Richard Daly, the tough guy mayor of Chicago during the Vietnam War, was a hard man to work for. When one of his speech writers asked for a raise Daly refused and told him he should feel privileged to be working for a great American hero. Two weeks later Mayor Daly gave a nationwide speech to a convention of war veterans. Now he was notorious for never reading his speeches beforehand, so there he stood before a huge crowd and and began to propose a seventeen point plan to care for war veterans. Everyone, including Mayor Daly himself, was on the edge of their seat to hear what the proposal was. He turned the page and saw only these words: ‘You’re on your own now, you great American hero.’
No matter how well we perform we are only as good as the person who writes our speech. Who writes yours?