Wizard of Ads Monday Morning Memo

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:It is easy to pick the low-hanging fruit.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.Most of the fruit on the tree requires a step-ladder for you to reach it.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.Everyone successful person has a superpower, a core competency, an area of excellence.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.The steps that got you to where you are… will not take you to the next level.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.To get to the next level, you need to add more steps to your ladder.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. WilliamsRoving 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 you know the day of the return of MondayMorningRadio.com

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. WilliamsI have a weirdly excellent rabbit hole for you to explore today. Do you know the way in? – Indy BeagleKen 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

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:wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrumvibrations traveling though air and waterchemicals dissolved in air and watersurfaces 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 OliveiraYour 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 power to choose a lower-case “i” because according to Jesus, I am a god.ANOTHER LAST THING: Have you ever seen a garden gnome? Gnome is spelled with a silent G. Pennie and I have a lifelong friend named Sara, but it is pronounced with an invisible “n,” Saran. Her last name, of course, is Dippity. Sara brought Beta’s note to me (at the top of this page) while I was writing you today’s Monday Morning Memo. All I did was ask the Goog when Psalm 82 was written.TWENTY-FOUR MORE LAST THINGS: Al is is often short for Alfred, Albert, Alphonse, Alphons, Allen, Allan, Alan, Alyson, Alysson, Allyson, Alistair, Alister, Alex, Alexander, Alvin, Alyssa, Alisha, Aldrin, Alden, Aldo, Aldwin, Ali, Alwin or Aloysius.THE TWENTY-SEVENTH, AND FINAL, LAST THING: I will be interested to see how long it takes Al to write a story as wide-ranging and weirdly well-connected as the story I told you today. Al, you may be as smart as me in days to come, but today is not that day. Today you can kiss my ass.Roy H. Williams If you want your talent and unique brilliance to be recognized, speak up!Take it from Bret Ridgway, who has witnessed a couple thousand speakers during his 25-plus-year career and evangelizes the many benefits that accrue to owners and entrepreneurs who take to the podium.One needn’t have the oratory skills of Tim Cook, Richard Branson, or Ginni Rometty to be the type of speaker who wins over customers, employees, and investors. All it takes, Bret tells roving reporter Rotbart, is a genuine passion to share your message with the world and be your authentic self. Then brace yourself for a standing ovation.Make it happen at mondaymorningradio.com.

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 abandons him.Four months after writing his “Last Will and Testament” Thomas Chatterton was so much absorbed in thought while walking in St Pancras Churchyard, that he did not notice a newly dug grave in his path and tumbled into it. His walking companion helped Chatterton out of the grave, joking that he was happy to assist in the resurrection of a genius.Chatterton replied, “My dear friend, I have been at war with the grave for some time now.”Three days later, broken-hearted that he had not been able to support his destitute mother by making money as a writer, 17-year-old Thomas Chatterton, that strange and solitary boy whose poems would inspire a generation of English Romantic poets, committed suicide by drinking arsenic.But wait. It gets worse. A few days later, a man showed up at the London house in which Thomas Chatterton had lived in the attic. This man was Dr. Thomas Fry, a literary scholar who had discovered that young Thomas Chatterton was not merely the transcriber of a supposedly long-dead English monk, but was, in fact, the author of all the remarkable works that were currently whirling through England.Dr. Fry had come with the intention of becoming Chatterton’s patron, supporting him with an income.That was 253 years ago.“The Death of Chatterton” is an often-visited painting in the Tate Museum in London. It was painted by Henry Wallis during the years when English romantic poetry was at pinnacle popularity. In that painting you will notice a pile of shredded paper in the bottom-left corner, beneath the shoulder of the boy. Dr. Fry gathered these shreds and reassembled them to find the final poem of Thomas Chatterton.The painting was shown at the Royal Academy summer exhibition and was an immediate success. The following year it drew huge crowds at the Art Treasures Exhibition in Manchester, and then it drew huge crowds in Dublin. In the 19th century, “The Death of Chatterton” was the most popular painting sold as a reproductive print. Every household had one.When lovely Fame and Fortune – that girl without mercy – did finally kiss the cheek of young Thomas Chatterton, she smiled as she noted that it was as white and waxy as a snuffed-out candle, and it smelled faintly of arsenic.Roy H. WilliamsYou can see the painting on page 2 of the rabbit hole. Indy Beagle will tell you how to get there.Dr. Noah St. John called himself the “nerdiest nerd,” while living in a 300-square-foot basement apartment with no money, no girlfriend, and very little hope.  In the shower one day an idea came to him how to turn his life around.  That core idea has helped improve the lives of 1.8 million others since then through speaking engagements, consulting, and 20 self improvement books and counting.  He has a happy marriage and a 6,000-square-foot mansion on a hill.  Today, Dr. St. John tells roving reporter Rotbart his proprietary formula for success.  It's surprisingly simple. If it worked for a nerd like him, it can work for anyone.  Start the work now at Monday Morning Radio dot com.

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: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?”Talk to God.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. WilliamsLieutenant 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 you were eligible. Check into it and your profits could soar up, up, and away! MondayMorningRadio.com.

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 happiness. Albert put it this way:“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.”Not being able to answer the question myself, I put the question to you: What, then, is Love?Roy H. WilliamsDateline: Austin, TexasHeadline: Mickey Kennedy Has Spent 25 Years Helping Small Businesses Write and Distribute News ReleasesBody: Mickey Kennedy believes small businesses should not have to pay exorbitant prices to write or distribute news releases. In October 1998, he launched a news release service that has since provided hundreds of thousands of small businesses the media reach that the giant public relations newswires offer at a fraction of the cost. As Mickey tells roving reporter Rotbart, the key to news release success is knowing what will and what won’t capture the imagination of influential journalists.Contact: MondayMorningRadio.com, of course.

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.comKARLA: OR… go to Iwanttobeyourguy.comDEVIN: MrsMichael.comRelational 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 band.JACOB: Did your wife ever find out about that?BRAD: (laughter) Well, when she saw the bottom of my ring, obviously she did. When you looked at it from the top, it looked perfect. (laughter subsides) It was a very, very humble beginning. I always believed that if you took care of the customers that the costomers would come back and that you could build a business that way.DEVIN: Goldcasters. At Second and Washington in Bloomington.Do you want to measure the results of your ads immediately? Write transactional ads that make an impressive offer that is available only if the customer acts quickly.Do you want to be the company people think of immediately and feel the best about? Write relational ads that allow them to get to know you.The longer you use transactional ads, the less well they work. The longer you use relational ads, the better they work.Is there ever a time in a relational ad campaign when the customer is given an opportunity to experience something special? Yes, but these ads are not transactional. They are simply an invitation to take the relationship to the next level.Relational ads are a courtship.Transactional ads are a one-night stand.Enough said.Roy H. WilliamsPS – If you were wondering why Mrs Michael said the two syllables “H-Vac” instead of the two syllables “A/C”, it’s because she lives and operates in a Northern city. Relational ads feel personal and sound local.President John F. Kennedy said, “The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.” Mac Lackey says something similar, “The time to think about selling your business is long before you plan to sell.” Having founded and sold six companies, Mac is something of an expert on entrepreneurial exits. Two of his buyers were NBC Sports and the Remington Outdoor Company. Across the microphone from Mac Lackey is roving reporter Rotbart’s brainiac son, Maxwell, a Master’s degree candidate who, after listening to his dad’s weekly podcasts for the past dozen years, will begin hosting the show once a month. Welcome aboard, Maxwell! The time is now. The place is MondayMorningRadio.com

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. WilliamsDr. 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.

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 = SpeculationKnowledge + Data = SpeculationMy 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 reality expressed in similes, metaphors, and instincts. It is the logic of the wordless, pattern-finding right hemisphere of your brain.Data can be gathered and processed by the latest and greatest AI, artificial intelligence.Intuition is gathered and processed by the original AI, actual intelligence.One uses chips and processors. The other uses neurons and synapses.These are the things that were triggered in my mind when my partner Craig sent me a meme this morning.Roy H. WilliamsJoanne Lipman was the first woman to become a deputy managing editor at The Wall Street Journal. She was the founding editor-in chief-of Condé Nast’s Portfolio magazine. She served as editor-in-chief of USA Today and chief content officer of its parent company, Gannett. Currently, Joanne is a regular contributor to CNBC and a lecturer at Yale University. In her latest book — garnering blockbuster reviews — Joanne provides numerous examples of people who reinvented themselves. Listen in as she tells roving reporter Rotbart precisely how anyone can make the successful leap from one career to the next, and then the next and the next after that. Who? What? Where? MondayMorningRadio.com.

There are places in geography.There are places in the heart.There are places in time.Where shall we start?– Indy BeaglePlaces 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. 256Places 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 WilsonPlaces 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 LennonMy 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 than before. We yelled and screamed for more. And the Porter tunes made us dance across the room. It ended all too soon. And on the way back home I promised you’d never be alone. Hurry, don’t be late, I can hardly wait. I said to myself, ‘When we’re old, we’ll go dancing in the dark, walking through the park, and reminiscing.'”*Patrick is now old and dancing in the dark of an Oklahoma prison, reminiscing his lifelong love affair with perception-altering chemicals. But his sharp mind, his impressive vocabulary and his deep understanding of the reality around him rose to an unprecedented height in 2020 when he borrowed some legal books from the prison library, wrote his own legal petition, and filed a case with the United States Supreme Court.I think we can agree the odds are low that an incarcerated felon could write their own petition and have it not only reviewed but ruled upon by the United States Supreme Court.But that’s what happened. In July of 2020, Supreme Court Justices Roberts, Thomas, Ginsburg, Breyer, Alito, Sotomayor, Kagan, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh read Patrick’s petition and ruled in his favor. From what I can gather online, it didn’t get him released from prison, but it did overrule and reverse certain judgments of the lower court regarding Patrick’s case, and it opened the door for his appeal.I hope to see Patrick again. But more than that, I hope to see Patrick escape the torture of the monsters in his mind.Roy H. Williams“I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me … Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”– Jesus, in Matthew chapter 25*lyrics by Graeham Goble, guitarist of Little River Band (1978)Dave Albin helps business executives and employees face and overcome their fears. But that’s nothing special. What makes Dave a legend among corporate coaches are the methods he employs. Dave is the #1 firewalk instructor in America, having cajoled more than one-half million people to walk, barefoot, over a bed of hot coals exceeding 1,000 degrees in temperature. Dave ran firewalks for Tony Robbins for almost 20 years before striking out on his own. Dave says, “Like most things in life, the hardest part of walking on hot coals is the first step.” Want to overcome the fears that are holding you back? Here’s that all-important first step: Zip over to this week’s red-hot edition of MondayMorningRadio.com. Dave Albin and roving reporter Rotbart are patiently waiting for you to arrive before they start the show. And what a show!