Wizard of Ads Monday Morning Memo

You bought it for 50 cents.You sold it for a dollar.You made 50 cents.What was your percentage of profit?You could say “100 percent” because the 50-cent profit you made is equal to your original investment of 50 cents.But if we look at it from the basis of your selling price, you sold it for a dollar and only 50% of that was profit.So did you make 100% or was it 50%? There is a valid argument for each perspective.It’s not my intention to lecture you today about the difference between markup and margin or to fill your ears with chatter about inventory turn or the concept of zero marginal cost.We’re talking about something bigger.We’re talking about your success.Profit is easy to identify, but tricky to measure.Success is like that, too.Does your pursuit of success ever make you feel like you’re chasing your shadow with the sun at your back; no matter how fast you run, you can never quite grasp it? Is success a forever carrot-on-a-stick, just a little further away than the length of your arm?Most of us live with the hope of accomplishing a series of goals, but rarely do I meet anyone who can tell me how they plan to measure their progress toward those goals.How will you measure success?Before you can answer that question clearly, you have to recognize that success comes in three different colors.You can make money.You can make a name.You can make a difference.If you make enough money, it will make you something of a name. But whether or not you ever make a difference is an entirely different question. Many successful people keep their money and their name clamped tightly within their fists.If you make a name for yourself, money will likely follow. But will you then care enough about others to try and make a difference in their lives?My advice to you is to first make a difference. Do what you do so very well that people take notice of it and speak highly of you. The money will quickly follow.What are you trying to make happen?How will you measure progress-to-goal?In what way will you make a difference?Roy H. Williams

Do you sell a product or service that is reassuringly expensive?Ronny is selling $700 vacuum cleaners through a direct-response television campaign he created after attending, “How to Sell Upscale Products and Services” at Wizard Academy.That ad campaign began as a $100,000 experiment.Ronny told me he’s currently spending nearly a million dollars a week on national advertising and making a marvelous return on his investment.Funny thing: we teach that class under the assumption the techniques will be used by brand builders, not direct response marketers. But Ronny proved those same techniques can also work when you have a short time horizon.We taught Ronny something.He taught us something in return.Direct response marketers usually sell products that have a short purchase cycle. They want us to make an impulse purchase. This is why the return-on-investment for direct response ads can be measured accurately and immediately.But not everything can be sold that way.Brand builders are companies whose products or services have a long purchase cycle. The goal of a brand builder is to be the provider you think of immediately and feel the best about when you finally need what they sell. It takes courage, confidence and patience but it works better and better the longer you invest in it.The essence of brand building is emotional bonding.Direct response marketing, on the other hand, is typically intellectual. Features and benefits and added value, “But wait! Order now and you’ll also receive…” It is that world of product demonstrations and money-back guarantees, limited-time offers and upsell incentives.Direct response ads don’t work better and better as time goes by. They work less and less well until you finally have to come up with something altogether new and different.Right now you’re thinking, “But hey, if I make enough money on my direct response campaign, I’ll just retire and live happily ever after.”That sounds like a good plan but I’ve never actually seen it work out that way. Most of us have the fundamental inability to quit while we’re ahead.A glittering city in Nevada is proof of it.Wizard Academy teaches powerful concepts.How you use them is entirely up to you.Ronny is winning and winning big. I like him.He’s already taught me one lesson.I’m hoping he will teach me another.Roy H. Williams

A couple of weeks ago I spent an hour and a half on television speaking to a nationwide audience of several million viewers.They wanted me to talk about Pendulum, the book we published in 2012. Specifically, they wanted me to explain how we knew four years ago exactly what would be happening right now.I chose not to mention Wizard Academy.Does that surprise you?Pennie and Vice-Chancellor Whittington and I agreed that any mention of Wizard Academy would likely flood your school with people who would be coming for all the wrong reasons.Even worse, they would be coming with all the wrong expectations.Wizard Academy uses carefully crafted content marketing delivered through indirect targeting to attract learners into a carefully designed gravity well. Our hope is to win ever-larger chunks of your time until you finally show up in person on our campus. (Sounds sinister, doesn’t it? But it’s actually quite honest and friendly. Perfect transparency inspires confidence, does it not?)Wizard Academy doesn’t consider age or income or educational attainment or gender or ethnicity or zip code or home ownership or any of the other things targeted by most advertising efforts.We want to attract a specific, self-selected tribe that shares our core beliefs:1. We believe traditional wisdom is often more tradition than wisdom.Our quirky books, memos, videos, course descriptions and public art function as marketing filters, attracting some people, repelling others.2. We believe history repeats itself only because we didn’t pay attention the first time.We use case studies to assist you in the hands-on implementation of what we teach, but larger lessons are learned by looking at the timeless, big ideas of physics, agriculture and biology, allowing you to understand and harness sequences of events that have been echoing since the birth of time. (If the study of recurrent patterns appeals to you, you’ll love it here.)3. We believe intuition is the logic of the wordless, right hemisphere of the brain.Dr. Roger Sperry won the Nobel Prize in 1981 for his documentation of brain lateralization, in essence asserting that we don’t have a single brain divided into two hemispheres so much as we have two separate, competing brains: the logical, deductive-reasoning left and the intuitive, pattern-and-sequence recognizing right.* But the right brain has no language functions. Hence, we often “know” things we can’t explain. The intuitive power of the right brain is essential to the artist, the entrepreneur, and anyone searching for a proven innovation model.4. We believe passion is a by-product of commitment.Chapel Dulcinea, our world famous free wedding chapel, is a symbol of our belief in the power of commitment to transform personal relationships, business outcomes, and destinies. (In October, Dulcinea welcomed wedding parties from France, Scotland, New Zealand, Japan and 88 other places. In 2014 she witnessed 984 weddings. In 2015 it was 999. Will this be the year she sees 1,000?)Did any of the concepts we spoke about today interest you?This Monday Morning Memo was an example of content marketing delivered through indirect targeting to attract a self-selected tribe into a gravity well.Did we affirm your values? Confirm your beliefs? Tickle your imagination? Make you want to dive a little deeper into some of these ideas?If you feel a tug of gravity pulling you toward us,we trust you can figure out what to do next.Roy H. Williams

It seems to be a fundamental law of the universe that a thing cannot exist without its opposite.Negatively charged electrons revolvearound positively charged protons.Male and female.Inhale and exhale.Extend and contract.Seedtime and harvest.Every good thing exists in a state of duality.A voice spoke into the darkness,“Let there be light,”and the first duality was born.Darkness didn’t go away; it simply met an opposing force.Whether you believe the Bible to be ancient folk wisdom or the word of God or something in between doesn’t really matter. Most of us can agree that something about it caused the Bible to be remembered for millennia.According to the first chapter of Genesis, after the voice pierced the darkness with light, it spoke five other dualities into existence and proclaimed each of the six pairs of opposites to be good.I’m not writing to you about religion.I’m writing to you about wisdom.I’m glad to see you’re still reading! I’m sneaking up on an important point. Stay with me.Good and evil are not a duality.Love and hate are not a duality.Peace and war are not a duality.The first is life and the second is death.It shouldn’t be hard to choose between them.The only difficult choices in life are the choices between two good things.Freedom and Responsibility are two good things that we must often choose between.Likewise, a tension exists between Justice and Mercy.Honesty and Loyalty are also good things.Have you ever had to choose between them?Which one is good and which one is evil?The next time you see two antagonistic groups throwing word-grenades at each other, peer beneath the emotional language and you’ll notice that one group believes in freedom while the other group believes in responsibility. Or one side is pushing for justice while the other side pushes for mercy.Niels Bohr wasn’t a touchy-feely philosopher. He was a scientist who won the Nobel Prize in Physics. Among his discoveries was this:“The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.”Stanislaw Lec said it this way,“Proverbs contradict each other. That is the wisdom of a people.”Then F. Scott Fitzgerald challenged you and me to step into a larger realm of living,“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.”Don’t fall into the trap of believing you have to choose one and disparage the other.Every creative person is familiar with the magnetism that exists between opposites. A skillful articulation of this energy is the secret behind hit songs, big movies, bestselling books and successful ad campaigns.A voice spoke light into the darkness and said it was good.And Niels Bohr said “Amen.”And Stanislaw Lec said “Amen.”And F. Scott Fitzgerald said “Amen.”So please tell me, if you will,What say you?Roy H. Williams

The statesman, according to Wikipedia, “who is often regarded as the father of modern conservatism,” was Edmund Burke (1729 – 1797). I was unaware of this until I stumbled upon it while searching for the origin of the famous statement, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”A worthy counterpart to Edmund Burke might be George Bernard Shaw, widely considered to be an early champion of liberal thought. Shaw wrote, “When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty.” 1You’ll find both of these quotes in the random quote database at MondayMorningMemo.com because these statements cause us to think.And thinking is never a bad thing.Examine that first quote and you’ll notice it’s based on the underlying premise that some people are good while others are evil.The second quote is based on the premise that some people are stupid while others are not.But have you ever known anyone so good there was no bad in them, or anyone so bad there was no good? And who is so wise they’ve never done a stupid thing?Witold Gambrowicz was an obscure Polish writer until his private diaries were discovered after his death in 1969. According to the Paris Review, they are “widely considered his masterpiece.”One of the golden nuggets Gambrowicz left behind for us was his theory on how to write a book review:“Literary criticism is not the judging of one man by another (who gave you this right?) but the meeting of two personalities on absolutely equal terms. Therefore do not judge. Simply describe your reactions. Never write about the author or the work, only about yourself in confrontation with the work or the author. You are allowed to write about yourself.”Wow. I get it. And this idea isn’t limited to literary criticism.Instead of saying, “What you’re about to do is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard of and if you do it, you’re an idiot,” one might say, “If I were about to do what you’re about to do, I would be frightened.” Then if your friend asks, “Why would you be frightened?” you can share with him your concerns.“Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires courage.”– Ralph Waldo EmersonI’ve never found anyone who could explain to me the difference between constructive criticism and just plain criticism.Violence may kill the body, but criticism kills the spirit. If you hope to bring about change, you must armor your soul against it.John Steinbeck reminds us that all criticism is based upon subjective, personal perceptions and that such perceptions are never universally true.“A painter, letting color and line, observed, sift into his eyes, up the nerve trunks, and mix well with his experience before it flows down his hand to the canvas, has made his painting say, ‘It might be so.’ Perhaps his critic, being not so honest and not so wise, will say, ‘It is not so. The picture is damned.’ If this critic could say, ‘It is not so with me, but that might be because my mind and experience are not identical with those of the painter,’ that critic would be a better critic for it, just as the painter is a better painter for knowing he himself is in the pigment.” 2If we want to make the world a better place, if we want to bring an end to polarized politics, if we want to make friends instead of enemies, we must remember the advice of Gambrowicz, Emerson and Steinbeck.At least it seems so to me.Does it seem so, also, to you?Roy H. Williams

Science is the study of objective reality.Art is the study of subjective reality.Subjective reality is perception through filters. It is interpreted reality, romanticized reality, imagined reality. It is your own personal fiction.We’ve spoken of this before, but I think we need a refresher:Electromagnetic waves exist regardless of whether you perceive them. They are nonfiction. But colors exist in subjective reality, as a result of transformations provided by our senses. Colors are fiction.Vibrations traveling in air or water are objective, real, nonfiction. But sound is a fiction that exists only in our mind.Likewise, chemicals dissolved in air or water exist in objective reality, nonfiction. But smells and tastes are purely subjective, fiction. Colors, sounds, smells and tastes do not exist, as such, outside our brains. And any associations we experience in connection with a color, sound, taste or smell are purely subjective as well.Each of us lives in a private world that is mostly subjective fiction.Our ability to communicate is based on the assumption that other people will interpret subjective stimuli in ways that are similar to our own. But when their reactions spring from different backgrounds and experiences, communication grows more difficult.Politics, anyone?Color, sound, smell and taste are very convincing fictions. So convincing, in fact, that we often embrace them as “reality.” This is why we have so many arguments.To “frame” a conversation is to set the stage for a fiction that is about to begin.The current style of communication in America is declarative and descriptive, leaving little room for nuance or multilayered interpretation. The impact of this declarative style is often clinical and bombastic.The heart doubts declarative statements because they tell us what to think and believe.Evocative statements pull the answers from inside us.Lead a person to an answer and they will usually discover it.Lead a person to the truth and they will cling to it.We own every truth that comes from inside us. This is why it is rare for an argument to overturn something we have realized.If you followed Indiana Beagle down the rabbit hole last week, you saw a statement by Brandon Sanderson, “The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon.”Sanderson may as well have been talking about evocative statements.Look at the frontispiece of The Wizard of Ads and you’ll see The Seven Laws of the Advertising Universe. Laws 3 and 7 explain why stories are so powerfully persuasive:“Intellect and Emotion are partners who do not speak the same language. The intellect finds logic to justify what the emotions have decided. Win the hearts of the people, their minds will follow.”“Engage the Imagination, then take it where you will. Where the mind has repeatedly journeyed, the body will surely follow. People go only to places they have already been in their minds.”Well-told stories win the heart and take people on journeys in their minds.How well are you telling your stories?The best stories have a narrative arc and a character arc.Narrative Arc: a sequence of events that unfold; a continuing storyline that fascinates the mind.Character Arc: a gradual deepening of our understanding of the character’s motivations, revealed by how the character thinks, speaks, acts and sees the world. The character arc is a character’s inner journey over the course of the story.An advertising campaign is more than a series of ads.A good campaign has a narrative arc that engages the mind of the customer, revealing layer after layer of information about your company, your product, your service.A good campaign has a character arc that entangles the heart of the customer by allowing them to feel they understand why you do the things you do.Does your company have an ad campaign, or have you just been running a series of ads?Do you need to visit Wizard Academy to get a handle on this?Come, we’ll walk you through it.(This is the new workshop we teased you with last week.)Roy H. Williams

Norman Rockwell was an illustrator of fiction.He never showed us America as it really was, but America as it could have been, should have been, might have been. His images caused an entire generation to vividly remember experiences we never had.Rockwell showed my generation a fictional America and we believed in it.I don’t want to mention client names and I’m sure you’ll understand why, but my most successful ad campaigns have been built on exactly that kind of fiction.Not lies. Fiction. There’s a difference.Fiction is romanticized reality, showing us possible futures and the best of the past, leaving out the dreary, the mundane and the forgettable. It is a powerful tool of bonding. Properly used, fictional characters attract new customers and deepen customer loyalties. But predictable characters hold no interest for us. It is conflicted characters – those with vulnerabilities, weaknesses and flaws – that fascinate us immensely.A recently published study1 in The Journal of Social and Personal Relationships suggests that fictional friends may be as valuable as “real” friends, particularly when life-partners watch television shows together.“…our studies show that sharing the social connections provided by TV shows and movies can deepen intimacy and closeness. Furthermore, watching TV shows and movies together may provide couples who lack access to a shared social network of real-world friends with an alternate means of establishing this shared social identity.Previously, sharing a social world with a partner has been conceptualized in terms of sharing real-world social experiences.2 However, creating these experiences may not always be possible. Fortunately, humans are remarkably flexible in finding ways to fulfill their social needs.3 When people’s need for social connections are undermined, they turn to a variety of social surrogates that provide alternate pathways to meet this need, including comfort food,4 photos of loved ones,5 pets,6 and media like TV shows and movies.7“Recurrent characters in advertising fit into that last category of “media like TV shows and movies.”In fact, fictional characters shine so brightly in our minds that we have created a word – metafiction8 – for those moments when fictional characters become aware that they are fictional.If you doubt what I say, all you need do is suggest to Indiana Beagle that he isn’t real. You will quickly and painfully be made aware of how real a fictional character can become.It is the architecture of our brains that makes fiction so powerful.Humans are the storytelling animal.You have about 100,000 times more synapses in your brain than sensory receptors in your body. If brain synapses were strictly equal to sensory receptors – which they are not – this would mean that you and I are 100,000 times better equipped to experience a world that does not exist than a world that does. So let’s assume that a single sensory receptor is worth 1,000 brain synapses. Congratulations, you’re still 100 times better equipped to experience a world that does not exist than a world that does.This was the purpose of today’s Monday Morning Memo:Find some TV shows to watch with your life-partner. The shared experience will be good for both of you.Play with the idea of creating a fictional spokes-character for your company. (If you don’t know how, consider the online classes at AmericanSmallBusiness.org.)Take quality fiction more seriously. Logical, sequential, deductive reasoning is a function of analytical thought, which has its headquarters in the left hemisphere of your brain. Loosely speaking, the left hemisphere of your brain is there to connect you to the world that is, while the right hemisphere connects you to worlds that could be, should be, might be, ought to be… someday. This is where fiction comes alive.Want to hear something funny? The right hemisphere of your brain doesn’t know right from wrong or fact from fiction. That’s the left brain’s job.Our belief in fiction is made possible only by the amazing right hemisphere of our brains.Regardless of whether you believe in natural selection (evolution) as the origin of the species, or intelligent design (God), the wordless, intuitive right hemisphere of your brain is there for a reason.Don’t diminish it. Don’t disparage it. Don’t try to overcome it.It’s there for a reason.Let it do its work.Roy H. Williams

September 17, 1787: When George Washington saw the Constitution of the United States of America finally adopted after four months of intense debate in Philadelphia’s Pennsylvania State House, he immediately went to a bookseller and paid 22 shillings, six pence for a copy of Don Quixote de La Mancha.1According to MountVernon.org, “this seventeenth-century Spanish allegory does seem a somewhat unusual choice for the pragmatic farmer, soldier, and statesman. An explanation for the apparently uncharacteristic purchase can be found within Washington’s correspondence.” 2We’ll look at that correspondence in a moment, but I believe a statement made by screenwriter Aaron Sorkin offers an equally insightful glimpse into the mind of George Washington in that historic moment when the Constitution was complete and our Great American Experiment had begun.“I tend to write very romantically and idealistically. So the characters that I write are going to be, kind of, quixotic. And they’re going to fail a lot and fall a lot. But, you know, there’s a romance in trying for honorable things.” 3– Aaron Sorkin, June 29, 2015Don Quixote had been a topic of conversation a few evenings earlier in the home of Benjamin Franklin. We know this because on November 9th, 1787, Washington received a Spanish copy of Don Quixote from Spanish Ambassador Diego Maria de Gardoqui with a note, “requesting you wou’d accept & give a place in your Library to the last Spanish Edition of Don Quixote which I recolectt to have hear’d you say at Dr Franklin’s that you had never seen it. I cou’d have wish’d it was in English for your particular entertainment, but it being reckoned the very best Edition of that celebrated work & one in which every thing has been manufacture in Spain induces me to request your acceptance.” 4We don’t know why they were talking about Quixote that night in the home of Benjamin Franklin, but Indy Beagle tells me it went something like this:WASHINGTON: “We are drawing near to an agreement. I believe we may have a Constitution within the week.”FRANKLIN: [shaking his head slowly as gazes down absently at the table] “I look at the future and wonder if we are victorious champions of the good, or bumbling fools who have convinced themselves they are something they are not.”SPANISH AMBASSADOR GARDOQUI: [smiling] “You have read the Quixote?”FRANKLIN: [nods yes and smiles a weak smile.]WASHINGTON: “Although Jefferson and Adams speak continuously of this book, I cannot say I have read it.”“Roy,” you’re thinking, “are you seriously expecting me to believe that our founding fathers were Quixote nuts like you?”The Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia at Monticello.org says, “Don Quixote was one of the few works of fiction that Thomas Jefferson was clearly partial to. He used the text in its original language to learn Spanish, and had his children do the same. Jefferson owned a number of different editions over his lifetime.” 5Monticello.org also lists 18 pieces of Jefferson’s personal correspondence in which Quixote is mentioned during the 51 years from 1771 to 1822. 5So, yes, when a person speaks and writes about Don Quixote for 51 years, I usually print that person’s name in large letters in the “Quixote Nut” column.These are the big ideas presented in Don Quixote:1. A beautiful dream is worth believing in, even when others think you are crazy.2. A beautiful dream is worth fighting for, even when you lose.3. A beautiful dream is worth pursuing, even if it never comes true.4. The possibility remains that your beautiful dream might turn out to be folly. 6John Adams was Thomas Jefferson’s friend and nemesis and he was obsessed with Quixote as well. In David McCullough’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book on Adams 7 we read, “Another child, Thomas Boylston, was born in September of 1772, and again Adams was off on the ‘vagabond life’ of the circuit, carrying a copy of Don Quixote in his saddlebag and writing Abigail sometimes as many as three letters a day.”Alexander Hamilton’s copy of Don Quixote was published in Amsterdam in 1755 by Arkstee et Merkus.8 In his letter to Rufus King, dated February 21, 1795, Hamilton wrote, “To see the character of the government and the country so sported with—exposed to so indelible a blot—puts my heart to the torture. Am I, then, more of an American than those who drew their first breath on American ground? Or what is it that thus torments me at a circumstance so calmly viewed by almost everybody else? Am I a fool—a romantic Quixote—or is there a constitutional defect in the American mind?” 9David Brooks is a political and cultural commentator who writes for The New York Times. Aaron Sorkin is a screenwriter. His films include A Few Good Men, The American President, Charlie Wilson’s War, The Social Network, Moneyball and Steve Jobs. His television series include The West Wing, Sports Night, Studio 60 and The Newsroom.BROOKS: “Okay, I am struck by the deep American-ness of this hour. It’s a country of energy and ambition and I mean even Walter10 has in his biography of Franklin this discussion how ambivalent we are about ambition and there is the ambition of him [Franklin,] there is the ambition of Lincoln but then I think through your characters – whether a Zuckerberg, Billy Beane, Jobs, Charlie Wilson – there are people with outlandish ambitions, out of proportion to what might be expected of them in their role?”SORKIN: “Yeah. Again I just find that very romantic.”BROOKS: “Yeah.”SORKIN: “And it all goes back to Don Quixote. This guy who felt like he was living in a world that was just a little – had gone over the edge of incivility and crudeness – and he was a scrawny old man who was experiencing dementia and he decided that you can be a knight if you just behave like one.” 3A scrawny old man decided that you can be a knight if you just behave like one.You can be a knight if you just behave like one.If you just behave like one.Roy H. Williams

I’m betting you’re extremely good at something, perhaps at more than just one thing.Let’s face it: you’re talented – gifted, in fact – a classic overachiever. But the odds are 7 in 10 that you find it difficult to accept and believe these compliments.I say this because 70 percent of our population suffers from Impostor Syndrome and it is most common among high achievers, especially people with graduate degrees, college professors on track for tenure, and research scientists. 1Isaac Newton, the man who changed the way we understand the universe, who discovered the laws of gravity and motion and invented calculus, suffered from Impostor Syndrome, saying, “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” 2Impostor Syndrome is the blind spot that comes with talent.Harold Kushner describes Impostor Syndrome as “the feeling of many apparently successful people that their success is undeserved… For all the outward trappings of success, they feel hollow inside. They can never rest and enjoy their accomplishments… They need constant reassurance from the people around them to still the voice inside them that keeps saying, ‘If other people knew you the way I know you, they would know what a phony you are.'” 3Now here’s the good news: Impostor Syndrome is perfectly normal. What you want to avoid is the opposite, the Dunning–Kruger effect, a cognitive bias in which low-ability individuals suffer from illusions of superiority, mistakenly assessing their abilities as much higher than they really are. 4Everyone is messed-up and broken a little. (Impostor Syndrome)But the most messed-up are those who believe they are not. (Dunning-Kruger)Scientists Dunning and Kruger believe “the miscalibration of the incompetent stems from an error about the self, whereas the miscalibration of the highly competent stems from an error about others.” 4In other words, those of us who have Impostor Syndrome see ourselves from the inside, where we stand naked in the shadow of old wounds, past failures and the knowledge of our limitations. But we see others from the outside, where they stand majestic, beautifully illuminated in the bright glory of their successes.A close friend once asked me to tell him the secret of confidence. “The key isn’t to think more highly of yourself,” I said, “but to quit thinking so highly of others.”If Dunning and Kruger’s research can be trusted, it would appear that I was right.This is what I was hoping to give you today:Encouragement.Talented people like yourself often feel they’ve just been lucky. But being in the right place at the right time doing the right thing in the right way isn’t luck, it’s talent. Most people have at least one talent. Be happy that you found yours.Normality.Seventy percent of successful people wrestle with Impostor Syndrome. See it for what it is and it will disappear.Self-acceptance.Yes, you have deficiencies, but so does everyone else. Relax.Self-awareness.I said that Impostor Syndrome is a blind spot among people with talent. Hopefully, now that you’ve seen your blind spot, it won’t be a blind spot anymore.Gratitude.Open your eyes to your talent and be glad of it. (And if you ever figure out who gave it to you, be sure to thank them for it!)Have a great week.Do great things.It’s in your nature.Roy H. Williams

Sunlight is composed of red, green and blue light waves. Combine these together and you get white light.ARemove the red from white light and you will no longer be able to see red in anything illuminated by that light. Red will no longer exist. Remove the blue and you will no longer see blue.This is the secret of propaganda.Propaganda is an emotionally charged word, so we should probably establish a definition for the purposes of this discussion:“Propaganda is a form of persuasion that refuses to consider the point of view of its opponent. Instead, propaganda will mock, vilify and demonize its opponent or ignore its opponent’s perspective completely.”Google “propaganda” and you’ll learn the term dates back to 1622, when Pope Gregory XV decided to send out missionaries to propagate – propagando – the faith. To facilitate this, he created the sacra congregatio christiano nomini propagando. The cardinal in charge of Propagando became known as the “red pope” due to the importance of his duties and the extraordinary extent of his authority. 1In 1982, Pope John Paul II renamed it the congregation for the evangelization of peoples, probably because the word “propaganda” had been given a bad name by Joseph Goebbels, the Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany.Catholics in 1622 wanted to eliminate the Protestant perspective, which is only fair, because Protestants wanted to eliminate the Catholic perspective.This polarization caused millions to die in religious wars, but that doesn’t make religion bad. It is a polarized perspective – whether in religion or sports or anything else – that’s bad.A person can have a strong and unchangeable point of view but still retain the courtesy and breadth of vision to understand how an intelligent person might embrace the opposite point of view. 2Think of your opponent as watching a sporting event from the seat exactly opposite yours. You’re both watching the same game, but his left is your right, and your right is his left. So which of you is the liar? Which of you is the fool?200 million Muslims are Shiites.1.6 billion Muslims are Sunnis.When the Islamic Prophet Muhammad died in 632 A.D., a debate emerged about who should be his successor. Both sides agreed that Allah is the one true God and that Muhammad was his messenger, but one group (the Shiites) felt Muhammad’s successor should be someone in his bloodline, while the other (the Sunnis) felt a pious individual who would follow the Prophet’s customs would be acceptable.Both Sunnis and Shiitesread the Quran,believe the Prophet Muhammad was the messenger of Allah,fast during Ramadan,pledge to make a pilgrimage to Mecca,practice ritual prayer five times a day,give charity to the poor andpledge themselves to their faith.But rather than celebrate what they have in common and use those bonds to facilitate peace and prosperity, the Sunnis and Shiites have chosen bitter war.Democrats and Republicans seem to be making a similar choice.I, for one, want no part of it.Justice and Mercy are both important and good and true.But they exist in perpetual tension, an eternal tug-of-war.I’m sure I’ll be criticized for saying this, but it seems to me that one side wants to shine bold red light on the importance of protecting ourselves from those who would do us harm, while the other side wants to shine a soothing blue light on the pain of the struggling and the oppressed.If propagandists are successful in their attempts to eliminate the red or the blue from the light that shines from America, I fear we will learn we have amputated an arm because we didn’t understand its purpose.Roy H. Williams