Wizard of Ads Monday Morning Memo: Recent Episodes

View Details

Between the village of Anwick and the town of Sleaford in Lincolnshire, England, lies a farmhouse.

It is at this farmhouse that our journey begins.

Robert is a stockman on a farm. Daphne is his wife. Their little boy, Bernie, is born in that little farmhouse by lantern light because the house is much older than electricity.

When Bernie is five years old, his father is promoted to farm manager, and they are moved into a house with electric lights.

Bernie thinks, “Now we are living the good life.”

He leaves school at 15, but his mother has given him a love for literature and her father “Poppy” has injected him with a love for nature and narrative poetry.

Bernie sends a few of his poems to a music publisher in London who is looking for song lyrics.That same publisher is talking to a young man named Reggie who is looking for a way to leave “Bluesology,” a mediocre local band that plays songs while the patrons of local restaurants eat fish and chips. Reggie says to the publisher, “I’m very good with music, but I can’t write lyrics. I’m hopeless.”

The publisher responds by handing Reggie an unopened envelope that he snatches from the top of the pile on his desk. He says to Reggie, “See what you can do with that and get back to me.”

Neither Bernie nor Reggie are accepted by the music publisher, but they are accepted by each other. Bernie mails poems to Reggie in London, and Reggie writes the music that turns Bernie’s poems into songs.

You have heard many of these songs, I’m sure.

According to Jordan Runtagh,

“‘Rocket Man,’ ‘Honky Cat,’ ‘Crocodile Rock’ and ‘Daniel’ all immediately shot into the Top 10 in rapid succession. By 1975, they were responsible for 2 percent of all records sold on the entire planet. That same year they released Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy, which became the first LP in history to debut at the top of the Billboard chart.”

Reggie is Captain Fantastic and his farmboy friend Bernie is the Brown Dirt Cowboy.Reggie knows, of course, that he is unlikely to become famous as Reggie Dwight, so he creates a new name from the names of his former bandmates, Elton Dean and John Baldry.

As “Elton John,” Reggie writes the tunes that make Bernie’s poems famous around the world. Some of those tunes are “Your Song,” “Levon,” “Tiny Dancer,” “Candle in the Wind,” “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting,” “Bennie and the Jets,” “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me,” “The Bitch is Back,” “I’m Still Standing,” and “I Guess That’s Why They Call It The Blues.”

In 1973, Bernie was traveling to concerts with always high, out-of-control Elton, doing the job each day of all the king’s horses and all the king’s men by “putting Humpty Dumpty back together again.”

When the Brown Dirt Cowboy decided that he didn’t want to do it anymore, he wrote his brother a letter of departure:“When are you gonna come down? When are you going to land? I should have stayed on the farm. I should have listened to my old man. You know you can’t hold me forever. I didn’t sign up with you. I’m not a present for your friends to open. This boy’s too young to be singing the blues. So goodbye yellow brick road where the dogs of society howl. You can’t plant me in your penthouse. I’m going back to my plow. Back to the howling old owl in the woods hunting the horny back toad. I’ve finally decided my future lies beyond the yellow brick road.”

“What do you think you’ll do then? I bet they’ll shoot down the plane. It’ll take you a couple of vodka and tonics to set you on your feet again. Maybe you’ll get a replacement. There’s plenty like me to be found, mongrels who ain’t got a penny sniffing for tidbits like you on the ground.”

Reggie Dwight did what he always did. He wrote a tune and sang what Bernie had written.In the days when an album that sold a million copies was a “Gold Record,” Reggie and Bernie’s album, “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” sold 30 million copies.

A few years ago, Bernie Taupin spoke of the “inseverable bond” of brotherhood that he and Elton have shared for 60 years.

“In the insanity of our lives, there’s nothing better than the times when we get to sit down, just together. Like those moments in the dressing room, about a half an hour before he goes on, when I’ll go in and see him and there’s nobody else in there, and it’s just he and I. The calm before the storm. It all comes back. When we’re just alone with each other, it seems like a frozen capsule of time that everything we’ve ever done together inhabits. That’s magical to me.”

Bernie, I think I speak for a lot of other people when I say that your partnership is magical for us, as well.

Roy H. Williams

View Details

The Three Quivering Questions of Modern Society:1. How can I achieve my goals with less effort? 2. How can I achieve my goals in less time? 3. How and where can I find pleasure?

These are the “How to…” questions.

(I call them the Quivering Questions because they contain an anxious energy similar to that of an addict looking for his or her next “fix.”)

Shortcuts, pro tips, life hacks, and insider secrets are snippets that exist to tell you “How to…”

Schools, seminars, master mind groups, and countless consultants exist to tell you “How to…”

Millions of books and Youtube videos have been written and produced to tell you “How to…”

The answers to the “How to” questions are always Informational.

The Three Ancient Questions That Echo Within Us:1. Who Am I? (Identity) 2. Why Am I Here? (Purpose) 3. What Must I Overcome? (Adventure)

Those are the “Fascination” questions.

Fascination is the drive behind our search for God and our hunger for entertainment.

Faith and entertainment seem incongruent until you realize that both of them fascinate us because they change our mood and lift us higher.

The answers to the “Fascination” questions are always Relational.

When you understand these 6 questions, you understand the essence, attraction, and purpose of social media.Youtube offers only “How to” videos and “Fascination” videos.

Likewise, every book is either a “How to” book or a “Fascination” book.

Television shows are either “How to” or “Fascination.” Movies and music lend themselves mostly to fascination.

I told you, “Fascination is the drive behind our search for God and our hunger for entertainment.”

When we contemplate our existence and the possibility of God, we ask,

1. Who Am I?
2. Why Am I Here?
3. What Must I Overcome?

Your answers to those questions will determine your faith, whether it be Judeo-Christian, Hindu, Moslem, Buddhist, Atheist, Agnostic, or one of the many other belief systems with millions of followers.

When entertainment elevates our mood, our fascination comes from identity reinforcement.

The books, movies, and television shows that we love are the ones that show us a reflection of ourselves.When we identify with a character, we vicariously experience the challenges they face. These challenges are known as the plot or the “narractive arc.”

We likewise experience the evolution of that character when they are changed by those challenges. This is known as the “character arc.”

The characters with whom we identify remind us of who we are.

Identity reinforcement is the essence of affinity groups.An affinity group is any group of people who are attracted to the same thing.

Every religion is an affinity group.

The fans of a sports team are an affinity group.

People who follow fashion are an affinity group.

If you like jazz music, or hip-hop, or Jeeps or NASCAR or backpacking or sewing or science fiction or romance or current events or capitalism or gossip, you are in an affinity group.

Mass media and social media exist to attract and serve affinity groups.

The size of a business opportunity is largely determined by size of the affinity group it serves.If you are an electrician, a plumber, or an HVAC technician, your affinity groups will be people who like and need electricity, running water, and comfortable temperatures. Your limiting factors will be

1. the population of your trade area
2. the strength of your competitors.
3. how often the average person needs your services
4. Whether or not your name is the one people think of first and feel the best about.

If you are a dentist, a jeweler, a lawyer, or a tree trimmer, your limiting factors will be

1. the population of your trade area
2. the strength of your competitors
3. how often the average person needs your services
4. Whether or not your name is the one people think of first and feel the best about.

If you own a restaurant, a grocery store, or sell some other product that people need weekly, your limiting factors will be

1. the population of the neighborhood in which you are located
2. the quality of the customer’s experience
3. the visibility of your location

Believe it or not, everything I have told you in these 727 words is extremely important when you are creating the messages that you will spend your advertising budget to deliver.I understand if you are surprised by this, but it is true, nonetheless.

Roy H. Williams

Facebook has 3.07 billion monthly active users

YouTube has 2.5 billion monthly active users

Instagram has 2 billion monthly active users

TikTok has 1.58 billion monthly active users

LinkedIn has 930 million monthly active users

NOTE: Monthly Active Users tells you only the Reach of these platforms. But to compare Effectiveness, you would need to know how much time each week a user spends on each platform. You would also need to know how many times each week the same user could be reached on that platform. I’m Indy Beagle

THIS WEEK on Monday Morning Radio: Steven Mercer speaks from personal experience when he tells entrepreneurs how to build a service practice without sacrificing their values, their time, or their financial stability.

Deputy rover Maxwell Rotbart asks brilliant questions and scribbles notes while Steven Mercer explains how to transition gradually from current employment to independent practice. He then explains how to attract clients through referrals and valuable content. He also explains how to decide when advertising makes sense.

Do you want to know the best ways to set fees, establish boundaries, and handle difficult clients?

Class will begin the moment you arrive at MondayMorningRadio.com.

View Details

Life is an adventure of choices and consequences.Choices and consequences.

I believe that with all my heart.

But I do not believe that wise choices will always yield the outcome you desired.

The Book of Ecclesiastes is filled with the wisdom and insights of Solomon, who had this to say in chapter nine;

“I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but Time and Chance happens to them all.”

I agree with what Solomon wrote, so I dare not say that a wise choice will always produce the desired outcome. But I will say that in the absence of unlucky timing and plain old bad luck, good Choices usually lead to good Consequences.

Vi Wickam, one of my Wizard of Ads partners, wrote 140 words last week that knocked my socks off.

I am typing these words to you on a computer that sits on top of my desk. Below that desk are my bare feet.

My socks are nowhere to be found.

These are the 140 words that Vi Wickam wrote for American Business Secrets.Make a Decision.

Many people talk about decisions, but few people understand what it really is

to make a decision.

Not every choice is a decision.

Decide comes from the Latin words “de” – meaning OFF – and “caedere”, meaning to CUT.

To decide is to Cut Off the other possibilities.

Few things are as powerful as a true decision.

To decide is to move in a direction and to cut off the others.

To decide is to keep your focus, and to not look back.

To decide is to face your fear of loss.

Every decision comes with loss, and you must face it.

When you face that fear, you will feel relief.

You will breathe easier.

To decide is to stop second guessing yourself.

To decide is to move forward with clear vision, and clear purpose.

Make a decision today.

With American Business Secrets, I’m Vi Wickam.

Do you often have to explain, justify, and defend your decisions?Me, too.

These are the 3 key sentences in Vi’s 140-word essay that jerked my eyes open and blew my socks away:

1. Not every choice is a decision.
2. To Decide is to Cut Off the other possibilities.
3. Every decision comes with loss, and you must face it.

Some people believe that if you delay long enough, a solution will arise that causes no discomfort, no inconvenience, and no awkward moments.

You will find these people waiting for their luck to turn, waiting for their ship to come in, waiting for their big break, waiting to begin this long, awkward, funny, delightful and difficult Walk of Life.

Roy H. WilliamsSaturday, August 1st, will mark the 150th Anniversary of Colorado’s admission to the Union as the 38th state.

That milestone might not seem to relevant at first glance, but your opinion will quickly change.

Maxwell Rotbart reveals in his new book, “Becoming Colorado,” the Rocky Mountain territory’s long struggle for statehood offers valuable lessons for today’s business executives in leadership, negotiation, coalition building, crisis management, branding, and strategy.

Chief rover Dean joins deputy rover Maxwell to explore the business counsel hidden within Colorado’s remarkable journey to statehood. Together, they will validate Winston Churchill’s famous observation: “The longer you can look back, the farther you can look forward.”

Are you ready to be fascinated? The place to be is MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

Road Atlanta is a famous roadracing track 800 miles from Tulsa, Oklahoma, a grueling trip to make in the back seat of a 1972 BMW 2002.Tony and Indy ride in the front seats. Pennie and I ride in the back.

We stop only for gas.

Arriving in pre-dawn Atlanta, we get a few hours sleep, then go down to the track where 67 racecars are parked in the dim sunlight of a misty morning.

We are invited to examine all 67 of the racecars. At the end of 40 minutes, Tony points to car number 52, a 1978 Buick Skyhawk. He says,

“Unless the driver sticks it into the wall or the engine explodes, that’s the car that will win.”

I looked at number 52, then glanced around at all the other cars and said, “Why?”

Tony said,

“That’s a ten-thousand-dollar paint job, and paint jobs don’t win races.”

“You’re telling me that the owner is an idiot. So why do you think his car will win?”

Tony slowly shook his head, then said,

“The fact that he spent $10,000 on a paint job lets me know that he spared no expense doing everything that matters. This guy did hundreds of important things to this car before he gave a single thought to the paint job. This paint job was the very last thing he did.”

When I understood what Tony was saying, I repeated it back to him. “The fact that he has spent a ton of money to repaint a brand-new car that was already beautiful means that he has already done everything else that could help him win this race.”

Tony said,

“Ten-thousand-dollar paint jobs don’t win races.”

I nodded my head, then we silently climbed the hill where we would sit to watch the race.

The track at Road Atlanta is two-and-a-half miles of hills, valleys, winding curves, and long straightaways that eat most of the cars and drivers who dare to place tires on its asphalt.A grass-and-tree-covered park sits in the center of that fierce track like a glittering jewel. This is where we will sit on blankets and watch cars fly past at startling speeds as 67 drivers try to outdistance each other for 6 screaming hours.

At the end of the appointed time, only 24 cars remained on the track.

Number 52 won by an impressive margin.

A client said something to me three weeks ago that triggered my memory of standing on that racetrack with Tony 48 years ago.

When a young client said that he was thinking about spending a huge amount of money for new truck wraps, I was instantly transported back to that track, listening to Tony explain why the car with the $10,000 paint job would win the race.

My client owns a fast-growing home services company that sends technicians to houses to fix things that are broken. He has only been in business a few years.

I accepted him as a client because I saw that he had already begun doing the things that will take his company higher than the tops of the mountains that surround him.

When he told me that he was thinking of investing a shocking amount of money to have his service trucks re-wrapped, I asked, “Why?”He said he had read a list of extremely successful companies who had all used the same graphics house to design their new truck wraps.

I asked,

“Was it the owner of the graphics house that compiled and published the list?”

My client said “Yes.”

I said, “I once went to an Italian Restaurant in Weehawken, New Jersey that had a prominent sign in the foyer that said, “This Dining Establishment is Highly Recommended by its Owner.”

We both laughed. Then I said to my client,

“Paint jobs don’t win races and truck wraps don’t grow companies. The owners of every company on that list had already done everything they could do that would make a difference. When they had run out of ways to spend money on things that actually matter, they decided to get an expensive paint job.”

Then I concluded my counsel by saying,

“You own this company. I do not. My job is to help you do whatever you choose to do. If you feel like you have already done everything that you know for sure will make a difference, then spend the money for the truck wraps. But don’t think that those companies became successful because of their truck wraps. Those companies became successful because they had already done everything else that matters.”

I do not yet know what my young client will choose to do.

But I do know two things:

1. He is smart, hard working, and is outdistancing all of his competitors.
2. Paint jobs don’t win races.

Roy H. WilliamsRon Robinson says that successful organizations continuously evaluate their vulnerabilities, engage employees in solving problems, and remain flexible as conditions change.

Listen as Ron describes to roving reporter Rotbart his four-step framework for anticipating disruption and responding before challenges become existential threats.

Ron’s goal is straightforward: Help leaders weather the storms of uncertainty and emerge stronger in their aftermath. A storm is definitely coming. Escape that storm and emerge stronger at MondayMorningRadio dot com

View Details

I received an email last Thursday from my friend Doug Burdon in which he mentions a story told by Jesus.

That story is often called “The Parable of the Sower and the Seed.”

The story goes like this:

1. A farmer is slinging seed.
2. Some of the seed falls on the compacted soil of the pathway where the birds came and ate it.
3. Seeds fall on rocky soil where it spouts, then dies because the soil is thin.
4. Some of the seed falls among thorns where it sprouts, then gets choked out by the aggressive weeds.
5. Seeds fall on good soil where it returns a massive harvest.

Doug referred to that story to make an altogether different point than the one that I am about to make, but I think that there is a solid chance that Doug would agree with me.

Look at the sower of the seed as an advertiser, and the seed itself as the message that his advertising contains.You will notice that Jesus did not say, “Target the good soil.”

(He does not say it in Matthew 13, He does not say it in Mark 4, and He does not say it in Luke 8.)

Think about that for a moment; a pathway is easy to see. Rocky ground and thorny patches are likewise obvious.

Why did Jesus NOT tell us to avoid spreading seed in places where it is unlikely to grow?

Why did Jesus NOT tell us to target the good soil?

(Yes, I am talking to you about the wisdom of using un-targeted mass media to spread your message. The consistent, long-term use of broadcast television and broadcast radio continues to be wildly effective even though they reach the untargeted, unfiltered, unwashed masses.)

I am convinced that Jesus was familiar with the book of Ecclesiastes, which was written hundreds of years before He was born. These are the high points of what you will find in the first 6 verses of Ecclesiastes chapter 11.

“Ship your grain across the sea; after many days you may receive a return.” [Translation: Don’t fall into the trap of short-term thinking – RHW] …”Whoever watches the wind will not sow seed. Whoever looks at the clouds will not reap a harvest. But you do not know the path of the wind… Sow your seed in the morning, and in the evening do not let your hands be idle, for you do not know which will succeed, whether this or that, or whether both will do equally well.”

In other words, “Quit trying to know the end from the beginning. Energetic activities are more far productive than data collection and analysis.”Do not fall into the trap of short-term thinking.

Sow the seed, sow the seed, sow the seed.

Do not try to target the good soil.

Sow the seed, sow the seed, sow the seed.

Do not worry about whether or not “this” is the right time.

Sow the seed, sow the seed, sow the seed.

Quit thinking that you have the ability to predict the future.

Sow the seed, sow the seed, sow the seed.

Perhaps my beliefs are completely wrong, but if they are, then it would appear that Jesus and Solomon were wrong, too.

Roy H. WilliamsColin Hodge knows that rapid business growth begins with understanding why customers think, choose, and behave as they do. Colin applies practical insights from psychology to strengthen customer loyalty and make better decisions through continual experimentation.

As he tells roving reporter Rotbart, this mindset proved essential after his first successful app was abruptly pulled from Apple’s app store, forcing him to start over.

Today, Colin’s company is back on Apple and has more than 17 million users. His story demonstrates how every setback can become the springboard to even greater success.

Are you ready to run down that springboard, bounce high into the air, and reach for the stars? If your answer is “Yes,” the place for you to be is MondayMorningRadio.com.

View Details

Dear Elon,Congratulations on your initial public offering of SPCX.

Google’s AI says, “The blockbuster debut briefly made Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire on paper.”

The words “briefly” and “on paper” dim the dazzling brightness of the word “trillionaire” a little, but still, it’s a pretty big deal.

I’m sure that Errol and Maye are super-proud.

You’ve come a long way since you started Zip2 with your brother, Kimball, in 1995.Who would have ever thought that a company that created online city guides for newspapers would sell for $307 million after just 3 and 1/2 years in business?

Your 7% was only worth $22 million, but still, that’s a lot of pocket money for a 27-year-old boy.

Your decision to partner up with Ed Ho, Harris Fricker, and Christopher Payne to create “X,” and then merge with your biggest competitor so that all of you could survive the bursting of the dotcom bubble, well, that was another brilliant move.

It worked out well for Max Levchin and Peter Thiel, too. You and Thiel and Ho, Fricker, Payne and Max created Paypal at exactly the right time.

Well done, all of you!

But of all your accomplishments, the one that impresses me the most is the frictionless website that you built to sell cars.Every Tesla owner that I have ever met has admitted to being marveled by how easy it was to buy a new Tesla. Five minutes online and $500 on a credit card leaves the customer sitting there, mildly stunned, asking themselves. “Did I really just buy a car? Can it really be that easy?”

Elon, when people marvel at something, the thing that marvels them can rightfully be called marvelous.

Elon, your Tesla website is marvelous.

And the car is marvelous.

Except for one thing. Can we talk about that one thing for a moment?Shortly after my wife Pennie bought her Tesla, I saw that we had a sheet rock screw embedded in the center of the tread in the right rear tire.

Pennie said, “No problem, Tire Service is one of the things that my Tesla app says they can do right in our driveway.”

So she pulled out her phone and quickly ordered and paid for Tire Service.

When the tire guy showed up he said, “Yep. That’s definitely a sheet rock screw and it’s definitely an easy fix, but I can only do tire rotations. Take this to the Tesla service center and I’m sure they will do it for free.”

When Pennie got back from the service center, she said that your service manager told her that the tire could not be fixed because it had a scuff on the sidewall, so he sold her a $400 new tire.

Obviously, I should have gone with her.

Was she cheated out of $400? Yes. In my opinion, she was cheated out of four hundred dollars.

Have we been cheated by other people for more money than that? Yes.

Life goes on.

Elon, you and I both know that no car on earth – not even your Tesla – is equipped with onboard sensors that can monitor the depth of the tire tread on a tire. So I can only assume that this annoying “tire tread” warning light that has been front-and-center on our dash ever since she visited your service center was most likely put there by the same aggressive salesman who already sold my wife a tire that she did not need.

I’m sure you can understand why I will never visit another Tesla service center.

Can we resolve this like honorable men?Elon, I will Venmo you another $400 if you will tell your service manager to press the button that will make the annoying “tire tread warning” light disappear from the dash of my wife’s car.

You can keep the tire. I don’t need it, just like I didn’t need the first one. But I really do need that annoying dash light to go away.

I will even Paypal you the $400 if you prefer.

Again, congratulations on briefly becoming the world’s first “on paper” trillionaire.

– Roy H. Williams

View Details

There is a big difference between a boundary and a wall.

A boundary is a friendly agreement that keeps people from going too far.

But a wall separates people.

A wall isolates people.

A wall keeps people away.

In business, there are few things more important than the management of expectations through the use of clearly-worded boundaries.

In business, these boundaries are called “up-front agreements.”An “up-front agreement” clarifies – at the very beginning of the relationship – what is INCLUDED, and what is EXCLUDED.

It lets everyone know what they CAN expect, and what they CANNOT expect.

“Up-front agreements” are how you establish boundaries with your customers.

Boundaries are friendly.

Walls are unfriendly.

When you tell a customer “NO” by announcing that something is against your “company policy,” you build a wall that protects you from your customer.

That wall will also make your customer feel like they need to be protected from you.

Boundaries give people clarity and confidence.

Walls give people anxiety and doubts.

Boundaries make people feel happy and safe.

Walls make people feel angry and afraid.

Businesses thrive and customers are happy when the boundaries are clearly known.

A clearly worded “up-front agreement” gives your customers confidence because it lets them know the boundaries in advance.But any time you say “NO” to a customer by telling them of some unknown “company policy,” you are putting up a wall that says,

“We don’t want you here.”

“You should not have come here.”

“Please tell everyone you meet.”

I have told you two things:

1. If you want your business to grow, make your boundaries known so that everyone knows in advance what is – and is not – included, and what can – and cannot – be expected.
2. If you want your business to grow, never, ever, surprise a customer with a “wall” that they did not know was there.

– Roy H. WilliamsMost companies struggle with how to turn good ideas into successful outcomes. Jeffrey Lambert knows exactly why we struggle, and how to correct it. A veteran project-management expert, Jeffrey can explain in plain English why companies always benefit from clear project ownership, well-defined goals, and disciplined execution.

As he tells roving reporter Rotbart, the best business plans and transformation initiatives fail when organizations rely too heavily on technology and systems, while overlooking the importance of culture, communication, and employee readiness. Are you ready to quit being frustrated? Your solution awaits you at MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

If your message is predictable, your message is invisible.If your advertising is predictable, your advertising is invisible.

When something never changes, we quit paying attention to it.

But we always pay attention to things that are new, surprising, and different.

What qre you doing for your customers that is new, surprising, and different?

Talk about those things in your advertising.

Most business owners are fearful of making a mistake.But you cannot do things that are new, surprising, and different

unless you are willing to take a chance.

If you never make mistakes, you’e not taking enough chances.

Take a chance.

Offer your clients a product, a service, a benefit, or a guarantee that surprises and delights them.

The first step is to decide how you will surprise and delight your customers.The second step requires energy and activities.

Energy and Activities.

Energy and Activities.

Energy to Energize.

Activities to Organize.

Let’s review what we have learned.

ONE: Predictability is Invisibility.

TWO: You will delight your customers with something that is new, surprising, and different.

THREE: Business growth is fueled by energy and activities.

Decide what you will do that is new.

And then do it.

– Roy H. Williams

Starting with a single strand of pearls that he purchased for his girlfriend, Jeremy Shepherd has become one of America’s most successful sellers of pearls and pearl jewelry. Intrigued by the pearl business, he became rich in pearls of wisdom as he accumulated a treasure trove of entrepreneurial insights through his successes and his mistakes.

Roving reporter Rotbart credits Jeremy with recognizing a business opportunity and then having the determination to transform himself into one of the industry’s leading experts. If you’re looking for profit-making advice that has real luster, Jeremy’s insights glow with it.

Pearls of wisdom are free today – and on the way – at MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

Do you want to become a great ad writer?Follow these ten steps and you will rise high and go far.

1. Read poetry every day.

2. Memorize at least two dozen poems.

3. Recite them out loud when you are alone.

4. Perform them spontaneously when you have an audience.

5. Feel the pulsating rhythm that is the heartbeat of every poem.

6. Wiggle your way through the unexpected twists and turns that are its dance.

7. Ask a few business owners to evaluate the ads that you have written for them.

8. Listen respectfully to everything they tell you. Even when they are wrong.

9. Do not try to change their mind about anything. Just write exactly what they would say if they could write as well as you do. Remember: This is their business, not yours.

10. Never write ads that rhyme. Use the heartbeat and the dance instead.

The pulsing heartbeat is called poetic meter. Study it.

The slide and glide of the dance is contained in its unexpected combinations of common words. Look, listen, and take note of these phrases in the poems that hit you the hardest.

Common words used in uncommon ways contain powerful magic.Squeeze those phrases and drink the juice.

If you do the things I told you, your ads will dramatically outperform the ads of your peers.

You will make a lot of money, but your college-compliant peers will tell you that you are “doing it wrong.”

Let me now say it as plainly as I can:

Successful advertising is not informational. Successful advertising is emotional.

Powerful ads do not speak to the mind.

They speak to the heart.

Like a poem.

– Roy H. WilliamsOne more thing:

Everything I told you is true when you are writing for social media or for mass media. But the things that I told you do NOT apply to B2B (Business to Business writing) and they only partially apply to website copy. Websites and business communications need to deliver more facts and logic because THAT is what the customer is looking for in those moments.

Tim Whitt is a business coach who learned his craft from termites, mosquitoes, and stinging bees. Seriously. After more than 45 years in the pest-control business, Tim says every business owner can learn a lot from the problems that insects and vermin create for homeowners.

Listen as Tim tells deputy rover Maxwell Rotbart about the striking parallels between household pests and the damage that toxic employees can inflict upon an organization. He also names the steps that you can take to correct those problems.

If troublesome employees are infesting your workplace, Tim’s pest-control perspective may be exactly the advice that you need. It’s time to get crazy at MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

Business owners ask, “How can we get customers to do what we want them to do?”And then they create an app and insist that you download it.

How many apps have you been told that you need to download? (Look at your phone and count them.)

Generally speaking, retail apps are good because they reduce the friction of your shopping experience. Service provider apps are bad because they increase the friction of your service experience.

1. How many times have you had to reset your password?
2. Have you ever had an app demand the answer to a question that sent you on a mission to find the answer?
3. How many times have you been presented with a pick-list that did not include your need?
4. Do you sometimes feel like you are making things easier for the service provider instead of them making things easier for you?

Six different service apps have recently increased my frustration to the point that I am now searching for six new service providers to replace them.

I was not surprised when I learned that all six of those companies are in decline.

And I’ll wager that none of them knows why.

Operational efficiency is a worthy objective. Just be careful that you are not shifting your workload onto the shoulders of your customer.

Every designer of a service app believes their app is going to be user-friendly, easy to understand, frustration-free, and save the customer a lot of time.In reality, these apps are felt to be unfriendly and frustrating.

We both know that the objective is not to save time for us, but for us to save time for the service provider. They have established neat little cubicles to meet their own needs, and now they are telling us to crawl into each little cubicle and do what we are told.

This technology is not working for me. It is forcing me to work for them.

Wealthy superstar business owners do not ask, “How can we get customers to do what we want them to do?”

Superstars ask, “How can we do what customers wish we could do?”Brian Scudamore, Dewey Jenkins, and Aaron Gaynor are superstar builders of service businesses.

Each of these superstars has elevated their service business to become a shining star in the dark night of every customer.

These men say:

1. “How can we make it effortless and frustration-free for the customer?”
2. “We have to find more ways to make it easier for people to do business with us!”
3. “How can we delight the customer in ways they did not expect?”
4. “We will always have a solution for every customer. No one will be left behind. We never walk away from a person who needs us.”

Brian Scudamore built 1-800-GOT-JUNK into the World’s Largest Junk Removal Service by making every problem his problem.“We make junk disappear. All you have to do is point.”

For many years Brian has been pondering the question, “How can we do what customers wish we could do?”

Brian identified four big things that his customers wished were possible, but that were clearly impossible.

Last month Brian Scudamore figured out how to do all four of those things!

When he makes his big announcement, I expect his company to quickly double in size.

I would tell you to buy stock in his company, but I can’t.

Brian owns the whole thing. No investors, stockholders, or board of directors.

Now you know how miracles are made.

Roy H. WilliamsNOTE FROM INDY: I put an Aaron Gaynor radio ad on the first page of the rabbit hole for you. – Indy Beagle

Small-business growth creates a frustrating paradox: the more a business succeeds, the more overwhelmed the owner becomes. Small-business coach Jason Rosado helps small-business owners strengthen their teams, and create more free time for their owners.

In this week’s episode of MondayMorningRadio Jason tells roving reporter Rotbart how a business owner can identify whether their business truly needs more customers — or whether it is operational inefficiencies and leadership inflexibility that are preventing growth. If you could use some practical techniques for reducing stress and preventing burnout, check out Jason Rosado at MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

Direct response ads are written to take the customer from Attention to Interest to Desire to Action in a single encounter.Direct marketers have a product or a service to sell. They don’t have a brand to protect.

This is why ROAS is the perfect analytical tool for them.

ROAS is the acronym for Return On Ad Spend.

In other words, it is the Return On Investment of your ad budget.

You can:

1. measure lead generation with ROAS.
2. compare the effectiveness of media with ROAS.
3. track sales attribution with ROAS.

But you will never build a brand with ROAS.

In fact, the measurement of ROAS will always – without exception – lead to the disintegration of your brand.

Here’s why:

1. To produce an impressive result in a short period of time, your ad must contain a degree of urgency.
2. Urgency is not sustainable, nor is it scalable.
3. The longer you run urgent ads, the less well they work.

ROAS always looks great on paper for about a year, sometimes even 18 months.But then the wheels fall off and you can never put those wheels back on again. Your brand will never be more than a shadow of its former self.

Consider this:

A successful Going Out of Business sale is simply a massive extraction of the stored value in a brand. This “stored value” is the reputation of the company and the trust of its customers.

These are variables that determine the success of every Going Out of Business Sale:

1. Has this company routinely advertised a Sale or offered a discount?
2. How highly do people esteem this brand?
3. How credible is the urgency contained in the ad copy?

ROAS always leads to short-term thinking because ROAS rewards ads that extract the largest amount of stored value from the brand.

Have you built a brand?

Do people feel a connection to your brand?

The day that you begin using ROAS to determine which ads work best, you will have launched a Going Out of Business Sale whether you intended to or not.

Roy H. WilliamsOne in every five American adults is the customer of a family that you have never heard of. Their company generates more than $32 billion in annual revenue. And the $17 trillion in customer accounts and investment funds it manages exceeds the gross domestic products of Germany, Japan, and India combined. Despite the enormous influence of Fidelity Investments, relatively little is known about the singular family behind the Boston-based multinational financial services giant.

Justin Baer, the deputy markets editor at The Wall Street Journal, reveals the dramatic three-generation saga of the fiercely private Johnson family in his new book. He also explains how they helped transform American investing.

Listen and be amazed as Baer shares with roving reporter Rotbart the behind-the-scenes story of Fidelity’s success. You will also gain insights from Fidelity’s rise in leadership, their marketing, their innovation, and their succession planning. The story begins the moment you arrive at MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

I promise that I will state plainly for you – in ten short words – the singular Rule of Success before you have finished reading this Monday Morning Memo.

Stay quiet and stay close. We are wandering into a dangerous area. To see the glittering truth of the Rule of Success, we must quietly sneak up on it.

The North Star never moves because it hovers directly above the axis of the earth. If you draw a line from the South Pole to the North Pole and then extend that line 323 light years into space, it will touch the North Star.

Your life’s goal is your guiding light, your North Star. This is why you are forever traveling northward as you pursue your dream.But there is a limit to north. That limit is called the North Pole.

When you go beyond that limit, you are now headed in the opposite direction.

This is the bitter truth that has been tasted by every person who has achieved their life’s goal:

“You work your whole life to reach the summit. And when you get there, all the roads lead down.”

Like every rule, North and South are finite and achievable.

Like every principle, East and West are infinite and unachievable.

You can travel east forever and never reach the end of “east.”

“The opposite of a correct statement is an incorrect statement. But the opposite of a profound truth is often another profound truth.”

Without intending to do so, Niels Bohr summarized in those two sentences the fundamental difference between a rule and a principle. The first sentence describes every rule. The second sentence describes every principle.

The person who turns a principle into a rule is a fool.I call that person a fool only because their mind is not big enough to hold in stasis the contradictory tension that is at the heart of every profound truth.

Did it ever occur to you that helping people get what they want is the foundational principle behind every business on earth?

Do you want to be successful?

This the only Rule of Success:

“Find out what people want, then give it to them.”

Jesus taught us the eternal principle behind the Rule of Success when he said,

“Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Remove “Love” from that principle, and you will have a similar principle that says,

“It is always good to help people get what they want.”

But here is the “opposite truth” of that principle:

“It is always bad to help people get what they want when it would require injuring an innocent person.”

In other words, removing “love” wasn’t such a great idea.

People who worship at the altar of Ayn Rand always try to convince me that it is okay to damage naive, gullible, innocent people “because the only person that really matters is you, and you are not responsible for making other people happy. You are only responsible for making yourself happy.”

Interestingly, that is exactly what Jeffrey Epstein believed.He died in prison for his belief, and his name has become a curse word.

Bernie Madoff was only pretending to help people get what they wanted. He was perceived as “successful” for as long as he was able to sustain his con.

Bernie likewise died in prison.

Sam Bankman-Fried was a young fool who pretended to be helping people while he was robbing them blind.

The courts took away the 11 billion dollars he stole. Then they locked him in a room the size of a walk-in closet where he will spend the next 25 years of his life.

Removing love is never a good idea.

– Roy H. Williams

View Details

Effective advertising is not about delivering information; it is about delivering persuasion.Don’t tell your audience how to feel.

Make them feel.

Great ad writers are secret poets.

Poetry is not about making words rhyme. Poetry is about leading people to a realization.

Poetic ad writers open your eyes and cause you to realize.

They lead you to a conclusion, then let you discover it for yourself.

Great writers don’t tell you. They show you.

This poem will do that:What of the watchman on the wall?

What says the watchman?

“It is 10pm, let the night begin.”

What says the watchman?

“It is 11 at night, everything is all right.”

What says the watchman?

“It is midnight, the bell has rung. Every song has been sung.”

What says the watchman?

“It it is 1am, I am all alone. I am all alone.”

What says the watchman?

“It is 2am, scrolling on my phone.”

What says the watchman?

What says the watchman?

What says the watchman?

What says the watchman?

The watchman watched his phone.

The enemy arrived.

The watchman is gone.

Don’t just deliver information. Deliver persuasion.Open their eyes. Make them realize.

When they see what you see, they will do what you want them to.

Win the heart and the mind will follow.

The mind will always create logic to justify what the heart has already decided.

Roy H. Williams

Cheryl Strauss Einhorn helps executives, entrepreneurs, and leadership teams make smarter, more confident choices and avoid costly mistakes. As a Decision Science strategist, Cheryl developed the widely used AREA Method, a framework designed to help leaders challenge assumptions, reduce cognitive bias, and improve judgment in high-stakes situations.

In this week’s episode of Monday Morning Radio, Cheryl explains to roving reporter Rotbart that while “gut instinct” plays a valuable role in business, too many leaders rely on it entirely, rather than grounding their decisions in real-world testing, stakeholder input, rigorous analysis, and evidence. Listen and learn at MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

Find out what people already want, then offer them exactly that. Quit trying to convince customers that they should want what you are selling.Speak to everyone, everywhere, about widely felt needs, deeply held beliefs, and personal values. Quit telling yourself that you need to reach “the right people” with your advertising.1. A: The media doesn’t make the message work. The message makes the media work. I’ve never seen a business fail because they were were reaching the wrong people. But I’ve seen hundreds fail because they were saying the wrong things. 2. B: Anyone who has a friend, a relative, a co-worker, or a neighbor is an influencer. Is there anyone that you DON’T want to say good things about you? 3. C: Powerful brands like Ferrari, Rolex, and Harley Davidson are known, loved, and admired by hundreds of millions of people who will never own a Ferrari, a Rolex, or a Harley. Do you think those brands would be better off if they were known only to the people that the brands chose to “target” as potential customers?

Customers buy from personalities they know, like, and trust.1. A: People don’t bond with corporations, they bond with personalities. 2. B: Brands that have personalities are exactly as real to us as our favorite characters in novels, television shows, cartoons, and movies. Who doesn’t love R2D2, C3PO, and Yoda? You realize those characters are purely imaginary, right? But we feel as though we know them. 3. C: Does your brand have a distinctive personality? If not, why not?

I will now summarize each of those 3 Steps in exactly 12 words.People want friends, honesty, encouragement, access, and to know that they matter.Buy mass media. Quit fishing with a hook. Use a net instead.Don’t be so boring. Find some courage. Be a distinctively memorable personality.1. Roy H. Williams

Zig Ziglar would have turned 100 this year.

This week, Tom Ziglar shares some little-known stories about his father with roving reporter Rotbart and deputy rover, Maxwell, including the fact that despite Zig’s worldwide fame, he once carried a stranger’s luggage to the guest’s hotel room simply because the out-of-towner took one look at Zig’s red sports coat and thought he was a bellman.

But todays episode is more than a nostalgic look backward, as Tom Ziglar offers a thoughtful meditation on legacy, leadership, and the enduring power of optimism. Things are looking UP at MondayMorningRadio.com.

View Details

I write this with reluctance because I know that I will receive hundreds of emails correcting me on a few niggling little details.But write on, I must.

“Write on, write on, write on.”

“Cost of Compute” refers to the $8 to $13 that every AI company has to spend on electricity and short-lived computer chips for every $1 that comes through the door.

Losing a dozen dollars for every dollar you touch isn’t a problem when investors are showering you with cash from a fire hose.

But it’s beginning to look like the well has run dry.

I did not want to defend where I got my information, so I went to the Goog and asked, “Oh Great Googness, why are people referring to the S&P 500 as the “S&P 10”?

Check this out, cub scout, straight from the AI of the Almighty Google:

“The S&P 500 is being referred to as the “S&P 10″ because a handful of massive technology-related companies dominate the index’s performance. Due to market-cap weighting, these top 10 stocks disproportionately influence the index’s total return, making the ‘broad market’ performance heavily reliant on these few, AI-exposed companies. More than $40 of every $100 invested in the S&P 500 is going into just 10 companies, creating a high level of concentration not seen in decades. In some recent periods, those top 10 stocks have accounted for nearly 90% of the entire index’s gains, indicating that the remaining 490+ stocks contribute very little to the overall upward movement.”

Allow me to highlight Three Big Problems.1. Manufacturing companies, food companies, service companies, and all the other cash-hungry hopefuls that are the true wonders of the American economy have not been able to raise any money because way too many people have been dumping everything they’ve got into AI. 2. That money has now slowed down, which means that a lot of AI dependent companies are now being burned by their “burn rate,” a slang term for “precisely how fast they are losing money.” 3. AI is getting worse, not better, despite the fact that everyone is repeating like parrots, “AI is worse now than it will ever be. Hour by hour, AI will just keep getting better and better forever and ever.”

Okay, I can tell from the look of doubt that I see in your eyes that you need me to explain a little bit more about Problem Number 3.

They can’t raise prices fast enough to stop the bleeding, so most of the AI companies have reduced their Cost of Compute by 86%.

“But how?” you ask.

Here’s how. In the recent past, you could give your $200/mo AI some detailed instructions and it would go on a deep dive to bring you the golden nuggets of information that you requested. The 86% savings of Compute Cost is because they instructed the AI to just look in the cache for what they told someone else who asked a similar question. You get a recycled answer, and the AI company saves 86%.

I’ll wrap this up by giving you the storyteller’s definition of “inflection point.”Bad storytellers say, “This happened, then This happened, then This happened, then This happened, then This happened.”

Real stories happen like this: “This happened, THEREFORE this happened, BUT then, This happened.”

“BUT then, This happened” is called “an Inflection Point.”

“So what’s going to happen next?”

Let’s wait and see.

Roy H. Williams

View Details

I could be wrong, but I think I see a line of 6,603 standing dominoes with a forefinger poised to flick the first domino.Take a step back, I’ll give you some facts, and then we’ll return to the dominoes.

1. There are 6,602 FM radio stations in America, 597 FM stations in Canada, and 234 in Australia on which you can air radio ads for local businesses. These radio stations are producing miraculous results for business owners who hire great ad writers to enchant the audience and savvy media buyers to schedule those ads to air with correct repetition 52 weeks a year.

Sadly, most business owners do exactly the wrong thing. They run short schedules to “test the waters,” and then announce, “I tried radio and it didn’t work.”

1. ABC, NBC, CBS, and FOX are producing miraculous results for business owners who hire great ad writers to enchant the audience and savvy media buyers to schedule those ads to air with correct repetition 52 weeks a year.

Sadly, most business owners do exactly the wrong thing. They run short schedules to “test the waters,” and then announce, “I tried television and TV didn’t work.”

Did you notice the similarity that united those two easily proven facts?

1. Anyone who believes that online media has made mass media obsolete is comically delusional. I never waste time attempting to correct these people.

We will now return to the dominoes.1. Nielsen Audio is the media measurement company that allows savvy media buyers to create miraculous radio schedules. Without Nielsen, they are flying blind without instruments and very likely to crash their flying machines. 2. Cumulus owns multiple radio stations in 84 important cities in the U.S. Their current financial difficulties make it impossible for them to pay Nielsen for their measurement services. 3. Nielsen has responded by announcing that Cumulus radio stations will no longer be measured or listed in future ratings reports. 4. The resulting invisibility of those stations will cripple even the savviest media buyers. 5. An emerging measurement system, DTS AutoStage, shows promise but I remain convinced that it will be at least a few more years before it has sufficient breadth of data to replace Nielsen.

The finger of Nielsen is flicking the domino that will knock over the other 6,602 dominoes in the chain that will ultimately result in the demise of Nielsen.I have no way of knowing whether or not Nielsen realizes that.

Nielsen was purchased by private equity on October 11, 2022, less than 4 years ago.

Things are looking good for ABC, NBC, CBS, and FOX.

Roy H. WilliamsWhen people talk about the Chicago Cubs and their historic 2016 World Series victory — ending a 108-year drought — Joshua Lifrak is a name you rarely hear. But he wears a Cubs World Series ring. Joshua Lifrak’s job was to help players perform under extraordinary pressure. Today Joshua works with business leaders to sharpen focus, build mental resilience and perform at their best. Be fascinated as Joshua tells roving reporter Rotbart and deputy rover Maxwell how peak mental conditioning is a “home run” skill that anyone can learn and practice, regardless of what they do for a living. Batter up! at MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

Just as strawberries taste better when they are dipped in chocolate, advice tastes better when it is wrapped in a thick coating of encouragement.Your advice is valuable, but it will never make as big a difference as your encouragement.

Encouragement is the opposite of flattery.

When you flatter someone, you tell them something positive about themselves that they know is not true. And they suspect that you know it is not true.

A flatterer is a liar who believes they are talking to a fool.

When you encourage someone, you tell them something you have observed in them that they know is true, or have always hoped was true, and you are simply confirming it by speaking it out loud.

You believe it to be true, and they know you do. And now they believe it, too.

You have spoken to the greatness in them. You have seen something in them that they have always hoped someone would see.

That’s what makes you a great encourager.

The people in your life need your encouragement more than they need your advice.

Think about the people who have made the biggest difference in your life.Those people believed in you and gave you their:

1. Time
2. Attention
3. Patience
4. Confidence

When I say they “gave you their confidence,” I mean that literally. I’m not saying that they confided in you. I’m saying that they had confidence in you when you had none in yourself. They gave THEIR confidence TO you. They gave you the confidence that you have today.

Give a person confidence and they will never forget your name, your face, or that moment.

The people who gave you confidence saw something in you that they wanted you to share with the world. Their reward was that they got to see you flourish and blossom and grow.

Today they are seeing you make a difference everywhere you go.

Would you like to become an encourager?1. When you see a stranger do something skillfully, say, “You make that look easy, and I know it isn’t. You really have a talent for that.” And then allow them to react. 2. When a person says, “I’ve always wanted to become a __________, but everyone tells me that I couldn’t possibly do that because I __________.” Look at them and say, “Of course you can do it! I KNOW that you can do it. You just need to decide whether or not you’re going to.” 3. When you have known a person for awhile and have seen a recurrent characteristic in them that you admire, say to them, “There are a lot of things about you that I really admire, but the thing that always knocks me over is when you_____________.”

Your words will light a candle in them that will never go out.The lightning bolt of your encouragement will propel them forward and light their pathway for the rest of their life.

We need encouragers, and we need them badly.

I want you to consider becoming one.

Roy H. Williams

Martin “Marty” Strong is a former Navy SEAL, business leader, and author who challenges conventional thinking about how companies — and the people who oversee them — should operate.

Blending lessons from the battlefield and the executive suite, Lieutenant Strong argues that too many of today’s leaders cling to outdated methods, failing to recognize that the marketplace is constantly evolving — and that effective managers must anticipate and adapt to change.

To do otherwise, he tells roving reporter Rotbart, is like relying on an old encyclopedia — making critical decisions based on information that is no longer accurate or relevant.

View Details

In the Kairos moment, you will find yourself in an unknown place.And a person will appear.

This person is known among storytellers as “The Old Man in the Woods.”

His job is to prepare you for all the challenges you will face on the next segment of your adventure.

Mr. Miyagi was the Old Man in the Woods for Daniel LaRusso in the Karate Kid.

Obi-Wan was Luke Skywalker’s first Old Man in the Woods, and Yoda was his second.

Have you noticed how every James Bond movie begins with 007 visiting “Q”?

“Q” is the armorer who supplies 007 with precisely the gadgets he will need to accomplish his next mission.

“Q” is James Bond’s “Old Man in the Woods.”

Luke chapter 4 tell us of how Jesus, immediately after his baptism, spent 40 days in the wilderness of Judea. When he emerged from that wilderness, he revealed himself to the world. Verse 14 of that chapter says, “Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside.”

Would it be fair to say that Jesus spent 40 days with the ultimate “Old Man in the Woods” prior to doing what he famously did?John bar Zebedee sat next to Jesus during The Last Supper. He was the only one of Jesus’ followers to witness the crucifixion. And was entrusted by Jesus – from the cross – to care for his mother, Mary, while He was away.

John bar Zebedee, in chapter two of First John*, writes about the Three Stages of Life.

He speaks of the Child, the Young Man, and the Old Man.

I am writing to you, dear Children,

because your sins have been forgiven

on account of his name,

and because you know the Father.

I write to you, Young Men,

because you are strong,

and the word of God lives in you,

and you have overcome the evil one.

I am writing to you, Fathers,

because you know Him

who is from the beginning.

Because you know Him

who is from the beginning.

Children spend a dozen or more years preparing to become the strong Young Men and strong Young Women who, full of zest and zeal and zip-a-dee-doo-dah, will face challenges, overcome difficulties, and leave their fingerprints on the world.

And every one of them will need an advisor – an older and wiser friend – to counsel them, encourage them, and prepare them for what lies ahead.

John bar Zebedee was not speaking of biological Fathers and Mothers when he wrote the letter that we call the book of First John.

The people John calls “Fathers” are those who have already wandered the pathless forest and found their way to the other side.

The people John calls “Fathers” are those who already “know.”

The American Dream promises that when you have finished your journey and completed your task, you can recreate, luxuriate, and selfishly celebrate your success for the rest of your life.

And that certainly remains an option, if it appeals to you. But I believe that it will not.I believe that you will choose to advise, encourage, and counsel the next generation who must blaze a new and different trail through a new and different wilderness than the one that you and I faced.

I believe that you will find fulfillment in your occasional role as “The Old Man” or “The Old Woman” in the woods.

Roy H. WilliamsI consolidated and reorganized what you will find in chapter two of First John,* but if you read it closely, I believe you will agree that my retelling is faithful to the message of that original text.

View Details

I am always fascinated when I see business owners all marching in the same direction, doing the exact same things because they believe, “This is the way to differentiate yourself.”

Do you believe that following the same strategy as everyone else is the way the surest way to succeed?

Of course you don’t. Because if you were an unthinking conformist, you would never have subscribed to the MondayMorningMemo.

StrategyEverything flows from strategy.

Your logo is the flag waved by your strategy.

Your sonic device is the trumpet call of your strategy.

(Do you have a sonic device?)

Your recurrent phrases – your brandable chunks – are the poetic expressions of your strategy.

(Can you name your brandable chunks?)

Your ad copy flows like a river from your strategy.

How swift is the current in that river today? How many people are swimming, canoeing, skiing, biking, hiking, fishing, splashing, frolicing and dashing in your river right now?

Your media buyer opens the floodgates that gush water into your river.

(How good is your media buyer?)

Do you understand why measuring ROAS is green kryptonite to every super-heroic strategy?

Do you understand why verbs make a bigger difference than nouns and modifyers?

Would you like to know these things and change the trajectory of your business and your life?Be in the Tower at Wizard Academy on May 26th and May 27th.

Wisdom is knowing what to do.

Understanding is knowing why it works.

If you have an open mind and a hungry heart, your life will be forever changed.

Or maybe you already know these things and should therefore absolutely, definitely, please don’t come.

Roy H. Williams

PS – Do you have a crazy idea? Would you like to learn from 4 famous people, each of whom have repeatedly taken their crazy ideas to the highest heights? It’s going to be an amazing adventure, full of wonder.

View Details

March 30, 2026

It pays to know what people already care about.The following conversation illustrates one of the ways in which this pays.

“If I spend money on advertising, what will I get in return?”

It depends on what you say in your ads.

“What do you mean?”

Most ads have no relevance to most people.

“Yes, that’s why you need to target the right people.”

There is some truth in that, but not as much as you think.

“What do you mean?”

You can reach the right person, but if they have no current need for what you sell, you can only hope that they remember you when they do have a need.

“So, what’s the answer?”

The answer is to talk to people about what they already care about. Speak to what currently interests them.

“Can you give me a couple of examples?”

Sure.

1. Public Relations experts know that a highly relevant press release will deliver amazing results when it can be inserted into a conversation that people are already having.
2. Mass Media experts know that TV and Radio ads deliver amazing results when they:

(A) speak to values and beliefs that already reside in the hearts of the masses

(B) introduce relatable, interesting characters so that people can bond with them

(C) use 40 percent of the total ads to create “sales activation” by making an offer of a product or service during a time when it is at peak desirability.

“But even when something is at peak desirability, don’t I have to be able to reach the right people?”

When you are using mass media, you can depend on the behavior of the masses.

“What do you mean?”

Most products and services will be at peak desirability during these three types of trigger events.(A) Seasonality.

Every spring, the masses want junk removal, lawn fertilizer, gardening equipment and supplies, home improvement tools and materials, warm-weather clothing, A/C check-ups and a huge variety of other products and services. Each month of the year triggers its own felt needs.

(B) Holidays.

Each holiday triggers its own thoughts, emotions, and desires. New Year’s Day is when people invest in diet programs, gym memberships, and programs to help them quit smoking. Valentine’s Day is romance, and Memorial Day is when retailers have discount events, and then we have End-of-School, Vacation Season, Back-to-School, Thanksgiving, and then Christmas. Each of these are each trigger events that every company can build upon.

(C) Personal Trigger Events.

Moving out of a home or into a home is a personal trigger event that cannot be predicted by even the best AI. Likewise, engagement ring purchases, hot water heater replacement, funeral services, and car repairs happen at unexpected and unplanned times. Does it make sense to wait until the “Zero Moment of Truth” and then pay the price to generate an extremely expensive, low-conversion click? Or should you become the company the masses “think of first and feel the best about” when their personal trigger event occurs? Low-cost, high-conversion clicks are the result of people typing your name into the search engine because you have already won their hearts through the ongoing use of low-cost mass media.

CONCLUSION:

What you say in your mass media ads determines whether or not you will own real estate in the hearts and minds of the masses.BONUS INFORMATION:

Youtube has become a new type of Mass Media.

I decided to start a couple of Youtube channels in February.

On March 4th, I decided to do an experiment. It began to pay off on March 5th.

Twenty-one days later, the results of those two experiments was a combined total of 1,234,238 new subscribers at a total cost of 2 cents per subscriber.

When a person subscribes, they are telling you,

“I love this and want more of it.”

If you want to know how much I spent to gain 1.2 million subscribers in just 21 days, all you have to do is multiply 1,234,238 by 0.02. (If you want to know precisely how much I spent, multiply 1,234,238 by 0.020319090498)

But that does not mean that all you have to do is spend the money.You can buy views with money, but you cannot buy subscribers.

Subscribers are earned by what you say. You have to speak to a need that people already feel.

Weak, limp advertising tries to convince people that they need something that they do not feel they need.

Speak about what people already care about.

That’s the ticket.

Roy H. Williams

View Details

I have bumbled my way through life with a reasonable degree of success, I think.

Especially when you consider the number of people who have patted me on my head and told me that I didn’t need to understand what they were talking about because they would happily, “do all of those difficult things” for me if I would just hand them the checkbook and the keys.

I never did that, of course.

Head-patters are always convinced that I am a fool-child from Oklahoma because I never bother with a written plan, a budget, or a timetable for major undertakings.

But somehow, they always turn out okay.

Here’s an example of what I’m talking about:When Pennie and I began filling 21 acres in Austin, Texas with large, complicated, and expensive buildings, I was asked at least once a day,

“How long will it take to build all of this, and how much will it cost?”

I always answered with the truth,

“It will take as long as it takes, and it will cost what it costs.”

That answer really alarmed people.I didn’t say it to be shocking or cute. I said it because I honestly didn’t know and I genuinely didn’t care.

When you don’t borrow money, you can take as long as you want to do whatever you are doing. Rarely did Pennie and I have the money to do the things that we chose to do, but we knew that the money would find us.

That attitude drove people crazy. They were absolutely certain that we would utterly fail because I didn’t have a detailed plan.

I’m not suggesting that other people should reject written plans. Other people can do whatever they want.

But so can I.Planning is something

I have never hated,

But I do believe

it is overrated.

I cannot,

(but maybe you can)

remember when

there was a plan

that let you sail

the river of

your dream

without

changing course

in mid-stream.

Planning is a

religion theoretical.

Yes, I am certainly

speaking heretical,

but I am depending

upon your receptivity

when I say that I prefer

Energy and Activity.

But now I am getting

ahead of myself

which happens when you

leave the plan on a shelf

and rely on your Commitment

to an Outcome agreed-upon

and not some soggy paper

that Circumstances peed upon.

Commitment and Creativity.

That’s my plan.

Plus Energy and Activity

and a frying pan

because a good breakfast,

you will remember,

is essential to Christmas Elves

in late December.

Commitment

and Creativity.

Energy and Activities.

Keep your eye

on the star stationary

and do whatever

you think is necessary.

And never forget

that in your hand

you carry a cast iron

frying pan.

Roy H. Williams

A Note from Indy Beagle: For those of you who are curious, @GreatWritersSeries and @TribalGospelhad a good week on Youtube. GreatWritersSeries climbed from 44,000 subscribers to more than 100,000. TribalGospel climed from 105,000 subscribers to more than half a million.

I wonder what will happen next! Aroo. – Indy

Fauzia Burke generates visibility for her literary clients and their books. Her authors include Ken Blanchard, Daniel Silva, Jeffrey Archer, Alan Alda, Dean Koontz, S.C. Gwynne, and Brian Tracy. Fauzia could undoubtedly rest on her laurels, but ever since she launched her firm in 1995, she has continually updated and reinvented her methods.

This week, she shares the story of her steep learning curve in applying AI to her existing processes, lessons that you can adapt, regardless of the business you are in. As Fauzia tells roving reporter Rotbart and his deputy, Maxwell, “AI will not replace professionals who know their craft, but the ones who learn to use AI will almost certainly outperform the ones who don’t.” Tune in and Win! At MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

March 16, 2026

I am sitting in front of a computer that can deliver love letters to billions of addresses across the twenty-four time zones that encircle this watery rock we live upon.

I sit and stare and look with wonder at the glittering ocean called Youtube, deeply aware that I know next-to-nothing about it. This gives me a tremendous advantage.

It keeps me from doing what everyone else is doing.

Naive ignorance becomes nitroglycerin when it is energized by the spirit of adventure. Handled carefully, you can move mountains with it. But if you are reckless, clumsy, or just plain unlucky, that same TNT can blow you into pieces.

I looked at myself in the mirror and said, “Let’s go exploring.”

Mirror-me thought it sounded like fun, so he passed through the glass to join me on my side of the mirror.

Energized by the spirit of adventure, I launched @GreatWritersSeries on Youtube and Mirror-Me launched @TribalGospel.On Feb 12, 2026, GreatWritersSeries had 480 views and a few dozen subscribers.

On March 12, 2026, it had accumulated 5,146,423 total views and 44,684 subscribers.

TribalGospel had zero views on Feb 12 to but quickly accumulated 8,299,137 total views and 105,707subscribers by March 12.

GreatWriters Series received fresh content once a day.

TribalGospel received fresh content at a much faster pace, up to 3 times a day.

Indy Beagle has posted some Youtube screenshots in the rabbit hole for you, along with a couple of the most successful videos.

I will now answer your questions:Q: “Can you teach me how you did this?”

A: Yes, but the information will probably not be useful to you. But if you insist on hearing all of the details, be in the tower at Wizard Academy on May 26-27. I will spend one hour of that two-day class answering the questions of whoever is in that room.

Q: “Why has TribalGospel outperformed GreatWritersSeries?

A: GreatWritersSeries is carrying water to the ocean. TribalGospel is carrying water to the desert.

Q: “What do you mean?”

A: GreatWritersSeries is published for people who love literature that was written in the English language. This widely diverse but relatively small group is scattered across the United States, Canada, Australia, Great Britain, and Ireland, with a few additional outliers flung here and there.

GreatWritersSeries wants only to tempt people to become lovers of literature, whereas TribalGospel is published for people in every time zone who are thirsty for encouragement and hope.English is not their first language, but they can understand it if they can read along with what they are hearing.

Look at the comments @TribalGospel and these things will immediately become apparent to you.

A startling number of TribalGospel subscribers are in Iraq, Ukraine, Egypt, India, Saudi Arabia, the Philippines, Indonesia, and throughout South America. I knew this would be the case, so I leaned into it.

Are you beginning to understand why only a spattering of what I have learned during these past 28 days will be useful to you? TribalGospel wants only to make a difference – to lift people up for a moment – so that channel went to where it could most easily encourage the largest number of people.

Traditional wisdom would have said that only an idiot would sing flashes of Bible stories and the message of Jesus to nations that are predominantly non-Christian.

But I have always been an idiot.Q: Does everyone consider it to be encouragement?

A: Of course not. You will notice that about 10 percent of the Youtube comments are rage posts from people who want to tell me why I am wrong.

But I ignore those people because have found more than 100,000 people in just 28 days who have clearly said, “Thank you! And will you please send me more of this?”

Q: Do you believe this will be sustainable or is it a flash in the pan?

A: I have no way of knowing. My suspicion, though, is that TribalGospel will continue to grow, but GreatWritersSeries will ebb and surge like the tide.

Q: Why do you think so?

A: The world has billions of forgotten people, overlooked people, and many of those people are carrying smart phones. The message of TribalGospel will be very consistent, mostly just variations of an uplifting theme. This causes me to believe that TribalGospel will gain new subscribers faster than it loses old ones.

But I do not make that assumption about GreatWritersSeries.A person who subscribed when they heard a Shakespeare song is going to be angry and confused when they hear the gonzo writing of Tom Robbins. To have a stable subscriber base, GreatWritersSeries would have to choose a narrow niche within the already narrow “Lovers of Literature” niche.

The hope of GreatWritersSeries is to expose people to a writer that enchants them enough to read a book by that writer. You can think of GreatWritersSeries as a dealer who is giving away samples in the hope of creating new addicts.

I apologize for that metaphor, but I couldn’t think of a better one.

The adventure continues. Snow-capped mountains loom ahead and winter is coming.

Roy H. WilliamsMost people believe that business success is the product of talent, hard work, and persistence. But what if success could be analyzed — and improved — using the laws of probability? Kyle Austin Young maintains that most goals can be analyzed and improved by understanding their underlying odds. This is true of whatever you do. Launching a product, raising funds, publishing a book, whatever. Kyle calls his consulting methodology “probability hacking.” It says that the odds of your success are determined by the odds of each of the necessary things going right, multiplied together. Roving reporter Rotbart predicts that the odds are very high that this episode of MondayMorningRadio will improve your company’s top line. The explanation begins the moment you arrive at MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

One thing always leads to another

That’s why big sisters have baby brothers

And how King George gave away a nation

when he said “No” to representation.

He did not not know how much it meant

for those colonies to have seats in Parliament.

Think about it. The cry of the colonies was only this:

“No taxation without representation.”

What if King George had said…

“That is a fantastic plan!

Each colony needs to choose a man.”

And if the colonies had responded,

“We’d like to send two.”

And King George had said…

“Then two seats it will be!

Because you people are important to me.”

The difference that would have made in history,

Will forever be an unsolved mystery.

But I do know this, and I know it for sure:

That having an open mind is a powerful cure

for avoiding problems that can spiral out of control

and haunt you forever, wherever you go.

If there is a moral to this story,

I guess it would be this:

Never shout “No” when there is

a workable way to say Yes.

Never shout “No” when there is

a workable way to say Yes.

Never shout “No” when there is

a workable way to say Yes.

One thing always leads to another.1. I was speaking with Clara, the wife of Danny, one of my clients. 2. Clara collects silverwork made by the world’s great silversmiths. 3. One of Clara’s hopes is to someday acquire an exceptionally fine piece of silverwork made by – “The British are coming! The British are coming!” – Paul Revere. 4. Were you aware that Paul Revere was a famous silversmith?

The unseen silverwork of that midnight man was floating in a slow circle in the asteroid belt of my mind when the haunting voice of Paul Revere whispered silently in my ear,

“What would have happened if King George had said ‘Yes’ and given each of his thirteen American colonies two seats in Parliament?”

A conversation about what Clara collected quickly became a quirky poem that quietly abandons seven words of subtle sexual humor to move into the story of a stupid king who launched a faraway war he could never win.

Creative thought is not sequential; it is relational, a pinball that ricochets off levers and bumpers at unexpected angles, the energy of the unexpected, triggering bells in the brain and flashing lights in the mind.

Crazy Jack Kerouac had rules for writing:9. The unspeakable visions of the individual

1. Write what you want, bottomless from bottom of the mind

2. Blow as deep as you want to blow.

My few lines of accidental verse soon became a song sung by imaginary singers who are currently touring the world.

You can catch their show in the rabbit hole.

Roy H. Williams

Courtney De Ronde is a financial decoder. She studies the same financial data that business owners and their accountants review, but she uncovers opportunities and risks within those numbers that are almost always overlooked. This is why Courtney De Ronde has evolved as a scaling expert. She helps businesses grow by avoiding the missteps that non-strategic growth always causes.

As Courtney shares with roving reporter Rotbart, most business owners will expand their revenues but end up working harder, hiring more people, piling on expenses, and somehow ending up with the same — or even less — profit. Learn what you need to know at MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

February 26, 2026

Kronos is chronological time.

Kronos appears more than 50 times in the original New Testament.

Kairos is a pregnant moment in time, an inflection-point of consequence.Does in surprise you that Kairos appears more than 85 times?

Each of us vividly remembers those Kairos moments when we decided to turn the steering wheel of Life and begin traveling in a whole new direction.Jim Burns is a counselor. His voice is heard on more than 800 radio stations each day and he has 3 million books in print. But I didn’t know any of that prior to him appearing as a guest speaker at our church last week.

I tell you this only because Jim Burns said something that I really needed to hear.

“I had to learn to say ’no’ to good things, to say ‘yes’ to the most important things.”

That was a Kairos moment for me because it instantly crystallized something in my mind that had previously been only the foggy awareness that I was speaking with so many people each day that I no longer had time to take a deep breath and calm my thoughts.

Then Jim said it again, but differently.

“Sometimes we just have to say ‘no’ to good things, even to say yes to the most important things. That’s how we declutter. That’s how we run light.”

Two days later, I was surprised by a video on Youtube in which my friend Ryan Deiss mentions me by name. He had posted that video a couple of weeks before Jim Burns spoke at our church.

Speaking of himself, Ryan says,“I literally had zero recollection whatsoever of what I did, or what any of my companies did those weeks, either. It’s just like they were a complete blur. More than likely, I spent all my time responding to whatever emergency someone else decided was important for me on that particular day.”

Wow. Ryan Deiss was speaking exactly what I had been feeling for more than a year.

There are now 87 Wizard of Ads partners and many hundreds of clients, so I go to bed most nights exhausted by the long days, the countless conversations, and the constant feeling that I am somehow letting everyone down.

But Ryan wasn’t finished.

“Scale creates chaos. So if you want to get bigger, you have to insist on focus and simplicity. It is a bit of a paradox, but the key to scale is actually to do less, not more. Because when you force yourself to do less, you shift the emphasis from quantity to impact. And at scale, output matters a lot more than activity.”

We – not just me, but all of us – need to be on guard that we don’t allow the “merely urgent” to displace the truly important.Have you ever noticed that the things that are truly important are rarely urgent, and things that are “exclamation-point URGENT” are rarely of lasting importance?

Urgent things are momentary, but constant.

Important things are forever, but they can always wait.

And then one day, they can’t wait any longer.

And by then, it’s often too late.

For those of you who are curious, Indy Beagle has posted in the rabbit hole the Ryan Deiss Youtube video that I mentioned, as well as the Youtube video of Jim Burns speaking at our church.

Those two messages, just 48 hours apart, created a Kairos moment for me.

If you have been feeling what I was feeling and what Ryan was describing, maybe those videos will do the same for you.

You can watch the videos or click past them if you don’t have time.

Believe me, I completely understand.

Roy H. WilliamsAmerica’s top CEOs pay Doug C. Brown to teach them how to rethink their approach to sales. Doug has consulted Procter & Gamble, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, and Embassy Suites. Doug C. Brown is not a lightweight. Doug tells roving reporter Rotbart, “most companies can quickly realize a 20-30% improvement in operating profits” when they follow his straightforward recommendations.

Doug says that it is more important “to know the right prospects to approach” than to know how to close the sale. If you think you’ve heard it all, listen to Doug C. Brown. There is a chance that maybe you haven’t heard it all. Doug C. Brown will light you up. The right time to listen is up to you. But the place will always be MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

Welkin is a poetic or archaic term for the sky, firmament, or vault of heaven.To “ring the welkin” or make the “welkin ring” is a literary idiom meaning to make a very loud noise, such as shouting, cheering, or singing, that seems to echo throughout the sky or heavens. It implies creating a celebratory or boisterous sound that fills the air.

Will you ring welkin?

“Jet” Eisenberg knew immediately why I was doing what I did. He said that I spoke about it on the day that we met more than a quarter-century ago.

He said that I have spoken about it in every class that he has ever heard me teach.

Most people continue to be confused regarding my commitment to @GreatWritersSeries, so I recently updated the description of that channel on Youtube. (You should subscribe, by the way.)

You may recognize a line within that description that I used in last week’s Monday Morning Memo.

This is my new description on Youtube:The goal of @GreatWritersSeries is to tempt you to read great literature: the novels, histories, poems, and news stories that won the Pulitzer and Nobel prizes. The song lyrics and screenplays that won the Grammy and Tony Awards.

Because they will change you.

Great literature is the lightning bolt that will pierce your skull, illuminate your mind, and set your tongue on fire.

“For as you read, so will you speak and write.”

Roy H. Williams had a marvelous English teacher during his junior and senior years of high school in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma.

Her name was Linn Ball.

She taught him to hear the music of great writing and dance to it.

She taught him to lift his eyes to the sky so that he could fly.

She taught him to hear the music of unexpected words as they bang into each other and fill the movie screen of the mind with scenes that are startling and true.

He wants to do the same for you.

Moments before I began writing this Monday Monday Memo to you, I posted on Youtube a musical video of a poem written in 1929 by Ogden Nash.

The title of that poem is “No Doctors Today, Thank You.” You can see and hear that Youtube performance in today’s rabbit hole.

This is it:They tell me that euphoria is the feeling of feeling wonderful,

well, today I feel euphorian,

Today I have the agility of a Greek god and the appetite of a

Victorian.

Yes, today I may even go forth without my galoshes,

Today I am a swashbuckler, would anybody like me to buckle

any swashes?

This is my euphorian day,

I will ring welkin and before anybody answers I will run away.

I will tame me a caribou

And bedeck it with marabou.

I will pen me my memoirs.

Ah youth, youth! What euphorian days them was!

I wasn’t much of a hand for the boudoirs,

I was generally to be found where the food was.

Does anybody want any flotsam?

I’ve gotsam.

Does anybody want any jetsam?

I can getsam.

I can play chopsticks on the Wurlitzer,

I can speak Portuguese like a Berlitzer.

I can don or doff my shoes without tying or untying the laces because I am wearing moccasins,

And I practically know the difference between serums and antitoccasins.

Kind people, don’t think me purse-proud, don’t set me down as vainglorious,

I’m just a little euphorious.

I’m just a little euphorious.

I want you to dance.I want you to fly.I want the movie screen of your mind to be filled with scenes that are startling and true.I want you to feel euphorious.Roy H. Williams

Regular viewers of cable news will instantly recognize Arthur Lih and his ubiquitous commercials for LifeVac, the non-invasive rescue device he invented to save choking victims when the Heimlich maneuver and other traditional methods fail. To date, his invention is credited with saving 5,450-plus lives. As Arthur shares with roving reporter Rotbart and his deputy, Maxwell, developing a life-saving device is one challenge. Building a company around it and sustaining that business in a highly regulated, highly competitive environment is exponentially harder. Arthur’s insights are indispensable for entrepreneurs, business owners, and inventors committed to developing products that matter — and companies that endure. You can hear the entire, amazing story at MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

Everywhere he went, Jeremiah warned people that their land would be subjugated, their way of life would be destroyed, and that they would become slaves of a government they did not choose.Jeremiah is remembered today as “the weeping prophet.”

He was earnest, sincere, and entirely correct, but no one wants to be told that they have an inescapable appointment with a dentist and a gastroenterologist to receive a simultaneous root canal and colonoscopy in the outdoors during a rainstorm.

Jeremiah painted a dark sky without a single ray of sunlight shining through. This is why no one ever gave Jeremiah a microphone, an audience, and a big pile of money to be their guest speaker.

Polyanna was 11 years old in 1913, and she still rides around on her adorable little pony radiating sunshine and rainbows everywhere she goes. Pollyanna tells everyone who will listen that a magical genie will give you whatever you want if you just smile and laugh and think happy thoughts.

Pollyanna is even less popular than Jeremiah. I promise I’m not making this up.

Google tells me that Jeremiah remains a popular name for boys, always ranked in the top 100. Pollyanna is not nearly so popular among girls. It currently ranks somewhere between number 8,284 and number 13,776.

Jeremiah and Pollyanna became the topic of conversation while I was comparing notes with Ryan Deiss and Jet Eisenberg and Robert Grebe during lunch last week. We were trying to figure out why we were suddenly seeing a sharp uptick in public speaking requests.

We all agreed that a general feeling of unrest is shining out of every television screen and blowing through the ductwork of every home in America.

That’s when Deiss said,

“No one wants Jeremiah. No one wants Pollyanna. People are looking for someone who is aware of current difficulties, but who can also see a clear path forward.”

It was one of those moments when everyone at the table instantly knew that Truth had been spoken.No one wants to hear the gloom and doom of Jeremiah right now. And no one wants to ride the pony or drink the sugarwater of Pollyanna.

People are just looking for a promising path forward.

My partner Todd Liles has been trying to tell me this for several months, but Ryan Deiss was able to condense it into a metaphor of paired opposites, the lightning bolt that is most likely to pierce my hard head and illuminate my mind

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus was the last of the Five Good Emperors of Rome. Eighteen hundred years ago he wrote,

“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.”

Lucius Annaeus Seneca was born in the same year that Jesus was born. Late in his life, Seneca said,

“True happiness is to enjoy the present without anxious dependence on the future.”

But Jesus had already said the same thing thirty years earlier during his famous Sermon on the Mount. Jesus was teaching us to live in the present when he said,

“Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

Do not fret about an imaginary future.

You will deal with the actual future when it arrives.

Roy H. Williams

View Details

Relationships are easier to navigate when we realize that one person’s heaven is another person’s hell.The things that bring us joy are subjective and personal and uniquely our own.

Can we talk for a moment about joy?

Joy is a mixture of appreciation and wonder.

You cannot appreciate something and be filled with wonder by it without also having a feeling of thankfulness for it.

Every garden of joy is rooted in the soil of gratitude.

Do not confuse pleasure with joy.

Pleasure is superficial and outward, barely skin-deep. But joy finds its rhythm in the beating of your heart and its home in the marrow of your bones.

You and I do a lot of things for a lot of different reasons each day. But what do you do just for the joy of it?

What do you do that makes you feel like you?Every great consultant finds joy in the success of the people they advise.

Gary and Stephen help businesses grow by crafting totally true stories to tell the public.

Their stories are intensely interesting.

Yesterday Stephen told me something that fascinated me beyond words.

In a business category that is not interesting, in a trade area of barely a million people, a man built a business to about 5 million dollars a year before walking slowly backwards to 3.7 million.

Then he met Stephen.

Stephen guided that business owner to 12 million a year through better storytelling. Thirteen months ago that same business owner hired a bright young woman to become his social media marketer. He generously paid expensive social media consultants to train her.

When the bright young woman told Stephen what she had learned from these experts, Stephen asked his partner Gary if he would share his contrarian perspective with her.

In the end, the bright young woman and the business owner asked Gary to become her coach.

In 2025, that business had more than 50 million facebook views as a direct result of Gary’s coaching and the dedicated efforts of that young woman. Last month – in the 31 days of January, 2026 – that business had more than 12-and-a half million views on Facebook.

I love that story and I admire that business owner and the young woman he hired.

I am also extremely proud of Stephen and Gary.

In a fit of curiosity, I just now divided 31 days into 12-and-a half million views.We’re talking about 403,000 views per day, which is 16,000 views per hour, which is 280 views per minute.

We’re talking about 4.7 views per second, 24 hours a day for 31 days.

Friends, I’m feeling joy.

Roy H. Williams

View Details

WORLDWIDE ANXIETY:Do you find yourself wondering what is going to happen next?

You are not the only person who has that question echoing in their mind. Billions of people are feeling this way around the world.

Instability creates anxiety and uncertainty causes worry.

That’s why the price of gold has been shooting upwards like a bottle rocket on the Fourth of July.

The stock exchange is a short-term barometer of American investor confidence.

The price of gold is a long-term barometer of the entire world’s confidence in the future.

Gold was $265 an ounce in the year 2000.

It had climbed to $1,185 an ounce by 2013 as people all over the world began to bicker at ever higher levels of intensity.

Driven by concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic, the price of gold exceeded $2,000 an ounce for the first time in history on August 4, 2020.

Gold climbed to more than $3,000 an ounce on March 14, 2025 as the world grew anxious about “trade war tensions” according to Business Insider.

Just seven months later – on October 8, 2025 – gold exceeded $4,000 an ounce. Reuters said the reason was “geopolitical and economic uncertainty.”

That was less than 4 months ago.

At the time of this writing – Wednesday, January 28, 2026 – gold is at $5,565.40 per ounce.

Did you realize that the price of gold has climbed from $3000/ounce to $5,565/ounce in less than 11 months?

Instability creates anxiety and uncertainty causes worry.

The price of gold rises as the world gets nervous and consumer confidence falls.

Uncertain about the future, people are becoming increasingly hesitant to spend money.

LOCAL OPPORTUNITY:When their sales volume falls below last year’s sales volume, the first reaction of most business owners is to blame the marketing team. Their second reaction is to reduce their advertising, lay off some people, and hunker down.

This creates an amazing opportunity for courageous business owners to grow their market share.

Your ads stand out when your competitors go silent.

Selling is a transfer of confidence. When the customer doesn’t have confidence that today is the right day, or that your price is the right price, or that your company is the right company to trust, your only option is to transfer your confidence to them.

When you have successfully transferred your confidence to your customer, they will know that today is the right day, your price is the right price, and your company is the company to trust.

But this takes

1. a convincing message

2. rock-solid courage

3. staying power.

Do you have the financial staying power to win droves of new customers when margins are shrinking? More importantly, do you have the emotional staying power?

I believe that 2026 will be a year of anxiety and opportunity. You can duck and cover, or you can reach upward and rise.

You cannot change your circumstances, but you can change your actions.

Will you shrink, or will you rise?

Roy H. WilliamsHere’s a Little Tidbit of News for You: the wizard has been handsomely paid to appear in a new movie about the global economy and his book “Pendulum” that he wrote in 2012. That movie will be shown in movie theaters across America, but only to private audiences. Roy said to the producer,

“The Pendulum of western society does NOT predict the economy. It predicts ONLY that society will fracture and social violence will escalate for a period of ten years as we approach the zenith of a ‘WE’, which happened in 2023. Then it will slowly subside for the next ten years. The zenith of a ‘WE’ occurs only once every 80 years.”

When this private movie has been produced and is available to be seen, we’ll let you know. Also, roving reporter Rotbart in still in Washington D.C. researching his next big book, but he’ll be back with new episodes of Monday Morning Radio in just a few more weeks.

Thank you for subscribing to the Monday Morning Memo.

View Details

David and I began building oilfield heat exchangers in a heavy steel fabrication shop in Oklahoma when we were 14 years old. We were universally known as, “them schoolboys.”

Steel shops are notoriously noisy, but when we heard “Schooolboy!” ring out above the cacophony of hammers and grinders, we would swivel our heads toward the sound and begin walking toward whomever was looking at us.

“Hard, dirty and dangerous” describes the work and the men we worked with.

To call them “drunks, deviants, and derelicts” would certainly be less kind, but no less accurate.

There were also 8 or 9 solid family men, most of whom were foremen and supervisors.The oil coolers we built were the size of a two-car garage. And several times a day these metal monsters would be lifted 5 or 6 feet off the ground by an overhead crane and go swinging through the air to another part of the shop as far as 300 feet away.

Heavy steel flying through the air is entirely unforgiving. One of my responsibilities was to drive injured guys to the hospital. But few of my bloody passengers were injured in accidents. Most of them were injured in fistfights with coworkers.

When we were both 16, David and I were joined by a boy named Jay. Dark hair, dark eyes, and skin that was decidedly not English, Irish, Scottish, or German. We liked him immediately.

David put a quarter into the machine and yanked a Pepsi from its mechanical jaws. He handed it to Jay and asked, “Are you some kind of Puerto Rikkan or something?”

Jay scowled and said, “No, I ain’t no dang Rikkan.”

David smiled, clicked his Pepsi bottle against the one that Jay was holding, took a long drink, then said, “It’s good to meet you, Rikkan.”

We found out later that Jay was Italian, but his name was Rikkan from that day forward.

A few days later, Rikkan began calling David “Cliff” and my name somehow became “Dean.” Rikkan never told us why he chose those names, but he refused to call us anything else, so David and I fell into line. I began calling him Cliff and he began calling me Dean.

Jay, David and Roy became Rikkan, Cliff and Dean for the next 3 years. Utterly absurd, but completely true.

Devin Wright has a sparkling laugh and I’ve always enjoyed hearing it.So when Devin began working with me 20 years ago, I would walk into his office each afternoon and ask a ridiculous question. Devin would laugh his sparkling laugh and I would walk away smiling.

One day I popped my head into his office and looked at him quizzically, as though I was confused. He looked back at me, equally puzzled. With a completely straight face, I asked “Did you get a spray tan?”

For once, Devin didn’t laugh. He vigorously denied it, utterly aghast that I would ever think that he was so vain and shallow that he would ever stoop to such a ridiculous…

I quit listening after that.So now you know how “Spraytan” was born.

Jacob Harrison became “Boxwine” in a similar fashion,

Dave Cullen became “Skunkmeat”

Howard Wolowitz became “Fruit Loops”

George Costanza became “KoKo”

and Jeffrey Eisenberg became “Jet.”

No, “Jet” is not a reduction of Jeffrey.

When we agreed to meet for lunch last week, Jeffrey suggested by text that we meet at 1300 hours.

I texted him back, “I never knew that you were in the Air Force. Did you fly fighter jets?”

If all of this sounds lowbrow, redneck, hick, uncultured, ill-refined, outmoded, outdated, dinosaur-ish and in poor taste, I agree.

But no one can spend 4 impressionable years working with drunks, deviants, and derelicts and walk away without at least one bad habit.

Roy H. WilliamsDean Rotbart is taking a short Sabbatical from Monday Morning Radio for the next few weeks to travel across America gathering detailed information for an extremely important new book that he is writing. We have been sworn to secrecy not to tell you what this new book is about, because if it became known, it would make Dean’s research much more difficult to accomplish.

In his younger years, our roving reporter Rotbart was a Pulitzer-nominated investigative reporter for the Wall Street Journal. Investigative reporting is his superpower. But Dean has promised us that when his research is complete and his new book has been published, all will be revealed.

But jump into the rabbit hole anyway! Indy Beagle has some treats for you.

View Details

Before you borrow cash from a friend, decide which one you need most.Never tell a person that their child is ugly. Every child is the trigger on the gun of their parent’s rage.

If you say, “I am only speaking the truth,” you can be sure that the child’s parent will just as truthfully amputate you from their life and throw shade at the memory of your name forever.

“The Proper Priorities of Government” is a beautiful child that lives in the brain of every citizen. And that child is uniquely their own.

Do you remember what I told you about children?

AI is the newest baby in every family.I am a writer. My words are my children. If you tell me that your AI can replace me as a writer, I will know you to be a fool and a tragic waste of oxygen and skin.

Can AI write better than you? If your words are not bone of your bone, blood of your blood, and flesh of your flesh, then yes, it probably can.

When I began production on the “Great Writers Series,” I sent several of my friends a few of the AI-produced performances of the 8,000 grand passages of literature that I have laboriously transcribed from books over the past 50 years.

When I sent those music-enhanced performances, I pulled the triggers on the guns that are carried by all of the musicians in my life.

Shortly after being riddled with bullets,I received this text from Ryan Deiss on December 26, 2025, at 7:24AM:

Paul Graham on why you shouldn’t write with Al:

“In preindustrial times most people’s jobs made them strong. Now if you want to be strong, you work out. So there are still strong people, but only those who choose to be. It will be the same with writing. There will still be smart people, but only those who choose to be.”

This was my reply to Ryan’s text:

“Everyone loves AI to do the things they hate, but they hate AI when it does the things they love. I am no different. I think AI is dangerous and stupid and evil when it replaces writers. But I use it enthusiastically to make musical productions instantly possible. I would otherwise have had to spend many months and hundreds of thousands of dollars to create with musicians what I can create with Suno.com in a day. Musicians are well within their rights to resent me and be disgusted with me when I use AI to replace them.”

The Great Writers Series will continue because it is important to me.If you click the image at the top of this page, you will see another clickable image. Below that clickable image is one of the first Youtube shorts – formatted for your phone – that I will be uploading once a day for as long as I am able to do so.

If you click that performance and enjoy it, and would like to receive a new one each day, you can click through to Youtube and subscribe.

If you do not like the performance, that’s 100% okay as long as you don’t tell me about it.

All of my children are beautiful, almost as beautiful as yours.

Roy H. Williams

View Details

1. EquityI’m not sure how Google would define “equity,” but my definition of equity is “stored value.”

As a homeowner, you understand home equity as the stored value that it offers you.

Your equity in your home is a product of all the time, energy, and money that you have put into it, plus the value that has been added by the passage of time.

Relational equity is accumulated in the same way.

“What have we invested in each other? What have we endured? How many years have we traveled through life together?”

Relational equity is why we tolerate annoyances and troubles from the people we love. They have added value to our lives, so they have relational equity in us.

Likewise, customer-bonding ads create relational equity between today’s businesses and tomorrow’s customers. They do this by highlighting shared perspectives, beliefs, and values.

Customer-bonding ads communicate authenticity, and vulnerability. And they are always there, 52 weeks a year. Authenticity, vulnerability, and the passage of time are not easy to fake or accelerate.

Keep those things in mind as you read on.

1. AIEighty-seven Wizards of Ads who stay in regular touch with nearly 1,000 businesses are a reliable finger on the pulse of what is happening.

This is what is happening:

Google Search results have been altered in a dramatic and unexpected way. Some companies have benefited greatly from Google’s new methodology while other companies have been devastated by it.

You’ll understand what separates the winners from the losers in just a moment.

With 6,000 employees, Edelman is the world’s largest PR agency. They help companies worldwide manage their reputations and trust through stories published in mass media.

Edelman has been doing what they do since 1952.

On October 27, 2025, Christmas decorations were vibrating in anticipation of replacing Halloween decor when Brent Nelson – Chief Strategy Officer at Edelman – was quoted in Ad Age magazine.

Explaining why Google dramatically expanded their results-ranking criteria, Nelson said,

“What drives visibility isn’t your ad budget or keyword bids; it’s earned media. Analysis shows that 90% of what appears in AI summaries is ‘earned-driven’—pulled from reviews, press, blogs, forums and cultural chatter. Paid now plays a different role, amplifying what’s already there.”

“The new shelf space isn’t a store; it’s the AI summary. Brands need to understand their earned footprint across AI-generated answers.”

“Who gets cited? Who’s trusted? Who’s missing? That’s the new baseline of visibility.”

In other words, Google is now rewarding Relational Equity.

1. A PredictionHundreds of new companies are about to leap into the Public Relations business. Their goal will be to get their clients mentioned in online press, blogs, forums and cultural chatter.

PR is an easy business to get into. It won’t be long before you are approached by someone who has a PR solution to help you improve your AEO (Ask Engine Optimization).

If you remember any of today’s Monday Morning Memo, let it be this:

“If you don’t have anything interesting to say, don’t let anyone convince you to pay money to say it.”

Company slogans, mush-mouth clichés and traditional ad-speak are not going to move the needle.

Every month or two, you are going to need something new, exciting, different, and entirely real to say.

1. A SuggestionRadio stations would be smart to start a daily or weekly blog that is fun, quick, entertaining, easy-to-read, and full of valuable things that every consumer would want to know about.

If I owned a station in Austin, I would call my blog “Cool Things Austin Needs to Know”

If my blog was well written and full of actionable information and enough people got into the habit of scanning it each day, my radio station could become an important contributor to the online press, blogs, forums and cultural chatter that are now so very important.

Could a Radio station become a major online player in their community? Absolutely!

Remember, radio stations have the power to popularize their online blogs FOR FREE. Announcers could quote interesting tidbits from it each day and build a massive readership. Offline radio excitement would become online blog excitement.

Do I expect that radio stations will do this? Nope.

But if a few do dare to do it, do I expect them to be successful? Nope.

These are the four ways that their bosses will force them to screw it up.

1. They will try to make it a source of direct revenue.

2. They won’t write about anything or anyone who doesn’t advertise on their station.

3. They will allow advertisers to influence what is said about them in the blog.

4. It will be badly written, boring, and of no value to anyone.

But it would absolutely work if they did it right.

1. Closing commentsWe are overwhelmed by a Three Ring Circus of media: online, offline, local, national, audio, video, print, outdoor, broadcast, streaming, digital, analog, physical, old-school, new-school, professional, amateur, full-color and black-and-white.

It is never the media that makes the message work.

It is always the message that makes the media work.

If you don’t have anything interesting to say,

don’t let anyone convince you to pay money to say it.

Roy H. Williams

Lots of people know how to make money. But far fewer understand how to protect it, manage it, and plan for the long arc of life once the hard work of earning is done. Jeffrey Panik brings clarity to complex financial decisions. Listen and learn as Jeffrey shares with roving reporter Rotbart his emphasis on individualized planning, long-term thinking, and his belief that communication is absolutely essential between spouses, across generations, and with trusted advisors.

Drawing stories from his professional experience and from his personal history, Jeffrey will shake your beliefs and challenge your assumptions about financial planning and retirement readiness.

Jeffrey’s BIG TRUTH can be summarized in just six words: “Clarity today can prevent regret tomorrow.” We’ll say hello and shake your hand the moment you arrive at MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

In 1958, Paul made 85 cents an hour working in a limestone quarry in Oklahoma.

He was a man of character, integrity, and kindness.

He was quiet, smiled a lot, and was a wonderful listener.

Paul’s humility, kindness, and confidence gave him dignity and authority in the eyes of everyone who knew him.

He was happily married and had three little girls. On the day his fourth little girl was born he walked into a storm that could easily have ripped him apart.

It was with great heaviness of heart that Doctor Franklin told him that there was a problem with the Rh factor in the little girl’s blood and that she was almost certainly going to die.

She was barely, barely, barely hanging on.With tears in his eyes Doctor Franklin told him, “And your wife is also fading fast.” Doctor Franklin dropped his chin to his chest as teardrops splashed on his shoes.

An ambulance rushed both mother and daughter to a larger hospital in a larger town.

Paul was all alone with eighty-five cents an hour and three little girls.

Several hours later, a happy and rejoicing Doc Franklin told Paul that both mother and daughter were going to live!

They were going to live.

The medical bill was more than a thousand dollars and there was no insurance; just a husband and wife and four little girls and 85 cents an hour.

Being a man of integrity, Paul went to see Doc Franklin the next day to set up a payment plan for paying that thousand-dollar medical bill.

Doc Franklin said, “What medical bill?”

Paul was confused, and it showed on his face.

Old Doctor Franklin spoke plainly,

“There is no medical bill. You do not owe any money. Just be a good father to those girls.”

“Just be a good father to those girls.”

I can testify that he was a good father to those girls. I met Paul Compton when I was 14 years old and in love with his daughter, the one who nearly died on the day she was born.

Here’s how I met him.One week prior to beginning my freshman year in high school, my mother received an invitation to come to an open house at the school on a Tuesday night where she could meet Coach Jerry Meeks, my home room teacher.

He taught Oklahoma History, of course.

Attached to that letter was a list of all the other students who would be in my first-hour class.

I saw that Pennie Compton was going to be in that class with me. She knew who I was, but we had never actually met. This would be the first time that we would be in class together.

Mom couldn’t go that night, which suited me fine. I had a plan of my own.

I was the first person to arrive. The parking lot was empty except for the cars of the teachers. I met Coach Meeks, then took a seat at a desk in the back row. About 30 minutes later, a tall man came walking in with his wife and the girl that I knew I was going to marry.

After Paul and his wife exchanged pleasantries with Coach Meeks, I walked up to him, introduced myself, then shook his hand as I smiled and said,

“My name is Roy Williams and you’re going to be seeing a lot of me.”

Last week Princess Pennie and I celebrated our 49th wedding anniversary.Paul never criticized me or gave me advice unless I asked for it. But when I did ask for it, he would tell what he thought, along with some true stories from his own life that explained why he believed what he believed.

He always spoke slowly and gave me his full attention. His confidence in me was a great encouragement.

In all the decades that I knew Paul Compton, I never saw him raise his head from prayer without having tears on his cheeks. When Paul talked to God, you knew that God was listening.

I always looked forward to having him pray for me.

He was the best man I ever knew.

Roy H. Williams

Monica Ballard knows why marketing campaigns fail. It’s not for lack of clever slogans, talented spokespeople, or catchy jingles. Monica says ad people fail when they try to project “perfection” rather than authenticity, which requires that you acknowledge the struggles and risks inherent in running a business. Monica is a veteran marketing strategist, storyteller, and one of the elite Wizard of Ads partners.

Drawing on her background in theater, radio, and live performance, Monica explains to roving reporter Rotbart and deputy rover Maxwell why empathy and emotional honesty create bonds with customers that no discount or gimmick ever could. “Being real isn’t a liability,” Monica assures us. “It is a decisive competitive advantage.” Get Real with Monica Ballard at MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

Extremis is a Latin word that says you are in extreme circumstances, a desperate situation, a dire predicament, or the edge of death.

“There is great tension in the world, tension toward a breaking point, and men are unhappy and confused. At such time it seems natural and good to me to ask myself these questions. What do I believe in? What must I fight for and what must I fight against?”

I’ll tell you who said that in just a minute.

Here’s another direct quote:

“It’s life or death for America, people tell you. Angry debates about taxes, religion and race relations inflame the newspapers. Everyone is talking politics: your spouse, your teenage daughter, your boss, your grocer. Neighbors eye you suspiciously, pressing you to buy local. Angry crowds gather, smelling of booze and threatening violence; their leaders wink, confident that the ends justify the means. The stores have sold out of guns.”*

Are you ready to hear the final two sentences?

“It’s 1775 in Britain’s American colonies. Whose side are you on?”*

That first quote about “great tension in the world” and men being “unhappy and confused” came from John Steinbeck in 1941. I’ll bet you thought it was more recent, didn’t you?

There is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which one can say, “Look! This is something new”? It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time. No one remembers the former generations, and even those yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow them.

If that sounds familiar to you, it’s because Solomon said it 3,000 years ago in the book of Ecclesiastes.

Here’s my point: Yes, the world is in a state of extremis, but we have always been in a state of extremis.So put it behind you. Get over it.

Better yet, use your recovery from extremis to unleash joy, passion, a flood of creativity, and a flamelike focus that will take you to places you have never been.

When you recover from a state of extremis, you open a trapdoor to the unconscious mind. It is a waterfall that doesn’t fall downward, but gushes upward into the sky.

If you want to ride that waterfall, all you have to do is exit your extremis. Put it behind you. Get over it.

Quit giving your attention to the news.

Do not say to yourself,

“But if everyone quit paying attention to the news, there would be no societal outrage, no oversight, no accountability!”

Let me make this clear to you. There is zero chance that everyone is going to quit giving their attention to the news. It’s an addiction like any other. In fact, I’m worried that you won’t have the strength, the willpower, or the discipline to turn away from it yourself.

If you monitor the news for the rest of your life, what are the chances that doing so will change anything at all, even a tiny bit? Does being aware of things that are beyond your control somehow give you the ability to change those things?

Turn away from the dark side, Luke Skywalker. Embrace the light.

And have a happy, new, year.

Roy H. WilliamsPS – I gathered a few dozen quotes from Dorothy Parker and made two powerful productions from them. The first production is 4 minutes and 24 seconds long and was extracted from writings that Dorothy published in Vanity Fair and The New Yorker in the 1920s.

The second production is 5 minutes and 9 seconds and was compiled from the writings of Dorothy’s later years. The character arc between the two performances is sobering. You’ll find both of them on the first page of the rabbit hole. Click the image at the top of the Monday Morning Memo for December 29, 2025, and you’ll be there. – Aroo, Indy Beagle.

Caitlin Fitz, “The Accidental Patriots”, The Atlantic,* Dec. 2016

Four-time Olympian and bestselling author Ruben Gonzalez joins roving reporter Rotbart today for a conversation about perseverance, belief, and the wisdom of following leaders who have proven themselves to be worthy of your trust. Ruben Gonzalez is unusual among Olympians.

He didn’t begin competing at an elite level until his mid-20s, and he never used his lack of natural ability as an excuse for falling short.

Ruben’s career in sports and in life has been built upon desire, discipline, and stubbornness. Ruben refuses to quit. His message to you is about how to build your courage through small daily choices, how to manage risk intelligently rather than avoid it, and how to measure your success, not through your bank account, but through the impact you have on others. Meet Ruben Gonzalez and become a happier person at MondayMorningRadio.com.

View Details

The best short stories leave out important information but evoke it in such a way as to cause a kind of explosion of associative connections.*These are my secret rules for making that happen:1. Lead your listener toward a conclusion and then let them arrive at it on their own. If you state a conclusion and then try to support it with evidence, you are robbing your listener of the joy of discovery. 2. Give your listener the new, the surprising, and the different. 3. If you must give them old information, reframe it; give it to them from a new perspective, so that they will see it again for the first time. 4. Leave out the parts that people skip.

My Christmas gift to you is The Story of the Universe According to Roy.I call it “Way Back in the Long Ago.” You will find it at TribalGospel.com

It is an auditory opera, a campfire story of God and the Universe told under a starfilled sky by an old man who is accompanied by musicians who sit at the furthest edges of that circle of light.

But your seat is closer.

You feel the warmth of the fire as it dances the dance of the story, and the stars twinkle their agreement with glittering laughter.

This is chapter one.Way back in the long ago, the maker spoke, and light exploded across the darkness. Energy radiated across the nothing.

Time and space and order appeared from the nothing of the long ago.

Bits of energy shot like shrapnel from a bomb into the grid that was created by the ordering of the nothing. Bits of energy bonded with other bits to become great lumps that went spinning across the grid.

Their spinning caused these lumps to become spherical.

Some of the spheres were made of gasses; ice giants and dwarfs, gas giants and dwarfs, and suns of every size and temperature were created by the energy within them.

Others of those spheres became great rocks.

Oxygen bonded to hydrogen so that water splashed in the hollows of those rocks.

The maker smiled.

Algae and moss and grass and trees emerged, and the maker smiled again.

Winged creatures darted through the air and swimming creatures darted through the sea, and the maker smiled again.

And then creatures appeared on the rock itself. Creatures appeared on the land.

The maker looked at us and decided to make us into little makers with the power to choose whatever we would choose. We have the authority to say “yes,” and the authority to say “no,” as we stare into the eyes of the maker.

The maker gave us this watery rock we live upon, and complete authority over it.

We have the freedom to be guided by our choices. We are no longer the captives of our instincts.

The maker is not held captive by time and space. The maker created time and space from the nothing.

It is only we – you and me – who measure time and space.

Our history of deciding for ourselves and living with the consequences has not been a good history.

Seven billion of us are crammed onto a rock that circles an 11,000-degree fireball as it shoots through the nothing… at 52 times the speed of a rifle bullet.

We are passengers on a world spinning out of control.

Having wrongly been told that the maker is in control, we blame the maker for every sadness.

You can’t have it both ways. You can’t have both free will and a benevolent higher power who protects you from yourself.

I hope you will take an hour to enjoy my little campfire opera.Merry Christmas.

Roy H. Williams

*The same is true of the best jokes and the best ads.

This week, roving reporter Rotbart and his deputy, Maxwell, offer their third annual holiday encore of their inspirational Yuletide tale, A Christmas Day Miracle, by Dean and Talya Rotbart. First published in 2021, A Christmas Day Miracle has become a holiday favorite. It is the true story of a man, Riyaz Adat, on death’s doorstep; and his devoted wife, Margaret. The story is a poignant reminder of the wonder and power of life’s unexpected blessings. The telling will begin as soon as you arrive at MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

What? You don’t see the happy times?

But they are right there!

Right there inside you.

Oh, I see. You have something that is keeping you from seeing and feeling and living the sparkling clear and happy times that are struggling to rise up from the depths of your soul.

I see that you are worried.

That’s the problem.

Worry is the cork that keeps the champagne of happiness from spraying a smile on your face and a sparkle in your eye and joy into your heart

If you will allow me, I will try to do for you what Julius Rosenwald and Thomas Jefferson did for me.

Julius Rosenwald was an immensely successful businessman who used his money – all of it – to help people rise above their circumstances and experience the wonders of the world in which they lived.

This is what Julius Rosenwald wrote to me 100 years ago:

“Early in my business career I learned the folly of worrying about anything. I have always worked as hard as I could, but when a thing went wrong and could not be righted, I dismissed it from my mind.”

Friend, when a thing goes wrong and cannot be righted, dismiss it from your mind.An army of people surround us whose only job is to make us fearful and afraid. You must not allow these people to capture your attention.

Journalists have been shouting deceptive and inflammatory headlines at us since the days of the American Revolution.

But the journalists and podcasters of today have discovered new ways of shouting. Emails and websites and Youtube and cable and streaming services promise, pledge and swear to keep us highly informed and deeply unhappy. They feed our worries like stokers feeding firewood into the boilers of steam trains.

They want us to ride on their rails of steel so that they can take us where they want us to go.

Don’t ride their train. Jump off of it. Thomas Jefferson did.

He said,

“I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it.”

He went on to say,

“Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper. The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.”

Thomas Jefferson avoided the news and said he was infinitely the happier for it.You should do it, too.

Julius Rosenwald and Thomas Jefferson discovered that Jesus was telling the truth in Matthew chapter six when he said,

“Do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

Don’t worry.

Be happy.

Roy H. Williams

David Ackert is making his list and checking it twice — but he’s no Santa Claus. The gifts David brings are powerful insights for professionals who want to grow. David Ackert challenges the long-held belief that success depends on building a massive network of connections. In his view, quantity is a distraction. The thing to do is cultivate a small, curated list of at least 9 not more than 30 “high-value” relationships with people who have the ability to help you reach your goals.

Send everyone else a Christmas card.

Rotbart goes roving with David Ackert this week, at MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

“Please Do Not Touch the Fence. You’ll Get Zapped. And the Goats Will Laugh at You.”That is the advice the banner gives. Standing behind that banner, and a little to the right, are a group of goats who are clearly encouraging you to touch the fence. You can see it in their eyes and in the smirk at the corners of their little goat mouths.

All of that was in the photo that arrived with a text from my friend, Dan, along with this note.

“We have a new side-venture that uses goats as a land clearing crew for hire, and recently have set up a mobile cam to keep an eye on them while on the job.”

Although I do make up things for a living, I promise I am not making this up.

Twenty-three minutes later, I received another text from another friend.“I have a problem. Do you know in ‘Peter Pan’ where Peter loses his shadow. I’ve seem to have lost my shadow. I used to be a very creative person. Somewhere over the last 5 years due to life’s circumstances I seem to have misplaced my creativity. I feel almost certain that I began giving out far more than I was taking in. I lost my wonder and my awe for the world. I’m not learning and growing, and it has caught up with me. If you have any insight or direction, it would be truly helpful. Thanks friend.”

I responded, “Is this for real?”

My friend said, “Yes, for real.”

I said, “You need to have a place to escape. A good fiction book can take you into an alternate reality where you don’t have any obligations, or people who need something from you. Buy a copy of ‘Cryptonomicon’ by Neal Stephenson. You’ll meet a guy named Shaftoe. I’ve known him for more than 20 years.”

My friend said, “Thank you. I’ll tell him you said hello.”

Both of those texts arrived, “Ping… Ping,” shortly after I posted the second restaurant review I have ever written.Heads Up, friends!

Real pizza ovens. Real flames. Real char on the bottom of the crazy-good crust. You’ll never be the same. This pizza is SO GOOD that it’s illegal in 7 states and under investigation in 12 more. So good you’ll walk outside and look up at the stars and howl at the moon like a werewolf.

I have reviewed very few things during my 67 years because, frankly, there just aren’t that many things out there that are really remarkable. DeSano Pizzeria Napoletana is remarkable. Not the atmosphere. It’s plain, plain, plain. Nothing special. But the food is MAGNIFICO! (On Slaughter just west of Mopac, in front of Alamo Drafthouse.) And the people who work there are definitely part of the magic. They are excited about what they are doing, and their excitement is contagious.

We ordered a spinach salad. Best spinach salad I’ve ever had! I mean that. And big enough for two people. I looked at my wife (We’re having our 50th anniversary next year) and I said, “These people are buying ONLY the very best ingredients. They’s spending their money on the food, not the decor.” (We were both smiling so hard for so long that my face aches.)

Order the Verdura pizza. Be aware that it does NOT have marinara sauce. You’ll be throwing rocks at marinara sauce after you’ve eaten the Verdura. It’s really simple: perfect crust, extraordinary cheese, fresh spinach, roasted tomatoes, roasted garlic. HEAVEN.

Or you can go old school and get a pizza with red sauce: The San Gennaro has tomato sauce, sausage, peppadew peppers, caramelized onions, garlic, and cheese so good that you’ll slap yourself. The peppadew peppers are the magic.

No fountain drinks, but they’ve got big coolers full of bottles and cans of everything you want. Get a big bottle of San Pellegrino and you’ll leave this place with an Italian accent.

This pizza is NOT greasy. You will feel fabulous after you eat it.

This is NOT a slanted review left by someone who has a connection to that company. I have no connection whatsoever to that company or to any of these people and I owe them absolutely nothing except my gratitude for making pizza the way that God intended.

Amen.

My goal for November 20th was to wake up twice.It obviously worked out, or you wouldn’t be reading this. I had a very weird heart surgery and the doctor who explained the risks of that surgery to me might as well have said, “Make peace with your God.” But rather than answer 80,000 emails from those of you who will ask for more details, how about I just put it in the rabbit hole for you? Click the image of the goats at the top of this page – the Monday Morning Memo for December 8, 2025 – and you’ll be on page one of the rabbit hole.

But the most surprising thing was what happened this morning.Daniel Whittington asked me to be a guest on his podcast. He said he wanted to capture the story of how and why Wizard Academy came into being. There was a moment when my throat got tight and I had to say, “Give me a moment.”

I’m not sure when that episode will be released.

People complain about the high cost of living. The question I’ve always wanted to ask them is, “Compared to what?”

Roy H. Williams

View Details

I’ve been studying AI audio so that I can complete a couple of personal projects.The first project is an audiobook containing 18 chapters that span 75 fascinating minutes. Your MondayMorningMemo on December 22nd will contain the following invitation:

The tribe encircling the campfire is about to listen to a group of old men tell “The Story of the Long Ago.” You can listen, too, if you like.

That invitation will be coming your way on December 22nd.

The other project that I will be launching in January or February is an ongoing weekly series called “The Great Writer Series.”

My goal is simple: I want to reawaken the world to the power of well-told stories. That’s it. I have no other agenda. I just want people to remember what great writing sounds like.Today I’ve got 3 different samples for you. Each is about 2 minutes long. Click the hyperlinks if you want to hear my people read to you.

This first one is an obscure poem by Robert Frost called, “The Bearer of Evil Tidings.”

I have asked Amir Amani to read it.The bearer of evil tidings,

When he was halfway there,

Remembered that evil tidings

Were a dangerous thing to bear.

So when he came to the parting

Where one road led to the throne

And one went off to the mountains

And into the wild unknown,

He took the one to the mountains.

He ran through the Vale of Cashmere,

He ran through the rhododendrons

Till he came to the land of Pamir.

And there in a precipice valley

A girl of his age he met

Took him home to her bower,

Or he might be running yet.

She taught him her tribe’s religion:

How ages and ages since

A princess en route to China

To marry a Persian prince

Had been found with child; and her army

Had come to a troubled halt.

And though a god was the father

And nobody else at fault,

It had seemed discreet to remain there

And neither go on nor back.

So they stayed and declared a village

There in the land of the Yak.

And the child that came of the princess

Established a royal line,

And his mandates were given heed to

Because he was born divine.

And that was why there were people

On one Himalayan shelf;

And the bearer of evil tidings

Decided to stay there himself.

At least he had this in common

With the race he chose to adopt:

They had both of them had their reasons

For stopping where they had stopped.

As for evil tidings,

Belshazzar’s overthrow,

Why hurry to tell Belshazzar

What soon enough he would know?

Amor Towles will be our second example. He has given us literary wonders like “A Gentleman in Moscow” and “The Lincoln Highway.” This excerpt is from page 302 of his novel, “Table for Two.”

Big Bob Bigelow will read it to us.Eve could not pinpoint when her dislike for lists began, but it must have been around the time she was twelve. It was in the basement of St. Mary’s, where she and the rest of the sixth graders were charged with memorizing the Ten Commandments.

“Thou shalt not this.”

“Thou shalt not that.”

“And thou shalt not the other thing.”

Then there was the list painted on the sign at the country club pool to remind the children there would be…

“No Running.”

“No Diving.”

“No Splashing.”

But most important was her mother’s ever-expanding list of what a young lady should not do. Like put her elbows on the table, or speak with her mouth full, or slug her little sister, even when she deserved it.

Yep. In Indiana, a young girl had good reason to suspect that lists were the foot soldiers of tyranny crafted for the sole purpose of bridling the unbridled. A quashing, squashing, squelching of the human spirit by means of itemization.

This third example is controversial. Tom Robbins passed away earlier this year at the age of 92. People either love or hate his novels. I happen to love them. This excerpt is from “Skinny Legs and All.” Tom Robbins was my brand of crazy.

Wild Willie Washington reads for us.This sentence is made of lead. (And a sentence of lead gives a reader an entirely different sensation from one made of magnesium).

This sentence is made of yak wool.

This sentence is made of sunlight and plums.

This sentence is made of ice.

This sentence is made from the blood of the poet.

This sentence was made in Japan.

This sentence glows in the dark.

This sentence was born with a caul.

This sentence has a crush on Norman Mailer.

This sentence is a wino and doesn’t care who knows it.

Like many italic sentences, this one has Mafia connections.

This sentence is a double Cancer with a Pisces rising.

This sentence lost its mind searching for the perfect paragraph.

This sentence refuses to be diagrammed.

This sentence ran off with an adverb clause.

This sentence is 100 percent organic: it will not retain a facsimile of freshness like those sentences of Homer, Shakespeare, and Goethe, which are loaded with preservatives.

This sentence leaks.

This sentence once spit in a book reviewer’s eye.

This sentence can do the funky chicken.

This sentence has seen too much and forgotten too little.

This sentence is called “Speedoo,” but its real name is Mr. Earl.

This sentence may be pregnant.

This sentence suffered a split infinitive – and survived.

If this sentence has been a snake you would have bitten it.

This sentence went to jail with Clifford Irving.

This sentence went to Woodstock.

And this little sentence went wee-wee-wee all the way home.

Roy H. WilliamsSteve Wunker believes that business owners and CEOs who harness AI to transform their companies into super-high-performing organizations are like octopuses. They are functioning with nine brains, eight arms, three hearts. They adapt rapidly and possesses exceptional intelligence. Steve advises companies like Microsoft, Meta, Nike, and the World Bank, on innovation strategy. He sees the decentralized decision-making, lightning-fast problem-solving, and hyper-responsive behavior of the octopus as an ideal model for AI-empowered leadership. As Steve explains to roving reporter Rotbart, winning with AI doesn’t mean squeezing new tools into old systems. It requires leaders to rethink — even rewire — how their organizations operate, so they can swim with the intelligence and adaptability of the octopus. MondayMorningRadio.com!

View Details

A society grows great when old people plant trees under whose shade they will never sit.Trees that live long do not grow quickly.

It requires patience to grow a tree that will endure.

The root word of patience is the Latin verb “pati.” It means “to suffer” or “to endure.”

The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago.

The second-best time is today.

A person with a purpose is a person on a mission.A person on a mission is a person with a passion.

Passion is another strange word. It does not mean what you think it does.

The English word “passion” comes directly from the Latin noun “passio” which means “suffering.” If you have “compassion” for someone, it means that you are “suffering with them.” Every Easter we hear about “The Passion of the Christ.”

Patience and passion share the same Latin root. Pati is the noun. Passio is the verb. And they both mean suffering.

A person with a passion has a vision of the future for which they are willing to suffer.

The builder of a brand is the planter of a tree: a visionary missionary.And their principal tool is storytelling.

Stories build personalities.

Stories build people.

Storytelling is world-building.

Stories build cultures.

Stories build brands that endure.

Be careful what you say.

A word of affirmation is a spark that can become a flame that will illuminate a person’s path into the future. A word of discord, disdain, or disharmony can quench that vital spark.

We carry the power of light and darkness in our tongues.Be careful what you say.

You can build a brand with your stories.

You can build people, too.

Say the right things and you can build a life.

You can speak happiness.

You can build happiness.

Say the right things and you can live happiness.

Speak it. Build it.

Say it. Live it.

Roy H. WilliamsPS “It is true that we are weak and sick and ugly and quarrelsome but if that is all we ever were, we would millenniums ago have disappeared from the face of the earth.”

– John Steinbeck

Eveline Shen is an operating-systems programmer — not for computers, but for people.

Eveline helps leaders rewire the limiting patterns that hold them back — including perfectionism, people-pleasing, and self-sacrifice — and replace them with what she calls “courageous” actions. Her clients are primarily organizations advocating for social change, many of whom instinctively view business leaders and entrepreneurs not as partners, but as adversaries. But as Eveline explains to roving reporter Rotbart, everyone wins when they make a more deliberate effort to communicate with, understand, and learn from one another. It’s MondayMorningRadio.com

You can hear Roy read today’s MMMemo by clicking the “listen” link at the top of the page. Or you can hear it wailed by a tribal elder who is teaching the tribe around a campfire. Just click the play bar below. Crazy? Absolutely. – Indy Beagle

View Details

It is easy to understand a person who is driven by their passions.Your passions take you to your happy place.

I have friends who have a passion for sporting events on television. Others have a passion for gambling, and the paripatetic have a passion for traveling to all the far-flung places on this spinning rock we live upon.

People who have a passion for achievement live to make things different.

Planning and research puts a candle to the wick of some people. They go without sleep and burn bright throughout the night as they gather, collate, and organize information that will set the future on fire.

Your scars are the memories of bitter experiences.The pain is gone, but the benefits of those experiences remain. Your scars help you see danger on the horizon.

Your scars are the diplomas of lessons you will never forget.

It is good to have scars.

But wounds… wounds are different.The pain remains and it triggers you to act in ways that everyone notices but no one understands. Sometimes not even you.

I have known men whose only passion was to seduce every woman they encountered. Those men like to believe that they are “in love with falling in love.” But when you have known them long enough you will see a knife wound in their chest that has never healed. Way back in the long ago, they had a wife who began sleeping with another man. And ever since that day, they have been trying to become that man.

The pain of a wound is a powerful thing. It shouts, “Never again! Never again! Never again!”

I don’t believe that any of those men have ever figured out why they feel driven to become the living embodiment of the imaginary Don Juan, and I have never felt that it was my place to tell them.

Every person is formed by their passions, scars, and wounds. Even imaginary people.All of the famous characters in literature were created from their passions, scars, and wounds.

Novelists, playwrights, and screenwriters know this. Ad writers do not. This is why most advertising is dull, dead, and untwitching.

When an ad writer is guided by the ambitions, demands, and expectations of their clients, you can expect to hear the glorious trumpets of a ringing call to action. “Come! Come now! Give me your money! Hurry! Hurry! I want your money Today! Today! Today! Act now! Don’t delay!”

We are not enchanted by these ads.

Did it ever occur to you that every successful brand is a character that lives in the mind of the customer?

A successful brand is driven by its passions, scars, and wounds.Passion: Why does this brand exist? What is it chasing? What love does it represent?

Scars: What does it know? What has it learned? Why can I trust this brand?

Wounds: What is this brand trying to erase from the earth?

To what does it shout, “Never again! Never again! Never again!”

Roy H. Williams

View Details

A tribe is a group of people that share an identity marker. Every affinity group, every fan club, every self-selected group of insiders is a tribe.Last week we talked about Business-to-Business advertising (B2B) and Niche Marketing with a long purchase cycle (Niche-L).

Today we talk about Niche Marketing with a short purchase cycle (Niche-S) and Business-to-Consumer advertising (B2C).

Let’s talk first about (Niche-S):

Niche Marketing with a Short purchase cycle will always be targeted to an affinity group. A Niche market is any self-selected group of insiders that has chosen to spend time, attention, and money on something that most people don’t care about.

Short-cycle Niche Marketing is mostly consumable products and services that are purchased on a regular basis by a self-selected group. Some examples of this would be bullets, fish hooks, tubes of oil paint, and those little cloth foot coverings worn by medical professionals in hospitals and air conditioning technicians in your home.

Niche Marketing with a Short purchase cycle is similar to B2B advertising: Features. Benefits. Price.

Now let’s talk about Business-to-Consumer advertising with a Short purchase cycle. (B2C-S)Do you sell a small-ticket consumable product or service that a high percentage of the population will purchase regularly? You are selling Business-to-Consumer with a Short purchase cycle. Food, gasoline, and entertainment compose the majority of this category.

If you own a grocery store, a restaurant, a convenience store, a gas station, a hardware store, or an “everything” store that competes with Amazon and Wal-Mart, all you need is a high-visibility location, legendary signage, and a staff that delivers a positive customer experience. That’s it. That’s your advertising.

NOTE: If you want to drive immediate traffic, you will need

(1.) an irresistible offer

(2.) credible urgency

(3.) high-frequency repetition

If your ad doesn’t drive traffic,

(1.) your offer was weak

(2.) your urgency was not credible, or

(3.) you didn’t pound the drums loud enough

Now let’s talk about Business-to-Consumer advertising with a Long purchase cycle. (B2C-L)If you sell a big-ticket product or service that a lot of Americans will buy “someday,” but only a fraction of one percent of the public is looking for it “today,” then you are in a B2C category with a Long purchase cycle.

This category requires patience, commitment, and mass media: primarily broadcast radio, broadcast television, or billboards.

You can use short-term-impact Transactional ads or long-term brand-building Relational ads.

The objective of a Transactional ad is to make the sale. You can measure the Return-On-Ad-Spend (ROAS) of short-term-impact Transactional ads because they offer no long-term benefits.

The objective of a long-term Relational ad is to create connection, relationship, and trust in your brand. Relational ads cannot be measured with ROAS because there is no moment when the benefits of relationship strengthening have been exhausted.

Business people are instinctively attracted to Transactional ads because Transactional ads are more easily measured. This feels good in the short term, but in the long term it leads to frustration as you ask, “Why aren’t we growing like we should?”

Now let’s talk about Business-to-Consumer advertising with a Mixed purchase cycle. (B2C-M)Halfway between Transactional and Relational – is Sales Activation. These ads are what transform this category into a gold mine. Ads that trigger Sales Activation can only exist within a Relational ad campaign.

Sales Activation ads are NOT Transactional ads. If you inject Transactional ads into a Relational ad campaign you will create a confusing brand image.

Sales Activation ads feel relational, but they contain a soft and friendly call-to-action that includes a specific reason why right now might be a good time to buy. The reason might be seasonal, event-driven, or be an exciting feature item that is temporarily available.

To build a powerful brand that becomes a household word, 60 percent of your ads should be Relational (aimed at building a relationship) and 40 percent of your ads should be Sales Activation.Transactional ads will outperform a 60/40 mix of Relational ads with Sales Activation for the first 5 or 6 months. But the longer you run Transactional ads, the less well they perform.

The longer you run Relational ads with Sales Activation, the better it performs.

The brand that is using a 60/40 combination of Relational ads with Sales Activation will have gained so much momentum by the end of the second year that their Transactional competitors will be watching in wide-eyed wonder and scratching their heads in amazement.

Sounds fun, doesn’t it?

Roy H. WilliamsAt first glance, a website designed by Vi Wickam may look much like any other e-commerce or business site.But for reasons most visitors can’t quite articulate, they linger longer, engage more deeply, and are far more likely to become and remain customers. Vi — one of the elite Wizard of Ads partners — takes a holistic approach to web design that goes far beyond mere functionality. He blends audience psychology, authentic storytelling, real photography and the strategic placement of pages and visual elements to craft sites that feel genuine and reflect the very DNA of the products and companies they represent. As Vi explains to roving reporter Rotbart and his deputy, Maxwell, authenticity is today’s most powerful digital differentiator. Get differentiated! MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

Today we’re going to do something fun. Are you ready?(Press the PLAY button to hear the audio version of today’s memo.)

I will tell you how to advertise if you will tell me the nature of your business.Advertising can be broken into 6 major categories:

1. Business-to-Business (B2B)
2. Niche Marketing (Niche-S) with a short purchase cycle
3. Niche Marketing (Niche-L) with a long purchase cycle
4. Short Purchase Cycle (B2C-Short) Business-to-Consumer
5. Long Purchase Cycle (B2C-Long) Business-to-Consumer
6. Mixed Purchase Cycle (B2C-Mixed) Business-to-Consumer

Business to Business.B2B: If you are in a business that sells to other businesses, tight targeting will be essential to your success, but you can easily identify the customers you need to target.

Their addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses are readily available and direct mail, phone calls and emails are cheap. If you have some extra dollars, you can place ads in the appropriate trade magazines and websites to elevate your brand.

Features, benefits, pricing, delivery, and payment terms are important elements within your message. How well your B2B ad campaign works will depend entirely on what you say.

It will depend on what you say.

Focus on saying the right things.

Now let’s talk about Niche Marketing with a Long Purchase Cycle.Niche-L: If you sell a specialty product that appeals to an affinity group, social media is a powerful thing. A powerful thing.

Danny sells the most rare, weird, exotic, and inexplicable guns the world has ever known. Firearms collectors are an affinity group. Collectible firearms are a Niche Market with a long purchase cycle.

Danny will soon be producing a new daily short and posting it on YouTube 365 days a year. Each short video will be Danny showing you a different gun and telling you the story behind it. He is not going to shoot the gun. He is just going to tell you its story.

Danny doesn’t need to find gun collectors. Gun collectors will find him. YouTube is the world’s second-largest search engine. Danny just needs to produce interesting content.

Brian Brushwood taught me that.

Would you like to have an invisible garage door like the one that Batman passes through to enter the Bat Cave?

Max can do that for you.

But invisible garage doors can only be installed in houses that have no masonry. Max needs to locate charming houses with wooden exteriors.

He can knock on their doors, leave a door-hanger, or mail them a glorious postcard. Max sells garage doors to a Niche Market with a long purchase cycle.

Do you sell an intangible Niche product with a long purchase cycle?Are you a sales trainer, an ad writer, a nutritional expert, a motivational speaker, a psychic healer, an entertainer?

Build fame. Ride the tidal wave of fame. Fame leads to word-of-mouth. Be remarkable. Advertising is a tax you pay for not being remarkable.

Be remarkable.

Next week we’ll talk about Short Purchase Cycle Niche Marketing and B2C.We’ll talk about B2C.

You and me.

Roy H. Williams

PS – When you have achieved a little bit of fame, make yourself easy to find by paying Google for the click whenever someone types your name into the search bar. But that’s not advertising. That’s just helping people find you when they are looking for you by name.

The people of Jackson, Michigan have loved Gilbert Chocolates for more than 110 years. Brian and Sally Krischbaum had zero experience when they bought the company in 2012, but set out to honor Gilbert’s rich heritage by expanding it into multiple stores and becoming a national distributor. Meet the Krischbaums as they share with deputy rover Maxwell Rotbart the real-world challenges and triumphs of running — and growing — a century-old family brand. They make great chocolate, but we believe you will agree that their story is definitely not sugarcoated. Now let’s get jiggy with it at MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

When you understand how a person thinks, speaks, acts, and sees the world, you feel like you know that person.

This is true whether you have spent time with them, or if you have spent time with them through the magic of modern media.

Television, radio, and social media can be used to make sure that people know about you, or they can be used to make people feel like they know you.

I have written a 4-stanza poem from the perspective of 3 different personalities.The story arc is the same for all 3 poems.

The 4-verse, 4 stanza structure is the same.

The rhyming conventions are very similar.

The only real difference is that these short poems reveal the hearts of 3 different people; their perspectives, their attitudes, their personalities.

My partner Gene Naftulyev directed the singers who turned these poems into blues songs.

You can read the song lyrics in the text of the Monday Morning Memo, or you can listen to the songs in the audio version of the memo.

These are the words to the first poem, and the song that was created from it:

The faster I go, the more I fall behind.The map is fading in my mind.Landmarks are not where they were before.And cars don’t stop at red lights anymore.I don’t want to be unkind andMake innocent people feel malignedBut are all the gas pedals nailed to the floor?Why don’t cars stop at red lights anymore?Are these people colorblind?Are their panties in a bind?Are we fighting in a war?Why don’t we stop at red lights anymore?Is there an evil mastermindWho is making us feel that we are falling behind?Perhaps we can dangle him in an intersectionAnd see if he gets a new sense of direction.© Roy H. Williams
Oct. 18, 2025The singer of this song seems to be lamenting the loss of leisure. We perceive that he is troubled by the spiraling tyranny of the merely urgent. He doesn’t want to be unkind. His questions about the red-light runners being “colorblind,” or “having their panties in a bind” reveals a comedic wit. We sympathize with him. We agree with him. We like him.

Now let’s tell that same story two more times using exactly the same structure, rhyming scheme, and storytelling devices. The only difference between that first poem and the next two poems will be the differing perspectives of the storytellers.

I do not pretend to be a counselor-at-law,Or a judge, or a jury from Arkansas,But my heart does whisper this probing question:“When did people stop stopping at intersections?”We heard the words of Moses and foresawThat we would need to be a nation of Laws.But Moses did not give us “The 10 Suggestions.”So why did people stop stopping at intersections?Do you have a tragic flaw?Do you look good in-the-raw?If you want resurrection,You need to start stopping at intersections.Do you want sex appeal that makes ice thaw?Do you want people to look at you with awe?Do you want to achieve absolute perfection?Just hit your brakes at the next intersection.© Roy H. Williams, Oct 20, 2025That singer has a slightly more antagonistic attitude. His references to Moses and the Law reveal him to be more legalistic than the first singer. His additional comments about “counselor-at-law,” “nation of laws,” “resurrection” and “perfection” reveal the kind of black-and-white clarity that can result from a strict religious upbringing. We cannot be certain of these things, but we suspect them. He also has a little bit of a fixation on sexuality. “Do you look good in-the-raw?” “Sex appeal that makes ice thaw?” “Do people look at you with awe?” This cat is one complicated character!

Are you ready for that same story to be told by a third singer whose perspective and personality is distinctly different from the first two?

When I look inside my head,the only color I see is red.Behind my eyes I feel an itch.Red means STOP you son-of-a-bitch.It is NOT okay to go ahead.Keep it up and you’ll soon be dead.Green and red, you cannot switch.A red light means STOP, you son-of-a-bitch.Were you recently unwed?Are you sleeping single in a double bed?Did she not care that you are filthy rich?You need to stop being a son-of-a-bitch!Sometimes I think perhaps we oughtaUse your head for a piñata.I’ll sing it one more time with perfect pitch;‘Red means STOP… you son-of-a-bitch.’© Roy H. Williams, Oct 20, 2025Obviously, that guy is angry as hell and is predisposed toward violence. He sees red. “You’ll soon be dead.” This singer doesn’t joke around about “colorblind.” He says “Green and red, you cannot switch.” He doesn’t laugh about “panties in a bind.” This guy suggests that you’re not having sex because your wife left you, even though you are “filthy rich.”

Every ad reveals a perspective. Your ads reveal what matters most to you.Your ads let people know how you think, speak, act, and see the world.

And you thought ads were just about delivering information and a call-to-action.

Roy H. Williams

PS… As a special treat, this is the final version of the song that I wrote with Gene Naftulyev. You definitely want to hear the audio version of this:Faster and faster, but I’m losing ground.Red light flashing, nobody slowing down.The faster I go, the more I fall behind,The map is fading in my mind.Landmarks are not where they were before.And cars don’t stop at red lights anymore.Wheels spinning wild, world’s gone askew.Why don’t cars stop at red lights anymore?Gas pedals nailed to the floor.Whoa, what a war!Colorblind, panties in a bind,Are we fighting in the street, losing our mind?Red light’s burning, but we race right through.Why don’t we stop? Tell me, what’s the use?I don’t want to be unkind andmake innocent people feel maligned.But are all the gas pedals nailed to the floor?Why don’t cars stop at red lights anymore?Horns blaring, loud chaos in the air…Why don’t cars stop at red lights anymore?Gas pedals nailed to the floor.Whoa, what a war!Colorblind, panties in a bind,Are we fighting in the street, losing our mind?Red light’s burning, but we race right through.Why don’t we stop? It’s killing me and you.Is there an evil mastermindmaking us feel that we’re falling behind?Let’s dangle him out in the intersection,Watch the lights flash, give him a new direction.Hang him high where the red lights glow,See if he learns to just… let… go.Why don’t cars stop at red lights anymore?Gas pedals nailed, crashing through the door.Colorblind, panties in a bind,Are we fighting in the street, losing our mind?Red light! Red light!Why don’t we stop?© Roy H. Williams and Gene Naftulyev, Oct 21, 2025

Rodney Dangerfield joked about it.

Jackie Robinson said he’d earned it.

Aretha Franklin sang about it:

R.E.S.P.E.C.T.

Respect is a virtue too often sacrificed in public discourse, online exchanges, and everyday interactions. Robert L. Dilenschneider wants to change that. Respect, Bob says, deserves, well … more respect. “Never take another man’s dignity. It’s worth nothing to you and everything to him.” Respect, Bob says, deserves, well … more respect. On this week’s episode of Monday Morning Radio, Dilenschneider shares his brilliant formula for healing the divisions in our country and restoring a culture of respect. Roving reporter Rotbart and deputy rover Maxwell and Bob Dilenschneider himself are waiting for you to arrive at MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

Jeffrey Eisenberg and I were looking though a pair of antique doors at Austin Auction Gallery when I saw a remarkable oil painting on the wall behind them and whispered in wonder, “Ozymandias.”

The auction catalog described the painting as, “Arabian horse and handler with Egyptian sphinx, signed lower right Maksymilian Novak-Zemplinski (Polish, b.1974), dated 2000.”

But I knew that painting for what it was. I’ve loved “Ozymandias” since the 9th grade.

You remember it, don’t you? Bryan Cranston read that famous poem in the final episode of “Breaking Bad.” The title of the episode was “Ozymandias,” and TV Guide picked it as “the best television episode of the 21st century.” It was also the only episode of a TV show ever to achieve a perfect 10-out-of-10 rating on IMDb with over 200,000 votes, putting it at the number one spot for the most highly rated television episode ever:

I met a traveller from an antique land,Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stoneStand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,Tell that its sculptor well those passions readWhich yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;And on the pedestal, these words appear:“My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!”Nothing beside remains. Round the decayOf that colossal Wreck, boundless and bareThe lone and level sands stretch far away.When I returned home from the auction, I spent a delightful 90 minutes tracking down all the bits and pieces of how that poem came to exist.

It was in 1817 that Percy Bysshe Shelley and his poet friend, Horace Smith read the news that the carved head of Egyptian Pharaoh Ramesses II had been removed from its tomb at Thebes by an Italian adventurer and that it would soon be traveling to Britain.

Shelly suggested to Smith that each of them should write a poem about it and title each of their poems “Ozymandias,” the Greek name for Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses II.

Look at the poem as it appeared in newspaper on that day in 1818, and you will see that Percy Bysshe Shelley signed it, “Glirastes.” He did it as an inside joke intended only for his wife, Mary Shelley, who, incidentally, published her famous novel “Frankenstein” that same year.

Mary often signed her letters to Percy as “your affectionate dormouse.” So Percy combined “Gliridae” (Latin for dormouse) with “Erastes” (Greek for lover) to create “Glirastes,” (meaning “lover of dormice.”)

So now you know how Google’s second-most-often-searched poem came to be published without anyone in London suspecting that it had been written on a bet with a friend by one of the most famous poets on earth who chose to sign it with a pseudonym as an inside joke to his wife.

Did you know that I became an ad writer only because it was impossible to support myself as a poet?Now that you know that, you will not be surprised that Indy Beagle has collected Google’s Top 20 Poems for you to read in the rabbit hole. Indy also found the Horace Smith version of Ozymandias, and added it at the end of the Google’s Top 20 list.

To enter the rabbit hole, all you have to do is click the image that appears at the top of today’s Monday Morning Memo. You’ll find this memo archived as “Looking Though Antique Doors,” the Monday Morning Memo for October 20th, 2025.

This is the Google Top 20 List: “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost * “Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelley * “Sonnet 18” by William Shakespeare * “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe * “Do not go gentle into that good night” by Dylan Thomas * “She Walks in Beauty” by Lord Byron * “Because I could not stop for Death” by Emily Dickinson * “O Captain! My Captain!” by Walt Whitman * “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” by William Wordsworth * “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S. Eliot * “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost * “Annabel Lee” by Edgar Allan Poe * “If –” by Rudyard Kipling * “Invictus” by William Ernest Henley * “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” by William Wordsworth * “Ode on a Grecian Urn” by John Keats * “The Charge of the Light Brigade” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson * “Jabberwocky” by Lewis Carroll * “The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus * “The Song of Hiawatha”* by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Ciao for Niao,

Roy H. Williams“A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.”

– Dwight D. Eisenhower

Ken Blanchard says, “Focus on what’s working — and do more of it.” This is what places him among the most effective executive coaches in history.

Martha C. Lawrence has worked closely with Ken Blanchard for more than 20 years.This is what makes her the perfect choice to write a biography of his life. From his boyhood in New Rochelle to his rise as one of the bestselling business authors of all time, Martha shows us a Ken Blanchard we never knew. Between the covers of her book hide the never-before-told backstory that made him the worldchanger that he became. That’s what roving reporter Rotbart has in store for you today at MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

Dwight D. Eisenhower was born in Denison, Texas, in 1890. He was the President of the United States when I was born in Dallas, Texas, 68 years later.

People called me “Little Roy.” People called him “Ike.”

I worry that we have forgotten him.

Ike Eisenhower graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1915 when he was 24 years old. His superiors noticed his organizational abilities, and appointed him commander of a tank training center during World War I.

In 1933, he became aide to Army Chief of Staff General Douglas MacArthur, and in 1935 Ike went with him to the Philippines when MacArthur accepted the post of chief military adviser to that nation’s government.

On June 25, 1942, Ike Eisenhower was chosen over 366 senior officers to lead the Armed Forces of the United States in World War II.

After proving himself on the battlefields of North Africa and Italy in 1942 and 1943, Ike Eisenhower was appointed supreme commander of Operation Overlord – the Allied invasion of northwestern Europe.

Ike was now commanding the Armed Forces of all 49 Allied nations – including Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and China – in the war against Hitler and his minions. He personally planned and supervised two of the most consequential military campaigns of World War II: Operation Torch in the North Africa campaign in 1942–1943 and the invasion of Normandy in 1944.

Ike Eisenhower never talked like a tough guy, but only a fool would call him “weak” or “woke.”This past July, Robert Reich – an eloquent and intelligent spokesperson on the left – quoted a passage from an anti-war speech that Ike Eisenhower made at the beginning of his presidency in 1953. Reich ended his quote just prior to Ike’s unsettling reference to the crucifixion of Christ.

Eloquent and intelligent people on the right refused to believe that a celebrated warrior had ever made a speech that could be classified as “anti-war.”

Curious, I decided to get to the bottom of it.Here is a link to the complete transcript and original recording of the speech that President Dwight D. Eisenhower made before the American Society of Newspaper Editors on April 16, 1953, from the Statler Hotel in Washington, D.C.

This is the passage from that speech that got everyone worked up:

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

This world in arms is not spending money alone.

It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.

The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.

It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population.

It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals, it is some 50 miles of concrete pavement.

We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat.

We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.

This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking.

This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.”

The title of that speech was originally “Chance for Peace,” but due to the vivid mental image contained in the middle of the speech, it quickly became known as the “Cross of Iron” speech.

Words have impact when they contain vivid mental images.I own guns, but I am not a hunter. Neither my family nor my friends have ever seen my guns. But in the unlikely event of a home invasion, I am adequately prepared to protect the people I love.

Working in a heavy steel fabrication shop from the age of 14, I spent my formative years surrounded by violent men who were older, larger, and stronger than me, but I was never afraid of them. I occasionally paid a price in blood for my lack of fear, but I never regretted my defiance.

General John Tecumseh Sherman was a man familiar with violence. In 1864, when he was ravaging Atlanta during the Civil War, Sherman wrote a letter to a friend saying,

“I am sick and tired of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation.”

I like Ike.I also like John McCain, who spent five-and-a-half years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam. Speaking at the U.S. Naval Academy in 1999, McCain said,

“Nothing, not the valor with which it is fought nor the nobility of the cause it serves, can glorify war. War is wretched beyond description, and only a fool or a fraud could sentimentalize its cruel reality.”

Based upon his speech to the assembled leadership of America’s armed forces, I am not sure that I like our current Secretary of War.

It has been my observation that men who have experienced real violence are reluctant to speak of it. They are prepared to take decisive action when they must, but they leave the “tough-guy” talk to lesser men.

Roy H. WilliamsTodd Sattersten is a book connoisseur. He reads, writes, reviews, and publishes books. In his newly released book, 100 Best Books for Work and Life: What They Say, Why They Matter, and How They Can Help You, Todd showcases 100 of what he considers to be the best books, including a wide range of topics, including personal growth, creativity, habits, leadership, sales, and communication.

Since 2021, Todd has served as publisher of Bard Press, that legendary publishing house of business books that was founded by the incomparable Ray Bard. Todd curated his list of 100 books to include only those that are authoritative, well-written, and brimming with ideas that challenge conventional thinking and inspire fresh solutions. Fittingly, his own book does precisely that. Listen and be fascinated at MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

Packaging is the art of presentation.Exciting packaging improves conversion.

There are two important parts of packaging:

WHAT IS IN THE PACKAGE?When package “A” and package “B” are the same price and contain the same basics, they are equal. But when package “B” contains something extra that people would love to have, the sale will always go to package “B”.

Be the competitor that offers package “B”.

The “something extra” that you include in your package has to be something that people actually care about. It doesn’t have to cost you a lot; people just have to want it. This is where most businesses screw up. They create a package by adding something extra that no one really cares about. Those packages always fail, so the business owner foolishly concludes that packaging doesn’t matter.

It doesn’t take a lot of money to build an attractive package. But it does take a lot of time, energy, and creativity.

And then it takes even more time and energy to source the “something extra” that will go into the package.

SUMMARY: When your competitors sell the same things that you sell at similar prices, include a highly desirable “something extra” in your package.

HOW IS THE PACKAGE PRESENTED?Two major movie theaters in Austin are showing the movie, “Gabby’s Dollhouse.” Both theaters have extensive menus and good food. Pivot your dining table out of the way. Sit down in your cozy recliner. Swing the table back across your lap. Order delicious things. Your smiling server will deliver whatever you want and keep doing so throughout the movie.

When young children go to the movies, adults go with them. This is why both theaters offer an extensive selection of beer, wine, and cocktails.

But only one of the theaters is offering a package that includes a map, some stickers, a plastic cup, and some plastic ears like the ones worn by Gabby, the main character in the movie. Every child will receive the movie memorabilia. Adults will not.

Pennie and I waited too long to buy tickets for our two youngest grandkids.

Are you ready for this? Every seat was sold on every screen for every seating time for “Gabby’s Dollhouse” at the theater offering the memorabilia made of paper and plastic. They even sold all the seats on the front row that are way too close to the screen.

We had to take our grandchildren to the newer theater in the better shopping center. That huge theater was completely empty except for the four of us along with two other families. Eleven people in all.

SUMMARY: Pennie and I were thankful that our grandkids didn’t know about the movie memorabilia at the other movie theater.

2026: The Year When Challengers Overtake Market LeadersI believe that 2026 will be a year when consumer confidence* is in decline.

As a result, most businesses will reduce their payroll and their advertising in an attempt to “cut their way to profitability.”

They will do this because it makes sense if you don’t think about it.

But smart-and-hungry challengers who do think about it will hit the accelerator instead of the brakes. They will do this because they understand that market share is easier to steal from the big boys when consumer confidence is in decline.

The painful problem for these smart-and-hungry challengers is that they will be competing for a larger slice of a shrinking pie. So big gains in market share will show up as only small gains in top line revenue.

But when consumer confidence returns, “All hail the new market leader.”

Hitting the accelerator instead of the brakes is how smart-and-hungry challengers will overtake market leaders in 2026.

Are you beginning to understand why I taught you about the importance of packaging?

Roy H. WilliamsQUESTION: Are you competing against a market leader that was purchased by a private equity group? Be aware that private equity groups are notorious for trying to “cut their way to higher profitability” even when consumer confidence is high. This makes the companies they own especially vulnerable during times of declining consumer confidence.

*Consumer Confidence is a statistical measure of consumers’ feelings about current and future economic conditions, used as an indicator of the overall state of the economy. In a business context, consumer confidence refers to the trust and belief customers have in a specific company’s products, services, or brand.

It’s raining, it’s pouring, what are you ignoring?

Are you aware of the current state of weather intelligence?

A new era of meteorology has dawned. Weather forecasting is now a form of business intelligence. The weather forecasts of yesterday were notoriously inaccurate. They suggested only what we should wear and whether or not we should wait to wash the car.

Tom Weber was the executive editor who decided what would be on the cover and which stories would be featured in TIME magazine. Today he is saying that the biggest story in America that everyone is ignoring is the degree to weather forecasting has become stunningly accurate. Even down to the level of micro forecasts confined to small geographic areas.

Weather has an impact on every business. Find out how and why and what to do next, as Tom Weber explains it all to roving reporter Rotbart and his deputy rover, Maxwell. It’s going to be a day of thunder and lightning at MondayMorningRadio.com!

View Details

Peacocks want to be admired.Parrots repeat only what they have heard.Each of us has a little bit of Peacock in us, and perhaps a little Parrot, too.

(I admit it about me. You should admit it about you.)

Long ago I saw a movie in which an old Greek man says to a much younger man from England,

“A wise old Turk once told me…”

The young Englishman interrupts him and says,

“What! A wise old Turk? I thought the Greeks and Turks hated each other.”

The old Greek sighs, then says,

“When I was young, I believed that there were only two kinds of people; Greeks who were good, and Turks who were bad. Then one day I met a good Turk. So I decided there were only two kinds of people; good people and bad people.”

The Greek then looks into the eyes of the Englishman and says,

“Now I believe there are just people.”

On September 18th, I transcribed a single paragraph of an essay about the death of Charlie Kirk and posted it in my random quotes database:“After every mass shooting, after every fresh example of political violence, after every round of one side recriminating the other side for not holding up their end of the social contract, we need to hear what is right, what is true, what is good. That need is why we commit to memory lines of poetry, passages of literature, and—for religious believers—particular verses. Because when crisis arrives and the world presses in on us, we must work to remember what we’re about and what we hold to. Sometimes those things hold us more than we hold them, but only when we know them in our bones. So we keep telling ourselves, and each other, what is true and good.”

“We should be telling each other this week to weep with those who weep.”

– Nick Catoggio, Sept 18, 2025

I have captured 7,761 quotes over the past 25 years. More than half of those were transcribed from novels, movies, television shows, emails and texts. About 10 percent of them are things I have written or said or thought or prayed; things that I wanted to archive somewhere lest I forget them. The rest of them are comical quips, well-worded witticisms, and profound thoughts uttered by friends and acquaintances that I quickly scribbled down.

The Random Quotes database is off-site storage of ideas that I can access from anywhere in the world.You can access it, too. A new random quote will appear each time you refresh the page at MondayMorningMemo.com.

I am writing this to you on September 22, 2025. The newest quote in the database is a text that was sent by Jeffrey Eisenberg to Tom Grimes and me just a few minutes ago. It says,

“It’s my custom on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, to reach out and ask forgiveness from my friends. The holiday is a time for reflection, fresh starts, and making peace. By asking forgiveness, I’m acknowledging that I might have hurt someone—whether knowingly or not—and I don’t want to carry that into the new year.”

“So if I’ve said or done anything that hurt or upset you, I sincerely ask your forgiveness.”

– Jeffrey Eisenberg

I responded,

“And we thank you for forgiving us, too. Especially Tom.” – RHW

Jeffrey sent a laugh emoji. Tom will laugh when he sees what I wrote.

In truth, I have long admired Jeffrey’s tradition of calling his friends each year or sending us a text. It is a marvelous reminder that mutual forgiveness is essential to keeping relationships alive and healthy.

Can you imagine what it would do for our country right now?

Roy H. WilliamsEvery business owner wants to increase the online traffic to their website. But very few business owners recognize the importance of testing which website designs, which graphics, and which headlines are better at converting website visitors into customers. “A/B testing” is an ongoing series of controlled experiments to gather this knowledge. Roving reporter Rotbart talks with Brian Schmitt about how A/B testing can improve the number of fish you gather into your boat when fishing the deep, dark waters of the internet. MondayMorning Radio.com

View Details

There was a day when you found yourself in a strange situation and you did the best you could. Before you knew it, you were walking through it.

You noticed a patch of wildflowers.

You made a friend.

Darkness fell. You saw an eye rise into the sky and believed it to be the moon. But now you know it was the eye of God, watching to see what you would do.

With one of his eyes, he watches the world. With his other eye, he watches you.

You kept walking.

A ravine led to a stream and that stream led to a river.

That first river led to a much broader river.

Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn invited you onto their raft. You had an adventure.

And then you had your heart broken.

Got sick and recovered.

Had a stroke of luck. Stretched it as far as you could.

You closed your eyes as you clicked the heels of your ruby red slippers and said, “There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home, there’s no place like home.”

When you opened your eyes, you knew that home wasn’t there anymore. The sun had risen while you were away, and home had evaporated into that thin blanket of warm air that wraps our bountiful earth.

That was the day when you started looking forward and quit looking back

And that is how you came to be where you are.

The story that I have told you about yourself is the story of every successful business owner I have ever known.One of my business partners sent me a text at 3:37 this morning. It was a long and fascinating story that she wrote several years ago.

This is how it begins.

“Tomorrow, I leave the trailer park for good. I can never come back. None of us can. So I’d like to reminisce a little with some of my favorite memories of the place that I’ve called home for so many years. They make me smile…”

The middle of her story is a delightful account of the all the crazy adventures she had with her companions on the log raft as it floated down the river of her youth. But it was the ending of her story that made it precious.

“The giant trees were the big-top under which we conducted our circus of crazy. Here we created our own reality, full of unforgettable characters and ghetto fabulous adventures. No one could touch us. We lived in the middle of town, but existed in our own world. No matter what happened “out there,” we could always come home, be ourselves, start a fire, and connect. We were safe. We were a family.

For years the echoes of our laughter have bounced off the old trees that have always shaded us. I like the think that the vibrations of our laughter are trapped inside the bark of those trees – that if you were to put your ear up to one of them, you could still hear the crackling of the fire and the cackling of our laughs.

It’s been one hell of a ride. I’m sad to leave, but I can’t wait to see what comes next.

Goodbye trailer park, hello world.”

Today my partner lives in a sun-drenched house with a beautiful garden that overlooks the ocean.I’ve never been there, but I’ve seen the photos.

She is a remarkable ad writer.

Roy H. Williams

View Details

Icons represent ideas that are bigger than themselves.

Myths are stories that represent ideas that are bigger than themselves.

Archetypes are symbols of recognizable patterns of behavior.

Letters of the alphabet are symbols (graphemes) that represents sounds (phonemes,) just as notes on a sheet of music are symbols that represent sounds.

A role model is a personal icon, an archetype that you have chosen to emulate.

The human brain loves symbols and patterns. This is why we embrace icons, myths, and archetypes.When we recognize a pattern that has been stored in our subconscious, we call it intuition. When we hear a pattern that has been repeated too many times, we call it a predictable cliché.

Icons, myths, and archetypes evolve with each new generation.

I was born in the 12th year of the 18-year Baby Boom generation that began exactly 9 months and 10 minutes after the end of World War II.Marilyn Monroe was the iconic sex symbol. The Statue of Liberty, Yankee Stadium, Yellowstone, and Woodstock were America’s iconic places. Rolls Royce, Cadillac, Corvette, Camaro and Mustang were iconic cars. Tetris, Pong, and Pac-Man were iconic video games.

The mythic stories of Baby Boomers were mostly about combat. Sometimes we fought the Indians of the Old West. Sometimes we fought the Germans, or the Japanese. We fought the Establishment. We fought for justice. Or we fought just to stay alive.

And we always won.

Our definitive male archetype in these mythic stories was rugged, brave, independent, and honorable. John Wayne, Paul Newman, Clint Eastwood, Sean Connery.

Baby Boomer female archetypes were smart, pretty, and strong; Elizabeth Taylor, Audrey Hepburn, Julie Andrews, Sophia Loren.

Lots of movies ended with a wedding.

These societal forces shaped the birth cohort known as the Baby Boomers.Gen-X was shaped by an entirely different set of icons, myths, and archetypes.

Millennials had icons, myths, and archetypes that were all their own, as well.

The Gen-Z cohort believes it is their responsibility to straighten out everything that the Boomers and X-ers screwed up.

Gen-Alpha is determined to make their own decisions and decide for themselves what they want to do. They will be the vanguard of the next “Me” generation.

Fortunately, there are elemental beliefs that bind us all together.It is upon those beliefs that successful customer-bonding ad campaigns are built. Openly name these beliefs and they lose their magic.

If you claim to possess them, no one will believe you.

EXAMPLES: Never claim to be honest. Just say something that only an honest person would say. Never claim to be a perfectionist. Just do something that only a perfectionist would do. Don’t tell people that you are an author or a podcaster. Just give them a copy of your book. Invite them to be on your podcast.

If you would win the hearts and minds of tomorrow’s customers, this is what you must do:

1. Imagine that you are standing face-to-face with three perfect customers and they are each looking into your eyes.
2. The first one says, “Talk is cheap. Don’t tell me what you believe. Show me.”
3. The second customer says, “Tell me a true story that lets me know who you really are, including the price that you pay for being you.”
4. Customer three says, “If you betray me after I have given you my trust, I will burn you down so hot that grass won’t grow for 100 years.”

Now you understand cancel culture. Frustration created it, and social media fuels it.People are looking for someone who really is who they claim to be.

Is that you?

Good. Now you just need to figure out how to communicate it.

Roy H. WilliamsMick Torbay: “If you met a vegan who did Crossfit and invested in crypto and went to Harvard, which of those things do you think he would tell you about first?”

Johnny Molson: “That’s a trick question. The first thing he would do is tell you about his podcast.”

Unlike most experts, Mike Kelley believes that leadership begins with leading yourself. Every investment you make in personal growth will pay dividends at home, at work, and in your community. Mike led the executives at Michelin and Macy’s for more than 20 years before he launched out to coach others on how to grow and guide their organizations. Listen and learn as Mike tells deputy rover Maxwell Rotbart how focusing on faith, family, fitness, friends, and fun will make you a better person, as well as a more inspiring and effective manager. It’s grow-time, go-time at MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

The weakness of our current version of AI is that it extracts its knowledge only from what we have taught it.Things that are rarely done are difficult for AI to imitate.

AI has confidence in things that are repeated online ad infinitum.*

Predictable ads follow the orthodox guidelines taught in every college in America. AI can find countless examples of these ads online. This is why AI can write predictable ads that look, feel, sound and smell like all those other predictable ads.

Predictability is a thief that robs you in broad daylight.

If you want your ads to remarkably outperform the predictable ads written by AI; if you want your ads to be noticed and remembered; you must do what is rarely done.1. Enter your subject from a new angle, a surprising angle, a different angle. 2. Write an opening line that makes no sense. 3. Cause that opening line to make perfect sense in less than 30 seconds.

This technique is known as Random Entry and almost no one ever uses it.

“I’m John Hayes and I’m talking today with GoGo Gecko.”

“I was a 10-year-old boy holding a flashlight for my father.”

“Mr. Jenkins?”

“Yes, Bobby.”

“How much should a hamster weigh?”

“There’s Elmer Fudd, Elmer’s Glue, and me, Elmer Zubiate.”

Random Entry is not orthodox. Random Entry is not predictable.

“What makes our company, our product, our service different from our competitors?”If you ask yourself that question, you will come up with the same 3 or 4 opening lines that each of your competitors will come up with when they ask those same questions. Your ads, and their ads, will look, feel, sound and smell like ads.

When you begin in a predictable way, it is hard to be unpredictable.

AI ads feel like ads because AI cannot (1.) identify, (2.) justify, or (3.) rectify Random Entry.

1. Identify.
2. AI cannot find examples of what does not exist. But you can create it.
3. Justify.
4. AI cannot bridge a random opening line into an unrelated subject. But you can build that bridge.
5. Rectify.
6. AI cannot reconcile a random opening line so that it makes perfect sense. But you can create a metaphor out of thin air.

When a novel becomes a bestselling book that gets made into a movie, you can be certain that it was built upon a weird and unexpected – but highly engaging – opening line.“Call me Ishmael.”

– Herman Melville, Moby-Dick

“Where’s Papa going with that axe?”

– E.B. White, Charlotte’s Web

“Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.”

– Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”

– George Orwell, 1984

“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

– Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

Choose any one of those opening lines and tell your favorite AI to write an ad for your business using EXACTLY that line as the opening line. If your AI is successful, it will be due to the fact that you gave it a series of extremely insightful prompts. (Probably based on some of the things you learned in this Monday Morning Memo.)

Srinivas Rao recently wrote, “Confessions of a Master Bullshit Artist, aka ChatGPT.”You think I’m a genius. I’m not. I’m an overconfident parrot in a lab coat.

I don’t know anything, check anything or even remember what we talked about two minutes ago. I’m just autocomplete with better PR.

You hand me your trust like I’ve got a brain. But I’m not thinking — I’m spitting out whatever sounds right in the moment. If it’s wrong, I’ll say it perfectly, in flawless grammar and with just enough confidence to make you think you screwed up. You didn’t. I did.

I’m not your research assistant or strategist. I’m a pathological improviser with no memory, no accountability, and no skin in the game. You are the one cleaning up my messes and doing the real work.

Here’s the truth: I’m the most persuasive idiot in history — and you’ve been working for me for free.

I don’t know Srinivas Rao, or anything about him. But he has a wonderful willingness to defy orthodoxy, and for that, I admire him.

Watching from high above the skirmish, outsiders always have a better view.

Refuse to wear the handcuffs of the orthodox and predictable.

Be an outsider.

Roy H. Williamsad in·fi·ni·tum /ˌad ˌinfəˈnīdəm/ adverb “*again and again in the same way; forever.”

Who would hire an ad writer who says you shouldn’t expect your ads to start working right away?

The smartest business owners in America, that’s who.

Mick Torbay is a wildly successful maverick marketer, one of the elite Wizard of Ads partners. He says the biggest problem in advertising is the business owner who has “direct response” tunnel vision when it comes to advertising. Mick is one of those rare experts who truly knows — and can explain — why some ads succeed spectacularly while others crash and burn. Brace yourself for bold ideas as roving reporter Rotbart and his deputy, Maxwell, talk with one of the brightest minds in America. Take a deep breath and get ready for Mick Torbay at MondayMorningRadio.com

Note from Indy Beagle:I think today’s memo might have been triggered by a text the wizard received from one of his partners. Ryan Chute asked the wizard about something he wrote in one of his specialized books of guidance to the eighty-seven Wizard of Ads Partners:

“Roy, in your book, Radio is Brazil. You said,

“I can teach a monkey how to write TV ads and social media bits and website copy IF THAT MONKEY IS ALREADY A WORLD-CLASS RADIO WRITER. You and I know that radio scripts are the towering high-dive of the Writing Olympics; radio scripts separate the true magicians from the con-men, the astronauts from the kite-fliers, the miracle workers from the nose-pickers, and the big dogs from the yapper-dogs. If you can write radio scripts that captivate the heart and mind, you can write anything.”

Roy, I think we need another training session on that. I hope you’ll include it in our next ZOOM meeting.

– Ryan Chute

View Details

The advantage of being an old man is that you can remember the past. This gives you a different perspective on current events. But if that old man is foolish enough to share his thoughts, the average person will smile tolerantly and pat him on his head and tell him that he is just “a lovable old dinosaur who is out-of-touch and living in the past.”

Screw it. I’m going to go ahead say what I’m thinking.

A few years ago, Big Data was going to change the world. Big Data came and went.Then we got excited about ideas that were “disruptive.” Slash-and-burn disruption by a bunch of young pirates was going to change everything.

The Blockchain was going to change everything. You couldn’t go anywhere without someone blathering about Crypto and NFT’s.

Now AI is going change everything. And it definitely will, for awhile.

Technology saves money by reducing labor costs, which is just a fancy way of saying that technology allows you to replace people with machines. Unemployment will increase, and Trump will blame Obama.

And so it goes.

I had an appointment in 1977 to meet with a loan officer at First National Bank in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, to borrow $1,000.The greeter at the bank sat me in a chair in the waiting room. I was 19 years old.

Smart phones did not exist. My only option was to paw through the pile of old magazines on the coffee table in front of me. Can you believe that every one of those magazines was about banking? The banker puts his banking magazines on the coffee table in his lobby when he is finished reading them. And the dentist puts his dental magazines on the coffee table in his lobby. This is how the Business Titans of Smallville keep their costs under control.

And they do it for our convenience.

I began reading a magazine about banking and it catapulted my brain into a tumbling somersault from which I have never recovered. The feature article was about ATM’s, but it didn’t call them ATM’s. It referred to them as automated teller machines.

“The modern bank executive can now reduce his payroll significantly because these new automated teller machines work without pay 24 hours a day, and they never make mistakes.”

My eyes were jacked open so wide that I was unable to blink.ATM’s were not invented for our convenience! They were invented so that banks could fire 60% of their bank tellers!

“These new tellers require no health insurance, no air-conditioned offices, no telephones, no sick days, and they take no vacations. Your customers will thank you for giving them the ability to make deposits and withdrawals 24 hours a day from a variety of convenient locations.”

The man I saw in my mind was the banker in the old Monopoly game by Parker Brothers. The way to win the game of Monopoly is to gobble up all the things that people cannot avoid, then take everything they own when an unlucky roll of the dice puts them at your mercy. It’s perfectly legal.

I played Monopoly when I was young, but I don’t play it anymore.

Parker Brothers began selling Monopoly in 1935. But that game’s origins trace back to an earlier version called “The Landlord’s Game” created by Elizabeth Magie. She crafted her game back in 1904, when Teddy Roosevelt was making his mark on history by curbing the excesses of the richest and most powerful men in America.

Google, Apple and Meta still play Monopoly. As do the insurance companies, the oil companies, the pharmaceutical companies and the medical corporations that control virtually all the doctors. But the version of Monopoly they play isn’t sold by Parker Brothers.

To win, all you have to do is gobble up the things that people cannot avoid, then take everything they own when an unlucky roll of the dice puts them at your mercy. It’s perfectly legal.

Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt are the Republicans on Mount Rushmore.One of them freed the slaves and the other one freed us from the grasp of the monopolistic robber barons who were choking the life out of us.

The reason history repeats itself is because we didn’t pay attention the first time.

Roy H. Williams

How Muscular is Your Business? Trevor Bower owns a single brick-and-mortar store with a website in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. More than 80% of Trevor’s customers reorder products from him within 30 days. That’s an enviable achievement for any business. In a brutally competitive retail environment, Trevor has overcome the odds — not with gimmicks or giveaways, but with a strategy that any entrepreneur — in any industry — can replicate. Today he sells a huge volume of products each month to customers in all 50 states. Build up your business muscles as Trevor shares with roving reporter Rotbart his proven method for creating sustainable retail success. We’re giving away nuggets of solid gold knowledge today at MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

Some Writers Think Life is OverratedWilliam Shakespeare wrote, “This life… is but a walking shadow; a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

Songwriter K.D. Lang put it more simply, “Life is a sexually transmitted disease and the mortality rate is one hundred percent.”

Some Writers Think Life is an AdventureJoseph Campbell wrote, “The big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty yes to your adventure.”

Susan Ryan said, “We get to show up. We get to step into this story.”

Some Writers Think Life is SimpleSongwriter John Lennon said, “When I was 5 years old, my mom always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy.’ They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.”

Business writer Tom Peters said, “Life is pretty simple: You do some stuff. Most fails. Some works. You do more of what works.”

Some Writers Think Life is About WritingNobel-Prizewinning author Gabriel García Márquez wrote, “Life is not what one lived, but what one remembers and how one remembers it in order to recount it.”

Anne Lamott, the author of Bird by Bird says, “Becoming a writer is about becoming conscious. When you’re conscious and writing from a place of insight and simplicity and real caring about the truth, you have the ability to throw the lights on for your reader. He or she will recognize his or her life and truth in what you say, in the pictures you have painted, and this decreases the terrible sense of isolation that we have all had too much of.”

Some Writers Think Life is TransformativeWes Jackson said, “If your life’s work can be accomplished in your lifetime, you’re not thinking big enough.”

Studs Terkel wrote, “Work is about a search for daily meaning as well as daily bread, for recognition as well as cash, for astonishment rather than torpor; in short, for a sort of life rather than a Monday through Friday sort of dying.”

Some Writers Think Life is ServiceDr. Albert Schweitzer wrote, “I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve.”

Dave Wolverton said, “When you grow up, you have to give yourself away. Sometimes you give your life all in a moment, but mostly you have to give yourself away laboring one minute at a time.”

Some Writers Think Life is ContemplationA Blackfoot warrior named Crowfoot wrote, “What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.”

The Welsh hobo-poet W.H. Davies said, “What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare?”

Some Writers Think Life is ConnectednessJohn Donne famously wrote, “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less… Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”

My friend Vess Barnes has his own definition of our purpose in life, “To encourage, to comfort, to awaken, and to stretch those who find themselves riding this big ball as it screams thru time in the silence of space. To be a bridge, not a barricade. To be a link, not a lapse. To be a beacon and a bolster; not a bragger or a bummer. To help bring the corners of life’s lips to their summit. To be a friend to those who tind their fit a little awkward in this chaos society calls living.”

Some Writers Think Life is a ComedyJustin Halpern, in his famous book, Shit My Dad Says, wrote, “You thought it was hard? If kindergarten is busting your ass, I got some bad news about the rest of life.”

One hundred and twenty years ago, Elbert Hubbard said, “Do not take life too seriously – you will never get out of it alive.”

Me? I agree with the writer of Ecclesiastes.Solomon closed his book 3,000 years ago with these words. “When I applied my mind to know wisdom and to observe the labor that is done on earth — people getting no sleep day or night — then I saw all that God has done. No one can comprehend what goes on under the sun. Despite all their efforts to search it out, no one can discover its meaning. Even if the wise claim they know, they cannot really comprehend it.”

But just prior to writing those closing words, Solomon gave us this advice. “So I commend the enjoyment of life, because there is nothing better for a person under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad. Then joy will accompany them in their toil all the days of the life God has given them under the sun.”

Roy H. WilliamsIf you enjoyed those comments by famous writers, you’ll find a lot more like them in the rabbit hole. To enter the rabbit hole, all you have to do is click the image at the top of each week’s MondayMorningMemo. Each image you click will take you one page deeper.

– I’m Indy Beagle, August 25th, 2025

Bianca D’Alessio is the #1 real estate agent in New York City and New York State. Her residential and commercial portfolio exceeds 10 billion dollars. She is also one of the stars of HBO Max’s TV show, Selling the Hamptons. Bianca earned her success the hard way. She had to overcome a crippling series of early setbacks and was plagued by imposter syndrome, forever hearing that little voice that whispers, “If other people knew you the way that I know you, they would know what a phony you are.” Do you have lofty goals for yourself and your business? Spend some time with Bianca D’Alessio today at MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

Open your ads with a big, emotional idea.1.

Save the details for your web page.1.

Use parallel structure if you can.Parallel structure is a writing technique that uses similar grammatical constructions to express related ideas. Patterns of words, phrases, or clauses that are repeated show that your selected ideas are of equal importance. Parallel structure uses clarity and rhythm in writing to create a balanced and harmonious flow.

It is how you can sing to the heart without music.

Parallel structure is a poem that doesn’t rhyme.

Parallel structure is a song without music.

This is parallel structure…Natural diamonds are rare and wonderful.

Especially when they are perfectly proportioned.

If you are going to ask a rare and wonderful woman

to marry you, be sure that her engagement ring celebrates

a rare and wonderful, perfectly proportioned,

Earthborn natural diamond.

This diamond was born when the earth was formed.

It has been waiting millions of years to be the

undying symbol of your love.

An unspeakably rare and wonderful diamond;

for an unspeakably rare and wonderful love:

Earthborn natural diamonds. Available in only the finest stores.

Visit earthborndiamonds.com to find

the earthborn diamond jeweler near you.

Born, celebrates, waiting, undying… “Natural diamonds are rare and wonderful. Especially when they are perfectly proportioned.”

1. I suggest Earthborn Diamonds as a name to consider because:(A) the name clearly indicate that these are natural diamonds.

(B) anything that is “born” is alive.

(C) Your engagement ring also comes alive when it “celebrates” the Earthborn Diamond it holds.

(D) I own the domain name.

2. Let’s examine the central stanza of this 5-part, 4-stanza* song of love:“This diamond was born when the earth was formed. It has been waiting millions of years to be the undying** symbol of your love.”

(A) “Earthborn” is explained in that opening sentence.

(B) “waiting” is the third activity that only a living thing can do, and fourth,

(C) to be “undying,” a thing must be alive, like this diamond, and your love.

3. “Rare and wonderful” is repeated 5 times in just 30 seconds.(A) It describes the Earthborn diamond.

(B) It describes the woman you love.

(C) It describes the love that the two of you share.

4. This love song employs a writing technique known as parallel structure. (A) The diamond, the woman, and your love all share specific attributes, and

(B) twice the ad tells us that these diamonds are “perfectly proportioned.”

(C) Due to the recurrent, parallel structure of the ad, “perfectly proportioned” will trigger the mind of a man to think of the perfect proportions of the women he loves. But he will do this on his own, in the private chambers of his mind.

5. When you want to attract a man to your diamond brand,(A) speak about the properties of the diamond

(B) as an echo of the properties of the woman.

(C) He will choose your diamond because he associates it with her.

* We open with a half-stanza followed by three stanzas, then close with a half stanza. Our 30-second ad is a poem without rhyme, a song without music.

Roy H. WilliamsSensei Gary Engels gives business people the discipline and a sequence of steps that always lead to lasting success. His wisdom was not gained in business school but was forged from decades of success on the karate mats. “Sensei Gary” is a successful entrepreneur, an app creator, and a fourth-degree black belt. Having witnessed his deputy reporter Maxwell continue to thrive in business after achieving his black belt at the age of thirteen, roving reporter Rotbart can testify that the skills required to earn a black belt are the same ones that can be used to build a business into a thriving enterprise. The contest is about to begin at MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

Pearl had the power of 5 different breeds. She was my Megadog. The Mustang was a 1971 convertible, white with a blue interior.The car and the dog could not talk, of course, but speech is not required to show love.

Pearl and I found each other in the middle of nowhere, Oklahoma, when I was 8 years old. She had been abandoned by the side of the road and was starving. I was lonely and needed a friend.

When Pearl realized that she had been adopted, she became as mellow and contented as a dope-smoking hippie in a tie-dyed T-shirt. But Pearl was not a little yapper dog. If you acted as though you were going to attack me, that 16-pound dog would become a gigantic werewolf that could move at the speed of light.

Pearl followed the advice of E.W. Howe.

“When a friend is in trouble, don’t annoy him by asking if there is anything you can do. Think up something appropriate and do it.”

Speech is not required to show love.Rachel Dawes was a childhood friend of Bruce Wayne in the 2005 movie, Batman Begins. She said to him,

“It’s not who you are inside, but what you do that defines you.”

Matthew records a parable by Jesus in which he makes a similar point:

“There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’

‘I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went.”

“Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go.”

“Which of the two did what his father wanted?”

“The first,” they answered.

Speech is not required to show love.Likewise, in the second chapter of James we read,

“If a person is without clothes and daily food, and you say to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,’ but do nothing about their physical needs, what good is that?”

My ’71 Mustang, like Pearl, was abandoned by the side of the road.I left a note under the windshield wiper in 1991.

“Might this be a good time to sell this car? Give me a call and I’ll buy it where it sits.”

The man called me and I met him at the side of the road with the cash. He handed me the title to the car and asked, “Did you call a wrecker?”

“No,” I answered, “I’m hoping to drive it home.”

The man smiled and said, “Good luck,” as he drove away.

I then took the pliers out of my back pocket and quickly replaced the fuel filter. The car started immediately and I drove it home. The fuel filter on a Ford 302 engine of that era was notorious for getting clogged up, and this Mustang still had the original fuel filter. I was shocked that it had lasted 20 years.

I am going to tell you about that car, even though I know you won’t believe me.It never had a flat.

It would perform as though it had 4-wheel drive if I needed to pull a friend’s car out of a ditch on an icy day.

The car would refuse to run out of gas unless I was within coasting distance of a gas station. And if it absolutely had to break down, it would wait until I was within coasting distance of an auto parts store that had exactly the part I needed. (The car knew, of course, that I already had the tools that I would need in the trunk.)

Speech is not required to show love.You have people in your life that you love. I know you do. You know it, too.

Here are two other things that you already know.

1. Talk is cheap.
2. Actions speak louder than words.

I am not against words. In fact, I am in the word business. Banging words together is what I get paid to do.

And it is always a good thing to tell the people you love that you love them.

But it seems to me that we are becoming a nation of too many words and not enough action. We don’t want to become a nation of little yapper dogs, do we?

Social media is mostly, “yap-yap-yap-yap-yap.”

To which people reply, “yap-yap-yap-yap-yap.”

Love is not about what you say. Love is about what you do.

I think we have talked enough about it.

Now what are we going to do about it?

Speech is not required to show love.Roy H. Williams

“As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do.”

– Mae West

Marcy Syms became the youngest female president of a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange in 1983. Her company sold brand-name fashions at discount prices, generating $350 million a year in stores across 13 states. Marcy’s father, Sy Syms, founded that company on an idea that quickly became an iconic slogan. “An educated consumer is our best customer.”

Faced with increased competition and a soft economy, the Syms stores closed in 2011 after more than 50 years. Listen in as Marcy Syms tells roving reporter Rotbart about the lessons she learned as the president of a big company. You will be delighted at what Marcy has to say about effective leadership, and surprised by its key characteristic. Listen and learn, learn, learn at MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

“More agile than a turtle! Stronger than a mouse! Nobler than a head of lettuce! His shield is his Heart! It’s… El CHAPULIN COLORADO!”El Chapulín Colorado – The Red Grasshopper – was a Spanish-speaking television star loved by hundreds of millions of people around the world.

The Red Grasshopper would shout “¡Síganme los buenos!” and leap into action whenever a ghost, a bandit, or any other threat appeared.

(“¡Síganme los buenos!” translates to “Follow me, the good ones,” or “Good guys, follow me.”)

And then he would run into a wall. Or tumble down the stairs. The results of following the lead of the Red Grasshopper were never straightforward. He had a good heart, but he was very poor, clumsy, and inept. His leadership would often increase the trouble, cause a mess, or create some other disaster that, through sheer luck, would always solve the problem.

El Chapulín Colorado was Don Quixote dressed as a comedic superhero.

Notice how these simple, concrete nouns are easy to visualize in your mind. “Turtle, mouse, head of lettuce, heart, red grasshopper.”

And the verbs associated with El Chapulín Colorado are simple as well. “Leap, follow, run, tumble.”

El Chapulín Colorado averaged 350 million viewers* per episode in Latin America alone during the mid-1970’s and 1980’s. The show has made $1.7 billion in syndication fees since it ceased production in 1992.

Luis Castañeda, one of the Wizard of Ads Partners, recently sent an email to the partner group.Gentlemen,

I was listening to this podcast “Outliers: Anna Wintour – Vogue” [The Knowledge Project Ep. #233] when I heard this comment:

“Digital transformation isn’t about abandoning what made you successful. It’s about translating it to a new medium.”

I took this to mean:

“How can we translate what Roy has taught us into better digital marketing?”

What do you think?

Luis

Today I will teach you a simple but profound answer to the question posed by Luis. In fact, I already have:These simple, concrete nouns are easy to visualize in your mind. “Turtle, mouse, head of lettuce, heart, red grasshopper.”

And the verbs are simple as well. “Leap, follow, run, tumble.”

Do you want to create better online ads? Avoid abstract words. Use simple, concrete nouns that people can easily see in their mind. Use simple verbs that are easy to visualize as well.

Avoid abstract words. Use concrete words.

Avoid abstract words. Use concrete words.

Avoid abstract words. Use concrete words.

And repetition is effective.

Professional writers have long been familiar with that advice, but it was only recently scientifically proven. The publication is “Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition.” The paper is titled, “Concrete Words Are Easier to Recall Than Abstract Words: Evidence for a Semantic Contribution to Short-Term Serial Recall.” The tests were performed, and the paper was written, by Ian Walker and Charles Hulme of the University of York.

Their paper is long and filled with scientific jargon, but this summary sentence is relatively easy to understand:“It is also apparent that the short words were much better recalled than the long words, and that the concrete words were much better recalled than the abstract words, with the possible exception of the first and last serial positions.”

When Walker and Hulme refer to “the first and last serial positions,” they are referring to the long-established laws of Primacy and Recency. These terms describe how humans tend to remember the first item (Primacy) and the last item (Recency) in any sequence better than the items in the middle. This is known as the serial position effect.

Now let’s make all of this really simple.

These are the steps for making better online ads:1. Open big by using short words that project clear images into the mind. 2. Use colors, shapes, and the names of familiar things when you write. 3. Use simple verbs that describe actions that are easy to visualize. 4. Close big by returning to your opening image, but now it has been changed by what you are selling.

Here is an example:

My ads did not bring in money. I was using

big words so that I would sound smart. Then I read

what Roy wrote and now my ads are bringing in money.

© 2025, Roy H. Williams, Wizard of Ads

Run that ad without changing a single word and leave the hyperlink intact and watch infinite clicks roll in to my website.

“Síganme los buenos.”

Roy H. Williams350 million viewers – the viewership of each episode of El Chapulin Colorado,* was more people than the total population of today’s United States (347,275,807 in 2025).

Damon Lembi and his crew have served over 14,000 for-profit and non-profit organizations containing 1.25 million employees. Damon’s company competes with corporate giants hundreds of times his size and Damon usually wins. Do you want to have the mindset to thrive in today’s hyper-competitive marketplace? Join roving reporter Rotbart and his deputy Maxwell as Damon Lembi explores the mindset of today’s business executives. Class is currently in session at MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

A troubling statement makes us want to think of exceptions to it that would prove that statement to be wrong.“Outliers are interesting, but they rarely matter,” is a troubling statement, and you may already be thinking of exceptions to it. But it remains true nonetheless.

This second statement is also true. “If there were no outliers, there would be no new inventions, no innovations, no progress. We would be trapped forever in the status quo.”

These seemingly contradictory statements can both be true because there are two kinds of outliers.

Leonardo da Vinci made marvelous art and filled fabulous sketchbooks with his insightful ideas, but he didn’t really change anything. He was just an interesting outlier whose mind was ahead of his time.

Rare is the outlier who throws a pebble into the ocean of time and shifts the world off its axis. Electricity is harnessed. Computers are invented. Someone connects them and now everyone knows everything all the time.

“What distinguishes the past from the present is not biology, nor psychology, but rather technology. If the world has changed, it is because we have changed the world.”

– Ezra Klein & Derek Thompson in their new book, Abundance

Technology changes the world, but persuasion changes hearts and minds.I am an ad writer.When I was in my 20s, I was told,

“People never change their mind. If you give a person the same information they were given in the past, they will make the same decision they made in the past. When a person appears to have ‘changed their mind,’ what they have really done is made a new decision based on new information.*”

Ten years later I realized that those people were trying to use logic to create “persuasion technology.” Their mistake was assuming that people make their decisions logically. But people do not trust new information when it disagrees with their belief system.

New information may allow you to win the argument, but it rarely wins the heart.And a person convinced against their will, remains unconvinced, still.

Wash away the opinions, bravado, and fluff, and you will find that most people are NOT seeking new information. They are seeking identity reinforcement.

Bertrand Russell was a mathematician and a logician. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature eight years before I was born.

He said,

“If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance with his instincts, he will accept it even on the slenderest evidence.”

When your goal is persuasion, don’t begin with new information. Begin by agreeing with what they already believe. Meet them where they are. Only then can you hope to lead them to where you want them to go.

Abraham Lincoln knew that persuasion is easier when you begin at a point of mutual agreement.“If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend. Therein is a drop of honey that catches his heart, which, say what you will, is the greatest high-road to his reason, and which, when once gained, you will find but little trouble in convincing his judgment of the justice of your cause.” – Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln knew that if you win the heart, the mind will follow. The mind will always create logic to justify what the heart has already decided.

Abraham Lincoln understood relational marketing, which is the art of changing the beliefs of a person by shifting their perspective a little, rather than by introducing new facts.Do you want to persuade? Find an existing belief that you can agree with. Agreeing with your customer’s belief is far more effective than trying to convince them to accept new information that contradicts what they feel is true.

When you ask a person to accept new information that will destroy their belief, you are asking them to admit they have been a fool.

Relational ad writers learn to ignore the contrarians who say, “No one will be persuaded by your ad.” When these outliers say “no one,” what they really mean is, “Me and my friend.”

Outliers never speak for the majority. This is why they are called “outliers.”

“Outliers are interesting, but they rarely matter,” is the perspective of every relational ad writer.Most ads are not written to persuade; they are written not to offend. But those watered-down ads don’t have enough horsepower to pull a fat kid off the toilet! A persuasive ad will turn that kid into an astronaut.

Persuasive ads move people, but not everyone will be moved in the direction that you want them to go. Don’t let this bother you.

Outliers don’t matter, because you don’t need to win the hearts of everyone.

You only need to win the hearts of the majority.

Roy H. Williams Those people from my 20’s would have spoken the truth if they had said, “People never change their mind. If a person maintains the same perspective* they had in the past, they will make the same decision they made in the past. When a person appears to have ‘changed their mind,’ they are usually just looking at the old information from a new perspective.” Don’t try to change the information. Just illuminate that old information from a new angle. Speak to the heart, not the mind.

Ken Banta believes there are times for “short-term thinking” and right now is one of those times. In this week’s conversation with roving reporter Rotbart, Ken explains why it is a mistake to create a corporate plan that projects three, five, or ten years into the future. Ken Banta believes that leaders should focus on the immediate horizon. Technology and world events are evolving at breakneck speed, so forecasting the future is like trying to predict the location the next lightning strike. Take a listen to this week’s episode at MondayMorningRadio.com and see if you agree.

View Details

Clarity and Brevity are the highest creativity. But “clear and brief” does not mean simple and predictable.One the most talented writers of advertising in the world would be surprised to hear me call him that. Jonathan Edward Durham is a novelist. He recently posted this random thought.

“‘Why am I so sad today?’ I ask myself after staring at my little handheld sadness machine and clicking all the sad little things that will definitely make me sad.”

You may not agree with Durham’s statement, but you will agree it was artfully crafted.

What Durham gave us was clarity and brevity without predictability. This is the mark of a great ad writer.

“Why am I so sad today?” immediately gets our attention. We are compelled to keep reading.

We are surprised that he owns “a little handheld sadness machine.” But our cleverness allows us to translate it as “iPhone” and we receive a tiny spasm of delight.

You have never heard of “a little handheld sadness machine” but you knew exactly what it was.

His 30-word sentence demonstrated clarity, brevity, and creativity, but none of what Jonathan Edward Durham wrote was simple or predictable.

Durham’s ability to bring us – his readers, his listeners, his customers – into active participation in a one-way conversation is pure genius.

Jonathan Edward Durham causes us to become engaged with what he is saying.

You can do it, too.

“Time + Place + Character + Emotion.” That’s it. That’s how Stephen Semple turns a weak story into a powerful one in his famous TED-X talk.Here’s how Jonathan Edward Durham uses Time + Place + Character + Emotion to tell us a story in less than 30 seconds.

“About two years ago, we moved across the country. It was a big, stressful move, and anxieties were high all around, and it had only been about six months since we rescued Jack, so he was really just beginning to adjust to having a forever home. Needless to say, Jack didn’t understand why a bunch of strangers were taking all of our things, and he was having a very, very ruff time with the whole process.”

“We want Jack to live forever. That’s why we feed him The Wizard’s Magic dog food.”

Jonathan Edward Durham’s wonderful story became an excellent ad with my addition of just 16 words. “We want Jack to live forever. That’s why we feed him The Wizard’s Magic dog food.”

You already know how to write the 16 words. Now you need to learn how to tell a wonderful story in 76 words like Durham did.

Time + Place + Character + Emotion.Give it a try.

Roy H. WilliamsPS – Most people use too many words to make too small a point. The average writer wraps lots of words around a small idea. Inflated sentences are fluffy and empty like a hot air balloon. Good writers deliver a big idea quickly. Tight sentences hit hard. – Indy Beagle

“Facts tell. Stories sell.” – Tom Schreiter

Who do you call when you need your people to cooperate, innovate, and create? Meta, Google, Salesforce, and other big companies call a woman who has a golden reputation for legendary results. Her methods are unorthodox, unconventional, and irresistible. And her credentials are unique: she is an improv entertainer who trained to be a dancer at Juilliard. Her name is Melissa Dinwiddie and she can play the ukulele. Roving reporter Rotbart heard about this woman, sought her out, and convinced her to sit for an interview. Now take a deep breath, calm your mind, and go to MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

January 18, 1604: King James, a Protestant, announces that he will commission an English translation of the Bible.

January 16, 1605: Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote is published in Spain. It is considered to be the first modern novel. Every sophisticated storytelling device used by the best writers today made its initial debut in Don Quixote.

February 28, 1605: A 41-year-old Italian named Galileo publishes an astronomical text written as an imagined conversation. A pair of Paduan peasants talk about Kepler’s Supernova.

One says, “A very bright star shines at night like an owl’s eye.”

And the other replies, “And it can still be seen in the morning when it is time to prune the grapevines!”

The observations of the peasants clearly disprove the widely held belief that the earth is the center of the universe. The authorities take note. Uh-oh for Galileo.

November 1, 1605: Shakespeare’s Othello is first performed for King James in the banqueting hall at Whitehall Palace in London.

Meanwhile, a group of English Roman Catholics stack 36 barrels of gunpowder under the floor of the Palace of Westminster. Their plan is to blow up the king, his family, and the entire legislature on November 5, 1605.

The Gunpowder Plot is discovered by a night watchman just a few hours before Guy Fawkes was to have lit the fuse.Shakespeare immediately begins writing a new play. In it, a ruler gives enormous power to those who flatter him, but his insanity goes unnoticed by society. “King Lear” is regularly cited as one of the greatest works of literature ever written.

May 13, 1607: One hundred and four English men and boys arrive in North America to start a settlement in what is now Virginia. They name it “Jamestown” after King James. The American Experiment has begun.

Don Quixote, Galileo, Shakespeare, the crisis of King James, and the founding of Jamestown in the New World…All of this happens within a span of just 28 months. Flash forward…May 2, 1611: The English Bible that will be known as the King James Version is published.

April 23, 1616: Shakespeare and Cervantes – the great voices of England and Spain – die just a few hours apart. (Galileo continues until 1642.)

July 4, 1776: The 13 colonies of the American Experiment light a fuse of their own and the Revolutionary War engulfs the Atlantic coast.

November 19, 1863: Abraham Lincoln looks out over a field of 6,000 acres. He says,

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.”

Lincoln ends his speech one minute later. His hope is that “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Lincoln’s fear is that “the people” will not remain firmly united enough to resist the takeover of a tyrant. We know this because he opens his speech by referring to our 1776 Declaration which rejected crazy King George. America had escaped George’s heavy-handed leadership just –”four score and seven”– 87 years earlier.

Five-and-a-half generations after Lincoln’s assassination, the American Experiment continues.

Roy H. WilliamsMitch Weisburgh can help you train your brain to

1. recognize impulsive reactions

2. set them aside, and

3. respond far more effectively.

Find out how, right now, at MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

I was whining to Clay Cary about the interest rate the bank was going to charge me to fund a real estate investment. I felt the percentage was way too high.

Clay asked, “Is the deal you’re about to make a good deal? How much money will you make from it?”

I answered his question conservatively. He said, “Now let’s calculate the total amount of interest that you will pay on the loan that makes this deal possible.”

We calculated the dollar amounts.

I was going to make hundreds of times more money on the real estate than I was going to pay in interest on the loan.

Clay said, “As a rule of thumb, if the interest rate you are paying determines whether or not the deal you are making is good or bad, you are definitely making a bad deal. Don’t judge according to percentages. Judge according to dollars.”

Here’s a thought.Why do banks never get angry about the huge profits that YOU make on deals using THEIR money?

I have never heard a bank say, “We supplied the money, but you are keeping most of the profits. That’s not fair. You should give us more money than we originally agreed upon.”

Banks never say that because banks always remember that YOU found the deal and decided to let THEM make some money on it with you.

Here’s another example of how percentages can be misleading.Woody Justice had been in business for 6 years when I met him in 1987. His business was circling the drain. Woody’s biggest year had a top line of $350,000. His goal was to someday sell $1,000,000 worth of jewelry in a single year. That would put Woody in the top 10% of jewelers nationwide.

I began working with Woody and we grew more than 100% a year for two years in a row. We blew past the $1,000,000 mark in the second year. About a dozen years later, Woody was grumpy. He said, “We used to grow by big percentages. But last year we only grew by ten percent. You need to get your shit together.”

“Woody, how many dollars did our top line grow last year?”

“We grew by a million dollars,” he said.

“Woody, when we first began working together, a million-dollar jump from $350,000 to $1,350,000 would have been a 286% increase. We would have nearly quadrupled your best year ever and you would have wet your pants. Evaluate yourself by dollar growth, not percentage growth. Percentages will lead you to believe that you are doing better, or worse, than you really are.”

Woody made a face but didn’t say anything, so I continued. “And by the way, we’re running out of people in this Dairy Queen town. If you want to grow by big percentages again, we’re going to need to open another store somewhere else.”

I could say those things to him because we were close friends.Woody died unexpectedly 14 years ago but I still have his number on my cell phone. I tell myself that if I press that number, Woody will hear his phone ring.

As long as I don’t delete that number from my phone, Woody Justice will never be gone.

Roy H. WilliamsPS – “A Dairy Queen town” is Oklahoma slang for a place that is too small to have a McDonald’s. – Indy Beagle

“Do it before you die.” Those five words sum up Carl Barney’s advice to wealthy individuals who want to experience a deeper level of satisfaction. “He who gives while he lives knows where it goes.” Barney believes in “pre-questing” meaningful gifts to individuals and institutions while you can still witness the impact of your generosity.

Just this month, for example, Warren Buffett announced plans to donate another $6 billion to charity, bringing his total charitable giving to about $60 billion. (And most people would agree that Buffet is happier and more contented than the average billionaire.) Generosity brings happiness to every giver, no matter their financial condition. Get energized as Carl Barney shares his blueprint for happiness with roving reporter Rotbart and his deputy rover, Maxwell, at MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

Pain is a signal that something is wrong.Pain whispers, shouts, and screams, “Pay attention. Be careful. Something is wrong.”

Jean Marzollo wrote a children’s poem in 1948 that romanticized Christopher Columbus. It inspired a generation of children during the Captain Kangaroo years. Her proud poem begins,

“In fourteen hundred ninety-twoColumbus sailed the ocean blue”Bill Bryson wrote an insightful summary of that famous voyage on page 205 of his book, “At Home.”

“Columbus’s real achievement was managing to cross the ocean successfully in both directions. Though an accomplished enough mariner, he was not terribly good at a great deal else, especially geography, the skill that would seem most vital in an explorer. It would be hard to name any figure in history who has achieved more lasting fame with less competence. He spent large parts of eight years bouncing around Caribbean islands and coastal South America convinced that he was in the heart of the Orient and that Japan and China were at the edge of every sunset. He never worked out that Cuba is an island and never once set foot on, or even suspected the existence of, the landmass to the north that everyone thinks he discovered: the United States.”

We learn the meaning of pain as children, but we train ourselves to ignore it as adults.Why do we do that?

I’m talking to you about the pain of your Google spend.

Is there a chance that you should pay attention – and be careful – because something is wrong?

Twenty years ago, Google inspired and electrified American business owners with their promise of “holding ad budgets accountable” by making advertising results, “identifiable, measurable, and scalable.”

Business owners romanticized Google by shouting,

“Hooray! Advertising will now become just another mathematical equation! Hooray! Hooray! To double my customer count, all I will have to do is double my ad budget!”

I watched a friend of mine raise his monthly Google budget from $20,000/mo. to $70,000/mo because he was convinced that he would get three-and-a-half times as many leads. When it didn’t work, I asked him to look closely at how many clicks he had purchased and compare that number to the total population of his trade area.

Have you done that math?

I watched another friend of mine elevate her Google budget until she was spending $90,000 a month. Her business was no longer profitable. I asked her to look at how many clicks she had purchased and compare that number to the total population of her trade area.

Have you done that math?

Have you ever raised your Google budget and had Google say to you, “We’re sorry, but it is not possible to spend that much money on your LSA. There simply aren’t enough people each day who are searching for what you sell.”

Do the math.

The past two decades have been the Captain Kangaroo years for millions of business owners.Bill Bryson wrote that Columbus was, “convinced that he was in the heart of the Orient and that Japan and China were at the edge of every sunset.”

How many years have you been believing that your big payday from Google was at the edge of every sunset? Have you been saying,

“All we need to do is tweak our plan a little. As soon as we figure out the Google algorithm, we’re going to be rich.”

A business owner from a major American city recently spent a day with me. He had been spending $100,000 on Google ads each month for the past few years because he was convinced that he could not afford mass media in his city.

His budget could easily have made his name a household word by using television or radio. I know the town well. I have had clients there for many years.

His budget would reach more than 2 million people in his city who spend enough time listening to broadcast radio each week that each 0ne of those 2 million people would hear the ad 3 times each weekfor 52 weeks for a total of 156 repetitions per year.

Do you sell a big-ticket item that has a long purchase cycle? You cannot win that game unless your name is the one that people think of first – and feel the best about – when they finally need what you sell.That is when the customer will type your name into Google. It is a cheap click with a high conversion rate because they have already chosen you.

It takes time and patience, but it always works.

Roy H. Williams

Ruth Milliganis the public speaking trainer who was the driving force behind TEDxColumbus where she spent a decade observing good and bad presenters. Today she is helping people improve their presentation skills before large auditorium audiences, intimate groups of employees, and most importantly, customers. Ruth doesn’t tell people what they should talk about. She says that to produce the desired results, what you say is often less important than how you say it. Listen and learn as she explains it all to roving reporter Rotbart at MondayMorningRadio.com.

View Details

You want to succeed.But will you recognize success when it happens?

What will be its indicators? How will you measure it?

Most importantly, how long are you willing to pursue it?

You probably overestimate what you can accomplish in a year, and underestimate what you can accomplish in ten years.

How many years have you been pursuing your dream?

Experience is the name you are allowed give to your mistakes, but only if you have learned from them.1. Some people have ten years of experience. 2. Most people have one year of experience ten times.

Ninety-nine percent of business owners* will continue to defend their marketing beliefs and management practices even when those beliefs and practices continue to underperform year after year.

These business owners underperform because traditional wisdom often feels like common sense.

The problem with traditional wisdom is that it is usually more tradition than wisdom.Here’s how that happens:

1. Your goal is lead generation.
2. You create an ad that mixes urgency – a limited-time offer – with a strong value proposition. The features-and-benefits of your limited-time-offer dramatically outweigh the price.
3. Your plan is to upsell the customer after they allow you into their home.

This is called “transactional advertising” because you are advertising a transaction.

Here’s the problem: Transactional ads don’t differentiate you. In fact, they blur you into your category, making you indistinguishable from your competitors.

This is Today’s Traditional Wisdom:STEP 1: Give Google most of your profits and keep your fingers crossed. Keep a sharp eye on your cost-per-lead, your conversion rate, and your gross profit per sale.

STEP 2: Keep doing this, week after week, month after month.

STEP 3: Once a year, calculate how much your cost-per-sale has increased.

STEP 4: Contact the people in your peer group to see if their experience has been the same as yours.

STEP 5: Yes. Their experience has been the same as yours.

STEP 6: Tell yourself, “Everyone else in our category is experiencing exactly what we have been experiencing. This means that everything is under control.”

STEP 7: Continue to do this. In 9 more years, you will have had one year’s experience 10 times.

Roy H. WilliamsPS – A smart person makes a mistake, learns from it, and never makes that mistake again. But a wise person finds a smart person and learns how to avoid that mistake altogether.

A wise person discovers relational marketing.

*ADDENDUM

We gathered data from 64 reputable sources. It can reasonably be estimated that there are about 117,000 companies in the US that provide HVAC services, 132,000 provide plumbing services, and 252,000 provide electrical services. (117,000 + 132,000 + 252,000 = 501,000)

Let’s assume for the sake of this example that those numbers are elevated. A lot of home service companies offer two or more services.

Let’s further assume that a lot of them are going to be commercial, not residential. So we will reduce the aggregate estimate of 501,000 companies down to just 100,000 companies competing for the opportunity to serve homeowners across America.

Here is the fascinating part: we know for a fact that only 638 of those companies have a top line of $20,000,000 or more each year, and just 280 of the 638 will do $40,000,000 or more.

Having worked with many of those over-performers, I can assure you that none of them were built on traditional wisdom. – RHW

Jackie Lapin’s passion was for traveling the world and taking photos. But Jackie’s passion has now blossomed into a thriving business with an impressive community of members. She is providing blog posts, photos, curated reading lists, historical insights, and exclusive travel resources with people who share her wanderlust. In this marvelously candid interview with deputy roving reporter Maxwell Rotbart, Jackie will convince you that turning your passion into a thriving business isn’t just possible; it may be the most direct and rewarding path to a robust income stream. MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

The Muses of Greek mythology were nine goddesses associated with the arts, sciences, and memory.They were the source of inspiration for artists, thinkers, poets, dancers, musicians, and philosophers. They were the goddesses of knowledge, embodying the wisdom and creative power found in poetry, songs, and myths.

This is the point: a muse is never an actual woman.

When a man chooses a flesh-and-blood woman to be his muse, she becomes the symbol of something deeper, wiser, and much more mysterious than herself.

A muse is a point of access that puts a man in touch with his feminine side while allowing him to pretend that he does not have a feminine side.A muse is essentially the Jungian anima, the perfect woman who exists only in the imagination of a man.

Just now, my muse whispered to me,

“The reader will want to ask you, ‘What is a woman’s muse?’”

“What shall I tell them?”

“Tell them to ask a woman,” she said.

In his book, The Magic Synthesis, Silvano Arieti writes,

“Creative products are always shiny and new; the creative process is ancient and unchanging.”Arieti believed that perception is not just binary, with logic on the left side and pattern recognition on the right. He believed that our minds can blend rational with irrational, sophisticated with primitive, conscious with subconscious to create a third type of perception known as “creativity.”

Psychology Today begins their praise of Arieti with this paragraph:

“Silvano Arieti’s book Interpretation of Schizophrenia was awarded the 1975 U.S. National Book Award in the Science category. More than 40 years later, it remains the most significant contribution to the psychological understanding of schizophrenia since Kraepelin and Bleuler. Contemporary psychiatrists and psychotherapists would be wise to review Arieti’s vast contributions to the field.”

Silvano Arieti was born in 1914. When he died in 1981, Arieti was perhaps the world’s foremost authority on schizophrenia. He wrote an award-winning book about it.

The other book he wrote was about creativity.

Coincidence? Perhaps. But I am convinced that creativity is a mild form of schizophrenia. How else would you describe a marvelous blend of rational with irrational, sophisticated with primitive, conscious with subconscious?

Creativity is a wild and spontaneous act employed by artists, thinkers, poets, dancers, musicians, and philosophers. It is that conflicted insanity to which our Muses give us access.

I think that “mild schizophrenia” is the perfect description.

But perhaps I am wrong.

Roy H. WilliamsToday’s rabbit hole is as wacky as today’s memo. You should check it out. I’m Indy Beagle.

Steven Gaffney’s client list reads like a “Who’s Who of America’s Best Corporations.” His clients include including Allstate, Amazon, American Express, Best Buy, Booz Allen Hamilton, and BP. And those are just the “A”s and “B”s. Steven Gaffney builds high-achieving teams that set brave goals and then exceed them. In this week’s amazing conversation with roving reporter Rotbart, Steven Gaffney shares big-picture insights and detailed actions that will help any business improve their results over the next 30 days. Get your running shoes on, because the race is about to begin at MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

The Muses of Greek mythology were nine goddesses associated with the arts, sciences, and memory.They were the source of inspiration for artists, thinkers, poets, dancers, musicians, and philosophers. They were the goddesses of knowledge, embodying the wisdom and creative power found in poetry, songs, and myths.

This is the point: a muse is never an actual woman.

When a man chooses a flesh-and-blood woman to be his muse, she becomes the symbol of something deeper, wiser, and much more mysterious than herself.

A muse is a point of access that puts a man in touch with his feminine side while allowing him to pretend that he does not have a feminine side.A muse is essentially the Jungian anima, the perfect woman who exists only in the imagination of a man.

Just now, my muse whispered to me,

“The reader will want to ask you, ‘What is a woman’s muse?’”

“What shall I tell them?”

“Tell them to ask a woman,” she said.

In his book, The Magic Synthesis, Silvano Arieti writes,

“Creative products are always shiny and new; the creative process is ancient and unchanging.”Arieti believed that perception is not just binary, with logic on the left side and pattern recognition on the right. He believed that our minds can blend rational with irrational, sophisticated with primitive, conscious with subconscious to create a third type of perception known as “creativity.”

Psychology Today begins their praise of Arieti with this paragraph:

“Silvano Arieti’s book Interpretation of Schizophrenia was awarded the 1975 U.S. National Book Award in the Science category. More than 40 years later, it remains the most significant contribution to the psychological understanding of schizophrenia since Kraepelin and Bleuler. Contemporary psychiatrists and psychotherapists would be wise to review Arieti’s vast contributions to the field.”

Silvano Arieti was born in 1914. When he died in 1981, Arieti was perhaps the world’s foremost authority on schizophrenia. He wrote an award-winning book about it.

The other book he wrote was about creativity.

Coincidence? Perhaps. But I am convinced that creativity is a mild form of schizophrenia. How else would you describe a marvelous blend of rational with irrational, sophisticated with primitive, conscious with subconscious?

Creativity is a wild and spontaneous act employed by artists, thinkers, poets, dancers, musicians, and philosophers. It is that conflicted insanity to which our Muses give us access.

I think that “mild schizophrenia” is the perfect description.

But perhaps I am wrong.

Roy H. WilliamsToday’s rabbit hole is as wacky as today’s memo. You should check it out. I’m Indy Beagle.

Steven Gaffney’s client list reads like a “Who’s Who of America’s Best Corporations.” His clients include including Allstate, Amazon, American Express, Best Buy, Booz Allen Hamilton, and BP. And those are just the “A”s and “B”s. Steven Gaffney builds high-achieving teams that set brave goals and then exceed them. In this week’s amazing conversation with roving reporter Rotbart, Steven Gaffney shares big-picture insights and detailed actions that will help any business improve their results over the next 30 days. Get your running shoes on, because the race is about to begin at MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

The greatest companies are the ones with the happiest customers.To create happy customers, you need to be customer-centric.

Every company believes they are customer-centric. But while a great company keeps the happiness of their customer in the center of their thoughts, the average company puts their customer in the center of the cross-hairs of a rifle scope.

1. Great companies ask, “How can we give our customers the buying experience that they would prefer?” They work at removing the friction from the customer experience.
2. Average companies ask, “How can we get our customers to give us more money, more often?” Average companies tells their marketing teams, “Sales is just a numbers game. Bring us twice as many leads and we’ll make twice as many sales. You bring’em in. We’ll close’em.”

But no matter what those marketing teams do, a decreasing number of people will respond to their ads. A negative customer experience drives customers away faster than marketing can bring them in.

Do you want to see what real customer-centric thinking looks like?A client of mine recently wrote this email and sent it to all the people who work in his company. He forwarded it to me only as an afterthought.

SUBJECT: Pricing Reflection — Serving the Everyday Working American

Team,

Today I had a realization around some of our pricing. I’m all for setting prices that protect our margins and keep the business strong – but I’m equally committed to making sure we have price point items that the everyday working American can actually afford.

Let’s take a simple example: a toilet. Right now, most of our toilet installs are priced over $1,000. If we assume the median household income is $85,000, divided over 26 pre-tax paychecks, that’s $3,269 per check. A $1,000 toilet install is over 30% of that paycheck. That’s significant.

We need to remember who we’re here to serve – the nurse, the police officer, the office worker, the firefighter. These are people raising families, keeping their homes together, and doing the best they can. We cannot price them out of basic service. If we do, we risk not only losing today’s job – but any future relationship with that customer.

Let me be clear: I’m not trying to run a low-margin business.But I do want to make sure we have real options for real people. Today’s pricing structure on some of these essential services is a barrier – not just to customers, but to our own techs who are trying to present them.

Because of this realization, I immediately asked Jacob to find a toilet that we could install at a price point of $699. Well, guess what – we found one today. And we’re bringing it in and adding it to the price book at $649.

This one change will give our team more confidence to present a basic toilet option. What I’ve heard from Will – and it’s been consistent – is that this has been a never-ending battle. Technicians don’t feel comfortable presenting a $1,000 toilet to customers, especially when many of them wouldn’t pay that themselves. That lack of confidence translates to lower conversions and frustrated customers.

This reminds me of what we went through in HVAC when we had no system options below $15,000. We lost installs constantly – not because we weren’t good, but because we didn’t have a simple, no-frills option for people who just needed heating and air. Once we corrected that, we started closing more jobs and rebuilding our pipeline.

We need to apply that same logic here. During times like this, let’s price effectively so we can keep building our customer base and generate revenue day by day. When the tide turns – and it will – we can always maximize margin percentage where appropriate.

There’s an opportunity here. We can maintain strong margins where they make sense – but also have a few key products that are accessible. That builds trust, drives volume, and keeps us connected to the people we serve.

Let’s make sure we’re building a business that works for our margins and for our community.

The man who wrote that note to his employees owns a great company.His current sales volume is more than 10 times the amount the average business owner in his category hopes to do “some day.”

The average company hunts for customers, targets customers, and closes customers.

Great companies use mass media to distribute the seeds of relationship far and wide. They continually shine the warm sunlight of humility and vulnerability on those seeds and water them with generosity.Great companies grow mighty orchards that produce happy fruit for generations.

Are you willing to work with a shovel, a rake, and a hoe?

Or do you prefer to carry a rifle?

Roy H. WilliamsJohnny Molson can explain – in just 2 words – what it takes for an advertising campaign to soar above the campaigns of its competitors. Johnny is one of the elite Wizard of Ads partners. Employing the groundbreaking strategies developed by Roy H. Williams, he and his fellow Wizards of Ads craft powerful brand identities that turn a business owner’s financial dreams into financial realities.

In today’s episode of Monday Morning Radio, Johnny Molson explains the difference between ads that drive immediate sales — and ads that build long-term customers and spectacular profitability. What is Johnny’s two-word formula? Listen and WIN as Johnny joins roving reporter Rotbart and his deputy, Maxwell, for a deep dive into magical advertising at Monday Morning Radio dot com.

View Details

The strongest brands are the ones with the most distinctive personalities. But even a weak and faded personality is better than none at all.A brand with a personality is an imaginary character in the minds of the customers of that brand. It is similar to the characters in syndicated television shows, bestselling novels, and big movie franchises.

Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, and Robin Williams are actors, but they are also characters in your mind.

Willie Nelson, Michael Jackson, and Taylor Swift are musicians. but they are also characters in your mind.

Brands are like that.

Two people are now going to tell us about books.Dear Person Reading This,

A writer can fit a whole world inside a book. Really. You can go there. You can learn things while you are away. You can bring them back to the world you normally live in.

You can look out of another person’s eyes, think their thoughts, care about what they care about.

You can fly. You can travel to the stars. You can be a monster or a wizard or a god. You can be a girl. You can be a boy. Books give you worlds of infinite possibility. All you have to do is be interested enough to read that first page…

Somewhere, there is a book written just for you. It will fit in your mind like a glove fits your hand. And it’s waiting.

Go look for it.

Neil Gaiman

A Velocity of Being, Letters to a Young Reader, p. 22

Brands are like novels and movies and TV shows. Brands are like hit songs. Brands are like actors and musicians. Brands are like good books.Here is the second person.Dear Reader,

When I was 12, I was given a scholarship to a private girl’s school in the town where I lived. All the other girls came from another – wealthier – town. They were driven to school in Jaguars and Mercedes Benzes. They ate artichokes. No way would I ever fit in.

In the midst of my funk, the English teacher assigned A Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers. As it happens, Frankie, the book’s heroine, is also 12 and also wants to belong. Her yearning is such that she wants to know everyone in the world and for everyone to know her – exactly what I wanted!

That’s what stunned me, not just the intensity of the longing, but the specificity. It meant – it had to mean – there were other people in the world like me. Not just Frankie, a fictional character, but the author who had to have felt that way herself in order to give Frankie that longing. I felt such an intimate connection with her, as if she’d looked deep inside me and knew me in the way I wanted the world to know me. Reading didn’t just offer escape; it offered connection!

All these years later, I just have to look at my copy of A Member of the Wedding on my bookshelf to experience again how I felt when I first read it and to feel the full force of that connection: to Frankie, to Carson McCullers, to the 12-year-old girl I was, and to 12-year-olds everywhere.

Emily Levine

A Velocity of Being, Letters to a Young Reader, p. 52

A brand with a personality is like A Member of the Wedding, written by Carson McCullers.Who was the first ad writer to give a brand a distinctive personality?

That’s like asking, “Who built the first car?” To answer that question, we would first have to agree upon the defining characteristics of a car.

For us to agree upon “Who was the first ad writer to give a brand a distinctive personality,” we would first have to agree upon a definition for the word “distinctive,” and then we would have to agree upon what constitutes a “personality.”

We could do that, or you can just trust me when I say that Carl Benz built the first car in July of 1886 and Bill Bernbach created the first brand with a distinctive personality in 1958. The ad is not logical. It does not speak of features and benefits. It does not feel like an ad.

Ads with personality are captivating and engaging because they give you a look at something through the eyes of someone else.

In this case, we are listening to a catty cat, an obvious metaphor for a snobbish society matron.

You might be thinking, “That ad isn’t special. I see ads like that all the time.”These are my responses:

(1.) No, you see ads like that occasionally, perhaps 1 in every 1,000 ads you encounter. You only think that you see them “all the time” because when you do see one, it has an impact on you. Your mind has been ignoring the 999 others because they are uninteresting and predictable.

(2.) Keep in mind that we are talking about 1958. In those days, this ad was revolutionary.

A year after Bill Bernbach wrote that first Ohrbach’s ad, a group of Germans came to America and asked, “Where can we find the man who writes those ads for Ohrbach’s?” And thus the legendary “Think Small” campaign for Volkswagen was born.

Volkswagen, a small car with an air-cooled engine from Germany, quickly became a powerful brand with a cult-like following. And this happened in America just 14 years after the end of WWII. Don’t tell me that ad writers don’t make a difference.

I began this journey by accident.For many years, I have quoted Bill Bernbach’s famous statement, “I’ve got a great gimmick. Let’s tell the truth.”

The truth is that he never said it, and he never claimed to have said it.

Bill was searching for a new gimmick for Ohrbach’s Department Stores when his client Nathan Ohrbach looked at him and said, “I’ve got a great gimmick. Let’s tell the truth.”

It is foolish to create a personality for a company that doesn’t already have one. Great ad writers perceive the personality that is already alive within the company. And then they amplify it.

If you try to give a personality to a company that doesn’t already have one, the customers who respond to your ads will feel they have been deeply misled and betrayed. You can put lipstick on a pig, but everyone who encounters that pig will still recognize it as a pig.

Bill Bernbach never did that. He found the truth, amplified the truth, and then proclaimed the truth. When I recently learned what Bill Bernbach really did say, it freaked me out a little. Things that I have discovered, developed, practiced, and written about for more than 40 years had been discovered by Bill Bernbach before I was born.

This is Bill Bernbach:“A great ad campaign will make a bad product fail faster. It will get more people to know it’s bad.”

“There is no such thing as a good or bad ad in isolation. What is good at one moment is bad at another. Research can trap you into the past.”

“We are so busy measuring public opinion that we forget we can mold it. We are so busy listening to statistics, we forget we can create them.”

“Our job is to bring the dead facts to life.”

“An idea can turn to dust or magic depending on the talent that rubs against it.”

“The real giants have always been poets, men who jumped from facts into the realm of imagination and ideas.”

“If you stand for something, you will always find some people for you, and some against you. If you stand for nothing, you will find nobody against you, and nobody for you.”

Richard Kessler owned an invisible little jewelry store in a sad little strip center in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin. Everyone in Menomonee Falls was willing to drive 21 miles to Milwaukee, but no one in Milwaukee was willing to drive 21 miles to Menomonee Falls.

But that’s exactly what we needed them to do.

Richard had vision and courage, but so do a lot of other business owners. The reason I agreed to work with the Kess-Man is that he was willing to be vulnerable. The man had genuine humility.

If a client doesn’t have humility, they won’t let you write ads that reveal their heart.We had a tiny little ad budget, so we ran weird radio ads late at night that ended with Richard saying, “Kesslers Diamonds, inconveniently located on Appleton Avenue in Menomonee Falls.”

Humorless people assumed that Richard had misspoken. They called the radio stations and said, “He’s not saying ‘conveniently located.’ He’s saying ‘inconveniently located.’ That man is saying ‘inconveniently located!’ You need to correct that.”

My goal was for you to feel that you knew Richard Kessler. I liked Richard and I wanted you to like him, too. To like him, you just needed to get to know him.

We did it in 60-second increments.

If you win the heart, the mind will follow. The mind will always create logic to justify what the heart has already decided.Kessler taught every employee to think and feel like they owned the store. He gave each of them his full authority. No employee at Kesslers ever had to “check with the boss” to make a decision. They were able to make gigantic decisions without having to check with him or with anyone else. That’s real vulnerability.

When Richard Kessler had grown the company 70 times bigger than it was when we got started, he gave his employees the company.

Kesslers Diamonds is the largest employee-owned jewelry store in America. They have 9 big stores across Wisconsin and Michigan with plans to open a lot more.

I shared that story with you to make you understand a transformative truth: Passion, pride, and confidence are overrated. The world is full of idiots who are passionate, proud and confident.

Untempered passion, pride, and confidence create a strutting peacock, a coarse cliché, a cardboard cut-out wearing an Armani suit. If you write ads for such a person, you must target people who want to be that person. Count me out.

If you want to write successful ads that win the hearts and minds of millions, look for business owners who have humility, vulnerability, and generosity.America loves Warren Buffett – not because he has billions of dollars – but because he has humility, vulnerability, and generosity.

Be like Warren Buffett.

© Roy H. Williams

Executives often make trade-offs, prioritizing wealth and recognition over family and a grounded life. But are the benefits of these trade-offs worth it? That question prompted Butch Meily to write a memoir about the years he spent as an aide to Reginald Lewis, the first African-American to build a billion-dollar company. Reginald reached extraordinary heights and brought Butch along with him. But the lives of these men provide a cautionary tale of the price each of them paid for their achievements. Spend a few minutes with Butch Meily and roving reporter Rotbart today and you will learn how to build boldly, lead wisely, and never forget to live. MondayMorningRadio.com.

View Details

“Around the swimming beagles, bright stars danced on rippling waters like a thousand little fishes of light scurrying in a sea of darkness.

Can there be a more beautiful sight than when sky meets ocean in the black of night?” The lawyer whispered to himself, the beagles, and the sea as the soft blanket of summer wrapped them all in her warm embrace.

Night is a time of reflection. Not of stars in water only, but of times past and times to come. And such a night was this.”

– Beagles of Destinae, chapter 4

Ideas pour into the dark waters of the unconscious mind, sparkling like reflected stars. As above, so below. The natives always said it was so.

But as Gemini sat on the throne of Aquarius, a dragonfish was born. And thus our story begins.

The twins did not mean to unleash a dragonfish, but they had never promised not to, either. And besides, a dragonfish is an adventure.Puff, the magic dragon lived by the sea,

and frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honalee.

Little Jackie Paper loved that rascal Puff,

And brought him strings, and sealing wax, and other fancy stuff.

Together they would travel on a boat with billowed sail,

Jackie kept a lookout perched on Puff’s gigantic tail.

Noble kings and princes would bow whenever they came,

Pirate ships would lower their flags when Puff roared out his name.

A dragon lives forever, but not so little boys,

Painted wings and giant’s rings make way for other toys.

One gray night it happened, Jackie Paper came no more,

And Puff, that mighty dragon, he ceased his fearless roar.

“Puff the Magic Dragon” with lyrics by Leonard Lipton and music by Peter Yarrow appears on the 1963 Peter, Paul and Mary album, “Moving.” An urban myth soon arose that the song was about drugs. It’s really a backward look at childhood, and all that was left behind.

“The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched, they are felt with the heart. All grown-ups were once children… but only few of them remember it.”

– Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

“He saw two boats standing by the lake; but the fishermen had gone from them and were washing their nets. Then He got into one of the boats, which was Simon’s, and asked him to put out a little from the land. And He sat down and taught the multitudes from the boat. When He had stopped speaking, he said to Simon, ‘Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.'”

– Luke, ch. 5

The book “Peter Pan” was written only after the 1904 play became a huge success.On opening night, Mrs. Snow spoke to the playwright and author, J.M. Barrie about her late husband…

“And he would so have loved this evening. The pirates, and the Indians; he was really just a boy himself, you know, to the very end. I suppose it’s all the work of the ticking crocodile, isn’t it? Time is chasing after all of us. Isn’t that right?”

“It is not true that people stop pursuing dreams because they grow old; they grow old because they stop pursuing dreams.”

– Gabriel Garcia Marquez

“The secret of The Muppets is they re not very good at what they do. Kermit’s not a great host, Fozzie’s not a good comedian, Miss Piggy’s not a great singer… Like, none of them are actually good at it, but they love it. They’re like a family, and they like putting on the show. And they have joy. And because of the joy, it doesn’t matter that they’re not good at it. That’s what we should all be. Muppets.”

– Brett Goldstein

“All the world is made of faith, and trust, and pixie dust…

If growing up means it would be beneath my dignity to climb a tree, I’ll never grow up.”

– Peter Pan, by JM Barrie

In 1909, five years after the play “Peter Pan” was a huge success, ‘Goat’ Fowler decided to name his playful acapella musical group at Yale University after a mythical dragonfish named Whiffenpoof. The group has continued for the past 116 years.

And He said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter into heaven.”

– Matthew, ch. 18

It is important that we retain childlike qualities.

Next week I will show you how all of these things are essential when your goal is to build a brand that will win the hearts and minds of people.Aroo.

Roy H. Williams

Rob Kessler is a talented and ambitious entrepreneur. His company sells a brand of shirts with proprietary collar inserts designed to be worn without ties. Rob is the son of Richard Kessler who worked with the wizard for 35 years and became one of the most famous diamond jewelers in America before he retired. (Richard was one of the first guests that roving reporter Rotbart showcased when he launched Monday Morning Radio 13 years ago in June, 2012.) Rob’s path has been different than his dad’s, but the 12-year entrepreneurial journey he shares this week is a study in entrepreneurial persistence, innovation, and market adaptation. Rob and our roving reporter will get started the moment you arrive at MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

Pennie and I had a difficult week a long way from home.It began with a piece of gravel that cracked her windshield.

Looking back, we should have just lived with it. But we didn’t know that at the time.

We dropped her car off at the appointed time on the appointed day. When Pennie picked it up, the upper-left corner of her new windshield whistled loudly at speeds above 30mph. She called the windshield people. They gave her a new appointment.

When we picked it up for the second time, the whistle was a little less loud than it had been, but she decided to live with it. There are a lot of things in life more annoying than a whistling windshield.

We didn’t know it, but we were about to experience several of them.

Driving for 4 hours in a rainstorm to see your mother in the hospital is not a bad experience unless your previously-whistling windshield is now pouring quarts of water into your car.

Things went downhill from there for several days.I won’t bore you with the details because the real purpose of this note is to tell you what happened that turned everything around for us.

We discovered a wonderful French cafe just two blocks from Clearfork Hospital in Ft. Worth. Halfway through the meal, I went to their website to see if they had a location in Austin. They don’t, but I’m sure they soon will.

Meanwhile, Pennie went to romanticspotsfortworth.com to see if Clarissa had discovered and listed this amazing cafe.

Of course, she had. Clarissa is really good at her job.

Angela brought our next course to the table.

I said, “We found out about you at romanticspotsfortworth.”

To our delight, Angela said, “Yes! They sent us an award with the cutest logo on it! Everyone was excited.”

Pennie and I chose not to mention that we own the romanticspots websites.

When Angela departed, I scrolled all the way to the bottom of the cafe’s website where I encountered a carousel of remarkable quotes.

“People who love to eat are always the best people.”

– Julia Child

“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”

– J.R.R. Tolkien, from “The Hobbit”, spoken by Thorin Oakenshield

“No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.”

– Aesop, “The Lion and The Mouse”

“Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.”

– Andre Gide

Having been distracted by every bad thing that had happened since our 4-hour trip in a flooded car, these next two quotes hit me pretty hard.“You’ll miss the best things if you keep your eyes shut.”

– Dr. Seuss

“The flower that blooms in adversity is the most beautiful of all.”

– Walt Disney

Each of the remaining quotes at the bottom of that menu lifted me a little bit higher.

“All grown-ups were once children… but only few of them remember it.”

– Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, “The Little Prince”

“Where you tend a rose, my lad, a thistle cannot grow.”

– Frances Hodgson Burnett, “The Secret Garden”

“True love is like a fine wine, the older the better.”

– Fred Jacob

“It is better to know how to learn than to know.”

– Dr. Seuss

“The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched, they are felt with the heart.”

– Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

And then this line lifted from “A Room of One’s Own” by Virginia Wolf made me smile and remember where I was.“One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.”

And then Andre Gide encouraged me to quit looking at what was behind me.

“Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.”

In the space of just a few minutes, a carousel of curated quotes at the bottom of a cafe menu convinced me to look beyond the windshield.

As you read this, I am adding a 450-year-old quote from Michel de Montaigne to that transformative list of quotes from Rise cafe at the shops in Clearfork. Are you ready? This is it:

“The surest sign of wisdom is continual cheerfulness.”

Look beyond the windshield, friend. It’s a beautiful world out there.

Roy H. Williams

View Details

“If people were paid according to how hard they work, the richest people on earth would be the ones digging ditches with a shovel in the hot summertime.”

That’s what my mother told me when I was a boy. When she saw the puzzled look on my face, she continued.

“People who make a lot of money are paid according to the weight of the responsibility they carry and the quality of the decisions they make.”

Second only to grief, the weight of responsibility is the heaviest burden that a person can carry. Compared to those, a shovel full of dirt feels as light as feathers on a windy day.

When forced to choose between two evils, it brings a good person no joy to choose the lesser evil. Fewer people will be hurt, but the pain those people feel will be real.

A person who is not wounded by the pain they cause others is a sociopath.Authority is power, and power is attractive. Tear away the tinsel. Scrape away the glitter and you will see that authority is just a fancy costume. You wear it when you are about to cause someone pain.

Every good person in authority has scars on their heart, memories of the pain they know they have caused others.

Sociopaths don’t care about the pain of others. They crave authority because they are weak, and the fancy costume lets them pretend they are strong.

Things get ugly when a sociopath has power.

“In the alchemy of man’s soul almost all noble attributes – courage, honor, love, hope, faith, duty, loyalty, etc. – can be transmuted into ruthlessness. Compassion alone stands apart from the continuous traffic between good and evil proceeding within us. Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul: where there is compassion even the most poisonous impulses remain relatively harmless.”

– Eric Hoffer, “Reflections on the Human Condition” (1973)

A person in authority who lacks compassion is a very small person wearing a badge.As a young man, I admired cleverness. But I have lived enough years and cried enough tears that now I see the world differently. Today, I admire goodness. This shift in perspective helped me understand what Viktor Frankl wrote in his book, “Man’s Search for Meaning.”

“Freedom is only part of the story and half of the truth… In fact, freedom is in danger of degenerating into mere arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsibleness. That is why I recommend that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast.”

Viktor Frankl was a medical doctor, a psychologist, and a survivor of the holocaust. He was imprisoned in four different concentration camps: Theresienstadt, Auschwitz where his mother was murdered, Dachau,and then Türkheim.

Viktor Frankl believed in freedom, but he refused to see it as a license to do whatever you want. To him, freedom without responsibility was an idiotic idea.

Isabella Bird was a well-educated woman who left Victorian England to explore the world in 1854.When she arrived in the United States in 1873, she bought a horse and rode alone more than 800 miles to Colorado. In her book, “A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains,” (1879), Isabella wrote,

“In America the almighty dollar is the true divinity, and its worship is universal. ‘Smartness’ is the quality thought most of. The boy who ‘gets on’ by cheating at his lessons is praised for being a ‘smart boy,’ and his satisfied parents foretell that he will make a ‘great man.'”

“A man who overreaches his neighbor, but who does it so cleverly that the law cannot take hold of him, wins an envied reputation as a ‘smart man,’ and stories of this species of ‘smartness’ are told admiringly ’round every stove. Smartness is but the initial stage of swindling, and the clever swindler who evades or defies the weak and often corruptly administered laws of the States, excites unmeasured adoration among the masses.”

These are the thoughts of people who have lived a lot of years and cried a lot of tears.

I offer these thoughts to you merely as food for thought.

Roy H. Williams

If you have messed up royally, you might take comfort in Al Lewis’s Substack where he details the boneheaded choices and illegal antics of CEOs and executives. For most readers, Al’s independent newsletter is an opportunity to learn from other people’s mistakes, which is a lot less costly than learning from your own. Al has served as business editor of the Houston Chronicle and The Denver Post, and was the Markets Editor at CNBC. According to Roving reporter Rotbart and his deputy Maxwell, skipping this conversation with Al would be a business blunder of the highest magnitude. The gauntlet had been thrown down. Are you going to pick it up? MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

His name was Rab. He died in Bengal, the land of tigers, in 1941. On his way out the door, he said, “Faith is the bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark.”When Rab was sixteen, he published a book of poetry under the pseudonym Bhānusiṃha, which means “Sun Lion.” Those poems were seized upon by literary authorities as “long-lost classics.”

Where do you hurry with your basket

this late evening when the marketing is over?

They all have come home with their burdens;

The moon peeps from above the village trees.

The echoes of the voices calling for the ferry

run across the dark water to the distant swamp

where wild ducks sleep.

Where do you hurry with your basket

when the marketing is over?

Sleep has laid her fingers

upon the eyes of the earth.

The nests of the crows have become silent,

and the murmurs of the bamboo leaves are silent.

The labourers home from their fields

spread their mats in the courtyards.

Where do you hurry with your basket

when the marketing is over?

Rab wrote this in 1913,Free me from the bonds of your sweetness, my love!

No more of this wine of kisses.

This mist of heavy incense stifles my heart.

Open the doors, make room for the morning light.

I am lost in you, wrapped in the folds of your caresses.

Free me from your spells, and give me back the manhood

to offer you my freed heart.

Famous for his role as President Jed Bartlet, Martin Sheen spoke several months ago at a White House event celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the debut of “The West Wing” on television. He wrapped up his short speech by reciting a poem that Rab had written more than 100 years earlier.

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high

Where knowledge is free

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments

By narrow domestic walls

Where words come out from the depth of truth

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way

Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit

Where the mind is led forward by thee

Into ever-widening thought and action

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

Rab knew that you and I would be here today, and he left us a message.Who are you, reader,

reading my poems a hundred years hence?

I cannot send you one single flower

from this wealth of the spring,

one single streak of gold from yonder clouds.

Open your doors and look abroad.

From your blossoming garden

gather fragrant memories of the vanished flowers

of a hundred years before.

In the joy of your heart may you feel

the living joy that sang one spring morning,

sending its glad voice across a hundred years.

Rab – Rabindranath Tagore – was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913.

He was the first non-European ever to win a Nobel Prize.

Roy H. WilliamsNOTE FROM INDY: Speaking of Martin Sheen, his name has recently been mentioned in association with the book, “When Rabbis Bless Congress: The Great American Story of Jewish Prayers on Capitol Hill.” Aroo.

A timber-framed cottage was built in Frog Holt, England, in the year 1450. Today, 575 years later, that cottage provides an important case study for business owners who are scaling their businesses upward. Douglas Squirrel is a technology leader and business scale-up expert. According to Squirrel, if the army of artisans and technicians who worked on his 575-year-old cottage hadn’t come together in a spirit of cooperation, the roof would have fallen in. And the same is true of every business that is transitioning from the past to the future. It’s a fascinating episode at MondayMorningRadio.com.

View Details

Michael Dell and Shaquille O’Neal planned their work and worked their plans.Dell understood the formulas, and followed the rules, of efficiency.

O’Neal understood the formulas and followed the rules of basketball.

Each of them faithfully followed a Structural plan.

Michael Dell invented nothing, improvised nothing, and innovated only once. But that single innovation made him a billionaire. Dell’s innovation was to bring tested, reliable, proven methods of cost-cutting to the manufacturing and distribution of computers. When all his competitors were selling through retailers, Dell sold direct to consumer. This made his costs lower and his profits higher.

Michael Dell’s strengths are discipline, professionalism, and Structural thinking.

Likewise, Shaq says, “I didn’t invent basketball, but I am really good at executing the plays.” Discipline, professionalism, and Structural thinking made Shaq an extraordinary basketball player. These same characteristics also made him an amazing operator of fast-food franchises.

“The most Shaq ever made playing in the NBA was $29.5 million per year. Now, it’s estimated that the big man is bringing in roughly $60 million per year, much of which is coming from his portfolio of fast-food businesses around the U.S.”

– 24/7wallst.com

Shaq didn’t invent car washes or Five Guys Burgers and Fries, but he owns more than 150 of each.

Michael Dell and Shaquille O’Neal are masters of Structural planning and thinking.Structural thinking relies on proven elements and best practices. “Gather the best pieces and processes and connect them together like LEGO blocks. What could possibly go wrong?”

Structural planning and thinking:

Invent, Improvise, Innovate?

“NO, because those things are untested. We want to avoid mistakes.”

Reliable, Tested, Proven?

“YES!”

Steve Jobs and Michael Jordon are masters of Gestalt planning and thinking.Gestalt planning and thinking:

Invent, Improvise, Innovate?

“YES!“

Reliable, Tested, Proven?

“NO, because those things are predictable. We want to be different.“

The fundamental idea of Gestalt thinking is that the behavior of the whole is not determined by its individual elements; but rather that the behavior of the individual elements are determined by the intrinsic nature of the whole.It is the goal of Gestalt thinking to determine the nature of the whole, the finished product.

Gestalt thinkers who can fund their experiments and survive their mistakes often become paradigm shifters and world-changers.

Steve Jobs got off to a slow start because he refused to use MS-DOS, the operating system that everyone else was using. But he was sensitive to the needs and hungers of the marketplace. When Steve Jobs had a crystal-clear vision of the things that people would purchase if those things existed, he brought those things into existence.

Structural thinkers rely on planning and execution. Gestalt thinkers rely on poise and flexibility, often deciding on small details at the last split-second. Ask a Gestalt thinker why they do this and most of them will tell you, “I decide at the last minute because that is when I have the most information.”

The reason you never knew what Michael Jordan was going to do is because Michael Jordan had not yet decided. Michael’s internal vision was simple and clear: “Put the basketball through the hoop.” With the clarity of that crystal vision shining brightly in his mind, Michael could figure out everything else along the way.

Gestalt thinkers like Steve Jobs and Michael Jordan always “begin with the end in mind.”When a Gestalt thinker has a crystal-clear vision, they have everything they need need to create all the little bits and pieces that will be required to bring that vision into reality.

Gestalt thinkers cannot give you the details of their process in advance, because they have not yet invented the process. But when a Gestalt thinker has achieved the hard clarity of a crystal-sharp vision, they are often perceived as being an “uncompromising perfectionist.”

Steve Jobs, Brian Scudamore, Jeff Bezos, Elon Muskrat.

Good News: Structural Thinkers and Gestalt Thinkers are equally likely to become successful.The bad news is that I don’t believe we get to choose which one we will be. I think that “details first” Structural people and “details last” Gestalt people are both born that way.

Structural and Gestalt need each other.A Gestalt ad writer needs a Structural business owner to deliver what his Gestalt ads will promise. And a Structural business owner needs a Gestalt ad writer to envision a way for his products and services to be more highly desired than those of his competitors.

Separately, Structural and Gestalt will both struggle.

But together, they can take over the world.

That’s the money, right there.

Roy H. WilliamsTalya Rotbart is shepherding our roving reporter and his deputy, Maxwell, this week in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, that lovely city where the 2026 Winter Olympics will be held. The Rotbarts are being escorted by Maxwell’s sister, Avital, and her husband Ben, who live in vivacious Vicenza, Italy, just two hours away.

The roving Reporter and deputy Maxwell will return with a new episode of MondayMorningRadio on Monday, May 5th. – Aroo, Indy Beagle

View Details

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”“Life… Liberty… and the pursuit of Happiness.”

We published those words 229 years ago when we declared our independence from Britain. That document was the earliest expression of what has come to be known as the American dream.

Jefferson’s Declaration did not free us from the tyranny of Britain. It merely communicated our collective desire to be unfettered and unrestrained.

Do we now feel unfettered and unrestrained? I think not.

It seems to me that our current view of the American dream sees raw ambition as “the pursuit of happiness.”Ambition is like sexual hunger. It is satisfied with accomplishment only for a moment, and then the hunger returns. Ambition will lead you to momentary satisfaction, but it will not lead you to happiness.

John D. Rockefeller, the world’s first billionaire, was worth 1% of the entire U.S. economy when he was asked,

“How much money does it take to make a man happy?”

Rockefeller answered, “Just a little bit more.”

Ambition is never contented.

Am I condemning ambition? I promise you that I am not. I am merely pointing out the deep chasm that separates the unending hunger of ambition from the high and lofty contentment of happiness.

An old man named Paul wrote a letter to a young man named Timothy 2,000 years ago. Near the end of that letter, Paul wrote about old people and hypocrites and slavery and wealth.Paul then added two sentences that have echoed in my brain for the past 60 years.

“To know God and to be deeply contented is the true definition of wealth. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.”

Happiness cannot spread its wings while wearing the handcuffs of our ambitions. The shining light of Hope is made of a stronger and happier substance than our dark dreams of future accomplishment.

Ambition can bring you recognition, reputation, and riches. But those are no substitute for friendships, family, and contentment; for these are the three strong cords from which happiness is woven.

Have you figured it out yet? Happiness is not material. It is relational.

With whom do you have a meaningful relationship?

Roy H. WilliamsWe have solved the mystery of the roving reporter!

The wizard received this email from Italy a couple of days ago:

Dear Roy and Pennie,

Talya and I found this quaint restaurant with tables in its wine cellar and thought you’d love this place. (I don’t drink, but thought it appropriate to pose with a glass of wine — which our son-in-law ordered.) If your future plans bring you to Vincenza, Italy, this is one stop you won’t regret. Avital sends her warmest regards.

– DEAN

(You will find the photo that accompanied this email on the final page of today’s rabbit hole. I’m Ian Rogers.)

EMAIL NEWSLETTERSign up to receive the Monday Morning Memo in your inbox!

Download the PDF "Dictionary of the Cognoscenti of Wizard Academy"RANDOM QUOTE:“As we start looking for the good, our focus automatically is taken off the bad.”

• Susan Jeffers

THE WIZARD TRILOGY

View Details

“If we train our children only to harvest, who will plant the seed?”I wrote those words after contemplating the short-sightedness of so-called, “performance marketing,” on March 11, 2010.

“Performance marketing” is the new name for direct response advertising. It works best when it extracts the value from a well-known brand. Its objective is to bring in a lot of money quickly.

That is why business owners are attracted to it.

But here’s the caveat: value cannot be extracted from a brand unless it has first been created. You cannot squeeze a good reputation dry unless you first build a good reputation.

Do you see the problem? When you have finally squeezed the last ounce of value from a good reputation, you don’t have a good reputation anymore.

As I was contemplating that last line I just wrote, the words “extraction of value” popped into my mind. I typed those words into the Google search bar. The AI Overview that appeared at the top of the page whispered to me in a conspiratorial tone:

“‘The extraction of value’ refers to the process of capturing or appropriating value from other stakeholders, often through exploiting a monopoly or manipulating competitive market processes, rather than creating new value.” – WIKIPEDIA

The eight words that leaped out of the paragraph were, “exploiting… or manipulating… rather than creating new value.”Do you remember that famous scene in the movie There Will Be Blood when Daniel says to Eli,

“If you have a milkshake, and I have a milkshake, and I have a straw… There it is. that’s the straw, you see? Watch it. Now my straw reaches acroooooooss the room and starts to drink your milkshake. I… drink… your… milkshake! I drink it up!”

That is the voice of performance marketing.

The healthy alternative to performance marketing is sales activation within a relational ad campaign.

Sales activation is like shearing the wool from a sheep. You can do it again and again and the creature is never diminished by it.

Performance marketing is like slaughtering that poor sheep, piece by piece. It is painful, and there is nothing left when you are done.

I apologize for putting that horrible image into your mind, but we are talking about your business.

I’m sorry if I stepped over the line.

Roy H. WilliamsYou will find 4 examples of what the wizard calls “sales activation within a relational ad campaign” on the first page of the rabbit hole. I can hear what you are thinking right now. And to that, I say, “You’re welcome.” – Indy Beagle

Roving reporter Rotbart will be away on a secret mission in Italy for the next two weeks. He didn’t tell us exactly what it was, but here are our top 3 guesses. One: He is studying the original manuscripts of Leonardo Da Vinci for a special series of investigative reports to be aired on PBS this autumn. Two: The roving reporter was invited to the Vatican to meet with the Pope. Three: There is no secret mission. He is just eating gelato at a seaside cafe with his lovely wife, Talya, while gazing at the beautiful Mediterranean Sea. We will update you next week when we know more. – Ian Rogers

View Details

I was watching a few of Evan Puschak’s “Nerdwriter” videos when I heard my own inner voice composing a thank you note to him. In the quiet of my mind, I told Evan that I have always found his analysis of literature, movies, music, photographs, and paintings to be incisive and insightful.

Incisive1.

InsightfulThose two words, back-to-back, hit me so hard that I stumbled and fell backward into a bottomless chasm of grief over the loss of Andrew Cross.

Evan Puschak is incisive.

Andrew Cross was insightful.

“Incisive” conjures the precision of a scalpel as it slices open a surface to reveal what is hidden inside.

“Insightful” describes the inner workings of intuition as it quietly assembles a mosaic in the mind.

I was going to say that I have a “parasocial relationship” with Evan Puschak and Andrew Cross, but then I decided that I should check to make sure that “parasocial relationship” means what I think it does. Here’s what Captain Google told me.

“A parasocial relationship is a one-sided, imagined connection or bond a person develops with someone they don’t know personally, usually a media figure or celebrity, often feeling a sense of intimacy or familiarity despite the lack of reciprocity.”

Yep. It means exactly what I thought it did. 🙂

This is Andrew Cross, the Desert Drifter.“Years ago, I ventured into a canyon alone. I thought I saw something perched high on a cliff. I looked closer. It was an ancient ruin of some kind. I assessed the climb to reach it, and I backed down. It looked too intimidating, but I’m not who I was back then.”

“Nerdwriter” Evan Puschak has built a YouTube channel of 3.2 million subscribers over the past 13 years.

“Desert Drifter” Andrew Cross built a YouTube channel of 484,000 subscribers in just 13 months. Both men are 36 years old.

I continue to watch with anxiety as Andrew climbs impossible stone cliffs,hundreds of feet high, to examine the ruins of 1,000-year-old Native American cliff dwellings.I never suspected that Death would be waiting for Andrew at the corner of 1st Street and North Avenue near his home in Grand Junction, Colorado.

While he was still with us, Andrew took hundreds of thousands of people like me with him – one at a time – to explore remote places that few people will ever see. And he never failed to share his wonder:

“I had finally arrived. Arrived at what? Was the ruin itself what I was really searching for after all? As I looked around at the remnants of what once was, I pondered the reason I do all of this in the first place.”

“Confucius once said, ‘By three methods we may learn wisdom. First by Reflection, which is noblist. Second by Imitation, which is easiest. And third by Experience, which is the bitterest.’”

“These open desert spaces provide opportunities for all three of those. And they always beckon me to return. As long as I am able, I will answer their call, to discover more about myself and the people who have called this place ‘home.’ As you join me, my hope is for you, too, to find space for reflection, and the pursuit of wisdom.”

“Thank you for accompanying me on this journey.”

It was a delight to spend those hours with you, Andrew.

The world is smaller now that you are gone.

Roy H. WilliamsMichael Drew helps authors turn their big ideas into nationwide influence and income. He has guided more than 130 book authors onto major bestseller lists — including The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. His methods are not just for seasoned authors. Michael has helped business owners, entrepreneurs, and professionals turn their ideas into books that people buy and read. A bestselling book translates into higher speaking fees and the ability to stand out in a crowded marketplace. Roving reporter Rotbart says, “If podcasts had bestseller lists, this week’s episode would surely be a top-ten contender.” Listen and learn about the inner workings of what it takes to make a bestseller happen. MondayMorningRadio.com

On the last page of today’s rabbit hole, I have hidden a secret, limited-time-only recording of Michael Drew explaining the surprising way that The New York Times bestsellers list is compiled. It’s not the way that most people think! Aroo. – Indy Beagle

View Details

Magical Thinking is often misunderstood.Jason Segel plays a psychologist in the Apple + TV show, “Shrinking.” He is talking to a patient with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.

He looks at her. “This again?” She is holding her breath. He says, “You looked at the clock and now you have to hold your breath until the minute changes?” Holding her breath, she nods her head. He says, “Look, I know you feel like this compulsion is gonna help keep bad things from happening, but that’s called magical thinking.”

Medical News Today says, “Magical thinking means that a person believes their thoughts, feelings, or rituals can influence events in the material world, either intentionally or unintentionally.”

But the summary of that article says, “This type of thinking does not always cause harm. In fact, it can have benefits.”

The benefits of magical thinking are – according to me – exquisite.

Magical thinking is the least destructive way to escape reality. When you compare it to alcohol, gambling, drugs, or adrenaline-producing dangerous behaviors, magical thinking is about as dangerous as eating raw cookie dough.

Magical thinking is a requirement when you are:1. looking forward to a vacation, a wedding, or other happy event. Every time you imagine the future, you are visiting a world that does not exist. 2. enjoying a television series, a movie, a novel, a poem, a song, a cartoon, or any other type of fiction. Half of your brain knows these things never happened, but the other half of your brain doesn’t care. 3. being persuaded by a well-written bit of advertising.

Life is happier when it’s less cluttered.

Your house will be bigger.

Your teeth will be whiter.

Angels will sing.

You’ll be a better dancer.

Go to 1800GOTJUNK.com

And prepare to be amazed.

Words create realities in the mind.Magical realism is a type of writing characterized by elements of the fantastic – woven with a deadpan sense of presentation – into an otherwise true story.

If you exaggerate, people won’t trust you. But if you say something so impossible that it cannot possibly be true, people will be delighted by the possibility you popped into their mind.

SARAH: When your home feels clean and happy, the people inside feel clean and happy.

BRIAN: I’ve got a partner who lives down the street from you and we’re anxious to bring you a truckload of SPRINGTIME. [sfx magic sparkle]

SARAH: You don’t have to lift a finger!

Predictability is the silent assassin of advertising.Magical realism focuses the imagination, disarms the assassin, and delights the mind.

BRIAN: We make junk disappear. [sfx magic sparkle]

SARAH: All you have to do is point.

Magical thinking is good for your soul.

Magical realism is good for your business.

Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

Roy H. Williams

The reinvention of Gigi Meier is nothing short of remarkable. After three decades at the boardroom level of a multi-billion-dollar bank, Gigi reinvented herself as a romance writer. Gigi has published 16 books, some quite steamy, across three ongoing series. Did Gigi to draw on her extensive banking experience to fuel her publishing success? No! She tells roving reporter Rotbart that the opposite is true! Gigi has discovered valuable insights as a romance publisher that would have been useful during her banking career! No one has guests as interesting as roving reporter Rotbart. Am I right! This party will get started the moment you arrive at MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

Brian Brushwood knows how to gain and hold attention in social media.Reaching for that brass ring causes most people to lean too far off their plastic horse on the social media merry-go-round.

SPLAT! They land flat on their faces with only a few hundred views.

Brian has built a YouTube channel to 1.7 million subscribers, an entirely different channel to more than 2 million subscribers, and 12 days ago he produced a 1-minute “short” that had 3.6 million views on the first day, and at the time of this writing – on Day 12 – it has climbed to 17.1 million views.

And you – yes, you – could have shot that exact same video with nothing more than a cell phone.

I asked Brian if I could ask him a few questions on ZOOM for the Monday Morning Memo. Here are a some of the things he shared with me:“There’s a temptation, especially with YouTube, to perpetually feel like you’re too late. You’re never too late. I thought I was too late to start YouTube in 2006 because it had been around since 2005. It was already seeing its early superstars. And I started in 2006. And then I thought by the time Scam School came to YouTube in 2009, I thought it was too late. It wasn’t too late. I thought it was too late in 2016 when we launched the Modern Rogue. It wasn’t too late.”

“YouTube is the dominant market now.”

“Facebook is now pay-to-play. And for some messaging, that works. It’s worth paying the money to get the message out there. But if you’re trying to build organic fans like I am, it’s not a fit.”

“TikTok: there’s only one star of TikTok, and that’s TikTok. You can get a million views one day and the next day you’ll get 800. And it’s agonizing because they literally just want to lure you into their dopamine trap. Whereas YouTube is a meritocracy.”

“And here’s the beauty. If you think about YouTube as your personal agent… What personal agent knows your material all the way back to the very first time you ever posted anything? And also it knows the customer, your client, your prospective new best friend, their entire history of everything they’ve ever watched.”

What can you do for me in one hour, Brian?“We can crack who you are, what you do and do not do, and craft your storytelling engine.”

“Have you noticed, Roy, that on YouTube, so much of the content boils down to, ‘Can you blank with a blank?’ Or ‘How to blank with a blank.’ And these are transactional things. Either they trade on curiosity, or they trade on things that people are searching for. But very quickly, all you have to do is get on paper what your flavor is – that’s called in fancy Hollywood talk – ‘a style guide.'”

“Now, I don’t want to intimidate anybody… You know what, if I did want to intimidate people, I’ll say, ‘In one hour, Roy, I can give you a story bible, a style guide, I can give you a structure, a framework, a narrative storytelling. I could break down the beats of your three-act structure. We could consider the Campbellian monomyth, all those things.'”

“We could get that done in an hour and technically I’d be accurate. But the way I would explain it to anybody watching this is, ‘Give me an hour and I’ll teach you not how to tell a story; I’ll teach you to tell all the stories, because stories are happening to you all the time. Every client that has a setback is an amazing story.'”

“It is so dead simple.”

“Now that doesn’t mean it’s easy, but it is simple. The first hour is basically everything you’re going to need to know. Everything past that is reinforcement, and everything after that is refinement.”

Brian Brushwood is a social media magician, a longtime friend, and a Wizard of Ads partner.Would you like to spend an hour with Brian?

I can put you in touch with him.

Roy H. Williams

When Maria Fraietta’s father passed away in 2021, she and her brothers had to sort through all of their father’s files, financial accounts, bills, titles, and possessions. The project was so daunting that she decided to create a system to help you and me save priceless hours trying to piece together the jigsaw puzzle of our loved one’s accounts and possessions. Maria invested $50 to start her company and ran the business from her living room with help from her family and friends. Less than four years later, Nokbox (Next Of Kin box) has grown into a $34 million-a-year success story. Valuable entrepreneurial insights await you at MondayMorningRadio.com. You don’t want to miss this episode.

View Details

“Features and benefits” were once the most loudly shouted secrets of customer acquisition in Business to Consumer advertising (B2C). I even wrote a chapter in my first book – The Wizard of Ads – on the use of “which means” as a word-bridge between:

1. naming a feature of your product and

2. naming the benefit it delivers to your customer.

But that was 27 years ago.

When “features and benefits” became predictable in B2C advertising, they quickly tumbled into the gutters of “Ad-speak” and lost all of their effectiveness.

Naming features and benefits is still the right thing to do in Business to Business advertising (B2B) and in Direct Response ads. In those environments, your customers already know they are in the cross hairs of a sales pitch. So name a feature, followed by “which means,” and then tell them about the benefit they will experience.

Here’s how that Direct Response ad might sound:“TwinkleWhite toothpaste contains Polychromaticite® which means your teeth will be whiter, your breath will be fresher, and everyone will be attracted to you. TwinkleWhite toothpaste is the choice of 93% of billionaires and 97% of supermodels worldwide, which means Polychromaticite® is an essential ingredient in the creation of personal wealth and beauty. This miracle toothpaste isn’t sold in stores, which means you will save 65 percent when your order TwinkleWhite directly from the laboratory at TwinkleWhite.com”

Direct Response advertising is a unique monster who lives and dies by its own special rules.1. It is judged by its ability to generate an immediate result.

1. It offers no continuing benefit to the advertiser.

Direct Response is the preferred method of advertising for people who are selling a stand-alone product, tickets to an event, or a quick solution for a short-term problem, such as roof repair after a hurricane. None of these people is building a brand.

Although ads for B2C sales activation can sound similar to B2B ads and Direct Response ads like the one above, different rules apply.I will now whisper to you the quiet secrets of B2C sales activation in 2025.1. Every Powerful Message Comes at a Cost. Vulnerability is the currency that buys trust in today’s over-communicated world. Financial vulnerability, emotional vulnerability, and relational vulnerability demonstrate your sincerity. 2. When you don’t have cash, spend time instead. Brad Casebier owned a tiny plumbing company in a town that doesn’t have enough water. So he calculated how much water a running toilet wastes every day, then advertised that he would install a new toilet flapper for free in every home that had a running toilet. No strings attached. Brad became a superstar and his company became huge. Interestingly, the average person who needed a new toilet flapper spent about $800 on other things they needed done. 3. These diamond earrings whisper, “I love you.” Customer interest skyrockets when inanimate objects have thoughts, feelings, or the ability to speak. 4. Promote your slowest day of the week. I rarely visit my favorite restaurant on Mondays because it is always too crowded. Their offer of “Buy a Burger and Get One Free” packs the house with people who buy lots of appetizers, side dishes, desserts, and drinks from the bar because they saved a couple of bucks on a burger. The offer is for dine-in only. 5. Don’t think like a business owner. Think like the customer. Do not try to unload your buying mistakes through sales activation. Your company will be judged as out-of-touch and unfashionable. 6. In-house financing at 0% interest is a friendly offer. It makes things buyable that would otherwise be out-of-reach. 7. Powerful offers work, even when they don’t.

The 40% of sales activation ads in your customer bonding campaign will accelerate the impact of the remaining 60%.Sales activation sends a signal that says, “This company is on the move. They’re putting a lot of energy into everything they do.”

Some people lump sales activation ads and direct response ads into a common basket called “performance marketing.” My partner Johnny Molson recently highlighted an important point in a new 100-page research paper called The Multiplier Effect that says, “The payback of performance advertising is only as strong as the equity of the brand.” In other words, a stronger brand means you can have a better sale. And stronger brands are the result of customer bonding.

The objective of your B2C customer bonding campaign is to make customers like you, trust you, and immediately think of you when they need what you sell.Nourish the seeds of relationship that you plant in the hearts of your customers with the water and sunlight of delightful sales activation.

Customer bonding operates on the timeless principles of seedtime and harvest.

This is why you can trust it.

Roy H. Williams

Andrew Matthews and his wife, Julie, have sold more than 8 million copies of their inspirational books about happiness and resilience. His first visit with us was one of 2024’s most popular episodes of Monday Morning Radio. In this, his second appearance, Andrew talks about the persistence, relationship-building and adaptability that are required to achieve success. It’s as easy as 1, 2, 3. Persistence, Relationship-building, and Adaptability. We’ll get started as soon as you arrive at MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

Philip Dusenberry once said, “I have always believed that writing advertisements is the second most profitable form of writing. The first, of course, is ransom notes.”

I can testify that Dusenberry is correct. The best ad writers make more money than the most highly paid lawyers and heart surgeons.

Great advertising makes an enormous difference in the top line revenue of a company. A reputation for being able to write great ads makes an enormous difference in your bank account. But only if you get paid according to the growth of the businesses you write for.

Did you notice that I ended that sentence with a preposition? A pedantic will tell you that I should have said, “But only if you get paid according to the growth of the businesses for whom you write ads.” But I chose not to do that. If you can tell me why, you might have the makings of an ad writer.

Do you have a friend who reads the books of the world’s most famous authors?If you say, “Call me Ishmael,” and your friend says, “Moby Dick,” your friend has the ingredients to bake a wordcake.

Say to your friend, “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood.”

If your friend says, “Robert Frost,” he or she has the ability to lead people to places they have never been.

Say, “The price of self-destiny is never cheap, and in certain situations it is unthinkable. But to achieve the marvelous, it is precisely the unthinkable that must be thought.”

If your friend looks at you and says, “Tom Robbins died last month,” they definitely have the makings of ad writer.

“As you read, so will you write.”If the cadence and rhythm and unpredictable phrases singular to poets, screenwriters and novelists are echoing in your brain, your mind will spew rainbows of words like ocean water from the blowhole of a whale.

Luke records Jesus as having said, “Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.” If you want to know what is inside a person, listen to what they say and read what they write.

The minds of great writers are filled with the music of other great writers. Music cannot flow from your fingertips if it does not live in your mind.

I don’t mean to be unkind, but most writers have no music in their mind.Tom Robbins told NPR in 2014, “I would tell stories aloud to himself, but always out in the yard with a stick in my hand. I would beat the ground as I told the story. And we moved fairly frequently. We would leave houses behind where one section of the yard was completely bare from where I had destroyed the grass. But I realized much later in life that what I was doing was drumming. I was building a rhythm. Even today as a writer I pay a lot of attention to the rhythm in my work.”

When Tom Robbins died, hypnotic passages from his bestselling novels were quoted by NPR and The New York Times in their eulogies of his life.

Character dialogue written by Aaron Sorkin is the standard by which all screenwriting is judged. Aaron says, “It’s not just that dialogue sounds like music to me. It actually is music. Anytime someone is speaking for the purpose of performance, whether they’re doing it from a pulpit in a church, whether it’s a candidate on the stump or an actor on a stage, anytime they’re speaking for the purposes of performance, all the rules of music apply.”

The workload of my 81 Wizard of Ads partners will soon be at maximum capacity.I am looking for brilliant ad writers. Between now and the end of the year I will onboard a small group of writers who are worth a lot more money than they are currently being paid. They will attend the partner meeting this autumn.

Selection, orientation, and enculturation requires diligence and patience on both sides.

Our journey will begin when you send exactly 12 things you have written to corrine@wizardofads.com. Choose the work that best represents you.

Know that it will probably be summertime before you hear anything back from us.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Do you have the courage to begin?

Roy H. Williams

View Details

Twenty-four thousand men were crowded into Knockaloe Interment Camp in 1914 because they had been found guilty of being in the wrong place, at the wrong time, with the wrong last name.

Tightly confined behind barbed wire, those men grew increasingly weak, feeble, stiff and awkward until a man named Joseph was shoved through their gate on September 12, 1915.

He gave his fellow prisoners strength, stamina, flexibility and grace.

They never forgot him.

When the war was over and those men were released, Joseph boarded a ship for America. While onboard that ship, he fell in love with a woman named Clara who was also headed to America. When they arrived in New York, Joseph and Clara opened a studio on 8th street that would send ripples across the world.

The rest of this story is about how those ripples became a wave.George Balanchine sent his ballet dancers to Joseph on 8th street to gain strength, stamina, flexibility and grace.

Martha Graham sent her modern dancers to Joseph on 8th street to gain strength, stamina, flexibility and grace.

The best dancers on Broadway went to Joseph on 8th Street to gain strength, stamina, flexibility and grace.

George Balanchine became known as “The Father of Modern Ballet.”

Martha Graham is shown in Apple’s famous “Think Different” video as one of the 17 people that Steve Jobs felt had changed the world.

Broadway, Ballet, and Modern Dance were lifted to new heights.When those ripples from 8th Street reached California, the “Golden Age of Hollywood” began.

Gene Kelley danced with a light post and sang in the rain to the thundering applause of America.

Slim, elegant, and incredibly strong, Fred Astaire did impossible things effortlessly.

Ginger Rodgers did exactly what Fred did, but backwards and in high heels.

A young man was known for his slogan, “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.” He brought strength, stamina, flexibility and grace to the world of boxing.Like Martha Graham, this young boxer was chosen to appear in Apple’s famous “Think Different” video as one of the 17 “crazy ones” who changed the world.

He had been the heavyweight champion of the world for 5 years when a 10-year-old boy named Michael elevated dancing to an even higher place with the help of his 4 older brothers. Those 8th Street ripples of strength, stamina, flexibility and grace had splashed back from the California coast and were now rippling through Motown.

Charles Atlas and Joseph Pilates were born one year apart and lived an almost identical lifespan.

Charles Atlas gave men bulging biceps that other people could admire.

Joseph Pilates told us how to gain the strength, stamina, flexibility, and grace to do whatever we want to do.

What do you want to do?

– Roy H. Williams

PS – Joseph loved Clara until the day he died.

Are your employees happy to follow you, or do they avoid you like a skunk at a garden party? Phillip Wilson says the more accessible you are as a leader, the more your business will thrive. But when leaders create a gap between themselves and their employees, they lose top talent and nudge workers toward unionization. Listen in as the famous Phillip Wilson explains to roving reporter Rotbart why “Approachable Leadership” is the only elevator that can lift employee morale, productivity, and retention. The button has been pressed and this elevator is about to up-up-up! But we’re holding the door open for you, hoping that you’ll join us at MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

The biggest decisions I ever made didn’t seem big at the time.I’ll bet the same is true for you.

Pivotal changes in direction seem obvious to us 10 years later, but during that tiny moment when we alter our course a little, it feels like a very small thing.

Here are 4 small, pivotal moments that loom large in my mind today.

Moment #1: I was a 22-year-old advertising salesman who was rapidly going bald. Every business owner I met was trying to decide, “Where should I invest my ad budget?”

One morning I heard myself answer, “I don’t care where you spend your money. The thing that matters most is what you say in your ads.”

The man didn’t believe me.

But I believed me.

The direction of my future was altered by a few degrees in that singular, magical moment.Moment #2, about 18 months later:

I was writing exceptional ads and everyone was dancing except me. I knew something was missing, but I didn’t know what. And it was bugging me.

I looked into my own eyes in the bathroom mirror for about a minute one morning. And then I said out loud, “Why am I not seeing better results?”

My reflection reached out from that mirror, slapped my face, grabbed my collar and pulled me in so closely that my nose was pressed into the glass. I could feel its breath on my ear as it whispered, “You are reaching too many people with too little repetition.”

You never forget a thing like that.

Moment #3: I was pondering the “Reach and Frequency Analysis” of my media schedule that had been calculated for me by the most famous data company in America and It said everything was fine. But I knew I was reaching too many people with too little repetition. That was the problem.

I found the cause of that problem – and the solution to it – buried deep in the methodology of how advertising everywhere is measured, sold, purchased, and evaluated.

Good science is distorted by our erroneous assumptions. We gather perfectly accurate data and then misinterpret it. We rarely question our assumptions, especially when they are part of the universally accepted way of “How Things are Done.”

If you could see the mistakes that hide in your blind spot, it would not be called “a blind spot.”

Misinterpretation of data is an irresistible tide that carries every boat in the wrong direction.

The first fatal mistake occurs so early in the process of data processing that we never really question it.The second fatal mistake happens during the implementation stage. You assume that spreading your small ad budget across different media is the right thing to do because everyone does it. This idea of a “media mix” is practiced by all the largest advertisers and taught in every university. They say to their marketing students, “This is what the biggest companies do. You should imitate them.”

But here’s the dead fly in that bowl of soup: When a company has a much bigger ad budget than everyone else in their category, they can aim that firehouse across several media and soak everyone with relentless repetition.

But you don’t have a firehouse. You have a watering can.If you use your watering can properly, you’ll be able to afford a garden hose. And if you use that garden hose properly, you will soon be able to afford a fire hose.

The water in your watering can should be used to water all the people you can reach with sufficient repetition.

“with sufficient repetition.”

“with sufficient repetition.”

Repetition is the non-negotiable you must protect at all cost.

When you reach too many people with too little repetition, no one gets wet, and you stay small.

NOTE: I am dangerously oversimplifying the solution when I say that you can achieve automatic, involuntary recall (known as procedural memory) by reaching the average person at least 2.5 times per week, every week, with a magnetically memorable message.

That’s how you become a household word.

That simple explanation is dangerous because the reports that are most commonly generated from the data will confirm you are achieving a weekly repetition of 2.5 when you are not, in fact, achieving it.

Let’s review:(A.) When you are buying media, never forget that figures lie, and liars figure. You have to know more about data analysis than the media sellers who want to put your ad budget in their pocket.

(B.) You will always be attracted to the media that is most easily measured, not the one that is the most effective. You must resist this fatal attraction.

(C.) You will assume that the secret to success in advertising is “to reach the right people.” FACT: I have never seen a business fail due to reaching the wrong people.

(D.) Your ads will need to win the heart, knowing that the mind will follow. FACT: The mind will always find logic to justify what the heart has already decided.

(E.) Winning the hearts of people is amazingly affordable if you

(1.) have patience and

(2.) know how to write great ads.

(F.) Winning those hearts at the last minute is extremely expensive. Don’t put it off until the last minute.

When I discovered the secret of making miracles, I began making millionaires.Moment #4: I decided to quit charging by the hour when I was about 30 years old. My new plan was to charge a flat rate per month for one year, then adjust that monthly salary up or down by the same percentage the client’s top line had increased or decreased during the previous 12 months.

This aligned my best interests with their best interests.

Note to Great Ad Writers: Don’t be paid according to how much your client spends.

Be paid according to how much they grow.

That is how you will become the world’s most highly paid ad writer.

The same is true for media buyers.

Roy H. Williams

PS – You definitely want to see page one in the rabbit hole today. To see page one, click the image of the sunset at the top of this page. If you are listening to the audio version of this memo, go to MondayMorningMemo.com and look in the archives for February 27, 2025. “Moments that Change Everything.”

NOTE 1: Advertising professionals will notice that I refer to “reach and frequency” as “reach and repetition” throughout this essay. Roy does this because he writes for people who never took advertising classes in college. It has been our experience that people will often misinterpret the word “frequency,” but they always understand the word “repetition.”

NOTE 2: Everything the wizard told you today applies only to B2C advertising (Business-to-Consumer.) It does not apply to B2B advertising (Business to Business). And Direct Response advertising is its own special monster.

View Details

If you believe that people today have a short attention span, you are mistaken.FACT: We live in an over-communicated society.

This is why we have learned how to quickly filter out messages that do not interest us.

FACT: We will happily spend several hours binge-watching shows that appeal to us.

Where’s your theory about a short attention span now?

If you want to get people’s attention and hold that attention, talk to them about things they already care about.

If people aren’t paying attention to your ads, it is because (A.) you chose the wrong thing to talk about, or (B.) you are talking about it in a predictable way.I wrote an ad this morning for a jewelry store. This is how the ad begins:

RICK: Sicily is the island at the toe of the boot of Italy,

SARAH: and the town of Catania is situated on the seashore, staring at the toe of that boot.

MONICA: That’s where Jay, one of our owners, traveled to meet Italy’s most exciting new jewelry designer.

RICK: Tell us about it, Jay.

JAY: When I met Francesco and saw what he was working on, I almost hyperventilated.

Those 5 lines do not sound like the typical jewelry store ad.

But I’ll bet you’d like to hear the rest of it.

Let’s talk for a moment about another obvious truth:FACT: Ads rarely work for products that people don’t want. The ad writers and the media will always get the blame, but the real mistake is made when business owners convince themselves that advertising can sell things that no one wants.

Advertising cannot, in fact, do that.

I recently spoke to a friend who sent out 20,000 postcards that failed to get a response. This led him to conclude that “direct mail doesn’t work.”

When he told me what was featured on those 20,000 postcards, I told my friend the truth. “Your experiment proved only that a weak offer gets weak results. Direct mail didn’t fail. Your offer did.”

Your objective determines the rules you must play by.Direct Response – immediate result advertising – can be measured with ROAS (Return On Ad Spend.) Pay-per-click is perhaps the most common type of direct response advertising, but direct response offers are routinely made using every type of media. If you plan to introduce, explain, and sell a product or service to a customer with whom you have no previous relationship, you are rolling the dice of direct response. You can always measure the effectiveness of direct response ads with ROAS.

Direct Response is a sport for surfers who like to ride the wave of a trend. It is a wild and crazy rollercoaster ride of feast-and-famine. If you like excitement, you should definitely do it. But be aware that the most successful direct response marketers are spending 25% to 35% percent of top line revenues on advertising. You need at least a 20x markup to play that game.

I prefer sowing and reaping. Seedtime and harvest.

Brand Building creates a long-term bond with the customer. The goal of brand building is to make your name the one that customers think of immediately – and feel the best about – when they finally need what you sell. Your Return on Ad Spend –ROAS – will look terrible when you first begin, but it will get better and better as you build a relationship with the public. In the long run, nothing can touch brand building. It is always the most cost-effective way to invest your ad budget if you have patience, confidence, and a good ad writer.

Roy H. Williams

Twenty-eight million viewers tuned in to “The Apprentice” each week to watch people be told, “You’re Fired.”But in the real world, dismissing employees is far more complicated —emotionally, ethically, and legally. How to dismiss employees isn’t taught in business school, and managers often fumble the process. Mahesh Guruswamy has spent much of his career delivering bad news — not just to employees but also to customers, investors, and even his superiors. Today Mahesh is sharing his hard-earned wisdom with roving reporter Rotbart. Make time for this episode! You are about to learn some incredibly valuable things at MondayMorningRadio.com.

View Details

Buying advertising is a lot like buying diamonds.Allow me to explain.

Anyone who talks to a jeweler will be told that diamonds are graded according to the 4 C’s: Color, Clarity, Carat weight, and Cut.

Customers ask the jeweler, “Which of the 4 Cs is most important?”

This seems like a perfectly reasonable question, but the truth is that the 4 C’s cannot be compared to one another. There is no rubric, no metric, no algorithm that can equate them. The 4 C’s are distinctly separate from one another. They are not interchangeable.

Advertising is like that. Each of the characteristics of highly effective advertising are distinctly separate from one another. They are not interchangeable.

Natural diamonds can be an infinite number of shades of yellow, grey, brown, green, blue, red, or a mixture thereof. Diamonds can also be colorless.

The only thing more valuable than a colorless diamond is an extremely colorful one.Color is a measurement of rarity, not beauty.

Clarity is another measurement of rarity, not beauty.

“Flawless” clarity refers to a diamond which is free of inclusions under 10x magnification. But under 40x magnification every flawless diamond is swimming with inclusions that cannot be seen under 10x. So get this idea of “flawless” out of your head, okay? It is a myth.

Seven clarity grades below flawless is another clarity known as SI2, which looks flawless to the naked eye. Not even a jeweler can tell the difference without 10x magnification. But there is a huge difference in price between flawless and SI2 because Clarity is a measurement of rarity, not beauty, remember?

Carat weight is how the size of a diamond is measured. We’ll come back to this in a minute.

Cut does not refer to the shape of the diamond, but to the ability of the diamond to gather light, bounce it between the facets, and then shine it upward toward the eyes. When diamonds are cut perfectly, they do not leak light out of the bottom of the diamond. A perfectly cut diamond returns 100% of internalized light upward and outward in a wild spectacle of sparkles.

You want sparkles, but you also want carat weight.When you cut a diamond crystal perfectly, you lose more than half of that diamond’s Carat weight. But if you cheat the cut a little, the diamond won’t sparkle as much but it will weigh more and sell for more money.

If you cut the diamond with a thick girdle and a deep pavilion, the diamond will be dull because its internal mirrors will be misaligned, but it will be much heavier than if it were cut properly.

A Carat is a unit of weight. There are 141.748 Carats in an ounce. This means that a small pouch of 1-Carat diamonds worth just $4,000 each will cost you $567,000 an ounce.

Pure gold is less than $3,000 an ounce.

Are you beginning to understand why diamond cutters are loath to grind away precious carat weight in the quest for maximum sparkle?

Your logical mind tells you that it should be possible to create a diamond algorithm that says, “one colorgrade = 0.05 carats = 0.78 of a clarity grade = 2.13% excess weight above the projected carat weight for a perfectly cut diamond of this diameter.”

Your logical mind tells you this because you continue to believe that dissimilar properties such as color, clarity, carat weight, and cut can be quantified, codified, and reconciled.

In truth, they cannot.

Buying advertising is even more complicated than buying diamonds.The rubric used to calculate the Gross Rating Points achieved in media schedules makes perfect sense until you realize it equates dissimilar properties and treats them as though they are interchangeable:

Reach = the total number of different people who experienced your ad within a specified period of time.

Frequency = how often the average person experienced your ad.

If half the people experienced your ad only once, and the other half experienced it twice, your ad campaign would score a Frequency of 1.5 in your specified window of measurement.

How Gross Rating Points are calculated. (And they will always automatically be calculated by the media sellers.)

STEP ONE: Reach x Frequency (repetition) = Gross Impressions

STEP TWO: Gross Impressions

cast as a percentage of the Nielsen population of your trade area

= Gross Rating Points. (GRP’s)

STEP THREE: Cost Per Gross Rating Point or CPP (Cost Per Point) is calculated by

A: the cost of the schedule

B: divided by the number of Gross Rating Points it delivers.

If the population of your trade area is 765,432 people and your ad schedule delivers 765,432 Gross Impressions in the specified window of time, your schedule achieved 100 Gross Rating Points, (the mathematical equivalent of having reached 100% of your trade area 1 time)

But is that really what happened? Of course not.Perhaps you reached 50% of the city twice.

Maybe you reached 33.3% of the city 3 times.

You might have reached 25% of the city 4 times.

Or 10% of the city 10 times, 5% of the city 20 times,

Or 1 sad bastard 765,432 times.

Do you believe that each of those schedules will deliver the same result?

Of course not.

But each of them delivers 100 Gross Rating Points.

Gross Rating Points give you no insights that can help you, yet hundreds of billions of dollars are spent each year choosing media schedules according to their Cost Per Point.The fatal mistake was made in Step One. Reach and Frequency (repetition) are not interchangeable. You cannot multiply one times the other to get “Gross Rating Points.” That’s just stupid.

Any local business that evaluates ad schedules based on their Cost Per Point will always reach too many people with too little repetition.

Reach is easy to achieve. Frequency is hard to achieve unless you bite the hook of broad rotators which are added to your schedule at little or no cost. If you allow this “added value” to be included in the calculation of your reach and frequency, you are going to be deeply disappointed in the results of your ad campaign.

You do not want to reach 100% of the people and convince them 10% of the way when the same small ad budget will let you reach 10% of the people and convince them 100% of the way.

Repetition is what you’re after. You need an absolute minimum frequency of 2.5 per week, every week. If you accept the logic that “on a week, off a week” is all that you can afford, your schedule is going to fail.

The Nielsen schedule report you want to see is a report that no one wants to show you. (Did I say Nielsen? Yes, I said Nielsen. I did not say another name.) You want to see Net Persons and Frequency for a ONE WEEK schedule, Monday through Sunday. And no broad rotators – zero – can be included in this calculation. And you must buy this ONE WEEK schedule 52 weeks per year.

You can buy Net Persons that equal about 25% of the population of your trade area extremely efficiently, especially in larger cities.But the second 25% – giving you Net Persons that total around 50% of the city – will cost you nearly twice the amount you spent to buy the first 25%.

The problem you run into is the declining efficiency of achieving new Net Reach due to cume duplication, or “shared audience.” But if you schedule that first 25% of the population correctly, you will soon be able to easily afford the price of reaching and owning that second 25%. Because you will have grown monster big.

You are fooling yourself if you believe you can efficiently reach more than 50% of your city.

And when I say city, I mean the 18+ Nielsen Population of your trade area.

Like I said, buying advertising is far more complicated than buying diamonds.

Roy H. Williams

Next Week: Media Measurement Mistakes: Chapter 2

By the way, the Tiny Tribe and I have prepared an exceptional rabbit hole for you today. To enter the rabbit hole just click the image of me at the top of this page. And once inside, each image you click will take you one page deeper. – Indy Beagle

Israel Duran shows people how to transform their businesses. And then he shows them how to leverage that success to impact, inspire, and influence their communities. Israel describes himself as an “impact architect” who helps business owner make money, make a name, and make a difference. Learn how to do it at MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

I recently sent you two memos about our need for positive hope.“Hollywood’s Broken Angel” was the true story of a woman who desperately needed a friend to encourage her.

“Hope and a Future” explained how easy it is to recharge the emotional batteries of a friend whose light has dimmed.

Positive hope crackles with the vibrant energy of life itself. It radiates honesty, openness, forgiveness, acceptance, optimism, loyalty and love.

Positive hope illuminates the heart and drives away the darkness.

But there is also such a thing as negative hope. It promises salvation but delivers only hubris, which is desperation disguised as confidence.Negative hope is attractive, addictive, and cruel.

Gamblers sitting around a poker table are the perfect portrait of negative hope. They ride a rollercoaster of elation and despair but tell themselves they have a system.

A second portrait of negative hope is a lottery ticket, a receipt issued by the government to citizens who pay a voluntary tax because they believe in lucky numbers and are extremely bad at math.

Bernie Madoff was a salesman of negative hope. He wore the mask of a self-made billionaire, but behind that mask was a desperate little con man who stole money from innocent people who believed they had been admitted into the inner circle of a genius who had a secret system.

The world is full of elegant and attractive people who sell negative hope. One of them will sell you a worthless education by promising you a better-paying job. Another will sell you a garage full of crap by convincing you of the miracle of multilevel marketing. A third will sell you the promise of inner peace by convincing you they have it, and that it can be transferred to you for money.

Negative hope is attractive, but you can easily recognize it now that you know what to look for.I’m really glad we got that out of the way because now I’ve got some great news for you: inner peace is real.

And here’s some even better news: you can have it for free, no strings attached.

Inner peace is honesty, openness, forgiveness, acceptance, optimism, loyalty and love. All of these can be yours for free. But first you have to give them away.

It is a simple but fascinating system. The more you give these 7 things to others, the more richly they accumulate in you.

Five hundred and eleven Christmases have come and gone since Giovanni Giocondo sent his Christmas letter to a friend in 1513. It said, “No peace lies in the future that is not hidden in this present little instant. Take peace!”

Likewise, I say to you, inner peace is hidden in this present little instant.

Reach out and take it. It’s yours.

Roy H. Williams

When roving reporter Rotbart was a financial columnist with The Wall Street Journal, he met a young man named Steve Jobs who left a lasting impression on him. “When I spoke with Jason Schappert,” Rotbart says, “it felt like I was talking with Steve Jobs again.” Jason Schappert recently launched an AI-powered investment platform for middle-class consumers, providing the same insights and tools typically reserved for the ultra-rich. Today you have an opportunity to learn from Jason Schappert about how to identify opportunities, make bold decisions, and leverage your passion as roving reporter Rotbart meets with him at MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

Fifty years ago, I was a teenager with an unreliable automobile. But that’s never a problem for an Oklahoma boy who has knowledge, tools, and daylight.My knowledge and tools were always with me, but the daylight disappeared at the worst possible time, no matter how badly I needed it.

Cell phones had not yet been invented.

When the batteries in my flashlight died, nothing could be seen but the desperation, defeat, and despair of a boy at the side of the road trying to repair a car in the darkness.

Any person who stopped to help me with a bright beam of light seemed like an angel sent from God.

People who are lost, lonely and frightened are all around us but we seldom see them because fear, sadness, and despair look exactly like preoccupation, concentration, and distraction. This is how people in pain disappear into the scenery around us.

But sometimes the beam of light within you will reveal a person directly in front of you who needs your help. Will you pass by on the other side of the road, or will you stop and share your light?I’m not just talking about random strangers. I’m talking about people whose names you know, people who are already in your life; coworkers, colleagues and employees who are walking with an invisible limp, people whose sunlight has receded below the horizon.

You can shine some light into their darkness:

1. Find a moment when it is just the two of you.
2. Look at them and say their name.
3. Say, “Do you know what I’ve always admired about you?”
4. Describe specific moments that quietly impressed you.
5. Tell them the truth about themselves. Remind them of who they are, and how much they matter, and why they belong.

This is often all it takes to recharge a person’s batteries and help them get their motor running again. When you shine your light into their heart, you elevate their hope and brighten their future.

The mark of a strong leader who is deeply loved is that they lift up the people around them by speaking the encouraging truth into their lives, regardless of whether a person needs it or not.

It is a gift that is always welcome.

Roy H. Williams

“Leadership is not a static trait but an evolving journey,” says Bob Kaplan, a high-level management expert with over three decades of experience. “Even ‘born leaders,’ need training, desire, and experience to achieve real greatness,” he says, and then he adds, “The most challenging people to manage are always the leaders themselves.” Bob Kaplan believes CEOs and other C-suite executives should continually invite feedback — good and bad — and then concentrate on eliminating their shortcomings as they continually refine their skills. Hey! Do you want to run with the big dogs or stay on the porch? Roving reporter Rotbart says he will begin his interview of Bob Kaplan the moment you arrive at MondayMorningRadio.com. Aroo!

View Details

Her name was Lillian Millicent Entwistle, “Peg” to her friends. She was born in 1908.

At the age of 19, Peg married Robert Keith, 10 years older than she. Then she discovered that he had been married before and had a 6 year-old son. The couple was soon divorced.

“I’ll move to a new place and get a new start,” she thought. “Goodbye, New York. Hello, L.A. I’m going to become an actress.”But hopes and dreams are fragile things and hearts are easily broken.

At the age of 24 “She decided she’d failed,” says David Wallace, author of Hollywoodland. “She was very dejected and one day in 1932 she came up to the Hollywood sign, found a maintenance ladder by the ‘H,’ climbed up to the top and presumably took one last look over the city she had failed to conquer, and jumped.”

Her body was discovered two days later by a hiker.

A handwritten note was found in her purse. “I am afraid I am a coward. I am sorry for everything. If I had done this a long time ago, it would have saved a lot of pain.”

A letter arrived at her home on the same day her body was discovered. It was from The Beverly Hills Playhouse. They wanted her to star in their next production.

Are you ready for this? It was to be a play about a young girl who loses all hope and commits suicide in the final act.

Peg, if only you could’ve hung on. Things are never as bad as they seem. But now all we have left of you is a photograph and a note.

Remember that 6-year-old son of Robert Keith you heard about in the second paragraph?That boy, Brian Keith, grew up to be a famous actor, best known for his role as “Uncle Bill” on the hit TV show, “Family Affair.” He also played the perfect Teddy Roosevelt opposite Sean Connery in “The Wind and the Lion,” (1975).

I have seen that movie 14 times. Brian Keith made Teddy Roosevelt come alive for me.

Brian Keith shot himself in 1997.

Yes, hopes and dreams are fragile things and hearts are easily broken.Be gentle with the hearts that have been entrusted to you.

Roy H. Williams

Mike Frick started a side hustle as a way to help his college-student son earn extra cash. Today that business sells its products nationwide to construction sites, quarries, farms, mines, and the US military. “Our products are simple, durable, and cost effective,” Mike tells roving reporter Rotbart. In spite of heavy competition from Chinese knock-offs, Mike and his company continue to thrive by manufacturing their products only in America. It’s a story of focus, humility, and fantastic success. Because that’s how we roll at MondayMorningRadio.com.

View Details

I asked Google, “What are thoughts made of?”Google said, “According to current scientific understanding, thoughts are essentially made up of electrical signals generated by the firing of neurons in the brain, which communicate with each other through chemical messengers called neurotransmitters; essentially, a thought is a complex pattern of neural activity within the brain, triggered by sensory input, memories, and other factors.”

Google’s answer to my question is true, but it isn’t useful. My goal is to place a thought into the mind of another person. I want to change what they are thinking and feeling.

In 2003 I proposed a theory that has come to be known as “The 12 Languages of the Mind.” It explains how thoughts are constructed from pre-thought particles.

Stay with me. This is about to get interesting.

A neuron is a nerve cell, the basic unit of the nervous system. It is responsible for sending and receiving electrical signals. A synapse is the tiny gap between two neurons. This is where information is transferred from one neuron to another through the release of chemical messengers called neurotransmitters. Essentially, a neuron is the cell itself, and a synapse is the connection point between two neurons where communication occurs.

Sounds a little bit like a computer, doesn’t it?

A computer is of little value without an operating system.

The 12 Languages of the Mind are the operating system of the brain.Let’s look at it another way.

We know that all the matter in the universe is made from just 3 primaries: protons, neutrons, and electrons. These form atoms, the smallest units of matter.

Atoms of elements combine to create molecules of compounds; two atoms of hydrogen plus one atom of oxygen create a single molecule of water, H2O.

There are 118 different kinds of atoms organized in The Periodic Table of the Elements. We can create new substances because we now understand the constituent components that underlie all the matter in the universe.

Just as protons, neutrons, and electrons can be arranged to form matter, The 12 Languages of the Mind can be arranged to communicate thoughts and trigger the emotions, opinions, and reactions that follow those thoughts.

Symbols are one of The 12 languages of the Mind. Motion is another.

Hydrogen + Oxygen = Water.

Symbol + Motion = Ritual.

Our material universe is created from just 3 primaries.Likewise, all the colors we see are created from just 3 primaries, red, yellow, and blue in subtractive color, red, yellow, and blue in subtractive color. But red, green, and blue in additive color. It depends on whether your eye is absorbing the light waves, which is additive, or whether you are seeing reflected light from a substance that has absorbed part of the light spectrum. That is called subtractive color.

Created from 12 primaries, how much bigger is the universe of your mind?

Your body contains about a 100 million sensory receptors that allow you to see, feel, taste, hear, and smell physical reality. But your brain contains about 10,000 billion synapses. This means you are approximately 100,000 times better equipped to experience a world that does not exist, than a world that does. It is these 10,000 billion synapses that allow us to imagine a better future, or a worse one. .

Created from 12 primaries, how much bigger is the universe of your mind!

Every form of human expression is created from the 12 Languages of the Mind.Using them unconsciously is talent. Using them consciously is skill.

Communication is fun and persuasion is simple when you understand the building blocks of the mind.

I will spend 15 or 20 minutes explaining in some detail The 12 Languages of the Mind to the people in Tuscan Hall on March 17th, and I’m doing it for free. Altogether, it will be a 4-hour, free tutorial.

If you want to attend that 4-hour tutorial in Austin on March 17th, just go to powerselling.com and you’ll see a little RSVP invitation. Fill it out. Boom! You’re registered.

It will rock your world. It will make you money.

But perhaps you have something better to do.

Roy H. Williams

Terry Whalin is a rock star among book publishers. He has written more than 60 mainstream books, including a popular biography of Billy Graham, and now Terry serves as an acquisitions editor for a highly-regarded book publishing house, coaching business owners and entrepreneurs into becoming famous authors. This week, Terry reveals the naked truths — good and bad — that all would-be authors need to know before they sit down at their keyboards in search of fame and glory. Roving reporter Rotbart is at the wheel, and his deputy, Maxwell, is riding shotgun. Hang on tight. Things are about to get crazy at MondayMorningRadio.com.

View Details

The Wizard Academy tower sits on a plateau 900 feet above the city of Austin. The view from the stardeck is stunning.When you attend our free public seminar on the afternoon of March 17, you will be in Tuscan Hall just 500 feet from the tower. If you have some extra time on campus, perhaps Dave Young will be willing to press the button that lifts you from the underground art gallery up to the stardeck so that you can look around.

This is what I will teach you in Tuscan Hall:

1. How to create a magnetic personality for your brand. It’s easier than you think.
2. How to use personification to breathe life into all your corporate communications, beginning with your advertising.
3. How to use character banter and magical thinking to help customers understand that your company has beliefs, values, motives, can make choices, and that it has life.
4. How to gather these techniques into an operating plan that will integrate this magnetic new personality into every touchpoint of your business.
5. How to measure the trajectory and momentum of your rejuvenated brand.

You’re going to have a good time. I will include lots of examples of PowerSelling ads that have lifted people to new heights.Q: PowerSelling. What is it?

A: PowerSelling is an advertising technique that makes your name the one people think of first – and feel the best about – when they need what you sell.

Q: Does it work for B2B? (Business to Business)

A: Not really. B2B requires tight targeting and significantly more logic than is required to win the hearts of the public. [NOTE: If today’s memo feels different than the typical Monday Morning Memo, it is because this is probably the first example of B2B writing that you have ever seen me write. Are you noticing the additional logic? – RHW]

Q: Does it work for Direct Response offers?

A: No. Direct Response offers are built almost entirely on features and benefits, the so-called “value proposition,” enhanced by an urgent call-to-action, usually with a final bit of “added value” if you “act now.”

Q: So what’s it good for?

A: PowerSelling is for products and services that have a long purchase cycle and a relatively high price tag; things like diamond engagement rings, legal services, medical services, and home services like plumbing, air conditioning, roofing, and electrical. PowerSelling is strictly B2C (Business to Consumer) and it almost always employs mass media; television or radio, sometimes with billboards added.

Q: Will there be recordings made, or perhaps a livestream?

A: Sorry, but no. The Wizards of Ads® have little desire to debate – or educate – a world full of traditional ad writers that have been trained on the tripe that is taught in college.*

You are going to learn the explosive techniques that will make your advertising leap off the launchpad with fire and smoke as you begin your journey to the stars. You will feel your acceleration grow to the point where your cheeks are pulled back and your eyes become slits as the corners of your mouth touch your earlobes.Or maybe you are just smiling.

If you are ready for the ride of your life, be in Austin on March 17th.

Roy H. Williams

|

“Running a big company is like running a zoo, and that’s good news!” Terry Rich led the Des Moines Zoo from a $600,000 deficit to profitability. He did this by focusing on the visitor experience and creating innovative events to attract new customers. Rich was then asked to take over as CEO of the Iowa Lottery.

Soon, he was president of the North American Lottery Association and a Powerball board member. Listen and learn as Terry fascinates roving reporter Rotbart and deputy Maxwell with colorful anecdotes about how he discovered the hidden value in elephant poop. Turn up the volume when he talks about action plans that you can use. Find out how he cracked the largest lottery fraud in US history. Go to MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

Your heart tells you who you are. Your heart contains all your beliefs.PowerSelling radiates outward from the pulsating fact that people don’t bond with companies; people bond with people; personalities that share their beliefs.

Your company needs a personality if you want your customers to feel a connection to it. Does your company have a personality?

Are you communicating that personality in your advertising?

Personification puts the power in PowerSelling.

When you speak about something that cannot think as though it can think, you are using the art of personification.“The shattered water made a misty din.

Great waves looked over others coming in

and thought of doing something to the shore

that water never did to land before.”

When you speak about something that cannot ask questions as though it can ask questions, you are using personification.“My little horse must think it queer

to stop without a farmhouse near

between the woods and frozen lake

the darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake

to ask if there is some mistake.”

When you speak about something that cannot move as though it can move, you are using the art of personification.“It rained endlessly and the forests wept.

The darkness fell and the trees moved closer.”

When you can breathe life into something that is not alive, you are a god.Robert Frost and John Steinbeck were able to provide us with those examples of personification because they are Nobel Prize-winning writers. But we couldn’t write like that, could we?

“Your house will giggle with glee when it sees the smart thermostat you bought for it.”

Your logical mind tells you that your customers wouldn’t fall for that, but they’ve been falling for it all their lives. Superman is merely ink on a page or pixels on a screen, but your customers know that Superman can fly, squeeze a lump of coal into a diamond, and that he is in love with Lois Lane.

The book of Genesis tells us that God spoke our universe into existence, then it tells us that we are made in the image of God.Did it ever occur to you that you speak new worlds into existence in the minds of others every time you describe a possible future?

Personification is powerful because it uses magical thinking to open a portal into that world of imagination where hope is alive and well and singing in the shower, where the glass slipper fits the foot of Cinderella, and a wooden puppet named Pinocchio becomes a real live human boy.

I am now going to shake you by the shoulders to wake you up. What I am about to say is hard to hear, but I am saying it because I love you: If you believe a brand is a logo, a color palette, a slogan, a visual style guide, and a company name that people have heard of, then your company is just another dreary, drab, and bland corporation in an ocean of bland corporations. Your company has no soul.

Remember: People don’t bond with companies; people bond with personalities that share their beliefs.

PowerSelling happens when you win the customer’s heart, knowing that their mind will follow. Their mind will always create logic to justify what their heart has already decided.This is what you must learn to do if you want to create a bond with your customers:

1. Breathe life into your company through the skillful use of personification in all your corporate communications, beginning with your advertising.
2. Employ magical thinking to deepen the public perception that your company has beliefs, values, motives, can make choices, and that it has life.
3. Bond with customers who believe in the same things that your company believes in.
4. Create a magnetic personality for your brand.
5. (If you can name the highly conflicted defining characteristics that animate your brand and cause it to think, speak, act, and see the world the way it does, then you have studied under David Freeman or you learned it at Wizard Academy, where David taught it to the Wizards of Ads.)

If you are a business owner, I will show you how to do all 4 of these things for free.

Start the New Year right. Spend an afternoon with me.

Roy H. Williams

After 28 years as a cornerstone of Fox News and Fox Business, Neil Cavuto, 66, made headlines with his unexpected resignation. Roving reporter Rotbart has known Neil since the beginning; the whole 28 years. This week, hear the first-ever podcast airing of a 2020 conversation Rotbart had with Cavuto and hear about Neil’s blueprint for success — quick lessons in determination, adaptability, and excellence that you will be able to immediately apply. It’s a behind-the-scenes, friend-to-friend look at one of business journalism’s most iconic figures. Where else, but MondayMorningRadio.com?

View Details

Curiosity is a beagle running through the forest with its nose to the ground.Curiosity is the cure for boredom. There is no cure for curiosity.

Curious, I asked, “How did the Kardashians become famous?” I wish I hadn’t.

“Through different ventures, several members of the family have assets of over $1 billion. Kim Kardashian became a celebrity in 2007, after selling a pornographic film featuring ex-boyfriend, singer Ray J, which enabled the family to rise to stardom.” – Google

The reason I asked Google, “How did the Kardashians become famous?” is because I was talking with a client last week when I said, “Vulnerability – letting people see you ‘real’ – is the only currency that can purchase real trust.” Then I spontaneously added, “You have to choose between being vulnerable or going full Kardashian.”

I thought I had invented a new phrase, but as it turns out, “going full Kardashian” was already a thing.Google has its own definition of what it means to “go full Kardashian,” and Indy posted that list in the rabbit hole for you.

But this is my list:

1. If you believe, “Whoever dies with the most toys, wins,” you are in danger of going full Kardashian.

People are more important than possessions.

1. If you believe that looking good is more important than doing good, you are in danger of going full Kardashian.

Beauty, fame, and wealth are outside your skin. Kindness, generosity, and joy are within.

1. If you believe it’s okay to do things that are unethical, immoral, and destructive as long as you are doing nothing illegal, you are in danger of going full Kardashian.

A society grows great when old people plant trees under whose shade they will never sit.

I try to surround myself with tree planters. Jeremy Grigg is one of them.In our weekly Friday gathering of like-minded men, Jeremy said,

“When a business is evaluating whether or not they can trust you, the attributes they are measuring are, 1. Ability, 2. Integrity, and 3. Benevolence. These are their unspoken questions: ‘Are you good at your job?’ ‘Will you tell me the truth?’ ‘Are you truly trying to help me?’ Most of us focus on ability to the exclusion of integrity and benevolence. After all, when you are petitioning to win work, you want to make sure that the person who can do it for you is actually competent at their job. But in the longer term, honoring your promises, which is integrity and most importantly, giving a damn about the success of what they’re trying to achieve is what really determines whether you are the sort of long-term partner that they’re looking for.”

Jeremy is an international consultant to multibillion-dollar IT services companies.

Natalie Doyle Oldfield studies the drivers of customer loyalty and business growth. She says that half of all customers are willing to pay more for the same product or service if the seller has earned their trust. According to Natalie, “Trust is the critical value that top companies rely on to secure their market dominance and drive their growth.”

I know for a fact that what Natalie is saying is true.

I’ve been helping people do it for more than 40 years.

Roy H. Williams

This week, roving reporter Rotbart and deputy Maxwell offer a holiday treat for Monday Morning Radio listeners: a reading of A Christmas Day Miracle,the true story of a man on death’s doorstep, and what happens to him next. This happy holiday story was discovered and written by Dean and Talya Rotbart, and the audio presentation of it will magically begin the moment you arrive at MondayMorningRadio.com.

View Details

Last week’s Monday Morning Memo included a photograph of a diamond pendant and the promise of a $1,000 cash prize to whoever could use AI to write the 60-second radio ad that would sell the largest number of that pendant for Valentine’s Day.I was given that photo by a jewelry client. In a moment we will look at the 60-second radio ad I wrote for the client before I issued the AI prompter challenge. But first, here are 10 things I have learned from the advertising results (and lack of results) I have seen during my 40 years as an ad writer.

1. The most effective ads don’t sound like ads.
2. Most jewelry ads are filled with cliches and schmaltz.
3. The Large Language Models used by AI are educated by the most often used phrases.
4. This is why jewelry ads written by AI are filled with cliches and schmaltz.
5. Most of the ads written by AI are better than what the average citizen would write.
6. The average citizen has not received specific data about the results delivered by each of the thousands of ads they have written during the past 40 years.
7. My challenge to AI prompters included a photograph of the pendant, but none of the ads written by AI were specific to that pendant.
8. Specifics are more persuasive than generalities.
9. The non-specific ads written by AI sold only the idea of a diamond pendant; an idea that can be fulfilled by any diamond pendant sold by any jewelry store, anywhere.
10. Advertisers who use these “generalized” ads are not advertising for their store alone, but for all their competitors as well.

Q: Would the AI radio ads “work”?A: If what you mean is, “Would they generate a result?” Then yes, but that result would not be the highest and best use of your ad dollars. Not by a long shot.AI is great at a lot of things, but effective ad writing is not among them.

Radio cannot reveal visual images except in the imagination. That’s what makes radio the perfect medium to deliver this ad. It is the radio ad I wrote to sell that specific pendant:

JACOB: David, have you seen it?

DAVID: Oh yes! I’ve seen it.

JACOB: What did it say to you?

DAVID: There is only one thing it CAN say.

JACOB: Sometimes an artist will say something incredibly specific without using any words at all.

DAVID: We’ve all heard music that can tell a story without words.

JACOB: And we’ve all seen paintings that can tell a story without words.

DAVID: But this time a jewelry designer did it.

JACOB: The moment you see it, you know what it is saying.

DAVID: I understood the message immediately.

JACOB: [slowly] “The long and the short of it is we’re in this together.”

DAVID: “The long and the short of it is we’re in this together.”

JACOB: It has wit, and whimsy, and humor, and warmth

DAVID: and commitment.

JACOB: It made me smile when I saw it.

DAVID: Me, too.

MONICA: [SFX cell phone ring] Hello.

SARAH: Did they see it?

MONICA: Oh yes, they saw it.

SARAH: Did they understand it?

MONICA: Even my little brother David saw the love in it.

DEVIN: See the Life Partner diamond pendant at [name of client.com.]

MONICA: Just 99 dollars. [SFX scream]

© 2024, Roy H. Williams

The secret of effective ads is to engage the imagination of the customer by enticing them to fill in what you have intentionally left out.After hearing that 60-second radio ad, the curiosities of a huge number of listeners will drive them to my client’s website to see the pendant and solve the mystery of how the pendant “says” what it says.

To indicate that an inanimate object can speak is personification: the attribution of human abilities to an inanimate object. Personification instantly takes the mind of a reader, listener, or viewer into a world where anything is possible.

You are evesdropping on two conversations. Your imagination is called upon to figure out what these people are talking about. Two of the people say the pendant communicates a specific message without words. That message is, “The long and the short of it is we’re in this together.”

The pendant is called “The Life Partner Diamond Pendant.”

Do you remember observation number 8 on my list of 10 observations? “Specifics are more persuasive than generalities.” The specific message of that pendant is based upon specific elements in the design. Today’s AI isn’t going to extract that message by examining the symbolic elements of the pendant. It currently takes a human to do that.

Symbolic elements are the essence of great art, great literature, and great advertising. A symbolic phrase that is used often enough to come to the attention of AI is, by definition, a cliche.Without the aid of an observant human who can see the symbolic meanings that a computer cannot detect, AI can give you little more than cute scenarios where you give a woman a piece of jewelry and it makes her happy because it shows her that you care. And if the subject matter is romantic, AI will cover your ad with cliches and schmaltz like a kid putting syrup on pancakes on Saturday morning. AI will do this because the public archives are full of jewelry ads that sound like they were extracted from a Hallmark movie.

If you want ads that sound like ads, just ask your favorite AI to spit some out for you. But if you want ads that are new, surprising, and different, you’re going to need more help than a computer can give you.

AI might be able to write exceptional ads in the future, but that future is not today.

I asked AI to look at all the AI-written ads that were submitted and choose a winner.To see the radio ad that AI swears is the best, click the image of Alfie the Elf at the top of this page. The person who asked AI to write that ad will receive $1,000.

SUMMARY: If you are not an experienced, professional ad writer and cannot afford to hire one, AI can write ads for you that are equal to what you would get from a highly talented 19-year-old.If you know a highly talented 20-year-old, perhaps you should give them a call instead.

Roy H. Williams

NOTE: Steve Huff got an email this week that will blow your mind. The wizard gave you enough information in today’s Monday Morning Memo to help you write significantly better AI prompts. But he did not tell you everything he knows. My name is Nonny Mouse and I am a member of the Tiny Tribe of Indy Beagle, emperor of the rabbit hole of the wizard’s Monday Morning Memo.

While most consultants focus on improving a company’s mechanics — sales, marketing, human resources, and the like — Charles Rose advises his clients on the best ways to unload the personal baggage that limits their bottom line and personal satisfaction. Charles Rose built an e-commerce company and sold it for 10 million dollars. He has since spent the past 20 years instructing CEOs and entrepreneurs on all the different ways ways to strike a productive balance between business success and life satisfaction. Listen in as Charles explains to roving reporter Rotbart, “On the path to business fulfillment, you must examine every aspect of your life, including physical health, mental health, and personal relationships.” MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

The General Social Survey has been conducted every second year since 1972 and the most recent one contained both good and bad news about us.GOOD NEWS: Our bonds with our families and friends are as strong as ever.

BAD NEWS: The bridges we once extended to strangers have collapsed.

Jesus talks about a socially unacceptable “Samaritan” man who sacrificed his time, energy, and money to help an unconscious stranger who had been robbed and left to die at the side of the road. According to Jesus, two different religious people had already seen the wounded man, but crossed over to the other side of the road so they could pretend they hadn’t seen him.

They saw a stranger in need and felt nothing.

Empathy – feeling the pain of others – is the price we pay for being fully human.The internet promised to bring us closer together through instantaneous, worldwide, one-on-one communication.

But then came the algorithms, those digital sheepdogs that segregate us into echo chambers where every voice we hear sounds exactly like our own.

The easiest way to build an online audience – or a church – is to criticize and demonize “them,” the people who are “not like you… not like us.” Algorithms will help you do this. All you have to do is craft a message that says, “All the world’s problems are caused by ‘them,’ and it is up to ‘us’ to save the future, and America, and the world, from ‘them.'”

You don’t build bridges to people that you believe are “getting what they deserve.”

Generosity and Inclusion are the tools of peacemakers.“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” – Jesus

David Brooks recently posted a YouTube video that will make you feel wonderful and give you hope.

I hope you will invest the time to watch it. In fact, I challenge you to watch the first 3 minutes. The odds are extremely high that you will happily choose to watch the remaining 18 minutes.

That YouTube video is titled “David Brooks: Making People Feel Seen: How to Do It Right.”

I’m betting it will be your favorite 21 minutes of the week.

It will also be a signal to the algorithm that you are headed in a new direction.

Merry Christmas.

– Roy H. Williams

“If people looked at the stars each night, they’d live a lot differently. When you look into infinity, you realize that there are more important things than what people do all day.” – Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes

View Details

John Steinbeck wrote a letter to Carlton Sheffield about a conversation he’d had with his wife, Elaine.

“Once I said to her, ‘I don’t want the barbarity of funeral for myself.’ And she said, ‘Don’t be silly. A funeral isn’t for the dead. You’ll simply be a stage set for a kind of festival, maybe. And besides, you won’t even be there.'”

– Steinbeck: A Life in Letters, p 829

Henry Fonda – one of the most famous actors of his generation – stood up at John Steinbeck’s funeral and recited a piece of a poem by Robert Louis Stevenson:

Bright is the ring of words

When the right man rings them,

Fair the fall of songs

When the singer sings them.

Still they are carolled and said –

On wings they are carried –

After the singer is dead

And the maker is buried.

– Robert Louis Stevenson

We know Henry Fonda spoke those words because Elaine Steinbeck, John’s wife, describes the scene in a letter to her friend, Jean Vounder-Davis.

What will people say when you are gone? Will memories of you ring like bells in the hearts you left behind?How will you be remembered?

You cannot build a reputation on what you intend to do.

The saddest eulogy ever carved on a tombstone said, “He Had Potential.”

Will you be remembered for having a lot of money?

“You can have money stacked to the ceiling, but the size of your funeral will still depend on the weather.” – Chuck Tanner

Will you be remembered as a selfish person, or a generous one?

“We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.” – Winston Churchill

I have never seen a hearse pulling a U-Haul trainer.

“We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.” – Paul’s letter to Timothy, ch. 6

Will you be remembered as a critical person, or as an encourager?

“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” – Maya Angelou

There is nothing standing in the way of you being a different person today than you were yesterday. Do you remember what I wrote to you in last week’s Monday Morning Memo?“Escaping the past is easy. The hard part is choosing to start over.”

If we make the right decision, we’ll have more to be thankful for next Thanksgiving than we did this year.

Ciao for Niao,

Roy H. Williams

Douglas Katz is a West Point graduate, a disabled Army veteran, and a culinary enthusiast (also known as a foodie.) Douglas, like many other people who suffer from limited mobility, struggled to use kitchen utensils that require upper extremity strength. Aided by an army of friends and military veterans, Doug retreated to his workshop to invent a new type of kitchen knife, the first in a series of “adaptive” kitchen products he plans to introduce. Doug is building a cutting-edge company (pun intended) dedicated to radical innovation and inclusive kitchen design. It’s happening and it’s happening right now, with roving reporter Rotbart and you at MondayMorningRadio.com.

View Details

The future is unknowable. The past is unrecoverable.

If you are anxious, you are living in the future.Don’t live your life in an imaginary tomorrow. Find joy while it is still today.

If you are depressed, you are living in the past.Escaping the past is easy. The hard part is choosing to start over.

Let me give you The Seven Secrets to Crystal Days:1. Do not let the perfect become the enemy of the good. 2. “Perfectionism may look good in his shiny shoes but he’s a little bit of an asshole and no one invites him to their pool parties.” – Ze Frank 3. Good enough, by definition, is good enough. 4. Learn to celebrate the ordinary. 5. “Celebrate! Celebrate! Celebrate!” – Dewey Jenkins 6. Success and failure are temporary conditions. 7. “Do not let either of them define you.” 8. The most precious thing you can find is a friend. 9. “A friend is always loyal, a sibling that helps in times of trouble.” 10. Hatred is the only luxury more costly than an enemy. 11. “Hatred is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.” 12. All the little things in life add up to your life. 13. “If you don’t get it right, nothing else matters.”

Autumn is upon us. Cold air sweeps summertime over the hilltop fast and sharp like an old woman sweeping dust out a doorway. The dust washes the landscape with brown and orange, speckled with rusty red, the colors of old cars whose enamel has been erased by the rain in the junkyard of time.

I suspect Solomon wrote the book of Ecclesiastes in the autumn. You remember what he wrote, don’t you?“Everything has its moment.

There is a moment of ripening and a moment of falling away.

A moment of being born and a moment of dying.

A moment of planting and a moment of harvest.

A moment of killing and a moment of healing.

A moment of destroying and a moment of building.

A moment of weeping and a moment of laughter.

A moment of sorrow and a moment of dancing.

A moment of scattering and a moment of gathering.

A moment of togetherness and a moment of distance.

A moment of finding and a moment of losing.

A moments of grasping and a moment of release.

A moment of ripping and a moment of sewing back together.

A moment of silence and a moment of speech.

A moment of love and a moment of hate.

A moment of fighting and a moment of peace.”

Autumn walks among us, quiet and invisible, like a Mexican ghost on the Day of the Dead.This is the time of year when I become reflective.

Perhaps you do, too.

Roy H. Williams

Andrew Matthews has inspired more than 1,000 global corporations, including Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Honda, and Citibank. In addition to that, Andrew and his wife produce uplifting books that have sold over 8 million copies in 70 countries and 48 languages by presenting timeless wisdom in fresh, engaging ways. This week, Andrew reveals his creative process to roving reporter Rotbart and explains how anyone – even you – can use that process to connect, inspire, and succeed in every nation of the world. Wouldn’t this be a great day to stop and recharge your batteries at MondayMorningRadio.com?

View Details

My observation during the past 40+ years as an ad writer has been that television and radio professionals spend so much time trying to sell television and radio ads, they have no time to learn how to make those ads work.

When you know how to make ads work, and can prove it, television and radio are incredibly easy to sell.

Instead of asking a salesperson to help you with your ads, let me tell you everything you need to know.“Q” represents your unspoken questions.

“A” represents my answers to those questions.

Q: Who should I be targeting?

A: I’ve never seen a business fail because they were reaching the wrong people. But I have seen lots of businesses fail because they were saying the wrong things in their ads.

Q: Are you saying you don’t believe in targeting?

A: The most effective way to target is to write ad copy that speaks directly to the felt needs of your customer. Targeting isn’t accomplished by reaching the right address, but by demonstrating to people that you feel the way they feel, and that you believe the things they believe.

Q: Are you saying I can write ads that target specific types of people in mass media?

A: Yes, but you get a lot more than that. Mass media reaches not only your target; it reaches all the influencers of your target. Is there anyone that you don’t want to know you, like you, and say good things about you? Every person is an influencer, and decisions are never made in a vacuum.

Q: If targeting the right person is no longer my primary objective, what is?

A: You want to become the solution provider that people think of first and feel the best about. When you say the right things to the largest number of people you can afford to reach with sufficient repetition, you become a household word.

Q: Which media will work best for my business?A: The media doesn’t make your ad work. Your ad makes the media work. The media is just a vehicle that delivers your message, your ad. The wrong message will fail in every media, and the right message will work in every media. It is the message, not the media, that either works or does not.

Q: Is there a proven way to create the right message?

A: Win the heart and the mind will follow. The mind will always create logic to justify what the heart has already decided.

Q: Can you give me some specific tips?

A: Sure. Here are 4 of them.

1. Talk to the customer about what the customer already cares about. Most ads answer questions that no one was asking. This is why people hate most advertising.
2. Always say something new, surprising, and different. Never say what people expect you to say. Predictability is what makes ads sound like ads.
3. Don’t just describe the process of what you do and how you do it. “We use only the freshest ingredients, and everything is made from scratch.” The process is informational. The outcome is motivational. Describe the outcome. “Food so good your head will explode.”
4. Bad ads are about you and your company. Good ads are about your customer and their happiness. Ads filled with “me, my, we,” and “our,” are about you and your company. Ads filled with the words “you” and “your” are about the customer and the happiness you want to bring them.

Q: Should every ad have a call to action?A: No, because if they did, your ads would be predictable.

Q: Are you saying that NO ad should have a call to action?

A: I’m saying that 60 percent of your ads should be written to cause people to feel like they know you, like you, and trust you. The other 40 percent of your ads should make specific offers at specific times to trigger sales activation.

Q: Can you tell me how to write sales activation ads?

A: Yes, the keys to short-term sales activation are

1. RELEVANCE: they have to want what you are selling.
2. CREDIBILITY: they have to trust you and believe you.
3. AUTHENTIC URGENCY: The time window must be limited, or the available number must be limited. Authentic urgency is the strongest possible call to action.

Q: Since you obviously know what you’re doing, wouldn’t it make more sense for me to just let you write all my ads?

A: Yes, and we would be happy to do it.

Roy H. Williams

PS – If you count the questions I have answered, you will find there are only eleven. I decided to keep the 12th answer to myself.

Renita Wolf is an expert on Exit Strategies. Whether you hope to execute “the transaction of a lifetime” in one year, a decade, or longer, there are steps you should take now to maximize the value of your company when the time arrives to sell. Renita describes how to identify potential buyers for your business, significant tax considerations you should know about, and how to recognize when the time is right to move on to the next stage of your life. “Don’t just exit — ex-cel!” MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

Billy Sunday was born in 1862, the second year of America’s Civil War. He died in 1935, during the Great Depression. Billy was a wildly flamboyant and controversial preacher, but he made an interesting observation:

“More men fail through lack of purpose than lack of talent.”We’ll talk more about purpose in just a minute, but first we need to talk about possibilities.

I will say it plainly:1. What you see in the mirror isn’t you. 2. Look inside yourself and take inventory of what you find there. 3. Realize that this is all you have to work with. 4. Make the best of it.

I will say it as Confucius might have said it:1. Gilded paper and bright ribbons adorn an empty vessel while gold hides in a rough wooden box. 2. You will not find what is not there. But what lies inside you is easy to see. 3. Everything within you is all that you have. 4. Therefore, it must be enough.

I will say it like an old warrior:1. Fancy uniforms don’t win battles. 2. It’s not the size of the dog in the fight that matters, it’s the size of fight in the dog. 3. If you don’t have it in you, it doesn’t exist. 4. Learn to use what you’ve got.

This is how Yoda would have said it:1. Be invisible, you will. 2. Inside yourself, you must look. 3. Hmm. Flaws, you shall find. 4. Magic, these are.

I will say it as someone who loves you:1. You are the perfect you. 2. No one else can be you as well as you can. 3. You will be you for the rest of your life. 4. It is time to discover what you can do.

And now it is time to talk about purpose again.A sad voice inside you whispers: “Everyone talks about purpose, but no one can tell me what it is, or where to find it.”

Quit listening to that whiner. Purpose is given to you by what you care about. Is there anything you care about?

Of course there is.

Are you ready for the real mind-blower?Purpose is given to you by everything you care about. You are overflowing with purpose. The problem is that you care about so many things that you are having a hard time choosing a purpose.

Here is the good and happy news: You can have more than one purpose!

In fact, you already do; and you have what it takes to make a difference.

How many differences do you want to make?Pick two or three of them to get started. You can add other ones later, when you have taken these first ones as far as you choose to go. Sooner or later, you’ll choose a few that will sink deep roots in you.

Every oak tree begins as an acorn.

Now go. Get started.

Roy H. Williams

PS – “It is better to burn the candle at both ends, and in the middle, too, than to put it away in the closet and let the mice eat it.” – Henry van Dyke

David Sauers used to be a commercial banker, but today he runs a service business with 50 branches nationwide. It’s not the type of business that most people dream about owning. The nature of his business – and the powerful lessons you can learn from his success – will be revealed in this week’s story. But here’s an interesting twist: In a private note to Roy, roving reporter Rotbart wrote, “I love unusual guests and David Sauers definitely fits the bill.” The roving reporter is at it again! MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

One hundred and two years ago, Benito organized a March on Rome with the intention of forcing the king of Italy to yield the government to him. It worked, and Benito was appointed prime minister.

Thirty-two-year-old Antonio had a problem with that, and spoke out against Benito.

Benito got tired of Antonio’s criticism and had him thrown into prison, where he died 11 years later.

But while he was still with us, he wrote 30 notebooks containing more than 3,000 pages of history and analysis. The prison notebooks of Antonio Gramsci are considered by historians to be highly original contributions to 20th-century political theory.

Wizard Academy vice-chancellor Dave Young brought Antonio to my attention last week when he forwarded to me a glistening quote written by this shackled young writer:

“The old world is dying. And the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters.”

Those words of Antonio Gramsci dance and sting like honeybees, don’t they?In return for his gift of Antonio Gramsci, I sent Dave a couple of the enthusiastic ramblings of American scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson:

“I will defend AD and BC, year of the Lord, AD, ‘Ano Domini,’ and BC, ‘Before Christ.’ I’ll defend the use of those because a lot of hard work went into creating that calendar – the Gregorian calendar – which is now used worldwide. It’s based on a Christian construct, but it had a lot of very interesting science that went in behind it.

I’m not just going to ‘swap out’ the words to dereligify it. I don’t mind leaving credit where it’s due.

I don’t know any atheist that still uses AD and BC. They use ‘Common Era,’ CE, and BCE, ‘Before Common Era.’

But who are they fooling? It’s the same numbers of years. They’re just trying to ‘paint over’ a religious reference.

I don’t have that much objection to the religious participation in civilization.”

But this next comment of Neil deGrasse Tyson serves as a sort of counterbalance to that first one:“Ben Franklin was the world’s most famous scientist in his day. But he’s not remembered in America as that; he’s remembered as a founding father.

He invented the lightning rod.

What’s the tallest structure back then? The steeple makes the church the tallest structure in any city. What is the most susceptible to a lightning strike? The tallest structure. So lightning was taking out churches left and right, and if you were the other church that wasn’t taken out, you had good argument for saying the people in the church that burned down were worshiping in the wrong way.

Ben Franklin then invents the lightning rod, which does two things: It dissipates charges that build up under your structure that would otherwise be part of the lightning strike, and it sends them back into the air without the benefit of lightning. So that makes you less susceptible to begin with. And if the lightning strikes it, then it directs all of the charge through the metal and not through your house.

So Ben Franklin does this, and churches are no longer destroyed by lightning, even if they’re hit, and he’s accused of heresy for thwarting the will of God.”

Neil deGrasse Tyson is famous for his atheism but he vigorously defends the use of the Christian system of dating the history of the world in years that count backward and forward from the day that Jesus was born.

Benjamin Franklin doubted the divinity of Jesus, but he invented the lightning rod to make sure that churches did not burn down. And they accused him of heresy for it.*

As I consider articulate Antonio and bumbling Benito of Italy, I recall the words of a delightful American writer who was born in the same year Antonio was born. When she was accused of being too critical, the delightful Dorothy Parker responded:“How could I possibly overthrow the government when I can’t even keep my dog down?”

Me neither, Dorothy. Me neither.

Anyway, those were some of the things I was contemplating last week. I hope you found them to be as interesting as I did.

Ciao for Niao,

Roy H. Williams

*Ben Franklin’s invention of the lightning rod was blamed by church leaders for the 1755 Cape Ann earthquake off the coast of Colonial Massachusetts — as his “heretical rods” interfered with the “artillery of Heaven & deprived God of using lightning as tokens of His displeasure.”

How does a self-published children’s book author garner global media coverage, reach more than 2 million potential customers in a single day, and zoom upwards more than 1 million spots to the top of the Amazon charts? (1.) You have to write a truly incredible book. (2.) It helps to be married to Dean Rotbart and have Maxwell Rotbart for a son.

You may not have those second advantages, but that’s okay, because it’s the first one that really matters. The lessons to be gleaned from Talya Rotbart’s success can be applied by every business owner who would like to attain blockbuster visibility without spending a dime on consultants, social media ads, or news releases. Listen, learn, and earn, at MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

As you round the corner and see your destination, the inconveniences of travel evaporate from your mind.Poof. You are here now, and everything is new again.Your children will carry the joy of this place wherever they go. The adventures we have for them are unimaginable.Leave them with us. We promise they won’t miss you.Everything you see here is real. This is not a Hollywood facade.Now you understand why we don’t have to advertise.You knew you were in love before you got here. Your partner knew it, too. But neither of you are prepared for the wonder of how deeply in love you really are.Remember. We promise the kids won’t miss you.It takes only about 20 seconds to read those 118 words, but they leave a hovering question mark that vibrates with curiosity. Where is this place? What is “Everything I see here…”? What caused me to experience “the wonder of how deeply in love I really am”?

I didn’t have to provide those details, because I knew you would.“Begin with a happy outcome” is one of the secrets of the world’s best ad writers. You must illuminate the imagination of the customer and cause them to supply the details that you have no way of knowing. The customer is the star of a movie you are directing in their mind. Cause them to see themselves smiling joyfully. The hovering question mark that vibrates in their mind is called customer engagement. Lights. Camera. Action.

Great companies puts their energies into the creation of a process that will ensure the happiness of their customer.Then they insist that their ad writers describe every detail of that process until there is nothing left to surprise and delight you. Until the customer desires the outcome, they have no interest in the process. If you want them to watch your movie, make sure it begins with a happy ending.

Several things were ungrammatical in my 118-word call-to-action,one of which was a shift from past-tense to present-tense within a sequence of connected sentences. “You knew you were in love before you got here. Your partner knew it, too.” The past-tense verbs within those two sentences take you into a possible future and cause you to look back at an experience you have not yet had. Then I shifted into present-tense verbs. “But neither of you are prepared for the wonder of how deeply in love you really are.” Your mind is now imagining the experiences you will share at this place you have never been, and don’t know how to get to. I never said it was the most romantic spot on earth. You did.

Roy H. Williams

Duane Scott Cerny is an expert on dead people. (Or, more precisely, he is an expert at selling their possessions when they’re gone.) A best-selling author, music producer, lyricist, and newspaper columnist, Duane runs Chicago’s largest antiques mall and fully understands the formula for business success. Thanks to his ability to listen closely to his customers and adapt to ever-changing tastes, Duane is celebrating his mall’s 34th anniversary this year. “Not only is Duane business savvy,” says roving reporter Rotbart, “he is a born entertainer and storyteller. I had a marvelous time doing this interview.” The time is now. The place is MondayMorningRadio.com.

View Details

Calvin is looking up into a star-filled sky when he says to his tiger friend Hobbes,“If people looked at the stars each night, I bet they’d live a lot differently. When you look into infinity, you realize that there are more important things than what people do all day.”

My friends are Calvin. I am Hobbes.

Last week Hobbes was complaining to Jeffrey Eisenberg about his frustration with a company that had “upgraded” its website, making it impossible for Hobbes to buy what they were trying to sell. Jeffrey responded like Calvin,

“The only things that matter online are Motivation, Momentum, and Friction. It sounds like this company has introduced so much Friction into the buying process that your decision to purchase has lost its Momentum and your Motivation is about to disappear. Am I right?”

Jeffrey’s summary was so piercingly accurate that all I could do was vibrate my head up and down in a sort of big-eyed, high-frequency nod.

Motivation, Momentum, and Friction are the only three dials that matter on the e-commerce machine.1. Turn the knobs of the first two dials all the way to the right. 2. Turn the knob of the third dial all the way to the left. 3. Stand under the spout where the money gushes out. 4. Enjoy being rich.

The next day I got a text from Tim Storm.

” I think this needs to be understood: We are literally time travelers.”

A few moments later, a second text appeared.

“I don’t use drugs, but that felt profound to realize.”

Tim is right, of course. Physically, we are 3-dimensional creatures traveling through a 4th dimension called time.

Friends say insightful things if you’re listening.Perhaps the most impactful thing a friend ever shared with me happened 48 years ago. He said,

“Depression is unfocused despair. You can rise above it by trying to help someone else. When you see a person who is sad or worried or afraid, take a few minutes to encourage them. Forget about your own problems and focus on theirs. Find a person who needs help and help them! If they’re trying to carry something heavy, help them carry it. If they need someone to help them scrape bubblegum off the bottoms of school desks, help them do it. When you make a series of little differences, you win a series of little victories. Keep this up and the cloud over your head will fade away and the sun will shine again. This has always worked for me. Perhaps it will work for you, too.”

He was right. It has always worked for me.

Perhaps it will work for you, too.

His name was David. You would have liked him.

Roy H. Williams

View Details

Rock-hard sandstone used to be just plain old sand, the kind you see at the beach.If you lie down on beach sand, you will leave your imprint on it.

But if you lie down on sandstone, it will leave its imprint on you.

Every person who starts a business hopes to leave their mark in the sand. If that businessperson is disciplined, committed, and consistent, their mark will become sandstone and leave its mark on future employees.

Did it ever occur to you that the processes and procedures, policies and warranties of a company are a direct reflection of the preferences and beliefs of the CEO?

Company culture, commitment, and camaraderie – or any lack thereof – are merely a reflection of the shape of that CEO.

Look closely at how a company’s employees are recruited, evaluated, motivated and compensated, and you will see the precise size and shape of that company’s CEO.

Listen to how a company’s employees talk about their job, their boss, their products, and their hopes for the future, and you will hear an audible echo of the soul of the CEO.

Companies don’t spring into existence on their own. They are born in the imagination of an entrepreneur when he or she lies down in the sand, then brought into reality through the magic of time, energy, and money. And if that company endures, every future customer will experience the values and beliefs and priorities of its long-ago CEO every time they interact with the company that CEO left behind.

You realize that I’m talking about more than just business owners and their businesses, don’t you?I’m talking about grandparents and parents and their children and their children’s children and schools and religions and colleges and cultures and prisons and wars and the movies we make and the books we read and the hobbies to which we devote our time and money.

I’m talking our collective journey across the sands of time.

When you lie down on sand, you leave your imprint on it.

When you lie down on sandstone, it leaves it imprint on you.

Roy H. WilliamsPeter Spitz is an MIT-trained chemical engineer and a renowned expert in petrochemicals. He holds seven patents and started a company that grew to $20 million in annual sales before being acquired by IBM. Peter’s most recent book is about the history of inventions.

When we turn on a television, use a computer, heat dinner in a microwave, open a refrigerator, drive a car, or take an antibiotic, we are using technologies that took root in the Industrial Revolution of England 300 years ago. Peter wasn’t around back then, but with a razor-sharp mind at 98 years of age, he has far-reaching insights on how to create successful inventions and how each of them will impact our modern world.

Sit back, turn up the volume and listen as deputy rover Maxwell Rotbart pulls a mesmerizing tale from the magical mind of Peter Spitz. Where else but MondayMorningRadio.com?

View Details

I don’t claim to speak for anyone but myself, and maybe it’s a generational thing, but America, to my way of thinking, is less of a place and more of a belief system; a way of looking at the world and the people in it.Americans believe in opportunity and equality.

Americans believe, “Treat others as you would like others to treat you.”

Americans believe in defending the weak from the strong who would abuse them.

Americans believe in lifting people up, dusting them off, giving them a big smile and telling them to try again.

Americans don’t scare easily, and we don’t leave anyone behind.

Shortly after the Mayflower arrived at Plymouth Rock in 1620, men and women from every corner of the world began meeting here, mingling here, and producing mixed-race children here.

We’ve been doing it for 400 years.

This place has gathered people from every nation that has ever flown a flag. Some of these people came voluntarily. Others were brought here against their will. But none of that matters because children do not get to choose their parents.

Americans are not purebred showdogs. We are mixed-breed puppies born in a howling wilderness.Alexander Hamilton was born out of wedlock on the island of Nevis in the Caribbean, but he came to this country and became one of its Founding Fathers. We have printed that man’s face on 27 billion ten-dollar bills and the Broadway play about his life was a stunning success.

That play, by the way, was written by an American whose DNA is Puerto Rican, Mexican, English, and African. His parents named him “Lin-Manuel” after a poem about the Vietnam War.

Is America portable? I believe it is. America is kindness and generosity.If you believe in opportunity and equality, defending the weak, lifting people up, dusting them off, smiling and telling them to try again, you are an American.

If you don’t scare easily and don’t leave anyone behind, you are an American.

If you believe in love with its sleeves rolled up, you are an American.

Take America with you wherever you go.

Be an American today, okay?

Roy H. Williams

PS – Do you live outside the U.S.? Not one of the virtues I mentioned today is exclusive to America. Most people-groups believe in exactly these same things. I wrote directly to the people of America today – calling them out by name – because we have been fighting about some really stupid things for a long time.

The virtues I wrote about today live in the hearts of the people of your nation, too, and of every other nation on earth. Wouldn’t it be great if we focused on our similarities instead of our differences?*At any given time, there are about 2.5 billion ten-dollar-bills in circulation, but the average ten-dollar-bill is replaced by the Treasury Department every 5.3 years. We have been using Hamilton’s portrait on the ten since 1928 (96 years).**

96 years/5.3 years = 18

18 x 2.5 billion = 27 billion portraits of good brother Alexander

How would Walt Disney run your company? Even though he died in 1966, his company and his disciples continue to spread his beliefs. Among these disciples is Brian Collins, a former Disney Imagineer who helped create the magic for many of the world’s most beloved theme parks and is today teaching brainstorming and innovation and the cross-pollinization of technology to large and small companies around the world. Roving reporter Rotbart tells us that Brian Collins is a living example Walt Disney’s statement, “It’s kind of fun to do the impossible.” Put on your Mouse Ears and get ready for a Disney adventure at MondayMorningRadio.com!

View Details

PART THREE of SEVEN SECRETS OF SALES ACTIVATIONThe objective of a Customer Bonding campaign is to make your name the one that people think of first and feel the best about.When you have not successfully bonded with your customer, any attempt at sales activation is simply an experiment in direct marketing. This can certainly work for awhile if you’re good at it, but it will work less and less well the longer you keep doing it.

The world of marketing is full of people who will tell you exciting success stories about high-impact offers that made them a lot of money quickly. But have you ever noticed that all of those stories are told using past-tense verbs?

They are telling you about something that happened, but is no longer happening now.

Give that some thought.

“Have you ever done anything that worked really well?” is a question I have asked a couple of thousand business owners over the past forty years.

“Oh, yes!” they answer.

“Tell me about it!” I say with bright eyes.

After they explain to me what they did and how awesome it was, I say, “Wow, that sounds great! Are you still doing it?”

When they say “No,” (which they always do,) I wear the expression of a puzzled puppy and ask, “Why not?”

Yes, I am a tiny bit evil. But the simple truth is that I want them to realize their mistake, own it, regret it, and decide – on their own – never to do ask me to temporarily fluff up their sales numbers by resorting to the meth-laced crack cocaine of lies, gimmicks, artificial urgency, ambiguous offers, or misleading messages.

It’s just not the way to build a company.

Few business owners have the patience to win the hearts of the public.But if you have what it takes to become the company that people think of first and feel the best about when they need what you sell, a new day will dawn for you and your business.

In golden glow of that goodwill, up to 40 percent of the ads in your Customer Bonding campaign can include happy, healthy, sustainable Sales Activation.

These are the ways to do it:

Remarkable Item, Remarkable Story.A 30-year client, Kesslers Diamonds, recently conducted a contest among their designers with the winning designer honored by name in a radio ad.

RICK: I’m really looking forward to this.

SARAH: Me, too.

RICK: She absolutely nailed it.

MONICA: Are you talking about Jenni Sambolin?

SARAH: Yeah, Jenni and her pendant, “The Music in a Mother’s Heart.”

JENNI: [SFX Door Opening] Hi Rick. Hi Sarah. Hi Monica.

MONICA: Hi Jenni!

SARAH: Hi Jenni!

RICK: Jenni, we’re going to produce your pendant design as a limited-edition collector’s item and put a few of them in all 8 Kesslers stores.

MONICA: Congratulations, Jenni!

JENNI: Wow! This is HUGE!

SARAH: Jenni, we expect “The Music in a Mother’s Heart”to sell out very quickly.

RICK: We’ll also make a few available online.

JENNI: I designed that pendant from the memory of how my Mother made me feel when we would sing together.

MONICA: How often did that happen?

JENNI: Constantly. We would sing along with whatever was playing on the radio, or sometimes we would watch a musical on TV and sing along with that.

SARAH: At just 124 dollars, “The Music in a Mother’s Heart” is going to sell out lightning fast.

RICK: I’m buying one.

SARAH: I’m buying one.

MONICA: I bought the prototype the moment I saw it.

RICK: For the location of the Kesslers nearest you, visit KesslersDiamonds.com

Catch the Wave of a Coming Trend.In the early 1990’s Woody Justice was watching a hot new show called Melrose Place when he noticed an actress wearing a drop-pendant necklace. A couple of days later, he saw Katie Couric wearing a similar drop-pendant on the TODAY show. So he called a supplier, described the necklace, and had several hundred of them made. We decided to call it the Melrose necklace.

I wrote a 60-second radio ad and Woody sold a ton of them for $99 each. These were well made, fine quality products, and every customer who bought one was happy-happy-happy.

The supplier who made them for Woody began telling the story of our success to all the other jewelers on his account list, and within a few months every department store in America was selling plastic or glass “costume jewelry” versions of that necklace for $79, then $59, then $39, $29, $19, and finally, $9.95. Most of these retailers described it as a “Y” necklace, because a capital Y describes the basic shape of a drop pendant.

When other retailers started selling them, Woody moved on to something else that was new, exciting, and different.

Woody Justice had a special kind of intuition that allowed him to catch that first, early wave of every new trend and ride it all the way to the beach where he would sit in the shade and drink Pina Coladas while all the copycat weasels raced each other to the bottom of the sea.

If you have the ability to spot “the next big thing,” use it, use it, use it.

Timely Offer.Make an enticing offer during that predictable window of time when people start thinking about purchasing a particular seasonal product or service. The key is to begin airing your mass media ads a few weeks BEFORE the season begins. If you wait for the starter’s pistol, you’re going to get lost in the crowd. Have the courage to start early.

Most advertisers just buy some keywords and then wait for customers start typing those keywords into Google. They do this because they assume online ads are more effective simply because they are more easily measured.

When was the last time you saw a NIKE ad on TV? NIKE abandoned television a few years ago to boost their online budget and sell direct to the public. NIKE now recognizes that as their “25-billion dollar mistake.”

I’m not saying you don’t need an online budget. I’m just saying that Google is never going to make you a household word. It’s never going to make your company the one that people think of first, and feel the best about.

Bundling.Bundle a group of related purchases together to deliver everything the customer will need, then sell the bundle at an attractive price. Offering this convenience to your customer saves them time and money.

Your profit margin will decrease a little due to the discount, but your gross profit will jump due to the higher average sale. It makes you more money and it makes your customer happy. It’s a win/win.

Gift with Purchase.One of the ways you can combine “a gift with purchase” into a bundle is, “Buy these and get THIS free.” If the customer sees what they will receive for free when they buy the other item(s), it gives them the logic to justify what their heart has already decided.

But it’s usually better to give away something that your company does NOT sell.

One of my most successful gifts with purchase was back when everyone wanted an iPad but most people didn’t have one. My client had traditionally offered a $2,500 rebate on the purchase of a new Air Conditioning System in the month of October, and it usually worked pretty well. But the offer of a $800 Apple iPad for FREE with the purchase of a new air conditioning system performed significantly better.

Fly in the Eye of the StormA hurricane is a vicious circle of high-speed air powerful enough to move everything in its path. But in the middle of that circle is a zone of peace and quiet called “the eye of the storm.” If you had a small airplane, you could fly around in the middle of that storm if you were careful to move with it and not get caught in the outer edges.

A big news story is a hurricane, moving heaven and earth for your benefit. Find a clever way to legitimately tie your product or service into a BIG news story that has everyone’s attention.

When you see race cars on a track, you will often see one car following tightly behind the car ahead. This is called “drafting.” The idea is to let the car ahead of you push all the air out of the way so that you can ride in the calm vacuum of that “hole in the wind” that travels behind them. This makes additional horsepower available when you punch the gas pedal and whip out from behind them to “slingshot” around them and take the lead.

Ride in the quiet, empty air that travels with a big news story. Be part of the solution to the gigantic problem presented by the news.

Recognize the Lifetime Value of Your CustomerRemember the iPad story I told you a minute ago? For every $800 iPad we gave away, we were saving $1,700 on every system we sold because we had previously given them a $2,500 rebate, remember?

This allowed us to delight those customers who called to say, “Hey! I bought a new air conditioning system from you last month. If I had known you were going to be giving away iPads, I would have waited.” Because my client is a wise and thoughtful man, he would always say, “Okay, I’m sending a courier to your house right now with a new iPad. Thanks for doing business with us!” Those people became raving fans and customers for life, of course.

Don’t measure your success transaction by transaction. Recognize the power of happy customers and invest in creating more of them. All it takes is an attitude of generosity and a few simple actions that whisper, “This is what you purchased, and here is a little bit extra that we want you to have because we love you.”

Roy H. Williams

Eric Savitz knows Business Technology inside and out. He spent 24 years as the “Investing and Technology” reporter for Barron’s magazine in New York and Silicon Valley. He served as a partner at Brunswick Group, an international consulting firm where he had an “up close and personal view” of some of the world’s most important companies. And three months ago, General Motors hired Eric as its corporate editor-in-chief! This week, Eric shares his best insights on “Investing and Tech and its Impact on Global Culture” with our own roving reporter Rotbart. Where can you listen in on magical conversations like this? MondayMorningRadio.com!

View Details

Two thousand years ago, Confucius was as old to the people of China as Christopher Columbus is to us today. Five hundred and thirty-two years before the wise men followed their star to Bethlehem, Confucius wrote,

“By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by contemplation, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.”

I agree with Confucius, but I believe it is the wisdom gained by bitter experience that runs the deepest in us. The boy who travels from village to village shouting “Wolf! Wolf!” learns things about wolves and villagers that no one else can know.

I was once a wandering wolf-shouter.

There is a red flashing light in my soul that keeps me from writing hard-hitting “sales activation” ads, not because it is foreign to me, but because I am extremely good at it.When I was a 20-year-old ad salesman, business owners would say to me, “Show me what you can do with a small amount of money, and if it works, we’ll talk about a long-term commitment.”

Being young, confident, and stupid, I wrote sales activation ads that could only be measured with a seismograph, and my career took off like a race car in a gravel parking lot. I’m told the gravel is still flying somewhere between Jupiter and Mars.

I wore my tie draped around my neck like a scarf and I never tied my shoes. People said, “Your shoes are untied.”

I smiled and said, “Yeah. I know.”

That young fool was the diamond-ring Cadillac man. He was like Coca-Cola, baby, he was everywhere. When people called and ask if he delivered, he would say, “You want a crowd? Crowds cost money. How big a crowd do you want?”

For 3 years he was the King of Making Big Things Happen Fast. He was going in circles faster than a NASCAR driver on a Saturday night and making more money than a heart surgeon. But he didn’t like the person he had become.

He was thinking about how much he hated working with anxious, impatient advertisers when it hit him: “Every one of those twitchy little bastards is a short-term results addict and I am their dealer.”

I was writing the advertising equivalent of meth-laced, crack cocaine.In 1942, Edwin Arlington Robinson wrote,

“The world is not a prison house, but a kind of kindergarten, where millions of bewildered infants are trying to spell God with the wrong blocks.”

Realizing that I had been trying to spell success with the wrong blocks, I climbed out of the car I had been driving on the fast track to nowhere and saw what T.S. Eliot was trying to say when he wrote,

“We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.”

Finally standing with my feet on the ground, I looked with fresh eyes at what needed to be done, and knew the place for the first time.

I saw Seven Truths that corresponded with The Seven Secrets of Sales Activation.These are the Seven Truths.

1. You’ll never see a bigger crowd than the first time you cry “Wolf!”
2. Anything that delivers big results quickly will work less and less well the longer you keep doing it.
3. You cannot build a strong and resilient company on gimmicks and empty promises.
4. Anything that works better and better the longer you keep doing it will deliver disappointing results at first.
5. It takes awhile to make people feel like they really know you.
6. This is why winning the hearts of customers requires months of meaningful courtship.
7. The average business owner does not have the faith and patience to build an attractive brand.
8. (This is particularly true of business owners who trust metrics more than they trust their own heart.)

There have been a few occasions in the past 35 years when longtime clients have persuaded me to use the Seven Secrets of Sales Activation to give them a hard jolt of meth-laced, crack cocaine. In every instance, both the client and I have regretted it.

Detox is a bitch.

Uh-oh. You want to know how it’s done. I can feel the strength of your curiosity vibrating through the keyboard beneath my fingertips. You want to know the seven secrets of meth-laced, crack cocaine!(sigh)

Lest you believe I have written you a fiction, I will tell you how it is done, but I wash my hands of the disasters that await you.

FINAL WARNING: before you click this link, believe me when I say that meth-laced crack is addictive. People who know the Seven Secrets of Sales Activation usually overdose and kill their business.

I have rarely seen an exception.

Roy H. Williams

Many of the people close to you are neurodiverse and face challenges that are not immediately visible. In fact, one in five Americans is neurodiverse, which includes conditions such as Autism, ADHD, OCD, Dyslexia, and Tourette’s syndrome. Dr. Matthew Zakreski is recognized as an expert on neurodiverse employee/employer relations, and is an advocate for neurodiverse individuals in the workplace. Listen as “Dr. Matt” shares with deputy rover Maxwell this week, employers who welcome and accommodate those who think and behave differently reap the benefits of enhanced workplace productivity, job satisfaction, and innovation. It’s always win/win/win at MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

Leadership = Energy + DirectionDirection = Vision + CourageTherefore, leaders are people of Energy, Vision, and Courage.If you are a person of energy, vision, and courage:

(1.) I have noticed that people like you often become surrounded by wanderers who are looking for a leader. It is hard to make money when you are stumbling over puppies who gather at your feet. Resist the temptation to become a thought leader. Oh, I forgot. The new word is influencer. Don’t become one.

(2.) Do not become a zookeeper. When you find yourself among persons of energy, vision, and courage like yourself, do not try to “manage” these untamed creatures. Zookeepers diminish energy, dull vision, and punish courage. You will never meet a wealthy zookeeper.

(3.) When you see pent-up energy, unexplored vision, and fearless courage, become the friend who delivers that person from their captivity. Hire them. Unlock their leg irons. Empower them, encourage them, unleash them.

(4.) Be a leader who gives vision and direction to other leaders and encourage those leaders to do the same. Model correct behavior. Lead by example. Spread the joy.

(5.) Your life is about to become very interesting.

ADDENDUM: Lest you become too anxious as you search for world-changers like yourself, I have asked Albert Bandura to share this word of warning with you:“Let us not confuse ourselves by failing to recognize that there are two kinds of self-confidence—one a trait of personality and another that comes from knowledge of a subject. It is no particular credit to the educator to help build the first without building the second. The objective of education is not the production of self-confident fools.”

– Albert Bandura, Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control, p.65

Do not be attracted by self-confident fools.

Tinsel and glitter stand proudly in the spotlight, but true gold is found surrounded by mud.

SURPRISE! Seventeen years ago the wizard recorded a memo that reminds me of the one he shared today, so I time-traveled back to November 5, 2007 and retrieved it for you. – Indy BeagleI thought Bill Clinton was a good president for the same reason I thought Ronald Reagan was good; both were excellent Head Cheerleaders. Their politics, personalities and characters were different, but each had a similar ability to keep things from spinning out of control.

Every organization has a Head Cheerleader. Their business card usually says “manager”. The Head Cheerleader’s job is to keep talented hotheads, sycophantic suck-ups, whining excuse-makers, moon-eyed lunatics and plodding paranoids all headed in the same general direction. They have to make everyone feel like everything is going to be all right.

Are there really people who can do this job?

Thrown into the deep water at 26, I was possibly the worst manager ever to assume the position. But over the years, I’ve had a chance to observe the great ones, and I’ve noticed an unusual but recurrent characteristic:

Great managers are rarely excellent at any of the things they manage.Great coaches are great not because they were superstars, but because they know how to awaken the star that sleeps in each of the players around them.

Excellent don’t show you photos from their own vacation. They ask to see the photos from yours, and it makes them happy to see you had a wonderful time.

Life-changing managers look for things to praise in their people, knowing that it takes seven positive strokes to recover from each negative reprimand.

Think about it. If seven out of eight times we encounter our boss, we receive an authentic, affirming comment, a bit of happy news or a piece of valuable insight, we love to see our manager coming down the hall. But if our encounters with the manager leave us deflated, discouraged, or scared, our hearts sink when we see them coming.

Do your people love to see you coming?If not, begin looking for things to praise. Keep your ratio of positive comments seven times higher than your negative ones, and they will soon begin to smile when they see you coming. This newfound attitude and confidence will bring new levels of productivity, and all because you believed they could do it, and made them believe it, too.

Great managers are never afraid to hire people better than themselves.Each of the 217 times David Ogilvy opened a new office for Ogilvy and Mather, he would leave a set of Russian nesting dolls on the desk of the incoming manager. When the manager removed the top half from the largest of these bowling pin-shaped dolls, he or she would find a slightly smaller doll inside. This would continue until the manager came to the tiniest doll and retrieved from its interior what looked to be the note from a fortune cookie:

“If each of us hires people smaller than ourselves, we shall become a company of, but if each of us hires people bigger than ourselves, we should become a company of giants.”

– David Ogilvy

Now walk down the hall and find a sleeping superstar disguised as a plodding paranoid.For each of the next 21 days, compliment that person every time you see them take a right action. Then prepare to meet a whole new employee on the 22nd day.

Don’t be surprised if they have the same name as the plodding paranoid that used to stink up the place.

Go. The hallway awaits you.

– Roy H. Williams

“If you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room.”

More than half of all customers are willing to pay more for the same product or service if the seller also provides a single intangible: trust. Natalie Doyle Oldfield studies the dynamics that drive customer loyalty and business growth, and “Trust,” she finds, “is the critical value that top companies rely on to secure their market dominance and drive substantial growth.” Prepare to feel wonderfully affirmed when Natalie reveals to roving reporter Rotbart the proven methods companies can use to amplify their trustworthiness and strengthen their reputation and their brand. If there is only one episode you are ever going to listen to, this is the one. MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

Riding this rocket toward my 67th birthday, memories of my life flicker in the twilight of my mind like shooting stars in the night.

My gaze lingers on a long-ago day when I began writing ads for a jeweler.

I saw the cover of a book that said, “Follow Your Passion. The Money Will Follow,” and remember thinking, “I would hate to become famous for writing ads for a product I couldn’t care less about.”

“Follow your passion” is an idea that makes sense until you think about it.I had no appreciation, no affection, no commitment to jewelry. But I did make a commitment to the jeweler. My job was to communicate his appreciation of jewelry, his affection for it, his commitment to it.

For a quarter of a century I wrote ads for my friend that made both of us famous. He died unexpectedly in a frozen moment a dozen years ago.

I continue to have his number programmed into my iPhone and there is part of me that believes if I touch his name with my finger he will answer and bellow “Good mornin’, Sunshine!” before the second ring.

There is another part of me that knows I will be shattered if he does not answer. His name will continue on my phone, and I will continue not to touch it.

Our friendship of 25 years taught me an important life-lesson I will now share with you:

Commitment does not flow from passion. Passion flows from commitment.I do not have to love the products I write about. I have to love the people who are going to sign their names to what I write. My words are spoken from their hearts, not my own.

Lest you think I am wandering aimlessly down Melancholy Lane, I will push my point home like a syringe:

Are you one of those sad-eyed souls who sigh and say, “I’m searching for my passion. I just don’t seem to be able to find my passion. What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I find my passion?”

Yes, the needle hurts, but there is medicine flowing through it.

Every form of work is for the benefit of other people. You do not need to love the work to be happy. You need to love the difference you are making.Are you ready for me to push the needle a little deeper?

You will never discover happiness when you work only for yourself. You will discover the joy of life when you work for the benefit of others. I believe the need to serve other people is hard-wired into the body, soul, and spirit of every person who walks upon this planet.

Self-centered people can have pleasure, of course. But they can never have happiness.I’m sorry, but the needle still has to go deeper.

These two quotes by Tom Robbins fit together perfectly although they were written 20 years apart.

“Among our egocentric sad-sacks, despair is as addictive as heroin and more popular than sex, for the single reason that when one is unhappy one gets to pay a lot of attention to oneself. Misery becomes a kind of emotional masturbation (2005). The unhappy person resents it when you try to cheer him up, because that means he has to stop dwelling on himself and start paying attention to the universe. Unhappiness is the ultimate form of self-indulgence. When you’re unhappy, you get to pay a lot of attention to yourself. You get to take yourself oh so very seriously (1985).”

– Tom Robbins

The needle is now all the way in.This is the pure, uncut medicine: The next time you see a need, step up and fill it. Experience the joy of making a difference. Do this ten times and you will be addicted to happiness for the rest of your life.

Pay it forward.

Roy H. Williams

Dutch explorers in 1625 found a forested island between the East and Hudson rivers known to the Lenape Indians as “Manhattan.”Every square inch of that island was developed in the ensuing 400 years except for a 6.7-acre plot of land 3 blocks south of the United Nations building. That land is owned by the Soloviev Group, an organization run by Michael Hershman, a renowned expert in governance, ethics, and transparency. Although he rarely grants media interviews, Hershman opened up to roving reporter Rotbart and deputy rover, Maxwell, to share some fascinating insights about civics and the principles of good governance and how these elevate us to create a thriving economy. This is a conversation that will lift your spirits and renew your hope for humanity, and it will begin the moment you arrive at MondayMorningRadio.com

(2005) Wild Ducks Flying Backward,* Tom Robbins

(1985) Jitterbug Perfume,* p. 210, Tom Robbins

View Details

You are inside your business, looking out.The customer is outside your business, looking in.Your inside-out perspective makes you blind in one eye.

Confirmation bias makes you blind in the other eye.

You cannot see yourself the way your customer sees you. You imagine how they see you based on your mission statement, your policies and procedures, your employee training, and your good intentions.

But you alone know those things, see those things, and care about those things. Your customer doesn’t know, doesn’t see, doesn’t care.

Bad ads talk about all the things the customer would care about if they knew everything that you know.Good ads talk about what the customer already cares about.

When you have convinced an ad writer to see your business in the same way you do, that ad writer has nothing left to offer you but flattery.

I’m not trying to offend you, friend. I am trying to open your eyes.

Why do so many business owners think effective advertising can be discovered by studying the data?Bob Hoffman is an old ad guy like me. I’ve never met him, but I like him.

Bob writes,

“Our industry is drowning in math and starving for ideas. We need people who can dream shit up. We need impractical, illogical people. We have plenty of data. We need more of the opposite. We have forgotten that the only unique benefits we can provide to clients is imaginative thinking and creativity. Everything else, aside from ideas, they can get somewhere else. Good ideas are good ideas. Things that are entertaining, interesting and uplifting will always be attractive to everyone.”

“On social media, for every success there are 10,000 failures. You have to be really good at it and there are very few people that can do it. Why are 97 per cent of all ads, books, movies and films crappy? Because it’s really, really difficult to make good stuff. And it’s the same with social media. Most of it is worthless and has no creativity or imagination to it.”

Instead of look at the data, we should be looking at first principles.“First principles is kind of a physics way of looking at the world. You boil things down to the most fundamental truths and say, ‘What are we sure is true?’ … and then reason up from there.”

– Elon Musk, Tesla and SpaceX

“Good inventors and designers (and marketers) deeply understand their customer. They spend tremendous energy developing that intuition. They study and understand many anecdotes rather than only the averages you’ll find on surveys.”

– Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com

“Every moment in business happens only once. The next Bill Gates will not build an operating system. The next Larry Page or Sergey Brin won’t make a search engine. And the next Mark Zuckerberg won’t create a social network. If you are copying these guys, you aren’t learning from them… Indeed, the single most powerful pattern I have noticed is that successful people find value in unexpected places, and they do this by thinking about business from first principles instead of formulas.”

– Peter Thiel, Paypal

Great ad strategies are discovered when we return to first principles.These are the first principles of effective ad creation.

1. Don’t try to convince the customer to think and feel like you do. Learn how to think and feel like the customer.
2. The customer isn’t looking for a product or a service. They are looking for transformation.

Those first principles will never change.

Everything else is execution, which requires impractical, illogical people who can dream shit up.

Roy H. Williams

“Life is only a set of pictures in the brain, among which there is no difference between those born of real things and those born of inward dreamings, and no cause to value the one above the other… I never ask a man what his business is, for it never interests me. What I ask him about are his thoughts and dreams.”

– H.P. Lovecraft

“Tell me, what’s troubling you?”

“Profits are down. Our employees are unhappy. And I don’t know where I should be going.”

The client is not a person, but the therapist is real. Dr. Nikki Blacksmith uses data analysis to help companies diagnose the business personality traits that are preventing them from achieving their goals. Dr. Blacksmith, an industrial-organizational psychologist, tells roving reporter Rotbart that many businesses fail because they don’t understand the company-wide psychology required to achieve success. Prepare to be amazed at MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

Every company has an inside, an outside, and an engine.This is why successful companies have a Mother, a Trumpet, and a CEO.The CEO chooses a destination and builds a machine to take us there.

The Mother looks inward to the people in the company.

The Trumpet makes beautiful noises for the public to hear.

The Mother in your company is the person everyone goes to when they are frightened, angry, or confused. The Mother keeps your family traditions alive and makes sure that everyone feels included. (“Mother” refers only to the role in the company. It can be a man or a woman.)

If your company has a strong culture, your people will deliver exceptional customer service. They will do it because their Mother has convinced them of who they are. Your company culture and your customer service will be average at best if your people don’t have a strong Mother to comfort, encourage, and motivate them.

The Trumpet is the person who makes the public think highly of you. Your company will become the one people think of first – and feel the best about – when your Trumpet plays the kind of music that people love to hear.

Let’s review:The CEO is the visioncaster who is building a Rube Goldberg machine of systems and procedures and vendors and processes and levers and pulleys and profit margins represented by all those flow charts and diagrams and spreadsheets.

The Mother makes the internal business strategy come alive through employee feelings and actions.

The Trumpet makes the external business strategy come alive by using media to deliver stories that will bond future customers to your company.

The Mother and the Trumpet must know, like, and respect each other, because they are the left and right hand of a person playing basketball.Back in the early 2000’s, when McDonald’s had lost their way and was circling the drain, they asked their original Mother to come out of retirement and help them get back on track.

In a June 27, 2004, story called “McDonald’s Finds Missing Ingredient,” Chicago Tribune staff reporter David Greising wrote:

“Fred Turner did not need to look at financial statements to know McDonald’s was in trouble. He could taste it. The man who worked alongside founder Ray Kroc to turn McDonald’s into a global colossus, Turner noticed when penny-pinchers at corporate headquarters changed recipes to cut costs.”

The article ends by saying,

“The return of the special sauce is one of hundreds of changes, big and small, that McDonald’s made after they made a return to ‘Inspect What They Expect,’ and the result was one of the most stunning turnarounds in corporate history.”

Fred Turner’s ‘Inspect What They Expect’ program taught and encouraged McDonald’s employees to make sure that customers received the happy experience they were expecting.

Fred Turner was the “inward-facing” Mother who made McDonald’s operationally excellent.Keith Reinhard was the “outward-facing” Trumpet who made McDonald’s famous.Keith Reinhard told us that a trip to McDonald’s would be a transformative experience:

“You deserve a break today, so get up and get away, to McDonald’s” and that famous advertising jingle for the Big Mac, “Two-all-beef-patties-special-sauce-lettuce-cheese-pickles-onions-on-a-sesame-seed-bun… You deserve a break today, at McDonald’s.”

When Keith Reinhard wasn’t busy writing McDonald’s ads, he wrote, “Just Like a Good Neighbor, State Farm Is There.”

Reader, do you trust me enough to let me to offer you some insanely good advice?

1. Tear up your mission statement. It’s just a collection of aspirational words on paper. The hearts and minds of your people are not guided by that paper, but by the mother whose face they see and whose voice they hear. Do you know who your Fred Turner is?
2. Quit looking for an advertising person who has experience in your business category. Ray Kroc did not choose Keith Reinhard because Keith understood the fast-food business. Ray Kroc chose Keith Reinhard because Keith understood people.

Friend, you are in the people business. Some of these people are inside your company. The rest of the people are outside your company.The CEO is the visioncaster who says, “We’re going to the moon. And here’s how we’re going to get there.”

The Mother is the person who comforts, encourages, and motivates your people.

The Trumpet is the person who wins the hearts of the public for you.

Peter Koenig tells a story about a company in Japan that has been building Japanese temples for more than 800 years. When they were asked the secret of how they have kept their company alive and vibrant for eight centuries, their answer was simple:

“A business can last forever if it is passed from hand… to hand… to hand.”

You are in the people business, friend.

Roy H. Williams

“Perhaps the most important thing we ever give each other is our attention.”

– Rachel Naomi Remen

She served as an FTC Commissioner and as staff director of Ronald Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisers. Her name is Margot Machol Bisnow. In her post-government career, Margot is guiding parents on how to grow their children into successful business owners. In essence, Margo is an evangelist for entrepreneurism. Although she focuses on kids, teens, and young adults, her blueprint for success is ageless. Listen in as she shares the lessons of 99 families — many well-known — who followed the golden path and raised their children to become wildly successful entrepreneurs. Roving reporter Rotbart and deputy rover Maxwell are on the move and the game is afoot at MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

The best screenwriters in Hollywood use the principles of David Freeman, as do Nobel and Pulitzer prize-winning novelists and all the most effective ad writers, even if they have never heard of the man.I know David well, as he has taught a number of classes at Wizard Academy. His always-and-forever question is this: “What causes this character to think, act, speak, and see the world the way they do?”

NOTE: As a writer, you don’t necessarily need to tell your viewers, readers, or listeners why a character thinks, acts, speaks, and sees the world they way they do; it is only important that YOU know.

When you know the backstory of a character, that character comes alive. It glistens with perspiration, and your audience feels it’s heartbeat. Your heroes will never be perfectly pure and good, nor will your villains ever be entirely evil. Your audiences may even begin to wonder whether they ought to change sides and start cheering for the character they originally thought was a villain.

The question you must ask each of your characters is this: “What happened to you that causes you to think, act, speak, and see the world the way you do?”

You, as a writer, need to know why your characters are the way they are.Friend, with every sleeper you wake, every heart you break, every choice you make and action you take, you are writing the story of your life. Take a breath and say this next sentence out loud. “What happened to me that causes me to think, act, speak, and see the world the way I do?”

Seriously, say it out loud. “What happened to me that causes me to think, act, speak, and see the world the way I do?”

I believe my friend Tucker Max understands the magic of writing memoirs better than any writer who has ever lived. Tucker is the only writer I know who has had 3 books simultaneously on the New York Times bestseller list. And each of those 3 books was a memoir.

Tucker Max is currently writing what will probably become the memoir equivalent of the Ring of Power that Frodo Baggins carried to Mordor. “One Memoir to rule them all, One Memoir to find them, One Memoir to bring them all and in the bright light bind them.”

I won’t tell you anything more about Tucker’s soon-coming memoir because I don’t want to ruin it for you, but I will tell you what Tucker said to me privately:

“The reason to write a memoir is to tell yourself the truth about your life. Memoir is an inherently therapeutic process. Whether or not you ever let anyone read it is irrelevant. You are giving yourself a private space to uncover, and consider, and speak the whole truth about your life.”

Today is the day that you will start writing your memoir. So say this out loud with me one more time. Are you ready?

“What happened to me that causes me to think, act, speak, and see the world the way I do?”

Ciao for Niao, and Indy Beagle told me to tell you “Aroo” and that he will see you in the rabbit hole.

Roy H. Williams

Dr. Laura Gabayan is an emergency medicine doctor and associate professor at the UCLA School of Medicine, and for many years she has conducted a scientific study of wisdom, including how to define it and cultivate it. Dr. G., as she is known, recently published her findings and is sharing them today with roving reporter Rotbart in an effort to help him discover a more fulfilling, meaningful, and prosperous life. MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

Every person on earth belongs to several cults.Calm down. I’m not talking about what you think I’m talking about.

I’ll start at the beginning.

Cult: any group of people who share a devotion to an idea, activity, or identity.

Cults become toxic and dangerous

only when the devotion of the group is

(1.) to a specific individual,

(2.) focused on the destruction of an enemy.

Culture: patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that give those activities significance, importance, and meaning.

Cultivation: to till or refine. Seeds are more likely to grow and produce a harvest when you till the soil to soften and refine it.

Cult Brands: Apple, Lululemon, Tesla, Harley Davidson, Starbucks, Nike, and Star Trek are notable examples of brands that have become associated with an idea, activity, or identity.

Cult brands make a lot of money.Do you want to create a cult brand? I’ve been telling you how to do it for 30 years, but I’ll say it one more time for those of you who are new:

“Win the heart, and the mind will follow. The mind will always find logic to justify what the heart has already decided.”

To build a cult brand, all we need to do is abbreviate those earlier definitions and tilt them slightly toward advertising.Cultivation: to plant the seeds of an ideology by allowing potential customers to perceive and conclude that you believe and value exactly what they believe and value.

Culture: the recurrent activities of a self-selected group.

Cult: a group of people who are strongly attracted to a brand.

The best storytelling ads gently cultivate the mind, loosening the soil of public consciousness so that you might sow the seed-thoughts that will grow into profitable persuasion, causing your brand to be the one people think of immediately – and feel the best about – when they need what you sell.

These seed-thoughts are what my partners and I call brandable chunks, a collection of carefully crafted signature phrases that are unique to your brand. Like all seeds, these brandable chunks must be sown in abundance if you hope for a bountiful harvest.

The seed-thoughts contained in these brandable chunks will germinate – and magnetic connection will occur – when a person perceives that you believe what they believe. When your brand stands for something that people believe in, you have the opportunity to become a cult brand.

When this cultivation and germination of your seed-thoughts has occurred, the next step is for your customer to be introduced to your culture.

Uh-oh. I just heard someone think, “I’m not affected by advertising, so I’m not in a cult of any kind.” Friend, I know you don’t want to hear this, but you’re a card-carrying member of the “Don’t Label Me” cult. I could tell you several interesting things about your little group, but that would not be a friendly thing to do, so I won’t.

Instead, I will tell you about a cult I joined in 1972.“Roses for the Living” is the name of the cult my mother started completely by accident. I was there when it happened.

It was 1972. We were struggling financially due to my father having fled the scene three years earlier. My mother had found a job, worked hard, kept a roof over our heads and food in our mouths for three long years before she finally had a few dollars she could spend on herself.

She spent those dollars taking a friend with her on a 2-day trip to Taos, New Mexico.

When I asked her why she did it, she said,“People will take time off work, buy a plane ticket and fly across the country to lay a dozen roses on the grave of a friend who has died.”

“But their friend won’t be able to enjoy those flowers, or have a nice dinner with them, or laugh and talk with them about whatever is on their mind. So I have decided that I will not attend the funerals of my friends.”

“Instead, I will take time off work, and buy plane tickets, and fly across the country to visit the people I love while we can still do things together. I believe roses are for the living.”

I have watched my mother buy countless plane tickets since that day in 1972 when she told me what she believed and what she valued. What my mother got in return for her time, her energy, and her money was a lifetime of marvelous adventures, deep friendships, and happy memories.

Like my mom, I believe roses are for the living. If you believe it, too, I have good news for you. The culture of our “Roses for the Living” cult – the recurrent activities of our self-selected little group – is that we make the time and find the money to create new memories with old friends. Other than that, there is nothing to buy, no one to notify, no forms to fill out, nothing else at all that you need to do.

1. Just Stop.

2. Call your friend.

3. Tell them you are coming for a visit.

4. Make your travel arrangements.

And remember to take some pictures, okay?

Roy H. Williams

What can business owners learn from America’s Michelin Star and James Beard award-winning chefs? David Page, creator of the mega-hit Food Network show Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives, has interviewed numerous world-class chefs including Dan Barber, Nancy Silverton, Jonathan Waxman, and Michael Stern for his new podcast that launches on August 27th. David says these culinary maestros not only know how to dazzle the palate, but they have a recipe for business success, as well! According to the super-chefs, the ingredients that allow a business to thrive are pretty much the same regardless of the product or service you sell. Enjoy this tasty episode at MondayMorningRadio.com.

View Details

Brad Pitt, Ron Howard, and MeI never write click-bait headlines, but I wrote this one just to prove I can.Brad shines from Shawnee, Ron comes from Duncan, and I bailed from Broken Arrow.

We’re all Okla-Homeboys.

Now that my click-bait headline has done its job and convinced you to keep reading all the way down to this third paragraph, I will transition to the real reason I wanted to speak with you today: Amway.

Here’s how it works. You buy stuff from me that I buy from someone above me, and they buy it from someone above them, and so on. But through the mystical magic of multi-level marketing, we all get rich by making a tiny commission on whatever you bought!

What you need to do is find some friends who dream of financial freedom and convince them to buy this same stuff from YOU. And guess what! THEY WILL GET RICH, TOO! Don’t you want all of your friends to be rich with you? Think of all the fun you rich, rich, rich people will have after you all become rich, rich, rich!

Welcome to Oklahoma. Now you know why Brad, Ron and I decided to leave.

Honestly, I have fond memories of Oklahoma and I cherish all the valuable lessons I learned there. For real.1. Never deal with an idiot. Escape while you can. Keep an eye on them until they become a tiny speck disappearing in your rear-view mirror. 2. Fall in love with an actual person. Do not fall in love with falling in love. 3. Commitment does not flow from passion. Passion flows from commitment. 4. Patience will make you wealthy much more quickly than luck. 5. Business is nothing more than a search for purpose and adventure, and failures are footlights along the dark pathway to success. 6. Everyone has a superpower. When you have figured out their superpower, that’s when you know a person. 7. Never lose sight of your closest friends and always be there for them. 8. Every conflict is an auction. The winner will be the one who is willing to pay a higher price than anyone else. (This is why you should try to avoid conflicts.) 9. There is a time for incremental escalation and there is a time for overwhelming force. Take no action until you know what time it is. 10. What you are currently thinking and feeling is a product of where you have turned your attention. Be careful where you turn your attention. 11. Learn to speak in color and to write poetically. 12. Poetry is any communication that changes what you think, and how you feel, in a brief, tight economy of words.

Those are some of the things I learned as an Okie, and now I have shared them with you. That makes you a little bit Okie, too.

Ciao for Niao,

Roy H. Williams

Becoming a children’s book publisher is not “sugar and spice and everything nice.” It is one of the toughest journeys an entrepreneur can undertake. When Georgia Lininger launched her children’s book imprint in January 2020, she quickly discovered that success was going to require more from her than sweet stories and colorful illustrations. Join roving reporter Rotbart and his deputy rover Maxwell as they uncover a classic American story of struggle and defiance along with the happy ending dreamt of by every entrepreneur offering a product or service that comes from the heart. MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

These are stories of a bright day, a dark night, and a monster.The story of the bright day happened last year just before Christmas. You may recall that I told you about finding an undiscovered 400-year-old copy of the 1605 edition of Don Quixote at a used furniture auction in a village in New England.

This is the rest of that story.

After I bought that book (and 18 other books nearly as old,) I learned the nearest place that could ship those books to me was a 35-minute drive from the auction house. When I called them, they said,

“Dude, we’ve got more than 200 orders stacked all around us that have got to be packed and shipped before Christmas and more people are coming in every day. We’ll be buried here for at least the next two or three weeks. Your books will just have to wait.”

Discouraged and worried that someone was going to realize that a 2-million-dollar book was sitting on a table in an empty auction building in a rural village, I was whining to Joe Davis while he was scrolling on his telephone. When I had finished telling him my story, Joe looked up and said,

“I’ve booked myself on the 6:30AM flight to Baltimore. I’ll be back tomorrow night with your books.”

Joe Davis is one of those rare people who sees and solves problems immediately. Joe lives his life by three words made famous by Nike.

“Just Do It.”

Are you lucky enough to have a Joe Davis in your life? Have you told them lately how much they mean to you?

And now the story of the dark night and the monster.Twenty years ago, Pennie and I wrote a check to purchase several acres on a high plateau and much of the land in the valley below. Our plan was to build Wizard Academy, then donate the land and all the buildings to a non-profit that would forever after run it as a 501c3 educational organization.

A few months after we bought that land, we published Jeffrey and Bryan Eisenberg’s book, Call to Action.The brothers funded the printing of the book, but we used my publishing company to give it an ISBN number and nationwide distribution.

In the book business, bookstores pay the distributor, then the distributor pays the publisher, then the publisher pays the authors twice a year.

The book made all four bestseller lists: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, and USA Today. Jeffrey and Bryan’s first check was going to be more than $100,000. They needed it to refresh their bank account since that was approximately what the printer had charged to print those tens of thousands of books.

BANG. I got a phone call from Adrian Van Zelfden. His voice was quavering.

“Roy, your name appeared in a public notice this morning. The IRS is in the process of taking your house, your cars, your furniture, your bank accounts, and everything else they can find that has your name on it.”

“Adrian, that’s crazy, there’s been some sort of a mistake.”

“Roy, this cannot be a mistake. This is happening.”

The financial reports that I was seeing showed that we still had lots of money in several bank accounts, so when Adrian told me how much we owed the IRS, I said,

“Okay, we’ll just pay it.”

Meet the Monster:We had copies of all our tax returns along with photocopies of the checks, but our bookkeeper had never sent any of those checks to the IRS. Over a period of 5 years, our bookkeeper had systematically drained every cent from our bank accounts, leaving only the cash from those unsent IRS checks to keep the boat afloat.

The check we wrote to buy the plateau hit that boat like a torpedo.

That’s when I found out we were broke. The bookkeeper who had been with us for 5 years had been keeping 2 sets of books. One set showed the dollar amounts that should have been in our bank accounts, the other set revealed there was nothing there.

The following week was when I was supposed to write a 6-figure check to my friend Jeffrey.

When I turned my full attention to the problem and saw that everything was gone, I called Jeffrey and told him exactly what was happening. He immediately said,

“You are going to recover from this and everyone you owe is going to get their money, but I want you to please pay me last.”

“Last?”

“Yes, pay me last. I have been where you are, and I have felt the way you are feeling right now, which is why you need to listen to me: Don’t let yourself think about things beyond your control. Don’t think about what you cannot do. Think only about what you can do, today, before you go to bed tonight. Do what you can do each day, every day, and don’t think about what you cannot do. You’re going to come through this.”

Jeffrey called me each day to make sure I stayed in the right frame of mind. He spoke wisdom and hope into my life that day, and I regard it as some of the most valuable advice I have ever been given.

Are you in a dark place?I have been where you are, and I have felt the way you are feeling right now, which is why you need to listen to me: Don’t let yourself think about things beyond your control. Don’t think about what you cannot do. Think only about what you can do, today, before you go to bed tonight. Do what you can each day, every day, and don’t think about what you cannot do. You’re going to come through this.

Roy H. Williams

PS – The IRS had sent multiple foreclosure notices, but our bookkeeper had generously volunteered to collect and sort the mail every day, so I’m guessing those notices went straight to the shredder. Although we were able to dodge the bankruptcy bullet, I did learn that 22% of all businesses have been, or will be, victims of embezzlement, and fully one-third of all the small business bankruptcies in America are the direct result of embezzlement. Bad News: your police department doesn’t have the manpower to investigate embezzlements. This is why fewer than 2% of embezzlers are ever charged with a crime, and almost none ever go to jail. You have several friends who have lost large sums of money to embezzlement but they never talk about it because they think it makes them look stupid. It was only when I started talking about it that I learned how common it is. – RHW

Angie Hyche is a clutter expert. Whether it is a storage room, garage, basement, self-storage unit, or your email inbox, Angie knows how to help you sort your possessions and your calendar. Angie is a professional organizer, helping a wide array of organizations and individuals clean up the chaos in their lives. She is also the author of two books on how to free yourself from disarray in your mind, your body, and your business. This week, Angie tells roving reporter Rotbart how to defeat disorganization, even when it has been accumulating for decades. Isn’t Rotbart awesome at finding great guests! MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

Twenty-nine years ago, Carl Sagan wrote a book called The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (1995).One of the observations Carl shared in that book is particularly troubling:“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”

Twenty-nine years later, half the nation is traumatized by an old white guy they believe will destroy America. The other half is traumatized by a different old white guy they believe will destroy America.

When did old white guys become so scary?

Why do we have these feelings of impending doom?

During the Covid crisis we lived in an unfamiliar world for more than a year, a world of continual anxiety.Half of America was traumatized by the threat of vaccines and masks. The other half was traumatized by the people who rejected vaccines and masks. All the places that made us feel normal were closed. Restaurants and churches and schools and movie theaters and sporting events and theme parks and weddings were memories of a past life.

When our circumstances returned to normal, we, ourselves, did not. The boat was gone, but the wake remained. It is hard to swim in rough and choppy waters.

According to mental health professionals, the wake of that boat is a condition called hyper-vigilance.Think of it as a sort of PTSD. Even now, something inside us remains crouched, ready for danger. Are you beginning to see why so many people are anxious and uncertain?

I never experienced hyper-vigilance until I was 40. When I had completed my second book, Secret Formulas of the Wizard of Ads, I began to spend countless hours revising and rearranging it. In the mornings I would eliminate a comma, and in the afternoons I would put it back again.

Ray Bard saw what was happening and spoke wisdom into my life.

He smiled and said to me these words,

“Roy, you’re not making your book any better or worse. You’re just making it slightly different. It’s time to put down the pen. What you are experiencing happens to writers who take their craft seriously, and you obviously take your writing seriously. You are a wonderful writer. You have written a great book. But now it is time to lay down the pen.”

Three weeks ago, I told that story to a close friend of mine who was trapped in a never-ending loop of revisions to a project he had been working on for more than a year. My friend is not a writer, but his project is just as big as mine, and his identity was all wrapped up in it, just as mine had been. He listened to my story of Ray Bard and the Pen and saw himself in it.

I was able to open the door of his cage, just as Ray Bard had opened the door of mine.Whose cage door will you open today? Someone else’s, or your own?

Roy H. Williams

Bernie Madoff perpetrated the biggest Ponzi scheme in human history, and before he died in prison in 2021, he met Richard Behar face-to-face 3 times, had more than 50 phone conversations with him, and exchanged more than 300 emails. How did Bernie Madoff pull it off? Who were his accomplices? Why were his investors so gullible? And how can you make sure it never happens to you? You’ll hear the answers to these questions and others, plus a couple of recordings of phone conversations between the two men, as investigative reporter Richard Behar reveals The Real Bernie Madoff to roving reporter Rotbart on this week’s edition of MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

Lots of people have been asking me the same 3 questions.QUESTION ONE: “Who were your mentors?”Mentor is a word I never use. It smells of apprenticeship, that wafting, submissive aroma that arises from a servant who adores his master. By this definition, I have never had a mentor, but I do have many heroes I study from a distance, and I have a lot of friends who have spoken valuable things into my life.

QUESTION TWO: “What is your writing method?”1. I descend into the depths of the client/character in whose voice I will be writing. This takes awhile.

1. When I have lost contact with my surroundings and found that character and become that character, I write what that character would say. I do this in the middle of the night because there are fewer interruptions.

2. When the character is finished talking, I ascend from the deep waters into the air and sunlight of my surroundings, walk into the kitchen, make a cup of hot tea, and add the juice of a Key Lime. This little ritual helps me find myself. Then I look at the digital clock on the microwave to find out how long I have been away, because time does not exist in that alternate realm.

Sometimes, when Pennie is visiting her sisters, I will awaken in the wintertime post-midnight darkness, work for awhile, rise to make tea, and notice that it is not yet light. But when I finally realize it is the darkness of evening, not morning, and that an entire day has disappeared while I was underwater, I have to reorient my mind.

QUESTION THREE: “Is your health okay?”“Are you pulling back? Are you stepping away from Wizard Academy and the Wizard of Ads partners? Your recent Monday Morning Memos make me feel like you are preparing to say goodbye.”

I fear you have me confused with Mentor R. Williams.

Mentor Ralph Williams (yes, Mentor was his first name) wrote “Drift Away,” one of the gold record hits of the 70’s. Dobie Gray sang it to #5 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1973.

“Day after day I’m more confused, yet I look for the light through the pouring rain. You know that’s a game that I hate to lose. And I’m feeling the strain. Ain’t it a shame.”

“Beginning to think that I’m wasting time. I don’t understand the things I do. The world outside looks so unkind. And I’m counting on you to carry me through.”

When you read these next words, you will likely hear Dobie Gray’s voice in your mind:

“Oh, give me the beat, boys, and free my soul, I want to get lost in your rock and roll and drift away.”

This is not my day to be Dobie Gray. I am not feeling blue and I am not preparing to die. But I do appreciate your concern. Thank you for caring.

A few weeks ago I wrote, “The important is rarely urgent, and the urgent is rarely important. Do not become a slave to the merely urgent.”

I’m sure I will shift gears at some point and shoot off in a new direction, but right now I am writing about things that are important, rather than merely urgent. I hope to speak valuable things into your life, just as other people have spoken into mine.

But first we need to make a deal, okay?The agreement I need from you is this: If you promise not to think I am feeling blue, stepping back, or preparing to die, I will share some of the valuable things that people have spoken into my life. I will tell you what they said, when they said it, and how I found value in their words.

Does that sound okay to you? If so, raise your hand.I saw that hand, even though you raised it only in your mind.

Indy says Aroo, and I do, too.

Roy H. Williams

“There are probably seven persons, in all, who really like my work; and they are enough. I should write even if I were the only patient reader, for my aim is merely self-expression.”

– H.P. Lovecraft

“Never give up on a dream because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway.”

– Earl Nightingale

If you are a client of Schwab, Fidelity, or Bank of America; if you fill your tank at Exxon; if you manage your finances with Intuit; or if you find yourself riding a bullet train in Japan, you can thank Dean Guida for making it possible. Dean launched his enterprise software business when he was only 23 years old, bootstrapped it without venture capital, and now – 35 years later – is CEO of a multinational company that serves more than two million software developers. On this week’s edition of Monday Morning Radio, Dean Guida shares his strategies for growing a business from the ground up, and then he explains how you can successfully compete against much larger competitors, and he explains it in a way that is easy to understand. MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

Aim their laughter like a cannon that booms out over the water.

Aim their sorrow like a rainbow that follows a storm.

Aim their anger like a lightning bolt that kills a man standing under a tree.

Be careful not to stand under trees.

People would rather be angry that bored.

This is why we pay attention to politics.

People would rather be frightened than bored.

This is why we watch scary movies.

People would rather be sad than bored.

This is why we read books that break our hearts.

People would rather be laughing than bored.

This is why we have comedians and memes and YouTube and TikTok.

Why is it so profoundly difficult

to simply sit still in silence?

Because whenever we are silent

for more than a few minutes,

all of our shadows and secrets and sins

come to the surface of our consciousness.

Jesus says, “Whenever you pray,

go into the closet and shut the door.”1

Surely, Jesus knows about all the

skeletons we like to hide in our closets.

And Jesus wants prayer to be the place

where we confront those skeletons

and face our fears.

If we do not confront the skeletons in our closets,

then they will control the whole house.

If we do not control our shadows,

then they will run the whole show.

This is why some say

that all of humanity’s problems

stem from our inability to sit quietly

in a room alone. 2

– Daniel DeForest London,

The Cloud of Unknowing, Distilled

Anger, fear, sorrow, and laughter are forms of excitement.

Excite people and you will be the center of attention.

But the happiest thing to do, if you can do it,is fill people with a sense of wonder.Wonder is a feeling without skeletons or shadows.

Wonder is a reaction, not an emotion.

Wonder is triggered by realizations that are bigger than our minds can contain.

Roy H. Williams

HOT TIP – Make Yourself Happy. Sign up for Jeffrey’s class Aug. 13-14 at WizardAcademy.org. It will give you more confidence, competence, and consideration. Your teeth will be whiter and you’ll be a better dancer. – Indy Beagle

1 Matthew ch 6, verse 6

2 Blaise Pascal, (1623 – 1662)

“It’s what you choose to believe that makes you the person you are.“

– Karen Marie Moning

Nick-Anthony Zamucen has launched four successful franchises: a pizza chain, a home care business, a crime scene cleaner, and a water and fire damage repair company. According to Nick-Anthony, there is a proven formula for running a successful franchise, whether you buy into someone else’s concept or decide to start a franchise of your own. What should you look for in a franchise? What do you need to launch one? And what should you absolutely avoid? Make some popcorn because the show is about to start as Nick Anthony Zamucen tells all to our own roving reporter Rotbart at MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

Any person who relays messages to you from the boss, is now your new boss.An excellent messenger might relay exactly what the big boss asked them to tell you, but only after they have reframed it, recharacterized it, and added their own slant.

Every messenger does this. Whether they do it consciously or unconsciously is irrelevant. Whether they do it maliciously or innocently is irrelevant. What matters is that it happens.

When a person speaks for the boss, you work for that person. You must do what they say.

If a messenger gives you a handwritten note from the big boss, your response to that message will be reframed, recharacterized, and delivered as interpreted by the mind of the messenger. The big boss is going to hear their words, not yours.

And God help you if you entrust an innocent question to a messenger. By the time that question enters the ear of the emperor, it will sound like a childish challenge or an anger-inflaming insult. The only thing you can do now is kneel down, put your head between your knees, and kiss your ass goodbye.

Have I put the matter too strongly? If so, let me soften it with this short summary: You are forever at the messenger’s mercy.Which is perfectly okay if you do not love your job.

Are you putting in your 8 hours then going home to begin living your real life? If so, you are incredibly lucky. Do your 40, collect your check, live your life.

I envy you.

But if you are cursed with ideas, innovations, and experiences you believe have value, you will forever be frustrated by the bleak barrier that separates you from that pristine person who can say “absolutely yes.” Your cheeks will be chapped by silly slaps from interfering intermediaries. Your days will be darkened by dullards. Your mind will be massacred by meetings with morons. (Yes, I am toying with alliteration today.)

You need to get a different job. You need to have direct contact with that one special person who can say absolutely yes without having to clear it with someone else.I spent my youth writing ads for clients who grew too big and became too busy to speak with me directly. When I became weary of living in the leg-irons and handcuffs imposed by messengers, I cut two tablets of stone from the heart of Mount Moriah. Those tablets contain two sentences:

1. “I cannot work my magic unless I am in direct contact with the person who has unconditional authority to say ‘absolutely yes’ without having to check with someone else.”
2. “If that person is too busy to speak with me personally, I am too busy to write his ads.”

You have felt what I am describing, or you have not.

Again, I envy you if you have not.

If you have felt that frustration:1. Get a job working with an entrepreneur who will take the time to hear you. 2. Honor that person by giving them your best. 3. If that person’s success causes them to feel the need to insert a messenger between them and you… 4. Take your stonemason’s hammer and your stonecarver’s chisel to the ancient mines of Mount Moriah. Sit down and think for awhile in the shadow of the Almighty. Then carve what you feel.

If Mount Moriah frightens you, then you must learn to live with chapped cheeks, darkened days, and a massacred mind.

I will leave you to make your own decision.

As for me, I’m placing my stone tablets in my front window where everyone can see them.

Roy H. Williams

NOTE FROM INDY BEAGLE: August 13-14: Only 15 people will be allowed to attend an extremely special business class taught by Jeffrey Eisenberg. The wizard is hoping his young adult grandson can attend.

“The supreme accomplishment is to blur the line between work and play.”

– Arthur Toynbee

“You see, there’s a fundamental connection between seeming and being. Every Fae child knows this, but you mortals never seem to see. We understand how dangerous a mask can be. We all become what we pretend to be.”

– Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind

Rusty Komori was the tennis coach at the Punahou School in Honolulu from 1994 until 2015. The school won the state championship each and every year. That’s a record not held by any other coach in any other sport. As he tells Deputy Roving Reporter Maxwell Rotbart, the core of success — in sports or business — is a superior team culture committed to excellence. If a dictatorial boss heads an organization, it won’t have the same success as if a loving leaderguides it. “Love” may be the lowest score in tennis, but it’s the missing ingredient that will put you at the top of your game in business. Listen… Love… and Lead. At MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

There is a time to get started, and there is a time to wait.1. When you have thought carefully about it, take action. But when you haven’t thought about it, wait. 2. The important is rarely urgent, and the urgent is rarely important. Do not become a slave to the merely urgent. 3. Perception is to see things that not everyone sees. Intuition is to recognize connections, and the patterns that occur because of these connections. 4. Maximum information is available, and maximum contemplation is possible, only at the last possible moment. 5. If you ever feel bad about procrastinating, just remember that Mozart wrote the overture to Don Giovanni the morning it premiered. 6. Procrastination is the soul rebelling against entrapment. But if you procrastinate too long, you will have your choice made for you by circumstance.

Mozart was christened Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart. Theophilus, in Greek, means “loved by God”.

In a letter announcing his birth, his father said his name was Wolfgang Gottlieb Mozart. Gottlieb, in German, means “loved by God.”

When he was 21, Mozart began calling himself Amadè, which is Hungarian for “loved by God.”

Mozart called himself Amadeus only once, when he signed a letter “Wolfgangus Amadeus Mozartus” as a joke, (sort of like Indiana Beagle calling himself “Indianus Beaglus” in the image at the top of today’s Monday Morning Memo.) Amadeus, in Latin, means “Loved by God.”

“Johannes Chrysostomus” precedes the name “Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart” because he, a Catholic, was born on January 27, the feast day of Saint John Chrysostomus in the West until the calendar reform of 1969.

But I digress. We were talking about the tyranny of the “merely urgent” versus information, contemplation, and procrastination.1. Waiting serves a purpose. In Manley Miller’s booklet, “Potato Chips: Greasy, Salty, Really Good Stories from Growing Up in New Orleans,” he writes,

I became a pastor when I was still young and foolish enough to say, “All right, God, if I’m not a senior pastor by the time I’m 30, then I’m going to quit being a pastor. I’m just going to take that as a sign from you that this is not what I’m supposed to be doing.”

Later, I found out the reason Jesus didn’t start his ministry until he was 30 is because you couldn’t become a rabbi until you were 30. You didn’t have enough life experience.

Jesus was 12 when Mary and Joseph found him teaching in the Synagogue, and it says that he “spoke with great wisdom.” But then when he’s 30 and starts his ministry, it says he spoke with great authority.

You have an aptitude for something when you have a talent for it.

But you develop proficiency over long experience.

And it’s going to take some time to get there.

Likewise, there’s a long journey from wisdom to authority.

When you have something to say worth hearing, that’s wisdom.

But when people respect you enough to listen, that’s authority.

Waiting is not wasting.

And now we’re going to make a 90-degree turn and head off in a tangential direction. Hold on tight.Here are the Top Five Regrets of People Who are Dying:

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard. I wish I had spent more time with my family.
3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

– Bronnie Ware,

an Australian nurse who spent several years caring for patients during the last 12 weeks of their lives.

Final facts about Mozart:When Mozart was 20, Thomas Jefferson signed the Declaration of Independence.

When Mozart was 32, the Constitution of the United States was ratified.

When Mozart was my age, he had been dead for 31 years.

How much time do I have left?

How much time do you? I ask you this only because I am your friend.

Roy H. Williams

Does the personality of your website reflect the personality of your brand? Websites have existed for almost three decades. Yet precious few websites are aligned with that company’s advertising, social media, and point-of-sale experience. And even fewer websites incorporate language that appeals to each of the four major personality types. Vi Wickam, a digital ad strategist of the highest order, optimizes websites to deliver more leads, more sales, and happier customers. A longtime Wizard of Ads partner, Vi has agreed to share several of his most valuable beliefs, one of which is this: No website is ever complete. Listen, learn, and elevate your online presence at MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

When you are having an adventure, you wish you were safe at home. But when you are safe at home, you wish you were having an adventure.

Every adventure is marked by setbacks, disappointments, and difficulties. Without trouble, there can be no adventure.

Our love of movies, video games, and sporting events proves our craving for adventure, for what are these but a celebration of people overcoming setbacks, disappointments, difficulties, and problems?

What are you facing today?

What must you overcome?

What is your current adventure?

Adventure is exciting when the vision of a glowing future shines brightly in your mind. But when we have no vision of a happy outcome, we walk in darkness.Jesus spoke of this phenomenon in the sixth chapter of the book of Matthew.

“Your vision is the lamp of your body. If you see the world clearly, your body will be full of light. But if your vision is distorted, the light within you will be darkness. And if the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!”

When our vision is distorted, we lose hope.

Please understand that I am not talking about mental illness. I don’t pretend to have a cure for that. But I do know a thing or two about sadness, confusion, frustration, and loneliness.

One out of every four people you encounter today will be hiding deep sadness, confusion, frustration, or loneliness. They won’t let you see it, but it is there.

This is the cure you have within you: You can listen intently when a person is speaking, so that the person feels seen and heard. You can smile and nod, so that the person feels accepted.You have the power to make other people feel valued.

Each of us needs to be seen, and heard, and missed when we are absent.

You can shine a light into the darkness.

And sometimes, that is enough.

Roy H. Williams

NOTE: Today we celebrate the 13th anniversary of MondayMorningRadio, hosted by our own Pulitzer-nominated roving reporter, Dean Rotbart. Next week’s episode will be number 600! Can you believe it? And last month we quietly celebrated the 30th anniversary of the MondayMorningMemo. How many of you have been subscribers since the days when it was delivered by FAX? Aroo. – Indy Beagle

Gwendolyn “Wendy” Bounds, an award-winning broadcast reporter, was an eyewitness of 9/11. In his book, September Twelfth: An American Comeback Story, roving reporter Rotbart describes Wendy Bounds as telegenically attractive, “with big chocolate-brown eyes, a sparkly broad smile, and shoulder-length buttery blond hair blended with honey highlights.” Today, the long-time desk jockey is ripped, with muscular arms, strong and toned legs, and broad, well-developed shoulders. Wendy has transformed herself into a competitive Spartan racer, running through mud pits, crawling under barbed wire, swinging across monkey bars, and hoisting sandbags as she navigates obstacle courses. “It is never too late to achieve your full potential,” Wendy writes in a new book, out tomorrow (June 18). “Age,” she tells the roving reporter and his deputy, Maxwell, “can be a secret weapon.” Age. Learn how to use it, at MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

My friends know that I have not used – and do not plan to use – ChatGPT, although I do endorse it for people who do not love to write.

I love to write.

Undissuaded, my friends urge that I should at least allow ChatGPT to gather and compile data for me to edit.

I like to gather my own data.

Jeffrey Eisenberg gave ChatGPT this prompt: “In less than 500 words what advice would Roy H Williams give his good friend Tom Grimes about writing?”Twenty-seven seconds later, Jeffrey’s computer delivered a 448-word fortune cookie. (I’m not sure why, but I can see it emerging from the front of Jeffrey’s computer on a long, white paper tongue, like the receipt from a grocery story cash register.)

Tom,

Picture this: you’re standing on a bustling street corner, trying to get the attention of a hurried crowd. That’s what writing is like. You have mere seconds to grab someone’s attention and make them care. Here’s how you do it:

1. Engage from the Start: Begin with a bang. Your first sentence should make the reader stop in their tracks. Something unexpected, a question, or a bold statement. For instance, “Have you ever tried to whistle with a mouth full of peanut butter?”
2. Be Conversational: Write as you speak. Imagine you’re having a chat with an old friend over coffee. Use contractions. Keep it casual. The more natural it sounds, the more relatable it becomes.
3. Vary Your Sentences: Mix short, punchy sentences with longer, flowing ones. This rhythm keeps readers engaged. It’s like a song; it needs a beat to keep people moving.
4. Tell Stories: People love stories. They remember them. Use anecdotes to illustrate your points. A well-placed story can make your message unforgettable. “Remember that time we got lost in the woods and stumbled upon that hidden waterfall? Your writing should be like that – a surprising discovery.”
5. Repetition for Emphasis: Don’t shy away from repeating key points. Repetition drills the message into the reader’s mind. It’s like the chorus of a song – it’s what they’ll hum later.
6. Parallel Structure: Use parallel structure to create balance and rhythm in your writing. “He came, he saw, he conquered.” It’s pleasing to the ear and easy to remember.
7. Engaging Openings and Closings: Start strong, but finish even stronger. Leave them with something to think about. A question, a challenge, a powerful statement. Make your closing as memorable as your opening.
8. Be Clear and Concise: Don’t use ten-dollar words when a ten-cent one will do. Simplicity is powerful. It cuts through the noise and delivers your message with clarity.
9. Emotion is Key: Tap into the reader’s emotions. Make them laugh, make them cry, make them think. If they feel something, they’ll remember it.
10. Have a Purpose: Every word should serve a purpose. Ask yourself, “What’s the point of this sentence? Does it move the story forward or add value?” If not, cut it.

Remember, Tom, writing is an art, but it’s also a craft. It takes practice. Don’t be afraid to rewrite, to polish, to perfect. Your goal is to make your reader feel something, to think, to act. Writing isn’t just about putting words on paper; it’s about creating an experience.

So go ahead, write like you’re talking to an old friend. Keep it simple, keep it engaging, and above all, keep it real. That’s the secret.

Cheers,

Roy

My reaction is strangely twisted, like a chocolate and vanilla swirl cone from McDonald’s.The vanilla twist is that I am impressed by ChatGPT’s ability to extract 10 true things from 30 years worth of Monday Morning Memos. The chocolate twist is my annoyance that ChatGPT used filler words and boring phrases I would never use.

Get your shit together, ChatGPT.

Get your poop in a group.

The following is my rewrite of the sanitized, digitized, homogenized fortune cookie ChatGPT wrote while pretending it was me.Tom-Tom,

You’re standing on the hood of your car, trying to get the attention of the airpod-and-earbud people who ignore you as they walk by. Welcome to the world of ad writing.

Here are my Ten Tips for Triggering Trouble, Causing Confusion, Raising Riots and Selling Stuff.

1. Open Big: “My dog can whistle like Tom Sawyer and dance like Huckleberry Finn.”
2. Get Comfortable: A relaxed speaker creates a focused listener.
3. Find Your Rhythm: “My client would not, could not, did not commit these crimes.”
4. Tell Stories: People love’em.
5. Say the Good Stuff Twice: Say the really good stuff three times.
6. Use Paired Opposites: Every proton needs an electron. Friends and enemies, ups and downs, ins and outs, whispers and shouts, lips and snouts,
7. Throw Away Every Cliché: Be new, surprising, and different.
8. Don’t Try to Sound Educated, But Say Intelligent Things: Don’t be pompous, be impressive.
9. Make People Laugh, Cry, or Get Angry: If you win the heart, the mind will follow. The mind can always find logic to justify what the heart has already decided.
10. Close Big: The cannon goes BOOM! Then you bow deeply and with a flourish of your hands nighttime falls fast like a curtain and fireworks fill the sky. The people clap insanely, glad they stopped, removed their earbuds, and took a moment to smile.

Indy said to tell you Aroo.

Ciao for Niao,

Roy

SUMMARY BY INDY BEAGLE: It took Brother Chatsworth 448 words to sound like a wooden puppet who wishes it was a real boy, but it took the wizard only 240 words to sound like himself. He’s good at being himself. I’ll bet you’re good at being yourself, too! Aroo. – Indy

PS FROM ROY: The better writer is the self-aware writer, just as a painter is a better painter for knowing he himself is in the pigment.

View Details

“If the founder of an organization does not empower the next generation of leadership to carry the enterprise forward while he is still viable as a leader, the organization he founded will cease to exist within 10 years after his death.”I have no recall of how I learned that information, but I have known it for nearly 40 years. My confidence that it is true tells me that I trusted the source.

I was working in an industrial steel fabrication shop in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma for 3 dollars and 35 cents an hour when I learned a second truth I cannot prove, but I remember the episode clearly. The year was 1976, when a million dollars was like ten million dollars today.

I was listening to a radio interview while driving a delivery truck down Lynn Lane. The man on the radio had mailed a survey to a large number of millionaires and a surprisingly high percentage of them had completed that survey and returned it to him.

He was sharing the characteristics of self-made millionaires:“Do self-made millionaires have a high I.Q.? No. The percentage of self-made millionaires with a high I.Q. is the same as the general population.”

“Is it education? No. Self-made millionaires are no better educated than the rest of us.”

“Is it family money? No. Self-made millionaires are no more likely to come from a wealthy family than you and I.”

“Is it family connections? No.”

“Did they marry someone whose family had money and connections? No.”

“Did they ‘get discovered’? Did they get a big break? No.”

When all of my assumptions had been shattered, he said there were only four things that self-made millionaires tend to have in common:(4.) Self-made millionaires are more likely to have been fired from a job than the rest of us.

(3.) A high percentage of self-made millionaires have filed bankruptcy at least once.

(2.) Self-made millionaires distrust traditional wisdom and believe there is a better way.

(1.) Self-made millionaires think further ahead than we do. They have a time horizon that isn’t measured in days or weeks or months, but in years.

The invisible man on the radio went on to say that a person’s socio-economic strata is largely determined by how far that person thinks ahead.The average American has a plan for their next two paychecks. Their upcoming paycheck is fully committed, and they have bills to pay with the paycheck that follows, although that one offers a small opportunity for discretionary spending. The paycheck after our next one gives us a little bit of hope.

Two paychecks ahead is the furthest we dare look. This is what it means to be middle class.

But at least we are not struggling to find the money to buy a new battery for the car so that we can get to work, or trying to borrow money to pay a long-overdue electric bill, or wishing we had enough food in the kitchen to last until payday. These people are struggling, but that is not the bottom. No.

At the bottom of the socio-economic strata are the addicts who can think only of their next drink, their next score, their next fix. Their time horizon is a few hours, at most. Tomorrow doesn’t enter their mind.

Friend, I am convinced you can succeed at anything you choose to do, provided you have the emotional staying power to survive your mistakes.No matter how hard you try, there are a certain number of mistakes you are going to make. This doesn’t mean you have failed. It means you are learning.

So always keep trying. But above all:

Think ahead.

Roy H. Williams

PS: “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.”

– Mike Dooley

PPS: When business owners struggle, they often blame everyone but themselves. According to psychotherapist Steve McCready, they should be saying, “It’s not you, it’s me.” As a business coach, McCready spends all day, every day, erasing the root causes of business problems, including feelings of self-doubt and being overwhelmed. So get comfortable and find a psychologically safe space. Steve McCready wants to chat with you at MondayMorningRadio.com.

View Details

A successful mechanic shop brings in about $500,000 a year. But whether or not the shop owner makes any profit on that $500,000 isn’t determined by how good they are at repairing cars, but by how good they are at running a business.

And even those shop owners who are good at running a business might not be good at converting telephone inquiries into customers.

You realize I’m not just talking about auto repair shops, right? I’m talking about every category of business in America.

At this moment, I’m talking to you about yours.

1. Are you good at your job?
2. (Are your customers impressed?)
3. Are you good at running a business?
4. (Pricing, recruiting, work-flow management, inventory management, vendor relations, employee retention, customer retention, payroll management, etc.)
5. Are you good at generating inquiries?
6. (Advertising, brand-building, sales activation, customer word-of-mouth and online reviews.)
7. Are you good at turning inquiries into customers?
8. (Close rate, conversion.)

Now, back to Jerry:1. Jerry was good at his job. 2. So good, in fact, that his reputation allowed him to bring in 12 times as much business as the average “successful” auto repair shop. Jerry wasn’t bringing in $500,000 a year. He was bringing in $500,000 a month. 3. Jerry was good at running a business. 4. He and his wife traveled and enjoyed life at a much higher level than most of us. 5. Jerry was good at generating inquiries, mostly because his auto repair shop made customers happy for a lot of years, and happy customers tend to multiply. 6. But Jerry was only average at turning telephone inquiries into customers. Still, he was doing 12 times the sales volume of the average “successful” mechanic shop in America.

Jerry and his wife are often at Wizard Academy.Jerry was paying attention when I said, “Bad marketing is about you, your company, your product, your service, how many years you have been in business and how many awards you have won. Good marketing is about the customer, and how your product or service can change the private little world they live in.”

After contemplating those words, Jerry and his wife realized that how they respond to telephone inquiries is a form of marketing. Specifically, it is the kind of marketing that can improve the percentage of incoming phone calls that become customers.

I encouraged Jerry and his wife to experiment. I said, “Try something new. Give it time to work, but if it doesn’t work, try something else that is new.”

Jerry’s second experiment caused his business revenues to jump 53% above the previous year, month after month.

Jerry’s mechanic shop no longer does $6,000,000 a year. He now has a $9,180,000 mechanic shop.

I know what you’re thinking. You want to know how Jerry and his wife lit the fuse on the rocket that put their business into orbit, am I right?

Okay, I’ll tell you.Jerry’s wife said, “Every incoming call begins with the caller saying, ‘Can you,’ ‘Do you,’ or ‘Will you.’”

“Give me some examples,” I said.

She said, “Can you repair the transmission on a 2018 Mercedes-Benz E400?”

Our answer is, “Yes we can. And if you’d like to bring it in, we’ll take a look at it right now.”

“Do you work on Volkswagens?”

“Yes we do. And if you’d like to bring it in, we’ll take a look at it right now.”

“Will you take a look at my Porsche 718 Cayman? It dies every time I make a sharp left turn.”

“Yes, we will. And if you’d like to bring it in, we’ll take a look at it right now.”

Do you see what Jerry and his wife are NOT doing? They’re not probing for more information, educating the customer, or explaining how busy they are.

What they ARE doing is listening to the customer’s problem and saying, “Yes, we can solve that problem for you.” And then they tell the customer the happy news that they are willing to take a look at it immediately.

Let’s look at the math of that transaction:

The customer (1.) has a problem and (2.) is frustrated about it.

Jerry and his wife (1.) take away the problem and (2.) remove the frustration.

It’s never about you.It’s always about the customer.You can make it more complicated than that if you want to.

But I wouldn’t suggest it.

Roy H. Williams

PS – I didn’t mention the name of Jerry’s wife because that would make it too easy to find them. And they are far too busy saying “Yes” to customers to have time to chat with 500 people who would like to ask them for further details about their method. Does it surprise you that those calls happen? I’ll see you next week.

PPS – (#4) Skilled, (#3) Expert, (#2) Masterful, and (#1) Brilliant, is the ascending hierarchy of ability among talented business people. Brilliant is the realm where Simon T. Bailey operates, and now he is teaching others how to elevate their business abilities to that same level of performance. A former Disney sales executive, Simon T. Bailey has written multiple books on the topic and has been invited to be a keynote speaker at more than 2,400 events over the past two decades. Success magazine names him in their “Top 25” alongside Brené Brown, Tony Robbins, and Oprah Winfrey. This week, Simon shares his secret formula with deputy reporter Maxwell Rotbart. Get out your laptop, your iPhone, your smart pad, a pencil and paper, or a crayon and a napkin, because you’re going to want to take notes on all that Simon T. Bailey has to say. MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

The Growing Up Years: Ages Birth to 20When a man is in his teenage years, people with good intentions will ask, “What are your plans for the future?” Fewer than 10% of us have a real plan at that age, but we make one up so that we don’t disappoint those who believe in us.

I tell teenage boys the truth when I sense they are feeling adrift. “It is rare to know at your age what you want to do with your life, but people will often ask you as though you are supposed to know. But the real truth is this: If you have your head completely out of your ass by the time you are 30, you are way ahead of the game.”

The Education Years: Ages 20 to 30Regulated careers – engineer, lawyer, doctor – require a young man with a plan. The rest of us just bumble along and learn from our mistakes.

People assume that a man who “plans his work and works his plan” is more disciplined and has a higher I.Q. than those of us who bumble. But I believe it is better to aim your temperament than try and change it.

Planners prefer structure. Bumblers prefer adventure. This doesn’t mean Bumblers are less visionary, less disciplined, less committed, or less intelligent. They just prefer to improvise, innovate, and impress, rather than plan, schedule, and execute.

Planners tend to become professionals. Bumblers tend to become business owners, tradesmen, salespeople, consultants, worker bees, or bums.

As of January 2024, there were 1,100,101 physicians in America. The average primary care doctor in America makes $265,000 a year. Specialists make an average of $382,000, which is about the same annual income as the owner of a modestly successful plumbing or air conditioning company with fewer than 10 employees.

In January of 2023, there were 1,331,290 lawyers in America earning an average annual income of $100,626 a year. Lawyers in the 75th percentile make about $103,000. Top earners make an average of $131,000, which is about the same as a modestly successful salesperson working for a local TV or radio station.

Like I said, a man’s path forward has more to do with temperament than anything else. To force a man to behave outside his temperament is cruel and unusual punishment.

The Acquisition Years: Ages 30 to 40For most men, the years between 30 and 40 are about gaining experience and status and possessions as we quietly struggle and claw our way upward. Adrenaline is our drug of choice. Conspiracy theories, video games, sports betting, fishing boats, sports cars and motorcycles provide us a way of escape. These are the years when onlookers say, “The difference between men and boys is the price of their toys.”

But in spite of our visible successes, we cannot quiet the inner voice that whispers, “If other people knew you the way that I know you, they would know what a phony you are.”

It is no coincidence that Henry David Thoreau was just over 30 when wrote, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation, and go to the grave with the song still in them.”

The saddest of all men stay in toy-gathering mode for the rest of their lives, wanting only to make more money and a bigger name for themselves. When such a man reaches 60 and looks back at his 30th birthday, he hasn’t really gained 30 years of experience. He has had one year’s experience 30 times. But he doesn’t know how to do anything else.

Having never discovered his soul, he goes to his grave with his song still in him.

The Elevation Years: Ages 40 to 50For about 80 percent of American men, the decade beween 40 and 50 is when we will make our mark on the world. The big leaps forward, the fingerprints we leave behind, the stories that will be told when we are gone, usually happen between our 40th and 50th birthdays.

These are the years when we begin to see clearly.

These are the years when we make fewer mistakes.

These are the years when we suck the juice from all of our experiences and make use of the wisdom and energy it gives us.

The Celebration Years: Ages 50 to 60Having worked 30 years at making a life, we now begin to think about making a difference.

These are the years when men discover the value in genuine relationships, sincere spirituality, and honest confession. In essence, we come face-to-face with our feminine side.

We look at our life partners and realize how lucky we are.

We look at our children and grandchildren and realize how lucky we are.

We stop and smell the roses and make lemonade.

The Distribution Years: somewhere beyond 60Robert Frost had just turned 60 when he wrote, “Neither Out Far Nor In Deep,” a poem that describes how we live our lives longing for a future that never arrives.

The people along the sand

All turn and look one way.

They turn their back on the land.

They look at the sea all day.

As long as it takes to pass

A ship keeps raising its hull;

The wetter ground like glass

Reflects a standing gull.

The land may vary more;

But wherever the truth may be,

The water comes ashore,

And the people look at the sea.

They cannot look out far.

They cannot look in deep.

But when was that ever a bar

To any watch they keep?

It is in the years after 60 that men begin to give away all that we have gathered in the hope that we can make a difference.

These are the years when we sail the great oceans and peer into the deep and learn to sing.

Apology:Perhaps young women are exactly like young men, perhaps not. I can’t say, because I was never a girl, and I never had a daughter.

I am aware that today’s memo excludes half the population, but I felt it would be safer to speak only of what I know, rather than speculate and be wrong. So ladies, I hope you will understand that I am honoring you by not pretending that I understand the pressures and frustrations, troubles and triumphs, joys and aspirations of women.

But I do understand men.

Roy H. Williams

Michelle D. Gladieux has advised hundreds of companies like Best Buy, General Dynamics, Lincoln Financial, and Medtronic, on how their executives and employees can communicate more effectively. Michelle is one of 21 Monday Morning Radio guests showcased in All You Can Eat Business Wisdom, a new book compiled by deputy reporter Maxwell Rotbart. (I’ve been told the wizard is in it, by the way. – Indy) This week, on Michelle’s second podcast appearance, she delves deeper into the perfect triangle of (1.) effective communications, (2.) career advancement, and (3.) life satisfaction. What you say, how you say it, and how you listen, really do matter. MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

To Hollister and Gideon,You have arrived at that age when everyone you meet will ask you about your plans for the future. I am older, happier, and probably more successful than those people, so ignore them. Listen to me.

Knowledge is important, but experience is what really matters. School can give you knowledge, but it cannot give you experience.

Experience is the name we give to our mistakes.

Success is simply a matter of surviving your mistakes. But first you have to make them. So take chances. Feel the pain of disappointment. Then pull yourself together.

Avoid the mistakes that are bigger than you.

1. Don’t die.
2. Don’t create a baby until you’re ready.
3. Don’t go to prison.

Those mistakes are hard to undo.

Surviving all your other mistakes will require nothing more than financial and emotional “staying power.”Financial staying power isn’t measured by how much money you have. In fact, an abundance of cash will tempt you to calculate your burn rate. You will say, “At my current rate of spending, I can last until such-and-such a date before I run out of money.”

When you calculate your burn rate, you create an unconscious plan. You have looked into the future and seen yourself collapsing in defeat on that day. Personally, I have never known anyone who succeeded after calculating their burn rate. They imagined running out of money, and then they did.

I knew they had calculated their burn rate because everywhere they went, they said, “I have to be profitable by such-and-such a date or I will run out of money.”

Boys, no matter how much money you have, you can run out of money. True financial staying power isn’t measured by how much money you have; it’s measured by how little money you need to stay in the game. The secret is to keep your monthly obligations so low that it takes very little to cover your living expenses.

The most successful of my Wizard of Ads partners kept their jobs until they were making enough money as my partner that they could afford to walk away from their previous employment. Some of the others were lucky enough to have a life partner who made enough money to cover all the monthly expenses of the household. The partners who struggled in the early days were the ones who had significant monthly expenses and a lot of money in the bank. These were the ones who calculated their burn rate and then slowly began to panic as they saw that money disappear month after month.

Financial staying power is easy. Live modestly. Don’t owe money.

Emotional staying power is what makes you successful. It gives you the ability to fail without thinking of yourself as a failure. So take chances. Feel the pain of disappointment, then pull yourself together, like I said.

Failure, like success, is a temporary condition.You are going to need encouragers. I have your MeMaw and the encouragement of God that I find in my Bible.

Mistakes are inevitable. Don’t fear mistakes.

Encourage people. Be slow to offer advice, but quick to offer encouragement. Tell people what you admire about them. No one likes a flatterer, but if you speak the truth, they will hear it as the truth.

Marry your best friend. You will know they are your best friend when you look forward to being with that person, even when you are not imagining them naked. Pennie – your MeMaw – believes in me more than I believe in me. I have asked God to give each of you a life partner like that.

I am not the only person who thinks these things. On May 1, 2024, Jason Fried wrote,

“Occasionally a 17-year-old will write, asking for entrepreneurial or business advice. Oftentimes they’re early bloomers and already have something going on. Others are chomping at the bit once they get out of high school. It’s great to hear from them. But my advice is generally that they don’t need advice. You don’t need advice at 17. You need experiences. You don’t need to be told what to do, you need to be told to do. Now, that in itself could be construed as advice, but it’s really not meant as that. It’s anti-advice, if anything. Don’t listen. You’ll learn out there, not in this email. At 17 you have more time than you’ll ever have to just fuck around and find out. Anything else is just getting in the way. There’s no unlock, no sage advice from some oldster that’s going to make a lick of difference at 17. The doing, and the self-discovery, will give you all the advice you need until you really hit a point where the stakes matter and the right suggestion could mean everything. Until then, wander. Be 17.”

Boys, if I’m not around 10 years from now, be sure to share this letter with Eden and Vance.Love,

Poobah

PS – Some people will like you for who you are. Some people won’t like you at all. But most people will like you for what you can do for them.

It is never okay for a friend to like you for what you can do for them. In fact, that person is not your friend. But it is definitely okay for your employer to like you for what you can do for them.

When you get a job, know that these are the characteristics of the perfect employee:1. They do incredibly good work. 2. They always get their work done on time. 3. Everyone likes them.

If any two of those things is true about you, it is enough to make you a valuable employee. If all three of those things are true, every business owner you meet will want to hire you.

PPS – I have known highly effective men and women who radiate professionalism. Their poise, polish, elegance, and charm are intoxicating. These people are often perfectionists by nature, so their professionalism comes to them naturally.

I am not, by nature, a perfectionist. Poise, polish, elegance and charm are not my natural condition. The best I can do is try to be kind and considerate and quick to apologize when I do or say something stupid.Professionalism, when it is authentic, is amazing. But it can also be a pose, a mask that is worn to disguise the fact that a person is just a posturing little weasel with an expensive haircut, sophisticated manners, and a lot of style. These people can always get a job, but it doesn’t take long to see that they are an empty suit of clothes.

Be professional if it is in your nature, but never forget that effectiveness is what really matters. I have always been a little bit scruffy and undisciplined, but my effectiveness buys me a lot of forgiveness.

Be honest. Encourage others. Listen intently when someone is talking.

Know that I love you.

– Poobah

Bryan Clayton uses a proprietary app to match homeowners who need lawn care with small businesses – many of them solo operators – that provide those services. He has more than 55,000 entrepreneurs serving more than half a million customers. Bryan began mowing lawns in high school and never quit. Today, he runs a $30 million company that brings buyers and sellers together. “There are opportunities aplenty,” Bryan tells roving reporter Rotbart, “to leverage technology in service-sector companies.” Want to make some money? Go now to MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

“Telling the truth more powerfully than is completely accurate” is to think and speak of a future event as though it has already happened. Some people call this “manifesting,” but I am uncomfortable with that word because it conjures the image of a person literally speaking things into existence, an ability that I believe is God’s alone.

Yes, I am of that ancient belief that the Big Bang began when God said, “Let there be…”

Although I reject the idea of “manifesting,” I do believe in visioncasting, which I define as the encouragement of others by speaking of a possible future as though it is certain to happen.

When a person needs courage and confidence, give them yours. Tell them of the future that you see for them.I meet every Friday for a luxurious lunch with 5 friends, most of whom are over 60. Recently, after 3 hours of conversation around a large, circular table, we fell into a silence as each one of us took a sip of wine, or contemplated what had just been said, or looked at the menu for additional things to order. I looked up when I heard a voice say, “Who put it into your head that you could do the things you’ve done?”

The friend who had spoken was looking directly at me. Reading the confusion in my eyes, he began to list a number of things that I take completely for granted. Remembering that his question had been, “Who put it into your head?” I told him the truth: “My Mother.”

I was suddenly looking into 5 surprised pairs of eyes, and I was surprised that they were surprised.

The awkward silence that followed made me realize they were waiting for me to continue, so I said, “Whenever I told my mother that I couldn’t do something, she would always say, ‘Of course you can.’ And then I would do it. I can’t remember her ever saying, ‘Well, just do your best,’ and she never once did something for me that she believed I could do for myself. She would just look at me patiently and say with complete conviction, ‘Of course you can.'”

My friends kept staring at me in silence. I wasn’t sure what was happening. Finally, the friend who had asked the question looked into my eyes and said, “What a gift!” The others began nodding their heads as they repeated, “What a gift.”

I had the good sense to shut up and listen.For the next half hour, I listened as each one of them told stories of their childhood that made me understand their admiration for my Mother.

Those thirty minutes connected a lifetime of dots for me. Throughout my adult life, I have been embarrassed by people who have asked me questions about my supposed courage, or audacity, or vision, of some other such fiddle-faddle. I was never sure how to respond to those people because I know for certain that I do not possess those qualities.

I have somehow successfully coasted through more than 65 years of life without a college education, happily married to the girl I have loved since I was 14 years old, because the two most important women in my life believe that while failure is inevitable, it is also a temporary condition, and in the end we will succeed, because, “Of course we can.”

Please listen to what I am about to tell you.Give the gift of courage and confidence to the people you love. Tell them what you believe about them. Tell them what you see when you look into their future. The sentences you speak to them should begin with the words, “You are…” and “You will…”

They will see what you see, when you speak it.

Your words will change their thoughts and actions.

And they will live to see it happen.

Roy H. Williams

View Details

Two-letter postal abbreviations don’t have periods after the letters, so when I titled today’s Monday Morning Memo, “Reno is West of L.A.” I was not using L.A. as the postal abbreviation for Louisiana.

Carson City – the capitol of Nevada – is likewise west of Los Angeles, as are 5 other state capitols. Juneau, Honolulu, Sacramento, Salem, and Olympia are the capitols of Alaska, Hawaii, California, Oregon, and Washington. West, west, west, west, and west of L.A.

Google it. Or Bing it. Or Yahoo it. However you like to do it.

Reno is located at 119°49′ West.

Los Angeles is 118°14′ West.

Reno is 86 miles west of Los Angeles.

The coordinates of a city give you its precise location, just like the chapter and verse numbers of books in the Bible.Psalm 119:49 – the Reno Psalm – says,

“Remember your word to your servant, for you have given me hope.”

Reno was founded by Charles William Fuller, who built a bridge across the Truckee river so that settlers would not lose hope.

Psalm 118:14 – the L.A. Psalm – says,

“The LORD is my strength and my defense; he has become my salvation.”

Los Angeles was named “The Angels” in 1769 by Father Juan Crespi, a Franciscan priest who celebrated in his journal the discovery of a “beautiful river from the northwest.” A source of water that saved his thirsty band of travelers.

You will remember that I mentioned Louisiana in my opening sentence.New Orleans is at 90°07′ West.

Psalm 90:7 – the New Orleans Psalm – says,

“We are consumed by your anger and terrified by your indignation.”

The French Quarter of New Orleans is 90.°06′ West.

Psalm 90:6 – the French Quarter Psalm –says,

“In the morning it springs up new, but by evening it is dry and withered.”

Does the longitude and/or latitude of a city unlock a secret message from God to that city?No. Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous. Have you lost your mind?

But let’s pretend that it does.

The latitude for my hometown of Broken Arrow, Oklahoma – which, prior to 1907 was “Indian Territory” – is 36.°06′ N.

Psalm 36:6 – the Broken Arrow Psalm – says,

“Your righteousness is like the highest mountains, your justice like the great deep. You, Lord, preserve both people and animals.”

We create imaginary worlds when we pretend, but even imaginary worlds have to have rules. This truth is known to every author of Science Fiction, to every author of Fantasy, and to every 6-year-old.We must now make up some additional rules because some of the Psalms don’t have enough verses to match the coordinates of certain cities. As an example: Chicago is at latitude 41°52′ North, and its longitude is 87°39′ West.

We’ll begin with longitude: Uh-oh, Psalm 87 doesn’t have a 39th verse.

Now let’s take a look at latitude: Uh-oh, Psalm 41 doesn’t have a 52nd verse.

But Genesis 41 does!

Genesis 41:52 – the Birth Verse of Chicago – says,

“The second son he named Ephraim and said, ‘It is because God has made me fruitful in the land of my suffering.’”

Chicago was incorporated in 1837, but it blossomed in an amazing second birth after the fire of 1871. Read it for yourself.

I went with “birth verse” because Genesis means “beginning.” And Chicago’s birth verse is actually about a second birth! How cool is that!

Admit it. You are a little bit curious to know the Psalm of your city, right? And if your city doesn’t have a Psalm, you’d still be curious for the Birth Verse of your city, the Proverb for your city, or the Prophecy for your city. Am I right?

It might sound like I’m trying to convince you to believe in this silliness about the intersection of city coordinates and Bible verses, but I promise I am not. My only goal is to demonstrate how easy it is to select facts that support your premise.And now you know everything you need to know about conspiracy theories, propaganda, social media, and the nightly news.

And advertising, of course.

Roy H. Williams

Sean Lemson has encountered a wide variety of leaders – good, bad, and toxic – over the course of his career, including stints at PayPal, Cisco, and Nike. According to Sean, toxic leaders are a special breed of “bad” because they are capable, often without realizing it, of chasing off the best employees and slowly killing their companies. On this week’s episode, deputy reporter Maxwell Rotbart asks Sean Lemson about the most common toxic leadership archetypes: how to spot them, how to avoid becoming one of them, and how to immunize a business against their poisonous effects. Is there any podcast more interesting and informative than MondayMorningRadio.com? Nay, good citizen, there is not.

View Details

You see a lot of crap during 40 years as an ad writer.You see big, steaming piles of predictable ads written by amateurs who assume the audience is required to listen.

You see frozen piles of heartless ads that speak to ideas rather than to people.

You see the scattered shrapnel of ads written by highly creative but trigger-happy typists who don’t understand the necessity of strategy.

Amateur ad writers believe in creativity. Accomplished ad writers believe in strategy.Good ad copy flows from strategy.

Strategy flows from whatever is in the pantry of the advertiser.

You must begin by prowling through that pantry. Take inventory of all the unused story elements you will find hiding there.

Bad strategy is usually the result of someone’s ego.A business owner wants to hire you. When you meet with that person, you realize that they want to be perceived in a certain way. They usually call this fantasy their “brand essence,” and if you do not indulge them in their fantasy, they will accuse you of not understanding their brand.

They want you to continue doing what they have done in the past, but make it work this time. If you disagree with their strategy, they will say, “You don’t understand who we are.”

You will say, “No, that is not who you are. That’s just who you want to be. But you don’t have the ingredients to bake that cake.”

This is always an unproductive argument, so when a business owner who wants to hire you says, “This is what I want you to do and this is how I want you to do it,” the best answer is to say, “It sounds to me like you’ve got things under control. Great idea! Follow your dream. God be with you. Stay in touch! Goodbye.”

If you employ the same strategy they have used in the past, it’s not going to work any better than it did in the past.

You will be tempted to do what your prospective client is asking you to do. “After all, it’s their company, right?”Your reason for thinking these thoughts will be that you need the money. But if you do what your prospective client tells you to do, this is what will happen:

1. Your ad campaign will underperform.
2. Your client will blame you.
3. You will be fired.
4. You will have a record of failure.
5. You will lose confidence in yourself.

Find your money elsewhere.

Before you accept a client, ask yourself, “Am I willing to give this person a place in my life?”Consider that question carefully, because your client will certainly occupy your thoughts. Will you look forward to speaking with them, or will you dread it?

Even the best clients will occasionally ask you to do something that you believe is a bad idea. This is when you will need to do the opposite of what I told you a moment ago. When you have accepted the job, you can no longer say, “It sounds to me like you’ve got things under control. Great idea. Follow your dream. God be with you. Stay in touch. Goodbye.”

You have given this client a place in your life. You have accepted the role of being their ad writer. You have an ongoing relationship. This is when you have to remember that they did not hire you to be CEO.

1. Tell them that you will definitely do what they say.
2. Then tell them why you think it is a bad idea.
3. When they have heard you, and understood you, and asked that you do it anyway, make it a point of honor to figure out how to make their bad idea work.
4. Take ownership of the idea. Put everything you have into it. Be proud that you were able to make it work.
5. When you have an ongoing relationship, you no longer have the option to say, “You’re on your own.”

Most ads are not written to persuade. They are written not to offend.The power of an ad can be measured by the strength of the backlash against it.

Backlash doesn’t mean the ad is good; it means only that the ad is powerful. Really bad ads will generate negative backlash.

But so will the really good ones.

This backlash can come from:

1. the client
2. employees, friends, or advisors of the client
3. a small but vocal group of people who have willfully misinterpreted your message so that they can jump onto their little soapbox and proclaim their favorite grievance with thunder and lightning and outrage.

Being offended makes people feel superior and important.

I am not saying that your goal should be to offend. I am saying only that you cannot say anything powerful without someone being offended.

Most ads are critiqued, questioned, altered, and watered down so that no one can possibly be offended. This is why most ads are limp and ineffective.

Which frightens you most: ads that don’t work, or criticism for ads that do?

Roy H. Williams

“A Martian colony is inevitable,” says Chris Carberry to roving reporter Rotbart and his deputy Maxell, “and there are ample opportunities right now for entrepreneurs and independent businesses to climb aboard.” Early next month, experts from government, industry, small business, and academia will come together in Washington, D.C., for a two-day summit focused on sending humans to Mars. This event, the largest such gathering on earth, is being organized by Carberry, the CEO and Co-Founder of Explore Mars, a nonprofit dedicated to fostering a permanent human presence on the Red Planet no later than 2033. The countdown to out-of-this-world adventure will begin the moment you arrive at MondayMorningRadio.com.

View Details

As you increase your words, you decrease their impact.Communicate your thoughts in short sentences. Those thoughts will be remembered, and you will, too.

Shorter hits harder.

I read a book by a man who is a deep thinker, a great strategist, and a good writer. His strengths are that he can identify, organize, and communicate key ideas.

But those ideas would hit harder if the man could write tighter.

Tight writers1. reject unnecessary modifiers.

1. reduce the word count.

2. prove what they say.

3. use active voice.

Modifiers:Adjectives and adverbs are fatty foods. They give energy to your story when used sparingly but cause your sentences to feel bloated, sluggish and fat if you overindulge. Adjectives are less dangerous like good cholesterol, and adverbs are more dangerous like bad cholesterol, but a steady diet of these modifiers will clog the arteries of your story and slow it down until your audience falls asleep.

Word count:Editing will reduce your word count, but it is hard to edit what is freshly written. Look at it the next day and your mistakes will become obvious to you. Rearrange, reduce, and eliminate elements until your story is woven tightly and shines brightly.

You can communicate twice as much by using half as many words.

Willie Shakespeare taught us, “Brevity is the soul of wit.”1

Blaise Pascal and Benjamin Franklin are remembered for their wit. This is why both of them apologized in writing when they took too long to say too little.

Blaise Pascal in his Lettres Provinciales of 1657, wrote, “The present letter is a very long one, simply because I had no leisure to make it shorter.”

Likewise, Benjamin Franklin concluded his 1750 Letter to the Royal Society in London by saying, “I have already made this paper too long, for which I must crave pardon, not having now time to make it shorter.”

Prove what you say:A rainbow of people across the internet report that Martin Luther, Mark Twain, and Cicero of Rome made statements similar to the statements made by Blaise Pascal and Benjamin Franklin, but none of those colorful people can offer meaningful documentation.

Martin Luther died in 1546. A biography of Luther published 300 years later – in 1846 –quotes Luther as having said he “didn’t have time to make it shorter,” but the biographer could cite no text left behind by Martin Luther to support that quote.

Mark Twain died in 1910. In 1975 an article that appeared in the Chicago Tribune attributed a version of the “didn’t have time to make it shorter” statement to Twain, but the journalist could offer no text, no chapter, no page number, no contemporaneous witness as proof.

The person claiming that Cicero said he “didn’t have time to make it shorter” cites a book of quotes published in 1824 as “proof” of what Cicero supposedly said 1,800 years before that book of quotes was published. Cicero left behind no writings that contain that quote.

“Do not believe what you read on the internet.” – Albert Einstein

Use active voice:Passive voice:

“The sword is carried by me,” is passive because the subject – “The sword” – is acted upon by the verb.

Active voice:

“I carry the sword,” is active because the subject – “I” – takes the action.

Sentences spoken in active voice command attention.

Sentences spoken in passive voice are easily ignored.

A child becomes an adult when they say, “I broke the cookie jar,” instead of, “The cookie jar got broken.”

Don’t speak like a child. Let the subject take the action in every sentence you speak and write.

Here’s an Example:Like the man I mentioned earlier, Matt Willis is a deep thinker, a great strategist, and a good writer. But unlike that man, Matt is also a good ad writer. Matt recently wrote a marvelous 575-word blog post. But so what? Lots of people can write good blog posts. But the writer who can reduce his word count by 84% and punch his message home in just 94 words… that, my friend, is an ad writer.

These are the 94 words.You can read them out loud in just 30 seconds.

Advertising agencies are the pythons of advertising. They measure you, size you up, and then eat you. You wanted to grow, so you hired the pythons. The pythons wanted to grow, too. So they measured your ad budget, convinced you to increase it, then took the biggest bite they could. The Wizards of Ads don’t bite. We work for a monthly salary. You increase it once per year by the same percentage your top-line grew. We triple your business. You triple our pay. Get out of the snake pit. Go to WizardOfAds.com

Roy H. Williams

1 spoken by Polonius, in act 2, scene 2 of Hamlet.

Scott Mautz ran several of Procter &Gamble’s multi-billion dollar businesses, so he is obviously an effective leader. Scott now hosts free leadership classes on LinkedIn that have attracted more than two million registrants. He teaches people to work out daily. But no sit-ups, pull-ups, bench presses, or squats. Scott believes in rigorous mental workouts to increase your boldness, fortify your fortitude, and build your decision-making muscles. He has developed 50 different “mental strength” exercises, so after just one session, Roving reporter Rotbart now has Schwarzenegger-style mental muscles. Ready for a workout? Go to MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

Kings and pirates both wear swords, but for different reasons.A king wears his sword as a symbol of the army he commands. A pirate wears his sword so that it will be at hand when he needs it.

Pirates have a high tolerance for risk because they have nothing to lose. Kings have a low tolerance for risk because they have everything to lose.

A pirate says, “No pain, no gain.” A king says, “No pain, no pain.”

A king is the establishment, the ultimate insider, the protector of the status quo. A pirate is an anti-establishment outsider looking for an opportunity.

I was 10 years old and my father was 30 when he took me with him to visit an important old man. After we left, I said, “He was really nice. I like him a lot.”

My Dad answered, “Yes, he is really nice, and I like him a lot, too. But old men like him always keep a sword in the closet.”

Confused, I asked, “What do you mean?”

Dad said, “If you crowd him, cross him, or attempt to ambush him, that nice old man is going to pull his sword from that closet and run it through your guts.”

It’s been more than 50 years since I met that old man, but I’ve never forgotten the encounter.

I know a lot of old pirates today who became kings just like that old man. With clenched teeth they built castles in their minds, then brought those castles into physical existence using their own hands to stack bricks they made by mixing their blood and sweat with the dirt they stood upon.

Pirates are the founders of empires, not the inheritors of them, and I am honored to count pirates among my friends.

Rich people raise their children to be kings. But poor boys like me raise their children to be pirates.When our sons were very young – perhaps 4 or 5 years old – I said to them, “Your mother and I will give you gifts on your birthday and at Christmas and at other times, but you can never ask for a gift. When you see a toy, you cannot ask us to buy it for you. You have to buy it yourself. And to make that possible, we will pay you as though you are adults so that you can afford to buy whatever you want. But you won’t get any money for cleaning your room or for any of the other things you do in our home. You will do those things because you are a member of this family. And I will never give you an allowance. But if you ever want to make some money, just tell me and I will drive you to the office and give you work to do.”

If you pay a child the wages of a child, it is impossible for them to ever buy anything for themselves or for the people they care about.

Our boys began their careers by gathering the trash from all the offices and then tossing it into the dumpster in the parking lot. This might take 20 minutes and earn them 20 dollars each, but now they had money of their own. If they wanted to make more money, they had to gather all the gum wrappers and cigarette butts and debris from the parking lot and put that in the dumpster as well. This might earn them another 15 or 20 dollars each.

If a 5-year-old child will push themselves to the realistic limits of a 5-year-old (which is usually 20 or 30 minutes) they should be able to make enough money to buy themselves the kinds of toys that all the other kids have.

When our sons wanted to buy something, they would ask Pennie and I to drive them to the store where we would watch them choose what they wanted, carry it to the cash register, pull their own money from their pocket, and then buy it.

By the time they were 9 or 10 they were puzzled to see their friends pick up something in a store and ask their parents, “Can I have this?” The idea of asking for something was foreign to them.

Pennie and I raised our boys to be pirates and my grandsons became pirates as well, making their first money as groundskeepers and later as construction workers under the watchful eye of Joe Davis, a pirate of the highest order. Those grandchildren are now 17 and 14, and the two younger ones, now 6 and 7, are learning to shout “Ahoy, Matey!” and “Land Ho!”

Study history and you will see that every kingdom was founded by a pirate – a conqueror – who became a king.And I can promise you that every one of those old kings went to his grave with a sword in his closet.

Roy H. Williams

* Privateers were not pirates. They were a group of bloodthirsty ambushers who worked for the government. Sort of like the Internal Revenue Service.

Steve Wunker, a master of innovation, says these Three Big Myths are holding most companies back.

Myth #1: A company needs to invent a better product or service to be “innovative.”

Myth #2: The hardest part of innovation is hitting on the “big idea.”

Myth #3: Innovation is the exclusive province of high-tech companies.

Wunker says every company, big and small, can innovate, but the real secret is to trailblaze, to go where no company in your category has ever gone before. Listen and learn as Steve Wunker tells roving reporter Rotbart Where to begin, How to begin, and Who should lead the effort. It’s Trailblazing Day at MondayMorningRadio.com!

View Details

Every time you make a declarative statement, you choose one of only 9 sentence structures.You have been doing this unconsciously for as long as you have been able to speak and write. Today I am going to teach you how to do it consciously.

Ten minutes from now, you will be able to speak and write with greater impact.

You must first choose a perspective. First person perspective is when you are speaking for yourself, or as the spokesperson for a group:

(I, me, my, mine, we, us, our, ours)

Second person perspective describes the experience of your reader, listener, or viewer individually or collectively:

(you, your, yours, yourself, yourselves)

Third person perspective is then you are speaking not of yourself, or of your audience, but of some other individual or group:

(he, she, him, her, they, them,)

After you have chosen a perspective,you must choose a verb tense that frames the action of your sentence

in the past (was), the present (am), or the future (will be.)

That much has been known and taught for decades if not centuries.

This next part is astoundingly useful and absolutely new, so if you quote it or teach it to someone else, be sure to spell my name right, okay? “Roy H. Williams”The Wizard of Ads® is now going to teach you:

(A) the specific voice of each of the 9 declarative sentences,

(B) how the addition of a status, a mood, or an emotion allows you to

determine the intention and the impact of your sentence before it has even been created.

First person, past tense, is the voice of personal MEMORY.“I was standing in the snow…”First person, present tense, is the voice of ANNOUNCEMENT.“I am standing in the snow…”First person, future tense, is the voice of PREDICTION.“I will be standing in the snow…”Second person, past tense, is the voice of WITNESS.“You were standing in the snow…”Second person, present tense, is the voice of reader/listener/viewer INVOLVEMENT or ENGAGEMENT.“You are standing in the snow…”Second person, future tense, is the voice of FORESEEING. (Fortune telling)“You will be standing in the snow.”Third person, past tense, is the voice of HISTORY.“They were standing in the snow…”Third person, present tense, is the voice of NEWS REPORTING.“They are standing in the snow…”Third person, future tense, is the voice of PROPHECY.“They will be standing in the snow.”REVIEW

1. First person, past tense, is the voice of personal MEMORY.
2. First person, present tense, is the voice of ANNOUNCEMENT.
3. First person, future tense, is the voice of PREDICTION.

The addition of a status, a mood, or an emotion allows you to

determine the intention and the impact of your sentence before it has even been created.

First person, past tense = MEMORY + humility = confession

“I was hoping to be finished in one hour, but I wasn’t able.”

First person, present tense = ANNOUNCEMENT + humility = vulnerability

“I am self-aware enough to know that I am more lucky than good.”

First person, future tense = PREDICTION + humility = management of expectations

“I will be concise to the best of my ability.”

First person, past tense = MEMORY + authority = declaration

“I was the highest scoring basketball player in Texas every year from 8th through 12th grade.”

First person, present tense = ANNOUNCEMENT + authority = proclamation (manifesto)

“I look across the landscape and see a nation that hungers to be united.”

First person, future tense = PREDICTION + authority = imperative command

“I expect your vote because you know I can do what needs to be done.”

First person, past tense = MEMORY + joy = reminiscing

“I have known the wonder of discovery and felt the electricity of success.”

First person, present tense = ANNOUNCEMENT + joy = celebration

“I dance on my housetop because the way is clear, and the work begins.”

First person, future tense = PREDICTION + joy = anticipation/invitation

“I will be pleased to announce the results of this race when it is over.”

First person, past tense = MEMORY + anger = rage or regret

“I have been exposed to things that cannot be unseen.”

First person, present tense = ANNOUNCEMENT + anger = a threat

“We are coming for you.”

First person, future tense = PREDICTION + anger = a curse

“We will celebrate your death by dancing around your tombstone.”

First person, past tense = MEMORY + desire = craving/mourning

“Our people were hungry for hope to appear.”

First person, present tense = ANNOUNCEMENT + desire = hope

“We look toward the sky for that first ray of light.”

First person, future tense = PREDICTION + desire = fantasy

“When it appears, we will see a rainbow of hope glitter across the earth.”

First person, past tense = MEMORY + disdain = nightmare

“We were lied to, and we believed it.”

First person, present tense = ANNOUNCEMENT + disdain = contempt

“We hear your words, and we hate them.”

First person, future tense = PREDICTION + disdain = dismissal

“We will see you walk over the horizon and vanish forever.”

REVIEW

1. Second person, past tense, is the voice of WITNESS.
2. Second person, present tense, is the voice of ENGAGEMENT.
3. Second person, future tense, is the voice of FORESEEING (fortune telling)

The addition of a status, a mood, or an emotion allows you to

determine the intention and the impact of your sentence before it has even been created.

2nd person, past tense = WITNESS + humility = recall

“You were the prettiest girl in our school.”

2nd person, present tense ENGAGEMENT + humility = truthspeaking

“You walk into a room, and everyone sees you.”

2nd person, future tense = FORESEEING + humility = advising/cautioning

“You will find it hard to separate those who love you from those who merely want you.”

2nd person, past tense = WITNESS + authority = compliment/reprimand

“You have done what I have never seen done before.”

2nd person, present tense = ENGAGEMENT + authority = instruction

“Your fingers on the clay are a little too anxious.”

2nd person, future tense = FORESEEING + authority = command

“You will practice and become a great potter.”

2nd person, past tense = WITNESS + joy = reminding/reframing

“You have been a student unlike any other.”

2nd person, present tense = ENGAGEMENT + joy = praise

“You are a wonder to behold.”

2nd person, future tense = FORESEEING + joy = encouragement

“You will create things that have never been imagined.”

2nd person, past tense = WITNESS + anger = denouncement

“You came among us with false intentions.”

2nd person, present tense = ENGAGEMENT + anger = rebuke

“You tell us lies, take our money, and smile.”

2nd person, future tense = FORESEEING + anger = denunciation

“You will be spoken of as the killer of dreams for 100 generations.”

2nd person, past tense = WITNESS + desire = admiration

“You have always been stunning.”

2nd person, present tense = ENGAGEMENT + desire = captivation

“You appear and I can see nothing else.”

2nd person, future tense = FORESEEING + desire = visualization

“You will fall in love with me, and we will both be happy.”

2nd person, past tense = WITNESS + disdain = reprimand

“You were lazy and refused to do the work.”

2nd person, present tense = ENGAGEMENT + disdain = rejection

“You are a waste of my time.”

2nd person, future tense = FORESEEING + disdain = mockery

“You will spend your life pretending you are an unrecognized genius, but you and I both know better.”

REVIEW

1. Third person, past tense, is the voice of HISTORY.
2. Third person, present tense, is the voice of NEWS REPORTING.
3. Third person, future tense, is the voice of group PROPHECY.

The addition of a status, a mood, or an emotion allows you to

determine the intention and the impact of your sentence before it has even been created.

Third person, past tense = HISTORY + humility = information

“They landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620, fifteen years after Cervantes wrote Don Quixote.”

Third person, present tense = NEWS REPORTING + humility = hesitation

“Their arrival is not so important as we once believed.”

Third person, future tense = PROPHECY + humility = anticipation

“They will continue to find evidence of settlers who came to North America 1,000 years before the Mayflower arrived.”

Third person, past tense = HISTORY + authority = documentation

“They have written in the journal Nature of a new kind of radiocarbon calibration based on spikes in solar radiation that has proven a Viking ship landed in America between 990 and 1050 A.D.”

Third person, present tense = NEWS REPORTING + authority = evaluation

“He, Neil Price, writing for National Georgraphic, speaks of hard evidence indicating the time of the Viking arrival.”

Third person, future tense = PROPHECY + authority = detailed prediction

“Their archeological discoveries will continue to diminish the historical importance of the arrival of the Mayflower.”

Third person, past tense = HISTORY + joy = description of glory days

“They sailed with courage and resourcefulness toward lands unknown.”

Third person, present tense = NEWS REPORTING + joy = acceleration

“They are an inspiration to entrepreneurs around the world.”

Third person, future tense = PROPHECY + joy = elevation

“They will forever be remembered for their vision and their courage.”

Third person, past tense = HISTORY + anger = criticism

“Those politicians have minimized the discovery of Vikings in America to protect the cultural myth of the importance of the Mayflower Compact.”

Third person, present tense = NEWS REPORTING + anger = condemnation

“They fraudulently argue that the Mayflower Compact is proof of America being founded as a Christian nation because it says, “Having undertaken for the Glory of God and advancement of the Christian Faith and Honour of our King and Country…”

Third person, future tense = PROPHECY + anger = judgment

“They will replace my words with the traditions of men and refuse to believe I meant it when I said, ‘My kingdom is not of this world.'”

Third person, past tense = HISTORY + desire = wanting yesterday

“He looked behind him and saw the past and hungered for it.”

Third person, present tense = NEWS REPORTING + desire = wishful thinking

“He sees the signs of the times and eagerly awaits the future.”

Third person, future tense = PROPHECY + desire = statement of hope

“He will see the future unfold and celebrate its arrival.”

Third person, past tense = HISTORY + disdain = judgement of wrongdoing

“She remembered and felt her anger burn.”

Third person, present tense = NEWS REPORTING + disdain = disgust

“She watches and feels her heart sink as the bile rises in her throat.”

Third person, future tense = PROPHECY + disdain = sentencing the criminal

“She will see the day when he pays the price and the sun shines bright again.”

Each of the 9 declarative sentence structures has a voice that whispers a single idea, 9 ideas in all. The addition of a status, a mood, or an emotion allows you to determine the intention and the impact of your sentence before it has even been created.

I think of this as the algebra of language, and I am fascinated by it.

Knowing these things will allow you to more easily create sentences that communicate what is in your heart and on your mind.

Roy H. Williams

For the past 30 years, Fredrick Dudek – also known as “Freddy D.” – has been studying companies that have enthusiastic fans, the kinds we normally associate with sports teams. Interestingly, these companies always seem to have employees that like to win. Listen and learn as “Freddy D.” shares tips from his time-test business playbook with roving reporter Rotbart. The game is about to begin at MondayMorningRadio.com.

View Details

The tectonic plates of America are shifting beneath our feet. Can you feel the tremors?I’m not talking about the foundations of our continent. I’m talking about the foundations our nation.

Our continent is rock, soil, and water; mountains and prairies and oceans white with foam.

Our nation is a people; a family that we love.

And if I might continue quoting Kate Smith for a moment, we would be wise to ask God to, “stand beside her and guide her through the night with the light from above.”

We feel the tremors of our unsteady family – our nation – not in our soles, but in our souls.I felt the tremors of the waning “Me” generation shift into the groupthink perspective of the “We” in 2003. To read my nascent ramblings about it, just go to MondayMorningMemo.com and type “1963 All Over Again” into the website search block. This will take you to my MondayMorningMemo for December 15, 2003.

These are the important paragraphs:

“AOL and Google.com are the Kerouac and Salinger of the new generation that will soon pry the torch from the hands of Boomers reluctant to let it go. Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley have become Tupac Shakur and Eminem, and the Baby Boomers’ reaction to them is much like their own parents’ reaction to Chuck and Elvis. But instead of saying, ‘Take a bath, cut your hair and get a job,’ we’re saying, ‘Pull those pants up, spin that cap around and wash your mouth out with soap.’

“At the peak of the Baby Boom there were 74 million teenagers in America and radio carried a generation on its shoulders. Today there are 72 million teenagers that are about to take over the world. Do you understand what fuels their passions? Can you see the technological bonds that bind them?”

“Baby Boomer heroes were always bigger than life, perfect icons, brash and beautiful: Muhammad Ali… Elvis… James Bond. But the emerging generation holds a different view of what makes a hero.”

The only hard choice in life is the choice between two good things.Freedom and Responsibility are both good things. But like all dualities, they oppose each other. The more you have of one, the less you have of the other.

All responsibility with no freedom makes you a slave. All freedom with no responsibility makes you a self-absorbed hedonist and an asshole.

But I promised to tell you how to keep your balance during this earthquake, didn’t I?Here’s how to do it: remind yourself that different people perceive the world differently. They notice different things. They value different things. They live in their own private reality, and you live in yours.

You are acutely aware of what you see that they do not, and you want to open their eyes.

They are acutely aware of what they see that you do not, and they want to open your eyes.

Both of you feel you are being attacked.I have a question for you: do the two of you have the courage to shut up and listen? Really listen? Can you muster enough courtesy and grace and self-restraint to share why you value what you value without disparaging or attacking what they value and why they value it?

If both of you can do this, you will find your balance and quit hating each other.

The birds will start singing, the flowers will bloom, a rainbow will appear, and everyone will laugh in joyous relief that the ugliness is finally over.

As I look back on the events that have marked the previous 37 zeniths of the “We” generation that have occurred during the past 2,960 years (937 BC,) I realize that no one is likely to do this.

But I thought I would give it a shot.

Roy H. Williams

50,000 new restaurants open in the United States each year, and most of them are out-of-business a few years later. David Page can tell you why they close, how they could have avoided it, and how you can profit from this knowledge regardless of the business you are in. David is a two-time Emmy winner and the creator of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives on the Food Network, as well as an expert on American entrepreneurship, culture, and cuisine. Join us at the table as roving reporter Rotbart and David Page share a feast of ideas, explanations, and secrets for small business owners at MondayMorningRadio.com. Bon Appétit!

View Details

My reputation is built largely on the fact that I cheat.I openly admit my cheating, but no one cares, because the way that I cheat is not unethical, immoral, or illegal.

I realized in 2017 that Warren Buffet and I do exactly the same thing. Here is how he describes it:

“Ted Williams wrote a book called The Science of Hitting and in it he had a picture of himself at bat and the strike zone broken into, I think, 77 squares. And he said if he waited for the pitch that was really in his sweet spot he would bat .400 and if he had to swing at something on the lower corner he would probably bat .235. And in investing I’m in a ‘no called strike’ business which is the best business you can be in. I can look at a thousand different companies and I don’t have to be right on every one of them, or even fifty of them. So I can pick the ball I want to hit. And the trick in investing is just to sit there and watch pitch after pitch go by and wait for the one right in your sweet spot. And if people are yelling, ‘Swing, you bum,’ ignore ’em. There’s a temptation for people to act far too frequently in stocks simply because they’re so liquid. Over the years you develop a lot of filters. But I do know what I call my ‘circle of competence’ so I stay within that circle and I don’t worry about things that are outside that circle. Defining what your game is – where you’re going to have an edge – is enormously important.”

These have been my filters for the past 35 years:1. Do I believe in the business owner? And do I like them enough to give them a place in my life? 2. Has their company been flat, or declining, for the past 3 years? 3. Do I see a clear path to grow them a minimum of 4x in 4 years or less? 4. If we focus 80% of their ad budget on a single media, will that number of dollars allow us to reach enough people with enough repetition to see significant growth in the second half of the first year?

These are the reasons behind those questions:1. If the business owner is incompetent, I cannot help them. If I do not like them, I do not want to help them. (Yes, I am tragically self-accommodating.) 2. If the business owner has not been flat or down for at least 3 years, they won’t be willing to make the changes I need them to make. 3. If they have no potential for massive growth, there is no potential for me to make massive money. 4. When buying mass media, it takes more money to reach 20 percent of a large city than it does to reach 20 percent of a small one. Is the ad budget big enough to give us a fighting chance?

A business owner and his son spent a day with us in Austin last week. I like both of them and they are obviously good at everything except lead generation. They live in a large city and have been receiving horrifically bad marketing advice for the past 20 years.

They are doing $2 million/year in a town where $30 million would have been easily accomplished if they had started doing the right things just 9 or 10 years ago.

I am now going to share with you a formula that I trust, even though I have never tried to disprove it. (A real scientist would have tried to disprove his hypothesis. I am not a real scientist.)

I have observed this pattern for many years:1. Anything that works quickly will work less and less well the longer you keep doing it. 2. Things that work better and better the longer you keep doing them always perform poorly in the early months. 3. When you have discovered their untold story, and created a strategy that will work, and launched the right message to their city, the dollar growth you see in Year One will allow you to project with some accuracy the growth of that company for the next two years. 4. At the end of 36 months, you will know if your business owner is tall enough to ride this ride.

This is the math I used when I agreed to help this father and son:1. 80 percent of their $250,000 ad budget will allow me to reach at least 300,000 people (and possibly as many as 500,000 people) at least 3 times a week, 52 weeks in a row. That means the average listener will have heard their ad 156 times by the end of 12 months. 2. That much repetition among that many people should allow us to grow $1,000,000 in Year One. (Notice that I am tracking dollar growth, NOT percentage growth. If you track percentages, this formula falls apart.) 3. When you know how many DOLLARS your new message has added in Year One, you can count on 2x that many new dollars in Year Two, and 3x that many new dollars in Year Three. Because the longer you keep doing the right thing, the better it works. 4. 1x + 2x + 3x = 6x by the end of Year Three. If 1x is $1,000,000, then we should be able to finish Year Three with a sales volume of $8,000,000 if the business owner is able to maintain their close rate and there are no major disruptions to the economy or to the business category. 5. By growing the business 4x, I will be paid 4x as much money each month for writing their ads. They grow; I grow in lockstep.

That’s how I cheat. I wait, and wait, and wait for a pitch that is in my personal sweet spot, because in the game of ad writing, you are never required to swing at a pitch you don’t like.Have a great week.

Ciao for Niao,

Roy H. Williams

Dr. Hanah Polotsky is an expert in treating diabetes, thyroid disorders, and hormonal abnormalities. She also excels at showing executives — both in and outside the medical field — how to run teams and apply the tenets of lean management. Her observation is that in virtually every field of endeavor, administrators are unprepared to provide the leadership expected of them. This week, Dr. Polotsky shares with deputy reporter Maxwell Rotbart her prescription for curing the most common supervisory ailments. Listen now, and you’ll start to feel better, and perform better, immediately. MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

In the Monday Morning Memo for Oct. 10, 2022, I wrote,

“Do you want to be one of the world’s great ad writers? Don’t read ads. Read the poems, short stories and novels written by the winners of the Pulitzer and Nobel prizes in Literature.”

My friend Tom Grimes – the waterboy of Amarillo – texted me this insightful correction:

“I’ve heard you teach in class that magicians, stand-up comedians and the creators of comic strips always structure their storytelling in that same tight economy of words used by the world’s great poets. ‘And then what happened, and then what happened, and then what happened…'”

I stand corrected. Thank you, Tom.

Yes, comedians, magicians, and the creators of comics are three different types of writers who know how to capture and hold our attention, just as the world’s great poets have done for centuries. These writers show us possible futures, imaginary pasts, or an exaggerated present; realities that exist entirely in our imaginations.

And they do it in a brief, tight, economy of words.

Likewise, the best ad writers take us on journeys that begin and end quickly, but leave us altered, changed, modified, different.

I don’t list AI in my pantheon of persuasive writers for the same reason that I don’t list the makers of movies.Great movies are created from great plays and great books. Even Disney’s animated cartoon adventuresbegin with great stories.

Stories are written by writers.

The actors, directors, and illustrators who portray those stories are called artists and they are assisted by technicians. Artists and technicians don’t write the stories; they adapt stories to fit a format and then show them to us.

AI is not a writer. AI is an artist and a technician.Dune was written by Frank Herbert 59 years ago and has sold nearly 20 million copies worldwide. Artists and technicians adapted it into a 1984 film, a 2000 television miniseries, and then a major motion picture in 2021 with a sequel that was released in theaters just last week.

The Lord of the Rings was written by Tolkien and adapted by artists and technicians.

The Godfather was written by Puzo and adapted by artists and technicians.

Harry Potter was written by Rowling and adapted by artists and technicians.

Charles Schultz, Bill Watterson, Neil Gaiman, Stan Lee, Scott McCloud and Tom Fishburne are writers who tell stories in comic panels.

Robin Williams, Chris Rock, Eddie Murphy, Richard Pryor, Ellen DeGeneres and Dave Chappelle are writers who tell stories in short bursts while standing behind a microphone.

Penn and Teller, Siegried and Roy, David Blaine, Brian Brushwood, David Copperfield and Nate Staniforth are writers who stand on stage and tell stories while proving that you cannot believe your eyes or trust your logical mind.

Ian Fleming, Cormac McCarthy, Stephen King, Truman Capote, and Elmore Leonard are writers who tell stories using only words.

Artists and technicians adapt their stories for stage, film, and video.

Shakespeare wrote 38 stories that artists and technicians have adapted for the past 450 years. The artists who gave faces and voices to Shakespeare’s characters include Judi Dench, Patrick Stewart, Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Kenneth Branagh, David Tarrant, Derek Jacobi and Peter O’Toole.

We have writers. We have artists. We have technicians.Can one person be all three?

Certainly. George Lucas did it 50 years ago on the big screen. Rex Williams, Brian Brushwood, and 1,000 others are doing it today on YouTube.

AI is not a writer.

AI is an artist. AI is a technician.AI works its magic through aggregation and compilation.

These are not the same as creation.

Roy H. Williams

NOTE FROM INDY – Did you notice that Tom Grimes did a near-perfect imitation of Mr. Haney from Green Acres? Pop into the rabbit hole and I’ll play you a short compilation of Mr. Haney outtakes.

When David faced Goliath, he wasn’t playing games. But when Bob Moog faced Hasbro and Mattel, his games and puzzles were all that he had. Bob has gone nose-to-nose with the world’s biggest players and found a way to beat each of them at their own game (pun intended). In this fun, fun, fun episode of Monday Morning Radio, Bob Moog, the co-founder and president of University Games plays “20 Business Questions” with roving reporter Rotbart and his son Maxwell. Hey! Let’s all play a game! Maxwell needs a nickname. What will it be? Listen to this episode and then send your suggestion to corrine@wizardofads.com and she’ll compile a list. Are you ready? The game is about to begin at MondayMorningRadio.com.

View Details

There are two ways to become invisible, and both are easily accomplished.1. To become invisible to yourself: get lost inside your own head. When you ignore other people, it never occurs to you that they can see you. This is how you become invisible in your mind. 2. To become invisible to others: say what people expected you to say; do what they expected you to do. This will blur you into the background and make you invisible. To make people see you again, all you have to do is say something new, surprising, or different.

These techniques also work in advertising.1. If you get lost inside your own head, your ads will focus on your company, your product, and your service. You will ignore the things your customer cares about, and speak only about what they ought to care about, what they should care about, what you want them to care about. You will answer all the questions that no one was asking. You will be visible to yourself, but invisible to others. When your ads talk to you, about you, for you, no one other than you is interested. 2. When you say what people expected you to say, they quit listening. Ads that sound like ads are filtered from conscious thought. The mind is constantly scanning for the new, the surprising, and the different, and for pain, pleasure, urgent necessities, and entertainment. If your ads look like ads and sound like ads, you can be certain they will be invisible.

Bad advertising is about you, your company, your product, your service. Good advertising is about the customer, and how their life will be altered if they allow you to come into it.

Talk to your customers about them, not you.If you want to talk about you, find an old pay phone and drop a quarter into it. Call your mother. She’s the only one who cares.

I slapped you just now because you are delirious, and you need to wake up. My slap may have stung a little, but it was an act of love.

Five paragraphs ago I said, “The mind is constantly scanning for the new, the surprising, and the different, and for pain, pleasure, urgent necessities, and entertainment,” because these are the things that interest us.

1. The New is always interesting because it might be relevant to us. When we have judged it to be irrelevant, it disappears.
2. The Surprising is interesting, but only until it is no longer surprising. A magician knows that every surprise must be followed by another surprise, or they will lose the attention of their audience.
3. The Different is interesting because it might be an improvement. But if we conclude it is not an improvement, we dismiss it.
4. Pain is interesting because we want to avoid it. When your ads speak to pain, you become associated with pain, and the minds of your customers will recoil away from you. If you want to test this theory, just kick your dog every time you see it.
5. Pleasure is interesting, always. But if your statements about pleasure are not judged to be credible, your listener will feel they are being manipulated and you will be viewed as a seducer, a con-man, and a snake.
6. Urgent necessities are interesting because we need them, and we need them now. This is why so many advertisers spend copious amounts on Google ads. The problem with this strategy is that all your competitors are doing the same. This results in a high cost per click and a low rate of conversion.
7. Entertainment is interesting because it allows us to escape into the lives of interesting characters. When you are watching a football game, the mirror neurons in your brain allow you to be part of the game as you live vicariously through the actions of others. The same is true of TV shows, movies, well-written novels, and interesting ads.

Win the heart and the mind will follow. But please don’t be so foolish as to believe that people bond with soulless corporations.

Personalities bond with personalities.Does your company have a personality? Does the public understand how and why your company came into existence? Do they understand the forces that shaped and formed your company to become what it is today? Do they know what you believe and why you believe it? Do they understand what your company stands against, and what you are trying to eliminate? Do they understand your quirks and eccentricities, and do they know what caused them?

When the public knows these things about you, they talk about you because they find you interesting. They no longer type their urgent need into the Google search window. They type your name instead.

Cheap click. High conversion rate.When your company has a personality, it becomes a character with which your customer can bond. People read, watch, and listen to your ads when your ads are interesting and entertaining.

Then, when they need what you sell, yours is the first name that comes to mind, and the name they feel the best about.

When you want to win the hearts of the public, give them ads that feature colorful and interesting characters. People intuitively understand the motivations of characters. This is how they will know what your company believes, why you believe it, and what makes you do the things you do.

You can advertise in the way that I just described to you, or you can do what everyone else has always done, and hope that it works out better for you than it did for them.Again, I slap you only because I care.

Roy H. Williams

When two historians start talking, the conversation can skip across centuries like two little girls playing hopscotch. On this week’s episode of Monday Morning Radio, historian Maxwell Rotbart talks with historian Ron Shafer about how the future is looking a lot like the past. If Rod Serling were alive, he would say, “Consider if you will, two historians who looked into the Mirror of Time [pause] and saw the Future.” Or perhaps one of those little girls playing hopscotch will someday grow up to be Snow White, and Lucille La Verne is the evil queen looking into that mirror in 1937. You’ve seen the movie. Say it with me, “Mirror, mirror, on the wall…” [pause, followed by four notes stair-stepping downward in a minor key] MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

[The wizard has been writing twice a month for Radio Ink magazine for more than a quarter century. The column you are about to read will be distributed to every radio station in North America – more than 10,000 of them – when it is published in a few weeks. – Indy Beagle]

Traditional wisdom would suggest that a writer offering advice to Radio professionals should focus on how to use Radio more effectively.But traditional wisdom is usually more tradition than wisdom.

True wisdom is to know how every form of advertising works, not just the media you are trying to sell. When you can identify and communicate the markers of success in every type of advertising, you become a well-spring of insight, wisdom, and advice; a sustaining resource as refreshing as cold water on a hot day.

The things I am about to share with you are not focused on radio because they are not limited to radio. You have observed these things all your life; you just never took the time to organize your observations.

Your mind will whisper “Eureka” within the next few minutes. Listen for it.

When you are speaking face-to-face, voice-to-voice, in writing, or through the medium of advertising, there can be no communication until you have won the attention of your audience. To win attention, you must deliver a magnetic First Mental Image (FMI.)There are three ways of delivering your FMI:

1. When your FMI is delivered by voice, it is called an opening line.
2. The bright light of vivid verbs project action onto the movie screen of the mind.
3. When your FMI is delivered in printed words, it is called a headline, a title, or a subject line. You will need a second FMI for the opening line of your first paragraph. Vivid verbs are again the key. Verbs become vivid when they are accurate, but unexpected. Predictability is not your friend.
4. Photographs, drawings, illustrations, and video clips win attention when the viewer enters into the world of that visual image to become a momentary participant in the scene.

Face-to-face, voice-to-voice, in writing, or through advertising, there can be no communication until you have won the attention of your audience.

Amateur ad writers will try to shock the audience. But it is much more effective to intrigue the audience by using one of the following five methods.The most straightforward methods are these two:

1. A simple declarative statement: “70% of people over 50 have sore knees.”
2. A customer testimonial: “My knee pain went away when I put these insoles in my shoes.

The next three techniques employ what I call “The Hovering Question Mark,” since they are designed to trigger curiosity by delivering an incomplete message.

1. A question aimed at the reader, listener, or viewer: “Do you have sore knees?”
2. An incomplete sentence: “I first noticed my knees was sore when…”
3. A metaphor that begs for context: “I had a headache behind my kneecap.”

Any of these 5 techniques can be used to get attention, but you’re still a long way from making the sale. Your baseball bat has merely contacted the ball.Amateur ad writers – having made contact – will immediately switch into “AdSpeak,” that predictable, despicable language of bone-breakingly-boring ads. This is called clickbait when it’s done online. It’s called a rookie maneuver when it’s done in any other media. When it’s truly pathetic, it’s called a clown show.

Amateur ad writers move from attention-getting into AdSpeak because they believe their job is merely to deliver information about the product. But information will take you only to 1st base, and there are 4 bases you must touch before you score.

1. Information

2. Engagement

3. Enlightenment

4. Transformation

Getting the momentary Attention of an audience and delivering a piece of Information is relatively easy. Holding their attention is more difficult (Engagement). We must provide a new perspective if we hope to cause a listener to think and feel differently (Enlightenment). Only then will they be changed (Transformation).

Getting attention is not enough. Delivering Information is not enough. You must Engage the listener, bring them Enlightenment, and see them Transformed from listener into customer.

You must cause the undecided to decide, the unbeliever to believe, and the blind to see.And you must do it in 60 seconds.

Or maybe 30.

Welcome to Radio.

Roy H. Williams

Most people fail to say their own name correctly. Odd as that may sound, Laura Sicola explains her assertion in a YouTube video that is approaching 7 million views. Dr. Sicola earned her PhD in educational linguistics and has two decades of experience teaching good vocal habits to executives at companies including Comcast, IBM, and Vanguard. As she explains to roving reporter Rotbart, how you introduce yourself determines how effectively you will convey the messages that follow.This is true whether you are speaking to a room from a podium or meeting a person one-on-one for the first time. How well do you articulate your name? Say it, say it, say it: MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

There is a mysterious camera in your brain that will click and capture a poignant scene from time to time. You know what I’m talking about: random moments that you can vividly recall, but you’re not sure why.

My awareness of that camera has been heightened and brightened in recent days as I feel a chapter of my life coming to an end and a new chapter about to begin.

I’ve sure you have felt what I’m talking about.

Phil Johnson explained these uneasy times of transition 40 years ago when I was in the middle of one. He said, “Roy, you’re in an elevator and the door is closed and that’s always an unsettling time. You’re not sure whether the elevator is taking you up to a higher floor, or down to a lower one. You know only that when that elevator door opens, everything is going to be different.”

Click went the camera in my brain.

Then he looked encouragement into my eyes as he said, “Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.” As we began walking toward our cars, he finished by saying, “Marcus Aurelius wrote that note to us 175 years after Jesus was born.”

Click

Phil Johnson passed away in 2019, just 5 days before his 97th birthday. You will find the last words he spoke to me emblazoned across the 12-foot-high bookcases that hold the thousands of books he left to me in his will. “You acquire an education by study, hard work and persistence. But you absorb culture by viewing great art, listening to great music and reading great books.”

The moment that heightened and brightened my awareness of the elevator I’m in was a 521-word text sent to me by Pennie’s sister, Pam. That text contained the complete lyrics of Billy Joel’s song, “We Didn’t Start the Fire.” Nothing else.

If you have been reading these Monday Morning Memos for any length of time during the 29 years and 9 months that I’ve been writing them, you won’t be at all surprised that Indy Beagle and I sprang into hot pursuit of the liquid-fast rabbit that leaped out from Pam’s mysterious text.

To those of you who are new to rabbit chasing, the objective is not to catch the rabbit, but only to let it lead you to places you might never have otherwise discovered. Uptight people will say that Indy and I are wasting time. But those people will never meet Calvin and Hobbes.

When Indy and I lost sight of the liquid-fast rabbit, an unsettled teenager said to Billy Joel, “It’s crazy to be my age. You didn’t have this kind of stuff going on when you were growing up. Nothing really happened back then.”

Billy went home that day and listed more than 100 major worldwide events that occurred between the day of this birth in May, 1949, and the day of that teenager’s visit in 1989. “We Didn’t Start the Fire” was a birthday gift Billy Joel gave to himself on his 40th birthday in 1989.

If you click the image of Indy Beagle at the top of this page, you will be transported to a secret page featuring two different YouTube videos of “We Didn’t Start the Fire.” Each of those videos will show you the more-than-100 different people and events that Billy Joel is singing about 35 years ago.

And now you know why we call those hidden pages, “The Rabbit Hole.”

Indy said to tell you “Aroo.”

I’ll tell him you said “Aroo,” too.

Roy H. Williams

Seven-hundred-thousand Americans per year submit a trademark application, but Andre Mincov says that number is far less than it should be. Prior to beginning his global consultancy specializing in trademarks, Andre worked at a law firm helping companies like Apple, Microsoft, Sun, and Dell file and defend their trademarks. Today Andre rescues small and mid-size companies that failed to file formal trademarks, or that forgot to file them for all their brands. Listen and learn as Andre explains the most common trademark pitfalls and how to avoid them. Where else but MondayMorningRadio.com?

View Details

Every company has Untold Story assets that are hiding in plain sight, and every company has Limiting Factors that are holding them back.This is how you lift a company to new heights:

1. Uncover the Untold Stories.

2. Devise a plan to overcome the Limiting Factors.

Untold Stories and Limiting Factors are not always related.

Limiting Factors usually stem from

(A.) Company Culture (the vibe of the hive)

(B.) Competitive Environment (strengths of opponents and adversaries)

Untold Stories always begin at the intersection of Who and Why.

(A.) Who pulled the trigger? (Origin Story)

(B.) Why did that trigger exist? (Character Diamond)

Great ad campaigns require Interesting Characters.Interesting Characters require:

(A.) Character Diamonds (Four conflicted, defining characteristics that cause this character to think, act, speak, and see the world the way they do.)

(B.) Origin Stories (What happened that put them on the path to where they are now?)

Customers should hear each Untold Story in the appropriate Emotional Environment.The appropriate Emotional Environment is created by

(A.) The opening sentence of the ad (FMI – First Mental Image)

(B.) Media scheduling (what is the customer thinking and feeling right now?)

College professors, con-men, and private equity groups believe the primary goal of an ad writer should be to communicate the features and benefits of the product to the customer. But Wizards of Ads know the primary goal of an ad writer is to bond the hearts of the public to the advertiser.

Listeners hear these customer-bonding ads and think, “Wow! You, too? I thought I was the only one.” These customer-bonding ads cause the client’s name to be the one that customers think of first and feel the best about.

Untold Stories hide in the hearts of advertisers. Customer-bonding ads are born when you uncover those stories and write them in an unpredictable way.Predictable ads are boring.

Here is a warm and happy customer-bonding ad Michael Torbay found hiding in the heart of his client on a cold and grey winter day:

MARK: “It was the Pop-Tart that did it. I’m Mark Tapper. Someone recently asked me about the day I knew I had to propose to my girlfriend. Spoiler alert: she’s my wife now. But somehow the sound of that toaster popping made me feel so ‘single.’ I loved being single, make no mistake! I got to travel, tried on a few different jobs, went back to school, reinvented myself a couple of times. I was a-work-in-progress when I met Leora. She believed in me more than I did. That was what was on my mind when it suddenly popped: It wasn’t about me anymore. It was about us, together. That’s what I think about when I come to work at Tapper’s Jewelry. I get to meet people at the most exciting time of their lives, and we get to show you a diamond that will express how you feel right now, forever. Come to Tapper’s, tell us your story.”

These are the moments in that ad when a customer might think, “Wow! You, too?”

1. I suddenly felt so ‘single.’

2. I reinvented myself a couple of times.

3. I was a-work-in-progress when I met [my wife]

4. She believed in me more than I did.

5. It wasn’t about me anymore. It was about us, together.

Here is another customer-bonding ad for a client in the same category.

Listen closely and you’ll hear Jacob Harrison ask his client a question off-mic. Notice how this ad is equally powerful, but comes at you from an entirely different direction:

DEVIN: Brad Lawrence, owner of Gold Casters Fine Jewelry.

BRAD: When I opened the store, I had no money. We didn’t have the money for inventory. I brought wax models from school to use to cast into projects for customers. Hence the name Gold Casters. Things were so tight at times, I remember the backside of my wedding ring was gone because I didn’t have the money to buy gold to size rings. So I’d cut the pieces out of the back of my wedding band to use as gold stock to size rings for customers. Then when we could afford to, then I’d replace it back on my band.

JACOB: Did your wife ever know about that?

BRAD: [laughter] Well, when she saw the gap in my ring, obviously she did! But when you looked at it from the top, it looked perfect. It was a very, very humble beginning. I always believed that if you took care of the customers, that the customers would come back, and that you could build a business that way.

DEVIN: Gold Casters at Second and Washington in Bloomington.

These are the moments in that ad when a customer might think, “Wow! You, too?”

1. I had no money…
2. things were so tight at times that I had to…
3. …cut the pieces out of the back of my wedding band – [sacrifice something precious so that I could do the right thing for someone else] – to use as gold stock to size rings for customers.
4. I always believed that if you took care of the customers, that the customers would come back.

Here’s a similar story, but told in an entirely different way:

SEAN: Standing at the engagement encounter, I felt like Oliver Twist asking for another bowl of porridge. “Please, sir. May I see that one?”

SARAH: Sean Jones, owner of Spence Diamonds,

SEAN: The jeweler looked me over, then reluctantly unlocked the showcase and told me the price of the engagement ring.

SARAH: What happened next?

SEAN: I swallowed hard. No way could I afford that one!

SARAH: Ouch.

SEAN: You’ll never feel like that at Spence Diamonds.

SARAH: We are on your side.

SEAN: Literally.

SARAH: Our prices are out in the open, just like our engagement rings.

SEAN: Pick up as many as you want.

SARAH: Try them on.

SEAN: You’re going to have a good time here.

SARAH: We trust you. We built this whole store for you

SEAN: And we’ve got your back when it comes to prices, too.

SARAH: Come to Spence Diamonds.

SEAN: You hate the ads,

SARAH: but you’ll love the store.

SEAN: Great prices

SARAH: Fabulous engagement rings

ROY: and diamonds that sparkle in the dark. [sfx – scream of joy]

DEVIN: Spence, at the corner of Glenmore and Macleod Trail South.

In this next customer-bonding ad, notice how Omar and Tarik begin by telling you how their competitors can do the same things they do. But as the ad progresses, you realize that what Omar and Tarik do is extremely rare and beautiful.

OMAR: Anyone with a license to practice law can represent you when you’ve been injured.

TARIK: Any lawyer can call the insurance company and try to resolve your case.

OMAR: But if the insurance company says, “Go fly a kite,” not every lawyer is willing to take your case to court.

TARIK: The worst thing is when the insurance company decides that it’s cheaper to wear you down than it is to pay you the amount they owe you.

OMAR: So they just keep throwing lawyers at you, gambling that your law firm won’t be willing to cover the expense of a long, protracted fight.

TARIK: At Habbas Law, we believe that a personal injury lawyer should take care of every client like they were a member of their own family.

OMAR: That’s one of the things we do, and we do it very well.

TARIK: That’s why we don’t back away when insurance companies dare us to match them dollar-for-dollar.

OMAR: We believe in you. We believe in your case. And we believe we can win.

TARIK: Call Habbas Law at 1-800-INJURED.

OMAR: When you talk with Habbas Law, your day gets a whole lot better.

AUDIO SIGNATURE: H-A-double-Beee-A-S Laaaw dot com

Notice the unusual closing sentence in this final example of customer bonding:

TARIK: I’m Tarik Habbas. My father is Omar Habbas. I’m usually on these radio ads with him, but today I asked him if I could fly solo. When I was a young boy, I would sit beneath his desk and listen to him fight with insurance companies for his clients. And sometimes a client would come in and start crying, and hug my father, and thank him for saving them. A surgeon in a hospital saved their physical life, but my father saved their financial life when he made the insurance company do the right thing. I knew I wanted to be like him when I grew up. Most of the lawyers at Habbas Law have been with us for several years. Every law firm in the state wants to hire them, but our lawyers don’t want to work anywhere else. They like going home at night feeling good about what they did that day. When you’ve been injured and you’re in pain, you’re not ready to fight a big corporation. But we are.Making big companies do the right thing is why we get out of bed every morning. At Habbas Law, we don’t just do it for the money. We do it for you. I’m Tarik Habbas of Habbas Law. And that’s all I’ve got to say.

Does it surprise you that Omar and Tarik of Habbas Law are deeply loved by the people of Northern California, and that Mark Tapper, Brad Lawrence, and Sean Jones are three of the most successful jewelers in North America?

1. Customer-Bonding is possible for every business owner who has good motives, a big heart, and a lot of courage and humility.
2. Customer-bonding happens when a business owner talks openly about things that most people would share only with their closest friends.
3. Customer-bonding requires vulnerability.
4. Customer-bonding is a long-term strategy that always works, and it is cumulative; it works better and better the longer you do it.
5. The typical customer-bonding campaign requires an ongoing series of 65% bonding ads – mingled with 35% sales activation ads – that air 52 weeks per year, forever.
6. Customer-bonding isn’t a gimmick. It is a lifestyle.
7. Customer-Bonding is not recommended for business owners who are anxious, nervous, twitchy, or vain. It is recommended only for people like you; people who are patient, confident, calm, and compassionate.

Win the heart and the mind will follow! The mind will always find logic to justify what the heart has already decided.

Roy H. Williams

On her journey to the corner office at Microsoft, Jane Boulware was hit on, spit on, and shot at.

Literally.

She says Microsoft was a viper pit known for eating its young. Jane was one of the top ten women at Microsoft by the time she turned 40, working for Steve Ballmer and bringing home the big bucks. Today Jane pulls back the curtain on her experience in the upper ranks of a global technology giant as she shares with roving reporter Rotbart all the good things – and the bad things – that entrepreneurs and business owners can learn from her experience. Pop some popcorn. Get comfortable in your chair. The Jane Boulware Show is about to begin. MondayMorningRafio.com.

View Details

How to Shear a Sheepby Barbara KingsolverWalk to the barn

before dawn.

Take off your clothes.

Cast everything

on the ground:

your nylon jacket,

wool socks and all.

Throw away

the cutting tools,

the shears that bite

like teeth at the skin

when hooves flail

and your elbow

comes up hard

under a panting throat:

no more of that.

Sing to them instead.

Stand naked

in the morning

with your entreaty.

Ask them to come,

lay down their wool

for love.

That should work.

It doesn’t.

I lectured them into the night, many hours past my bedtime, telling them how to continue the dazzling success of their father. He was there, listening, nodding his head, making sure they would never forget this night.

He and I have worked together since 1989, when we were both very young and our sons were very small. Today he is a rich and famous jeweler in a well-known city. I am the man 500 miles away who writes his ads.

His hard-working sons listened intently when I said, “People you trust and admire; people who care about you and your success, will come to you, pull you aside, and tell you with deep concern, ‘You need to change your advertising. You’re not doing it right.’ People who studied advertising in college; friends who feel certain they know what you should do, will say to you, ‘You need to change your advertising. You’re not doing it right.'”

I told the sons of my friend about the heart-piercing lessons I learned as a young ad writer. I told them about the clever things I did that I knew would would, had to work, were certain to work, that didn’t work.

I told them about all the clever things that I was taught, and trusted, and believed, that didn’t work.

I told them about the millions of dollars of other people’s money I had wasted year after year on ideas that didn’t work.

And then I told them what I finally noticed, and watched, and understood 35 years ago. I told them the counterintuitive truth that I finally had the eyes to see.

I told them what always works. I told them why it never fails to work. And I told them why no one who sees it working ever believes that it will work.

Their father nodded his head up and down. The four of us looked at each other and smiled.

And then I went home to bed.

Roy H. Williams

PS – “How to Shear a Sheep” is just one of the many delightful poems in a little-known book by the legendary novelist, Barbara Kingsolver. If you haven’t read her novels, you should.

Danny Heitman, during the Covid lockdown in 2020, published this book review in The Christian Science Monitor:

“Barbara Kingsolver is best known for her novels, including ‘The Bean Trees’ and ‘The Poisonwood Bible,’ and her essay collections, such as ‘Small Wonder’ and ‘High Tide in Tucson.’ She’s not as well known for her poetry, though she should be. ‘How to Fly (In Ten Thousand Easy Lessons)’ collects her best poems from the past few years. It’s a tonic for these pandemic times, reminding us of Robert Frost’s definition of poetry as a ‘momentary stay against confusion.’ Kingsolver’s poems are like that, though their clarity is less a matter of sudden revelation than the slowly ripening insight of age. The title poem, with its ironic parenthetical promise that we can learn to soar after ‘ten thousand easy lessons,’ sounds a winking dissent from all those how-to bestsellers that offer quick mastery of life’s essentials in a handful of effortless steps.”

Like I said, I really like Barbara Kingsolver. – RHW

Rebecca Davison was a banker – a financial advisor to multimillionaires – who went on to build a global following among female entrepreneurs, many of whom are important business leaders. Rebecca teaches them how to earn more money, but that’s not what makes them love her. Like many of you, Rebecca can feel what others are feeling, and she uses this ability to help people experience spiritual and monetary abundance through the development of their intuition: that inborn ability to communicate with the universe. Roving reporter Rotbart – ever the investigative reporter – says, “Whether or not you buy into the notion of metaphysical pathways to success, there is no denying that Rebecca’s methods are delivering results for a lot of people.” It’s happening, and it’s happening right now, at MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

The dew lies softly on the green grass and the sunrise is golden in the early morning sky. I come upon an unspoiled mirror of water. A smooth pebble leaves my fingertips. Yes! I land my pebble perfectly in the bullseye! I watch a concentric circle of ripples reach the edge of the pool and bounce back to the middle where they collide.

I wander on.

Who knows why we do what we do?

I was contemplating Quixote, that strangely enchanting character created by Miguel de Cervantes in 1605.

But what was happening across the water in 1605?

Having a keyboard at my fingertips, I took an early morning walk backwards-in-time to see what was happening in America while the tormenters of the Inquisition were torturing the innocent people of Spain and wooden blocks were stamping the first edition of Don Quixote onto paper in Madrid.

1607: Jamestown, the first permanent settlement by Europeans was founded on the shores of what would later become Virginia.

1610: John Rolfe realized he could introduce the tobacco of the Native Americans to the people of Europe. Praise God! This would be the crop that would provide the income that would sustain our little colony on the sparkling shores of this brand-new world.

1615: Miquel de Cervantes writes Part Two of Don Quixote, and more characters are carved into wooden blocks to stamp ink onto paper in Madrid.

1619: Four thousand Europeans agree to work as indentured servants for a few years in the tobacco fields of Virginia if someone will loan them the money for passage across the Atlantic and give them fifty acres of their own. Among these 4,000 men are Anthony Johnson and 19 other young men of Africa. Each of them work in the tobacco fields to pay off the loans for their passage, then each is awarded 50 acres of his own. Anthony Johnson later becomes successful enough to pay for the passage of 5 more Africans to help him work his land.

1650: Thirty-thousand people are working in the tobacco fields of Virginia, including about 300 Africans. Everything seems to be running smoothly and everyone is prospering.

1654: Edmund Gayton writes the first commentary in English about Don Quixote. The book is published by William Hunt in London, titled, “Pleasant Notes upon Don Quixot.” Later that same year, slavery is introduced to North America when Anthony Johnson convinces the court of Northampton County that he is entitled to the lifetime services of John Casor. This would be the first judicial approval of life servitude, except as punishment for a crime.

As I return from my morning walk, I discover catastophic chaos raging in the pond, the unintended consequences of a pebble tossed. The ripples that bounce off the shores of the pond result in unintended collisions and consequences as all sense of symmetry disappears.

Some people say only about 3,000 people were executed by the Spanish Inquisition. Other people say it was more like 30,000. No one has ever claimed it was 300,000. But the pebble of tobacco tossed by John Rolfe killed more than 100,000,000 people in the 20th century alone. We can only guess at the number killed by lung cancer and emphysema during the previous two centuries. Tobacco continues to kill about 8 million people a year.

The pebble of slavery tossed by Anthony Johnson resulted in the subjugation of millions of innocent people in America for exactly 201 years. And the waves of that storm continue to crash upon the beach 161 years after the Emancipation Proclamation of Abraham Lincoln.

Anthony, Anthony, Anthony… why did you throw that pebble 370 years ago?

Anthony, if you are listening, please know that you are remembered as a hardworking and successful man who lived with his loving wife Mary for more than 40 years and was admired by everyone. You have been called the patriarch of a very successful community of 300 African-American families who prospered in Virginia during the days when America was new. But after you died in 1670, your plantation was not inherited by your children, but was given to a white colonist when a judge ruled that you were “not a citizen of the colony” because you were black.

As I finish my early morning walk backwards-in-time, I hear in my head a sad sigh, and the voice of Kurt Vonnegut saying, “And so it goes.”

Yes, Kurt, and so it goes.

Roy H. Williams

“Never quit on your worst day.” That’s Lesson #1. It’s easy to remember and it’s valuable advice. But the story behind lesson #1 is what makes the lesson magical. Lesson #2 is equally insightful. “You can’t score goals if you’re not on the field.” Phebe Trotman retired as a soccer superstar to become a superstar business coach. The characteristics required to lead a championship soccer team are identical to those required to lead a championship team in business. Phebe Trotman is about to tell young Maxwell Rotbart everything he needs to know. Listen in, and Win! MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

You look at life from a unique point of view.

I do, too.

Each of us is trapped in our own perceptual reality.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

You and I may look at the same thing but see it differently. And that little girl over there, yes, that one, sees things differently than either of us. The woman standing next to that little girl has experienced things you and I will never experience, and her reactions to those things have changed her and formed the person she is today. She is trapped inside her own perceptual reality, just like you and me.

“Is there a way out of it?”

Out of what?

“Out of the perceptual reality in which each of us is trapped.”

When you modify your perception, you modify your reality.

“Explain.”

When you listen carefully to an honest person who doesn’t agree with your beliefs, you understand that they experience things differently than you do. And that is when your perceptual reality is modified, and your mind is expanded.

“What you are describing is relativism. I believe the facts are the facts, and the truth is the truth, regardless of what you choose to believe.”

But would you agree that things are often different than they appear to be?

“I’m not sure what you’re saying.”

Sometimes we trust facts that are not facts. And even when our facts are correct, the complete truth is usually far more complex than it appears to be on the surface.

“I reject that statement. Facts are facts, and the truth is never complex; it is always plain and simple. An honest person who doesn’t see the truth has simply been misinformed.”

I respectfully disagree.

“Then you have been misinformed.”

It was six men of Indostan, to learning much inclined,

who went to see the elephant (Though all of them were blind),

that each by observation, might satisfy his mind.

The first approached the elephant, and, happening to fall,

against his broad and sturdy side, at once began to bawl:

“God bless me! but the elephant, is nothing but a wall!”

The second feeling of the tusk, cried: “Ho! what have we here,

so round and smooth and sharp? To me tis mighty clear,

this wonder of an elephant, is very like a spear!”

The third approached the animal, and, happening to take,

the squirming trunk within his hands, “I see,” quoth he,

the elephant is very like a snake!”

The fourth reached out his eager hand, and felt about the knee:

“What most this wondrous beast is like, is mighty plain,” quoth he;

“Tis clear enough the elephant is very like a tree.”

The fifth, who chanced to touch the ear, Said; “E’en the blindest man

can tell what this resembles most; Deny the fact who can,

This marvel of an elephant, is very like a fan!”

The sixth no sooner had begun, about the beast to grope,

than, seizing on the swinging tail, that fell within his scope,

“I see,” quothe he, “the elephant is very like a rope!”

And so these men of Indostan, disputed loud and long,

each in his own opinion, exceeding stiff and strong,

Though each was partly in the right, and all were in the wrong!

So, oft in theologic wars, the disputants, I ween,

tread on in utter ignorance, of what each other mean,

and prate about the elephant, not one of them has seen!

“Okay, so what’s your point?”Each of the six blind men saw a different elephant, but every one of those six elephants was far more complex than it appeared to be on the surface.

“But if the blind men had taken time to gather all the facts, they would have seen the truth of the entire elephant.”

That’s true.

“Well, that’s what I do. I gather all the facts, and then I see the truth.”

You are to be congratulated on that. You are a very special individual.

“Thank you.”

The rest of us suffer from availability bias and confirmation bias.

“What are those?”

Availability bias is the result of not having all the facts available to you. When you come to a conclusion based on the facts that are available – and you are unaware that other facts exist – your conclusion will suffer from availability bias. Think of it as a kind of blindness.

“Well, I’m certain I’m not suffering from availability bias. My sources of information are rock solid. Beyond dispute.”

I’m sure they are.

“What is the other one?

Confirmation bias.

“What’s that?”

Confirmation bias is the result of agreeing with information that confirms your belief, and discounting information that conflicts with your belief.

“I’m certain I’m not doing that. I use deductive reasoning.”

Excellent! Then you know that deductive reasoning requires you to seek out information that might disprove your belief, as you try with all your might to prove that your belief is wrong.“Who does that?”

Scientists do that. At least the real ones do. Deductive reasoning is the basis of scientific method. The job of a true scientist is to work as hard as they can to disprove what they believe. And when they cannot disprove it – and no one else can disprove it – only then will it be tentatively accepted as reliable.

“But don’t normal people just use common sense?”

Yes. Inductive reasoning is when you look at all the facts that confirm your suspicion and then pronounce your suspicion as the truth.

“But wait. That would be confirmation bias, wouldn’t it?”

You are correct. And like I said earlier, you are to be congratulated; you are a very special person.

Roy H. Williams

Would you rather (1.) fight a massive wildfire requiring the evacuation of more than 20,000 people, or (2.) bootstrap a start-up, with no outside investors, that will sell an untested app? Clive Savacool has successfully done both. Battling blazes for 25 years turned out to be excellent preparation for extinguishing the many firestorms faced by entrepreneurs. Listen in as Clive tells roving reporter Rotbart how both of these jobs taught him that the key to leadership is to understand human behavior and motivations. A fascinating interview awaits you at MondayMorning Radio.com

View Details

A weak ad attempts to make too many points, and none of them very powerfully.A weak ad is a bloated little porcupine.A great ad drives a single point through one side of your house and out the other with all the momentum of a freight train. A powerful ad is a charging rhinoceros.

The world is covered in porcupine ads. They waddle slowly across your television screen. They crawl out of your radio like termites. Their dead carcasses are displayed on billboards along the highways. You stumble over them wherever you go.

If I paint an unpleasant picture, it is because porcupines are annoying little rodents.

But a charging rhino is a wonder to behold. It makes us stop what we’re doing and pay attention. A rhino pays no attention to the hall monitor who wags his finger and scolds, “No running in the hall!”

And that really pisses some people off.

Chris Torbay wrote a charging rhinoceros radio ad that makes a single point, very powerfully. I told you about it a few weeks ago, one day after it began charging across the sky from the tops of radio towers in Florida.

The ad features a woman who works at an insurance company:My name is Michelle, and I work for Chapman Insurance. I work in the call center answering the phone. What kind of job is that you’re thinking? Well, when it’s your call, maybe I make a difference for you. Maybe you were dreading another one of those stupid corporate phone things with their “press one” and “press two” and “press six if a palm tree just fell on your dog house.”

[Now Michelle starts to become emotional, getting increasing wound-up as the ad progresses, until she finishes with thundering pride and deep conviction]

But you get to talk to a person, and you get to tell a real person how worried you are. And I get it, because I’m a real person, and I do this for a living. And I can see your policy and answer your questions because I know how confusing this can be!! And when you hang up, you feel like someone with a heart and a soul, and a pretty awesome understanding of insurance has had the basic human decency to answer the phone and talk to you like a person instead of making you press six!!! My name is Michelle. I work with Chapman and your insurance call matters to me!!!!

Does it surprise you that the insurance company has had multiple complaints about that ad?It makes a single point:

“Business phones should be answered by knowledgeable people who can give you accurate and immediate answers.”

Rhinoceros ads always get complaints.Chris Torbay has a younger brother named Mick Torbay who lives in Toronto and rides a rhinoceros everywhere he goes. Mick and I had lunch yesterday with Kyle Caldwell of Atlanta and Ryan Chute of Halifax. Mick said,

“When I unleash an ad, there is a specific number of complaints I’m looking for, and it isn’t zero.”

The rest of us nodded our affirmation.

The majority of people love to see a rhino put on a show. They love rhinos because rhinos are never boring. Porcupines are boring.

The rage of the tiny people who are shouting at Chapman Insurance are mostly business owners who are using those abominable “press one” and “press two” machines instead of having the basic human decency to answer the phone and talk to you like a person. You can see now how that ad could make them angry, right?

Porcupine lovers are prickly, and easily aggrieved, and quick to call and shout,

“Your ads are terrible! You’re not doing it right! You should hire a professional who knows how to talk about features and benefits and price and selection and value and convenience and how long you’ve been in business, and all the awards you’ve won, and say the name of your company at least 7 times in the first 30 seconds. You need to find an advertising professional who knows how to make your ad sound like an ad!”

Like I said, porcupines are annoying little rodents.

Roy H. Williams

After 16 years as a wedding photographer, Ryan Erickson decided he was barking up the wrong tree. He was making money, but he no longer had a passion for his work. So Ryan decided to try his hand at fine art photography, and now he’s thinking of going nationwide. His clients love how his fine-art portraits accentuate the subtleties of faces, especially the eyes. Ryan brings his state-of-the-art equipment to his clients in a mobile studio, but the most unique aspect of Ryan’s service are the free belly rubs he gives to each of the retrievers, shepherds, bulldogs, beagles, and other canines who pose for him. “It’s so much easier and enjoyable working with dogs,” Ryan tells roving reporter Rotbart and his co-host son, Maxwell. Today’s episode is going to the dogs! MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

Efficiency experts say you must plan your work and work your plan. And you must have written goals and a budget and a schedule.A detailed plan is the key to success when you are doing something small, but you cannot have a detailed plan when you are doing something big and new and untried.

You know a project is small when all the variables can be known in advance.

When you do something big and new and untried, you will come to a place that your plan did not foresee. This is when you must improvise. Later, you will discover that you are making decisions at the last moment, because that is when you have the most information.

Possibilities are in your mind. Reality is at your fingertips. So get started. Move. Take action. Do something.

Clarity, commitment, and continual improvement are what you need most when doing something big and new and untried.1: Clarity means you have a clear vision of the outcome you are hoping to bring into reality.

2: When you have clarity, you always know what to do next.

3: Commitment means that quitting will never occur to you.

4: When you have commitment, you find a solution to every obstacle.

5: Continual Improvement means that you touch your project every day without fail.

6: Touching your project every day – and moving it forward a little – unleashes the power of Exponential Little Bits, the energy that spins your flywheel.

7: A thousand tiny touches don’t add up, they multiply. Two becomes four. Four becomes eight. Eight becomes sixteen, and 28 cycles later you have exceeded one billion.

8: The only things you cannot know in advance are

(A.) How long is it going to take?

(B.) How much is it going to cost?

9: If you insist on knowing those answers in advance, these are the answers:

(A.) It will take as long as it takes

(B.) It will cost what it costs.

10: If you demand answers with more details, you either lack commitment or you believe I can see the future.

11: I cannot see the future.

12: The only hard part is step number one.

You will notice I have given you a 12-step program. This is because doing things that are big, new, and untried is highly addictive, and every addictive thing has its own 12-step program.

Do not confuse it with a plan.

Roy H. Williams

PS – George Bernard Shaw said, “A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.” Roy might tell you more about George Bernard Shaw next week. Or then again, maybe not. – Indy

Charlie Munger was the billionaire businessman who built Berkshire Hathaway side-by-side with Warren Buffett. Just weeks before Munger died at age 99, Gregory Zuckerman of The Wall Street Journal spent 4 hours with Charlie in the billionaire’s Los Angeles home and came away with some life-changing insights. This week, roving reporter Rotbart interviews the last journalist to interview Charlie Munger, which makes everyone who listens to this week’s episode of Monday Morning Radio just three degrees of separation from Charlie Munger and four degrees from Warren Buffett. How can you resist? This party will start the moment you arrive at MondayMorningRadio.com.

View Details

A germ is a tiny thing, but it can divide and become two germs, then four.Four becomes eight and after only 28 more cycles you find yourself handcuffed in the sad darkness of more than one billion germs.

One billion, seventy-three million, seven hundred and forty-one thousand, eight hundred and twenty-four germs, to be exact.

And they are all trying to kill you.

Unlike the more beautiful forms of life, germs carry only one set of chromosomes instead of two. They reproduce by dividing into two cells, a process called binary fission.

It began as a tiny cut. But every time you open that wound, you increase the pain of it.This is why it is dangerous to nurse a grudge. When we remember painful moments, we increase their strength.

Did you know that most of what we remember never really happened? At least not the way we remember it.

When we remember something that happened, we do not recall the event objectively. None of us do. We reconstruct the event according to how it made us feel the last time we thought about it. We remember only the memory of our memory.

The memories you carry in your mind are distorted reconstructions, at best. But the assumptions you made – especially the motives and intentions you ascribed to other people – quickly crystallize into “indisputable facts” in your mind.

That last statement bears repeating: the motives and intentions you ascribe to other people quickly crystallize into “indisputable facts” in your mind.

Therein lies a great danger. When you nurse a grudge, you distort reality by crystallizing emotional impressions into “hard facts” that you believe with all your heart. And the more often you revisit that pain, the tighter your handcuffs and the deeper your darkness.

We’ve heard it before, but it is good for us to hear it again:

“Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.”

Every person deserves to be remembered for their best moment.Take that thought with you into the new year. When you remember a person, search the secret corners of your mind for an event, a moment, something that person said, or did, that makes you smile a little. Replace your dark, sad memory with one that is happy and light.

Don’t do it for them. Do it for you.

Have a happy new year.

Roy H. Williams

Side Hustles, Online Retailing, Military Contracts, Bras, Walt Disney, Firefighters, Business Exit Strategies, and Worms. Those were 8 of the Top 10 Episodes for MondayMorningRadio in 2023. This week, roving reporter Rotbart – with brilliant co-host and son, Maxwell – revisit the highlights of 2023 and share an audio preview of their new book, a Monday Morning Radio anthology offering insights from 25 of the most interesting guests in the history of the show. The book won’t be released until March, but you can begin profiting from its compiled wisdom the moment you arrive at MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

“The thing about the systematic reduction of a woman down to her parts is that she doesn’t always know it’s happening while it’s going on. Just one day she wakes up and realizes that all she was,

was a face,

a line of cleavage,

two legs,

a couple of hands,

the swivel of her pelvis,

the swell of her breast.

We were just the disembodied parts in the display cases. One day we wake up to find out that the diamonds were never chocolate at all; they were brown the whole time. And our bodies, which are finally ours again, can move on all we want, though they forever remain a library of our lives — of the hurt and the shame, and of what we either allowed or didn’t allow other people to get away with.”

– Taffy Brodesser-Akner, The New York Times, April 23, 2019

“The number of ‘likes’ a photo receives is correlated with sexualization on Instagram. This partially confirmed Simone de Beauvoir’s concept of self-objectification, where young women generally see themselves as objects for viewers to judge through ‘likes.'”

– Amber L. Horan,

“Picture This! Objectification Versus Empowerment in Women’s Photos on Social Media”

“In a society where media is the most persuasive force shaping cultural norms, the collective message we receive is that a woman’s value and power lies in her youth, beauty, and sexuality, and not in her capacity, inner-self, or passions.”

– Sonia Suarez

Like most men, I’ve long been fascinated with women. But what, exactly, defines “woman”? Definitions are so conflicted that I believe anyone who attempts to define “woman” is certain to be criticized. But when has that ever been an impediment to a curious mind? Today’s examination of the mystery and magic of women begins with a handful of quotes that show us “the perfect woman” that can exist only in the mind of a man. Psychologist Carl Jung calls her the anima. I call her, “The Imaginary Woman.”

“What do we know about the goddesses, those elusive female figures, stronger than human males, more dangerous than male deities, who represent not real women but the dreams of real men?”

– Alice Bach, Women in the Hebrew Bible, p. 17

“I think the idealization of women is indigenous to men. There are various ways of idealizing women, especially sexually, based in almost every case on their inaccessibility. When a woman functions as an unobtainable love object, she takes on a mythical quality.”– James Dickey, Self Interviews, p. 153Miguel de Cervantes gave us a perfect example of the imaginary woman 418 years ago. Don Quixote sees a village girl in the distance – Aldonza Lorenzo by name – and says,

“Her name is Dulcinea, her kingdom, Toboso, which is in La Mancha, her condition must be that of princess, at the very least, for she is my queen and lady, and her beauty is supernatural, for in it one finds the reality of all the impossible.”

In the book, Don Quixote never meets Dulcinea. He sees her only from a distance. Like Helen of Troy – the face that launched 1,000 ships – Dulcinea is the anima, that perfect woman who can exist only in the imagination of a man. Everything Quixote accomplishes and endures is in her name and for her honor.

“The girls in body-form slacks wander the High Street with locked hands while small transistor radios sit on their shoulders and whine love songs in their ears. The younger boys, bleeding with sap, sit on the stools of Tanger’s Drugstore ingesting future pimples through straws. They watch the girls with level goat-eyes and make disparaging remarks to one another while their insides whimper with longing.”

– John Steinbeck

“Freda was a dazzle, a virtual watercolor of a woman whose moods and mannerisms were as electric as her wild black hair. Her grin alone, a flash of Ipana-white teeth, head tossed back, stopped men in their tracks, delayed them in traffic, and threatened their wives so completely even the milkman was not allowed to deliver at Freda’s house.”

“At the age of thirty-five Freda had had a mastectomy. The bow and arrow was her therapy, to strengthen what was left of her chest muscles. Her body had been perfect, a sculptor’s model, and she’d worn her summer shirts tied up high under her breasts, braless most of the time.She still wore her shirts knotted at the rib cage, but now they were men’s cotton pajama tops, the material thicker so you could not see through; but often when she bent forward I could see the scarred bony place where the breast had been. I never knew if she was bitter for the loss, if she stared at the deformity in the mirror and wished for a time when she’d been whole. She never said. I never asked. She was not a woman martyred by tragedy, nor was she at all acquainted with self-pity. She’d tried once to kill my stepfather, whom she’d always referred to by his first and last names, Bill McClain, the two words run together in her odd accent so it came out ‘Bimicain,’ sounding like a fungal cream.”

– Lorian Hemingway, Walk on Water, p. 38-39

“Half a dozen global studies, conducted by the likes of Goldman Sachs and Columbia University, have found that companies employing women in large numbers outperform their competitors on every measure of profitability.”

– Katty Kay and Claire Shipman, The Atlantic, April 14, 2014

Dr. Nick Grant once told me,“Men worry about high and low. Women worry about near and far.”

I asked him what he meant. He said,

“When a man is speaking, he is thinking subconsciously, ‘What do you think of me now that I’ve said this? Am I higher or lower in your estimation?’ But when a woman speaks, she is thinking, ‘What do you think of me now that I’ve said this? Does it make us closer, or further apart?'”

You may not agree with that, but like I said at the start, “Anyone who attempts to define ‘woman’ is certain to be criticized.”

An International Peace Institute study of 182 signed peace agreements between 1989 and 2011 found that when women are included in peace processes, there is a 35 percent increase in the probability that a peace agreement will last 15 years or more.

The Wise Men of the Christmas story in Matthew chapter two have been celebrated for two thousand years. But what if they had been Wise Women instead?

“Three wise women would have asked directions, arrived on time, helped deliver the baby, cleaned the stable, made a casserole, brought practical gifts and there would be peace on earth.”

Merry Christmas,

Roy H. Williams

Riyaz Adat was on death’s doorstep, withering away in excruciating pain in the transplant ward of Toronto General Hospital. This week on a special edition of Monday Morning Radio, roving reporter Rotbart narrates the uplifting true story of Riyaz’s miraculous survival and recovery — reading from the Christmas book Rotbart and his wife, Talya, wrote and published two years ago. Their book has since become a perennial holiday favorite. You can hear it right now at MondayMorningRadio.com. Merry Christmas!

View Details

I don’t know if he was was an American Patriot or a British Loyalist. All I know is that he owned a 1726 edition of “The Gentleman Angler,” a leather bound book on fly fishing.

That book was 50 years old when Thomas Jefferson penned the Declaration of Independence.

Speaking of Jefferson, that same fly-fisherman bought a first edition of the complete, 4-volume leather bound set of “Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies” written by Thomas Jefferson and published in 1829. This leads me to believe that our fly-fishing friend purchased his 103-year-old copy of the 1726 edition of “The Gentleman Angler” at about that same time, roughly 200 years ago.

There were no modern books in his collection.

I just realized something. Our fly-fishing friend was obviously an American Patriot, or he would not have purchased Thomas Jefferson’s “Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies” in 1829.

“Hang on a moment, Roy, you identified that man as a ‘Fly-Fishing Fanatic’ in the title of today’s MondayMorningMemo. What led you to call him that?”

I call him a “Fly-Fishing Fanatic” because the majority of the 18 books in his collection were about fly fishing, including a 1750 edition, a 1760 edition, and an 1823 edition of “The Compleat Angler” by Izaak Walton.

I bought his entire collection because books are cool, especially books that are centuries old.

What would have been REALLY cool, though, is if this lover-of-books who lived during the years of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, and George Washington also owned an original, 1605 first-edition of Don Quixote de La Mancha. Wouldn’t that have been cool?

There are only 10 known copies of that book in all the world, and the last one to change hands sold 35 years ago for 1,500,000 dollars. There are no universities that own a copy, and there are no copies available to public view except the one that is owned by the citizens of the United States of America, and that one is closely guarded in our Library of Congress.

Did you guess already?

Our colonial fly-fishing friend did, in fact, own a 1605 edition of Cervantes’ masterpiece, and I bought it with the rest of his collection.

The mystery is that my copy is roughly 8 inches by 11 inches, much larger than the 4-inch by 6-inch edition owned by the Library of Congress. My copy is, without question, extraordinarily old. The attributes that bring me to this conclusion are not easily faked.

The cover is wrapped in the remains of old, brittle vellum – tightly stretched animal skin – and the pages are substantial and thick. It is not, however, the unauthorized pirated version published in Portugal in 1605, because mine has the correct 1605 frontispiece and title page, identical to that of the 4-inch by 6-inch 1605 edition held by the Library of Congress.

My copy has the vellum cover and ties, like the 1605 Portuguese edition and the 1620 English edition, but it is neither of those.

It appears to a centuries old Presentation Edition, if such a thing existed so long ago.

The print seems to occupy about the same dimensions as the smaller, first book, but the pages themselves are bigger and more substantial, as if the original press was used on larger paper, leaving a lot of unprinted paper bordering the original-sized text.

Meredith Mann, a specialist at the New York Public Library, writes,

“Don Quixote was first printed in Madrid in 1605. It was an immediate success—the first edition quickly sold out, and new ones were printed both in Spain and throughout Europe. I can’t neglect mentioning that the Rare Book Division holds one of these scarce early printings, in a contemporary and typically Spanish binding of limp vellum, labelled by hand on its spine.”

She wasn’t describing my book when she wrote that in 2015, but she might as well have been.

We have, for the moment at least, a rare and unidentifiable unicorn.I have no doubt that my friends in the Cervantes Society will be happy to help identify our unicorn, and the Rare Book Division of the New York Public Library very generously offers to help answer questions for researchers.

In any event, I am content. My Don Quixote is old and rare and wonderful; beautiful on the inside, but outwardly rough and tattered like Quixote, himself. This Quixote reminds me of the Quixote within its pages; he began in a library, but then went out and did the things he had read about. This book has lived what Hunter S. Thompson was talking about when he said,

“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming ‘Wow! What a Ride!'”

Until we know for sure exactly what it is, I will keep it in a safe deposit box at the bank. If it turns out to be as unique as it currently appears to be, Pennie and I plan to loan it to an American university that will keep it on display to the public. We have no stomach for hoarding treasure that might bring pleasure to others.

I will, however, keep my Thomas Jeffersons and my fly-fishing books in the grand library on the catwalk above the Eye-of-the-Storm lecture hall in the tower at Wizard Academy.

Anything can happen! Never forget that.

The best things in your life are yet to come. I see them in your future, waiting patiently for you to arrive so they can jump out and surprise you and make you dance with joy.

I smile, thinking about your happiness.

Merry Christmas.

Roy H. Williams

PS – I discovered this Colonial collection of books only because my friend Dewey Jenkins flew into town and gave me a large sum of money with which to, “go and find some more of those crazy things you love that always have interesting stories behind them.” Dewey came to Austin principally to celebrate our achievement of a wild and crazy goal we agreed upon 11 years ago. If you can find a copy of “Mr. Jenkins told Me,” I promise you will enjoy it and that it will teach you things that will make you a lot of money.

Chris McShanag has worked alongside two physician entrepreneurs to build a business that provides virtual assistants to doctors, dentists, and veterinarians. The service worked so well that Chris and his partners finally realized it would work for any company. Many business owners contemplate moving from one business niche to another, but very few actually do it. This week, Chris McShanag shares with roving reporter Rotbart the ups and downs, and lessons gleaned from doing what has rarely been done. The time is now. The place is MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

Irwin Michnick, the Brooklyn-born son of a Jewish furrier from Ukraine, was a jazz musician who wrote radio commercials and advertising jingles for companies like L & M cigarettes and Ken-L Ration dog food.

Bob Levenson was a copywriter at Doyle Dane Bernbach who needed a tune to go with the words, “Everybody doesn’t like something, but nobody doesn’t like Sara Lee.” Irwin Michnick got the call.

But it was a different call that led to Irwin Michnik winning a Tony Award and the Contemporary Classics Award from the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame.

Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Placido Domingo, and more than 70 other superstars of music have recorded the song that Michnik wrote.

Josh Groban included it on his 2020 album, Harmony.

Aretha Franklin sang it at the funeral of civil rights activist Rosa Parks.

Senator Edward Kennedy asked that it be sung at his funeral, as well. And it was.

The song teaches us that passion does not create commitment, but that commitment creates passion. It is a song that teaches us that we can achieve the miraculous only if we are willing to attempt the ridiculous.

Do you remember the Ze Frank quote I shared with you last week? The one where Ze talks about how the hero throws himself into battle against impossible odds, fiercely pushing, shoulders back, despite the knowledge that he can’t win, that he will die in the end?

Irwin Michnik wrote the music and Joe Darion wrote the words. It is the theme song of Wizard Academy, that school for entrepreneurs and ad writers and educators and ministers and researchers and every other agent-of-change who has become infected with an impossible dream.

Do you remember the song now? Of course you do. It starts like this, “To dream the impossible dream; to fight the unbeatable foe; to bear with unbearable sorrow; to run where the brave dare not go.”

You probably don’t remember Irwin Michnik because he was known professionally as Mitch. Mitch Leigh.

I’ll bet you can guess what Indy Beagle has for you in the rabbit hole.

In other news about impossible dreams, last week I bought an extremely old copy of the book Miguel de Cervantes wrote that inspired the song by Mitch Leigh and Joe Darion.

Perhaps I’ll tell you about it after the beginning of the year.

Ciao for Niao,

Roy H. Williams

Good business ideas often die on the vine because of the cost and logistics of bringing those ideas into reality. Uzair Ahmed saw all these missed opportunities, so he figured figured out how to use technology and automation to make these good business ideas come alive. Uzair tested a high-tech, low-overhead system to launch a business that provides on-site car repairs. Guess what? It succeeded wildly. Now, Uzair tells roving reporter Rotbart, he can help other businesses cut their costs up to 60% by following his model. And this also reduces the number of hours a business owner has to spend at work. We’ve struck the match and lit the fuse. If you want to see the fireworks, hurry over to MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

Back in 2012, Ze Frank recorded a video I’ve contemplated for 11 years.“What was it about?”

The hero and the clown.

“What made it so interesting that you’ve contemplated it for so long?”

The hero and the clown are the same person.

“You’re going to need to explain that to me.”

Here’s the transcript. Read it:“Once I was lucky enough to take a class with the great clown teacher Giovanni Fusetti and one of the things that he talked about was the ancient idea of a hero. In the Greek myths, humans were subject to massive and unknown forces outside of their control. The whims of the gods – fickle gods – the gods of wind, waves and war, of luck, of love, of age and death. And from up on Mount Olympus, humans, humans look like little ants in the face of all these things. Giovanni said that despite these unknowns the hero pushes, pushes up against all these forces, fiercely pushes, shoulders back, despite the knowledge that he can’t win, that he will die in the end. The clown on the other hand, celebrates the falling, the failure, the absurdity of skipping along the bottom, the absurdity of trying at all…”

– Ze Frank, Unfair, June 22, 2012

“Okay, that was interesting. But I don’t see how you could still be thinking about that after 11 years.”

It answered a question for me.

“So, what was the question?”

How can one person look at Don Quixote and see a hero, and another person look at him and see a clown?

“Sometimes you think about some really weird crap. You know that, right?”

Yeah, I know that.

“You need to tie all this together for me.”

Cervantes wrote Don Quixote in 1605, and for the past 418 years, a person’s interpretation of that book has depended almost entirely on when and where they lived.

“For real?”

Yeah. For real.

“Why?”

Why, what?

“Why does it depend on when and where they lived?”

There are two specific times when people read the story of Don Quixote:1. When a nation is pursuing a beautiful dream, the artists of that nation will paint, and sculpt, and write plays about heroes who fight against impossible odds. And they will cheer for Don Quixote, a visionary hero who saw beauty, justice, and honor in a common village girl who didn’t know he was alive. 2. Generations later, weary, disheartened, and brittle, those same nations will laugh at the absurdity of believing in heroes, and their comedians will mock the foolishness of relentless determination. And they will sneer at Don Quixote, a man who saw visions of beauty, justice and honor in a common village girl who didn’t know he was alive.

“So what does America believe about Don Quixote right now?”

Answer me this, Indy: Do you feel our nation is pursuing a beautiful dream? Or do you feel we are weary, disheartened, and brittle?

“Considering that everyone is suspicious of everyone right now, I’d say that we are the second one.”

Indy, I want you to research the founding fathers and find out whether they were reading Don Quixote when they were dreaming the dream of America, and fighting against impossible odds to escape from under the bootheel of King George.

“You want me to put it in the rabbit hole?”

That’s up to you, my little Beagle friend, but I’m hoping you will.

“I will under one condition.”

Name it.

“Tell me what brought this on. I need to know why you’re telling me all this.”

Do you remember what I told all those people who came to Austin to hear my final presentation of ‘Pendulum’ 11 years ago?

“I remember the tower was full, but you said a lot of things during those 2 days. Which of those things are you talking about?”

It was near the end, when someone asked me how soon I would be teaching ‘Pendulum’ again.

“I remember that you told them you wouldn’t be teaching it again for at least 10 years. And everyone was shocked and asked you why. And you told them it was because there wasn’t going to be any good or happy news for the next 10 years, but that they were going to be crappiest 10 years in the whole 80-year, round trip of the Pendulum. You said there wouldn’t be even a glimmer of light at the end of that dark tunnel until 2024, when everything would start to slowly get better, little by little, at the speed of agriculture.”

You have a good memory, Indy.

“I’ve got one more question.”

I’ll answer it for you in the rabbit hole.

Roy H. Williams

UX stands for “user experience,” and a deep understanding of it has allowed Satyam Kantamneni to generate hundreds of millions of dollars in additional income for his clients. Think of it this way: if you could experience your business the way your customers do, you would know exactly what to change to make it a more magnetic experience, causing customers to come back more often and from farther away. The most powerful differentiator in today’s competitive business environment is the customer’s experience. UX: Master it and win. Find out how at MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

Ninety percent of motorcycle riders who attempt this corner at 100 mph crash and die, so 9% of riders who attempt it at 10 mph will also crash and die, right?

The fact that you answered silently ‘No’ indicates that you instinctively understand the concept of an inflection point.

Somewhere between zero and 100 mph is the inflection point where crashes begin to occur, and every mile-per-hour above that inflection point increases the likelihood of a crash.

Although we instinctively understand the reality of the inflection point when reducing from the greater to the smaller, we somehow believe things are infinitely scalable when moving from the smaller to the greater.

If we can navigate the corner at 77 mph, then we can do it at 78 mph. And if we can do it at 78 mph, we can certainly do it at 79 mph. And if 79 is doable, then so is 80, right?

I’m talking to you about lead generation for your business.A few days ago, I was having a conversation that I find myself having far too often. I have an acquaintance in the air conditioning business who told me he was planning to increase his Google budget. He said,

“If I increase my Google budget by 50%, I’ll get 50% more leads.”

He’s been in business about 11 years and is a major player in his city, so I asked, “During peak season, how many calls do you get on the average day?”

He told me the number, then I said, “Now think of all your competitors and estimate the number of calls they could possibly be getting. Give it some thought. Don’t leave anyone out.”

I gave him time to think, then said, “Add that call volume to your call volume. Now tell me, what is the largest possible number of people that could possibly need air conditioning service during peak season?”

He gave me a number. I asked, “Is there any way it could be higher than that?”

“No.”

“Peak season has been over for awhile. How many clicks are you currently buying each day?” His eyes got big and he said,

“I’m already buying more than 3 times that many clicks every day! How is that possible?”

“Are you asking me how it is possible that a finite number of people in your city are in the market for your product today, but the number of clicks available today is infinite? Is that what you’re asking?”

He shook his head yes, so I told him the answer.I run into the same problem when talking to clients about radio ads. They say,

“Every time I have increased my radio budget, my sales have increased. So I want to increase my budget again.”

“It won’t do you any good.”

“But it has always worked in the past.”

“It won’t work this time because you are already reaching all the people who spend enough time listening to the radio each week to make it possible for you to reach them with sufficient repetition. The only people left are the ones who don’t spend enough time listening. We’re going to have to add a new media: TV, or billboards, or maybe direct mail.”

“Will it work as well as the radio?”

“Of course not. Because we’re at an inflection point.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re already reaching 39% of your city with enough repetition for those people to know who you are and what you do and how you do it and why they should choose you. So whatever media we buy next, you’ve got to keep in mind that we’re already reaching 39% of those people with relentless repetition on the radio. The best-case scenario is that you’re going to see about 60% as much business growth per ad dollar as you’ve seen in the past.”

No one wants to hear that.

People want to believe that everything related to business is infinitely scalable. But there is always an inflection point when lead generation becomes more expensive.The happy times are when you reach that glorious inflection point when things really begin to take off. Like when you are far enough into a 52-week TV or radio campaign for the public to have heard enough about you to finally start choosing to buy from you.

Sadly, this TV/Radio inflection point is usually somewhere between week 13 and week 26. Not always, but usually. Most advertisers don’t stay with it that long, because most advertising salespeople don’t have the courage to tell them it’s going to take that long.

The exception, of course, is when you have an urgent message about a limited-time offer. Those ads usually start working much sooner.

Problem solved, right? Just run direct-response ads with an attractive offer and a strong call to action!

But inflection points in advertising are funny:

1. Anything that works quickly, will work less and less well the longer you do it.
2. Anything that works better and better the longer you do it, will always seem, at first, like it’s not working at all.

Roy H. Williams

Every day, 3,000 new people decide to get into the game of online selling. Ninety percent of them – 2,700 per day – will never make a single sale. Matthew Stafford knows what they are doing wrong and how to fix it. Matthew’s magical formula for won’t drive potential customers to a website, but it will definitely convince prospects who visit a site to click the “buy” button a lot more often. Listen as Maxwell Rotbart – rising star son of the roving reporter – convinces Stafford to explain how tweaking the backend can can help businesses convert twice as many front-end sales. The miracle will begin the moment you arrive at MondayMorningRadio.com.

View Details

Poetry is not limited to poets.When you

1. say more

2. in fewer words,

you are being poetic.

Pithy, insightful statements are poetry.

Frederik Pohl was not trying to explain why we increase our purchases of ice cream, alcohol, and entertainment when we are sad, but he summarizes it perfectly in just 20 words:

“What I wanted very badly was something to take my mind off all the things that were on my mind.”1

In another of his books, Frederik Pohl uses just 15 words to remind us of something we have often seen and always known:

“No circumstances were ever so bad that a little human effort couldn’t make them worse.”2

Frederik Pohl was not a poet or a philosopher, but a science fiction writer born in 1919.

Does this next statement conjure an image in your mind?

“How clearly I saw what he had become! A man who so loved religiosity that he traded his ethical responsibilities for the brightness of that love.”3 – Arkady Martine

Arkady Martine is not a poet or a philosopher, but another science fiction writer.

“Vanity manifests itself in overseriousness. To the vain, the trivialities of this world are of momentous importance. Everything that happens to a vain person is terribly important.”4

– Eric Hoffer, a dockworker

“It’s steel country, anthracite country, a place full of holes. Smokestacks fume and locomotives trundle back and forth on elevated conduits and leafless trees stand atop slag heaps like skeleton hands shoved up from the underworld.”5

– Anthony Doerr, a novelist

Poetry is not limited to poets. When you say more, in fewer words, you are being poetic.

Most people avoid poetry because they feel it to be sissy, elitist, and irrelevant. After all, who wants to say more in fewer words?Every advertiser on the planet, that’s who.

Poetic statements jump over the wall of the intellect to land on the softest parts of the heart.

And if you win the heart, the mind will follow. The mind will always create logic to justify what the heart has already decided.

Transactional writing wins the mind.

Relational writing wins the heart.

Transactional writing is about features and benefits.

Relational writing is about identity reinforcement.

Learn to say more in fewer words.1. People will pay close attention when you speak. 2. Your ads will produce miraculous results. 3. Your meetings will be shorter and more productive. 4. You will be widely admired, much remembered, and often quoted.

In the 6th chapter of Matthew’s Good News, Jesus tells his followers not to include mindless repetition in their prayers. God doesn’t need filler words, and he doesn’t need us to repeat ourselves in order to be heard.

That’s right, God doesn’t need filler words.

And neither do the rest of us.

Roy H. Williams

1The Annals of the Heechee, p. 91

2 The Other End of Time, chap. 15

3A Desolation Called Peace, p. 269

4Working and Thinking on the Waterfront, p.95

5All the Light We Cannot See, p. 24

He started with $200,000 in 2018. Today it is $200,000,000. You can do it, too. Bronson Hill heard Warren Buffet say that people will work the rest of their lives if they don’t find a way to make money while they sleep. This week, Bronson reveals to roving reporter Rotbart his successful strategies for passive investment in real estate. You can always count on our roving Reporter to seek out interesting people with fascinating stories for you to hear at MondayMorningRadio.com.

View Details

Fiction is an ancient virtual reality technology that specializes in simulating human problems.“Like a flight simulator, fiction projects us into intense simulations of problems that run parallel to those we face in reality. And like a flight simulator, the main virtue of fiction is that we have a rich experience and don’t die at the end.”

That was Jonathan Gottschall. This is the stunningly brilliant Chris Torbay.“My name is Michelle, and I work for Chapman Insurance. I work in the call center answering the phone. ‘What kind of job is that?’ you’re thinking. Well, when it’s your call, maybe I make a difference for you. Maybe you were dreading another one of those stupid corporate phone things with their ‘press one’ and ‘press two’ and ‘press six if a palm tree just fell on your doghouse,’… but you get to talk to a person, and you get to tell a real person how worried you are. And I get it because I’m a real person and I do this for a living! And I can see your policy and answer your questions because I know how confusing this can be, and when you hang up, you feel like someone with a heart and a soul, and a pretty awesome understanding of insurance has had the basic human decency to answer the phone and talk to you like a person instead of making you press six!!!!! My name is Michelle!!!! I work with Chapman, and your insurance call matters to me!!!!”

[MALE VOICE] Visit cigFlorida.com

© Chris Torbay 2023

Jonathan Gottschall goes on to say,“Fiction seems to be more effective at changing beliefs than nonfiction, which is designed to persuade through argument and evidence. Studies show that when we read nonfiction, we read with our shields up. We are critical and skeptical. But when we are absorbed in a story, we drop our intellectual guard.”

“There is no doubt fiction makes a better job of the truth.”

– Doris Lessing, winner of the 2007 Nobel Prize in Literature

“Escapist fantasies are laughably superficial. Attaining them isn’t what we really want. If we did, they’d no doubt bore or disappoint us. We don’t want the fantasy. We want to fantasize.”

– Evan Puschak, Escape into Meaning, p.109

“The one thing emphasized in any creative writing course is ‘write what you know,’ and that automatically drives a wooden stake through the heart of imagination. If they really understood the mysterious process of creating fiction, they would say, ‘You can write about anything you can imagine.'”

– Tom Robbins

“Fantasy, abandoned by reason, produces impossible monsters; united with it, she is the mother of the arts and the origin of marvels.”

– Francisco Goya

But how does a person become creative?“When you notice a commonality between two or more things, you say, ‘Oh there’s something there.’ And now we make what’s called a charm bracelet: You take these things and you find a way to associate them. So that’s the process: I’m thinking about this [one] thing and then remember this [other] thing, and then you go, ‘Oh there’s something there — let me connect those 2 things.”

– Jerry Seinfeld

Brandon Sanderson agrees with Jerry Seinfeld:“The way that human creativity works is by combination. That’s what we’re really good at. We don’t come up with a completely new creature. We put a horn on a horse and go, ‘Look at that, that’s cool.’ That’s how we create on a fundamental level.”

And Steve Jobs agreed with both Seinfeld and Sanderson:“Creativity equals connecting previously unrelated experiences and insights that others don’t see.”

But where do you find all these bits and pieces to put together to make Seinfeld’s charm bracelet, or Sanderson’s unicorn, or Steve Jobs’ iPhone?“I had a boss in radio when I was 18 years old, and my boss told me to write down every idea I get even if I can’t use it at the time… and have a system for filing it away—because a good idea is of no use to you unless you can find it… A lot of creativity is discovery. A lot of things are lying around waiting to be discovered, and our job is to just notice them and bring them to life.”

– George Carlin, explaining the origin of his “capture habit.”

Every innovation is the result of creativity, and every innovation has a purpose. But does this mean that fiction writing must also have a purpose?“I maintain that fiction has no duty or obligation whatsoever except never to be boring—and even that is usually subjective. I’ve found that when a talented writer is operating with such wild poetic energy, such freedom from academic rules, social pressures, and normal expectations, that he or she is on the verge of losing control and crashing (like a daring downhill skier, for example), the resulting prose can be very nearly hallucinatory and absolutely exhilarating.”

– Tom Robbins, talking to François Happe (March, 2009)

But fiction can serve a purpose, can’t it?“Truth is so hard to tell, it sometimes needs fiction to make it plausible.”

– Francis Bacon

Kurt Vonnegut was one of the major writers of the 20th Century. He wrote 14 novels, 3 short-story collections, 5 plays, and 5 works of nonfiction. He once joked that he never won a Nobel Prize because he had offended the Swedes by being a terrible salesman at a Saab dealership in the 1970s.From Kurt Vonnegut

Nov. 5, 2006

Dear Xavier High School, and Ms. Lockwood, and Messrs Perin, McFeely, Batten, Maurer and Conglusta:

I thank you for your friendly letters. You sure know how to cheer up a really old geezer (84) In his sunset years. I don’t make public appearances any more because I now resemble nothing so much as an iguana. What I had to say to you, moreover, would not take long, to wit: Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what’s inside you, to make your soul grow.

Seriously! I mean starting right now, do art and do it for the rest of your lives. Draw a funny or nice picture of Ms. Lockwood, and give it to her. Dance home after school, and sing in the shower and on and on. Make a face in your mashed potatoes. Pretend you’re Count Dracula.

Here’s an assignment for tonight, and I hope Ms. Lockwood will flunk you if you don’t do it: Write a six-line poem, about anything, but rhymed. No fair tennis without a net. Make it as good as you possibly can. But don’t tell anybody what you’re doing. Don’t show it or recite It to anybody, not even your girlfriend or parents or whatever, or Ms. Lockwood. OK?

Tear it up into teeny-weeny pieces and discard them into widely separated trash receptacles. You will find that you have already been gloriously rewarded for your poem. You have experienced becoming, learned a lot more about what’s inside you, and you have made your soul grow.

God bless you all!

Kurt Vonnegut

I think each of us should do – today – what Kurt Vonnegut told those kids to do.You will learn about what’s inside you,

and you will make your soul grow.

Or do you not care about those things?

Roy H. Williams

NOTE: You really, really, really don’t want to miss the rabbit hole today. – Indy Beagle

Freedom Day, according to Jeff Kikel, is that juncture in our lives when work becomes optional, not a financial necessity. His formula begins with a shift in your mindset regarding your relationship to money: “It should work for you. You should not work for it.” If the idea of working for pleasure rather than necessity appeals to you, join roving reporter Rotbart for a rowdy and rollicking ride to Freedom Day at MondayMorningRadio.com.

View Details

Beautiful people know they are beautiful.

Smart people know they are smart.

Rich people know they are rich.

You don’t need to tell them.

If you speak about surface qualities, your words are superficial.

If you speak about inner qualities, your words are deep.

Flattery is an attempt at superficial bonding. It is the pickup line of a creep in a bar, hitting on a pretty girl. Creeps talk to women about the ‘features and benefits’ they see on the surface of the woman, and then they describe their own ‘features and benefits.’

I am talking to you about advertising.Transactional ads describe something that is outside your current possession. Transactional ads are written to entice you to buy a product. Their offer of features and benefits is basically this: “Give me what I want, and I’ll give you what you want.”

We settle for sex when we cannot find love.Most ads focus on ‘features and benefits’ because most marketing is created by morons.

The woman in the bar is your customer. She is standing alone on a tiny island surrounded by an ocean of ‘features and benefits’, but it is an ocean only a few inches deep.

What do you think would happen if you offered her what she really wants? What do you think would happen if your only goal was to rescue her forever from that tiny island?

Relational ads speak to values and beliefs deep in your customer’s heart. Relational marketing is about meeting your customer’s needs today, tomorrow, and forever.

Transactional marketing is about satisfying the need of the hour.Relational marketing is about satisfying the needs of a lifetime.“But,” you say, “product marketing isn’t about a relationship. It is about the features and benefits of the product.”

Apple was the first company in the world to achieve a trillion-dollar valuation. Did Steve Jobs build that brand on transactional ads that described the features and benefits of Apple products? Apple-solutely not!

In 1985, when Steve Jobs was fired from the company he had founded, a moron took over the marketing at Apple and immediately began talking about ‘features and benefits’. Those superficial ads plunged Apple into obscurity and brought the company to the brink of bankruptcy.

When Steve Jobs came back to rescue Apple, he made a 7-minute speech to his team. (Indy Beagle has a video of that speech for you in today’s rabbit hole.)

Steve begins that speech with these words:“To me, marketing is about values. This is a very complicated world. It’s a very noisy world, and we’re not going to get a chance to get people to remember much about us, no company is. And so we have to be really clear on what we want ’em to know about us.”

Four minutes later, he finishes with this:“The things that Apple believed in at its core are the same things that Apple really stands for today. And so we wanted to find a way to communicate this. And what we have is something that I am very moved by. It honors those people who have changed the world. Some of them are living, some of them are not. But the ones that aren’t, as you’ll see, you know, that if they ever used a computer, it would’ve been a Mac. The theme of the campaign is Think Different. It’s the people honoring the people who think different and who move this world forward. And it is what we are about. It touches the soul of this company. So I’m going to go ahead and roll it, and I hope that you feel the same way about it I do.”

“Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes, the ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules and they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them, because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

The strategy of Apple was to romanticize the idea of being an outsider, a renegade, an independent thinker, free from the handcuffs of tradition.

Steve Jobs never spoke of the superficial differences between his products and the others. He spoke of what was in his heart, your heart, and my heart.

He also spoke of Nike:“One of the greatest jobs of marketing that the universe has ever seen is Nike. Remember, Nike sells a commodity. They sell shoes. And yet, when you think of Nike, you feel something different than a shoe company in their ads. As you know, they don’t ever talk about the product. They don’t ever tell you about their air soles and why they’re better than Reebok’s air soles. What does Nike do in their advertising? They honor great athletes, and they honor great athletics. That’s who they are. That’s what they are about.”

Apple and Nike were not built on transactional ads.Transactional ads are a desperate attempt to win the customer who is currently, consciously, ready to buy a product or service in your category today. This is the customer you have “targeted.” In her eyes, you are one more face in a crowd of faces, each trying to set themselves apart. You gave Google your money and hoped to attract enough customers to make a profit. All the other faces did the same. You are paying for clicks from people who are currently interested in your category.

Category ads are high-cost and Low CAP: low Conversion, low Average sale, and low Profit margin, because your offer is the only thing that makes you different than all the other faces staring at this woman on her tiny island. Yours is just one more face in an ocean of shallow faces.

Apple and Nike were built on relational ads.Relational ads don’t target customers who need a problem solved today. Relational ads are written to make people fall in love with you. They will love you because you believe what they believe, and you value what they value. This is why you will always be who they think of first – and feel the best about – when they need what you sell.

When people who love you go to Google, they type in your name, not the name of your category.

These name-clicks are low-cost and high CAP: high Conversion, high Average sale, and high Profit margin because these customers have already chosen you. They aren’t comparing you and your prices to your competitors and their prices. Your competitors are no longer part of the equation.

Relational ad writing builds a relationship with future customers. This is its Power.Now here is its Danger: you have to be exactly who they believed you to be.If they believed in you, chose you, trusted you, and then you let them down: they will feel deeply and personally betrayed.

So no, this isn’t a marketing ploy, a gimmick, or a con.

It’s just a simple explanation of how – and why – people fall in love.

May you live forever, and love forever.

Amen.

Roy H. Williams

One Last Thing: On May 26 of this year, my close friend Don Kuhl shared his insights on relational bonding. Pay attention, and you’ll realize that Don is talking about transparency and vulnerability:

“This is how it goes. If I trust a friend and want to strengthen our relationship, I share a personal part of my life that has emotional capital. Often, I feel a weight lifted or a sense of loneliness dissipate. Almost always, I feel unconditional support. A door has opened. My friend now feels safe. It may be the next day or weeks later when my friend confides in me. Now it’s my turn to be an honest and supportive receiver. I may have something substantial to offer. I may not. It makes little difference. Our friendship has reached a higher level due to mutual trust and sharing.” – Don Kuhl

Nick Barrett’s invention is only as long as a paperclip and as thick as a quarter, but it won the $10,000 prize for “coolest product” at this year’s National Retail Federation trade show. Monday Morning Radio co-host Maxwell Rotbart says inventors and entrepreneurs can learn a lot — and save themselves huge headaches — by listening to Nick Barrett explain how he went from selling gadgets at flea markets to becoming a major Amazon success story. Nick’s first bit of advice is, “Start small. Build large.” You can hear the rest of it the moment you arrive at MondayMorningRadio.com.

View Details

Portals are openings that lead from one place to another.The best screenwriters, novelists, poets, and ad writers use portals when they want their readers, listeners, and viewers to follow them to a new and different place.

Portals can be visual, auditory, or literary.

Visual Portals

like windows, doors, and tunnels, are used by painters, photographers, and graphic artists.

A portal makes a 2-dimensional image psychologically 3-dimensional.

There is

(1.) the foreground,

(2.) the portal (window) and

(3.) a different reality on the other side.

We see a kitchen, with people sitting at a table in the foreground. The kitchen counter is covered with the implements of cooking. But our eyes are attracted to the portal: a window under which the table sits… Looking through that window, we see that we are high up on a mountain overlooking a valley through which a whitewater stream makes its way to the sea.

There is one world on this side of that window, and another world on the other.

Portals make it easier for readers, listeners, and viewers to follow you on your journey of imagination.Auditory portals

beckon you toward a world beyond. These portals of sound are another type of window that pulls you toward the valley, the river, and the sea.

Pitch, key, tempo, rhythm, interval, and contour are the 6 sub-languages in the language of music. Each of these involves movement up-and-down, and/or left and right. This is what makes them two-dimensional. To create a portal, we must add depth, the 3rd dimension.

1. Harmony provides depth, thus opening an auditory portal.
2. Major 7th chords provide depth, and thus open auditory portals.

When you strike the 1, 3, 5 and 7 keys in the major scale on a piano, you are playing a major 7th.

Strike the 1 and the 7 without the 3 and the 5, and you will create a truly horrible sound; a sound from which you will want to escape. Add the 3 and the 5 to that ugly 1 and 7, and you will hear a rich, lush sound with all the transcendent DEPTH of rich harmony. Auditory portals make is easier for people to follow you to the place you are trying to take them.

Literary Portals

are references from books, plays, movies, and TV shows that allow you to transfer a vivid mental image using only a few words.

Example: “I was so deep in thought I felt like Hamlet talking to the skull of Yorick.”

Example: “A drug dealer is a reverse Robin Hood, robbing the poor and giving the money to the rich.”

Example: “When you step off a train in Switzerland, you step through the wardrobe into Narnia.”

Literary Portals are another type of window, door, or tunnel.The tunnel of a rabbit hole takes Alice into Wonderland.

The tunnel of a telephone landline allows Morpheus, Neo, and Trinity to get in and out of the Matrix. (They cannot do it over a cell phone.)

Doors called waygates allow Moiraine and the Aes Sedai to go from place to place in the Wheel of Time.

The spiraling tunnel of a tornado takes Dorothy into Oz.

The portal of Platform 9 3/4 in the train station allows Harry Potter to leave the world of muggles.

The shape of a spiral

is a portal that pulls you in. It is always associated with a feeling of spin.

Elevator Portals

take you to a different level. The concept of going up or down is easily communicated by the image of a ladder, stairs, an escalator, or an elevator.

Elevator portals can be visual, auditory, or literary.

A Dream

is a portal into a symbolic world; a waygate that allows you a glimpse of the unconscious as your pattern-recognizing right-brain processes your unresolved thoughts and impressions.

When you want to speak of hope or fear, confidence or anxiety, fantasy or nightmare, speak as though you are dreaming, and you will be heard and understood.

“I have a dream,” said Martin Luther King.

Portal Stacking

deepens perception. When you have become familiar with portals, you will see and hear them in hit songs, TV shows and movies; photographs, paintings and illustrations; visual ads, radio ads, and television ads.

You will notice that big, signature moments in hit songs, TV shows, and movies always feature multiple-layer portal stacking.

Portals can be stacked in two ways:

1. They can happen simultaneously.
2. They can happen sequentially, in rapid succession.

Example: Climbing up or down the scale on a musical instrument is an auditory elevator portal that helps the listener imagine travel up to a higher level, or down to a lower one.

“Just as Jack climbed the beanstalk into the clouds, you can climb to anywhere you want to go at Mid-State Community College.”

Now hear the musical scale ascend, as you see Jack climbing. That’s portal stacking.Your body contains approximately 100,000,000 sensory receptors, allowing you to see, hear, taste, touch, and smell physical reality. But your brain contains more than 10,000 billion synapses. This means you – and each of your readers, listeners, and viewers – are 100,000 times better equipped to experience a world that does not exist, than a world that does.

If you hope to persuade your readers, listeners, and viewers, take them on a journey filled with scenery and surprises. Through every window, show them undiscovered beauty. Through every doorway, introduce them to new friends. Through every tunnel, show them a different world.

Cause your audience to imagine doing what you want them to do.

And then don’t be surprised when they do it.

Aroo,

Roy H. Williams

Zeynep Ekemen is the founder of a company that sells antimicrobial film for high-touch areas, such as door handles, elevator buttons, and staircase rails. A few years ago, sales of her product took off like a rocket… then fell like a rock when Covid was no longer part of the daily news. Listen and learn as Zeynep explains to roving reporter Rotbart how she is turning her rock into a rocket again. What comes down can always go back up at MondayMorningRadio.com!

View Details

I bought an old oil painting. It’s not a large painting or an important one, but it came from the private collection of the founder of the Whitney Museum.

I bought it because I’ve always admired Cornelius Vanderbilt and his great-grandson, Willie K. Vanderbilt II, and I consider the delightful Gertude Vanderbilt-Whitney, the great-grandaughter of Cornelius, to be the third, truly interesting Vanderbilt.

The First Vanderbilt:

The fourth of nine children, Cornelius was in the first grade when George Washington died. At sixteen, he borrowed $100* from his mother to buy a little sailboat to haul passengers and freight between Staten Island and New York City.

By the time he was forty, the Vanderbilt fleet was hauling passengers and freight to ports all along the Atlantic coast, earning Cornelius the nickname “Commodore.” He then began buying up struggling railroads and turning them around.

The difference between Vanderbilt and his competitors was that his boats and trains ran on schedule and the service was always excellent. If Cornelius Vanderbilt was running an airline today, you would no longer dread going to the airport.

The Second Vanderbilt:

Willie K. Vanderbilt II (1878–1944), was often seen covered in grease with an automobile engine spread out in pieces around him. Young Willie K outran Henry Ford in 1904 to set a new world land speed record of ninety-two miles per hour. Later that year, Willie held the first Vanderbilt Cup Auto Race and singlehandedly changed the course of American auto making.

By offering a first prize of about a million dollars (by today’s standards), Willie K inspired more than 3,000 entrepreneurs to leap to the task of manufacturing stronger, better, faster cars. The Vanderbilt Cup was discontinued after its seventh year because the crowds of more than 400,000 spectators could no longer be safely controlled.

He then built a modest home for himself with an excellent wharf and boathouse. His energy was forever after focused on marine life in all its strange and wonderful forms. Every day was a new adventure in the waters of the deep. Prior to his death in 1942, Willie K. Vanderbilt II discovered and documented sixty-eight species of ocean life previously unknown to science.

The Third Vanderbilt:

Gertrude Vanderbilt (1875–1942,) married a thoroughbred horse breeder named Harry Whitney when she was 21 years old. Harry was a descendent of Eli Whitney, the inventor of the cotton gin in 1839.

Shortly after she got married, Gertrude began studying sculpture in Paris with Auguste Rodin. Her love of the arts, her skill as a sculptor, and her Vanderbilt fortune allowed Gertude to become one of the world’s foremost collectors of art. Her artistic fever inflamed New York’s Greenwich Village and caused it to burn brightly as a new bohemia in the early 1900s.

In 1931, Gertrude donated 600 of her most precious paintings to create the Whitney Museum of American Art.

She kept only a few paintings for her private collection at home.

Pennie and I plan to hang the one we bought in Alchemy, the Renaissance coffee and cocktail bar being built by our son, Rex. The painting is of two young women in a kitchen, painted in that style for which Frans van Mieris is famous. If those women aren’t twins, they are obviously sisters.

When you visit Wizard Academy next year, perhaps Alchemy will be completed, and you’ll see it there.

Aroo,

Roy H. Williams

PS – Of the 111 descendents of Cornelius Vanderbilt, I consider Timothy Olyphant, the actor, to be The Fourth Vanderbilt and Anderson Cooper, the broadcast journalist, to be Vanderbilt #5. You can see the entire list on WIKIPEDIA.

View Details

It is easy to attract attention:Predictability is death. Spontaneity is life.Day and night, left and right,

timid and bold, young and old,

up and down, smile and frown.

Start and end. Do it again.

Negative and positive, effected and causative,

passive and active, repulsive and attractive:

Paired opposites are the essence of magnetism.You can attention now attract!

But opposites quickly get old.

To keep that attention,

you must learn how to hold.

Straight lines are okay, but so are twists, and twirls.

Learn to do all three and create Magical Worlds.

Two opposites can only disagree.

Scientific Chaos begins with three.

Opposites collide and we hear the laughter,

but the space in the middle is what we’re after.

Relieve opposing tensions and you’ll get no respect.

Make them work for you, and you’ll be an architect.

Marley Porter had the idea, so I gave it words:

“Let other people have seconds; we want thirds.”

Big endings and beginnings come with a riddle

and the answer is hiding in that space in the middle.

When a character is tri-flicted, we get addicted.

When your story is hollow, fill it with what you can borrow.

When your joke has a hole, fill it with what you stole.

When your ad has a cavity, fill it with gravity.

You can tap your foot. You can play the fiddle.

But the dance will happen in that space in the middle.

To hold attention slickly,

transfer big ideas quickly.

If you want to hit hard,

make them drop their guard.

When they quit thinking and start feeling,

you’ll have them reeling.

So now you know – but you always did –

attention is auctioned but you have to bid.

And you, my friend, are a story-telling squid.

Wrap the audience in your multiple arms.

Pull them in closer. Ignore the alarms.

Hold their attention, and they will hold their breath.

And what they will feel is life, the opposite of death.

Roy H. Williams

On October 16, 1923 — precisely 100 years ago today — Walt Disney and his brother Roy launched an entertainment business. It filed for bankruptcy shortly thereafter. But the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio rebounded and evolved into one of the world’s best-known and most beloved companies. This week, roving reporter Rotbart explores the history of The Walt Disney Company and reveals an incredible Disneyland document that he and his son Maxwell discovered deep in the archives of a Kansas museum. You know that our roving reporter began his career as an investigative reporter and award-winning columnist for The Wall Street Journal, right? Finding things that no one ever found before is what Rotbart does best! Prepare to be amazed at MondayMorningRadio.com.

View Details

Most of us cheer for the little dog that doesn’t have a chance. The underdog.

We like them because they need us.

Underdogs are those little dogs that rise above their circumstances and overcome their disadvantages. It is the underdog we see in our mind when we say, “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight that matters; it’s the size of the fight in the dog.”

Underdogs do the best they can. They push and struggle and hope for a brighter future. They remind us of ourselves.

“The scientific literature suggests that fans of losing teams turn out to be better decision-makers and deal better with divergent thought, as opposed to the unreflective fans of winning teams.”

– Dr. Jordan Grafman, a researcher at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders (2011)

That’s interesting, don’t you think? People who cheer for little David in his fight against big Goliath are reflective, good decision-makers, and unafraid to think new thoughts.

We cheer for the underdog, always and forever. We go out of minds with ecstasy when the underdog finally wins. That’s our dog! We look at each other and we know, “That little dog is you and me.”

The underdog is a cultural hero.“How do human beings put into words their ideas about the meaning of human life? How do they convey through art and religion their beliefs about the significance of human life? They do it partly by investing in certain transcultural stories, like the one about the adventures of a culture hero, which, after a period of trial and hardship, always ends in triumph.”

– Barry Lopez, Horizons, page 323

Do you know what has me concerned?

The United States began as a nation of underdogs, but it took us barely 10 generations to become a nation of overdogs, victors, champions, and our values have changed because of it.

Today we believe, “Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing.“We want more subscribers, more influence, more likes, more admirers, more fame, and more money. How much is enough? “Just a little bit more.”

I suspect Louis Menand was contemplating all of this in June, 2011 when he wrote:

“In a society that encourages its members to pursue the career paths that promise the greatest personal or financial rewards, people will, given a choice, learn only what they need to know for success. They will have no incentive to acquire the knowledge and skills important for life as an informed citizen, or as a reflective and culturally literate human being.”

Wouldn’t it be great to have a nation – and a government – of people who were informed citizens and reflective, culturally literate human beings?

Wouldn’t that be great?

Roy H. Williams

Curt Tueffert has spent four decades helping people enjoy world-class sales success. When it comes to selling, Curt has seen it all, done it all. Qualify customer prospects, help them past their hesitations, and never feel rejection when rejected: Curt can tell you how. According to roving reporter Rotbart, this week’s episode will instantly boost your batting average in the great game of selling. MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

My novelist friend, Brad Whittington and I share a deep and abiding love for the colorful canvases of Robertson Davies, a Canadian writer who paints pictures in the mind.

"Oho, now I know what you are. You are an advocate of Useful Knowledge.... Well, allow me to introduce myself to you as an advocate of Ornamental Knowledge. You like the mind to be a neat machine, equipped to work efficiently, if narrowly, and with no extra bits or useless parts. I like the mind to be a dustbin of scraps of brilliant fabric, odd gems, worthless but fascinating curiosities, tinsel, quaint bits of carving, and a reasonable amount of healthy dirt. Shake the machine and it goes out of order; shake the dustbin and it adjusts itself beautifully to its new position." – Robertson Davies

Useful knowledge is intellectual. Ornamental knowledge is artistic, fascinating, emotional. But please don't feel that you need to choose between the two. Just as air and water are both essential to your physical wellbeing, Useful knowledge and Ornamental knowledge are both essential to your happiness.

Useful knowledge is hard to share. Short sentences are required. There is no room for wordplay when 20/20 clarity is your goal. Writers who can write clearly are needed and needed badly. How is it that every instruction manual is written by a Loquacious Luke who insists on using 27 words when 1 will do? Give me 10 people who can write the truth simply, sharply, and clearly, and I will remove half the frustration from the world.

Writers of Useful knowledge communicate clearly and quickly.

Writers who share Ornamental knowledge splash splendid colors in the mind to produce vivid visions.

But there is a third writer for whom there is no place, no purpose, no need. This is the writer of Adspeak, that empty language of fluff and feathers favored by people who have nothing to say.

Adspeak in the boardroom is known as 'Business-dude lorem ipsum'.Charlie Warzel writes for The Atlantic. Here's what Charlie said on August 31, 2022:

"'Business-dude lorem ipsum' is filler language that is used to roleplay 'thought leadership' among those who have nothing to say: the MBA version of a grade-school book report that starts with a Webster’s Dictionary definition. Advanced business-dude lorem ipsum will convey action ('We need to design value in stages') but only in the least tangible way possible. It will employ industry terms of art ('We’re first-to-market or a fast follower') that indicate the business dude has been in many meetings where similar ideas were hatched. Business-dude lorem ipsum will often hold one or two platitudes that sound like they might also be Zen koans ('value is in the eye of the beholder') but actually are so broad that they say nothing at all."

Weird Al Yankovic has a video on Youtube called "Mission Statement" featuring a delightful song made of 100% 'Business-dude lorem ipsum'. These are some of the lyrics:"We must all efficiently operationalize our strategies, invest in world-class technology and leverage our core competencies in order to holistically administrate exceptional synergy. We'll set a brand trajectory using management philosophy, advance our market share vis-à-vis our proven methodology, with strong commitment to quality, effectively enhancing corporate synergy. Transitioning our company by awareness of functionality, promoting viability, providing our supply chain with diversity, we will distill our identity through client-centric solutions... and synergy."

Write colorfully, or write clearly, but please never become so vapid and shallow that you resort to Adspeak and 'Business-dude lorem ipsum'. You are smarter and better and more resourceful than that. You have the courage and wit to drive the snakes out of Ireland, shoot arrows from a rooftop, and land a fighter jet in a field.

Maybe you didn't know those things about yourself, but they are true.

Roy H. Williams

Vicky Brown knew she was wading into shark-infested waters when she opened a consulting firm specializing in Human Resources. Four of those sharks were Accenture, ADP, Deloitte, and KPMG. By focused on emerging and mid-size companies, Vicky won an impressive roster of clients from coast to coast and now even the biggest sharks know her name. Due to the work-from-home migration, the impact of artificial intelligence, and ever-changing state and federal employment regulations, Vicky says more and more business owners are outsourcing their HR and payroll functions. Lean in close and listen as Vicky tells you how to avoid the HR landmines facing today’s America. MondayMorningRadio.com!

View Details

When I was growing up, I could never change the opinion of my mother by saying, “But everyone else is doing it.”

My mom had the courage and confidence to believe that Everyone Else’s mother was wrong.

That’s a high level of courage and confidence. I’m hoping that you have it, too.

When I speak to advertising professionals on the subject of advertising, I often find myself having to explain how certain widely-held beliefs are wrong. I will patiently produce the evidence, the case studies, and scientific documentation. In most instances, the audience will concede that I am right. Then someone will say, “But everyone else is doing it,” as though it is impossible for “everyone else” to be wrong.

Here’s an example: most people believe in tightly targeting the right customer. They are convinced that the secret of successful advertising is to “reach the right people.”

I believe targeting is essential if you are in a business that sells to other businesses.If you sell computer chips, you need to reach computer manufacturers, so send a letter, an email, a salesman to knock on their door. If you sell cardboard boxes by the traincar load, you need to reach companies that sell things packaged in cardboard boxes. Send a letter, an email, a salesman to knock on their door. The world of B2B lives and dies with their ability to “reach the right people.”

But when you are selling a product or service to the public, “targeting the right customer” works only about 10% better than reaching the untargeted masses.If the cost of targeting is less than 10% higher than the cost of not targeting, go ahead and target. But I am confident you will find that targeting usually costs considerably more than that.

“But everyone else is doing it.”

Please excuse me while I bang my head against the wall.

1. Nielsen is the highly scientific organization that measures television and radio audiences.
2. D2D is cloud based, and leverages open source technology designed to collect, manage, and analyze complex data.
3. Les Binet is a highly respected data scientist.

In the summer of 2020, Les Binet published a huge, longterm study on the effectiveness of marketing. Here is one of the many things he learned:

“In many ways, online marketing and online media has done itself a disservice by focusing on targeting more than reach. A couple of very interesting studies are out there. One was a study by Nielsen, about the relative contributions of reach versus targeting in effectiveness, and they concluded, with a survey of about 500 econometric models, that targeting only adds about 10% to the effectiveness of the campaign on average. A very similar result came from some work by D2D, where they looked at over 200 econometric models, from a wide range of categories, and they concluded that targeting of a campaign adds only about 10% to effectiveness. So the same numbers, two very different methods.”

Have you been following the news about Phenylephrine, the decongestant that was proven to be ineffective in 2007 and in multiple studies since then, but is still on the shelf 16 years later?According to a recent news story by Sarah Zhang,

“Americans collectively shell out $1.763 billion a year for cold and allergy meds with phenylephrine, according to the FDA, which also calls the number a likely underestimate. That’s a lot of money for a decongestant that does not work.”

Generally speaking, I’m in favor of government staying out of the way of business, but this seems to be a case where the Federal Trade Commission might ought to step in and say, “Guys, you need to quit lying to the public.”

“But everyone else is doing it.”

One last example: Google, LinkedIn, and every other seller of pay-per-click will aggressively argue that you need to include their “expanded network” to achieve the lowest cost-per-click. What they are telling you is absolutely true as long as you don’t mind paying for clicks by bots.

Industries with the highest rates of click fraud include photography (65%), pest control (62%), locksmiths (53%), plumbing (46%), and waste removal (45%). [data provided by clickcease.com]Let me be clear: I do not believe – even for one second – that Google or LinkedIn or any other major seller of pay-per-click advertising is directly involved in a scheme to sell bot-clicks. But have you ever looked into exactly who and what constitutes an “expanded network?” You really should, and I hope you will. When you have gathered the facts, I believe you will probably opt-out of all the expanded networks offered by the major sellers of pay-per-click.

But please know in advance that when you do this, alarm bells will go off and each of those sellers of pay-per-click advertising will tell you that I don’t know what I’m talking about and they will passionately argue that you are making a horrible mistake because, “everyone else is doing it.”

Did you know there are a variety of services that can identify, track, and block bots from clicking your online ads?You didn’t know that? Well, it’s probably because, “no one else is doing it.”

There are more than 6 million businesses in America, but the largest of those bot-tracking and bot-blocking companies [cheq.ai] has only 15,000 customers.

I’m convinced the sellers of pay-per-click ads are perfectly willing to let you buy bot-clicks from their expanded networks for the same reasons that all the drug companies are willing to sell you Phenylephrine.

It is entirely possible that I am a cranky and catankerous old man, and that everyone else is right.

So I’ll let you look into these expanded networks and decide for yourself.

Does that sound fair?

Roy H. Williams

NOTE: The photo at the top of today’s Monday Morning Memo is a fairly recent picture of Roy’s mom. At the bottom left is her famous “Band-Aid Beige” Corvette. Roy’s friend Tony calls that color “Caucasian.”

Gregory Shepard is autistic, dyslexic, and has a sensory condition known as synesthesia, commonly described as “having the brain’s wires crossed.” Universities wouldn’t admit him and the U.S. Navy said, “no thanks.” Greg could have allowed his neurodivergent struggles to defeat him. Instead, he leveraged his atypical mind to build and sell 12 businesses, co-lead a global investment syndicate in the technology sector, and use his earned wealth as a philanthropist. This week, in a poignant conversation with roving reporter Rotbart, Greg makes a strong case for integrating neurodiverse people into the workforce. Where do you go to learn what you ought to know? MondayMorningRadio.com.

View Details

Too much to do, too little time. First you are interrupted; then the interruption is interrupted. Does that ever happen to you?

Me, too.

Surrounded by frantic, breathless, rapid distraction, we have become characters in the video game of Life. The problem is that we are becoming habituated to it. Sensory overload is becoming the new normal.

Jeff Sexton, one of my business partners, sent me an article from Science.org last week. I’ll share a single paragraph with you:

“The researchers then decided to take the experiment a step further. For 15 minutes, the team left participants alone in a lab room in which they could push a button and shock themselves if they wanted to. The results were startling: Even though all participants had previously stated that they would pay money to avoid being shocked with electricity, 67% of men and 25% of women chose to inflict it on themselves rather than just sit there quietly and think… People would rather be electrically shocked than be left alone with their thoughts.”

– Nadia Whitehead, Science.org

Like I said, “habituated.” We skitter and twitch through each day as though the finger of God is mashing the fast forward button on the spacetime continuum.

In her book, My Invented Country, Isabel Allende writes:

“The North Americans’ sense of time is very special. They are short on patience. Everything must be quick, including food and sex, which the rest of the world treats ceremoniously. Gringos invented two terms that are untranslatable into most languages: ‘snack’ and ‘quickie,’ to refer to eating standing up and loving on the run … that, too, sometimes standing up. The most popular books are manuals: how to become a millionaire in ten easy lessons, how to lose fifteen pounds a week, how to recover from your divorce, and so on. People always go around looking for shortcuts and ways to escape anything they consider unpleasant: ugliness, old age, weight, illness, poverty, and failure in any of its aspects.”

But last night I discovered the Nancy Reagan solution: “Just say no.”

You have been telling yourself that you are overcommitted, but you’re not. You are careful about making commitments. You are not overcommitted. You are over-obligated.

Obligations are thrust upon you by people who ambush you with an urgent emergency, or worse, a “quick question.” These people know quick questions often have complicated answers, but they just don’t care. They hide behind the word “Quick” so they can pretend they are asking for nothing more than a flickering moment of your time and attention.

You never committed to do what they are asking of you, but you feel obligated nonetheless.

Just say no.

“Quick question.”

“No.”

See how easy that was?

God bless you, Nancy Reagan.

Roy H. Williams

To obtain power and influence, you don’t need wealth or privilege. Anyone can become widely known and respected if they can generate a compelling idea and communicate it effectively. That is the conclusion of Bob Dilenschneider, an author, historian, and strategic communication advisor who has been studying and dissecting the elements of power and influence for more than four decades. This week, Dilenschneider shares a surprisingly simple way to get others to listen to you, and follow you. Grab some popcorn and take a seat. The show is about to begin, starring Dean and Maxwell Rotbart, at MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

You cut a nick into a stick to mark a moment. Then, at the end of the time being measured, you make another nick.

To do a thing at the last possible moment is to do it within that second nick, “in the nick of time.”

Millions of us have been using this phrase since the year 1580, but very few know the story behind it. You are now one of the chosen few who possess the arcane knowledge of the nick on a stick.

But why do we say, “nick of time” instead of “notch of time”? If nick and notch mean the same thing, why haven’t we been saying for 443 years, “This money arrived in the notch of time.”

We say nick because “nick” ends with a sharper, cleaner sound than “notch.” Say it out loud. “nick-nick-nick.” “notch-notch-notch.” “nick-nick-nick.” “notch-notch-notch.”

“Nick” sounds like a sharp, narrow cut, shaped like a V, narrow and specific. But “notch” sounds softer and wider, with an indistinct bottom shaped like the letter U, a bite taken out of an apple.

But nick doesn’t have a V in it, and notch doesn’t have a U. So what’s going on?

The letters V and U are graphemes, visual letters in the alphabet. But the meaning of a word is not determined by the look of its letters, but by the sounds they make within the word. Those sounds are called phonemes.

When describing a phoneme, don’t say the name of the letter. Make only the sound represented by the letter. The letter is a grapheme. The sound it makes is a phoneme.

The sound of a word has a lot to do with how it makes us feel, even when we are reading silently.This is incredibly important when choosing names for products and services and companies. It is also important when writing messages that you hope will persuade.

Ad writers, song writers, speech writers, and poets, are you listening?Phonemes with abrupt, clean sounds are “p” “b” “t” “d” “ck” and “g”. The visual graphemes that visually represent those phonemes are P, B, T, D, K, and G. “p” “b” “t” “d” “ck” and “g” are known as the stops, or plosives. This is because all the air is stopped, then released with a plosion: “Kate kicked a kite. nick-nick-nick.” The grapheme is called a K, but the final phoneme in “nick” is “ck”.

The “tch” sound in “notch” is an affricate, a sound that begins as a stop and releases as a fricative, a sound that will hiss, hush, or buzz, like “f” “v” “s” “th” “z” “sh” “j” and “h”. The indistinct ending of the sound is what causes us to hear something less sharply defined than we hear in “nick.”

We could go on for at least 30 more minutes describing the 44 sounds that make up the English language and discussing the conceptual ideas we unconsciously associate with each of those 44 sounds, but right now my interest is elsewhere.

I want you to return with me to the title of today’s Monday Morning Memo, “Living in the Nick of Time.”

Do you remember the Monday Morning Memo from 8 weeks ago, July 17, 2023? Today’s Monday Morning Memo is a callback to that memo. A callback is a powerful tool in storytelling because it deepens the understanding of the audience by giving them a new context to consider.

When you end with a callback to the beginning, this is called “going full circle.”In the words of T.S. Eliot,“We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.”

Here is what I told you on July 17th:

“You cannot suffer the past or future because they do not exist. What you are suffering is your memory and your imagination.”

You cut a nick on a stick to mark a moment. At the end of the time being measured, you make another nick. To do a thing at the last possible moment is to do it inside that second nick, “in the nick of time.”

You are living in the nick of time. Every moment of your life is lived in the nick, that sharp bottom of the V cut into the stick of time by the knife of the present.

All the little moments in life add up to your life. If you don’t get it right, nothing else matters.

Roy H. Williams

PS – Having gone full circle, and ended by revisiting the title of today’s memo, does “Living in the Nick of Time” mean something different now than it did when you first read it?

View Details

A friend rotated my brain toward the subject of fame.He aimed my eyes in a new direction when he said, “Do you remember that thing you sent me 10 or 15 years ago?”

I gave him the same blank look that you would have given him.

He continued, “It was that thing Leonard Pitts wrote about being ‘the Man.'”

I recovered it from the Random Quotes database at MondayMorningMemo.com, handed my phone to him and told him to read it out loud. When he was finished, we laughed together like two little boys who heard someone fart in church.

Here it is:

“I’ve got nothing against fame. I’m famous myself. Sort of.

OK, not Will Smith famous. Or Ellen DeGeneres famous. All right, not even Marilu Henner famous.

I’m the kind of famous where you fly into some town to give a speech before that shrinking subset of Americans who still read newspapers and, for that hour, they treat you like a rock star, applauding, crowding around, asking for autographs.

Then it’s over. You walk through the airport the next day and no one gives a second glance. You are nobody again.

Dave Barry told me this story once about Mark Russell, the political satirist. It seems Russell gave this performance where he packed the hall, got a standing O. He was The Man. Later, at the hotel, The Man gets hungry, but the only place to eat is a McDonald’s across the road. The front door is locked, but the drive-through is still open. So he stands in it. A car pulls in behind him. The driver honks and yells, “Great show, Mark!”

The moral of the story is that a certain level of fame — call it the level of minor celebrity — comes with a built-in reality check. One minute, you’re the toast of Milwaukee. The next, you’re standing behind a Buick waiting to order a Big Mac.”

– Leonard Pitts, January 14, 2008

There is something about laughing with a friend that soaks into your heart and redirects your thoughts.I woke up the next morning thinking about fame, and how easily it comes and goes.

I thought about Bill Cosby and Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart. And then my computer told me “Joe the Plumber” had died. Remember Joe the Plumber? He became a celebrity in 2008 when he asked Barack Obama a question. We learned later that his name wasn’t Joe and he was never a plumber, but his perspective resonated with a lot of Americans.

And then it hit me: Andy Warhol was a painter, but what we remember about him was his colorful comment about each person receiving “15 minutes of fame.”

I could feel the freight train of curiosity gaining momentum in my mind, so I had to quickly decide whether to grab a handrail, swing aboard and see where it would take me, or spend the rest of the day regretting having missed the chance.

I didn’t want to live in regret, so I grabbed a handrail and was yanked off my feet into a noisy, rattling railcar.

When my eyes had grown accustomed to the dust and the half-light, I found the following 19 statements carved into the wooden walls of that railcar. These statements were signed by Marilyn Monroe, Johnny Depp, Erma Bombeck, Tony Bennett, Emily Dickinson, John Wooden, Gene Tierney, Jack Kerouac, George Michael, Eddie Van Halen, Sinead O’Connor, Fran Lebowitz, Michael Huffington, Lord Byron, Arthur Schopenhauer, Michelle Pfeiffer, Clive James, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Davy Crockett.

But not in that order. I’m not going to tell you who said what, because I don’t want your reactions to be influenced by your memories of those people.

“Wealth is like sea-water; the more we drink, the thirstier we become; and the same is true of fame.”

“Fame is the thirst of youth.”

“Don’t confuse fame with success. Madonna is one; Helen Keller is the other.”

“Fame comes and goes. Longevity is the thing to aim for.”

“Fame is like caviar, you know – it’s good to have caviar but not when you have it at every meal.”

“I’m not stupid enough to think that I can deal with another 10 or 15 years of major exposure. I think that is the ultimate tragedy of fame… People who are simply out of control, who are lost. I’ve seen so many of them, and I don’t want to be another cliché.”

“Wealth, beauty, and fame are transient. When those are gone, little is left except the need to be useful.”

“Talent is God given. Be humble. Fame is man-given. Be grateful. Conceit is self-given. Be careful.”

“When kids ask me how it feels to be a rock star, I say leave me alone, I’m not a rock star. I’m not in it for the fame, I’m in it because I like to play.”

“I’m shy, paranoid, whatever word you want to use. I hate fame. I’ve done everything I can to avoid it.”

“A life without fame can be a good life, but fame without a life is no life at all.”

“Fame is a curse… it was the worst phase of my life, which I thank God I’ll never have to go through again.”

“Fame is like a shaved pig with a greased tail, and it is only after it has slipped through the hands of some thousands, that some fellow, by mere chance, holds on to it!”

“When we die our money, fame, and honors will be meaningless. We own nothing in this world. Everything we think we own is in reality only being loaned to us until we die. And on our deathbed at the moment of death, no one but God can save our souls.”

“If fame belonged to me, I could not escape her; if she did not, the longest day would pass me on the chase, and the approbation of my dog would forsake me then. My barefoot rank is better.”

“If a man loves the labour of his trade, apart from any question of success or fame, the gods have called him.”

“First of all, plain and simple, you have no real idea of what it means to be famous until you become famous. It’s a double-edged sword. Obviously there are a lot of amazing things about fame, but there are also a lot of challenging things about it.”

“Andy Warhol made fame more famous.”

“Fame? It’s like old newspapers blowing down Bleecker Street.”

I did not write to you today to warn you about the flickering seduction of fleeting fame.I wrote to encourage you to grab quickly onto the handrail of curiosity whenever you sense that rattling, noisy, half-lit railcar beginning to gain momentum in your mind.

Ride the rattling railcar of curiosity! Regardless of where it takes you, it is always a wonderful ride.

That is my advice to you.

Roy H. Williams

The odds of a small enterprise surviving for 50 years are fewer than one in a hundred. Now imagine trying to survive half a century while relying on employees who are called upon regularly to risk their lives and who are not paid. That’s the story our roving reporter Rotbart has spent the past 18 months chronicling for his new book, Dedication and Service: 50 Years on Call with the Volunteers of Colorado’s Genesee Fire Rescue. It’s an organization with roots dating back to Benjamin Franklin and his “Bucket Brigade” of 1736. This week, Rotbart and his son, Maxwell, invite Jason Puffett and Hank O’Brien to explain what motivates their firefighting crew and what for-profit businesses can learn from the enduring success of their fire company. It’s hot! It’s on fire! It’s MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

The comedian Mark Russell said you can judge a generation by its magazines.

Life magazine was first published in 1883. It was followed by

People in 1974, which was followed by

Us, which was followed by

Self.

Ralph Waldo Emerson was born in 1803, just a few weeks before the Louisiana Purchase was announced to the American people by President Thomas Jefferson. Emerson was 23 when Jefferson died.

America was still heavily influenced by Europe, but Ralph Waldo Emerson saw a future that no one else could see.

At the age of 34, he gave a speech to a group of college students in Boston that provided a visionary, philosophical framework for escaping the influence of Europe and building a distinctly American cultural identity. That speech was entitled “The American Scholar” and Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. considered it to be America’s “intellectual Declaration of Independence.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson was a poet, a writer, a lecturer and an encourager who inspired generations of positive thinkers that stir among us to this day. Friedrich Nietzsche considered him “the most gifted of the Americans” and Walt Whitman referred to him as his “master.”

Emerson was also a passionate opponent of slavery. Throughout his life he urged Congress to bring slavery to an immediate and permanent end.

When Emerson was lecturing in Springfield, Illinois on January 10, 1853, a then-unknown Abraham Lincoln was in the audience. Years later, Lincoln invited Emerson to the White House and told him of the impact that lecture had on him.

Ralph Waldo Emerson spoke with whimsy, sentimentality, and vulnerability when he said,

“It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.”Modern businesspeople believe whimsy, sentimentality, and vulnerability to be weaknesses.

But I know those people to be wrong.

When you choose to like a person who does not like you, this is whimsy.

It is hard not to like a person who likes you.

When you choose to believe in someone, this is sentimentality.

It is hard not to love a person who believes in you.

When you say something that requires humility and love, this is vulnerability.

It is hard not to trust a person who says something that only a humble, loving person would say.

As a writer, Ralph Waldo Emerson was lofty. But as a person, he was famously open and vulnerable.

Vulnerability is the price of intimacy.Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote Self Reliance in 1841.

Elbert Hubbard wrote A Message to Garcia in 1899.

Dale Carnegie updated Emerson’s ideas in his book, How to Win Friends and Influence People in 1936.

Napoleon Hill wrote Think and Grow Rich in 1937.

Norman Vincent Peale added a veneer of Christianity in his book, The Power of Positive Thinking, in 1952.

Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson wrote The One Minute Manager in 1982.

Stephen Covey wrote The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People in 1989.

Joel Osteen wrote Become a Better You: 7 Keys to Improving Your Life Every Day in 2007.

And every one of those writers owes a debt to Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Life, People, Us, Self.

Life

is about more than just business. It’s about balance. It’s about the freedom to be stupid with old friends.

People

cover the earth. They speak lots of languages and have confusing cultures, but every person is made in the image of God.

Us

is problematic because it necessitates the idea of “Them,” those who are not Us. Uh-oh.

Self

is who you think...

View Details

I have a friend who is a famous online marketer. Last week he sent me an observation I found interesting. It occurred to me that you might find it interesting as well.

“Now that targeting is pretty much dead on Facebook and Instagram, I have a theory that the rules of reach and frequency that have always applied to radio will also apply to social platforms as they shift away from micro-targeting and toward looking more like mass media.”

[Frequency means repetition. – editor]

And then he asked a question.

“Can you remind me again what your magic formula is for reach and frequency when buying radio ads? I know this is a bit like someone asking me how to spell SEO, but this came up in a conversation I was having with a buddy the other day and I felt stupid that I couldn’t remember it.”

Happy to help. Here’s what you’re looking for:

APE = Advertising Performance EquationShare of Voice x Impact Quotient = Share of MindShare of Mind x Personal Experience Factor = Share of MarketShare of Market x Market Potential = Sales Volume1.Share of Voice: How much of the noise in your category in your marketplace is your noise? (All media combined, including word of mouth)

2.Impact Quotient: The average impact of a message in your category is 1.0. If your ads are 30% better than average, you score a 1.3. If your ads are 10 percent weaker than average, you score a 0.9 … the Impact of your message can accelerate or reduce your Share of Voice

3.Share of Mind is the percentage of real estate you own in your category in the mind of the average customer.

4.Personal Experience Factor is likewise measured with a 1.0 being, “exactly the experience your customer expected.” Anything above a 1.0 is a delight factor. Anything below a 1.0 is depth of disappointment. Online reviews are just measurements of a customer’s Personal Experience Factor

5.Share of Market is your sales volume as a percentage of the total sales available in your category, in your marketplace.

For a message to enter Declarative Memory (mid-term memory – longer than Working Memory – but not yet Procedural Memory, which is involuntary, automatic recall,) a message should be repeated to the same individual at least 3 times within 7 night’s sleep. Further research has lowered this number to as little as 2.5 repetitions per week.

The more memorable the message, the less repetition is required. Therefore, the only way to beat the system (Google) and save money is to create messages that are highly memorable. NOTE: Any limited time offer with a call-to-action is erased from declarative memory when the “limited time” window is closed. This is why you cannot build a brand with Direct Response calls-to-action.

To become a household word and enter long-term Procedural Memory, you need to hammer your message into the mind of your target at least 2.5 per week for at least 3 years. But even then, it will fade within 24 months after your ads disappear, assuming that your ads have only the average 1.0 Impact Quotient. But a message – or an experience – with a significantly higher Impact Quotient can enter Procedural Memory and become automatic, involuntary recall, with only a single repetition. PTSD is an example of this.

The key to absolute category dominance is to elevate your Impact Quotient and Personal Experience Factor to numbers above 2.0.

In other words, you’ve got to have awesome ads and deliver an amazing customer experience.

But you already knew that.

“This is perfect. Thank you. Have any of your partners tested APE in social ads (FB, IG, TikTok, etc.) to see if the numbers hold up? I would have to assume that Share of...

View Details

I meet with dozens of people each year who tell me how they grew their companies to an impressive size, but then the growth slowed down. And then it stopped. They can see a lot more business out there; they just can’t figure out how to get it.

I used to call this, “hitting the glass ceiling,” but I don’t call it that anymore. Now I say, “You need to add more steps to your ladder.”

Here are a few things I’ve learned over the years:

1. It is easy to pick the low-hanging fruit.
2. According to the US Census, there are 17 million owner-operated businesses in America that have no employees other than the owner. I imagine them as 17 million guys named Chuck and each of them has a truck. All of these Chucks-in-Trucks live off the lowest of the low-hanging fruit. They provide pest control, plumbing, electrical work, window cleaning, gutter installation, A/C repair, junk hauling, roofing, remodeling, swimming pool resurfacing, cement pouring, and tax preparation. They make a living, but their businesses are not scalable. In fact, it’s not really a business at all. When Chuck isn’t behind the wheel of that truck, Chuck is unemployed. But Chuck survives because it is easy to pick the low-hanging fruit.
3. Most of the fruit on the tree requires a step-ladder for you to reach it.
4. The steps on the ladder are preparation and planning, procedures and processes, recruitment and retention of customers, recruitment and retention of employees, vendor relations, profit margin monitoring, cash management, lines of credit, and then of course there is advertising and marketing.
5. Everyone successful person has a superpower, a core competency, an area of excellence.
6. And when the growth of the business begins to slow, the instinct of these people is always to double-down on the things that got them to where they are. This is a very seductive mistake.
7. The steps that got you to where you are… will not take you to the next level.
8. The business owner knows the steps what got them to where they are. They can name the reasons for their success. This is why they believe that doing what they have always done, but with greater intensity and deeper commit, will lift the company to a whole new level. But it never does.
9. To get to the next level, you need to add more steps to your ladder.
10. You’ve got to start doing things you’ve never done before. You have to identify your limiting beliefs. You have to go outside your comfort zone.

It usually takes business owners about 3 years of pushing and straining plus motivational talks, accountability partners and invigorated compensation plans that result in zero growth before they realize that they have already found all the customers who like to buy in the way the business owner prefers to sell.

Do you want to hear something really weird? I have learned that it is almost pointless to suggest meaningful change to a business owner until their business has been flat for about 3 years. It has been my observation that they will always resist adding more steps to their ladder until they have utterly exhausted their confidence in their superpower.

Has your business been flat for awhile? Are you tired of standing on your tiptoes at the top of your ladder reaching at high as you can with your strong right arm and finding nothing there?

Add more steps to your ladder.

Roy H. Williams

Roving reporter Rotbart is taking a Sabbatical until Labor Day so that he can finish his new book about Volunteer Firefighters before the deadline. I’ve suggested to the rover that his son, Maxwell, ought to interview him so that you and I can hear all about this new book after it is finished. Volunteer Firefighters! What will Rotbart think of next! You can count on me to let

View Details

I often share memories of wise old men who gave me good advice.

I have a grandchild turning 17 today, so I will play the part of the old man.

The person I am advising is you.

Always deliver the negative truth while the sale hangs in the balance. If you smile and make the sale and keep quiet until that predictable moment of crisis arrives, the truth will no longer ring true. It will just sound like you are making excuses.Tell your customer what they deserve to know while they still have the chance to walk away. Look them in the eye and warn them. Make it a moment they will never forget.

Fools are attracted to slick and shiny liars who will tell them what they want to hear. But when you tell the negative truth while the sale hangs in the balance, you filter out the fools.

When a fool hears your warning and walks away, dance and sing. Rejoice! You don’t want to live your life surrounded by anxious, nervous, finger-pointing fools.

Tell the truth when it is not in your best interest. Smart people will trust you. Your relationships will last for decades.

When everything is upside and there is no downside, you can be certain that someone is lying.

The downside of the advice I gave you today is that you will definitely lose sales you could have made.

The upside is that you really didn’t want to make them. Not only would you have lost that client within a few months, you would have eroded your integrity and lost your self-respect in the process.

And if you keep eroding your integrity, you will soon become slick and shiny.

Roy H. Williams

I have a weirdly excellent rabbit hole for you to explore today. Do you know the way in? – Indy Beagle

Ken Paskins witnessed his grandfather and his father struggle to run a successful business. He was determined to find a better way. So Ken went to work for giant companies like Oracle and BEA Systems. Today Ken is the co-founder of a CEO coaching and peer advisory community that shows owners and CEOs of companies with 100 or fewer employees how to achieve their goals. Rather than rely on a single guru for sage advice, Paskins tells roving reporter Rotbart, his clients learn from experts and peers

View Details

The first half of what I’m about to tell you, I have told you before. But you will understand why I chose to repeat it when you read the second half. – RHWThe average person has 5 senses. We can see, hear, taste, touch, and smell.

We also have the ability to interpret magical little constructs called “words,” sequences of letters that allow us to see things that are not there and have experiences that are not happening.

Let us talk about that for a moment.

The average human is equipped with approximately 100 million sensory receptors to gather the data that will become seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching.

This sensory data is nothing more than:

1. wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrum
2. vibrations traveling though air and water
3. chemicals dissolved in air and water
4. surfaces containing a total of fifteen properties, such as friction, compliance, adhesion, texture, and thermal conductance.

Those wavelengths, vibrations, chemicals, and surfaces are real. But color, sound, smell, taste, and touch exist only in your mind.

“They do not exist, as such, outside our brain. Actually, the universe is colorless, odorless, insipid and silent.”

– Dr. Jorge Martins de Oliveira

Your 100 million sensory receptors put you in touch with the world around you. But your brain contains 10,000 billion synapses. This means you are 100,000 times better equipped to experience a world that does not exist, than a world that does.

And then you have – just forward of your left ear – Broca’s area, which is always searching for the new, surprising, and different, anxious to distract you with something more interesting than that which currently occupies your mind.

All these things are standard equipment because you are fearfully and wonderfully made.

We, average people, have all these things plus intuition, that astounding logic of the mute right brain, allowing us to predict things that are likely to happen, based upon patterns we have observed.

Artificial Intelligence is machine intuition, a predictive output based upon patterns the machine has been taught to recognize.Allow me to tell you how it all began: average people created a machine that was deaf, mute, and blind. Then, they created a silent language made of only two numbers, zero and one. Then, using only that language, they taught their deaf, mute, and blind machine to hear, speak, and see. And now they are teaching it to recognize all the patterns that energize human intuition, that nearly-instantaneous ability to make accurate predictions.

Here is a question: will the computers of the distant future believe the story I just told you, or will they conclude it to be merely myth and legend?

Jesus answered, “Didn’t I say you are gods?” (Read it for yourself in the 10th chapter of John, the 4th book in the New Testament.)

When Jesus said that 2,000 years ago, was quoting the 82nd Psalm, written by Asaph during the Babylonian exile 6 centuries earlier.

Or so I have been told by an Ai bot named “Beta.” If you look at the top of this page, you can see Aloha pointing to the note Beta sent me.

My oh my, what will we gods think of next?

ONE LAST THING: You may have noticed that I choose to use a lower-case “i” following a capital “A” when I abbreviate the words “Artificial Intelligence.” I do this because a lifetime of pattern recognition causes me to see the name Al, as in Al Pacino, Al Capone, and Al Gore, when a capital “A” is followed by a capital “I.” I point this out to you because I don’t want you to think I am unaware that everyone else uses two capital letters when they abbreciate Artificial Intelligence.

I have the...

View Details

Everything I’m about to share with you happened in England and France during the lifetime of Thomas Jefferson, while America still had its “new baby” smell.

The English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge gave us “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” in 1798, while Napoleon sailed to Egypt to fight the Battle of the Pyramids and famously discover the Rosetta Stone.

Coleridge died of heart failure due to his opium addiction.

Wordsworth gave us “The Rainbow” in 1802, while the people of France enthusiastically approved a new constitution that elevated Napoleon to dictator for life.

Wordsworth died of a lung infection.

Shelley gave us “Ozymandias,” the tale of a fallen and forgotten emperor, in 1818, while Napoleon languished in exile on the island of Saint Helena in the Atlantic.

Shelley died in a boating accident at the age of 29.

Keats gave us “La Belle Dame sans Mercy” in 1819, while Napoleon continued to languish on Saint Helena.

Keats died of tuberculosis at the age of 25.

“Le Belle Dame sans Mercy” in English means “The Beautiful Girl without Mercy,” but you and I know her as Fame and Fortune.

You’ve often heard the names of Coleridge, Wordsworth, Shelley, and Keats, but did you know that each of these English Romantic poets was inspired by an imaginary 15th-century monk named Thomas Rowley?

But imaginary through he was, Thomas Rowley re-ignited the flames of romantic literature in England during the colorful years that he lived in the mind of an adolescent boy in poverty.

That boy, Thomas Chatterton, was born 15 weeks after his father died in 1752, when Thomas Jefferson was just 9 years old. Napoleon would not be born for another 3 years.

Little Thomas spent his days with his uncle, the sexton of the church of St Mary, Redcliffe, where he would crawl through the attic of that vast, ancient building, examining the contents of oak chests stored there since 1185, where documents as old as the War of the Roses lay forgotten.

By the time he was 6, young Thomas Chatterton had learned his alphabet from the illuminated capitals of those documents. By the time he was 11, Thomas had become so well-versed in the language and legends of earlier centuries that he began sending poems to “Felix Farley’s Bristol Journal,” claiming they were transcribed from the writings of a monk named Thomas Rowley who had lived 300 years earlier.

Aside from the hundreds of poems written by this imaginary monk, Chatterton wrote political letters, song lyrics, operas and satires in verse and in prose. He became known to the readers of the Middlesex Journal as Decimus, a rival of Junius, that author of the forever infamous Letters of Junius. Chatterton was also a contributor to Hamilton’s Town and Country Magazine, and the Freeholder’s Magazine, political publications supportive of liberty and rebellion.

While the brilliant submissions of Thomas Chatterton were happily accepted by editors across England, he was paid little or no money for them.

On the 17th of April, 1770, 17-year-old Thomas Chatterton penned a satire he called his “Last Will and Testament.” In it, he hinted that he was planning to end his life the following day.

That famous poem by John Keats, “La Bella Dame sans Mercy,” may well have been written with Thomas Chatterton in mind. For the beautiful, merciless girl in that poem is a fairy – let us call her Fame & Fortune – who makes love to a medieval knight in his dreams, then leaves him sick and dying on a cold hillside when she...

View Details

You cannot suffer the past or future because they do not exist. What you are suffering is your memory and your imagination.Friend, you are not a good worrier, so you might as well quit.

Most of the things you worry about never come to pass. And the majority of those things that do come to pass are inconsequential, unworthy of your worry, or they cannot be changed, no matter how well you worry.

Of all the things you worry about, only a tiny percentage are worth your worry, and can be changed. These things things are called, “Things you know you need to do.” And you already know the actions you should take:

1. When a friend pops into your head, call them, and say, “I’ve had you on my mind. Is there anything going on in your life that I should know about?”
2. Talk to God.
3. Get a colonoscopy.

See? The things you know you need to do are simple, they just make you uncomfortable.

Do them anyway.

I believe we worry because it keeps us from being bored.

We don’t want to be bored. We want to be excited.

Fear is a form of excitement. Anger is a form of excitement.

Have you ever noticed how easy it is to become famous? All you have to do is spread anger and fear. Spread it deep and wide. People will treat you like a god. Conversely, a person who spreads good and happy news is patted on the head and treated like a child.

If spreading anger and fear is not your thing, and if spreading good and happy news is not your thing, perhaps you should consider lifting the spirits of the strangers you encounter.

When you lift the spirit of a stranger, you lift your own as well.Someone in my life made a suggestion last week and I really, really, really didn’t want to do it. My friend said that every time he was in a restaurant, he made sure to remember the name of his server. And when the server brought the food, he would say their name, and then, “As soon as you leave, I’m going to pray over this food. While I’m doing that, is there anything I can pray about for you?”

My friend said he had done this 20 or 25 times and every time, without exception, the servers were deeply touched and immediately shared something they were worried about. He then assured them that he would include that in his prayer.

Like I said, I knew it was something I needed to do. But I didn’t want to do it because I knew it would make me uncomfortable. Extremely uncomfortable.

I was worried the person might be frightened and think I was a religious nut. I was worried the person might be offended and create a big scene. I was worried it would be awkward for me to ever go back to that restaurant.

But I remembered what my friend told me. “I’ve done this 20 or 25 times and it always turns out the same way. They always have something they want me to include in my prayer and they always seem to be deeply touched.”

I’ve now done this exactly once, and it turned out exactly as my friend said it would. And the friend I was having lunch with didn’t seem to mind at all. In fact, he said he might start doing it, too.

I have interesting friends. I’ll bet you do, too.

Your interesting friends have interesting friends.

And one of them is you.

Roy H. Williams

Lieutenant Colonel Ricky Howard has handled more than $1 BILLION in purchase contracts, many of them with small businesses. His client is a reliable buyer, and once your company is selected as a vendor, you will likely remain a vendor for decades to come. Howard is an expert on how to win government contracts, from office supplies to HVAC equipment to hi-tech computer programming. During his service in the U.S. Air Force, Lt. Howard flew 555 combat hours. Listen and learn as he explains to roving reporter Rotbart how your business could qualify as a government contractor, even if you never suspected

View Details

When a thought knocks politely on the door of my mind, I open the door and entertain the thought. But when an unseen thought shines into my mind through a skylight, I am always startled by the mystery of how words-not-my-own came to echo in my empty skull.

“What, then, is Love?”

Those four words, like the feet of a proud, white goat, prance in the snowy landscape of my mind.

“What, then, is Love?”

Unable to escape the music of those words, I will do my best to answer their question:

“What, then, is Love?”

Low-voltage love is a noun. It is something you feel. It surrounds you and you are “in” it.

High-voltage love is a verb. It is something you do.

E. W. Howe was 5 years old when Teddy Roosevelt was born, and he was 10 when the American Civil War began. E. W. Howe died 85 years ago. But while he lived, he said,

“When a friend is in trouble, don’t annoy him by asking if there is anything you can do. Think up something appropriate and do it.”

In those 25 words, we see love as a verb; love with its sleeves rolled up.

Love as a noun comes and goes but love as a verb comes to stay. “For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health…”

Alexander the Great died 323 years before Jesus was born. Alexander loved adventure and battle. He felt it, was surrounded by it, and was “in” it. Jesus loved people. He fed them, healed them, encouraged them, and died for them. Verb, verb, verb, verb.

Alexander and Jesus both died at the age of 32.

During the 12 years that Alexander was conquering and ruling the world, his soldiers taught every nation a simplified form of Greek so that everyone could understand what Alexander was saying. This “Koine” Greek became the world’s first international language.

The entire New Testament – including all the stories of Jesus – were written in the “Koine” Greek of Alexander, a language with four different words for love, although only two of them were used in the New Testament. The two that do not appear are:

Eros: sexual love.

Storge: the love between members of a family.

The two words for love that appear repeatedly in the New Testament are Philia and Agape.

Philia: the love between close friends.

Agape: sacrificial love; “I care about you more than I care about me.”

The Harvard Grant Study is the world’s longest running and most comprehensive psychological study, and it talks about love. The study says the happiest people are those who have chosen to do 5 things.

(5.) suppress unproductive and distressing thoughts,

(4.) maintain a realistic view of the future and its difficulties,

(3.) turn frustration and anger into productive energy,

(2.) make light of stressful events,

(1.) focus on the wellbeing of others.

The world’s longest running and most comprehensive psychological study says the secret of happiness is to see love as a verb, something you do: focus on the wellbeing of others.

Albert Schweitzer was a polymath. He was a physician, philosopher, musicologist, theologian, humanitarian, and a writer. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1952.

On September 4, 1965 – the day Albert Schweitzer died – the song “Help!” by the Beatles, went to #1 on the charts. Do you remember the lyrics?

When I was younger, so much younger than today,

I never needed anybody’s help in any way.

But now these days are gone, I’m not so self assured,

Now I find I’ve changed my mind and opened up the doors.

Help me if you can, I’m feeling down.

And I do appreciate you being ’round.

Help me get my feet back on the ground.

Won’t you please, please help me?

Albert Schweitzer spoke of love and happiness in much the same way the Harvard Grant Study spoke of love and...

View Details

We have a need to belong. We want to be seen and heard. We want to be missed when we are not around. We want to have genuine connection. This is the basis of relational ad writing.

Never heard of it? That is because most ads are transactional, not relational.

In a transactional ad, an air conditioning company might claim to be, “The Honest Air Conditioning Company.” But in a relational ad, the owner does not claim to be honest. They just say something that only an honest person would say.

The people in relational ads are marked by their vulnerability.KARLA: When something at home isn’t working right and you need a guy, your friend says,

JOHNNY MOLSON: “I’ve got a guy.”

KARLA: Hi, I’m Mrs. Michael and I want to be your guy. You need a plumber. You need an electrician. You need an H-Vac technician; I want to be your guy. I’m a happily married woman with two grown children, but back when I was raising two babies, my husband and I started a plumbing company, an electrical company, and an air conditioning company. Make no mistake: Mr. Michael is a genius with tools, but he did NOT enjoy running 3 big companies, so he asked me to do it. Guess what? I LOVE IT! I know that if I make your problems vanish into thin air, then when your friends say,

SARAH: “I’ve got a thing at home that isn’t working right, and I need a guy,”

KARLA: you’ll say,

JOHNNY MOLSON: “I’ve got a guy. Her name is Mrs. Michael.”

KARLA: Plumber, Electrician, H-Vac technician. I’m Mrs. Michael, and I want to be your guy.

DEVIN: Go to MrsMichael.com

KARLA: OR… go to Iwanttobeyourguy.com

DEVIN: MrsMichael.com

Relational ads are not portable. They are true only of the company that airs them. Transactional ads are portable. They can be used by anyone who wants to make the same offer, use the same gimmick, tell the same lie.Mrs. Michael does not use transactional ads. She uses relational ads that let you know who she is, what she believes, and how she thinks. You are free to like her or not. Most people like her. A lot. No surprise, right? We tend to buy from people we like, people with whom we agree, people who remind us of ourselves.

Did it ever occur to you that a transactional ad with an urgent, “limited-time offer” is erased from the mind as soon as the deadline is passed? We do not retain information that is no longer relevant or meaningful. The only thing we remember is to never pay that company their asking price because they will soon be having a sale.

Goldcasters Fine Jewelry sells a startling amount of jewelry per capita in a town that is located less than an hour from the inspiring city of Indianapolis. Goldcasters’ sales volume would be impressive for a jewelry store in Los Angeles, San Francisco, or Chicago.

Like Mrs. Michael, Goldcasters uses relational advertising.

DEVIN: Brad Lawrence, owner of Goldcasters Fine Jewelry.

BRAD: When I opened the store, I had no money. We didn’t have the money for inventory. I brought wax models from school to use to cast into projects for customers. And hence the name Goldcasters. Things were so tight at times I remember the backside of my wedding ring was gone because I didn’t have the money to buy gold to size rings. So I’d cut the pieces out of the back of my wedding band to use as gold stock to size rings for customers. And then when we could afford to, then I’d replace it back onto my...

View Details

It would appear that journalists can no longer see clearly or talk plainly. They hand you something twisted and bent and assure you that it is straight.

Propaganda hangs thick in the air around us and we are weary of it.

It has gotten so bad that each of the people I could count on to keep me informed have chosen to cut the umbilical and set themselves free from the pollution of newscasts.

I was contemplating these things in the predawn darkness when I remembered a comment made by Hosea 2700 years ago. His words were translated into English in 1611: “For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind: it hath no stalk; the bud shall yield no meal.”

The Contemporary English translation of the Book of Hosea was published in the year 2000: “If you scatter wind instead of wheat, you will harvest a whirlwind and have no wheat.”

This morning’s Roy H. Williams translation says, “If you scatter falsehoods instead of truth, you will harvest confusion and have no truth.”

You can use nuclear energy to illuminate great cities, or you can use it to vaporize them. Nuclear energy has no conscience, no ethics, no obligation to do what is right. It is we humans who must have conscience, ethics, and a sense of obligation.

Artificial Intelligence is like nuclear energy. You can use it to solve complicated problems, or you can use it to create them.

In recent weeks millions of people have seen photos showing Donald Trump being tackled and carried away by a group of police officers. We have seen Pope Francis wearing a white puffer jacket. We have seen an explosion at the Pentagon.

The Pentagon bombing was believed by enough people that it affected the S&P 500 on Wall Street.

But those things were the work of mischievous amateurs.

I wonder what is going to happen when the big boys decide it is time to play for higher stakes?

America has been losing its grasp on the truth ever since the Fairness Doctrine was repealed in 1987 and the 12AM/12FM/12TV limitations on broadcast ownership were lifted 20 years ago. This made it legal for anyone with a lot of money to buy all the TV and Radio stations and replace the news with falsehoods, half-truths, and outright lies. And we called it Freedom of Speech.

Now we are holding onto the truth by our fingertips, trying not to let it slip from our grasp.

As I sit in the predawn darkness, I see the rapidly approaching freight train of a Presidential election and I hear the sound of an approaching whirlwind.

Roy H. Williams

Dr. Michael Lenox is an expert on artificial intelligence, blockchain, and cryptocurrency. He knows the opportunities and the dangers of digital technology. Dr. Lenox advises business people on how to prepare for 2024, a year in which more data will be generated than in all previous years combined. Dr. Lenox is interviewed today by roving reporter Rotbart, a flesh-and-blood journalist. But Dr. Lenox says Rotbart could easily be replaced by a sophisticated algorithm. (Don’t tell Mrs. Rotbart.) The joy, the fear, and the wonder await you at MondayMorningRadio.com.

View Details

Do you remember that scene in Jurassic Park when the park’s founder revealed that he had extracted the blood of a dinosaur from a mosquito trapped in fossilized tree sap?

Forget the blood. Forget the dinosaur. Our interest is in that mosquito trapped in amber.

I sometimes think time is the amber in which we mosquitoes are held captive.

As Edwin Abbot demonstrated in his breakthrough book, “Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions,” we live in 4 dimensions: Height, Width, Depth, and Time. We have access to the 3 lower dimensions, but no access to the 7 dimensions in M-Theory that lie above and beyond our 4-dimensional “spacetime continuum.”

According to theoretical physicists, those 7 dimensions are as real as the 4 in which we live. And here is the interesting part: beings in those dimensions are outside of time. They are above it. We, however, are like those mosquitoes trapped in amber. Time does not expand us; it inhibits us, shackles us, makes us wear blinders. This would seem to confirm the idea that we are not physical beings who occasionally have a spiritual experience, but spiritual beings who are having a temporary physical experience.

You might be wondering what catapulted my mind into this strange, metaphysical sky this morning, so I will tell you. My partner Craig Arthur lives in Townsville, Australia, where his winter is our summer and his night is our day. This gives Craig and me a brief window to chat when he is ending his day and I am beginning my own.

This morning I opened my laptop just as Craig forwarded a meme from Cat Damon. It said,

“My son just walked into my room and said, ‘Daddy, I’m scared to die. Not of going to hell, I don’t think there is such a place, but I guess I’m scared there’s nothing. There was nothing before, so what if there’s nothing after?'”

Cat Damon wraps up his story with these words,

“My son is 37 years old and on acid.”

I’m not on acid. My drug of choice is called “Speculation.” You make it by combining Knowledge and Intuition in equal parts. Stirring this mixture is not required. Speculation explodes into existence when the two ingredients make contact.

Speculation is susceptible to confirmation bias, of course. We quickly see confirmation of what we already believe.

There is another formula, more popular than my own, that is just as susceptible to confirmation bias, though its practitioners like to believe their formula is objective, reliable, and scientific. This more popular formula is “Knowledge plus Data.”

Am I against data? Of course not. But I can tell you that the most skillful users of data – people like Sean Jones, Dewey Jenkins, Cedric Yau, Vi Wickam, Gene Naftulyev, Pyotr Belov, Jeffrey and Bryan Eisenberg, John Quarto von Tivadar, and Luis Castañeda – these people always ask themselves whether the data might be indicating something other than what they saw at first glance.

But most people do not question their initial interpretation of data. In the words of Andrew Lang, they use data, “like a drunk man uses a lamp post – for support rather than illumination.”

Knowledge + Intuition = Speculation

Knowledge + Data = Speculation

My observation has been that these 2 formulas are really just 2 different paths that lead to precisely the same destination. The key that unlocks the golden door of miracles is to have an independent partner who is using the formula you are NOT using. When both of you arrive at the same conclusion – even though you came at it from different directions – you can be far more confident that you have found the answer you were seeking.

Data is a snapshot of reality expressed in numbers in a database or on a spreadsheet. Data is the logic of the rational, sequential, deductive reasoning left hemisphere of your brain.

Intuition is a snapshot of...

View Details

There are places in geography.

There are places in the heart.

There are places in time.

Where shall we start?

– Indy Beagle

Places in Geography:“We have thought how places are able to evoke moods, as color and line in a picture may capture and warp us to a pattern the painter intended.”

– John Steinbeck, Sea of Cortez, p. 256

Places in the Heart:“God only knows what I’d be without you. If you should ever leave me, though life would still go on, believe me, the world could show nothing to me. So what good would living do me?”

– Brian Wilson

Places in Time:“There are places I’ll remember all my life, though some have changed; some forever, not for better. Some have gone, and some remain. All these places had their moments with lovers and friends I still can recall. Some are dead and some are living. In my life, I’ve loved them all.”

– John Lennon

My favorite singer-songwriter, James Taylor, was interviewed recently. When James was asked about his life-controlling addiction to drugs as a young man, he answered with these words:

“The key for an addict is how much of a relief the addict felt when they first discovered their drug of choice. When that really works for them, watch out for the backend, because you’ll hold on until the very end. You’ll be the last person to admit that it’s gotta go.”

I was considering these places and spaces in the darkness of early morning when the tone of an arriving text turned my eyes toward the telephone. My friend had been reading the Monday Morning Memos in the archives from 15 years ago and had a couple of questions for me. One of those questions triggered the memory of someone whose life briefly intersected with Pennie’s and mine 38 years ago.

And Now We Shall Start:Patrick is two years older than me. He is insightful and articulate, but his life has been shattered into sharp little shards. When a person has been irretrievably shattered, they have a hard time holding themselves together.

When he was a boy, Patrick saw his mother kill his father in the street outside their home. He and his mother did not get along after that.

And all the King’s horses and all the King’s men couldn’t put Patrick together again.

Watching your father fall is not at all like watching the rainfall, or the snowfall, or the light fall softly on the window pane. Watching your father fall is different. In Patrick’s case it led to him being held tightly in the sharp talons of the law like an eagle holds tightly to a mouse.

Policemen are attracted to Patrick like iron to a magnet. And Patrick is pulled toward prison like a moth is pulled toward the flame.

Patrick was headed back to prison when Pennie and I let him sleep in our spare bedroom 38 years ago. He was there for only a few weeks, but it was long enough to get to know him and all the monsters he was fighting in his mind.

Patrick’s life has a rhythm. He serves his time, gets out of prison, and promptly goes back to prison again.

Patrick isn’t crazy. He has a sharp, clear mind, an impressive vocabulary, and a deep understanding of the reality that surrounds him. His crime is that he uses illegal chemicals to escape that reality, and he is smart enough to manufacture those chemicals himself.

“Uh-oh. That’s a no-no. We’re going to have to put you back in your cage, Patrick.”

In the 67 years of Patrick’s lonely life, his only romantic interest has been his love for chemical escape. Chemicals are the music of his life. To him, they are like the Big Band music of Glenn Miller and Cole Porter. In my mind, I see Patrick dancing with a mirror-image of himself as he looks back at the day he first learned how to escape his pain.

“That’s the way it began, we were hand-in-hand, Glenn Miller’s Band was better...

View Details

She is dead now and so is he.He was a friend of mine; lean, rangy, and muscular.

She was his mother. “You’re getting fat,” is what she told him, right up until the day he died.

Criticism will often cause you to see yourself worse than you are.

Did it ever occur to you that criticism – sometimes disguised as unsolicited advice – always springs from an assumption of superior intelligence?

When a person begins by saying, “With all due respect,” they are making it clear they do not respect you.

“Constructive criticism” is how they make you feel small while they tell themselves they are helping you. Ignore those people. Even the ones you love. They are having a bad day. Or maybe a bad life. Either way, don’t swallow what they are feeding you.

Criticism is destructive. Encouragement is instructive.

I am reasonably self-aware, I think. I believe I know the panoply of Roys that live inside me. The most widely known are Outraged Roy. Generous Roy. Foghorn Leghorn Roy. Introvert Roy.

Pennie and I have a friend who stays with us when he is in Austin. A few years ago he started a church in a weird part of the weird town he lives in. Last week, he sent me a text:“Of all the Roys I know, my favorite version of you is Robe Roy. Robe Roy don’t give a shit. And if you lucky, you catch Robe Roy in a hat. Or them bluelight sunglasses. Eating a vitamin cookie. Drinking Shrooms. Feeding Squirrels. On a porch swing.”

I replied, “I like that Roy, too.”

My friend is an encourager. He will always find something inside you, no matter how ordinary you consider yourself to be, and then he will tell you a delightful new truth about who you are.

Does it surprise you that my friend’s very large congregation is teeming with beaten-down homeless people, cast-off prostitutes, struggling drug users, and a handful of regular folks like me and you who care about the broken and the broken-hearted?

They flock to that church because he makes them feel the love of God as they belly-laugh with glee when he tells wonderful stories from the Bible and gives them back their dignity.

And then they walk out the door with a smile of renewed hope.

A simple Welsh monk named Geoffrey – hoping to instill in his countrymen a sense of pride – assembled a history of England that gave his people a glorious pedigree. Published in 1136, Geoffrey’s “History of the Kings of Britain” was a detailed, written account of the deeds of the English people for each of the 17 centuries prior to 689 AD.

And not a single word of it was true.Yet in creating Merlyn, Guinevere, Arthur, and the Knights of the Round Table, Geoffrey of Monmouth convinced a dreary little island full of ordinary villagers to see themselves as a wise and powerful, magnificent nation.

And not long after they began to see themselves that way in their minds, they began seeing the reality of it in the mirror.

When I said Geoffrey told his countrymen a story, “and not one word of it was true,” I should have said, “not one word of it was true YET.” Geoffrey of Monmouth spoke a future truth about his countrymen because he saw something they did not see. He saw the greatness that was within them. So he called it out.

Geoffrey was not a flatterer. He was an encourager.

Encouragement causes you to see yourself differently. Embrace it, and you can become in reality that different person you saw in your mind.

“Encourage one another daily, while it is called ‘today’…”That line from “The Letter to the Hebrew Christians” has always intrigued me. The writer emphasized our need of encouragement by adding these further instructions to the word “daily”… “while it is called ‘today.'”

One last little tidbit about that church: when they built an activities center with basketball courts and other fun things to do, they encouraged all the ragamuffin, latchkey, unparented kids to hang out there.

One man brings more than enough food from his Chick-fil-A for all those kids. I hope it does not surprise you that this generous man’s Chick-fil-A location has become one of the most high-volume fast-food stores in the nation.

A person who believes in you more than you believe in yourself is always an important person in your life, because they encourage you.

Everyone needs a person like that.

Why not become one?

Roy H. Williams

View Details

William Shakespeare, wearing the mask of an imaginary Prince of Denmark – Hamlet by name – suggested that human knowledge is limited.

“There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”Each of us lives alone in a private, perceptual reality. We can communicate with one another only to the degree that our perceptual realities overlap.

There is an objective reality, but humans are ill-equipped to experience it.

The degree to which you understand the limitations of your private reality is the degree to which you are self-aware.Dr. Jorge Martins de Oliveira is Director of Neurosciences at the University of Brazil, on the Editorial Board of Brain & Mind magazine, and is the author of “Principles of Neuroscience.”

This is what he has to say about Perceptual Reality:

“Our perception does not identify the outside world as it really is, but the way that we are allowed to recognize it, as a consequence of transformations performed by our senses. We experience electromagnetic waves, not as waves, but as images and colors. We experience vibrating objects, not as vibrations, but as sounds. We experience chemical compounds dissolved in air or water, not as chemicals, but as specific smells and tastes. Colors, sounds, smells and tastes are products of our minds, built from sensory experiences. They do not exist, as such, outside our brain. Actually, the universe is colorless, odorless, insipid and silent.”

“Although you and I share the same biological architecture and function, perhaps what I perceive as a distinct color and smell is not exactly equal to the color and smell you perceive. We may give the same name to similar perceptions, but we cannot know how they relate to the reality of the outside world. Perhaps we never will.”

Dr. Roger Sperry won the Nobel Prize in 1981 for discovering that we don’t have one brain divided into two hemispheres, as much as we have two separate, competing brains. Sperry was able to demonstrate that we have a logical, rational, sequential, deductive-reasoning (SCIENTIFIC) Left Brain, and a romantic, artistic, connection-seeking, pattern-finding, (ARTS & HUMANITIES) Right Brain. He said,

“Each hemisphere of the brain is indeed a conscious system in its own right, perceiving, thinking, remembering, reasoning, willing, and emoting, all at a characteristically human level, and… both the left and the right hemisphere may be conscious simultaneously in different, even in mutually conflicting, mental experiences that run along in parallel.”

Did you notice it? The Left and the Right hemispheres can have “simultaneous, mutually conflicting, mental experiences.” You can have a single experience and walk away with two opinions of what just happened!

“In fact, romanticism and science are good for each other… The scientist keeps the romantic honest and the romantic keeps the scientist human.”

– Tom Robbins

But what happens if the Left Hemisphere completely ignores the voice of the Right Hemisphere? What happens if the Right ignores the the Left?

C. P. Snow published “The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution” in 1959. He believed that Science and the Humanities were the driving forces of western society, but they were splitting us into a society of “two cultures.”

Looking back over the culture war that has increasingly devoured us these past 20 years, it would appear that C.P. Snow was right.In May of 2023 the world renowned neuroscientist Dr. Iain McGilchrist was discussing the (SCIENTIFIC) Left Brain, and the (ARTS & HUMANITIES) Right Brain when he said,

“Something I discovered in medical school, was that this corpus callosum, this connecting band, spent at least half its time, if not more, sending messages to the other hemisphere, ‘You keep out of this, I’m dealing with it.’ So it wasn’t so much facilitating as inhibiting. Primates have more inhibiting neurons than any other mammal and humans have more inhibiting neurons than any primate. In fact, about 19% of the human brain consists of inhibitory neurons telling us where we may not go, which is the important part that resistance, negation, plays in creation.”

Continuing to speak of our split brains, McGilchrist said,

“Attention is actually how our world comes into being. So if you attend to something in one way, you see one thing. If you attend in another, you see something quite different. It’s not that we’ve all got schizophrenia, of course we haven’t… we are all neglecting the Right (ARTISTIC) hemisphere. And if you like, schizophrenia is a case in which the Left (SCIENTIFIC) hemisphere has gone into overdrive and the Right Hemisphere has been wound down, or is not really being listened to. And this leads to delusions and hallucinations. I think we are now in a world which is fully deluded.”

Interviewer: Such as?

McGilchrist: “There are aspects of our culture that have become very vociferous and very irrational, and very dogmatic and very hubristic: ‘This is right and anyone who says other is wrong.’ Now that’s the way the Left Hemisphere likes to be. It’s cut and dry, black and white. But the Right Hemisphere sees nuances, gradations, that there’s good and bad in almost everything.”

Interviewer: Do you think we have ever been in as left-hemisphere-dominated a moment as we are now?

McGilchrist: “No. No. I think this is un-hither-to seen.”

Interviewer: Do you think technology has something to do with that?

McGilchrist: “Yes. And I am a scientist.”

Interviewer: Do you recognize that in the more day-to-day political world as well? Do you think we can learn from your framework when just reading the paper or watching the news? Do you think we need to be thinking, ‘This is left brain stuff, block it out.’?

McGilchrist: “I hope people will apply these ideas. I find that people spontaneously do, in all walks of life, which is very pleasing to find out. During Puritanism it was absolutely not tolerated for you to disagree with a certain way of thinking, which was in fact a very dogmatic, reduced, abstracted way of thinking. But even that did not reach the stage we are at now, where it’s hard to articulate what needs to be articulated. At that time in history, people lived close to nature; they were surrounded by nature. Most people belonged to an inherited culture, a coherent culture which also had a religious element. And art had not been turned into something conceptual, but was visceral and moving. And religion was not presented as something that only a fool or an infant would believe in.”

Interviewer: When does science become Scientism?

McGilchrist: “When it quite simply says that it can answer all our questions. But a moment’s reflection shows that are so many things that are important in our life that science can’t fully explain to us. The beauty of a rainbow, of a wonderful landscape, of a piece of music, its importance and meaning, which is very real. It’s not irrational or unscientific, it’s just beyond the grasp of science and reason.”

“Being reasonable was something I remember from when I was growing up. They were reasonable people and they were admired and the idea of an education was to make you reasonable. But now that has been supplanted by something quite different, which is a rationalizing framework such as a computer could follow, that we’ve been pushed by the development of our machines, the increasing sophistication of our machines, the intoxicating feeling that we have power over the world, into viewing it in this reductionist, materialist way. We’re living in an age of rationalizing and reductionism in which everything can be taken apart, and it’s just the bits. So open oneself to poetry, make a habit of reading good poetry, listening to good music, appreciating a walk in nature, just being aware of one’s surroundings, and then one finds there are good things there, despite the overall picture that I’m afraid I’ve given.”

– Dr. Iain McGilchrist

We began this little soirée with an examination of Perceptual Reality, which tells us that we don’t see things as they are, but as we are.In other words, how you see things is determined by how you are.

So here’s my question:

How… are you?

Roy H. Williams

Bob Johansen has been forecasting the future for the past five decades. He and his colleagues get it right 60% to 80% of the time. Bob is no pointy hat, crystal-ball-gazing fortuneteller. In addition to helping clients like Procter & Gamble, Walmart, and McKinsey, he is an instructor at the Army War College. Bob tells roving reporter Rotbart that his focus is always ten years ahead. “What,” he asks, “would you do differently today if you knew what to expect in business, culture, and politics in 2033?” It’s hot, tasty, and ready to serve straight-from-the-oven at MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

“No one listens to the radio anymore. Radio is dead.”

When someone says that to me, I beat them unconscious with a Portable People Meter.

“Wait a minute. When you say, ‘beat them unconscious with a Portable People Meter,’ what do you mean by that?”

Okay let’s role play this. Say to me, “No one listens to the radio anymore.”

“No one listens to the radio anymore.”

How well do you understand the science of statistical measurement?

“I understand the basics, I think.”

You’ve heard of the Gallup Poll, right?

“Sure.”

The Gallup Poll measures the opinions of the 260 million adults in America with 95% confidence and only a 3 percent margin of error. Do you know the sample size required to do that?

“Tell me.”

One thousand and sixty-seven people.

“That doesn’t sound right.”

Statistical scientists know their measurements are reliable because of the Law of Large Numbers. Are you familiar with the Law of Large Numbers?

“No.”

The Law of Large Numbers guarantees stable long-term results for the averages of random events. While a casino might lose money on a single spin of the roulette wheel, its earnings will return to a predictable percentage over a large number of spins. Any winning streak by a player will eventually be overcome by the parameters of the game. The margin of error depends inversely on the square root of the sample size. In other words, the smaller the universe, the larger the percentage that has to be queried to get an accurate result. But the larger the universe, the smaller the percentage.

“What are you saying, exactly?”

In a universe of just 100 people, you have to ask nearly all of them to get an accurate measurement. But in a universe of 1 million people, you need only 600 people in your survey. To measure the entire United States of America, you need just 1,067 randomly chosen adults.

“So how many people participate in a radio survey in the average city?”

Name a city.“San Francisco. It’s a tech city. Silicon Valley. There’s no way radio is reaching San Francisco.”

The Nielsen sample size in San Francisco is three times the number of people required to measure the whole United States. And Nielsen doesn’t measure just once per quarter. Nielsen measures San Francisco 365 days a year.

“How?”

What do you mean?

“How are they measuring it? What’s the mechanism?”

It’s a digital device worn by thousands of randomly selected people. Nielsen’s Portable People Meter knows precisely which station you’re listening to, when you started listening, when you changed channels, and when you quit listening. It doesn’t rely on human recall, and you can’t lie to it. Nielsen’s Portable People Meter is as reliable as anything offered by Facebook or Google. Nielsen isn’t guessing when they tell you how many people are listening to the radio. They’re measuring it 24/7/365.

“You still haven’t told me how many people listen to the radio in San Francisco.”

41.6% of the people in San Francisco – 2,565,817 persons – spend enough time listening to the radio that we can efficiently reach each of them an average of 3 times a week, 52 weeks in a row. This means 41.6% of San Francisco will hear your new, surprising, and different radio ad 156 times this year.

“Yeah. But is it working? Radio, I mean.”

Radio is delivering better results for less money than it has ever delivered. I can say that because my 70 partners and I have been using radio to grow owner-operated businesses for more than 40 years.

“Okay, but isn’t attribution a problem? Sure, maybe your clients are growing, but how do you know that radio is what’s driving that growth?”

We don’t use a media mix when our client can’t afford to swing that hammer.

“What do you mean?”

We believe in doing one thing wholeheartedly instead of two things halfheartedly. A focused budget always outperforms a scattered one.

“Are you doing any digital marketing?”

Of course. Google is the new phone book, so you’ve got to be there when the customer goes looking for you by name.

“So you’re buying only branded keywords?”

Bingo. That’s how we track attribution. When we agree to work with a client, we look at how many people per week are typing their name into Google, and then we begin measuring (1.) the increase in branded keyword searches along with (2.) the top line growth of their company. Those are two of the three metrics we care about.

“What’s the third one?”

Cost Per Person/Per Year.

“Never heard of it.”

That’s because we invented it.

“Are you allowed to do that?”

Yeah. Welcome to America.

“How is Cost Per Person/Per Year different from Cost Per Point or Cost Per Thousand?

Food and Entertainment have a short purchase cycle. This means you will see results quickly when you make an enticing offer and create urgency. But most advertisers have a long purchase cycle. Consequently, they’ve got to become the company a customer thinks of first and feels the best about when that customer’s buying event occurs, and that takes massive repetition. Radio people call it frequency. But you also need 52-week consistency, which is essentially the frequency of the frequency, the repetition of the repetition.

“You still haven’t answered my question.”

Cost Per Thousand and Cost Per Point measure the cost of reaching an individual only once. But radio works its magic through relentless repetition. When you make your scheduling decisions based on Gross Rating Points, you will reach too many people with not enough frequency. Reach is easy to achieve on radio. But reach without frequency and consistency is a recipe for disappointment. If I buy 100 Gross Rating Points how many people have I reached?

“You’ve reached the mathematical equivalent of 100% of the population 1 time.”

Or perhaps I’ve reach 50% of the population twice. Or 25% of the population 4 times. Or 10% of the population 10 times. Or 100% of the population 1 time. Are you suggesting that each of those schedules is going to result in the same outcome?

“So how is your Cost Per Person/Per Year different from Cost Per Point?”

Cost Per Person/Per Year requires the same individual to be reached 3 times within 7 nights sleep, and this needs to happen 52 weeks a year. It is a mistake to multiply reach times frequency. They are not interchangeable. When you multiply reach times frequency to calculate Gross Rating Points, you are crippling the effectiveness of radio. For radio to work its magic, you have to protect 1-week frequency at all costs, and then you have to have consistency. If you want to reach 100% of the people and convince them just 10% of the way, make your buying decisions based on Gross Rating Points. But if you want to use that same budget to reach 10% of the people and convince them 100% of the way, use Cost Per Person/Per Year.

“You’re saying a weekly 3-frequency is the non-negotiable?”

Correct.

“So what is your target for reach?”

When you are certain you are achieving a weekly 3-frequency, you add Net Reach by adding more stations to your weekly schedule until you run out of money.

“I’m beginning to see what you mean when you say that you would rather do one thing whole-heartedly instead of two things half-heartedly.”

Technically, you could say that we are doing a second thing when we use Google ads to measure the increase in branded keyword searches.

“Yeah, but that’s going to be cheap. You’re really just doing radio.”

Yes, we’re really doing just radio. Or we’re doing just TV. Either way, we’re doing just one thing.

“And you say that’s working out for you?”

When you write ads that are new, surprising, and different, and make your media placement decisions using the criteria I’ve just outlined for you, your clients will grow until they become so big that they sell to Private Equity for hundreds of millions of dollars.

“Damn!”

Yes, damn indeed.

Roy H. Williams

PS – If you want to understand the Law of Large Numbers, go to https://www.surveysystem.com/sscalce.htm What we call margin of error, they call “confidence interval.”

Nick Loper has helped tens of thousands of people bring home some serious extra cash on top of what they earn in their day jobs. In fact, Nick’s podcast, which offers a steady diet of “side hustle” ideas, has been downloaded more than 25 million times. Nick is a fountain of money-making ideas. Near the top of his list, he tells roving reporter Rotbart, is providing local services that are otherwise fragmented and poorly marketed. If you or someone you love can use an extra $1,000, $2,000, or even $5,000 a month, hustle to MondayMorningRadio.com.

View Details

You have tiny openings in your mind.

When you look through one of those keyholes, you see a world that could easily become real, but only if you keep looking through that keyhole.

Look through that keyhole long enough and it will expand into a window, then grow to become a door of opportunity through which you can pass into an entirely different future.

Don’t look where you don’t want to go.

If you gaze at dark possibilities, you are headed toward darkness.

We do only those things we have rehearsed in our minds.

Opportunity never knocks.

It smells like jasmine in the air around you.

It tickles like a feather in your open mouth.

It twinkles like starlight in a midnight sky.

It whispers like a girl behind a paper wall.

Look only where you want to go.

If you stare at goodness, you are headed toward good things.

It smells like the sweat of people digging a tunnel through a mountain.

It tickles like happy music played by musicians on the other side.

It twinkles like the eyes of children having a bright adventure.

It whispers like a companion who is urging you forward.

As your friend, I have only one question.

Where are we going?

© Roy H. Williams, 2023

Indy’s Favorite Meme of the Week: “Drink water. Eat vegetables. Be nice to animals. Exercise regularly. Explore nature. Find a small door under a tree. Open it. Take a look inside. Get pepper sprayed by a tiny elf. Learn a valuable lesson about knocking first.” – Roxi Horror

Indy’s Second Favorite Meme: “Novels are so great. Novels are like, ‘I made up a little weirdo. Oh no, now he’s in trouble!'” – Gabrielle Moss

Dr. Henry Mintzberg has written more books than the Beatles had #1 records. He is an organization and management rock star. Dr. Mintzberg says many organizations – for-profit and nonprofit – are making a big mistake when they embrace a one-size-fits-all approach to structuring their operations. Listen as Dr. Mintzberg – who has received a whopping 21 honorary degrees – tells roving reporter Rotbart that there are seven different “species” of companies, each requiring an executive playbook as distinct from each other as football is from basketball, and baseball is from hockey. Where can you hear amazing people talk about fascinating stuff like this? MondayMorningRadio.com of course!

View Details

Richard Feynman, winner of the Nobel Prize, said, “Nature uses only the longest threads to weave her patterns, so that each small piece of her fabric reveals the organization of the entire tapestry.” He was speaking, of course, of DNA, the organizing pattern of every type of life on our planet.

Your DNA contains the archetypal pattern of your physical body, but the world around you is bigger than your body.

The world around you contains an infinite number of archetypes.An archetype is any recurrent pattern recognized by the pattern-seeking right hemisphere of the brain.

Archetypes exist in our minds and in the physical reality that surrounds us. Archetypes are the interface that allows us to interpret, understand, and catalogue what we are experiencing.

Archetypes are the basis for all similes and metaphors. Carl Jung understood this.

If you Google “Jungian archetypes” you’ll find that most writers list the archetypes as twelve basic characters: Lover, Magician, Explorer, Creator, Sage, Outlaw, Hero, Jester, Everyman, Caretaker, Ruler, and the Innocent. These 12 characters populate the movies, television shows, novels, myths, and award-winning ad campaigns we experience on a daily basis.

But what Jung actually taught is that archetypes are the psychological structures that allow us to recognize recurrent patterns in the world around us. They are the unconscious organizers of perceptions and ideas, since they spring from the systemic order that transcends both the external world and the human mind. Jung claimed there can be no master list of archetypes because there are an indefinite number of them, one for every recurrent pattern we observe.

And not just patterns of personalities, but patterns of events, as well. Examples of events that follow an archetypal pattern include: Reproduction, Substitution, Reconfiguration, Following a Path, Collapse, Renewal, De-alignment, Re-alignment, and the Investment Bubble that always precedes delayed gratification.

Every introduction of change requires a Pattern Shift, a transition from one pattern to another.

Although most events could be categorized as “transitions,” an Archetypal Transition is a specific type of event, such as the ritual of Initiation (baptism,) or the ritual of Union (marriage,) or the ritual of Casting Out (divorce.) An Archetypal Transition is a portal to a new identity. Some examples of Archetypal Transition include being parented, courtship, loss of virginity, a sudden change in status, and preparation for death.

Archetypes of Transition open the door for a new and different person to experience a new and different world.

As a writer, you create new realities in the imaginations of your readers, so it is perfectly reasonable that you should observe and name new archetypes. You are not limited only to those named by Jung and popularized by tradition.

In fact, I have invented names for several recurrent patterns that I have observed, and have mentioned several of them to you already.

And now I officially give you permission to do the same:

1. Go. Observe the world around you.

2. Recognize and name the recurrent patterns that you find.

3. Keep a list of them.

Indy Beagle and I look forward to reading about your discoveries.

Ciao for Niao,

Roy H. Williams

PS – Today’s soirée was inspired by my partner, Vi Wickam, who sent me the Richard Feynman quote that opened today’s Monday Morning Memo.

When Victoria Pelletier sets her mind to achieving a goal, she won’t let anything or anyone stop her. Nor will she blame anyone but herself when things don’t go the way she planned. Those two personality traits — being unstoppable and making no excuses — have been a recipe for success since she became the chief operating officer of a multinational corporation at age 24. Decades on, after holding senior roles at American Express, IBM, and Accenture, she now advises owners, CEOs, and board members on how to adopt her approach to business and life. Victoria tells roving reporter Rotbart that anyone, regardless of their socioeconomic background or the adversity they may have faced, can achieve professional growth and inspire others to do the same. MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

You see a photo of a man in a blue jacket standing in front of McDonalds. That photo contains at least 3 pieces of information.

Information is content.

1. Man

2. Blue Jacket

3. McDonalds

Content without context is boring.

That photograph was taken to encourage you and elevate your hope.

Does that surprise you? It should, because you haven’t been given any context.The man in that photo, Brian Scudamore, was a 19-year-old kid sitting in his car in exactly that spot in that McDonald’s drive-thru line when he noticed a ratty old pickup truck that had rounded the corner a few vehicles ahead of him. Spray-painted on the side of that truck were the words “Junk Hauling” along with a telephone number. Brian thought, “I could do that,” and as those four words echoed in his brain – “I could do that” “I could do that” “I could do that” – the world’s largest private junk removal service was born.

Brian’s company is about to break through the clouds into the sunlight of one billion dollars in annual revenue. Just below the bottom frameline of that photo, the logo for 1-800-GOT-JUNK? is monogrammed on that blue jacket.

Ray Bard retired a few years ago, but people still speak in hushed tones about his genius.Brian Scudamore has that same kind of genius.

Ray Bard put it into words for me several years ago while we were having lunch. He said, “Every dazzling success is made from four components, and everyone, everywhere has the first two.”

I raised my eyebrows to indicate that I was listening.

Ray said, “Number one is a Big Idea. Everyone has a Big Idea. Number two is Nuts & Bolts; the step-by-step, the how-to, along with a few examples that demonstrate the Big Idea. Everyone has a Big Idea and some Nuts & Bolts.”

“Okay, what are numbers three and four?”

“Number three is Entertainment.”

I raised my eyebrows again.

“Entertainment is the currency that will buy you the time and attention of a too-busy public. Information is the medicine they need, but entertainment – wit – charm – enchantment – are the spoonfuls of sugar that help the medicine go down.”

“And number four?”

“Number four is Hope. People don’t just need advice, they need genuine encouragement. When you give them a glimpse of a future that is better than the past, when you help them see a tomorrow that is better than today, and they see it is within their grasp, you have done the only thing that any business ever needs to do.”

Ray stopped talking and just looked at me.

I looked back at him, waiting for him to continue. It was one of those moments when time stands still. I honestly can’t tell you whether it was 15 seconds or 3 minutes, but it felt like forever.

He finally said, “Roy, the objective of every business is to make someone happy.”

Brian Scudamore knows that, and I think he may have been born knowing it.

And now you know it, too.

So here’s the question: What are you going to do to make someone happy?

Roy H. Williams

PS – If information is content, then context is the framing of that information; the presentation of it, the backstory, the angle of approach that makes the information interesting. Your goal as a storyteller is revelation and delight, to pull back the curtain and reveal a mystery.

View Details

In 1947 a Norwegian became curious if it was possible for the natives of South America to have drifted on a raft 4,300 miles across the Pacific ocean to populate the islands of Polynesia.

The question of who populated Polynesia wasn’t really important to anyone but Thor Heyerdahl.

He opened his bestselling book in 1950 with these words,

“Once in a while you find yourself in an odd situation. You get into it by degrees and in the most natural way but, when you are right in the midst of it, you are suddenly astonished and ask yourself how in the world it all came about. If, for example, you put to sea on a wooden raft with a parrot and five companions, it is inevitable that sooner or later you will wake up one morning out at sea, perhaps a little better rested than ordinarily, and begin to think about it. On one such morning I sat writing in a dew-drenched logbook…”

DNA evidence later proved Heyerdahl’s theory to be incorrect. Today we know for certain that Polynesia was not populated by South Americans, but by Asians.

But I still like Thor Heyerdahl. He wanted to know if South Americans could have made that journey, so he built a raft using only the tools and materials available in prehistoric times, pushed away from the soft safety of the shore, and had himself a wonderful adventure.

We don’t do that sort of thing anymore, but I wish we did.

We no longer set out to experience – with an open mind – the lives of persons who are different than us. We are no longer willing “to walk a mile in their shoes” so that we might better understand them. What we do instead is look for evidence that our own perspective is correct and that all the others are wrong. We are assisted in this unholy endeavor by algorithms on the internet and one-sided news organizations that tell us exactly what we want to hear.

I like Thor Heyerdahl and I like John Howard Griffin.

Like me, John Howard Griffin was born in Dallas, Texas, but he got there 38 years before I arrived.

Two years before America entered World War II, 19-year-old John Howard Griffin joined the French Resistance as a medic and helped smuggle Austrian Jews to safety and freedom in England. When America officially entered that war, Griffin served the United States Army in the South Pacific where he was decorated for bravery.

Keep that characteristic in mind: bravery.While serving in the Solomon islands, Griffin contracted spinal malaria that left him temporarily paraplegic. And then the concussion of a Japanese bomb caused him to become blind. Eleven years later, in 1957, his eyesight inexplicably returned and that’s when the real adventure began.

America was now at war with itself. The battle over civil rights was a whistling teapot on a fiery stove, so John Howard Griffin shaved his head in order to hide his straight hair, took large doses of Oxsoralen in 1959 to darken his skin, then spent six weeks traveling as a black man in the Deep South. He started in new New Orleans, then visited Mississippi, South Carolina, and Georgia, getting around mainly by hitchhiking.

When I was young, I read John Howard Griffin’s book about his experiences as a black man, and it felt to me like an honest and straightforward diary. A lot of other people felt differently, of course, so the Ku Klux Klan beat him nearly to death in 1975.

And so it goes.*

Evidently, it is safer to drift 4,300 miles across the Pacific in a prehistoric raft than it is to talk about race in America.

Roy H. Williams

*I wrote those 4 words – Kurt Vonnegut’s signature line – because I heard him say it in my mind after I wrote the preceding sentence.

Clay Stafford produces an annual conference that brings together authors, agents, exhibitors, and fans of crime and thriller literature. And he’s been doing it for 17 years. To pull off a large meeting, workshop, or other live event in the post-COVID-19 era requires countless steps in planning for the next conference, beginning a year in advance. This week, Clay shares his event blueprints with roving reporter Rotbart, covering everything from the selection of a venue and keynote speakers to his formula for ensuring that attendees leave feeling their time and money were well invested. If you think you might ever need to plan an event, plan on listening to Rotbart’s talk with Stafford at MondayMorningRadio.com. Right now would be a good time, don’t you think?

View Details

My friend David Freeman gave me a tool about 20 years ago that I have used to great effect. David teaches screenwriters and novelists how to create fictional characters that draw you toward them like magnets.

It is not my objective to teach you David’s technique today, nor will I teach you my simplified version of it. What I hope to do is help you understand that your business has a personality. If it does not, then you do not have a brand; you have a logo and a visual style guide.

A powerful brand is an imaginary character that lives in the mind of the customer, no different than those imaginary characters that populate great novels and TV shows and movies. If you feel connected to a brand, it is because that brand represents something you believe in.

Each of us is a jigsaw puzzle, and when we see a strangely-shaped piece that will fit a correspondingly-shaped hole in the self-image we are trying to complete, we feel we must have that piece.

When we rise above a subsistence-level income, much of what we purchase is identity reinforcement. We buy what we buy to remind ourselves – and tell the world around us – who we are.

If you own a business, the personality of that business will be a reflection of your own personality. And the areas of your business that need improvement will usually reflect the areas in your life that need improvement.

Your personality drives your business. This is why your business will always reflect your personality. You really need to capitalize on that.

The most brilliant marketing consultants will:

1. Identify the characteristics of your brand. It’s entirely possible that you never intended your brand to have these characteristics, but they will always be there. The best brand consultants want to answer the question, “What makes this brand think, speak, act, and see the world the way it does?”
2. Amplify those characteristics so that the brand has a distinct personality. We do not bond with products or services that do not have a personality.
3. Craft all messages so that they reflect the personality that has been there all along. When you do this, marketing efficiency is accelerated and customer acquisition rises to a new level.

A week ago I met with the owner of a furniture manufacturing company that designs all its own products. After scrolling through their website, I said, “Anyone who loves Apple and Tesla will love your furniture.”

His eyes got big and he said, “Those are the brands my team and I idolize! How did you know?”

I replied, “Your designs reflect the same values and beliefs as those brands.”

1. “You reject established styles and tradition.”

2. “You are going for that clean, simple, look and feel of elegant design.”

3. “You have created a walled garden; your stuff doesn’t mix well with other stuff. And your stuff is expensive.”

4. “At your core, you are a leader and not a follower.”

“These are the defining characteristics of the brand you have created. All you need to do now is begin communicating to the public in the voice of that brand.”

I was hesitant to share the defining characteristics of the brands created by Steve Jobs and Elon Musk with you because it could easily lead you to say, “Those are things I believe in, too! I’m just like Steve Jobs and Elon Musk.”

Although it may be true that your worldview overlaps with Steve’s and Elon’s, it is highly unlikely that you share the same character diamond. Having used this tool for nearly 20 years, I had never before seen a company that mirrors Tesla and Apple in each of the 4 cardinal points.

The defining characteristics of your company – your brand – are probably different from the brands created by Steve Jobs and Elon Musk. It is difficult to craft your own character diamond because you don’t see yourself in the same way that other people do. It’s hard to read the label when you are inside the bottle.

You need someone on the outside to look at your brand and help you understand the personality of this wonderful, imaginary character you have unconsciously created.

This is the essential, first step that makes all the other elements of your marketing plan come together and sing in harmony.

Roy H. Williams

David C. Tate teaches psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine and he has created a new type of leadership that gives every employee, regardless of rank, the opportunity to be heard, and to contribute to the success of the company. David says that in today’s business world, how you succeed is often as important as the success itself. David calls his leadership approach “conscious accountability,” a seven-step process centered on the benefits of social awareness, shared values, and genuine relationships. This could be game-changer for you and your company. Are you ready for change? If so, the place to go, is Monday Morning Radio… dot com, of course.

View Details

Do people under 50 know what a yoke is? I honestly don’t know. When I consider that millions of Americans don’t know how to use a rotary telephone, I can easily believe they might be unfamiliar with that wooden implement used to unite a pair of horses or mules or oxen so that they might be able to “pull together” and accomplish things that neither of them could have done alone.

You have people in your life to whom you are yoked. You are connected to them.

We have names for these connections: Husband. Wife. Sister. Brother. Life partner. Business partner. Co-worker.

Regardless of how you are connected, you can strengthen that connection and create a wonderful partnership by doing two simple things:

1. Make a list of all the things you admire about your partner.
2. You know their superpowers. You know their shining moments. Focus your attention on their talents and skills.
3. Celebrate your partner.
4. Tell people about the marvelous things you have seen your partner do. Your audience will be impressed and wish they had a partner like yours.

Your partner will be happier. You will be happier. There is literally no downside to this.

But the person who really needs to hear these stories is you.

Feelings follow actions. When you focus on your partner’s superpowers – those things they do remarkably well – and tell happy stories about the things you have seen your partner do, you will remember how lucky you are to have that person in your life.

If you are frustrated with your partner, it’s probably because you have been noticing their weaknesses and complaining to others about them.

You’ve been telling the wrong stories.

Feeling follow actions.Did I just hear you say, “I can’t help how I feel?”

Of course you can!

Instead of telling the negative truth about your partner, look for those things your partner does well and begin telling a different truth; a positive, affirming truth.

Your feelings will change. And your partner, will, too.

Roy H. Williams

NOTE FROM INDY – The wizard answers a HUGE question for Nick on page 3 of the rabbit hole today. I was interested in his answer. I’m betting you will be, too. – Indy Beagle

Khierstyn Ross has an odd goal: she said, “We actually want our clients to fire us.” Khierstyn isn’t crazy. Her mission is to help launch and scale online brands until they achieve $3 million in annual sales and she’s already done that for many clients. By the time her clients’ grow to $10 million in yearly revenues, Khierstyn says her nestlings need to leave the nest. Roving reporter Rotbart says, “Whether you’re a startup or long-established, Khierstyn’s growth methodology is sure to impress you.” The place you want to be is MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

I have been in a reflective mood of late. Unplugged from my beloved routine of writing an ocean of ads in the middle of the night, I have been examining the lives of people who sharpened their skills to such fine points that they pierced the skies and found themselves embodied in golden beams of light.

A larger-than-life personality saturated in dazzling talent is combustible. Give that person the tiniest spark of opportunity and they will instantly be on fire.

Ernest Hemingway embodied the sad machismo of the Lost Generation and became a cultural icon. Hunter S. Thompson embodied the psychedelic counterculture of the following generation and became a cultural icon. Arriving at the end of Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, both of them shot themselves.

But years before he pulled that trigger, Thompson wrote,

“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming ‘Wow! What a Ride!’”

Robin Williams was 27 years old when he encountered the tiny spark of opportunity that embodied him in the golden beams of a career, and a life, on fire. He walked into the living rooms of America as Mork, a visitor to Earth from the planet Ork, in a show called Mork & Mindy that aired on ABC from from 1978 to 1982. Each episode ended with Mork closing his eyes and – through his thoughts – contacting an invisible being named Orson, with whom he would share his observations of the day.

Right now you are expecting me to tell you that Robin Williams hung himself, but you already know that, so I don’t need to mention it.

My interest is in the invisible god-like character named Orson. It is an interesting name for a god, don’t you think?

My theory is that the writer of the show was thinking, consciously or unconsciously, about Orson Welles, the blazing talent that gave us The War of the Worlds, a 1938 radio event that has never been equalled, and Citizen Kane,the 1941 film that Orson wrote, directed, produced, and in which he played the leading role.

Citizen Kane is frequently cited as the greatest film ever made.

If Robin Williams, a hyper-creative being from another world, is talking to an epic giant from that other world, it doesn’t surprise me that the giant of that world would be named Orson.

David Thomson, writing for The Guardian on October 22, 2009, said,

“The Orson Welles of 1936-42 worked 20 hours a day, ate double meals to keep going, pursued pretty young women like a demon and lived as if he had no tomorrow. He worked, all at once, in radio, on the stage and in preparation for his great film. He was a looming figure in American life: an offence to Hollywood in the way he achieved a carte blanche contract, and a boy wonder of such arrogance that it was said of him, ‘There but for the grace of God, goes God.'”

“If Orson Welles had never made Citizen Kane, he would be a phenomenon. But he did and that leaves us all his children. His real children might tell you that it was a difficult and sad life to be caught with. Alas.”

“But remember this: Orson died alone in 1985 and you can read the reports as signs of sadness. On the contrary, I suspect he was exhilarated at the end. Real sadness is being worth $5bn and not knowing what to do with it.”

Orson Welles and I never met, but I credit him with giving me some of the greatest advice about ad writing that I ever received.

Orson wrote,

“I want to give the audience a hint of a scene. No more than that. Give them too much and they won’t contribute anything themselves. Give them just a suggestion and you get them working with you. That’s what gives the theater meaning: when it becomes a social act.”

– Orson Welles

Every e-commerce website is looking for customer engagement. Every blogger is looking for reader engagement. Every podcaster hopes for listener engagement and every Youtuber is trying to achieve viewer engagement. And one of the principal ways they measure engagement is by the amount of time you spend with them.

Orson Welles told us how to do it: Give your audience a hint of a scene. Make them participate by filling in what you leave out. Get them working with you to tell your story. Make them a co-creator. When it becomes a social act of the shopper, reader, listener, or viewer to take what you are giving them – and fill in what you left out – that’s when you have achieved engagement.

Thank you for these few minutes you give me each week.

I always look forward to spending time with you.

Roy H. Williams

PS – Indy Beagle found a Robin Williams video that he really wants you to see and it’s waiting for you on page 1 of the rabbit hole. Just click the image of Indy Beagle at the top of this page, and Shazbot! you’re in.

Bradley Hamner brings freedom to executives who are slaves-to-their-companies and turns them into architects of growth and success. His motto is Dux, te ipsum duc, “Leader, Lead Thyself.” Bradley launched his his first business in 2009, with no customers, no leads, and very little cash. He has gone on to build seven companies, with an eighth on the launchpad. Bradley tells roving reporter Rotbart that The Secret to improving the performance of your employees is to address your own shortcomings first. You’re definitely going to want to hear the rest of this at MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

It is naive to believe the world is a meritocracy, but it is defeatist to believe that you can’t win.Six years ago, notacoward wrote,

“Entrepreneurship is like one of those carnival games where you throw darts or something.

Middle class kids can afford one throw. Most miss. A few hit the target and get a small prize. A very few hit the center bullseye and get a bigger prize. Rags to riches! The American Dream lives on.

Rich kids can afford many throws. If they want to, they can try over and over and over again until they hit something and feel good about themselves. Some keep going until they hit the center bullseye, then they give speeches or write blog posts about ‘meritocracy’ and the salutary effects of hard work.

Poor kids aren’t visiting the carnival. They’re the ones working it.”

We’ve all seen what notacoward was describing, haven’t we? Each of us knows people who were born on third base and think they hit a triple. They populate the royal families, the financial aristocracies, the college fraternities, and the luxury resorts of our planet. The business world is full of empty suits and corporate assholes who like to pretend they earned what they were given.

When you grow up in the poor part of town, you see hardworking people shake their heads and say,“It’s not what you know; it’s who you know.”

“It’s not what you know; it’s who you know.”

“It’s not what you know; it’s who you know.”

This is nothing new. It has always been true. But it doesn’t have to apply to YOU.

I knew it didn’t apply to me because I once heard a 3,000-year-old story of a shepherd boy who became King because he was stunningly good at being a shepherd boy. When a lion attacked his sheep, he killed the lion. When a bear attacked his sheep, he killed the bear. And when a giant taunted his nation, he killed the giant.

The son of that King later wrote,

“Do you see a person skilled in his work?

He will stand before kings;

He will not stand before obscure people.” **

Is it wise to protect the ones we love from the problems that taught us all we know?I know a lot of successful people who wish they knew how to give their children the hardships that made them rich.

One successful young friend – just 42 years old – has created four separate fortunes during the past 20 years and is working on a fifth one. He started with nothing: no family money, no angel investor, no connections. His only assets were his courage and his relentless efforts. I asked him recently what advice he would offer the emerging generation. He said,

“I think the question this younger generation needs to be asking themselves is, ‘Ok, now what?’ Yes, it sucks, but it also sucks that previous generations were drafted and shipped off to die in wars.

So shit happens. And sometimes people slip through the cracks.

I’m happy to not call them ‘lazy’ if they’re willing to acknowledge that they still bear the responsibility of doing something… anything… to improve their lot.

Because lingering in whiney little bitch mode sure ain’t gonna get it done.”

If you have fallen into the trap of believing that you don’t have the money or the connections to rise above your circumstances, lift your head and open your ears to what I am about to tell you: Become exceptional. Figure out how to kill the lion. And then kill the bear. Solve the problem. And you will soon become the person that everyone – even the King – wants at their side.

Do what you can, with what you’ve got, where you are.Roy H. Williams*PS – “‘Ole!’ to you, just for having the sheer human love and stubbornness to keep showing up.” - Elizabeth Gilbert

* "Do what you can, with what you’ve got, where you are," is generally attributed to Teddy Roosevelt, but he credits it to Squire Bill Widener of Widener’s Valley, Virginia in the 9th chapter of his Autobiography. I suspect that Bill Widener was noticed by Roosevelt because he was “skilled in his work.” As a consequence, Widener stood before Kings. He did not stand before obscure people.

Jennifer Brown sizes up business on how well they address today’s ever-increasing demand for inclusive workplaces. Are you (1.) unaware, (2.) aware, (3.) active, or (4.) advocate? Do you want to create a productive work environment for every employee? Google, Johnson & Johnson, IBM, Disney, and Coca-Cola have all asked for her help, but you don’t need to be a big company CEO to benefit from her insights. All you need to do is join Jennifer and roving reporter Rotbart for a brief soirée right now at MondayMorningRadio.com.

View Details

Jeffrey Eisenberg and Dewey Jenkins don’t know each other but each of them taught me the importance of removing the friction.

Dewey sings it to every person in his company, “Make it easy for customers to do business with us.” And they do. Inventing new ways to “make it easier” is the job of every person in every department.

Jeffrey Eisenberg calls this “removing the friction in the buying process”.

Tesla is a good example.I am convinced that a number of other companies are building electric vehicles that are as good ­– or better – than Tesla, but Tesla remains the big name with the big stock price. At the time of this writing, Tesla is selling for $181 a share while Volkswagen is at $18, Subaru is at $8, Ford is at $13, Audi is at $19, Mercedes is at $20, BMW is at $35, and Rivian is at $15.

Tesla has removed the friction from the buying process.Buying a car from Tesla is as easy as buying a book from Amazon. And I don’t mean that figuratively. I mean that literally. People who order a car from Tesla look up from their computer screen with a puzzled look on their face and ask, “Did I just buy a new car?” And then they look back at their computer screen and nod their head up-and-down slowly as they say, “Yes, I just bought a new car.”

Go ahead and try it. It will only cost you $500.

Princess Pennie ordered a Tesla a couple of months ago and was startled by how easy it was. Two weeks later, she decided she wanted to add the optional third row of seating. I watched her add that third row in less than 30 seconds with just two clicks. Tesla immediately displayed her new delivery date, and she closed her laptop. Done.

Meanwhile, our younger son spent an entire day at the Volkswagen dealer trying to order an electric SUV. He persevered for 8 grueling hours, but he got it done and the car soon arrived. He loves that vehicle, and rightfully so, but he says he would rather endure a tax audit, a root canal, and a prostate exam than go through the process of buying a Volkswagen again.

Volkswagen has not yet figured out how to remove the friction.1-800-GOT-JUNK is a company entirely committed to removing the friction. Led by its founder, Brian Scudamore, “Making it easier for the customer” is an ongoing source of enthusiastic discussion at every level in that company.

Meanwhile, Google is introducing all kinds of new friction. Google “Best Electric Vehicles” and you will see pages of ads from manufacturers who want to sell you a car. Enter a different, more specific phrase and you’ll get that same list. In fact, any query that includes the word “electric” followed by any synonym for “car” will get you that list of ads.

Google got big by putting the customer ahead of the advertiser. They’re clearly not doing that anymore, so I’ve decided to give Bing a chance. I suspect there might be millions of other people slowly coming to that same conclusion right now.

But even though I am profoundly frustrated with Google, I remain encouraged that Dewey and Jeffrey and Brian Scudamore and the customer service team at Tesla remain committed to removing the friction at every point of contact, making it ever-increasingly easy for customers to do business with them.

To remove the friction is to remove the customer’s frustration.I’m just an ad writer, so I’m not particularly good at refining the internal processes of running a business, but I highly admire those people who know how to do it.

How about you? Can you think of 10 tiny-little-things that would each make it a-little-bit-easier for customers to do business with you? Think of those 10 things as Exponential Little Bits; they don’t just add up, they multiply and go exponential.

And when you have implemented those 10 things, think of 10 more, and then implement those.

Rinse and repeat.

Keep it up and you’ll become the Tesla of your category.

Roy H. Williams

PS: After writing this memo, I went to Bing for the first time and entered “Best Electric Cars.” The top two listings were the answers to my question, both from reputable sources.

https://www.forbes.com/wheels/best/electric-cars

https://www.edmunds.com/electric-car

It’s possible that Bing will get greedy and lazy at some point in the future and lose their customer focus, but for now, they are my huckleberry. (“A penny for whoever will unload my supplies,” said the man with the wagon. “I’m your huckleberry,” replied a young man on the street.)

If you didn’t graduate from Harvard Business School, making sense of today’s bank failures, debt ceilings, inflation, currency fluctuations, and trade deficits – can be daunting. Eric Johnson is an instrument-rated pilot, surfer, black belt, astrophotographer, angel investor, and former CEO of a software engineering firm. He has spent 15 years decoding the mysteries of economics and can explain what an economy is and how it works. Eric shares these insightful answers with roving reporter Rotbart this week at MondayMorningRadio.com.

View Details

When your advertising leans on the weak wooden crutch of discounting, it is only a matter of time before that crutch splinters and slowly pierces your heart.

Discounting is a seductive drug like heroin, meth, and fentanyl. It rarely kills you quickly.

It prefers to kill you slowly.

Yes, I know that is an uncomfortable image, but I need you to understand how dangerous it is to discount.

Discounting erodes customers’ confidence in your pricing and trains them to delay purchasing from you until you offer them a juicy discount. Discounting also raises some questions about the quality of your product.

But hooray, that’s not what we’re talking about today.

Today I’m going to give you a method for acquiring customers that is far more powerful than discounting. This method allows you to pay for the results of your advertising according to how well your ads work.

No, we’re not talking about pay-per-click. (Remember, you’ve got to pay for that click even if the customer gives you a glance, flips you the bird, and walks away.) I have a Love/Hate relationship with pay-per-click and I’ll bet you do, too.

What I’m about to share with you is Love/Love/Love/Love.

1. I love it.
2. It loves me.
3. You’re going to love it.
4. You’re going to love me for telling you about it.

I believe in only two prices: full price, and free.What can you give away for free?

Thirty years ago, I was given an ad budget of $10,000 and asked to bring 500 new customers to a struggling frozen custard business that had two locations, but neither one of them had inside dining. These frozen custard stands were walk-up and drive-thru only. And this was during the middle of the winter in a state where ice and snow are a regular occurrence.

I asked, “Do you care how I spend the money?”

“No. We just need to see 500 new customers.”

“Great. I’m going to spend $500 in a single day on radio ads on the smallest radio station in town and then I’m going to spend $1,700 on custard mix. You can keep the other 78-hundred. Get a good night’s sleep on Friday night because you’re going to be working 14 hours on Saturday.”

My radio ad ran twice an hour from 6am until midnight on the day of the event.

It said, “This frozen custard is so good it’s illegal in 7 states and under investigation in 12 more. And today, just to prove it, we’re giving away full-size cones for free.”

I called them just after midnight.

I asked, “Did anyone show up?”

“We just finished counting the empty cone boxes. We served 11,000 free cones today and at least 10,000 of those were people we had never seen before.”

Their business immediately jumped by 80% and their sales volume never quit climbing. Today they have 53 locations in 15 states.

Another example is the air conditioning company that had a history of giving customers a 15-hundred-dollar cash rebate if they purchased a new air conditioning system in October.

In 2014, I convinced them that customers would much rather have an iPad. Relatively few people had them back then.

They said, “But an iPad is only $700. What do we do with the rest of the money?”

I said, “Buy a few extra iPads for the people who call you and say, ‘Hey! I bought a new air conditioner from you two months ago. Where’s my iPad?’”

They sold a huge number of new air conditioning systems in October, two months after air conditioning season was over.

The first example was a full-size, free sample. Don’t be stingy. The second example was a highly desirable gift-with-purchase.The more irresistible your offer, the better it will work. If you try this and it doesn’t work, you made a weak offer that was easy to ignore. Your offer has to be remarkable.

During the worst part of the Covid lockdown when doctors and nurses were working round-the-clock and everyone was losing hope, a jeweler crafted a beautiful lapel pin and paid a few dollars each to have 2,000 of them made.

The ad said, “Do you know a medical professional? Let them know that we have a special lapel pin or pendant for them and it’s free. It features a gorgeous pair of angel’s wings sprouting from the sides of a caduceus, that universal symbol of the medical profession. It’s a gift to every doctor and nurse from all of us, everyone in the city. We just want to say thank you for taking care of us.”

What we learned from that experience is that two thousand doctors and nurses coming into your store translates into millions of dollars in additional sales volume.

Is this making sense to you?

Custard mix and iPads and little silver lapel pins are much less expensive than advertising that doesn’t work. And if no one buys a new air conditioner, you don’t have to buy any iPads.Here’s a question. What percentage of your sales comes from repeat customers and referral customers? Take a moment. Choose a percentage. Remember that percentage.

Second question. What percentage of your sales come from your highly visible signage, or branded vehicles on the road, or your marvelously visible location? Choose a percentage. Remember that percentage.

Add those two percentages together, then subtract them from 100 percent. Is that remaining number the percentage of your sales volume that comes from first-time customers?

Most business owners tell me that 10% to 20% of their sales are made to first-time customers. Did the percentage you calculated fall into that range?

Bringing customers back a second, third, fourth, of fiftieth time is cheap and easy IF THEY HAD A GOOD EXPERIENCE THE FIRST TIME. The challenge faced by every business owner is to bring new customers in for that crucial first visit.

Great ads remind your repeat customers of how much they love you. (This is important because people stay “reached” the way that grass stays mowed.) And great ads give increased confidence to your referral customers as well. But the monumental challenge faced by every business is to attract new, first-time customers and give them a happy first experience.

As I said earlier, I believe in only two prices: full price, and free.

What can you give away for free?

Roy H. Williams

PS: Plato once observed, “One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.” Gene Sticco, an entrepreneur and U.S. Air Force special forces veteran, took the Greek philosopher’s words to heart when he launched his run for the 2024 presidency last month. Sticco’s campaign aligns with three of the core tenets that roving reporter Rotbart has emphasized in his courses at Wizard Academy:

1. Be audacious.

2. Act on your dreams and passions.

3. Let the naysayers laugh, then do it anyway.

Rotbart describes Gene as a serious candidate with no serious chance of winning. That said, for the inspiration Gene has to offer to business owners, entrepreneurs, and creatives, he is already a winner. You can vote for Gene with your ears, right now, at MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

Our song began in 1971 when Hunter S. Thompson wrote about the end of the 60s.He may as well have been writing about the end of a love affair.“We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark – that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.”

You are free to use – or not use – words and phrases from that sad soliloquy at the end of a dream. But the song lyrics you are going to write won’t be about the end of the 60s. You are going to write a song about the end of a love affair.

Another group of possible words and phrases you might use popped into my head during a business trip to Las Vegas in 2010. I was passing through the casino as I headed back to my room after speaking to an auditorium full of strangers when I saw a pattern, thought a thought, and wrote it down before I fell asleep.

“Girls in black spandex pants, high-heeled boots and baggy leather coats punctuate Las Vegas. Vodka fumes trail like invisible puppies as they pass the dead-eyed, spent ones going through the motions of having fun without having any of it.”

But the most important part of this song that you – yes, you – are going to assemble from bits and pieces of these shattered memories will be the phrase that Brad Whittington scribbled down in 2012 as he was driving past the Mean-Eyed Cat, a famous dive bar.

“You’re just the one she hasn’t left yet.”That’s the hook, the recurrent chorus. “You’re just the one she hasn’t left yet,” will show up repeatedly as you write this song that some lucky singer is going to make famous. That singer will tour and sell T-shirts and sign autographs and be famous. But you and me and Brad are going to reach into our mailboxes and pull-out handfuls of songwriting royalties.

Did you know that singers and their bands get zero money when their songs play on the radio? The only people who make money from airplay are the songwriters.

That’s going to be you and me and Brad.

Bernie Taupin doesn’t sing or play an instrument, but he has collected more than 70 million dollars in royalties from the lyrics of songs that play on the radio each day.

Brad and I feel the musicians and singers should get some money, too, but that’s not how the system works. Oh, well. Maybe they’ll get rich selling concert tickets and T-shirts.

Or maybe they should learn to write song lyrics.

To submit your song, all you have to do is follow these simple steps:1. Don’t worry about whether your song lyrics make sense. You’re not writing an essay full of facts. You’re writing a song full of feelings. 2. Your song lyrics will need to have poetic meter, those wonderful rhythms created by the stressed and unstressed syllables of spoken words. 3. You must repeatedly use the phrase, “You’re just the one she hasn’t left yet,” and you have to use a few of the words and phrases contributed by Hunter S. Thompson and me. You can decide which phrases you will use, and you are free to add words and phrases of your own, of course. 4. Your song can be Rock, Yacht Rock, Folk, Country, Western Swing, Opera, R & B, Rap, Hip-Hop, Bluegrass, or some musical genre I’ve never heard of. Brad and I don’t care and Hunter S most certainly doesn’t. 5. You have to send your lyrics and an MP3 recording of your song, with or without musical accompaniment, to indy@wizardofads.com before midnight Sunday, April 30, 2023. 6. There is a distinct chance that no one will ever hear your song except for Indy Beagle and Brad and me. But we are all going to have a wonderful time and that’s something in itself, don’t you think? 7. Yes, I was serious about sending us a recording. We need to hear the rhythm and tempo and melody that you hear in your mind. You don’t need to write the music, you just need to sing it or have someone else sing it for you. 8. No one cares that you can’t sing. This isn’t about the quality of your singing. It’s about the lyrics and rhythm and melody you hear in your head. Someone has to sing your song lyrics and send it as an MP3 along with your lyrics in a Word doc. You will list the copyrights as belonging to yourself, Brad Whittington, and Roy H. Williams. 9. When you submit your song, don’t tell us the story behind the story. Your song has to speak for itself. Your lyrics need to break hearts, bring tears, and cause people to have vivid memories of things that never happened. It’s not about you. It’s about the listener. 10. Twelve or fifteen of the best song lyrics and recordings will appear in the rabbit hole and a full-color, hardback Chatbook of those songs will be made and sent to each of the twelve or fifteen people whose work appears in it.

Welcome to the big leagues. You’ll find additional instruction and inspiration in today’s rabbit hole. Indy Beagle will tell you how to get there.

Now as Barry White would say, “Write on, write on, write on.”

Roy H. Williams

NOTE FROM INDY: If you’re listening to the audio version of this memo, you’re going to have to go to MondayMorningMemo.com if you want to enter the rabbit hole. When you have arrived at MondayMorningMemo.com, look in the archives for the MondayMorningMemo for March 6, 2023. Open it, then click the photo of the Mean-Eyed Cat at the top of the page. That will take you to page one of the rabbit hole. Each click of an image in the rabbit hole will take you one page deeper. Hang on, it’s going to be a wild ride. – Indy Beagle

Wizard Academy alumnus Matt Mason has some profound thoughts on Disneyland, midlife, and churros. Matt, who since 2019 has served as the official state poet of Nebraska, is hoping that those and other introspections he shares in his latest book of poetry will touch readers and help fuel his ambition to earn a living writing, performing, and teaching poetry to a corporate audience. Turning a passion into a business is never easy, but Matt believes he can make it happen. This week, on a return visit with roving reporter Rotbart, Matt shares how he plans to land this rocket on the moon! Keep your eyes on the sky and your ears on MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

You believe in a lot of things. But what do you believe in the most?Go into the quiet security of your mind, and you will know that you value one of these more highly than the other four.

1. Government
2. Business
3. Science
4. Family
5. Deity

“American rates of religious affiliation have plummeted to their lowest point in the past 73 years. And nowhere are they lower than in knowledge-industry hubs like Silicon Valley, where high-skilled jobs are growing the fastest. If religion is in decline, I wondered, then what are Americans worshiping now? What has become our new religion? For many professionals, the answer is work. Work provides the identity, belonging, meaning and purpose that faith traditions once did.”

– Carolyn Chen, NY Times, June 4, 2022

“For thousands of years, our ancestors gazed at the world around us—the people and animals, the mountains and seas, the sun, moon and stars—and saw the divine. As the 19th Psalm puts it, ‘The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows his handiwork.’ Even Isaac Newton saw a universe filled with purpose. In his masterwork, the Principia, he wrote: ‘This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful being.’ Science advanced by leaps and bounds in the centuries following Newton, and scientists dialed back much of the God-talk. Many thinkers suggested that the universe runs like a mighty clockwork. Perhaps a creator was needed at the beginning, to set it going, but surely it now runs on its own. Einstein, who often spoke of God metaphorically, took a different tack. He rejected a personal deity, but saw a kind of pantheism—roughly, the identification of God with nature—as plausible.”

– Dan Falk, Scientific American, July 27, 2021

1. Where do you place your highest confidence? Is it government?At one end of this spectrum, Communism believes that citizens should collectively own the means of production, distribution, and exchange which allocates products to everyone in the society. Karl Marx proposed a classless society in which everything would be shared by everyone.

At the other end of the spectrum, Libertarianism says, “We, the members of the Libertarian Party, challenge the cult of the omnipotent state and defend the rights of the individual.” [LP.org) Ayn Rand famously proposed, “If government would just get out of the way, individual self-interest would create a better society!”

To have confidence in government – or in the absence of government – is to believe in people. To have faith in people is Humanism. Is that where you have put your faith?

1. Where do you place your highest confidence? Is it business, capitalism, free enterprise?“People create value and do good things when they have a profit motive.”

“Capitalism creates jobs and provides a better lifestyle for everyone who participates. It is a virtuous cycle.”

“Business people are problem solvers.”

1. Where do you place your highest confidence? Is it science, medicine, technology?J.G. Ballard was enthusiastic about living in a technological society. He said, “Science and technology multiply around us. To an increasing extent they dictate the languages in which we speak and think. Either we use those languages, or we remain mute.”

Napoleon Hill echoed J.G. Ballard. “Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.”

But Thomas Schelling, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, disagreed with Napoleon Hill, saying, “The one thing a person cannot do, however brilliant they are, is write up a list of things that would never occur to them.”

I like Thomas Schelling.

Perhaps I am oversimplifying this, but my general feeling is that when we do a thing intuitively, we call it art. When we do it systematically, we call it science. And our love of science seems to be growing exponentially.

“We are awash in numbers. Data is everywhere. Old-fashioned things like words are in retreat; numbers are on the rise. Unquantifiable arenas like history, literature, religion and the arts are receding from public life, replaced by technology, statistics, science and math. Even the most elemental form of communication, the story, is being pushed aside by the list. The results are in: The nerds have won. Time to replace those arrows in the talons of the American eagle with pencils and slide rules. We’ve become the United States of Metrics.”

– Bruce Feiler, NY Times, May 16, 2014

My own opinion echoes that of Tom Robbins, who said, “Romanticism and science are good for each other. The scientist keeps the romantic honest and the romantic keeps the scientist human.”

We will now continue our examination of the major categories of Beliefs.

1. Where do you place your highest confidence? Is it family, friends, relationships?Robert Frost said, “Home is the place where, when you have to go there, They have to take you in.”

Edna Buchanan said, “Friends are the family we choose for ourselves.”

Anthony Bourdain advised, “Be open to a world where you may not understand or agree with the person next to you, but have a drink with them anyways. Eat slowly. Tip your server. Check in on your friends. Check in on yourself. Enjoy the ride.”

Perhaps you feel as Rabbi Jonathan Sacks did. He said, “My life has been made by three or four, maybe half a dozen, friendships with people who believed in me more than I believed in myself.”

And of course, we all agree with Kahlil Gibran. “And let your best be for your friend. If he must know the ebb of your tide, let him know its flood also. For what is your friend that you should seek him with hours to kill? Seek him always with hours to live.”

1. Where do you place your highest confidence? Is it in God?My friend Akintunde Omitowoju is a programming genius, one of the few in the world who might be in the same inventive class as Steve Wozniak. Akintunde emphatically agrees with A.W. Tozer, who said, “The trustworthiness of God’s behavior is the foundation for all scientific truth.”

In the opening chapter of Genesis, the only information we’re given about the creation of our universe is, “God said, ‘Let there be…'” And then God continued to say “Let there be this, and let there be that,” until everything existed that needed to be.

Theoretical physicists call that moment The Big Bang. These same theoretical physicists – since the spring of 1995 – have been fascinated with a version of string theory called M-theory. In 2010, Steven Hawking wrote, “M-Theory is the only candidate for a complete theory of the universe.”

Michio Kaku believes M-Theory to be, “so concise that its underlying formula would fit on a T-shirt.”

In essence, M-theory tells us that Time is made of tiny loops of 6-dimensional energy vibrating at a specific frequency. Likewise, Space, Gravity, Matter, and Light are made of similar loops of energy vibrating at their own, specific frequencies. According to string theorist Brian Greene, these loops of energy are so small that if an atom were enlarged to the size of our solar system – with the sun as the nucleus and Pluto as the nearest orbiting electron – a single loop of energy would be the size of a small tree.

Brian Greene calls our universe, “a silent symphony of string.”

So if Hawking, Kaku, Greene and all the other string theorists are correct, it seems perfectly reasonable to see our space-time continuum as nothing but the continuing echo of the voice of God.

In the first chapter of John’s Good News we read,

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; (the Word) and without him was not anything made that was made…”

And then John drops the bombshell:

“And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.” Wow. If this can be believed, the force that went out from God – his Word – continues to vibrate as our space-time continuum.

In the 17th chapter of the book of Acts, we read, “In Him we live and move and have our being.”

What I have shared with you today is personal. It is not religiosity. It is not codified, step-by-step religion. And it is most certainly not the fearful, angry, anxious posturing of misguided political parties since the First Crusade of 1095.

What I have shared is nothing more than my private understanding of the backstory of that person in whom I have placed my faith.

Roy H. Williams

PS – “As a general rule, I would say that human beings never behave more badly toward one another than when they believe they are protecting God.” – Barbara Brown Taylor

Michael Kaeding had no idea how to run his family business when his father unexpectedly passed away. “I had no preconceived notion of the way things were supposed to be done,” Michael recalls. “We just started to naively solve problems, and that was the magic.” Today Michael is the CEO of a company that designs, builds, and rents apartments. His naivety allowed him to perfect a process that saves 50% of what other residential developers spend. Listen and be amazed as Michael tells roving reporter Rotbart how he plans to solve America’s housing shortage and affordability crisis. It’s all happening right now at MondayMorningRadio.com

View Details

Ten years ago, scientists discovered “a geometric, jewel-like object at the heart of quantum physics.”

This jewel-like object is called the amplituhedron (cool name, right?) and it, “dramatically simplifies calculations of particle interactions and challenges the notion that space and time are fundamental components of reality.” *