Want Your Content to Resonate More with Others? Start by Being More Honest with Yourself
"I get what you're saying, but how do you really feel?"
It was 2016, and a friend was listening to a dry run of my speech's closing bit.
I'd spent 11 months developing this particular keynote, but the ending still wasn't ready. I was starting to stress out too. The stakes felt higher than usual at my next event, Content Marketing World.
For a time, CMWorld used audience feedback surveys to score their speakers, after which they'd award those highly rated voices a bigger room the next year. I began my CMWorld journey in a tiny room off to the side of the conference venue, but with each passing year, my scores earned me progressively larger audiences -- and with it, a growing platform and increased opportunities for my business. Years of work thus felt like it was leading to 2016 session, the largest room available to any breakout speaker: the Big Idea track.
This track was basically all professional speakers, and it was the largest room I'd ever dreamt of speaking in, holding about 500 people. Each and every speaker slated to precede or follow me was a massive name — and personal hero.
I scanned their faces on the event website: Jay Baer, Ann Handley, Andrew Davis, Carla Johnson, Scott Stratten. "And wait," I could hear eager conference-goers thinking, "Who is that guy?"
It's me. Hi. I'm the speaker, it's me.
I was proud to be in that lineup. I was also ready to prove I belonged there. (When you're Sicilian, I'm pretty sure a chip on your shoulder is genetic.) Why couldn't I have the platforms of those other speakers? The notoriety? The success?
No matter, my ego cooed. I earned my way here. I deserve to be there. Just wait 'til what comes next.
What came next, at least in my daydreams, was the only stage left for me to earn at the event: the main stage. Not a breakout track, not a talk up against other speakers at the same time slot, but the whole enchilada. All 4,000 attendees in a room, watching YOU.
You see, I knew that the event organizers awarded the opening keynote each year to whichever speaker was the #1-rated the previous year. That's what I craved, and that's why my speech's closer was kill-ling me.
It just wasn't it. It was great, but not main stage great.
"I get what you're saying, but how do you really feel?"
This one question saved me. It became the source of my story's power. I believe it can be yours too, no matter the content you create.
We're just not asking it often enough.
* * *
When I work with a coaching client, they're typically an expert of some kind -- an entrepreneur, a marketer, an exec, a creator. They're used to thinking about their content as a means to share their expertise. But so often, when they present their ideas for a podcast or a speech or a book or their overall brand positioning, it sounds like ... well, it sounds like marketing. It sounds like they're pleading with you to like it. That's why I routinely joke with clients, "I don't want Marketing Sam. I want Two-Drink Minimum Sam."
I want them to share their ideas without any inhibitions to weaken them. Don't hold back. Don't couch it. Don't share it as if it's the version others will see. Let's just start, just for a moment, by being more honest than that. Because if we can reach the root of their thinking, if we can slap down some fresher ingredients, then we can really cook something special.
"What are you trying to say here?" I'll ask. Then they tell me, and their explanation is always more concise and more moving and more original than the first attempt -- because they aren't trying to "position" it. They're just trying to share ... it.
"Oh, I'm trying to say THIS."
I smile, barely stifling a chuckle.
"Great! Say THAT."
No matter your craft, when you develop an idea, a project, or a key moment within a piece, the power of what you're sharing tends to start with the same question:
Can you be more honest with yourself?
I've heard storytellers talk about this idea before. A famous quote from Hemingway comes to mind:
"There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed."
I think he's talking about being more honest with yourself. He's talking about giving in to the work and giving of yourself. That's where the real labor happens for storytellers.
Yes, there's a ton of handwringing today about how to create and distribute our content, but that ignores the fact that the bulk of our work happens before anything others can see. Content is just the delivery vehicle for a whole mess of stuff that happens in your head and heart. The content is the tip of the iceberg, nothing more. The real process, and indeed the source of an idea's power, unfolds internally. So if we want to create better work, we'd be wise to get better at that internal part first. The rest is incremental.
How do you really feel?
If you don't answer that, your work ends up with the 3 Fs: flat, fake, forgettable.
Said Bourdain:
“Absolute fearlessness is essential. You have to be willing to make a fool of yourself. You have to be willing to be wrong. You have to be willing to fail. If you're not willing to do that, then you're not going to be a very good writer.”
Don't give me you-doing-marketing. Give me you. Drop the pretense and let others further in. No half measures. How do you really, truly feel?
Can we start there? Because if so, we can build up your best ideas into a powerful platform or project that stands out easier.
Because it resonates deeper.
* * *
"I get what you're saying, but how do you really feel, Jay?"
I heard that a second time, but it sounded like it was spoken underwater. I was too in my head. At least I'd turned inward?
I tried to restate my keynote's ending but with more of a pleading tone.
"No, but like ... how do you really feel?"
I tried again, tweaking the words slightly.
"But how do you really feel?"
I was SO annoyed -- at my friend, yes, but also at ... huh, that's interesting. I guess ... I guess I was also annoyed at the marketing industry. Annoyed at the status quo.
Forget "headspace." My friend got me into the right heartspace. I was feeling the way I needed to feel, and I could remain in that same emotional place but redirect my frustration towards the topic of my talk.
So I did.
How do I REALLY feel? [I laughed the kind of laugh where you can't believe others have to ask.] I feel so fucking tired of this industry! I feel like we spend so much time agonizing over how to promote mediocre crap and make it somehow drive results by shoving it down people's throats and shouting and hyping and gaming systems, when all we're doing is marketing something that didn't deserve to be published in the first place. Stuff nobody cares about. Stuff WE don't even care about. How do I REALLY feel? I feel like everyone is so obsessed with finding "best practices" that they never consider all that means is AVERAGE practices. We work so hard to shut off our brains, to follow the gurus and find the cheats, the hacks, the shortcuts, the trends, so we can let ourselves off the hook for doing anything meaningful for a goddamn moment in our careers as marketers. We agonize over finding our answers out THERE, when everything we need and everything that makes our work stand out is right [I pounded my chest] IN HERE.
THAT is how I feel. I feel like we just. keep. missing. THE POINT! If you want to run a bunch of ads that say nothing, then keep saying nothing. But if you're going to write and speak and produce media to try and move people, then MOVE people. If you want to make something that matters TO OTHERS, remember how much YOU matter to this work. The work flows from you. You can't help but influence it. So influence it! Just as useful than knowing some new trend is knowing yourself. Just as valuable as any industry expertise is the fact that, I dunno, you're sarcastic or you love metaphors or you traveled to Rome and it changed you or you lost your grandmother last year and she was the one who could always ground you when the world seemed like it was on fire. Or you have two tiny kids who routinely amaze and crush you but you're only supposed to talk about the amazing parts. Or you romanticize everything or love the Knicks, or you spent an extra two hours on this one paragraph just to make it like 2% better, not because you thought it would matter but because you KNEW it would, but it's what makes the work YOU. Because YOU are the biggest unfair advantage you've got -- and you're JUST. NOT. USING IT!
How do I feel? Man, THAT is how I fucking feel!
I was practically panting. I was definitely sweating.
My friend smiled, barely stifling a chuckle.
"Great! Say THAT."
Oh. Uh. Okay.
"But maybe remove all the F-bombs."
Right. Okay. Cool, cool.
I gave the talk. I stuck the landing. I was honest about how I felt. About how I really felt.
A few months later, I got the call.
"Technically, you were tied for the top score, but we're awarding you the opening keynote next year."
WHAT! YES! OMG! But wait ... why?
"The comments. I've never seen people this passionate. They really felt strongly about you."
* * *
We all want others to feel strongly about our work, no matter what we create. But too rarely do our ideas impart the energy they need to respond with passion. We're too flat, fake, forgettable.
But I'm telling you, it's possible to compete on the power of your ideas, not the volume of your content. To do that, tap the very source of that power. Be more honest with yourself. Tell us how you really feel.
Worry about positioning and wordsmithing later. That's a solvable problem. But no amount of incremental tweaking will make a weak idea strong. Your power starts with your willingness to turn inward, cut past what others expect from you, tear down the walls that inhibit you, and merely speak your mind. Openly. Passionately.
Honestly.
Ask yourself:
What's frustrating me? What's pissing me off? Why?
What do others just accept which I think is awful?
Why is the conventional approach so terrible?
Why does any of this actually matter to me?
Why should it matter to others?
What gets worse if things stay the same?
What am I really trying to say here?
What am I afraid to admit?
You don't need to invent anything groundbreaking. You don't need to go viral. You don't need to be the foremost expert. You simply need to be more honest. Most won't. But that's your opportunity. That's how you can create higher-impact work than the rest of the noise out there -- most of which is flat, fake, forgettable.
If you want to avoid the 3 Fs, start by giving zero of your own.
Be honest now: How do you really feel?