A thousand advisors

This is the best part about working for a long time (or if you prefer, being old).

There are a thousand people who will respond to my informal request for help.

I know experts in social media, venture capital, digital marketing, finance, health care, retail, taxation, artificial intelligence, publishing, television, statistics, brand licensing, home efficiency, and a hundred other topics.

I know senior people at Meta, Microsoft, Netflix, Disney, Spotify, GM, Comcast, Gartner, Fidelity, Wiley, and a hundred other companies.

All of these are people I worked with. Some are current and former clients.

More valuable than platinum

If would never, ever send a mass email to this group. That would be like using the Mona Lisa as a serving tray. They are far too valuable for that.

But if I need help, I can contact a few of them, one at a time, with a carefully crafted and customized message and a request for advice on whatever the topic is.

When I’ve done this — and I do it often — the response is almost always “Wow, Josh. How are you? It’s great to hear from you.”

It seems sort of surprising to me since I was sort of an arrogant ass for most of my career, but people seem to remember something else — that I always did quality work and appreciated the work of others.

Behave like that and you can build up a vast network of friends. That’s the value of still working when you are old.