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Wizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoAmbition and Happiness“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”“Life… Liberty… and the pursuit of Happiness.”We published those words 229 years ago when we declared our independence from Britain. That document was the earliest expression of what has come to be known as the American dream.Jefferson’s Declaration did not free us from the tyranny of Britain. It merely communicated our collective desire to be unfettered and unrestrain...2025-04-2104 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoMedia Measurement Mistakes, ch. 2If you believe that people today have a short attention span, you are mistaken.FACT: We live in an over-communicated society.This is why we have learned how to quickly filter out messages that do not interest us.FACT: We will happily spend several hours binge-watching shows that appeal to us.Where’s your theory about a short attention span now?If you want to get people’s attention and hold that attention, talk to them about things they already care about.If people aren’t paying attention...2025-02-1705 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoThe Cruelty of HopeI recently sent you two memos about our need for positive hope.“Hollywood’s Broken Angel” was the true story of a woman who desperately needed a friend to encourage her.“Hope and a Future” explained how easy it is to recharge the emotional batteries of a friend whose light has dimmed.Positive hope crackles with the vibrant energy of life itself. It radiates honesty, openness, forgiveness, acceptance, optimism, loyalty and love.Positive hope illuminates the heart and drives away the darkness.But there is also such a thing as negative...2025-02-0304 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoHope and a FutureFifty years ago, I was a teenager with an unreliable automobile. But that’s never a problem for an Oklahoma boy who has knowledge, tools, and daylight.My knowledge and tools were always with me, but the daylight disappeared at the worst possible time, no matter how badly I needed it.Cell phones had not yet been invented.When the batteries in my flashlight died, nothing could be seen but the desperation, defeat, and despair of a boy at the side of the road trying to repair a car in the darkness....2025-01-2704 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoHollywood’s Broken AngelHer name was Lillian Millicent Entwistle, “Peg” to her friends. She was born in 1908.At the age of 19, Peg married Robert Keith, 10 years older than she. Then she discovered that he had been married before and had a 6 year-old son. The couple was soon divorced.“I’ll move to a new place and get a new start,” she thought. “Goodbye, New York. Hello, L.A. I’m going to become an actress.”But hopes and dreams are fragile things and hearts are easily broken.At the age of 24 “She decided she’d failed,” says Davi...2025-01-2003 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoConsider if you will…The Wizard Academy tower sits on a plateau 900 feet above the city of Austin. The view from the stardeck is stunning.When you attend our free public seminar on the afternoon of March 17, you will be in Tuscan Hall just 500 feet from the tower. If you have some extra time on campus, perhaps Dave Young will be willing to press the button that lifts you from the underground art gallery up to the stardeck so that you can look around.This is what I will teach you in Tuscan Hall:How to create a ma...2025-01-0604 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoWhat it Means to Go Full KardashianCuriosity is a beagle running through the forest with its nose to the ground.Curiosity is the cure for boredom. There is no cure for curiosity.Curious, I asked, “How did the Kardashians become famous?” I wish I hadn’t.“Through different ventures, several members of the family have assets of over $1 billion. Kim Kardashian became a celebrity in 2007, after selling a pornographic film featuring ex-boyfriend, singer Ray J, which enabled the family to rise to stardom.” – GoogleThe reason I asked Google, “How did the Kardashians become famous?” is because I was talking with a cl...2024-12-2304 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoTo Be HumanThe General Social Survey has been conducted every second year since 1972 and the most recent one contained both good and bad news about us. GOOD NEWS: Our bonds with our families and friends are as strong as ever.BAD NEWS: The bridges we once extended to strangers have collapsed.Jesus talks about a socially unacceptable “Samaritan” man who sacrificed his time, energy, and money to help an unconscious stranger who had been robbed and left to die at the side of the road. According to Jesus, two different religious people had already seen the wounded m...2024-12-0904 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoHow Will You Be Remembered?John Steinbeck wrote a letter to Carlton Sheffield about a conversation he’d had with his wife, Elaine.“Once I said to her, ‘I don’t want the barbarity of funeral for myself.’ And she said, ‘Don’t be silly. A funeral isn’t for the dead. You’ll simply be a stage set for a kind of festival, maybe. And besides, you won’t even be there.'”– Steinbeck: A Life in Letters, p 829Henry Fonda – one of the most famous actors of his generation – stood up at John Steinbeck’s funeral and recited a piece of a poem...2024-12-0203 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoCrystal Days Cannot Be ShatteredThe future is unknowable. The past is unrecoverable.If you are anxious, you are living in the future.Don’t live your life in an imaginary tomorrow. Find joy while it is still today.If you are depressed, you are living in the past.Escaping the past is easy. The hard part is choosing to start over.Let me give you The Seven Secrets to Crystal Days:Do not let the perfect become the enemy of the good.“Perfectionism may look good in his shiny shoes but he’s a li...2024-11-2504 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoBe You. And Make the Best of It.Billy Sunday was born in 1862, the second year of America’s Civil War. He died in 1935, during the Great Depression. Billy was a wildly flamboyant and controversial preacher, but he made an interesting observation:“More men fail through lack of purpose than lack of talent.”We’ll talk more about purpose in just a minute, but first we need to talk about possibilities.I will say it plainly:What you see in the mirror isn’t you.Look inside yourself and take inventory of what you find there.Realize that this is all you ha...2024-11-1104 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoProcess Follows OutcomeAs you round the corner and see your destination, the inconveniences of travel evaporate from your mind.Poof. You are here now, and everything is new again.Your children will carry the joy of this place wherever they go. The adventures we have for them are unimaginable.Leave them with us. We promise they won’t miss you.Everything you see here is real. This is not a Hollywood facade.Now you understand why we don’t have to advertise.You knew you were in love before you...2024-10-2804 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoListen to Your FriendsCalvin is looking up into a star-filled sky when he says to his tiger friend Hobbes,“If people looked at the stars each night, I bet they’d live a lot differently. When you look into infinity, you realize that there are more important things than what people do all day.”My friends are Calvin. I am Hobbes.Last week Hobbes was complaining to Jeffrey Eisenberg about his frustration with a company that had “upgraded” its website, making it impossible for Hobbes to buy what they were trying to sell. Jeffrey responded like Calvin,...2024-10-2103 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoWhen You Lie Down on SandRock-hard sandstone used to be just plain old sand, the kind you see at the beach.If you lie down on beach sand, you will leave your imprint on it.But if you lie down on sandstone, it will leave its imprint on you.Every person who starts a business hopes to leave their mark in the sand. If that businessperson is disciplined, committed, and consistent, their mark will become sandstone and leave its mark on future employees.Did it ever occur to you that the processes and procedures, policies and...2024-10-1403 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoIs America Portable?I don’t claim to speak for anyone but myself, and maybe it’s a generational thing, but America, to my way of thinking, is less of a place and more of a belief system; a way of looking at the world and the people in it.Americans believe in opportunity and equality.Americans believe, “Treat others as you would like others to treat you.”Americans believe in defending the weak from the strong who would abuse them.Americans believe in lifting people up, dusting them off, giving them a big smile an...2024-10-0804 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoRiding Rockets & Shooting StarsRiding this rocket toward my 67th birthday, memories of my life flicker in the twilight of my mind like shooting stars in the night.My gaze lingers on a long-ago day when I began writing ads for a jeweler.I saw the cover of a book that said, “Follow Your Passion. The Money Will Follow,” and remember thinking, “I would hate to become famous for writing ads for a product I couldn’t care less about.”“Follow your passion” is an idea that makes sense until you think about it.I had no appreci...2024-09-0905 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoFirst Principles of AdvertisingYou are inside your business, looking out.The customer is outside your business, looking in.Your inside-out perspective makes you blind in one eye.Confirmation bias makes you blind in the other eye.You cannot see yourself the way your customer sees you. You imagine how they see you based on your mission statement, your policies and procedures, your employee training, and your good intentions.But you alone know those things, see those things, and care about those things. Your customer doesn’t know, doesn’t see, doesn’t care.2024-08-3005 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoWhy Backstories MatterThe best screenwriters in Hollywood use the principles of David Freeman, as do Nobel and Pulitzer prize-winning novelists and all the most effective ad writers, even if they have never heard of the man.I know David well, as he has taught a number of classes at Wizard Academy. His always-and-forever question is this: “What causes this character to think, act, speak, and see the world the way they do?”NOTE: As a writer, you don’t necessarily need to tell your viewers, readers, or listeners why a character thinks, acts, speaks, and sees the world...2024-08-1904 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoBrad Pitt, Ron Howard, and MeBrad Pitt, Ron Howard, and MeI never write click-bait headlines, but I wrote this one just to prove I can.Brad shines from Shawnee, Ron comes from Duncan, and I bailed from Broken Arrow.We’re all Okla-Homeboys.Now that my click-bait headline has done its job and convinced you to keep reading all the way down to this third paragraph, I will transition to the real reason I wanted to speak with you today: Amway.Here’s how it works. You buy stuff from me that I buy...2024-08-0504 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoThis is Why Everyone is so AnxiousTwenty-nine years ago, Carl Sagan wrote a book called The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (1995).One of the observations Carl shared in that book is particularly troubling:“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never...2024-07-2204 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoAnswers to Your QuestionsLots of people have been asking me the same 3 questions.QUESTION ONE: “Who were your mentors?”Mentor is a word I never use. It smells of apprenticeship, that wafting, submissive aroma that arises from a servant who adores his master. By this definition, I have never had a mentor, but I do have many heroes I study from a distance, and I have a lot of friends who have spoken valuable things into my life.QUESTION TWO: “What is your writing method?”1. I descend into the depths of the client/character in whose...2024-07-1505 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoLaughter. Sorrow. Anger. Wonder.Aim their laughter like a cannon that booms out over the water.Aim their sorrow like a rainbow that follows a storm.Aim their anger like a lightning bolt that kills a man standing under a tree.Be careful not to stand under trees.People would rather be angry that bored.This is why we pay attention to politics.People would rather be frightened than bored.This is why we watch scary movies.People would rather be sad than bored.This...2024-07-0803 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoMessengers Make Me MelancholyAny person who relays messages to you from the boss, is now your new boss.An excellent messenger might relay exactly what the big boss asked them to tell you, but only after they have reframed it, recharacterized it, and added their own slant.Every messenger does this. Whether they do it consciously or unconsciously is irrelevant. Whether they do it maliciously or innocently is irrelevant. What matters is that it happens.When a person speaks for the boss, you work for that person. You must do what they say.If...2024-07-0106 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoThe Dark Night of Your SoulWhen you are having an adventure, you wish you were safe at home. But when you are safe at home, you wish you were having an adventure.Every adventure is marked by setbacks, disappointments, and difficulties. Without trouble, there can be no adventure.Our love of movies, video games, and sporting events proves our craving for adventure, for what are these but a celebration of people overcoming setbacks, disappointments, difficulties, and problems?What are you facing today?What must you overcome?What is your current adventure?Adventure...2024-06-1704 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoThe Wizard of Ads versus ChatGPTMy friends know that I have not used – and do not plan to use – ChatGPT, although I do endorse it for people who do not love to write.I love to write.Undissuaded, my friends urge that I should at least allow ChatGPT to gather and compile data for me to edit.I like to gather my own data.Jeffrey Eisenberg gave ChatGPT this prompt: “In less than 500 words what advice would Roy H Williams give his good friend Tom Grimes about writing?”Twenty-seven seconds later, Jeffrey’s computer delivered...2024-06-1008 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoTrue Things I Cannot Prove“If the founder of an organization does not empower the next generation of leadership to carry the enterprise forward while he is still viable as a leader, the organization he founded will cease to exist within 10 years after his death.”I have no recall of how I learned that information, but I have known it for nearly 40 years. My confidence that it is true tells me that I trusted the source.I was working in an industrial steel fabrication shop in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma for 3 dollars and 35 cents an hour when I learned a second trut...2024-06-0305 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoOf Course You Can“Telling the truth more powerfully than is completely accurate” is to think and speak of a future event as though it has already happened. Some people call this “manifesting,” but I am uncomfortable with that word because it conjures the image of a person literally speaking things into existence, an ability that I believe is God’s alone.Yes, I am of that ancient belief that the Big Bang began when God said, “Let there be…”Although I reject the idea of “manifesting,” I do believe in visioncasting, which I define as the encouragement of others by speaking o...2024-05-0606 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoThe Voices of the 9 Declarative SentencesEvery time you make a declarative statement, you choose one of only 9 sentence structures.You have been doing this unconsciously for as long as you have been able to speak and write. Today I am going to teach you how to do it consciously.Ten minutes from now, you will be able to speak and write with greater impact.You must first choose a perspective. First person perspective is when you are speaking for yourself, or as the spokesperson for a group: (I, me, my, mine, we, us, o...2024-04-0117 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoHow to Keep Your Balance During an EarthquakeThe tectonic plates of America are shifting beneath our feet. Can you feel the tremors?I’m not talking about the foundations of our continent. I’m talking about the foundations our nation.Our continent is rock, soil, and water; mountains and prairies and oceans white with foam.Our nation is a people; a family that we love.And if I might continue quoting Kate Smith for a moment, we would be wise to ask God to, “stand beside her and guide her through the night with the light from above.”We...2024-03-2505 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoThe Flickering, Fleeting Scenes of a LifetimeThere is a mysterious camera in your brain that will click and capture a poignant scene from time to time. You know what I’m talking about: random moments that you can vividly recall, but you’re not sure why.My awareness of that camera has been heightened and brightened in recent days as I feel a chapter of my life coming to an end and a new chapter about to begin.I’ve sure you have felt what I’m talking about.Phil Johnson explained these uneasy times of transition 40 years ago when I w...2024-02-1905 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoThe Wisdom of Barbara KingsolverHow to Shear a Sheepby Barbara KingsolverWalk to the barnbefore dawn.Take off your clothes.Cast everythingon the ground:your nylon jacket,wool socks and all.Throw awaythe cutting tools,the shears that bitelike teeth at the skinwhen hooves flailand your elbowcomes up hardunder a panting throat:no more of that.Sing to...2024-02-0505 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoHow to Succeed Without PlanningEfficiency experts say you must plan your work and work your plan. And you must have written goals and a budget and a schedule.A detailed plan is the key to success when you are doing something small, but you cannot have a detailed plan when you are doing something big and new and untried.You know a project is small when all the variables can be known in advance.When you do something big and new and untried, you will come to a place that your plan did not foresee. This is...2024-01-0804 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoIt Began as a Tiny ThingA germ is a tiny thing, but it can divide and become two germs, then four.Four becomes eight and after only 28 more cycles you find yourself handcuffed in the sad darkness of more than one billion germs.One billion, seventy-three million, seven hundred and forty-one thousand, eight hundred and twenty-four germs, to be exact.And they are all trying to kill you.Unlike the more beautiful forms of life, germs carry only one set of chromosomes instead of two. They reproduce by dividing into two cells, a process called binary...2024-01-0104 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoIrwin, Bob, Frank, Placido, and ArethaIrwin Michnick, the Brooklyn-born son of a Jewish furrier from Ukraine, was a jazz musician who wrote radio commercials and advertising jingles for companies like L & M cigarettes and Ken-L Ration dog food.Bob Levenson was a copywriter at Doyle Dane Bernbach who needed a tune to go with the words, “Everybody doesn’t like something, but nobody doesn’t like Sara Lee.” Irwin Michnick got the call.But it was a different call that led to Irwin Michnik winning a Tony Award and the Contemporary Classics Award from the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame.Frank S...2023-12-1104 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoThe Purpose of PoetryPoetry is not limited to poets.When you1. say more2. in fewer words,you are being poetic.Pithy, insightful statements are poetry.Frederik Pohl was not trying to explain why we increase our purchases of ice cream, alcohol, and entertainment when we are sad, but he summarizes it perfectly in just 20 words:“What I wanted very badly was something to take my mind off all the things that were on my mind.”1In another of his books, Frederik Pohl uses just 15 words to remi...2023-11-2005 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoThe Third VanderbiltI bought an old oil painting. It’s not a large painting or an important one, but it came from the private collection of the founder of the Whitney Museum.I bought it because I’ve always admired Cornelius Vanderbilt and his great-grandson, Willie K. Vanderbilt II, and I consider the delightful Gertude Vanderbilt-Whitney, the great-grandaughter of Cornelius, to be the third, truly interesting Vanderbilt.The First Vanderbilt:The fourth of nine children, Cornelius was in the first grade when George Washington died. At sixteen, he borrowed $100* from his mother to buy a litt...2023-10-2306 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoHow to Attract and Hold Attention: Death and Life for the CognoscentiIt is easy to attract attention:Predictability is death. Spontaneity is life.Day and night, left and right,timid and bold, young and old,up and down, smile and frown.Start and end. Do it again.Negative and positive, effected and causative,passive and active, repulsive and attractive:Paired opposites are the essence of magnetism.You can attention now attract!But opposites quickly get old.To keep that attention,you must learn how to hold.2023-10-1604 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoThe Underdog PhenomenonMost of us cheer for the little dog that doesn’t have a chance. The underdog.We like them because they need us.Underdogs are those little dogs that rise above their circumstances and overcome their disadvantages. It is the underdog we see in our mind when we say, “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight that matters; it’s the size of the fight in the dog.”Underdogs do the best they can. They push and struggle and hope for a brighter future. They remind us of ourselves.“The...2023-10-0904 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoThe Video Game of LifeToo much to do, too little time. First you are interrupted; then the interruption is interrupted. Does that ever happen to you?Me, too.Surrounded by frantic, breathless, rapid distraction, we have become characters in the video game of Life. The problem is that we are becoming habituated to it. Sensory overload is becoming the new normal.Jeff Sexton, one of my business partners, sent me an article from Science.org last week. I’ll share a single paragraph with you:“The researchers then decided to take the experiment a step furt...2023-09-1804 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoThe Price of IntimacyThe comedian Mark Russell said you can judge a generation by its magazines.Life magazine was first published in 1883. It was followed byPeople in 1974, which was followed byUs, which was followed bySelf.Ralph Waldo Emerson was born in 1803, just a few weeks before the Louisiana Purchase was announced to the American people by President Thomas Jefferson. Emerson was 23 when Jefferson died.America was still heavily influenced by Europe, but Ralph Waldo Emerson saw a future that no one else could see.At the...2023-08-2806 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoIs Your Ladder Too Short?I meet with dozens of people each year who tell me how they grew their companies to an impressive size, but then the growth slowed down. And then it stopped. They can see a lot more business out there; they just can’t figure out how to get it.I used to call this, “hitting the glass ceiling,” but I don’t call it that anymore. Now I say, “You need to add more steps to your ladder.”Here are a few things I’ve learned over the years:It is easy to pick the low-hangin...2023-08-1405 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoAdvice From an Old ManI often share memories of wise old men who gave me good advice.I have a grandchild turning 17 today, so I will play the part of the old man.The person I am advising is you.Always deliver the negative truth while the sale hangs in the balance. If you smile and make the sale and keep quiet until that predictable moment of crisis arrives, the truth will no longer ring true. It will just sound like you are making excuses.Tell your customer what they deserve to know while they...2023-08-0702 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoDon’t Worry. Be Happy.You cannot suffer the past or future because they do not exist. What you are suffering is your memory and your imagination.Friend, you are not a good worrier, so you might as well quit.Most of the things you worry about never come to pass. And the majority of those things that do come to pass are inconsequential, unworthy of your worry, or they cannot be changed, no matter how well you worry.Of all the things you worry about, only a tiny percentage are worth your worry, and can be changed...2023-07-1705 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoReap the WhirlwindIt would appear that journalists can no longer see clearly or talk plainly. They hand you something twisted and bent and assure you that it is straight.Propaganda hangs thick in the air around us and we are weary of it.It has gotten so bad that each of the people I could count on to keep me informed have chosen to cut the umbilical and set themselves free from the pollution of newscasts.I was contemplating these things in the predawn darkness when I remembered a comment made by Hosea 2700 years ago...2023-06-2604 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoWhat Do You See?You have tiny openings in your mind.When you look through one of those keyholes, you see a world that could easily become real, but only if you keep looking through that keyhole.Look through that keyhole long enough and it will expand into a window, then grow to become a door of opportunity through which you can pass into an entirely different future.Don’t look where you don’t want to go.If you gaze at dark possibilities, you are headed toward darkness.We do only those thin...2023-05-1503 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoArchetypes are Bigger Than You ThinkRichard Feynman, winner of the Nobel Prize, said, “Nature uses only the longest threads to weave her patterns, so that each small piece of her fabric reveals the organization of the entire tapestry.” He was speaking, of course, of DNA, the organizing pattern of every type of life on our planet.Your DNA contains the archetypal pattern of your physical body, but the world around you is bigger than your body.The world around you contains an infinite number of archetypes.An archetype is any recurrent pattern recognized by the pattern-seeking right hemisphere of t...2023-05-0806 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoContent Without Context is BoringYou see a photo of a man in a blue jacket standing in front of McDonalds. That photo contains at least 3 pieces of information.Information is content.1. Man2. Blue Jacket3. McDonaldsContent without context is boring.That photograph was taken to encourage you and elevate your hope.Does that surprise you? It should, because you haven’t been given any context.The man in that photo, Brian Scudamore, was a 19-year-old kid sitting in his car in exactly that spot in that McDonald’s dr...2023-05-0105 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoAn Honest Attempt to UnderstandIn 1947 a Norwegian became curious if it was possible for the natives of South America to have drifted on a raft 4,300 miles across the Pacific ocean to populate the islands of Polynesia.The question of who populated Polynesia wasn’t really important to anyone but Thor Heyerdahl.He opened his bestselling book in 1950 with these words,“Once in a while you find yourself in an odd situation. You get into it by degrees and in the most natural way but, when you are right in the midst of it, you are suddenly astonished and...2023-04-2406 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoCelebrate Your PartnerDo people under 50 know what a yoke is? I honestly don’t know. When I consider that millions of Americans don’t know how to use a rotary telephone, I can easily believe they might be unfamiliar with that wooden implement used to unite a pair of horses or mules or oxen so that they might be able to “pull together” and accomplish things that neither of them could have done alone.You have people in your life to whom you are yoked. You are connected to them.We have names for these connections: Husband. Wife. Si...2023-04-1003 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoIf Life is a Journey on Water…If life is a journey on water, with our conscious mind above the waterline and our deep unconscious beneath, and if all the people in the world are drifting, surfing, drowning and sailing on that surface, shouldn’t there be a person on a wooden chair in the sky above the beach watching over it all?Shouldn’t there be a person?And a beach?The people along the sandAll turn and look one way.They turn their back on the land.They look at the sea...2022-11-1404 min
Wizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoAt the Fingertips of an Ad Writer“Hoare writes with the license of the nonexpert; you can feel the delight he takes in being unbound by anything but his enthusiasms.”John Williams was describing Philip Hoare when he wrote that line, but he could easily have been describing me. As a nonexpert, I am free to speculate and arrive at my own conclusions.So are you.And so is your customer.You, me, and your customer claim we use deductive reasoning, but it simply isn’t true. Deductive reasoning – the basis of scientific method – would require us to work dilig...2022-01-0304 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoFraming: You’ve Been Doing It All Your LifeYou choose a frame every time you look through the lens of a camera, sketch an image with a pencil, or write words with a pen. But today you’re going to start choosing your frames consciously, rather than unconsciously.The job of the ad writer is to introduce a new perspective and trigger a new belief. The best ads make people think and feel differently.When you look through the lens of a camera, you notice that as you move closer you see more detail, but less context. This ratio of detail-to-context is determined by...2021-06-1405 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoYou Are What You Can’t Let Go OfMy friend Brian Scudamore said something so insightful that Starbucks printed it on 10 million coffee cups:“It’s difficult for people to get rid of junk. They get attached to things and let them define who they are. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in this business, it’s that you are what you can’t let go of.”Brian was talking about physical junk and mental junk as well.What is the junk you need to get rid of? Do you have an attachment that defines you?“You are what you can’...2021-05-2403 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoRiding the White ElephantThe generation of male Okies to which I belong has the inexplicable tradition of mercilessly teasing their friends. It’s a dumb tradition, I know, but these are the rules:We tease only our closest friends. To say to strangers the sorts of things that we say to our friends would be to invite a fistfight.The more outrageous and unfounded the accusation, the funnier it is.We never tease by saying things that could possibly be perceived as the truth. In other words, if you believe what you are saying might contain a grain of truth – even a tin...2020-07-1304 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoAvital and DeanTwenty-one years ago I got a phone call from my publisher, Ray Bard. “Roy, a man in Denver just bought 350 copies of your book from a bookstore in Denver and then faxed the receipt to my office with a question scribbled on it.”“What was the question?” I asked.“He wrote, ‘Is this enough for you to arrange a meeting with the author?’”A couple of weeks later, the man arrived in Austin and we spent a day talking about every subject on earth. I was glad I met him.That night, Pennie as...2020-03-0205 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoSpeaking to the Unconscious MindMy most successful ads in 2019 were the ones where I refrained from using logic, but chose instead to speak to the unconscious mind.Advertise your product to the conscious mind of a customer and you will likely be met with doubt, disinterest, and suspicion. But the unconscious mind greets you with none of these.Speaking to the unconscious is not nearly so complicated as it sounds.Here’s a recent example. A big jewelry store asked for an ad that would trigger interest in their custom-design department. The instructions I was given were ty...2020-01-1304 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoUnsettled LionsThe Eye of the Storm in the tower at Wizard Academy, under construction in 2009.We are feeling unsettled again.And when I say we, I don’t mean me, I mean all of us.Unsettled feelings are ominous.We are acting as though we have heard the four notes of the Dies irae, that ominous musical phrase* that has signaled impending tragedy for the past 800 years. Being thus unsettled, we are making big decisions with too little information and those decisions will have consequences.Unsettled lions like you and I ar...2019-09-2305 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoHappy Yesterday!I was bagging my groceries when the checker handed me my receipt and said, “Happy Yesterday.” Unsure of the correct response, I just smiled at him and nodded.A few moments later I realized he had said, “Happy rest-of-your-day.” But that brief exchange put my mind on an interesting track: can we choose to have a happy yesterday?Strangely, we can. According to a number of studies published since 2012, we don’t really remember the events in our lives. We remember only our last memory of those events. Events in our memories alter and morph with each r...2019-07-0104 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoTwo Oklahoma BoysBack in those days you didn’t shoot nobody unless they really needed shootin’.So when someone showed you a gun, you knew there was a reason. You didn’t always know what that reason was, so the polite thing to do was ask.“What’s with the hog leg?”“Keeps folks from takin’ the cash box.”“I just want a watermelon. You sellin’? Or just sittin’ here showin’ em off?”The truck was a 1950 International Harvester that had been ugly since the day it was born and the boy was a 1955 Hatfield with...2019-06-1705 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoHow We Decide to PurchaseAmateur ad writers assume everyone makes decisions based upon the same criteria they use. This causes them to unconsciously frame their messages to reach people exactly like themselves.Professional ad writers frame their messages to speak to the felt needs of a specific consumer.People are multi-dimensional. We make decisions to purchase based on a variety of criteria, but two of the big ones are Time and Money.“Time and Money are interchangeable.You can always save one by spending more of the other.”– Pennie WilliamsA person who feels...2019-06-1005 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoI’m Here to Encourage YouTinkerbell’s light gradually dims as she begins to die.Her only hope of survival is an audience that believes in fairies and demonstrates that belief through enthusiastic applause. Tinkerbell’s light has been growing brighter since 1904, when she first appeared in J.M. Barrie’s play, Peter Pan.Everyone believes in fairies enough to clap enthusiastically.The Tinkerbell Effect describes things that exist only because enough of us believe they exist, and behave as though they do.Paper money has value only because enough of us believe it has value and beh...2019-03-0404 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoThe Thing About Hemingway…I’m reading Hemingway’s novel, Death in the Afternoon, and I like it.It is a detailed explanation of bullfighting.Not a story about a bullfighter.Bullfighting.I have no interest in bullfighting. None.The book has no character arc because it has no characters. It has narrative, but no narrative arc. No plot, no moments of crisis, no heroism, no romance.It is essentially an instruction manual.Why do I find myself drawn to this book?Yesterday morning I said to Pennie...2018-12-1004 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoCelebrate, Celebrate, Celebrate!Dewey Jenkins says, “If your employees don’t look forward to company meetings, then you’re not doing it right.”Dewey has grown his company to nearly 100 times the size it was when he bought it, so I tend to listen to what he says.Dewey taught me to celebrate, not just the touchdowns, but the first downs.Dewey smiles and says, “Celebrate, Celebrate, Celebrate!”So I’m going to do that today.Vice-Chancellor Whittington posted a “Tower Update” video last week promoting Bonding as a Branding Strategy, a new class debuting a...2018-08-2004 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoIn the Wilderness, You Meet an Old ManThe pivotal moments in our lives are rarely announced with trumpets and fanfare.But wouldn’t it be great if they were?“Hello, this is God speaking. You’re at an inflection point in your life and although you don’t suspect it, the wisdom you’re about to receive from that old man over there is going to empower you to achieve things you never imagined. So pay attention, okay? This is a really big moment. Don’t let it slip past you.”No, that doesn’t happen. Not the voice, anyway.But the mo...2018-08-0604 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoThe Roycroft Campus and Bohemian GroveDoubtless, they will someday say, “Inspired by Roycroft and Bohemian Grove, Pennie and Roy Williams built Wizard Academy…”But they will be wrong.Yes, the Princess and I – with the help of hundreds of good friends around the world – began constructing the Wizard Academy campus in 2004. The “wrong” part is that we were inspired by Roycroft and Bohemian Grove.This error is forgivable, however, because jumping to conclusions is what makes us humans so adorable.Elbert Hubbard was a marketer whose magazine, The Philistine, was read by subscribers around the world 120 years ago. Likew...2018-05-1405 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoStraight-A Students and Self-Made Millionaires1. When you need someone to faithfully implement your time-tested policies and procedures, hire a straight-A student.This is what we know about them:A. They bought into the educational system, believed its promises, and played by its rules.B. They have demonstrated obedience, compliance, and conformity.C. They have obvious respect for authority.And these are not bad things.2. When you need to innovate, improvise or reinvent, hire a rascal.1This is what we know about them:A. They mistrust the system, laugh...2018-04-2304 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoOuter Worlds, Inner WorldsWe experience wonder when we realize our true size.On clear nights, we ride a speck of dust as it circles an 11,000-degree fireball shooting through a limitless vacuum at 52 times the speed of a rifle bullet.And that fireballis one of billionsof fireballsin our galaxy.And our galaxyis one of billionsof galaxies.Looking at the stars, we know our true size.On rainy days, we thumb through the fading scrapbooks of our minds...2018-02-2604 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoOn Becoming InvisibleIn 2018, I will continue to fade from sight. By the end of 2019, I hope to be completely transparent. This has been my goal since May of 2000.If the founder of an organization remains vitally involved until the day they are no longer viable, the organization they founded will cease to exist within 10 years after their passing.I don’t want that to happen to Wizard Academy.Don’t worry, I’m not dying or anything like that.The time-tested model for a successful transfer of leadership is to pass the torch to the...2017-11-1305 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoBanter as a Tool of Selling“I was told that repartee heightens the attention of an audience.”“Is this going to be like that time you told me about ambergris?”“What do you mean?”“There I was, minding my own business, when you started telling me how the most expensive perfume in the world comes from whale puke. Like I needed to know that.”“Yes. This is another interesting fact that will broaden your horizons.”“Okay, let’s get this over with. So tell me, what in the name of King-of-the-Sea Poseidon and Chicken-of-the-Sea tuna is repartee?“Repa...2017-10-0904 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoSunshine and Poobah – the BackstoryPeople are being caught off guard by the quirky tale of Sunshine and Poobah.Evidently, reading it cover-to-cover is a much different experience than reading it one chapter at a time. This funny little book is rapidly gaining a life of its own.This is the backstory of how – like Frosty the Snowman – it came to life.Jeffrey Eisenberg gave you the beginning of the backstory on the final pages of the just-released hardback, Be Like Amazon: Even a Lemonade Stand Can Do It.“A few months ago we sought the advice o...2017-06-0506 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoThe Familiar Face of FailureSome lessons we never learn.For me, the familiar face of failure hangs like a Royal Portrait above the grand staircase of my social behavior.Lest my meaning be obscured by that flowery metaphor, I am simply stating for the record – before God, the world and you – that my greatest recurring mistake is that I often disappoint my friends.Not my casual friends. No, never those. I disappoint the friends I care about the most.This happens because I allow the merely urgent to displace the truly important.In fact, I’...2017-01-3003 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoOld Enough to DriveWizard Academy is now 16 years old.If we could find her birth certificate, we’d take her down to the DMV to get her driver’s license and then she could sport about town in Rocinante (above,) the only vehicle she owns.They grow up so fast.When Wizard Academy is 30, I’ll be 72. At least I hope I’ll be 72. Not everyone who attempts to hike to that mile marker gets there.Will you help us take the impossible dream of Wizard Academy forward into the future?Wizard Academy w...2016-03-1404 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoWhose Dog Are You?In 1738, Alexander Pope gave a dog to Frederick, Prince of Wales.Engraved on the dog’s collar were these words:“I am his Highness’ dog at Kew;Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?”Alexander Pope hitched his wagon to Prince Frederick, a rising star.If you’ve seen the Masterpiece Theater television series, Wolf Hall, you’ll remember a similar conversation between Thomas Cromwell and his wife, Liz, as he explains why he has chosen to work for Cardinal Wolsey:You know what they say in Italy? ‘Il prin...2015-05-1805 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoThe Big Secret of Great AdsI should begin with an apology, I suppose, because the secret of great advertising, the secret to great wealth, the secret of status and stature and your name on the lips of all the beautiful people is actually a wee bit disappointing.Yes, it’s a sadly disappointing big secret.The reason the big secret is such a letdown is that you already know it.Are you ready?The secret of great advertising is that you must find something to say that your customer would be happy to hear.You kn...2014-04-1404 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoIntersection of WaysMost people believe in The Way Things Ought to Be.Others embrace The Way Things Are.Arguments, terrorism and war happen at the intersection of these Ways.“Here’s what you ought to do.”“That’s just not going to happen.”“Okay, then we’ll fight.”An even weirder, three-way intersection happens atThe Way I Remember It,The Way You Remember It, andThe Way It Actually Was.Standing in the reflection of that intersection is like standing in a house of mirrors...2012-11-0502 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning Memo20,000 Years of AdvertisingA New Book is in the Making. Want to Be Part of It?More than 1,000 businesses will be featured in this book. Each will have fewer than 100 employees. On average, they’ll have been operating for at least 20 years. We’re going to ask them about their advertising.Research tells you what ought to work.We’re going to ask these businesses what actually worked.Actual experience is the highest form of research.Each of these businesses will be part of a new book to be published in 20...2012-10-0806 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoAngel in the DarknessMy 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...2012-02-2705 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoAn Open ExperimentThis will be the smartest thing I’ve done in years or it will be the stupidest. And I’m going to do it openly so the whole world can watch to see what happens as these next few months unfold.The promotion of Wizard Academy is about to be turned over to someone else.Mark Fox said, “Roy, instead of hiring someone to do what you do badly, why not hire someone to do what you do best?”“Huh?” Mark is on the board of directors of Wizard Academy so I had to keep listening...2011-08-1504 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoInteresting Things Going On Right NowOnce a year I allow myself to ramble a bit in the insane delusion that someone out there might actually want to know what’s happening in my life.Deep in my heart I know the only people who really care about my private trivia are my wife and my mom. My wife, of course, lives with me so I’ll address the rest of today’s Memo to my mom.You can eavesdrop if you like.Dear Mom,The tower is finally finished. Everyone who has seen it so far has been...2011-07-1106 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning Memo5.91 Million ReasonsWhy America Needs Wizard AcademyAccording to the U.S. Census, our nation is home to 5.91 million business owners whose businesses have fewer than 100 employees. If the American dream is to survive, these small businesses must thrive. The success of Wal-Mart and Google is not enough. Wizard Academy is a business school – not for big corporations – but for companies operated by their owners. Can you name another? On 1/3/11 6:59 AM, wrote:Roy,May I be one of the first to speak up about your “Sponsorship Opportunities?” Enough already...2011-01-1704 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoBuzz Snatchingfrom our correspondent in St. Petersburg, RussiaARoy, Ogilvy’s St P. office is a client of ours, only there are a tonne of project managers there, and we had really only one contact person, with a few other managers who knew vaguely about us. I was chatting to the lovely Katya, my contact person, on skype one day. Joked something about her using our corporate plane if she needed it; she said she hadn’t time, but couldn’t we send our pilot to Paris early one morning to pick...2010-10-0402 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoMelvin the Lion"The winner is determined when..."A couple of weeks ago Sean Taylor attended a high-class function to receive the Melvin Jones Award on my behalf. Melvin Jones founded the Lions Club International and his award is the highest honor the club can bestow. You can’t win the MJ Award unless you’re a Lion – which I’m not – so the board of directors voted to make an exception for me.Yes, yes, it sounds like I’m boasting but I’m not. I’m making a full confession.The wiener dog races we sponsor each year...2010-07-1204 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoDeader Than a Bag of HammersMini Bikes, Tape Recorders, Leisure Suits and Yellow PagesThe Las Vegas Hilton, 2003: The stagehand said, “This is the stage where Elvis appeared when he played Vegas.” He was helping me set up to speak to the managers of all the local, county and state fairs in the English-speaking world.When my stage buddy said we were good to go, the floor attendants opened the doors and the crowd washed into the room, thick streams of people jamming the aisles, then branching into little rivulets as they chose specific rows of seats. I went backstage to get l...2009-12-2106 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoHow to Make MoneyIf it takes money to make money, how does one make money when he has no money at the start?A person without capital has nothing to leverage but his or her time. This is why millions of Americans wear the handcuffs of hourly wages.When I was 14, my life sold for $1.60 an hour. At 18, an hour in the life of Roy H. Williams was selling for three dollars and thirty-five cents. People all around me talked about “the security of a steady paycheck” as though steady and unchanging were a good thing.But I...2009-09-2104 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoSpend Not a Pennyand Get Real SkinnyThe Full Plate Diet is an incredibly cool book. And because you’re a friend of Wizard Academy, you can have a no-charge advance copy. That’s right. No charge. Nada. Zero. Zip. The publisher – Wizard Academy board member Ray Bard of Bard Press – is giving away 20,000 pre-release copies to trigger a nationwide buzz. The Full Plate Diet will be in every bookstore in America in January but you can have your advance copy today.It’s even okay to tell your friends how they can get a no-charge copy, too. I highly re...2009-07-2004 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoHow Will You Measure Success?How Will You Measure Success?June 1, 2009ListenAThe keeper of my calendar told me a few weeks ago that David Rehr had called to schedule a day with me in Austin. I scratched my head and wondered why.David served as a congessonal aide on Capitol Hill when he was young, then he took a broken-down trade group, The National Beer Wholesalers Association, and turned it into one of the most powerful lobbies in Washington.So dramatic was his sucess that the National As...2009-06-0104 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoCuriosity Rocks8,000 years before Stonehenge and the PyramidsThe rocks of Gobekli Tepe (pronounced Go-beckly Tepp-ay) are a curiosity, and curiosity rocks.Travel with me to that ancient land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in southeastern Turkey.A shepherd wandering on the hillside where grows a solitary Mulberry tree, spies the top of an oblong rock that appears to have been shaped by human hands. He notices others like it in a pattern. He returns to the village and tells what he has seen. The digging begins. The year is 1994.“Gobekli Tepe is the most impor...2009-03-0903 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoThe Magic TableA Monday Morning Memo for the Clients and Friends of Roy H. WilliamsYou walk into a room, empty but for a table carved from crystal. Girdling the table are 11 other persons whose occupations are similar to yours.You place ten thousand dollars on the table, your gift to the group. Each of the other 11 does the same. But this is a magic table. You don’t walk away with your own ten thousand. You get the entire hundred and twenty.And so does everyone else.The crystal table is a metap...2008-08-1104 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoFeeding Stray Puppies and KittensMom’s off-white Formica table with wobbly metal legs had a charred circle on top where I once set a pan that was way too hot. Mom couldn’t afford a tablecloth to cover it, but whenever she suspected a person might have nowhere to go for Thanksgiving dinner, she’d always invite them to our house and have another hungry mouth to feed.Thanksgiving, for me, meant a house jammed with people I’d never seen before and would never see again. But each year I saw a whole other America through the eyes of the misfits w...2008-07-2103 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoOnce Upon a TimeI was freshly married to Pennie and barely old enough to see over the dash of a car but I wanted to show her the magical places of my childhood, so we saved up enough money for 3 tanks of gas and made the 200-mile drive from Broken Arrow to Ardmore, Oklahoma.I never knew my father’s father. A couple of photographs and a pocket watch are all that remain of the original Roy H. Williams. But my mother’s dad I knew. Roy Pylant (PIE-lant) was the iceman in Ardmore for more than half a century.2008-02-1105 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoGravity of the EdgeWhether it exists in the public consciousness or only in my mind, I can't be sure, but there’s an anxiousness about 2008 that gives me pause. We seem to be pushing our way to the edge.Presidency, economy, war.What will happen?I take a breath and close my eyes and remember the words of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus published 1800 years ago, “Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.”Anthony Hopkins shared a similar...2007-12-3104 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoWrong Turn Taken on the Straight and NarrowIn the Land of the Way Things Ought to BeI’m handsome and wealthy and strong and free.But in the Land of the Way Things Really AreI’m struggling and awkward, a bit bizarre.I threw a party, invited my friendsFrom the Land of the Way It Might Have Been.They were heartbroken. A man named RegretSaid they had gotten all they would get.An Ambassador came, toupee in handFrom nostalgic Way-It-Used-to-Be Land,Whose sad power comes from cellophane tapeOn the box from which we try to escape.War was declared by the Land of Who CaresOn the Used-to-Be, and...2007-11-2604 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoChoosing Your Magic Words“I’m a surfer,” she said as she extended her hand.It almost broke my heart.Her husband had moved her into a tiny fixer-upper on the tear-stained cheek of an Oklahoma town. With a young child dangling from each of her arms and a third one on the way, she needed us to see her as she had been.“I’m a surfer.”Please understand that in my heart I’m reckless and free under an open sky. Please. I need this.“I’m Roy and this is my wife, Pennie. W...2007-10-1503 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoI Am SleepWhen Too Bigwedges into a head too small,When Too Hardcrowds into a life too soft,When Too Muchhas happened to make sense of it all,I am Sleep.Let me do my work.– Roy H. WilliamsHave you ever been confronted with an idea Too Big, a circumstance Too Hard, or a series of events Too Much?Thank God for the right hemisphere of your brain.You spend about a third of your li...2006-12-1803 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoRevealing the Vivid Unexpected Part One: The Secret of Saying Too LittleSuffice it to say that last week's memo had precisely the effect I had anticipated.We'll speak no more about it.I will not dissect my own writing like a formaldehyde frog in the dim light of your monitor. But I will, for your benefit, gently press my scalpel into a paragraph written by England's brilliant Roy Clarke:“The thing about growing up is that you get fewer scabs on your knees, but more internal injuries. Do you remember the day when that little yellowhammer flew straight at the window? You picked it up...2006-11-2705 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoSix Things ExplainedEvery Nazi believed every other Nazi had character and integrity. Likewise, the Ku Klux Kooks and the Taliban believe themselves to be the high defenders of all that is holy and true.Your judgment of the “character and integrity” of others is rooted in the values you hold to be self-evident or in the religion to which you subscribe.Is it only those who believe as you do that have “character and integrity?” That question lies at the feet of the survey I introduced last week. I promised you I would share how we were going to...2006-09-2505 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoWill You Change Your Little Corner?Nehemiah is a book of the history of the Jews. Have you ever read it?450 BC – It is the time of Socrates, just a few years before Plato, Aristotle, and Alexander the Great: Nehemiah is a government worker who becomes distressed with the way things are and decides to do something about it. “Hanani, one of my brothers, came from Judah with some other men, and I questioned them about the Jewish remnant that survived the exile, and also about Jerusalem. They said to me, 'Those who survived the exile and are back in the province are in gr...2006-05-0804 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoWhat Women WantI did a bad, bad thing.Last week's memo ended too abruptly. “Yes, selling to men can be very easy. But how does one sell to women? Ah. That is a different question. – Roy H. Williams” The phrase, “sell to women?” was hyperlinked to additional information. Judging from the record number who clicked that link, What Women Really Want remains one of the great, unsolved mysteries of man.The hyperlinked phrase, of course, took you to the course description for Michele Miller's class on marketing to women. Those who clicked her free, streaming video found the answer. Bu...2005-11-1403 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoAdvertising, Like Reduction Sauce A Monday Morning Memo from The Wizard of AdsHi Roy,Thanks for the mention in the MMM today. It never ceases to amaze me the buzz something like that creates.Reading it also reminds me of the other conversation that took place at the same time, when you and Dave were talking about how a chef reduces the sauce to intensify the flavour and how that process can be related to writing. That conversation adds clarity to today's argument raging in the US about 60's vs. 30's.CheersSteveThe “other conversation” mentioned in this email from my p...2005-04-0402 minWizard of Ads Monday Morning MemoWhere Have Your Fingers Been Walking Lately?A few years ago, your customer could compare you only to your competitor down the street. But information gathering and comparison shopping have since become effortless, thanks to the internet. Tens of millions of us are gathering and comparing info 24/7 in the comfort and seclusion of our own homes.But we're not “your customer,” right?I recently spoke to an audience of 1600 businesspeople at a conference in Las Vegas. Just before I walked onstage into the spotlight, my host whispered into my ear, “It would probably be better if you didn't make any references to the in...2005-03-2103 min