Tag Archives: celebrity media training

Mother Daughter Gay Pride


On Sunday, June 28, 2009, I accompanied my daughter Lily, who was then 16, to the Gay Pride Parade in New York. Afterward, I wrote about it. Lily and I agreed this was a good moment and place to tell the story. 


Lily had been talking about going to the Gay Pride Parade for weeks – with friends, of course, definitely not with her mother. But then, as so often happens, her flaky, teenage friends bailed at the last minute. There she was, all dressed up and ready to go, 22 minutes before the train to NYC arrived, her dreams of being at the parade dashed. 

“Do you want me to go with you,” I asked. “Yes,” she replied unhappily, but resignedly. She hates discussing the issue with me. I hate parades or big crowds of any kind. But I love my daughter more than I hate parades and, I guess she loved the idea of going to this parade more than she hated the idea of going with me. Perfect.

22 minutes to shower, dress and make that train. I can do this. Once on the train, I am frozen out, as I so often am. Lily is angry and hurt, resentful that I am the best substitute she could find. She is tight as a drum, unwilling to share her disappointments with me. So, I did what I have learned to do, to be quiet, to respect her solitude, her privacy, to not try to comfort her, which only seems to make things worse. Observing her sadness, my heart breaks for her. Thirty minutes of silence later, the time feels right to put my arm around her shoulders, and softly cajole her to put aside her disappointment for now, to anticipate the fun she is about to have, the joy she hopes to experience, the fulfillment of her dream of being there.  Her lower lip trembles as she holds back tears and she doesn’t speak, but neither does she recoil from my touch.

Lily came out when she was 14. This is young for such a momentous announcement. At 14, a person seems only half-formed. Then there are all those hormones and teenage angst. We – her parents and sister – were not the first to hear about it, either. Instead, she decided to announce her sexual orientation to 600 of her closest friends, teachers and administrators at her high school’s annual  “Names Day,” a day when classes are pushed aside in favor of workshops and assemblies that celebrate and explain differences and educate students in the noble pursuit of tolerance. Students are encouraged to take advantage of the open mic and share their personal experiences of bias and hate with their classmates.

When she arrived home that afternoon, Lily was changed. She was excited, happy, floating on air. I asked her what was going on. “Nothing.” Yeah, right. Time to look at Facebook. Our deal was if she wanted a Facebook page, I would also have one and we would be “friends.” Her page was overflowing with admiring messages from classmates praising her courage, wishing they had the same ability to face their truths as she had hers. Though there was nothing explicit, it didn’t take very long to deduce what had transpired.

I was alarmed, which set off additional and unexpected alarms. I had always been a bleeding heart liberal, completely behind social justice issues such as affirmative action and equal rights for all. I had had conversations with friends who suspected their children were gay. “It’s genetic. Nothing you can do about it. Accept it. Help your kid accept it,” I would tell them. But now it was on me. I questioned myself. Did I harbor a secret bias? Was it ok for other kids and families, but not mine?

Nonetheless, not being one to pussyfoot around such things, I asked Lily directly, “Are you gay?”

“NO, mom!”

“Then what happened at Names Day?”

She fed me a story that was somewhat plausible. I wanted it to be the truth. Badly. But deep down, I knew it wasn’t.  Finally, after a week of pressing her, of discussions with the guidance counselor and confirming what I knew, she tearfully and angrily admitted it to her father and me.

Tight as a drum.

We fed her the usual pabulum, telling her we loved her no matter what and that she could tell us anything. But we knew the world had shifted for us all. She would have to confront things she could never have imagined. In fact, she had already received horrible and vitriolic messages on Facebook via one of their more dubious applications known as the “Honesty Box.”  We would have to let go of our fantasies of a husband and traditional family life in her future. We also would have to confront our own prejudices.

I tried to tell myself it was because of the difficulties she would face as a lesbian. Being gay in our current society means life will be harder. What parent looks forward to a child confronting hate? But ultimately, I recognized it was more about my own hopes and dreams being upended.  What about the boyfriend when she was thirteen? What about that boy she had a year-long, breathless crush on throughout eighth grade, just 4 months earlier? I repeatedly attempted to speak to her about it.  When did you know? What can I do to help? Rarely, she would open up. Once she told me she hated being gay. It was devastating.

Mostly, she refused to discuss it.

So, I threw myself into trying to understand it through third parties, other parents’ experiences, reading up on human sexuality and taking comfort in pronouncements from knowledgeable people that sexuality wasn’t necessarily set at this age. Maybe this was just a phase she was going through. But what if it wasn’t? I was determined to learn to be a parent to a gay child and no one was going to teach me, least of all the one who best could, my daughter.

Over the next 2 years, we learned how to be a family with a difference. Lily’s coming out became old news and the focus shifted to more mundane concerns such as grades and social life.  Lily herself seemed to become more comfortable with her reality.  She joined the gay straight alliance club at her school and attended weekly meetings faithfully. It was one of the few things she looked forward to. I was thrilled about this development having suggested it early on and been rebuffed.

The bumps in the road continue. Lily is, of course, confronting the usual teenage disappointments: People are often not dependable, friends break promises, not everyone has the same commitment to “the cause” that you do, getting hurt is part of life.  Yet, she is also learning some lessons most teens do not: That the world can be an ugly place, that it is filled with ignorance, that in the Internet age, boundaries have become elastic and people disinhibited from expressing their often vile opinions. I am sad about those lessons and wonder if the old saying is true, that they will make her stronger.

I also make mistakes. One of the first ones was early on when I shared with Lily, during one of our rare discussions, that maybe she was just going through a phase. She became enraged. I have still not lived it down.

But, slowly, we are peeling away the layers. The drum is a bit less tight.

For example, I finally received permission to reveal Lily’s secret to certain friends and relatives. I was afraid of their reactions, anticipating their ignorance and imagining how I would vent my rage should they fail my tests. They haven’t, so far. I encouraged Lily to tell my mother. She did so and was met with shock, disbelief and denial, which she blamed me for. Instead of venting rage, however, I was able, for perhaps the first time, to see things through my mother’s eyes. Her reaction had not been so different from my own. Rather than chastise and scold her, I called and calmly explained how her reaction had been hurtful. She told me she would never hurt Lily, loved her regardless of her “choices.”

Lily: “Who would choose this? Now she [you] looks at me differently.”

Me: “I spoke to her [myself]. Give her [me] some time.”

Lily: “I can’t. She [you] needs to make up her [your] mind now. I will never feel the same way about her [you].”

Me: “Well, I hope some day you can forgive her [me].”

We stepped off the train in Manhattan and then outside. The weather was perfect, a gift during a month of nearly constant rain. As we approached Fifth Avenue, Lily’s excitement and lightheartedness grew, as did mine. We found our spot along the barricades and bought our rainbow flags to wave. “This is so great,” Lily said, her beautiful face filled with joy, her blue eyes sparkling with excitement and anticipation. “It is,” I agreed.

I put my arm around her. She shrugged it off.


Postscript: Lily is now 24 and fully formed (almost 😉 ) Our family is solid. She’s a great conversation partner and very funny. She has nice friends and looks forward to getting married to the right woman one day, maybe even becoming a parent.


 

Trump Knows Presentation IS Everything

President Trump accomplished a major reset of his presidency with his speech before a joint session of Congress. And he did it in an age-old way: his presentation skills. He knows either by accident or design, presentation is everything.

The first thing I look for during presidential addresses is whether the president “showed” leadership. In other words, was the president’s presentation consistent with his words? Was what he said supported by how he said it? In the speech before a joint session of Congress, my assessment is he failed more than he succeeded, but he succeeded just enough to change people’s minds.

For example, since by now we all know he rarely sticks to a script, doing so this time was a win.

First, the president dressed for the occasion. His clothing fit well and the colors were elegant. Good style, dress, and adornment make the both the wearer and the observer feel confident.

The speech itself was more poetic. It used a number of rhetorical devices that in the hands of a Reagan or Obama, would have sent that thing soaring, yet he did not deliver it in a way that did it justice. There was little passion evident in his delivery. He bridles at using the teleprompter. Still, this was better delivered than former teleprompter speeches.

His speaking voice, which is not a high quality male speaking voice to begin with, was flat or singsong in its intonation through most of the speech. It came alive only during the Harley-Davidson story because he clearly enjoyed telling it and he even exhibited some humor.

Regarding humor, it would behoove him to use more, particularly of the self-directed variety. This would make him more likeable and relatable.

The president exhibited more generosity and grace than in the past, reflecting the grandeur and majesty of a formal address delivered to a joint session of Congress.

Here is a cardinal rule of communication that many smart people eschew: If the way you look and sound contradicts what you say, people will believe the way you look and sound instead of what you say.

Both Ronald Reagan, affectionately remembered as “the great communicator,” and Barack Obama, who moved arenas of people with soaring rhetoric, understood this rule very well. They knew they were in a unique position to heal the country’s divisions. Even the president’s biggest fans expect him to give voice to the anxieties of all Americans, to lift us all up so we can begin to unite.

The ability to deliver a powerful speech is the essence of leadership.

President Trump got much closer with this one, single speech.

Has America Gone Off Brand?

I think America has gone off American Flagbrand.

One of the things I pay attention to with clients is whether the way they communicate and present themselves is consistent with their brand.
 
The best way I can describe it is to tell you a quick story about my own experience of being off-brand.
 
The very first video I put up on YouTube was a little over 7 years ago, September 10, 2009, to be exact. (Take a look. Even though it pains me, I leave it up there on purpose!) I introduced myself as the “Media Trainer to the Stars,” which was as true then as it is now. What I didn’t realize, however, was how cognitively dissonant my surroundings were with that statement. My bookshelves were sagging, the books were all askew, the table behind me was a mess, the delivery sounded stilted, I wasn’t looking into the camera lens, and more. After I recorded it, I took a deep breath and posted it. Pretty quickly, I received some very pointed feedback and criticism. Although it was difficult to hear, they were right – what I was saying didn’t match what I surrounded myself with. Because of that, people had a hard time believing I was who I said I was. The video was totally off-brand.
 
The cardinal rule of communication was brought home to me that day: If the way you and/or your surroundings look and sound  contradicts what you say, people will believe what they see, and not what you say.
 
I think that’s what’s happening right now in the United States.

We say we are an open, welcoming country, but we institute arbitrary and ill-thought-out bans on immigrants.
 
We pride ourselves on our tolerance, but we blame and marginalize minorities.
 
We claim to be the greatest democracy in the world, but the voices of millions have been drowned out by a handful of moneyed interests.
 
We expect our presidents to behave with elegance, dignity, and empathy, but we elect a boorish, classless man to office.
 
The “noise” created by these inconsistencies is making us question who we really are, what we stand for. It’s classically off brand.

I don’t care whom you voted for. There is plenty of blame to go around for our current state. It has been a long time in the making. Every institution from the parties to our leaders to the press has failed us. And we, the voters, have also failed by remaining willfully ignorant of the way our government functions and the power we actually have to remind our representatives that we are the ones who pay their salaries.

Now, all brands have to go through the occasional re-brand so it could be the American brand is evolving into something else. That will take time to develop.

But for now, the way we think and talk about ourselves and the country is at sharp odds with the way we behave. And just like in business, if what we say about America is contradicted by how we act in America, it’s the behavior that will be believed.