Wizard of Ads Monday Morning Memo

You are flying your small airplane on a beautiful day.There is a tiny speck on your windshield.Like the North Star, it doesn’t move.This is why it escapes your notice.Had that speck begun moving across your windshield, you would have recognized it as another airplane. The fact that it doesn’t move means that you and that speck will soon intersect unless one of you changes direction. That speck will quickly-all-at-once fill your windshield and then…I’m trying to teach you a new way of thinking about your blind spot.If you knew it was there, they wouldn’t call it a blind spot.Blind spots are why it is wise for you and me to each have a special person in our lives to notice things we don’t notice. You would be amazed at the number of times each week Princess Pennie has to point out specks on the windshield I didn’t see.Right now, you are thinking to yourself, “What the wizard just told us completely contradicts Indy Beagle’s assertion last week that, ‘Nothing is so annoying as unsolicited advice, for within it lies the assumption of superior wisdom.'”I’m not contradicting Indy, I’m just pointing out a speck on his windshield. Each of us – you, me, everyone – is limited in our perceptions. But we don’t like to believe we are.Time-travel with me:In the second chapter of the first book of the Bible, God muses to himself, “It is not good for a person to be alone.”I think this is why He made so many of us, and why we are so different.Solomon, widely known for his wisdom, wrote, “Two are better than one…If one falls down, his partner can help him up. But pity the person who falls and has no one to help him up!” 1And in the Proverbs, he wrote, “Whoever finds a partner finds a good thing.” 2On page 148 of the book that won her the Nobel Prize in Literature,3 Olga Tokarczuk writes,“The world here is so large, so impossible to take in,” she said, fixing her gaze on me for a few seconds, testing me, “Agata is my wife.”I blinked, I had never heard one woman referring to another as “my wife” before. But I liked it.“You’re surprised, aren’t you?”I thought for a while.“I could have a wife, too,” I said with conviction. “It’s better to live with someone than alone. It’s easier to go through life together with someone than on one’s own.”Allow me to conclude by revisiting your accusation that today’s Monday Morning Memo contradicts last week’s Monday Morning Memo written by Indy Beagle.Niels Bohr, the physicist who won the 1922 Nobel Prize in Physics, said,“The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.”Please note that Niels Bohr was a physicist, not a philosopher.Stanislaw Lec, however, was a philosopher. He confirmed Niels Bohr’s thesis about opposite truths by saying, “Proverbs contradict each other. That is the wisdom of a people.” 4F. Scott Fitzgerald, the writer who gave us The Great Gatsby, summarized the idea of opposite truths this way, “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.”Yes, F. Scott was a drunkard, but that doesn’t mean he was wrong. Alcohol was a speck on his windshield. Sadly for F. Scott, that speck quickly-all-at-once filled his windshield when he was just 44 years old.I’m betting if he had it all to do over again, he would have let someone help him wipe that speck away.Roy H. Williams1 Ecclesiastes 4:9-102 Proverbs 18:22 [Yeah, I wrote “partner” when Solomon said “wife.” Don’t have a conniption. A person doesn’t have to be your spouse – or even female – to point out the speck on your windshield. – RHW]3 Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, p. 1484 I’ve put 30 examples of “proverbs contradicting each other” in the rabbit hole for you. – Indy

Few things are as annoying as unsolicited advice,for within it lies the assumption of superior wisdom.(So when you tell a person your PLAN for what THEY should do,always be aware that they secretly want to punch you in the mouth.)Uh-oh. Did I just give you some unsolicited advice?Heavyweight Champion Mike Tyson was listening to a reporter tell him how his opponent planned to beat him in their upcoming boxing match. Mike famously replied, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”There are other interpretations of Mike’s famous saying, too. Like how “Plan B” is for when a business person gets punched in the mouth by unforeseen circumstances, and how “Plan C” is for when they get punched in the mouth a second time. When my boss, the wizard, was chancellor of Wizard Academy, he got all the way down to “Plan D,” and now Daniel Whittington is putting together “Plan E” because, you know, Covid.Hey! You want a PDF download of the 1998 Business Book of the Year, The Wizard of Ads?  Here you go! (I don’t know how it works in other browsers, but in Safari you’ll find “Export as PDF” under your FILE pulldown.)If it seems like my paragraphs aren’t connected to each other, it’s probably because all my experience is in the rabbit hole and beagles are easily distracted.Speaking of “distracted,” Gabrielle Roth writes,“If you came to a shaman or medicine person complaining of being disheartened, dispirited, or depressed, they would ask one of four questions. When did you stop dancing? When did you stop singing? When did you stop being enchanted by stories? When did you stop finding comfort in the sweet territory of silence? Where we have stopped dancing, singing, being enchanted by stories, or finding comfort in silence is where we have experienced the loss of soul. Dancing, singing, storytelling, and silence are the four universal healing salves.”I don’t know how it is with people, but dogs are born knowing this!Dance! Sing! Be Enchanted by Stories! Celebrate Silence!It’s really not that hard. Just imitate a happy dog.Samuel Butler was born in 1835 and even though that was a long time ago, Samuel understood the happiness of dogs:“The great pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of himself too.”Dale Carnegie said,“Did you ever see an unhappy horse? Did you ever see a bird that had the blues? One reason why birds and horses are not unhappy is because they are not trying to impress other birds and horses.”I guess it’s time to take this plane in for a landing now because the wizard gave me a target word-count and we’re getting pretty close to it. Keep in mind that I’m flying solo for the first time, okay?Here’s my summary, from a beagle’s point-of-view:The events of 2020 will leave their marks on us for the rest of our lives. Having been forced into a more introspective existence by the Covid, many people learned things about themselves that had previously been suppressed.Self-aware people experienced solitude and emerged from it less fixated on the outward trappings of success, and more concerned about the quality of their relationships and their inner lives.Persons unwilling to examine themselves experienced isolation and are filled with anxiousness about things returning to “how they used to be.”There. That’s it. Our wheels have touched the ground.“This is your captain speaking. Ladies and gentlemen, we have arrived at our destination. We know you have a choice in air travel, and we want to thank you for choosing to fly Beagle Airlines.”Aroo,Indy Beagle

Notice that title. It does not say, “How to Write Scripts for TV Ads,” but, “How I Write…”I have my own weird way of doing it.TV writers use a split-page approach:Camera instructions in the left column. Audio in the right column.I chose not to do it that way.Back when the world was young, Radio people told me that Radio scripts SHOULD ALWAYS BE TYPED IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS.I chose not to do it that way.and then came the online people who told me to write everything in lower case letters because who has the time to press the shift key in this fast paced digital world are living inMe. The answer is me. I have enough time to press the shift key.Aaron Sorkin would have been a great Radio writer. Watch his TV series – The West Wing, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, The Newsroom, or Sports Night – and you’ll hear dazzling dialogue, brilliant banter, and riveting repartee. Your imaginary people will begin talking like real people after you’ve studied his film scripts, A Few Good Men, The Social Network, Moneyball, and Steve Jobs.Aaron Sorkin says, “Until the words are right, ain’t nothin’ right.”Or at least that’s what he would say if he was from Texas.Radio writers have five tools in their toolbox:(A) choice of words(B) tone of voice(C) vocal inflection(D) music(E) special effects; such as the sound of a car starting, a door slamming, or a dog barking.Television writers have all the radio tools available to them, as well as:(F) facial expressions, hand gestures, and body language(G) Screen text(H) visual special effects; such as slow motion, disappearances, and backlighting.The predictable mistakes made by Radio people writing TV ads are:They try to cram 30 seconds worth of words into a 30-second TV ad.They describe things they could easily have shown onscreen.They forget screen text is available.They use an omniscient voice-over when they could have shown us the person talking. The omniscient narrator – common in radio ads – doesn’t work so well on TV.Make no mistake: bad writing is bad writing. A boring Radio ad will be a boring ad on TV.Here’s how to turn a great Radio ad into a brilliant TV ad:Eliminate descriptions of actions.Show us those actions instead. Add action-instructions to your script, but in a different color than the black ink used for dialogue. If you need to make a cellphone video of yourself performing the actions so the director can see what you see in your mind, do it.Show us who is talking.Add instructions to your script regarding hand gestures, facial expressions, and body language, but use a different color than the black ink used for dialogue.Use screen text.Domain names, phone numbers, and store hours are more easily shown than spoken. But before you add screen text, ask, “Do we really need this?” And when you write the instructions for screen text, use a different color than the black ink used for dialogue.Use special effects to amplify what you want to make memorable.But be careful. The gratuitous use of special effects is the mark of an amateur. Before you use them, ask, “Do we really need these?” And print these instructions in a different color than the black we use for dialogue.Color is a language that can be used to link, or separate.In case I forgot to mention it, the only thing you should ever print in black is the dialogue. Special effects, screen text, and instructions to the actors and cameramen will be in a subordinate color of ink.Because the dialogue – the words – are what matter most.I believe Radio writers can learn to write TV ads a lot easier thanTV writers can learn to write Radio ads.And Aaron Sorkin agrees!Or at least he would if he was from Texas.Roy H. Williams

457 BC – In the 7th chapter of the Old Testament Book of Ezra, King Artaxerxes of Persia issues a decree to rebuild Jerusalem which results in the rebuilding of that city under Nehemiah.Go west from Jerusalem across the Mediterranean, west across the Atlantic, then halfway across the landmass of North America and you’re in Central Texas. It was there, sometime between the decree of Artaxerxes in 457 BC and the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, that a group of Native American wise men painted a huge mural in a cave along the Pecos river.These Coahuiltecans were stargazers who believed that geographical landmarks are mirrored in the stars. “As above, so below.”The astronomical and geographical accuracy of this 2,000-to-2,500-year-old rock painting is astounding. It shows all the major landmarks along the path of the sun during the winter solstice as it travels from Austin, Texas, to San Angelo, Texas, 200 miles away. And it is huge: 26 feet wide and 13 feet tall, featuring dozens of important landmarks and religious stories and astronomical devices; messages from a distant past.Today we will focus on two small, but important pieces of this giant rock painting known as the “White Shaman.”AThese three “Y” symbols in the painting are the three plateaus known as Wednesday Mountain (on which Wizard Academy is built,) Thursday Mountain (which is owned by a Native American tribe,) and Friday Mountain, at the base of which lies America’s largest Hindu temple.The alignment of these 3 plateaus mirrors the stars in the Belt of Orion with amazing fidelity. See it for yourself in the rabbit hole. The stars of Orion’s Belt have been recognized as many things over the centuries, including the Golden Yard-arm, the Ellwand and Our Lady’s Wand. They have also been called the Three Sisters, the Three Kings, the Three Wise Men and the Magi, the very namesakes for which Wizard Academy is named. How amazing is that!The Belt of Orion, the Great Bear, and the Pleiades are the only constellations mentioned in the Bible. Let’s talk about the landmarks that mirror the stars in the Great Bear, Ursa major.Cold water gushes out of the ground 365 days a year from 5 underground springs along the Central Texas escarpment: Barton Springs in Austin, San Marcos Springs in San Marcos, Comal Springs in New Braunfels, and San Pedro Springs and San Antonio Springs in downtown San Antonio. These springs are represented in the White Shaman by a connected set of 4 symbols revealing the locations of those springs. These locations mirror the stars in the tail of Ursa major, the Great Bear. Do you see that bottommost symbol? It represents San Pedro springs and San Antonio springs, both in downtown San Antonio. You’ll notice it to be a little different than the other symbols in that it has an additional module attached, with two red lines – a river  – extending out from it. This is because San Antonio springs is the headwaters of the San Antonio river. Those Coahuiltecans didn’t miss a thing!We were given this amazing news by our neighbor, Brian Dudley, who introduced us to Gary Perez, the Native American who became famous for deciphering the White Shaman rock painting.We were told by multiple people when we bought the land in 2004 that our plateau had been sacred to Native Americans since before the time of Columbus, but no one had any proof of that until now.Hearing Gary Perez and/or Carolyn Boyd, the author of the book, The White Shaman Mural, explain the history, astrology and math that went into decoding that rock painting would be fun, don’t you think?When this virus has finally been defeated, our plan is to have one or both of these luminaries as guest speakers when we celebrate the 20th anniversary of Wizard Academy. Your eyes will be wide with amazement as you hear about all the astrological, geographical, and cultural details that are contained in that mural. With your mouth hanging open, you’ll wonder, “How did the Coahuiltecans figure all that out?”Big fun. Big, big fun.Princess Pennie has always possessed a superpower when it comes to selecting real estate, so in 2004 when she tracked down the owner of our land (he lived in South Africa, by the way,) and purchased it from him, I went along with it because she has always been right about that sort of thing.This Covid thing is getting tiresome, isn’t it?Like everyone else, Wizard Academy is getting squeezed pretty hard financially right now, but I’m not worried about it because I have undying confidence that we are here for a reason.Thank You for your part in helping this place to exist.Roy H. Williams

I lived in Muskogee, Oklahoma for 3 years before Merle Haggard released his hit song, “I’m Proud to be an Okie from Muskogee.” Even though I was only 12 at the time, I realized Brother Haggard’s song contained more corn than the whole state of Iowa.I laugh about being an Okie, but in truth, I am proud of the resourcefulness of my tribe. An Okie can build a rocket ship while he is flying it.Walk into any Oklahoma restaurant, church, or nightclub and choose 9 men at random. You will have within that group the ability to:weld every kind of metalrepair any motorized vehicle, electrical appliance, or mechanical devicethrow a rock and knock a bird out of the skybutcher a cow, pig, or deertell a story that will make you laugh, and sing a song that will make your crydig the footings, tie the rebar, pour a cement foundation, thenframe the house, install the plumbing and wiring, hang the sheetrock and the cabinets, install the fixtures, roof it, brick it, and sell it.And Okie girls are twice as resourceful as Okie boys.Okies learn their skills from family and friends because formal education takes too long and teaches too little. If you want to be a doctor or a lawyer, go to college. But if you just want to make some money, go do it. Don’t stand there like a whiner with your finger in your nose. Don’t fret like a little girl who is worried that Santa Claus doesn’t know her new address. And don’t count on getting a lucky break like some kind of wimpy-ass frat boy. Okies who wait for breaks go broke.An Okie’s lack of respect for college degrees occasionally has unintended consequences. I recently got an email from a friend in high school who said, “All these immunologists are saying one thing, but some of the guys we went to high school with are saying the opposite, so I don’t know who to believe…”When Pennie and I bought our first home in the little town of Broken Arrow, three additional rooms had been added to the original structure to make it a total of 800 square feet. It was built in “Indian Territory” in 1884, just 108 years after the colonies informed King George that his services would no longer be required.In 1744, when ­Thomas Jefferson was still in diapers, all of North America outside the 13 colonies was “Indian Territory.” So when a delegation from Virginia offered to provide a college education for a dozen Native American boys, Chief Canassatego replied,“We know you highly esteem the kind of learning taught in these colleges. And the maintenance of our young men, while with you, would be very expensive to you. We’re convinced, therefore, that you mean to do us good by your proposal, and we thank you heartily. But you who are so wise must know that different nations have different conceptions of things. And you will not, therefore, take it amiss if our ideas of this kind of education happen not to be the same with yours.”“We have had some experience of it. Several of our young people were formerly brought up in the colleges of the northern province. They were instructed in all your sciences. But when they came back to us, they were bad runners, ignorant of every means of living in the woods, unable to bear either cold or hunger, knew neither how to build a cabin, take a deer, or kill an enemy, spoke our language imperfectly, and therefore were neither fit for hunters, warriors, nor councilors. They were totally good for nothing.”“We are, however, not the less obliged for your kind offer, though we decline accepting. To show our grateful sense of it, if the gentlemen of Virginia shall send us a dozen of their sons, we would take great care in their education, instruct them in all we know, and make men of them.”Some people are street smart and some people are book smart.The thing to remember is that one does not negate the other.Roy H. Williams

When it is time to write an ad, and there is no felt need in the heart of the customer to which you can speak, make a paper cigar.Teddy Roosevelt was a man of improvisation. He knew his paper cigars. This allowed him to explain the process of making them in the fewest possible words: “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”The slow weeks before and after peak season are called the shoulder season.  People who can create ads that bring in business during the shoulder season are people you want on your team.Winter is peak season for heating. Summer is peak season for air conditioning. But how does an HVAC company keep its employees paid during the shoulder season, those weeks of mild weather in between?“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”Funny, isn’t it? Teddy gave us the answer before air conditioning was even invented.1Every HVAC company knows the answer to the shoulder season is to convince the public of the importance of routine maintenance. But that’s kind of like trying to convince people to shop early for Christmas. Everyone knows it’s a smart thing to do, but few people actually do it. As a result of our procrastination, we wait in long lines, choose from a picked-over selection and pay higher prices because we delayed our shopping – one day at a time – until December twenty-second and then flew into a blind panic.Air conditioning maintenance is like that. We delay it until the unit breaks down.When you need to sell a product or a service, and no one is feeling the need for that service, it’s time to make a paper cigar. But don’t rely on logic. Logic speaks to the mind of the customer. You’ve got to win the heart. And that takes wit and charm.Here is a hugely successful TV ad for the shoulder season that was produced by Casey Welch and Korey McDonald. 2SCENE ONETECH 1: Mr. Jenkins told me…TECH 2: When it starts getting warmer and you’re thinking about turning on that Air ConditionerTECH 3: [waving her palms in comic alarm] Don’t Do It! TECH 4: [wagging his finger sternly] Don’t Do It! SCENE TWOTECH 2:   A/C compressors get dried out during the winterTECH 1:  and they need to be brought into serviceTECH 2: [with palms held downward, he slowly lowers them to illustrate “gently”] gennnntly.SCENE THREECSR 1: For just 89 dollars, a Morris-Jenkins technician will wash the outside unit and bring it into service TECH 2: [palms downward, he slowly lowers them]  gennnntly.SCENE FOURTECH 1: And we promise NOT to disrupt your household.DEWEY:  We come and go [palms downward, he slowly lowers them] gennnntly.©Here’s an even-more-successful ad Casey and Korey produced the following year.SCENE ONE DEWEY: [takes a long step backward with one foot, and with a sweep of his arm reveals Techs standing behind him as he says] It’s that time again!TECHS: [Music begins playing. Technicians begin dancing.] It’s time for us to come-and-go gently, gently.It’s time for us to come-and-go gently, gently.Compressors-dry-out during wiiiiinter monthsAnd-need-to-be brought back [palms downward, they lower them] gennnntly.SCENE TWO [Working on an outside unit]TECH 1: For just 89 dollarsTECH 2: A Morris-Jenkins technician will wash your outside unitTECH 3: and bring it into serviceTECH 4: [palms downward, she slowly lowers them] gennnntly.TECH 3: [palms downward, he slowly lowers them] gennnntly.SCENE THREE DEWEY: Morris-Jenkins comes and goesALL TECHS: [singing in unison, with hand-motion] gently, gently ©When that TV ad aired in Charlotte, North Carolina, so many viewers wanted to see it again that it accumulated more than one million views on YouTube in less than 90 days.So now you’re wondering why this style of improvised entertainment is called, “Making a Paper Cigar.”When our oldest son, Rex, was in high school more than 20 years ago, he walked into class one day and realized, “Uh-oh, today is the day I’m supposed to present my term paper. What was the subject I was assigned?” He scratched his head a minute, then said, “Cuba. I’ve got to make a verbal presentation – with visual aids – on Cuba.”Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.He looked around and saw a few sheets of paper with some magic markers, so he rolled the paper into a cigar-sized cylinder, taped it, then colored it brown with a red tip. He wrote a couple of pages about sugar, cigars, and Fidel Castro, and when his name was called, strode to the front of the room with his cigar in his mouth and told the story of Cuba as Groucho Marx or W.C. Fields might have done.The teacher gave him an A+ and led the class in a round of applause.Entertainment is the only currency with which you can purchase the attention of a disinterested public.Rex made a little bronze gargoyle to

The generation of male Okies to which I belong has the inexplicable tradition of mercilessly teasing their friends. It’s a dumb tradition, I know, but these are the rules:We tease only our closest friends. To say to strangers the sorts of things that we say to our friends would be to invite a fistfight.The more outrageous and unfounded the accusation, the funnier it is.We never tease by saying things that could possibly be perceived as the truth. In other words, if you believe what you are saying might contain a grain of truth – even a tiny bit – you are no longer being funny; you’re being a bully and a jerk.My friend Ken owns a big plumbing company in another state. So when he sent me a cell phone video of his new $7,000 toilet, I began to pound on him relentlessly about what that toilet said about him as a man. That high-tech toilet became the fulcrum of a playground teeter-totter onto which I could jump when he least expected it and send him flying topsy-turvy into the air.There’s just nowhere to hide when your friends can ask you about your fancy toilet at the most unexpected moments and in the most unexpected ways.One day there was a knock at the door. “Are you Roy Williams?”“Yes,”“Sign here.”Uh-oh. Ken had sent me a fancy toilet of my own. Before I could hide it, Pennie saw it and liked it. “But it’s way too nice for this house,” she said.“Are you saying this house isn’t worthy of a toilet like that?”She looked at me and nodded. “Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying.”Friends, you just can’t imagine the kinds of upgrades that are required when you have been gifted a fancy toilet.I was reminded of the story of an ancient King of Siam who would give white elephants as a passive-aggressive gift to anyone who displeased him. White elephants are rare and were considered sacred in Siam, so people were required to treat them with special care and feed them expensive food and never use them for work. The gift of a white elephant imposed a huge financial burden on the person who received one and of course you could never sell the elephant, lest you appear ungrateful.Yep, what I had me here was a white elephant.I’ve never ridden the elephant because, frankly, it frightens me.I always explain to guests who want to ride my white elephant that they must approach it with reverence when they journey to present themselves before it. The elephant will then kneel to allow them aboard as the music of angels wafts through the room and a strange light begins to glow.I promise I’m not making any of this up.My friend Manley Miller once stayed up all night playing with the remote so that he could learn all of the elephant’s tricks. When Manley told Pennie and I about his escapades with the elephant the next morning, I realized that my friend Ken had beat me at my own game.Evidently, Ken grew up in a state where young boys know how to jump on the teeter-totter, too.Roy H. Williams

When James Madison drafted the First Amendment, “the press” referred to the newspapers of our nation, such as the Pennsylvania Gazette owned by Benjamin Franklin, the most popular paper in the 13 colonies.Things rocked along swimmingly for about 200 years, then one day we walked outside to get the newspaper, sat down to read it, and realized it was yesterday’s news.Welcome to the 21st Century, where your telephone is also your newspaper, TV, encyclopedia, magazine, restaurant menu, instruction manual, shopping mall, worldwide map, and phone book.The computer chip gave us the internet, an unregulated realm where irresponsible people are free to spray false reports, fabricated data, and doctored photos across our society like a flamethrower washing over a field of dry grass.Presto, the world is on fire.I believe that people are entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts.When I was a younger man, television and radio newscasts were trustworthy places to gather reliable facts, even when the presentation of those facts was slanted by the opinion of the reporter.News directors took their guardianship of journalistic integrity seriously, as did most of the rank-and-file reporters. But their collective consciences and good intentions were not what kept us safe.The people of the United States own the airwaves of our nation.Regulating the access to those airwaves began with the Radio Act of 1912, later to be replaced by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 1934.For most of the 20th century, America had safeguards that made television and radio news reliable, but in the 9 years between 1987, the 7th year of the Reagan presidency, and 1996, the 4th year of the Clinton presidency, those safeguards were quietly dismantled.Let’s take a look at the most important ones:1. The Fairness Doctrine: Introduced in 1949, the Fairness Doctrine required broadcasters to present controversial issues of public importance and to do so in a manner that was honest, equitable, and balanced. If you failed to serve the public in this way, you could lose your license to broadcast.Broadcasters hated the Fairness Doctrine, of course, because it was a pain in the ass.In 1987, Edward O. Fritts, president of the National Assn. of Broadcasters, argued that “broadcasters believe in fairness” and that the Fairness Doctrine was “unconstitutional and an infringement on free speech. It is an intrusion into broadcasters’ journalistic judgment.” President Reagan agreed and issued an executive order.Poof… No more Fairness Doctrine.TV and radio stations were now free to slant the news as aggressively as they wanted.2. Ownership Limits: In 1927, we began to worry about what might happen if too few people controlled the news. Consequently, no one was allowed to own more than three TV stations nationwide. That number was increased to five stations in 1944, then the 7-7-7 rule of 1953 said no one could own more than 7 TV stations, 7 FM radio stations and 7 AM radio stations. In 1985, 7-7-7 became 12-12-12.Then in 1996, the FCC eliminated all limits on radio stations, and said you could own as many TV stations as you wanted as long as those TV stations were collectively reaching no more than 35% of the national audience. As a result, truckloads of investor dollars were gathered and broadcast “consolidation” began.Then in 2002, the 5-member FCC voted 3-2 along party lines (3 Republicans, 2 Democrats) to throw out the national audience limit.Bingo… If you could put together enough money, you could now control the news.American newscasters were no longer required to serve the public interest, or to present both sides of an issue, or even to tell the truth.So for the past 18 years we’ve been surrounded by flamethrowers on every side.I’m sure glad it hasn’t resulted in a polarized population.Roy H. Williams

Two weeks ago, I appeared onscreen during a business symposium in Montreal to answer a series of questions about, “How to Advertise Effectively.”Toward the end of my hour with them, a person in the audience asked, “What do you consider to be the top 3 books about Advertising?” The moderator smiled and said, “I can answer that,” and held up copies of The Wizard of Ads, Secret Formulas of the Wizard of Ads, and Magical Worlds of the Wizard of Ads.The audience laughed.I smiled and shook my head, “no.”“Number one is Marketing Outrageously by Jon Spoelstra. Number two is The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Al Ries and Jack Trout. Number three is Ogilvy on Advertising.”The audience went silent as everyone wrote those titles down.Prior to the publication of Jon Spoelstra’s book in 2001, my recommended reading list contained only two books. But I discovered a kindred spirit in Jon Spoelstra. Even better than that, the thing Jon does best is the very thing I try to avoid.Let’s take a look at the similarities and differences between Jon and me.Similarities: Jon and I agree that it is your message, not the media, that determines your success or failure. Likewise, we agree on the vital importance of avoiding the predictable by employing the new, the surprising, and the different. Thirdly, we both appreciate the role of intuition and agree that, loosely speaking, rules are for fools.Difference: Jon enjoys making big things happen fast, I do not.* When your back is against the wall and time is of the essence, Jon is the man to call.On numerous occasions, Jon has generously agreed to teach at Wizard Academy and he’s always done it for free. But now he needs something from you and me.Don’t worry. Like all of Jon’s offers, this one is irresistible: Jon has a new book coming out next month and he’s giving each of us an immediate download of it in exchange for our promise to post a book review on Amazon. You can say whatever you like in the book review. The goal is for Jon to have at least 100 reviews posted on the day his book is officially launched.100 Amazon reviews sounds like it would be easy to accomplish, right? Trust me, it’s not.Are you in?Here’s where to begin.Roy H. Williams*Although I understand how to make big things happen fast, I find the anxiousness of it to be exhausting. Adrenaline is not my friend. It gives most people an energizing rush of excitement, (flight,) but in me it triggers only the rage of combat, (fight.) Consequently, I avoid clients who need an immediate miracle. This is undoubtedly selfish of me, but hey, I’m self-indulgent. You already knew that, right? – RHW

You’ve heard it all your life: “Anything worth doing, is worth doing well.”This seems to be a worthy admonition on the surface. But let’s not stop at the surface. Let’s look into the heart of it.Those seven words, “Anything worth doing, is worth doing well,” assume that one has the ability to do the thing well. But what if you don’t have that ability? Is it okay to do it badly at first?I gathered some essays and photos in 1997, then paid a printer to print 7,500 copies of a little homemade book. The title was ill-conceived, the cover was ridiculous, and my layout failed to anticipate the binding, so the text was tucked too far into the spine. You had to pull the cheeks apart and look down into the crack to read it.Is it okay that I did a bad job on that first book?Is it okay that I continue to love that quirky little puppy even if it never sold a copy?My second book became the #1 business book in America according to the Wall Street Journal, and my third book was a New York Times bestseller, then my wife and I spent the next 20 years building a school for misfit and maverick entrepreneurs, those innovators and improvisers, renegades and rebels who are suspicious of traditional wisdom.I have never worn the handcuffs of Perfectionism or Conformity and I do not recommend them to you. Wearing them too tightly causes analysis paralysis: that paralyzing fear of failure.When a person who is facing a big challenge begins to share their performance anxieties with me, I always grab them by their shoulders, look deep into their eyes and say with all the love I can muster, “Just shut up and do it.”Anything worth doing is worth doing badly.If you are not willing to golf badly at first, you are never going to be a great golfer.If you are not willing to write badly at first, you are never going to be a great writer.If you are not willing to cook badly at first, you are never going to be a great chef.One of the things I do each day is get dressed. But no one has ever accused me of doing it well. Putting on clothes is definitely worth doing. I just don’t believe it’s worth doing well. Looking rumpled and unsuccessful is my natural condition because I’ve seen the time and effort it takes to look crisp and sharp, and frankly, I don’t feel it’s worth it. At least not for me.Julie DeMille was stressing out about finding two socks that matched when the absurdity of the moment slapped her in the face. So she decided to adopt a sock motto: “If you can’t find a mate, find a friend.”I think Julie DeMille might be my brand of crazy.Are you my brand of crazy? If so, let me, as your older brother, offer you some encouragement and advice:Good decisions come from experience.Experience comes from bad decisions.You will feel guilty from time to time and that can be good.Feelings of guilt will cause you to make changes you need to make.But I pray that you never become ashamed.Guilt is about what you have done.Shame is about who you are.Perfectionists will come into your life and say that you have “real potential” and that you could be just like they are – crisp and prompt, well-groomed and with good posture – if only you pushed yourself a little harder. They will tell you to repent from your heresy of being happy and contented and say, “No pain, no gain,” as though they are quoting holy scripture.I’ve looked: it’s not in the Bible.These same people will tell you that should never be satisfied. They will lift their chins and proudly say, “Good enough, never is.”That’s not in the Bible, either. But if you read the musical, magical parts of the Bible – I suggest the gospel of John – you will look at yourself in the mirror and smile and say, “Good enough! God likes me just as I am.”Can I, as your older brother, offer you three suggestions?1: Wherever you go, accept people as they are and try to have a good time.2: Whatever you do, do it wholeheartedly and with gusto! And let the outcome be what it is.3: To speak with God, to accept yourself and be content, is the greatest possible wealth.And that, by the way, is in the Bible.Roy H. Williams

The junkyard dogs of the business community are those misfits and mavericks, renegades and rebels, innovators and improvisors who know that traditional wisdom is often more tradition than wisdom.Lee Iacocca was a junkyard dog.The son of an immigrant hot-dog vendor, Iacocca was the visionary who gave us the Ford Mustang. He was later fired by Henry Ford II, a showdog, because Henry II said he didn’t want Iacocca to become CEO. Aware that the time for his own retirement was approaching, Henry II made it clear that he wanted to turn the company over to his son Edsel II, then just 28.After being fired, Iacocca cheerfully went to work at Chrysler where he rescued that company from extinction by inventing the minivan. Later, when he told Chrysler’s head of engineering that he needed a prototype LeBaron convertible to use in a TV ad, the showdog engineer told him how many months it would take to design one. A true dog of the junkyard, Iacocca smiled and said, “Just get a LeBaron and cut the top off. I need it tomorrow.”Focused on the outcome rather than the process, junkyard dogs are always messy.Junkyard dogs worry about accomplishment.Showdogs worry about appearances.When the weather is calm and the water is smooth, the showdog owns the horizon. But when the storm is upon you and people are about to die, you want a junkyard dog at the helm.In 1962, 16-year-old Miguel fled Cuba wearing a jacket his mother had hand-stitched from cleaning rags. He arrived alone in America. “Hamburger” was his only English word. Five years later Miguel married a teenage mother and adopted her 3-year-old son, little Jeffrey Jorgensen. Miguel gave Jeffrey the skill and confidence to survive and thrive. He also gave Jeffrey his proud Cuban name: Bezos. When Junkyard Jeffrey was 30, he borrowed money from friends and family to start a business in the garage of his rented home. He named that business after the largest river in South America. Perhaps you’ve heard of it.As a boy, one of Jeffrey’s heroes was Walt Disney, the fourth of five children in a family so poor that two of his older brothers, sick of the constant work and poverty, ran away when Walt was just 4 years old. When Walt was 16, he tried to join the Navy so that he could serve in WWI but was turned down because of his age. He then tried unsuccessfully to join the Canadian Armed Forces. Finally, he was accepted as a Red Cross ambulance driver.Walt did not have an impressive résumé. Junkyard dogs rarely do.When the war was over, Disney’s first company, Laugh-O-Gram, went bankrupt in Kansas City, so he moved to Hollywood where his first animated series, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, was a big success. Disney lost the rights to that character when his distributor cheated him. So Walt, ever the junkyard dog, started working on another animated character, a mouse. Perhaps you’ve heard of him, too.Disney Studios went on to make Lady and the Tramp, a movie about a showdog princess who falls in love with a junkyard dog. And then they made The Aristocats, a movie about an alley cat named O’Malley who rescues a housecat named Duchess who then falls in love with him. And when we saw The Rescuers a few years later, we all fell in love with a little junkyard girl named Penny when she stood up to the alligators of Madame Medusa.Now that I think about it, has there ever been a successful Disney film that didn’t give us a misfit, junkyard dog to cheer for?For the record, (and I quite literally mean “the record,”) no individual has ever received as many Academy Awards as Walt Disney. In fact, no other person has ever been nominated for as many.I began contemplating today’s memo when I paused the movie, Public Enemies, to transcribe a bit of dialogue between J. Edgar Hoover, that little showdog director of the FBI, and Melvin Purvis, his golden-boy agent who was tasked with bringing the murderous bank robber, John Dillinger, to justice, dead or alive. After Purvis fails repeatedly, he calls J. Edgar Hoover.Hoover: “John Dillinger held up a bank for $74,000 while you failed to arrest (Babyface) Nelson.”Melvin Purvis: “Sir, I take full responsibility. Now, I would like to make a request that we transfer men with special qualifications to augment the staff here in Chicago. There are some former Texas and Oklahoma lawmen currently with the bureau in Dallas.”Hoover: “I thought you understood what I am building; a modern force of professional young men of the best sort.”Melvin Purvis: “I’m afraid our type cannot get the job done.”Hoover: “Excuse me, I cannot hear you.”Purvis: “Our type cannot get the job done.”Hoover: “I cannot hear you.”Melvin Purvis: “Our type cannot get the job done. Without qualified help, I will have to resign this appointment. Otherwise, I’m leading my men to slaughter.”Furious, Hoover sends Charles Winstead (Stephen Lang) a junkyard FBI agent to help Purvis locate and ass

The beagle who lives in the right hemisphere of your brain has an entirely different set of skills than the nerd who lives next door.The beagle in my brain is named Indy. What is the name of the beagle in yours?Your beagle gives you impulsive intuition and instinctive insight. Your beagle gives you romping recklessness, gut feelings and hunches.Your beagle has a bitterly sharp, piercingly beautiful sense of global pattern recognition which triggers the occasional premonition.Poindexter is the nerd who lives in the other half of my brain. He is forever having to push his glasses back onto his nose.What is the name of the nerd in yours?Poindexter uses Google.Indy uses Giggle.My Poindexter is a friend of Mr. Peabody, the smartest person in the world. Do you remember Mr. Peabody and his adopted son, Sherman, from the Rocky and Bullwinkle show? If not, Indy has a video on page 4 of the rabbit hole that will joggle your memory.The interesting thing about Sherman and Mr. Peabody is that Jay Ward reversed their roles. It is the human, Sherman, who is naïve about science, and Peabody, the beagle, that is the uptight nerd who leans on cold deductive reasoning.Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Cold deductive reasoning has its place, but the golden fire of inspiration and the money-green glow of innovation come from that piercingly beautiful sense of pattern recognition that sees the relationships between all the parts.Your intuitive beagle sees what is and isn’t there. And it sees what could be added or left out to make a thing more elegant and beautiful. This fabulous pattern-recognizing beagle lives in the wordless right hemisphere of your brain and it notices more than just visual patterns. It notices patterns of behavior, patterns of history, patterns of music and speech. And it recognizes the shapes of problems and the shapes of their solutions. Shapes are merely patterns. This is why jigsaw puzzles are calisthenics for your beagle. The shapes of the pieces and their patterns of color and the position of each piece on the table as you begin is pattern, times pattern, times pattern, times the number of pieces in the box. (Ray Bard, that was for you.)Your right-brain beagle is the heart and soul of inspiration and innovation, and its only food is play. Reckless, intuitive wandering, that artistic, purposeful wasting of time, that thing you do because you want to, not because you have to. Play is what recharges your batteries. What, for you, is the highest form of play?More importantly, how long has it been since you’ve done it?Go. There you will find your answer.Roy H. Williams

The Genius of What Isn’t ThereJune 1, 2020ListenAThree friends, who have never met each other, all sent me the same advice last week.What makes this convergence particularly interesting is that there was no common trigger. Each of the three messages I received was prompted by something different.The essence of those messages?You’ve got to leave things out.Genius is rarely about what is there.Genius is about what isn’t there.David Freeman is a world-famous coach of fictional character construction. His credentials and accomplishments are staggering. David read in my memo of May 18 that, “I am finally writing that screenplay I’ve been thinking and talking about for 15 years. It’s a buddy movie about a guy with 12 friends. I plan to shoot it in New Orleans next year.” So he sent me an email from Hollywood.“If you’re going to have 12 characters, the traditional wisdom is that 1, 2, 3, 4, and maybe 5 should be far more primary the others. The more characters we’re supposed to know and care about, the less emotion the audience feels because we can’t get deeply invested in any one character if our attention is split between too many. Characters require screen time for us to get emotionally involved with them. The more major characters, the less screen time for each.”According to David, a screenwriter has to choose which characters get fully realized. The others are effectively left out.Stephen Semple is a lifelong student of the sales process. He studies every aspect of persuasion, from advertising to lead generation to product demonstrations to sales presentations. Stephen wrote to me about how reading the transcripts of his Zoom conferences taught him how people speak differently than they write.“We repeat words, finish other people’s sentences, and forget about grammar.”According to Stephen, when highly engaged in an inspired conversation, we leave out much of what we would have written.Tom Grimes is a scholar, a thinker, a philosopher and a friend, and the President Plenipotentiary of the Worldwide Worthless Bastards. Tom owns a booming business, but he is always available to take your phone call or respond to your email. So I asked him what he does all day.Tom replied,“Famous ‘leaders’ are often very noisy people… or they were dealing with a crisis. We sometimes think leadership is about dealing with the aftermath when the sh#t hits the fan. We fail to appreciate that the real objective is to never let the sh#t hit the fan in the first place.One time I was at the water treatment facility of a large manufacturing plant. The place was eerily quiet. When I made the observation that it looked like the staff was doing next to nothing, the head operator explained that the secret to running a facility like his was a stringent Preventive Maintenance program. He said that if you see people running around it meant there was a problem. And the objective of the maintenance team was to prevent problems before they became problems. A quiet place was the sign of a well-run operation.”According to Tom, the secret of being a great leader is to leave out the emergencies.When asked the secret of writing bestselling novels, Elmore Leonard said, “I leave out the parts that people skip.”Impressionistic painters leave out the details, requiring us to supply them from our storehouses of imagination.Talented photographers leave out sections of what they photograph, requiring us to imagine the parts that extend beyond the framelines.When writing ads, if you try to appeal to everyone, you will appeal to no one. You’ve got to choose who to lose.Indy Beagle has some great examples of this in the rabbit hole.He suggests that you hurry. The rabbit is afoot.The adventure has begun.Roy H. Williams

Jaguars and leopards are classified as “Big Cats” (Pantherinae) because they have a U-shaped hyoid apparatus in their throats which gives them the ability to roar. Cheetahs and pumas are just as big as jaguars and leopards, but they are classified as “Small Cats” (Felinae) because their ossified hyoid bones prohibit them from roaring.Among cats, it is your voice that determines your size.But dogs are not like cats. According to Indy Beagle, the size of a dog determines the depth of its voice. You never see a “Little Yapper Dog” (Yapperdus Petitae) with a deep voice, and you never see a “Working Dog” (Woofus Grande) with a squeaky voice.Among dogs, it is your size that determines your voice.But when it comes to people, all of that goes out the window. Big people can have little voices and little people can have big voices.Among people, it is your voice that determines your voice.In review:Among cats, it is your voice that determines your size.Among dogs, it is your size that determines your voice.Among people, it is your voice that determines your voice.But what about books? What determines the voice of a book?In non-fiction writing, “the voice of the book” is essentially the style of the narrator. It is the way the author likes to phrase things. It is syntax, diction, punctuation and vocabulary, as well as the manner in which knowledge is revealed to the reader. The author’s own voice will inform the voice of the book, indicating angle of view, philosophical bent, pride of education, religiosity, rurality, intimacy, mastery, academia, bureaucracy, condescension, insecurity, simple-mindedness, bitterness, mental illness, and wit, or lack thereof.Similes, metaphors, and examples are the literary devices that give us the greatest insight into an author, showing us how he or she sees the world.The voice of a fiction book is a composite of the voices of all its characters, evidenced through their words, actions, and thought patterns.Unlike non-fiction, the narrator’s voice in fiction is often just another created character, giving us little, if any, insight into the mind of the author.Let’s circle back to the voices of people for a moment.Psychiatrists tell us there are four kinds of people who live in fictional, inner worlds.Narcissists tell themselves and others that everyone loves them even though they do not. They want to believe it and so they say it.Pathological liars believe their own lies and will recreate their internal realities to accommodate those lies.Sociopaths and psychopaths never exhibit remorse after lying or hurting others because they are extremely egocentric and lack empathy. The difference between the two is that sociopaths are made but psychopaths are born.Last week I wrote to you about the intense disagreements that can occur when two opposing truths come into conflict.But not all conflict is about truth.“It used to be that your character and your beliefs were what made people look up to you. But now it’s about whether you have a Rolex, a big house, and a Jag in the driveway.”A smiling executive from a prominent advertising agency made that statement to eight of us sitting in a conference room in west Tulsa in 1982. I’ve never forgotten that moment, that statement, or his face, because I was jarred by the fact that he said it in celebration, rather than remorse.The “Me” generation would reach its zenith the following year.I rarely write to you while I am still in the process of distilling my thoughts, but for some reason I decided this week that I would share all the little things that are tumbling around in my mind like socks in the dryer and let you sort those socks into pairs on your own.[If you have been reading carefully, right now you are recalling what I said earlier about how, “Similes, metaphors, and examples are the literary devices that give us the greatest insight into an author, showing us how he or she sees the world.” But to be honest, I’m not entirely sure what this socks-in-the-dryer simile might indicate about me.]John Steinbeck was born one year before the zenith of the previous “Me” generation, so he saw it slowly decline from that zenith as he grew up. Late in his life, John wrote to a close friend,“Do you remember two kinds of Christmases? There is one kind in a house where there is little and a present represents not only love but sacrifice. The one single package is opened with a kind of slow wonder, almost reverence. Once I gave my youngest boy, who loves all living things, a dwarf, peach-faced parrot for Christmas. He removed the paper and then retreated a little shyly and looked at the little bird for a long time. And finally he said in a whisper, ‘Now who would have ever thought that I would have a peach-faced parrot?'””Then there is the kind of Christmas with presents piled high, the gifts of guilty parents as bribes because they have nothing else to give. The wrappings are ri

Q: What do Jesus and the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus have in common?A: Grown-ups told us stories about them when we were children.And then one day we realized the grown-ups had been lying. Yes, they did it because they loved us and they wanted us to be happy, but that didn’t change the fact that they were lying.Some of us were able to separate the stories about Jesus from the stories about the other three, but not all of us. I, myself, continue to believe in Jesus. I choose to believe, “…we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.” (1st John 4:14)But many of my closest friends choose not to believe and I understand that choice. Belief is not rational.But I’m not writing to you today to tell you about my belief in Jesus. I’m writing to talk to you about the difference between your heart and your mind.Your belief in your team is not supported by science. It supported by facts you have chosen to believe, but there are just as many facts that would indicate your team doesn’t have a chance. It doesn’t matter whether your team is the Red State team, the Blue State team, the Chicago White Sox or the Green Bay Packers, each of us chooses the facts to which we cling.But mostly we choose a perspective, a way of looking at things, an angle of view.Belief is not rational, it is heart-felt. Belief is not logical, it is intuitive. But that doesn’t mean it is wrong.Albert’s intuition told him that the energy contained in an object was equal to its mass times the speed of light, times the speed of light. Son-of-a-bitch! He was right! E=MC2 has been demonstrated to be an incontrovertible truth.But not all truth is incontrovertible.Do you believe in love and democracy and patriotism and the American Dream? So do I, but these beliefs are not supported by science. They are supported by selected facts and a ferociously guarded perspective that has been handed down from generation to generation for hundreds of years.Love and Democracy and Patriotism and the American Dream are not science, they are a cultural perspective, a way of looking at things, an angle of view that you and I have chosen.Justice and Mercy are not science, they are two different perspectives. And they often come into conflict.Honesty and Loyalty are not science, they are two different perspectives. And they often come into conflict.Freedom and Responsibility are not science, they are two different perspectives. And they often come into conflict.The voice of Freedom shouts to my mind, “It’s my life, and I can do with it what I choose.”But the voice of Responsibility whispers to my heart, “I should be careful, not for myself, but for all the people I care about, and who care about me.”Explosive issues can always be found at the intersection of two perspectives.I suppose the reason I have these things on my mind right now is because I am finally writing that screenplay that I’ve been thinking and talking about for 15 years.It’s a buddy movie about a guy with 12 friends. I plan to shoot it in New Orleans next year.Roy H. Williams

Admiral Boulevard is the margin of the page in Tulsa.It is that place where a person can do well while doing no good. It is where discipline encounters temptation and good fortune meets bad luck. Admiral Boulevard is the margin Johnny Cash sings about in “I Walk the Line.”The Outsiders – both the book and the movie – take place along Admiral Boulevard. The book has sold more than 14 million copies making it the bestselling young adult novel of all time. Susie Hinton was a junior at Will Rogers High School just 5 blocks south of Admiral Boulevard when she wrote it. She was given a D in creative writing that year.Admiral Boulevard is bordered on the east by the Mingo traffic circle and on the west by the tragic Greenwood District. The six miles between those bookends is what I once described as “the neighborhood of Ponyboy Curtis, an unfiltered assortment of bent automobiles, broken houses and discarded people.”Susie encountered hostility when her book was released in 1967. She says, “I think the first hostile reaction was to the idea that not all teens were living in a ’50s sitcom. People know better nowadays.”Susie is just 9 years older than me, so we know some of the same people. We all grew up with one thing in common; those little teeth nipping at our heels wasn’t a puppy, it was poverty.The once-rich and influential Greenwood District of Tulsa was known as “Black Wall Street” in the years following the presidency of Teddy Roosevelt, but on May 31, 1921, a white mob set fire to hundreds of black-owned businesses and homes, killing 300 Americans and leaving more than 10,000 homeless.Forty square blocks were smoldering when the sun came up the next morning.No one was prosecuted.Susie’s book is about life on the margin of that page in history forty-five years later. The Outsiders is about the tensions between country-club whites and those paycheck-to-paycheck whites like Susie and me.Francis Ford Coppola won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay in 1970 for Patton, and two years later he won three more Oscars for The Godfather. Then he discovered Susie’s book, turned it into a screenplay, gathered up some no-name kids and gave them a chance to become superstars.Tom Cruise, Rob Lowe, Patrick Swayze, Diane Lane, Matt Dillon, Ralph Macchio, Emilio Estevez, and C. Thomas Howell were barely more than children when they made The Outsiders in 1983.Two years later we saw The Breakfast Club, and the following year, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.The Outsiders served as a launchpad for a number of careers and a whole new genre of movies. The ripple effect of a well-told story is staggering.You have a story.Your business has a story.And your future is a story yet to be written.Very soon Daniel Whittington will announce The Ad Writers Masters Class on behalf of the American Small Business Institute. This will be be your chance to write an altogether different future for yourself and the people you love.My thoughts about Susie Hinton and The Outsiders were triggered by something written by Mike Dooley:“The one thing all famous authors, world class athletes, business tycoons, singers, actors, and celebrated achievers in any field have in common is that they all began their journeys when they were none of these things.”Have a golden week.Roy H. Williams

Bart Giamatti was a professor of English Renaissance literature, the president of Yale University, and the Commissioner of Major League Baseball. In less than 3 minutes, Giamatti caused me to understand “home” in a new way. I believe his thoughts on the subject are profoundly insightful.“There is no great, long poem about baseball. It may be that baseball is itself its own great, long poem. This had occurred to me in the course of my wondering why home plate wasn’t called fourth base. And then this came to me, ‘Why not? Meditate on the name, for a moment, ‘home.’’“Home is an English word virtually impossible to translate into other tongues. No translation catches the associations, the mixture of memory and longing, the sense of security and autonomy and accessibility, the aroma of inclusiveness, of freedom from wariness that cling to the word ‘home’ and are absent from ‘house’ or even ‘my house.’ Home is a concept, not a place; it’s a state of mind where self-definition starts. It is origins, a mix of time and place and smell and weather wherein one first realizes one is an original; perhaps like others, especially those one loves; but discreet, distinct, not to be copied. Home is where one first learned to be separate, and it remains in the mind as the place where reunion, if it were ever to occur, would happen.”“All literary romance, all romance epic, derives from The Odyssey and it is about going home. It’s about rejoining; rejoining a beloved, rejoining parent to child, rejoining a land to its rightful owner or rule. Romance is about putting things aright after some tragedy has put them asunder. It is about restoration of the right relations among things. And ‘going home’ is where that restoration occurs, because that’s where it matters most. Baseball is, of course, entirely about going home. And to that extent – and because it’s the only game you ever heard of – where you want to get back to where you started. All the other games are territorial; you want to get his or her territory. But not baseball. Baseball simply wants to get you from here… back around to here.”Bart Giamatti was 20 years older than me.For most of my life, I thought of wisdom as always coming from people older than me. But these days, there aren’t that many people older than me. AIn recent years, I’ve been learning from younger men.I believe my young friend, Shawn Craig Smith, may understand romance epic as well as did Bart Giamatti. In class at Wizard Academy, Shawn wrote, “Prometheus gave man fire, but the power every one of us carries each day, heartbeat by heartbeat, is his story. Come to the circle, bring your spark. We can live as men without fire, but without story, without art, we freeze alone in the cold white waste.”Jonathan Berman travels a lot. He taught me, “Home is not a place, but a feeling of wholeness and contentment you can take with you wherever you go.”Jeff Sexton taught me that not every ad writer gathers all the information and then figures out what parts of it to use and how to organize those parts. Jeff made me understand that lots of great ad writers have a template in mind, and then they search for the information that will satisfy that template.My son Rex taught me that “discovery content” brings new people into contact with your YouTube channel, your blog or other online body of work, and “community content” keeps them coming back again and again after they have discovered you.My son Jacob showed me that people will like and respect you when it becomes obvious that your hard work and attention-to-detail is for their benefit, not yours.Tucker Max taught me that a person can benefit from your experience when you tell them (1.) what happened, (2.) how it made you feel, and (3.) what you learned from it.Tim Miles took the time to tell my son Jacob what a great job he was doing. When I felt ashamed for not having already done it myself, I learned, “No matter how busy you are, when you notice that someone is doing a great job, always take the time to tell them so.”Daniel Whittington, the chancellor of Wizard Academy, taught me how to be funny at the expense of no other person.Joe Davis showed me how to take everything in stride and maintain my composure when troubles are stacking up like firewood.Zac Smith, vice-chancellor of Wizard Academy, showed me the power of passing good things forward so that our students know that we see them, we hear them, and we miss them when they are gone.Ryan Deiss taught me how to trim sprawling ideas onto a manageable template, “then when the student masters the template, they can throw it away and venture beyond its boundaries.”Chris Maddock showed me how the most powerful teaching is to give students personalized feedback about each of their attempts to do what you previously explained.Manley Miller taught me how to turn a small circle of followers into a

A few years ago, Yvon Chouinard was asked, “How do you know if you’re making the right move?He said, “It’s a lot of gut instinct. If you study something to death, if you wait for the customer to tell you what he wants, you’re going to be too late, especially for an entrepreneurial company. That comes from Henry Ford: Customers didn’t want a Model T, they wanted a faster horse.”The last time I checked, Yvon Chouinard’s Patagonia was debt-free and selling $575m per year. I like his track record.I bring up this question of “making the right move” because it’s exactly what every business owner wants to do right now. But how can we know what “the right move” is if we don’t have enough information?In the absence of a crystal ball, let’s begin with the assumption that this virus and the social upheaval that came with it aren’t going to go away all at once.Now let’s speculate about what things might look like in 7 months.It is Thanksgiving Day, 2020. People are still worried about a “second wave” of infections and the unemployment problem hasn’t entirely disappeared, either.Seven months from now when you look back at this moment, what will you be thankful you decided to do TODAY?I’m trying to say… No, what I’m shouting is, “Now is the time for you to tweak your business model.”You and I and everyone else (except maybe Chick-fil-A) is effectively out-of-business because the underlying assumptions that sustained our business models are no longer true. This isn’t just “a moment” that will soon pass, it is a season that will be with us for a number of months, at least.You didn’t want to hear that, and I didn’t want to say it. But it is precisely what you need to hear right now if you’re going to look back in 7 months and be glad of the decisions you made.We are in the early stages of a once-in-a-lifetime change of fortune, and fortunes. This is when the big fish quit eating the small fish. This is when the fast fish eat the slow.If your plan is to “wait it out until everything gets back to normal,” you are in danger of being the slow fish.You’ve got to make it easier for your customer to do business with you. Think big but start small. Start with something you can do TODAY.I have a friend who owns a jewelry store in a town of about 115,000 people. When his state went into lockdown mode, the other 8 jewelry stores sent their people home to “wait it out.” But my friend decided to answer the phone each day, just in case a customer had a need that couldn’t wait until things were “back to normal.” He was laughing when he called me a couple of days ago. “Roy, I’ve sold 4 engagement rings in the past 5 days because of this new, high-tech thing I’m doing called ‘answering the phone.’”WOW 1 DAY PAINTING is one of the new international franchises of Brian Scudamore, the founder of 1-800-GOT-JUNK, the largest privately-owned junk removal service on earth. Prior to the public becoming concerned about Covid-19, WOW 1-DAY PAINTING was doing more interior painting than exterior. It took Brian less than 48 hours to create and distribute a new radio ad for all his franchise partners.James:  WOW 1 DAY PAINTINGBrian: can paint the exterior of your houseJames:  in just [pause] 1 [pause] DAY.  [SFX Magic Sparkle]Brian:  Your next-door-neighbor will drive to the grocery store,James:  and when they get back, [SFX Magic Sparkle]Brian:  your house will be a whole different color!James: Seriously, we are THAT good.Brian:  We can give you a price during a live video chat.James:  You can even PAY over the phone!Brian:  WOW! [SFX Magic Sparkle]James:  1 DAY PAINTINGBrian:  is a precision teamJames:  of professional paintersBrian:  who planJames:  and prepareBrian:  Perfection.James:  Happy painters wearing uniforms!Brian:  Go to WOW 1 DAY dot comNext, WOW 1 DAY PAINTING is going to post all the thousands of available paint colors on their website. But that takes time. Offering to quote a price during a live video chat and allowing customers to pay over the phone are things they could do TODAY.When reinventing your business model, the most important thing to keep in mind is this:“If the Wizard of Ads was wrong, and this virus goes away all at once, and everything goes back to exactly how it used to be, will I still be glad I made the changes I made? Will I have moved my company forward by making it easier for customers to do business with us?”How can you tweak your business model to make it easier for your customer to do business with you? How much of it can you do TODAY? And be sure to do only those things that you should have already done. Take only those actions for which there is no downside in the future.The hardest thing you will ever do is trust y

Meats and vegetables are ordinary, but put them on a stick and it’s Shish Kabob.Frozen Kool-Aid is frozen Kool-Aid; put it on a stick and it’s a popsicle.A marshmallow is one thing, but a marshmallow on a stick means a campfire.A frankfurter is a weenie, but a frankfurter on a stick is a weenie roast.And what are hors d’oeuvres but little pieces of something-on-a-stick?And what is fondue?Put food on a stick and it becomes special. But that only works for food.How does a person become special?You become special by that which holds you captive.You become special when you fall into a gravitational pull.You become special when you orbit something important.A meteor is a rock on fire as it falls to the earth.We call it a shooting star.I have met a number of these.A comet is a slightly larger rock that comes within sight of our planet.Think of it as a meteor on tour.Comets are the definition of fly-by-night.A moon is a planet that orbits a larger one.Moons are important and have names of their own.We write stories about moons and give them great respect.A planet orbits a star.A star is a celestial fire with powerful gravity.Planets and moons and comets orbit celestial fires.God is a fire.Science is a fire.Entertainment is a fire,including all the arts and every form of sport.On a much smaller scale, we see people as comets, moons, planets, and stars.In Wolf Hall, Hillary Mantel’s extraordinary book about the Renaissance, we witness the Tudor saga through the eyes of Thomas Cromwell, an ordinary man who chooses to orbit Cardinal Wolsey and soon becomes an important moon to that planet.Throughout the book, Cromwell’s advice to those he loves is “Arrange your face,” and “Choose your prince.”Cromwell’s advice could be phrased as two questions;“Who will you be?” and “Who will you follow?”An asteroid is a rock that has failed to choose a passion,so it wanders aimlessly in a cold, airless vacuum.A meteor is a rock on fire as it falls to the earth.We call it a shooting star.I have met a number of theseand seen them fall.Every meteor I have ever metthought it was a star.Roy H. Williams

Before we examine the blind spot, let’s stare into the face of the truth for a moment:People don’t bond with a company. People bond with a personality.Apple didn’t wait until they were category-dominant to develop a personality. They had personality in 1984 when they aired their famous SuperBowl ad. They had personality in 1997 when cultural icons in black-and-white photos encouraged us to “Think Different.” They had personality in 2003 when they sold iPods using only dancing silhouettes. And they had personality in 2006 when Justin Long and John Hodgman said, “I’m a Mac,” “And I’m a PC.”Steve Jobs died in 2011.The blind spot in most B2B companies is that they think it isn’t “corporate-ish” to have a personality. This is why B2B marketing is tedious, predictable, and boring.When amateur presenters are onstage, they look polished, professional, poised and plastic, don’t they?Experienced presenters feel spontaneous, extemporaneous, unfiltered and unguarded.Anyone who says, “But B2B is different,” is an amateur presenter.B2B marketers know that people are required to use different criteria when making choices at work than the criteria they use when making choices at home. At work, they’re not free to follow their instincts and “go with their gut.”I do not dispute this.B2B marketers know that when a business sells to a business, the buyer must gather information and make comparisons to defend their decision.I do not dispute this. But that doesn’t mean your advertising has to be plastic, pretentious, and predictable.The purpose of a photograph, illustration, or video thumbnail is to get the customer to read the subject line, headline, or listen to the opening line.The purpose of the opening line is to entice the customer to read the first line of body copy.The job of the first line of body copy is to cause the reader to keep reading, the listener to keep listening, and the viewer to keep viewing.The details the buyer will need to defend their purchase are contained in the body copy.Please don’t tell me you are required to use boring and predictable photographs, illustrations, and video thumbnails simply because your category is B2B.Please don’t tell me you are required to write plastic and pretentious headlines, subject lines and opening lines simply because your category is B2B.The details the buyer will need to defend their purchase are contained in the body copy.Job One is to gain attention and win the heart. This requires personality.Job Two is to deliver the details so that your customer can defend their decision to purchase from you.Job Three is to deposit your profits before they pile so high that you need a tractor to shift them.Now please, for the sake of your future, go write some B2B headlines, subject lines, and opening lines that have some personality.And once you have selected a personality, stick with it. Because this will become the defining characteristic that distinguishes you from your competitors.I’ve been needing to get that off my chest for 25 years.Thanks for listening.Roy H. Williams

The content of your heart is what your heart contains.Are you content? Same spelling, different meaning.We distinguish these words only by the syllable we stress.Words are amazing, don’t you think?If you are content, (satisfied, happy, at peace,) it is because of the content of your heart. If the content of your heart is anxiety, fear, envy and anger, it is difficult to be content.Who determines the content of your heart? Is it you?We can assume, I think, that the content of your heart will be whatever you have chosen to put in it.What have you put in it? Is there anything in there you might want to take out?Sadly, our success-driven culture considers a person who is content to be somehow deficient. We are supposed to be driven, never satisfied, always fighting for more, for better, for higher, am I right?But the golden carrot that is dangled before our donkey eyes is that we might someday be content.Oh, what a cruel master is that bastard with his carrot and his stick!Wait, the bastard is me.Roy H. Williams

We shall pass through this time of uncertainty and emerge as happier people.We will enjoy a renewed sense of the importance of relationships.Our priorities will be altered.Optimism is about staying focused on positive outcomes.I don’t know Andy Bounds but he’s a good friend of Doug Burdon and Doug is a friend of mine.According to Andy Bounds, Walt Disney stayed focused on positive outcomes. When asked if Disneyland could be built, everyone else said, “No, because…” but Walt would always answer, “Yes, if…”Yes, if we get someone else to pay for it.Yes, if we hire the world’s best experts to build it.Yes, if we locate it somewhere that’s hot all year.Yes, if we get transport links.Yes, if…How many questions could we be answering with “Yes, if…”?As I said, optimism is about staying focused on positive outcomes.But optimism isn’t the secret of happiness.The secret of happiness is learning to celebrate the ordinary.No one knew this better than Tom T. Hall.I love little baby ducks, old pick-up trucks, slow movin’ trains…And rain.I love little country streams, sleep without dreams, Sunday school in May…And hay.And I love you, too.I love leaves in the wind, pictures of my friends, birds of the world…And squirrels.I love coffee in a cup, little fuzzy pups, Bourbon in a glass…And grass.And I love you, too.I love honest open smiles, kisses from a child, tomatoes on the vine…And onions.I love winners when they cry, losers when they try, music when it’s good…And life.And I love you, too.How many ordinary things do you love?Wouldn’t this be a great time to celebrate them?Send your list to [email protected] along with a fun photo of yourself. The rabbit hole is a wonderful place to make your writing debut.I love lunch with my friends, wine without end, old travelogues…And dogs.I love castles in the sky, imagination when it flies, Pennie at the Prom…And Mom.And I love you, too.Roy H. Williams

NOTE FROM INDY BEAGLE – After the wizard recorded today’s MMMemo, he recorded a video called Advertising in a Time of Crisis. You should watch it. Now here is today’s memo…One of my heroes, John Steinbeck, twice followed in the footsteps of another of my heroes, Robert Louis Stevenson.Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes is a travelogue written by RLS in 1878.The Sea of Cortez is the travelogue of Steinbeck about an ocean journey embarked upon with his friend Ed Ricketts, on whose life he based the character of “Doc” in Cannery Row. Steinbeck’s other travelogue is Travels with Charley, the diary of his final journey across America in 1962, when he knew he was dying.Travelogues are books without a plot, books whose only purpose is to celebrate the art of great writing.Here are a few of my favorite passages from each of those 3 books.“A faint wind, more like a moving coolness than a stream of air, passed down the glade from time to time; so that even in my great chamber the air was being renewed all night long… I have not often enjoyed a more serene possession of myself, nor felt more independent of material aids. The outer world, from which we cower into our houses, seemed after all a gentle and habitable place; and night after night a man’s bed, it seemed, was laid and waiting for him in the fields, where God keeps an open house.”– Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes, p. 90 – 91“Ten minutes after, the sunlight spread at a gallop along the hillside, scattering shadows and sparkles, and the day had come completely. I hastened to prepare my pack, and tackle the steep ascent that lay before me; but I had something on my mind. It was only a fancy; but a fancy will sometimes be importunate. I had been most hospitably received and punctually served in my green caravanserai. The room was airy, the water excellent, and the dawn had called me to a moment. I say nothing of the tapestries or the inimitable ceiling, nor yet of the view which I commanded from the windows; but I felt I was in someone’s debt for all this liberal entertainment. And so it pleased me, in a half-laughing way, to leave pieces of money on the turf as I went along, until I had left enough for my night’s lodging. I trust they did not fall to some rich and churlish drover.”– Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes, p. 94“A still clear light began to fall, and the trees on the hillside were outlined sharply against the sky… and looking up, I was surprised to see the cloud dyed with gold. In these high regions of the air, the sun was already shining as at noon. If only the clouds travelled high enough, we should see the same thing all night long. For it is always daylight in the fields of space… A few steps farther, and I saw a whole hillside gilded with the sun; and still a little beyond, between two peaks, a center of dazzling brilliancy appeared floating in the sky, and I was once more face to face with the big bonfire that occupies the kernel of our system.”– Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes, p. 132Inspired by Stevenson, Steinbeck picked up the pen 62 years later.“One thing impressed us deeply on this little voyage: the great world dropped away very quickly. We lost the fear and fierceness and contagion of war and economic uncertainty. The matters of great importance we had left were not important.”– Sea of Cortez, p. 210“Out in the bay the pelicans were fishing, flying along and then folding their wings and falling in their clumsy-appearing dives, which nevertheless must be effective, else there would be no more pelicans.”– Sea of Cortez, p. 193“The use of euphemism in national advertising is giving the hangover a bad name. ‘Over-indulgence’ it is called. There is a curious nastiness about over-indulgence. We would not consider over-indulging. The name is unpleasant, and the word ‘over’ indicates that one shouldn’t have done it. Our celebration had no such implication. We did not drink too much. We drank just enough, and we refuse to profane a good little time of mild inebriety with that slurring phrase ‘over-indulgence.’ There have been very few immortals who did not love wine; offhand we cannot think of any and we do not intend to try very hard.”– Sea of Cortez, p. 198“The Western Flyer hunched into the great waves toward Cedros Island, the wind blew off the tops of the whitecaps, and the big guy wire, from bow to mast, took up its vibration like the low pipe on a tremendous organ. It sang its deep note into the wind.”– The ending his travelogue, Sea of Cortez, p. 271Twenty-two years after, Steinbeck wrote his final travelogue.“As he sat in the seat beside me, his head was almost as high as mine. He put his nose close to my ear and said ‘Ftt.’ He is the only dog I ever knew that could pronounce the consonant F.”– Travels with Charley “My town had grown and chan

Perhaps you’ve noticed that fewer couples are choosing to get married. This decline in the marriage rate has been slow, but it is a cultural shift that makes me uneasy.The first reason for my uneasiness is that I believe marriage is more than a piece of paper. Something wonderful happens when a couple embraces a legal alteration of their separate identities to become partners for life. Marriage is a serious commitment, not easily undone.Princess Pennie and I have been married for 43 years. “For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health.” I believe everyone should marry their best friend and face life together as partners.Our belief in marriage is such that 15 years ago we gave the world a free wedding chapel that hangs off the edge of a cliff on the outskirts of Austin, Texas. As couples approach the chapel, they literally turn from the path they were walking to step off the edge together. Standing in the air, they become legally united.Chapel Dulcinea hosts more than 1,000 free weddings a year.The second reason for my uneasiness is that I have been writing ads to help jewelers sell engagement rings for 33 years. Any jeweler who does what I’m about to describe is going to make a blistering fortune. Believe me, I know the diamond business as well as anyone in the world. I have Martin Rapaport’s private cell phone number on speed dial.Jewelers no longer form a major part of my ad-writing business, but I love the work and feel a deep connection to it.2019 seems to have been an inflection point.I have spoken to more than 100 jewelers in the past 90 days and each has reported that their opportunities to sell engagement rings declined by about 9 percent in 2019. But they happily report that the size of the average purchase increased by enough to offset the declining sales opportunities, so their topline didn’t suffer. Fewer than 10 of these 100 engagement ring stores were my clients, but my clients are notable because they are among the largest and strongest in America.Reservations to book Chapel Dulcinea declined by 9 percent as well. And it’s free.A few weeks ago, I woke up with an astoundingly simple, big idea. My goal for 2020 is to see every jeweler in the world embrace this idea in a worldwide celebration of marriage. The best way to explain the idea is to let you read this short ad-segment I am giving to jewelers everywhere. This information can be inserted into an infinite number of ads. Just give this segment an opening and a closing and watch what will begin to happen in just a few short months.YOUNG:  You’ll find the diamond of your life at­­­­­­­­ [name of store.]OLDER: We have tremendous values on BIG Anniversary Diamonds.YOUNG: What’s an “Anniversary Diamond?”OLDER: An Anniversary Diamond is at least twice as big as the one in her engagement ring.YOUNG: Why twice as big?OLDER: [Calls the younger person by his/her first name,] every diamond makes a statement.YOUNG: Okay, what does an Anniversary Diamond say?OLDER: It says, “I love you twice as much today as the day you married me.”YOUNG: I like this!OLDER: [Location details]The limiting factor in the engagement ring diamond is that it is “one-and-done.” But a woman can have a whole collection of Anniversary Diamonds. Moreover, less than 2% of our population gets engaged each year. Now compare that to the percentage of America that is already married.The potential for anniversary diamonds is at least as big as the potential for engagement rings and probably a great deal bigger.The key to this idea is NOT to try to “merchandise” the anniversary diamond by mounting it in a specific piece of jewelry. This is the mistake that DeBeers has made for decades. “Anniversary Diamond” is a category, a concept, an idea, a blank to be filled in by the customer. How she decides to mount her anniversary diamond is up to her, or up to her partner if that is what the partner chooses. The thing to remember is that it is NOT up to the jeweler.Pennie and I were married with a 1/3 carat diamond. If I give her a 2-carat anniversary diamond, I get to say, “I love you 6 times as much as the day you married me.”Maybe she’ll put the 2-carat in her original engagement ring mounting. Maybe she’ll have a custom ring made for it. Maybe she’ll wear it as a pendant and choose a mounting and chain. Maybe she’ll attach it to a long needle and wear it as a hat pin. Maybe her two carats will be a matched pair of 1-carat diamond stud earrings. When people comment on those earrings, she can say, “These are my anniversary diamonds. Roy said they were 6 times as big as my engagement diamond because he loves me 6 times as much as the day he married me.”How she wears her anniversary diamond doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is that she knows for certain how much I love her.Now that I think about it, Pennie’s anniversary diamond is going to have

A contrast of opposites is the foundation of effective communication.A thing cannot exist without its opposite.But opposites aren’t always easy to detect.As an example, the opposite of “freedom” isn’t really “slavery,” because slavery no longer exists in our society like it did 160 years ago. We need to contrast freedom with something experiential, something we have all felt.Responsibility is the opposite of freedom for most of us. As responsibility is increased, freedom is decreased. We’ve known this since the late Renaissance.“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” (1659)Today’s tug-of-war is not between freedom and slavery, but between freedom and responsibility. But what are the attractions at the ends of the rope? We could argue that freedom is its own reward, but what is the reward for responsibility?Purpose is the reward for responsibility.Life is a search for identity, purpose, and adventure.Identity: Who am I?Purpose: Why am I here?Adventure: What must I overcome?Are you familiar with the boredom of the idle rich? They spend extravagant amounts of money to create the illusion of adventure, but it never really pays off. They can sense the truth of the second half of that saying from 1659, even if they have never read it:“All play and no work makes Jack a mere toy.”A lifetime of hollow, false adventures is the price paid by the idle rich for having accepted no responsibilities and having found no purpose.A loss of freedom is the price of responsibility, but purpose is its reward, whether that responsibility is entrusted to us by someone in authority, or we choose it for ourselves.When you embrace responsibility, you find purpose.And when you determine what you must overcome, you find adventure.Roy H. Williams

Twenty-one years ago I got a phone call from my publisher, Ray Bard. “Roy, a man in Denver just bought 350 copies of your book from a bookstore in Denver and then faxed the receipt to my office with a question scribbled on it.”“What was the question?” I asked.“He wrote, ‘Is this enough for you to arrange a meeting with the author?’”A couple of weeks later, the man arrived in Austin and we spent a day talking about every subject on earth. I was glad I met him.That night, Pennie asked, “What does he do for a living?”That’s when it occurred to me that I knew almost nothing about the man’s personal life because every time I asked him a question about himself, he would take our conversation in a new direction.A few days later I received an email from my mysterious friend. “Cancel whatever plans you have for March 10 and be in the Grand Ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria in New York at 7:00 PM. Trust me.”We had no idea what we were walking into, but Pennie and I decided it would be a fun adventure, so we flew to New York.A small army of security men stood guard at the doors of the Grand Ballroom as hundreds of tuxedos and long-gloved evening gowns flowed like water across the lobby.We were given a small book with twelve hundred names listed in alphabetical order. It was a seating chart.Barlett, Donald L. – TIMEBehar, Richard – FORTUNEBloomberg, Michael – Bloomberg NewsBrady, Ray – CBSThrough the open doorway I saw an arctic plateau of crystal stemware and white china on snow-white tablecloths.Pennie placed her finger in a precise spot on page nine. “This is the place where our names should have been.”We stared at that spot for a long time and waited for our names to magically appear alongside a table number. An insert fell from the booklet onto the floor. I picked it up. It was a note from Bill Clinton, President of the United States.“Pennie,” I whispered, “I just realized something.”She looked at me. I continued.“There was no salutation on that email. It didn’t say, ‘Dear Roy and Pennie.’ It just started with the words, ‘Meet me.’”Pennie had a question mark in her eyes.“I think he clicked my email address by mistake.”Everyone else was in the ballroom now and we, conspicuously, were not.Pennie smiled and said, “No problem, we’ll go have a nice dinner and then have a few days of fun in New York.” Not wanting to attract attention to ourselves, we began moving quietly toward the door that led onto the street. That’s when we heard a shout.“Pennie? Roy?”We froze like we’d been hit with a spotlight while trying to sneak over a prison wall. With all my heart I expected him to say, “What are you doing here?” But what he said was, “Did you have a good flight?”Before we could reply, the air sang the song of a wine glass being struck repeatedly by a butter knife. That’s when our friend grabbed Pennie’s hand and said, “Follow me.”He led us to a table on the stage where the trophies were to be presented. It was like sitting onstage during the Academy Awards. Pennie and I were the guests of honor at a dinner party Roving Reporter Rotbart was throwing for all his journalist friends. The next year he threw his party on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange and the year after that it was at NASDAQ.Twenty-one years later, when his daughter Avital needed to design a book for her senior thesis in college, I happily volunteered to let her prepare our long-overdue guidebook, Secrets of the Wizard Academy Campus.We will be distributing copies during our extravaganza on May 2nd. The roving reporter says he’s planning to be there.Are you?Roy H. Williams

Richard Kessler built one of the most famous stores in America.You might remember his name from the Monday Morning Memo about origin stories published on March 20, 2017. Here is Kessler’s origin story in a 60-second radio ad:My Dad was a house painter. He taught me to sand and scrape paint until my fingers were aching and raw. But I wanted to make him proud, so I always worked hard. I’ll never forget the day we opened our brown bags at lunch time and he said, “Son. I’m proud of how hard you work, but I hope that someday you’ll get a job where you can wear a tie.” And because I wanted to make him proud, I decided to open a jewelry store. I watched as my Dad took his last seven hundred dollars out of his sock drawer to help me get started. But he never got to see that store.  He died just before it was open. I lived on wieners and beans for the next 11 years until I finally figured it out:  Lose the tie… And be a regular guy just like your Dad.  That’s when things turned around for me. I’ve been sharing the story of that 700 dollars with young entrepreneurs in High Schools and Colleges for years. America’s newest and best Kesslers Diamond Center is about to open in front of Cabela’s next to the Rivertown Mall in Grandville. I’m Richard Kessler, and I’m hoping to become your jeweler.Richard Kessler is a celebrity in his hometown of Milwaukee, with 50% of the population of that city having heard at least 3 of his radio ads every week, fifty-two-weeks in a row, for the past 30 years. Richard’s daughter, Monica, was his sidekick on the radio for 5 years, then became the principal voice of the Kesslers ad campaign when Richard retired.But Richard Kessler also has a son.Hi, I’m Rob Kessler, yeah that Kessler, son of Richard and brother to Monica. I invented a new kind of shirt that makes guys look fantastic.  You’ll see what I mean the moment you look in the mirror after trying one on. “Wow! Is that me?” And you can try one on right now at Harleys Menswear. My company is called goTieless and your new shirt has my patented, Million Dollar Collar. Shirt-makers all over the world are trying to license the Million Dollar Collar, but I’m not sure I want to do that. But I AM sure I want you to see yourself in the mirror wearing one. Average dress shirts were designed to be worn with a tie.  goTIELESS shirts are designed to make you look like you’ve been spending time in the gym. Seriously, go to Harleys Menswear and try one on and look in the mirror.  WOW!! My website is goTIELESS dot com. You’re going to look AMAZING in the casual dress shirts I designed for you.  goTIELESS dot com. Dad says “Hi” by the way.  For real.  goTIELESS dot com.Line 1: Introduce the unknown and unfamiliar by relating it to the known and familiar. “Hi, I’m Rob Kessler, yeah that Kessler, son of Richard and brother to Monica.”Line 2: Replace predictable words with unexpected words that mean the same thing.Not “I designed a shirt…” but, “I invented a shirt…” Also, bring the customer into the picture by saying “…that makes guys look FANTASTIC.”Line 3: Amplify the customer’s curiosity by putting them squarely in the center of the picture you’re painting. “You’ll see what I mean the moment you look in the mirror after trying one on. ‘Wow! Is that me?’”Line 4: Cause the customer to imagine themselves taking the action you want them to take. “And you can try one on right now at Harleys Menswear.”Line 5a: Introduce the domain name you need them to remember, then answer the question that lurks in the mind of the listener: What did Rob Kessler invent that makes guys look fantastic? “My company is called goTIELESS and your new shirt has my patented, Million Dollar Collar.”Line 5b: Transfer ownership of the shirt by referring to it as “your new shirt,” rather than “my new shirt.” This is another way of causing the customer to imagine themselves taking the action you want them to take.Line 6: Establish third-party credibility, “Shirt-makers all over the world are trying to license the Million Dollar Collar…” then let the customer get a glimpse into your heart by saying, “but I’m not sure I want to do that.” Those nine words signal that making money is not your principal objective. Line 7: Now close the loop on this set of paired opposites. Not sure/AM sure. “…But I AM sure I want you to see yourself in the mirror wearing one.” This line also contains the seventh and eighth times you’ve caused the customer to imagine himself taking the action you want him to take.1 ….makes guys look fantastic2. You’ll see what I mean…3. …you look in the mirror…4. … “Wow! Is that me?”5. … you can try one on right now…6. … your

My friend has been important to me for 6 or 7 years.I had no idea that he had any money until about 3 years ago.My friend is a professional gambler.No, he doesn’t gamble on green felt tables with cards or dice. He gambles on NASDAQ and the New York Stock Exchange.“Oh, he’s an investor,” you say.“No, I’m a highly informed gambler,” he responds.My friend wins 7 out of every 8 bets and makes about $100,000 a week.No, I won’t give you his name and it wouldn’t do you any good if I did. He won’t share any tips with you or me or anyone else and he certainly doesn’t need our money. He is a lone wolf hunting a lone wolf’s prey.My gambling friend doesn’t embrace traditional stock market wisdom but calculates the size of his bets according to his degree of confidence using the Kelly Criterion, an obscure formula used by professional gamblers since 1956.I, too, am a professional gambler who determines the size of his bets according to the degree of his confidence. But I don’t gamble my money on the stock market. I gamble my client’s money on ad campaigns.My ads make millions of dollars a week, but I don’t get to keep the money. It goes to the people who believed in my methods.Investors don’t like to think of themselves as gamblers. That’s why so many of them lose. The same is true of advertisers. Investors and advertisers like to believe they are scientists.Investors fall in love with stocks.Advertisers fall in love with media.Gamblers love only the dance.My friend taught me that.He and I agree that traditional wisdom is usually more tradition than wisdom. Do you agree with us?If you do, here are a few of those non-traditional thoughts about advertising that have been responsible for those millions of dollars a week.Your choice of media doesn’t make your ad perform. Your ad makes your choice of media perform. So be careful not to count on “reaching the right people.” Instead, be careful to say the right things.If you win the heart, the mind will follow. The intellect will always create logic to justify what the heart has already decided.Don’t try to “educate the customer,” believing they would choose you, “if only they understood.” Talk about something they already care about. Speak to a felt need.If you win the heart, the mind will follow. The intellect will always create logic to justify what the heart has already decided.If you try to reach the right person at the right time with the right message, you will forever be frustrated with feast-and-famine results. But if you reach the masses with a memorable message long before they need you, and continue to reach them until they do, you will be the person they think of immediately and feel the best about.If you win the heart, the mind will follow. The intellect will always create logic to justify what the heart has already decided.If you have a product with a short purchase cycle (like food and entertainment,) you can expect quick results to your advertising. But if you have a product with a long purchase cycle, you need to prepare yourself for dismal results at first, but those results will get better and better when your ad campaign finally gets traction.If you win the heart, the mind will follow. The intellect will always create logic to justify what the heart has already decided.Entertainment is the only currency with which you can purchase the time and attention of a too-busy public.Without an element of surprise, there can be no delight.Repetition is effective. Repetition is effective. Repetition is effective.If you win the heart, the mind will follow. The intellect will always create logic to justify what the heart has already decided.If you want to read some fascinating case histories, take a look at this new blog.And never forget that you are, in fact, gambling.Roy H. Williams

The first obelisk was a stone pillar with a tapered top created by the ancient Egyptians to honor the sun god.It is a finger, pointing to the sky.The Roman army carried Egyptian obelisks back to Rome as a sign of their power over that nation.The Vatican uncovered a buried Egyptian obelisk five hundred years ago and placed it in St. Peter’s Square as a sign of Catholicism’s victory over paganism. “Our God is better than your gods.”Modern obelisks are erected as memorials of people, events, and accomplishments.But the obelisk that interests me most is a jagged dagger of rock that rises eighteen hundred and forty-four feet above the surface of the ocean. This arrow to the sky has been known as Ball’s Pyramid since 1788, even though it was countless centuries old when Henry Ball’s mother gave birth to him.It never really belonged to Ball; he just discovered it.I think we put our names on things because we want to be remembered, but that doesn’t really work. Ben White and William Cannon are two famous boulevards in the city where I live, but I’ve never met anyone who could tell me who those men were or what they did.My friend Tom Grimes once wrote me an email that said,“Nobody other than a handful will think about us 15 minutes after we check out permanently. And when you realize how insignificant you really are, you are free to experience the world the way it is supposed to be experienced. One moment at a time. And that ‘This Day’ is ‘The Day.’”I think Tom is right. Our lives aren’t measured by one big accomplishment, but by all the little things we do and say. Every person is given, at birth, a colorful imagination and a tongue for a brush.Splashes of color are left on our lives by every person we encounter.And how we do love those people who paint in our hearts a bright finger of encouragement, pointing toward the sky!What will you paint today?Roy H. Williams

It takes four people to make a world.One person wants acceptance.They hope to save the relationship.Under pressure, they acquiesce.One person wants accuracy.They hope to save face.Under pressure, they avoid.One person wants applause.They hope to save effort.Under pressure, they attack.One person wants accomplishment.They hope to save time.Under pressure, they become autocratic.When I was taught these things 40 years ago, I didn’t know what ‘autocratic’ meant, but I knew I was the fourth person, the ‘autocratic’ one focused on accomplishment.Impediments and incompetence annoy me, and I see no value in committees.In case you didn’t know, that last statement was autocratic. AAutocrats are socially awkward, but we are good at making things happen. If you want to get something done, put an autocrat in charge. If they need a friend, they’ll buy a dog.If you want acceptance, you will try to win those people who do not believe in your dream.If you want accuracy, you will study and plan and update your plan again and again.If you want applause, you will talk to the people who admire you.If you want accomplishment, you will leap to the challenge and deal quickly and directly with impediments and incompetence. This is what it means to be a weasel slapper.Monkey farmers see a problem and embrace it, form a bond with it, try to understand it, then carry that monkey on their back. This monkey attracts other monkeys. Are you beginning to see the problem?I said, “Autocrats are socially awkward, but we are good at making things happen.” But the things we make happen aren’t always good. This is why the other three people are so important.The one who wants acceptance will make sure customers love your company and your employees never want to leave it.The one who wants accuracy will make sure the bills are paid and that you never get in trouble with the IRS or with any other regulatory agency.The one who wants applause will make sure everyone has heard of you.By yourself, you are just a lone nut charging a windmill with a lance.Would we have ever heard of Don Quixote if there had been no Sancho Panza?Would we have ever heard of Steve Jobs if there had been no Wozniak?Would we have ever heard of ‘Look at Me’ Paul McCartney without brooding, negative John Lennon? Could Lennon and McCartney have been The Beatles without sardonic George Harrison and ‘I Love Everyone’ Ringo Starr?It takes four people to make a world.Anyone who thinks they can do it all alone…is going to find themselves…all alone.Roy H. Williams

Thomas Mann, the winner of the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature, said, “A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.”I agree with Thomas Mann. Having logged more than 39,000 hours of writing during the past 30 years, I can say with confidence that no sane person fights quite so fiercely or so long to find exactly the right word as does the writer. And to hear a word used inappropriately causes the ear to itch like a mosquito bite.My warm heart overflows with hope that you will find the next few paragraphs to be instructive, insightful, and illuminating, but my cold and calculating mind suspects that you will find these paragraphs to be mildly comical, at best.If you were to choose to quit reading right now, I would understand.Oh, my. You’re still here.I suppose I should begin.I was contemplating my admiration of 86-year-old Carol Burnett when I realized that she is probably the most active and vibrant of the female television stars of the late 1960’s.When I Googled “female television stars of the 1960s” I was surprised to see that virtually every website included not just the female television stars, but the female movie stars, as well.“Is there a difference?” you ask.Yes, there is a difference. Television stars are famous for their television shows. Movie stars are famous for their movies. And sex symbols are famous for their sex appeal. Famous sex symbols of that era include Barbara Eden in “I Dream of Jeannie,” and Donna Douglas as Ellie Mae Clampett in “The Beverly Hillbillies,” who served as the prototype for another hillbilly sex symbol, Daisy Duke, played by Catherine Bach eight years later on “The Dukes of Hazzard.”Television Star, Movie Star, and Sex Symbol are three different designations, although it is possible for one person to be all three.I confess that I am equally distressed by the rampant misuse of the word, “mentor.”People often tell me about their “mentors,” and then proceed to list people whose work influenced and inspired them, even though none of those “mentors” interacted with them directly, or even knew that they were alive. If we want to be accurate, we will say that the work of such a person influenced us and inspired us, but we will not go so far as to call them our “mentor.”If a person is your mentor, you are their apprentice, their protégé. A person is your mentor when they take an interest in you and devote a meaningful amount of time and energy into your future.Lucille Ball did far more than influence and inspire Carol Burnett. She actively mentored Carol until April 26, 1989.On Carol Burnett’s 56th birthday, she woke up to hear the news that her longtime friend and mentor, Lucille Ball, had died unexpectedly.Carol was devastated.Several hours later, there was a knock on her door. Carol Burnett opened the door to see a delivery man holding a huge bouquet of flowers with a note that said, “Happy Birthday, Kid. Love, Lucy.”Thirty years later, Carol cannot speak of it without crying.Roy H. Williams

Good decisions come from experience.Experience comes from bad decisions.Bad decisions aren’t made because a person is stupid. Bad decisions are often the result of logic.The first thing experience will teach you is, “Not everything logical is true.”Logic among advertising professionals says, “Always target the right customer.” But if you embrace that premise,you will gravitate to online marketing because it allows you to reach specific types of people, track results, gather data, and hold your ad budget accountable.you will spend too much money to reach too few people.you will see your advertising efficiency decrease, not increase, as you grow.you will fail to become widely known.Alex Iskold is not an advertising professional. Alex blogs about startups and venture capital as the Managing Director of Techstars. He was previously the founder and CEO of Information Laboratory, which was acquired by IBM, and Chief Architect at DataSynapse, which was acquired by TIBCO.In other words, Alex is a tech guy.His home page bio says “An engineer by training, Alex has deep passion and appreciation for startups, digital products and elegant code. He likes running, yoga, complex systems, Murakami books and red wine. Not necessarily in that order and not necessarily all together. He blogs about startups and venture capital at http://alexiskold.net ”Recently, he wrote,“2019 was the year when VCs and startup founders soured on paid acquisition. Contrary to what most thought a few years back, CAC (Cost of Acquiring a Customer) didn’t go down as many D2C (Direct-to-Consumer) startups scaled. The costs instead went up.”“The explosion of D2C brands and mega rounds of funding led to massive amounts of capital deployed into advertising. All this cash flooded Facebook, Instagram and other social channels, and bid up the costs of Google ads. We’ve heard that these channels have become saturated, and that the companies are seeing diminishing returns on spending additional advertising dollars.”“We also heard that consumer’s attention has become fragmented and that, combined with increasing competition for eyeballs from the brands and saturation of the channels, has led to increases in CAC (Cost of Acquiring a Customer).”“While all of this is absolutely true, this is only 1/2 of the story.”“Why startups struggle to scale: The reality is that unless you have strong word of mouth, you are forced to spend money to grow your customer base. And that relationship between the spend and the growth is linear. The more you spend on marketing and advertising the more customers you get. On the surface it sounds great, but if and when you dial down your spend – your growth stops.”Mass media includes television, radio, and outdoor, each of which is shockingly affordable when compared to the cost of paid, online advertising.I have a number of friends who own large, online companies that sell millions of dollars per month – Direct to Consumer – around the world. The average brick-and-mortar business invests 5% to 10% of topline sales into advertising. My buddies who own D2C online companies are spending 30% to 35%.The logical criticism of mass media is best summarized in a statement that has been aimed at me hundreds of times by promoters of online targeting, “You’re using a shotgun, but I’m using a rifle with a scope.”But the shotgun vs. rifle argument assumes that the costs are reasonably equal. But the simple truth is that you can reach thousands of untargeted people for the price of one, targeted person. And among those thousands of untargeted influencers will be not just one, but several of the people you would have targeted. The familiarity you win and the reputation you gain and the word-of-mouth you trigger by reaching all those untargeted influencers will be yours at no extra charge.But if you leverage your budget into local, mass media,you will feel certain that you’ve made a mistake during the early months when you’re not seeing significant results.you will experience a time when your rocket ship finally begins accelerating, if you don’t chicken out. We call this window “breakthrough.”you will see your advertising efficiency increase, year after year, as you grow.you will become widely known.The voice of experience says, “If you want to be the one customers think of immediately and feel the best about, use mass media to reach the masses. But be sure to tell an interesting and memorable story.”You’ve heard me say all this before, right? But the truth is always a paradox.And the other side of the truth about the wonderful efficiency of mass media is that sometimes it isn’t a fit for what you need to accomplish.I just approved a plan to use geofencing and geotargeting to reach the people in a specific group of buildings in the downtown area of a major city. Surprised? The cost of mass media in that city was beyond the limitations of our budget, so we’re moving ahead with a highly targeted online campaign.It’s the only way we can shrink the

My most successful ads in 2019 were the ones where I refrained from using logic, but chose instead to speak to the unconscious mind.Advertise your product to the conscious mind of a customer and you will likely be met with doubt, disinterest, and suspicion. But the unconscious mind greets you with none of these.Speaking to the unconscious is not nearly so complicated as it sounds.Here’s a recent example. A big jewelry store asked for an ad that would trigger interest in their custom-design department. The instructions I was given were typical of the instructions received by most ad writers: “Custom Designed Jewelry – Our jeweler can make just about anything from custom engagement rings, wedding bands, pendants, etc. – Let us know if you need more information about our services.”These were the thoughts that ran through my head:Custom-designed jewelry is the answer to a question that few people are asking. Consequently, it is not a felt need.But plenty of people would love to a have a distinctive, one-of-a-kind, “signature” piece of jewelry.If I speak directly to the issue by describing how “our talented designers can design distinctive, one-of-a-kind, signature pieces of jewelry for any special occasion… custom engagement rings, wedding bands, pendants, whatever you like,” people are just going to groan and roll their eyes because they will be seeing nothing in their mind, and experiencing no associative memories.Therefore, I’m going to have to come at this from an unusual angle and attempt to trigger positive, associative memories in the unconscious. (An associative memory is a memory that is linked to another memory.) If I am successful, these associative memories will inspire the curiosity of the customer to begin considering possible options.Here is the 30-second script that sprang from those musings:ROY:  Watermelon green and red,SARAH: Honey gold,ROY:   Tart lemon yellow.SARAH: Apricot orange.ROY:  Blueberry blue.SARAH: Mulberry purple.ROY:  And the pink of a perfect peach.SARAH:  All the colors of nature can be found in gemstones.ROY:   Choose a twinkling tintSARAH:   or a shimmering shadeROY:  as your own, signature colorSARAH:  to sparkle forever in your one-of-a-kindROY:   custom-designedSARAH:   jewelry.ROY: All the colors of wildflowersSARAH: glimmering and shimmering in the morning sun, are yours…ROY: at NAME OF STORE, LOCATION© Roy H. Williams, 2020People who hear that ad will ask themselves, “What would my signature color be?” And without intending to, they will begin imagining a custom-designed piece of jewelry.Few of these people, if any, will consciously consider that each of the colors named in the ad has a flavor, or that the yellow mentioned was “tart,” or that it followed “honey.” Honey and lemon is a famously soothing combination.Likewise, few will notice the mesmerizing rhythm of the two voices finishing each other’s sentences. This is known among writers as “meter,” and it is how the written and spoken language becomes musical.Colors, flavors, and music speak to the unconscious mind and trigger rich, positive associations.How does one resist a field of wildflowers glimmering and shimmering in the morning sun?“What do fruits and wildflowers have to do with selling custom jewelry?” you ask.“Everything,” I answer.Everything.Roy H. Williams

1: You are the product of your genetic code, hardwired to behave in certain ways.2: You are the product of your environment, the sum total of your influences.3: You are the product of your choices. It is your preferences, not your surroundings, that define you.I believe it is a mistake to cling too tightly to any of these 3 ideas. Each of them is true, I think, but not to the exclusion of the other two.The first explanation of you – DNA – is biological.The second explanation of you – Environment – is sociological.The third explanation of you – Choice – is theological.You don’t get to choose your DNA.You don’t get to choose how or where you spend your early childhood years.You do get to choose what you do next.I say these things to you because you are staring into the mirror of a brand-new year; so new that you can still smell the vinyl upholstery.I see your future clearly. Shall I tell you about it?Things will happen to you that are beyond your control. A few of these will be bad. But why worry? They are beyond your control. You have no power to change these things, no matter how well you worry. “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.”– Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, from his book, Meditations, published in 200 A.D.“True happiness is to enjoy the present without anxious dependence on the future.”– Lucius Annaeus Seneca, (4 B.C. – 65 A.D.)Yes, things will happen to you that are beyond your control. But most of these will be good things. Do not take them for granted, but anchor yourself in these daily moments of serendipity. Let them speak to you of the joy of living:You will step outside just in time to see the afternoon sky melt into the red, orange and gold of autumn leaves.You will be contacted by an old friend you had been thinking about calling.You will have the opportunity to play with a puppy.You will order a dish you’ve never had and be amazed at the interplay of flavors and spices.You will be paid a true compliment by a stranger.You will be given the opportunity to make a big difference in the life of someone else, and it will be within your power to say, “Yes.”You will look into the face of an infant, and it will smile at you.You will discover a short-cut that saves you time and trouble.You will talk to empty air and know that you have been heard.You will have a happy, new year.These good things, and many hundreds of others like them, are waiting for you, just ahead.Roy H. Williams

I want you to be in Austin on May 2nd if you can.The Princess has chosen the perfect location for The House of Bilbo Baggins, and there’s a chance we may have something for you to see when you get here.We have also begun construction on The Village of the Lost Boys and we ought to have the first two of the cabins in that village mostly completed by then.You remember The Lost Boys from Peter Pan, don’t you? Peter tells Wendy about them in chapter 3 of his glittering 1904 novel.“They are the children who fall out of their perambulators when the nurse is looking the other way.”“Are none of them girls?”“Oh, no; girls are much too clever to fall out of their prams.”May 2nd will be the 20th Anniversary of the birth of Wizard Academy.In the year 2000, classes were held in the attic of our offices in Buda.In 2001, we appropriated the little one-room building next door that was originally built as a gym for the employees of Williams Marketing.In 2004, Princess Pennie located and purchased the plateau across which our sprawling little campus is now draped.The 6 cabins in The Village of the Lost Boys will raise the number of on-campus rooms to 24, but with a second bed in the loft of each cabin, we will theoretically be able to sleep 30.And 30 people, ladies and gentlemen, is a very packed Eye of the Storm.Did you know that The Eye of the Storm classroom and lecture hall in the tower was built by Tim Storm? I always intended to call it The Eye of the Storm since it is where the fierce winds of new information cause us to realize that much of “traditional marketing wisdom” is more tradition than wisdom. It was that loveliest of invisible ladies, Serendipity, that whispered to Tim Storm that he should build it, even though he had no idea what I planned to name it.I have always depended on the whispers of Serendipity to suggest to the friends of Wizard Academy that they should leave a permanent mark on our campus. Dozens of you have already heard her whispers and acted upon them. On May 2nd, 2020, we’re going to celebrate what you, and she, have done together.Two weeks ago, Tim Gallagher was in The Magical Worlds Communications Workshop with his delightful daughter, Fallyn. She had never seen Gallagher Lane, that lovely winding sidewalk that leads from The Bell Wall all the way down to Engelbrecht House in the Valley of the Lost Boys. Have you never noticed the beautiful verdigris-bronze plaque in the portal of the Bell Wall? (Don’t worry, Indy says he’s going to show it to you along with a lot of other cool stuff in today’s highly informative rabbit hole. To enter the rabbit hole, just click the image of Indy Beagle at the top of this Monday Morning Memo.)On January 1, the day after tomorrow, Daniel Whittington will officially take over as Chancellor of Wizard Academy although he’s been doing most of my job for at least two years. Can you believe Daniel has been here for 6 years and that Zac Smith has been serving as Vice-Chancellor for a full year already?I will remain involved in classes at Wizard Academy and Pennie will continue her duties overseeing the appearance of the physical campus for years to come, but the day-to-day financial obligations and management of your school are now solidly on the shoulders of young brother Whittington.On May 2nd, we will release that long-awaited guidebook, Secrets of the Wizard Academy Campus, as you and we celebrate our past 20 years together and take a look at what is planned for the next 20 years. Among those things will be the speedy completion of The Village of the Lost Boys and The House of Bilbo Baggins.And then there is the incredibly important new certification program called The Ad Writers Masters Class.Indy is tapping the toenails of his right-front paw. I think he’s anxious for you to come and see what he has for you in the rabbit hole.Roy H. Williams

When you begin to write, the words and phrases that leap into your mind will be the ones you hear most often. Go ahead and write them down.The best writers begin by just blurting it out.A willingness to write badly is the key to writing well.After winning the Pulitzer prize for fiction, James Michener said,“I have never thought of myself as a good writer. Anyone who wants reassurance of that should read one of my first drafts. But I’m one of the world’s great rewriters.”Another Pulitzer prize winner, Bernard Malamud said,“The idea is to get the pencil moving quickly. Once you’ve got some words looking back at you, you can take two or three, throw them away and look for others.”The legendary Terry Southern tells us,“The important thing in writing is the capacity to astonish. Not shock—shock is a worn-out word—but astonish.”When you have written all that you wanted to say, look at it. When you see an overused phrase, replace it with a string of words that mean the same thing, but glow with a rainbow of color.When you notice a defeated, predictable word, replace it with one that carries a handgun.When the words staring back at you make you laugh a little, then look for a particularly arresting phrase – a phrase that carries handcuffs on its belt– and move it to the top of the stack.You’ll often find your strongest opening line about one third of the way down from the top. I don’t know why opening lines try to hide there, but that’s usually where you’ll find them.Now that you’ve got a strong opening line and a story full of colorful phrases, let’s “Thomas Jefferson” that thing. Right after he wrote that snarky letter to King George, Thomas told us,“The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.”Boring people wrap a lot of words around a small idea.Fascinating people deliver big ideas quickly.Shorter hits harder.You’re going to have some free time during the holidays, so write me a 600-word story. It can be about anything you want except politics. It can be true or fictional, happy or sad, tender or defiant. But it can’t be boring.Indiana Beagle will choose the best of these and post one each week in the rabbit hole during the first few months of 2020. Be sure to attach an interesting photo of yourself. Also, include your mailing address in case Indy wants to send you a little something. You can email the beagle at [email protected]’ll talk again after Christmas.May your holiday sparkle with laughter!Roy H. Williams

An unhappy person who talks about “the way things ought to” be has a decision to make.They need to take action, orThey need to shut up and get on with their life.I’m sorry if that sounded cold and harsh. Allow me to explain.“The Way Things Ought to Be” is a fantasy world. Complaining that you don’t live there is pointless.“The Way Things Really Are” is the world you live in. Learn to navigate in that world and you can go anywhere you want.I’m not saying that you have to make peace with the status quo.I’m not saying that you have to accept things as they are.I’m not saying that you are powerless to change things.I’m saying that unproductive whining is pointless.Take action or shut up. Don’t spend your life believing you are a victim and trying to convince everyone else of it.“But can’t I at least tell people how I feel?”It depends on who those people are. Do they have the power to change things? If they do, then yes, tell them how you feel. And then convince other people to do the same. Start a revolution. Create a future that is better than the past. Progress depends on people like you.But if you share your indignation with people who have don’t have the power to change things, and you have no intention of talking to the people who do have the power, you’re just complaining, moaning, and whining.No one likes a whiner.The difference between a victim and a revolutionary is that the victim takes no action beyond complaining to their friends.A revolutionary risks ridicule and defeat. He or she spends time, energy, and money in the effort to make the future better than the past.You can make a difference if you are willing to pay the price.George Bernard Shaw said,“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.”And then he said,“You don’t hold your own in the world by standing on guard, but by attacking and getting well hammered yourself.”Are you willing to fall under the hammer if that’s what it takes to change things?Even when I don’t agree with them, I admire women and men who do more than just complain to their friends.But in every instance I always agree with that delightful person who takes no position unless they are also willing to take action, that person who elevates every conversation to a pleasant topic and makes you feel happy they are around.Roy H. Williams

What is the canvas of your artistic expression?“Pen and ink,” says the writer.“Wet clay” says a sculptor,“Wood” says another,“Stone” says a third.And then the painters chime in,singing, “Oils,” “Pencils,”“Charcoal,” and “Acrylic”in 4-part harmony.“Film” shouts a cinematographer,“Pixels” shouts another,and the photographers beat a steady rhythmon the lens covers of their cameras.Our own Princess Pennieis of that ancient tribe“The Daughters of Eve”who claim the earth as their canvas.The inheritance of the daughtersgoes back to the book of Genesis…Do you believe the Bible to be a message from God,or merely the writings of desert nomads?Either way, it is an interesting book.In the second chapter of that first book,“The Lord God took the manand put him in the Garden of Edento work it and take care of it.”But evidently, Adam wasn’t very good at it,because just three verses later the Lord God said,“It is not good for the man to be alone,”and Eve became his partner in the effort.Dozens of centuries later,daughter Elizabeth Murray observed,“Gardening is the art that uses flowers and plants as paint,and the soil and the sky as canvas.”Two hundred and fourteen years ago,the poet William Wordsworth added,“Laying out grounds may be considered a liberal art,in some sort like poetry and painting.” 1One hundred and twenty-two years ago, Sidney Hare said,“Show me a city without parks and boulevards and I will show youa people far behind the times in every way. Parks educate the peoplein an art equally as grand as the art of painting or sculpture…” 2In 1941, the immortal John Steinbeck said,“Places are able to evoke moods, as colorand line in a picture may capture andwarp us to a pattern the painter intended.” 3Eleven years later, Steinbeck elaborated,“The spring flowers in a wet year were unbelievable. The whole valley floor, and the foothills too, would be carpeted with lupins and poppies. Once a woman told me that colored flowers would seem more bright if you added a few white flowers to give the colors definition. Every petal of blue lupin is edged with white, so that a field of lupins is more blue than you can imagine.” 4And daughter Shauna Niequist adds,“Use what you have, use what the world gives you. Use the first day of fall: bright flame before winter’s deadness; harvest; orange, gold, amber; cool nights and the smell of fire. Our tree-lined streets are set ablaze, our kitchens filled with the smells of nostalgia: apples bubbling into sauce, roasting squash, cinnamon, nutmeg, cider, warmth itself. The leaves as they spark into wild color just before they die are the world’s oldest performance art, and everything we see is celebrating one last violently hued hurrah before the black and white silence of winter.” 5I agree. It is not good for the man to be alone.Thank God for the women in our liveswho cause rainbows of color to appearfrom lumps of cold, brown earth. 6Roy H. Williams1 In a letter to Sir George H. Beaumont, Grasmere, (Oct. 17, 1805)2 Sidney J. Hare, a pioneer in Landscape Architecture, (1897)3 John Steinbeck, Sea of Cortez, p. 256, (1941)4 John Steinbeck, East of Eden, p. 4. (1952)5 Shauna Niequist, Bittersweet, (2013)6 Genesis 2:7

My business partners meet twice a year to spend a few days together. A transcription of their discussions during these meetings could easily become a bestselling book.A number of my partners have grown far beyond anything I ever taught them, which makes answering their questions a lot easier for me.I employ a mildly deceptive technique that has been used by teachers throughout history:When confronted with a question for which you have no immediate answer, stall for time by tossing the question back to the students. Keep their discussion moving forward until they have arrived at a solid conclusion. They will never suspect that you didn’t already know the answer.During our last meeting, one of my partners was sharing the secrets of his very successful online campaigns with the rest of us when he said, “When I became a partner 15 years ago, I was hoping that Roy would tell us exactly how the sausage is made. Looking back, I appreciate his wisdom in not doing that.”“What do you mean by, ‘how the sausage is made?’” I asked.“I mean, ‘exactly how to write great ads.’”His answer confused me because I was under the illusion that I had, in fact, taught them “exactly how to write great ads.” But rather than admit that I had no idea what he was talking about, I said, “Let’s talk about the different ways of making the sausage. Sexton, how many ways are there to write great ads?”I asked that question as though I already knew the answer, when in truth, I did not. But I was smart enough to ask the person that I suspected would know the answer.“Two,” answered Sexton. “You can follow a template and search for the information to fill each of the openings within that template, or you can gather information and then organize it however you choose. No template.”His answer blew my mind because he was obviously right, but this idea of “writing to a template” had never once crossed my mind. Startled by his answer, I said to the room, “How many of you write to a template?”About half the hands went up.“How many of you gather information and then organize it? No template.”The other half of the hands went up.The thing that startled me the most, however, was that half of the most accomplished writers in the room were using one method, and the other half was using the other.Even more interestingly, I spent the next several weeks asking a number of highly accomplished business owners which of the two methods they would follow. Again, half of them said “template,” which is another way of saying, “Plan your work, and work your plan.” The other half said, “Gather, then organize,” which is another way of saying, “Work with what you’ve got. Improvise.”Regardless of which technique you prefer, does it surprise you that both techniques seem to work equally well?Who’d have thought it?If you have thoughts, anecdotes, or stories about this interesting duality of Planning vs. Improvisation, send them to [email protected] and we’ll see if some of them land in the rabbit hole. Also, Indy is planning to feature some murals on the sides of buildings in the rabbit hole next week, so if you have a cool photo of an outdoor mural, send it to him with a description of its location, okay?For those of you who don’t know, the rabbit hole is entered by clicking the image of Indy Beagle at the top of each week’s online version of the Monday Morning Memo. (That’s him at the top of this page holding a sausage in his jaws.) Indy’s rabbit hole is an informative, eclectic, wonderful waste of time.“Not long ago, sitting at my desk at home, I suddenly had the horrifying realization that I no longer waste time.”– MIT professor and physicist Alan Lightman in his book, A Sense of the MysteriousIndy has the cure for Alan Lightman’s distress. His rabbit hole usually rambles on for about 8 to 28 pages. Click the image at the top of each rabbit hole page and it will take you to the next page. Anything can happen in the rabbit hole.And it often does.He’s waiting there for you now. (click)Roy H. Williams

People need your encouragement more than they need your advice. A little encouragement at a pivotal time makes all the difference.I am giving you a Christmas gift: When you have opened it, you will become the right person, doing the right thing, at the right time, in the right way.To open your gift, you need only to buy what the kids are selling.Randy Phillips gave me this gift and I’m glad he did.We were in church when Randy went on a little rant.He said, “Buy whatever the kids are sellin’… Buy whatever the kids are sellin’… Sometimes you come out of a restaurant or a grocery store and they’ve got a little table set up, and you try not to make eye contact with’em. It’s like, ‘If I can act like I don’t see’em, I don’t have to buy it.’Get over there! Go to that table. They’ve got that wrapping paper. You can buy it half-price somewhere else. It don’t matter they’ve marked it up 100%. You don’t need it? What you need is not the issue! You go over there and you buy what the kids are sellin’.They got cookies? ‘I don’t eat cookies.’ This is not about what you eat! Buy what the kids are sellin’. Here’s what I do. I walk over to ‘em and ask, ‘What is the largest amount that you’ve sold today? Who bought the most?’‘Well, they bought 5 boxes.’‘Give me 10. I want 10 boxes.’Denise says, ‘What are you going to do with 10 boxes of cookies?’‘I don’t know. Don’t worry about that.’The look on their face when you are building confidence in a kid across the table! ‘This is how commerce works. This is how we do it in America. You have something of value. I give you money. We trade it. And here we go.’We’re teaching those kids! Buy whatever the kids are sellin’.”Encouragement speaks loudest when it is followed by action. Your action.Always buy what the kids are selling. Give a child the gift of encouragement and hope. It takes only a moment. Then you can give away the thing you bought and explain why you bought it in the first place. Kindness is contagious. Perhaps the recipient of your gift will be inspired to do the same.You are a generous person who likes to encourage others.This is the secret to your happiness.Roy H. Williams

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are used for measuring departmental performance within a company. The goal of KPIs is continual improvement.The subtle danger of KPIs is that they can lead us to prioritize efficiency over effectiveness, and short-term objectives over long-term.A Police Chief told his officers to prioritize burglaries of multiple-occupancy households because the system would count each occupant as a separate solved crime and lift their KPI.An electrical wholesale group created a KPI competition between its branches which resulted in them undercutting each other’s prices.A shoe company with a 3.5 billion-dollar ad budget (Adidas) admitted they had been “overly focused on digital attribution,” partly as a result of its ability to allow the company to “look at short-term measurements in real time.” Adidas Global Media Director Simon Peel says, “But when you look at econometric modelling it’s telling you something very different…” 1 In a successful company, it takes every department working together to increase top line revenues. But when departments are held individually accountable for department-specific goals, teamwork goes out the window.A business owner recently asked me, “Who is responsible for lead generation?” Before I could answer, one of his branch managers said, “Selling is a numbers game. Double my sales opportunities and I’ll make twice as many sales.”I asked, “Who is responsible for lead generation in a restaurant?”“The marketing department,” answered the branch manager.Looking across that group of 20 branch managers from 20 different cities, I said, “Think of the best restaurant in your city, the one where you’ve got to have a reservation because there is never an open table. Do you see it in your mind? That restaurant hasn’t advertised in 30 years. Their happy customers are their only marketing department.”Looking at their faces, I could tell they had seen the truth in what I had said, so I told them another truth, “Advertising is a tax we pay for not being remarkable.” I let that one soak in a minute.“When our customer contacts us, they meet the Maître D’ of our restaurant. Sometimes it’s a Customer Service Representative in our call center. Other times it’s a team member who responded to an email inquiry, or who interacted with our customer in live chat. If those people do well, they will hand the baton to one of our waiters; a salesperson or a service technician. But wait, we’re not done. Now we have to deliver the food. Will the chef live up to his reputation? Will the product be as good as our customer hoped it would be?”I waited a few moments, then said, “Today’s close rate determines tomorrow’s sales leads. Good advertising is merely the beginning of a conversation with the customer. If they visit our website, they’re reading our menu. If they check our online reviews, they’re asking their friends about us. But here is where things get serious: when that customer encounters our Maître D’, our waiters, and our chef, she is expecting to meet the company she was promised in our ads. Will we be the company we promised her? Or will we be guilty of bait-and-switch?”I said it again, “Today’s close rate determines tomorrow’s sales leads… Every member of our team is responsible for lead generation. We win together and we lose together. Any one of us can drop the baton in this never-ending relay race where the final runner hands it back to the first runner as a referral from a happy customer. You and I have to make every customer glad they chose us.”“Each of us is a point-of-contact with our customer, a channel of communication. When we use the brandable chunks – signature phrases – that were introduced in our mass-media ads and reinforced on our website; when each of us delivers the personality that we promised in our ads, we have channel alignment. When we fall short of this, we are guilty of bait-and-switch.”“In a growing company, the KPI that matters most is top line revenue. To grow, we have to say remarkable things in our ads. To grow, we have to do remarkable things for our customers. Today’s close rate determines tomorrow’s sales leads. And channel alignment increases the close rate.”“Any other questions?”Roy H. Williams

Symbolic thought is commonly expressed through similes, metaphors, and music, allowing us to communicate the unknown and unfamiliar by relating it to the known and familiar.Symbols happen when one thing stands for another.Symbolism plays a role in identity reinforcement. Brands, hobbies, artistic expressions, event attendance, and social connections are symbolic ways of saying, “This is who I am. This is what I do. This is what I stand for. This is what I stand against. This is how I see myself.”Marketing people call these measurements “psychographics.”Symbols are powerful, friendly things that assist us in relating to the world around us. They help us make those difficult choices between two good things. “With which of these two things do I most strongly identify?”Self-determination is a good thing.Cooperation is a good thing.Brexit is Britain’s tug-of-war between those two good things.America is having a tug-of-war of its own.Understanding how symbols can affect the mood of the heart and the attitude of the mind is a natural part of self-awareness. But symbols get distorted and dark when we embrace them too tightly or carry them one step too far.Superstition is the belief that a symbol carries within itself the power to enact change.Pheromones are a series of chemical flags released by animals that signal sexuality, fear, and dominance; moods of the heart and attitudes of the mind.The flag of a nation is a bit of colored cloth on the end of a stick. Its only power lies in the hearts and minds of those who see it. We are unified when we agree on what that symbol stands for. We are divided when we do not agree.The only hard choice is the choice between two good things.When we are deeply divided, we believe our adversaries are stupid and evil. If we are gracious, we call them “uninformed and misled,” which is just a slightly nicer way of saying the same thing.Reconciliation and unity will not begin until we look beyond our polarized reactions to see the good thing the other side believes in. This is the path to productive civil discourse.Frankly, I’m a bit weary of destructive discourse, aren’t you?Regardless of your political beliefs, you have at least one close friend who believes in the good thing that is currently standing in the way of the good thing you believe in. In other words, their political beliefs are not aligned with yours. Is your relationship with that person strong enough, is your trust in that person deep enough, to quietly listen as they explain what they believe and why they believe it? Can you find the good thing your friend believes in?Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened.Remember: Your goal is to see through their eyes for a moment. You want to see what they see. This is not the time or place to make them see what you see. If you cannot restrain yourself from correcting them and interjecting your beliefs, you are likely to lose a friend.The path to peace requires courage, restraint, the willingness to listen, and an open mind.The other path – the exciting one – is the path that leads to war.Roy H. Williams

“The word ‘artist’ is not applied to writers as readily as to musicians or sculptors or painters, because the medium in which they work – our language – is used by everyone without any particular thought or regard for economy or form. Language is the common drudge of every sort of experience and it does not enter the heads of most people to use it with any conscious skill or effectiveness.”“But the serious writer is an artist and language is his medium, and the way he employs it is of the greatest interest. Graham Greene has said that ‘creative art seems to remain a function of the religious mind,’ and it is this quality of awareness of another world…”– Robertson Davies, The Merry Heart, p. 115“When Cervantes invited a new generation of readers to follow his knight into the Sierra Morena, they discovered through their tears of laughter that they had entered a new world. For the writers and readers to come, the pages of a book could never again stand like foreign objects of wonder, to be admired from a distance. From now on, opening a book would mean stepping into a space more like one’s own, a Sierra Morena next door instead of a mythical wood or mystic crag, and even those places of mystery or magic, from Never Never Land to Hogwarts, would always be places in which other versions of our own selves would go to for relief from the pressures, pain, or simply the boredom of our daily lives.”– William Egginton, The Man Who Invented Fiction, p. 136“In my life as a writer I often remind myself – comfort myself – with what William Faulkner said about The Sound and the Fury. The whole novel, he claimed, hung on one image, the glimpse of a little girl’s muddy underpants seen from the ground as she climbed a tree. How can an entire world spin off so small and incidental a hub? Can it be possible that Faulkner conceived his masterpiece from this thin, grubby moment?”“I imagine most writers of novels begin with such a fragment, a shard of experience so compelling, so troubling and unavoidable – always there, on the periphery of consciousness – that around it he or she must construct an elaborate world. This world, this novel, is not merely a container or a means of filing the image away but an attempt to make it comprehensible, and to guard its power.”– Kathryn Harrison, When Inspiration Stared Stoically from an Old Photograph“Fiction is usually seen as escapist entertainment… But it’s hard to reconcile the escapist theory of fiction with the deep patterns we find in the art of storytelling… Our various fictional worlds are– on the whole– horrorscapes. Fiction may temporarily free us from our troubles, but it does so by ensnaring us in new sets of troubles– in imaginary worlds of struggle and stress and mortal woe.”– Jonathan Gottschall, The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human“Go, then – there are other worlds than these.”– Stephen KingIf you want us to see a different world, it will be your choice of tools that defines you. Oscar Wilde was a playwright. He put his words, like a ventriloquist, into the mouths of actors on the stage. Ad writers, screenwriters and novelists differ only in their ventriloquist’s dummies, the masks they hide behind.Some ventriloquist’s dummies are called “newscasters,” and they are no different than the actors in any other fiction. The question we must ask ourselves is, “Who is hiding behind that mask, and what imaginary world are they trying to sell us?”Roy H. WilliamsPS – At a 1962 dinner for 49 Nobel laureates, President John F. Kennedy quipped that the event was, “the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever gathered at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.”Thomas Jefferson was a famous hater of newspapers, though I suspect he would have hated radio, television, and the internet even more. Writing to his friend John Norvell in 1807, Jefferson said, “The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers. Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper.”

“The rest of my life has passed quite suddenly. Around ten or twelve I fell into the inevitable logarithms of time. It seems to go faster and faster. I wonder now why we have to have Christmas so often.” – Kary MullisOur friend Kary Mullis died on Aug. 7, 2019, at the age of 74.His first trip to Wizard Academy with Nancy was more than 15 years ago. They were in the same class as (L to R) Chris Lowry of Savannah and Mike Greene of Asheville and Jane Fraser of Halifax (in teal, below Chris and Mike) along with 20 other delightful people.Kary’s colleagues in science called him “an untamed genius.” His discovery of polymerase chain reaction in 1983 opened the door for us to study DNA and won him the 1993 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.I agree with Kary’s observation concerning the inevitable logarithms of time, don’t you?Wasn’t it just a few months ago that you and I walked across an open field and spoke of what we would build together? That campus is nearly finished now.Do you remember when 106 of the cognoscenti of Wizard Academy worked together on a book called Accidental Magic? I pulled my copy off the shelf just now and marveled at it, as I have done at least once a year for the past 18 years. I do the same thing with your book, People Stories: Inside the Outside. Your talent continues to amaze me.Do you remember when Ray Bard arrived with those 200 hardbacks of Accidental Magic just as your book-release party began in 2001? You had already landed in Austin and were on your way to the Academy while Ray was still sitting anxiously at the airport, waiting for the first printing of your book to arrive.This summer, Avital Rotbart worked nonstop for several weeks on our long-promised book, Secrets of the Wizard Academy Campus. We hope to have those available on May 2, but as we have learned, printers often have schedules of their own.Likewise, we expect to be able to unveil The Ad Writer’s Masters Class. Working at the speed of light, a person could – in theory – complete that class in a year, but in reality, it will take most people two years.You will instantly be able to recognize an Ad Master when you meet one. I’ll tell you how on May 2 when we gather for an unforgettable campus tour and celebration. It will be epic. We’ll feast like kings.When a person reminisces as I have done in today’s Monday Morning Memo, we usually assume they will soon be departing and are singing us a soft goodbye. Let me assure you this is not the case.We’re simply hosting a catered half-time show.Let us know if you plan to come.Roy H. Williams

Each of us creates our own reality from our interpretations of the things we observe. A systematic pattern of interpretations is called a cognitive bias.This is how a cognitive bias works: If you believe that elves cause rain, then every occurrence of rain is proof of elves.Cognitive biases can be miniscule or massive. Wikipedia has 192 of the most common of them organized alphabetically in their List of Cognitive Biases. Here are a few of my favorites:Third-Person Effect – Belief that mass communicated media messages have a greater effect on others than on themselves.Cheerleader Effect – The tendency for people to appear more attractive in a group than in isolation.Halo Effect – The tendency for a person’s positive or negative traits to “spill over” from one personality area to another in our perceptions of them. This is similar to the Physical Attractiveness Stereotype, in which we assume that people who are physically attractive also possess other socially desirable qualities.And then, of course, there are some tragic cognitive biases, such as:Compassion Fade ­– The predisposition to behave more compassionately towards a small number of identifiable victims than to a large number of anonymous ones.Naïve Realism – The belief that we see reality as it really is – objectively and without bias; that the facts are plain for all to see; that rational people will agree with us; and that those who don’t are either uninformed, lazy, irrational, or biased.But there is one pair of cognitive biases that isn’t on Wikipedia’s list, and these biases run so deep in us that they form our beliefs about the nature of reality and how the universe works.This pair of cognitive biases would more accurately be called a duality, since the closer you move toward one of them, the further you move away from the other.Let’s call them“Cause-and-Effect”“You Can’t Know for Certain Until You Get There.”“Cause-and-Effect” assumes that we live in an organized universe which can be predicted with certainty if only we have enough data. “Cause-and-Effect” is the world of Newtonian Physics and cooking with a recipe. “Plan your work and work your plan.”The opposing belief is that we can calculate probabilities, but “You Can’t Know for Certain Until You Get There.” This is the world of improvisation, Plan B, and the ability to cook something wonderful from whatever you happen to find in the pantry. “Work with what you’ve got.”Physicists have been trying to reconcile these belief systems since 1927 when General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics were discovered to be mutually exclusive, although both can be proven unconditionally.Einstein, the champion of “Cause and Effect” said to Niels Bohr, “I, at any rate, am convinced that God does not throw dice.”To which Niels Bohr, the champion of “You Can’t Know for Certain Until You Get There,” replied, “Quit telling God what to do with his dice.”Physicist Stephen Hawking would later add, “Not only does God play dice, but he sometimes throws them where they cannot be seen.”Your internal, unconscious belief system dictates whether you willA: create a recipe, a step-by-step plan, and then seek to acquire the elements to actualize that plan, orB: acquire whatever is available to you and then figure out how to organize it for maximum effect.Both systems have proven to be profoundly effective.Never try to convince a practitioner of the opposite system that their way of thinking is stupid, foolish, or self-limiting.They probably have a long list of accomplishments that will prove you wrong.Roy H. Williams

Karl Marx famously said, “Religion is the opiate of the masses.”No, let’s be more accurate. What he actually said was, “Die religion ist das opium des volkes.”Before I continue, let me say that my belief in God is a choice not based on argument or evidence. I freely admit that I choose to believe.Those, like Karl, who choose not to believe, often say that my beliefin an immortal souland a life after this oneand in a Creator who gives us both of these,is nothing less than escapism.Escapism is an interesting subject.Lovers of nature take long hikes to escape the artificiality of the indoors.Lovers of travel take trips to escape the predictability of their surroundings.Lovers of sport watch games to escape the monotony of daily life.Lovers of literature read books to escape the chair in which they’re sitting.Lovers of nicotine and alcohol smoke and drink to escape their current mood.Lovers of science gather data to escape the idea of a world that is beyond understanding.In his book, On Stories: And Other Essays on Literature, C.S. Lewis writes about moaning to his friend, J.R.R. Tolkien, about those condescending pragmatists who dismiss fiction with a sniff and a wave of the hand:“I never fully understood it till my friend Professor Tolkien asked me the very simple question, ‘What class of men would you expect to be most preoccupied with, and hostile to, the idea of escape?’ and gave the obvious answer: jailers.”I vote for escape.Escape what you dislike by doing what you like.In the words of Charles Baudelaire,“And if sometimes you wake up, on palace steps, on the green grass of a ditch, in your room’s gloomy solitude, your intoxication already waning or gone, ask the wind, the waves, the stars, the birds, the clocks, ask everything that flees, everything that moans, everything that moves, everything that sings, everything that speaks, ask what time it is. And the wind, the waves, the stars, the birds, clocks, will answer, It is time to get high! So as not to be martyred slaves of Time, get high; get high constantly! On wine, on poetry, or on virtue, as you wish.”If you love nature, get high on nature. If you love travel, sports, literature or science, get high on those. And if you love God, get high on him.I will end with a quote from Oscar Wilde: “Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live; it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.”Democrats and Republicans, are you listening?Roy H. Williams

(A.) “It was hot outside.”(B.) “The angry sun glared down at me.”Which of those sentences do you feel was more interesting?Personification is a technique used by writers and speakers to excite the imaginations of their readers and listeners. Personification gives human attributes to non-human things.Twenty-five years ago I wrote, “As Edmund Hillary surveyed the horizon from the peak of Mount Everest, he monitored the time on a wristwatch that had been specifically designed to withstand the fury of the world’s most angry mountain….”Later in that same ad, the jeweler says, “You’ll find your Rolex waiting patiently for you to come and pick it up… at Justice Jewelers.”Here are some other examples of personification:“The shattered water made a misty din.Great waves looked over others coming inand thought of doing something to the shorethat water never did to land before.”– Robert Frost, opening lines of Once By the Pacific “Have you got a brook in your little heartWhere bashful flowers blow,And blushing birds go down to drink,And shadows tremble so?”– Emily Dickinson, Have You Got A Brook In Your Little Heart?You may have noticed that both of those examples were by famous poets. This was neither an accident nor a coincidence. I have long believed that good poets are the best teachers of powerful ad writing. A poet can change what we think and feel, and do so in a brief, tight economy of words.Did I hear you say “songwriter”? What is a songwriter but a poet who also writes music?I consider personification to be part of a larger category called Magical Thinking, a type of writing characterized by elements of the fantastic – woven with a deadpan sense of presentation – into an otherwise true story.Magical thinking is best evidenced in a writing style known as Magical Realism, and it is best exemplified by Gabriel Garcia Marquez:“As soon as José Arcadio closed the bedroom door the sound of a pistol shot echoed through the house. A trickle of blood came out under the door, crossed the living room, went out into the street, continued on in a straight line across the uneven terraces, went down steps and climbed over curbs, passed along the Street of the Turks, turned a corner to the right and another to the left, made a right angle at the Buendía house, went in under the closed door, crossed through the parlor, hugging the walls so as not to stain the rugs, went on to the other living room, made a wide curve to avoid the dining-room table, went along the porch with the begonias, and passed without being seen under Amaranta’s chair as she gave an arithmetic lesson to Aureliano José, and went through the pantry and came out in the kitchen, where Úrsula was getting ready to crack thirty-six eggs to make bread.”“’Holy Mother of God!’ Úrsula shouted.”– Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude, ch. 7But not everyone has the gene that allows for magical thinking.Consider this famous song by England Dan and John Ford Coley. Do you remember these lines?“I’m not talking ’bout movin’ inand I don’t want to change your lifebut there’s a warm wind blowin’ the stars aroundAnd I’d really love to see you tonight.”People who lack the magical thinking gene hear:“…but there’s a warm wind blowing, the stars are out, and I’d really love to see you tonight.”The value of magical thinking is that it stimulates the imagination and puts listeners in a frame of mind to consider new and different things. Magical thinking does not appeal to the linear, sequential, deductive-reasoning left hemispheres of our brains. It appeals to our right hemisphere, which does not separate fantasy from reality; that’s the left brain’s job. The realm of the right brain is a land of infinite possibilities, where anything and everything can happen.Film franchises such as The Hunger Games, Star Wars, Star Trek, Die Hard, Twilight, Indiana Jones, James Bond, Jason Bourne, John Wick, The Matrix, Jurassic Park, Mission: Impossible, Pirates of the Caribbean, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Lord of the Rings exist entirely in the realm of magical thinking.Marvel Studios built an empire on it, as did Disney and Pixar.Magical thinking is not to be confused with mere exaggeration. Liars and conmen exaggerate. But persuasive storytellers enchant us with magical thinking, stating the obviously impossible as though it is perfectly reasonable.The next time you need to persuade someone, might it be useful to put them in a frame of mind to consider new and different things? Do you think it might be helpful to entice them into the realm of infinite possibilities, where anything and everything is possible?If so, I have only two words for you to consider:“Wizard Academy.”Roy H. Williams

I grew up believing that everyone had equal opportunity, and what we made of that opportunity was up to us. I believed I was the product of my choices, and you were the product of yours. People struggled only because they made bad choices.I continue to believe in the vital importance of individual choice.But we are not offered the same choices.These days, when I look at my own modest accomplishments, I see them as byproducts of my natural skillset, my interests, my circumstances, my opportunities, and my friendships. I don’t think of myself as “a winner” or “a loser.” I think of myself as a writer.I no longer see life as a game played against others. Have you ever known a person who saw everyone as either “a winner” or “a loser?” I have walked with such people and heard their secret song:“Get all you can.Can all you get.Sit on the can.Poison the rest.”I blame Charles Darwin. Wasn’t it he who told us we are animals? If you believe in this survival-of-the-fittest, “predator and prey” concept of humanity, then Bernie Madoff and Jeffrey Epstein did nothing wrong. Winners are predators. Losers are prey. The weak are food for the strong.Let me make this clear: a healthy human mind is not the mind of a predator, or of prey. The sociopath and the psychopath have the mind of a predator. And the person with “a victim mentality” has the mind of prey.I believe you and I have a higher purpose.Most of us go through a Survival phase where we’re just trying to make ends meet. We have to keep gas in the car, food in the pantry, a roof over our heads, and “Oh god, is that insurance premium due again?”Ever been there?If we are lucky, we later move into an Acquisition phase in which we acquire more money, a nicer home, a better car, and take actual vacations. This Acquisition phase is often ornamented with accomplishments and recognition.If you create ad campaigns, you must understand the difference between the motives of customers in the Survival phase and their motives in the Acquisition phase.The most emotionally healthy among us move into a Distribution phase which is marked by a sort of reverse bucket list. We no longer focus on what we can acquire. Our attention is turned toward what to do with what we’ve got.Emotionally healthy people want to make the world a happier place.It has been my observation that sociopaths, psychopaths and narcissists never move beyond the Acquisition phase. Every breath is a hungry gasp for more wealth, power, and fame in the secret hope they might establish a dynasty. People who never move beyond the Acquisition phase of life tend to become increasingly predatory. Every unpleasant task is “someone else’s job.”“You can judge a man’s ethics by the condition in which he leaves a public restroom.”– Fred EisenbergNoblesse oblige is the inferred responsibility of privileged people to act with generosity and nobility toward those less privileged. Bill Gates and Warren Buffet have a strong sense of it. Most billionaires do not.In a future, perfect world, those whose natural skillsets, interests, circumstances, opportunities, and friendships elevate them to wealth and power will focus their minds on the creation of jobs for those among us who simply need someone to believe in them.Sadly, we don’t live in a perfect world. In our world, the first obligation is to the shareholders. “Maximize profits.” If there is a second obligation, it is not immediately clear to me.I have noticed that men often tell the truth when they are at the end of their days.The Biblical book of Ecclesiastes is the memoir of Solomon as he approached the end of his life.John Huey sat at the dying bed of Sam Walton. The remarkable book that emerged from those 2 weeks was Sam Walton: Made in America.Lee Iacocca wrote Where Have All the Leaders Gone?John Steinbeck wrote Travels with Charley.And James Michener wrote This Noble Land.Few of us receive a warning that the end is drawing near. But if you do, what advice will you leave for the next generation that will occupy this planet?Roy H. Williams

The Eye of the Storm in the tower at Wizard Academy, under construction in 2009.We are feeling unsettled again.And when I say we, I don’t mean me, I mean all of us.Unsettled feelings are ominous.We are acting as though we have heard the four notes of the Dies irae, that ominous musical phrase* that has signaled impending tragedy for the past 800 years. Being thus unsettled, we are making big decisions with too little information and those decisions will have consequences.Unsettled lions like you and I are dangerous.I’ll not speculate on the specific causes for our feelings of unsettlement, for I suspect we have many different reasons.We were first unsettled on 9/11 when we saw the unhappenable happen.We became unsettled again in 2008 when we were betrayed by Enron and Worldcom and Bernie Madoff and subprime mortgages.I agree with what Leonard Pitts wrote in 2006.“We often talk about Hurricane Katrina and 9/11 in terms of failures: failures of intelligence, failures of planning, failures of communication. But these catastrophes were first and foremost failures of imagination. Did we know that a major hurricane could destroy New Orleans? Yes: it was even part of the tour guides’ spiel. Did we know terrorists wanted to bring down the World Trade Center? Yes: they made a credible attempt in 1993. And what did we do with what we knew? Nothing. Some disasters, I think, are so big and so awful they are literally beyond our power to conceive. So, we dismiss them out of hand, retreat to the ‘knowledge’ that a thing can’t happen because, well, it just can’t.”– Leonard Pitts, July 6, 2006Leonard Pitts was obviously feeling unsettled when he wrote that.We feel unsettled when our beliefs are crushed.“Belief is about collecting ideas and investing in them. Faith is about having your ideas obliterated and having nothing to hang onto and trusting that it’s going to be all right anyway.”– Barbara HallI appreciate Barbara Hall’s perspective.Tragedy is the arrival of the unexpected bad.Serendipity is the arrival of the unexpected good.I say we should begin looking for the unexpected good.What do you say?To prepare for the unexpected bad is to be cautious, and there is nothing wrong with that. But to anticipate the unexpected good is to be hopeful. And that’s okay, too, isn’t it?“If you want to believe in something, then believe in it. Just because something isn’t true, that’s no reason you can’t believe in it… Sometimes the things that may or may not be true are the things a [person] needs to believe in the most.”– Hub McCann, Secondhand LionsI write these words to you because I’m seeing solid people make dicey decisions because they are feeling unsettled. They are changing what they can because they are feeling frustrated by what they cannot change.I believe in miracles, but most miracles happen slowly. “There’s magic in the world. There is. People will tell you there isn’t—they just want you to get back to work and be quiet and not ask questions. These are people who don’t know where to look, or who were not blessed with eyes that could see magic. Magical eyes. If you have them, develop them.”– Tennessee WilliamsDo you still believe in miracles? Do you have eyes that can see sparkling magic in the air all around you?Serendipity is the arrival of the unexpected good.I think I hear it twinkling just ahead.Roy H. Williams

We eat food every day and we drive cars every day. But food purchases happen on a short purchase cycle and car purchases happen on a longer one.How often does the average citizen purchase the product or service you sell?The purchase cycle of your product determines how quickly your ads will start working.Food and entertainment have short purchase cycles. This is why ads selling food and entertainment can generate big results quickly, even when the advertiser is new and unknown.But to make things happen on a long purchase cycle, you must become the company customers think of immediately and feel the best about.Air conditioning systems and engagement rings have long purchase cycles.I’ve learned not to discuss purchase cycles in public forums because at least one marketer will immediately get red-faced and say, “But people buy air conditioning systems and engagement rings every day. My advertising is aimed at the people who are in the market for those products right now.”This is their logic: “When a person is ready to buy a product, they’re going to go online and do some research. This is the zero moment of truth. Show up BIG in that moment and you will dominate your product category.”I agree that people are going to go online. Google is the new phone book and social media allows us to hear from customers who have already purchased the product. But it is foolish to believe that customers enter this “zero moment of truth” without prejudices, preferences, and predispositions.330 million Americans will purchase 2 million engagement rings this year. This means that 1 American in 165 will buy an engagement ring.But a year has 365 days.This means that just 1 American in 60,225 will purchase an engagement ring today.In a long purchase cycle, you must win the hearts of tomorrow’s customers with a memorable message – relentlessly repeated – and then wait for them to need what you sell.Use the seductive repetition of extremely cheap advertising to reach tomorrow’s customers along with all their influencers. Purchased wisely, mass media can reach the same individual 3 times each week, 52 weeks a year, for about 40 cents.156 repetitions of a 60-second ad will be heard by that individual this year.Did you hear the part about the 40 cents?$40,000 a year gives you top-of-mind awareness with about 100,000 people.Calculate the percentage of the public you can afford to reach, never forgetting that three-times-a-week repetition is essential if you want to become a household word. Don’t reach 100% of your city and convince them 10% of the way. Reach 10% of your city and convince them 100% of the way.Advertise the why. Wait for the when.The longer you do this, the better it works.You’ll gain momentum, year after year.Your online conversion rates will skyrocket.Your online costs of marketing will plummet.You’ll deepen your relationship with customers, year after year.They will develop a strong predisposition toward you.They will feel like they know you.They will consider you an ally and a friend.Marketers who subscribe to Google’s theory of the “zero moment of truth” are sprinters. They believe in waiting until the customer is actively, consciously, currently in the market for the product. Sprinters make decisions on a short time horizon. I think of them as “twitchy little bastards.”If your category has a long purchase cycle, I suggest that you embrace the inevitable time horizon.Become a long-distance runner.Fly the flag of Team Tortoise.Roy H. Williams