When you have the opportunity to ask some of the most interesting people in the world about their lives, sometimes the most fascinating answers come from the simplest questions. The Thrive Questionnaire is an ongoing series that gives an intimate look inside the lives of some of the world’s most successful people.
Thrive Global: What’s the first thing you do when you get out of bed?
Nick Loeb: Drink coffee
TG: What gives you energy?
NL: Going to the gym
TG: What’s your secret life hack?
NL: I travel with an old portable DVD player
TG: Name a book that changed your life.
NL: Atlas Shrugged
TG: Tell us about your relationship with your phone. Does it sleep with you?
NL: It’s a bad addiction
TG: How do you deal with email?
NL: I am overly responsive
TG: You unexpectedly find 15 minutes in your day, what do you do with it?
NL: Read the news
TG: When was the last time you felt burned out and why?
NL: Working on political campaigns
TG:When was the last time you felt you failed and how did you overcome it?
NL: Losing an account and then winning another
TG: Share a quote that you love and that gives you strength
NL: It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
Nick has been an entrepreneur most of his life, living all over the world. Currently he is the founder of Imagine Partners, an international merchant bank. Prior he founded Loeb’s Crunch an international CPG firm, Managing Partner of Carbon Solutions America, an international sustainability consulting firm and worked at Lehman Brothers in private banking, generating deal flow to investment banking and real estate divisions. He began his career at Universal Studios in corporate development, motion picture finance and production on the John Travolta film Primary Colors. After, he formed the International Production Company, where he produced projects with the likes of Quincy Jones and Barbara Streisand. Nick speaks Spanish, serves on several boards, including, Hernandez Consulting, Windows Wear, Neck Systems, Universal Media Group, Long Island Ice Tea, CSA, and Onion Crunch.
He has lectured on a variety of topics, including, film production at Florida Atlantic University, entrepreneurship to the worldwide law firm Withers Bergman, principles of marketing to Cal State LA, the highs and lows of private banking to Tulane University business school, as a faculty member at the Practising Law Institute on the topic of “Establishing and Enforcing Corporate Green Technology Policies,” at the Sonoma County California Green Wine Conference on Carbon Neutrality, and at the South Florida Green, Energy and Climate Conference on “How to Market your Business as Green”. Previously he served on the Palm Beach County Green Task Force’s governmental sub-committee, the Broward County Crime Commission and served on the Nuisance Abatement Board Commissioners, appointed by the mayor of Delray Beach.
Nick has volunteered on presidential campaigns; including the Trump Transition Team and Trump Victory, national finance team of Chris Christie for President, Co-Chairman for Rudy Giuliani’s All-American Team, George W. Bush for President 2000 and 2004. He also volunteered for Mel Martinez for U.S. Senate, Katherine Harris for US Senate, Charlie Crist for Governor of Florida and U.S. Treasurer, Rosario Marin for U.S. Senate. Nick himself was also was a candidate for the Florida State Senate, a member of the Council of Trustees for the Republican Party of Palm Beach County, a board member of the Boca Raton Republican Club and served as an alternate committeeman for the Republican Executive Committee, a member of the Heritage Foundation, Council for National Policy, Club for growth and the Presidents Club for the Republican National Committee.
He also served on several community boards which included the Florida School Choice Fund Board, Education Foundation for the Delray Beach Chamber of Commerce, James Madison Institute’s Palm Beach County Board of Advisors, The Palm Beach International Film Festival, The Caldwell Theater, The Children’s Coalition, Jewish Federation-Metro Board, Variety International, Boca Raton Educational Television, The Center for the Arts, YMCA Scholarship Committee, Escada Heart Committee, host committee for the Starbright Foundation, and Los Angeles Sheriffs Star Organization.Nick was also a proactive supporter of the community, founding H.E.L.P. Delray, Help Empower Local People, educating the minority community to secure home ownership. He has held fundraiser’s at his home for Kids in Distress, Step up for Students, The Caldwell Theater, and The Palm Beach International Film Festival. Nick has also been a member of the Delray Beach Rotary Club, Old School Square, Downtown Joint Venture, the Chairman’s Club of the Chamber of Commerce and BIZPAC. He has also supported AIPAC, the American Heart Association, Delray Beach Firefighters, Chris Evert Charities, Delray Citizens for Delray Police, The Race to Erase MS, and provided fellowships to UCLA doctors. The Chamber nominated Nick for the Ken Ellingsworth Community Service Award.
He also volunteers his time as Reserve Deputy Sherriff in Louisiana and at the Harlem Food Bank in NYC. Previously nick volunteered a substitute teacher at Atlantic High School in Delray Beach, Palm Beach Fire Rescue, The American Red Cross, Santa Monica High School as an athletic coach, and a big brother to inner city children in Los Angele. He also completed the rigorous training of the Police Academy, receiving two awards of merit and then served as a Reserve Deputy for the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department.
Nick earned a Bachelor of Science in Management and Finance from the A.B. Freeman School of Business at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1998. Nick feels fortunate to have been mentored by such esteemed leaders and family members like his cousin, Edgar Bronfman, Jr. formerly of Seagrams-Universal and his father Ambassador John Loeb of Loeb Rhoades and Lehman Brothers who served under Ronald Reagan. Nick has an older sister Alexandra Driscoll who graduated from Harvard and resides in Pennsylvania with her husband and two children and a younger sister Lacey Mehran who graduated from the Yale School of Management and now works in private equity for Veronis Suhler Stevenson.