Greater Than Yourself: The Ultimate Lesson of True Leadership by Steve Farber

Author:Steve Farber [Farber, Steve]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Business, Economics, Leadership, Motivational, Non-Fiction, Personal Growth, Self-Help, Success
ISBN: 9780385529402
Google: zKbDJyBpqXUC
Amazon: B001NLL4S2
Publisher: Currency
Published: 2009-02-21T00:00:00+00:00

Not long ago, hearing a certain cheery electronic voice in my computer would have rocketed ripples of anticipation up my spine. And I wasn't the only one. That friendly little voice became a cultural icon to millions of Internet neophytes. It embodied the warmth of acknowledgment and connection in an increasingly cold and isolated technological world. In effect, it said to us, “You are not a loser! Someone cares!” Literally, it said to us, “You've got mail!”

Call it divine providence or natural selection, but over time a dull vibration in my cell phone had usurped the digital Smurf in my laptop. But the excitement was still there because it meant not that someone had e-mailed me, but—even better—that I'd been texted.

That was how, after staying up till the wee hours working on my new blog, my day had started on that fine Friday morning. My cell gave one quick, dull buzz and the screen lit up with a line that would have made no sense, would have never even been written, back in the Neanderthal days of my youth:

U up yt?

I cracked my knuckles, shook out my thumbs, and engaged Charles in a prime example of modern, electronic discourse.

Yep

Meet me?

4?

Choosing not to answer my question, he texted instead an address in the suburbs and a time of the morning that gave me just enough margin to shower and shave. Making a quick decision to comply, I summoned up my best, most efficient rejoinder.

K, I thumbed.

Soon I was driving away from Mission Beach and heading toward the burbs of North County, San Diego. The road gnomes at MapQuest had instructed me to exit the 15 freeway and drive inland several miles to a major intersection in a town called Poway, which billed itself as “The City in the Country” but looked like neither.

I turned into the parking lot of a strip mall that had seen better years but was showing the early signs of a renovation. At the far end of the lot, work crews were perched on scaffolding, administering to the property some kind of a structural face-lift, a project that, so far, had only served to remove the addresses of the individual units.

Given that I had no other information about our meeting place, I figured I'd just park the car and wander around until I could raise Charles on the cell and get personally guided in for a landing.

As it turned out, that wouldn't be necessary.

The blue neon sign in the window said HAIR SALON, but that's not what gave the place away; rather, it was the name of the establishment that clanged the startling bell of recognition in my head.

The sign over the door presented the bizarre set of words that I'd heard for the first time just the day before. At Gene Zander's studio. From the mouth of Cal, his quirky, electric Kool-Aid brother.

Shaking my head in astonishment, I crossed the parking lot, walked up to the plate-glass window, and tried to peer inside to see whether Charles was there.

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