The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk
499: Cody Keenan - Working With The Most Powerful Person In The World, Taking Big Risks, & The Art Of Speechwriting
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Full show notes at www.LearningLeader.com
Twitter/IG: @RyanHawk12 https://twitter.com/RyanHawk12
Cody Keenan has written with President Barack Obama since 2007, working his way up to chief speechwriter. He's been named the "Springsteen" of the Obama White House, even though he can't play an instrument, and Obama calls him "Hemingway." His first book, Grace, became an instant New York Times Bestseller.
Notes:
- The use of productive paranoia. Cody said, "I was so afraid to fail that I would do anything to succeed." – We can use fear as fuel…
- Storytelling – As a speaker, it is our job to help the people in the audience see themselves in the place of the hero in the story. When you're preparing for your next team meeting or town hall address, think about that and how you tell the stories that you do.
- Singing at the Eulogy in Charleston - If you want an A+ performance, you have to choose to go for it. You can get a B by playing it safe, but you won't perform with excellence unless you have the courage to go for it.
- In less than 10 years, Cody went from mailroom intern in Congress to chief speechwriter in the White House.
- My goal is to "write a speech that sings."
- 'In less than 10 years, I went from mailroom intern in Congress to chief speechwriter in the White House,'
- President Obama said he relied "on Cody not just to share my vision, but to help tell America's story." "He's a brilliant writer. He's relentless."
- The first speech Cody wrote was for Senator Ted Kennedy. Right after President Obama's 2004 Democratic convention speech that put him on the map. You write: "To see someone else speak words I'd written sent electricity right up my spine and out my hair."
This episode is brought to you by one of my favorites. It is story worth. Story worth is an amazing gift for you and your loved ones. Essentially what it is is you sign up for story worth and they help you supply a loved one with a question a week. So for my case, I did this with my dad and story worth would send him one question per week and he would answer them and sometimes even add some cool pictures to make it more visually appealing to go along with his amazing writing. And then at the end of 52 weeks story worth puts this together in a beautiful book which I now have on my bookshelves at home. Along the way, I also got to read my dad's answer. So this is something that my family will treasure forever. He actually printed a number of copies and gave them to each of his kids. I would highly encourage you to do this. I even got to ask some of the questions each week for story worth. So to take advantage of this amazing offer that they've put together for you, go to storyworth.com/leader. You'll get $10 off your first purchase that storyworth.com/leader. Welcome to The Learning Leaders Show presented by Insight Global. I am your host Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here. Text Hawk 266866 to become part of Mindful Monday. You along with tens of thousands of other learning leaders from all over the world will receive a carefully curated email from me each Monday morning to help you start your week off right. You'll also receive details about how my book The Pursuit of Excellence will help you become a more effective leader. Text Hawk 266866. Now on to tonight's featured leader Cody Keenan began writing with President Barack Obama in 2007, ultimately becoming his chief speechwriter in the White House and his post-presidential collaborator. He now teaches speech writing at Northwestern University and he was named by British GQ as one of the 35 coolest men under 38 and a half. Interesting list. He's also the author of The Instant New York Times best-selling book called Grace. During this conversation we discuss why all leaders should have a writing practice. Then the art and science of writing and performing a speech. Then how Cody went from a mailroom intern to chief speechwriter for the president of the United States in just 10 years. So many great anecdotes and stories as well as useful ideas for how to become a better writer, a better speaker and build an amazing career. I think you're going to enjoy this one. Ladies and gentlemen it's Cody Keenan. Cody Keenan great to have you here in the Learning Leaders Show. Welcome. Thanks Ryan. It's going to be with you. So I want to jump into the middle of your career and then we're going to go in a little bit more sequential order. So let's go to 2015. You're working on an important speech for President Obama. This is the state of the union address. You turn in the speech to, I read this, you turn in the speech to President Obama eight days early which apparently is a record. Normally it's more up to the wire. And I had read that he summoned you to the private dining area in the White House to talk to you about this. Can you tell me what happened next? Yeah and to give you a little background on it I mean the state of the union address is something that every speech writer dreams of writing until you actually get to do it because it's awful. It's a laundry list. You have to jam everything in there. Everybody's coming at you with their policies and whatnot. So I felt like I had, and you ruined your Christmas doing it every year. I ruined my family's Christmas four years in a row. So I felt like I had something that was in the best shape of one of these had been in eight days out. You know it was kind of as pure as the state of the union could get. Everything was in there. It all made sense. It flowed really well which is difficult in these things. I expected to hear from him right away that a full day goes by and now I'm starting to freak out a little bit. And so his assistant Fereo calls and says hey can you come upstairs because my office was underneath the Oval Office. So I go up and he's not sitting in the Oval which is strange. I'm like where is he? She said he's back in the dining room. He wants you to go in there. So I go back in there and all I want to know is whether the speech is good or not. I haven't even shared it with anybody else at this point. And he takes a sweet time. He says hey brother sit down. So I sit down. He eats like a he's monkish in his eating habits. It's chicken. It's vegetables. It's a little like quinoa or something. So he's munching on a carrot stick and he goes how you doing? I tell him I'm fine and I'm just like enough with this small talk. Let's get to it. So finally he says I think we're the best shape
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