I’m definitely not your run-of-the-mill consultant.
At age 17 I dropped out of high school, moved to Las Vegas, and began a career as a professional gambler, counting cards and playing poker.
In only a few short months in that profession, I got more real world, street level, “in the trenches” experience in human psychology, sales and persuasion than most people get in an entire lifetime.
I felt like I showed up at the beginners swimming class and got thrown into the deep end of the pool.
And it was filled with sharks, barracudas, and piranhas.
You see, to make it in that business you have to figure out how to “read” people in only a split second. Then you must immediately know the exact things to do and the exact words to say in order to get the upper hand.
This was a skillset I had to master, and master FAST… or I wouldn’t survive.
And when I say “survive”, I don’t mean survive in the profession. I mean survive literally. (Several of my colleagues who weren’t fast studies like me didn’t.)
One day, after about four years in that line of work, I was sitting in a restaurant booth with a couple of my gambling buddies. Two of them were arguing about something.
The conversation went something like this:
“Yes you will.”
“No I won’t.”
“Yes you will.”
“No I won’t.”
Out came a 9mm. And the one guy planted the barrel on the other guy’s skull.