Hi, I'm Chris Ullman, four-time International Whistling Champion and member of the Whistlers Hall of Fame.

I had this very key moment.

I had graduated from college, and I was a pretty good whistler at this point, and I was on a hike in the Shenandoah National Park and a friend of a friend heard me whistling and said, “Wow!

You're a really good whistler.

You should do something with that.” And I said, “well, I’ve heard there is an international competition, but I don’t know anything about it.” So the mutual friend said, “if it exists, I will find it.” And sure enough, there is at the time, The National Whistlers Convention.

So I signed up.

I practice.

I compete and I won a small prize.

So now I figured out how it worked.

So I go back the next year after a year-long practice regiment and I win the Grand Championship.

And like, all hell breaks loose.

I'm on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

I'm on the Today Show with Katie Couric.

I do dozens of TV and radio interviews.

So I've developed what I call a whistling ministry.

And it's whistling Happy Birthday for people.

So over the years, starting almost 40 years ago, I started whistling Happy Birthday for family and friends.

And that has accumulated now to a list of 700 people.

And it is just a great joy to be able to take these like, little packets of love and then send it to someone on their birthday to acknowledge their life.

Well, I have had the opportunity to whistle in a whole bunch of wild places.

Literally at the top of the Washington Monument here in D.C.

on the outside.

And I've whistled the National Anthem at a whole bunch of games.

The Orioles, the Nats, Cincinnati Reds, Texas Rangers, Duke men's basketball, and lots of other places as well It's a great honor to whistle a national anthem.

And then it had dawned on me that it is just a simple gift.

I'm not curing cancer.

I am not climbing Mount Everest blind.

I’m not rowing across the Atlantic single-handedly.

All I'm doing is sharing this simple gift of whistling with people.

But it makes them happy.

It brings some joy.

I whistled in the Oval Office for the President of the United States, and I gave this busy man a little respite for 20 minutes.

So that's what the theme became, is that everyone has a simple gift.

Mine happens to be whistling, but what is your gift?

The whole notion of Find Your Whistle is really a metaphor.

That the whistle is what is your gift in life and what are you doing with it?

Every day, from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to bed you will intersect with scores of other human beings.

Those are scores of opportunities to touch hearts and change lives in small ways.

If you're wondering, do you have a gift and what do you do with it?

Well, the first thing to do is to kind of survey yourself.

How have you intersected with people throughout your life?

And then it’s development.

You know, can I, you know, fine tune it?

Can I make it better?

Then it's application and going out there and and being courageous and and sharing your gift with people.

In my book I feature ten people and what their gifts are and how those gifts touched my heart.

So, for example, a former colleague of mine makes the best carrot cake in the world.

And on my birthday every year he will make me a carrot cake.

And it warms my heart just as I warm his heart when I whistle for him.

Another man runs a homeless shelter in Washington, D.C.

and his gift is love.

And I have a priest friend whose gift is communication skills.

He's able to take the gospel and and kind of package it in this little way that I can appreciate it and understand it better than I ever could.

And that's his gift.

So everyone has that simple gift So the key is, can you find what that simple gift is for you then develop it?

Whether it's the cake or the communication skills.

And then be courageous and get out there.

Get out there and share it with people.

Don't keep your gifts bottled up inside you.

Get out there, develop it, share it and be courageous and change the lives of the people around you in these little ways.