It’s September 7 here in New York and that means it’s the eve of New York’s Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week and today I received a message from a designer whose exclusive line of eyewear will be featured on the runway during the week.
The message read “You inspired me to do something amazing with my eyewear. When we first met, you told me you like to give back to charities. So I thought hey I should use my brand to give a percentage of every piece to a children’s charity (message continued).”
I won’t reveal which designer at this stage as I will let him announce the initiative during fashion week but I wanted to share the lessons that came out of this for me.
Back up two weeks I had been out for some Friday night drinks and stopped in to a quiet little place for a quick bite to eat. I saw (designer) and decided that I wanted to introduce myself, quietly hoping for a date. I simply went up to the person handed him my business card and said I was sorryto interrupt you but I would love to catch up at some point, call me.
Socially that was quite a “gutsy” thing for me to do and I never really thought of anything would come of it. Some five minutes later I had a text message saying hey we can catch up now and so we did . We grabbed some drinks and spent the next 3 hours chatting about a whole range of things, what inspires me what inspires this person.
While it wasn’t the hot steamy date that I had initially hoped for it did lead to a great connection in an industry that I know little about and I am deeply humbled that I was able to inspire someone to give back to the community.
The take-away for me is simple, be brave, be bold and go up and say hello to that person you want to meet, whatever the reason – you just don’t know where it could lead.
Meet someone new today.
