Embrace Fear

A few friends had called me to say I should interview this guy, Al Scaglione. They’re friends with his daughter and after meeting him they decided he needed to be on the site. I don’t know if he gave them great advice or if they merely liked his stories, but I finally got the chance to meet Al and see for myself.

Al and I had been talking on Facebook--he added me as a friend and told me he was a fan of my blog and the Seth & Avi web series my friend and I write--but I never thought to get his number. He was twenty minutes late and I kept circling the area, looking for a guy who resembled his Facebook picture. I was worried that he was waiting in another area of the Grove, an outdoor mall in LA. Eventually he spotted me as he raced over, apologizing for the traffic.

Al has the gift of gab. He’s the kind of guy who needs no prompting to talk. And I was happy to listen. He told me success happens when you do nine million things at once so eventually you’ll be in the right place at the right time. He calls that luck. Later on I asked Al about some of the nine million things he’s done in his life. A short list:

Various jobs at an ad agency from the mailroom to contest director, paint salesman, pot and pan salesman, actor, opened the first frozen yogurt store in California, then went into fast food, then a few restaurants, he spent ten years as a Colibri salesman, he was a therapist (layman), he invested in real estate, wrote a book, and most recently invented a product he tells me “will make me a fortune.” I hope it does.