NOVEMBER 9, 2019 – With every new business client, I like to elicit background information. It facilitates rapport, and rapport gives me greater broader, deeper insight into the client’s needs, concerns, flexibility, and level of sophistication—so I can calibrate my communication accordingly. Plus, I’m curious about what makes people tick. Everyone has a story, and I enjoy hearing everyone’s story.
Yesterday I had such a background conversation with a new client, an immigrant from Ethiopia, who wants to start up a new business. In short order, he revealed his intelligence and education. I told him so and asked where he’d gotten his education. He laughed, said he’d sat through enough classes to have a PhD, and explained that he’d taken every single course offered at two Twin Cities community colleges.
His original goal was to go to medical school, and accordingly, he’d taken all math and science courses. But then he became interested in history, political science, anthropology, sociology, computer science, and business.
We talked a bit of politics and immigration and the politics of immigration. I called his attention to David Brooks’ excellent discussion of immigration, in Friday’s Times— https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/07/opinion/trump-immigration.html. As I handed my new client the physical paper for him to read as I worked on his engagement letter, he remarked that he liked listening to David Brooks on Friday’s edition of The News Hour on PBS and on NPR.
When our conversation resumed, my client mentioned the 1851 gubernatorial race in California and how the incumbent had jumped on the anti-Chinese bandwagon and vilified Chinese immigrants. My client drew attention to a long-standing theme in American history to provide perspective on current sentiments in that regard.
(Coincidentally, I’d just read about that California race 168 years ago in The Republic for which it Stands by Richard White (See my blog post of October 2)).
We then turned to the history of the Horn of Africa and surrounding region. I pulled up a map of Africa so he could point out a key geographic determinant—the most precious resource in the world: water. He described the political stress that future migrations will cause.
We wound up talking for 45 minutes (none of it “on the clock”). Call it “attorney-client privilege.” By the time he left my office, I was much more enriched than when he had arrived. And so is our country, our world enriched, I thought, by this guy so full of brains and experience, education and aspiration; with a kind and generous heart and sense of humor.
With trepidation I asked whether he was an optimist or a pessimist about the future of our country. Often I find myself feeling down about it. Not my new client. He expressed genuine optimism, and his hope served to trigger in me a sense of duty to embrace his positive outlook. An expressly negative outlook, I thought, would be disrespectful of this man’s strivings.
And so, for the record, I’ll restate here—my optimism.
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© 2019 Eric Nilsson
