Philip nodded, “I recall that you’d encouraged him to do that, in fact, and said you were going to take a significant investor position in it even.”

He nodded and smiled, “And I’m glad I did because Gavin is attracting a lot of other investors, too, so it looks like he’s got something going there.”

Matt turned to look at me again, since my mouth was still hanging open slightly, and a confused look had settled over my face.

He added, “I know you’d never had to deal with Gavin much, Harley, but he was someone who’d helped to steer me out of trouble more than once. And when he left, I thought I didn’t need to fill that particular gap in my inner circle. I thought I had what I needed in the two other guys in my front office.”

I nodded, and supplied their names, “Danny and Ray.”

“Uh huh,” Matt answered, nodding his head. “Danny takes care of the more industrial, manufacture-focused side of things, while Ray covers the rest, including tech and entertainment industry investment areas.”

“So I keep a lean front office, but ever since Gavin left, I’ve been floundering, to be honest,” he continued and blew a breath out. “I think the guys do a great job, but I miss the strategic mind that kept everything together, something that Gavin provided. I thought that I could do that myself, but it turns out I need help.”

I began to understand what he was saying, and asked, “So that’s why you’ve been so distracted? I was wondering why you seemed to be more stressed over the last few weeks, like you were under the gun or something, and the latest financials that you gave me to look at did seem to be all over the place …”

He smiled and looked at Philip, “You see? She can read me already!”

“So I’m worried that either I’m spreading things too thin in too many areas, or else that may be exactly what I need to do in the various sectors and markets right now. If it’s the latter scenario it may be the case that I’m not seeing everything clearly because there are too many factors I’m chasing things down random rabbit holes, and I’m not able to pull back and see things in a bigger picture, the way I was able to with Gavin’s help, before.”