How to write and submit material for the Durand Heritage Foundation Newsletter

By Mike Durand

Oct. 5^th, 1999 

    Although we live in an information and technological revolution era, some of the best works still come from someone sitting down at a table with a pen or pencil and a writing tablet. Most of our nations greatest documents were born this way. Think of the Declaration of Independence or other great documents that are the basis for this nations great democracy. They were all written out in long hand, penned if you will. Or how about a manual typewriter, that wasn’t too long ago, was it?

   Please do not think that the computer in anyway makes us better at what we do, than what they did. It might make it easier and faster, but hardly better.

    Recently I had the opportunity to listen to a speaker at a seminar I attended. His name was Lou Heckler and he provides motivational speeches to groups around the nation. His topic of discussion to us was about the “Styles and Characteristics of Peak Performers”. I was so impressed by his excellent speech that I later told him that he was the best speaker that I have ever listened to. And he was!

     Sparing you the content of his speech, I will instead focus on how he spoke. Today we live in an age of multimedia, power point presentations accompanied by throbbing music to help make the point. Lou used none of that. He delivered his speech to us simply person to person. But he was good! Animated, smooth and professional, he only eventually used a few overhead projections to make a couple of points. Most all of what he had to say came from him, his oratory skills, and a lost art?  Lou was good because, he believed passionately what he was saying!

     Secondly; Technology and multimedia presentations do not enhance or replace poor presentation skills!  If you are good at what you do, and Lou was excellent in presentation and speaking skills, you don’t need all the other bright flashing lights, images and throbbing music. Lou was good, and he didn’t need much of anything, except himself to speak to us.

    On the second day of the seminar, I had an opportunity to listen to another great speaker and a guru in the investment industry, and someone I claim to be one of my mentors, Nick Murray. Again, Nick didn’t use any power point presentation, and not even an overhead projector. He did use just a couple of large pieces of paper on which he scribbled four or five points of his speech on, with a large black felt tipped pen. He had everyone sitting on the edge of his or her chairs as he delivered in style equal to Lou Heckler. Nick claims to not own a scientific calculator, and says he couldn’t explain modern portfolio theory, or scientific standard deviation if someone was holding a gun to his head.

   He can however, explain to you what you need to do in order to be successful in planning for your retirement, and how you should invest your money. He mentioned that with the entire computer technology and information that we have available, it has not enhanced decision making very much, if at all, because we still have to make judgments. His point of contention is that computers can be very dangerous and should come with a disclaimer much like cigarettes, or warnings on alcohol. He mentioned that computers should have a disclaimer printed on them somewhere stating ,  "Wisdom sold separately"!

   Although I have taken a long-winded approach to tell you how to write and submit material to the Durand Heritage Foundation newsletter, I hope the above examples help to understand that it’s what comes from you! Sit down get out a piece of paper and start writing.

      Lou Heckler’s wife writes novels, and some of them have been made into movies. He asked her one-day how she does it. The books are a couple of hundred pages in length. She replied; “I do one scene at a time”. When she gets done with one scene, she does something else for a while and then comes back to her writing.

     And so it is with you my friend. Don’t try to do the whole project at once. Work on it in bits and pieces, leave it lay and then later, come back to it. After you get it done, leave it sit for a week and don’t look at it. Then go back and re-read it. But for most of us, the hardest part is getting started. Start small and try to achieve small successes. That will lead to bigger successes.

     Now if you have a computer, and want to enter it onto a disk you can do it. Save it as a Word document if you can. If you want to send it or submit it for the newsletter, send the diskette, or you can write and e-mail and attach the file.

    If you want help, give one of us a call. Happy writing!

Sincerely

Mike Durand

mikdurand@msn.com