Have you ever reached a life milestone so significant that it would compel you to commit a grand act of generosity?
Many of us go through seasons of life where the biggest accomplishments are met with fanfare. It is a wedding, a 50th birthday or graduating from law school.
But would such an occasion ever motivate you to celebrate with complete strangers?
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The past weekend, when many people celebrated Father’s Day, we at CFO.com had the opportunity to publish a father-and-son interview with CFO Steve Tannenbaum and his son, Michael. One other article that stood out to me was penned by writer Jason Diamond in Esquire:
“For years, I had a vision of how I’d celebrate a major milestone in my life — that milestone being the sale of my first novel. The vision goes something like this: It’s the afternoon, and I walk into a bar. A mix of blue-collar guys and a couple of businessmen, three or four Manhattans deep before they head back to Westchester to resume their John Cheever existence, occupy the stools. I post up at the bar, slip the bartender a Ben Franklin, and give a grandiose speech about accomplishing my dream. Then I buy everyone a round of drinks. I am sharing an intimate moment with strangers by practicing a lost art: buying a round.”
To Diamond’s account, he humbly admitted that, when it came time to make that “grandiose speech,” it may not have sounded quite so grandiose in his head when it came time to deliver. But the impact of his kind gesture to the small establishment was profound:
“For thirty minutes, I made small talk with strangers. It was enjoyable. A thought flashed through my mind that the act of talking to people I’ll likely never see again, just for the sake of killing time, was an act I normally detested. In this specific context, however, every word was said with a tone of affection. I bought a group of strangers drinks to celebrate the greatest achievement in my life, and for that short time at JG Melon, it was like we’d been friends forever.”
Diamond, in the moment of his generosity, was liberated from what he “normally detested” to experience the joy of connection. I’m reminded of GK Chesterton’s thoughts about “splendid strangers,” written over 100 years ago:
“How much happier you would be if you only knew that these people cared nothing about you! … You would begin to be interested in them because they were not interested in you. You would break out of this tiny and tawdry theater in which your own little plot is always being played, and you would find yourself under a freer sky, in a street full of splendid strangers.”
Furthermore, the appreciation for the splendid stranger, in which kindness was offered for nothing in return, more likely enhances the real relationships you do have — between father and son such as the Tannenbaums or co-founders of Black Owl Systems, Greg and Derek Kautz. Or perhaps life-long business partners such as Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger, as their longtime friend and director Ron Olson attested to.
“Charlie was to Warren, very much like the combination of a brother and a father,” Olson said.
Such is the power of inviting splendid strangers into your world, if only for a while. And a well-crafted Manhattan never hurts, either.
