Wizard of Ads Monday Morning Memo

(1.) Adrenaline is a neurotransmitter that increases blood flow to the muscles during times of excitement and creates involuntary recall of events.When there is adrenaline in the blood, you are more likely to remember the moment. This is why advertisers try to make their ads sound exciting.(2.) Oxytocin is a neurotransmitter that produces feelings of connectedness and bonding.This is how powerful brands are built.More than 240 years after the fact, we continue to admire John Adams and his amazing wife, Abigail, because they left behind words of bonding, both to one another and to the ideals they shared. John said, “I believe there is among our people a fund of wisdom, integrity, and humanity which will preserve their happiness.” John Adams wanted the best for us, and he believed the best about us.We likewise admire Thomas Jefferson because he, too, gave us words of bonding that showed us his heart. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, and were given by their Creator the right to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Thomas Jefferson wanted the best for us, and he believed the best about us.These people showed us what they valued.They showed us what they believed.We call them Patriots and Founding Fathers.They gave us oxytocin.But we have no deep admiration for Thomas Pinckney, although he served with distinction during the Revolutionary War, then became Governor of South Carolina where he presided over the state convention that ratified the United States Constitution. In 1792, George Washington appointed Thomas Pinckney ambassador to Britain and envoy extraordinary to Spain and in the Presidential Election of 1796, Pinckney gathered almost as many votes as John Adams and Thomas Jefferson! But Pinckney was a man of action – adrenaline – rather than bonding. Pinckney gave us no oxytocin.Bonding – that feeling of connectedness – is a product of oxytocin.And bonding produces loyalty.Bonding and loyalty… what words those are to a marketer!Are you sharing words of bonding in your ads?Are you encouraging your customer?Do they believe you want the best for them?Sadly, most ads are built on logic and adrenaline. “Act now! Save money! Don’t miss this event!” But the best marketing is built on stories that trigger the release of oxytocin.“The human mind is a story processor, not a logic processor. Everyone loves a good story; every culture bathes its children in stories.” – Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind, p. 287When a person proposes marriage – the ultimate expression of bonding and loyalty – they choose not only their words, but also the time and place of expression.What is the Emotional Environment that will precede your advertising? What will the customer be feeling in that moment before they encounter your ad? What chemicals will be flowing in their blood?Emotional Environment is dictated by where you spend your ad budget.Adrenaline in the blood (excitement) will give your message a higher likelihood of recall.Oxytocin in the blood (bonding) will give your customer a feeling of connection to your brand.Sporting events provide adrenaline excitement mixed with the oxytocin of bonding (with a team.)Romantic stories, romantic TV shows and movies, and romantic music provide adrenaline excitement mixed with the oxytocin of bonding (with a lover.)Adrenaline without oxytocin is “fight or flight.” Politics make us fighting mad and fear makes us feel like running away. Mix your ads with politics or fear and you will be remembered, but never loved.Words of bonding are the essence of Community Content.Words of bonding are the keys to not having to discount.Words of bonding are expressed by characters in stories.Bonding and loyalty are triggered by the stories you share in your ads, videos, podcasts, and blog posts.Are the characters in your ads interesting and credible?Does the public love and trust them?I leave you now to do with this information as you will. A© 2017, Roy H. Williams

Real experts in online marketing rarely use the phrase “going viral,” because it has no agreed-upon definition. Instead, they talk about “Discovery Content” and “Community Content.”To understand Discovery Content, just look at anything posted by BuzzFeed or any of the other organizations whose principal income is generated by the companies who sponsor their clickbait.1But not all Discovery Content is shallow and vacuous.The goal of Discovery Content is to generate a click. (The headline is the key.) If a customer finds something satisfying on the other side of that click, they’re happy-happy-happy. And if your only goal was to get more people to “discover” your website, then you’re happy, too.A visitor who “discovers” your website – but never returns – has no value beyond stroking your ego, unless1. their visit brought you ad revenue, or2. they purchased something on which you made a profit, or3. they told other people about you.Used correctly however, Discovery Content brings newcomers to your website where they will “discover” Community Content that truly speaks to them.It is Community Content that will bring them back again.We’re talking about Targeting Through Copy Writing rather than Targeting Through Media Selection.Today’s Monday Morning Memo is an example of Discovery Content. That headline: The Truth About Going Viral, will doubtless generate a lot more first-time visitors than usual. The Community Content these visitors will find includes the Archives of the Monday Morning Memo, the Subscribe button, the Rabbit Hole of Indy Beagle, and all the free Downloads accessible through the nav panel.Discovery Content attracts first-time visitors.It brings people to your website.Community Content builds a tribe.It makes them feel like they belong.But these ideas aren’t new.In the wild and woolly world of mass media, the Loss Leader was the original Discovery Content.The advertiser offering a Loss Leader hoped that by selling something at a loss they would explode store traffic and this horde of new visitors would then “discover” the wonder of their store and buy other items at full price.Today’s online marketers call the Loss Leader a “tripwire.” 2But I prefer to target through copy writing, which is why I use full-price Feature Items to attract new members of a tribe instead of cut-rate Loss Leaders that attract grave robbers, vampires, coupon clippers, discount addicts, freebie Freddies, and every other variety of Twitchy Little Bastard.A Case History of Targeting Through Copy Writing:Shreve and Company has been part of the ritzy Union Square district of San Francisco since the California Gold Rush more than 165 years ago. Shreve routinely sells jewelry items that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Due to the rich history of this store and the impact of all the world’s-finest brands they carry, they could easily be perceived as stodgy, snooty and overpriced. But they aren’t.In the radio campaign for Shreve, 5th generation Shreve jeweler Lawrence “Ren” Schiffman, a young and definitely NOT-stodgy, NOT-snooty 20-something has become the official spokesperson for the family store. Ren’s dad is a jeweler, his grandad was a jeweler, his great grandad was a jeweler, and his great-great grandad was a jeweler. Credibility and history wrapped in youth and style.Here’s the Example:REN:   Polo is “the sport of kings.”ROY: And in the go-go 80’s, the Paiget Polo was the watch of kings.REN:  Having a Piaget Polo was even cooler than having a phone in your car.ROY:  [reflectingly] I remember those days.REN:  The new Polo “S” is satin-finished stainless steel.ROY:  [surprised] And the shape of that dial is fascinating!REN: What do you think about the pinstripes?ROY:  I LOVE the pinstripes.REN: This ultra-modern Polo “S” is going to become a classic just like its predecessor.ROY:  Wait a minute. I didn’t know Piaget made a luxury watch in stainless steel.REN: This is the first one in 60 years.ROY:  It’s definitely distinctive.REN:  Vintage and Futuristic at the same time.ROY: Vintage and Futuristic… just like Shreve and Company… luxury timepieces,  fine designers, and flawless diamonds.REN:  Come and see the new Paiget Polo “S” at 150 Post Street off Union Square, or see it onour blog at Shreve.comROY: He’s Ren Schiffman.REN: And I’m looking forward to shaking your hand.This ad gives you a specific, entry-priced item to consider, but it offers no discount or bribe that might attract a Twitchy Little Bastard looking for something other than what Shreve sells.The benefit of a Feature Item isn’t measured only through the immediate traffic it brings, but through the expanded perception of the brand. Listeners to the Ren Schiffman campaign are making new decisions about Shreve based on the new information Ren provides and the style in which he provides it. Win/Win/Win.Targeting Through Copy Writing is much more difficult, effective, sophisticated and refined than Targeting Through Media Selection.You’ll find a treasure trove of additional details regarding this case history on page 1 of the rabbit hole. A second radio ad – riskier and funnier – that demonstrates “targeting through copy writing” is waiting for you on page 2. Just click the image of Indy Beagle at the top of this page and you’re in.Aroo.Roy H. Williams

Whittington said it.Eisenberg endorsed it.The waitress distracted us with a question of her own.I somehow knew to capture that moment with a photo.Our conversation never made it back to Daniel’s idea that every life has a theme song, but later that day I carried his wandering thought to the Worthless Bastards at the Toad & Ostrich Pub.“What is the theme song of your life?” is a question hard to answer, but the Bastards came through as they always do.1And now we turn to you.For the purpose of this exercise I’m going to ask you to choose between just two categories:Your public theme song. This is a song that will make sense to anyone who really knows you. The music, the lyrics… they fit you. Or at least they fit some aspect of the public you.Your private theme song. This is a song that has stayed with you year after year, although you’ve never fully understood why. But there it is, stuck in your unconscious mind. It makes no sense that you feel connected to it, but you do.Indiana Beagle has asked that you send him either your public theme song or your private one, along with a couple of sentences of explanation. These might show up in the rabbit hole, or in a video, or be used in some other way. I can’t really say for sure.Indy never explains his motives to me.I’m not sure he understands them himself.Roy H. Williams

Everyone agrees that Henry Leverseege would have become much more famous had he lived beyond 29. But even though he died young, his paintings hang in museums across England. There is only one of them in private hands.Mine. AHenry was born in 1803, the year that Thomas Jefferson famously negotiated the Louisiana Purchase with Napoleon Bonaparte. I say “famously” because Jefferson was fully aware that an American President had no authority to acquire territory in this way.Ohio became the 17th state during those negotiations.Want to hear something funny? Jefferson’s original goal was only to purchase the port city of New Orleans. But Bonaparte needed cash and Jefferson wasn’t an idiot, so as soon as the ink was dry he sent Lewis and Clark on their famous journey across our virgin continent. (I say “our” continent because the ownership of land was a foreign concept to Native Americans, so we just conveniently ignored any claim they might have to the property. Later, when they got fussy, we killed them.)Forty-six years after the Louisiana Purchase, gold was discovered in California and westward expansion accelerated like a Southwest Airlines 737 after leaving the gate 8 minutes late.The last time I flew Southwest, our pilot pushed our plane down the runway so hard I could feel the corners of my mouth pulling back to my earlobes. The woman sitting next to me thought I was an actor getting ready to play The Joker in a Batman movie.As a young boy in a public-school classroom, I was taught that America was created by visionary “Founding Fathers” who saw the future and courageously paid the price for it. It’s a pretty story, but even a casual student of history can see that the early years of our young nation were as freckle-faced and awkward as a bucktoothed Romeo.(I hesitated writing that last sentence, but Indy insisted. Blame him.)Our nation is not the result of a grand plan. We are the product of a series of reactions to circumstances and a lot of stumbling and bumbling into happy accidents.I’m proud of us.Not the part about the Indians or the enslavement of Africans or the forced relocation of more than 60,000 American citizens of Japanese descent during WW II, but the rest of it. You know, the Charles Lindberg, Neil Armstrong part.I see us real and I love us anyway.I hope you do, too.Can we please quit fighting now?Roy H. Williams

I consider myself to be the luckiest person on earth. And I can tell you of several specific moments in my life that would convince you of it.Being lucky is a choice I made. Because the truth is that I could just as easily tell you of other moments in my life that would convince you that I am the unluckiest person on earth.Allan Gurganus says, “Stories only happen to people who can tell them.” And you, my friend, are a person who can tell them! You’ve been telling stories about yourself your whole life.And the person you’ve been telling them to is you.Have you been telling yourself stories about lucky breaks, moments of serendipity and happy adventures? Are you remembering all the delightful occasions when you were in exactly the right place at the right time to experience something wonderful? Or are you remembering only the hateful parents, the unfair bosses, the unspeakable abuses and the horrible injustices you’ve had to endure?The key to happiness is knowing what to leave out of the story you tell yourself about the forces that made you who you are.Like any published memoir, our own life stories should also come with a disclaimer: “This story that I tell about myself is only based on a true story. I am in large part a figment of my own yearning imagination.” And it’s a good thing, too. As we will see, a life story is an intensely useful fiction. 1Personally, I admire the Swedish tramp sitting in a ditch on Midsummer night. He was ragged and dirty and drunk, and he said to himself softly and in wonder, “I am rich and happy and perhaps a little beautiful.” 2That tramp looked past the “truth” of the moment to see a greater truth beyond.You can do the same if you like.In fact, you should.Oh! Are you one of those people who believes you should always be “honest” with yourself and remember things exactly as they really and truly happened? Well, I’ve got some bad news for you: we humans are incapable of that.According to the Journal of Neuroscience (Sept. 2012,) every time you recall the memory of an event, you make your memory of that event less accurate. Instead of remembering the “truth” of the event, you’re recalling the memory of the last time you remembered it, along with any mistakes that may have been introduced. Like a game of human telephone, those mistakes build on one another over time. 3Tom Robbins said the same thing  – but a little more colorfully – back in 1971: “Hardly a pure science, history is closer to animal husbandry than it is to mathematics in that it involves selective breeding. The principal difference between the husbandryman and the historian is that the former breeds sheep or cows or such and the latter breeds (assumed) facts. The husbandryman uses his skills to enrich the future, the historian uses his to enrich the past. Both are usually up to their ankles in bullshit.” 4Everyone tells a story about themselves inside their own head. Always. All the time. That story makes you what you are. We build ourselves out of that story.5We sometimes choose the most locked up, dark versions of the story, but what a good friend does is turn on the lights, open the window, and remind us that there are a whole lot of ways to tell the same story.6I’m trying to be your good friend today.Pennie and I have a good friend named Susan Ryan who said something about life on Dec. 14, 2008, that was so profound that I wrote it down. “We get to show up. We get to step into this story.”Every day is a new opportunity to change your life. You have the power to say, “This is not how my story ends.” 7Abraham Lincoln said it cleanest and best. “Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” No one can prove that Lincoln said it, but I have a very clear memory that he did.Indy said to tell you he’s waiting for you in the rabbit hole.I’ll go with you.Roy H. Williams

Ivan and Alvina are in their early 20s.Ivan was born and raised in Bulgaria. Alvina, in Siberia.When Alvina sees Ivan playing keyboards in a café on the Black Sea, they become pen pals. And then they fall in love. And then they get married. They dream of moving to the west.Canada says it will accept them as immigrants if they will learn to speak French.Self-taught piano players in cafés don’t make enough money to pay for dreams, so Ivan and Alvina sleep in their car so they can pay a tutor to teach them French. They spend long hours every day for a year learning and practicing their nouvelle langue étrange. There is no money for anything else.Ivan and Alvina step onto Canadian soil with bright eyes, big smiles and 4 thousand dollars; exactly enough money to pay the first and last month’s rent to live in a landlord’s unfinished basement. There is no money left for food or transportation.But they have each other and they’re living their dream. This is the west! So Ivan and Alvina never quit smiling, never quit laughing, never quit feeling grateful.Ivan gets a job as a construction laborer for an older man who can’t always pay Ivan all he is owed. But he is an honest man, so he pays the balance of Ivan’s unpaid wages by giving him tools. After many months of working for this man, Ivan has the knowledge, the tools, and the man’s blessing to go into business for himself.Ivan and Alvina arrived in Canada exactly 11 years ago. Last year their business did more than 20 million dollars. It appears they will do 30 million next year. Neither of them is 40 years old.I share their story to encourage you, and to tease Ivan and Alvina a little. None of this delightful true story appears on the About Us page of their website. Not a word of it. Not even their names.Do you remember what I wrote to you in last week’s Monday Morning Memo?“Inspirational stories are never about accumulation. They’re about sacrifice. What have you sacrificed and why? Are you willing to tell that story?”Here are some final thoughts for you to ponder:Never quit smiling, never quit laughing, never quit feeling grateful.You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at every dog that barks.The only safe thing is to take a chance.Oh! I forgot to mention 2 tiny details in this wonderful story of poetic, home-made destiny.Ivan and Alvina finish unfinished basements.And they’ve never needed to speak a word of French since the day they arrived in Canada.Have a great week.Roy H. Williams

The door to immediate action is easily kicked open by the steel-toed boot of urgency.If you want people to take immediate action, you’re going to need a credible shortage.A shortage of product. “Only 11 remain!”A shortage of time. “Sale ends Saturday at 6PM!”A shortage of capacity. “Only 128 seats are available!”Some kind of shortage.But smart marketers don’t create a series of non-stop urgencies.Smart marketers create a bond with future customers.And you don’t create a bond by crying wolf.You create a bond by telling a story.Do you want to inspire your customer?Inspirational stories are never about accumulation.They’re about sacrifice.What have you sacrificed and why? Are you willing to tell that story?Scientific American published an essay on May 8, 2013, in which Jag Bhalla quotes Jonathan Haidt, author of The Righteous Mind, “The human mind is a story processor, not a logic processor. Everyone loves a good story; every culture bathes its children in stories.” The purpose of these stories is to engage and educate the emotions. Stories teach us character types, plots, and the social-rule dilemmas prevalent in our culture.Stories explain how the world works and help us understand who we are.“Research consistently shows that fiction does mold us. The more deeply we are cast under a story’s spell, the more potent its influence. In fact, fiction seems to be more effective at changing beliefs than nonfiction, which is designed to persuade through argument and evidence. Studies show that when we read nonfiction, we read with our shields up. We are critical and skeptical. But when we are absorbed in a story, we drop our intellectual guard…”“We are, as a species, addicted to story. Even when the body goes to sleep, the mind stays up all night, telling itself stories. But why are humans storytelling animals at all? Why are we, as a species, so hopelessly addicted to narratives about the fake struggles of pretend people? Anthropologists have long argued that stories have group-level benefits. Traditional tales, from hero epics to sacred myths, perform the essential work of defining group identity and reinforcing cultural values.”– Jonathan Gottschall, The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us HumanStories are what shape and define a tribe.Make no mistake, people who bond with a brand are people who have joined a tribe. And that’s a healthy thing. According to Professor Alison Gopnik, “other people are the most important part of our environment. In our ultra-social species, social acceptance matters as much as food.” *We include ourselves in dozens of tribes. Tribes of geography, school, sport, faith, music, nationality, art, hobby, history, family affiliation, hair color, age, gender, lifestyle, transportation, recreation, food, fashion, tattoos, facial hair and footwear. We buy what we buy to remind ourselves – and tell the world around us – who we are.Our purchases tell our story.Most ads are full of information. They don’t really tell a story.Story = character + predicament + attempted extrication.“Stories the world over are almost always about people with problems,” writes Jonathan Gottschall. They display “a deep pattern of heroes confronting trouble and struggling to overcome. Stories give us feelings we don’t have to pay full cost for.” Stories free us from the limits of our own direct experience and allow us to learn from the experiences of others.Online reviews are stories told by customers about their experiences.Testimonial ads are another type of story told by customers about their experiences. But we listen to these stories with a grain of suspicion as we seek to pierce the veiled motives of the storytellers.Propaganda is a story that represents itself to be the truth.We believe it only to the degree that we trust the storyteller.Entertainment is a story that doesn’t represent itself to be the truth.If a story doesn’t claim to be the truth, there is no reason to doubt it.This is why we are more willing to believe fiction than nonfiction.Entertainment is the currency that will purchase the time and attention of a too-busy public.Have you found your story?Are you telling it well?Are people entertained?How’s business?Roy H. Williams

1. Freeze-frame each moment when something rocks your world.2. When you cry or become frightened or get angry or laugh or are overwhelmed by a sense of wonder, reverse-engineer what just happened. Ask yourself, “Why am I feeling this way? How did they do this to me?” Was it something in the sequence of events? Was it in the shapes or colors, words or music, symbols or associations? Was it facial expressions, vocal intonations, or a combination of several of these at once?3. Experiment with what you learn. The techniques that worked on you will work for you, as well.Communication is usually auditory, graphic, or gestural.These are its primary elements:Auditory:1. Words, and the phonemes that compose them2. Music: pitch, key, contour, interval, tempo, rhythm, texture and harmony3. Sounds: jets landing, babies crying, dogs barking, crickets chirping, etc.Graphic:1. color, form, line, shape, space, texture, value, proximity and radiance2. image – what is being shown, and what associations does it trigger?3. metaphor – what does it mean?Gestural:1. facial expression2. symbolic gestures and movements3. dancingSimultaneous elements of communication can reinforce or contradict each other.Perception is deepened when elements reinforce one another and agree.Interest is elevated when an element contradicts and disagrees.An apple tree is ready for harvest, all its apples a husky shade of red except for one – just beyond your reach – that shimmers electric blue.You’ll wonder about that apple all day.Predictability is the silent assassin of surprise and delight.Defeat it by modifying expected patterns of communication.Enter new subjects from unusual angles of approach.Communicate details. Specifics are more credible than generalities. The more specifically you speak to a single person, the more powerfully you speak to everyone.We love to be in the presence of powerful communicators who take us places and make us feel things; actors and filmmakers, dancers and photographers, sculptors and illustrators, singers and architects, teachers and musicians, painters and writers.When brilliant communicators work their magic, we get lost in it.Would you like to become one?You already own the hardware.Have you ever used a zoom lens? Think of your brain as having one. As you zoom in, you exclude the context to focus on the tiniest details. But when you zoom out, you see those details fold in on themselves to reveal the ever-expanding context of “the big picture.” The idea that captivated your zoomed-in attention is now just a tiny cog in a complex machine.The key to keeping your reader/viewer/listener off-balance is to zoom in after zooming out, and zoom out after zooming in. Take them on a journey with you. Make them think they’re going to see one thing, then show them something different. Unexpected elements make stories and photographs and paintings and music and everything else more interesting.I agree with Leo Burnett: The great danger of advertising isn’t that we will mislead people, but that we will bore them to death.Please don’t.Take them someplace they never expected to go.Show them something they didn’t expect to witness.Give them an experience they didn’t see coming.Roy H. Williams

When you’re trying to transfer a thought or a feeling to someone else, the impact of your communication will be determined by the following equation:How big is the thought in your mind, or the feeling in your heart?How quickly can you transfer it?The Law of Impact (or force,) documented by Isaac Newton, applies to communication as much as it does to physics: impact is the product of mass (size and weight) times acceleration (speed.)How massive is your thought or feeling?How quickly can you transfer it?The works of illustrators like Norman Rockwell and painters like Andrew Wyeth are often criticized as being “too obvious.” But the visual communications these artists produced were among the 20th century’s most recognizable works of art.Rockwell and Wyeth became famous because they were able to communicate big ideas clearly and quickly. Today I’m going to help you do the same with words.Have you ever noticed how short quotes pack a greater punch than long ones?The fewer the words, the greater the impact.Shorter hits harder.Boring people take too long to say too little.Interesting people know what to leave out.The best way to get good at this is to fill your ears with it. As you read, so will you write. If you read the writings of long-winded people, you will learn to wrap a great many words around a small idea.But if every day you read big ideas condensed into few words, you will soon be able to speak and write with greater impact.“The best way to become a successful writer is to read good writing, remember it, and then forget where you remember it from.” – Gene Fowler (1890 – 1960)Ray Bard published my Wizard of Ads trilogy 19 years ago. We made the New York Times bestsellers list together. The second book in that series became the Wall Street Journal’s #1 business book in America.More than 50 percent of the books published by Bard Press have become New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestsellers. No other publisher has achieved even 10 percent.As a young man, Ray sold books from door to door and he’s been collecting quotes about selling for more than 40 years. His jury of more than 1,000 quote judges spent an entire year evaluating and voting on the best-of-the-best from Ray’s collection.Today, August 7, 2017, is the day these quotes are finally available. Maximum thought in minimum words.Fired-up! Selling.This small book is a gorgeous work of art.It looks like embossed leather but Ray swears no animals were harmed.Three silk placeholder ribbons.Full-color on every page.The distilled essence of a lifetime collection.Think of it as a textbookthat teaches youhow to saybig thingsquickly.Roy H. Williams

I always look forward to my lunches with Ray Bard because he teaches me valuable things. He doesn’t intend to teach me things; it just happens.Our short lunches last 3 hours. Our record is 6 ½.Ray is my publisher.During our most recent lunch, Ray said – and I’m inclined to agree with him – there are only three sources of wealth: Luck, Accident, and Desire.If you inherited the money, married the money, won the lottery, bought the right stock at the right time, or went to work for the right company and were given a pile of stock options, you were lucky. I don’t say that to make you feel small, but we shouldn’t pretend you can teach someone else how to do what you did. Picking the right stock or going to work for the right start-up seems like an easy thing to do in hindsight, but I’ve never seen it happen using foresight.If you’re an artist, a writer, or an inventor who got rich, you were probably never really in it for the money. You got rich by accident. You always knew money was a possibility, but you chose to do what you did because you love it. It scratches your itch. It makes you happy. It makes you feel alive. So again, if we’re being honest, your advice about how to get rich would probably sound like this, “Be good at what you do. Study, experiment, refine your craft. Follow your instincts. Trust your gut. Be true to yourself. Break the rules. Blah, blah, blah.” I can say this because what little I’ve acquired has come to me in exactly this way. And that advice you just read – including the blah, blah, blah – is exactly what I tell people when they ask me how to “get to the next level, financially.” I tell them this because they would be disappointed if I told them the truth, that I am a writer because I am embarrassingly self-indulgent and I love to write. It is something I let myself do.But nearly all my wealthy friends got rich intentionally. It was their lifelong desire. They could teach you how to get rich, too, but only if you have sufficient patience, discipline, and desire.Getting rich is like losing weight; rarely does it happen by accident.How to lose weight isn’t a secret; you’ve got to consume less calories than you burn. Millions of Americans want to lose weight and they’re convinced they have the patience and discipline to lose weight. But the only ones who lose it and keep it off are the ones for whom the desire to lose weight is so strong that the pain of staying as they are is greater than the pain of doing what they need to do.Likewise, how to get rich isn’t a secret; you’ve got to do things other people aren’t willing to do. You’ve got to swallow your pride, restrain your spending, make hard choices, say no to yourself, get back up when you’re knocked down, and learn from your mistakes rather than defend them. But most important of all, you’ve got to patiently, relentlessly, obsessively keep your eye on the prize.Are you beginning to understand what I said about patience, discipline and desire?I met a successful man who spent 3  hours telling me about the biggest failures of his career. At the end of those 3 hours, I knew his blind spot. His failures had a common root: this otherwise brilliant man believed that any intelligent person who has been taught the right thing to do, and who truly believes it’s the right thing to do, can be counted upon to do the thing they’ve been taught.His successes, on the other hand, did not count on people doing anything other than what they preferred to do.Knowing why to do it – and how – is not the same as doing it.To be unable is to lack the skill.To be unwilling is to lack the desire.Don’t they lead to the same place?Intelligent people like you can easily be taught. But let me see the depth of your desire – your willingness to do what you don’t want to do – and I’ll know the likelihood of your success.Roy H. Williams