I’m really saying this a lot in sessions these days: “Do something today that you haven’t done before.”

My friend Don Godman is one of the people I hit with that thought recently.  And the first attempt he sent me was really quite good, except for one fatal flaw:

Coming out of the weather guy doing the forecast, Don said, “It’s really hot – 99 – and it’s supposed to be even hotter…” then we heard the sound of a refrigerator door opening and the unmistakable ‘hum’ of it, as he added “In fact, I’m just gonna do the rest of the show from this freezer.  Awww… that feels so good…”

Really cute.  It caught the ear, surprised us, and his inflection was perfect.  So GO!  Right there!

But no; he continued with “Very nice.  You know I think I may be suffering from something called Post-Traumatic Thinking of Heat Overreacting,” and then went hopping down that bunny trail for another sentence that led to a more obvious, theoretically “bigger” ending.

But that never works.  You can never have another moment of ‘discovery’ as powerful as the first one.  Had he stopped with that delicious “Awww… that feels so good” thing and the little chuckle in his voice that ‘flavored’ it, then he’d have done the perfect break.

The lesson is simply “Don’t try to make it ‘more.'”  Less is more.  And more is too much.

The reason those scenes in movies that we all remember are so great is that, unlike real-life conversations, they’re EDITED.