On the very morning I wrote
this column a radio commentator intoned, "Presidential candidate
George W. Bush will be active in making pronouncements in the coming
weeks.... He wants to define himself before his opponents do it
for him." (Don't we all?)
Last month, when I turned on the radio in my rental car, a low,
almost neutral-sounding male voice came on: "One in three women
in Louisiana who are murdered ... (long pause) ... are murdered
by their husbands. If you or someone you know's life is in danger,
or you even suspect it might be, here's the number to call right
now for help ... I wish I had. It might have saved my sister's life."
Then he gave the number.
I passed a billboard on Lombard Street in San Francisco yesterday
with this message, "Someone is going to win the lottery this
week. And it is not going to be you. When will you finally turn
to E-Trade?"
* * *
Become the best-selling author of your life. Be at least one of
the more frequently cited among sources of the words most likely
to be repeated about you, your work, your loved ones, and your most
passionate interests, starting now. In these time-starved,
relationship-diminished time, use the impending turn of the century
as your positive, mega-deadline to turn the rest of your life into
your kind of blockbuster story.
How? Get more specific about your stories. Like peeling away the
layers of an onion, consider pulling back the inevitable generalizations
you make about your most familiar topics -- because you know too
much -- until you get to the core of your most important life themes
and recognize their essence for yourself.
Consider, as Steve Covey has said, "First things first"
to understand your essential life story. Then, and only then, can
you begin to consider how to translate your story into the incidents
and examples most meaningful for each person with whom you talk.
Only then can you begin considering the comment or question most
pertinent to the person with whom you are communicating, and then
the detail most worth telling.
Who defines your life for others? The most interesting storytellers
around you. Whoever most vividly characterizes what a person or
situation is about usually determines what others see in their mind's
eye, how they feel about it, and how they discuss it. You don't
need to be running for office, or even for a new job or romantic
relationship, to choose how you want to describe what matters most
to you. How do you describe your most important work, closest friends,
critics, and causes?
These words are the verbal "clothes" you wear throughout
your life. Who chooses your clothes most often -- you or others?
If someone else's description is more vividly colorful than yours,
people will remember and repeat their words, not yours, about you
and your life.
From a hated childhood nickname to an often-repeated embarrassing
incident from your past, you've learned the hard way that our brains
are hardwired to notice and remember the embarrassing or tragic
accident more than the blandly characterized accomplishment, the
funny blooper more than the vaguely worded compliment. After all,
what do you most remember from yesterday, last week, last year,
ten years ago, your childhood?
Those vivid incidents you experienced firsthand and the stories
you saw or heard second-hand are creating the enduring thread of
the story of your life, from how you see your world to how you react
to it. If that is true for you, it is true for everyone around you.
Change yourself and you change your world. If you become a more
vivid storyteller, you not only affect the picture others have of
you, you also help them literally see, in their mind's eye, what
is possible for them. What could be a more priceless, living legacy
for you?
Why leave it to Steven Spielberg and Bill Gates to write the most
familiar blockbuster stories of our collective lives? You, or the
person near you, can also tap people's collective unconscious yearnings
and desires by telling the story that resonates with others everywhere
and even helps us see another picture of what is possible.
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With nary a penny spent
in marketing, your "call for action" story might be retold
around the world and come back to you through a stranger's action
or comment on the street or an e-mail message from a colleague.
You are, after all, your living legacy, because you are living
your legacy (to paraphrase a popular old song) "in every move
you make and every breath you take." It is only human to look
for what is most interesting around us.
We are all inevitable voyeurs, overhearing and seeing each other
from many directions. Even and especially in a world that can be
abrupt, anonymous, and over-advertised, we look for the words and
scenes that are endearingly sweet as an infant smiling up from across
the back of a parent, or nearby tail-wagging puppy scenes, or startling,
humorous, romantic, poignant, inspiring, shocking comments. And
we all seek the innately human stories that bring us closer.
That's why we so often pass along the e-mail messages with such
sentiments in their stories, jokes, or sayings. That's why we so
often tell each other such incidents when we get together. Like
a successful billboard campaign in a community, the most vivid stories
are the ones most frequently "seen" because they are the
most often repeated.
Want to write some of these stories? Start with what you know best:
you. What do you want people to tell each other about you? How do
you want to be best remembered when you leave the meeting, dinner
party, family gathering, your life? Be the author of the next chapters
of your life. It is never too late to at least co-create an engrossing
living legacy, beginning with an interesting next chapter and starting
now. How? Consider conversations. Forget the qualifiers, historical
background, jargon words, and "how-to" before the "why
listen" has been answered.
Recall the "one in three women" radio spot I described
at the beginning of this article? Radio listeners have no
choice. More than the multimillion-dollar auto advertisement that
preceded it on the air, this modestly produced public service announcement
leaves an indelible impression on the minds of most listeners.
Just as with the billboard message about the lottery, this radio
spot pulls you in with a sentence that makes you want to learn more.
What's the question or statement you know that will pull people
into learning more of your story? Isn't it wonderfully democratizing
to know that now, more than ever, it takes more than money to get
a message noticed?
What it takes is a memorable message. Say it better next time and
your message may be the one most "broadcast" around the
world. Get to the juicy center of the topic upfront so others are
pulled into wanting to hear more.
When someone says "Tell me more about that," you know
you have started your story by respecting their strongest interests
rather than our usual habits of packing in extraneous "preface"
details at the front of our conversation and numbing would-be listeners
into a "mental vacation." Peel away the boring, up-front
qualifiers and wandering background words.
Drop the secondary detail until you have hooked the listener into
wanting to know more. You are not acting like a robot but rather
choosing to have a few seconds of forethought in respect to the
listener's innate interests, world view, or current situation. Not
only do you tell the truth, you tell the best detail of that truth
up front to engage the person you most want to have hear you.
Look for the heartwarming happening, contrasting facts or statistics,
best/worst-case scenario, extraordinary incident, flattering and
genuine compliment, glittering opportunity or looming threat, cherished
colleague's choice, or respected opinion leader's actions to introduce
your topic into conversation. You can tattoo your word pictures
into others -- even beyond their conscious willing -- when you begin
with the lead-in sentence to the story that most interests them.
Why? Because your words are unforgettable.
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Remember that famous example
where you can't help picturing what you are admonished not to? "Whatever
you do now, don't think of big pink elephants." Peeling away
the less immediately understandable or interesting parts of your
topic to begin with the most interesting (to the listener) detail
means others are more likely to want to learn or share more later.
As Roger Ailes says, "See it and say it. If you can see a
picture in your mind and describe it, others will stay tuned. "All
of your stories don't have to be life-changing, but they can
be engaging. Use memory hooks that relate to your name, work,
remarkable quality or skill, or appearance, or perhaps a rhyme or
word play.
Ivan Misner, author of Seven Second Marketing, offers many
examples, including three that I've paraphrased here: "Let
me take the world off your shoulders," offers Sharon Howard,
massage therapist. Lance Mead of Lunar Travel Agency stands
out from other agents when he says "Ninety percent of all accidents
happen in the home. So travel."
Photographer Robert Stewart writes, "My pictures say a thousand
words so you don't have to." One of the many bright sides of
our world now is that the most vivid messages move with lightning
speed to the most places, phones, and screens around the world.
Here are some of the ways we are seeing this phenomenon: People
become more well known and quoted by coining a phrase that sticks
in our minds, characterizing a situation, sentiment, or trend: Clint
Eastwood ("make my day"), Don Peppers and Martha Rogers
("mass customization"), Faith Popcorn ("cocking"),
Harvey Mackay ("dig your well before you get thirsty"),
John Gray ("men are from Mars . . ."), Sam Horn
("Tongue Fu"), John Naisbett ("high tech/high touch").
"Intel Inside." More and more business leaders
(from Steve Jobs to Jack Welch) speak so vividly that they become
the "face" of their companies, extending their personal
"brand" value as well as their company value. Be your
brand. In a fast-changing world, you are your most important brand.
How do you burnish it by how you characterize your work and that
of others you admire? Putting their lives on the line, Amnesty International
volunteers personally witness atrocities so the rest of the world
might stop them.
Want to help a cause? Perhaps the most valuable contribution you
can make to your favorite program is creating the most specifically
compelling reason for others to support it.
My friend Jacob Toschi spent last weekend revamping computers for
six blind people to jump-start their Business for the Blind enterprise.
Perhaps the best gift you can present to someone you respect or
love is to tell many others about one of that person's most wonderful
actions. Bonus: The "halo effect" of such third-party
endorsements can't help but rub off on you.
I feel this with all my heart, even if I am only intermittently
good at it myself. If you want a more interesting, options-loaded,
meaningful life, make the chapters more enticing, beginning with
what you say -- your comments and your questions. When you raise
the more interesting details to the top of the conversation, the
most intriguing parts of others emerge. They will like the experience
and be drawn to you.
Whether you seek a more lively experience with loved ones during
your play times, the immediate attention of colleagues or strangers,
more support for your project, or the birth of new friendships,
begin with the specific detail that pulls people to your most interesting
"story."
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Kare Anderson is the founder of the Say It Better
Center, located in Sausalito, CA. She can be reached via email at
kare@sayitbetter.com.
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