Standing at your bedside, I don’t know if you’re dead or only sleeping. Soon our friends will lay pennies on your eyes to pay Charon for your passage. A silly ritual, our friends will do it anyway. But you were dead long before you died. Something caused life to shrivel in you, bloodless and […]
Your Customer and You Your prospective customer has questions about you. Where's the first place they're likely to look for answers? Sadly, your wonderful “Big enough to serve you, small enough to know you” public image probably isn't going to be enough to walk that customer out to their car and drive them to your […]
Because It Needed to Exist “Savannah's squares may be public, but they feel private. Their massive, gnarled oaks – dripping with Spanish moss – create an insular mood, not to mention a deep shade… So lazy and calming are these ancient parcels that they act as a narcotic. The temptation is to lose yourself in […]
Irrational Commitment or, Why Did Wizard Academy Build a Free Wedding Chapel? Irrational commitment is a powerful thing. It is the stuff of heroes. Legends live because of it. And like anything powerful, it can be turned toward darkness. But let us look toward the light. Francis Bacon (1561-1626) made a fascinating observation during the […]
What's with the Name Wizard Academy? Are You Guys a Cult, or What? Sigh… We get asked that question a lot. No, we don't have anything to do with witches, warlocks, séances, Harry Potter or Halloween. We're simply a school of the communication arts. Our mission is to improve the creative thinking and communication skills […]
The Power of PR Advertising is what you buy from the sales department of the media. Public Relations (PR) is what you get from the news department for free. How many ads do you suppose a good news story is worth? Q: Which of the following statements is false? 1. Thomas Edison invented electric light.2. […]
Refer to an Unseen Action A Master's Method for Subtly Surprising Broca Toward the end of last week's Monday Morning Memo I promised, “Next week I'll teach you how to increase the magnetism of a message by referring to unseen action.” Mischievously, I preceded that statement with a subtle example of the very thing. Do […]
The New Targeting Persona-based writing is the new Targeting. According to what we've seen so far, ads that employ persona-based writing are outperforming yesterday's demo-targeted ads by an average of 81 percent. Website copy, direct mail letters, radio scripts and magazine ads that use persona-based language are pulling buckets of gold from the dwindling rivers […]
Six Things Explained Every 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 […]
Heroes, Friends and Personal Pride Will you tell me the truth about yourself if I let you do it from behind a mask? I'm collecting impressions today and I'm willing to share my collected data with you. My hope is that we'll both will get a glimpse into how we measure ourselves, our friends, and […]
Business Life Cycles Are You Embracing Fundamental Change or Incremental Change? Why does every branch of medicine have pediatric specialists? Are kids a different species than adults? In a word, “yes.” According to Dr. David Nichols, “Children are susceptible to different diseases than adults. Their basic anatomy is the same as ours, but they experience […]
Visual Images vs. Mental Images A visual image is a simple thing, a picture that enters the eyes. But a mental image is more complex. Assembled in the mind from information real and imagined, mental images are complex composites of sight, sound, taste, touch, smell, opinion and mood, combined with associative memories, both conscious and […]
Avoiding Ad Speak Contrary to popular belief, Americans don't hate advertising. We just hate ads that sound like ads. Do your ads sound like ads? Are you guilty of Ad-speak? Ad-speak is filled with polished words and filtered phrases that deliver no information and have no relevance. Ambiguous claims give Ad-speak a hollow sound. Do […]
7 Diagnostic Tools for Marketing Do you feel that something might be wrong with your business but you're not quite sure what it is? Solving the problem is the easy part. The tricky part is getting clarity on exactly what the problem is. Careless doctors treat symptoms. They don't worry about why your head is […]
Pioneers and Settlers I was planning to write When Marketing is a Mirage, but that's going to have to wait. Because today I'm hearing the voice of John Steinbeck as he mumbles to his poodle, Charley, and ambles toward his pickup truck: “When I was very young and the urge to be someplace else was […]
That Glowing Bridge to the Unknown To go from one state of consciousness to another…To move from an old opinion to a new… To travel from ignorance to insightand darkness to light…requires a portal. A portal is a transitionary device of sight or sound that functions as a sort of third gravitating body between the […]
String Theology Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity are both accepted as scientific fact even though they’re mutually exclusive. Albert Einstein spent the second half of his life searching for a unifying truth that would reconcile the two. Einstein was searching for String Theory. It not only reconciles General Relativity to Quantum Mechanics, but it reconciles […]
Doing My Happy Dance Last Thursday the Wall Street Journal published a story about a new book written by two of our faculty members, hinting strongly that if the biggest advertising agencies on Madison Avenue would just buy a copy and read it, they would find the answers to all the questions that have eluded […]
How Often Should I Change My Ads? About 15 years ago I concluded that a medium-impact broadcast ad should be replaced only after the typical listener has heard it at least 12 times, and a low-impact ad should be replaced after achieving a frequency of 20. I arrived at these conclusions by carefully monitoring the […]
Persona Based Selling We buy what we buy to remind ourselves and tell the world around us who we are. “Nothing is so powerful as an insight into human nature, what compulsions drive a man, what instincts dominate his action, even though his language so often camouflages what really motivates him. For if you know […]
Where Do They Bury the Rascals? Colorful and interesting people surround you in life, but in a graveyard, everyone becomes boring: “John Smith. Devoted Husband, Loving Father.” That's it? That's a life remembered? Where do they bury the interesting people? Where do they bury the reckless daredevils and tender poets and seductive femmes fatale? Where […]
The Image and The Actual Each letter of the alphabet represents a phoneme, a tiny sound that joins with other tiny sounds to make the more complex sounds we call words. Words are mere shadows cast by ideas. But the ideas they represent are real. Numerals are images of amounts. But the amounts they represent […]
Will You Do It? “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain “I too have had […]
New Things to Get Excited About BANG. Jeffrey and Bryan Eisenberg's new book hits the shelves of every bookstore in America today. Waiting for Your Cat to Bark? Well, are you? Many of you have heard me speak about society's 40-year pendulum and how we're currently in the middle of a 6-year transition from an […]
Pregnant with America The most famous quote attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville is, “America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great.” Strangely, Tocqueville never said it. He did, however, make a number of astounding pronouncements and predictions. Alexis de Tocqueville, that 25 […]
Lenny the Misfit Caterina dumps baby Lenny on her boyfriend, then moves to town and gets married to someone else. Neither Lenny's father nor his mother is willing to give Lenny their family name, so he is known only by the name of the mountain under whose shadow he was born: Lenny Albano. An unwanted […]
Pricing, Value, and Salability Business Proverbs for Business Owners Pricing – If you're not worried that you're pricing it too cheap, you're not pricing it cheap enough. That's the best advice I can give you about Pricing in a single sentence. Never ask, “How much might someone be willing to pay for this?” Ask instead, […]
The Four Faces in Every Store “You can be anything you want to be,” was once the anthem of America. But we seem to have twisted that sunlit dream into a shriveled demon that whispers, “Hurry, hurry, hurry and you can be everything you want to be.” Too much to do, too little time. Tossed […]
Will 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 […]
A Very Interesting Ad The doctor's waiting room glowed with old magazines. As I stood there amidst this strange illumination, I noticed an ad for IBM Consulting that featured an executive woman peering thoughtfully into the distance. In the foreground hung the three questions that haunt every business that has ever achieved success: How do […]
Sleep Is The New Sex “Men think about it every seven seconds or so. Women romanticize it. Teenagers yearn for the weekends, when they might get a little of it… Sleep is the new sex.” – Susan A. Nielsen, journalist for The Oregonian The National Sleep Foundation has confirmed what you've long suspected: Americans aren't […]
The Cashier Con I've noticed a disturbing trend. Maybe you have, too: Cashiers have become the new pitchmen. The old pitchman came to your door and knocked. He sold encyclopedias or vacuum cleaners or miracle soap. Whatever. But you were trapped by your own politeness. You couldn't think of a way to get rid of […]
Hunger of the Candle for the Flame You are a column of wax. Your purpose began as a spark, a flicker easily ignored. But you didn't ignore it. You turned to face it and your head caught fire. Grace Hansen admonishes, “Don't be afraid your life will end; be afraid it will never begin.” […]
Outsiders and Thought Particles My computer-programmer friend Akintunde used to spend his Sunday afternoons with Pennie and me. When my audio-book Thought Particles: Binary Code of the Mind was released, Akintunde took home a copy and listened to it several times. We had long talks about it. Then he was whisked away to Kyoto, Japan, […]
Thought Particle Technology has Arrived I consider Pandora.com to be the first commercial application of Thought Particle technology. Have you allowed Pandora to read your mind yet? Pandora.com is a streaming music service crafted by a couple of hundred really serious music experts whose ideas about music are much bigger and more divergent than the […]
The Origin of Creativity I like to think God said, “Let there be…” and then paused to think for a moment. Suddenly it came to him, “Light!” If you accept the book of Genesis, then God is a creator by nature. And he created us in his image, little miniatures of himself. That means we're […]
Having Arrived at the Endand Forgotten to Live 2005 was an amazingly bad year for Pennie and me. Her mother died, my father died, and then we were brought horribly low by a financial surprise with two commas to the left of the decimal point. There was a period of weeks when it looked like […]
Poor Writer's Almanac Writers Seminar, Book Release Party, Call for Submissions Can you be in Austin on Saturday, April 22? SEMINAR: We're planning a writer's seminar in palatial Tuscan Hall featuring Chris Maddock, the rarely seen teacher of Advanced Wordsmithing, and Jeff Sexton, the instructor of that always sold-out curriculum, How to Write Powerfully and […]
Why Most Ads Put Us to Sleep How often are you conscious of the fact that Earth, only Earth, is buried beneath an ocean of air? We, the fleas that dance on the skin of Mother Earth, live in this dry ocean. We use it to hold our airplanes off the ground. We blow out […]
Blogs And Reality TV The Changing Face of America Do you remember when America watched awards shows? If you were somehow unplugged and didn't receive the newsflash, the combined strength of Paul McCartney, Madonna, U2, Mariah Carey, Coldplay, Faith Hill and Jay-Z wasn't enough to swing the hammer and ring the bell during this year's […]
Treasure Hunt This week I didn't feel like writing about advertising or business or leadership or anything else an ambitious soul might find useful. So if you're in a vibrating hurry with far too much to do, right here would be the place to stop reading. The DELETE button is sitting there, twitching, anxious for […]
Stronger Ads = More Complaints It's no secret that stronger ads generate faster growth. But with each higher level of awareness comes an increase in complaints: “I'm sick of hearing your ads.”TRANSLATION: “It makes me mad that I can't ignore you.” “Your ads don't sound professional. They're not polished and smooth.”TRANSLATION: “It makes me mad […]
The American Dream America is a democracy and we believe in free enterprise. Let's look at that for a moment: Democracy is majority rule. Groupthink. “United we stand, divided we fall.” But the key to business – free enterprise – is to have an absolute dictator. In America's system of free enterprise, the person whose […]
The Future of Ad Writing America has been flattered by advertising (“Because you deserve it”), misled by ads (“Lowest prices anywhere”), hyped by ads (“While supplies last”), and lied to repeatedly (“Guaranteed!”). The result of all this misinformation is a growing numbness to ad-speak. We're becoming deaf and blind to it. With effortless ease we […]
The Critical 0.05 Percent It takes 1,800 electrons to equal the mass of a single proton. Protons and their cousins – neutrons – make up 99.95 percent of the mass in the universe. Yet it's the electrical charges of the seemingly insignificant 0.05 percent – those tiny orbiting electrons – that hold our universe together. […]
Inside the Outside It hit me. “I've become an eavesdropper, listening to the conversations of strangers.” It's 5:00AM and I'm sitting at the bar of an all-night café on the wrong side of town eating a three-dollar breakfast, listening to the smelly, funny stories of downtrodden people who know each other well. Their sparkling banter […]
Competitive Environment The bottom-rung loser in one town can move to another town and often become the king of his category. All it takes is weak competitors. I've seen it happen a dozen times. Whether you dominate your marketplace won't be determined solely by the strength of your advertising. It will be determined partly by […]
Lonely Outsider I was in the shower when my cell phone started ringing. Pennie answered it for me. It was my partner Jeff Eisenberg. Dripping, I took the phone. “Yo. Jefferson.” “I'm sending you an article from The Economist. It's something I've heard you talk about a hundred times.” “What is it?” “You know who […]
Four Kinds of Ads Great ads can be either product-specific or store-specific. Bad ads are generally category-specific. And then there are franchise ads. Franchise ads build the master brand. The hope of every franchisee is that the ads provided by the franchisor will generate enough brand magnetism to pull customers into their store. Due to […]
Hi Def Imagination People tell me they want to learn to think outside the box. No problemo. The secret is to stay out of the box to begin with. You crawl into the box when you think about your problem and wrap its known obstacles around you. So quit. Focus instead on an interesting saying, […]
Are You Merely Determined? Determination is emotional, a moment of intense focus with clenched jaw and the visualization of a mission accomplished. The sneer is gone from Casey's lip, his teeth are clenched in hate,He pounds with cruel violence his bat upon the plate;And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it […]
What Are You Offering? Businesses don't fail due to reaching the wrong people. Businesses fail when they say the wrong things. And they say the wrong things when they believe what the public tells them. Conduct a survey. Ask the public to describe in detail the kind of place they'd like to shop. Then build […]
Do You Need A Miracle? Finances. Relationships. Health… the tall monsters we face in life's dark ocean when we awaken underwater, alone in the night, not knowing what to do. Ever been there? People respond to deep crisis in different ways. There are: 1. Handwringers who talk about the problem to anyone who will listen. […]
What Women Want I 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 […]
It’s Not Good for Man to be Alone. “The whole nature of man presupposes woman, both physically and spiritually. His system is tuned into woman from the start.” – Carl Jung, Two Essays in Analytical Psychology “What can a man say about woman, his own opposite? Woman always stands just where the man’s shadow falls, […]
How to Buy Word of Mouth The price of making a powerful statement is cheap compared to the cost of ads that don't work. So make a statement that counts. This is the best advice I can give you. I'm not talking about making a grand and sweeping claim, such as, “Lowest prices anywhere. We […]
Can You Come Out and Play? We're building a school of the communication arts. Do you want to come along? Oh, the questions we'll answer together! The interesting things we'll find! We've built a chapel where we can think big thoughts. And a grand auditorium where we can exchange ideas. The things we'll talk about! […]
Does My Local Business Need a Website? How many months has it been since you went looking for information in the yellow pages? How many minutes has it been since you asked your favorite search engine? I think you just answered the question about whether or not your local business needs a website. Without a […]
Margaret, Mabel and JimmyReal Things are Often Bigger than the News Mabel is a widow deep in poverty with two hungry children of her own. Washing other people’s laundry ten hours a day, Mabel earns barely enough money to keep them fed. To keep a roof over their heads, she works for a real estate […]
Are You Willing to be Weird? No one wants to be average. But everyone wants to be normal. What's up with that? You can't imitate your way to excellence. It can be achieved only by breaking away from the pack, abandoning the status quo. But breaking away from the pack is also the way to […]
Fact Based or Values Based? Relentless repetition was once enough to drive your message home. But it isn't quite that simple anymore. The impact of your message in this over-communicated hour depends largely on the structural basis of your statements. A statement is either fact-based or values-based. A fact-based statement must be true or false. […]
For Sale: Free Time Do you want more free time? Then you must buy it. Free time is never free. There are only four ways you can buy free time: 1. Work fewer hours. Learn to say no. You'll have more free time immediately.Cost: Lost opportunities, reduced income. 2. Develop systems, methods and procedures that […]
Imagine No Delusions We Baby Boomers had beautiful dreams back in the '60s and '70s, but we didn't do much about them. It was enough back in those days just to “Visualize World Peace” and sing wistfully about a brighter tomorrow. Remember John Lennon's song, Imagine? Imagine no possessions.I wonder if you can.No need for […]
What Kind of Cat are You? It was a term once used to describe exceptional jazz musicians. African-Americans spelled it “hepcat,” while their white counterparts heard “cat” and assumed “hep” to be a modifier. Hence, “hep cat.” In 1942 Bob Clampett created the first color Looney Tunes cartoon, The Hep Cat, featuring an unnamed feline […]
Art as a Tool of Marketing Media fragmentation and the evolution of social values are forcing advertisers to spend more and more money to reach fewer and fewer people. Two weeks ago I mentioned the possibility of using non-traditional media (NTM) as a supplement to your advertising. One of the most effective forms of NTM […]
I Did Not Die Today An Introduction to Chaotic Ad Writing I am, for the moment, alive and well as an ad writer. But I feel I'm being stalked by iPods, cell phones, instant messaging, and increasingly fragmented media choices. And they're all gunning for my life. Over-communication rides rampant across the mindscape of America, […]
A New Kind of Teamwork The Changing Face of Media Do you remember the Seinfeld episode where Jerry, George and Elaine are waiting for a table in a Chinese restaurant? The plot revolves around the fact that George is desperate to make a phone call but the other guy won't get off the pay phone. […]
Chasing the Carrot on a Stick COURTESY NOTE: This is one of those days when I write about something other than business. Have you ever been in a K-Mart during a “flashing blue light special?” The sad circus begins when an employee rolls out a chrome cart with a rotating blue light on a pole […]
Science Proves the Wizard Right Again Okay, let's be clear about this: I'm proud of myself today. So proud, in fact, that you might want to skip reading this memo because all I'm going to do is strut. It could become sickening. Seriously. Frankly, I can't believe you're still reading after a warning like that. […]
Getting What You Want One of these days I'm going to calculate the odds of pulling away from a drive-thru window and actually finding what was ordered in the bag. For 3 years I've been calculating the odds of getting extra lemon for your tea when you add the phrase “lots of lemon, please” in […]
Perceptual Reality Earth's population reached 1 billion persons in 1804, 2 billion in 1927, 3 billion in '59, 4 billion in '74 and 5 billion in late '86. And on October 12th, 1999, Earth's population surpassed 6 billion. The number of passengers on Spaceship Earth has doubled (from 3 billion – 1959, to 6 billion […]
Marketplace Realities Is There a Limit to How High You Can Climb? Last week a client achieved 42 percent of his market potential. Never before had I seen a business break the 40 percent barrier. It was kind of like seeing someone run a four-minute mile. I knew it was possible in theory, but I […]
Will He Read The Art of War? If you want to glimpse the inner forces that drive an organization, you need only observe their methods and listen to their words. Especially when they're not paying attention. Words and methods reveal motives. Listen to a person carefully and you will hear the beating of their heart. […]
Our Hurtling World Marketing was easy in the old days. You had ABC, NBC and CBS, a local newspaper and half a dozen radio stations. That was it. There was no Fox, no WB, no cable channels, no FM radio and no such thing as a cell phone. You had to find a phone booth […]
A World Without Oil Sometimes I go to funny places in my mind. Do you ever go exploring? Lately I've been imagining a world without oil. No oil for cars, no oil for 18-wheelers, no oil for jets. Not even any oil for construction equipment or ambulances. Same world, but smack out of oil. Can […]
Unhappy People Have you ever noticed how unhappy people always want to share their unhappiness with you? It may come in the form of a whine, a complaint, a rant, or sanctimonious “constructive criticism,” but come it most certainly will. The thing to remember when an unhappy person begins spraying unhappiness is this: It's not […]
Are You Putting Lipstick on a Pig? When business is slow, the wise business owner wonders what might be wrong with his business. The average business owner thinks only that something is wrong with his advertising. As I said last week, I believe it was advertising salespeople who taught business owners to think this way, […]
Targeting Through Ad Copy For years, advertisers have attempted to target “the right customer” through carefully selected media vehicles. Mailing lists aimed at specific demographic, geographic and psychographic profiles have fallen short so often that a 3 percent conversion rate is considered a big success. Carefully selected TV shows and radio formats have failed to […]
Helping to Rebuild an Economy If natural resources determined the wealth of nations, Brazil would be the richest country on earth and Japan would be the poorest. But resources have little to do with building a healthy economy. Prosperity happens when the swimming pool installer sells four pools in one month instead of the usual […]
When Numbers Go Bad A longer than average Monday Memo, but worth it. Are you one who believes the reliability of research is assured when the sample size is adequate and the respondents are properly qualified? If so, “research” will likely lead you to some tragic conclusions if it hasn't done so already. The problem […]
Power of Weakness Features and benefits, features and benefits, features and benefits. We've polished our pitches to such a degree that we've dimmed our abilities to persuade. The customer is only half listening because the inner self is asking, “What are they not telling me?” Those who have heard my 90-minute presentation about the ongoing […]
The Power of Purpose “…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?'” – from the 1st book of Kings, chapter 19When […]
Counter Branding When your business category is dominated by a single brand and all the other brands put together don't equal them, it's time to create a counter-brand. Counter-branding – business judo – is rare and dangerous. But when you're overwhelmingly dominated, what have you got to lose? Prior to the creation of their “Uncola” […]
Power of the Buzz Bryan and Jeff Eisenberg have a New Book People have said for decades, “Word-of-mouth is the best kind of advertising. That's the best kind: word-of-mouth.” You hear this so often when you sell advertising that my friend Bob Lepine used to joke about opening The Word of Mouth Advertising Agency. He […]
Belly of the Whale Standing inside Chapel Dulcinea recently, I looked up to see the great ribs beneath the roof beams above me and thought, “Jonah in the belly of the whale.” Do you remember the story? It's only four short chapters, a 5-minute read. The next morning, Princess Pennie went back to Dulcinea with […]
Advertising, Like Reduction Sauce A Monday Morning Memo from The Wizard of Ads Hi 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 […]
Canadian Diamond Pavilion funded by the staff of Spence Diamonds of Canada Future Project. Will Open in Late 2006. Situated just down the walking trail from Chapel Dulcinea,the Canadian Diamond Pavilion will be a placewhere wedding receptions can be held at no charge. Designed by architect Marley Porter, the base of the pavilionwill be a […]
Adventure begins with dedication to a cause “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 […]
Advertising, Like Paint "The thing that has been will be again." And other 8 Word Answers. People who try to stay “on the cutting edge” tend to see everything as new. But the thing that has been will be again. And that which currently is, has been, long before our time. If this observation seems […]
Where 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 […]
The New Marketplace NOTICE: This memo ends with a link to an ad writing course description. So don't be surprised. The last line in most TV or radio ads is usually a “call to action,” right? Especially if the ad was produced locally: “Hurry. These prices won't last long.”“Act Now. Offer expires soon.”“You must be […]
Jonah New Revised Standard Version [Jonah 1] 1 Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah son of Amittai, saying, 2 “Go at once to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before me.” 3 But Jonah set out to flee to Tarshish from the presence […]
Mountain Without Summit I wrote three memos to you this week, but decided not to send the first two. The first one, We Are Sancho Panza, is the dancing safari into symbolic thought that I promised you in last week's memo. It begins, “Who can explain our four-century attraction to Don Quixote? The book is […]
Wedding Chapel Dulcinea Who is Dulcinea? (Dul – sin – AY – uh) She is Tom Sawyer's Becky Thatcher. She is The Little Red-Haired Girl of Charlie Brown. She is the sacred muse of Alonso Quixano who in 1605 stepped into some rusty armor to become the immortal Don Quixote de la Mancha. In Cervantes' […]
Pattern Recognition “And all shall be well and All manner of thing shall be well When the tongues of flame are in-folded Into the crowned knot of fire And the fire and the rose are one.” In this strange passage from Little Gidding, poet T.S. Eliot links the mental image of a rose to the […]
Confidence Where to Get It and How To Keep It Getting confidence and keeping confidence – emotional muscle – is like getting and keeping any other muscle; it just requires daily exercise. But where does confidence come from? Is it merely a feeling – the product of an optimistic attitude gained through positive thinking rituals […]
Running with the Beagle in my Brain A Politically Incorrect Search for Adventure This year marks the 400-year anniversary of the publication of Don Quixote, so I seized the opportunity to spend some hours in the study of 1605. (Arooo! Aroo-Aroooo!) And as all such beagle runs will do, this one led to a delightful […]
Your Life is a Journey But where is it taking you? You had friends and laughter, adventure and romance. Remember the halcyon days of your youth? But then the friends went away, the laughter faded, the adventure ended and the romance was over. It was time to go to work. Do you ever feel like […]
Climbing the Hill Too High Niche marketing was born the day a clear-eyed realist chose to dominate a subcategory when the master category seemed too high a hill to climb. “Instead of trying to become a major retailer of home furniture, I'll become the king of affordable dinettes. Instead of making a run at used […]
Voices of Dissent I was writing an upbeat and instructional memo to send you today called Confidence: Where to Get It and How to Keep It. But it's going to have to wait. This other thing just wouldn't turn me loose until I wrote it down and sent it to you. Have you ever had […]
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