Buying advertising is a lot like buying diamonds.

Allow me to explain.

Anyone who talks to a jeweler will be told that diamonds are graded according to the 4 C’s: Color, Clarity, Carat weight, and Cut.

Customers ask the jeweler, “Which of the 4 Cs is most important?”

This seems like a perfectly reasonable question, but the truth is that the 4 C’s cannot be compared to one another. There is no rubric, no metric, no algorithm that can equate them. The 4 C’s are distinctly separate from one another. They are not interchangeable.

Advertising is like that. Each of the characteristics of highly effective advertising are distinctly separate from one another. They are not interchangeable.

Natural diamonds can be an infinite number of shades of yellow, grey, brown, green, blue, red, or a mixture thereof. Diamonds can also be colorless.

The only thing more valuable than a colorless diamond is an extremely colorful one.

Color is a measurement of rarity, not beauty.

Clarity is another measurement of rarity, not beauty.

“Flawless” clarity refers to a diamond which is free of inclusions under 10x magnification. But under 40x magnification every flawless diamond is swimming with inclusions that cannot be seen under 10x. So get this idea of “flawless” out of your head, okay? It is a myth.

Seven clarity grades below flawless is another clarity known as SI2, which looks flawless to the naked eye. Not even a jeweler can tell the difference without 10x magnification. But there is a huge difference in price between flawless and SI2 because Clarity is a measurement of rarity, not beauty, remember?

Carat weight is how the size of a diamond is measured. We’ll come back to this in a minute.

Cut does not refer to the shape of the diamond, but to the ability of the diamond to gather light, bounce it between the facets, and then shine it upward toward the eyes. When diamonds are cut perfectly, they do not leak light out of the bottom of the diamond. A perfectly cut diamond returns 100% of internalized light upward and outward in a wild spectacle of sparkles.

You want sparkles, but you also want carat weight.

When you cut a diamond crystal perfectly, you lose more than half of that diamond’s Carat weight. But if you cheat the cut a little, the diamond won’t sparkle as much but it will weigh more and sell for more money.

If you cut the diamond with a thick girdle and a deep pavilion, the diamond will be dull because its internal mirrors will be misaligned, but it will be much heavier than if it were cut properly.

A Carat is a unit of weight. There are 141.748 Carats in an ounce. This means that a small pouch of 1-Carat diamonds worth just $4,000 each will cost you $567,000 an ounce.

Pure gold is less than $3,000 an ounce.

Are you beginning to understand why diamond cutters are loath to grind away precious carat weight in the quest for maximum sparkle?

Your logical mind tells you that it should be possible to create a diamond algorithm that says, “one colorgrade = 0.05 carats = 0.78 of a clarity grade = 2.13% excess weight above the projected carat weight for a perfectly cut diamond of this diameter.”

Your logical mind tells you this because you continue to believe that dissimilar properties such as color, clarity, carat weight, and cut can be quantified, codified, and reconciled.

In truth, they cannot.

Buying advertising is even more complicated than buying diamonds.

The rubric used to calculate the Gross Rating Points achieved in media schedules makes perfect sense until you realize it equates dissimilar properties and treats them as though they are...

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

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...

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

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....