Wizard of Ads Monday Morning Memo

People will direct their attention to whatever gives them a sense of identity, purpose and adventure.You must always remember this when crafting advertising.The fans of a sports team are the members of a club. Their team gives them identity, purpose and adventure. Political parties, too, give their members identity, purpose and adventure. Religious organizations, book clubs and Twitter feeds give their followers identity, purpose and adventure.A grandmother adores her grandchildren because they give her identity… purpose… and adventure.Do you know what a rock collector gets from his rock collection? Identity, purpose and adventure.Each of us – every one of us – is on a treasure hunt. The differences between us are found primarily in the things we value. When a person doesn’t value what we value, we think a little less of them. They are obviously shallow, stupid, deceptive or evil.Abraham Maslow believed a third of our society lives below the search for identity or above it. Those who live below the search are focused primarily on securing food, shelter and safety. This is their economic reality. Those who live above the search have a clear sense of identity and they know their purposes precisely. This is their emotional reality. Their adventures depend on nothing outside themselves.Those who live below or above the search for identity are effectively immune to advertising. The first group can’t afford what you’re selling and the second group doesn’t care. These people are rarely prospective customers.Fortunately for businesses everywhere, two thirds of us buy what we buy to remind ourselves – and tell the world around us – who we are. These two thirds of society are the backbone of the economy. We have needs that have not been met, hungers that have not been satisfied, dreams that have not been fulfilled.Businesses exist to meet those needs, satisfy those hungers and fulfill those dreams.We make and spend money primarily to discover who we are.This would be sadif it wasn’t so much fun.Vie à l’économie.Roy H. Williams

It’s Friday morning, September 7, 1951. John Steinbeck emerges from deep in his writing of East of Eden to scribble a note to his friend, Pat Covici:“This week has been a hard one. I have put the forces of evil against a potential good. Yesterday I wrote the outward thing of what happened. Today I have to show what came of it. This is quite different from the modern hard-boiled school. I think I must set it down. And I will. The spots of gold on this page are the splatterings from beautiful thoughts.”Those five words, “the splatterings from beautiful thoughts,” let me know that I’m not alone.Another five words, “haggard, inconstant splashes of beauty,” appear near the end of an Italian movie about a guy who, on his 65th birthday, begins to reevaluate his shallow life. The movie is visually rich but a bit of a downer.Life can be a bit of a downer, too, even when it’s not a shallow one.Visually rich sights are all around us but we’re too pressed for time to notice. We’re in a mood, in a hurry, in trouble, in a crisis or incapacitated. We’re anxious or angry, distracted or distraught, bedazzled, bedeviled or bedraggled.But still those splashes of beauty creep in – barely noticeable at first – but there they are, haggard and inconstant, limping and laughing splashes of miracles that would show up more often if only we would notice.“There is a lovely road that runs from Ixopo into the hills. These hills are grass-covered and rolling, and they are lovely beyond any singing of it….”– Alan Paton, opening line of Cry, The Beloved CountryA profound beauty can often be found in the ordinary. Will you look for it with me today? The cost is nothing and the value is high.If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then let us become beholders.Yes, people will laugh at us if we see beauty where they do not. Let us think of this laughter as our gift to them. We should laugh a little, too.And now I will tell you a dark secret that is also a paradox: the richest of all beauties – the one that takes your breath away – is deeply terrifying. It grants me new life when it appears, but I do not seek it. For this richest beauty happens only when my world collapses and my only hope is in God.Perhaps you, too, have been there.There is a quickening, a wiggle of life when we’re in extremis, a rearrangement of priorities, deep and clear. The problem that’s about to swallow you whole becomes a pool of water that serves as a magnifying glass and for a moment you see everything clearly.As I said, I do not seek this richest of beauties, for it is terrifying.Coward that I am, I shall continue to live without an all-consuming crisis for as long as I’m able and do my best to be satisfied with the haggard, inconstant splashes of beauty that are the splatterings from beautiful thoughts.Dorothy Parker was right, “They sicken of the calm who know the storm.”Even so, let us look for beauty – in the calm – of the ordinary.Roy H. Williams

I look in the mirror and see the person I believe myself to be. You look at me and see the person you believe me to be. We don’t see the same person.Businesses, too, see themselves differently than their customers do.A flatterer disguised as a branding consultant will help you create an idealized self-portrait and tell you it’s your brand. I say “idealized” because we businesspeople judge ourselves by our intentions. Customers judge us by our actions.Peace of mind comes from liking the person you see in the mirror.But brand attraction happens when the customer looks at your company and sees a reflection of themselves.We are attracted to brands that stand for something we believe in. Likewise, we are attracted to television shows, movies, books, websites, podcasts, newscasts and songs that confirm what we believe. This is known in psychology as “confirmation bias.”Let me say this plainly: If you challenge a person’s core beliefs, they will avoid you. Agree with those beliefs and they will like you. This is the essence of brand building.But not everyone believes the same things. This is why a brand-builder must choose who to lose. There is no message, no belief system, that appeals to everyone.The Democratic party and the Republican party dominate American politics even though just fifty-eight percent of Americans align themselves with either of these two brands.In a survey of self-identified “Liberal Democrats” and self-identified “Conservative Republicans,” Experian Simmons identified the Top 15 favorite television shows of each group.Not a single show was on both lists.Not one.Liberals prefer shows of moral ambiguity like Mad Men, Dexter, 90210 and Breaking Bad, where the good people aren’t entirely good and the bad people aren’t entirely bad. “I don’t mean to make light of it, but Democrats seem to like shows about damaged people,” said John Fetto, senior marketing manager at Experian Simmons. “Those are the kind of shows Republicans just stay away from.”Conservatives prefer shows where hard work and talent are clearly rewarded. Reality shows and contests like American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, Survivor and The Bachelor scored high with this group.Interesting information, right? But not really surprising when you think about it. Narcissus saw his reflection in a pool of water and fell in love with the person he saw.Confirmation bias strikes again.How can you use this information to make money?1. Quit trying to change your customer’s mind.2. Tell them they’re right.3. Confirm their suspicions.4. Demonize their enemies.5. Let them see themselves when they look at you. Do these things and you’ll make more money. Usually, a lot more money.But a strange thing happens when you“go along to get along,” when youagree with people you don’t respect, when youfail to speak out against injustice, when youallow etiquette and expediency to quietly replacecompassion and courage:You look in the mirror and no longer like who you see.How do we remain open to seeing things from a new perspective without losing clarity of self in the process?If I ever figure it out, I’ll let you know.Roy H. Williams

A cafe owner, famous for his soup, was told by his accountant that he could boost his profit significantly if he would add just 5 percent more water to the recipe. The accountant was right. The water was added and no one noticed. Months later, the cafe added 5 percent more water and still no one noticed. Later, more water was added. And then a little more, but never more than 5 percent because they had now “proven” that customers cannot detect just 5 percent more added water.As you suspected, the cafe owner didn’t lose his customers incrementally, but all at once. “The soup here just isn’t as good as it used to be.”I was told that story by a multimillionaire Wall Street speculator. He says American businesspeople have a peculiar blind spot to the all-at-once backlash that comes from watering the soup. He said American businesses expect to see incremental declines when they are incrementally abusive, but that’s never how it works. When the wife packs up to leave, she takes the kids and leaves all at once.The central belief of a cost-cutter is that profits rise when costs are lowered. And on paper, this argument is insurmountable because the cost-cutter’s forecast doesn’t project a decline in business.In the short term, the cost-cutter looks like a genius.Later, when customers quit buying soup and the business begins to circle the drain, the silly little cost-cutter becomes an even taller hero:“See how smart I am? If I hadn’t reduced expenses, we’d really be in trouble right now. But with our new, lower overhead, we’re still profitable. I’ve saved the company.”Don’t laugh. I’m watching it happen to a friend’s business right now and it makes me want to cry.Shortly after we bought the plateau on which Wizard Academy proudly sits, the Chicago Tribune ran a fascinating story. These are the opening lines:Fred Turner did not need to look at financial statements to know McDonald’s was in trouble. He could taste it.The man who worked alongside founder Ray Kroc to turn McDonald’s Corp. into a global colossus, Turner noticed when penny pinchers at corporate headquarters changed recipes to cut costs. So when McDonald’s cheapened the famed “special sauce” on its flagship Big Mac sandwich, Turner knew.But it wasn’t until a new CEO brought him back from retirement 18 months ago to help lead a turnaround at McDonald’s that the now 71-year-old Turner learned just how deep the trouble ran…McDonald’s was a magical corporation when it was in the hands of entrepreneurs. But then the conniving little accountants took over.I did not say that all accountants are idiots. My own accountant, Adrian Van Zelfden famously says, “It’s usually easier to increase revenues than to cut costs. Don’t try to shrink your way to profits.”Jean Backus, another CPA, was recently elected to serve as Chairman of the Board at Wizard Academy. Jean doesn’t believe in shrinking things either. Jean believes in growing them.Your accountant may be one of the good ones, too. What are they telling you to do? Are they suggesting that you grow your company? Or are they suggesting that you shrivel into something else?A cost-cutter buys grapes and makes raisins.An entrepreneur buys grapes and makes wine.You’ll never see a person arrive to a celebrationcarrying a box of raisins.Roy H. Williams

Contrary to what my headline might suggest, this is actually an upbeat message.Guilt is about what you have done.Shame is about who you are.Failure in business has no connection to either of these.Failures are footlights along the dark pathway to success.One of the defining characteristics of Wizard Academy alumni is that we are people of action. Failure does not frighten us.The author of Peter Pan, J. M Barrie, would have been one of us if Wizard Academy had existed back then. He said, “We are all failures – at least the best of us are.”Thomas John Watson, the early President of IBM who turned that company into a household word, said, “If you want to increase your success rate, double your failure rate.”Roger Van Oech, a consultant to Apple, Disney, Sony and IBM echoes, “Remember the two benefits of failure. First, if you do fail, you learn what doesn’t work; and second, the failure gives you the opportunity to try a new approach.”Warren G. Bennis had a failure epiphany that changed his life. He says, “The leaders I met, whatever walk of life they were from, whatever institutions they were presiding over, always referred back to some failure: something that happened to them that was personally difficult, even traumatic, something that made them feel that desperate sense of hitting bottom — as something they thought was almost a necessity. It’s as if, at that moment, the iron entered their soul; that moment created the resilience that leaders need.”Failure, it seems, is valuable and important and necessary to your success.Here’s how to do it right:Fail cheaply. Always ask, “What is the minimum viable experiment?”Fail forward. Be sure to learn something you didn’t know before you failed.Fail quickly. The primary goal is to prove or disprove your concept.This education by experience can be expensive. But ignorance is even more expensive.I’m in the middle of what appears – right now – to be a failure of epic proportions.But I’m not frightened by it, ashamed of it, or even confused.“Amazed” is the word I would use.Back on November 4th I announced a $10,000 Quixote’s Windmill Prize. Only 4 people, so far, have entered that contest.Think of it this way: would you accept a free lottery ticket to win a $10,000 cash prize if your chances of winning were 1 in 4? That’s right. There is nothing to buy, no entry fee, and anyone can enter. The prize is cash.The deeply insightful Jean Vanier says, “I am struck by how sharing our weakness and difficulties is more nourishing to others than sharing our qualities and successes.” The name of Vanier’s book is Community and Growth.Community: you’re part of the community of Wizard Academy and the Monday Morning Memo.Growth: It’s the goal of our coming together.I’m going to say something hard now. I hope you will forgive me: If you want to stand before others as a sparkling example of what is possible if a person works hard enough, is disciplined and determined enough, and makes all the right decisions, well, you seem to have a need to be worshipped.If you actually want to benefit the people around you… if you want to help them avoid the mistakes you made and the difficulties you endured as a result… you must share those mistakes and describe those difficulties. This is how we grow. This is how we have community.I want you to enter Quixote’s Windmill contest because it’s important for you to laugh about your failures. If you try to keep them secret, you give them power over you.Don’t wear the handcuffs of the past.Roy H. Williams

“Once, there were 3 kittens named Murry, Furry and Wurry…”I’ll admit to fabricating Murry and Furry, but you and I both know that Wurry is often pampered and protected like a cherished pet. We talk about our Wurry and cuddle it. We share our Wurry with others, hoping they will choose to love our Wurry as we do.If you try to help a person eliminate their Wurry, they will rise ferociously to its defense.People who have all chosen to love the same Wurry form organizations and political parties, bound together by a shared anxiety.Would you like to have anxiety? It can be yours if you want it. All you have to do is craft a pessimistic interpretation of ambiguous events and voilà, anxiety is yours.Jesus makes a strong argument against worry in the 6th chapter of Matthew, then finishes his thoughts with these words: “Don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”That’s a well-known Bible verse, but if you actually choose not to worry, most people will consider you to be foolish and naive.We are programmed from birth to give our attention to the snarling tiger on our left instead of the beautiful butterfly on our right. When face-to-face with imminent danger, fear gives us focus and clarity. It is a biological imperative that keeps us alive. This is why we give bad news the highest priority. But that doesn’t mean fear is always good.When was the last time you encountered a tiger?In the absence of snarling tigers, modern man has chosen to focus his need to fear beyond this moment, beyond his circumstances, beyond objective reality.Our fear about the future is called Worry.I do not love it.What would it feel like if we quit borrowing trouble from tomorrow?It sounds reckless, doesn’t it, not to worry about possibilities that might never happen? Would that mean the end of planning? Perhaps it would. But it would also trigger an explosion of improvisation.I seem to recall a writer who said that most plans are just inaccurate predictions anyway. I think he makes a good point.Am I seriously suggesting that we eliminate worry from our lives? No, it was Jesus who suggested that. I’m merely contemplating the implications of such a decision and walking you down a path of possibilities.Interesting scenery, don’t you think?Roy H. Williams

We could call this memo, “The Poodle and The Vamp, Part Two,” but we won’t. No one likes the sequel quite so much as they liked the original.Talent isn’t rare. Our world overflows with worthy talent that continues day-to-day unrecognized. I’ll wager that you possess such talent.There is something you’re capable of doing, I’ll bet, that could make you famous around the world. Your fame might even happen in a whoosh, the way it did for Billy, Tom, and Ted.Billy Graham started preaching in 1947. In 1949, Billy set up a circus tent in Los Angeles, certainly not the first to do so. So there he was, night after night, just another preacher with a tent, when two words forever altered the trajectory of his life: “Puff Graham.”William Randolph Hearst, the newspaper mogul who inspired the movie, Citizen Kane, sent that unexplained, 2-word telegram to every editor at every newspaper he owned in America. The next day, papers from coast to coast were glowing with stories about this Christian minister. Hearst never told the papers to quit puffing Graham.And they never did.In his book, Just as I Am, Billy Graham says he never learned why Hearst took an interest in him. “Hearst and I did not meet, talk by phone, or correspond as long as he lived.”Billy Graham was, and is, remarkably talented. But so are 10,000 other ministers.Every poodle needs a vamp.“Tom Clancy was an insurance salesman in Maryland when, in the early nineteen-eighties, he wrote a book, ‘The Hunt for Red October,’ that Ronald Reagan, with a handsome public mention, turned into a best-seller. Clancy’s career took off like, well, like one of his rockets. Too nearsighted to serve in the armed forces, Clancy, who kept a tank on his front lawn, was a military fantasist whose end-is-nigh concoctions spawned a franchise…”– David Denby, The New Yorker, Jan. 20, 2014, p. 78Reagan played vamp for Tom Clancy just as Hearst did for Billy Graham.But what about Teddy Roosevelt? Wasn’t he one of the most popular and beloved presidents in the history of the United States?Nope. Not really. His policies and decisions were as hotly debated as those of Barack Obama today. We think of Roosevelt as “one of the great ones” primarily because his monumental face watches over America from Mount Rushmore along with Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln, the undisputed big boys of American history.Roosevelt’s vamp was Gutzon Borglum.Borglum was not commissioned by the government to create Mount Rushmore. It was a private work begun by a private individual.And that individual was a buddy of Ted Roosevelt back when Teddy was still alive. Roosevelt had been gone for only 8 years when Borglum began his carving.If Gutzon Borglum was only just now beginning to carve that granite in South Dakota, he might chose Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Carter because Gutzon answered to no one but himself.That is the power of a vamp.Do you believe in someone? Vamp for them.The Wizard of Ads partners are known throughout the Engish-speaking world because we have agreed upon a covenant: Never boast of your own accomplishments but only those of your partners.“You vamp for me. I’ll vamp for you.”It’s called “third party credibility,” or at least it used to be. Today they call it “feedback,” “comments” and “customer reviews.”Billy, Tom and Ted went viral before it had a name. But one thing remains the same: A poodle needs a vamp.Every business is a poodle.Every ad writer is a vamp.How good is yours?Roy H. Williams

Type “business plan” into Google and you’ll see an impressive array of articles from BusinessWeek, The Wall Street Journal, Inc., Forbes, Entrepreneur and SBA.gov.Everyone has a business plan.Almost no one has an advertising plan.And we are coming to a critical fork in the road.I want you to choose your fork consciously rather than unconsciously. And choose you most definitely will.I’m talking about your choice between brand-building and direct response advertising.When you sell a product or service with a long purchase cycle – something purchased only once every several years – your business will be best served by brand building. Do everything in your power to become the company that people will think of first and feel the best about when they finally need what you sell. Good brand-building also stimulates word-of-mouth, the original “viral.” But brand building requires patience, confidence and courage.If you sell a product or service with a short purchase cycle – something that most people will purchase every few days, weeks or months – your business will be best served by direct-response ads. Create an extremely attractive, limited-time offer, then add an additional incentive for those who act now. Then add a third incentive. This is called “benefit stacking” and it makes a massive difference. Direct-response ads are exciting but to be really successful you need a big-gap offer.The goal is to create a big gap between the perceived value and the asking price. The more impressive that gap, the more attractive your direct-response offer. Big-gap offers are most easily made when the public has no ability to shop and compare.Companies that make money with big-gap offers are the ones that can sell products with a perceived value that is at least 10 times their actual cost. I’m betting you don’t have that kind of profit margin. Am I right?Write a direct-response ad for a product with a widely known price and the public won’t be impressed unless you’re selling that product below your cost. This is known as a “loss leader.” The idea behind a loss leader is that it can drive customers into your store who might make additional purchases while they’re there. Grocery stores have used this technique since the dawn of time.Direct response is not a style of ad writing. It is a style of offer packaging.Businesses with short purchase cycles can jump from offer to offer, item to item, incentive to incentive indefinitely. But may God have mercy on the ad writer who is expected to generate immediate response for a product or service with a long purchase cycle.There are times when it’s possible to run a direct-response offer within a brand-building ad campaign for a product or service that has a long purchase cycle. An example of this would be for a jewelry store to make an enticing offer to finance engagement rings right before Valentines Day. Add the additional incentives of a romantic dinner and a limousine filled with 12 dozen roses and you might see a bump in engagement ring sales.Google’s ability to identify customers who are immediately in the market for products and services with long purchase cycles has all but eliminated the Yellow Pages and it is rapidly eroding the public’s need for in-store “experts” as well. Google’s unique ability to do this has caused many business owners to believe they have a right to expect immediate results from traditional mass media.Business owner, the fork in the road is before you: brand building or direct response.If you sell a product or service that at least 50 percent of the public will purchase within the next 12 months, you might do well to consider running direct response ads in mass media. But please be careful to make a highly impressive offer or you’ll be horribly disappointed.If you sell a product or service with a long purchase cycle – roofing, HVAC, jewelry, boats, major appliances, etc. – you must use extreme caution when applying direct response techniques or you’ll just be teaching your customers to wait for your next “sale.”Or you could just bet the farm on your ability to stay at the top of Google search results.I’ll be intrigued to see what you choose.Roy H. Williams

“Normalization” begins with an idealized norm of conduct – for example, the way a soldier should ideally stand, march, and present arms, with each of these actions defined in minute detail. Individuals are then rewarded for conforming to this ideal or punished for deviating from it.Normalization allows a leader to exert maximum social control with the minimum expenditure of force. This idea of “disciplinary power” emerged over the course of the 19th century, came to be used extensively in military barracks, schools, factories and offices in the 20th century, and has since became a crucial aspect of modern societies. I blame the British.Curious to know more? Read Discipline and Punish by Michel Foucault“We all know bad things are happening to our political and social universe; we know that business is colonizing ever larger chunks of American culture; and we know that advertising tells lies. We are all sick to death of the consumer culture. We all want to resist conformity. We all want to be our own dog.”– Thomas Frank, Conglomerates and the Media, 1997“The reward for conformity is that everyone likes you but yourself.”– Rita Mae Brown, Venus Envy, 1994“Education either functions (1.) as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or (2.) it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world.”– Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 1968Paolo Freire was a miraculous educator who used unapproved methods to teach thousands of illiterate Brazilian farmworkers to read and write in just 45 days. He was later put in jail.I believe Paolo would have loved Wizard Academy, a school for the imaginative, the courageous and the ambitious. We resist rigid rules and rely instead on universal principles.Laid side-by-side, a stick and a rope have a similar profile. Likewise, rules and principles look alike even though they have little 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 rope, able to be wrapped around even the most weirdly shaped problems. They are less brittle than rules, and stronger. Principles whisper priceless advice and people are happily led by them.A rule requires obedience.A principle requires contemplation.Simple people living in a push-button society demand simple rules.Wise men and women understand and apply universal laws.There. I have said it.Roy H. Williams

A brief summary of this episode

The Eye of the Storm is what we call the classroom in the tower at Wizard Academy. This name is doubly appropriate; not only is The Eye of the Storm a momentary escape from the buffeting winds of business, it was funded by Tim Storm, a wildly successful entrepreneur.It was the third day of a 3-day class. A hand went up in the second row.“Yes?”“What’s the next big thing?”The answer leapt from my mouth before he had even finished the question.“YouTube.”Everyone laughed. This confused me until I realized the class thought I was trying to be funny. Yes, of course, YouTube was already big.But not in the way I meant.Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim founded YouTube in February 2005. Google purchased it the following year (2006) for $1.65 billion.YouTube was an idea whose time had come.During the 365 calendar days of 2011, YouTube delivered more than 1 trillion views. Viewership in 2012 was up by more than 40 percent: 1.46 trillion views. I mentioned that to you exactly 52 weeks ago. You might remember how I pointed out that one million seconds is about 12 days.One billion seconds is nearly 32 years.One trillion seconds is 31,688 years.A trillion is a lot.The statistics page at YouTube currently says the number of views delivered in 2013 was “50 percent more than last year.” This means they’ve jumped from 1 trillion views to 2 trillion views is just 24 months. It seems that you and I and the rest of the world are watching a lot of online video.Advertising begins a conversation with prospective customers that will be continued when they make contact with your company. This is why it’s important to educate your sales team about your advertising.Sometimes a customer calls to ask you a question. You answer. Sometimes they walk through your door. You greet them. But as Steve Wozniak wryly observed in 2010, “We used to ask a smart person a question. Now who do we ask? It starts with G-O, and it’s not God.”Your customers are gathering information through Google and YouTube. This means your website and your online videos are vital new half steps that fall between your advertising and your customer’s direct first contact with you. (You know I’m right because you’re doing this, too. You walk to your keyboard every time you have interest in a product or a service.)Are your customers finding the information they need?I’m not talking about Search Engine Optimization. I’m not talking about responding to customer queries made by email. I’m talking about crafting an informative answer to the question you believe your customer will ask and then posting that answer in a video on YouTube. You can also embed that video on your website. How many questions can you answer intelligently? That’s exactly how many YouTube videos you should create.Yes, I’m being serious.YouTube is often called “social media.” This is unfortunate because businesspeople tend to see “social media” as cotton candy that offers little real nutrition. Entertainment value is measured by the number of views a video receives. I am not suggesting that you should entertain the public, but rather that you should inform them. Information value is measured by how well you anticipate and answer your customer’s not-yet-asked question.YouTube delivers entertainment when we want to be distracted but it also delivers information when we are seeking answers. Google and YouTube give us unprecedented access to information, 24/7. This is changing the nature of sales training. As Steve Wozniak pointed out, we’re no longer seeking the opinions of experts face-to-face, we’re seeking them face-to-computer-screen. This is not how the world functioned a short decade ago.Welcome to 2014.Wizard Academy will soon be announcing the dates of our new online video classes. If you’d to receive advance notice of these class dates by email so that you can secure one of the 18 finely appointed, on-campus bedrooms at no additional charge, let Vice-Chancellor Daniel Whittington know of your interest and he’ll give you a 24-hour advance heads-up.Brother Whittington can be reached at 512-720-8801 or [email protected] Capture the best you’ve got and make it available to your customer 24/7.We’ll show you how.It’s going to be a fabulous year.The future is here.Roy H. Williams

The official wedding count for Chapel Dulcinea in 2013 was 824 weddings. When I talk about the number of weddings performed each year at Chapel Dulcinea I usually say, “more than a thousand,” but it’s not because I’m lying.I’m just telling the truth prematurely. We’ll soon be at 1,000+ per year. I’m certain of it.If you make a declaration but you don’t believe it to be true, then you’re lying. But if you say a thing is true and you believe it to be true even though it hasn’t happened yet, “I’m there for you. I have your back, no matter what,” are you lying? Are you exaggerating? Or are you just telling the truth prematurely?Faith is the substance of things hoped for. Happy endings are made of it.Faith is the evidence of things not seen. It is proof of the invisible.Hope is optimistic expectation.Faith is hope with its sleeves rolled up.Faith is hope wearing working gloves.Faith is hope yanking the ripcord of a chainsaw.Faith is hope with a hammer in its hand.Faith speaks of that which is not yet as though it already were.Faith requires commitment.I have faith in the success of the companies for whom I write ads. I have faith in the abilities of my Wizard of Ads partners. I have faith that you will blossom like a rose when you visit Wizard Academy. I have faith that you will find what you need while you’re with us.Faith requires commitment and commitment is a choice. It’s not something that arises within you like courage. It’s not something that comes upon you like fear. Commitment is simply a choice.Are you willing to pay the price of commitment?The things to which you must say “no” are the price of your commitment.The things you must walk away from are the price of your commitment.The things you will deny yourself are the price of your commitment.Commitment comes at a price.Do you have hope for the future?Do you have faith in your plans?Does your faith have a hammer in its hand?Are you willing to pay the price of your commitment?If you can give me four yesses I’ll tell you your future:You’re going to have a fabulous 2014.Roy H. Williams

I admire John the Beloved and Abraham Lincoln. These were quietly determined and reliable men, full of love and compassion, unwilling to leave anyone behind. But if I am honest, I must admit that I’m actually more similar to Simon Peter and Teddy Roosevelt; blustering and thundering, quick toward combat, often causing more pain than I realize.There are few Lincolns in America but the spirit of Teddy is everywhere you look.Teddy Roosevelt would have liked Hockey and Football.“It is always dangerous to generalize, but the American people, while infinitely generous, are a hard and strong race and, but for the few cemeteries I have seen, I am inclined to think they never die.”– Margot AsquithMargot Asquith was an English socialite, author and wit.Dorothy Parker was an American socialite, author and wit.In 1927, Dorothy reviewed The Autobiography of Margot Asquith for the Oct. 22 edition of The New Yorker:“The affair between Margot Asquith and Margot Asquith will live as one of the prettiest love stories of all literature.”And that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is what is known in wrestling as a take-down. In soccer and hockey, a body check. In football, spearing. In the hood, a bitch slap.Americans are generally better at it than Europeans. This is an observation that’s been made many times.“I am an American, Chicago born – Chicago, that somber city – and go at things as I have taught myself, freestyle, and will make a record in my own way: first to knock, first admitted: sometimes an innocent knock, sometimes a not so innocent.”– Saul Bellow, opening line, The Adventures of Augie MarchI was born in Texas and raised with rough boys in Oklahoma, so I understand what Saul Bellow meant when he said, “I am an American…” Humorist Will Rogers also knew what Bellow meant. He wrote a letter from Europe to President Calvin Coolidge in 1926:“We, unfortunately, don’t make a good impression collectively… There ought to be a law prohibiting over three Americans going anywhere abroad together.”Comedian Fred Allen likewise looked into our cultural mirror with amusement and chagrin.“The American arrives in Paris with a few French phrases he has culled from a conversational guide or picked up from a friend who owns a beret.”Another comedian, Paul Rodriguez, said in 1987,“War is God’s way of teaching Americans geography.”Ouch.But the most devastating criticism came from the pen of John Steinbeck:“Americans are remarkably kind and hospitable and open with both guests and strangers; and yet they will make a wide circle around the man dying on the pavement. Fortunes are spent getting cats out of trees and dogs out of sewer pipes; but a girl screaming for help in the street draws only slammed doors, closed windows, and silence….”– John Steinbeck, Paradox and Dream, (1966)That these criticisms come from within our own circle gives me hope and a sense of pride. I am not advocating negativity. Continual self-criticism is a slow, unwinding spiral into darkness as our self-confidence unravels to nothing. This is dangerously self-destructive.But even more dangerous is to deny that we make mistakes.The vital passage in my book, Pendulum, is a quote from David Farland:“Men who believe themselves to be good, who do not search their own souls, often commit the worst atrocities. A man who sees himself as evil will restrain himself. It is only when we do evil in the belief that we do good that we pursue it wholeheartedly.”I believe it is wise to “search our own souls” as we approach New Year’s Day. It is essential to our wellbeing that we remember all the good things that happened in 2013. Celebrate these happy moments and be grateful. And then contemplate what you might do differently in 2014, because not everything happened last year as you had hoped or planned. Am I right?I’m talking about looking back and looking forward with an open heart and an open mind.Do you own a business? Might you benefit from the outside perspective of someone who has been studying American small business for more than 30 years? I’m talking about you and me spending an hour and a half together. I’m willing to do this for free.Here’s what’s up: some of my Wizard of Ads partners have asked that I videotape a few Uncovery sessions so they can better understand some of the techniques I use to uncover the opportunities that often hide in a business owner’s blind spot. The Uncovery is where great marketing plans begin. It is an assessment, a taking of inventory, a calculation of possibilities and probabilities that ends with a clear understanding of how you – the business owner – might better play the cards you’ve been dealt.Do you remember how Dorothy finally makes it in to see the Wizard only to learn that she’s had what she needed all along? She’s been wearing the Ruby Red Slippers s

Why the World Needs Don Quixote Sarah says if you rely solely upon reason, your actions will be based upon what you believe to be possible. You’ll not likely attempt the impossible. She goes on to say, “Quixotism is the passionate pursuit of an ideal which may not be attainable. It is the belief that an individual can alter reality and redefine what is possible.”George brings Sarah’s observation to a pragmatic conclusion:“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends upon the unreasonable man.”Progress begins with a rejection of the status quo.Progress begins when a Quixote sees a giant that needs to be defeated.Are you a conformist who believes we must accept the dominance of giants?Of course you’re not. If you were, you would not be reading this. You are the “unreasonable” person of whom George spoke.The opening lines of George’s biography at NobelPrize.org tell us, “George Bernard Shaw was born in Dublin, the son of a civil servant. His education was irregular, due to his dislike of any organized training.”George disliked organization? He would have adored Wizard Academy. Sadly, George Bernard Shaw died in 1950, exactly half a century before Wizard Academy was born. So alas, we cannot meet him.But Sarah is still with us. And she is looking for work as a babysitter. I know this because I found her 2011 college thesis during a Google search and was deeply impressed by it. Curiosity required me to learn more about her.Here are a few quotes from the introduction to her thesis:“Quixotists are the willful creators of their own destinies.Their childlike ability to marvel at the world, desperation to experience a full life, and willingness to pursue goodness and beauty through an adventurous process of trial and error set them apart from all who depend upon common sense. Thus, quixotism has the potential to serve as a mechanism of social change, stretching the limits of the possible.”“Given that quixotism stands in stark contrast to the more cautious, conventional notion of reason, it initially appears to be nothing more than madness and is often summarily dismissed as such. However, one of quixotism’s most important principles is its recognition of ambiguity and uncertainty. This philosophy thrives in the space between the known and the unknown.”“Quixotism represents the most profound expression of genius: joyful curiosity about the world and a willingness to explore. As thought and action are inseparable, it is both a belief system and a way of life. While the practice of quixotism leads to a greater number of mistakes than more restrained forms of intellectualism, it also yields more successes as a result of its extreme nature.”Young Sarah is obviously one of us.She doesn’t know I’m quoting her. She doesn’t even know we exist.Shall we contact her? Shall I offer her a scholarship to a class atWizard Academy? Would you like to help cover her travel costs?Babysitters don’t often have money for plane tickets.It is Christmastime. You are busy. I am busy. So perhaps we should forget the whole thing.I leave it up to you.Roy H. Williams

You have within you an idea, a possibility, a thought that has never quite gone away. You tell yourself it’s a childish fantasy.Perhaps it is. And that’s precisely why you should rescue it from the shivering shadows.Let your child live in the light. You’re strong enough now to watch over it and protect it from the beasts that would devour it.Let your child live in the light.This “thought that has never quite gone away” provides you with a perspective not fully understood by those around you. You see a special connection between certain things that others don’t quite see. This is probably one of your “life messages,” a note you carry from God to the rest of us.We are terrified to deliver life messages. I’m not entirely sure why. But I do know that every two-dimensional life gains depth when its message is brought into the light.Have you been living a 2-dimensional life? If you will share your secret belief, your special perception, you can step into an exciting, 3-dimensional world.Yes, some people will think you’re bat-crap crazy.That’s the price you pay.I’ll admit this probably sounds highly abstract and even a bit airy-fairy, so I’ll make it concrete by giving you some examples:1. I believe there are specific, spatial relationships within a 3-dimensional color model – my favorite is Munsell’s – that can accurately predict the emotional effect of juxtaposing selected colors. We explore this idea briefly during the “Color” module of the class, Portals and the 12 Languages of the Mind. (The 2014 session will be March 4-5. You should register.)2. I have been haunted by the number 3 since I was small. During the past 17 years I’ve investigated the relationship between the numbers 2, 3 and 4, and have been encouraged by the fact that Lao Tzu was haunted by the same idea during the lifetime of Alexander the Great (about 325 BC) and he wrote about it in chapter 42 of the Tao Te Ching. Augustine of Hippo was likewise haunted by threes in 410 AD and shared his conclusions in chapter 2 of book 15 in his series, On the Trinity. Alchemists struggled with this 2-3-4 relationship during medieval times, calling it “The Axiom of Maria.” Mathematician and theoretical physicist Henri Poincare’ was haunted by threes in 1887 when he investigated the wild-card power of every third gravitating body in complex systems and invented algebraic topology as a direct result. Carl Jung built his Theory of Individuation around the idea. So maybe I am a nut, but I’m a nut in pretty good company. If this idea holds interest for you, any of the cognoscenti of the Magical Worlds Communications Workshop can explain the benefits and uses of this perception of threes in detail.3. I want to create songs in which the musical instruments, themselves, sing the words to the song. You know what a trumpet sounds like. You can identify it by its sound. Now imagine the voice of a trumpet speaking intelligibly. I believe this will soon be done, not just with trumpets, but with every musical instrument. The vowels of any language can easily be converted into notes via their frequency signature, so the problem of making instruments “talk” doesn’t lie within the vowels, but in the formants of the consonants.Are you beginning to understand what I mean when I say, “a perspective not fully understood by those around you… a connection between certain things that others don’t quite see?”You have ideas like these within you, too. Why not let them out?Life messages are hard to articulate. No matter how well you explain them, your explanation always feels incomplete. Don’t let that hold you back.Life messages bring life to others but they also take a lifetime to deliver.Earl Nightingale, before he died, left you a message.?”Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway.”Nolan Bushnell adds to this message a comment of his own.?”Everyone who has ever taken a shower has had an idea. It’s the person who gets out of the shower, dries off, and does something about it that makes a difference.”Terry Pratchett wraps these gifts from Earl and Nolan with a ribbon of rainbow light. “You’ve heard that before you die, your whole life flashes before your eyes? This is true. It’s called living.” Are you ready to get started?John Burroughs was born when Abraham Lincoln was just 28 years old. John died nearly 100 years ago. But before he died, he slipped a message into a time capsule and flung it deep into the future, to this moment, to you. This is his message: “The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is where you are.”Don’t ask me what it means. That’s between John Burroughs and you. But I’d love for you to share your life messages with the board of directors of Wizard Academy.Will you?Write them down, as best you

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