Yahya my now adopted son - he has awesome parents but I had to claim him as my adopted son because we had falling out for which I said, "If you think of me as your father this will never happen again."
In late 2016 Yahya came to me with an incredible idea. Here I am the spokesman for #dwak
What makes me good at teaching? I am a great storyteller. Every concept I teach I can tie to a real-life situation. My mentor marveled at my ability to do this. Spellman was like, "Tell me again which example you used on ____" And I was like, dude, the only way I learn is if I can relate a concept to real life. #ISLM is the hardest concept for anyone in the world of #Econ to get and I got after you pounded it in my head 15 times. No offense to Doc or any other Econ prof out there... it's not that hard when you use real life examples...
...Which is something I learned during #covidworld. My teaching assistant Omar was taking a class from a guy that is so bad at teaching I made a video parodying him.
Anyhow, #Covidboy (as I like to call him... I had to go into quarantine because of him) reminded me how much I love to teach Econ...
Oh, wait, this has nothing to do with Prince Andrew... back to the original script
Yahya had an incredible idea and I was more than on board. Let's light this candle and see where it goes.
Well, it went to #AlAinPharmacy where they signed on to to be a partner. It went to us hearing about an event in #SiliconValley that I was so sure we were going to go to that I paid $800 for a sleeper car on #Amtrak to go from from Mt. Pleasant to San Francisco.
But #LifeIsWeird and the rug was pulled out from under our feet literally days before we were supposed to leave.
Yahya was like, "Well, we can still do #PitchAtPalace"
Oh, fuck yes was my response.
There was a requirement for Pitch at Palace that an #Emirati give the pitch. I knew exactly the man for that job - my #EmiratiBrother Mansour. To say I love the man is an understatement... I asked him to draw up the paperwork that whatever assets I have in the UAE are turned over to him (because I know he won't care about my assets... he will make sure Miriam has them... hope that makes sense) His first question for me? Are you sure you want a Black Ford Explorer?
The man I am entrusting my possessions in this country is only concerned that I my Explorer is the wrong color.... my love for him is such that I laughed hard.
Mansour is a natural salesman. When he was in HS he managed his family's cafe in Al Ain. That business failed but Mansour took the lessons he learned from that to create a very successful cafe called #LePre.
When we were walking the streets of London before our pitch Mansour commented that he earned a C+ in his first class with me - Fundamentals of Management. I replied, "I have no memory of you from that class. It wasn't until you had Supply Chain with me that you came onto my radar and I am pretty sure you earned an A for every class after that." If you want more on that you can watch my interview with Mansour here.
So Mansour and are the spokesmen for dwak. We are both really good at engaging people and making them care. I love writing so knowing what pitch would work for me is easy. Trying to figure out how put our story in a way that works for Mansour was a challenge. That Mansour rose to that challenge and hit it out of the ballpark is a testament to how great he is.
When Mansour presented in Abu Dhabi he was not on his A game. When he came back and sat next to me he said, "We're going to London." I thought he was being a bit arrogant/presumptuous. He continued, "The rule is that the team that goes is who has the most votes in the room. Trust me, this room is filled with my colleagues. We are going to London."
I have to say, I do not like Prince Andrew. When very bad press came out about him I was not at all surprised. Having been in a fraternity and spent time around guys like Andrew I know them and can spot them a mile away. My sister Miriam is also a good read on people. I told her before the competition, "There is one competitor who is a total piece of shit I wanna know if you can pick him out." She did. As an Occupational Therapist she saw lots of people exploit the illness of a relative to make a buck and that's what this guy was doing.
It was a wild ride and I have zero regrets. The son of Merlon and Joyce Kranz found himself inside Buckingham Palace.
My only regret? That dwak never came to be. Six years later there is still nothing out there that offers what we were going for.
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