Several months had passed when George called together our third house meeting. The 5 of us had moved in together because of an ideal, a concept called the “Master Mind.” It was an idea proposed in the book Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. The basic gist was that if you surrounded yourself with motivated team players, you could form an interdependent group in which each member would be driven to greater heights of success than had he gone it alone. People outside our little motivational fraternity were inclined to making fun of us, calling us “weird,” “try-hards,” or the ubiquitous “nerds.” But through the strength of George’s conviction, we grounded ourselves amidst a storm of criticism.
*****
We are all sitting in the upstairs living room in a loose-knit circle around the brown coffee table.
“Alright brothers, what are your goals this week?” George asks.
Everyone looks around the room. “Okay, I’ll start,” I say. I had become bolder with time and the guys began treating me as an equal while we all acknowledged George as the unspoken leader.
“I’m going to work out at the gym at least once this week. I’m going to catalogue my school notes, apply for my professional license, and start working on the itinerary for my family vacation. I’m going to take a chance and ask out the Thai girl from last week on another date.”
As each person announced his respective goals, the rest of us encouraged him and promised to hold him accountable for his words. Each week, our desire for integrity became the prod that drove us up ever steeper hills while shame acted as the whip that punished our laziness. Week after week, and month after month, we negotiated with ourselves to go to the gym, to the negotiation table where we closed deals with our employers, and out into the dating marketplace where we tried to close the biggest deal of all, the one with the opposite sex.
*****
Several more weeks pass and I find myself sitting around the brown coffee table again with the others. George has an announcement to make.
“Now that we’re all settled in, we should throw a housewarming party to commemorate everything that we’ve accomplished.” He pauses for a second before continuing. “Plus, it’ll be a good chance to meet a lot of cute girls!”
We laugh and begin to chat about the details. Food… check. Music? Check. Drinks, check. Hats: Quintuple check.
“What day are we going to do it on?”
“Friday,” George states matter-of-factly.
“What? Forget that. Let’s do Saturday,” Jake suggests.
“So, Friday it is.”
“No, you didn’t hear him bro. He said Saturday, and I agree. We’ll be able to get more people out to Queens on a Saturday night,” Manny chimes in.
“Uh-huh. Ok, but there are going to be way more people coming out here on Friday,” George rebuffs.
“Dude, you’re not making any sense. Saturday is clearly the better choice,” I add.
“So it’s settled then. If you guys want to do Friday, we’ll do Friday,” George says.
Brady looks over at me and chuckles, “What?”
“I don’t know man.” I shake my head.
“I’m fine with whatever,” he says.
“Thanks Brady. I’m glad we can agree on Friday,” George affirms.
Jake, Brady, Manny, and I look around the room at each other in utter disbelief.
“Alright guys, I’ll start sending out an invitation on facebook,” George declares concludingly.
“Whatever bro.” Manny leaves the room in heated impatience. Once George makes up his mind about something, he is like a boulder rolling down a steep mountain. You could try to muster the strength inside yourself to resist or rally others around your point-of-view, but in the end it is always easier to just meet him at the base of the mountain.
*****
Around 60 people cram into the downstairs living room to partake of our home-made hors d’oeuvres, a variety of wines, and the party that the 5 of us are bringing. We are all wearing hats to distinguish ourselves as the hosts. A couple of hours pass before George walks to the front of the room to make an announcement. He is wearing his signature brown button-down shirt.
“Alright guys, everyone upstairs for flip cup!” He begins to goad people cluster-by-cluster to the upstairs living room. Almost everyone follows him to the second floor. Everyone gathers around our dining table to either play or spectate several rounds of flip cup. After some time, George makes another announcement.
“Okay everyone, downstairs for salsa dancing!” This time, the entire crowd follows him. As I walk down the stairs, swept away by the social momentum, I can’t help but wonder what makes George the leader in the first place. The stragglers, who had remained on the first floor, are startled to see everyone pouring into the downstairs living room again. After changing the music from Top 40 to Salsa, George and Manny proceed to pluck a couple of girls off the couches to show them a few moves.
…
I won’t go into the details, but our housewarming event, which came to be known as the “Sexy Mansion Party,” had a couple of unspeakable moments and a few unforgettable ones.
*****
I wake up the next morning and begin to think about George’s performance the night before. How is he able to move people so effortlessly? It is one thing for me to lead a girl around on a date, or for Jake to spur me and Brady to action, but it is quite another to sway an entire crowd to entertain your wishes. I search my memory for clues. Is it his voice? His words? His body language? As I ask these questions, the unflinching gaze of his brown eyes appears in my mind. That must be it!
In any interaction between people, the person with the most conviction, the one with the strongest sense of reality, will be the one who determines the course of events. Of course George did not ask anyone to jump off of a cliff, otherwise I’m sure people would have stopped following him. But he was certain that people would have more fun if they heeded his direction. He had learned to move people, while remaining immovable himself. After such a demonstration, I promised myself that I would have to develop this part of my personality.
– – – – –
Posts in this series:
Part 1 – Lightning Strikes Thrice
Part 2 – Green Waters Flow Westward
Part 3 – The Immovable Earth
Part 4 – El Fuego Rojo
Part 5 – Darkness is But the Absence of Light
Part 6 – The Traveler
Choose to Take the Journey 
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