I’m truly blessed, for many reasons but mainly because over 20 years, I built the greatest collection one can assemble: people.

When I look back, sure my team’s made mistakes (we all do) but I can only think of one way they actually let me down: it’s when they don’t ask me for help.

I don’t know everything, no one does, but some higher force planted in me a deep curiosity, the ability to learn quickly, a vast vault of knowledge & the ability to resolve any problem, which I seem to spin into tangible things society prioritizes: money, connections, etc. but things for which I find no value in of itself when not put to use.

Even when I was an unproven/unknown entity with nothing tangible to offer, I offered assistance to anyone who sought it. Not surprising then that from the ages of 18 to 21, I excelled at customer service, ironically harming my own interests when my masters at RBC held me back at Visa blocking me from joining their RBC Dominion Securities or RBC Wealth Management ranks, where I sought to join upon graduating.

Closing each & every call with “is there anything else I can help you with” but recognizing RBC gave 2/3 of 0 Fs about my wishes or development, I left undeterred to help the founder/CEO & CFO of a tech startup, the search engine Mamma.com. The dot com bubble burst & a new formidable foe from the occident Google rose to curtail Mamma’s potential. Seeing my skills could help them, a trio of ambitious founders recruited me to help AskMen take on Maxim, Playboy (whose fabled grounds where the stuff of legends) as I found my calling: building media & content, where I held a considerable comparative advantage as prolific researcher, writer, producer.

When larger armies set their sights on AskMen, first to put it down, but ultimately realizing an alliance would prove more beneficial to their empires, I was ultimately pushed out. It’s fine. I have no ego over these matters. As everything happens for a reason, their ingratitude spawned WatchMojo and their envy turned to wrath, foolishly suing me in a frivolous lawsuit, which despite my gratitude & loyalty I had no choice but to put down.

Once that threat was neutralized, as CEO of WatchMojo I could help anybody & anything, without being questioned about “what was in it for us.” I was emancipated to pursue my purpose: which has always been to help and serve, be it family, friends, my team, or strangers, which I know sounds batshit crazy to the Western mind (where I saw that the more noise someone made about helping, the greater the sins they committed, but I digress).

When my earliest – now defunct – competitors complained about YouTube earning millions, I shouted that I loved that our overlords at Google made millions, because as in any good partnership, it meant we were also earning millions. For the past 20 years, I’ve answered any message that comes my way, made any introduction that made sense (I’m not introducing Jeff Epstein, the financier, to the Girl Scouts of America…) as people recognized this trait.

It seems as though strangers got the memo, but to this day, the one cohort who is unlikely to seek my assistance are my team; not those closest to me who know me best, but those furthest out, usually the youngest, least experienced, who ironically need help the most.