Journey to the Past
I witnessed a crime yesterday… …and I did nothing to stop it. Melissa, Maddie, and I were enjoying a quiet dinner on the patio at Saigon Cafe in St. Louis when we were interrupted by a high-pitched “Yip, yip, yip.” Startled, I dropped my chopsticks in my bowl of Bun Tom Heo Nuong Cha Gio, turned…
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My great-great grandfather Joseph Ruwitch was born in 1852 in a place known today as Ukraine. Back then it was part of Russia – an area called the Pale of Settlement. It was a massive place created by Tzar Catherine the Great. It was a place the government set aside for Jews… …a place to…
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Back in the early 1970s, I was still a wee lad playing kick ball on the blacktop at Conway School… …when I heard the rumor. Cathy Summers eats her own boogers. (GASP!) I don’t remember who started the rumor, and I have no idea if it was true. But I know the booger-rumor stuck. And…
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Every so often, my buddy Adam sends me a link with a challenge to “email this.” Sometimes it’s a link to a crazy discussion thread on Reddit. Often, it’s a random, funny news story. My favorite “email this” challenge was a news story about status-hungry Chinese big-shots and strippers (more on that in a moment). …
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When Dr. Ruth Allan asked me during a podcast interview to, “tell us about an embarrassing thing that happened to you,” I didn’t hesitate. I’ve deposited piles of embarrassments in my memory bank. But Ruth was interviewing me during the first week in May, so I had to trot out the story of… My humiliating Cinco…
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Major League Baseball opening day… …makes me think of Yogi Berra… …and something he once said: “If people don’t want to come to the ballpark, how are you gonna stop them?” Yogi was a Hall-of-Fame catcher for the New York Yankees – not a marketing genius. But those words are loaded with profound marketing wisdom. …
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On March 8, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky appeared on video before the British House of Commons. He delivered a defiant, confident speech that included these words: “We will not give up, and we will not lose. We will fight to the end, at sea, in the air, we will continue fighting for our land, whatever…
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We lost a legend this week — Joe Sugarman, a copywriting great, who taught me (and countless others) tons about marketing. He wrote many great books, including The Adweek Copywriting Handbook. I pulled that book from my shelf yesterday and flung it open to the place I dog-eared long ago: Page 178. The section about storytelling.…
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Want to turn an enemy into an ally? Here’s a story I got from chapter 18 of “Yes!” by Robert Cialdini – this month’s selection in the Mastermind Book Club (more on that below). Back in colonial times, long before he graced the $100-bill, Benjamin Franklin was running for reelection as an officer for a literary and…
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Picture this: Your dad, the King, is sleeping in the castle garden. His brother creeps into the garden, kills Dad by pouring poison in his ear, marries the Queen, and takes the throne. So it went for Prince Hamlet of Denmark – at least in William Shakespeare’s version of the story. At first, Hamlet thought…
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