Ness Mugrabi became the youngest certified NFL agent in history, negotiating $100M+ contracts for top players like Demarcus Lawrence — all by the age of 22.
In this episode, we discuss:
- How Ness finessed his way into the NFL world at just 16 years old
- The real reason players trust him to negotiate their $100M deals
- His advice for young adults looking to break into the cutthroat industry of sports management
Enjoy!
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Transcript
Victor M. Braca: You’ve been featured in the New York Times, Good Morning America, and ABC News for being the youngest ever NFL agent to negotiate multi-million dollar contracts.
Ness Mugrabi: This is crazy moment where it’s like these guys that I was a fan of are my clients.
Victor M. Braca: You’ve negotiated a $105 million contract for DeMarcus Lawrence of the Dallas Cowboys, a $95 million contract for Xavien Howard of the Miami Dolphins, a $33 million contract for Cameron Sutton of the Detroit Lions. What goes into negotiating these hundred million deals?
Ness Mugrabi: I was not a great student in math or calc or whatever, trigonometry. I was terrible at it. That doesn’t mean you can’t be a great person in any business.
Victor M. Braca: Imagine negotiating $100 million contracts with some of the biggest names in the NFL before most people have even landed their first full-time job. That’s exactly what Ness Mugrabi did. At just 22 years old, he became the youngest certified NFL agent in history, handling deals worth over a hundred million dollars for top players.
But Ness’s story isn’t just about breaking into the industry. It’s about relentless persistence, networking like a pro, and proving himself in one of the most cutthroat businesses out there. From finessing his way into his first sports internship at just 16 years old to building a powerhouse agency alongside his mentor, he’s been in the game from an insanely young age.
In this episode, we dive into the reality of sports agency. How deals actually get done, what separates a good contract from a great one, and the mindset required to succeed in an industry that never stops. Ness also shares the story of how he built his career while staying true to his values, navigating a 24/7 business while being strictly 24/6.
I’m Victor Braca and Momentum is where I dive deep with exceptional leaders to uncover the key decisions, defining moments, and lessons that propel them to success and how those insights can inspire your journey forward. If you’ve ever wondered what it takes to break into a competitive industry, navigate high-stakes multimillion-dollar deals, or build your dream career from the ground up, this is an episode you won’t want to miss. Let’s get into it.
Ness Mugrabi, welcome to Momentum.
Ness Mugrabi: Yes, sir. Welcome.
Victor M. Braca: This is very exciting.
Ness Mugrabi: Thank you for having me.
Victor M. Braca: Thank you for coming. We’ll just jump right into it. You’re the youngest ever NFL agent to negotiate multi-million dollar contracts. Let’s use that as a starting point for who you are. Tell me, who is Ness Mugrabi?
Ness Mugrabi: A hard worker, a family man, you know, someone that really cares about the people around me and what I do and the players that I represent. I take it really seriously and love everybody, love my guys. It’s a big, important piece for me in my life to make sure that I’m giving back to others and have the right people around me—you know, my wife obviously, Lauren, my family, my parents, my brothers, my sister—making sure that we’re all together and we’re a tight-knit group. That’s really how I became who I am.
Victor M. Braca: Beautiful. What an introduction. I love it. So take me back to when you first developed the passion for sports and when you first developed the ambition to represent players in the NFL.
Ness Mugrabi: My journey started when I was young. I was 12 years old. I was a big Miami Dolphins fan and the Dolphins lost to the Broncos. It was against Tim Tebow. It came down to the wire and I was crying. I was in my room crying and I was devastated that they lost.
Victor M. Braca: Wow, what a fan.
Ness Mugrabi: Yeah, I was a massive fan. I went to my room and I called the 1-800 number for the Miami Dolphins that I found on the internet and I asked to speak to the head coach, Coach Tony Sparano, may he rest in peace. As a kid, as a 12-year-old, you call a number like that and you’re naive enough to think that anybody’s ever going to call you back.
So, I call them. I’m in my room crying. I go to sleep that night and I go to school the next day. Everything’s normal and great. And then on Wednesday, I’m in school and I get a phone call and I pick up. I go to the bathroom and pick up the phone and I’m like, “Hi, how are you?”
And it’s like, “Hey, I’m Reginald Sperling with the Miami Dolphins.” And so the Miami Dolphins and Reginald, who’s a close friend of mine to this day, invited me to go meet the head coach of the Miami Dolphins, Coach Tony Sparano, in New York that following Sunday because they were playing the Giants.
So I go to the game and literally the owner comes over to me, the head coach comes over to me. I go with my mom and my brother and the whole Miami Dolphins team is coming over to me. It was the coolest thing ever. I’m 12 years old and it was just the coolest thing for me. I’m on the field with the owner, with the coach; they gave me a signed football that I still have in my office. That was really where it opened my eyes to the business of sports and in specific the business of football to really parlay me into having the passion that I do to representing players to where I’m at right now.
Victor M. Braca: Nice. Super cool. So is that when you developed your ambition to become a sports agent?
Ness Mugrabi: I would say in the early years when I was 12, 13, 14 years old, I always knew I wanted to be in the football business. Reginald would take me to the owner suite. He would take me and give me tours of the stadium and the football operations. I was kind of getting an understanding of like, how do things work? You see a game on Sunday; what goes behind it? What’s the operation that goes behind the football game and what are the business aspects that go into what’s going on on the field?
That was a big passion of mine. Everything that I could read upon when I was young… I was in school on Twitter looking at free agency and the draft. I remember doing a mock draft when I was literally 13 years old. I’ve been in the football space a long time. My head has been in the football space a long time. That kind of building on that gave me the passion to really just go and chase what I wanted to do. So, I knew from a young age I wanted to be in football. Did I know at 12 years old I was going to be an agent? No, I didn’t know at 12 years old I wanted to be an agent. But I knew I was going to either want to be a GM of a football team or an agent. It was one of those things.
Victor M. Braca: But it sounds like you developed a relationship with Reginald. What did that mean for you as a young kid? You now have a direct relationship—and it sounds like a pretty close one—with a high-level member of the Dolphins. What did that mean for you kickstarting your career at such a young age?
Ness Mugrabi: Yeah, it was really cool. It was special. Reginald was one of the best human beings I’ve ever been around. He’s a fantastic person. I love him. He’s really an unbelievable human, unbelievable heart. He basically watched me grow up. Just always having that relationship, if I ever needed advice, ever wanted to talk to somebody, he was always there for me. Growing up and having him in my life was pivotal to who I am right now.
Victor M. Braca: That’s great. Tell me about your internship when you were 16-ish years old for the Brooklyn Nets.
Ness Mugrabi: This is the summer right after high school, I think it was. I had a relationship that helped me get a connection with the Nets. Ended up interning there. It was great. It was very cool being… I remember going to the interview and going to the Barclays Center and then their training facility a couple blocks down. It was pretty incredible. I’m not a basketball guy, so it didn’t really star-struck me as much as if it was football, but at the time it was crazy. I was 16 years old. I was about to go work for the Brooklyn Nets. I was thinking that’s the coolest thing in the world. I was just doing some marketing stuff and some tasks. I just remember the work office setting and yeah, it was a great experience. I loved every minute of it, took that and learned as much as I could from it, and then was basically a sports agent my entire life after that.
Victor M. Braca: Nice. So tell me about getting into being a sports agent. You’re 17 years old and you start to work for David Canter. Tell us a little bit: who is David first of all, and how did you land the internship working for him?
Ness Mugrabi: The way I met David is actually a pretty incredible story. I wanted to go to the combine and meet GMs and agents and coaches and all those types of people. So, I begged my dad for a while to please take me to the combine in Indianapolis. He took me because he’s the greatest dad in the world and he wanted me to follow my dream.
So, he took me to the combine. We went to a Sports Management Worldwide conference which is a conference that just has football people talking. Then at night, we randomly go to an Italian restaurant and I see David. I did my research; I knew what all the agents looked like, all the GMs. I knew what everybody looked like. So I walk over to David and I say, “Are you David Canter?”
David has been an agent for 30 years. He’s my mentor, my partner, and I love him. He’s part of my family to this day. That’s my guy. So yeah, I walk over to him in the restaurant and I’m like, “Hey, are you David Canter?”
And he goes, “Yeah, how do you know who I am?”
And I’m like, “I follow you on Twitter. I see you represent Olivier Vernon, Derek Shelby, and a bunch of the Dolphins guys at the time, and I’m a big Dolphins fan.”
He’s like, “Oh, take my number. Let’s talk.” And then, within probably three months, I’m interning for him, trying to get free product for players and things like that. Just kept building and building. He trusted me; this was built on trust. He knew that he could rely on me to get the job done. I can’t tell you how much I learned from David. I’m not where I am today without David. He’s just been a huge, massive part of my life.
Victor M. Braca: How’d you land the internship?
Ness Mugrabi: David’s my guy. He trusted me and believed in me as a 16-year-old kid. Took a chance on a 16-year-old kid from Brooklyn, New York, and here we are today—partners in sports.
Victor M. Braca: Most people spend their early 20s searching for their field, their calling, their passion for a career to work in. By 18, you were pretty much leading a company—you were leading David’s sports management company. Tell me a little bit about how you got into that role. What did that company do—obviously represented NFL players—but elaborate a little bit on that and how did it feel running a company at such a young age?
Ness Mugrabi: David gave me a lot of responsibilities. I was in his house during free agency; we were negotiating contracts and I was really being able to be part of it at such a young age. I was able to do a lot. I was able to be around the players, really understand what the players need, what their wants are, and really understand the best way to represent these guys. How can we give them the best services possible, the best marketing possible, the best team around them as possible so that they can go and excel in their careers? I learned that from David, just seeing what he did and how much he cared about his guys. That’s where I get it from—how we really care about our guys. It’s all about them.
Having him in my life from a young age gave me a lot of responsibilities. DEC Management wasn’t a company with many people; it was David, Brian—who was our vice president of analytics—and me. I’m a 17-year-old kid at the time, just learning along the way, messing up along the way, and just learning how to do things. David lives in Florida and doesn’t live in New York, so it’s not like we were together every day. We were texting 24/7. Even to this day, I’m trying to end this podcast and go and call him and answer his text. That’s just who we are. We’re 24/7—well, 24/6 on this. This is our life.
Victor M. Braca: Did you ever experience impostor syndrome being the youngest guy in the business?
Ness Mugrabi: No. Honestly, probably not. I always felt like I earned my way and kind of realized I know what I’m doing and I’m good at what I’m doing. Thank God for giving me the opportunity. I’m blessed to really just know and I have a lot of confidence in what I do and how we represent players. We know we’re the best.
Victor M. Braca: I love that because a lot of people have impostor syndrome, and what that stems from is a lack of confidence in yourself. If you’re truly confident in yourself and your abilities, which I can tell you are, there’s no reason—if you do good work—to have impostor syndrome. However young you are, however quote-unquote inexperienced you are, you’ve come to realize that from a young age, which I think is very admirable.
Ness Mugrabi: At 17 when I started, of course you’re going to make mistakes along the way, but I always knew that this is what I wanted to do. Hashem helped me to get to where I’m at, but at the end of the day, you have to put the work in. You have to do what you need to do. I’m blessed to have the opportunity to be able to go and fulfill my dreams. It’s huge.
Victor M. Braca: Was there ever a time where you weren’t taken totally seriously because of your age?
Ness Mugrabi: I’m sure people looked at me like, “Oh, this guy’s young,” but it never really deterred me. It never really made me feel down or anything like that. I’m sure people were like, “Oh, you know, this guy’s young,” but I don’t care.
Victor M. Braca: I love it. What was your position when you were 17, 18 at DEC?
Ness Mugrabi: My title was Vice President of Marketing.
Victor M. Braca: Got it. So you were Vice President of Marketing at DEC. Take me into the time between then and you signing hundred-million-dollar contracts with NFL players.
Ness Mugrabi: I was around everything from day one. David would include me in negotiations and team counters and meetings with players and all that type of stuff. I was in his house; we were literally negotiating contracts and the players would come and sign them right there. So being around that just gave me an understanding like, “Hey, what are we doing and how do we do it?” I learned that from a young age from David.
Victor M. Braca: The sports agency, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, is cutthroat competition. How did you set yourself apart, especially as such a young guy with a lack of experience? What was your value proposition? Why sign with Ness Mugrabi?
Ness Mugrabi: No one’s going to work harder than us. No one’s going to bring more value to the players and has an understanding of how this works to put the best team around the players, to negotiate the best values, and an understanding of the salary cap and how contracts work. There’s good contracts and there’s great contracts. We need to make sure every single contract we do is a great contract.
Victor M. Braca: Can you tell me a story of a specific time where you’re a young guy and you’re looking at this business and it’s sort of like you’re… it reminds me of when I was eight years old walking through Times Square with my family, just looking at all the tall buildings mesmerized. Do you have a story like that in terms of your time young in business admiring what you see and just absorbing everything like a sponge?
Ness Mugrabi: When I was at a young age, just going on the field with the players… like even when I was 12 or 13 when Reginald would invite me, and then going on the field later on at 17, 18, 19 years old having these guys as my clients. I think that was the “Wow, this is crazy” moment where these guys that I was a fan of are my clients. I’ve had a lot of players that I literally loved growing up and they end up being my clients.
Victor M. Braca: That’s super cool. How does that feel?
Ness Mugrabi: It’s an unbelievable feeling. It just shows how it’s a small world. You just never think that some of these people that you take a picture with when you’re a kid end up being your clients. It’s a pretty surreal moment.
Victor M. Braca: For young adults and kids nowadays who have these big ambitions or have a dream job in their mind, a lot of people think that they won’t be able to reach that dream job. They think that the players they see on the field that they want to take pictures with, they’ll never be able to deal with them if that’s their dream job. So what words of encouragement do you have to share with people about how to attain their dream job?
Ness Mugrabi: I would say make sure you find a way. Figure out a way, find every avenue, find every solution. Think of what are the different ways that you can connect and network with people to get in the right doors. If you’re just going to send an email like every other person in the world, that’s not going to get what you want. You really need to be aggressive and push further to get what you want and just keep believing in yourself. Have confidence in yourself when you’re speaking to people and just continue to chase your dreams. Don’t give up.
Victor M. Braca: Nice. Do you have any specific networking tips? I’m glad you mentioned networking because I actually wanted to get to that. It sounds like for you in your career, the relationships that you made early on really propelled you forward—with David, with Reginald. These relationships that you built at such an early, young age really propelled you forward. Do you have any specific networking tips on how to get in touch with people, how to stand out, anything like that?
Ness Mugrabi: I think it’s about being creative. Obviously, I’m sure a lot of people get emails with resumes and this and that. You really want to stand out in a way where if someone’s opening your email, what makes your resume or your email different than everybody else’s? Finding that… everybody has their own way. There’s no two ways. You got to find your way on how you have to sell yourself to other people and show why you’re great in your own way.
Victor M. Braca: I think one thing that usually helps me when writing a cold message like this is just reading it back in my voice as the other person. I’m sitting at my desk and let’s say I’m trying to get in touch with the CEO of some company. I’m busy. It’s 9:30 a.m. I just got into the office and I have a thousand emails. How is that email going to stick out? Because a lot of people, they send a cold email or a cold DM and they just hit send. They don’t read it over beforehand and really see what can stand out or what they can improve about it. So, I like that piece of advice and I mean it’s clearly worked for you. The relationships that you build up with players, with news publications, with the press—all these things are very impressive.
Ness Mugrabi: It’s about being good to people. I think if you’re good to people, people will be good back to you.
Victor M. Braca: So, you’ve negotiated a $105 million contract for DeMarcus Lawrence of the Dallas Cowboys, a $95 million contract for Xavien Howard of the Miami Dolphins, a $33 million contract for Cameron Sutton of the Detroit Lions. The list goes on. What goes into negotiating these sometimes hundred-million-dollar deals? Who are you sitting across from at the negotiation table and what are some negotiation tactics that you’ve learned over the years?
Ness Mugrabi: I think it’s being prepared. You got to go in there with a plan. You can’t just go in there saying like, “Hey, my client deserves 200 million,” and the team’s like, “Okay, cool. Why?” You got to give them the reasons. That’s why we have an analytics department ran by our guy Brian. That’s why we do the research and the legwork going into the combine and the meetings—having an understanding of team needs, what their salary cap looks like, how to manipulate the salary cap, and really going in there prepared with your homework done before you get there and not playing catch-up after. You got to make sure that when you’re negotiating these deals, you’re not only looking at what the total number is, but you got to make sure the money is guaranteed. You got to make sure the cash flow is good. You got to make sure that all the components of what goes into a contract are up to par with what they need to be.
Victor M. Braca: So you’re saying that the number that I see in the headlines—105 million, 33 million contract for five years—that’s not all that means.
Ness Mugrabi: You look at a lot of contracts in the NFL. You look at a guy like Patrick Mahomes—he’s a great football player, but you look at his deal. 500 million is the number that you see in the headline, but you go into that deal and the guarantees aren’t as strong as they should be. The cash flow isn’t as strong as it should be. It’s a big misconception in the NFL that the big number that you see on Twitter is everything. It’s way more than just the number. What goes into it? What are the details? That’s a big thing that we educate our clients on: understanding a contract. What’s the difference between a good contract and what’s the difference between an elite contract? Anybody can go negotiate a big deal for Patrick Mahomes because he’s Patrick Mahomes. But not everybody is going to go and negotiate the best possible contract for Patrick Mahomes. I think there’s a big difference there.
Victor M. Braca: Nice. I like that. When I started Momentum, I did it because I love talking to business people. I wanted to inspire people with real stories—stories of how people built something from nothing. But what I didn’t expect was how much those episodes would mean to the guests’ families. I’ve had people reach out to me and tell me, “Victor, I watched my dad’s episode three times. My kids are going to watch this one day and their kids and their kids.” It’s like we captured a piece of him forever.
And that’s what led me to start Life Vault Films. It’s a way to professionally capture your parents’ or grandparents’ or great-grandparents’ full life story—from where they were born to how they built their life, their family, their business, their values—all of it on film forever. It’s not a tribute. It’s not a slideshow. It’s them. It’s your loved ones themselves telling their story in their own voice so your grandchildren and great-grandchildren and every future generation down the line can know them, too.
I mean, imagine that. Imagine you feel like you knew your great-great-great-grandmother. Wouldn’t it be amazing to see her smile, hear her voice, and to listen to her talk about her life in her own words? My hands are going all over because I’m so excited about this. That’s what Life Vault Films gives you. And it’s something that your family will cherish for generations to come. I guarantee you. If you want to capture the essence of your loved ones forever, go to LifeVaultFilms.com to learn more. Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned from running Momentum, it’s that stories fade unless we capture them. Let’s get back to the episode.
I want to ask on that note of how you learned this. Did you go to school for sports management?
Ness Mugrabi: Yes. I went to LIU Brooklyn. I majored in sports management. I got my masters from Texas A&M.
Victor M. Braca: It sounds like—if I can go out on a limb here and take a guess—that your education was twofold: 50% in school and 50% on the job. Or was it even more on the job? Tell me about where you picked up all these skills and the business acumen that you’ve developed and you use today in business.
Ness Mugrabi: I spent a lot of time in school trying to learn about my passions. To be honest with you, I think it’s important, right? I don’t want to knock school or anything, but I do think it’s important that when you’re in school, you’re thinking. You’re thinking: what do you want to be in your life? I think if you just follow the curriculum that the school gives you, it’s tough. I was not a great student in math or calc or whatever, trigonometry. I was terrible at it. That doesn’t mean you can’t be a great person in any business. Unfortunately, the school system is built to hurt the confidence of kids. To be honest, you got to believe in yourself. What you get on a test doesn’t mean that’s who you are in life. You got to think: what’s my passion? You see this all the time—you tell a fish to climb a tree, they’ll think they’re the dumbest thing in the world. So, you got to really find your thing.
Victor M. Braca: I love the message because I think a lot of parents and kids alike nowadays associate self-worth with performance in school, which I think is a bit of a problem in and of itself. For people who are not necessarily the school-smart types or the book-smart types who do well on their tests, it doesn’t have to matter. Like you said, you weren’t good at trigonometry and you weren’t so great at calculus.
Ness Mugrabi: I actually never took it.
Victor M. Braca: You never took calculus. So you were terrible at it. No, I’m just kidding.
Ness Mugrabi: I probably am.
Victor M. Braca: And yet you’re a super successful NFL agent. I don’t think it has to matter. Credit to God.
Ness Mugrabi: Amen.
Victor M. Braca: Beautiful. So you’ve been featured in the New York Times, Good Morning America, and ABC News for being the youngest NFL agent. What I want to ask you is: one thing that stuck out to me in all three of those interviews was how eager you were to speak about your religious observance and particularly your observance of Shabbat. So, I want you to talk about that a little bit. Why is it so important to you to only work 24/6 in a 24/7 industry?
Ness Mugrabi: That’s why we are who we are, right? I think it comes down to just believing in our religion, believing in what we have done our whole life. Obviously we went to school and we learned a lot about it, but really it comes from our family and generations—our grandparents and our great-great-grandparents. That’s really who instills the values and who we are today and this entire community. That’s a special thing about us. Our religion obviously is different in a way where there’s a lot of commitment and there’s a lot of boundaries. I think it’s so important for us as Jews really to understand what the boundaries are and to stay within the boundaries.
Even more specifically, our community is amazing. In our community, we have even more boundaries in who we are and what we do and the people that are around us. It gives us a better feeling of going out in the world and being successful because of the infrastructure that the community leaders and our families and our ancestors have left for us. I think it’s a really beautiful thing. I really do think it’s a beautiful, beautiful thing. It’s something that we should all take a lot of pride in.
Sometimes it’s hard. It’s not easy on Friday afternoon to go off my phone when I’m in the middle of a hundred things. But at the end of the day, that’s what Hashem wants. That’s what we’re here to do—we’re here to reset for a day. Then when I go and I’m off my phone and I’m in shul and we’re praying, it just hits different. It’s a special feeling. It’s a special moment of like, “Hey, everyone else is 24/7. I’m 24/6,” and I love it. Shabbat really lets you reset. I think it’s a reset to restart. That’s how I look at it. It really gives me the ability to just go be who I am. Go work hard and you always got that day of the week that’s a rest day.
Victor M. Braca: Beautiful. I obviously appreciate Shabbat, but for you, you’re in an industry that’s truly 24/7. Things don’t stop when you do, and you have to play catch-up afterwards.
Ness Mugrabi: Every Saturday night, the first thing I do is call David and we talk about what went on the last 24 hours. We have a pretty good system in place. Of course there are challenges that come with it, but at the end of the day, my players understand it, teams understand it, the people I communicate with and work with understand it, and it’s the biggest blessing. It’s a massive blessing in my life, and I love it.
Victor M. Braca: I just love how you highlight that as the top thing, especially when you’re going on these TV shows and on the news. It’s cool because people should know how important it is. Most people want to credit their success to themselves.
Ness Mugrabi: God put me in this position.
Victor M. Braca: Given that you started in the industry at such a young age, what were some of the lessons that you learned early on in your career when you’re a teenager, and how have they shaped the way you do business today?
Ness Mugrabi: If you’re honest, you’re going to win. If you’re honest with people, if you’re honest with yourself, that’s where you get success in life. I learned that from my family. I learned that from David. I’ve seen it from a lot of people in my life. Just being a good person and being forthright with others—not being shady or beating around the bush, just being upfront. That’s always going to take you the extra mile.
Victor M. Braca: For young professionals looking to break into sports management, what would you tell them the first step should be?
Ness Mugrabi: Know the niche of what you want to be. I get a lot of phone calls and I speak to a lot of people and they’re like, “Hey, I want to get into sports.” And you’re like, “Hey, what sport? What do you want to do?” Sports is a big business. Sports could be NFL. Sports could be NASCAR driving. Sports could be golf, tennis, basketball. There’s a million things in sports. There’s sports finance, there’s sports marketing, there’s sports real estate.
I think people really need to understand if they want to be in finance or marketing or being an agent or being in the front office in the personnel department, or if they want to do ticket sales. These operations and these teams have… for example, you talk about the Dallas Cowboys—the most valuable team in the world. Their operation is insane. From their training facility where they have tour guides walking people around the workout rooms, literally seeing the players work out, to a hotel that’s neighboring their training facility, to the medical people that are taking care of the guys every day, to the insurance people, to the back office people.
There are so many things in sports and I think people that say they want to get into sports have to understand that sports is big. It has to be sports and something. And it could be anything. It could really be anything. It could be sports and helping players find homes, or helping players do mortgages, or helping players get cars. There’s financial advisors, there’s insurance advisors. There’s so many people in the sports world. It’s a small community, but it’s big. It’s a small but big community of people that just want to help the players. Unfortunately there’s a lot of people that are in it for the wrong reasons, and I would suggest people to find the right reasons why you want to be in it and go after it.
Victor M. Braca: So your number one piece of advice: niche down. Know what you want to do, why you want to do it, and you’ll just get a clearer picture of how you can do it.
Ness Mugrabi: Absolutely. And I’m not saying that you should know exactly what the niche is, but you need to crunch it down to a couple. Because if you just say “sports,” it’s massive. Sports could be millions of different things.
Victor M. Braca: You were somebody who successfully turned their hobby, their passion, into a viable career. What do you think about the phrase “follow your passion”?
Ness Mugrabi: I love it because that’s what you should do.
Victor M. Braca: What do you say to the people who are worried that following their passion will lead to not enough money coming in, not being able to support a family, or just really not making money?
Ness Mugrabi: Listen, there’s always the trade-off. If someone’s passion is something that isn’t a viable career, that’s a different story. But if someone has a passion for something—whether it’s music or sports or whatever it is—you got to find ways to build it into how it is a money maker, how you can make money and how you can make a career with it. You just got to be creative.
In my situation, I’ve always been into media and production and photography and videography. I’m also a big dreamer. Instead of just dreaming of being a photographer or a video producer—which I’ve done a lot of in the past—I set my goals high and I said, “What if I owned hundreds of production companies? What if I started a private equity business that bought up production companies?” That really—I mean, that’s exactly what I just said because it’s a perfect example of it. You just find the way. You just got to be creative. Not everyone’s going to think like that. And that’s what’s important—to think like that and to figure out: hey, there’s a way. You just got to find that way. And getting that way is not going to be easy. You’re not going to think about it in 10 minutes. But if you put work into it and you really love it, you’re going to find that way.
Victor M. Braca: I love it. I want you to tell me a little bit about your routine and your schedule. We spoke about how you’re working 24/6, but I want to highlight that it’s really 24/6. You have people who you’re working with who are all over the world and across different time zones, and we were talking earlier about how you have to be available at all hours of the day and night. So tell me about that—about work-life balance. How do you balance your work and your personal life when your work can take up your entire day and you want to leave some time for your family?
Ness Mugrabi: Thank God my wife is amazing and she understands my business and understands what I do. I think it’s important to make my family—my wife specifically—involved in what I’m doing. When I’m taking work trips, she’s coming with me. So we’re really together all the time. Let’s say for example I’m going to a meeting in California; she’ll come with me to California. Or if it’s in Miami… So, yeah, including my wife and my family into who I am and what I do, into my work.
A couple weeks ago, my wife cooked dinner for Jalen Warren of the Pittsburgh Steelers in my house. That’s part of who we are. I think when you incorporate your family into your business and into your clients, there’s a deeper respect from your clients for you and an admiration for, “Hey, this isn’t only my agent; this is a guy that would do anything for me.” When we had that conversation a couple weeks ago, literally we were sitting in my living room, my wife was cooking us dinner, and we’re hanging out all together and it was awesome. That’s who I am and that’s who we are.
The work-life balance really comes into play in just realizing that, of course, I’m always working. I’m always “on.” When we go on vacation, I’m on my phone, I have my iPad, I have my computer, and we’re doing… I got to go to a meeting and a Zoom call or whatever it is. I make sure that my schedule works around it. I’m always focused on what we need to be focused on, which is getting the job done. My wife understands this completely. We can be hanging out and I’m going to take a phone call. There are times where we’re in the car and I end up on a two-hour phone conversation. That’s just part of my life and she gets that completely. My day starts by going to learn in the morning, going to shul, and my day gets started. I think that’s the best way to start your day. I don’t know if there is a way to start your day without learning in the morning and praying.
Victor M. Braca: Beautiful. And it sounds like that serves as structure for you to keep you going, because you’re reachable at all hours besides for Shabbat. And you keep that learning and the praying in the morning as really the start of your day. It’s massive.
Ness Mugrabi: It wasn’t like I did this my whole life. It took me time to grow into it. I didn’t go to shul in the morning my entire life. You realize and you gain the appreciation for it as you get older, I guess. I don’t think I was going to shul when I was in high school in the morning. I didn’t care to go on Sunday morning to shul. Now it’s part of my day, it’s part of my routine, and it really is what makes me who I am.
Victor M. Braca: I think it’s so important to note that the person you are now is just a product of what you were five, six, seven, eight years ago.
Ness Mugrabi: You’re learning every day. You’re really learning every day and you’re getting better every day. You have to have that mentality that you’re getting better every day in everything that you do. So whether it’s in business, whether it’s with your family, whether it’s in religion, you always just got to say, “How can I be better?”
Victor M. Braca: For sure. I love it. Do you have any favorite books, quotes, things you find yourself going back to time and time again for inspiration to get you going, to give you motivation?
Ness Mugrabi: Me and David, we say it every day: “Let’s be great.” Let’s be great. Like, let’s go and dominate everything we’re going to do. We tell it to all our clients. Another one is, “We will win.” We’ll find a way and we’re just going to get it done.
Victor M. Braca: Great quotes to live by. I want to talk a little bit about giving back because I know that’s an important part of your life and you’ve gotten involved in many initiatives. How do you give back in your own unique way?
Ness Mugrabi: I think in my way of giving back is… thank God I was put into a position to inspire others. That’s really what I want to do. Anyone I can inspire, if I inspire one person, I succeeded.
Victor M. Braca: Beautiful. And the reason I asked for your “unique way” is because I knew I would get something unique from you. Everyone gives their ma’aser, everyone gives their 10%. A lot of people volunteer at organizations or on boards. But what I love for you is you’re giving back to the source—you’re giving back to the future, I should say, which is the youth. By doing things like this podcast, by going on the news and being written up in media publications… yes, I’m sure it’s good for your brand, but you’re also inspiring countless young community members, young Jews, young non-community members—young everybody else in the world, and young and old.
Ness Mugrabi: About inspiring people more than any brand or image or anything… for me, I’ll be very honest with you, I wasn’t completely sure if I wanted to do this. I was talking to my wife about it and we came to the conclusion of, yeah, we want to give back. I want to give back and people… I want people to hear my story and I want people to get inspired by it. I want the next 10 years to be many stories like mine of people that came and had their passion and followed it and got it done. I’m blessed to be in the position that I’m in and I want everybody to have that.
Victor M. Braca: Beautiful, I love it. So the show is called Momentum and I can tell that you got your momentum started, you got the ball rolling for you at a young age. What I want to ask you is for your momentum moment. A moment where things started to turn around for you. A moment where your momentum started to truly build up for your career.
Ness Mugrabi: I’d say when I met David, right? When David gave a 16-year-old a chance and brought me into his life and brought me into his family and showed me the ways of how to get things done. He’s absolutely amazing to me. He’s always been amazing to me. And that’s my guy.
Victor M. Braca: I love it. And you know, I want to go back to when you said you met David and you saw the players on the field that you wanted to take photos with…
Ness Mugrabi: The first player I ever met, Paul Soliai, was David’s client.
Victor M. Braca: Really? So that’s crazy. Wow. I mean, that’s kind of full circle if you think about it. It was your first employer, your first mentor, and the first player you met was somebody that he represented. It really is crazy. It shows you how God works.
I want to—before we end—go back to what we were talking about school before. Elementary school, high school. I know you’re passionate about the fact that doing well or poorly in school doesn’t necessarily reflect on your character, on your intelligence, on your abilities. Can you just tell me a little bit about what that says for you?
Ness Mugrabi: I had a hard time in elementary school. I really did. I gave my parents a lot of troubles with behaving and all that nonsense when you’re a kid—just a natural part of being a teenager, I guess. Sometimes I don’t want to say that the school is built to help make you fail, but it’s also if your whole life value when you’re in seventh grade is what you get on a test, you’re never going to be happy. Because if you’re an honor student and you get a 96, you’re going to be upset. And if you’re a non-honor student and you get a 70, you’re going to be upset.
You can’t look at yourself—and I’m talking to really young people here, like the middle school people or the early high school people—you can’t put too much value in the test results. As long as you put in the work and you’re doing what you need to do, you’re going to be fine. At the end of the day, it is what it is.
Victor M. Braca: I love that piece of advice: “as long as you put in the work.” My father used to always tell me if I was ever struggling in a specific class or a certain subject, he would say, “Listen, obviously the goal is to do well. The goal is to score good grades. But if you don’t, as long as you know that you tried your hardest…”
I think it’s a very big, important thing—making sure you know that you gave it your all. We were talking about quotes before. One quote that has stuck with me is: “At least I can say I tried my hardest.” When I’m looking back at something—whether it be my life on my 120-year-old deathbed or looking at my high school career or my business career—I want to be able to say at least I know I tried my hardest. You know what I mean? I think that’s just a quote that I like to live by in a way.
Ness Mugrabi: It’s beautiful. I think it says: listen, if you put in the work, God’s going to handle everything else.
Victor M. Braca: That’s right. Nice. Thank you so much. This was a lot of fun. Learned a lot about you, your career, and can’t wait till you buy the Dolphins. Let’s go. Let’s be great.
What an incredible conversation with Ness Mugrabi, packed with insights on chasing your dream job, breaking into competitive industries, and the power of building meaningful relationships. Before we wrap up, I want to share my top three takeaways from this conversation.
First, be relentlessly resourceful. Ness’s story proves that finding creative ways to stand out and connect with the right people is key. Whether it’s cold emails, in-person introductions, or just going above and beyond in any way you can—success doesn’t come to those who wait. It comes to those who make things happen. Be a doer. Go out there and get it done. Like Ness says, “Let’s win this.”
Second, confidence and hard work trump everything. Ness never let his age define him. Instead of feeling like an impostor, instead of feeling like he wasn’t qualified for the job, he focused on proving his value through hard work, preparation, and deep industry knowledge. If you think about it, no matter how young or inexperienced you are, if you put in the effort, if you believe in yourself, if you exude confidence, you’ll earn respect.
And finally, success comes from integrity and persistence. Being honest, upfront, and genuinely caring about the people you work with is a game-changer. And we see that in the way Ness deals with his business. Ness built his career on trust and relationships, and that mindset has propelled him forward. Combine that with a never-quit attitude and you can turn your passion into a thriving career, into your dream job.
Huge thanks to Ness for coming on to the show and sharing his journey. And if you enjoyed this episode, you would love my conversation with Sol Betesh, who just like Ness made a career out of his passion. Sol runs a company called Fallen Media, and they create viral hit shows for Instagram and Tik Tok, bringing in a billion views per year and working with trillion-dollar companies like Apple and Amazon. That was really one of my favorite conversations I’ve had on this podcast to date. You can find that episode on any platform by searching “Momentum Sol Betesh” or by clicking the link in the show notes.
And with that said, thank you again for watching. Please be sure to subscribe on your podcast platform of choice. Remember, we’re on every podcast platform—Apple Podcast, Spotify, YouTube, Instagram—or wherever else you might get your podcast. So, be sure to rate the show five stars wherever you’re watching. And as Ness says, let’s be great. Let’s win. See you guys next time.
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