Lesson 4: Improvise (Be Humble)

Humility comes in many forms and flavors. Sometimes, it comes in the form of a charismatic Fortune 500 businessman eating a hard-boiled egg with a spoon.

 

John Carrington* met me at a small Manhattan café to discuss business, or at least so I thought. After a storied career in finance, a 55-year marriage and a meteoric ascension from small beginnings in Astoria to international corporate fame, he was now the Chairman of numerous high-profile boards with generous budgets and global reach. He had what’s called “wasta” in Arabic: influence, clout, pull, power, swag with a capital “S.” He was the kind of guy who walked into a room and pulled the room’s energy his way. First, he was 6’4” with military posture and big mits. A handshake from John typically involved him leaning down, smiling, and offering the recipient a somewhat inflated version of 5 fingers and a soft palm (his mits, in part, made him a high school basketball standout). Second, his intense sky-blue eyes twinkled when he smiled (nothing to do with cataract surgery, mind you) and locked on their target like lasers. If you weren’t careful, and didn’t peer past his stylish spectacles (or better yet, catch him in profile view), you might miss the fact that John was actually studying whatever he was looking at; his gaze, unwavering and his silent analysis, comprehensive. Third, he smiled and/or chuckled almost continuously. Continuously!

 

‘But,’ I thought… ‘Rich people laugh all the time.’ My litmus test for why they are laughing is whether or not the smile includes or does not include the eyes (eyes included = safe; eyes not included = disconcerting). At times it seems condescending/bullying (“I could buy you, everything in this room, this building and even this block…! This amuses me…! Mmwahahahaha…!”), at others, nervous (“OMG, what if I’m not as perfect as my hair/nails/jewels/suits/shoes/cars/houses suggest – and worse, people find out?!?! Ha. Ha. Ha?”), and at others, social but false (“I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to laugh along with everyone now so I’m, um, laughing… chuckle, chuckle… And throwing my head back for effect… chuckle, chuckle…”). But John’s laugh started and ended with his eyes. It was as though joy – the unshakable kind, had taken up residence in his face and the laugh lines flanking his intense blue eyes were it’s badges of honor.

 

We sat down to talk about a business proposition. So naturally, after “hello, it’s great to see you John, oh, and thank you for coming on a Tuesday…” I hastily opened my laptop and offered to show him my presentation. He stopped me. No. He was sure it was excellent. But he’d rather we just get to know each other. I blinked rapidly (confused, mildly flustered), cleared my throat (composing myself), swallowed (submitting to the request), sat back in my chair and put my laptop away (proposition accepted). Ok. We’d “get to know each other.” Hm… This might be nice.

 

He opened with how he met his wife (in high school, on a subway car, and the rest was a beautiful 55-year history), he remembered the searing pain of having lost an adult child to a rare disease (tears still well up), he confided that when he met me, something about me made him think we shared the same faith (we did), and he described the various charitable boards he chairs. And so it went. We talked not about what we would do but who we were and how we’d become that way – our life journeys. I used my ears and eyes in the proportion they were given me (listened > spoke) and all the while, I knew I wanted to be around this giving spirit, this battle-tested (and scarred) vessel of gratitude for as long as I could – that day and long into the future.

 

 

 

Then our food came. He ordered a hard-boiled egg and oatmeal, I opted for Nutella hot chocolate and a sandwich. He was in the middle of telling me his keys to success…

 

 

 

1. Respect everyone (title or no title)
2. Integrity at all costs
3. People respond to your energy, not your accolades
4. Take risks

 

…when suddenly, he realized he had no knife. The server had given him a spoon (for the oatmeal) but no knife (for the egg). I frequented this little café almost daily for the better part of a year so I was used to hiccups (no fork, no napkin, no sugar, no pepper) so I said I knew where to grab a knife. I started to get up. He immediately chuckled and gestured for me to sit down, “oh, no, no, no,” he said, grabbing the spoon, “I’ll improvise,” and he hurriedly went back to his sermon…

 

5. Answer directly to the boss
6. Help as many people as you can
7. Build a home to “come home” to

 

And so it went. He preached about life and success, his journey and lessons learned while cracking the egg-shell with the back of his spoon, “cutting” it up with the front and eating his oatmeal with the same spoon. All in one fell swoop. I smiled. Improvise.

 

 

In that moment, he taught me much more than how to creatively eat an egg when the implements you are used to are not available. His reaction in that moment spoke volumes about who he was and how he’d taken flight in his career, his family and his faith. The snap decision to use a spoon required much more than creativity, it required that he…

 

 

 

Be humble

Here he was, a hugely successful business man and philanthropist, sitting at a hole in the wall café with no knife. He could have raised a racket, exposing the failings of the café or individual server. He could have called the server back to right this wrong. He could have simply seemed irritated: given his size and general wasta, an irritated demeanor would have drawn attention (and a knife-wielding server) to our table. But he didn’t do any of this. With a warm smile, he quietly and calmly used what he had been given in the context of that disorganized little café, feeling neither above nor below the task of cracking, cutting and eating a hard-boiled egg with a spoon. I’ve seen situations like this go the other way. Where “very important people” make it known to everyone around them that they are not pleased… That they “deserve” the knife. At times, self-aggrandizing behaviors have their place but from John’s behavior, I learned lesson number 8: be neither above nor below any task; walk lightly on the earth you’ve been blessed to tread.

 

 

Be committed to the present and know what’s important (and what’s not!) therein

Being humble and “rolling with the punches,” as they say, facilitates total commitment to the present. In that moment, John was engaged in a stimulating conversation and had important teaching points to convey. That was the focus of the moment, not a small logistical error. John was absolutely unwilling to interrupt the flow of our conversation to (1) demonstrate he’d been wronged, (2) elevate a small and unimportant detail of the present moment to a position of importance and (3) break the flow of the conversation. There was lesson 9: commit to the present moment, identify what matters in that moment and don’t sweat the small stuff.

 

 

Focus, clarity and purpose must be part of who you are, why you are and what you do

That morning, it became clear that over the years, John’s ability to focus on a goal with dogged tenacity, grit and determination has served him well. But he selected each goal with purpose and clarity. Arguably, the egg-spoon-scenario also demonstrated purpose (why are we here? To eat an egg perfectly or to talk?) and clarity (in this disorganized café, are the chances of obtaining a knife low, medium or high and will the time invested in obtaining one be worth it?).

 

 

Improvising in the world of sports and specifically with the art of flight, is required almost daily. A high-profile meet is unexpectedly canceled but you know of a small community meet being held the same day; the long jump pit you planned to practice in has no rake but you find a garden shovel next to the field house; the weight room at the hotel doesn’t actually contain weights but you notice a set of stairs at the back of the hotel… Improvisation or adaptability is a close cousin of creativity but requires humility, commitment to the present moment, an understanding of what matters in that moment, focus, clarity and purpose.

 

Me improvising at a tiny (!!!) community meet where I ended up reaching a personal best:

 

Thank you, John! You taught me more in one morning than I could have imagined.

*Name altered just in case he doesn’t want me telling his story and singing his praises to the virtual high Heavens