The journey of being an entrepreneur is multifaceted, prompting you with many hats to wear and roles to fulfill. A key task for successful business owners is effectively communicating your expertise and impact to stakeholders. Entrepreneurs can add value to their businesses by developing their writing skills, which will allow for improved communication of thoughts and ideas. From award nominations to grant applications to business proposals, strong writing skills are the competitive advantage that everyone can leverage with the proper training.
That’s where powerful writing comes in!
My conversation with retired USAF Colonel Carla Bass was insightful and inspiring as she illuminated the importance of great writing and the possibilities that it provides. In her quest to “banish bureaucratic blather,” Carla provides strategies that can help you take your writing from mediocre to life-changing. If you ever questioned the importance of writing as a business owner, this episode is for you!
Join us in Episode 402, with Carla Bass, founder of Write To Influence!, as she shares why she started the business and some of her greatest accomplishments. We dive deep into why it’s important for entrepreneurs to have effective writing skills, and how this skill is empowering and considered the “lifeblood” of organizations. Our discussion is filled with tips and word sculpting tools to help make writing your entrepreneurial superpower.
Thriving Points:
Other resources mentioned:
Get to Know the Guest:
Colonel Carla Bass, USAF (Ret.) is the founder of Write to Influence!, a coaching and consulting firm focused on unlocking and nurturing the writing skills of organizations and individuals to craft compelling messages. Writing powerfully was central to her success in the Air Force and continues to propel her work in the federal government. Carla is the award-winning author of Write to Influence!, the creator of the virtual course, “Catapult Your Career -- Write to Influence!'', and a sought-after public speaker and workshop facilitator. She teaches individuals how to leverage powerful writing to open the doors to opportunity.
Connect with Carla:
About the Show:
Women Thriving in Business features candid unscripted conversations with entrepreneurs, business experts, authors, and academics aimed at contributing to business success.
Connect with Nikki:
The journey of being an entrepreneur is multifaceted, prompting you with many hats to wear and roles to fulfill. A key task for successful business owners is effectively communicating your expertise and impact to stakeholders. Entrepreneurs can add value to their businesses by developing their writing skills, which will allow for improved communication of thoughts and ideas. From award nominations to grant applications to business proposals, strong writing skills are the competitive advantage that everyone can leverage with the proper training.
That’s where powerful writing comes in!
My conversation with retired USAF Colonel Carla Bass was insightful and inspiring as she illuminated the importance of great writing and the possibilities that it provides. In her quest to “banish bureaucratic blather,” Carla provides strategies that can help you take your writing from mediocre to life-changing. If you ever questioned the importance of writing as a business owner, this episode is for you!
Join us in Episode 402, with Carla Bass, founder of Write To Influence!, as she shares why she started the business and some of her greatest accomplishments. We dive deep into why it’s important for entrepreneurs to have effective writing skills, and how this skill is empowering and considered the “lifeblood” of organizations. Our discussion is filled with tips and word sculpting tools to help make writing your entrepreneurial superpower.
Thriving Points:
Other resources mentioned:
Get to Know the Guest:
Colonel Carla Bass, USAF (Ret.) is the founder of Write to Influence!, a coaching and consulting firm focused on unlocking and nurturing the writing skills of organizations and individuals to craft compelling messages. Writing powerfully was central to her success in the Air Force and continues to propel her work in the federal government. Carla is the award-winning author of Write to Influence!, the creator of the virtual course, “Catapult Your Career -- Write to Influence!'', and a sought-after public speaker and workshop facilitator. She teaches individuals how to leverage powerful writing to open the doors to opportunity.
Connect with Carla:
About the Show:
Women Thriving in Business features candid unscripted conversations with entrepreneurs, business experts, authors, and academics aimed at contributing to business success.
Connect with Nikki:
Nikki Rogers: Your business is an asset that can support a thriving life. I believe this, and I'm committed to making this a reality for every entrepreneur and business owner who listens to this podcast. The Women Thriving in Business Podcast was created with you in mind, whether you were thinking about entrepreneurship or you're a business veteran, this podcast has inspiration, information, and advice you can use to thrive in business.
Women Thriving in Business features candid, unscripted conversations with entrepreneurs, business experts, authors, and academics who will contribute to your business success. I seek out and talk with business leaders who have built, grown, and thrive in business. My name is Nikki Rogers, transformation coach, author, and the host of the Women Thriving in Business Podcast. I work with women entrepreneurs to develop the mindset, strategies, and connections necessary to thrive in business. Join me and your fellow Thrivers each week on this journey of discovery and success.
Hello, Thrivers. My guest this week is Retired US Air Force Colonel Carla Bass, who is the founder of Write to Influence! So during our discussion today, Carla and I talked about why writing is so important to entrepreneurs and business owners and why it is indeed a superpower that you need to leverage in order to be successful in business.
We talked a lot about what it means to be a great writer. Carla shared with me her word sculpting tools that relate to not being a word hog and also thinking about how you package and deliver your message within the concept of a boiled egg. Meaning, you need to peel back the layers of fluff and get right down to the yolk. And that's the important part of your message. To call in, I had a really great time talking today. And one of the key insights that she shared with this idea of thinking of when you sit down to write and you have a blank space and you know you have the constraints of both space and the audience's time. Well, think about that blank space that you have to write as your opportunity to influence the audience that you're trying to reach. And when you think about it like that, then writing doesn't seem so daunting.
So getting to the bio of Colonel Carla Bass, so Colonel Carla Bass is the author, the multi-award-winning book, Write to Influence! which is now in its second edition. Writing powerfully was central to her success throughout her 45-year career in the Air Force and with the Federal Government. During that time, she has composed products for Congress, the White House, military generals, and ambassadors. In addition to writing hundreds of performance reviews, awards, nominations, and budget justifications.
As a squadron commander, Carla transformed her 480-person unit from the most losing and statewide professional awards into the one to beat. This is where she developed her writing methodology and taught her troops to write. This made her so successful that she went on to teach thousands of Air Force members over the next 15 years. Her key messages are that powerful writing changes lives and that powerful writing is the lifeblood of effective organizations.
So listen in to my discussion with Colonel Carla Bass. Let's go.
Welcome Thrivers to this episode of Women Thriving in Business Podcast. I'm so excited to have with me, retired US Colonel Carla Bass who is the CEO of Write to Influence! So welcome, Carla.
Carla Bass: Thank you. Delighted to be here. Thank you for the opportunity.
Nikki Rogers: Yes, definitely. So Carla, let's just get right into it. Tell us about your company, and then what inspired you to actually get into business for yourself?
Carla Bass: Sure. My company is a person of one. This is my own individual calling. And as far as the genesis, when I was a Lieutenant Colonel, I assumed command of a squadron in Hawaii with 480 super talented young men and women. But when I arrived, it was the most losing unit in the Statewide Professional Awards. What was happening was that really deserving men and women weren't being recognized not because they didn't deserve it, but because their bosses didn't know how to write winning packages. So you could be the best tech sergeant or the most brilliant captain, but because your boss can't tell your story, you're not getting the recognition.
So seeing how that was harming people's careers, I developed my writing methodology, transferred or transformed that into a little tiny workbook, turned that into a one-hour workshop, and taught my guys to write. And in scant time, we became the unit to beat. Then the other units came and said, hey, could you teach us too? My first thought was, well, darn there goes the competitive edge, but of course, I did it. But I ended up teaching that for the next 15 years. The thousands of Air Force people, I had no idea how vacuous that need was. I was only focused on taking care of my own 480. But that's where I realized that powerful writing changes live because it does, and I still get testimonials. Colonel Bass, if it hadn't been for, I wouldn't have been able to. And that's what propels me to do this.
Nikki Rogers: Great. So tell us about what you actually provide in your business. So you talked about when you were in the Air Force that you provided these workshops and workbooks, what do you now do for clients since you've actually started your business?
Carla Bass: I provide workshops or webinars. They range in length from five minutes. So you know when you're on a live television interview, which I've done several now, is tell me everything you can in five minutes. But all the way to two full days. I have one corporate client and based on their materials I have developed a two-day business writing course. Pre-COVID, I gave to their staff in Chicago and New York City. I did that for three years running. Then the US Geological Survey and the Department of Interior asked if I could develop a full-day writing course for them again, based on their materials, which of course I did. So, what I teach is, I teach you how to banish bureaucratic blabber, how to explain your case with focused precision, and that applies to budget justifications for lobbying, for additional resources to start a new program, input to your own performance review. That's something that people just and whore, any product where you need to persuade the reader that your point is valid. Hire me, pick me, support my project, join my cause, that's what I teach people how to do.
Nikki Rogers: Great, I love that. Over the time that you've been in business, what are some of the challenges that you faced either in just operating your business or in working with your clients?
Carla Bass: Well, COVID. COVID sent me back a lot. I had just a whole series of in-person workshops, and I love that. I'm a theatrical person, so I thrive on real people interaction. So that set me backwards. So you know, good things and then the silver lining and so forth. I learned how to do the webinars and work more digitally. Folklear your county offered a grant for small businesses that had been harmed by the disease. So I applied for it, and I won a $7,500 grant. That paid for a complete overhaul of my marketing approach. I completely revamped the website, and then I took a $5,000 marketing course so that I could get better at doing what I'm doing.
So it forced learning. One thing I tell authors is that the easy part is writing the book. It's like running a restaurant or a bed and breakfast, or you have a balloon, not a helium balloon but a regular puff it up balloon, and you have to keep keeping up with your fingertips otherwise it goes dormant. So doing the podcast, and thank you for this opportunity. And anywhere that you can reach people, you have to be out there and aggressively do it.
Nikki Rogers: I love that. I love how you took what could have been a devastating setback and actually took action in order to move forward and learn some new things.
Carla Bass: I could not not do that. Again, to use a double negative. God gave me a gift. I give credit to where credit's due. It's a gift, and I have to share it, and because of all these testimonials. When I retired, I spent five years toying with the idea of writing a book. And I finally said, okay, Carla, you got two choices. You either do it or you flush this, just expunge it. I could not expunge it because I had so much proof positive that I have helped people. And that's what finally got me off the mark.
Nikki Rogers: That's great. I talk about connecting to your vision and that you should have a vision that makes you want to leap out of bed in the morning, and that sounds like what you've discovered.
Carla Bass: It is. When Oprah Winfrey calls it heart songs. I heard her talking to a young group of kids about their heart songs. So I've been blessed with two heart songs. My first one was the Air Force. I chose in seventh grade to join Air Force Intelligence, Air Force Intelligence specifically. And then it just happened that that powerful writing in my Air Force career coalesced on the very first day. One of my first assignments as a Lieutenant was writing and giving daily briefings to the Director of the National Security Agency. So I learned from the earliest days how to make every single word count, and each second of the audience's time played to your advantage. And that's the premise of Write to Influence!
And I explained that I'm a visual person, so if you can imagine a white rectangle. White rectangle, that conveys the principle that every author or speaker is constrained by two things. You're constrained by the audience's time, tick, tick, I'm busy, what do you want? And you're constrained by the available space, whether it's a demarcated area on a government form or the above-the-fold area on a webpage, or the requirement to summarize your grant in 250 words. So now, I'll go back to my little white rectangle and impose on that, that big black word, opportunity. And the lesson is the author who best leverages the reader's time and the available space wins. And that's what I teach you how to do. I teach people how to, one, strategize the message and two, get rid of the redundancies, the useless words, the words that hog space. Those are what I call, word sculpting tools.
And then one more image for you. I explain all of this in the concept of an inverted triangle. So at the top part of the triangle is where you strategize your message. So the first part of Write to Influence!, tells you how to strategize your message. There are several, several things you have to do to strategize it. And when you get down to the bottom of that inverted triangle, this is where part two of the book comes in. It's called the word sculpting tools. And that's where you go sentence by sentence, and you apply the word sculpting tools and you get rid of all that fluff. Now, you've got two things. You've got a hard-hitting product and you've just bought yourself more space, remember spaces are an opportunity to keep making your case. And that in a nutshell is my methodology. But I teach it in such a fun way. I talk about Mary Poppins and hard-boiled eggs, and hogs in the bed- don't hog space, poker, scavenger hunts. So I teach this, and this is not your momma's grammar book, this is a fun way of learning how to rethink about writing.
Nikki Rogers: I love it. So talk to us about the difference. You talked about these words sculpting tools, so I'm curious about hogs versus hard-boiled eggs and how does that figures into the words?
Carla Bass: Let me introduce you to the word sculptor first. Okay, so you are now a sculptor and you're sitting in your sun-drenched studio in Paris. You've got your little beret and the hammer and chisel, and you're facing an 8ft block of marble. Because you're a master sculptor, you know the image that's dormant in that marble. So hammer, hammer, chisel, chisel, rebel, rebel, there's your statue. Word sculpting does the same thing, except in lieu of that block of marble, you have your first draft.
And so you apply the 10-word sculpting tools sentence by sentence, and you shed all of that rubble. Now, we'll talk about hard-boiled eggs. One of my word sculpting tools I call, verbs are your friends, rely on them. And I explain this, imagine a hard-boiled egg. Got it? Now make that hard-boiled egg six-foot-tall, big hard-boiled egg. Focus on the yolk. The yolk is the verb. All of the white stuff is called albumen. I've got to learn how to pronounce that word. I can spell it. Anyway, those are the words that we use nowadays that suffocate the verbs. So for example, post threats is, threatened. Puts at a disadvantage is disadvantages. Serve as a liaison is liaise. Provide protection is, protect. So you see how we've gotten a really bureaucratic blabber, instead of just cutting to the verb itself, we have to encase it in all of this extraneous verbiage. So that's the hard-boiled egg concept. Now, the hog space. There are three ways to hog space. I'll just talk about one of them. The concept is to go from saying using several words to using one or two. For example, at the same time is simultaneous. It's easier for the brain to grab one word than it is to grab many. And remember, the whole thing you're trying to do is to generate a product that's easy for the reader to digest. Say more hog space on a daily basis. We hear that all the time. You never have to say on a “blank” basis. It's daily or weekly or nationally, but you never have to say on a blank basis. And remembering my white rectangle, every time you use words that hog space or a hard-boiled egg instead of the verb, you're using up that valuable space. You're throwing it away, and you're throwing away an opportunity. Up to date is current, on at least one occasion is at least once, in the aftermath is after. Okay, so that's how you avoid words that hog space.
Nikki Rogers: I love those examples and that image of a boiled egg, and just peeling back the layers and letting the verb free.
Carla Bass: You're freeing up. You're emancipating the plural verb has been shackled with all of this because people don't know how to write like this any longer.
Nikki Rogers: Great. Those are great images, and I'll have this in mind going forward as I think about writing. What is one of your greatest accomplishments? You talked about folks writing and telling you that your work really helped them become better writers. When you think about your time in business, what would you say is one of your greatest accomplishments that you're most proud of?
Carla Bass: Some of the testimonials. So there are two, and these are unsolicited testimonials. And each case it opens up with, Colonel Bass, you probably don't remember me but, and in truth, I've taught so many people for so many years. I really didn't remember them. But what they told me, it just continues to inspire me. So person one said that they're both in my unit, way back when I first invented this. So one person said, I have just made GS 15 at the age of 36, which is a tremendous accomplishment. Basically, your teaching me how to write facilitated my successful career in the federal government. And throughout my career, I've been teaching others. I've been mentoring others with your writing methodology. So that's one. And the other was, Colonel Bass, you probably don't remember me, but I kept that little handbook for 18 years because you taught me how to write, I was able to be accepted into Officer's Training School. I just retired after 20 years as an officer. And I'm now the vice president of a Defense Corporation because you taught me how to write. That just raises goosebumps. And I get those types of testimonials all the time, and that's why I have to keep going.
Nikki Rogers: Wonderful accolades, and it's great that not only they achieved those things but they also remember it and thought enough of you to write back and say, this is the genesis of your methodology.
Carla Bass: I'm so grateful. So there is a lesson there that if your viewers are grateful to somebody else, stop the world and let them know. So here's one more, and this is something that people don't often think about. But I tell folks, it's one thing and it's a lot of Tori to be able to submit your subordinates for awards. Good on you, that's a sign of good leadership. But if you have a relationship with your boss and you have the father to support it, consider recommending yourself for an award to the boss because he's busy. He or she is busy. So again, it's presuming you've got this good mojo going, but you approach the person to say that there is an award coming up. Would it be okay with you if I wrote a nomination for myself for your consideration? People, it doesn't occur to them to do that. So I suggested it to one woman, she'd asked me to help her with the resume while the resume freaking awesome. It needed a lot of work, but she had certainly been racking up the accomplishments. I suggested that to her. She was executed, and she was her Agency's Supervisor of the Year as a result. So it's so gratifying to be able to empower people to improve their own lives by teaching them how to write.
Nikki Rogers: Right. Now, most of my listeners are entrepreneurs. So can you talk a bit about it, so some folks may be listening and they're like, that's great. Yes, it would be lovely to help write up an award for myself. And when you think about entrepreneurs, can you talk a little bit about why it's so important for entrepreneurs to be able to write well?
Carla Bass: Sure, and thank you for redirecting that just a little bit. Entrepreneurs are out there. Their babies are their businesses. It's not their subordinates necessarily, it's their businesses. So the same thing applies. There are so many awards out there, county, state, national that if you are able to write like this, you can submit your business for these awards. You can submit your business for the grants like I did. This kind of writing also applies to knowing your customers. So whether you're trying to compose persuasive marketing products, or whether you're trying to compete for contracts, there are all sorts of applications from an entrepreneurial perspective.
Nikki Rogers: Great. Thank you. I think it gets lost. I think a lot of entrepreneurs think that, oh, that's the marketing team’s or marketing consultant's job or the copywriter's job. But I think you're really bringing up...
Carla Bass: The copywriter is only as good as the material that you provide them. Nobody knows about your business more, and nobody cares about your business more than you. So there's actually a parallel between your boss saying, hey, give me input for your annual performance review. You assume, because this is unfortunately generally the case that the boss can't write so you learn how to write yourself so that what you give him is just spot on and it's eye-watering. It's the same thing in providing material to copywriters. If you being the entrepreneur, learn how to write like this, you're the one that drives the potency of the material of the fodder of the detail that you give to the copywriters. You can't completely abrogate that and entrust it to somebody else.
Now, we talk about the top part of that triangle a little bit. One of my strategies, and applies to entrepreneurs, but one of the strategies and a mistake that people often make in writing any of these products is one, they fail to include the impact of what they've done. So that there's one strategy that hits the impact. The second strategy is to convey it using detail because detail provides the reader with a mental yardstick. They can understand what you're saying if you provide the detail, the statistics if you ground it for them. But the third one, and this is one that's very subtle. People tend to think sequentially. They think chronologically. And they mistakenly emphasize the how over the what. Now, I'll give you an example. This is based on a resume bullet, but this applies to anything that you're trying to write. So the first step of this resonates well and we'll watch it transform applying those strategies.
The opening volley developed a marketing strategy that the division chief implemented. So it starts off with a good verb and the dude implemented it so you think that's good. But then you say, developed a marketing strategy that increased sales by 30% this quarter alone. So now, you've got that how and when you get to the what. So it's still backward. Then you flip it. So this is where the important part of that sentence is what the result was, not how you achieved it. So the final bullet catapulted sales by 30% this quarter alone, okay, boom, boom, with an innovative marketing strategy she developed that's now emulated throughout the company.
Nikki Rogers: Yes. Much more impactful.
Carla Bass: Yup. So what you see there is you've got the detail with the 30%. Another one of my strategies, I call it, subliminal words. That's the word alone. 30% this quarter also being a detail, put it in context. Alone is the subliminal word. But most importantly, we put the horse in front of the cart. The horse being catapulted sales. So whenever you're trying to market yourself or compete for a contract, when you're trying to explain what your accomplishments have been and why you deserve this opportunity, don't explain how you did it, explain what you did and then explain how. Because you have to remember, tick, tick, tick, I'm busy. You don't want to lose the reader before you get the key point across. And that happens to be another one of my strategies which is the gold nugget. Don't bury the golden nugget. You got to get that thing up first because if you've only got 15 seconds, how are you going to use them?
Nikki Rogers: Right. I'm loving these nuggets. First of all, thinking of that space is an opportunity. That has changed my whole perspective around when you get that box and you have to write something as an opportunity.
Carla Bass: Okay, let's talk about useless words. Useless words are my number one word sculpting tool. And I put it there because it is the most important of all of them. So useless words provide with 100% of the time, you never have to say with. I provide you with an opportunity. You provide me a chance to speak to your listening audience. The facility here provided me with a room. It takes a direct object so every time you say provide with you has wasted space, W-I-T-H space. So when you are space-constrained and every word matters, you've just thrown away a little bit of that opportunity with the word "provide with." There is, there are, if you look hard at a sentence it starts with there is and there are, you can find a good subject and a good verb hiding there. So that's the concept of useless words. But then you know, you whittle, whittle, whittle, whittle, and that's how you get the hard-hitting products that are really going to be compelling. And the reader says, oh yes, you're so good. You're so right. You win.
Nikki Rogers: I love this concept because instead of shortening, there are often space constraints. And you think there should be less words, and it's often about cutting out a number of words versus the sculpting aspect which is actually allowing your message to come through within the space that you have.
Carla Bass: Yes, it comes through with more force. It comes through more compellingly. It comes through crisper, and you have more opportunities to make more points. And that's the whole essence. Now, people get intimidated when it comes to writing. This stuff is easy to learn. It really is. But I explained to them if you think in terms of writing like a game, and I love Mary Poppins. With every job that must be down there as an element of fun, you find the fun and snap the jobs again. And I won't start singing, although I could very easily. But think in terms of writing as painting, the more detail you add, the more it comes into focus. It's like poker. Actually, someone challenged me and said it's like chess. Well, either one, poker or chess, because if you know your audience, you know the audience's reaction, you know the reaction that you are trying to elicit. If they have counter-arguments, you know what the counter-arguments are because you've done your homework. And so you counter their arguments. So it's intellectuals, an intellectual game to be able to outbid or to get your policy approach approved or whatever. So it's poker. It's a scavenger hunt. When you get down to this word sculpting tools and you look for the redundancies, the useless words, those hard-boiled eggs, it's a scavenger hunt. Oh, I found another one. Ooh, I found two more. So it truly is fun if you approach it that way. And looking at it from that perspective, it's not nearly as intimidating.
Nikki Rogers: Definitely. You're making it sound like a good time, so I appreciate that. I appreciate that. I know you have a couple of things that are coming up including a new course that you're launching. Can you tell us a little bit about how people could work with you?
Carla Bass: Sure. My website is www.writetoinfluence.net. You can reach me by email at carla@writetoinfluence.net and just holler. In addition to the workshops, I help people with resumes. I've gotten involved in very technically oriented reports that were going to Congress, but because the original drafts were so technical, they would've been dead on arrival. So I've helped append, rewrite, refocus. Those were mammoth projects, but I can do that also. On my web page, recognizing that people are having difficult times because of this blasted COVID, I created three free eBooks.
So the first one is called Write to Win! A Standout Resume, Write to Win! A Performance Review and Write to Win! A Grant Submission. In each one of those, I've taken the word sculpting strategies and tools and laser-focused them on those three particular products. I also generate a twice-monthly E-newsletter. And these are, you're not going to be surprised, short and sweet and to the point called, Write to Influence! Quick Tips. And I put a tremendous amount of effort into these because I value my readers time. So if anybody out there is interested in receiving these, again, carla@writetoinfluence.net. I'd be glad to share them with you.
Nikki Rogers: Thanks, Carla. I will share all of that information in our show notes. And also your book is available online...
Carla Bass: Online, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, in many public libraries. And if I could ask your listeners a favor, if you happen to get the book and you like it, and you have time, could you please write a little bit of a review on Amazon, because unless you walk in an author's shoes, you have no idea how valuable those things are. Just a sentence or two reviews, to me, is a gold nugget. And I'm deeply appreciative for everyone that I get.
Nikki Rogers: Great. So everyone, if you buy or read Write to Influence!, please drop Carla a review. Now, before we get out of here, there are two questions that I always ask my guests. So the first one is, what are one or two songs that are on your power playlist and why?
Carla Bass: I love that question. Okay, my number one favorite song, and I'm sure that nobody out there unless you're 65 years or older is going to know it. But Robert Goulet is one of my favorite vocalists. He sang in the 1960s. He was hugely popular. And of all of his songs, I love Ebb Tide. And why? The music, the lyrics and his performance that he does in that one song is what Michelangelo does with paints, or what Diana Gabaldon or Daniel Silva does with words, it's the only song I've ever heard. It envisions a tide very slowly coming up on the shore and then ebbing back to the ocean. But it's a love song. And the thing, because it increases in rank, it increases in volume, and you can actually imagine these waves crashing against the rocks as the crescendo hits. And then it slowly and gently subsides again as the woman and the man are in each other's arms. Ebb Tide, it's brilliant. And his voice, it's amazing. So that's my favorite song of all songs.
Nikki Rogers: It sounds like a beautiful song. And the ocean, the beach is my favorite place so I definitely will check that song out. And then the last question before we let you go, what is one book that has really influenced how you thrive in business?
Carla Bass: What I do and what I teach comes from within. So there is not a book that helped me learn how to write. I credit a seventh-grade English teacher, Mrs. Gail Wix. And I had a chance when I was a Major. I circled back, took a picture of me and explained that if it hadn't been for her instruction in the seventh grade, I wouldn't have fallen in love with grammar. I wouldn't have been able to do this. So all of my success, I attributed to her. And she had just had a stroke. She could understand, but she couldn't speak. And I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to complete that circle. But as far as books, again, Diana Gabaldon and Daniel Silva. They're both fiction, but those two authors work pure magic with writing.
When I read something, and I don't have much time to read, I admire authors who infuse so much in using so few words. One example from Daniel Silva, I'm going to mess up the quotation, but "The doorbell rang with the insistency of an angry infant." That conveys so much in so few words, and that's how both of them write.
Nikki Rogers: Sounds gorgeous. Are there any specific books that you would recommend from either of them?
Carla Bass: The Outlander Series from Diana Gabaldon. I actually developed five pages, single-spaced of vocabulary words from that. I enjoy being challenged with vocabulary. I don't like being written, dummy down. I really resent that. And The Heist, Daniel Silva's The Heist. They're all good, but that one is particularly noteworthy.
Nikki Rogers: Thank you so much. Well, Carla, thank you. I have learned so much from our conversation today. And I know that the listeners will take these tips and go forward and become better writers. So thank you so much for your time today.
Carla Bass: You're welcome. Happiness is sharing.
Nikki Rogers: I appreciate it. Have a great rest of your day, and I look forward to seeing what else comes from that great mind of yours.
Carla Bass: Thank you.
Nikki Rogers: Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Women Thriving in Business Podcasts. If you like this episode, share it with a friend. You can also join us on social media to share your feedback and comments. We'd love to hear from you. Be sure to like, review and subscribe on iTunes so you never miss an episode. Until next week, keep thriving.