#208: Thank You: To Keith Ferrazi and "HAPPY BIRTHDAY"
This year, my birthday fell on one of the days of Coburn Ventures’ Sundance gathering (virtually this year). Pip had suspiciously asked me to join on the morning call with the whole group of about 50 clients, and when I did everyone sang "happy birthday” - which for me, sitting on video while over 50 people sang to me, was an act of micro bravery within itself! But indeed it did make me feel very thought of and appreciated. I have always loved Pip’s tradition of singing to people on their birthdays and I love the story he writes here of the inspiration behind it.
- Lauren
THANK YOU: To Keith Ferrazi and “HAPPY BIRTHDAY”
I don’t know Keith Ferrazi.
Many of my “thank yous” go to people I have never met!
His book, “Never Eat Alone,” is the best “community creation – meets – business” books I know. I suspect we are both equally horrified by the manner in which Machiavellian “networking” is the cultural norm in business. Keith provides a spiritual road map for humanity in business. I read the book approximately 17 years ago.
OK… there are many things to thank you for…
#1 Family Business
I actually wrote a first draft “thank you” to him for his encouragement to include family richly as you build a business. That advice came just at the right moment when I was contemplating chucking the idea of integrating work and “life” and instead cordoning off the two as has been the growing cultural orientation of the past 100 years! How dreadful that would have been in my life…I narrowly escaped a toxic daily environment!
There is more to write about there.
For the moment, I can say that when someone in our group circa 2010 described to a newcomer that I was “building a family business,” it was one of my warmest memories of the past 15 years as it registered with how I thought of “extended family” and "the purpose of work.” While I included actual family whenever possible there were, to be clear, no other “Coburns” working in this “family” business. At least one person succinctly expressed what my heart felt.
Today’s Main Thank You:
#2 Happy Birthday
Keith suggested to call friends on the phone on their birthdays and sing “Happy Birthday” to them.
I immediately started doing this all the time.
But…
When I read that idea in his book I thought:
“Wow… sounds cool!!!... but also sounds super super super awkward and embarrassing and I suck at singing and…!”
It was all about me and my fears.
One working definition of “courage” is being willing to let go of a deeply embedded attachment. In this case, the attachment was “me not looking and feeling like an embarrassing clod”!!! That is a BIG thing for me to de-attach from!!
You may be thinking:
“Wait a second…Pip makes an embarrassing clod of himself all the time so it is hard to imagine he would shirk from merely singing ‘Happy Birthday’ out loud by himself over the phone to a friend…”.
But that is your “merely” in the prior sentence, not mine! Yes, I was determined to add to people’s day BUT, also, I so so so didn’t want to experience that crazy awkwardness.
And I think Keith suggested it WOULD feel super super awkward…at first…but do it anyway because they might likely feel so special that you did this for them and care enough to actually overcome obvious awkwardness…and the awkwardness might be mutual for them too!!! But the clarity of “I care about you” will be the lasting experience.
And it reeeeeeaaaaaallllly did feel awkward at first…
And sometimes it still does all these years later.
I have grown to consider singing happy birthday to a friend as an act of “micro-bravery” that is worth it...
…and I consider singing “Happy Birthday” a “gesture of love” toward people dear in my life so they might feel even a smidge more special...because to me they are extraordinarily special.
I can’t remember who I called first and sang happy birthday to, which is odd because I tend to have a superb memory of life events. I suspect I was just so afraid of feeling like a super dork and crazily self-conscious that I have blocked the trauma from my brain. I do recall singing it courageously slowly (not just flimsily rushing through) and recognizing the discomfort in me while aiming to imagine that my friend might feel warmed and cherished and all the more special. SO I persisted. I now even close my eyes to focus on my (terrible) singing. Each note.
I am lucky to have a lot of people in my life I consider dear friends and I haven’t yet sung "Happy Birthday" even once to each of them! I don’t track birthdays outside of a handful of folks so I don’t have pop ups/reminders or a system. Maybe I should. Who knows? More typically, I learn of someone’s birthday and I am dialing within minutes. I get so excited in my micro-bravery.
Thank you, Keith,
Pip