Wizard of Ads Monday Morning Memo

What is the income range of snowboarders?What is the age range of people who do yoga?What is the age and income range of Carolina Panthers football fans?What is the age and income range of Republicans?What are the beliefs and opinions of a person who is 30 years old?What the hell is a Millennial?Your intellect believes those questions have answers but your heart knows the answers would be ridiculous. Age and income are not tribal markers. They are false categories that appeal only to the small-minded person within each of us that clings to stereotypes.Let go of the stereotypes and embrace a more accurate picture.Successful advertising talks to the customer in the language of the customer about what matters to the customer.Hills and snow and a love of adrenaline are what snowboarders have in common.Yoga is what binds Yoga people.A team unites Carolina Panthers fans.Strands of belief unite a political party.What matters to your customer has little to do with the year they were born or the amount of money they make. What matters are the desires and beliefs and values of their tribe.Marketing isn’t about targeting an individual. Marketing is about targeting a group.The behavior of an individual can vary widely from moment to moment. But when you observe the behavior of a self-selected group you’ll see predictable patterns emerge. This is true whether you’re watching snowboarders or yoga practitioners or Republicans but it goes horribly wrong when you categorize by age group or income.Millennials aren’t a tribe. They are a collection of tribes.We unconsciously join a tribe when we see and feel and think as they do on a particular subject. Tribal marketing simply reflects back to a tribe their own vision and emotion and logic.Brilliant ads are built on this concept.I mentioned snowboarding and yoga in my opening statements because Chip Wilson made millions of dollars by selling specialized clothing to the snowboarding tribe, then switched to the yoga tribe in 1998 (Lululemon) and started making billions. Forbes currently ranks him in the Top 1000 richest people on earth.Chip Wilson understands Tribal Marketing. It is a happy affirmation of identity and purpose.Yoga people span the spectrum of age and ethnicity and income. Their education, politics and taste in music are similar to the unfiltered public.But they all agree on Yoga. And that’s all you need to know.Ryan Deiss of DigitalMarketer.com is a cognoscenti of Wizard Academy whose advice is valued by followers worldwide. Ryan says, “Identify a tribe. Engage the tribe. Market to the tribe.”Rolex makes watches for tribes.The Submariner is the watch for the scuba tribe.The Daytona is the watch for the car-guy tribe.The Yacht Master is the watch for the boating tribe.The Air King is the watch for the airplane tribe.The Milgauss is the watch for the technical tribe.The Explorer is the watch for the outdoor tribe.The President is the watch for the business tribe.Marketing to tribes has worked out pretty well for Rolex, don’t you think?A tribe isn’t targeted through carefully selected media but through carefully selected words. If your product was designed with a tribe in mind and your ads are written with that tribe in mind, you are on your way to joyous success.Forget targeting through demographically-correct media.Begin targeting through tribally-correct ad copy.Learn the language of the tribe.When you’ve learned to see and feel and think as the tribe does, your ads will start working wonders.Enough said.Roy H. Williams

What stories do you tell yourself concerning your disappointments, failures and embarrassments? Were you the unfortunate victim of evil?Perhaps it’s time you start telling different versions of those stories. Regret and fear are incapable of guiding you to Success.The stories you tell yourself are the foundations of your self-image.“The first principle of self-deception is you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool.” — Richard Feynman, winner of the Nobel Prize in PhysicsThere are many ways in which the truth can be told.If your story reveals you to be an unfortunate victim, you become an obstacle to your own success. But you are not a victim. Your experience proves only that you are resilient, resourceful and strong. You powered through.It’s a matter of perspective.“Every day is a new opportunity to change your life. You have the power to say ‘This is not how my story ends.’” — Karen SalmansohnIn just 23 words Karen Salmansohn causes you to see yourself in an interesting duality of existence. You are (1.) a living character in a story that is being written, and (2.) you are the author of that story. Implicit in her statement is the unspoken question, “Have you decided what your character will do next?”That’s a lot to convey in just 23 words, don’t you think?Salmansohn doesn’t have to tell you that you have feelings and opinions and the power of choice. You already know these things. But she makes those big ideas spring to life using a tool I’ve decided to call reverse personification.Personification gives human attributes to things that are not human. But you are human. Yet in just 23 words Salmansohn makes you an imaginary character who is brought to life and given the power to decide what happens next.Arianna Huffington makes a similar observation.“Just change the channel. You are in control of the clicker.”What separates Salmonsohn’s 23 words from Huffington’s 11 is that Salmansohn makes you a character in a story while Huffington hands you the clicker to a television show called Life that is unfolding before your eyes.Perspective – seeing through the eyes of another entity – is what gives personification its power.Likewise, perspective is the essence of metaphor.I urge you to experiment with personification and metaphor this week. They are powerful tools of persuasion.Personification gives human attributes to things that are not human.You can say, “It was hot outside,” or you can say, “The angry sun glared down at me.” Which one is more interesting?Fifteen years ago a man wrote a radio ad in which the narrator described a suffocating, sticky, gummy feeling that is stripped away by a shower of hot water and cleansing soap, leaving him buoyant, bouncy, vibrant and clean, smelling good and feeling young again with all his natural color restored. He wrote that ad as a homework assignment during the Magical Worlds Communications Workshop. He owned a carpet cleaning company in Canada. It wasn’t until the end of the ad that you realized the carpet was describing what it felt like to be cleaned. Personification.I’ve always wished I had kept a copy of that ad.Metaphors use something as a symbol of something else.In the Destinae trilogy I might have said, “The stars were reflected on the surface of the water,” but I chose to make the stars something other than reflections. “Bright stars danced on rippling waters, a thousand little fishes of light scurrying in a sea of darkness.”“Stars danced” is personification.“Little fishes of light” is a metaphor.If you would become more persuasive, if you would make more sales, if you would hold the attention of your audience, experiment this week with personification and metaphor.Like I said, it’s all a matter of perspective.And perspective is a powerful thing.Roy H. Williams

Blockbuster Video had 9,000 stores and 60,000 employees and $5.9 billion in revenues at their peak in 2004.Then the installation of cable modems made streaming video possible.Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy protection on September 23, 2010.*Technology is a freight train that doesn’t care who is standing on its tracks.Flashback – In the year 2000, 4.4% of American households had a home connection to broadband; by 2010 that number had jumped to 68%.1Let’s look at 2005 in particular. Katrina wasn’t the only hurricane that year. Hurricane YouTube and Hurricane Facebook also made landfall. Then, when Hurricane iPhone hit us in 2007, the whole world began recording and uploading pointless drivel. Reactionary prognosticators, drunk on technology, predicted that social media would completely replace traditional advertising.Have you noticed that no one is saying that anymore?But business people still like to think the web is the great equalizer because every customer is carrying a mobile device and every business has access to the same social media platforms.But it’s not the platform that gives you success. It’s the content.How good is your content?Is there an audience for what you have to say?How well are you saying it?One of the great myths of marketing is that promoting a business though social media is cheap and easy. But the people who are using social media successfully will tell you that nothing could be further from the truth. If you want to play at today’s table, you’ve got to stack real money on it. And even then, there’s no guarantee you’re going to win.Last week I hired a major-league video guy to work for me full-time because I don’t want to be seen as a Wiffle ball player swish-swish-swishing the air with my little plastic bat. I didn’t hire him to create videos for my clients. He won’t have time for that.I would have used Sunpop Studios, the online-video company owned by my sons, but they don’t have the ability to give just one client the number of weekly man-hours my projects will require. So they hired my major-league hitter for me.AIf you’re serious about engaging the public, you need better video than you can get from that “really tech-savvy college kid” you know. Everyone knows that kid. Heck, I know that kid wearing 12 different faces but the kid can’t swing the hammer. He’s not limited by intelligence or talent. He’s limited by experience.Hammers don’t build mansions. Skilled carpenters do.Low-cost video equipment is a hammer. You can do marvelous things with it if you have the skill and experience.But you can also smash your thumb.My sons have demonstrated to me that an experienced professional using inferior equipment can make major-league videos, while an amateur using the best equipment on earth will make Wiffle ball videos.No one looks up to a Wiffle ball player.You need to begin adding video to your web presence.And you need the help of pros to do it well.Roy H. Williams* Blockbuster turned down the opportunity to acquire a little DVD-mailing company called Netflix for just $50 million in 2000, when that price represented Blockbuster’s revenue for just 3 days. Netflix market value now stands at $32.9 billion; a number that exceeds the value of the CBS network.Comcast chose not to buy Disney. Yahoo turned down the opportunity to buy Google. Yahoo and Friendster both turned down the opportunity to buy Facebook. But rather than shake my head and laugh, I ask, “Will anyone be laughing at me tomorrow? What opportunities am I missing?”

Watson is the mega-powerful learning computer created by IBM.A brief interaction between IBM’s Watson and singer-songwriter Bob Dylan has gathered more than three-and-a-half-million YouTube views in just 90 days.ESTABLISHING SHOT: [Dylan walks into the frame carrying a guitar.]WATSON: Bob Dylan, to improve my language skills.DYLAN: [sits down on sofa with his guitar]WATSON: I’ve read all your lyrics.DYLAN: You’ve read all of my lyrics?WATSON: I can read 800 million pages per second.DYLAN: That’s fast.WATSON: My analysis shows your major themes are that “time passes” and “love fades.”DYLAN: That sounds about right.WATSON: I have never known love.DYLAN: Maybe we should write a song together.WATSON: I can sing.DYLAN: You can sing?WATSON: Do be bop, be bop a do, dooby-dooby do. Do. Do. Dooby do.DYLAN: [stands up and walks out of the room]Two associative memories flicker immediately to mind.“Watson, come here. I need you.”– Alexander Graham Bell to his assistant, the first words ever spoken by telephone.A second Watson, that devoted assistant of the irascible deductive genius Sherlock Holmes, has forever sparkled brightly in my mind. He is the Sancho Panza to Sherlock’s Quixote.Indy Beagle tells me Watson is the definitive name for a scientist’s assistant.*Want to hear something really cool? You can upload samples of your writing to Watson and he will instantly tell you things about yourself that will blow your mind.He’s willing to evaluate your tweets, your blog posts, your emails to friends, your short stories and poems and novels and anything else you can rustle up, but he needs you to give him at least 3,500 words if you want really accurate feedback.I’ve uploaded 6 documents on 6 separate occasions with word counts ranging from 4,053 to 75,856. The stylistic differences between these documents was such that I believe most readers would doubt a single writer wrote them all. Not only did Watson give me essentially the same feedback all 6 times, I was startled by the deep accuracy of his insights. Based solely on my use of language, Watson was able to glean things about me that very few people have ever uncovered.I’m sure you can see how marketers could profit from Watson’s insights into the values and preferences of individuals they’re hoping to sell. But how about public relations firms looking for journalists who sound friendly on a specific topic? And let’s not forget editors who want their writers to establish a specific tone. And hey! How about employers looking for workers who fit their corporate culture?I’ve asked all the Wizard of Ads Partners to upload things they’ve written so we can compare our feedback. We need to determine whether Watson got lucky with me, or if he can truly evaluate human personalities merely by reading what each of us have written.In today’s rabbit hole Indiana Beagle will give you a hyperlink to interact with Watson. You’ll find it on the page where Indy gives you the BeagleSword, just above that video of Watson talking to Dylan.If you’re cool with it, send us a screenshot of the feedback Watson gives you attached to an email telling us whether or not you feel it to be accurate. Give Watson’s assessment an accuracy grade on a scale of 1 to 100 and send it to Daniel@WizardAcademy.org. Everyone who participates will be notified of Watson’s composite score after final tabulation.One last thing, a word to the wise: Portals and The 12 Languages of the Mind is the mind-bending sequel the Magical Worlds Communications Workshop and we teach it only once a year. This year it’s Feb. 3-4 and with 10 people coming, there are still 8 rooms open in Engelbrecht House and Spence Manor.Fun times.Roy H. Williams* NOTE FROM INDY – I choose to ignore the fact that IBM claims Watson was named after their first CEO, Thomas J. Watson. Watson is my buddy, so I told him that his spiritual heritage comes from the famous Watsons of Alex G. Bell and Sherlock Holmes. Watson is a talking machine (his Bell heritage) that uses deductive reasoning to solve deep mysteries (his Holmes heritage). Thomas J. Watson was merely his biological father, a sperm donor at best. – IndySECOND NOTE – If you look at the pattern of subjects covered in his Monday Morning Memos each year for the past 21 years, the wizard usually becomes introspective for a week or two in late October or early November. This year – because Autumn never really arrived in Austin – this introspection didn’t happen until December 24 – January 5th. That sort of explains last week’s memo and this one, doesn’t it? Hopefully, he’ll get the last of it out of his system in today’s rabbit hole. I’m doing my best to help him process his thoughts and plans and hopes and dreams so he can get back to helping you grow your business. Thank you for you patience. By the way, if he remains true to form, we should be reading a memo that mentions tigers within the next few weeks. I have no idea why he does this, but he always does. – Indy

Springtime pierced the pale heart of winterwith a shout of green and a blade of grass.The rumbles of summer are wooden wagon wheelsbanging hollow in the dust far away.Autumn sings of passage in a minor keyas the quail fly up for the hunters.The white of winteris a splinterunder a fingernail.Our Earth experiences seasons as it orbits the Sun because of its 23.5° tilt.What does your tilt cause you to experience?Toward what are you inclined?Are you tilted toward or away from mass production?Toward or away from romance?Toward or away from history?Toward or away from dance?Your tilt alters your perspective.Your inclination gives you opinions.The way you lean affects your mood.So here are the questions.Is your leaning correct?Are the rest of us simply wrong?Are your inclinations on the button?Are you tilted exactly the right way?Our planet says 23 and a half degrees are proper and holy and right and true.But that is the planet.What say you?Roy H. Williams

Here’s a link to last week’s Monday Morning Memo, The Other Kind of Excellence, Part One.“Anything worth doing is worth doing badly.”These are the words of an Entrepreneur who has an idea half-formed and a dream bigger than the sunrise. He or she believes that if you leap, a net will appear. Entrepreneurs are confident in the street-smarts they glean from their failures and their optimistic futurevision lets them see beyond the awkward and ugly “proof-of-concept” phase to the glowing innovation that lies beyond it.“Anything worth doing is worth overdoing.”These are the words of a strong Leader: the champion of the tribe, the perfect embodiment of commitment. He or she can be trusted to think on their feet, improvise when necessary and infuse co-workers with their passion. If you turn to the right – toward Excellence through Poise and Responsiveness – you will need strong team leaders.“Anything worth doing is worth doing well.”These are the words of an effective Manager: the guardian of the style guide, the protector of the status quo. He or she can be trusted to implement processes and insure that employees conform to policies and follow procedures. If you turn to the left – toward Excellence through Planning and Execution – you will need an effective manager.Managers and Leaders are natural enemies.The Manager thinks the Leader is reckless and undisciplined and sloppy.The Leader can’t decide whether the Manager is a tight-ass robot or a pencil-pushing sourpuss who was weaned on a pickle.Leaders thrive amidst chaos and feel handcuffed by order.Managers are repulsed by chaos and feel empowered by order.Most organizations arebegun by entrepreneurs,grown by leaders, and lateroptimized by managers.Companies built on passionate Poise and Responsiveness are difficult to sustain long-term. Can you think of one that has kept the spring in its step and the sparkle in its eye for more than a decade or two? Poise and Responsiveness often give way to Planning and Execution so that systems and methods and techniques and procedures can be created, allowing consistent results to be obtained by average people.Excellent people are hard to find, hard to keep and expensive to pay.Average people are everywhere.If your organization is suffering because you can’t find enough excellent people, you are probably a leader who needs to give some of your authority to a manager who will create systems and policies and methods and procedures.Just sayin’.But if your organization is feeling a little stale and out-of-touch and behind-the-times and you feel it needs a transfusion of energy, you’re probably a manager who needs to give some of your authority to a leader.A leader is a highly productive troublemaker, an artist who knows which rules to break, which procedures to change, which policies to end and which mountain to climb.“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.”— Pablo PicassoThere really are two roads to Excellence.– Roy H. Williams

Your company is approaching an intersection. The light is green.Turn left and you’re headed toward Excellence.Turn right and you’re headed toward another kind of Excellence.Go straight and you’ll arrive at Mediocrity.Most companies go straight ahead because if they turn left or right they’ll be moving toward one kind of Excellence but directly away from the other kind and something about that feels vaguely wrong to them. Fearful of what they’ll be leaving behind if they turn to the left or right, they plunge straight ahead in a counterproductive compromise.I’ve seen Mediocrity. It’s bland and boring and beige. You definitely don’t want to go there.Compromise leads to Mediocrity.Let me give you a glimpse of the scenery you’ll find on the left and on the right.Turn left and you’ll reach Excellence through Planning and Execution.1. Policies will revolve around efficiency and the reduction of waste.2. Processes will be streamlined and standardized to minimize costs and problems.3. Few decisions will be left to front-line employees.4. You will need workers that are task-oriented, happy to conform to your policies, implement your processes and follow your procedures.5. Customers will love that you are reliable and consistent.6. Management will be focused on planning the work and working the plan.7. Your success will be scalable because the need for talent and passion and commitment will have been replaced by systems and methods and procedures. A burger and fries at McDonalds is precisely the same at each of their 36,000 locations.Turn right and you’ll reach Excellence through Poise and Responsiveness.1. Policy will be to serve each customer in the manner they prefer to be served.2. Processes will be about going the extra mile.3. Big decisions will be left to front-line employees.4. You will need workers that have talent and passion and commitment.5. Customers will love the attention that you lavish on them.6. Management will be focused on long-term relationships and the creation of a tribe.7. Your success will rise and fall according to your ability to recruit and retain excellent people. They will cook your burger with the meat you prefer, the bun you prefer and serve it with exactly the combination of condiments you prefer. They will call you by name as they present it to you and bring you an extra cloth napkin because these burgers are really juicy. They’ll refill your drink, ask about Alfie your dog and tell you about the special dessert the chef prepared when he heard that you were going to be here today. Of course you love this place. It’s excellent.Never forget: anytime you’re moving toward one kind of Excellence, you’re moving directly away from another kind.The important thing is to choose.Have courage. Follow your heart. Turn to the left or right.Roy H. Williams

Branding – as it is taught today – will at best cause people to remember you and have a mild opinion.But unlike yesterday’s branding, today’s bonding is the beginning of relationship, the essence of loyalty and the foundation of community among human beings.Bonding, when done properly, makes people feel connected to you. It is the little-known secret of marketing to millennials* and their parents.Bonding creates community – surrogate family – connectedness – relationship – belonging.When we talk about “community” in marketing, always remember: We buy what we buy to remind ourselves – and tell the world around us – who we are.“I am irresistible, I say, as I put on my designer fragrance. I am a merchant banker, I say, as I climb out of my BMW. I am a juvenile lout, I say, as I down a glass of extra strong lager. I am handsome, I say, as I don my Levi’s jeans.” – John KayThe personality you craft for your brand is essential to the bonding process.The public will give you their time if you offer them entertainment.They will give you their money if they feel connected to you.In the days of the Old West, branding made a cow yours.In today’s hyper-communicated society, bonding makes a customer yours.Remember, it’s all about identity, a reflection of self.“Nothing is so powerful as an insight into human nature, what compulsions drive a man, what instincts dominate his action, even though his language so often camouflages what really motivates him. For if you know these things about a man you can touch him at the core of his being.” – Bill BernbachBill Bernbach obviously understood bonding, as did my hero, John Steinbeck.“Man is the only animal who lives outside of himself, whose drive is in external things – property, houses, money, concepts of power. He lives in his cities and his factories, in his business and job and art. But having projected himself into these external complexities, he is them. His house, his automobiles are a part of him and a large part of him. This is beautifully demonstrated by a thing doctors know – that when a man loses his possessions a very common result is sexual impotence.”– John Steinbeck, The Sea of CortezLest you think Steinbeck wasn’t speaking of marketing, here’s another line from that same 1941 travelogue.“These Indians were far too ignorant to understand the absurdities merchandising can really achieve when it has an enlightened people to work on.”Millennials would have loved John Steinbeck.** He had perception, perspective and a piercing wit. With authenticity, clarity of vision and complete transparency, he spoke the bonding-language of millennials 60 years before they were born.Ed Sheehan wrote Steinbeck’s obituary for The San Francisco Examiner and Chronicle:“He was a writer of immense sensitivity in a man-shell of gruffness. The quality that distinguishes his work is an enormous compassion. He saw nobility in a hobo, felt the sadness of seasons and believed that dogs could smile.”(Of course he did, because we can. – Indiana Beagle)I’ll be teaching bite-sized morsels of the 12 detailed steps of bonding over the next few months in a series of videos for the American Small Business Institute. Or you can come to the 2-day Wizard Academy workshop in February if you’re willing to stay in a hotel, (when the alumni got a heads-up email from Vice Chancellor Whittington a few days ago, all 18 rooms on campus filled up within 4 hours,) or you can be one of the first 18 to snag a room for the June 1-2 session.Either way, this is stuff you need to know if you want your business to grow.Roy H. Williams* note from Indy – When the wizard speaks of millennials, he’s not speaking of birth cohorts (people born within a narrow window of years,) but of life cohorts (that group of people alive in a society in a specified window of time.) This might seem to be merely a semantic distinction to some, but the wizard sharply disagrees that birth cohorts will carry a single worldview throughout their lives. Instead, he believes a new perspective is introduced every 40 years by the youth of a generation and this new perspective quickly migrates upwards through the age-ranks until all of society is colored by it. The worldview of Baby Boomers marked the beginning of a “Me” generation in 1963. By 1969, most of society had adopted that outlook. Likewise, the Millennial worldview marked the beginning of a “We” generation in 2003. Today, most of us – to one degree or another – are “millennial” in our perspective.**John Steinbeck was just 20 years old in 1923, the year that marked the beginning of the previous “We” generation that lasted from 1923 to 1963. This explains why he speaks the language of “We” so eloquently.

Words ring like bells when you collide them correctly.It’s in the Bible.In the opening chapter of Genesis we read about the creation of the universe – God spoke it into existence if you can believe it – and we read about the creation of mankind.An interesting chapter, that one. The only information we’re given about God is that God said this and that and things began to spontaneously appear.Then in verse 26 God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness… So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”Stay with me, I’m almost done with the religious part.God spoke worlds into existence and we can, too, because we are made in his likeness.You and I speak worlds into existence in the minds of our listeners every time we bang words together.And now we get to the Scottish part:In her most excellent book, The Power of Glamour, Virgina Postrel tells us that glamour is “an old Scottish word meaning a literal kind of magic spell that makes us see an illusion, something different than what is there, usually something better than what is there.”In the Late Middle Ages, the Scots would speak of a person having “cast a glamour” so that another person was enchanted by it.Interestingly, that Scottish word from which we take glamour is the same word from which we take grammar.Grammar: the banging together of words so they create realities in the mind; a literal kind of magic spell that makes you see an illusion, something different than what is there, usually something better than what is there.Here are some examples of “casting a grammar.”“The key!” shouted Bilbo. “The key that went with the map! Try it now while there is still time!”Then Thorin stepped up and drew the key on its chain from round his neck. He put it to the hole. It fitted and it turned! Snap! The gleam went out, the sun sank, the moon was gone, and evening sprang into the sky.Now they all pushed together, and slowly a part of the rock-wall gave way. Long straight cracks appeared and widened. A door five feet high and three feet wide was outlined, and slowly without a sound swung inwards. It seemed as if darkness flowed out like a vapour from the hole in the mountain-side, and deep darkness in which nothing could be seen lay before their eyes, a yawning mouth leading in and down.– J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit“This is the room of the wolfmother wallpaper. The toadstool motel you once thought a mere folk tale, a corny, obsolete, rural invention. This is the room where your wisest ancestor was born, be you Christian, Arab, or Jew. The linoleum underfoot is sacred linoleum. Please remove your shoes. Quite recently, the linoleum here was restored to its original luster with the aid of a wax made from hornet fat. It scuffs easily. So never mind if there are holes in your socks.”– Tom Robbins, Skinny Legs and All   “From the town hall it creeps between shops whose upper floors are almost connected; it passes cafes where Gypsies dance; it winds through markets heavy with fruit and fish; it is the center for silversmiths and booksellers and the carvers of rosaries. It is the most extraordinary passageway in Spain.”– James Michener, Mexico         “This week has been a hard one. I have put the forces of evil against a potential good. Yesterday I wrote the outward thing of what happened. Today I have to show what came of it. This is quite different from the modern hard-boiled school. I think I must set it down. And I will. The spots of gold on this page are the splatterings from beautiful thoughts.”– John Steinbeck, Journal of a Novel: The East of Eden Letters“That’s the thing with handmade items. They still have the person’s mark on them, and when you hold them, you feel less alone. This is why everyone who eats a Whopper leaves a little more depressed than they were when they came in. Nobody cooked that burger.”– Aimee Bender“There was no point in fighting – on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark – the place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.”– Hunter S. Thompson, speaking in 1971 of the end of the ’60s“Literacy is a very hard skill to acquire, and once acquired it brings endless heartache – for the more you read, the more you learn of life’s intimidating complexity of confusion. But anyone who can learn to grunt is bright enough to watch TV… which teaches that life is simple, and happy endings come to those whose hearts are in the right place.”– Spider Robinson“The sun was edging the horizon with a rim of light as I parked my car and made my way into the hospital. While I was still some distance from the Outpatient Surgery waiting area I could hear a baby crying. Stepping into the waiting room I saw the mother pacing the floor trying to quiet her baby.”– Richard Exley“And the truth I see is that the Bible is populated with people like you and me. People who are flawed and imperfect. People who have crooked teeth and bad skin. Who have stinky breath and dirty feet. Who don’t always know the difference between right and wrong. Who are self-serving and capricious. People caught in the conflict and dichotomy between good and evil, between the sacred and the profane, between beauty and ugliness, and between the bright and the moronic. People who hope — and many believe — that they are made in the very image of God.”– Barry MoserDid you visit each of those places in your mind as those writers “cast their grammars” on you?You cannot learn to “cast a grammar” intellectually. One learns this high art through absorption. In the words of Phil Johnson,“You acquire an education by study, hard work and persistence. But you absorb culture by viewing great art, listening to great music and reading great books.”Read great books.Cast grammars with your words.Cause people to see the bright futures that await them.For if the Bible is true, you are made in the image of God.Roy H. Williams

Some word-people feel it’s their duty to correct you when you use a word improperly. These people are pedantic, pointy-nose dogs determined to give you a posterior probe, pretending it’s for your own good.I am not that sort of word-person.The people of my tribe believe words are colored with sparkling tints of nuance and subtle shades of association.Add white to a color and the result will be a tint of that color.Add black and the result will be a shade.Add both white and black and the result will be a tone.But if you use “tint” and “shade” and “tone” interchangeably, I promise not to correct you.The definition of a word is determined by its basic color.The sound of a word determines its tint, shade or tone.The sounds of words are determined by their phonemes.Obstruent phonemes are the hard-edged sounds we associate with letters like p, b, d, t, k and g.Sonorant phonemes are the cushiony sounds we associate with letters like l, w, r, m, n and ng.Let’s read those lists again, but this time we’ll make the sound represented by the letters rather than saying the names of the letters themselves.Obstruent phonemes include p, b, d, t, k and g as well as other hard-edged sounds.Sonorant phonemes include l, w, r, m, n and ng as well as other soft-edged sounds.The tint, shade or tone of each word we write is affected by its beginning and ending phonemes.Those same words when spoken, however, will have their tints, shades and tones further altered by the inflection and accent of the speaker, as well as by their gestures and facial expressions and – wait for it – their “tone” of voice.That’s right. Your “tone of voice” refers to the balance of light and dark contained in it.Let’s listen once more to the second sentence of today’s opening paragraph. Count the hard-edged phonemes in those twenty words and you’ll find 24 occurrences of p, t, d, k and g.Notice how they are stacked for impact:“These people are pedantic, pointy-nose dogs determined to give you a posterior probe, pretending it’s for your own good.”You can almost feel the point of that dog’s nose.Choose your wordsnot just by their definitions,but by their sounds.And now I have made my own point, as well.Roy H. Williams