I was looking for leads into the Los Angeles scene, so Paul Bragiel introduced me to Jared Leto. Jared was interested in learning more, so we set up a Skype video conference. I knew Jared was an actor who had appeared in some big movies, so I proposed to him that we could help him get more fans globally by translating his social media posts into other languages. This would then help his movies get more attention.
He told me the movie stuff was not that big for him, and that he had a band that had fans around the world and that might be a more interesting target. Now, this is a moment where I usually pause when I am telling this story to a live audience.
This moment in history has been the biggest screw-up in my professional life, but also the biggest recovery that I have ever accomplished.
His band, of course, is 30 Seconds to Mars – an extremely popular band with 10 million Facebook followers. Had I not lived in a cave I would have known this. But that is not an excuse, as even if one lives in a dark cave with no connection to the outside world, one is expected to do their homework before an important meeting. And obviously I had not done mine.
So here I am, in a live video chat with Jared Leto, lead singer of 30 Seconds to Mars, who is trying to convince me that his band is popular. So what is my response? “Yeah, I used to play in a band, too”.
What happened next? Is there a happy ending? Read this, and many other stories, in my newly published book The Transfluent Story. You can download it, free of charge, right here: