Wizard of Ads Monday Morning Memo

This ocean adventure called life is most easily navigated when we have a guiding light.The winds and waves of circumstance push at all of us.1. We can passively go with the flow.2. We can choose the badge of the victim.3. We can loose ourselves in pleasure.4. We can harness the wind and waves.The Drifter,?Spun by wind and wave,Helpless, says, ‘Whatever…’The Drowner?Plays for sympathy.‘It’s been the worst week of my life.’The SurferScans the horizon,Wanting ever ‘The next big thing.’The Wise Men?Follow the star.?Adjust the sails.Twist the rudder.The Wise-ards know.– Roy H. WilliamsStart begins with star.Rick Warren popularized the concept of a guiding light in his book, The Purpose-Driven Life, but he certainly didn’t invent it. That book was published in 2002. By 2007, it had sold 30 million copies.It would appear that people hunger to have a purpose.Miguel de Cervantes wrote about a man consumed with purpose.His Don Quixote has been heroic and laughable, wise and foolish, admired and scorned for more than 400 years. Steinbeck speaks of Cervantes and Quixote in his preface to East of Eden, then says, “The reader will take from my book what he brings to it. The dull witted will get dullness and the brilliant may find things in my book I didn’t know were there.”Steinbeck looked at Don Quixote and realized that we tend to see what is already within us.In The New York Observer of March 31, 1910, John Bancroft Devins set 14 words apart in quotation marks but failed to attribute them. These 14 words have since been repeated many times:“Two men looked out through prison bars. One man saw mud, the other stars.”The first man saw mud because mud was within him.The other saw stars because he was full of light.We do not see things as they are, but as we are.We especially do that with the Bible, I think.Jesus speaks of vision in the 6th chapter of Matthew and the 11th chapter of Luke. I suppose the passage has as many interpretations as it has readers:“Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. The light of the body is the eye: if your vision is singular, your whole body will be full of light. But if your vision is unfocused, your body will be full of darkness. If the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!”I read those lines and hear Jesus speaking of the passion and energy and creativity and stamina – the light – that comes from having a vision, a dream, a purpose, a goal. And I hear him speak of the echoing emptiness of life without these things. Perhaps I find in that passage only what I bring to it, but that’s what I find, nonetheless.I find myself contemplating this for three reasons:1. It is November.2. We have only to build Bilbo Baggins’ house and the Lenhard-Murray amphitheater and the Wizard Academy campus will be complete. What will we do then?3. Pennie and I remember in vivid detail the day we purchased the land on which Wizard Academy is built. The ensuing 9 years and 8 months passed us by with such speed that we are left gasping in a vacuum.I walk across the campus and am startled by what I see. When did all this happen?Each autumn I think seriously about what to do with the rest of my life. I reflect on the irreversible past and project a possible future. It is my favorite time of year.Start begins with star.“In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing.”– Theodore RooseveltStart begins with star.“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”– Howard ThurmanStart begins with star.“It’s when you’re safe at home that you wish you were having an adventure. When you’re having an adventure you wish you were safe at home.”– Thornton WilderGo.Follow your star.Begin your adventure.“Safe at home”is highly overrated.Roy H. Williams

For Friends OnlyFifty-one times a year I write things I believe you’ll find to be useful. Once a year I turn the mirror toward myself. This is that time.I hope you don’t mind.I’ve enjoyed 8 distinct advantages in life for which I can take no credit. I am thankful for 6 of these advantages, but weirdly embarrassed by two of them.I was born in America as a white boy during a time when to be anything other than that was a distinct disadvantage. I didn’t choose to be (1.) white and (2.) male, so I’ve always carried uneasy feelings of guilt. There you have it.I’m often reprimanded by those who feel it’s in poor taste to acknowledge differences in race and gender. This confuses me. I believe it’s in poor taste to pretend that minorities and women are always as quickly hired as white boys. Things are certainly better today than when I was young, but we’ve got a long way to go before we’re the nation we pretend to be.I was born in the late 1950s. I remember the murder of Martin Luther King. I remember Rosa Parks. I remember being raised by a single Mom who worked harder than her male counterparts, was more effective than her male counterparts and was paid 32 percent less than her male counterparts. So please, for the sake of our friendship, keep your reprimands to yourself.These are the 6 things for which I have always been thankful.1. I was born poor.This gave me a certain fearless resourcefulness that isn’t so easily learned in the better parts of town.2. I was born introverted.This makes it pleasant for me to focus and concentrate deeply when I’m alone. I’ve used this preference to great advantage throughout my life. My clients even pay me for it. I call these deep thoughts “plotting and scheming against the rest of the world.”3. I began losing my hair in my late teens.This gave me credibility as a young ad man. Thinning hair makes a boy look older, so I looked 30 by the time I was 20. You have no idea how much more seriously people listen to your advice when you don’t look like a kid.4. I was raised by a mother who gave me copious freedom and good advice.Mom knows that traditional wisdom is usually more tradition than wisdom, so she taught me to think for myself. And her belief that I could accomplish whatever I chose was so vast and complete that I could not help but believe it myself. Add to this the simple fact that poor people are resourceful by necessity and fearless because they have nothing to lose and you’ve got the ingredients of an unbreakable entrepreneur.5. I fell in love with a girl who believed in me.Miraculously, she agreed to drop out of college and marry me when we were both eighteen. This is huge. It cannot be overestimated. My belief in the extreme importance of one’s life partner is so overwhelming that I taught my sons throughout their formative years that their choice of a life-partner would be far more important to their future happiness than their educational path or choice of career. I know such statements are considered to be heresy in career-worshipping America but they never arrested me for it.There is one more thing for which I am thankful.6. I’ve had deeply personal encounters with God that make it impossible for me to be agnostic even though I find it easy to follow the logic of close friends who believe him to be a delusion. And my God likes me! I’m sorry if this makes you uncomfortable or angry, but we’re talking about me today, not you, remember?I’ve shared with you from my heart today – at great risk – in the hope of inspiring you to look inwardly this week and celebrate the ordinary in your life with great joy. We’re about to go into 2014 together and we’ve never been there before so I felt we should take inventory of all our assets.Here’s your assignment, if you’re willing:Write down at least 5 things for which you are thankful. And you cannot list “Family,” “Friends” or “Health,” because frankly, these go without saying. To be thankful for broad categories like these is lazy, bordering on the unspeakably cliché. So be specific in your thanks. And don’t just name the thing, explain it. Will you do it?Will you share it?If you’re willing, send your list to [email protected] and I will read your lists on Thanksgiving and be thankful with you.Roy H. Williams

Evocative Words Work WondersGive a mundane product an evocative name and you will dramatically increase its appeal.Humans are uniquely gifted to attach complex meanings to sounds. Some of these sounds are musical; pitch, key, tempo, rhythm, interval and contour. But much more specific in their meanings are phonemes, the building blocks of words.Cat and Kite begin with the same sound. Ignore, for a moment, that C and K are different letters. The phoneme is the sound, not the letter. The sound represented by the letters “ch” in chirp, cherry and cheerful is another phoneme.There are only 40 phonemes in the English language. If you want to get fussy, you can count the unvoiced “th” sound in with as a different phoneme than the voiced “th” in the. If you continue down that road, you can find as many as 44 different phonemes. But that’s all.Forty-four sounds allow you and I to know each other’s thoughts.The Bible opens and closes with stories about the importance of names. Genesis tells us that Adam’s first task was to name all the animals. In the Revelation of John we read, “I will also give that person a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to the one who receives it.”Names are important. This is a fact known to every cognitive neuroscientist.Nouns originate and are interpreted in a region of the brain just behind your left ear known as Wernicke’s area, connected by the arcuate fasciculus – a high-bandwidth bundle of nerves – to another region slightly forward of your left ear known as Broca’s area, where we attach the sounds we call “verbs” to the actions we need to name. Broca’s area then coordinates the diaphragm, larynx, lips and tongue so that we can form the rapid succession of phonemes in that positively human display called speech.Information gathered by the eyes, muscles and skin is routed through Broca’s area on its way to the dorsolateral prefrontal association area, the home of the visuospatial sketchpad*, the mind’s eye, where we “see” things in our imaginations. All of this is connected to the ear.Yes, humans are uniquely gifted to attach complex meanings to sounds. And we are uniquely gifted to make those sounds, as well.All of this is well documented.Shape and Color are visual languages.Phonemes and Music are auditory languages.Painters use paint and brush. Fashion designers use cloth and scissors. Jewelers use metals and gemstones. Visual artists, gifted in the languages of Shape and Color, often expect their work to “speak for itself.”But it can’t.If you will add to these visual languages an evocative name, the listener – your customer – will craft their own unconscious bond to the thing you have named. A well-chosen name focuses and accelerates the talent of the visual artist and gives that talent greater impact.A designer and a poet holding hands can reshape the world.Here’s a 60-second radio ad built upon the evocative naming of visual products.SARAH: Christmas is coming!SEAN: And what could be betterSARAH: than designer diamond earrings!SEAN: You’ve never seen ANYTHING like these.SARAH: From diamond Hugs and KissesSEAN: two-hundred-ninety-nine dollarsSARAH: to the fabulous hoops of the Renaissance Queen.SEAN: Twenty-five-hundred-thirty-nine dollars.SARAH: See them on our website.SEAN: The Diamond-Studded SUPERSTAR.SARAH: The Summer of Love.SEAN: Cinnamon Roll earrings!SARAH: Fairy Tale hoops.SEAN: Forever THIN.SARAH: Sparkling Springtime!SEAN: Pink CHAMPAGNE hoopsSARAH: and Captured HeartsSEAN: Buried TREASURE hoopsSARAH: [sexy] and the Diamond Negligee.SEAN: The Ocean JourneySARAH: and the Embassy Ball.SEAN: We have Splish-Splash earringsSARAH: and Drop-Drops!SEAN: Diamond SunflowersSARAH: and The Four Seasons of Vivaldi.SEAN: Did you mention Snuggles and the Colors of Light?SARAH: No, you did.SEAN: When?SARAH: Just now.SEAN: Oh.SARAH: Designer diamond earrings start at just 299 dollarsSEAN: at SpenceSARAH: and Spence Diamonds dot-com.SEAN: Do we need to give them the address?SARAH: No, they can find us.Do you want to see these earrings?Of course you do.Because you’re human.Some words describe what is outside a listener.But other words evoke what is within them.Evocative words and phrases connect with core values and allow the listener to attach their own story to what you are selling.Those of you who were far-thinking enough to sign up for Wizard Academy’s January class, “How to Write Direct Response Ads,” before it sold out will be taught how to choose and arrange evocative words and phrases for maximum effect.No, there are no remaining seats for sale.But five scholarships will be awarded.I’d love to see you win one.Roy H. Williams

for What Ails Your Customer?A spoonful of Entertainment helps the medicine go down,medicine go dowwwwn,medicine go down.The public will give you their time if you offer them entertainment.They will give you their money if you offer them hope.But don’t ever call it hope.Don’t accuse your customer of being hopeless. Just let them know exactly how you can make tomorrow different than today and let them know it in an entertaining way.Go do that.Go. Get started.“Be entertaining” and “make tomorrow different” is easier said than done, right?We want your customer to have a new perspective, a new attitude about you and what you sell. But if your customer doesn’t give your message a moment of their time, your message might as well have never existed.You paid the postage but they didn’t read the letter.Entertainment is the currency that will buy you their time. How might your message entertain them? I’m not just talking about being funny.Humor is nitroglycerine.Handled correctly, it moves mountains.Mishandled, it moves things you didn’t want moved.We often remember the humor but don’t remember the product, right? This is what happens when the humor is gratuitous, disconnected from the essence of the ad.“Entertaining” is simply what we call the most interesting thing that’s in front of us at any given moment. Sometimes the bar is lower than at other times.My friend Brian Alter is a jeweler who’s about to send a catalog to his customers. His excellent cover letter below will accompany each catalog. Take a look and see what you can learn.ANext week we’ll talk about PowerNaming.Now get some rest. Christmas is coming.Roy H. Williams 

You must attempt the ridiculous to accomplish the miraculous.David sees a giantand says, “I will defeat him.”Everyone else sees a giant, as well.David walks toward the giant with his slingand BANG, David is king.That’s a favorite story everywhere. Here’s another.Don Quixote sees a giantand says, “I will defeat him.”His companion sees only a windmill.Quixote charges the giant with his lance,is lifted high into the air on its revolving arms,and slammed into the ground.“It seemed like a good idea at the time.”Wizard Academy alumni refer to David and Don as “our brand of crazy.” Unafraid. Purpose-driven. Willing to try.So why does only David get a trophy?What about Quixote, who fought his giant hand-to-hand and ended up in a heap on the ground?Wizard Academy announces a $10,000 cash prize for him.Is he/she you?The purpose of the Quixote’s Windmill Prizeis to encourage the takers of chances, the facers of giants, the riders on the arms of windmills. We are a school for the imaginative, the courageous and the ambitious.Are you our brand of crazy?Tell us about it in a YouTube videobefore March 23, 2014 and you could win $10,000 in cash, plus a free ride at Wizard Academy for one full year; a revolving scholarship for as many classes as you choose to attend.These are the rules of engagement:1. Anyone can enter. You do not have to be an alumnus of Wizard Academy.2. Your story must be true and verifiable.3. You can’t enter an idea you did not pursue. You must have taken dramatic action, spent money, time and energy in the pursuit of your idea.4. You must have learned a lesson that has value.5. Your video cannot exceed 2 minutes and 30 seconds. If the YouTube time bar on your video says 2:31 or more, your entry will not be considered.6. The winner will be named on April 23, 2014.7. A contestant can enter no more than 2 videos each year.You will lose if you make us pity you.In fact, you have already lost. Quixote makes us cheer for his courage and he leads us in laughter at his defeats because Quixote knows that failure, like success, is a very temporary condition.There will be 5 areas of scoring. Each of the 7 directors of Wizard Academy can award up to 100 points in each of the following 5 categories.A perfect score would be 3,500 points.1. How good was the idea?Tell us why it made sense at the time. 7 x 100 points2. How aggressively did you pursue it?Make us feel your courage, your creativity, your determination. 7 x 100 points3. How bad was the outcome?Did you merely shrug your shoulders and walk away, or did paramedics drag your unconscious body from a smoking crater? 7 x 100 points4. What did you learn?How valuable will your advice be to the rest of us? 7 x 100 points5. How well do you tell your story?This is where you get style points for lighting, color, sound quality, graphics, special effects, humor… 7 x 100 pointsHave you tried and failed? Have you battled and lost?Watch the videos of the other Quixotes who enter and you won’t feel stupid anymore. You’ll say, “Wow. I’m part of a family, a tribe, a fraternity that doesn’t sit and watch from the sidelines.” And no matter how much your misadventure may have cost you, no matter how badly it hurt, you’ll be able to laugh and say, “Well, at least I’m not THAT guy.”When you have posted your video on YouTube,send the link to [email protected] and, if accepted, Daniel will post it on the YouTube channel for Quixote’s Windmill Prize, also known as The Smoking Crater Award, The Business Bloopers Award, The Our Brand of Crazy Award.Here’s why you want to enter your video as soon as possible:The accepted video that receives the highest number of YouTube “thumbs up” votes will win no cash, but will receive a scholarship to as many classes as you choose to attend at Wizard Academy for 1 full year. The “thumbs up” winner will be determined at precisely noon on April 22, 2014. The earlier you enter, the more time you have to gather your “thumbs up” votes. If the $10,000 winner also happens to be the “thumbs up” winner, the second 1-year scholarship can be given to a friend. Both scholarships will run concurrently from April 23, 2014 through April 22, 2015.“What giants?” said Sancho Panza.“Those you see there,” answered his master, “with the long arms, and some have them nearly two leagues long.”“Look, your worship,” said Sancho. “What we see there are not giants but windmills, and what seem to be their arms are the vanes that turn by the wind and make the millstone go.”“It is easy to see,” replied Don Quixote, “that you are not used to this business of adventures.– Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote, 1605If I don’t see you here or there,I’ll assume you’re in the airon the arms of a windmill.Roy H. WilliamsChancellor, Wizard Academya 501c3 Educational Organization 

The following press release will soon be received by the media in Midland, Texas.Diamonds to be Cut in Midland(MIDLAND, TEXAS – October 29, 2013)[Name of Diamond Cutter] is coming to Midland to cut diamonds on Saturday, November 16th and the public is invited. “It’s one of the Christmas gifts we’re giving the city,” says Cathy Fleck of Occasions Fine Jewelry.“Diamond crystals aren’t very impressive when they come out of the ground. But then, when they’re cut, they explode with light. It’s like watching the sun come up over the horizon.”“We’re going to let our guests see and touch and hold a $1,500 natural diamond crystal before it is cut. Then, we’re going to have a drawing to see who gets that diamond for free. That person will then tell the diamond cutter the shape they want him to cut their diamond. And then everyone who’s there will see the birth of a new diamond. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”The event will be displayed on an LCD screen for those who can’t get close enough to the diamond cutter.“I asked myself, ‘How can a jeweler honor the birth of Christ?’ And then it hit me; the manger, the star, and Jesus coming into the world. The only thing a jeweler could do is let people watch the birth of a sparkling new diamond. And then that diamond must be given for free. Maybe you think the whole thing is silly, but I’m really looking forward to it.”Witness the birth of a diamond from XX – XX on Saturday, November 16.Occasions Fine Jewelry was born in the back of a local drug store in Midland 20 years ago. Today, they stand on the corner of Loop 250 and Garfield with more than 4,000 square feet and are known throughout the world.# # # # That press release was written by one of the Wizards of Ads. It features frame shifting, dimensional shifting, and a trio of reality hooks. Here’s the original press release that was given to us by our friend, Cathy Fleck, who asked, “Is there a better way to tell this story?” The writing is slightly better than average. But is better-than-average really good enough in today’s overcommunicated society?# # # # OCCASIONS FINE JEWELRY EXPLAINSDIAMOND CUTTING PROCESS TO THE COMMUNITY(MIDLAND, TEXAS – October 29, 2013)Occasions Fine Jewelry is bringing a Diamond Cutting Show to Midland on Saturday, November 16th. As a part of the show, Occasions is flying in equipment and cutters to do a demonstration for the public. They will show all stages of the process on site. “We are very excited about this new event,” said owner Cathy Fleck. “Very rarely do you get to experience something like this in Midland. We will also be drawing for a diamond that the customer can pick their own shape and cut to create their own diamond.”The event will discuss the different shapes and yields in person as well as display on an LCD screen. Customers will be able to walk through each step of the process.The event will be held at Occasions in Midland (2308 W. Loop 250) from XX – XX on Saturday, November 16.Occasions Fine Jewelry opened for business in the back of a local drug store in Midland over 20 years ago. Today, their Midland location on the corner of Loop 250 and Garfield is over 4,000 square feet.Occasions offers a number of lines exclusively in the West Texas area including Lorenzo, Orbis, Soho, Diamond Cushette, Cyma, Natalie Kay and Paul Winston.####The cost of hosting the diamond-cutting event remains the same for Mike and Cathy Fleck regardless of which press release they send.That, right there, that, is why you should learn to write.The Wizards of Ads are writers of persuasion. “Find a better story and deliver it with greater impact.” Two of the wizards who can teach you how to do this for yourself – Chris Maddock and Jeff Sexton – hold a writer’s workshop once a year at Wizard Academy, a 501c3 educational organization in Austin, Texas, a school for the imaginative, the courageous and the ambitious.According to the unabridged Oxford English Dictionary, “Wizard” derives from “wise-ard, wise man.” Soon you’ll soon be hearing about three of the most famous who followed a star to Bethlehem.I’m giving Mike and Cathy Fleck scholarships to the November 13 writing class at Wizard Academy; we teach big things fast; things not taught in college.You can come, too, if you like. But brace yourself.“Big things fast” arrive with impact.Merry Christmas.I really mean that.But you still have to pay for the class A Roy H. Williams

One of the books I’ll write someday is a collection of true stories gathered from extremely successful people.My business as an advertising consultant and seminar speaker has put me face-to-face with many of the brightest stars in the entrepreneurial sky. And rarely do I miss the opportunity to ask them,“Can you recall that fateful moment when you chose the fork in the road that led you to where you are today? How did you first get into this business?”Never – not once – has a successful person said to me, “I followed my passion.”But this is the answer you will hear again and again from people who are serving time in prison.The world is full of rich people who are not, and never were, successful. People who stole the money, inherited the money, married the money, won the money in the stock market or in the lottery, cheated others out of the money or were awarded the money in court, do not qualify as “successful” in my admittedly subjective opinion.The “Follow-Your-Passion” myth is pervasive because successful people are usually passionate. But those people would have been passionate about whatever they chose to do.Their jobs don’t give them passion.They give passion to their jobs.The same is true in successful marriages.Moon-eyed dreamers who say, “I just can’t find my passion” always act like I kicked their puppy when I tell them that passion is not a magical ether that can be located and tapped into. Passion is the shrapnel that flies from a three-way collision of determination, commitment and action.While we’re at it, let’s pull the mask off a couple of other myths:(1.) Passion doesn’t always manifest itself as happiness. Passion is also behind deep grief. (2.) Passion isn’t always confident. Worry is misguided passion, fearful passion, but it is passion nonetheless.Don’t do what you’re passionate about.Be passionate about what you do.Don’t follow your passion.Let your passion follow you. Passion is created when determination and commitment are joined by the nitroglycerin of action. Leonardo da Vinci said it 480 years ago and he said it in Italian. Here is the clearest translation:“People of accomplishment rarely sit back and let things happen to them. They go out and happen to things.”Listen to Leonardo.Go out and happen to something.When we hear the laughter and the dancing,the crying and the grief, we will know the shrapnel is flying.Roy H. Williams

The Silent Rifle as a 3rd Gravitating Body“Dangling like this from his leg, his upside-down perspective made him giddy. If this were to be his last moment he would die happy, but it would not. Instead, he’d soon be singing karaoke with a group of Korean tourists. But first, the roller coaster.”?– Christina Gressianu, opening lines of an unwritten novelAnton Chekhov wrote a letter to Aleksandr Semenovich Lazarev dated November 1, 1889, in which he said, “Remove everything that has no relevance to the story. If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it’s not going to be fired, it shouldn’t be hanging there.”Tragically, this casual advice became the sacred and unbreakable rule of scriptwriting known as “Chekhov’s Gun” in which every element in a story must be necessary and irreplaceable.Obey the rule of Chekhov’s Gun and your stories will be predictable to all but the youngest of children.Movies are predictable, TV shows are predictable and Advertising is predictable because some fool decided Chekhov was a messenger sent from God.No, let us be fair to Chekhov: his advice was given in 1889 when less than 1 percent of the public had ever read a novel or seen a play. Motion pictures were an inventor’s experiment in a laboratory. Television wasn’t even a fantasy. His audience was, in effect, young children.Would Chekhov offer the same advice today? Let me assure you he would not.Surprise and delight are strangled by the cruel hands of Predictability.If you will write an interesting story, wallpaper the room with guns that are never used and never explained. An unfired gun is a curious distraction, a potential disaster or delight that hovers beautiful like a hummingbird just out of view.I use “gun” only as the metaphor for a literary device, just as Chekhov did. Can an oversized bottle of champagne be a silent rifle, a hovering gun hanging beautifully on the wall?Of course it can.One of my favorite passages in literature flagrantly violates the rule of Chekhov’s Gun. It is an inexplicable paragraph inserted into the middle of Cryptonomicon, an extraordinary adventure/mystery novel written by Neal Stephenson. The gun on the wall is a bowl of breakfast cereal.The cereal, the milk, the eating of the cereal, indeed breakfast itself is utterly unnecessary in the story of Cryptonomicon. But there it is:“World-class cereal-eating is a dance of fine compromises. The giant heaping bowl of sodden cereal, awash in milk, is the mark of the novice. Ideally one wants the bone-dry cereal nuggets and the cryogenic milk to enter the mouth with minimal contact and for the entire reaction between them to take place in the mouth. The best thing is to work in small increments, putting only a small amount of Cap’n Crunch in your bowl at a time and eating it all up before it becomes a pit of loathsome slime, which, in the case of Cap’n Crunch, takes about thirty seconds… He pours the milk with one hand while jamming the spoon in with the other, not wanting to waste a single moment of the magical, golden time when cold milk and Cap’n Crunch are together but have not yet begun to pollute each other’s essential natures.”Chekhov, I believe, would approve.Welcome, Anton, to 2013.Roy H. Williams

My friend Jeffrey and I were talking one day about this and that when he said, as much to himself as to me, I think, “What is it that separates confidence from hubris?”I replied, “The outcome.”“That’s it!” Jeff gasped through his laughter, his head thrown back as tears began to inch toward his ears. “If you succeed, it was confidence. Fail, and it was hubris.”I’ve never been sure why my answer gave Jeff such pleasure, but isn’t it great to see a friend laugh uncontrollably?For the past 30 years I’ve livedwith my finger on the pulse of business owners.I know the rhythm of their heartbeats.I know what raises their blood pressure.I know what puts them to sleep.I feel the thump, thump, thump of their hunger for success.I know the storms that rise above them.I know the rains that fall.And I know what keeps them moving.Time and Chance are variables beyond our control.Money and Love are fuel.Time and Chance affect the flow of Money and Love.But Money and Love have no effect on Time and Chance.I’ve always been simpatico with the writer of Ecclesiastes.I think I understand him. He said,I have seen something else under the sun:The race is not to the swift?or the battle to the strong,?nor does food come to the wise?or wealth to the brilliant?or favor to the learned;?but time and chance happen to them all.Moreover, no one knows when their hour will come:As fish are caught in a cruel net,or birds are taken in a snare,so people are trapped by evil timesthat fall unexpectedly upon them.It is not my goal to bring you down or give you melancholy. I hope only to broaden your perspective. I want you to enjoy this adventure called Life, regardless of the scenery that surrounds you. You made it here. You exist. You’re alive. How cool is THAT!We choose our destiny with every choice we make.We create our reality with every action we take.And Time and Chance happen to us all.Roy H. Williams

Do not confuse pleasure with happiness.Unhappy people can have pleasure.And uninterrupted pleasures are not happiness.Happiness is the result of knowing who you are, why you are here, and what you should do.We need identity, purpose, and adventure.Identity – Who am I?Purpose – Why am I here?Adventure – What will I do now?Selling is theater and each customer is an actor in that play.The marketing person – an ad writer – creates the storyline.The salesperson is the director, the narrator, the master-of-ceremonies and the usher.The customers sit quietly in the audience until they realize the play is about them.Are your customers sitting quietly in the audience? Your job is to entice them out of their seats. You want them to stand up and take action. You need them to storm the stage, perform their parts, walk on clouds of laughter, dance in the rain of the spotlight, revel in the thunder of applause.This play called Life should always be about identity, purpose and adventure. Make it about something else and your play is certain to be a parody, a tragedy, a satire or a farce.These are the motivations of the characters:Identity: Who am I? We buy what we buy to remind ourselves – and tell the world around us – who we are. We even choose our service providers based on how closely they mirror the way we would run their company. We’re attracted to reflections of ourselves. A salesperson points out this reflection, “That’s you, isn’t it?” and then gives the intellect the facts it needs to justify the purchase. Win the heart and the mind will follow.Purpose: Why Am I Here?If you’re sitting alone in the darkness, it’s because you’re afraid. Stand up fearfully, but stand up anyway. Flip the switch of the spotlight with a trembling finger and walk wobbly-kneed to center stage. We measure ourselves by our intentions but others measure us by our actions. Let your intentions become your actions and you will have stumbled onto your purpose. Quit thinking. Start doing. And whatever you do, do it with set-jaw determination. Your purpose will reveal itself soon enough.Adventure: What Will I Do Now?It is not the victory, but the audacity of the attempt that makes us feel alive. Small plans do not enflame the hearts of men. If your life’s work can be accomplished in your lifetime, you’re not thinking big enough. Waiting is a kind of dying. Indecision is a decision. When you let enough time go by as you wring your hands and say, “Well, I just don’t know,” the opportunity will pass and your decision will have been made. Procrastination is the passive assassin of happiness.Opportunity has been knocking for a long time now. In fact, it’s pounding on your door as you read this. Get up and answer it.Do something that scares you.What’s the worst than can happen?Answer the door.It’s showtime.Roy H. Williams

I’m 21 years old but my thinning hair makes me look about 30. I consider this to be my greatest asset.I walk the retail sidewalks, looking in windows, deciding if I will go in. A peddler goes door to door unthinkingly, playing the odds, tossing his pitch to anyone who will catch it like the common cold. But I choose my doors carefully, walking past most, looking always for those little indicators that whisper, “The owner of this business has a brain.”I climb wooden stairs to the trailer house office of a mobile home dealer on Admiral Boulevard. Standing on the cedar deck outside the glass door I see myself looking back at me, the sport coat I bought for 3 dollars at the Goodwill store, the briefcase I carry to look educated. Behind me is the neighborhood of Ponyboy Curtis, an unfiltered assortment of bent automobiles, broken houses and discarded people.My footsteps drum the wooden deck. Behind the glass, two men drink scotch at a coffee table in a cloud of Winston and Lucky Strike. The heavier one looks up at me, then back to his scotch as I swing open the door and step inside.“Whatever you’re sellin’, we’re not buyin’.” His eyes never leave the scotch.“Probably advertising,” said the other, careful not to look my way.“I came in here because you guys appear from the road to be smarter than most. Don’t tell me I made a mistake.”Both men turn to look at me. They stare. I stare. The second one speaks again. “What makes you think we’re so smart?”“The sign, the flags, and the angle of presentation.”His eyes grow cold and hard. “Explain.”Holding a solitary finger in front of me, I give them the facts. “Five sheets of inch-and-an-eighth tongue-in-groove plywood gave you an 8 by 20 sign on which you painted ‘Veterans Housing Specialists’ in exactly the same style and colors a government agency would use. You’re looking for that Veterans Administration ‘one-dollar-move-in’ money that you know every Viet Nam vet has available to them. You’re smart enough to paint the sign. I’m smart enough to know it’s working.”A second finger joins the first. “Every other dealer on mobile home row uses exactly the same strings of cheap vinyl flags to get attention. Red, yellow, blue, green and white. But you paid extra for unicolor strings of metallic silver and metallic gold. It makes your mobile homes look upscale.”Three fingers. “You have the least inventory of any dealer but your customers never realize it because while every other dealer places their homes parallel to the road, you’ve angled yours so that no home is ever blocked from view. This is visually more interesting, gets more attention, makes the homes seem distinctive AND you’re creating leading lines in a V-shape that guide the eyes of passers-by to your seemingly official ‘Veterans Housing Specialists’ sign.”The second one stood up and shifted his scotch to his left hand. “I’m Jim McDuffie.” Pointing to his partner he said, “That’s Mac McKean.” Reaching toward me for a handshake, he said, “And you’re our new advertising guy. Tell me what I need to buy.”I like to tell that story because it makes me look smart. There are other stories I don’t like to tell.Jim McDuffie’s business is big enough to advertise in multiple ways. This means I have a safety net. If the ads on my tiny little radio station don’t produce results, the traffic generated by the other stations will cover me. I rarely have this luxury.The upside of working for the smallest radio station in the city is that I can make presentations to businesses with budgets too small for any station but mine. In other words, the salespeople who work for the larger stations are limited to just 1 of every 100 businesses. The other 99 can’t afford their rates, but every business in town can afford me.That’s the problem. People buy my station because it’s all they can afford. I mean it’s all they can afford. Nothing else. No safety net. If my ads don’t work, the electric bill doesn’t get paid, the kids don’t have money for school lunches and the ad man – me – becomes a con man.In The Road Not Taken, Robert Frost speaks of taking “the road less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” For me, the road less traveled by was to accept the weight and pain of my client’s failure. When my ads failed, I had nowhere to hide because my clients could afford no one but me. I was the guy.Pain is the teacher you never forget.When I lost my hair at an early age I knew it gave me an advantage. But only later did I realize that being the only salesperson for the number 23 station in a city of 22 stations gave me an even bigger advantage. No other salesperson had a private physics laboratory in which they could accurately measure the cause and effect of each of the variables in advertising. Salespeople asking for pieces of bigger budgets saw the results of their ads through a blurry lens. They had no clear way to see how thei

A brief summary of this episode

Reverse Your Thoughts, Increase Your IncomeUnifying Principles are those guiding thoughts around which all your actions revolve. When you hold them in plain sight, you always know what to do next.Brilliant people stumble when they focus on the parts and neglect to see the webs of connections between those parts. This is what causes medical doctors to treat each symptom separately while failing to recognize the underlying disease.Such compartmentalization is an even bigger problem in business, causing owners and managers to wrestle with symptoms instead of solving the problem. Not enough customers, low profit margins, high employee turnover and negative online reviews are merely compartmentalized symptoms of a systemic malfunction.Unifying principles eliminate compartmentalization.Let’s develop some unifying principles for your business that will help you create your happiest possible future:1. Think of your perfect ending; leap forward in time and see the outcome you most desire. How does that future company behave? Who are its customers? What marvelous things does it do that cause its customers to recruit their friends? What do these happy customers say about you? Describe, right now, the perfect day in this business you’ll own in the future. See, feel, taste and smell all the details of that soon-coming day.2. Hold those thoughts clearly in your mind.3. You are now equipped to identify the constituent components of this happy future. You’re ready to create the steps that will take you there. You’re ready to draw the map you will follow.ONE: Where would such a company be located?TWO: How would such a workplace be decorated?THREE: How would such a company recruit its employees?FOUR: In what ways might such a company train its employees?FIVE: How would such a company compensate those employees?SIX: What hours would such a company be open?SEVEN: How would their ads make you feel?EIGHT: What would their written warranties and guarantees include?NINE: What would such a company NEVER do?TEN: What might such a company do for its customers that its competitors would be unwilling to do?Are you beginning to get the picture?A clear and stable vision of the End Goal is required to inform the small choices that will bring that goal into existence.You’ve previously heard of Gestalt Theory but now you’ve actually used it.AThis particular application of Gestalt Theory springs from TRIZ Principle 13: turn it upside down; reverse the process; do it backwards. If you want to learn the other 39 Principles of TRIZ, check out Mark Fox’s book, Da Vinci and the 40 Answers or attend that class when Br’er Fox teaches it on Oct. 30-31. Wizard Academy cognoscenti Dr. Kary Mullis never heard of TRIZ Principle 13 but he instinctively used it to create Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR,) the invention that opened the door for DNA research and won him the 1993 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Kary said, “Everyone was looking for a needle in a haystack, so I said, ‘Why not turn the haystack into needles?'” Turn it upside down; reverse the process; do it backwards. That’s how PCR was born.More recently, Kary used Principle 13 to create Altermune, the invention that will probably win him a second Nobel Prize. Speaking of that portion of our immune system that attacks foreign tissue and of how it has been studied for decades so that it can be suppressed during organ transplants, Kary said, “Suppress it, hell, why not aim it?” And from that bit of backwards thinking Kary Mullis invented an antidote for anthrax. He will likely use this same technique to invent cures for dozens of other things for which our bodies have no defense.Watch the video at TED.comWizard Academy Cognoscenti rock the world.Rock on. Roy H. Williams

Agrees With Wizard AcademyHeadlines often tell the truth more powerfully than is completely accurate, a disturbing trend in this day of sound-bite news.The mental image conjured in the mind by the headline, “Nobel Prize-Winning Economist Agrees With Wizard Academy,” is one in which the Nobel Laureate (1.) is aware of Wizard Academy and (2.) makes a statement of affirmation regarding it.Neither of these things has happened. So how could the writer of that headline say such a thing? The Monday Morning Memo you received on July 29 was titled, Fortune’s 500 or America’s 5.91 Million? Perhaps you remember reading it.In that memo I stated,The Fortune 500 are the newsmakers but they are not the backbone of the American economy. According to the U.S. Census, America is home to nearly 17 million sole proprietorships, plus an additional 5.91 million businesses with fewer than 100 employees. These 5.91 million are the backbone of the economy since they create more new jobs than all the other companies combined. The press will cheer for the giant with a spear but I sing for the boy with a sling.If the Fortune 500 suddenly vanished from the earth, a new group of giants would arise. But if America’s 5.91 million businesses with fewer than 100 employees suddenly vanished from the earth, the fabric of our society would be shredded and democracy would be gone.Free enterprise doesn’t depend on democracy.Democracy depends on free enterprise.On August 17, 2013, more than 2 weeks after that MondayMorningMemo appeared, Jeffrey Eisenberg sent a story from the August 17th New York Times in which the Sterling Professor of Economics at Yale, Robert J. Shiller, contemplated the newly-published worries of Edmund Phelps, the 2006 recipient of the Nobel Prize in the Economic Sciences.According to Shiller,“Professor Phelps discerns a troubling trend… He is worried about corporatism, a political philosophy in which economic activity is controlled by large interest groups or the government. Once corporatism takes hold in a society, he says, people don’t adequately appreciate the contributions and the travails of individuals who create and innovate. An economy with a corporatist culture can copy and even outgrow others for a while, he says, but, in the end, it will always be left behind. Only an entrepreneurial culture can lead.”I’m not suggesting that Phelps or Shiller was influenced by what I wrote. In fact, I’m reasonably certain they’ve never heard of me. But I do feel I’m well within the mark to say both men agree with me.Phelps is worried about corporatism. Me? I’m worried about a disturbing trend toward overstated sound bites. I gave today’s memo a reckless headline to underscore my point, but better examples are all around us.A recent story boasted the headline, “Right Brain, Left Brain? Scientists Debunk Popular Theory.” Google it and you’ll find dozens of variations of that story reposted by online parrots who never pause to contemplate what they hear before squawking it to all the world.Invest 3 minutes to actually read that story and you’ll find the headline to be false and misleading to the point of absurdity. The discovery for which Dr. Roger Sperry won the 1981 Nobel Prize in Physiology stands as tall and proud as ever. Here’s a direct quote from the story that supposedly ‘debunks’ Dr. Sperry’s findings:“‘It’s absolutely true that some brain functions occur in one or the other side of the brain,’ explained Jeff Anderson, M.D., Ph.D., lead author of the study. ‘Language tends to be on the left, attention more on the right. But people don’t tend to have a stronger left- or right-sided brain network. It seems to be determined more connection by connection.’”Dig into that study by Dr. Anderson and you’ll find he merely summarizes what we’ve always known: both sides of the brain are in constant use. There is never a moment in which thoughts and the associative memories triggered by those thoughts are contained entirely on one side.This is news?I believe this trend toward overstatement has its roots in the “corporatism” decried by Professors Schiller and Phelps. Listen to the most highly paid pundits on radio and television and you’ll hear sociopathic children who have learned to cry “wolf” louder and more frantically than their peers.Corporatism rewards any spokesperson who can control the thinking of others.A society that no longer has time for contemplation, scholarship, or independent research is at the mercy of little boys who have no conscience and who are desperate for attention.Time and attention are commodities more precious than diamonds and gold. We have only so many moments. It is a heartless thing to trick a person into giving them to you.False shouts of “Wolf!” should be cast into oblivion, along with those empty-headed parrots who reheat, repeat and retweet them. Just sayin’.Roy H. Williams

The Essence of Content MarketingThe perfect customer is like a beautiful woman, distant and desirable and pursued by countless competitors. An appropriate metaphor, don’t you think?Most advertisers want ads that equate to a magical pickup line. “Tell me what to say to this beautiful woman so that she’ll rip off her clothes and jump into bed with me.”Some advertisers get downright self-righteous as they demand these magical lines. They lift their chins and sniff, “I want to hold my ads accountable.” In other words, “I want it to work immediately. Tell me how to make this beautiful woman give me what I want. Tell me what to say. I’ll say anything.”Advertising people know how to craft these “direct response” messages. And the lines we tell you to say to the woman very often work! Not surprisingly, the “beautiful women” who can be won in a single conversation are mostly interested in money. It’s usually about the price.And they tend not to be loyal.Courtship takes a longer path.According to behavioral psychologist Desmond Morris, the strength of a relationship is usually determined by the process that formed it. Relationships that are quickly formed are quickly broken. True courtship is an adventure and adventures take time. You’ve got to let the woman of your affections get to know you.You do remember that we’re talking about business, don’t you? All this stuff about beautiful women was just a metaphor for building long-term relationships with customers.If your website or blog provides valuable, insightful content, you’re likely to become a sustaining resource that your prospective customer will grow to depend upon. This form of customer courtship is called “content marketing.” Think of it as the advertising equivalent of love letters.Ray Seggern, one of my Wizard of Ads partners, explains customer courtship as the convergence of Story, Culture and Experience. According to Ray:Story isWhat You Say. (Marketing)It is the personality and promises you put in your messages.Culture isWho You Are.It is the experience your employees have within your company.Experience isWhat You Do.It is what your customers perceive when they interact with your company.Authenticity occurswhen your story and your customer’s experience align.When these don’t align, you get bad reviews.High Employee Morale is what happenswhen your story and your culture align.When these don’t align, you have cancer in the building.Brand Ambassadors are bornwhen story and culture and experience align.This is when your happy customer chooses to become a member of your family, part of your brand.In other words, the beautiful woman agrees to marry you.And because who you are and what you say and what you do are in perfect alignment, I honestly believe you’ll live happily ever after together.Roy H. Williams

Commentators say that people today have a shorter attention span than in the past, but Jerry Seinfeld and I don’t believe this is true.“There is no such thing as an attention span. There is only the quality of what you are viewing. This whole idea of an attention span is, I think, a misnomer. People have an infinite attention span if you are entertaining them.” – Jerry Seinfeld“If you are entertaining them.”I believe it’s presumptive to say that today’s generation is more easily distracted than previous generations. It is accurate, perhaps, to say they are more often distracted, but might not their forefathers have been just as often distracted had they carried electronic worlds in their pockets?The truth is that people today have a low tolerance for boredom. Combine this with the constant availability of entertaining attractions and it’s easy to see why this question of attention span keeps popping up like a prairie dog.Of course people today can pay attention. But why should they?“We frequently forgive those who bore us, but cannot forgive those who we bore.” – Francois, Duc de La RochefoucauldWe are insulted when people turn their attention away from us, especially when we believe what we’re saying is important.You can blame today’s generation for bad manners and a short attention span. You can blame video games and smart phones. You can blame poor parenting and too much television. You can blame Alfred E. Neuman. You can blame God.Or you can realize that attention will always turn toward whatever stimulus is most interesting. You can see the competition for attention is fiercer today than it has ever been. You can see that we need to up our game.Our ability to gain and hold attention depends entirely upon our ability to stimulate the curiosity of others.Can you stimulate curiosity? If you can’t, you will not hold attention. Not in your ads, not on the telephone, not face-to-face.I tell my business partners, the Wizards of Ads, not to be offended when someone in the audience begins texting or playing a video game, but to take it as a signal to add some sparkle to their talk; do something more interesting than the distraction; win back the wandering mind. They are now among the most riveting speakers in America.So what will it be? Will you blame the audience or blame yourself?If you blame the audience, you eliminate all hope of improvement because there is nothing you can do to fix the audience. You must then conclude that society is circling the drain. “America is in decline, blah, blah, blah”.But if you blame only yourself for not rising to the challenge of increased competition, that problem is easily solved:All you have to do is become more interesting.Begin by entering your subject from an unusual angle.“Jerry Seinfeld and I don’t believe this to be true.”Use examples that are relevant to the audience.“…electronic worlds in their pockets.”Specificity is more interesting than generalities.“…this question of attention span keeps popping up like a prairie dog.”Don’t over-explain. Let your listeners figure it out for themselves.“You can blame Alfred E. Neuman.”Unusual intonations and inflections captivate the ear and make it difficult to quit listening.Talk faster than usual. Our speed of hearing greatly exceeds the speed of speech. Nothing bores people faster than taking too long to say too little.Deliver big ideas quickly like boulders in an avalanche. Rapid distraction is a machine gun that requires you to collect bullets in advance.You can no longer just make it up as you go along.The future is a magical world that will belong to those who can gain and hold attention. How much of that magic would you like to own?And that’s why it’s called – you have wondered, haven’t you? – “The Magical Worlds Communications Workshop.”The next 3-day session begins November 5, 2013.Preparation and practice. These are the keys.Let us hand them to you.Roy H. Williams

We tend to think of imitation as the opposite of innovation but I don’t believe this is true. “Opposite” indicates opposed positions, left and right. But my observation is that innovation and imitation are usually the second and third positions in a continuing circle that has improvisation as its starting point.Here’s how that circle is usually drawn:You are faced with a problem for which you have no solution, so you improvise. Or a known and trusted solution fails to perform as it has in the past, so you improvise. It is through such improvisation that innovation is most often discovered. Then, when the innovation has proven to be more efficient, it is imitated again and again to become our new state-of-the-art. It will be touted as a “best practice” for a while, then lose its luster to become merely the status quo, “the way things are done.” Yesterday’s brilliant innovation then becomes traditional wisdom, and as new circumstances arise, we begin to suspect it to be more tradition than wisdom until finally it becomes “the box” in which we feel trapped.You’ll say, “I need to think outside the box,” and improvisation will begin again.1. Improvisation*2. Innovation and3. Imitation are three positions on a continuing circle, or more accurately, a spiral.Practical Applications of Chaos Theory is the final session on the last day of the Magical Worlds Communications Workshop at Wizard Academy, America’s school for the imaginative, the courageous, and the ambitious. In that climactic session, the cognoscenti learn that a fractal image is merely the map of a chaotic system and that chaos, in science, is not randomness but rather precisely the opposite: a level of organization more complex than the human mind can follow. The cognoscenti then learn that fractal images are three-dimensional due to the repetitive nature of fractal self-similarity: a repetitive series of complex patterns that interlock to become a larger iteration of precisely that same pattern. In the simplest possible manifestation of this idea, a spiral is a series of spinning circles interlocked to become an increasingly larger series of spinning circles.That’s when we begin to hear the voice of Solomon echoing through time and space as it has echoed for 3,000 years:“What has been will be again,what has been done will be done again;there is nothing new under the sun.Is there anything of which one can say,‘Look! This is something new’?It was here already, long ago;it was here before our time.No one remembers the former generations,and even those yet to comewill not be rememberedby those who follow them.”– Ecclesiastes, ch. 1Another good Jewish boy, Brian Greene, is the theoretical physicist widely known for his ability to explain String Theory, reconciling quantum mechanics to general relativity and explaining the fundamental nature of time and space along the way.“Among the many features of String Theory, the following three are perhaps the most important ones to keep firmly in mind.First, gravity [general relativity theory – RHW] and quantum mechanics are part and parcel of how the universe works and therefore any purported unified theory must incorporate both. String theory accomplishes this.Second, studies by physicists over the past century have revealed that there are other key ideas – many of which have been experimentally confirmed – that appear central to our understanding of the universe. These include the concepts of spin…”– Brian Greene, The Elegant Universe, p.383Wow. The spinning spiral must really be an essential law of nature if Brian Greene gives it first place on his short list of the laws of the universe.Improvisation, innovation and imitation are just repetitive phases in the ever-expanding spiral of human improvement.This leads us to the comic but profound paradox:“The only thing permanent is change.”Roy H. Williams

When you find your mind wandering, ask yourself these two questions:What am I thinking?Why am I thinking this?And when you’re busy, ask these three:What am I doing?What do I hope to gain by it?Why does this matter to me?Ask these questions and you’ll sidestep the bullet Socrates fired into the future when he said,“The unexamined life is not worth living.”Reality Television. Why are we so quick to examine the lives of others and so reluctant to examine our own?Carl Jung gave us another lens for self-examination when he said,“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”Make a list of your pet peeves and you’ll learn something about yourself.But then we must contend with Dr. Richard Cytowic, that famous neurologist who tells us,“Not everything we are capable of knowing and doing is accessible to, or expressible in, language. This means that some of our personal knowledge is off limits even to our own inner thoughts! Perhaps this is why humans are so often at odds with themselves, because there is more going on in our minds than we can ever consciously know.”Wow. According to Cytowic, there’s stuff happening in our heads that can’t be spoken; stuff we don’t even know that we know.And then, just to make absolutely certain that we don’t get too cocky about this whole self-examination thing, MIT’s Dr. Jerre Levy throws her own special molotov cocktail into the mix:“The left brain maps spatial information into a temporal order, while the right brain maps temporal information onto a spatial order. In a sense understanding largely consists in the translation of information to and fro between a temporal ordering and a spatial one – resulting in a sort of stereoscopic depth-cognition.”Huh?Strangely, the solution to unraveling this hopelessly tangled knot we call self-identity can be found in the advice of an imaginary person in a science fiction book about archaeology on other planets:“Show me what a person admires, and I will tell you everything about them that matters.” – Maggie Tufu, The Engines of God, p. 398Do you want to know yourself better?Quickly make a list of:2 favorite visual artists3 favorite poems4 favorite stories5 favorite movies6 favorite songsWhen you’ve made these lists, take them with you into the rabbit hole and Indiana Beagle will tell you what to do next.I’ll see you there.Roy H. Williams

Wal-Mart is the biggest company in America, followed by 3 oil companies and then Warren Buffett’s Berkshire-Hathaway, Apple Computers, General Motors, and General Electric.Yep. Apple today is bigger than both General Motors and G.E.“Yippee, Skippy, call the press.Oh, you did already? And the press said Nash-Finch is number 500?Who the hell is Nash-Finch?”The Fortune 500 are the newsmakers, but they are not the backbone of the American economy. In fact, if every company in America with more than 500 employees was added to Fortune’s famous list of America’s 500 largest corporations, all those companies combined would account for just three tenths of 1 percent of the businesses in America and less than one half of all the jobs.According to the U.S. Census, America is home to nearly 17 million sole proprietorships, plus an additional 5.91 million businesses with fewer than 100 employees. These 5.91 million are the backbone of the economy since they create more new jobs than all the other companies combined.These 5.91 million buy the majority of the radio ads, half the TV ads and most of the Google Adwords. And they also buy more real estate and rent more office space than the Fortune 500.The press will cheer for the giant with a spear but I sing for the boy with a sling.If the Fortune 500 suddenly vanished from the earth, a new group of giants would arise. But if America’s 5.91 million businesses with fewer than 100 employees suddenly vanished from the earth, the fabric of our society would be shredded and democracy would be gone.Free enterprise doesn’t depend on democracy.Democracy depends on free enterprise.My partner, Jeff Sexton, said something the other day that impressed me enough to write it down:“A nation of farmers, fishermen, lumberjacks, cowboys, ranchers, etc. is not the same as a nation of cubicle dwellers. We’ve focused on self-esteem when we should have focused on building self-efficacy.”Don’t feel weird if you’re not sure about the definition of ‘self-efficacy.’ I wasn’t sure either, so I looked it up: “Self-efficacy is the measure of one’s own ability to complete tasks and reach goals.”Self-efficacy says, “I can do this.” Self-efficacy is where freedom begins.It is through choices and consequences that we learn the hard lessons that make peace and prosperity possible.Susan Ryan is using the power of choices and consequences to bring peace and prosperity to Afghanistan. Susan has been teaching Afghan women to become employers of labor. She says,A“Men look at you differently when you have the power to give them a job. A dozen Afghan women, each running a company that generates at least a million dollars a year in sales, would significantly alter the future of Afghanistan.”Wizard Academy’s Chapel Dulcinea sits across from the last remaining corner of an old stone home. And on the wall of that old home is a bronze plaque that says, “If mothers ruled nations there would be no war. Arm in arm they would stand and say, ‘Stop that. Stop that right now.'”Susan Ryan has an MBA and is an extraordinary teacher. Her company, Silk Road Solutions, trains courageous and ambitious people to make different choices and experience different consequences.Susan teaches them how to make money.Her 50 employees in Afghanistan have been teaching locals how to create a happier financial future for themselves. Susan says, “Think new, act different, create change.” The Afghan people love Susan’s company and the Afghan government approves of what she is doing. Not surprisingly, Susan has been invited to bring Silk Road Solutions into nearly every other country in the Middle East.People who are busy making money don’t often have time to make war.Susan Ryan is teaching courageous people how to make money.I’m incredibly proud of her.Roy H. Williams

Every employee has opinions about the advertising that represents their company. This is natural I suppose because those ads, by extension, represent the employee as well. And so they tell the boss what they think, “and all of our customers think that, too.”But if the development of successful advertising were as instinctive as most people believe, a higher percentage of ads would be successful.Most business owners trust their instincts and personal preferences in the creation of their advertising. Others empower a “creative” family member, an “artistic” employee, or worse, a group of employees who “studied advertising in college” to craft their messages and select the media that will move their businesses to the next level.And the results of these ad campaigns are nearly always disappointing.Philip Stanhope addressed this situation when he said, “Every young man thinks himself wise enough, just as every drunk man thinks himself sober enough.”Joss Whedon, too, might easily have been talking about writing ad copy when he said, “Remember to always be yourself. Unless you suck.”But no one ever thinks they suck. No one considers their own company to be boring or their own product to be average. Each of us is from Lake Wobegon, “where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.”We look in the mirror and assume that everyone sees what we see. And then we “hold these truths to be self-evident” in our advertising.But does anyone ever see us the way we see ourselves?Most people have an opinion when it comes to advertising. And they feel certain they know what would work. But it’s only when you’re allowed to play with live ammunition – real dollars – that you begin to feel the slip of the ice beneath you and draw the sharp air of reality into your lungs.The amateur believes an ad will be successful if it captures an aspect of the business that is unique and beautiful.But every business is unique and beautiful, just like every snowflake in a snowbank.When you have walked on that snow and slipped and fallen again and again and left the stain of your blood on the whiteness, you learn some hard truths that are not self-evident:1. The world of advertising is noisier and more crowded than you ever dreamed possible.2. Even though you are paying money to reach them, prospective customers are not required to give you their attention.3. Until you win the customer’s attention, your message does not exist.4. People turn their attention – moment by moment – to whatever is most interesting.5. It is hard to make ads interesting.6. The message contained in your ad must be relevant.7. The message contained in your ad must be credible.8. True isn’t always credible. And credible isn’t always true. Competitors know this.9. Ads soft enough not to repel anyone are also too weak to attract anyone.10. If you evaluate each ad by asking, “Who might this offend?” you will never craft an ad sharp enough to pierce the clutter.11. Every brand attracts a different set of core values in the hearts of its customers. The strategy that grew Apple computers into a worldwide brand won’t work for J.C. Penney. Just ask Ron Johnson.12. The best ads contain entertainment, information, and hope.The hardest part of my job as an ad man is telling my clients how to respond to people they care about when those people begin telling them how they should advertise.When you’re held accountable for the performance of real ad dollars, you spend your formative years experimenting with a lot of ideas that make perfect sense and absolutely should work.They just don’t.But every amateur thinks they will.Roy H. Williams

A brief summary of this episode

You and I are aware of the superficial motives we have for the things we do, but only rarely do we consider the deeper motives that hide behind the superficial ones.Pennie and I have been discussing the future and how it revolves around you.Yes, you.Today, July 8, 2013, is the vortex of a 15-year convergence of events that began in 1998. We sit for an instant in the eye of the storm, a wonderful moment of stillness surrounded by a whirlwind of activity before and after.Everyone who works on the Wizard Academy campus – about a dozen of us – spent the last 2 weeks frantically unstacking and moving, sifting and sorting thousands of items from warehouses scattered across the campus. We’ve hungered for this grand purge for several years. Books and artwork, furniture and accessories, music and films were pulled out of boxes and given new homes. It was a Herculean task carved into our calendar several months ago. Fifteen years of acquisitions were organized and distributed in just 14 days.Twelve people working for 80 hours is 960 man-hours. We woke up yesterday morning and breathed a deep sigh of relief.By strange coincidence, during those same 2 weeks Daniel Denny rented the equipment to cut the 14-inch hump out of the solid limestone approach to the tower. The concrete was then poured – thanks to the generosity of Cognoscenti Rich Carr – so the golden flagstone can be laid on top of it and the Jane DeDecker monuments can be installed for our October 4th Open House.And the business office in the tower was finally completed as well! Whoosh. All at once, 4 momentous things came together that have been driving me crazy for years. Whirlwind.An even weirder coincidence is that Wizard Academy’s new Vice Chancellor – Daniel Whittington – starts work today. Believe it or not, we didn’t time the completion of the business office – the place where he will work – to coordinate with the day of his arrival. It was completely accidental. I started to write to you about Daniel Whittington. But then I said, “No, I’ll give him a week or two to get settled.”And then I started to write to you about digital outdoor advertising, online radio and the secrets of successful videoblogs. But then I said, “No, I’ll save those things for the monthly webcast at 11AM.”And then I started to write to you about portals, those literary, musical and visual devices useful in moving a reader, a listener or a viewer to a new perspective. But then I said, “No, portals need to be taught with the 12 languages of the mind and that’s way too much to put into a Monday Morning Memo.”And then I thought about printing the details of How to Negotiate and Schedule Successful Radio Advertising. But then I said, “That would be – for a significant percentage of Monday Morning Memo readers – the most boring thing I ever wrote.”And then a bright light overcame the darkness in my mind. “Tell them why you do it. Tell them why you write these memos, why Pennie and you built this campus, why you and she gathered all these thousands of things together.”Here’s the reason, the deeper motive that hides behind our superficial ones, the truly important motive that is often obscured by the merely urgent: Pennie and I want you to have a happy and satisfying life.We began writing the Monday Morning Memo in 1994 in the hope that you might begin to think differently, make better decisions and enjoy greater success. We didn’t see you with our eyes but we saw you in our mind.We purchased and donated the land for the Wizard Academy campus and applied for government recognition of the school as a 501c3 nonprofit educational organization so that you would always have a physical place to which you could escape, regroup, and open your mind to new possibilities. We don’t own it. You do.We built Chapel Dulcinea, the world famous Free Wedding Chapel as an expression of the joy and purpose that can be found in a lifetime of commitment. Your chapel now hosts nearly 1,000 free weddings a year. Couples come here to get married from countries all over the world. Cool, huh? This moment of transition – this eye of the storm – represents the turning of a page, the end of one chapter and the beginning of the next, that moment when the song strikes sforzando and moves into a different rhythm.Wizard Academy is now 13 years old. It is time for our Bar Mitzvah.Indiana Beagle will give you the details of this Bar Mitzvah and explain the title of today’s memo in the rabbit hole.Everyone should have a dog that can talk.Roy H. Williams

I’ve had a handful of memorable moments.AAmong them is a meeting with Zig Ziglar in 1986. Zig stood at a whiteboard and smiled at the 20 of us staring back at him with big eyes. Zig had written several bestselling books and created America’s most popular sales training program. The 20 of us were neophyte managers, trembling with excitement at having been chosen to be in that room.Marker in hand, Zig said, “Name for me every attribute of the perfect employee.”As we called out attributes Zig wrote them down. We had nearly 90 on the board before we began to slow.“Can you think of any others?” We painfully named two dozen more.“Think hard. I want you to describe the perfect employee. I need every attribute.” We studied that whiteboard until we began to sweat. We got to 114.Pointing now at the first word on our list, Zig asked, “Is this a skill or an attitude?” We said it was an attitude. Zig wrote a big “A” next to it. Pointing at the second word, he asked, “Skill or attitude?” Another big “A.”Twenty minutes later, Zig tallied the final score: of the 114 attributes on our list, only 7 could be classified as “Skills.” Five were “Skills/Attitudes,” and a whopping 102 of them were purely “Attitude.”Zig could have saved himself 30 minutes by just blurting out the punch line: “Employees don’t lose their jobs because they lack skill. They lose their jobs because they don’t have a good attitude.” But Zig didn’t want to say these things and then try to convince us of their truth. Zig wanted us to say them, and thus convince ourselves to “always hire people who have the right attitude.”I sat there drenched in realization and recalled a few lines from Elbert Hubbard’s famous rant of 1899, A Message to Garcia.“I know one man of really brilliant parts who has not the ability to manage a business of his own, and yet who is absolutely worthless to anyone else, because he carries with him constantly the insane suspicion that his employer is oppressing, or intending to oppress him… Tonight this man walks the streets looking for work, the wind whistling through his threadbare coat. No one who knows him dare employ him, for he is a regular fire-brand of discontent.”Twenty-five years after that meeting with Zig Ziglar, I had a similar moment with the great David McInnis. “I finally figured out how to improve employee morale,” David said, “Productivity skyrockets and everyone loves coming to work. It’s a program that never fails. Works every time.”I stood there looking at David.He stood there looking at me.Finally, I raised my shoulders and turned my palms upward. Looking steadily into my eyes, David said, “Fire all the unhappy people.” Those words struck me with such comical force that I began to laugh. But David wasn’t laughing.None of us wants to run a sweatshop. None of us wants to be that hard-hearted boss who fails to appreciate the humanity of employees. None of us wants to abuse our people with the cold pragmatism displayed by Wal-Mart.And this is why so many businesses become country clubs for employees.Here’s how it happens: a whiner makes a reasonable request and you grant it. That request is expanded upon and accelerated until it ceases to be a privilege granted to employees and becomes an inalienable right. And that was only the first request in an unending stream of others brought to you by an increasingly dissatisfied staff. And you, sadly, are now seen as the oppressive King George.But this revolt is unlike that famous one of 1776. This time it will be King George that delivers the declaration of independence to the whiner.David’s advice, and mine, is that you identify the “firebrand of discontent” within your company – if you have one – and give that person a smiling declaration of independence as you shake their hand, thank them for their months of service, and say, “You are now Free… free to go.”It’s a plan that never fails.Roy H. Williams

And the People Behind It In the world of bricks-and-mortar,1. a spectacular building,2. good signage and3. an excellent locationare the best advertising money can buy.In the binary world where Ones are bricks and Zeroes are mortar,1. your website is your building,2. your masthead is your signage and3. your domain name is your location.But that’s where the metaphor falls apart.In the world of air and sunshine, an interesting building with a memorable sign on a high-traffic road will be noticed and remembered. But in the airless void of ones and zeroes, your building doesn’t exist until a visitor arrives at your specific street address, then WHOOSH, it is conjured from code in an instant.Welcome to virtual reality, where no one sees you until they get there.But in this vacuum of cyberspace, the laws of physics still apply. So the Great and Glowing Truth you can count upon above all other truths is this: Advertising will only accelerate what was going to happen anyway.A purely online business lives or dies through its website and other digital interactions. But a brick-and-mortar business lives or dies through real-world interactions with its customers. Successful online businesses provide an exceptional online experience. Successful face-to-face businesses provide an exceptional face-to-face experience.Wizard Academy is a face-to-face experience. Wizard Academy was founded by an ad man, but the school has never spent a penny on advertising and the WizardAcademy.org website is unattractive, outdated and clunky. In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s the ugliest website in Virtual Reality.Search engine optimization? Nope.Pay-per-click? Not yet.But we were doing Content Marketing before it had a name.In 1994, when the internet was still a secret and the Monday Morning Memo was sent by fax, we called each tidbit flung into the world a Free Product Sample, FPS for short. And when we flung those tidbits from a microphone we called it a Free Public Seminar. Again, FPS for short. And then came email.Regardless of the vehicle used for distribution, the idea remained unchanged: people will give you their time if you give them something valuable in exchange for it.People value information, entertainment, and hope. If you give them these from an open hand and an open heart, they will probably forgive your unattractive, outdated and clunky method of delivery.Our Number One Priority is to send you something each week worth reading.Number Two is to build you a country home to which you can escape any time you feel the need to be free. That country home, the Wizard Academy campus, is nearly complete.A new website should appear by the end of the year.But there won’t be any time or money for that until first we’ve finished Bilbo Baggins House, the Lenhard-Murray Amphitheater, and the Jeff Morris Worldwide Invitational Bocce Ball Court.Priorities.Bittersweet: Late this autumn, when the miraculous Daniel Denny hangs up his tool belt and moves back to Oklahoma to build, at long last, a home for himself and his wife, Pattie, their adobe mansion at Wizard Academy will become additional student housing.Your country home is nearly complete.And thanks to you, it’s debt-free.Imagine what we could have done if only we’d had a better website.Roy H. Williams

A person capable of creating is happiest when they are creating.Artists create visual and auditory artifacts that affect our thoughts, moods and attitudes. Riddle-solvers perform feats of engineering and invention. Teachers create new understanding in the minds of their students. Entrepreneurs create businesses that offer us new and different experiences. Communicators create stories and speeches and ads.Made in the image of God, humans are creators by nature. All humans.Yes, that includes you.What do you create? What do you change? What effect do you have on the world around you?The Success Myth of our culture is an evil one. We are told that “the freedom to do nothing” is the reward provided by great wealth. Have you spent much time among the idle rich? Sadly, I have, and on many occasions.Leisure feels good when you are weary from intense creating. Leisure is restorative, allowing you to return to your creation with renewed intensity. But when you are satiated with food, it is no longer pleasant to eat. When you are satiated with rest, it is no longer pleasant to rest.The idle rich aren’t bored because they are rich. They are bored because they are idle. The idle poor have exactly the same feelings as the idle rich, but the idle poor call it “hopelessness.”Political radio shows exist because people would rather be angry than bored. Horror movies exist because people would rather be frightened than bored. Sensational films and photos exist because people would rather be shocked and offended than bored.Boredom is a kind of death. Being angry, frightened or offended reminds you that you are alive. But these emotions are sad and fruitless substitutes for the joy that comes from creating.Happy people value something much more than they value themselves. If there is nothing in your life that means more to you than you do, I fear you will be unhappy. No, that’s not right. I fear you are already unhappy.Are you feeling lethargic? Apathetic? Bored? Aimless? Hopeless? Get off your ass and do something. It won’t be the outcome that brings you joy; it will be the effort. You’ve probably excused yourself from taking action in the past by saying, “but I’m not very good at it.” Friend, no one is ever “good at it” in the beginning. But anything worth doing is worth doing badly until you get better at it.Find something that needs to change. It can be anything bigger than you. Fight for it, work for it, throw all your creative energies into it. You will soon be frustrated, angry, disappointed and tired.But happy.I’m sorry if this offends you. I thought it might. But I care enough about you to say it anyway.Doing the best I can.Roy H. Williams

Your Spotlight of Words?A radio commercial begins, “I’m Ronald Watersdown, and I’m here to tell you about a very important opportunity that I’m sure you won’t want to miss. It’s an incredible chance for you to…”What did those twenty-nine words make you see in your mind?Not much, right? But what about these?“Owl was neither wise nor old. She was a teenage assassin whose large, dark eyes said she was sleepy or depressed or bored. I was never really sure which.”You saw (1.) a momentary owl, then (2.) a young female assassin with half-shut eyes, then (3.) you considered the emotions she might be feeling and (4.) you wondered about the relationship between her and the narrator. All in just twenty-nine words.Perhaps you’re thinking, “Well, radio ads just can’t be as interesting as the opening lines of novels.”But why is that, do you suppose? Why couldn’t a radio ad begin with twenty-nine words about a teenage assassin?“Owl was neither wise nor old. She was a teenage assassin whose large, dark eyes said she was sleepy or depressed or bored. I was never really sure which. But her sister Procrastination was even harder to read. Procrastination… the passive assassin of Opportunity. Silently killing one day at a time… Don’t let Procrastination take what you love. Give yourself a new [name of item] today and feel on top of the world. Feel like you can fly. Feel like liquid Springtime. Procrastination says ‘wait.’ But what do you say?”The absence of a real product disallowed the inclusion of specifics in that ad, so we can’t be sure it would bring in customers, but it would definitely hold the attention of listeners with a much tighter grip than the limp, wet hand of Ronald Watersdown.“A great big, bright red…”English is a language built backwards. We speakers-of-English string together a list of modifiers before naming the thing we modify. In so doing, we require our listeners to commit to memory those modifiers so they can later be applied to the thing we name. I’m told the Romantic languages have solved this problem with a more efficient sentence structure: “A rose, bright red and big.”A good ad is a series of vivid mental images projected onto the movie screen of imagination. Here are a few tips for writing opening lines that will flash and crackle in the mind with the smell of burnt electricity:1. Name something easily seen.2. Modify it only after you have a named it.3. Choose verbs that carry context. I said “flash… crackle… burnt electricity,” and you saw lightning even though I never used the word. You were engaged by the language, a willing participant in our co-creation of a vivid mental image.4. Clarity first, creativity last. A few paragraphs ago I wrote, “English is a language built backwards. We speakers of English…” My original line was, “We speakers of this inverted tongue…” but I decided that was a little too clever. “Inverted tongue” is visual, yes, but it’s also potentially confusing.Creativity that blurs clarity is pretentious.Creativity that sharpens clarity is genius.Words carry energy. What will you light with them?Isaac Newton discovered that impact is mass times acceleration. How big is the idea in your mind? How quickly can you transfer it?5. Shorter is quicker, and quicker hits harder.Always hit hard.Roy H. Williams

Laid side-by-side, a stick and a rope of the same length share a similar appearance. Likewise, rules and principles look alike even though they have virtually nothing in common.Rules are like sticks.You can prod people with them.You can threaten people with them.You can beat people with them.But you cannot lead people with them.When a rule doesn’t fit the circumstance, your only choice is to break it.Principles are like ropes, able to conform to the shape of any problem. They are less brittle than rules, and stronger. Principles whisper valuable advice and people are happily led by them.A rule requires obedience.A principle requires contemplation.Rules are demanded by peoplewho have not the wit to understand and applythe appropriate, all-encompassing principle.Segmentation is a principle. Elimination is another. These are, in fact, the first two principles of TRIZ, an uncanny toolbox of 40 Answers that shine their own, unique light on your problem from 40 different directions, revealing a wide range of creative solutions.The principle of segmentation urges you to consider the perspective of connected pieces. Trains, chains and sliding windowpanes are expressions of segmentation.The principle of elimination urges you to consider that less is more. Pruning a plant, cropping a photograph and editing an ad are expressions of elimination.If the other 38 principles of TRIZ were as self-explanatory as these, I’d simply encourage you to tap T-R-I-Z into your favorite search engine and study it on your own. Unfortunately, it’s not that easy.Go ahead. Do it. Throw some Google on that acronym and see what you find: T-R-I-Z. I believe you’ll see that a journey into the jungle of TRIZ would make a lot more sense with an experienced guide at your side.Anti-Weight (Principle 8,)Preliminary Anti-Action (Principle 9,)Equipotentiality (Principle 12,)Another Dimension (Principle 17,)Homogeneity (Principle 33,) andPhase Transitions (Principle 36)are easy to understand when SuperFox reveals them. Not so easy when you attempt to follow someone else.Mark Fox is the Chairman of the Board at Wizard Academy. Before rising to that illustrious position, he was the youngest Chief Engineer in the history of the space shuttle project. Yes, Mark is a rocket scientist. He’s also been Chief Marketing Officer of some famous hi-tech companies. My favorite thing about Mark, though, is that he’s a fascinating instructor and a lot of fun. You’ll want a room in Engelbrecht House when Mark unleashes the 40 principles of TRIZ in his world-changing workshop, Da Vinci and the 40 Answers. (If you’re smart, you’ll register for the October session today while free rooms are still available.)If October isn’t an option, you’ll at least want to read the book. A working knowledge of the 40 Answers is like having Batman’s utility belt.Wizard Academy is a school for the imaginative, the courageous and the ambitious. Dull people, cowardly people, and people without purpose find nothing here they can use.But you, you’ll find exactly what you need. We built this whole place for you and frankly, it’s pretty amazing.Come. Even if it’s just for the principle of the thing.Roy H. Williams

The principal benefit of creative thought is hope.New possibilities are electric, and hope is the light that shines from them.Creativity is the source of hope even when your hope is in God: “I don’t see a way out of this, but I’m betting that He does.” We depend upon God’s creative thoughts to do what we cannot.I’m sorry if my mention of God annoys you. (Just for the record, He is never annoyed when I mention you.)Creative thought is much on my mind these days.President John F. Kennedy told a story in 1962 about a mother who wrote to the principal of her son’s school, “Don’t teach my boy poetry, he’s going to run for Congress.” Kennedy commented, “I’ve never taken the view that the world of politics and the world of poetry are so far apart. I think politicians and poets share at least one thing, and that is their greatness depends upon the courage with which they face the challenges of life.”Hope is the glow that surrounds creativity, and courage is the confidence we gain in that light. Kennedy seemed to know this.We want to think ‘outside the box’ because we can’t breathe in there. The box is made of rules and the lid of the box is the heaviest rule of all.Rules are created with the gentlest of intentions.We know a thing best when we’ve learned it the hard way. Wisdom springs from experience. The best of the past is brought forward when we give others the benefits of what we’ve learned. Such advice is valuable and often deeply appreciated until some fool carves it in stone and it becomes an unbreakable rule. Did you notice how quickly the darkness fell? What happened to the breeze? Why can’t I breathe?Help me push open this heavy lid.Rules kill hope by suffocation.Creativity brings hope to life again.I see a person in your life with whom you have some difficulty. I see a health issue about which you’re worried. I see financial fears. Possibilities, possibilities, possibilities.I came to encourage you.Eighteen hundred years ago, Marcus Aurelius, the last of Rome’s Five Good Emperors, said, “Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.”The day after this day is called Tomorrow and it’s never been here before. I hope you’ll show it a good time.A touch of creativity is all it takes. And you’ve got the touch.Roy H. Williams

The smartest thing I ever did was drop out of college on the second day. What I wanted to learn, they couldn’t teach me, so I left to figure it out on my own. That was 37 years ago.A number of years later I wrote a series of New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling business books and launched a school for grown-ups who are imaginative, courageous and ambitious. Wizard Academy teaches big things fast. Our students are leaving their fingerprints on the world and I am proud of them beyond belief.College isn’t for everyone. It was definitely not for me.If you have among your circle of friends a public school teacher who trusts you enough to speak to you “off the record” about what has happened to our school system, you owe it to America to have that conversation.I predict you won’t be able to sleep that night.None of the teachers to whom I’ve spoken wants to see their own children or grandchildren in public schools. These teachers aren’t afraid of drugs or violence. They’re afraid of an educational system that requires its teachers to wear the handcuffs of strict conformity and “teach to the test” in lockstep fashion so that the school district won’t be penalized. “Cram for the exam, learning be damned.”Every lesson, every day, is simply test-prep for the all-important standardized test.Standardized. As if every child is an identical blank slate, devoid of individual aptitudes or interests.Have you ever heard of the Creativity Quotient (CQ)? It’s like the IQ except that it measures creativity rather than intelligence. All across America, our 2nd graders score higher on CQ tests than our high-schoolers.Evidently, compliance and conformity come at a price.Children starting school this year will retire in 2072. None of us has a clue what the world will look like just 5 years from now, yet we are tasked with educating children for the world they will face 20, 30, and 40 years in the future.Paul Torrance administered the first CQ test in 1958 to a large number of elementary-age schoolchildren in Minnesota. Twenty-two years later, these schoolchildren were located to see if their CQ scores had been in any way predictive of career success. A second follow-up was administered in 1998, 40 years after the original test, and a 50 year follow-up was conducted in 2008 as the schoolchildren were approaching the age of 60.The result? CQ is 3 times more reliable as an indicator of career success than IQ.That Torrance CQ test measured divergent thinking on 4 scales:1. Fluency. The total number of interpretable, meaningful, and relevant ideas generated in response to the stimulus.2. Flexibility. The number of different categories of relevant responses.3. Originality. The statistical rarity of the responses.4. Elaboration. The amount of detail in the responses.Professor Ken Robinson defines creativity as “the process of having original ideas that have value.” Creativity is messy and not easy to manage, so public schools don’t like to measure the CQ of their students or encourage creativity in any way.I believe this needs to change. I believe it must.“But what can we do,” you ask?Allow me to answer with the words of Margaret Mead:“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, that is the only thing that ever has.?”Are you in?Roy H. Williams

Radio Ink magazine, published by Eric Rhoads, is the principal trade publication of the radio industry. Today we examine a feature article I wrote for that magazine recently. In it, I speak directly to the frustrations of the account executives – the salespeople – employed by America’s 10,000+ commercial radio stations and the many hundreds of stations across Canada and Australia. I’ve decided to let you see what I told them; a peek behind the curtain, if you will. – RHW Ad strategy is more difficult to teach than ad writing.Ad writing, essentially, is to choose:1. an intriguing angle of approach into the subject matter and2. the sharpest words and phrases to make your point.Ad strategy, essentially, is to choose:1. the point you need to make.Bad strategy happens when you:1. listen to an advertiser’s wishful thinking and then2. assume that a radio schedule that3. delivers great frequency and4. reaches the perfect audience5. with really good copy will6. make that advertiser’s dream come true.If you’ve been selling radio long enough, you already know that a client’s wishful thinking is a lever that will help you sell that client a radio schedule, but it takes a lot more than wishful thinking to motivate the client’s customer.CLIENT: “I wish I could sell these items.”ACCOUNT EXEC: “Let me help you.”CLIENT: “How can you help me?”ACCOUNT EXEC: “We have a loyal audience.” (Insert success story here.) “Advertising is an investment in your future.” (Insert schedule and contract here.) “Now tell me exactly what makes these items different and special and better than the ones your competitor sells.” (You start taking notes like crazy. The client is animated. Sincere. Hopeful. Excited.)You return to the station with a contract and a run order. Now all you need is great copy, right?Let me pause here to say that it’s not my goal to discourage you. My goal is only to open your eyes. I want you to see the problem clearly so that you no longer walk into a trap from which there is no escape. We will now continue.You work really hard and write a great piece of copy. Excellent copy. Miraculous copy. World-class copy. The greatest copy that has ever been written. Your co-workers love the ad. The client loves the ad. High-fives all around and champagne for everyone.The schedule runs. The ad airs. Everyone is commenting on it. Very little of the product is sold. Beyond generating those comments, the ad has minimal impact on the business.What the hell?Your copy, indeed, was fabulous. You employed an excellent angle of approach, held the listeners’ attention and made your point in a clever way. Well done! But your fundamental strategy was flawed; your ad answered a question that no one was asking.You walked into the trap when you failed to question why the client was overstocked on the item he wanted you to advertise. The real problem is that no one wants the item. It’s a loser, a dog, a mistake. Your client assumed – and you assumed with him – that if people “only knew and understood,” then they’d rush in to buy the product. So you told the people, you made them understand. And they still didn’t want the product.Advertising will only accelerate what was going to happen anyway.Convince your client to let you offer the public what the public already wants. This is what drives traffic into a store. And many of those people will find other things to buy from your client. In other words, fish with bait that you know the fish love. Don’t try to convince the fish to swallow bait they don’t really like.The inexperienced account executive allows the patient to diagnose his own disease then prescribes treatment under the mistaken illusion that the patient’s self-diagnosis can be trusted. If medical doctors did this they would go to jail.The treatment – the copy and the schedule – is the easy part. The diagnosis – the strategy – is the tricky part. A quick glance at the symptoms does not prescribe the cure. Identical symptoms can arise from many different causes. Most account executives are bad diagnosticians because the successful diagnostician must be cold, objective, and suspicious. Not a good way to sell, right?The successful diagnostician knows the truth of a statement is not determined by the sincerity of the speaker. In other words, a deeply sincere, passionate client can easily be wrong in their assumptions.If you allow your client to frame the fundamental strategy and choose the principal point your ad will make, you are at the mercy of your patient’s self-diagnosis. You and your station will be blamed when that patient fails to recover.The solution is simple. You must separate the selling of the schedule from the creation of the strategy. Selling requires you to be warm, receptive and empathetic. Strategy requires you to be cold, objective, and suspicious of the c

For I Am Exchanging a Day of My Life For It.Quixote sees the turning of the windmill as the flailing arms of a giant that must be defeated.Peter Pan will remain young only if he can escape a tick-tocking crocodile that has swallowed a clock.In 1904, old Mrs. Snow spoke of her late husband to author J.M. Barrie on the opening night of his play, Peter Pan, “…and he would so have loved this evening. The pirates, and the Indians; he was really just a boy himself, you know, to the very end. I suppose it’s all the work of the ticking crocodile, isn’t it? Time is chasing after all of us. Isn’t that right?”Don Quixote doesn’t defeat his giant but is lifted on its revolving arms and slammed into the ground. Yes, each of us is chased by the same crocodile that tormented Captain Hook and Peter Pan; tick-tick-tick-tick… Time is the windmill of Quixote.Can I ask you a personal question? I mean a really personal question? What are you buying with the hours of your life?Rita Mae Brown said, “I believe you are your work. Don’t trade the stuff of your life, time, for nothing more than dollars. That’s a rotten bargain.”Again I ask, what are you buying with the hours of your life?Anne Tyler opens her book, Back When We Were Grownups, with the words, “Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person.”That line scares me a little. Sometimes I worry that I’m turning into the wrong person, too. Don’t you?You and I gasp for breath and wipe tears from our eyes, feet flying barefoot in our daily race against time.“The North Americans’ sense of time is very special. They are short on patience. Everything must be quick, including food and sex, which the rest of the world treats ceremoniously. Gringos invented two terms that are untranslatable into most languages: ‘snack’ and ‘quickie,’ to refer to eating standing up and loving on the run … that, too, sometimes standing up. The most popular books are manuals: how to become a millionaire in ten easy lessons, how to lose fifteen pounds a week, how to recover from your divorce, and so on. People always go around looking for shortcuts and ways to escape anything they consider unpleasant: ugliness, old age, weight, illness, poverty, and failure in any of its aspects.”– Isabel Allende, My Invented CountryOur race against time is a race we will lose. But running out of time is not what frightens me. This car will run out of gas. What frightens me is the idea of spending irreplaceable time in a headlong rush to an unworthy destination.John Steinbeck speaks of the unworthy destination in Sea of Cortez,“Most busy-ness is merely a nervous tic. We know a lady who is obsessed with the idea of ashes in an ashtray. She is not lazy. She spends a good half of her waking time making sure that no ashes remain in any ashtray, and to make sure of keeping busy she has many ashtrays.” p. 182, (1941)We spend our time searching for security and hate it when we get it.In chapter 5 of Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness, a fortuneteller, Faxe, answers Genry’s question about time with a question of her own:“What is sure, predictable, inevitable – the one certain thing you know concerning your future, and mine?”“That we shall die.”“Yes, there’s really only one question that can be answered, Genry, and we already know the answer… The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty; not knowing what comes next.”Make no mistake; the future has yet to be written. For we are a species gifted with choice.The Greeks believed, “A civilization flourishes when people plant trees under which they will never sit.” Wes Jackson adds to this idea a glowing line of his own, “If your life’s work can be accomplished in your lifetime, you’re not thinking big enough.”I confess; my hope as I write this note to you is that you would fling yourself into a purpose. Because if you and I leave this world better than we found it, we are indeed a civilization. The training and encouragement of future citizens is the most ambitious life’s work of all.Children are the living messagesa mother sends to a future she will not see. In gratitude to every mother everywhere,Happy Mother’s Day. Roy H. Williams

Finally, an authentic, encoded message.And you'll never guess where.The Da Vinci Code was published in 2003, exactly 10 years ago. The book has been denounced as an attack on the Catholic church and sharply criticized for its historical and scientific inaccuracies, but that hasn’t keep it from selling more than 80 million copies in 44 languages. The story is fiction, marketed as fiction, and contains only a bare sprinkling of tautly-stretched connections to reality, but millions of wide-eyed gullibles accepted The Da Vinci Code as fact anyway.In 2006, Virginia Fellows published The Shakespeare Code, purportedly proving that William Shakespeare was actually Sir Francis Bacon. This wasn’t the first book written, however, in an attempt to prove that Shakespeare wasn’t Shakespeare. More than 4,500 such books had been published prior to 1949 and “Nobody tried to keep a running tally after that.” [Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare? by James Shapiro, p. 4 of the Prologue]Just 8 days before Barack Obama was reelected President of the United States, reporter Joe Kovacs wrote, “A well-known Bible-code researcher has bad news for Barack Obama, as he claims hidden texts in the Holy Bible indicate Mitt Romney will be America’s next president. (Moshe Aharon Shak, an orthodox Jew and author of Bible Codes Breakthrough) … For those not familiar with Bible codes, they are said to be secret messages embedded in the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament. Those who claim the codes’ validity say they disclose information about both the past and the future.”Heh, heh, heh. We are a funny species, are we not? Methinks Terry Rossio was speaking about all of us when he said, “The magic of a secret decoder ring lies not its ability to code and decode messages, but in allowing children the belief that they possess knowledge worth keeping secret.”When it comes to treasure maps and coded messages, is there anyone among us who is not a child? You keep your secrets and I keep mine. They are among our most prized possessions. But how often do you hold a secret that means the difference between life and death?When Miguel de Cervantes wrote Don Quixote de La Mancha in 1605, he was keeping a life-and-death secret and he hid it openly within his book.The Spanish Inquisition was in full swing. Anyone holding a copy of the contraband New Testament translated into Spanish by Juan Pérez de Pineda would immediately be put to death. Indeed, Julián Hernández had already been tortured for 3 years and burned at the stake for it along with more than 100 other people during the 17 years prior to 1605.AWhat do you suppose motivated Miguel de Cervantes to quietly shout, “I have a copy of this forbidden New Testament and I’m looking at it right now!” from the pages of Don Quixote? Yet this is precisely what he does in part one, chapter nine, and again in part two, chapter thirty-four, when he describes in detail the complex image on the cover of the forbidden Pineda New Testament.“Two things can easily be a coincidence, and at a stretch, three,” says my friend Massimiliano Giorgini, “but when you have the convergence of four or five indicators, you’re probably no longer looking at a coincidence… In Don Quixote, Cervantes describes the cover of the Pineda New Testament in seven highly specific ways.” Even more compelling is Giorgini’s exposition on the following visual similarity: When the name “QIXOTE” is spelled in Gothic letters, it appears strikingly similar to the classic Greek ICTHYS fish-symbol followed by the Greek spelling for “FISH,” an acronym you’ve seen all your life; one which has been used for two thousand years as a symbol for “Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior.”bThe similarity between(1.) QIXOTE and(2.) the fish symbol followed by the Greek letters spelling FISH, could easily be written off as coincidence if it weren’t for this curious passage in part two of Don Quixote, in which Cervantes tells the story of a (fictional) really bad painter:“Perhaps he would paint a rooster, in such a fashion and so unlike one, that he would need to write next to it in Gothic letters: ‘This is rooster.’ And so it must be with my story, which will require a commentary in order to understand it.”rMassimiliano Giorgini has been a highly regarded music producer for more than 20 years, working closely with bands such as Green Day. He holds a degree in Psychology from Purdue University and his Theory of Mind is so compelling that a prestigious government intelligence organization known by its initials recruited Mass one year ago to come to work for them as a cryptographer. His code-breaking of intercepted messages has been so stunningly accurate that more than 90 extremely bad guys were caught in the act and taken off the streets during Mass’s first year

Fear is the bullet that eliminates happiness.Fear is the bullet that kills the dream.Fear is the assassin of success.Why not become bulletproof in 2 easy steps?1. Make peace with the possibility of failure.2. Amputate your sense of shame.“Failure is not an option” is the platitude of people who have attended one-too-many motivational seminars. Failure is always a possibility, whether you admit it or not. Sometimes your very best just isn’t good enough.Do you want to succeed?Learn from each failure.Identify what went wrong.Start all over.Failure is a temporary condition.You cannot have humility until you first have confidence.You cannot fail until you first have courage.Confidence and courage are not shameful.Humility is not shameful.Failure is not shameful.Fear is shameful.A perpetual doubter pops the balloons of high-flying dreams. Armed with the needles of sharply-focused questions, the doubter injects fear into every decision… “But what if…”I say to these doubters, “But what if you live your whole life without ever becoming alive?”Anaïs Nin wrote about these people and your relationship to them:“You are in charge of how you react to the people and events in your life. You can either give negativity power over your life or you can choose happiness instead. Take control and choose to focus on what is important in your life. Those who cannot live fully often become destroyers of life.”The perpetual doubter is a nitpicking needle-snout who can always find a problem and happily poke holes in the solutions proposed by others. Like a mosquito, he sucks the life out of those around him. Slap the bastard and move on.I do not suggest that you become reckless or mindless or silly. I advocate only that you refuse to let Fear cast the deciding vote.If anyone had the right to be afraid, it was deaf and blind Helen Keller. But it was she who told us, “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. Security does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than exposure.”Devin Wright, one of my co-workers, puts it this way: “It’s like a can at the grocery store without a label. It could be beans. It could be pineapple.”Each of us lives the life we choose. It could be beans. It could be pineapple.The following 9-word summary is on loan to me from that celebrated author of Gulliver’s Travels, the immortal Jonathan Swift:May you live all the days of your life.Roy H. Williams

If you’re not being criticized today, then no one was listening when you spoke.Welcome to the time of the witch-hunt.This is that time when angry cyber-terrorists post incendiary online reviews and pretend their only motive is to protect the public. This is that time when corporate assassins take pleasure in shooting elephants from a distance; their greatest joy is to ruin the reputation of a prominent man or woman or company. The more the elephant is beloved by the public, the greater the delight of the assassin in bringing them down with a well-aimed bullet to the gut.Let me explain my motives in writing to you about this trend:1. I hope to bring you some small measure of comfort in advance. A clear understanding of the social climate can provide a sort of emotional padding and soften the force of the blows when your company is attacked.2. If you deal with a lot of people, your company will become a target. Think of today’s memo as a general heads-up from the air traffic control tower that some dark storm clouds are gathering on the horizon.3. Please don’t assume I’m simply venting my own frustrations. I have not been attacked. This memo isn’t about me. The rise of the corporate assassin is just a symptom of the times.Eighty years ago, when the pendulum of society was last in this position, headed in this direction, Robert Lynd wrote, “There is nothing that makes us feel so good as the idea that someone else is an evildoer.” Our current witch-hunt mentality even extends to the courtroom. If you serve as a juror today, you can reasonably expect at least one of the other jurors to say, “If this person wasn’t guilty, they wouldn’t have been arrested.”We are indeed living in dangerous times when an accused person is presumed guilty until proven innocent.How did we get here?“Working together for the common good” is the dream that launches every We generation. Our original goal was simply to “clean this place up and straighten out this mess,” but we always take a good thing too far. What begins as a happy effort for the common good slowly hardens to become the handcuffs of duty, obligation and sacrifice.1933 was the last time the pendulum was in this position, headed in this direction. George Bernard Shaw won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1925 and an Oscar in 1938, so he was familiar with the witch-hunt window of a WE cycle. These are the words he sends to us from the past: “When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty.”Consider with me for a moment: A true, civic hero looks for solutions that are within his or her own power to implement. An assassin looks not for solutions, but for problems, and for someone to blame.The corporate assassin is an accuser, a fault-finder, a nitpicking inquisitor. And when they wear the disguise of a news reporter, they wield the power of public opinion.Although the corporate assassin has long been recognized as one of the 7 types of journalists, their numbers are on the rise and their attacks are becoming increasingly reckless and unjustified. I hope you’ll remember this when listening to the media. I believe it’s extremely important that we continue to give accused companies and individuals the benefit of the doubt.Because next time it might be you.Roy H. Williams

’ve never seen a business fail due to “reaching the wrong people.” So why does every business owner instinctively believe that “reaching the right people” is the key to successful advertising?Who, exactly, do you not want to know about you? Who isn’t qualified to repeat the good things they’ve heard about you? And when is the best time to advertise?Solomon wrote about these things in the 11th chapter of Ecclesiastes:“If you wait for perfect weather, you will never plant your seeds. If you are afraid that every cloud will bring rain, you will never harvest your crops… So begin planting early in the morning, and don’t stop working until evening. You don’t know what might make you rich. Maybe everything you do will be successful.”Advertising is a seed that grows in the soil of the customer’s heart. If you will allow this metaphor, it would appear that Solomon advises, “Don’t overthink it. Just tell your story every day in every circumstance. You never know who might be listening.”Matthew, Mark and Luke felt the following moment to be important enough to include in the books they wrote about Jesus. Here’s how Luke tells it:“A large crowd came together. People came to Jesus from every town, and he told them this story: ‘A farmer went out to sow seed. While he was scattering the seed, some of it fell beside the road. People walked on the seed, and the birds ate it all. Other seed fell on rock. It began to grow but then died because it had no water. Some other seed fell among thorny weeds. This seed grew, but later the weeds stopped the plants from growing. The rest of the seed fell on good ground. This seed grew and made 100 times more grain.'” Jesus finished the story. Then he called out, ‘You people who hear me, listen!'”Neither Solomon nor Jesus advised, “Target the good soil.” What do you think would have happened if Jesus had attended business school? Would they have convinced him to judge the value of each potential customer from statistical data, or would he have convinced his professors of the efficiency of untargeted message distribution?Maybe Jesus just didn’t understand. Maybe Jesus misspoke. And maybe Solomon wasn’t very bright.Uh-oh. Here I am talking about planning again. When will I ever learn?I know it’s counterintuitive, but if you look at all the offers from all the sellers of mass media and then accept the offer that allows you to reach the largest number of people each week, 52 weeks a year, for the fewest dollars per week, it’s hard to make a mistake.An impressive, memorable message is what matters most. How you deliver that message – and who hears it – is far less important than you have been led to believe.It is your choice of message that targets the customer, not your choice of media.There are rare exceptions, of course. But not many.I’m going to deliver a short-but-counterintuitive media buying tutorial during next week’s Wizard Academy workshop, Writing for Radio and the Internet (April 10-11.) The early bird registrants were given all the rooms in Engelbrecht House, but it’s worth sleeping in a hotel to be part of this class. Your lunches and dinners will be on campus with the rest of the group. The only time you’ll be alone is when you’re sleeping. And that’s not so bad, is it? Register now. Jump-up the size of your harvest in 2013. Ciao for Niao,Roy H. WilliamsA

The Private Advice of Harry Connick, Jr.Chandler Canterbury is a child actor with a dazzling future.Immediately following the world premiere of When Angels Sing, a not-yet-released movie young Canterbury made with Willie Nelson, Connie Britton, Lyle Lovett, Fionnula Flanagan, Kris Kristofferson and Harry Connick, Jr., Harry grabbed a microphone and told a funny story about his first encounter with Chandler. (I’ve posted my iPhone video of that moment in the rabbit hole for you.)But Harry C. Jr. told an even better story privately.“Chandler and I were hanging out between scenes,” Harry said, “when he looked at me and said, ‘What’s the secret of being popular? How do you get people to like you?'”An interesting question, don’t you think? Most of us would have responded by saying “Just be yourself,” or “Popularity is overrated,” or some other such claptrap. But Harry believes in answering questions as asked. So the astoundingly popular actor and musician looked young Chandler in the eyes and said,“The secret of being liked is to always ask 5 questions before you say anything about yourself. People won’t remember what you said about yourself, but they’ll always remember what you asked about them.”Harry then let Chandler practice asking him different kinds of ice-breaking questions until the young man finally mastered the art.It kind of makes you wish Harry Connick, Jr. had taken you under his wing when you were a kid, doesn’t it?The bigger story, though, is the movie itself. Turk Pipkin wrote When Angels Sing as a story to be read to his friends and family each Christmas. Year after year, Turk would pull those sheaves of dog-eared paper out of a shoebox and read the story to a roomful of friends who would faithfully gather to hear it.And each Christmas, the crowd got bigger.One year, Fred Miller was in the room. Among his other accomplishments, Fred was executive producer of For All Mankind, that miraculous film documenting the Apollo space missions from 1968 to 1972. When released in 1989, For All Mankind was selected as the Audience Favorite and the Grand Jury Winner at the Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for an Academy Award.That same Fred Miller jumped up and said, “This story needs to be made into a movie.” Then Elizabeth Avellan – producer of 30 movies including the Spy Kids franchise – got on board. Following Elizabeth was Shannon McIntosh, executive in charge of post-production for Quentin Tarantino’s Oscar-winning Inglourious Basterds (2009) and executive producer of this year’s Oscar-winning Django Unchained (2012.)And now you want to invite Fred Miller to your Christmas party, right?When Willie and Harry and Connie and Lyle and Fionnula and Kris heard about the project and read the screenplay, each of them volunteered to make the film for a teeny-tiny fraction of the prices they typically command. Each of them knew in their heart this film was a magical Christmas card that would cause tens of millions of people to have happier holidays for decades to come. And each of them wanted to be part of a movie that said, “Merry Christmas. You are loved.”Hollywood desperately wants to gain control of this film but the actors and producers aren’t sure they want Hollywood to have it. During a laughter-filled afternoon on the campus of Wizard Academy a few days ago, the general feeling of the producers was to possibly try and repay the $17,000,000 it cost to make this movie by crowdfunding through Kickstarter.I’m not sure whether the Kickstarter thing will happen, but I can definitely tell you that everyone who was involved in the making of When Angels Sing looks at this not-yet-released movie the same way old hippies look at Woodstock, “I was there. I was part of it. And it was magic.”The iconic Willie Nelson celebrates his 80th birthday in a few days. And although this might sound ridiculous today, I believe it’s entirely possible that 20 years from now When Angels Sing will be the thing for which Willie is best remembered.Merry Christmas, friend. You are loved.Roy H. Williams

f I had any sense, if I had half the brains God gave an aardvark, I’d talk about politics or religion and fewer people would be annoyed.But aardvarks look at me with pity because I’m foolish. My social filter is so misaligned that I’m going to share with you my thoughts about planning.“Plan your work and work your plan.” These are the holy words of a belief system built on intuitive faith in an orderly universe.I do not share that faith.I do not believe that everything happens for a reason.YOWZAH! Are you beginning to see how this simple thing called “planning” can trigger strongly-felt emotions?Your thoughts about planning reflect your innermost beliefs about the workings of the universe. When you speak of planning, you unknowingly speak of religion and politics; you speak of how you believe the world works, and of the best way to fix it.But that’s enough about you. Let’s talk about me some more. (Because if we talk about you and accidentally reveal that you’re horribly flawed and broken, you’re going to be REALLY angry. So we’ll talk about me instead and reveal that I’m horribly flawed and broken and then you won’t be angry. You’ll be able to say, “I knew that.” – RHW)I believe there are only two kinds of planning:(1.) Process planning.(2.) Result planning.A process plan is commonly known as “Plan A.” We give it that name when we’ve decided to abandon it because it isn’t working. Results are most often achieved through Plan B or C or D or K or Q or V.Don’t let yourself be seduced by the promise of a miraculous process that leads to golden results. Yesterday’s perfect process becomes “the box” people are struggling to escape today.Focus on the result, not the process.The Wizard Academy campus is nearly complete and there was never a process plan. The only thing we ever planned was the result. Astoundingly, a multimillion-dollar campus was constructed through nonstop improvisation.I don’t actually know how much money we’ve spent. I could easily look it up, of course, but I’ve never been sufficiently interested. There was never a schedule or a budget. “It will take as long as it takes and it will cost what it costs.”There was usually just enough money in the bank to pay for the work we were doing that week. “We’ll find next week’s money next week.”I apologize if you are horrified by these confessions. Your reaction is perfectly normal if you were raised in a nation that was once a colony of Britain. The machine mindset of the industrial revolution taught our society to overvalue conformity, repetition and process. Improvisation and innovation, those wild, flowering weeds, have been uprooted and cursed for 200 years.Although Wizard Academy didn’t have a process plan, we did have three unifying principles:1. Build with cash. Never borrow money.“When money slows down, slow construction down to the pace of the money coming in.”2. Use whoever shows up.One by one, hundreds of you came to me with ideas and suggestions during the past 12 years. My response never changed, “Great idea! You’re in charge of that.”3. The students are the soul of the school.“Designs, furnishings and decor will be chosen to elevate the thoughts and attitudes of students and guests while they are here. The campus will whisper at every turn and touchpoint, ‘Anything is possible.'”I didn’t come up with this idea of Result Planning on my own.Life comes down to a few moments. One of those moments happened for me when I was 8 years old.AOn October 27, 1966, Walt Disney described his vision for a 27,400 acre “Disney World” in Florida. Walt had purchased 43 square miles of land surrounded by a swamp. His dream was literally twice the size of the island of Manhattan. I watched Walt deliver his 24-minute tutorial in Result Planning when it aired during his weekly television show, The Wonderful World of Disney.NARRATOR: The touchstone of Disneyland’s success has been its concern for people: a whole-hearted dedication to the happiness of the people who visit here. Today Disneyland has established standards of performance unsurpassed in all the world. Yet in the planning and building there were no standards to follow; whatever worked became the code. Whatever failed to meet the public need was changed, replaced by a better idea.A couple of minutes later, surrounded by fabulous scale models, Walt Disney appeared and told me that the vision – the result, and its purpose – were the only things that had to be clear. The process, Walt said, must necessarily be one of ongoing improvisation.WALT DISNEY: The sketches and plans you will see today are simply a starting point: our first, overall thinking about Disney World. Everything in this room may change time and time again as we move ahead, but the basic philosophy of what we’re planning for Disney World is going to remain very much as it is right now. We know what our goals are. We know what we hope

Been Read, Being Read, Will be ReadJeff says I have a confirmation bias, a strong attraction to information that reinforces my convictions and helps me prove my point.That makes sense. I’m an ad writer.Does anyone really want their ad writer to be unbiased? The job of the ad writer is to:1. discover a persuasive perspective, and2. develop a distinctly memorable voice for the ad campaign, and3. find supporting evidence that clearly demonstrates your company and your products to be the only intelligent choices in your category.Yes, I have a confirmation bias. It makes me a living.ARay Bard is a good friend and the publisher of most of my books, including the Wizard of Ads trilogy. So if Ray published a book and I thought it was crap, I’d love that book anyway. But that’s not what’s happening today. The ONE Thing says what I’ve tried to say for years, but haven’t been able to say nearly so clearly. This book will sharpen your focus, cut away your distractions, and zoom your ability to achieve the ONE thing at which you aim your heart. The ONE Thing is written from a powerfully persuasive perspective and includes a lot of interesting, supporting evidence. Do you have a dream? The first step toward making that dream come true is to read The ONE Thing.Mark my words: The ONE Thing will leap onto the business bestseller list. Gary Keller with Jay Papasan. Bard Press. A friend sent me a copy of Steal Like an Artist after reading my advice to “repurpose the proven.” (Better Than Creativity, the Monday Morning Memo for January 28, 2013) You’ll read Steal Like an Artist in about 30 minutes but it will forever change how you look at creativity. I hope to get the author, Austin Kleon, to Wizard Academy later this year. If you can afford both books, buy them both. I feel stronger and better for having read them. And I usually hate nonfiction. Maybe it’s just more proof of my confirmation bias, but even though I felt like I already knew what these books were telling me, they made me feel brightened and tightened. Confident. Hopeful. Bouncy. I believe they’ll make you feel the same way.Now let’s talk about fiction.bIn Carlos Ruiz Zafón’s international bestseller, The Shadow of the Wind, Daniel Sempere is a boy whose father takes him to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, a huge library of old and obscure titles. According to tradition, everyone initiated to this secret place is allowed to take one book from it, which he must then protect for life.“This is a place of mystery, Daniel, a sanctuary. Every book, every volume you see here, has a soul. The soul of the person who wrote it and of those who read it and lived and dreamed with it. Every time a book changes hands, every time someone runs his eyes down its pages, its spirit grows and strengthens. This place was already ancient when my father brought me here for the first time, many years ago.”I titled this memo “Voices of Books” because I am attracted to writers who craft a vivid voice. When I was 13, I was magnetically attracted to the poetic voice of Robert Frost. Spellbound, I marvelled at how he could say two things at once. On the surface of each of his poems, Frost would describe a moment that is common to us all. But below the surface, he was saying something profound and deep and eternal. This appreciation of Frost has never left me and I’m not alone. Robert Frost was awarded the Pulitzer Prize on 4 separate occasions.rJ.D. Salinger wrote The Catcher in the Rye in the first-person voice of a disturbed teenager named Holden Caulfield. That voice is so convincing that you feel yourself drawn into Holden’s confused feelings and troubled thoughts. Salinger crafted a voice that rang so troubled and true that it has echoed within us for 62 years.There has not been another voice as vivid as Holden Caulfield’s until now. Written as a series of letters by “Charlie” to an unknown and unnamed friend, The Perks of Being a Wallflower will trouble you, expand your senses, cast you deep into reverie and stop the hands of your clock. The book has sunk deep roots into the #1 position of the New York Times bestseller list. The Times has it listed as a book for young adults. This seems idiotic to me. It’s a book for anyone who was ever young.The Perks of Being a Wallflower has already been made into a movie. But if ever you trusted me, a known and self-confessed ad writer, trust me now: don’t watch the movie until you’ve read the book.Trust me.Roy H. Williams

Is it wiseto protect the ones we lovefrom the hardshipsthat taught us all we know?Hardship is the undisputed School of the Masters, but very few students seek admission.Education begins with memorization. Having learned all the theories, steps and rules, we parry and thrust against the light in a kind of frantic swordplay with the shadows of possibilities. This is when we learn that steps and rules are only a weak and sad beginning. We still have a lot to learn.Memorization was our first lesson.Improvisation is the second.Choices and Consequences are the lessons that never quit teaching.Every industry, craft, trade and profession has its own traditional wisdom that will hide you safe, out of trouble, by keeping you inside the box.If you’re going to start thinking “outside the box,” you’re going to have to ignore the unwritten rules of traditional wisdom. Do this and you’ll immediately be told that you’re “not doing it right.” And sadly, the new thing you’re attempting to do probably won’t work the way you had hoped.You won’t have a victory but you will have an education.So you’ll try something else that doesn’t work out.Now you’re a screw-up.Most people would crawl back inside the box and quit trying.But not you.You try again. Fail again.Now you’re a loser, a nonconformist, a problem child, and possibly unemployed.This, mi amigo, is what they call hardship.Try again. Limited success.Now you’re a tinkerer who won’t leave well-enough alone.Try again. Limited improvement.No one calls you anything now because no one is paying attention.Try again. Major breakthrough.Now you’re an innovator and everyone wants to swim in your pool.AGeorge Washington was a loyal British subject who decided the king was wrong.Thomas Jefferson envisioned a form of government that Winston Churchill – on the floor of the House of Commons* – would later call “the worst form of government ever created, except for all the others.”Abraham Lincoln violated millennia of traditional wisdom when he won the war but refused the victor’s spoils, saying instead, “With malice toward none, with charity for all… let us bind up the nation’s wounds…” (2nd inaugural address.)But perhaps Teddy Roosevelt said it best. Speaking of the choices and consequences we face daily as we improvise our way through life, he said, “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”Wizard Academy is a nonprofit educational organization, a school for the imaginative, the courageous and the ambitious.Finally! After 12 years of false starts, mistakes and “almost rights,”we have a way to explain this place. THANK YOU to Jeffrey Eisenberg and Jeff Sexton, who accepted this challenge 8 months ago and never turned loose of the tail of that dragon.“Wizard Academy: a school for the imaginative, the courageous and the ambitious.” This tells the world who we are and who we are not.“If you have no imagination, please stay at home. If you lack courage, this is not the place for you. If you have no dream that keeps you awake, go back to bed with our blessings. We have work to do.”It took us 12 years to figure out how to explain who we areand we’re the ones that are supposed to know what we’re doing.You’re not a screw-up. You’re an innovator on the edge of a breakthrough. Trust us. We know. We’re very familiar with the edge.And the view from here is magnificent.Join us.Roy H. Williams* Nov. 11, 1947 

I think there should be something in science called the ‘reindeer effect.’ I don’t know what it would be, but I think it’d be good to hear someone say, ‘Gentlemen, what we have here is a terrifying example of the reindeer effect.’– Jack HandeyThe Reindeer Effect isn’t real.AThe Ikea Effect, however, is real enough to be the subject of a story in Harvard Business Review. The essence of it is this: We don’t put effort into things because we love them. We love them because we put effort into them.1. We find purpose and see value in the work of our hands.2. We see a reflection of ourselves in the things we create.  The Ikea Effect was named for that highly successful, international retailer known for selling flat-pack furniture that must be tediously assembled by the purchaser. Persons who assemble this furniture tend to place a much higher value on the finished product than persons who had no involvement in its construction.The authorship of virtually every book in the Bible is debated by scholars. I don’t want to put my dog in that fight, so let me say for the record that I choose to believe Solomon wrote the book of Ecclesiastes toward the end of his life approximately 3,000 years ago. Solomon enjoyed the freedom to follow his passions and pursue his dreams. Ecclesiastes is his diary of that journey. In it, Solomon shares what he learned on that fateful day he found the final answer. Here’s an often-quoted passage from chapter 3:There is a time for everything,and a season for every activity under the heavens:a time to be born and a time to die,a time to plant and a time to uproot,a time to kill and a time to heal,a time to tear down and a time to build,a time to weep and a time to laugh,a time to mourn and a time to dance,a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,a time to search and a time to give up,a time to keep and a time to throw away,a time to tear and a time to mend,a time to be silent and a time to speak,a time to love and a time to hate,a time for war and a time for peace.What do workers gain from their toil? I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil — this is the gift of God.That last bit is usually left out when people put this quote on posters and calendars and greeting cards. Solomon’s assertion that the true secret of happiness is to find satisfaction in our toil – our efforts – the work of our hands – is just too plebeian an answer for ambitious people who are driven to succeed. But the Ikea Effect – and the Harvard Business Review – seem to confirm Solomon’s assertion. Even so, most of us will continue to overvalue that glimmering destination on the horizon – “Success” – never quite realizing that any value it has in the end will be produced by memories of the journey that took us there. Now let’s think for a moment about this idea that we love things because we put energy into them. When a thing becomes the object of concentrated hope and focused effort, when we inject it with our own life-force and energy, it becomes very precious to us. Actions trigger feelings. We usually wait to fall in love with something before throwing ourselves into it. A subject in school, a nonprofit organization, a hobby, a sport, a business. But the Ikea Effect tells us that throwing ourselves into it is the surest way of falling in love with it. The same is true of relationships.When I was a very young man, Phil Johnson, a wise-ard, told Pennie and I that if we ever felt we were “falling out of love,” to just start doing the things we would do for each other – to start taking the actions we would take – if we were passionately, madly in love. Feelings follow actions. Phil was about 65 back then and that was 30 years ago. We plan to visit Phil and Barbara when we travel back to Oklahoma in a few months. I mentioned Ray Bard last week. I said he was one of the people who speaks into my life. He doesn’t mean to. In fact, he’s not even aware that he’s doing it. Phil Johnson is another of those people for me. Don Kuhl is another. I hope you have people, too. People who make intelligent and useful comments. People who open your eyes to things you need to know. People who speak into your life.Open your ears to wisdom.Enjoy the work of your hands.Fling yourself headlong into things. That’s how love is born. Roy H. Williams 

A brief summary of this episodeTo See a Better OutcomeThings depend on how you look at them.Through what lenses do you examine possibilities?The first 2 lenses are intellect and emotion.Sometimes you use one, sometimes the other. This is normal.Intellect employs hard facts and cold logic.Emotion relies on soft intuition and warm connections.Will the first impression be made in the head or in the heart?  In all your communications and attempts at persuasion – especially in your advertising – be careful to make a deep, dual impression; one track in the head and another in the heart.But what happens after that first impression has been made? Are there other, smaller lenses that read the second, third, and fourth impressions?Ray Bard is a quiet genius who speaks into my life. I walk away from each encounter a richer soul.Ray recently told me that a careful examination of all the biggest nonfiction books of the past 50 years revealed 4 common characteristics. Ray is like that. He sees patterns that others miss and solves riddles that few have ever considered.Unless you’re a nonfiction author, you don’t really care what makes a nonfiction book successful, do you? But what if I told you these same 4 characteristics are the keys to successful advertising? I saw that. Your ears perked up like a German Shepherd.Communication, to be highly successful, must have:1. A Big IdeaConceptInsightInformation2. Nuts & BoltsHow ToStep-by-StepInstructionsExamples3. EntertainmentWriting styleAnecdotesAdventureSurprise4. HopeVisualized HappinessPromiseInspiration(1.) The Big Idea and (2.) Nuts and Bolts,are more about the writer than the reader. Yet these are the only things every writer of nonfiction feels a need to share. And now you know why we churn out more than one million dull new books each year and why most of our advertising is gruel.Dull communications are about the speaker, the author, the product, the advertiser. Lots of examples supporting a big idea are merely white noise when there’s no entertainment and no hope; the sound of traffic in a too-busy world.Successful nonfiction – including highly effective advertising – is about the reader, the listener, the viewer, the customer. These beloved messages deliver(3.) Entertainment and (4.) Hope.Ray Bard shared with you and me his Big Idea. We can use it to lift the effectiveness of our advertising to new heights. This should give you Hope. But if you want 2 days of Nuts and Bolts examples and Entertainment beyond compare, arrange your schedule to be at Wizard Academy April 10-11 to learn How to Write for Radio and the Internet, the highly heralded class of Christopher J. Maddock and Jeff Sexton.I plan to add a few modest examples and I’m working to get the elusive Ray Bard to make an appearance and share additional wise-ard insights with you, though I can’t yet promise he’ll be there.But I do have Hope.Roy H. Williams 

Nothing sounds appealing.Have you ever had that feeling? You’re sort of hungry, but nothing sounds good. You want to have fun, but nothing sounds fun. So you drive to the bookstore but none of the books – not a single one of them – whispers for you to carry it to the cashier.You go home and sit. The clock ticks.You keep sitting. The clock keeps ticking.You realize the clock is going to win.I hate that feeling. You hate that feeling. Neither of us wants it. So why do we have it?Consider with me the word aimless. It refers to a thing that has not been aimed. This would seem to indicate that it might be aimed, can be aimed, should be aimed.Is an aimless person one who is not being aimed?Now consider the word pointless.It refers to a thing that has no point.Physically, such a thing would be dull.Sort of how I’m feeling right now.The opposite of pointless and aimless would be “sharply pointed and directly aimed.” Do you see in those words an arrow aimed at a target by an archer? There is no dullness in that picture. Notice the fingers on the string, the hand pulled to the cheek, the sweating bicep, the zeroed eye. It requires energy to aim an arrow.But at what shall we aim?Good news: It really doesn’t matter since any nearby target can be hit.The sure-fire cure for the blues is to aim pointed energy at something. The object of your aim is of no importance. All that matters is that you can physically see that your target was hit.I will now stand up and clean my office. I don’t relish the idea. I’m really not in the mood. So who is going to make me do this?I am.I’m putting away my laptop now. It’s 7:09AM.You won’t hear from me again until I’m done.Okay, it’s 8:31AM. I’m not done but I made a lot of progess. I found my favorite, dark red baseball cap under a pile of stuff. Martin Rapaport gave this cap to me. I quit wearing it last summer when it got sweat-stained and salty dust collected where the crown meets the brim. Not a good look. I spent 25 minutes hand-scrubbing the cap. When it dries I’ll see if it’s wearable again.Unimportant? Yes.Satisfying anyway? Absolutely.Okay, back to work.It’s 8:42AM and the clock can no longer be heard. Back again. But now it’s the next morning: 3:27AM. Pennie came into my office while I was cleaning yesterday and suggested that we take my pickup truck to our son and daughter-in-law’s house and load up a bunch of stuff from their garage and haul it to a rented storage facility. They’re trying to get their house ready to sell. The Princess and I spent the day making 3 trips to the storage facility, loading and unloading, loading and unloading, loading and unloading. We made a huge difference in that garage.My office remains a mess but I feel great.Surefire Cure for the Blues: Aim pointed energy at a nearby target. Fix something broken. Create a visible change. Make a difference.Want to kick it to an even higher gear? Aim your attention away from yourself. Do a good thing for someone else. Good feelings follow good actions.Someone a long time ago said that it makes us happier to give than to receive. Give it a shot. See if it’s true.It worked for me.Roy H. Williams

Rambling Thoughts, Spoken Plainly,Certain to Irritate Someone, SomewhereA mirage is not a hallucination, but a misinterpretation.We see the sky reflected from the ground and we assume it to be water. But it isn’t. That reflection is caused by light passing through cold air that sits on a thin layer of hot air, heated by sun-soaked sand.1. FaceBook, for business, is a mirage.Can it successfully gather a crowd to hear a band perform at a bar? Absolutely. Social media, social event. Can it successfully be used by a physically-existing retail or service business as a substitute for mass media? No. It cannot. A physically-existing business is one that lives in the land of sunlight. A purely online business, by contrast, lives in the light of the plasma screen. Check into those FaceBook success stories and you’ll find them all to be businesses that sprang into existence after 2003. I defy you to find a physically-existing business who enjoyed success prior to 2003 that is now reducing its mass media budget because it has found FaceBook to be a more effective use of ad dollars. You will find no such example. I’ve been looking for 3 long years.When you see the power of FaceBook to connect people together, you are facing an indisputable fact. When you assume it’s “the next big thing” for business, you are seeing a mirage, an illusion, a reflection caused by hot air.Google is our phone book, our encyclopedia, our source of ongoing news. Amazon is our bookstore and our mail-order catalog. FaceBook is a party line, a telephone line shared by a large group of people allowing each to listen-in on the conversations of the others.2. Google’s own data makes it clear: pay-per-click works extremely well for physically-existing businesses that have already built themselves a name. Pay-per-click performs poorly for businesses that aren’t already well known. If the name of your business is a household word in your town, consider investing in local pay-per-click. But if you’re still trying to build your name, put all your eggs into a single mass-media basket and then lift that basket to the sky. The biggest mistake you can make is to spread your ad dollars around, thinking you should “cover all your bases.” You don’t have the money for that. Have courage. Get focused. Talk loud and draw a crowd.A human being drinks about 180 gallons of liquid per year. This number is essentially carved in stone. When we drink more coffee or wine or expensive beer, we are drinking less of something else. This is a problem for Coke and Pepsi and Budweiser.A human being consumes precisely 24 hours per day. This number, too, is carved in stone. When we spend time online or playing video games, we are spending less time doing something else. This is a problem for television and radio and the reading of books.3. There is no “next big thing” on the media horizon. I see only a teeming host of small and medium things. Here’s one of the best of the medium things.Get an iPhone 5. Use it to collect video of customers giving you real-world, real-time testimonials “in the moment.” Post these testimonials on YouTube and embed them on your website. It’s free. You don’t even need to know what you’re doing. Professional video editors are plentiful and affordable in the cloud. One million seconds is 12 days. One billion seconds is 32 years. One trillion seconds is 31,688 years. The world watched 1.46 trillion complete YouTube views in 2012 and that number is climbing.Forget Facebook. The opportunity is on YouTube.4. Two of my favorite people won the Superbowl. Paul Harvey spoke to the Future Farmers of America in 1978 and a two-minute clip from that speech rocked the nation during the 2013 Superbowl. When Secret Formulas of the Wizard of Ads became a New York Times bestseller and was named by the Wall Street Journal as the #1 Business Book in America, my pride in those moments was only a pale reflection of the glow I felt when Paul Harvey said my name on the radio when he quoted something I’d written for Radio Ink magazine.Yes, I know I’ve told you that before. I just never get tired of saying it.The other big winner was the “Joe Montana stain” washed out of a man’s football jersey by his wife with the help of Tide. Cognoscenti Mark Huffman, resident genius at Procter & Gamble, was the executive producer of that ad. Mark made the first of many visits to Wizard Academy back in 2001. Mark brings magic with him each time he comes. If you have the freedom, no, even if you don’t have the freedom, shift heaven and earth so that you can join Mark Huffman at Wizard Academy on March 14 and 15. Mark will be teaching, for the first time in his life, with his twin brother, Gene, a famous thinker whom Mark describes with glowing eyes as “a ringmaster in a circus.” This class will be an expanded version of Mark’s class, Me

Wizard Academy exists to educate, equip and encourage small business owners, little people with dreams who face giant corporations with big bank accounts. Like the windmills of Quixote, these giants are often unaware and unfeeling of their challengers.Don Quixote was an average man, distinguished only by his beautiful dream. He called this creation of his mind, “My lady, Dulcinea.” She was his Helen of Troy, the Galatea of his Pygmalion, the perfect girl-next-door. All that Quixote accomplished, everything he endured was in Dulcinea’s name and for her honor. (She was his Jungian anima; that perfect woman who exists in the mind of every man. Likewise, the animus is Jung’s name for the “real man” that exists in the mind of every woman.)Quixote’s Dulcinea was, in reality, a common village girl named Aldonza Lorenzo and she was completely unaware that Quixote existed. But no matter. A dream is a dream.Small business people are driven by beautiful dreams of common things: a better school for the kids, a house in a nicer neighborhood, a car, a boat, travel to exotic places filled with natives who, strangely, are also dreaming of escape. But no matter. A dream is a dream.Quixote lived in a world populated by characters and monsters of his own making. So do we all.An immortal comic strip featuring an adventurous 6-year old boy with a toy tiger and a boundless imagination: Calvin is Quixote and Hobbes, the tiger, is Sancho Panza. In one of my favorite episodes, Calvin says,“C’mon, let’s go try to find a big poisonous snake!”?Hobbes asks, “What will we do if we see one?”?Calvin replies, “Are you kidding? We’ll scare ourselves silly and run around in circles, screaming like a bunch of loons!”Hobbes sighs, “I look forward to when we’re old enough to get our morning jolt from coffee.”Peering through the grass, Calvin replies, “Ahh, I’ll bet that wears off quicker.”Are any of us older than 6?I am, by career choice, an ad man, and storytelling is at the heart of good advertising. Did you know that every literary device, every storytelling tool ever crafted, made its debut in 1605 in Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote de La Mancha, the first novel ever written?It is impossible for a storyteller to detach himself completely from Quixote. But this mythical man who jousted with windmills is not the only icon of our little school.Wizard Academy takes its name from a group of guys we meet in the second chapter of Matthew, the first book in the Christian new testament. These “wise-ards” see a star in the sky, attach special significance to it, and set off in the darkness to discover where it might lead them. Remember that star in the darkness as you consider these lyrics written by Joe Darion for the wildly successful Broadway musical, Man of La Mancha:To dream the impossible dream,to fight the unbeatable foe,to bear with unbearable sorrow,to run where the brave dare not go.To right the unrightable wrong,to love pure and chaste from afar,to try when your arms are too weary,to reach the unreachable star.This is my quest,to follow that star –no matter how hopeless,no matter how far.To fight for the rightwithout question or pause,to be willing to march into hellfor a heavenly cause.And I know if I’ll only be trueto this glorious questthat my heart will be peaceful and calmwhen I’m laid to my rest.And the world will be better for this:that one man scorned and covered with scarsstill strove with his last ounce of courageto reach the unreachable stars!“If your life’s work can be accomplished in your lifetime,you’re not thinking big enough.” – Wes JacksonThe rotation of the earth causes every star to move slowly across the sky at night except for one lonely star that sits above the North Pole and another that sits above the South. Perfectly aligned with the earth’s extended axis, Polaris and the Southern Cross remain forever fixed, motionless and constant, guiding lights to all the world.Stand on the Laughlin stone* after dark at Wizard Academy and mark the hilt of the sword that rises from the top of the tower. That point of light at the hilt’s crown is Polaris. You and I call it the North Star but Quixote would call it Dulcinea, an impossible dream around which the whole world revolves.Mike Metzger once told me that we meet the same 4 people again and again on the ocean of life.“Drifters just go with the flow,” he said, “pushed this way and that by the wind and waves of circumstances. They look around and say, ‘Whatever. It’s all good.’ Surfers ride the waves, always looking for the next big thing. Drowners stay in the center of a storm. Rescue them and they’ll find another crisis and cry, ‘Help me, save me, I don’t know what I’m going to do.’ But Sailors counteract the winds and waves of circumstance by rigging sails and twisting rudders. But the sailor cannot navigate without an immovable object, a fixed point, a no

A rich knowledge of history is better than creativity.Let me qualify that. A rich knowledge of history is better than creativity if your goal is to make money.The most profitable form of creativity is to repurpose the proven.Do you want to put together a group of colors that create a powerful effect? Maybe for a website or a sign or a brochure or a living room?Common sense will tell you to hire an expert. That expert will ask you to describe the feelings you want the color scheme to conjure and then he or she will aim all their education, talent and experience toward doing what has already been done by minds far greater than their own.Yes, common sense would tell you to hire a talented expert. But common sense is merely the name we give the collection of prejudices we acquire before the age of eighteen. (If you feel you’ve heard that statement before, it’s because Albert Einstein famously said it in the 1952 book, Mathematics, Queen and Servant of the Sciences.)Common sense is overrated.An enlightened soul who has escaped the boundaries of common sense will quietly inquire of the giants whose footprints went deep into the earth, those giants whose fingerprints can be found on the hearts of billions of people they have touched.Why pay a lightweight for advice when you can consult Gustav Klimt, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Vincent van Gogh for free?(1.) Go online and select a series of world-famous paintings whose color palettes have the mojo you seek. (Mojo, by the way, is just the name we give to high-voltage emotional juju. Einstein didn’t say this, but I’m pretty sure it’s true, anyway.)(2.) Download only the paintings of artists who rocked the world.(3.) Import those paintings into Photoshop and sample each of the four or five principal colors. Click a couple of buttons to reveal the precise CMYK formulation of each. BAM! Trust me, those colors will work fabulously well together.No, don’t trust me. Trust the giants.Lee Iacocca was chosen as one of Ford Motor Company’s ten “Whiz Kids” in 1946. But every time young Lee would go to his boss with a suggestion, his boss would say, “Show me where it has worked.”Your first impression of this man is that he was a follower, a lemming, a conformist with no courage or imagination, right? But Iacocca credits that boss as being the man responsible for all his later successes. Iacocca learned from him a pivotal lesson: if an idea is truly brilliant, you’ll find examples of its successful implementation scattered throughout history.The road to bankruptcy court is flanked on both sides by bright-eyed “creative people” dripping with enthusiasm. Ask any one of them for directions. They’ll make sure you get there.The secret of guaranteed success is to import a tested and reliable methodology into a business category where it has never been used.Repurpose the proven.They’ll call you a brilliant creative innovator. You might even be able to patent your breakthrough.But you and I know the truth. You’re merely an insightful historian.Roy H. Williams

We have, for the most part, the feelings we choose to have.Please don’t be angry with me if you prefer to be tragic. I do not deny you this choice. I deny only that you have no escape.Our feelings in the first moment are triggered by our circumstances. Happy news. Sad news. News that makes us angry. But in the second moment, and the third, our feelings are the produce of our chosen perspective.What angle of view do you choose when you examine the day that lies ahead of you and all the days that lie behind? What is your perspective? Where do you aim your eyes? What produce do you grow in the soil of your imagination and the sunshine of your life?Jeanne Hébuterne was a 19 year-old art student in 1917 who fell deeply in love with a dashing Italian artist named Amedeo Modigliani. A year later, their daughter was born out of wedlock and the Hébuterne family was horrified. When that little girl was 2, Modigliani died. The next day Jeanne Hébuterne threw herself out a fifth-story window. She was only 22 years old.Modigliani’s sister adopted the little girl and raised her as her own.The girl inherited no art. She died in 1984.What do you suppose the little girl felt as she was growing up? Did she say,“My father was an alcoholic, drug-addicted loon who refused to marry my mother when she became pregnant and my mother did not love me enough to raise me. She killed herself the day after my father died.”Persons who would choose this perspective, and the feelings that accompany it, always say they are being “honest and realistic.”But is that really true?Would this perspective be any less honest or realistic?“My father was an artist whose paintings of my mother sell for many tens of millions of dollars. My mother was so deeply in love that she literally could not live without him. I am the product of that love.”I do not know what the little girl chose to think, and feel, and believe.I know only that she had a choice.As do you.Roy H. Williams

Use half as many words and they’ll hit twice as hard.Every writer knows it.Salespeople need to learn it.A few weeks ago I invested a day of training in the telephone staff of a client of mine and doubled their close rate as a result.“You’re working way too hard at it,” I said. “These people are calling you, remember? They’re calling you because they believe your company can solve their problem. In your mind, you’re being enthusiastic. But you’re coming across as anxious and nervous and defensive and combative. You’re not talking these callers into buying from you, you’re talking them out of it.”Selling is a transfer of confidence. The seller must transfer his or her confidence in the product to the buyer. When you babble, you don’t sound confident.When you act like the customer has asked the wrong question, you’re basically telling them that they’ve hit you where you’re weak.Always answer questions AS ASKED. This means that you should focus your energies on providing the simplest answer in the fewest words. If your customer wants to know more, they’ll ask you a follow-up question.Pennie and I know a woman with a 13 year-old son who recently said to her, “Mom, what is cunnilingus?”With no hesitation whatsoever, she answered, “That’s when a woman gives sexual pleasure to another woman.”He shrugged and said, “Oh,” and the conversation was over.Had our friend raised an eyebrow, acted surprised, gotten flustered, or asked, “Where did you hear that word?” the whole thing could have escalated into something it didn’t need to become.Our friend is a brilliant woman who gave a simple answer to an innocent question. She didn’t read anything into it. She is, in my opinion, an example of the perfect salesperson for 2013.When you provide simple and straightforward answers to your customer’s questions, they feel that you’re there for them. But when they provide ears for your rambling monologues, they begin to feel they’re there for you.Be there for your customer. Don’t make them be there for you.I was going to write a book about this, but then I found it has already been written. Dan Pink is a brilliant researcher as well as an insightful and entertaining writer. I haven’t yet read his newest book, To Sell is Human, but I did read the transcript of an interview he gave NPR.“We have this idea that extroverts are better salespeople. As a result, extroverts are more likely to enter sales; extroverts are more likely to get promoted in sales jobs. But if you look at the correlation between extroversion and actual sales performance — that is, how many times the cash register actually rings — the correlation’s almost zero. It’s really quite remarkable.“Let’s think about a spectrum on a scale from 1 to 7, where 1 is extremely introverted, 7 is extremely extroverted: The 6s and 7s — the people who get hired, the gregarious, backslapping types of the stereotype — they’re not very good. OK, now, why? … They’re just spending too much time talking. … They don’t know when to shut up. They don’t listen very well; they’re not attuned to the other person; they sometimes can overwhelm people.”The art of selling has changed more in the past ten years than in the previous hundred.Ten years ago, we had to rely on the seller to provide expert information. Today we’re just a few clicks away from anything we want to know.Salespeople are certainly necessary, but the roles they play have changed dramatically.Next week I’ll be teaching a 2-day workshop at Wizard Academy, “How to Advertise in a Noisy World.” I could just as easily have called it, “How to Sell in 2013.”If you can’t come to Austin for the workshop, you should at least buy Dan Pink’s new book. Based on the interview he gave NPR, I’m betting it’s really good.Ciao for Niao,Roy H. Williams

But at Least You're in the Parade"When your friend says something interesting, write it down. Better yet, post it online and give your friend eternal life.I was whining to Rich Mann over a plate of sushi one day when he reminded me to shut up and be happy. Rich didn’t even look up when he said it. He just mumbled, ‘You may be shoveling horse manure but at least you’re in the parade,’ while trying to decide whether to chopstick a slice of tuna or a piece of spider roll. But his words fell on me like Robert Frost’s *Dust of Snow. I smiled, pulled a receipt from my wallet, scribbled Rich’s statement on it, then posted it in the random quotes database at MondayMorningMemo.com.Rich’s words reminded me of something Tom Grimes taught me about tribes. “Every tribe has a hierarchy,” he said.“Give me an example.”“A football team has a trainer who bandages the players. And if you’re the third-string quarterback who never gets put into the game, you can still look at the trainer and say to yourself, ‘Well at least I’m not THAT guy.’ But even THAT guy – the lowest ranked member of the tribe – gets to watch the games for free from the best seat in stadium and chat with the players in the locker room. Never forget, THAT guy is still part of the team.”“You may be shoveling horse manure, but at least you’re in the parade.”What horse manure have you been shoveling in this most wonderful of all parades?“When I hear somebody sigh that life is hard, I am always tempted to ask, ‘Compared to what?'” – Sydney J. HarrisElmer Zubiate (Zoo-be-AH-tay) grew up embarrassed that his name was Elmer. After losing everything he owned in 2005, Elmer fought like a tiger to start a little HVAC business in San Antonio. Last year he decided to make the most of the whole Elmer thing. This is what he put on the radio:There’s Elmer Fudd, Elmer’s Glue, and ME, Elmer Zubiate of Elmer’s One-Hour Air Conditioning and Heating. We’ll be there within one hour of the time we promised you or whatever you need is free. No charge. There’s NO WAY you’re going to wait for US all day. Great prices. Fabulous service. Elmer’s One-Hour.Dial two one oh, thirty-three Elmer.[JINGLE]Two one oh, thirty-three ElmerLast year, One-Hour Elmer did $3.8 million and is trending toward $6 million in 2013. We have every expectation that Elmer will bag $12 million in 2015.I have another friend – and I promise I’m not making this up – who feels the great tragedy of his life was that he inherited 31 million dollars. The way he tells it, he’s never really recovered from that horrible day. He used to moan about it until I finally said, “Shut up, you crybaby. Maybe we should take part of that cash and buy you a spine. And then maybe we can hire an old woman to knit you a pair of balls.”Strangely, I think he still likes me.You want to hear something even stranger than that? I actually kind of agree with him: it would be truly horrible to wake up one day and learn that nothing in life required your effort anymore; all you had to do is point and it would be handed to you.It is good to be Elmer. It is good to be in the parade.Roy H. Williams

Today I’m going to tell you 3 new things you need to know about.My enthusiasm will probably make it sound like I’m giving you a sales pitch. Sorry about that. If you’re not in the mood, the tiniest motion of a finger will take you to a new and different place…You decided to stay? I think you’ll be glad you did.YouTube. Not FaceBook.Throughout the year I’ve been saying to students of Wizard Academy, “YouTube will deliver one trillion views during the 365 short days of 2012. It’s a message delivery vehicle that has yet to be maximized. YouTube’s potential to grow a business is vastly greater than FaceBook. The number of search strings typed into YouTube each day is second only to Google.”The actual number of views in 2012 turned out to be 1.46 trillion. Let’s put that in perspective:One million seconds is about 12 days. tick-tick-tick-tickOne billion seconds is nearly 32 years. tick-tick-tickOne trillion seconds is 31,688 years.This means 46,264 people per second click to watch a YouTube video 24/7/365. Nearly 3 million per minute, 4 billion per day. That’s 13 times the population of the United States every day.*You have things to say. Why not say them to the world?#1 VidBetter is a video production systemthat lets goobers like you and me crank out YouTube videos that look like big money. And there’s no learning curve with VidBetter. All the tricky stuff has been fully automated. The hardware comes in a box. Your professional editors are in the cloud and available to you 24/7. Take a look.#2 Do you talk better than you write?Dave Young and Paul Boomer have created a content-extraction service that pulls your very best out of you and puts it on paper. It’s a fabulous way to create witty and intelligent blog posts, craft award-winning web copy, record relaxed and informative podcasts, write training manuals, create policy and procedure documents, whatever it is you need to get out of your head and onto the web or onto paper. All you have to do is talk on the phone to a professional interviewer. BAM. The whole thing is recorded, transcribed, edited, and given back to you in whatever format you desire. These guys will make you sound like a genius. Check it out.#3 Become a happier you.Kyle Cease was voted the #1 comedian on Comedy Central in 2009 but his real passion is for transformative change. I’ve watched him lead his classmates through exercises that made a profound difference in their thought processes, their attitudes, and their expectations. When his 2-day class was announced a couple of weeks ago, the classmates who had already met him snapped up all the rooms in Engelbrecht House immediately. If you want 2013 to be VERY DIFFERENT than 2012, be at this class. Sleep in a hotel. Don’t tell yourself that you’ll catch Kyle’s class next time. Kyle did more than 200 shows last year and right now he’s hotter than ever. It took weeks to find dates for this class that would work in his schedule for 2013. It will be awhile before we can get Kyle back to Austin. This will be a highly interactive, fast paced, experiential workshop. You will definitely leave better than you came.I shared this stuff with you today because I want you to have the happiest possible 2013. I want you to be energized and productive. I apologize if I sounded like I was making a sales pitch. I’m an ad writer, remember? I sound like I’m making a sales pitch when I pray.But God’s okay with that. He understands.Hopefully you do, too.Roy H. Williams

I recently spent a day with two lawyers who practice the same legal specialty. We’ll call them Nick and Ralph. They live on opposite sides of the country. They met at a conference and became friends.Nick read my books, attended Wizard Academy, and decided to go fishing for customers with a net. He put his money in radio.Ralph thought it made more sense to target only those people in immediate need of a lawyer within his specialty. Ralph went fishing with a hook called Pay-Per-Click.Ralph said, “Nick, you’re hunting with a shotgun. I’m hunting with a rifle.” Ralph believes in targeting, you see. That’s why he fishes with a hook and catches just one fish at a time. But you don’t build a widespread reputation by waiting until your customer needs you and then targeting them through Search Engine Optimization and Pay-Per-Click.Nick the Net chose to win the public before they needed his services. Nick the Net wanted everyone in the city to know about him, even if many of them would never need his services. Nick the Net chose to win the hearts of the people 52 weeks a year.Ralph the Hook, by the way, practices law in a trade area that offers 22 times the potential of the area served by Nick the Net.Both men are smart and aggressive. They plunged. Hard.Ralph the Hook spends $180,000 per month on Search Engine Optimization, online marketing consultants, and locally targeted Pay-Per-Click. His annual ad budget of $2,160,000 brings in slightly less than $6 million per year in legal fees, leaving Ralph with a little less than $4 million for gas money. Not bad.One year ago, Nick the Net was spending $30,000 per month on radio. His $360,000 ad budget brought in $1.4 million the previous year in legal fees, leaving Nick with a little more than $1 million to spend on lunch.NOTE: Nick brought in 1/4 as much money but spent only 1/6 as much on ads.And then Nick asked me to begin writing his ads. This year he and I brought in $4.2 million with that same $30,000/mo. ad budget.About 6 weeks ago, Nick said he wanted me to add another $20,000/mo. to his radio budget. I said, “Not yet. First we need to improve your close rate.”“But we’re closing 30 percent of the people who call us,” answered Nick, “Ralph the Hook is closing barely 10 percent of his online leads.”When you advertise 52 weeks a year on the radio, you become a household word. Yours is the name the customer thinks of first and feels the best about. The leads brought in through radio are much warmer than the leads generated through pay-per-click.“Nick,” I said, “our close rate should be up around 60 percent. Bring all the people who answer your phone to Austin for a day of training.”Nick brought them to Austin for a day. They listened. They learned.At the end of the day, Nick drove his people to the airport and sent them home to answer the phones. Nick then returned to my office with his buddy, Ralph the Hook. As a favor to Nick, I spent a couple of hours with Ralph. Ralph, of course, only wanted to know “how to choose the right radio station.”Ralph the Hook still believes that “targeting the right customer” is the secret to growing a business.But Nick and I believe in building a widespread reputation with a warm predisposition in the hearts of the general, untargeted public.What do you believe?Common sense says targeting would be more efficient, right?My thirty years of experience say otherwise. One last thing: Nick’s telephone team is now closing more than 60 percent of all incoming leads. This means Nick the Net will likely do $8.4 million in 2013 with no increase in ad budget and no increase in sales opportunities.Release the Kraken.Roy H. Williams