Dr. Rick Hanson is a neuropsychologist and the author of the bestselling Buddha’ Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love & Wisdom. It has been translated into 21 languages and spent over 300 days on Amazon’s list of top 100 best-selling non-fiction books. Dr. Rick has a new book out called Just One Thing: Developing a Buddha Brain One Simple Practice at a Time. He has taught at Oxford, Stanford, and Harvard and his work have been featured in BBC, NPR, Consumer Reports, US News, and World Report.
I spoke with Dr. Rick about how it’s possible to physically change your brain, your attitude, work performance and life with… Just One Thing.
Steve Kayser (S): What is your book about, “Just One Thing: Developing a Buddha Brain One Simple Practice at a Time?”
Dr. Rick Hanson (Dr. R): It’s a collection of simple practices. Little things that people can do few minutes a day or just kind of have in the back of their mind sometimes that will produce big results over time in terms of changing their brain for the better.
Neurons That Fire Together Wire Together
There is a famous saying in neuroscience, “neurons that fire together wire together.” That means that with our thoughts alone, we can change the physical structure of our brain.
The brain is continually changing its structure. The only question is … is it doing so for better or worse? And who or what is changing it? All the events in your life, the media, the economy, the people you live with, sleep with, work with, or stare at across the dinner table? Or, are we in charge of changing our brains? That’s what the book is about. It’s grounded in self-reliance applied to one’s brain.
S: When you say brain changes, you are talking about actual physical neural substrate changes in the brain? How does it do that?
Trouble and Strife and Everything Nice
Dr. R: It’s quite amazing. An example I love is taxi drivers in London.As you might know, London is a spaghetti snarl of streets. Taxi drivers have to memorize all the streets. During their training, a part of their brain called the hippocampus – it’s like a muscle, and does visual-spatial memory – is worked out considerably. So, guess what? At the end of their training studies show – solid science – that their brain is measurably thicker in that part of the brain. They worked that brain muscle. It got bigger.
Similar studies show that people who routinely do some prayer or mindfulness practice, or contemplative exercise every day, have measurably thicker cortexes in parts of their brain that are involved in controlling attention and self-awareness.They are working that part of the brain, so it gets stronger. Therefore it, and they, are more capable of doing good things for people.
S: I have a similar example based on real-life experience with cab drivers in London. What you might not know about taxi drivers in London is that they are great poets. Great rhymers. And can drive with their eyes closed or looking back at you.
Dr. R: (Deep silence)
S: I was with a Cockney taxi driver in London. He was a non-stop, prolific, rapping- rhymer. It was mesmerizing. Mainly because I noticed he wasn’t looking where he was going most of the time. He incessantly talked about his trouble and strife. His hippocampus must have really been hip because he was a super-driver. We had 15 near-death auto accidents … and all the time he was looking back and talking to me. But he eventually delivered me safe to my destination. That’s how well he’d memorized the art of driving in London. Finally, I asked, “what kind of trouble and strife do you have my friend? Please tell me before I expire in this cab.”
He responds, “Same as you mate. Except you Americans call your trouble and strife a wife.”
Dr. R: Isn’t that great?
Building a Better Brain
S: It’s funny now – but I aged in dog years for that 15-minute ride. What are a couple of other examples of formative practices to help build a better brain?
Get on the Right Side – Your Own
Dr. R: The first thing to do – and the beginning of it all – is to get on your own side.
I had a business background before I became a neuropsychologist. In business, there is a pretty good understanding of the need to be for yourself, right? But I think a lot of people just don’t have that same strong sense to be for themselves.
They are better friends to other people than they are a friend to themselves. The little basic practice of treating yourself like you matter is critical. Often we become overwhelmed with job issues, children, relationships, the economy – and it’s kind of hard to be for ourselves.
Not Against – But For
That doesn’t mean being against others – but to be for yourself.
That fundamental attitude towards your welfare in a strong and sustained way is incredibly important. For some people, it’s a, “so what?” Or, “of course.” But when was the last time you thought,
“I need to be a better advocate for myself?”
Another practice I call, “notice you are all right, right now.” It is based on an effective rule that developed as us humans came out of the woods and into civilization. The rule is;
“Eat lunch today, don’t be lunch today.”
The very first emotion we evolved was fear. We are vulnerable to a sense of threat and that’s why there is typically in us this subtle background pulse of anxiety, kind of a trickle. For some people, it’s more like a river. Animals or humans that did not feel anxious got eaten. Ones that survived are paranoid and cranky.
Underestimating Overestimation
There is this tendency to look at life as if it’s always at a DEF-CON FOUR threat level of nuclear war. The brain routinely tends to overestimate threats and underestimate opportunities and resources for dealing with them. It’s important to put in a correction factor. Otherwise, you have what I call “paper tiger paranoia.” We go through life with a sense of more things about to jump than are there.
So, if people just kind of notice that …
I am all right. Right now. That’s right. I’m all right now.
S: But sometimes … we’re not all right. I got beat in checkers yesterday by arrogant, pompous loudmouth know-it-all 5-year old. A despicable act of treachery was involved. But there it is. I was eviscerated.
Dr. R: Yes, sometimes we are not all right. Sometimes terrible things happen, or we are in real pain or something like that. Like you were. But most moments, for most people, most days, they are truly basically all right. And letting that sink in is what’s called “taking in the good.” Always take the good when you can. It nourishes you.
Sinking in is the Way Up
You let it sink in over and over again.
You are all right. Right now.
It will build self-confidence, a sense of strength and a willingness therefore to dream big dreams, take a serious swing for the fences, reach out to say what’s in your heart, ask for the love you want, ask for the raise you want because you have this underlying self-sense – a strength and safety that you will gradually build up inside your brain.
S: You’re right. You’ve inspired me. I’m all right.
GROW is an acronym and a strategy for business and life.
“G” stands for “gaining knowledge.””
“R” for “reaching out to others.”
“O” for opening your world.”
“W” for “walk towards wisdom.
OPENING YOUR WORLD
Steve Kayser: The “O” in GROW, stands for “Opening your world.” Three simple words, but big implications. What does it mean?
Ken Blanchard: It’s looking for new opportunities to learn. Both on and off of work. For example, at work, have you ever thought about;
Shadowing somebody from another department?
Volunteering to run a social activity for the company?
Creating opportunities for you to constantly learn, to look for mentors, to find people that can just expand your world?
CALL SECURITY!
Steve Kayser: I tried shadowing somebody at work once. Someone I hoped would be my mentor, the Treasurer of our company. He called security on me.
Ken Blanchard: Ha-ha, He thought you were after the money! Opening your world means you’re always looking for ways to grow in your own position by opening your world where you work.
Outside the office, you ought to travel quite a bit so you can learn from that. New perspectives, new people. Maybe even learn a new language. In our company, we have everybody have one goal per year. If they accomplish it, they will have something new on their resume that they didn’t have the year before.
STRETCH YOURSELF BEFORE YOU WRECK YOURSELF
You want to constantly stretch yourself and open your world to new learning opportunities.
Steve Kayser: I’ll throw a curveball at you … why? (After a pregnant pause, I suspect Dr. Blanchard has never been grilled by a sleuth like me.)
Ken Blanchard: Because, you can get so busy and focused on what you are doing that all of a sudden you wake up one day and find you’re behind. You grow stale. Your usefulness at work declines. Not a good place to head.
WALK TOWARD WISDOM
Steve Kayser: The “W” in GROW stands for “Walk Towards Wisdom.” My favorite part of the book actually. But, there is a difference between knowledge and wisdom.
Knowledge is knowing a tomato is fruit. Wisdom is knowing it shouldn’t be in my fruit salad.
When you say, “Walk Toward Wisdom,” what do you mean? Wisdom is often only attributed to gurus, saints and sages.
Ken Blanchard: Wisdom as we define it is;
WISDOM: The application of kind of accumulated knowledge and experience.
It’s one thing to know something but if it can’t impact what you do, it’s not really wisdom.
Contrary to what you might think, wisdom has little to do with age, because we’ve all known younger people who might be described as wise beyond their years. Many of us can probably also say we know a few old fools.
The truth is, wisdom is attained bit-by-bit throughout our lifetime. It’s always within reach, but it must be pursued. It’s, keeping your eyes open, learning new things and then see how they can be applied and used in your life and the life of others.
It’s a Walk Towards Wisdom.
Steve Kayser: It’s a “constant becoming?”
SELF-EVALUATION
Ken Blanchard: Yes. You could say that. In the book we talk about different elements of wisdom.
AND I SAID TO MYSELF, “SELF … WHAT’S WORKING?”
One is that old concept about self-evaluation, looking into the mirror and being truthful about yourself.
What’s working and what’s not working in your life and career?
Are you considering your strengths and how you can leverage them?
Are you reflecting on your weaknesses to try to fix them?
Self-evaluation is such an important thing.
FEEDBACK
Another one I have always loved is, “Feedback is the breakfast of champions.”
Do you have people around you who give you feedback and are honest with you?
Do you have truth tellers in your life?
A lot of times people live with truth tellers if you only listen to them.
Do your friends level with you?
Steve Kayser: Sometimes that’s hard to do, especially if they’re friends from work.
Ken Blanchard: But what’s the value of true friends? Well, they are honest with you. They will tell you the truth.
I grew up with a lot of guys that went to school at Cornell and nobody lets anybody act like a big deal. We were at a restaurant one time, eight couples, we’d known each other for fifty years and a waiter comes up,
“We understand the author of “The One Minute Manager” is in your group, could we get his autograph?”
And it was almost on cue, they all shouted,
“Why do you want his autograph? Hell, he never even went to class, you know. What was his average? About 70…”
And they just put everything in perspective.
Steve Kayser: A walk toward wisdom also means a dogged determination to ask questions that matter. Especially if you want to be a great leader in business … or life.
Ken Blanchard: Yes. A friend of ours, Shawn Harris, who built Cold Stone Creameries, once said there are three kinds of leaders.
THREE KINDS OF LEADERS – PERIOD
There is the “period,” which is,
“Here is my opinion. (period)”
Not good.
EXCLAMATION!
“Here is what I think! (exclamation point)”
The worst! But the great leaders are “question marks.”
QUESTION?
They ask great questions like,
“Here is my opinion about what I think we ought to do, but what do you think about it?”
If they say,
“Well, I don’t really know if I could add anything to that.”
“Well, if you did, what would you add?”
And they keep on asking questions, because then you’re going to learn because I think, as I said before, none of us is as smart as all of us.
Steve Kayser: I heard a couple of people in the hallway where I use to work talk about a person that wasn’t keeping up with his job or learning new skills . One of the younger ones said,
“He should be put out to pasture,”
Because he was too old to learn. And I said,
“That’s not true, anybody can learn anything at anytime.”
Somehow the conversation got back to him and he was deeply hurt. I followed up with him and sent him a quote by one of my favorite writers, Richard Bach. A writer much like you, full of wit and wonderful wisdom.
“Here’s a test to find whether your mission on earth is finished.
If you’re alive, it isn’t.”
Ken Blanchard: Yes, some people repeat the same year, year-after-year, and don’t grow. That’s why I think it’s so valuable for you to personally, all of us, to say,
What can l learn this year that I can put on my resume that wasn’t there last year?
How do I constantly grow and push my mental envelope?
I got a chance to write a book with Norman Vincent Peale, who wrote The Power of Positive Thinking. I met him in 1986 when he was 88 years old. He was so excited about life. And I said, “Why are you so excited?” He said,
“Everyday is an opportunity to learn something new, I just never know what I’m going to learn.”
That’s just such a powerful example for anyone. And it’s been such an inspiration to me.
I had the opportunity to interview Robert Kiyosaki, author of the #1 bestselling personal finance book of all time, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, on the radio. His “Rich Dad” series of books has been translated into 52 languages and sold 28-million copies in 109 countries.
Robert was great. Straight-shooter. Salty (almost had to beep him once – but I was laughing too hard to do it) and hilariously funny. If you ever get a chance to see him speak – do it.
But that’s not what I wanted to talk about.
I wanted to see what shaped his attitude in life. Because he has one. Powerful, true, ingrained.
LITTLE-KNOWN FACT ABOUT ROBERT KIYOSAKI
STEVE: I was going to start off with, “What’s it like to sell 28-million copies of Rich Dad Poor Dad?”‘ but I won’t. Probably bore you to tears. I’m a Vet and know that you are as well. When I learned you served as a marine helicopter gunship pilot in Vietnam, winning an air award medal, it intrigued me.
How did that time, that job, that place shape not only your business and leadership style, but also prepare you for the battlefield of business and life?
ROBERT: Being a gunship pilot we had a life expectancy of about 30 days because we got shot down so quickly.
“The most important thing I learned is that there’s no second place. “
For most of my life, I was kind of a screw-off—average in school, average in sports. I remember the day at Camp Pendleton in California when they strapped the missiles and guns onto my helicopter; it kind of sunk in that there was no second place anymore. Then one day I was flying my first actual mission in Vietnam, and I realized the school days were over. There were rounds coming up at us and I thought, “These guys are trying to kill us.”
Then, my crew chief taps me on the helmet and said;
“Hey lieutenant, you know what sucks about this job? There’s no second place. Either he’s going home or we’re going home, but we’re both not going to go home today.
“You better make up your mind who goes home today.”
Thank God we came home, the other guy didn’t, unfortunately. Once you learn that, it kind of takes the complacency out of your butt.
I decided if I was going to do something, I wasn’t going to do it average anymore; I was going to do it as if my life depended on it. I think that gives me the competitive edge.
BS DOESN’T DECIDE
I was a C student all the way through school. I failed out of high school two times because I just didn’t care.
I still have a Bachelor’s of Science degree that stands for BS, but other than that, it had nothing to do with my education.
It depended on how well you wanted to live your life.
IT’S YOUR CHOICE
If you want to live like a schmuck, that’s your choice, but it’s not my choice.
STEVE: How did you translate those experiences into leadership? You said the Marines changed your whole perception of leadership.
ROBERT: I went to four years of military school also, and they don’t teach you much except how to lead.
The first thing they teach you is,
What’s the mission?
It’s the most important thing of any military officer.
The next two things are,
Can you take orders?
Can you give orders?
In other words, can you follow and will other people follow you?
That was impeccable discipline.
One of the reasons people aren’t successful is NOT because they didn’t go to good schools; they just lack cojones as my Mexican friends would say. They lack discipline.
Discipline simply means doing what you need to do in spite of the fact you don’t want to do it.
That’s all it takes for success; you have to be disciplined.
International bestselling author, screenwriter and renowned military historian Steven Pressfield has a book called Do the Work. It’s about how to create and finish anything. A business. A book. A song. A philanthropic venture.
Whatever point you are at on your life’s journey – take the time to read Do the Work. It’s not work. It’s a joy. It’s not long. Takes about an hour to read – if you’re slow like me. It’s not dull, it’s brilliance, wrapped around hard-earned knowledge, deep inside timeless wisdom.
I met Steven Pressfield in 2007 when I interviewed him for an article called “How to Defeat Your Inner Deadbeat.” Since then I’ve had the pleasure of doing a couple other articles with him; “Non Vi Sed Arte – Not by Strength, by Guile,” and “The Power of Resistance.”The breadth, depth, and clarity of Steven’s ideas and writing are unparalleled in today’s world. They don’t teach this stuff in school. I don’t think they can. Some things are just ineffable.
BULL-SHIITAKE
To that, Steven would say, “Bull-Shiitake,” and laugh when he said it. Then he’d say, “You can do it too – just DO THE WORK.” He’s one of the true renaissance writing geniuses of our times. Why do I say that?
I don’t.
HIS WORK DOES
Steven Pressfield has written or co-written 34 screenplays, and is the author of international bestsellers “The Legend of Bagger Vance” (also a movie),; “Gates of Fire, An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae,”; “Tide of War,” ; “The Afghan Campaign,”;“Virtues of War,”; “The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Creative Battles,” “Killing Rommel,”; “THE PROFESSION,”; “Do the Work”; The Warrior Ethos,”; and his latest book, “The Lion’s Gate,” which film rights were recently aquired by Basil Iwanyk, who backed ‘The Expendables.’
THE SEARCH FOR MEANING, ART & WORK
I first became aware of Steven – not from any of his famous books or movies – but because a writer friend of mine gave me his book “War of Art.” Anyone that has ever met me knows, “art” is not the first word that comes to mind when describing my reading fare. Not the first word, but maybe right after the last word. However, my friend was dogging me out for always spouting off about what a great book should be – short, clear, emotionally powerful, life-changing – and he said “War of Art” was right up there with my all-time favorite, Viktor Frankl’s “Search for Meaning.”
I didn’t believe it. I only read the “War of Art” so I could refute, belittle, and humiliate my well-meaning, but almost-always-wrong, friend about the absurd deficiencies of the book in comparison to “The Search for Meaning.”
I read “The War of Art.“ I was wrong. Completely. Utterly. Embarrassingly. It was just as good in a different kind of way.
The Search for Meaning was about finding a way to survive in any environment – even a death camp – and how to find meaning in it.
The War of Art is about how to find a way to create in any environment – even a boring or bad one – and how to experience meaning while doing it.
Do the Work is a companion to The War of Art. A workbook. A shut up and do-it guide. It treads some of the same turf as the War of Art. It fights the intractable, implacable, insidious foe of mankind – Resistance. But it’s also an indispensable guide to winning at business or life.
NOT TAUGHT AT ANY SCHOOLS
The lessons in Do the Work are not taught at any business school. Couldn’t be. This is wisdom of the elders secret knowledge type of stuff passed on only by someone who has experienced it. Someone who has seen further, accomplished more, experienced more because they DID THE WORK.
THREE-CLASS ACTS
Do the Work is a 1-2-3 type process of getting a project accomplished, a book completed, a business started. Music, science, business and writing all seem to follow a similar three act structure.
Musicians (which I don’t claim to be but hack around at it) have the Sonata form which consists of a statement, development and recapitulation.
Scientists use the hypothesis, inference and verification method.
Philosophers use hypothesis, anti-thesis, synthesis (Hegel’s dialectic).
Writers focus on three acts; the beginning, middle, and end.
Do the Work shows you DaVinci, the Vietnam Memorial and Facebook – in three acts.
WHO TEACHES THESE GEMS?
What school or teacher would tell you …
To start before you’re ready?
To stay stupid?
To be stubborn?
To stay primitive?
To go on a research diet?
To swing for the seats?
That the problem is not you … the problem is the problem?
These gems are like master ideas. Once you get them, you never forget. But these ideas and lessons are necessary to get your work done. Any work. They’re also necessary because the creation of any great thing is born in chaos. Not ease.
Babies are born in blood and chaos; stars and galaxies come into being amid the release of massive primordial cataclysms.
The most highly cultured mother gives birth sweating and dislocated and cursing like a sailor.
The hospital room may be spotless and sterile, but birth itself will always take place amid chaos, pain and blood. – Steven Pressfield
AND…
When I was writing “The Greatest Words You’ve Never Heard: True Stories of Triumph,” and mentioned it to Steven he had the perfect comment to me … and it led to me actually finishing the book (you’ll have to read the intro to see what it was.) I thanked him in the intro of the book for his inspiration and help through the years. But, there’s one thing that he said, and I heard but didn’t hear. Didn’t understand it until I finished.
We must do our work for its own sake, not for fortune or attention or applause.
That’s hard. Really hard. But when you do that you will become the consumate pro. You will concentrate on making meaning … you won’t have to search for it.
“One thing I know for sure; without writers, we in the entertainment business are aimless wanderers looking for a place to be. My thanks to Pen for this inspirational book.” – Morgan Freeman
As a director, I cannot achieve my goals without the help of creative and courageous writers. Pen’s book is unique in that it addresses the entire landscape of movie writing as a career, and most especially encourages artists who write from the heart and strive for originality.” – Ron Howard
While doing my research on Pen and his book, I was amazed. Amazed that his life story hasn’t been made into a movie.
Maybe Father Doesn’t Know Best?
When Pen was very young, around five years of age, he got his first role in the movies—riding an alligator. His dad filmed him. He suspects his mother was not in attendance. At age fifteen, Pen quit high school. He spent his early years doing everything he could do to conjure himself a career in film and television. And, in an industry so full of rejection, so littered with broken dreams, he made it.
Pen Densham has written, produced, consulted and directed movies and television shows. His eclectic string of projects includes Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Backdraft, MollFlanders, Rocky II, Blown Away, Footloose as well as the TNT movie Houdini and the successful reboots of the classic TV series The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits. He’s worked with and learned from people like Morgan Freeman, Jeff Bridges, Robin Wright, Bill Murray, Kevin Costner and Jodie Foster.
This “B” Is Still Big Even Among Q’s
The films and television series Pen Densham and his partner have produced have grossed over $1 billion. I suspect the “B” should be capitalized in Billion. If it shouldn’t, it ought to be. Even with the new monetary policy of quantitative easing (Q2, Q3, QinfinityPlus2, or whatever we’re on now) of the money supply, that’s still a heap of money.
Just One Thing
And of all thing things that Pen did to create a successful Hollywood film career, he credits just one thing for his long track record of success. Just one key factor that we will get to at the end of the interview. (You didn’t think I was going to spill the beans that quickly did you?)
STEVE KAYSER: What a life story you have. You dropped out of school at fifteen; you traveled a path that was filled with hurdles and rejections. You not only survived, but you thrived. It’s a wonderful story. Sounds like a movie. Is anybody ever going to make it?
PEN DENSHAM: I don’t think so, I guess I’m sort of still living it. One of the things I’m most content with is not making myself exceptional. I think as an artist, what I’m most content with is that I did have a rough time, but it doesn’t mean that it makes it impossible to succeed. I’d hate it if anything you’d speak about me made me seem more exceptional than other people.
STEVE’S THOUGHT BUBBLE:
I’d like to be “not exceptional” like Pen. Does that mean I’m exceptional? Nah, impossible. You see how great writers and storytellers work? They use words that confuse your own thought bubbles.
PEN DENSHAM: I think anyone with a passion, whether business or art if you care about something and it’s not knocked out of you, it helps you to keep going forward.
I’m not all that special.
ANOTHER STEVE THOUGHT BUBBLE:
I’d like to be “not special” like Pen. But if I’m “not special,” that must mean I’m special. That’s not true either. See how crafty that is? Penned again!
PEN DENSHAM: I’m scared a lot, I fail sometimes. But in our business, you fail more than you succeed—it’s kind of like the gold rush. You’re out there trying to find the next great nugget, and as long as you don’t quit, sometimes you do find it.
STEVE KAYSER: Riding the Alligator, the title of your new book, is a wonderful metaphor. The grappling, the wrestling with the creative and critical side of writing and the business side of pitching and story-selling. But it’s not just a metaphor is it? You did ride an alligator, a seven-foot-long gator when you were a little kid. Isn’t that true?
PEN DENSHAM: Yes. I was with my parents when I was very young, three-to-five years old. They were making short films in England. Going into the theater was like watching magicians. Watching my father as kind of a sorcerer who put these magic images on the screen, and they did put me on an alligator for a short film about people who kept weird pets. I don’t think my mother was there that day, but it was unnerving for me. This woman had an alligator and a crocodile. She had the crocodile in a large tank with glass sides to it. I can remember her standing in between the crocodile and me; I remember it to this day. She was admonishing me not to go toward the tank. The alligator she didn’t seem to care so much about. But that experience, I jokingly say, was my first job in show business.
STEVE KAYSER: What is Riding the Alligator, all about? (You can download a free chapter of “Riding the Alligator” – HERE.)
The Rules Are Simple …
PEN DENSHAM: I tried to create a book that would not give rules about how to be creative because I think the most powerful thing is that creativity comes out of you naturally. That’s something Hollywood doesn’t necessarily teach or help you with.
A lot of books are great at articulating the mechanisms for laying out a page or for plotting a structure, but the magic comes from letting something come out of you that’s never existed before.
There shouldn’t be rules against it.
That’s why I say in my book to ignore anything that I say that goes against your creative process. If I can encourage people to take the risk of putting ideas down and overcoming the fear and doubt, good things will happen.
STEVE KAYSER: Trust your gut. Go with your heart.
PEN DENSHAM: Yes.
STEVE KAYSER: I love your movie, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. In fact, Friar Tuck might be my favorite character of all time. He had such a grasp of the divine. Worldly and otherwise.
This is grain… which any fool can eat. But for which the Lord intended, a more divine means of consumption. Let us give praise to our maker, and glory to His bounty, by learning about….. beer. – Friar Tuck
What a wonderful story on the screen. But getting it to the screen was a story as well. A complex one, full of fear and doubt.
PEN DENSHAM: Yes. What happened at that time, I had just had the privilege of watching my wife give birth to my son via an emergency Cesarean. It caused me to think, “Where are the people that actually protect people as opposed to killing people?” It made me want to make a movie about Robin Hood, and the idea came to me to put a Muslim and a Christian side by side where they both collaborate against a greater dark force.
Best Stupid Idea Ever Heard
I pitched it at three different studios—Disney, TriStar and another one—and they all told me it was
“The stupidest idea they’ve ever heard.”
One of our assistants who now runs the SyFy Channel said, “That’s a really good idea; why don’t you just start?” It was his little touch of inspiration that made me sit down and see what would come out of me. As I uncritically let these ideas flow, my partner, John Watson was reading the pages as they came out.
Stupid?
There’s this weird thing when you create; you frequently feel like this stuff is stupid. You have a little critic that sits above my back and gnaws at everything I do. He can’t judge; he just seems to be there telling you it’s a waste of time. People are going to laugh. And sometimes it gets so big that you think lineups of people are going to point and laugh at you as you walk down the street. So having other people look at it is what helped me get this one-hundred-page story out. My partner was looking at it; we collaborated in turning it into a screenplay and having been told that no studio wanted it, we were doing it purely on the gut instinct that I should not give up.
Don’t Give Up
That’s when we heard that Fox was going to green-light another Robin Hood. My partner said, “Well let’s not bother finishing this,” and I said, “I gave up on one idea I loved, and I hated myself for it. Let’s just at least finish it.” That’s how close we came to not making Robin Hood.
STEVE KAYSER: And it went on to be …
PEN DENSHAM: It was one of the largest-grossing Warner Brothers movies of all time at that point. ( It’s grossed over $500 million since being released.)
STEVE KAYSER: My wife told me once that Moll Flanders was her fourth-favorite movie of all time, right after the three screenplays that I’ve never sold and turned into movies ( was that a blatant plug or not? In radio they’d call that plugola).
How did Moll Flanders come to be, and how did you pitch it?
PEN DENSHAM: You’re talking about something that’s very heartfelt to me. The thing I’ve noticed in my life is the stories I’ve written for myself, the script for Houdini, the script for Robin Hood and for Moll Flanders were not written inside the studio systems. You understand? I wrote them for myself, and they ended up on screen.
And yet I wrote Gulliver’s Travels with Arnold Schwarzenegger attached, and it didn’t get made. The head of Disney said, “It’s a wonderful script, I don’t know why I’m not going to make it.”
But the ones where I felt I was failing myself by not being at my desk when I just snuck away to write, were the most passionate, like Moll Flanders. It came to me, I knew I was going to write a woman’s story and I heard a little piece on NPR about an orphan, and I had this idea that I would write about a woman who lost her child and then was writing a message to the child she may never see again to tell the child everything about her to see if the child could ever love her for who she really was.
I only told my assistant, who was a woman, and we worked on it in secret and it poured out of me. I didn’t pitch the story, I just wrote the screenplay. It was like having an affair—it was intoxicating. This stream of consciousness happened. In five weeks, I wrote Moll Flanders along with doing all of my normal work, but in secret. My wife would be looking over at me and I’d be typing away at midnight in bed.
STEVE KAYSER: You just ruined my relationship with my wife. You wrote Moll Flanders in five weeks, at night and still did your regular work? I can hear her now, “Moll Flanders in five weeks? And you’ve been doodling around with your stories for how long?”
PEN DENSHAM: But let me put it in perspective. I have one screenplay that took me sixteen years to write. And that’s why creativity is a magical, sacred thing. We shouldn’t criticize ourselves whichever way it comes out of us.
The magic is that the things I’ve written that intuitively came out of me got made more often.
I firmly believe that we are happiest and most productive when working from our true nature and not trying to guess and fake what someone else wants. The scripts that are written with a powerful sense of your inner vision are more creative, complex and rich somehow. I call these “life scripts.” They contain something more profound that derives from your spirit, from your unconscious. These scripts are special. You will instinctively fight harder to get them right. Others see them as deeper and more significant as a result. For me, “life scripts” seem to get produced more frequently than the scripts that are less personally inspired.
Passion
When I was asked by USC to go teach the Cinematic Arts students, I thought it was kind of corny and weird, but I decided just to be myself and be authentic. So I taught the first lesson on passion. It sounds like a cliché, but it really isn’t.
When I look at my life, the things I’ve gone furthest for, the things I’ve been humiliated for, the things I’ve taken greater risk for have been the things that have come out of my soul, not the things I try to contrive to meet someone else’s perspective of what was fashionable. Those things seldom succeed, and when you get rejected, you give up very quickly.
When you have something that comes out of you as part of your nature and someone rejects it, you try to figure out how to change it, so you keep what was special to you, but you can mesh with the buyer.
I’ve got stacks of scripts that haven’t been made, but I’m very passionate about them. But I’ve got more scripts made than I probably ever anticipated in my life.
###
That One Big Thing?
And that one thing that Pen Densham credits for his success? Having the guts to follow his heart. Follow it down through the valley of ridicule, loss, humiliation, rejection and up to a higher plain—not of Hollywood success, but of living his dream.
In Scandal or Crisis, Character is the Still the Coin of the Realm
These are tough times. Unstable times. Uncertain times that will test the vision, spirit, and mettle of everyone – in life and in business.
These are times when things could go radically and drastically wrong, or … a person or persons will step up, and by force of one character trait – mold the future direction of our world in a positive way. It’s a test really.
Do we have what it takes to pass?
Do you?
Sometimes you’re confronted with a scandal or crisis, not of your own making and that becomes your true test of character … especially when everyone in the world is looking.
“Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.”
– Abraham Lincoln
FLUNKING THE TEST
When the test of character is flunked …
families and friendships can be ruined,
businesses destroyed, and
governments brought down.
The story and interview that follows are not about avoiding a scandal or crisis, but how one American President through the strength of character dealt with a situation that threatened his presidency, his reputation, his place in history and America’s credibility.
AN AFFAIR SHAKES THE PRESIDENCY
In the mid-1980’s, President Ronald Reagan’s presidency was threatened by a looming scandal – The Iran-Contra affair. His reputation and the ability to lead the United States forward in hopes of ending the Cold War were in imminent danger.
At that critical moment, President Reagan decided to call the Ambassador to NATO, Dr. David M. Abshire, back to serve in the cabinet as Special Counselor.
TRANSPARENCY EXPEDITIOUS (not a disease)
Dr. Abshire’s mission?
Ensure a full investigation of the sale of arms to Iran in exchange for freeing American hostages and the subsequent funneling of those funds to Nicaraguan rebels. And (here’s the tough part) do it expeditiously and transparently, to restore the confidence of the nation in the shaken Reagan presidency.
That phrase sound familiar? To restore the confidence of a nation?
“The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it.” – Theodore Roosevelt
Dr. Abshire co-founded the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. His extensive experience, including service as Assistant Secretary of State and later as NATO Ambassador, gives him a perspective both unique and insightful. He was the president of the Center for the Study of the Presidency and also president of the Richard Lounsbery Foundation.
Dr. Abshire was Ambassador to NATO where in reaction to the threat posed by Soviet SS-20 missiles. Dr. Abshire also was the United States point man in Europe for deployment of Pershing and Cruise missiles. It was this NATO success that convinced the Soviets to sign the historic INP Treaty and withdraw their missiles. Ambassador Abshire initiated a new conventional defense improvement effort so that NATO would not have to rely heavily on nuclear weapons. For this, he was given the highest Defense Department civilian award – its Distinguished Public Service Medal.
Dr. Abshire has received the John Carroll Award for outstanding service by a Georgetown University alumnus; the Distinguished Graduate Award of the United States Military Academy; the 1994 U.S. Military Academy’s Castle Award; the Gold Medal of the Sons of the American Revolution; the Baylor Distinguished Alumni Award; the Order of the Crown (Belgium); Commander de l’Ordre de Leopold (Belgium); the Medal of the President of the Italian Republic, Senate, Parliament and Government; Grand Official of the Order of the Republic of Italy; Order of Diplomatic Service Merit Heung-In Medal (Korea); the insignia of the Commander, First Class, Order of the Lion of Finland; in 1999, the Order of the Liberator (Argentina); and in May 2001, the Order of the Sacred Treasure Gold and Silver Star (Japan). In addition to the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service, he was awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal.
Dr. Abshire received his bachelor’s degree from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.
In the Korean War, he served as a platoon leader, company commander, and a division assistant intelligence officer. He received The Bronze Star with Oak Leaf Cluster with V for Valor, Commendation Ribbon with medal pendant, and Combat Infantry Badge. He was awarded his Ph.D. in History from Georgetown University with honors (Gold Key Society). He received a Doctor of Humane Letters from Virginia Theological Seminary in 1992 and a Doctor of Civil Law, honoris causa, from the University of the South in 1994.
SAVING THE REAGAN PRESIDENCY
In 1987, Dr. Abshire served as a Special Counselor to President Reagan with Cabinet rank, to coordinate the Iran-Contra investigation, and had authority to meet with the President alone.
THE INTERVIEW
Steve: What was your most memorable moment in the crisis with President Reagan that best showcased his strength of character and determination?
Dr. Abshire: I would say that my most memorable moment with President Reagan was the initial phone conversation that I had with him in December 1986. At the time, I was at Truman Hall, my NATO Ambassadorial residence, and I had read all about the trouble the President was in regarding the sale of arms to Iran for hostages. The President requested I come back to Washington to be his special counselor – with cabinet rank – during this crisis and that I would report directly to him.
There are two very important things about this phone call that show Reagan’s strengths and character as a leader:
The fact that he called me personally and did not leave it to one of his staffers shows just how serious of a situation he was in, and just how important it was to him personally to climb out of this dilemma.
Other leaders in his position – who did not care about setting things right – would have left this job to somebody else. The fact that he didn’t says volumes about his determination to get ahead of this crisis.
The fact that he even requested a Special Counselor to help facilitate the crisis from the White House – with the job of getting everything out with no executive privilege – shows that he was concerned with setting things right.
President Reagan was concerned with his reputation as a leader and didn’t want to offer an opportunity for anybody to impugn his integrity and character saying that there was a cover-up.
Steve: What was the most important thing you learned from this experience?
Dr. Abshire: The most important thing I learned is that when you get in a hole, do not dig it deeper; come clean, get outside help, and climb out of it.
If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.
– Mark Twain
Steve: Examples?
Dr. Abshire: There are many instances of presidents – take Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton for example – that dug their hole deeper until they couldn’t get out.
Nixon did not know about the initial Watergate break-in, but he covered up the investigation.
Clinton, instead of admitting to his infidelity at the onset – which is not a crime, made the mistake of lying to a grand jury to hide it from his wife and family and came very close to impeachment.
Reagan, on the other hand, took the necessary steps to save his presidency, which leads me to my second point: the creation of the Tower Board.
Reagan empowered a bipartisan committee to investigate his involvement in the Iran-Contra scandal. This step was essential to show the public and Congress that he was serious about investigating any wrongdoing that may have happened on his watch. The President could not get out of his hole or create the Tower Board without “reaching out” – both to myself and to other Members of Congress.
By reaching out and involving Congress in the progress of the investigation, the President gave them a stake in its outcome and also a feeling that they were intimately involved in the process as a whole.
Steve: What surprised you most about this experience with President Reagan?
Dr. Abshire: I was most surprised by the practical nature of the President. For all talk of a Reagan and Conservative Revolution in the early 1980s with its anti-Communist sentiments, I was pleasantly surprised by Reagan’s philosophy – he was not an ideologue. I was impressed with his ability to shift America’s strategy to face the shifting currents of the times and not to strictly adhere to any ideological plank.
Steve: Example?
Dr. Abshire: A fine example of this characteristic was when – after he had referred to the Soviet Union as the “Evil Empire” – he came to an agreement with Mikhail Gorbachev at Reykjavik, Iceland to reduce nuclear weapon stockpiles and to limit production of entirely new types of nuclear weapons.
“Sow a thought; reap an action. Sow an act; reap a habit. Sow a habit; reap a character. Sow a character; reap a destiny.” – Charles Reader
Steve: So, in the end – for pauper, prince, president or pope …
Dr. Abshire: In scandal or crisis, character is always the coin of the realm.
Is there any more expensive way to throw away money with such arrogant disregard for common sense? Or, to do it with such condescending, confounding, disparate, and creative personalities? Is there any more effective way to get people to scratch their heads with befuddled looks and say,
“What marketing bonehead thought up that commercial?”
But, Steve, aren’t you a marketing bonehead?
No … well, maybe. Sorta. Okay, I confess. Sometimes I’m in marketing too. Anybody is that creates and runs a business. And yes, sometimes, I lump myself in with the knuckleheads referenced above. But, recently I watched several commercials that absolutely floored me. Totally nonsensical, beyond even my warped sense of artistic marketing deficiencies.
Has High IQ
Now I consider myself quite the intellectual. My IQ is (let’s play hi-low, I have to show some discretion here so as not to embarrass fellow readers) between 50 and 75 (lower during work hours). But when watching the aforementioned commercials:
I didn’t get the message.
I wasn’t even sure it was in a language known to man.
I couldn’t say what product was being sold, if any.
I couldn’t decipher why, if I figured out number two, I would want to buy it anyway.
No benefit, no Unique Selling Proposition (USP).
And finally… I couldn’t figure out how anyone besides a lamebrained, half-witted, discombobulated imbecile with no fiscal responsibility to his employees, shareholders, investors or owners, would okay the budget to produce the commercial, let alone air it. (Though secretly I yearned to meet him. I have a cool marketing campaign designed to roll out a hypothetical, superluminal donkey-shaped quantum particle-powered car for the NASCAR circuit.)
Some World-Class Marketing Screw-Ups (or … how to end your marketing career quickly without really trying)
Now, every business discipline has its fair share of screw-ups. But, when marketing folks screw up, it’s typically on a grand scale. Spectacular … and funny (unless you’re the one paying for it). For example, a beer company wondered why sales were close to non-existent in a European country they were trying to penetrate. They had a slogan that was remarkably similar to, if not identical, to “Turn It Loose.” Well, when translated into the native language, it came out as,
“Suffer from Diarrhea.”
You think that might have been the problem? How about this one (one of my favorites)? The Scandinavian manufacturer, Electrolux, rolled out an American campaign that, when translated, caused a few titters.
“Nothing Sucks Like an Electrolux.”
Nice rhyme and it grabs you, doesn’t it? I mean for a tagline … it’s a killer. And who wouldn’t appreciate the bad taste (or more aptly … smell) of this campaign from a multinational hair-product company. The product was called “Mist Stick.” Has a certain elegance, certain chic, certain ambiance doesn’t it? Sales in a foreign country were slightly hindered by the translation of “Mist Stick” into:
“Manure Stick.”
Surprisingly, not many people plopped down their hard-earned money for it. (However, the marketing director was rumored to have been repeatedly assaulted with a manure stick as he was run out of town.) For you romantics out there, can you imagine the wooing possibilities?
Obviously, these marketing mistakes centered on cross-cultural, vernacular, and incorrect translations. So the obvious fix would to be more visual … don’t you think? Yes! Pictures! That’s it. Show. Don’t tell. Less is more! An American baby food company tried that in Africa. They used the same packaging as used in the U.S., which includes a picture of a cuddly, cute baby.
Oops. Once again, the first indicator of a problem was … no sales.
African companies put pictures of what’s inside the jars (contents) on the outside of the jars. Apparently, in Africa, there was no taste (that was in bad taste wasn’t it?) or market for babies in a jar. Even if they were cute as can be. So, when you think things are going bad, your sales and marketing campaigns are floundering, and you feel stupid, perk up!
How often have you heard that? It’s overused. Trite. Cliched. Boring. It’s been boring since the 90’s. A terrible trope.
What does it mean?
It’s supposed to connote creative thinking. To see things differently. Create new ideas and new ways to solve problems. And not be boring.
Boring
But it is boring.
It seems to apply to almost every problem people haven’t figured out. If you really had some out of the box thinking going on you’d never use the phrase, out of the box – at least not to anyone able to fog a mirror.
Here’s some thinking that comes from inside the box.
The Principle of Creative Thinking
I interviewed Robert McKee, the best-selling author of “STORY” and legendary guru of Hollywood storytelling, several years ago. Robert is is the most widely known and respected screenwriting lecturer in the world today. His STORY Seminar has been taught to over 55,000 screenwriters, filmmakers, TV writers, novelists, industry executives, actors, producers, directors, and playwrights. But, teaching is easy. Results are hard. Robert McKee’s STORY and the stories delivered by his students have garnered;
35 Academy Awards (165+ Nominations)
170 + Emmy Awards (500 + Nominations)
30 + WGA Awards (180 + Nominations)
25 +DGA Award (50+ Nominations), Pulitzer Prizes & Whitbread Prizes
His former students’ accomplishments are unparalleled. Stories written, directed, or produced by students of Robert McKee include:
“Iron Man,” “Angels & Demons,” “WALL•E,” “Lord of the Rings I, II, III,” “A Beautiful Mind,” “Desperate Housewives”, “CSI, Law & Order,” “Cinderella Man”, “Gates of Fire” (novel), “The Daily Show,” Grey’s Anatomy,” “The Simpsons Movie,” “The DaVinci Code,” “Cars”,” Shrek.” “X-Men 3,” “Million Dollar Baby,” “Ratatouille”,”Finding Nemo,” “Paul Blart: Mall Cop,” “The Last Mimzy,” “Bobby,” “Quantum of Solace,” “The Color Purple,” “Crimson Tide,” “The Deer Hunter,” “The Elephant Man,” “ER,” “Forrest Gump,” “Gandhi,” “M*A*S*H,” “On Golden Pond,” “Saving Private Ryan,” “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves,” “Sleepless in Seattle,” “The X-Files,” “A Time to Kill,” “Toy Story I and II,” and more.
Robert McKee knows STORY.
He wrote the book.
But there is no STORY without creativity – and what he says about creativity is extraordinary. It’s his “Principle of Creative Limitation.” No out of the box thinking here. It’s inside the box – a smaller box. Makes it tougher.
The PowerPoint Box
In our interview, we were talking in the context of the B2B Complex Sale. Creatively telling your story, or your company’s story, in a large business sale (usually over $150,000) presentation – where PowerPoint is the box.
Excerpt: Robert McKee Interview
STEVE: Could you talk about “The Principle of Creative Limitation?”
ROBERT McKee (RM): It’s exactly the subject we’re talking about. The PowerPoint presentation is easy, that’s why people do it.
Creative limitation means instead of doing something the easy way, you do it the hard way. You take a method that is much more difficult to accomplish. As a result of your struggle as a “salesman” to accomplish the presentation in the form of a story, you are forcing yourself to be creative.
The more difficult you make it for yourself, the more brilliant the solutions you will have to come up with or you fail. And when you come up with brilliant creative solutions to the presentation, the results for the people, for the audience, are stunning.
RM: The principle of creative limitation forces you to do it the hard way. Story is more complicated than PowerPoint there is no question. You have to have a real talent for it. And you have to do it really well, or you will look like a fool.
Steve: So… limit yourself. Don’t go out of the box – make the box smaller?
RM: Yes. That is why people avoid it because they;
Don’t have the talent
Don’t do the research
Don’t have the knowledge,
Don’t know how to present creative ideas in a living, breathing way.
Why is whistling not a Beethoven symphony?
Because whistling is easy.
A Beethoven symphony is hard.
But when you take on the challenge of writing a symphony, the creative solutions are amazing, overwhelming. Whistling is something you can do on the street. The more difficult the technique, the more brilliant the solution.
Another analogy, golf is harder than ping-pong. It’s not that ping-pong isn’t good, it’s a lot of fun, and at the highest levels, it’s wonderful. But ping-pongers are not Tiger Woods,
Why?
Because the golf swing is infinitely more difficult than hitting a ping-pong ball. Touch football is not tackle.
When you make things easy, the results are boring.
When you make things difficult the creative solutions, the concentration, the practice, and the work that has to go into it, forces you to be creative. The results are all the more stunning.
Excerpt Ends:
Do you want to be a whistler or a Beethoven? Challenge yourself.
Forget the box. If you are in a box, make it smaller. There you will find creativity.
###
For more information on STORY and the art of storytelling, visit the Robert McKee website Feature Flickr image courtesy of deichgnu -LicenseSome rights reserved
From personal experience and conversations with many experts in the business-to-business field, there is reasonable agreement that most corporate sales, marketing and PR lingo suffer from …
“The Four Too’s.”
Too wordy
Too complex
Too cowardly cacophonous
Too valueless
Agree or Disagree?
Why is that?
Essentially it boils down to:
Trying to be all things to all people at all times
Not knowing you can’t be all things to all people at all times
Trying to sound really sophisticated, cool, intelligent, intricate and inclusive
And finally, the biggie, not understanding your customer/buyer. They only want one thing. Understand this. You exist to solve a problem for them. That’s it.
An Analyst study of executives who were likely to buy enterprise software (high dollar amount purchases typically), discovered that large vendors promoted speeds, feeds and technology innovation to their marketplace.
And buyers? Not so much.
Eschew Obfuscation
These promotions more often than not entail lengthy and wordy descriptive obfuscations. Yes, I know what the word means. I’m trying to sound really sophisticated, cool, intelligent and inclusive. (Didn’t work, did it?)
But Guess What?
Buyers don’t care about that. They don’t care about the sales brochures with their pandemically infected corporate gobbledygook word, or the 182 PowerPoint slide presentation — both infested with words drained of all meaning.
Nope.
It’s Simple
They essentially want one thing: understanding. Simple understanding. Clear, short, concise messages and understanding.
Understanding of What?
Understanding of them, their businesses, their processes, problems.
You Are There for Only One Reason
Understanding that the only reason you are there is to help them solve a problem — or introduce them to an idea that will make them better, or their life easier in some way.
They don’t want or need the wordy intellectual technical features and functions tomes.
Keep it simple! Less is more.
More of less is less of more which is, besides confusing … great! We need more of less.
Many an executive has spun wildly hilarious tales of the innovative creative ways they have used sales brochures. Soon a corporate sales brochure may rival Duct Tape for the many ways they can be ill-used.
Typically executives throw away all the cutesy, excessively long-winded corporate gobbledygook brochures as soon as the salesperson leaves the room. Or they will store them on a large dusty file cabinet — until they find a need for useless paper.
Some other findings of the analyst study were interesting as well.
Buyers will pay for …
high integrity,
fast return on investment,
inexpensive operation,
easy implementation, and
excellent service.
But how is that different from 20-30-40 years ago? And isn’t that applicable to any buyer? Any industry? Any country?
Buyers Want What They Want
Buyers are pretty basic. They want what they want. Understanding, practicality and their problems solved – whatever they are.
Would You Buy From This Company?
“We provide…
low integrity,
no return on investment,
expensive products,
hard-to-implement products, and
the world’s worst customer service.”
Just a wild guess … but I’m thinking not.
The Value Of Being a Simpleton
I like simple messages (I’m a simpleton) that give me four tools to combat the four too’s.
The Four Tools
What do you do?
How do you do it?
What makes you different from others?
Why should I buy from you (value proposition)?
I know.
Too simple.
But, having recently this corporate hypothetical supraluminal messaging,
“We build, sell and support hypothetical superluminal quantum particle applications with ERP, CRM, BPM, MRM and PLM functionality targeted at horizontically vertical market particularities with platform-neutral ‘LMNOP” (sorta clever, alphabetically speaking) interoperability.”
They can make you laugh, or make you cry. Engage or enrage. Bring joy, bring sorrow. They can herald new life, memorialize lives gone, inspire great acts of heroism – or despicable acts of evil. They can transport you to other worlds, times, places.
THESE WORDS
The words in this video had the same purpose – but not the same meaning.
SEEING WITHOUT EYES
And meaning is everything. It’s seeing without eyes.
Say Hello to One of the Finest New Piano Talents in America.
Is there really a prestidigitating piano-playing polyglot of a musical magician that can merge the styles of Yanni and Eastern Kentucky? A once in a lifetime piano talent in America that melds and moves effortlessly between the eclectic styles of Yanni, Jerry Lee Lewis, Billy Joel, Bruce Hornsby, Chick Corea and more?
Yes. And the only thing more impressive than this person’s prodigy-like talent is his humble, down-home personality and life story.
Meet…
Kory Caudill, singer, songwriter, composer, and piano player extraordinaire. A young man from Kentucky that performs wearing blue jeans, a University of Kentucky ball cap, and Creedence Clearwater Revival-like flannel shirts, but plays like Beethoven, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Bruce Hornsby combined, even on Bruce’s wildest, fastest, prestidigitating versions of “Spider Fingers.”
Launched Career When He Was Four Years Old
When Kory was four years old, he shocked his parents when he toddled to the piano and played the melody to John Williams “Theme from Superman.” At the age of four, he became involved with the Kentucky Opry at the Mountain Arts Center in Prestonsburg, Kentucky.
Versatile Virtuosity
Kory Caudill has a new album out called. “Tree of Life.” And guess what? He self-funded it by playing studio gigs and touring with Justin Moore and Brad Paisley. And versatile? Rock, Jazz, Classical, Country, Boogie Woogie and more. Kory describes his style as “Yanni Meets Eastern Kentucky.”
Throughout the interview, you’ll see examples of Kory playing different musical styles. Let me know what your favorite is. Email me at [email protected].
Interview:
Steve Kayser: (Steve): When did you realize music was going to be your career?
Kory Caudill (Kory): I love getting this question. I grew up in eastern Kentucky before social media made the world a much smaller place, so I feel like it was common for kids in that area to have misconceptions of what they could and could not be, with the job of “musician” being the exception.
This may come as a surprise to people from outside the region, but there are a lot of artistic resources available in eastern Kentucky that most places don’t have, most notably the Mountain Arts Center and the Kentucky Opry. I was able to gain some solid performance and recording experience there at an early age, so it never really occurred to me to pursue anything else for a living. All this in mind, I still grew up with the notion that;
“if I have to be as good as James Whited (guitarist for the Kentucky Opry), and he’s in Prestonsburg, there’s no way I’ll ever be good enough to keep up with folks from Lexington, Louisville, or Nashville.”
So when I was able to attend the Governor’s School for the Arts in 2003, I got to spend weeks with kids from across the state and focus solely on music the entire time. This allowed me to understand how unique the opportunities are that I had as a kid and that the Eastern Kentucky music scene was one of the most vibrant in the country. I credit my Eastern Kentucky roots with the drive to be a musician, and I credit GSA for providing me that “aha” moment where I was certain I would be a career musician.
I also feel like it’s typical for artists to have had to overcome skepticism from their inner circles when they make the decision to pursue music for a living. We often hear of folks being told they couldn’t be a successful artist, or that “musician” isn’t a real profession, and they’re driven by the want to prove those people wrong. I consider myself one of the most fortunate people in the world because every person in my life has done nothing but encourage me to be a musician. My dad always jokes that he “hocked the farm” to allow me to attend out of state, private school and major in music, and I always knew that it made him and Mom happy to do that.
A Kory Caudill Piano Sampler
Steve: Who have been your biggest musical influences? You play an eclectic and diverse set of music.
Kory: Thank you! My parents are both professional musicians, so I was turned on to a lot of hip music at an early age. I’m sure this is the case with most musicians, but my influences came in phases. Some folks I’ve done more than just listen to and studied are Bruce Hornsby, Pat Metheny, Billy Preston, the Yellowjackets, Yanni, Oscar Peterson, the Band, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Elton John, Goose Creek Symphony, and so on.
I’m proud of the record I made, “Tree of Life.” I heard a lot of these artists make their way into my sound without doing it intentionally. I also studied a lot of Chopin and Beethoven growing up. I grew up playing country music and loving the textures and simplicity of the music. I feel like some folks who live only in the jazz world can be quick to assume country is easy to play, but it’s not. In country (the kind I grew up playing), you’re left very exposed, so timing, phrasing and the melodic nature of what you’re playing has to be dead on. One of my favorite things we did was have the guitar players play twangy country licks, but with a modern tone. If you listen closely to the title track, Tree of Life, Mark Stephens is playing a hook in the chorus that you’d expect to hear out of a steel guitar, but it’s disguised by a gritty tone. All this said my biggest musical influence are my parents, and I don’t just mean that in a sentimental way. Mom was an excellent music teacher; she really knew how to make things connect for me when I was struggling with them.
Is This Awesome or What?
SIDEBAR: A good writer is never supposed to let his views and values tilt or taint an interview. But, in these days, when a son or a daughter so outwardly credits, and gives respect to their parents for giving them the love and support that enabled them to be the special person they are (without checking their cell phone 15 times in five seconds), it’s just awesome. Plus, I never claimed to be a good writer. So we’re good.
Dad is an awesome piano player, but I think he’s best on Hammond B3. Dad has an instantly recognizable style that will make the hair on your arms stand up!
Talking About the Hammond B-3 Organ
Steve: What has been your most enjoyable concert yet?
Kory: This is a tough one. I’ve been able to make music with a lot of great people, and I’ve already performed thousands of shows in my relatively short career. There have been the huge concerts with Justin Moore, where you’re onstage with guys you consider brothers, and you look out into a sea of people and think;
“How did we get here? We were just in a van and trailer a couple of years ago.”
There have been some larger scale concerts of my own that were extremely memorable as well. That said, the most fun I’ve had was my senior recital at Belmont. Of course, I had to perform a couple of tunes that leaned more academic (and ate me alive), but none of that mattered. For the last tune, I surprised Dad and got him up on stage to play “This Little Light of Mine” with us. After an hour of tough, polished music, Dad came on stage, and we just mapped out the tune right there as if we were in church. Dad and I had performed together regularly, but never in Nashville in a theater full of other great musicians. It was an awesome moment in which I didn’t even realize I’d shut everything else out and was just jamming with my Dad, which was the perfect way to end my college career and begin my journey as an artist.
This Little Light of Mine
Steve: The business of music is much different than the raw creation process of music. What have been your three most important lessons so far?
Kory: Great question. As a new artist, I’ve learned to enjoy the process of blending the two. A lot of artists speak negatively on the business side of things, but the business side is simply the link between your audience and the music you want to share with them. I’m no expert, and nobody’s ever accused me of being the sharpest tool in the shed, but here are a few of the things being a new artist has taught me:
1. Be honest with yourself and create what’s genuine.
I know it’s easy for me to say this because I’m not a typical artist. I’ve lucked into a situation with my management and record label where I can pretty much create what I want, and they’ll put it in front of people, but I still think they’re willing to do so because the authenticity of what I give them only enhances the commercial potential of what we do. Even though I’m in a genre that has more room to breathe as far as creativity, I know that audiences in all genres are perceptive to whether or not an artist believes what they’re singing or playing, and that in turn has an effect on the business side of what they do.
2. When it comes to making music, listen to what everybody has to say.
Even your critics, even the folks who know little about music, and even your spouse! When I was in the mixing phase of my debut album, my wife Amanda walked into the studio and said (in her sexy little accent that turns more country when something has offended her) “gosh, what is that sound… it sounds like it’s from China or something,” in response to a track I was mixing. She was referring to an acoustic guitar that I’d EQ’d all the bottom end and mid range out of, which I’m guessing made it sound more like a sitar to her. My gut reaction was to laugh and tell myself she didn’t know what she was talking about, but I wised up and had two “light bulb” moments from this.
One, it reminded me that the purpose of making music is to make other folks happy. There are some brilliant musicians out there who are set in their ways and have become successful because of the “I’m an artist, I only do things a certain way, if you don’t get it then you’re not artistic” thing… I respect that, but that ain’t me. I want people like Amanda to hear my music and experience something personal instead of thinking, “wow, he’s really good” or “well that was weird sounding, he must be creative.”
Two, I’m trying to sell music to folks who don’t have time to learn about music, nor do they need to concern themselves with how to describe what they hear. Like Amanda, the folks I want to sell music to do other important things for a living (in Amanda’s case, much more important). It’s ok to be firm regarding how you want to make your music– I am–but I like to be of the mindset that everybody has something valuable to contribute to your creation process.
3. It’s about relationships. This music career thing is awesome.
You get to meet more people in a month than most people get to in a lifetime. Make friends with everybody. I’ve got a feeling that if I’m lucky enough to make it to old age, I’m going to think back to all the friends I’ve made, and the music will have only been what allowed me to meet them.
Steve: I heard Bruce Hornsby say in an interview that it’s much harder to sell records than it used to be because of the ways the music industry has been disrupted and the pirating issues. The economics, the money for musicians, seems to be in touring. Are you finding that to be true?
Kory: It’s a little early for me to be able to answer this with any certainty, but I do think that Bruce Hornsby and I are similar in that we tend to focus on our live performances to begin with. I’m hoping that as we start to really work “Tree of Life” this summer we’re able to turn some heads as far as sales, but I’m heavily focused on getting folks out to concerts and bringing them to the edge of their seat from start to finish. I’ve always wanted to be a performer, and making albums is a fun part of that process. I’m finding myself doing different, grittier versions of my songs live because fewer rules apply than they do in the studio. Economically, I’m still figuring things out, and I may not be the best example because of how different my career path is. For now, I sell the most records on tour dates, so the two seem to go hand in hand, but I’m curious to see how things shape up as we grow.
Steve: Why did you decide to self-fund your Tree of Life album? What’s the theme of your album? What’s it mean to you?
Kory: For starters, I didn’t have a record deal before I made the album, so my options were to fund it, or try crowdfunding. I think that crowdfunding can be a great thing for a lot of different goals, such as medical expenses, mission trips, extracurricular academic ventures, etc., but strictly about music, I’m not a fan of it. I think that crowdfunding in music is different than other areas because it’s possible to work as a musician to obtain the funds you need, but many in my generation lack the patience and drive for this.
Being a musician means I have the privilege of providing folks with an experience. I knew I wanted to make an album one day, so I moved to Nashville at 18 and began a several year process–which involved little sleep– to obtain the tools and resources to do so. Also, my parents did everything they could to send me to a music college they couldn’t afford. After graduating, I began work as a touring musician, and after a couple of years, I had the money to record an album they way I wanted it recorded. I was driven to do this because it gives me a purpose to make something that has a positive effect on people. I could have never asked folks to pay for something I wanted to do to make them proud and happy. Additionally, it would negate my entire reason for being a musician and point my career in a very self-centered direction. There are so many more ways an artist can obtain the resources for musical ventures that
Also, it would negate my entire reason for being a musician and point my career in a very self-centered direction. There are so many more ways an artist can obtain the resources for musical ventures that puts financial responsibility on them instead of fans. When I was given the chance to demo “Cowboys and Angels” for Dustin Lynch, I went to the bank and took out a loan so I could pay the band/studio/engineer, then recoup that money knowing I would do a good enough job to somehow be invited on the master project. In addition to all of this, I have never known anything other than unconditional support from those around me, so it was very rewarding to be able to show folks that they had gotten me to a place that allowed me to handle this project myself.
To me, the theme of this album is family. The older I get, the more I’m able to comprehend how fortunate I am. I wanted to make an album that reflected on how thankful I am for the people around me, as well as the way I experience life. I enjoy instrumental music because each song can invoke a broader emotion for different people while allowing them to apply it to their personal experiences.
Intro to The Tree of Life Album – Intimate Setting
Steve: What tips would you share to help other up and coming artists?
Kory: It’s a process. Cliche, I know. My managers and the label tell me once a week that;
“It’s a marathon, not a sprint.”
This helps me sleep at night. I’m in no position to give advice, but I can share some that I read about which helped me a lot. I was reading a Pat Metheny interview a while back where Pat mentioned how new artists like to think in terms of “if I only had X, then I could do Y,” when the best thing we can do is ask ourselves “what can I do in the next fifteen minutes that will let me work towards achieving this bigger goal?” For me, I could have a million things going on in terms of upcoming concerts/deadlines, but I stress most when there is nothing going on. I’ve had to learn that there’s always something I can be doing to make progress, even if it’s just sitting down at the piano and running scales longer than I usually do.
Steve: Spider Fingers by Bruce Hornsby… I always troll the web for people playing that song. You’re the only one that has ever come remotely close to pulling it off live. The only one except Bruce himself. Why did you decide to take that tune on? Musical challenge?
Kory: I decided to take on that tune during college. Bruce makes it sound so effortless, so when it came time for us to pick which tune we wanted to do for the Rock Ensemble performance, I figured it’d be a fun challenge…I had no idea how tough it would end up being. As I dove into it, I quickly gained, even more, appreciation for Bruce and what he does. Looking back, I think that me and the guys would play the tune much differently now. I think that in capturing the dexterity and flash of what the lyrics talk about, we still missed on how deep Bruce’s groove is, which is probably common for young players.
I will say, though, I do like that we usually tend to rock a bit more towards the end of the tune, I always dug having it peak the way we did. I’m from the bluegrass capital of the world, so I like to play on top of the beat more than what somebody like Bruce would probably dig. That said, one semester my roommate and I waited outside a back alley for Bruce to go into soundcheck at the Brown in Louisville (flattering I know), and after we approached him saying, “it’s ok, we’re piano majors.” Bruce stopped and talked to us.
It turns out he had seen my video of Spider Fingers online, and he said;
“Yes, that’s the toughest tune I play and here you’ve made it sound effortless,”
Needless to say, that’s been one of the coolest moments of my career.
This is What Bruce Was Talking About
Steve: What is the song you most enjoy playing- have the most fun?
Kory: This is where I should probably tell you it’s some emotional piece off the record, some overly technical number, or some hit I’ve recorded on for another artist, but honestly I have the most fun when I play “The Weight” by the Band. I love that song, and I never really take the time to think about why, I just make sure I put it into every set we play.
Steve: What was it like playing at the Hollywood Bowl? How did that gig happen?
Kory: That was a special day. I played it with Justin Moore on the Brad Paisley tour. Earlier in the day, I had coffee with Mike Regan, who manages one of my biggest influences, Yanni. When you grow up in eastern Kentucky and get to have coffee with your hero’s manager before you go play the Hollywood Bowl with your best friends, it’s safe to say you’re blessed beyond imagination.
Steve: What’s your schedule like for the rest of the year?
Kory: I have several concerts that we’re waiting to confirm for the coming months, and we’re doing a very busy radio tour this summer. All this will lead up to a major event we have planned late fall and a Christmas tour that ends with our annual Christmas special in Elizabethtown, Kentucky.
Steve: Thanks, Kory. Looking forward to seeing you at “Live at the Ludlow Garage” in Cincinnati, Ohio May 13th, 2017.
Before You Go, Watch The Real Spider Fingers Take on Frankenstein
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For more information on Kory Caudil go to: Website: www.KoryCaudill.com Twitter: @KoryCaudill
In every person’s life, there is a still, small voice that tries to guide you to a wonderful calling − a destiny.
Your destiny.
A calling that you, and only you, were put on this earth to fulfill. Near silent, this voice is powerful enough to lift thoughts, dreams and visions to a higher ground. In ancient Rome, this inner voice was called “genius.” A tutelary inner-mentor to guide your aspirations forward − to be the best writer, politician, businessman, inventor, doctor, lawyer, painter, dancer, father, mother or whatever calling you were placed on this earth to fulfill.
Right or Wrong?
Each of you reading this right now has someplace you’d rather be; some job you’d rather have; something else you’d rather be doing. Your dreams and aspirations of bygone years are mingled with fond, longing memories of an unrealized life.
Right or wrong?
Remember?
Hear it?
That small, still inner voice?
Sadly, for most people, this voice is muted, or completely silenced − sometimes for a lifetime. Silenced by an unyielding, implacable, despicable and evil, yes evil, force. Instead of listening to this inner voice and striving to achieve something great, you end up doing something totally different than you hoped or dreamed, or were put on this earth to do. How did it happen?
Boring
You drifted into boring and safe. That’s right. You drifted into doing something boring and safe that ensnares you. It sucks you in and imprints upon your consciousness the message that you’re too boring, lazy, incompetent, or incapable of reaching out for and capturing your dream. Boring becomes your life − not a dream but a dreary, monotonous, unending circle of boring. You take a boring job, make some boring money, pay some boring bills, and boringly exist.
Boring is a Force.
But it’s not “THE FORCE.” Yes, “THE FORCE” is what’s really holding you back. And what we’re talking about is the …
Inner Deadbeat Force
We all have it. It infects everyone.
Every time you start, or try to start, to listen and change your life for the better, this evil scourge kicks in. Your Inner Deadbeat. It manifests itself in many nefarious ways: Rationalization, procrastination, drugs, alcohol, depression, and despair. Any weaselly way out works just fine for the Inner Deadbeat, as long as you remain mired and mucked-up in a life unfulfilled and unlived. The Inner Deadbeat fights, no holds barred, down and dirty, to win.
How to Win?
Are there ways to overcome this diabolically evil force? Are there ways to break on through to the other side − the better side?
To not only search for meaning in life, but experience a meaningful life? Are there ways to battle resistance and win, in your life of business and business of life?
Yes.
And an honorary citizen of Sparta and bestselling author of “The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles,” Steven Pressfield, will guide us to some of these answers. “The War of Art” has been hailed as …
“A vital gem … a kick in the ass.” – Esquire
“Yes, The War of Art is hell. But Steven Pressfield is our Clausewitz who shows how you too can battle against The Four Horsemen of The Apologetic: sloth, inertia, rationalization and procrastination. Shakespeare, Rembrandt and Beethoven all are proof of what you can do with talent and General Pressfield.” – Frank Deford, Author and NPR Commentator
But First …
I’m a deadbeat.
A real doofy-doozy, ding-a-ling-dinger deadbeat.
You are too (probably, or have suspicions) if you’re reading an article titled “How to Defeat Your Inner Deadbeat.” But stick with me. We’re going to learn and have some fun.
Oh No … Not Him Too!
I have this great novel in me. I use the word “great” humbly, not pompously or arrogantly, but quite conservatively. It’s a bestseller for sure. Not the “Great American Novel” but the “Great Global Novel.” Harry Potter potential all over it. Nothing will get in its way. NOTHING! Except …
May the Force Be With You … NOT
Every time I try to start writing, a force holds me back; an all-powerful force that kicks me back like a horrified donkey getting sucked up in an F-5 tornado. I’ve battled this force unsuccessfully for over a year now (okay maybe two or three years) and I’m losing ground fast. So, as any person with worldly ambitions and initiative would, I sought expert counsel and guidance.
ENTER: Steven Pressfield
Steven Pressfield has been a New York City taxicab driver, truck driver, US Marine, oil-rig worker, bartender, fruit picker, and a $150-a-week copywriter for a New York City advertising agency, Benton & Bowles. One day while rewriting the “just-add-water” text for the back label of Gravy Train dog food, Mr. Pressfield asked himself, “Shouldn’t I be doing something a little more worthwhile?” What followed? International bestselling books and screenplays.
Mr. Pressfield has written or co-written 34 screenplays, and is the author of international bestsellers “The Legend of Bagger Vance” (also a movie), “Gates of Fire, An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae,” “Tide of War,” “The Afghan Campaign,” “Virtues of War” and “The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Creative Battles.”
”Gates of Fire,An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae,” has been included in the curriculum of the U.S. Military Academy and the U.S. Naval Academy and is on the Commandant’s Reading List for the Marine Corps.
INTERVIEW
Steve K: I’m looking for some help. In your book, the “War of Art,” you name “Resistance” (with a capital “R”) as a force, an implacable foe. Evil. Toxic. It sounds like the same thing I’m struggling with right now, but I call it my Inner Deadbeat. I’m sure it’s the same thing. How do you define “Resistance?” Steven: Just the way you described it above. Instead of “The Force Be With You” it’s “The Force Be Against You” anytime you try to achieve something positive. The self-sabotaging force we all seem to have. Resistance stops us from living our dreamed-of life. Resistance is particularly strong in creative and business people. The person that dreams of writing a great novel, starting a great business, losing weight or breaking away from corporate boredom to serve a greater cause, all struggle mightily with resistance. Steve K: About the “novel writing” thing; I’ll want to follow up with you later (at the end of this interview). I have an idea on that. What are some examples of activities that bring out Resistance?
Steven: How about a list in no particular order?
1) The pursuit of any calling in writing, painting, music, film, dance, or any creative art, however marginal or unconventional.
2) The launching of any entrepreneurial venture or enterprise, for profit or otherwise.
3) Any diet or health regimen.
4) Any program of spiritual advancement.
5) Any activity whose aim is tighter abdominals.
6) Any course or program designed to overcome an unwholesome habit or addiction.
7) Education of every kind.
8) Any act of political, moral, or ethical courage, including the decision to change for the better some unworthy pattern of thought or conduct in ourselves.
9) The undertaking of any enterprise or endeavor whose aim is to help others.
10) Any act that entails commitment of the heart. The decision to get married, to have a child, or to weather a rocky patch in a relationship.
11) The taking of any principled stand in the face of potential reprisal.
“Any act which disdains short-term gratification in favor of long-term growth, health or integrity. Any act that derives from our higher nature instead of our lower. Any act of these types will elicit Resistance.” – – Steven Pressfield, War of Art
Steve K: How does Resistance operate?
Steven: Resistance is a liar. Resistance is relentless. Resistance is destructive. Resistance is creative. It finds ways − reasonable ways − for you to avoid doing the very thing you should be doing.
Steve K: How does it do that?
Steven: One way is rationalization. Coming up with all kind of reasons not to start. Waiting for your health to get better, the right moment, the right opportunity, the right partner, etc. This leads to procrastination. Procrastination serves its devious agenda. Rationalize and Procrastinate. They become bad habits.
Steve K: What are some of the ways Resistance manifests itself?
Steven: Remember I said it’s evil. Toxic. Protean − a shapeshifter. It can manifest itself in many ways. Depression. Despair. Alcohol and drug abuse. Overeating or overindulging in any short-term pleasure at the expense of long-term positive growth.
Steve K: You have a rule of thumb …
The Resistance Rule of Thumb
“The more important a call or an action is to our soul’s evolution, the more resistance we will feel toward pursuing it.
Steve K: How did you come up with that?
Steven: Life experience. Lots of it. For example, I was a screenwriter in LA when the idea for “The Legend of Bagger Vance” came to me. As a book, not a screenplay. Remember I was a screenwriter. But not just any book … a book about golf. My first novel. First novels usually take forever to get published and realize very little financial gain, if any. Not much chance of success there. Resistance fired up the fear engine. But … the Muse grabbed me. So I did it.
Steven K: And … it ended up being a bestseller, both commercially and critically acclaimed, and later made into a movie. Steven: Yes.
“Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example. ” – Pudd’nhead Wilson (1894)
Steve K: You state in your book that Resistance only strikes in one direction.
Steven: Yes. Down. Never up.
Steve K: Resistance wants you to take the low road? Example?
Steve: Yes. If you’re working to find a cure for a disease, or to eradicate poverty, and decide that you’d rather be driving a cab in Cincinnati, Resistance won’t stand in your way.
“Resistance only strikes in one direction … down.”
“Take the low road!” – Resistance
Steven K: How do you start to overcome resistance?
Steven: Facing death is one way.
Steven K: Uh … I’ll pass on that one. But, what do you mean?
Steven: How about this example: a woman finds out she is going to die of cancer in six months. She quits her job immediately. She goes to a hospice (or – insert any lifelong dream here), and volunteers to help other dying people. She’d always dreamed of helping others. Everyone thinks she’s crazy, friends and family alike. But she’s happier than she’s ever been. And P.S. …
Steve K: P.S. what?
Steven: Her cancer goes into remission.
“When we finally know we are dying, and all other sentient beings are dying with us, we start to have a burning, almost heartbreaking sense of the fragility and preciousness of each moment and each being, and from this can grow a deep, clear, limitless compassion for all beings.” – Sogyal Rinpoch
Remember Tom Laughlin? He starred in the movie “Billie Jack.” He now works with cancer patients. I heard him speak once, and he said (paraphrasing), The minute a person finds out they have cancer, everything changes. What was important seconds ago to them now no longer is. Everything changes.
When it happens, people think back to unrealized dreams. Think back on their unfulfilled dreams of being a musician, painter, farmer, or dancer. Maybe cancer is caused by not following your path − your dreams − what you should have, or should be doing.
“The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers.” – – M. Scott Peck
Steve K: How do you defeat resistance? Defeat this Inner Deadbeat? How do you start?
Steven: By starting. There’s no magic in the answer. But there’s magic in the start.
Wonderful things happen when you just do it. Mysterious things happen. Ideas pop up from nowhere. Happy accidents occur. People appear in your life at the very right time. It’s a beautiful thing.
It’s like tapping into this vast collection of creative possibilities just waiting to be discovered. Those possibilities are already out there. Right now. Waiting for you, or someone like you, to discover them.
“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.” – Albert Einstein
Steve: Just start? That’s it? That’s all there is to it?
Steven: Yes. But you have to be a professional. Not a weekend warrior. Do it as a profession, not an avocation. Not a weekend warrior. Have a hard hat, hard-head, lunch-pail mentality. Think like a professional. It’s an attitude shift. Show up for work every day. Rain, sleet, snow, sunshine. Then work every day. It doesn’t matter that you haven’t collected a check yet. Just keep at it. The money will come. But be prepared for adversity, failures, and criticism along the way. It will come too.
Steven K: Example?
Steven: The first screenplay I had made into a movie was “King Kong Lives.” I thought it was going to be a box office smash.
Steven K: And?
Steve: Variety magazine reviewed it like this, “We hope writers Steven Pressfield and Ronald Shusett are not their real names … for their parents’ sake.” I learned from it. Don’t take it personal. Move on.
“Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.” – Sir Winston Churchill
Steven K: How do you do it? Write?
Steven: I put my boots on to write. I say a prayer and invoke the Muse, as the ancient Greeks did, humbly asking for aid to open up the creative channels. Then I just do it.
The hardest part is sitting down.
Let me say that again. The hardest part is sitting down.
I keep at it until I’m done for the day. It can be good … or bad. The main thing is to just do it
Steven K: Final thoughts? Steven: Each person is destined to do something specific that only they can do. Follow your inner voice; just do it.
“Hide not your talents, they for use were made. What’s a sun-dial in the shade?” – Benjamin Franklin
Steven: If you don’t, you’re not only hurting yourself, you’re hurting others by not helping enrich our world. By not sharing your gift. Do it and don’t quit no matter what.
None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Steven K: “The War of Art” (also available in MP3) by Steven Pressfield, is a timeless classic. Eloquent, elegant, quick, slick, easy to read, transformatively easy to understand. I very rarely rave about a book, but this book is raveable.
I’ve had Marketing and PR employees work for me right out of college and found most were woefully unprepared for the real-world new PR environment. Not because of any inherent deficiency in the school they came from, but more from the frenetic pace of change in the Marketing and PR industry. Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, SnapChat, Vlogs, Podcasts, SEO, Tags, and on and on and on. The technology changes alone can be daunting or intimidating.
Complex and Under-appreciated
It’s a skill and art that is complex, under-appreciated and, as far as I can tell, under-emphasized by schools. Or—if you have the teeth-pulling, Novocain-less pleasure of reading many press releases—companies, for that matter. Why is that? One of the main reasons is …
It’s Complex to Write Simple These Days
Ernest Hemingway had a clear understanding and vision of writing simply and effectively when he discussed the four rules of writing he learned as a journalist at the Kansas City Star.
Hemingway Four Rules
(well, not really, they were the Kansas City Star’s actually)
Use short sentences.
Use short first paragraphs.
Use vigorous English.
Be positive, not negative.
“Those were the best rules I ever learned for the business of writing,” Hemingway said in 1940. “I’ve never forgotten them. No man with any talent, who feels and writes truly about the thing he is trying to say, can fail to write well if he abides with them.”
These rules still work. Rarely used. But still, work.
However, in defense of most PR practitioners and writers today, Hemingway didn’t have to contend with the New PR. SEO PR. Google News. Yahoo News. He didn’t need to be Redditted, Liked, Google+’ed, Tweeted, Retweeted, Stumbled Upon. Or blogged about.
“Having your press release at the number one spot on Google or Yahoo News is the same as a front-page article in print.” – PR WEEK
From Their Eyes
For just a second, step into the shoes of a new PR practitioner, right out of school, or even an experienced practitioner, who has not kept up with the rapidly changing online PR processes and communication tools.
The first thing (and it would be super if this happened) they might hear about is the Hemingway rules above. That’s probably a stretch. But they might hear something like, “to effectively use all the new technologies and communication tools in ‘New PR,’ you have to be able to write simply.” Let’s start with the simple. A simple press release. Doesn’t get much simpler than that, does it?
Simple?
What’s simple? Well, that’s easy, simple is simple. Easy-to-read, easy-to-understand, with specificity and authenticity. Elegant simplicity will build trust and credibility for you and your organization. Wow—that is simple. Sounds simple anyway. However, I forgot to add …
Headline
Make your headline less than ten words with an imperative verb. Try to keep it to 65 characters if you can so it’s not truncated by search engines. Oh — include a key word or key phrase (average search term is 2.67 words long) in that title for the search engines—and not just for the web search engines. “News search engines” have different algorithms than the normal web-based engines.
Of course, that’s simple. Everyone knows that, even a freshly minted Grad student. Don’t they?
Subtitle
Amplify the title. Try to include a keyword or key phrase here too, if possible. Test it for effectiveness. How strong is your keyword – your key phrase? Do you know? (Or, do you even know how to test it, might be a better question?) But … also make it interesting, funny, mysterious, appealing, compelling … simple, easy-to-read and easy-to-understand.
Got it? Simple. Next …
Body
Include a keyword/phrase in the first 50 words of the release (because you’ll be lucky if most journalists will ever get that far, so give it your best shot). Embed hyperlinks in the body of your press release to help draw your audience (prospects/media/analysts) into your story – prompting them to visit your website or respond to a call to action.
Doesn’t get much simpler than that.
Frankenquotes
Yes, they’re boring. But you will use them. Hardly anyone will ever read them (except the Frankenquoted person). I’ve included some text below you can use — just insert your company or executive’s name.
We’re Great!
“We’re Great.” “Our company is great.” “Our customers love us.” “The industry analysts love us.” Here’s a video that describes Frankenquoting pretty well.
Remember the Rules!
Remember, though, you still have to make it interesting, funny, mysterious, appealing, compelling, simple, short, easy-to-read, easy-to-understand and use specific keywords and phrases.
Boilerplate
Does anyone ever read this? Hardly ever.
Under-Boiled and Under-Valued Piece of PR Real Estate
However, the boilerplate is one greatly undervalued piece of PR real estate. Do not, I repeat, do not repeat any of your Frankenquotes in your boilerplate. But do use the Four Hemmingway Rules of Writing to answer the four questions that any reader wants to know;
What do you do?
How do you do it?
Why are you different?
Why should I buy from you?
Reinforce those four questions with embedded hyperlinks back to your website with specific and credible information to back up your statements.
Money Makes You a Better Writer
We’re almost done with the simple press release. The important fact here – You also need to do all of the above in 400 or fewer words. Now, I know what you’re thinking: ‘What!?’ You inherited a corporate boilerplate that was 2,400 words long by itself! Why under 400 words? Typically the wire services charge you around a dollar per word after 400 words. Ouch.
Spend the money like it’s your money. It will make you a much better writer, better businessperson, and a more responsible and trusted employee.
Delete the 2,400-word boilerplate. Concentrate on a great eye-catching headline that’s less than ten words long with a keyword/keyphrase. Nail the story angle with elegant simplicity in the first 50 words.
Money can make you a better writer … But only if you write like it’s your money you’re spending.
Whirling Dervish of the New PR/Marketing World
Writing simply is hard. It is far easier to write long, complex pieces, believe it or not. But like it or not, writing simply is THE KEY to effectively communicating within this whirling dervish of a new PR world.
Good Can …
A good writer can adapt, learn and flex with the new PR technologies.
Bad Can …
An unskilled, lazy or bad writer, with a great knowledge of the new PR technologies, can trash your credibility to a worldwide audience quicker than a supraluminal tachyon (a hypothetical quantum particle that never travels below the speed of light … Hey, I worked for a tech company).
Part Skill – Part Science – Part …
Writing for the new PR world is part skill, part science, and part art.
The Art Part
The “art” part is putting the pieces above together, so they’re interesting, appealing, compelling (take a digital breath here, breathe in, breathe out) easy-to-read and easy-to-understand in ….
There’s a book out called “How Google Works: The rules for success in the Internet Century” by Eric Schmidt, Google’s Executive Chairman and former Google SVP of Products Jonathan Rosenberg and Alan Eagle. There are some wonderful insights in the book that can help anyone create, develop and build a business. But, I think the book title is wrong. It shouldn’t be “How Google Works“ – but Why Google Works. And here’s why:
SMART CREATIVES
The authors discuss what they call ‘Smart Creatives.” These are people that can combine technical expertise, business acuity, and creativity. They aren’t siloed one-trick-pony thinkers. You know the type I’m talking about? The creatives that insist on doing it their way to stay true to their art? Or the bean-counters that think that stock art rocks and asks you to add bullet points and excel spreadsheets to your presentations?
Smart Creatives are different. They have the ability to use both sides of their brain – and see both sides of the management vs. marketing war. I discussed this concept with Al & Laura Ries in the article “Left, Right and No-Brainers…The Management vs. Marketing War.”
ARE THEY THE FUTURE?
With virtually all the world’s information accessible online, mobility devices and cloud computing, which can put the power of a supercomputer in anyone’s pocket, business-building power has shifted from top-down management companies to individuals and small teams within a company. When you give the Smart Creatives all the latest technology tools and give them “freedom,” they can blow you away with new ideas, innovations, and products in an amazingly quick amount of time. But, they are typically feared and restrained because of risk perceptions. As the authors note, “the problem is most companies are run to minimize risk, not maximize freedom and speed.” Decisions and power lie in the hands of the few – not the many. Especially not the smart creatives. How to change that?
CREATE THE ENVIRONMENT
First, recruit, develop and retain smart creatives. They will always have the biggest impact on any company. Second, make your business a love affair. The people that work with and for you love the company because of the culture. Your company stands for something. Something good. Then you have to live and breathe those fundamental principles.
STUPID STRATEGY
This was one of the funnier parts of the book. Having wasted a large part of my business life in presentations and reviewing 100+ page business plans that never seemed to come to fruition – and always thinking it was a waste of time and stupid – I was gratified to see that when co-author Jonathan Rosenberg came to work for Google one of the first things he did was to produce a formal MBA-style business plan. Larry Page called it “stupid.” And it is.
Big, formal business plans will scare away smart creative. They know that they hamper freedom. And they’re stupid.
BUT A FAILURE TO PLAN IS A PLAN TO FAIL
Nah. Not really. Not anymore. Business is moving too fast. The plan will be out of date before it’s written. And most certainly before anyone actually reads it or sits through another 110 slide powerpoint presentation with 23 bullets on each slide.
HOW TO PLAN NOT TO PLAN?
It’s not the plan that counts. It’s the fundamental foundation of principles and values that your company stands for. You need to create a strategic foundation. According to Schmidt and the fellows, a good foundation has three main pillars; 1.) Superior product with technical superiority, 2.) Optimize your venture for growth – not revenue, 3.) Know your competition, but don’t follow it.
BACK TO THOSE SMARTIES
One of the most insightful parts I came away with, was not where to find or hire Smart Creatives, but the two things that are crucial for them to flourish:
1. Consensus – This word bugs me like no other except … compromise. Their take on consensus is this. It doesn’t mean everyone agrees. Watering down your products, services, ideas until you get everybody on the same page and agree is probably the biggest reason for dysfunction and morale in businesses today.
What consensus means to the authors – and smart creatives –is it’s about everyone being heard and then rallying around the best answer. And that gets us to…
2. Innovation – The leader of the company can be the CEO but what they really most need to be is a CIO (Chief Innovation Officer). And the CIO’s charge is not to ordain innovation. Innovation can’t be ordained. And it can’t be mandated. You can’t tell people to be innovative. But you can allow them to be if you let them be.
TAKE-AWAY
These are things that the authors learned the hard way at Google. In fact, they mention that at the beginning they,
“quickly learned that almost everything we thought we knew about managing business was dead wrong.”
The book is titled “How Google Works: The rules for success in the Internet Century,” and it actually does explain how Google works. But it also, to me, explains…
WHY GOOGLE WORKS
The rapid, radical evolution of business in the internet age requires Smart Creatives. Ones who have the freedom, the environment, culture, tools, respect and the guts to dream of things not dreamed – and make those dreams come true.
(Geez, was that a little smarmy – that ending? it’s been a while since I wrote about a book instead of talking about mine – The Greatest Words You’ve Never Heard: True Stories of Triumph.” Now back to my book in progress, “Forget the Cheese … Who Crushed My Nuts.” (Nuts=Ideas)
The world is in a depressingly precarious condition right now – one crisis away from a global meltdown.
ECONOMY HAVE YOU WORRIED?
The US is borrowing $435 million dollars – per hour. How long can that insanity go on? 94 million American workers don’t have jobs. How long can that be sustained?
WORK WORRIES?
Been to a work meeting where everyone seemed on edge – arguing and backstabbing each other over precious resources, strategy or just plain surviving? If you have a job, you probably have.
PROBLEMS TOO BIG – TOO HIGH?
Our times are piled high with difficulty and uncertainty. Stress and anxiety. Barbaric ISIS terrorists who revel in finding new, evil, disgustingly satanic ways of killing people. Sometimes problems seem too big to get your arms around and too high to climb. It’s easy to get down. Easier to get angry at the world for all the injustices done to you. And others.
TOO HARD TO GRASP?
But maybe, just maybe, if you watch the video below, you might come away with …
Frederick Marx is an internationally acclaimed, Oscar and Emmy nominated director/writer with 35 years in the film business. He was a recipient of a Robert F. Kennedy Special Achievement Award and his film HOOP DREAMS played in hundreds of theaters nationwide after winning the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival. It was the first documentary ever chosen to close the New York Film Festival, and it was on over 100 “Ten Best” lists nationwide and was named Best Film of the Year by critics Roger Ebert, Gene Siskel, Gene Shalit, and Ken Turran and by the Chicago Film Critics Association. Ebert also named it Best Film of the Decade. Hoop Dreams is one of the highest grossing non-musical documentaries in United States history.
SAVE THE KIDS – GIVE THEM UP
What an amazing experience it was, talking to someone like Frederick, who dedicates his life to making a difference in this world – come hell or high water. I originally wanted to interview him because I was a huge fan of Hoop Dreams and wanted to sideways subtly pitch him on a basketball story I’d penned – Acceptance Bridge. But, as we started our discussion, the Journey From Zanskar came up. It stopped me in my tracks. Not just the technical details and difficulties of filming and living at approximately 20,000 feet, but the the story of giving up your kids to save your culture – and them.
The Journey From Zanskar is one of the most compelling true stories you will ever hear. So, when Frederick sent me a note that he was giving away the film “Journey from Zanskar,” for free, I had to pass it on to you. The film has been released in theaters in the U.S. and France, and has played on TV in New Zealand. It received the Best Documentary award at the European Spiritual Film Festival in Paris.
Zanskar is one of the last remaining original Tibetan Buddhist societies with a continuous untainted lineage dating back thousands of years. In nearby Tibet and Ladakh, in Sikkim, Bhutan, and Nepal, traditional Tibetan Buddhist culture is either dead already or dying. The horror of Chinese government design in Tibet is being matched by the destruction of global economics elsewhere. Zanskar, ringed by high Himalayan mountains in northwest India, one of the most remote places on the planet, has been safe until now. But that’s changing. In 3-5 years a road connecting Padum, the heart of Zanskar, with Leh, the heart of neighboring Ladakh, will be finished. The route which previously took up to two days by car will take only 4-5 hours. As economic growth descends on Zanskar it will bring with it an end to this unbroken Buddhist social tradition. Would the native language, culture, and religious practice be able to survive?
WHO IS THAT GUY IN THE ROBE?
Frederick also wants to recognize one of the people in the film – the Dalai Lama – and recognize his upcoming 80th birthday on July 6, 2015.
Journey from Zanskar features the Dalai Lama himself and is narrated by Richard Gere. The story concerns two monks who take 17 children from Zanskar to lower India in order to help preserve their dying Tibetan culture. The story is framed as one illustration of the monks’ ongoing commitment to fulfill their Boddhisattva vows.
Now, a little about this amazing story, in Frederick’s words.
THE STORY BEHIND THE STORY
“How far would you go to save your dying culture? Sometimes you have to give up your children in order to save them.”
“Those two statements serve as “taglines” for JOURNEY FROM ZANSKAR – each of them describing the heart of the film. But the film didn’t start out with those as the central ideas. It took a long journey to arrive at the simplicity of those two statements.
“JOURNEY FROM ZANSKAR began in 2004 when an old friend called to ask for my help in supporting the Stongde monks of Zanskar. “Zanskar? Where the hell is that?” Even the name seemed forgotten. An Indian finger poking into the heart of central Asia, bounded by Tibet (China) on one flank and Pakistan on the other, Zanskar almost reaches Afghanistan. Bounded by towering Himalayan mountains, this high altitude desert sits on a valley floor of 12,000 feet. “Little Tibet” it’s sometimes called.
“Mountains? Buddhists? Dying culture? Sounds good to me…”
“In April 2004 I sat around my kitchen table in San Francisco with Barry Weiss and Curt Jones – two of the key principals who originated the project. We talked through an initial plan to film Tenzin Choegyal’s long-awaited visit to the seven ancient monasteries of Zanskar in July. Better known as the youngest brother of the Dalai Lama, TC (as he is called) is recognized as the reincarnation of Ngari Rinpoche – the spiritual leader of all the monasteries of Western Tibet. As such, he is revered and beloved, despite his own skepticism on the subject. We were also hopeful that the Dalai Lama himself would visit Zanskar in August. Seemed like an auspicious time for a Zanskar story.
“Like many of the best-laid plans, none of this ever happened. I arrived in Delhi in early July with my crew of one – cameraman Nick Sherman – and two helpers: Curt Jones and his stepson Christian Kakowski. For reasons still unclear to me, TC had cancelled his trip. It was a huge disappointment – not only had our story evaporated but, having learned a great deal about Ngari Rinpoche, I was really disappointed not to meet him.
“Nevertheless, we flew to Leh, the capital of much better known Ladakh, and spent a few days getting acclimated, thinking about what else to shoot. We spent some time at Helena Norberg Hodge’s wonderful Farm Project – kind of a reverse Peace Corps. (Foreigners come there to get educated by the locals in organic farming and cooperative cultural practices.) Then we left relatively Westernized Ladakh for far more remote Zanskar. En route with Geshe Lobsang Yonten I learned that he planned to take 15 children to a Tibetan school in Manali that Fall by trekking overland through 17,000 foot Shinku Pass. “That’s our through-line!” I thought.
“We started filming right away as Geshe Yonten and Lobsang Dhamchoe began visiting families who wanted to send their children away to school. Those moments with families are rich, complex, and absolutely heart-rending.
As a parent, what would you discuss with a man who’s going to take one of your children away, possibly forever? Struggling even to feed your children, you certainly would want your child to have a chance at a better life. But at the price of not seeing them again for 10, 15, maybe 20 years?
The monks themselves had been through a similar process – leaving home for 10 years while they were still kids. They knew the difficulties but they also knew what an education could do to change a life.
“Following that first visit, Nick and I returned to India for the trek in early October. On our drive from Leh to Padum we confided all our fears to Geshe. It was a long list. There were dangers both for us and the kids – altitude, cold, dehydration, exhaustion… Smiling, he told us not to worry. Unlike Zanskari Buddhists who don’t seem to stress out about anything, we worried.
“The story of the trek as it appears in the film is our story too. We were right there with them. We shared the uncertainties, the cold, the disappointments, the fears. At the same time we shared the beauty, the generosity and concern, all the good humor – these were our delights too. Since we didn’t have sufficient crew support, we had the fathers and monks help us carry gear; they served as production assistants. Our equipment and “crew” were rarely with us in the same place at the same time. Communication was also difficult, often impossible. Physically, I had more difficulties with the sub-zero temperatures, snow and elevation than Nick but we both managed pretty well–up to the day we attempted to cross the Pass.
“Like Geshe, on that day I thought I was going to die. When we first set out that morning I was already struggling – slipping and falling, sweating, hyperventilating. Nick kept up with the lead party and shot everything he could. Thanks to him the turning point of the film was captured. He shot the pivotal scene when I wasn’t even there. I was further back than Geshe – huffing and puffing and hoping I’d make it over the Pass. The thought “I’m too old for this” was probably the most benign thought I had that day.
“Five days later when, by jeep, we finally reached Leh, Nick flew back to the States and I became a one man crew. In addition to losing his visualizing talents, I lost my sounding board, confidante, and back-up crew. I also lost his Canon GL2 camera, which had become our A camera. All the footage from Leh onward was shot by me, much of it with the C camera – a cheap consumer handicam, because I couldn’t properly charge my batteries for the much better B camera – my JVC GY500. Ironically, the only battery problems we had on the whole trip were after we reached “civilization.” I ended up giving myself a camera credit in the film not because I shot 20% of the story but because I didn’t want Nick to take the heat for my crappy footage!
“In Feb. 2005, we made a third trip to India to film the scene of the children meeting the Dalai Lama. Once in Dharamsala we didn’t know until the day before that it was actually going to be possible to meet with him. We had all of fifteen minutes to get the material I knew was going to be the capstone scene for the whole film. People ask me all the time what it was like to meet the Dalai Lama. I tell them I was working!
“One of our greatest challenges for the whole project turned out to be translation. During the filming in Zanskar, we never had an adequate translator with us. Not only could we not speak directly with the families and the kids, we never knew with certainty what was happening at any moment. Geshe and Dhamchoe filled us in as best they could, but their own limited command of English sometimes made our communication difficult. In hindsight, my biggest regret is that I didn’t learn Zanskari myself. I could have made a different film – highlighting the children more – and sharing more about their families and their back-stories.
“Back in the U.S., it was also nearly impossible to find translators for the 45 hours of Zanskari footage. Little did I know when we began that only a handful of speakers in the world are fluent in both Zanskari and English. In the end, Geshe did the bulk of the translation himself while on a visit to the US. Through an elaborate game of telephone, he translated the spoken Zanskari into Tibetan. Then a Tibetan student translated each line from Tibetan into English, all the while writing down time codes. They also translated 20 hours of Tibetan and Hindi. This painstaking process took over a month.
“So it was only in April of 2008 that for the first time I could sit down with complete transcripts of our footage and discover what it was we had actually shot almost four years before! What a delight! I made many discoveries that I had no idea existed in the footage. It was also fun to hear some of what Geshe and Dhamchoe had been saying about me and Nick!
“Constructing the proper storyline took about a year, helped in no small way by co-editor Joanna Kiernan. I spent most of summer 2008 putting subtitles on hours of raw footage and editing the first string-out. In the Fall, Joanna edited the first rough cut, setting a basic structure for the story. Then from December onward I brought the film home. Due to the usual lack of finances we didn’t finish until October, 2009.
‘The journey that has been JOURNEY FROM ZANSKAR has been informed at every juncture by the wisdom, humor, and acceptance of Geshe Lobsang, Lobsang Dhamchoe, the gracious and joyful monks of Stongde monastery, and the amazing resilience of the people of Zanskar, from the youngest child to the oldest grandmother. There were times in the two years prior to completion when, overwhelmed with anxiety and stress over how I was going to finish the film, I would drop my head to my desk and weep. The one thing that always pulled me through was the film itself. I would pick up the editing again and see Geshe laugh in the face of crushing disappointment, witness a starving mother weep bittersweet tears giving up her daughter for a chance at a better life elsewhere, hear the children sing while riding into a dangerous and unknown future, observe Yangjor help Jigmed’s blinded father cross a stream, watch Tsultim reach out to share with me his first ever taste of nuts. Their example fortified and inspired me. How could I not make this film?
“Our simple hope is that you will share the film with as many people as possible. If you require a DVD you can order one by clicking here. We have both NTSC and PAL formats. We also have a limited number of DVDs with French subtitles. If you know a Buddhist or school organization that would love the film please let them know so they can download their free copy today. If you are a Buddhist or school organization please feel free to screen the film for your sangha or students at any time.
“We hope you will enjoy our labor of love and service. We are a small NGO based in the U.S. Our mission: Through filmmaking and teaching, Warrior Films bears witness to social realities, inspiring citizens worldwide to create needed social change.
Last year I had the great fun of being able to create, develop and host theExpert Access Radio program. It’s a one-hour show that features live, in-depth interviews with business leaders and bestselling authors from around the world. They share their ideas, insights and inspirational stories to help people in their life of business or their business of life. The show is broadcast live on 55KRC.com.
BOOK ‘EM STEVO
I also happen to book the guests, which is no small feat considering my limited skills with the English language. We had some of the most amazing storytellers as guests—famous in print and on the Hollywood big screen. If you study the art of writing, the art of story, or just love to read books or watch movies, below are some fascinating interviews that share storytelling lessons built upon hundreds of years of experience … and have resulted in billions of dollars in sales.
THE ERNEST HEMINGWAY OF OUR TIMES
1. Steven Pressfield is the Ernest Hemingway of our times. He’s been a screenwriter and has sold 34 screenplays. He’s also the international bestselling author of The Legend of Bagger Vance, The Profession,The War of Art, Gates of Fire: An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae, Killing Rommel, The Afghan Campaign and The Virtues of War, among many others. Steven was the second ever guest on the Expert Access Radio program. We discussed his classic The War of Art, The Legend of Bagger Vance and much more.
2. Pen Densham has written, produced, consulted and directed movies and television shows. His eclectic string of projects include Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Backdraft, MollFlanders, Rocky II, Blown Away, Footloose as well as the TNT movie Houdini and the successful reboots of the classic TV series The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits. He’s worked with and learned from people like Morgan Freeman, Jeff Bridges, Robin Wright, Bill Murray, Kevin Costner and Jodie Foster.
4. Michael Uslan is the executive producer of the Batman franchise of motion pictures and the author of The Boy Who Loved Batman. We talked about his new book, which is his true story of how a comic-obsessed kid conquered Hollywood to bring the Dark Knight to the silver screen. It’s an inspirational story of passion, persistence and perseverance that has also generated over $2.6 billion in ticket receipts. And yes … we also talked about The Dark Knight Rises.
5. Robert McKee is the most widely known and respected screenwriting lecturer in the world today. His STORY Seminar has been taught to over 50,000 screenwriters, filmmakers, TV writers, novelists, industry executives, actors, producers, directors and playwrights. Teaching is easy. Results are hard. Robert McKee’s STORY and the stories delivered by his students have garnered;
The young man was a sophomore in college. It was summertime. But was he out working or looking for a job? No. He was reclined on the bed eating Reese Cups. His father approached.
A Friendly Father and Son Talk
“What are you doing? You should be out looking for a job. When I was your age, we worked our way through college with summer jobs. Get out and get a job in seven days… or else.”
The “or else” was not specified but was uttered with a vehement voice full of dark consequences.
Five days later the father walked back into his son’s room on a bright, warm, summer day—a perfect day to be outside performing manual labor and getting paid for it; but his son was asleep, yes asleep. The father began the ignition sequence that rivaled a space-shuttle launch, but then… something caught his eye from across the room.
To his astonishment, he saw a big stack of bills—greenbacks, bucks, real money. Not minimum-wage kind of money. The father, suspecting some drug-dealing or criminal skullduggery, reached down and levitated the young man off of his bed in one fell swoop. A near-death experience was impending for the young man.
“What?” squealed the son.
The father held up the stack of bills. “Where did this money come from?”
“Oh, that. I sold a character.”
“What?”
“You told me I had to work. I created a gaming character with some superhero special skills for an online game. That’s my cut after my broker took his 10 percent. It’s $4,000.”
“How long did that take?”
“One week.”
Then it sunk in. His boy was an entrepreneur; forced to be one because he abhorred physical work and low wages. He had created and developed computer characters and sold them. Online, imaginary characters with superhero skills for an imaginary world in which his friends immersed themselves. And, he made more in one week than many people make in a month.
“Ok. I guess that’s acceptable. You can work at home.”
“Thanks, and Dad, you know when you said that when you were young you could work your way through college working during the summer? Well, I did the math. If I could make $36,000 in two months during the summer, why would I want to go to college?”
The yearly tuition for the university that he was attending was $36,000. The young man went on by saying,
“And, I wouldn’t have to take out student loans. You know Jimmy, our neighbor who graduated two years ago with a law degree? He told me he has $75,000 in student loans and can’t find a decent job. He’s delivering pizzas now.”
I know this story because that father was me. The young man is my son. But that story begged the question, why does college cost so much now?
What Happened?
In 1975, the College Entrance Examination Board estimated the average total cost of a four-year public college at $2,679 a year ($11,852 in 2014 dollars). The average total cost of a private college: $4,391 ($19, 420 in 2014 dollars). Fast forward to the 2012-2013 school year. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average first-year, on-campus tuition for a public and an in-state public school was $21,700, and for a four-year private school was $43,000. That takes the price of a four-year degree to between $85,000 and $215,000 in tuition alone, without room, board and incidentals.
What is the purpose of higher education? Is it to prepare people for jobs? Prepare them to be critical thinkers? Or, prepare them to be better citizens and students of the world?
From my perspective, it’s to prepare the next generation to move humanity forward; to improve the world. To do that, you have to give intellectual, social and moral instruction to the student, which includes learning how to think critically and developing relevant job skills for today’s employment opportunities. But it’s much more than that. It’s also preserving and protecting current knowledge while creating new knowledge. To quote MIT’s Shigeru Miyagawa[1],
“New knowledge to share and bring to bear against the big problems of the world.”
Losing Focus Costs a Lot
Loss of mission focus is one of the main reasons why college costs so much. According to the 2014 American Association of University Professors Report, Losing Focus[2], from 1978 to 2014, administration positions rose by 369 percent while, during the same period, full-time tenure and tenure-track positions increased by just 23 percent.
Administrators don’t teach. A core mission focus for any higher-education organization is teaching.
Regulation
In fairness to higher-education institutions, a big part of this increase in administrative personnel is driven by government regulations. For example, the special report Compliance at Hartwick College[3] found that it was regulated by 28 federal agencies, 15 state agencies, four local governments and seven accrediting agencies. They identified 247 compliance items that are requested by 36 different entities. This not only requires but also demands, additional personnel and resources.
According to the Hartwick study, the annual cost of all compliances for the College, a small liberal arts school in upstate New York with only 1,500 undergraduates, totaled $297,000, and that’s a small school.
Higher Education Recreation Arms Race
Much of this increase, however, is self-inflicted. How? Former Labor Secretary, Robert Reich, commenting on why colleges cost so much, in the US News Today article “Why Does College Cost so Much?” stated:
Part of the problem stems from schools spending money on unnecessary campus amenities to attract students—building student unions and athletic facilities that “resemble country clubs.”
Could Reich be right? A cursory look on many American campuses will reveal perks like rock-climbing centers, lazy river rides, outdoor pools with massive video screens, free movie theaters, on-campus steakhouses, ice cream parlors, massage centers, even water parks, just to mention a few of the latest perks. Did you get that? Water parks?
According to NIRSA, the National Intramural-Recreational Sports Association, 92 schools reported over 1.7 billion in new recreational capital projects in 2013. How does that help educate the next generation to move humanity forward? Or prepare them for a job or career? It doesn’t. However, it does get the student used to unrealistic spectacular amenities and lifestyles that are subsidized by student-loan debt, which is painless until they leave school.
In what college are athletics and recreation a core mission? Higher-education leaders, in the guise of branding and marketing efforts, say they need these amenities and perks to compete with other institutions to attract and retain the best and brightest. A few institutions can successfully pull this off, but many can’t. This dilutes mission focus and escalates costs. Worse? It causes the very heartbeat of our future (the young students) to take on unconscionable amounts of debt to get a degree from these institutions; debt that will shackle and enslave them for years to come. Some for a lifetime.
Have Costs Really Risen that Much?
A small-business friend of mine, suffering from rapidly rising costs to insure his employees, disagreed with me on the cost of higher education.
Costs haven’t really risen that much over the years compared to other industries. For example, medical-care costs have increased outrageously in comparison to higher-education costs in the same timeframe. I know. I live it every day.
A 1,122 Percent Increase
That perception is out there. Costs have risen, but not that much in comparison to other industries, especially medical-care costs.
That perception is wrong. According to the National Center for Education Statistics[4],
The price of college tuition (indexed) and fees have exploded by more than 1,122 percent since 1978.
The cost of medical care rose less than 600 percent in that same timeframe.
The cost of an undergraduate degree is 12 times higher than it was in 1980.
Costs have increased dramatically. It’s inarguable. But it’s also inarguable that the successful future of not only America but humanity itself is built on the foundation of education. A college education is costly, but it also changes your life forever. Whether you’re a doctor, an engineer, a scientist, a police officer or a business owner, education moves you forward through life—economically, socially and (hopefully) morally.
Student-Loan Debt
Access to a college education depends on affordability for the majority of Americans. But with costs so high, how do you pay for college? Student-loan debt—a lot of it.
That’s why out of 71 percent of all students graduating in 2013, 1.3 million carried approximately $33,000 in debt[5]. Student-loan debt (as of 2014) exceeds $1.2 trillion. It has more than tripled since 2004, is more than all of the U.S. credit-card debt combined and is the highest form of consumer debt second only to mortgages. This debt ends up being long-term, and on average, it takes:
20 years to pay off undergraduate-degree loans and
23 years to pay off graduate-degree loans
The Demons of Debt
During the writing of the book ““Margins and Missions… Not Moonshots: Pathways to Better U.S. Higher Education,“ I spoke with many recent college graduates. Almost all (except students from wealthy families) were shackled with out-size, long-term student debt. Many had monthly payments of over $1200. That’s equivalent to the payment of a nice three-bedroom house in the Midwest. Many were not working in their desired field or making the salary they expected because of the recent economic maelstrom and recession. But that debt is still there. Those payments, though they can be deferred, do not go away. They stifle, they suffocate, and they metastasize.
When the baby-boomers got out of college, they had very little student-loan debt. They went to work, moved out from their parents’ home, rented apartments, bought cars, started families and purchased houses. That consumption helped fuel the growth of the U.S. economy.
Student-loan debt seriously curtails new and recent graduates from doing the same. The rate of home ownership is 36 percent less among those currently repaying student debt, according to the One Wisconsin Institute[6], and their data suggest that student-loan debt reduces new-vehicle spending in the U.S. by $6.4 billion yearly. Student debt also diverts funds away from retirement, new-business startups, and other consumer purchases
People with serious student-loan debt also struggle emotionally and socially. Here are a couple of comments from people I spoke with:
I met the girl of my dreams. What’s she going to think when she learns I have $100,000 in student loans? That’s a long-term noose around my neck. Will she dump me? I would if I were her.
and
I’m 35 years old, and over half of my monthly pay goes to student-loan debt. I’m never going to be able to afford a house or a car.
Student-loan debt has driven people to contemplate and even commit suicide. In C. Cryn Johansen’s article, The Ones We Lost: The Student Loan Debt Suicides[7], she chronicles several heartbreaking student-loan-debt-inspired suicides. People heavily indebted with no jobs or low-paying jobs who see no light at the end of the tunnel. They see no way ever to work their way out of debt. It crushes them.
A Stark Reality – the Dark Demons of Debt
The American future depends on pursuing the American dream. That American dream is fueled by and built on education—especially higher education. But access to higher education depends on affordability. College is not affordable for the average American family. It costs too much. The only way to gain access for most is student-loan debt. If student loans weren’t available, over 70 percent of Americans would not be able to attend college. Access would be limited to only the very wealthy and the elite few that earned scholarships and grants enough to pay for it.
The extreme amount of current student-loan debt shackles and enslaves people for decades. Instead of pursuing the American dream, these student-loan debt holders become economic slaves with their future potential being sucked out by the dark demons of debt. Their consumption power—the ability to buy houses and cars, start businesses and other consumer purchases—cannot fuel future economic growth for America because a great deal of that money goes directly back to the banks.
These dark demons of debt are the Achilles heel of a growing, thriving American economy.
The Solution?
I’m writing this as a parent. A parent concerned for this and future generations. When I see a truck barreling down the road and getting ready to run me over, I’m savvy enough to get out of the way. The student-loan truck loaded with demons of debt and dire consequences is barreling down the road at all of us.
For every complex problem, there is an answer that is clear, simple and wrong.
– H. L. Mencken
The answer is simple; getting to the answer is the problem.
It’s a Little Stickier Than That
These issues—accessibility, affordability, and debt—are a complicated web of intricately linked issues that have to be addressed with a fierce, focused, multi-pronged attack, much like cancer or the Ebola virus. First you isolate and contain, then treat, ameliorate and finally eradicate … as much as possible.
During the writing of this book, I had the opportunity to speak to many higher-education and business leaders. Some of the best and brightest. Many pointed to possible solutions to the student-loan and college-affordability problem. Here are some solutions that seem to have immediate and impactful potential.
Debt: Loan Forgiveness
The Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program[8] is intended to encourage people to enter and work full time in public-service jobs. People in the program may qualify for “forgiveness of the remaining balance of their Direct Loans after they have made 120 qualifying payments on those loans while employed full time by certain public-service employers.”
But why only public-service employees? Who pays for that forgiveness? The taxpayers and private enterprise of course. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. The government is supposed to be of the people, by the people and for the people, not of the people, by the people and for the government people. This program should apply to all people in student-loan debt programs. If you are employed and make 120 qualifying payments on your Direct Loans, the remainder of the balance should be forgiven. I suspect that taking this action would also substantially change student-loan debt issuance.
Debt: Loan Refinancing
Current student-loan financing terms are all over the place. In many instances, student loans cannot be refinanced, and people are stuck with high-interest rates. This is unconscionable. We must do everything we can to help people who are shackled by these high rates and high payments. It’s a drag on the economy, and it affects everyone—except the banks.
Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts has an idea to address this issue. Her bill, S. 897, wants the Federal Reserve System to give student-loan borrowers the equivalent to the interest rates at which the federal government provides loans to banks through the discount window operated by the Federal Reserve System. That rate currently (2014) is less than one percent (0.75%). This would make a drastic difference to cash flow for student-debt loan holders.
Debt: Radical Loan Forgiveness
Another option is a radical reset. Wipe out all student-loan balances and start from scratch. The government bailed out the banks from collapse in 2008, so why can’t they do it for the student-loan victims? It’s radical no doubt, and it needs study. But, think about it—what do you think would be the impact of freeing up people with draconian student-loan payments? They would start purchasing houses, cars, other products and assets and even start new businesses.
Is this a good idea? Not sure. But can you see the possibilities? Maybe even a variation of this radical approach by forgiving portions of the debt for some types of purchases. For example, a 2013 housing-market survey by the National Association of Realtors (NAR) found that nearly half of all surveyed cited student-loan debt as “a huge obstacle to home ownership.” One Wall Street firm recently proposed that a large portion of someone’s student-loan debt could be forgiven if the person purchased a house. That would change the debt into a productive form of debt instead of a destructive drag on the economy. Surely there are some smart, innovative financial thinkers out there who can solve this issue.
Debtor’s Prison or Bankruptcy?
Under the current federal law, federal and/or private student loans cannot be discharged in bankruptcy. Banks love this. They say it keeps interest rates low. But for some people, it traps them in lifelong debt with no chance to ever dig their way out.
It’s the modern-day equivalent of a debtor’s prison.
Senator Tom Harkin, Chairman of the Senate panel on education, proposed H.R. 3892 in the 113th Congress (2013-2014), which removes educational loans from the list of debts that are non-dischargeable in bankruptcy. This would also bring sanity back into the loan process. Loans would be looked at closer if the banks knew that there was a risk of them not being paid back.
That is common sense.
Cost: Tuition Free
Germany now offers free tuition to all students—national and international. Why? Mainly because they think it is socially discriminatory to charge tuition. Dorothee Stapelfeldt, a Hamburg senator, said that tuition fees were “unjust” and that “they discourage young people who do not have a traditional academic family background from taking up study. It is a core task of politics to ensure that young women and men can study with a high-quality standard free of charge.”
This, of course, seems desirable but almost too good to be true.
However, there is a significant difference between German and American universities. German universities don’t have all of the perks, amenities, and recreational options that some American institutions do—some might say that “…you have to work in school to get a degree, not lounge around in water parks watching movies.”
Germany isn’t the only country, though. Finland, France, Sweden, Norway, Slovenia, and Brazil offer free or almost free tuition for students—even Americans.
MIT’s OpenCourseWare and Intellectual Philanthropy
I’m an advocate of MIT’s OpenCourseWare and its mission of Intellectual Philanthropy. OCW has power, resources, and presence to make a real difference in the world.
OCW publishes virtually all MIT course content and makes it widely available (mostly free) to the world as a permanent MIT activity that they call “Intellectual Philanthropy.”
At this writing, MIT OCW, which is one of the most widely used educational resources on the Web, has:
2206 courses online
602 MIT faculty contributing
Over two-million visitors per month
10.3 million monthly page views
Over 200-million visitors since inception.
Over the past ten years, the program has generated some dramatic usage numbers, including:
43.5 million iTunes lecture video downloads
48.6 million YouTube lecture video views
18.5 million downloads of course-content .zip files.
A voluntary effort of the MIT faculty, OCW is one of the largest intellectual philanthropy efforts ever by a higher-education institution. The OCW site includes materials from five Nobel Prize winners and 44 MacVicar Fellows—professors who are recognized by the Institute for their outstanding contributions to MIT undergraduate education.
The ability to access MIT courses is an amazing learning resource. The only downside is that enrollees don’t get credit for it… yet. Maybe someday. But, if you need to stay up with the latest and greatest in your industry—or ahead of it—this is the place to start, and you will incur no student-loan debt.
Continuing and never-ending learning is now the norm for our world. MIT OCW is the very first place that I check when I want to track down and learn “knowledge to bring to bear against the big problems of the world.”
The $10,000 Degree
The academic paper[9], “$1 Trillion and Rising: A Plan for a $10K Degree” by Anya Kamenetz, focuses on reducing the costs of a degree with a six-step plan to get to a quality $10,000 college degree. The steps include:
Reduce non-teaching personnel and restructuring the use of teaching personnel.
End the “perk wars” (already discussed in this chapter).
Focus on graduation, not enrollment. Focusing on graduation completely changes the cost equation.
Dramatically increase blended learning with the use of MOOCs, but also integrate these technologies to not only increase productivity but also to free up faculty to provide intensive, one-to-one teaching and mentoring.
Streamline offerings and charging $10K for BAs in the top 10-12 fields of study. Eighty percent of undergraduates choose from approximately a dozen fields of study, yet a top-tier public university offers around 250 fields of study.
Rethink the college architecture into smaller units. The paper suggests a framework of cohort colleges, adult online universities, flagship campuses and micro/popup schools.
While some of these suggestions may be controversial and radical, some are changes that are long overdue and would reap immediate results.
Having the great opportunity to perform, compile and edit many of the interviews in this book, some other ideas with great potential have surfaced. A few are listed below.
New Sources of Revenue—Universities need to find and free up new revenue streams instead of relying on tuition increases. Simplifying operational and institutional complexity issues alone could save hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars. Here’s one example. Colleges and universities invest $92 billion in research and IP and only generate a 1 percent return[10]. Surely we can do better.
Costs—A former president of Ohio State University once stated:
I readily admit it, I didn’t think a lot about costs. I do not think we have given significant thought to the impact of college costs on families.
An Entrepreneurial Mindset—We need to embrace an entrepreneurial mindset that’s focused on better serving students and fulfilling the core institutional mission. If an institution is run with an entrepreneurial mindset, there will be plenty of focus put on costs. Colleges and universities cannot deliver on their stated missions without margins, and there can be no margins without accountability and a business mindset.
Act Now—The time to act is now if we want to save the future of the U.S. higher education system. We need to help universities find and free up new revenue streams and resources, reduce support and administrative costs and streamline their complex organizations. Also, we need to embrace an entrepreneurial mindset that’s focused on better serving students and fulfilling the core institutional mission.
We can fix this. We must fix this. Our future depends on it.
I have a new book out (co-author & co-editor) called, “Margins and Mission… Not Moonshots: Pathways to Better U.S. Higher Education.” It was fairly time-consuming to put together as it involved 34 contributors from business and higher education. A lot of smart people freely shared their time, ideas, years of experience and thoughts about how to make an immediate positive impact on colleges and universities around the country. For that, I’m grateful.
What’s the book about?
Simply put… saving the future of the U.S. Higher Education system.
Why?
Higher education institutions face unprecedented peril from a perfect storm of economic and demographic challenges. Declining enrollments, drastically reduced state and federal government funding, and excessive growth of support and administration costs have left many universities in a cash-strapped financial conundrum. In addition, student loan debt exceeds the total of all U.S. credit card debt and serious questions are being raised about the cost and worth of a college degree.
To address these critical issues, over 30 diverse and prestigious thought leaders contribute innovative ideas to help re-imagine, re-engineer, and re-invent the business of higher education – with a focus on the pragmatic, the achievable. Some of their suggestions are in the guise of blasphemy; others are cloaked in common sense. All will provoke.
Who contributed?
An eclectic bunch of people to be sure. From international bestselling business authors to University Presidents to the Dean of a Law School and the Head Surgeon of a respected Academic Medical Center.. and on and on. The full list is below.
It was my pleasure to have met and worked with everyone involved in this project.
Kenneth H. Blanchard, PhD
Author of the iconic “One-Minute Manager” and one of the world’s 25 best-selling authors and leadership guru and consultant. Jane Blumenthal, MSLS
Past Pres. of the Medical Library Assn., and Assoc. Univ. Librarian & Director, Taubman Lib. Bernard Bull, EdD
Academic AVP and 2012 awardee of Wagner Distance Education Leadership Award Susan Coia-Gailey, PhD
Data-based info background, Founder of Institutional Research, Assessment & Report Consulting Louis Columbus, MBA
Analyst, author, columnist in Forbes Magazine; teaches graduate courses in international marketing Shawn DeVeau, JD
Deep consulting experience within university Student Services and Academic Support areas Michael S. Ewer, MD, JD, MBA, MPH
Medical (MD Anderson) and Law (Univ. Houston) faculty; prolific author on policy and ethics. Peter Fenner, PhD
Directed an NSF-supported college commission and has over 50 years in professional consulting Kate M. Fenner, PhD
Ethicist, healthcare and higher education leader, with national professional & corporate presence James L. Fisher, PhD
Honored international author and leadership consultant to over 300 colleges & universities Susan D. Gilster, PhD
Practitioner, researcher and author; in 1987 founded the first U.S. free-standing dementia facility David E. Henderson
Emmy awardee & former CBS news correspondent and digital and communications strategist Michael Horowitz, PhD
Founding President, TCS Education System, a consortium of specialized colleges & universities Gavin Huntley-Fenner, PhD
Educator, author, cognitive scientist; served on Calif. Autism Education Advisory Committee. Lloyd A. Jacobs. MD
President Emeritus, University of Toledo; former COO, Univ. Michigan Health System Steven J. Kayser
Author, award-winning business writer, radio host, media relations director, founder of Kayser Media Rita Kirshstein
Manager of AIR’s Delta Cost Project, advising on higher ed cost metrics & project priorities Ariel Klein, MA
US Navy Cmdr now at Rand Corp; was Acad. Prog. Advisor at Inter-American Defense College Edward J. Kormondy, PhD
Ecologist with successful university presidencies; directed national college biology commission James L. Mahon, PhD
Vice presidencies in public & private universities and leadership roles in finance and healthcare James E. Martin, PhD
Former college president with leadership roles in student and support services university sector Charles H. Matthews, PhD
Award-winning Distinguished Professor of Entrepreneurship & Strategic Management Shigeru Miyagawa, PhD
Award-winning endowed professor & Chair, MIT’s OpenCourseWare Advisory Faculty Comm. Santa J. Ono, PhD
University President and scholar noted for his accessibility through social media Cliff Peale
For many years lead newspaper journalist covering education and healthcare beats analytically Joey Reiman
“Father of Ideation Movement;” leader in purpose-inspired leadership & marketing innovation Al Ries
International bestselling author of “Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind,”legendary branding strategist, and originator of “positioning” concept William D. Romey, PhD
Awardee for international educational work and leadership in science education and teaching Marc J. Seifer, PhD
Author of “The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla: Biography of a Genius,” with work translated into 7 languages, featured on TV, and visiting university lecturer Rachel A. Van Cleave, JD, JSM
Dean & Professor of Law, Golden Gate University; Fulbright Scholar Tracie A. Wichman, MPA
Compass Clinical COO, was Chief of Staff at Safe Horizon and a New York City Assistant Commissioner Moritz M. Ziegler, MD
Was Chief Surgeon at top university hospitals, & lead author of a standard medical textbook Tim Barr – Cloud team at iDashboards
The B2B Complex Sale. Mysterious. Ethereal. Shivers the timbers of man and beast alike (including Marketing and PR people). It has ended the career of many a person. Sent many a company down in flames. Healthcare reform? Bah… that’s simple. Not even close to a B2B complex sale. But what really is a …
… COMPLEX SALE?
In a nutshell, it’s this. The complex sale typically refers to a high-value purchase $150,000 and higher, involving a buyer’s committee consisting of anywhere from 10 to 25 people … or more. The sales cycle is frustratingly long – anywhere from 12-36 month. Worse still it involves multiple decision-makers, all with different viewpoints, agendas and radically different and annoying personalities.
IT’S A SCIENCE–IT’S AN ART
To win at the complex sale, one must be a storyteller, master tactician, strategist, cajoler, evaluator, philosopher, psychologist, bean counter and techno-geek.
I spent a week of intense education on the topic of “complex sale.” It was tough-taught by a serious taskmaster with an honest determination for me to learn. What I took away is this … it’s complex. But not really. It’s all about people – people trying to solve a problem and you enabling them to pay you to help solve that problem. It’s also all about connections. Connecting the wants/needs/desires of the technical and business users with the Big Kahuna’s (C-leader$hip) vision and interests.
COMPLEX IS PRETTY SIMPLE
Now I have it all figured out. It’s simple. Watch closely as I skillfully take apart the most difficult of adversaries and personalities in a B2B tech complex sale.
IT DIRECTORS & CIO’S (AKA UNDERCOVER PHYSICISTS)
Physicists are incredibly brilliant and deviously clever people. They can convince you that the word “impossible” is basically “relative,” and you believe them. They can convince you that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, then they invent the word “tachyon,” which stands for a hypothetical, supraluminal quantum particle that never travels SLOWER than the speed of light. When it loses energy, it travels FASTER, and it makes complete sense when they explain it. You believe them. Yes, physicists are brilliant. Clever. Deviously so; much like IT Directors and CIO’s.
They’re the people paid to make sure everything you do (relating to technology, which is just about everything right?) in your business works smoothly, quickly and cheaper. Cheaper, that is, than it did in 1980. And they do it. They’re a very important player in any complex technology sale. You need to know they’re ultimately in the money – they report to the CFO or CEO. So if you need something that is crucial to your operations – like a brand new Mac Pro to run your in-house video-production center for your corporate PR, Sales and Marketing function – you’re going to have to convince (tangle with) them. I’m using this apocalyptic need for a Mac Pro simply as an illustration, because the total value it could DELIVER would be – in the complex sales territory – upwards of a couple hundred thousand dollars. .. conservatively speaking of course.
ONE THING YOU NEED TO KNOW
Not only are typical IT directors brilliant, clever and devious, they insist on you jumping through IMPOSSIBLE hoops, which are not really relative; things like filling out a cost-justification form and answering questions like, “What the ROI be?” and “How long will it take?” They’re not like normal people. I mean “cool, quick, awesome, we can do sweet videos on it for everyone” just doesn’t cut it with these blockheads. Even when I told them it took three days and 22 hours to edit a 30-second corporate product video, they STILL asked those inane questions about ROI and cost.
So you have to tell a whale of a story rivaling the biblical creation to convince these strange personalities that lead IT departments. It has to be Simple, Memorable, Accurate, Repeatable and Totally off the hook. (There’s an acronym there I think.) And it needs to add immense value, statistically be unassailable and substantially bumfuzzling to convince them that “impossible” is a relative term … as it applies to the new Mac Pro they will be soon be gladly approving. (There’s an acronym there too I think, but I’m bold enough not to point it out.)
SOCRATIC GOLDILOCKS-ESIAN STORYTELLING
That’s where Goldilocks comes in. Makes perfect sense to me. So tag along for an intellectual ride nonpareil.
IT BEGINS
If I told you that right now you were traveling at 1,000 mph, you’d think I’m nuts, or drank too much last night … or both. You’d be right. You’re not really traveling at 1,000 mph, You’re …
… SPINNING
at about 1,000 mph. That’s the rotation speed of the earth. If you’re on earth right now (and hopefully you are if you’re reading this), you’re actually spinning at about 1,000 mph. That rotational speed happens to be not too fast, not too slow but just right for life to exist on earth. Much faster and severely violent weather and apocalyptic storms would reign – and life wouldn’t. Too much slower and one side of the earth would be Hades hot, the other Antarctica cold. It’s just about right.
What if I said to you right now, wherever you’re located, you’re …
… TILTING
at 23.5 degrees? You’d think I’m nuts, disoriented, drank too much … or all three. Well in fact, you are; 23.5 degrees is the “Obliquity of the Ecliptic.” That’s a high falutin’, scientific gobbledygook word (much like “seamlessly integrated” and “leading provider” in business lingo) that means “tilt” of the earth axis. Tilted much more or less would leave the Earth unstable – make it wobble – and the earth could tumble, making life impossible and most certainly making for a WILD RIDE in the process. Sounds like a movie to me. It’s just right.
And what if I said to you that you’re not only spinning at 1,000 mph and tilted at 23.5 degrees, you’re also traveling through space at …
… 66,000 MPH
That’s 18 miles per second. And at that 66,000 mph, we have a dancing partner – the moon. And that moon is not too big, not too small, but just the right size to stabilize the earth’s rotation and keep it from wobbling too much – and so life exists. In this earth-moon, boot scooting solar, two-step boogie, the “dark side of the moon, which we never see, also helps shield the earth from comets and meteors.
And what if I said to you, that as you’re spinning at 1,000 mph, tilted at 23.5 degrees and dancing a 66,000 mph boot-scooting solar boogie with the moon, we have a big brother watching …
… JUPITER
Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system. Its diameter is 10 times larger than Earth and is over 300 times the mass. Jupiter’s gravitational pull is so great it’s like a mega dark side of the moon. It attracts comets and meteors away from Earth and hurls them out of the solar system. If Jupiter was much bigger, Earth would be hurled out along with them. Much smaller, and Goldilocks would be blasted with comets and meteor boulders from space – and that would just not be right.
I’m about done. (Am I working hard for the Mac Pro or not?) Two more things. If I said that you’re spinning at 1,000 mph, tilted at 23.5 degrees, while doing the 66,000 mph boot-scooting solar boogie with the moon as big brother Jupiter watches over you, that none of that matters. No, none of that would matter at all if it wasn’t for the …
… SUN
Does it get any better than the sun? Free energy. Free light. Life-giving heat to ensure oxygen and water. Would hanging out at the beach even be the same? The sun is at exactly the right size and distance so we can listen to our iPod’s and whine about not having a Mac Pro while we sun ourselves at the beach. Any bigger or closer and we’d fry. Any smaller or further away and we’d be lifeless remnants memorialized in icicles.
EARTH MOON SUN BOOT-SCOOTING BOOGIE
So, spinning at 1,000 mph, tilted at 23.5 degrees, doing the 66,000 mph boot-scooting boogie with the moon as big brother Jupiter watches over and protects while the free energy, light and warmth-giving Sun nourishes life.
But none of that would really matter if we were off by ….
… ONE PART
If the expansion rate of the universe was changed by one part in a trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion, faster or slower, life on earth would not exist. Not too fast. Not too slow. Really, really, really just right.
Amazing. Bumfuzzling. And … cool. But none of that matters either if we were off …
… ONE INCH
If a measuring tape were stretched across the universe and segmented in one-inch increments (billions upon gazillions of inches) representing the force strengths of nature (gravity, electromagnetism, weak and strong nuclear forces) and the tape was moved one inch in either direction, life on earth would not exist. One inch? Not too big. Not too small. But exceptionally just right.
THE END … SORTA
Before I wrap up with my call for action, here’s a slight comment on the story facts above. It could never sell in Hollywood. Or TV. Why?
“Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn’t.” – Pudd’n Head Wilson (an intellectually astute and under-appreciated philosopher)
SO ABOUT ALL THOSE FACTS AND THE MAC PRO – MY CALL TO ACTION
Dear Omnisicent, Omnipotent, IT Director:
If you take that very same measuring tape, stretched across the universe and segmented in one-inch increments (billions upon gazillions of inches) representing the allocated, amortized total cost of a Mac Pro, BUT immediately take advantage of the video value it can provide to the company … life would not only exist on earth (and my cube) better and faster, but also at prices that are at least 13.7 billion years old. Imagine, we could deliver some pretty cool and sweet looking 21st video products. So let’s do it.
THE REAL END
I wanted the pitch to be simple, memorable, accurate, repeatable and totally off the hook. And it needed to add immense value, statistically be unassailable and substantially bumfuzzling to convince him that “impossible” is a relative term … as it applies to him authorizing my new Mac Pro.
I think it was. I’m sure he understood. He approved the requisition. But he did it in terms that were simple, memorable, accurate, repeatable and totally off the hook. And it added value, was statistically unassailable and substantially bumfuzzling to me.
He put the Mac Pro on layaway for me and scheduled payment terms in one-inch increments stretched across the unfathomable expanse of the universe. Then he sent me a personalized and heartless email to tell me when to expect it.
It’s on my calendar to be picked it up in about 13.7 billion years (more or less).
###
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Lessons Learned from Hollywood STORY Guru Robert McKee