You don’t often find yourself breaking bread with 3 published authors.
But tonight, at the invitation of Ramit Sethi and Michael Fishman I did just that. I was well out of my league sharing time with those two plus:
- Derek Halpern — he writes Social Triggers and is an extremely sharp guy. It’s immediately apparent he not only reads a lot, but catalogs that information and can apply it across a wide swath of scenarios.
- Daphne Oz — The show she’s co-hosting (The Chew) starts very soon. Not only has she achieved an intimidating level of success already, but (as far as I can tell), she is eons ahead of most media personalities in how she’ll turn that into a sustainable business.
- Amanda Steinberg — if everyone had her drive, the world would be an indescribably better place. I love her business, Daily Worth, because it’s a prime example of identifying an under-served niche, figuring out what those customers want and how they want to get it, and then executing relentlessly. This will be great inspiration for me.
- Jonathan Fields — he’s got a new book coming out that, after talking to him, sounds mind blowing. He’s teaching those of us doing creative work the science behind how we think and how we can think better. I think he is on to something extremely huge.
A few observations:
1. You know you’re surrounded by intelligent entrepreneurs when an early question is, “So how much did everyone else read about the other guests?” The funny thing is, we all laughed at the joke because each one of us did in fact prepare. Researching fellow guests isn’t something you get with most crowds.
2. Hosting a dinner of mutually interesting and potentially beneficial guests is a superb method for boosting your personal stock price. Ramit and Michael brought us together (I’m assuming) because, aside from friendship, we all have the potential to help and be helped by each other. The relationships I started tonight are living evidence of how Ramit and Michael (RaMichael?) have helped me. Obviously, I’ll be looking to help them any way I can to keep the karmic pool balanced. Wins all around.
Any one of us could do the same and put together dinners like this to become nodes in our own right.