Telling the truth

And so we go from the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates (who had a cameo in my last post) to the modern American philosopher Robert Allen Zimmerman - better known as Bob Dylan.

Receiving a special award at the Grammys this weekend, Dylan delivered a rambling speech. Personally, I would have shortened it - maybe taken out some of the "why me, Lord?" references to other artists who (he claimed) have had an easier critical and popular reception. But, then again, a more concise speech wouldn't have been a Dylan speech. He's the master of the lengthy song: When the label heard his early masterpiece "Like a Rolling Stone," they figured no DJ would play a six-minute song and threw it out. Someone rescued it from the trash and brought it to a New York club, where it became an instant hit. Next thing you know the song was #2 on the charts.

So Dylan gets to break the rules. We don't expect him to write a three-minute song (although he did, and had hits with them), and we don't expect him to give a pithy speech.

Amid all the words he said, though, these were the most important for me:

Sam Cooke said this when told he had a beautiful voice: He said, "Well that's very kind of you, but voices ought not to be measured by how pretty they are. Instead they matter only if they convince you that they are telling the truth."

Voices matter only if they convince you they're telling the truth.

It's fashionable today to ornament speeches with fancy graphics or artsy photographs. And that's fine - I understand that everyone processes information differently. But no number of visual bells and whistles can save a you if your audience doesn't believe you're telling the truth. (Click to tweet.)

So it's simple, really: To give a great speech, tell the truth.

My granddaddy, Socrates

When pop culture meets, well, culture culture the results can be unintentionally hilarious.

Jennifer Lopez plays a high school teacher in her latest movie, The Boy Next Door. At one point, the hunk of the title brings her a gift: A leatherbound book with gilt-edged pages - a volume that would have been right at home in Queen Victoria's library. J-Lo demurs that she can't accept such an expensive gift. "This is a first edition!" she says, checking inside.

One small problem. The book is very clearly marked "The Iliad by Homer."

See it for yourself here (you'll have to sit through a 30-second ad, but trust me it's worth it.)

Apologies if I've spoiled The Boy Next Door for you, but I don't really think there's a lot of overlap between my readership and J-Lo's target demographic. Likewise probably not a lot of overlap between her viewership and classical scholars. What percentage of Americans even know that there was a famous Homer before The Simpsons?

While the dumbing-down of popular culture may spell the end of Civilization As We Know It, there's an equally challenging trend I need to watch out for as a business writer: "smartening-up." (Click to Tweet.)

The first time I was asked to write on the subject of Ethics, I went straight to the source: Aristotle. I mean, who better than "the father of Ethics"? Now, I'm no dummy - the speech wasn't entirely about ancient Greek philosophy. I tied Aristotle to a contemporary event, in which journalism students had gotten caught cheating on an exam. And not just any exam...an Ethics exam.

It was a great speech. But it was not a great speech for that particular speaker. And in the end, that's really all that matters. So I gave Aristotle the heave-ho in favor of material that better fit my executive's brand. And the world became a more ethical place, at least for an hour.

LBJ knew this stuff innately. Maybe not Ethics, but brand-building. When his writers showed him a draft that used some words of wisdom from Socrates, he didn't cut the quotation - the sentiment was too good. He just crossed out "Socrates" and substituted "my granddaddy."

President Johnson was a smart man. He just didn't want too many people to know it.

Is the client always right?

When you're shopping for a new outfit and shriek "I love it!" the salesclerk in the Dress Department will process your credit card with a smile, even though the dress makes you look like a sequin-spangled sausage. The customer is always right. 

But what about the client? Not in my experience. And I see it as an integral part of my job to tell them that - in a kind, supportive way - when necessary.

I am more than a salesclerk in the Word Department. I want my clients to show themselves in their best light, whether they're giving a speech or publishing something under their byline. Unfortunately, sometimes that means I have to disagree, or correct, or - here's the right word: Advise.

I learned that lesson early on in my career as a speechwriter. I sat in the executive's inner sanctum with my team, listening to the client speak the words I had written. (It's always a thrill.) When the client got to the end of the speech he looked at me and said, "What? Do you get paid by the word?" (Of course not!) He said, "There's too many words in here." And he proceeded to read the opening paragraphs again, taking out the verbs. Obviously, it made no sense. Equally obviously, the speaker had no idea he was making no sense. But how do you teach a grown man about grammar? I took the speech back from him: "I'll fix it for you." The speech he ultimately delivered had shorter sentences and fewer adjectives. But every sentence had a verb. The client is not always right.

One day, another client called to give me an assignment. He wanted to write a piece about something that had generated bad press for him, to explain why the critics had been wrong and he had been right. The event had happened years earlier and been forgotten by just about everyone...except my client. The assignment would have generated a nice fee for me, but I couldn't see any upside for him. I told him I thought he was making a mistake and I wouldn't help him do it. It hurt - I could have used the money at the time. Even when the client isn't right, I need to be. (Click to tweet.)

So when clients hire me, they get my advice as well as my words. They may not always make what I think is the right choice - in the end, it's their decision. But I'll always do my best to steer them away from the sequins.

Tick, tick

I've been doing a lot of waiting lately.

Not just waiting for that "epic, historic" storm event we were promised today. It may have been that elsewhere, but not where I am. Too bad, too, because I had a great name for it: Blizznado 2015.

No, I've also been waiting for work. Got two potentially epic and historic events of my own in the offing. One is a writing gig, a long-form project the likes of which I've never done before - but I'm confident I could ace. I've already written a sample chapter (that was Round 1 in the bake-off) and edited it (Round 2). Last I heard I was one of the front-runners. But they haven't reached a decision yet. Tick, tick.

The other is a more creative and even potentially lucrative job (and when was the last time you ever read the words "creative" and "lucrative" in the same sentence?) that would transport me out of the land of Blizznadoes and into a sunnier clime for an entire week. That week is only a week (or possibly two) away, but the clients have yet to make up their minds. Tick, tick.

Now it occurs to me that these jobs have something in common with Blizznado. They all require me to wait. I can't make the clients decide any more than I can force the snow to fall. Or not to fall, depending on your preference. (I like snow - but then I don't have to shovel it.)

Where the jobs and the storm differ is that the jobs would keep me extraordinarily busy; the blizzard allows me to relax. (See above.) So I'm trying to embrace the downtime I have now; in a couple of months it could be in short supply.

One of the first things I ever heard about freelancing - years before I thought of doing it myself - is that when you have the time to relax, you don't have the money and when you have the money you don't have the time. That will certainly be true if either (or both! please, both!) of those jobs comes through.

In the meantime, I'm working on "letting go." And breathing - a lot of deep breathing - every time my mind thinks Tick, tick.

Challenged

So here we are, the last day of the Your Turn Challenge. What have I learned?

I can in fact blog for seven days in a row if I choose to. No surprise there, actually.

The surprise happened back on day 4 when I articulated the difference between shipping for my clients (no problem, do it all the time) and shipping for myself.

I learned I have to treat myself like a client. That my work has to be as important to me as my clients' work is.

I also learned - because I really did write and ship these blog posts every day - that I can work on a weekend (as now) or a holiday (Monday, the first day of the challenge) and emerge none the worse for wear.

I've been working from home for a couple of decades now, and I've never really drawn a sharp distinction between "work time" and "downtime." I couldn't; my office was practically in the middle of the house - with no doors to shut. And I was always ready to work whenever a client called, even when the rest of the world took a holiday. But a couple of years ago, I moved - and the office in my new space had a door. I learned to shut it on Friday evening and keep it closed until Monday morning. Okay, I could check email on my iPad. But I didn't sit down in my work space. I finally I had time, I told myself, to rejuvenate, to "sharpen my saw" as the Franklin Covey people say. And I became very reluctant to work on the weekend (unless the work absolutely demanded it).

Now, I could have banked my blogs for this challenge, scheduled them to hit on the appointed days. But I wanted to find out what it would be like to write on my days off. I'll admit, I was a little grumpy about it on Monday. But even though I'm away from home this weekend, I managed both to ship and to enjoy myself. Imagine that!

I'll be shipping more often from now on, so please check back from time to time. And if I manage to say anything that strikes a chord for you, hit the comments button and say hi.

Zora & Me

I hadn't read a ton of Zora Neale Hurston - just the magnificent novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. (Haven't read it? Do it now.) And at some point in the foggy past I might have read her not entirely accurate autobiography, Dust Tracks on a Road.

Anyway, I hadn't read a ton of Hurston's work, but when I got the assignment to write a speech to be delivered at a college in Florida, she was the first thing I thought of. Maybe because the speaker was an African American man. Maybe because I often try to give male speakers women to quote (if the quotes are on point). I'd even once been audacious enough to hook a speech for a financial industry exec on a quotation by pioneering French feminist and existentialist Simone de Beauvoir. Back then, the financial industry was even more macho than it is today, but the quotation was absolutely on point - and the executive's wife had an important job herself, so I figured he'd be cool with it.

But I digress: As surprising as that experience was (today the Your Turn Challenge wants to hear how I have surprised myself), it pales in comparison to the Zora Neale Hurston Incident. So back to our story:

I had a little lead time before writing this speech, so I went to the bookstore and bought Of Mules and Men, Hurston's compilation of African American folktales from the south. Interesting, but it didn't provide the hook I was looking for.

I pounded out a couple of drafts, but I still hadn't found the right hook. Then something stopped me cold. This college was in Florida. Wait - didn't Hurston have some association with Florida? This was back in the days before Wikipedia, so I had to invest some effort in researching my hunch. She was born in Florida. But that wasn't it. Yes! She also taught in Florida. At a college. The same college my exec was speaking at. After that, the speech practically wrote itself.

This was the first time in my career I'd ever experienced something like that - an idea welling up from my subconscious that turned out to be exactly the right idea, even though I didn't recognize it initially. It's the same sort of thing I wrote about yesterday. Each time it happens I'm amazed. But it's true what they say: You never forget your first time.

"A problem like Maria"

I hate writing promo copy about the speeches I write - especially when they want the blurb three months before I've even started writing the speech. But there I was: My guy was speaking at a conference and the conference wanted to advertise it.

So I was hunkered down at my desk with promo copy due that very day. Fingers hovering over the keyboard. Staring at a blank screen. And this song starts playing in my head: "How do you solve a problem like Maria?" You know - the song the nuns sing in The Sound of Music. (Other people might hear Beyoncé; I'm a musical theatre geek.)

I shook my head, trying to swat the song away. Fingers over keyboard. Deep breath. "How do you solve a problem like Maria?"

"Shut up," I told my brain. "I'm trying to get an idea."

"How do you solve a problem like Maria?"

And then I realized: The song wasn't a distraction. It was my speech.

How do I get unstuck? (That's what the #YourTurnChallenge folks want to know today.) Sometimes it's just a matter of getting out of my own way.

Oh, and the speech? It won an award. 

You can read the opening here. If you'd like to see the full text, shoot me an email - elaine (at) BennettInk.com