In Cuba, we encountered artists at every turn. Some of them were brilliant and a number of us in our group bought paintings and prints directly from those artists. However, as in any market, there were a number of less-talented folks hustling to make a buck. On one foray through a public square in Havana, several of us were accosted by this young man armed with a sketchbook and a sharpie who was dashing off caricatures and then hawking them.
I’m a sucker for these pitches, especially when the kid with the pen says he’s a student trying to earn his way through school. Hey, he even had a badge in a lanyard that seemed to suggest he had some official reason for pestering us! So, after some negotiation, I bought the caricature of me for $5 even though it looks a lot like the caricature that John Lee showed me HE had bought from the same guy! The more I looked at mine, though, I started to think it actually resembled Mr. Blonde (Michael Madsen) in Reservoir Dogs:
I think I’ll just tell people it’s a drawing from the movie! Gotta admire that guy’s hustle (if not his drawing skills.)
What Am I Reading?
I’d had a copy of Simon Senek’s Start With Why on my stack of business books for at least a year and in all likelihood it would have continued to be buried by new arrivals. Fortunately, several recommendations (from Marty Wolff and Kelly Gray) pushed this to the head of the list. It’s a quick read with some fundamental thinking on the importance of thinking about “Why” we do what we do both as companies and individuals. The book resonated with us and is helping to frame our upcoming National Sales Meeting.
