The best is whatever your favorite is. - Life Lesson By Jeff

When I was young and out of college, roughly 21-22 years old, I couldn't find a job (especially with my degree). I got an interview with a company that was going to fight against insurance companies trying to lowball people for damages by Hurricane Sandy.

I had to travel into One Penn Plaza to go to this meeting. I had to wear a suit, which was so foreign to me it was like speaking another language (sweats and mesh shorts all day). I got sent up to one of the nicest offices I've ever seen. They have a 40-foot boardroom table with an insane view of the city. I felt like I was in an episode of Suits, except the person I met with wasn't named Harvey; his name was Jeff.

Jeff looked kind of nerdy, clearly had money, a great office in Manhattan, a smoking hot yoga instructor wife (didn't find that out during the interview), and was a really smart and nice guy. He was the first person to take a chance on me... a kid with zero experience, clearly wearing a suit that wasn't his, and super uncomfortable being in such a nice office.

I found out I was the first hire for this business, which I thought was wild. Jeff took me under his wing, showed me the ropes, and also listened to me and respected my opinion... which is new to a kid whose greatest accomplishments were all sports-related and being able to finish 15 beers in an hour for a case race (Keystones, but still counts). I'm trying not to turn this into a long-winded story about me getting a job. This blog is less about the job and more about a man I respected who gave me a really good nugget of advice. After some long days with Jeff, before I'd take him back to the train to Jersey, he would say, "Let's stop and get dinner." I'm used to getting pizza or going to a deli if the boss was taking you out. Nah, we would walk into super nice steakhouses or waterside restaurants. He knew that I would drink pond water if it had alcohol in it and liked whiskey. Jeff would order me some really classy whiskey, he would get some crazy wine I've never heard of, and he would ask to see if they had cigars.

After one of those dinners, smoking a cigar and drinking some expensive hooch, I felt like I had the world by the balls because I was indulging in things I never thought I could, in places out of my price range. I asked him, "Hey Jeff, what's the best wine or the best whiskey in the world, and how does somebody learn to get a more expensive palate?" Or something along those lines; it was a long time ago. He looked at me and told me that he's been to wine tasting competitions around the world and he asked a similar question to a sommelier (wine expert... I didn't know either). The sommelier told him that he judged competitions where $10,000 bottles won or $9 bottles won, so basically all the hype about rarity and cost is bullshit. He said, "The best wine on the planet... is the one you like the most." Well, fuck me, right... Jeff told me the same thing: whatever you like is the best, plain and simple. Jeff told me his most memorable experience that solidified this for him, and it involved a Cuban dictator.

No, he wasn't a drug mule; he was on the search for the world's best cigar, and somehow he was able to get one of Fidel Castro's hand-rolled secret personal stash cigars specially shipped, and all this other crap about how he got around customs, blah blah blah. Jeff says, "Mike, it was the worst cigar I ever had in my life." This was eye-opening as a 22-year-old who was getting a taste of some of the finer things in life. I could have let this stuff go to my head. Instead, I was taught a lesson in being more humble and being true to yourself.

Yeah, as you get older, tastes change... maybe you become more refined, but you should do and enjoy things because you like them. Forget everyone else's shitty two cents. If you love Enya, rock the shit out of Enya. If you like shitty beer, enjoy your shitty beer. If your dream car is the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile, go out and whip that thing around, man.

Just enjoy what you enjoy and don't worry so much about people who hate it, or at least don't let their opinion bother you. Listen, I am still guilty of giving people a hard time for liking something I hate, but I respect them for standing by it. In a world where the biggest and newest thing comes along every other week and owning stuff seems to be at an all-time high, and the amount or quality of that stuff leads to status... just do your best not to get sucked into it. I'm not shaming you for liking the finer things as well; if you can afford it, go for it, but don't let that become who you are and look down on people who don't agree with you.

I think the fact it was this guy Jeff, who had the options of the finer things, resonated more than if it was a broke guy who seemed jaded/jealous and just couldn't have these things. I just appreciate that at a point in my life where I could have been heavily influenced to have a negative aspect of things, I was taught a good lesson. Jeff, if you ever see this, thanks for the advice, and thanks for being the first person in a business manner to have seen something special in me, given me an opportunity, and treated me like an equal. Even if it was only a handful of times for like 2 years I appreciate it.