Wizard of Ads Monday Morning Memo

September 17, 1787: When George Washington saw the Constitution of the United States of America finally adopted after four months of intense debate in Philadelphia’s Pennsylvania State House, he immediately went to a bookseller and paid 22 shillings, six pence for a copy of Don Quixote de La Mancha.1According to MountVernon.org, “this seventeenth-century Spanish allegory does seem a somewhat unusual choice for the pragmatic farmer, soldier, and statesman. An explanation for the apparently uncharacteristic purchase can be found within Washington’s correspondence.” 2We’ll look at that correspondence in a moment, but I believe a statement made by screenwriter Aaron Sorkin offers an equally insightful glimpse into the mind of George Washington in that historic moment when the Constitution was complete and our Great American Experiment had begun.“I tend to write very romantically and idealistically. So the characters that I write are going to be, kind of, quixotic. And they’re going to fail a lot and fall a lot. But, you know, there’s a romance in trying for honorable things.” 3– Aaron Sorkin, June 29, 2015Don Quixote had been a topic of conversation a few evenings earlier in the home of Benjamin Franklin. We know this because on November 9th, 1787, Washington received a Spanish copy of Don Quixote from Spanish Ambassador Diego Maria de Gardoqui with a note, “requesting you wou’d accept & give a place in your Library to the last Spanish Edition of Don Quixote which I recolectt to have hear’d you say at Dr Franklin’s that you had never seen it. I cou’d have wish’d it was in English for your particular entertainment, but it being reckoned the very best Edition of that celebrated work & one in which every thing has been manufacture in Spain induces me to request your acceptance.” 4We don’t know why they were talking about Quixote that night in the home of Benjamin Franklin, but Indy Beagle tells me it went something like this:WASHINGTON: “We are drawing near to an agreement. I believe we may have a Constitution within the week.”FRANKLIN: [shaking his head slowly as gazes down absently at the table] “I look at the future and wonder if we are victorious champions of the good, or bumbling fools who have convinced themselves they are something they are not.”SPANISH AMBASSADOR GARDOQUI: [smiling] “You have read the Quixote?”FRANKLIN: [nods yes and smiles a weak smile.]WASHINGTON: “Although Jefferson and Adams speak continuously of this book, I cannot say I have read it.”“Roy,” you’re thinking, “are you seriously expecting me to believe that our founding fathers were Quixote nuts like you?”The Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia at Monticello.org says, “Don Quixote was one of the few works of fiction that Thomas Jefferson was clearly partial to. He used the text in its original language to learn Spanish, and had his children do the same. Jefferson owned a number of different editions over his lifetime.” 5Monticello.org also lists 18 pieces of Jefferson’s personal correspondence in which Quixote is mentioned during the 51 years from 1771 to 1822. 5So, yes, when a person speaks and writes about Don Quixote for 51 years, I usually print that person’s name in large letters in the “Quixote Nut” column.These are the big ideas presented in Don Quixote:1. A beautiful dream is worth believing in, even when others think you are crazy.2. A beautiful dream is worth fighting for, even when you lose.3. A beautiful dream is worth pursuing, even if it never comes true.4. The possibility remains that your beautiful dream might turn out to be folly. 6John Adams was Thomas Jefferson’s friend and nemesis and he was obsessed with Quixote as well. In David McCullough’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book on Adams 7 we read, “Another child, Thomas Boylston, was born in September of 1772, and again Adams was off on the ‘vagabond life’ of the circuit, carrying a copy of Don Quixote in his saddlebag and writing Abigail sometimes as many as three letters a day.”Alexander Hamilton’s copy of Don Quixote was published in Amsterdam in 1755 by Arkstee et Merkus.8 In his letter to Rufus King, dated February 21, 1795, Hamilton wrote, “To see the character of the government and the country so sported with—exposed to so indelible a blot—puts my heart to the torture. Am I, then, more of an American than those who drew their first breath on American ground? Or what is it that thus torments me at a circumstance so calmly viewed by almost everybody else? Am I a fool—a romantic Quixote—or is there a constitutional defect in the American mind?” 9David Brooks is a political and cultural commentator who writes for The New York Times. Aaron Sorkin is a screenwriter. His films include A Few Good Men, The American President, Charlie Wilson’s War, The Social Network, Moneyball and Steve Jobs. His television series include The West Wing, Sports Night, Studio 60 and The Newsroom.BROOKS: “Okay, I am struck by the deep American-ness of this hour. It’s a country of energy and ambition and I mean even Walter10 has in his biography of Franklin this discussion how ambivalent we are about ambition and there is the ambition of him [Franklin,] there is the ambition of Lincoln but then I think through your characters – whether a Zuckerberg, Billy Beane, Jobs, Charlie Wilson – there are people with outlandish ambitions, out of proportion to what might be expected of them in their role?”SORKIN: “Yeah. Again I just find that very romantic.”BROOKS: “Yeah.”SORKIN: “And it all goes back to Don Quixote. This guy who felt like he was living in a world that was just a little – had gone over the edge of incivility and crudeness – and he was a scrawny old man who was experiencing dementia and he decided that you can be a knight if you just behave like one.” 3A scrawny old man decided that you can be a knight if you just behave like one.You can be a knight if you just behave like one.If you just behave like one.Roy H. Williams

I’m betting you’re extremely good at something, perhaps at more than just one thing.Let’s face it: you’re talented – gifted, in fact – a classic overachiever. But the odds are 7 in 10 that you find it difficult to accept and believe these compliments.I say this because 70 percent of our population suffers from Impostor Syndrome and it is most common among high achievers, especially people with graduate degrees, college professors on track for tenure, and research scientists. 1Isaac Newton, the man who changed the way we understand the universe, who discovered the laws of gravity and motion and invented calculus, suffered from Impostor Syndrome, saying, “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” 2Impostor Syndrome is the blind spot that comes with talent.Harold Kushner describes Impostor Syndrome as “the feeling of many apparently successful people that their success is undeserved… For all the outward trappings of success, they feel hollow inside. They can never rest and enjoy their accomplishments… They need constant reassurance from the people around them to still the voice inside them that keeps saying, ‘If other people knew you the way I know you, they would know what a phony you are.'” 3Now here’s the good news: Impostor Syndrome is perfectly normal. What you want to avoid is the opposite, the Dunning–Kruger effect, a cognitive bias in which low-ability individuals suffer from illusions of superiority, mistakenly assessing their abilities as much higher than they really are. 4Everyone is messed-up and broken a little. (Impostor Syndrome)But the most messed-up are those who believe they are not. (Dunning-Kruger)Scientists Dunning and Kruger believe “the miscalibration of the incompetent stems from an error about the self, whereas the miscalibration of the highly competent stems from an error about others.” 4In other words, those of us who have Impostor Syndrome see ourselves from the inside, where we stand naked in the shadow of old wounds, past failures and the knowledge of our limitations. But we see others from the outside, where they stand majestic, beautifully illuminated in the bright glory of their successes.A close friend once asked me to tell him the secret of confidence. “The key isn’t to think more highly of yourself,” I said, “but to quit thinking so highly of others.”If Dunning and Kruger’s research can be trusted, it would appear that I was right.This is what I was hoping to give you today:Encouragement.Talented people like yourself often feel they’ve just been lucky. But being in the right place at the right time doing the right thing in the right way isn’t luck, it’s talent. Most people have at least one talent. Be happy that you found yours.Normality.Seventy percent of successful people wrestle with Impostor Syndrome. See it for what it is and it will disappear.Self-acceptance.Yes, you have deficiencies, but so does everyone else. Relax.Self-awareness.I said that Impostor Syndrome is a blind spot among people with talent. Hopefully, now that you’ve seen your blind spot, it won’t be a blind spot anymore.Gratitude.Open your eyes to your talent and be glad of it. (And if you ever figure out who gave it to you, be sure to thank them for it!)Have a great week.Do great things.It’s in your nature.Roy H. Williams

Sunlight is composed of red, green and blue light waves. Combine these together and you get white light.ARemove the red from white light and you will no longer be able to see red in anything illuminated by that light. Red will no longer exist. Remove the blue and you will no longer see blue.This is the secret of propaganda.Propaganda is an emotionally charged word, so we should probably establish a definition for the purposes of this discussion:“Propaganda is a form of persuasion that refuses to consider the point of view of its opponent. Instead, propaganda will mock, vilify and demonize its opponent or ignore its opponent’s perspective completely.”Google “propaganda” and you’ll learn the term dates back to 1622, when Pope Gregory XV decided to send out missionaries to propagate – propagando – the faith. To facilitate this, he created the sacra congregatio christiano nomini propagando. The cardinal in charge of Propagando became known as the “red pope” due to the importance of his duties and the extraordinary extent of his authority. 1In 1982, Pope John Paul II renamed it the congregation for the evangelization of peoples, probably because the word “propaganda” had been given a bad name by Joseph Goebbels, the Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany.Catholics in 1622 wanted to eliminate the Protestant perspective, which is only fair, because Protestants wanted to eliminate the Catholic perspective.This polarization caused millions to die in religious wars, but that doesn’t make religion bad. It is a polarized perspective – whether in religion or sports or anything else – that’s bad.A person can have a strong and unchangeable point of view but still retain the courtesy and breadth of vision to understand how an intelligent person might embrace the opposite point of view. 2Think of your opponent as watching a sporting event from the seat exactly opposite yours. You’re both watching the same game, but his left is your right, and your right is his left. So which of you is the liar? Which of you is the fool?200 million Muslims are Shiites.1.6 billion Muslims are Sunnis.When the Islamic Prophet Muhammad died in 632 A.D., a debate emerged about who should be his successor. Both sides agreed that Allah is the one true God and that Muhammad was his messenger, but one group (the Shiites) felt Muhammad’s successor should be someone in his bloodline, while the other (the Sunnis) felt a pious individual who would follow the Prophet’s customs would be acceptable.Both Sunnis and Shiitesread the Quran,believe the Prophet Muhammad was the messenger of Allah,fast during Ramadan,pledge to make a pilgrimage to Mecca,practice ritual prayer five times a day,give charity to the poor andpledge themselves to their faith.But rather than celebrate what they have in common and use those bonds to facilitate peace and prosperity, the Sunnis and Shiites have chosen bitter war.Democrats and Republicans seem to be making a similar choice.I, for one, want no part of it.Justice and Mercy are both important and good and true.But they exist in perpetual tension, an eternal tug-of-war.I’m sure I’ll be criticized for saying this, but it seems to me that one side wants to shine bold red light on the importance of protecting ourselves from those who would do us harm, while the other side wants to shine a soothing blue light on the pain of the struggling and the oppressed.If propagandists are successful in their attempts to eliminate the red or the blue from the light that shines from America, I fear we will learn we have amputated an arm because we didn’t understand its purpose.Roy H. Williams

Each of us likes to think we believe what we believe because the evidence dictates it.But if that were true, wouldn’t each of us believe the same things?We call one person a romantic and another a realist, and we secretly think the realist to be more valuable, do we not?Labels are powerful things. To call someone “a realist” is to accuse his or her counterpart of believing in things that are not real.But are honor, courage, virtue and love not real?My experience has been that we become less frustrated and more likeable when we embrace the fact that belief is a choice.“If you want to believe in something, then believe in it. Just because something isn’t true, that’s no reason you can’t believe in it… Sometimes the things that may or may not be true are the things a man needs to believe in the most: that people are basically good; that honor, courage and virtue mean everything; that power and money – money and power – mean nothing; that good always triumphs over evil. And I want you to remember this; that love – true love – never dies. Remember that, boy. Remember that. It doesn’t matter if they’re true or not, a man should believe in those things because those are the things worth believing in.”– Hub McCann, played by Robert Duvall, speaking to his nephew in Secondhand LionsEvidence does not dictate belief.Belief is always a choice.This came pointedly to my attention as I was assembling my chapter for a collaborative book, Poetics of Re-accentuation: Don Quixote in film, theatre, and modern literature.The basic idea of re-accentuation is that every generation makes and remakes the image of Don Quixote to reflect their own worldview. (Indy Beagle has assembled, in the rabbit hole, a list of those of you I quoted.)I can summarize my chapter in 2 sentences.Perhaps no story has ever been changed to fit the measure of its readers so much as Don Quixote has been changed to fit 21st century businesspeople and entrepreneurs.Businesspeople tend to see Quixote as a symbol of the irrational and unyielding optimism that is essential to every visionary entrepreneur.But this interpretation of Quixote is not universal:Two of the friends who shared their thoughts and feelings with me wrote brilliantly about how the delusions of Quixote hurt everyone around him, particularly those who loved him most.One of these writers was a family counselor. The other was an accountant. (Is our career choice a reflection of how we see the world, or is our worldview shaped by our career?)I agreed with these two friends because they were entirely correct.And I agreed with all those who said the opposite.In truth, each of us is a romantic and a realist.The human brain is divided into competing halves. The realistic left and the romantic right. This is why we’re so often at odds with ourselves, torn between two ways of thinking.“Outwardly we laugh at the absurdity of a man jousting with windmills, thinking them to be giants. But inwardly we crave Quixote’s sense of mission and purpose, his dedication to a cause, his willingness to pay any price to achieve the honor of his beloved, the entirely imaginary Dulcinea.So who is the silly one? He, for seeing beyond what is, to serve a beauty that could be, should be, ought to be? Or me, for remaining trapped in a black and white world where little men hide behind technicalities?” – Roy H. Williams, (2005)This concept of multiple perspectives is easy to embrace as long as we’re talking about Don Quixote and Secondhand Lions, but what happens when the conversation grows more personal?“Given the current level of anger, we are in danger of becoming a monster in an attempt to destroy a monster. Without a return to civility in our public discourse, I fear anger may well escalate into violence right here in the United States.”– Richard Exley,Aug 23, 2016, as Donald and Hillary rush headlong toward NovemberI can agree with Richard’s statement without having to know anything about his politics.I hope you can, too.Roy H. Williams

Why do old songs pop into our heads? Unheard for decades – and often a song we never even liked – there it is, filling the echo chamber of the articulatory loop of working memory in the dorsolateral prefrontal association areas of our brains.“…smokin’ cigarettes and watchin’ Captain Kannnng-aroo,now don’t tell meeeeeeee I’ve nothin’ to dooooo….”I whispered everything I could remember to Google.Google whispered back, “The Statler Brothers, Flowers on the Wall, 1966. It won the Grammy for ‘Best Performance by a Vocal Group.'”To get the most out of your ad writer, send them your irrelevant and ridiculous passing thoughts.Don’t overthink it, and don’t be annoyed when most of your passing thoughts are ignored. Because occasionally, now and then, one of those passing thoughts will morph into a fabulous ad for your business.I was trying to drive “Captain Kannnng-aroo” from my mind when I heard a little email *ding* from my computer. It was Ken Goodrich, the owner of Goettl (rhymes with kettle).Crap.Ken was thinking about Captain Kangaroo, too.I turned Ken’s email into a 60-second radio ad.Captain Kangaroo is the reason I own Goettl Air Conditioning. I know that sounds weird, but it’s true. I’m Ken Goodrich. Here’s how it happened. When I was a kid, our family had a big Zenith console television that was about the size of a small hippopotamus or a pony with very short legs. Your family probably had one, too. Anyway, the Captain was always talking about Schwinn bicycles and what made them BETTER than other bicycles. Sitting there cross-legged on the floor, the Captain convinced me to always buy GOOD quality made with REAL craftsmanship because it works better, lasts longer, and saves you money. When it comes to air conditioners, that’s Goettl. But wait, it gets even weirder. I only hire technicians and installers that remind me of Mr. Green Jeans. Happy. Hard working. He just wants you to be happy.  Call Goettl. Gee Oh Ee, T-T-L. It’ll keep you cool, but it’s hard to spell. And if you see one of my technicians, ask them for a Goettl flashlight. (Contractor License #) You’ll find the phone number at Goettl.com. Gee Oh Ee, T-T-L dot com.You’ve heard me say, “Entertainment is the currency that purchases the attention of the public.” And this is an example of that.Here’s how to take a rambling email from a client and turn it into a highly entertaining ad:Open your ad from an interesting angle.This applies to opening lines as well as headlines in print and online.How can anyone not listen to an ad that opens with, “Captain Kangaroo is the reason I own Goettl Air Conditioning.”Make an entertaining pitch.Don’t entertain, then pitch. Make the whole pitch entertaining. “…a big Zenith console television that was about the size of a small hippopotamus or a pony with very short legs.”Make the reader/listener/viewer see herself in your ad.“Your family probably had one, too.”When appropriate, tell WHY you are the way you are. (Your Genesis story.)“Sitting there cross-legged on the floor, the Captain convinced me to always buy GOOD quality made with REAL craftsmanship because it works better, lasts longer, and saves you money.”Now add “one more thing” as icing to the cake.“But wait, it gets even weirder. I only hire technicians and installers that remind me of Mr. Green Jeans.”Wrap it up in a manner that isn’t painfully predictable.“And if you see one of my technicians, ask them for a Goettl flashlight.”Do you need some intellectual exercise? Ask a business friend to share a vivid, childhood memory with you in an email. Don’t tell them what you’re planning to do with it. Just tell them to share a story with you that “taught them a useful lesson they have never forgotten.” And then turn that email into a 60-second radio ad.If you’re proud of what you wrote and you can read it out loud in exactly 60 seconds, send Indiana Beagle the script (or the MP3) and he’ll happily post it in the rabbit hole. Indy@WizardOfAds.comAre you up for it?Roy H. Williams

The cognoscenti will remember two big statements glittering on the screen behind me during the opening moments of the Magical Worlds Communications Workshop:“The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.”– Niels Bohr, physicist“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.”– F. Scott Fitzgerald, writerWhat I’m about to say may prove to be just such a test.I’m counting on you to possess a first-rate intelligence:“People love Donald Trump.”“People hate Donald Trump.”Those two statements about Donald Trump seem to be mutually exclusive until we realize that neither statement purports to describe ALL people. Different people feel different ways. We understand this when it comes to politics.But let the discussion turn to advertising and you will soon hear voices begin speaking of Millennials and Gen-Xers and Baby Boomers as though every member of a birth cohort is somehow compelled to make their decisions based on a single, shared set of values determined by the year in which they were born.It’s like listening to people who believe in astrology. “Your fate is determined by your birthday.”The only thing weirder is listening to wholesalers and distributors speak of the men and women involved in “B to B” (Business to Business) as if they were an entirely different species. “Roy, I hear what you’re saying about using words as tools of persuasion, but my business is B to B and B to B is different. What can you tell me about selling B to B?”Blanket statements result from a belief in stereotypes.Stereotypes are attractive because they allow us to simplify complex realities.Stereotypes are false categories that allow us to feel good about stupid decisions.People are extremely different.People are all alike.Both of those statements are true.Both of those statements are false.How’s that first-rate intelligence holding up?I’m now going to make 5 true statements. Some will confirm your suspicions and beliefs. Others will stick in your throat like a fish bone, forcing you to cough and sputter.I apologize in advance.Your perfect “target customer” is probably a false category.This is one of the two reasons why your advertising is performing poorly.The first time I visited Procter & Gamble headquarters in Cincinnati, I was greeted warmly and shown the auditorium where I would be speaking. After all the equipment had been tested, my guide asked,“Do you know the unofficial slogan of our company?”I shook my head from side to side.“In God we trust. All others bring data.”In an August 9, 2016 story in the Wall Street Journal, Procter & Gamble Chief Marketing Officer Marc Pritchard announced, “We targeted too much and we went too narrow.”Example: Sales stagnated when P&G aimed Febreze ads on FaceBook at pet owners and households with large families. But sales rose when the same budget was spent reaching “anyone over 18.”P&G has been spending hundreds of million of dollars on tests like that for the past two years. The jury has now returned with a verdict: reaching influencers is just as important as reaching the decision maker.You feeling that fish bone yet?Millennials are easy to attract.According to an Aug. 5th Daily Beast article by Samantha Allen, one in three young adults is still living at home.Touchy-feely theorists say this is because “Millennials desire safe spaces.”When carmakers realized Millennials weren’t buying cars, they appointed “youth emmissaries” who came up with new colors like “techno pink” and “denim.”It isn’t “fear of commitment” that keeps Millennials from buying houses.The Economist wondered aloud in June, “Why aren’t millennials buying diamonds?” and speculated it was “the taint of conflict and exploitation” that was keeping them away.But according to Samantha Allen,“Millennials are not some vast unsolvable mystery… basic economic math can explain much of the younger generation’s behavior… Cars cost money and millennials have less of it and diamonds are freakin’ expensive… So the next time you have a hunch about why millennials are the way they are, ask yourself if economic insecurity might be a better hypothesis.”In truth, Millennials are easy to attract. Most of them just don’t have the buying power that most businesses assume they have.Growing companies are desperate to find employees.Wait. Didn’t we just say that one in three millennials is still living at home because they’re poor? Yes. They’re drowning in college debt because we lied to them. We said a degree was the key to getting a good job. So they got an education but they have no marketable skills.You would be startled by the number of recruitment ads my partners and I are writing each week for client companies that can’t find capable employees.If you are a Registered Nurse, a Licensed Practical Nurse or an air conditioning technician, you can walk into any city in America today and instantly get a job making an above-average income. I know this to be true because I’ve spent the past several months scouring the nation for them.Store traffic is down but sales are up.Last week I spoke with an independent rep that’s been selling upscale brands to major retailers for more than 20 years. “Everyone is terrified at the decline in traffic,” he said, “but sales haven’t really declined at all.”His experience is similar to my own.E-commerce is real and it has devastated a few categories, to be sure. But for most retailers it’s just an imaginary boogeyman hiding under the bed.Retail traffic is declining and service business call-counts are falling because people are doing their information gathering and comparison-shopping online.They’re not buying online nearly so often as they’re researching online. The result is that a single brick-and-mortar store gets visited instead of three or four. The traffic you’re not seeing is the traffic that went to your competitor.You’ve got to become the company people think of immediately and feel the best about. This is how you increase traffic.Radio and television advertising are working better today than ever before.Yes, I’m aware that radio listenership has declined from what it was 10 years ago and that people are using DVRs to fast-forward past the ads on TV.I also know that entertainment is a currency that will buy you the attention of the public.Entertainment must – by definition – employ elements that are new, surprising and different.Private music libraries play the same songs over and over and over. This is why we’re spending less and less time listening to our own libraries of downloaded music.Do you remember when I said that targeting your perfect customer was “one of the two reasons why your advertising is performing poorly?”The other reason is that your ads are predictable.The reason they’re predictable is because you’re telling your prospective customers exactly what you think they want to hear.Big mistake.Roy H. Williams

Time and Money are interchangeable.We can always save one by spending more of the other.Time and Money are interchangeable.We prize the one we feel to be in short supply.Time and Money are interchangeable.We burn them both like the wax of a candle.What is patience if not the quiet, dark burning of time?What is entertainment if not the dazzling, bright burning of time?What is play if not the warm, happy burning of time?What is freedom if not the ability to burn time in any way we choose?Do you want to attract influential people to your business?Patiently offer them entertainment, play and freedom.They will be attracted to your lightand come back with their friends.This is why an innovative marketing school teaches people how to become whiskey sommeliers.*Influential people are obligated to make money.Money, for them, is a representative product of work.What they seek is freedom, entertainment and play.What they seek is a pleasant way to spend time.Aristotle Onassis understood this.Ari was a 17 year-old Greek refugee who fled to Buenos Aires where he began working as a telephone operator in 1923. He would soon become one of the wealthiest men in the world. This, in his own words, was his secret:Make sure you are tanned, live in expensive buildings, even if you have to stay in the cellar, go out to expensive restaurants, even if you can only afford one drink.”Ari spent the money he made as a telephone operator on quality clothes, a tanning lamp and a single drink each night in the swankiest bar in Buenos Aires. Within a few months, he had become friends with all the important people of that city. And with their help, he began a tobacco importing business that made him, and them, a fortune.That’s when he began buying ships.Having learned that the Canadian National Steamship Company wanted to sell 2 ships at scrap metal prices, Ari left immediately for Canada and convinced that company to sell him not just 2, but 6 ships for $20,000 each. Within a few years Ari had amassed the world’s largest privately owned shipping fleet and became one of the world’s richest and most famous men.Seventeen year-old Aristotle Onassis instinctively knew that freedom, entertainment and play were the only things that influential people really desire. He connected with them, not through work, but through play.Ari became successful, not because he knew how to spend money, but because he knew how to spend time when time was his only asset.If you don’t have all the money you desire, I have but a single question for you:How are you spending your time?Roy H. Williams

Most people associate The Power of Myth with the 1988 PBS television series with Bill Moyers and Joseph Campbell, or with the accompanying book of that name. But it was John F. Kennedy who spoke of the power of myth with the greatest clarity and insight. The occasion was his 1962 Commencement Address to the graduates of Yale University.As every past generation has had to disenthrall itself from an inheritance of truisms and stereotypes, so in our own time we must move on from the reassuring repetition of stale phrases to a new, difficult, but essential confrontation with reality. For the great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie—deliberate, contrived, and dishonest—but the myth—persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the clichés of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.”Erroneous preconceptions are the dangerous downside of myths.But heroes are their dangerous upside.Larger than life, highly exaggerated and always positioned in the most favorable light, a hero is a beautiful lie.We have historic heroes, folk heroes and comic book heroes. We have heroes in books and songs and movies and sport. We have heroes of morality, leadership, kindness and excellence. And nothing is so devastating to our sense of wellbeing as a badly fallen hero. Yes, heroes are dangerous things to have.The only thing more dangerous is not to have them.Heroes raise the bar we jump and hold high the standards we live by. They are ever-present tattoos on our psyche, the embodiment of all we’re striving to be.We create our heroes from our hopes and dreams. And then they attempt to create us in their own image.The saying, “The sun never sets on the British Empire” was true as recently as 1937 when tiny England did, in fact, still have possessions in each of the world’s 24 time zones.It’s widely known that the British explored, conquered and ruled much of the world for a number of years, but what isn’t widely known is what made them believe they could do it.For the first 1000 years after Christ, Greece and Rome were the only nations telling stories of heroes and champions. England was just a dreary little island of rejects, castoffs and losers.So who inspired tiny, foggy England to rise up and take over the world?A simple Welsh monk named Geoffrey – hoping to instill in his countrymen a sense of pride – assembled a history of England that gave his people a grand and glorious pedigree. Published in 1136, Geoffrey’s “History of the Kings of Britain,” was a detailed, written account of the deeds of the English people for each of the 17 centuries prior to 689 AD… and not a single word of it was true. Yet in creating heroes like King Arthur, Guinevere, Merlyn and the Knights of the Round Table from the fabric of his imagination, Geoffrey of Monmouth convinced a sad little island of rejects, castoffs and losers to begin seeing themselves as a just and magnificent nation.And not long after they began to see themselves that way in their minds, they began seeing themselves that way in the mirror.Most people assume that stories of heroes are the byproducts of great civilizations, but I’m convinced they are the cause of them. Magnificent civilizations have always been the ones with stories of heroes; larger-than-life role models that inspired ordinary citizens to rise up and do the impossible.I love imaginary heroes like King Arthur and Don Quixote.I love civilian heroes like Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King.I love political heroes like Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt.But what happens when your hero is a fool?I pray we never find out.Roy H. Williams

Memories of PercyAugust 1, 2016ListenAHis gifts didn’t prove that he was rich. His gifts proved that he cared. And the smallness of his gifts proved that I could afford to care, too.My long friendship with Percy began exactly 30 years ago when I saw him on the cover of a magazine as it lay on a coffee table in a friend’s house. He was a smiling gentleman sitting on a desk stacked with bags of money. The headline read, “Why is Percy Ross Giving Away $20,000,000?”In the feature story, author Steven Kaplan explained how Percy Ross employed a small team of people to read the 4,000 letters he received each week asking him for financial help. A few of these letters got published each week – along with his response – in the 800+ newspapers that carried his syndicated column, “Thanks a Million.”Paragraph 38 quoted Percy as saying that he had engaged two large advertising firms to help him turn his column into a radio show only to be told by each of them that it wasn’t feasible.The week after I read that story, his readers had to plow through 4,001 letters because I decided to add my own letter to the pile.Mr. Ross, I don’t want or need any of your money, but I read in Robb Report magazine that you wanted to syndicate a daily radio feature. I’ve done this 4 times already, so I’m familiar with the problems your people ran into and I know the ways around all those problems. Give me a call at your convenience and I’ll tell you everything you need to know. I look forward to hearing you on the radio!”I received a phone call and a plane ticket to Minneapolis. Percy picked me up at the airport, and as we were walking shoulder-to-shoulder toward his car I said,Mr. Ross, in about an hour and a half you’re going to know absolutely everything you need to know to get “Thanks a Million” on several hundred radio stations for free. As a matter of fact, you should be able to make a few tens of thousands of dollars a month from it. What I need you to understand is that I’m fully aware that I’m about to make myself obsolete. Not only will you not need to hire me to help you, you won’t need to hire anyone else, either.“Why would you do that?” he asked.“If this was the only valuable idea that I was ever going to have, I’d do my best to monetize it. But it seems to me that each of us will encounter more valuable opportunities in a single day than we could possibly pursue in a lifetime. But today isn’t work. Today I’m just helping you help others.”Five, six, seven, eight, nine steps and still Percy hadn’t said anything. So I looked to my left.And he wasn’t there.Spinning around I saw him standing quietly in the parking lot, staring at me. He had stopped in his tracks while I was talking. We stood looking at each other a few moments, then he said,How old are you, son?”“Twenty-eight, sir.”“I was fifty years old before I figured that out.”About 90 minutes later Percy said with a smile,Roy, I’m really glad you told me what you did in the parking lot of the airport because if you hadn’t, right now I’d be thinking you were the most naive and careless young man who had ever lived. You were right! I don’t need anyone’s help to do this. Not even yours. You have given me something I tried to buy and could not. And that doesn’t happen to me very often.”Within 6 months, Percy was on 584 radio stations for free, including WNBC in New York city, a station whose ads sold for $1,000 apiece 30 years ago.When Percy died on November 10, 2001, his Los Angeles Times obituary began with these words,Percy Ross, the Minnesota junk dealer’s son who made and lost 3 fortunes but found his greatest joy in doling out silver dollars from the money he kept while smiling for the cameras, has died. He was 84.Ross, author of the syndicated advice and cash giveaway column “Thanks a Million” from 1983 to 1999 and host of a companion radio show, died of natural causes Nov. 10 at his home in Minneapolis.Often delivering checks personally, Ross gave $200 or $300 to fix a leaky roof, replace a stolen artificial arm or buy new lingerie for an elderly woman embarrassed to die in her worn-out underwear. He freely handed a silver dollar to anybody who interviewed or photographed him and to many who wrote.But he minced no words in rejecting requests that he pay rent, medical or utility bills or credit card debts–all something he believed the debtor should pay himself.“You know my motto, don’t you?” he told a Times interviewer in 1987. “He who gives while he lives knows where it goes. . . . I’m having a ball, the time of my life.”My favorite Percy moment was his response to a woman who spoke of her impoverished old mother who had nine adult children, all of whom were as poor as she was.Mama’s only pleasure is growing flowers but she can’t grow them in the winter. Right now the lumber yard has a greenhouse kit for just $400 and my brothers could build it in her backyard if you would only buy it for her.”Percy’s response was priceless.Yes! Your mother deserves that greenhouse and I want her to have it! I’m going to pretend that she had 10 kids and I’m number 10. I definitely want Mom to have that greenhouse but I’ve never in my life met anyone in America who couldn’t come up with 40 dollars for Mama. My 40 is enclosed. Please tell the others that we’ll be able to buy Mama’s greenhouse as soon as they contribute 40 dollars each.”Percy has been gone for 15 years but there’s rarely a week when I don’t think of him and smile.What Percy taught me is that each of us – no matter how little cash we have – is able to bring joy and comfort to others, if only we take time to care.Shine your light into the darkness.Roy H. Williams

The reason people write poorly is because they read too many blogs, tweets, news stories and Facebook posts.As you read, so will you write.Maxwell Rotbart. the son of roving reporter Rotbart, asked me to name 10 books he should read. When I asked the purpose of this reading, Maxwell said, “I just want to know what great writing sounds like.”“Do you want to read the best stories or do you want to read the best writing?”“I want to read the best writing.”I quickly named 7 books before I began to struggle. Dozens of others were flickering through my mind, but they were mostly examples of great storytelling, employing marvelous narrative arcs and character arcs. But my list was to be about great writing: sentence construction, word selection, vivid description and an intriguing sequencing of mental images. Every style of great writing I could think of was already represented on my list.Indiana Beagle saved me. “Wizard,” he said, “let me ask the rabbit hole tribe to name the last 3 books.”“So let it be written,” I said, “So let it be done.”Indy snickered in that way he does when he knows I’m being pompous.Anyway, here’s my list:Travels with Charley – John SteinbeckEast of Eden is a better story, but Charley will teach you more about writing. Let Steinbeck show you how to unveil a mental image from an interesting perspective, restrain yourself from saying too much, and delight your reader with unexpected observations and connections. A second example of a well written book-without-a-plot is Steinbeck: A Life in Letters, the personal letters written by John Steinbeck to his friends between 1923 and 1968.The Poetry of Robert FrostFrost communicates bigger ideas in fewer words than any other writer I have ever read. Let him teach you the power of metaphor, the magic of meter (rhythm,) and the use of the perfect word.At his simplest, his most rhythmical and cryptic, Frost is a remarkable poet. He is surely that. In other words, if you were chopping wood, that chore had some kind of universal significance to Frost. If you were picking apples, this has a general conclusive principle somewhere involved in it, or with it, in some way. This localizing way of getting generalities to reveal themselves, like universal design, original sin, love, death, fate: Frost found a way to do this, to make anything that has ever concerned mankind relate to a New England farm.”– James Dickey, Classes on Modern Poets and The Art of Poetry, p. 126One Summer: America, 1927 – Bill BrysonSome of the best advice I offer writers is this: “Take your inspiration from wherever you find it, no matter how ridiculous.” Bill Bryson is the world’s best example of this. It is impossible not to be devastated by his fascinating choices of subject matter, his deep research, obvious restraint and amazing phrasing.The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest HemingwayThis very short book put Hemingway over the top to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Let Ernest teach you how simple observations, clearly stated, have impact.Hawaii – James MichenerMichener will teach you patience and attention to detail. If objective reality and clarity are your goals as a writer, Michener and Hemingway are the voices you want echoing in your mind as you write.One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia MarquezMagical Realism isn’t fantasy or science fiction. It is the straight-faced, deadpan inclusion of magical or unreal elements in an otherwise realistic or mundane environment. And no one does it better than Gabriel Garcia Marquez. This is the opening line.Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to see ice.”Still Life with Woodpecker – Tom RobbinsOn the third day of the Magical Worlds Communications Workshop, we teach chaotic writing. No one explains it better than Tom Robbins.Everything in the universe is connected, of course. It’s just a matter of using imagination to discover the links, and language to expand and enliven them… I always start with three or four completely unrelated big ideas, and maybe a character or two who have ostensible connections neither to each other nor to any of the big ideas… I never begin with more than the vaguest idea of the plot. To pull that off with an acceptable degree of artistry, one must write very, very slowly … and be able to hold a great many things in one’s mind.”“It went ‘whoosh’ as it shot by, a sleek panatela of frozen light, pulsating with polka dots of every color, traveling, a mere thousand feet or so above the water, at incredible speed and mopping up the last of the sunset as if it were a bar rag from outer space.”– Tom Robbins, describing a UFO in Still Life With WoodpeckerAre you surprised that Don Quixote was not on my list? Pop into the rabbit hole and Indy will tell you why.Want to become a better writer?You’ve got some reading to do.Roy H. Williams