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February 3, 2017 by Annette Simmons 7 Comments

Women’s March 2017: My Personal Experience

march

It is 5:00 a.m. Thursday January 19, 2017. I have no plan except to drive my car 1,193 miles to “show up” in D.C. for the Women’s March. I gas the car; pick up Valerie, and swing by “Southern Maid” for a king cake. Images from “Thelma and Louise” excite and frighten me. We will stay at my stepsister’s near Greenbelt metro station. Louisiana people don’t visit family without a king cake this close to Mardi Gras.

We drive ten hours on Thursday and eight hours on Friday under spacious skies, rainy skies, not so many fruited plains, and gobs of purple mountain majesties. Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Virginia. In Tennessee we stop to stretch our legs and buy supplies: whiteboards (dumb), markers, oh-so-nonviolent pink glitter for counter-protestors (prescient), pink heart stickers, pink wrapped chocolates and hot pink bandanas since neither Val nor I knit. We arrive Friday night and my stepsister and her husband make fish tacos for six. Dessert is king cake and Rachel who arrived with Deb from Massachusetts the day before gets the baby. All six of us agree to leave the house at 7:30 a.m. the next morning.

We leave the house at 8:15 a.m. Kind, congenial, and considerate is more important than punctual. The six of us turn into twelve, then twenty four…then too many to count as we migrate to the train station. We smile. We “woo-hoo” at all the great signs. We board the train in numbers that expand exponentially at each train station. We photograph ourselves and each other. I ask my stepsister, “Can I borrow your hat for a selfie?”  Across the aisle I hear, “Do you need a hat?”  I let out a girly squeal, “Seriously?” I may have even fanned my face with my hands.

Three girl scouts and two moms hold open a bag of hand-knitted pink pussy hats. “Pick one.” Val and I chose. Hers is pink knitted plaid (how is that even possible?) Mine is hot pink. Inside are notes: “Dear wearer of this hat…” hand signed by the knitter. Paula from Albany, New York knitted mine. Hugs. Thank yous. We show the notes around then put them in a safe place.  More photos. The doors open. Our numbers expand again. This time the doors can’t close. Despite sitting tight with minimum of personal space we already fill this train beyond capacity. Instinctively we access the secret wisdom normally used for zipping up skinny jeans. We inhale and suck ourselves in so the doors can close. My flesh tingles. I realize I feel physically and psychologically safer now than I’ve felt in months. I “fit in” with this group that is much larger than I realized. Sweet relief. We are not alone. My hope expands in proportion to our numbers.

Police and Metro workers wait in position to hand signal us up from the metro toward the daylight. We flow like mighty rivers surging from twelve different metro stations onto the streets of D.C. until we overflow the banks of our own expectations. As we converge, I see swirls of women, men, children, girl scouts, scientists, federal employees, activists, grandmothers, teachers, cooks, hijabs, signs, geeks, beauties, hippies, a kaleidoscope of humanity moving with one mind and one intention: to show up. We steadfastly ignore our flaws, judgments, egos, agendas, hurts and divisions in order to fully experience what I can only describe as a shared faith that compassion is more important than control. We show up so can look ourselves in the eyes, see who we are, how many we are, and how dedicated we are to wrestling our nation’s arc back toward justice.

It is past one o’clock. Marchers occupy every square foot in every direction as far as I can see. Occasionally a small group passes nearby forging a path in one direction or another. We squeeze elbows in to make way. Discomfort, jostling, and the frustration of immobility escalate but we are steadfastly kind. Kindness is more important than position, proximity, or prominence.

Cell phones don’t work. Instead, we have conversations. Where are you from? How long did it take y’all to get here? Rachel is surrounded by a cluster of young women listening stories about Soujourner Truth. Two Arab women try to help me find a signal. I crave an aerial view to affirm our strength in numbers. Younger marchers climb walls, poles, a stack of pallets from the day before so they can see. I watch a young woman climb a tree to get an elevated view. She loses her footing, regains purchase and finds a stable spot. Her success prompts spontaneous applause and cheers. She didn’t know anyone was watching. I didn’t either. We cheer her beauty, ambition, and perseverance.

My imagination recalls a November trip to see Monarch butterflies hibernating in the mountains of Mexico. I feel like one of those butterflies tightly pressed against millions of others – nature’s safety plan for survival. In the dead of winter it takes togetherness to survive. When it is time for migration, there are individual actions but the lifespan of each butterfly then shortens. The butterflies that return back to Mexico are often seven generations removed from the ones that left in the spring. I see a grandmother with a sign, “Why Am I STILL Marching for Equal Rights?”

A voice shouts, “What. Does. Democracy look like?” “THIS is What. Democracy looks like!” I cannot see the jumbotron. I do not see a stage. I do not hear any speeches (we will watch them later on youtube, Ashley Judd twice) By two p.m. our “battalion” – I don’t know what else to call us – begins to march toward a street that runs parallel to the official parade route. I will return home without ever laying eyes on the official parade route. We are overflow marchers, not extraneous, but evidence of an endless supply. Those who value money and power more than compassion and collaboration should know there are lots more from where we came from.

Police are kind and polite. Two of them snap photos of us from horseback. A man stands in the street playing his violin for us. We walk in the street observed by more marchers now standing on walls and sitting on higher ground taking time to rest and soak it in. Even by 4:00 p.m. signs are still held high by arms that must channel super-duper mother bear strength. I’m tired. I hurt. I beg five minutes rest. Then I keep going.

From outside there will be disdain. Pundits will try to discredit our intent or twist aggressive narratives out of women who merely stand firm against the attack on human rights and human dignity. Selective coverage will misdirect attention. We will be criticized as inarticulate, unfocused, and hypocritical. It will be difficult. We will need more of that super-duper mother bear strength.

The train is an even tighter squeeze on the way back. We are too tired to orchestrate a skinny jeans inhale. Instead we hold on to each other, share seats, sit in laps and accommodate our bulk like Saturday morning sweatpants and a fuzzy blanket. We comfort our mutual exhaustion and look like the Far Side cartoon of a boneless chicken ranch. Dead tired. Until …over the intercom the train conductor asks, “Can I get a woo-o-o?” We give a full-on “woo-o-o” that brings smiles as we listen one last time to our collective voice.

Taking my boots off feels like an orgasm. I am so hungry pizza tastes like nirvana. My exhaustion delivers peaceful delicious sleep.

Sunday we start driving at 11:00 a.m. to a different Tennessee Holiday Inn Express. Monday morning I do an interview with a Shreveport, La. radio station. (paraphrasing). He asks:

“Did you buy any extra ummm, of those, ummm pink hats? I want one!”

“I didn’t see any hats for sale. I got my hat from a Girl Scout on the train. It wasn’t really a merchandizer’s event. All of the hats I saw were handmade, free.”

“So the pink..ummmm, what shall I call it puggy hats…pully hats…p— ”

“You mean pink pussy hats?”

“Wel-l-l-ll, we have to abide by FCC regulations…”

(pause)

“I don’t see a need to rename the hat…but let’s move on. I’ll let you borrow my hat so you can take a selfie if you want.”

“Great! Next question: Do you think Madonna went too far?”

“I think Madonna felt safe enough to vent. I’ve heard schoolteachers say terrible things in a teacher’s lounge that they’d never say in a classroom. I know this event wasn’t private but it felt private to me… It felt like one huge therapy session between a million women collectively on our last nerve. It was an opportunity to speak freely. She did. She was talking to us…not to observers.”

“You don’t sound angry. There were some angry signs out there. Did you see a lot of anger?”

“Umm, not an inappropriate amount. Anger is how we protect ourselves. So it makes sense if signs created by women who feel threatened, who want to protect their rights might look angry. But I think that is what anger is for.”

His questions alerted me that what I experienced is not the story most people will hear. Many layers of meaning will be attributed to the Women’s March on Washington. But deep meaning (any deep meaning) inevitably invokes paradox and is too visceral, emotional, and experiential to share without personal experience or artistic interpretation.

I think you had to have been there, or at least want to imagine what it was like to be there in order to truly understand what it meant to take part in the biggest demonstration in US history.  It meant the world to me.  I hope you find a meaningful point of view that fills your heart with faith that kindness, empathy, and collaboration are more important and more powerful than the disdain, greed, and competitive reasoning currently dividing us.

Filed Under: Annette's Blog, Finding Stories, Stories Help, storytelling ethics Tagged With: Annette Simmons, inspiration, leadership, narrative, storytelling, true stories, Whoever Tells the Best Story Wins

July 26, 2016 by Annette Simmons 3 Comments

Dark Magic: Tony Schwartz’s Abuse of the Story Arts

Most of this post comes from the July 25, 2016 issue The New Yorker by Jane Mayer you can read in full here.

Storyteller and writer Tony Schwartz feels “deep remorse” for ghostwriting the 1987 bestseller The Art of the Deal an “autobiography” of Donald Trump that arguably crafted the beguiling character now running for president. Character development is central to good storytelling. Tony Swartz is good at it.

I feel for Tony. Because I think every talented storyteller makes concessions to power and money at one time or another. Half the time, we don’t know the cost of the concession until it is too late. So this post is a result of two days of me wondering how we can tell which concessions might lead to deep remorse and how to avoid them.

Because a story must be specific to feel real we constantly risk what Chimamanda Adichie calls the danger of a single story. Painting a pretty picture can hide injustice, greed, and other sins. Likewise a fearful future can hide hope, positive intentions, and unexplored solutions. Paul Costello writes “a story is never innocent.” (I highly recommend his Ethical Principles of Narrative Work)

How did it happen? How can we make sure it doesn’t happen to us?

The current story is that Trump’s book wasn’t Tony’s idea. It wasn’t even Trump’s idea. It allegedly originated when S.I. Newhouse (dead now) owner of Advance Publications (privately owned media company) called Trump with a book offer via Random House (sold) because an article about Trump bumped sales. S.I. Newhouse used the numbers to conclude that a book about Trump would make a good investment.

Tony says he coincidentally contacted Trump to do a Playboy interview and during their conversation learned of the book deal, suggested the title “The Art of the Deal.” He agreed – for half of the book’s five-hundred-thousand-dollar advance plus half of the royalties, far more than normal –to ghostwrite it. Today, Tony says he will donate these royalties to charity but from what I can tell, he means “from now on.” He didn’t state what he’d do with the millions of dollars of royalties he’s already earned in the last thirty years.

Tony is still in the storytelling business.  Today he runs the Energy Project, a consulting firm that promises to improve employees’ productivity by helping them boost their “physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual” morale.   The quote “I’ve spent significant portions of my life trying to doing penance for having written that book,” is less a mea culpa than an excellent backstory for his current consulting gig. I’m willing to bet Tony Swartz will make more money than ever. But I’m bitchy that way.

It is none of my business. I’m simply looking for useful clues on the mechanics that lead to “deep remorse” to help storytellers make a living without choosing to “sell out.” (Tony Swartz words, not mine.)

In the New Yorker podcast Tony recalls it was 1985. He had a mortgage he couldn’t afford and a second child on the way. He knew writing the book, “might undermine my credibility as a journalist.”  In the end, he admits, “I did it for the money.”

There were still opportunities to walk away. His first meeting, after less than 30 minutes of asking for substantive content, Trump asked, “Do really have to talk about this stuff?” Tony replied that “it’s a lot of space to fill and I can’t just make it up.” Tony: “It’s not that he was private – he was just bored and distracted. He wanted to move on …It was like pulling teeth.”

Tony’s personal journal in Oct 21, 1986, halfway through writing the book gives the first clue:

“…while I’m fascinated by Trump and while it’s been an interesting experience the last thing you could call it is nourishing or enriching, its in fact, precisely the opposite. It is draining, its deadening, its one-dimension-alizing.

It pulls me away from all that is best in life: complexity and subtlety and caring and nurturing. All he is is ‘stomp, stomp, stomp’—recognition from outside, bigger, more, a whole series of things that go nowhere in particular, because it’s all a black hole.”

later …

“the book will be far more successful if Trump is a sympathetic character—even weirdly sympathetic—than if he is just hateful or, worse yet, a one-dimensional blowhard.”

When he tried to check out the facts of the stories from people involved…

“I would walk through what I understood, they would smile or shrug or roll their eyes” and some would share their description of what happened/ There were times when he pointed me to facts that just weren’t true. Tony invented the phrase “truthful hyperbole” rather than call it what it was.  Lying. In the end,

“I was hired to put the best possible face forward. That’s what I was hired to do. And that’s what I did.”

You and I like to think we have good character. Most storytellers do. But research proves that context, not character, is a better predictor for this kind of slippery slope behavior.

Contexts that put a storyteller at risk:

  • Too much personal debt that makes you feel trapped.
  • Client want’s YOU to do the story-finding process without his/her personal involvement.
  • Work that is draining, deadening, or one-dimension-alizing.
  • Rich, powerful organizations without field tested processes for identifying and correcting unethical behavior.
  • Justifications like “truthful hyperbole” or “Maybe it didn’t happen but it could have happened.”
  • One source stories. External stories that don’t match internal stories.
  • Abdicating ethical responsibility to the client.
  • Working for a sociopath. But you rarely know ahead of time.

Sociopaths are charming and charismatic. I’ve been sucked in by two in my career (that I know of). In both cases, I didn’t know until the middle of the work. One was a class action lawyer who asked me to teach his thirty support lawyers about storytelling. In the middle of sharing stories, he took over – putting people on the spot, embarrassing them, criticizing in spite of my design of “no critique.” It was awful. I called him out in private, then did the best I could to save the people and end early. Later I learned that he rigs the annual softball game every year so all the good players are always on his team. Ask around, maybe you will be lucky and find a telling detail like that before you take the client.

The other time I worked for a sociopath she seemed smart, enthusiastic and eager to create a safe place for dangerous truth (a rather intense approach to dialogue). By lunch, I knew. I begged her ‘this is a room full of people just dying to make you proud, but they aren’t sure how.” Blank stare. She told me, “I decided to fire those four last Friday.” The four people who’d had the courage to speak. I regret helping her identify new victims.

Throughout history storytellers have been the conscience of our species. Today evolutionary psychologists posit emotions are the collective error managment system vital to human survival.  Emotion is the only reason humans suffer for each other,  forgive, share, love, and communicate, Remove emotion from your decisions and we lose these things.  If it feels bad, it probably is.

Tony Schwartz former editor called him “Dr. Frankenstein.”

Tony Schwartz current clients include Facebook, Google, and other powerful rich organizations. I just hope he has a system in place to avoid doing something else he might regret in another thirty years. 2046 isn’t that far away.

Filed Under: Annette's Blog, Finding Stories, storytelling ethics Tagged With: storytelling, The Art of the Deal, Tony Swartz

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