Wizard of Ads Monday Morning Memo

“The rest of my life has passed quite suddenly. Around ten or twelve I fell into the inevitable logarithms of time. It seems to go faster and faster. I wonder now why we have to have Christmas so often.” – Kary MullisOur friend Kary Mullis died on Aug. 7, 2019, at the age of 74.His first trip to Wizard Academy with Nancy was more than 15 years ago. They were in the same class as (L to R) Chris Lowry of Savannah and Mike Greene of Asheville and Jane Fraser of Halifax (in teal, below Chris and Mike) along with 20 other delightful people.Kary’s colleagues in science called him “an untamed genius.” His discovery of polymerase chain reaction in 1983 opened the door for us to study DNA and won him the 1993 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.I agree with Kary’s observation concerning the inevitable logarithms of time, don’t you?Wasn’t it just a few months ago that you and I walked across an open field and spoke of what we would build together? That campus is nearly finished now.Do you remember when 106 of the cognoscenti of Wizard Academy worked together on a book called Accidental Magic? I pulled my copy off the shelf just now and marveled at it, as I have done at least once a year for the past 18 years. I do the same thing with your book, People Stories: Inside the Outside. Your talent continues to amaze me.Do you remember when Ray Bard arrived with those 200 hardbacks of Accidental Magic just as your book-release party began in 2001? You had already landed in Austin and were on your way to the Academy while Ray was still sitting anxiously at the airport, waiting for the first printing of your book to arrive.This summer, Avital Rotbart worked nonstop for several weeks on our long-promised book, Secrets of the Wizard Academy Campus. We hope to have those available on May 2, but as we have learned, printers often have schedules of their own.Likewise, we expect to be able to unveil The Ad Writer’s Masters Class. Working at the speed of light, a person could – in theory – complete that class in a year, but in reality, it will take most people two years.You will instantly be able to recognize an Ad Master when you meet one. I’ll tell you how on May 2 when we gather for an unforgettable campus tour and celebration. It will be epic. We’ll feast like kings.When a person reminisces as I have done in today’s Monday Morning Memo, we usually assume they will soon be departing and are singing us a soft goodbye. Let me assure you this is not the case.We’re simply hosting a catered half-time show.Let us know if you plan to come.Roy H. Williams

Each of us creates our own reality from our interpretations of the things we observe. A systematic pattern of interpretations is called a cognitive bias.This is how a cognitive bias works: If you believe that elves cause rain, then every occurrence of rain is proof of elves.Cognitive biases can be miniscule or massive. Wikipedia has 192 of the most common of them organized alphabetically in their List of Cognitive Biases. Here are a few of my favorites:Third-Person Effect – Belief that mass communicated media messages have a greater effect on others than on themselves.Cheerleader Effect – The tendency for people to appear more attractive in a group than in isolation.Halo Effect – The tendency for a person’s positive or negative traits to “spill over” from one personality area to another in our perceptions of them. This is similar to the Physical Attractiveness Stereotype, in which we assume that people who are physically attractive also possess other socially desirable qualities.And then, of course, there are some tragic cognitive biases, such as:Compassion Fade ­– The predisposition to behave more compassionately towards a small number of identifiable victims than to a large number of anonymous ones.Naïve Realism – The belief that we see reality as it really is – objectively and without bias; that the facts are plain for all to see; that rational people will agree with us; and that those who don’t are either uninformed, lazy, irrational, or biased.But there is one pair of cognitive biases that isn’t on Wikipedia’s list, and these biases run so deep in us that they form our beliefs about the nature of reality and how the universe works.This pair of cognitive biases would more accurately be called a duality, since the closer you move toward one of them, the further you move away from the other.Let’s call them“Cause-and-Effect”“You Can’t Know for Certain Until You Get There.”“Cause-and-Effect” assumes that we live in an organized universe which can be predicted with certainty if only we have enough data. “Cause-and-Effect” is the world of Newtonian Physics and cooking with a recipe. “Plan your work and work your plan.”The opposing belief is that we can calculate probabilities, but “You Can’t Know for Certain Until You Get There.” This is the world of improvisation, Plan B, and the ability to cook something wonderful from whatever you happen to find in the pantry. “Work with what you’ve got.”Physicists have been trying to reconcile these belief systems since 1927 when General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics were discovered to be mutually exclusive, although both can be proven unconditionally.Einstein, the champion of “Cause and Effect” said to Niels Bohr, “I, at any rate, am convinced that God does not throw dice.”To which Niels Bohr, the champion of “You Can’t Know for Certain Until You Get There,” replied, “Quit telling God what to do with his dice.”Physicist Stephen Hawking would later add, “Not only does God play dice, but he sometimes throws them where they cannot be seen.”Your internal, unconscious belief system dictates whether you willA: create a recipe, a step-by-step plan, and then seek to acquire the elements to actualize that plan, orB: acquire whatever is available to you and then figure out how to organize it for maximum effect.Both systems have proven to be profoundly effective.Never try to convince a practitioner of the opposite system that their way of thinking is stupid, foolish, or self-limiting.They probably have a long list of accomplishments that will prove you wrong.Roy H. Williams

Karl Marx famously said, “Religion is the opiate of the masses.”No, let’s be more accurate. What he actually said was, “Die religion ist das opium des volkes.”Before I continue, let me say that my belief in God is a choice not based on argument or evidence. I freely admit that I choose to believe.Those, like Karl, who choose not to believe, often say that my beliefin an immortal souland a life after this oneand in a Creator who gives us both of these,is nothing less than escapism.Escapism is an interesting subject.Lovers of nature take long hikes to escape the artificiality of the indoors.Lovers of travel take trips to escape the predictability of their surroundings.Lovers of sport watch games to escape the monotony of daily life.Lovers of literature read books to escape the chair in which they’re sitting.Lovers of nicotine and alcohol smoke and drink to escape their current mood.Lovers of science gather data to escape the idea of a world that is beyond understanding.In his book, On Stories: And Other Essays on Literature, C.S. Lewis writes about moaning to his friend, J.R.R. Tolkien, about those condescending pragmatists who dismiss fiction with a sniff and a wave of the hand:“I never fully understood it till my friend Professor Tolkien asked me the very simple question, ‘What class of men would you expect to be most preoccupied with, and hostile to, the idea of escape?’ and gave the obvious answer: jailers.”I vote for escape.Escape what you dislike by doing what you like.In the words of Charles Baudelaire,“And if sometimes you wake up, on palace steps, on the green grass of a ditch, in your room’s gloomy solitude, your intoxication already waning or gone, ask the wind, the waves, the stars, the birds, the clocks, ask everything that flees, everything that moans, everything that moves, everything that sings, everything that speaks, ask what time it is. And the wind, the waves, the stars, the birds, clocks, will answer, It is time to get high! So as not to be martyred slaves of Time, get high; get high constantly! On wine, on poetry, or on virtue, as you wish.”If you love nature, get high on nature. If you love travel, sports, literature or science, get high on those. And if you love God, get high on him.I will end with a quote from Oscar Wilde: “Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live; it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.”Democrats and Republicans, are you listening?Roy H. Williams

(A.) “It was hot outside.”(B.) “The angry sun glared down at me.”Which of those sentences do you feel was more interesting?Personification is a technique used by writers and speakers to excite the imaginations of their readers and listeners. Personification gives human attributes to non-human things.Twenty-five years ago I wrote, “As Edmund Hillary surveyed the horizon from the peak of Mount Everest, he monitored the time on a wristwatch that had been specifically designed to withstand the fury of the world’s most angry mountain….”Later in that same ad, the jeweler says, “You’ll find your Rolex waiting patiently for you to come and pick it up… at Justice Jewelers.”Here are some other examples of personification:“The shattered water made a misty din.Great waves looked over others coming inand thought of doing something to the shorethat water never did to land before.”– Robert Frost, opening lines of Once By the Pacific “Have you got a brook in your little heartWhere bashful flowers blow,And blushing birds go down to drink,And shadows tremble so?”– Emily Dickinson, Have You Got A Brook In Your Little Heart?You may have noticed that both of those examples were by famous poets. This was neither an accident nor a coincidence. I have long believed that good poets are the best teachers of powerful ad writing. A poet can change what we think and feel, and do so in a brief, tight economy of words.Did I hear you say “songwriter”? What is a songwriter but a poet who also writes music?I consider personification to be part of a larger category called Magical Thinking, a type of writing characterized by elements of the fantastic – woven with a deadpan sense of presentation – into an otherwise true story.Magical thinking is best evidenced in a writing style known as Magical Realism, and it is best exemplified by Gabriel Garcia Marquez:“As soon as José Arcadio closed the bedroom door the sound of a pistol shot echoed through the house. A trickle of blood came out under the door, crossed the living room, went out into the street, continued on in a straight line across the uneven terraces, went down steps and climbed over curbs, passed along the Street of the Turks, turned a corner to the right and another to the left, made a right angle at the Buendía house, went in under the closed door, crossed through the parlor, hugging the walls so as not to stain the rugs, went on to the other living room, made a wide curve to avoid the dining-room table, went along the porch with the begonias, and passed without being seen under Amaranta’s chair as she gave an arithmetic lesson to Aureliano José, and went through the pantry and came out in the kitchen, where Úrsula was getting ready to crack thirty-six eggs to make bread.”“’Holy Mother of God!’ Úrsula shouted.”– Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude, ch. 7But not everyone has the gene that allows for magical thinking.Consider this famous song by England Dan and John Ford Coley. Do you remember these lines?“I’m not talking ’bout movin’ inand I don’t want to change your lifebut there’s a warm wind blowin’ the stars aroundAnd I’d really love to see you tonight.”People who lack the magical thinking gene hear:“…but there’s a warm wind blowing, the stars are out,
and I’d really love to see you tonight.”The value of magical thinking is that it stimulates the imagination and puts listeners in a frame of mind to consider new and different things. Magical thinking does not appeal to the linear, sequential, deductive-reasoning left hemispheres of our brains. It appeals to our right hemisphere, which does not separate fantasy from reality; that’s the left brain’s job. The realm of the right brain is a land of infinite possibilities, where anything and everything can happen.Film franchises such as The Hunger Games, Star Wars, Star Trek, Die Hard, Twilight, Indiana Jones, James Bond, Jason Bourne, John Wick, The Matrix, Jurassic Park, Mission: Impossible, Pirates of the Caribbean, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Lord of the Rings exist entirely in the realm of magical thinking.Marvel Studios built an empire on it, as did Disney and Pixar.Magical thinking is not to be confused with mere exaggeration. Liars and conmen exaggerate. But persuasive storytellers enchant us with magical thinking, stating the obviously impossible as though it is perfectly reasonable.The next time you need to persuade someone, might it be useful to put them in a frame of mind to consider new and different things? Do you think it might be helpful to entice them into the realm of infinite possibilities, where anything and everything is possible?If so, I have only two words for you to consider:“Wizard Academy.”Roy H. Williams

I grew up believing that everyone had equal opportunity, and what we made of that opportunity was up to us. I believed I was the product of my choices, and you were the product of yours. People struggled only because they made bad choices.I continue to believe in the vital importance of individual choice.But we are not offered the same choices.These days, when I look at my own modest accomplishments, I see them as byproducts of my natural skillset, my interests, my circumstances, my opportunities, and my friendships. I don’t think of myself as “a winner” or “a loser.” I think of myself as a writer.I no longer see life as a game played against others. Have you ever known a person who saw everyone as either “a winner” or “a loser?” I have walked with such people and heard their secret song:“Get all you can.Can all you get.Sit on the can.Poison the rest.”I blame Charles Darwin. Wasn’t it he who told us we are animals? If you believe in this survival-of-the-fittest, “predator and prey” concept of humanity, then Bernie Madoff and Jeffrey Epstein did nothing wrong. Winners are predators. Losers are prey. The weak are food for the strong.Let me make this clear: a healthy human mind is not the mind of a predator, or of prey. The sociopath and the psychopath have the mind of a predator. And the person with “a victim mentality” has the mind of prey.I believe you and I have a higher purpose.Most of us go through a Survival phase where we’re just trying to make ends meet. We have to keep gas in the car, food in the pantry, a roof over our heads, and “Oh god, is that insurance premium due again?”Ever been there?If we are lucky, we later move into an Acquisition phase in which we acquire more money, a nicer home, a better car, and take actual vacations. This Acquisition phase is often ornamented with accomplishments and recognition.If you create ad campaigns, you must understand the difference between the motives of customers in the Survival phase and their motives in the Acquisition phase.The most emotionally healthy among us move into a Distribution phase which is marked by a sort of reverse bucket list. We no longer focus on what we can acquire. Our attention is turned toward what to do with what we’ve got.Emotionally healthy people want to make the world a happier place.It has been my observation that sociopaths, psychopaths and narcissists never move beyond the Acquisition phase. Every breath is a hungry gasp for more wealth, power, and fame in the secret hope they might establish a dynasty. People who never move beyond the Acquisition phase of life tend to become increasingly predatory. Every unpleasant task is “someone else’s job.”“You can judge a man’s ethics by the condition in which he leaves a public restroom.”– Fred EisenbergNoblesse oblige is the inferred responsibility of privileged people to act with generosity and nobility toward those less privileged. Bill Gates and Warren Buffet have a strong sense of it. Most billionaires do not.In a future, perfect world, those whose natural skillsets, interests, circumstances, opportunities, and friendships elevate them to wealth and power will focus their minds on the creation of jobs for those among us who simply need someone to believe in them.Sadly, we don’t live in a perfect world. In our world, the first obligation is to the shareholders. “Maximize profits.” If there is a second obligation, it is not immediately clear to me.I have noticed that men often tell the truth when they are at the end of their days.The Biblical book of Ecclesiastes is the memoir of Solomon as he approached the end of his life.John Huey sat at the dying bed of Sam Walton. The remarkable book that emerged from those 2 weeks was Sam Walton: Made in America.Lee Iacocca wrote Where Have All the Leaders Gone?John Steinbeck wrote Travels with Charley.And James Michener wrote This Noble Land.Few of us receive a warning that the end is drawing near. But if you do, what advice will you leave for the next generation that will occupy this planet?Roy H. Williams

The Eye of the Storm in the tower at Wizard Academy, under construction in 2009.We are feeling unsettled again.And when I say we, I don’t mean me, I mean all of us.Unsettled feelings are ominous.We are acting as though we have heard the four notes of the Dies irae, that ominous musical phrase* that has signaled impending tragedy for the past 800 years. Being thus unsettled, we are making big decisions with too little information and those decisions will have consequences.Unsettled lions like you and I are dangerous.I’ll not speculate on the specific causes for our feelings of unsettlement, for I suspect we have many different reasons.We were first unsettled on 9/11 when we saw the unhappenable happen.We became unsettled again in 2008 when we were betrayed by Enron and Worldcom and Bernie Madoff and subprime mortgages.I agree with what Leonard Pitts wrote in 2006.“We often talk about Hurricane Katrina and 9/11 in terms of failures: failures of intelligence, failures of planning, failures of communication. But these catastrophes were first and foremost failures of imagination. Did we know that a major hurricane could destroy New Orleans? Yes: it was even part of the tour guides’ spiel. Did we know terrorists wanted to bring down the World Trade Center? Yes: they made a credible attempt in 1993. And what did we do with what we knew? Nothing. Some disasters, I think, are so big and so awful they are literally beyond our power to conceive. So, we dismiss them out of hand, retreat to the ‘knowledge’ that a thing can’t happen because, well, it just can’t.”– Leonard Pitts, July 6, 2006Leonard Pitts was obviously feeling unsettled when he wrote that.We feel unsettled when our beliefs are crushed.“Belief is about collecting ideas and investing in them. Faith is about having your ideas obliterated and having nothing to hang onto and trusting that it’s going to be all right anyway.”– Barbara HallI appreciate Barbara Hall’s perspective.Tragedy is the arrival of the unexpected bad.Serendipity is the arrival of the unexpected good.I say we should begin looking for the unexpected good.What do you say?To prepare for the unexpected bad is to be cautious, and there is nothing wrong with that. But to anticipate the unexpected good is to be hopeful. And that’s okay, too, isn’t it?“If you want to believe in something, then believe in it. Just because something isn’t true, that’s no reason you can’t believe in it… Sometimes the things that may or may not be true are the things a [person] needs to believe in the most.”– Hub McCann, Secondhand LionsI write these words to you because I’m seeing solid people make dicey decisions because they are feeling unsettled. They are changing what they can because they are feeling frustrated by what they cannot change.I believe in miracles, but most miracles happen slowly. “There’s magic in the world. There is. People will tell you there isn’t—they just want you to get back to work and be quiet and not ask questions. These are people who don’t know where to look, or who were not blessed with eyes that could see magic. Magical eyes. If you have them, develop them.”– Tennessee WilliamsDo you still believe in miracles? Do you have eyes that can see sparkling magic in the air all around you?Serendipity is the arrival of the unexpected good.I think I hear it twinkling just ahead.Roy H. Williams

We eat food every day and we drive cars every day. But food purchases happen on a short purchase cycle and car purchases happen on a longer one.How often does the average citizen purchase the product or service you sell?The purchase cycle of your product determines how quickly your ads will start working.Food and entertainment have short purchase cycles. This is why ads selling food and entertainment can generate big results quickly, even when the advertiser is new and unknown.But to make things happen on a long purchase cycle, you must become the company customers think of immediately and feel the best about.Air conditioning systems and engagement rings have long purchase cycles.I’ve learned not to discuss purchase cycles in public forums because at least one marketer will immediately get red-faced and say, “But people buy air conditioning systems and engagement rings every day. My advertising is aimed at the people who are in the market for those products right now.”This is their logic: “When a person is ready to buy a product, they’re going to go online and do some research. This is the zero moment of truth. Show up BIG in that moment and you will dominate your product category.”I agree that people are going to go online. Google is the new phone book and social media allows us to hear from customers who have already purchased the product. But it is foolish to believe that customers enter this “zero moment of truth” without prejudices, preferences, and predispositions.330 million Americans will purchase 2 million engagement rings this year. This means that 1 American in 165 will buy an engagement ring.But a year has 365 days.This means that just 1 American in 60,225 will purchase an engagement ring today.In a long purchase cycle, you must win the hearts of tomorrow’s customers with a memorable message – relentlessly repeated – and then wait for them to need what you sell.Use the seductive repetition of extremely cheap advertising to reach tomorrow’s customers along with all their influencers. Purchased wisely, mass media can reach the same individual 3 times each week, 52 weeks a year, for about 40 cents.156 repetitions of a 60-second ad will be heard by that individual this year.Did you hear the part about the 40 cents?$40,000 a year gives you top-of-mind awareness with about 100,000 people.Calculate the percentage of the public you can afford to reach, never forgetting that three-times-a-week repetition is essential if you want to become a household word. Don’t reach 100% of your city and convince them 10% of the way. Reach 10% of your city and convince them 100% of the way.Advertise the why. Wait for the when.The longer you do this, the better it works.You’ll gain momentum, year after year.Your online conversion rates will skyrocket.Your online costs of marketing will plummet.You’ll deepen your relationship with customers, year after year.They will develop a strong predisposition toward you.They will feel like they know you.They will consider you an ally and a friend.Marketers who subscribe to Google’s theory of the “zero moment of truth” are sprinters. They believe in waiting until the customer is actively, consciously, currently in the market for the product. Sprinters make decisions on a short time horizon. I think of them as “twitchy little bastards.”If your category has a long purchase cycle, I suggest that you embrace the inevitable time horizon.Become a long-distance runner.Fly the flag of Team Tortoise.Roy H. Williams

“You train them, remind them, and incentivize them, but they still don’t do what you trained them to do.” This is what business owners say to each other about employees.Can you relate to it?Frances Frei is a famous professor at Harvard Business School who advises senior executives who are embarking on large-scale change initiatives in the hopes of achieving organizational transformation. Professor Frei tells these executives, “You cannot change a person’s behavior until you first change their beliefs.”Frances called me a few years ago when she was about to publish her book, “Uncommon Service: How to Win by Putting Customers at the Core of Your Business.”Beliefs drive behavior.I was first exposed to this idea 18 years ago when Paul Schumann attended Wizard Academy. Paul spent 30 years at IBM as a futurist. Like Professor Frei, his specialty was “forecasting potential future scenarios, and creating innovative strategies for competitive advantage.”When I asked Paul to share a few insights from his rich experience, he warned us of the dangers of “corporate cultural inertia.” Unfamiliar with that term, I asked Paul to give us an example. His answer startled me. He said, “You can win the full support of everyone at the C-level – CEO, COO, CFO, CMO, all of them – and then be brought to your knees by middle managers who simply choose not to implement what they have been told to do. In a big company, culture eats strategy for breakfast.”“Can you introduce me to Dewey Jenkins? I’d love to meet him.”This is a question I’m asked at least once a week, usually by the owner of another big company.“I’m sorry, but no. I have, however, convinced Jonathan Bancroft to write a book that will contain the answers to every question you’d like to ask Dewey. I’ll give you a heads-up when that book is about to be published.”The first printing of that book, “Mr. Jenkins Told Me…” was 30,000 copies. Almost 28,000 of those have already been sold and the book has only just been released.The average business book sells just 5,000 copies in the life of the book. “Mr. Jenkins Told Me…” is not the average business book.Jonathan Bancroft went to work for Mr. Jenkins 21 years ago as a technician’s helper/trainee. A few years ago, he became president of the company.I can’t arrange for you to speak with Dewey Jenkins, but you’re only a few clicks away from the answers to every question you’d like to ask him.You’re wearing the ruby red slippers, Dorothy, and you’ve been told how to finally achieve the one thing you’ve been trying to do since the movie began.Are you going to begin clicking? Or do you want to go back to fighting those flying monkeys?Roy H. Williams

For more insightful comics visit xkcd.comMy strange education was purchased with tens of millions of dollars of other people’s money.This is how it happened. When I turned 20, I spent the next 2 years asking business owners 3 questions:“Have you ever done any advertising that you felt really worked? Tell me about it.”“Have you ever been excited about an advertising plan that you later felt was a waste of money? Tell me about it.”“Are you still doing the thing that you felt really worked? Why not?”I crafted those questions because the things I was being taught about advertising made no sense to me.When a 20-year-old says he is “studying advertising” and asks if you will share your observations and experiences with him, most people are happy to do it. Within two years, the advertising mistakes everyone was making became blazingly obvious.Most people had followed the same logical path to arrive at the same wrong answer.We study successful businesses because we believe we can become successful by doing what they did. We ignore failures in the foolish belief that they have nothing to teach us.When failures become invisible, the seductive mistakes that caused those failures become invisible, too. This is why everyone tends to make the same mistakes in advertising.Important lessons are learned from failure, not from success.As a young man, I harvested the lessons of hundreds of business owners whose collective experience totaled dozens of centuries and tens of millions of dollars.Does it surprise you that the mistakes made by those business owners are just as common today?When we focus our attention on those who succeed – and ignore the lessons of those who failed – we tumble headlong into “survivorship bias,” a dangerous but invisible fallacy of logic.Study only those who survive the selection process.Ignore those who did not survive.Congratulations. You just tumbled into survivorship bias.When the Center for Naval Analyses evaluated the bullet holes in aircraft returning from missions during WWII, armor was recommended for the areas that showed the most damage. An engineer, Abraham Wald, popularized the term “survivorship bias” when he pointed out, “These are the planes that were able to return to base. The areas we need to reinforce are the areas that are undamaged on these planes, because those are the areas where damage makes it impossible to return.”Most of us unconsciously do what everyone else is doing. But what if everyone else is wrong?The reason history repeats itself is because we paid no attention the first time.Traditional wisdom is usually more tradition than wisdom.When you insist on being normal, you condemn yourself to being average.Break away from the pack. Conduct an experiment. No matter how it turns out, you will have learned something you didn’t know before.Or you could save yourself all that and just come to Wizard Academy. We’ll work hard all day and then sit together 900 feet above the city on the David McInnis Stardeck and howl at the moon.If that last sentence frightened you, you probably wouldn’t like it here. But if you instinctively knew I was kidding and it made you laugh a little, what are you waiting for?Aroo,Roy H. Williams

I’ve had a special relationship with California since 1992. The basis of our relationship is this: I keep not deserving parking tickets and California keeps giving them to me anyway.One of my goals during last week’s excursion with my grandson was to return from California –­ for the first time ever – without a parking ticket.I almost made it home.My transgression was that I drove through an empty space in the parking lot at Seal Beach so that I could be poised “nose out” in the space beyond. In Texas, Pennie and I call this “going for the poise.”Yeah, that’s illegal in California.As I was sitting in the rental car reading my ticket, a man knocked on my window and shouted, “Turn your car around! Turn your car around! If you don’t, they’ll give you a $64 ticket!” And then he held up his ticket to prove it. I smiled and showed him mine, thinking we’d have a laugh together. But no, this was a man on a mission. He was off like a rocket to warn the next person.I watched him for the next few minutes. Every time a car pulled though a space to go for the poise, he would run up to that car, tap on the window, and warn the driver of his or her impending doom. God bless that guy. He may still be there, even now.The idea that something regarded as common sense in one state is illegal in another reminds me that we Americans are a haphazard people. We name our months after Roman gods. We count our years from the birth of Jesus. We print ‘In God We Trust’ on all our money. But when someone publicly mentions God, we think that person to be a naively superstitious rube.Every time I mention him, I get a look that makes me feel the listener wants to pat me on my head like I’m four years old.I think the current, politically correct name for God is “the universe,” as in, “the universe is telling me to take this job,” or, “the universe is telling me to quit eating red meat.”One young man in California mentioned God to me just before we drove to the airport, and it turned out to be one of the brightest moments of a delightful trip. We had checked out of our hotel and presented the claim check for our car to the valet stand attendant who handed it to a slender young man who took off running toward the parking garage.Throughout my life, I’ve harbored the secret belief that you can brighten the day of waiters, waitresses, hotel maids, and parking valets by giving them unexpectedly generous tips. The only evidence I’ve had that my secret belief might be correct are the bright faces and happy smiles of waiters and waitresses when they see Pennie and me walk through their door.Yes, I am encouraging you to continue being generous to the people who bring you food, clean your room, and park your car.Anyway, when the slender young valet arrived with our car, he handed me the keys and I handed him a twenty. He looked down at it, then back up at me. Then down at it again, then back up to me. “God bless you sir! I’ve never gotten one of these! They told me there was a guy here that was tippin’ twenties, and I said, ‘Please, God, let me bring that guy’s car to him!’ And here you are! Thank you, sir. Thank you.”No one has ever said anything like that to me before, but I like to believe that I’ve brightened the days of thousands of strangers by letting them know they are recognized and appreciated.Many years ago, an old gentleman named Percy Ross was a client of mine. He’s gone now, and I miss him dearly. His newspaper column, “Thanks a Million,” appeared in more than 800 newspapers across America and I helped him syndicate his daily radio show across more than 400 radio stations.One day after lunch, Percy left our waitress a startling amount of money, then winked at me and said, “He who gives while he lives, knows where it goes.”He entrusted that bit of wisdom to me 34 years ago.And now I’m entrusting it to you.Roy H. Williams