Kansas City Freelance Writer Liz Craig

Recently, researchers have taken a close look at what makes certain people successful and others, not so much. The difference that defines success, it turns out, is not intelligence, but grit. It’s that old-fashioned term for the ability of a person to keep on going even when s/he suffers temporary reversals of fortune, until s/he reaches a long-term goal. Here’s a snippet from this interesting story:

… [G]rit isn’t simply about the willingness to work hard. Instead, it’s about setting a specific long-term goal and doing whatever it takes until the goal has been reached. It’s always much easier to give up, but people with grit can keep going.

While stories of grit have long been associated with self-help manuals and life coaches – Samuel Smiles, the author of the influential Victorian text “Self-Help” preached the virtue of perseverance – these new scientific studies rely on new techniques for reliably measuring grit in individuals. As a result, they’re able to compare the relative importance of grit, intelligence, and innate talent when it comes to determining lifetime achievement. Although this field of study is only a few years old, it’s already made important progress toward identifying the mental traits that allow some people to accomplish their goals, while others struggle and quit. Grit, it turns out, is an essential (and often overlooked) component of success.

Let’s all go out and get some grit, OK?

Maybe it’s our mothers’ training us not to act as if we think too well of ourselves. Maybe it’s creatives’ rather lowly status in ad agencies — below the account and media types. Maybe it’s lack of practice or training in making presentations. Whatever caused it, it seems to me that creatives have a hard time appearing confident, and therefore, selling their ideas.

Even the best creative concepts, when presented by someone who’s hemming and hawing, staring at their shoes, fiddling with papers or chuckling nervously, can bomb. An unconfident presenter unconsciously signals the client to reject his or her ideas. The client may think, “Hey, if even the art director/writer is that unsure about it, the idea must be bad.”

Ever heard the expression, “Fake it ’til you make it?” If you are one of us creatives who is afflicted with excessive humility, there is hope, if you can employ a few basic tactics for projecting and developing confidence.

• Make eye contact with people.
Eye contact shows you’re interested in what the other person is saying. And when you really listen, you’ll likely forget you’re nervous. Practice on friends or co-workers. Don’t glare unblinkingly at someone. They might think you’re trying to stare them down. Breaking eye contact every now and then is natural.

• Smile.
A pleasant smile projects friendliness and self-confidence. It invites another person to get to know you. It lets them know you’re safe to interact with. Knitted brows, signifying worry, set off alarm bells. You don’t want that. Practice your smile in a mirror. That way, you can train your muscles to do just the right thing when the time comes. And guess what. Smiling helps you feel more cheerful and less nervous.

• Stand tall.
Confident people generally have very good posture. Practice “thinking tall.” Imagine your head is being pulled upward by a string attached to the top of your skull. Pull your shoulders down, not back. Tuck in your derriere and tighten your abdomen slightly. Relax your hands. Stand with your feet at least a foot apart for stability. When you’re properly aligned, look at yourself, side and front, in a full-length mirror, so you remember what “right” looks and feels like. Notice how when your posture is straight and tall, your diaphragm has more room to fill, so you can breathe more deeply. Shallow breathing is what we do when we’re afraid. Deep breathing promotes calmness.

• Be prepared.
The Boy Scout motto applies to anyone who wants to project self-confidence. If you’re doing a presentation, practice it in advance, visualizing your audience in place and imagine how you might answer any questions they may ask. Have your papers, boards, and props all in order, so when you need them you won’t need to fumble. Spend a few minutes imagining yourself going through the presentation smoothly and confidently. This mental exercise will help you replicate your imagined good performance in real life.

• Look the part.
Your clothing and hair style are the first thing people see. Fairly or unfairly, they make instant judgments based on your appearance. When you’re dressed as a confident person would dress, you feel more confident. Here’s another mirror exercise: take a good hard look at yourself from head to foot. Is your hair saying things about you that aren’t very complimentary? Get advice from a good hair stylist as to the best style for you, and have it professionally cut. How about your clothes? Are they baggy, ill-fitting, worn, out of style, or just plain strange? Look through magazines or visit department stores and see what people of your age and job description are wearing. Go thou and do likewise. If you’re presenting to buttoned-down business types, you may have to tone down the creative attire a bit. Not entirely, but you don’t want to scare them with a wild East Village or indie punk look.

• Speak clearly and at good volume.
My voice sounds just fine to me, inside my head. But people on the outside have told me that I speak very softly, which doesn’t project confidence. If you are a soft-spoken person like me, you may have to kick up the volume a little to be heard properly. This will take a little practice. You might speak into your answering machine or other recording device to get the right volume and tone.

How do actors and opera singers manage to project their voices without microphones? By pushing the sound out with their diaphragms. To get the feel of diaphragmatic breathing, lie down on the floor and concentrate on breathing into your “tummy,” as a baby or kitten does naturally when sleeping. Fill up your tummy (diaphragm) first, then let the air fill your lungs. Then push it out from the diaphragm. Once you’ve got that down, practice diaphragmatic breathing when you’re standing up, and when you’re talking in everyday life. Amaze the supermarket checkout person with your fabulous pear-shaped tones.

• Act as if
When you meet new people, act as if you are perfectly at ease. If you’ve incorporated some of the suggestions above, you may actually be more at ease than you’ve ever been before. You’re concentrating on your posture, voice and presentation, not on your worries. Act as if you’re confident, and what do you know? Suddenly, you are.

Back in my improvisational comedy days, I directed actors, “Don’t tell the story; be the story.” Meaning, don’t verbalize that you’re an overcooked stalk of asparagus; be it completely, and let the audience see, hear and feel it. Let your body droop, your voice sound “limp,” and say words an overcooked asparagus stalk might say. Like, “Boy, am I ever steamed…” Okay, maybe not, but you get the idea.

Most TV commercials are of the “tell the story” type. Few let you experience what it would feel like to use their product. Admittedly, that’s pretty hard to convey via TV. But there’s one TV campaign that does it — brilliantly. The 2010 Prius “Generation 3″ campaign, via Saatchi & Sattchi, LA, themed “Harmony between man, nature and machine.” Take a look:

An all-white landscape waves, bends, and as the Prius passes, transforms into lush green fields, blooming flowers, and leafy trees. Everything moves in synch with the car. On second or third viewing (if you have a small TV screen, as do I), you realize everything in the frame, except the Prius, is a human being. Some are dressed in grass green, others in buttercup yellow or tree trunk brown. Some have flower petal collars, some wear furry blue wigs. Still others, dressed all in white, move languidly like cumulus clouds across the brilliant blue sky. Blue-clad people form a fast-flowing waterfall. A toddler with pink wings floats by, a charming butterfly.

Digital technology perfects the vision of the Prius spots’ ever-moving countryside, composed of 200 extras, multiplied to create one million.

The choreography is wonderfully organic. The campaign’s strong concept and superb execution not only embody “green” values but also make you feel terrific. You want to get that car to get that feeling. The fact that the Prius is earth-friendly is important, but it’s the emotion that bonds us to the brand.

At the commercials’ website, you can see a video about the making of the “Harmony” commercial. Go there, and you can view the other two spots and download an MP3 file of the music from all three commercials, including the intro spot’s “Let Your Love Flow,” by Petra Haden.

As a tyke, my favorite Little Golden Book was “The Happy Man and His Dump Truck,” in which a jolly man took some farm animals out for a fun little jaunt in his truck. Watching these Prius spots for the first time, I re-experienced the joy that story gave me: the feeling that the world was a place where everyone got along harmoniously and was friendly and happy. I was just a carefree little kid, and the 24-hour news cycle hadn’t even been invented. What a great time to be alive! I ask you, who doesn’t want to recapture that youthful optimism and innocence? These spots do it for me.

Beyond that, all I can say is, “Wow.”