In your 20s everybody is rising up the ladder.
And in your 30s the cream continues to rise
and others stay here.
And others rise too.
And in your 40s you’re really many times
in a position of power or real leadership.
It’s so important to maintain those relationships
in an authentic way.
And I’m a thousand on my SAT guy but I’ve
been able to compensate for a lot of that
through relationships and keeping great relationships
and being able to contact people now that
are in positions of power that 20 years ago
I would have never have thought.
When I was starting Marquis Jet even before
Marquis Jet I was in the music business and
I was partners with a guy from Run-D.M.C.
who has since been killed.
Jam Master Jay, the DJ from Run-D.M.C.
And he said to me that he was working with
a kid, an 18-year-old kid at the time who
was a boxer and he needed an internship.
So he asked me if he could work as an intern.
I said of course.
His name was Curtis.
And we ran a van, a promotional van for the
New York Knicks and he would hand out keychains
and stuff and come in.
I was working on music at the time and he
was helping me and blah, blah, blah, blah.
Eight years later Curtis became 50 Cent.
And I remember when we started Marquis Jet
I got a passenger manifest one day of all
the people that were on our flights and he
was a guest of one of the flights.
So I had them write a note with a bottle of
champagne that said Curtis, you’re never
going to believe – because we had a small
company.
I mean we all worked in one little war room.
I said you’re never going to believe this
but you’re on one of our airplanes and this
is Jesse Itzler, you know.
Haven’t heard from you.
Congratulations on your success.
But anyway the next day I got a note saying
that he had changed in his rider that he would
only fly with Marquis Jet.
But it just reinforces the story that you
never know what people turn out to be.
And you just never know and loyalty always
rewards itself.
And that was a great lesson, a very valuable
lesson for me and just the power of being
nice to everybody and helping people.
And I found that people in general want to
help each other.
And that’s been something that I found throughout
my life that people in general want to help
other people if you ask them.
