Meet Eddie Kim

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Eddie Kim. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Eddie, we’re thrilled to have you sharing your thoughts and lessons with our community. So, for folks who are at a stage in their life or career where they are trying to be more resilient, can you share where you get your resilience from?
I would say my resilience comes from when I started pre-school. I began speaking coherently at four years old, even family members thought it was best for me to be held back. My parents disagreed and knew I was fine, I did not start kindergarten very well, but definitely fought that through and did fairly well academically. My resilience was tested also when I started as a competitive swimmer in the San Fernando Valley. I was turned away from four different swim programs and one swim school, tough to deal with for a 7-year old, who just wanted to learn how to swim competitively, until one accepting me that trained out of CSUN. Throughout my whole athletic career, even after being a Junior Olympic gold medalist and nationally ranked USA swimming swimmer, I always felt like my career was always an uphill battle, and the only thing that kept me going was my will not to fail and to not just survive but thrive. As I got older, it was not just dealing with the in-the-pool but it was the out-of-the pool issues I had to deal with, for example, my own club coach blackmailing and threatening to ruin my recruiting and another previous club coach withholding my recruiting letters. My biggest test of my resilience was when I decided to leave the United States Military Academy and the swim team and came back home after freshman year. There was a stigma within the academy of former cadets leaving after their “plebe” year, which was told to me by one officer, “..it only goes downhill from here for you, Eddie.” I knew I did not want that to be my highest achievement, and fought back to be back on that track of accomplishment that I had created. After graduating from University of Southern California and the Army ROTC program, as an US Army officer, I became a certified Master’s Resiliency Trainer in the US Army and helped me be able to communicate and teach resiliency to Soldiers and others. With what I do today, doing it on your own challenges your will and hopes but I believe the resiliency I have built over the years has helped me continue to fight and grind day to day.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
I was born in Koreatown Los Angeles and stayed there until three years old, and raised in the San Fernando Valley and experienced the 1994 Northridge earthquake and also where my youth athletic career started, and until my swim career and family situation moved us to Orange County in Fullerton. Out of high school, I attended and swam for the NCAA Division I swim program at the United States Military Academy at West Point. My swim career highlights were being ranked #2 in the United States for age group in the 400 Meter Individual Medley and placed in the top 16 in the 1500 Meter freestyle at the US Junior Nationals.

After the completion of college freshman year, transferred out of the academy and landed at University of Southern California no longer as a student-athlete but on Army ROTC scholarship. Upon graduation at University of Southern California, I was commissioned as an US Army officer and served and also started coaching swimming after transferring out of West Point. My coaching career started from the ground up as an assistant in the high school level, junior college, and to a NCAA Division III program, until my one and only head coaching job at Long Beach Polytechnic High School where I was at for 10 years and gave the school the best all-around swimmer in the Class of 2023 and two undefeated league seasons for the first time since 1972. At the rank of Captain in the US Army, I had entered graduate school, and in the middle of graduate school, I decided to go after my lifelong dream of being an entertainment agent and pro sports agent.

I started the agency, Big Game Management in February 2018 and what got the ball rolling was doing concerts and mini-tours for Korean Pop and Hip-Hop artists which was parlayed to doing shows with Grammy-nominated artists and doing events in the Los Angeles area. Before the pandemic, I started working on my certifications for the WNBA, FIBA, and Major League Soccer. In February 2022, also completed and was certified to be a NBA agent by the NBPA. In addition, worked and grew within the entertainment industry, representing personalities from Vh1, MTV, and Telemundo.

We offer contract negotiations, marketing, consultation, and training on-and-off the court or camera, public relations, events, branding and endorsement opportunities, and merchandising.

One of the things that makes me proud regarding Big Game Management, is the yearly growth whether it is from a financial standpoint or network/connection standpoint. Most importantly, many professional basketball players doubled or tripled their yearly salaries from the first to the most current contract for this 2023-24 season.

Our most important message is to improve every year, no matter how small or big it may be and we have a big 2023-24 coming up.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
Emotional Intelligence is the first thing that comes to my mind. When you manage, represent, etc. the need for emotional intelligence is crucial because at the end of the day this is the people business, and interacting and analyzing human-to-human relationships are necessity. There are several workbooks online that helps with your emotional intelligence.

Continuing to grow is the next thing, complacency can kill the momentum you worked so hard to create or lead to a crucial mistake within the business. What I do is to continue to challenge myself and most importantly, it is to keep learning. No matter how much you achieved, there is something you can do to level up.

Lastly, I would say taking care of yourself is key, because in my profession, it is to make sure others are taken care of, and you can forget that you still have to maintain your mental and physical health. One thing I like to do, even sometimes on my own is to go to concerts or live music events on my own and enjoy myself to the fullest like nobody is watching.

Who has been most helpful in helping you overcome challenges or build and develop the essential skills, qualities or knowledge you needed to be successful?
I would say my parents. Both my parents have a work ethic like no other and both have tremendous wisdom and business acumen both in their own way and personality. One thing that they both harped on myself and my little sister is to never ever give up in Jesus Christ. It portrays the two things that are most important to them in life, their religion and grit. It was evident in my own athletic career, because any success I had as a swimmer was all dedication and work ethic. The one thing that I have felt they had taught me was being a realist and putting things into perspective. A crucial quality and habit that my parents created for me was being goal-oriented, and being a Captain in the US Army just reinforced and elevated that quality. The one quality I see in my parents is wisdom from a business stand-point, and is also something that I prioritize highly to continue to learn and grow.

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Image Credits
@goatd.official | @briangallardo

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