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. […]
The 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 […]
My observation during the past 40+ years as an ad writer has been that television and radio professionals spend so much time trying to sell television and radio ads, they have no time to learn how to make those ads work. When you know how to make ads work, and can prove it, television and […]
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 […]
One hundred and two years ago, Benito organized a March on Rome with the intention of forcing the king of Italy to yield the government to him. It worked, and Benito was appointed prime minister. Thirty-two-year-old Antonio had a problem with that, and spoke out against Benito. Benito got tired of Antonio’s criticism and had him thrown […]
As 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 […]
Calvin 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 […]
Rock-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 […]
Same image as last week, as I told you, but this week it has a whole different meaning. – Indy Beagle 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 […]
PART THREE of SEVEN SECRETS OF SALES ACTIVATION The objective of a Customer Bonding campaign is to make your name the one that people think of first and feel the best about. When you have not successfully bonded with your customer, any attempt at sales activation is simply an experiment in direct marketing. This can […]
Two thousand years ago, Confucius was as old to the people of China as Christopher Columbus is to us today. Five hundred and thirty-two years before the wise men followed their star to Bethlehem, Confucius wrote, “By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by contemplation, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and […]
Leadership = Energy + Direction Direction = Vision + Courage Therefore, leaders are people of Energy, Vision, and Courage. If you are a person of energy, vision, and courage: (1.) I have noticed that people like you often become surrounded by wanderers who are looking for a leader. It is hard to make money when […]
Riding 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,” […]
You 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 […]
Every company has an inside, an outside, and an engine. This is why successful companies have a Mother, a Trumpet, and a CEO. The CEO chooses a destination and builds a machine to take us there. The Mother looks inward to the people in the company. The Trumpet makes beautiful noises for the public to […]
The 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 […]
Every person on earth belongs to several cults. Calm down. I’m not talking about what you think I’m talking about. I’ll start at the beginning. Cult: any group of people who share a devotion to an idea, activity, or identity. Cults become toxic and dangerous only when the devotion of the group is (1.) to […]
Brad Pitt, Ron Howard, and Me I 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 […]
These are stories of a bright day, a dark night, and a monster. The story of the bright day happened last year just before Christmas. You may recall that I told you about finding an undiscovered 400-year-old copy of the 1605 edition of Don Quixote at a used furniture auction in a village in New […]
Twenty-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 […]
Lots 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 […]
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 […]
There is a time to get started, and there is a time to wait. When you have thought carefully about it, take action. But when you haven’t thought about it, wait. The important is rarely urgent, and the urgent is rarely important. Do not become a slave to the merely urgent. Perception is to see […]
When 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 […]
My 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 […]
“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 […]
A successful mechanic shop brings in about $500,000 a year. But whether or not the shop owner makes any profit on that $500,000 isn’t determined by how good they are at repairing cars, but by how good they are at running a business. And even those shop owners who are good at running a business […]
The Growing Up Years: Ages Birth to 20 When a man is in his teenage years, people with good intentions will ask, “What are your plans for the future?” Fewer than 10% of us have a real plan at that age, but we make one up so that we don’t disappoint those who believe in […]
To Hollister and Gideon, You have arrived at that age when everyone you meet will ask you about your plans for the future. I am older, happier, and probably more successful than those people, so ignore them. Listen to me. Knowledge is important, but experience is what really matters. School can give you knowledge, but […]
“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 […]
Two-letter postal abbreviations don’t have periods after the letters, so when I titled today’s Monday Morning Memo, “Reno is West of L.A.” I was not using L.A. as the postal abbreviation for Louisiana. Carson City – the capitol of Nevada – is likewise west of Los Angeles, as are 5 other state capitols. Juneau, Honolulu, […]
You see a lot of crap during 40 years as an ad writer. You see big, steaming piles of predictable ads written by amateurs who assume the audience is required to listen. You see frozen piles of heartless ads that speak to ideas rather than to people. You see the scattered shrapnel of ads written […]
As you increase your words, you decrease their impact. Communicate your thoughts in short sentences. Those thoughts will be remembered, and you will, too. Shorter hits harder. I read a book by a man who is a deep thinker, a great strategist, and a good writer. His strengths are that he can identify, organize, and […]
Kings and pirates both wear swords, but for different reasons. A king wears his sword as a symbol of the army he commands. A pirate wears his sword so that it will be at hand when he needs it. Pirates have a high tolerance for risk because they have nothing to lose. Kings have a […]
Every 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 […]
The 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 […]
My reputation is built largely on the fact that I cheat. I openly admit my cheating, but no one cares, because the way that I cheat is not unethical, immoral, or illegal. I realized in 2017 that Warren Buffet and I do exactly the same thing. Here is how he describes it: “Ted Williams wrote […]
In the Monday Morning Memo for Oct. 10, 2022, I wrote, “Do you want to be one of the world’s great ad writers? Don’t read ads. Read the poems, short stories and novels written by the winners of the Pulitzer and Nobel prizes in Literature.” My friend Tom Grimes – the waterboy of Amarillo – […]
There are two ways to become invisible, and both are easily accomplished. To become invisible to yourself: get lost inside your own head. When you ignore other people, it never occurs to you that they can see you. This is how you become invisible in your mind. To become invisible to others: say what people expected you […]
[The wizard has been writing twice a month for Radio Ink magazine for more than a quarter century. The column you are about to read will be distributed to every radio station in North America – more than 10,000 of them – when it is published in a few weeks. – Indy Beagle] Traditional wisdom […]
There 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 […]
Every company has Untold Story assets that are hiding in plain sight, and every company has Limiting Factors that are holding them back. This is how you lift a company to new heights: 1. Uncover the Untold Stories. 2. Devise a plan to overcome the Limiting Factors. Untold Stories and Limiting Factors are not always […]
How to Shear a Sheep by Barbara Kingsolver Walk to the barn before dawn. Take off your clothes. Cast everything on the ground: your nylon jacket, wool socks and all. Throw away the cutting tools, the shears that bite like teeth at the skin when hooves flail and your elbow comes up hard under a […]
The dew lies softly on the green grass and the sunrise is golden in the early morning sky. I come upon an unspoiled mirror of water. A smooth pebble leaves my fingertips. Yes! I land my pebble perfectly in the bullseye! I watch a concentric circle of ripples reach the edge of the pool and […]
You look at life from a unique point of view. I do, too. Each of us is trapped in our own perceptual reality. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” You and I may look at the same thing but see it differently. And that little girl over there, yes, that one, sees things […]
A weak ad attempts to make too many points, and none of them very powerfully. A weak ad is a bloated little porcupine. A great ad drives a single point through one side of your house and out the other with all the momentum of a freight train. A powerful ad is a charging rhinoceros. […]
Efficiency 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. […]
A 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 […]
“The thing about the systematic reduction of a woman down to her parts is that she doesn’t always know it’s happening while it’s going on. Just one day she wakes up and realizes that all she was, was a face, a line of cleavage, two legs, a couple of hands, the swivel of her pelvis, […]
I don’t know if he was was an American Patriot or a British Loyalist. All I know is that he owned a 1726 edition of “The Gentleman Angler,” a leather bound book on fly fishing. That book was 50 years old when Thomas Jefferson penned the Declaration of Independence. Speaking of Jefferson, that same fly-fisherman […]
Irwin 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 […]
Back in 2012, Ze Frank recorded a video I’ve contemplated for 11 years. “What was it about?” The hero and the clown. “What made it so interesting that you’ve contemplated it for so long?” The hero and the clown are the same person. “You’re going to need to explain that to me.” Here’s the transcript. […]
Ninety percent of motorcycle riders who attempt this corner at 100 mph crash and die, so 9% of riders who attempt it at 10 mph will also crash and die, right? The fact that you answered silently ‘No’ indicates that you instinctively understand the concept of an inflection point. Somewhere between zero and 100 mph […]
Poetry is not limited to poets. When you 1. say more 2. 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: […]
Fiction is an ancient virtual reality technology that specializes in simulating human problems. “Like a flight simulator, fiction projects us into intense simulations of problems that run parallel to those we face in reality. And like a flight simulator, the main virtue of fiction is that we have a rich experience and don’t die at […]
Beautiful people know they are beautiful. Smart people know they are smart. Rich people know they are rich. You don’t need to tell them. If you speak about surface qualities, your words are superficial. If you speak about inner qualities, your words are deep. Flattery is an attempt at superficial bonding. It is the pickup […]
Portals are openings that lead from one place to another. The best screenwriters, novelists, poets, and ad writers use portals when they want their readers, listeners, and viewers to follow them to a new and different place. Portals can be visual, auditory, or literary. Visual Portals like windows, doors, and tunnels, are used by painters, […]
I 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 […]
It 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. […]
Most 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 […]
My novelist friend, Brad Whittington and I share a deep and abiding love for the colorful canvases of Robertson Davies, a Canadian writer who paints pictures in the mind. “Oho, now I know what you are. You are an advocate of Useful Knowledge…. Well, allow me to introduce myself to you as an advocate of […]
When I was growing up, I could never change the opinion of my mother by saying, “But everyone else is doing it.” My mom had the courage and confidence to believe that Everyone Else’s mother was wrong. That’s a high level of courage and confidence. I’m hoping that you have it, too. When I speak […]
Too 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 […]
You cut a nick into a stick to mark a moment. Then, at the end of the time being measured, you make another nick. To do a thing at the last possible moment is to do it within that second nick, “in the nick of time.” Millions of us have been using this phrase since […]
A friend rotated my brain toward the subject of fame. He aimed my eyes in a new direction when he said, “Do you remember that thing you sent me 10 or 15 years ago?” I gave him the same blank look that you would have given him. He continued, “It was that thing Leonard Pitts […]
The comedian Mark Russell said you can judge a generation by its magazines. Life magazine was first published in 1883. It was followed by People in 1974, which was followed by Us, which was followed by Self. Ralph Waldo Emerson was born in 1803, just a few weeks before the Louisiana Purchase was announced to the […]
I have a friend who is a famous online marketer. Last week he sent me an observation I found interesting. It occurred to me that you might find it interesting as well. “Now that targeting is pretty much dead on Facebook and Instagram, I have a theory that the rules of reach and frequency that […]
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 […]
I 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 […]
The first half of what I’m about to tell you, I have told you before. But you will understand why I chose to repeat it when you read the second half. – RHW The average person has 5 senses. We can see, hear, taste, touch, and smell. We also have the ability to interpret magical […]
Everything I’m about to share with you happened in England and France during the lifetime of Thomas Jefferson, while America still had its “new baby” smell. The English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge gave us “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” in 1798, while Napoleon sailed to Egypt to fight the Battle of the Pyramids and famously discover the […]
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 […]
When a thought knocks politely on the door of my mind, I open the door and entertain the thought. But when an unseen thought shines into my mind through a skylight, I am always startled by the mystery of how words-not-my-own came to echo in my empty skull. “What, then, is Love?” Those four words, […]
We have a need to belong. We want to be seen and heard. We want to be missed when we are not around. We want to have genuine connection. This is the basis of relational ad writing. Never heard of it? That is because most ads are transactional, not relational. In a transactional ad, an […]
It 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 […]
Do you remember that scene in Jurassic Park when the park’s founder revealed that he had extracted the blood of a dinosaur from a mosquito trapped in fossilized tree sap? Forget the blood. Forget the dinosaur. Our interest is in that mosquito trapped in amber. I sometimes think time is the amber in which we […]
There are places in geography. There are places in the heart. There are places in time. Where shall we start? – Indy Beagle Places in Geography: “We have thought how places are able to evoke moods, as color and line in a picture may capture and warp us to a pattern the painter intended.” – […]
She is dead now and so is he. He was a friend of mine; lean, rangy, and muscular. She was his mother. “You’re getting fat,” is what she told him, right up until the day he died. Criticism will often cause you to see yourself worse than you are. Did it ever occur to you […]
William Shakespeare, wearing the mask of an imaginary Prince of Denmark – Hamlet by name – suggested that human knowledge is limited. “There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” Each of us lives alone in a private, perceptual reality. We can communicate with one another only […]
“No one listens to the radio anymore. Radio is dead.” When someone says that to me, I beat them unconscious with a Portable People Meter. “Wait a minute. When you say, ‘beat them unconscious with a Portable People Meter,’ what do you mean by that?” Okay let’s role play this. Say to me, “No one […]
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 […]
Richard 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, those impossibly long threads that organize every type of life on our planet. Your DNA […]
You 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. Man 2. Blue Jacket 3. McDonalds Content without context is boring. That photograph was taken to encourage you and elevate your hope. Does that surprise you? […]
In 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 […]
My friend David Freeman gave me a tool about 20 years ago that I have used to great effect. David teaches screenwriters and novelists how to create fictional characters that draw you toward them like magnets. It is not my objective to teach you David’s technique today, nor will I teach you my simplified version […]
Do 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 […]
I have been in a reflective mood of late. Unplugged from my beloved routine of writing an ocean of ads in the middle of the night, I have been examining the lives of people who sharpened their skills to such fine points that they pierced the skies and found themselves embodied in golden beams of […]
It is naive to believe the world is a meritocracy, but it is defeatist to believe that you can’t win. Six years ago, notacoward wrote, “Entrepreneurship is like one of those carnival games where you throw darts or something. Middle class kids can afford one throw. Most miss. A few hit the target and get a small […]
Jeffrey Eisenberg and Dewey Jenkins don’t know each other but each of them taught me the importance of removing the friction. Dewey sings it to every person in his company, “Make it easy for customers to do business with us.” And they do. Inventing new ways to “make it easier” is the job of every […]
When your advertising leans on the weak wooden crutch of discounting, it is only a matter of time before that crutch splinters and slowly pierces your heart. Discounting is a seductive drug like heroin, meth, and fentanyl. It rarely kills you quickly. It prefers to kill you slowly. Yes, I know that is an uncomfortable […]
Our song began in 1971 when Hunter S. Thompson wrote about the end of the 60s. He may as well have been writing about the end of a love affair. “We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. So now, less than five years later, you can […]
You believe in a lot of things. But what do you believe in the most? Go into the quiet security of your mind, and you will know that you value one of these more highly than the other four. Government Business Science Family Deity “American rates of religious affiliation have plummeted to their lowest point […]
Ten years ago, scientists discovered “a geometric, jewel-like object at the heart of quantum physics.” This jewel-like object is called the amplituhedron (cool name, right?) and it, “dramatically simplifies calculations of particle interactions and challenges the notion that space and time are fundamental components of reality.” * A theoretical physicist at Harvard, Jacob Bourjaily said that when using the amplituhedron, “The degree […]
CHAPTER ONE: We assume that every plumber can plumb, right? We assume that any A/C company can make the house warm in winter, cool in summer. We assume that every jeweler can sell us a diamond, and a lawyer must know the law, or he wouldn’t have a license to practice. So how do we […]
There are only three reasons to have a list of core values. 1: Inspire and reinforce “on-brand” behavior from employees. 2: Assist in the orientation and onboarding of new hires. 3: Inform investors, customers, and other interested parties of what they can expect from you. PROBLEM: When your core […]
Lately I’ve been trying to explain to uncomprehending faces how the most powerful opening lines are never questions, but statements that trigger more questions than they answer. I am certain those uncomprehending faces are my fault. I fear the idea that I am trying to teach may be bigger than the teacher. I am going […]
Regardless of our chosen profession, most of us work with Numbers, Facts, Words, and Hands. You’ve probably never thought about it: Numbers, Facts, Words, Hands. I certainly hadn’t, until I was talking with my 13-year-old grandson, Gideon, trying to convince him to elevate the quality of books he reads. Gideon is an exceptional storyteller and a […]
You are rolling down the road when you wonder, “If I turn off the engine and quit burning fuel, how far can I coast?” If your thought was to save fuel, you have made a costly mistake. The fuel you will burn to regain your speed is a lot more fuel than you would have […]
I recently read a pair of books by Arkady Martine, a writer who is new to Science Fiction. A Memory Called Empire (2019) and A Desolation Called Peace (2021), each won the Hugo Award for Best Novel. I like Arkady Martine and I like her books. She is an extraordinary storyteller. But she is not yet a great […]
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