One thing always leads to another

That’s why big sisters have baby brothers

And how King George gave away a nation

when he said “No” to representation.

He did not not know how much it meant

for those colonies to have seats in Parliament.

Think about it. The cry of the colonies was only this:

“No taxation without representation.”

What if King George had said…

“That is a fantastic plan!

Each colony needs to choose a man.”

And if the colonies had responded,

“We’d like to send two.”

And King George had said…

“Then two seats it will be!

Because you people are important to me.”

The difference that would have made in history,

Will forever be an unsolved mystery.

But I do know this, and I know it for sure:

That having an open mind is a powerful cure

for avoiding problems that can spiral out of control

and haunt you forever, wherever you go.

If there is a moral to this story,

I guess it would be this:

Never shout “No” when there is

a workable way to say Yes.

Never shout “No” when there is

a workable way to say Yes.

Never shout “No” when there is

a workable way to say Yes.

One thing always leads to another.

1. I was speaking with Clara, the wife of Danny, one of my clients.
2. Clara collects silverwork made by the world’s great silversmiths.
3. One of Clara’s hopes is to someday acquire an exceptionally fine piece of silverwork made by – “The British are coming! The British are coming!” – Paul Revere.
4. Were you aware that Paul Revere was a famous silversmith?

The unseen silverwork of that midnight man was floating in a slow circle in the asteroid belt of my mind when the haunting voice of Paul Revere whispered silently in my ear,

“What would have happened if King George had said ‘Yes’ and given each of his thirteen American colonies two seats in Parliament?”

A conversation about what Clara collected quickly became a quirky poem that quietly abandons seven words of subtle sexual humor to move into the story of a stupid king who launched a faraway war he could never win.

Creative thought is not sequential; it is relational, a pinball that ricochets off levers and bumpers at unexpected angles, the energy of the unexpected, triggering bells in the brain and flashing lights in the mind.

Crazy Jack Kerouac had rules for writing:

9. The unspeakable visions of the individual

8. Write what you want, bottomless from bottom of the mind

7. Blow as deep as you want to blow.

My few lines of accidental verse soon became a song sung by imaginary singers who are currently touring the world.

You can catch their show in the rabbit hole.

Roy H. Williams

Courtney De Ronde is a financial decoder. She studies the same financial data that business owners and their accountants review, but she uncovers opportunities and risks within those numbers that are almost always overlooked. This is why Courtney De Ronde has evolved as a scaling expert. She helps businesses grow by avoiding the missteps that non-strategic growth always causes.

As Courtney shares with roving reporter Rotbart, most business owners will expand their revenues but end up working harder, hiring more people, piling on expenses, and somehow ending up with the same — or even less — profit. Learn what you need to know at MondayMorningRadio.com

February 26, 2026

Kronos is chronological time.

Kronos appears more than 50 times in the original New Testament.

Kairos is a pregnant moment in time, an inflection-point of consequence.

Does in surprise you that Kairos appears more than 85 times?

Each of us vividly remembers those Kairos moments when we decided to turn the steering wheel of Life and begin traveling in a whole new direction.

Jim Burns is a counselor. His voice is heard on more than 800 radio stations each day and he has 3 million books in print. But I didn’t know any of that prior to him appearing as a guest speaker at our church last week.

I tell you this only because Jim Burns said something that I really needed to hear.

“I had to learn to say ’no’ to good things, to say ‘yes’ to the most important things.”

That was a Kairos moment for me because it instantly crystallized something in my mind that had previously been only the foggy awareness that I was speaking with so many people each day that I no longer had time to take a deep breath and calm my thoughts.

Then Jim said it again, but differently.

“Sometimes we just have to say ‘no’ to good things, even to say yes to the most important things. That’s how we declutter. That’s how we run light.”

Two days later, I was surprised by a video on Youtube in which my friend Ryan Deiss mentions me by name. He had posted that video a couple of weeks before Jim Burns spoke at our church.

Speaking of himself, Ryan says,

“I literally had zero recollection whatsoever of what I did, or what any of my companies did those weeks, either. It’s just like they were a complete blur. More than likely, I spent all my time responding to whatever emergency someone else decided was important for me on that particular day.”

Wow. Ryan Deiss was speaking exactly what I had been feeling for more than a year.

There are now 87 Wizard of Ads partners and many hundreds of clients, so I go to bed most nights exhausted by the long days, the countless conversations, and the constant feeling that I am somehow letting everyone down.

But Ryan wasn’t finished.

“Scale creates chaos. So if you want to get bigger, you have to insist on focus and simplicity. It is a bit of a paradox, but the key to scale is actually to do less, not more. Because when you force yourself to do less, you shift the emphasis from quantity to impact. And at scale, output matters a lot more than activity.”

We – not just me, but all of us – need to be on guard that we don’t allow the “merely urgent” to displace the truly important.

Have you ever noticed that the things that are truly important are rarely urgent, and things that are “exclamation-point URGENT” are rarely of lasting importance?

Urgent things are momentary, but constant.

Important things are forever, but they can always wait.

And then one day, they can’t wait any longer.

And by then, it’s often too late.

For those of you who are curious, Indy Beagle has posted in the rabbit hole the Ryan Deiss Youtube video that I mentioned, as well as the Youtube video of Jim Burns speaking at our church.

Those two messages, just 48 hours apart, created a Kairos moment for me.

If you have been feeling what I was feeling and what Ryan was describing, maybe those videos will do the same for you.

You can watch the videos or click past them if you don’t have time.

Believe me, I completely understand.

Roy H. Williams

America’s top CEOs pay Doug C. Brown to teach them how to rethink their approach to sales. Doug has consulted Procter & Gamble, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, and Embassy Suites. Doug C. Brown is not a lightweight. Doug tells roving reporter Rotbart, “most companies can quickly realize a 20-30% improvement in operating profits” when they follow his straightforward recommendations.

Doug says that it is more important “to know the right prospects to approach” than to know how to close the sale. If you think you’ve heard it all, listen to Doug C. Brown. There is a chance that maybe you haven’t heard it all. Doug C. Brown will light you up. The right time to listen is up to you. But the place will always be MondayMorningRadio.com

Welkin is a poetic or archaic term for the sky, firmament, or vault of heaven.

To “ring the welkin” or make the “welkin ring” is a literary idiom meaning to make a very loud noise, such as shouting, cheering, or singing, that seems to echo throughout the sky or heavens. It implies creating a celebratory or boisterous sound that fills the air.

Will you ring welkin?

“Jet” Eisenberg knew immediately why I was doing what I did. He said that I spoke about it on the day that we met more than a quarter-century ago.

He said that I have spoken about it in every class that he has ever heard me teach.

Most people continue to be confused regarding my commitment to @GreatWritersSeries, so I recently updated the description of that channel on Youtube. (You should subscribe, by the way.)

You may recognize a line within that description that I used in last week’s Monday Morning Memo.

This is my new description on Youtube:

The goal of @GreatWritersSeries is to tempt you to read great literature: the novels, histories, poems, and news stories that won the Pulitzer and Nobel prizes. The song lyrics and screenplays that won the Grammy and Tony Awards.

Because they will change you.

Great literature is the lightning bolt that will pierce your skull, illuminate your mind, and set your tongue on fire.

“For as you read, so will you speak and write.”

Roy H. Williams had a marvelous English teacher during his junior and senior years of high school in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma.

Her name was Linn Ball.

She taught him to hear the music of great writing and dance to it.

She taught him to lift his eyes to the sky so that he could fly.

She taught him to hear the music of unexpected words as they bang into each other and fill the movie screen of the mind with scenes that are startling and true.

He wants to do the same for you.

Moments before I began writing this Monday Monday Memo to you, I posted on Youtube a musical video of a poem written in 1929 by Ogden Nash.

The title of that poem is “No Doctors Today, Thank You.” You can see and hear that Youtube performance in today’s rabbit hole.

This is it:

They tell me that euphoria is the feeling of feeling wonderful,

well, today I feel euphorian,

Today I have the agility of a Greek god and the appetite of a

Victorian.

Yes, today I may even go forth without my galoshes,

Today I am a swashbuckler, would anybody like me to buckle

any swashes?

This is my euphorian day,

I will ring welkin and before anybody answers I will run away.

I will tame me a caribou

And bedeck it with marabou.

I will pen me my memoirs.

Ah youth, youth! What euphorian days them was!

I wasn’t much of a hand for the boudoirs,

I was generally to be found where the food was.

Does anybody want any flotsam?

I’ve gotsam.

Does anybody want any jetsam?

I can getsam.

I can play chopsticks on the Wurlitzer,

I can speak Portuguese like a Berlitzer.

I can don or doff my shoes without tying or untying the laces because I am wearing moccasins,

And I practically know the difference between serums and antitoccasins.

Kind people, don’t think me purse-proud, don’t set me down as vainglorious,

I’m just a little euphorious.

I’m just a little euphorious.

I want you to dance.

I want you to fly.

I want the movie screen of your mind to be filled with scenes that are startling and true.

I want you to feel euphorious.

Roy H. Williams

Regular viewers of cable news will instantly recognize Arthur Lih and his