I survived a panic attack in the boardroom with a paper clip (and a story I wanted to sell)

A long time ago, in a galaxy seemingly far away, I was a creative director at a large multinational advertising agency. Specifically, I was based in my Chicago office, but I often gave presentations to clients and large agencies in New York. In both places, I was the center of attention in cathedral-sized high-rise conference rooms, with tables like shiny bowling lanes and a bevy of characters staring at me as I showed off my skills.

My stuff was good, but I worried – and I really did – that I wasn’t good myself. I was a writer, not an actor. And like many writers, I was an introvert. Not a show-off, not a funny or witty guy, especially not in front of a serious audience of people we in the creative department called the “suits.” Heavy hitters who could advance my career and influence my current and future income.

Today, creative directors are considered cool. They lead the creative and the teams that drive expensive advertising campaigns. They are not only smart, articulate “idea generators,” but also personable and experienced in life. At least, that’s what’s expected of them. The truth is that good writers rise up the agency hierarchy because they write well, and not necessarily because of their personality or the theatrical style that they display in the boardroom spotlight.

Soon you realize that your success has catapulted you into a role that requires different talents than the ones that got you there. Like being quick-witted and relaxed, calm and well-spoken in front of a room full of intimidating personalities, most of whom are a little older and who are staring at you with a scrutinizing look that says, “Entertain me, blow me away, sell me a winning idea, make me like you. And your idea. Come on, boy, you’re in!”

And sometimes at that moment, the work you have in your hands, the scripts, the storyboards, the backing vocals and all that other stuff is secondary. The main thing is you and what you’re saying, and you better not show that you’re shaking, and your voice should sound loud and clear, and you should be relaxed and even a little bit funny, the leader of that group of smart money and the person who would bring them even more smart money.

What nerve-wracking words: “You can do it, Mike.” Well, sometimes I felt fine. And sometimes I was a little tense and felt a tingling of fear. And sometimes that developed into the beginning of a panic attack and in the worst case it developed into a full-blown fight-or-flight state. But you can’t show it! You have to hide the nervousness. Hide the shaking. Hide the self-doubt.

That’s where I discovered the hidden value of a little paper clip. It happened by accident during one of those tense presentations. I was holding the clip in my hand, nervously bending it back and forth in my fingers as I began my talk. And as I felt my heart beating faster and I felt a buzz of high voltage in the wires of my brain, I was distracted by a pain in my hand. I had accidentally twisted the paper clip so that its little pointy end was stuck in my finger. No one could see that. But I could feel it, and it hurt a little.

Wait. There was a connection: I realized the slight pain was distracting me from my nervousness about the show I was about to perform. I pressed the clip a little tighter. Great. Now I could turn my attention away from the burgeoning stage fright, feel the pain in my finger, and focus entirely on selling my storyboard, explaining my ideas, dazzling the suits with my enthusiasm and the poetry of my hard-hitting sales ideas. The slight nudge in my hand chased away the pesky fear of messing up my performance.

Distraction can be your friend in a moment like this. At least it was for me. I share this with anyone who is afraid of freezing outside a conference room. But don’t push too hard – keep it private. And most importantly, don’t bleed into the storyboards. Yes. That was my private and then public debacle in a really big meeting. Anyway, I joked about “blood and sweat” or something, and the moment was over, the meeting was successful, I survived.

But that wasn’t all. There came a point in my life when I decided to do what most copywriters really want to do: write a novel. But what should I write about? You know, “Write what you know.” We hear that every time the subject comes up. So one day not too long ago, the paper clip came to my rescue once again. When I took the plunge into the world of novel writing, I simply turned a panic attack in an important meeting into a literary joke about “blood on the storyboards,” and it went from there.

Soon a novel was ready – a novel that took its hero (a guy I could really identify with!) from the boardrooms into a world of adventure, secrets, sex, rugged mountains, gunfire and arrow wounds, a real escape from the big city into the great adventure of entertaining fiction. My novel, The idea peoplewas published and like the best of my advertising ideas, it sells. I am no longer an office worker, but a guy who wrote a book. It started with a paper clip that saved the day in a blood-stained meeting. And made a catchy appearance in The idea peoplewhere there is not much blood or encounters, but a lot about storytelling – and that is the actual task of an author.

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