How to Attract and Hold Attention: Death and Life for the Cognoscenti

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.