I felt like vomiting.
About 15 people were looking at me as I stood there at the front of the classroom.
3 of them were judges, in charge of evaluating my speech.
I looked at them with fear. I was sweating. I was trembling. I felt sick.
Not because I had to give a speech. After all, this was a debate tournament. I had given speeches like this hundreds of times before.
I felt sick because the night before, I’d had way too much to drink (a debate tournament tradition). Even though I’d vomited earlier in the morning and I’d slept a couple hours, I still felt wretched.
Now as you might know, a competitive debate speech is supposed to last exactly 7 minutes. Most debaters have way more to say than that, so it becomes a game of trying to fit their best arguments into 7 minutes.
But not me. Not that morning.
My mind was a black hole. All I wanted to do was to sit and close my eyes. I certainly didn’t have 7 minutes’ worth of persuasive arguments.
So I spoke incoherently for about a minute…
I looked around for help, which didn’t come…
And then, to the shock of the debate judges, and to the dismay of my debate partner, I shut up. And after a moment of silence, I dragged myself back to my seat and crumpled down in the chair.
In case I’m not communicating it properly:
This was a humiliating, borderline traumatic experience. I felt stupid. I felt humiliated. And I knew the whole room had just witnessed my unique failure.
Perhaps you feel something like this when it’s time to sit down and write.
Sure, writing isn’t as stressful as public speaking. But if you have to come up with new ways to sell the same thing, again and again (such as in daily emails), it can be stressful enough.
So what’s the fix?
Well, rather than spelling it out for you, let me point you to a video that illustrates how to come up with all the content you will ever need, at least for daily emails.
This video stars a guy named Mike Rowe, who is now famous as the host of a bunch of TV shows such as Dirty Jobs.
But back in the early 90s, Rowe had the 3am slot on QVC (a cable shopping channel). And he had to sell all sorts of shit, which he did in a pretty hilarious and inspiring fashion.
Don’t watch this video if you’re hoping for some sort of magic solution. But do watch it if you want to see a demonstration of all the selling (and non-selling) techniques you will ever need in daily emails: