How to Meet Anyone You Want

So I got a, I offered to talk at this kind of design and tech conference in Silicon Valley. I offered to do this for free, of course, and then I was in the region. Uh, and what I did is I reached out to Jake and I said, “I have an idea of something to pitch you that I think would benefit you: spreading the word of Sprint all around the world. It would also make you money, and I’ve taken care of like 90% of the details already.” And he was like, “Cool.” So I went to the GV office and pitched him this idea of traveling around the world and teaching design Sprints, but I would use my marketing skills to sell out the events so that he wouldn’t have to think about it. I would take on the really annoying part of setting up the locations and doing all of that stuff. He was like, “Yes.” First of all, we became really good friends. Uh, and this opened up so many doors for me that I could never have imagined. A lot of the Silicon Valley clients that we work with today are because of that relationship that I built with Jake. But initially, instead of just being like, “Hey, can we grab a coffee?” I really deeply thought about what types of things he might find interesting and thought about what’s going to be really annoying if he wants to go and teach.

The guy, Rivers, John Waters, all right. Like, okay, so you reach out to Rivers, and if you were like, “Hey, um, love your music…” Whatever love your art. Can I come visit you? He’d probably like it. That’s weird, but if you say that the important thing is you’re kind of like, “I I am there,” that is something I already do, and it would be something that is just on my way. It’s on my journey that makes it seem less intense for people. One example of this for me is a bit weird to mention online, but on the podcast, I think he wouldn’t mind it. I was trying, I really wanted to meet Noah Kagan and just saying I’m in Austin like a week before or two weeks before, just, “I’m here right now.” I was also looking around at what he’s looking for.

And he’s really, he’s like “Oh, I coded up this Discord bot,” so all of a sudden now I understood that, and I was like, “Oh, let me tell, let’s talk about how we can make your Discord bot better. Let’s talk about how you can make an interesting community for Weezer. Oh, oh, hey, we just worked on something for Fred again that I think might be really interesting for you. And then it was just at the end of the conversation he was like, “Oh dude, I want to hang out with you again. Let me know next time we can hang out.

The Weezer guy is here, and then here are all of his connections. Right? And you want to move up this ladder or whatever it is. But a lot of people are not humble enough to also realize that they are below somebody. And I think for me, one of the things—because it sounds weird to say it—is like I am below this person. It doesn’t mean you’re below them as a human; it just means that maybe they’re ahead of you in certain parts of your life.

And often in your case, what would have happened is that you would have gone, if you were not humble, and you didn’t understand the laws of power, you would have gone there and talked about yourself for two hours. But you understood that the dynamic stays in place essentially, and that you still have to deliver value. Is something that once you understand it, once you understand that there is this dynamic in the world, you can really connect with a lot of very interesting people.

think getting too comfy with people, getting too cozy with people after you meet them the first time is often a way of getting too familiar and overstepping boundaries. That’s like next-level ninja to not do that.

We agreed on everything, and then he was like, “I just need to chat with my wife to make sure that the dates are okay.” Good, and I didn’t get any response then for a little bit, so I followed up and I was like, “Hey, just, you know, confirming, are you still in blah, blah, blah?” I didn’t get a response, and then I sent another email just saying, “Hey, just checking in,” and he said, “Oh, absolutely, I’m still in. I’m still excited; I just need to really make sure of my wife.” Then I was like, “Wait a minute, this is an opportunity for me to make this easier for this guy, because clearly he’s way, like, he just got a different life to me. This person has way more going on. Um, and also, I want him to speak at my event. I actually really need him to speak at my event; it would be amazing for him to speak at my event. So, I wrote him an email and his response to it was, “I love that,” and we’ll tell you about the email in the next step.” No, I’m just kidding. Uh, the email I sent him was, “Okay, how about this? The event is happening anyway, and how about two weeks beforehand I’ll just reach out to you again and see if you want to come, so you don’t have to think about the scheduling?” And he was like, “That was the thing he was super excited about.” I’ve noticed something about people who are very important and who are kind of higher up in this hierarchy. They have, I mean, the amount of stuff you and I have going on and I mean, I am like here in the business world; you’re here in the business world, and maybe Colin and Samir are here. I don’t know, Kevin Rose is like in space. These people have so much going on; it’s unimaginable. So if you can just make it so easy, and they often, I think, like spontaneous and impromptu ways of doing things.