A sports manager and a UCLA marketing professor spoke to Business of Life classes and HW Venture during third and fourth periods Nov. 4 and during Activities Nov. 7 respectively.

Jason Glushon ’03 left a job at an already established sports management agency to open his own agency this past year. Glushon advised students to take initiative in pursuing a goal and explained coping with rejection is a means of growing.

“Nothing is ever really given to you,” Glushon said. “You need to go and ask, and a lot of times you’ll probably hear ‘no’ and rejection. That’s part of life, and you deal with it. A lot of times you’re going to be surprised at how many people’s reactions you’re getting ‘yes’ as an answer.”

Marketing professor Shi Zhang (Nick ’19) showed students data that contested the belief that social media dominates the advertisement industry.

“Now more than ever, the Internet, mobile devices and social media have opened up new frontiers for communication, and, hence, innovations in advertising and marketing,” Zhang said. “The surge of social network-oriented media and technologies gives rise to myths such as traditional advertising has migrated to digital platforms and that digital platforms are more effective than traditional advertising.”

Business of Life teacher and HW Venture advisor Rob Levin said that while Glushon and Zhang talked about different topics, he hopes both instilled a strong message in students.

“The goal was to get people to be more courageous and to, in the words of another one of our speakers, go first, take chances and realize there are some risks of action, but that ultimately the risk of inaction and missed opportunities are far higher,” Levin said.