Wizard of Ads Monday Morning Memo

The Internet rose to its full height in 2005 and cast a bright shadow across the land. It became our newspaper, our telephone book, our encyclopedia and our primary mailbox.Whole categories of advertising where swept away by that tsunami.Radio suffered the least damage of all the major media. She has proven to be far more durable than I had suspected.In their recent study of annual trends, Audience Insights reported some interesting findings. President Jeff Vidler summarized,We see absolutely no change in broadcast radio’s share of in-car tuning in the past 5 years. AM/FM radio is still dominant in-car, representing 66.2 percent of in-car listening. The growth of alternatives such as satellite radio and streaming audio appear to be coming at the expense of personal music (iPods, CDs and other libraries,) not broadcast radio.”Prior to that report I had no data beyond my own observation, but I knew that radio is continuing to reward its regular advertisers with a robust and hearty return-on-investment.And now I will tell you a story.Once upon a time, no one could own shares in more than 12 TV stations, 12 FM radio stations and 12 AM radio stations. We called this “the 12/12/12 rule.”We didn’t want anyone to be able to control the news.But this good law went “poof” in 1996 and consolidators immediately began gathering up radio stations by the armful. Big-business efficiencies were brought in to what had previously been a Mom’n’Pop category. Profits soared and Wall Street said, “Let’s do this thing. She looks doable, doesn’t she?”Corporate Radio was born with a full set of teeth but it had no reflection in the mirror.Investors have their own way of looking at the world. I’m not saying it’s wrong, but you can always be certain you’re talking to The Money when they do something that hurts like hell and then tell you, “It’s just business.”But Radio has never been “just business.” Radio is music and laughter and opinions and news and discussions and interviews with interesting people. Only a few minutes per hour are “just business,” and when a radio station is run correctly, even those few minutes can be entertaining and valuable and informative.Investors are a funny breed. They work themselves into a frenzy and then suddenly lose all interest.CBS announced in March that they plan to sell or spin off their radio assets this year. The goal, according to Les Moonves, is to “unlock value for our shareholders.” He indicated that radio has become “slow-growth” and “a drain on resources” that can be better directed to content production and digital endeavors.Cumulus pushed out founder Lew Dickey as CEO last autumn but that management shakeup didn’t stop the stock slide. Cumulus shares lost 80 percent of their value in 2015. The Washington Post recently quoted one debt-holder as saying, “The most logical thing is to break it up and sell it.”And now investors in iHeart (previously known as Clear Channel) are saying the same thing. Add it up and you’ll see that we’re talking about more than 1,400 radio stations possibly hitting the market all at once.Radio stations have lost their appeal to investors.But they haven’t lost their effectiveness for advertisers.In 2001, America Online was worth $226 billion. In 2015, Verizon bought AOL for just $4.4 billion. Somewhere along the way, it lost 98 percent of its value.In July of 2005, News Corporation, the parent company of FOX Broadcasting, bought Myspace for $580 million. In 2011 they sold it for $35 million, recovering just 6 cents on the dollar. It lost 94 percent of its value in just 6 years.I have no idea how much money these 1,400 radio stations will bring or even if all of them will be sold. I’m not pretending to be able to predict those numbers. But I definitely smell an opportunity for innovative local ownership of radio stations again.Do you smell it?It smells like springtime.This is good news for listeners,good news for business owners,good news for communities,good news for America.Roy H. Williams

Do what people expect you to do, say what they expect you to say, and you will quickly lose their attention.Nothing new… nothing surprising… nothing different. This is the essence of boredom. And it’s exactly what most advertisers put in their ads.And then there is a second group of advertisers who insert a series of “Once-in-a-lifetime! Don’t miss this event! One-week-only!” exclamation points in their ads in an attempt to make them exciting.But a third group – the adjective-addicted – are the most painful ad writers of all. They take the longest to say the least. Adjectives, adverbs and exclamation points are crutches used by writers unable to craft a sentence that can stand alone.So far, I’ve told you 3 things not to do:1. Don’t be predictable.2. Don’t yell.3. Don’t use too many words.To gain and hold attention, you must introduce an enigma, write a riddle, make a mystery, pose a puzzle.John Wheeler was a theoretical physicist who understood the hungry mind of mankind.If you haven’t found something strange during the day, it hasn’t been much of a day.”Isaac Asimov made a similar observation.The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not ‘Eureka!’ but ‘That’s funny…'”We ignore the predictable but notice the anomaly. Gaps, disturbances and incongruities elevate our attention.But when an advertiser pays for an ad, they incorrectly assume the public will be paying attention. And in the fog of that happy delusion, they think all they need to do is say, “Isn’t my product great!”And now you know why most ads deliver poor results.I’ve been hired by someone in a boring business category to get the attention of the locals in Las Vegas.That’s right. Las Vegas.The first thing I’m going to do is put up billboards that make no sense. These billboards will show no product and contain no telephone number or website. There will be only a smiling face and six inexplicable letters of the alphabet. People will think, “That’s absolutely the worst advertising I’ve ever seen.”Sounds like a recipe for disaster, right?The key will be the radio ads. Fully one-third of the population of Las Vegas will hear them. And then the billboards will make perfect sense.The one third I reach will be happy to solve the mystery for the two-thirds that didn’t hear the radio ads. (Trust me, my one-third knows the other two-thirds.)These are the Two Big Dangers:1: The answer to the riddle of the 6 letters has to be such an interesting story that people will be happy to share it. This final piece of the puzzle must make a satisfying “click” as it snaps into place so that it triggers a tiny orgasm of delight. This is not an easy thing to do.2: Critical mass: the radio ads have to reach a large enough group of people often enough that the message will be shared with the rest of the city. If we fall short in this, all is lost and I am an idiot.Private Note to Writers: Ads that say, “Isn’t this product great!” are the safest ones to write. Advertisers always love them and when they don’t work, all you have to say is, “We’ve been reaching the wrong people” or “We’ve been using the wrong media” or “We’ve got to do something about those negative online reviews.” Advertisers never blame the ad when it says, “Isn’t my product great!” So that’s the kind of ad you must write if you want to play it safe.But if you want to run with the big dogs, if you want to have an adventure, if you’re tired of looking down at your shoes and blame-shifting, I’ll see you in Las Vegas.Roy H. Williams

Let us supposethat this everyday worldwere at some one pointinvaded by the marvelous.1According to an article in the Harvard Business Review, such an event“requires a distinctive mode of organization—what sociologists call an art world. In art worlds, artists (musicians, filmmakers, writers, designers, cartoonists, and so on) gather in inspired collaborations: They work together, learn from one another, play off ideas, and push one another. The collective efforts of participants in these ‘scenes’ often generate major creative breakthroughs… the mass-culture industries (film, television, print media, fashion) thrived by pilfering and repurposing their innovations.” 2Today we’re going to look at three different art worlds and then I’m going to suggest that you create your own.Art World One: Although the works of the individuals that composed The Bloomsbury Group (1905 – 1937) profoundly influenced literature, economics and aesthetics in western society and altered modern attitudes towards feminism, pacifism, and sexuality, this highly diverse group had no real agenda other than enjoying one another’s company. The group had ten core members and twenty occasionals. A few of the more well-known core members were Virginia Woolf, a fiction writer, Lytton Strachey, a biographer, John Maynard Keynes, the economist, and Vanessa Bell, a post-impressionist painter.The Bloomsbury Group was an art world, not a mastermind group.A mastermind group is focused on finding business solutions.An art world exists only to enjoy one another’s company.Art World Two: “Oh God, no more Elves!” Hugo Dyson groans in agony, lolling on the couch. J.R.R. “Tollers” Tolkien is about read from his work-in-progress, The Lord of the Rings. “It’s bad enough listening to Lewis read about Narnia!” Hugo Dyson prefers the works of Shakespeare and in the early 1960s hosted some televised lectures and plays about him. Dyson’s relaxed, easy style won him accolades around the world. The Inklings were a group of ten interesting people who met at The Eagle and Child pub from 1932 to 1949. In the end, each of the ten left their mark on the world, high and bright.The Inklings didn’t get together because they were important.They became important because they got together.Art World Three: It all began when Lauren Bacall looked at a group of friends sitting around her living room and said, “You look like a goddam Rat Pack.” Did you know that Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop weren’t in the original Rat Pack? The first Pack was a group who got together each week in the home of Lauren Bacall and her husband, Humphrey Bogart. The Rat Pack included Bogart and Bacall, Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Katharine Hepburn, David Niven, Spencer Tracy, Cary Grant, Rex Harrison, Sid Luft and Swifty Lazar. Visiting members included Errol Flynn, Nat King Cole, Mickey Rooney, Jerry Lewis and Cesar Romero. The group broke up when Bogart died in 1957. Shortly thereafter, Sinatra began his famous “Rat Pack 2.0”The Rat Pack was an art world.They got together only because they enjoyed being together.They did not expect an outcome or a result.You cannot participate in an art world if you have an agenda.You’ve got to be a Worthless Bastard.Q: Why are you calling obviously successful people Worthless Bastards?A: Because the conversations of an art world must never revolve around problem solving or the creation of value or “worth.”Q: Why is it important that the group NOT try to create value?A: The key that unlocks an art world is play. Perfectly relaxed, undiluted play unleashes the creative powers of the mind. You don’t experience the life-changing benefits of an art world during your get-together, but because you got together.Q: Is this idea of “creating no value” really essential to an art world?A: Play is all too often a form of work disguised as recreation. If you have a goal – if you’re trying to win – if you’re keeping score – if there is an objective – you are still “at work” and will see only the benefits associated with that form of exertion. Work – no matter how happy or pleasant – does not unleash the restorative power of play.If you attend an art world for purposes of “networking” in the hope of building your business, you will be perceived as the ass at the dinner party who is trying to sell everyone life insurance.Leave your business cards at home.Leave your plans and goals and objectives at home.Bring only your curiosity and a desire to unwind.Play routinely stumbles upon serendipity.Play makes everything interesting.Play is the way to seize the day.Are you capable of being worthless?Would you like to start an art world, a weekly meeting of Worthless Bastards in your town?Just visit worthlessbastards.orgAnd welcome aboard.Roy H. Williams(and Indy Beagle!)

YOUNG ONE: “Master, does success go to the clever one, or to the lucky one?”MERLYN: “Success is sometimes discovered by the clever one, and occasionally by the lucky one, but it is most often laid hold of by the determined one.”YOUNG ONE: “Will you teach me to be determined?”MERLYN: “Determination is dangerous… relentless… remorseless… and inescapable. It returns to its master with treasure between its teeth.”YOUNG ONE: “Is Determination a dog? Shall I summon it with a whistle?”MERLYN: “The whistle is a four-note tune that comes at a high price.”YOUNG ONE: “Teach me the notes. I will pay.”MERLYN: “Everyone wants to be a beast, until it’s time to do what real beasts do.”YOUNG ONE: “Teach me the notes.”MERLYN: “As you wish.”This is what the old wizard taught me:NOTE ONE: Count the cost.MERLYN: “Consider everything that might go wrong. Is your goal worth enough that you would endure all this discomfort and pain? If the answer is yes, then make peace with those possibilities and you will be bulletproof. No matter what happens, you will not panic. You will have already been there in your mind.”NOTE TWO: Throw your cap over the wall.MERLYN: “A group of boys walk a pathway next to a high stone wall that surrounds the estate of a nobleman. The older boys challenge each other to climb the wall, but none of them can do it. The youngest boy then takes off his cap and tosses it over the wall. Confused, the other boys watch as he quickly climbs the wall. Upon his return, he looks at them and says, ‘I was not going home without that cap.'”NOTE THREE: Employ Exponential Little Bits.MERLYN: “Ask yourself at every meal, ‘What difference have I made today?’ Do not let your head touch your pillow until you have taken an action that moves you a Little Bit closer to your goal, no matter how tiny that action might be. Exponential Little Bits are relentless activities that compound to make a miracle. When daily progress meets with progress, it doesn’t add, it multiplies.”NOTE FOUR: Be an observer, a simple witness to what happens.MERLYN: “You are responsible for your actions, not for the outcome. To be effective, you must be objective. Become a tool in the hand of the goal itself. Eliminate your ego. Do not seek recognition. It isn’t about you. It’s about the thing you’re doing. Are you willing to pay this price? Can you whistle the notes that summon the dog?”YOUNG ONE: “You said the dog returns to its master with treasure between its teeth.”MERLYN: “Yes.”YOUNG ONE: “I see blood on that treasure.”MERLYN: “Yes.”YOUNG ONE: “And the blood is my own.”MERLYN: “You are ready to whistle the notes.”Roy H. Williams

Wizard Academy is now 16 years old.If we could find her birth certificate, we’d take her down to the DMV to get her driver’s license and then she could sport about town in Rocinante (above,) the only vehicle she owns.They grow up so fast.When Wizard Academy is 30, I’ll be 72. At least I hope I’ll be 72. Not everyone who attempts to hike to that mile marker gets there.Will you help us take the impossible dream of Wizard Academy forward into the future?Wizard Academy was launched by accident and grew through the addition of self-selected insiders, as did the Tuesday Group of Stéphane Mallarmé (1880 – 1897,) the Algonquin Round Table of midtown Manhattan (1919 – 1927,) and the artistic salon of Gertrude Stein (1913 – 1939.)The difference between our Academy and theirs is that:1. our group became an official 501c3 educational organization and built a permanent campus, and2. we are not artists who love business, but business people who love art: music and paintings and sculpture and photography and movies and literature and whatever you like that we didn’t mention.“When bankers get together for dinner, they discuss Art. When artists get together for dinner, they discuss Money.” – Oscar Wilde, of the Tuesday GroupWizard Academy is here to stay. And if you’re reading this, I’m fairly certain you belong here. You will be amazed, energized, entertained and encouraged by the people you meet. You will gain insights that make you profoundly more successful.The Tuesday Group (Les Mardistes) of Stéphane Mallarmé included writers like André Gide, Paul Valéry, Oscar Wilde, Paul Verlaine, Rainer Maria Rilke and W.B. Yeats, along with painters like Renoir, Monet, Degas, Redon, and Whistler. Also to be found among them was the quintessential sculptor, Rodin. Everyone who knew about the Tuesday Group, came.The Algonquin Round Table was a self-selected group of writers, editors, actors, and publicists – about 30 in all – that met for lunch on a regular basis at the Algonquin Hotel a block from Times Square. There hasn’t been another group quite like them in American popular culture or entertainment until now. Just visit the Toad and Ostrich pub in the tower at Wizard Academy any Friday afternoon at 4.The gatherings in the Stein home on Saturday evenings brought together confluences of talent and thinking that would help define modernism in literature and art. According to Gertrude Stein, the gatherings began by accident when,“more and more frequently, people began visiting to see the Matisse paintings—and the Cézannes. Matisse brought people, everybody brought somebody, and they came at any time and it began to be a nuisance, and it was in this way that Saturday evenings began.” (Interestingly, that’s also why Pennie Williams launched Wizard Academy.)Self-selected insiders included Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sinclair Lewis, Guillaume Apollinaire, Georges Braque, Thornton Wilder, Sherwood Anderson, Francis Cyril Rose, René Crevel, Élisabeth de Gramont, Francis Picabia, Claribel Cone, Mildred Aldrich and Carl Van Vechten.A visit to Wizard Academy is like a wonderful vacation in a foreign country. Few people come here only once.Did you know that you have a vacation home high on a plateau in central Texas where rabbits and deer wander the campus, wine flows freely and wedding bells ring 3 times a day?Come. Let your eyes be opened to answers that have been staring you in the face.Roy H. Williams

Standing in the corner of a dark theater, Joe listens as melancholy, majestic music rises from the orchestra pit to soar high above the spotlights.Joe has been hired to write lyrics for a musical play about Don Quixote. The first lyricist – the famous poet W.H. Auden – has been fired because his lyrics were downbeat, defeated and bitter. Joe Darion is his replacement, alone and unqualified, a nobody standing in the darkness with his back against the wall.“This music cries out for lyrics that speak of a yearning so deep that a man might rise above himself!” Joe stares into the darkness beyond the spotlights hoping to catch a glimpse of those lyrics.The music continues, as wistful and sweet as the hope for a better tomorrow.Joe closes his eyes and sees stars where the spotlights had been. His eyes are wet. “And to think the composer was a Madison Avenue jingle writer whose only claim to fame was the television ditty, ‘Nobody Doesn’t Like Sara Lee.’ The man has risen above himself.”“The playwright has risen above himself, too. But he stood on the shoulders of a giant.”Joe recognizes the play as a clever reframing of the work of John Steinbeck who won the Nobel Prize in Literature two years ago and is now in failing health. “Certainly Wasserman will acknowledge his debt to Steinbeck.”“Certainly he will.”Twelve years ago Steinbeck spoke of his admiration for Miguel de Cervantes – the author of Don Quixote – in his prologue to East of Eden, a retelling of the biblical story of Cain and Abel. But in Steinbeck’s tale the boys weren’t the sons of Eve in the garden of Eden. They were twin sons of a reluctant prostitute.Nine years ago Steinbeck’s musical play, Pipe Dream, set a new record for advance ticket sales on Broadway. Steinbeck sent inscribed copies of Don Quixote to the play’s producers with notes explaining it was “required reading” for the project. And Steinbeck’s would-be Dulcinea, Suzy, was once again a reluctant prostitute.Seven years ago Steinbeck began a novel called Don Keehan, the Marshall of Manchon, whose Quixote was a California farmer who had watched one-too-many westerns on television. And again his Dulcinea, Sugar Mae, was a reluctant prostitute.“In the original version of Don Quixote, Dulcinea is a village girl with nothing special about her. Quixote sees her only from a distance. They never meet. And she is not a prostitute.”So Wasserman’s portrayal of Dulcinea as a reluctant prostitute can’t have been inspired by the original story of 1605.It was obviously inspired by Steinbeck.“Certainly Wasserman will acknowledge him. Certainly.”This musical, Man of La Mancha, is a revision of the non-musical play Wasserman wrote 2 years after John Steinbeck had written his third Quixote-inspired story featuring an inexplicable, reluctant prostitute. That first, non-musical play of Wasserman’s was called, I, Don Quixote. Joe has a copy in his back pocket.Joe wipes his cheek, “But none of this helps me solve my problem.”“Steinbeck rocked the world with East of Eden, a story that echoed the Bible. Hemingway rocked the world with The Old Man and the Sea, a story that echoed the crucifixion of Christ.” Joe would like to rock the world, too. He pulls his dog-eared script of Wasserman’s first play from his back pocket and angles it to the light.“Somewhere in here is a scene where Quixote talks about God and Dulcinea.”He finds it.DR. CARRASCO: There are no giants. No kings under enchantment. No castles. No chivalry. No knights. There have been no knights for three hundred years.DON QUIXOTE (indifferently): So say you.DR. CARRASCO: These are facts.DON QUIXOTE: Facts are the enemy of truth!DR. CARRASCO: Would you deny reality?DON QUIXOTE (coolly): Which… mine or yours?DR. CARRASCO: There is only one!DON QUIXOTE (smiles calmly): I think reality is in the eye of the beholder. (DR. CARRASCO opens his mouth to answer but Quixote interrupts:) No, my friend , it is useless to argue. Give me my way and let the devil take those who have no more use for imagination than a rooster for his wings. (DR. CARRASCO turns away, angry.)PADRE (fascinated): Why do you do this?DON QUIXOTE: In the service of God…and my lady.PADRE: I have some knowledge of God… but this other?DON QUIXOTE: My lady Dulcinea.DR. CARRASCO (pouncing): So there’s a woman!DON QUIXOTE: A lady! (Softening.) Her beauty is more than human. Her quality? Perfection. She is the very meaning of woman…and all meaning woman has to man.PADRE (with a sad smile): To each his Dulcinea.DR. CARRASCO (studies Quixote a moment, then in a businesslike tone): Come, Padre. It’s a long way home.PADRE (hesitates a moment): Go with God. (Follows DR. CARRASCO, pauses to look back.) There is either the wisest madman or the maddest wise man in the world.“The maddest wise man… The maddest wise man… The maddest wise man…”Ever looking upward, the wise men followed a star far beyond the borders of their country into realms beyond imagination.Joe looks once more into the darkness above the spotlights, hoping to see the lyrics hiding in the darkness of that music. He closes his eyes and hears Quixote in his mind.“This is my Quest; to follow that star,No matter how hopeless, no matter how far,To fight for the rightWithout question or pause,To be willing to march into hellFor a heavenly cause!”“And I know, if I’ll only be trueTo this glorious Quest,That my heart will lie peaceful and calmWhen I’m laid to my rest.”“And the world will be better for this,That one man, scorned and covered with scars,Still strove, with his last ounce of courage,To reach the unreachable stars!”Man of La Mancha ran for a total of 2,328 performances and won five Tony Awards. Joe won the Tony for Best Lyricist, the jingle writer won for Best Composer and Man of La Mancha won for Best Musical.Joe’s song, commonly known as The Impossible Dream, has been recorded by more than 80 major recording artists and is one of the most beloved songs in the Great American Songbook.Sometimes it pays to lift your eyes upward.Roy H. Williams

Facts are stacked like bricks to become a tower. Do you see it?But a story is a wave that takes you on a journey and leaves the memory of the tower far behind.Facts are solid.Stories are seductive.You will find the facts in the paragraphs below.You will find the stories in the rabbit hole.A Harvard graduate, Maria Konnikova received her Ph.D. in psychology from Columbia. She is the recipient of the 2015 Harvard Medical School Media Fellowship and is a Schachter Writing Fellow at Columbia University’s Motivation Science Center.Let me put it a little more “Texan.”Harvard Medical School believes in Maria enough to give her money.The Motivation Science Center believes in her enough to give her money.These big-league institutions are helping to fund her research.Conclusion: Maria Konnikova is neither a poser nor a lightweight.In her new book, The Confidence Game, Maria explains how cognitive scientists are proving that stories are the most effective way to get people to change their minds.Eric Barker of Wired magazine was impressed with Maria’s book and followed it up with an interview. He talks about it in his blog, Barking Up the Wrong Tree. “When people tell us stories we tend to let our guard down. We don’t think we’re being ‘sold’ something, so we tend to go along for the ride. We quietly lose motivation to detect lies.”“When psychologists Melanie Green and Timothy Brock decided to test the persuasive power of narrative, they found that the more a story transported us into its world, the more we were likely to believe it… The more engrossed a reader was in the story, the fewer false notes she noticed. The sweep of the narrative trumped the facts of logic. What’s more, the most engaged readers were also more likely to agree with the beliefs the story implied.”– Maria Konnokova, The Confidence GameEric Barker’s additional research included the following nuggets,“Nothing beats a story when it comes to convincing you of something…”“Our brains are wired to respond to stories…”“Paul Zak, the director of the Center for Neuroeconomics Studies, has found repeatedly that nothing changes our emotions and behavior like the flow of a good story…”“Keith Quesenberry at Johns Hopkins studied more than 100 Super Bowl ads to determine what the most effective ones had in common. The answer? They told a story.”Will you give me a couple of extra minutes today if I promise to teach you something valuable?I want to help you understand what is – and is not – a story.I want to help you attract more customers.I’d like you to compare this week’s MondayMorningMemo – the one you’re reading now – to last week’s memo, Herbert and the Bullfight.Herbert and the Bullfight tells a story.This week’s memo does not.This week’s memo uses simile, “Facts are stacked like bricks…” and metaphor, “a story is a wave…” to make statements of fact more colorful.But it takes more than color to tell a story.You met several characters in this memo – Maria Konnokova, Eric Barker, Melanie Green, Timothy Brock, Paul Zak and Keith Quesenberry – but none of those characters took you on a journey. You never felt what they were feeling or saw the world through their eyes. You never identified with any of them.Nothing happens to them, so they remain unchanged.A story…1. has a character2. with whom you identify3. and a pivotal moment. (The best stories have a series of them.)4. As a result of these moments, the character – and you – are both changed.Good advertising is relevant. This means the customer relates to it and feels connected.Good advertising is credible. This means it agrees with the customer’s beliefs.Facts are presented by salespeople in the hope of changing a customer’s beliefs. They’re hoping the customer will make a new decision based on this new information. And this method often works. But only after you have convinced the customer to give you their time.To win the customers time, you must offer them entertainment.Well-told stories are entertaining.The salesperson who wins the customer’s timeis the one most likely to win their money.Have you been bludgeoning your customers with facts and data?Try stroking them softly with stories.Storytelling is a sport that requires training and practice.It is an art that requires boldness and restraint.Are you ready to learn it?Roy H. Williams

Agnes De Mille once wrote,“No trumpets sound when the important decisions of our life are made. Destiny is made known silently.”Agnes was right about most of us, but she was completely wrong about Herbert.Herbert sculpts and paints. Abstract expressionism is his thing.“It’s like jazz,” he says. “Art is a feel. I like to journey into a world where words don’t exist.”Edgar “Yip” Harburg, the lyricist who wrote Judy Garland’s wistful Somewhere Over the Rainbow, once made a similar observation.“Words make you think thoughts.Music makes you feel a feeling.But a song makes you feel a thought.”But now we’re getting ahead of ourselves.The story of Herbert and the bullfight begins in 1930, when Louis, a mandolin-playing Ukrainian Jewish tailor, comes to America and falls in love with Tillie Goldberg on New York’s Lower East Side. They get hitched, move to L.A. and have two little boys and a girl.In 1955, first-son David is a well-known drummer and second-son Herbert is a trumpet player in the marching band at USC. Daughter Mimi is learning to play piano.In 1962, Herbert is in the garage recording a trumpet song called “Twinkle Star” when he decides to take a break and drive to Mexico. He recently told the story on CBS Sunday Morning.“Tijuana had some world-class matadors, and this trumpet section in the stands, you know, they would announce the different programs, the different events in the bullfight. “Ta-Dahh! Pa-Da Dattle-Da-Dattle Da-Dahhh. I got kind of, uh, chill bumps from all that stuff and I tried to translate the feelings of those afternoons to a song.”Herbert returns home, flavors “Twinkle Star” with the soft and spicy taste of a Tijuana afternoon, and renames it, “The Lonely Bull.”He mails his record to some radio stations and the song becomes a Top Ten hit.Encouraged, Herbert hires some other musicians to play alongside him. Their exotic, jazzy groove is often described as “blithe, Latin-over-lilt,” so it’s easy to understand why everyone thinks Herb and his boys are Hispanic. But not one of them has a drop of Spanish blood. Herb describes his band as, “four lasagnas, two bagels, and an American cheese.” Audiences know them as “Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass.”In 1966, they sold more records than the Beatles.Herbert goes on to score five No. 1 hits, 15 gold albums, 14 platinum albums and win eight Grammy Awards. No one but Herb has ever had 4 albums simultaneously in the Top 10.Seventy-two million record albums is quite a few to sell, don’t you think?But Herbert is just getting started.Immediately following the success of The Lonely Bull, he convinces Jerry Moss to become his business partner. Alpert and Moss produce and distribute their fantastically successful Tijuana Brass albums under their own record label, A&M.In 1969, Herb discovers a brother/sister duo that becomes fantastically successful as well: Richard and Karen Carpenter. Soon A&M is producing 400 different bands and artists, many of whom will see the stars align to spell their names in the midnight sky.In 1989, Herb sold A&M Records to Polygram for 500 million dollars.And it all beganwhen the son of a Ukranian tailordecided to push himself beyond his comfort zoneand go on a road trip to Mexico.Roy H. Williams

Pressure, pressure, pressure unspeakable then BANG the world breaks open and a plateau pops up from solid rock, creating a fabulous view of the land below. That’s what happened in Central Texas.That’s what happens in life, too. But we’ll talk about that in a minute.Wizard Academy straddles the Texas escarpment, a magical place where the green meets the brown along a 480-mile crack in the crust of the southern United States. My geologist buddy Andrew Backus says it was created by continental shift during the Miocene era, about 12 million years ago.It was along this plateau-ridge that the Spanish built their first missions. The rising tiers of white limestone rising 300 to 1,000 feet above the green prairies reminded them of balconies. And that is how the “Balcones” escarpment got its name. Notable features of this escarpment are its massive artesian springs gushing tens of millions of gallons per day.But we’re not talking about geology today.We’re talking about you.And we’re not talking about the sparkling waters that gush up through a crack in the earth. We’re talking about the sparkling creativity that gushes up through a crack in you…and the price of releasing that creativity.The glistening water of your unconscious mind lies deep beneath your consciousness. The only way for it to come gushing out is through a shifting of tectonic plates.Few things disturb us so much as those earthquakes that release our creativity.If it’s been awhile since you felt the earth shifting beneath your feet, you’re probably feeling “a little dried up.”Oh! I have your attention now?Each of us has four different modalities of gathering and processing information. We arrange them in whatever order we prefer.Your temperament is determined by the order of your preferences.We operate chiefly in our two most-preferred modalities. But when both of these have failed us, we reach deep within and begin operating in our third most-preferred. It feels a little awkward and it causes us stress, but when our top two methods have failed us, it’s what we do.And if that third-preferred modality doesn’t deliver the desired result, we’ll dig still deeper to lay hold of our least-preferred method of interaction. Psychologists call this our inferior function.We almost never go there.But when we do – even if we stay there only briefly – the recovery time is glorious. Millions of gallons of creativity come sparkling into the sunlight through the crack created by that earthquake.Dr. Richard D. Grant calls this process “a trapdoor to the unconscious.”And now you understand why the first day of any transformative class at Wizard Academy is crammed-full of relentless stimulation. As you struggle up the mountainside, big ideas come roaring at you like boulders during an avalanche. You barely escape one before the next one is upon you.You’re utterly exhausted by the end of the day.But then you relax during dinner as you talk with your new friends, the ones who were with you on that mountain.That’s when the magic begins.It never fails.Roy H. Williams

When you challenge traditional wisdom, the first hand in the air will often be that of a guardian of the status quo who will challenge you with an “outlier argument,” pointing to that rare exception as though it disproves your premise.But an outlier does not disprove the rule. In fact, statisticians consider data to be more reliable when it has an appropriate number of outliers. Data that presents itself uniformly usually indicates a bias in the methods used for information gathering.Are there people in your life who challenge your every suggestion with an outlier argument? Learn to include the outliers in your thesis statement. When you begin by acknowledging the rare exceptions, you make room for the Guardians to calm down and begin listening.Address the exceptions and you can dismiss them. Address and dismiss.In the minds of highly organized people, your idea will seem incomplete and not-yet-ready when there is no plan for dealing with exceptions.When you leave out the exceptions, you’re leaving out too much.You must do more than explain why your idea will work.You must explain where and when it won’t work.But when you have acknowledged that you are aware of the loopholes, compress your core concept into the fewest possible words.Shorter hits harder.Two hundred years ago Thomas Jefferson said, “The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do,” and two hundred years before him, William Shakespeare said, “Brevity is the soul of wit.”Jefferson and Shakespeare knew that exformation* is a wonderful tool for holding the attention of readers, listeners and viewers. Exformation makes use of what is already known to the audience, or can easily be figured out through context.Information is what you include.Exformation is what you exclude.When Victor Hugo wrote his publisher to ask how his most recent book, Les Miserables, was being received by the public, Hugo simply wrote “?”, to which his publisher replied “!”, to indicate the book was selling well. This exchange would have no meaning to a third party because the power of exformation depends upon prior knowledge that each participant brings to the party.Do you know what your audience brings to the party?If you tell them what they already know, you bore them. Or worse, you insult them by assuming them to be ignorant. But if you assume they know things they don’t know, you fail to connect with them. You waste their time. You are irrelevant.In public speaking, when you suspect your audience might be familiar with some of the ideas in your presentation, it is important that you acknowledge that fact. Consider saying, “I realize some people in this room probably know more than I do about today’s topic, but I don’t want to assume everyone is familiar with all the ideas.” This is when you must raise your hand in the air as you sweep the audience with your eyes and say, “Do I have your permission to quickly explain some of the things you already know, just so we don’t leave anyone behind? Would it be okay if I did that?” Leave your own hand in the air as you scan the audience. Look for agreement. You might even have to repeat the question while keeping your hand upraised.When you have seen enough people raise their hands, be sure to smile and say, “Thank you,” as you lower your own.Do this and you will connect with a high percentage of the room.They will be on your side and in your corner before you even begin your talk.Leave out this important step and you’ve left out way too much.Roy H. Williams* Tor Nørretranders coined the term exformation in 1998 to refer to explicitly discarded information.