Herr Blanke entered and, while traversing the classroom, announced, “I have some unfortunate news, I will no longer teach you Math and Physics”. He reached the blackboard and turned to study our bewildered faces.
Silence. At the age of 11, you begin not to like your teachers, but this one was different. He was our class teacher, and we loved him – everybody loved him.
Herr Blanke was old-school and strict. But he also had a sneaky sense of humor and a mischievous smile to go with it. He respected his students and forgave our youthful foolishness.
Here he was, scanning our reaction with a dead-serious expression. This wasn’t a joke.
Life in this diverse society and agitated neighborhood of hostile countries has taught me many things. Or should I attribute it to Jewish wisdom? -Grown over decades and centuries of struggling for survival and against hatred while holding on to the fundamental belief that every human life is holy.
Among everything I’ve learned, this may be the most important: Humor!
Keep laughing, no matter what! Find the irony in everything and know that everything is temporary.
Humor is like a remedy, and in times of intense fear, it’s hard to swallow. It took me many years to understand the value of it. How can you joke about anything when suicide bombers blow up busses every day? (Remember those? They were our daily routine for months, now they are forgotten.)
What could be funny about the UN singling out Israel and adopting resolution after resolution while turning a blind eye to the atrocities committed in Yemen, China, Syria, to name just a few?
But the truth is, what can you do? Cry? Scream?
None of that would make the situation better; on the contrary.
Humor is the Israelis‘ way of dealing with whatever is thrown at us, whether it’s rockets, condemnation, anti-Semitism, or threats. For someone like me who wasn’t born here, it felt disrespectful, as if people weren’t taking the situation seriously or weren’t aware of the gravity of the situation.
I was wrong.
Laughter helps us get through.
When you cannot allow yourself to fall apart because you need to keep functioning, find the irony! When your kids are trembling and can’t sleep because they were ripped out of their dreams by rocket sirens too many times and you feel like sobbing yourself, how do you stay strong for them? Find something to laugh about.
And when you need to keep a cool head in your zoom meetings the next morning, even though every tiny noise makes you jump, the only way to cope is to laugh at yourself.
*In the title image to the right: Hamas rockets attacking – to the left: Israel’s Iron Dome defending
“So, who’s your guru?” she suddenly asked. I admit, I was a little stunned and didn’t know how to respond. Did she mean the one writer I look up to as my idol? One, whose every word I follow because I want to be like her/him?
There isn’t one. Should there be one?
I follow many successful writers, and they take turns in popularity with me. There are so many excellent, successful writers out there who love to share what they know, and I feel I’d miss out if I limit myself to one or even a few.
Maybe it’s an old habit of mine to always spread myself out too thin. I want it all, a bit of everything at once, rather than one thing at a time.
But, here’s the thing about all these amazing, knowledgeable, and experienced writers:
„We need more compassion in our writing,“ said Dr. Shuldiner, low vision optometrist and founder of the IALVS (International Academy of Low Vision Specialists). „Our texts are too cold and theoretical; there’s not enough empathy in them!“
I listened as he explained how most patients arrive at his practice only after having been told they are going blind, and there’s nothing that can be done.
So, here I was. I had researched the medical conditions leading to low vision for the past two weeks but suddenly felt that it was all for nothing.
How do I address readers who have just been told they’re going blind? What do I tell them?
That’s when I began to understand what it means to write medical marketing content.
He looked at me with a frown, “but we never give each other presents.”
“Not a present, just something, a flower, even.”
“But I bring flowers every Friday.”
“So, bring an extra one. I don’t know, just something to feel it’s my birthday.”
On Friday morning, I got up to this:
A handful of delicate roses,
three balloons over the kitchen table,
One set from my favorite dishes – the ones I only take out on special occasions,
and my usual peanut butter and honey.
A note said, “Happy Birthday 🙂 !”
I stood there with a smile and watery eyes! He nailed it.
He succeeded in making my day with so very little. And you know why? Because he knows my routine and what matters to me. He paid attention to how I treat occasions to make them feel special to me.
By showing me that he pays attention, he made me feel that he cares.
So, why am I telling you all this? Not because I want to show off my awesome partner (well that, too) but the main reason is that there’s a simple lesson that I want to share:
If you want someone to feel that you care, pay attention to them!
Pay attention to what they do and how they do it, listen to what they say and how they say it.
It’s true for your family but also goes for customers, clients, and readers. Don’t try to impress or tease them into thinking you care. Just get to know them. Give them what they need, not what you think they want.
The real beauty in this is that you end up genuinely caring once you start paying attention, whether you want to or not. It just happens.
I came across a job posting requiring an ‚excellent writer with a love for creating great content no matter the brief‘.
I read again but still got stuck on the last four words: „…no matter the brief“. They were like a brick-wall question mark, and I couldn’t get past it.
A content brief is a document that provides the writer with all the information s/he needs to meet the client’s expectations.
Here’s what I didn’t understand: Not all companies provide proper content briefs to their writers. Those that go through the effort of creating one understand the importance of a good brief.
So, if this company gets that, how can the brief not matter?
(Or maybe they meant to say something else and just expressed themselves awkwardly – in which case they really need a good content writer.)
Whatever the intention behind that strange phrase, it prompted me to write an article about what I think a good content brief should include.
Said the editor after reading my comments about a piece I had rewritten. “We do content writing.”
She lifted her eyebrows as if looking down on me, where she was probably seeing me on her computer screen.
“Sure,” I replied, “but you do want your readers to take action. I mean, you want them to click on one of the CTAs, right?”
Her eyes moved back to the second computer screen, where the text must have been displayed.
“But we don’t sell”, her tone of voice was dry and decisive. And before I could explain what I was getting at, she added: “We never want people to feel like we are trying to sell them something.”
At this point I, wished we weren’t on Zoom. Should I enlighten her and explain that she had just described the essence of copywriting?
Linie 101 