1. Tell stories with emotional zing.

The most poignant stories come from people with broken hearts. Those who haven't suffered can be entertaining and witty, but often even the funniest stuff comes from pain. You can create drama with quiet intensity by downplaying the emotion versus hyping it up.

Michael Meade told this story to his audience at the *A Poetics of Peace* evening in San Francisco and it left us silenced. I'm paraphrasing it to the best of my memory:

*I went back East to confront my mother. I got up my nerve and planned to tell her about the mistakes she made raising me. About how she had done wrong by me. In the middle of the conversation she said to me. 'What makes you think you were wanted?'

I felt my knees buckling. Somehow, I always knew this, but it was never spoken. It was a kind of relief to finally hear it.*

2. Don't puff up, calm down.

A well known movie director, who shall go nameless said, *I may not be right. I may not know what I'm talking about. But if I say something loud enough, with enough passion and conviction enough times, people believe me.*

I don't deny that loud gets credit in our culture. Coupled with passion and conviction it's pretty potent. But there is another way. I call it quiet dignity. Speak more softly so people have to lean in to hear you. Pause and wait for interest in the middle of a sentence that you know people will want you to finish. Say something starkly. Strip it down to its essence. Make yourself like a tree that's lost all it's leaves preparing for winter.

3. Be bold.

*The meek will inherit the earth, but they won't get stock options.* I don't know who said it, but it's true. Be humble, but for God's sake speak up. Especially for the important things (stock options aside). You've just got to get over yourself.

Make a pact with yourself that if you think it, you'll do it. Start small. For example, when I saw a man hitting his dog with unabashed fury, the dog cowering and yelping, I said, *Please don't.* The man was startled, but he stopped.

Think of it this way. Do you want to live a life of regrets or do you want to say, *I did it all in the little time I had?*

I have fears about almost everything. If I'm driving in Big Sur, I'm sure one of those boulders will come loose and crush me flat in my car. But I won't die instantly, I'll suffer for a long time and then, just when I've made peace with dying someone will rescue my crumpled self. Stuff like that.

I could fill a book with my heinous scenarios, both professional and personal, but I look for the antidote to my overly active imagination. Mark Twain noted, *My life has been filled with terrible misfortunes, most of which never happened.* Mine, too. What about yours?

Copyright (c) 2006 by Susan Harrow