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There are a lot of interesting things that happened in my career, and actually one of
them started with a poem, and a rather poor poem that I wrote. What came about is I was
trying to get a listing on a large piece of land in East Hampton, actually 84 acres. It
was owned by somebody that owned a lot of property, he was a developer, and this was
his last piece. For years he wouldn't do it, and I found out he was a poet. So one day
I come into the office and I sit down and I spend the day writing a poem to him. People
come...what are you doing, what are you doing Michael. I said I'm writing a poem, and they'll
look at me like I'm weird. But I put the poem in and I put a little bit of an offer and
a pitch to get the listing, and I send it off to him. About four days later I get a
letter back from him, I open it up, it's a poem, and in verse he criticizes for me for
my lousy poetry. But then he says let's come into the city and talk about it. I go into
the city, I get off the bus after spending two and a half hours getting there, and meet
him. The first thing he says in the first 30 seconds I talked to my wife I don't want
to sell. It's like come on I'll buy you lunch, I'll tell you about my island...my private
island in the Caribbean; so I figure it's okay. So I did and I maintained contact; two
or three years later I end up...he decides to sell. I got the listing, I sell it, it
went through, I made a lot of money on it, and it was great. It was a fun story, and
it showed me that real estate it's a very creative thing and I enjoy it.