Are You There Guy Kawasaki? It is Me: Catherine

Last updated on December 24th, 2012 at 04:30 pm

Guy Kawasaki and email enchantment

Sometimes the life of a dreamer is surreal.

When I first read the name Guy Kawasaki in my email Inbox I thought it was Robert Kiyosaki, you know, the Rich-Dad-Poor-Dad-Buy-Real-Estate-Don’t-Buy-Real-Estate guy?

Don’t ask me why I thought an email which obviously says Guy Kawasaki was Mr. Rich Dad/Poor Dad. I am actually a big fan of the real red Apple Guy Kawasaki.

But at that moment I was envisioning the Rich Dad guy . . . I was annoyed.

I have a past in mortgage banking, and just picturing the Rich Dad logo makes me shake with fear that I am suddenly being sucked back into the vortex of real estate mortgages, with real estate agents yelling at everyone who is willing to listen that their home owners are living in a hotel with all their belongings in a moving van in a parking lot . . .

It’s like some horrible dream where I wake up screaming.

Part of my initial reaction (I’m sure) was due to the sheer volume of email I get for 8 Women Dream.

Then there’s the fact that I am usually reading 8 Women Dream email late at night when I finally have a moment to sit down.

Plus the fact that I have this teenage boy who is always saying, “Mom?” somewhere in the distance, while I am trying to concentrate on somethingone else.

His voice is just faint enough to make me think I am hearing things.

So I almost hit the delete button in my Inbox.

Then I remembered . . . wait . . . Apple’s . . . Guy Kawasaki . . . his latest book . . . Enchantment.

Suddenly a picture of this adorable guy (no pun intended), who I’ve watched in videos on 8 Women Dream flashed across my brain. Wait! Cute Guy, dark hair . . . big grin. Famous.

You know, he is really very cute . . .

I smiled and opened the email.

A few days later, a package arrived at my door. It was Guy Kawasaki’s new book, Enchantment. I felt like he had wrapped it personally and put it in some mailbox near his home where the God’s of Silicon Valley exist. And some special mail truck resembling a transport vehicle from Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, descended from their big mountain in the sky to deliver a Golden Ticket right to my front door.

It was Enchantment.

I found myself ripping open the package and hugging the book. Okay, I’m weird. I love books.

Okay, books by cute, successful guys.

With his new book grasped firmly in my hands, and the thought that his hands might actually have touched it (hey I have a rich fantasy life — leave me alone), I had to return to my computer and reply to his email.

Suddenly I am really reading that last email . . .

Nestled neatly within the body was Guy’s contact information — right down to his cell phone. It stopped me cold. Why hadn’t I noticed this before? GUY KAWASAKI’S CELL PHONE?!? Suddenly I was faced with the realization that he might actually be reading his own emails . . . and all I could think of to write back was . . .

Are you there? It’s me Catherine.

I stared at my sentence for more than 15 minutes. I mean, what does a new dreamer write to the man who was the chief evangelist of Apple?

Hi. Nice book.

It turns out, when I finally managed to write a coherent sentence back and pressed send, there was a typo.

Nervous that he might actually be reading my email typo at that very moment, I went into my bedroom, shut the door, changed into my pajamas and retired to my bed to read Enchantment. Nothing like a good book to make you forget that you’re an idiot.

Right away I got why he was so successful at Apple: on page 10 he has a great picture of George Clooney.

I am thinking I like this book.

Enchantment is about being nice, doing things right and caring about what you deliver to the public. It’s Guy’s calling to the world to ask us to do what we do at a level Steve Jobs does each time he releases a new product on to the market.

It’s about being enchanting and setting yourself up for success.

One of his first words of advice to me would be that I stop using Yahoo for 8 Women Dream email and use the actual 8womendream.com email for correspondence. This is where my Origami folds in a slightly different direction than Guy’s.

While I agree at some point using an 8womendream.com email has its advantages . . .Yahoo does a great job at email. They catch most of my spam. They scan all my downloads and uploads with anti-virus software. It’s not stored on my hard-drive taking up valuable space, or causing me to worry that I am corrupting some .pst file and will lose all my email.

Best of all, while I am bootstrapping — it’s free — and I don’t have to worry about bandwidth quotas.

But . . .

I do understand what the enchanting-Guy is saying. It would be very bad for me to ask for money from an Angel investor with a Yahoo email address. It’s like wearing flannel to the Opera.

On page 41 of Enchantment, Guy lists his “Enchantment Hall of Fame“. I have to admit that my eyes raced quickly down the page to Favorite Female Blogger. My heart skipped a beat as I looked for the name “Catherine Hughes/8 Women Dream“ to the right.

Maybe this is why I got the book . . . I’m actually in it!

Squinting I find “Jenny Lawson, The Bloggess“. I looked again. I got out a ruler to make sure I was reading the right line.

First my Yahoo email address, now this?

Oh the betrayal.

Men.

In the end it took me a month to finish Enchantment — not because I didn’t enjoy it — but because when this book arrived, it seemed to magically accelerate new people and events into my life. I had to resort to carrying around the book in my purse wherever I went. I utilized any extra time in line at the grocery store; in my car while I’d waited for my son; and in bed at night just before falling asleep to complete the book.

Now I want to go back and read it slowly, highlighting parts that I want to commit to memory. I would recommend this book to anyone who emails, phones or talks with the public . . . which is everyone.

Okay, I recommend Enchantment to everyone.

But will everyone listen?

I sent one final email with an interview request to Guy. We’re on a first name basis now. It is my hope next week to post my interview questions and his answers. I promise it will be more than . . .