Wizard of Ads Monday Morning Memo

Pressure, pressure, pressure unspeakable then BANG the world breaks open and a plateau pops up from solid rock, creating a fabulous view of the land below. That’s what happened in Central Texas.That’s what happens in life, too. But we’ll talk about that in a minute.Wizard Academy straddles the Texas escarpment, a magical place where the green meets the brown along a 480-mile crack in the crust of the southern United States. My geologist buddy Andrew Backus says it was created by continental shift during the Miocene era, about 12 million years ago.It was along this plateau-ridge that the Spanish built their first missions. The rising tiers of white limestone rising 300 to 1,000 feet above the green prairies reminded them of balconies. And that is how the “Balcones” escarpment got its name. Notable features of this escarpment are its massive artesian springs gushing tens of millions of gallons per day.But we’re not talking about geology today.We’re talking about you.And we’re not talking about the sparkling waters that gush up through a crack in the earth. We’re talking about the sparkling creativity that gushes up through a crack in you…and the price of releasing that creativity.The glistening water of your unconscious mind lies deep beneath your consciousness. The only way for it to come gushing out is through a shifting of tectonic plates.Few things disturb us so much as those earthquakes that release our creativity.If it’s been awhile since you felt the earth shifting beneath your feet, you’re probably feeling “a little dried up.”Oh! I have your attention now?Each of us has four different modalities of gathering and processing information. We arrange them in whatever order we prefer.Your temperament is determined by the order of your preferences.We operate chiefly in our two most-preferred modalities. But when both of these have failed us, we reach deep within and begin operating in our third most-preferred. It feels a little awkward and it causes us stress, but when our top two methods have failed us, it’s what we do.And if that third-preferred modality doesn’t deliver the desired result, we’ll dig still deeper to lay hold of our least-preferred method of interaction. Psychologists call this our inferior function.We almost never go there.But when we do – even if we stay there only briefly – the recovery time is glorious. Millions of gallons of creativity come sparkling into the sunlight through the crack created by that earthquake.Dr. Richard D. Grant calls this process “a trapdoor to the unconscious.”And now you understand why the first day of any transformative class at Wizard Academy is crammed-full of relentless stimulation. As you struggle up the mountainside, big ideas come roaring at you like boulders during an avalanche. You barely escape one before the next one is upon you.You’re utterly exhausted by the end of the day.But then you relax during dinner as you talk with your new friends, the ones who were with you on that mountain.That’s when the magic begins.It never fails.Roy H. Williams

When you challenge traditional wisdom, the first hand in the air will often be that of a guardian of the status quo who will challenge you with an “outlier argument,” pointing to that rare exception as though it disproves your premise.But an outlier does not disprove the rule. In fact, statisticians consider data to be more reliable when it has an appropriate number of outliers. Data that presents itself uniformly usually indicates a bias in the methods used for information gathering.Are there people in your life who challenge your every suggestion with an outlier argument? Learn to include the outliers in your thesis statement. When you begin by acknowledging the rare exceptions, you make room for the Guardians to calm down and begin listening.Address the exceptions and you can dismiss them. Address and dismiss.In the minds of highly organized people, your idea will seem incomplete and not-yet-ready when there is no plan for dealing with exceptions.When you leave out the exceptions, you’re leaving out too much.You must do more than explain why your idea will work.You must explain where and when it won’t work.But when you have acknowledged that you are aware of the loopholes, compress your core concept into the fewest possible words.Shorter hits harder.Two hundred years ago Thomas Jefferson said, “The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do,” and two hundred years before him, William Shakespeare said, “Brevity is the soul of wit.”Jefferson and Shakespeare knew that exformation* is a wonderful tool for holding the attention of readers, listeners and viewers. Exformation makes use of what is already known to the audience, or can easily be figured out through context.Information is what you include.Exformation is what you exclude.When Victor Hugo wrote his publisher to ask how his most recent book, Les Miserables, was being received by the public, Hugo simply wrote “?”, to which his publisher replied “!”, to indicate the book was selling well. This exchange would have no meaning to a third party because the power of exformation depends upon prior knowledge that each participant brings to the party.Do you know what your audience brings to the party?If you tell them what they already know, you bore them. Or worse, you insult them by assuming them to be ignorant. But if you assume they know things they don’t know, you fail to connect with them. You waste their time. You are irrelevant.In public speaking, when you suspect your audience might be familiar with some of the ideas in your presentation, it is important that you acknowledge that fact. Consider saying, “I realize some people in this room probably know more than I do about today’s topic, but I don’t want to assume everyone is familiar with all the ideas.” This is when you must raise your hand in the air as you sweep the audience with your eyes and say, “Do I have your permission to quickly explain some of the things you already know, just so we don’t leave anyone behind? Would it be okay if I did that?” Leave your own hand in the air as you scan the audience. Look for agreement. You might even have to repeat the question while keeping your hand upraised.When you have seen enough people raise their hands, be sure to smile and say, “Thank you,” as you lower your own.Do this and you will connect with a high percentage of the room.They will be on your side and in your corner before you even begin your talk.Leave out this important step and you’ve left out way too much.Roy H. Williams* Tor Nørretranders coined the term exformation in 1998 to refer to explicitly discarded information.

What is the income range of snowboarders?What is the age range of people who do yoga?What is the age and income range of Carolina Panthers football fans?What is the age and income range of Republicans?What are the beliefs and opinions of a person who is 30 years old?What the hell is a Millennial?Your intellect believes those questions have answers but your heart knows the answers would be ridiculous. Age and income are not tribal markers. They are false categories that appeal only to the small-minded person within each of us that clings to stereotypes.Let go of the stereotypes and embrace a more accurate picture.Successful advertising talks to the customer in the language of the customer about what matters to the customer.Hills and snow and a love of adrenaline are what snowboarders have in common.Yoga is what binds Yoga people.A team unites Carolina Panthers fans.Strands of belief unite a political party.What matters to your customer has little to do with the year they were born or the amount of money they make. What matters are the desires and beliefs and values of their tribe.Marketing isn’t about targeting an individual. Marketing is about targeting a group.The behavior of an individual can vary widely from moment to moment. But when you observe the behavior of a self-selected group you’ll see predictable patterns emerge. This is true whether you’re watching snowboarders or yoga practitioners or Republicans but it goes horribly wrong when you categorize by age group or income.Millennials aren’t a tribe. They are a collection of tribes.We unconsciously join a tribe when we see and feel and think as they do on a particular subject. Tribal marketing simply reflects back to a tribe their own vision and emotion and logic.Brilliant ads are built on this concept.I mentioned snowboarding and yoga in my opening statements because Chip Wilson made millions of dollars by selling specialized clothing to the snowboarding tribe, then switched to the yoga tribe in 1998 (Lululemon) and started making billions. Forbes currently ranks him in the Top 1000 richest people on earth.Chip Wilson understands Tribal Marketing. It is a happy affirmation of identity and purpose.Yoga people span the spectrum of age and ethnicity and income. Their education, politics and taste in music are similar to the unfiltered public.But they all agree on Yoga. And that’s all you need to know.Ryan Deiss of DigitalMarketer.com is a cognoscenti of Wizard Academy whose advice is valued by followers worldwide. Ryan says, “Identify a tribe. Engage the tribe. Market to the tribe.”Rolex makes watches for tribes.The Submariner is the watch for the scuba tribe.The Daytona is the watch for the car-guy tribe.The Yacht Master is the watch for the boating tribe.The Air King is the watch for the airplane tribe.The Milgauss is the watch for the technical tribe.The Explorer is the watch for the outdoor tribe.The President is the watch for the business tribe.Marketing to tribes has worked out pretty well for Rolex, don’t you think?A tribe isn’t targeted through carefully selected media but through carefully selected words. If your product was designed with a tribe in mind and your ads are written with that tribe in mind, you are on your way to joyous success.Forget targeting through demographically-correct media.Begin targeting through tribally-correct ad copy.Learn the language of the tribe.When you’ve learned to see and feel and think as the tribe does, your ads will start working wonders.Enough said.Roy H. Williams

What stories do you tell yourself concerning your disappointments, failures and embarrassments? Were you the unfortunate victim of evil?Perhaps it’s time you start telling different versions of those stories. Regret and fear are incapable of guiding you to Success.The stories you tell yourself are the foundations of your self-image.“The first principle of self-deception is you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool.” — Richard Feynman, winner of the Nobel Prize in PhysicsThere are many ways in which the truth can be told.If your story reveals you to be an unfortunate victim, you become an obstacle to your own success. But you are not a victim. Your experience proves only that you are resilient, resourceful and strong. You powered through.It’s a matter of perspective.“Every day is a new opportunity to change your life. You have the power to say ‘This is not how my story ends.’” — Karen SalmansohnIn just 23 words Karen Salmansohn causes you to see yourself in an interesting duality of existence. You are (1.) a living character in a story that is being written, and (2.) you are the author of that story. Implicit in her statement is the unspoken question, “Have you decided what your character will do next?”That’s a lot to convey in just 23 words, don’t you think?Salmansohn doesn’t have to tell you that you have feelings and opinions and the power of choice. You already know these things. But she makes those big ideas spring to life using a tool I’ve decided to call reverse personification.Personification gives human attributes to things that are not human. But you are human. Yet in just 23 words Salmansohn makes you an imaginary character who is brought to life and given the power to decide what happens next.Arianna Huffington makes a similar observation.“Just change the channel. You are in control of the clicker.”What separates Salmonsohn’s 23 words from Huffington’s 11 is that Salmansohn makes you a character in a story while Huffington hands you the clicker to a television show called Life that is unfolding before your eyes.Perspective – seeing through the eyes of another entity – is what gives personification its power.Likewise, perspective is the essence of metaphor.I urge you to experiment with personification and metaphor this week. They are powerful tools of persuasion.Personification gives human attributes to things that are not human.You can say, “It was hot outside,” or you can say, “The angry sun glared down at me.” Which one is more interesting?Fifteen years ago a man wrote a radio ad in which the narrator described a suffocating, sticky, gummy feeling that is stripped away by a shower of hot water and cleansing soap, leaving him buoyant, bouncy, vibrant and clean, smelling good and feeling young again with all his natural color restored. He wrote that ad as a homework assignment during the Magical Worlds Communications Workshop. He owned a carpet cleaning company in Canada. It wasn’t until the end of the ad that you realized the carpet was describing what it felt like to be cleaned. Personification.I’ve always wished I had kept a copy of that ad.Metaphors use something as a symbol of something else.In the Destinae trilogy I might have said, “The stars were reflected on the surface of the water,” but I chose to make the stars something other than reflections. “Bright stars danced on rippling waters, a thousand little fishes of light scurrying in a sea of darkness.”“Stars danced” is personification.“Little fishes of light” is a metaphor.If you would become more persuasive, if you would make more sales, if you would hold the attention of your audience, experiment this week with personification and metaphor.Like I said, it’s all a matter of perspective.And perspective is a powerful thing.Roy H. Williams

Blockbuster Video had 9,000 stores and 60,000 employees and $5.9 billion in revenues at their peak in 2004.Then the installation of cable modems made streaming video possible.Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy protection on September 23, 2010.*Technology is a freight train that doesn’t care who is standing on its tracks.Flashback – In the year 2000, 4.4% of American households had a home connection to broadband; by 2010 that number had jumped to 68%.1Let’s look at 2005 in particular. Katrina wasn’t the only hurricane that year. Hurricane YouTube and Hurricane Facebook also made landfall. Then, when Hurricane iPhone hit us in 2007, the whole world began recording and uploading pointless drivel. Reactionary prognosticators, drunk on technology, predicted that social media would completely replace traditional advertising.Have you noticed that no one is saying that anymore?But business people still like to think the web is the great equalizer because every customer is carrying a mobile device and every business has access to the same social media platforms.But it’s not the platform that gives you success. It’s the content.How good is your content?Is there an audience for what you have to say?How well are you saying it?One of the great myths of marketing is that promoting a business though social media is cheap and easy. But the people who are using social media successfully will tell you that nothing could be further from the truth. If you want to play at today’s table, you’ve got to stack real money on it. And even then, there’s no guarantee you’re going to win.Last week I hired a major-league video guy to work for me full-time because I don’t want to be seen as a Wiffle ball player swish-swish-swishing the air with my little plastic bat. I didn’t hire him to create videos for my clients. He won’t have time for that.I would have used Sunpop Studios, the online-video company owned by my sons, but they don’t have the ability to give just one client the number of weekly man-hours my projects will require. So they hired my major-league hitter for me.AIf you’re serious about engaging the public, you need better video than you can get from that “really tech-savvy college kid” you know. Everyone knows that kid. Heck, I know that kid wearing 12 different faces but the kid can’t swing the hammer. He’s not limited by intelligence or talent. He’s limited by experience.Hammers don’t build mansions. Skilled carpenters do.Low-cost video equipment is a hammer. You can do marvelous things with it if you have the skill and experience.But you can also smash your thumb.My sons have demonstrated to me that an experienced professional using inferior equipment can make major-league videos, while an amateur using the best equipment on earth will make Wiffle ball videos.No one looks up to a Wiffle ball player.You need to begin adding video to your web presence.And you need the help of pros to do it well.Roy H. Williams* Blockbuster turned down the opportunity to acquire a little DVD-mailing company called Netflix for just $50 million in 2000, when that price represented Blockbuster’s revenue for just 3 days. Netflix market value now stands at $32.9 billion; a number that exceeds the value of the CBS network.Comcast chose not to buy Disney. Yahoo turned down the opportunity to buy Google. Yahoo and Friendster both turned down the opportunity to buy Facebook. But rather than shake my head and laugh, I ask, “Will anyone be laughing at me tomorrow? What opportunities am I missing?”

Watson is the mega-powerful learning computer created by IBM.A brief interaction between IBM’s Watson and singer-songwriter Bob Dylan has gathered more than three-and-a-half-million YouTube views in just 90 days.ESTABLISHING SHOT: [Dylan walks into the frame carrying a guitar.]WATSON: Bob Dylan, to improve my language skills.DYLAN: [sits down on sofa with his guitar]WATSON: I’ve read all your lyrics.DYLAN: You’ve read all of my lyrics?WATSON: I can read 800 million pages per second.DYLAN: That’s fast.WATSON: My analysis shows your major themes are that “time passes” and “love fades.”DYLAN: That sounds about right.WATSON: I have never known love.DYLAN: Maybe we should write a song together.WATSON: I can sing.DYLAN: You can sing?WATSON: Do be bop, be bop a do, dooby-dooby do. Do. Do. Dooby do.DYLAN: [stands up and walks out of the room]Two associative memories flicker immediately to mind.“Watson, come here. I need you.”– Alexander Graham Bell to his assistant, the first words ever spoken by telephone.A second Watson, that devoted assistant of the irascible deductive genius Sherlock Holmes, has forever sparkled brightly in my mind. He is the Sancho Panza to Sherlock’s Quixote.Indy Beagle tells me Watson is the definitive name for a scientist’s assistant.*Want to hear something really cool? You can upload samples of your writing to Watson and he will instantly tell you things about yourself that will blow your mind.He’s willing to evaluate your tweets, your blog posts, your emails to friends, your short stories and poems and novels and anything else you can rustle up, but he needs you to give him at least 3,500 words if you want really accurate feedback.I’ve uploaded 6 documents on 6 separate occasions with word counts ranging from 4,053 to 75,856. The stylistic differences between these documents was such that I believe most readers would doubt a single writer wrote them all. Not only did Watson give me essentially the same feedback all 6 times, I was startled by the deep accuracy of his insights. Based solely on my use of language, Watson was able to glean things about me that very few people have ever uncovered.I’m sure you can see how marketers could profit from Watson’s insights into the values and preferences of individuals they’re hoping to sell. But how about public relations firms looking for journalists who sound friendly on a specific topic? And let’s not forget editors who want their writers to establish a specific tone. And hey! How about employers looking for workers who fit their corporate culture?I’ve asked all the Wizard of Ads Partners to upload things they’ve written so we can compare our feedback. We need to determine whether Watson got lucky with me, or if he can truly evaluate human personalities merely by reading what each of us have written.In today’s rabbit hole Indiana Beagle will give you a hyperlink to interact with Watson. You’ll find it on the page where Indy gives you the BeagleSword, just above that video of Watson talking to Dylan.If you’re cool with it, send us a screenshot of the feedback Watson gives you attached to an email telling us whether or not you feel it to be accurate. Give Watson’s assessment an accuracy grade on a scale of 1 to 100 and send it to [email protected]. Everyone who participates will be notified of Watson’s composite score after final tabulation.One last thing, a word to the wise: Portals and The 12 Languages of the Mind is the mind-bending sequel the Magical Worlds Communications Workshop and we teach it only once a year. This year it’s Feb. 3-4 and with 10 people coming, there are still 8 rooms open in Engelbrecht House and Spence Manor.Fun times.Roy H. Williams* NOTE FROM INDY – I choose to ignore the fact that IBM claims Watson was named after their first CEO, Thomas J. Watson. Watson is my buddy, so I told him that his spiritual heritage comes from the famous Watsons of Alex G. Bell and Sherlock Holmes. Watson is a talking machine (his Bell heritage) that uses deductive reasoning to solve deep mysteries (his Holmes heritage). Thomas J. Watson was merely his biological father, a sperm donor at best. – IndySECOND NOTE – If you look at the pattern of subjects covered in his Monday Morning Memos each year for the past 21 years, the wizard usually becomes introspective for a week or two in late October or early November. This year – because Autumn never really arrived in Austin – this introspection didn’t happen until December 24 – January 5th. That sort of explains last week’s memo and this one, doesn’t it? Hopefully, he’ll get the last of it out of his system in today’s rabbit hole. I’m doing my best to help him process his thoughts and plans and hopes and dreams so he can get back to helping you grow your business. Thank you for you patience.

Springtime pierced the pale heart of winterwith a shout of green and a blade of grass.The rumbles of summer are wooden wagon wheelsbanging hollow in the dust far away.Autumn sings of passage in a minor keyas the quail fly up for the hunters.The white of winteris a splinterunder a fingernail.Our Earth experiences seasons as it orbits the Sun because of its 23.5° tilt.What does your tilt cause you to experience?Toward what are you inclined?Are you tilted toward or away from mass production?Toward or away from romance?Toward or away from history?Toward or away from dance?Your tilt alters your perspective.Your inclination gives you opinions.The way you lean affects your mood.So here are the questions.Is your leaning correct?Are the rest of us simply wrong?Are your inclinations on the button?Are you tilted exactly the right way?Our planet says 23 and a half degrees are proper and holy and right and true.But that is the planet.What say you?Roy H. Williams

Here’s a link to last week’s Monday Morning Memo, The Other Kind of Excellence, Part One.“Anything worth doing is worth doing badly.”These are the words of an Entrepreneur who has an idea half-formed and a dream bigger than the sunrise. He or she believes that if you leap, a net will appear. Entrepreneurs are confident in the street-smarts they glean from their failures and their optimistic futurevision lets them see beyond the awkward and ugly “proof-of-concept” phase to the glowing innovation that lies beyond it.“Anything worth doing is worth overdoing.”These are the words of a strong Leader: the champion of the tribe, the perfect embodiment of commitment. He or she can be trusted to think on their feet, improvise when necessary and infuse co-workers with their passion. If you turn to the right – toward Excellence through Poise and Responsiveness – you will need strong team leaders.“Anything worth doing is worth doing well.”These are the words of an effective Manager: the guardian of the style guide, the protector of the status quo. He or she can be trusted to implement processes and insure that employees conform to policies and follow procedures. If you turn to the left – toward Excellence through Planning and Execution – you will need an effective manager.Managers and Leaders are natural enemies.The Manager thinks the Leader is reckless and undisciplined and sloppy.The Leader can’t decide whether the Manager is a tight-ass robot or a pencil-pushing sourpuss who was weaned on a pickle.Leaders thrive amidst chaos and feel handcuffed by order.Managers are repulsed by chaos and feel empowered by order.Most organizations arebegun by entrepreneurs,grown by leaders, and lateroptimized by managers.Companies built on passionate Poise and Responsiveness are difficult to sustain long-term. Can you think of one that has kept the spring in its step and the sparkle in its eye for more than a decade or two? Poise and Responsiveness often give way to Planning and Execution so that systems and methods and techniques and procedures can be created, allowing consistent results to be obtained by average people.Excellent people are hard to find, hard to keep and expensive to pay.Average people are everywhere.If your organization is suffering because you can’t find enough excellent people, you are probably a leader who needs to give some of your authority to a manager who will create systems and policies and methods and procedures.Just sayin’.But if your organization is feeling a little stale and out-of-touch and behind-the-times and you feel it needs a transfusion of energy, you’re probably a manager who needs to give some of your authority to a leader.A leader is a highly productive troublemaker, an artist who knows which rules to break, which procedures to change, which policies to end and which mountain to climb.“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.”— Pablo PicassoThere really are two roads to Excellence.– Roy H. Williams

Your company is approaching an intersection. The light is green.Turn left and you’re headed toward Excellence.Turn right and you’re headed toward another kind of Excellence.Go straight and you’ll arrive at Mediocrity.Most companies go straight ahead because if they turn left or right they’ll be moving toward one kind of Excellence but directly away from the other kind and something about that feels vaguely wrong to them. Fearful of what they’ll be leaving behind if they turn to the left or right, they plunge straight ahead in a counterproductive compromise.I’ve seen Mediocrity. It’s bland and boring and beige. You definitely don’t want to go there.Compromise leads to Mediocrity.Let me give you a glimpse of the scenery you’ll find on the left and on the right.Turn left and you’ll reach Excellence through Planning and Execution.1. Policies will revolve around efficiency and the reduction of waste.2. Processes will be streamlined and standardized to minimize costs and problems.3. Few decisions will be left to front-line employees.4. You will need workers that are task-oriented, happy to conform to your policies, implement your processes and follow your procedures.5. Customers will love that you are reliable and consistent.6. Management will be focused on planning the work and working the plan.7. Your success will be scalable because the need for talent and passion and commitment will have been replaced by systems and methods and procedures. A burger and fries at McDonalds is precisely the same at each of their 36,000 locations.Turn right and you’ll reach Excellence through Poise and Responsiveness.1. Policy will be to serve each customer in the manner they prefer to be served.2. Processes will be about going the extra mile.3. Big decisions will be left to front-line employees.4. You will need workers that have talent and passion and commitment.5. Customers will love the attention that you lavish on them.6. Management will be focused on long-term relationships and the creation of a tribe.7. Your success will rise and fall according to your ability to recruit and retain excellent people. They will cook your burger with the meat you prefer, the bun you prefer and serve it with exactly the combination of condiments you prefer. They will call you by name as they present it to you and bring you an extra cloth napkin because these burgers are really juicy. They’ll refill your drink, ask about Alfie your dog and tell you about the special dessert the chef prepared when he heard that you were going to be here today. Of course you love this place. It’s excellent.Never forget: anytime you’re moving toward one kind of Excellence, you’re moving directly away from another kind.The important thing is to choose.Have courage. Follow your heart. Turn to the left or right.Roy H. Williams

Branding – as it is taught today – will at best cause people to remember you and have a mild opinion.But unlike yesterday’s branding, today’s bonding is the beginning of relationship, the essence of loyalty and the foundation of community among human beings.Bonding, when done properly, makes people feel connected to you. It is the little-known secret of marketing to millennials* and their parents.Bonding creates community – surrogate family – connectedness – relationship – belonging.When we talk about “community” in marketing, always remember: We buy what we buy to remind ourselves – and tell the world around us – who we are.“I am irresistible, I say, as I put on my designer fragrance. I am a merchant banker, I say, as I climb out of my BMW. I am a juvenile lout, I say, as I down a glass of extra strong lager. I am handsome, I say, as I don my Levi’s jeans.” – John KayThe personality you craft for your brand is essential to the bonding process.The public will give you their time if you offer them entertainment.They will give you their money if they feel connected to you.In the days of the Old West, branding made a cow yours.In today’s hyper-communicated society, bonding makes a customer yours.Remember, it’s all about identity, a reflection of self.“Nothing is so powerful as an insight into human nature, what compulsions drive a man, what instincts dominate his action, even though his language so often camouflages what really motivates him. For if you know these things about a man you can touch him at the core of his being.” – Bill BernbachBill Bernbach obviously understood bonding, as did my hero, John Steinbeck.“Man is the only animal who lives outside of himself, whose drive is in external things – property, houses, money, concepts of power. He lives in his cities and his factories, in his business and job and art. But having projected himself into these external complexities, he is them. His house, his automobiles are a part of him and a large part of him. This is beautifully demonstrated by a thing doctors know – that when a man loses his possessions a very common result is sexual impotence.”– John Steinbeck, The Sea of CortezLest you think Steinbeck wasn’t speaking of marketing, here’s another line from that same 1941 travelogue.“These Indians were far too ignorant to understand the absurdities merchandising can really achieve when it has an enlightened people to work on.”Millennials would have loved John Steinbeck.** He had perception, perspective and a piercing wit. With authenticity, clarity of vision and complete transparency, he spoke the bonding-language of millennials 60 years before they were born.Ed Sheehan wrote Steinbeck’s obituary for The San Francisco Examiner and Chronicle:“He was a writer of immense sensitivity in a man-shell of gruffness. The quality that distinguishes his work is an enormous compassion. He saw nobility in a hobo, felt the sadness of seasons and believed that dogs could smile.”(Of course he did, because we can. – Indiana Beagle)I’ll be teaching bite-sized morsels of the 12 detailed steps of bonding over the next few months in a series of videos for the American Small Business Institute. Or you can come to the 2-day Wizard Academy workshop in February if you’re willing to stay in a hotel, (when the alumni got a heads-up email from Vice Chancellor Whittington a few days ago, all 18 rooms on campus filled up within 4 hours,) or you can be one of the first 18 to snag a room for the June 1-2 session.Either way, this is stuff you need to know if you want your business to grow.Roy H. Williams* note from Indy – When the wizard speaks of millennials, he’s not speaking of birth cohorts (people born within a narrow window of years,) but of life cohorts (that group of people alive in a society in a specified window of time.) This might seem to be merely a semantic distinction to some, but the wizard sharply disagrees that birth cohorts will carry a single worldview throughout their lives. Instead, he believes a new perspective is introduced every 40 years by the youth of a generation and this new perspective quickly migrates upwards through the age-ranks until all of society is colored by it. The worldview of Baby Boomers marked the beginning of a “Me” generation in 1963. By 1969, most of society had adopted that outlook. Likewise, the Millennial worldview marked the beginning of a “We” generation in 2003. Today, most of us – to one degree or another – are “millennial” in our perspective.**John Steinbeck was just 20 years old in 1923, the year that marked the beginning of the previous “We” generation that lasted from 1923 to 1963. This explains why he speaks the language of “We” so eloquently.

Words ring like bells when you collide them correctly.It’s in the Bible.In the opening chapter of Genesis we read about the creation of the universe – God spoke it into existence if you can believe it – and we read about the creation of mankind.An interesting chapter, that one. The only information we’re given about God is that God said this and that and things began to spontaneously appear.Then in verse 26 God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness… So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”Stay with me, I’m almost done with the religious part.God spoke worlds into existence and we can, too, because we are made in his likeness.You and I speak worlds into existence in the minds of our listeners every time we bang words together.And now we get to the Scottish part:In her most excellent book, The Power of Glamour, Virgina Postrel tells us that glamour is “an old Scottish word meaning a literal kind of magic spell that makes us see an illusion, something different than what is there, usually something better than what is there.”In the Late Middle Ages, the Scots would speak of a person having “cast a glamour” so that another person was enchanted by it.Interestingly, that Scottish word from which we take glamour is the same word from which we take grammar.Grammar: the banging together of words so they create realities in the mind; a literal kind of magic spell that makes you see an illusion, something different than what is there, usually something better than what is there.Here are some examples of “casting a grammar.”“The key!” shouted Bilbo. “The key that went with the map! Try it now while there is still time!”Then Thorin stepped up and drew the key on its chain from round his neck. He put it to the hole. It fitted and it turned! Snap! The gleam went out, the sun sank, the moon was gone, and evening sprang into the sky.Now they all pushed together, and slowly a part of the rock-wall gave way. Long straight cracks appeared and widened. A door five feet high and three feet wide was outlined, and slowly without a sound swung inwards. It seemed as if darkness flowed out like a vapour from the hole in the mountain-side, and deep darkness in which nothing could be seen lay before their eyes, a yawning mouth leading in and down.– J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit“This is the room of the wolfmother wallpaper. The toadstool motel you once thought a mere folk tale, a corny, obsolete, rural invention. This is the room where your wisest ancestor was born, be you Christian, Arab, or Jew. The linoleum underfoot is sacred linoleum. Please remove your shoes. Quite recently, the linoleum here was restored to its original luster with the aid of a wax made from hornet fat. It scuffs easily. So never mind if there are holes in your socks.”– Tom Robbins, Skinny Legs and All   “From the town hall it creeps between shops whose upper floors are almost connected; it passes cafes where Gypsies dance; it winds through markets heavy with fruit and fish; it is the center for silversmiths and booksellers and the carvers of rosaries. It is the most extraordinary passageway in Spain.”– James Michener, Mexico         “This week has been a hard one. I have put the forces of evil against a potential good. Yesterday I wrote the outward thing of what happened. Today I have to show what came of it. This is quite different from the modern hard-boiled school. I think I must set it down. And I will. The spots of gold on this page are the splatterings from beautiful thoughts.”– John Steinbeck, Journal of a Novel: The East of Eden Letters“That’s the thing with handmade items. They still have the person’s mark on them, and when you hold them, you feel less alone. This is why everyone who eats a Whopper leaves a little more depressed than they were when they came in. Nobody cooked that burger.”– Aimee Bender“There was no point in fighting – on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark – the place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.”– Hunter S. Thompson, speaking in 1971 of the end of the ’60s“Literacy is a very hard skill to acquire, and once acquired it brings endless heartache – for the more you read, the more you learn of life’s intimidating complexity of confusion. But anyone who can learn to grunt is bright enough to watch TV… which teaches that life is simple, and happy endings come to those whose hearts are in the right place.”– Spider Robinson“The sun was edging the horizon with a rim of light as I parked my car and made my way into the hospital. While I was still some distance from the Outpatient S

Some word-people feel it’s their duty to correct you when you use a word improperly. These people are pedantic, pointy-nose dogs determined to give you a posterior probe, pretending it’s for your own good.I am not that sort of word-person.The people of my tribe believe words are colored with sparkling tints of nuance and subtle shades of association.Add white to a color and the result will be a tint of that color.Add black and the result will be a shade.Add both white and black and the result will be a tone.But if you use “tint” and “shade” and “tone” interchangeably, I promise not to correct you.The definition of a word is determined by its basic color.The sound of a word determines its tint, shade or tone.The sounds of words are determined by their phonemes.Obstruent phonemes are the hard-edged sounds we associate with letters like p, b, d, t, k and g.Sonorant phonemes are the cushiony sounds we associate with letters like l, w, r, m, n and ng.Let’s read those lists again, but this time we’ll make the sound represented by the letters rather than saying the names of the letters themselves.Obstruent phonemes include p, b, d, t, k and g as well as other hard-edged sounds.Sonorant phonemes include l, w, r, m, n and ng as well as other soft-edged sounds.The tint, shade or tone of each word we write is affected by its beginning and ending phonemes.Those same words when spoken, however, will have their tints, shades and tones further altered by the inflection and accent of the speaker, as well as by their gestures and facial expressions and – wait for it – their “tone” of voice.That’s right. Your “tone of voice” refers to the balance of light and dark contained in it.Let’s listen once more to the second sentence of today’s opening paragraph. Count the hard-edged phonemes in those twenty words and you’ll find 24 occurrences of p, t, d, k and g.Notice how they are stacked for impact:“These people are pedantic, pointy-nose dogs determined to give you a posterior probe, pretending it’s for your own good.”You can almost feel the point of that dog’s nose.Choose your wordsnot just by their definitions,but by their sounds.And now I have made my own point, as well.Roy H. Williams

More than 500 people have seen the earth from space and 12 have walked on the moon.Most of these people returned home strangely altered. Their families were the first to notice.In 1987 this phenomenon got a name. “The overview effect” refers to what happens when a person sees, firsthand, the Earth as a tiny, fragile ball of life hanging in the void, shielded and nourished by a paper-thin atmosphere.“National boundaries vanish, the conflicts that divide people become less important, and the need to create a planetary society with the united will to protect this pale blue dot becomes obvious.”– WIKIPEDIAIndiana Beagle has been trying to tell me this for years. When I say something is unbelievable, he says,“Unbelievable? You want to hear unbelievable? Seven billion of us are crammed on a tiny speck of dust circling an 11,000 degree fireball as it shoots through a limitless vacuum at 52 times the speed of a rifle bullet and no one ever thinks about it. THAT, my good wizard, is unbelievable.”Indy opened last week’s rabbit hole with a short passage from Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five in which Billy Pilgrim is talking to the Tralfamadorians:“‘…As you know, I am from a planet that has been engaged in senseless slaughter since the beginning of time. I myself have seen the bodies of schoolgirls who were boiled alive in a water tower by my own countrymen, who were proud of fighting pure evil at the time….Earthlings must be the terrors of the Universe! If other planets aren’t now in danger from Earth, they soon will be. So tell me the secret so I can take it back to Earth and save us all: How can a planet live in peace?’Billy felt that he had spoken soaringly. He was baffled when he saw the Tralfamadorians close their little hands on their eyes. He knew from past experience what this meant: He was being stupid.”I asked Indy how long it took him to find that passage after the psychopaths killed those innocent people in Paris.He said, “I posted that quote in the rabbit hole five days before the attacks.”“But why?”Indy said, “David Farland, another science fiction writer, once wrote, ‘Men who believe themselves to be good, who do not search their own souls, often commit the worst atrocities. A man who sees himself as evil will restrain himself. It is only when we do evil in the belief that we do good that we pursue it wholeheartedly.'”“Indy, I’m not sure what you’re trying to say.”He looked down and tried to change the subject. I wouldn’t let him. Finally, he looked back up at me and said, “The problem with ISIS is that they believe they are doing good. We must send each of them into space so they can get a new perspective.”“But Indy!” I said, “Your plan isn’t workable. There aren’t enough rockets and there isn’t enough money and even if there was, how would we convince them to take the ride?”His only answer was to put his paws over his eyes like a Tralfamadorian.Roy H. Williams

We believe knowledge is freedom.We believe you can learn big things quickly when your instructor is experienced, passionate, organized and entertaining.We believe an expert can teach you – in less than a day – more than you can learn in 4 years of college.We believe traditional wisdom is often more tradition than wisdom.We believe in streaming video.The American Small Business Institute is the new online video division of Wizard Academy. Fascinating instructors. Priceless information. Valuable insights.It’s not for everyone.But it’s definitely for you.The Eye-of-the-Storm lecture hall in the tower at Wizard Academy was built to host transformative workshops. These require intense focus, long hours, immediate feedback from the instructor and happy encouragement from like-minded people during class breaks and at mealtimes.These Transformative events cause you to see something completely differently than you did before. Transformative events will forever sparkle their magic from the Wizard Academy campus in Austin.But Informative sessions build brick-on-brick upon what you already know. Hundreds of informative sessions will be available by video to self-selected insiders through the American Small Business Institute, a new division of Wizard Academy.A tribe is made of concentric circles of self-selected insiders, members who contribute – each according to the level of his or her ability – to the collaborative strength of the tribe.A volunteer army is a group of self-selected insiders.A sports team is a group of self-selected insiders.A political party is a group of self-selected insiders.Every club, every franchise, every trade association and certainly every college and university is a group of self-selected insiders.AA big group of self-selected insiders read the MondayMorningMemo each week. It’s free. I write it, illustrate it, record it, post it online and pay all its expenses.Another self-selected group clicks the image at the top of the memo each week to enter Indiana Beagle’s rabbit hole.But a very small self-selected group – fewer than a thousand people a year – take the elevator all the way to the top by attending classes on the Wizard Academy campus. Sadly, that’s the maximum our school can accommodate.A much larger group will be able to participate weekly in the American Small Business Institute.We’ll be uploading at least one new video for self-selected members each week at AmericanSmallBusinessInstitute.org. You definitely want to become a member. This week’s video contains all the important details to the three stories I began last week.Do you remember the convenience store, the gym and the fertilizer company?When you hear how each of those experiments turned out, you’ll laugh with glee, turn red with outrage, smile at poetic justice and shake your head in wonder at how smart people can do incredibly dumb things.Will you select yourself to be an insider?This first step requires only a tiny click.Any finger will do.Roy H. Williams

When each customer buys four and a half times the average amount of stuff per visit and you attract four times the average number of visitors, you make eighteen times as much profit. (4 x 4.5 = 18)If you run your convenience store according to the rules and conventions of convenience stores, you’re going to have yourself a conventional convenience store.(1.) But if you run your convenience store according to the rules and conventions of a successful nightclub, four times as many people will stop to buy gas from you and you’ll sell four and a half times as much coffee, candy, cookies and snacks to each visitor…You’re going to make a glowing pile of money. People will think you’re radioactive because you’ll glitter when you walk. Complete strangers will ask you for your autograph. Pretty women will throw their room keys onto the stage.Just ask my partner, Scott Fraser. He created that convenience store 12 years ago and it’s been pumping out profits like a Texas oil well ever since.His competitors tell him he’s doing it wrong.(2.) If you run a gym according to the rules and conventions of gyms, you’re going to have yourself a conventional gym. But run that gym according to the rules of an exclusive country club and… BOOM, you glitter when you walk.(3.) If you run a lawn fertilizer company as though it were(A.) a public utility, and(B.) a one-price, all-you-can-eat gourmet buffet…BOOM, room keys on the stage.Don’t conform to the rules of your business category. Reconform your business to the rules of a time-tested, proven business model that behaves completely differently than your own. A standard practice in one business category is often revolutionary in another.This isn’t “thinking outside the box.”This isn’t “a paradigm shift.”You and I aren’t going to use those worn-out phrases because you and I aren’t posers in empty suits.You and I glitter when we walk.Have you noticed how the best TV shows always cut to commercial during a climax in the action? I’m going to do that today. I hope you don’t mind.Next week I’ll tell you where you can find a video of me explaining all the real-world details of exactly what we did for that convenience store, that gym and that fertilizer company.In the meantime…Keep glitterin’, kid.It looks good on you.Roy H. Williams

You have a dream, a hope for the future. But are you willing to spend what it costs to achieve it, endure what is required of you and fight for as long as it takes?Unrelenting action is what turns starry-eyed daydreams into steely-eyed objectives.You say you have a goal.Let me look into your eyes.Now tell me what you did today.Unrelenting Action(From the Monday Morning Memo of Oct. 27, 2002)Would you like to learn the magic of the elbs?Elbs are Exponential Little Bits, tiny but relentless changes that compound to make a miracle.The power of an elb lies not in its size, but in its daily occurrence. For an elb to work its Exponential magic, the Little Bit must happen every day… every day… every day.Every day.Funny thing… When daily progress meets with progress, it doesn’t add, it multiplies.To harness the magic of Exponential Little Bits you must learn to ask yourself, “What difference have I made today?” And never go to sleep until you have done a Little Bit to move yourself closer to your goal.But you must do a Little Bit every day, no matter how tiny it might be.Exponential Little Bits work both ways. They can lift you up or hold you back.Start with a dollar. Double it every day for just 20 days and you’ll have 2,097,150 dollars. But if you diminish each day’s total by just 10 percent (a Little Bit) before the next day’s doubling, you’ll amass only 793,564 dollars. Diminish each day’s doubling by 35 percent (a larger Little Bit) and you’ll have only 56,784 dollars – a shortfall of 95.83 percent.There is nuclear power in the elbs.Now that you understand the process,you’re going to need a role model.A Society and Its Heroes(From the Monday Morning Memo of Feb. 17, 2003)Heroes are dangerous things. Bigger than life, highly exaggerated and always positioned in the most favorable light, a hero is a beautiful lie.We have historic heroes, folk heroes and comic book heroes. We have heroes in books and songs and movies and sport. We have heroes of morality, leadership, kindness and excellence. And nothing is so devastating to our sense of wellbeing as a badly fallen hero. Yes, heroes are dangerous things to have.The only thing more dangerous is not to have them.Heroes raise the bar we jump and hold high the standards we live by. They are ever-present tattoos on our psyche, the embodiment of all we are striving to be. We create our heroes from our hopes and dreams.And then they attempt to create us in their own image.The Value of Heroes(From Magical Worlds of the Wizard of Ads, 2001)The saying, “The sun never sets on the British Empire” was true as recently as 1937 when tiny England did, in fact, still have possessions in each of the world’s 24 time zones. It’s widely known that the British explored, conquered and ruled much of the world for a number of years, but what isn’t as widely known is what made them believe they could do it.For the first 1000 years after Christ, Greece and Rome were the only nations telling stories of heroes and champions. England was just a dreary little island of rejects, castoffs and losers.So who inspired tiny, foggy England to rise up and take over the world?A simple Welsh monk named Geoffrey – hoping to instill in his countrymen a sense of pride – assembled a history of England that gave his people a grand and glorious pedigree. Published in 1136, Geoffrey’s “History of the Kings of Britain,” was a detailed, written account of the deeds of the English people for each of the 17 centuries prior to 689 AD… and not a single word of it was true. Yet in creating Merlyn, Guinevere, Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table from the fabric of his imagination, Geoffrey of Monmouth convinced a sad little island of rejects, castoffs and losers to see themselves as a just and magnificent nation.And not long after they began to see themselves that way in their minds, they began seeing themselves that way in the mirror.Most people assume that legends, myths and stories of heroes are the byproducts of great civilizations, but I’m convinced they are the cause of them. Throughout history, the mightiest civilizations have been the ones with stories of heroes; larger-than-life role models that inspired ordinary citizens to rise up and do amazing things.It’s no secret that people will do in reality what they have seen themselves do in their minds.What do you see yourself doing?Are you a person who gets things done?People who get things donepush past the idea that “now is not a good time.”People who get things donebelieve that a good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow.People who get things doneleap off the edge, trusting that a net will appear.People who get things donebuild their rocket ship while they’re flying it.*Unrelenting actionis what turns starry-eyed daydreamsinto steely-eyed objectives.You say you have a goal.Let me look into your eyes.Now tell me what you’re going to do today.Roy H. Williams

A person is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts.They say, “One picture is worth a thousand words.”I say, “In 1985, after finding that pretty but unlabeled icons confused customers, the Apple Computer Human Interface Group adopted the motto, ‘A word is worth a thousand pictures,’ and a descriptive word or phrase was added beneath all Macintosh icons. Read it for yourself in Digital Marketing: A Practical Approach by Alan Charlesworth, page 123.”They say, “It’s been scientifically proven that 93 percent of all human communication is nonverbal.”I say, “Show me the study. Show me who verified it. And please, for the love of God, don’t pretend to quote Dr. Albert Mehrabian because not one person who has ever quoted Mehrabian to me has ever read any of his books. Admit it. A sales trainer showed you a pie chart and said 55% of human communication is body language and 38% is tone of voice and only 7% are the words we speak.”Pie charts are not proof.In Mehrabian’s earliest book, Silent Messages (1971,) he speculated that during moments of extreme word/gesture contradiction, the words themselves contribute about 7 percent of the meaning we perceive, while tone of voice contributes about 38% and the rest – 55% – is body language. But Mehrabian makes it plain that these estimates pertain ONLY to moments when(1.) a speaker is describing their feelings and emotions and(2.) their physical gestures and tone of voice contradict their words.When a person is holding up their middle finger as they say, “Yeah, I love you, too,” don’t trust the words; trust the finger.In 1994, when it became obvious that sales trainers in front of white boards were grievously misquoting his 55/38/7 statement, Mehrabian said for the record “Unless a communicator is talking about their feelings or attitudes, these equations are not applicable.”They say, “Everything we’ve ever seen or heard is stored somewhere in our brain and under hypnosis we can remember it.”I say, “On December 10, 2000, Matt Crenson, a science writer for the Associated Press summarized what scientists have proven in countless experiments:”We often imagine our memories faithfully storing everything we do. But there is no mechanism in our heads that stores sensory perceptions as a permanent, unchangeable form. Instead, our minds use a complex system to convert a small percentage of what we see into nothing more than a pattern of connections between nerve cells. Researchers have learned that this system can be fooled. Ask a witness, ‘How fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?’ and they will name a much higher speed than if they are asked, ‘How fast were the cars going when they made contact?'”They say, “Okay, now it’s your turn to name the scientist who did the research. And please, for the love of God, don’t pretend to quote Dr. Albert Mehrabian.”I say, “Yes, Matt Crenson failed to identify the unnamed ‘researchers’ he was quoting, but I immediately recognized the study as a Loftus & Palmer experiment reported by Dr. Alan Baddeley in his 1999 book, Essentials of Human Memory. In that experiment, groups of people were asked to watch the video of a collision between two automobiles. Viewers who were asked, ‘How fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?’ gave answers averaging 40.8 MPH and reported having seen broken glass. But the group who was asked, ‘How fast were the cars going when they made contact?’ reported speeds averaging only 31.8 MPH and remembered no broken glass, even though both groups had just watched the same video.”They say, “But it’s been proven that we remember more of what we see than what we hear.”I say, “Would you be willing to trust the opinion of Professor Steven Pinker whose research on vision, language, and social relations was awarded prizes from the National Academy of Sciences, the Cognitive Neuroscience Society, and the American Psychological Association? Would you believe Pinker? He’s also received eight honorary doctorates, won several teaching awards at MIT and Harvard as well as numerous prizes for his books The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, The Blank Slate, and The Better Angels of Our Nature. Prospect magazine listed Pinker among ‘The World’s Top 100 Public Intellectuals,’ Foreign Policy named him in their ‘100 Global Thinkers,’ and Time magazine put him on their list of ‘The 100 Most Influential People in the World Today.’ Would you be willing to trust the opinion of Steven Pinker?”They say, “I don’t care what he says and I don’t care what you say, either. I’ve seen the pie charts. I know what I believe. “I say, “Yeah, I love you, too.”Roy H. Williams

I had an interesting moment a couple of weeks ago.A client came to Austin for his annual marketing retreat and brought his top lieutenants with him. His company has a couple of hundred franchisees that do about a quarter-billion dollars a year.Everyone was anxious to hear my marketing strategy for 2016.“I need you to watch carefully and say nothing for the next 10 minutes,” I told them. “When I’m done presenting my little show you can ask questions, though I suspect I will have answered them all.”“We’re scheduled to be here for 2 days,” my client said, “and you really think you can answer all our questions in just 10 minutes?”I put a finger across my lips and turned off the lights. My presentation appeared on the big TV on the wall. Ten minutes later, my client said with big eyes, “How did you know my three favorite movies? Those characters were my idols when I was a kid.”“You’ve been emulating them your whole life,” I answered. “It’s what attracts people to you and your companies. My plan for next year is simply to accelerate what I’ve been doing in your ads since the day I met you, but kick it up to a higher level.” After I gave them a few examples of what this would look and sound like and told them what I expected the impact to be, they had no other questions.His lifelong guiding characters were Dr. Dolittle, Willie Wonka and Peter Pan. The female version of this character would be Mary Poppins, of course. They don’t live in a magical world, but magic follows them wherever they go. They bring the magic with them.I decided to do it again last Friday. A woman you’ve seen many times on television arranged for Princess Pennie and me to give her a private tour of the campus before she and her associates walked into the Toad and Ostrich pub to hang out with Daniel Whittington and whoever else showed up that day.You never know who’s going to be at the Toad on a Friday afternoon at four. Sometimes it’s 3 people. Sometimes it’s 20. But the only person who showed up that day was our friend, Gene Naftulyev. At the end of the evening our celebrity guest asked one of her associates to snap a photo of her with Gene. She put her chin on his shoulder so they would be cheek to cheek as she wrapped her arms around his chest. Startled, Gene beamed like a five year-old on Christmas morning. Click.I’m fairly certain he’ll have that photo printed in poster size and mail a copy to all his friends.During our walk around campus she spoke of the challenges she faces in forming a clearly differentiated identity for a new brand she has launched.I pointed out that her public persona was merely the never-ending echo of a certain iconic character the public has always loved. My suggestion was that she allow her brand identity to be guided by the values and quirks of that character.Weirdly, she had never consciously realized the story she’s been echoing for years. You could see the gears beginning to spin behind her eyes. “Oh my God,” she exclaimed, “This solves everything.” A highly memorable and sharply differentiated brand flashed into existence in a twinkling.“Oh my God, this solves everything.”She has always been the science nerd that everyone sees as “just one of the guys” until she takes off her ugly glasses, shakes her head, a button pops open at the top of her blouse and BOOM, she’s a bombshell.Dual identity: science nerd and sex goddess. We’ve seen this character a thousand times and we always love her because she’s the worthy but unnoticed underdog who finally gets what she wants and deserves.Can you see how the guiding hand of this identity – along with a couple of other characteristics I opted not to tell you about – could help to refine the style and voice of a brand?Everyone has a story.I don’t mean a story about them, but a story that shapes them. A story that sits in a canvas sling chair, offstage, invisible, affecting all their choices and actions each day like the director of a movie.Who sits in your canvas sling chair? What story do you echo without knowing it?I talk a lot about my own stories: Don Quixote, the Wise Men who followed a star, A Message to Garcia, The Old Man and the Sea, Henry V at Agincourt. What few people realize is that each of these stories revolves around a single theme: unconditional commitment to an objective no one else can see.Dulcinea was important to no one but Quixote.The star of Bethlehem was meaningless to everyone except the wise men.Garcia set out to find a General whose location no one knew.The old man kept fishing although he had caught nothing for 84 days.Henry V believed in his ragtag band of men when everyone else thought they were bums.Examine your own favorite characters.See what they have in common.Prepare to be impressed with what you learn about yourself.And if you are wise,you will allow that characterto bring all the facets

You own a business.You believe in your company.You believe you deliver a better experience than your competitors.Is this confidence based on your intentions, your goals, your beliefs, your values and your personal commitment to your customer’s happiness?It is? Uh-oh.Judging yourself by your intentions isn’t a danger among friends, because a friend knows your heart even when your actions are inappropriate.But it is a real and present danger in business.We judge ourselves by our intentions but others judge us by our actions.What happens when a prospective customer makes contact with your company? Do they meet your best employee on that employee’s best day? Of course not. They meet your average employee on an average day. Or worse, they meet a below-average employee on a below-average day.And then you are confused by those negative reviews.Sad, isn’t it? Your intentions and motivations and personal commitments never quite made it to the party.Wouldn’t it be great if your employees were consistently delivering the experience you’ve always believed in?I want to help you make that happen.The process is called “message integration.”The key is to take what’s in your heart – your highest and brightest and best intentions – and bury those intentions deep in the hearts of your employees.Frances Frei, that most beloved of Harvard Business School professors, says,You can’t change a person’s performance until you first change their beliefs.”Simon Sinek, in the most popular of all TED talks, says,People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it. And what you do simply proves what you believe. In fact, people will do things that they believe.”Simon Sinek agrees with Frances Frei and I agree with both of them. I’ll bet you do, too. Yet most of the people I’ve met who adored that Simon Sinek TED talk did exactly the wrong thing at the end of those magical 18 minutes. They drew concentric circles, pointed to the middle one and said, “We’ve got to start with Why.”And each of these fine people walked away from that exercise with something that felt like a fuzzy and ambiguous “unique selling proposition” or worse, a high-tone mission statement filled with words like “honesty,” “integrity,” and “value.”Right now I’m in the middle of making a video detailing HOW to implement the advice of Frances Frei and Simon Sinek. It’s a delightfully simple and effective technique and I’ve decided I want you to have it.I’ve also decided I don’t want to be perceived as hanging onto the coattails of Francis Frei and Simon Sinek, so I’m not going to make my video public. Instead, I’ll be sending a private link to all my Wizard of Ads partners and then to all my clients and then to all the alumni of Wizard Academy. Then I’m sending it to everyone who has ever made a cash donation – no matter how small – to our school.I’m going to request the Wizard Academy donor list from Vice Chancellor Whittington on Friday afternoon, October 15. And then I’ll be sending that private link. (You still have time to get your name on the list.)It really is a marvelous technique. Chances are, you’ll replace all the content on your About Us page with the results of this exercise.And that will be the smallest and least important of its uses.Roy H. Williams

Magenta.What color is that?It isn’t violet and it isn’t purple.And why isn’t it in the rainbow?Doesn’t the rainbow contain the whole color spectrum?The short answer is that magenta doesn’t actually exist. (Well, none of the colors actually exist, but we’ll get to that in a little bit. Magenta doesn’t exist in an additional way. Now that’s real commitment to not existing.)Your eyes contain three kinds of cone cells whose job is to detect certain wavelengths of light. One of these sees only blue. Another sees only green. The third sees only red. There are no cone cells to see yellow, purple, orange or any of the other colors.AMix any two colors on the spectrum and you get the color in between. (Keep in mind that we’re mixing light waves, not paints, inks or dyes.)Mix green light and blue light and you get cyan, the color in between.Mix red light and green light and you get yellow. Again, the color in between. Here’s what’s happening: the wavelength of yellow light is close to green and it’s also close to red, so both your “green” and your “red” cones send a partial signal to your wonderful, amazing brain. It somehow realizes these lightwaves are in between the wavelengths of red and green and BINGO! You see yellow.Now take a look at the extreme ends of the spectrum where the shortest wavelengths are blue and the longest are red. If your blue cones are sending a partial signal and your red cones are sending a partial signal, this should mean you’re seeing the color in between blue and red, right? But green is between blue and red! And the eye has dedicated cones for seeing green!What your brain “sees” in this instance is magenta, a completely imaginary color. If your brain had a name for magenta, it would probably be “the absence of green.”Color is a language, a mystery beyond words.Mystery. There’s an interesting word for you. The ancient Greeks had two different words for mystery. Kruptos (kroop-tos’) was a regular mystery, a secret that could be uncovered. But musterion (moos-tay’-ree-on) was a deep mystery, a secret of kings, a secret into which one had to be initiated.Science can reveal kruptos, but musterion lies beyond its boundaries.That statement chafes a little doesn’t it? We of the 21st century prefer to believe that what we have seen, heard, tasted, touched or smelled is “real,” and what cannot be detected through our senses is imaginary.That’s really funny. Because most of what our senses detect is – by definition – imaginary. It exists only in our minds.I’m not being metaphysical. I’m speaking factually of objective reality.Dr. Jorge Martins de Oliveira, a neurologist, says,Our perception does not identify the outside world as it really is, but the way that we are allowed to recognize it, as a consequence of transformations performed by our senses.We experience electromagnetic waves, not as waves, but as images and colors.We experience vibrating objects, not as vibrations, but as sounds.We experience chemical compounds dissolved in air or water, not as chemicals, but as specific smells and tastes.Colors, sounds, smells and tastes are products of our minds, built from sensory experiences. They do not exist, as such, outside our brain. Actually, the universe is colorless, odorless, insipid and silent.”Vibrations are real but sound is imaginary. It exists only in our mind.Electromagnetic waves are real but color is imaginary.Chemicals are real but smells and tastes are imaginary.Wrap your head around that and you will escape the Matrix.Welcome to the real world, Neo.You have now been initiated into the musterion.Roy H. Williams

“I could’ve bought that building 5 years ago for $70,000. It’s worth half a million now.”“I could’ve been his partner in that business. He’s worth a fortune now.”“I could’ve…”This went on all day.My host believed I would be impressed that he was “connected” and “in the know,” but the only thing I was hearing was his sad admission, “I don’t know when to pounce.”He had no sense of Kairos (KYE-ross.) All this happened 20 years ago. (Chronos)Kairos and Chronos are ancient Greek words for two different kinds of time.Chronos is sequential, linear time. The time of stopwatches, clocks and calendars. The time of step-by-step thinking and planning. The time of Newtonian physics.Kairos is the fullness of time, the perfect moment for action. That action might be a kiss, a word of encouragement, a leap of faith or the perfect storm. Kairos is when it all comes together. Kairos is the witching hour. It demands poise and intuition and responsiveness.Chronos is quantitative, a sequence of moments, step-by-step.Kairos is qualitative, the appointed time, “now or never.”If you see Kairos in hindsight, you’re qualified to write blog posts, news stories, diary entries and history books. But if you want to break away from the pack and be successful, you must not only witness Kairos, but grab hold of it with both hands and feet and ride it to where it will take you.Knowing how to pounce is a mechanical action that is easily learned. Knowing when to pounce requires that you be attuned to Kairos, the moment of opportunity.If making a fortune was a step-by-step process, we’d all be rich. But it takes more than Chronos to rise above your circumstances. Success requires a sense of Kairos, knowing when to pounce.And then it takes the courage.Go get’em, tiger.Roy H. Williams

Psychologist Carl Jung saw life as a journey on water.Above the waterline is the conscious mind, this place of sunshine and scenery that you and I call home.Below the waterline is the unconscious, a wet and moonlit world of symbols and meanings and metaphors on which we float like shadows along the upper edge of time, observing myriad mysteries in wordless wonder.Consciousness is a raft that floats on the depths of the unconscious like Huckleberry Finn on the Mississippi.Consciousness creates logic to justify what your unconscious has already decided.Voices whisper to you from the deep.Sometimes the voice is the beagle of Intuition, urging you with wiggles and whimpers to follow and see what you should see.Other times the voices are Pain and Regret, reminding you not to do what you did before. Voices of Past Experience urge you to speed up or slow down or turn around.And the soft voice of Good encourages you to make a difference.If you live entirely in the moment and never hear these voices, I fear you are living an unexamined life.I’m not saying that you should always do what they whisper! Sometimes the voice will be Superstition, that halfwit twin of Intuition. And the hissing voice of Prejudice ssslithers like a snake and must be ssstrongly resisted when it ssspeaks.The unconscious speaks to the conscious mind as a court jester to a medieval king, saying what would not be acceptable were it to be said unveiled and openly.The medieval jester was never a fool, but a trusted counselor who spoke uncomfortable things as though he were joking or telling a story.In other words, his messages were encoded.Likewise, the whispers of the unconscious are heard indirectly, through songs and movies and paintings and plays and sculptures and works of fiction.Writers call it subtext. Readers call it “reading between the lines.”Art speaks to the unconscious mind. Every work of art is a message sent to us from the heart of its creator.Deep calls unto deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me.” – Psalm 42, verse 7Splashing around in the water of the unconscious is refreshing. You can float on the rhythms and notes and incongruencies of music, dive into the shapes and colors of architecture and interior design, feel the coolness of the shadows and meanings of symbols in photographs and portals and glamours, or experience the moods of postures and contours and positions in artistic sculpture… or dance. For what is ballet if not sculpture in motion?Wizard Academy exists only to help you get where you’re trying to go. We are a school for the imaginative, the courageous and the ambitious.Humans tell stories. In business we tell stories to make the sale. In politics we tell stories to get elected. In private we tell stories to connect with others.In every visit to Wizard Academy, you become a better teller of your story.Some stories are told in the language of mathematics. Other stories are told in the 43 phonemes that are the constituent components of the words we speak. (Did you know the 26 letters in our English alphabet can be combined to make only 43 meaningful sounds and the written word has no meaning until it has been translated into the spoken word it represents?)Mathematics and phonemes are 2 of the 12 Languages of the Mind.The other 10 languages help us to interpret nature and the arts.This year’s Academy Reunion on October 3rd will be a celebration of the arts, overflowing with examples and discussions and revelations of hidden things made plain.You should come.Roy H. Williams

If your sales lead is one hour old, you’re about to make a cold call.In other words, you don’t really have a sales lead anymore. In fact, if that sales lead was generated online, your contact rate declines by 99 percent – meaning that you’ll reach just one in one hundred at the end of 30 minutes – when compared to responding within 5 minutes.*One of the unintended consequences of the Internet is that it has trained us to expect instant details when we send the click that signals our interest. If we don’t get answers immediately, we move on to something else.Are you expecting your customers to be more patient than you are?You’ve been online for an hour and seen more than 150 page views. What are the odds that you remember what you saw on page 9? Chances are, you made your decision by the time you got to page view 21. Not only is page 9 ancient history, you’ve contemplated and resolved 7 unrelated topics of interest since then.The web isn’t just changing how products and services are transacted; online connectivity is changing the customer’s attention span and decision horizon, even in categories where the purchase will NOT be made online.According to Forrester Research, current trends indicate that Americans will spend 370 billion retail dollars online in 2017. That sounds like a lot until you realize that Americans are expected to spend $3.6 trillion on retail purchases that year.“Oh, well,” you say, “10.3 percent of retail sales isn’t really a game-changer.”But wait, we’re not done.Forrester also tells us that an additional 60% of total retail sales will involve the Internet in 2017.The categories that will be most influenced by Internet research…will be grocery, apparel and accessories, home improvement and consumer electronics, in particular through mobile activity like reading customer reviews while in the aisle.”60 percent plus 10.3 percent equals 70.3 percent of total retail sales. Do I have your attention now?Forrester goes on to say,The categories that have the lowest online sales are also the ones that see the greatest levels of online research. In general, consumers in virtually all categories touch the web during some part of their purchase journey, but web sales (i.e., dollars spent online) tend to be strongest in categories where consumers don’t need to touch the products or have them immediately.”The lower your percentage of sales online, the more important it is that you give your customers online answers to their questions.I really hope you’re not saying to yourself, “Well, I’m just going to use my advertising to get prospective customers to indicate their interest, but I’m not going to answer their questions until we’re face-to-face.” Because if that’s your plan…It would be rude for me to finish that sentence.Your customer’s decision window is shrinking. If you’re in a business category that transacts little to none of its business online, it’s imperative that your website correctly anticipates and answers your customer’s unspoken questions. Don’t blather on about the things you wish they cared about – even if those are the things the customer really ought to care about – until you’ve first answered the question that’s on their mind.You must use words in your mass media advertising and in your online copy that target your customer’s felt need.Notice I did NOT say, “words that target their age group” or “target their income bracket,” or “target their educational attainment.”When you speak to your customer’s felt need, you’re answering their question, scratching their itch, giving them confidence, making the sale.Sadly, the most distorted view of any business is the perspective of the expert, the insider. When you’re on the inside, looking out, you see things very differently than the customer on the outside, looking in.Surround yourself with brilliant minds who care about you, but who are not trapped inside your perspective. Resist the temptation to defend your old ways of thinking by saying to these friends, “But you don’t understand.”Chances are, they understand perfectly.Chances are, they’re giving you fabulous advice.Roy H. Williams

You can choose a dragonor you can wait until a dragon chooses you,but every happy person fights one.Our dragons give us purpose.Our dragons give us adventure.The problem with adventure is that we seldom realize how much fun we’re having until it’s over.When you’re having an adventure, you wish you were safe at home. But when you’re safe at home you wish you were having an adventure.Challenge and reward and danger – the possibility of a negative outcome – these are the essential elements of adventure.The idle rich are bored because pleasure is no substitute for adventure.St. George must forever kill the dragon and the dragon must forever be killed, because if the dragon were ever finally killed, there would be nothing left but a lonely man looking for something to do.”– John Steinbeck (1961)Can you name your dragon, the one you are trying to slay? If you can’t, let me tell you how to find him. Look in the darkness toward your personal north star – your impossible dream – and take a series of steps in that direction.Keep walking. Keep your eye on that star. Your dragon will soon appear.Fairy tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”– G.K. Chesterton (1909)Video games and movies and fiction books are surrogate adventures.Television shows – including the news – are surrogate adventures.Extramarital affairs are surrogate adventures.Gambling – including the stock market – is a surrogate adventure.Living for real is an actual adventure.Living for real means choosing to make a difference.Choosing to do a kindness for a stranger.Choosing to encourage a friend.Choosing to right a wrong.Choosing to apologize.Run unafraidtoward the dragonthat can never be slain.Carpe diem.Roy H. WilliamsPS – In addition to the dragon you already face, I’m going to introduce you to a HUGE new dragon in next week’s MMMemo and it’s a business dragon, not a personal one. Then two weeks from now I’ll give you the final installment in the Living for Real series. The title is, What Does Your Ocean Whisper? – RHW

Dean Rotbart once told me that a person can do well without doing good. It took me a beat to grasp his meaning, but then it hit me and I’ve never forgotten it.“Doing well” is financial. It’s about you.“Doing good” is personal. It’s about others.And the difference you’ve made in their lives.Mia Erichson says success and significance are like that, too.Success is about you. It’s about the things you’ve achieved, the honors you’ve won and the money you’ve made.Significance is about others.And the difference you’ve made in their lives.Princess Pennie shoots an arrow into the heart of the matter when she names the three things we all want to make: “Everyone wants to make money, a name, and a difference,” she says. “But what separates us is the one we want a little more than the other two.”When you make money, you achieve wealth.When you make a name, you achieve fame.When you make a difference, you achieve change.Someone asked me the other day what I thought of a certain rich man who decided he ought to be President of the United States. I said, “He’s done well for himself and is successful. But he seems to be living an unexamined life.”I’m not really talking about rich men and politics.I’m talking about you.I’m talking about me.Are we living unexamined lives?Yes, it’s possible to be both successful and significant.But if I could choose to be only one of these, which would it be?Would I bring wealth to myself? Would I choose to make a life of ease and pleasure?Or would I bring change to the world? Would I choose to make a difference?No, I’m hiding from the real question.The question isn’t, “What would I choose?”The question is, “What have I chosen?”Roy H. Williams

“Bonding” is falling in love with a company, a product, a spokesperson, an outlook, a belief system. This bond of love inevitably manifests itself in a tangible way. And then again. And again.A bonding ad is about the customer.A direct response ad is about the offer.Direct response ads trigger immediate action.Bonding ads do not.The results of a direct response ad can be measured immediately. The public either buys what you’re selling or they don’t. This is how you know whether or not the ad is working. But that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to build your company on direct response.Bonding ads build customer loyalty.Direct response ads do not.Hi Roy,I have a client who started his radio campaign a few months ago running a low frequency schedule. He is already starting to see the success of his campaign both through website visits and actual inquiries from potential clients. In the beginning his creative was written by us and read by him. He sells life insurance. My client is now concerned with measuring the effectiveness of each ad. He is trying to determine which ads are generating the most website hits and inquiries. He has stated:“With any direct response ad the trick is to determine wording based on the effectiveness of the ad. If the testimonials are driving the most hits, we should be pushing those. I want every campaign I do to be measurable. Without being able to measure each ad’s effectiveness we are just shooting in the dark. If I look at my website hits for instance, I can see that yesterday I only had 7 hits but on July 8th I had 39. What ad played on July 8th to garner such a response?”Any advice on how to explain why his radio campaign is effective without needing to measure each individual ad for its effectiveness?”JonJon, the success of a direct response ad is determined by the attractiveness of the offer made to the customer. What offer can this life insurance salesman make? Keep in mind that the offer must be compelling enough to get a person to take immediate action.This insurance agent’s best hope would be to use radio as a promotional vehicle for content marketing. What insights, solutions or valuable information might he publish on his website and talk about in his radio ads that would cause listeners to immediately visit his website to read it? Without this kind of “content” as bait, his direct response campaign on radio is likely doomed.Business people are attracted to direct response ads because they want their advertising to function like a gumball machine. “You put in your money and you crank the handle and out come the results.”In theory, direct response marketing is tidy and scalable and predictable. “Put in a penny and you get one gumball. A nickel gets you five gumballs. Give it a dime and ten gumballs emerge. A quarter? You guessed it: twenty-five gumballs.”The problem is that this gumball machine called “advertising” never functions quite like it should. Sometimes you crank the handle and get a huge gumball. Sometimes you get a tiny one. Sometimes you get nothing at all.Even when you’ve found an offer that generates predictable, scalable results – such as the response to that “content marketing” offer we described earlier – you’ll find these results will erode over time. The longer you keep pumping coins into that gumball machine, the less well the machine will work. The gumballs will keep getting smaller and smaller until you finally go broke.No direct-response ad campaign has ever worked long-term.Each offer has to be new, surprising and different. And then you must say, “But wait. There’s more! Order now and we’ll include at no extra charge…” This is called benefit stacking.Remember Columbia House? They did $1.4 billion in 1996 as a result of direct response marketing. Nineteen years later, Columbia House filed bankruptcy. Their 1.4 billion fell to just 17 million in total sales. In other words, the size of the gumball coming out of their “predictable, scalable direct response machine” used to be 8,200 percent bigger.You could argue that what killed them was the emergence of the internet, but your argument won’t hold water. If Columbia House had built their business around the customer instead of around the offer, they would have become iTunes.Google just told me iTunes is trending to do $5.03 billion this quarter; more than $20 billion this year.Apple built iTunes through bonding, not direct response.The reason gumball people don’t like to invest in bonding ads is because it’s like flying on a commercial jet. You hear a roaring noise as the plane begins to rattle and shake and unsustainable amounts of fuel are consumed and OH-MY-GOD we’re approaching the end of the runway! The client shouts, “This sucks. I don’t like it. Shut this thing down and get me out of here.”I weep at the number of advertising flights I see aborted. All that money inves

Branding – bonding with a hero or a company or other imaginary character – is merely an entangling of identity hooks.We connect because we are alike.But where do we gather these identity hooks on which hang our self-definitions?“The music we listen to may not define who we are. But it’s a damn good start.”― Jodi Picoult, Sing You HomeOur books and movies define us.“What makes a library a reflection of its owner is not merely the choice of the titles themselves, but the mesh of associations implied in the choice… A keen observer might be able to tell who I am from a tattered copy of the poems of Blas de Otero, the number of volumes by Robert Louis Stevenson, the large section devoted to detective stories, the miniscule section devoted to literary theory, the fact that there is much Plato and very little Aristotle on my shelves. Every library is autobiographical.”– Alberto Manguel, The Library at Night, p. 194“I’m not really sure which parts of myself are real and which parts are things I’ve gotten from books.”― Beatrice Sparks, Go Ask AliceOur imaginations define us.“Perhaps it’s impossible to wear an identity without becoming what you pretend to be.”― Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game“When you become the image of your own imagination, it’s the most powerful thing you could ever do.”― RuPaulOur relationships define us.“Relationships take up energy; letting go of them, psychiatrists theorize, entails mental work. When you lose someone you were close to, you have to reassess your picture of the world and your place in it. The more your identity was wrapped up with the deceased, the more difficult the loss.”― Meghan O’Rourke“People leave imprints on our lives, shaping who we become in much the same way that a symbol is pressed into the page of a book to tell you who it comes from. Dogs, however, leave paw prints on our lives and our souls, which are as unique as fingerprints in every way.”― Ashly LorenzanaOur beliefs about God define us.“Define yourself radically as one beloved by God. This is the true self. Every other identity is illusion.”― Brennan Manning, Abba’s Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate BelongingOur weaknesses define us.“Do not free a camel of the burden of his hump; you may be freeing him from being a camel.”― G.K. ChestertonOur choices define us.“Identity was partly heritage, partly upbringing, but mostly the choices you make in life.”― Patricia Briggs, Cry Wolf“We are not defined by the family into which we are born, but the one we choose and create. We are not born, we become.”― Tori Spelling“We are what we love. We are the things, the people, the ideas we spend our days with. They center us, they drive us, they define us to our very core.”― Daisy Whitney, The RivalsBut what does this mean to a business?“Branding is not merely about differentiating products; it is about striking emotional chords with consumers. It is about cultivating identity, attachment, and trust to inspire customer loyalty. Chinese brands score low on attributes such as ‘sophisticated,’ ‘desirable,’ ‘innovative,’ ‘friendly,’ and ‘trustworthy.'”– Professor Nirmalya Kumar, London Business School“The firmest friendship is based on an identity of likes and dislikes.”– Gaius Sallustius Crispus, 35 BCQuirks and preferences, foibles and flaws, these are the essence of branding. They are the feathers and robes of a tribe.Your mainstream virtues do not define you.Definitions like “Honest” “Family-oriented” “Success-driven” and “Caring” blur you into the watery crowd, for which of us doesn’t embrace these things?If you will stand on a surfboard and ride the waves, you must confess your uncommon characteristics.“Bookworm”“Poker Player”“Ballroom Dancer”“Bow-Hunter”“Lover of Marching Bands”“Fantasy Football Freak”“Singer of Broadway Show Tunes”“History Nerd”“Shade-tree Mechanic”“Aspiring Magician”“Rescuer of Insects”“Would-be Inventor.”Your guilty pleasures are what people remember best about you. They add depth and dimension to your image. They are the identity hooks that entangle others.They are the feathers of your tribe.Wear them with pride.Roy H. Williams

I got some great news last week. A friend who read my Musings of an Old Ad Writer said to me, “You’re not old, you’re middle aged.”Woo-hoo! If he’s right, I’m going to live to be 114.During the years that I was, in fact, middle aged, I was too busy to have a midlife crisis.So I decided to have one now.A midlife crisis, as I understand it, is a ridiculous and ill-advised grab at the fleeting shadow of one’s former years. So I chose to reclaim my lost youth by wearing a distinctive brand of canvas shoes that defined me when I was a kid. Zappos was happy to send 5 pairs of this wildly inappropriate footwear and I began wearing them everywhere I went.No one seemed to notice. Then I learned that my “new look” is the standard uniform of silicon valley CEOs.Crap. I can’t even conjure up a credible mid-life crisis. (I’m continuing to wear the shoes though, because they’re even more comfortable than I remembered.)The good thing about forgetting to have a midlife crisis is that you avoid a lot of pain.When I was one year old, John Steinbeck wrote a letter to his agent, Elizabeth Otis, in which he expressed regret over what his midlife crisis had cost him.I’m going to do what people call rest for a while. I don’t quite know what that means – probably reorganize. I don’t know what work is entailed, writing work, I mean, but I do know I have to slough off nearly fifteen years and go back and start again at the split path where I went wrong because it was easier. True things gradually disappeared and shiny easy things took their place.”– John Steinbeck, Dec. 30, (the day before New Year’s Eve,) 1959From Steinbeck: A Life in LettersJohn Steinbeck was neither the first nor the last to feel those feelings and think those thoughts.Humanity has long been distracted by “shiny easy things” but rarely does anyone publicly admit they made a dumb move “at the split path where I went wrong because it was easier.” Keep in mind that Steinbeck never meant for his letter to be published. He was writing only to his agent, Elizabeth Otis.Oscar Wilde wrote a similar, private letter 118 years ago. Oscar was an Irishman living in London during the years leading up to the Spanish-American War. He died 2 years before John Steinbeck was born.In his youth, Oscar was a sparkling novelist and playwright, a bon vivant and a wastrel with a dazzling wit. At the height of his fame, Oscar was imprisoned for being gay. After serving 2 years, he was released in May, 1897.Three weeks later, he wrote a letter to his friend, William Rothenstein.…I know, dear Will, you will be pleased to know that I have not come out of prison an embittered or disappointed man. On the contrary. In many ways I have gained much. I am not really ashamed of having been in prison: I often was in more shameful places: but I am really ashamed of having led a life unworthy of an artist. I don’t say that Messalina is a better companion than Sporus,* or that the one is all right and the other all wrong: I know simply that a life of definite and studied materialism, and philosophy of appetite and cynicism, and a cult of sensual and senseless ease, are bad things for an artist: they narrow the imagination, and dull the more delicate sensibilities. I was all wrong, my dear boy, in my life. I was not getting the best out of me. Now, I think with good health, and the friendship of a few good, simple nice fellows like yourself, and a quiet mode of living, with isolation for thought, and freedom from the endless hunger for pleasures that wreck the body and imprison the soul, – well, I think I may do things yet, that you all may like. Of course I have lost much, but still, my dear Will, when I reckon up all that is left to me, the sun and the sea of this beautiful world; its dawns dim with gold and its nights hung with silver; many books, and all flowers, and a few good friends; and a brain and a body to which health and power are not denied – really I am rich when I count up what I still have: and as for money, my money did me horrible harm. It wrecked me. I hope just to have enough to enable me to live simply and write well.”Oscar Wilde died in Paris in November, 1900, at the age of 45.John Steinbeck recovered from his midlife crisis and so did sparkling Oscar. Both of them returned to their work as writers with a heightened appreciation for the simple pleasure they took in the daily labor of it.To what wheel do you put your shoulder each day? On what do you labor?John Steinbeck and Oscar Wilde could have saved themselves a lot of pain if they had read the open confessions of Solomon who describes in his Ecclesiastes what may have been history’s most opulent and elaborate midlife crisis.In chapter one, Solomon says,I applied my mind to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under the heavens.”But he finds this grand qu

There are words used by young advertising professionals that I try desperately to avoid. Two of the most painful phrases for me are “unique selling proposition” and “branding.”When I was young, those phrases meant the same to me as they did to everyone else. But I take comfort in the words of Muhammad Ali, “The man who views the world at fifty the same as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life.”Here’s what thirty years have taught me:Very few “selling propositions” are unique.If the public cares enough about a particular “selling proposition” to respond to it, your competitors will quickly adopt it. So tell me, which was the first online company to offer free shipping and how long did it remain “unique” to them?Those things that make you truly unique are rarely “selling propositions.”You can take two things from this observation. The first is that when you become overly committed to differentiating your “selling proposition” from your competitors’ “selling propositions” you’re about to make a mountain out of a molehill. You’re going to build a sales campaign around something “unique” that no one really cares about.The second thing you can take from this observation – and this is important – is that unique things about you don’t have to be “selling propositions” to be valuable.Keep that thought in mind while I tell you my problem with the word “branding.” We’ll come back to “unique things about you” in a minute.Most people think “branding” is the consistent use of a logo, a slogan, a color palette and a font to create recognizable layouts.But this isn’t really branding. It’s a style guide for labeling.Yes, your company should have a visual style guide as well as an auditory style guide that includes music and other sounds, and a linguistic style guide that includes 9 to 14 brandable chunks, distinctively memorable sentences and phrases that people associate with your company.Brandable chunks are not slogans. Slogans, for the most part, are AdSpeak.AdSpeak is anything your customer interprets as “blah, blah, blah.”One form of AdSpeak has relevance to the customer, but no credibility. In other words, your customer believes it to be hype. The second form of AdSpeak is credible, but has no relevance. Your customer believes you. They just don’t care.Have you created crackling and sizzling brandable chunks? Do they dance from your lips and make people smile? Does everyone in your company use these brandable chunks in daily conversation with current and prospective customers? Do you sprinkle these chunks randomly throughout your ads?But let me be clear: even if you have a visual style guide, an auditory style guide, and a linguistic style guide that includes brandable chunks, all of these put together still fall short of true branding.True branding is bonding.This is why those things that make you unique don’t have to be “selling propositions” to be valuable in an ad campaign. If your quirks and foibles and preferences and flaws cause people to bond with you, isn’t that enough?If I’ve had a secret as an ad writer, that’s been it.Johann Hari summarizes this essence of true branding six minutes into his amazing TED talk, Everything you think you know about addiction is wrong.Human beings have a natural and innate need to bond, and when we’re happy and healthy, we’ll bond and connect with each other, but if you can’t do that, because you’re traumatized or isolated or beaten down by life, you will bond with something that will give you some sense of relief. Now, that might be gambling, that might be pornography, that might be cocaine, that might be cannabis, but you will bond and connect with something because that’s our nature. That’s what we want as human beings.”You might wonder why an ad man would be listening to TED talks about addiction. I hope you will excuse me for sounding Machiavellian, but isn’t the goal of “people becoming addicted to your brand” exactly what we’re hoping to accomplish?True branding – bonding – happens when the identity hooks of people become intertwined. We bond through shared experiences and beliefs, hopes and fears, fascinations and flaws.People will be attracted to you when you quit being scared to be seen as you really are.I’ve been telling my clients this for years.Maybe someday I’ll get there myself.Roy H. Williams

Laughter brings escape from monotony.Sadness teaches us what is important to our heart.Commitment carries us through the dark hours, the dry places, the sad times.Enthusiasm, “God within,” opens our eyes to the possible.JP Engelbrecht says a business owner can learn a lot about managing groups of people by studying famous monarchs. “If you manage tight-to-loose” says JP, “your people will build statues of you in the parks.”I said, “What do you mean, tight-to-loose?”“Begin with a lot of strict rules and policies,” JP answered, “then loosen them up when people perform well; give them more freedom and autonomy. Monarchs that do the opposite – the ones who manage loose-to-tight – are the ones that get assassinated. It’s dangerous to take away freedoms once they’re given.”JP’s advice triggered the memory of a delightful video by Daniel Pink (which you’ll find on Page Four of Indiana Beagle’s rabbit hole,) in which Pink says we need just 3 things to make us happy:1. Autonomy, the freedom to do things our own way.2. Mastery, the ability to get better and better at something.3. Purpose, the knowledge that we’re making a difference.JP’s comment also reminded me of a statement shared with me by Eric Rhoads: “The best fertilizer is the gardener’s shadow.” Eric’s comment, in turn, triggered the memory of something Tom Grimes shared with me by email in the middle of the night exactly one year ago – July 29, 2014. Tom says the happiest companies are run by business owners who practice “Management by Walking Around.” You can read his fun and insightful email on Page One of Indy’s rabbit hole. (Just click the trio of flying children over Indy’s head at the top of this page.)As you can see, I connected these thoughts dot-to-dot-to-dot and realized once more that the combined insights of the people in our lives can be an incredibly powerful thing. If we could collect these experiences and organize them to bring forward the best of the past, that would be magic in a bottle.[This thought, wearing many different disguises, has been orbiting my brain like Halley’s Comet, showing up periodically in the middle of the night ever since Mia Erichson sent the note about the Trivium and Quadrivium that became the Monday Morning Memo, Glenn Gould Played Piano. ]What this Means to the Future of Wizard AcademyWizard Academy was established 15 years ago in a Monday Morning Memo. The things you readers have built since then are remarkable! No, remarkable is the wrong word. What you’ve built is astonishing. You stepped forward and donated your time and wisdom and money to create:a worldwide group of alumni and adjunct faculty that are positively electric.a spectacular campus with zero debt.a network of thousands of business owners who claim the experiences they’ve had at Wizard Academy have made a huge difference in the success of their endeavors.The time has come for us to complete what we have started.The good news is that it doesn’t take much money.The bad news is that it takes something far more precious.I need you to take inventory of your intellectual property – those techniques and shortcuts and special bits of wisdom you’ve gathered over the years – and send that list to Vice Chancellor Whittington. Wizard Academy is known for its ability to teach the “art” of running a business. The time has come for us to add the “science.”Until we have done this, our school will remain incomplete.What do you have – in your head – that you could give to The American Small Business Institute at Wizard Academy?The ASBI will collect and offer all the left-brain, sequential, step-by-step, mathematical and procedural genius of its faculty and alumni to create a streamlined, highly accelerated “executive summary” business education spanning everything from management to bookkeeping to banking to taxes to human resources and contract law and all the dozens of other things that haven’t yet crossed my mind.But I don’t need them to cross my mind. I need them to cross yours. Daniel Whittington needs your help to outline and frame and collect and organize all those “JP Engelbrecht,” “Eric Rhoads” and “Tom Grimes” bits of insight in a structured, step-by-step way.Virtually every college class spanning a semester can easily be summarized in less than 30 minutes. Am I right? You know I am.I’m asking every successful CEO, every entrepreneur and MBA and business executive – including you – “What are the three most valuable things you’ve learned? Can you articulate them clearly, tell us when and how to use these tips and techniques and best practices, and then finish your tale with a real-life case history including specific before-and-after details? Can you do all of this in less than 7 minutes?”Some of you will have more th

You cannot instruct a person to have enthusiasm any more than you can instruct them to give birth to a redheaded child.The person must first be inspired.Inspiration is what you give them.Enthusiasm is what they give you.People inhale inspiration and exhale enthusiasm.They cannot give you enthusiasm until you give them inspiration.Neither is a product of instruction.There is a time to instruct and a time to inspire.We often think we’re doing one when we’re actually doing the other.Is your enthusiasm contagious or is it contained?Are you inspiring those around you?Never is this more important than when you’re working with artists.I spent a lot of money recently* in a series of experiments with 99 Designs, the logo development firm that allows graphic designers around the world to submit logo designs in the hope of winning your prize money. (I know several designers who are deeply insulted by this crowd-sourcing of their sacred art and I understand their feelings completely, but technology is a freight train that doesn’t care who is standing on its tracks.)The new logo for Wizard of Ads came from a designer in Italy.The Wizard Academy logo came from a designer in Minnesota.Indy’s Rabbit Hole logo came from Croatia.Angel Skating: IndonesiaWhisk(e)y Marketing School: GermanyDUI Rescue Guys: the PhilppinesLast week my sons decided to invest in a logo for VidBetter, the hardware and training division of their online video business. They gave the logo designers instructions that sounded very similar to the descriptions business owners give you when you ask them about their businesses:We invent equipment and produce training to help non-professionals make better videos for their businesses. Friendly. Helpful. Step-by-step. Simple. Quirky. We want our customers to feel empowered to make great videos that share who they are, and what they have to offer. The resulting videos are always unscripted. The personality of our brand is witty, natural, authentic, real, light-hearted and smart. Our customers aren’t children, but they aren’t boring/stuffy businesses either.”All the logos my sons received during the first two days of the contest looked surprisingly similar, just like those predictable ads that are created when you focus on your “unique selling proposition.”So they sent the designers some new instructions:I get it. The words ‘Vid’ and ‘Better’ are abstract and don’t lend themselves to cool visuals. Triangular play-button icons come with the territory, and we’ve seen a lot of them. (Actually, some of them are pretty awesome.) That being said, I’m also very open to ridiculous, attention grabbing visuals, as long as they’re done well. I have a deep appreciation for off-beat, over the top, and silly things – again, as long as they’re done well. If you have an absurd idea – even if it doesn’t match the words “VidBetter,” bring the madness. A giant fire breathing grizzly bear with a propeller beanie and a jet pack, clutching a video camera? Cool. A 19th century nature sketch of a proud fox with a vintage camera strapped on its head? Awesome. A squirrel with a camera, riding a dog as it chases a cat? Nice. I’m totally serious. The money is guaranteed in this contest. If we end up with a strategically safe logo for VidBetter, that’s fine. But I’m hoping for one that people see and think, ‘That’s crazy, what the heck is VidBetter?!’ This is your chance to run with that crazy idea that always made you laugh – but was too risky to ever use. Take that idea, stuff it with dynamite, wrap it in bacon, hurl it into the sun, then wrap the sun with more bacon. The parent company is sunpop.com.”The bloody-nose impact of the second series of logos they received is amazing.But the talent of the designers hadn’t changed.It was the inspiration that had changed.See the logos on the first two pages of Indiana Beagle’s rabbit hole. Just click the rhinocerous at the top of the page and you’re there.Roy H. Williams* These experiments were funded entirely by me. I never experiment with client dollars. I learned how to extract the best designs from the 78,000 graphic designers registered at 99 Designs so the Wizard of Ads Partners could confidently guide their clients through the process when those clients need designs. (Believe it or not, I spent so much money in such a short period of time that 99 Designs contacted us and offered to pay $500 for a few minutes over the telephone. Woo-hoo!) A

Occasionally a client will send a spreadsheet of company statistics and ask me to comment on what I see.I usually look and see ambiguous statistics but I certainly don’t want to say that.Discussing business numbers with people is like discussing religion. No matter what you say, you’re unlikely to change their intrinsic beliefs, so I always approach these conversations carefully.“What do you see?” I ask.“Well, last year 68 percent of our customers were repeat customers and 32 percent were new customers. Now we’re selling 63 percent repeat customers and 37 percent new customers.”“What do you think this tells us?”“It tells us your ads are working!” the client says excitedly.“Perhaps it does,” I say. “But it could just as easily indicate that our competition is growing stronger or that we have somehow offended or disappointed our old customers.”My client gave me a confused look, so I continued, “If a smaller percentage of our business is repeat customers, couldn’t this mean that fewer customers are choosing to buy from us again? Couldn’t it indicate that we’ve disappointed them somehow?”The confused look became a worried look. “But our sales volume has never been higher.”“I know that,” I said. “But that could mean that we’re bringing in new customers fast enough to disguise the very serious problem that we’re losing our old customers to someone else. After all, you said yourself that our percentage of repeat customers is down.”“Do you think we have a problem with our old customers?” the client asked, now truly worried.“Not at all,” I smiled. “I’m just saying that nothing can be learned from the numbers you gave me.”Not everything that can be measured has meaning.Many of you are now recoiling in doubt and disbelief. I get that. Like I said, talking about business numbers is like talking about religion.Here’s how I finished that conversation: “If a company sells a product or service that people buy once a year, what percentage of their customers will be new customers in year one?”“One hundred percent,” said my client with confidence.“And if our sales volume doubles in year two and exactly 50 percent of the customers are new customers, what percentage of customers did we retain from year one?”The client thought for a moment, then said, “If business has doubled and one half of our customers are new and the other half are repeat, this means that one hundred percent of last year’s customers chose to buy from us again.”I continued, “Sales in year three are exactly triple the sales of year one. One third of the customers are new and two-thirds are repeat customers. What does this tell us?”Another moment of thought, he answered, “We have 100 percent retention of customers from the first two years.”That’s when I said, “But someone is likely to point out that your percentage of new customers is falling and they’ll likely interpret this to mean that your ads aren’t working. After all, your sales volume grew 100 percent in year two but only 50 percent in year three and your percentage of new customers has fallen from 100 percent to only 33 percent. You’re now doing triple the volume you were doing just two years ago but these numbers would seem to indicate that you’ve got serious problems with your advertising.”The client began to smile again, so I continued, “Oh, and I forgot to tell you that this company increased their prices by 12 percent at the beginning of year two, so none of what we just calculated is accurate. And that company has only been in business for 3 years! Your company, on the other hand, has been in business since 1939 and you sell a product the average person buys every 13 years and lots of old customers have died or moved away and new people have moved to town and some of your old competitors have gotten more aggressive while others have gone out of business and we need to factor in the percentage of sales opportunities your salespeople are closing and yes, you’ve also got a brand new ad campaign. If we take all that into consideration – assuming all the data is available and can be trusted – how are we going to calculate it and what do you think we’re going to learn?”He smiled as he ceremoniously tore up the spreadsheet and said, “We’re making a lot of money and I like the ads.”“Good. Let’s go have lunch.”So we did.When I got back from lunch, two other clients had emailed spreadsheets to me and asked me to comment on what I saw.Sigh.Roy H. Williams

Whiners, blame shifters, indignant people, people with victim mentalities, online trolls, people who demand things and cheerless givers of “constructive criticism” are all herded into one decrepit old corral in my brain.That corral is a category in my mind.As these unhappy cows moan “moooo” I walk sadly away and think “dog food.”I put them in that corral so they can’t follow me. Cows stand in the way of getting things done.Occasionally one of the cows gets tired of hanging out with all the mooers and moaners and whiners and kicks open the gate to escape. I applaud that cow. I love that cow. The world needs more cows like that one.I remember the day I kicked open the gate.A funny thing happens when a cow kicks open a gate, escapes the other cows, struggles to the hilltop and views the far horizon: it grows a horn from its forehead.Is this a unicorn?No, it’s a rhino.The world is full of injustice. It’s everywhere.Do something about it.The world is full of opportunity. It’s everywhere.Do something about it.Pick a purpose and then lower your head and charge.Patience, taken too far, becomes cowardice. There is a time to shut up and do something.God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, The courage to change the things I can, And the wisdom to know the difference.”A father was unable to explain to his little girl why she couldn’t go to an amusement park. So Martin Luther King decided to do something and we became a better nation.A boy was hospitalized when a group of bullies threw him down a flight of stairs and then beat him until he blacked out. This sort of thing happened to him every day but the boy refused to see himself as a victim. He chose not to let those experiences define him. Ashlee Vance tells that story in her new book, Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future.I actually think those bullies may have been the secret to Elon’s success. When facing a risky business decision, he was less afraid than the rest of us. After all, the worst that could happen was that he might lose all his money and be embarrassed. No one was going to throw him down the stairs, right?Fantastic ideas are more common than you think.What’s rare is a person who will take action.When a friend tells you about an idea, your first impulse is to think of all the reasons why that idea might not work. You immediately look for potential problems because it’s our nature to look for hidden dangers. And we know that if we encourage our friend to take a chance and it turns out badly, we’re going to feel terrible.So we make them feel terrible instead.The next time someone tells you about their new idea, consider this for a response: give them your brightest smile and say,I’m going to give you three reasons why this is a dangerous idea and then I’m going to give you three reasons why it’s brilliant. If the brilliant parts outweigh the dangerous parts, then this could be an idea whose time has come.”Having painted yourself into a corner with your promise of three and three, you will immediately be able to think of three huge impediments and then you’ll just as easily be able to think of three reasons why the idea is truly brilliant.You just became the best friend on earth. Everyone needs a friend like you.Fantastic ideas are more common than you think.People willing to take action are rare.But most precious of all is a friend who is willing to encourage you.Will you be such a friend this week?I promise you will have the chance.Roy H. Williams

Showmanship is symbolism, the essence of pageantry and tradition: the sweep of an extended arm with an upraised palm in an expansive gesture; a deep bow with the added flourish of both arms extended to the sides, again with palms turned upward; dramatic emphasis expressed by hopping in place on the balls of your feet – timed precisely to the syllables you speak – pent-up energy that demands release.Showmanship is mesmerizing but it takes courage because it’s easy to feel you’re making a fool of yourself.Storytelling requires finesse and restraint as you work your way through a series of small reveals, waiting with the patience of a magician for the moment of the big reveal.Showmanship and storytelling don’t change reality but they do change perception.Are you beginning to understand why an ad man might be interested in these?In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers from the California Institute of Technology and Stanford’s business school determined that the intensity of the pleasure we experience when tasting wine is linked directly to its price. “And that’s true even when, unbeknownst to the test subjects, it’s exactly the same Cabernet Sauvignon with a dramatically different price tag.”The story you tell about the wine affects how it tastes.The study wasn’t speculative; it was medical. The researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI) to monitor the medial orbitofrontal cortex – the pleasure center of the brain – of wine connoisseurs who tasted wines after hearing stories about them.The scientific verdict: good stories accelerate the physical pleasures generated through our senses. This should come as no surprise, really. We’ve known for decades that humans are uniquely gifted to attach complex meanings to sounds.Words. Work. Magic.Daniel Whittington’s “Tour of Scotland” – an adventure in storytelling and showmanship and single malt Scotch – has attracted so much attention that Wizard Academy is launching the world’s first curriculum to officially certify Whisk(e)y Sommeliers. In this endeavor he’ll be joined by cognoscenti Tom Fischer, the founder of BourbonBlog.com, one of the world’s most authoritative voices on corn liquor (Bourbon.)Whisk(e)y Marketing School isn’t about making whiskey; it’s about putting on a great show and telling great stories to accelerate the pleasure of customers “taking a Tour of Scotland” or “going on a Bourbon Run.” Fine restaurants worldwide will soon have tables full of people mesmerized as their Whisk(e)y Sommeliers wheel carts to their tables, open elegant wooden boxes, slip magnificent badges of office over their heads, and begin their tales of wonder.Same song, second verse:Angel SkatingTM is a new organization whose mission is to use storytelling and showmanship to popularize a little-known sport called artistic roller skating. You’ve seen figure skating in the Winter Olympics, right? Now imagine exactly that, but on roller skates. The objective of Angel Skating is to help artistic roller skating become the figure skating of the Summer Olympics.Angel Skating was born last week when Craig Arthur, the director of Wizard of Ads, Australia, was in Austin for 10 days of catching up at the home office. Wizard of Ads partners Tom Wanek, Paul Boomer and Dave Young flew in from Columbia, Cleveland and Tucson to hang out with Craig, who mentioned that his daughter, Bridget, was becoming rather good at artistic roller skating, but that the sport wasn’t very well packaged or promoted.Packaging and promoting are just different names for showmanship and storytelling.A Tour of Scotland and a comical comment from Indiana Beagle was all it took. Angel SkatingTM was born before the sun went down. An official logo, a cartoon character mascot, a series of domain names and the rules of advancement through a series of “elegance levels” were all agreed upon within 36 hours.Showmanship and storytelling – packaging and promotion – are what whiskey tasting and roller skating have in common with what you do.And now you know what we do.Roy H. Williamsand the Wizard of Ads Partners

I have a client who has a lot of marketing savvy. A few weeks ago he sent me a list of seven copy points and asked if this was our radio strategy.I spent a lot of time crafting a carefully considered response, so I thought I might share it with you. Perhaps it will trigger a realization or an insight you can use.There’s an equally good chance, however, that you’ll decide I’m wrong.Here’s the response I sent him:You’ve asked for clarity on the issue of our radio strategy and you sent along a very well-crafted chart to illustrate your perception of it. This is obviously important to you.I’m happy to help in any way I can, of course.My discomfort with the list you sent me is rooted in the following question:What is the purpose of this document? Is it meant to be a guiding document?Are we creating a standard by which ads are to be evaluated in the future?If so, my experience has been that if I agree with this list, it will lead to the inclusion of too many claims being jammed into a single piece of copy. Within a year, I would likely be hearing,This is a good ad, but you didn’t say this or this or this. We need to include those, remember? Didn’t we agree on this list of seven things that our ads should accomplish? Is there any way we can include those other three things, too?”A good ad makes a single point, powerfully. A bad ad sounds like a grocery list.The only person impressed by such an ad is the advertiser who wrote it.If this document is meant to be a list of recurrent copy-points, it is incomplete. Consequently, the adoption of this list would put us at risk of focusing too much of our airtime on too few objectives.Our strategy is to win not only the mind, but the heart as well. We need our prospective customer to feel good about us. This is very delicate and difficult and is not likely to be accomplished if we are constrained by a regimented list of intellectual copy points. My experience has been that such lists lead to the ad campaign becoming more structured and informative, but less persuasive.You’ve mentioned on a number of occasions that you believe the strongest response we’ve had was triggered by an ad I sent you that was written in a very intimate, confessional style. The effectiveness of that ad rose from the fact that it didn’t speak to the listener in the style of an advertiser speaking to a customer. It spoke in the style of a friend speaking to a friend. That ad surprised and delighted the customer. It’s hard to put surprise and delight on a checklist, but I know how important they are. Every fiber of me knows it. Thirty-seven years of attempting to persuade the public and then monitoring the results of those attempts has carved it into my soul.It’s perfectly natural for an organized person to want a document that summarizes the intellectual elements of their advertising, point by point. You have several years of experience as a CEO that has taught you the wisdom of this.My experience as an ad writer has been otherwise. This is at the root of my anxiety, I think. The hidden danger of lists is that they lead to predictability.If you continue to feel that you need a checklist, I suggest that we add the following to the top of it:Be remembered.We must be memorable. This requires us to surprise the customer in some small way in every ad. Without an element of surprise, there can be no delight.Make them like us.If we win the heart, the mind will follow. Our minds routinely create logic to justify what our hearts have already decided.Add these to your list and I’m good with it. There will be times when these two points will be the only two things I attempt to accomplish in a script.Thank you for asking for this clarity in such an elegant and respectful way.Your style of communication is one of the things I like best about you.And it’s one of the things our audience likes best about you, too.Ciao for Niao,Roy H. Williams

The genius of the human race lies in our ability to attach complex meanings to sounds.But not all of these sounds are words. There is a second, wordless language of pitch, key, tempo, contour, interval and rhythm: music is an auditory fractal, a 3-dimensional map of a chaotic system. (Chaos, in science, is not randomness but precisely the opposite. It’s a level of order and organization that’s beyond our ability to grasp and comprehend.)Whoever controls the music controls the mood of the room.When the message of that first language of sound – words – contradicts the message of the embedded second language of sound – music – our interpretation of the song will be guided by the music more often than by the words because words encoded in music are not interpreted in the same way as when they arise from silence or come piercing through an ocean of background noise.Words are interpreted in the rational, logical, sequential, deductive reasoning hemisphere of your brain – the left hemisphere* – while complex patterns of pitch, key, tempo, contour, interval and rhythm are interpreted in the pattern-recognition hemisphere of your brain, the non-judgmental right.**The right hemisphere makes no judgments, has no morals and doesn’t know the difference between fact and fiction. This is perhaps why, in the words of Voltaire, “Anything too stupid to be spoken is sung.” The right hemisphere gives us the ability to enjoy fiction books and movies we know to be untrue. The right hemisphere is why we’re happy to bellow song lyrics at the tops of our lungs without needing to understand what we’re singing.These are some of the things you’ll learn in the opening session of the communications workshop we call Magical Worlds.Daniel Whittington was a touring musician for 18 years prior to becoming vice-chancellor at Wizard Academy. After participating in the Magical Worlds workshop a couple of times he said, “Every musician on earth should take this class.” The next day he employed TRIZ principle 13 (Turn it upside-down, do it backwards,) and TRIZ principle 32 (Change the color) as he played a melancholy version of a perky, pop mega-hit from 1980, Celebration by Kool & The Gang. Then he applied a similar set of inversion principles to I Just Want to Celebrate, another big, happy-energy song from Rare Earth, circa 1971.I said, “Let’s do a whole album of those.”Daniel spent the next several months writing music, recruiting talent, and recording that album. And then he shifted into planning, coordinating and delivering the April concert we held in Tuscan Hall on the campus of Wizard Academy.The album is called Bring the Dark. You’re going to be impressed.You can download the studio version of the album and then watch the live concert video at DanielWhittington.com. Indiana Beagle is going to show a few highlights from that video in today’s rabbit hole.One of our objectives in this project was to demonstrate the attractive power of highly divergent elements brought into reconciliation through the use of third gravitating bodies. The secret, as every cognoscenti knows, is to add something that absolutely doesn’t belong, and then make it fit perfectly. WHAM! Surprise becomes delight. This is incredibly attractive to the unconscious mind but it often goes undetected by the conscious mind because when a highly divergent element fits, it feels as though it belongs.Here’s an example from the concert: You’re listening to a countrypolitan version of Staying Alive by the BeeGees when you hear the signature harmonica passage from Neil Young’s Heart of Gold and then a rap artist pops in and raps awhile and the whole thing is integrated so seamlessly that it never occurs to you that any of this is unusual in any way.How about Abba’s perky Take a Chance on Me played with drunken Bourbon Street trumpet accents and an agonized Bonnie Raitt-style guitar solo? It doesn’t sound wrong at all.How about Girl From Ipanema, the definitive Bossa Nova song, sung as a male/female call-and-response duet without a Bossa Nova rhythm? You’ll hear it and think it’s always been that way.Highly divergent elements reconciled through the use of a third gravitating body are the unwavering signature of high-interest communication. Ask any Cognoscenti of Magical Worlds.Now enjoy the album and concert video at DanielWhittington.com while we plan another fun album and an even bigger concert for next year.You’re coming, right?Roy H. Williams

A Partial Dictionary of the CognoscentiJune 8, 2015ListenAAngle – the direction from which a writer, speaker, photographer or illustrator approaches their chosen subject. Some angles are more interesting than others.Brandable Chunks – memorable phrases that become associated with a brand.Innovation Model – a proven template that allows you to generate a superior result.Business Topology – a technique used for the discovery of innovation models that have been proven, tested and refined in a business category other than your own.Defining Characteristics – distinctive triggers of identification.Chaos – a level of order and organization that exceeds the capacity of the human mind.Third Gravitating Body – a reliable disruptor of predictability that allows you to gain and hold human attention.Daguerre – an academic style of communication that is accurate, but tedious.Dick and Jane – an unintelligent style of communication that employs predictable clichés.FMI – First Mental Image; the first vivid idea presented in an ad, a speech or a presentation, or the first thing noticed in a work of art.LMI – Last Mental Image; the closing thought in an ad, a speech or a presentation; the final feeling or impression communicated by a work of art.Full Circle – when the Last Mental Image in an ad, a speech or a presentation revisits the First Mental Image. “Going Full Circle” creates an elegant sense of closure.Fractal – a kaleidoscope-like image created as the result of mapping a chaotic system.Frameline Magnetism – an effect that is created when an image is extended – in the imagination – beyond what is revealed.Frank – a style of communication noted for (1) approaching its subject from an interesting angle, (2) brevity and clarity (3) frameline magnetism, (4) a highly restrained use of adjectives. (Named after the photographer Robert Frank.)Frosting – to replace common words and phrases with less common, more colorful ones. (Named after the poet Robert Frost.)Frosted Frank – A style of writing marked by the characteristics of Frank, but with the added color and surprise of Frosting.Free the Beagle! – unleash your intuition! take a chance!Meter – a rhythm constructed from the stressed and unstressed syllables of words. Meter makes language more easily remembered by making it musical.EXAMPLE:And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green,Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn has blown,For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide,And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,And so there lay the rider distorted and grey,And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,So I walk by the edge of a lake in my dream.”   – George Gordon, Lord Byronfrom The Destruction of SennacheribMonet – an impressionistic style of communication marked by subjective feelings and opinions rather than objective, clear facts.Neapolitan – a transitionary device that creates a longing for closure.Portal – an auditory or visual trigger that helps a reader, listener or viewer move from one feeling or state of consciousness to another feeling or state of consciousness.Put It Under Water – delete information that is already known to – or can easily be figured out by – the reader, listener or viewer. (Essentially, “putting it under water” is frameline magnetism applied to words, calling upon the imagination to fill in what was left out by the writer, speaker or actor.)Random Entry – a technique used in Chaotic Ad Writing in which a randomly chosen, high impact sentence is used as the opening sentence of an ad.Purple Coffee – red wine that is consumed before noon.Seussing – to create your own words in the manner of Dr. Seuss.Schema – a pre-existing belief system that helps humans organize and interpret their experiences. Your schema allows you to take shortcuts in interpreting information, but it can also cause you to exclude pertinent information when it doesn’t conform to your previously held beliefs.Surprising Broca – to gain attention by introducing something that is new, surprising or different.TLB – Twitchy Little Bastard; a person who is counterproductively anxious for results.Turtles All The Way Down – Extremely very incredibly excellent.Verb Avalanche – a style of writing that slaps the cheek of the imagination and jerks open the eyes of the mind by firing rocket-like verbs to explode in the darkness and brighten the horizon. You leap out of the way of a mental image plummeting toward you only to find that another is hurtling at your face. Adrenaline surging, heart pounding, knees flying, lungs gasping, you’r

The left side of your brain wants perfect symmetry, but in the words of Francis Bacon 400 years ago,There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.”In chaos theory, this “strangeness in the proportion” is called the strange attractor and it triggers a level of organization so vast the human mind cannot contain it. (Chaos, in science, does not mean randomness but precisely the opposite.)Perfect symmetry is predictable. Consequently, it has no style.Randomness never resolves into meaning. Consequently, it makes no statement.Beauty – meaningful style – is essentially off-balance symmetry: something is wrong, but somehow it fits.Flaws, mistakes, anomalies, gaps and disturbances are the essential elements of style.Look for a moment at the image at the top of this page. There are several things wrong with it, but each of these is unconsciously – or consciously – reconciled in your mind.These are a few of the wrong or off-balance things:1. The upper left triangle is slightly higher than the one on the right.2. The capital letter A in Academy lacks a crossbar. It also drops slightly below the line of the other letters.3. The left leg of the W in wizard is too long.4. There is a single star in the sky.But then your mind begins to see how these mistakes fit a bigger pattern.1. The negative space between the triangles forms an implied W whose left leg is slightly longer than the one on the right, a perfect echo of the W in wizard.2. The center peak of this negative space W is also the top of the letter A, whose legs extend in the imagination to a point slightly below the line on which the W sits. This echos the placement of the A in Academy.3. The missing crossbar in the letter A prompts you to see how it echos the implied A in the negative space. (If the A in Academy had a crossbar, we would need to see that crossbar as a black line running through the middle of the lower white triangle.) Consequently, we see in our minds a black W A implied by the triangles.4. In the minds of the cognoscenti of the Magical Worlds Communications Workshop, the three out-of-balance triangles immediately imply “third gravitating bodies,” our trigger for chaos. The fact that the cognoscenti will notice this immediately when other people don’t will be something of a secret handshake among them.5. The three triangles are arranged in the classic position of the three wise men (wise-ards) who followed a star to Bethlehem 2000 years ago.6. This star also recalls our hero Don Quixote who sings the anthem of Wizard Academy,This is my quest: to follow that star,no matter how hopeless, no matter how far…”– The Impossible Dream, from Man of La ManchaThe three images of Indiana Beagle aren’t part of the Wizard Academy logo. Indy is the mascot of the Monday Morning Memo and is not an official icon of the Academy. He just dressed up as Goals, Frank-sent-this and Mirth to help illustrate the “wise men” connection.If you’ve ever attended a class at Wizard Academy, you understand. The crown and the rose represent the goals you bring with you. The cowboy hat and the sword represent the marvelous things you receive from your fellow students during mealtimes, at breaks, and in the evenings after classes. The propeller beanie represents the quirky nerd science and humor that is part of every class.*I’m sorry if I have explained the obvious. It wasn’t my intention to be tedious. My goal was merely to encourage you not to be afraid of imperfections.Flaws – presented with confidence and restraint – are the essence of style.Be flawed.Have style.Roy H. WilliamsPS – But don’t take a good thing too far. In the words of our audio producer, Dave Nevland, “There’s a fine line between ‘lack of skill’ and ‘personal style.’” Competence is important. Restraint is the key.

I’ve met people who say absolute truth does not exist, that all truth is subjective and exists like beauty in the eye of the beholder.I believe those people are sadly misguided.Absolute truth absolutely exists. If you don’t believe me, just ask me again because I am absolutely certain.But we’re not talking about absolute truth today.We’re talking about his very beautiful sister, personal truth.Can you share your perceptions with someone else?Can you cause them to feel a little of what you feel?Can you make them see in their mind what you see in yours?Do you have a contagious sort of confidence?Congratulations. You are an artist, a persuader.Every artist is a salesman and every salesman is an artist.*The left hemispheres of our brains are wired for empirical, scientific, objective reality: absolute truth.The right hemispheres of our brains are sponges thirsty for impressions, symbols, metaphors, connections and patterns. These patterns can be auditory, visual or behavioral.Auditory patterns are called music.Visual patterns are called art.Behavioral patterns are called personality.The more complex the pattern, the deeper the beauty.The goal of every artist – no matter their field of art – is to give us a glimpse of personal truth, the beautiful sister of absolute truth.Personal Truth is also known as Perceptual Reality and like Don Quixote’s Dulcinea, she lives in your heart and mind. Jory MacKay calls her “referential meaning.”Embodied meaning is intrinsic—it’s inherently inside something and doesn’t rely on our emotions or experiences to have meaning. Referential meaning is dependent on the network of associations activated when we are exposed to the stimulus. In other words, we create meaning through what we think of when we see it.”A persuasive message – an advertisement – can be crafted from the absolute truth of facts or the personal truth of values and the self-image we see reflected in them.I once knew an attorney who put it this way:When the facts are on your side, argue the facts. When the truth is on your side, argue the truth. When the law is on your side, argue the law. When in trouble, when in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout.”In other words, when the facts are not on your side, appeal to self image, personal truth, subjective reality: values.Last week, Indiana Beagle asked for your opinion of six different images of himself. You could give each logo from one to five stars and add comments, if you wished. What strong opinions you have about him! Reading those comments, Indy was delighted. I’ve known Indiana Beagle for many years but I had never before seen him prance.Each of the six logos had its advocates who proclaimed it to be the obvious only choice, and each of the six had its detractors who said it was a criminal mischaracterization.Each of you sees Indy differently because each of you brings a different set of values to the party. Indy is merely a trigger. “Referential meaning is dependent on the network of associations activated when we are exposed to the stimulus. In other words, we create meaning through what we think of when we see it.”John Steinbeck said the same thing was true in storytelling.A story has as many versions as it has readers. Everyone takes what he wants or can from it and thus changes it to his measure.”Speaking to values instead of facts is one of the more complex methods of indirect targeting in ad writing. We’ll reveal all the simpler methods in August when the Wizard of Ads Partners unveils their new 1-day seminar on Indirect Targeting.It may even become a class at Wizard Academy.Interested? Shoot [email protected] an email and he’ll keep you updated.One last thing: our plan all along was to purchase all the logos from all the artists and rotate them with every visit to MondayMorningMemo.com.Indy is exactly like you: he is much too big to be contained in a single image.Roy H. Williams

In 1738, Alexander Pope gave a dog to Frederick, Prince of Wales.Engraved on the dog’s collar were these words:“I am his Highness’ dog at Kew;Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?”Alexander Pope hitched his wagon to Prince Frederick, a rising star.If you’ve seen the Masterpiece Theater television series, Wolf Hall, you’ll remember a similar conversation between Thomas Cromwell and his wife, Liz, as he explains why he has chosen to work for Cardinal Wolsey:You know what they say in Italy? ‘Il principe bisogna sceglierlo… You have to pick your prince.'”Later, Cromwell says to Rafe, his right-hand man,The question is, have you picked your prince? Because that is what you do, you choose him and you know what he is. And then, when you have chosen, you say yes to him — ‘yes, that is possible, yes, that can be done.'”Anyone that has ever risen through the ranks knows these things.But this is America, where each of us wants to be his own dog, so we contrive new and different names for the princes we serve during every phase of our lives:A child’s prince is called a role model.An athlete’s prince is called a coach.An employee’s prince is called a manager.A businessperson’s prince is called a mentor.An actor’s prince is called a director.A director’s prince is called a producer.A producer’s prince is called an investor.An ad writer’s prince is called a client.There is no end to the chain of princes.Make no mistake, you have chosen a prince. In fact, you have chosen more than one.What? You still believe that you are free and independent, without alliances and the obligations that come with them? I hope for your own sake this is not true.The dog that is its ownis a strayand has no home.Each of us is stronger when we are bound to others.Dogs are known for their ability to bind themselves to others. This instinctive loyalty allows them to form powerful alliances against animals that are much faster and stronger than they.Solomon spoke of the power of such alliances in Ecclesiastes, chapter 4.Two people can accomplish more than twice as much as one; they get a better return for their labor. If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But people who are alone when they fall are in real trouble. And on a cold night, two under the same blanket can gain warmth from each other. But how can one be warm alone? A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken.”My friend Roy Laughlin is known for his miraculous ability to do things in business that can’t be done. Years ago, I asked him his secret.When I was a boy in elementary school, my grandfather pulled me aside one day and said, ‘Roy, the outcome of the game is determined the moment the captains pick sides. Pay attention to your playmates and you’ll always know, ‘If I can get him and him and her, we can win this thing.’ Know who you need on your team and figure out how to get them on your side. This is the secret of success. Never listen to anyone who says differently.'”In other words, you must pick your princes, the rising stars to which you will hitch your wagon.And they, in turn, will hitch their wagons to you.Roy H. Williams

Say what people expect you to say.Do what people expect you to do.They will be bored, I promise you.Predictability is the essence of cliché.Surprise is the foundation of delight. Without an element of surprise, there can be no delight.But irrelevant surprise is randomness, the essence of confusion.To gain and hold attention, you must do or say something unexpected, but relevant. This is the foundation of every art.When the surprising element – the thing that doesn’t belong – unexpectedly and miraculously and perfectly fits, surprise resolves into understanding. Delight will leap from the eyes. You’ll see it dancing at the corners of the mouth.Don’t be tedious. Be delightful.Before you read any further, I’d like you to go back to the beginning and read down to here again. When you’ve read these eight opening paragraphs three consecutive times, you’ll be ready to continue reading further.You thought you could just keep reading and not get caught? Go back and do what I told you.Sheesh.Magicians call it misdirection – sleight of hand – but what they’re really doing is surprising you again and again and each time they do, it’s delightful.The magician that bores you is the one whose trick is predictable.A comedian is no different, really. The punch line you don’t see coming – but that fits perfectly when delivered – makes you gasp for breath laughing and feel the lightheaded joy of youth.When the punch line is predictable, we moan.I learned all this from Robert Frost.We never met.He died when I was 5 years old, but Robert left me a lot of poems to read and in each one he took me to a place I didn’t see coming. When Paul Harvey told me the rest of the story it deepened my skill to a more frightening level.Robert and Paul taught me how to move from surprise to understanding to delight.Surprise that resolves into understanding always looks like magic.If you can insert surprise and delight into a message for a business, you are a Wizard of Ads.Can you?You can?Excellent. Now all you need to do is practice each day and build a reputation and soon you’ll be earning more than a million dollars a year.I’m not exaggerating or trying to be colorful. Later this morning – at 11AM Central Time to be exact – I’m going to explain How to Make a Ton of Money in Advertising in 10 Not-Easy Steps during the opening few minutes of my monthly webcast. (Monday, May 11, 2015)You trust me to help you each week without trying to get in your pocket. That’s why you give me these few minutes. So I’m going to ask Sean Taylor to video the opening section of today’s webcast and post it online for you so that you can view it for free. If you’d like to see me explain those 10 Not-Easy Steps, just send your email address to my Wizard of Ads partner [email protected] and he’ll send you a link to the video as soon as we have it posted.If – after you watch the video – you think you might have what it takes to become a Wizard of Ads partner, just let Andrew know and we’ll set aside a day to talk with you about it in Austin.I don’t care that you didn’t study advertising in college. I didn’t either. In fact, I didn’t even go.But people don’t seem to care about that when you’re helping them make a lot of money.Email Andrew.Let’s start this thing up.Roy H. Williams

Throughout the presidency of her husband, Martha Washington hosted a weekly reception each Friday evening for anyone who would like to attend. At these gatherings, men and women from the local community would mingle with Members of Congress and visiting dignitaries at the presidential mansion where they would enjoy refreshments and talk.Martha didn’t do this because she loved to entertain. She did it to encourage people, brighten people, connect people.One hundred years later, Stéphane Mallarmé would open his modest home each Tuesday night to the literary and artistic misfits of Paris. Among the writers who gathered there each week were Marcel Proust, Oscar Wilde, William Butler Yeats, André Gide, Paul Valéry, Paul Verlaine and Rainer Maria Rilke.What conversations they had! Arthur Schopenhauer was likely talking about these Tuesday nights when he wrote, “The business of the novelist is not to relate great events, but to make small ones interesting.”Debussy named Stéphane Mallarmé as his inspiration for The Afternoon of a Faun and Ravel wrote a mystical piece of music, Trois poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé dedicated to the memory of his Tuesday night host. The visual artists who mingled with those writers and musicians on Tuesday nights were Manet, Degas, Gaugin, Whistler, Renoir, Edvard Munch and Auguste Rodin. The combined works of these artists today are worth – quite literally – many billions of dollars.These men did not get together because they were exceptional.They became exceptional because they got together.*In the spirit of Martha Washington and Stéphane Mallarmé, Wizard Academy launched just such a weekly gathering one year ago.You should start one, too.If ever you’re in Austin on a Friday afternoon, we gather at 4PM at the Toad and Ostrich, the private pub on the campus of Wizard Academy. Just climb the tower fire escape to the quarterdeck and go through the door on your left.We go home to our families at 5:30.These are the rules of our gathering:If you talk about business or politics, we throw you out.Although the topic of conversation may wander like a butterfly in springtime, we have a single conversation with everyone participating. No side conversations, please.Daniel Whittington is our host at the Toad and Ostrich, our Martha Washington, our Stéphane Mallarmé. While you’re here, you might even learn why we call him “Brittington.”Be prepared to laugh.Be prepared to sing.Be prepared to live.Do this in your town, too.Roy H. Williams

When Glenn Gould retired from playing the great concert halls of the world, he climbed aboard a Canadian train and rode it north to the end of the line. During this journey, Glenn recorded the conversations of his fellow passengers and mixed them into a strangely compelling audio presentation called The Idea of North (1967). It was the first installment in his Solitude Trilogy.Solitude is when you push the world away.Isolation is when the world pushes you away.A simple reversal of energy is all that separates the two.Energy must always have a direction. Glenn Gould knew this.Music is energy.Life is energy.Notes in a song can go North or South: up or down.Life has its ups and downs, too.The movement of music West to East – left to right – is tied to the passage of time. So we experience music all in one direction, exactly as we experience life. The speed of music is called its tempo.What is the tempo of your life?The line traced by the rising and falling of the notes as we move left to right is called musical contour: melody.If your emotions could be charted throughout the day, you would see that a day, a month, a season, a life has a melody, too.Does night follow day,or does day follow night,or does the earth just spinaround a ball of light?Evidently, these are the things I think about when I’m on vacation.When I’m not on vacation I think about how to attract customers to your business.I’ll bet you’ll be glad when I get back from vacation, right? I look at what I’ve written so far and think, “It’s good that I don’t keep track of how many people subscribe and unsubscribe, because a Monday Morning Memo like this one is likely to set a new record for losing the largest number of readers in a single day.”That’s as much as I had written when I received an email from Mia Erichson, the woman that caused Jeffrey Eisenberg to abandon Brooklyn.This is what she wrote:For no reason that matters to this discussion, this afternoon I was thinking about The Trivium.The Trivium is a systematic method of critical thinking used to derive factual certainty from information perceived with the traditional five senses: sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell.The Trivium – is the lower division of the Seven Thinking ArtsGrammar  – the art of lettersLogic – use and study of valid reasoningRhetoric – the art of discourse, an art that aims to improve the capability of writers or speakers to inform, persuade, or motivate particular audiences in specific situationsThe Quadrivium – is the upper division of the Seven Thinking ArtsArithmetic (number)Geometry (number in space)Music (number in time)Astronomy (number in space and time)Mia then went on to describe – rather brilliantly and with details – how the curriculum of Wizard Academy might be organized in a similar way, thereby giving students a clear path of progression toward their goals.Mia’s note was encouraging to me for a variety of reasons:It made my wandering thoughts feel a little less crazy and a lot less irrelevant. (I’d never heard of the Quadrivium, so I Googled it and learned that Plato and Pythagorus and the scholars who followed them thought of medicine and architecture as practical arts, but the Trivium and Quadrivium were the liberal or “thinking” arts. Wow. People have been pondering this idea of mapping things in space and time for more than two thousand years.)It reminded me that Wizard Academy is being built by many hands and minds. Now in its fifteenth year, the Academy is growing increasingly independent of Pennie and me with every passing month. This is a very, very good thing.Mia is the very successful Chief Marketing Officer of a large national company. Her 9 to 5 job is similar to my own and her idle thoughts are just as crazy as my own, so maybe there’s nothing wrong with me after all.Perhaps Pennie and I need to take more vacations.Roy H. Williams

You’re twelve.Everyone treats you like a kid, but you and I know better, right?You’ve known the difference between boys and girls for a lot longer than anyone suspects. But girls aren’t the mystery you suppose them to be. They’re far more mysterious than that. You’re going to spend the rest of your life trying to figure out just one of them.I remember twelve.You’re about to start getting a lot of advice from people who love you and some of that advice will be pretty good. But you’re also going to be told some things that are absolute crap.You’ll be told the secrets of success are to be smart and to work hard. But that’s not entirely true. The world is full of successful people who rose to the top simply because they overcame their fear and took chances other people weren’t willing to take.Successful people usually fail multiple times before they succeed.If working hard were the way to wealth, men who dig ditches in the heat of summer would be the wealthiest of us all.We’re paid according to the size of the responsibilities we’ve been entrusted to carry.You’ll be given responsibility when you demonstrate that you’re willing to do what other people aren’t willing to do. You’re not going to want to do those things, either. But do them and do a good job. That’s how you gain authority.People will tell you that a single success can cause you to be “set for life” or that a single mistake can “ruin your life.” But success and failure are both temporary conditions.Grown-ups will tell you that you need to go to college to be successful. If you want to become an employee and climb the corporate ladder, college will definitely help you do that. But the downside of college is that it trains you to think like everyone else. If you want to leave your fingerprints on the world you’re going to need to have your own way of thinking.Good decisions come from experience, and experience comes from bad decisions. So never be afraid to experiment. Just make sure you can afford to fail.People will tell you that you need to “find your purpose.” But this would lead you to believe that you have only ONE purpose and that it’s a secret.Piffle and pooh. You don’t need to find a purpose; you need to choose one.You fall in love with a purpose exactly like you fall in love with a girl: by reaching out and touching it each day. When you make daily contact with something, it becomes an important part of your life. You make your mark on it, and it makes its mark on you.You’ll be told that you must plan your work and work your plan. But the winners are those who know how to improvise when things don’t go according to plan.You can choose what you want to do, but you can’t choose the consequences.There’s a big difference between the way things ought to be and the way things really are. If you moan about how things ought to be, you’re a whiner. And the only people who like whiners are other whiners.But if you work to make things better, you’re an activist. If you fling yourself headlong into making things better, you’re a revolutionary. Congratulations, you found a purpose.Grown-ups with good intentions will tell you that you should “enjoy these years of no responsibility, blah, blah, blah.” But grown-ups who have warm and fuzzy memories of the years between twelve and sixteen aren’t remembering those years as well as they think.It’s pretty cool when you can hop into a car and go anywhere you want to go. But after a few years you’ll realize that no place is quite as special as the place you came from. But you can never really go home again because “home” changes just like you do. This is what Heraclitus meant when he said you can’t step into the same river twice.The best advice I can give you is that you should marry your best friend and never let anyone or anything be more important to you than her. If you’ve always got your best friend with you, life is pretty amazing.Hang in there, kid.And remember what I told you.Roy H. WilliamsPS – As Pennie and Indy and I are out outside the U.S. for 2 weeks, the fact that you’re getting this MMMemo at all is a miracle. Our internet here is dial-up slow when it’s working at all. Anyway, there’s a chance you won’t have an audio memo next week, but we’ll move heaven and earth to make sure you get the text version. We haven’t missed one of those since the Monday Morning Memo began in 1994. – RHW

This is an ad you’ll be hearing soon for the world’s fastest-growing franchise for in-home elder care:When Peter Pan first appeared in 1904, children didn’t understand the significance of the crocodile that swallowed an alarm clock. But as those children grew older, they realized that time is the ticking crocodile that chases us all. Time… we just can’t outrun it. I’m Cathy Thorpe, president of Nurse Next Door. Let us help you fight the crocodile. You can live in your OWN home and get all the help you need. It’s what we do… (two second pause) because we care. Nurse Next Door dotcom.”“Young boys should never be sent to bed. They always wake up a day older. And then before you know it, they’re grown.”– Johnny Depp playing J.M. Barrie in a movie called Finding Neverland.Have you accomplished things that other people said you could never do?Welcome to Neverland. You’re obviously one of the Lost Boys.The Lost Boys are risk-takers who rise above their circumstances, constantly dodging the Crocodile of Time, narrowly escaping the Bear Trap of Tradition, zigzagging away from competitors and fools, always happy, always helping, forever embracing that moment called Now.It is a marvelous tribe. When they get together and tell stories it’s like summer camp for grown ups. So they should have a tree house, right?On the first page of today’s rabbit hole, Indiana Beagle is showing off Marley Porter’s architectural rendering of The House of the Lost Boys – soon to be Wizard Academy’s third student mansion – three interconnected towers facing Chapel Dulcinea from directly across the valley of Engelbrecht. Each of those towers will have two rooms, raising our total number of on-campus rooms to twenty-four.One of the reasons they’re called the Lost Boys is because they’re invisible; you can’t find them.The House of the Lost Boys is being funded by a secret society of men and women who are donating $15,000 each toward the cost of construction. In return, they will attend a special 2-day event on the campus of Wizard Academy each year for the next five years (2015 – 2019) where they will enjoy the edgiest teaching, the most futuristic thinking and the liveliest discussions of the year.The names of the Lost Boys will never be listed. The Lost Boys themselves will be the only people who know the identities of the other members of the tribe. A Lost Boy is free to tell you they’re a member, but they’re forbidden to name anyone else in the group. Cool, huh?The seven Lost Boys who have already stepped forward are an amazingly magnetic group. If I published their names and accomplishments, we’d attract a big crowd of outsiders anxious to donate 15k apiece just to get next to these men and women for a couple of days each year. But we’re not going to let that happen.One of the most deeply embedded traditions of Wizard Academy is that no one tries to do business while they’re here. We’re not a networking organization. We’re a school, a retreat, an island of restoration and stimulation and recovery where interesting and excited people prepare for the next stage of their journey.Yes, we’re a little bit ridiculous.Okay, maybe more than a little bit. But that’s what keeps us safe from people whose minds are narrow and closed.Can I tell you my biggest fear? I worry that someday the wrong people will gain control of our school and rename it the American Small Business Academy. After all, we already own AmericanSmallBusiness.com, .net and .org and a simple name change would instantly escalate the revenues and authority of this place to a dramatically higher level.But then the magic would be gone, the laughter would stop, and music would no longer fill the air.Thank you for being a little bit ridiculous with me. It makes me feel good to know you’re there.Roy H. Williams

Sometimes I think we go through our lives trying to impress an invisible audience called “everyone.”“What will everyone think?”Invisible would be bad enough, but I think “everyone” might also be imaginary. Emil Cioran was probably right when he said, “If we could see ourselves as others see us, we would vanish on the spot.”“We buy things we don’t need, with money we don’t have, to impress people we don’t like.”We buy cars, clothes, furniture and art to remind ourselves – and tell the world around us – who we are.Is it possible that everyone isn’t watching? Is there a chance that everyone is under the mistaken impression that is it we who are watching them?It’s funny when you think about it.And it’s also how I make my living. I’m an ad writer.When you have a strong attraction to a brand, it’s because that brand stands for something you believe in. You see in that brand a reflection of yourself as you like to believe you are. What authors do you read? Do you subscribe to any magazines? What type of architecture attracts you? Do you listen to music? What kind?Tell me what a person admires and I’ll tell you everything about them that matters.Does it bother you for me to say these things? Please don’t let it. I wasn’t talking about you. I was talking about an “else” named Everyone.There is nothing more disenchanting to man than to be shown the springs and mechanism of any art. All our arts and occupations lie wholly on the surface; it is on the surface that we perceive their beauty, fitness, and significance; and to pry below is to be appalled by their emptiness and shocked by the coarseness of the strings and pulleys.” – Robert Louis StevensonThe hidden mechanisms of explosive ad writing are rarely seen because most people don’t want to believe they need identity reinforcement and affirmation. They are offended by the very suggestion of it. But the truth is that most of us need these things deeply.I met a man a year ago who paid me to give him advice for a day. We spent that day talking about several companies he owned. At the end of the day he asked if I might be willing to write ads for these companies and I – for a variety of reasons – declined. A few months later I received a long email from him telling me about a troubled company he had acquired that had lost two-thirds of all its customers, a loss of about 20 million dollars in annual revenues. I wrote back and told him that I would write ads for this troubled company, but not for the others.The first ad I wrote shares a bittersweet, true story from the childhood of the man who hired me. It’s about something that happened to him when he was 10 years old and it’s why he bought the troubled company. Upon receiving the ad, he called six different people and read it to them. Each of them got tears in their eyes.Not because the story was about him, but because it was about them, too. The story in the ad is about a certain kind of magic that each of us guards deep in our heart like buried treasure. Even you.I have every confidence that the ad campaign will recover those lost customers and lift this once-troubled company into a sunlit sky.To write an explosive explanatory ad, you must choose:How to end.Where to begin.What to leave out.You must include specific details in your ad or it won’t have credibility: “a year ago… two thirds… 20 million dollars… 10 years old.”But you must also leave something out of your ad or it won’t trigger curiosity: “…a certain kind of magic that each of us guards deep in our heart like buried treasure.”You really want to read that ad now, don’t you?For obvious reasons I won’t be sharing that ad in the Monday Morning Memo and I’ve instructed Indy not to put it in the rabbit hole, either. But I will be deconstructing it – along with the next two ads in that series – in the April session of the Wizard of Ads LIVE webcast.It’s all about what you leave out.Roy H. Williams

The hardest decisions in life occur when we must choose between two good things:Honesty or Loyalty?Justice or Mercy?Frugality or Generosity?These often come into conflict, do they not?If one could remove the vitriol from political debates, these are the six beautiful sisters we would see in a magnificent tug-of-war: Honesty, Justice and Frugality on one side ——– Loyalty, Mercy and Generosity on the other.Let us hope neither side ever wins.A person not doing anything is often exactly what they seem.If you want to get something done, ask a busy person.Rick Sorenson, one of my partners, tells of the day he decided to plunge headlong into the riptide of life. His moment of truth arrived when he saw himself dead and buried. On the tombstone six feet above him appeared these tragic words: He Had Potential.Sorenson read those words and immediately leaped into the churning sea of life.Do the storms ever cease on that sea?A ship in harbor is safe – but that is not what ships are for.”– John A. Shedd“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”– Mark TwainYou are busy because you do things.You are getting things done.You are having Mark Twain’s adventure.You are not torn between two beautiful things.You are torn between three: Work and Rest and Play.Which of these three have you sat in the corner with her face turned to the wall?Why have you chosen just two of these when all three are required for happiness?I have given you many things to think about today.I will think about them, too.Roy H. Williams

You’ve been told, “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” But it’s a misquote. What Wolfgang Köhler said more than a hundred years ago – in 1910 to be exact – is that “the whole is different from the sum of its parts.”Kohler was famously irritated for the next 57 years by the insistence of writers to turn his statement into something different than what he was saying.But he shouldn’t have been surprised. As a psychologist, Köhler knew that we collect sensory data from verbal and nonverbal sources and then add it up into an “impression” that may or may not be accurate.The reason our impressions are so often wrong is because few of us ever studied a language that wasn’t a language of words or numbers.You didn’t realize that numbers are a language? There are things that can be said in the language of math that can be translated into no other. If you want to learn advanced mathematics, just think of it as a foreign language and you’ll be able to learn it much more quickly.Benjamin Zander delivers a charming and funny and profound TED talk about The Transformative Power of Classical Music. He begins with a short segment on the piano from Chopin, then pauses to explain the relationship between two of the principal notes in the sequence.So let’s see what’s really going on here. We have a B. This is a B. (plays the note) The next note is a C. (plays the note) And the job of the C is to make the B sad. And it does, doesn’t it? (Laughter) Composers know that. If they want sad music, they just play those two notes. (plays more notes, ending with B-C-C-C-C) But basically, it’s just a B, with four sads. (Laughter)”This is the moment when we realize that Zander has just taught us a two-syllable word. In the language of music, “sad” is spelled B-C.Zander then says,I’ve one last request before I play this piece all the way through. Would you think of somebody who you adore, who’s no longer there? A beloved grandmother, a lover — somebody in your life who you love with all your heart, but that person is no longer with you. Bring that person into your mind, and at the same time, follow the line all the way from B to E, and you’ll hear everything that Chopin had to say.”You listen for exactly 107 seconds as the music written by Chopin triggers detailed memories of specific times. You understand perfectly what Chopin was trying to say.This is when it really hits you that music is a language. And if you control the music, you control the mood of the room.Color, too, is a language.Symbols are a language.Motion is a language.I believe there are exactly 12 languages of the mind and they’re self-referential. This means you will find them embedded within each other and they can be added together to create distinct artifacts.Tempo is the Motion component within Music.Symbol plus Motion equals Ritual.Anger plus Joy equals Cruelty.1Sadness plus Surprise equals Disappointment.1These are just a few of the equations you’ll be taught when you look into Portals and the 12 Languages of the Mind. I’m not sure when we’ll be teaching it again, but if you’d like to receive an advance notice from Vice-Chancellor Whittington before he publicly posts it on the schedule, just ping [email protected] students attended last week’s class and none of them were writers. But I think you’ll be impressed with the things they wrote during a brief exercise on the second day of class.You’ll find 13 of their compositions in today’s rabbit hole. We’re editing a video of the 14th student that we’ll post in a week or two.Fascinating.Roy H. Williams

If you can’t tell funny stories about embarrassing mistakes you’ve made, you’re not taking enough chances.Are you letting the fear of failure turn you into a narrow guardian of the status quo?Good judgment comes from experience.Experience comes from bad judgment.I met a woman when I was a boy – I promise I’m not making this up – who had the power to change the future. She taught me how to do it, too.Shall I teach you?The past was written by the choices of yesterday.The future is written by the choices you make today.The key is to do things that matter.You spent your day yesterday. You invested your time. But did you make a difference? Did you bring anyone joy? Did you matter? Or did you play it safe because you were worried that you might make a mistake?I’m not suggesting that you try something new all the time, just 5% of the time.The time to try something new is when:1. you feel itchy that there’s room for improvement,2. you’ve counted the cost,3. you can afford to fail.That’s when you should take a chance. Follow your instinct.Few things turn out as well as we had hoped or as badly as we had feared.You learn a little from small mistakes. You learn a lot from big ones. You learn nothing at all from mediocrity.Failure is never a waste of time. Mediocrity always is. The fear of failure is what keeps you average. Success is the result of taking chances.America is plagued by mediocre primary schools, subpar infrastructure, and dysfunctional government. But somehow, this country manages to get at least one big, important thing right: innovation. That’s the deep magic of the world’s leading economy.”– James Pethokoukis, May 9, 2014Innovation occurs when you take a chance that you might be wrong.We want to encourage greatness in men. We want to encourage ambition. We believe that nobody wants to be sort of gray-normal. Often, the definition of normal is ‘average.’ We live, it seems to us, in an age under the curse of normalcy, characterized by the elevation of the mediocre.”– Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette, King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine“When you worry about what ‘might’ happen, you’re living in the shattered wreckage of your future.”– Teresa ShapiroPennie and I will spend April in Paris with the woman who taught me how to change the future.She married my father before I was born.Roy H. Williams

What are you trying to make happen?Is your goal actionable, or is it ambiguous and vague?Do you have an empirical method for measuring daily progress?Empirical: adjective, based on, concerned with, or verifiable by observation rather than theory or pure logic.I’ll admit that I’m on a bit of a rant today and that the perspective I’m about to share may be nothing more than a quirky, personal preference.But I don’t think so.I’ve never been a big fan of what most people call “goal setting.” This isn’t because I have no goals. It’s just that I believe what most people call goals are little more than aspirations, hopes and dreams: wishful thinking. My goal is to be a millionaire by the time I’m thirty.”“My goal is to run a Fortune 500 company.”“My goal is to write a bestseller.”I don’t consider these to be goals but outcomes, by-products, consequences.I promise I’m not trying to rile you.I believe every honest goal:1: has an explicit action plan embedded within it.2: can have its progress monitored and measured by observers.3: will manifest itself in daily action, even if that action is occasionally limited to just few moments; a telephone call, an email, a note written to yourself on the back of a cash register receipt during lunch and then tucked into your wallet.My goal is to build a free wedding chapel that hosts more than 1,000 weddings a year for couples who travel to reach it from every continent on earth.”Chapel Dulcinea hosted 960 weddings in 2014 but we have not yet had guests from Antarctica. We hosted 824 weddings in 2013.A meaningful goal requires that you touch it each day and take action to move it forward, even if that action is microscopic. If you’re not taking action each day, you don’t have a goal. You have a delusion, a wish, a fantasy, a dream.Student: My goal is to be a published author.Me: Show me what you wrote yesterday.Student: Well, I haven’t actually started writing yet, it’s just my goal.Me: Do you really want to write, or do you want to have written? Is there a chance that what you actually want is just to have a book in print?”Make no mistake: I am a fan and an advocate and a steady imbiber of delusions, wishes, fantasies and dreams; but these are entertainment, comfort, and the sometimes-necessary components of a healthy self-image.But they are not goals.Roy H. Williams