iran, turkey and america s future. how did you get that invitation and what was that dinner like? i ve written a lot about iran. there are some people in the iranian government that would like to reach out to people in the united states that are interested in iran. it is a little bit odd to be seeing our favorite villain suddenly appear at dinner at a new york hotel. he doesn t breathe fire in real life. in some ways, he seems disconnected from our political process. this is one of the most dysfunctional relationships in the world. iran and the u.s. have so much to gain from working together. we have so much in common in terms of our long-term security interests. but we re so caught up in emotion that we can t see our mutual interests. did you find him to be charismatic? i know you write that he was a gracious host, he seemed to be comfortable in the role. i would say gracious host, but not really charismatic. he s not an outspoken person.
pitching. you need to be able to read people. you re not just saying, hey, give me a couple bucks. you have to say, hey, i m going to show you something really cool, and at the end, you re going to feel like you want to give me a couple bucks, and that s okay because it s worth a couple bucks. if you expect a carnival trained pitchman like seth to take an aggressive sales approach, then you ll be surprised by his strategy. i was taught how to pitch by classic carnival pitchmen, and the way that we pitch and the way that i was taught to pitch is a soft sell. you can just be the quintessential, stereotypical car salesman that s trying to push someone into a sale. people need to be comfortable with what you re selling. they need to be comfortable with you first as a person. for seth, the soft sell starts with a tough guy costume and a large dose of self-deprecating humor. if you want to see a fat guy eat fire, breathe fire, and then