The future is unknowable. The past is unrecoverable.

If you are anxious, you are living in the future.

Don’t live your life in an imaginary tomorrow. Find joy while it is still today.

If you are depressed, you are living in the past.

Escaping the past is easy. The hard part is choosing to start over.

Let me give you The Seven Secrets to Crystal Days:

1. Do not let the perfect become the enemy of the good.
2. “Perfectionism may look good in his shiny shoes but he’s a little bit of an asshole and no one invites him to their pool parties.” – Ze Frank
3. Good enough, by definition, is good enough.
4. Learn to celebrate the ordinary.
5. “Celebrate! Celebrate! Celebrate!” – Dewey Jenkins
6. Success and failure are temporary conditions.
7. “Do not let either of them define you.”
8. The most precious thing you can find is a friend.
9. “A friend is always loyal, a sibling that helps in times of trouble.”
10. Hatred is the only luxury more costly than an enemy.
11. “Hatred is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.”
12. All the little things in life add up to your life.
13. “If you don’t get it right, nothing else matters.”

Autumn is upon us. Cold air sweeps summertime over the hilltop fast and sharp like an old woman sweeping dust out a doorway. The dust washes the landscape with brown and orange, speckled with rusty red, the colors of old cars whose enamel has been erased by the rain in the junkyard of time.

I suspect Solomon wrote the book of Ecclesiastes in the autumn. You remember what he wrote, don’t you?

“Everything has its moment.

There is a moment of ripening and a moment of falling away.

A moment of being born and a moment of dying.

A moment of planting and a moment of harvest.

A moment of killing and a moment of healing.

A moment of destroying and a moment of building.

A moment of weeping and a moment of laughter.

A moment of sorrow and a moment of dancing.

A moment of scattering and a moment of gathering.

A moment of togetherness and a moment of distance.

A moment of finding and a moment of losing.

A moments of grasping and a moment of release.

A moment of ripping and a moment of sewing back together.

A moment of silence and a moment of speech.

A moment of love and a moment of hate.

A moment of fighting and a moment of peace.”

Autumn walks among us, quiet and invisible, like a Mexican ghost on the Day of the Dead.

This is the time of year when I become reflective.

Perhaps you do, too.

Roy H. Williams

Andrew Matthews has inspired more than 1,000 global corporations, including Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Honda, and Citibank. In addition to that, Andrew and his wife produce uplifting books that have sold over 8 million copies in 70 countries and 48 languages by presenting timeless wisdom in fresh, engaging ways. This week, Andrew reveals his creative process to roving reporter Rotbart and explains how anyone – even you – can use that process to connect, inspire, and succeed in every nation of the world. Wouldn’t this be a great day to stop and recharge your batteries at MondayMorningRadio.com?

My observation during the past 40+ years as an ad writer has been that television and radio professionals spend so much time trying to sell television and radio ads, they have no time to learn how to make those ads work.

When you know how to make ads work, and can prove it, television and radio are incredibly easy to sell.

Instead of asking a salesperson to help you with your ads, let me tell you everything you need to know.

“Q” represents your unspoken questions.

“A” represents my answers to those questions.

Q: Who should I be targeting?

A: I’ve never seen a business fail because they were reaching the wrong people. But I have seen lots of businesses fail because they were saying the wrong things in their ads.

Q: Are you saying you don’t believe in targeting?

A: The most effective way to target is to write ad copy that speaks directly to the felt needs of your customer. Targeting isn’t accomplished by reaching the right address, but by demonstrating to people that you feel the way they feel, and that you believe the things they believe.

Q: Are you saying I can write ads that target specific types of people in mass media?

A: Yes, but you get a lot more than that. Mass media reaches not only your target; it reaches all the influencers of your target. Is there anyone that you don’t want to know you, like you, and say good things about you? Every person is an influencer, and decisions are never made in a vacuum.

Q: If targeting the right person is no longer my primary objective, what is?

A: You want to become the solution provider that people think of first and feel the best about. When you say the right things to the largest number of people you can afford to reach with sufficient repetition, you become a household word.

Q: Which media will work best for my business?

A: The media doesn’t make your ad work. Your ad makes the media work. The media is just a vehicle that delivers your message, your ad. The wrong message will fail in every media, and the right message will work in every media. It is the message, not the media, that either works or does not.

Q: Is there a proven way to create the right message?

A: Win the heart and the mind will follow. The mind will always create logic to justify what the heart has already decided.

Q: Can you give me some specific tips?

A: Sure. Here are 4 of them.

1. Talk to the customer about what the customer already cares about. Most ads answer questions that no one was asking. This is why people hate most advertising.
2. Always say something new, surprising, and different. Never say what people expect you to say. Predictability is what makes ads sound like ads.
3. Don’t just describe the process of what you do and how you do it. “We use only the freshest ingredients, and everything is made from scratch.” The process is informational. The outcome is motivational. Describe the outcome. “Food so good your head will explode.”
4. Bad ads are about you and your company. Good ads are about your customer and their happiness. Ads filled with “me, my, we,” and “our,” are about you and your company. Ads filled with the words “you” and “your” are about the customer and the happiness you want to bring them.

Q: Should every ad have a call to action?

A: No, because if they did, your ads would be predictable.

Q: Are you saying that NO ad should have a call to...

Billy Sunday was born in 1862, the second year of America’s Civil War. He died in 1935, during the Great Depression. Billy was a wildly flamboyant and controversial preacher, but he made an interesting observation:

“More men fail through lack of purpose than lack of talent.”

We’ll talk more about purpose in just a minute, but first we need to talk about possibilities.

I will say it plainly:

1. What you see in the mirror isn’t you.
2. Look inside yourself and take inventory of what you find there.
3. Realize that this is all you have to work with.
4. Make the best of it.

I will say it as Confucius might have said it:

1. Gilded paper and bright ribbons adorn an empty vessel while gold hides in a rough wooden box.
2. You will not find what is not there. But what lies inside you is easy to see.
3. Everything within you is all that you have.
4. Therefore, it must be enough.

I will say it like an old warrior:

1. Fancy uniforms don’t win battles.
2. It’s not the size of the dog in the fight that matters, it’s the size of fight in the dog.
3. If you don’t have it in you, it doesn’t exist.
4. Learn to use what you’ve got.

This is how Yoda would have said it:

1. Be invisible, you will.
2. Inside yourself, you must look.
3. Hmm. Flaws, you shall find.
4. Magic, these are.

I will say it as someone who loves you:

1. You are the perfect you.
2. No one else can be you as well as you can.
3. You will be you for the rest of your life.
4. It is time to discover what you can do.

And now it is time to talk about purpose again.

A sad voice inside you whispers: “Everyone talks about purpose, but no one can tell me what it is, or where to find it.”

Quit listening to that whiner. Purpose is given to you by what you care about. Is there anything you care about?

Of course there is.

Are you ready for the real mind-blower?

Purpose is given to you by everything you care about. You are overflowing with purpose. The problem is that you care about so many things that you are having a hard time choosing a purpose.

Here is the good and happy news: You can have more than one purpose!

In fact, you already do; and you have what it takes to make a difference.

How many differences do you want to make?

Pick two or three of them to get started. You can add other ones later, when you have taken these first ones as far as you choose to go. Sooner or later, you’ll choose a few that will sink deep roots in you.

Every oak tree begins as an acorn.

Now go. Get started.

Roy H. Williams

PS – “It is better to burn the candle at both ends, and in the middle, too, than to put it away in the closet and let the mice eat it.” – Henry van Dyke

David Sauers used to be a commercial banker, but today he runs a service business with 50 branches nationwide. It’s not the type of business that most people dream about owning. The nature of his business – and the powerful lessons you can learn from his success – will be revealed in this week’s story. But here’s an interesting twist: In a private note to Roy, roving reporter Rotbart wrote, “I love unusual guests and David Sauers definitely fits the bill.” The roving reporter is at it again! MondayMorningRadio.com