Tina Fey is my writing and performing… what? Inspiration? Idol? Hero? All of those things.
So when I met her this week at Content
Marketing World in Cleveland, my eyes almost popped.😜
Then we stood next to each other and smiled. She said she liked my dress. I said I liked hers.
That's the kind of conversation that best friends have. So while those two sentences were the sum total of our exchange, I feel like her expression above is signaling, “You are my person.”
Later I noticed that I'd
forgotten to take my blue gum out of my mouth. Which feels like the perfect Liz Lemon moment, doesn’t it...?
I was also able to ask Tina a question from the audience on goals, because when you are as ridiculously accomplished as Tina is, I wondered... Do you still set goals?
Thank you, Jeff Julian, for capturing this moment:
Tina gave lots of advice you writers will love. (More on that in a sec.)
But the part I loved most was when she spoke about the difference
between writing a book and writing for television.
Writing vs. Writing
In TV, she said, you’re part of a writing team, so writing is a collaborative, group process.
With books, she said, you’re on your own. You’re alone in a room. Your only companions are the snacks calling to you from the refrigerator and the
devil-voice inside you telling you you’re not worthy and the paragraph you just wrote is rubbish.
Writing for Saturday Night Live was a blast.
Writing Bossypants almost killed her, she said.
The image of a solitary writer is a cliché. But does it have to be that way?
Meanwhile in Cleveland...
Last week at Content Marketing World, I became the first person named to the Content Hall of Fame.
That sentence might read like it's NBD but a shiver runs through me just writing that!!!
So honored.
So
grateful.
So blown away in surprise by everyone at the Content Marketing Institute... but especially for General Manager Stephanie Stahl, who was so key in making it happen. (I didn’t show Stephanie enough appreciation in my impromptu acceptance speech. I still feel bad about that.)
Later I thought of Tina’s TV vs. books thing—of the image of the solitary writer. The lone professional. The discomfort
of that person trudging yet again toward the fridge, just to open it and stare inside at nothing in particular.
And I thought how the Content Hall of Fame award is meant to recognize my contributions to the industry. Yet I’ve been given just as much in return. I’ve gotten as much out of it as anyone, in other words.
I thought of how even when I’m alone on a stage... or singled out for an award.... or alone
writing in a room, I’m still... surrounded.
My room is full, even when it’s just me there.
What do I mean?
Last week on stage, when the brilliant Robert Rose handed me that Hall of Fame award…(It’s heavy, this award. And my palms are so sweaty that I’m afraid this heavy Plexiglas will slip straight through them, crashing through the stage floor and leaving a gaping
hole in the center of it... which makes me wonder, Do you suppose the stage made of wood or metal?)… anyway, at that moment: I wasn’t alone.
Not just because Robert stood beside me, beaming and probably delighted that they’d pulled this surprise on me.
Not just because 4,000 people in the audience turned their 8,000 eyes on me.
Not just because behind me I see
the entire Content Marketing Institute team filing onto the stage. (Stephanie! Joe! Andrea! Lisa! Other Lisa! And everyone! Even that new person I don’t know!)
Not just because Mark, the Cleveland tailor, had taken in my suit jacket with such precision that it fit like skin.
Not just because of my beautiful framily that I carry in my heart at all times. (Another cliché. But true.)
And not just because of Tina Fey, a writer and performer whose work I’ve absorbed the way your pores absorb the aroma of an airport Cinnabon.
I might not have a team of writers. But my writing room isn't solitary. Not really.
And none of us should go it alone. Here’s what I think we all need to do:
Fill your room. And save the front-row seats.
So: Fill your room with the events, the colleagues, the community you need to help inspire your best work.
And then go one step farther... and save a front-row seat in the room for one or two others: the people you can trust and whose work you also respect.
Those are your people to
collaborate with at the highest level, because that's the best way to help both you and your ideas evolve. Those people who can help you flesh out ideas. Who can help you tweak good things to make them into even better things.
And then do the same for them and their ideas, so that the one-sidedness doesn’t feel weird.
It’s best if you aren’t married to that one person. And it’s best if you are on a
similar level of experience in your career.
Such people can hold you accountable. But more than that, they can—over time—help you let your best self step out.
There’s a version of anything that presents itself first—The Ugly First Draft in writing, the buggy software in coding…
And I think that’s true of people, too: No one ever
starts out with the best version of themselves. We all start out too something: Too shy. Too loud. Too all over the map.
Our ideas all start out that way, too: Too convoluted. Too vague. Too unfocused.
I believe that our life’s responsibility is to steward our best selves—and our best work.
It’s your job to make sure you do that. But none of us
can do it alone.
And really... would you even want to?
Back home. Still smiling. Thank you, all.
* * *
Here are a few things I thought were worth sharing this week:
Jen did this kind of cultivating beautifully at Spiceworks—I have shared her story in my talks. This gal knows what she’s talking about!
