The 9% Edge

CHAPTER 5Sniper Strategies for Viability

What got you to this level in business isn’t going to get you to the next one.

“I just spent my last $25,000 to work with you,”

When Gary said that to me, my heart started racing. I thought to myself, I wish you would have told me first; I would have told you not to (no one wants that kind of pressure). But instead, I turned to face him. He appeared calm, collected, professionally put together, yet I could feel the concern and worry he carried in his body. He was dressed in an older-style suit with a white, not-so-crisp shirt and a gray tie. He looked like a nice man, middle aged, clean shaven, bald. You’d never know that he just walked up to a roulette table, placed every dime he had on black, and looked on as the dealer spun the ball around the wheel.

I hoped my face didn’t reflect what my mind was thinking at that moment. Although it felt like 15 seconds went by before I uttered a word, I slightly tilted my head to the side, lifted the bottom of my chin in an attempt to lock eyes with him, and smiled. As I looked him straight in the eye, three words finally fell out of my mouth: “Let’s do this.”

At that moment, I felt like I was about to go to war with this guy I had never met before. And although we were only on a first-name basis, we were about to enter battle together. Lucky for Gary, one of the fundamental things that makes me, well, me, is my love of challenge – and when you’re on tilt betting the last chips you have left on ...