Normally I don't draw attention to my birthday. But this year is different.
The first public thing I did was signup for a "birthday wish" on Facebook. How it works is that all my friends get notified that I have made a wish to have 10 people donate $41 dollars to the Red Cross (I could have selected another charity). It took me less than 5 minutes to set up the wish, and as of right now 4 people have donated more than $100. Pretty cool. In addition to the money that I raised for the Red Cross, I received nice messages from friends, some who I haven't spoken with since high school! Amazing how generous people are. Even the people who didn't donate saw that I did, and might be motivated to do the same when their birthday comes up. I wonder how much money will be raised for charity on Facebook because I got over my hangup that I should not advertise my birthday? I wonder how many people think, "Herb's always up to something these days, maybe I'll do something too?" I'm not trying to say I'm Mr. Popular and influence people with my coolness (far from it!). My point is that I took less than 5 minutes and already have $100+ going to the Red Cross to show for it.
Another thing about my birthday…
In 2007 I was thinking about my upcoming 40th birthday. At the time I was working at Me.dium (now OneRiot) as the CTO. In many ways I loved the job, in others, well… After a particularly difficult time in the Feb. 2007 I was thinking, "I'm going to be 40 in about a year, I hope that the second half of my professional life is defined by making the world a better place vs. deal with shit like this." For the next several months my thoughts turned more and more to doing something with my thinking about Domino Theory. Eventually the time at Me.dium came to an end in Oct 2007, about 3 months before my 40th bday. This gave me a once-in-a-life time opportunity to step back and examine my life as I approached THE BIG 40. Once again, it seemed like dominos were everywhere I looked. During this time I started this blog. And, as one who believed in Domino Theory would expect, big things got set in motion.
Today I'm 41. I'm one of 5 founding board members of Topplers – the result of asking myself what I was going to do to make a big impact. I know for sure that I've impacted people's lives (they've told me). I also know, that the domino topple I set in motion is only going to grow bigger, with more energy, and more impact.
I'm more comfortable not talking about my birthday. But, history has shown, if I get out of my comfort zone it tends to be a good thing. So there you have it… A blog post announcing my birthday. Happy Birthday to Me!
