Prepare for Flair

There's this trick I use to help me prepare for flair.  I assume I'm going to be amazed by anyone or anything.  It could happen at any time: when I'm frying an egg, putting on socks, or standing in line somewhere.  If anything, I'm learning the obvious truth that things aren't what they seem.

I keep needing to learn this. 

The semester ended today.  I gathered final papers, shook hands, agreed to write recommendations, and voiced all the usual blessings a college professor might give.  Mostly, though, I recalled how much this particular group of students surprised me.

Living with flair means I throw out the stereotypes.  I abandon presuppositions.  I used to scan a room of people and determine, in advance, what sort of students they'd be:  the fraternity boys would be late every morning; the tattooed and pierced would be angry and defiant; the military students would be prompt and tidy; the athletes would be ambitious but average as writers; the quiet girls in the back wouldn't engage with me all semester.

I know stereotypes exist for a reason.  They might be generally true.  But this semester, I discovered every single exception to the rules of how types of people behave.  Nobody acted like they were supposed to.  The soldiers came late, and the fraternity boys wrote the most compelling papers, on time, and with flair.  The tattooed and pierced were the most loving and compliant of all.  The athletes were the best writers.  The shy girls provided ongoing humorous commentary.

I've learned to assume nothing.  This prepares me to receive the extraordinary moment when it comes.  When I tell that thing or that person what it represents--without giving it a chance to amaze--I'm sabotaging all the flair. 

I've been hanging out with strangers all day (hence the late blog post).  I'm in a wedding party with lots of folks I've never met.  When I met each new person, I prepared for flair by imagining how great this person must be, anticipating all the wisdom and inspiration they possess, and doing all I could to draw it out.   That's the secret to friendship, teaching, marriage, parenting, and even my relationship to myself.   No need for stereotypes.  No need for judgments.

I just want to prepare for flair.

Ask This Question

Sometimes the flair you experience isn't your own.  Sometimes, the flair for the day is the flair you helped make happen for somebody else.

In the words of my wise hairdresser:  Sometimes you are in the spotlight, and sometimes you are the spotlight.  It's better to be a spotlight.  When I'm a spotlight, I'm shining light on another person, making a flair moment happen for them.

This is harder than it sounds.  First of all, I tend towards narcissism.  I tend to be overly self-involved, self-concerned, self-reflective.  When this happens, when I'm the center of my own universe, I can always tell.  I turn into a completely different person.  Every conversation is about me.  I interrupt to tell you about my experience, and I reflect on your words only insofar as they relate to something I'm thinking about.  I hate this person.

Today, during my haircut, I talked about how to make flair happen for others.  I wondered what it would look like to take my eyes off of myself and my day in order to deliberately create an extraordinary moment for someone else.   I knew the truth of this practice:  we are often most fulfilled when we are serving others.  It's wired into our DNA to find ourselves when we give ourselves away.

But how?

In any given day, I can be a spotlight by asking this question:

Is there anything I can do to help make this day extraordinary for you?   It's a long question, I realize.

So the flair for the day is this question I resolved to ask.  I started with my cat.  I leaned down and asked her, "Is there anything I can do to help make this day extraordinary for you?"

She brought me the yellow rope (see "A Rope and a Smile).  Easy.  I ran around the living room with this rope for a few minutes.  That wasn't so bad.   It even felt good. 

Later, after preschool, I asked my daughter:  "Is there anything I can do to help make this day extraordinary for you?"  I thought she'd mention Disney World.  I thought she'd bring out the list of wishes from every toy store she's ever visited.  I knew, I just knew that Polly Pocket would be involved.  I scrunched up my face and closed my eyes, ready for the worst.

"Yes!" she shrieked.

She leaned forward to shout in my ear as I drove.  "I want more of those envelopes.  The licking kind." 

"Why the licking kind?" 

"Well, we can send a letter, I can lick the envelope and send it, and they'll know I licked it."

Amazing, this concept.   

I looked at her eager eyes and clasped hands.  She was bouncing in her car seat.  "I can do that," I said.  Easy.  I just made another creature happy.  It cost me nearly nothing.  

What marriages would thrive, what friendships preserved, what wars averted if more people set out to make somebody else have an extraordinary day?

Living with flair means being a spotlight and making a great show for somebody else.

How to Survive Rejection

There's a way to handle rejection with flair.  I always come back to the same three truths to survive it.

When it comes--that awful companion, Rejection--and says no, I realize what the no signals.

It signals that I put myself out there.  It means I risked something.  It means I offered myself.  These are good things.   These are really good things.

But it doesn't make us feel any better in the face of a friend who spurns us, a company that jettisons our resume, a publisher who turns down our novel, or a family member who forsakes us.   It doesn't soothe the hurt that comes from hoping for something that doesn't come about because somebody--or just circumstance--delivers that awful no.

But three things do soothe.  Or at least they helped me this morning when I read another email rejection about a book proposal.  I want to live with flair, after all.  What does it look like to endure rejection with flair?

1.  We do what we do because it's our calling--our unique way to offer a gift to the world.  We do this whether or not it ever receives approval or recognition.  We keep doing it because we serve others, because we want to make a contribution for love, not for money or prestige or even anybody loving it back.  Phew!  Aren't you so glad your doing is not dependent on our loving it?  I had a student who didn't get a call-back for an audition for a major network singing competition.  But this guy was born to sing.  Did a rejection stop him?  That week, we asked him to sing for us in class.  He stood up, sang the most amazing renditions of various songs, and we cheered and hollered like crazy.  He's not going to Vegas, but he delighted us.  For that day, at that time, it was enough.  Somebody, somewhere, wants to receive the gift we offer.

2.  Every "no" is an opportunity for a "yes" somewhere else.  I think this applies to break-ups, schools that reject us, and jobs that fire us.  My dream school turned me down for graduate school.  I wept and wouldn't leave my dorm room.  I went to Michigan instead, certain I was doomed never to meet my Southern Gentleman.  My Southern Gentleman also got into Michigan.  You know the rest.

3. If I believe in a divine plan (which I do), I know that God does not withhold good things from his children.  If I don't get the thing I want, it means it wasn't good for me (at least at this time).  If it's good, and part of God's plan for me, then I can chill out and enjoy the wait. 

Rejection is good for me because it brings me back to reality.  It reminds me that I do things (write, teach, plan new projects) because I love to do these things.  That's the reward--not any prestige or wealth or even anybody loving it back.  And there's a divine mystery to the order of a life.  The no is also a yes somewhere.  I can rest in the timing and the plan of the yes. 

Rejection is a beautiful and terrible thing. It's awful in the truest sense of the word.  Awful:  to inspire awe and deep reverence.  I respect rejection.  I'm thankful for what it reminds me of and how it helps me live with flair.

Living with flair means to respect the rejection.  It reminds me why I do what I do.