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My Visits with Robert Frost

My Visits with Robert Frost

FromWizard of Ads Monday Morning Memo


My Visits with Robert Frost

FromWizard of Ads Monday Morning Memo

ratings:
Length:
7 minutes
Released:
Sep 14, 2020
Format:
Podcast episode

Description

Robert Frost died when I was four, so we never met face to face, but throughout my formative years I spent an hour with him every night before I fell asleep.Robert Frost taught me how to write.If you will write like Robert Frost, you must approach your subject from an unexpected angle. Few things capture the attention like the unexpected. When your reader or listener has chosen to follow you on a journey, it is because they expect to be fascinated, intrigued, and delighted.Don’t let them down.Robert Frost knew that things can be used as metaphors for other things, which is why his poems often finish by making a powerful point we didn’t see coming. The dual nature of metaphors makes it easy to tell two stories at once.In addition, Frost uses metaphors to lead us toward a destination. Then he allows us to joyfully discover it on our own. He doesn’t tell us what to believe; he just causes us to believe it.And like every great ad, his poems get better with every repetition.Robert Frost noticed the binary relationship between the hot and cold theories of earth’s destruction and wrote “Fire and Ice” exactly 100 years ago.Some say the world will end in fire,Some say in ice.From what I’ve tasted of desireI hold with those who favor fire.But if it had to perish twice,I think I know enough of hateTo say that for destruction iceIs also greatAnd would suffice.– Robert Frost  (1920)1. With his opening surprise of just 12 words he shows us the two possibilities known to every astrophysicist: (A.) our world could be burned up by the explosion of our sun, or (B.) we could perish in a coming ice age.2. But then he makes a hard left turn to reveal that desire is just another type of fire, and hate is another kind of ice that for destruction “is also great and would suffice.”Robert Frost opens our eyes to the destructive powers of greed and hate in 15 seconds, with just 51 words.When you allow a person to arrive at their own conclusion, the truth you have communicated is no longer your truth, but their truth, and no one will ever be able to take it away from them. They will forever defend it as a product of their own observation.1. Approach your subject from an unexpected angle.2. Tell two stories at once, using the relationship between two things as a pattern to reveal the relationship between two other things.3. Allow the listener to arrive at their own conclusion.These are the principles of Chaotic Ad Writing as taught by Wizard Academy.Chaos in science is not randomness but its opposite, a higher level of order beyond the scope of our immediate awareness. In the words of chaotic novelist Tom Robbins,*“Everything in the universe is connected, of course. It’s just a matter of using imagination to discover the links, and language to expand and enliven them.”But Robert Frost knew this before Tom Robbins was born. And Robert Frost taught it to me.Shall we put it to the test?STEP ONE: I have chosen the word “Molokai” to be our unexpected beginning.STEP TWO: Send indy@WizardOfAds.com a link to the website of a product or service for which an ad could not possibly begin with the word “Molokai.”STEP THREE: I will randomly select five of these products or services and write a fascinating ad for each of them beginning with the word, “Molokai.”STEP FOUR: These five ads will be published in next week’s Monday Morning Memo.The objective of this demonstration will be to show you how “everything in the universe is connected, of course,”...
Released:
Sep 14, 2020
Format:
Podcast episode

Titles in the series (100)

Thousands of people are starting their workweeks with smiles of invigoration as they log on to their computers to find their Monday Morning Memo just waiting to be devoured. Straight from the middle-of-the-night keystrokes of Roy H. Williams, the MMMemo is an insightful and provocative series of well-crafted thoughts about the life of business and the business of life.