MEGA Superstar!

Last year, in preparation for my work’s all-employee meeting in December, at the suggesting of my President and CEO, I was asked to sing God Bless America at the beginning of the meeting. I was so excited! First of all, I was going to get to sing for about 150-200 of my peers who had no idea I was a singer, and secondly, I finally had the opportunity to sing Celine Dion’s version of God Bless America. I LOVE her rendition and had never, until now, had an opportunity to bust it out. The moment had come. The day before the big meeting, I went over to the hotel where the meeting was going to take place to rehearse. It was not until then that I found out the Governor was going to be speaking at our meeting – she was totally going to hear me sing! Wow, she had no idea that that would be her lucky day! Unfortunately, the day of the meeting, due to technical difficulties, both she and my President had to leave before I was able to rock the house so neither got to hear. (Although, I should note that at the conclusion of my song, the entire room went to their feet applauding. It was a moment that took my breath away.) In the following days, I had people continuing to come up to me and saying the nicest things, including how shocked they were. In fact, one person admitted that he was really nervous for me because he thought I was going to relive Roseanne Barr’s memorable performance of The Star Spangled Banner. Nice. Thanks for the confidence.

So, fast forward to our MEGA (Michigan Economic Growth Authority) Board Meeting last week. We had two members running late which delayed the meeting unexpectedly. I take the minutes so I sit at the head table with the rest of the board and staff, and all of a sudden, Jim looks at me and somewhat whispers “Do you want to sing? You could sing God Bless America for us.” I thought he was joking so I initially went along with it until I realized he wasn’t. There’s a room full of people, including a television camera from one of the news stations in Detroit. I said, “What if I mess it up?” He looked around, shrugged his shoulders and said, “Who cares?” Um, that would be me. As I tried to buy some time while I played the song through my head, trying to figure out what could and couldn’t be pulled off in my soon to be quazi-Grammy Award winning performance a capella, he starts guilting me by telling me it’s his birthday (which just so happens it was) and reminding me that he had to miss my first performance. Finally, after I was able to conclude that I should be able to, for the most part, pull this off, I agreed. He then introduced me by telling the crowd that at the MEDC, not only do we work hard on economic development, but we have other talents. I thought this might also be a great time to showcase my hand in the arm pit musical instrument technique, but I digress…

So, I got up there and sang. Well…there I go being a big HIT again. Just kidding, but it was well received and I was quite proud of myself – no blunders. Well, that anyone knew about. There was a point in the song where I started to change keys but I am not kidding you when I say that my vocal chords refused. It’s like they revolted and insisted upon staying in the same key. It was funny.

All of that because today, I received a hand-written note in the mail from someone that was there at that meeting representing his company who had applied for an incentive. He wrote the nicest things, closing with “You have a voice and talent worthy of any Hollywood event.” Now, I don’t brag about myself sincerely – I find it extremely uncomfortable and actually, as I write this, I’m getting fidgety about actually posting this to my blog, afeared of being perceived as arrogant. I hope it’s not taken that way. I just thought it was so cool that in this fast-paced, high tech, impersonal society we have come to know and live in, someone took a few minutes to write a note (NOT an email), put a stamp on it, and mail it to acknowledge someone else. And I floated on cloud nine all day because of it. On a smaller scale, it took me back to the feelings I experienced in December after singing for my work meeting – I was on a singer’s high for a month with that one!

Thanks for indulging mi-mi-mi-mi-mi! You-you-you-you-you are the best!

The Princess (aka The MEDC side show)