To Hollister and Gideon,

You have arrived at that age when everyone you meet will ask you about your plans for the future. I am older, happier, and probably more successful than those people, so ignore them. Listen to me.

Knowledge is important, but experience is what really matters. School can give you knowledge, but it cannot give you experience.

Experience is the name we give to our mistakes.

Success is simply a matter of surviving your mistakes. But first you have to make them. So take chances. Feel the pain of disappointment. Then pull yourself together.

Avoid the mistakes that are bigger than you.

1. Don’t die.
2. Don’t create a baby until you’re ready.
3. Don’t go to prison.

Those mistakes are hard to undo.

Surviving all your other mistakes will require nothing more than financial and emotional “staying power.”

Financial staying power isn’t measured by how much money you have. In fact, an abundance of cash will tempt you to calculate your burn rate. You will say, “At my current rate of spending, I can last until such-and-such a date before I run out of money.”

When you calculate your burn rate, you create an unconscious plan. You have looked into the future and seen yourself collapsing in defeat on that day. Personally, I have never known anyone who succeeded after calculating their burn rate. They imagined running out of money, and then they did.

I knew they had calculated their burn rate because everywhere they went, they said, “I have to be profitable by such-and-such a date or I will run out of money.”

Boys, no matter how much money you have, you can run out of money. True financial staying power isn’t measured by how much money you have; it’s measured by how little money you need to stay in the game. The secret is to keep your monthly obligations so low that it takes very little to cover your living expenses.

The most successful of my Wizard of Ads partners kept their jobs until they were making enough money as my partner that they could afford to walk away from their previous employment. Some of the others were lucky enough to have a life partner who made enough money to cover all the monthly expenses of the household. The partners who struggled in the early days were the ones who had significant monthly expenses and a lot of money in the bank. These were the ones who calculated their burn rate and then slowly began to panic as they saw that money disappear month after month.

Financial staying power is easy. Live modestly. Don’t owe money.

Emotional staying power is what makes you successful. It gives you the ability to fail without thinking of yourself as a failure. So take chances. Feel the pain of disappointment, then pull yourself together, like I said.

Failure, like success, is a temporary condition.

You are going to need encouragers. I have your MeMaw and the encouragement of God that I find in my Bible.

Mistakes are inevitable. Don’t fear mistakes.

Encourage people. Be slow to offer advice, but quick to offer encouragement. Tell people what you admire about them. No one likes a flatterer, but if you speak the truth, they will hear it as the truth.

Marry your best friend. You will know they are your best friend when you look forward to being with that person, even when you are not imagining them naked. Pennie – your MeMaw – believes in me more than I believe in me. I have asked God to give each of you a life partner like that.

I am not the only person who thinks these things. On May 1, 2024, Jason Fried wrote,

“Occasionally a 17-year-old will write, asking for entrepreneurial or business advice. Oftentimes they’re early bloomers and already have something going on. Others are chomping at the bit once they get out of high school. It’s great to hear from them. But my advice is generally that they don’t need advice. You don’t need...

“Telling the truth more powerfully than is completely accurate” is to think and speak of a future event as though it has already happened. Some people call this “manifesting,” but I am uncomfortable with that word because it conjures the image of a person literally speaking things into existence, an ability that I believe is God’s alone.

Yes, I am of that ancient belief that the Big Bang began when God said, “Let there be…”

Although I reject the idea of “manifesting,” I do believe in visioncasting, which I define as the encouragement of others by speaking of a possible future as though it is certain to happen.

When a person needs courage and confidence, give them yours. Tell them of the future that you see for them.

I meet every Friday for a luxurious lunch with 5 friends, most of whom are over 60. Recently, after 3 hours of conversation around a large, circular table, we fell into a silence as each one of us took a sip of wine, or contemplated what had just been said, or looked at the menu for additional things to order. I looked up when I heard a voice say, “Who put it into your head that you could do the things you’ve done?”

The friend who had spoken was looking directly at me. Reading the confusion in my eyes, he began to list a number of things that I take completely for granted. Remembering that his question had been, “Who put it into your head?” I told him the truth: “My Mother.”

I was suddenly looking into 5 surprised pairs of eyes, and I was surprised that they were surprised.

The awkward silence that followed made me realize they were waiting for me to continue, so I said, “Whenever I told my mother that I couldn’t do something, she would always say, ‘Of course you can.’ And then I would do it. I can’t remember her ever saying, ‘Well, just do your best,’ and she never once did something for me that she believed I could do for myself. She would just look at me patiently and say with complete conviction, ‘Of course you can.'”

My friends kept staring at me in silence. I wasn’t sure what was happening. Finally, the friend who had asked the question looked into my eyes and said, “What a gift!” The others began nodding their heads as they repeated, “What a gift.”

I had the good sense to shut up and listen.

For the next half hour, I listened as each one of them told stories of their childhood that made me understand their admiration for my Mother.

Those thirty minutes connected a lifetime of dots for me. Throughout my adult life, I have been embarrassed by people who have asked me questions about my supposed courage, or audacity, or vision, of some other such fiddle-faddle. I was never sure how to respond to those people because I know for certain that I do not possess those qualities.

I have somehow successfully coasted through more than 65 years of life without a college education, happily married to the girl I have loved since I was 14 years old, because the two most important women in my life believe that while failure is inevitable, it is also a temporary condition, and in the end we will succeed, because, “Of course we can.”

Please listen to what I am about to tell you.

Give the gift of courage and confidence to the people you love. Tell them what you believe about them. Tell them what you see when you look into their future. The sentences you speak to them should begin with the words, “You are…” and “You will…”

They will see what you see, when you speak it.

Your words will change their thoughts and actions.

And they will live to see it happen.

Roy H. Williams

Two-letter postal abbreviations don’t have periods after the letters, so when I titled today’s Monday Morning Memo, “Reno is West of L.A.” I was not using L.A. as the postal abbreviation for Louisiana.

Carson City – the capitol of Nevada – is likewise west of Los Angeles, as are 5 other state capitols. Juneau, Honolulu, Sacramento, Salem, and Olympia are the capitols of Alaska, Hawaii, California, Oregon, and Washington. West, west, west, west, and west of L.A.

Google it. Or Bing it. Or Yahoo it. However you like to do it.

Reno is located at 119°49′ West.

Los Angeles is 118°14′ West.

Reno is 86 miles west of Los Angeles.

The coordinates of a city give you its precise location, just like the chapter and verse numbers of books in the Bible.

Psalm 119:49 – the Reno Psalm – says,

“Remember your word to your servant, for you have given me hope.”

Reno was founded by Charles William Fuller, who built a bridge across the Truckee river so that settlers would not lose hope.

Psalm 118:14 – the L.A. Psalm – says,

“The LORD is my strength and my defense; he has become my salvation.”

Los Angeles was named “The Angels” in 1769 by Father Juan Crespi, a Franciscan priest who celebrated in his journal the discovery of a “beautiful river from the northwest.” A source of water that saved his thirsty band of travelers.

You will remember that I mentioned Louisiana in my opening sentence.

New Orleans is at 90°07′ West.

Psalm 90:7 – the New Orleans Psalm – says,

“We are consumed by your anger and terrified by your indignation.”

The French Quarter of New Orleans is 90.°06′ West.

Psalm 90:6 – the French Quarter Psalm –says,

“In the morning it springs up new, but by evening it is dry and withered.”

Does the longitude and/or latitude of a city unlock a secret message from God to that city?

No. Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous. Have you lost your mind?

But let’s pretend that it does.

The latitude for my hometown of Broken Arrow, Oklahoma – which, prior to 1907 was “Indian Territory” – is 36.°06′ N.

Psalm 36:6 – the Broken Arrow Psalm – says,

“Your righteousness is like the highest mountains, your justice like the great deep. You, Lord, preserve both people and animals.”

We create imaginary worlds when we pretend, but even imaginary worlds have to have rules. This truth is known to every author of Science Fiction, to every author of Fantasy, and to every 6-year-old.

We must now make up some additional rules because some of the Psalms don’t have enough verses to match the coordinates of certain cities. As an example: Chicago is at latitude 41°52′ North, and its longitude is 87°39′ West.

We’ll begin with longitude: Uh-oh, Psalm 87 doesn’t have a 39th verse.

Now let’s take a look at latitude: Uh-oh, Psalm 41 doesn’t have a 52nd verse.

But Genesis 41 does!

Genesis 41:52 – the Birth Verse of Chicago – says,

“The second son he named Ephraim and said, ‘It is because God has made me fruitful in the land of my suffering.’”

Chicago was incorporated in 1837, but it blossomed in an amazing second birth after the fire of 1871. Read it for yourself.

I went with “birth verse” because Genesis means...

You see a lot of crap during 40 years as an ad writer.

You see big, steaming piles of predictable ads written by amateurs who assume the audience is required to listen.

You see frozen piles of heartless ads that speak to ideas rather than to people.

You see the scattered shrapnel of ads written by highly creative but trigger-happy typists who don’t understand the necessity of strategy.

Amateur ad writers believe in creativity. Accomplished ad writers believe in strategy.

Good ad copy flows from strategy.

Strategy flows from whatever is in the pantry of the advertiser.

You must begin by prowling through that pantry. Take inventory of all the unused story elements you will find hiding there.

Bad strategy is usually the result of someone’s ego.

A business owner wants to hire you. When you meet with that person, you realize that they want to be perceived in a certain way. They usually call this fantasy their “brand essence,” and if you do not indulge them in their fantasy, they will accuse you of not understanding their brand.

They want you to continue doing what they have done in the past, but make it work this time. If you disagree with their strategy, they will say, “You don’t understand who we are.”

You will say, “No, that is not who you are. That’s just who you want to be. But you don’t have the ingredients to bake that cake.”

This is always an unproductive argument, so when a business owner who wants to hire you says, “This is what I want you to do and this is how I want you to do it,” the best answer is to say, “It sounds to me like you’ve got things under control. Great idea! Follow your dream. God be with you. Stay in touch! Goodbye.”

If you employ the same strategy they have used in the past, it’s not going to work any better than it did in the past.

You will be tempted to do what your prospective client is asking you to do. “After all, it’s their company, right?”

Your reason for thinking these thoughts will be that you need the money. But if you do what your prospective client tells you to do, this is what will happen:

1. Your ad campaign will underperform.
2. Your client will blame you.
3. You will be fired.
4. You will have a record of failure.
5. You will lose confidence in yourself.

Find your money elsewhere.

Before you accept a client, ask yourself, “Am I willing to give this person a place in my life?”

Consider that question carefully, because your client will certainly occupy your thoughts. Will you look forward to speaking with them, or will you dread it?

Even the best clients will occasionally ask you to do something that you believe is a bad idea. This is when you will need to do the opposite of what I told you a moment ago. When you have accepted the job, you can no longer say, “It sounds to me like you’ve got things under control. Great idea. Follow your dream. God be with you. Stay in touch. Goodbye.”

You have given this client a place in your life. You have accepted the role of being their ad writer. You have an ongoing relationship. This is when you have to remember that they did not hire you to be CEO.

1. Tell them that you will definitely do what they say.
2. Then tell them why you think it is a bad idea.
3. When they have heard you, and understood you, and asked that you do it anyway, make it a point of honor to figure out how to make their bad idea work.
4. Take ownership of the idea. Put everything you have into it. Be proud that you were able to make it work.
5. When you have an ongoing relationship, you no longer have the option to say, “You’re on your own.”

Most ads are not written to persuade. They are written not to offend.

The power of an ad can be measured by the strength of the backlash against it.

Backlash doesn’t mean the ad is good; it...

As you increase your words, you decrease their impact.

Communicate your thoughts in short sentences. Those thoughts will be remembered, and you will, too.

Shorter hits harder.

I read a book by a man who is a deep thinker, a great strategist, and a good writer. His strengths are that he can identify, organize, and communicate key ideas.

But those ideas would hit harder if the man could write tighter.

Tight writers

1. reject unnecessary modifiers.

2. reduce the word count.

3. prove what they say.

4. use active voice.

Modifiers:

Adjectives and adverbs are fatty foods. They give energy to your story when used sparingly but cause your sentences to feel bloated, sluggish and fat if you overindulge. Adjectives are less dangerous like good cholesterol, and adverbs are more dangerous like bad cholesterol, but a steady diet of these modifiers will clog the arteries of your story and slow it down until your audience falls asleep.

Word count:

Editing will reduce your word count, but it is hard to edit what is freshly written. Look at it the next day and your mistakes will become obvious to you. Rearrange, reduce, and eliminate elements until your story is woven tightly and shines brightly.

You can communicate twice as much by using half as many words.

Willie Shakespeare taught us, “Brevity is the soul of wit.”1

Blaise Pascal and Benjamin Franklin are remembered for their wit. This is why both of them apologized in writing when they took too long to say too little.

Blaise Pascal in his Lettres Provinciales of 1657, wrote, “The present letter is a very long one, simply because I had no leisure to make it shorter.”

Likewise, Benjamin Franklin concluded his 1750 Letter to the Royal Society in London by saying, “I have already made this paper too long, for which I must crave pardon, not having now time to make it shorter.”

Prove what you say:

A rainbow of people across the internet report that Martin Luther, Mark Twain, and Cicero of Rome made statements similar to the statements made by Blaise Pascal and Benjamin Franklin, but none of those colorful people can offer meaningful documentation.

Martin Luther died in 1546. A biography of Luther published 300 years later – in 1846 –quotes Luther as having said he “didn’t have time to make it shorter,” but the biographer could cite no text left behind by Martin Luther to support that quote.

Mark Twain died in 1910. In 1975 an article that appeared in the Chicago Tribune attributed a version of the “didn’t have time to make it shorter” statement to Twain, but the journalist could offer no text, no chapter, no page number, no contemporaneous witness as proof.

The person claiming that Cicero said he “didn’t have time to make it shorter” cites a book of quotes published in 1824 as “proof” of what Cicero supposedly said 1,800 years before that book of quotes was published. Cicero left behind no writings that contain that quote.

“Do not believe what you read on the internet.” – Albert Einstein

Use active voice:

Passive voice:

“The sword is carried by me,” is passive because the subject – “The sword” – is acted upon by the verb.

Active voice:

“I carry the sword,” is active because the subject – “I” – takes the action.

Sentences spoken in active voice command attention.

Sentences spoken in passive voice are easily ignored.

A child becomes an adult when they say, “I broke the cookie jar,” instead of, “The cookie jar got broken.”

Don’t speak like a child. Let the subject take the action in every sentence you speak and write.

Here’s an Example:

Like the man I mentioned earlier, Matt Willis is a deep thinker, a great strategist, and a good writer. But...

Kings and pirates both wear swords, but for different reasons.

A king wears his sword as a symbol of the army he commands. A pirate wears his sword so that it will be at hand when he needs it.

Pirates have a high tolerance for risk because they have nothing to lose. Kings have a low tolerance for risk because they have everything to lose.

A pirate says, “No pain, no gain.” A king says, “No pain, no pain.”

A king is the establishment, the ultimate insider, the protector of the status quo. A pirate is an anti-establishment outsider looking for an opportunity.

I was 10 years old and my father was 30 when he took me with him to visit an important old man. After we left, I said, “He was really nice. I like him a lot.”

My Dad answered, “Yes, he is really nice, and I like him a lot, too. But old men like him always keep a sword in the closet.”

Confused, I asked, “What do you mean?”

Dad said, “If you crowd him, cross him, or attempt to ambush him, that nice old man is going to pull his sword from that closet and run it through your guts.”

It’s been more than 50 years since I met that old man, but I’ve never forgotten the encounter.

I know a lot of old pirates today who became kings just like that old man. With clenched teeth they built castles in their minds, then brought those castles into physical existence using their own hands to stack bricks they made by mixing their blood and sweat with the dirt they stood upon.

Pirates are the founders of empires, not the inheritors of them, and I am honored to count pirates among my friends.

Rich people raise their children to be kings. But poor boys like me raise their children to be pirates.

When our sons were very young – perhaps 4 or 5 years old – I said to them, “Your mother and I will give you gifts on your birthday and at Christmas and at other times, but you can never ask for a gift. When you see a toy, you cannot ask us to buy it for you. You have to buy it yourself. And to make that possible, we will pay you as though you are adults so that you can afford to buy whatever you want. But you won’t get any money for cleaning your room or for any of the other things you do in our home. You will do those things because you are a member of this family. And I will never give you an allowance. But if you ever want to make some money, just tell me and I will drive you to the office and give you work to do.”

If you pay a child the wages of a child, it is impossible for them to ever buy anything for themselves or for the people they care about.

Our boys began their careers by gathering the trash from all the offices and then tossing it into the dumpster in the parking lot. This might take 20 minutes and earn them 20 dollars each, but now they had money of their own. If they wanted to make more money, they had to gather all the gum wrappers and cigarette butts and debris from the parking lot and put that in the dumpster as well. This might earn them another 15 or 20 dollars each.

If a 5-year-old child will push themselves to the realistic limits of a 5-year-old (which is usually 20 or 30 minutes) they should be able to make enough money to buy themselves the kinds of toys that all the other kids have.

When our sons wanted to buy something, they would ask Pennie and I to drive them to the store where we would watch them choose what they wanted, carry it to the cash register, pull their own money from their pocket, and then buy it.

By the time they were 9 or 10 they were puzzled to see their friends pick up something in a store and ask their parents, “Can I have this?” The idea of asking for something was foreign to them.

Pennie and I raised our boys to be pirates and my grandsons became pirates as well, making their first money as groundskeepers and later as construction workers under the watchful eye of Joe Davis, a pirate of the highest order. Those grandchildren are now 17

Every time you make a declarative statement,

you choose one of only 9 sentence structures.

You have been doing this unconsciously for as long as you have been able to speak and write. Today I am going to teach you how to do it consciously.

Ten minutes from now, you will be able to speak and write with greater impact.

You must first choose a perspective.

First person perspective is when you are speaking for yourself, or as the spokesperson for a group:

(I, me, my, mine, we, us, our, ours)

Second person perspective describes the experience of your reader, listener, or viewer individually or collectively:

(you, your, yours, yourself, yourselves)

Third person perspective is then you are speaking not of yourself, or of your audience, but of some other individual or group:

(he, she, him, her, they, them,)

After you have chosen a perspective,

you must choose a verb tense that frames the action of your sentence

in the past (was), the present (am), or the future (will be.)

That much has been known and taught for decades if not centuries.

This next part is astoundingly useful and absolutely new, so if you quote it or teach it to someone else, be sure to spell my name right, okay? “Roy H. Williams”

The Wizard of Ads® is now going to teach you:

(A) the specific voice of each of the 9 declarative sentences,

(B) how the addition of a status, a mood, or an emotion allows you to

determine the intention and the impact of your sentence before it has even been created.

First person, past tense, is the voice of personal MEMORY.

“I was standing in the snow…”

First person, present tense, is the voice of ANNOUNCEMENT.

“I am standing in the snow…”

First person, future tense, is the voice of PREDICTION.

“I will be standing in the snow…”

Second person, past tense, is the voice of WITNESS.

“You were standing in the snow…”

Second person, present tense, is the voice of reader/listener/viewer INVOLVEMENT or ENGAGEMENT.

“You are standing in the snow…”

Second person, future tense, is the voice of FORESEEING. (Fortune telling)

“You will be standing in the snow.”

Third person, past tense, is the voice of HISTORY.

“They were standing in the snow…”

Third person, present tense, is the voice of NEWS REPORTING.

“They are standing in the snow…”

Third person, future tense, is the voice of PROPHECY.

“They will be standing in the snow.”

REVIEW

1. First person, past tense, is the voice of personal MEMORY.
2. First person, present tense, is the voice of ANNOUNCEMENT.
3. First person, future tense, is the voice of PREDICTION.

The addition of a status, a mood, or an emotion allows you to

determine the intention and the impact of your sentence before it has even been created.

First person, past tense = MEMORY + humility = confession

“I was hoping to be finished in one hour, but I wasn’t able.”

First person, present tense = ANNOUNCEMENT + humility = vulnerability

“I am self-aware enough to know that I am more lucky...

The tectonic plates of America are shifting beneath our feet. Can you feel the tremors?

I’m not talking about the foundations of our continent. I’m talking about the foundations our nation.

Our continent is rock, soil, and water; mountains and prairies and oceans white with foam.

Our nation is a people; a family that we love.

And if I might continue quoting Kate Smith for a moment, we would be wise to ask God to, “stand beside her and guide her through the night with the light from above.”

We feel the tremors of our unsteady family – our nation – not in our soles, but in our souls.

I felt the tremors of the waning “Me” generation shift into the groupthink perspective of the “We” in 2003. To read my nascent ramblings about it, just go to MondayMorningMemo.com and type “1963 All Over Again” into the website search block. This will take you to my MondayMorningMemo for December 15, 2003.

These are the important paragraphs:

“AOL and Google.com are the Kerouac and Salinger of the new generation that will soon pry the torch from the hands of Boomers reluctant to let it go. Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley have become Tupac Shakur and Eminem, and the Baby Boomers’ reaction to them is much like their own parents’ reaction to Chuck and Elvis. But instead of saying, ‘Take a bath, cut your hair and get a job,’ we’re saying, ‘Pull those pants up, spin that cap around and wash your mouth out with soap.’

“At the peak of the Baby Boom there were 74 million teenagers in America and radio carried a generation on its shoulders. Today there are 72 million teenagers that are about to take over the world. Do you understand what fuels their passions? Can you see the technological bonds that bind them?”

“Baby Boomer heroes were always bigger than life, perfect icons, brash and beautiful: Muhammad Ali… Elvis… James Bond. But the emerging generation holds a different view of what makes a hero.”

The only hard choice in life is the choice between two good things.

Freedom and Responsibility are both good things. But like all dualities, they oppose each other. The more you have of one, the less you have of the other.

All responsibility with no freedom makes you a slave. All freedom with no responsibility makes you a self-absorbed hedonist and an asshole.

But I promised to tell you how to keep your balance during this earthquake, didn’t I?

Here’s how to do it: remind yourself that different people perceive the world differently. They notice different things. They value different things. They live in their own private reality, and you live in yours.

You are acutely aware of what you see that they do not, and you want to open their eyes.

They are acutely aware of what they see that you do not, and they want to open your eyes.

Both of you feel you are being attacked.

I have a question for you: do the two of you have the courage to shut up and listen? Really listen? Can you muster enough courtesy and grace and self-restraint to share why you value what you value without disparaging or attacking what they value and why they value it?

If both of you can do this, you will find your balance and quit hating each other.

The birds will start singing, the flowers will bloom, a rainbow will appear, and everyone will laugh in joyous relief that the ugliness is finally over.

As I look back on the events that have marked the previous 37 zeniths of the “We” generation that have occurred during the past 2,960 years (937 BC,) I realize that no one is likely to do this.

But I thought I would give it a shot.

Roy H. Williams

50,000 new restaurants open in the United States each year, and most of them are...