Sunday Night With John: Don't French It Up

“Joe Dirte.”  “Don't try and french-it-up son. Don't you mean Joe Dirt”

The line from the movie Joe Dirt cracked me up since I first heard it years ago. Even though I remembered the line incorrectly. It’s actually “Don’t church it up son” but I liked “Don’t French it up," better so I stuck with it. Little did I know it would serve as a fine intervention when helping others as well.  It started as a joke when I worked with the kids at an at-risk center. After a mistake, I would ask them what happened, and the details would become grander and grander. At first, I would question and poke holes in their answers but after a while I settled on  “Look you screwed up, it happens, and I still like you so no need to make excuses, so stop “frenching it up” and honestly tell me what happened and why.

As my time continued with the kids I was able to shorten up the sentence to just, “Don’t French it up” and it conveyed the correct message . We watched the movie Joe Dirt so the kids understood where the line came from. Over the years it has even worked it’s way into how I train people who are working with behavioral issues. We often complicate matters in an effort to discover a convoluted way to solve a problem.  I remember one training where a group of staff were throwing out all their reasons why the client was becoming aggressive.  I threw out one of my favorite lines, “Don’t French it up”. We refocused our efforts and pulled away all the fluff we had added to the equation. By going simple we found the answer.

“Don’t French it up” came full circle as Anne, my wife, and I were beginning to outline the John Paul Derryberry speaking updates. I kept giving long winded answers to the questions I was answering to focus my message. She took a long pause and said, Follow your own advice, and “don’t French it up.” I dropped my head and chuckled as the advice I had doled out over the last 7 years hit home. I was  attempting to “French Up” my message.  I asked her to ask  the questions again, I stripped away the fluff and answered the questions from the heart. The best way to re-focus and polish my message was to return to the root of why I started sharing stories to begin with. After some deep breaths, Anne repeated the question, and what came out of my mouth was a clear concise message about why Share Emotions, Emotions Matter was created.

The truth is, the clearer the message the more able people are able to simplify the solution. we all think complication makes for more complex message that will reach a bigger audience, but what truly hits home with people are simple genuine truthful messages. After a six month process, and my first live Sunday Night With John event, I re-release John Paul Derryberry to the world with new content, a better website www.jpderryberry.com, and the non-”french up” message.  Please enjoy the simple true heartfelt reason why I speak and share my story.  I want people to know they are not alone.

Share emotions...emotion matters.  

I hope you go through the website and check out all the great new videos, testimonials and all the other new bells and whistles. As always thank you for reading, and sharing Sunday Night With John and John Paul Derryberry with others.