What? You don’t see the happy times?

But they are right there!

Right there inside you.

Oh, I see. You have something that is keeping you from seeing and feeling and living the sparkling clear and happy times that are struggling to rise up from the depths of your soul.

I see that you are worried.

That’s the problem.

Worry is the cork that keeps the champagne of happiness from spraying a smile on your face and a sparkle in your eye and joy into your heart

If you will allow me, I will try to do for you what Julius Rosenwald and Thomas Jefferson did for me.

Julius Rosenwald was an immensely successful businessman who used his money – all of it – to help people rise above their circumstances and experience the wonders of the world in which they lived.

This is what Julius Rosenwald wrote to me 100 years ago:

“Early in my business career I learned the folly of worrying about anything. I have always worked as hard as I could, but when a thing went wrong and could not be righted, I dismissed it from my mind.”

Friend, when a thing goes wrong and cannot be righted, dismiss it from your mind.

An army of people surround us whose only job is to make us fearful and afraid. You must not allow these people to capture your attention.

Journalists have been shouting deceptive and inflammatory headlines at us since the days of the American Revolution.

But the journalists and podcasters of today have discovered new ways of shouting. Emails and websites and Youtube and cable and streaming services promise, pledge and swear to keep us highly informed and deeply unhappy. They feed our worries like stokers feeding firewood into the boilers of steam trains.

They want us to ride on their rails of steel so that they can take us where they want us to go.

Don’t ride their train. Jump off of it. Thomas Jefferson did.

He said,

“I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it.”

He went on to say,

“Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper. The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.”

Thomas Jefferson avoided the news and said he was infinitely the happier for it.

You should do it, too.

Julius Rosenwald and Thomas Jefferson discovered that Jesus was telling the truth in Matthew chapter six when he said,

“Do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

Don’t worry.

Be happy.

Roy H. Williams

David Ackert is making his list and checking it twice — but he’s no Santa Claus. The gifts David brings are powerful insights for professionals who want to grow. David Ackert challenges the long-held belief that success depends on building a massive network of connections. In his view, quantity is a distraction. The thing to do is cultivate a small, curated list of at least 9 not more than 30 “high-value” relationships with people who have the ability to help you reach your goals.

Send everyone else a Christmas card.

Rotbart goes roving with David Ackert this week, at MondayMorningRadio.com

“Please Do Not Touch the Fence. You’ll Get Zapped. And the Goats Will Laugh at You.”

That is the advice the banner gives. Standing behind that banner, and a little to the right, are a group of goats who are clearly encouraging you to touch the fence. You can see it in their eyes and in the smirk at the corners of their little goat mouths.

All of that was in the photo that arrived with a text from my friend, Dan, along with this note.

“We have a new side-venture that uses goats as a land clearing crew for hire, and recently have set up a mobile cam to keep an eye on them while on the job.”

Although I do make up things for a living, I promise I am not making this up.

Twenty-three minutes later, I received another text from another friend.

“I have a problem. Do you know in ‘Peter Pan’ where Peter loses his shadow. I’ve seem to have lost my shadow. I used to be a very creative person. Somewhere over the last 5 years due to life’s circumstances I seem to have misplaced my creativity. I feel almost certain that I began giving out far more than I was taking in. I lost my wonder and my awe for the world. I’m not learning and growing, and it has caught up with me. If you have any insight or direction, it would be truly helpful. Thanks friend.”

I responded, “Is this for real?”

My friend said, “Yes, for real.”

I said, “You need to have a place to escape. A good fiction book can take you into an alternate reality where you don’t have any obligations, or people who need something from you. Buy a copy of ‘Cryptonomicon’ by Neal Stephenson. You’ll meet a guy named Shaftoe. I’ve known him for more than 20 years.”

My friend said, “Thank you. I’ll tell him you said hello.”

Both of those texts arrived, “Ping… Ping,” shortly after I posted the second restaurant review I have ever written.

Heads Up, friends!

Real pizza ovens. Real flames. Real char on the bottom of the crazy-good crust. You’ll never be the same. This pizza is SO GOOD that it’s illegal in 7 states and under investigation in 12 more. So good you’ll walk outside and look up at the stars and howl at the moon like a werewolf.

I have reviewed very few things during my 67 years because, frankly, there just aren’t that many things out there that are really remarkable. DeSano Pizzeria Napoletana is remarkable. Not the atmosphere. It’s plain, plain, plain. Nothing special. But the food is MAGNIFICO! (On Slaughter just west of Mopac, in front of Alamo Drafthouse.) And the people who work there are definitely part of the magic. They are excited about what they are doing, and their excitement is contagious.

We ordered a spinach salad. Best spinach salad I’ve ever had! I mean that. And big enough for two people. I looked at my wife (We’re having our 50th anniversary next year) and I said, “These people are buying ONLY the very best ingredients. They’s spending their money on the food, not the decor.” (We were both smiling so hard for so long that my face aches.)

Order the Verdura pizza. Be aware that it does NOT have marinara sauce. You’ll be throwing rocks at marinara sauce after you’ve eaten the Verdura. It’s really simple: perfect crust, extraordinary cheese, fresh spinach, roasted tomatoes, roasted garlic. HEAVEN.

Or you can go old school and get a pizza...

I’ve been studying AI audio so that I can complete a couple of personal projects.

The first project is an audiobook containing 18 chapters that span 75 fascinating minutes. Your MondayMorningMemo on December 22nd will contain the following invitation:

The tribe encircling the campfire is about to listen to a group of old men tell “The Story of the Long Ago.” You can listen, too, if you like.

That invitation will be coming your way on December 22nd.

The other project that I will be launching in January or February is an ongoing weekly series called “The Great Writer Series.”

My goal is simple: I want to reawaken the world to the power of well-told stories. That’s it. I have no other agenda. I just want people to remember what great writing sounds like.

Today I’ve got 3 different samples for you. Each is about 2 minutes long. Click the hyperlinks if you want to hear my people read to you.

This first one is an obscure poem by Robert Frost called, “The Bearer of Evil Tidings.”

I have asked Amir Amani to read it.

The bearer of evil tidings,

When he was halfway there,

Remembered that evil tidings

Were a dangerous thing to bear.

So when he came to the parting

Where one road led to the throne

And one went off to the mountains

And into the wild unknown,

He took the one to the mountains.

He ran through the Vale of Cashmere,

He ran through the rhododendrons

Till he came to the land of Pamir.

And there in a precipice valley

A girl of his age he met

Took him home to her bower,

Or he might be running yet.

She taught him her tribe’s religion:

How ages and ages since

A princess en route to China

To marry a Persian prince

Had been found with child; and her army

Had come to a troubled halt.

And though a god was the father

And nobody else at fault,

It had seemed discreet to remain there

And neither go on nor back.

So they stayed and declared a village

There in the land of the Yak.

And the child that came of the princess

Established a royal line,

And his mandates were given heed to

Because he was born divine.

And that was why there were people

On one Himalayan shelf;

And the bearer of evil tidings

Decided to stay there himself.

At least he had this in common

With the race he chose to adopt:

They had both of them had their reasons

For stopping where they had stopped.

As for evil tidings,

Belshazzar’s overthrow,

Why hurry to tell Belshazzar

What soon enough he would know?

Amor Towles will be our second example. He has given us literary wonders like “A Gentleman in Moscow” and “The Lincoln Highway.” This excerpt is from page 302 of his novel, “Table for Two.”

Big Bob Bigelow will read it to us.

Eve could not pinpoint when her dislike for lists began, but it must have been around the time she was twelve. It was in the basement of St. Mary’s, where she and the rest of the sixth graders were charged with memorizing the Ten Commandments.

“Thou shalt not this.” 


“Thou shalt not that.” 


“And thou shalt not the other thing.”

Then there was the list painted on the sign at the country club pool to remind the children there would be…

“No Running.” 


“No Diving.” 


“No Splashing.”

But most important was her mother’s ever-expanding list of what a young lady should not do. Like put her elbows on the table, or speak with her mouth full, or slug her...