It's ten after four in the morning and I just woke up because I finally figured it out. Forty-four years old, in my sleep, I figured it out. They called him “Sundown” because he was dim, not very bright. I could never figure out why they called him Sundown. I was 6 years old and […]
Heroes are dangerous things. Bigger than life, highly exaggerated and always positioned in the most favorable light, a hero is a beautiful lie. Did George Washington really chop down a cherry tree and then confess to his father? Could Paul Bunyan really do the work of 50 men in a day? Does billionaire Bruce Wayne […]
The recent MMMemo, 2003: Year of the Internet's Bar Mitzvah, merged with last week's memo about Boomers and Xers, can be combined with the following Transactional/Relational shopping-style analysis to give you a revealing glimpse into the future of marketing in North America. Every person has a transactional mode and a relational mode of shopping. And […]
The legendary Richard Feynman, winner of the Nobel Prize for physics, was unlike other physicists in that he didn't consider the truth to be viewable only through the micro-lens of current conditions. In fact, he laughed at the naiveté of such a perspective, saying, “Physicists like to think that all you have to do is […]
Just before the holidays, JG Tornoe received this interesting email from one of our students: Hi JG,As I was setting up this still life, arranging the tangerines around the pitcher, I was thinking of the academy and some of the concepts we learned about when one of the tangerines made its way away from the […]
Russell Taylor is a real-life example of how our society is quietly going digital. Taylor is a university-degreed geographer who is also a husband and a homeowner at the tender age of 24: “I can't believe that a city the size of Austin doesn't have a carpet cleaning company or a lawn-care service.” “What do […]
For a period of about 3 1/2 years (from late '96 to mid 2000,) the first question I was asked following every public session I taught was “What about the internet?” My answer never changed: “The internet is a baby born premature. Although she will definitely grow up to become everything you've been promised, it […]
During his time on the hot seat at Wizard Academy, author Russell Friedman made an interesting observation about coping with success: “We must reconstruct our identity with every fundamental change in our lives& Because it is not familiar, success has become an invader. We ask, 'If I became successful, how would I behave?' … The […]
Every sales presentation should answer the customer's question, “What's in it for me?” This question is often unspoken and may even be unconscious in the customer's mind, but it's always there, casting a shadow of disinterest and doubt. Most presentations are focused on the features of the product. But customers don't care about a feature […]
“The greater danger, for most of us, lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark… Lord, grant that I may always desire more than I can accomplish.” – Michelangelo “Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a […]
We live in the air and sunlight of the conscious mind. So when I wrote to you recently that the unconscious mind is an ocean, dark and deep, and that our conscious awareness is merely a sea journey on its surface, that metaphor was not chosen by accident. Our relationship to the unconscious is precisely […]
“Everybody wants to be normal, but no one wants to be average.” But isn't normal synonymous with average? Don't both words mean basically the same thing? I recently wrote to you that misunderstandings often arise from a lack of definition of terms. Likewise, the answer to today's normal/average paradox is hidden within the subtleties of […]
“Life is truly a ride. We're all strapped in and no one can stop it…. I think that the most you can hope for at the end of life is that your hair's messed, you're out of breath, and you didn't throw up.” – Jerry Seinfeld Budapest, Hungary -1910: Bertalan Gabor takes his 10 year-old […]
Misunderstandings are often the result of a lack of definition of terms. When two people define a term differently without realizing it, they can argue for hours without ever moving closer to resolution. I'll bet you've seen it happen. Bystanders exclaim, “But they're both saying basically the same thing!” Yet as long as the debaters […]
I was reading a collection of quotes recently when I discovered one that made me smile: “There is a general place in your brain, I think, reserved for 'melancholy of relationships past.' It grows and prospers as life progresses, forcing you finally, against your better judgment, to listen to country music.” – Kary Mullis I […]
Okay then, besides having a lot of money, what do rich people have in common? No, it's not intelligence or education. Look around. The world is littered with unrewarded geniuses and every store has at least one clerk with a master's degree or a doctorate. No, it's not conservatism, courage, luck or wealthy families. And […]
Why is it that when you're driving and looking for an address, you turn down the volume on the radio? Ever stopped to think about it? You can close your eyes, but you cannot close your ears. Sound is invasive, intrusive and irresistible. You hear and retain information even when you're not listening. You hear […]
Makers of miracles have magical little helpers. Is there a miracle you would like to make? Would you like to learn the magic of the elbs? Elbs are Exponential Little Bits, tiny but relentless changes that compound to make a miracle. The power of an elb lies not in its size, but in its daily […]
I named them “The Fearless Flyers” because each of them boarded an empty jet shortly after the attacks on the World Trade Center. They were Chet Young from Iowa, Dick Taylor from New Jersey, Akintunde Omitowaju from Nigeria and Dr. Kevin Ryan from Utah. It was the morning of Day Two at Wizard Academy, September, […]
From: “Brett Feinstein”Date: Wed, 9 Oct 2002 06:19:59To: “Roy H. Williams”Subject: Not sure how to track this down but… My partner, Jamie, called me today to say he had been watching theToday Show yesterday (Wednesday) and saw an interview with composer Mike Post. Post, as you may know, writes music for TV shows like Hill […]
The principal difference between a salesman and a consultant is that a salesman believes “the customer is always right.” But a consultant is paid to tell you the truth even when you don't want to hear it. People either love or hate a consultant. Ray Christensen is the preeminent producer of corporate training films in […]
I'll bet you thought Neil Armstrong said “Eagle,” didn't you? When the commander of the Apollo 11 mission announced thelunar arrival of the Beagle on July 20, 1969, the world held itscollective breath in anticipation. Today is another day like that.Well, kind of… almost…. sort of… maybe. After delays at the printer and the CD […]
Will Rogers, that most famous of Oklahomans, was once asked if he could speak for five minutes at a luncheon. “No problem,” said Will, “when do you need me to do it?” “Tomorrow at noon,” came the happy reply. “Gosh, I'm sorry, but it would take me at least a week to prepare a 5-minute […]
You've long been told, “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” But it isn't true. When a person expresses love, where is the necessary “equal and opposite reaction” then? Newton's oft-quoted third law of motion is usually true in physics, but it rarely is in business. Businesspeople who use the principles of […]
There's really no such thing as “thinking outside the box.” But we can select a different box to think in. Your box is your business model, your world-view, your paradigm. It is the framework of the metaphor that you use to make sense of the world around you. A situation is uncertain when you cannot […]
“Life is a bowl of cherries; beneath a thin layer of sweet stuff, it's mostly just the pits.” “When life hands you lemons, make lemonade.” “Plan against both the most probable and the most dangerous course of action by your competitors. Branch off and do sequential plans for these contingencies. Continuously update your intelligence on […]
The world's most widely recognized sculpture, The Thinker, would probably never have come into existence had Rodin not received encouragement from a poor Scottish lad named William Henley. The son of an obscure bookseller, William was afflicted with tuberculosis of the bone, a condition that caused him to have his left leg amputated at the […]
Have you ever heard someone singing a song and then found yourself singing it all the rest of that day? Songs are funny things, even when they're not sung to music. Sing words of victory and you'll soon start feeling triumphant.. Sing of warmth and love and feel it welling up inside you. Sing of […]
Ever notice how easily you spend money during the weekends or when you're on vacation? Carpe Diem. Enjoy the moment. Your fantasy life won't be over until you get back to the Office on Monday morning. Actually, that's not true. Your fantasy life will be over the minute you begin reviewing your grocery list of […]
Have you ever experienced a window of time in which everything went wrong simultaneously? You take a small step forward and a nail punctures your foot. You take another step, looking down this time, and bang your head on a low-hanging potted plant. It swings off its hook and falls on your other foot. You […]
In last week's memo we spoke of the duality of the universe, otherwise known as The Law of Two. Likewise, this week's memo could easily be titled, The Law of One. This Law of Singularity was powerfully communicated in the movie City Slickers when Curly, the character played by Jack Palance, shared the ultimate secret […]
“David Sklansky and Mason Malmuth are a pair of authors whose poker books revolutionized the game. They are, far and away, the best theorists and writers about poker ever. Yet reading Sklansky and Malmuth will not make you a winning poker player in tougher games. Advertising books and seminars provide a framework for thinking about […]
It happened again last week; I accidentally used the term, “third gravitating body” and was immediately asked for an explanation. Sigh. I really need to quit doing that. The unavoidable truth is that it takes at least two hours and an auditorium full of special equipment to reveal the astonishing, invisible world of third gravitating […]
“The sun did not shine. It was too wet to play. So we sat in the house all that cold, cold wet day. I sat there with Sally. We sat there, we two. And I said, 'How I wish we had something to do!' Too wet to go out and too cold to play ball. […]
More than half a million people have read the book, seen the video, or attended the seminar in which I say, “Involuntary long-term memory, or 'branding,' is dependent upon saliency (relevance of ad copy) and the ratio of ad repetition to listener sleep. Sleep erases advertising. A message of average saliency needs to be encountered […]
“Ideas are the product of connections, both logical and illogical. Effective creativity is a merger of these logical and illogical thoughts together to form revolutionary new strategies and plans. Sadly, most Americans focus only on what has already been developed by others.” – Dave Lakhani, creator of Rapid Ideation Processing and Marketing Geonomics According to […]
“The novel as we know it came into existence in the year 1740, with Samuel Richardson's Pamela. There had been novels before this, but they tended to be either fairy tales or picaresque “true narrations.” What Richardson did was to create a highly elaborate daydream about a servant girl who resists all her master's attempts […]
The following resolution was passed on June 11, 2002 in the U.S. House of Representatives: HRES 269 IH 107th CONGRESS1st Session IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES Mr. FOSSELLA submitted the following resolution: RESOLUTION Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives to honor the life and achievements of 19th Century Italian-American inventor Antonio Meucci, and […]
You have a great book hiding within you. So are you going to coax it out? “I'd love to write a book, but I don't know how.” Sure you do. You learned how in elementary school, remember? Words become sentences. Sentences become paragraphs. Paragraphs become chapters. Nothing to it, really. “But joining words into sentences […]
“Absent-minded professor” is a term often used to describe a person who isn't very observant. Do you have a friend who sometimes loses track of what they're doing? And even occasionally of where they are? Are you a bit that way yourself? Absent-minded professors aren't stupid; quite the contrary, they are often some of the […]
f you take pride in your rational, logical demeanor and consider yourself to be above emotional distractions, I'm afraid I've got some bad news for you. Beneath that calm, outer shell you're just as out-of-control as the rest of us. Like it or not, the human mind is so staggeringly complex that the greater part […]
I can be silent no longer. I am prejudiced concerning Jews. But my prejudice is not against them. I am prejudiced in their favor. Tulsa, Oklahoma – 1978: 20 year-old me is in need of a car. I dream of a Triumph Spitfire. Waking early one Saturday morning I scan the classifieds to see, “1973 […]
A brief overview of the situation is always valuable, so as a service to all Americans who still don't get it, I now offer you the story of the Middle East in just a few paragraphs, which is all you really need. Don't thank me. I'm a giver. Here we go: The Palestinians want their […]
One by one, ten men and Holly Buchanan had risen to tell us their names and a little about themselves. Now it was time for the distinguished, older gentleman in the back row to stand and do the same. “My name is Keith Miller and after listening to each of you tell a little about […]
One of my great joys is to monitor the online discussions between Wizard Academy graduates. From astrophysics to advertising to albino monkeys, you never know what question will be posed by one to be pondered by all. Recently, Lisa Davis stepped sideways from a discussion about Business Problem Topology to blurt out, “Is Happiness a […]
Do you remember the birth of the beagle in June, 2001*?. In much the same way that Fraser began as Diane's boyfriend in a single episode of Cheers and then went on to become a regular and then to have a show of his own, the happy little beagle has emerged from a single Monday […]
It was during the Business Topology module of the Magical Worlds curriculum that John Quarto-vonTivadar raised his shy hand and quietly asked, “Have you ever studied TRIZ?” Seeing the blank look on my face, John knew instantly that he might as well have asked, “How much should a hamster weigh?” “No, John, I've never even […]
You need some new ideas because the old ones aren't working. The time has come to reinvent your product and your company, maybe even yourself. But the only framework within which you can visualize a new system is the old system. Like a dog chasing its tail, you keep coming back to the same old […]
Branding has dominated the landscape of corporate America in recent years, but the best business minds in America predict that we'll soon be hearing that term with steadily decreasing frequency. According to analysts Joe Romano (Scull and Co.) and Eric Rhoads (Radio Ink) and Shuki Lapid (Yehuda,) CRM is the new business focus most likely […]
The student became the teacher last week when Wizard Academy graduate Bill Bergh taught me something that I had never previously realized, even though Dr. Nick Grant had explained it to me at least half a dozen times. It was one of those times when you slap yourself on the forehead and ask, “Why did […]
The left brain is your link to this physical world and the right brain is your link to the spiritual. It’s all very simple, really. It’s just a question of body and soul. Sight, sound, touch and muscular control are housed in the brain’s left hemisphere and provide your soul’s connection to physical reality. Language […]
Heads look down and hands begin to write every time I say it in a public seminar, so I always give people time to write it down. It's one of those things that's so obviously true that people are surprised they never thought of it on their own. “Bad advertising is about you, your company, […]
If you run your business like a family, you're headed for disaster. The only thing that could possibly be worse would be to run your family like a business. Business values and family values are fundamentally opposite. Healthy families are built on unconditional acceptance and absolute equality. “No matter what you do, or don't do, […]
One of the self-imposed guidelines regarding these Monday Morning Memos is that I try very hard never to use the words “I,” me,” or “my” when writing to you about your life and your career. This rule is broken no more than twice a year. Today will be one of those times. I need your […]
The catcher walked out to the pitcher's mound and everything came to a halt. Their brief conversation was punctuated only by the sweep of their eyes as they slowly scanned the crowd. The moment passed, the catcher walked slowly back to his place, and the game went on. Later, the commentator interviewing the winning pitcher […]
We live in a society that is over-busy. (I'll bet you're feeling a bit “behind” even as you read this, aren't you?) I'm currently working on a MMMemo entitled “How to Steal Your Life Back,” and plan to send it to you soon. But this week I'm sharing a few disjointed, rambling thoughts in the […]
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