StartAnywhere
If no one ever gives you the title, will you start anyway?
From Chapter 6Not Their CallZell am See, July 2016.Send the fourth take.
My resignation was announced on the exchanges in Bahrain and Kuwait, as well as in the local press, and the phone started ringing.
A board member, Mohamed Mahmood, called about a seat. I told him I would be traveling. He told me WhatsApp would do.
On 18 July 2016, at 6:44 in the morning, I was standing on the balcony of my own hotel room in Zell am See, before my group’s day had started. I handed my phone to one of my own passengers and told him the truth. I am nominating myself for an election, and I need to record a short video.
I still have it. A red down jacket, low cloud sitting on the mountains behind the town, the roofs of Zell am See below, a row of clipped box along the balcony rail. One minute and three seconds.
[…] The passenger was not a good videographer.
Take one cut my head off. The next two ran with the zipper of my chest pocket hanging open. The fourth was the one I sent.
A man asking strangers to trust him with a seat, filmed badly by a stranger he was in charge of, on a balcony in Austria, in the middle of a working tour.
No studio. No script. No crew. I won the PR and media portfolio, and the result reached me in Austria.
I did not wait for a proper videographer. I did not wait for a camera, a microphone, or a better morning. I had a phone, a balcony, and a passenger, and I used them.
So, what are you waiting for? Better equipment. A quieter week. Someone more qualified to hold the camera. Look at what is already in your hands. It is usually enough to start.
[…] Use what you have. Send the fourth take. Start anywhere.
That book was about what ambition costs.
This one is about where it starts.
A cleaning job on two floors of a tower. A watchman who said no. A coffee shop in Deira Park. A community hall, three printed pages, and ten minutes. A coach full of strangers who had paid for every minute. A trail of yak droppings in the mist. A drawer with a necklace that is still not finished.
Fifteen chapters. Every scene had to pass three tests. Is it a scene: a room, a date, and something somebody actually said? Does it give you something to learn, to feel, or to laugh at? And does it stand up for a reader who has never met me?
Some of it does not flatter me. I could have left it out. Nobody would have known it was missing.
If somewhere on your own shelf there is a box of materials you prepared for and never opened, this book is for you too.
The Contents
- IntroBoth Roads Reached Level II
- 01The Black Bag
- 02Send Him Up
- 03Enough Money, Hussain
- 04I Sat on the Floor
- 05Three Pages, Ten Minutes
- 06Not Their Call
- 07We Paid for This
- 08Are We on the Right Path?
- 09I Need the Money
- 10Sorry, I Have a Phone Call
- 11These Are Your Gifts
- 12A Page I Did Not Need
- 13Be First or Second
- 14Why Should I?
- 15A Bag Full of Them
- CloseThere Is Finally Room
- PlusOne More Thing: If I Had to Start Again Tomorrow
Only one road does not. The one where you never sit down at the desk.
If you are aiming at the line, you are one announcement away from being under it.
The best service is the queue your guests never have to stand in.
I climbed that night in light that somebody else had thought to carry for me.
These are your gifts. I do not want them back.
You do not need the first book. But it helps.
Start Anywhere stands on its own. If you read No Title. No Limit.: The Other Side of Ambition, you will meet some of these people again, and you will finally hear what I left out. If you have not read it, start here.
That is the whole point. Start anywhere.
Mohamed Isa
Mohamed spent fifteen years in finance, more than eleven of them as chief financial officer of an investment bank listed in Bahrain and Kuwait. On 4 December 2015, he walked away from the title to speak, to write, and to travel. He has published twenty-four books, including co-authored works with Larry King and Brian Tracy. He speaks to executive audiences at organizations such as Google, KPMG, American Express, Toyota and SDAIA, and is pursuing PhD research at Kathmandu University on leadership under extreme conditions.
His question for every audience is the same one he keeps asking himself: What is your Everest?
See you at the Summit!
Tell me when it is out.
Leave your email and I will let you know the day Start Anywhere is ready.
No title. No limit.
Start anywhere.
Do not wait to be asked. Do not wait to be ready. Do not wait for a better morning.
