Wizard of Ads Monday Morning Memo

Predictability is the silent assassin of persuasion.When static electricity saturates the sky, lift the lightning rod of the new, the surprising, and the different and let the concert begin. The booming of the big bass drum will make the draperies tremble as the lasers light up the night.Give that anxious electricity something to focus on. Win the attention of the storm. Don’t tell us, “It was a dark and stormy night.”Light it up.When your jagged blade rips a gash in the sky and makes the darkness cry, we will lift our faces into the wet and laugh until the grass is green again.Light it up.We rarely raise our faces from these glittering screens because you rarely have anything new to say. We stare at the electricity behind this glass because it is always new, always surprising, always different.Look into our eyes and you will see the static electricity of our boredom is always there, always anxious, always looking for an outlet. Lift your lightning rod into that darkness. Set our world ablaze with the unexpected. We will reward you with our attention.Pixies, faeries, sprites and elves run naked through the darkness, laughing at everything, giggling with glee, eyes twinkling, feet flying, they run with abandon, afraid of nothing.What are you afraid of?Do you read boring, fact-filled fluff? Or do you read fluff made of different stuff?As you read, so will you write.When colorful, unexpected words fill your sight, you have raised your ink pen into the night and filled it with ink of electric light.Now write.When you have nothing to say, don’t let anyone convince you to say it.But when you have something to say, don’t say it regular and tidy with tucked-in corners. Say it with the rhythm of faeries running naked through the night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.Where you begin is unimportant. How you proceed is all that matters.‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house not a creature was stirring, not even the faerie hiding behind the curtains with a match in one hand and a bottle of vodka in the other.This is not the end. This is not even the beginning of the end. But it is the end of the beginning.So tell me, what happens next?Roy H. Williams

Rugged individualism is the essence of America.It is also the reason that we, as a people, feel isolated and lonely.Our focus on personal, individual success is the reason we feel disconnected from one another. This is happening even in our marriages according to Ian Kerner, author of the book, So Tell Me About the Last Time You Had Sex, and Terrence Real, author of Us: Getting Past Me and You.“Individualism is not a natural fact; it has a history. In American Colonial days, society was communalism on a small scale. It was about farms and small towns and small villages. When you lived face to face with your neighbor, it was a palpable reality that the good of all was the good for each of us. Civic virtue was the force that went beyond individual gratification. It was part of being a civilized person that you had a sense of civic virtue. With the Industrial Revolution, and the myth of the self-made man, all of that went by the wayside and it was each man for himself.”– Terrence RealWe are living in a very conflicted time because most of us hold two conflicting beliefs. (1.) We believe in a culture of individual achievement, “ME”, (2.) but as we approach the zenith of a societal “WE”, there is a desire to find our tribe, to join, to belong, to work as a group for the common good.Next year is the zenith of our current “WE.” It happens once every 80 years.The previous “WE” zenithed in 1943 when America was united against Hitler. We threw ourselves into something bigger than ourselves; something we believed in, something that satisfied our need to belong and make a difference.And now you know why we see all those deeply impassioned splinter groups in the news each week.Here’s the good news: you can harness that same “need to belong” to recruit and retain good employees.Good employees are attracted to companies with a strong culture. They are looking for a company they can believe in, a place where they can belong and make a difference.When you want to strengthen your company culture, you need to publish your Unifying Principles. I have previously called these your “We Believe” statements.Publishing them is the easy part. The difficult part is that you have to live them.About eight minutes into his famous TED-X talk at Puget Sound, Simon Sinek says,“The goal is not just to hire people who need a job; it’s to hire people who believe what you believe. I always say that, you know, if you hire people just because they can do a job, they’ll work for your money, but if they believe what you believe, they’ll work for you with blood and sweat and tears.”Indy Beagle will tell you about Culture Wizards in the rabbit hole.Roy H. Williams

I’m telling you up front that I’m not sharing anything valuable or useful today, but don’t let that keep you from continuing.Today we’re going to talk about 7 guys named Francis.Alan Lightman is not one of those 7 guys.Lightman is a past professor at Harvard and a current professor at MIT and a famous physicist who was responsible for establishing MIT’s policy that requires all students to be trained in speaking and writingduring each of their four years as an undergraduate.Alan’s father Richard Lightman was a movie theater owner who played a major role in desegregating movie theaters in the South in 1962. Richard taught Alan how to get things done and make a difference.In his book, A Sense of the Mysterious, Alan writes,“Not long ago, sitting at my desk at home, I suddenly had the horrifying realization that I no longer waste time.”After he wrote that sentence, he wrote an entire book titled, In Praise of Wasting Time.That’s what you and I are doing right now. We are wasting time in a way that will invigorate you and cause you to think new and different thoughts.You are about to jump out of a deep rut in the road that has been your life.We are at the intersection of Monotony and Surprise. Are you ready to jump?Francis Scott Fitzgerald is the Francis we quote in the first hour of the 3-day Magical Worlds class at Wizard Academy.“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.”Francis Ford Coppola gave us Apocalypse Now and The Godfather trilogy.Francis “Frank” Sinatra gave Indy Beagle the song “It Was a Very Good Year.” Indy told me he plans to share it with you in the rabbit hole.Sir Francis Drake was a contemporary of Shakespeare and an explorer and a pirate for England, and a seafaring thorn in the side of King Philip II of Spain, who offered a reward for his capture that would be nearly $9 million today. Queen Elizabeth gave Francis a knighthood.Francis “James” Cameron gave us Avatar and Titanic, the first and third highest-grossing films of all time, bringing in $2.85 billion and $2.19 billion respectively.Francis “Frank” Zappa was an iconic musician, composer, singer and songwriter whose work was characterized by nonconformity, free-form improvisation, musical virtuosity and the comedic satire of American culture. His kids are Dweezil, Moon Unit, Diva Muffin, and Ahmet Emuukha.Francis Bacon is my favorite Francis. Like Francis Drake, he was a contemporary of Shakespeare. Bacon was a statesman, a philosopher, and a master of the English tongue. After the death of Queen Elizabeth, Francis Bacon served as lord chancellor of England for King James I, for whom the 1611 King James translation of the Bible was named.These are some of my favorite memories of Francis Bacon:“The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery.”“A dance is a measured pace, as a verse is a measured speech.”“Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact (man.)”“There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.”“Nothing does more hurt in a state than when cunning men pass for wise.”“A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.”“Truth is so hard to tell, it sometimes needs fiction to make it plausible.”“The root of all superstition is that men observe when a thing hits, but not when it misses.”“Where philosophy is based on reason, faith is based on revelation, and is consequently irrational. The more discordant and incredible the divine mystery is, the more honor is shown to God in believing it, and the nobler is the victory of faith.”“But now we are to step back a little to that, which by premeditation we passed over, lest a breach should be made in those things that were so linked together.”If the plural of hippopotamus is hippopotami, and the plural of cactus is cacti, and the plural of alumnus is alumni, is the plural of Francis, Franci?If so, Indy Beagle has examples of the works of all 7 Franci in the rabbit hole.Aroo to you.And again, I say Aroo.Roy H. Williams

Gerald was an unwanted third son to his father, so his mother took Gerald on long walks each Saturday night so they would not be available when his father came home drunk. To avoid a beating, Gerald and his mother would wait outside in all weathers until his father fell asleep.Gerald was 16 when his father died, so he quit school to help support his mother by singing in the London subways for tips.Gerald was a Scottish introvert who became famous, but who could have been much more so.I closed last week’s Monday Morning Memo with a famous line from one of Gerald’s songs: “Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am, stuck in the middle with you.”Some people surround themselves with a low outer wall, and a high inner wall. It’s easy to get to know them, but hard to get to know them well.Gerald was the opposite; he had a high outer wall and a low inner wall. It was nearly impossible to meet him, but those he allowed to get to know him, knew him well enough to know that he was attracted to the comfort of the familiar.New places and new faces were emotionally exhausting to Gerald, so he drank to hide from them.Gerald wrote,“Winding your way down on Baker Street, light in your head and dead on your feet, well, another crazy day, you’ll drink the night away, and forget about everything. This city desert makes you feel so cold. It’s got so many people, but it’s got no soul, and it’s taken you so long, to find out you were wrong, when you thought it held everything.”In the words of his daughter, Martha,“The soaring saxophone solo perfectly captures the endurance and triumph of the human spirit in adversity, the sun rising out of the darkness and lighting the way once again… ‘and when you wake up it’s a new morning, the sun is shining it’s a new morning, and you’re going, you’re going home’.”On that same album was a song called Right Down the Line.“You know I need your love, you’ve got that hold over me. Long as I’ve got your love, you know that I’ll never leave. When I wanted you to share my life, I had no doubt in my mind. And it’s been you, woman, Right down the line.”Both songs were on a 1978 album called City to City.That album almost didn’t get made. Gerald was not a people person.Paul Simon openly admired Gerald’s song-writing ability.Eric Clapton and Paul McCartney both wanted to work with Gerald, but Gerald said “no.”According to his manager, City to City was rejected by several record label executives because of Gerald’s defensive abrasiveness. The only reason they got a record deal was because Artie Mogull, the United Artists representative, “was in a rush and never met him.”When Rolling Stone interviewed Gerald, he said,“To be a ‘star’ in inverted commas – that is probably the last thing I want. I knew I’d written a good bunch of songs … I remember thinking I’d be pleased if City to City sold 50,000 copies.”City to City became a worldwide phenomenon, selling over 5.5 million copies.Hiding from people because his outer wall wasn’t quite high enough, the great Welsh poet, Dylan Thomas, drank himself to death.Hiding from people because his outer wall wasn’t quite high enough, the great American novelist, Jack Kerouac, drank himself to death.Hiding from people because his outer wall wasn’t quite high enough, the great Scottish songwriter, Gerry Rafferty, drank himself to death.His daughter, Martha Rafferty, gathered a collection of her father’s unpublished recordings during the lockdown of 2020 and posted them, with these comments, on a website.“His evolution as a songwriter was intimately connected to his love and joy of singing. Singing was home for him, and he returned to it every day wherever he found himself, harmony especially so. He loved the company of singing with others and nothing gave him more joy, as those who have sat around a table with him will testify. That was his way of putting his mental disarray back in order. Despite his struggles with mental health and the resulting addiction, he left a lasting legacy and body of work which will endure for generations to come. I hope you discover something new here, we will be updating as we go as new releases of unpublished work become available, so keep checking in.Thanks for listening,Martha RaffertySeptember 2020Do you have a high outer wall and a low inner wall? People with high outer walls have fewer friends, but they are usually friends for life.Do you have a low outer wall? If you are in the public eye – such as a celebrity or a politician or a minister – people will expect you to have a low outer wall.If you don’t, they will not love you.Sometimes it is good to think about things like this.Roy H. WilliamsPS – I’ve included Gerald’s biggest hit songs in today’s rabbit hole. Just click the image of the Tiny Tribe at the top of this page and you’re in. – Indy Beagle

The long-ago Greeks had two words for time: Kronos (χρόνος) and Kairos (καιρός).Kronos is chronological time, sequential time, the metered time of the regimented left hemisphere of the brain.Kairos is an inflection point, a time-window of indeterminate length during which something consequential happens.On the other side of the Kairos, things are forever different.Kronos time is quantitative and accurate.Kairos time is qualitative and important.The thing about moments of Kairos is that you can see them most clearly when they are behind you.We make decisions every day, and with every choice we make we reach a point of no return, and wonder what might have been.But I think you will agree that some decisions have longer arms than others. They are more consequential. They carry heavier Kairos and more profoundly affect our future.I believe we will be swimming in Kairos moments during 2022, 2023, and 2024. I can see their silhouettes on the horizon at twilight. Walk outside this evening, just as the sun disappears below the western edge of the world, and consider the silhouettes of events that have not yet happened.These moments of consequence float like icebergs on a rising tide of misinformation, and are blown toward us by the breath of newscasters. One-by-one, they will soon begin to arrive.The frustrating reality is that we won’t be making these pivotal decisions individually; we will be making them collectively.Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am, stuck in the middle with you.Roy H. WilliamsRoving reporter Rotbart is wandering the wide world with his family, but he and MondayMorningRadio will return to us after Labor Day.

If you win the heart, the mind will follow. The mind will always create logic to justify what the heart has already decided.In 1981, Dr. Roger Sperry won the Nobel Prize for his documentation of brain lateralization, which basically says that we don’t have 1 brain divided into 2 hemispheres as much as we have 2 separate, competing brains.The LEFT hemisphere is the home of rational, logical, sequential, deductive reasoning. Think of it as the Intellect; the Mind. It puts you in touch with this world and leans toward suspicion and doubt.But the RIGHT hemisphere does none of those things. Think of it as the Heart. It understands the six sub-languages in the language of music; pitch, key, tempo, rhythm, musical interval and musical contour. The right hemisphere puts you in touch with a world that could be, should be, ought to be, someday.HOPE is alive and well in the right hemisphere of your brain. It understands symbols, and assigns meanings to shapes and colors. The logic of the right hemisphere is intuition, gut feelings, and hunches.Your body contains 100 million sensory receptors that allow you to see, hear, touch, taste and smell physical reality. But your brain contains 10,000 billion synapses. This means you are approximately 100,000 times better equipped to experience a world that does not exist, than a world that does.Call 1-800-Got-Junk.Life is happierwhen it’s less cluttered.Your house will be bigger.Your teeth will be whiter.Angels will sing.You’ll be a better dancer.Magical Thinking is a style of writing characterized by elements of the fantastic – woven with a deadpan sense of presentation – into an otherwise true story.Now this is where it gets really interesting; the right hemisphere of your brain doesn’t know fact from fiction or true from false. That’s the left brain’s job. This is why you can enjoy books, movies, and TV shows that you know are fiction.Magical Thinking is a style of writing that is full of HOPE.Magical Thinking doesn’t talk about the frustration of a situation or the pain of a problem. It illuminates a happy world in which anything is possible.Magical Thinking offers the customer an effortless, frustration-free solution.Employees, your boss wants you to know:“If you answer the phones for our company or knock on the doors of customers, please know that you are a vitally important part of the advertising and marketing team. Our customers expect you to be the living embodiment of our advertising; cheerful and helpful and magically able to make their problem disappear. We will become giants if we act like the company we claim to be in our advertising.”Magical ThinkingmakesMagical AdvertisingmakesHappy CustomersmakesBusiness Grow.Do you want to employ the power of Magical Thinking?Roy H. WilliamsAccording to Lynette Smith, July 4th is the perfect time for writing personal, heartfelt letters to colleagues, family members, friends, and others who have enriched your life. Lynette is a letter-writing evangelist who has authored multiple books on the art and impact of letters that will be kept and saved and savored for decades. “If you want to demonstrate genuine appreciation,” Lynette tells roving reporter Rotbart, “only a letter will do.” MondayMorningRadio.com

It’s impossible not to like someone who likes you.This is why the secret of success is to just keep showing up.My friend Brett was studying theater in college until the day a professor told him to lie on his back, close his eyes, and “breathe blue.” Brett did his best, gave up, got up, walked out.Brett did not become an actor. But he did become a highly successful political consultant.In Brett’s own words, here’s how it happened:“I was looking at the bulletin board in the hallway of my dorm when I saw a little poster that said, ‘All the pizza and beer you can eat and drink if you work 2 hours on the telephone.’ I like pizza, I like beer, so I went to the address at the appointed time and made calls to ‘get out the vote’ for a political party. I didn’t care about politics at all, but I cared a lot about pizza and beer, so I came back night after night. They thought I was really dedicated.”“After several months of showing up, they invited me to work at an out-of-town rally. I went along and noticed the food is better when you go out-of-town. So I kept doing out-of-town rallies until someone asked me if I could write some ads for a campaign. One thing led to another, and here I am. Go figure.”The only unique part of Brett’s story is the part about breathing blue. The rest of it – the part about always showing up – is the world’s most common path to success.Brett quit showing up for acting classes. But he never quit showing up at political events.You will become the thing for which you keep showing up.“Believe in yourself” and “Never give up” are motivational clichés. They sound good, but they give you no real action to take. Do you want to succeed? Just keep showing up.We hear a lot about the value of persistence and determination, but the way to demonstrate those qualities is to just keep showing up.The most important time to show up, is when you don’t feel like showing up.When everyone else has dropped out, faded away, and quit, you are the king of the mountain.In his final speech at the end of his long and wonderful life, Paul Harvey talked about the importance of never failing to show up. He said, “Repetition is effective. Repetition is effective. Repetition is effective.”When you want your company to be the one people think of immediately and feel the best about when they need what you sell, just keep showing up. It’s easy to do. The problem is that most advertisers will choose to reach 100% of the people, but convince them only 10% of the way, due to not enough repetition.They didn’t “show up” long enough to become a permanent fixture in the mind.That same money could have convinced 10% of the people 100% of the way, but most advertisers aren’t willing to do that because they worry about who they are “leaving out.”I’ve got news for you: You don’t have enough money to reach everyone. Limit your focus to only that number of people you can reach with relentless repetition.Keep showing up.It works in relationships.It works in business.It works in advertising.Just.Keep.Showing.Up.

My partner Kyle started a non-profit called “Neighbor in Need” after a developer made a comment that caused Kyle to become concerned about all the elderly people in his neighborhood who didn’t have the money to repair their homes, buy hot water heaters, replace air conditioners, or fix roof leaks. So Kyle decided to do something about it.What Kyle did was new, surprising, and different.That’s why it worked.If you want to bore people, just say what they expected you to say and do what they expected you to do. It works every time.You might even see them fall asleep.I have a friend who is building a condo tower in a town with a population of less than 100,000 people. He called a few days ago, laughing.He had hired a worldwide, world-famous company to manage the sale of the residential units in his building. They made a presentation to him about the “tried-and-true marketing plan” they intended to use.My friend said, “No, I’m going to ask my buddy to write me a series of radio ads. I’m planning to spend a small fraction of what you’re telling me I need to spend.”These professionals, understandably, began to vibrate with panic. “But we’ve tried radio and it doesn’t work! We’ve tried it again and again and it doesn’t work! You need to follow our plan!”My friend told them that radio advertising – quote – “works only as good as the ads you write.”Later, when they actually heard the radio ads, their panic rose to whole new level. The language and perspective of the ads was new, surprising, and different. And those three words can often mean, “experimental, reckless, and dangerous.”Things that are new, surprising, and different never feel as reliable as traditional wisdom.Don’t get me wrong; I believe in bringing the best of the past forward. I believe it to the core of my soul. In my heart, I am a traditionalist. But the problem with traditional wisdom is that it is often more tradition than wisdom.The problem with traditional wisdom in advertising is that it creates ads that feel familiar. And familiarity breeds contempt. Remember what I said earlier? “If you want to bore people, just say what they expected you to say and do what they expected you to do.”People hate ads that are predictable.The real estate marketers begged him not to air the crazy radio ads. They urged him to consider the story of how – in a much bigger city – they were able to convince nearly 1,500 people to register so that they might have a chance to buy a condo unit the moment they became available.Real estate roll-out campaigns like these typically span 56 days. The best they had ever done in 56 days– with a massive online push and billboards that blanketed a major city – was about 1,500 registrations.My friend was laughing because we were at day 14 of our radio push and our “experimental, reckless, and dangerous” radio ads had already generated more than 1,400 registrations and would soon top fifteen hundred.I wrote four ads and only the first of the four has been aired.I believe the second and third ads are the strongest.So now you know why my friend was laughing.I want you to do me three favors:1. Put things in your ads that are new, surprising, and different.Delight the public. Be remarkable.2. Quit thinking that the secret of success is to – quote – “reach the right people.”3. Slap the shit out of anyone who says to you, “No one listens to the radio anymore.”Indy has a wonderful rabbit hole prepared for you. To enter the rabbit hole, just click the image of Indy Beagle at the top of this page. Each click of an image takes you one page deeper.

The ancient Greeks understood psychology a lot better than they understood science.Hippocrates, the father of the Hippocratic Oath, believed that our information-gathering and decision-making processes are determined by an imbalance of 4 bodily fluids – red blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm – two of which have never existed in the form that Hippocrates theorized.But the four basic temperaments that Hippocrates associated with these four fluids have lived on to be verified, codified, dignified and personified by screenwriters and novelists and social scientists* around the world. Hippocrates called these temperaments Sanguine, Choleric, Melancholic, and Phlegmatic.More than 400 years ago, Shakespeare depicted the full range of human behaviors and character types by embracing the original theories of Hippocrates. The National Library of Medicine has an interesting online exhibit about it.We see these four basic temperaments in ourselves, our family, our friends, and all the most interesting characters in every form of story-telling:The Wizard of OzLion (sanguine) Scarecrow (choleric) Dorothy (melancholic) and Tin Man (phlegmatic)Archie ComicsArchie (sanguine) Veronica (choleric) Betty (melancholic) and Jughead (phlegmatic)I Love LucyRicky (sanguine) Lucy (choleric) Fred (melancholic) Ethel (phlegmatic)Gilligan’s IslandGilligan (sanguine) the Skipper (choleric) the Professor (melancholic) Mr. Howell (phlegmatic)Star TrekCaptain Kirk (sanguine) Spock (choleric) Scotty (melancholic) Bones (phlegmatic)Magnum P.I.T.C. (sanguine) Tom (choleric) Higgins (melancholic), and Rick (phlegmatic)FriendsPhoebe and Joey (sanguine) Monica (choleric) Ross (melancholic) Rachel and Chandler (phlegmatic)SeinfeldKramer (sanguine) Elaine (choleric) George (melancholic) Jerry (phlegmatic)FrasierRoz (sanguine) Frasier (choleric) Niles (melancholic) Daphne (phlegmatic)The Golden GirlsBlanche (sanguine) Sophia (choleric) Dorothy (melancholic) Rose (phlegmatic)Sex and The CitySamantha (sanguine) Miranda (choleric) Charlotte (melancholic) Carrie (phlegmatic)Schitt’s CreekMoira (sanguine) Johnny (choleric) David (melancholic) Alexis (phlegmatic)Desperate HousewivesSusan (sanguine) Gabrielle (choleric) Bree (melancholic) Lynette (phlegmatic)Unbreakable Kimmy SchmidtKimmy (Sanguine) Jacqueline (Choleric) Titus (Melancholic) Lillian (Phlegmatic)Big Bang TheoryHoward (sanguine) Sheldon (choleric) Raj (melancholic) Leonard (phlegmatic)The OfficeMichael (sanguine) Dwight (choleric) Pam (melancholic) Jim (phlegmatic)Game of ThronesArya (sanguine) Sansa (choleric) Jon (melancholic) Bran (phlegmatic)Entertainment is the only currency with which you can purchase the time and attention of a too-busy public.An understanding of the predictable frictions between these four temperaments – and their deep and abiding need for one another – is the basis of every form of long-term entertainment. The novelists who win the Nobel and Pulitzer Prizes know this. The screenwriters of all the hit TV series know this. And the ad writers who make a difference know this.When you become intrigued with an interesting fictional character, you spend time with them, whether they are in a book, or a TV series, or in an ad campaign.Most ad writing is transactional: “Give us money, and this is what we’ll give you in return.”Transactional ads are about short-term “harvesting” but they work less and less well the more continuously you use them.Relational ads are about long-term “customer bonding” and they work better and better the longer you use them.Do you want your company to be the one that customers think of immediately and feel the best about? Create a long-term ad campaign that is 2/3 relational customer-bonding ads and 1/3 transactional sales-activation ads. These are the ad campaigns that create consistent year-over-year growth.Think of it as seedtime and harvest.Seedtime and harvest.Roy H. Williams*You may have heard of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, or DiSC, or the Enneagram, or the Four Colors. Each of those 21st-century assessment tools has its roots in the 2,400-year-old observations of Hippocrates.

I made you a promise on November 22 in a Monday Morning Memo called “Time Travel”.This was how that memo began:“My friend Don has a time machine. He takes me with him sometimes. You should come, too! Every person who rides in Don’s time machine is changed by it.”“The United States Department of Justice has booked passage on Don’s time machine for countless prison inmates. State and local governments and hundreds of rehab centers have booked journeys for people as well. Thirty-five million in all.”“Each trip through time begins with a series of words…”I then described two different types of storytelling and the purpose and effect of each. And to give myself a little “third-party credibility,” I quoted Professor Steven Pinker of MIT and Harvard.When the word-count of that Monday Morning Memo indicated that we were approaching our destination and it was time to land, I instructed you to store your tray-table and return your seat to its full, upright and locked position. Then I told you something you probably didn’t know:“Every word in the English language is composed of just 44 sounds called phonemes. We arrange these into clusters called words which we string together in rapid succession so that others can see in their minds what we see in ours.”And then I talked about the Book of Beginnings. Do you you remember?“In the first chapter of Genesis, God says, ‘Let there be this’ and ‘Let there be that’ for 25 verses, and then in verse 26 he says, ‘Let us make mankind in our own image.'”“According to that ancient story, God spoke the world into existence and then gave you and me the power to do the same. When you, as a storyteller, speak a world into existence in the hearts and minds of your listeners, you are doing the work of God.”“Don Kuhl has spent the past 30 years unleashing the power of storytelling to help 35 million people find peace, hope, and happiness, and now he has written a book for you and me. It will be published early next year.”And then I promised you,“I’ll make sure you know when it’s available.”Roy H. WilliamsThat book is now available for pre-order on Amazon.com. It’s called “Changing with Aging: Little Stories, Big Lessons.”Don sent preview copies to several people I know. Everyone who has received a copy has been enchanted and enthralled by the stories in Don’s book, as I knew they would be. Don is a remarkable teller of short, bright, heart-warming stories that overflow with honesty, transparency, and wisdom.Peter Vegso, the original publisher of that record-breaking series of books, “Chicken Soup for the Soul,” is such a fan of Don’s stories that he jumped at the chance to publish Don’s book.I have fulfilled my promise. I told you the book is available for pre-order. Do what seems to you good.My partner Johnny Molson was asked to speak to a 4th grade class last week about his career as an ad writer.When he left the school, Johnny texted me to say that two of the children had asked remarkably delightful questions. The first child asked,“Have you ever cringed at your own commercials?”Johnny answered yes, that he always cringes at the predictable commercials his clients occasionally demand that he write, but no, he never cringes at the happy ads that flow from the depths of his heart through his fingertips and then onto the radio and television airwaves. That’s when the second child asked,“Do you have a criminal record?”A conversation with a child is a remarkable adventure full of twists and turns, with surprises around every corner.Today’s rabbit hole is like that, too. It is a theological journey that begins in the first chapter of Genesis and ends with me saying, “We are passengers on a world spinning out of control. Having wrongly been taught that everything happens according to ‘God’s Perfect Plan,’ we blame him for every sadness.”Some of you will be outraged and offended and feel compelled to explain to me why I am tragically and horribly wrong, but I think the more open-minded of you will be intrigued and fascinated by things you never heard before.But none of you will be bored.The title of this photo-filled essay is “God is Not in Control. We Are.” But it is not a denial of God. It is my strange and unusual confession of faith in him.Indy Beagle is teaching a seminar in Dubai this week and gave me complete authority to do whatever I wanted in the rabbit hole.To enter, just click the image of my friend, Don Kuhl, at the top of the page.Aroo,Roy H. WilliamsCraig Archibald is an important acting coach in Hollywood. His client list would rock your world. The thing that makes Craig special is that he teaches his clients that acting is a highly competitive business.  He tells them that if they want to succeed as actors, they need to think like entrepreneurs. Craig also recommends that business owners study acting to improve their financial performance! Fascinating, right? Take your seat, grab some popcorn, the curtain is about to rise on the mesmerizing connection between Hollywood and Business and you don’t want to miss it.  Friend, you won’t find this sort of thing anywhere except MondayMorningRadio.com!