Why Whistle?

Greetings. Thank you for checking out my new blog on all things whistling. First a little about me: I’m 53 years old, live in Alexandria, VA with my wife Kristen and our three children. I grew up in Massapequa Park on NY’s Long Island and moved to Washington, DC in 1987 after a post-college gap-year skiing in Idaho. For the past 15 years I’ve headed up global communications at The Carlyle Group, an alternative asset manager. I have an amazingly blessed life and get on my knees every day and thank God for his countless blessings.

One of those many blessings is my ability to whistle. I’m a four-time National and International Whistling Champion. I started whistling when I was five years old, whistled for two hours every day while delivering newspapers as a teen, jammed with blues band in college, performed at open-mic nites in Washington, DC in the late ‘80s and ‘90s and first competed in the whistling competition in 1993. I competed nine times, winning first place grand champion four times. In 2012 I was inducted into the International Whistlers Hall of Fame, joining the likes of Bing Crosby and Roger Whittaker.

I whistle for many reasons. First among them is that it’s a delight to be able to bring a great tune to life rather than just think about it. If I’m walking down the street or driving in my car and Beethoven’s third symphony pops into my head, out my lips it comes. I also whistle because I’ve found that it’s a means to bring joy and delight to people. More than 400 times a year I whistle Happy Birthday to friends, family, colleagues and strangers too! People routinely tell me “you made my day” after a birthday day serenade. That warms my heart and spurs me on (click here to send your very own free Happy Birthday Whistle-gram from me).

After whistling for nearly 50 years, I’ve gathered quite a number of sweet, bizarre, hilarious and heart-warming stories about sharing my whistle with people. Along the way I realized that everyone has a simple gift – a whistle – that they can find, develop and share to help make the world a better place. We don’t have to be heroes to make a difference. Heroes play an important role in life, but their heroic deeds cannot sustain us day-in and day-out. It’s the simple gifts shared readily and with love that make everyday life sweeter and the inevitable challenges of life more bearable.

In my new book Find Your Whistle I feature ten people whose whistles have touched my heart and made my life better. In future blog posts I’ll tell you about these folks. Meanwhile, I’m hoping that people, perhaps you, will share stories of their whistles with me and other readers on this blog.

Click here to share your story with me and I’ll post them to this blog. Thanks for checking out this blog…please come back often and see how people are using their whistles to touch hearts and change lives.