Say it Better

When You Want to Crawl in a Hole But Can’t

In “one fatal keystroke” Rose Zory, the Chief People Officer at Carat Media sent an “for top management only” email on the messaging managers should use when firing (oops, rightsizing) some employees. She sent that email to every single person in the company. Carat is Europe's largest media group, by the way. It provides advertising and public relations services, expertise it badly needed at that point.

Now comes the flood of advice (again!) about how to avoid such email embarrassments and what to do when they happen. What would you do?

How a Captivating Speech is Like a Story

By now many speakers, politicos and professional speechwriters have commented on Obama’s keynote at the convention. For the rest of us to become more captivating and credible, the most concrete insights I've found come from Garr Reynolds' thorough analysis.

Here’s some quick takeaways:

1. He cites David Gergen who told CNN "As a speech, I was deeply impressed. In many ways it was less a speech than a symphony.” Tempo. Ebb and flow. Variation. Pauses. Details then a big picture. Intensity followed by calm.

2. Citing Bruce Block, author of The Visual Story, Garr noted that it had the three basics of story — exposition, climax and a resolution.

3. Using words and thoughts that are natural and authentic to you, the speaker. (It helps to write your own speeches, as Obama does).

Yet so much of how we view a speech and the speaker is how we already feel about that person, as demonstrated, for example, by some comments in response to Garr’s post.

Also, my friend Bert Decker offered three other lessons we can learn from Obama’s acceptance speech.

I Never Metaphor I Didn’t Like. Have You?

“I wanted to live deep and suck all the marrow out of life”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

When in turmoil about choosing my college major I asked a favorite, visiting professor, Howard Raiffa, “How do I choose? “

His advice seemed flaky, especially for a decision sciences expert.

“Walk up to a wall of books in a familiar part of our library,” he suggested. "Pull out a book, open to any page, scan your finger down and start reading somewhere with your question in your mind. That will focus your mind on what you truly want to do."

“We boil at different degrees.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Reluctantly I followed his advice. Afterwards I left the library knowing I wanted a journalism major, not business. Only many years and random page readings later did I begin to understand myself better and the life patterns I set up for myself.

“A mind all logic is like a knife all blade. It makes the hand bleed that uses it”
- Rabindranath Tagore

Once a Big Man on Campus (BMOC) Dr. Mardy Grothe took a more dramatic approach to self-discovery. Seeking deeper meaning for his life, he abruptly resigned as president of his fraternity, vice-president of the student-senate and from several social clubs. He even moved off campus and spent all his spare moments, not in dating or with friends but in reading Emerson, Thoreau, Camus and more.

“Life is like a ten-speed bike. Most of us have gears we never use.”
–- Charles M. Schulz, writing for Charlie Brown

To reinforce his self-discovery, Grothe thumb-tacked to the wall of his room his favorite quotations. That practice morphed into typing them onto his computer and continues to this day, a habit for which thousands of us are grateful. His newsletter of quotations and the remarkable stories of the people behind them is the mental candy break for many of us.

“Life is like a cobweb, not an organization chart.”
- H. Ross Perot

After devouring Grothe's first three books, Never Let a Fool Kiss You or Let a Kiss Fool You, Oxymoronica and Viva la Repartee, I dove into his fourth “intellectual smorgasbord” I Never Metaphor I Didn’t Like, and you will too.

“Assumptions are the termites of relationships.”
- Henry Winkler

With chapters on wit, sex, stages of life, humor and the human condition, this may become the book you open to try my college professor’s suggested exercise - figuring out what you really want to do. Or, more deeply, what you are about in this life you are living.

His droll chapter titles include
The Lights May Be on, But Nobody’s Home (Insults & Criticism)
A Relationship Is Like a Shark (Relationships)
An Actor is a God in Captivity (Stage & Screen)

“Luck is the residue of design”
- Branch Rickey

“Love is a kind of dementia with very precise and oft-repeated clinical symptoms.”
- Louis de Bernieres, Corelli’s Mandolin

By the way, my favorite story in his book begins the chapter, Humor Is the Shock Absorber of Life.

“Gratitude, like love, is never a dependable international emotion”
- Joseph W. Alsop, Jr.

The quotes in this post are culled from over 2,000 gems in his book. For those much-needed mental vacations, keep this book within easy reach on your bed stand or in your bathroom, study or kitchen.