“Around the swimming beagles, bright stars danced on rippling waters like a thousand little fishes of light scurrying in a sea of darkness.

Can there be a more beautiful sight than when sky meets ocean in the black of night?” The lawyer whispered to himself, the beagles, and the sea as the soft blanket of summer wrapped them all in her warm embrace.

Night is a time of reflection. Not of stars in water only, but of times past and times to come. And such a night was this.”

– Beagles of Destinae, chapter 4

Ideas pour into the dark waters of the unconscious mind, sparkling like reflected stars. As above, so below. The natives always said it was so.

But as Gemini sat on the throne of Aquarius, a dragonfish was born. And thus our story begins.

The twins did not mean to unleash a dragonfish, but they had never promised not to, either. And besides, a dragonfish is an adventure.

Puff, the magic dragon lived by the sea,

and frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honalee.

Little Jackie Paper loved that rascal Puff,

And brought him strings, and sealing wax, and other fancy stuff.

Together they would travel on a boat with billowed sail,

Jackie kept a lookout perched on Puff’s gigantic tail.

Noble kings and princes would bow whenever they came,

Pirate ships would lower their flags when Puff roared out his name.

A dragon lives forever, but not so little boys,

Painted wings and giant’s rings make way for other toys.

One gray night it happened, Jackie Paper came no more,

And Puff, that mighty dragon, he ceased his fearless roar.

“Puff the Magic Dragon” with lyrics by Leonard Lipton and music by Peter Yarrow appears on the 1963 Peter, Paul and Mary album, “Moving.” An urban myth soon arose that the song was about drugs. It’s really a backward look at childhood, and all that was left behind.

“The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched, they are felt with the heart. All grown-ups were once children… but only few of them remember it.”

– Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

“He saw two boats standing by the lake; but the fishermen had gone from them and were washing their nets. Then He got into one of the boats, which was Simon’s, and asked him to put out a little from the land. And He sat down and taught the multitudes from the boat. When He had stopped speaking, he said to Simon, ‘Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.'”

– Luke, ch. 5

The book “Peter Pan” was written only after the 1904 play became a huge success.

On opening night, Mrs. Snow spoke to the playwright and author, J.M. Barrie about her late husband…

“And he would so have loved this evening. The pirates, and the Indians; he was really just a boy himself, you know, to the very end. I suppose it’s all the work of the ticking crocodile, isn’t it? Time is chasing after all of us. Isn’t that right?”

“It is not true that people stop pursuing dreams because they grow old; they grow old because they stop pursuing dreams.”

– Gabriel Garcia Marquez

“The secret of The Muppets is they re not very good at what they do. Kermit’s not a great host, Fozzie’s not a good comedian, Miss Piggy’s not a great singer… Like, none of them are actually good at it, but they love it. They’re like a family, and they like putting on the show. And they have joy. And because of the joy, it doesn’t matter that they’re not good at it. That’s what we should all be. Muppets.”

– Brett Goldstein

“All the world is made of faith, and trust, and pixie dust…

If growing up means it would be beneath my dignity to climb a tree, I’ll never grow up.”

– Peter

Pennie and I had a difficult week a long way from home.

It began with a piece of gravel that cracked her windshield.

Looking back, we should have just lived with it. But we didn’t know that at the time.

We dropped her car off at the appointed time on the appointed day. When Pennie picked it up, the upper-left corner of her new windshield whistled loudly at speeds above 30mph. She called the windshield people. They gave her a new appointment.

When we picked it up for the second time, the whistle was a little less loud than it had been, but she decided to live with it. There are a lot of things in life more annoying than a whistling windshield.

We didn’t know it, but we were about to experience several of them.

Driving for 4 hours in a rainstorm to see your mother in the hospital is not a bad experience unless your previously-whistling windshield is now pouring quarts of water into your car.

Things went downhill from there for several days.

I won’t bore you with the details because the real purpose of this note is to tell you what happened that turned everything around for us.

We discovered a wonderful French cafe just two blocks from Clearfork Hospital in Ft. Worth. Halfway through the meal, I went to their website to see if they had a location in Austin. They don’t, but I’m sure they soon will.

Meanwhile, Pennie went to romanticspotsfortworth.com to see if Clarissa had discovered and listed this amazing cafe.

Of course, she had. Clarissa is really good at her job.

Angela brought our next course to the table.

I said, “We found out about you at romanticspotsfortworth.”

To our delight, Angela said, “Yes! They sent us an award with the cutest logo on it! Everyone was excited.”

Pennie and I chose not to mention that we own the romanticspots websites.

When Angela departed, I scrolled all the way to the bottom of the cafe’s website where I encountered a carousel of remarkable quotes.

“People who love to eat are always the best people.”

– Julia Child

“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”

– J.R.R. Tolkien, from “The Hobbit”, spoken by Thorin Oakenshield

“No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.”

– Aesop, “The Lion and The Mouse”

“Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.”

– Andre Gide

Having been distracted by every bad thing that had happened since our 4-hour trip in a flooded car, these next two quotes hit me pretty hard.

“You’ll miss the best things if you keep your eyes shut.”

– Dr. Seuss

“The flower that blooms in adversity is the most beautiful of all.”

– Walt Disney

Each of the remaining quotes at the bottom of that menu lifted me a little bit higher.

“All grown-ups were once children… but only few of them remember it.”

– Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, “The Little Prince”

“Where you tend a rose, my lad, a thistle cannot grow.”

– Frances Hodgson Burnett, “The Secret Garden”

“True love is like a fine wine, the older the better.”

– Fred Jacob

“It is better to know how to learn than to know.”

– Dr. Seuss

“The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched, they are felt with the heart.”

– Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

And then this line lifted from “A Room of One’s Own” by Virginia Wolf made me smile and remember where I was.

“One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.”

And then Andre Gide encouraged me to quit looking at what was behind me.

“Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the...

“If people were paid according to how hard they work, the richest people on earth would be the ones digging ditches with a shovel in the hot summertime.”

That’s what my mother told me when I was a boy. When she saw the puzzled look on my face, she continued.

“People who make a lot of money are paid according to the weight of the responsibility they carry and the quality of the decisions they make.”

Second only to grief, the weight of responsibility is the heaviest burden that a person can carry. Compared to those, a shovel full of dirt feels as light as feathers on a windy day.

When forced to choose between two evils, it brings a good person no joy to choose the lesser evil. Fewer people will be hurt, but the pain those people feel will be real.

A person who is not wounded by the pain they cause others is a sociopath.

Authority is power, and power is attractive. Tear away the tinsel. Scrape away the glitter and you will see that authority is just a fancy costume. You wear it when you are about to cause someone pain.

Every good person in authority has scars on their heart, memories of the pain they know they have caused others.

Sociopaths don’t care about the pain of others. They crave authority because they are weak, and the fancy costume lets them pretend they are strong.

Things get ugly when a sociopath has power.

“In the alchemy of man’s soul almost all noble attributes – courage, honor, love, hope, faith, duty, loyalty, etc. – can be transmuted into ruthlessness. Compassion alone stands apart from the continuous traffic between good and evil proceeding within us. Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul: where there is compassion even the most poisonous impulses remain relatively harmless.”

– Eric Hoffer, “Reflections on the Human Condition” (1973)

A person in authority who lacks compassion is a very small person wearing a badge.

As a young man, I admired cleverness. But I have lived enough years and cried enough tears that now I see the world differently. Today, I admire goodness. This shift in perspective helped me understand what Viktor Frankl wrote in his book, “Man’s Search for Meaning.”

“Freedom is only part of the story and half of the truth… In fact, freedom is in danger of degenerating into mere arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsibleness. That is why I recommend that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast.”

Viktor Frankl was a medical doctor, a psychologist, and a survivor of the holocaust. He was imprisoned in four different concentration camps: Theresienstadt, Auschwitz where his mother was murdered, Dachau,and then Türkheim.

Viktor Frankl believed in freedom, but he refused to see it as a license to do whatever you want. To him, freedom without responsibility was an idiotic idea.

Isabella Bird was a well-educated woman who left Victorian England to explore the world in 1854.

When she arrived in the United States in 1873, she bought a horse and rode alone more than 800 miles to Colorado. In her book, “A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains,” (1879), Isabella wrote,

“In America the almighty dollar is the true divinity, and its worship is universal. ‘Smartness’ is the quality thought most of. The boy who ‘gets on’ by cheating at his lessons is praised for being a ‘smart boy,’ and his satisfied parents foretell that he will make a ‘great man.'”

“A man who overreaches his neighbor, but who does it so cleverly that the law cannot take hold of him, wins an envied reputation as a ‘smart man,’ and stories of this species of ‘smartness’ are told admiringly...

His name was Rab. He died in Bengal, the land of tigers, in 1941. On his way out the door, he said, “Faith is the bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark.”

When Rab was sixteen, he published a book of poetry under the pseudonym Bhānusiṃha, which means “Sun Lion.” Those poems were seized upon by literary authorities as “long-lost classics.”

Where do you hurry with your basket

this late evening when the marketing is over?

They all have come home with their burdens;

The moon peeps from above the village trees.

The echoes of the voices calling for the ferry

run across the dark water to the distant swamp

where wild ducks sleep.

Where do you hurry with your basket

when the marketing is over?

Sleep has laid her fingers

upon the eyes of the earth.

The nests of the crows have become silent,

and the murmurs of the bamboo leaves are silent.

The labourers home from their fields

spread their mats in the courtyards.

Where do you hurry with your basket

when the marketing is over?

Rab wrote this in 1913,

Free me from the bonds of your sweetness, my love!

No more of this wine of kisses.

This mist of heavy incense stifles my heart.

Open the doors, make room for the morning light.

I am lost in you, wrapped in the folds of your caresses.

Free me from your spells, and give me back the manhood

to offer you my freed heart.

Famous for his role as President Jed Bartlet, Martin Sheen spoke several months ago at a White House event celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the debut of “The West Wing” on television. He wrapped up his short speech by reciting a poem that Rab had written more than 100 years earlier.

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high

Where knowledge is free

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments

By narrow domestic walls

Where words come out from the depth of truth

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way

Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit

Where the mind is led forward by thee

Into ever-widening thought and action

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

Rab knew that you and I would be here today, and he left us a message.

Who are you, reader,

reading my poems a hundred years hence?

I cannot send you one single flower

from this wealth of the spring,

one single streak of gold from yonder clouds.

Open your doors and look abroad.

From your blossoming garden

gather fragrant memories of the vanished flowers

of a hundred years before.

In the joy of your heart may you feel

the living joy that sang one spring morning,

sending its glad voice across a hundred years.

Rab – Rabindranath Tagore – was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913.

He was the first non-European ever to win a Nobel Prize.

Roy H. Williams

NOTE FROM INDY: Speaking of Martin Sheen, his name has recently been mentioned in association with the book, “When Rabbis Bless Congress: The Great American Story of Jewish Prayers on Capitol Hill.” Aroo.

A timber-framed cottage was built in Frog Holt, England, in the year 1450. Today, 575 years later, that cottage provides an important case study for business owners who are scaling their...

Michael Dell and Shaquille O’Neal planned their work and worked their plans.

Dell understood the formulas, and followed the rules, of efficiency.

O’Neal understood the formulas and followed the rules of basketball.

Each of them faithfully followed a Structural plan.

Michael Dell invented nothing, improvised nothing, and innovated only once. But that single innovation made him a billionaire. Dell’s innovation was to bring tested, reliable, proven methods of cost-cutting to the manufacturing and distribution of computers. When all his competitors were selling through retailers, Dell sold direct to consumer. This made his costs lower and his profits higher.

Michael Dell’s strengths are discipline, professionalism, and Structural thinking.

Likewise, Shaq says, “I didn’t invent basketball, but I am really good at executing the plays.” Discipline, professionalism, and Structural thinking made Shaq an extraordinary basketball player. These same characteristics also made him an amazing operator of fast-food franchises.

“The most Shaq ever made playing in the NBA was $29.5 million per year. Now, it’s estimated that the big man is bringing in roughly $60 million per year, much of which is coming from his portfolio of fast-food businesses around the U.S.”

– 24/7wallst.com

Shaq didn’t invent car washes or Five Guys Burgers and Fries, but he owns more than 150 of each.

Michael Dell and Shaquille O’Neal are masters of Structural planning and thinking.

Structural thinking relies on proven elements and best practices. “Gather the best pieces and processes and connect them together like LEGO blocks. What could possibly go wrong?”

Structural planning and thinking:

Invent, Improvise, Innovate?

“NO, because those things are untested. We want to avoid mistakes.”

Reliable, Tested, Proven?

“YES!”

Steve Jobs and Michael Jordon are masters of Gestalt planning and thinking.

Gestalt planning and thinking:

Invent, Improvise, Innovate?

“YES!“

Reliable, Tested, Proven?

“NO, because those things are predictable. We want to be different.“

The fundamental idea of Gestalt thinking is that the behavior of the whole is not determined by its individual elements; but rather that the behavior of the individual elements are determined by the intrinsic nature of the whole.

It is the goal of Gestalt thinking to determine the nature of the whole, the finished product.

Gestalt thinkers who can fund their experiments and survive their mistakes often become paradigm shifters and world-changers.

Steve Jobs got off to a slow start because he refused to use MS-DOS, the operating system that everyone else was using. But he was sensitive to the needs and hungers of the marketplace. When Steve Jobs had a crystal-clear vision of the things that people would purchase if those things existed, he brought those things into existence.

Structural thinkers rely on planning and execution. Gestalt thinkers rely on poise and flexibility, often deciding on small details at the last split-second. Ask a Gestalt thinker why they do this and most of them will tell you, “I decide at the last minute because that is when I have the most information.”

The reason you never knew what Michael Jordan was going to do is because Michael Jordan had not yet decided. Michael’s internal vision was simple and clear: “Put the basketball through the hoop.” With the clarity of that crystal vision shining brightly in his mind, Michael could figure out everything else along the way.

Gestalt thinkers like Steve Jobs and Michael

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

“Life… Liberty… and the pursuit of Happiness.”

We published those words 229 years ago when we declared our independence from Britain. That document was the earliest expression of what has come to be known as the American dream.

Jefferson’s Declaration did not free us from the tyranny of Britain. It merely communicated our collective desire to be unfettered and unrestrained.

Do we now feel unfettered and unrestrained? I think not.

It seems to me that our current view of the American dream sees raw ambition as “the pursuit of happiness.”

Ambition is like sexual hunger. It is satisfied with accomplishment only for a moment, and then the hunger returns. Ambition will lead you to momentary satisfaction, but it will not lead you to happiness.

John D. Rockefeller, the world’s first billionaire, was worth 1% of the entire U.S. economy when he was asked,

“How much money does it take to make a man happy?”

Rockefeller answered, “Just a little bit more.”

Ambition is never contented.

Am I condemning ambition? I promise you that I am not. I am merely pointing out the deep chasm that separates the unending hunger of ambition from the high and lofty contentment of happiness.

An old man named Paul wrote a letter to a young man named Timothy 2,000 years ago. Near the end of that letter, Paul wrote about old people and hypocrites and slavery and wealth.

Paul then added two sentences that have echoed in my brain for the past 60 years.

“To know God and to be deeply contented is the true definition of wealth. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.”

Happiness cannot spread its wings while wearing the handcuffs of our ambitions. The shining light of Hope is made of a stronger and happier substance than our dark dreams of future accomplishment.

Ambition can bring you recognition, reputation, and riches. But those are no substitute for friendships, family, and contentment; for these are the three strong cords from which happiness is woven.

Have you figured it out yet? Happiness is not material. It is relational.

With whom do you have a meaningful relationship?

Roy H. Williams

We have solved the mystery of the roving reporter!

The wizard received this email from Italy a couple of days ago:

Dear Roy and Pennie,

Talya and I found this quaint restaurant with tables in its wine cellar and thought you’d love this place. (I don’t drink, but thought it appropriate to pose with a glass of wine — which our son-in-law ordered.) If your future plans bring you to Vincenza, Italy, this is one stop you won’t regret. Avital sends her warmest regards.

– DEAN

(You will find the photo that accompanied this email on the final page of today’s rabbit hole. I’m Ian Rogers.)

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RANDOM QUOTE:

“As we start looking for the good, our focus automatically is taken off the bad.”

- Susan Jeffers

THE WIZARD TRILOGY

“If we train our children only to harvest, who will plant the seed?”

I wrote those words after contemplating the short-sightedness of so-called, “performance marketing,” on March 11, 2010.

“Performance marketing” is the new name for direct response advertising. It works best when it extracts the value from a well-known brand. Its objective is to bring in a lot of money quickly.

That is why business owners are attracted to it.

But here’s the caveat: value cannot be extracted from a brand unless it has first been created. You cannot squeeze a good reputation dry unless you first build a good reputation.

Do you see the problem? When you have finally squeezed the last ounce of value from a good reputation, you don’t have a good reputation anymore.

As I was contemplating that last line I just wrote, the words “extraction of value” popped into my mind. I typed those words into the Google search bar. The AI Overview that appeared at the top of the page whispered to me in a conspiratorial tone:

“‘The extraction of value’ refers to the process of capturing or appropriating value from other stakeholders, often through exploiting a monopoly or manipulating competitive market processes, rather than creating new value.” – WIKIPEDIA

The eight words that leaped out of the paragraph were, “exploiting… or manipulating… rather than creating new value.”

Do you remember that famous scene in the movie There Will Be Blood when Daniel says to Eli,

“If you have a milkshake, and I have a milkshake, and I have a straw… There it is. that’s the straw, you see? Watch it. Now my straw reaches acroooooooss the room and starts to drink your milkshake. I… drink… your… milkshake! I drink it up!”

That is the voice of performance marketing.

The healthy alternative to performance marketing is sales activation within a relational ad campaign.

Sales activation is like shearing the wool from a sheep. You can do it again and again and the creature is never diminished by it.

Performance marketing is like slaughtering that poor sheep, piece by piece. It is painful, and there is nothing left when you are done.

I apologize for putting that horrible image into your mind, but we are talking about your business.

I’m sorry if I stepped over the line.

Roy H. Williams

You will find 4 examples of what the wizard calls “sales activation within a relational ad campaign” on the first page of the rabbit hole. I can hear what you are thinking right now. And to that, I say, “You’re welcome.” – Indy Beagle

Roving reporter Rotbart will be away on a secret mission in Italy for the next two weeks. He didn’t tell us exactly what it was, but here are our top 3 guesses. One: He is studying the original manuscripts of Leonardo Da Vinci for a special series of investigative reports to be aired on PBS this autumn. Two: The roving reporter was invited to the Vatican to meet with the Pope. Three: There is no secret mission. He is just eating gelato at a seaside cafe with his lovely wife, Talya, while gazing at the beautiful Mediterranean Sea. We will update you next week when we know more. – Ian Rogers

I was watching a few of Evan Puschak’s “Nerdwriter” videos when I heard my own inner voice composing a thank you note to him. In the quiet of my mind, I told Evan that I have always found his analysis of literature, movies, music, photographs, and paintings to be incisive and insightful.

Incisive

Insightful

Those two words, back-to-back, hit me so hard that I stumbled and fell backward into a bottomless chasm of grief over the loss of Andrew Cross.

Evan Puschak is incisive.

Andrew Cross was insightful.

“Incisive” conjures the precision of a scalpel as it slices open a surface to reveal what is hidden inside.

“Insightful” describes the inner workings of intuition as it quietly assembles a mosaic in the mind.

I was going to say that I have a “parasocial relationship” with Evan Puschak and Andrew Cross, but then I decided that I should check to make sure that “parasocial relationship” means what I think it does. Here’s what Captain Google told me.

“A parasocial relationship is a one-sided, imagined connection or bond a person develops with someone they don’t know personally, usually a media figure or celebrity, often feeling a sense of intimacy or familiarity despite the lack of reciprocity.”

Yep. It means exactly what I thought it did. 🙂

This is Andrew Cross, the Desert Drifter.

“Years ago, I ventured into a canyon alone. I thought I saw something perched high on a cliff. I looked closer. It was an ancient ruin of some kind. I assessed the climb to reach it, and I backed down. It looked too intimidating, but I’m not who I was back then.”

“Nerdwriter” Evan Puschak has built a YouTube channel of 3.2 million subscribers over the past 13 years.

“Desert Drifter” Andrew Cross built a YouTube channel of 484,000 subscribers in just 13 months. Both men are 36 years old.

I continue to watch with anxiety as Andrew climbs impossible stone cliffs,hundreds of feet high, to examine the ruins of 1,000-year-old Native American cliff dwellings.

I never suspected that Death would be waiting for Andrew at the corner of 1st Street and North Avenue near his home in Grand Junction, Colorado.

While he was still with us, Andrew took hundreds of thousands of people like me with him – one at a time – to explore remote places that few people will ever see. And he never failed to share his wonder:

“I had finally arrived. Arrived at what? Was the ruin itself what I was really searching for after all? As I looked around at the remnants of what once was, I pondered the reason I do all of this in the first place.”

“Confucius once said, ‘By three methods we may learn wisdom. First by Reflection, which is noblist. Second by Imitation, which is easiest. And third by Experience, which is the bitterest.’”

“These open desert spaces provide opportunities for all three of those. And they always beckon me to return. As long as I am able, I will answer their call, to discover more about myself and the people who have called this place ‘home.’ As you join me, my hope is for you, too, to find space for reflection, and the pursuit of wisdom.”

“Thank you for accompanying me on this journey.”

It was a delight to spend those hours with you, Andrew.

The world is smaller now that you are gone.

Roy H. Williams

Michael Drew helps authors turn their big ideas into nationwide influence and income. He has guided more than 130 book authors onto major bestseller lists — including The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. His methods are not just for seasoned authors. Michael...