Wizard of Ads Monday Morning Memo

Regardless of our chosen profession, most of us work with Numbers, Facts, Words, and Hands.You’ve probably never thought about it. I certainly hadn’t, until I was talking with my 13-year-old grandson, Gideon, trying to convince him to elevate the quality of books he reads. Gideon is an exceptional storyteller and a surprisingly good actor for his age. Based on his natural proclivities, I am convinced Gideon will someday make his money with words. There are hundreds of ways to do it.I was about to list the careers that depend primarily on a practitioner’s capacity to choose and use precisely the right words when it hit me: every endeavor requires the use of numbers, facts, words, and hands.Career choices fall into one of those four camps.Numbers. Facts. Words. Hands.Arrange those four in the order you prefer to use them. Your order of preference may not correspond with the order of your competence, but it usually does. We get better at the things we prefer, especially when we focus on them.Let’s look at the careers where the language of Numbers stands on tiptoe and shouts “Look at me!”Data scientist, structural engineer, statistician, bookkeeper/accountant/CPA, insurance company actuarial, theoretical physicist, astrophysicist, (pretty much any kind of physicist,) and the list goes on.And in which politesse is the finesse of finicky Facts essential to success?Teacher, lawyer, doctor, policeman, consultant, inventor, and the list goes on.And what pursuits depend on your ability to muster and master Words that tickle the intellect and elevate the ears?Stand-up comedian, ad writer, politician, broadcaster, podcaster, online influencer, reporter, novelist, screenwriter, lyricist, and the list goes on.You didn’t know lyricist could be a career? Bernie Taupin has made more than seventy million dollars writing lyrics for Elton John. Bernie doesn’t write the music. Just the words.Now let’s look at the careers that harness the Hands.Carpenter, plumber, artist, musician, masseuse, electrician, manufacturing technician, butcher, baker, candlestick maker. And the list goes on.No career relies on the use of a single category exclusively, but when you look at a career from a distance, it is easy to see that one of those four is used more often than the other three.I have no idea how you might use this information, but I felt it was an observation worth sharing.One final thought: I have known a lot of people who followed the advice of their guidance counselor and chose a career based on how they scored on a standardized test. Tom was one of those people. Twenty-five years ago, he said,“I scored high on math skills so they convinced me to major in math in college. I graduated and got a job with a bank and was very successful but not happy. Then one day I realized that I hated math and had always hated math and was an idiot for listening to my guidance counselor.”Tom left banking to become an ad writer and became even more successful than he had been as a banker.And Tom was a lot happier, as well.If you took a moment to arrange Numbers, Facts, Words, and Hands in the order of your preference, indy@wizardofads.com would like you to share your list with him, along with anything else you would like to add.I told him you said aroo.He says aroo to you, too.Roy H. WilliamsCompanies are pouring big money into programs that teach “soft skills,” such as employee training, human resources, community outreach, and DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.) But do they get their money’s worth?Jack and Patti Phillips developed a method for determining the return on investment for programs like these and it has become the most-used evaluation system in the world, adopted by 27 governments and three-fourths of the FORTUNE 500! Listen as they explain to roving reporter Rotbart how much easier it is to assess these programs than most owners and executives realize. The time is now. The place is MondayMorningRadio.com

You are rolling down the road when you wonder, “If I turn off the engine and quit burning fuel, how far can I coast?”If your thought was to save fuel, you have made a costly mistake. The fuel you will burn to regain your speed is a lot more fuel than you would have burned to maintain your speed.This isn’t just a common mistake. It is an “extremely very” common mistake.But you were wondering how far you could coast, so I will answer your question, as asked.Your ability to coast will be determined bySpeedMassFrictionGravity (Are you coasting uphill, or down? Anyone can coast downhill in a booming economy.)Advertising is the fuel that energizes your business.Speed of growth is determined by how heavily you have been advertising.Mass is determined by how long you have been advertising that heavily.Friction is the inefficiency of your people to consistently delight your customers.Gravity is the resistance of your competitors. How strong or weak are they?It has been my observation that a roaringly successful business with a lot of momentum can coast for about 6 months before people begin to suspect that something has changed. During those 6 months, the business owner will say, “I cut my advertising and nothing changed! I should have done this a long time ago.”At the end of a year, they begin blaming the media. “The thing we were using no longer works. We’ve got to find the new thing.”At the end of two years, the wheels begin to come off. But it has been so long since they changed their advertising that no one suspects it to be the problem.At the end of four years, the company is in real trouble.I have seen this movie so many times that I can describe every scene and quote every line of dialogue.Whether it is after a one-month vacation, a three-month sabbatical, or a six-month abandonment, when that company starts advertising again, they invariably become frustrated that it doesn’t seem to be making a difference. (Remember what I said? “The fuel you will burn to regain your speed is a lot more fuel than you would have burned to maintain your speed.” Payback is hell. It’s going to cost that company at least six months of painful fuel inefficiency to regain the momentum they lost during those six months they were lazily picking their nose instead of advertising.“Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up, it knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve. It doesn’t matter whether you’re the lion or a gazelle – when the sun comes up, you’d better be running.”– Christopher McDougall, “Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe”A second business owner believes they can build their business to a certain size and then, “just hold what they’ve got,” as though that volume of business is something they can count on from now on. But “holding what you’ve got” is never really an option because the physics of mass, friction, and gravity apply to maintaining your current speed just as surely as they apply to regaining lost momentum.“Hold-what-we’ve-got” business owners quietly believe, “We have all these customers now, so we don’t need to reach them with advertising anymore.”BREAKING NEWS: People stay reached like grass stays mowed. A good restaurant is an exception to this rule. In truth, I think you could open a marvelous restaurant on the steppes of Mongolia and people would find it and tell their friends about it.But you’re not in the restaurant business.Your business inhales and exhales, expands and contracts, just like every other living organism. This fantasy of, “holding what you’ve got” springs from the misbegotten belief that your business can hold its breath.Maybe you can do it. I don’t know. Give it a try and we’ll find out.Are you old enough to have seen a NASA rocket lift off the launchpad at Cape Canaveral? Remember the profound amount of fuel they had to burn to push that rocket slowly upward? Mass and Gravity are a bitch, whether you are trying to launch a rocket or a business. Fuel inefficiency during lift-off is just a fact of life.If you let that rocket begin to fall back to earth, you’ve got to start all over again.I’m sorry that I had to be the one to tell you.Roy H. WilliamsCan you teach yourself and your colleagues to generate great ideas — ideas actually worth pursuing? Robin Landa has been studying where breakthrough ideas come from — so-called ideation — and she can explain how anyone can conjure concepts that will be REVOLUTIONARY. Robin tells roving reporter Rotbart, “There are three ‘Gs’ that underlie every worthwhile creation.” Want to know what those Gs are? Join us at MondayMorningRadio.com and we’ll tell you everything you need to know. The party will start the moment you arrive.

I recently read a pair of books by Arkady Martine, a writer who is new to Science Fiction. A Memory Called Empire (2019) and A Desolation Called Peace (2021), each won the Hugo Award for Best Novel.I like Arkady Martine and I like her books. She is an extraordinary storyteller.But she is not yet a great writer.That was not intended as an insult. Dan Brown sold a staggering number of The DaVinci Code, but he is not yet a great writer, either. We tend to read the book of a great storyteller only once. Knowing the story, the magic is gone. This is why every thrift shop in the world is stacked with countless copies of 50 Shades of Gray and The DaVinci Code.But we read the works of great writers again and again. A great writer could write an instruction manual and make it captivating.Literary evaluation is wildly subjective, of course, so I owe an explanation to Arkady Martine and to you.I never read borrowed books because I intend to circle passages and make notes in the margins along the way. To deface my own books with circles and notes is a sign of respect for the author, but for me to deface the book of a friend would not be a sign of respect.I will not finish a book if the author is not a great storyteller. I will not circle any passages if the author is a not a great writer.The hope of every great storyteller should be to also become a great writer. To win the Pulitzer Prize or the Nobel Prize in literature, you have to be both.John Steinbeck was both.J.R.R. Tolkien was both.Tom Robbins is both.Bill Bryson is both.Barbara Kingsolver is both.I am currently on page 26 of Barbara Kingsolver’s 546-page novel, Demon Copperhead,* and I have already circled 10 passages. Indy will transcribe those passages into the rabbit hole when I have completed the book. (The Random Quotes database is now 6,108 quotes and climbing. – Indy)The stories that comprise One Thousand and One Nights were compiled a thousand years ago. In one of those stories, Prince Husain travels to Bisnagar and buys a magic carpet. Do not let Disney mislead you. Husain’s carpet is not a ‘flying’ carpet that rides the air like a raptor. His magic carpet is like a good book. All you have to do is decide where you want to be, sit down, and you are there.Good writing engages all your senses as it moves you to another place, another time, another life.You are at a spongey 100-year-old seaside resort favored by the idle rich in the tropical south.“The air was heavy with oleander and sea mist colliding with mold and wood polish and hotel soap and the metallic vapor of Diet Coke and the alcoholic ferment of generations of cougars in Chanel No. 5.”– Olivia NuzziYou are now in the brittle north.“It’s FREEZING cold; like the air is made of broken glass. Our English cold is all roly-poly snowmen and ‘woo-hoo! it’s a snow day!’ a hey-there friendly kind of cold. But this cold is mean…”“It’s getting so hard to breathe, my lungs are filling up with ants and there isn’t room for air any more. There’s a monster made of cold, hard as the edge of a pavement, coming towards us in the dark and it’s cutting through the windscreen and doors and windows and the only weapon against it is heat, but we don’t have any heat.”“…she felt it now as vastly, cruelly impersonal; a frozen darkness absorbing you into itself. She felt it filling her hollow spaces, embedding itself as icy marrow in her bones and then consciousness seeped away from her into the Arctic blackness.”– Rosamund LuptonYou stood in the rain sixty-five miles north of Seattle.“And it rained a sickness. And it rained a fear. And it rained an odor. And it rained a murder. And it rained pale eggs of the beast.Rain fell on the towns and the fields. It fell on the tractor sheds and the labyrinth of sloughs. Rain fell on toadstools and ferns and bridges. It fell on the head of John Paul Ziller.Rain poured for days, unceasing. Flooding occurred. The wells filled with reptiles. The basements filled with fossils. Mossy-haired lunatics roamed the dripping peninsulas. Moisture gleamed on the beak of the Raven. Ancient shamans, rained from their homes in dead tree trunks, clacked their clamshell teeth in the drowned doorways of forests. Rain hissed on the Freeway. It hissed at the prows of fishing boats. It ate the old warpaths, spilled the huckleberries, ran in the ditches. Soaking. Spreading. Penetrating.And it rained an omen. And it rained a poison. And it rained a pigment. And it rained a seizure…”– Tom RobbinsYou are exploring Africa in the 1930’s.“The trail ran north to Molo; at night it ran straight to the stars. It ran up the side of the Mau Escarpment until at ten thousand feet it found the plateau and rested there, and some of the stars burned beneath its edge.”– Beryl MarkhamYou are learning from your friend Bill what to expect when visiting Rome.“I love the way the Italians park. You turn any street corner in Rome and it looks as if you’ve just missed a parking competition for blind people. Cars are pointed in every direction, half on the sidewalks and half off, facing in, facing sideways, blocking garages and side streets and phone booths, fitted into spaces so tight that the only possible way out would be through the sunroof. Romans park their cars the way I would park if I had just spilled a beaker of hydrochloric acid on my lap.All over the city you see drivers bullying their cars into spaces about the size of a sofa cushion, holding up traffic and prompting every driver within three miles to lean on his horn and give a passable imitation of a man in an electric chair. If the opening is too small for a car, the Romans will decorate it with litter – an empty cigarette packet; a wedge of half-eaten pizza; twenty-seven cigarette butts; half an ice cream cone with an ooze of old ice cream emerging from the bottom, danced on by a delirium of flies; an oily tin of sardines; a tattered newspaper; and something truly unexpected, like a tailor’s dummy or a dead goat.”– Bill BrysonYou are looking into the eyes of Jorge Luis Borges as he philosophizes about the dimension of time and his own place in it.“Time is the substance I am made of. Time is a river that carries me away, but I am the river; it is a tiger that mangles me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire. The world, alas, is real; I, alas, am Borges.”Indy Beagle, alas, is real; I alas, amRoy H. Williams*Demon Copperhead isn’t about a demon or the paranormal. As of page 26, it is about a boy growing up with a teenage Mom in a mobile home in the mountains of southern Appalachia. I find it incomprehensible that a 67-year-old woman is able to know the thoughts of a 10-year-old boy in Appalachia, but having once been a 10-year-old boy in Oklahoma, she nailed it. – RHW

I want you to:be more productive,reduce your mistakes,shorten your learning curve,and elevate your success.If I am going to help you do these things, we must first look at what’s hiding in your blind spot.Are you ready?Teamwork in Business is Highly Overrated.Teamwork is never the answer.Individual responsibility is the answer.A relay race is really just a series of individual runners, three of whom begin their efforts with an advantage, or a deficit, handed to them by the previous runner. If a runner increases that advantage or shortens that deficit, he or she was successful.When individuals are rewarded collectively, we create the illusion of a team.1: Individual responsibility brings out the best in us.2: You create a committee when you remove individual responsibility.3: Every bureaucracy begins as a well-intentioned committee.But we love to be members of a tribe. Being part of a team – a tribe – gives us a sense of identity, purpose, and adventure. These feelings help us to perform as individuals.Americans love football. But it isn’t the teamwork that attracts us. It is the tribalism and the tribal leaders.Quarterbacks, running backs and receivers – the tribal leaders who score the most points – are paid a lot more money than the rest of the team. So why do coaches tell players that every member of the team is “equally important”? I can’t help but hear the “Animal Farm’ voice of George Orwell, his tongue about to punch a hole in his cheek,“All animals are created equal. But some animals are more equal than others.”The role of a tribal leader is to instill the values, beliefs, and culture of the tribe into each of its members and each of its fans.Tribal leaders are different from tribal managers.A Manager – a Coach – holds each individual responsible for delivering the outcome that he or she has been assigned.Steve Jobs did not invent the Apple computer. Steve Wozniak invented the Apple computer.Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs were not a team. They were partners, each of whom had specific responsibilities.“Most inventors and engineers I’ve met are like me … they live in their heads. They’re almost like artists. In fact, the very best of them are artists. And artists work best alone …. I’m going to give you some advice that might be hard to take. That advice is: Work alone… Not on a committee. Not on a team.” *That is Steve Wozniak’s advice to you.“Nothing was ever created by two men. There are no good collaborations, whether in music, in art, in poetry, in mathematics, in philosophy… Once the miracle of creation has taken place, the group can build and extend it, but the group never invents anything. The preciousness lies in the lonely mind of a man.”– John Steinbeck, East of EdenWozniak was the first runner in a relay race. He handed the baton to Steve Jobs. When Jobs was forced to hand that baton to John Sculley in 1985, Scully stumbled and handed the baton to Michael Spindler who stumbled and handed it to Gil Amelio who fell on his face and left a 20-foot skid mark on the track.Steve Jobs returned to the company in 1996 and brought it back to life. After he died in 2011, tribal manager Tim Cook lifted Apple to a $1 trillion stock valuation, the first ever in history.Professor Scott Galloway made a piercing comment about the power of tribal leaders when he was interviewed by Christiane Amanpour,“As societies become wealthier and more educated, the reliance on a super-being and church attendance goes down, but they still look for idols. Into that void steps technology leaders because technology… …is the closest thing we have to magic. Our new Jesus Christ was Steve Jobs, and now Elon Musk has taken on that mantle.”Although I admired the abilities of Steve Jobs, he was merely the popularizer, the face, the dynamic leader, the pitchman, the philosopher, the high priest of the Apple religion. Without Wozniak, Steve Jobs would likely have been just another California techie bouncing from company to company in blue jeans, a black turtleneck, and sneakers.I will leave Elon Musk up to you.Roy H. Williamswith special thanks to Tom Grimes of Amarillo for his 20 years of research into Social Tribes in America.* Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, by Susan CainThe Rice and Beans Millionaire: The Case of an Improbable Entrepreneur by Wizard Academy Instructors Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg. Short chapters. You’ll read several stories about Wizard Academy starting in Chapter 27: The Crazy Ones. Read and review this book. Do this and you will not leave a 20-foot skid mark on the track like Gil Amelio. In fact, 2023 will be your best year ever.– Indy Beagle Cathy Nesbitt is a passionate worm advocate, a sort of worm royalty. For the past 20 years Cathy has bred and sold red wigglers and European nightcrawlers to enthusiastic customers who use the squigglers to facilitate composting — converting household garbage into nutrient-rich fertilizer. Cathy is that rare entrepreneur who is willing to get her hands dirty in the pursuit of profit. This is the story of Cathy’s success. Welcome to 2023 and MondayMorningRadio.com.

I’ve been getting a lot of questions lately about the 2023 Zenith of the “WE,” so today I’ll give you a recap.The 3,000-year pendulum of Western Civilization* is energized by two good things that oppose each other: Every 40-year “ME” cycle is driven by the hunger for individuality and freedom of expression.Every 40-year “WE” cycle is driven by working together for the common good.We begin each of these cycles with the best of intentions; but then we take that good thing too far – all the way to the zenith at one end of the pendulum’s arc – and begin to mourn what we left behind. 20 years up to the zenith, 20 years back down; then we begin our 20-year journey up to the opposite zenith; then 20 years back down to complete the 80-year roundtrip.There are two reasons why so few people say, “Hey, I remember this!” 1. We don’t notice the truly important when we are distracted by the merely urgent.2. The pendulum is in the same position – headed in the same direction – just once every 80 years. How often do you listen to a 90-year-old when they say, “Back when I was 10 years old…” The 40-year “ME” cycle that began in 1963 was built on individuality and freedom of expression.  That “ME” zenithed in 1983, then it slowly deflated until 2003. That’s when we began our current “WE” cycle. And like every “WE,” it began with the beautiful dream of working together for the common good. As we reach the zenith of that “WE” – 2023 – we see the consequences of taking “working together for the common good” a little too far.Okay, a lot too far.Every zenith of a “WE” cycle is a time of intense opposition and strong beliefs. We feel that anyone who believes differently from us is stupid and evil and must be stopped at any cost. 1783 – The Revolutionary War ended on Sept. 3 with the Treaty of Paris. We spent the next 5 chaotic years writing and adopting – state by state – the Constitution.1863 – The middle year of the U.S. Civil War. Lincoln was assassinated 2 years later. Chaos.1943 – The middle year of America’s involvement in WW II. Two years later we nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki.2023 – (We shall see what we shall see.) Religiosity is often intense at the Zenith of a “WE” cycle. Disagreements often result from a lack of definitions of terms. For the purposes of this discussion, these will be the definitions of Faith, Religion, and Religiosity:Faith is that in which you place your greatest confidence.(Science? Politics? Deity?)Religion is the formalizing of a code of orthodoxy around your Faith.Religiosity is weaponized religion.Every reader takes from a text what he brings to it.“It is a short distance between believing you possess an error-free message from God and believing that you are an error-free messenger of God. The minute I believe I know the mind of God is the minute someone needs to tell me to sit down and breathe into a paper bag. 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 TaylorYou can get ancient scriptures to confess to whatever you want if you torture them long enough.“The history of the world shows that when you place an ego and a spiritual text (the Bible, Torah, Quran, Bhagavad Gita, etc.) in the same room, the text will always end up in a chokehold.”– Michele Miller-NelsonEvery person deserves to be remembered for their finest moment. From what I know of Ernest Hemingway, I believe his finest moment may have been when he said: “When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.”We want everyone to know what we think, but we don’t really care to know what they think.I believe our resistance to considering the perspectives of others is rooted in our need for identity reinforcement. I believe this is the driving force behind political parties, religious organizations, and affinity groups. Look back and you’ll see that things have been getting increasingly nutty since about 2013. For the past 3,000 years of Western Civilization,* the ugliest 20 years in the 80-year roundtrip are the 10 years before – and the 10 years after – the zenith of a “WE.” 2023 is that zenith, the moment when the Pendulum reaches its full ascent and begins to decline. The problem is that it will take us 10 years to get back to the low-level nuttiness we endured in 2013. The good news is that we are at the halfway point. Things will begin to slowly get better soon.Roy H. Williams * “How could Western Civilization be 3,000 years old,” you ask? Indy Beagle will answer your question, soothe your doubts, and make you laugh in the rabbit hole. He will also frighten you a tiny bit. Please accept my apologies in advance. That Beagle has a mind of his own.After ten years of running her own business with a hit-and-miss method of recruiting staff, Andrea Hoffer decided there had to be a better way. So she developed a structured process for bringing on new employees. That method turned out to be so successful that she now runs an agency that helps companies identify, hire, and retain excellent employees. Listen in as she tells roving reporter Rotbart, “A-B-R, A-B-R, A-B-R” (Always Be Recruiting.)

Authority can be given to a person. Leadership cannot.People with authority often have no followers.People with followers often have no authority.Leaders require no authority. They say, ‘This is what I’ve decided to do.’ And then they do it. Others see them doing it and decide to follow.On Tuesday I was on the phone to my friend Manley Miller in New Orleans when he said,“No one wants to be a leader anymore. Everyone wants to be a commentator. You want to know how to identify a leader? Just took for the person who’s making the decisions.”The notorious billionaire oil man and corporate raider, T. Boone Pickens passed along this advice at the end of his life,“Be willing to make decisions. That’s the most important quality in a good leader: Avoid the ‘Ready-aim-aim-aim-aim’ syndrome. You have to be willing to fire. Learn from mistakes. That’s not just a cliché. I sure made my share. Remember the doors that smashed your fingers the first time and be more careful the next trip through. Be humble. I always believed the higher a monkey climbs in the tree, the more people below can see his ass. You don’t have to be that monkey.”In his book, “Where Have all the Leaders Gone?” Lee Iacocca, that innovative leader who breathed new life into one of America’s most important corporations said,“The most innovative research is often killed during the peer review process. Why? Well, let me put it to you simply: Imagine if every time Chrysler wanted to bring a new car to market, it had to depend on positive reviews from GM and Ford. Are you starting to get the picture?”During his rant at a Wizard of Ads partner meeting a few years ago, the dazzling Mick Torbay said,“You need to understand something: the committee is not evil. The committee doesn’t want you to fail. The committee has nothing but good intentions. But the committee can’t innovate. More than anything, the committee wants to look good to the rest of the committee… So don’t be surprised that when you present a really, really great idea to a committee, the only thing you’re gonna get is a reason why that idea won’t work; one reason for every member of the committee. The committee will always pull you to the center. The committee will help you avoid risk, but risk and reward are two sides of the same coin. If you avoid risk, then huge success is out of the question. Are you okay with that?”As we approach the beginning of a brand-new year, let’s go back to what I said in the beginning:Authority can be given to a person. Leadership cannot.People with authority often have no followers.People with followers often have no authority.Leaders require no authority. They say, ‘This is what I’ve decided to do.’And then they do it. Others see them doing it and decide to follow.What have you decided to do?You doing that, in 2023, is what I want to see.You’ve talked about it long enough.You’ve thought about it long enough.It’s time to get started.Roy H. WilliamsONE LAST THOUGHT FROM MICK TORBAY: “Your comfort zone is actually a prison cell. It’s the reason you’re not growing the way you should. The good news? Every business owner, including your competitor, has a comfort zone and most never dare to leave it. But you will. You dare. And that’s how we’ll win.”Ted Clark started out as a shipping clerk, then climbed the heights of the wealth ladder. He now advises people on how to leverage their way into society’s upper crust. The secret? OPM. (Other People’s Money) How to get it. How to use it. MondayMorningRadio.com

We shall operate on the heart, but we shall not use a scalpel and it will not pump blood better when we are done. We have no interest in that muscle in the center of the chest.We will use magic words to operate on the center of emotions. We will change how people act, think, and feel. No one will die, but they will all be changed.Are you in?We will operate en masse on hundreds of thousands of people simultaneously.Screenwriters have been pumping out scripts for TV shows and movies that have captured and owned us for as long as we have been able to sit upright.As children we fell in love with cartoon characters.As teenagers we fell in love with heroes in action movies.As adults we fell in love with imagination, fascination, and surprise.We are going to use the secrets of screenwriters to create better, more effective ads in every form of media.Screenwriter Secret 1: Create colorful characters.The most memorable characters are always torn between two attractions.Screenwriter Secret 2: Deliver big ideas quickly.Short sentences hit hard.Screenwriter Secret 3: Win the heart.When your attention is directed by your mind, you are studying.When your attention is directed by your heart, you are being entertained.Screenwriter Secret 4: See the pattern.A great story has a pulsating rhythm of tension and release, followed by convergence.Screenwriter Secret 5: Know where you are going.A strong ending is the beginning of every great movie, every great story, every great ad.There are four kinds of thought:Analytical thought seeks to forecast a result.Verbal thought is hearing words in your mind.Abstract thought is rooted in unreality.Symbolic thought sees connections and perceives patterns.Music is a language of symbolic thought, as are 3-dimensional fractal images and similes and metaphors.Metaphors are magical.“A word of encouragement is an umbrella on a rainy day.”Metaphors are memorable.“Laughter is medicine.”Metaphors are money:“Lemon Wine is liquid sunshine.”Create that product.Use that metaphor.Become wealthy.These are just a few of the things taught for The Ad Writers Guild in a 2-year online course at Wizard Academy.You will be stunned.You will be staggered.You will be temporarily overwhelmed.You will be changed.You will pass, or fail.You will prevail.Roy H. Williams“The greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor; it is the one thing that cannot be learnt from others; and it is also a sign of genius, since a good metaphor implies an intuitive perception of the similarity in the dissimilar.” ― AristotleJoseph Fung has founded five technology companies, backed 20 more, and now is the CEO of an international educational organization that provides lifelong career training. Roving reporter Rotbart describes Joseph as, “a walking encyclopedia of business wisdom.” Listen as Rotbart and Fung discuss how to generate company culture, prepare employees for long-term success, invest in early-stage companies, and harness the rewards of diversity, inclusion, and equity. Where you gonna go? MondayMorningRadio! (dotcom)

The pain of loss is psychologically twice as powerful as the pleasure of gain. When Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky published Prospect Theory in 1979, a generation of advertisers mistakenly began to speak to Pain, and to the fear of Loss.If you frame a choice as “Loss versus Gain,” most people will choose loss avoidance because “losses loom larger than gains.”But what if you want your audience to embrace the risk of loss? To what motivation, then, do you speak?Equally unwise is to frame a choice as “Pain versus Pleasure.” Pain and Pleasure are not as distinct as they may at first seem. You do not recall the event itself, but only your most recent memory of it.The experience of pain or pleasure during an event is replaced by the memory of that pain or pleasure; how it is perceived afterwards upon recall. Your memory is built upon what you were feeling at the peak point, and how the experience ended. These are the four peaks that matter:1. Elevation: a transcendent moment of happiness.2. Pride: a moment that captures you at your best.3. Insight: a eureka moment that gives you startling clarity4. Connection: a moment of knowing you belong.Don’t speak to the fear of loss – or to the avoidance of pain – unless you are counting on an immediate response from people who are easily alarmed.If you desire your audience to embrace the possibility of pain and loss, you must reframe the choice as “Fear versus Hope.”We have lionized feats of bravery and ridiculed acts of cowardice for millennia.“Are you a frightened, fearful little waste of skin, or will your actions be remembered for generations? Is there anything you care about more than yourself?”Loss vs. Gain, or Pain vs. Pleasure, can easily be reframed as Fear vs. Hope. To cause a person to prefer more pain instead of less pain, all you have to do is add a better ending.“With a beginning that invites each man to assume he’ll be the one who ‘outlives this day, and comes safe home,’ the speech skims over present difficulties to paint an evocative picture of future fellowship and hearty celebration. Instead of focusing on the suffering they’re about to face, the men project themselves years ahead, to the happy time when they will be old and honored, with even the meanest of their number elevated to gentry status as the king’s brothers-in-arms. With this vivid picture of their glorious future, the king moves the troops to conquer their fears and follow him to victory.”– Virginia Postrel, The Power of GlamourVirginia Postrell was referring to a famous speech Shakespeare wrote for a play in 1599. When they were impossibly outnumbered at Agincourt in 1415 and every man thought he was about to die; this is that famous speech given by King Henry V.HUMPHREY, DUKE OF GLOUCESTERWhere is the King? JOHN, DUKE OF BEDFORDThe King himself is rode to view their battle. EARL OF WESTMORLANDOf fighting men they have full threescore thousand. DUKE OF EXETERThere’s five to one; besides, they all are fresh.(The King, unseen, approaches from behind and hears… )EARL OF WESTMORLANDO that we now had hereBut one ten-thousand of those men in EnglandThat do no work today! KING HENRY VWhat’s he that wishes so?My cousin Westmorland? No, my fair cousin.If we are mark’d to die, we are enoughTo do our country loss; and if to live,The fewer men, the greater share of honor.God’s will, I pray thee wish not one man more.Rather proclaim it, Westmorland, through my hostThat he which hath no stomach to this fight,Let him depart, his passport shall be made,And crowns for convoy put into his purse.We would not die in that man’s companyThat fears his fellowship to die with us.This day is call’d the feast of Crispian:He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,Will stand a’ tiptoe when this day is named,And rouse him at the name of Crispian.He that shall see this day, and live old age,Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbors,And say, “Tomorrow is Saint Crispian.”Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,And say, “These wounds I had on Crispin’s day.”Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,But he’ll remember with advantagesWhat feats he did that day. Then shall our names,Familiar in his mouth as household words,“Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,”Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb’red.This story shall the good man teach his son;And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,From this day to the ending of the world,But we in it shall be remembered—We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;For he today that sheds his blood with meShall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,This day shall gentle his condition;And gentlemen in England, now a-bed,Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here;And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaksThat fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.– William Shakespeare,Henry V, Act IV, Scene IIIHenry V lost fewer than 400 men but killed more than 6,000 Frenchmen at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. He also captured more soldiers than he had in his entire army.Are you beginning to understand the transformative power of Hope?Speak to hope – not fear – in the hearts of your audience.And speak to hope in your own heart as well.Roy H. WilliamsProspect Theory and Peak-End Theory were established Daniel Kahneman and his research partner, Amos Tversky. Regarding Peak-End Theory, Kahneman says, “Memory was not designed to measure ongoing, or total suffering. For survival, you really don’t need to put a lot of weight on duration of experiences. It is how bad they are and whether they end well, that is really the information you need as an organism.” Kahneman went on to win the Nobel Prize in 2002. He would doubtless have shared that prize with Amos Tversky but Tversky had passed away and the Nobel is not awarded posthumously. Kahneman and Tversky were the Lennon and McCartney “odd-couple” of psychology. Like John Lennon, Kahneman was dark and brooding, and like Paul McCartney, Tversky was all light and brightness and found much of life funny. It was this pairing of opposites that made them unstoppable.Monday Morning Radio! In a private note to the wizard, R.R. Rotbart wrote, “This is one of the most entertaining (and informative) episodes ever. It’s insane.” In the 1980s, electronics retailer “Crazy Eddie” was known for his screaming and thrashing television commercials. Thousands of fans flooded his store openings hoping to get a glimpse of the unhinged pitchman. Eddie Antar — the real Crazy Eddie, not the TV actor who portrayed him in the commercials — was a thieving, lying, cheat who defrauded everyone who ever trusted him, and was ultimately sentenced to eight years in prison. Investigative reporter Gary Weiss has written a page-turning biography and exposé of Eddie Antar, exploring both the genius and the insanity of “Crazy Eddie,” a business crook unlike any other in American history. Where do you go to hear the show? MondayMorningRadio! dotcom

A person unconsciously frames a statement when they choose a perspective, a point of view, or an angle of approach.Verbal counterpunching is nothing more than the reframing of a statement made by someone else.Citizens of Britain said for centuries,“The Sun Never Sets on the British Empire,” to which a citizen of India replied, “The sun never set on the British empire because even God couldn’t trust the Englishman in the dark.”Frame. Reframe.Samuel Johnson – an Englishman – wrote this definition for “oats” in his dictionary published in 1755.“Oats: A grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.”“Which is why England is known for its horses and Scotland for its men.”– James Boswell, a Scotsman, the biographer of Samuel Johnson.Frame. Reframe.Wages were framed as the property of the boss as long as the media referred to worker exploitation as “non-payment of wages.” But when the media began referring to it as “wage theft,” wages were reframed as belonging to the workers. Within a few months, “wage theft” began showing up in bills to be considered by Congress.“There is a basic truth about framing. If you accept the other guy’s frame, you lose.”– George LakoffNiels Bohr believed that every true statement can be reframed to communicate an opposite truth. “The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.”– Niels Bohr, winner of the Nobel Prize in PhysicsKeep in mind that verbal counterpunching does nothing to change objective reality. But most disagreements revolve around perceptual reality; the reality that is unique to the individual; the reality of what he or she perceives. Objective reality cannot be changed, but perception definitely can.Ronald Reagan was 73 years old when he ran for reelection in 1984. When his age was brought up in a debate, he said, “I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.” The audience exploded in laughter and Reagan won the electoral votes of 49 states that year.Frame. Reframe.When Senator Dan Quayle was running for vice-president in 1988, he said his experience was equal to that of John Kennedy when he ran for president in 1960. Vice-presidential candidate Senator Lloyd Bentsen responded, “Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy.”Frame. Reframe.Big tobacco framed cigarette smoking as something that “real men” do. Tobacco ads feature strong, rugged men as smokers.Opponents reframed the issue by representing cigarette smokers as having black lungs, yellowing fingernails, and bad breath. Smoking is a matter of personal choice.People smoke because they are addicted.Smoking bans discriminate against smokers.Non-smokers have the right to breathe clean air.Tobacco companies do good through sponsorship of cultural, athletic and community events.Tobacco companies are attempting to gain innocence by association.Tobacco is just one of many presumed health hazards.Tobacco is the only legal product that – when used as intended – kills.According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), “Cigarette smoking among U.S. adults has reached an all-time low of 13.7% — a decline of approximately two-thirds.”“Reframing is not easy or simple. It is not a matter of finding some magic words. Frames are ideas, not slogans… It doesn’t happen overnight. It’s an ongoing process. It requires repetition and focus and dedication.” – George LakoffWhat perceptual “truths” do you feel need to be reframed?What are you waiting for?Roy H. WilliamsMichael Beckley has briefed high-level policymakers, military leaders, and members of the U.S. intelligence services regarding his belief that China is a nation in decline, and that America will likely be in direct conflict with the People’s Republic much sooner than anyone expects. In this week’s edition of MondayMorningRadio, Michael explains the reasons for his belief, and explains to roving reporter Rotbart why business owners and entrepreneurs – not just government and military officials – would be wise to take steps to be prepared for the coming clash. MondayMorningRadio.com

There are four basic steps in every good story.Bad storytellers can do steps one and two, but recoil at step three.Good storytellers are willing to do step three.Brilliant Storytellers do steps three and four again and again.1. Create a character that people like, believe in, and can relate to.2. Launch that character on a hero's journey.3. Do terrible things to that character.4. Surprise your reader/listener/viewer by what happens next.And then what happens? Make it surprising.And then what happens? Make it surprising.And then what happens? Make it surprising.But it must also make sense.Predictability is the silent assassin of stories.Without trouble, there is no adventure.In 'That Hovering Question Mark,' I told you, "Every good story begins with a statement that triggers more questions than it answers." Ocean's 11 contains an excellent example of this."Off the top of my head, I'd say you're looking at a Boesky, a Jim Brown, a Miss Daisy, two Jethros, and a Leon Spinks. Not to mention the biggest Ella Fitzgerald ever."– Rusty (Brad Pitt) to Danny (George Clooney), explaining how they will run the con in Ocean's 11And that is how they did it! Ocean's 11 contains surprise after surprise, even though the writer told us the plot when he gave us that Rusty-to-Danny statement just 12 and 1/2 minutes into a 2-hour movie. It was a statement that triggered more questions than it answered.A BOESKY: Ivan Boesky was a trader on Wall Street who got caught committing securities fraud. In Ocean's 11, Saul pretends to be a wealthy bankroller who has insider information.A JIM BROWN: Named for the famous American football player, this refers to Frank Catton, a large, intimidating black man who stages a confrontation with Linus Caldwell so that Linus can lift the security codes to the vault.A MISS DAISY: 'Driving Miss Daisy' was a movie about a woman who uses a chauffeur to drive her around. Using a SWAT truck and a disguised driver, the Ocean's 11 gang escapes with their own special chauffeur.TWO JETHROS: Remember Jethro of 'The Beverly Hillbillies'? In Ocean's 11, Turk and Virgil provide two-man 'goober' distractions, such as using helium balloons to obscure the security camera on the casino floor so that Livingston can get into the video surveillance room.A LEON SPINKS: When Leon Spinks beat Muhammad Ali in a Las Vegas prize fight, it was something that no one expected. In Ocean's 11, no one expects the power to go out in the middle of a prize fight in Las Vegas. A fabulous distraction.ELLA FITZGERALD: In a famous 1973 TV ad, the voice of Ella Fitzgerald shatters a wine glass, then the voiceover says, "Is it live or is it Memorex?" (audiotape). In Ocean's 11, the guys make a videotape of a pretend robbery and play it over the casino's surveillance system while the real robbery is happening.Most stories should be told as fiction, even when they are true. When confronted with facts we are always on our guard. But "Once Upon a Time" dispels doubt, opens the imagination, and creates a willing suspension of disbelief.In 1999 I was on the phone with an 87 year-old man I had been hunting for several weeks. His name was William Lederer. I needed his permission to publish a famous letter he had written to America’s Chief of Naval Operations back in 1963. He gave me permission, then asked, “Where you calling from young man?”“Austin, Texas.”“I was there recently. Nice town.”“What brought you to Austin?”“I was there to bury my best friend Jim.”“I’m sorry to hear that.”“You would have liked Jim. Son, have you got a minute to hear a story about Jim I've never told anyone? I want to tell someone.”"I'd be honored to hear it.""I was a journalist and none of my books had sold very well, so I showed Jim the manuscript for my newest book. He told me to go back and fictionalize the name of the country, the characters, everything. Jim said to me, ‘The public is more willing to believe fiction than non-fiction.’”“How did that turn out for you?”“‘The Ugly American stayed on the New York Times list for 78 weeks. And with a copy of that book in his back pocket, a young senator named John F. Kennedy arrived at the University of Michigan on October 14, 1960, at 2:00AM. The press had retired for the night, believing that nothing interesting would happen. But 10,000 students were waiting on the lawn to hear Kennedy speak, and it was there on the steps of the Michigan Union at 2AM that the Peace Corps was born, all because Kennedy had been reading my book. And then Kennedy bought a copy for every member of Congress! Historians speculate The Ugly American did more to change American Foreign Policy than any document since the Declaration of Independence. All these things happened because Jim told me to pretend my book was fiction. Marlon Brando starred in the movie! But of course none of that compares to what Jim accomplished.”“What do you mean?”“Jim wrote 40 books that sold more than 100 million copies and won the Pulitzer Prize. You know Jim! Everyone knows Jim.”“I’m sorry sir, but I can’t think of what Jim you might mean.”My 87-year-old friend thought for a moment, then he said, “That's because you probably knew him as James… James Michener.”Here's one last little insight: Remember how a good story should begin with a statement that triggers more questions than it answers? An excellent visual image is a kind of "statement" that can trigger more questions than it answers. Use these images when you can.We're almost done.Now you need a Cinderella, a Tom Robbins, a Scuba Diver, Two Roads that Diverge in a Yellow Wood, a Big Pile of Bridges, and the windshield wipers of a Volkswagen Jetta.Indy will explain all of this to you in the rabbit hole.Aroo,Roy H. WilliamsThere are 40 days remaining in 2022. What can you accomplish in those 40 days? How will you advance toward your goals and shorten your to-do list? Dr. Sarah Reiff-Hekking is an expert on getting past your procrastination and no longer feeling overwhelmed. This week, she shares with roving reporter Rotbart a tried-and-true system for getting things done when there are too many things to do. Everything is golden, golden, golden at MondayMorningRadio.com!