Increase Coffee Bar Sales By Giving Them The Variety They Want, And: Fill & Download for Free

I would make a custom order to make the worlds largest super yacht, and then I would host a massive party, hiring the best chefs and musicians to join me. Together with all my friends, and anyone who whats to join, we will sail towards the gulf of Mexico, and live and relax.I think I would turn it into a business, where people of all economical status can join up and have fun, it would happen once every 3 months, and it would be called the “tri-week super yacht party”.On the yacht would be 3 helicopters, 20 jet skies, 2 foldable catamarans, and several wind surfing boards and sails. ( All top of the line of course). There would be a indoor swimming pool, a spa, a coffee/tea house, a huge dining table, several lounges, a cigar lounge, and a indoor forest.There would be 6 floors, and they would go as follows,1, Indoor swimming pool, and engine room.2, Storage for the boats and equipment.3, Living quarters, 40 rooms total, each room would be equipped with the latest technology and safety standards (in case of turbulence) but also would contain a master bathroom and many entertainment features like a 80″ tv, a mini bar, a hired servant assistant,(who will take care of you personally), a Master bed, a sofa, wifi, a hot tub, and a nice view out the tinted window, with electronic shades installed.4, Dining hall, has comfortable leather sofas instead of annoying chairs, a full dining menu cooked by the best chefs, and containing all diffrent types of cuisines, to satisfy anyone. Also on this floor are all of the lounges, and the indoor forest, inside is a indoor tropical paradise, with flowers and butterflies followed by trees and plant life, all up kept by professional gardeners. Right outside the forrest is the spa, it contains massage tables and steam rooms, and sauna’s. To make sure that it is not over crowded, only 3 people are allowed at one time, and appointments are pre-scheduled for everyone on board, incase you forget.( just like in this picture, but 10 times the size)5, Up top is the tea and coffee bar, as well as the cigar shop, selling the most premium hand rolled cigars for sale, from limited editions, to general rare sticks. (Because this would be the greatest place to enjoy them). Next to the lounge is a massive out door walk area, where you can sun bathe, and relax. This is also where 3 help pads are located. On the opposite side, is a escalator that leads to the second floor that grants access to diving boards and also all of the other boats.6, The captains chair and room. A huge round observatory room with a view of everything, staffed by myself and 5 co-pilots to make sure everything is running smoothly. We would have everything top of the line, and also a private servant.( behind this picture, would be the cockpit, and many instrument clusters.)The greatest thing about all this, is that All of you lovely people reading this would totally be invited.The rest of my money would be donated a large variety of charities, one million dollars a piece. ( Ill keep 200 billion for the upkeep of this boat and project however).[EDIT]: Question was changed, saying that I can not donate money.So, what do I do? I Start out by Purchasing Several Islands, and renovating them to be micro vacation spots where people can walk around, play in the sand with, and sun bathe.That will cost me around 100 billion I think. Next, I would Increase the size of my super yacht, → to a Ultra yacht, It will be triple its original size listed above.Besides storing yachts and catamarans, it would also store submarines.Also, the boat would be equipped with weapons, As I recently learned that pirates still exist near Africa. It would have the latest armaments, such as 35mm auto cannons, and Gatling guns. They will be will be manned by private guardsmen.Videos in order as listed above:(This is from a anime I used to watch)(Some random clip I found)Then I would make it that these guns only pop out from hull of the yacht when danger arises. Sorta how you seen super villain creations appear in a lab.Im Going to assume I still have like 300 billion left, And with that money, I will buy all my friends things they want. (That doesn't count as charity, because I'm spending the money, not giving it away)Whether its nice cars, boats, house(s), so on. Obviously, I will have tons of money left over, and so that money I will stick into a bank. Because honestly at this point I've run out of ideas.

Facebook is the biggest disruptor to the advertising industry. Social media is, of course, disruptive in a general sense, but with apologies to Twitter and my former employer LinkedIn, when it comes to advertising disruption it's all about Facebook, and the company and the ecosystem it has been building around itself is a tremendous disruptive force:Deep AND addressable affinity and demographic data. For many years advertisers have been stuck with TV audience measurement data "as thin of substance as the air" (to quote our friend Mr Shakespeare). Facebook has built a very comprehensive set of age/gender and brand affinity data that is not only addressable (targetable), but has tremendous scale (over 900mm global users) and is adding in additional contextual depth, moving from simple 'likes' to Open Graph actions including want, buy, read, redeem (offer or coupon), enter (contest) and so on.The promise of (scalable) word of mouth marketing. We love scoreboards - and Facebook fan pages have a big one on the front, so some firms have focused on acquiring "likes" on Facebook any way they can, which leads to the inevitable question "what's a like worth"? The answer is quite simple - a LOT or nothing. If the likes are your authentic actual customers, the answer is a lot - you can now market to new prospects using the voice of your existing customers. If the likes are people who clicked because you asked them to click like if they like coffee or tea, the value is probably a nothing rounding error. I've seen the power of word-of-mouth done right, and the amazing speed and scalability that Facebook has afforded many of these initiatives. WoM works as we've seen with study upon study, but scaling it is hard and this by itself could be enough disruption to the traditional advertising business!Mobile ads at last, with real data attached. Initial results my company Optimal has seen for mobile advertising on Facebook have been very promising, and there is some real scale there. Over 102 million people accessed Facebook via mobile devices only in June 2012, up 23% in TWO MONTHS, which is an amazing statistic (in addition to all those who did so both via mobile and desktop). Mobile has been a bit of a redheaded stepchild when it comes to advertising because of three factors, (a) device/platform/network heterogeneity, (b) not much screen real-estate and (c) lack of addressable user data. The smartphone revolution and the marketshare gains of iOS and Android are addressing a lot of (a)+(b) and Facebook is addressing (c) by having the first real platform that crosses desktop and mobile, and smartphones are now finally reasonable at letting users input information on the go. FB haven't totally figured the ad products out here, but it won't be long I'll bet.Earned and paid media having to work together. Many firms were drawn by the promise of free "earned" media for their brand pages, and then realized the inevitable which is that (1) it would get harder to be noticed as one of many posters to their users' feeds and (2) they could and would need to amplify the best earned media by buying advertising against it. Part of this is a function of increasing clutter - the average Facebook user had 100 friends in 2008 and now in 2012 has over 220; and is also on average connected to at least 80 "community" pages including groups, fan pages and events - and all of these friends and pages are posting more and more to the newsfeed. We track over 3.5 billion likes across 5,500+ brands at http://optimalsocial.com and almost all of them continue to attract more "likes" - the more important and fun challenge becomes amplifying the right posts/content to the right sub-audiences that are more likely to interact or transact (Facebook has continued to improve targeting of page posts too, not just its ad products - and as of July 2012 also lets brands target page posts to segmented sub-audiences too). This whole notion of sub-audiences is precisely why KYCE (see 5 below) is so important."Know Your Customer or Else" (KYCE). With all the customer preference and affinity data that social produces, and more and more of it open to your competitors directly or indirectly, the burden upon the marketer to know their customer inside and out is increasing exponentially. This means those longstanding data siloes have to come down internally at big companies - the transactional data from the website or email database or store HAS to become addressable to you because that is the most valuable data that your competitor WON'T be able to get to. If you're not taking advantage of every bit of data your competitor *cannot* get their hands on, they're going to slaughter you with the increasing bits of data the market now provides. We should not underestimate how disruptive a movement this is, and Facebook has been a big catalyst for this. Chief Marketing Officers said as much in a big IBM study in 2011, pointing out the primary importance of managing social media and data as their two biggest priorities, and the two that they are most likely to utilize technology for: (http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/35633.wss). "Every day we create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data – so much that 90 percent of the world’s data today has been created in the last two years alone. The increasing volume, variety and velocity of data available from new digital sources like social networks, in addition to traditional sources such as sales data and market research, tops the list of CMO challenges. The difficulty is how to analyze these vast quantities of data to extract the meaningful insights, and use them effectively to improve products, services and the customer experience.""Hacking" approach to marketing and advertising. Facebook pushes out new features constantly. They are the most innovative company I've ever encountered. They run all kinds of alpha and beta tests with their partners (see #9 below) some of which never see the light of day based on efficacy or customer/partner feedback. Their culture is one of testing and trying stuff out - and it will ultimately deliver value to both end customers and advertisers. Advertising practitioners have their work cut out for them to make sure they aren't playing a zero-sum game of annoyance for consumers, negative blowback for advertisers and grudging acceptance by publishers. I've sat on conference panels with heads of agency groups who have explained how Facebook has turned down multi-million dollar ad deals because they were not willing to do a page-takeover style ad that would have annoyed the consumer; Facebook could magnify ad revenue overnight if they wanted to opt for the simplistic "billboard" old-school ad mindset, but they are instead taking the longer-term, more difficult approach of product+hack+testing their way to something new, unique and more powerful.Bringing CRM to the table = big must-have enterprise marketing software acquisitions. Consumer marketing has always been a "soft" part of the enterprise software stack, relatively speaking, but this has been changing. Acquisitions in the first half of 2012 of "earned media" social players like Buddy Media, Vitrue and Wildfire signal a big shift in advertising and marketing and "media" as being a legitimate and needed part of enterprise software. Most of these companies are still fairly new to understanding paid media, let it be said (of these three, only Buddy Media had an acquisition of a small company specializing in Facebook ad buying just before they themselves were bought by Salesforce.com), but they're learning, and all of them have been working to integrate paid media offerings from partner vendors into their solution. The bar for agencies is being set higher now, because in a world of big data and analytics, enterprise software companies are going to want to take those direct customer relationships and have algorithms and software start dictating how and where media dollars are spent, not merely personal relationships (http://www.digiday.com/agencies/agencies-play-coy-on-gifts/).Changing client-agency relationships. Social is a new line item in some media budgets; in other cases it's a totally different budget, seen as a CRM initiative and managed in-house by companies. We see some companies managing all ad buys via existing agencies, others granting "social AOR" status to existing or new agencies - some who are specialists in social and some who aspire to be; yet others are doing it themselves even if they do other media buying externally. Some PR agencies are also getting in on the action. Many if not all media buying bets appear to be off when it comes to social. The need to amplify earned media with paid media is helping to blur these lines.Innovation and sales incentive alignment with a robust and integrated vendor ecosystem. In stark contrast to the approach Yahoo! took, cutting many of its API-integrated advertising partners off from buying its inventory programmatically (http://allthingsd.com/20111110/yahoo-gives-retargeters-the-boot-ad-networks-next/), Facebook has embraced its ad and app API partners and built a large ecosystem that not only drives innovation but also gives these partners the ability to sell its "premium" ad products. There are many features in its advertising APIs that are not available in its self-service interface, allowing vendors to build additional value for customers, in stark contrast to many other large publishers/networks some of whom take the "you can only sell the peanut- and caramel flavored items" approach (it's a Costco joke - move on!) OR have internal sales incentives that put them at odds with these vendors even if they do have access. Facebook has been working on getting their "client partners" to collaborate with vendors, working hard to get everyone at the same table - they know the burden of customer education for advertisers and agencies is huge, and they are taking active steps to help and collaborate here.As to what it will take for the ad agency of the future to succeed? - the answer is to have the same "hacking" mentality that Facebook and many of its partners do: (a) embrace data/analytics fully, and devote as much time as you think you could possibly spare to it, then double that amount, (b) embrace the notion that rapid disruptive change will be the norm FOREVER, and (c) buy or build technology and aggressively seek out the scale it can deliver. It doesn't mean that the agency will have to create technology themselves (though some should) - but they'll need left- and right-brain creative people who can pull levers, know when to double down and sometimes when to find new levers, to drive innovation and build teams with different but complementary viewpoints across creative, data, and workflow->technology.I've seen many of these changes (and many others I didn't cover since it would be TL;DR) happening first hand, most of these developments very very recent. I'll continue to talk about them on our blog at http://optim.al/blog and my personal blog at http://zeronomy.com (and of course here on Quora!).

Leonard Kim. Interesting guy, I tell you. He just so happens to be one of the only people I have spent the last 29 years of my life with. The stories we've shared...Priceless.How in the world could I possibly ever sum up anything about this fellow, who happens to be the only person I can count on to talk to me each and every day? The person who was there to watch my life fall apart. The person who was there when I hit a pinnacle point in my life. The person whom I've known for so long, that I should know thoroughly, probably as well as the back of my hand.Luckily, I don't really know the back of my hand that well, so I can get away with not mentioning a few, if not many, things about him.My lifelong partner, who even shares my blood and my name, Leonard, just so happens to be this fellow who was raised in a loving family. He was fortunate enough to have a grandfather who had fought in three wars as his role model, Robert L. Landis.As a child, Leonard was instilled with nothing but love by his grandfather. Did he trip and fall? Bust his eyelid open on a fireplace? Get made fun of by the fellow students who attended his elementary school?He surely did.However, as he cried from the excruciating pain - both emotional and physical - he always had his grandfather to turn to. With a smile, Robert would just hold him in his arms and comfort him, letting him know that everything would be okay. That this too shall pass.Having a grandfather that loved him with all his heart, he was able to do his best at nearly everything. He tried his best at school. He attempted to play sports and always hit foul balls or was picked last during basketball. He practiced playing a piano that was much bigger than himself, even though it did nothing but screech and awaken the neighbors. He even drew stick figures at art school while other children were drawing creative works of art.Being showered by love, Leonard never really cared that he was horrible at these activities he liked doing.Why?Because he knew that no matter where he went, nor how horribly he did, he could always come home and sit on Robert's lap, as he listened to stories of how his grandfather trekked through miles of snow just to get to school.Robert - or Bob, as his friends had called him - was always the center of attention. He was just full of love and happiness. Everywhere he went, he smiled. He volunteered in the school's kitchen. He shared his love and joy with everyone around. There wasn't a single person in his life that wasn't genuinely happy to see him when he was around. He was the perfect role model for a young little child. The perfect person to shape Leonard into whom he would one day aspire to become.Unfortunately, on one grim day, Bob was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, a medical condition that acted as a plague to one's memory. Poor little Leonard didn't understand what was going on. The person who had loved him with all his heart now couldn't even remember who he was.Eventually, in the summer of the year 2000, Robert passed away. Heartbroken, yet unable to understand the pain, something inside of Leonard changed. He went from being a child full of love to a lost, rebellious, cocky and arrogant teenager who just wanted to fit in. He searched endlessly to find people who would love him in the same way Bob had loved him. Eventually, he discovered a new crowd of people whom he considered to be his friends.Leonard started to get involved in frivolous activities from smoking weed and drinking alcohol to disobeying his grandmother. He didn't understand that his grandmother was going through the exact same pain he was. So instead of being there for her, he rebelled.Leonard went out wherever he wanted. He did whatever he wanted to do. Until eventually, he got into trouble with the law when he was caught stealing a CD player from a large retailer. After being arrested, Leonard was tossed into a holding cell for a day while he waited for his grandmother to pick him up.The screams. The yells. The words of discern. Chills flooded down Leonard's spine as his grandmother verbally tore him apart. For a day after his departure from the police station, he receded and hid in his room.Did he learn from his mistake? We ask ourselves...As some time progressed, Leonard spent his time on the Internet. While he perused through the chat rooms of AOL - back when his 466MHz Intel Celeron-powered HP computer connected him to the net through a 56k modem - he searched endlessly for women.A/S/L - three letters received by every woman in any chat-room Leonard entered. As conversations progressed, he would lead into photo inquiries. Photos would be sent by email, always interrupted by the word "Goodbye" as he was barely able to get their hair to load up on the images.Eventually, Leonard found his first girlfriend - a girl who was as troubled as he was. She was disowned by her father and sent to live with her grandmother. Just another broken puzzle piece misplaced on a chess board, a damaged soul who only wanted to be loved. Who only wanted to fit in.Two tragic messes. Lost in life. They were perfect for each other. So what did they do?They agreed to meet. It was such a cute love story. Leonard and his girlfriend would go around smoking cigarettes behind the Toys 'R' Us, flicking the smoke into hearts. They would smoke weed and wander through Knott's Berry Farm, sneaking up onto the roofs and displaying PDA in the line to the Kingdom of Dinosaurs - the most boring ride in the world - where all the young couples aspired to make out one day. Leonard's grandmother actually loved this girl so much that one day she grabbed a slipper and chased her to the point where she had to hop out the window of his room and then down the street two blocks.That, my friends, is what we call true love in the Korean community. If you have not had a grandmother chase you with a slipper down the street with a stern look of contempt for taking away her grandson's innocence then you haven't truly been loved by an elder.Well, one day, Leonard told his grandmother that he wanted to see this love of his. She denied it. She wanted him to have nothing to do with this girl. So she yelled at him and told him to stay in his room.Being the obedient little teenager Leonard was, he decided that he would just take his grandmother's car without her permission and deal with the consequences later. Since Leonard never really grasped nor understood how to drive - even now - he did what any inexperienced driver who over-predicted their abilities would do.He crashed the little Corolla straight into a tree, totaling that poor little car. Ready to face the disaster he had put himself in, Leonard called his grandmother. He thought all would be forgiven.Little did he know that this was the final straw. This was when Leonard's grandmother could take no more. She had hit her tipping point and there was no return.Nancy, Leonard's grandmother, had phoned his mother. Nancy had told his mother that she wanted absolutely nothing to do with him anymore. She wanted to disown him. Disown him so he would no longer be her responsibility.So, as Leonard awaited Nancy's arrival, shock overtook him as he saw his mother there. She looked at Leonard and told him that it was over. There was no more room at Nancy's home for him. He would be taken to Los Angeles to live.Laissez-faire.That would be the parenting style of Leonard's mother. Do whatever you want. Just figure out and learn from your mistakes on your own. Leonard, being a complete moron who learns lessons at a much slower pace than his peers, decided to do just that. He went out to do anything he wanted, not really understanding the consequences. He would make mistake after mistake, yet never understand the underlying lesson that was to be learned.Leonard got into trouble. More trouble than he could imagine. From being out late, getting into car accidents, to having difficulty in school. On one random morning, hungover like no tomorrow, Leonard drove the car that his mother bought for him - a brand new 2001 Toyota Camry - to school. When he arrived, he saw that everything was off. His teacher was acting like the biggest tragedy the world had ever seen had taken place. The twin towers had fallen.Being young and naive, Leonard wasn't able to fathom the impact that this event had on the world, let alone his own family. The United States as a whole was slowly entering into a mode of panic. Consumer shopping had decreased at an alarming rate. The citizens of our nation had started to enter into a mind-set of fear. Then, our President at the time, George Bush, decided to declare war.This was the beginning of a new era. A new era where the world, or at least the American Economy, would hit a tipping point. Fear and panic spread. Americans bought rations in case of a bombing. The necessity for families to buy toys for their children and go out to enjoy themselves began to halt. As a result, small businesses started to fail.Leonard's mother at that time was earning a solid six figure income. She owned a little toy store inside an indoor swap meet located at Santa Monica Blvd and Western Avenue, located at the beginning - or the end - of Hollywood; more accurately: in the heart of Little Armenia. She also partook in tending bar at night. As this economic shift occurred, little did his mother know how much it would affect her life.A few months after war was declared, business slowed down. It slowed down to the point where Leonard's mother had to close up shop. Her toy store was here one day, gone the next. Leonard and his mother started to see the first signs of their lives crumbling apart.How did this one event bode onto the small little family that lived in the heart of Korea-town, Los Angeles? The impact was quite influential in the lives of this little broken family. So powerful, actually, that it had a direct correlation to the way that their lives were lived.Money grew scarce. Possessions had to be sold. Leonard's mother ended up having to sell all their furniture to make ends meet. This poor little family was only able to eat one meal a day. This daily meal consisted of just three things.RiceEggSauce (Mostly soy sauce, sometimes butter, other times ketchup or another inexpensive variety of garnish.)Things looked grim. The future looked grim. Leonard and his mother entered into a state of depression. Being the fighter that she is, Leonard's mother fought to try to keep the family afloat. She took on odd jobs and worked excruciating hours. She was able to actually recover a moderate lifestyle for her family. The damage was over... or so they thought.Deep within Leonard's heart he knew that he wanted a change. He knew that he could not allow his family, present or future, to ever live like this again. He made a vow to himself. A vow to get rich. So that no one he loved would ever have to endure the type of hardship his family had been left to face.One day, when Leonard was seventeen years old, a woman he was chatting with online told him of a new business venture. Leonard was immediately interested as he saw it as a way for him to attain the wealth that he sought to acquire. The wealth that would ensure that his family, for generations to come, would not have to encounter the types of hardships he once had encountered. This woman introduced him to what many people consider to be a pyramid scheme or - more technically - a multi-level marketing company.Leonard begged his mother to join. His mother agreed to pay the sign on fee. Leonard believed without a doubt that he would be able to change his life. So he decided to put his all into this project.Leonard approached his friends. He told them of ways that they could make more money. Everyone just shrugged him off. In the first three months, Leonard had not recruited a single person. Instead of admitting defeat, he got creative.Leonard knew he had a skill that allowed him to do pretty well with meeting women over the internet. Yet, he didn't think he could monetize off of the females he knew. Until he put two and two together. He went on a site he used heavily, Findapix, and messaged every woman he could find.On that third month, Leonard had brought his team from zero representatives to nine, all of which he had personally sponsored. It worked. Leonard's first feat with the internet was accomplished. Yet, little did he know that he was to meet the love of his life on the same site.This girl... when he chatted with her, they would talk endlessly. When they first met, she had driven over to his home. They did nothing but talk. Until three am. Just talk. It was like their conversations could go on forever. Almost as if their souls were connected. Any topic. Any place. Anywhere. They had smiles to share. More than that, they had so much to discuss.Eventually, Leonard fell head over heels for this woman. He knew this was the woman he wanted to marry.Yet, for some reason, these two people had all the signs of the universe to keep them apart. On one random day, the woman of Leonard's dreams invited him out to Tapioca Express to get boba. After discussing life for hours, they decided to depart. Unfortunately, the battery in her car died. Leonard walked over to his car to help jump start her vehicle. Low and behold, his starter went out as well.They were stranded in the middle of nowhere without a clue of what to do. Eventually, their friends had to rescue them to take them home. Did this travesty stop Leonard and her from talking? Surely not.As they continued to converse, Leonard was coming to find that this woman was quite materialistic. All she ever talked about was Jimmy Choo's... Louis Vuitton... Chanel... I think you get where I'm going with this. She was a high maintenance woman who wanted to be showered with gifts.One day, as they were discussing life, she told Leonard that he was too poor for her. She directly insulted him, saying that he wasn't good enough because he wasn't able to provide for her materially. Being the resilient person Leonard was, he now had a new goal in mind - to please this woman. To be able to provide for her whatever she wanted. To make her happy. To win her heart. So, he set out to acquire a job.On his search, he ended up at the Beverly Center. He applied to become an employee at a store called Macy's. He interviewed and did horribly. Yet he was so inclined to please this woman, he followed up relentlessly to see if he was hired. Eventually, due to his tenacity, he was.Leonard was no longer an unemployed little boy. He became a man - or so he thought - selling women's shoes at Macy's. Maybe he felt like he was a man because Al Bundy had sold shoes in Married with Children. Or maybe he was just trying to bring a sense of pride to his new job. Quite frankly, the world may never know.Leonard saved up his first few checks from his new employer. He just wanted to make this woman happy. So he did whatever he thought would do that. He bought her a pair of Chanel Sunglasses for Christmas. As time progressed, he even bought her a Coach purse and other accessories for Valentine's.However, Leonard was still unable to have her. She had still not given into him. She still wasn't his girlfriend. She was still just his friend, a friend he pursued with every ounce of might that he had.One day, this girl encountered some financial difficulties. She sought out Leonard for assistance. Financial assistance. She requested $470 to help get her out of trouble, to escape from some mess.She was a woman Leonard couldn't say no to. So he decided to assist. He lent her the money she needed and gave it to her in his Louis Vuitton wallet. He trusted her enough to believe that she would return his money, along with the wallet.Then, Leonard was stricken by a phone call. A phone call from this girl stating she had lost all the money gambling. Unsure of what to do, Leonard just requested for his wallet to be returned. Maybe she was ridden by embarrassment, but that was the last he heard from her. She had run off with his money and his wallet, never to be seen again.As time progressed, Leonard eventually got over this woman, or so he thought. He searched for a new person to start over with. Introduced by his childhood friend's sister, he ended up meeting his best friend. This girl was remarkable. Quite a beauty. A beauty who you could lay your eyes on and they would never grow tired. A woman whom would be one of the most influential people in his life, as he was in hers.Suffering from low self-esteem, this woman always talked lowly of herself. Leonard tried to crack her shell, but failed at most of his attempts. He introduced her to the world of network marketing and they became friends. Friends who could - and would - talk endlessly, for days on end. About anything and everything. She lived in Fullerton. He lived in Los Angeles. They would spend time attending networking events, going to the beach, shopping, everything.After some time, Leonard and this best friend of his decided to take things a step further. They were no longer mere friends, but had become friends with benefits. Life was grand.In the interim, Leonard's mother had decided that she couldn't take living in Los Angeles anymore. She basically told him, "You pay car. You pay apartment. I go Hawaii now. bye!"Unsure of what to do, Leonard decided that it was time for him to find a new job. There was no way in the world that he would be able to cover all his bills with a small salary of $25,000 a year. So he decided to search for a new career.A friend of his by the name of John was working at a car dealership. Leonard inquired with him to see what he was earning, to see if this could possibly be the job that could help support his new-found lifestyle. John told him that he was earning $4,000 a month.Leonard decided that if his friend John was earning this much money at the dealership, he could as well. So he decided to apply. After relentless follow up, he was granted a position as a car sales person at Manhattan Beach Toyota. Leonard thought that his life was set.Little did he know that selling cars was one of the hardest industries to make a living in. The failure ratio in the industry was quite grim. Statistically, eight out of every ten new car sales people actually quit the business within their first ninety days.Leonard thought that he would give it his all anyway. What choice did he have? His mother had left him all alone and he had bills to take care of. He went from being a boy to having responsibilities and bills to attest to. So he tried. Yet, he failed miserably.The first two months, Leonard earned a minimum wage. He couldn't figure out what the other sales people were doing. He tried his hardest, yet got nowhere. He would have been left to starve each day if it weren't for the popcorn dispenser at work. Each day, Leonard ate all the popcorn he possibly could, just to survive for another day.Miraculously, on the third month, something clicked. Leonard finally understood what was going on. He had finally cracked the code and figured out the process of how to sell a car. His life changed overnight. He was earning $4,000 a month. His life was saved. He was able to live comfortably, without having to worry about finances or bills anymore.One day, while Leonard was at work, he received a phone call from a stranger. A stranger with whom he had not spoken in years. It just so happened to be a phone call from the woman of his dreams. The women he had always wanted to marry.They agreed to meet.She drove down to Los Angeles from Santa Barbara. They decided to go to Signal Hill to look over the city and spend hours talking, catching up on life. On the way back, another indicator in life arose. Another indicator that these two were not destined to be together. She was rear ended by a person on a side street which resulted in the exchange of information.Eventually, they decided to go back to Leonard's place. They talked. Leonard leaned in for a kiss. As soon as his lips touched hers, his body and his soul filled with butterflies. They slept together. In Leonard's mind, his ultimate goal was complete. He finally had the woman of his dreams.The next few weeks were quite rocky for Leonard. His best friend had told him that they were in an open relationship. So he believed it. He didn't believe what he did was considered cheating. Yet, she felt differently about it. So, she was deeply hurt.Leonard tried to balance keeping both women in his life for a few weeks, but that eventually fell apart. There were accusations all the time; he just denied them all. Eventually, Leonard decided that he couldn't see his best friend anymore. He had chosen the woman of his dreams.On one unfortunate night, while Leonard and this woman he had loved for all his life, had decided to get quite intoxicated, he had a slip. He blurted out, without thinking at all, "This feels so much better than cheating."Accusations were spread for weeks, until Leonard finally owned up to it. She decided to leave him right before his birthday, during the holidays, but he would do anything and everything in his power to get her back. Eventually, they compromised on a $1,000 shopping spree at Abercrombie and Fitch.Leonard never knew that $1,000 could buy so many bags of clothing. She never wore a single item. Yet, it was their way of resolving the issue.Leonard's lover lived in Santa Barbara at the time. So he would wake up in the morning, drive to Manhattan Beach to work, then head up to Santa Barbara to see his future wife nearly every day. Eventually, they decided to move in together.This woman inspired Leonard. He was so happy, so confident, so full of life when he was with her. Somehow, his income directly reflected that. He went from earning $50,000 a year to $100,000 a year by the age of 21.Leonard thought he was on top of the world. He had the love of his life, who he intended to marry. He accomplished the American dream of earning six figures. Looking back, he actually had everything that he had ever wanted.One morning, he looked in the mirror and asked himself, "Is this it? Is this all the American dream is about? I have everything I could ever want, but I'm not happy."Leonard knew that his lover felt the same way. They made a mutual decision, one that any normal person would do when they felt they reached a plateau in life - a place from where they could no longer rise any higher. They did what any normal person or celebrity would do in their situation. They turned to drugs.Eventually, their lives came crashing apart. Leonard and his wife were to be separated from each other. Leonard drowned himself in misery, by going out every night and utilizing his money to seamlessly demand respect from others. He went out and took his anger and frustration out on the world by sleeping with every woman that crossed his path. He was a complete loose cannon. Until one day, when he met his mentor.A close friend of Leonard's, by the name of James, was working at a local Korean cafe called Modena. Leonard had not seen James for years, even though they have always been the best of friends. So he decided to give him a visit. When he first walked in, he gave James a hug, then ordered shaved ice, a traditional Korean dessert. They chatted for a while; the bill came to $12. Leonard decided to pay with a card, then went to fill in the tip section. He marked down $100.Flabbergasted and in shock, James had told Leonard that he could come by anytime he wanted and everything would be on the house. Being the smart guy that Leonard was, he took him up on that offer. So he showed up nearly every day, chatting with James and having a coffee or some type of new concoction for free.One day, when Leonard came by to visit his friend James, he saw that James was talking to another individual wearing purple sweats. A little intrigued of what was going on, he decided to walk up to the table.Leonard exclaimed, "Hi James!"The mysterious man in the purple sweats just put his index finger up to his mouth, commanding Leonard to be silent.The charisma that spewed off of this stranger's body was so intense that it compelled Leonard to comply. He sat down quietly and watched. James was going through a program on a Motion in Computing tablet PC that was increasing his cognitive abilities. This was back in 2006, when encountering a tablet PC was nearly non-existent, unless you worked in tech.James finished up what he was doing. The mysterious man turned to Leonard. He introduced himself as Richard J. Kim. They shook hands. Then Richard showed Leonard the program that James was working on.Leonard became intrigued and wanted to learn more. Twice a week, Leonard and Richard met. Richard took on a true mentor role in Leonard's life. There was a common occurrence in each meeting. The development and expansion upon Leonard's views of the world, philosophy and cognitive abilities.Richard would take Leonard on journeys from Los Angeles to Santa Monica, even down to San Diego. Richard didn't do this just to hang out with Leonard, nor did Leonard decide to go just to hang out with Richard. Richard was looking for an apprentice. Leonard was looking to learn to become more than he was.Richard could have been called a savant. He read 2,000 words a minute. He took mental images much like photographs with his mind. He could play the piano beautifully. His logic was nearly flawless and he acted out of the boldness of his heart. Without these things to be known upon the general population, many would say that Richard was quite mysterious. Even Leonard would say the same, if he was asked.Richard and Leonard went on many journeys, where Richard would take point. On one particular journey, Richard asked Leonard what language he would be interested in learning. Leonard said French. Richard looked at him with a confused look, as if he had made the wrong choice.Regardless, Richard equipped Leonard with a tablet PC loaded with Rosetta Stone and a pen. He started to teach Leonard how to utilize the program. Leonard picked it up. Then Richard decided to drive him out to Santa Monica.Once they arrived, Richard signaled for Leonard to follow him, while figuring out French on the virtual machine. Leonard agreed. They went into business after business. Richard even had Leonard follow him into a loud club, where he could no longer physically hear the virtual machine. Coincidentally, he was so in tune with himself that he was choosing the right images. It was as if Leonard's subconscious mind was able to hear and understand the words that the computer was saying through all the noise and chatter around them.Richard worked in technology as a consultant, though it seemed as if he never worked at all. He always had money and free time to do as he pleased. ‎Richard worked on changing Leonard from the bitter, cold person he was and started to help open his eyes and heart. Eventually, Richard helped Leonard find his inner soul.One night, after a long journey, as Leonard got into bed, he was able to get fully in tune with his body. He felt every beat of his heart. He started to feel every hair on his body. His heart just filled with emotions as he was able to start to see what he valued the most in his life. He cried like a little baby, because he could finally see the world clearly.The next day, Leonard went to work. His charisma was off the charts. Strangers approached him, with nothing but pure respect in their eyes, and asked him for his genuine advice. As Leonard went to walk out for a cigarette at the rear of the service bay, all the bystanders who were sitting and waiting for their cars to arrive moved their feet in a synchronized manner. Awestruck, Leonard didn't know what to do and started to fear who he was becoming.Able to see the world clearly, he knew what mattered to him the most. His best friend. He reached out to her to rekindle their friendship. Considering how much bigger she was than him - he who had left her side and chose another woman over her - it was much more of a difficult task than he thought it would be. But Leonard was relentless. He needed his best friend to know just how important she was and did whatever it took to have her back in his life.Eventually, the drugs that Leonard was consuming on a daily basis started to affect his health. He started coughing, showing the first signs of emphysema, or in other words, lung disease. Richard and Leonard took a trip to San Diego together. On the way back, Richard told him that he would take him snowboarding. Richard also mentioned that he was going to provide Leonard with a multi-million dollar life insurance policy and an opportunity to make more money than he could ever have possibly imagined in his life. The opportunity came with disclaimers, however.Scared to travel across the world while being away from his friends for what could have been years, followed by the fact that he couldn't pass the drug test, Leonard started repressing back into the person he was before. He hit a plateau and became too scared of who he was becoming. He decided that it would be best to avoid Richard. He did just that. Eventually, Richard and Leonard lost touch.Leonard then started to contemplate what he wanted to do with his life. ‎He started to go over his finances. He looked at the cash withdrawals he was taking out from his bank account. Every month, it would be in between $1,800 to $2,000 a month, enough to cover the monthly payment of a Mercedes S 500. Shocked by how much he was spending on his drugs to escape the world, he immediately quit.Leonard was too scared that he had disappointed Richard. He decided to start a new business. He couldn't work in the automotive industry any longer, as it was too time consuming and overwhelming. Since Leonard felt he had acquired the skills he needed to succeed in life, he decided to venture out on his own and start a new business.This was the first business that Leonard ever attempted. He didn't know what he was doing. He didn't know how to shop vendors. He didn't know how to negotiate pricing for business materials.Leonard ended up spending thousands on print at Kinko's, as opposed to hundreds at a local provider. ‎He thought he could present a flawless pitch and others would buy into what he was promoting. No one listened. Eventually, he failed, over and over.Then there came a point where Leonard had fallen so deep into his problems, he realized that he was no longer able to pay his bills. He was unable to pay his credit cards in full, as he was previously accustomed to doing. He was unable to make his car payments at all. He was barely able to pay the rent on his apartment. Then things started tumbling apart.One morning, while Leonard was still in complete shock of what was happening to him, being as depressed and lonely as he could ever be, he received a phone call. It was from Nara Bank, the lien holders on his vehicle. They informed him that he was two months behind on his payment. Then they requested a payment from Leonard to stay current and to prevent repossession.Instead of complying with the terms, Leonard just snapped. He lost it. He just couldn't handle the pressure anymore. He lashed out at the representative on the phone, calling him names and shouting insults. He told the guy that he would make the payment as soon as he was ready to do so and not a minute sooner. Offended by what Leonard had said, the debt collector made a decision. He would repossess Leonard's car to teach him a lesson about how to treat others. Two days later, Leonard went downstairs to get into his vehicle, but it was no longer there. Shocked and dismayed, Leonard realized that his car was gone. Unsure of what to do, Leonard started to regress into depression.It was months before Leonard finally built up the courage to climb out of his depression and attempt to re-establish his life.Leonard tried to start a new career in merchant processing, yet failed miserably at that. He couldn't even attain a single account. Then he decided to give in and go back to the car industry. In the interim, he decided to work on another project with a close friend of his that was involved in the Entertainment industry part time.Leonard ended the year having earned $10,000 while accumulating a total of $50,000 in debt. ‎Leonard was at a low point in his life. He didn't have a clue what to do to get out of this mess. So, he just continued to work on trying to recover his life. He knew what he could become, yet had absolutely nothing to do it with. So he stuck with his plan to try to dig himself out of the hole he had placed himself into.‎Coincidentally, on one random day, Leonard bumped into Richard over at the grocery store. Richard asked Leonard to meet him. He agreed. A few days later, they met at the W Hotel in Westwood.Richard had a woman crashed out on the bed of his hotel room. A gorgeous one at that. Richard poured out shots of patron, the first time they officially drank together. Richard was angry - quite angry - at how Leonard had bailed on him. He wanted to understand why Leonard had not followed through with the plans that he set up for him.Leonard did not speak a single word. Richard took a deep look into Leonard's eyes. He was then able to understand it all. Leonard was living a life of fear. He could tell that Leonard was quite scared of the person he was becoming, then understood why he had regressed. Disappointed by what he saw, Richard decided to fill Leonard's mind with doubt and regret for not further pursuing the course he was on.When Richard originally stated to Leonard that he would be paid quite well, Leonard had assumed that he meant $250k a year. Being the cocky and arrogant person Leonard was, he believed that he could earn that much on his own. Then Richard popped his bubble, stating that what he was developing Leonard out to be was worth quite more; engraving into his mind the loss of power, women, respect, along with a seven figure a year salary. Knowing this would be the last time he ever saw Leonard, Richard gave him a hug before kicking him out of his hotel room.For the next few months - actually years - Leonard lived in fear and regret. Regret of losing his wife to be. Regret for passing up the opportunity that was presented to him. Regret of not living up to his potential. Regret of not becoming all that he could be, under his mentor's wings. Yet, Leonard had no choice but to move on.Leonard started to slack at work, because of what he had been told. Eventually, he was laid off. Some of Leonard's friends had decided to work with a nutritional company. Unsure of what to do with his life, Leonard decided to join them for the time being. So overwhelmed with what had gone on in his life, he started to experience anxiety and panic attacks.Leonard tried to put on a straight face wherever he went, but it wasn't enough. Deep inside, he was lost and scared, unsure of anything at all. On a trip out to San Diego with his friends, he had one of the worst anxiety attacks of his life. As his armpits began to sweat, his body created such a severe chemical imbalance that it had stunk up the whole entire car. Embarrassed, Leonard refused to admit that he was the one who had emitted those odors.Leonard decided that he needed to get out of the mess he was in. He decided it would be in his best interest to get involved in Real Estate. ‎He saw his friends change their financial lives in the industry, so he thought that would be the perfect outlet for him.Leonard started working with a Real Estate Investment company, located in Downtown Los Angeles, on the 30th floor of the Gas Company Tower.Leonard saw this as his golden opportunity to change his life. How marvelous would this be, to bring clients to the heart of the financial district, have them go through metal detectors, check in with a security team, then finally be escorted up to a building with a panoramic view of the city. The setup was perfect.Leonard seized the opportunity. In his first month, he acquired enough clients to cover the sale of 25 properties. Leonard was excited as he was well on his way to earning $50,000 a month on a consistent basis. ‎He was ready to win. Win big, at that. ‎One evening, Leonard and his partner were at work celebrating with a few drinks from the dry bar, looking out the window overlooking all of East Los Angeles. As they looked through the window, they noticed a stealth bomber flying straight towards them.The words, "Holy shit" were mutually exclaimed by both parties."Hey, the plane is coming straight at us", Leonard said."Yeah, it's not turning either", stated his associate."It's getting closer and closer", Leonard exclaimed."Uh, yeah.. It is... We're going to die..." his associate said.Frozen in fear, unable to move or breathe, Leonard and his associate just stood there staring out the window, awaiting 9-11 to repeat for a second time.As the plane approached a few hundred feet away, it started to pull a hard right. The whole building shook. Leonard and his associate gasped for air, relieved that they were allowed to live another day. After careful reflection, they had come to find that the stealth bomber flies over Dodger stadium on the opening day each year.Anyway, Leonard went back to living his life. He decided to meet up with his ex, over at Takami Sushi & Robata in Downtown Los Angeles. They had dinner together. He told her of the great things he was doing with his life.She said she was happy for him. However, she was more happy that she was able to eat free sushi, courtesy of Leonard, with albacore so fresh that it just melted in her mouth. ‎They chatted for a bit then went back to their separate lives.As Leonard waited for his deals to fully process, after the loans were approved by the bank, news that shook the financial world aired. Bear Stearns had gone down in a fire sale. At first, Leonard didn't understand how that would affect his life, as he was certain he was on ‎the track to make $600,000 that year. He drew out plans to pay off his debt, buy a Lamborghini and move to the hills. He was ready to recreate his life, the way he wanted it to be.Then the news broke. Because of the fire sale, lenders had changed their parameters overnight. ‎The 25 deals for which Leonard had approvals from the bank were no longer going to be funded.Leonard and his associate spent the next two months doing everything they could think of to try to recoup the deals. They tried every trick in the book to make the bank fund the deals. Absolutely nothing worked. Eventually, they gave up.Leonard regressed back to the entertainment company he had worked for prior and took on a position as an executive assistant, as opposed to the marketing manager position he once held. While working for the entertainment company and attending all the popular A list nightclubs, Leonard started to seek out new avenues to earn revenue. He knew he didn't want to just pop bottles and party with beautiful women like this his whole life, so he had to think of something new. He reflected back on how lucrative the real estate industry could have been for him, then thought of what the next biggest industry was.Leonard set his eyes upon the stock market.With this new concept in mind, Leonard started to look for new employment. While on this search, he found an Investment fund that had relocated from Los Angeles to Tustin. He decided to apply.Leonard was hired to work for his new employer. He was sponsored to take the Series 7 and 66. So, Leonard came in to work for the next few months to study the guides. While studying, Leonard's employer wanted to initiate things on a faster path, so he had Leonard hop on the phones to raise money prior to being licensed.Leonard made call after call, and after each call was made, his employer began to favor him more and more. He was then moved to working into investor relations.Coincidentally, right as this occurred, AIG and WaMu collapsed. The world was crashing and burning to the ground, much like when the Twin Towers had fallen back in 2001. Everyone panicked. The phone was ringing consistently. Everyone wanted to sell off all their investments. No one wanted to buy stock in anything.Each day, as Leonard arrived at work, he saw his boss swearing about how much money he was losing. The company Leonard worked for had lost millions. It wasn't long before Leonard was laid off, due to the lack of financial stability of the market. Two weeks later, Leonard received an email requesting for him to come back to the company. The founder wanted help to restructure the business into a more profitable industry. He was invited back to help strategize a new entry point into the loan modification industry.Leonard called every single person he knew who had worked in mortgages or real estate. He established a team of ten sales people who would work in assisting homeowners recover the homes they were losing. However, after a month had gone by, the founder decided to once again change directions. He called it quits and filed Chapter 7 Bankruptcy with the company right before the holidays.Unfortunately, Leonard was left with around $13,000 in bounced checks from his employer, with absolutely no way to cash them. So, once again, Leonard regressed into his bed, scared of each tomorrow.It was a new year. A new story. A new opportunity. Leonard had been working with a programmer who specialized in creating predictive dialers. They had established a lead generation company together. It wasn't doing quite well as it was quite underfunded. It needed a cash injection in order to work, or it would just crumble apart.Leonard's business partner had sought out a group of four individuals who were interested in getting involved in the distressed financial services industry. He made a partnership with the other individuals. Then he told Leonard about what he had done.Since this was a new company, Leonard held no equity in it. He decided to go over to take a look to see what was going on. Wary of the idea, but understanding of how it worked, Leonard decided to get involved.Within the first week, they ousted one of their partners who specialized in print. The next week, the attorney decided that he would stay on as a partner, but would never show up for anything.Leonard basically had to start over from scratch, from the bottom. Everyone wanted him in sales, selling membership packages for distressed financial services. He had to figure out the pitch and what to say. He closed a decent amount of deals his first month, but it was clear that a sales role wouldn't be the best position for him, as he was very limited as far as what he could do.Leonard started noticing flaws in the business model and started working on improving them. By the second month, Leonard was promoted to the Vice President of Marketing. The business also changed directions, from selling membership packages directly to consumers to generating leads for businesses.At some point, Leonard hired a guy - let's call him Donald. Like the Duck. Quack quack. Donald's sales were impressive. Yet, he was cocky, arrogant and acted as though he was king of the world. He was quite ruthless, as well.Whenever Leonard would start working on a project, Donald would always try to sabotage it. He would go out of his way to do everything he could to toss Leonard under the bus. But Leonard didn't really care. He felt that Donald was like a pit bull, and like all domesticated animals, he had a leash. Leonard knew that he was the one that held Donald's leash. No matter how many times Donald would try to bite his arm or talk behind his back, it didn't really matter, because it was Leonard's floor. Leonard had full control.Despite his ruthlessness, no one really cared what Donald had to say. Everyone knew he was a drunk and a drug addict who only had one talent. To woo people over the phone. So that was his job. To woo people. He tried relentlessly to take Leonard's position, but failed over and over.By the third month of operation, Leonard had built a stream lined process in the company. He took the company from $0 in revenue to gross sales of around $50,000 a month. The business continued to grow.On the surface, the business looked great. It was expanding and growing at a rapid rate. Internally, it was a whole different story. The place was a complete mess. There they sat, three partners and Leonard, who were all cocky, arrogant, and set in their own ways from their prior success in life. They had conflicts each and every day - towards which direction they would operate, how they would do it and how the company should be run. Each day they would stay at work until about midnight discussing every single moving target they encountered in the course of the day, trying to determine a way to smooth out the process. This business was their lives.Eventually, the co-founder - who had brought Leonard into the mix - found out that the President of the company was embezzling money to pay for his mortgage. He left. Leonard stuck around as he needed the paycheck and didn't have another opportunity lined up for himself.Since Leonard had stuck around, he had to attend a meeting with a client out in Irvine. This was probably one of the biggest loan modification companies in the country. As Leonard and his business partners arrived, they were greeted and sent into a conference room. In the conference room, a Vietnamese man wanted to negotiate. This man had a background working in the lead generation industry and felt that he should get the leads for cheaper, because he assumed that the lead generation firm was procuring three leads per agent, per hour.Confused by what this man had said, Leonard went back to the drawing board. He thought for days on end on how to increase the profitability in each lead. Then, an idea struck him. Instead of utilizing a one person process in procuring the lead, he would create a two person process instead, to better streamline the leads. In doing so, Leonard had created a vertical to sell other leads, outside of the one that was the primary focus, and increased the average from 1.5 leads per agent each hour to 3. Basically, Leonard struck gold and increased the profit of each lead that was procured. However, the sales team didn't understand how to sell the other data that was created from the verticals.While Leonard worked at his company, his best friend reached out to him, stating that she needed a job. The same best friend who he had once dated and rekindled a friendship with. She was horrible at her job. All she wanted to do was play. She clearly didn't have her priorities straight and browsed the internet all day long. One day, Leonard had walked across the floor just to see what everyone was doing. Leonard's best friend was browsing the Internet on Facebook, just chatting with her friends.Like any great boss would do, Leonard decided that he would turn a bad situation into one of complete comedy. Leonard brought over a piece of paper and handed it to her. He asked her to fold it into a dunce cap. Then asked if she would take her chair, move it into the corner to face the white board and wear the cap. Since she was stoned like no tomorrow, she agreed. Everyone laughed. Except for one of his employees, who just called him cruel. Eventually, she found a better job, with a much better employer.One thought continued to haunt the main founder of the company. The President of the company decided that he wanted to change directions. He didn't want to sell leads to other businesses anymore, as he was seeing their closing ratios with the businesses the firm was contracted with. His greed bug kicked in. He wanted the profit for himself. Leonard and the other remaining founder, along with all the employees repeated how stupid of a decision it was. After months of trying to convince the President otherwise, he vetoed the decision. The next day, one business was closed and a new one was opened.No one knew how to close these leads. No one knew how to sell this product. Every great sales person knows that it takes at least three months to fully understand a product before it can be sold. Even being in the business for months, Leonard still had no clue how to really sell this product. But since this was the new direction the business was heading into, he studied relentlessly.After about a month, Leonard figured out how to sell the product. He hopped on the phones, made a few phone calls, and before long, his closing ratio skyrocketed from 10% to 50%. He created training manuals for the staff to study. However, the process took too much time to duplicate as many of the sales people were quitting due to being unable to understand the process.Back in February 2008, Leonard had subleased a vehicle from a person he once knew. It was one of his seven vehicles he had acquired during the real estate boom, yet he was no longer in a position to pay for them. It was a reliable vehicle made by one of the top Japanese manufacturers.When Leonard was having financial difficulty at work, due to the change in business models, he was falling behind on his car payments. Since he couldn't make them any longer, he made arrangements with the owner of the vehicle. Leonard stated that he could sleep in his living room, while this person took over his bedroom, in lieu of the car payments. He agreed.A month later, Leonard was driving this vehicle to work. He lived in Los Angeles. His office was in Fontana. On the drive, he heard a snap. Unsure of what happened, he continued to drive further. After he pulled off the Sierra exit on the Ten freeway, he decided to stop by Circle K to get a pack of cigarettes. When he returned to his vehicle, he moved the shifter from park to reverse. The car wouldn't move.Leonard turned off his car. He got out of the vehicle. He walked around it. When he got to the rear, he saw that his wheel was angled and bent. He looked closer and saw that the rear control arm had snapped. He called his employer and told him what just happened. His employer told him that he would tow the car to his dad's auto body shop and cover the cost of the repair.Relieved, Leonard went back to work. For a week, his boss loaned him his vehicle to get back and forth from work. However, he eventually took his car back. Leonard messaged and called his employer day after day, asking when his vehicle would be finished. He was told to be patient as it would be done soon. He waited, month, after month, yet there was still no result.Unsure of what to do in the interim, Leonard searched for a job to cover his bills. His roommate began to question whether the car would be fixed or not. Leonard told him to not worry, that his employer would take care of it. Deciding not to stress on the matter, his roommate continued on with his life. Then the year ended.While Leonard was on his job search, he had applied for job after job. A company by the name of AXA Equitable decided to interview with Leonard. Impressed by who he was and his resume, they decided to hire him. However, there was a caveat. Before they put him on payroll, he must first pass the state life insurance test.Since Leonard was completely broke and had exhausted all his savings trying to survive without a vehicle, being depressed at home without a clue of what to do, hiding under his covers and just trying to escape the world, he had no clue what to do. He was hired for a position that would pay him well over $4,000 a month plus commission, however he had absolutely no way to pay for the tests. He was caught in a catch 22 - needing money to make money.Being stuck in between a rock and a hard place, Leonard had to continue on his search for a job. Eventually, he found a company that raised money for political and charitable causes. Mostly liberal left winged ideas. Desperately needing any job he could find to pay for the tests to get hired at AXA, Leonard applied.Fortunately, Leonard was able to pass all the interviews and was hired. Leonard was told that he would be earning anywhere between $8-$16 an hour, based on performance. He was scheduled to sit in a small cubicle on an extremely old computer, reading a script off to customers, with the intent to raise money.Since Leonard was used to this type of work, as he managed a call center prior, he just went with it. He actually did quite well at the job in the beginning, however when his check arrived, he would always see that it fell short. The pay plan was a scam. No one made $16 an hour. The most anyone ever made was $12 an hour. Leonard was averaging $12 an hour, but his work schedule would only consist of about six hours a day.At this point, Leonard was torn. Torn because he had to involve himself in politics. Torn because he was unable to stay afloat in life. Torn because he couldn't take the life insurance test. Torn because he had to raise money for causes he had absolutely no belief in. (Except for the ASPCA. He loves puppies.) Leonard turned back to drugs. All he wanted to do was escape the hell he was in. He couldn't do it anymore. He had to run away from everything. He had sold his soul, not for riches and beautiful women. Instead, he had sold his soul just to end up at the absolute bottom rung of the ladder: living on the sofa in the living room of his own home, car-less and barely able to survive. Things were very bad for our boy, Leonard.Miraculously, even though everything had fallen apart in his life, Leonard was able to finally save enough money to take the life insurance test. He finally had the opportunity to turn his life around. To get his life back on track. To be successful again.Leonard took the subway down to City Hall and wandered around until he found the building he was searching for. The attendees were invited into a room and placed at separate work stations. Eager and nervous to take the test, he sat down. The instructor had stated that there were three choice options and advised everyone to pick the test that they were here for. To this day, Leonard is sure he chose the option for the correct test he was supposed to take.Yet, when the test popped up on the screen, Leonard quickly realized that none of the questions on the test were referenced in the material he had studied. Or that he did not thoroughly study his material. Or that he had taken the wrong test. Regardless, after the test was complete, he received a grade in the sixties. He was required to score in the seventies to pass. Once again, Leonard had failed.Devastated by his failure, Leonard went home to immerse himself further with drugs and alcohol, hoping that everything would just magically change on its own. That all of his failures would somehow turn to success. He started sleeping with women who he wouldn't consider dating in a million years. He was torn and at one of the worst points of his life.Things were so bad that at one point, his electricity was shut completely off. He had absolutely no clue how to get his lights back on, as his DWP bill had accumulated to around $450. Not certain of how to eat or make food, Leonard just bought pre-made food at 7-11, took it home, carried his microwave out to the hallway of his apartment complex and heated up his food. When his phone needed charging, he would leave it sitting outside of his apartment for an hour, plugged into the wall in the hallway.Unsure of what to do nor how to get by in life, Leonard knew that his life was falling apart. He knew that he could no longer buy steaks at Boa. He knew that he could no longer eat lavish meals. He knew that he could no longer go out to the finest places. He continued to work at the fundraising company, selling his soul, but he took every opportunity that he could to ditch work .A friend of his was working at a catering company at the time. Leonard would tag along with him as he went to work, just because he didn't want to go to his own soul-crushing job. While Leonard watched his friend make food, he kind of figured out how to make food on his own. As time progressed, Leonard developed a knack for cooking.By this point, Leonard knew his prior employer had lied to him. He knew that he was not going to cover the cost of the repair of the vehicle. He called said prior employer to inquire where his dad's shop was. Leonard decided to go with a friend to get his belongings out of the vehicle and inquired how much it would be to repair the vehicle.His prior employer's dad told him it would be $5,000. Outraged, Leonard told the man that his son had promised to cover all the costs of the repair. The man just shrugged and told him to call his son. Leonard once again called his former employer who blatantly lied to his face; he then told Leonard that he may have promised to pay but had since changed his mind. There was nothing Leonard could do about it. Leonard asked for an itemized breakdown of the repairs. He was told that most of the fees were for storage. Leonard insisted that he was promised that the vehicle would be fixed, but was blown off this whole time, or he would have handled it himself. But he was just dismissed. So, he just went home and decided that he wouldn't even deal with the problem.Desperate for change, Leonard quit doing drugs and reached out to everyone he could to see if someone would have an opportunity to help him turn his life around. He reached out to a close friend of his. His friend said that he had just attained an investor and that he could definitely strategize a way to change Leonard's life.Intrigued, Leonard decided to come on board. He was taken under the wing of his friend and was able to help re-establish his life. Sick of living in his living room, Leonard decided to kick out the person who was living in his bedroom and not contributing to rent, because he didn't even have a car to drive anymore. Leonard just wanted his life back. Unhappy of how the whole situation had gone down, Leonard's prior roommate decided to sue him for $5,000. Leonard just threw away the summons that had been stapled to his door (instead of being delivered in person), because he didn't want to deal with it and because he was in the interim of moving into a new loft.Leonard had re-established most of his life, as he now had a new home, new car, new everything. He still wasn't financially stable as of yet, but he was slowly getting there. One night, overwhelmed by the events of the day with only twenty dollars in his pocket, he decided that he wanted to grab a drink.He went to his local bar, Cafe Bleu. He walked from one end of the bar, back down to the other end, seeing that all the seats were filled. When he saw an empty seat, he tapped the person sitting next to the seat on the shoulders and inquired if it was taken. The other person shrugged. Leonard took the seat.The bartender came up to Leonard. She inquired what he would like to drink. Leonard stated, Johnnie Walker, Black, Rocks. Within minutes, he received his drink. Since Leonard only had twenty dollars to his name, he knew that he had to savor every last bit of that drink for as long as he could. After about five minutes, Leonard saw that the person he was sitting next to had a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue Label.Intrigued, Leonard inquired, "Is it your birthday?"The man gave him a weird stare and inquired what he meant.Leonard said, "Well, in this town, people only buy Blue Label on two occasions. It is either their birthday or they are celebrating something. Is it your birthday or are you celebrating?"He said, "Every day is my f'cking birthday."Leonard said, "Oh." then they both turned back to their drinks.Another twenty minutes had passed and Leonard wasn't nearly done with his drink. He was savoring every single last drop he could, to get the maximum benefit from his poison. The bartender approached the person Leonard was sitting next to and asked him for a shot. He turned to Leonard and asked if he would like a shot as well. Leonard agreed.From there, Leonard and this person began to chat. Leonard inquired if he was a rapper. This mysterious man stated that he was and inquired how he knew. Leonard stated he took an educated guess by how he carried himself. Leonard went back to his vehicle and introduced him to the product he was working with. The conversation sparked and both parties saw an opportunity to work together and earn extra money. Impressed by Leonard, this gentleman decided to take Leonard to two other bars in walking distance, where he had two bottles of Blue Label reserved for him at each bar. As the night ended, Leonard dropped the rapper off at his hotel three blocks away and was gifted with a $100 bill that was laid onto the plush leather passenger seat of his Lexus.The next day, the rapper called Leonard. He wanted to go out and drink. They went through bottle after bottle after bottle of blue label. They discussed plans for business, arranged out photo shoots, marketing strategies, you name it. Leonard was given a leather jacket, cash, food, women, limos on call, everything. Within the next thirty days, Leonard and the rapper had drunk a minimum of two bottles of Blue Label each and every night.Gracious of all the good will that had been provided to him, Leonard introduced the rapper to his network. He introduced him to Akon's consultant, who currently consults Drake and is the right hand man to the only person who has sold over a billion records in the music industry. He introduced him to some of the best marketers and photographers in the industry, such as Joshua Michael Shelton and Evan Duning. He helped arrange photo and video shoots in multi-million dollar mansion in the hills. He helped find him studios to record in and the like, all through utilizing the personal network he had built over the years. Leonard was on top of the world, living in a 2,600 square foot penthouse, driving a Lexus GS 350, and having all the cash he could ever imagine having.As Leonard had experienced failure before, this time around, he was much more humble. No longer was he the cocky and arrogant kid he once was, but now a more suave, smooth-talking, calm man. He was kind to everyone who walked into his path.Through the course of his life, Leonard had been mentor to three individuals. He taught one of them how to immediately go from being a student to earning $60,000 a year in the car industry. Another, he taught how to go from working at a pool hall earning $8 an hour to immediately earning six figures selling cars. Then another, who took four years to find his calling and currently earns an extremely healthy residual based income.One of the men that Leonard had mentored acted jealous of the success that Leonard had accomplished. He said that Leonard didn't call him anymore and that he was acting as if he was better than him. Leonard knew he made a mistake when he took this person under his wing and trained him to earn more money than he could ever imagine. He knew because every time this person asked him to go out, he said he would cover the bill, yet would always try to make some kind of bet that made Leonard pay out of his own pocket, even when times were tough.Leonard was sick of this person, so one day, when he picked him up, his friend told him that he wanted to go home and change. Leonard didn't want to deal with him anymore, so he just left him there and drove off. Since this person was so hurt that Leonard had left him, he plotted out a way to take him down.Later that year, one of Leonard's best friends from high school, Jessica was having a birthday party. Jessica currently works at New York Life as a life insurance agent and does modeling on the side. Very talented young lady. Jessica had invited all her friends to celebrate at a bar called Matrierya.Leonard showed up and had a few shots with Jessica and Cindy, another beautiful young woman whom Leonard has been friends with since high school. Cindy even came to star in a reality TV show about Koreatown, directed by Tyrese, aired on YouTube .As Leonard was drinking and celebrating with his friends, a mutual friend of his and the person he had once mentored came up to him. He looked sincere and stated that he wanted to talk to Leonard for some advice. Being the helpful sort of person Leonard was, he agreed.This person asked if Leonard could speak with him outside. Leonard followed. However, there was this sixth sense that was triggering in his mind. He felt danger, but he ignored the signs. He saw friends, much bigger than himself, and thought to ask them to come with him, however he ignored his intuition. He just followed this man down the path where he asked him to meet. Eventually, they ended up in a garage, and this guy just started swinging at Leonard, over and over again. He condemned Leonard for leaving his friend. He made accusations of how horrible Leonard was. Then he left Leonard bleeding in the street, without a clue what was going on.Leonard called the police immediately after he was free from being a victim to circumstance. He waited at 7-11 until the police arrived. They took pictures of his face and he filed a police report against the person who had attacked him.The next day, he had two important meetings, one with a potential investor and one with the rapper. When Leonard showed up bruised and tarnished, he said all the right things, but both parties agreed that Leonard was too much of a loose cannon for them to continue to work with, as he wasn't smart enough to avoid getting in a fight and couldn't even physically take care of himself. They both decided to dismiss Leonard and no longer continued to work with him.Immediately, overnight, Leonard was left without an income. Without a clue as to what to do. Without a clue how to get by. Once more a failure. Leonard made the decision to just give up. He spent each day, from morning to night, just watching movies on a projector, drinking a bottle of Jameson, hoping that life would just pass him by. Leonard knew that he couldn't get up to give life another try. Leonard knew that he was at his wit's end. Leonard knew that there was no such thing as success for him in the future. Leonard knew that - for all intents and purposes - his life was technically over.Since Leonard knew his life was over, he awaited the day he would be evicted from his home, so he could go live under a bridge in the streets of Los Angeles, being homeless for the rest of his life.Leonard knew that this would be the end of his freedom. Leonard accepted the fact he would be homeless. Yet Leonard feared this day that was yet to come, understanding that his life would truly be over. As he came to terms with his demise, he decided to call his mother. He told her that he loved her and that he was sorry, but he would be homeless from now on. Panicked, his mother called his grandmother to tell her what was happening.Later that day, Leonard received a phone call from his grandmother, Nancy. She told him that she loved him. She told him that he would stay at her house. She came and helped him pick up all of his stuff and moved him in with her. Unsure of what was happening, as he was previously disowned by his grandmother, he didn't know how to take the situation. However, defeated as Leonard was, he complied.For the first two months, when Leonard lived with his grandmother, all he did was sleep and play video games. He didn't have the energy to want to do anything. He was defeated by life and didn't know what to do anymore. For the first twenty four days he lived with her, he didn't do anything. He didn't drink. He didn't smoke cigarettes. He did nothing.In that time-frame, since Leonard had been drinking so heavily in the months prior, he went through withdrawal symptoms from the alcohol leaving his body. He would twitch. He would wake up in the middle of the night with the chills. He would be scared of random things. He would even sweat for no reason at all. Eventually, all of the vices Leonard was once addicted to were completely out of his system.Leonard's grandma had one rule for him. If he planned to live with her, then every Sunday he would be required to go to church. The first few weeks, Leonard thought it was stupid. He would just condemn how uneducated and bad the speaker was at doing his job and engaging the audience. Then he found another service at the church which was a lot more bearable.Since Leonard's grandma was sick and tired of Leonard being at home playing video games all day and staying in bed, she demanded that Leonard find a job. Since old Asian women are the scariest people in the world when they yell, Leonard unwillingly went onto Craigslist on a quest to find a job. He applied at twenty difference places. Three emailed him back. Leonard set up an interview with the first company that responded to him.When Leonard went to the interview, he saw that the company was pretty lame. They had a discount membership that they wanted to sell for $50 a card, which would work at restaurants, bars and nightclubs.Leonard thought really hard about whether or not he wanted to work at this company. Then he remembered his grandmother yelling at him. He weighed out what was worse, working at a company that lacked structure and probably wouldn't be around for too long or getting yelled at by his grandmother. He thought that getting yelled at by his grandmother was probably worse, so he decided to take the job.When Leonard was hired, he was assigned to accomplish three tasks. He was told that he needed to sign up thirty vendors in his first month during the trial period and he would be given an iPad. He was also told that he would have to do forty the next month and fifty for the month after, and he would be given $2,000, then $3,000, and would be placed as a full time employee at $5,000 a month.This company wanted to hire outside sales people who would go business to business. Leonard tried that for a day. He decided that it wasn't for him. So, instead, he decided to email businesses. Within his first thirty days, he had acquired his thirty businesses strictly through email, without having to see a single person. Compared to the tasks he had to do in the past, it was a piece of cake.Leonard was called into the office to meet with his employer. His employer stated that he wanted Leonard to work in the office with two other people he had hired. Originally, his employer had hired twenty people at once, but only three had stuck around. Leonard agreed.The company lacked structure, stability and had no clue what they were doing. Leonard sat with the founder of the company and helped structure out the business and connect the missing dots. While planning, Leonard also created a training manual and hired a team to make outbound calls to help attain additional vendors for the company.Leonard created all new marketing collateral for the company, from brochures to presentations to assisting with giving the whole company a makeover. After about three months, Leonard was continually told how essential he was to the success of the company, then promoted to the VP of Marketing and given five percent equity stake into the company.The company at the time had absolutely no money, so everyone was working for shares. Within six months, Leonard had acquired 1,000 new vendors to offer a deal with the company. However, he was coming to find that his employer was crazy. His employer would call him every night and talk to him on the phone for hours, until close to midnight. His employer thought everything he did was right and wanted to argue about everything. His employer tried to negotiate deals and be funny at the same time, but just ended up rubbing people the wrong way.To finalize out one of the initial tasks that was necessary for the company's success, Leonard was assigned to be in charge of a mail campaign. Leonard repeated for at least a week straight that he was completely unqualified to do this type of work, as he had never done it before. Leonard and his employer would bicker for hours, where his employer told him to do it and Leonard just straight out said no, every single time.Eventually, Leonard gave in and decided to do the mail campaign, just so that he wouldn't be yelled at anymore. Much like giving a child a task to paint a whole city, Leonard was overwhelmed and had absolutely no clue what he was doing. Leonard stated he had no clue what he was doing a million times, but was told to do it anyway. So he did, to the best of his knowledge.The mail campaign went poorly, as maybe ten percent of the mail was lost and never arrived at the proper destination, or some individuals ended up receiving multiple packages. Outraged, Leonard's boss took it out on him, saying that he was trying to sabotage the company. Unsure of how he was trying to sabotage the company, Leonard argued with his boss further, until he came to a point where he decided to argue no more.Leonard decided that it was time to leave. It was time for him to move back to Los Angeles and to start his life over. Leonard remembered a time when his employer had forced him to pretend he owned a bakery to inquire to see how a company called Betterworks ran their business. He remembered how structured their business model was, as he was assigned to take pictures from his smart phone of the PowerPoint presentation that was displayed through the projector in the office. He remembered how talented their team was. So he decided to apply.Since Leonard was only paid a total of $2,300 while working at this position for about nine months, but had the title and equity into a company that was worthless, he was fully aware that he was riding a boat that was sinking fast. He needed out.Adrenaline fueled angel investor Paige Craig had emailed Leonard back from his inquiry to work with him. He stated that they currently weren't hiring, however he would love to meet with Leonard over a camping trip. Since Leonard didn't have a car or any money, he decided to inquire if there would be a way he could catch a ride with someone.This triggered some red flags in the mind of someone as successful as Paige Craig, so he decided to call Leonard's employer to find out more about him. Since Leonard had not told his employer he was leaving, the news probably came as quite a shock to him. So, instead of stating how much value Leonard had brought to the company, he decided to defame him instead. He claimed that Leonard had tried to sabotage the mailing campaign, he pointed out every single flaw that Leonard had made, and even falsely stated that he had filed a police report on Leonard.Leonard then received a phone call. It was from Paige Craig. He was calling from his cell phone. Paige had stated that even though Leonard seemed like a great candidate, he wouldn't be able to hire him because there was a police report filed against him. Unsure of what to do, Leonard called the local police station to see if there really was a police report filed, then was told to call the police station in Costa Mesa. He called both police stations and was told that there was no such report.Leonard's employer clearly defamed him, without caring about the consequences it would have on his life whatsoever. Then, he was told that he betrayed the company and was stealing all the sensitive data of the company to bring somewhere else and profit off of.All Leonard wanted was a job. A job to pay the bills, since he didn't have one anymore. A job to get his life back, since he was under the rule of his grandmother. A job to reclaim what he once had, since he no longer had anything. He knew that all the data he had acquired was completely worthless, but in the eyes of his prior employer it was gold.Leonard didn't have a plan. He didn't know what he wanted to do. He just knew that he had to move back to Los Angeles. Leonard consulted with two of his friends, Jay and Daniel, regarding what he should do. They agreed to attempt a start-up together. It was a vague idea at first, but it slowly moved into becoming an infrastructure based platform, that would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to operate. They contracted out with a programmer whom Leonard and Jay met mutually at a party through their friend David to help assist in developing out the platform.Since Leonard didn't really know where he would stay, he agreed to live with Daniel and sleep on the sofa, for a few hundred dollars a month or so. Jay decided to lend Leonard a few hundred dollars to get back on his feet as he searched for a day job.Leonard used to help and assist with the marketing at Zaarly, by communicating regularly with Jeff Morris and sometimes Shane Mac. While he was living with his grandmother in Orange County, he rented a car and attended their first party in Los Angeles at the CoLoft space. Some ideas Leonard shared were good, some were bad.As Leonard moved back to Los Angeles, he wasn't comfortable taking public transportation yet. He was also quite embarrassed of it. He saw it as a sure tell way that people would be able to tell he was poor. He wanted to at least have some dignity, so he would seek out rides for where he wanted to go.Zaarly was holding a live event where a person by the name of Wes would just post requests on Zaarly all day and people would come to fulfill them. Leonard was supposed to attend, yet was too embarrassed to take the bus over. He probably had a pretty good shot of being hired at Zaarly, but since he was so distant and insecure at the time, things just didn't work out too well in his favor.Leonard found that Craigslist wasn't getting the types of results he was looking for while he was applying for jobs so he reached out to his friends. Two friends reached back out to him. One was working at a temp agency that contracted with Honda. The other was working with a company called Visalus. Leonard decided to take advantage of both opportunities. Visalus decided to fly Leonard out to Los Angeles to a convention they were having in Orlando, all expenses paid. Leonard completed the interview process at the temp agency and was hired on board for $16.24 an hour. The days were starting to look a lot less grim as structure was starting to finally become established in Leonard's life.Prior to flying out to Orlando, Leonard met with two of his associates, an entertainment writer and Dr. Dre's son, Curtis Young's right hand man. To prepare for the trip, they felt that there was a need to impress the executives over at Visualus. So they compiled a storyboard to a ninety day challenge, which they planned to air. They went to pitch the executives on this new plan for exposure.The entertainment writer used to play football in high school. He would first be showcased, talking about who he was, showing some photos of how he used to be ripped, the awards he used to have, and basically speak of his glory days.He would then be featured as a person who got lazy and became slightly overweight. Emphasis would be placed on his network, of which he attained 25 million viewers through sites like the Examiner and Hollywood Unwrapped.During Grammy week, he would then interview with Jason Ellis, the professional MMA fighter. Afterwards, he would invite himself into the ring, last seven minutes, then go down in pain. He would then publicize the article.In that time-frame, he would go back to the drawing board to compile a plan to get back in the ring with Ellis. He would start the ninety day challenge, lose weight, get back in shape and rebuild his body. He would then practice Kung Fu and other martial arts. Bets would be placed by Curtis Young and other up and coming stars in the entertainment industry. Then he would be focused as the center of attention on how he transformed his body, whether he won or lost in his rematch in the ring.So, the plan was compiled. Leonard and his associates flew out to Orlando, his party was greeted by two Black Escalades at the airport that drove them back to their hotels. Leonard stayed there for three whole days and was able to meet with the top executives of the company, including Nick Sarnicola. However, they didn't bite on the idea.As Leonard returned to Los Angeles, they started strategizing out a new game plan for Visalus. The person who had arranged their deal had acquired his third Lamborghini, a Murcielago in orange. They started working on the platform, but drama had caused Leonard and his associates to part ways.Leonard then started his job at American Honda, answering phones and listening to the customers complain about their vehicles. A good way to cover all the bills he had acquired. Also a great outlet so he could pay back his friend Jay, which he did in about a month.While working together, conflicts arose between the programmer and Daniel. Daniel decided to part ways. After careful analysis of what the programmer was doing, Leonard came to realize that he was just pocketing all of the cash and wasn't doing any work at all. He was just going to wait until he acquired a set amount of money and just deliver a product he had built prior that was not even up to par as to what he was supposed to make. Essentially, the programmer was just stealing money. So, all the hard work of designing the perfect platform to disrupt an industry went down the drain. The programmer was fired and the business idea was scrapped.Leonard decided that he no longer wanted to live on a sofa. Three of his girl friends were house hunting. He decided that he would help and assist them, if they allowed him to move in with them. They found a house off in South Miracle Mile that had a jacuzzi, fruit trees, and a spectacular view in a quaint neighborhood. They were just one day short in applying and were unable to acquire the property. They looked at other houses, but just couldn't find anything that would work.In the interim of house hunting, these girls decided to take a trip up to Joshua Tree. Unknowing of what Joshua Tree was, Leonard had agreed to go. He wore dress shoes, unaware of the fact that there were nothing but rocks in the middle of the desert. In his mind, he had pictured a bright green field with one tree in the middle.When they arrived, Leonard saw things he thought he would never encounter in his life. They decided to climb a fifty foot rock. On the trip up, the backpack his friend was carrying opened and the supplies they had taken fell out. However, they continued to climb.Somehow, Leonard got to the second highest point of the rock, although he almost fell to his death at least three times when trying to reach the last rock. As nightfall came, one of the girls had panicked and decided that it would be in their best interest to go down. Not a single thing could be seen, as the whole scenery was pitch black. In fear, they cried out for help. Luckily, there was one other party that had camped there as well.Leonard's heart beat fast. He dehydrated. He wasn't able to think. He just froze up, lost and scared, thinking this would be the last day he would be alive. A man by the name of James Kuenz decided to climb the rock to save them all. As Leonard reached the bottom, he scoured to find an orange. Once he found them, he devoured them instantaneously, as the juices dripped off his face.Then, his life flashed before his eyes. He remembered what he was capable of. He remembered all the people he had failed. All the people who were there for him when he needed them the most. Within a matter of minutes, he replayed his whole life. He reached out to his ex and told her that he loved her. He reached out to the rapper and thanked him for everything. He told his best friend how important she was to him. He sent heartfelt messages to everyone he could. He vowed to change his ways and to live up to the gifts he was given at birth. They camped out for the night, then they made their way home the next day.Leonard was then given an opportunity to restructure a bar that he frequented many times in the past. One that was falling apart and was in heaps of financial trouble. Leonard reached out to the rapper to see if he wanted to partake in the venture. He agreed, stating he would be able to bring a total of $100,000 to the table. The owner of the bar agreed. Leonard started compiling the structure for the business. On the day that the rapper was supposed to deliver the money, he was taken into custody by the authorities and the money was seized. Without a backup plan, the bar failed and Leonard's friend was left with no way to recover.Leonard tried to get his ex back. He started seeing her more and more, telling her how important she was to him. He came clean and told her how he just failed continually at life and how he was too embarrassed to tell her. They almost rekindled their relationship. However, shortly after, that too fell apart.Then Leonard kind of started to see this other girl who lived in Hollywood. She was slightly older than him, but he liked her a lot. They would drink and go out every single week together, eating at various restaurants. However, it was obvious that both of them were still not over their exes.One day, Leonard decided to get a hotel room at the Petit Ermitage. He invited her over to celebrate with him. He bought multiple bottles of alcohol and they shared a dinner on the rooftop. As they went back to the room, they got into an argument. Leonard left the room for a while, wandered into what he came to reflect upon was a gay night club for a few hours, then went back to his hotel. As he tried to enter, she wouldn't let him in. He called the hotel staff, only to find that they wouldn't let him in either. She had officially kicked him out of his own hotel room.A few days later, Leonard received more charges than he had expected on his Bank of America debit card. He called the hotel to inquire what the charges were for. They sent him an itemized invoice. As he went through the charges, he saw three charges for a movie, a room service lunch, white wine, a bottle of Veuve Clicquot, and a love kit. He immediately called his bank and inquired how they would feel if they had taken someone out to a hotel room and had found a love kit charged to their hotel room after they were kicked out. The charge was successfully disputed.However, after all the turmoil Leonard had gone through, in such a short time-frame - from being defamed, to being screwed by his programmer, to having his Visalus deal fall apart, to not being able to move into a new home, to almost dying, to watching a bar he was going to manage fall apart, to being left by his ex again, to knowing that someone had kicked him out of his hotel room and ordered a love kit to use with someone else, to having to return home each day to live on a sofa - Leonard was at his wit's end. Leonard officially gave up on life. He was ready to end it all. He didn't want to look back, not even for a second.He wrote his goodbye letters and sent them to the people he valued the most. His best friend said he was all talk and told him to follow through with it. His other friend said to not do it, but never reached out. Then, Leonard started to plot a way to end it all. He calculated each way he could possibly die. Was he to jump in front of a subway train? Was he to run into the street? Was he to try to end it painlessly through drinking or pills? He weighed out all the options, then came to a conclusion. He decided that the only way he would be 100% certain that he would die would be to jump off a bridge straight into the freeway, spreading blood across multiple cars.Being selfish and lost, Leonard was ready to go. It was the last day he would be in the world. It was the last day Leonard would be alive. He attended work, as he was accustomed to, but when he was off, he was ready to head straight to a specific street he had found, ready to jump to his death. He received a text that day, from his ex. She told him that she was going to pick him up. At 5:00pm, she arrived. She forced Leonard into his car and then started telling him of how stupid he was.She called him selfish. She called him a coward. She called him everything she could possibly call him, but refused to leave his side. She made him think of how his grandmother, or even his mother, would feel to have lost their son prior to their own deaths. She stayed with him all night, making sure he didn't do anything stupid.Feeling appreciated by her for the first time in years, he finally decided that the decision was too rash. He understood that he had to live. Leonard's ex had saved his life.Leonard decided it was time to start over. He couldn't take the easy way out. He was prevented from doing so. He had to own up to his shortcomings and figure out how to get through in life. However, he couldn't seek out a way to move forward. Instead, he needed time to process and reflect through his life.A few weeks after Leonard made the decision to live, a few days before his birthday, he was greeted with a surprise as he went to go buy a cigar at the local smoke shop. His card was declined. He checked his account and saw that he had $0 in his account. Confused of what happened, he called his bank. The bank had informed him that there was a sheriff levy on his bank account.Leonard then remembered how he was sued for $5,000 by the person he had kicked out of his home. He thought of fighting the case, but instead decided to file bankruptcy. So he did and opened up another bank account to ensure his money would no longer be seized. All his debt was wiped clean, except for his student loan.Since Leonard now needed time to reflect through his life, he took a break from everything. He stopped going out. He stopped working on businesses. He stopped meeting women. He stopped absolutely everything.However, he did do one thing. He still talked with his ex. He was certain he would have her back. After all, she was all he ever wanted in his life.One night, Leonard and his ex decided to go out together. They had a glass of cognac at his place. Then they went to Cafe Bleu and Novel Cafe, having two or three glasses of scotch at each location. Shortly afterward, they ended up at White Karaoke and ordered a few more bottles of Soju. They got into an argument. Leonard decided to walk home.Blacked out, Leonard stumbled in front of his place. As he started to capture where he was, he remembered that he had lost his keys earlier in the day on the bus. Unsure of what to do, he started to climb a fence that was around fifteen feet tall, deciding to jump to the other side. On his first attempt, he landed on the wrong side of the fence, so he had to go for a second try. On the second attempt, he landed and landed wrong. He fell straight to the ground. After about five minutes of lying on the floor, he attempted to get back up, to no avail. He just fell straight back on his face.In pain, Leonard decided that it would be in his best interest to crawl his way back to his apartment. So he climbed up two flights of stairs, opened up his apartment door, then passed out on his sofa.Daniel awoke and came rushing out of his room to get to work. He looked at Leonard, surprised to see that he was still there and wasn't already off to work. Daniel woke Leonard up and inquired why he wasn't at work. Leonard looked at him, then looked down at his ankle, saw it was dangling off to the side, completely bruised and swollen, then started crying like a baby.Daniel inquired what had happened. Leonard stated he had jumped the fence because he didn't have the key. Daniel told Leonard that he had given him the key prior to him leaving home. Leonard felt his pocket. He felt the key. He cried even more. Leonard asked Daniel what he should do. Daniel told him to call his mother. So, even though Leonard's mother was living in Hawaii, Leonard called her. After Leonard told her what happened, his mother called his grandmother, Nancy, informing her of what happened.Leonard's grandmother decided to come to Los Angeles with her other grandson. Once they arrived, they tried to assist Leonard down to the vehicle using a walker. Unable to understand how to walk using a walker, Leonard just cried in pain. When Leonard got into the vehicle, his cousin inquired where to go. Leonard said the hospital. His grandmother vetoed his request and decided to take him to an acupuncturist instead.Once they arrived at the acupuncturist, Leonard unwillingly got out of the vehicle. The acupuncturist pretended to do his job, but both of them were fully aware that he had broken bones. Leonard begged to be taken to the hospital but the acupuncturist referred them to a foot doctor instead. Since the acupuncturist is an expert and Leonard isn't, to the foot doctor they went.Once they arrived at the location of the foot doctor, Leonard and his grandmother were told that the first thing they had to do was take X-Rays. Of course, the X-Ray machine was located on the completely opposite side of the building, so Leonard had to hop over to the very end of the building, just to get an X-Ray that confirmed what he was first told. His ankle was broken in two places. Nancy inquired what they should do. She was told to go to the hospital. Finally, Leonard was able to go to the hospital.They had arrived at LAC/USC. They entered into the emergency room. The wait lasted for hours. Once called upon and checked in, Leonard was given instructions to lay flat for an X-Ray. When Leonard laid down, he was told by the doctor to lay his ankle straight. Leonard insisted that he couldn't. He was told to try anyway. So he tried. However, the pain was so excruciating that he laid there and cried for the next thirty minutes. The pain was so unbearable, a nurse had to come over and inject him with morphine.After being injected with morphine, Leonard couldn't feel a single bit of pain. All he could do was just think of how happy he was and how wonderful all the nurses and doctors were being. Even though Leonard had to stay at the hospital well past midnight before being put into a cast, he was happy. Happy to be with his new-found lover for the day, morphine.Leonard had to take time away from work, as he needed time to recover. Since he wasn't at his job for over a year, he could only take thirty days off, or he would be terminated. Leonard used those thirty days to reflect upon his life. In that time-frame, he came to find who his true friends were. His faith in humanity started to restore as many people would go out of their way to come see him, help him, and bring him food. One friend, Ryan, was so kind to even take Leonard to work with him for months straight, as he was in the process of recovering.A month later, Leonard was knocked out and underwent surgery. When he awoke, he felt as if nothing had happened. However, as nightfall arrived and the medication wore off, Leonard felt as if his leg was on fire. Unable to bear the pain, he took seven to twelve norcos at once. The next day, he went to the hospital to see if everything was okay. It was.Since Leonard had a lot of time to reflect, since he was stuck at home doing nothing, aside from laying around on his sofa with his leg lifted up, he started to reflect on his life. He observed every single mistake he had made and what had led up to it. He reflected back upon why he had chased off everyone whom he loved. He started to remember how much his grandfather, Robert had loved him when he was a child. He began to put the pieces together and was finally able to understand who he was and to see the meaning in his life.Aside from reflecting and learning from the past, Leonard acquired bad habits. Since it was almost impossible for him to shower, he found out how long his body could last without starting to smell. He even found how to appreciate even the smallest of things, like being able to walk and carry water at the same time, which he found impossible to do on crutches.A close friend of his by the name of Thomas, the same guy who had lost the bar, did everything in his power to help Leonard while he was down, because Leonard had done everything in his power to help him when he lost his bar. Leonard had bought him shoes for a wedding, clothed him, provided him with shelter, loaned him money, and taken him out to drink. Being an INTJ, Thomas was always socially awkward around women, however he always asked Leonard to introduce him to the women he knew.Nastygal was having a re-launch party at the Roosevelt hotel. Leonard told Thomas how there would be thousands of women there. Thomas was excited, so he decided to go with Leonard. Leonard arrived on crutches, went to the bar to order drinks, then slowly came to realize that he was stuck, unable to move, because he couldn't figure out how to walk around on crutches and carry a drink at the same time. His friend, on the other hand, had his wish come true. He was surrounded by the most beautiful women in all of Los Angeles. However, he was too scared to approach any of them. He just hid in the corner, scared to even approach a single girl. Eventually, they left and went home.Being inspired with all the free time he had, Leonard began to try to sample his writing. He posted a few things he had written on Facebook, seeing what kind of reaction he would receive. He found encouragement in what he had written. He decided to share more bits and pieces of his life. After a few months, Leonard had recovered. However, during the whole time he was in a cast, his ex hadn't called him a single time. When she finally did, Leonard couldn't deal with it anymore, as he felt she had abandoned him. He told her to never call again.A few days prior to his birthday, Leonard was approached by a close friend of his. Earlier in the day, Leonard had taken a sleeping pill and was dead asleep. She told him of her plans to one day have her own clothing line. On that particular day, she had awoken him, told him she was in front of his place, invited him downstairs for a cigarette, then she clearly stated to Leonard that she wanted him to be her business partner. She wanted to make a clothing line with him. Being completely drowsy and unaware of what was going on, Leonard agreed.Still unsure of what was going on, Leonard went home. He pondered for the next few days about what he had agreed to do. Then he decided to put his heart into the venture. He compiled a business plan, a strategy, a name, and created a whole foundation for the business. He even recruited around eight of his most talented friends for the venture. He put his whole heart into the business. In the interim, they went to Takami and celebrated his birthday, which was also the last day he saw his best friend.He told his business partner that they needed at least $30,000 to create a prototype, of which he would cover $10,000, $10,000 would be covered by Ryan Cantin, and the other $10,000 would be covered by her. However, they would need to seek outside funding of $275,000 before they could really make the business work.Later, a disagreement arose, then she decided to part ways, calling Leonard crazy. Leonard was just left with nothing to do, once again. For years, Leonard had been looking for something to brand and market, from the nightlife company, the restaurant, the clothing line, yet everything just kept falling apart. He was itching to do something, but couldn't find anything at all to do. So, he did just that, nothing.While doing nothing, his friend Ryan Cantin introduced him to a site called Quora. He sent him a post. He said, "check out this guy named James Altucher. This guy is just like you, but he made it in life. He made it!"Leonard joined Quora sometime in April and decided to scour the site for all the knowledge he could find. He read post after post by James Altucher and started to practice what he was preaching.On May 15, 2013, Leonard was inspired. Inspired by the openness of James Altucher. Inspired by having a platform to write on. Inspired to be around so many talented writers. He was so inspired, he decided to write his very first post. When he did, he only got just a few upvotes and only 102 views for the month, so he felt quite unappreciated. Since he felt so unappreciated, he decided to go back to being a spectator on Quora and just perused through the posts of others.Leonard found a really interesting woman on the site, one he thought was quite near perfect. Her name was Erin Paige Law. He perused through all her answers, upvoted everything she wrote, then she decided to comment on his one post and promoted it to a thousand people.Inspired, Leonard began to write, without a single goal in mind. From June 20 to July 25, he had written a hundred posts. His view count went from 102 in May to 3,475 in June. By the end of July, he had an additional 61,298 views. In August, he broke six figures with 160,312.Inspired, he started to share his life story. People started to send him messages, letting him know how he had changed their life. His posts were being shared on Twitter, promoted to more of Quora, and heavily upvoted.He started out with just three followers back in May, yet by the end of August, he had 374 followers. From there, things started to hyper accelerate. He reached a thousand followers by September 29, two thousand by November 9, then three thousand on December 11. He spent the first three months getting just under a hundred thousand views, then the following three months getting over a million views. By the end of the year, he had reached a total of 1.94 million views.Interestingly enough, while Leonard was on this platform called Quora, many things in his life had changed. One of the most significant of them all was his willingness to try dating again, after having such a horrible fallout with the love kit girl, who had turned him away from women altogether.He met this girl online from London. He kind of quite possibly fell in love with her, or at least the idea of who she was, since he had never met her. He decided to fly her out for the holidays by sending her cash. Due to the uncertainty of doing something as completely irrational as giving someone he barely knew all of the money in his checking account, he started to feel insecure.Leonard may quite possibly also suffer from a disorder called SAD, which refers to seasonal affective disorder. Or he is just traumatized from all the horrible events that happen around the holidays. So, he started to become quite needy. A trait he surely isn't proud of, nor one that he has too often. However, at times, it does come out. Since Leonard was becoming an annoyance, she told him that her plans had changed and decided to stay, agreeing to send back the money, even though Leonard refused. Leonard regrets scaring off such an amazing person, however he could never say a bad thing about this woman. She was just as amazing as it gets, however she was just blunt and to the point. Quite frankly, he respects her more for that.Later in the year, Leonard felt depressed and rebounded onto another woman. She treated him the exact same way Leonard treated her. Leonard finally understood why she left, because no one had ever done that to him before. If he was in her position, he would've left him too. Because that's what Leonard did to the girl he rebounded upon. So, he took that as a very educational experience. Leonard will one day thank this woman for what she had shown him, even though the outcome definitely wasn't in his favor.Overall, Leonard's life has completely turned around.By writing online, he was able to make amazing friends ranging from all backgrounds. His new best friend Ellen Vrana encourages him to stay strong, even when things turn sour. His network expanded from just a few successful people here and there to some of the most powerful people in the world.In November, an investment banker from New York even told Leonard that he wanted to fly out to meet with him. They decided to become business partners and are starting to work on a new venture together. Later, Leonard came to find that his business partner actually has five figures to put towards the business, so he unintentionally ended up raising seed capital without even trying. He has also started to help consult two different start-ups on how to penetrate into their target markets.On December 20, he had a conversation with Ellen:Ellen: Leonard, this looks like spam. This isn't spam?Leonard: I can be spam if you want to be egg :)Ellen: Why are you emailing me. CHECK YOUR F****** QUORA FOOL!!Leonard: I'm checking my Quora. What am I looking for? Eggs or spam? Or both?Ellen: Did you see your photo?! Silly goof.Leonard: My picture of me? I'm smiling! Yay! :)Ellen: You are a Top Writer goof. I'm pretty sure you weren't before, right?Leonard: Whoa! I didn't even notice! I was like wtf are you talking about hahahaha. Now I see it though! You're a top writer!Ellen: WE BOTH ARE!!! And Virali!! YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Leonard: Yayyyy! Xu and Blanca too!!!Ellen: And Cyndi and Murat and Triya and so many more people I can’t name! Yay!!! I love everyone!!Leonard: Yay!!! I love everyone too!Ellen: So cool. I saw it and jumped. Shit, does this mean we have to stop writing stupid stuff?Leonard: I don't think so! Because we write a lot of stupid stuff!Ellen: I KNOW! Quora must like what we are doing. :)Leonard: Yay. Maybe they want us to be more stupid! I love Quora!Ellen: And Quora loves you!Leonard: Yay! We all love each other!Ellen: Seriously, everyone I love is on Quora! Yay!!!! So happy!! Let’s get more stupid!Leonard came to find that he was awarded with the best early birthday gift he could have ever asked for. He became a Top Writer on Quora, which was quite a surprise to him. After he found out, his friend Virali Modi decided to call him and discuss with each other how happy they were to find out each of them had become a top writer.The next day, to celebrate, both his accomplishments along with his birthday, he decided to try something new. He went out to surf for the first time ever at Venice Beach, on the first day of winter, without a wetsuit. On his third or fourth try, he was able to stand on the board for in between two to three seconds. Luckily, he didn't catch pneumonia. Afterwards, he went to see the Canals of Venice, had lunch by the beach, went over to see his friend Frances who works at a pizza parlor, then went to his friend David's house.From David's house, he called Jay, who agreed to pick them up and go to Takami together. Leonard reserved a table for eight, and by pure coincidence, exactly eight people showed up: Clarrie, Julia, Sugy, Jay, David, Allen and Ahmed.After some of the finest sushi in all of Los Angeles, a bottle of sake and some Macallan 18, Leonard and his friends went over to Seven Grand to smoke a few Cuban cigars and grab a few drinks. Afterwards, the remaining party went off to karaoke until four or five in the morning, then finished the night eating pho, from whence Virali decided it would be in her best interest to text Leonard to inquire what his deepest secret was.As Christmas came by, Leonard decided to spend it alone, as his plans to see this woman from London had been abolished, and he had not thought of making alternative plans. So, he got to spend the whole day chatting with his dear friend in India, Varsha Iyer.Now, Leonard is in the process of setting up a blog, to help expand his exposure on the internet. Basically, Leonard went from being a hated nobody that no one wanted anything to do with to where he is now, loved by many.Who in their right mind thinks, "I'm gonna go into this place full of top business executives, attorneys, angel investors and venture capitalists, consultants, investment bankers, PhD's, graduates from both top tiered and Ivy League colleges, professional speakers, programmers, scientists, engineers, psychologists, professors, doctors, nurses and the best writers in the world. Once I get there, even though I know I'm a total loser who knows nothing, who works an entry level job, has no formal education and has failed at everything in life, I'm going to have them all treat me like an equal!", then not only succeeds, but gains respect and a solid reputation as well?I know who didn't think that. It surely wasn't Leonard. He was just writing away, sharing portions of his life, without the slightest clue of what would come from it. He was just living his life, day by day, wondering what would come tomorrow. Somehow, he just happened to stumble into some sort of altruistic success. Where is Leonard heading from here? Who in the world knows.However, at the end of the day, we have to come back to the underlying question we were requested to answer from the beginning.Who is Leonard Kim?I've shared most his life here with you, yet I'm still not quite sure. Why don't you tell me?*edited by Lee Garibaldi* *with love*