london events - louis the dj - fist bumping

good morning chums,

last night bigmoose had been asked to attend a property event in london that our great fundraising mates vectos had arranged for us to be one of the three charity partners, and it was organised that we would do a two minute thank you, which we had arranged for a bigmoose representative to say a few words thanking everyone.

all good so far.

then, this week it became apparent that actually we would have a 5-10 minute slot to fill.

now a lot can be talked about in ten minutes, and we decided that i would make the journey down the m4 for the second time this week, to the postal museum in mount pleasant, north london, my old stomping ground, back in the days before i moved west.

the postal museum i can report back is exactly what you would imagine, as a reference point to a bygone day pre email, and is a great use of real estate that no longer does its original job.

where the post office have been canny is to use the space in the basement of the building to create an extremely cool event space, with great lighting, allowing itself to morph into whatever evenings entertainment the hirer decrees.

our night was a standup networking event for 300 young property professionals in the london market, quite a rambunctious crowd, and as the throng started to descend into the catacomb of tunnels below, louie the dj, playing a mix of urban house, targeting the gen z crowd that was filling the space, like ants descending on a piece of food inadvertently dropped at a summer barbecue, was discovering that his speaker system was struggling to compete with the cacophony of humans voices.

man it was loud.

it had been quite short notice, so the designing of said presentation and transferor it from my laptop to ian the events i.t. guy, caused me to mention to myself in a brief conversation i had with myself that “it will be fine, you’ve been closer to the wire than this before” and breathe.

ian came through.

as i sat next to louis, head bobbing to his cool beats, going over my presentation one last time, to make sure i was ready, harriet and holly, our hosts appeared, and informed me and the two other charity partners, the national autistic society, and casa congo, a sustainability hub in el astillero, nicaragua, that there was a huge queue at the cloakroom, so we would be another ten minutes.

the sound of people talking had i think literally caused a disgruntled louis the dj to realise that he had lost this battle, it was like a human fire blanket of sound had been put over louis box of musical swan vestas, no competition.

ten very long minutes later, harriet decided we had to start, and i noticed a look of fear on the other charity partners faces, this was pressure.

driving home from the event i listened to a high performance podcast with dan carter, the great new zealand all blacks rugby player, talking about pressure, and how he loved it, and the penny dropped, so do i.

this wall of noise in a london basement was nothing compared to a highly intense ice hockey match at wembley, and from somewhere the endorphins and dopamine were causing my brain to enjoy this crazy event.

harriet picked up the microphone and stepped forward, into what we all knew was a situation that required her to bring strength, authority, tone of voice, humour, whatever she could muster, to hold back the tide of noise that threatened to drown her.

but like canute, the waves didn’t stop, and the awkwardness of watching her struggle, and eventually give up was horrible, and i played out whether i should step in, but rationalised that it wasn’t my gig or my place to, and i hoped the girl from the national autistic society would take control.

she didn’t.

and as she battled to get her words out, the volume just seemed to increase, until she started laughing in a way that seemed like a white flag being waved fervently.

she handed the sennheiser baton to the casa congo guys, and the shorter of the two was a stocky alpha male chap, who proceeded to continue drinking beer from a bottle whilst talking to the wall of noise, and i felt myself slightly shaking.

this is carnage, i thought, and nobody is stopping it.

the congo boys finished, and the front two rows rippled applause at their sustainability goals, but as ian put up my slide deck, and harriet introduced me, nobody cared, especially the back of the room, who hadn’t heard a thing all night.

i looked the front row in the eyes, in a way that i tried to communicate “I need your help” without actually speaking, and i think they got it.

"i have a story to tell you, which just might help save someones life” i started.

“but i need silence to tell you it” and i looked into their eyes.

and as i went silent, so people started shushhhhhing from the front of the room to the back.

i could feel the power start to shift.

humans are an interesting species, and it was really interesting to watch and feel the power of silence.

It was almost like “he’s not gonna start till we all shut up”

i prowled up and down, waiting.

and then it came.

complete silence.

“thank you” i almost whispered.

i told the story of the last ten years of my life, and felt like i had the front and the back of the room now, resulting in four rounds of applause, more than usual, i think their emotional connection was heightened by the start of the process, and i had chosen to surf the big wave, carving out turns whenever possible, and when i ended by telling them about hannah now becoming a therapist, i saw a guy mouth “full circle” to me.

yes, winner.

i thanked everybody for their time, and patience, and pointed out our email address if anybody needed help, and smiled at the front row, mouthing “thank you” because we both knew, they had turned a potentially awful situation into one of strength, and we’ll see if we get any referrals this morning.

i had a number of people come up to chat afterwards, which was lovely, and as i left to make my way back to cardiff a little later, a lad looked me in the eye as i passed him and fist bumped me, very funny, but i loved it, and as i said goodbye and thank you to the doorman, i entered the cold london night, relieved and happy that the journey would have happy memories for me.

i breathed deeply, and headed towards the tube, smiling.

but the cherry was waiting 50m ahead.

a tall dark, smartly dressed guy was engrossed in his phone call as a i approached him, only for him to ask his call to hold as he broke away, smiled and thanked me with some lovely words and a firm handshake.

i continued to chancery lane underground station, floating on a very fluffy cloud high above the streets.

as i write this blog this morning, i feel like this mini adventure is very much a metaphor for life, life that often shows us all challenges, it really is how we choose to control things where possible, and i am thankful for the life i have led, that has taught me many many life skills, and as i recently told one of my mates, and i think it was socrates that said it "sometimes you’ve just gotta put your big boy pants on”.

this has been a long blog today, so i’ll do a bigmoose update next week.

have great one,

blue skies,

jeff