Almost 6 years ago I spent my days and nights glued to my computer sitting on floor of my living room in Coconut Grove building my first start-up, it was called Freelunched.
As a part of the efforts at Freelunched I gave away $15,000 worth of consumer electronics to complete strangers while living on unemployment income. It’s totally normal at this point to pause and ask if I’m fucking crazy. And counter to my intellectual mind, it was one of the most enjoyable things I’ve ever experienced.
Someone got Freelunched! Nothing cuter than babies doing handstands on blueray players!
I gave away iPads, iPhones, flat panel TV’s, Go pro cameras - items I didn't have at the time and some of the stuff I gave away, I really wanted for myself. I mean, I wished I had an iPhone at the time. But the experience of giving the goods away was so profound that words don’t do it justice. The experience seemed to reveal something to me, some sort of truth about this shared experience that we’re all a part of. I’m still trying to figure out what that is but the one bit that I am certain about is that there is real magic to going through life with the mindset of “what can I do for you” rather than “what can you do for me”.
We’re lucky to have access to all sorts of levels of joy but the joy that sits behind the selfless giving – that joy seems to have some magical energy in it.
The experience of FreeLunched started me on a path of meeting some of the most amazing people in Miami, people I still consider myself lucky to be friends with today. It also led to a place where I was down to my last dollar and the odds were against me. There was no logical reason to continue moving forward but I did. Something inside of me knew all would be well, to just keep going. Sure enough, both were right.
As I demonstrated my tech to a room full of investors, there was a huge news flash about major changes being made to Facebook that made my project no longer functional… which also equated to my company not being investible. I hit a wall, a wall that coincided with my bank account reading ZERO. I was at the end of the road. I should have been stressed, I should have been full of anxiety of where I would find my next meal but none of that arose, I felt confident in embracing this unknown experience. I felt this lovely sense of “knowing” that everything would be okay.
At my demo a guy in the crowd came up after my presentation, we chatted and parted with the idea of having coffee at some point. When inside, I really had no desire to get together with him, to my intellectual mind he didn't appear to have any solutions to my current affairs. I wrote the guy off and went on my way.
The following day, the guy reached out and asked to grab a coffee. My intellectual mind said, “Fuck no, I gotta figure out a solution to fixing my bank account first. I don't have time for this” and I went to decline the coffee via text but when I responded a “yeah, that sounds great” came out instead. What the…. Where did that come from??
I went and had a coffee with the guy and at the end of our conversation it turned out he was leaving in a couple days for Tokyo to work with this hot new start up that was on a tear. He was going to help with their international expansion. And then he asked if I would like to help on a short term consulting contract. After a week of hemming and hawing (and driving Amy crazy) I said yes.
And the next thing I knew I was on a flight to Tokyo. The day before I was near dead broke - this was never a reality in my mind but here I sat on a plane to Japan...
I was left in awe, all I could think was that there is something else going on here, there must be some other forces present in our experience that our intellectual minds are not privy to.
But what are they?
Tokyo - Gonpachi Nishiazabu - if it looks familiar it's where one of the scenes from the movie Kill Bill was filmed...