Here’s a link to a beautiful poem from the book. It’s a good example of what to expect. Here’s a link to buy the book at Amazon.com

Brought to our attention by alert spelunker Erik Cudd

 

Whisk(e)y Marketing School is a new division of Wizard Academy that teaches storytelling, pageantry and ritual to men and women who want to become certified Whiskey Sommeliers. Strangely, the wizard doesn’t imbibe either of these, but Vice-Chancellor Whittington does his best to pick up the slack on Scotch (Whisky) and Cognoscenti Tom Fischer of the famed BourbonBlog.com picks […]

If you remember Bobby Hill and his rose in last week’s rabbit hole about wabi-sabi, the beauty of imperfection, you’ll love this sequel sent in by Professor Sexton. (AKA The Sextonian)

A fun story, this. It’s starts good, then gets better with every line.

Hey, Indy! What do I get if become a Darling?

“What do we know about the goddesses, those elusive female figures, stronger than human males, more dangerous than male deities, who represent not real women but the dreams of real men?” – Alice Bach, Women in the Hebrew Bible, p. xvii

Joe Darion’s Dilemma Standing in the corner of a dark theater, Joe listens as melancholy, majestic music rises from the orchestra pit to soar high above the spotlights. He’s been hired to write lyrics for a musical play about Don Quixote. The first lyricist – the famous poet W.H. Auden – has been fired because his […]

etching by Leonid Stroganov of Russia THE WISE MEN G.K. Chesterton Step softly, under snow or rain, To find the place where men can pray; The way is all so very plain That we may lose the way…

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IMPORTANT: If you send us 100 words about what Wizard Academy means to you  – and you’ve never been to Wizard Academy – be sure to let Whittington know, okay?  Daniel@WizardAcademy.org

Want to check out Sexton’s blog?

If you’ve decided to fling yourself into it because you’re feelin’ all Indiana Jones, my advice is to start the music below first – it’s some gospel funk by the Staples – then click my lamp and we’ll do this thing. The music will play on. Uh-huh, that’s right.

I’m starting a new tribe – Dulcinea’s Darlings – and I want you to be in it. Can you find 10 bucks a month? I asked the wizard if he would let me give a limited edition print of this 16 x 16 painting to all my friends because it’s my personal favorite from his collection of more than 1,000 original […]

 

Imperfection is a recurrent theme in all the most powerful stories. But businesses seem to be allergic to it. Just like Hank Hill. Bobby Hill will explain…

One of Morty’s clients had been trying to sell his products with data – true data, real data – but the engineers he needed to persuade were never convinced because the data did not agree with their life experiences. So Morty made a video that pulls those engineers – and you – into the story. This video doesn’t communicate the data, it demonstrates […]

The wizard talked a lot about characters and pivotal moments in today’s memo about storytelling. Watch this famous scene from Bladerunner (1982.) Mortal enemies struggle as a pivotal moment unfolds. Notice the skillful use of exformation, (information purposefully excluded, requiring you to add it yourself and thereby participate in the scene.) – Indy

60-second radio ad. Copyright Roy H. Williams, 2015  (Goettl rhymes with kettle.) I was a ten year-old boy holding a flashlight for my Dad while he worked on an air conditioner for a customer. His name was Duncan Goodrich. He didn’t talk much. But there’s a certain kind of magic that happens when a son […]

“It happened this way: some troubled governmental bigwig hit upon the idea that the United States was going astray. Surveying our internal turmoil and strife he concluded that America’s many eruptions of discontent were interconnected and symptomatic of a single pervasive illness… He decided that the U.S. had broken with the Protestant ethic that nurtured […]

“It is a landscape in a minor key. A sketchy panorama where objects, both organic and inorganic, lack well-defined edges and tend to melt together in a silver-green blur… It is a poetic setting, one which suggests inner meanings and invisible connections. The effect is distinctly Chinese. A visitor experiences the feeling that he has […]

Tip Tipping was an English film and television stuntman and actor. Prior to his career as a stuntman, Tipping served in the Royal Marines and 21st SAS Regiment. He appeared in television series such as Doctor Who, Bottom and Poirot, and films including Never Say Never Again (1983), Batman (1989), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade […]

In this week’s video for members of the American Small Business Institute, Manley Miller goes over a checklist of the 8 things you need to include in every presentation. A year ago, Manley started a church in an old hotel ballroom in New Orleans. The regular folks who wandered in there enjoyed Manley’s encouragement, insight and humor so much that 1,000 people were […]

Four lasagnas, two bagels, and an American cheese with a Taste of Honey. (1965)

Herbert and The Bullfight (“Data Doesn’t Convince Us. Stories Do.” – the title of this week’s memo –  is a declarative statement of fact. “Herbert and The Bullfight” is the beginning of a story. Those 4 words tell us there is going to be a bullfight and that someone named Herbert is involved. But we have no idea how […]

Data Doesn’t Convince Us. Stories Do. Facts are stacked like bricks to become a tower. Do you see it? But a story is a wave that takes you on a journey and leaves the memory of the tower far behind. Facts are solid. Stories are seductive. You will find the facts in the paragraphs below. You will […]

Michael Staires, a longtime member of the Cognoscenti, sent this to you. Let me say this plainly: You’re making a HUGE mistake if you don’t give 6 delightful minutes to this video.  This is fascinating Beagle stuff. – Indy

The Price of Creativity Pressure, pressure, pressure unspeakable then BANG the world breaks open and a plateau pops up from solid rock, creating a fabulous view of the land below. That’s what happened in Central Texas. That’s what happens in life, too. But we’ll talk about that in a minute. Wizard Academy straddles the Texas […]

Four lasagnas, two bagels, and an American cheese with A Taste of Honey. (1965)

http://traffic.libsyn.com/mondaymorningradio/Kickfurther_MMR.mp3 You know, it just now occurred to me that some of you might think that Wizard Academy or the wizard or his company receive compensation for bringing companies like Kickfurther to your attention. But we don’t. These people and their efforts are being promoted here only because we think they’re interesting and we thought […]

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Mark talks about how he has used duct tape to create positive changes in big organizations during a session of The American Small Business Institute. $40 a month gets you at least one new video from an accomplished consultant each week and you’ll be keeping Wizard Academy alive and healthy, too!