Category: Entrepreneurial Wellness

A few months ago, a colleague of mine commented that she preferred to read copy that was “less detailed” than mine, because less focus and concentration were involved. “Shortness sells,” she quipped, half jokingly, rewriting the age-old writer’s adage that “specificity sells.”

But that moment stayed with me, since most writers are neurotic about the effectiveness of their writing and because it is not specificity per se (or brevity) but precision that should win the day.

To answer my colleague, I’d say that yes, brevity can be useful, but unless we’re talking about aphorisms and taglines or other hard-core, digital marketing, brevity won’t sell.

One of my favourite copywriters, Henneke Duistermaat, recently blogged on why longer-form copywriting is useful—the form in which I have specialized for the past 10 years (e.g. writing blog postings, articles, media releases, case studies, website copy, etc.).

Length, when written well, can be more precise, vivid and, in her words, “full of zest” than its shorter counterpart. “Even if your text becomes longer,” Henneke writes, “precision captivates readers.”

Business-to-Business copywriting (B2B) is a good example of this, as it is often longer than its Business-to-Consumer (B2C) counterpart. The former features more detailed content and research.

The non-writerly colleague I mentioned at the outset of this post disputes the need for detail in business writing. I certainly strive to avoid long, rambling, boring writing. But I disagree that detail means doldrums. Writing should not aim to be brief, but sufficiently long to express its insights and engage its audience. As Henneke comments: “Brevity can suck the spirit out of your writing. Writing that’s too brief is soulless. It lacks the power to engage and inspire.”

In a recent blog posting on her website, Duistermaat shows what short copy can lose, when she cites a seven-word, newspaper description of American Arthur Ashe’s serve in tennis:

“Arthur Ashe started the match on serve.”

By contrast, she cites a 165-word depiction of that same serve, written by Pulitzer prize-winning journalist, John McPhee:

Arthur Ashe, his feet apart, his knees slightly bent, lifts a tennis ball into the air. The toss is high and forward. If the ball were allowed to drop, it would, in Ashe’s words, “make a parabola and drop to the grass three feet in front of the baseline.” He has practiced tossing a tennis ball just so thousands of times. But he is going to hit this one.

His feet draw together. His body straightens and tilts forward far beyond the point of balance. He is falling. The force of gravity and a muscular momentum from legs to arm compound as he whips his racquet up and over the ball.

He weighs a hundred and fifty-five pounds; he is six feet tall, and right-handed. His build is barely full enough not to be describable as frail, but his coordination is so extraordinary that the ball comes off his racquet at furious speed. With a step forward that stops his fall, he moves to follow.

The precision of McPhee’s depiction of how Ashe serves, the statistical detail it includes of Ashe’s size, the reference to his previous practice and so on, all elicit readers’ interest and pull us into the story. As Henneke says, “When you read McPhee’s description, you feel like you’re on court watching the match unfold.”

Precision (rather than unwieldy length) is also better at eliciting the reader’s emotion. The detail of the above sample is persuasive and intensifies its drama.

And through these qualities, the writing also makes the writer (i.e. McPhee) more credible. We sense that McPhee is an expert about tennis and understands the significance of the performance he’s describing.

Now not all writing can provide such detail. Henneke observes that writing must cycle between an “ebb and flow,” or else it will risk being long-winded. But the alternative to that is not (or not only) brevity.

But when length coincides with precision and all of its ensuing power, we all (as writers) become more likely to serve a winner.

And now it’s your turn. Do you agree that precision can make longer-form copy more powerful than its shorter counterpart? Please include your samples! I’d be delighted to hear from you

In the context of the tragic and horrific discovery of 215 unmarked graves from the children of the Indian Residential School system in Kamloops and some 751 graves on Cowesses First Nation, Saskatchewan, many of us have been feeling deep sorrow for our Indigenous neighbours. The word “apology” has been on our lips, in the media, and on Parliament Hill.

Many of those reading and watching about these discoveries were not involved in the abuse of 150,00 Indigenous children, who were cruelly taken from their families and mistreated or tortured, even to the point of death. But we recognize these atrocities and express sorrow for what we did not control. We also offer to walk with our Indigenous sisters and brothers as they seek to heal and to be reconciled with themselves, their painful histories and  with other members of Canadian society. We must also commit never to let such atrocities recur.

Much of the abuse we have been learning about germinated from leaders of the Catholic Church, in schools run on behalf of Canada’s Federal Government. Most thinking and feeling Canadians agree with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Indigenous leaders, such as FSIN Chief Bobby Cameron, that Pope Francis needs to express a profound apology on behalf of the Church he represents. Moreover, Trudeau and SK Indigenous leaders have called for the Pope to come to Canada to deliver his apology—in person.

At least one Catholic person whom I know believes that the Pope should also express that apology—formally—in Rome, something he has failed to do, since it is his Church and the Federal Government (originally led by Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald) which must take responsibility for these egregious violations of human rights.

What worries me is that as we Canadians walk in loss with our Indigenous neighbours, many other, less serious matters seem to trigger knee-jerk apologies (some of which we hear in local news) that weaken the sentiment of what an apology really means. This reality affects and connects both entrepreneurial communities and Indigenous ones. Words are powerful and  the words “I am sorry” can be depleting. This week’s blog posting considers how.

Outside of the echelons of the Vatican and away from the atrocities of the Residential School system, while it may sound initially jarring, there are truths about the value of apologizing in our workaday lives that we need to acknowledge, if we are to preserve the meaning of “I am sorry” for our Indigenous neighbours.

It has often been noted that apologizing, along with Tim Horton’s coffee and the latest NHL scores, is a reflex of many Canadians. (Many have casually joked that when you step on the foot of a Canadian, s/he will apologize more quickly than you do.)  In entrepreneurial circles, the American Jen Fisher (Chief Well-being Officer at the financial regulatory and advisory firm, Deloitte), has observed that apologizing reflects our instincts to seek acceptance and belonging.

While Fisher has made no public comment connecting apology making and human rights violations, such as those committed against Indigenous children in Canada, Fisher says that in far more minor circumstances, we need to “reclaim the power of the apology for when we really need it.” She writes: “ ‘I am sorry’ is too important a phrase to waste” in miniscule moments in an office or boardroom. The words are then weakened so as to have less effect, when they are “actually warranted,” such as in cases  of human rights violations.

If we apologize unthinkingly (i.e. over-apologize) in minor situations, we “appear less confident, which can in turn make us less confident.” We feel that lack of confidence, which then interferes with our capacity for empathy that all humans desperately need to offer each other. Knee-jerk apologies, then, can do more harm than good.

Fisher recommends nine ways to reconsider how we use apologizing in the smaller moments of workaday life:

(1) Know when to apologize: Fisher recommends that we choose to apologize in part by acknowledging what we have done.  In cases such as the Residential School atrocities, we need the power of a full apology from Church and from Government, and from the vantage point of citizens who were not there, but who still share victims’ pain and want to offer support.

By contrast, in workaday exchanges, such as when we request legitimately a service,  Fisher says, we have not done wrong and should avoid weakening expressions like “I’m sorry to bother you.”

(2) Go to the root of the problem: If you apologize for something in particular, Fisher says to “go to the source of the problem. If you can change what is mistaken, it may save you from over-apologizing.” For instance, if you’re frequently arriving late to commitments in your life, recognize that you need to revise how you manage your calendar. “Thank you for your patience,” is more appropriate than an apology, in cases where one’s delayed by uncontrollable circumstances.

(3) Be open and truthful: In more workaday circumstances (emphatically unlike the Residential School atrocities), it can be better to give context for something you cannot stop or control. Fisher cites the example of a worker whose young child cries in the background of a Zoom meeting: “You can explain that [the child] missed her nap.”  Here, too, “you can let others know why” or enlist their help to fill a gap for which you might otherwise over-apologize.

(4) Learn from mistakes: In routine life (emphatically unlike the Residential School atrocities), when small things happen imperfectly, Fisher says: “even if it is our fault, instead of ‘I’m sorry,’ we can take responsibility and acknowledge what happened and learn from it. What is essential is that we provide an explanation as to ‘how we’ll do this differently next time.’ ”  We need to let our colleagues, friends, supervisors and others know that we “take their concerns seriously.”

(5) Reach for empathy, not sympathy: The psychoanalyst Heinz Kohut made famous the distinction between sympathy (“I’m sorry that happened”) and empathy (“I can tell that was really terrible/overwhelming/painful for you”). Fisher says that while sympathy is good, empathy allows us to open a conversation and deepen a relationship.

She notes that we can use our empathy “to . . . stop someone else from feeling the need to apologize,” when it is not warranted.  (In front of a screaming child on an airplane, a fellow traveller could say empathetically, to the child’s parent: “I feel like your child does, today!”)  We must shore up our supplies of empathy for times when a full and heartfelt apology (such as in the context of our Indigenous neighbours’ histories) is warranted.

(6) Be grateful:  Fisher notes that while over-apologizing depletes our self-esteem, “gratitude does the opposite.”  When we think of things we’re grateful for, our minds are buoyed, and that buoyancy can spread to others. If we are grateful that we have benefited by living and working on land once held by our Indigenous neighbours, then we need to gratefully acknowledge that and do what we can to be reconciled with those neighbours. We can give them our gratitude and support of many kinds to help them to heal.

(7) Never apologize for caring for yourself: Fisher says we should never apologize for taking time to take care of ourselves—and this applies to everyone. When we don’t take sufficient care of ourselves, we’re more likely “to show up as poor versions of ourselves and to apologize preemptively for things” that we’re just “too depleted to deal with.”

Being “unapologetic” about workaday self-care can save ourselves from actions that could demand serious apology, later.

(8) Give yourself and others grace in challenging times: In religious terms, “grace” refers to unmerited Divine assistance given by a Deity to humans for their regeneration and redemption (OED).

In the terrible context of the atrocities committed against our Indigenous neighbours, when the Federal Government and the Catholic Church apologize, they would do well to point to the reality that only genuine spiritual assistance can overcome the inhumanity they have caused. Only grace can uplift victims from inhumanity done (treacherously) in the name of a God or organized religion or government.

As a workplace wellness specialist, Jen Fisher writes more generically about showing grace to ourselves and others, as these pandemic times recede. But her words also apply to the work of Truth and Reconciliation in Canada. She writes: “As our society begins to open back up and people  . . . return to the workplace, it’s not always going to go smoothly. People are going to have different comfort levels about . . . simply being around other people again. So give yourself some grace.”

We can add: Don’t over-apologize when apologies are not needed. Save those apologies for when they really are. Fisher concludes: “And extend that grace outward, too, since we don’t always know what challenges others are dealing with.”

Now more than ever, our Indigenous friends need the gift of emotional and spiritual grace: It can begin with a heartfelt apology from others, for what they have experienced and continue to endure, today.

Let’s follow Fisher’s insights to avoid over-apologizing for miniscule things and save our apologies for when they are really due. 

And now it’s your turn: What do you notice about mainstream culture’s tendency to over-apologize, when unwarranted, that weakens our feelings and words for times when apologies truly are needed?  Please write in; I’d be delighted to hear from you.

Georgia-based B2B copywriter, blogger, podcaster and coach, Ed Gandia, has produced some great marketing materials during the past  decade or so in which I have followed him. I “met” him by reading the influential book, The Wealthy Freelancer (that Ed co-wrote with my former coach, Steve Slaunwhite), and through their shared work in the “International Freelancers’ Academy.

Ed finds as much fascination in issues of entrepreneurial well-being as I do, and he regularly shares his research and insights on it.

Recently, I listened to a program he published on the importance of setting and keeping our own mental boundaries, as solo professionals, so that work does not take over all the time (and then some!) that we have. Ed cites “Parkinson’s Law,” that “work will expand to take up all available time,” if we let it. And nothing good follows.

For instance, if we make a habit of working on weekends, and don’t respect our own need for rest and to be with families and friends, we break the limits that we set for ourselves, leaving us prone to exhaustion and burn-out.  Our families express their disappointment and anger (or, if they’re children, they act out).

There’s nothing new to this observation, as psychotherapists, psychoanalysts and other mental health specialists wrote about “boundary violations” at least three decades ago. But Ed’s program caused me to pause because he describes how negotiating our own inner boundaries can be challenging, specifically because we are subject to both false guilt (FG) and true guilt (TG). Both forms of guilt can dog the outcome when we break our own boundaries.

True guilt (TG), Ed observes, results when we make mistakes or blunders that show that we lack internal integrity. For instance, we double-book meetings by mistake. Or we “mess up” by submitting work that was not our best, due to time constraints. TG makes us resolve the problem or fault the best we can by making amends (especially trying to learn from the mistake, so as not to repeat it), forgiving ourselves and moving on. It’s not a comfortable feeling, but it is finite in duration.

False guilt (FG), by contrast, is a learned response, triggered by a demand outside of ourselves that we could not or did not meet. This kind of guilt is unreasonable (i.e. you cannot reason with it, logically). It is also inappropriate (the guilt persists, unfairly) and unhealthy. FG makes us feel terrible and like a record stuck in a groove, causes us to blame and berate ourselves (e.g. constantly saying what we “should” do or have done). Ed calls this “should-ing all over ourselves!” There are no options available when one has FG, because you feel guilty in either case, and that is key to its destructive power.

The reason I mention Ed’s distinction between these forms of guilt (that date back to early writings of psychoanalysis) is that anyone who works creatively must be especially vigilant about FG. It leaves our minds stuck, like the proverbial needle in the groove of a record, so we feel there are “no other options available.” When you continue to feel guilty, despite having already apologized to anyone else involved, you have a problem.

Ed reminds us that when we feel FG, we override our internal boundaries, protecting others’ feelings and needs, to a pathological extent, above our own. In simple terms, we allow a client who calls in a rush order on 3:00 pm on Friday, due the following Tuesday, because, well, they’re a repeat client and we can cancel our planned outing with the kids. (Obviously, worse suffering and loss will ensue from decisions made in FG.) 

While TG is a necessary experience when we fall short, learn and grow from our failures, FG can overwhelm us with self-abuse that never goes anywhere positive. Whether we call our internal needs and commitments “boundaries” or not, Ed’s observation that they are often tied to our guilt reflect how genuine they are and that they warrant our respect.

And now it’s your turn. If you analyze your behaviour at work and at home, where do you find true and false guilt arising? How do they help or hinder your internal boundaries? And what effect does each have on your business and life?

 

(A posting on entrepreneurial well-being, first published on January 4, 2018)

Entrepreneurs tend to deal with the greatest heights and depths of emotional experience—dizzying elation when a contract succeeds and equally deep depression when it does not.

Throughout the past Christmas holiday season,  I first read about meditation, mindfulness and suffering—concepts that affect our minds and the creative work that we as entrepreneurs do. As that year recently ended and a new one was ushered in, I noticed my mental temptation to ruminate—what the Concise Oxford English Dictionary refers to as the process of “thinking deeply about something.”

But in a context of meditation and mindfulness, “rumination” takes on a more troubling meaning, such as nursing obsessive worries and getting lost in depressive and anxious thoughts that greatly undermine one’s contentment or peace. Rumination can cause terrible emotional (and then creative) blocks, as we set forth to launch new services, or when we start new projects or conclude old ones. Can you think of times when you faced these kinds of emotional blocks and how much you suffered from them?

In her pioneering 2011 study, Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself, American psychologist Kristin Neff says that suffering occurs when reality does not match what we want. Given that such discordance is a common (almost daily) reality, we all suffer to some extent. It is part of being human. Neff cites her Chinese Buddhist mentor, Shinzen Young, however, who asserts that “suffering = pain x resistance.” We all suffer, but we can make our suffering more manageable if we do not resist the pain beneath it. Feel the pain, Neff writes; know what it’s about; and it will dissipate.

“The suffering doesn’t go away,” as local radio host Heather Morrison recently said, in the context of pandemic life. “But you feel better equipped to manage it.”

While contemplating this insight back in 2017, I happened also to read a meditation by the Buddhist monk, Bodhipaksa (over the Wildmind LLC meditation website). He stresses that when we suffer, one way that we resist pain is to ruminate on our circumstances, thinking, for instance, that “‘I’m worried about this, I don’t like that, No one cares about me or considers my feelings,’” and so on. Rumination allows our individual “thinking . . .  to amplify our suffering,” Bodhipaksa says.

Instead, if we can find compassion for ourselves (what Neff centres her work on), that self-compassion allows us to see ourselves as part of a greater community of others.

“‘I’ thoughts reinforce our sense of aloneness. We see ourselves as broken, as worse than others and therefore separate from [others],” Bodhipaksa says. By contrast, when we offer ourselves compassion (by a process of meditation or self-talk) we see that our “individual sufferings are . . . .  shared by others and [are] part of the difficulties we all have in being human.” “We thinking” connects us to others and enables us to view our individual sufferings as “part of the difficulties we all have in being human” he writes.

Neff’s theories of self-compassion argue that it can be cultivated and consists of “kindness meeting suffering,” that we offer to ourselves, and then can extend to others.

Fourteen months since the Covid-19 pandemic began, do you find yourself ruminating on (not just considering) your life and work?

If we cultivate self-compassion when we feel pain (instead of resisting the pain that only amplifies our suffering), our self-focused rumination will give way to calm, “decreasing our tendency to freak out, and increasing our happiness” (Bodhipaksa).

+++++

In the March 2021 issue of the  online magazine, “Psyche,” doctoral student in clinical psychology, Christina Chwyl, took up the topic of self-compassion, arguing that it “is not self-indulgence.”

Most of us are raised to share, cooperate and play fairly. And “yet many of us receive no guidance on how to be a friend to ourselves,” she writes. “We think that compassion for ourselves is counterproductive, self-indulgent, lazy or weak. As though we deal with life’s disappointments,” as Chwyl says, by “sitting on the couch and eat[ing] Ben and Jerry’s all day.”

Self-compassion, on the contrary, “gives us strategies to manage our emotions, such as seeking support from others” instead of blaming ourselves or distracting ourselves from our unaddressed resistance to suffering.

When we practice more self-compassion, we find it easier to improve ourselves by learning from our mistakes. We can admit our mistakes to ourselves without criticizing ourselves punitively for them.

Self-compassion is, Chwyl writes, “a healthy response to suffering.” When we practice it, we are better able to “take personal responsibility for transgressions and persist following obstacles” that otherwise would halt us in our tracks. Entrepreneurial and other failures become opportunities for learning and growth.

And “contrary to assumptions that self-compassion is selfish, self-compassion even helps us to be kinder toward others.” We can become “more resilient versions of ourselves.”

She writes that when our egos whisper to ourselves in self-talk to “achieve more, do better, and you will be worthy,” self-compassion is the reliable, old friend whom we deserve and who says, “I believe in you, I’m here for you, no matter what.”

Do these insights on self-compassion resonate with you? How do you offer yourself compassion, in these late, pandemic days?