hamilton-coverI’m sitting here writing this in Starbucks in Beverly Hills at 6:01 AM, getting ready for another exciting day…

There’s a lot of details about this event that aren’t really something I should write about here, but it has stimulated some thoughts worth sharing…

As I reflect on the first part of this meeting yesterday, I keep looping lyrics from the musical Hamilton in my head.

Just a quick recap of where we’re at in the story, to give the lyrics some context.

So — spoiler alert! — Aaron Burr would eventually be the guy who killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel.  But leading up to that, they have a life-long, ever-escalating political rivalry.

Here’s where we’re at, at this point in the ever-escalating conflict…

Aaron Burr desperately wants to be a part of the power structure of the early US government.  He already is, but he wants MORE power.

Alexander Hamilton is part of that power structure.  In fact, he is basically George Washington’s right-hand man, already exercising great influence over the building of a very young United States of America, as the first Secretary of the Treasury.

Burr is jealous of Hamilton’s rise from orphan immigrant to this high office, surpassing Burr, who came from an influential family and felt it his entitlement to be a political leader.

Hamilton — just doing his thing — desperately wants to create a national financial system, including nationalizing states’ Revolutionary War debts in order to build credit for the young nation.

He sees it as a critical step in building a strong country.

Thomas Jefferson and James Madison are ardently opposed.  Their native Virginia has already paid off its debts (largely due to the financial boon of slavery).  And they see this as a way to force them to take on the debts of Hamilton’s New York and other Northern states who are slower in paying off their debt.

Jefferson and Madison are leading a contingent of southern Congressmen in blocking Hamilton’s plan from getting through.

Well, much to Burr’s dismay, Jefferson invites Hamilton to a private dinner meeting with Madison, to discuss Hamilton’s plan.

And, by the time dinner is over, a deal has been struck.

Hamilton gets support from the southerners to nationalize the states’ debts, and create the financial system that basically continues to this day.

In exchange, the southerners get the nation’s capital moved from its original New York City location down to Virginia, on the Potomac — present-day Washington DC.  (New York will remain the financial capital — the political capital is all that’s moving.)

Burr, watching this from the outside, is pissed.

And we get an amazing song of jealousy and spite out of it…

The room where it happens…

The immigrant emerges with unprecedented financial power

A system he can shape however he wants

The Virginians emerge with the nation’s capital

And here’s the pièce de résistance

No one else was in

The room where it happened

The room where it happened

The room where it happened

No one really knows how the game is played

The art of the trade

How the sausage gets made

We just assume that it happens

But no one else is in

The room where it happens

No one really knows how the

Parties get to yes

The pieces that are sacrificed in

Ev’ry game of chess

We just assume that it happens

But no one else is in

The room where it happens 

My God

In God we trust

But we’ll never really know what got discussed

Click-boom then it happened

And no one else was in the room where it happened

I

Wanna be in

The room where it happens

The room where it happens

I think that’s enough of a selection of lyrics to get the idea across…  If you want more, I STRONGLY suggest the cast album.

There’s incredible power in being in the room where it happens…

Put the right people in the room together, and incredible things happen.  Deals get made.  The future is created right before your eyes.

This can happen for good or for bad.  (And, depending on your perspective, the same details of what happen can most definitely be seen as good or bad.  This whole situation could stimulate a huge political discussion, but I won’t go there!)

Put people together who have ambition and who have built systems around them to make that ambition real, and they pretty much can’t be in a room together without making something happen.

If you want to be “in the room where it happens,” how to do that came up a lot yesterday and there was one recurring theme…

Billionaires, centi- and deca-millionaires, world-famous speakers, entrepreneurs, political influencers…

There was a very consistent theme about how they’ve gotten to where they are, and how they end up working with everyone they do…

Contribution and service.  What Brian Kurtz calls 100-0 networking.

Whenever you meet someone, think first about what you can do for them.  Then, do it.  And, if possible, make it big.

Have an in-service attitude.  Serve people that are at the very echelon of where you want to be.  Focus on what contributions you can make that will be meaningful to them.

Maybe that’s supporting them in their business.  Maybe that’s doing something personal — or for their family.  Maybe it could be a way you can help their favorite charity.

There’s a lot of ways to make an impact.

But here’s the secret…

You have to do all this service and contribution without asking a single thing in return.

Make it all about what you can do for them.  Don’t make it about you.  Don’t make it about getting something out of them.

And, do this for a lot of people.

Find influencers in your field.  Find people who are doing big things.  Find the people who you’d like to align yourself with.

Then, find a way to help them out.

Do this enough times, and the effects will be tremendous.

The secret is not being attached to the outcome of any given act of service or contribution.

This has been my single-most powerful business-building secret…

While there’s a lot of things I do to market and promote myself, it’s always about who I can meet, where that makes the biggest, fastest impact.

Whatever your goals may be, this approach will help you get there.

Sometimes you have to invest money to get in these rooms in the first place.  It’s definitely been the case that meetings at seminars lead to big things.

Sometimes, the invite comes from unexpected places, because of what you’ve done so far.

The trick is knowing when it’s time to say “yes” — and then to show up with that in-service attitude and an openness to whatever the conversation brings.

Yours for bigger breakthroughs,

Roy Furr