WEBVTT - Martin Luther King, the Jewelry Genius, and the Art of Public Speaking (Classic) 0:00:15.410 --> 0:00:28.130 Pushkin. This week was Martin Luther King Junior Day, which 0:00:28.250 --> 0:00:31.330 reminded me that one of my favorite ever episodes of 0:00:31.370 --> 0:00:35.650 Cautionary Tales was about Martin Luther King Junior's most famous 0:00:35.690 --> 0:00:40.010 speech and about an infamous speech given by a very 0:00:40.010 --> 0:00:45.730 different character, Gerald Ratner. A confession. I am a public 0:00:45.770 --> 0:00:50.610 speaking nerd. I competed in international debate competitions at school 0:00:50.650 --> 0:00:53.170 and once had a career plan to write books about 0:00:53.210 --> 0:00:57.410 public speaking. I find the art of public speaking fascinating 0:00:57.570 --> 0:01:01.250 and much misunderstood. And the more I looked into the 0:01:01.290 --> 0:01:05.170 story of these two speeches, each of which defined a 0:01:05.170 --> 0:01:09.050 man's career, the more I thought to myself, we're thinking 0:01:09.250 --> 0:01:13.650 about this all wrong. We have a marvelous slate of 0:01:13.770 --> 0:01:16.850 Cautionary Tales coming in twenty twenty four, but I hope 0:01:16.890 --> 0:01:20.330 you'll forgive me if I and the Cautionary Tales team 0:01:20.690 --> 0:01:24.570 take a short rest to recharge our batteries. We will 0:01:24.610 --> 0:01:28.210 be back with new episodes in February. But until then, 0:01:28.810 --> 0:01:32.330 here is another chance to hear the astonishing talents of 0:01:32.450 --> 0:01:37.570 Jeffrey Wright in Martin Luther King Junior, the Jewelry Genius, 0:01:38.050 --> 0:01:50.530 and the art of public speaking. One late summer day 0:01:50.690 --> 0:01:55.490 in nineteen sixty three, thousands upon thousands of people gathered 0:01:55.490 --> 0:01:59.130 on the Mall in Washington, d C. They had come 0:01:59.170 --> 0:02:03.530 to America's capital for jobs and freedom, to show the 0:02:03.650 --> 0:02:09.170 Kennedy administration that civil rights legislation must be pushed through Congress, 0:02:09.210 --> 0:02:14.570 and to hear the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Junior speak. 0:02:15.130 --> 0:02:18.210 The official program had been long and packed with speeches, 0:02:18.490 --> 0:02:21.530 but a quarter of a million people defied the heat 0:02:21.690 --> 0:02:25.890 as they waited. The crowd stretched back from the Lincoln Memorial, 0:02:26.330 --> 0:02:30.370 packing the sides of the famous reflecting pool, swirling around 0:02:30.410 --> 0:02:33.930 the base of the Washington Monument, and extending toward the 0:02:34.010 --> 0:02:39.970 intransigent capital itself. The Mall usually dwarfs anything on a 0:02:40.050 --> 0:02:47.210 human scale. Not that afternoon. The gospel singer Mahalia Jackson sang, 0:02:47.570 --> 0:02:51.770 I've been butked and I've been scorned. Anticipation was building. 0:02:52.890 --> 0:02:57.930 All three television networks switched to live coverage. Doctor King 0:02:58.290 --> 0:03:03.410 stepped forward to speak to address not only the sweltering crowd, 0:03:03.770 --> 0:03:07.210 but a national audience he had never had before and 0:03:07.370 --> 0:03:10.890 might never have again. Doctor King had spent the night 0:03:11.090 --> 0:03:14.530 laboring on his speech with a few trusted aids, weighing 0:03:14.690 --> 0:03:18.210 every word of what he would say. For a few minutes, 0:03:18.370 --> 0:03:21.930 the nation, even the world, would be focused on those 0:03:22.010 --> 0:03:26.130 words from the Lincoln Memorial steps. Doctor King knew that 0:03:26.250 --> 0:03:32.170 those words had to be perfect. But now let's leave 0:03:32.250 --> 0:03:36.570 this iconic scene behind us and travel across time and 0:03:36.690 --> 0:03:41.650 across the Atlantic. Twenty eight years later, a very different 0:03:41.730 --> 0:03:45.330 man would give a very different speech in front of 0:03:45.370 --> 0:03:51.130 a very different audience. This man's name was Gerald Ratner, 0:03:51.810 --> 0:03:55.170 and he didn't have a dream. He had a nightmare. 0:03:56.250 --> 0:04:23.290 I'm Tim Harford, and you're listening to cautionary tales. Gerald 0:04:23.370 --> 0:04:27.530 Ratner's speech, to be clear, wasn't about civil rights. It 0:04:27.650 --> 0:04:31.410 was about selling cheap jewelry. It became iconic because it 0:04:31.410 --> 0:04:35.330 didn't go well. And as you've probably figured out by now, 0:04:36.050 --> 0:04:39.850 I'm fascinated by things that didn't go well. But I'll 0:04:39.890 --> 0:04:43.850 let you into a secret. I'm also fascinated by the 0:04:44.010 --> 0:04:47.650 art of public speaking. I love doing it and i 0:04:47.690 --> 0:04:51.450 love studying it. Public speaking is such a strange thing, 0:04:51.730 --> 0:04:56.170 as natural as talking and yet wrenchingly difficult. And how 0:04:56.210 --> 0:04:59.730 it was approached by these two men, Gerald Ratner and 0:04:59.850 --> 0:05:03.770 Martin Luther King, and what happened to them could teach 0:05:03.810 --> 0:05:08.290 us a lot. Dr King and mister Ratner are a 0:05:08.370 --> 0:05:12.450 study in con trusts. Martin Luther King took the high 0:05:12.530 --> 0:05:17.290 road through education, earning a doctorate in theology. Gerald Ratner 0:05:17.650 --> 0:05:20.930 took the low road. Ratner was born in London in 0:05:21.010 --> 0:05:24.170 nineteen forty nine and expelled from school at the age 0:05:24.170 --> 0:05:28.330 of thirteen. When he was fifteen, he joined the family business, 0:05:28.650 --> 0:05:32.770 a group of six jewelry shops. Ratner worked behind the 0:05:32.810 --> 0:05:36.010 counter for ten years, but noticed that he didn't have 0:05:36.090 --> 0:05:39.610 many customers his age or younger. Those people had no 0:05:39.730 --> 0:05:43.370 interest in gold and diamond rings. They were spending plenty 0:05:43.370 --> 0:05:46.930 of money on clothes and music. Shopping malls were busy. 0:05:47.610 --> 0:05:52.130 Jewelers were not. They were dusty and intimidating. Nothing had 0:05:52.130 --> 0:05:54.810 a price tag. The doors would be locked behind you 0:05:54.890 --> 0:05:59.770 when you entered. Young Gerald soon had a management role 0:05:59.850 --> 0:06:04.410 and steered the family business towards more informal shops, selling 0:06:04.410 --> 0:06:07.010 products that would appeal to young shoppers on a budget. 0:06:07.570 --> 0:06:10.770 It was a canny move. By the age of thirty five, 0:06:11.370 --> 0:06:16.170 Ratner was a millionaire. He began a series of ambitious takeovers. 0:06:16.570 --> 0:06:20.330 By the age of forty, he was running fifteen hundred stores, 0:06:20.330 --> 0:06:23.930 in the UK and a thousand in the US. His 0:06:24.050 --> 0:06:29.690 brands included k Watches of Switzerland and Ratner's itself. Gerald 0:06:29.770 --> 0:06:33.930 Ratner had built the largest jewelry group on the planet, 0:06:34.930 --> 0:06:38.690 and then he destroyed it in a matter of seconds. 0:06:44.130 --> 0:06:48.570 Gerald Ratner had been asked to address the Institute of Directors, 0:06:48.610 --> 0:06:52.890 a prestigious audience of six thousand British business leaders. The 0:06:52.970 --> 0:06:57.370 venue was the Royal Albert Hall, vast and trimmed with 0:06:57.490 --> 0:07:03.650 gold and red velvet, perhaps the grandest auditorium in London. Understandably, 0:07:04.050 --> 0:07:08.210 Ratner started his speech looking nervous. He was a self 0:07:08.250 --> 0:07:12.010 made man, a school dropout who now stood in front 0:07:12.050 --> 0:07:16.410 of business royalty, and in fact, there were actual royalty 0:07:16.490 --> 0:07:20.970 in the audience too. Ratner was rich and successful, to 0:07:21.010 --> 0:07:25.210 be sure, but did he fit in? Three minutes after 0:07:25.250 --> 0:07:31.170 starting his speech, he finds his theme mocking his own products. 0:07:31.530 --> 0:07:34.090 We've got this imitation book that you lay on your 0:07:34.130 --> 0:07:39.610 coffee table. Pages don't actually open, but they're beautiful, curled 0:07:39.690 --> 0:07:43.730 up corners with imitation antique. Dust I knows you might 0:07:43.770 --> 0:07:47.210 say it's not in the best possible taste, but we 0:07:47.290 --> 0:07:49.370 sold a quarter a million of them last year. 0:07:50.090 --> 0:07:55.370 The audience love it, They laugh, They clap. Ratner looks braver. 0:07:56.210 --> 0:08:00.410 We also do this nice sherry to canter. It's cut 0:08:00.450 --> 0:08:04.730 glass and it comes complete with six glasses on a 0:08:04.770 --> 0:08:08.410 silver plated tray that your butler could bring you in 0:08:08.530 --> 0:08:09.690 he serve you drinks on. 0:08:09.930 --> 0:08:12.770 Oh you're too funny, Gerald. Some other people in the 0:08:12.810 --> 0:08:16.810 audience would have employed butler's, but Ratner's customers certainly couldn't 0:08:16.810 --> 0:08:19.690 afford one any more than they could afford a genuine 0:08:19.730 --> 0:08:23.970 antique book, a decanter in a silver tray for your butler. 0:08:24.650 --> 0:08:26.250 Nice one, and. 0:08:26.210 --> 0:08:29.890 It's really only cost four pounds ninety five pence. 0:08:30.810 --> 0:08:33.250 That's about twelve dollars in today's money. 0:08:33.810 --> 0:08:36.570 People say to me, how can you sell this for 0:08:36.610 --> 0:08:40.610 such a low price? I say, because it's total craft. 0:08:42.370 --> 0:08:47.970 Moll laughter, more applause. Ratner's killing it on stage. He's 0:08:48.010 --> 0:08:52.250 also just killed his own business empire. He didn't realize 0:08:52.250 --> 0:08:54.530 it at the time. The speech had gone down very 0:08:54.570 --> 0:08:57.690 well with the audience in the Royal Albert Hall, but 0:08:57.770 --> 0:09:02.010 the newspaper reporters in the room smelled a story. The 0:09:02.130 --> 0:09:04.890 jokes that have played so brilliantly on the day did 0:09:04.930 --> 0:09:08.370 not go down so well when served up cold on 0:09:08.410 --> 0:09:11.850 the front page age of the morning papers. At the time, 0:09:12.130 --> 0:09:15.650 the UK was in the middle of a recession. Ordinary 0:09:15.650 --> 0:09:19.930 people didn't take kindly to a multi millionaire standing in 0:09:19.970 --> 0:09:23.650 front of his fellow one percenters and mocking his own 0:09:23.770 --> 0:09:27.330 customers for their crass taste. And who would buy an 0:09:27.330 --> 0:09:30.810 engagement ring from a company whose own boss had declared 0:09:30.890 --> 0:09:36.970 their products were crap sales ebbed Ratner's group shares fell 0:09:37.090 --> 0:09:41.770 nearly ninety percent between the speech in April and Christmas. 0:09:42.450 --> 0:09:47.450 Ratner was sacked from his own company. Inevitably, they changed 0:09:47.490 --> 0:09:52.530 the company name. Ratner's was a toxic brand, forever tarnished 0:09:56.450 --> 0:10:00.610 to this day. In the UK, doing a Ratner is 0:10:00.730 --> 0:10:05.450 part of the language, universally understood as committing a humiliating 0:10:05.810 --> 0:10:11.290 career ending gaff. Ratner's name became its own one word 0:10:11.770 --> 0:10:18.490 cautionary tale. The lesson seems obvious enough if everyone's watching, 0:10:19.490 --> 0:10:24.570 choose your words with care, don't wing it. But what 0:10:24.650 --> 0:10:38.450 if that lesson has the story completely backwards in retrospect? 0:10:38.890 --> 0:10:42.450 The Reverend Doctor King had been preparing his whole life 0:10:42.530 --> 0:10:45.250 to give the speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. 0:10:45.850 --> 0:10:49.650 His memory had always been prodigious at the age of five, 0:10:49.730 --> 0:10:52.690 he was learning Bible passages by heart. He told his 0:10:52.810 --> 0:10:55.250 parents that when he grew up, he was going to 0:10:55.250 --> 0:11:00.170 get some big words, so he did. Martin's father was 0:11:00.210 --> 0:11:02.970 a preacher, and the boy took to the craft of 0:11:03.010 --> 0:11:07.290 speechmaking early. At the age of fourteen, Martin traveled across 0:11:07.370 --> 0:11:10.970 Georgia on a bus to compete in public speaking contest. 0:11:11.650 --> 0:11:16.610 On the way home to Atlanta, things went sour, very sour. 0:11:17.970 --> 0:11:20.770 King and his friend were sitting near the front of 0:11:20.810 --> 0:11:25.010 the bus with their teacher, Sarah Grace Bradley. At a 0:11:25.010 --> 0:11:28.610 busy stop, a rush of white passengers got on, and 0:11:28.690 --> 0:11:32.450 the bus driver, also white, ordered King and his friend 0:11:32.890 --> 0:11:34.410 to give up their seats. 0:11:34.970 --> 0:11:37.850 You buys, move it, get yourself to the back. 0:11:37.690 --> 0:11:38.290 Of the bus. 0:11:38.850 --> 0:11:42.170 There was a pause. Dr King later said. 0:11:42.490 --> 0:11:45.250 We didn't move quickly enough to suit him, so he 0:11:45.330 --> 0:11:46.650 began cursing us. 0:11:47.450 --> 0:11:51.090 The driver was now hurling every racist slur you can 0:11:51.130 --> 0:11:54.650 imagine and threatening to call the police. 0:11:54.890 --> 0:11:59.330 Harm Martin, Please do what he says. So we walked 0:11:59.330 --> 0:12:00.970 to the back of the bus and I had to 0:12:01.010 --> 0:12:03.250 stand all the way to Atlanta. 0:12:03.610 --> 0:12:07.610 It was dark outside for ninety miles. There was nothing 0:12:07.610 --> 0:12:11.570 to look at but the seat on the bus filled 0:12:11.570 --> 0:12:12.290 with white people. 0:12:13.330 --> 0:12:15.450 It was late at night, and I was tired, but 0:12:15.610 --> 0:12:18.930 that wasn't the point. It was the humiliation. 0:12:20.490 --> 0:12:23.410 Martin, remember, was just fourteen years old. 0:12:24.650 --> 0:12:27.170 That night will never leave my memory. It was the 0:12:27.290 --> 0:12:31.890 angriest I've ever been in my life. Suddenly I realized, 0:12:31.930 --> 0:12:35.210 you don't count. You're nobody. 0:12:36.930 --> 0:12:40.890 But Martin Luther King Junior wasn't destined to be nobody 0:12:41.170 --> 0:12:45.010 for long. And the journey on the way to being 0:12:45.650 --> 0:12:49.370 not just somebody, but somebody who made his mark on 0:12:49.570 --> 0:12:56.090 history arguably began not with that unforgettable humiliation, but with 0:12:56.210 --> 0:13:07.170 the triumphant day that had preceded it. The long and 0:13:07.250 --> 0:13:11.090 infuriating bus journey of Martin Luther King Junior had been 0:13:11.130 --> 0:13:15.290 on the way home from a public speaking competition. Martin 0:13:15.410 --> 0:13:18.490 had won a prize at the contest, delivering his speech 0:13:18.730 --> 0:13:24.690 titled The Negro and the Constitution entirely from memory. My 0:13:24.810 --> 0:13:27.890 heart throbs anew in the hope that, inspired by the 0:13:27.930 --> 0:13:31.650 example of Lincoln, imbued with the spirit of Christ, they 0:13:31.690 --> 0:13:36.530 will cast down the last barrier to perfect freedom. That 0:13:36.690 --> 0:13:41.170 speech showed off the teenage King's approach. He would research 0:13:41.930 --> 0:13:49.490 draft redraft memorize, finally deliver with passion. King used the 0:13:49.530 --> 0:13:53.770 same principles three years later, preaching for the first time 0:13:53.890 --> 0:13:57.130 in a small meeting room at his father's church. He 0:13:57.290 --> 0:14:01.650 was spectacular. The crowds kept coming until young Martin had 0:14:01.690 --> 0:14:05.250 to move to the main auditorium. Martin won an oratory 0:14:05.250 --> 0:14:09.650 prize in college. He used to practice imagined court testimony 0:14:09.650 --> 0:14:13.890 in front of a mirror, dreaming of becoming a lawyer. Instead, 0:14:14.410 --> 0:14:16.730 he applied for a job as a minister at a 0:14:16.770 --> 0:14:21.530 Baptist church in Montgomery, Alabama. As part of his application, 0:14:21.890 --> 0:14:24.410 he had to give a sermon, and of course, he 0:14:24.530 --> 0:14:29.050 used something meticulously crafted, a sermon he had preached several 0:14:29.130 --> 0:14:33.530 times before practice don't just make it up as you 0:14:33.570 --> 0:14:37.770 go along. Once he secured that job, he stuck to 0:14:37.810 --> 0:14:42.050 that winning formula. King's responsibilities as a minister had to 0:14:42.090 --> 0:14:45.650 be fulfilled while he was still finishing his doctorate in theology, 0:14:46.130 --> 0:14:50.210 so he rose at half past five each morning, made coffee, 0:14:50.530 --> 0:14:54.650 shaved his stubborn bristles into a neat mustache, then worked 0:14:54.650 --> 0:14:57.850 on his doctorate for three hours before his pregnant wife, 0:14:57.930 --> 0:15:02.130 Coreta woke to join him for breakfast. All the while 0:15:02.850 --> 0:15:07.650 King lavished enormous effort on his sermons. He would begin 0:15:07.770 --> 0:15:11.730 drafting on Tuesday and continued to research and draft throughout 0:15:11.730 --> 0:15:17.370 the week, drawing ideas from Plato Aquinas freud Gandy. As 0:15:17.570 --> 0:15:20.650 Sunday approached, he would write it all out on yellow 0:15:20.690 --> 0:15:24.250 lined paper and commit it to memory, just as he 0:15:24.290 --> 0:15:27.370 had done at the age of fourteen. He would bring 0:15:27.410 --> 0:15:30.770 the script to church with him, but as he ascended 0:15:30.770 --> 0:15:33.210 to the pulpit, he would leave it in his chair 0:15:33.450 --> 0:15:36.170 and speak without notes for half an hour or more. 0:15:37.410 --> 0:15:42.290 He was fantastic, people said. The congregation adored him and 0:15:42.410 --> 0:15:45.730 the way he spoke with style about matters of substance, 0:15:46.490 --> 0:15:50.610 and to achieve this mastery, the young Reverend King spent 0:15:51.010 --> 0:15:57.410 fifteen hours or more crafting each sermon. Martin Luther King 0:15:57.890 --> 0:16:01.730 was one of the greatest speechmakers to grace the English language, 0:16:01.850 --> 0:16:06.010 and at first it might seem obvious why, as well 0:16:06.010 --> 0:16:10.330 as being educated and prodigiously talented, he ensured that every 0:16:10.490 --> 0:16:16.170 syllable of his oratory was meticulously prepared. Gerald Ratner could 0:16:16.170 --> 0:16:21.770 have learned from doctor King's example, couldn't he, Well, the 0:16:21.810 --> 0:16:29.890 truth is way more interesting than that, So why would 0:16:29.930 --> 0:16:34.130 a public speaker set aside the script or memorized remarks 0:16:34.690 --> 0:16:38.610 and speak off the cuff. I asked Charles Limb. He's 0:16:38.650 --> 0:16:43.250 a neuroscientist, a surgeon, a jazz saxophonist, and one of 0:16:43.450 --> 0:16:50.290 very few people who's actually studied the improvising brain. Lim 0:16:50.410 --> 0:16:55.690 researches people as they improvise inside brain scanners called fmur 0:16:55.810 --> 0:16:59.770 eye machines. Imagine sliding on your back so that your 0:16:59.850 --> 0:17:03.930 head is surrounded by a giant, white plastic doughnut with 0:17:04.010 --> 0:17:07.810 the feel of a vintage iPod. The scanner is generating 0:17:08.010 --> 0:17:12.730 powerful magnetic fields to illuminate the contrast between oxygen rich 0:17:12.810 --> 0:17:16.050 blood flowing to different areas of your brain and the 0:17:16.090 --> 0:17:20.810 oxygen depleted blood flowing away. Again, your head is held 0:17:21.050 --> 0:17:25.170 perfectly still. If you're a hip hop artist, you then 0:17:25.250 --> 0:17:28.330 have to spit some rhymes in response to random words. 0:17:28.650 --> 0:17:30.970 If you're a jazz musician, you have to tap out 0:17:31.050 --> 0:17:34.690 riffs on a plastic keyboard lying across your knees and 0:17:34.730 --> 0:17:38.570 no metal, Otherwise the magnetic field would rip the keyboard 0:17:38.570 --> 0:17:42.170 apart and pull the shrapnel into the scanner with your head. 0:17:43.210 --> 0:17:49.330 It's a tough gig. Through these experiments, Limb and other 0:17:49.410 --> 0:17:53.490 neuroscientists have been discovering hints of what goes on in 0:17:53.570 --> 0:17:58.530 an improvising brain. There's a distinctive pattern in the prefrontal cortex, 0:17:58.730 --> 0:18:02.770 which seems to be the seat of consciousness, memory, morality, humor, 0:18:03.050 --> 0:18:07.170 and even the sense of self. But the pattern isn't 0:18:07.410 --> 0:18:11.930 that the prefrontal cortex is lighting up during improvisation. On 0:18:12.010 --> 0:18:16.810 the contrary, broad areas of it shutting down the dorso 0:18:16.930 --> 0:18:19.610 lateral areas either side of the top of your forehead 0:18:19.850 --> 0:18:24.650 and the lateral orbital areas behind your eyes. Improvisers are 0:18:24.970 --> 0:18:29.810 escaping their internal restraints. They're letting go. Most of us 0:18:29.850 --> 0:18:33.010 go through our days holding back our mental impulses to 0:18:33.090 --> 0:18:36.570 swear or lash out. All this requires a degree of 0:18:36.650 --> 0:18:41.370 self control, so that filtering is a good thing. That 0:18:41.450 --> 0:18:44.330 you can have too much of a good thing, says 0:18:44.410 --> 0:18:50.170 Charles Limb. Too much filtering can squash our creativity. Improvisers 0:18:50.410 --> 0:18:53.930 shut down their inner critics and allow new ideas to 0:18:54.010 --> 0:18:58.610 flow out. The improvising brain is disinhibited, although not so 0:18:58.690 --> 0:19:02.650 crudely as the drunk brain. That is why improvisers can 0:19:02.690 --> 0:19:08.570 produce flashes of pure brilliance. It's also why improvisation feels 0:19:08.610 --> 0:19:18.130 so risk. A script can seem protective, like a bulletproof vest, 0:19:19.090 --> 0:19:24.250 but sometimes it's more like a strait jacket. Improvising unleashes creativity. 0:19:24.410 --> 0:19:27.810 It feels fresh and honest and personal. Above all, it 0:19:27.890 --> 0:19:33.050 turns a monologue into a dialogue. Miles Davis, the legendary 0:19:33.130 --> 0:19:37.850 jazz trumpeter, talked about improvisation as the freedom and space 0:19:38.330 --> 0:19:42.450 to hear things. That's a fascinating turn of phrase. Not 0:19:42.530 --> 0:19:45.930 the freedom and space to play things or to do things, 0:19:46.690 --> 0:19:49.850 but to hear things, to be more open to the 0:19:49.890 --> 0:19:52.810 sound of your own instrument, the sound of the group, 0:19:53.490 --> 0:19:56.530 And that matters for more than just music or rhetoric, 0:19:56.970 --> 0:20:01.170 because we're scared of improvising, and we're not just afraid 0:20:01.210 --> 0:20:05.450 to improvise on stage, we're also becoming afraid to improvise 0:20:05.770 --> 0:20:11.170 face to face. The sociologist Sherry Turkle has been interviewing 0:20:11.210 --> 0:20:15.690 young people about their communications through smartphone apps. It wasn't 0:20:15.730 --> 0:20:18.610 just because the apps were convenient or addictive, although they 0:20:18.650 --> 0:20:24.690 could be both. Texting is attractive because traditional conversations feel scary. 0:20:25.490 --> 0:20:27.210 I'll tell you what's wrong with conversation. 0:20:27.770 --> 0:20:30.610 One high school senior told Sherry Turkele. 0:20:30.610 --> 0:20:33.730 It takes place in real time, and you can't control 0:20:33.770 --> 0:20:34.810 what you're going to say. 0:20:35.090 --> 0:20:39.410 What you're going to say. This student is so used 0:20:39.410 --> 0:20:43.210 to being able to proofread every message that he's become 0:20:43.290 --> 0:20:49.250 scared of simply talking and seeing what happens. But then 0:20:49.850 --> 0:20:53.930 perhaps he's right to be scared. We should ask Gerald Ratner. 0:20:55.370 --> 0:20:59.770 Gerald Ratner learned to laugh at himself a long time ago, 0:20:59.930 --> 0:21:03.570 but he rejects the idea that somehow his mistake all 0:21:03.650 --> 0:21:06.730 worked out for the best. People ask me if I'm 0:21:06.730 --> 0:21:09.850 glad I said what I said. They're ridiculous. How could 0:21:09.890 --> 0:21:15.490 I be grateful? I lost everything? Ratner plunged into depression. 0:21:15.970 --> 0:21:19.290 He has bounced back in some ways. He had some success, 0:21:19.370 --> 0:21:21.570 setting up a chain of health clubs and even an 0:21:21.650 --> 0:21:25.450 online jewelry business. But the truth is that there was 0:21:25.530 --> 0:21:29.090 nothing he could do, no success that he could achieve 0:21:29.690 --> 0:21:33.650 that would ever be as famous as his gaff. The 0:21:33.690 --> 0:21:37.530 search for a good joke destroyed his business, and it 0:21:37.610 --> 0:21:40.930 nearly destroyed him. Who would want to risk the fate 0:21:41.010 --> 0:21:44.410 of Gerald Ratner when they could follow the meticulous example 0:21:44.450 --> 0:21:47.770 of the young Martin Luther King. It seems obvious that 0:21:47.850 --> 0:21:51.130 when speaking in public, we should prepare as diligently as 0:21:51.250 --> 0:21:55.450 King did when he drafted and memorized his sermons. But 0:21:55.690 --> 0:21:59.810 the truth about Gerald Dratner's impromptu remark about his products 0:21:59.850 --> 0:22:07.330 being total crap is this. It wasn't impromptu. He chose 0:22:07.410 --> 0:22:11.090 those words with care to circulating drafts of the speech 0:22:11.130 --> 0:22:14.530 to get comments. He had used the total crap joke 0:22:14.650 --> 0:22:18.450 before without running into problems, and as he prepared to 0:22:18.490 --> 0:22:21.690 deliver the speech on a larger stage, he sought advice. 0:22:22.290 --> 0:22:25.730 His wife told him to be careful that others, including 0:22:25.770 --> 0:22:28.610 a friend who was one of the most influential figures 0:22:28.610 --> 0:22:31.810 in the advertising industry, encouraged him to tell even more 0:22:31.890 --> 0:22:36.250 daring jokes. They thought Ratna would sound self deprecating and 0:22:36.290 --> 0:22:39.170 that his audience would love the gags, which was true. 0:22:39.530 --> 0:22:42.130 Those in the hall that day did love it. But 0:22:42.250 --> 0:22:46.090 in the newspapers the next morning, Ratner simply sounded like 0:22:46.130 --> 0:22:55.850 a millionaire mocking his struggling customers. When I listened back 0:22:55.890 --> 0:22:59.050 to Ratner's speech, I don't hear the mockery at all. 0:22:59.490 --> 0:23:03.330 I hear something else. Immediately after saying his own products 0:23:03.370 --> 0:23:06.330 were crap, Ratner says are. 0:23:06.290 --> 0:23:10.810 Ratner's shots will never win any awards. Design they're not 0:23:10.930 --> 0:23:13.850 in the best possible taste. I admit that. In fact, 0:23:13.930 --> 0:23:16.170 some people say they can't even see the jewelry for 0:23:16.210 --> 0:23:19.090 all the banners and posters smothering the shot windows. 0:23:19.730 --> 0:23:23.530 There's a different tone. Suddenly, there's a note of defiance, 0:23:24.010 --> 0:23:24.730 even anger. 0:23:25.050 --> 0:23:29.330 So it's interesting that these shots that everyone has a 0:23:29.330 --> 0:23:33.850 good laugh about take more money per square foot than 0:23:33.890 --> 0:23:36.290 any other retailer in Europe. 0:23:36.490 --> 0:23:39.490 The hall is hush, now, nobody's laughing. 0:23:40.370 --> 0:23:44.850 Why, because we give the customer what they want. 0:23:46.770 --> 0:23:52.450 Gerald Ratner wasn't laughing at his customers. He identified with them. 0:23:52.730 --> 0:23:55.810 He thought the business royalty in the hall were laughing 0:23:55.810 --> 0:24:01.090 at his customers and his business ideas and him. This 0:24:01.690 --> 0:24:05.010 was his response, You laugh at us, he was saying, 0:24:05.610 --> 0:24:09.090 but my customers are happy and I'm rich, So who's 0:24:09.210 --> 0:24:15.090 laughing now. Ratner's downfall wasn't caused by a lack of preparation, 0:24:15.850 --> 0:24:19.770 but by a lack of judgment. Ratner did exactly what 0:24:19.890 --> 0:24:23.410 he planned to do. He had simply failed to foresee 0:24:23.450 --> 0:24:30.250 the consequences. Improvisation was not to blame. Improvising does expose 0:24:30.330 --> 0:24:34.810 us to new and different risks, but even careful preparation 0:24:35.450 --> 0:24:53.130 cannot remove Risks entirely. In December nineteen fifty five, Rosa 0:24:53.250 --> 0:24:56.490 Parks was arrested after refusing to give up her seat 0:24:56.530 --> 0:25:00.130 on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama to a white man. 0:25:01.210 --> 0:25:04.610 As a local church leader with a reputation as an orator, 0:25:05.330 --> 0:25:09.250 Martin Luther King was asked to organize a boycott of 0:25:09.290 --> 0:25:17.170 Montgomery's buses. He hesitated. He was exhausted. His newborn baby daughter, Yoki, 0:25:17.410 --> 0:25:21.330 wouldn't stop crying in the night. King asked for time 0:25:21.450 --> 0:25:24.330 to mull over the idea of a bus boycott, but 0:25:24.450 --> 0:25:28.810 an influential local activist, Edie Nixon, would have no delays. 0:25:29.490 --> 0:25:32.170 You ain't got much time to think, said Nixon. You're 0:25:32.210 --> 0:25:35.570 in the chair from now on. So it was that 0:25:35.690 --> 0:25:41.050 King found himself bounced into leading the Montgomery Improvement Association. 0:25:41.930 --> 0:25:44.410 He had to give an inaugural speech, and he had 0:25:44.410 --> 0:25:47.850 to give it immediately. Rosa Parks was news. The bus 0:25:47.850 --> 0:25:52.330 boycott was news. There wasn't time to spend days redrafting 0:25:52.410 --> 0:25:56.730 or consulting the sayings of Plato or Gandhy. Doctor King 0:25:56.930 --> 0:25:59.450 arrived home from the meeting with Edie Nixon and the 0:25:59.490 --> 0:26:02.730 activists at half past six. He had to head to 0:26:02.770 --> 0:26:06.690 the speech venue Holt Street Church at ten to seven. 0:26:07.250 --> 0:26:10.530 I had only twenty minutes to prepare the most decisive 0:26:10.650 --> 0:26:14.650 speech of my life. I became possessed by fear. 0:26:15.850 --> 0:26:19.050 King knew that newspaper men would be there, perhaps even 0:26:19.090 --> 0:26:22.970 television crews. And yet just as the stakes were highest, 0:26:23.450 --> 0:26:26.210 the habit of meticulous preparation that had served him so 0:26:26.410 --> 0:26:31.850 well all his life was useless. He couldn't research, draft, redraft, 0:26:31.930 --> 0:26:36.130 and memorized. He had no time. King looked at his watch. 0:26:36.690 --> 0:26:40.490 Already five minutes had ticked away while he fretted. Every 0:26:40.530 --> 0:26:43.650 Sunday he delivered a sermon based on fifteen hours of 0:26:43.730 --> 0:26:46.610 hard work. Now he was about to deliver the most 0:26:46.650 --> 0:26:50.130 important speech of his life, and he had just fifteen minutes. 0:26:51.410 --> 0:26:54.450 He sketched a couple of thoughts with his hand shaking, 0:26:54.930 --> 0:26:58.250 pondering the delicate balance he had to strike between militancy 0:26:58.610 --> 0:27:03.530 and moderation. Then he prayed that was all the preparation 0:27:03.650 --> 0:27:06.810 he could spare before driving to the Holt Street Church. 0:27:12.250 --> 0:27:16.530 Ten thousand people stood outside, unable to cram themselves in, 0:27:16.850 --> 0:27:19.770 listening to the proceedings via a loud speaker on the roof. 0:27:20.370 --> 0:27:23.770 The Montgomery police were their in force. So were the 0:27:23.810 --> 0:27:27.890 television cameras pointing at the pulpit as King stepped up 0:27:28.170 --> 0:27:29.490 and began to speak. 0:27:30.490 --> 0:27:33.770 My friends, we're here this evening for serious business. 0:27:34.890 --> 0:27:39.370 The speech is brilliantly described in Taylor Branch's biography of King. 0:27:40.210 --> 0:27:44.250 Instead of the usual careful script, lovingly prepared and committed 0:27:44.290 --> 0:27:49.010 to memory, King was groping his way towards the right words. 0:27:49.810 --> 0:27:52.850 I think I speak with legal authority, not that I 0:27:52.890 --> 0:27:55.250 have any legal authority, but I think I speak with 0:27:55.410 --> 0:27:58.810 legal authority behind me. That the law, the ordinance, the 0:27:58.850 --> 0:28:01.570 city ordinance, has never been totally clarified. 0:28:02.690 --> 0:28:06.010 He had never in his life delivered a sermon with 0:28:06.130 --> 0:28:10.410 a line as weak and confused as that one. Fifteen 0:28:10.530 --> 0:28:15.490 hours of preparation always ironed out every wrinkle. But King 0:28:15.730 --> 0:28:20.370 was finding something more valuable than time to prepare, in 0:28:20.450 --> 0:28:25.210 Miles Davis's phrase, the freedom and space to hear things. 0:28:25.930 --> 0:28:29.810 As he spoke, King listened to the crowd, feeling out 0:28:29.850 --> 0:28:34.090 their response. Speaking in the moment. His early sentences were 0:28:34.130 --> 0:28:39.170 experiments grasping for a theme, exploring how each sounded and 0:28:39.290 --> 0:28:43.330 how the crowd responded. Each phrase shaped The phrase that 0:28:43.410 --> 0:28:47.330 followed his speech was not a solo. It was a 0:28:47.450 --> 0:28:53.410 duet with his audience. After a cautious opening, King talked 0:28:53.490 --> 0:28:57.970 of Rosa Parks, of her character and Christian commitment, and. 0:28:58.090 --> 0:29:02.730 Just because she refused to get up, she was arrested. 0:29:03.210 --> 0:29:07.410 The crowd murmured their assent. After a pause for breath, 0:29:07.890 --> 0:29:10.410 King changed irec you. 0:29:10.410 --> 0:29:13.770 Know, my friends, there comes a time when people get 0:29:13.850 --> 0:29:17.170 tired of being trampled over by the iron feet of oppression. 0:29:18.770 --> 0:29:23.330 And suddenly the avalanche began. A few yells of support 0:29:23.530 --> 0:29:27.250 became a roar of approval and anger. The spirit of 0:29:27.290 --> 0:29:31.010 the crowd was self sustaining, a torrent of emotion and sound, 0:29:31.050 --> 0:29:34.530 which grew stronger. Just when it seemed the soundless fade, 0:29:35.050 --> 0:29:38.650 further waves crashed in from the thousands of voices outside. 0:29:39.490 --> 0:29:44.410