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Audio Journal: This is More Important Than Talent · The Daily Writer

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: The other day I went into my local convenience store and saw something that was a little bit unusual.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: I saw six packs of Coca-Cola on a display.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Now you can get Coke in two-liter bottles, you can get it in 20-ounce bottles, you can get fountain coke, and there's an endless variety of ways you can get Coke, but something that we don't see a lot anymore is Coke in these glass bottles, these eight-ounce glass bottles.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: And coke is Coke happens to be my favorite soft drink.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: I know I shouldn't drink soft drinks, but I really, really love Coke.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: And to me, there's nothing more refreshing than taking a bottle of Coke, putting it in the freezer where it's it's not frozen, but it's almost to the state of getting frozen, and it's ice cold, and you take it out of the freezer and you drink it.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: Especially with pizza or popcorn or something like that.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: That is just the most refreshing thing in the world to me.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so as I stood there looking at this display of Coke, I thought, I've got to buy one of these.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so I bought a six-pack of Coke just because it was kind of a fun thing and it's kind of an old school deal.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: So I brought it home and I've you know have been drinking it the last few days.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: And as I'm sitting here looking at this bottle of Coke, it's fascinating because Coke is one of the most recognizable brands in the world.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: And there's something just kind of um it's not just refreshing as far as your thirst, but it's refreshing emotionally.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: I know that sounds silly to say about a brand, but coke is a very, very old brand.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's over a hundred years old at this point.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: And there's just something very stable and something very predictable about Coke.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Coke has been the same formula for a very, very long time, except for when they did the new Coke thing in the 80s, I think, and it totally flopped.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: But aside from that, Coke is very predictable.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's very um it's the same through the years, and particularly when you get it in these glass bottles, there's something very nostalgic about that.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: And that reminds me of one of the most important qualities that we can have in our writing, and especially if you're doing any kind of client work or you have a business, I believe one of the most important qualities that we can have is predictability and stability.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I don't mean predictability in the sense of we're always doing the same thing, like we're not creative and we're always producing the same kind of stuff.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not talking about creativity.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about reliability and predictability as far as how we deal with people.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: A big problem that I see today, and I'm just I'm normally not a negative person, but um I see a huge problem today, and that is just a lack of responsiveness that people have many times.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: I can begin to tell you how many people have over the last few years have contacted me for some kind of work or they asked me a question and they seemed like they really urgently wanted to talk to me, and then I send a reply back and I don't hear anything back from them.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: Now, of course, we know things can go into spam email and whatnot, but I think that's not usually the case.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: What usually happens is that people just don't respond.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: They forget or they don't check their messages or they don't follow up in some way.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I've said this before, and I will I will keep saying this, that your success with your writing, and I think success at business as well, is not really about talent.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's not really about your ability and about your creativity, it's mostly about people work.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: People do business with those they know, like, and trust.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody knows that.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's been repeated ad nauseum in the business community over the years, but it's repeated because it's so true.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: People do business with those they know, like, and trust.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: And for that to happen, you have to be predictable in your communications, you have to be reliable, you've got to be stable and simply be responsive to people's messages.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I would say, man, if there's if there's one single skill that I could impart to people, I'm gonna say just replying to messages quickly and being responsive in our communication.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: That is such a critical thing.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't really matter how talented you are or how great other people think you are.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: What really matters is are you giving people what's important to them?
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: And whenever people contact you and whenever people want to potentially hire you for something, they want to know are you reliable?
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: Are you going to show up on time?
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: Are you going to answer messages?
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: Are you going to communicate and do the things that you said that you would do?
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: People value that more than talent because, you know, talent, talented people are honestly a dime a dozen.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: They really are.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um talented writers are a dime a dozen.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: I am never impressed with talent.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm truly not.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: You can be the best, um, the best writer in the world, and I'm not really impressed by that.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: Because I know that good writing is made in the editing stage, the vast majority of the time, and and that good editors are highly undervalued and they are um they are not talked about enough in the creative process because a good editor will make you shine far beyond what you could ever do yourself.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: So, and all the editors listening to this are clapping and cheering because they know it's true.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: They know the the work that they do to polish up people's writing.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: So, talent does not really impress me.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: What really does impress me is people who respond to messages, people who do what they say they're gonna do, people who show up when they say they're gonna show up.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I've I've had students over the years.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if you're listening to this, you you probably know that I'm a college professor in my day job.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I've had students over the years who were really gifted, but they couldn't turn in an assignment on time.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: I am uh so much more impressed with a B-level student than with a student who is more gifted and talented, but they're not consistent.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: So if I can just encourage you in that today, uh as we're heading toward the end of the year, as we're going through this craziness of, at least in the U.S., of this, you know, crazy election stuff and all the weird things that are happening in the world right now, I just want to encourage you.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: If you can be a force of consistency and predictability in your communications and in your work with people, that goes a long way.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know, sometimes um in our clients' lives, if we're doing client work, sometimes we're the only stable thing they have.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: And well, that's that's an exaggeration, honestly.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's not probably true.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: But many times we are one of the few things that is going well in their business life.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um and sometimes if we can be a force of consistency and be stable and encouraging and positive and predictable and reliable, that really goes a long way, especially when somebody's going through a tough time, because we can be that force of stability that they know they can depend on no matter what, when maybe other things in their life are not going so well.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: So that's my encouragement to you today.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: Keep on building that talent, keep on writing well, keep on reaching higher and aiming for more.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: But at the end of the day, know that it it really just all comes down to people.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's who we're doing this for.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's what it's about.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's about people and how well that we can serve them by being there for them.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: And the talent is good too, if we can throw that in as well.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: All right, that's all I got for this episode.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: I will see you on the next one.