One hundred and two years ago, Benito organized a March on Rome with the intention of forcing the king of Italy to yield the government to him. It worked, and Benito was appointed prime minister.

Thirty-two-year-old Antonio had a problem with that, and spoke out against Benito.

Benito got tired of Antonio’s criticism and had him thrown into prison, where he died 11 years later.

But while he was still with us, he wrote 30 notebooks containing more than 3,000 pages of history and analysis. The prison notebooks of Antonio Gramsci are considered by historians to be highly original contributions to 20th-century political theory.

Wizard Academy vice-chancellor Dave Young brought Antonio to my attention last week when he forwarded to me a glistening quote written by this shackled young writer:

“The old world is dying. And the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters.”

Those words of Antonio Gramsci dance and sting like honeybees, don’t they?

In return for his gift of Antonio Gramsci, I sent Dave a couple of the enthusiastic ramblings of American scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson:

“I will defend AD and BC, year of the Lord, AD, ‘Ano Domini,’ and BC, ‘Before Christ.’ I’ll defend the use of those because a lot of hard work went into creating that calendar – the Gregorian calendar – which is now used worldwide. It’s based on a Christian construct, but it had a lot of very interesting science that went in behind it.

I’m not just going to ‘swap out’ the words to dereligify it. I don’t mind leaving credit where it’s due.

I don’t know any atheist that still uses AD and BC. They use ‘Common Era,’ CE, and BCE, ‘Before Common Era.’

But who are they fooling? It’s the same numbers of years. They’re just trying to ‘paint over’ a religious reference.

I don’t have that much objection to the religious participation in civilization.”

But this next comment of Neil deGrasse Tyson serves as a sort of counterbalance to that first one:

“Ben Franklin was the world’s most famous scientist in his day. But he’s not remembered in America as that; he’s remembered as a founding father.

He invented the lightning rod.

What’s the tallest structure back then? The steeple makes the church the tallest structure in any city. What is the most susceptible to a lightning strike? The tallest structure. So lightning was taking out churches left and right, and if you were the other church that wasn’t taken out, you had good argument for saying the people in the church that burned down were worshiping in the wrong way.

Ben Franklin then invents the lightning rod, which does two things: It dissipates charges that build up under your structure that would otherwise be part of the lightning strike, and it sends them back into the air without the benefit of lightning. So that makes you less susceptible to begin with. And if the lightning strikes it, then it directs all of the charge through the metal and not through your house.

So Ben Franklin does this, and churches are no longer destroyed by lightning, even if they’re hit, and he’s accused of heresy for thwarting the will of God.”

Neil deGrasse Tyson is famous for his atheism but he vigorously defends the use of the Christian system of dating the history of the world in years that count backward and forward from the day that Jesus was born.

Benjamin Franklin doubted the divinity of Jesus, but he invented the lightning rod to make sure that churches did not burn down. And they accused him of heresy for it.*

As I consider articulate Antonio and bumbling Benito of Italy, I recall the words of a delightful American writer who was born in the same year Antonio was born. When she was accused of being too critical, the delightful Dorothy Parker responded:

“How could I possibly overthrow the government when I can’t even keep my dog down?”

Me...

As you round the corner and see your destination, the inconveniences of travel evaporate from your mind.

Poof. You are here now, and everything is new again.

Your children will carry the joy of this place wherever they go. The adventures we have for them are unimaginable.

Leave them with us. We promise they won’t miss you.

Everything you see here is real. This is not a Hollywood facade.

Now you understand why we don’t have to advertise.

You knew you were in love before you got here. Your partner knew it, too. But neither of you are prepared for the wonder of how deeply in love you really are.

Remember. We promise the kids won’t miss you.

It takes only about 20 seconds to read those 118 words, but they leave a hovering question mark that vibrates with curiosity. Where is this place? What is “Everything I see here…”? What caused me to experience “the wonder of how deeply in love I really am”?

I didn’t have to provide those details, because I knew you would.

“Begin with a happy outcome” is one of the secrets of the world’s best ad writers. You must illuminate the imagination of the customer and cause them to supply the details that you have no way of knowing. The customer is the star of a movie you are directing in their mind. Cause them to see themselves smiling joyfully. The hovering question mark that vibrates in their mind is called customer engagement. Lights. Camera. Action.

Great companies puts their energies into the creation of a process that will ensure the happiness of their customer.

Then they insist that their ad writers describe every detail of that process until there is nothing left to surprise and delight you. Until the customer desires the outcome, they have no interest in the process. If you want them to watch your movie, make sure it begins with a happy ending.

Several things were ungrammatical in my 118-word call-to-action,

one of which was a shift from past-tense to present-tense within a sequence of connected sentences. “You knew you were in love before you got here. Your partner knew it, too.” The past-tense verbs within those two sentences take you into a possible future and cause you to look back at an experience you have not yet had. Then I shifted into present-tense verbs. “But neither of you are prepared for the wonder of how deeply in love you really are.” Your mind is now imagining the experiences you will share at this place you have never been, and don’t know how to get to. I never said it was the most romantic spot on earth. You did.

Roy H. Williams

Duane Scott Cerny is an expert on dead people. (Or, more precisely, he is an expert at selling their possessions when they’re gone.) A best-selling author, music producer, lyricist, and newspaper columnist, Duane runs Chicago’s largest antiques mall and fully understands the formula for business success. Thanks to his ability to listen closely to his customers and adapt to ever-changing tastes, Duane is celebrating his mall’s 34th anniversary this year. “Not only is Duane business savvy,” says roving reporter Rotbart, “he is a born entertainer and storyteller. I had a marvelous time doing this interview.” The time is now. The place is MondayMorningRadio.com.

Calvin is looking up into a star-filled sky when he says to his tiger friend Hobbes,

“If people looked at the stars each night, I bet 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.”

My friends are Calvin. I am Hobbes.

Last week Hobbes was complaining to Jeffrey Eisenberg about his frustration with a company that had “upgraded” its website, making it impossible for Hobbes to buy what they were trying to sell. Jeffrey responded like Calvin,

“The only things that matter online are Motivation, Momentum, and Friction. It sounds like this company has introduced so much Friction into the buying process that your decision to purchase has lost its Momentum and your Motivation is about to disappear. Am I right?”

Jeffrey’s summary was so piercingly accurate that all I could do was vibrate my head up and down in a sort of big-eyed, high-frequency nod.

Motivation, Momentum, and Friction are the only three dials that matter on the e-commerce machine.

1. Turn the knobs of the first two dials all the way to the right.
2. Turn the knob of the third dial all the way to the left.
3. Stand under the spout where the money gushes out.
4. Enjoy being rich.

The next day I got a text from Tim Storm.

” I think this needs to be understood: We are literally time travelers.”

A few moments later, a second text appeared.

“I don’t use drugs, but that felt profound to realize.”

Tim is right, of course. Physically, we are 3-dimensional creatures traveling through a 4th dimension called time.

Friends say insightful things if you’re listening.

Perhaps the most impactful thing a friend ever shared with me happened 48 years ago. He said,

“Depression is unfocused despair. You can rise above it by trying to help someone else. When you see a person who is sad or worried or afraid, take a few minutes to encourage them. Forget about your own problems and focus on theirs. Find a person who needs help and help them! If they’re trying to carry something heavy, help them carry it. If they need someone to help them scrape bubblegum off the bottoms of school desks, help them do it. When you make a series of little differences, you win a series of little victories. Keep this up and the cloud over your head will fade away and the sun will shine again. This has always worked for me. Perhaps it will work for you, too.”

He was right. It has always worked for me.

Perhaps it will work for you, too.

His name was David. You would have liked him.

Roy H. Williams

Rock-hard sandstone used to be just plain old sand, the kind you see at the beach.

If you lie down on beach sand, you will leave your imprint on it.

But if you lie down on sandstone, it will leave its imprint on you.

Every person who starts a business hopes to leave their mark in the sand. If that businessperson is disciplined, committed, and consistent, their mark will become sandstone and leave its mark on future employees.

Did it ever occur to you that the processes and procedures, policies and warranties of a company are a direct reflection of the preferences and beliefs of the CEO?

Company culture, commitment, and camaraderie – or any lack thereof – are merely a reflection of the shape of that CEO.

Look closely at how a company’s employees are recruited, evaluated, motivated and compensated, and you will see the precise size and shape of that company’s CEO.

Listen to how a company’s employees talk about their job, their boss, their products, and their hopes for the future, and you will hear an audible echo of the soul of the CEO.

Companies don’t spring into existence on their own. They are born in the imagination of an entrepreneur when he or she lies down in the sand, then brought into reality through the magic of time, energy, and money. And if that company endures, every future customer will experience the values and beliefs and priorities of its long-ago CEO every time they interact with the company that CEO left behind.

You realize that I’m talking about more than just business owners and their businesses, don’t you?

I’m talking about grandparents and parents and their children and their children’s children and schools and religions and colleges and cultures and prisons and wars and the movies we make and the books we read and the hobbies to which we devote our time and money.

I’m talking our collective journey across the sands of time.

When you lie down on sand, you leave your imprint on it.

When you lie down on sandstone, it leaves it imprint on you.

Roy H. Williams

Peter Spitz is an MIT-trained chemical engineer and a renowned expert in petrochemicals. He holds seven patents and started a company that grew to $20 million in annual sales before being acquired by IBM. Peter’s most recent book is about the history of inventions.

When we turn on a television, use a computer, heat dinner in a microwave, open a refrigerator, drive a car, or take an antibiotic, we are using technologies that took root in the Industrial Revolution of England 300 years ago. Peter wasn’t around back then, but with a razor-sharp mind at 98 years of age, he has far-reaching insights on how to create successful inventions and how each of them will impact our modern world.

Sit back, turn up the volume and listen as deputy rover Maxwell Rotbart pulls a mesmerizing tale from the magical mind of Peter Spitz. Where else but MondayMorningRadio.com?

I don’t claim to speak for anyone but myself, and maybe it’s a generational thing, but America, to my way of thinking, is less of a place and more of a belief system; a way of looking at the world and the people in it.

Americans believe in opportunity and equality.

Americans believe, “Treat others as you would like others to treat you.”

Americans believe in defending the weak from the strong who would abuse them.

Americans believe in lifting people up, dusting them off, giving them a big smile and telling them to try again.

Americans don’t scare easily, and we don’t leave anyone behind.

Shortly after the Mayflower arrived at Plymouth Rock in 1620, men and women from every corner of the world began meeting here, mingling here, and producing mixed-race children here.

We’ve been doing it for 400 years.

This place has gathered people from every nation that has ever flown a flag. Some of these people came voluntarily. Others were brought here against their will. But none of that matters because children do not get to choose their parents.

Americans are not purebred showdogs. We are mixed-breed puppies born in a howling wilderness.

Alexander Hamilton was born out of wedlock on the island of Nevis in the Caribbean, but he came to this country and became one of its Founding Fathers. We have printed that man’s face on 27 billion ten-dollar bills and the Broadway play about his life was a stunning success.

That play, by the way, was written by an American whose DNA is Puerto Rican, Mexican, English, and African. His parents named him “Lin-Manuel” after a poem about the Vietnam War.

Is America portable? I believe it is. America is kindness and generosity.

If you believe in opportunity and equality, defending the weak, lifting people up, dusting them off, smiling and telling them to try again, you are an American.

If you don’t scare easily and don’t leave anyone behind, you are an American.

If you believe in love with its sleeves rolled up, you are an American.

Take America with you wherever you go.

Be an American today, okay?

Roy H. Williams

PS – Do you live outside the U.S.? Not one of the virtues I mentioned today is exclusive to America. Most people-groups believe in exactly these same things. I wrote directly to the people of America today – calling them out by name – because we have been fighting about some really stupid things for a long time.

The virtues I wrote about today live in the hearts of the people of your nation, too, and of every other nation on earth. Wouldn’t it be great if we focused on our similarities instead of our differences?

*At any given time, there are about 2.5 billion ten-dollar-bills in circulation, but the average ten-dollar-bill is replaced by the Treasury Department every 5.3 years. We have been using Hamilton’s portrait on the ten since 1928 (96 years).

96 years/5.3 years = 18

18 x 2.5 billion = 27 billion portraits of good brother Alexander

How would Walt Disney run your company? Even though he died in 1966, his company and his disciples continue to spread his beliefs. Among these disciples is Brian Collins, a former Disney Imagineer who helped create the magic for many of the world’s most beloved theme parks and is today teaching brainstorming and innovation and the cross-pollinization of technology to large and small companies around the world. Roving reporter Rotbart tells us that Brian Collins is a living example Walt Disney’s statement, “It’s kind of fun to do the impossible.” Put on your Mouse Ears and get ready for a Disney

PART THREE of SEVEN SECRETS OF SALES ACTIVATION

The objective of a Customer Bonding campaign is to make your name the one that people think of first and feel the best about.

When you have not successfully bonded with your customer, any attempt at sales activation is simply an experiment in direct marketing. This can certainly work for awhile if you’re good at it, but it will work less and less well the longer you keep doing it.

The world of marketing is full of people who will tell you exciting success stories about high-impact offers that made them a lot of money quickly. But have you ever noticed that all of those stories are told using past-tense verbs?

They are telling you about something that happened, but is no longer happening now.

Give that some thought.

“Have you ever done anything that worked really well?” is a question I have asked a couple of thousand business owners over the past forty years.

“Oh, yes!” they answer.

“Tell me about it!” I say with bright eyes.

After they explain to me what they did and how awesome it was, I say, “Wow, that sounds great! Are you still doing it?”

When they say “No,” (which they always do,) I wear the expression of a puzzled puppy and ask, “Why not?”

Yes, I am a tiny bit evil. But the simple truth is that I want them to realize their mistake, own it, regret it, and decide – on their own – never to do ask me to temporarily fluff up their sales numbers by resorting to the meth-laced crack cocaine of lies, gimmicks, artificial urgency, ambiguous offers, or misleading messages.

It’s just not the way to build a company.

Few business owners have the patience to win the hearts of the public.

But if you have what it takes to become the company that people think of first and feel the best about when they need what you sell, a new day will dawn for you and your business.

In golden glow of that goodwill, up to 40 percent of the ads in your Customer Bonding campaign can include happy, healthy, sustainable Sales Activation.

These are the ways to do it:

Remarkable Item, Remarkable Story.

A 30-year client, Kesslers Diamonds, recently conducted a contest among their designers with the winning designer honored by name in a radio ad.

RICK: I’m really looking forward to this.

SARAH: Me, too.

RICK: She absolutely nailed it.

MONICA: Are you talking about Jenni Sambolin?

SARAH: Yeah, Jenni and her pendant, “The Music in a Mother’s Heart.”

JENNI: [SFX Door Opening] Hi Rick. Hi Sarah. Hi Monica.

MONICA: Hi Jenni!

SARAH: Hi Jenni!

RICK: Jenni, we’re going to produce your pendant design as a limited-edition collector’s item and put a few of them in all 8 Kesslers stores.

MONICA: Congratulations, Jenni!

JENNI: Wow! This is HUGE!

SARAH: Jenni, we expect “The Music in a Mother’s Heart”to sell out very quickly.

RICK: We’ll also make a few available online.

JENNI: I designed that pendant from the memory of how my Mother made me feel when we would sing together.

MONICA: How often did that happen?

JENNI: Constantly. We would sing along with whatever was playing on the radio, or sometimes we would watch a musical on TV and sing along with that.

SARAH: At just 124 dollars, “The Music in a Mother’s Heart” is going to sell out lightning fast.

RICK: I’m buying...

Two thousand years ago, Confucius was as old to the people of China as Christopher Columbus is to us today. Five hundred and thirty-two years before the wise men followed their star to Bethlehem, Confucius wrote,

“By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by contemplation, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.”

I agree with Confucius, but I believe it is the wisdom gained by bitter experience that runs the deepest in us. The boy who travels from village to village shouting “Wolf! Wolf!” learns things about wolves and villagers that no one else can know.

I was once a wandering wolf-shouter.

There is a red flashing light in my soul that keeps me from writing hard-hitting “sales activation” ads, not because it is foreign to me, but because I am extremely good at it.

When I was a 20-year-old ad salesman, business owners would say to me, “Show me what you can do with a small amount of money, and if it works, we’ll talk about a long-term commitment.”

Being young, confident, and stupid, I wrote sales activation ads that could only be measured with a seismograph, and my career took off like a race car in a gravel parking lot. I’m told the gravel is still flying somewhere between Jupiter and Mars.

I wore my tie draped around my neck like a scarf and I never tied my shoes. People said, “Your shoes are untied.”

I smiled and said, “Yeah. I know.”

That young fool was the diamond-ring Cadillac man. He was like Coca-Cola, baby, he was everywhere. When people called and ask if he delivered, he would say, “You want a crowd? Crowds cost money. How big a crowd do you want?”

For 3 years he was the King of Making Big Things Happen Fast. He was going in circles faster than a NASCAR driver on a Saturday night and making more money than a heart surgeon. But he didn’t like the person he had become.

He was thinking about how much he hated working with anxious, impatient advertisers when it hit him: “Every one of those twitchy little bastards is a short-term results addict and I am their dealer.”

I was writing the advertising equivalent of meth-laced, crack cocaine.

In 1942, Edwin Arlington Robinson wrote,

“The world is not a prison house, but a kind of kindergarten, where millions of bewildered infants are trying to spell God with the wrong blocks.”

Realizing that I had been trying to spell success with the wrong blocks, I climbed out of the car I had been driving on the fast track to nowhere and saw what T.S. Eliot was trying to say when he wrote,

“We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.”

Finally standing with my feet on the ground, I looked with fresh eyes at what needed to be done, and knew the place for the first time.

I saw Seven Truths that corresponded with The Seven Secrets of Sales Activation.

These are the Seven Truths.

1. You’ll never see a bigger crowd than the first time you cry “Wolf!”
2. Anything that delivers big results quickly will work less and less well the longer you keep doing it.
3. You cannot build a strong and resilient company on gimmicks and empty promises.
4. Anything that works better and better the longer you keep doing it will deliver disappointing results at first.
5. It takes awhile to make people feel like they really know you.
6. This is why winning the hearts of customers requires months of meaningful courtship.
7. The average business owner does not have the faith and patience to build an attractive brand.
8. (This is particularly true of business owners who trust metrics more than they trust their own...

Leadership = Energy + Direction

Direction = Vision + Courage

Therefore, leaders are people of Energy, Vision, and Courage.

If you are a person of energy, vision, and courage:

(1.) I have noticed that people like you often become surrounded by wanderers who are looking for a leader. It is hard to make money when you are stumbling over puppies who gather at your feet. Resist the temptation to become a thought leader. Oh, I forgot. The new word is influencer. Don’t become one.

(2.) Do not become a zookeeper. When you find yourself among persons of energy, vision, and courage like yourself, do not try to “manage” these untamed creatures. Zookeepers diminish energy, dull vision, and punish courage. You will never meet a wealthy zookeeper.

(3.) When you see pent-up energy, unexplored vision, and fearless courage, become the friend who delivers that person from their captivity. Hire them. Unlock their leg irons. Empower them, encourage them, unleash them.

(4.) Be a leader who gives vision and direction to other leaders and encourage those leaders to do the same. Model correct behavior. Lead by example. Spread the joy.

(5.) Your life is about to become very interesting.

ADDENDUM: Lest you become too anxious as you search for world-changers like yourself, I have asked Albert Bandura to share this word of warning with you:

“Let us not confuse ourselves by failing to recognize that there are two kinds of self-confidence—one a trait of personality and another that comes from knowledge of a subject. It is no particular credit to the educator to help build the first without building the second. The objective of education is not the production of self-confident fools.”

– Albert Bandura, Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control, p.65

Do not be attracted by self-confident fools.

Tinsel and glitter stand proudly in the spotlight, but true gold is found surrounded by mud.

SURPRISE! Seventeen years ago the wizard recorded a memo that reminds me of the one he shared today, so I time-traveled back to November 5, 2007 and retrieved it for you. – Indy Beagle

I thought Bill Clinton was a good president for the same reason I thought Ronald Reagan was good; both were excellent Head Cheerleaders. Their politics, personalities and characters were different, but each had a similar ability to keep things from spinning out of control.

Every organization has a Head Cheerleader. Their business card usually says “manager”. The Head Cheerleader’s job is to keep talented hotheads, sycophantic suck-ups, whining excuse-makers, moon-eyed lunatics and plodding paranoids all headed in the same general direction. They have to make everyone feel like everything is going to be all right.

Are there really people who can do this job?

Thrown into the deep water at 26, I was possibly the worst manager ever to assume the position. But over the years, I’ve had a chance to observe the great ones, and I’ve noticed an unusual but recurrent characteristic:

Great managers are rarely excellent at any of the things they manage.

Great coaches are great not because they were superstars, but because they know how to awaken the star that sleeps in each of the players around them.

Excellent don’t show you photos from their own vacation. They ask to see the photos from yours, and it makes them happy to see you had a wonderful time.

Life-changing managers look for things to praise in their people, knowing that it takes seven positive strokes to recover from each negative reprimand.

Think about it. If...