Life Lessons

I've been asked to fill out a questionnaire for an interview with Fundraising Success Magazine, in follow up to the Fundraising Star piece.  I'm quite flattered.

Some of the questions are purely factual and some are very fundraising focused. But a few others are a bit more expansive.

The hardest one for me to answer is the final one: "Greatest Lesson Ever Learned."

I've spent a fair amount of time pondering that in the last day or two. Frankly, I'm not sure I've learned much in my life.

So I'd like try a few life lessons out on you, dear reader, and ask you to let me know which one seems most profound. None are about fundraising, but could perhaps serve as analogies of some kind.

Let's take them in chronological order.

The first one that comes to mind is the time I was going door to door in my neighborhood selling candy for my synagogue. (Look at that, fundraising after all.) I was around 13. A small fleet of young hoodlums, in my memory there were about 63 of them but the real number might be closer to five, passed by me on their bikes. One of them, the leader of the group, called out to me to ask if I was Jewish. When I said yes, he started to sing Havah Nagilah and all his friends laughed derisively. Having heard all my life that if you stand up to a bully he will immediately back down, I called out to him, in an admittedly tremulous voice, "Why, you want to make something out of it?"  (I really did use that phrase.) And to my irritation, he immediately -- and I mean without even a shadow of hesitation or ambivalence -- jumped off his bike and ran straight at me.  Lesson learned: If you are a chubby kid with glasses and you stand up to a bully, he will probably jump off his bike and start punching you. Secondary lesson learned: A lot of what grown ups tell you is a load of crap.

The second one is less comical and more melodramatic. It concerns the famous Miracle on Ice of the 1980 Olympics. (Summary: a rag tag team of young American amateurs beat the Soviet Union and Finland to win the gold medal. You can read about it here, if you're interested.) Anyway, what I find so instructive about that victory is this: after the U.S. team had defied all expectations to beat five teams in a row, every sportscaster in the world (as I recall) was saying, more or less: well that was an amazing run, but there is zero, zero chance these U.S. amateurs can beat the Soviet team. It isn't a long shot, it's impossible.  Don't even hope they win, because that would be pointless. They can't win.  But I guess the U.S. team didn't accept that, because as you either know or have guessed, they did win (and then beat Finland and won the gold). Now, I wasn't much of a hockey fan then (and still am not), but I was an anguished romantic who always seemed to be making emotionally charged, idealistic arguments and having them disputed by the cynics all around me.  And when the U.S. team won that gold medal I said to myself: for the rest of my life I'll know that when someone says something is simply too far fetched and cannot happen, it isn't true. Lesson learned: Sometimes highly improbable things do come true, so never give up hope. Secondary lesson learned: A lot of what grown ups tell you is a load of crap.

The third one took place about 18 months later, when I spent a summer in an advanced placement program at Cornell University. It was July 4 and a bunch of us -- three or four nerdy, nervous guys and one pretty girl -- walked somewhere to see some fireworks. The girl's name was Sue, actually, and she was talking quite a bit about some guy (I don't remember his name, or the name of anyone else in the story, except for the pretty girl) who she like, totally couldn't stand. (People didn't really say "like, totally" back then, but you get the idea.) I knew who she meant -- he was an athletic, cocky, loud kind of guy. Let's call him Patrick. And then, in what seemed to be a cosmic coincidence, that very guy, let's-call-him-Patrick, suddenly appeared.  And while we all sort of trailed behind Sue, let's-call-him-Patrick walked right alongside her. And he was sort of teasing her and bumping into her a little. Can you imagine? I felt sorry for both of them -- her, because she had to put up with this guy she like totally couldn't stand, and him because any minute now she was going to humiliate him and tell him to get lost. When we got to the field to view the fireworks, let's-call-him-Patrick sat right next to her.  Couldn't he read her signals? She kept pushing him and yelling things like "shut up" and "you're such a jerk" -- I mean, she was laughing to be nice, but we knew she couldn't stand him.  So we all sat there, somewhat enjoying the spectacle of Patrick's imminent demise. And then, I probably don't need to tell you, the next thing we knew they were making out with each other. Making out! With each other!  I mean, she'd just been telling us that she especially disliked him. I'll tell you something: I was surprised. Lesson learned: In general (and in fundraising), it is better to be self-assured, goal oriented and unafraid than timid, nerdy and passive. Secondary lesson learned: People don't always know what they really want, and you could go crazy trying to figure it out.  Sometimes it's better just to offer them what you have and see if they get used to it.

Overall lesson: You should pursue your greatest dreams, hopes and desires, because anything is possible.  But you'd better be smart and aggressive, or you will probably just blow it.