There I was yesterday sitting at my desk minding my own business. For some reason I decided to turn my brain to jello and open my Facebook page. Yes Facebook…the newest way to waste time.

So there is an announcement that Neil Strauss is in Atlanta for a book signing of his latest work “Emergency”. Neil went into the world of survival skills.  An interesting concept. The reason I wanted to meet Neil was that he mentioned us in his best seller, The Game. Someone else was trying to pass of one of the skills we teach as their own and Neil was kind enough to point out that is it something we teach.

Sure it was only 2 lines in a book but what struck me about it is that Neil didn’t have to mention us at all. Those 2 lines would have made no difference in how well his book sold.

It is becoming more and more rare to find people who do the right thing for no reason at all. In a society that seem to be more about what you can take from others, I like to think that there is still a subculture out there that just does what is right. They don’t want a bailout from other people even if they might need it. Their opinion is theirs no matter how popular or unpopular it might be. They reject the idea that we need other people to decide what is good for us. They are offended by those in the media who would like us to believe that we are too stupid and weak to take care of ourselves so we need them to help us know what to think.

I have never met Neil so I messaged him through the mind numbing Facebook monster and he quickly replied. I got his number and we went to meet him at the Buckhead Barnes and Noble. It is about a 40 minute drive from my house but I will go pretty far to thank someone. My expectation is that we would have a quick 15 minute conversation and he would be on his way. Nope….He was just finishing up and invited us to join him and his friends for dinner. We had a great time and interesting conversation for over 3 hours. WE met some new people that live here in Atlanta. It was a good time.

Neil is real. That is the biggest compliment I can give someone.

As we were leaving I finally got to thank him for mentioning us in his book. I joked about plugging our Anchoring and Other Sneaky Stuff videos with ” Featured in the best seller The Game”. He seriously said to ” Go ahead it is completely true. Your videos were must see stuff by everyone.”

What was impressive was not that he said it was okay. It was how quickly he said it. Here is someone that I had never met before who was willing to let us plug a product by referring to his book and there was nothing in it for him. That is a rare quality in the business we are in. It should be more common.

So am I writing this to plug our stuff…No. If you are reading this you already know what we do. It is to show an example of how you never know when you are going to make new friends. A new friend is just one phone call away. Neil was kind enough to invite us to drop by when we are next in LA and he will take us surfing. That would never had happened if I did not seize the opportunity to connect with Neil. I could have just let it slip by.

The point of this post is that I want you to think about how many people you let slip away because you don’t make that one phone call. You hold back from connecting. You let it all slip by because you are shy or you don;t have time. TODAY…..make the effort. Make the call. Make the connection. You never know what might happen.

As for Neil……We will be out in JUNE or JULY…be ready :) I guess I better go buy a copy of the new book….

Tom and Kim

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