Patience and Fortitude

<p> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oyNrROCrbhE/YK-YMqeZoqI/AAAAAAABTwU/ti0uB7BqylUI1IB4qX-rmBBjNH2xiUUWwCLcBGAsYHQ/s733/Jean-Francois%2BMillet%2B-%2BWaiting%252C%2B1860.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="490" data-original-width="733" height="428" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oyNrROCrbhE/YK-YMqeZoqI/AAAAAAABTwU/ti0uB7BqylUI1IB4qX-rmBBjNH2xiUUWwCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h428/Jean-Francois%2BMillet%2B-%2BWaiting%252C%2B1860.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><em style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Waiting,_Jean-Francois_Millet,_1860_-_Nelson-Atkins_Museum_of_Art_-_DSC08970.JPG">Waiting </a></em><span style="text-align: left;">by Jean-François Millet, 1860 (public domain - Wikimedia Commons </span><a href="https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/deed.en" style="text-align: left;">CC0 </a><a href="https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/deed.en" style="text-align: left;">1.0</a><span style="text-align: left;">)</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table></p><div class="captioned-image-container" data-pm-context="[]"><figure><figcaption class="image-caption"><br /></figcaption></figure></div><div><hr /></div><p><em><strong><br /></strong></em></p><div style="text-align: center;"><em><strong><em><strong>“Patience is waiting. Not passively waiting. That is laziness. But to keep going when the going is hard and slow—that is patience. The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.”</strong> </em></strong></em></div><p></p><p></p><div style="text-align: right;"><em>— Leo Tolstoy, 1904</em></div><em><br /></em><p></p><div><hr /></div><p><br />Have you ever been late to a meeting or an appointment?</p><p>Of course you have. You’re human.</p><p>And instinctively you offer what we in polite society would expect: an <a href="https://www.timelesstimely.com/p/whens-the-last-time-you-heard-a-proper">apology</a>. Which is fine — the world needs better apologies.</p><p>But I’m going to give you something different to say—something more powerful and empowering—that will elevate your stature as a leader.</p><p>But first, a story.</p><div class="preformatted-block"><label class="hide-text" contenteditable="false"></label><pre class="text"> </pre></div><h2><strong>Guardians of Knowledge</strong></h2><p>Have you ever been to New York City? If you have, you probably walked past the New York Public Library.</p><p>You know the building—it’s the same one that the Ghostbusters came screaming out of in the opening of the iconic 1984 movie. And out front, you'll see the two guardians of the library—the world-renowned pair of marble lions that stand proudly before the majestic Beaux-Arts building at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street in Manhattan.</p><p>Did you know they had names?</p><p>The pair, sculpted by Edward Clark Potter and carved by the Piccirilli Brothers, were initially named Leo Astor and Leo Lenox, after two founders of the library, John Jacob Astor and James Lenox.</p><p>They were placed on their pedestals just days before the opening of the Main Branch on May 23, 1911.</p><p>In the 1930s, mayor Fiorello LaGuardia nicknamed them “Patience” and “Fortitude,” two qualities he thought New Yorkers needed to weather the Great Depression.</p><p>And since that time, that’s what they’ve been called.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DQbT7t3r_8o/YK-YhN8zEMI/AAAAAAABTwc/F8joZZ589JoArUiSSQPkFaOGmiPO2Vf2wCLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/crop-1911_LoC_Opening%2BDay_0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="911" data-original-width="1280" height="456" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DQbT7t3r_8o/YK-YhN8zEMI/AAAAAAABTwc/F8joZZ589JoArUiSSQPkFaOGmiPO2Vf2wCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h456/crop-1911_LoC_Opening%2BDay_0.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="text-align: left;">New York Public Library, Opening Day 1911 (</span><a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/2014689221/" style="text-align: left;">Library of Congress</a><span style="text-align: left;">)</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><p><br /></p><p></p><div><hr /></div><p><em><strong><br /></strong></em></p><div style="text-align: center;"><em><strong><em><strong>“No greater thing is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.”</strong> </em></strong></em></div><p></p><p></p><div style="text-align: right;"><em>— Epictetus</em></div><em><br /></em><p></p><div><hr /></div><p><br />Why does leadership call for patience?</p><p>Well, in one case, patience gives a leader an opportunity to remain calm. To practice the opposite of anger.</p><p>And in an age when crises loom at every moment and stress is threatening to creep up on us like Jack the Ripper, patience is indeed a virtue—armor against emotion-driven reactions, both from without and within.</p><p>Have you found yourself warming up to someone who is impatient and quick to fly off the handle? Likely not. The leader who is patient is the leader who is respected.</p><p>Even better, in addition to demonstrating to your colleagues that you can’t be ruffled by challenges that are thrown your way, <strong><a href="https://hbr.org/2020/09/becoming-a-more-patient-leader">recent research has uncovered additional benefits of patience</a></strong>:<br /><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><em><strong><span style="font-size: medium;">When leaders demonstrate patience, their employees’ self-reported creativity and collaboration increased by an average of 16% and their productivity by 13%.</span></strong></em></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://ctt.ac/kGNe0" target="_blank">Click to tweet this quote</a></b></p><p><br />When you show patience, your team’s performance improves.</p><p>You’ve heard the adage “Slow and steady wins the race.” Well, when you exhibit patience, you convey to your team that a more measured pace is acceptable. And in doing so, they’ll make fewer unforced errors.<br /><br /></p><div><hr /></div><p style="text-align: center;"><em><strong>“Humility is attentive patience.”</strong> </em></p><p style="text-align: right;"><em>— Simone Weil, 1940</em></p><div><hr /><br /></div><h2><strong>The Alternative to an Apology</strong></h2><p>I promised you a different approach to apologizing for your tardiness, and I won’t let you down. Especially since you’ve been so kind to read the entire newsletter.</p><p>The next time you’re late to a meeting or call, instead of saying “Sorry I’m late,” simply say this:</p><div class="preformatted-block"><label class="hide-text" contenteditable="false"></label><pre class="text"> </pre></div><h3 style="text-align: center;"><em>“Thank you for your patience.”</em></h3><div class="preformatted-block"><label class="hide-text" contenteditable="false"></label><pre class="text"> </pre></div><p>This is a magical phrase—one that takes the focus off of your shortcoming and places it on the virtue of your counterpart.</p><p>Suddenly, you have gone from victim to hero with five short words. You’ve given your colleague a gift by demonstrating <strong><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/humility/id1561294951?i=1000516365399">leader humility</a></strong>—acknowledging their human dignity.</p><p>It’s a subtle but powerful behavior. And the beauty is that it reflects well on you <em>and</em> on your colleagues.</p><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{"url":"%%share_url%%","text":"Share","class":null}"><br /></p><div><hr /></div><h1><strong>Coming Up</strong></h1><p>The next guest on the <em><strong>Timeless Leadership</strong></em> podcast is <strong>Ted Wright</strong>. As CEO of Fizz, Ted has been on the forefront of word of mouth marketing for more than two decades. And of all the practices of marketing, word of mouth may require the most patience.</p><p>Join us at 12:00 pm EDT on Thursday, May 27. <strong><a href="https://lu.ma/rkq2dtby">Set a reminder here</a></strong>.</p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 image2-460-460" href="https://cdn.substack.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe6d0986f-35ab-44e2-b4e3-b771a2925bc6_1080x1080.png" style="height: 0px; padding-bottom: min(100%, 460px); width: 100%;" target="_blank"><img alt="" data-attrs="{"src":"https://bucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/e6d0986f-35ab-44e2-b4e3-b771a2925bc6_1080x1080.png","height":1080,"width":1080,"resizeWidth":460,"bytes":609126,"alt":null,"title":null,"type":"image/png","href":null}" src="https://cdn.substack.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe6d0986f-35ab-44e2-b4e3-b771a2925bc6_1080x1080.png" style="max-height: 460px; max-width: 460px;" /></a></figure></div><p></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">If you don’t yet <strong><a href="https://pod.link/timeless" style="color: #007abe; text-decoration-line: none;">subscribe to the podcast</a></strong>, please do so today. </p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Thanks, and I’ll see you on the internet. </p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><br /></p><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><hr /></div><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><br />👉 Premium Members receive an additional related essay, plus curated links and stories, and audio and book recommendations every Friday. And now, we're adding more audio content to the list! Join the club by signing up below:</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: center;"><iframe data-dashlane-frameid="28549" frameborder="0" height="320" scrolling="no" src="https://www.timelesstimely.com/embed" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-style: solid; border-width: 1px; max-height: 450px; max-width: 100%;" width="480"></iframe></p><div id="B0C4B41C_0B6F_B887_32D0_376C9C8559E5"><div></div></div><div id="1C3D0C7D_ABD9_AA0E_5834_523E2A0BEEB7"></div>

Patience and Fortitude

  Waiting  by Jean-François Millet, 1860 (public domain - Wikimedia Commons  CC0  1.0 ) “Patience is waiting. Not passively waiting. That is...

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The Humanity of the Pickle Barrel

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-j9l2NMH__hs/YJyyY3QjJHI/AAAAAAABTkM/IuJfW0Gu0kg2sI9oFfJOMghiLEjcN_zSgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1024/Doris%2BLee%2B-%2BGeneral_store_and_post_office.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="1024" height="338" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-j9l2NMH__hs/YJyyY3QjJHI/AAAAAAABTkM/IuJfW0Gu0kg2sI9oFfJOMghiLEjcN_zSgCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h338/Doris%2BLee%2B-%2BGeneral_store_and_post_office.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><em style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Photograph of mural <strong><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:General_store_and_post_office_24943v.jpg">General store and post office</a></strong> by Doris Lee at the Ariel Rios Federal Building, Washington, D.C. (Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress via Wikimedia Commons)</span></em></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="captioned-image-container" data-pm-context="[]"><figure><figcaption class="image-caption"><br /></figcaption></figure></div><div><hr /></div><p><em><strong><br /></strong></em></p><div style="text-align: center;"><em><strong><em><strong>“One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.” </strong></em></strong></em></div><p></p><p></p><div style="text-align: right;"><em>— Elbert Hubbard, 1911</em></div><em><br /></em><p></p><div><hr /></div><p><br /></p><p>You need a pickle barrel.<br /><br />Not because you need to eat more vegetables (although your mom would still insist you do). But because you need more intimate and personal conversations.</p><p>I grew up in a small town in Connecticut — the kind with a town green and a white-steepled church, population 10,000. And I remember going with my mom or dad to the bank and the post office, and the teller or clerk behind the counter would know them by name. They might even ask how I was doing in school or on my baseball team.</p><p>It seems like a data-driven fantasy now, but those were the days when you didn’t need three forms of ID to pick up your mail or make a withdrawal. It was the way business was done.</p><div class="preformatted-block"><label class="hide-text" contenteditable="false"></label><pre class="text"> </pre></div><p>Going back a few generations, the general store was a center of small-town life, where citizens would go for supplies.</p><p>But more than being simply a retail shop, it was a place to see fellow residents, swap stories, and even hear some gossip over the pickle barrel — a large, wooden barrel where pickles floated in brine and you picked one out. Typically, there was someone seated nearby, just watching, or maybe playing checkers.</p><p>They knew you; you knew them. Maybe they’d strike up a conversation with you. Or make a remark to the clerk behind the counter.</p><p>It felt like an extension of family. When you walked away from the general store, you felt like a person and not a number.</p><p>Outside of interacting with a small business, when is the last time you had a brand experience like that?</p><p>These days, we’re left to felt like we’re a statistic or a cog in a system. Two forms of ID, login, and an encrypted password later, we're left feeling positively inhuman.</p><p><br /></p><div><hr /></div><p style="text-align: center;"><em><strong><br />“We want a lot of engineers in the modern world, but we do not want a world of engineers.”</strong> </em></p><p style="text-align: right;"><em>— Winston Churchill, 1948<br /><br /></em></p><div><hr /></div><p><br /></p><p>We were told that the great promise of social media was that it had the potential to bring back the humanity in business. In its earliest days, we heralded the opportunity to have conversations with customers, to get feedback from them directly, and to create 1:1 (or at least 1:few) interactions.</p><p>And yet…  Where do we stand with that progress?</p><div class="preformatted-block"><label class="hide-text" contenteditable="false"></label></div><h3 style="text-align: center;"><em><span style="font-size: large;">Every time a new social platform opens up, it falls prey to marketers. Where’s the humanity?</span></em></h3><div class="preformatted-block"><label class="hide-text" contenteditable="false"></label><pre class="text"><br /></pre></div><p>Now, I don’t begrudge a company from making money, and there are few options for social networks that don’t include some sort of advertising, but it somehow feels like Groundhog Day.</p><p>The internet has been around for two decades, and yet we’re seeing the same kinds of advertising that were prevalent when television was introduced. There has to be a better way.</p><p>Aside from platforms, advertisers themselves are under pressure with a huge increase in the use of ad blocking technology particularly Apple’s new privacy feature that explicitly asks iPhone users whether an app should be allowed to track them across the other apps and sites that they use.</p><p>The interruptive and annoying user experience is angering consumers, and they’re increasingly making the decision to install software to prevent advertising from taking over their browsing experience.</p><p>And now they have a way to withhold their data.</p><p><br /></p><div><hr /></div><p><em><strong><br /></strong></em></p><div style="text-align: center;"><em><strong><em><strong>“The real problem of humanity is the following: we have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and godlike technology.”</strong> </em></strong></em></div><p></p><p></p><div style="text-align: right;"><em>— Edward O. Wilson, 2009</em></div><em><br /></em><p></p><div><hr /></div><p><br /></p><p>The point of all of this is that while advertising is still a necessary part of the content ecosystem online, marketing leaders need to find a better way to meet the expectations of consumers.</p><p>The decades-old, twice-broken model of advertising is outdated — the interruptive model didn’t work for television, and it made its way to the internet, and eventually to social media.</p><p>We need to wake up to the need for human interaction and stories.</p><p>Simply advertising to them is lazy. Perhaps it means a more hands-on style with a focus on community management in addition to paid media. There’s value in creating connections and leveraging relationships, especially when we have products and services that people genuinely care about or want to tell others about.</p><p>We’re on the precipice of losing the opportunity to create the long-promised personalized content that never seemed to materialize. If we want to create an emotional connection with consumers and leave a lasting impact, mass marketing is no longer the way forward.</p><p>We need to show the humanity behind the brand and demonstrate an interest in connecting with consumers the way <em>they</em> want to engage.</p><p>Then maybe we’ll be able to reclaim the pickle barrel conversations.</p><div class="preformatted-block"><label class="hide-text" contenteditable="false"></label><pre class="text"> </pre></div><div><hr /></div><h1>Coming Up</h1><br />The next guest on the <a href="https://pod.link/timeless">Timeless Leadership</a> podcast is Tom Peters. Tom’s name is synonymous with excellence, and his latest book is a look at the urgency of excellence in how we show up as humans.<br /><br />Join us at noon EDT on Thursday, May 13 on <a href="https://firesidechat.com/scottmonty">Fireside Chat</a>.<div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nSdf6fgRVx8/YJyy8aRecII/AAAAAAABTkU/uuS_6UdxaPoX2Caq9Rwtj0Vclg404fqngCLcBGAsYHQ/s1080/Humanity.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nSdf6fgRVx8/YJyy8aRecII/AAAAAAABTkU/uuS_6UdxaPoX2Caq9Rwtj0Vclg404fqngCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h400/Humanity.png" width="400" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><div><hr /><br /></div></div></div><div><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">If you don’t yet <strong><a href="https://pod.link/timeless" style="color: #007abe; text-decoration-line: none;">subscribe to the podcast</a></strong>, please do so today. </p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Thanks, and I’ll see you on the internet. </p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><br /></p><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><hr /></div><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><br />👉 Premium Members receive an additional related essay, plus curated links and stories, and audio and book recommendations every Friday. And now, we're adding more audio content to the list! Join the club by signing up below:</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: center;"><iframe frameborder="0" height="320" scrolling="no" src="https://www.timelesstimely.com/embed" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-style: solid; border-width: 1px; max-height: 450px; max-width: 100%;" width="480"></iframe></p></div>

The Humanity of the Pickle Barrel

Photograph of mural  General store and post office  by Doris Lee at the Ariel Rios Federal Building, Washington, D.C. (Carol M. Highsmith Ar...

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Communicate with Simplicity and Emotion

<div class="captioned-image-container" data-pm-context="[]"><figure><figcaption class="image-caption"><em><strong><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Karel_Dujardin_-_Boy_Blowing_Soap_Bubbles._Allegory_on_the_Transitoriness_and_the_Brevity_of_Life_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cTFYa0M-c4c/YJNc_J5iClI/AAAAAAABTfw/9-JgJAdVdQ4XhDCu1VzFmfIvfIgreS6nACLcBGAsYHQ/s829/Karel_Dujardin_-_Boy_Blowing_Soap_Bubbles._Allegory_on_the_Transitoriness_and_the_Brevity_of_Life_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="581" data-original-width="829" height="448" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cTFYa0M-c4c/YJNc_J5iClI/AAAAAAABTfw/9-JgJAdVdQ4XhDCu1VzFmfIvfIgreS6nACLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h448/Karel_Dujardin_-_Boy_Blowing_Soap_Bubbles._Allegory_on_the_Transitoriness_and_the_Brevity_of_Life_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><em style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><strong><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Karel_Dujardin_-_Boy_Blowing_Soap_Bubbles._Allegory_on_the_Transitoriness_and_the_Brevity_of_Life_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg">Boy Blowing Soap Bubbles. Allegory on the Transitoriness and the Brevity of Life</a></strong> by Karel Dujardin, 1663 (public domain)</span></em></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /></a></strong></em></figcaption></figure></div><div><hr /></div><p><em><strong><br /></strong></em></p><div style="text-align: center;"><em><strong><em><strong>“Brevity is the sister of talent.”</strong> </em></strong></em></div><p></p><p></p><div style="text-align: right;"><em>— Anton Chekov, 1889</em></div><em><br /></em><p></p><div><hr /></div><p><br /></p><p>Quick: who spoke before Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg?</p><p>If you said Edward Everett, then well done. You’re either a student of history or a devotee of trivia.</p><p>Everett was a noted orator of the time, an educator and pastor, and a politician who inhabited such offices as U.S. Representative, U.S. Senator, and Governor of Massachusetts.</p><p>Such were the qualifications that made him a featured orator at the dedication of Gettysburg National Cemetery, where he spoke for two hours.</p><p>Now, more to the point: what did Everett say in his speech?</p><p>Accounts of his speech that day say that he relived the battle and renounced the enemy, moving the audience to tears.</p><p>And yet, no one remembers what he said.</p><p>President Lincoln, on the other hand, gave one of the shortest speeches of his life and though he self-effacingly included the line “the world will little note nor long remember what we say here,” it is literally etched in stone for posterity.</p><p>Just 272 words in length, it took Lincoln approximately two minutes to read.</p><p>And it still resides in our lexicon today.</p><div class="preformatted-block"><label class="hide-text" contenteditable="false"></label><pre class="text"> </pre></div><div><hr /></div><p></p><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: 700;"><br /></span></div><em><div style="text-align: center;"><em><strong>“One should use common words to say uncommon things.”</strong> </em></div></em><p></p><p></p><div style="text-align: right;"><em>— Arthur Schopenhauer</em></div><em><br /></em><p></p><div><hr /></div><div class="preformatted-block"><label class="hide-text" contenteditable="false"></label><pre class="text"> </pre></div><p>If only we could follow Lincoln’s example more frequently. We don’t because simplicity is difficult. It takes effort.</p><p>Either we don’t have the time to dedicate to crafting better communications, or we’re lazy.</p><p>Think about every app you’ve downloaded. Have you read through <strong><a href="https://www.visualcapitalist.com/terms-of-service-visualizing-the-length-of-internet-agreements/">the terms of service of each</a></strong> in their entirety?</p><p>I’d wager you didn’t—just like 97% of Americans.</p><p>And why would you? The shortest (Instagram) clocks in at 2,451 words, which would take you nine minutes and 42 seconds to read. To yourself, not out loud (assuming 240 words per minute).</p><p>For comparison, the code of Hammurabi is 6,390 words long. The U.S. Constitution is 4,543 words.</p><p>TikTok’s terms take 31 minutes and 24 seconds to read — that’s 130 times longer than the average length of <a href="https://danslee.co.uk/2020/01/21/clipped-i-watched-the-100-best-tiktok-videos-to-find-the-optimum-length-of-a-clip/">the top 100 performing videos</a>.</p><p>The longest? That honor belongs to Microsoft, whose terms last 15,260 and would take you one hour, three minutes and 30 seconds to read. </p><p>It’s almost as if the lawyers for these companies <em>don’t</em> want you to read their finely crafted prose.</p><p>Although I’ll hand it to LinkedIn—they have plain language explanations alongside the legalese.</p><div class="preformatted-block"><label class="hide-text" contenteditable="false"></label><pre class="text"> </pre></div><h2><strong>Hold Your Audience</strong></h2><p>Part of Lincoln’s skill was in his ability to connect with his audiences. He was plainspoken and used examples that were simultaneously elegant yet simple.</p><p>He had the uncanny ability to identify what his audiences were thinking and feeling, and he told stories that connected.</p><p>After a campaign speech in New Hampshire on March 2, 1860, a reporter wrote, “Mr. Lincoln spoke nearly two hours and we believe he would have held his audience had he spoken all night.”</p><p>If we could only hold our audiences for a fraction of that time.</p><p>Make it simple. Make it connect.<br /><br /></p><div class="preformatted-block"><label class="hide-text" contenteditable="false"></label><pre class="text"></pre></div><div><hr /></div><h1><strong>Coming Up</strong></h1><p>If you missed the live recording of <em><strong><a href="https://pod.link/timeless/episode/26a513119a48fd9f6556b4073e5a296b">Timeless Leadership</a></strong></em> on <a href="https://firesidechat.com/scottmonty" target="_blank">Fireside Chat</a> with my guest Tamsen Webster, author of <em><strong><a href="https://amzn.to/2QMNhp1">Find Your Red Thread: Make Your Big Ideas Irresistible</a></strong></em>, you can find it on your podcast player of choice.</p><p><iframe src="https://www.listennotes.com/embedded/e/99ae757591164dc6863892d9941f1377/" height="170px" width="100%" style="width: 1px; min-width: 100%;" loading="lazy" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe><br /></p><p></p><p>If you don’t yet <strong><a href="https://pod.link/timeless">subscribe to the podcast</a></strong>, please do so today. <a class="button primary" href="https://pod.link/timeless">Subscribe to Timeless Leadership</a></p><p>Thanks, and I’ll see you on the internet. </p><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><hr /></div><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><br />👉 Premium Members receive an additional related essay, plus curated links and stories, and audio and book recommendations every Friday. And now, we're adding more audio content to the list! Join the club by signing up below:</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: center;"><iframe frameborder="0" height="320" scrolling="no" src="https://www.timelesstimely.com/embed" style="background: white; border: 1px solid #EEE;" width="480"></iframe></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: center;"><br /></p>

Communicate with Simplicity and Emotion

Boy Blowing Soap Bubbles. Allegory on the Transitoriness and the Brevity of Life  by Karel Dujardin, 1663 (public domain) “Brevity is the si...

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