From an old friend. Very effective guy -
Seb,
If there's anything I can do to help -- websites, marketing, design, tech are all areas of expertise, among others -- just let me know.
Want to see you succeed!
Reply -
Let's do a Skype right now. I'm doing some crazy shit, we should talk. I was just thinking about you too incidentally.
And -
give me a sec ... I'll get online
"Man, Seb, I love what you're doing. Why is it so hard to find people who do what they say they'll do?"
"It's just life dude. You know what though? I don't care. I need, like, a wrecking crew of 20 solid people. 20 people, that's all, that's enough to get in and do some business and get out constantly, whenever I want, cover all skillsets, and have contacts with whatever skillsets we don't have. Like, we find some project that's delayed by months and costing a company millions of dollars, 4 guys in our wrecking crew come in and we get it online in 3 weeks, they pay us a million dollars, we split up 250 K each. This seems possible, if you've got super solid people and you're all in sync."
"Hah, I love it."
"Yeah. So I told everyone in my life they have to do better to stay in my life. I mean, do better, philosophically speaking. Like, not just more effective or harder working, but smarter, more humane, more cool, more appreciate, everything. Do better."
"I want in. What can we do together?"
We start talking about it. He's got a lot of stuff going on. Brilliant guy. He's doing some sort of statistical derivations on the effectiveness of print advertisements these days, or something. Used to work in a hedge fund, but quit because he didn't like finance. An artist, a really brilliant and good guy, someone you want on your side. In his free time, he makes iOS apps, does a lot of yoga, a bit of consulting, and is just a stellar dude.
So we're running over anything that we can do together, and it's like there's almost a fit, but not quite... 30 minutes pass, 45... conversation is good, but it's stalling out.
You know what's about to happen? A whole lot of fucking nothing, that's what's about to happen.
"Dude, you know what? This is stupid. This is fucking stupid. When's the next time you're free for five days?"
"Thanksgiving."
"Uhh, I haven't been in America for a while. When is that?"
"It's the third week of --"
"No, I mean, what dates?"
"Umm... the 24th to the 29th."
"Okay. I'm flying you out to Beijing."
"Really?"
"Well, maybe. Let me check tickets. Hold on."
It's like $800 and change.
"Yeah. It's 800 bucks. I'll put you up in an apartment when you're here... I rent a room from a really nice couple with a baby, but the baby is quiet and my room there is far away from them, I've never heard crying. I'm usually not there anyways, I usually sleep in my office... so I'll put you up there.... I can't hang all the time, I've got a lot of shit going on. But come hang out at the office, meet my staff, they're all excellent. You're super sharp, so I bet you'll have some realization about something we can do that'll help us make sales or something. And we'll get some time in Starbucks to see if we can hammer out a way to do a quick project, make some cash. How's that sound?"
"Umm, well, I've got to check my calendar and --"
"No, fuck that man, I'm saying I'll do it right now. I've got the tickets open. You in?"
"Give me a second."
I wait.
Time passes. I presume he's checking his appointments and commitments.
He's back. "Okay. I'm in."
"FUCK YEAH. Alright, this is awesome. Think about how we can make some money together. If we can get money together, we can do this a lot."
"This is awesome Seb. Jeez, I'm so pumped. Wow."
"Well... yeah, this is what high level people do, isn't it? Like, I had always hoped that if my profile got high enough, the Sheik of Dubai would drop me a line, set me up a room in his palace, give me some money, and just let me work on whatever I wanted. Maybe tutor his son in history as my official duty. Then once a year or something, I'd probably come with a big win to increase the efficiency of their government or whatever... I mean, why not right? I've studied all the top historical figures, put immense time into strategy, learned what works, patterns, whatever... that would just make immense sense.... but it kept never happening. But you know what? You're high level. I bet you've been thinking the same way. Why doesn't anyone recognize my talent and just treat me like gold, and I'll produce immense amounts for them?"
"Yeah! Exactly!"
"Well, okay, I'm done waiting. I've just got to be the guy that does it. So you come here, let's hammer some stuff out... I mean, what's the downside? I'm out 800 bucks, no business is done, but we get to hang out and catch up? I haven't seen you in, what, five years? That's too long anyways."
"Thanks Seb... jeez man... you know, I've never been..."
"What? To Asia?"
"No. First time."
"Ah jeez, that surprises me. Well, cool, you'll like ------ Wait! You've got to get a visa for China! Shit, I almost forgot, that would've been a nightmare."
We look up visa costs. There's an agency that does it with a five-day turnaround for only $50 plus the application fees. He says he'll get on (and confirmed the next day he did).
Things is happening.
Oh, I suppose everyone wants to know what's happening with Simon and Schuster?
Yeah, I got a bunch of panicked emails telling me to delete the post, call them, and all sorts of things. Here was my reply -
"I see a lot of demands being made, and not a lot of problems being fixed."
Onwards!