The Trickster & The Hearst Epiphany

 August 3, 2024

   I was on a Zoom call yesterday with Neil Gordon, one of the foremost speech coaches in the country and he told me about a powerful trick most people don't know about. If you open your talk with a cliff hanger it creates anticipation, which is the lynchpin of all good stories. This led me to the epiphany of The Trickster, which the Navajos believe is represented by the coyote.

Daily Whip Out: "The Trickster"

   So, expect me to incorporate a little bit of the Trickster in future talks.

   At the request of Kent Fevurly, here is the Hearst Epiphany I referenced in yesterday's post. This is from my April 7, 2010 blog about a seminal event in 2002:

The Reticular Activator Miracle
   My therapist wife turned me on to a concept called the reticular activator (not sure of that spelling). As I understand it, your mind is looking for solutions to problems and often when we are doing other things, a recessed part of your noggin' will activate and, butting in, remind you that a solution is nearby. The most profound example of this, to me, is when, in 2002, True West was losing $30k a month and my brother-in-law told me the only way we were going to survive is if I could find someone with national magazine experience. I told him that was a tall order in remote Cave Creek, Arizona and he said, "Not my problem." About two weeks later my staff was arguing over a cover design at Robert Ray's computer and, over the wall, I happened to hear the word "Hearst." I excused myself, went out front in our little store and saw four or five people standing there. I said, "Who just said 'Hearst?'" And this guy near the door said, "I did." "Why did you say Hearst?" And Bob Brink famously replied, "Because I ran the magazine division at Hearst for 26 years and I just retired to Carefree."

   End of blog comments.

   Bob's salary at Hearst was one million dollars a year—his salary!—and during his reign at the publishing behemoth, the magazine division enjoyed double-digit growth almost every year for twenty years! Needless to say, his knowledge about publishing a national magazine was invaluable to me and True West. Several times a week he would come in and say, "What's on your plate today, kid?" And I would say, "I have a printer who is threatening to sue me," and he would laugh and say, "Write this down." And, so I would write down his point by point advice on dealing with it and it would go exactly as he dictated.  Key line: "Go ahead and sue me, then you'll only get half your money." Wow. I can't tell you how wonderful it was to say that line and hear a belligerent printer on the other end of the line, totally back down! Bob was a godsend and many of the concepts he provided to us are still in use today. When I think about True West still being in business, I have to admit, it's about 86% because of K. Robert Brink.

K. Robert Brink

(1934-2020)

   So I'm a firm believer in the power of the reticular activator. And, also, the Trickster.

"Para un largo hay otro mas largo."

—Old Vaquero Saying (For every clever person, there is a person more clever.)

"If you talk about the human condition, and the audience feels that, it doesn't matter how big or small the space is."

—Don Bluth, legendary animator on bringing Anatasia to a small theater venue