The plates are shifting.
“You’re fucking brilliant mate. Fucking genius. Get on a plane.”
The line went dead.
I stared at my phone for a beat longer than necessary, like it might ring again and explain itself. CD looked up and asked who it was.
MO. The European agent. He wanted me in London.
Something clicked loose in my chest. I was riding a wave before I even understood how big it was. Years earlier, a mentor at ACCD asked me what I wanted. I didn’t hesitate. I wanted to travel the world directing commercials. But the truth was more specific. The world meant Europe.
That was the work I obsessed over. European directors trusted silence. They let moments breathe. They used restraint like a weapon. Dry humor. Sharp edges. No spoon feeding. Compared to the loud, sugar soaked US commercial machine, it felt like another language. One I desperately wanted to speak.
So when a man with an accent told me I was brilliant, I inhaled every word. The smoke was thick and intoxicating. I could have blown rings out of my ass from all the praise.
The plates had shifted.
Looking back now, that phone call was a hinge moment. Career wise, yes. But personally too. CD wasn’t from the advertising world and saw the whole thing as slightly ridiculous. She knew I wanted to travel, to work overseas, to chase something undefined but magnetic. I was also insecure in ways I didn’t know how to name back then. She was stunning. The kind of beautiful that bends gravity in a room.
I didn’t have the language for fear or ambition or how those two things can collide. No one ever taught me how to talk about feelings. No one modeled it. So while I was buzzing with excitement, I could feel a shadow forming between us. I couldn’t explain it. I just felt it creeping in.
London was my first real overseas trip. One week. Meetings. Handshakes. Being seen. At that point in my life, I loved everything that came out of the UK. Commercials. Fashion. Film. Magazines. Music above all. I landed wired and wide eyed.
Most of the trip exists in fragments. Agency conference rooms with floor to ceiling windows. Soho streets slick with rain and neon. MO striding ahead of me, half salesman, half tour guide. He was Irish, a committed drinker, armed with a Believe Media expense card and a mission. I was the new hot director. My job was to show up and not screw it up.
Long lunches. Heavy pints. Late nights. It was a blur that felt cinematic even while I was inside it. I’m sure I looked like a deer in the headlights.
This is happening. I made this happen. I’m in London. What the fuck.
Pause.
This is the part I keep coming back to. Persistence. Intention. Focus. Those two student commercials cracked the door. Obsession kicked it open. Blood, sweat, tears, and an unreasonable amount of belief. I knocked on every door. Asked for favors. Hustled deals. Convinced people to give their time.
Why did they help? Because I believed in the work without hesitation. That belief was contagious. That lesson still matters, especially as I look ahead to 2026.
Back to the trip.
I stayed in a strange, beautiful hotel in Notting Hill. Taxidermy watched you from the walls. Vintage science equipment sat in corners like props from a forgotten lab. The wallpaper alone deserved its own film credit. The rooms were so small you had to choose between opening your bag or standing upright.
There was a beautiful Moroccan girl at the front desk who could quietly deliver hash to your room. An incredible Iranian restaurant down the block. When I wasn’t with MO, I rode the Tube with no destination, wandered bookstores, dug through record shops, and walked until my legs buzzed. London rewards curiosity.
Meetings often involved drinking. Lunch meant pints. I tried to keep up, but day drinking short circuits my system. My rule was simple. Drinking only makes sense after dark. If it’s daylight and you’re drinking, something’s off.
Everyone talked about the curries. Honestly, they didn’t hit. LA had ruined me. You want great food, you go where it lives. London curries felt muted. Doner kebabs, though, were a religious experience.
Side note. I’m sixty hours into a ninety six hour fast as I write this. I would destroy a London curry right now.
One image from that week is burned into my memory. A giant stencil of a rat on a Soho wall. My first Banksy, though I didn’t know his name then. The power of it stopped me cold. Simple. Defiant. Loaded. It pulled me straight back into the culture jamming energy that first lit me up as a kid.
MO went full VIP. Agency heads. Shot magazine publishers. Cruising London in his tricked out Range Rover. Soho House back when it was just one place and still felt secret. Rubbing shoulders with European celebrities like it was normal.
I remember seeing Kate Moss holding court at a table and thinking, how did I end up here.
Then the week ended.
I boarded a plane back to Los Angeles, sunlight waiting on the other side, knowing something fundamental had shifted. I had just been invited into a world that felt like the creative version of Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. Doors opening. Rooms I didn’t know existed. A promise of things far stranger and more beautiful than I had imagined.
And I was flying back to reality.
For now.
I hope that this finds you in a healthy space, physically, mentally, financially and spiritually.
LOVE&LIGHT
MISTER MOYER