What Lights My Fire

While I was laid up in the hospital with nothing but time on my hands, a friend asked if she could skype and run some ideas by me. Bored and thrilled to be of use, I said yes. So she called and we talked. She had written a letter to one of the Ministries here in Cambodia on behalf of her organization, one of the many hoops you have to jump through to become a registered NGO.

I noticed a disconnect between the passion she expressed verbally to me on the phone call and the clinical language of her letter. She kept talking about how she needed to make the Minister understand the drive of the organization. Their passion. My advice was that if she wanted to hook the Minister, to get her in the gut and make her care deeply about the mission of her organization, then she was going to have to ditch the “business-world” language and start writing from the gut. Value statements. Statements that start with the words, “We believe.”

I’m a firm believer that your writing should sound like your conversation. I write the way I speak. Good, bad or ugly, it’s authentically me. I used to believe that I should write in a professional manner – with big words & lots of therefore’s, and however’s and in additions. You know what happened? My writing was sterile. The people I wanted to attract to my cause couldn’t get through all the bullshit to actually get on board.

So, now I believe in simple and direct statements. Clarity. Passion. Feeling. Authenticity. And as I’ve made this transformation, I’ve realized I have a lot to offer. I am a dominatrix of editing. I have an innate ability to see where you’re going and help you boil it down to the basics.

I’m looking back and recognizing this pattern throughout my career. When I worked at a major handbag company, I was teamed up with a designer (who I adored). She was working on the largest collection and had the task of revamping a bunch of classic styles that needed a major functionality facelift. On top of that, she was asked to debut new styles. At one point we had 30 new styles to add to a range of 60 existing styles. Clearly, that’s too much too fast. In the beginning my task was to encourage creativity, but later it was to step in and edit. To ask probing questions: does this bag really offer something new? Is there another bag already in the collection that serves the same functionality? Do we absolutely have to debut this at this time? And through that process, we narrowed the offering down to what was essential. What made sense.

In a lot of ways editing (or weeding and pruning as my friend Deidre calls it), is a gift from my background as a theater director.

Luckily, I’m now seeing the myriad of ways that I can apply this skill to serve others. Editing design collections, editing thoughts or letters or even helping to edit an elevator pitch.

I really enjoy editing. It lights me up. It thrills me to help someone get closer to their own message. To help someone get out of the way and see that they already have the tools they need.

Surely, editing is a task that I want to keep doing.