About 5 years ago, I gave a workshop at Joanna Wiebe’s “now-legendary”mastermind.
(shoutout to Jared Macdonald, Jen Havice, Samuel J. Woods, Amy Posner, Kira Hug, Rob Marsh)
At some point, I went off script…
(yeaaa… who am I kidding, there was no script)…
And said…
“I don’t write until I feel like shit”.
It’s one of those oddities that’s somehow stuck and followed me through my career.
… interviewers ask about it on podcasts.
… students tag me in posts referencing it.
… it even made its way into my training programs.
And while true, it’s also incomplete.
What I meant to say is…
“I don’t write until I feel a total, full-spectrum connection to the person I’m writing for”.
Until I feel…
… the desperation and despair of the problem I’m solving
… and the ecstatic redemption of finding a way through.
… the pain of being disillusioned previously
… and the flickering light of hope that still remains
… the fear in moving forward into the unknown
… and the underlying courage that lurks right beneath it.
The greatest truth I’ve ever intuited in copy (and conversion)…
Is that no single emotion exists in a silo.
Every emotional journey is multi-layered; stringing together both the unprocessed regret and struggle from the past… as well as the cautiously optimistic hope for a better future.
As a marketer (and human), you gotta be able to ride the spectrum without getting stuck on a single note.
Emotional intelligence is a starting point.
Emotional fluency is where the magic happens.