Wizard of Ads Monday Morning Memo

If life is a journey on water, with our conscious mind above the waterline and our deep unconscious beneath, and if all the people in the world are drifting, surfing, drowning and sailing on that surface, shouldn’t there be a person on a wooden chair in the sky above the beach watching over it all?Shouldn’t there be a person?And a beach?The people along the sandAll turn and look one way.They turn their back on the land.They look at the sea all day.As long as it takes to passA ship keeps raising its hull;The wetter ground like glassReflects a standing gullThe land may vary more;But wherever the truth may be—The water comes ashore,And the people look at the sea.They cannot look out far.They cannot look in deep.But when was that ever a barTo any watch they keep?– Robert Frost“Calm yourself, Little One. There is always a person. There is always a beach.”I had an idea for the story, which by the way has been in my head for about 20 years now, and all it was to begin with was an image of a boy in a wheelchair flying a kite on a beach. And that picture was just as clear in my mind as it could be. And it wanted to be a story, but it wasn’t a story, it was just a picture. As clear as clear as clear…– Stephen King, May 29, 2013The last time the Stones were out on the road, between 2005 and 2007, they took in more than half a billion dollars – the highest-grossing tour of all time. On Copacabana Beach, in Rio de Janeiro, they played to more than a million people. Few spectacles in modern life are more sublimely ridiculous than the geriatric members of the Stones playing the opening strains of ‘Street Fighting Man.’– David Remnick, The New Yorker, Nov. 1, 2010Something of the sense of holiness on islands comes, I think, from this strange, elastic geography. Islands are made larger, paradoxically, by the scale of the sea that surrounds them. The element which might reduce them, which might be thought to besiege them, has the opposite effect. The sea elevates these few acres into something they would never be if hidden in the mass of the mainland. The sea makes islands significant…– Adam Nicolson, Sea RoomOn the edge of the water were a pair of waystones, their surfaces silver against the black of the sky; the black of the water. One stood upright, a finger pointing into the sky. The other lay flat, extending into the water like a short stone pier.No breath of wind disturbed the surface of the water. So as we climbed out onto the fallen stone the stars reflected themselves in double fashion; as above, so below. It was as if we were sitting amid a sea of stars.– Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind, p. 216This is the land of Narnia, said the Faun, where we are now; all that lies between the lamp-post and the great castle of Cair Paravel on the eastern sea. And you—you have come from the wild woods of the west?I—I got in through the wardrobe in the spare room, said Lucy.– C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the WardrobePennie and I have had the flu for more days than is supposed to be possible, and I have still not recovered my voice. There were days when I was not sure I dwelt in the land of the living.“The rain to the wind said,You push and I’ll pelt.’They so smote the garden bedThat the flowers actually knelt,And lay lodged–though not dead.I know how the flowers felt.”― Robert FrostAroo,Roy H. WilliamsNOTE FROM INDY – Taking care of Pennie and Roy prohibited me from putting together a rabbit hole for you. Sorry. – IndyRobert Kerbeck has had a long career as a highly paid corporate spy stealing private intelligence so detailed it would make the CIA proud. Business-on-business spying is a huge industry — full of deceit and lies — and this week Robert shares secrets of the dark art with roving reporter Rotbart. It’s always Monday morning at MondayMorningRadio.com

Dr. Nick Grant, a psychologist, Dr. Mike Metzger of Clapham Institute, and Ray Bard my publisher, each taught me about water.Life is a journey on water. Your conscious mind is above the waterline. Your unconscious is beneath.That weightless, magical world below the waterline is fundamentally different from the world of facts, figures and logic that hovers above it.The arts are an invigorating plunge into the unconscious, that part of your mind that understands the languages of color, shape, proximity, radiance, shadow, silhouette, pitch, key, tempo, interval, contour, rhythm, and frame-line magnetism.Our relationship to the unconscious is like our relationship to water. We need it by the cupful to survive, but if you stay underwater too long, you will drown; a psychotic break.Life is a journey on water. To better understand this Jungian journey, watch Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in the 1990 film, “Joe Versus the Volcano.”Nick Grant made me aware of the symbolic nature of water.Mike Metzger taught me how to look at water in a second way:You meet four people on the Ocean of Life, but you meet them again and again. The first person you meet is drifting, pushed each day by the winds and waves of circumstances. The drifter always goes with the flow. You know you’ve met a drifter when they say, “Whatever. It’s all good.”The second person you meet is surfing. They seem to be having a good time, but they never really get anywhere. They mostly paddle around in the ocean, looking for another wave to ride. The surfer is always looking for “the next big thing.”The third person you meet is drowning. Lots of people “go under” once or twice in life and need a helping hand. They may need rescue financially, or chemically, or relationally, but this is normal.There are also professional drowners: “It’s been the worst week of my life, I don’t know what I’m going to do.” So you come to the rescue… but the next time you see them, “It’s been the worst week of my life, I don’t know what I’m going to do.”The fourth person you meet is sailing. Confronted by the same winds and waves that controlled the drifter, surfer, and drowner, the sailor navigates. “If I turn the rudder and adjust the sails, this wind will take me wherever I want to go.”You cannot navigate by watching the wind and waves. You must have a fixed point, a non-negotiable guiding light that does not move. The North Star – Polaris – is perfectly aligned above the axis of the earth. It is that guiding light around which the whole world revolves. What is your non-negotiable, your star that does not move? When you have found it, you will always know where – and who – you are.Ray Bard taught me a third way to look at water. When you’re writing a book or considering a business venture, it is essential that you discover two things:1. How widespread is the public interest?2. How deep is that interest?If public interest is neither widespread nor deep, you’re looking at a puddle. Never invest time or money in a puddle.If interest is widespread but not deep, you’re looking at a bayou. Be careful. A bayou looks like an ocean at first because the interest is wide, wide, wide. But that interest is not deep enough to drive action. You can go broke when you see a bayou and think it is an ocean.If interest is narrow but deep, you’re looking into a well. You can draw a lot of water from a well. “The Care and Feeding of Quarter Horses” held no interest for most readers, but those who owned a quarter horse had deep interest. The book was successful.If public interest is wide and deep, you’re looking at an ocean. But you’re going to need a boat – a platform – on which to navigate your ocean. If you don’t have a platform, you’ll drown. And you’re going to need a plan, or you’ll drift.LIFE: You need a guiding light to let you know where – and who – you are.BUSINESS: Ignore puddles and bayous. Drill a well or find an ocean.BALANCE: Your conscious mind is always with you. It is a boat that floats on the water of your unconscious mind. You plunge happily into the unconscious when you are exposed to the arts, and you emerge feeling refreshed and renewed. We read about this feeling in the 42nd Psalm:“Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterspouts; all your waves and breakers have swept over me.”Phil Johnson taught me about balance. It was his favorite word. When Pennie and I were young and beginning our hero’s journey, Phil was our old man in the woods. He was our pastor, and old enough to be our grandfather. These were the last words Phil spoke to me a few days before he died:“You acquire an education by study, hard work and persistence. But you absorb culture by viewing great art, listening to great music and reading great books.”When Phil spoke about absorbing culture, he was talking about the arts. The arts include fiction and fantasy in all its forms: novels and movies and TV shows and poetry and dance. The arts include pottery and sculpting and landscaping and gardening The arts include theater and music, painting and photography, facial expressions and tones of voice. Essentially, the arts are anything that speak to the heart rather than the mind.The world below the waterline – the world of the arts – is a healthy, refreshing place of escape, a vacation available to you every day. But you must come up and breathe the air of reality or you will soon discover there are monsters in the deep.“The great problem in the United States is not repression or neurosis, which it was in Europe when Freud wrote about everything. No, our great problems are narcissism and addiction. Tommy Jefferson set us up. ‘Life, Liberty, and the… Pursuit of Happiness!’ If you pursue happiness directly, it evades you, but you feel entitled to it… It’s wonderful, but it has a dark side: addiction. We have done a dance with addiction in this country from the very beginning.”– Dr. Nick Grant, July 1, 2007, Wizard AcademyActivities are stimulating.Addictions occur when we try to replace the arts with activities.Activities make us feel good on the outside.The Arts make us feel good on the inside.“Now and then it’s good to pause in ourpursuit of happiness and just be happy.”– Gillaume ApollinaireToday is a good dayto pause in your pursuits,and just be happy.Roy H. WillamsJim Edwards has managed hundreds of employees and would grade himself a “B” as a manager. So why do business owners worldwide turn to Jim for recommendations on how they can improve as a leader? Jim says, “You don’t have to be a superstar to outperform your competitors.” That’s just one of the common sense, funny, blunt organizational insights he shares with roving reporter Rotbart on this week’s episode at MondayMorningRadio.com

People in museums stop to look at paintings that have people in them, but walk past paintings that have no people.Ninety percent of the books sold each year are fiction.Ninety percent of the books written each year are non-fiction.The same is true in movies and television: fiction beats non-fiction 10 to 1.Non-fiction is facts and figures, problems and processes, tips and techniques.Fiction is interesting people living fascinating lives.Non-fiction is reality and reality is a wildebeest held captive in a zoo.Fiction is escaping the zoo and adventuring in the wild.Good writing shines a mental movie onto the movie screen of the mind.Do the movies you write feature people in a zoo, or people in the wild? Are the people in your ads empty and hollow like zoo animals, or are they vivid and real like people you know?Henry David Thoreau told us, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation, and go to the grave with the song still in them.”If you want to touch the quiet desperation in the heart of your customer, write ads that describe their pain and frustration, then offer to deliver them from it.If you want to touch the song that is in them, write ads that speak of freedom, fulfillment and joy. Show them the fascinating life they could be living.A well-written ad shines a mental movie onto the visuospatial sketchpad of working memory, the movie screen of the mind, located in the dorsolateral prefrontal association area.1On paper, on a computer screen, on a billboard, or coming through the speakers of a computer, a television or radio, words, words, words, words, words, words, words create those mental movies.Online reviews are powerful.Online reviews are not facts and logic.Online reviews are people’s impressions and reactions. Impressions and reactions are far more interesting than facts and logic.When a person describes their impressions and reactions, they are shining a mental movie into your mind.Q: Are you telling me that I should use customer testimonials in my ads?A: No, because you will not be able to resist editing your customer’s testimonial and the moment you touch it, that testimonial will become a predictable ad delivered by a ventriloquist’s dummy.Q: Why do ad writers assume the public is hungry for facts and logic?A: Most ad writers follow the rules of journalism when they should be following the rules of screenwriting.Journalists deliver facts. Screenwriters deliver fascination.Shine on, screenwriter, shine on.Roy H. WilliamsTodd Mitchell is a creativity sherpa that rescues writers, artists, musicians, actors, entrepreneurs, and innovators who are struggling with self-doubt and circling the drain in failure. You’re not down the drain yet! Raise your arm out of the water and let Todd Mitchell pull you back up into the air and sunlight where you belong. MondayMorningRadio.com

I have seen friends walk away from relationships, jobs, and promising careers when all they really needed was some time and space to gather their thoughts, slow their heart rate, and rediscover their joy.I’m not saying you should always, “hang on one more day at a time and wait for things to get better.” I am saying you need to recognize the changing seasons in your life.Bobbie Gentry knew when it was time to stop, turn the page, and begin a new chapter.Bobbie knocked the Beatles off the #1 spot on the music charts with “Ode to Billy Joe,” a song that she wrote, performed, and produced. She won Best New Artist and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance at the Grammy Awards. Eleven more of her songs made the music charts. She was a major headline act in Las Vegas and she co-hosted a successful TV series with country music superstar Glen Campbell.America watched as Bobbie Gentry provided the music for a major motion picture about her imaginary Billie Joe McAllister, then performed “Mama, a Rainbow” for her mother who was seated in the studio during the filming of a television special.The next day, Bobby quietly retired from the spotlight without fanfare, returning no phone calls, answering no letters, and granting no interviews. She had been in the spotlight for 14 years when she whispered, “Enough,” and walked away 41 years ago.What triggered it? Nothing. She simply realized that a season in her life had ended.Solomon spoke famously about the seasons of life in the third chapter of Ecclesiastes:There is a time for everything,and a season for every activity under the heavens:a time to be born and a time to die,a time to plant and a time to uproot,a time to kill and a time to heal,a time to tear down and a time to build,a time to weep and a time to laugh,a time to mourn and a time to dance,a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,a time to search and a time to give up,a time to keep and a time to throw away,a time to tear and a time to mend,a time to be silent and a time to speak,a time to love and a time to hate,a time for war and a time for peace.… He has made everything beautiful in its time.… I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God.One can think of the seasons of life in a few different ways.Financially, we go from survival to acquisition to distribution.Relationally, we go from seeking, to finding, to celebrating.In business, we go from learner, to doer, to teacher. This is essentially the Hero’s Journey, a sequence of events that is nearly impossible to escape:1. We meet the Hero in modest circumstances.2. He encounters the Call to Adventure.3. He meets the Old Man in the Woods who prepares him for what lies ahead.4. He then rises to the challenge of adventure and discovers abilities within himself he didn’t know were there.In the Bible we see Moses, Joseph, Samson, David and many others, including women such as Hannah, Esther, Abigail, Ruth, and Deborah as they encounter the Hero’s Journey.In literature and in the movies, we see Bilbo in The Hobbit, Frodo in The Lord of the Rings, Daniel LaRusso in The Karate Kid, Simba in The Lion King, Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games, Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, Neo in The Matrix, and Luke Skywalker in Star Wars.Luke was just a goober on the backwater planet of Tatooine when he was called to adventure. Obi-Wan Kenobi was the Old Man in the Woods who prepared him for his journey.Luke was again a goober with a wrecked spaceship in a swamp on Dagobah when he encountered Yoda, his second Old Man in the Woods who would prepare him for his second adventure.Which Luke Skywalker are you?Are you first-movie Luke in the middle of your first adventure?Are you in-between movies Luke waiting for your second adventure to begin?Are you second-movie Luke? And if so, have you learned anything from Yoda, that ridiculous little person you originally thought was a nuisance?Or is there a chance you have entered the celebration and distribution phase of your life? Are you now the Old Man (or Woman) in the Woods, ready to empower Bilbo, Frodo, Daniel, Simba, Katniss, Dorothy, Neo, and Luke to succeed in their own adventures?I would argue that the most fulfilling adventures of all are those of the Old Men and Women in the Woods, Gandalf, Mr. Miyagi, Mufasa and Rafiki, Haymitch, Glinda the Good Witch of the North, Morpheus, Obi-Wan and Yoda.If you’re ready to encourage and advise the next generation of Heroes, please remember that the Hero never goes looking for the person who will empower them. The Old Man (or Woman) in the Woods simply appears alongside the Hero in the Hero’s moment of need.Don’t wait to be asked.“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.” – E.W. HoweGosh, that was a long memo.You’re still reading?Great. You’re going to love what Indy Beagle has for you in the rabbit hole.Roy H. WilliamsRob Lohman was sitting in jail facing a 13-year prison sentence. Alcohol and drug addiction, gambling, bankruptcies, and a suicide attempt were just scenery along the road that bought him here. Rob was released from prison after less than a year. He has turned his life around and used savvy marketing to build a business guiding thousands of people to a fresh start after hitting rock-rock bottom. Your eyes will bug out as Rob tells roving reporter Rotbart that the same character traits that result in personal failure can be harnessed to rebound and achieve unprecedented success. The time is now. MondayMorningRadio.com

Ten different factors will determine how quickly your ads pay off.Do your ads capture attention or are they easy to ignore?Do your ads speak to a felt need, or are you answering a question no one was asking?Are you a known, trusted, and respected seller?Is the brand you sell known, trusted, and respected?What percentage of the public will ever – in their lifetime ­– purchase a product or service in your category?How often does the average person need to buy what you sell?Does your ad make the customer feel any urgency due to low price or limited availability?What percentage of the public knows your name and what you sell?In your category, what name will customers typically think of first and feel the best about?What percentage of the public considers you to be their preferred provider?Your answers to questions 5 & 6 indicate your product purchase cycle. Here are those questions again:“5. What percentage of the public will ever – in their lifetime ­– purchase a product or service in your category?”“6. How often does the average person buy what you sell?”Generally speaking, the longer your product purchase cycle, the longer it will take before your mass-media ads deliver a positive R.O.I.Online ads, however, work immediately. But will the customer type your name into the search block? If they do, you have already won the heart of that customer. They have chosen you as their preferred provider. This means you will enjoy an extremely low cost-per-click with a high conversion rate.But if they type the name of your competitor into the search block, then it will be your competitor that enjoys an extremely low cost-per-click and a high conversion rate.The starting pistol fires the moment a customer types your category into the search block instead of your name or the name of a competitor. Their computer screen overflows with the names of companies making them offers. If they see a name they recognize, the footrace is over in moments. But if no name is recognized, the names of several runners will be clicked.Every runner will pay a high cost-per-click due to gambling on an “unbranded” keyword.But only one runner will take home the prize money.Costs-per-click have never been higher.Mass media costs have never been lower.If you sell a product or a service with a long purchase cycle, the bad news about mass media is that it will take 3 to 6 months of weekly advertising before you begin to gain any real momentum.The good news is that the longer you use mass media, the better it works.1 This is how you make your name the one that customers type into the search block.I believe:Every advertiser should have a website.Every advertiser should be willing to pay for 100% of the clicks when a customer types their nameinto the search blockOrganic results are no longer enough.You’ve got to pay the price for your name to be seen.Your cost-per-click is extremely low when your name is typed into the search block.(I’ll tell you about #6 in a minute.)Ten years ago, Inc. magazine published an article by Jeff Haden titled, “How Google is Killing Organic Search.”“If your business depends on customers finding you in search results, you’re in trouble–and it’s likely to get worse. If case you haven’t noticed, pay-per-click ads are slowly taking over Google’s search engine results. That should come as no surprise since approximately 97% of Google’s revenues are generated by its core business, search engine advertising; Google is understandably protecting and extending its revenue turf… If you’re a business that depends on organic, unpaid search results to drive traffic, you’ve undoubtedly seen a steady decline in visitors and sales.”6. The cost-per-click is extremely high when you compete for unbranded “category” keywords such as “air conditioning repair.”A Tale of Two A/C Companies“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness… In one city, a $40,000,000 company is spending only $240,000 per year on Google ads because they became a household word by spending $461,000 per year on radio ads. Total ad spend: $681,000 per year. In another city, a $15,000,000 company is spending $700,000 per year on Google ads because they thought mass media was too expensive. Both cities are among the 25 largest in America, but neither city is in the top 10.”The story you have read is true. The $40,000,000 company began 10 years ago. The $15,000,000 company began 20 years ago. I’ve known the first company since it was born. I’ve known the second company for about 2 months.Things are about to change dramatically for the second company.Aroo. And again I say Aroo.Roy H. Williams1 When you use mass media 52 weeks a year, the growth of your business in year 2 will usually be twice the growth of year one. The growth in year 3 will be about triple the growth of year one. Keep in mind that we are measuring growth in dollars, not in percentages, and the competitive environment and the economic environment remain unchanged. Anything can happen in year 4. Some business owners launch a moon shot, while others begin to realize they are running a business bigger than the length of their own shadow… They’re not tall enough to ride this ride. – RHWIf you have paid taxes, borrowed money, invested, or bought anything, Janet Yellen has had more influence over your wallet than any other person on earth. No other person in American history has served as Chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisors, then Chair of the Federal Reserve, and now, Secretary of the Treasury. Jon Hilsenrath, an award-winning writer for The Wall Street Journal, has written the definitive biography of Janet Yellen and her Nobel Prize-winning husband, economist George Akerlof. Go to MondayMorningRadio.com. Prepare to be amazed.

Every good story – and every good ad – begins with a statement that triggers more questions than it answers.“I do not like to turn left when leaving my neighborhood…”“I was a 10-year-old boy holding a flashlight for my father…”“You are sitting in a candlelit restaurant when you hear a strange noise…”The second line of your story is where the narrative arc begins. The narrative arc is the sequence of events, the plot. [In a radio ad, sfx means sound effect]You are sitting in a candlelit restaurant when you hear a strange noise[sfx-open] and the walls are instantly covered with jagged shards of golden light.You hear another strange noise[sfx-close] and the jagged shards of light are gone.Murmurs of wonder flood the candlelit restaurant.[sfx-open] The jagged shards appear on the walls again, dancing in unison to some silent music that only they can hear.[sfx-close] And now they are gone.The crowd applauds this unexpected delight. Smiles are beaming. Teeth are bright.[sfx-open] More jagged shards. More golden light.[sfx-close] No one notices the man at the table in the middle of the room, staring at his tablecloth, lost in thought. A woman emerges from the shadows behind him. Startled, he looks up, drops to one knee,[sfx-open] and the golden shards of light dance fast and bright across his face and hers.And then they kiss.And the candlelit restaurant explodes in applause.[sfx-close]  A tiny little box sits empty on the table.Flickering Firelight diamonds, available exclusively at Morgan Jewelers.Begin your ad with a statement that triggers more questions than it answers! If your opening line reveals what is to come, change the opening line.“Guidomeyer’s Furniture is having a sale!”When an ad begins with a sentence like that, you can be sure it was written by someone who follows the 5 W’s of journalism: Who, What, When, Where and Why.Ads written by journalists are why most people hate advertising.Guidomeyer’s Furniture is having a sale!This week, Guidomeyer’s is having a saleat 1715 Barkmaster Avenue! Save! Save!Save up to 50% this week at Guidomeyer’sannual clearance sale! Guidomeyer’s has beenserving the needs of Pottersville for 71 years,so come to Guidomeyer’s and shop localfor all your furniture needs! We have recliners,coffee tables, end tables, nightstands, TV traysand financing will be available! Guidomeyer’sAnnual Clearance Sale! This week! 1715 Barkmaster!Hurry, hurry, hurry before all the good stuff is gone!Guidomeyer’s!Guidomeyer is who.A Sale is what.This Week is when.1715 Barkmaster is where.Annual Clearance is why.That formula is so simple an idiot could use it. And idiots often do.No, I don’t mean that. Words have meanings, so let me be accurate. I don’t think such a person is an ‘idiot.’ ‘Moron’ would be the accurate term. Technically, a moron is an adult with the mental age of 7-10. Morons are more intelligent than idiots and imbeciles, but they are an especially troublesome group because they are not aware of their shortcomings.Don’t be a moron.Getting the listener’s attention is easy, but holding that attention requires skill.Open with a statement that triggers more questions than it answers.Bridge quickly into the narrative arc, the plot.When your listener thinks they know where you are headed, take them somewhere else.Introduce divergent elements that don’t belong together,then make them converge, add up, and make sense.Lead your listener to the conclusion, then allow them to discover it on their own. Don’t tell them the answer. Let them hear it in their mind.Leave out the irrelevant, the predictable, and anything that makes your ad sound like an ad.Poetic meter makes words musical.To achieve it, arrange the drumbeats of the stressed and unstressed syllables of your words so that they create a percussive rhythm in the mind. There are a couple of dozen rhythms that are easily achievable in English.The simplest of those – anapestic meter – is two light stresses followed by a heavy third stress.pum-pum-PUM-pum-pum-PUM- pum-pum-PUM-pum-pum-PUMAnd his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green,Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn has blown,For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide,And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,And so there lay the rider distorted and grey,And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,So I walk by the edge of a lake in my dream.It is easy to become a musical writer. All you have to do is spend time reading the words of the great ones.Don’t read ads. Read the poems, short stories and novels written by the winners of the Pulitzer and Nobel prizes in Literature.“In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village that looked across the river and the plain to the mountains. In the bed of the river there were pebbles and boulders, dry and white in the sun, and the water was clear and swiftly moving and blue in the channels. Troops went by the house and down the road and the dust they raised powdered the leaves of the trees. The trunks of the trees too were dusty and the leaves fell early that year and we saw the troops marching along the road and the dust rising and leaves, stirred by the breeze, falling and the soldiers marching and afterward the road bare and white except for the leaves.”– Ernest Hemingway, the opening lines of A Farewell to Arms“I read that paragraph and I want to cry. It’s incredibly beautiful. He broke every rule. All the repetition! In four sentences the word ‘and’ appears 15 times. What’s going on is just an unforgettable display of rhythmic mastery. There’s a kind of, almost a kind of hypnosis, an incantation that is about the frame of mind you’re going into the war with.”– Stephen Cushman, Literary Scholar“Listening to Bach – and recognizing the repetition of particular notes in Bach – inspired Hemingway to write A Farewell to Arms.” – Miriam Mandel, Literary ScholarTake another look at Hemingway’s opening sentence and notice the questions it raises: “In the late summer of that year (What year?) we lived in a house in a village that looked across the river and the plain to the mountains. (Where are we?)”You can do this. None of it is beyond you. Morons will tell you that you’re doing it wrong, but your ads will take your listeners on a marvelous journey, and your clients to heights that no other ad writer can take them.Do you want to be a journalist, or do you want to be an ad writer?Roy H. WilliamsMany business owners and company employees find their younger colleagues irritating. Guess what? The feeling is mutual, as Millennials and Gen-Z often lack respect for their older co-workers. Chris DeSantis has studied generational differences for 18 years and believes the generational friction that is so prevalent these days can be leveraged to the benefit of the organization and all its people. Listen and learn as Chris DeSantis tells roving reporter Rotbart how most companies get it wrong. How does Rotbart find such fascinating guests! MondayMorningRadio.com

I hope you are not prone to regrets. The next time you make the wrong decision, I want you to look back and remember that it seemed like a good idea at the time. You were given incomplete information. The future was unknowable. What is there to regret?Nevertheless, the dull ache of regret came upon me when Kary Mullis died without warning. I loved Kary for his sense of humor and his wit, and I will always cherish what he wrote in my copy of his book, Dancing Naked in the Mind Field. And then Loren Lewis died without giving me a heads-up. Loren was never a father-figure; he was my outrageous older brother. He was bombastic and vain and he taught me how to get things done when I didn’t have any money, and he would have taken a bullet for me.And then Perry McKee walked over the horizon without a wink or a wave good-bye. Perry was extraverted and impulsive and he made everyone laugh. When we were 14, Perry decided the day had finally arrived that he should light a fart and become the world’s first jet-propelled human. He wanted me to hold the match for him but I vigorously declined, so Ernie Henry held the match as the rest of us stood anxiously outside the closed door of Perry’s windowless bathroom. It was Brother McKee’s deep conviction that the miracle of jet-propulsion should be observed in total darkness.When Perry bellowed like a bull and tumbled out the doorway, we knew that Ernie had held the match too close.Ernie Henry is gone now, too. The immortals from my past are disappearing.The last time I spoke to Kary Mullis, Loren Lewis, Perry McKee and Ernie Henry, I didn’t know that it would be the last time I spoke to them.My only regrets are the things I left unsaid.Please don’t read too much into these musings. I’m fine. Pennie is fine. No one is dying.It’s just that time of year. The green of the grass is soaking back into the earth and the leaves are turning red and orange. Children are gathering into rooms again where an adult tells them not to talk. Men are chasing a tapered leather ball as escaped convicts blow whistles and toss their handkerchiefs into the air. I look for Andy Griffith to ask if he wants to get a Big Orange drink, but Andy is nowhere to be found. It won’t be long before my lawn pulls a white blanket up to its chin, just outside my front door. The squirrel in his cap and the plants in burlap will all settle down for a long winter’s nap. And then Springtime will pierce the pale heart of winter with a shout of green and a blade of grass, and we will dress in bright colors for Easter.Kary Mullis opened the door of genetic research when he invented Polymerase Chain Reaction.Loren Lewis opened the future of a 15-year-old boy when he showed him how to be unafraid.Perry McKee and Ernie Henry had no regrets. It seemed like a good idea at the time.Roy H. WilliamsSteve Curtin is ranked as one of the top 30 customer service experts in the world. His clients include Carnival Cruise Line, NAPA Auto Parts, and TJ Maxx. Steve believes every owner and every manager needs to have “the conversation” with every employee about why their job matters, and why their company matters. “The NASA janitor wasn’t mopping floors; he was helping to send a man to the moon.” Imagine what would happen if your employees felt the same way about the greater purpose of the work they do in your company! Steve Curtin and roving reporter Rotbart talk about it at MondayMorningRadio.com.

Eighty-eight percent of the Fortune 500 companies that existed in 1955 are gone. Poof.Half of them withered because they had a manager in the role of CEO when they desperately needed a leader. The other half were destroyed by a leader when a manager could have held the company together and grown it incrementally.The most important role of a board of directors is to know when their company needs a leader and when it needs a manager.Managers prefer incremental change, evolution.Leaders prefer exponential change, revolution.Managers guard the status quo. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”Leaders invent new ways of thinking. “If it ain’t broke, break it, so we can create something new.”Managers prefer a map and a path.Leaders prefer unexplored territory.Managers say, “Ready, Aim, Fire.”Leaders say “Ready, Fire, Aim.” But this isn’t as crazy as it sounds. When shooting a cannon, this is called finding your range.Managers focus on planning and execution.Leaders focus on improvisation and innovation.Managers make organizational charts.Leaders make messes.Managers are given authority over others.Leaders are voluntarily followed by others.Kodak, Blockbuster, MySpace, General Motors, and General Electric were overwhelmingly dominant in their categories until their Manager-CEO’s fell asleep while guarding the status quo.Do not think the internet killed K-Mart, Montgomery Wards, Sears, J.C. Penney, or Bed Bath & Beyond. Walmart sells all those same products and they’re still doing fine because they saw the marketplace rapidly changing in August, 2016 and responded by putting visionary leader Marc Lore in charge of Walmart’s US e-commerce operations.Amazon did $398.8 billion in 2021.Walmart did $488 billion.Managers mistakenly think they can lead.Leaders mistakenly think they can manage.I know only two men who can perform both functions. Dewey Jenkins is one of them.If I written those words during the 10 years Dewey and I worked together, it would have sounded like flattery. But now that he is retired and I have stepped away, I am free to speak the truth.Good mothers can also perform both functions. Every good mother is a miraculous manager and a visionary leader.I was raised by an extremely good mother and my sons were raised by another.Good managers know what to “protect at all costs.” They know what not to change.Bad managers look only for compliance and conformity, blind to the special abilities that hide within their employees. But good managers see those special abilities and call them to the surface where they can sparkle. A good manager encourages your special ability and uses it to maximum effect, while partnering you with someone who sparkles in the area where you are weak.When you see a legendary duo, you can be sure that a brilliant manager put them together.The genius of visionary leaders is that they charge full speed ahead when they see opportunity on the horizon. When they see a storm coming, they steer around it.Visionary leaders recognize what is no longer working and do hesitate to change it. Bang. Gone.If you want to listen to the inner thoughts of visionary leaders and understand how their minds work, there are only two books you need to read.Sam Walton: Made in America (John Huey and Sam Walton)Iacocca: An Autobiography (Lee Iacocca and William Novak)As a special bonus to yourself, take a look at – Where Have All the Leaders Gone? – a slim volume written by Lee Iacocca when he was 82 years old.I love that book.And I love you, too.Thanks for reading my ramblings.Roy H. WilliamsSix times a year, Jonathan Dahl produces a magazine that reaches 1.8 million global executives and business owners. He also publishes a weekly online newsletter that has gets more than 3.5 million annual page views. Jonathan generates dazzling corporate content for a privately held consulting firm. “Whether your company has 5 employees or 5,000,” Jonathan says, “you need to be generating regular articles and blog posts that showcase your values, how you operate, and how today’s trends relate to you, your business, and your customers.” Roving reporter Rotbart is back on the job and he’s looking refreshed and happy and young! Woo-hoo! It’s time for MondayMorningRadio.com!

Anne Lamott wrote Bird by Bird, a marvelous book about writing. In it, she says,“Becoming a writer is about becoming conscious. When you’re conscious and writing from a place of insight and simplicity and real caring about the truth, you have the ability to throw the lights on for your reader. He or she will recognize his or her life and truth in what you say, in the pictures you have painted, and this decreases the terrible sense of isolation that we have all had too much of.”I’m going to attempt to do that today. I am going to attempt to write “from a place of insight and simplicity and real caring about the truth.”I hope I succeed, but you will have to be the judge.Another of my favorite paragraphs from Bird by Bird is when Anne Lamott says,“I know some very great writers, writers you love who write beautifully and have made a great deal of money, and not one of them sits down routinely feeling wildly enthusiastic and confident. Not one of them writes elegant first drafts. All right, one of them does, but we do not like her very much. We do not think that she has a rich inner life or that God likes her or can even stand her. (Although when I mentioned this to my priest friend Tom, he said that you can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.)”I have often quoted Anne’s friend because I believe his remarkable statement bears repeating: “You can safely assume that you have created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”I wrote to you recently about my first job in radio. It was at a Christian station in Tulsa owned by a wonderful man name Stuart who lived in North Carolina. He was impossibly tall and thin and looked exactly like a clean-shaven Abraham Lincoln.I had only been there a couple of years when Stuart flew to Tulsa, summoned everyone to the radio station, packed us all into the conference room and said, “People who work in Christian media often see and hear things that discourage them.” His face fell and he looked sad as he said, “And then they become bitter.”I could tell he was struggling to find the right words as he looked down at the ground. After a long silence he looked up into my eyes and said, “Promise me that you’ll never become bitter.”I looked into his eyes and nodded my head. One by one, he looked at every other employee until they nodded their head or said aloud, “I promise I’ll never become bitter.”When he had extracted that solemn promise from each of us, he drove back to the airport and flew home.It was a very short meeting that happened 40 years ago but I have never forgotten it.And I never became bitter.In later years I began to identify myself as “a follower of Jesus” rather than call myself a Christian, because “Christian” was coming to mean something that I don’t believe Jesus ever intended.I get uncomfortable when people sign God’s name to things Jesus never said.Thomas Jefferson, too, was uncomfortable with Christians who use the logic of Plato to extrapolate truths from the Bible. Platonists1 will argue, “If this statement in the Bible is true, then by extension this second thing is true. And if this second thing is true, then by extension this third thing is true.”I have been reading the personal correspondence of Thomas Jefferson in the national archives at founders.archives.govTwo hundred and six years ago – on October 16th, 1816 – George Logan wrote a letter to his friend, Thomas Jefferson, congratulating him for publishing,“a system of ethics extracted from the Holy Scriptures, as tending to support the correct maxim—that religion should influence the political as well as the moral conduct of man… It is to be lamented that there exists even among professed Christians a disinclination to have their political maxims and transactions subjected to the rules of Christianity… Christianity hitherto (except in a few instances) has suffered by its connection with civil policy: and from the very nature of civil society, it must suffer in such connection; until both learning and power are transferred into the hands of virtuous men, and made subservient to piety.”In essence, George Logan was suggesting that Christians should seize the reins of power in government.Thomas Jefferson replied to George Logan on November 12, 1816, by saying,“I am quite astonished at the idea which seems to have got abroad; that I propose publishing something on the subject of religion. And this is said to have arisen from a letter of mine to my friend Charles Thomson, in which certainly there is no trace of such an idea.”Exactly 253 words later, Jefferson concludes his response to George Logan’s suggestion by reminding him of what happened in England.Thomas Jefferson said that people mistakenly believed that he – Jefferson – was planning to publish a book on Biblical Ethics in Government because of something he had written in a letter to Charles Thomson on January 9, 1816.I did not rest until I found that letter to Thomson.Allow me to frame this for you: Charles Thomson had recently published A Synopsis of the Four Evangelists(Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John) and sent a copy to Jefferson. In his “Thank You” letter to Thomson, Jefferson told him that he had already purchased a copy and cut it apart so that he might extract the words of Jesus and paste them into a blank book:“I too have made a wee little book… which I call the Philosophy of Jesus… made by cutting the texts out of the book, and arranging them on the pages of a blank book, in a certain order of time or subject. A more beautiful or precious morsel of ethics I have never seen. It is a document in proof that I am a real Christian… a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus, very different from the Platonists1, who call me infidel, and themselves Christians and preachers of the gospel, while they draw all their characteristic dogmas from what it’s Author never said nor saw.”And now I will tell you something a little bit funny.I was going to share what Gandhi said in 1926, but I decided that I first needed to verify that Gandhi actually said it, so I went looking for where he said it and to whom he was talking.2 The item at the top of my Google search opened with the statement, “How many times have you come across this quote attributed to Mahatma Gandhi? ‘I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.’ We need to stop using this quote.”The article went on to say, “In the first place, Gandhi was hardly an authority on Jesus. When he says, ‘I like your Christ’ he is referring to a Jesus of his own making, a Jesus plucked haphazardly from the pages of Scripture, a Jeffersonian kind of Jesus…”When this guy really wanted to disparage Gandhi, he compared him to Thomas Jefferson.I guess some things never change.(But I’m still not bitter, Stuart, I promise. I hope you are doing well.)Roy H. WilliamsNOTE FROM INDY – This is the fifth week in a row that the wizard hasn’t written much about advertising. Don’t worry. I’ve been looking over his shoulder, snagging all the best advice he has given his clients this week, and I’m going to share it with you in the rabbit hole. Just click the image of Anne Lamott at the top of this page and you’re in.1 According to the Encyclopedia Britannica at www.britannica.com, “Christian Platonists… regarded Platonic philosophy as the best available instrument for understanding and defending the teachings of Scripture and church tradition.”2 The earliest report of Gandhi having said anything like that can be found in the Harvard Crimson newspaper of January 11, 1927.Sean Castrina has launched more than 20 companies over the past two decades and most of them have been successful. He says there are 8 unbreakable rules that entrepreneurs must follow if they want to succeed. Do you want to succeed? Learn the 8 rules! Right here. Right now. MondayMorningRadio.com

My friend is forever shouting about his Freedom. It is the only song he sings.Freedom is a good thing, but our love of freedom is why family sizes are shrinking. Children are a responsibility.Freedom and Responsibility are paired opposites, a duality. The more you have of one, the less you have of the other.I had written only those few words when I received a request from the American Small Business Institute to answer a question from Glenn in Calgary; he wanted me to predict the Top Five Qualities of an Advertising Consultant in 2023.I had the Freedom to answer however I wanted. I could be flip, funny, cute, self-serving, dismissive, scholarly, insulting, pedantic, or predictable. My Freedom was unrestrained. But I also had the Responsibility to give Glenn a list of five specific, attainable goals that would make him and his clients more successful.I told Glenn the Top Five Qualities for 2023 would be these:Ability to write good ads. I’ve never seen a business fail due to “reaching the wrong people.” Businesses fail because they say the wrong thing.Knowledge of how to differentiate a business from its category. You must make your client’s business distinctive and memorable.Honesty. You must be willing to accept responsibility for the failure of your ad campaign.Courage to say what needs to be said to the business owner. This is how you avoid campaigns that fail.Wisdom to know that good advertising will not fix a broken business. Choose your clients carefully, Glenn.Depression and Joy are another duality. The more you have of one, the less you have of the other.Pride – the inability to feel grateful – is what keeps us from feeling joy. The disembodied voice that tells us we need to be “proud, self-made men and women,” is the devil who robs us of our joy.Depression is unfocused anger. Joy is unfocused gratitude. The more you have of one, the less you have of the other.If you look for reasons to be angry, you will find them. If you look for reasons to be grateful, you will find them.Don’t be angry. Be grateful.Justice and Mercy are a third duality. And the tug-of-war between them is intense.The only hard choices in life are the choices between two good things.Justice and Mercy are both good things. When you encounter the tug-of-war between them, which one do you favor?Opportunity and Security, a fourth duality.When Opportunity increases, Security declines. This sounds like Risk and Reward, but it’s not. If Risk and Reward were a duality, increasing your risk would decrease your reward. But increased risk of failure increases potential reward. This makes Risk and Reward a synchronous potentiality contained entirely within the realm of Opportunity.Ultimately, it all comes down to Choices.Our plan is always to make good choices, not bad choices. But most choices are neither good nor bad in the moment we make them. They become good or bad in hindsight. They become good or bad due to consequences. The outcome is never entirely clear until after the show is over.We learn more from our failures than we learn from our successes. Good decisions come from experience. Experience comes from bad decisions.You cannot judge a person’s experience by their age. You can judge it only by what they have experienced. A person can have 30 years of experience, or they can 1 year of experience 30 times.Which will you have? Will you choose to embrace risk and take your beatings when you fail and learn hard lessons and win great victories? Opportunity is a good thing.But then again, so is Security.Roy H. Williams