Here’s me still mulling over happiness. I must confess that it never occurred to me that this Grab Your Group & GO operation was a complete and total exercise in vulnerability. I just thought it was kinda brave. Brave to infiltrate your inboxes with fairly personal words. Brave to share my show choices and invite others to join. Brave to explore parts of Central Park unknown to most New Yorkers and toss an invite out to a group of 850 to join me. But upon further reflection after the happiness talks, this whole operation is a complete and total exercise in vulnerability. Whoa! Epiphany!
As an open source and apparently vulnerable individual, I am completely at the mercy of the group. Your opinions – your thoughts on my actions – your views on my show picks – your theater seats – the timing of when I like to hand out tickets – the thoughts I may or may not share about the show – every aspect of the operation is subject to scrutiny and opinions and chatter. How terrifying.
Before each show I ask the entire group going to the show to have dinner with me. That’s vulnerable. What if no one decides to join? What if the group doesn’t mesh well? The weekly Walk and Talks? Complete exercise in vulnerability. If I really deeply considered that of the 850 people I asked to join me, sometimes NO ONE (this happens on rainy days) or just one or two people turn up (usually named Christine and Gail) I might never get out of bed. But I don’t think about that. What I consider is the experience with the people that do turn up or the opportunity to have a lovely walk in the rain alone in Central Park and pet every bedraggled dog I see.
No walls. No filters. Our Grab Your Group & GO philosophy is and always will be to happily add anyone who wants to be part of the group to the group. There is no vetting process and zero judgement. Vulnerable! But as I said in my happiness post… being vulnerable amplifies one’s life and boy can I say this with conviction.
Since really getting serious about this group right around when I turned 50 (thanks to Stacie helping me with the website/back end operations/and general humming of the business), I have become friendly or made legit new friends with over 100 people – really! I made a list and just stopped when I got to 100. These are legit friends. Friends I plan to have in my life for the rest of my life and I am not double counting here. If I was friends with you before and you still come to the theater, you are not on the “new GYGG friend” list – you know who you are.
What a windfall of friends and all the attendant experiences that come with layering new friends into one’s life! In my 50s! I don’t think this is normal, but a greater gift I cannot fathom and I have vulnerability to thank for it. Is there some downside to vulnerability? Sure if you really ponder it the thought of being vulnerable it can completely paralyze you. But the upside?? Worth it! Highly recommend the vulnerable lifestyle.
Was scoring a whole new cadre of interesting and fun friends the goal? No. The goal was to get more of my friends and acquaintances to the theater. To achieve this I had to put myself out there. To get people to the theater I had to be my vulnerable best self. Through achieving this goal a whole host of other benefits emerged thus ratcheting up my happiness factor. And I never thought about it until now. Color me happy.
What are you doing on a day to day basis that is vulnerable? What can you do to add more vulnerability to your life? Let’s go on a walk and talk about it. :). Want to join the group at the theater, on cultural excursions or Walk and Talks? Click here. We’d love to have you be a part of it.
We have some fun shows on deck for early August and a super special show experience in September. To see what we have on offer click here.
Thanks for helping all of us be more vulnerable!