I need to ask you something, and I need an honest answer. Not a polite one. An honest one. That's the only kind I have. Another pause.
That's why I'm calling you. He reached the ground and walked away from where Deshawn and Tommy were working toward toward the side of the property where it was quieter. Ask if you were in a room with 12 people who were trying to take something you built and you knew two of them were genuinely trying to help you even though their method was wrong and the other 10 were motivated by money and their own interests. What would you do? Marcus thought about it.
Not for show, but because the question deserved a real answer. I'd start with the two, he said. Why? Because if you can turn two honest people into allies, even when you disagree with them, you change the math of the room. And because the 10 who are only there for money will follow whoever has the most momentum.
Win the honest ones. The others follow or fall away. Silence on the line. Then my board meeting is in 3 weeks. I know you told me I need She stopped again.
I have a strategy. It's sound. My CFO agrees with it, but I need to present it in a way that addresses the emotional argument, not just the financial one. And I don't a cost her something. I'm not good at the emotional argument.
I know how to build a case. I don't know how to make them feel it, Marcus said. Yes. He was quiet for a moment. The afternoon was working its way toward evening and the light was going long and golden.
He thought about Amara explaining why their kind of fine was better. He thought about the way she'd said it not as an argument, but as a fact she'd arrived at through evidence. When Amara tells me something's important to her, Marcus said she doesn't list reasons. She tells me one specific story, one thing that happened, and I understand every other thing through that one thing. Silence.
You're telling me to tell a story, Olivia said. I'm telling you the most powerful thing in a room full of people who think they know everything is a specific truth they haven't heard yet. Another pause. Would you, she stopped again. Say it, Marcus said.
Would you be willing to talk it through with me? Not as a consultant, not as anything formal, just talk. Marcus looked at the property, at the work still to be done, at the way the new framing stood honest and solid next to what had been there before. Come by Saturday, he said. Morning.
Bring coffee. He heard something that wasn't quite a laugh and wasn't quite a breath. It was the sound of someone who had been holding something heavy being offered a place to set it down. "Okay," she said. "And Olivia?" He paused.
Come in something you can sit in on a job site. Not the blazer. This time it was definitely a laugh. Small, real, and briefly unguarded. "Good night, Marcus," she said.