Richard Kessler built one of the most famous stores in America. You might remember his name from the Monday Morning Memo about origin stories published on March 20, 2017. Here is Kessler’s origin story in a 60-second radio ad: My Dad was a house painter. He taught me to sand and scrape paint until my fingers […]
My friend has been important to me for 6 or 7 years. I had no idea that he had any money until about 3 years ago. My friend is a professional gambler. No, he doesn’t gamble on green felt tables with cards or dice. He gambles on NASDAQ and the New York Stock Exchange. “Oh, […]
The first obelisk was a stone pillar with a tapered top created by the ancient Egyptians to honor the sun god. It is a finger, pointing to the sky. The Roman army carried Egyptian obelisks back to Rome as a sign of their power over that nation. The Vatican uncovered a buried Egyptian obelisk five hundred years […]
It takes four people to make a world. One person wants acceptance. They hope to save the relationship. Under pressure, they acquiesce. One person wants accuracy. They hope to save face. Under pressure, they avoid. One person wants applause. They hope to save effort. Under pressure, they attack. One person wants accomplishment. They hope to […]
Thomas Mann, the winner of the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature, said, “A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.” I agree with Thomas Mann. Having logged more than 39,000 hours of writing during the past 30 years, I can say with confidence that no sane person […]
Good decisions come from experience. Experience comes from bad decisions. Bad decisions aren’t made because a person is stupid. Bad decisions are often the result of logic. The first thing experience will teach you is, “Not everything logical is true.” Logic among advertising professionals says, “Always target the right customer.” But if you embrace that […]
My 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. […]
1: You are the product of your genetic code, hardwired to behave in certain ways. 2: You are the product of your environment, the sum total of your influences. 3: You are the product of your choices. It is your preferences, not your surroundings, that define you. I believe it is a mistake to cling too […]
Just click the link below and download the PDF if you know how. (I only know how to do it on my own computer.) There is a single, blank page following the cover. Don’t panic. The book isn’t blank. 🙂 This is the 2020 PDF of the 2012 book, Pendulum: How Past Generations Shape Our […]
I want you to be in Austin on May 2nd if you can. The Princess has chosen the perfect location for The House of Bilbo Baggins, and there’s a chance we may have something for you to see when you get here. We have also begun construction on The Village of the Lost Boys and […]
When you begin to write, the words and phrases that leap into your mind will be the ones you hear most often. Go ahead and write them down. The best writers begin by just blurting it out. A willingness to write badly is the key to writing well. After winning the Pulitzer prize for fiction, […]
An unhappy person who talks about “the way things ought to” be has a decision to make. They need to take action, or They need to shut up and get on with their life. I’m sorry if that sounded cold and harsh. Allow me to explain. “The Way Things Ought to Be” is a fantasy […]
What is the canvas of your artistic expression? “Pen and ink,” says the writer. “Wet clay” says a sculptor, “Wood” says another, “Stone” says a third. And then the painters chime in, singing, “Oils,” “Pencils,” “Charcoal,” and “Acrylic” in 4-part harmony. “Film” shouts a cinematographer, “Pixels” shouts another, and the photographers beat a steady rhythm […]
My business partners meet twice a year to spend a few days together. A transcription of their discussions during these meetings could easily become a bestselling book. A number of my partners have grown far beyond anything I ever taught them, which makes answering their questions a lot easier for me. I employ a mildly […]
People need your encouragement more than they need your advice. A little encouragement at a pivotal time makes all the difference. I am giving you a Christmas gift: When you have opened it, you will become the right person, doing the right thing, at the right time, in the right way. To open your gift, […]
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are used for measuring departmental performance within a company. The goal of KPIs is continual improvement. The subtle danger of KPIs is that they can lead us to prioritize efficiency over effectiveness, and short-term objectives over long-term. A Police Chief told his officers to prioritize burglaries of multiple-occupancy households because the system […]
Symbolic thought is commonly expressed through similes, metaphors, and music, allowing us to communicate the unknown and unfamiliar by relating it to the known and familiar. Symbols happen when one thing stands for another. Symbolism plays a role in identity reinforcement. Brands, hobbies, artistic expressions, event attendance, and social connections are symbolic ways of saying, […]
“The word ‘artist’ is not applied to writers as readily as to musicians or sculptors or painters, because the medium in which they work – our language – is used by everyone without any particular thought or regard for economy or form. Language is the common drudge of every sort of experience and it does […]
“The rest of my life has passed quite suddenly. Around ten or twelve I fell into the inevitable logarithms of time. It seems to go faster and faster. I wonder now why we have to have Christmas so often.” – Kary Mullis Our friend Kary Mullis died on Aug. 7, 2019, at the age of […]
Each of us creates our own reality from our interpretations of the things we observe. A systematic pattern of interpretations is called a cognitive bias. This is how a cognitive bias works: If you believe that elves cause rain, then every occurrence of rain is proof of elves. Cognitive biases can be miniscule or massive. […]
Karl Marx famously said, “Religion is the opiate of the masses.” No, let’s be more accurate. What he actually said was, “Die religion ist das opium des volkes.” Before I continue, let me say that my belief in God is a choice not based on argument or evidence. I freely admit that I choose to believe. […]
(A.) “It was hot outside.” (B.) “The angry sun glared down at me.” Which of those sentences do you feel was more interesting? Personification is a technique used by writers and speakers to excite the imaginations of their readers and listeners. Personification gives human attributes to non-human things. Twenty-five years ago I wrote, “As Edmund Hillary surveyed […]
I grew up believing that everyone had equal opportunity, and what we made of that opportunity was up to us. I believed I was the product of my choices, and you were the product of yours. People struggled only because they made bad choices. I continue to believe in the vital importance of individual choice. […]
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, […]
“You train them, remind them, and incentivize them, but they still don’t do what you trained them to do.” This is what business owners say to each other about employees. Can you relate to it? Frances Frei is a famous professor at Harvard Business School who advises senior executives who are embarking on large-scale change […]
I’ve had a special relationship with California since 1992. The basis of our relationship is this: I keep not deserving parking tickets and California keeps giving them to me anyway. One of my goals during last week’s excursion with my grandson was to return from California – for the first time ever – without a […]
Twenty-five years ago, I did three important things. The second-most-important of these was the launching of the Monday Morning Memo, even though no one can remember what it’s called. “I’ve been reading your Monday thing for more than 10 years,” is the opening line to my favorite song. I never get tired of hearing it. […]
Sometimes we buy online to save time. Other times we buy online to save money. So what, exactly, is the “one big thing,” the unique selling proposition of online business? When we can’t wait the day or two for Amazon Prime, we buy from brick-and-mortar companies to save time. And when those stores are having […]
Most non-fiction books are written as reputation builders. We write them because we want to be seen as experts. We want more speaking opportunities, more customers, more recognition. These “how to” books appear to be about the subject matter, but they are really about the author. This sort of reputation-building was the motive behind my Wizard […]
In about 650 B.C. the Greek poet Archilochus wrote, “The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.” The renaissance scholar Erasmus quoted Archilochus in 1500 in his famous Adagia, saying, “Multa novit vulpes, verum echinus unum magnum.” In 1953, the philosopher Isaiah Berlin expanded on Archilochus and Erasmus in his often-quoted essay, The […]
Have you ever casually started down a path and then the journey got a life of its own? The White Rabbit appears in chapter one, inexplicably wearing a waistcoat. So what does Alice do? She follows him down the rabbit hole. There’s just no turning back after a decision like that. The journey is alive and […]
Pennie and I have criteria we use to judge the success of Wizard Academy. In a recent meeting of the board of directors, they asked us to share those criteria with them. I began by saying, “A non-profit educational organization would be foolish to judge its success by its revenues. And we would be equally […]
When you’re in “inside” sales, customers come to you. When you’re in “outside” sales, you go looking for customers. When I was a baby ad-man in outside sales, I had the good fortune to spend a day with Gene Chamberlain. He taught me three things that day that made me a lot of money. Today […]
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 […]
Vertical thinking is step-by-step, procedural, outcome-focused. It helps you get things done. Always asking, “What is the obvious next step?” vertical thinking leads to incremental evolution and refinement. It is a ratchet that maintains what you’ve accomplished, then “click,” gives you a little bit more. The Japanese call it kaizen, “continuous improvement.” Vertical knowledge is […]
Back 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 […]
Amateur 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 […]
The Jewish Sabbath begins each Friday at sunset because the fifth verse of Genesis reads, “And the evening and the morning were the first day.” Every beginning starts with an ending. Thirteen colonies became 13 “united states” when our fight for freedom ended and our government under a Constitution began in 1789. This was the […]
Life is a series of unintended consequences. Things almost never turn out the way we plan. I remember this single-panel cartoon I read many years ago. Two men on a sidewalk are carrying briefcases. One of them says to the other, “Here’s an idea. Let’s buy a grocery store tabloid and bury it in the […]
My 9-year old grandson, Gideon, asked a big favor of me the other day. “Poobah, I have 11 imaginary friends who need to start staying at your house.” “Okay. Can they all sleep upstairs?” “They could, but I doubt they’ll ever all be here at the same time.” Gideon told me what I needed to […]
Have you ever seen a photographer look through a rectangle of forefingers and thumbs to “frame” a potential shot? Framing is even more important when using words to capture images. Advertising, like every other kind of storytelling, should always begin with a framing sequence. From what angle will you approach your subject? What will be […]
Have you found your identity? Do you know your purpose? Are you ready for your adventure? Identity: Who am I? Purpose: Why am I here? Adventure: What must I overcome? Identity is your self-image; a composite of your beliefs, your preferences, and your relationships. Bits and pieces of your identity will evolve with your experiences, but other bits are […]
Paul Compton and “Jackie” Floyd walked to grade school together in 1934. Their mothers, Clara and Ruby, rented rooms in the same boarding house in Okmulgee, Oklahoma. Paul Compton was Princess Pennie’s father. It was Pennie’s grandmother, Clara, that answered the boarding house telephone on October 22, the night the bad news came. Paul Compton’s […]
Talent is Unconscious Competence; a superpower you were born with. People born with a superpower usually have difficulty teaching it to you. Skills are Conscious Competence; acquired excellence, learned behavior. People who acquire their skills through study and practice usually make excellent instructors. Talented people are tricky to manage. If you tell them what to do, they […]
One hundred and seventy-four years ago, America’s 11th president sent John Slidell on a secret mission to Mexico, authorizing him to pay the Mexican government up to $25 million for their territories in New Mexico and California. When Mexico refused to consider the offer of President James K. Polk, he sent 4,000 troops to occupy […]
MANLEY: I’m making things more efficient. DAVE: How? MANLEY: Abbreviations. DAVE: Give me an example. MANLEY: LOL. I text that to my plumbers to remind them to LOOK…OUT… for LEAKS. DAVE: You’re texting that? MANLEY: Yep. And sometimes the guys text back “D-K.” That means DRAIN… CLOGGED. DAVE: But clog is spelled with a C. MANLEY: Not in internet talk, Dave. Other times they text me […]
When our oldest son was an infant, I would hold a spoonful of baby food in front of his mouth, smile my most radiant smile and say, “It’s a good one.” I learned this, of course, from watching Princess Pennie. Later that spring I was sitting across from him when he pulled a lollipop from […]
The advice I give to others, I rarely take myself. I admonish persons who possess detailed knowledge to “dumb it down” so the rest of us can understand because, frankly, we are rarely interested in the mystery and wonder of the unabbreviated truth. I tell them, “Say it so plainly that you worry you have […]
Every form of communication is composed of 12 basic ideas and each of these ideas, held singularly, is a separate channel of communication in the mind. Like a jet lifting off the runway, these 12 concepts will accelerate and elevate your creative expression: speaking, writing, drawing, painting, persuading, acting, photography, sculpting, selling, singing, landscaping, interior […]
“The deer have killed the oak tree! The deer have killed the oak tree!” Forty-year-old Todd – we’ll call him Todd – came running into my office with his second crisis of the day. I expected there would be at least one more. Todd felt it was his job to bring every problem to my […]
Tinkerbell’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 […]
When a business is struggling financially, cost-cutting looks like a brilliant move. But can you shrink your way to success? From what I’ve seen, it’s easier – and healthier – to increase revenues than it is to cut costs. Cost-cutting comes at a very high cost. When I was 16 years old, General Motors was […]
I know what happens when men retire. I do not know what happens when women retire. Perhaps they are plagued by the same maladjustments, discomforts and discontentment as men, but I doubt it. As Michele Miller points out in her audiobook, The Natural Advantages of Women, females of our species are gifted with different neurological wiring […]
“It was dark inside the wolf,” is how Margaret Atwood believes the story might have opened. Emily Dickinson would agree. “Tell all the truth, but tell it slant,” was her advice to those of us who want our emails to be opened, our stories to be read, and our voices to be heard. If you […]
1. You Cannot Measure What Has Not Happened. When you ask a person about an experience that exists only in their imagination, they will give you imaginary answers. You can measure only what has already happened. In other words, you cannot measure what “would” or “would not” work. You can only measure what “did” and […]
I ate too much and it made me heavy and slow. Using too many words is like eating too much. It makes communication heavy and slow. Short sentences hit harder. Nouns and verbs are fists that deliver punches. Adjectives and adverbs are gloves that soften the blows. Unless they are unexpected. A brass-knuckled uppercut is […]
There is, to my knowledge, only one way to profitably put the power of the internet to work for you. It’s simple; just give people what they want. But first you have to know what they want. Let me help you with that. (1.) They want answers, and (2.) they want entertainment. But the answers […]
When someone says, “Figures don’t lie,” know this: Figures lie, and liars figure. Never trust a weasel with a calculator. Do you remember the mortgage meltdown of 2008 and The Big Short, the movie that was made about it? There is a scene in that movie where investors Mark Baum and Vinnie Daniel go to visit […]
The average person is afraid of criticism. But the person who has no fear of criticism is more likely to succeed. This lack of fear is what keeps them from being average. The average business owner is afraid their ads will be criticized. Do you want to kill a great ad? Show it to the […]
Ad writers hear it every day, whistling toward them like a bullet: “We need more traffic, that’s what we need; more sales opportunities!” I spent the early part of my radio career stepping up to the plate and knocking that fastball out of the park. If your back was against the wall, I was the […]
Few people remember it because it was too long ago. April, 1962– America tries to overthrow Fidel Castro of Cuba in the “Bay of Pigs” invasion. July, 1962– Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev reaches a secret agreement with Fidel Castro to place Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba to deter any future invasion attempt. October 14, 1962– An American U–2 […]
Throughout my career as an ad writer, I’ve noticed that the easiest companies to skyrocket are those with a healthy and happy corporate culture. You know it’s a great company when everyone wants to get a job there and no one wants to leave. Let’s talk about culture. Definition One: In biology, a culture is […]
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 […]
1967 – A little boy leaned on his elbows in front of a black-and-white TV in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, unaware that Walt Disney was dead. How could he be dead? I was watching him on TV. Looking right into my eyes, Walt told me about his purchase of 43 square miles of Central Florida, an […]
Two brothers were locked out of their home, so they climbed onto the roof and entered the house through the chimney. When they crawled out of the fireplace, one of them had soot on his face, the other did not. The clean-faced brother immediately went into the bathroom and washed his face. The brother with […]
Indy Beagle posted a T-shirt in the rabbit hole that said, “If life gives you melons, you might be dyslexic.” Princess Pennie laughed when she read it. If that T-shirt had said, “If life gives you oranges, you might be dyslexic,” would she – or anyone else – have laughed? Pleasant surprise is the foundation […]
Day after day, business owners tell ad writers, “We just need more sales opportunities. It’s a numbers game. If you double our traffic, we’ll double our sales. Now show me what you can do.” These business owners don’t understand that today’s close rate dictates tomorrow’s sales opportunities. Some businesses will run customers off faster than a […]
Is your bandwidth keeping you from fulfilling your purpose? Do you have too much to do and too little time? Your bandwidth is limited by: 1. the number of hours in a day. 2. your physical stamina and capacity. 3. your mental and emotional limits as a human being. 4. your inability to juggle the […]
Ten days ago, at the annual meeting of the most innovative and successful small business owners in America,* I was handed a series of questions to answer during the problem-solving session. Most of the questions had to do with recurrent frustrations in business. When I saw the group excitedly taking notes, I was a little […]
Responsibility limits your Freedom, and freedom is a good thing. So is responsibility wrong and evil? Sigh. The only hard choice in life is the choice between two good things. Justice and Mercy are at opposite ends of a teeter-totter. Honesty and Loyalty wrestle in your heart, do they not? Opportunity and Security are inversely proportionate. […]
“Facts tell, stories sell,” is a principle known to every top-tier ad writer. Stories change people while statistics give them something to argue about. People remember stories long after bullet-points are forgotten. Tom Robbins said, “I mean we are all, as human beings, caught up in a web of narration, this great narrative web, and […]
Seek the teacher who is a mentor to apprentices. She will give you expert advice and examples, then evaluate your ability to do as she has taught. Her name is Wisdom and you should always listen to her voice. But Wisdom’s teacher allowed young Wisdom to follow any path she chose! Wisdom learned her lessons […]
Competition can be entertaining, but I do not consider it to be “play.” Is than un-American of me? Play, for me, can have no objective; no element of strategy or combat or debate. Writing for The New Yorker on Nov.14, 2011, John McPhee shares an anecdote about George Hartzog, a man who understood my kind […]
The strangeness of our world is demonstrated by the things we take for granted. I bought a used book. The previous owner’s name was Mary Lou. I know this because she used the stub of her boarding pass as a book marker. A few years ago, Mary Lou took United Airlines flight 5409 from San […]
The feminine ideal was different a hundred years ago. Less sex, more charm. It was her charm that attracted us to young Anastasia Romanov, the daughter of Czar Nicholas II of Russia. This is why we refused to believe it when she was murdered in 1918 following the Bolshevik Revolution. For the next 50 years […]
Do you have favorite books and movies? Are there songs you love and stories that captivate you? Is there art that speaks to your heart? Paintings and plays, movies and music, stories and sculptures: art is valuable to the degree that it triggers emotion. But it isn’t always the art, itself, that triggers the emotion. Sometimes […]
You walk out the door. A person raises a forefinger and says, “Quick question.” And then they tie you up for the next 30 minutes. Have you ever been ambushed this way? Quick questions don’t always have quick answers and you can’t give 30 minutes to every person who raises a forefinger, so the next […]
“He knew how to lead by listening and teaching.” – Erwin C. Hargrove, a professor of political science at Vanderbilt University, writing in 1998 about a leader he much admired. I, too, have known brilliant leaders like that; men and women who lead by listening and teaching. Brian Scudamore, Lori Barr, Richard Kessler, Cathy Thorpe, Erik […]
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 […]
Reading that Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) was a Christian anarchist, I had an unexpected thought, so I asked Google, “What is the difference between an anarchist and a libertarian?” Six-tenths of a second later, The Goog told me – in a highly visible block at the top of the Search Engine Results Page: “An anarchist is an extreme […]
The 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 […]
The Random Quotes database at MondayMorningMemo.com currently contains 4,376 quotes. About a third of these are quotes you can easily find online. Nearly half are delightful passages I’ve transcribed from books, movies, or TV shows, and archived for future reference. Five percent are witty and wonderful statements made by friends during lunch or in casually written […]
When you have nothing to say, be careful that you don’t pay money to say it. “What do you mean?” Have you ever paid a premium to target the right audience and then made an offer that failed to move them? “Everyone has paid for ads that didn’t work.” Did you realize that your message […]
They told you it was called, “reading between the lines.” But what they didn’t tell you was that the writer put it there – between the lines – for you to figure out on your own. Speak the truth and people will doubt you. But if you can tempt those people to follow you to where […]
Listen, my young apprentice, and I will release you from your chains. Every door of opportunity begins as a window in the mind. Look through that window of imagination and glimpse a world that could be, should be, ought to be someday. Keep looking… and watch it grow into a door of Opportunity through which […]
Every few months, I remind my partners of something that took me way too long to learn. I say, “When a person believes in what they’re doing – even if it’s an imperfect plan – let them keep doing it. Give them advice and try to open their eyes, but don’t fight them too hard, […]
I’ve often wondered what happened to him. Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, 1979: Pennie and I had just moved into our first house. It… was built before Oklahoma became a state, had never had a mortgage on it, had been expanded 3 different times, and was now barely 800 sq. ft., had sat vacant for more than […]
Dear Radio, I’ve loved you all my life. In fact, I have more confidence in you than you have in yourself. But you have a blind spot, and it’s killing you: radio advertisers are reaching 100% of the city and convincing them 10% of the way, when they should be reaching 10% of the city […]
Is established information or new information more likely to be true? Which is more effective, planning or improvisation? Are people essentially good, or essentially selfish? Which is more important, individual rights or collective rights? Will the future of America be better than its past? Are low-income people less intelligent than high-income people? Is the Bible […]
A lawyer and a rabbi are arguing about what it means to be kind. It is an ancient argument. The lawyer thinks a “kind” person is always polite and considerate. The rabbi thinks “politeness” is superficial, and “considerate” simply means to consider the consequences before taking any action, but that true kindness comes at a […]
I began losing my hair when I was 19. By the time I was 21, I looked like I was 30. Best thing that ever happened to me. People take you seriously when you look like a grown-up, and I needed people to take me seriously. I sold advertising for the smallest radio station in […]
A thing cannot exist without its opposite. This is why a positive statement – without its corresponding negative – is usually a platitude.1 Every proton has its electron. Every summer has its winter. Every Yin has its Yang. Every up, its down. Every inside, its outside. Every justice, its mercy. “The opposite of a correct statement […]
Doubtless, 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 […]
Trouble happens to everyone. “Nobody, as long as he moves about among the chaotic currents of life, is without trouble.” – Carl Jung But don’t worry about it. “Worry is the interest paid by those who borrow trouble.” – George Washington Really. Don’t worry about it. “Don’t worry about tomorrow. Tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day […]
“Radio is dying.” “Radio is dead.” “My friends and I don’t listen to the radio. We (blah, blah, blah) instead.” “No one listens to the radio anymore, especially in high-tech places like San Francisco, in the heart of Silicon Valley. That’s right, isn’t it?” Isn’t it? A few paragraphs from now, I’m going to tell […]
1. 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 […]
When you need people to respond to your ad immediately, you need to think like a reporter. These are the first two things they teach news reporters: “When a dog bites a man, that is not news, because it happens so often. But if a man bites a dog, that is news.” “You never read about […]
Technically, you don’t take a trip. It takes you. If you could take a trip, you could also put it back when you were done with it. But you can’t. Now that we’ve cleared that up, let’s talk about Robert and Chris and the trip they took. It was a 1968 trip from Minneapolis to […]
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