Who's the Bravest of Them All? Interfaith Leaders

Four nights after the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh was assailed by an armed gunman, I went to a synagogue in a strip mall in Florida and heard the voices of hope.

Barry Silver, an outspoken rabbi with a shock of grey black hair, leads the synagogue L’Dor Va-dor in Boynton Beach, FL. Within 72 hours of the massacre, he pulled together a service led by the Interfaith Justice League to honor the lives lost and address the pain of a close-knit community. 

In his email explaining the purpose of holding the service Silver said, “Jews are strengthened by allies of all faiths as we combat anti-

Semitism, racism and violence in all forms. “

The interfaith service was held in a sparsely adorned room with folding metal chairs. Young and old, black, brown and white, the worshippers were a diverse group. About 25 percent of the full house was the temple’s regular congregation. 

When I arrived Silver’s 93 year-old mother Elaine was speaking about her basic optimism in the face of adversity.  Shafayat Mohamed of the Darul Uloom Islamic Center in Pembroke Pines spoke of how much stronger we are when religions unite in times of struggle.

A young black man named Julius Sanna, a pastor at Joy Church in Delray Beach, came to the stage with his guitar and sang “We Shall Overcome,” the anthem of the civil rights movement. Everyone joined hands to sing, "We shall overcome someday. . ." 

Hope lit the room.

Who's the Bravest of Them All? Christine Blasey Ford

So hard to believe that after all this time men still feel entitled to a woman when they want her, no matter what she wants. The #MeToo movement is unmasking this and most recently a Supreme Court nominee is charged with sexual assault by several women.

I am a woman of the same generation as Dr. Ford and I remember trains. That's right, trains in fraternity houses where boys waited on line for their turn with a girl who was so wasted she often had no idea what was going on. They were frat house lore and luckily I only came across an actual one in a bedroom at a frat party where I boy I knew said "We need you to get out of here." 

As a survivor of more than one sexual assault, I understand Dr. Ford's reluctance to come forward and the trail of fear that follows you for the rest of your life. There will be a moment when you feel trapped and panic swallows you, an unexpected touch on a train when you realize how vulnerable you are. Like Dr. Ford I also ran into a boy who assaulted me in college, at dinner on my birthday with my father and a close friend. I could barely function and of course I never told anyone why.

And then there is this moment in time, first #MeToo as they brought down powerful men who were serial abusers, and now as Brett Kavanaugh cries in anger that a woman would remember what he did to her and talk about it. He is indignant and repugnant and he does not deserve to be on the Supreme Court.

I've had years of therapy and it struck me yesterday that I never told a single therapist about any sexual assault. That's how deeply we bury what hurts us the most.

Dr. Ford you are my hero. You are the voice of every female survivor and we are so proud of you. Don't let them get to you. Your bravery is an inspiration to all of us.

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Are you hiring a Brave Public Relations firm? Seven questions to ask.

I cannot count the number of companies who have told me that they wasted their money on PR. That there was a lot of activity in the beginning and then it dropped off. Or that they did not get what they were promised. Bad PR people give us a all a Bad Name.

Bravery in the PR field is in short supply. Success for most PR people is to keep the client happy and tell them what they want to hear. Often hiring starts with a search - firms come in and they tell the potential client that they know so and so at the NY Times and so and so at the Wall Street Journal and so and so at whatever media they want to be in. They list big name clients on their website as examples of how amazing their work is. They bring in the founder and a couple of senior managers who talk a great game. What they don't tell you is that the client list dates back to when they started in business. That you will only speak to the people in the room again if something goes very wrong.

Here are some questions you can ask and actions you can take to insure you are getting what you pay for.

1. What is your approach to message development and can you provide an example of how you worked with a client to create a successful messaging strategy and implemented it? Please refer to a campaign less than five years old.

2. Which clients on your list are currently active with your firm and can we have the names of a couple of clients for references?

3. Can you give us examples of a few recent stories that you placed for these clients and how you placed them?

4. Are the people in this room the people who will work on my business? If not, who will and can we meet them?

5. Can you give us a couple of examples of how you think - for example, a public relations strategy that ran into problems and how you addressed it with the client and fixed it?

6. What is your annual client retention rate and can we see data on this?

7. How do you use analytic measurements to help guide your PR strategy and how often will I receive these?

8. If I come to you with a pitch that I love such as X,Y, Z how will you implement it? (This is a trick question because a PR firm worth its salt will come to you with ideas and adjust pitches depending on feedback from the media).

9. Can you give us a couple of recent examples of how your social and traditional media strategies were maximized for greater impact?

Five Traits That Make a Brave Woman Brave 

1. Brave women know what it is like to be afraid and they take that fear - nourish, use it and push forward with it. Does their fear every really go away? No. But it does make them stronger and those around them benefit.
2. Brave women say what that they really think. I cannot begin to count the number of meetings I have been in where I've said something smart, it is ignored, and then 15 minutes later it becomes the brilliant idea of someone more senior in the room. With clients you just have to grin and bear it. When you work for a company, your office or the bathroom is a great place to scream.
3. Brave women admit when they make a mistake. This one throws men in a company, mostly because they throw women under the bus because to them an error is weakness (women do it too BTW).  I once made a big error in abbreviating a series of point that a federal agency director made, without the miles of context she felt needed to be part of it. The idea was to spur her to reference it but not to make it the subject of her talk. A younger person that I worked with on the speech was blamed. She and the director were stunned when I said that I was responsible.
4. Brave women delegate. Even though you could more quickly do a task, and likely do it better than a junior employee, the whole point is to let them do it. People make this mistake all the time with designers - they get all caught up in what font the designer is using, colors, how something flows on a page (which is never what they think it is). The designer has a vision too and if you have given them the tools they need, they don't need you to design. Just have a discussion.
5. Brave women cry. In the corporate world women's tears are considered a sign of weakness. She cannot control her emotions, she takes everything so personally, she cannot be criticized. Bullshit. Women cry because they feel something and in marketing you want the consumer to feel something. You want them to like you, to care about your brand, to feel connected. If it makes you cry or laugh more the better. Don't be afraid of emotion. It's what makes us human. It also makes us consumers.

Who's the Bravest of Them All - Us if we could just stop reading and watching the news

FRONT PAGEFRI, JUN 1, 2018

• Trump imposes tariffs on E.U., Canada, Mexico
  By David J. Lynch, Josh Dawsey and Damian Paletta
• Pompeo touts progress in talks with N. Koreans
  By Carol Morello and Anne Gearan
• With pardon, president sends signal
• Atlantic City’s existential bet isn’t about gambling
• Hamas on precarious footing as Gaza Strip’s misery grows
  By Erin Cunningham

Since I am a writer and publicist it's important for me to know what people in DC and around the country are saying about what's happening in the world.

My daily dose of Trump outrage comes in many forms. Emails from political candidates with one word come ons in all caps flood my inbox as quickly as I can disengage from their lists. The news - which I get from NPR, the New York Times and the Washington Post - all of which I trust to at least give me the facts of what happened, are starting to play along. Plus various interest groups, newsletters, people, etc. that I have signed up for send me missives all day long.

Then there is Nita and Shauna of Ultraviolet, the queens of screaming in all caps, that I keep around because they want to eliminate sexism but are just too loud. Add to that Twitter, Facebook, and other social media and the comment sections of media that I actually read and contribute too. Aimee and her arguments with bots - how pathetic is that?

I even will briefly stomach Fox News to understand what the rest of us are up against.

But I just cannot take it anymore. Any of it. We are living in an alternate universe manipulated by a master at it, our president, and an endless cycle of "info wars" spews stuff out to see what sticks. Mainstream media plays along and debates everything Trump does as though it is not his "flavor of the moment" but something that if discussed could be addressed. That's ludicrous but at least they haven't brought out daily scorecards of who is winning. Did I mention that I don't watch CNN. I'm sure they have them.

The worst part of this American nightmare our country created and is now trying to survive in is that a 24 hour news cycle all of it is in front of us all day, all night. Last night I dreamt - how can I make this stuff up - that I was sitting in a board room with Donald Trump and he fired me. Just turned and looked me straight in  the face (which he does not appear to have done with any of the other people whom he fires). Probably my resting brain went back to The Apprentice's first season some of which I actually watched.

So I will be brave. I will take the pledge to only look at the news for 30 minutes a day. I will read novels of which I have several sitting on my bed beckoning me. I will write more. I will market more. The world will go on without me. And hopefully when I wake up every morning it won't be with that crushing sense of dread that we have all come to recognize as the new normal.

Who's the Bravest of them All? The French call him Spiderman

The story is out of a movie script. A Malian immigrant in Paris had just left a soccer game playing in one of the outdoor theaters, in I cannot remember which arrondissement. 

He saw a little boy hanging off a four story terrace desperately trying to hold on. Without a moment's hesitation he was scaling the side of the building to save the boy.

Now that's Brave.



https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/28/world/europe/paris-migrant-hero-spiderman.html

Who's the Bravest of Them All? Happy Mother's Day Robin

We lost her just over a year ago and I feel, as many others who loved her do, like a gaping hole has been cut in the fabric of my life.

I do not know all the parts of Robin's story, but I do know when it changed.

One of the bravest women I know and a role model to me,  Robin was a woman who made the best of everything. She was progressive, optimistic, and she had a great big heart.

Robin was a child of the 1950s, poodle skirts, bouffant hair, and a smile that brightened every room she walked into. She loved all types of music and her rendition of Under the Boardwalk could get a room going. She was a ballroom dancer who won awards and kept up with it her whole life. She said she never felt more beautiful than when she danced.

One night Robin's husband went out for ice-cream and never came back. She had a baby who is now in his 50s. Turned out he got his girlfriend pregnant and then he married her. She was on her own with a young boy and kept moving forward. She was tough and when she wanted something she got it.  She rarely faltered and she always landed on her feet. I got that from her.

At 30, she met and married my father, a widower, and came into a house where the children had just lost their mom. She was kind and she tried and tried but what she wanted was us all to be a family, and that never really happened. In the meantime, she started a flea market business and made her own money. The marriage lasted 17 years, which she said was the longest time anyone should be married to the same person. After that she lived in Manhattan and danced and sang in piano bars and started making jewelry out of old watches.

Robin was the kind of woman who spent every day for months in my brother's hospital room when he was strapped to a bed, unable to move after breaking his neck. My father was the kind of man who let her do it.

In her sixties, Robin started a jewelry business called It's About Time. Her father was fascinated by timepieces and she took that childhood connection with him and started a company designing men's cufflinks and occasional pins made from old watches. The cufflinks were matched by hand and her work was  artistry - so unique in fact that for years her best customer was Saks Fifth Avenue. Every year she went to the flagship store on Fifth Avenue and told her story. An entrepreneur in her 60s and 70s. She was very brave.

The last time I saw Robin she was dancing (ballroom, jazz and ballet) and taking improv and art classes. She had finally gone to Florida to be with her family and made a life for herself. She was incredibly content and her joy in life was inspiring. I went home and decided to do more with mine.

She loved to read my writing. Happy Mother's Day Robin. You are the bravest of them all.