"Surround yourself with whip-smart, self-aware, non-performative people." That was the one-step recipe for a happy life, according to my journalist dad, Sy Pearlman.
Dad hosted dim sum brunches for these triply wonderful folks, 2,546 Saturdays in a row, from 1966 to 2015.
Trees is my passion project to find these rare people; record and share interviews with them; and bring them together at gatherings like dad did, but more often, and in more ways.
All interviews start with the same question —
"Can you tell me an 'If not for...' story about someone who's had an indelibly positive effect on your life?"
Sometimes interviewees have one story to tell.
Sometimes they have a bunch.
To listen to more interviews, shoot me an email me and I'll add you to the distribution list. ted@especiallytrees.com
They run the gamut from 3-day, 25-person, private-chef-equipped, agenda-less destination retreats…
to overnight hikes…
to one-on-one, neighborhood lunches...
"The best lunch date of my life. We were there for two and a half hours but could easily
have stayed for five."
Tina Roth Eisenberg
Founder of Tattly &
Creative Mornings.
to three-headed, topical phone conversations.
Why did you start Trees?
Dad started having me tag along to his brunches one Saturday in 1980. I loved it. Grown-ups who talked and listened to each other like they did were totally new to me.
When I got to college six years later, I had one goal. "Find and gather people who remind me of dad's brunch friends."
It became a lifelong hobby.
When the pandemic descended in 2020, I finally decided to turn it into a full-time project.
Who are you?
I'm Ted Pearlman.
I’m married to Allison, an architect. We live in Denver, Colorado, with our ridiculous eleventh-grader, Oscar, and our couch potato Newfoundland dog, Mabel.
I have a BA in Music (Cornell University ’90). Until 2012, I worked at technology companies, including Sony and IBM. From 2012 to 2020, I helped a small cadre of technology CEOs find specialists to help them tackle acute challenges.
How do you decide who to invite to each gathering?
I look for folks on my master list who have one more thing in common. Folks who all share the same sense of humor, run an arts organization, have kids the same age, or are American expats living in the Netherlands.
How do you find these people?
Mostly through referrals.
Why do you call this project, Trees?
At my first dim sim brunch with dad's friends, everyone was wearing "Hi Ted, I'm [fill in the blank]" name tags shaped like maple leaves.
The night before, dad and I had watched From Russia with Love, featuring Bond's arch enemy, the evil organization, S.P.E.C.T.R.E. (Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion).
Afterwards, on the walk uptown to our apartment, these two things mixed together, and, as we passed 59th St., I declared to dad that his 14-year-old dim sum brunch project now had a codename, T.R.E.E.S. (Truthful, Righteous Executive for Eviscerating S.P.E.C.T.R.E.).
Who created the illustration at the top of this page?