I made an impulsive decision to quit a great job in Hollywood. It felt like a mistake — but here's what I learned.

"My worst professional mistake ultimately became my biggest professional and personal break," writes Peter Csathy.

DNY59/Getty Images Peter Csathy is a studio exec, startup CEO, media and tech advisor, music dealmaker, and podcaster.

He calls leaving a Hollywood studio job for a startup the 'stupidest' decision of his career.

In the long run, it led him to achieve higher heights of personal and professional satisfaction.

The following is adapted from a book excerpt.

I began my career as an entertainment lawyer in a major firm.

It was a lucrative, predictable professional path that likely would have generated more money over time than my far more circuitous one —studio executive, startup CEO, media/tech advisor, music dealmaker, author, podcaster — has.

But early on, I chose a different path to pursue my bigger dream of playing a part in a major Hollywood studio.

And after seemingly endless rejection, and through sheer tenacity and will, I scored the lottery when I found my way "in" — jumping the industry's velvet rope and landing in the senior executive ranks at Universal Studios.

And then, just a few years later, I left.

I left to enter the great unknown of entrepreneurialism — into the world of internet 1.0 in the late 1990s where dreams were big, but salaries small.

Never mind that; I was going to score big and fast in my inevitable IPO.

Only I didn't, and my decision to leave Universal in favor of an overblown internet startup (a digital greeting card company, for God's sake!) became my stupidest decision in my professional career.

My wife, Luisa, was pregnant with our first child, Hunter.