A good walk

         When you sit down to tackle an assignment, what is it that makes it so hard sometimes to determine which direction to take? A long time ago I learned a lesson by walking: Walking can be perfectly symbolical of the path that we travel in those interior regions. Considering the constant barrage of bad advertising, we could learn something from a good walk.

         This assumes, of course, that we don’t want to travel the well-worn path, or even, for that matter, the lawns and gardens to somewhere predictable. Presumably, we want to break new ground, and we find it difficult to choose our direction because the way forward does not yet exist. For that, it takes a special kind of walking. Thoreau called it sauntering.

         He theorized that “saunter” could be derived from those people who roved the country side in the Middle Ages, asking for charity under the pretext of going a la Sainte Terre, or to the Holy Land. Okay, that works. In the metaphoric sense, it’s nice to refer to our ultimate destination, that beautiful idea, as the Holy Land. Thoreau admits it may also have come from sans terre, as in the walker who is without land or home, but equally at home everywhere. That works, too.

         Thoreau had only one condition. “If you are ready to leave father and mother, and brother and sister, and wife and child and friends, and never see them again — if you have paid your debts, and made your will, and settled all your affairs, and are a free man — then you are ready for a walk.” For our purposes, it means severing the ties of expectations, forgetting about being productive or filling your billable hours. Sauntering is about presence, being totally free and at home outside the margins to be on an adventure. 

         Look for the darkest place, the thickest, densest spot. There, you have the least idea where you will be going so that any detail can be transcended, any twig or leaf or weed a symbol. I wonder what’s over there…break away… keep going…a tree...left or right… whatever...step over the big branch…barrel through the thorn bush…don’t step on the deer pellets…make a right…ugh...burrs sticking to your pants… what a grip… they’re so clingy… is that a bad thing...I wonder…maybe they’re seeking an attachment of a different sort… maybe they’re not a nuisance…maybe they need you… aren’t you dispersing their seeds... you’re picking up their future….hmmm…I wonder about the consumers’ future…what seed do you need to plant for them?      

         When you saunter, you strengthen the muscles of wondering. And in the state of wondering, you’re in what Thoreau called the Wild.  At your desk or in the woods, trust those muscles to carry you, as if drawn by a magnetic force to a thought, a revelation, a creative breakthrough. Thoreau promised, “The most alive is the wildest.”

         For some time now, much of the work I see travels familiar roads and there’s a long-term danger with that. I believe, as Thoreau wrote in “Life Without Principle,“ that the mind can be permanently profaned by the habit of attending to trivial things, so that all our thoughts shall be tinged with triviality.” Let’s not live in a Facebook world. This is the way to a more creative life.

         Thoreau wrote, “He who sits in his house all the time may be the greatest vagrant of all.” I say, “He who sits at his computer all the time Google-searching, iSpotting and Getty-scouring, may be the greatest vagrant of all.”
         Now, go! “So we saunter toward the Holy Land, till one day the sun shall shine more brightly than ever he has done, shall perchance shine into our minds and hearts, and light up our whole lives with a great awakening light, as warm and serene and golden as on a bank-side in autumn.” Thoreau said that.

Trust issues

            Trust can be a fragile thing. We heard the other day that the campaign to discredit the FBI and Department of Justice successfully compromised some people’s faith in those institutions. It didn’t take much. I mean, have you read that Nunes memo?

            In the last 4 months of 2017, I was given 3 briefs that identified trust as the ultimate goal. More recently, the 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer indicated that trust in US institutions is imploding. Some would say folks already gave up on trust by electing a president who is impossible to trust. It’s a problem.

            Unfortunately, trust isn’t something that can be implanted. You don’t even notice it until it blooms. But when someone has come through repeatedly, or continually been upfront with you, or regularly kept their word and made good on their promises, we tend to reciprocate.  Same with clients. So we can work on promoting their dependability, or their constant transparency, or their unceasing ability to do the right thing, or their unwavering gratitude for every customer.

            And, we can develop a voice, a human voice that people recognize as trustworthy, you know, a Tom Hanks kind of voice. “Persuasion,” wrote Aristotle, “is achieved by the speaker’s personal character…when the speech is so spoken as to make us think him credible.” So find some inspiration. Read some great essayists and memoirists. There’s an art to sincerity. Then craft that voice and stay true to it, because if you break character, resort to expediency and suddenly affect the Oxy Clean guy to spike sales, you undermine your efforts. And it’s really hard to win back someone once they’ve felt betrayed.

            Just don’t let this dip in confidence go to waste. We have an opportunity not to add to people’s fears and distrust. Find the appropriate place to talk about efforts that both increase profits and improve people’s lives. Let it be known, at least on a website, that the company pays fair wages, offers better benefits and treats its people with respect. Listen to the employees, customers and stakeholders, and from there, mine real insights. Hey, if it helps, look at what the president does, then do the opposite – in that, we can trust.
            It’s won’t be easy. According to the ad press, there isn’t a lot of trust between agencies and clients. But imagine the work we could do together if there was.