energy that I had put into sports or then dancing and put it into schoolwork and turned myself around and became a more serious student. Not not quite as good as some of the people there, but became became competent and my grades improved, and I started off on a trajectory to have a career.

SPEAKER_01 10:47

So what I'm hearing is you you have a tremendous ability to focus yourself when you decide to.

SPEAKER_00 11:00

And it might be driven by a fear of failure or or whatever a psychologist might might say. But when I into something, I really am motivated to try to be the best I can be at it.

Injury Forces A Life Pivot

SPEAKER_01 11:14

It it just tells me that you have some integrity. That is a skill that is learned. And I don't know that people necessarily have a talent for it, like something like dance or athleticism. I think it's something you just get in and do. And if you got the wherewithal to do it, you do it. If you don't, you know, you don't. So I I it's very telling though. The people that are able to focus, it tells me a lot about them as well as you know, some of their other abilities, willpower and that sort of thing are you know paramount in accomplishing things, as you know. And so, so you you graduate with your degree, and what's your launch point from there?

SPEAKER_00 11:59

I I ended up getting into management consulting for what's now Price Waterhouse Cooper's one of the they merged with so many firms over the years, but what was then Cooper's and Librand, which was a combination management consulting and accounting firm. At that time it was the big eight, now it's the big four. Okay. And that really was a great pathway to a career because in management consulting, you're constantly dealing with new problems and challenges with new companies and different industries. So it was a real way to develop my analytical skills, and the competition within the firm was very high. So you had to really be at your peak, and you learn how to write, you learn how to present, and then you learn how to defend your ideas. And that I did for 10 years. I ended up leaving with my boss to go to a competitor firm, but I was in uh management consulting for 10 years, and that's when I decided I don't want to do this for the rest of my life, and I want to be an entrepreneur.

SPEAKER_01 13:08

Nice. Well, being an entrepreneur, as you know, is all about problem solving anyway. So it sounds like you got your chops in the in the corporate world, and then you decided to go take out and do something with it.

SPEAKER_00 13:20

That's exactly right. Exactly right. Because the problem solving and analytical skills and consulting were exactly what you need as a foundation for being an entrepreneur.

SPEAKER_01 13:31

Oh, absolutely. I mean, you know, you're going at creating something from nothing. So generally, there's not a handbook of how to do that. And so you just get in there and you start pioneering your way through whatever it is you're trying to trying to do. I've I've started a dozen different businesses that are so varied, you know, that have anything to do with each other. I didn't have any previous skill at any of them, and you know, figured it out. And you know, this is something that I think it's the skill that maybe is one of the most valuable to anybody is how to build something, how to solve it, how to how to create.

Studio 54 And Teaching Dance

SPEAKER_00 14:11

Absolutely. And you know, as a fellow entrepreneur, you know you can't anticipate all the problems. You get in, your business is doing great, and then all of a sudden two clients don't pay you on time, and you're cash squeezed, or a key employee leaves, or there's an economic downturn, and you you're just it's like whack-a-mole. You you solve one problem and then another one pops up.

SPEAKER_01 14:37

I'm in the middle of or in the beginning of rebuilding after COVID wrecked one of my or business, and then I got cancer and had to just dedicate all my energy at solving both of those, and now I've solved them and looking at it going, okay, how are we going to solve this? And here we are back again.

SPEAKER_00 14:56

Well, you look you look great, and you know, it's it's really true in terms of you only really know what you're made of during times of adversity, and it's such a cliche, but it really is true. Anyone can be your best friend, and anyone could could be a great boss when things are going great, right? You know, it's just there's no skill in that. How do you handle tough situations?

SPEAKER_01 15:22

Exactly. Yeah, that's where the truth comes out, and I'd rather live in a world of truth. So, what was your you know, tell me about your first business that you that you started?

SPEAKER_00 15:33

Well, I joined a very small promotional marketing firm in the early 90s in New York City that a friend of mine had started, and it was doing reasonably well, but he was a creative person, didn't have a lot of business skills, and all of a sudden he had both multiple employees, and he was like, Hey man, I I'm not sure what to do with this thing. I made a bunch of money. Would you be interested in joining? And if you like it and things work out, maybe you can buy me out at you know, after a year or two. And I was like, okay, what the hell? You know, I'm single, so I don't have a family. I could all I figured I could always go back and be a consultant from the risk standpoint. So I took a, I don't know, 50, 60% pay cut and joined this little company called Equity Marketing. Okay. And, you know, it was not certainly a straight line, but myself and and my then emerging business partner bought out the principal owner of that company. And, you know, we became 50-50 partners in in equity marketing and proceeded to build it and took it public on NASDAQ in 1994. Wow. Moved the company from New York to LA because it was in the business of promotional marketing with Hollywood intellectual property. And we had a great ride for 15 years. And yeah, so it was just one of these things. I didn't have any idea if I this was the right business for me, but it was just an opportunity to break out of the corporate world and try to be an entrepreneur. And yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:18

So I always try to get a read on, you know, what's what's driving somebody, you know, what's the why? I have, you know, reasons why I I've started certain businesses and I have a a kind of a mission in in my life. And sometimes I make money out of it, sometimes I don't. But I love what I do, whether I'm making money or not. What what is it that's driving you through all of this that says, you know, you wake up in the morning, you can't wait to get to work, you go to bed, you're thinking about what's next, and and all of those things. What is it that that's underneath it all that that makes you tick?

Columbia MBA And Getting Serious

SPEAKER_00 17:55

I I I I talk a lot about this in my book. I love team-based stuff. So anything, even if you're an entrepreneur with one partner or one employee, or or you have a whole bunch of people, whether it's a team sport or or a company, I love the process of working through with teams to try to hit a goal and be successful. And that energy, including all the body blows you get while you try it, is is is energizing for you. I'm less concerned what the nature of the business is. So it's not like I only want to be in a creative business or a manufacturing business or a tech business. It's less important to me that it's the shared purpose and the shared goal of, and then I love to win like everybody does. So those highs to celebrate when you've landed a new client or you took the company successfully public or whatever milestone. I I love that feeling. So it's the thrill of the process and the journey to hit a goal along with other people. That to me is is why I do it.

SPEAKER_01 19:06

So you sound like you've got the coach mentality, you know, you you you like to lead a team or or at least in be a part of the leadership side of things and and and watch that happen. I love that. So how did you decide to write a book? I mean, you you're obviously doing all these different things, you know. We've all well, those of us that live our lives generally have a book or two in us, but few of us ever, you know, write it down and decide to publish it. I'm I got a dozen books I could write, but I don't know if I'm ever gonna write any of them. That's why I do this podcast. I kind of tell my story that way, and at least it's a good thing.

Consulting Skills That Build Entrepreneurs

SPEAKER_00 19:43

Yeah, and I I think we all have different paths. I I can't say like you, I always said to myself, oh, there's a book in here, and you know, my wife, you know, says you know, you should write a book and you have some good stories and whatever. And I was like, Yeah, you know, but it's overwhelming to to think of writing, particularly a good book or a competent book. And and then I I was called by a big business publisher who I guess trolls LinkedIn profiles and looks for people who might be a good fit for their for their label and can use their publishing platform. And they said, We and we like your background. Would you be interested in writing a book under our label? And I said, Oh, that's cool. I I'm I'm interested in exploring it. So he did what's called a book plan, which is a fairly detailed document, about 30 pages, which has what's the book about, who is it targeting, table of contents. Okay, these are gonna be the chapters, a draft chapter. So, you know, fairly rigorous exercise. And at the end of it, you know, you write it kind of jointly with one of their writers, and it was like, this is this is good, but it didn't, you know, I I I wrote an essay about this. It didn't have any soul. It was, you know, other people could say the same thing. And I don't think I'm that unique of a business person that I have just a pure business story to tell. So I was like, thank you. I'm I'm not gonna pursue this because it's a big commitment, and until I figure out if I have something really unique to say. And so I then started taking notes anytime something came in my mind about my anything from my childhood to sports to business to the dance world, I would just take notes on it without trying to vet it, without trying to see if it ties into the anything else. And all of a sudden I had, I don't know, 10, 11 pages of detailed notes. And I looked through that and I saw a theme, this kind of intersection of sports and dancing and business that I don't think many people have. Of course, each of them individually, lots of people have. And the way those things intersected and fed off one another, I thought was, hey, this is pretty fun and unique. So engaged an editor up front to just help me think through how to structure something like this, and that was helpful because I've never written a book. A fairly good writer, and I've written plenty of articles, but a book, you know, yeah, it's a whole different animal.

SPEAKER_01 22:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:26

And I was very clear I don't want this to be a memoir, I want it to be a lessons book told through elements of my life story. Uh-huh. So it was an 18-month process. So it's not not write this book and publish it next week.

SPEAKER_01 22:42

Right.

SPEAKER_00 22:44

That has lots of ups and downs, as you can imagine. Sometimes it's energizing, sometimes it's oh sh can I curse on this?

SPEAKER_01 22:52

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. We're we're mostly a family show, but yeah, I don't know. Well, oh, oh damn.

SPEAKER_00 22:57

I I uh I, you know. That chapter kind of contradicts chapter three. Right. You know, and I don't have the energy to rewrite it or rewrite chapter three, or you know, maybe no one will notice. And then you drop your pencil, you know, figuratively for a week or two because you don't want to deal with it. And you go through all these machinations, and finally you get a book out, and then it's a very scary process to go through editing, to read the whole things and say, boy, that's good. That's that's a little weak here, that's a little dry here. And then you start getting editors to come in and and kind of really challenge you, tear it apart. So it was quite a journey. And again, for me, it was 18 months. I for others, it could be quicker, it could be longer, you know, because I I was still, you know, working full-time and I had fairly extensive spine surgery during the middle of it.

SPEAKER_01 23:57

And so but you don't want to take any easy road now, do you?

SPEAKER_00 24:02

Well, that wasn't part of the plan. It was those things happen to you, particularly when you're in playing football in lacrosse and getting hammered for you know the better part of a decade. It it's there's no free lunch with that. So that's that's kind of how it happened, very not with a burning desire to, but a you know, a call that led me to thinking and then pursuing a route of of what do I think I have unique to say. And if I do, then I'm gonna write a book.

SPEAKER_01 24:33

Excellent. So I'm I I have a copy of your book. I've skimmed it briefly. I just got dealing with a bunch of health stuff. Sure. I haven't been able to focus on that, and this came out quicker than I thought. But based on what I'm hearing, I'm gonna go back and read the book. I'm looking forward to it. I'm I'm getting from the title and from the the bits that I have, you know, it's it's it's it's a book that shows people a way to success using the lessons you've learned in life. And it's like you said, there's a memoir element to it, but it's more pulling the lessons out of your experience. Yeah. And handing them as a lesson.

First Business And NASDAQ Journey

SPEAKER_00 25:15

Exactly. My my filter was if I'm not, you know, doggedly going through every element of my life. It's like if there's nothing unique about what comes out of it, I don't tell, I don't tell a story. But I I do find people or people are telling me that they're getting a lot of benefit and it's selling well. And I think it's it's a worthwhile book, and I'm not shy about sharing some poor decisions and painful lessons because honestly, that's that's that's how you learn, unfortunately, sometimes the hard way.

SPEAKER_01 25:51

I couldn't agree more. You know, I deal with a lot of different guests, and different people have sort of a similar experience and outcome in the sense of they had a full life, they learned a lot of things, they wrote a book about the things they learned, but none of the books are the same by any stretch. And some of the lessons go along parallel lines, or or you know, there's only so many key points to success that you know you find a way to assure a unique approach to. But what do you think makes your book special in the sense of you know, there's so many self-help books out there, there's so many, you know, failing forward and really good stuff. I mean, you know, I constantly reading and listening, that kind of stuff, because you're always, I want to grow, I want to learn, you know. And what do you what do you think a couple of tidbits out of your experience that set you apart here?

SPEAKER_00 26:49

I I think it's a great question. And as you say, there are a lot of good books out there, which is why I wanted to only write one if I felt there was something unique and to add. I I think my stories are fairly unique, and I'm very transparent about my mistakes and the reflections and what I learned and what I went through. And and I don't think most books are that most books in the self-help category, and I'm not sure exactly how to best categorize my book, but that would certainly be one way. Are are more this is what you do, this is the lessons learned. And yeah, there's always some personal anecdotes that I go much deeper into some of the choices, the amount of money I lost from making bad decisions, from you know, my first marriage that ended up in divorce, to some really difficult business problems. We talked about earlier in my career the devastating knee injuries and how I went from my lowest point in my life to this kind of joy of this crazy disco era and the lessons of how to make that pivot and that transformation. And, you know, and you you you implied this from your own experience in life, having fought some health issues and the like. Only when you truly accept what your situation is and your reality is and not fight it, can you really be ready to move on versus bitterness versus being a victim, all of which might be totally justified. But it doesn't do anything. It won't help you. And like me, you can waste years trying to get justice and right wrongs. And there are times you have to do that, but if you spend your life doing that, you can piss your whole life away just chasing chasing that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01 28:47

Well, Don, I it this is a fascinating conversation. I I feel like we're barely touching the the tip of the iceberg here. I'd maybe after a while and your book's got some traction, maybe I'd like to have you back and get deeper into it after I've read the book as well and go into it. I think we have a lot more to talk about, but we don't have a lot more time. You you're good at quantifying things and articulating a point. What do you think would be your thought to leave our listeners with if you were able to distill down to one thought today?

Writing A Lessons Book With Soul

SPEAKER_00 29:26

Yeah, I think as we were just reflecting on I I I use the term and it's not unique to me, accept and embrace. So accept the brutal reality of whatever the situation is. You know, your biggest client just left you, your wife is this, your best employee is that, your knee is now irreparably damaged, where you're never going to come back to where you were. Whatever it is, doesn't mean you're happy about it, doesn't mean it's unfair, it doesn't mean all the things that damn, I shouldn't have done that, I shouldn't have, whatever. You have to accept that reality and then embrace the path forward with joy and with no looking back. So you can't just accept reality and be bitter and and be negative going forward because it it won't do any any good. If you accept the lessons and accept your situation and say, wow, I have a whole new path. I'm gonna start a new company, I'm gonna find a new partner to spend my life with. I'm going to find a way to use my athletic career to pivot into something else. Won't this be great? I'm excited about it. I have a great foundation. And so it's that acceptance of reality and then embracing the path forward with as much joy and enthusiasm as possible. That is what I found, unfortunately, much later in life. But that is the formula for any.

SPEAKER_01 30:59

Some people go their whole life and never do find it.

SPEAKER_00 31:01

Yeah, and I wanted to share that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:03

Yeah. No, I think that's a powerful bit of wisdom. And I couldn't agree with you more. We've gone down some parallel roads. Indeed. Nothing to do with each other, but at the core, there's, you know, a lot of overlap. And, you know, it's what you do with the situation that that that it's all about. Well, obviously, our listeners are gonna want to know how the heck do you find this book? And is there any other way to get a hold of you, or do you do other consulting, you know, personal stuff, or or you just stay with your business right now?

SPEAKER_00 31:38

Um, well, thank you very much. I really enjoyed this and welcome the opportunity to come back whenever the right time is. I have a website, don Kerrzauthor.com, D-O-N-K-U-R-Z author.com. On LinkedIn, I'm not very big on other social media, but I'm on LinkedIn at Don Kerr's, and I am the executive board chair of a company called Omelett O M E L E T. And omelett.com tells you all about our creative agency. And I welcome interfacing with people. That's my joy in life, and if to the extent I can be helpful. So I do speaking engagements, I do book clubs, I I mentor people. It's it's it's what I want to be doing. So I welcome many of your listeners connecting.

SPEAKER_01 32:26

I love it. It sounds like you're living your dream. And how does how how do we find your book?

Accept Reality Then Move Forward

SPEAKER_00 32:30

It's on Amazon, it's on Barnes and Noble, it's it's becoming available in in bookstores. It might be in a bunch of bookstores now. I I don't know, but it and the audio book I'm in the middle of recording now, so that'll be available. So it's on audio. Awesome. I am and so it's right now, it's on Kindle hardcover uh paperback, and it will be audio probably in a month or so.

SPEAKER_01 32:53

Fantastic. Well, Don, this has been a great conversation. I think you you found your dream and you're living it. I I'm always inspired by that. I try to do the same myself and appreciate you being here today.

SPEAKER_00 33:07

Thank you so much for having me, Joe. I I really enjoyed our dialogue, and hopefully we can do it again.

SPEAKER_01 33:13

I'm looking forward to it. Well, this has been another episode of the Healthy Living Podcast. I'm your host, Joe Grumbine. I want to thank all of our listeners for making this show possible, and we will see you next time.