Page 193 - Executive Warfare

Outsiders with Influence

she wound up only getting into her third choice. She knew absolutely no
one going to this school.
I’d met the girl a few times at conferences, so I asked if the client and
his wife would mind if I sent her a note about something that had hap-
pened to me as a kid.
“I know it’s hard to listen to adults when you’re 13,” I wrote her. “But
take that into consideration when I tell you this story. When I was 13, I
really wanted to get into this one particular school, too. I had good grades,
and all my best friends were going there, but I didn’t get in. I ended up
going to this other school, which I hated for the first semester, really hated.
“But it turns out that I met a great teacher there and some new friends
who gave me an entirely new perspective and a new direction, which
caused me to go to a different college
and have a different career. If I had to do
it all over again, I would go to the school IT’S PARTICULARLY
my friends went to. But it turned out IMPORTANT TO DO
better for me that I didn’t. I think you’ll PERSONAL FAVORS
find that there’s a reason you’re going to IF YOU ARE LIKE
the school you are going to. You don’t ME AND ARE
know it yet, but someday you will.” UTTERLY
Now, her parents, of course, had been UNWILLING TO
telling her the same thing for a week. WASTE A NICE
But the next time I saw the client, he AFTERNOON
said to me, “I can’t tell you what a dif- PLAYING GOLF
ference that letter made.” Then he WITH A CLIENT.
added, “I can’t believe you took the
time.” It didn’t take a lot of time—it
took 20 minutes—but the client never forgot it.
I had another client whose sister’s lifelong dream was to run in the
Boston Marathon. In general, you have to qualify for the Boston
Marathon, based on your time and age, and the client’s sister would never
have made it. But the Marathon does reserve a few spots for more

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