After my cousin died, I was scheduled to attend the Denniz Pop Awards in Stockholm, an event recognizing new talent and honouring the legendary Denniz Pop, who died of cancer 1998. I didn’t feel like going at all but as always, work must be done. My mom said, “Gezim, just go and connect with the nicest person there. You don’t need to do anything else.”
So I went, and it was a beautiful evening. I met some nice people, but it was the kind of event at which some of the guests wouldn’t talk to some other guests because they weren’t successful enough. It was a great experience, because I told myself that I would never make anyone feel like that. When I went through the crowd at the after-party, I saw Rami Yacoub, who I’d never met in person. I waved, and although he couldn’t have known who I was, he made his way over and introduced himself. When I told him that I had reached out to him through MySpace, we had a great conversation that ranged from living in Sweden as non-native Swedes to the music industry at the time.
As we talked, I realised that I’d found the nicest person in the room. Today Rami is a close friend of mine and I look up to him like an older brother. Ever since that conversation with Harriet, he’s been my biggest inspiration. As globally successful as he is, he always made time for this Albanian refugee kid. That might have been partly because we were connected by our immigrant stories, but it’s also because Rami is always the nicest person in the room.
When I started working at the music school in Sweden, Rami was the first person I invited to do a master class. I wanted to pass the feeling he gave me onto my students. When we got the green light for the institute in LA, Rami was the first person outside of my family that I texted the news to. Now he’s on our advisory committee. For many years, whatever success I’ve had or talent I’ve found, I text Rami first. It’s almost like he has a lucky spell on me. If I tell him something, I just know it’s going to go well. I first reached out because I wanted him to know he’d changed one Albanian boy’s life – he wanted to offer inspiration to someone who reminded him of the challenges he’d faced growing up. And since then, we’ve been able to share full-hearted joy in each other’s lives and successes, while offering whatever strength we have to each other when life’s challenges arise.
I often talk to Rami about storytelling and how important it is. Now he knows that my storytelling started with him. When Harriet told me about him, I knew I wanted to be someone like him, someone who has an impact on other people through his success. Having a hit song is really nothing compared to making people’s lives better through our work. This book is about unlocking your personal superpowers, not so that you can succeed, although you will – but so that you can be the inspiration for others. Whatever else you do, however else you do it, that’s your mission. That’s your purpose. You are here to be what Rami Yacoub has been for me.
When some kid reaches out to you, I hope you’ll be as generous as he was and respond. If we’re out there doing great things with our lives, it’s because people like Rami (and Harriet) have shown us that we can. No one does it alone, without inspiration. We’re all dependent on each other that way. Rami just won a Grammy for “Rain on Me” by Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande. Two decades later, he is still killing it. When you’re connecting authentically, when you’re living your superpowers, you aren’t just doing it for you. Or even for your family. You are doing it for everyone who is rising up behind you, looking for your light to show them the way. Imagine the fulfillment in that. Imagine the joy.
Excerpted with permission from Unlocked: The Power of You, Gezim Gashi, Penguin Random House.