Every faculty morning for years, Dick Kazan has been standing on the road in Palos Verdes Estates providing one thing good to say. He needs for everybody — notably youngsters on their option to faculty — to have an excellent day.
“Everybody, no exceptions, needs to really feel vital. I need them to really feel vital,” the 79-year-old stated. “I need them to really feel lovely. I need them to really feel wanted. And I need them to really feel secure.”
What began as a easy effort to assist direct site visitors and meet his neighbors has changed into a labor of affection during the last seven years.
“I get a sense of affection … I do know plenty of these persons are moved by me,” Kazan stated. “I make it some extent to study the names as a result of in case you wanna make folks really feel vital, you have to study their names.”
If he misses a day, folks usually discover. But it isn’t solely on faculty mornings that Kazan is spreading his easy, but vital message. He lets folks know they matter, in his personal neighborhood by greeting folks at supermarkets or within the fitness center.
Many folks have proven their appreciation again. Kazan has letters and notes on the wall of his residence workplace. One reads: “Dear type man, I used to be having a tough morning, handled not-so-friendly folks, however you made my day once you shocked me and informed me, ‘You, too, have a pleasant day.'”
Kazan defined the letter, saying he noticed a lady popping out from a retailer who appeared upset.
“I simply got here as much as her with a smile. I went into store. When I got here again, she’d scribbled that on a serviette,” he stated.
Alongside the notes are household images, however lacking are the awards and plaques of a businessman and an organization founder to indicate the individual he was once. Kazan stated he didn’t have one of the best childhood and was decided to be financially profitable, however it got here at a distinct sort of price.
“I made a fortune and I used to be not a really good individual. I used to be a very pushed individual. I used to be an sincere man, however a very pushed man, and other people did not take pleasure in me, to be completely frank,” he stated.
Kazan labored in laptop and excessive expertise leasing, saying the corporate had “about $2 billion.” On his forty sixth birthday, he made a private pivot. His residence workplace now could be the world headquarters of the “Kazan Today,” which is his on-line publication that features “recipes for fulfillment” and little droplets of inspiration.
The transition, Kazan stated, took time. He pointed to an unlikely tapestry of acclaimed males, together with Michelangelo, John D. Rockefeller, George Bernard Shaw and Gandhi, that he stated gave him steerage.
“With Gandhi, at occasions I discovered myself misplaced within the course of. So did he. Michelangelo, he says to us, the larger hazard for many of us is just not that our purpose is just too excessive and we miss it, however that it is too low and we attain it. That’s most individuals!”
They led him to share a easy message, wishing everybody an excellent day.
His message resonated deeply with Philipp Hartwell, an funding banker who wrote to CBS News contributor David Begnaud about how his Palos Verdes estates neighborhood in suburban Los Angeles has been made higher by Kazan.
“I simply needed folks to know that there are nonetheless good folks right here,” Hartwell stated. “And that you simply begin the children off, and whether or not the children recognize it, I’m positive the dad and mom do, that you simply’re beginning them off on an excellent word.”
Kazan stated whereas his phrases are seemingly small, his previous self would by no means share easy messages of kindness.
“He would say, ‘What is improper with you? You gave up that nice huge home,'” Kazan stated. “He thought by way of cash, drove Porsches, that Dick Kazan. And he was all the time in a rush and he all the time had his be careful for any assembly or no matter. If this wasn’t being profitable, he would not do it.”
But now at 79 years previous, Kazan has totally different ideas on his present self and the large message behind his small phrases.
“It’s an important factor he is ever finished, other than being a husband and a father.”
