Steven Gaffney’s client list reads like a “Who’s Who of America’s Best Corporations.” His clients include including Allstate, Amazon, American Express, Best Buy, Booz Allen Hamilton, and BP. And those are just the “A”s and “B”s. Steven Gaffney builds high-achieving teams that set brave goals and then exceed them. In this week’s amazing conversation […]

The wizard recorded this 18 years ago on March 19, 2007.“Do Your Words Make Music?” is an examination of magnetic meter.The guest voice reading the poetry you will hear is the multiple multimillion-copy bestselling author, the late Keith Miller.

Private equity firms are more likely to pay larger multiples of earnings (like EBITDA) for businesses when market conditions are favorable, and when the target company presents strong growth prospects, stability, and opportunities for value creation.  Market Conditions: Bullish Markets: During periods of economic expansion and positive market sentiment, valuation multiples tend to be higher. Investors are more […]

  In the solfege system (Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti, Do), intervals between syllables are determined as follows: • The interval between La and Ti is a major second (M2).• The interval between Ti and Do is a minor second (m2) or half step.  Thus, the interval between La and Ti is a major […]

Listen to the examples in the audio players below. You will hear the same song played two different ways. As you listen, think about each version and how it makes you feel. . Did you notice a difference between these two versions of the French folk tune “Frère Jacques”? Chances are the first version struck […]

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Johnny Molson can explain – in just 2 words – what it takes for an advertising campaign to soar above the campaigns of its competitors. Johnny is one of the elite Wizard of Ads partners. Employing the groundbreaking strategies developed by Roy H. Williams, he and his fellow Wizards of Ads craft powerful brand identities […]

  RHW… adversity makes you reach out to your true peeps and those people who have made a difference in your life… my wee brother David decided to leave us yesterday at 4pm… dropped dead in his living room… I was there… outrageous …the YouTube video of ‘Tom McDowall Plays Guitar in Glasgow’ that you […]

  What is Creativity, Really? In Greek mythology, the Muses were nine goddesses associated with the arts, sciences, and memory. They were considered the source of inspiration for artists, thinkers, poets, dancers, musicians, and philosophers. They were also seen as the goddesses of knowledge, embodying the wisdom and creative power found in poetry, songs, and […]

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“Creative products are always shiny and new; the creative process is ancient and unchanging.” – Silvano Arieti, The Magic Synthesis (1914 – 1981) Sent to us by Wizard of Ads partner Craig Arthur Arieti – a psychiatrist – suggests that the mind is not binary, containing only logic and emotion, but that we sometimes blend […]

Volkswagen’s unique construction keeps dampness out. For years there have been rumors about floating Volkswagens. The photographer claims this one stayed up for about 42 minutes. Why not? The bottom of the VW isn’t like ordinary car bottoms. A sheet of flat steel runs under the car, sealing the bottom fore and aft. That’s not […]

“A strategy has to be more than buzzword-deep. In 2017, a publicly traded beverage company called the Long Island Iced Tea Corp. announced that it was renaming itself Long Blockchain Corp. They gave no justification for the pivot. But based on the name change alone to replace ‘iced tea’ with ‘blockchain,’ their stock price surged […]

“Many pub names have been corrupted over the centuries. The Pig and Whistle is said to have its roots in peg (a drinking vessel) and wassail (a festive drink.) The Goat and Compasses is sometimes said to come from “God Encompasseth Us.” The Elephant and Castle, originally a pub and now a district of London, […]

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. Johnny’s in the basementMixing up the medicineI’m on the pavementThinking about the governmentThe man in the trench coatBadge out, laid offSays he’s got a bad coughWants to get it paid offLook out kidIt’s somethin’ you didGod knows whenBut you’re doin’ it againYou better duck down the alley wayLookin’ for a new friendThe man in […]

Executives often make trade-offs, prioritizing wealth and recognition over family and a grounded life. But are the benefits of these trade-offs worth it? That question prompted Butch Meily to write a memoir about the years he spent as an aide to Reginald Lewis, the first African-American to build a billion-dollar company. Reginald reached extraordinary heights and brought […]

THROUGH THE WINDOW OF THE ALL-NIGHT RESTAURANT across from the gas stationa bus stopped every ten minutesunder the blue streetlightand discharged a single passenger.Never more than one.A one-armed man with a cane.A girl in red leather.A security guard carrying his lunch box.They stepped into the light,looked left, then right, and disappeared.Otherwise, the street was empty,the […]

INTRODUCTION TO POETRY I ask them to take a poemand hold it up to the lightlike a color slide or press an ear against its hive. I say drop a mouse inside the poem’s roomand feel the walls for a light switch. I want them to waterskiacross the surface of a poemwaving at the author’s […]

. Arlo Guthrie made “City of New Orleans” famous in 1972. He is the son of Woody Guthrie, the singer/songwriter who wrote “This Land is Your Land” and whose name is synonymous with American folk music. 

“The printing press, as every school child knows, was invented by Johann Gutenberg. In fact, history may have given Gutenberg more credit than he deserves. There is reason to believe that movable type was actually invented by a Dutchman named Janszoon Koster and that Gutenberg – about whom we know precious little – learned of […]

Q: Just saw a new Dairy Queen TV ad. The ad starts out with the bell sound that the Ring camera makes when someone presses the button.  Which made me look up and watch the ad to make sure it wasn’t my doorbell.  You think someone’s that clever?  What’s your thoughts on a strategy like […]

You arrived naked.You will leave naked.You arrived without goods or money.You will leave without goods or money.Your first bath?Someone washed you.Your last bath?Someone will wash you. This is life. So why so much malice?Why so much envy?Why so much hate?Why so much resentment?Why so much selfishness? Be good to each other.Do the right things.We have […]

My 15-year-old son signed up for every free offer he could find.  But he was careful to use a pseudonym. The people who bought the house we lived in back when my son was 15 called me today to let me know that they are still receiving mountains of mail addressed to BC Williams,Booty C. […]

    Rob Kessler is a talented and ambitious entrepreneur. His company sells a brand of shirts with proprietary collar inserts designed to be worn without ties. Rob is the son of Richard Kessler who worked with the wizard for 35 years and became one of the most famous diamond jewelers in America before he […]

People think an ESOP is, “When you sell the employees the company.” But that’s NOT REALLY what happens in an Employee Stock Ownership Plan. Here is what really happens:1. The employees invest no money. Not a cent.2. The employees take no risk. They don’t have to guarantee the loan.3. The COMPANY is borrowing the money, […]

The strongest brands are the ones with the most distinctive personalities. But even a weak and faded personality is better than none at all. A brand with a personality is an imaginary character in the minds of the customers of that brand. It is similar to the characters in syndicated television shows, bestselling novels, and […]

Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some utensil probably fell down there. And the Drano won’t work but smells dangerous, and the crusty dishes have piled up waiting for the plumber I still haven’t called. This is the everyday we spoke of. It’s winter again: the sky’s a deep, headstrong blue, and […]

  Elmer is trying to get permission to make some modifications on his home from the HOA. I just told him that, “When you’re done with that list, these could be next.”    1    A blood sacrifice, not much, just a few drops from a purebred Himalayan cat.    2    Approval from the neighborhood squirrel council (they’re very territorial).    3    A background check […]

The new “Structural” version is aboveand the original “Gestalt” version is belowand they are both awesome in their own wonderful way. – Hai, little sister of Bali

  Anya Cheng spent 15 years as an executive at Meta, eBay, and Target before launching her own venture. Today she uses AI and personalized styling to rent clothing to men who dislike shopping, but need to look good for professional and social occasions. Her two-year-old company has run a gauntlet of challenges, from limited […]

I found out about Joan. The way she talks, you’d think she was in Who’s Who. Well! I found out what’s what with her. Her husband owns a bank? Sweetie, nor even a bank account. Why that palace of theirs has wall-to-wall mortgages! And that car? Darling that’s horsepower, not earning power. They won it […]

Kameido Bridge by Yoshida, Hiroshi (1927)

These mist-covered mountainsAre a home now for meBut my home is in lowlandsAnd always will be. Someday, you’ll return toYour valleys and your farmsAnd you’ll no longer burnTo be brothers in arms.   Through these fields of destructionBaptisms of fireI’ve witnessed your sufferingAs the battle raged higher And though they did hurt me so badIn […]

“People who love to eat are always the best people.”– Julia Child “If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”– J.R.R. Tolkien, “The Hobbit”, spoken by Thorin Oakenshield “No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.”– Aesop, “The Lion and The […]

    These words were written 33 years ago: “Experience suggests that if men cannot struggle on behalf of a just cause because that just cause was victorious in an earlier generation, then they will struggle against the just cause. They will struggle for the sake of struggle. They will struggle, in other words, out […]

  Structural and Gestalt are two ways of thinking. Structural thinking is rational, logical, sequential, deductive reasoning. Gestalt thinking is intuitive, aspirational, global, big picture. Structural and Gestalt thinking are not typically considered to be functions of the left and right hemispheres of the brain, but if you are familiar with  hemispherical specialization, there is […]

If you have messed up royally, you might take comfort in Al Lewis’s Substack where he details the boneheaded choices and illegal antics of CEOs and executives. For most readers, Al’s independent newsletter is an opportunity to learn from other people’s mistakes, which is a lot less costly than learning from your own. Al has […]

The Irish tell the story of man who arrives at the gates of heaven and asks to be let in. St. Peter says, “Of course. Just show us your scars.” The man says, “I have no scars.” St. Peter says, “What a pity! Was there nothing worth fighting for?” We are rightly called to find […]

  Tell all the truth but tell it slant —Success in Circuit liesToo bright for our infirm DelightThe Truth’s superb surpriseAs Lightning to the Children easedWith explanation kindThe Truth must dazzle graduallyOr every man be blind.– Emily Dickinson .

  Television is an extension of the human senses. When we watch television, our eyes and ears stretch to other times and places. Television allows us to see, hear, and experience things that are far away. A television recording does not present to us the world as it is. It reflects the sentiments that prevailed […]

“When we watch television, our eyes and ears stretch to other times and places. Television allows us to see, hear, and experience things that are far away. A television recording does not present to us the world as it is. It reflects the sentiments that prevailed during the time it was made. It shows us […]

  A timber-framed cottage was built in Frog Holt, England in the year 1450. Today, 575 years later, that cottage provides an important case study for business owners who are scaling their businesses upward. Douglas Squirrel is a technology leader and business scaling expert. According to Squirrel, if the army of artisans and technicians who […]

  “World class cereal-eating is a dance of fine compromises. The giant heaping bowl of sodden cereal, awash in milk, is the mark of the novice. Ideally one wants the bone-dry cereal nuggets and the cryogenic milk to enter the mouth with minimal contact and for the entire reaction between them to take place in […]

Harry Bosch and his daughter Maddie are sitting in Taylor’s Steak House late at night. Maddie is telling her Dad about the breach in relationship she is experiencing with her partner on the police force. M: “We just drive around in silence most of the time.” H: “You’ll get it back.” M: “I don’t know.” […]

“They came in the spring of the year to tell me you were dead.They spoke of war and pride, and how you’d laughed at fear,And called my name. All the while the sea grew black and still.Now you lie in a distant land, far from the summer dayWhen we left our tracks in the foamy […]

His name was Rab. He died in Bengal, the land of tigers, in 1941. On his way out the door, he said, “Faith is the bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark.” When Rab was sixteen, he published a book of poetry under the pseudonym Bhānusiṃha, which means “Sun Lion.” Those poems […]

“In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village that looked across the river and the plain to the mountains. In the bed of the river there were pebbles and boulders, dry and white in the sun, and the water was clear and swiftly moving and blue in the […]

“He understood the leprosy of the leper, the darkness of the blind, the fierce misery of those who live for pleasure, the strange poverty of the rich.” – Oscar Wilde, speaking of Jesus in “De Profundis”. Oscar Wilde was 7 years old when Rab was born in Bengal, India.Strangely, I believe they would have been […]

  “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.” – Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921) “Uttering a word is like striking a note on the keyboard of the imagination.” – Ludwig Wittgenstein, “Philosophical Investigations” (1953)

    George Orwell wrote “1984” in this exact house on the island of Jura in the Highlands of Scotland. Two famous Shakespearean actors – husband Timothy West and wife Prunella Scales – crafted “Great Canal Journeys,” this fabulous series of documentaries, when they were in their 80’s. This excerpt is from Season 6, episode […]

  “This is a thin place. Only a tissue divides the material world from the world of the spirit.” – George MacLeod, speaking of the Isle of Iona in the Highlands of Scotland. This small isle, just three miles long by one mile wide, had a huge influence on the establishment of Christianity in Scotland, […]

“The Wise Men” by the weird, wacky, and wildly talented Marcel Flisiuk. If you would like to contact our main man Marcel, you can reach him at marcelflisiuk@yahoo.com – Aroo, Indy B.

  Talya Rotbart is shepherding our roving reporter and his deputy, Maxwell, this week in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, that lovely city where the 2026 Winter Olympics will be held. The Rotbarts are being escorted by Maxwell’s sister, Avital, and her husband Ben, who live in vivacious Vicenza, Italy, just two hours away. The roving Reporter […]

“Travel is not compulsory. Great minds have been fostered entirely by staying close to home. Moses never got further than the Promised Land. Da Vinci and Beethoven never left Europe. Shakespeare hardly went anywhere at all – certainly not to Elsinore or the coast of Bohemia…. Travel, which was once either a necessity or an adventure, […]

“In my somnolent state I also thought about the Czech Republic. The border would appear in my mind and that gentle, beautiful country beyond it. Over there, everything is lit up by the Sun, gilded with light. The fields breathe evenly at the foot of the Table Mountains, surely created purely for the purpose of […]

At 84 years old and married for more than 50 years, actors Timothy West and Prunella Scales take a moonlit gondola ride in Venice. “Great Canal Journeys,” season 5, episode 1, “Venice”

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We continue to watch Desert Drifter and miss our friend. – Indy and Roy

Pru Scales enacts a bit of French classical drama and her husband, Timothy West, does a bit of Shakespeare’s “Henry II” in the world’s oldest, unrestored theater in Drottningholm, the Royal country retreat in Sweden: “Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs; for within the hollow crown That rounds the mortal temples of a […]

On Fri, Apr 18, 2025 at 2:32 PM Stephen Semple <stephensemple@wizardofads.com> wrote: Hey Roy and Jake. I like sharing with you some of the success that have been happening.   Roy, when I started the podcast I committed to the idea of being consistent and staying with it.  That is what I learned from you.  Don’t […]

  Michael Dell and Shaquille O’Neal planned their work and worked their plans. Dell understood the formulas, and followed the rules, of efficiency. O’Neal understood the formulas and followed the rules of basketball. Each of them faithfully followed a Structural plan. Michael Dell invented nothing, improvised nothing, and innovated only once. But that single innovation […]

“Last of the Summer Wine” is a BBC sitcom that ran 31 seasons, from January, 1973 through August, 2010. “The thing about growing up is that you get fewer scabs on your knees, but more internal injuries. Do you remember the day when that little yellowhammer flew straight at the window? You picked it up. […]

Dogzilla poster by Wizard of Ads partner Robin Kressbach.Dogzilla radio ad by Wizard of Ads partners Jacob Harrison, Dave Nevland, and Devin “Spraytan” Wright.

“Thank You” to our friend Ryan Deiss for sending this to our attention. – Indy Beagle

Lewis Caroll was a mathematics professor who stuttered when in the presence of anyone except young children. LC took the 3 young daughters of his boss on a boat ride down a canal on July 4, 1862, in a rowboat traveling on the canal from Folly Bridge, Oxford, to Godstow for a picnic outing, 10-year-old […]