Brian Scudamore and his first truck. Using the math of a magical customer experience, Lucky Charms, Peter Pan, Willie Wonka and Dr. Doolittle add up to $25,000,000 a month.

This image makes sense if you read the story on the previous page.

Billabong Bob Kinnison is a signatory member of the Pimp Hat Faction of the Rabbit Hole Tribe. This video is exactly 4 years old. Digital photos do not fade. To become a member of the Pimp Hat Faction, you need only wear a ridiculous hat in a public place and send us photographic testimony of your wiggling walk […]

Would you like to see Conscious Competence on display? Invest a few minutes to watch this video all the way through. – Indy

Unconscious Incompetence: on display when a tragicomic person on a talent show believes they can sing, but can’t. Business – underperformers who believe they’re doing a good job. The condition of an inept or incapable person who doesn’t realize they’re inept or incapable. Conscious Incompetence: clowning around, acting stupid, the essence of certain kinds of comedy. Business […]

 

The Smeller’s the Feller If you don’t understand the title of today’s memo, just ask a 12 year-old boy. (If you didn’t grow up in the South, your 12 year-olds may be more familiar with “He who smelt it, dealt it.”) With a title like “The Smeller’s the Feller,” does it surprise you that today’s memo is about […]

Taking the time to write a personal note to say thank-you to a host, a service provider, someone who made me smile, someone who took the time to encourage me, a co-worker or employee who did a great job, a vendor who served me well,, or even someone I know could  that use an ego […]

For those who don’t know, “Elb” is academy-speak for Exponential Little Bits, tiny actions taken every day, without fail, to inch you closer to your goal. Elbs don’t add, they multiply. We’ll explain this more deeply when you get to Wizard Academy. Or, you can just wait for the sequel to be released to the […]

Published in 1850, “Ring Out, Wild Bells” is a poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.  The poem forms part of In Memoriam, Tennyson’s eulogy for his sister’s fiancé who died at the age of twenty-two. The ‘wild bells’ were at Waltham Abbey Church. Tennyson was staying in the vicinity and heard the bells ringing during a storm at night, swung by the wind […]

CHAPTER ELEVEN – How to Buy Word of Mouth “Do you remember that time you and Ray Bard took me to lunch at Green Pastures?” “That’s quite a memory you have, Sunshine.” “It was quite a day.” “Why?” “I mean, Ray is the most successful publisher of business books there’s ever been. Is he still […]

CHAPTER TEN – How Do You Start with Why? “Sunshine, go to TED.com and pull up the transcript of Simon Sinik’s talk, ‘How Great Leaders Inspire Action.’” “His famous TED-X talk in Puget Sound?” “That’s the one.” “I love that guy.” “Me, too,” smiled the old man. And then he looked at the younger man and said, “You […]

Click Here to read Chapters 1-8 CHAPTER NINE – Corporate Agility “Poobah, it seems to me that Customer Centricity, a Culture of Innovation and Continuous Optimization would be impossible to manage if you didn’t have Corporate Agility. A company has got to be nimble and quick.” “The big fish aren’t eating the small fish,” said […]

Click Here to read Chapters 1-7 CHAPTER EIGHT – Culture of Innovation The younger man lifted his eyebrows and nodded, “Sure, I know how a flywheel works.” The old man continued. “The Four Pillars of Amazon accelerate each other to create a sort of flywheel that spins faster and faster with every innovation, every optimization […]

Here’s a link to that memo where the wizard made a similar point about the mind’s ability to find meaning in impressionistic language.

The Radio Ink column Richard Kuritz was praising was originally a Monday Morning Memo. Maybe you remember it. Fiction in Advertising Norman Rockwell was an illustrator of fiction. He never showed us America as it really was, but America as it could have been, should have been, might have been. His images caused an entire […]

CHAPTER ONE The car door closed and they were alone. As the old man backed down the driveway, the younger man spoke. “Thanks for doing this with me Poobah.” “It’s what Poobahs are for, Sunshine.” Nothing else was said until they were on the highway. A billboard announced “Starbucks 12 miles ahead.” The younger man […]

CHAPTER ONE The car door closed and they were alone. As the old man backed down the driveway, the younger man spoke. “Thanks for doing this with me Poobah.” “It’s what Poobahs are for, Sunshine.” Nothing else was said until they were on the highway. A billboard announced “Starbucks 12 miles ahead.” The younger man […]

CHAPTER ONE The car door closed and they were alone. As the old man backed down the driveway, the younger man spoke. “Thanks for doing this with me Poobah.” “It’s what Poobahs are for, Sunshine.” Nothing else was said until they were on the highway. A billboard announced “Starbucks 12 miles ahead.” The younger man […]

Do you want to see through the eyes of The Storm?

These Words of Wisdom from Orson Welles were sent to us by Morty Silber. Fascinating! It’s a clip from a 1960 interview from the BBC Monitor series in which Orson Welles talks about ‘Citizen Kane,’ one of the greatest successes in the history of Hollywood.

Morty Silber sent this to us with a note to “listen for the wisdom shared between 4:00 and 6:30.” The whole thing is worth watching, to be sure, but the 2 and 1/2 minutes starting at 4:00 are pretty fascinating. Citizen Kane was one of the biggest successes in the history of Hollywood.

Fiction in Advertising Norman Rockwell was an illustrator of fiction. He never showed us America as it really was, but America as it could have been, should have been, might have been. His images caused an entire generation to vividly remember experiences we never had. Rockwell showed us a fictional America and we believed in […]

CLICK HERE TO READ CHAPTERS 1 – 6 CHAPTER SEVEN – Flying Lemonade Stands “A few decades ago, a guy named Doug Spence decided to display – in wide open, unlocked showcases – every style of engagement ring in the world. And not just every style of ring, but every size and shape of center stone in each […]

Whittington’s no-frills version is above. The hit versions are below. Which do you prefer? The Richard Harris version, above, was the original HUGE hit. But Richard wasn’t really a singer. He was an actor. Sort of makes sense now, huh?  The really over-the-top comical version, though, was Donna Summers’ disco version, below. That’s right, I said […]

Click to make BIG.  Sunglasses courtesy of The Sunny Plumber, Ken Goodrich.

Click the image to make it BIGGER.  🙂

“Don’t need a Buddha head.” What are those 5 words telling us? Are we being warned that “need” is the antithesis of Zen? Are we being told that a desire to think like Buddha is the opposite of thinking like Buddha? “Don’t need a Buddha head?” Or are those 5 words a repudiation of Buddhist beliefs? […]

Richard’s One-Minute Devotion seemed especially poignant to the wizard and me last Tuesday because we have a friend who – the previous day, January 16 – located his birth mother after searching for her for 12 years. Richard Exley had no idea what had happened the previous day. I’ve never heard a minister make that particular point about […]

Whittington has a comment about the cake…  

Click the GOALS banner to advance. Click the image to make it BIGGER.  🙂 Sunglasses courtesy of The Sunny Plumber, Ken Goodrich.

Allison has a laugh in the Toad and Ostrich pub (Whittington’s office) when she hears the story of Daniel’s thermos (on the right) and the story of the little girl who had to help him open it. And this (below) is a video I thought you should see. The guy in the powder blue with the […]

When Vice-Chancellor Whittington couldn’t twist the cap off his coffee thermos, Claire Sylvestre – in her Hello Kitty t-shirt – came to his rescue with the required muscle. Brother James is in orange, behind.

After that first photo, the Princess stepped down from the porch to see a wider sky.

Princess Pennie stepped out the front door last week and snapped this photo of the sunrise from the porch of the house where she and the wizard and I live. The photo is unenhanced. The sky really did look like that.

This is my quest: to follow that star, no matter how hopeless, no matter how far…

CLICK HERE to read Chapters ONE through FIVE CHAPTER SIX – Continuous Optimization “Sunshine, when you care about your customers and care about your employees and care about your suppliers and care about your investors, you can build a rocket ship while you’re flying it.” “Is caring the fuel that lets you fly?” “Caring is […]

Above is the terminus page. Below is Louie, Louie performed by taxi drivers in Mumbai, India.

 

CHAPTER ONE The car door closed and they were alone. As the old man backed down the driveway, the younger man spoke. “Thanks for doing this with me Poobah.” “It’s what Poobahs are for, Sunshine.” Nothing else was said until they were on the highway. A billboard announced “Starbucks 12 miles ahead.” The younger man […]

Art by Todd Goldman is always funny. Ask the Goog about him.

The wizard and Princess Pennie and I plan to visit Tor House (below) the next time we’re in California. It was home of poet Robinson Jeffers (1887-1962). “Imagination, the traitor of the mind, has taken my solitude and slain it.” Yep. He was a dark one all right. Jeffers is not one of my favorite […]

“Poobah, you said I should read Sam Walton: Made in America by John Huey and Nuts!: Southwest Airlines’ Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success. Are there any other books I should read? “Well, I just finished a book about two guys on a road trip. I never did learn where the two were headed, why […]

Get ready for a whole day of rapid-fire, time-tested techniques presented in 15-minute segments that can be employed to grow your business.  You’ll have a notepad full of notes at the end of the day. (Or, if you’re not a note-taker, you’ll have a nifty yellow legal pad you can take home and, I don’t know, make paper airplanes […]

Election Results “From a psychological point of view, extreme fear and outrage are often projections. … Within public discourse, fears proliferate through a process of exchange. … Conservatives also like to spread fears about liberals, who respond in kind.” “Samuel Taylor Coleridge was right when he claimed, ‘In politics, what begins in fear usually ends […]