Wizard of Ads Monday Morning Memo

Elijah, according to the Bible, was a Tishbite.Google “meaning of Tishbite” and the first page of results will give you a glimpse of the grand sweep of opinions we have when it comes to things religious.Tishbite means “stranger” according to some sources but Wikipedia says Tishbe was a place, thus, “The phrasing can be reworded as ‘Elijah the Tishbite of Tishbe in Gilead.’”Churchages.com says, “If we translate the word Tishbite, it means ‘a converter.’” But meaning-of-names.com lets us know, “In Israeli, the name Tishbite means ‘that makes captive’ and is most commonly given to girls.” (Israeli is a language? I thought Israelis spoke mostly Hebrew. – RHW)What this tells us is that you can “prove” anything you want if only you choose the right sources to quote. People give authority to the written word. “Right there it is in black and white. See it? Right there it is.”Elijah lived about 2,900 years ago and his specialty, it would seem, was calling down fire from heaven. We’re told of 3 times Elijah did this. The first time was epic.“At the time of sacrifice, the prophet Elijah stepped forward and prayed: ‘LORD, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command. Answer me, LORD, answer me, so these people will know that you, LORD, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again.’ Then the fire of the LORD fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench.”– 1st Kings ch. 18To the consternation and amazement of my friends, I am one of those inexplicable people who believe there really was a guy named Elijah and that he really did the things ascribed to him in the books of 1st and 2nd Kings in the Old Testament. Jesus, too, speaks of Elijah in the New Testament as though he was a real person and believe it or not, the Qur’an refers to this same Elijah in chapters 6 and 37.But I don’t believe Elijah was a real person merely because a few ancient texts refer to him as a real person. I believe the Elijah story – all of it – because I have chosen to believe it.Belief is not mandated by facts or by the lack of them. You believe what you choose to believe. Belief is always a choice. Consequently, you can believe Tishbe was a place and Elijah was from there, or you can believe Tishbite means “stranger” or that it means “a converter” or that Israeli is a language and people who speak it commonly give their daughters the unfortunate name of “Tishbite.”You might even choose to believe that a nameless storyteller invented Elijah 2900 years ago and that Jesus was duped by this Elijah fiction 900 years later and Muhammad was likewise duped 600 years after that. This would be a perfectly reasonable belief.It’s just not the belief I have chosen.As I said, Elijah’s specialty was calling down fire from heaven.You, too, can call fire down from heaven. What kind of fire do you call? Is it musical fire? Is it shapes and colors? Do you call down poetry or analysis or compassion or strategic planning? There is a thing you do extremely well. You know what it is. You have a knack for it. It just comes to you. You’ve always been good at it. What is it?I believe in Elijah, but I also believe in you.You have doubts about your own abilities.Self-doubt is part of the human experience. Elijah, immediately after calling down the fire of chapter 18 in 1st Kings, ran from an angry woman and hid in a cave in Mount Horeb. During the night, the word of the LORD came to him:“‘Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by.’ Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.Then a voice said to him, ‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’”There is great majesty and poetry in the Bible. This is evident to anyone who has a taste for literature. But I also take encouragement from it.Let us conclude:1. You, like every human, can call down some type of fire from heaven.2. It is dark and you feel alone, hiding in your cave.3. Remember the words of our pal, Teddy Roosevelt: “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”4. Think big. Start small. Do something, no matter how tiny, but do it now.5. Then do another tiny thing.6. And another.7. Today’s memo has been nothing but a whisper:“What are you doing here, Elijah?”Roy H. Williams

“‘Hunches,’ his mother used to call them. The boy was beginning to understand that intuition is really just a sudden immersion of the soul into the universal current of life, where the histories of all people are connected, and we are able to know everything, because it’s all written there.”– The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho, an allegorical tale about an Andalusian shepherd boy, written in only two weeks in 1987 because according to the author, “the story was already written in my soul.” It has since become one of the twelve best-selling books of all time.Hunches – premonitions – gut feelings – intuition – are just different names we give to that wordless logic of the brain’s right hemisphere. Look at any list of the functions of the right hemisphere of the brain and you’ll notice that each is simply a different form of pattern recognition. You’ll find no book that says what I just said; it’s merely my own observation. But I’m quite certain I am right. The left and right brains don’t work independently of each other, though it often seems like they do since they contribute very different kinds of perceptions to the final mental image. The left brain looks for the discrepancy, the flaw, the mistake, the anomaly, always asking, “Where is the difference?” And then it focuses on that difference. The left brain zooms in like a microscope, forever seeking additional details.  The left brain rejoices “when it all adds up.” The danger of the left is that it often makes mountains out of molehills in the mistaken belief that anything that is true must also be relevant to the problem at hand. The left brain is legalistic, seeing everything as either correct or incorrect, right or wrong, true or false. The left brain can be astoundingly petty. Rational, sequential, deductive reasoning – classical logic – is the contribution of the brain’s left hemisphere. But the logic of the right brain is intuition. The right brain looks for similarities, patterns, systems and relationships, always asking, “Where are the connections?” And then it uses the ripple effect to give it systemic leverage within highly complex systems; “a small change here yields a big difference way over there.” The right brain pulls back further and further, forever seeking the bigger picture. The danger of the right is that it often sees patterns that aren’t really there, resulting in an unproductive goose chase into the unknown and irrelevant. The right brain is amoral. Morals are the left brain’s job. And the right brain makes no distinction between fact and fiction. Real and imaginary are one and the same in the shadowland of the subconscious right brain. The right hungers only for the complexity of skillfully woven patterns and relationships between shapes, colors and symbols in art; contour, interval, pitch, key, tempo and rhythm in music; motives, relationships, actions and reactions in people; and form, function, component and composite in machines of every kind, even the relational machinery of human organizations. The right brain seeks the metaphors, universal laws and archetypal patterns that link all experience into a grand unified theory, the final solution to the puzzle of existence; the biggest picture of all. The right brain rejoices in the complexity of the pattern. The left brain seeks and provides information.The right brain seeks and provides perspective, choosing a particular angle of view. People never really change their minds. Provide them with the same information and perspective they’ve had in the past and they’ll continue to make the same decisions they’ve made in the past. A person who appears to be “changing their mind” is really just making a new decision based on new information and/or a new perspective. Motivational interviewing is an inverted form of storytelling that helps us open the eyes of another to patterns of behavior and consequences that may have previously been hiding in their blind spot. It helps us give them a new perspective. Storytelling is a form of selling. It allows us to use the old and familiar as metaphors to help us determine the right course of action when facing the new and different. Choose the story and you control the metaphor. Control the metaphor and you strongly influence the conclusion that will be reached by the listener. An elegantly powerful salesperson is one who leads you to believe you made the decision entirely on your own. This is the power of Once Upon a Time… Roy H. Williams

To Radio AdvertisersBefore we begin, you need to know that a “3.0 frequency” is RadioSpeak for reaching the same listener 3 times. TSL means “Time Spent Listening” and PPM is “Portable People Meter.”Hi Roy,  I’m sure that you receive this question often, but I didn’t find your personal response to it online. How do you believe the reduction in frequency realized through the implementation of PPM should affect media planning? The obvious response is that PPM derives a more accurate measure of TSL, and therefore these “new” metrics should now be the benchmark…but what does that say about the “old” 3.0 frequency? Previous studies showed the “old 3.0” was effective. In the end, the PPM 3.0 is clearly a safe bet for results…but the question is whether old schedules, previously deemed effective, should be shifted to reduce reach and increase frequency…and whether that change will further enhance results or not.Thank You!Ashley Alexandra Testa Ashley, you ask a good question.For those who aren’t completely up-to-speed on Arbitron’s new Portable People Meter (PPM) technology for radio measurement, here are the basics:1. Arbitron survey respondents now carry a device that records which stations they’re actually listening to, not just the ones they think they’re listening to, as was often the case in the old “diary” based method.2. This means radio stations get credit for actual listening time rather than just how well they imprint their station slogans and taglines onto our memories.3. Consequently, lots of “favorite” radio stations are being revealed to have smaller audiences than was previously believed, while lots of second and third-favorite stations are finally able to prove what they’ve always known: listeners were listening to their stations and then reporting to Arbitron they were listening to the “brand name” leader.4. The average person listens to a larger number of different stations than they realize.5. This makes it harder than ever to achieve frequency (repetition.)Now back to Ashley’s question, which was, effectively, “Since PPM shows us a schedule that yielded a diary-based 3.0 frequency yesterday yields only a 2.5 when measured with PPM today, should we start targeting a 2.5 frequency instead of 3.0?”Ashley, the short answer would be “Yes” if short answers weren’t so dangerous. Our dilemma lies in the premise stated in your note: “In the end, the PPM 3.0 is clearly a safe bet for results…”A 3.0 frequency is not, and never was, a safe bet.Results in radio are based on three things:(1.) Relevance. Does the listener care? And if so, how much?(2.) Credibility. Does the listener believe the claims made by the advertiser?(3.) Frequency. (Repetition.) How often is the listener exposed to this message?Relevance without credibility is the definition of hype.Credibility without relevance is the answer to a question no one was asking. A message with high relevance and high credibility for a product or service with a short purchase cycle is the perfect Direct Response ad. For such an ad, a frequency of 1.0 will work just fine.But very few ads have such relevance and credibility that they need to be heard only once.Insufficient repetition kills a lot of radio campaigns. But radio people often blame poor results on insufficient frequency, saying, “The advertiser just didn’t spend enough money,” when the real problem was in the ad copy: It had low relevance or low credibility or both.Here’s another problem with that sacred 3.0 frequency: Is a 3.0 spread over a month the same as a 3.0 delivered in one week? How about a 3.0 delivered in just one day?Again, a short answer: The less sleep between repetitions, the better. Sleep erases advertising. When the relevance and credibility of two ads are equal, depth of memory goes to the one given the highest repetition within the fewest nights sleep.The “old rule” of a 3.0 was simply this: “The average message must be heard by the same listener at least 3 times within 7 night’s sleep to give that message any chance of being remembered.” Radio people somehow twisted this into, “A 3.0 frequency is a guarantee of success.”Generally speaking, the shorter the purchase cycle, the sooner the ads will start working. The longer the purchase cycle, the longer it will take for the campaign to gain traction.High-impact ads for products with short purchase cycles work less and less well the longer you air them. Memorable ads for products with long purchase cycles work better and better the longer you air them.If you want to have a lot of fun, write high-impact ads for products and events with very short purchase cycles. Talk loud and draw a crowd. Advertisers will treat you like a rock star. When the ads finally burn out and your advertisers begin to frown, find yourself a new batch of twitchy little bastards to impress. The world is full of them.But if you want to make a lot of money, write memorable ads for advertisers whose products have long purchase cycles.Tell these advertisers the truth: the same listener needs to hear the ad roughly 3 times a week, 52 weeks a year for that advertiser to become a household word.The technical term used by cognitive neuroscientists for this process of creating involuntary, automatic recall is to move the message from immediate, electrical “working memory” to mid-term “declarative memory” and then finally on to long-term, chemical, involuntary “procedural memory.” This takes time and repetition but it’s most easily accomplished using sound. Radio and television work best.Create procedural memory and the customer will automatically think of you when they finally need what you sell. Better yet, they’ll think of you when any of the 250 people in their personal ‘realm of association’ needs what you sell. Procedural memory is the basis of word-of-mouth.Bottom line: It’s okay to use a PPM 2.5 frequency as “the new 3.0” if you understand that frequency is just one, small reference point in an algebraic equation. The bigger question is whether the advertiser has the financial staying power and patience to drive their message into permanent, procedural memory.Consistency is the frequency of the frequency.Ashley, find yourself some advertisers who have the courage and patience of their convictions. Partner with these people. Write great ads for them. Together, you can take over the world.You go, girl.Roy H. Williams

And Don's Single Biggest MistakeThis isn’t what Richard Exley said last week, but rather what I took from it:If you want to be truly happy,1. Commit to a cause greater than yourself.2. Value people rather than things.3. Give thanks for what you have instead of complaining about what you don’t have.4. Celebrate the ordinary. Find joy in life’s daily pleasures. I see Richard’s Recipe for Happiness as the perfect checklist for conducting a Blind Spot Self-Examination. Each of us has a blind spot. You disagree? Consider this: if you knew it was there, it wouldn’t be called a blind spot.Are you willing to do a self-examination with me? I’ll go first:1. Commit to a cause? Check. I’m committed to building a school for business owners with fewer than 100 employees. I’m committed to the little guy, the underdog, the misfit, maverick, renegade, disruptor, entrepreneur: the visionary with an impossible dream.2. Value people? Blind Spot. I love my CrazySmart Friends but I’m profoundly annoyed by lazy people, frightened people, self-righteous people, whiners, complainers and professional victims. This is obviously where I need to grow. As much as I believe these people to be a tragic waste of skin, a little voice tells me I’m wrong.3-4. Give thanks? Celebrate? Check. Check. I live in a constant state of amazement over my extraordinary good fortune. If I ever need money, I’ll buy a lottery ticket because I honestly believe I’ll win. Each morning when I get behind the wheel of my 11 year-old pickup truck with 100,000 miles, I remember how incredibly fond I am of it. And brown beans. And Fuji apples. And of looking at my wife when she doesn’t know I’m looking. Good things happen to me that I do not deserve. And for these things, I am thankful.Number 2 is my blind spot; the people thing. Which one is yours?Don Kuhl publishes behavior-change journals. His clients include the Justice Department and more than 6,000 correctional institutions and rehab centers.Don shared something profound with me recently when I asked him if there is a specific turning point that leads broken people to recovery and rehabilitation. I’m not quoting Don exactly; I’m just sharing what I think I remember:“The single biggest mistake people make is their refusal to own their circumstances. When something bad happens, they say, ‘I’ve been wronged. I didn’t choose this. Someone else did this to me, so someone else needs to fix it.’”“This someone else, by the way, is usually1. family2. religious organization3. employer4. medical community, or5. government.”“But if someone else can’t or won’t ‘fix it,’ these people become miserable. They feel like victims, angry and helpless. This victim mentality causes their life to begin spinning out of control.”“The turning point toward happiness is when a person takes ownership of their circumstances. When something bad happens, they learn to say, ‘I’ve been wronged. I didn’t choose this. But these are my circumstances. Now what am I going to do to change them?”New beliefs lead to new choices.New choices lead to new actions.New actions lead to new circumstances. If you don’t like your circumstances, examine your beliefs. What do you believe? Does “someone else” need to fix it? Or do you need to fix it yourself?Roy H. Williams

In 1605, Quixote’s fearsome giants were windmills and Dulcinea1 was his beautiful, impossible dream.“What giants?” said Sancho Panza.“Those you see there,” answered his master, “with the long arms, and some have them nearly two leagues long.”“Look, your worship,” said Sancho. “What we see there are not giants but windmills, and what seem to be their arms are the vanes that turn by the wind and make the millstone go.”“It is easy to see,” replied Don Quixote, “that you are not used to this business of adventures.”—Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote, 1605In 1765, Patrick Henry’s giant was tyranny and Liberty was his dream. He said, “Give me Dulcinea2, or give me death.”In 1845, Henry David Thoreau’s giant was a distracted life and Purpose was his dream:“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what Dulcinea3 had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”But it was September 23, 1798, during the idyllic years between the American Revolution and Walden Pond that a newly graduated Mr. Bronson of New Haven scribbled a note to his classmate, Thomas Lewis of Glastonbury:“Yesterday Morning, just after I got out of bed I looked out at the window and saw a young gentleman on horseback riding round a rock at the corner of the meeting house, who, after surrounding it three times, I discovered was Wilcokson. I suppose he was playing Don Quixote to it. I just bid him good morrow and saw him proceed, with his Rocinante, towards Glastonbury…”A young man named Wilcokson found some fascination in a rock at the corner of a meeting house 214 years ago. He circled it thrice, judged it unworthy to be his giant, then rode onward in search of adventure.Have you found a giant worthy of your attention or are you just riding in circles ‘round a rock?I am often asked, “What is your fascination with Don Quixote?” The question is a fair one, so today I will attempt to answer it. I love Don Quixote because:1. he saw beauty where others did not.(In the eyes of others, his Lady Dulcinea was a common village girl.)2. he saw adventure where others did not.(“What giants?” said Sancho Panza…)3. he was utterly committed to his quest.(Quixote never gave up, never backed down. He was willing to suffer hardship for what he believed.)Are you able to see beauty in the ordinary?Are you willing to find adventure in the daily?Are you prepared to commit completely to what you believe?Sancho Panza didn’t always understand Don Quixote, but he never left his side. Sancho encouraged Quixote, advised Quixote, and helped Quixote to mend each time he was broken. Sancho and Don had such a marvelous time together that we continue to speak of them after 400 years.Wizard Academy is Sancho Panza to every dreamer of an impossible dream. Can you name your Dulcinea?Come, we will help you fight giants.Roy H. Williams

My back is against the wall and I don’t know what to do. The vortex of this crisis is pulling me into a toxic blue quicksand of the soul. I struggle until hope is gone. The light is growing dim. I have no one to blame but myself.As I lift my weary eyes one last time, an unexpected angel steps quickly from the shadows. I feel his fingers tighten around my forearm.I am surprised when I see his face.“When a friend is in trouble, don’t annoy him by asking if there is anything you can do. Think up something appropriate and do it.”– E.W. HoweRichard Kessler, Jeffrey Eisenberg and Chad Prosser have never met, yet each of them has gripped my forearm when I desperately needed a friend, which is why it may surprise you that I recently pushed Chad into the fight of his life.The telephone rings. Caller ID says it’s Chad Prosser.“What up, Chadbo?”I hear a weary sigh before Chad begins to speak. This startles me. Chad is not a sighing sort of fellow. “I’m getting a lot of pressure and I need the perspective of someone outside the situation.”“What situation?”“South Carolina.”“Pressure?”“A lot of people are pushing me to run for Congress.” The telephone line remains silent until Chad says, “You there?”“Chad…”“Yes?”“You called the wrong friend.”Before I continue, I’d like to make four things clear:(1.) It’s important to me that you understand how deeply I hate politics. I feel the average politician to be a big ego in an empty suit, a cardboard cutout, a talking doll who delivers pre-recorded platitudes whenever you pull his string.(2.) The Monday Morning Memo is NOT a publication of Wizard Academy. The Memo is, was, and forever will be the public ramblings of a private citizen, Roy H. Williams.(3.) Wizard Academy will never have a political opinion, alliance or affiliation. No political meetings will ever be held on Academy property.(4.) Pennie and I are supporting two different persons running for Congress this year. Dan Grant is a Democrat. Chad Prosser is a Republican. We love them both because they are incredibly good men with the best possible motives.I yelled at Chad for half an hour. He was reluctant to run for office for all the same reasons that you or I or any other sane person would be reluctant. Exasperated, I said, “Chad, when you served as director of Parks, Recreation and Tourism for South Carolina, I saw you turn away from anything that might benefit you personally. You always said you just didn’t feel it would be right, even when it was perfectly legal and above board. I saw you put the needs of the people of South Carolina ahead of your own needs day after day. I know you to be a true public servant.”“Roy, you’re making my case for me! I did my time. I served my state.”“Chad, now it’s time for you to serve the whole country.”Before I let him off the phone, I made Chad promise to watch a 2-minute video David Rehr recorded in Sunpop Studios 3 years ago. When David was a junior in high school, he became a congressional page on Capitol Hill. He was later hired to be President and CEO of the National Association of Broadcasters. David Rehr knows Washington, DC like no one I’ve ever met.Chad watched the David Rehr video. The next day he announced his decision to run for Congress.Speaking of videos, when Chad attended his first class at Wizard Academy in 2004, he was randomly chosen to make a few comments about his experience in another video you may not have seen. I met Chad just 2 days before he appeared in this promotional video for Wizard Academy. Take a look.I’m confident Chad will be elected. The people of South Carolina know the same Chad Prosser I know. They’ll definitely elect him.I’d like for you to know him, too.Pennie and I are hosting a private evening with Chad and we’d love for you to have dinner with us. Yes, we’re hoping you’ll support him. Every little bit helps.Can you come?Roy H. Williams

James Lipton asked Barbra Streisand the secret of her success. She responded by saying, “At the moment of commitment, the Universe conspires to assist you.” – September 8, 2003, while recording an episode of Inside the Actor’s Studio that would air on March 21, 2004Streisand was summarizing a quote usually attributed to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832,) the Shakespeare of Germany:“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.”Goethe never said it,* but it’s true nonetheless.The medical term for this most American characteristic is hypomania. In a nutshell, hypomania is “the good kind of crazy,” an irrational optimism that never abandons its hold on the truth. (Mania is bad. Hypermania would be “beyond mania,” extremely bad, but Hypomania is an optimism that remains “below mania.”) Hence, the good kind of crazy; “There’s got to be a pony in here somewhere!” (Google that punchline if you don’t know the story. Or ask a few of your friends. One of them will know.)Hypomania is (1.) an inherited bipolar disorder, (2.) the definitive characteristic of the American people and (3.) extremely common in successful entrepreneurs. Hypomania is considered to be the most common undiagnosed condition in our nation. Think about it. No one ever goes to a counselor, psychologist or psychiatrist to say, “I’m feeling GREAT, Doc! What’s wrong with me?”Read the biography of any man or woman who left their fingerprints on the world and you’ll likely read the tale of a hypomaniac, someone who said, “I must attempt the ridiculous if I am to accomplish the impossible.” Ray Kroc, Mother Teresa, Teddy Roosevelt, Barbra Streisand, Steve Jobs, Florence Nightingale, Tom McDowall, Jane Pauley, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Ronald Reagan…)Yes, it’s inherited. A few generations ago, tens of thousands of men and women boarded ships that would take them to America. These men and women had minimal skills, no money, no jobs, no relatives or friends waiting for their arrival. Yet somehow these people believed, “This is going to be AWESOME! We’ve got it made.”The average American is a descendant of self-selected hypomaniacs. Consider the impact of a few generations of interbreeding and it’s no wonder that hypomania is the principal trait the world loves and hates about Americans. Make no mistake. Hypomania can easily cross the line into arrogance and self-delusion; Charlie Sheen, Ernest Hemingway and Robert Downey, Jr. were each fomally diagnosed with it.Hypomania is a medical disorder, but one with an upside: It helps us “to dream the impossible dream, to fight the unbeatable foe, to bear with unbearable sorrow, to run where the brave dare not go…”You can learn magical things from crazy people if they are “the good kind” of crazy. How to Make Awesome Sauce is a gathering of highly-accomplished entrepreneurs who have proven themselves in the marketplace in very BIG ways. David McInnis, Dean Rotbart and Jeffrey and Bryan Eisenberg are going to mentor “whosoever will” for 72 life-altering hours March 13-15 in the tower at Wizard Academy. Will you? Be there?You can’t learn to ride a bicycle by reading a book or watching a video. There’s a big difference between “understanding” and “doing.” This is a “doing” class. These guys will say, “So what?” as they help you back onto your banged-up bike. Success comes only to those who are crazy enough to swing a leg over, peddle-peddle-peddle, fall down, get up, then swing that leg over and peddle-peddle-peddle again. At least 3 NEW businesses will exist and be making money by the end of the third day. One of them could be yours.Do you have an idea for an online business? Would you like to launch it in less than 72 hours with the help of some of the biggest boys in the land?Are you crazy enough to believe your idea can become reality?Good.Roy H. Williams

I love Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon for the same reason I love Norman Rockwell. The people in those worlds are quirky but loveable, flawed but happy, sincere but imaginary. When you think about it, Lake Wobegon is a lot like Andy Griffith’s Mayberry, where the children are mischievous but good-hearted, racial tension is nonexistent and all the women are homespun and pure. Just like they were in Michael Landon’s Little House on the Prairie. Michael grew up as Little Joe Cartwright on the Ponderosa before he became Melissa Gilbert’s “Pa” in an even better idyllic environment.You do realize Lake Wobegon and Mayberry and Little House aren’t real places, right?I’ve always loved Norman Rockwell but let’s not pretend he told us the truth. Rockwell painted a nation that never was, an idealized America, the nation of Paul Revere and Valley Forge and the key on Benjamin Franklin’s kite string as that adorable old man stood alone under a lightning-filled sky.America’s love of country music is an escape to that world of Bo and Luke and Daisy Duke and their bright orange General Lee, the original NASCAR driven by the original good old boys:Tommy Lee Jones is a Man’s Man. He don’t take no shit from nobody. Damn. If he was president, he’d sure whip that Middle East into shape, wouldn’t he? And then he’d use common sense to lower taxes, save Social Security, create jobs and sell us gas for a dollar a gallon.Hero worship breeds naiveté. It causes otherwise intelligent people to make idiotic “Tommy Lee Jones” statements and then vigorously defend those statements with extrapolations and fabricated facts. I am a professional romanticizer. My job is to write ads that make certain products and people larger than life. I am, frankly, very good at it.The American worship of “The Founding Fathers” is wearisome to me. I hear people speak of them as though they were emissaries of God’s Perfect Will rather than the debt-laden, combative, self-interested businessmen they really were.Am I speaking heresy? If so, you believe America to be a religion that needs to be protected and enforced. My crime is that I see America as a people.“Well, things sure were simpler and better back then.”No they weren’t. Things were exactly like they are now but without modern medicine and electricity and cell phones and cars and central heat and air conditioning.Make no mistake; heroes do have value.Bigger than life, highly exaggerated and always positioned in the most favorable light, a hero is a beautiful lie. We have historic heroes, folk heroes and comic book heroes. We have heroes in books and songs and movies and sport. We have heroes of morality, leadership, kindness and excellence. And nothing is so devastating to our sense of wellbeing as a badly fallen hero. Yes, heroes are dangerous to have.The only thing more dangerous is not to have them.Heroes raise the bar we jump and hold high the standards we live by. They are tattoos on our psyche, the embodiment of all we’re striving to be.We create our heroes from our hopes and dreams.And then they create us in their own image.– from The Monday Morning Memo of the Wizard of Ads, Feb. 17, 2003 I am a true believer in the power and beauty of heroes. I do not wish to live in a world without them. But please hear this: a hero is that by which we should measure ourselves, as individuals. If you measure others by your heroes, you will quickly descend into a dark and frantic judgmentalism, crying, “All is lost and there is none that is good. No, not one.”Fearful discontent is a horrible master. Roy H. Williams

“Two heads are better than one,” is often quoted but horribly wrong.  Trust me, I know.Anything with two heads is a monster.“Nothing was ever created by two men. There are no good collaborations, whether in music, in art, in poetry, in mathematics, in philosophy. Once the miracle of creation has taken place, the group can build and extend it, but the group never invents anything. The preciousness lies in the lonely mind of a man.”– John Steinbeck, East of Eden, Chap. 13, 1952This is the point in the discussion where one could easily say, “Well, that’s your opinion and Steinbeck’s. But I happen to know that brainstorming as a team leads to better idea generation.”But do you know that, really? Or is brainstorming just another sacred cultural myth?Jonah Lehrer published a research article this week that eliminates the need for speculation and debate.Alex Faikney Osborn was the “O” in the famous advertising agency B.B.D.O.  Alex was full of ideas. His first book, How to “Think Up”, was published in 1942, followed by Your Creative Power in 1948, Wake Up Your Mind in 1952, and then in 1953, Applied Imagination: Principles and Procedures of Creative Problem Solving.In the opening paragraphs of Jonah Lehrer’s marvelous research into “Groupthink,” he writes,“Osborn’s most celebrated idea was the one discussed in Chapter 33, ‘How to Organize a Squad to Create Ideas.’ When a group works together, he wrote, the members should engage in a ‘brainstorm.’ The book outlined the essential rules of a successful brainstorming session. The single most important of these, Osborn said, was the absence of criticism and negative feedback. Brainstorming was an immediate hit and Osborn became a popular business guru. The underlying assumption of brainstorming is that if people are scared of saying the wrong thing, they’ll end up saying nothing at all. Typically, participants leave a brainstorming session proud of their contribution. The whiteboard has been filled with free associations. At such moments, brainstorming can seem like an ideal mental technique, a feel-good way to boost productivity. But there is one overwhelming problem with brainstorming. It doesn’t work. The first empirical test of Osborn’s brainstorming technique was performed at Yale University, in 1958. The results were a sobering refutation of Osborn. Although the findings did nothing to dent brainstorming’s popularity, numerous follow-up studies have come to the same conclusion.”Interesting, isn’t it? Sixty years of scientifically controlled experiments, studies and tests have proven brainstorming to be significantly less effective than individual effort but the brainstorming myth just won’t go away.Here’s the real kicker: discussion and debate – the very two things prohibited in a ‘brainstorming’ session – have been repeatedly proven to bring out the best in us.And now I must pause to do my Happy Dance.Okay, I’m back now.I’m happy because Jonah Lehrer describes, in the second half of his research article, what has been proven time and again to be the ultimate environment for true creative breakthrough, “a space with an almost uncanny ability to extract the best from people… a magical incubator.” He then gives us a clear description of the kitchen and courtyard of Engelbrecht House, the student mansion on the campus of Wizard Academy.Many of you reading this Monday Morning Memo will recall my greeting during the opening session on your first day of class at Wizard Academy. “Each of you came here to be enlarged by your instructor. You will, I promise, not be disappointed. But at the end of these days and nights together, as you prepare to go back home, you will realize that the most precious gift we gave you was the gift of each other.”Do you want the recipe for magic? Real magic? World-changing, life-altering magic? Here it is:1. Gather about a dozen or so really curious people.2. Let them share meals together, have coffee together and drink wine together between multiple sessions of mind-stretching stimulation.3. The magic will emerge during the times of casual discussion, relaxation and recovery as these people bring out the best in each other with questions and stories and the sharing of personal observations.Discussion and debate, sharing and defending your viewpoint with an open mind, considering and processing the input of other smart people in a fun and safe environment. Welcome to Wizard Academy.I felt certain we were on the right track.Thank you, Jonah Lehrer, for proving it.And now I’m going to do my Happy Dance again.Roy H. Williams

A brief summary of this episode