Way back when, I was starting out, selling ads for a computer magazine, as luck would have it, from an office on Frith Street in Soho, a few doors up from Ronnie Scott’s jazz club, and Bar Italia, still the best place to have coffee in town, in my book.
I’ve written before about my boss back then, the only one I’ve ever had, The Big Man. He really cared about us, and would do anything to get the best out of us, from brutal reality- i asked him something once and he told me that if I thought there was no such thing as a stupid question, I was wrong- to kindness and encouragement- once, when my sales weren’t great, he gave me a bottle of champagne for having the highest phone bill in the company, and told me, “keep making the calls, kid, the sales will come”.
He also introduced a sales meeting every morning at 8.00am, and gave us training and hope.
Every meeting one of us would have to pick a slip of paper with a topic on it, walk straight up to the front of the room and make a 3 minute presentation.
It was terrifying, at first, and we all stumbled and stammered and, in my case, lisped our way through it, just talking nonsense, mostly. Quickly, though, we learned to apply a structure (Tell them what you’re going to tell them, Tell it, Tell them what you’ve told them), to use a story with a point to it, to have a great opening line, and a Big Ending (rather than the unbelievably lame ‘that’s it’!) - it’s amazing what your mind will do in 10-20 seconds, if you give it a good brief.
One night I went to a fancy party, woke up on the floor of my studio, on Greek Street, just around the corner from the office, leapt up, ran my head up the cold tap, grabbed some supplies from my kitchen, and bolted out the door.
I knew I was going to be a few minutes late, and I was still wearing my dinner jacket, had a truly dreadful hangover and I knew The Big Man would not be happy, and sure enough he was too cross to even look at me, and inevitably he picked me out to make a presentation.
I picked out a slip of paper, opened it and smiled as I read it to myself - it was ‘Talk for 3 minutes about The Inside of a Ping Pong Ball’, but I used an old magician’s trick, and mis-called it, announcing “Perfect, three minutes on what makes a great team”, turned the flip chart away from them and drew a quick visual, and block printed a few words, and began.
I emptied some tired looking fruit from a bowl on the table, grabbed a couple of eggs from my bag, from the supplies I had gathered, and broke them, one in each hand, from a height, into the bowl, followed by flour, butter and sugar, and as I mixed them I talked happily about making a great cake. There was quite a lot of alcohol still in my system, and I felt like a baking version of the rather wonderful TV chef of the time, Keith Floyd.
Unfortunately, I had never made a cake before, let alone a great one, and I somehow ended up with most of the ingredients, but particularly flour, all over me, stark white against my DJ, and on my hands, and face, and hair, and I realised that what I thought was a brilliant, creative idea, was, and I’m being kind to myself here, both pedestrian and lame.
My teammates, though, loved it, or at least they thought it was funny, because I suppose it was, for them, and when I turned the flip chart round, with a child like drawing of a cake, and a message ‘Together we can make a great cake, and a great team’, they laughed some more, and clapped and cheered me off. The cake was never cooked, which is probably for the best.
It was all very, if not humiliating, humbling, but here’s the thing, they remembered it, and would talk about it, weeks later, and recite the message. I’m not sure if it made us a better team, that may be too much to hope for, but maybe.
That awful, but ultimately sort of successful, session is where I began, my first step in a long walk, taking me around the world, to training rooms and conference centres, a a few thousand presentations.
I’ve spent a good deal of my life on my feet, talking to people about things that matter, helping, I hope to hell, and I’ve used magic, dangerous stunts, hypnosis, fire, no smoke, and much more, all to make a few messages memorable, because that’s the gig.
All this came to mind because I was, rarely, making a cake, for a Dear Heart’s birthday, you can see it in the pic, and it was, before you ask, edible.
We all have to start somewhere, and the trick, maybe, is to jump right in, dare to give it our best shot, risk failing flat, and face the fear of looking a fool, because then we learn quicker, and it sticks.
You know I’m going to say it, Dear Reader, whatever it is you have in you head you want to do, step up, go all in, and, please, just begin. Now.
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