You entered my life in the most unexpected way.
You took my breath and left me with nothing to say.

Feelings and surprises were simply abound
And it was simply because I had you around.

We started out with a bang.
But ended up with a bust.
I’m left with nothing to say but it’s walking away
that now becomes a must.

“Best vacation of 2010…” as Meredith says. From my own observations, I’d say more than 50% of the people from the house really connected with someone that they’d consider a friend and would hang out again outside of the group. Even got a handwritten note from someone in the mail thanking me for the memories and friendships made. That was a first for me.

Conclusion? Smashing success. I’m on fire.

———————-

No one ever said this would be easy
Don’t you walk away
Sit here, Stand there
Don’t you dare
Can’t you see how much I care
When we fight, I wish you’d fight fair
Baby please

I love the way you move
Love how you soothe
The pain I feel inside too
It’s like you putting on a dance move
Never too hard
Like my shaved head, like my words
It’s completely smooth

Let me wipe away those tears
From the hurt and the pain
I promise I’ll never do that again
Trying for something different
No more of the same
Please no more games
This is getting tiresome, this is getting lame
It’s just your heart that I’m trying to tame

But I can’t though
I just want to take my fist
Go for 12 rounds. Plus 4 more.
I can’t love when you’re like this
All this rage that overwhelmed 3 months of bliss
No wait. Hold on. Here comes the kiss
of death. I’m bracing
My mind is racing
To find a way out of this

Why don’t you believe me
Can’t you see what we have is a rarity
Can’t you hear the sincerity

For what we have. What we built
Step away. Walk outside cuz you need more clarity
What you doing. Walking away. It’s scary

Promises made, promises kept
That’s the verbal contract I made
To you
While you slept
I can’t stand it no more
Cuz this we got here is completely inept

How did we get here
I don’t know
My mind is broken.
Focusing on the heart that needs mending
This is no longer a fairy tale ending
Hold my heart. It’s what I’m sending
Your faith that I’m hoping you’re lending

Other big cities like NYC, LA, London, and Dubai had happy hours with event attendance in the hundreds. I thought I’d put one together for DC ASWers and see what would happen. Just another one of my forays or experiments into building communities. We had a decent turnout of 20-25 people. Certainly, I’ve been part of events with bigger attendance.

But I have to say that this event was solid and I genuinely enjoyed it. Here’s why I think ASW events are so successful.

1. It was a very international crowd. Probably 75% international with people from all over the world. ASW is built with the idea of having a international membership base. I met people from Morocco, Luxembourg, Istanbul, Mexico, and Paris. That really gives it a very worldly exotic feel to it.
2. The conversation and people were of high quality. I know that makes me sound like a snob, but attending a happy hour full of strangers is no easy feat for anyone. There are so many happy hours where the guys are socially awkward or the women are complete snobs. But people were so friendly. It’s partly because the professionals are of a higher caliber who are well educated and command strong social skills. For people who were well educated, I sensed no pretentiousness. They are a handsome and beautiful group of people too.
3. It’s invitation-only. Because the site itself is invite-only, this ensures that most members who come genuinely know someone else from the community. This provides a checks and balance system and minimizes the “fluff and noise.”

I heard similar remarks from some of the attendees who attended other ASW events around the world.

See if you can understand what makes her a GQ Girl.

——————————–
She got class.
To go with that fine looking ass.
She gonna spin around the world.
While I make her swirl.
All because she’s my GQ girl.

On Friday nights, she’s with me in her 3 inch Jimmy Choos
Me in my Levi jeans and Adidas shoes
Everywhere I take her
It’s like the guys go WOO!

Just cuz she’s all glamed up from head to toe
She’s not to be mistaken for one of those K-street hoes
She better not hear that
Or she’ll give you a bloody nose

Turns out,she’s not looking for the guy with the 3-piece suit
She doesn’t care if you’re not made of loot
Could care less if you can cook homemade soup
But she’s with me cuz I make her heart go Woot!

More to her than these classy threads
Still well-cultured. And even highly read
She’d still adore me if I was some redneck named Earl
That’s why I love her
Cuz she’s my GQ Girl

I just lost a prospective client because I was too honest. The guy was on a deadline and needed a site up in less than the time I quoted. Apparently, he found another vendor who could meet this deadline. I know that’s not possible because I have done this for too long to not know otherwise. I know the other vendor isn’t disclosing the entire truth.

This situation frustrated me so much and has forced me to reassess the value behind the trait, honesty.

I’m reminded of a situation a few months ago where I asked a girl out and how she responded. She said that she didn’t have an interest in going out with me because she had her own personal issues to deal with and wasn’t in the mood to be sociable. It was a very quirky response and one that I’m not used to. Most women just ignore a guy and hope he goes away. She did the opposite- she confronted reality and answered truthfully.

If you thought I was interested before, I was even more interested now. I found her even more attractive after her response. Now before you go on and say that this is one of those situations where a guy just wants a girl more because he values the chase, it’s not. I don’t like chasing girls because it never goes anywhere.

I realize I know so little of her and it’s possible that it may never have gone anywhere to begin with. Regardless, the fact that she was honest with me made me more attracted to her. Why? For a few reasons:

1. She exhibited a quality that few people could possess in a situation such as this. Remember, most women would ignore a guy because they don’t want the confrontation.
2. She showed alot of maturity and tact in how she articulated her response
3. She trusted me enough to believe I had enough of my own maturity to handle it.

I was able to process all of this intuitively and came to the conclusion of my attraction (and respect) for her just increased because the above is so rare to experience.

Honesty is the foundation to any type of relationship be it professionally, socially, or romantically. It’s what we yearn for but most of us either don’t exude it or won’t embrace it.

Someone told me that I should be grateful that I didn’t land that client because he would never value me and my services. And more importantly, it wouldn’t be a great relationship between the two of us since he only wanted to hear what he wants to hear. The guy never even gave me a chance to explain and he just went elsewhere assuming that I couldn’t match the competition.

When someone is honest and candid with me in an exceptional way, I value it so much and I find that my respect for that person just increases. I do everything I can to try to reciprocate. Of course until they do something boneheaded to ruin everything.

This sounds silly but one of my personal resolutions for 2010 was to be less honest. If you only knew some of the clients, acquaintances, and friends I’ve lost because of one simple honest remark. This forced me to reevaluate this possible character flaw in me. That was how much of a flaw I consider it because it hurt me to the core and impacted me in unfortunate ways. I’m still evaluating and tweaking as we speak.

So because of my own personal and professional loss, I know just how rare this one quality is. I deal with too many people on a weekly basis and am forced to make quick judgments to aid my decision making process. Do I want to do business with them? Is this someone I want to spend time being friends with? Is she someone I would want to be involved with romantically? Do I want to introduce this person to others? I have to do my best to mitigate being hurt and dissapointed. I know when someone holds back. I know when someone isn’t disclosing the entire truth. I know when they’re lying and their voice and body language reinforces it.

Honesty is what nourishes all healthy relationships regardless of context. The absence of it means a relationship, or the opportunity to have one, will soon wither away.

Keith Ferrazi wrote and devoted an entire chapter to the art of honesty and candor in his book, Whose Got Your Back. Pick it up. I guarantee it’ll change your perception of honesty.

The value add that I bring isn’t necessarily the execution of services offered. The value add that I bring is that I bring a reality check to your business by helping you understand these 2 universal limitations

The first constraint is the limitation of resources. Specifically time and manpower. Small businesses often have employees who do a little bit of everything and only have so much time to dedicate.

The second constraint is the limitation of money. Budget. Businesses only have so much money that they can allocate to our services on a monthly, annual  or any other time interval.

Put another way, every small business will ask these 2 questions to me.

1. How much time and resources do I need to allocate to accomplish this. (Constraint #1)
2. How much of what you’re offering can I afford (Constraint #2)

Given these 2 contraints, how can I as a consultant help you get the most bang for your buck. Return on Investment.

But more importantly, given these 2 constraints, how can I help you understand your trade-offs. Because there will be trade-offs that you need to make. You cannot get everything that you want if you have these 2 constant contraints.

There is a small chance that some vendor will come along and tell you that you can get everything that you want with your 2 constraints. And there is a big chance that he is fooling you into believing that. And you won’t know or understand the true limitations until you are knee deep into hiring him.

How to avoid this scenario?

Be upfront with me about your limitations. I value the candor. Because once I know your constraints, I can develop a specifically tailored program to meet that. But more importantly, I can tell you what you need to sacrifice. I can help you face reality.

And the reality is that you run a small business with constraints.

She was so frustrated and sad as she no longer had control of the situation. The guy needed time off to think about things. She wanted to stay “connected” with him and try to fix things. He wanted to fix her to some degree.

All I could do is really just listen. I had my own set of advice I could give but in these instances, I think most people already know what they need to do.

When it came for advice, I said the following to her; “You can never fix or help people. Control is merely an illusion. Whatever control you think you have or want to get back (cuz he walked away from her and she probably wished she reversed it), don’t bother.Consider this time off as a blessing. Use this time to better and improve yourself.  That is all that you can do.”

Most people don’t change. They lack self-awareness to know what’s wrong with them. That’s partly the reason why most people have no business getting married. They’re too flawed. Marriage is a long term endeavor and requires people willing to commit to constant self improvement. Not only can most people not be able to commit to each other, they can’t commit to themselves.

Deep down inside, I know she knows what her flaws are and her guy had pointed them out to her. So much so, that it started to lower her self-esteem. I do see the same flaws in her that he does. But when she starts to feel bad, then one of two things need to happen;

1. She has to shape up and take his advice and fix herself
2. Or both need to go their separate ways

Use the time that you have when you’re single to constantly improve yourself. Become Mr or Miss Right yourself. Only then will Mr or Ms Right come into your life.

Don’t ever expect to fix people. You can’t fix them. You can only fix yourself.