You don’t tell a prospect, “I’m begging you to shut up.” Not if you’re serious about your career. But OMG, I was ready to pull out every hair in my head.

Let me set the stage. In my previous life as a stockbroker, my team hosted a fly-fishing event every June. We invited a few clients, never more than ten, to join us in a small cattle town named Big Timber. We called the three-day weekend, “Montanarama.”

Montanarama

Cutthroat Trout.

During the days we fished for brown or rainbow trout. Sometimes we hooked cutthroats, which are named for the red markings on their gills. During the evenings we watched the rodeo, barbecued steaks and sauntered around Big Timber pretending to be cowboys.

The time away from the office was nirvana.

One year a client named Sam (alias) asked, “May I bring a friend?” Sam was a high-profile media personality and an absolute prince of a person.

“Of course,” we said. Nobody on my team asked, “Who?”

Sam brought Rich (alias), who was married to Jane (real). And in a word, we were floored. Rich was a business giant, a household legend whose business escapades are still chronicled in MBA programs across the country. My team would enjoy bragging rights forever, if we landed him as a client.

Rich was tallish, athletic, in his mid sixties. He had a rangy look about him, perhaps because he arrived in an Orvis fishing vest with a thousand pockets, the kind of gear that says, “I’m trying too hard.” When he smiled, you couldn’t help but stare at the gap between his two front teeth. And when he spoke, his southern accent was jarring.

Now, this is important.

I grew up in South Carolina and am genuinely fond of southern accents. They feel familiar, friendly. I like the way nobody bothers to pronounce the R’s that follow vowels. But to my ear, Rich’s voice sounded like that screech from the Emergency Broadcast System.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRxrCBvt7TM&w=210&h=158]

And talk? He never stopped. He had opinions about everything.

The Lake

There were five boats on the lake that day. Sam, Rich, and their fishing guide were in one. My team, the guides, and the other clients were in the remaining four.

We should have been losing ourselves in Montana’s big skies, the blues and billowing clouds that go on forever.

We should have been savoring the prairie scrub, the kind of raw landscape that’s so arid and harsh it’s breathtaking. Here we were … at the end of June … and there were snow-capped mountains in the distance, eagles patrolling the skies and hunting for prairie dogs.

Back casting.

We should have been “back-casting” in bliss. Bending our elbows back slowly, slowly, until our carbon rods stood straight up. Waiting for the lines “to load,” to extend their full length behind us. And punching forward with gentle hammer motions, so our lures would glide lazily through the air and float gently onto the water’s surface, deceiving, enticing, and dancing for the trout below.

But we were freakin’ miserable.

Rich wouldn’t shut up. His yak-yak-yakking drilled our ears. All we could hear was him booming about this or that, talking politics, or wondering where his stock was trading.

Fishing guide: “Mr. Rich, do you collect western art.”

Rich: “No, son, I collect the West.”

The fish stayed away. I felt like joining the brown trout in the reeds at the bottom of the lake. Even there, I doubted anybody or anything would be safe from Rich’s incessant ranting.

The lake in Montana.

Perhaps my alpha waves silenced him, because Rich finally shut the f–k up. Thirty seconds. Five minutes. Ten. I have no idea how long the magical spell lasted. But I know there has never been a more delicious lapse of time.

The sun burned bright. The fresh scent of Montana sweet grass filled our lungs. It was serene, otherworldly, measured only by the chop of oars hitting the water.

At long last, we could fish. We sailed nymphs and wooly buggers through the air, back-casting to spots where we hoped browns and rainbows would poke through the surface and gulp our lures.

Then, Rich’s twanging siren blasted the silence again. He bellowed at the top of his lungs. “Damn it, Sam. You got my ear.”

I looked at our guide, one hand over his mouth, the twinkle in his eye that said everything. The client in our boat was sniggering, trying hard not to laugh.

Same story in the other boats. We were all watching, smothering snickers because, when you think about it, a hook through the ear is no laughing matter. But our raucous guffaws exploded.

Sam eyed us curiously. So did Rich. After a moment, they laughed too, everybody filling the big skies of Montana with giant, belly laughs. And I think it was Rich, who howled loudest of all.

Next Year. Same Place.

The following year, I was telling this story at Montanarama. One of the guides—we hired the same ones every year—asked, “Do, you remember Rich’s vest, the one with all the pockets?”

“Yeah?”

“You’ll never guess what he kept in them.”

That’s Part Two: WILL YOU SHUT UP?

(Coming soon.)