Every Deal Is a Dance Ep.4: Act One, Act Two: How David Ackert Turned Creativity Into a Business-Building Superpower

In Episode 4 of Every Deal Is a Dance, Mishawn Nolan welcomes longtime mentor and visionary business development leader David Ackert, CEO and Co-Founder of PipelinePlus.

David shares how being raised in a creative household, studying theater at Carnegie Mellon and Ithaca College, and working as an actor in Los Angeles ultimately shaped the strengths he uses today: public speaking, presence, improvisation, and an intuitive understanding of people.

He and Mishawn explore how creativity can inform leadership, why professionals need to “focus on the people who matter most,” and how his book The Short List grew from years of coaching actors, lawyers, and business leaders.

The conversation dives into reinvention, vulnerability, non-linear careers, and what it means to build alignment and flow in business and life.

🎧 Listen now to learn how David transformed his creative first act into a powerful second act as a business builder, mentor, and entrepreneur.

Every Deal Is a Dance Ep. 4:

Podcast Transcript:

Announcer: You're listening to Every Deal Is A Dance, part of the Look Legal pods from the law firm Nolan Heimann And now, here is your host, Attorney Mishawn Nolan.

Mishawn Nolan: I'm Mishawn Nolan and I'm co-founder and co-managing partner of Nolan Heimann LLP. Before I was a lawyer, I was a dancer and then I was a choreographer. And so it's not surprising that my law practice reflects dance principles of alignment and flow, especially when I'm working with my clients to monetize their creative ventures. And essentially what it means is aligning your abilities with your goals while at the same time balancing structure and reinvention. I want to make growing businesses less scary and less overwhelming for creators. So everyone I interview in this series is someone who has a story to tell about authenticity, about their reinvention and their journey as a creative business maker. It is an opportunity to hear stories of alignment and flow in action.

David Ackert is an exceptional multi hyphenate creative. I met David very early in my career and he's been instrumental in every one of my growth transitions. When I was first made a partner, he was my business development coach. And when I launched my own firm, he held my hand and guided my way. He's even responsible for connecting me with my two co-managing partners of Nolan Heimann. And the reason that David has been such a powerful force in my life beyond being a warm, caring and fun person is because he understands people and relationships like no one I've ever met. At my firm, he's known as the attorney whisperer. Every time I speak with David, I leave the conversation feeling more enlightened. And I believe his superpower comes from his beginnings as an actor. On this podcast, we explore how someone's creative first act influences their business maker second act. I'm excited to speak with David today about how his acting roots have led him to be such an impactful and highly regarded business development thought leader for professionals.

David Ackert is co-founder and CEO of Pipeline Plus, which is a multifaceted business development consulting firm for professionals, including lawyers. Over the past two decades, David has pioneered revenue acceleration programs for hundreds of professional service firms around the globe. David regularly keynotes at partner retreats and speaks at industry conferences. He also serves as a guest lecturer at USC's Marshall School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University, and at the UCLA School of Law. And most recently,

David is the best-selling author of The Short List: How to Drive Business Development by Focusing on the People Who Matter Most which is a gold winner of the 2025 Nonfiction Book Award Thank you for speaking with me today David. So let's start at the beginning

David Ackert: A very good place to start.

Mishawn Nolan: When did you know you were a creative?

David Ackert: My parents were both professional musicians so being a creative was a foregone conclusion in our house. Of course, they tried to get me to be a musician. So I was on the Suzuki violin at the age of three, right? And taking piano lessons at four. None of that ultimately stuck. But I discovered the theater at a fairly young age and decided that that was going to be my route. Interestingly, my brother, who never had any interest in being creative, was the black sheep of the family.

And he is now in litigation support. Like he's an engineer essentially, right? Doing e-discovery work. And he was the black sheep. Like he was like, I wanna actually, you know, have a consistent revenue stream in my life. So I am not gonna be a creative. And my parents were like, no, what are you thinking? You have to dedicate yourself to the arts. So was very much the opposite that most families experienced.

Mishawn Nolan: Yeah. And so then how did you find acting?

David Ackert: I remember when I was in the, I think this was like fourth grade or something like that. I mean, I had always been putting on little plays for my parents. I mean, was, you know, quick to take the stage. But I remember when I was in the fourth grade, I was watching a sitcom and it just sort of dawned on me. I'm like, wait a minute, these people are all pretending. Like that guy isn't married to that woman in real life. And that's not actually their house. That's like a set, right? And I thought, wow, they get to make believe.

And as adults, I mean, that sounds like exactly what I want to do. So from that moment on, I decided I wanted to be an actor. I told my parents. They had me audition for some plays. And I started getting into those roles. And sure enough, it was a good fit to my enthusiasm and my talent.

Mishawn Nolan: What about make believe is interesting to you?

David Ackert: Well, I think at the time, what was interesting was that it was an escape from reality. So I'm.

half Iranian and this was during the hostage crisis in the late 70s, early 80s. And it wasn't a fun time to be me. So I was looking for any, I was looking to create any kind of universe in which I didn't have to be this Middle Eastern kid in Northern Virginia who was constantly being picked on and kind of, you know, marginalized by the prejudices at the time.

Mishawn Nolan: And did you take any acting classes, or how did you train?

David Ackert: Yeah, so I started taking acting classes right around that time, right around junior high school. I started finding summer camps and any sort of environment I could find, private tutors. And then I obviously was very dedicated to drama as an elective in high school. I ended up going to Carnegie Mellon University's BFA program. And then I left there and finished my undergraduate studies at Ithaca College, which has a very strong theater program. And then, of course, once I moved out here to Los Angeles to pursue acting, I was always in some acting class or another. So studying the craft was something that I took very seriously.

Mishawn Nolan: Yes. And what do you do today?

David Ackert: So today, I'm the CEO of Pipeline Plus and the author of The Short List. Pretty natural transition, right?

Mishawn Nolan: Exactly. Tell me about that. How did that transition happen?

David Ackert: OK, well, when I was dedicated to acting, I was actually doing pretty well. I was on a number of TV shows, and I was booking lead roles in independent films. And this would have been in the mid-90s up through the maybe early aughts. And so other acting friends were coming to me and saying, how is it that you're doing so well?

David Ackert: And I would ask them questions like, well, I mean, I've got a business plan. Do you have a business plan? And I've been networking. Are you networking? And do you have a system for your networking? So early on, kind of figured out, you've got to take a strategic approach to these things. You can't just be talented and expect to be discovered. That always seemed like a silly fallacy to me. And of course, my actor friends are like, no, I have no idea what you're talking about. Would you show me? And so very quickly, I developed this coaching side hustle for actors, where I was being their business coach for their acting career. And in fact, I don't even remember how this happened anymore, but I found my way into the UCLA Extension Network, and I was teaching something like business plans for actors, I think we called it. And I taught that class for like a decade. actors would come into the class, and I put together this whole curriculum. And honestly, that was the seed for a lot of the work that we're doing today and a lot of the distinctions that found their way into The Shortlist because while the audience over time evolved, and I discovered that actors are not the best marketplace to focus these skills on, they just don't have the money for it and they don't take it as seriously. So I started learning that, okay, professional services. I married my wife, she's a lawyer. She said, yeah, you should focus on these professional services. And it was just a better fit. But a lot of the same concepts

At the end of the day, like actors, here we had people who were technically very focused on whatever trade or craft they learned, but had never developed a skill set or methodology around how to acquire clients and get work.

Mishawn Nolan: It's so interesting. So I have a similar story to you, which is when I was dancing, I was the dance captain. I was the one in charge. I was the one who was sort of the leader of the group. And so it's interesting that both you and I, our origin story as well, we were in creative, we were still sort of straddling the creative and the business at the same time.

David Ackert: Yes. Yeah. And that was, that was challenging. You know, I, secretly I just wanted my acting career to take off so I could stop doing all this business stuff. but I found that I was just good at the business stuff and that's what was actually growing and so I ended up getting a certificate in business coaching. I ended up getting a Master's in Psychology. And I ended up really just dedicating myself to the profession. I think also marrying a lawyer and deciding that I wanted to create a stable lifestyle for this new chapter had a lot to do with my deciding that the creative world was not necessarily going to provide that.

Mishawn Nolan: And you and I also share, we also share a history in that we really put aside our creative background and pretended for a while, like it didn't exist, that we could have legitimacy in the business world. But even though you put it aside and it wasn't at the forefront of how you represented yourself, do you think that acting and the creative experience influenced who you are as a business person?

David Ackert: Oh, no question. And I think that this, you and I are traveling a similar journey here where we sort of went in the closet about it because we were afraid of credibility impact. And now that we're older and we've sort of established ourselves, it's like, well, this is the authentic, you know, kind of differentiator. And we're actually in an era now where people are hopefully a little more open-minded about the fact that a career trajectory isn't necessarily a straight line. Yeah.

But I would say that one of the things that I do a lot of today is public speaking. And the reason that that's so comfortable for me and I get so much energy out of it is because of so many years of being on stage and being in front of the camera. And it's a skill and a talent that just comes very easily and naturally to me. So obviously, I've looked for ways to leverage it in business.

Mishawn Nolan: Yeah. And not only are you and a consultant in business development, but you're also an entrepreneur. So have you found any of the skills or experiences you had in the creative industries, in theater and acting, has that helped you be a better entrepreneur?

David Ackert: Sure, and I'll bet every guest who comes on this podcast talks about it. In the creative world, you learn for lack of a better description, improv. mean, you learn to be in the flow. learn to sometimes, you you have to go off script. Sometimes the music doesn't start when you think it will. Sometimes, right, you have to be ready to pivot at any moment. And that's a critical skill as an entrepreneur, especially in a disrupted environment like the one that we're in today, where the business model that you thought was going to thrive is suddenly when you have to rethink.

Mishawn Nolan: Yes, the business model that you started with has changed 15 times.

David Ackert: Yeah, that's right.

Mishawn Nolan: By the end of the year. Right. So, and we are in such a disruptive universe that there's constant change. And so, I always think that being a creative helps you be more fluid, more flexible to change with whatever. Like you said, for you, it's improv. For me, it was more like improvisational dance. You know, it's when you have that experience where you're going to be on stage and the costume is going to tear or the music isn't going to start or the lights don't go out or your mic doesn't work and you just know the show must go on. You just continue no matter what you face. So do you have any examples or any stories of any challenges you faced as an entrepreneur that you can recall where those improvisational skills just helped you get through it?

David Ackert: I can't think of one, and I think it's because every day there are so many. We just had our company retreat. The whole team flew out to Seattle, and we had this wonderful experience together, team building and strategic planning and all the things. And one of the things that the team acknowledged was at this company, it's very easy to fail, and that's a good thing.

And the underscore is not on the word fail. It's on the word easy. Like we make it easy. There's no punishment. There's no finger wagging. There's no, you know, I mean, everybody understands that they're doing their best and we give each other a lot of grace because there will be mistakes made along the way. Everybody, you know, it's a lean team. There's only 10 of us. So we're all working really hard, doing a number of different things, some of which we're good at, some of which are new at, and there's never any chastising around that.

So it's like, okay, we made this mistake. What can we learn from it? What can we do better next time? And I just feel that's very much the kind of philosophy that I learned in theater as an actor versus the kind of thing that you typically see in law firms or corporate environments where there is a judgment around making mistakes and there is a stigma around failure.

You know, I think especially in law you either win or you or you lose right and it's a total binary and there are winners and losers in the in the sort of cast system in law firms, so You know it provides a kind of nimbleness I think in approaching things and I think it's also back to your notion of superpower It's something that we can bring to these industries that is unique because now we are approaching things like process improvement and change management and coaching and behavior change through this lens that is less judgmental, more about what's possible versus what's probable, and much more in the spirit of innovation as opposed to what has come before.

Mishawn Nolan: Yeah, and what bubbles up for me is this concept of workshopping. When you're in the theater,

you're constantly workshopping a piece. What it starts out as is not what it ends up as when you perform it. You're constantly trying new things, throwing things against the wall. That didn't work, try something else. Maybe do it like this and you work together and you workshop something. And it sounds like you've incorporated that workshopping concept, both into how you operate your business, but also the coaching that you provide to professionals.

David Ackert: I would say that's right. appreciate the way that you've framed that. I hadn't thought of it as workshopping. But you're right. It is very much the spirit of that.

Mishawn Nolan: So let's talk about your book. How did that come about?

David Ackert: Well, again, I would say the roots of it were back when I was an actor. Everybody knows this is a who you know town, and you're supposed to network. And obviously, you make connections. And I came to town knowing no one.

So I started doing what most people do when they're earlier in their careers, regardless of profession, which is you just network a lot and meet a bunch of people and anybody with a pulse who's willing to have coffee with you is fair game. And I found that I started running out of patience for that exercise pretty quickly. And as I was meeting a lot of people and kissing a lot of frogs, there were people like you who I really resonated with and really felt a connection to and a chemistry with. I wasn't even sure how we would work together. I just knew I wanted to. And so I started literally keeping a short list. Your name was on it, a few other people's names were on it. And these names eventually found their way into the round tables that we started together, right? And that's been a big part of our business now. We have numerous executive round tables. So the seed of that was back in the day too. But the idea was if you can create a short list of people where spending time with them energizes you, and you have these like-minded conversations, you can create something really special together versus kissing a lot of frogs and trying to find that one person who can take you to the top, right? I was just always very suspicious of that strategy, that sort of never eat alone and meet lots of people and I don't know, just sort of target and jockey and all of that. It just never resonated for me. And frankly, when I looked at other people who were trying it, I didn't see them necessarily succeeding at it either. I saw them burning a lot of energy and not necessarily getting much of anywhere. So anyway, the short list started to formulate back then. And then as I transitioned into Pipeline Plus and creating this business, I saw that the concept very much resonated in the world of professional services and business development.

And so I started teaching it. And about 10 years ago, maybe 11 years ago now, I thought, huh, this would make a pretty good book. I should probably compile these ideas into a book. But it took me 10 years to get it out into the marketplace. Because as I learned the hard way, writing a book requires so much carving out of time. And when you're building a business and growing an endeavor, that time never seems to be there.

I got about halfway done with it. And then finally, when we signed on with the publisher who got it out into the world, they assigned me a writing coach. Ironically, they were like, maybe you need a coach. And that was absolutely the key. That accountability got it done very quickly.

Mishawn Nolan: A coach for the coach.

David Ackert: That's right.

Mishawn Nolan: And did your acting influence the way that you, I know you just did a press tour. Press tour with

would scare me. I know you just did a press tour. And I think you enjoyed it. Did you, I assume that you used some of your skills as an actor on the press tour. Did it make it exciting for you? How did it help you?

David Ackert: Well, what we did was a speaking tour. So again, it was playing right into a core strength of mine. And that was by design. It's like, all right, what am I good at? Let's do more of that. What am I terrible at? Let's do less of that.

We have hired a PR firm, and now they're having me write articles and do more podcasts and things like that. And that stuff all comes very naturally to me. So I'm happy to do it. At the end of the day, I struggle with, and I think everyone probably who runs a business struggles with this, is that all of this energy is marketing. So it's top of funnel. And you never know which of those efforts are going to ultimately really move the needle versus which of them are just kind of wasted energy. And so even there, there's this assessment of what should be on the short list of things that we do from a marketing perspective. And if we're not looking at the metrics and the analytics and the leading indicators and all of those things, then it's very difficult to make that decision.

Mishawn Nolan: So on that subject of let's do more of what I am really good at and less of what I don't really like doing. When are you in flow? What does flow look like for you?

David Ackert: I'm really good at simplifying complex ideas. I'm really good at facilitating conversations. I'm really good at being the center of attention. So making presentations or being the moderator at a meeting or something like that. And I'm terrible at detail. I'm terrible at at forms. My God, you want my kryptonite? Put a form in front of me and tell me to fill it out. I am terrible at that. And so again, you know, there's kind of a pretty clear like, OK, this is a big picture person and you got to keep them out of the weeds or they'll they'll never thrive. And so I've really as we build, continue to build this company, I've tried to surround myself with people where we balance each other out.

Mishawn Nolan: That's great. And so your flow is actually the merger of what you do today and what your origin story is, right? It's you get to perform, you get to sort of ring lead and be the center of attention and tell the story. And it's almost going back to what you described as what really resonated with you with acting, it's almost like make believe. You've you've created this thought process, you've created this philosophy on how to be a professional in the world and how to succeed. You create an environment to teach all of us how to do that.

David Ackert: Yeah, you're right. I hadn't thought of that. I mean, on some level, aren't we all creating our environment all the time? We're just not really conscious of that, right? I the choices that we make, the people we surround ourselves with, the ideas we put out in the world. But I think any entrepreneur has made something out of nothing. And they should be applauded for that. It is not easy. And there are so many forces that conspire against us being able to do that. whenever somebody tells me they're an entrepreneur, I instantly have respect, even if they're a burgeoning entrepreneur. It's like, all right, good for you for having the courage to put yourself out there.

Mishawn Nolan: Yes, it's the loneliest thing is to be an entrepreneur.

David Ackert: That's right.

Mishawn Nolan: Well, thank you, David. Thank you very much for sharing these thoughts with us and sharing your journey with us. I really appreciate it.

David Ackert: Well, I appreciate the conversation. You've highlighted things that I hadn't really thought of, or you've recontextualized them in ways that have been insightful for me. So thanks for the opportunity.

Announcer: Thanks for listening to Every Deal is a Dance. If you've enjoyed the show, please share with other creative business makers and kindly rate and review us on your favorite podcast platform. For more information on how we can help with your own legal needs, check out our services at nolanheimann.com. That's N-O-L-A-N-H-E-I-M-A-N-N.com.