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Savor and Save theStories of Your Life and Workin aWriteAssets® Memoir by Hawley Roddick © 2007 by Hawley Roddick. All rights reserved.: 

Savor and Save the Stories of Your Life and Work in a WriteAssets® Memoir by Hawley Roddick © 2007 by Hawley Roddick. All rights reserved.

Contents: 

Contents Honoring Your Family Seeing Value beyond Valuables Continuing an Ancient Tradition Telling Your Story Your Way

1. Honoring Your Family: 

1. Honoring Your Family

Treasure: 

Treasure You acquire many treasures in a lifetime, but none is as unique or as valuable as your experience. When you share your experience with those who mean most to you, you give them a priceless gift. Each member of a family holds family stories in trust for future generations.

Memoir Myth #1: 

Memoir Myth #1 Some lives aren’t interesting enough for a memoir. Reality Check: As Mark Twain said, “There was never yet an uninteresting life. Such a thing is an impossibility.”

Memoir Myth #2: 

Memoir Myth #2 It takes a big ego to write a memoir. Reality Check: It takes humility and generosity to share life lessons and to recognize that others will gain from them.

Memoir Myth #3: 

Memoir Myth #3 My children don’t want to read about my life. Reality Check: This one may have some truth in it. Often, grandchildren are the family members most eager to read family history.

Memoir Myth #4: 

Memoir Myth #4 It is self-centered to write about myself. Reality Check: It is a sad family indeed whose younger generations are better off not knowing their family history!

Control: 

Control In a sense, by writing your past, you write your future: Your memoir creates a map of where you’ve been and sharpens your focus on where you still want to go. At the same time, you influence how you are remembered. And your WriteAssets® Memoir also allows you to see yourself whole—in a whole new way.

Responsibility: 

Responsibility Stories of your personal life and career are inseparable from your family and community history. They are a collective treasure. For an independently owned business, making available a biography of the founder/s is savvy marketing and is added insurance for the firm’s future.

Popularity: 

Popularity Memoirs are popular today, thanks in part to baby boomers who realize that if they don’t pass on their wisdom, it will be lost when they are gone. For independently owned businesses, the allure is that they can increase market share by distributing a memoir of their founder/s. And leaders of a family business can also transmit their policies and principles to heirs.

2. Seeing Value beyond Valuables: 

2. Seeing Value beyond Valuables

Family Wealth: 

Family Wealth Charles W. Collier, Harvard’s senior philanthropic adviser, sees family wealth as: Human capital: family members. Intellectual capital: family members’ ability to learn, communicate, and make joint decisions. Social capital: family members success at engaging with society. www.parenthood.com/articles.html?article_id=6771 Your memoir can return high dividends on all these aspects of family wealth.

A Firm’s Heritage: 

A Firm’s Heritage According to Eugene Muscat, Sr. Associate Dean, Family Business Research Center, University of San Francisco, you can boost recognition and market share by showcasing the firm's heritage: Publish a company biography and sell or mail it to customers Put the story of the founder, with photos, on brochures and sales material. He says emphasizing family history can make the company stand out: “It may not seem like marketing to highlight the history, but it is. The story implies ongoing support and continuity." www.microsoft.com/smallbusiness/resources/marketing/advertising_branding/mom_apple_pie_and_how_to_tout_a_family_business.mspx

Family Business: 

Family Business Families can combine their history with the history of their family business, in order to: Pass on their principles (along with their business assets) to future generations. Clarify criteria for managing and distributing wealth. Spotlight who and what matter most (and why).

Audience: 

Audience For a personal memoir, family and friends are the primary readers. For a business history, the audience comprises the 4 Cs: clients, customers, community, colleagues. For a family business history, these two audiences mingle.

Books versus Video: 

Books versus Video Home movies preserve the body language as well as the voice of family members and are irreplaceable. Many families transferred home movies to videotapes and are now transferring those to DVDs. But even the Smithsonian Institute and the Library of Congress can’t keep up with advances in technology. Books can carry our family stories farther into the future than any other format currently available.

3. Continuing an Ancient Tradition: 

3. Continuing an Ancient Tradition

Sharing Our Experience: 

Sharing Our Experience The storytelling impulse is ancient — early humans painted images on cave walls that depicted their experiences. After we acquired language, shamans served as oral historians and were the keepers of our stories. Then we developed writing and circulated our stories more widely. Since the invention of printing and film, we can share our stories with many more people than ever before.

Early Biography: 

Early Biography Around 3000 BCE, the life stories of Egyptian pharaohs and other rich men were carved on their tomb walls. In the Egyptian New Kingdom (1400-1500 BCE), mummies held their autobiographies to help prove in the afterlife that they had been good people. The first surviving woman’s autobiography was dictated by (or ghostwritten for) Ahuri, daughter of an Egyptian pharaoh; she admits in it that she can’t write.

A Great Biographer: 

A Great Biographer “Plutarch (born Boeotia Chaeronea) was a Greek essayist and biographer who died in 120 CE.... “As a biographer Plutarch is almost peerless, although his facts are not always accurate. Since his purpose was to portray character and reveal its moral implications, his technique included the use of much anecdotal material.”* — www.bartleby.com/65/pl/Plutarch.html *These are still good biographical techniques today.

Biography in the West: 

Biography in the West About 399, Saint Augustine’s Confessions were the first Western autobiography. In the 16th century, Renaissance goldsmith and sculptor Benvenuto Cellini dictated his Memoirs — the first nonreligious autobiography to achieve the stature of art. In the 18th century, Jean-Jacque Rousseau’s Confessions set a new level for candor. And James Boswell wrote the Life of [Samuel] Johnson [1709-1784], a book that has received mixed reviews.

Early Autobiography in This Country: 

Early Autobiography in This Country The Puritans brought religious autobiography to the colonies. The first autobiographical narrative written by an American Indian who broke loose from Puritan restraint, was A Short Narrative of My Life by Samson Occom (1768), published posthumously. In 1789, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano compares African and American cultures. The author and his sister were kidnapped in Africa as children and were brought here as slaves.

Stories of Life and Work Today: 

Stories of Life and Work Today Contemporary memoirists who mingle their life and professional stories include: Madeleine Albright (Secretary of State) Jill Ker Conway (President, Smith College) Katherine Graham (Publisher, Washington Post) Andrew S. Grove (Chairman, Intel Corp.) Robert Mondavi (Founder, Robert Mondavi Winery) Colin Powell (Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff)

4. Telling Your Story Your Way: 

4. Telling Your Story Your Way

Professional Writer: 

Professional Writer Many people choose to write their life story themselves. They work alone or join a memoir-writing group. They may also use templates provided online. Some hire a professional editor to polish the final manuscript. With this method, they invest primarily time. If you hire a professional writer to craft a memoir, you invest more money and significantly less time. For a literary personal/business memoir, it makes sense to invest in an heirloom-quality book by a published author.

Stage One: 

Stage One To create a WriteAssets® Memoir: Discuss your options with Hawley Roddick in a free, confidential consultation. Explore your past with the help of Hawley’s guide, Your Memoirs: Saving the Stories of Your Life and Work, which provides lists of memory prompts. Tell your life stories—in your home, in your office, or on the phone—during recorded conversational interviews. If you wish, ask other family members and colleagues to contribute their memories Note any changes you want in the interview transcript and, later, in the manuscript based on the transcript.

Sample of Memory Prompts : 

Sample of Memory Prompts Who has had the greatest influence on me? What do I cherish most about my family? Which of my accomplishments gives me the greatest satisfaction? What traditions do I keep alive? How does the face I show the world differ from the person I am inside? If I could pick six things for my family to learn from my life, what would they be?

More Memory Prompts: 

More Memory Prompts What do I like most about being in love? How has my work enriched my life? What’s the most important decision I ever made? How would I alter the past if I could? What one thing has remained constant all my life? What gives me the greatest satisfaction? If I could have one perfect hour, whom would I be with, where would we be, and what would we do?

Memory Prompts for a Business Owner: 

Memory Prompts for a Business Owner What is my firm’s public image and how was it created? If we have a mission statement or other statement of our values, how did it evolve? What was our early organizational culture? Has it changed? How did we handle any significant challenges or setbacks? What is our finest accomplishment so far? How are we ensuring continuity as younger people come aboard who will eventually take over?

Boundaries: 

Boundaries Choosing what life stories to tell and what not to tell, you set the boundaries of the territory your memoir covers. But people who paint themselves as too perfect end up with a book that is both boring and unbelievable. As Terry Gross said, “Our personality is formed as much by our flaws and weaknesses as by our talents and strengths.”

Stage Two: 

Stage Two Add photographs, news clippings, and other artifacts to your memoir. Decide how many copies to order. Select from bookbinding options that range from a basic paperback to a hardcover book with silk moiré end­papers, a satin bookmark ribbon, and a leather or linen binding with matching slipcase.

Inve$tment: 

Inve$tment Typically, a professionally written life story runs in the low-to-mid five figures, although you can spend in the low six figures if you want the most luxurious, handmade, private edition. To put this in perspective: A single bottle of wine at the Napa Valley Wine Auction has sold for a $500,000. Many more people you care about will see and enjoy your memoir than any single bottle of even the finest wine can reach. But buying outstanding wine at the auction is a great way to celebrate completing your memoir!

Resources: 

Resources American Association of Personal Historians: www.personalhistorians.org. Barrington, Judith; Writing the Memoir: From Truth to Art. Portland, OR: Eighth Mountain Press, 1997. Ranier, Tristine; Your Life as Story: Discovering the “New Autobiography” and Writing Memoir as Literature. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, 1997. Roddick, Hawley; Yours Memoirs: Saving the Stories of Your Life and Work. Morrisville, North Carolina; Lulu Press, 2007. Available at  www.lulu.com/content/807909 Hawley Roddick’s WriteAssets® Memoirs: hroddick@comcast.net.

Bottom Line: 

Bottom Line Is there a written history of your firm and its founders that supports and enhances marketing, public relations, recruiting, and long-term planning? Did your parents and grandparents write their life stories? If so, are you grateful? If not, do you wish they had?