Wizard of Ads Monday Morning Memo

Contrary to what my headline might suggest, this is actually an upbeat message.Guilt is about what you have done.Shame is about who you are.Failure in business has no connection to either of these.Failures are footlights along the dark pathway to success.One of the defining characteristics of Wizard Academy alumni is that we are people of action. Failure does not frighten us.The author of Peter Pan, J. M Barrie, would have been one of us if Wizard Academy had existed back then. He said, “We are all failures – at least the best of us are.”Thomas John Watson, the early President of IBM who turned that company into a household word, said, “If you want to increase your success rate, double your failure rate.”Roger Van Oech, a consultant to Apple, Disney, Sony and IBM echoes, “Remember the two benefits of failure. First, if you do fail, you learn what doesn’t work; and second, the failure gives you the opportunity to try a new approach.”Warren G. Bennis had a failure epiphany that changed his life. He says, “The leaders I met, whatever walk of life they were from, whatever institutions they were presiding over, always referred back to some failure: something that happened to them that was personally difficult, even traumatic, something that made them feel that desperate sense of hitting bottom — as something they thought was almost a necessity. It’s as if, at that moment, the iron entered their soul; that moment created the resilience that leaders need.”Failure, it seems, is valuable and important and necessary to your success.Here’s how to do it right:Fail cheaply. Always ask, “What is the minimum viable experiment?”Fail forward. Be sure to learn something you didn’t know before you failed.Fail quickly. The primary goal is to prove or disprove your concept.This education by experience can be expensive. But ignorance is even more expensive.I’m in the middle of what appears – right now – to be a failure of epic proportions.But I’m not frightened by it, ashamed of it, or even confused.“Amazed” is the word I would use.Back on November 4th I announced a $10,000 Quixote’s Windmill Prize. Only 4 people, so far, have entered that contest.Think of it this way: would you accept a free lottery ticket to win a $10,000 cash prize if your chances of winning were 1 in 4? That’s right. There is nothing to buy, no entry fee, and anyone can enter. The prize is cash.The deeply insightful Jean Vanier says, “I am struck by how sharing our weakness and difficulties is more nourishing to others than sharing our qualities and successes.” The name of Vanier’s book is Community and Growth.Community: you’re part of the community of Wizard Academy and the Monday Morning Memo.Growth: It’s the goal of our coming together.I’m going to say something hard now. I hope you will forgive me: If you want to stand before others as a sparkling example of what is possible if a person works hard enough, is disciplined and determined enough, and makes all the right decisions, well, you seem to have a need to be worshipped.If you actually want to benefit the people around you… if you want to help them avoid the mistakes you made and the difficulties you endured as a result… you must share those mistakes and describe those difficulties. This is how we grow. This is how we have community.I want you to enter Quixote’s Windmill contest because it’s important for you to laugh about your failures. If you try to keep them secret, you give them power over you.Don’t wear the handcuffs of the past.Roy H. Williams

“Once, there were 3 kittens named Murry, Furry and Wurry…”I’ll admit to fabricating Murry and Furry, but you and I both know that Wurry is often pampered and protected like a cherished pet. We talk about our Wurry and cuddle it. We share our Wurry with others, hoping they will choose to love our Wurry as we do.If you try to help a person eliminate their Wurry, they will rise ferociously to its defense.People who have all chosen to love the same Wurry form organizations and political parties, bound together by a shared anxiety.Would you like to have anxiety? It can be yours if you want it. All you have to do is craft a pessimistic interpretation of ambiguous events and voilà, anxiety is yours.Jesus makes a strong argument against worry in the 6th chapter of Matthew, then finishes his thoughts with these words: “Don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”That’s a well-known Bible verse, but if you actually choose not to worry, most people will consider you to be foolish and naive.We are programmed from birth to give our attention to the snarling tiger on our left instead of the beautiful butterfly on our right. When face-to-face with imminent danger, fear gives us focus and clarity. It is a biological imperative that keeps us alive. This is why we give bad news the highest priority. But that doesn’t mean fear is always good.When was the last time you encountered a tiger?In the absence of snarling tigers, modern man has chosen to focus his need to fear beyond this moment, beyond his circumstances, beyond objective reality.Our fear about the future is called Worry.I do not love it.What would it feel like if we quit borrowing trouble from tomorrow?It sounds reckless, doesn’t it, not to worry about possibilities that might never happen? Would that mean the end of planning? Perhaps it would. But it would also trigger an explosion of improvisation.I seem to recall a writer who said that most plans are just inaccurate predictions anyway. I think he makes a good point.Am I seriously suggesting that we eliminate worry from our lives? No, it was Jesus who suggested that. I’m merely contemplating the implications of such a decision and walking you down a path of possibilities.Interesting scenery, don’t you think?Roy H. Williams

We could call this memo, “The Poodle and The Vamp, Part Two,” but we won’t. No one likes the sequel quite so much as they liked the original.Talent isn’t rare. Our world overflows with worthy talent that continues day-to-day unrecognized. I’ll wager that you possess such talent.There is something you’re capable of doing, I’ll bet, that could make you famous around the world. Your fame might even happen in a whoosh, the way it did for Billy, Tom, and Ted.Billy Graham started preaching in 1947. In 1949, Billy set up a circus tent in Los Angeles, certainly not the first to do so. So there he was, night after night, just another preacher with a tent, when two words forever altered the trajectory of his life: “Puff Graham.”William Randolph Hearst, the newspaper mogul who inspired the movie, Citizen Kane, sent that unexplained, 2-word telegram to every editor at every newspaper he owned in America. The next day, papers from coast to coast were glowing with stories about this Christian minister. Hearst never told the papers to quit puffing Graham.And they never did.In his book, Just as I Am, Billy Graham says he never learned why Hearst took an interest in him. “Hearst and I did not meet, talk by phone, or correspond as long as he lived.”Billy Graham was, and is, remarkably talented. But so are 10,000 other ministers.Every poodle needs a vamp.“Tom Clancy was an insurance salesman in Maryland when, in the early nineteen-eighties, he wrote a book, ‘The Hunt for Red October,’ that Ronald Reagan, with a handsome public mention, turned into a best-seller. Clancy’s career took off like, well, like one of his rockets. Too nearsighted to serve in the armed forces, Clancy, who kept a tank on his front lawn, was a military fantasist whose end-is-nigh concoctions spawned a franchise…”– David Denby, The New Yorker, Jan. 20, 2014, p. 78Reagan played vamp for Tom Clancy just as Hearst did for Billy Graham.But what about Teddy Roosevelt? Wasn’t he one of the most popular and beloved presidents in the history of the United States?Nope. Not really. His policies and decisions were as hotly debated as those of Barack Obama today. We think of Roosevelt as “one of the great ones” primarily because his monumental face watches over America from Mount Rushmore along with Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln, the undisputed big boys of American history.Roosevelt’s vamp was Gutzon Borglum.Borglum was not commissioned by the government to create Mount Rushmore. It was a private work begun by a private individual.And that individual was a buddy of Ted Roosevelt back when Teddy was still alive. Roosevelt had been gone for only 8 years when Borglum began his carving.If Gutzon Borglum was only just now beginning to carve that granite in South Dakota, he might chose Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Carter because Gutzon answered to no one but himself.That is the power of a vamp.Do you believe in someone? Vamp for them.The Wizard of Ads partners are known throughout the Engish-speaking world because we have agreed upon a covenant: Never boast of your own accomplishments but only those of your partners.“You vamp for me. I’ll vamp for you.”It’s called “third party credibility,” or at least it used to be. Today they call it “feedback,” “comments” and “customer reviews.”Billy, Tom and Ted went viral before it had a name. But one thing remains the same: A poodle needs a vamp.Every business is a poodle.Every ad writer is a vamp.How good is yours?Roy H. Williams

Type “business plan” into Google and you’ll see an impressive array of articles from BusinessWeek, The Wall Street Journal, Inc., Forbes, Entrepreneur and SBA.gov.Everyone has a business plan.Almost no one has an advertising plan.And we are coming to a critical fork in the road.I want you to choose your fork consciously rather than unconsciously. And choose you most definitely will.I’m talking about your choice between brand-building and direct response advertising.When you sell a product or service with a long purchase cycle – something purchased only once every several years – your business will be best served by brand building. Do everything in your power to become the company that people will think of first and feel the best about when they finally need what you sell. Good brand-building also stimulates word-of-mouth, the original “viral.” But brand building requires patience, confidence and courage.If you sell a product or service with a short purchase cycle – something that most people will purchase every few days, weeks or months – your business will be best served by direct-response ads. Create an extremely attractive, limited-time offer, then add an additional incentive for those who act now. Then add a third incentive. This is called “benefit stacking” and it makes a massive difference. Direct-response ads are exciting but to be really successful you need a big-gap offer.The goal is to create a big gap between the perceived value and the asking price. The more impressive that gap, the more attractive your direct-response offer. Big-gap offers are most easily made when the public has no ability to shop and compare.Companies that make money with big-gap offers are the ones that can sell products with a perceived value that is at least 10 times their actual cost. I’m betting you don’t have that kind of profit margin. Am I right?Write a direct-response ad for a product with a widely known price and the public won’t be impressed unless you’re selling that product below your cost. This is known as a “loss leader.” The idea behind a loss leader is that it can drive customers into your store who might make additional purchases while they’re there. Grocery stores have used this technique since the dawn of time.Direct response is not a style of ad writing. It is a style of offer packaging.Businesses with short purchase cycles can jump from offer to offer, item to item, incentive to incentive indefinitely. But may God have mercy on the ad writer who is expected to generate immediate response for a product or service with a long purchase cycle.There are times when it’s possible to run a direct-response offer within a brand-building ad campaign for a product or service that has a long purchase cycle. An example of this would be for a jewelry store to make an enticing offer to finance engagement rings right before Valentines Day. Add the additional incentives of a romantic dinner and a limousine filled with 12 dozen roses and you might see a bump in engagement ring sales.Google’s ability to identify customers who are immediately in the market for products and services with long purchase cycles has all but eliminated the Yellow Pages and it is rapidly eroding the public’s need for in-store “experts” as well. Google’s unique ability to do this has caused many business owners to believe they have a right to expect immediate results from traditional mass media.Business owner, the fork in the road is before you: brand building or direct response.If you sell a product or service that at least 50 percent of the public will purchase within the next 12 months, you might do well to consider running direct response ads in mass media. But please be careful to make a highly impressive offer or you’ll be horribly disappointed.If you sell a product or service with a long purchase cycle – roofing, HVAC, jewelry, boats, major appliances, etc. – you must use extreme caution when applying direct response techniques or you’ll just be teaching your customers to wait for your next “sale.”Or you could just bet the farm on your ability to stay at the top of Google search results.I’ll be intrigued to see what you choose.Roy H. Williams

“Normalization” begins with an idealized norm of conduct – for example, the way a soldier should ideally stand, march, and present arms, with each of these actions defined in minute detail. Individuals are then rewarded for conforming to this ideal or punished for deviating from it.Normalization allows a leader to exert maximum social control with the minimum expenditure of force. This idea of “disciplinary power” emerged over the course of the 19th century, came to be used extensively in military barracks, schools, factories and offices in the 20th century, and has since became a crucial aspect of modern societies. I blame the British.Curious to know more? Read Discipline and Punish by Michel Foucault“We all know bad things are happening to our political and social universe; we know that business is colonizing ever larger chunks of American culture; and we know that advertising tells lies. We are all sick to death of the consumer culture. We all want to resist conformity. We all want to be our own dog.”– Thomas Frank, Conglomerates and the Media, 1997“The reward for conformity is that everyone likes you but yourself.”– Rita Mae Brown, Venus Envy, 1994“Education either functions (1.) as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or (2.) it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world.”– Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 1968Paolo Freire was a miraculous educator who used unapproved methods to teach thousands of illiterate Brazilian farmworkers to read and write in just 45 days. He was later put in jail.I believe Paolo would have loved Wizard Academy, a school for the imaginative, the courageous and the ambitious. We resist rigid rules and rely instead on universal principles.Laid side-by-side, a stick and a rope have a similar profile. Likewise, rules and principles look alike even though they have little in common.Rules are like sticks. You can prod people with them. You can threaten people with them. You can beat people with them. But you cannot lead people with them. When a rule doesn’t fit the circumstance, your only choice is to break it.Principles are like rope, able to be wrapped around even the most weirdly shaped problems. They are less brittle than rules, and stronger. Principles whisper priceless advice and people are happily led by them.A rule requires obedience.A principle requires contemplation.Simple people living in a push-button society demand simple rules.Wise men and women understand and apply universal laws.There. I have said it.Roy H. Williams

A brief summary of this episode

The Eye of the Storm is what we call the classroom in the tower at Wizard Academy. This name is doubly appropriate; not only is The Eye of the Storm a momentary escape from the buffeting winds of business, it was funded by Tim Storm, a wildly successful entrepreneur.It was the third day of a 3-day class. A hand went up in the second row.“Yes?”“What’s the next big thing?”The answer leapt from my mouth before he had even finished the question.“YouTube.”Everyone laughed. This confused me until I realized the class thought I was trying to be funny. Yes, of course, YouTube was already big.But not in the way I meant.Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim founded YouTube in February 2005. Google purchased it the following year (2006) for $1.65 billion.YouTube was an idea whose time had come.During the 365 calendar days of 2011, YouTube delivered more than 1 trillion views. Viewership in 2012 was up by more than 40 percent: 1.46 trillion views. I mentioned that to you exactly 52 weeks ago. You might remember how I pointed out that one million seconds is about 12 days.One billion seconds is nearly 32 years.One trillion seconds is 31,688 years.A trillion is a lot.The statistics page at YouTube currently says the number of views delivered in 2013 was “50 percent more than last year.” This means they’ve jumped from 1 trillion views to 2 trillion views is just 24 months. It seems that you and I and the rest of the world are watching a lot of online video.Advertising begins a conversation with prospective customers that will be continued when they make contact with your company. This is why it’s important to educate your sales team about your advertising.Sometimes a customer calls to ask you a question. You answer. Sometimes they walk through your door. You greet them. But as Steve Wozniak wryly observed in 2010, “We used to ask a smart person a question. Now who do we ask? It starts with G-O, and it’s not God.”Your customers are gathering information through Google and YouTube. This means your website and your online videos are vital new half steps that fall between your advertising and your customer’s direct first contact with you. (You know I’m right because you’re doing this, too. You walk to your keyboard every time you have interest in a product or a service.)Are your customers finding the information they need?I’m not talking about Search Engine Optimization. I’m not talking about responding to customer queries made by email. I’m talking about crafting an informative answer to the question you believe your customer will ask and then posting that answer in a video on YouTube. You can also embed that video on your website. How many questions can you answer intelligently? That’s exactly how many YouTube videos you should create.Yes, I’m being serious.YouTube is often called “social media.” This is unfortunate because businesspeople tend to see “social media” as cotton candy that offers little real nutrition. Entertainment value is measured by the number of views a video receives. I am not suggesting that you should entertain the public, but rather that you should inform them. Information value is measured by how well you anticipate and answer your customer’s not-yet-asked question.YouTube delivers entertainment when we want to be distracted but it also delivers information when we are seeking answers. Google and YouTube give us unprecedented access to information, 24/7. This is changing the nature of sales training. As Steve Wozniak pointed out, we’re no longer seeking the opinions of experts face-to-face, we’re seeking them face-to-computer-screen. This is not how the world functioned a short decade ago.Welcome to 2014.Wizard Academy will soon be announcing the dates of our new online video classes. If you’d to receive advance notice of these class dates by email so that you can secure one of the 18 finely appointed, on-campus bedrooms at no additional charge, let Vice-Chancellor Daniel Whittington know of your interest and he’ll give you a 24-hour advance heads-up.Brother Whittington can be reached at 512-720-8801 or Daniel@WizardAcademy.org Capture the best you’ve got and make it available to your customer 24/7.We’ll show you how.It’s going to be a fabulous year.The future is here.Roy H. Williams

The official wedding count for Chapel Dulcinea in 2013 was 824 weddings. When I talk about the number of weddings performed each year at Chapel Dulcinea I usually say, “more than a thousand,” but it’s not because I’m lying.I’m just telling the truth prematurely. We’ll soon be at 1,000+ per year. I’m certain of it.If you make a declaration but you don’t believe it to be true, then you’re lying. But if you say a thing is true and you believe it to be true even though it hasn’t happened yet, “I’m there for you. I have your back, no matter what,” are you lying? Are you exaggerating? Or are you just telling the truth prematurely?Faith is the substance of things hoped for. Happy endings are made of it.Faith is the evidence of things not seen. It is proof of the invisible.Hope is optimistic expectation.Faith is hope with its sleeves rolled up.Faith is hope wearing working gloves.Faith is hope yanking the ripcord of a chainsaw.Faith is hope with a hammer in its hand.Faith speaks of that which is not yet as though it already were.Faith requires commitment.I have faith in the success of the companies for whom I write ads. I have faith in the abilities of my Wizard of Ads partners. I have faith that you will blossom like a rose when you visit Wizard Academy. I have faith that you will find what you need while you’re with us.Faith requires commitment and commitment is a choice. It’s not something that arises within you like courage. It’s not something that comes upon you like fear. Commitment is simply a choice.Are you willing to pay the price of commitment?The things to which you must say “no” are the price of your commitment.The things you must walk away from are the price of your commitment.The things you will deny yourself are the price of your commitment.Commitment comes at a price.Do you have hope for the future?Do you have faith in your plans?Does your faith have a hammer in its hand?Are you willing to pay the price of your commitment?If you can give me four yesses I’ll tell you your future:You’re going to have a fabulous 2014.Roy H. Williams

I admire John the Beloved and Abraham Lincoln. These were quietly determined and reliable men, full of love and compassion, unwilling to leave anyone behind. But if I am honest, I must admit that I’m actually more similar to Simon Peter and Teddy Roosevelt; blustering and thundering, quick toward combat, often causing more pain than I realize.There are few Lincolns in America but the spirit of Teddy is everywhere you look.Teddy Roosevelt would have liked Hockey and Football.“It is always dangerous to generalize, but the American people, while infinitely generous, are a hard and strong race and, but for the few cemeteries I have seen, I am inclined to think they never die.”– Margot AsquithMargot Asquith was an English socialite, author and wit.Dorothy Parker was an American socialite, author and wit.In 1927, Dorothy reviewed The Autobiography of Margot Asquith for the Oct. 22 edition of The New Yorker:“The affair between Margot Asquith and Margot Asquith will live as one of the prettiest love stories of all literature.”And that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is what is known in wrestling as a take-down. In soccer and hockey, a body check. In football, spearing. In the hood, a bitch slap.Americans are generally better at it than Europeans. This is an observation that’s been made many times.“I am an American, Chicago born – Chicago, that somber city – and go at things as I have taught myself, freestyle, and will make a record in my own way: first to knock, first admitted: sometimes an innocent knock, sometimes a not so innocent.”– Saul Bellow, opening line, The Adventures of Augie MarchI was born in Texas and raised with rough boys in Oklahoma, so I understand what Saul Bellow meant when he said, “I am an American…” Humorist Will Rogers also knew what Bellow meant. He wrote a letter from Europe to President Calvin Coolidge in 1926:“We, unfortunately, don’t make a good impression collectively… There ought to be a law prohibiting over three Americans going anywhere abroad together.”Comedian Fred Allen likewise looked into our cultural mirror with amusement and chagrin.“The American arrives in Paris with a few French phrases he has culled from a conversational guide or picked up from a friend who owns a beret.”Another comedian, Paul Rodriguez, said in 1987,“War is God’s way of teaching Americans geography.”Ouch.But the most devastating criticism came from the pen of John Steinbeck:“Americans are remarkably kind and hospitable and open with both guests and strangers; and yet they will make a wide circle around the man dying on the pavement. Fortunes are spent getting cats out of trees and dogs out of sewer pipes; but a girl screaming for help in the street draws only slammed doors, closed windows, and silence….”– John Steinbeck, Paradox and Dream, (1966)That these criticisms come from within our own circle gives me hope and a sense of pride. I am not advocating negativity. Continual self-criticism is a slow, unwinding spiral into darkness as our self-confidence unravels to nothing. This is dangerously self-destructive.But even more dangerous is to deny that we make mistakes.The vital passage in my book, Pendulum, is a quote from David Farland:“Men who believe themselves to be good, who do not search their own souls, often commit the worst atrocities. A man who sees himself as evil will restrain himself. It is only when we do evil in the belief that we do good that we pursue it wholeheartedly.”I believe it is wise to “search our own souls” as we approach New Year’s Day. It is essential to our wellbeing that we remember all the good things that happened in 2013. Celebrate these happy moments and be grateful. And then contemplate what you might do differently in 2014, because not everything happened last year as you had hoped or planned. Am I right?I’m talking about looking back and looking forward with an open heart and an open mind.Do you own a business? Might you benefit from the outside perspective of someone who has been studying American small business for more than 30 years? I’m talking about you and me spending an hour and a half together. I’m willing to do this for free.Here’s what’s up: some of my Wizard of Ads partners have asked that I videotape a few Uncovery sessions so they can better understand some of the techniques I use to uncover the opportunities that often hide in a business owner’s blind spot. The Uncovery is where great marketing plans begin. It is an assessment, a taking of inventory, a calculation of possibilities and probabilities that ends with a clear understanding of how you – the business owner – might better play the cards you’ve been dealt.Do you remember how Dorothy finally makes it in to see the Wizard only to learn that she’s had what she needed all along? She’s been wearing the Ruby Red Slippers since the beginning of the movie! The only thing Dorothy needed was someone who would recognize the power of those slippers and say, “Click your heels together.”That’s what happens in an Uncovery.I do a number of them every year and I’ve always charged $7,500 for an 8-hour day. My partners and my staff are telling me that I must raise this to $12,500 or $10,000 at the very least, but that’s not what’s on my mind right now.I’m looking for exactly 4 business owners who would be willing to let me perform an accelerated Uncovery for free. Each of these 4 will be given an hour and a half in my private conference room in February. These sessions will be videotaped for study and evaluation by the Wizard of Ads partners. They will not be made public.If this opportunity appeals to you, here are the details.My end-of-the-year introspection has been more protracted this year than usual. This is the 5th week in a row that I’ve talked about motives rather than methods. Please accept my apologies and allow me to explain.Constructing this last bit of the Wizard Academy campus has been like finishing a good book. I plunged into this project 10 years ago and could hardly wait to get to the end. But now that I’m at the end of the book, I sort of wish I wasn’t. I’m dumbstruck that 10 years has passed. Yet I’m also very excited to get started on a couple of novels and a screenplay that I haven’t had time to work on until now.You can expect to see new classes announced at Wizard Academy in 2014 as our energy will be focused on developing the intellectual property of the academy rather than its physical facilities.2014 is going to be a fabulous year. Not just for me and Wizard Academy, but for you and your efforts as well.Trust me on this. The signs are all around us.Merry Christmas.Roy H. Williams

Why the World Needs Don Quixote Sarah says if you rely solely upon reason, your actions will be based upon what you believe to be possible. You’ll not likely attempt the impossible. She goes on to say, “Quixotism is the passionate pursuit of an ideal which may not be attainable. It is the belief that an individual can alter reality and redefine what is possible.”George brings Sarah’s observation to a pragmatic conclusion:“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends upon the unreasonable man.”Progress begins with a rejection of the status quo.Progress begins when a Quixote sees a giant that needs to be defeated.Are you a conformist who believes we must accept the dominance of giants?Of course you’re not. If you were, you would not be reading this. You are the “unreasonable” person of whom George spoke.The opening lines of George’s biography at NobelPrize.org tell us, “George Bernard Shaw was born in Dublin, the son of a civil servant. His education was irregular, due to his dislike of any organized training.”George disliked organization? He would have adored Wizard Academy. Sadly, George Bernard Shaw died in 1950, exactly half a century before Wizard Academy was born. So alas, we cannot meet him.But Sarah is still with us. And she is looking for work as a babysitter. I know this because I found her 2011 college thesis during a Google search and was deeply impressed by it. Curiosity required me to learn more about her.Here are a few quotes from the introduction to her thesis:“Quixotists are the willful creators of their own destinies.Their childlike ability to marvel at the world, desperation to experience a full life, and willingness to pursue goodness and beauty through an adventurous process of trial and error set them apart from all who depend upon common sense. Thus, quixotism has the potential to serve as a mechanism of social change, stretching the limits of the possible.”“Given that quixotism stands in stark contrast to the more cautious, conventional notion of reason, it initially appears to be nothing more than madness and is often summarily dismissed as such. However, one of quixotism’s most important principles is its recognition of ambiguity and uncertainty. This philosophy thrives in the space between the known and the unknown.”“Quixotism represents the most profound expression of genius: joyful curiosity about the world and a willingness to explore. As thought and action are inseparable, it is both a belief system and a way of life. While the practice of quixotism leads to a greater number of mistakes than more restrained forms of intellectualism, it also yields more successes as a result of its extreme nature.”Young Sarah is obviously one of us.She doesn’t know I’m quoting her. She doesn’t even know we exist.Shall we contact her? Shall I offer her a scholarship to a class atWizard Academy? Would you like to help cover her travel costs?Babysitters don’t often have money for plane tickets.It is Christmastime. You are busy. I am busy. So perhaps we should forget the whole thing.I leave it up to you.Roy H. Williams