My hero

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It was obvious to put my name on the list as the number one volunteer for to plan a big conference. I think you would understand me. Who would miss out if he came to visit us? I had so obsessively underlined his last book as if I had wanted to change the page colors. And that was the second copy I had bought and read.

Calvin Nixen’s flight landed one hour late at Barajas airport in Madrid, but there I was, following my plan, willing to wait for him as many hours as necessary. I had been living in Spain for a good year now, ready to answer any of Calvin’s questions, to bring him wherever he wanted to go. You don’t get a top entrepreneur, coach and now best-selling writer like him just like that; Sophie was probably tired of hearing me at home plan every single step of Calvin’s visit, for months. He’ll breathe there, make a step here, then have coffee with me on Velázquez street at this cool café, then dash off to Cazorla for some tapas and beer, and maybe even want to join me for a squash match. He loves to play squash. She would just smile, seeing me scratching along with my hopes for enlightenment thanks to ‘the hotshot’, as she began calling Calvin.

The provost of the university had approved the whole thing, but no one from marketing came along to take pics of Calvin arriving. I figured it was even better; it was just me, waiting for the super star, all to myself, at least for some hours in which I’d absorb as much as I could from his wit. Sophie knew what this meant to me; when he sent his confirmation, she knew that I could find answers to all those puzzles that drive me nuts about pushing my own potentials.

Nick, it will be my pleasure to visit you and your fellow students in Madrid. I’ll be flying in from Poland. I have another conference there, so I will not stop in Berlin, just to see your team directly! My assistant, Amelia, will contact you for all further matters regarding my stay.

Warm regards

Calvin

I almost jumped on the couch and stepped on Sophie and the newly baked muffins when I read that email. Close call. She would usually bake the muffins to have some quality time with me while I sipped a good cup of coffee. She’d always go for the tea. Sophie kissed me and put a muffin on each of my cheeks to celebrate the news.

- You see, some things that you work for actually do happen, my escapist.

- They do, somehow, baby, just like these muffins –I acknowledged while losing myself in the endless pores of the steamy texture– I’ll bring the tea. I’m so excited he’s coming.

- Remember to take all those notes with you, or probably just make a new chart, you said that’s what the guy wrote about in his book, right?

- Yeah, that’s it, although, it’s not a chart, it’s even a registered life-model, but yeah, call it a chart, I guess. You put your habits there, your dream hierarchy, and all of those things we’ve been through. I took some time –I bit another muffin and indecently gulped my coffee ignoring how good it was– but, hear me out, I finally came up with the story of why I haven’t been able to take off. Because that is the truth, baby. I have not been able to take off as an entrepreneur, as a creator, as whatever it is that I am supposed to become.

- You do now what I will say now, don’t you? –Sophie muttered, grabbed her cup with both hands while stretching a grin.

- Yeah, yeah, I do –I looked at the ceiling and smiled back– that I don’t need to ‘take off’ –I mimicked an airplane taking off with my hands–, especially all the time, and then you’ll have me quoting Robert Frost…

- My escapist –she stood up and came over, gave me a quick hug and went back to snack on the muffin.

- And all…

- …is but an interminable chain of longing –I finished the verse fondling her hand.

Sophie went to bed while I worked on my coaching plan. She knew me from top to bottom, as satisfied as I was miserable, feeling successful but at the same time a total failure. We had hung The Escapist’s last verses on the wall, so that I would never forget that longing for things is infinitely absurd. We even bought a painting of Seneca at Malasaña to remember the very Stoic idea that you simply never reach a perfect state, of absolutely anything. And there I was, always looking at my failed little startup in the music business, and let’s not get into the restaurant that I had to shut down. When Calvin answered, I knew that the world would –finally! – give me some signals.

Calvin wrote that it was important to surround yourself with nature for some good and productive brainstorming. ‘Never waste time, think like Xenophon and the productive estate, because assets are only assets if you make them something useful’. His words went down my spine to meet that enormous gap that ambition was carving in me; I wanted the best for Sophie, for our future kids, to see them tour Santorini for weeks without giving a damn about the bill, but then again, not having too much either, just enough, right at the sweet spot.

- Morning, morning, you must be Nicholas! –said the sovereign, huge Calvin Nixen, the man himself, in such a paced voice, standing in front of me in slovenly attire, probably that of the crazy entrepreneur that ran the Entrepreneurship department in the top tier Berlin university.

- Please call me Nick! I’m so pleased to finally meet you, Calvin. Welcome to Spain! Bienvenido –I unleashed a miserable pronunciation in Spanish while he looked at me– so, I’m not sure how to ask you in Spanish how the flight was, but you get the point.

- Not to worry, it was just fine –he said in all tranquility while pulling his small Rimowa suitcase– as you notice, my German accent comes out in every syllable I say in English, and that’s that –he paused again and looked around–. Why would I bother my peace of mind with accents –he said composedly–. Tell me, Nicholas, how is the weather? How are you?

- Wonderful –I smiled and pointed to the arid hills surrounding the Terminal– I seriously do not think you’ll miss your German weather, and that is a pretty good intro to how I’m doing, just saying.

He nodded and pitched a furtive smile. Once we got into the cab, Calvin got a call, but I felt like a tourist that was finally seeing the sea after a lifetime of yearning for it. I looked out the window just like my dog used to do back in Boston, happy to see the sun shining, getting a vibe from the city that I usually never got to see with that much motivation.

He hung up and I showed him my copy of his book proudly. He repeated the ephemeral smile and started talking about how the Humboldt University president had been ousted in Berlin. I followed his arguments, nodding, grasping his book in my hands, without being able to show him all the pages I had written down with thoughts about my skills and entrepreneurial potentials that followed his own charts along the pages. He was impressed about how fast the provost of the Humboldt University had been removed from office, himself a friend of that very renowned professor that didn’t really ring a bell to me, maybe because I was used to hearing the same nonsense from the Ivy League news back in the US. I had a magical way of ignoring that level of VIPs when it came to just about anything.

I had filled out one of the main charts that asks you to list your habits, skills, strengths and weaknesses, in order to connect them to your dreams; this was not a fraudulent personal SWOT, as he wrote, though maybe it sounded like that. Are you actually focusing your habits on the dreams you say you have, or are you being dishonest towards yourself? He’d insist: it’s time for a you and me talk, with yourself.

I had also filled out the list of frugal behavior habits: save money here, spare the coffee there, don’t add extra cheese, forget the gym subscription and buy used weights instead, balance out your expenses with healthy and simpler food; cook at home, procrastinate when it comes to getting a dog if you don’t have a garden, ride a bike, get someone else’s streaming password, you name it. He said it was his unmistaken success formula, that ‘anyone could do it’, just as he reckoned how easy success could happen when he sold his first startup.

I liked what he wrote, it was impossible to deny it. After all, I read the book ahead of his trip to get the most out of everything. Nobody at the university had wanted to help out paying for his hotel, so I talked to Sophie and we said we’d make that effort and pay Calvin a good hotel in Madrid, ideally near Serrano or so. He'd have to have a good breakfast, as his assistant demanded, in bold of course, in some of those dignified emails.

- Why not see it as an investment in your own life, baby –Sophie would say caressing my hair–. You’re a generous soul anyway, and if the guy is a multimillionaire, he’ll appreciate it even more.

Preparing for his trip was an adventure in my mind. I’d walk in the woods inventorying my skills, the potentials I could use for starting my own thing, whether a for profit thing or not, but if was clarifying, call it even uplifting. We lose ourselves in the hustle and bustle, and we know, so we procrastinate, and then we remember we do, and then we scroll though social media or end up watching a screen for hours, and Calvin became that special idea that poked me with that mental discomfort that he would always attach to successful entrepreneurs.

And there we were in the cab. I was hoping he would stop talking about German universities so we could finally say something about the book, but he had other intentions.

- Nicholas, listen, I hope you don’t mind, but I haven’t stopped in my house in Berlin in all these trips, so I need to go and do my laundry quickly for our meetings here –he opened his blue eyes, which were as threatening as they were friendly–. Can you tell the driver to take us somewhere else?

- I sure can, Calvin. –I sighed–. The hotel though, they surely offer the same thing, right?

- Oh, no, Nicholas, you see, that would be a mistake. They would then charge you for every garment –he barely looked at me and stuck his eyes in some German news article in his phone.

- Uh, I suppose you’re right Calvin. –I started looking for a place nearby and found a laundromat a few blocks away from the hotel–. Amigo, can you take us there?

- Sí, pero eso os cuesta un poco más –I figured he said that I’d have to pay more for the ride, but that was ok. This didn’t happen every day.

After some minutes, we got to the laundromat and started trying to figure out how things worked. I felt uneasy standing next to him while he pulled his stuff from little plastic bags, but then things got mysterious.

- Nicholas. I don’t have any coins, and you can’t use a card here. Hah, the Spanish economy! Look –he pointed at the machine and frowned.

I had to look twice, and I would have put my hands on fire to favor the theory that that machine accepted card payments as well, but maybe this was all a test. That’s what these smart fellows do with mortals like Nick.

- Well, Calvin, I guess I have coins –I managed to pull out some from my pocket and activated machine number four. He tossed his things and put the plastic bags back into the suitcase–.

- Let’s look for a café, what do you say Nicholas?

- Of course, though I wanted to take you to the special café on Velázquez and María de Molina. They have their own roasting house and don’t add any syrup to the beans, as the big companies do.

- Oh come on, mein Freund, any coffee is fine. –I opened my eyes at this show of coffee heresy but didn’t oppose Calvin’s will.

- Maybe I can show you my charts, you know, from your book, there at the café? I have them with me –I put my hopes up and started waving the book.

- That sounds like a plan, Nicholas.

Except it didn’t work out either. When we sat there, Calvin started making comments about the deco of the place, the timber in the ceiling, the dull paintings, the interesting yet bleary-faced people, basically everything except my notes. Then he started talking about the Humboldt University provost again. I showed him a lot of understanding, coming up with the most distant grain of empathy I could find about this hollow story, but I figured the best thing I could do was to listen. Dale Carnegie had written something about that, because if you talk shop all the time, you make enemies, if you let them do the talking, they become your friends or somehow appreciate you more. What a stupid yet smart transaction! But things got even more confusing.

He got a call after slurping his giant and horrendous black coffee, got up from the wooden chair he deemed boring and simply left the café.

- I’ll meet you outside so we can get the laundry –he rushed out and his voice got lost in the taxis honking.

I paid the bill and went out, folding my chart back into the book with a ruffled smile. Maybe another time, I thought. I was surprised by the price of the horrible coffee, but I went along with the situation. You cannot be tacky in moments like these! We walked to the laundromat and picked up his clothes. I felt strange when I was asked to help fold some of the clothes, though I remained thankful because no underwear was meant. Maybe It was another lesson, some kind of entrepreneurial Mr. Miyagi watching me.

We grabbed another cab because Calvin didn’t want to walk, but he barely spoke to me. I couldn’t make out the things he was saying in German on the phone, but he sounded pleased; he would squawk and throw in a ja klar in the end of each sentence and then deliver a certain Ho Ho Ho that reminded me of Dostoyevsky’s dark characters. We finally reached the hotel and he suggested we have some tea.

- But not here in the lobby, Nicholas, are we idiots? –he opened his eyes defiantly–. I would not like them to bill you some expensive tea. I have some in my room –he turned around before I could react, so I simply followed.

In the elevator, he stretched his face as if nothing underneath his head existed, which made me feel even shorter than I already was. But it was time to break the ice.

- You know, Calvin, one thing you say in the book –I cleared my throat– is that keeping busy for the sake of keeping busy is absurd, just like the Stoics. I liked some of those parallels.

He simply hummed back without moving his eyes from the elevator ceiling.

- In any case, my life here in Madrid does in fact give me some good time for brainstorming –I felt like I was in a reality show interview– and I follow your lead when you say that nature helps us put our creativity to work, right?

- Nicholas –he interrupted–, at what time are we supposed to meet tomorrow for the conference?

- Well –I looked at him, a bit baffled–. I would say I come and pick you up around 2 pm, if that is ok? You said you needed some time in the morning.

- I do, Nicholas, I indeed do.

- Great, then I’ll be here at 2pm. Oh, and please feel free to call me Nick. –I muttered.

- And tonight? –he brought his eyes down when the elevator bell finally announced the 9th floor.

- Tonight? –I was puzzled again–. I thought you wanted to relax. Amelia wrote that.

- Oh, forget about what Amelia wants –he put his bearish hand on my shoulder and opened his eyes–. Let us undertake something. It’s Madrid, mein wunderbares Spanien!

- Sure, Calvin, I mean, it’d be great. Should I book a restaurant? How about a steakhouse?

- Steak, yes, yes, that I like –he showed me that we had arrived at the right room–. Come on in, Nicholas. I have a small kettle here –then he pulled out a plastic bag with a massive collection of tea bags–. Pick one, I always collect them in my trips and it saves good money.

- This one would be fine –I picked the first bag I saw, orange and cinnamon, though the plastic bag was sticky. I wanted to pull out my hands from there as soon as possible–. I’ll boil the water!

Things reached a quaint level when he started changing clothes in front of me, but what really impressed me was his nonchalance and the bizarre capacity he had to bring up the Humboldt University topic again.

- It’s about reputation, and my friends, the Deans of the Medicine and Mathematics faculty cannot believe it.

I followed Carnegie’s wisdom and simply shut up, nodding from time to time as I drank my globetrotting tea. But then he came up with an idea that I was too slow to reject.

- Instead of looking for a steakhouse, why don’t we go to your house and have dinner with your wife. I would be honored to meet her. What did you say her name was?

- Oh, at home, sure, Sophie, that’s her name. Why not. Sure, Calvin.

- Yes, Nicholas, why not. We still are in Spain, are we not? The best food is that of a great home.

Sophie enjoyed the story up to that point, got a bit nervous on the phone and started brainstorming about the kind of offbeat evening we would have to offer this guy. But it all came down to his principles as stated in his book, applied perfectly that is: cut your spending as much as you can, he wrote. Quit dining out as if you’re a monkey in need of entertainment. And he was right in a way. Couples obsessed with dining out three or four times a week ended up trashing their savings, let alone their health, but who was I to judge them. I preferred to lean on the top coach and entrepreneur, the bestselling laundromat guy who knew his business.

- And he said he wanted a steak? Wow.

- Yes, baby, I’m sorry. I mean, we could always

- Hush hush, relax –she interrupted me–. I’ll make my dried tomato and beef recipe for us –she stopped for a moment–. Which means I have to run to the butcher shop on Castillejos, practically right now. They have some darn good beef. Yes, we’ll make it happen.

Calvin didn’t want to tour the city anymore, so I figured I would give him the indications of how to reach our house in Chamartín, which was actually pretty easy with the subway. I showed him a picture of the small and elegant palace of the Dukes of Pastrana, where he would need to walk one or two blocks.

- Nicholas, and using technology is not more appropriate for you? Can you send me an Uber?

I frowned and agreed.

- Well sure, Calvin, that is a great idea. I’ll make sure someone picks you up in some hours.

- Wunderbar. I will see you at, let us say, 8 pm?

- Sure, Calvin, 8 pm is great –I repeated the same thing in my head, 8 pm is definitely great, Calvin.

I left the hotel and went to get some sourdough bread that Sophie liked to serve with the beef and her traditional arugula and cherry tomato salad. I was a bit flustered to have this –I even stopped in my thoughts, rockstar, right? right– rockstar coming over to our simple place, but I figured this would be a different moment, where even the skeptical Sophie could get some lessons and interesting stories from him.

Calvin arrived after touring out neighborhood at least four times. I was anxious to see the map and the fare, while the circle around Chamartín drew itself over and over.

- Did the driver get lost, Calvin? Everything ok?

- Oh, Nicholas, everything was fantastic. I asked the good man to show me around a little bit. I hope you don’t mind that I arrived some minutes later. Not all Germans are punctual, especially the ones from Berlin –he cracked a smile.

- Right, of course –I replied with an angrily befuddled voice–. Why not tour around?

- But this must be the wonderful wife –he opened his arms and cast his head sideways.

- Sophie is the name of the wonderful wife, nice to meet you, sir –she shook his hand then fell into the inevitable bear-hug coming her way.

- Oh, sir! –he yelled–. Please do not call me sir, Sophie. I would feel even older –he smiled and put his backpack on the entryway table.

Calvin started exploring the view from our small balcony and then sat at the dining table without moving his eyes from his phone. He would hum from time to time, with turbulent whoops and letdowns, then some ‘aha’ moments. He had us at eyesight thanks to the loft design of the usually small European apartment. Sophie went up to him after leaving me in control of the beef.

- Mr. Calvin, may I offer you some tea. Nick said that you like to drink Jasmin tea? We bought some for you.

He looked at her with such a constant smile, that I preferred to go back to mixing herbs and salt for the beef.

- Oh that is splendid, my dear. Please do. –his eyes went back to his phone.

Sophie and I began swirling around in the kitchen, boiling water here, marinating the beef, washing the arugula, picking the best sundried tomatoes, always bumping into each other to get the symphony right. When the oven was already about to finish its magic, we realized that we had barely noticed Calvin’s presence, until a loud comment bolted in from the dining table.

- You do know, my friends, that the Deans of the Humboldt are completely in favor of what I wrote recently. The provost of the Humboldt should not have done that. I would have done it my way –he raised his eyebrows and left a curious silence in the room, only disrupted by the recent sizzling of the beef.

- I’m not sure what you mean, Mr. Calvin –smiled Sophie– but you are surely right.

- Would you mind preparing another tea, my dear? This time I would like to sweeten it.

- Sure, I’ll get you another one. For the sweet part, we use honey normally. Is that ok?

- More than ok –he replied in a pleasing tone.

- Maybe you want to try the special Malaysian honey that a friend brought us? –I stepped in.

- That would be wonderful, Nicholas. –he lifted the empty cup–. Would you mind?

- I would bring the jar to you; I think that is safer, one second. –said a hasty Sophie with the jar in her hands. She picked up the empty cup and rushed back to check on the boiling water.

From the dining table, he kept on going with his story. Sophie tried to redirect the conversation back to the book and the lessons-to-be-learned for me and her, but it was no use. Any attempt in the form of ‘Nick is a fan of your book, you do know that he prepared something for you, why don’t you both do a mini mentoring session while I finish dressing the salad?’. Nothing would beat his Humboldt topic. Then things got more peculiar.

Sophie brought the salad and asked me to help put the beef in another ceramic baking dish her mom had told us to bring to Europe. It was a lot more decorative than the one we used for the oven. While moving the oblong meat masterpiece and checking the doneness –a bit of pink with juice was always good– I was startled to hear some crunching and munching behind me. Calvin was eating the salad already, directly from the wooden salad bowl! While he was at it, he started pouring the Malaysian honey into the bowl, a lot of it!

- I guess you like the salad, right? –said Sophie.

- It’s great, my dear, yes. It needed some honey, though, just like my tea.

- Oh, ok, I believe it is always good to try something new –she turned to me– right Nicholas?

- That is correct, Sophie Mary –I teased her with a smile while bringing the big dish to the table–. Why don’t we put some Chill-out music on? –so we don’t have to listen to your crushing the arugula without waiting for us, Calvin, I kept the thought to myself.

- Chill-out is good, baby, sure –she came to the table and sat down–. Calvin, is it ok for you?

He released an interjection without lifting his sight and kept eating.

- Here comes the beef! –I tried to bring in some energy into the awkward crunching and munching. He had left us with almost no salad before we even sat down.

The dinner was very pleasant in terms of the beef’s flavor, that I am sure of. The conversation didn’t really evolve; even Sophie ended telling him that he was right about his letter to the Humboldt, about the importance of expressing his opinion, even if he was masticating like a beast and at times even splashing our plates with the dressing and saliva drops.

Then came the most important moment of the meal, at least for me and the tradition of my father. The espresso. I made sure to pull out the freshly ground mountain coffee blend that I would always buy at the roaster on Velázquez. Calvin had mentioned that he preferred an Americano, which was easy to sort out. Two espresso shots and some filtered water after cooling it off for some seconds while the sublimation died down. I loved the ritual. The ocher red texture of the coffee crema was ready. I made one for myself and started foaming a bit of milk to balance it out in what I baptized Nick’s snowy espresso, not as milky as a flat white, never as brutal as the double espresso macchiato. But then Calvin did it again.

- That spoon was for the salad, Mr. Calvin, wait –Sophie tried to stop him. Too late–. No problem, be my guest.

- Oh, you don’t mind –he said while grabbing a spoonful of the Malaysian honey and then dripping it inside the espresso, and half of it, of course, on the table–. You better get a cloth my dear –he smiled while bobbing around with the spoon.

I rushed to get a cloth and brought it back. He wouldn’t stop jouncing, making it impossible to clean the table. I left It next to him and grabbed it once he stopped. He had spilled more than half of the honey from the spoon, but the worst thing was that he had shoved it into the espresso!

Things would not stop. Sophie tried to talk about something else, asked him how the meat was. He would throw in some laconic ‘good, good’, and look at his phone while eating up some leftover chunks from the plate. Sophie must have felt some stomach pain thinking about my impressions. You do not put a spoonful of that brutally rare Malaysian honey into that espresso; it goes against some norm that someone must have already thought of, I don’t know who, but someone must have thought that that is not ok, especially not that type of honey!

Sophie offered to order him an Uber after he said his app wasn’t working. He also mentioned he had no cash on him. Sophie winked and said she had him covered. She gave him some Jasmin tea bags following his very diplomatic request to take some for his friends in Berlin. I walked with him until the car arrived and waved while fearing how ‘see you tomorrow’ sounded.

Calvin’s conference at the university was a full success, one student said to me after the Q&A was over. I stayed in one of the corners of the classroom making sure that all the logistics would work seamlessly. He gave the young audience the key to success: always listen to others, just like Sigmund Freud, a wonderful listener. But then again, when it comes to your entrepreneurial dreams, save money, as much as you can! Take the subway, never a cab; go for water, never for pricey coffee; forget sugar, go for it without the sweets, ask your friends for help; inventory all of your skills, write them down, but please don’t buy an extra board for writing stuff on the wall! Do just like Carlos Slim, put it down on a napkin. Do not forget, frugality is gold. Do as the Stoics say! Live life under your means, by no means above them! And of course, think about enjoying the ride. You’ll surely make it, meine junge Freunde.

Of course, after the conference, I did what I should have done all along. I went up to him, to my hero, the fraud. I looked him in the eyes, letting in some silence, and went for it.

Dear Calvin, don’t forget to leave me an autograph on your book. I’ll never forget your lessons