After watching a string of “serious” movies, K and I thought we’d change it up and see something fun and frivolous. We booked two “extreme luxury” seats for an afternoon showing of Batman. The seats were extremely luxurious. The two of us represented half of the audience for that performance. And the movie was unmitigated torture – bad in every possible way for nearly three hours.

The following evening, still suffering from Batman-induced PTSD, I found Kill Your Darlings, which turned out to be the perfect antidote.

Meeting Mr. Lewin 

On a recent podcast, I was asked to name some people that were influential in “shaping my life.” The usual suspects came to mind: my parents, my teachers, and several business mentors.

It stands to reason that people that spent a year or many years trying to guide us as we grew into adulthood would hold these positions in our minds. But there are others we come across – people that pass into and out of our lives more quickly – that can have a profound impact on our career and personal choices.

In my life, one such person was Bernard Lewin.

It was 1985. I was 35. I was speaking at an investment conference in Palm Springs, California. I had recently bumped my net worth past the seven-figure mark. I was hardly rich, but I was feeling flush. So, I decided I was going to indulge a long-held fantasy. I was going to buy some art.

There must have been a half-dozen art galleries in town. I spent a pleasant couple of hours checking them out. Most of them sold what I think of as decorative art – the kind of art that will end up on the walls of your house if you let an interior decorator shop for you. I passed them by without even slowing down. Then I came to a gallery that sold the good stuff. I wasn’t familiar with the pieces in the window, but I stepped in to have a look.

The store was dimly lit and dead quiet. The art – mostly oil paintings and some gouaches – were stunning. I spent a happy several minutes meandering around, trying to make sense of what I was seeing. And then, out of nowhere, an elderly man that looked and dressed like Albert Einstein greeted me. He introduced himself as Bernard Lewin.

I explained that I was in town for business, but I had the afternoon free and was “in the market for a few pieces to start a collection.”

Hand on his chin, Mr. Lewin studied me for a moment. Then he smiled, spread his arms, and said, “Look around. Take your time. Ask if you have questions.”

Then he turned and disappeared into the back of the gallery.

I spent a good hour or so looking and making mental notes of the pieces I liked. I left without seeing him again, and went back to my hotel, thinking, “Okay, that was pleasant.”

As I lay in bed that night, images of some of the paintings I’d seen kept flickering through my mind. So, the next day, after giving an early morning presentation, I went back to Mr. Lewin’s gallery.

Once again, he did not greet me when I entered the gallery. And, once again, he appeared out of nowhere sometime later. I noticed that he was wearing the same patched sweater and corduroy pants he’d been wearing the day before.

“Ah, Mr. Ford!” he said, warmly. He shook my hand. “Good to have you back. Take your time. Ask if you have questions.”

I spent another hour there, by myself, and left without seeing him. And again that night, images of the paintings I’d seen danced in my head.

Despite Mr. Lewin’s apparent indifference towards me as a potential buyer, I visited his gallery the next day, determined to buy something from him. To keep him from slipping away this time, I held his hand as he greeted me and told him that I wanted to buy several pieces. “What would you recommend for a budget of, say, $35,000?” I said.

I thought that would impress him. I thought I’d be able to buy a dozen pieces with that kind of money. What I quickly found out was that I had accidentally walked into a gallery that featured some of the most important Mexican modern artists: Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, Rufino Tamayo, Francisco Zúñiga, and Frida Kahlo, to name just five of them.

And this old man in a tattered sweater that I was talking to was the most important US dealer of Mexican modern masters.

Mr. Lewin spent a good, long time with me that day, giving me essential facts about the art I was looking at and regaling me with stories of his life as an art dealer. He also interviewed me extensively about my taste in art and my plans for building a collection.

Finally, he helped me select three pieces: a large mixograph by Rufino Tamayo,  a drawing by Diego Rivera, and a beautiful little oil painting by José Clemente Orozco.

The three cost me considerably more than I had planned to spend. But in retrospect, they were a very good investment. The Orozco alone is worth more than 10 times what I paid for it.

Over those several days, I spent a total of no more than four hours with Mr. Lewin. But in that time, he set me on a path that would immeasurably enrich my life.

Why?

I was on my way to Tokyo to meet with the CEO of a large Japanese book publisher. The topic: a possible joint venture.

“Bring a present,” a friend that had done business in Japan before advised me. “Something “golf-ish.”

“Golf-ish?”

“The Japanese are crazy about golf.”

The introduction was formal. I was met in the lobby by a young woman who was to be my guide and interpreter. She brought me to the CEO’s opulent office. He was congenial, but not gushing. There was bowing instead of hand-shaking. The conversation was perfunctory and muted.

I gave him – I don’t even remember what I gave him. His assistant gave me an equally forgettable gift in return.

Our meeting took place in hour-long conversations over the next several days. I had read that the Japanese prefer to make acquaintanceships slowly. During the meetings, I was keenly aware that my behavior – i.e., my manners – would play a big role in determining the outcome. I was careful to stay formal and serious and respectful.

After the penultimate meeting, I was invited out to dinner with several of the senior executives. (The CEO had attended only the first meeting.) After a nice meal, they took me to a “club,” which turned out to be an ersatz old-fashioned Playboy Club. We drank and smoked and none of them even glanced at the servers.

We never did the deal. And I never found out why. Perhaps I was too serious or not serious enough during the meetings. Perhaps they didn’t like the deal. Or perhaps they caught me glancing at a server.

I have Japanese partners now. They are younger and much less formal. Next time we meet, I’ll tell them this story. Perhaps they can explain it to me.

What I Believe: About Affirmative Action

I feel about affirmative action the same way that I feel about charity. I am personally inclined to practice it, but I’m suspicious when it becomes corporate or governmental policy. As an institutional protocol, it can (and often does) do more harm than good.

When it puts people into positions they are qualified for, it can correct social imbalances, if such imbalances are the result of discrimination. But when it puts people into positions they are not qualified for, all sorts of problems arise. For the institution. For the other members of the institution. For the people the institution serves. And for the recipient of the affirmative action.

To make affirmative action work for underqualified people, there must be a commitment to provide them with the extra help they need to succeed. In my experience, that means investing in many, many hours of extra training and personal coaching. And even then, the odds are not good.

A “New” Cold War?

When I was born in 1950, the US and the Soviet Union had already begun its first proxy contest: the Korean War. In grammar school, our teachers regularly herded us into the school basement, a futile attempt to safeguard us from the eventuality of a nuclear attack. In high school, the Vietnam War was raging and boys my age were being drafted to fight. In the mid 1970s, while serving a two-year stint with the Peace Corps in Chad, I was exposed to the Cold War proxy fight there between the Soviet-backed north and the US-backed south. The official end of the Cold War took place in 1991, when the Soviet Union was broken into pieces. But now that Russia is trying to put some of those pieces back together, I have to wonder whether it ever ended at all.

What I Believe: About the Cold War

The “Cold War” is a term that describes several attenuated competitions between the USSR and the US. One competition was strategic and military: an effort on the part of the US to “contain” the spread of communism through proxy wars with the USSR. (See “Good to Know,” above.) The other was an ideological competition between two very different approaches to government’s role in economics. The US championed a decentralized, free market, capitalist economy. The USSR favored a centralized, controlled, socialist economy.

I believe the military/strategic contest was won by nobody. It was, in its entirely, almost as costly in economic and human terms as WWII.

As for the ideological contest, there’s no doubt that the USSR lost. But I don’t believe they were “defeated” by the US. I believe they failed on their own, because their approach was (and still is) unsustainable.

As long as I can remember, I’ve wanted be a writer. But I was always aware – perhaps because my father gave up his career as a writer for the steady income of teaching – that it was not going to be easy.

I took several courses in writing in college and graduate school, but my degrees were in English Literature, in case the writing dream didn’t pan out. I wrote a bit the next year while I made a living as a bartender, and I wrote a bit more from 1975 to 1977 as a Peace Corps volunteer in Africa. I earned a meager living by teaching English at the University of Chad, but I wasn’t making a nickel from my writing.

I landed my first job as a professional writer for a business monthly called African Business & Trade. Why Leo Welt, the owner of the publishing company, hired me, I’ll never understand. I knew a few things about Africa. But I knew virtually nothing about business. I didn’t even understand the meaning of the word “trade.” (I’m not kidding!)

Despite what I imagined as lucid prose, my writing wasn’t wowing the subscribers to African Business & Trade. In fact, most of the responses we were getting from readers were criticisms of my ignorance and complaints about the naivety of my ideas. No kudos for my diction and style.

With Number One Son in the oven, I didn’t have the luxury to ignore these Philistines and go on honing my “craft.” I needed those weekly paychecks to pay the bills. So, I swallowed my pride and began to learn about… African business and trade!

I was accidentally drawn into an area of knowledge I never intended to study. And as I studied and learned, I discovered that writing about business and trade was a lot more interesting than I had imagined. I bent into it, and eventually became the writer I was being paid to be. Reader feedback turned positive. Renewal income went up. By the end of my second year, I had been promoted to Editor in Chief of all the company’s publications. I wrote essays on doing business in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and China. I even wrote my first published book: Information Beijing.

That landed me a job with a much larger publishing company in Florida, with greater prospects for me and my family and continued opportunities for developing my knowledge of writing. Including writing advertising copy.

I became a junior partner a year later, and ran the business as it grew from revenues of barely $1 million to $135 million in seven years. I attempted retirement when I was 39 and returned to work as a consultant and partner in another publishing company. Their revenues grew from $8 million to $100 million in about 7 years, and then to $500 million, and eventually broke the billion-dollar ceiling.

I played many roles in my career. One I always enjoyed was teaching what I had learned about the art and science of direct response copywriting. I give interviews about it now and then on podcasts for entrepreneurs, marketers, and copywriters. Click here to watch one I did recently.

What I Believe: About Group Decision-Making

Making good decisions is very difficult. And making good group decisions is even more difficult. That’s because it requires thinking. It requires moving the mind against the grain of conventionality. It mandates rigorous and constant self-criticism. And the questioning of every thought that feels right and comfortable.

I believe that most people spend very little time thinking. Really thinking. Instead, they busy their brains with unexamined facts and the undigested opinions of others.

Quick test: If your thoughts adhere consistently to any doctrine, ideology, or philosophy, you are not thinking.

Huh?

I receive a regular stream of mail and email from readers. Too many to answer individually, but not too many to read. About 10% of them are funny. Ha-ha funny. Another 10% are funny. Peculiar funny. Like this one from BK, in response to Wednesday’s post about “spoiled brats”…

“Jordan Peterson is a jackass. I give my child everything – everything she wants – because I want her to have what I never did.”

As Professor Peterson would say, “Well, BK, good luck with that!”

 And this one from GG…

“Hey Mark… There’s a small misspelling at the end of your Feb. 14 piece on Understanding the Buyer Brain. You wrote: ‘Do you see what I’m saying here? This feels like an important insight to me. I’m not sure, though, if I’ve explained it well. Let me know if you GROK this.’”

 I wasn’t 100% sure of the spelling of “grok” when I typed it in, so I checked it out online to make sure I got it right. I guess GG didn’t.

And this one from SD (versions of which I get about once a week, particularly on social media)…

“I’ve been a big fan for a long time. I’m starting a business. I was thinking maybe you’d like to mentor me.”

When I first began receiving such invitations, I was so flattered I wrote longish replies, explaining that I had like three full-time jobs and so sorry… After I tired of that, I’d reply by saying maybe, but my fee for mentoring was a million dollars down plus 50% of the business. When someone actually accepted those terms, I gave up being snarky. Now I reply with a single smiley face and go dark afterwards.