Interview: Eleonora Russell

Mary: Welcome to the Speechwriters Room. I'm Mary Robbins. I'm recording this for people who like or write speeches and those who deliver them. And I cannot wait to get to the interview because today's guest is such a delight. In the Netherlands, Eleanor Russell has been a speechwriter for the president of the Dutch Senate and for leaders at the Ministry of Defense. For the past several years, she's worked closely with the now retired military officer of the Navy, Admiral Rob Bauer. And in a little bit, We're gonna hear a brief excerpt of a speech that Eleanora worked on with Admiral Bauer back when he was the chief of defense in the Netherlands. And even if you don't happen to speak Dutch, I promise you will definitely feel the gravitas of that performance. Eleanora was also a strategic communications advisor when Admiral Bauer served as the chair of NATO's Military Committee, and the two of them have co-authored a book titled If You Want Peace, Prepare for War. Now, if you remember one thing from today's episode, let it be this. Both Eleanora Russell and Admiral Bauer will be keynoting the 2026 Professional Speechwriters Association World Conference. That's next month from October 26th through the 28th. My conversation with Eleanora on this episode is only a brief preview of the insights that she and Admiral Bauer will be sharing from the main stage. So if you haven't yet registered for the conference, do that now. You can find out more at pro rhetoric dot com. Now let's get to the show. Eleanora, thank you so much for taking the time. I wanted to make sure that the listener was aware that you're joining us from Amsterdam. Is that right? Absolutely, Mary. I am joining you ⁓ from a on a rainy, ⁓ rainy evening in Amsterdam. I've got candles in my living room, so I've set set a whole whole mood ⁓ and I'm very much looking forward to talking to you. So we connected a little bit before this, and you were telling me the story of how you got into speechwriting. And you were working in the Dutch Senate. I was, yeah, as an intern. I I had finished my law degree. I didn't know exactly ⁓ what I wanted to do, where my life was gonna go. I didn't know speechwriting was a job in the Netherlands that you could even do. But I was an intern at the Senate ⁓ for for a year. Eventually an actual job ⁓ opening popped up and I have had no qualifications to even try to get this job. But they felt sorry for me because I had been working there for so long. So ⁓ the woman ⁓ who was the executive assistant of the of the man who was in charge of this whole decision, ⁓ convinced him to give me a shot and to at least let me write something. And then she would take off all the names of all the speeches that were submitted and he would do a blind judgment. And ⁓ to his own surprise and mine, ⁓ he he picked mine. And that's how I got in. And then at the Senate, I I learned the the tricks of the trade and I've loved it ever since. ⁓ that's so great. And You said that the test was blind. And I'm I'm curious on what you think set your test apart from the other applicants for that speechwriting job. I think maybe ⁓ maybe the warmth that was in the speech. It can't have been the technique because I I didn't have much technique at that point. ⁓ but because I had been working there, I actually t had talked to the to the man who this speech was gonna be for. And the topic of the speech w ⁓ it was supposed to be about an area in the Netherlands. and that I knew that his wife was from. So I put on in all these jokes about his in-laws and his wife and and what sets apart these people who come from that area in the Netherlands. And I g I think the sort of the the warmth and and the the personal touch is is ⁓ I think what what got me in. Yeah. That's such a important point. There's a technical expertise that comes with this job through a lot of experience. But then if you're the type of writer who likes to find those little points of connection. ⁓ that's not something that everybody's going to take the time or the interest to do and so you can really set yourself apart. okay, you started working with the Dutch naval officer, Admiral Rob Bauer, when he's the chief military officer for the Netherlands. And I'm wondering a little bit about how you started out that speech writing relationship. How were you able to gain trust and become sort of that integral member of the team? What was that like? Yes, of course. I actually ⁓ was already working with Admiral Bauer ⁓ in The Hague because after the Senate I I worked at the ⁓ Ministry of ⁓ Defense and I wrote for the Chief of Defense, which was ⁓ him at the time, ⁓ but also for the Minister and the State Secretary. I don't think ⁓ at that time in at the ministry I was maybe an integral part of his team. ⁓ I think that came later in in in Brussels, but I did have of such a strong connection to the organization that I was working for, such a huge amount of respect for people who serve. I really, really gave it everything I had. And I have a background in theater. So the more dramatic ⁓ and the more creative and the the more out there, the better. ⁓ and he has a background in theater as well. He he was choosing between ⁓ going to theater school and and and the navy and some other choices, and it ended up being the navy. So I think in that sense, maybe there was sort of a an alignment there. That allowed me to ⁓ write things for him that maybe I wouldn't have written for other people who didn't have that background. Well, that's fascinating. Yes. I I didn't realize. So can you tell me a little bit about your background in theater and how it ⁓ or in drama and how it might inform your speechwriting skills? ⁓ well, it was all amateur. I mean, nothing nothing professional. But from I think the age of eight up until twenty-five, I did all forms of musical theater, dancing and and singing. I I was never Never very good. I never got the main part, but I was definitely always there. ⁓ and at some point always also got involved in producing plays and and and seeing the whole logistical side of it. I think the reason why it works well ⁓ with with this job is because if the point is to to make it dramatic just for drama's sake, then it's not gonna work. This is not about getting attention, this is about getting through to people. And this is a way, a well-known way, of reaching people on a very, very deep level. If you use music, if you use rhythm, if you use ⁓ emotional language, ⁓ you get through to people. So it it serves a purpose. It's not just to, as we say, ⁓ be a be a show pony. Well, I have two things to say to that. One is I also come from a drama background that was definitely a drama nerd in high school. I was also so fascinated to learn about an idea that you pitched, the Admiral, to include music. in one of his speeches ⁓ f several years ago. I'm hoping you could just describe the event first and kind of set the scene for what it would look like on stage ⁓ when he was going to give the remarks. So I attended ⁓ lots of military ⁓ functions of course if you were ⁓ working at the ministry ⁓ and during these ceremonies there was always a musical part and then there were speeches. And as I was sitting in the audience it struck me how, yeah, I just thought that that was Such a wasted opportunity. You have all these emotions and ⁓ with the music, and then there's a pause and then somebody says something, and then there's another pause and then the music comes. And I thought, how about we make that more of one yeah, continuous thing and feeling? So that's where the idea come ⁓ came from, just ⁓ sitting in on on ⁓ ceremonies. And then I knew that there was ⁓ a big military ⁓ tattoo, it's called. ⁓ once a year it takes place in the Netherlands, but it takes place in many countries in the world. It has all of these fantastic military ⁓ orchestras, bands, ⁓ and any any ⁓ form that you can think of. Then I thought maybe if we can use that ⁓ event where already all the logistics are in place and have him do a speech which my English is failing to hear, but is sort of on top of the music that they are playing. So while like like just like in a movie you have a voiceover, you have music, ⁓ and everything's happening at the same time. ⁓ that's where the idea came from. ⁓ but it had never been done, ⁓ and everything had to be done live, ⁓ which was extremely scary. So the first part of it was just convincing everybody that this could be done, and then actually writing something that fits the music. Well, so when you approached the, I guess, the conductor with this idea, was the conductor on board or were they a little nervous? Like what was that reaction from the conductor side, from the musician side? Both. But in the military, you're trained to do things that you might be a little bit unsure of. So that really helped. ⁓ this sort of can do ⁓ attitude. And also the music that we chose ⁓ was the soundtrack of Band of Brothers, which is such a such an emo emotional, beautiful song ⁓ that everybody wanted to participate in something that had to do with that music because er it it just conjures up these very deep images and and and emotions about what it means to be part of something bigger. ⁓ so we had the music, we had the idea, I had a rough idea of what the text could be, and then I pitched it to the Admiral. And what did what was his reaction to this idea? So he of course he was chief of defence. So he had never had any time. I very, very rarely even saw him. So at as I was crossing him in a corridor and he was in a rush on his way to Parliament to to sort of Probably answer very difficult questions. I said, ⁓ sorry, ⁓ Admiral. So I have this idea. I have this idea. ⁓ maybe we can ⁓ do a mu a speech on music. And he said, You rap? Do you want me to rap? I said, No, no, please don't. But it's like a with the movie, and but now just as I'm explaining it to now, Mary. I explained it to him. And he sort of looked at me, and it I think he sort of judged my facial expression, like to what extent is this woman sure of what she's doing here? And he took a chance and he said, Yeah, ⁓ make a plan and ⁓ go for it. ⁓ a and that and that was it from then on, ⁓ the yeah, it was on I love that story so much because just to be able to connect with a leader who is game for this kind of kind of outside the box ⁓ suggestion or idea it speaks in my book very highly of the Admiral. And also I so relate to what you were saying about the walk and talk down the hallway. Because sometimes in these jobs, you know, you are working with people who are so busy and pulled in so many different directions and a speech review would have to be done in the thirty second between meeting walk down the hallway. And so Yeah. I call that the escalator ⁓ pitch because it's not an ⁓ elevator, because at least in an elevator you're standing still. You're actually moving. You're physically running. And we wrote a speech once in a car that was driving one hundred and sixty kilometers per hour, which is very, very fast. ⁓ I was afraid to look out of the window because I if I did, I knew I would get very nauseous. And and he was late for the events. We had thirty minutes to write it, so we used the thirty minutes and he arrived and he did the speech. It has always been a sort of a fast moving writer, ⁓ speaker ⁓ cooperation. Wow, well that that is incredible. So ⁓ going back to the military tattoo, just in terms of like the stakes of this kind of speech, didn't you tell me royalty was Yeah, the King ⁓ his Majesty the King was ⁓ ⁓ in the audience. It was 3,000 people again, live and not a very easy time for the armed forces. We had come from years of austerity measures, ⁓ measures. Finally money was slowly coming back into the organization. And that's where when we realized how bad things really were and people started to get more honest about the how big the gaps were. So it was even harder than going through maybe through austerity is that sort of slow movement back ⁓ to rebuilding. ⁓ so it was a very hard time. That's why I also that was part of the reason why I wanted to write this and why I thought that this was important to do. Because for those 3,000 people, which is ⁓ largely either people who are still serving veterans and their families, I wanted to make them feel proud and I wanted to make them feel hopeful. ⁓ and that's that's what, yeah, that was the the whole goal of the whole speech. And the timing must be everything to pull off something like that live. And so Did the Admiral have a lot of rehearsals with the conduct with the musicians on stage, or how did you get the timing right? ⁓ he only had one rehearsal where he was allowed to do it three times. It's a two-minute song, ⁓ so, ⁓ or three-minute song. That's an essentially about 15 to 20 minutes of rehearsal. He had just come from an a red-eye flight, arrived at the at the venue, the 150 military musicians from all Arm surface branches had never played together in that formation before either, so they were rehearsing. The first time he did it, it was awful. The second time he did it, it was worse. The third time he did it, we thought, ⁓ we can make this work. And then the first time he actually did it properly was during the actual show. I I've never been so nervous as for that speech. And I'll sword in the kortschieter. Vult muziek de stilte. Het drukt uit what wij voelen. Kracht. Trotts. Again, my hat is off to you for pulling something off like that. That's really great. You know, you you've used this phrase before, and I wanted to hear you talk a little bit more about it. You call it leadership by speech. And I'm wondering what you mean by that. Well, I've always wanted to write speeches in places where. Speeches make a difference where it and not only in in terms of making people feel good or but but really in policy wise make a difference. And in in in the military, in in in defense, speeches make a huge difference. That's why you have to stand to attention. That's not only if ⁓ because of it's a sign of respect, it has a very practical reason. You have to listen to every bit of information. If you miss something, it could have disastrous consequences. So speech is a very is is a very ⁓ yeah. ⁓ important way of conveying information, which is not the case in in every line of work. So ⁓ leadership by speech is is when a couple of really well ⁓ researched, well developed ⁓ speeches, maybe only one or two a year, make the difference in in how people view you as a leader, how people ⁓ view the organization, how people view themselves. That's what I've always sort of ⁓ been yeah wanted to do most. I think that kind of sums up the body of work that you and Admiral Bauer have been doing ⁓ together. I guess it was in 2021 and in the first weeks of twenty twenty two, Admiral Bauer is the chair of the NATO military committee. And then Russia starts really amassing military equipment and troops close to Ukraine's border. I just wanted to get your sense of what those weeks and months were like for you, ⁓ being in Brussels at the time. Yeah. Very surreal, very ⁓ very strange because in the in the months ⁓ that followed, whilst we were living ⁓ and feeling this every day, if you went back to your head your ⁓ your capital, ⁓ of course at the Ministry of Defense and at the Prime Minister's office, people would be talking about it in the same tone of voice. But in society, even though people felt very ⁓ had a lot of compassion to the for the people of Ukraine, they did they hadn't yet made that connection. That this could happen to us too. That's where this idea came from that we needed to bridge the gap between what was being said at the NATO headquarters and what is what was being said in Allied capitals and in ⁓ in and allied societies at large. Yeah. I'm curious about ⁓ the message, the idea, the the central theme of what you and Admiral Bauer were working on, and he was using his platform to spread this message of if you want peace, prepare for war. And then it goes from there, right? It builds from there. Yeah. And we started conveying the message late 2022, early 2023, but it wasn't until January 24 where it sort of went viral and got the platform and the impact that it did. And that's because in Sweden, ⁓ there was a minister of of civil defense who had said to in a in a in a in an interview that Swedes needed to prepare for war. And that was such a shock that it completely Blew away the country. Swedish children were calling up the equivalent of 911 to ask, what are we doing? What are we supposed to do? Are we safe? Can I go to bed tonight? So it completely sort of disrupted society. And it was a turning point for them. And that next day, all of the chiefs of defense sat around the table of the military committee and said to the Swedish ⁓ chief of defense, We are on your team. We have been saying the same thing and we will say it again. People need to hear this. And then in the press conference ⁓ that ⁓ evening, Admiral Bauer, together with the Supreme Allied Commander Europe, General Cavoli, were asked about that statement in Sweden, and they said, Yeah, we do have to prepare for war. And that shook people in Europe. ⁓ and not all people, by the way, there's big differences within Europe, ⁓ depending on where you are geographically, but let's just say ⁓ overall. ⁓ so only from that moment on the message started to really ⁓ spread ⁓ worldwide even. And ⁓ we started to realize that we had to be more strategic in where we were placing it because ⁓ we needed to see which parties which which which categories do we need to convince most and and who and and where will well where will that lead? Not just randomly speak at every event, but really choose that wisely and and make a strategy there. I imagine he delivered a spate of speeches with that message embedded throughout. Can you tell me a little bit about ⁓ just that process of going from that idea to iterating on it speech after speech, what that process was like? We wanted to make sure that societies were also preparing for war, not because we want war, ⁓ not because we think war is somehow inevitable, but because the more prepared you are, the more resilient you are, the smaller the chance that war will come to you. It you're just ⁓ your deterrence is stronger. So that's core message was was clear, ⁓ because that's military logic history. ⁓ this is ⁓ goes back to Roman times. So in that sense the core message was there, but then you had to tailor make it to whatever audience you're talking to. If you're talking to people in the Netherlands who haven't experienced war in eighty years, very, very different ⁓ to talking to people in Poland. And po Poland very, very different to Slovakia. And and and I and there every country has a different history with war, has a different has different words that trigger things. ⁓ so that that's how we try to really tailor make it to whatever nation ⁓ we were talking to and also if we were talking to the general public or politicians or industry leaders. Etc. Right. And you've you've touched on this, but you know, maybe pulling this thread a bit more. When you're writing a speech, you can motivate people through hope, of course. Like if we band together, here's the brighter future we can achieve. But you can also motivate people through fear. Like if we don't band together, here are all the awful consequences that will befall us. And I'm wondering how you have thought about that in this message in particular of if you want peace, you know, prepare for war. Have you thought about that balance and and what you've seen that motivates people? ⁓ gosh, every day. every day. In my experience, Fear can make people not do something, it can pr ⁓ but it very rarely inspires real action. Hope inspires real action and trust ⁓ inspires real real action. So we had to find a balance between on the one hand, maybe instilling realism was was ⁓ what we're trying to do, but always coupling that with giving people ⁓ confidence and agency. Because if you only talk about everything that's coming our way and you don't talk about everything that we have to face that and to be able to do some ⁓ be strong, then ⁓ you've only scared people and ⁓ that's not the point. The point was to prepare, not to scare. ⁓ but I think we had to sort of find our way in that. We got lots of negative responses, ⁓ sometimes also from the political level, that we were going too far, ⁓ sort of depending on the country. We would always have to find that balance and s and and We didn't do everything right, I have to say. But we really we tried and we tried to remain ourselves. We tried to sort of remain authentic, ⁓ and consistent. ⁓ so that's what we also tried to do. So we did make minor tweaks, but we never made major ⁓ tweaks because a we didn't think they were necessary, but also ⁓ you lo you lose your credibility. But that's fascinating what you just said, and I think it speaks to, you know, when you are animated by a core value. ⁓ you can present it in different ways and you can try new things, but at the end of the day, your message is your message. It's what you firmly believe in. And so, yes, of course, there are some techniques of speaking to different audiences or updating the message to fit, you know, 2026, but you are working from the same solid place, that bedrock value. And I think that's really important for what you were saying about leadership through speech. That is where the leadership is, right? The leadership is is animated by that core value and that it doesn't really change, right? Fully, fully agree. Yeah, fully agree. So if folks out there are interested in learning more, they can attend your keynote address at PSA World Conference here in a few weeks. You don't have to give away the store of the whole presentation, but I'm just curious if you wanted to give a preview of what you'll be sharing in that keynote alongside Admiral Bauer. Yeah, I think Part of it is of of ⁓ has elements of what we've already talked about, but we also want to talk about trusting audiences with very, very hard messages. Cause what I found, I've been a speechwriter now for about 15 years. ⁓ when I started out, ⁓ the first ⁓ well at least decade, I was trained to not ⁓ make things ⁓ too too difficult, too too risky. ⁓ and I hated that. ⁓ because if you're so scared of saying anything, you lose space to your adversaries, you lose the opportunity to connect with people, you lose the opportunity to instill ⁓ credibility and trust. So I always would prefer to try something, of course, calculate it, never crazy, ⁓ but try it and trust your audience. ⁓ re remain authentic and there's there's more that you can get away with than people think. That's what I believe in ⁓ when it comes to speeches. ⁓ and and Admiral Bauer ⁓ as well. That's why the cooperation works so well. So we're also gonna talk a little bit about the cooperation between speaker and writer. ⁓ but I'm sure that once we're there and ⁓ given the audience, we'll end up talking about everything, also the connection between America and Europe and where to go from here. It will no doubt also have some political, ⁓ more themed, ⁓ not partisan, but the sort of pan-political ⁓ questions. ⁓ so I'm really, really looking forward to it because These are my people. Well, I I guess ⁓ being in the audience, one of my questions would be to Admiral Bauer, what would it take for him to stand up in front of ⁓ the King of the Netherlands and rap? Thank you so much for for having this conversation with me. I I'm just so delighted to meet you and to ⁓ have conversations like this. And as always, thank you all for stopping by the speechwriters room. If you liked today's episode. Hit the follow button and rate the show five stars. To learn more about me, Mary Robbins, you can visit storiedcommunications.com. 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