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Come On, Let's Play
I am neither a salesman or a hostess.
I am a multifaceted creature who offers up the magical and the practical, the tender and the snarky, the sacred and the mundane in equal measure. I value tears and empathy, but sometimes we all just need to laugh until it’s funny and find the way to healing with a megawatt smile.
And so, I say, come play with us, come write with us on Friday, March 1 at noon ET.
Heyyyyy you guyssss!
(Did you hear that come through in my best playground voice?)
I’m going to use that outside voice a little more often, ok? It’s not that I want to yell at you, it’s that I want to spark the kind of joy and movement all too many of us left behind on the playground.
This morning during a deep talk with a deeply insightful coach of mine, I came to realize how careful and delicate many of my communications have become.
Somewhere along the line, I traded sales pages for “invitation pages” because that felt less pushy and gross.
Somewhere along the line, I also traded the copywriter’s tricks (bold headlines and emphasizing pain points) for the gentle voice of a tea party hostess.
In many cases, my soft voiced suggestions seem to have gotten lost in the din of the digital world. With the chaos of the daily responsibilities and the worries about the wider world, it’s no wonder the people I most wanted to reach weren't hearing me.
Here’s What’s True
I am a multifaceted creature who offers up the magical and the practical, the tender and the snarky, the sacred and the mundane in equal measure. I value tears and empathy, but sometimes we all just need to laugh until it’s funny and find the way to healing with a megawatt smile.
And so, I say, come play with us, come write with us on Friday, March 1 at noon ET.
You need to make it to this free Community Writing Practice because you need to meet yourself on the page. You need to make space for the stories, the old memories, the sorrows, and the surprises too.
Guess Who Seth Godin Calls “The Best Storytellers” #365StrongStories 21
“Who are the best storytellers?” After a serious binge on this particular podcast, I knew this was the host’s pet question. As ever, he indicated to the guest that he wanted a “creative” answer that would challenge the assertion that marketers are the greatest storytellers. (Only on a marketing podcast does anyone assume “marketers are the best storytellers” is the most interesting answer).
Seth Godin, the man behind All Marketers are Storytellers and so many other brilliant books, broke the mold (as usual). According to Mr. Godin, the best storytellers are:
Mothers.
The host spluttered. He dissolved into nervous laughter. He tried to explain Seth’s answer for him and talk about how mothers are empathetic and caring. Then he trailed off about how he wasn’t going to get all “soft and fuzzy.”
Seth didn’t go there. Instead, he described mothers as people who devote 15 to 20 years crafting a human being. They don’t use tools or hacks learned at a conference. They merely set standard and live a life that leaves a story behind.
On behalf of the mothers out there - those of us who know we’re storytellers and those of us who haven’t discovered that yet - I thank you Mr. Godin, from the bottom of my maternal but not-so-soft-and-fuzzy heart.
The greatest story you’ll ever tell is the story that you live and devote to someone else. This is the foundation of my approach to telling stories that connect.