For most of us, technology is a great way to do more, learn more, have more. But the casual and oft-times impersonal nature of this kind of communication has its drawbacks—including stymieing our opportunity to develop meaningful relationships.
Back in the day (choose any decade prior to this one), we typically spent some portion of every day meeting with, talking to or working alongside bosses, coworkers, family or friends. Now, telecommuting, technology and too-full calendars mean that days, weeks or even months can go by with nary a non-text conversation.
So what does this mean?
Everything.
With no “face time” (that is, actually looking at and conversing with real, live people), you can quickly become average—or worse, invisible.
Seth Godin, marketing guru and author of Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable, says that for businesses wanting to stand out from the crowd they must be remarkable. The same could be said of you.
photo credit: Donna_Rutherford
While chatting with my sister and her former coworker, Cathy, Cathy regaled us with a positively hysterical story about a recent evening that began with one son babysitting the neighbor’s cat and ended with the other son taking a tennis lesson.
“What,” you may be thinking, “is so hysterical about that?”
Nothing.
Unless, of course, you heard the details of the entire evening as told by one vigorously animated, storytelling mother.
Cathy’s chronicling of the evening’s events created what psychologists would call “narrative transport.”
Plain and simple, Cathy took our minds somewhere else. She gave us specific, relevant particulars that we could imagine and identify with.
The net result? We quickly and fully became caught up in and captivated by her story. What came naturally to Cathy—storytelling—needs to come more naturally to the rest of us.
Storytelling is simply creating a visual image through words while connecting with your reader on a real and personal level.
Stuck telling your story on paper? Then don’t. Instead, share it with a friend, colleague or coworker. Pretend you’re trying to entertain someone at a party. Say what you really want to say rather than what you think you should say (or what your legal department or boss would like you to say). Then record your story, transcribe it and use that as your first draft.
Remember, it doesn’t matter how you get to the story—only that you get to it.
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I recently finished coaching a client. And, like any mentor, I was thrilled to hear that she “gets it.”
Gets what?
Gets that organizing her thoughts is not only possible but essential for creating content with maximum impact.
In her case, she was presenting a recommendation that would impact an entire division of her company.
Her first draft was mired in backstory details that would baffle even the most astute reader.
Her rewrite, however, was clear, concise and direct. She nailed it.
Here’s what I taught her about making her writing make sense:
I have a big head.
I really do.
See … it’s gigantic.
In fact, I can’t wear hats. Even men’s hats. (Never mind women’s hats.)
So I was thrilled when I went into the local farm & fleet store over the weekend and bought myself one of those snorty little black ski masks; you know, the kind criminals wear in old movies. It’s not cold enough yet to wear it, but it will get plenty of wear on my daily fitness walks come winter.
A few years ago I was working in New Orleans helping to rebuild homes after Hurricane Katrina. One of the other workers offered to tie a bandanna around my head to keep the sweat out of my eyes. I warned her about my big head. She said “nonsense.” That is, until she tried to tie it around my big head. Then she said, “You’re not kidding …”
In the meantime, that got me thinking about people with big heads. I know. It’s Monday and I feel like being silly. Read on if you do too.
Besides me, there’s big-headed Vanna White. I once read that Merv Griffin hired Vanna for Wheel of Fortune because of her disproportionately large head. He said it was a sign of beauty. I tell that to everyone who makes fun of my big head. :)
Here’s my top 10 list of celebrities for whom the hat probably doesn’t fit:
1. Vanna White
2. Tom Bergeron
3. Christina Ricci
4. Jay Leno
5. Tyra Banks
I forgot what I was going to write.
Lesson learned: jot down the brainstorming thought more completely while it’s still fresh in your (big) head.
No CommentsMy husband is tall. Very tall. 6’4″ tall.
I’m average height. I say I’m 5’8″ so I can weigh more but, truth be told, I’m closer to 5’7″.
Our height difference causes us to argue about silly things—like wall placement of pictures and mirrors.
HE wants them close to the ceiling. I want them in the upper middle of the wall where they look aesthetically pleasing. He cares nothing about aesthetically pleasing. (Just look at his wardrobe, if you don’t believe me.)
So when we hung a new mirror in our upstairs hallway the other day, we argued momentarily about wall placement. I won, of course, because, as he admits, he doesn’t really care about how it looks.
The mirror was hung where I wanted it—where it should be—and we moved on.
Until this morning when I passed by it.
My silhouette fell perfectly in the middle and I was momentarily pleased. Then I heard my husband’s voice in my head, saying, “You want to hang this mirror where it’s useless to someone like me.”
I know he can’t see himself in the mirror without bending down or twisting and turning like some kind of contortionist. I knew that when I suggested we hang it. But, remember, I was thinking about how it would look as form, not function.
But this morning, staring at my reflection in the mirror, I realized that the mirror looked good to me. The mirror is perfectly placed from my perspective. In other words, from where I stand, literally, it looks great.
But what if I was shorter? Or taller? Like, say, some nice guy I know who’s 6’4″.
In that case, the dern mirror doesn’t look great; it looks too high or too low.
Whoa! I thought the mirror had only one right placement … the middle. I thought he was being stubborn.
Turns out he wasn’t. Turns out that the problem is that the “perfect placement” is from MY perspective, not from HIS.
His perfect placement is different than mine. And I never saw it that way. Until now. Until this morning, the obvious never occurred to me:
In the same way that perception is reality, perspective is personal.
Are you, like me, stuck in your own personal perspective, refusing to at least consider that there’s more than one way to look at something—like from your reader’s perspective?
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