Module Four: What art thou pitching?

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 Time to put on your Aviators and get all Don Draper!
Tell us what you’re pitching (or preparing to pitch) and how you’re going to make it more personal, specific, moving, and honest.
Remember: extra credit for those who share a non-work example. We mustn’t forget that our work is to integrate our life and art. This is a safe place to practice!

  • I just pitched to do a TED talk because of this section!!! Please pray for me! It’s something a friend of mine suggested to me a few weeks ago, and there happens to be a TEDx coming up in my city with a compatible theme. This question helped me to create my pitch and have the courage to actually pitch it: my idea is a talk on Freedom to Fail. I’m trying to remind myself that I have the freedom to fail – even at this pitch! 😉 Feeling very courageous!

    • Ane C . Hegén

      Good luck! It’s important to recognize our freedom to fail, what a great pitch! Obviously not to get stuck or stay in our failures, but to learn and grow from them, making better next time. Maybe this is a dumb question, but will it be online eventually?

      • I’ll have to wait and see if I get accepted first, but if I do, it should be posted online. Let’s see..

        • This is so incredibly exciting! How awesome. You must keep us posted. How courageous of you. I’m inspired!

          • So I didn’t get the gig :-( When I found out I was rather sad as I had really put myself out there and had the audacity to hope I might. But fortunately, I have some beautiful friends who are going to go watch the TEDx and encouraged me to come along and they’ll love me through the disappointment. So, here’s to a failed pitch on failing, good friends giving me the courage to go watch anyway (not hide in my ashamed shell like I intended to!) and maybe even getting inspired and learning for next time. Aah.

    • Robert Felker

      That’s really cool! I think the topic is great too. Failure is such an integral part of life and the creative process. And when it happens (to me) I always feel so crushed…angry even. And it can have a domino effect that causes other parts of my life to undergo unfair scrutiny and judgement. Failure is hard to step back from, or look at objectively, but I think we have to learn how — to be more forgiving of ourselves, because of the potentially harmful ripples that can happen if we hold on to it. I really hope your topic is accepted!!

  • Robert Felker

    I am having a difficult time coming up with something here. Maybe I should try and pitch my creed to my wife (my ultimate challenger), and/or a friend? It might force me to get to the essentials and understand how firmly I believe in my “why”??

  • Jaime florentino

    Hey guys! It’s been awhile since the last time I joined the discussion. Pls bear with me, it’s a bit long. Well, I’ve been going through the module back and forth. Trying to make sense of things in moments when I get the chance to read and contemplate about what module wants to say. And I really feel good when I read it again and again and again when something comes, like a new picture or idea that I haven’t seen before when I read it.
    When I read the module four. A story came up to me. A story which has been my struggle all along.
    To start with, I’m married to a dentist, her name is susan. She has been “quietly” (hope you know what i mean) asking me to help her out in the business. It has been my struggle all along. First, I don’t want to. Dental is not my world, I hate needles and lastly, I hate dentist, the irony of my life. But a beautiful dentist like my wife, that I Love…hihihi
    Instead I went to do my own business, did some fascilitstions with Human Resource which I love by the way, yet I decided not to pursue it because I felt the company organization just wants us to clean their trash and help them control or manage people’s behaviour for the benefit of the company but not their people. Sometime I get offers to do team building but I declined them. Becuase I dont think team buildimg is the answer. There is more or deeper realuties that the executives does not see. Well, that is another story. So I have been stuck for awhile on what to do. Then this course I go back to everytime I try to look what is happening to my life.

    One day, susan’s dental assistant called in sick. We have no choice except me, to help her out for a day. I have no idea of what to do, as she promised, ill just follow what she says. Just imagine how gard would that be.

    Well, in the middle of the day, she has a young lady patient, about 20-ish. She walked in to our clinic in quietly in pain. Didn’t say a word. But you can tell she is in pain. Then I called her name, I seates her on the dental chair. Susan checked on her and she said, “we need to do an extraction.” Unwillingly she said, “yes”
    After the anesthesia and the extraction. The young lady sobbed quietly and little by little tears rolling down her cheeks.
    Susan asked her, (well, I didn’t ask because I know that you do not ask women why she is crying. I got into trouble so many times.lol)
    Susan asked, “what is wrong?” “Are you hurt?” “Did I hurt you?”
    The lady answered, “No, I’m crying because for a long time, I have a fear of going to the dentist because of the pain I had experienced when I was kid. Now I was freed from that fear, Thank you so much!”
    At that moment, I was blown away. Never saw dental world this way. Because from the states to here in the Philippines dental world it seems is an expression of business aesthetics. The whitening, and the perfect setting of teeth. All for money’s worth.
    I realized, that susan’s work is deeper that that. It touches people deeply. To realize that a young lady being released from fear. That is more worthy than the money she paid us. It changes us more than we changed her.