May 2008 Archives

Keith Ferrazzi is the best-selling author of Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship At A Time. When I worked for Keith in college, I had time to interview him about how building professional relationships, and about how Never Eat Alone can be applied to college life. The interview is two years old (almost to the day) and was first published on my old site. I have reprinted it here as part of my Ask the Writer series. This interview is about college only; writers interested in relationships and Never Eat Alone should follow this link. Although most writers hate to admit it, relationship building is important in finding a publisher. Business plays a key role in writing and in the university. As an instructor, I highly recommend students check out Keith's advice below.

 BP: Are fun and professionalism mutually exclusive? College students have a lot of fun, not necessarily drink or sex, but also simply keeping late hours, watching movies, playing games, and so on. Yet many still manage to maintain solid GPAs and social networks. Can fun and professionalism co-exist at college? Where is the line between excess self-gratification and overwork?

 KF: Having fun and being professionally successful are absolutely not mutually exclusive. The problem is when people get the impression that they have to overdo the fun in college because they won't have a good time once they start full-time jobs after college. And that couldn't be further from the truth. In fact, most of the work I do with organizations is helping their people build stronger personal relationships within the firm, so they work better together, and, frankly, have more fun together at work. We practice what we preach in my firm Ferrazzi Greenlight, too. We're always doing things like touch football, outdoor boot camp workouts, and having parties at my house. Getting to know each other better through fun stuff like that actually adds to our respect for each other as professionals and people.

BP: In college, it seems that many students don't start networking until they reach their senior year: as if college is separated from the rest of life somehow (many people say that leaving college means entering the real world--implying that college is part of a fake world, or that it isn't true life.) Is what they say true? If so, what can college students do to enter the real world long before they are forced to?

KF: If by your senior year you don't already have relationships with working professionals who have mentored you and given you internships, then you won't be "networking." You'll just be job-hunting. If I could only give you one piece of advice it would be this: Build it before you need it. Start during your first year - and if you're past that, then just start now! - getting to know the people who can help you get where you want to go. Too many college students tell me they don't have time to start building these relationships. That's absolute B.S. You don't have time to meet or have a discussion on the phone with one - just one - working professional per month whom you admire, someone you respect and want to be like someday? Of course you can do that. It's all about choices. If you choose to hide behind the veil of "If I get good grades, then I'll get a good job" nonsense, you're job-hunting will be difficult, painful, and unforgiving. And don't use excuses like, "I'll never get a sweet job like Johnny because my dad doesn't own his own company like Johnny's dad does." That's bogus, too. My mom was a cleaning lady and my dad was a steelworker. I wasn't born with a silver spoon. But I chose not to let that hold me back. You can make your own nepotism. You can get access to people who can help you achieve your dreams. But you have to decide to do that and start now. Build it before you need it.

BP: It seems that college students are less likely to behave professionally in social situations, and some are completely disrespectful (come to class unshaven, disheveled, hung-over, or even drunk, attend guest lectures in pajamas, text message each other during tests, watch Lost trailers on their video iPods, etc.) What are your suggestions for impressing upon these students the importance of reconciling their social and academic lives?

KF: That's your call to go to class hung-over and un-showered. Just don't expect to be able to go to your professor when you need a reference letter and her write about how you have your act together. You're missing out if you think you have to disrespect authority to be cool with your peers. You're also not getting it if you think you have to act overly uptight to be cool with professors and industry professionals. There is a balance you can strike where your friends will respect you and older people will also be impressed. Honestly, just look at how most college kids act. You don't have to do much to really stand out as the good egg.

BP: In the last chapter of your book, Never Eat Alone, you write, "Balance is B.S." The chapter deals with the myth of balance between work and private life, and introduces a new theory--that business is human, and that all relationships should be treated as such. Is the same true for college life? How does the theory that work-life balance is a myth relate to academia?

KF: Here's an example. How much do you know about your professor's family? What about her career aspirations and dreams? What does she like to do on the weekends? If you had a personal relationship with her, you'd know things like this, and she'd know these things about you. All it takes is showing up at office hours and besides asking a couple insightful questions about the coursework at hand, mention that you know you can learn a lot from professors just by getting to know them, even aside from the actual coursework. Ask to have lunch. Heck, do your closest buddies a favor and invite them, too, because ten bucks says they wouldn't think to do this. Get to know your professors as people and they'll help you get into grad school or land jobs because they will care about you. And you'll probably learn more in their classes, too. 

BP: In closing, what are your final thoughts on building professional, mutually-beneficial relationships in college? Are there any experiences you have had--either when you were in college at Yale or later experiences with college students who have approached you--that would help to illustrate the importance of relationship building?

KF: Last year, a student from UC San Diego met me at an event for our fraternity, Sigma Chi. We had a brief conversation, and he asked me if I'd talk with him again to give him some career advice. I told him to read my book, Never Eat Alone, and then talk to my assistant to get on my calendar to join me for a workout at Barry's Bootcamp. It took him several months of calling back to get that next meeting to sync up, but we had a good talk then and were in touch intermittently after that. When spring came, he asked me if he could have an internship in my company. We didn't have any spots for paid internships, but he agreed to move to Los Angeles for the summer and work for us without pay. Well, he did good work, actually got me to speak at the World Business Forum, which was awesome, and got to build relationships with everyone in my company over the summer. Guess who we called when a paid position opened up this year? He's been working with us all year part-time and will start full-time when he graduates this summer. And it all started with him seeking help. Most college students are afraid to ask for help, but they just don't get it. There are so many people out there who, like me, are happy to help and want to help others succeed. Many more want to help than don't want to help. Don't be afraid to ask the people who can help you in your career aspirations. The worst anyone can say is No.

A friend who also teaches at the university (in the music department) sent me this video clip on TED of Amy Tan's lecture on creativity. Amy Tan is the best-selling novelist who wrote Saving Fish from Drowning. Thanks to Taylor Baldwin for the link, and to TED for hosting it. You can find the original page here.

 

Stephen King suggested in one of his books that The Hemingway Solution was putting a shotgun in your mouth and pulling the trigger with your big toe. For writers, I will now propose a much less graphic alternative. If you want to write, well, I would say you can't do better than to follow this man's example, whatever his faults. To paraphrase Francine Prose, his routine hasn't seemed to hurt his career any.

The Hemingway Solution

• Wake up early and work hard once you're up. Don't read anything but the paper, because you don't want to work with all the giants of literature looking over your shoulder. Just write or work until you wear out mentally. This should be a little after lunch, maybe 1:30 or 2 pm.

• Always stop writing when you know what will happen next. If you do that, and let your mind work on the story while you sleep, you will never be stuck.

• Eat lunch, and make it something healthy.

• Physical exercise is next. Wear out your body and make yourself so exhausted that you can't think about your writing. Hemingway would fish and box, among other things. He loved a physical challenge. I run and lift weights, or play tennis and soccer. Anything will do.

• Read literature and catch up on your correspondence. Wait to check your e-mail until late in the day, just before or just after dinner. Find a good book and read it slowly.

• Don't think about the writing when you're not writing. This may be the hardest step. But endless plotting, dissecting, musing, and especially talking (to friends, to lovers, to family) will kill a book. It will shrivel up and die on you. This is not a joke. I've seen it happen many times.
  

• Spend time with that special someone who matters to you. As Hemingway once wrote, "I believe that basically you write for two people; yourself to try to make it absolutely perfect; of if not that then wonderful. Then you write for who you love whether she can read or write or not and whether she is alive or dead."

• Go to sleep. Repeat Hemingway's Solution in the morning.
  

I had been very nervous about meeting Mr. Zukav before the interview, but as soon as I shook his hand and began to talk with him, all my nervousness melted away. Born in Pittsburg, Kansas, Mr. Zukav graduated from Pittsburg High School in 1960. Following graduation he attended Harvard University. In 1979 he wrote Dancing Wu Li Masters, which won the American Book Award for Science. In 1989 he wrote The Seat of the Soul, a book about evolution and happiness in life. The Seat of the Soul became a national bestseller, remaining on the New York Time's Bestseller list for over one hundred and thirty-nine weeks.  His books have sold over four and a half million copies and been translated into sixteen different languages.

GZ: So. I'll start by asking you a question. What is a famous person?

BP: Well, I'd have to say it's someone who is well known, maybe? Or has changed the world?

GZ: If Osama Bin Laden where someone that you knew, would you want to interview him as a famous person?

BP: Probably not. I would say that would be infamous. Is that close?

GZ: Yes, that's very close. What I'm sensing is that for your project you want to speak to someone who is the most well known positive influence that you know. That's important because fame is not. But being a positive influence in the world is. There are many people who are famous and are not positive influences in the world, and there are many people who are positive influences in the world--much more than I--who are not famous. So it is valuable to realize [pauses] it is valuable to realize what is important and what is not. Now, what does it mean to be a positive influence?

BP: Well, I would say it means to try and teach other people and show them what's good--right and wrong--things like that.

GZ: That's close. Intention is what makes a positive influence or a negative influence. Intention. For example, you may want to teach somebody how to hurt other people [pauses] or you may want to teach somebody how to help other people. In both cases you are teaching someone, but there is a big difference between someone who teaches people how to help and teaches people how to hurt, and that difference is intention. So if your intention is to be constructive instead of destructive, or to share instead of to hoard, or to contribute instead of to exploit, then your intention is a positive one. And my feeling is that you want visitors to your website to have the benefit of the people who have positive intentions [coughs].

BP: That's pretty much it, I think. You said it a lot better than I could have.

GZ: How do you get a positive intention?

BP: By trying to accomplish something good?

GZ: Yes, you choose it.

BP: Yeah.

GZ: You have to say 'this is what I intend; this is what I will do if the universe is willing for me to do it.' So an intention is not a wish, and it is not a hope, it is the conscious use of your will. You know what will is?

BP: Yes.

GZ: So your parents tell you 'you will do this' and you say to yourself 'I don't want to do this, but I will do it only because they tell me I will do it.' Or you say 'I will not do that.' Both of those are uses of your will. That will is very important because that's what allows you to make a choice. The choice that you make is the choice of intention. Do you see?

BP: I see.

GZ: Now, it is one thing to decide to have a positive intention, say, to help people. But have you ever decided to do one thing and then found yourself doing another?

BP: [nods] Uh-huh.

GZ: Tell me about when that happened to you [coughs].

BP: Oh, I can't think of a specific time, exactly, but I'm sure it's happened before.

GZ: Can you give me an example?

BP: I'm trying. Well, like when I said I was going to study for a test, but then I ended up doing something else instead.

GZ: Perfect example. Perfect. You set the intention to study for the test, but then you suddenly woke up to the fact that you weren't studying for the test you were doing something else. That happened because although you set the intention to do one thing there was a part of you--that you didn't know about--that had a different intention. And that intention was to watch a ball game, or to go running, or to do something else besides study. If you don't know about those parts of yourself, they choose your intentions for you.

BP: And you can't control them.

GZ: Exactly. Exactly! And those are your compulsions. And your fixations. And your obsessions. In other words the parts of your self that are 'out of control'. Somebody says something, and suddenly you're angry.

BP: You don't know why.

GZ: You don't know why. Even if you set the intention to be a peaceful person, you're suddenly enraged. So choosing your intention is not so simple, because to choose it and really be able to choose it consciously you have to start to become familiar with yourself, with all the different parts of yourself. And when you decide to do that, you decide to become the master of your own life. Some people think that being the master of their own lives--

BP: [shuffles with the tape recorder]

GZ: Is it alright?

BP: Yeah, sometimes it stops though and I have to check it, sorry [laughs].

GZ: Some people think that they are the master of their lives if they are the ones that decide when they get up in the morning, when they go to sleep at night, where they go during the day, what they do for a living, what clothes they wear. And they say to themselves 'I am a master of my life if I can do all those things' because some people can't, like a prisoner. A prisoner is in jail. A prisoner must wear the clothes that the jail says, the prisoner must get up when the regulations say to get up and go to sleep when the regulations say to go to sleep, and cannot travel where he chooses when he chooses. 'But I,' some people say, 'am a master of my life because I can do all of those things.' But these people are not masters of their lives as long as they cannot control their anger, or their jealousy.

BP: As long as they don't know themselves, right?

GZ: Exactly! Exactly. As long as they feel that they are less important than other people, or if they feel that they are more important than other people. Or if they feel that they are attractive, or not attractive. They're controlled by these things, and they're just as much in prison as the person in a penitentiary. Do you know what the word penitentiary means?

BP: Nope.

GZ: To be penitent. It means to think about things. So originally people were put in prison to think about things.

BP: What they did.

GZ: That's right. So you might say that while you are out of control in your life you are in a penitentiary [laughs softly], where you have time to think about what you've done, like hurt the people that you love, like...become angry when you have set the intention not to become angry. When you decide to start to know your self, so that you can be out of this prison, that's when you begin the process of being a master of your life [coughs]. And it's never too early, and it's never too late to start [smiles].

BP: I see what you're saying.

GZ: It's better to start early [laughs], but it's never too late to start, because it's always good to get out of prison.

BP: Yeah.

GZ: It's better to get out of prison earlier than later, but the important thing is getting out of prison, and that's what happens when you get to know yourself, so that you can choose your intentions, and hold, even while you are feeling all of the things that you are feeling inside yourself. Is this making sense to you?

BP: Uh-huh [nods]. I understand.

GZ: When you do that, you start to become a positive influence in the world, and then if the universe wants you to be a famous person the universe will make you a famous person. It's not you that does it; it's the universe. And if the universe doesn't want you to be a famous person, you won't be a famous person, because the universe will always provide for you what is best for you. The important thing is not whether you are famous or not, but what your intention is [pauses], and if your intention is to be a positive influence in the world, and you really want that enough, you will start to do the work that is necessary to learn about yourself. And if you do that long enough, you will begin to feel the results.

BP: I've read your book, your first--well, not first, but The Seat of the Soul--and I also have Soul Stories and Dancing Wu Li Masters, and I haven't started those yet, but I'm going to. I read it, but pretty much I just want to hear about your life story and how you got to where you are because I understand that you were in Vietnam?

GZ: This is my life's story.

BP: It is?

GZ: Yes, what I've just told you are the most important things that I can share for your website--[pauses. Something is beeping.]

BP: Is it you or me?

GZ: [chuckles]. It's for me [long pause]. You know that I was in the army, when I was about your age. A little older--not much. And at that time, I was a very different person than I am now, and the way that I changed was exactly the way that I have described to you.

BP: Getting out of prison.

GZ: Getting out of prison.

BP: And learning about your self.

GZ: And learning about myself. Some people can learn about themselves and decide to stay in the army, but when I learned about myself, my life began to change. This is what you can share with your visitors to the web site. These are more important things than...history. History is temporary, but when you make changes in yourself for the better, that's permanent.

I have another reason for writing this post. Besides always wanting to title a blog in honor of William Morris's book of essays on the state of utopia, I spent the weekend in western Kansas, near a town called Phillipsburg. Sarah and I drove out to visit her relatives, her mother's parents, father's parents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. This was 20+ hours on the road from where I live.

Lanette Cadle says, "Both Missouri and Kansas people are storytellers, but the stories from Kansas have a darker flavor." I will try to capture that flavor here.

The trip combined with my fallout after the university's semester ended -- I had mentally burned out by the time I turned in my student's grades -- left me reluctant to punch the keys. I'd thought I'd bust my chops (and re-learn the alphabet) by relating my Top 5 Moments from Nowhere:

• Eating lunch at a burger stand called The Chubby Pickle, which boasts the greasiest (sorry, McDonald's) hamburgers every grilled. The mascot is a vaguely racist-looking pickle-man wearing a bow-tie and gloves. You can buy a t-shirt with him on it. And the burgers (I'm not joking) are known as "The Big Chubby," "The Super Chubby," and so on. This is one of Phillipsburg's five or so restaurants.
  Another is the Pizza Hut.

• Sarah's Grandpa Carly and Grandma Diane: these two were wonderful company. Carly, who was once the sheriff and quite a musician, played us some tapes he had recorded with his western swing band. They showed us pictures of Sarah and of the family from way, way back when. I set up an old computer for Diane to write letters on. Both Diane and Carly love animals, so the farm and house are crawling with cats and dogs. Between them and their son, Jim, who lives next door, they have two dogs named "Sugar."

• Jim is on the terrorist-watch list. Sarah's uncle is a born storyteller, and we talked for hours about almost any subject anyone could think of. The best stories were about Jim, who used to travel six days a week, being placed on the terrorist-watch list. Which makes it difficult, you might imagine, to fly.

• Sarah's uncle Jim also found 5/6 of a set of 1890 Charles Dickens at a garage sale in some small nearby town. The name on the set is Daniel Brobst of Manhattan, Kansas. The first volume is missing and the books themselves are worn, but together the set is worth $300 (or so we discovered this weekend, when we looked it up on the computer). So reading the old books and papers in them was an interesting experience.

• I love western Kansas, and the best thing about traveling back was that I got to see where Sarah was born and raised until she was six years old. I can't fit all of the people into this post, and I can't fit in all the experiences (The Adventure of the Low-Flying Plane Over the Highway, The Adventure of the Wind Turbine Farms, and The Adventure of the Meth House are just three more experiences that would fill a story of their own; readers must content themselves for now with just the titles).

Now that I've written this list, which is silly and doesn't do justice to the experiences I had in Kansas, I safely believe I can move on and write something more.

Coming Up Next: A New Direction for the Blog? What does Ben have planned for the summer? Also, What Ever Happened to The Red Ink Journal? The answers are coming on the new season of Write Well.

On The Huffington Post I ran across an interview with Pulitzer Prize-winning (and Nobel Prize-winning) novelist Toni Morrison, author of Song of Solomon and The Bluest Eye. The interview is reprinted from Time magazine. You can read the full article here. As they say, Toni Morrison will now take your questions.

Recently I found out that people read this stuff I write (you shouldn't, it's not good for your brain) and I have to be careful now. What I want is to write a testimonial. Please, skip this post if seeing people happy makes you want to throw up.

I don't want to brag. I had no idea it was like this, I had no idea it could be so good, so completely satisfying, and I think I need to write about it. I mean, I always knew, but it's something else to experience first hand... No, it's not a born-again religious thing. No, it's not sex, but it's sort of like sex. Yes, I know it's 1:19 am.

It almost happened to me once before. Not that long ago, I wrote a story based on my fascination with (I can't say my participation in) the ancient art of fencing. The story revolved around a single event, a modern day duel in Los Angeles, and the action leading up to it was largely descriptive. The lead character was called Nicolai Kolovin. The story was titled "The Lexicon of the Sword."

The story was pretty good. I tinkered with the language, which was thick, even florid, and I redrew the characters. I could feel that I was right on the edge of something special. The pie was half cooked. For the first time in my life, the pieces were clicking in that way writers always describe. I realized that I hadn't been writing all these years. I had been working up to writing.

It was like this: Imagine you live in a house on the seashore. You chose the home because you knew it (you thought), admired friends who bought similar houses, and the shacks all offered some special view. From the back door you can see the ocean, the mountains, whatever you desire. You say to others, "I live in a house similar to yours. The house of a writer." And you're pretty proud you chose the neighborhood.

 Then one night, when the sun goes down, you notice a strip of light along the dark bottom of your back door. But you have no door there. Only endless horizon, an infinity of opportunities. You go to the door and you see that your view is just a seascape painted on the wood, and the paint is peeling. The horizon on your mural is really just a horizontal line the landlord drew for you with a brush.

I never could get the door open while I worked on "The Lexicon of the Sword." I could see the sunset glow under the door. With some fierce work I began to see the glow at each of the door's four sides, even some through the keyhole. I punched holes is the wood and let in light. But I never opened the door. The story became more streamlined. The prose grew sharp, but remained elegant. The word count was just under 3,000. My writing group offered some enthusiastic reviews.

Then, without warning, the story received several rejection letters. Finally, it died. I knew it wasn't working but not why it wasn't working. My friend and sometime editor Justin Moody offered a few ideas, and so did Sarah, my Reader. Both urged me to move forward. Usually Sarah and Justin are right. When they agree, I know they're right. I didn't think about Lexicon and I went back to writing.

Without warning a few days ago I started to write a story about the Amazon set in 1947, with a Brazilian mercenary and a Russian Jew as principal characters. I tried what Ernest Hemingway suggested and I quit writing when I already knew what would happen next. The next day I wrote more. The story surprised me and took a graphic turn. The writing seemed right, somehow. I tinkered a bit and left in the shocking stuff. Then I quit for the weekend (when I still knew what was coming next).

Over the weekend I traveled to St. Louis. I subscribed to Poets & Writers and One Story. I felt alive, energized, and ready to face a tough week.

Today I finished the story and it all came together nicely. 2,800 words give or take, double-spaced. Round characters, clean events, logical action (from what I remember).

The story just needs to cool, set, and then be sliced up into perfect language. I opened the door and I can see the horizon, the real horizon, and I know exactly how it feels to create something that could maybe be called -- God, forgive me -- art. Even as I write this, I know I'll look back in a year and think, "I was so arrogant. Man, I hate me."

But I don't care, because now at this moment I'm just relieved and happy. I can write something worth reading after all! I'm not a fake, a pretender, a charlatan. Even though in a year or so I might hate it, especially for being another false horizon, right now I love the story and I'm calling it "The Red-Bellied Piranhas."

As a sequel to my highly discussed post The Last Word, I'd like to say that the presenter I take issue with is a very nice girl, quite clever and talented, and I meant no disrespect to her or to the discipline of technical writing. I have many friends and mentors who are technical writers. So take my annoyance with a grain of salt. The presentation was no dramatic train wreck or awful. I wasn't that mad, really, and overall it was a very lovely presentation, even the parts I disagree with.