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Visualize what you want to be the "defining attributes" which most vividly describe 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 in last month's newsletter? Radio listeners have no choice. More than the multimillion-dollar auto advertisement that preceded it on the air, this modestly produced public service announcement left 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 up front 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 habit of packing in extraneous "preface" details at the front of our conversations 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're 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. 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, 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. Several examples: Clint Eastwood ("make my day"), Don Peppers and Martha Rogers ("mass customization"), Faith Popcorn ("cocooning"), 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 jumpstart 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." Actress Glenn Close said (on the TV playing in the background here as I write this), "We all belong to the same tribe," and others have said that before her. What is the detail you can offer that will enable others to recognize you as part of their "tribe" and draw closer to you? |
