Brad Pitt, Ron Howard, and Me

Wizard of Ads Monday Morning Memo

Brad Pitt, Ron Howard, and Me

I never write click-bait headlines, but I wrote this one just to prove I can.

Brad shines from Shawnee, Ron comes from Duncan, and I bailed from Broken Arrow.

We’re all Okla-Homeboys.

Now that my click-bait headline has done its job and convinced you to keep reading all the way down to this third paragraph, I will transition to the real reason I wanted to speak with you today: Amway.

Here’s how it works. You buy stuff from me that I buy from someone above me, and they buy it from someone above them, and so on. But through the mystical magic of multi-level marketing, we all get rich by making a tiny commission on whatever you bought!

What you need to do is find some friends who dream of financial freedom and convince them to buy this same stuff from YOU. And guess what! THEY WILL GET RICH, TOO! Don’t you want all of your friends to be rich with you? Think of all the fun you rich, rich, rich people will have after you all become rich, rich, rich!

Welcome to Oklahoma. Now you know why Brad, Ron and I decided to leave.

Honestly, I have fond memories of Oklahoma and I cherish all the valuable lessons I learned there. For real.

1. Never deal with an idiot. Escape while you can. Keep an eye on them until they become a tiny speck disappearing in your rear-view mirror.
2. Fall in love with an actual person. Do not fall in love with falling in love.
3. Commitment does not flow from passion. Passion flows from commitment.
4. Patience will make you wealthy much more quickly than luck.
5. Business is nothing more than a search for purpose and adventure, and failures are footlights along the dark pathway to success.
6. Everyone has a superpower. When you have figured out their superpower, that’s when you know a person.
7. Never lose sight of your closest friends and always be there for them.
8. Every conflict is an auction. The winner will be the one who is willing to pay a higher price than anyone else. (This is why you should try to avoid conflicts.)
9. There is a time for incremental escalation and there is a time for overwhelming force. Take no action until you know what time it is.
10. What you are currently thinking and feeling is a product of where you have turned your attention. Be careful where you turn your attention.
11. Learn to speak in color and to write poetically.
12. Poetry is any communication that changes what you think, and how you feel, in a brief, tight economy of words.

Those are some of the things I learned as an Okie, and now I have shared them with you. That makes you a little bit Okie, too.

Ciao for Niao,

Roy H. Williams

Becoming a children’s book publisher is not “sugar and spice and everything nice.” It is one of the toughest journeys an entrepreneur can undertake. When Georgia Lininger launched her children’s book imprint in January 2020, she quickly discovered that success was going to require more from her than sweet stories and colorful illustrations. Join roving reporter Rotbart and his deputy rover Maxwell as they uncover a classic American story of struggle and defiance along with the happy ending dreamt of by every entrepreneur offering a product or service that comes from the heart. MondayMorningRadio.com