Finding joy, in the unlikeliest of places

On whistling. Yes, whistling.

(Chris Ullman, whistler)

I probably have 5 coffees or lunches with different people every single week.

I’m still searching for what my right next step is in my career (and my life) — and I find that talking to people who have a wide variety of expertises (journalists, communications professionals, corporate PR types) really helps me think about where I want to head. And why.

Which brings me to last Friday. I was at Northside Social, one of my regular spots to write, meet and think — waiting for a guy named Chris Ullman.

Ullman is a friend of a friend. I knew him through his work as a communications honcho at the private equity giant The Carlyle Group. (He left that gig in late 2018.) A friend suggested I meet with him just to chat about the world of DC politics and PR.

Before he arrived, I did a quick bit of Googling on him. (I am a reporter after all!) And the first thing that came up was this — which has nothing to do with Ullman’s day job.

Yes, that’s Ullman delivering a TED Talk on, of all things, whistling. He is not just an amateur whistler. He is a four-time international champion whistler. (Yes, there is such a thing as the international whistling competition.)

What does an international whistler winner sound like? Well, this isn’t me or you whistling our favorite tune. Ullman can — and does — whistle sonatas, arias and even a souped-up version of “Happy Birthday.”

In a 2017 profile of Ullman, the Washington Post described him this way:

In a city that can sometimes be nasty and petty, stiff and cautious, Ullman's ritual is one of those small, below-the- radar signs of humanity. He thinks of it as “a ministry” of sorts, he says, one man's gift, for which he receives no compensation other than a smile or a thank you.

Ullman — a veteran political hand who's been a top staffer at the Office of Management and Budget and the chief press spokesman for the SEC and now runs global communications for Carlyle — will whistle “Happy Birthday” more than 400 times this year. He's up to 5,000 renditions since he started back in the mid-1990s. The ever-affable 53-year-old husband and father of three has done the math and figures that he'll hit an additional 12,000 if he lives to 80.

(Ullman told me he now whistles “Happy Birthday” more than 600 times a year these days.)

When Ullman arrived — he’s a middle-aged white guy with curly, white hair and could be mistaken for, well, lots of successful businesspeople who frequent northern Virginia coffee houses — I, of course, immediately began asking him about whistling. (Look, I like talking journalism and politics but how often do you sit across from a world-renowned whistler??)

And I learned that Ullman had whistled for President George W. Bush. And whistled to get his job with SEC chair Arthur Levitt. And whistled during a Congressional Republican strategy session about a looming government shutdown in the 1990s.

Which was all cool! But here’s what really came through in my conversation with Ullman. This guy whistled because he loved it. It brought him joy. And he knew it was a small way to bring other people joy too.

Turns out Ullman wrote a book on that very subject. It’s called “Find Your Whistle: Simple Gifts Touch Hearts and Change Lives.”

There’s a passage in the introduction to the book — I read this after meeting with Ullman — that really spoke to me. Here it is:

What do all my whistling stories, experiences and people I’ve met add up to? Are they pieces to a giant coherent puzzle? Or are they random events that have nothing to do with each other?

Then, one day on a bike ride (my main form of exercise and mental therapy), the answer came to me. The fact that I haven’t done anything heroic is the point. That I’ve taken a simple, common ability — whistling — and used it to touch people’s hearts and lives in simple and unexpected ways (and, in doing so, have had an awesome, kick-butt, thoroughly entertaining and enlightening time) is the point….

…As I surveyed my nearly fifty years of whistling, I concluded that my simple gift is a key that gives me access to people’s heart. Like a skeleton key that can open any lock, my whistle can penetrate most any heart — because no no matter who someone is or their station in life, we are all part of a giant family and our common bond is our humanity.

I FREAKING LOVE THAT. And I think there is something so true and pure in how Ullman talks about whistling — and why he does it.

Over the course of the past 16 months, I have had conversations with, probably, 300 people. I come to them to talk about my career and my life but, of course, we talk about their careers and their lives too.

And in 90% of those conversations — and this is with people I know well and those I don’t — they don’t talk about wanting more money or a better title or any of that. Know what they long for? Happiness. Joy. Satisfaction. A sense that what they are doing matters to people in the world.

It’s what we ALL want. And what so few of us have.

The stats are alarming.

Rates of depression are at an all-time high, according to Gallup.

Suicide rates are at an all-time high, according to the CDC.

Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has warned that we are in the midst of a “loneliness epidemic.”

It’s pretty bleak out there. And, many of the institutions that people once looked to for hope and a sense of stability have taken pretty major body blows in the last few decades: Organized religion, politicians, the Supreme Court, schools, doctors — and on and on it goes.

Which has us feeling lost. Adrift. And unconnected.

Which brings me back to Ullman. Rather than looking for some HUGE and HEROIC thing he could do to make himself (and others) happy, he went small. Whistling. A thing most people do without thinking about. A pastime, at most.

But what Ullman realized is that joy is joy. Not all of us — in fact almost NONE of us — has the chance to know what it feels like to win the Super Bowl. But, ALL of us have something we CAN do that brings joy — to ourselves and others.

For me, it’s writing. And talking about politics. It’s my way of sharing the joy I feel when I sit down at a keyboard or stand in front of an audience.

Spreading even a little joy — to maybe one person who reads this! — is worth it. If I can do that every single day, then I’ve really done something important with my life.

That’s why I love Ullman’s willingness to whistle “Happy Birthday” over and over again. Everyone deserves to feel special — and joyful — on their birthday. Ullman delivers that. And that’s a very special gift.

So, what’s your whistle? Have you found it yet? If not, why not try? The world needs more joy — today and every day.