SHIFT TALKERS WORK OVERTIME

Shift talkers like to mix it up, change things.

Some do it for the better, some for the worse.

They all have one thing in common:

Not knowing how and when to shut up.

For that we should be thankful?

(Hit that link for Johnny Cash singing Bad News like he’s a little wasted with a runny nose.)

 

Well bad news travels like wild fire, good news travels slow
They all call me Wildfire, ha ha cause everybody knows
I’m bad news everywhere I go

 

What everybody knows is shift talkers take on the role of moving the pile of current thought a different direction.

In other words, they shift the focus from one thing to another and hope to connect.

Some give it a consistent push, others go all out the first time and quit when they can’t tell if it moved the way they wanted.

After watching the Barbie Movie, Barbie sounded like a shift talker.

That Margot Robbie who played Barbie and made the shift wasn’t acknowledged by The Academy asks the question:

What’s the difference between a ‘shift talker’ and a ‘shit talker.’ 

 

Shift Talker Without The F

What would Mark Twain say about these guys?

That the Beatles are over-rated?

Electric guitar music is dead?

Just another pop band?

 

What would he say about an Oregon writer?

 

Would Sammy say Ken Kesey wasted his best writing years trying to recapture his youth instead of sticking to a writing schedule?

Would he call One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest a minor novel?

Or, ‘It’s a slim telling of a terrible time written by a man too young to understand how important he could’ve been.’

Ken Kesey was a shift talker who went off script, off page, and became a public figure.

Did he avoid jumping on the publishing train because he didn’t like the company he’d keep?

Why I call Kesey a shift talker:

As an article* in NPR explained of the book, it “would make its author a literary celebrity, inspire a movie that won the Best Picture Oscar, and help change the way we think about mental health institutions.”

The novel depicted a group of patients in an Oregon mental health hospital. The narrative arose out of Kesey’s own experiences as a nurse’s aide in a hospital psychiatric ward in Northern California.

 

That Magic Moment

Magic happens when what you do meshes with what you read and hear and feel.

Then it’s ‘wall time’ for being so lucky and so perceptive that you even noticed.

If you find yourself staring at the wall with others, you’re on the way to being a shift talker.

Pick a problem and develop a solution; create a system and put it to work.

And if you make a shit-ton of money while you’re at it, make a plan for the future.

Big money used to be The House, The Car, The Boat, The Wife, The Ex-Wife, The Mistress-Wife, and the happy ending.

Now Big Money is measured by rocket size?

Jeff Bezo’s Blue Origin.

Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

Which billionaire spaceman would you guess will generate as much news on earth for helping to solve common problems like clean water, clean air, and housing; who will be the first to address social ills and lead the other two in responsible plutocracy?

 

 

Shift talkers have a responsibility if they have an audience, any kind of audience.

Being an inflammatory jerk-wad shifts things the wrong way, unless you have a jerk-wad audience that needs more and you’re just the person to give it.

Then you need to look hard at the pile that’s shifting and take a good whiff.

Responsible shift talkers back away, where shit talkers dive in headfirst with eyes shut, ears shut, and mouths wide open.

Some of them always have a tic-tac ready just in case.

What would Mark Twain say?

Who’s in charge of this cuckoo’s nest.

A gentleman is one who can help, and does.