The old man at the bridge

Zhang Liang was hiding after a failed assassination attempt against the First Emperor. He was walking over the Yishui bridge when an old man in a coarse robe approached him and, being deliberately rude, told him to pick up the shoe he had just dropped.

Zhang Liang wanted to hit him. He looked at the age of the man and did it instead. He brought the shoe, and the old man told him to put it on his foot, and he knelt and put it on.

The old man laughed and walked away, then came back and said: I can teach you. Meet me here in five days at dawn.

Zhang Liang arrived at dawn and the old man was already there, and scolded him for being late. They did this three times. On the third, Zhang Liang came at midnight and waited. The old man arrived and said: this is right. He gave him a book, and said it would make him the teacher of kings.

Ten years later the dynasty fell, and Zhang Liang became the strategist who won the empire for the man who founded the Han.

The story is about patience, but that's the dull side of it. The sharper side is that the old man tested whether the lesson would arrive in a person who couldn't demand respect. Three late nights and a shoe.

Nobody can be taught a strategy if they can't be humiliated by a stranger in front of witnesses and remain steady.

If you're looking for a mentor, the interview has already started and it usually doesn't look like one.

MOJOWAY's client file has a section on how people respond when they're wrong in public. That section correlates uncomfortably well with everything else.