I only quickly mentioned it to you, Gus, but I told a lie today. I really didn’t gain anything by it.. but it did make me smile to myself. In speaking with the people at Sirius about our visit, I was asked if we’d ever been there before. I replied, “No”. That’s it. That’s the lie. Not so bad, right? Fact is, I have been there before.
A few months back on a trip to NYC, I put myself on a mission to get our music played by Sirius. A mission for which I envisioned blogging about months later explaining, it’s true, ‘you can do anything you put your mind to’, ‘don’t give up’, ‘don’t take no for an answer’, ‘persistence pays off’. I was going to walk into Sirius and not leave until I personally handed our CD to someone. Upon walking in the building where they’re located, one will find as many security guards as visitors in suits…on their own missions. It was on to plan B since walking straight into their offices and charming a receptionist wasn’t going to happen. Instead I found my way to the security guard booth where I was faced with the person I would now have to charm. “May I help you?” she asked. “Yes,” I replied, “I’m going up to Sirius”. As she handed me a piece of paper to sign, she told me which elevators I would be taking up. Not bad, I thought to myself, I’m in. That thought was quickly followed by her next question. “Who is the person you’re meeting with so we can tell them you’re on your way up?” I gave the ‘I don’t have a good answer’ smile while she smiled ‘nice try’ and directed me to the area where everyone else goes to crop off a CD.
I’ll spare you the details of the further efforts I made of getting my foot in the door. Sirius has a system in place for the likes of me, and rightfully so, I wasn’t going to be able to break it. The mission on that day resulted as they usually do, which was me accepting that things don’t always work out as planned. For every opportunity we have been given, at least 20 other opportunities have been pursued to no avail. This is part of the deal: rejection. At this point I decided to have a seat on a window sill and people-watch. More specifically, there was a band there I was watching, admiringly, with their guitars, equipment and entourage giving the security guards all the right names and heading up to Sirius. ‘It’s not good to be jealous’, ‘use your time wisely’, ‘focus on what you can control’, ‘be proactive’… all things I’m sure I would have started to tell myself had a security guard not walked up to me and told me I couldn’t sit in the lobby and had to leave. Needless to say we’ll be on a different mission tomorrow and I will be filled with pride walking into Sirius with my guitar in hand and with the name of the person to tell the security desk who we’re meeting with.
joe
