Linda Pastam wrote a marvelous poem called “Driving West” in which these lines appear:

We are the pioneers

of our own histories, drawn

to the horizon as if it waited just for us

the way the young are drawn

to the future, the old to the past.

“…the way the young are drawn to the future, the old to the past.”

I need you to hold those words tightly in your hands, even though they wriggle and thrash like slippery fishes anxious to escape your unfamiliar fingers and return to the quiet darkness where they can breathe water and feel entirely at home.

Hold on to those words.

Dr. Roger Sperry was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1981 for his documentation of the differences between the two hemispheres of our brains.

One half of your brain puts you in touch with this Present Moment in this Real World.

The other half puts you in touch with the Past and the Future in that mystical – magical – hallucinatory unreliable World of Imagination.

Dr. Sperry discovered that what appears to a brain divided into two halves could more accurately be described as two separate, competing brains.

In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Sperry said,

“Each brain half appeared to have its own, largely separate, cognitive domain with its own private perceptual, learning and memory experiences, all of which were seemingly oblivious of corresponding events in the other hemisphere.”

Dr. Sperry later said,

“Each hemisphere of the brain is indeed a conscious system in its own right, perceiving, thinking, remembering, reasoning, willing, and emoting, all at a characteristically human level, and both the left and the right hemisphere may be conscious simultaneously in different, even in mutually conflicting,mental experiences that run along in parallel.”

Regardless of which half you prefer, both halves are equally important.

One half of your brain puts you in touch with This world.

The other half puts you in touch with Possible worlds.

One half puts you in touch with the sciences.

The other half puts you in touch with the arts.

Now let’s get back to those wriggling fish that I asked you to hold.

The Future to which the young are drawn, and the Past to which the old are attracted, are different time zones in the world of imagination.

The young live in the brightness of the noonday sun. The old live in the twilight and remember the light of day.

Most Americans attempt to persuade each other with facts. We do this because we trust Science and we worship Mathematics, and that is why we write such terrible ads.

Most of us, most of the time, trust our instincts.

We trust our intuitive hearts.

This is what Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman described as System 1 or “Thinking Fast” in his book, “Thinking Fast and Slow.”

Behavioral scientists estimate that roughly 90% to 95% of our daily decisions are made automatically and unconsciously using System 1 thinking.

Most people don’t want to admit it.

In fact, most people refuse to accept it.

But the scientific truth is that we make at least nine-tenths our decisions in that half of the brain where the darkwater fish glimmer effortlessly and thoughtlessly, silver and gold in the moonlight.

Study the arts. Learn to win the heart.

If you win the heart, the mind will follow. The mind will always create logic to justify what the heart has already decided.

Roy H. Williams

Paul Kesig uses the acronym L.O.V.E. to encapsulate his approach to sales.

L is for celebrating Little wins.

O is for asking Open-ended questions.

V is for creating and communicating Value.

E is for building an Emotional connection.

Paul says that pairing love with sales strikes many people as contradictory. This is usually because their experiences with bad salespeople have taught them to truly hate the sales process.

Listen in as Paul explains to roving reporter Rotbart that those who have adopted his approach have quickly discovered that L.O.V.E. really can spell success; MondayMorningRadio.com

The Island Magic of Being Invisible

(A Song for My Partners)

Six months later,

a thought occurred to me;

Writing for Youtube is like writing

for radio and TV.

Every writer has at their disposal

the same techniques and tools;

microphones, sound effects

and cameras of every kind.

But if you will succeed

you must limit yourself

to the microphone of your keystrokes;

the sound effects and cameras of your mind.

When we hear the words of Shakespeare

they become music in our ear,

and when we hear Robert Frost

we are no longer lost.

Those rhythms, mental music,

and refrains

remind me of the language

of the Bible of King James.

So what now,

shall we do?

I will try to imitate them

and you will, too.

We will write words

for television and radio.

We will tell stories and our clients

will get rich you know.

We will write essays

and teach everything we show.

People will remember

what we taught them

but forget who told them

that it was so.

We will write songs

that make singers

comprehensible.

But we ourselves

will always be invisible.

Why do we do this,

you and I?

We do it

because we have to,

we don’t need

to know why.

We do it because

we feel compelled.

Writing is the only time

we don’t feel

like we should be doing

something else.

Roy H. Williams

Pennie and I were in New York 40 years ago for ArtExpo in the Jacob K. Javits Center. We spent 3 days looking at more than 10,000 pieces of pieces of art and meeting many hundreds of artists as we walked those 500,000 square feet together. At the end of the show we went home with only 3 pieces, all of which were purchased from a relatively unknown Israeli artist named Reudor Gratch.

We invited Reudor and his wife, Effie, to dinner that night at “One if By Land, Two if By Sea” in Greenwich Village. We had an incredible evening with them.

The next day, I picked up a newspaper when I noticed that one of the serigraphs we had purchased from Reudor was one of only THREE pieces of art the newspaper had photographed for their review of that year’s ArtExpo.

You can see it at the top of this page.

August 17, 2026

“Trust” is a fuzzy word.

We know the meaning of the word, but it conjures no clear image in the mind.

“Razor blade” is a vivid word. Every time you hear it, you can see that razor blade clearly on the visuospatial sketchpad of working memory – also known as your imagination – in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex of your brain.

Trust is abstract.

Razor blade is concrete.

Trust is an artistic, emotional, relational word.

Razor blade is a scientific, logical, transactional word.

If you are thinking, “Razor blade is not a word; it is two words,” please be aware that I know this.

“Razor blade” is a 3-syllable construct that conjures a vivid, concrete image in the mind. But those 3 syllables* require the combination of two nouns, “razor” and “blade” to deliver clarity.

Were I to say only “blade,” you might think of a sword or a pocket knife or the knife with which you carve the turkey at Thanksgiving.

Were I to say only “razor,” you might think of that classic, metal shaving instrument that slowly opens to reveal a thin, double-edged blade when you twist the knob at the bottom of its handle.

Or you might think of that black, blue and chrome Norelco Aquatec that currently lies in a drawer below the mirror gaze into which you gaze as you run that buzzing little beast over the stubble on your bleary-eyed face each morning.

Yes, I know that “razor blade” is two words. But for the purpose of this essay, I am thinking of it only as a series of 3 syllables that deliver a concrete image.

“Trust” is a single syllable that does not deliver a concrete image, but it does deliver a meaningful impression.

Do you trust your husband?

Do you trust your wife?

Would you trust your dog

to protect your life?

Do you trust the government?

Do you the trust the police?

Do you trust your insurance company

or are you being fleeced?

In those nine seconds, I aimed the eyes of your imagination at 6 different subjects, but that single syllable – “trust” – delivered what I needed it to deliver each time.

Let me summarize what I have spoken.

Abstract versus Concrete

is essentially

Impression versus Clarity.

Reader, are you troubled that I said, “I have spoken,” when the technical truth is that I have written?

Here’s another little tidbit for you. The written word has no meaning until it has been translated into the spoken word it represents. Even when you are reading silently, you are hearing words in your mind. When you translate t-r-u-s-t into the single syllable that those 5 letters represent, the written word becomes the spoken word in your mind.

You have been told that one picture is worth a thousand words.

Maybe you even believe it.

Let’s put that to the test.

Draw, paint, photograph, or use AI to create a picture of “trust.”

The impression that we want to deliver to the viewer is the identical impression that is delivered by that glorious single syllable, “trust.”

The image you create can contain no words, no letters, no sounds, no numerals. We are looking for that mythical picture that is supposedly able to deliver what cannot be delivered in a thousand words.

When you have created your picture, show it to 100 people. Say only, “Tell me what you see.”

I do not believe that you can create a picture that will cause anyone to look up at you and say, “Trust.”

Let it be written it letters of fire across the skies: “One word is worth a thousand pictures.”

I wish for you a joyous and productive day.

Roy H. Williams

*ray-zur blayd or /ˈreɪ.zɚ ˌbleɪd/ in the International Phonetic Alphabet

“Working hard” is usually considered a virtue. But what happens when work becomes so central to your identity that you can’t switch it off? Do you continue working even when you are exhausted, on vacation, or spending time with the people who matter most?

Dr. Angelica Perez-Litwin has spent more than two decades observing high-achieving clients — and, as she candidly explains, she has experienced this problem herself.

As she explains to roving reporter Rotbart, “A person does not need to surrender their ambition. The solution is to build a healthier relationship with achievement. Professional and financial success can remain important without becoming the only measure of who you are.”

Listen and learn at MondayMorningRadio.com