This week I’ve been glued to my CD player listening to the audio version of John Eldredge’s not-new, but wonderful, book, Wild at Heart. This morning, it occurred to me that the themes he presents might be woven into the speeches you and I write.
The human heart is at the center of Eldredge’s book. His premise is that our culture, including our churches, our schools and the very way we raise our children, has produced and continues to produce men and women whose innate need for passion, risk, adventure and freedom has been wrung out of them. Consequently, their hearts have gone underground.
Instead, we have the corporate man, the passive man, the sports fanatic. The bitter woman, the football widow, the career woman.
Part of this change is because few of us live in “natural” settings anymore – on farms or ranches, in the “wild” places where children can muck it up among the animals and experience hard work, freedom and adventure.
These days, we’re civilized, city-fied and computerized.
Huck Finn knew what this does to a boy’s soul. “The Widow Douglas she took me for her son, and allowed she would sivilize me; but it was rough living in the house all the time, considering how dismal regular and decent the widow was in all her ways; and so when I couldn’t stand it no longer I lit out. I got into my old rags…and was free and satisfied.”
What do today’s men and women not only long for, but need, according to Eldredge? A man needs a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue. A woman needs to be fought for. She needs an adventure to share and a beauty to unveil.
What does all this have to do with speechifyin’?, Huck Finn might ask.
Certainly, the executives for whom we write cannot fulfill all the deepest desires in the hearts of their audience members. But in the same way that I believe speakers should inspire their audiences to embrace a cause larger than themselves; they can also give their audiences something to fight for…an adventure to live. And maybe that’s just two ways of saying the same thing.
Here’s one way NOT to do it: In an old Twilight Zone episode called “A Stop at Willoughby,” New York City ad man Gart Williams is beaten down by a boss who keeps reminding him “it’s a push, push, push world!” and he should get out there and “sell, sell, sell!”
Coming home by train one night to a shrewish wife in Fairfield County, Williams dreams of an 1880’s town called Willoughby, “where a man can live his life full measure.” At the end, Gart Williams steps from the train into Willoughby for real…or falls off the train and dies – I’m never sure. That Rod Serling…
But I digress.
A speaker will never inspire or touch anyone’s heart if his message is “go out and kill the competition,” “sell more widgets,” or “meet your quotas.”
A speaker will only touch and set on fire the hearts of men and women if he gives them something to fight for and an adventure to live.
A defense contractor might speak of the lives saved by the equipment his employees make and sell. He might show a video clip of a soldier talking about how his HumVee, newly armored with your product, saved him from a roadside IED.
I once wrote a speech about women inventors, including Stephanie Kwolek, who invented Kevlar when she worked at DuPont. Kevlar is five times stronger than steel and is the substance that makes bullet-proof vests…well, bullet-proof. How hard would I work if I knew the Kevlar I made saved a policeman’s life last night?
If I headed a pharmaceutical company, I might touch and inspire my audiences by talking about the particular drugs the company makes that cure malaria, purify drinking water or help fight cancer…and the people who have benefitted from them.
The head of a telecommunications company might talk about the ways the company’s cell and text phones have saved the lives of people stranded in a snowstorm, in a car crash or lost and afraid.
A car manufacturer might talk to a group of industry peers about her company’s commitment to “green technology,” which will only just help save our planet going forward.
It all comes down to “story,” doesn’t it? What are the stories we can tell as speechwriters? What are the stories that will give a man his heart back? That will give a woman an adventure to share?
While you’re mulling it over, pick up a copy of Wild at Heart.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Great thoughts, Cindy - and I agree, the passionate hook is the one we must find to make all our speeches heart-worthy.
I’ll be interested to see if there are any women who take umbrage at the assertion that “A woman needs to be fought for. She needs an adventure to share and a beauty to unveil” - your words or Eldredge’s? My guess is there are many women who wouldn’t agree with those specific ambitions - but would certainly assent to the overarching principle of recapturing their wild hearts.
Bravo! Thank you for the heartfelt advice. That simple concept will make speech-writing easy for me, and confidence to convey my message effectively. As for the Comment re: a woman needing to be fought for, an adventure to share (it could be her adventure she’s sharing), a beauty to unveil - I believe it’needs to be said. There is nothing wrong with it. It’s very natural.
Well said, Cynthia. I agree.
I’d like to add that the book ‘Captivating’, which John Eldredge wrote with his wife, Stasi, addresses some of the questions raised about women being fought for, and is written more from the female perspective. I like it better than ‘Wild at Heart’.