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.
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.
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.
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).
###
RELATED LINKS
If you want more info on the “Goldilocks Universe” check out:
That was advice given to me long ago on how to properly prepare and give a business presentation. Quite possibly the worst business advice I have ever received. The “watch the boss” advice, however, seems to be set in stone for new people coming up the ranks in business. There’s not a lot of time, money or effort invested in training people internally on how to give presentations. It’s sink or swim … and the sinking can get pretty ugly.
WHAT I WISH I’D LEARNED IN KINDERGARTEN – BUT NOT FROM MY BOSS
Having seen hundreds of business presentations and given a few myself, there are a few things I wish someone would have taught me in kindergarten. Seven things or “New Rules” of business presentations to be precise. I pass these on to anyone new to the dreaded gauntlet of the business presentation or any grizzled veterans who want to walk on the wild side and shake things up.
THE BASICS
Structurally there are two completely different parts to every business presentation – composition and delivery.
1. Composition – is creating, organizing, formatting and structuring the ideas, information, insights and imagery. It’s hard work and hard-thinking.
2. Performance– of the presentation is an attitude, mindset, vision and problem-solving stage performance. It’s hard work, hard-thinking, and should inform, educate and if possible, entertain.
ARE YOU A CAESAR?
Great presentations meld composition and performance seamlessly – like Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar.
Every great presentation I’ve seen states a specific problem, the implications of that problem, then provides a pathway to resolve the problem – and reap the attendant benefits. Simple as that. And as complicated as that.
OR A FLYING STINK-O-POTAMUS?
Image by Ben Heine
If a presentation doesn’t state the problem, then provide a vision of a future with that problem solved and the benefit to be expected, it will never be great … or even good.
A presentation that fails that basic but singular task is typically referred to as “A Flying Stink-o-potamus.” Sometimes the “f” is left off the word “flying.”
The seven “New Rules” I propose below mostly involve the composition part of the presentation. If you’re fairly new to business and business presentations, or just don’t want to walk in the same old corporate presentation-crapola anymore, these rules will help set you apart quickly. Might get you fired – but you will be different.
THE SEVEN “NEW RULES” OF BUSINESS PRESENTATIONS
1. NEVER COPY YOUR BOSS
Bad idea. You know why? Because he copied his boss. And his boss copiedhis boss when his boss was copying his boss back when copying included using scribes and hieroglyphics. Back when a tablets were made of stone. Copying your boss is unimaginative, sycophantic and boring. It’s easy though – and that’s why it’s still the number source of bad presentations. Still… NEVER copy your boss. Think for yourself.
* There are some exceptions to this rule – like if your boss is Ron White (the comedian).
“The average PowerPoint slide has 40 words. In some presentations, Steve Jobs has a total of seven words in 10 slides. And why are you cluttering up your slides with too many words?”
ARE YOU KIDDING ME?
40 words per slide? That flabbergasted me. I’ve never seen less than 75. Carmine must not get out much.
But that rule needs updating. Use no smaller than a 50-point font and strive consistently to use a 60-point font. If you do that you’ll automatically comply with New Rule Number 3.
Try squeezing a lot of 60-point font words on one slide. You’ll see what I mean.
4. BAN ALL BULLET-POINTS
Ban it. Beat it. Bash it. Just don’t ever bullet-point it again.
This is an all-out call to ban the bullet-point. Many a good presentation has been bungled by bilious bullet-points being bandied about in a baffling badinage of balderdash. Really.
Step out of the crowd. March to the beat of your own bullet-pointless presentation. Step out of dark and into the light.
Ban the bullet-point. The world will be a better place!
5. TEXT COLOR – BE CONSISTENT
If your text starts out white – keep it white. Don’t have multiple colors of text throughout the presentation. It’s like reading a 3-D rainbow written in Sumerian eme-ĝir. It’s distracting.
Okay, this is a pet-peeve of mine, other people might not mind reading a rainbow written in Sumerian eme-ĝir, but it is distracting to me.
6. USE VIGOROUS LANGUAGE
I cribbed this from Hemmingway’s Four Rules of Writing. What is vigorous language? Action-oriented. Imperative verbs. And try not to use “ing” words (gerunds), or minimize them as much as possible.
EXAMPLE:
Instead of “creating” use “create.” Instead of “going” use “go.”
A little thing … but it will make your presentation stronger. It works.
“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.”
7. NO CORPORATE GOBBLEDYGOOK VISUALS
Do not use stock photos. Smiling faces of corporate fakeness. This is hard, I know. It’s ingrained in the business culture as much as corporate gobbledygook, which continually invades good clean page space with too many words drained of meaning. A lot of small-to-medium size companies don’t have access to great visuals so they buy into a stock photo subscription. Do the best you can with what you have.
Try to use brilliant, mysterious, evocative images that stun … and know that these can also be simple and stark, as long as they catch the eye and further the storyline of your presentation. Where can you find such images? However, if you want to check out some free to do whatever you want with images that are pretty exceptional try Unsplash.com. Others you can check out include Flickr’s Creative Commons, Comfight,Stock.xchange, and FreePixels.
8. USE THE PRINCIPLE OF CREATIVE LIMITATION
Limit yourself so you can grow. Both creatively and intellectually.
Robert McKee, Hollywood screenwriting guru and bestselling author of the book STORY, and I discussed the principle of creative limitation in “A Simple, Timeless Tale” interview.
“The PowerPoint presentation is easy, that’s why people do it. But 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 in 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.”
FORCED FREEDOM
These “New Rules” for business presentations force you to become more creative in your presentations.
They free you to simplify.
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” Leonardo da Vinci
They free you to beautify.
They free you to amplify.
These New Rules can be the canvas you paint your presentation on to deliver the message any audience really craves which is …
“Make me dream, Touch me, Comfort me, Amuse me, Make me laugh, Make me weep, Make me shudder, Make me think.” – Guy de Maupassant
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Lessons Learned from Hollywood STORY Guru Robert McKee