The Aura of Sal - SinC(n2)
He's scared.
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It’s Story Time.
A Defining Moment of Origin
The Path of Persistence
Convincing Ansley
Persistent Pursuit
Growth and Complacency
Strategy vs Tactics
The Unraveling
A Defining Moment of Origin
Bam!! He’s left wondering, why me, why not someone else? That concept has not quite fully manifested to be explored in thought or conversation, yet he's taken action due to the urgency he believes must be executed swiftly. His protector and nurturer are gone, resulting in deep poverty of the mind. Fear leads his charge as his new owners claim him only for their own desires. Fending for himself, he must live in arrangements that never appeared in his dreams. Fight-or-flight decisions overwhelm his now steely mind, vowing to never be at this level again.
"I’m going to do it," whispered Sal, an orphan of good energy now in the depths of dark energies that engulf one's soul. Sal’s father, Minka, was a warrior of getting anything done. He too had a defining moment where carefully thought-out tactical decisions led him to meet Ista, Sal’s mother, a fierce thinker, skilled in planning and strategy, navigating the execution of their vision and managing the ups and downs in their shared timeline of life.
The day the car crashed into Wall’s Apartments, in the city, on the 4th floor is when Sal asked, “Why me?” They were driving home on a Friday night, Minka at the wheel, responding to Ista’s deep questions about the meaning of life. Sal, always finding these conversations insightful, was glued to the audio of the challenging points. They stopped at a traffic light at exactly 9:41 p.m. It seemed to be just their vehicle at the four-way stop at Wall’s Apartments and Crown St. as they continued their synchronized conversation. At 9:42 p.m., the light turned green. Minka slowly accelerated through the intersection. At 9:42:33, their vehicle was struck by a speeding car trying to beat the light in the adjacent intersection. Sal was immediately ejected from the vehicle while his parents remained inside as it crashed into the 4th floor of Wall’s Apartments.
The drunk driver survived. Sal is left wondering why.
The Path of Persistence
Time passed swiftly in the city, with misleading relationships and lost faith in peers, shaping Sal’s mindset through rough lessons of growth among wolves. "I’m going to make it," he repeated in his head for 10 years, even though he had no finances to take a traditional path. From the dark corners of the alleys to powerful chauffeuring, he gained listening access, books, and opportunities to make new friends as he studied the topic of power. He now took charge of his path, the city’s experience molding him into the god of his own glory by creating a consulting venture. Along the way, he never truly found his identity, so his appearance either mimicked his clients or seemed wacky. Eventually, he established a deep friendship with one of his clients, Ansley, through his newly established consulting venture.
Sal had become as fierce as his mother in strategic planning and as determined as his father in execution, but with the dark energy he gathered during his climb to ownership. He studied men he believed to be great who used structures of power for their egotistical will for dominance. His view of a powerful system was one that was stratified with authority, named "The Ladder." In Sal's eyes, this was a perfect system that would allow him to be on top and dominate all lower steps on the ladder, to bend to his will. And since he developed an OCD pragmatic way of doing things, he had names for each step and responsibilities for his expectations on the ladder. The only problem was that the ladder was small-scoped due to his inexperience; he had not yet developed the art of thinking big to encompass more resilience to the unknown.
The creation of his consulting venture proved the value of the ladder to him. Not all aspects of this ladder system were explored, but using substitutes instead of actuals gave him false hope. He used third-party consultants as placeholders on his ladder to validate the steps. These consultants never worked directly for him nor did he have any authority over them, yet he gained respect from these consultants because of their shared interests, whom he saw as legitimate participants in his ladder system. His conclusion gave him confidence that this ladder of authority could work beyond his initial setup. That also include how he viewed Ansley in this structure.
Convincing Ansley
He explored the depths of his ladder philosophy with Ansley many times. “I’m telling you, this will work,” Sal pleaded desperately to convince Ansley that not only was it working for his consulting venture, but it could also work in a partnership between them. Ansley had an idea of his own and needed an experienced partner to handle a critical aspect of his venture called 3Me. Sal was trying to persuade him that his ladder system could work for 3Me, even though Ansley was hesitant and rejected him many times due to the critical nature of 3Me being the core of his venture.
This persuasion went on for months, from their daily meetings to client relationship outings. Sal, being relentless in his pursuit, never gave in with his newly found proven system. He tried social media, direct messages, existing meetings, and spontaneous visits. None had really worked for Sal.
Then, one morning, while the warmth of the shining energy rests on Ansley's face and nature looming in his presence. Ansley conducted his morning routine of yoga, face exercises, and affirmation of success. A dark synergy crept in, ready to surprise Ansley with unwanted news. As he concluded, a vibration on his device alerted him to pay attention to the screen. His do-not-disturb had just turned off. As the brightness on the screen increased with his glow, it showed the illustration of a very steep decline in his personal stock investment. Quick to action, he made calls to everyone he knew in this scope, using tactics proven to resolve such issues, but they failed him this time.
Ansley's next call was from Sal, who delivered his best revised pitch ever; or so Sal believed. Ansley received it with an "okay man, let's do it," and gave in. A month later, they were in business. Sal, with his big dreams, started to implement his ladder system as they began to work through the growing pains with Ansley leading the ship. They hired new help to fill in the ladder steps for 3Me, part of Ansley's venture called ExitFirst.
Growth and Complacency
ExitFirst grew faster and more profitably than Ansley predicted, which proved Sal was correct; his system could indeed help. The ladder system was within its scope yet effective enough, which built confidence in both of them. After about three years of mild growth and sustainability together, Ansley decided to move on and sell ExitFirst. Since Sal ran 3Me, the core of ExitFirst, Sal agreed he would go where ExitFirst went.
Sal’s deep desire to win within his big dreams like his mother made him realize he needed more fuel for this new opportunity, as he had gotten complacent with ExitFirst's success. Being part of the due diligence process and living in the radius of transactions and negotiations gave him even more confidence. What was very apparent to Sal in the buyer, Tily's venture called ImHere, was that it had arms dealing in many areas of interest that would allow Sal to rise and dominate using his ladder. Additionally, Tily carried herself like one of the great men Sal admired, which increased his desire to prove himself.
Sal humbly entered Tily’s venture, as they dissolved ExitFirst. He took on a subordinate role in the 3Me aspect of the venture, hoping to determine ways to exploit options to fulfill his dream, as aspects of his dream lived within ImHere. His ladder system would not work here; it did not have the capacity to handle the intricacies and complexities that ImHere dealt with on a daily basis.
Sal, taking his mother's approach to analytics, should have seen the clues that the ladder would not work in this foundation, but his arrogance allowed him to ignore them. Nonetheless, he took action to expand the system, aiming for more resiliency but with a blind eye to the obvious, blaming it on "trusting my intuition" and his feelings. He incorporated disjointed, unexplored conclusions with the claim of an improved ladder system that could handle anything from any venture, including ImHere.
Strategy vs Tactics
During this critical time of planning, Sal sought quick wins to gain favor with not just Tily but also the notable participants in her venture. His aim was to show where the current 3Me leaders had gaps and failures. He criticized the faults within the 3Me system in ImHere, pointing out critical growth areas of pure failure. He spoke with authority and unwavering confidence to persuade any doubters of ImHere's current 3Me system. He even joked that the 3Me system was so bad it was like a "2You", like half of you. The 3Me leaders were also in the process of developing their 3Me systems and had their own growing pains, pits, and valleys. This should be normal and accepted in any venture, but Sal saw these as vulnerabilities to be exploited to will his way.
The disorganization of the current 3Me system within ImHere crumbled under the accusation without adequate responses from the current 3Me leaders to prove that their version of the 3Me system could indeed work in the current chaos of complexity. Their eventual futile desperation was no match for the proven successes of ExitFirst, as some of the sub-systems now owned by ImHere performed much better than the current 3Me leaders' competing solutions.
Sal’s ladder system was ready to overthrow the ImHere 3Me system. But he made sure his prerequisites for success were in place. Anything or anyone that could potentially prevent his success was marked as a target, and he used any tactic at his disposal to prevent any disruption. Existing processes, projects, or persons that posed a threat were targeted for deletion or removal in some form. To him, this was strategic and made him a strategy master. Any laggard he couldn't remove swiftly, he campaigned to get them removed to prevent any anomalies in the ladder system. The result was that all the existing leaders of 3Me were removed, putting Sal at the top of the ladder food chain, allowing him to begin implementing his ladder system.
One year and many attritions later, with sub-replacements for key participants on his ladder, Sal is again victorious and continues to build upon his new and improved ladder system. Sal was experiencing false success when the efforts by the previous leadership yielded success under his new leadership. Not to mention, he still had key "steps" participants from both ventures mostly carrying the ship, for which he took credit for all the good.
Tily was skeptical and provided a rule that, although he had some successes, he should work closely with the 4Me leader, making them both responsible for 3Me and 4Me; which was odd because they already were responsible. Saying they were both responsible for both areas without a way to enforce this meant both leaders retracted into their comfort zones and, as long as nothing huge happened, they remained separate.
Another year passed, and the ladder system is in full effect, with new steps in the ladder without clear definitions. For those that were defined, the steps seemed illogical and started to bring a sense of "Do you know what you're doing?" Some expectations were not clearly expressed or shared, yet the high expectations remained in his head and on the shelves of those trying to catch the carrot.
The blame of "should" echoed throughout, delivering a devastating blow to morale and energy balance. As a result, something needed to be blamed for the cause of anything "bad," and so-called performance issues and the participants' lack of knowledge were used as the catalyst for the numerous additional unexpected casualties of removal from ImHere. However, the participants who came from ExitFirst that bowed to Sal's will still remained at ImHere and were seen as key, which brought even more skepticism from ImHere veterans and eventually even alumni of ExitFirst.
The Unraveling
As we approach the end of this year, the swimmers and the debris in the pool of Sal's glory show failures that float as deadweight waiting for saving. Tiny positive splashes are crushed by the negative effects of the ladder system and the true promising options discarded from the previous system, revealing the true negative morale and business impact of The Ladder. This investment of Sal's ladder, which was supposed to yield a positive drive forward, has instead led to outcomes that veered in the wrong direction. But Sal is still trying to save face with positive affirmations to motivate the doubtful ladder participants who owned critical steps of both ExitFirst and ImHere. This is now the sixth change of reorganization of his new and improved ladder system, which he will never admit has faults.
The authoritative, oppressive ladder system stifled all participants of the 3Me area, and the effects of the ladder risk gaps started to impede the ecosystem of ImHere. As a result, Tily's venture began to lose shares among competitors on the same path as ImHere. 3Me wasn't as core to ImHere as it was to ExitFirst, but the failures were adding up and affecting other sides of Tily's ventures. Sal’s arrogance continued, allowing him to stick to his "feelings." Any participant bold enough to stand up was soon alienated and then exited.
Sal wanted that top spot on this ladder, which now looked like Tily's spot. Although he had a version of it as leader of the 3Me side, it wasn't enough. He knew people doubted him for many reasons: age, abrasiveness, presentation, etc. As he cracked, this stubbornness pulled clouds over his eyes, preventing him from seeing clues left behind by less vocal but existing participants of the entire system.
“I’m not going back there!!!” pops into Sal’s mind with panic, reminding him of that time he had new owners after the loss of his protector and nurturer. His fear heightens when he feels even more doubt about his system not working. The “Fight” is chosen for his narcissistic reasons, selfishly pursuing powerful accolades of the Aura of Sal.
The ladder step participants closer to him in authority, who were more welcomed to his ear, begin doubting him with piercing questions and challenges, choking his charisma and wit, stifling his normal smart-aleck responses. The panic is now setting in. He still believes he can do this all by himself. "I can fix it," "This is the best fucking system," "It works!!!," he cried "Fuck everyone; I'm right," a torrent of keywords and phrases of inflection of frustration takes over his panic. Nonetheless, he wears the masks of happy, influential, and confident, but he's bleeding profusely on the inside.
"I’m going to do it," whispered Fran, an orphan of good energy now in the depths of dark energies that engulf one's soul. Fran’s father was a warrior. He too had a defining moment where carefully thought-out tactical decisions led him to meet Fran’s mother, a fierce thinker, skilled in planning and strategy, navigating the execution of their vision and managing the ups and downs in their shared timeline of life.
Fran, an investor in Tily’s venture, ImHere, had been trying for months to persuade her to implement his new and improved authoritative ladder system in partnership with him at the top of the ladder, a move he believed, and now convinced Tily, would save ImHere.
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