Speech to New Mexico Women In Communications

at the Presidential Installation Dinner for Jane Blume

Ok, before we get rolling, I want all of you to grab one of your business cards and put it on the table in front of you.  We’ll get to it later, but better to have it at the ready now.   If you don't have your card, write your info on a napkin or something.

Preamble #2: I didn't expect so many gentlemen here today and my remarks don't really include men.  So for the next 20 minutes, guys, consider yourself honorary women.  You'll love it.

Ok.  So, hello everyone!  I’m very happy to be here to help celebrate the presidential re-installation of… You know, I don’t know what to call her, this just-anointed fearless leader of yours.  The professional thing would be to call her Jane, but she hates it when I call her Jane – I tried it once in high school and got grounded for a month.  You’d think I could get away with it now – after all I am almost 40, and you hope getting older has got to count for something useful, like being able to call your mother by her name.  But I know how she feels about it and it’s her event and so far be it from me to ruffle any Maternal Feathers. 

I suppose I could call her Mom, since of course she is my mom and you all know she’s my mom, and that would be clear and fine… But for the fact that I have absolutely no idea what kind of relationship you all have with your mothers (or with your children for that matter).  As a therapist friend of mine once said, you’re hard-wired to your mom and it’s nigh well impossible to break that connection, and so for some of you, the very word MOM, at each and every utterance, might conjure up some associations which will render this event a somewhat less-than-pleasant place for you to spend your time, and we’re supposed to be here for a celebration – and have some fun.  And while of course I intend no negative associations whatsoever with the word mom or the concept mom or the job of mom, or anything momly-related, goddess forbid I nevertheless inadvertently step into the quagmire of your own personal mom-o-rama, thereby kicking you into five more years of therapy just because I got the inside track on this nifty public speaking gig in Albuquerque and momed my way all over the place without considering the wider social implications.  

Not to mention the fact that we just celebrated Mother’s Day and who knows what kind of brunch you might have had?  You might only now be getting over that hangover.  So best, really, I think not to go there at all, yes?

So let’s call her Jane Blume, which is a little more…broadly, generally referential…and I promise to call her Mom once we get home.  Like the Buddhists say, take the middle path.

Anyway, I want to commend you on a wise choice for your once and future leader.  Jane Blume is a phenomenally successful woman.  And while one could endlessly enumerate her myriad talents and accomplishments, the aspect of her modus operandi on which I’d like to focus – perhaps an unexpected one – is how much she helps people for free.

It happens all the time.  People call Jane Blume.  They ask her for help, for advice, for ideas – for who knows what all…the governor’s private phone number, ancient bagel recipes from the shtetl, her opinion regarding whether logos printed on thong underwear would be a good marketing tool for a high occupancy, medicare-funded assisted living facility – and she always happily, cheerfully, generously complies.  With absolutely no expectations of return or quid pro quo.

Now, some harder-nosed, more traditional – one might even call them more patriarchally-oriented – business folks might accuse her of giving away the farm.  Or of undervaluing the worth of her own knowledge and expertise - or even just her time.

But I’d submit to you that what’s really going on is that Jane Blume understands the difference between social and fiscal capital.  She understands that investing time and energy and intellect and compassion in people is just as valuable an investment as putting money in the bank.  And she understands (and makes choices based on) this difference while living in a culture which tends to value, or more significantly, tends to prioritize short term monetary gain and the accumulation of wealth, power, and material goods over almost everything else. 

It’s a reflection of a culture still in its adolescence - though we’re beginning, collectively, to understand the consequences of not thinking in the long term.  Or at least we’re being unavoidably faced (particularly in the realm of climate change, which is the issue horse I currently ride) with the need to make mature, thoughtful, visionary choices now in the hopes of positively influencing a highly uncertain future.

But I’m not here to wallop you upside the head with the 2x4 of climate change.  At least not yet…

I want to get into that difference between social and fiscal capital.  And I want to get into the idea of enough.  I want to posit the notion that you can have enough money: enough to take care of yourself, your kids, donate some, put enough away for retirement.  You can have enough stuff.  Enough books, cars, clothes, collectible doohickies on your shelves.  In fact, you can probably – easily – have much, much less of all that and still live a fruitful, meaningful life.

But I also believe that while you can have enough money, enough fiscal capital, you cannot have enough social capital.  You cannot have enough goodwill in your community, enough kids getting a great education, enough clean air and water, enough affordable health care, enough peace.

Except in our adolescent society, we actually say the exact opposite.  We say that while not all the different groups in our community get along, they get along…well enough.  And while not all kids have access to a good education, enough of them do – however many that is.  Enough people have affordable health care and decent housing – even though more and more people don’t.  Enough people have clean air and water.  We have enough peace.

It’s a dangerous bargain to make – and it exacts a cost on all of us.  It engenders a kind of persistent, low grade fear that at some point, we might find ourselves on the wrong side of the equation.  On the wrong side of enough.  We might fall through the cracks.  We’ve seen it happen, time and again.  Sometimes it happens to us.  But when (most of the time) it doesn’t, we knock on wood or wipe our brows in relief and whisper, “There but for the grace of God…”  Though given how many people are falling through the cracks these days, it would appear that the grace of God is in pretty short supply.

And the only way to inoculate ourselves against that low grade fear, build an impenetrable reservoir to protect us from a drought of God’s grace, is to have more – much more than enough money. 

And when you’re spending your time making money – hoarding it – for fear of your own safety, then you don’t have much time to consider the well being of anyone else.  When you’re in fear, you’re in a perpetual state of fight or flight.  You’re operating from your brain stem, your lizard brain, and when you’re in Lizard Brain Mode, you end up making fear-based, short-term choices, which you might not ordinarily make if you were operating from your higher, more mature self.  You know, like for example, you go into Lizard Mode and you end up electing a Lizard President.  No offense to lizards.

And just so we’re clear, I am so not talking about electing WICI President Jane Blume here. 

Ok, I realize my political slip is showing, and quite frankly, Bush-bashing seems almost a little...I don't know...passé these days.  Excruciatingly obvious, perhaps.  Except for the fact that while for some of us he’s a nightmare we’ll soon like quickly to forget (or if you voted for him, an embarrassment you’ll like quickly to forget), we dare not forget the reasons he came to power, nor the consequences of his tenure in office.  He’s going to be leaving a huge mess that will take years to clean up, and each of us will have to shoulder that burden consciously.  Willingly.  And with compassion for the bad choices which have been made.

We have to choose compassion because there's only so much anger and outrage your system can take.  Sooner or later, they'll wear you down and burn you out.  Pollute your soul, like coal.  Compassion is much more sustainable and energizing.  Like solar power.

Still, the big question remains: How do we engage – and change – the Enough Paradigm?  How do we address – head-on and without fear – what seems like an endless litany of totally overwhelming problems?  And then on top of all the regular issues we have to deal with, there’s that old 2x4 of global warming (some call it global climate catastrophe), which makes everything else look like a minor ingrown toenail on the foot of the great green goddess Herself.

Well, Gandhi said be the change you want to see.  Marianne Williamson said, “as you liberate yourself, your presence automatically liberates others.”  The trick is to have the courage to live with a sense of abundance, with a sense of enough, in spite of your fear.  Have the courage to make choices based on no-strings-attached generosity, in spite of that lizard-brain desire to flee the big, hairy wolves at the door. 

As communications professionals, you’re in an incredibly exciting position to not only help your companies and clients live in generosity and abundance, but to help them model it for lots and lots of other people – everyone who interacts with them or gets their message.  What an amazing opportunity you have – each and every day – to be the change you want to see.  Not only that, but to imagine the world as you would like it to be, and then act as if that world is already here.  Or at least pretty darn close by.  Right by your ear.  As Arundhati Roy says, “Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”  And you can help give anyone who might be suffering from a lack of imagination – or hope – the chance to hear that breath.  Feel it, warm, on the soft skin of their neck.

That Other World – she’s, perhaps, the best mother of all.  One we’ll never, ever have to roll our eyes at in adolescent frustration or feel obligated about taking out to brunch on a day which (if you weren’t aware of this) was originally designed not as a celebration of individual motherhood but as a day when mothers would rise up as an unstoppable force for peace. 

Maybe that’s the way to transform the whole Mom Issue.  For mothers, all, to climb off the celebratory pedestal that one Sunday in May, and take to the streets instead.

At any rate, you, as communications professionals, have the great good fortune to spend your days communicating the wildly exultant possibilities of that other world.  You can offer hope and the paradigm of abundance.

What’s truly exciting about living in the time we do – crazy and perilous as things are – is that the internet provides us easy access to information sources outside the mainstream.  There are myriad places available on line where we can not only tell our own stories, but take the time to get our own batteries recharged.  Read about all the amazing, dedicated, not-mentioned-in-People-or-Time activists and artists and educators and business leaders who are working to make the world a better place, and remember that the children of that softly breathing other mother world are walking right in front of her.  Out in the streets.  Paving the way.

Let me finish by telling you about one of them – though I didn’t read about him on line.  He’s my husband, Mark Nash.  And while he is a guy, he's got a very well developed anima.  So it's ok to bring him into the conversation. 

Mark runs a little regional theater in Burlington.  Vermont Stage Company.  And in the past 6 years of his tenure there, he has not only pulled the company back from the narrow, crumbling edge of total ruin (which is a whole story in itself), he has also made it his singular priority to run the company according to his values: he treats his artists well – houses them in lovely places, pays them as much as he can, and tells them repeatedly how much he appreciates their contribution.  He makes it a priority to select plays he loves, which challenge audiences intellectually and emotionally, lift their spirits, and transform their lives, rather than just do shows that will guarantee an abundance of (as we say in the biz) butts in seats.

He treats his donors and subscribers the same way.  He tells them how much they’re valued.  He believes in complete transparency and writes fundraising letters telling people exactly what’s going on with the company – the triumphs and the challenges.  He explains why he makes the creative choices he does, and why his donors are so important.  And people actually like getting his fundraising letters.  They like reading them!  And how often do you hear about that?  Really, how often do you get a fundraising letter that you actually want to read?

It’s still not easy.  Just because you’re creating wildly transformational art with people operating at the height of their craft doesn’t guarantee anyone’s going to show up to watch it.  They’re doing Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf right now.  It’s an incredible production.  Could be the best they’ve ever done.  Gorgeous set.  Exquisite performances.  Amazing reviews.  And it’s just not selling.  Turns out the show is a little too rough for many of our emotionally tender Vermont audiences.  Also, many people have the image of the movie in their heads, which is just dark and raw and bleaker than bleak.  The Vermont Stage production isn’t like that.  Sure the play is about drunk people being extremely unkind to each other, but it’s also got humor and love and the poignancy of a desperate couple trying – yet one more time – to reach out and connect with each other.  But that’s a hard thing to communicate to people who have Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton screeching in their heads.

The hardest part is that they’re taking a huge financial hit from this.  And for a company which two years ago almost closed its doors and operates very, very close to the bone, there’s just not much wiggle room for this kind of loss.

While it won’t sink the company, it seriously jeopardizes next season’s big, wowzy, never-done-anything-like-this-before project – a production of King Lear with live Taiko drumming and starring a vibrant, 85 year old Broadway veteran who wowed the pants off us last year playing Niels Bohr in Copenhagen.

Vermont Stage was going to have to raise an unprecedented $20,000 extra – on top of the regular budget – to make this happen.  And they were ready to do it.  But now, with the $10-15,000 loss on Virginia Woolf, it seems like an unimaginable – not to mention fiscally irresponsible - task.

So what’s an artistic director to do?  Mark briefly considered re-mounting a wildly successful production of Our Town from a few years ago.  For sure it would sell like the proverbial hotcakes.  But he’d be doing it purely for financial reasons, and really, a re-mount would feel to him as much like backsliding as the financial losses from Virginia Woolf do.  It would be a fear choice, and artistic soul death.

He could pick another show – a 2-4 character living room drama much cheaper to produce.  But Lear already has him so excited.  Has audiences excited.  The universal response when he says he’s producing King Lear (after he says, “Yup, that King Lear”) is, “Wow!”  How can he possibly give up the Wow Factor?

So the plan?  He’s taking it to the streets.  He’s writing another of those open-book fundraising letters which says, “Here’s what just happened – why I chose Virginia Woolf and why I think it didn’t sell.  Here’s what we want to do next season.  Here’s how much we need your help to do it.  And if, by September, we still don’t have the money to do Lear, then we won’t.  But it won’t be for lack of trying, and it won’t be for lack of asking.” 

It’s a very human approach.  He’s not selling, he’s just telling.  The good and the bad.  And it generates a true sense of partnership with the community.  He’s saying, “We’re not us doing this for you, but we’re all of us doing this together.”  He’s abandoned spin for truth.  That’s Mark modeling his Other World.  Scary and hair-raising as it can be, he wouldn’t – couldn’t – do it any other way.  Just like President Jane Blume (who Dad and I think should be running for another kind of President...But I’ll leave it to you ladies to form that particularly exploratory committee.)

So.  To conclude here, I’m going to offer you a little task, a little assignment.  I humbly suggest that you help each other rise up, all you women communications professionals (and honorary women).  Time to grab your business card – so go ahead and grab it – and hand it to the person on your right.   No, left, actually.  Because that's both more feminine and a more accurate representation of my own political leanings.  As if you hadn't guessed.

Now, what you’re going to do is go home today, and write down three goals you’d like to achieve in the name of being the change you want to see.  Three things you’d like to do to liberate yourself and make that other-mother world a reality.  Could be anything.  I don’t care.  Finally meeting your neighbors or dumping an icky client or putting all your publications on recycled paper or working pro bono more often or (my personal favorite) getting rid of your SUV and all your incandescent light bulbs and lobbying for clean energy and better mass transit.

And then, whatever your three goals are, you’re going to call or email the person whose business card you just got and share those goals with her.  And that person is going to call or email you back and tell you how great those ideas are, and cheerlead the heck out of the situation, and together, you’re going to make that troika of transformational intentions a reality.

 And every time you come back to a WICI meeting, you’re going to share your progress with the group.  And the job of President Jane Blume here is going to be sharing your successes with the good people of New Mexico and with WICI chapters all over the country.  And you will all feel very, very good about yourselves and sleep very well at night and perhaps you will become known as New Mexico WICI – The Mothers of Transformation!  And it’s going to be FUN!

 So good luck, and Great Green Goddess-Speed!

Thank you.