April 1, 2025 • 40 mins
Chris is a 4-time international whistling champion who’s whistled for Presidents and 60,000 people. But what makes him an Army member is how he whistles happy birthday to 700 people every year!
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
You know, at the typical college graduation, the speaker will
at some point say, now go change the world.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
And I just cringe when I hear that, and it's
well intended.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
But I work in an investment firm, so I'm all
about odds and what are the odds of success? And
that's how I advise my clients. You know, if you
do X, the odds of success are either.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
High or low.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
And if someone said to me, go change the world,
the odds of success are very infintestament. But if they
said go touch the heart or the life of the
person sitting next to you or down the hall, the
odds of success are one hundred percent.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
So I'm going with the odds.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney.
I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, I'm a father,
I'm an entrepreneur, and I've been a football coach an
inner city Memphis. And the last part unintentionally led to
an oscar for the film about our team. That movie
is called Undefeated. I believe our country's problems are never
(01:13):
going to be solved by a bunch of fancy people
and nice suits using big words that nobody ever uses
on CNN and Box, but rather by an army of
normal folks. That's us, you and me just deciding, Hey,
you know what, maybe I can help. That's what Chris Ulman,
the voice you just heard, has done. Chris is the
(01:34):
four time International whistling Champion. Yeah you heard that right.
There is such a thing and it's gotten them whistling
in some places that he could have never imagined, such
as the Oval Office and the Tonight Show. But what
makes him a member of the army is how he
whistles Happy Birthday to over seven hundred people every single year.
(02:00):
Not wait for you to meet Chris. Right after these
brief messages from our general sponsors, Chris Olmen, Welcome.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
To Memphis, Bill, Amazing to be here with you.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
Amazing to be with you. We interview a lot of people,
but never the international world whistling four times, Juan.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Four times. Well, hopefully you will recover after this experience.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Okay, for everybody listening, we have Chris Olman, who is
from Alexandria, Virginia, and he is the four time International
whistling Champion. He's a member of the Whistlers Hall of Fame.
He's a husband and a father. He has serenaded and
(03:05):
we'll get to these stories. He's serenaded presidents in the
Oval Office, He's been on The Tonight Show, The Today Show.
He's performed the national anthem at several major league and
college sporting events. He's performed with ten symphony orchestras, including
the National Symphony Symphony Orchestra. And he's whistled in front
(03:27):
of sixty thousand people before. And maybe more impressive than
all of that, he calls seven hundred people a year
and whistles Happy Birthday to him. And he is the
author Find Your Whistle, Simple Gifts, touch hearts and change lives.
So while this is going to be fun and we're
(03:49):
going to whistle while we work today, there's a ministry
behind Chris's simple talent that we're going to get into.
And so thanks for flying down here this morning.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Well, I am really delighted and excited to talk about whistling.
It's a fun activity and happy to share some tunes
with people, and I'm really excited to be here first whistling.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
Why where did that come from? Tell me about bub Bub?
Speaker 2 (04:21):
All right?
Speaker 1 (04:22):
So Bub is my late father. He died around five
years ago and he was a really good whistler, and
he wasn't a champion, meaning he hadn't competed in any competitions,
but he had a very sweet and beautiful kind of
tone to his whistling, and he specialized in Gilbert and
(04:43):
Sullivan's songs, so he'd whistle all the.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Time around the house.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
And there I was five years old, and I was
listening for a few years, but not able to do it.
And then finally I was able to put the three
parts together lips, tongue, air, lipstart. And if you're a
lip whistler as I am, versus being a tongue.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Whistler, which is no lips, you'll notice.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
But for a lip whistler, you you've got to get
your lips into a nice little round hole, and then
you have to get your tongue in the right position,
which is on the bottom of your mouth, not on
the top, so the air is traveling over your tongue,
and then the tongue regulates pitch, you know, high low,
(05:31):
and then air. You have to blow air, but you
have to be very gentle about it. So I was
thankfully able to take those three variables kind of mix
them up a bit until I got the right combination
to make the sound. So that's how I started whistling.
And it was pretty anemic at first, and no one
said I was particularly good for a long time.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
Okay, did you just irritate people all the time with
your child?
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Well, thankfully, my mother, God bless her, she's going to
be eighty eight soon.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
She was amazingly tolerant of the whistling.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
She would have to be, because my wife does not
like whistling very much.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
I like it, that's pretty petty.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
So I rarely whistle in the house today. So when
I'm whistling those happy birthdays, I inevitably go in the
basement to whistle them for people so she doesn't have
to hear it.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
She's had enough of whistling. Yeah, it's interesting. I do
speeches all over the place, and for the last three years,
Lisa's like, I hear you talking enough, I'm not going anymore.
So I think your wife just as sick of hearing
you like my wife's sick.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Yeah, she's very supportive. She went to many whistling competitions
over the years, so there I'm able to whistle so
to kind of get out the basic sound. And then,
as with most things in life, it's like what do
you do with it? So my first objective was to
just get better, which means develop new techniques, develop my
(06:59):
range and my ability to stay in the right key,
and have a good intonation, which is make sure your
pitch is spot on. So the way I did that
primarily was through by whistling two hours every day.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
From thirteen to sixteen years old.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
You whistled two hours every day every day for I
had a paper route, and I would whistle the whole time,
and again from a quality standpoint, so my customers would say,
heard you coming.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
They never said anything about wow, that was good, you know,
but there I so all right.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
So now I'm actually developing a repertoire. I whistled whistled
almost exclusively.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Classical music as a child, so like Beethoven and Chaikowski
and Broms and all that kind of stuff. Yes, Beethoven's
fifth exactly. And then in college I started whistling in
talent shows and at first people are like, that's really freaky,
we don't want you.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
And what I've learned.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Through, you know, fifty years of whistling, is that it's
very binary. There are people who say that is the
coolest thing ever, like, give it to me, baby, And
then there are.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Other people like, ah, get away from me.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
And now, thankfully the latter category is relatively small. But
you know, in my book Find Your Whistle, I have
these amazing stories of people who like lit up right
away when they heard it and said, I want to
hear that and tell me your story. And then other
people went screaming in the other direction. And I could
tell you a few of those stories. But then then
(08:29):
I graduate from college, I moved to Washington, d C.
And I start whistling at open mic nights.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
Blues club in Washington, d C. And for those actually
had two people ask me this this morning. Does this
guy whistle for a living? Like, no, he does not
whistle for a living. He's a normal dude with the job,
went to d C and had a life. Right.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
My kids don't think I'm normal, but I'm I'm relatively normal.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Yes, here's the funniest thing ever is that here I'm whistling.
I had won champion ships and I decided to make
a CD. So I hired a full symphony orchestra and
I record the CD of classical music. Then I go
to my boss, and I say, David, I am going
to get some attention for this CD. I just want
(09:15):
you to know I'm committed to the firm. And he
very deadpan, and he says to me, I'm not worried.
We pay you more than you'll ever make whistling.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
Yea.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
And so you really can't make a lot of money
as a whistler. So I've had this wonderful career in communications.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
We're in Washington, d C. I worked in the White House.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
I worked on Capitol Hill at an investment firm for
eighteen years, and I've had this whistling overlay. So there's
like this little parallel life of being a whistler, and
then the whistling kind of dips into my day job
over the years. And you know, one time I was
just summoned to the Oval Office to whistle for George W.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Bush with fifteen minutes notice.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
It is just bizarre.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
I totally bizarre.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
And so somebody that knew the president said, you know,
we got the international whistling champion working in the White House.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
That is exactly what happened. So in Bush goes, that's right,
that's exactly what happened.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
And so I whistle Happy Birthday for the President's chief
of Staff, Andy Card And then apparently he then told
the President, we got this freaky guy who can whistle
on the staff. I had never met him before. And
then I walk into a staff meeting with the with
Mitch Daniels. You've probably heard of him. He was the
president of Purdue University the governor of Indiana. After the
(10:32):
White House and I walk into the staff meeting and
Mitch says.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Meeting canceled.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
Ullman, you stay, And that's usually a bad sign when
you're a spokesperson. It means you said something stupid to
a reporter and you're about to get fired.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Yeah. So I was about to whistle your butt right
out of the White.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
House, that's right, or but into the Oval Office.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
So I said, what's up, Mitch, and he said, get
your jacket, We're going to the Oval a whistle for
the president.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
And I'm like, come on.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
So I run to my office and I call my
wife and I say, Chris. Her name's Chris also, so
it's Chris and Chris. Anyway, I say, Chris, I'm going
to the Oval Office to whistle for the president.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
She's like, can I come? I say, no gotta go. Sorry, Okay.
So then Mitch and I.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Go to the Oval Office and I serenade the President
for like twenty minutes, and while I'm in there, the
Vice President comes in the.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
White House Council.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
There were twenty people in the Oval Office by the
time we were done. He had a great time.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
I had an amazing time.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
What did you whistle for him?
Speaker 1 (11:32):
I whistled Dueling Banjo's you know from that great movie Deliverance?
Speaker 3 (11:37):
Are you kidding me?
Speaker 2 (11:40):
With my boss? We did a duet that was kind
of freaky.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
I did the William Tell overture, which is otherwise known
as the Lone Ranger Song.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
And it goes on and on and on.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
I would expect George Bush would have loved that one.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
He did well. I did say.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
I didn't say it was the William tell overture. I
just said it's the Lone Ranger song. And He's like, perfect,
do that one for me. And then I concluded with
battle him of the Republic, which I'd never whistled publicly before.
I had whistled it on my own, probably during my
paper route. And then like on the fly, he just said,
all right, I got to go. Gotta go do the
(12:20):
nation's business. Whistle one more for me? And I thought, hm, like,
what is a great song to like end an oval
office gig with? And I said, well, battle him of
the Republic, of course. So I did that and it
and you know, it gives.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Me a shiver to this day.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
That and this is this whole notion of how do
you take a simple gift? Like I'm not curing cancer,
I'm not rowing across the Atlantic, I'm not climbing Mount
Everest blind.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
I just whistle.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
But you know I could take this super simple gift
and then touch this the most powerful man in the planet,
and touch his heart in just a little way and
give him a little respite, a little joy for twenty minutes.
And so that experience has stuck with me, and I
know it's stuck with him because I met him probably
like fifteen years later, and he remembered that experience.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
Yeah, I remember reading that. When you walked in to
the over office, but you got to be nervous. I mean,
it's the Oval Office, it's the president, and dude has
an unlit cigar and his feet kicked up on his
desk and he's like, hey, dude, whistle it was.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
It was really kind of freaky. I was a little nervous,
but I didn't have enough time. You know, what happens
in life is like you have this big exam in
a month and you're like you're worried about it, or
a big presentation at work. I had fifteen minutes notice,
and half of it was trying to figure out what
am I going to whistle? So I walk in the
oval and there he is kicking back feed up on
the desk unlits of gar and he sees me.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Jumps up and he comes around and he says, he
shakes my hand.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
He said, he said, who's what you had to whistle?
He said, do you need some water? Do you need
you stand? You said what's going on? And I was like,
this President, I'm moisten, puckered, I'm ready to go okay,
And he's like, all right, let's do it. And then
I was so happy you used my father's nickname, Bub,
because when I was done whistling for the president, he said,
(14:11):
I'm going to write your father a note. And he
took out this presidential stationery and he says the president
on it and he said, dear Bub. Chris came by
the Oval to share his magic. We're happy to have
him on the team. And my mother recently gave me
that note. I haven't seen it in twenty, you know,
like twenty five years.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
And that needs to be framed and stuck somewhere.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
It's put it in one of those like loose sight things.
It's in our living room. And so he Bush was
thinking like that. He was a very nice man. I
was really impressed with that battle.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
Him and the Republic is one of the greatest. Give
us a little bit of that.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
All right, Well it goes.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
On it well done, good, thank you.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
Yeah, that was that was fun.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
That was really all right. So everybody in here, y'all
just got what the president got. See you need to
feel pretty, you know, elevator or whatever. And now a
few messages from our general sponsors. But first, I hope
you'll follow us on your favorite social media channels, where
(15:50):
we share more powerful content, including reels from our video
studio and testimonials from army members. We're at army of
normal folks on every channel. Give us a follow, we'll
be right back, all right. So another one that interests
(16:24):
me is the Jalno Show.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
Right, Yeah, that was so so I win, all right,
so let me I'm going to talk about that. But no, no, no,
this is perfect, but the progression. So I'm whistling talent shows,
I go to blues clubs, and I'm I'm learning how
to do improvisational whistling, not just classical. I whistle a
lot of grateful dead, a lot of jazz and stuff
(16:48):
like that. And then I'm I'm on a hike in
the Shenandoah National Park, which is in Virginia, and whistling,
of course, hopefully not annoying too many people.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
And some one of.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
My friends says, you know, you're really good. You should
do something with that. And this is ninety two, so
there's no internet. So a friend says, if this competition,
because I said, I think there's a competition.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
If it exists, she said, I'll find it.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
So she we get back from the hike, she goes
to a library, finds, interestingly a directory of events and
is a book like five hundred pages of all these
national events in America. And sure enough, there is at
the time the National Whistler's Convention, a gathering of the
best whistlers in the world in this little town in
North Carolina call Lewisbourg.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
Oh gosh, if you if you were going to say
mount Airy, I was going to know it's right.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
It's not far from mount Airy at all.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
Which for everybody listing Andy Griffith's show, of course, yeah
maybe the most whistled tune people my age.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Or shouldn't I Okay, it goes on and on too.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
I feel like Ron Howard out a walkin that you should.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
So I compete in the competition. I win a small prize,
and which gave me hope. So what's interesting about when
you are the whistler in your town or on you
at your job or at your college. You don't know
how good you are relative to other people. It's not
until you go to a gathering of the best whistlers
(18:33):
or swimmers or whatever that you actually see how good
are you? So I show up at this international competition
and yeah, I thought, yeah, it was pretty good.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
So I learned a lot that first year.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
And then so I come back the next year, nineteen
ninety four, and I win the Grand Championship, and that's
where Jay Leno comes in. So I win this thing
and I say, well that was really fun, And then.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
How many people are in this thing?
Speaker 2 (18:58):
They're on thirty adults all right.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
They come from just all over all over the world.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
I mean we had Japan, Canada, Australia, England, Germany, US,
a lot of a lot of Canadians. They are very cool,
they're very they're good at hockey, they're good at whistling.
I bet you didn't know that far.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Okay. So the phone just rings totally.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Off the hook. It is radio shows, and then a
producer for the Tonight Show calls up says, hey, we
want you to be on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
I'm like, you can't be serious. They're like, we're very serious.
Can you come here in like three days? So I
fly to la and I was on the Tonight Show.
(19:39):
It's on YouTube. You can find all this stuff.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
Would you whistle for him?
Speaker 1 (19:42):
I whistled Love Struck Baby by Stevie ray Vaughan with
the Tonight Show band, which was just an amazing experience.
Alan Alda for those people who remember mash he was a.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Guest that night.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
And then Michael Richards who was Cramer on Seinfeld, he
was a guest too.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
So I got to meet these famous people and they
were like, who are you. I'm like I'm the champion whistler.
They're like yeah, oh yeah, sure, yeah yeah uh and.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
Then you know, the Today Show calls I'm on with
Katie Kuric and and then like all hell broke loose.
I am going all around whistling and doing fun things
and you know, and just sharing my simple gift.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
But of course I still have a day job, so I.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
Got to manage that day in and day out while
having all this fun whistling and uh, yeah it was.
It was amazing good experiences.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
And since then, you've won it three more times? I did.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Yeah, I won three more times, and then I did
try to win it a fifth time, like be like
Michael Jordan and come out of retirement. I came in third,
and I thought, you know, I'm going to hang up
my chapstick. And you know, so now now I just
whistle Happy Birthday. And I do talks on whistling and
it's less about whistling, and it's more about what's your
(20:57):
simple gift in life and what are you going to
do with it? And well, yeah, go ahead, I'm and
in my book, what I do is I try to
focus on other people and say, all right, my gift
happens to be whistling, But what's your gift? And how
did other people in my life, how did their simple
gifts touch my heart? To try to give the reader
(21:19):
a sense of what a whistle metaphor for gift can be,
because I've had people come up to me and say, oh,
I can't whistle, and I say, that's not the point.
The point is God gave you gifts. What are you
doing with them? Have you developed them? And are you
sharing them? And you know, trying to make a little
impact in your orbit.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
So it's fun to have the International Whistler on here
to whistle the stuff that you've whistled, and we'll continue
to whistle throughout our chat. But that's the part that
struck me the most is that we talk about on
an army in normal folks, that magic happens when someone
uses their passion and discipline and it intersects opportunity. That's
(22:02):
when magic happens in the world is when there's a
gap in society, a hole that needs filling, a need
that needs filling, and then somebody that has a discipline
and I don't mean discipline like doing the right thing,
I mean an ability and a passion that intersects with
that whole and they decide to engage. And you know
(22:27):
a lot of people think about philanthropic endeavors and helping
communities is being part of some large government in GEO
or some massive organization. But I will argue some of
the best servant leadership you can do is oftentimes just
down the hallway, and it's an army of normal folks.
(22:49):
Is not about five people doing gargantuan work. It's about
means of people doing small things and how that can
change our culture. And that is why I love your story.
When did you decide you are simply going to call
people on their birthday seven hundred people a year and
just wish a happy birthday, to put twenty seconds of
(23:13):
joining their life. That to me is the most beautiful
the whole part of the story.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
Well, Bill, I just love the way you phrase it
of how these kind of skills and interest meeting opportunity.
And you know, at the typical college graduation, the speaker
will at some point say, now go change the world,
and I just cringe when I hear that, and it's
(23:38):
well intended. But I work in an investment firm, so
I'm all about odds and what are the odds of success?
And that's how I advise my clients. You know, if
you do X, the odds of success are either high
or low. And if someone said to me, go change
the world, the odds of success are very infantestic infantesim.
(24:00):
But if they said go touch the heart or the
life of the person sitting next to you or down
the hall, the odds of success are one hundred percent.
So I'm going with the odds. I'm going to go
and see how can I take that little gift and
with some you know, some effort, and see how I
(24:20):
can effect change in just this tiny little way.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
So with the to answer your question.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
Specifically, it was in the I think like ninety four,
nineteen ninety four, so thirty one years ago that I
whistled the first Happy Birthday, and I remember it to
this day. I was working on Capitol Hill at the
House Budget Committee and it was someone's birthday and usually
most people sing. And someone said, hey, you're a whistler,
(24:48):
you know, because I won the championship at that point,
and so when you whistle Happy Birthday, I was like,
I've never done that before, so I.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
You know, I did kind of a basic version of
you know that kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
People like, yeah, that was great, and amazingly, I still
whistle for the couple of people who I worked with
at that time to this day, all these decades later.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
Do you say hello? Or when they pick up the
phone do you just start whistling?
Speaker 1 (25:13):
Oh my god, I'm so glad you you asked that question,
because most people, when you get them live, they grown.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
And I'll explain why.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
It's like, I'll say, hey, it's Chris calling, you know,
serenade you on your birthday. You're like, oh, And now
at first I my feelings were hurt. And then what
I found out was that they wanted a recording of
it so they could share with their friends. So now
I don't call anyone on their birthday. I take my
iPhone and there's a little voice memo and they record
(25:45):
a custom version for each person. So the typical thing
is I'll say, I'll say, Bill, it's Chris calling to
issue a happy birthday, and here's a serenade to add.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
To your merriment. That is, that's kind of my line.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
And then I whistled this wildly complicated version of happy Birthday,
because it's morphed from that simple version thirty years ago
to fairly complex version today and then I just say,
you know, God bless you.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
There you go.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
And then I texted to them and people love that
far more.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
Yeah. The reason I ask is my fraternity roommate, Charles Felcher,
who does listen to the show occasionally. His father was
a full bird kernel and he was in a OTC
and there were many, many Sunday mornings. Their pet was
at six am that he would enjoy all the trappings
(26:43):
of what ole miss has to offer too late on
Saturday night, and he would just go get dressed in
as fatigues and pass out in my hatchback. And I
knew he'd be there, so I would wake up at
five point fifteen in the morning, go down, drive my
car to PTE, open the hatchback, spill him out on
the floor and he'd go run through my right.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
That's a great way to get sober, huh.
Speaker 3 (27:02):
It is. So he hadn't done it a while, but
starting on the second year of my marriage, on just
random times, once he became in charge of a company,
once he became major, the phone would ring at five
in the morning. I'd answer it. And I wouldn't hear
a voice. I would just get a bugle of rebelly
(27:23):
in my ear and then he would hang up and
that was it. But I knew it was Charles, so
I didn't know if maybe you ever did that on
Happy Birthday with people. That's why I asked if you
actually introduced it. I have never. I wish Charles would
have done your method. It's much better. Who's got a
birthday in March? When's it coming? Oh? When's your birthday? Mark? Wow?
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Happy birthday? What's your name?
Speaker 3 (27:51):
And well to do your complicated happy birthday forever? Right?
Speaker 1 (27:55):
I would be honored for Anne. You know, they say
what your whistle? So we have to have a little set.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
Yeah, how old are you? Anne? Awesome?
Speaker 1 (28:05):
All right, here we go, Hi, Anne, It's Chris Ulman
calling to wish you a happy birthday. Here's a serenade
to add to your merriment. Happy birthday.
Speaker 3 (29:07):
I don't know how you do that with your mouth.
That was a bunch of weird stuff.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
Stuff going on there.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
Well, the wha, there's this wah wah thing I do.
And this had to do with like these funky techniques.
So I referenced earlier that this lip whistling, but this
tongue whistling, so no.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Lips at all.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
But you can incorporate your lips by doing the tongue
whistle but going wah wah. So if you literally say
wah wah while whistling, so I call it scot whistling.
And so if I am doing, say like a jazz tune, uh,
or if I have a repeated phrase in a song,
(29:47):
you don't want to do it the same way each time.
You can go up an octave, down an octave, or
do the scot whistling thing, so you're it's the same notes,
but a different kind of means of delivering it, and
it just is a little more interesting.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
So yeah, very interesting. It's cool. It's also cool to watch.
You can also tell how hard you are concentrating because
your hands are mimicking what your brain is telling your
lips to do. That you can see that.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
That's a very good point. Yeah, I'm like very into it.
It's you know, especially for Anne and ultimately, like you say,
why do I whistle Happy birthday?
Speaker 3 (30:23):
For people?
Speaker 1 (30:24):
When you think about what is one of the most
important things in life? It is life and you know,
to be able to honor someone on their birthday is
to say I'm glad you were born, and I'm glad
you're here, and here's just like a little packet of
love I'm going to share with you. Not changing the world,
just going to make Anne feel special on her birthday.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
And the notes I get from people are.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
Astounding, and I don't do it for this reason, but
it warms my heart nonetheless. Is you know people say
my birthday is now complete, or I've saved every one
of these things that you say me over time, and
you made my day. I'm like, oh my gosh, it
just gives me a shiver of You don't have to
go try to save the world. You can just share
(31:09):
that little gift with people.
Speaker 3 (31:12):
And if we had an million, two three million army
of normal folks just doing those things, imagine how those
little things can break down massive walls.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
Absolutely, we'll be right back.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
I've had several bosses in my career who have been
very instrumental in my thinking about building bridges with people
who think differently. I'll tell you quick on, it's not whistling,
but it's all about reaching out to people who are
different from you. And I think too often we stay
in our own little camps and more and more.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
And this man, his name is Arthur Levitt, and he
was the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, which
oversees the stock markets and protects investors. And I worked
for him back in the late nineties. And so he
was a Democrat. But Phil Graham from Texas was the
chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, and he was a
good old boy Republican from Texas. Then Arthur was a
(32:33):
very patrician, modest Democrat from New York, and he had
to figure out how does he relate to this Texan.
So he in his first meeting with him, he walks
in Graham's office and sees a picture of a Labrador
Retriever on Graham's desk, and Arthur loves labradors and said
to Graham, Senator, is that your dog? And he said
(32:55):
that's my dog, and he said I love labs too,
and boom. They had a connection. And that simple connection
it was almost like the lubricant for a productive relationship
for years from.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
People who had very differing viewpoints on things.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
Yes, and who could easily have just ground against each other,
or it could have been me versus you or my
party versus your party, versus saying how do we transcend
the differences humanize, which is really what the dog did.
The dogs humanized the relationship that how bad could Philby
(33:33):
or Arthur b if they loved Labrador retrievers? And that
enabled them to get stuff done for America?
Speaker 2 (33:41):
And we need more of that.
Speaker 3 (33:45):
Amen, We often say another. Our regular listeners will have
heard this one hundred times. But I don't care if
you're black, white, Hispanic, Asian, gay, straight, Christian, Muslim, agnostic, Jewish, Republican, Democrat, conservative, progressive.
(34:06):
I'm trying to come up with all the categories here,
but you get the idea if you, despite any of
those categories or identities, are employing your passion and arean
need and being successful and helping someone who maybe isn't
as blessed as you. I don't care about the rest
of that stuff. I can celebrate that in you, and likewise,
(34:29):
you can celebrate that in me, and that creates a
foundation that we can now have civil, non threatening conversations
about stuff that matters that metaphorically is the Labrador. Yeah,
and I feel we're losing it, and I think the
only way to bring that back is an army of
(34:49):
normal folks that engage respect and appreciate one another. And
from that foundation, we can start having conversations about this
crowd that's dividing us. And it can be as simple
as whistling. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
I love the way you phrase it, And what I
think is bottom up. This has got to be bottom
up bottom. If we're waiting for the folks in Washington
or elsewhere to tell us how to behave or how
to treat people, that's we're looking in the wrong direction.
And I've tried to raise my children, I have three children,
they're either right out of college or in college right now,
(35:28):
to view every encounter with another person as an opportunity
to learn, to grow, and you know, to not be
scared of unfamiliarity, but to explore and ask questions. And
you know, God gave us two ears one mouth. It's
a nice ratio. Ask more, talk less, and just be
(35:50):
willing to learn. And you know, it could be any
of those differences that you pointed out. And rather than
listening to what you know, society or the haters have
told us about different people, let's make our own judgments
and let's transcend labels. And focus on humanity. And it's
(36:11):
amazing just the commonality you'll find with people that gets
beyond all the labels.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
And the isms and stuff like that.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
It's beautiful. It's what we've got to do. Find your whistle.
Simple gifts, touch hearts and change lives. And I love
the phraseology find your whistle, obviously from a whistler. What
this is is a call to understand that you may
(36:40):
never be the president of the United States, you may
never start an organization with a thousand people in it,
but every single one of us, every single one of us,
has a gift, and your charge is for us to
find that gift and then employ it.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
Yeah, I want to tell you a story about someone
who has a gift of happiness, how he shares it
with people. So the company I used to work at
in Washington, I would drive into the parking lot every
day and this young man from Ethiopia, he was a
Green card holder and seeking to become an American, and
(37:21):
I was just really amazed and how happy he was.
Because garages, you know, underground garages are either hot, really
hot in the summer, they're really cold in the winter,
and they're always kind of dim and no matter what
the temperature.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
Was or the light level was.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
When I drove in there, he was like, mister Chris,
good to see you. How's your weekend, how's your family?
And we formed this really special friendship. And when he
became an American, I took my daughters to his naturalization ceremony,
which was an amazing experience.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
And if anyone's been.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
To one, you know that, and if you haven't been
to one, you must go to see people of It's
like skin color coloring, you know, spanning the rainbow of
people all around America with some of their native clothes on,
like they want to be an American, just like you.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
And you say, what an experience. So here, so you
hear it.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
You have the happy guy in the colder, the hot garage,
and then I would take the elevator up. And I
worked an investment firm where the founders were billionaires literally, and.
Speaker 2 (38:26):
You get out of the so you go. It's very metaphorical.
Speaker 1 (38:30):
Also, you go from from hot and cold, up and
dark to the light, climate controlled, and there's a billionaire,
a billionaire billionaire, and you know they're not particularly happy.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
And I would say, how the heck is that possible?
Speaker 1 (38:43):
They have all that wealth, I'd say, well, it's not
really about that. It's about this kind of intrinsic value
that his name is Sala, Salah's appreciation for the gifts
that God gave him and that he's going to make
the most of it. And he also said, and when
I interviewed him for Anotherok I wrote, he said, I complain,
he doesn't get you anywhere anyway, so why bother?
Speaker 2 (39:04):
And so I totally agree.
Speaker 1 (39:06):
But that's his gift and he shares it with so
many people, and everyone who knew him.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
Was touched by his gift.
Speaker 3 (39:13):
That's his whistle, was this simple happiness, Yes, gratitude.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
Yeah, it was really amazing.
Speaker 3 (39:20):
Sh drought him up to the billionaires and said, hey,
would you sit and hang out with us, dude for
about thirty minutes.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
I wish I could show you at this moment.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
But at that book party for that other book that
I wrote, I have a picture of the parking attendant
and the billionaire holding my book at the party, and
it's amazing. And yeah, he's really touched a lot of hearts.
Speaker 3 (39:47):
And that concludes part one of my conversation with Chris Ulman.
And you don't want to miss part two that's now available. Together, guys,
we can change the country, but it starts with you.
I'll see it in part two.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
H
You know, at the typical college graduation, the speaker will
at some point say, now go change the world.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
And I just cringe when I hear that, and it's
well intended.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
But I work in an investment firm, so I'm all
about odds and what are the odds of success? And
that's how I advise my clients. You know, if you
do X, the odds of success are either.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
High or low.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
And if someone said to me, go change the world,
the odds of success are very infintestament. But if they
said go touch the heart or the life of the
person sitting next to you or down the hall, the
odds of success are one hundred percent.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
So I'm going with the odds.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney.
I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, I'm a father,
I'm an entrepreneur, and I've been a football coach an
inner city Memphis. And the last part unintentionally led to
an oscar for the film about our team. That movie
is called Undefeated. I believe our country's problems are never
(01:13):
going to be solved by a bunch of fancy people
and nice suits using big words that nobody ever uses
on CNN and Box, but rather by an army of
normal folks. That's us, you and me just deciding, Hey,
you know what, maybe I can help. That's what Chris Ulman,
the voice you just heard, has done. Chris is the
(01:34):
four time International whistling Champion. Yeah you heard that right.
There is such a thing and it's gotten them whistling
in some places that he could have never imagined, such
as the Oval Office and the Tonight Show. But what
makes him a member of the army is how he
whistles Happy Birthday to over seven hundred people every single year.
(02:00):
Not wait for you to meet Chris. Right after these
brief messages from our general sponsors, Chris Olmen, Welcome.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
To Memphis, Bill, Amazing to be here with you.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
Amazing to be with you. We interview a lot of people,
but never the international world whistling four times, Juan.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Four times. Well, hopefully you will recover after this experience.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Okay, for everybody listening, we have Chris Olman, who is
from Alexandria, Virginia, and he is the four time International
whistling Champion. He's a member of the Whistlers Hall of Fame.
He's a husband and a father. He has serenaded and
(03:05):
we'll get to these stories. He's serenaded presidents in the
Oval Office, He's been on The Tonight Show, The Today Show.
He's performed the national anthem at several major league and
college sporting events. He's performed with ten symphony orchestras, including
the National Symphony Symphony Orchestra. And he's whistled in front
(03:27):
of sixty thousand people before. And maybe more impressive than
all of that, he calls seven hundred people a year
and whistles Happy Birthday to him. And he is the
author Find Your Whistle, Simple Gifts, touch hearts and change lives.
So while this is going to be fun and we're
(03:49):
going to whistle while we work today, there's a ministry
behind Chris's simple talent that we're going to get into.
And so thanks for flying down here this morning.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Well, I am really delighted and excited to talk about whistling.
It's a fun activity and happy to share some tunes
with people, and I'm really excited to be here first whistling.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
Why where did that come from? Tell me about bub Bub?
Speaker 2 (04:21):
All right?
Speaker 1 (04:22):
So Bub is my late father. He died around five
years ago and he was a really good whistler, and
he wasn't a champion, meaning he hadn't competed in any competitions,
but he had a very sweet and beautiful kind of
tone to his whistling, and he specialized in Gilbert and
(04:43):
Sullivan's songs, so he'd whistle all the.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Time around the house.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
And there I was five years old, and I was
listening for a few years, but not able to do it.
And then finally I was able to put the three
parts together lips, tongue, air, lipstart. And if you're a
lip whistler as I am, versus being a tongue.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Whistler, which is no lips, you'll notice.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
But for a lip whistler, you you've got to get
your lips into a nice little round hole, and then
you have to get your tongue in the right position,
which is on the bottom of your mouth, not on
the top, so the air is traveling over your tongue,
and then the tongue regulates pitch, you know, high low,
(05:31):
and then air. You have to blow air, but you
have to be very gentle about it. So I was
thankfully able to take those three variables kind of mix
them up a bit until I got the right combination
to make the sound. So that's how I started whistling.
And it was pretty anemic at first, and no one
said I was particularly good for a long time.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
Okay, did you just irritate people all the time with
your child?
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Well, thankfully, my mother, God bless her, she's going to
be eighty eight soon.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
She was amazingly tolerant of the whistling.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
She would have to be, because my wife does not
like whistling very much.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
I like it, that's pretty petty.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
So I rarely whistle in the house today. So when
I'm whistling those happy birthdays, I inevitably go in the
basement to whistle them for people so she doesn't have
to hear it.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
She's had enough of whistling. Yeah, it's interesting. I do
speeches all over the place, and for the last three years,
Lisa's like, I hear you talking enough, I'm not going anymore.
So I think your wife just as sick of hearing
you like my wife's sick.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Yeah, she's very supportive. She went to many whistling competitions
over the years, so there I'm able to whistle so
to kind of get out the basic sound. And then,
as with most things in life, it's like what do
you do with it? So my first objective was to
just get better, which means develop new techniques, develop my
(06:59):
range and my ability to stay in the right key,
and have a good intonation, which is make sure your
pitch is spot on. So the way I did that
primarily was through by whistling two hours every day.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
From thirteen to sixteen years old.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
You whistled two hours every day every day for I
had a paper route, and I would whistle the whole time,
and again from a quality standpoint, so my customers would say,
heard you coming.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
They never said anything about wow, that was good, you know,
but there I so all right.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
So now I'm actually developing a repertoire. I whistled whistled
almost exclusively.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Classical music as a child, so like Beethoven and Chaikowski
and Broms and all that kind of stuff. Yes, Beethoven's
fifth exactly. And then in college I started whistling in
talent shows and at first people are like, that's really freaky,
we don't want you.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
And what I've learned.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Through, you know, fifty years of whistling, is that it's
very binary. There are people who say that is the
coolest thing ever, like, give it to me, baby, And
then there are.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Other people like, ah, get away from me.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
And now, thankfully the latter category is relatively small. But
you know, in my book Find Your Whistle, I have
these amazing stories of people who like lit up right
away when they heard it and said, I want to
hear that and tell me your story. And then other
people went screaming in the other direction. And I could
tell you a few of those stories. But then then
(08:29):
I graduate from college, I moved to Washington, d C.
And I start whistling at open mic nights.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
Blues club in Washington, d C. And for those actually
had two people ask me this this morning. Does this
guy whistle for a living? Like, no, he does not
whistle for a living. He's a normal dude with the job,
went to d C and had a life. Right.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
My kids don't think I'm normal, but I'm I'm relatively normal.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Yes, here's the funniest thing ever is that here I'm whistling.
I had won champion ships and I decided to make
a CD. So I hired a full symphony orchestra and
I record the CD of classical music. Then I go
to my boss, and I say, David, I am going
to get some attention for this CD. I just want
(09:15):
you to know I'm committed to the firm. And he
very deadpan, and he says to me, I'm not worried.
We pay you more than you'll ever make whistling.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
Yea.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
And so you really can't make a lot of money
as a whistler. So I've had this wonderful career in communications.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
We're in Washington, d C. I worked in the White House.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
I worked on Capitol Hill at an investment firm for
eighteen years, and I've had this whistling overlay. So there's
like this little parallel life of being a whistler, and
then the whistling kind of dips into my day job
over the years. And you know, one time I was
just summoned to the Oval Office to whistle for George W.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Bush with fifteen minutes notice.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
It is just bizarre.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
I totally bizarre.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
And so somebody that knew the president said, you know,
we got the international whistling champion working in the White House.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
That is exactly what happened. So in Bush goes, that's right,
that's exactly what happened.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
And so I whistle Happy Birthday for the President's chief
of Staff, Andy Card And then apparently he then told
the President, we got this freaky guy who can whistle
on the staff. I had never met him before. And
then I walk into a staff meeting with the with
Mitch Daniels. You've probably heard of him. He was the
president of Purdue University the governor of Indiana. After the
(10:32):
White House and I walk into the staff meeting and
Mitch says.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Meeting canceled.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
Ullman, you stay, And that's usually a bad sign when
you're a spokesperson. It means you said something stupid to
a reporter and you're about to get fired.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Yeah. So I was about to whistle your butt right
out of the White.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
House, that's right, or but into the Oval Office.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
So I said, what's up, Mitch, and he said, get
your jacket, We're going to the Oval a whistle for
the president.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
And I'm like, come on.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
So I run to my office and I call my
wife and I say, Chris. Her name's Chris also, so
it's Chris and Chris. Anyway, I say, Chris, I'm going
to the Oval Office to whistle for the president.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
She's like, can I come? I say, no gotta go. Sorry, Okay.
So then Mitch and I.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Go to the Oval Office and I serenade the President
for like twenty minutes, and while I'm in there, the
Vice President comes in the.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
White House Council.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
There were twenty people in the Oval Office by the
time we were done. He had a great time.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
I had an amazing time.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
What did you whistle for him?
Speaker 1 (11:32):
I whistled Dueling Banjo's you know from that great movie Deliverance?
Speaker 3 (11:37):
Are you kidding me?
Speaker 2 (11:40):
With my boss? We did a duet that was kind
of freaky.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
I did the William Tell overture, which is otherwise known
as the Lone Ranger Song.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
And it goes on and on and on.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
I would expect George Bush would have loved that one.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
He did well. I did say.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
I didn't say it was the William tell overture. I
just said it's the Lone Ranger song. And He's like, perfect,
do that one for me. And then I concluded with
battle him of the Republic, which I'd never whistled publicly before.
I had whistled it on my own, probably during my
paper route. And then like on the fly, he just said,
all right, I got to go. Gotta go do the
(12:20):
nation's business. Whistle one more for me? And I thought, hm, like,
what is a great song to like end an oval
office gig with? And I said, well, battle him of
the Republic, of course. So I did that and it
and you know, it gives.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Me a shiver to this day.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
That and this is this whole notion of how do
you take a simple gift? Like I'm not curing cancer,
I'm not rowing across the Atlantic, I'm not climbing Mount
Everest blind.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
I just whistle.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
But you know I could take this super simple gift
and then touch this the most powerful man in the planet,
and touch his heart in just a little way and
give him a little respite, a little joy for twenty minutes.
And so that experience has stuck with me, and I
know it's stuck with him because I met him probably
like fifteen years later, and he remembered that experience.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
Yeah, I remember reading that. When you walked in to
the over office, but you got to be nervous. I mean,
it's the Oval Office, it's the president, and dude has
an unlit cigar and his feet kicked up on his
desk and he's like, hey, dude, whistle it was.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
It was really kind of freaky. I was a little nervous,
but I didn't have enough time. You know, what happens
in life is like you have this big exam in
a month and you're like you're worried about it, or
a big presentation at work. I had fifteen minutes notice,
and half of it was trying to figure out what
am I going to whistle? So I walk in the
oval and there he is kicking back feed up on
the desk unlits of gar and he sees me.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Jumps up and he comes around and he says, he
shakes my hand.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
He said, he said, who's what you had to whistle?
He said, do you need some water? Do you need
you stand? You said what's going on? And I was like,
this President, I'm moisten, puckered, I'm ready to go okay,
And he's like, all right, let's do it. And then
I was so happy you used my father's nickname, Bub,
because when I was done whistling for the president, he said,
(14:11):
I'm going to write your father a note. And he
took out this presidential stationery and he says the president
on it and he said, dear Bub. Chris came by
the Oval to share his magic. We're happy to have
him on the team. And my mother recently gave me
that note. I haven't seen it in twenty, you know,
like twenty five years.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
And that needs to be framed and stuck somewhere.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
It's put it in one of those like loose sight things.
It's in our living room. And so he Bush was
thinking like that. He was a very nice man. I
was really impressed with that battle.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
Him and the Republic is one of the greatest. Give
us a little bit of that.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
All right, Well it goes.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
On it well done, good, thank you.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
Yeah, that was that was fun.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
That was really all right. So everybody in here, y'all
just got what the president got. See you need to
feel pretty, you know, elevator or whatever. And now a
few messages from our general sponsors. But first, I hope
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(15:50):
we share more powerful content, including reels from our video
studio and testimonials from army members. We're at army of
normal folks on every channel. Give us a follow, we'll
be right back, all right. So another one that interests
(16:24):
me is the Jalno Show.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
Right, Yeah, that was so so I win, all right,
so let me I'm going to talk about that. But no, no, no,
this is perfect, but the progression. So I'm whistling talent shows,
I go to blues clubs, and I'm I'm learning how
to do improvisational whistling, not just classical. I whistle a
lot of grateful dead, a lot of jazz and stuff
(16:48):
like that. And then I'm I'm on a hike in
the Shenandoah National Park, which is in Virginia, and whistling,
of course, hopefully not annoying too many people.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
And some one of.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
My friends says, you know, you're really good. You should
do something with that. And this is ninety two, so
there's no internet. So a friend says, if this competition,
because I said, I think there's a competition.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
If it exists, she said, I'll find it.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
So she we get back from the hike, she goes
to a library, finds, interestingly a directory of events and
is a book like five hundred pages of all these
national events in America. And sure enough, there is at
the time the National Whistler's Convention, a gathering of the
best whistlers in the world in this little town in
North Carolina call Lewisbourg.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
Oh gosh, if you if you were going to say
mount Airy, I was going to know it's right.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
It's not far from mount Airy at all.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
Which for everybody listing Andy Griffith's show, of course, yeah
maybe the most whistled tune people my age.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Or shouldn't I Okay, it goes on and on too.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
I feel like Ron Howard out a walkin that you should.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
So I compete in the competition. I win a small prize,
and which gave me hope. So what's interesting about when
you are the whistler in your town or on you
at your job or at your college. You don't know
how good you are relative to other people. It's not
until you go to a gathering of the best whistlers
(18:33):
or swimmers or whatever that you actually see how good
are you? So I show up at this international competition
and yeah, I thought, yeah, it was pretty good.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
So I learned a lot that first year.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
And then so I come back the next year, nineteen
ninety four, and I win the Grand Championship, and that's
where Jay Leno comes in. So I win this thing
and I say, well that was really fun, And then.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
How many people are in this thing?
Speaker 2 (18:58):
They're on thirty adults all right.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
They come from just all over all over the world.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
I mean we had Japan, Canada, Australia, England, Germany, US,
a lot of a lot of Canadians. They are very cool,
they're very they're good at hockey, they're good at whistling.
I bet you didn't know that far.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Okay. So the phone just rings totally.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Off the hook. It is radio shows, and then a
producer for the Tonight Show calls up says, hey, we
want you to be on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
I'm like, you can't be serious. They're like, we're very serious.
Can you come here in like three days? So I
fly to la and I was on the Tonight Show.
(19:39):
It's on YouTube. You can find all this stuff.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
Would you whistle for him?
Speaker 1 (19:42):
I whistled Love Struck Baby by Stevie ray Vaughan with
the Tonight Show band, which was just an amazing experience.
Alan Alda for those people who remember mash he was a.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Guest that night.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
And then Michael Richards who was Cramer on Seinfeld, he
was a guest too.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
So I got to meet these famous people and they
were like, who are you. I'm like I'm the champion whistler.
They're like yeah, oh yeah, sure, yeah yeah uh and.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
Then you know, the Today Show calls I'm on with
Katie Kuric and and then like all hell broke loose.
I am going all around whistling and doing fun things
and you know, and just sharing my simple gift.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
But of course I still have a day job, so I.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
Got to manage that day in and day out while
having all this fun whistling and uh, yeah it was.
It was amazing good experiences.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
And since then, you've won it three more times? I did.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Yeah, I won three more times, and then I did
try to win it a fifth time, like be like
Michael Jordan and come out of retirement. I came in third,
and I thought, you know, I'm going to hang up
my chapstick. And you know, so now now I just
whistle Happy Birthday. And I do talks on whistling and
it's less about whistling, and it's more about what's your
(20:57):
simple gift in life and what are you going to
do with it? And well, yeah, go ahead, I'm and
in my book, what I do is I try to
focus on other people and say, all right, my gift
happens to be whistling, But what's your gift? And how
did other people in my life, how did their simple
gifts touch my heart? To try to give the reader
(21:19):
a sense of what a whistle metaphor for gift can be,
because I've had people come up to me and say, oh,
I can't whistle, and I say, that's not the point.
The point is God gave you gifts. What are you
doing with them? Have you developed them? And are you
sharing them? And you know, trying to make a little
impact in your orbit.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
So it's fun to have the International Whistler on here
to whistle the stuff that you've whistled, and we'll continue
to whistle throughout our chat. But that's the part that
struck me the most is that we talk about on
an army in normal folks, that magic happens when someone
uses their passion and discipline and it intersects opportunity. That's
(22:02):
when magic happens in the world is when there's a
gap in society, a hole that needs filling, a need
that needs filling, and then somebody that has a discipline
and I don't mean discipline like doing the right thing,
I mean an ability and a passion that intersects with
that whole and they decide to engage. And you know
(22:27):
a lot of people think about philanthropic endeavors and helping
communities is being part of some large government in GEO
or some massive organization. But I will argue some of
the best servant leadership you can do is oftentimes just
down the hallway, and it's an army of normal folks.
(22:49):
Is not about five people doing gargantuan work. It's about
means of people doing small things and how that can
change our culture. And that is why I love your story.
When did you decide you are simply going to call
people on their birthday seven hundred people a year and
just wish a happy birthday, to put twenty seconds of
(23:13):
joining their life. That to me is the most beautiful
the whole part of the story.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
Well, Bill, I just love the way you phrase it
of how these kind of skills and interest meeting opportunity.
And you know, at the typical college graduation, the speaker
will at some point say, now go change the world,
and I just cringe when I hear that, and it's
(23:38):
well intended. But I work in an investment firm, so
I'm all about odds and what are the odds of success?
And that's how I advise my clients. You know, if
you do X, the odds of success are either high
or low. And if someone said to me, go change
the world, the odds of success are very infantestic infantesim.
(24:00):
But if they said go touch the heart or the
life of the person sitting next to you or down
the hall, the odds of success are one hundred percent.
So I'm going with the odds. I'm going to go
and see how can I take that little gift and
with some you know, some effort, and see how I
(24:20):
can effect change in just this tiny little way.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
So with the to answer your question.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
Specifically, it was in the I think like ninety four,
nineteen ninety four, so thirty one years ago that I
whistled the first Happy Birthday, and I remember it to
this day. I was working on Capitol Hill at the
House Budget Committee and it was someone's birthday and usually
most people sing. And someone said, hey, you're a whistler,
(24:48):
you know, because I won the championship at that point,
and so when you whistle Happy Birthday, I was like,
I've never done that before, so I.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
You know, I did kind of a basic version of
you know that kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
People like, yeah, that was great, and amazingly, I still
whistle for the couple of people who I worked with
at that time to this day, all these decades later.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
Do you say hello? Or when they pick up the
phone do you just start whistling?
Speaker 1 (25:13):
Oh my god, I'm so glad you you asked that question,
because most people, when you get them live, they grown.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
And I'll explain why.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
It's like, I'll say, hey, it's Chris calling, you know,
serenade you on your birthday. You're like, oh, And now
at first I my feelings were hurt. And then what
I found out was that they wanted a recording of
it so they could share with their friends. So now
I don't call anyone on their birthday. I take my
iPhone and there's a little voice memo and they record
(25:45):
a custom version for each person. So the typical thing
is I'll say, I'll say, Bill, it's Chris calling to
issue a happy birthday, and here's a serenade to add.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
To your merriment. That is, that's kind of my line.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
And then I whistled this wildly complicated version of happy Birthday,
because it's morphed from that simple version thirty years ago
to fairly complex version today and then I just say,
you know, God bless you.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
There you go.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
And then I texted to them and people love that
far more.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
Yeah. The reason I ask is my fraternity roommate, Charles Felcher,
who does listen to the show occasionally. His father was
a full bird kernel and he was in a OTC
and there were many, many Sunday mornings. Their pet was
at six am that he would enjoy all the trappings
(26:43):
of what ole miss has to offer too late on
Saturday night, and he would just go get dressed in
as fatigues and pass out in my hatchback. And I
knew he'd be there, so I would wake up at
five point fifteen in the morning, go down, drive my
car to PTE, open the hatchback, spill him out on
the floor and he'd go run through my right.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
That's a great way to get sober, huh.
Speaker 3 (27:02):
It is. So he hadn't done it a while, but
starting on the second year of my marriage, on just
random times, once he became in charge of a company,
once he became major, the phone would ring at five
in the morning. I'd answer it. And I wouldn't hear
a voice. I would just get a bugle of rebelly
(27:23):
in my ear and then he would hang up and
that was it. But I knew it was Charles, so
I didn't know if maybe you ever did that on
Happy Birthday with people. That's why I asked if you
actually introduced it. I have never. I wish Charles would
have done your method. It's much better. Who's got a
birthday in March? When's it coming? Oh? When's your birthday? Mark? Wow?
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Happy birthday? What's your name?
Speaker 3 (27:51):
And well to do your complicated happy birthday forever? Right?
Speaker 1 (27:55):
I would be honored for Anne. You know, they say
what your whistle? So we have to have a little set.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
Yeah, how old are you? Anne? Awesome?
Speaker 1 (28:05):
All right, here we go, Hi, Anne, It's Chris Ulman
calling to wish you a happy birthday. Here's a serenade
to add to your merriment. Happy birthday.
Speaker 3 (29:07):
I don't know how you do that with your mouth.
That was a bunch of weird stuff.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
Stuff going on there.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
Well, the wha, there's this wah wah thing I do.
And this had to do with like these funky techniques.
So I referenced earlier that this lip whistling, but this
tongue whistling, so no.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Lips at all.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
But you can incorporate your lips by doing the tongue
whistle but going wah wah. So if you literally say
wah wah while whistling, so I call it scot whistling.
And so if I am doing, say like a jazz tune, uh,
or if I have a repeated phrase in a song,
(29:47):
you don't want to do it the same way each time.
You can go up an octave, down an octave, or
do the scot whistling thing, so you're it's the same notes,
but a different kind of means of delivering it, and
it just is a little more interesting.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
So yeah, very interesting. It's cool. It's also cool to watch.
You can also tell how hard you are concentrating because
your hands are mimicking what your brain is telling your
lips to do. That you can see that.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
That's a very good point. Yeah, I'm like very into it.
It's you know, especially for Anne and ultimately, like you say,
why do I whistle Happy birthday?
Speaker 3 (30:23):
For people?
Speaker 1 (30:24):
When you think about what is one of the most
important things in life? It is life and you know,
to be able to honor someone on their birthday is
to say I'm glad you were born, and I'm glad
you're here, and here's just like a little packet of
love I'm going to share with you. Not changing the world,
just going to make Anne feel special on her birthday.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
And the notes I get from people are.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
Astounding, and I don't do it for this reason, but
it warms my heart nonetheless. Is you know people say
my birthday is now complete, or I've saved every one
of these things that you say me over time, and
you made my day. I'm like, oh my gosh, it
just gives me a shiver of You don't have to
go try to save the world. You can just share
(31:09):
that little gift with people.
Speaker 3 (31:12):
And if we had an million, two three million army
of normal folks just doing those things, imagine how those
little things can break down massive walls.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
Absolutely, we'll be right back.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
I've had several bosses in my career who have been
very instrumental in my thinking about building bridges with people
who think differently. I'll tell you quick on, it's not whistling,
but it's all about reaching out to people who are
different from you. And I think too often we stay
in our own little camps and more and more.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
And this man, his name is Arthur Levitt, and he
was the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, which
oversees the stock markets and protects investors. And I worked
for him back in the late nineties. And so he
was a Democrat. But Phil Graham from Texas was the
chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, and he was a
good old boy Republican from Texas. Then Arthur was a
(32:33):
very patrician, modest Democrat from New York, and he had
to figure out how does he relate to this Texan.
So he in his first meeting with him, he walks
in Graham's office and sees a picture of a Labrador
Retriever on Graham's desk, and Arthur loves labradors and said
to Graham, Senator, is that your dog? And he said
(32:55):
that's my dog, and he said I love labs too,
and boom. They had a connection. And that simple connection
it was almost like the lubricant for a productive relationship
for years from.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
People who had very differing viewpoints on things.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
Yes, and who could easily have just ground against each other,
or it could have been me versus you or my
party versus your party, versus saying how do we transcend
the differences humanize, which is really what the dog did.
The dogs humanized the relationship that how bad could Philby
(33:33):
or Arthur b if they loved Labrador retrievers? And that
enabled them to get stuff done for America?
Speaker 2 (33:41):
And we need more of that.
Speaker 3 (33:45):
Amen, We often say another. Our regular listeners will have
heard this one hundred times. But I don't care if
you're black, white, Hispanic, Asian, gay, straight, Christian, Muslim, agnostic, Jewish, Republican, Democrat, conservative, progressive.
(34:06):
I'm trying to come up with all the categories here,
but you get the idea if you, despite any of
those categories or identities, are employing your passion and arean
need and being successful and helping someone who maybe isn't
as blessed as you. I don't care about the rest
of that stuff. I can celebrate that in you, and likewise,
(34:29):
you can celebrate that in me, and that creates a
foundation that we can now have civil, non threatening conversations
about stuff that matters that metaphorically is the Labrador. Yeah,
and I feel we're losing it, and I think the
only way to bring that back is an army of
(34:49):
normal folks that engage respect and appreciate one another. And
from that foundation, we can start having conversations about this
crowd that's dividing us. And it can be as simple
as whistling. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
I love the way you phrase it, And what I
think is bottom up. This has got to be bottom
up bottom. If we're waiting for the folks in Washington
or elsewhere to tell us how to behave or how
to treat people, that's we're looking in the wrong direction.
And I've tried to raise my children, I have three children,
they're either right out of college or in college right now,
(35:28):
to view every encounter with another person as an opportunity
to learn, to grow, and you know, to not be
scared of unfamiliarity, but to explore and ask questions. And
you know, God gave us two ears one mouth. It's
a nice ratio. Ask more, talk less, and just be
(35:50):
willing to learn. And you know, it could be any
of those differences that you pointed out. And rather than
listening to what you know, society or the haters have
told us about different people, let's make our own judgments
and let's transcend labels. And focus on humanity. And it's
(36:11):
amazing just the commonality you'll find with people that gets
beyond all the labels.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
And the isms and stuff like that.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
It's beautiful. It's what we've got to do. Find your whistle.
Simple gifts, touch hearts and change lives. And I love
the phraseology find your whistle, obviously from a whistler. What
this is is a call to understand that you may
(36:40):
never be the president of the United States, you may
never start an organization with a thousand people in it,
but every single one of us, every single one of us,
has a gift, and your charge is for us to
find that gift and then employ it.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
Yeah, I want to tell you a story about someone
who has a gift of happiness, how he shares it
with people. So the company I used to work at
in Washington, I would drive into the parking lot every
day and this young man from Ethiopia, he was a
Green card holder and seeking to become an American, and
(37:21):
I was just really amazed and how happy he was.
Because garages, you know, underground garages are either hot, really
hot in the summer, they're really cold in the winter,
and they're always kind of dim and no matter what
the temperature.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
Was or the light level was.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
When I drove in there, he was like, mister Chris,
good to see you. How's your weekend, how's your family?
And we formed this really special friendship. And when he
became an American, I took my daughters to his naturalization ceremony,
which was an amazing experience.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
And if anyone's been.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
To one, you know that, and if you haven't been
to one, you must go to see people of It's
like skin color coloring, you know, spanning the rainbow of
people all around America with some of their native clothes on,
like they want to be an American, just like you.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
And you say, what an experience. So here, so you
hear it.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
You have the happy guy in the colder, the hot garage,
and then I would take the elevator up. And I
worked an investment firm where the founders were billionaires literally, and.
Speaker 2 (38:26):
You get out of the so you go. It's very metaphorical.
Speaker 1 (38:30):
Also, you go from from hot and cold, up and
dark to the light, climate controlled, and there's a billionaire,
a billionaire billionaire, and you know they're not particularly happy.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
And I would say, how the heck is that possible?
Speaker 1 (38:43):
They have all that wealth, I'd say, well, it's not
really about that. It's about this kind of intrinsic value
that his name is Sala, Salah's appreciation for the gifts
that God gave him and that he's going to make
the most of it. And he also said, and when
I interviewed him for Anotherok I wrote, he said, I complain,
he doesn't get you anywhere anyway, so why bother?
Speaker 2 (39:04):
And so I totally agree.
Speaker 1 (39:06):
But that's his gift and he shares it with so
many people, and everyone who knew him.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
Was touched by his gift.
Speaker 3 (39:13):
That's his whistle, was this simple happiness, Yes, gratitude.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
Yeah, it was really amazing.
Speaker 3 (39:20):
Sh drought him up to the billionaires and said, hey,
would you sit and hang out with us, dude for
about thirty minutes.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
I wish I could show you at this moment.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
But at that book party for that other book that
I wrote, I have a picture of the parking attendant
and the billionaire holding my book at the party, and
it's amazing. And yeah, he's really touched a lot of hearts.
Speaker 3 (39:47):
And that concludes part one of my conversation with Chris Ulman.
And you don't want to miss part two that's now available. Together, guys,
we can change the country, but it starts with you.
I'll see it in part two.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
H
Host
Bill Courtney
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