The contest
Christmas week has arrived and after the carnage that we saw in December of 2018, this month has been quite a comparative treat. Deals closing (CPE-CRZO); being announced (WPX-Felix, APA-TOT) and oil starts with a “6”. It’s only been tough one for the natural gas bulls – but you’ve had a long time to get used to the beatings.
In honor of Christmas and running through the rest of 2019, you are going to have a chance to win one of 3 signed copies of “What the F@&K is a Wrong with Everybody Else?”. The ask: I want to hear from you about the event that was the most humbling, painful or created the deepest learning moment and led to the biggest growth in your career and life to date. You know mine. I want to know yours.
You can post it in the comment section below, on the hottakeoftheday.com website or as a stand alone post using the #EverybodyElse.
The 3 winning stories will be a guest #hottakeoftheday in January (so you only have 1300 characters which is an event onto itself) and the best of those 3 stories will be a guest on the podcast.
I look forward to hearing from you.
#hottakeoftheday
PS. I far prefer the current scoreboard: Mom 1. Cancer. 0. Happy birthday, Mom. (even though you know how I feel about birthdays)
I was 28 years old when I learned the valuable lesson that signed contracts don’t mean sh$t.
“With $30,000 you can buy a car or a boat.” That was the consolation prize offered to me after two years of sourcing deals for a large private equity group.
Two years of presenting assets alongside a complete management team had culminated in a $90,000,000+ transaction in an emerging shale play.
I had started FieldView Capital three years prior. My goal was to survive until the home run ball was served. This was a grand slam. A seven-figure deal fee was just what the doctor ordered.
Unfortunately, the managing director of the fund had failed to inform his CEO that I brought the deal (not him) AND we had a signed fee agreement – the fund’s agreement no less. After hosting me for Chipotle tacos in their office (to this day I refuse to eat that garbage), this Ivy League a$$hole proceeded to tell me that they had purchased 98% of a company that I had introduced. They were also backing the management team I had introduced.
Per the terms of THEIR contract, I was owed a nice fee. I quickly recognized this loser was taking credit for my hard work. I did what any responsible 28 year old entrepreneur would do, I sent my invoice for $1.2mm via email to him, the director who signed our agreement, and the clueless fund CEO on a Friday afternoon…then I went dark.
“You’re causing a lot of heartburn over here” was left on my voicemail about 15 minutes after hitting send. After a few weeks, I explained “I don’t care if you are the $1B gorilla, I don’t need a boat. I’m suing your ass!”
That was the day I realized it was time to control my own destiny. Rather than broker transactions, I needed to be the transaction.
While the settlement was less than what was owed, it was enough to buy a Bentley and have some walk around money – I did neither. I paid off college debt, went to Miami to watch LeBron in the finals, and went back for a Masters of Energy Business.
More valuable than the money was watching MBAs from Harvard and Stanford claim “I don’t recall” throughout two days of depositions. I attended in person and watched grown “men” lie through their teeth about knowing how one of two deals they completed that year was consummated…it was more valuable than any sum of money. That event continues to fuel my fire a decade later.