What story do you tell?

It's true -- people don't care about you.

I don't mean your loved ones. I mean the ones you want to contribute to your life by supporting your business, attending your events, and volunteering for your causes.

The truth is that people these days, especially those who use social media like Facebook, are bombarded with constant requests for their time and money. Sometimes dozens a day. And that's just from their friends! How can you get your business or nonprofit or event to stand out from the crowd?

Let's take a trip back in time to find out.

WAY back in time.

You're in a forest. Everywhere you look, you see trees, bushes, tall grasses, fellow tribemembers going about their daily lives. From every direction comes birdsong and the sound of leaves moving in the wind. Suddenly, everyone hushes. Then you hear it, too -- a powerful roar! Someone screams. Warriors rush for their spears. Parents grab their children and run for the trees.

If you didn't have a brain attuned to danger, you wouldn't have reacted in time to the threat of that predator, and you wouldn't have lived to pass on your DNA to a new generation.

As human society evolved, however, reacting to every loud noise would have made you crazy. The real threats were much more subtle, and required more than just senses and instincts. It meant having the ability to share stories that communicate information and strategies in a memorable way.

So how does this apply to what you want to do?

When you have a call to action, whether it's "buy my product!" or "come to my party!", one part of your strategy for engagement should be to tell a story. Use photos and videos (up to three and a half minutes for most Internet viewers). Use the basic elements of storytelling in the text: engaging characters, conflict, a solution arrived at by clever action.

Good storytelling will cut through the forest of advertising and invitations we're subjected to, and instead of resenting the intrusion of your request, people will actually crave hearing more. That's the kind of engagement that earns you long-term support.

Want help crafting or improving your story? Drop me a line at 831-236-0361 or ria@riamegnin.com. We'll work together to find the best ways to connect with your audience for the long term.

P.S. Don't make the common political and business mistake of drawing people in with your terrific story, only to abandon it once you've gotten what you want. Success means telling that tale all the way through.

Remember Starbucks' near-collapse? In the course of becoming a mega-behemoth nationwide corporation, they lost track of their original mission and ended up shuttering 900 stores across the country, laying off thousands. Then, they brought back original CEO Howard Schultz, who among other steps closed all stores to the public for more than three hours to share the story of Starbucks with staff once more. Result? A community coffee shop that's got its groove back.

Tell your story. Show your story. Watch your engagement grow.

For writers, travel's a blessing and a bane

For freelance writers, regular travel can be both a blessing and a bane. Sure, that trip to the French Riviera gave you enough characters and image metaphors to pack a hundred articles – but how to get those articles pitched, drafted and delivered when your environment is transformed every few days?

I've always loved travel, but this year has been off the charts. I spent the winter zig-zagging across the country. Since April, I've been to Haiti, Greece, Wyoming and now Tennessee.

I won't say the adventures weren't worth the sacrifice. How can anything compare with the chance to taste fresh hummus in the streets below the Parthenon, or witness an earthquake refugee restoring his community, or leap off a whitewater raft into chilly river waters – just for fun?

But they have come at a cost to my workflow, just when consistent focus would be most critical to my future. My business won't build itself, and the fits and starts around my international adventures aren't doing me or my potential clients any favors.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who finds her work getting regularly disrupted. (All you work-from-home moms and dads: you are amazing.) So I'm curious. What tips and tricks have you found that help balance a chaotic schedule with the need to get things done? 

 

Here are a few of mine:

1) Have a routine.

Something simple. Something you can keep sacred, anywhere from a ferryboat in the Aegean to a lake house near Knoxville. For me, that means finding half an hour in the morning to write a blog post, a poem, a journal entry, an essay – and five minutes for yoga sometime during the day. 

 

2) Work with a buddy.

My writing friends keep me honest. If I haven't posted to my blog, they let me know my work is missed. If we have a date to share our latest works and I've only added a couple of sentences to my novel, you can bet I'll be dedicating an extra hour right before the meeting!

3) Use organizational tools.

For me, a calendar and action lists work best. I have three action lists right now: personal life, work, and Burning Man. I organize each of these into phone calls, online tasks, errands and things I can do anywhere.

I also use a mind map – a graphic "tree" representation – to maintain a general overview of all the activities in my life at a glance. They match up to folders and subfolders on my computer, where all the details live.

4) Stay accessible.

I finally succumbed and bought a smartphone, granting me Internet access anywhere there's a phone signal. I still prefer to compose email and documents on my laptop, but I bought a light, powerful one that travels well.

In addition, I pay $27 a year for peace of mind in the form of Carbonite, which automatically backs up all of the files on my computer every time I log on to the Internet. No computer crash, virus, spilled coffee or stolen bag need trouble me again! At some point, I expect to upload everything to the Cloud, making my life truly portable so long as the Internet exists.

Looking forward to hearing your tips! Email me at ria@riamegnin.com.

Caution: Media approaching

I have a "spam account" e-mail address that I use whenever a business requires one for marketing purposes. It's through Yahoo!, which lists the latest news headlines on its e-mail landing page -- whether you want them or not.

Now, I spent nearly six years at a daily newspaper, most of them as an editor who scanned the newswires and posted content nearly constantly each day. In that time, I saw (and shared with the world) thousands of articles, most of which involved some form of horror: sex crimes, street violence, nasty crashes, child abuse, political scandals and award shows (the latter being a kind of mashup of all the others).

It's the focus on horror that turned me -- and many, many former readers -- off to much of the newspaper life.  But the sad fact is, we humans are hard-wired to respond to the titillating and the terrifying. Time and again I saw it: the mayhem stories got anywhere from three to 10 times as much traffic as the "good news" articles on local kids doing well, politicians actually doing their jobs, elders sharing their adventures and wisdom.

The only "good news" that came remotely close to generating such numbers invariably involved cute animals.

I'm sure it's got something to do with our ancient survival needs. The caveman who didn't instantly give attention to something alarming was likely the caveman who didn't survive to pass his genes down to a new generation. But surely we've evolved enough to focus our collective attention on things besides fear and sex today.

I finally changed the settings on that e-mail account to the latest sports headlines, so the first thing I see is something mind-bogglingly repetitive about people and places and sports I've never heard of: "Pedroyak settles negotiations with Aspen State" or "Black scores 20 in final ATC round." No one announcing someone's horrible death while I check for coupons from Save-A-Lot. No one describing the latest drama in a pedophilia case while I click through the day's online comic strips.

Still, I sometimes wonder if I'm missing out on something important. "Puppies save the day at local orphanage," for instance. Oh, well. One of these days, they'll save a golf caddy instead, and I'll be the first to know.

The scariest words I can say: "I deserve money."

"And photos?"

I doubt the editor knew how much that pair of words cost me. Two minutes earlier, I'd braved a whole sentence asking how much her company pays for freelance articles. And now, I wanted more.

In essence, I'd just declared out loud -- twice! -- "I am doing this for money. Your money. Give lots of it to me."

Like many people whose bachelor's degree ends with the initial "A" for "Arts," I'm plagued with an aversion to numbers and discomfort around discussing money. Working for a direct deposit paycheck, as I did for the past 10 years, worked wonderfully for me. I did my job, the little numbers in my online checking account grew bigger and smaller every two weeks, everything was peachy. Raises were annual and pretty much automated, as I accepted at face value the giant corporate mystic pronouncements involving "cost of living" and "the economy" and "congratulations."

But now, I'm freelancing. Now, I have to deal with these things or the money doesn't get dealt. Now, I have to confront the fact that I would rather fish through Dumpsters and mooch off loved ones' couches than actually ask people to trade me money for my labors.

It's slightly comforting to know I'm not alone in this. One of my favorite stories on the topic is from a Manhattan publishing executive. At least once a year, she said, each of her male employees would come to her office unsolicited to share their accomplishments, present their ideas for the future and request a significant promotion or raise. Most of the time, they got what they asked for.

The number of female employees who did the same, over the course of her 20-year management career?

Zero.

I tell this to every woman friend who's shared her anxiety about asking for compensation for her work. "Wow," they reply. "Yeah. We should totally ask for what we deserve!"

And then we go on not asking.

Until today. Today was different. I had a long-awaited interview for a job I'm highly qualified for, eager to take on and excited to share with the world. I had work samples printed, story pitches prepared and an attitude of cheerful confidence. The editor seemed eager to have me, too. And then I did it. I asked my worth.

She told me what the publication pays. A flat fee for a regular a story. Up to twice that if it's a complicated piece that gets a center spread.

The prices are fair. Industry standard. I knew, because I had looked them up in the Bible of freelance writing and on job boards and through online organizations. I'd done my research, I'd done my basic duty. And I'd also read dozens of professional advice pages that urged: "Ask for more. Go on. Find a way!"

So I said it:

"And photos?"

A flat fee per published shot -- "but for a photo package, we'll have to negotiate on a case-by-case basis."

First hurdle cleared -- I've asked to be paid. Next -- I'll negotiate when I have something strong to offer in return. Because I should totally ask for what I deserve.

And this time, I'm actually going to.

***

Here's some online resources that have helped me out. Which ones did I miss that have worked for you?

1. She Negotiates - a site boosting women's professional assertiveness - www.shenegotiates.com

2. About.com's Career Planning page - plenty of articles on the fine art of asking for what you want and deserve - http://careerplanning.about.com/od/negotiatingoffers/Negotiating.htm

3. Editorial Freelancers Association - a list of some standard industry rates - http://the-efa.org/res/rates.php

4. Daily Worth - free daily money tips for women - www.dailyworth.com

So you want to be a writer...

In which our heroine attempts to give quality Advice...

A college student who loves writing e-mailed recently to ask for career advice. “I heard you were a writer...” she said. 

As soon as I climbed off the ceiling from the delight of being so recognized, I put together this response. May it be of help to aspiring writers everywhere!

***

Thanks so much for reaching out! I've had a life-long passion for writing, and I'm happy to pass on some of what I've learned.

I majored in English at a small private college, taking courses ranging from journalism to creative writing to storytelling to poetry. These helped me bring a strong understanding of the writing and editing process to my work at newspapers over the past decade.

As a journalist and, later, a business entrepreneur, I continued my studies in areas that I wish I'd explored more as an undergraduate: basic business operations and finance, political science, psychology, sociology, history, religion and economics. Learning is a lifelong process, but I've found that having a broad-based understanding of the underpinnings of our society and how people relate to one another is incredibly helpful as a reporter and writer.

Probably the most important advice I can give, however, is to take advantage of as many opportunities as you possibly can for volunteering, internships, travel abroad, networking with highly experienced and successful people from all fields (not just writing!), and on-the-job learning.

Let me know what areas of interest you have around writing and any other specific questions -- I'm always glad to help.

***

And that goes for you, too, dear reader!

Listening: A gift fit for a king

A quick testimony to the power of the non-word -- and a tool for using it.

As a journalist, I'm paid to listen well, at least enough to accurately relay people's accounts to the masses.

I've also studied martial arts and psychology, women's circles and Unitarian Universalism, massage therapy and intuitive hearling, and listening's at the heart of these, too.

So when I join my New Age friends in saying that we're in a planet-sized crisis, I add that we CAN solve it -- by helping more people learn how to really listen.

I blogged in late January about how Lionel Logue, a speech therapist who both treated and befriended the Duke of York in the early 1900s, is portrayed in the film “The King's Speech.” The Duke's stammer eased because of the trust and commitment the two men shared, but I think the main reason is because Lionel knew how to listen.

As a child, the Duke's father and other relatives shamed and threatened him constantly over his shyness and, eventually, his stammer. This bullying eviscerated his sense of personal power and competence. So when Lionel met the stammering with a mix of tools, encouragement and desire to hear what the Duke had to say -- without shaming him! -- many of the old beliefs began to crumble away.

And here's your tool for the day, to get you one step closer to helping dukes become kings:

Next time someone's talking with you about something important to them, give this a try: just listen.

Don't fix, don't weigh in, don't argue... Don't tell them how your Aunt Sally had the same thing happen to her once in Peoria.

Just listen.

The coup de grace? When they're done, say back what you heard them say, and ask if you got it right or missed anything.

The power of that gift can change relationships, lives, and -- I believe -- the world.

The King's Speech, the guide's ear

In "The King's Speech," Geoffrey Rush plays an eccentric speech therapist with an unlikely client -- The Duke of York and future king of England, whose lifelong stammer makes public speaking a wrenching experience for man and audience alike.

The filmmakers are said to have played fast and loose with the story's historical accuracy. But they were bang-on when it comes to certain universal, psychological "truths." I'd like to explore a little of why Lionel Logue's approach to therapy was so effective and inspiring.

Trust. The two men agreed to a partnership to improve a "mechanical" issue, but the Duke's physical stammering was only a symptom of what needed treatment. It took a potent mix of bullying, cajoling and compassion from Logue to expose enough of the root issues for real healing to being.

Hope. Once "Bertie" allowed himself to become vulnerable, his therapist had to prove himself trustworthy. Logue did it by proving to the Duke that there was hope for a cure -- and proving it again and again, no matter how stubborn the resistance.

Commitment. If you've seen the film, you know that was one rocky client-therapist relationship. And yet both men kept showing up with the courage and tenacity required to create lasting change.

If you have ever been a child, you know that childhood brings with it plenty of painful experiences. Facing that original pain, demanding a life free today of its crippling effects, and discarding the old armor and weaponry that protected your inner self for so many years -- this takes courage, time and practice, practice, practice.

Acceptance. The Duke's father majestically demonstrated the damage of an abusive approach to a stammering child. Healing cannot, will not be forced. Fear cannot trigger true peace and empowerment, only ever-more reactionary strategies that try to relieve the fear.

Logue's secret gift lay not in jaw exercises or tricks for pronouncing "p" on demand -- it was his creation of a precious, all-too-rare safe space for the Duke to express his true self.

A little more about this third element. As far as we modern Americans seem to be from the stiff-upper-lip rigidity of the British monarchy, we are still far from comfortable with accepting people's honest, emotional, mercurial selves. We can start to change that, in our own relationships and in our communities, by practicing the skills of deep listening.

Check out the upcoming Feb. 1 entry for http://riamegnin.blogger.com for more on the power of a good listen-to!