I recently sent you two memos about our need for positive hope.

“Hollywood’s Broken Angel” was the true story of a woman who desperately needed a friend to encourage her.

“Hope and a Future” explained how easy it is to recharge the emotional batteries of a friend whose light has dimmed.

Positive hope crackles with the vibrant energy of life itself. It radiates honesty, openness, forgiveness, acceptance, optimism, loyalty and love.

Positive hope illuminates the heart and drives away the darkness.

But there is also such a thing as negative hope. It promises salvation but delivers only hubris, which is desperation disguised as confidence.

Negative hope is attractive, addictive, and cruel.

Gamblers sitting around a poker table are the perfect portrait of negative hope. They ride a rollercoaster of elation and despair but tell themselves they have a system.

A second portrait of negative hope is a lottery ticket, a receipt issued by the government to citizens who pay a voluntary tax because they believe in lucky numbers and are extremely bad at math.

Bernie Madoff was a salesman of negative hope. He wore the mask of a self-made billionaire, but behind that mask was a desperate little con man who stole money from innocent people who believed they had been admitted into the inner circle of a genius who had a secret system.

The world is full of elegant and attractive people who sell negative hope. One of them will sell you a worthless education by promising you a better-paying job. Another will sell you a garage full of crap by convincing you of the miracle of multilevel marketing. A third will sell you the promise of inner peace by convincing you they have it, and that it can be transferred to you for money.

Negative hope is attractive, but you can easily recognize it now that you know what to look for.

I’m really glad we got that out of the way because now I’ve got some great news for you: inner peace is real.

And here’s some even better news: you can have it for free, no strings attached.

Inner peace is honesty, openness, forgiveness, acceptance, optimism, loyalty and love. All of these can be yours for free. But first you have to give them away.

It is a simple but fascinating system. The more you give these 7 things to others, the more richly they accumulate in you.

Five hundred and eleven Christmases have come and gone since Giovanni Giocondo sent his Christmas letter to a friend in 1513. It said, “No peace lies in the future that is not hidden in this present little instant. Take peace!”

Likewise, I say to you, inner peace is hidden in this present little instant.

Reach out and take it. It’s yours.

Roy H. Williams

When roving reporter Rotbart was a financial columnist with The Wall Street Journal, he met a young man named Steve Jobs who left a lasting impression on him. “When I spoke with Jason Schappert,” Rotbart says, “it felt like I was talking with Steve Jobs again.” Jason Schappert recently launched an AI-powered investment platform for middle-class consumers, providing the same insights and tools typically reserved for the ultra-rich. Today you have an opportunity to learn from Jason Schappert about how to identify opportunities, make bold decisions, and leverage your passion as roving reporter Rotbart meets with him at MondayMorningRadio.com

Fifty years ago, I was a teenager with an unreliable automobile. But that’s never a problem for an Oklahoma boy who has knowledge, tools, and daylight.

My knowledge and tools were always with me, but the daylight disappeared at the worst possible time, no matter how badly I needed it.

Cell phones had not yet been invented.

When the batteries in my flashlight died, nothing could be seen but the desperation, defeat, and despair of a boy at the side of the road trying to repair a car in the darkness.

Any person who stopped to help me with a bright beam of light seemed like an angel sent from God.

People who are lost, lonely and frightened are all around us but we seldom see them because fear, sadness, and despair look exactly like preoccupation, concentration, and distraction. This is how people in pain disappear into the scenery around us.

But sometimes the beam of light within you will reveal a person directly in front of you who needs your help. Will you pass by on the other side of the road, or will you stop and share your light?

I’m not just talking about random strangers. I’m talking about people whose names you know, people who are already in your life; coworkers, colleagues and employees who are walking with an invisible limp, people whose sunlight has receded below the horizon.

You can shine some light into their darkness:

1. Find a moment when it is just the two of you.
2. Look at them and say their name.
3. Say, “Do you know what I’ve always admired about you?”
4. Describe specific moments that quietly impressed you.
5. Tell them the truth about themselves. Remind them of who they are, and how much they matter, and why they belong.

This is often all it takes to recharge a person’s batteries and help them get their motor running again. When you shine your light into their heart, you elevate their hope and brighten their future.

The mark of a strong leader who is deeply loved is that they lift up the people around them by speaking the encouraging truth into their lives, regardless of whether a person needs it or not.

It is a gift that is always welcome.

Roy H. Williams

“Leadership is not a static trait but an evolving journey,” says Bob Kaplan, a high-level management expert with over three decades of experience. “Even ‘born leaders,’ need training, desire, and experience to achieve real greatness,” he says, and then he adds, “The most challenging people to manage are always the leaders themselves.” Bob Kaplan believes CEOs and other C-suite executives should continually invite feedback — good and bad — and then concentrate on eliminating their shortcomings as they continually refine their skills. Hey! Do you want to run with the big dogs or stay on the porch? Roving reporter Rotbart says he will begin his interview of Bob Kaplan the moment you arrive at MondayMorningRadio.com. Aroo!

Her name was Lillian Millicent Entwistle, “Peg” to her friends. She was born in 1908.

At the age of 19, Peg married Robert Keith, 10 years older than she. Then she discovered that he had been married before and had a 6 year-old son. The couple was soon divorced.

“I’ll move to a new place and get a new start,” she thought. “Goodbye, New York. Hello, L.A. I’m going to become an actress.”

But hopes and dreams are fragile things and hearts are easily broken.

At the age of 24 “She decided she’d failed,” says David Wallace, author of Hollywoodland. “She was very dejected and one day in 1932 she came up to the Hollywood sign, found a maintenance ladder by the ‘H,’ climbed up to the top and presumably took one last look over the city she had failed to conquer, and jumped.”

Her body was discovered two days later by a hiker.

A handwritten note was found in her purse. “I am afraid I am a coward. I am sorry for everything. If I had done this a long time ago, it would have saved a lot of pain.”

A letter arrived at her home on the same day her body was discovered. It was from The Beverly Hills Playhouse. They wanted her to star in their next production.

Are you ready for this? It was to be a play about a young girl who loses all hope and commits suicide in the final act.

Peg, if only you could’ve hung on. Things are never as bad as they seem. But now all we have left of you is a photograph and a note.

Remember that 6-year-old son of Robert Keith you heard about in the second paragraph?

That boy, Brian Keith, grew up to be a famous actor, best known for his role as “Uncle Bill” on the hit TV show, “Family Affair.” He also played the perfect Teddy Roosevelt opposite Sean Connery in “The Wind and the Lion,” (1975).

I have seen that movie 14 times. Brian Keith made Teddy Roosevelt come alive for me.

Brian Keith shot himself in 1997.

Yes, hopes and dreams are fragile things and hearts are easily broken.

Be gentle with the hearts that have been entrusted to you.

Roy H. Williams

Mike Frick started a side hustle as a way to help his college-student son earn extra cash. Today that business sells its products nationwide to construction sites, quarries, farms, mines, and the US military. “Our products are simple, durable, and cost effective,” Mike tells roving reporter Rotbart. In spite of heavy competition from Chinese knock-offs, Mike and his company continue to thrive by manufacturing their products only in America. It’s a story of focus, humility, and fantastic success. Because that’s how we roll at MondayMorningRadio.com.

I asked Google, “What are thoughts made of?”

Google said, “According to current scientific understanding, thoughts are essentially made up of electrical signals generated by the firing of neurons in the brain, which communicate with each other through chemical messengers called neurotransmitters; essentially, a thought is a complex pattern of neural activity within the brain, triggered by sensory input, memories, and other factors.”

Google’s answer to my question is true, but it isn’t useful. My goal is to place a thought into the mind of another person. I want to change what they are thinking and feeling.

In 2003 I proposed a theory that has come to be known as “The 12 Languages of the Mind.” It explains how thoughts are constructed from pre-thought particles.

Stay with me. This is about to get interesting.

A neuron is a nerve cell, the basic unit of the nervous system. It is responsible for sending and receiving electrical signals. A synapse is the tiny gap between two neurons. This is where information is transferred from one neuron to another through the release of chemical messengers called neurotransmitters. Essentially, a neuron is the cell itself, and a synapse is the connection point between two neurons where communication occurs.

Sounds a little bit like a computer, doesn’t it?

A computer is of little value without an operating system.

The 12 Languages of the Mind are the operating system of the brain.

Let’s look at it another way.

We know that all the matter in the universe is made from just 3 primaries: protons, neutrons, and electrons. These form atoms, the smallest units of matter.

Atoms of elements combine to create molecules of compounds; two atoms of hydrogen plus one atom of oxygen create a single molecule of water, H2O.

There are 118 different kinds of atoms organized in The Periodic Table of the Elements. We can create new substances because we now understand the constituent components that underlie all the matter in the universe.

Just as protons, neutrons, and electrons can be arranged to form matter, The 12 Languages of the Mind can be arranged to communicate thoughts and trigger the emotions, opinions, and reactions that follow those thoughts.

Symbols are one of The 12 languages of the Mind. Motion is another.

Hydrogen + Oxygen = Water.

Symbol + Motion = Ritual.

Our material universe is created from just 3 primaries.

Likewise, all the colors we see are created from just 3 primaries, red, yellow, and blue in subtractive color, red, yellow, and blue in subtractive color. But red, green, and blue in additive color. It depends on whether your eye is absorbing the light waves, which is additive, or whether you are seeing reflected light from a substance that has absorbed part of the light spectrum. That is called subtractive color.

Created from 12 primaries, how much bigger is the universe of your mind?

Your body contains about a 100 million sensory receptors that allow you to see, feel, taste, hear, and smell physical reality. But your brain contains about 10,000 billion synapses. This means you are approximately 100,000 times better equipped to experience a world that does not exist, than a world that does. It is these 10,000 billion synapses that allow us to imagine a better future, or a worse one. .

Created from 12 primaries, how much bigger is the universe of your mind!

Every form of human expression is created from the 12 Languages of the Mind.

Using them unconsciously is talent. Using them consciously is skill.

Communication is fun and persuasion is simple when you understand the building blocks of the mind.

I will spend 15 or 20 minutes explaining in some detail The 12 Languages of the Mind to the people in Tuscan Hall on March 17th, and I’m doing it for free. Altogether, it will be a 4-hour, free tutorial.

If you want to attend that 4-hour tutorial in Austin on March 17th, just go to powerselling.com and you’ll see a little RSVP invitation. Fill it out. Boom! You’re registered.

It will rock your world. It will make you money.

But perhaps you have something better to do.

Roy H. Williams

Terry Whalin is a rock star among book publishers. He has written more than 60 mainstream books, including a popular biography of Billy Graham, and now Terry serves as an acquisitions editor for a highly-regarded book publishing house, coaching business owners and entrepreneurs into becoming famous authors. This week, Terry reveals the naked truths — good and bad — that all would-be authors need to know before they sit down at their keyboards in search of fame and glory. Roving reporter Rotbart is at the wheel, and his deputy, Maxwell, is riding shotgun. Hang on tight. Things are about to get crazy at MondayMorningRadio.com.

The Wizard Academy tower sits on a plateau 900 feet above the city of Austin. The view from the stardeck is stunning.

When you attend our free public seminar on the afternoon of March 17, you will be in Tuscan Hall just 500 feet from the tower. If you have some extra time on campus, perhaps Dave Young will be willing to press the button that lifts you from the underground art gallery up to the stardeck so that you can look around.

This is what I will teach you in Tuscan Hall:

1. How to create a magnetic personality for your brand. It’s easier than you think.
2. How to use personification to breathe life into all your corporate communications, beginning with your advertising.
3. How to use character banter and magical thinking to help customers understand that your company has beliefs, values, motives, can make choices, and that it has life.
4. How to gather these techniques into an operating plan that will integrate this magnetic new personality into every touchpoint of your business.
5. How to measure the trajectory and momentum of your rejuvenated brand.

You’re going to have a good time. I will include lots of examples of PowerSelling ads that have lifted people to new heights.

Q: PowerSelling. What is it?

A: PowerSelling is an advertising technique that makes your name the one people think of first – and feel the best about – when they need what you sell.

Q: Does it work for B2B? (Business to Business)

A: Not really. B2B requires tight targeting and significantly more logic than is required to win the hearts of the public. [NOTE: If today’s memo feels different than the typical Monday Morning Memo, it is because this is probably the first example of B2B writing that you have ever seen me write. Are you noticing the additional logic? – RHW]

Q: Does it work for Direct Response offers?

A: No. Direct Response offers are built almost entirely on features and benefits, the so-called “value proposition,” enhanced by an urgent call-to-action, usually with a final bit of “added value” if you “act now.”

Q: So what’s it good for?

A: PowerSelling is for products and services that have a long purchase cycle and a relatively high price tag; things like diamond engagement rings, legal services, medical services, and home services like plumbing, air conditioning, roofing, and electrical. PowerSelling is strictly B2C (Business to Consumer) and it almost always employs mass media; television or radio, sometimes with billboards added.

Q: Will there be recordings made, or perhaps a livestream?

A: Sorry, but no. The Wizards of Ads® have little desire to debate – or educate – a world full of traditional ad writers that have been trained on the tripe that is taught in college.*

You are going to learn the explosive techniques that will make your advertising leap off the launchpad with fire and smoke as you begin your journey to the stars. You will feel your acceleration grow to the point where your cheeks are pulled back and your eyes become slits as the corners of your mouth touch your earlobes.

Or maybe you are just smiling.

If you are ready for the ride of your life, be in Austin on March 17th.

Roy H. Williams

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“Running a big company is like running a zoo, and that’s good news!” Terry Rich led the Des Moines Zoo from a $600,000 deficit to profitability. He did this by focusing on the visitor experience and creating innovative events to attract new customers. Rich was then asked to take over as CEO of the Iowa Lottery.

Soon, he was president of the North American Lottery Association and a Powerball board member. Listen and learn as Terry fascinates roving reporter Rotbart and deputy Maxwell with colorful anecdotes about how he discovered the hidden value in elephant poop. Turn up the volume when he talks about action plans that you can use. Find out how he cracked the largest lottery fraud in US history. Go to MondayMorningRadio.com

Your heart tells you who you are. Your heart contains all your beliefs.

PowerSelling radiates outward from the pulsating fact that people don’t bond with companies; people bond with people; personalities that share their beliefs.

Your company needs a personality if you want your customers to feel a connection to it. Does your company have a personality?

Are you communicating that personality in your advertising?

Personification puts the power in PowerSelling.

When you speak about something that cannot think as though it can think, you are using the art of personification.

“The shattered water made a misty din.

Great waves looked over others coming in

and thought of doing something to the shore

that water never did to land before.”

When you speak about something that cannot ask questions as though it can ask questions, you are using personification.

“My little horse must think it queer

to stop without a farmhouse near

between the woods and frozen lake

the darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake

to ask if there is some mistake.”

When you speak about something that cannot move as though it can move, you are using the art of personification.

“It rained endlessly and the forests wept.

The darkness fell and the trees moved closer.”

When you can breathe life into something that is not alive, you are a god.

Robert Frost and John Steinbeck were able to provide us with those examples of personification because they are Nobel Prize-winning writers. But we couldn’t write like that, could we?

“Your house will giggle with glee when it sees the smart thermostat you bought for it.”

Your logical mind tells you that your customers wouldn’t fall for that, but they’ve been falling for it all their lives. Superman is merely ink on a page or pixels on a screen, but your customers know that Superman can fly, squeeze a lump of coal into a diamond, and that he is in love with Lois Lane.

The book of Genesis tells us that God spoke our universe into existence, then it tells us that we are made in the image of God.

Did it ever occur to you that you speak new worlds into existence in the minds of others every time you describe a possible future?

Personification is powerful because it uses magical thinking to open a portal into that world of imagination where hope is alive and well and singing in the shower, where the glass slipper fits the foot of Cinderella, and a wooden puppet named Pinocchio becomes a real live human boy.

I am now going to shake you by the shoulders to wake you up. What I am about to say is hard to hear, but I am saying it because I love you: If you believe a brand is a logo, a color palette, a slogan, a visual style guide, and a company name that people have heard of, then your company is just another dreary, drab, and bland corporation in an ocean of bland corporations. Your company has no soul.

Remember: People don’t bond with companies; people bond with personalities that share their beliefs.

PowerSelling happens when you win the customer’s heart, knowing that their mind will follow. Their mind will always create logic to justify what their heart has already decided.

This is what you must learn to do if you want to create a bond with your customers:

1. Breathe life into your company through the skillful use of personification in all your corporate communications, beginning with your advertising.
2. Employ magical thinking to deepen the public perception that your company has beliefs, values, motives, can make choices, and that it has life.
3. Bond with customers who believe in the same things that your company believes in.
4. Create a magnetic personality for your brand.
5. (If you can name the highly conflicted defining characteristics that animate your brand and cause it to think, speak, act, and see the world the way it does, then you have studied under David Freeman or you learned it at Wizard Academy, where David taught it to the Wizards of Ads.)

If you are a business owner, I will show you how to do all 4 of these things for free.

Start the New Year right. Spend an afternoon with me.

Roy H. Williams

After 28 years as a cornerstone of Fox News and Fox Business, Neil Cavuto, 66, made headlines with his unexpected resignation. Roving reporter Rotbart has known Neil since the beginning; the whole 28 years. This week, hear the first-ever podcast airing of a 2020 conversation Rotbart had with Cavuto and hear about Neil’s blueprint for success — quick lessons in determination, adaptability, and excellence that you will be able to immediately apply. It’s a behind-the-scenes, friend-to-friend look at one of business journalism’s most iconic figures. Where else, but MondayMorningRadio.com?

Curiosity is a beagle running through the forest with its nose to the ground.

Curiosity is the cure for boredom. There is no cure for curiosity.

Curious, I asked, “How did the Kardashians become famous?” I wish I hadn’t.

“Through different ventures, several members of the family have assets of over $1 billion. Kim Kardashian became a celebrity in 2007, after selling a pornographic film featuring ex-boyfriend, singer Ray J, which enabled the family to rise to stardom.” – Google

The reason I asked Google, “How did the Kardashians become famous?” is because I was talking with a client last week when I said, “Vulnerability – letting people see you ‘real’ – is the only currency that can purchase real trust.” Then I spontaneously added, “You have to choose between being vulnerable or going full Kardashian.”

I thought I had invented a new phrase, but as it turns out, “going full Kardashian” was already a thing.

Google has its own definition of what it means to “go full Kardashian,” and Indy posted that list in the rabbit hole for you.

But this is my list:

1. If you believe, “Whoever dies with the most toys, wins,” you are in danger of going full Kardashian.

People are more important than possessions.

1. If you believe that looking good is more important than doing good, you are in danger of going full Kardashian.

Beauty, fame, and wealth are outside your skin. Kindness, generosity, and joy are within.

1. If you believe it’s okay to do things that are unethical, immoral, and destructive as long as you are doing nothing illegal, you are in danger of going full Kardashian.

A society grows great when old people plant trees under whose shade they will never sit.

I try to surround myself with tree planters. Jeremy Grigg is one of them.

In our weekly Friday gathering of like-minded men, Jeremy said,

“When a business is evaluating whether or not they can trust you, the attributes they are measuring are, 1. Ability, 2. Integrity, and 3. Benevolence. These are their unspoken questions: ‘Are you good at your job?’ ‘Will you tell me the truth?’ ‘Are you truly trying to help me?’ Most of us focus on ability to the exclusion of integrity and benevolence. After all, when you are petitioning to win work, you want to make sure that the person who can do it for you is actually competent at their job. But in the longer term, honoring your promises, which is integrity and most importantly, giving a damn about the success of what they’re trying to achieve is what really determines whether you are the sort of long-term partner that they’re looking for.”

Jeremy is an international consultant to multibillion-dollar IT services companies.

Natalie Doyle Oldfield studies the drivers of customer loyalty and business growth. She says that half of all customers are willing to pay more for the same product or service if the seller has earned their trust. According to Natalie, “Trust is the critical value that top companies rely on to secure their market dominance and drive their growth.”

I know for a fact that what Natalie is saying is true.

I’ve been helping people do it for more than 40 years.

Roy H. Williams

This week, roving reporter Rotbart and deputy Maxwell offer a holiday treat for Monday Morning Radio listeners: a reading of A Christmas Day Miracle, the true story of a man on death’s doorstep, and what happens to him next. This happy holiday story was discovered and written by Dean and Talya Rotbart, and the audio presentation of it will magically begin the moment you arrive at MondayMorningRadio.com.

Last week’s Monday Morning Memo included a photograph of a diamond pendant and the promise of a $1,000 cash prize to whoever could use AI to write the 60-second radio ad that would sell the largest number of that pendant for Valentine’s Day.

I was given that photo by a jewelry client. In a moment we will look at the 60-second radio ad I wrote for the client before I issued the AI prompter challenge. But first, here are 10 things I have learned from the advertising results (and lack of results) I have seen during my 40 years as an ad writer.

1. The most effective ads don’t sound like ads.
2. Most jewelry ads are filled with cliches and schmaltz.
3. The Large Language Models used by AI are educated by the most often used phrases.
4. This is why jewelry ads written by AI are filled with cliches and schmaltz.
5. Most of the ads written by AI are better than what the average citizen would write.
6. The average citizen has not received specific data about the results delivered by each of the thousands of ads they have written during the past 40 years.
7. My challenge to AI prompters included a photograph of the pendant, but none of the ads written by AI were specific to that pendant.
8. Specifics are more persuasive than generalities.
9. The non-specific ads written by AI sold only the idea of a diamond pendant; an idea that can be fulfilled by any diamond pendant sold by any jewelry store, anywhere.
10. Advertisers who use these “generalized” ads are not advertising for their store alone, but for all their competitors as well.

Q: Would the AI radio ads “work”?

A: If what you mean is, “Would they generate a result?” Then yes, but that result would not be the highest and best use of your ad dollars. Not by a long shot.

AI is great at a lot of things, but effective ad writing is not among them.

Radio cannot reveal visual images except in the imagination. That’s what makes radio the perfect medium to deliver this ad. It is the radio ad I wrote to sell that specific pendant:

JACOB:  David, have you seen it?

DAVID:  Oh yes! I’ve seen it.

JACOB:  What did it say to you?

DAVID:  There is only one thing it CAN say.

JACOB: Sometimes an artist will say something incredibly specific without using any words at all.

DAVID:  We’ve all heard music that can tell a story without words.

JACOB: And we’ve all seen paintings that can tell a story without words.

DAVID:  But this time a jewelry designer did it.

JACOB: The moment you see it, you know what it is saying.

DAVID: I understood the message immediately.

JACOB: [slowly] “The long and the short of it is we’re in this together.”

DAVID:  “The long and the short of it is we’re in this together.”

JACOB:  It has wit, and whimsy, and humor, and warmth

DAVID: and commitment.

JACOB:  It made me smile when I saw it.

DAVID: Me, too.

MONICA: [SFX cell phone ring] Hello.

SARAH:  Did they see it?

MONICA:  Oh yes, they saw it.

SARAH: Did they understand it?

MONICA:  Even my little brother David saw the love in it.

DEVIN:  See the Life Partner diamond pendant at [name of client.com.]

MONICA:  Just 99 dollars. [SFX scream]

© 2024, Roy H. Williams

The secret of effective ads is to engage the imagination of the customer by enticing them to fill in what you have intentionally left out.

After hearing that 60-second radio ad, the curiosities of a huge number of listeners will drive them to my client’s website to see the pendant and solve the mystery of how the pendant “says” what it says.

To indicate that an inanimate object can speak is personification: the attribution of human abilities to an inanimate object. Personification instantly takes the mind of a reader, listener, or viewer into a world where anything is possible.

You are evesdropping on two conversations. Your imagination is called upon to figure out what these people are talking about. Two of the people say the pendant communicates a specific message without words. That message is, “The long and the short of it is we’re in this together.”

The pendant is called “The Life Partner Diamond Pendant.”

Do you remember observation number 8 on my list of 10 observations? “Specifics are more persuasive than generalities.” The specific message of that pendant is based upon specific elements in the design. Today’s AI isn’t going to extract that message by examining the symbolic elements of the pendant. It currently takes a human to do that.

Symbolic elements are the essence of great art, great literature, and great advertising. A symbolic phrase that is used often enough to come to the attention of AI is, by definition, a cliche.

Without the aid of an observant human who can see the symbolic meanings that a computer cannot detect, AI can give you little more than cute scenarios where you give a woman a piece of jewelry and it makes her happy because it shows her that you care. And if the subject matter is romantic, AI will cover your ad with cliches and schmaltz like a kid putting syrup on pancakes on Saturday morning. AI will do this because the public archives are full of jewelry ads that sound like they were extracted from a Hallmark movie.

If you want ads that sound like ads, just ask your favorite AI to spit some out for you. But if you want ads that are new, surprising, and different, you’re going to need more help than a computer can give you.

AI might be able to write exceptional ads in the future, but that future is not today.

I asked AI to look at all the AI-written ads that were submitted and choose a winner.

To see the radio ad that AI swears is the best, click the image of Alfie the Elf at the top of this page. The person who asked AI to write that ad will receive $1,000.

SUMMARY: If you are not an experienced, professional ad writer and cannot afford to hire one, AI can write ads for you that are equal to what you would get from a highly talented 19-year-old.

If you know a highly talented 20-year-old, perhaps you should give them a call instead.

Roy H. Williams

NOTE: Steve Huff got an email this week that will blow your mind. The wizard gave you enough information in today’s Monday Morning Memo to help you write significantly better AI prompts. But he did not tell you everything he knows. My name is Nonny Mouse and I am a member of the Tiny Tribe of Indy Beagle, emperor of the rabbit hole of the wizard’s Monday Morning Memo.

While most consultants focus on improving a company’s mechanics — sales, marketing, human resources, and the like — Charles Rose advises his clients on the best ways to unload the personal baggage that limits their bottom line and personal satisfaction. Charles Rose built an e-commerce company and sold it for 10 million dollars. He has since spent the past 20 years instructing CEOs and entrepreneurs on all the different ways ways to strike a productive balance between business success and life satisfaction. Listen in as Charles explains to roving reporter Rotbart, “On the path to business fulfillment, you must examine every aspect of your life, including physical health, mental health, and personal relationships.” MondayMorningRadio.com

The General Social Survey has been conducted every second year since 1972 and the most recent one contained both good and bad news about us. 

GOOD NEWS: Our bonds with our families and friends are as strong as ever.

BAD NEWS: The bridges we once extended to strangers have collapsed.

Jesus talks about a socially unacceptable “Samaritan” man who sacrificed his time, energy, and money to help an unconscious stranger who had been robbed and left to die at the side of the road. According to Jesus, two different religious people had already seen the wounded man, but crossed over to the other side of the road so they could pretend they hadn’t seen him.

They saw a stranger in need and felt nothing.

Empathy – feeling the pain of others – is the price we pay for being fully human.

The internet promised to bring us closer together through instantaneous, worldwide, one-on-one communication.

But then came the algorithms, those digital sheepdogs that segregate us into echo chambers where every voice we hear sounds exactly like our own.

The easiest way to build an online audience – or a church – is to criticize and demonize “them,” the people who are “not like you… not like us.” Algorithms will help you do this. All you have to do is craft a message that says, “All the world’s problems are caused by ‘them,’ and it is up to ‘us’ to save the future, and America, and the world, from ‘them.'”

You don’t build bridges to people that you believe are “getting what they deserve.”

Generosity and Inclusion are the tools of peacemakers.

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” – Jesus

David Brooks recently posted a YouTube video that will make you feel wonderful and give you hope.

I hope you will invest the time to watch it. In fact, I challenge you to watch the first 3 minutes. The odds are extremely high that you will happily choose to watch the remaining 18 minutes.

That YouTube video is titled “David Brooks: Making People Feel Seen: How to Do It Right.”

I’m betting it will be your favorite 21 minutes of the week.

It will also be a signal to the algorithm that you are headed in a new direction.

Merry Christmas.

– Roy H. Williams

“If people looked at the stars each night, they’d live a lot differently. When you look into infinity, you realize that there are more important things than what people do all day.” – Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes 

John Steinbeck wrote a letter to Carlton Sheffield about a conversation he’d had with his wife, Elaine.

“Once I said to her, ‘I don’t want the barbarity of funeral for myself.’ And she said, ‘Don’t be silly. A funeral isn’t for the dead. You’ll simply be a stage set for a kind of festival, maybe. And besides, you won’t even be there.'”

– Steinbeck: A Life in Letters, p 829

Henry Fonda – one of the most famous actors of his generation – stood up at John Steinbeck’s funeral and recited a piece of a poem by Robert Louis Stevenson:

Bright is the ring of words

When the right man rings them,

Fair the fall of songs

When the singer sings them.

Still they are carolled and said –

On wings they are carried –

After the singer is dead

And the maker is buried.

– Robert Louis Stevenson

We know Henry Fonda spoke those words because Elaine Steinbeck, John’s wife, describes the scene in a letter to her friend, Jean Vounder-Davis.

What will people say when you are gone? Will memories of you ring like bells in the hearts you left behind?

How will you be remembered?

You cannot build a reputation on what you intend to do.

The saddest eulogy ever carved on a tombstone said, “He Had Potential.”

Will you be remembered for having a lot of money?

“You can have money stacked to the ceiling, but the size of your funeral will still depend on the weather.” – Chuck Tanner

Will you be remembered as a selfish person, or a generous one?

“We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.” – Winston Churchill

I have never seen a hearse pulling a U-Haul trainer.

“We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.” – Paul’s letter to Timothy, ch. 6

Will you be remembered as a critical person, or as an encourager?

“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” – Maya Angelou

There is nothing standing in the way of you being a different person today than you were yesterday. Do you remember what I wrote to you in last week’s Monday Morning Memo?

“Escaping the past is easy. The hard part is choosing to start over.”

If we make the right decision, we’ll have more to be thankful for next Thanksgiving than we did this year.

Ciao for Niao,

Roy H. Williams

Douglas Katz is a West Point graduate, a disabled Army veteran, and a culinary enthusiast (also known as a foodie.) Douglas, like many other people who suffer from limited mobility, struggled to use kitchen utensils that require upper extremity strength. Aided by an army of friends and military veterans, Doug retreated to his workshop to invent a new type of kitchen knife, the first in a series of “adaptive” kitchen products he plans to introduce. Doug is building a cutting-edge company (pun intended) dedicated to radical innovation and inclusive kitchen design. It’s happening and it’s happening right now, with roving reporter Rotbart and you at MondayMorningRadio.com.

The future is unknowable. The past is unrecoverable.

If you are anxious, you are living in the future.

Don’t live your life in an imaginary tomorrow. Find joy while it is still today.

If you are depressed, you are living in the past.

Escaping the past is easy. The hard part is choosing to start over.

Let me give you The Seven Secrets to Crystal Days:

1. Do not let the perfect become the enemy of the good.
2. “Perfectionism may look good in his shiny shoes but he’s a little bit of an asshole and no one invites him to their pool parties.” – Ze Frank
3. Good enough, by definition, is good enough.
4. Learn to celebrate the ordinary.
5. “Celebrate! Celebrate! Celebrate!” – Dewey Jenkins
6. Success and failure are temporary conditions.
7. “Do not let either of them define you.”
8. The most precious thing you can find is a friend.
9. “A friend is always loyal, a sibling that helps in times of trouble.”
10. Hatred is the only luxury more costly than an enemy.
11. “Hatred is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.”
12. All the little things in life add up to your life.
13. “If you don’t get it right, nothing else matters.”

Autumn is upon us. Cold air sweeps summertime over the hilltop fast and sharp like an old woman sweeping dust out a doorway. The dust washes the landscape with brown and orange, speckled with rusty red, the colors of old cars whose enamel has been erased by the rain in the junkyard of time.

I suspect Solomon wrote the book of Ecclesiastes in the autumn. You remember what he wrote, don’t you?

“Everything has its moment.

There is a moment of ripening and a moment of falling away.

A moment of being born and a moment of dying.

A moment of planting and a moment of harvest.

A moment of killing and a moment of healing.

A moment of destroying and a moment of building.

A moment of weeping and a moment of laughter.

A moment of sorrow and a moment of dancing.

A moment of scattering and a moment of gathering.

A moment of togetherness and a moment of distance.

A moment of finding and a moment of losing.

A moments of grasping and a moment of release.

A moment of ripping and a moment of sewing back together.

A moment of silence and a moment of speech.

A moment of love and a moment of hate.

A moment of fighting and a moment of peace.”

Autumn walks among us, quiet and invisible, like a Mexican ghost on the Day of the Dead.

This is the time of year when I become reflective.

Perhaps you do, too.

Roy H. Williams

Andrew Matthews has inspired more than 1,000 global corporations, including Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Honda, and Citibank. In addition to that, Andrew and his wife produce uplifting books that have sold over 8 million copies in 70 countries and 48 languages by presenting timeless wisdom in fresh, engaging ways. This week, Andrew reveals his creative process to roving reporter Rotbart and explains how anyone – even you – can use that process to connect, inspire, and succeed in every nation of the world. Wouldn’t this be a great day to stop and recharge your batteries at MondayMorningRadio.com?