RULE 3
Your Relationships Are Investments—Build Relationship Capital with Yourself First
I have spent a good portion of this book focused on helping you to get pointed in the right direction and to be well positioned for your own success. Why? Because there is no more important relationship than the one you have with yourself. Everything else in your life pivots off that relationship.
The relationship between you and yourself will be the first in the hopefully long and growing line of relationship capital in your life. This is why the most important commitment I made early on in my career was to become “reasonably comfortable” in my own skin.
The reality is that no one is totally comfortable in their own skin. That is perfection, and perfection simply does not exist. Perfection is an illusion, and we all just need to get over that and move on, living the best and most authentic lives we can.
We all know people who go through the vast majority of their lives striving to project an image of perfection. Not only is this “pretending to be perfect” thing not in any way convincing, it actually stresses the person in question out. They get stressed, and if it continues, they will get older and less healthy quicker. Why? Because your body is made of 70 percent water, and when you get hot and bothered all the time—stressed, upset, angry, highly negative, and negatively charged—you are theoretically “cooking” your organs. Done repeatedly, over time, it simply isn’t healthy.
That means that authenticity matters.
Sincerity and character matter.
Integrity matters.
Most of all, it means that genuine care matters. People can pick up on inauthentic energy in a split second, and when that happens, you can forget about doing business with them. They get that nagging sense that they are simply being used, and no one wants to feel used.
But you don’t have to worry about inauthentic energy when you develop an open and honest first relationship with yourself. Consider the wisdom embedded in the South African word ubuntu. “I am me because you are you.” Or as they say in Rwandan, agaciro, which means “dignity.” The more you know about yourself, the more you have to offer someone else.
Relationship Capital Made Simple
All wealth—financial and otherwise—is built upon relationships. Think about it. If I gave you $1 billion and put you on a desert island, that money would be worthless. Your mental, spiritual, and financial capital is valuable only to the extent that you can share it and spend it with others. The more people with whom you can share and build capital, the more you have what I call “relationship capital.”
Your level of legitimate trust in any real relationship determines the amount of capital you have. If you are a criminal brute forcing people to do what you want out of fear and intimidation, then that is not what I am talking about (nor is it sustainable).
If you have a friend who “borrows” $20 every week but never returns it, you will eventually distrust him, and you will not continue to “lend” him money. His relationship capital will be zero. Financial experts give businesses fancy investment ratings—basically credit scores—but this is exactly the same thing as grading your ability to trust your friend to repay you. A credit score is just a mathematical way of determining how much relationship capital you would have if you asked a banker to lend you some of his money.
Think about your current relationship capital with yourself. Do you keep your promises? Do you step up for what matters to you? Do you trust yourself to do the right thing when the time comes? Are you honest and trustworthy even when nobody is looking? Believing in yourself is the first step toward building relationship capital with others.
Who Is in Your Circle of Influence?
This is a BIG and important question.
Whom do you hang around with?
Whom do you choose to spend quality time with?
Where do you invest time and energy?
Whom do you associate with at work and play?
Which family members are you attracted to and use as role models?
Are you curating your life or just reacting through it?
Why does any of this matter?
Because, like I’ve said before, if you hang around nine broke people, you will be the tenth. You are—or will become—the person you hang around with.
The world works in a series of concentric circles. Circles of wealth, power, education, access, and opportunity not only swirl within the same concentric circle rings, or sets of related and connected rings, they also build on themselves. They feed on each other.
On a recent business day in Atlanta, I met with the CEO of the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, Hala Moddelmog, and her team in their office. Both of our offices are now located within the same building in Atlanta. I later found out that other people in my office had separately visited with other leaders in her office earlier that same day, having nothing to do with either her or me.
Later that same day I met with the chairman and CEO of SunTrust Banks Atlanta, Allison Dukes, whom I discovered was also meeting with Hala later that same day, along with the head of a major area foundation with offices in the same building as Operation HOPE.
And how did I meet Allison Dukes? At a dinner with one of my friends and business heroes, Bill Rogers, chairman and CEO of all of SunTrust Banks, and someone who has become a linchpin in the acceptance and explosive growth of the HOPE Inside franchise nationwide. Because he is a big-time, top-10 bank CEO, other top-100 CEOs accept me on his unspoken word. It is the way these concentric circles work.
And how did I meet Bill? Well, it was through another one of my heroes and friends, Jim Wells, the former chairman and CEO of SunTrust Banks. Jim Wells made the first big Sun-Trust bet on my dreams.
And how did I meet Jim Wells? Through Scott Wilfong of SunTrust Banks and Steve Bartlett, the former Dallas mayor and former congressman who was, at the time of the introduction, CEO of the Financial Services Roundtable (FSR). And I originally met Steve and the FSR family through Don McGrath, the then CEO of Bank of the West. Bill Rogers and Jim Wells both serve on our HOPE executive board today. Are you getting the Memo?
Success in life is not just about how smart you are, or whether there is a need, or whether you are deserving. The world operates in a flow, and you must get yourself into the right FLOW. You do that by building relationship capital.
Essentially, the Memo says: Get out of your comfort zone and form relationships in the places where you want to be. The more you connect with higher-capital people, the higher you raise your own capital worth.
If you grew up around wealthy people—went to school with children of influence, went to camp with these same kids, and grew up with them and grew up going to club events and traveling in the “upper cabin” of the airplane (business or first class)—then you sort of naturally cultivate those kinds of relationships as well as the culture of those spaces, people, and places.
If you grew up around smart kids, liked after-school projects, were drawn to research, loved your homework, joined nerdy clubs, hung out in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) environments, and cultivated mentors who looked like what you wanted to become, well, then you end up cultivating those sorts of relationships and adopting the culture and norms of those spaces, people, and places.
But if you grew up around thugs, crooks, drug dealers, and drug addicts, wannabe gangbangers, regulars at strip clubs, kids who thought it was cool to drop out of school in tenth grade, and you are surrounded by a whole series of predatory businesses—check cashers, payday lenders, title lenders, and liquor stores—then you naturally end up cultivating those relationships and adopting the culture and norms of those spaces, people, and places.
Just like wealth circles tie into wealth circles, so can poverty circles tie directly into other poverty circles, creating endless concentric circles of poverty and despair and depressed relationships that are hard to escape. They become all that you see, quite literally.
I did not grow up around privilege, opportunity, and power. I grew up in the hood. My mother worked a union job for McDonnell Douglas as a fabricator, and my dad ran his own small business doing cement contracting. I was not part of any elite access club. In fact, I was homeless for six months when I was eighteen years old and was forced to basically start over from nothing. But I knew I had talents and gifts. I just needed to cultivate them in the right way and in the right environment. So, I decided to create my own environment. I decided to create my own culture.
If no one would mentor me, I would track down and recruit my own mentors, and ask them to invest fifteen minutes with me every few weeks. Now who would turn down a fifteen-minute request of their time once a month?
How I Chased Down Ambassador Young
People hear me talk all the time about civil rights icon Ambassador Andrew Young as my mentor, personal hero, and friend. He is all of that, and close to a father figure in my life at this point as well, but there was a time when he had not a clue who I was and was not all that interested in learning more. To state it kindly, I was a pest of the highest order. I would just never give up.
I would find out where Andrew Young was speaking, and I would drive or fly there, depending on the distance. Yes, I said fly there. At my own expense. I would hustle the money up, and I would purchase a plane ticket—with no advance appointment or guarantee to meet him.
I did this in countless cities for over a decade. Wherever he was, that is where I wanted to be. Why? Because he and Quincy Jones were the only two black men I knew of in the whole, entire world who were “international.”
These two men were not black leaders who traveled places. They were internationally respected global leaders. Absolute best in class in their fields. Who also happened to be black. They were not “black for a living,” but they were very proud to be black. This, I decided, was my model.
And so, I did tons of research on Young, showed genuine and authentic interest, and then I made an investment in the relationship. I would show up wherever he happened to be. But I was not stalking the man. If he could not meet with me, or if he didn’t even have time to speak with me, that was okay. He owed me nothing. This was a risk that I was willing to take—for me and my future. One day I got lucky.
I heard that Ambassador Andrew Young was keynoting at a Corporate Council on Africa meeting in Dallas, Texas, so I purchased a plane ticket, registered for the conference, and flew there. Believe me, every purchase back then was a struggle. I decided to purchase a plane ticket instead of wasting money on a weekend of partying in the Los Angeles club scene. I decided to purchase a ticket instead of a stereo or cool rims for my car, which is where most of my friends my age were pouring their cash.
When I showed up in Dallas, Andrew Young had come down with a bug. He had to speak soon, but he was not feeling well. I decided that this was my chance. I offered to put him in my car and drive him to the pharmacy to get him whatever he needed. It worked, and for forty-five minutes, on the way to and on the way back from the pharmacy, I had this man’s undivided attention. I had borrowed my friend Effie Booker’s Mercedes Benz automobile to drive Young around. It worked like a charm except for one thing—he didn’t remember anything I said to him. His mind was somewhere else.
I had all but given up when I decided to try one more time. I flew in to the annual dinner for the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Washington, DC, where once again Young was the speaker. I thought he might still have no clue who I was, and I was okay with that. I had tried. But a friend of mine, Robert McNeely of Union Bank of California, wanted to meet Young. I could at least try to make an introduction. And so, after the dinner I took Robert over to meet Young. To my surprise, Young then introduced me to his son, Andrew “Bo” Young III. Today, Bo Young and I are the best of friends. Very much like brothers.
Truth be told, if not for Bo Young needling me, I would not have the relationship that I have with his father today. The funniest call I can remember receiving was Bo calling me in California one day and asking, “Hey man, why don’t you like my daddy? Why haven’t you ever asked me to introduce you to him so you two could have a real conversation about community change?”
I was dumbfounded. If he only knew what I had gone through all those years. But I sucked it up and just said, “You’re right. I would love to meet your father.” Within a few days, I was again on a plane, this time to Atlanta. The agenda was lunch with Bo and Andrew Young.
Now, I would love to say here that we had lunch and everything clicked, but such is the furthest thing from the truth. We had our lunch, and once again, I outlined my vision for Operation HOPE, my proposed silver rights movement, and community change. It felt like I had been talking into a wind tunnel. Lunch was over, and Young had to run back to his office for a media interview. But then, at the last moment, he turned to me and asked, “What are you plans after lunch?”
I said, “Nothing,” even though I had a packed schedule. He invited me to come over to his office to continue our conversation, and so I cancelled everything else I had scheduled that day.
I went to Andrew Young’s office after lunch, and we had a five-hour conversation. On my way out of his office, he stopped and showed me a one-of-a-kind painting from a Nigerian prince. He asked me if I liked it, and then he pulled it off the wall and gave it to me. That was it. I fell in love with the man that day, and he went on to become our global spokesman for Operation HOPE.
Young was not in my circle. I curated an environment in which Young’s circle could cross mine, and because of that my circle has significantly expanded.
As I said before, the Memo says: Get out of your comfort zone and form relationships in the places where you want to be. The more you connect with higher-capital people, the higher you raise your own capital worth.
I have basically been doing this my entire life, building relationship capital. It is part of what makes me, me. It is part of the magic sauce. It is part of getting the Memo.
The way I met Quincy Jones was equally bizarre. I decided that I wanted to have a relationship with Q, to be mentored by him, to model myself on his life. But I did not know him. He was a legend surrounded by a dozen handlers, and I was this young kid from the hood (albeit assertive), who like millions of other kids wanted to know the man who made Michael Jackson what he ultimately became. This is where that quote from my late mentor and friend Dr. Dorothy I. Height comes in. She told me one day, “John, I like you because you are a dreamer with a shovel in your hands.”
One day an invite came across my desk for a fund-raiser for a congresswoman from California. I couldn’t care less about the fund-raiser, but it was being held at the home of none other than one Quincy Delight Jones!
This congresswoman was a nice enough person, but I did not really know her. And, truth be told, the entire Congressional Black Caucus group (CBC) from California was kind of indifferent toward me back then. I received $1 million in federal appropriations from a member of the Hispanic Caucus (led by Congresswoman Lucille Roybal-Allard), but the CBC was not really interested in me, for whatever strange reason. One member was actually openly hostile toward me. And so, I knew they would lift not one finger to help me meet Q. But with $1,000 in my hands, I could meet him myself. I just had to show up to the fund-raiser.
I made it my business to land a new consulting client over those next couple of weeks with the sole aim of securing an advance retainer of $1,000—the same $1,000 I would use to get access to Q’s home. The problem for me back then, however, was that I was a social misfit. I was keen in business, but I had few social skills in large groups. I was a social introvert—unless you were talking about business or life missions. And so, I went to the fund-raiser at Q’s home and proceeded to hold up a wall, nursing a glass of Coca-Cola with melting ice.
About the time I was getting ready to leave, the oddest thing happened: I heard someone calling my name. It wasn’t just any old someone calling my name, it was Quincy Jones himself! He was in the next room, and I heard him asking the congresswoman, since deceased (God rest her soul), whether she knew me. He had heard about my work with HOPE after the riots, and he wanted to meet me. Get that: Q wanted to meet ME! I had to keep myself from laughing out loud when I heard the congresswoman bragging to Q about “what a wonderful young man I was,” like we were buddies. But that’s Hollywood for you, so I just smiled and played along. I was focused on only one thing: meeting Q.
I was ushered over, and Q put his arm around my shoulder—and for everyone in that room I was a made man for the rest of the evening. But I don’t remember much about anyone else that night because Q pulled me over into a corner of his home, and we spoke nonstop for the next seven hours. When I looked up, all the guests had departed. It was just Q and me. And as I was leaving, he gave me all his private contact details. We have been connected at the spiritual hip ever since.
I have now joined Q all over the world, from Montreux, Switzerland, to Manhattan, New York City, and back. But, hands down, our best and richest times have been just sharing stories about the world and laughter about ourselves right in his inspiring Bel Air living room. What a man he is. And I am honored to call him a mentor and a friend.
But what if I hadn’t taken the initiative? What if I hadn’t made the investment of time, energy, and resources? What if I didn’t have the right spirit, if I had chosen to not tolerate the people standing between me and him and who meant me no good? Everything would be different. But now Q and I are connected, and through him my circles of influence have expanded tenfold, just as they did when I connected with Andrew Young.
Who are you hanging around?
Who are your family members hanging around?
Do you want to be like the people in this group?
If not, then you must change what you and they see. Starting today.
This is part of getting the Memo.
Networking Is Not Relationship Building
So maybe you think my chasing people like Andrew Young, Quincy Jones, and Jack Kemp (I left that story out…) around the country is a form of networking. Let me explain why I don’t think so.
There is a big difference between networking and relationship building. In fact, networking does not generate relationship capital at all. For anything other than the barter, trade, and transactions of the most basic needs, most traditional networking is not even very helpful.
Networking is about “What do I get?” Relationship building is about “What do I have to give?”
Networking is a taking not a giving business. When someone is handing you their business card at a networking event, they are busy asking themselves, “So what can I get from this guy or woman?” And then what do we do with all the business cards that we receive at networking events? Shove them all in a drawer never to be looked at again.
Let me tell you something that few others will. No one who can really help you advance your station in life—or, more bluntly, no one of substance—goes to networking receptions. Now, am I saying that all networking events are useless? Absolutely not. My friend George Fraser of FraserNet is a good example of the exception to the rule.
George does not throw networking events; he uses networked opportunities to “educate-up” and to empower those that make the investment and choose to show up. More so, George is an ongoing resource to everyone who connects with and through his organization. In many ways, the relationship capital–building opportunity in this example is really with George Fraser.
George knows his clients. He is willing to back his clients. He vouches for them, which means he makes sure that the people he is talking about aren’t flakes. He is the one who ensures that his company’s networking sessions don’t end up being mere networking events where people trade, then throw away, business cards.
I used to go to networking receptions and events early in my career, but at the time I was pretty much an “empty shirt,” someone who looked the part but lacked the real substance to execute. I am not digging on me here; I am just making a factual point. I looked great, I said all the right things, but I was just selling, and selling does not build relationship capital.
I had business cards, I was dressed for success, and my cards had the number of a telephone answering service that served as my “office,” but I had virtually no clients for my fledgling company. And so, I trundled off to networking receptions once or twice a week. Every week. And other than collecting a lot of business cards that I later did nothing with, I really cannot recall one thing of real value I got out of them.
When you go to networking receptions, you are often—please excuse my bluntness here—meeting other broke people. You are meeting other people who want the same thing that you do: to make the sell, any sell. Frankly, sometimes I just went for the free happy hour food, as I didn’t have a budget for food or apartment rent when I first started in business. Everything was a hustle in those early years.
So, you have broke people trying to sell something to other broke people, something that oftentimes neither party wants, by the way. Do you think these broke people can help you get a good job, or make a substantial investment in your company? Probably not.
The people who can do those things don’t go to networking receptions. They are at their offices, in their homes, or on planes somewhere, actually moving the agendas that they are already running. The folks you actually want to meet are running things, and they have no time (or interest) in attending random social events with random real value. They have better things to do.
Networking is basically only about the one doing the networking and what that person has to sell. It is a taker’s activity and it is highly, highly transactional.
Relationship building is a giver’s activity. It is about what you have to give, and it understands that real relationships are nurtured over time. Relationship building is a two-way street, with mutual benefit for both individuals.
Let me stop here to explain the difference between good selfishness and bad selfishness, because there is a direct correlation here with building relationship capital and networking.
Good selfishness is where I benefit you, and everyone else associated benefits more. Bad selfishness is where I benefit, but you and everyone else associated pay a price for it. One adds to society and our world, and the other just takes, depletes.
Raising your children is an example of good selfishness.
Running an ethical nonprofit organization is good selfishness.
Running for public office as a public servant (about we) and not just a being a politician (about me) is good selfishness.
Building and running a successful business that employs people and provides a valuable product or service to society is good selfishness.
Building and running a day care service, or as in the case of my mother when I was growing up a nursery business, is good selfishness. I was my mother’s first customer. She started the business as a creative way to spend more time with me and get paid doing it (smile).
A capitalist who builds a conglomerate and upon retiring directs the company to launch a major foundation focused on giving back to the communities that supported the company’s growth and success is also good selfishness.
A drug dealer—whether in the underserved neighborhoods of South Central Los Angeles or the mansions of Bel Air—is an example of bad selfishness. No one is better off in this example except for the dealer. Everyone else comes out worse.
A thief is an example of bad selfishness. Someone who murders and steals for a living is an example of bad selfishness.
Those who use the cloak of public office or public service to line their own pockets are examples of bad selfishness.
Those who have been given the gift of the care of children, whether their own or others’, and abuse this sacred right are probably the most egregious example of bad selfishness.
Building relationship capital, here or anywhere else around the world, is indeed good selfishness.
With networking, you don’t even have to know someone. With relationship capital, you actually have to care.
Soon after founding Operation HOPE in 1992, I realized that I could not run the organization on hopes, dreams, goodwill, volunteers, and even my own money alone. I needed outside partners and supporters to help, but for two years almost no one would write a check to back my new organization other than me. Initially, this made sense, because if I didn’t believe in HOPE enough to back it with my own money and sweat equity, then why should anyone else?
I remember driving clear out to Lancaster, California, almost two hours away, to meet with the CEO of a small community bank and ask him for a $1,000 investment in HOPE. After a couple of telephone conversations and a couple of visits, he did have the bank write the check for $1,000. In 1996, this was a big deal to me. My entire budget that year was something on the order of $61,000, most of which came from a government grant for small businesses. (It is worth noting that outgoing Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley [a black Democrat] had gone out of his way to arrange this modest but important SBA 7[j] grant for me and HOPE with outgoing President George W. Bush [a white Republican]. Operation HOPE was literally born in an environment of those with so-called differences finding pathways forward and common ground to work together. And now you know better why I am multiracial and bipartisan in my approach to life.)
The gentleman banker was Jack Seefus, then CEO of Antelope Valley Bank. In the course of our conversations I had become comfortable speaking informally to Jack, and so I gave him a hard time (after I got the $1,000 check, of course) about him being a CEO with nothing on his desk but a copy of the Wall Street Journal. I remember what he told me like it was yesterday.
“John, obviously, you have no idea what a CEO does every day. It is not my job to do home appraisals for values. I have hired home appraisers to do that. It is not my job to do credit underwriting for borrower applications. I have hired qualified people to do that. It is not my job to collect deposits or even manage the branch you are sitting in, John. I have hired qualified, wonderful people to do that. It is not my job to audit the books. I have a bunch of people who do that.
“John, it is my job to sit here with a clear head, to read the Wall Street Journal every day, and to chart the course forward for this organization, manage our risk, and to find new opportunities for the future. That’s my job. And, by the way, that is why you are sitting here in front of me. You are my and our opportunity today.”
I will never forget that. Lesson learned. And I read the Wall Street Journal now, religiously, these days from my iPad.
How a Relationship Saved Operation HOPE
My first real banker—meaning the first person who really backed me—was a gentleman by the name of William Hanna. I met William sometime after the Rodney King riots of 1992 when I was twenty-six years old and he ran a small community bank called Cedars Bank. William wanted to help the community, and I wanted to give him an intelligent way to do just that.
In those early years, we received only a modest amount of private-sector support for our work, and so I was forced to take a larger government grant to keep HOPE alive. But then, when the government shut down in 1994, I quickly discovered how thin the ice was underneath me. Very thin.
The federal government shut down and stopped issuing reimbursement payments, which meant we could not meet payroll. I called William because I knew he had the right spirit. He wanted to be helpful, but he was a cautious type. He had seen far too many slick, fast-talking people come through his door with a dream to sell—using his wallet.
For two years, William had done little but sit and listen to me, but this was fine because I had a lot to say. He had taken my calls. He had met with me. He had even made a modest financial contribution to HOPE and had some of his team lend volunteer support to our effort. But none of this was consequential, really—to him or to me.
What I did not know was that he had been putting me through my paces, so to speak. He had been checking me out all this time. In many ways, he was underwriting me like I was a credit, like I was “capital.” We were also building a real relationship based on trust. This relationship turned into a genuine friendship that sustains until this day.
I was in a bad way: HOPE’s bank account was tapped, and I could not break another personal certificate of deposit to keep HOPE alive at that point. I had done all that I could to keep HOPE afloat. I needed outside assistance. And so, I called the man who for two years did mostly nothing but listen.
He answered the phone, and I said this: “William, the government has shut down, and I cannot get the reimbursements I need to pay my people. I am an honest man with an authentic calling, vision, and work. I need a short-term line of credit of $25,000 to pay my people, but all I have as collateral is my good name and my word.” (My credit score back then was not the greatest, as I recall.)
I waited for the answer, and after what had to have been the longest minute of total silence in history, he said, “John, I will do this, and I will give you a year to pay me back. But you MUST pay the bank back. This is my signature backing your dream here.”
I gave William my word, and with this loan HOPE had a lifeline that has sustained it to this day.
Here is what I know now: William hung up that telephone and walked over to his chief financial officer, explaining the situation and circumstances to her. William told me years later that she said flatly, “No way should you do this, William. The bank cannot back this. It will not work. He will not pay you back. He is a nice young man but…”
But William quietly shut her down, saying that he was going to do this on his signature at the bank alone. And he told her, “You will see…”
I paid the full $25,000 back—in six months, not the twelve that the banker had given me. I had a point to make to him and his people and something to prove to myself. Years later, his CFO apologized to me for not believing in me for no good reason. But there was a good reason: she and I did not have a relationship, and I was outside of her circle of influence. It made perfect sense to me, and I didn’t hold a thing against her.
My first banker started me out by entrusting me with a $25,000 credit line that even his own underwriters told him not to do. Less than a decade later, this same bank extended to me and HOPE a record $1 million line of credit, this time with the backing of the entire bank’s credit underwriting staff. This loan even had several participants from other reputable banks (like Union and Wells Fargo Bank) who were willing to fund and share the risk with Cedars Bank.
I ended up with pure substance, but it began with a relationship.
It began in that one bank office branch in Lancaster, California, with me getting one of my first notes on the Memo: relationships are investments.
The Best $100 I Ever Spent
For me, nothing is more important than my integrity and my name (collectively referred to as my brand). This is my real capital. Yes, I have some money, but that is not what I choose to focus on now, nor did I when I was a young man.
My black and brown friends where I grew up in South Central Los Angeles and Compton, California, were all focused on “getting paid.”
Later in life, during the time that I was coming up as a young businessman and later as an entrepreneur, my white friends were focused on “getting rich.”
I was not really interested in either.
I knew at a very early age that I wanted to build wealth, which has more to do with a perspective or a take on life than a pure statement of financial net worth.
Money would come and money would go, but I knew that if I ever truly discovered myself that I would have a value proposition that I could use, leverage, and lean on for the rest of my life. I knew that my true wealth lived within me, not in my wallet, let alone in someone else’s wallet.
When I was eighteen, I asked an early mentor and my employer at the time, Harvey Baskin, to join me for dinner. Harvey was a successful businessman, a former financier, and the owner of Geoffrey’s Malibu Restaurant, where I worked first as a not-so-good busboy, then as a not-much-better waiter, and later as Harvey’s personal assistant. Harvey’s leg was broken, and I had to drive him in my white Audi with the front seat folded forward so he could rest his leg while he sat in the back seat. It all looked like a very bad outtake from the movie Driving Miss Daisy.
We finally made it from Malibu, where Harvey lived, to the restaurant near Venice, California (his expensive, upscale choice, mind you), and I spent the entire time just plying him for information.
“How did you do this, Harvey? How did you do that? How do I navigate this? How do I move through this obstacle?”
My questions were nonstop and endless. But Harvey was patient with me, answering each and every one as best he could. Harvey finally did get frustrated with me, but it was at the very end of the dinner, and it had nothing to do with the probing questions I was asking him.
You see, I was Harvey’s personal assistant, and let’s just say that Harvey was brilliant at both making money and keeping it. He didn’t waste much on salaries, but I still didn’t realize in the moment how fortunate and blessed I was.
The bill for dinner came, and it was about $100, a small fortune for me back then. That may have been what I spent on food for the entire month at that age. Anyway, the bill came, and when I saw the amount, I asked, incredulously, “Harvey, you don’t expect me to pay for this on the meager salary that you pay me, do you?”
Harvey’s response was classic, bearing wisdom I hold with me as if it happened yesterday.
Harvey looked me straight in the eye and said, coolly, “John, you have to decide whether you want to pick my brain or my pockets. One lasts longer …”
And so, I paid the bill without another word, except thank you. Harvey had given me the priceless gifts of his wisdom, knowledge, and, most of all, his time—and I had initially “thanked” him with a crude attack on his wallet.
I decided that day what my priorities would be going forward: I was committed to building a wealth mentality, irrespective of what it cost me in the short term. I thought of it as investing in myself, in my own relationship capital. With the goal of transformational life change—at scale—I was going to get the Memo.