Wizard of Ads Monday Morning Memo

457 BC – In the 7th chapter of the Old Testament Book of Ezra, King Artaxerxes of Persia issues a decree to rebuild Jerusalem which results in the rebuilding of that city under Nehemiah.Go west from Jerusalem across the Mediterranean, west across the Atlantic, then halfway across the landmass of North America and you’re in Central Texas. It was there, sometime between the decree of Artaxerxes in 457 BC and the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, that a group of Native American wise men painted a huge mural in a cave along the Pecos river.These Coahuiltecans were stargazers who believed that geographical landmarks are mirrored in the stars. “As above, so below.”The astronomical and geographical accuracy of this 2,000-to-2,500-year-old rock painting is astounding. It shows all the major landmarks along the path of the sun during the winter solstice as it travels from Austin, Texas, to San Angelo, Texas, 200 miles away. And it is huge: 26 feet wide and 13 feet tall, featuring dozens of important landmarks and religious stories and astronomical devices; messages from a distant past.Today we will focus on two small, but important pieces of this giant rock painting known as the “White Shaman.”AThese three “Y” symbols in the painting are the three plateaus known as Wednesday Mountain (on which Wizard Academy is built,) Thursday Mountain (which is owned by a Native American tribe,) and Friday Mountain, at the base of which lies America’s largest Hindu temple.The alignment of these 3 plateaus mirrors the stars in the Belt of Orion with amazing fidelity. See it for yourself in the rabbit hole. The stars of Orion’s Belt have been recognized as many things over the centuries, including the Golden Yard-arm, the Ellwand and Our Lady’s Wand. They have also been called the Three Sisters, the Three Kings, the Three Wise Men and the Magi, the very namesakes for which Wizard Academy is named. How amazing is that!The Belt of Orion, the Great Bear, and the Pleiades are the only constellations mentioned in the Bible. Let’s talk about the landmarks that mirror the stars in the Great Bear, Ursa major.Cold water gushes out of the ground 365 days a year from 5 underground springs along the Central Texas escarpment: Barton Springs in Austin, San Marcos Springs in San Marcos, Comal Springs in New Braunfels, and San Pedro Springs and San Antonio Springs in downtown San Antonio. These springs are represented in the White Shaman by a connected set of 4 symbols revealing the locations of those springs. These locations mirror the stars in the tail of Ursa major, the Great Bear. Do you see that bottommost symbol? It represents San Pedro springs and San Antonio springs, both in downtown San Antonio. You’ll notice it to be a little different than the other symbols in that it has an additional module attached, with two red lines – a river  – extending out from it. This is because San Antonio springs is the headwaters of the San Antonio river. Those Coahuiltecans didn’t miss a thing!We were given this amazing news by our neighbor, Brian Dudley, who introduced us to Gary Perez, the Native American who became famous for deciphering the White Shaman rock painting.We were told by multiple people when we bought the land in 2004 that our plateau had been sacred to Native Americans since before the time of Columbus, but no one had any proof of that until now.Hearing Gary Perez and/or Carolyn Boyd, the author of the book, The White Shaman Mural, explain the history, astrology and math that went into decoding that rock painting would be fun, don’t you think?When this virus has finally been defeated, our plan is to have one or both of these luminaries as guest speakers when we celebrate the 20th anniversary of Wizard Academy. Your eyes will be wide with amazement as you hear about all the astrological, geographical, and cultural details that are contained in that mural. With your mouth hanging open, you’ll wonder, “How did the Coahuiltecans figure all that out?”Big fun. Big, big fun.Princess Pennie has always possessed a superpower when it comes to selecting real estate, so in 2004 when she tracked down the owner of our land (he lived in South Africa, by the way,) and purchased it from him, I went along with it because she has always been right about that sort of thing.This Covid thing is getting tiresome, isn’t it?Like everyone else, Wizard Academy is getting squeezed pretty hard financially right now, but I’m not worried about it because I have undying confidence that we are here for a reason.Thank You for your part in helping this place to exist.Roy H. Williams

I lived in Muskogee, Oklahoma for 3 years before Merle Haggard released his hit song, “I’m Proud to be an Okie from Muskogee.” Even though I was only 12 at the time, I realized Brother Haggard’s song contained more corn than the whole state of Iowa.I laugh about being an Okie, but in truth, I am proud of the resourcefulness of my tribe. An Okie can build a rocket ship while he is flying it.Walk into any Oklahoma restaurant, church, or nightclub and choose 9 men at random. You will have within that group the ability to:weld every kind of metalrepair any motorized vehicle, electrical appliance, or mechanical devicethrow a rock and knock a bird out of the skybutcher a cow, pig, or deertell a story that will make you laugh, and sing a song that will make your crydig the footings, tie the rebar, pour a cement foundation, thenframe the house, install the plumbing and wiring, hang the sheetrock and the cabinets, install the fixtures, roof it, brick it, and sell it.And Okie girls are twice as resourceful as Okie boys.Okies learn their skills from family and friends because formal education takes too long and teaches too little. If you want to be a doctor or a lawyer, go to college. But if you just want to make some money, go do it. Don’t stand there like a whiner with your finger in your nose. Don’t fret like a little girl who is worried that Santa Claus doesn’t know her new address. And don’t count on getting a lucky break like some kind of wimpy-ass frat boy. Okies who wait for breaks go broke.An Okie’s lack of respect for college degrees occasionally has unintended consequences. I recently got an email from a friend in high school who said, “All these immunologists are saying one thing, but some of the guys we went to high school with are saying the opposite, so I don’t know who to believe…”When Pennie and I bought our first home in the little town of Broken Arrow, three additional rooms had been added to the original structure to make it a total of 800 square feet. It was built in “Indian Territory” in 1884, just 108 years after the colonies informed King George that his services would no longer be required.In 1744, when ­Thomas Jefferson was still in diapers, all of North America outside the 13 colonies was “Indian Territory.” So when a delegation from Virginia offered to provide a college education for a dozen Native American boys, Chief Canassatego replied,“We know you highly esteem the kind of learning taught in these colleges. And the maintenance of our young men, while with you, would be very expensive to you. We’re convinced, therefore, that you mean to do us good by your proposal, and we thank you heartily. But you who are so wise must know that different nations have different conceptions of things. And you will not, therefore, take it amiss if our ideas of this kind of education happen not to be the same with yours.”“We have had some experience of it. Several of our young people were formerly brought up in the colleges of the northern province. They were instructed in all your sciences. But when they came back to us, they were bad runners, ignorant of every means of living in the woods, unable to bear either cold or hunger, knew neither how to build a cabin, take a deer, or kill an enemy, spoke our language imperfectly, and therefore were neither fit for hunters, warriors, nor councilors. They were totally good for nothing.”“We are, however, not the less obliged for your kind offer, though we decline accepting. To show our grateful sense of it, if the gentlemen of Virginia shall send us a dozen of their sons, we would take great care in their education, instruct them in all we know, and make men of them.”Some people are street smart and some people are book smart.The thing to remember is that one does not negate the other.Roy H. Williams

When it is time to write an ad, and there is no felt need in the heart of the customer to which you can speak, make a paper cigar.Teddy Roosevelt was a man of improvisation. He knew his paper cigars. This allowed him to explain the process of making them in the fewest possible words: “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”The slow weeks before and after peak season are called the shoulder season.  People who can create ads that bring in business during the shoulder season are people you want on your team.Winter is peak season for heating. Summer is peak season for air conditioning. But how does an HVAC company keep its employees paid during the shoulder season, those weeks of mild weather in between?“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”Funny, isn’t it? Teddy gave us the answer before air conditioning was even invented.1Every HVAC company knows the answer to the shoulder season is to convince the public of the importance of routine maintenance. But that’s kind of like trying to convince people to shop early for Christmas. Everyone knows it’s a smart thing to do, but few people actually do it. As a result of our procrastination, we wait in long lines, choose from a picked-over selection and pay higher prices because we delayed our shopping – one day at a time – until December twenty-second and then flew into a blind panic.Air conditioning maintenance is like that. We delay it until the unit breaks down.When you need to sell a product or a service, and no one is feeling the need for that service, it’s time to make a paper cigar. But don’t rely on logic. Logic speaks to the mind of the customer. You’ve got to win the heart. And that takes wit and charm.Here is a hugely successful TV ad for the shoulder season that was produced by Casey Welch and Korey McDonald. 2SCENE ONETECH 1: Mr. Jenkins told me…TECH 2: When it starts getting warmer and you’re thinking about turning on that Air ConditionerTECH 3: [waving her palms in comic alarm] Don’t Do It! TECH 4: [wagging his finger sternly] Don’t Do It! SCENE TWOTECH 2:   A/C compressors get dried out during the winterTECH 1:  and they need to be brought into serviceTECH 2: [with palms held downward, he slowly lowers them to illustrate “gently”] gennnntly.SCENE THREECSR 1: For just 89 dollars, a Morris-Jenkins technician will wash the outside unit and bring it into service TECH 2: [palms downward, he slowly lowers them]  gennnntly.SCENE FOURTECH 1: And we promise NOT to disrupt your household.DEWEY:  We come and go [palms downward, he slowly lowers them] gennnntly.©Here’s an even-more-successful ad Casey and Korey produced the following year.SCENE ONE DEWEY: [takes a long step backward with one foot, and with a sweep of his arm reveals Techs standing behind him as he says] It’s that time again!TECHS: [Music begins playing. Technicians begin dancing.] It’s time for us to come-and-go gently, gently.It’s time for us to come-and-go gently, gently.Compressors-dry-out during wiiiiinter monthsAnd-need-to-be brought back [palms downward, they lower them] gennnntly.SCENE TWO [Working on an outside unit]TECH 1: For just 89 dollarsTECH 2: A Morris-Jenkins technician will wash your outside unitTECH 3: and bring it into serviceTECH 4: [palms downward, she slowly lowers them] gennnntly.TECH 3: [palms downward, he slowly lowers them] gennnntly.SCENE THREE DEWEY: Morris-Jenkins comes and goesALL TECHS: [singing in unison, with hand-motion] gently, gently ©When that TV ad aired in Charlotte, North Carolina, so many viewers wanted to see it again that it accumulated more than one million views on YouTube in less than 90 days.So now you’re wondering why this style of improvised entertainment is called, “Making a Paper Cigar.”When our oldest son, Rex, was in high school more than 20 years ago, he walked into class one day and realized, “Uh-oh, today is the day I’m supposed to present my term paper. What was the subject I was assigned?” He scratched his head a minute, then said, “Cuba. I’ve got to make a verbal presentation – with visual aids – on Cuba.”Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.He looked around and saw a few sheets of paper with some magic markers, so he rolled the paper into a cigar-sized cylinder, taped it, then colored it brown with a red tip. He wrote a couple of pages about sugar, cigars, and Fidel Castro, and when his name was called, strode to the front of the room with his cigar in his mouth and told the story of Cuba as Groucho Marx or W.C. Fields might have done.The teacher gave him an A+ and led the class in a round of applause.Entertainment is the only currency with which you can purchase the attention of a disinterested public.Rex made a little bronze gargoyle to hold that paper cigar and gave it to me for Father’s Day. It sits on a shelf in my office at home.Roy H. Williams

The generation of male Okies to which I belong has the inexplicable tradition of mercilessly teasing their friends. It’s a dumb tradition, I know, but these are the rules:We tease only our closest friends. To say to strangers the sorts of things that we say to our friends would be to invite a fistfight.The more outrageous and unfounded the accusation, the funnier it is.We never tease by saying things that could possibly be perceived as the truth. In other words, if you believe what you are saying might contain a grain of truth – even a tiny bit – you are no longer being funny; you’re being a bully and a jerk.My friend Ken owns a big plumbing company in another state. So when he sent me a cell phone video of his new $7,000 toilet, I began to pound on him relentlessly about what that toilet said about him as a man. That high-tech toilet became the fulcrum of a playground teeter-totter onto which I could jump when he least expected it and send him flying topsy-turvy into the air.There’s just nowhere to hide when your friends can ask you about your fancy toilet at the most unexpected moments and in the most unexpected ways.One day there was a knock at the door. “Are you Roy Williams?”“Yes,”“Sign here.”Uh-oh. Ken had sent me a fancy toilet of my own. Before I could hide it, Pennie saw it and liked it. “But it’s way too nice for this house,” she said.“Are you saying this house isn’t worthy of a toilet like that?”She looked at me and nodded. “Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying.”Friends, you just can’t imagine the kinds of upgrades that are required when you have been gifted a fancy toilet.I was reminded of the story of an ancient King of Siam who would give white elephants as a passive-aggressive gift to anyone who displeased him. White elephants are rare and were considered sacred in Siam, so people were required to treat them with special care and feed them expensive food and never use them for work. The gift of a white elephant imposed a huge financial burden on the person who received one and of course you could never sell the elephant, lest you appear ungrateful.Yep, what I had me here was a white elephant.I’ve never ridden the elephant because, frankly, it frightens me.I always explain to guests who want to ride my white elephant that they must approach it with reverence when they journey to present themselves before it. The elephant will then kneel to allow them aboard as the music of angels wafts through the room and a strange light begins to glow.I promise I’m not making any of this up.My friend Manley Miller once stayed up all night playing with the remote so that he could learn all of the elephant’s tricks. When Manley told Pennie and I about his escapades with the elephant the next morning, I realized that my friend Ken had beat me at my own game.Evidently, Ken grew up in a state where young boys know how to jump on the teeter-totter, too.Roy H. Williams

When James Madison drafted the First Amendment, “the press” referred to the newspapers of our nation, such as the Pennsylvania Gazette owned by Benjamin Franklin, the most popular paper in the 13 colonies.Things rocked along swimmingly for about 200 years, then one day we walked outside to get the newspaper, sat down to read it, and realized it was yesterday’s news.Welcome to the 21st Century, where your telephone is also your newspaper, TV, encyclopedia, magazine, restaurant menu, instruction manual, shopping mall, worldwide map, and phone book.The computer chip gave us the internet, an unregulated realm where irresponsible people are free to spray false reports, fabricated data, and doctored photos across our society like a flamethrower washing over a field of dry grass.Presto, the world is on fire.I believe that people are entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts.When I was a younger man, television and radio newscasts were trustworthy places to gather reliable facts, even when the presentation of those facts was slanted by the opinion of the reporter.News directors took their guardianship of journalistic integrity seriously, as did most of the rank-and-file reporters. But their collective consciences and good intentions were not what kept us safe.The people of the United States own the airwaves of our nation.Regulating the access to those airwaves began with the Radio Act of 1912, later to be replaced by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 1934.For most of the 20th century, America had safeguards that made television and radio news reliable, but in the 9 years between 1987, the 7th year of the Reagan presidency, and 1996, the 4th year of the Clinton presidency, those safeguards were quietly dismantled.Let’s take a look at the most important ones:1. The Fairness Doctrine: Introduced in 1949, the Fairness Doctrine required broadcasters to present controversial issues of public importance and to do so in a manner that was honest, equitable, and balanced. If you failed to serve the public in this way, you could lose your license to broadcast.Broadcasters hated the Fairness Doctrine, of course, because it was a pain in the ass.In 1987, Edward O. Fritts, president of the National Assn. of Broadcasters, argued that “broadcasters believe in fairness” and that the Fairness Doctrine was “unconstitutional and an infringement on free speech. It is an intrusion into broadcasters’ journalistic judgment.” President Reagan agreed and issued an executive order.Poof… No more Fairness Doctrine.TV and radio stations were now free to slant the news as aggressively as they wanted.2. Ownership Limits: In 1927, we began to worry about what might happen if too few people controlled the news. Consequently, no one was allowed to own more than three TV stations nationwide. That number was increased to five stations in 1944, then the 7-7-7 rule of 1953 said no one could own more than 7 TV stations, 7 FM radio stations and 7 AM radio stations. In 1985, 7-7-7 became 12-12-12.Then in 1996, the FCC eliminated all limits on radio stations, and said you could own as many TV stations as you wanted as long as those TV stations were collectively reaching no more than 35% of the national audience. As a result, truckloads of investor dollars were gathered and broadcast “consolidation” began.Then in 2002, the 5-member FCC voted 3-2 along party lines (3 Republicans, 2 Democrats) to throw out the national audience limit.Bingo… If you could put together enough money, you could now control the news.American newscasters were no longer required to serve the public interest, or to present both sides of an issue, or even to tell the truth.So for the past 18 years we’ve been surrounded by flamethrowers on every side.I’m sure glad it hasn’t resulted in a polarized population.Roy H. Williams

Two weeks ago, I appeared onscreen during a business symposium in Montreal to answer a series of questions about, “How to Advertise Effectively.”Toward the end of my hour with them, a person in the audience asked, “What do you consider to be the top 3 books about Advertising?” The moderator smiled and said, “I can answer that,” and held up copies of The Wizard of Ads, Secret Formulas of the Wizard of Ads, and Magical Worlds of the Wizard of Ads.The audience laughed.I smiled and shook my head, “no.”“Number one is Marketing Outrageously by Jon Spoelstra. Number two is The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Al Ries and Jack Trout. Number three is Ogilvy on Advertising.”The audience went silent as everyone wrote those titles down.Prior to the publication of Jon Spoelstra’s book in 2001, my recommended reading list contained only two books. But I discovered a kindred spirit in Jon Spoelstra. Even better than that, the thing Jon does best is the very thing I try to avoid.Let’s take a look at the similarities and differences between Jon and me.Similarities: Jon and I agree that it is your message, not the media, that determines your success or failure. Likewise, we agree on the vital importance of avoiding the predictable by employing the new, the surprising, and the different. Thirdly, we both appreciate the role of intuition and agree that, loosely speaking, rules are for fools.Difference: Jon enjoys making big things happen fast, I do not.* When your back is against the wall and time is of the essence, Jon is the man to call.On numerous occasions, Jon has generously agreed to teach at Wizard Academy and he’s always done it for free. But now he needs something from you and me.Don’t worry. Like all of Jon’s offers, this one is irresistible: Jon has a new book coming out next month and he’s giving each of us an immediate download of it in exchange for our promise to post a book review on Amazon. You can say whatever you like in the book review. The goal is for Jon to have at least 100 reviews posted on the day his book is officially launched.100 Amazon reviews sounds like it would be easy to accomplish, right? Trust me, it’s not.Are you in?Here’s where to begin.Roy H. Williams*Although I understand how to make big things happen fast, I find the anxiousness of it to be exhausting. Adrenaline is not my friend. It gives most people an energizing rush of excitement, (flight,) but in me it triggers only the rage of combat, (fight.) Consequently, I avoid clients who need an immediate miracle. This is undoubtedly selfish of me, but hey, I’m self-indulgent. You already knew that, right? – RHW

You’ve heard it all your life: “Anything worth doing, is worth doing well.”This seems to be a worthy admonition on the surface. But let’s not stop at the surface. Let’s look into the heart of it.Those seven words, “Anything worth doing, is worth doing well,” assume that one has the ability to do the thing well. But what if you don’t have that ability? Is it okay to do it badly at first?I gathered some essays and photos in 1997, then paid a printer to print 7,500 copies of a little homemade book. The title was ill-conceived, the cover was ridiculous, and my layout failed to anticipate the binding, so the text was tucked too far into the spine. You had to pull the cheeks apart and look down into the crack to read it.Is it okay that I did a bad job on that first book?Is it okay that I continue to love that quirky little puppy even if it never sold a copy?My second book became the #1 business book in America according to the Wall Street Journal, and my third book was a New York Times bestseller, then my wife and I spent the next 20 years building a school for misfit and maverick entrepreneurs, those innovators and improvisers, renegades and rebels who are suspicious of traditional wisdom.I have never worn the handcuffs of Perfectionism or Conformity and I do not recommend them to you. Wearing them too tightly causes analysis paralysis: that paralyzing fear of failure.When a person who is facing a big challenge begins to share their performance anxieties with me, I always grab them by their shoulders, look deep into their eyes and say with all the love I can muster, “Just shut up and do it.”Anything worth doing is worth doing badly.If you are not willing to golf badly at first, you are never going to be a great golfer.If you are not willing to write badly at first, you are never going to be a great writer.If you are not willing to cook badly at first, you are never going to be a great chef.One of the things I do each day is get dressed. But no one has ever accused me of doing it well. Putting on clothes is definitely worth doing. I just don’t believe it’s worth doing well. Looking rumpled and unsuccessful is my natural condition because I’ve seen the time and effort it takes to look crisp and sharp, and frankly, I don’t feel it’s worth it. At least not for me.Julie DeMille was stressing out about finding two socks that matched when the absurdity of the moment slapped her in the face. So she decided to adopt a sock motto: “If you can’t find a mate, find a friend.”I think Julie DeMille might be my brand of crazy.Are you my brand of crazy? If so, let me, as your older brother, offer you some encouragement and advice:Good decisions come from experience.Experience comes from bad decisions.You will feel guilty from time to time and that can be good.Feelings of guilt will cause you to make changes you need to make.But I pray that you never become ashamed.Guilt is about what you have done.Shame is about who you are.Perfectionists will come into your life and say that you have “real potential” and that you could be just like they are – crisp and prompt, well-groomed and with good posture – if only you pushed yourself a little harder. They will tell you to repent from your heresy of being happy and contented and say, “No pain, no gain,” as though they are quoting holy scripture.I’ve looked: it’s not in the Bible.These same people will tell you that should never be satisfied. They will lift their chins and proudly say, “Good enough, never is.”That’s not in the Bible, either. But if you read the musical, magical parts of the Bible – I suggest the gospel of John – you will look at yourself in the mirror and smile and say, “Good enough! God likes me just as I am.”Can I, as your older brother, offer you three suggestions?1: Wherever you go, accept people as they are and try to have a good time.2: Whatever you do, do it wholeheartedly and with gusto! And let the outcome be what it is.3: To speak with God, to accept yourself and be content, is the greatest possible wealth.And that, by the way, is in the Bible.Roy H. Williams

The junkyard dogs of the business community are those misfits and mavericks, renegades and rebels, innovators and improvisors who know that traditional wisdom is often more tradition than wisdom.Lee Iacocca was a junkyard dog.The son of an immigrant hot-dog vendor, Iacocca was the visionary who gave us the Ford Mustang. He was later fired by Henry Ford II, a showdog, because Henry II said he didn’t want Iacocca to become CEO. Aware that the time for his own retirement was approaching, Henry II made it clear that he wanted to turn the company over to his son Edsel II, then just 28.After being fired, Iacocca cheerfully went to work at Chrysler where he rescued that company from extinction by inventing the minivan. Later, when he told Chrysler’s head of engineering that he needed a prototype LeBaron convertible to use in a TV ad, the showdog engineer told him how many months it would take to design one. A true dog of the junkyard, Iacocca smiled and said, “Just get a LeBaron and cut the top off. I need it tomorrow.”Focused on the outcome rather than the process, junkyard dogs are always messy.Junkyard dogs worry about accomplishment.Showdogs worry about appearances.When the weather is calm and the water is smooth, the showdog owns the horizon. But when the storm is upon you and people are about to die, you want a junkyard dog at the helm.In 1962, 16-year-old Miguel fled Cuba wearing a jacket his mother had hand-stitched from cleaning rags. He arrived alone in America. “Hamburger” was his only English word. Five years later Miguel married a teenage mother and adopted her 3-year-old son, little Jeffrey Jorgensen. Miguel gave Jeffrey the skill and confidence to survive and thrive. He also gave Jeffrey his proud Cuban name: Bezos. When Junkyard Jeffrey was 30, he borrowed money from friends and family to start a business in the garage of his rented home. He named that business after the largest river in South America. Perhaps you’ve heard of it.As a boy, one of Jeffrey’s heroes was Walt Disney, the fourth of five children in a family so poor that two of his older brothers, sick of the constant work and poverty, ran away when Walt was just 4 years old. When Walt was 16, he tried to join the Navy so that he could serve in WWI but was turned down because of his age. He then tried unsuccessfully to join the Canadian Armed Forces. Finally, he was accepted as a Red Cross ambulance driver.Walt did not have an impressive résumé. Junkyard dogs rarely do.When the war was over, Disney’s first company, Laugh-O-Gram, went bankrupt in Kansas City, so he moved to Hollywood where his first animated series, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, was a big success. Disney lost the rights to that character when his distributor cheated him. So Walt, ever the junkyard dog, started working on another animated character, a mouse. Perhaps you’ve heard of him, too.Disney Studios went on to make Lady and the Tramp, a movie about a showdog princess who falls in love with a junkyard dog. And then they made The Aristocats, a movie about an alley cat named O’Malley who rescues a housecat named Duchess who then falls in love with him. And when we saw The Rescuers a few years later, we all fell in love with a little junkyard girl named Penny when she stood up to the alligators of Madame Medusa.Now that I think about it, has there ever been a successful Disney film that didn’t give us a misfit, junkyard dog to cheer for?For the record, (and I quite literally mean “the record,”) no individual has ever received as many Academy Awards as Walt Disney. In fact, no other person has ever been nominated for as many.I began contemplating today’s memo when I paused the movie, Public Enemies, to transcribe a bit of dialogue between J. Edgar Hoover, that little showdog director of the FBI, and Melvin Purvis, his golden-boy agent who was tasked with bringing the murderous bank robber, John Dillinger, to justice, dead or alive. After Purvis fails repeatedly, he calls J. Edgar Hoover.Hoover: “John Dillinger held up a bank for $74,000 while you failed to arrest (Babyface) Nelson.”Melvin Purvis: “Sir, I take full responsibility. Now, I would like to make a request that we transfer men with special qualifications to augment the staff here in Chicago. There are some former Texas and Oklahoma lawmen currently with the bureau in Dallas.”Hoover: “I thought you understood what I am building; a modern force of professional young men of the best sort.”Melvin Purvis: “I’m afraid our type cannot get the job done.”Hoover: “Excuse me, I cannot hear you.”Purvis: “Our type cannot get the job done.”Hoover: “I cannot hear you.”Melvin Purvis: “Our type cannot get the job done. Without qualified help, I will have to resign this appointment. Otherwise, I’m leading my men to slaughter.”Furious, Hoover sends Charles Winstead (Stephen Lang) a junkyard FBI agent to help Purvis locate and assassinate Dillinger. Starring Johnny Depp as Dillinger and Christian Bale as Purvis, Public Enemies is an interesting look at life in America back when we were headed toward the zenith of our previous “We” cycle.The zenith of that “We” was 1943. If you want to see what happened immediately after that zenith, watch Trumbo (2015) with Brian Cranston.The current “We” will zenith in 2023.Hang on, it’s going to be a wild ride.Roy H. Williams

The beagle who lives in the right hemisphere of your brain has an entirely different set of skills than the nerd who lives next door.The beagle in my brain is named Indy. What is the name of the beagle in yours?Your beagle gives you impulsive intuition and instinctive insight. Your beagle gives you romping recklessness, gut feelings and hunches.Your beagle has a bitterly sharp, piercingly beautiful sense of global pattern recognition which triggers the occasional premonition.Poindexter is the nerd who lives in the other half of my brain. He is forever having to push his glasses back onto his nose.What is the name of the nerd in yours?Poindexter uses Google.Indy uses Giggle.My Poindexter is a friend of Mr. Peabody, the smartest person in the world. Do you remember Mr. Peabody and his adopted son, Sherman, from the Rocky and Bullwinkle show? If not, Indy has a video on page 4 of the rabbit hole that will joggle your memory.The interesting thing about Sherman and Mr. Peabody is that Jay Ward reversed their roles. It is the human, Sherman, who is naïve about science, and Peabody, the beagle, that is the uptight nerd who leans on cold deductive reasoning.Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Cold deductive reasoning has its place, but the golden fire of inspiration and the money-green glow of innovation come from that piercingly beautiful sense of pattern recognition that sees the relationships between all the parts.Your intuitive beagle sees what is and isn’t there. And it sees what could be added or left out to make a thing more elegant and beautiful. This fabulous pattern-recognizing beagle lives in the wordless right hemisphere of your brain and it notices more than just visual patterns. It notices patterns of behavior, patterns of history, patterns of music and speech. And it recognizes the shapes of problems and the shapes of their solutions. Shapes are merely patterns. This is why jigsaw puzzles are calisthenics for your beagle. The shapes of the pieces and their patterns of color and the position of each piece on the table as you begin is pattern, times pattern, times pattern, times the number of pieces in the box. (Ray Bard, that was for you.)Your right-brain beagle is the heart and soul of inspiration and innovation, and its only food is play. Reckless, intuitive wandering, that artistic, purposeful wasting of time, that thing you do because you want to, not because you have to. Play is what recharges your batteries. What, for you, is the highest form of play?More importantly, how long has it been since you’ve done it?Go. There you will find your answer.Roy H. Williams

The Genius of What Isn’t ThereJune 1, 2020ListenAThree friends, who have never met each other, all sent me the same advice last week.What makes this convergence particularly interesting is that there was no common trigger. Each of the three messages I received was prompted by something different.The essence of those messages?You’ve got to leave things out.Genius is rarely about what is there.Genius is about what isn’t there.David Freeman is a world-famous coach of fictional character construction. His credentials and accomplishments are staggering. David read in my memo of May 18 that, “I am finally writing that screenplay I’ve been thinking and talking about for 15 years. It’s a buddy movie about a guy with 12 friends. I plan to shoot it in New Orleans next year.” So he sent me an email from Hollywood.“If you’re going to have 12 characters, the traditional wisdom is that 1, 2, 3, 4, and maybe 5 should be far more primary the others. The more characters we’re supposed to know and care about, the less emotion the audience feels because we can’t get deeply invested in any one character if our attention is split between too many. Characters require screen time for us to get emotionally involved with them. The more major characters, the less screen time for each.”According to David, a screenwriter has to choose which characters get fully realized. The others are effectively left out.Stephen Semple is a lifelong student of the sales process. He studies every aspect of persuasion, from advertising to lead generation to product demonstrations to sales presentations. Stephen wrote to me about how reading the transcripts of his Zoom conferences taught him how people speak differently than they write.“We repeat words, finish other people’s sentences, and forget about grammar.”According to Stephen, when highly engaged in an inspired conversation, we leave out much of what we would have written.Tom Grimes is a scholar, a thinker, a philosopher and a friend, and the President Plenipotentiary of the Worldwide Worthless Bastards. Tom owns a booming business, but he is always available to take your phone call or respond to your email. So I asked him what he does all day.Tom replied,“Famous ‘leaders’ are often very noisy people… or they were dealing with a crisis. We sometimes think leadership is about dealing with the aftermath when the sh#t hits the fan. We fail to appreciate that the real objective is to never let the sh#t hit the fan in the first place.One time I was at the water treatment facility of a large manufacturing plant. The place was eerily quiet. When I made the observation that it looked like the staff was doing next to nothing, the head operator explained that the secret to running a facility like his was a stringent Preventive Maintenance program. He said that if you see people running around it meant there was a problem. And the objective of the maintenance team was to prevent problems before they became problems. A quiet place was the sign of a well-run operation.”According to Tom, the secret of being a great leader is to leave out the emergencies.When asked the secret of writing bestselling novels, Elmore Leonard said, “I leave out the parts that people skip.”Impressionistic painters leave out the details, requiring us to supply them from our storehouses of imagination.Talented photographers leave out sections of what they photograph, requiring us to imagine the parts that extend beyond the framelines.When writing ads, if you try to appeal to everyone, you will appeal to no one. You’ve got to choose who to lose.Indy Beagle has some great examples of this in the rabbit hole.He suggests that you hurry. The rabbit is afoot.The adventure has begun.Roy H. Williams