Intuition and Authenticity: An Interview with “FBI: International” Co-Producer, Hussain Pirani

A lot can change in a simple choice. A whole life, in fact.

A decision:

Do I move to L.A. and pursue my dream? Or do I stay where I am?

Some people listen to their intuition to help them shut out the noise. And Hussain Pirani did just that, finding his way to L.A., into the “FBI: International” writers’ room, and continuing to tell stories with characters we can’t wait to spend time with.

Hussain shares his experience breaking into the industry, the value of competitions, creating short films, the importance of trusting your intuition ... and so much more valuable advice from the ground floor of Hollywood.

*Note: interview has been edited for length and clarity.

“The Writers on the Verge program, now NBCU Launch, I think that was my break in the industry. I grew up in Austin primarily, and I had a writing partner there. Writing everything with a partner was great for so many reasons. We met in film school, but we didn’t start writing together until after we graduated. I’m a big believer in collaboration, as was he. And I think that our tastes and our sensibilities aligned enough to where we were willing to give it a shot for a feature film that we decided to write together.

"Since then, we wrote a multitude of projects. It was a really fruitful relationship and friendship, and I adore him to this day. He stayed in Austin; he's currently focused on writing his first novel. But I had a big calling to Los Angeles, just on intuition, basically.”

Pirani shrugs, his calm sensibility almost at odds with what some out there in the non-Hollywood sphere might view as a crazy idea: up and moving on intuition? To be part of—let’s be real—one of the most difficult industries to crack?!

“I was a 2016 Script Pipeline finalist. It was with my writing partner, Sam, we wrote a pilot about the oil industry in the 1960s called 'Wildcat.' We both came out to L.A. and met a whole bunch of other writers that were also finalists. [Pipeline’s] always been good about fostering relationships with emerging writers, so yes—no surprise they threw a killer party for the finalists that year—but what's cool is it wasn't over after that contest cycle ended. They were ready and willing to read new work whenever we had it and keep that connection active.

"But the overwhelming advice from other writers while we were in L.A., just scoping it out, was that you really have to be in L.A. It really put a bug in my ear; again, that was 2016, and it took another two years before I bit the bullet. It's funny to think about my dad's intuition about Austin, and then me being like, I have intuition about L.A., and it’s just crazy.

"Something about this city was pulling me to it, and long story short, [my writing partner] was unable to come with me. So I came here alone and quickly realized that I needed [my own] material. It was very hard to market myself with a co-writer who wasn't present, and I was looking for reps, obviously.

Beyond making a fresh start without his writing partner, 2018 presented a host of obstacles: the WGA-ATA battle was happening, for starters.

“The writers basically had fired their agents, if you recall, because the conflict of interest that was happening and it was really hard to get a rep. I was told that managers were basically doing a lot of the legwork at this point because there were no agents in the picture. Nobody was signing new clients.

"Instead, I went to a lot of mixers, and one of my goals was just to make friends in the industry. So that's what I did in 2018 and 2019, and also, because I didn't have solo written material, I enlisted in the UCLA professional program for TV writing. That allowed me to formulate a community in Los Angeles, to really dig in when I was so new and didn’t have contacts. It allowed me to meet people in an academic environment and connect in terms of material. You're giving notes and all this stuff.

"The course was structured so that it had a lecture component, where you would go with the group of 150 students total, or whatever, and do the larger lecture. [It might be] a panel, a Q&A, they might screen a movie. But then there was a second portion, which was predominantly the writing-focusd portion, and you're doing all the writing at home. That's where you give feedback in a group setting of probably eight people. It was a writers’ room mentality. We had our instructor for that course who was different than our main lecture instructor, so in a way, they’re your showrunner.

"Then there were eight of us that were all pitching ideas for how to make somebody's work better. Everybody was working on their own piece of material, [but the structure] really did allow us to learn how to give the note and learn how to take the note. I think it was really helpful—a good initial foray into [how it works].

"I cranked out three pieces of new material for TV in nine months, and suddenly I had all of that work that was unique to me and my voice, then, you know, COVID happened. Los Angeles definitely changed at that time. And around that same time, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer—she’s in remission now, everything is good. [But back to then] she's in Austin—this was right around March, by the way, before the lockdowns happened—getting diagnosed, the biopsies and stuff, and she was going to start chemo and had to do surgery. So I came to Texas to take care of her for an indefinite amount of time and got locked down in Austin.”

And what’s a screenwriter in lockdown, going through a difficult personal time, to do?

Keep persevering, if you’re Pirani. And trust your intuition when it comes to making decisions.

“I had these pilots I had written in the UCLA program, and on a whim, started submitting to the fellowships again. I did Viacom, I did Disney, I did NBC. Just to mix it up, I scrambled them; I put different ones in different programs. That was around June, July, I think, and then, you know, a lot of waiting. And then in around, I think, August or September, CBS wrote me back and said, 'we'd love to do an interview with you.' Then a few weeks after that, NBC wrote me back. And then a few weeks after that, Disney wrote me back. So it was sort of this crazy triple crown happening that fall after I was really starting to doubt my decision, you know, and all the stuff with my mom was happening. It was crazy.”

So he made the Triple Crown of opportunities happen. Now what?

“I went through the interview process for CBS, and then I did the one for NBC very soon after that, and then Disney was a little way out still. [Meantime,] NBC said yes, and I did a lot of thinking, and I basically bowed out of Disney and never interviewed. I met the DEI execs that were there at the time, and that was really the first big … you could feel the momentum, you know? You could feel like something you did was right in this industry. It was a very good feeling in a very propulsive sort of step for me. That program changed my life.”

Back to that concept of L.A.’s landscape changing in 2020. Irrevocably, in Pirani’s opinion?

“You know, I'm not sure about that one. I feel like, obviously, one of the things that came out of it was a virtual landscape for this industry, including writers’ rooms. Our fellowship in particular was entirely virtual. They have since come back in person for it, but we had to make it a point to meet with our cohort, the other members of the fellowship. We had a WhatsApp group that is still going strong, by the way—we text, I want to say, almost every day still. We made it a point to form those connections,” Pirani emphasizes. "And in Hollywood, who you know, those authentic kinds of relationships, are gold.

“In terms of the class and the course and the structure of the fellowship, it was entirely over Zoom, which was good, actually, because it allowed a lot of people with busy schedules to be able to just pop in and offer guidance. We were meeting with all kinds of amazing showrunners and executives and creatives in the industry. They were available and offering their time because it was just so easy and relatively convenient, as opposed driving to the lot.

"So we got a really good roster of voices to come and speak about the industry. I know that they're now in person for the fellowship, so it didn't change forever in that regard. But I think that there's some cool proof of concept that came out of the virtual world.”

But before Pirani followed his path to L.A., he first fell in love with writing thousands of miles from California.

“My love for storytelling started when I was a kid, growing up in Karachi. I grew up in Pakistan. I lived there for about 10 years, and before I could write, I was drawing. As I was able to develop those skills, I found myself really drawn to comics, and in particular, loved three panel comics.

"As you can imagine, it's such a good device for storytelling—it's so concise and so economic. The three-act structure is built right in—you have a beginning, middle, and end in three panels that you can tell visually or with words. I really fell in love with that aspect of it. It taught me so much about structure. It taught me so much about sticking the landing on an ending. Eventually, I moved to Austin, Texas, and got more into filmmaking at that point.”

That move is where Pirani’s love of story evolved into its next iteration—and where his belief in the power of trusting one’s intuition clicks into place.

“Moving is a really interesting thing to look back on, because we had no real ties to Austin. We didn't have family here. We didn't have friends here. I think my dad had had a business trip in Texas at one point, he might have done a day trip to Austin, but it was such a random choice at the time. My dad basically made an executive decision, and then he and my mom talked about it, and then they told my younger brother and myself. He just picked Austin.”

Pirani all but shrugs.

“[My dad said,] I think that this place is going to be something special. It was operating purely from his own intuitive place. And literally six months or a year after that, we uprooted and moved to Austin.

"I really loved movies. I thought I wanted to be a director. It wasn't until college—I went to film school, and I did psychology at the University of Texas as well— and took a TV writing class and an introduction to screenwriting class. That’s when I really fell in love with the process and the craft of that, and I fell in love with dialogue. It's all coming back,” Pirani chuckles as he reminisces about his early introduction to what would ultimately be his direction in life.

“After college, I started shooting weddings. And that was sort of my phase two. I did the post side, too, editing all the stuff that we shot. And we did a lot of cool destination weddings at the time—[you realize] every wedding is essentially the same. It all starts the same way, and it ends the same way. And I figured out in post that, like, it's all going to get really repetitive for me, so how do I keep it fresh as an editor?

"Doing this sort of thing day in and day out, the way that I kept weddings exciting and engaging to me, was that it came down to the characters. I realized the power that good characters can have in a story. Where even if you know the formula, it can start to feel and breathe differently. That was the wedding side of it, but then I was writing with my writing partner. I did a little bit of writing alone, but I really started focusing on dialogue as a way to bring forward characters and to bring forward character motivations.

"The other way I got my inspiration was traveling. I was doing these destination weddings, I eventually shot commercials, but it was a great way to see the world while doing my job. And not only that, but I was paid to go to beautiful and unique places to capture B roll. I would immerse myself in that, and I would people watch, and that was just another way that I kind of fell in love with society and the human condition—watching people interact, what they’d say and what they didn’t say—and all of that fed into my writing.

"That's what I really love about it: characters expressing themselves, doing it visually or with words. And that's what I like to explore in my work. I’m an immigrant as well, so I do a lot with identity, and family politics is really interesting to me,” he smiles widely—because don’t we all feel that?

“But really,” he explains more seriously, “it's the things people say and the things they don't say. Film and TV is such an interesting medium for that exploration, and so that's why I write. I like expressing these things about people and society and the environment and the world that we live in—through character.”

Instead of settling into the routine of Day Job responsibilities, Pirani still had his eye on more fictional filmmaking.

“I worked in commercials and worked in post, and I think being an editor was probably the most useful thing, because it let me communicate with the director—I could speak the same language. We were both thinking of the same cut, at the end of the day. Voicing ideas in that framework was useful for me. So, yeah, I think it does help if you have some production experience, you can find your way around a film set. But you can also learn that on the job. I don't think it's a requirement.

"For me, I’ve just always had the need to create stuff, and there was a big period where short films were the way I would do it. It was a little bit like an extension of film school in a way—you would find ways to create things with people you cared about. You’d help friends with their projects, and they would help you. A lot of my short projects tend to be genre, because again, that is me at my core,” Pirani smiles in admittance.

"I did one during Covid when the world was in lockdown and my mom was sick. I was back in Austin, and a long-time collaborator wanted to shoot something. He put him and his wife in it. The streets were completely empty in Austin at this time of year so it was so eerie, and surreal, and he bought a hazmat suit on Amazon and was like, 'I'm gonna put this on and walk around the streets as if something’s happened in this city, can you write something for it?' I wrote a short, three-minute tone poem, almost. We shot it in Austin, one guy in a hazmat suit, and we crafted a whole story around it. It’s called The Volunteer.”

Pirani’s advice to other screenwriters considering the short film route?

"I think this need to create—your energy has to go somewhere. Either that’s in a finished product or a finished screenplay, some people are just built that way. Don’t lock that part of yourself up, if that’s you. If you feel a strong enough pull to do it, you’ll find a way to do it. If you’re not, you haven’t reached that level yet. You haven’t rounded the curve if that’s in your fate, destiny, future … but it’s quite possible you have something that you are really good at. That’s the thing you want to sharpen. That’s the thing you want to own.

"There are plenty of writers who have no interest in directing, and I know showrunners in that regard, too. Same deal. Plenty do end up directing, I think, too. But I've also met several that would rather just write and do the story aspect and can do it really well, but leave the directing to people who are passionate about it. It is their calling.

"I think you just have to assess it for yourself. Just because you feel that way now doesn’t mean you’ll feel that way a year from now. I think being open, being fluid, but remaining true to yourself.”

It's these multitude of experiences—dedication to self-exploration and exploration of the world, hands-on filmmaking, and facing those moments that make you question what’s most important to you that have honed Pirani’s strength of spirit—evident through his quiet intensity he carries in his career approach and shows on-screen in his screenwriting through his voice. That all-important selling-factor a screenwriter in Hollywood today must have, but also, quite simply, the key to good story.

Much like how Pirani differentiated those wedding videos back in the day, putting it on the page comes down to feeling. That intuition, again.

“I think my voice shines when I’m having a really good time on the page. I think that’s the best way I can put it. When I’m grooving and really enjoying the stuff I’m spewing out, essentially, I feel like that’s indicative of voice. There are ways that I think you can get back in touch with it. For me, travel is a big one. I think being outside of the industry for even a short spell is important, for me, personally. I really think it's that in combination with doing the work regularly that lets you distill down all things make you you,” he says animatedly. "And I think allowing yourself to put it on that page and enjoy it. I'll give you an example ..."

“Before COVID, in December 2019, I went back to Karachi for the first time since I moved here. So we're talking over two decades. I went there and immersed myself in my old life. A life that I sort of remembered, but not really. My parents have divorced since then, and these fractured two sides of the family are still in Karachi, and I was experiencing a little bit of what that dynamic was. These are relatives that I hadn't seen, some of them, in 20 years. All of that was seeping in subconsciously. Also, just being home in a place that I somewhat recognized but didn't, reconnecting with old friends … I did that trip, I came back to L.A., and this pilot came to me, and it came pouring out of me. And I think I wrote this draft in probably two-and-a-half weeks—and I had the best time doing it, because it came so fluidly, and it came authentically.

"I had never planned to write anything based on that experience, anything like that. But that's the one that got me rep. That's the one that felt so true to my voice, so in tune and so specific, and there was no agenda when I wrote it. That's just how it worked out. And there’s something that I think becomes tangible, that becomes very noticeable when you're reading that work. I think it comes down to passion and how much joy I had in the process of writing it.”

And that passion on the page is what put him directly on a collision course with NBC, getting repped by the two managers Pirani still has to this day, along with the lawyer they secured him, then signing with Paradigm.

“This pilot was done in early 2020. I didn't get repped until the fall. It was the one sample I sent, and I was expecting them to want a second one. But it never happened. They signed me off the one. But it happened around the time Writers on the Verge was snowballing. I was starting to get all the interviews at that time, and I think I chose that moment to capitalize on the momentum.”

While that momentum may have faltered once or twice, it never deterred him.

"I think that coming here and realizing how hard it was to actually find a rep and get a rep ... everything just takes so much longer. So it was that, coupled with the ATA battle, coupled with COVID, and then I think the cherry on top was my mom's diagnoses, and it just started to feel like I had miscalculated.

"I never wanted to give up. That’s not really the case. But it did feel like I needed to reassess some things. And, you know, going home to Austin to help mom with her procedures and all that was a way for me to step away from Los Angeles and really look inward. COVID was happening, so nothing was really going on, and I was like, well, if the industry is going to change, then where do I fit in? So all of that felt bleak and put so much in perspective.

"When you're dealing with something like an illness in the family, it really does start to feel like, well, everything else can wait. You just sort of prioritize the things that are important to you. And it turns out writing was still important to me. I kept at it and that was the year I did three fellowship entries and got three interviews.

"I also think about Shane Black's anecdote, where he's talking about being on a boat in the middle of the ocean, and you're rowing out in the middle of this sea where you can't see the horizon and you can’t see land, and you're just doing it day in and day out, to the point where by the end of it, you're sort of just looking down at the boat, and you have no idea that you're at the shore, and,” he smiles, “... it’s just that unexpected, I think.

"I didn’t know how long it was going to take. I knew that I had to try. I knew that I had to keep trying and giving up had not really entered the conversation at this point, but I was certainly tested.”

Which is when Pirani went from not seeing the shore, to finding his Hollywood family.

“I love my [WoTV] cohort. We really relied on one another to advocate for each other's work.  We knew each other’s strong suits. We formed this really tight pack during a time of uncertainty like COVID, despite the fact that we were completely virtual. We made it a point to start this What’sApp group on day one of the fellowship, and the chatter was constant. We grew so much together. It was really special and irreplaceable. I could never duplicate that environment, that sort of culture. I encourage every new cohort to do the same, you know, and I think it's become easier because they're meeting in person again.

"We also had a really interesting year: we basically lost the first wave of DEI people that workshopped our cohort. We were left with one, he was amazing, did the work and such a champion, and we had Jen [Grisanti], who’s such an angel. But six months in, we had a new team coming in. To their credit, they were like, we know everyone’s anxious, give us a beat, and we’ll come back with a plan.

"Our group chat was going insane. Then NBC comes back with their executive team and a plan—and everyone got staffed coming out of that year. There were eight of us. It was such a good feeling, such a nice family that we created for ourselves. It’s amazing all of us found a job. That we successfully made that leap out of the fellowship.”

It's not hard to understand how that leap carried Pirani right into the room of “FBI: International” when you listen to him talk. Kind, sharp, and focused—usually on the details and finding just the right phrase.  

“'FBI' came about through a meeting with two executives at NBC. So the fellowship organizes for you to meet with showrunners, executives, other writers at all kinds of levels, past alumni, and also people within the universal corporate world. That includes covering executives, development executives. And I met with two covering executives, they were working on a show called 'Chicago Fire,' and I had initially met with them as a general meeting to talk about potentially staffing on that show.

"In talking with them, and learning about my upbringing and immigrant status, and love for travel, they were like, you’d be really good for Derek's new show. It's called 'FBI: International,' and I had heard rumblings about that already being staffed, but they informed me it was a mini room, and they planned to expand the seats in it for the full schedule—for the full season order. And 30 minutes—I kid you not—30 minutes after that interview with the executives ended, I got a staffing interview with Derek [Haas] and Matt Olmstead, and met with them, and I think started work six days later. It was so fast.

"The waiting was agony, though. Waiting for a yes or a no is one of the hardest things I think, for any writer, right? It's just that not-knowing gray area.

"I don’t know when they’d made their decision, but a lot of people through the NBC program—they pair you with a mentor—[the execs] were all talking to each other [internally], but nobody was talking to me, and I don't think anybody was talking to my reps until the last minute.

"You sort of go through different cycles where you tell yourself it doesn't matter, or you tell yourself whatever happens, I’ll figure it out. It was also the first staffing meeting for me in my entire life, and I think I was first in my cohort as well to land a staffing meeting. It was all new territory, and I thought I'm going to go crazy if I don't settle down.

"So I started acting like it’s not going to happen. I was still thinking about it, but I just had to sweep it away. And then I got a call from my manager; I could hear it in his voice. You can just tell when somebody's smiling when they're talking to you,” he says with a giant grin reminiscent of the joy a first-time screenwriter has on his first big gig.

"He’s like hold on, let me put Jeff on. I knew at that point, if both were coming on, that it was good news. The offer came in, and the following week I was at work. It was crazy, very surreal. That room was virtual the entirety of season one, which is also fun.

"We went four seasons.”

Four seasons of network television, 22 episodes a season, on-set training, and a whole lot more travel, it turns out. Something this dedicated staff writer-turned-co-producer was undoubtedly up for.

“The speed at which broadcast works is staggering to me, and in particular, our job. Our show was so tremendously ambitious to do 22 episodes, shooting in Europe, not just in Budapest, but we would literally country hop every few episodes. The sheer logistics involved with leaving one country and going to another ... I know it’s all European Union, but like France—shooting in Paris is way different than shooting in Rome, which is way different than shooting in Croatia, which is way different than shooting in Tokyo. And for us to do that steadily, for 22 episodes, is just mind-blowing for me to even think about, the ambition that the show had.

"Streaming shows do it, but they also have longer prep days, and they have a lot of time. They shoot everything. We have a network schedule to uphold. We have to air by this day, that ad space is paid for. I think just realizing the demands of a broadcast schedule was new to me. It was so fascinating to see that whole side of it operate, and then put our travel on top of that and our wild ideas to shoot something in all these incredible places.

"That was the other thing that surprised me, that even the staff writer was there on set, which is a credit to our showrunners. They really fought for that—they truly believe that’s how you make a new generation of showrunners. You’re gonna soak it up.

"Any time it was your episode that was shooting, you would go to set. The time that you were there for varied depending on what was going on in the room and what the showrunner needed, but typically the show preps for nine days, and shoots for about 10 to 14, so we would go for the tail-end of prep, first week of shooting—that was normal, and then we would adjust as needed. Everybody got some prep time, everybody got some set time. There would be meetings that we would be involved in. There's so much involved with producing a television show, and it was all great because it was always different. I know every writer really did love that experience.

"There's no better training ground than doing the work yourself. You can read about it or whatever, but my hope is that more showrunners continue to do that. You really do learn how to do damage control, to put out a fire that's happening on set, and for us, navigating during COVID and doing this stuff, too. Everybody was getting tested, but there would be instances where a cast member might test positive, and suddenly they had to quarantine, which means, again, we have to keep schedule.

"We're not shutting down production because we’d never make our air dates. So we have to keep the schedule, which means somebody is getting written out of that script, which means you're on set or offset, whatever, you're there, changing the script in real time to delete a character, and that means things are going to change. I think that being able to do that, and to be able to come out the other side from doing it, and still have an airing episode on schedule and on budget ... that is just invaluable."

There’s nothing quite like being in it, to help you learn it. And have a little bit of fun along the way.

“The cast was also so far away from the United States, it was nice for them to feel connected to the writers’ room and to feel connected to the engine of the story you’re creating. They appreciated the writers being on set. I think it was helpful to be able to answer questions about what’s happening down the pipeline and all of that. You know, there's a lot of curiosity that happens with stories like this, and you do fall in love with the characters.”

And the places. Particularly the “FBI: International” Fly Team’s home base in Budapest.

“Honestly, Budapest is a sleeper city. There’s such a charm and such a vibrancy to that city—I feel like it’s so underrated. I know it’s on more people’s radars now, but like, I'm dying to take people I love there and show them the beauty of Budapest. It’s tremendously walkable, and the food culture is so good there. Then I went to Tokyo for the finale, and Japan is incredible, it’s really something. Then there’s the place I wish I had gone, that I never got to go where the show went, and that’s Rome. Rome seemed like it was epic,” he laughs.

“The list is long. We’ve been to some amazing spots. Budapest doubled for about 80% of our European cities, but there's 20% you just can't duplicate. You can’t duplicate Amsterdam, or Majorca, on the ocean … it was a really special, unique show. Especially for broadcast, I think.”

But alas, all good things must come to an end as they say, and “FBI: International" aired its final mission on May 20th, 2025.

"I really gave everything to that show. I kind of lived and breathed 'FBI: International' for four seasons. I dedicated myself to learning and to being a reliable writer in the room. I think what’s happening now is I’m re-exploring my voice, and I’m excited about that aspect of it. As bittersweet as losing the job was, as bittersweet as saying goodbye to this particular group of writers and the showrunners is, I think that I'm still looking forward to what comes next. And for me, it’s working on projects, taking the meetings, and the next stepping stone.

"There’s only so much gas in the tank, and you have to find ways to replenish it. As joyous as it is to be writing for a living, it becomes sometimes tricky to able to write, to be able to stop a day’s work and then go write something else. I think that there are the times for you to basically shut your brain off and recharge, and that was something I became cognizant of doing such rigorous seasons. We went non-stop, because we would be working usually June until the end of March or April. So, really, you only got a month off for hiatus, and then you were back at it for another 22-episode order.

"After a few years of that, you have to find ways to take care of your brain and your creative process. I think that’s the thing you try to protect.

"Unless you have a carve out, really the show is your life, which is what it was for me. I didn't have any sort of carve out deal or anything like that, so there was no development work happening. I never took a meeting about a pilot that I had written. Nothing like that while I was in the room. When you're on hiatus, you can do whatever you feel. You can write as much as time allows you to.

"I only really worked on my own stuff when the room wasn't churning. For that reason, I think it's taken a little bit longer—take the genre feature I’m working on now. It’s horror. Something I'm very passionate about is genre storytelling—I grew up on the 'X-Files.' That was the show that got me into TV, honestly. Aside from cartoons. 'X-Files' was seminal. So now I'm very excited about this feature I’m writing, I'm looking forward to developing this pilot story idea with a couple of producers … I think whatever comes from this next chapter, I'll be eager to dive in.”

But TV or film?

“You pick the best medium for each particular story, and ideally, you do both. You can have a good feature idea cooking alongside a great pilot. Or you’re working in a room and doing a feature every year or every two years. That would be an ideal system in a perfect world,” he grins. “Obviously the market is its own beast, but in a perfect world, you could just transition from one to the other and switch and keep things exciting for yourself.

"After ten episodes of produced television, four years of working on a show that really taught me so much about good structure, for broadcast in particular, like with the act breaks. All Wolf shows are very big on making sure your act breaks all hit, and that, in itself, is such a good lesson in momentum for a show—a series.

"I learned so many tools and tactics, just doing that day-to-day. And then giving people notes—I’m going to take [all of] that with me to whatever comes next, on whatever show I work on next. I’m looking forward to seeing what I end up on."

After traveling the world and working in the room on a successful broadcast television show, what would Pirani tell his younger self now?

“I think one of them is … It’s a small thing, but pretty important, which is send the email response quickly. It doesn’t have to be the response, just send the email quickly. There was a little bit of a fear if you send it too fast, they might feel that you’re desperate. And I don’t think that’s the case. I think the faster you are, it actually shows a degree of responsibility—it shows that you’re on it, it shows that you value their time because they’re not waiting around for an answer. I think that goes so far with people who will need to come to trust you and your ability.

"So I think that’s sort of a unique to me thing, and I also feel like …” he pauses, choosing his next words carefully, “failure is not the opposite of success. I think failure is a way forward to success. Fail fast. Don’t be afraid to fail, because you learn so much from it.”

Solid advice from someone who’s proven putting in the dedication, nailing your voice, and listening to your intuition about the biggest decisions pays off.

*Feature photo: Hussain Pirani (Credit: A. Pirani)