When I was a sophomore in college,
I had the opportunity to interview iconic feminist writer Anais Nin. She was warm and gracious and afterwards
invited me to a party she was hosting at her home in Greenwich Village. I was ecstatic as I imagined myself being
swept-up in a bohemian circle of literary sophisticates – okay, so even now, I
still get caught-up in the memory! When I got home, my mother glared and said, “You’re not going. You don’t know what sorts of people will be
at that thing.” I was crushed. All these years later, I still wonder – what
sorts of people were at that party and what would they have done with me?!
Poet and business writer David
Whyte maintains that, “how we respond to
an invitation can mark or maim us for the rest of our days.” He believes that as we go about our day,
invitations are continually hurled our way.
The question is – do we recognize when we’re being invited and do we
respond with any sort of regularity to these invitations?
Here’s the thing – invitations can
come in all sorts of guises. For
instance, a recent article in the NYTimes profiled Academy Award-nominated
Michael Fassbender. When he was
nineteen, he auditioned for the Drama Centre in London. Having already been rejected by two schools,
he was nervous as he waited to do his Iago monologue. Right before the audition, he went to the
men’s room and while standing at the urinal, he noticed “Hi, Cookie!” scrawled on the wall.
As it turned out, he recently played the Cook in a production of “Mother
Courage” and he used a Scottish accent.
Hmm. . .Cook / Cookie. Opting to
take it as a “sign” he did the Iago monologue in a Scottish accent, even though
he hadn’t prepared it that way. He wowed
them and the rest is history.
In its roots, “invite” means to
attract, entice, challenge or encourage.
It would seem that even graffiti in a bathroom can be an invitation!
This past Quarter I had thirty
students in my UCLA Extension class on business communication. I offered everyone in the class the
opportunity to have a half-hour coaching session with me. Only six responded. That’s why I regularly make this invitation –
it makes me look good and I know that the overwhelming majority of students
will not take me up on the invitation. However, the few who do, engage me in conversations
that are enlightening, stimulating and poignant.
Or consider this – what’s the best
compliment you’ve ever received? Every
compliment is an invitation to become more of the good thing that people are
noticing about you. Business guru Peter Bregman had a client who once told him,
“There is grace in being molded by your
own gifts.” I love that image and maybe
that’s the greatest invite of all – the invitation to become more fully you!
Invitations can be a pain in the
butt precisely because they challenge us to get off our butt and go outside our
comfort zone. The unknown is scary and
so it’s easy to rationalize why we can’t accept an invitation. But what would your life be like if you never
received an invitation? Now that would
be scary!
So, the next time you receive an
invitation, don’t rush to say “NO!” A
generous “YES!” may hold all sorts of good surprises.
PS: after I wrote the first draft
of this column, I picked up a magazine that had arrived in that day’s
mail. I read that Shonda Rhimes (of ABC
Thursday night fame) has her first book coming out in November. “Year Of Yes”
is the story of what happened when she decided to say “Yes” to every invitation
for one year. Hmm. . .!
