Good morning, friends!

I’ve been working on a Profile Dossier on author Nicholas Sparks. As the author of The Notebook, A Walk to Remember, Dear John, and A Message in a Bottle, he’s become a master of tragic love stories.

During my research, I watched an interview in which he said something insightful that I wanted to highlight here. Sparks explains how he wrote The Notebook in “his spare time.”

So even though Sparks had a full-time job and a newborn baby at home, he used “the spare time” in the evenings to chip away at the book.

To most people, this sounds impossible.

But truthfully speaking, ask yourself this question: Has there ever been a “perfect” time in your life to do … anything? When do you remember the last time you had ‘optimal conditions?’ Likely, if you’re a human on Earth, there’s always something going on — stressful jobs, stressful newborns, stressful moments.

I wrote Hidden Genius during one of the most personally challenging periods of my life. When I look back now, I think, “How on earth did it come together when there was so much happening on the outside?” And the truth is: It was evening by evening, day by day, month by month. As I always say, it was written in “the edges of time.”

You don’t need perfect conditions to begin. I’ll leave you with this from Stephen King: 

“There is a muse, but he’s not going to come fluttering down into your writing room and scatter creative fairy dust all over your typewriter or computer screen. He lives in the ground. He’s a basement guy. You have to descend to his level, and once you get down there you have to furnish an apartment for him to live in. 

“You have to do all the grunt labor, in other words, while the muse sits and smokes cigars and admires his bowling trophies and pretends to ignore you. Do you think this is fair? I think it’s fair.

“He may not be much to look at, that muse-guy, and he may not be much of a conversationalist (what I get out of mine is mostly surly grunts, unless he’s on duty), but he’s got the inspiration.

“It’s right that you should do all the work and burn all the midnight oil, because the guy with the cigar and the little wings has got a bag of magic. There’s stuff in there that can change your life. Believe me, I know.”

PROFILES.

— The 9/11 ‘good guy’ who gave the PGA to the Saudis [**HIGHLY RECOMMEND**]
— Crypto’s most powerful woman
— The luxury men’s clothing made from oven mitts
— The granddaughter of the U.S. president
— The TV star on a journey to reinvention
— The toy company coming back to life

PEOPLE TO KNOW.

The 9/11 ‘good guy’ who gave the PGA to the Saudis: Jimmy Dunne was the co-founder of the financial firm Sandler O’Neill & Partners. On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, Dunne was golfing when he was notified that a plane had crashed into the building of his office. Of the 83 Sandler O’Neill employees working in the South Tower’s 104th floor that morning, 66 were killed. After the tragedy, Dunne went to work rebuilding Sandler O’Neill. Dunne made sure the firm paid the families their loved ones’ salaries, in addition to generous bonuses and extended health-insurance benefits for years. He also established a foundation to pay college tuition for any child who lost a parent. Which is why, two decades later, some 9/11 families were baffled to learn in early June that Dunne had brokered a deal between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf, an upstart tournament funded almost entirely by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. (New York Magazine)

“I am quite certain, and I have had conversations with a lot of very knowledgeable people, that the people I’m dealing with had nothing to do with it.”

Crypto’s most powerful woman: One senior Binance executive has managed to stay out of the global spotlight over the past six years and counting — even now as governments everywhere intensify their crypto clampdown: Yi He. As a co-founder of the besieged digital-currency empire, she’s one of the most powerful players in the $1.2 trillion industry. She also has much to lose as the regulatory onslaught deepens and causes an existential crisis for crypto’s largest exchange. (Bloomberg)

“I understand that the overall intention of regulation is good in order to protect investors.”

The luxury men’s clothing made from oven mitts: Bode was founded on the Lower East Side in 2016 by Emily Adams Bode Aujla, who took a vintage sensibility and upcycled it into a luxury menswear brand that women also love to wear. The Bode aesthetic has been described as artisanal, grandpa chic, and farm to table. Here’s how the clothes, inspired by and often made from heritage textiles like quilts, curtains, oven mitts, tea towels, tablecloths, and bedsheets, became an immediate cultish sensation. (New York Magazine)

“You have guys coming in here that I’m sure would never think they’d wear a shirt with little baby chicks on it.”

The granddaughter of the U.S. president: There is a 4-year-old girl in rural Arkansas who is aware that her father is Hunter Biden and that her paternal grandfather is the president of the United States. She speaks about both of them often, but she has not met them. At its core, this story is about money, corrosive politics, and what it means to have the Biden birthright. (The New York Times; reply to this email if you can’t access the article)

“My granddaughter is happy, healthy, and very loved.”

The TV star on a journey to reinvention: After the success of 'Desperate Housewives,' Eva Longoria made a concerted effort to pursue directing, despite initial resistance: "It was like, 'Here comes a dumb actor.'" Ten years later, she released her feature film debut, 'Flamin' Hot,' marrying her ambitions with her advocacy for Latinos, both onscreen and off. (The Hollywood Review)

“The industry’s definitely wary of an actor coming in [to direct].”

COMPANIES TO WATCH.

The toy company coming back to life: When the Israeli-born businessman Ynon Kreiz became the head of Mattel, in 2018, he was its fourth CEO in four years. Toys R Us had recently gone bankrupt, causing a slump in sales. But he saw an opportunity for growth. Mattel, he argued, had a children’s-entertainment catalogue “second only to Disney. Kreiz told me, “My thesis was that we needed to transition from being a toy-manufacturing company, making items, to an I.P. company, managing franchises.” Take a look inside this genius turnaround story. (The New Yorker)

“In the world we’re living in, I.P. is king.”

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