Last week I got an e-mail from a comedian friend of mine, “Please join me for a special celebration dinner.” It was Thursday and the dinner was Saturday.
My first thought was, “how nice.” Then I had that sneaky mean thought since the dinner was less than two days away. Guess someone must have dropped out last minute and she had a seat to fill. Fortunately my next thought was, who cares? I’d love to celebrate with her, of course I’ll go! I clicked through - then Punchbowl started asking for other information it usually doesn’t. Last year I was a scam victim to the tune of $4000.00, so I shut this all down and texted her to see if it was legit. “HACKED!” she wrote back.
On Monday I got another unexpected invitation. A composer guy who we’ve socialized with over the years because our sons are friends. Please come to a dinner on April 4th to celebrate! Maybe he and his steady girlfriend have news to share, I thought. Not to be overlooked, the mean Greek chorus chimed in, “I guess they’re casting a wide net for this celebration since he’s including me.” In the last ten years we’ve seen each other mostly at graduations. But sure I’ll come! I’ll celebrate anything positive these days, a free day old muffin is cause celebre. I click through and again I’m asked for unnecessary information. Not this time scammers! I e-mail my friend, let him know I’m happy to celebrate his news.
“HACKED!” He writes back. “Sorry!”
I outsmarted a scam. Personal growth! But I did have to take note of my reflexively self-deprecating take on being invited anywhere - even a fake party. I’m in my sixth decade so why is the outsider groove chiseled in elementary school so impossible to outgrow? And why does something as insignificant as an e-mail hack trigger an instantaneous jumpcut to a relentless underlying sense of not belonging? And does ruminating and writing about this classify as tedious navel gazing? Shouldn’t I just put Idina Menzel’s Let It Go on a loop and be quiet? To this I say, yes..and. Yes, it would be great if I could short circuit these thoughts - or not have them at all. In the likelihood that this might not happen in my lifetime, I’m grateful that I do the next best thing. I take my own nonsense, said lovingly, and use it to help others.
When you’re starting out as a writer people tell you to write what you know. If I were to put this in entrepreneur speak, I would say, create a business inspired by personal experience. A problem you know in your bones that you feel passionately that you have found a way to solve.
Feeling like an outsider has followed me possibly from birth. I lived in an incubator most of my first year - actually called an Isolette. From the word isolate - as in separate from as in no sense of belonging. I feel this in my bones to this day which makes me the perfect person to launch a company whose mission is tackling that feeling, familiar to all of us to one degree or another at some point.
Then there is my self-deprecating instinct laid bare by these false invitations. Love when I get clear examples of where my mind goes. It’s only through this kind of self-awareness that we can hope to change the instincts that kill our spirit. It’s also, coincidentally or not, the best way to start to have a sense of humor about ourselves. One of my favorite comedy teachers gave an example about his kids making fun of his bald spot at the dinner table. He did not find this funny. Not because he didn’t have a sense of humor, but because he didn’t know he had a bald spot. When they teased him, he was baffled. Once he became aware of it, accepted it and convinced himself it wasn’t the end of the world, he was able to laugh about it too.
I never would have thought that an e-mail scam could pack such an important educational punch. Pun intended! First, it exposed my reflexive negative reaction to anyone inviting me anywhere - my perpetual outsider status. Secondly, and more important, how much sense it makes that almost my entire professional career has been devoted to helping people not feel this way. Developing my instinct to make people laugh before I even knew that this is one of the quickest ways to create connection and a sense of belonging.
Dare I say thank you Punchbowl predators? One scam, two lessons! Curious if anything comes to mind for you? Something personal that drives your professional life.
