Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly - S9E23 - Bookmarks 2020

Episode Date: June 4, 2020

This week, it’s our annual Bookmarks episode - where we tell fascinating stories from our research that didn't make it into the regular season. We’ll talk about a book that maintains if you build a better mousetrap, the world will NOT beat a path to your door. And we’ll tell a story from a biography of Bruce Lee that proves sometimes the only way to sell a product is to increase its price. Throw on your reading glasses and join us for Bookmarks 2020.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly. As you may know, we've been producing a lot of bonus episodes while under the influences on hiatus. They're called the Beatleology Interviews, where I talk to people who knew the Beatles, work with them, love them, and the authors who write about them. Well, the Beatleology Interviews have become a hit, so we are spinning it out to be a standalone podcast series. You've already heard conversations with people like actors Mark Hamill, Malcolm McDowell, and Beatles confidant Astrid Kershaw. But coming up, I talk to May Pang, who dated John Lennon in the mid-70s. I talk to double fantasy guitarist Earl Slick, Apple Records creative director John Kosh. I'll be talking to Jan Hayworth,

who designed the Sgt. Pepper album cover. Very cool. And I'll talk to singer Dion, who is one of only five people still alive who were on the Sgt. Pepper cover. And two of those people were Beatles. The stories they tell are amazing. So thank you for making this series such a success. And please do me a favor, follow the Beatleology interviews on your podcast app. You don't even have to be a huge Beatles fan. You just have to love storytelling. Subscribe now and don't miss a single beat. In case nobody's told you, weight loss goes beyond the old just eat less and move more narrative. And that's where Felix comes in. Felix is redefining weight loss for Canadians with a smarter, more personalized approach to help you crush your health goals this year.

Losing weight is about more than diet and exercise. It can also be about our genetics, hormones, metabolism. Felix connects you with online licensed healthcare practitioners who understand that everybody is different and can pair your healthy lifestyle with the right support to reach your goals. Start your visit today at Felix.ca. That's F-E-L-I-X.ca. Whether you're in your running era, Pilates era, or yoga era,

dive into Peloton workouts that work with you. From meditating at your kid's game to mastering a strength program, they've got everything you need to keep knocking down your goals. No pressure to be who you're not. Just workouts and classes to strengthen who you are. So no matter your era, make it your best with Peloton. Find your push. Find your push. Find your power.

Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. This is an apostrophe podcast production. You're so king in it. You're going to love it in an instant Your teeth look whiter than noon, noon, noon You're not you when you're hungry You're a good hand with all things. You're under the influence of Terry O'Reilly. Writing a book is a long, difficult, lonely journey.

I know. I've done it twice. And I'm doing it a third time right now. The first page an author writes is always very revealing. And I'm not talking about chapter one or the foreword. I'm talking about the book Dedication. It can give you an instant peek into the mind of the writer. In the first book I co-wrote, I got into a big argument with my co-author about the dedication,

which shows you how volatile simple dedications can be. Take this one, for example. which shows you how volatile simple dedications can be. Take this one, for example. To my two wives, I pray you never meet. Hmm, there's a whole book in that sentence. How about this one by author Mattson Perry? For my wife, who somehow managed to be nothing but supportive of a book about all the women I slept with before her. Brave. In the book, An Introduction to Algebraic Topology, but supportive of a book about all the women I slept with before her.

Brave. In the book, An Introduction to Algebraic Topology by Joseph J. Rotman, the dedication reads, To my wife Marganit and my children Ella Rose and Daniel Adam, without whom this book would have been completed two years earlier. Hmm, or so he told his editor. Dark Places by Gillian Flynn is a chiller about satanic cult hysteria.

In the dedication, she writes, What can I say about a man who knows how I think and still sleeps next to me with the lights off? That's scary. In a book by Jesse Bering titled The Sexual Deviant in All of Us,

the dedication reads, For you, you pervert, you. Author Pedram Amini wrote a book about software security titled Fuzzing, Brute Force Vulnerability Discovery. He wrote, I dedicate this book to George W. Bush, my commander-in-chief, whose impressive career advancement

despite remedial language skills inspired me to believe I was capable of authoring a book. Now that is inspirational. Ben Phillip wrote a book titled The Field Guide to the North American Teenager. Dedication? To my mother, Belzey.

I would have made a terrible doctor, Mom. People would have died. That's a good career choice, then. In the book titled Austinland by Shannon Hale, the dedication says, For Colin Firth. You're a really great guy, but I'm married, so I think we should just be friends.

I hope Colin took that okay, considering he probably doesn't even know Shannon Hale. In This Boy's Life by Tobias Wolfe, he wrote the following. My first stepfather used to say that what I didn't know would fill a book. Well, here it is. Yep, revenge is a dish best served cold. Like my favorite dedication of all time, Here it is. Yep, revenge is a dish best served cold. Like my favorite dedication of all time,

written by E.E. Cummings for his self-published 1935 book titled No Thanks. It said, No thanks to Farrar and Reinhart Simon and Schuster Coward McCann Limited Editions Harcourt Brace Random House Equinox Press Smith Smith & Hoss, Viking Press, Knopf, Dutton, Harpers, Scribners, and Koviči Fried.

Those were the 14 publishing houses that turned him down. Welcome to our annual Bookmarks episode. We read a lot of books while doing research for this show, and occasionally some of the great material we gather just doesn't fit into our regular episodes. So, we save the best bits for this show. From biographies to books on creativity to a book about spiders in space, I'd like to dedicate this episode to the first professor I had at Ryerson back in the 70s

who gave me a 4 out of 10 in radio. This one's for you. You're under the influence. One of the most interesting books I've read this year was titled How to Fly a Horse, subtitled The Secret History of Creation, Invention, and Discovery, by Kevin Ashton. It takes a fascinating look at the elusive subject of creativity. He analyzes a range of subjects from Mozart to the Muppets and maintains there is no magic moment in the sacred act of creativity. But rather, virtually all creative breakthroughs

are accomplished by seemingly unremarkable people who simply never gave up. Persistence and iteration were the salt and pepper of their delicious successes. Of the many key insights in this wonderful book, two come to mind today. The first is that you must say no. This is a lesson I've learned along the way. I'm very fortunate that I get wonderful opportunities presented to me.

Many people contact me and want to talk or they'd like to meet, and often I say no. But there is a reason for that. Saying no guards my time. I have a lot of creative projects I'm working on, and they need serious thinking time and careful, unrushed production time. As Ashton says, the math of time is simple. You have less than you think and need more than you know. No means more creative work can be done. Yes means less.

Guarding your creative time is important. The space you create to create is essential and should always be non-negotiable. The second aspect that I'm reminded of today in How to Fly a Horse is the fact there is a common misconception about creativity. Namely, that good ideas

are celebrated. The biggest ideas I've ever been associated with were always the most difficult to sell. They faced the most pushback. Always. The phrase,

build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door is incorrect. That line was actually a misquote from Ralph Waldo Emerson. The original line didn't even mention mousetraps, by the way. It was about building better chairs, knives, and church organs. But because it has been remembered as build a better mousetrap,

it has led to about 400 patent applications for mousetraps every year. And almost all of those applications quote or misquote Emerson's line, by the way. Of those 400 patent applications, about 40 are granted annually. More than 5,000 patents have been granted so far. So many, in fact, the U.S. Patent Office has 30 subclasses for mousetraps.

Fewer than 20 have ever made money. According to Ashton, the first and best mousetrap was built in the late 1880s by an Illinois inventor named William C. Hooker. Before that, Jack Russell terriers were used to hunt rodents. They were much more effective than cats. But Ashton's bigger point is this. You have to expect rejection when you

are creating. Build a better mousetrap and the world will not beat a path to your door. You must beat a path to the world. And that is why marketing remains so vital in business. In a book titled Disruption by Jean-Marie Drew, chairman of the multinational TBWA advertising firm,

the author puts forth the theory that in order for a company to thrive, it must disrupt conventional thinking. He says the future of a company has to be imagined, not predicted. As my old boss Jay Shiat used to say, creative is not a department. It should be the entire culture of a company.

Jean-Marie Drew believes that seeing the future first is more about having a wide-angle lens than a crystal ball. That it's more about surveying the always-evolving business landscape and being on the lookout for unique opportunities. Then, using bold creativity to stand out. That jives with the core philosophy of another book titled The Case for Creativity by James Herman. There is a constant unease between advertising agencies and their clients. So many clients feel that all you have to do is communicate an ad message clearly and people will listen, absorb, and buy.

Never happens. Many clients feel creativity gets in the way of the message. The problem with that thinking is that before an ad can sell a product, it has to get in the door first. Creativity sticks a foot in that door. As Herman says, to dismiss creativity is to make the assumption that people consume all the advertising put in front of them. Never happens.

Creative advertising makes the immediate assumption that people block out advertising and only let in a tiny amount of advertising that captures their interest. I believe that right down to my socks. A media buy makes an audience a possibility, not a certainty. 2,000 people passing a billboard on the way to work is not an audience of 2,000. The quality of the creative idea determines that audience. As author Herman accurately points out in his book, much of the skepticism of creativity

comes from many chief executive and financial officers who regard marketing as flaky and therefore see creative advertising agencies as flaky squared. The problem is that creativity is not a balance sheet item, nor is it a process that can be regimented. The more you process creativity, the blander it gets, just like food. But the smartest companies know creativity is the most powerful business tool. Brands that became famous because of advertising outperformed all

other brands. Take the old spice campaign, the The Man Your Man Could Smell Like. And your man could smell it. What's in your hand? Back at me. I have it. It's an oyster with two tickets to that thing you love. Look again. The tickets are now diamond. Anything is possible when your man smells like Old Spice and not a lady. I'm on a horse. That commercial became famous. It earned an audience orders of magnitude larger than its media spend could have ever achieved. Year-over-year sales grew 125%.

It was judged not only as one of the most creative ad campaigns of 2011, but the most effective. In many ways, social media was the final arbitrator of that. Old Spice was viewed over 40 million times in its first week alone. While social media has its downside, it is an advertising litmus test. Nobody shares bad commercials. Social media shuts out boring ads. As Herman says, awareness is dependent on money.

Fame is dependent on creativity. Pricing has always been a fascinating subject to me, because the price of a product is often determined by psychology, not the cost of producing the product. Companies that pursue the lowest possible price as a strategy will slowly remove features and premium ingredients from their products until shoppers start to scream. In other words, a low price costs something. Anybody can drop a price. But how do companies sell a high-priced item?

To begin with, a high price must be established in the advertising, not in the store. As Jack Trout says in the classic marketing book, Positioning the Battle for Your Mind, there should be no surprises at the store level. Marketers don't necessarily need to quote exact prices in the ads, but they must clearly communicate that the product exists in the high-price category. Years ago, a new breakthrough was made in car wax. It was put on the market at 69 cents a bottle.

Nobody bought it, because nobody believed this new wax could do a great job for just 69 cents. So the advertising agency convinced the wax manufacturer to raise the price to $1.69. It sold like hotcakes. Sometimes you have to raise a price in order to generate sales. In the excellent biography of Bruce Lee by Matthew Pauly, he tells an interesting pricing story. In the mid-60s, Bruce Lee is co-starring

in the Green Hornet TV show as Kung Fu sidekick Kato. But when the show is canceled, Lee struggles financially. Then one day, several businessmen offer him the chance to start a nationwide chain of Kato Kung Fu schools.

The businessmen would fund it, and Lee would add his name, prestige, and martial arts expertise. It would be an instant empire, and the revenue would probably set Lee up for life. But he turns it down. He has no interest in managing franchised McDojos. It would effectively end his acting career

and turn him into a corporate executive. Instead, Lee wanted to take a gamble on his Hollywood dream. He knew the ticket in depended on who you know. So, he decided to craft his art into a luxury item for celebrities. One of his first students is Jay Sebring, hairdresser to the stars. Lee notices Sebring charges celebrities $50 for a $2 haircut.

He wonders if he can do the same thing with Kung Fu lessons. He begins by charging $25 an hour, the equivalent of $190 in today's dollars. Pricey, but he gets no takers. One day, he bumps into the co-producer of the Green Hornet series, and he asks Lee if he has found any other acting work.

Lee says no. The producer says, why don't you use your talent to teach celebrities kung fu? Lee says he was trying, but had no luck. The producer asks him how much he was charging. Lee says $25 per hour, and wonders if it's too much. The producer tells him it's way too little.

He tells Lee that Hollywood is full of writers, actors, directors, and producers who are suffering from middle-aged macho syndrome. Guys who want to appear tough and virile. Guys who have money to burn. And learning Kung Fu from Bruce Lee would be right up their alley. So, in 1968, Lee printed up new business cards that offered his services for $150 per hour. Within weeks, his students included James Colburn,

Blake Edwards, James Garner, and Steve McQueen. By the end of 1968, Bruce Lee was the hottest self-defense instructor in Hollywood. He was so overwhelmed with requests, he raised his fee to $275. That's over $2,000 in today's dollars per hour. In marketing, to successfully position a product with a high price, you must establish the high price position with a unique product story.

And you have to do that in a category where shoppers are receptive to a high-priced brand. Bruce Lee had a very unique story. He was a once-in-a-lifetime martial artist. And he fished where the fish were. Hollywood. And we'll be right back. If you're enjoying this episode, why not dip into our archives,

available wherever you download your pods. Go to terryoreilly.ca for a master episode list. Another book I read this year was titled Dream Teams by Shane Snow. It's a book that explores why a select group of teams succeed spectacularly while others completely break down. Snow's book reveals the fact that great teams pivot on creative friction. The longer people work together, the more they begin to think alike. And that is not good for creativity. They get stuck in the same pattern

of thinking. Groupthink. Snow believes smart groups should contain a naysayer, or someone with a diverse

point of view. This person doesn't necessarily have the answers, but by pushing back or by coming at the problem with a diametrically

opposed viewpoint stimulates creative tension. And creative tension fuels more originality. He tells a great story to prove his point. The FBI didn't hire its first female agent until 1972. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover believed agents had to be big, strong, intimidating, and male.

He also believed the FBI all had to march to the same drum. In other words, they all had to be male. Of course, J. Edgar Hoover was wrong. Back in 1974, the FBI had gathered enough incriminating evidence to subpoena a mob boss in New Jersey to force him to testify in court. But mafia bosses are hard to get into a courtroom. There was one big problem. The court demanded a subpoena must be delivered in person, by hand. And the mafia had long ago figured out if a subpoena never got delivered, then it couldn't be enforced.

So, they developed a simple strategy. Surround the mob boss with layers of bodyguards so no law enforcement officer could ever get close enough to deliver the document. It created an ongoing problem for the FBI. They scratched their heads for weeks about how to get to the mob boss. They tried ambushing him at a lunch one day, but the bodyguards

blocked their way. The organized crime squad then arranged a brainstorming session. They needed a better plan. The problem was a subpoena is a request to testify,

not an arrest. So the FBI couldn't raid the mobster's offices with guns blazing just to deliver paperwork. That's when the rookie in the room raised a hand. Her name was Christine Young. All the male heads turned when she spoke. She quietly said the mob boss's daughter was getting married in two weeks, and she had an idea.

Two weeks later, a chauffeured black limousine pulled up at the location where the daughter's wedding reception was being held. Out of the car stepped an elegant woman in heels and a purple high-necked gown. The bodyguards watched as she confidently strode into the reception hall. Nobody stopped her, just as Christine Young had predicted. She waited in the reception line. When she got to

the front, the bride was standing there beside her beaming father. That's when Agent Young handed the mob boss the subpoena, said enjoy your night, and walked out. The mob boss was furious. That simple plan worked perfectly, because nobody at the wedding assumed

that a gorgeously dressed Asian woman could possibly be a federal agent. Christine Young's simple idea had trumped all the other plans the FBI had tried in the past. She was a female with a point of view that existed outside the FBI groupthink. She was, as someone once said, an angelic troublemaker. The lesson? Make sure teams are diverse and include outsiders, provocateurs, and devil's advocates. And suspend

your reflex to ignore them. In case nobody's told you, weight loss goes beyond the old just eat less and move more narrative. And that's where Felix comes in. Felix is redefining weight loss for Canadians with a smarter, more personalized approach to help you crush your health goals this year. Losing weight is about more than diet and exercise. It can also be about our genetics, hormones, metabolism. Felix connects you with online licensed healthcare practitioners who understand that everybody is different and can pair your healthy lifestyle with the right support to reach your goals. Start your visit today at felix.ca. That's F-E-L-I-X dot C-A.

Whether you're in your running era, Pilates era, or yoga era, dive into Peloton workouts that work with you. From meditating at your kid's game to mastering a strength program, they've got everything you need to keep knocking down your goals. No pressure to be who you're not. Just workouts and classes to strengthen who you are. So no matter your era, make it your best with Peloton. Find your push.

Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. Bet MGM is an official sports betting partner of the National Hockey League and has your back all season long. From puck drop to the final shot, you're always taken care of with the sportsbook Born in Vegas. That's a feeling you can only get with BetMGM.

And no matter your team, your favorite skater, or your style, there's something every NHL fan is going to love about BetMGM. Download the app today and discover why BetMGM is your hockey home for the season. Raise your game to the next level this year with BetMGM, a sportsbook worth a selly, and an official sports betting partner of the National Hockey League. BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. Must be 19 years of age or older to wager.

Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connects Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. The last book I want to mention today is titled Spiders in Space by Todd Hirsch and Rob Roche. It's an interesting book about adapting to unwanted change.

In the first chapter, they tell the story that lent the book its title. As an experiment, two spiders were brought up to the Skylab space station in 1973. NASA wanted to see if spiders could spin a web without the aid of gravity. It was an interesting question, because never before in the 300-million-year history of spiders had they ever faced this challenge. Things didn't go well initially. The first web looked like it was designed by a drunk spider.

But after a couple of days, they figured it out. The arachnid astronauts adapted to the unwanted change. Their essential nature, their DNA, didn't change. They remained hunters who trapped their prey by spinning webs. They were the same spiders, but they learned to spin their webs under a disorienting new condition. With this current pandemic, we are all facing disorienting new conditions. Adapting to this new new will be challenging because so much of our world will change. But as authors Hirsch and Roche say, successful adapters find ways to thrive under the new conditions rather than merely

learning to tolerate them. The spiders had to deal with the absence of body weight. They had to build their web frames by running along the structure instead of dropping down, which was the usual spider way. The spiders faced a binary choice, give up or try something different. Adapters will see the new normal as an opportunity. Non-adapters will give up. It pays to be a spider in space. There is so much collected wisdom in books. And it's all there for the taking.

Sometimes you learn something so enlightening you take it with you for the rest of your life. Other times, you read something that reinforces what you already believe. Like, the world will not be the path to your door when you come up with an original idea. As a matter of fact, it could be the toughest fight of your career. People will almost always default to the familiar. In many of the stories today, true creativity only happened when people avoided the trap of groupthink. As author Nassim Taleb says, Our minds are like inmates.

We must plan a cunning escape. In Shane Snow's dream teams, you see how incredible problems can be solved when a team is comprised of diverse viewpoints and how important it is to suppress the instinct to ignore a dissenting voice. And in this time of COVID-19, we're entering an era of unwanted change.

We will all have to adapt in this strange, new, zero-gravity world of uncertainty. It'll be a little wobbly at first. But with creativity, and by inviting diverse voices into the conversation, we'll figure it out. Because every blank page is dedicated to possibilities

when you're under the influence. I'm Terry O'Reilly. This episode was recorded in the Terrastream Mobile Recording Studio. Producer, Debbie O'Reilly. Sound Engineer, Keith Ullman. Theme music by Ari Posner and Ian Lefevre. If you liked this episode, you might also enjoy Bookmarks 2017, Season 6, Episode 25. You'll find it in our archives wherever you download your podcasts.

Follow me on Twitter and Instagram at Terry O Influence. See you next week. I too have come up with a better mousetrap. Simple yet... Would you excuse me for a moment? Thank you. New year, new me. Season is here and honestly, Thank you. about tackling genetics, hormones, metabolism, Felix gets it. They connect you with licensed healthcare practitioners online who'll create a personalized treatment plan that pairs your healthy lifestyle

with a little help and a little extra support. Start your visit today at Felix.ca. That's F-E-L-I-X.ca. Whether you're in your running era, Pilates era, or yoga era, dive into Peloton workouts that work with you. From meditating at your kid's game to mastering a strength program, they've got everything you need to keep knocking down your goals. No pressure to be who you're not.

Just workouts and classes to strengthen who you are. So no matter your era, make it your best with Peloton. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. BetMGM is an official sports betting partner of the National Hockey League and has your back all season long. From puck drop to the final shot, you're always taken care of with the sportsbook Born in Vegas.

That's a feeling you can only get with BetMGM. And no matter your team, your favorite skater, or your style, there's something every NHL fan is going to love about BetMGM. Download the app today and discover why BetMGM is your hockey home for the season. Raise your game to the next level this year with BetMGM, a sportsbook worth a sellie, and an official sports betting partner of the National Hockey League. BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. Must be 19 years of age or older to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly.

If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact ConnexOntario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario.