Khalfani Makalani: Start Living Your Life

In my series, “People Making a Difference,” I interview Khalfani Makalani, who went from a “time to make the donuts” existence to truly living his life, recording a demo with his dad’s blues group, becoming the lead singer for legendary drummer Willie “The Touch” Hayes’s band, and going from 300lbs to being a personal trainer — talk about a transformation! He’s now an Assistant Director of Operations at Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, creating a diverse team full of equitable and accessible opportunities to help develop the next generation. ~ Michelle Tennant Nicholson

Thank you so much for your time! I know you are a very busy person. Can you tell us a story about what early experiences brought you to your specific career path?

Well, my name is Khalfani Makalani, and I am an Assistant Director of Floor Operations in the Guest Relations Department at Shedd Aquarium, the world-renowned aquatic museum. It’s the top cultural attraction in the city of Chicago, period, point blank. The aquarium opened in 1930, and we’re coming up on 100 years. Construction wasn’t yet finished, but it opened in 1930 and finished construction in 1933.

How did I end up at Shedd? Now, most people won’t tell you that they are no longer with a company because they got fired. I got fired from Starbucks. I was making as much as you could as a retail store manager, and they had a policy — many companies have this — when you cap out in one place, you’ve got to move somewhere else. I refused. My store was perfect. It was six blocks from my house, and the people on my team had become my family. I told my district manager, if you can’t give me an experience that’s better than this, I’m not going anywhere. So, I was fired.

It ended up being one of the most extraordinary time periods of my life. I had lots of money saved up and didn’t work for two years. I traveled. After two years, it was time to put my feet back on the ground and come back to the working world.

I showed up to a group interview for seasonal team members at the Shedd Aquarium, and my intention was to not go back into management. I just wanted an hourly job where I could clock in, do my job, clock out, and forget about all that higher-level stuff.

Over time, people would say, “We think you’re really awesome. Would you be interested in a management position? You know, you should apply for that. I’ll keep my eye out for opportunities for you.” I eventually went full-time, and then I became a host of the live animal show. I later became a store manager, and now I’m an assistant director.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you in your career or education?

I was a retail store manager for Starbucks, and you know, I love the company. I drink ounces and ounces of coffee every day. I was the manager of the busiest urban location in Chicago, but it had gotten to the point where I’d show up to work at 4:30 in the morning, stand outside with one of my employees, and just be asking myself, “Is this all that life is? What happened to ‘the world is your oyster?’”

I was a good person. I went to college. My whole future was supposed to be ahead of me. I had dreams of being famous, of being an entertainer, and every morning it’s kind of like that the old Dunkin’ DonutsTM commercial: “Time to make the donuts!”

One of my employees invited me to an introduction to The Landmark Forum, and I went to it with no idea what it was. Even after the introduction, I wasn’t clear about what it was that I had signed up for.

I did The Landmark Forum and went back to work the first day after it. My employees were like, “What did they do to you?” As I said, that was one of the top retail stores in Chicago. I didn’t take time off from work. I didn’t take vacations. I mean, I’d work, go home, eat, sleep, get up, go back to work. That was my life.

My dream though was to be in entertainment. My bachelor’s degree is in theater, and I grew up singing and acting as a kid. All of that had been put to the side because you’re supposed to get a job, and pay your bills, and be responsible, and you need insurance, and blah blah, blah, blah, blah!

Here I was at Starbucks. I was really hard on my employees. I didn’t have any room for empathy. It was just, “Here’s what I need to you to get done, and you know you need to live up to that.” But after The Landmark Forum, I was listening to people. I was putting myself in their shoes. We were having conversations instead of me telling them what they needed to do and not do.

Right around then, an email comes into my inbox and Starbucks, the company, was going to put out a CD of music from artists who worked for Starbucks. That was back in the day when you walked in and saw CDs right at the register. It was a big deal.

I got so excited. All this time, I’d been looking for an opportunity to get back into music and express myself, but I didn’t have time because I was such a workaholic, then the opportunity literally fell into my lap. I didn’t have to go out for it. It just showed up.

My dad was back in Iowa and had a band. So, I called my dad and asked him if we could do some original music. It transformed my relationship with my dad. Growing up, all I ever wanted was to go with him when he would go out on the weekends to play his gigs, and I cried when he would say no.

After this experience, not only did he get his band to record the demo, but we got into the contest. I went back to Iowa to record the demo. The guys in his band loved me so much that they asked if I would be the lead singer of the band — even though I lived in Chicago, and they were in Iowa. Of course I said, “Yes!” So, I went from being the guy who never took time off work to, every other weekend, taking off and going to Iowa, going to Indiana, going to wherever we were playing gigs, doing shows, with my dad as the bass player. I was a singer. My dad was playing the electric bass over my left shoulder. It was one of the best times of my life, a dream come true.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting out on your career? What lesson did you learn from that?

After I had become a full-time employee at the aquarium, I was hosting the live animal shows. It’s not like you learn a script and you go out there and do it. We were trained in sections, small sections, because there was a lot to it. You’ve got to learn the script, and then there’s the technical aspects, and then there’s the animals, and you don’t know what the animals are going to do. The trainers use hand signals with the animals. So, you had to learn this hand signal code, and you had to synthesize it with the script and the technical aspects, so it’s a lot to put together.

The very first or second show that I was doing, I walked out and welcomed everybody to the Shedd Aquarium and to the aquatic show. I knew in my head what we had planned and what was supposed to happen. I was supposed to turn around and look to the lead animal trainer, and he was supposed to give a signal, and so on, and so forth. There are hundreds of people in the audience. It’s dark. There’s a spotlight on me. I’m sweating because I’m new at this. I give the opening spiel, and I turn around and look at the lead animal trainer, and he does just kind of this weird little wave. I didn’t recognize the hand signal. It was his own personal take on what the hand signal was supposed to be, and it didn’t look like what it was supposed to look like to me.

So, I mean, we are two minutes into a 30-minute show, and, at that moment, I say to myself, “I’m not sure what’s happening, so I’m going to sit down and turn the show over to the trainer.” I bailed on the show two minutes in! I didn’t know what to do, so I sat down. Everyone laughed at that.

It took me a while to get it. You’ve got to be aware of not only what you’re doing, but of what everyone else is doing. I was more concerned at that point about me. I was in just my own world. My lesson was getting that there are always multiple worlds happening at the same time. There’s something to being in every single world. It took me a while to step out of my perspective. There’s lots of perspectives, and it is very possible to navigate easily inside all of them. So that was really the big lesson.

What are some of the most interesting and exciting community projects you are working on now?

One of the most exciting community projects is bringing foreign students to Shedd to work over the summer. Every vacation season we hire additional staff, but that is something that we’ve never done before. I see the opportunity to expand each person’s individual world by working alongside someone who is literally from the other side of the world. Not only can you be more connected to the world as a community of people, but the normal, everyday way you think about your own life has to shift a little bit.

It took two years for me to get five students from Kazakhstan at the aquarium. The first year, I failed because I knew nothing about the ‘work abroad’ market and approached recruiting and hiring internationally the same way I do it domestically. That didn’t work. There were federal regulations I knew nothing about and contract negotiations that were more detailed than I had experience with. But this year, I started earlier, stayed with it, and did everything from contract revisions to apartment hunting to bring five Kazakhstani college students to Chicago. I know their lives have been impacted by their summer here. But also impacted are the lives of the people on my team who have never been outside of Chicago, who have never been to college — the people whose whole world has only been here. Now, something as far away and remote as Kazakhstan is a part of their reality. If that can happen, anything can happen.

What are 5 things you would tell your younger self?

1. Oh, oh, wow! I would say protect your sense of humor. Don’t lose that. Anytime you feel like you’re losing that, just reevaluate where you are, because that’s hard to come by sometimes, so keep that alive as long as you can.

2. The second thing I would tell my younger self is you don’t have to have everything right now. It’s okay not to have everything right now.

3. The third thing is when people who have your best interest at heart tell you something, do what they say. Do what they say. Had I taken typing, had I learned Spanish, and on and on and on.

4. You might feel like you’re invincible now, but your health is literally one of the most important things you have, so live healthy. I know there’s a pull when you’re young to party, be free. You just don’t think about it, but take care of your health, physical health, mental health. Take care of it.

5. Let’s see, one more thing I would tell my younger self. I would say the dreams that you have, like go even farther. You might think that you’re working hard at them, and you might think that you’re doing all that you can. But those thoughts that you have like I can’t do that — do those too. You’ll be all right, and you’ll figure it out

Yeah, that’s what I will tell myself.

You are a successful person. Can you share some tips on how young people today can get ahead?

Some tips on how young people today can get ahead. Well, first of all. get up, get out the house and have an actual conversation with another human being. Technology is awesome, being behind the screen, or being on your phone, or all that stuff on a computer. All that stuff is wonderful. It’s brought the world closer together, or you could even say it made the world bigger than it’s ever been.

But you know, go outside and experience air and grass, and the people in your community, and the person who runs the corner store, and those people that you know have different skin color and talk a different language in that other neighborhood over there. You know what I mean? Get out and actually interact with people. That will be one thing.

Other advice. That’s a really good question. I think that today, rightly so — I’m not taking anything away from it — there is a big focus on mental/emotional well-being. We’re way more sensitive to a lot of things now than we were in my generation, and I think that’s extraordinary. But while you’re focusing on that and making sure your emotional well-being is protected, you’ve also got to… I’m not saying this well. I just want you to consider that there’s value in getting in a fight, but this probably doesn’t sound connected.

When you’re young and you have — this is my experience — you have a disagreement with the kids on the other block, and you’ll have a little fighting. You know, you go home. And, those times when you lose, those times when you get hurt, those times when you have confrontations when you’re young and you’re growing up — they teach you resilience. That’s something that I think is missing with this generation is resilience.

Being hurt is a part of life, and you do come back from that, and you do get what makes you stronger, you know, makes you tougher. So, toughen up.

They say the new influencer is a #Givefluencer — how are you paying it forward with others in your life?

Oh, my goodness! At least a dozen employees where I can say not only did I interview them, I hired them, oriented them, trained them as their manager, coached them, wrote a letter of recommendation for them! Set them up with either an internship or a networking opportunity, and then they’re in another — the next level position, something beyond the hourly team position that they started with, so at least a dozen. I work continuously with more than that, probably hundreds over the years, but at least a dozen — where they are now — I had a hand in that.

Is there a particular book that you read, or podcast you listened to that really helped you in your career? Can you explain?

Definitely not a podcast. A book? There was a book for a while, and this was before I did the Landmark Forum. I think it’s kind of a precursor to The Landmark Forum because I had moved here to Chicago, and you know this is a different hustle than small town, Iowa. So, I was like, how do I get this life together?

That was when back when you could go to bookstores — bookstores were a thing. I mean there aren’t too many bookstores around now, but you know, Barnes and Noble and all that kind of stuff. I remember for probably a good year and a half I read and reread this book called In the Meantime by Ayama Vonzant.

It’s essentially, you look at your life like a house and take the case that where you are right now is in the basement. It’s all about cleaning things up — looking at things and cleaning things up so you can get to that next level of your house — to the first floor — and cleaning things up, and looking at things, and cleaning things up until you get to the next, your second floor. Maintain things, clean things, get to the attic. So that was the book that I stayed with for a while.

What about The Landmark Forum? How did I, you said, how did that help your career? Oh, my goodness! Well, as I said, I was working at managing Starbucks when I took The Forum, and I really couldn’t see what the challenge I had was. I couldn’t see a future for myself at Starbucks. Not that there wasn’t — I just couldn’t see it. And at The Forum, like I mentioned earlier, I got so reconnected to things that maybe I didn’t — there wasn’t any particular place to get to. I started enjoying — I mean, at the time I did The Forum I was 300-plus pounds.

I started losing weight, became a personal trainer. I’m still a personal trainer. The day I got out of The Forum, as I said, I got into the band — started just really expressing that artistic side of myself that I had put on ice for so long. So, being fired from my job was — when I think back, I’m so glad that it happened. I wouldn’t be here doing what I’m doing now, contributing in the way that I am contributing, had that not happened. I could literally have continued on with 4:30 in the morning, time to make the donuts. I could have done that. I mean, I had done it up to that point, but I was suddenly getting into things that I was interested in. I guess that’s another way of saying living my life.

I forgot the question already. But yeah, in answering your question, I realized that after The Forum, instead of thinking all the time about where I was supposed to be, or where I wasn’t that I wanted to be, I actually started to live my life. Like I actually started to live it. I had a thought like, oh, I want to record a demo. And then I went and did it. I had a thought like, oh, I’d love to be in a band, and I went and did it. I had a thought like, I want to lose some weight and go work out. I went and did it. I started to live, live my life, and just the trajectory of what it was went in a whole other direction. And that’s how I ended up here.

Because of the role you play in the community, you are a person of great influence. If you could inspire “good news” what would be your headline and 3 talking points?

That’s a tough question. I don’t know who came up with this ‘I was going to inspire good news.’ So, if I were going to inspire good news. My headline.

Okay, I think I’d say something like, ‘This just in, breaking news: Nobody is right!’

And my bullet points would be:

1. ‘Take time to explore and wonder.’

2. My second bullet point would be — it’d be more like a sentence. It’d be something like, ‘Every time you weren’t sure if you were going to make it, you did. So, don’t worry. So, jump in.’

3. And maybe a third bullet point would be, ‘No one else has figured it out yet. So, why not you? Why not you? There’s no saying that you can’t be the one. You could be. You very well could be. It could be you.’

How can people connect with you?

I’m going to give two. Should I give two? I’m going to give two email addresses. Since I talked so much about Shedd, I’ll give my Shedd contact. That’s kmaklani@sheddaquarium.org. That’s work. and then the second way would be my regular email, kmaklani@yahoo.com. I don’t do Twitter, Tik Tok, and Instagram. I don’t have all that.