Copywriting

The most unlikely Australian murder mystery

by

True story:

In 1935, somewhere off the coast of Sydney, Australia, a fisherman netted a 14-foot tiger shark that, unknown to the fisherman, was hiding a nasty secret in its belly.

The fisherman brought the shark to the local aquarium. The local aquarians put the shark into a tank. Then they all stood around, watching with satisfaction as the shark swam around its new home.

But soon, the shark began acting strange.

It started ramming its head against the sides of the tank, clutching its belly, and saying, “Uff… I don’t feel so good.”

The shark ended up vomiting. Within a few minutes, the foul-smelling contents of its stomach floated to the surface.

Visitors to the aquarium took turns identifying what they could see.

Some brown goo… a bird… a rat… and yep, there it was:

A tattooed human arm, with a rope tied around it. But…

Closer inspection of the arm showed no bite marks. The arm was cleanly severed. In other words, someone had cut it off and tried to get rid of it.

So whose arm was it? What was it doing at the bottom of the ocean? And what was the tattoo on it?

If you are curious about the rest of this severed arm mystery or the copywriting moral it contained, I’m afraid that particular fishing boat has sailed. Because the above true story was the intro to an email that email copywritress Liza Schermann sent out — a few days ago.

That email was part of a challenge Liza set to herself – to write 29 days of sexy emails about unsexy topics. So far, she has written about:

* Her failed apple crumble at Christmas
* Cushions
* Her water heater
* The mating habits of lobsters (pretty sexy, but we will let it slide)
* The above shark story (again, pretty sexy, at least copywriting-wise, but ok)
* Her attitude towards clothes ironing
* Toilet paper and the way you hang it (rolling over or under)
* Multiplication (the mathematical kind)
* Household finances

I’m telling you this to point out a curious fact about the mathematics of email copywriting:

Liza has been true to her challenge. She has managed to take the above mundane and unpromising topics and write interesting, funny, and — I’m afraid to say this — even sexy emails.

And here’s the curious thing:

I’ve been on Liza’s email list for a while. She previously only sent an email a week. I liked reading those emails.

But her daily, “unsexy” emails are much better.

That’s something I’ve noticed with my own writing as well.

It’s easier to prepare and write 10 good emails (or in Liza’s case, 29) than to write just one good email. It’s not just a matter of practice. It’s also a matter of research… idea generation… and less fiddling and self-censoring.

So that’s my takeaway for you:

If you’re having trouble writing a good email, try writing 10 instead. Paradoxically, you might find it easier going.

But getting back to the shark. Like I said, that particular fishing expedition has sailed. But a new one is waiting in harbor right now, because Liza is writing these emails day-for-day.

So if you want to follow Liza on her quest to write about tablecloths… the mechanics of garbage trucks… and the history of chamomile tea (I’m just guessing at possible future topics)… then you can do that at the link below. But a warning to ye first:

I’ve known Liza personally for a long while, long before either she or I got into copywriting. I also feel a bit responsible for and invested in her copywriting career. I’ve even hired her to write some stuff for me before. Plus, if you were on my Influential Emails training, you know she was there to help me run the thing and make it a success.

So if none of that turns you off, and you still want some sexy stuff in your life, here’s where you can follow as Liza turns lead into goldfish:

https://www.thecrazyemaillady.com/

Great re-reads

by

“The richer part of the promises you’ll make is the part that pulls the strings from behind the curtain. Friendship and status among your peers. Confidence and freedom from worry. Inclusion. Safety and security. Even just the feeling of association to people you admire and respect.”
– Michael Masterson and John Forde, Great Leads

I’m re-reading Great Leads right now. It’s my third time around reading and taking notes from this book. Even so, last night, I was shocked to read that passage above. It felt like I’d never seen it before. Which means…

1) This passage was secretly inserted into the book since I last read it (very unlikely) or…

2) My eyes carelessly skipped it the two times before (somewhat unlikely) or…

3) I was daydreaming both times while reading it (somewhat likely) or…

4) At those earlier times, I just didn’t grasp the deep significance of what I was reading (very likely).

In fact, my brain might have glossed over this passage even this third time.

​​Probably, the only reason I was finally able to see it is because I was writing about the same stuff only a few days ago. (If you’re curious, check out my emails from Dec 31 and Dec 29.)

So my point is that there is much value in re-reading books, and then re-reading them some more. And not just because you might be forgetful… dull of understanding… or careless the first few times around.

The way I think of it:

The ideas in a book, and the presentation of those ideas, are like seeds. And your mind while you’re reading, and the circumstances of your life at that time, are the soil in which those seeds can land. And for each seed, there is a different season for fruitful sowing.

In other words, if you revisit a good book, even one you’re sure you know well, the harvest can be bountiful. You can find good ideas that you couldn’t appreciate earlier. Or you can remind yourself of good ideas you had seen before, so they become a deeper core of who you are.

In this way, re-reading good books can create transformative changes in your life and business. Because many valuable ideas are simple. You just need to be reminded to apply them, and results will follow soon.

But maybe you knew all that already. And maybe by telling you this, I’m just making you feel a little guilty, instead of actually motivating you.

So let me tell you that in my experience, re-reading books is actually fun and exciting. You discover stuff, like that passage above, that couldn’t have been in the book before.

Re-reading good books also gives you confidence and satisfaction. You are following the advice of industry giants like David Deutsch, Ben Settle, and Parris Lampropoulos… so you know you are building a valuable habit.

And rereading books can even make you feel a little smug and superior — in a perfectly healthy way — compared to both your earlier self and to all those other people who aren’t willing to do this.

But do as you think is right.

Maybe you really are too smart to get value out of a second or third re-reading of a book.

But if you are not, then I’d like to talk to you. Because I feel like we might be kindred spirits.

So if you already have this habit, or if you’re planning on starting it now, write in and let me know. I’ll tell you a few of the best books, both persuasion and non-persuasion related, that I’m re-reading now and will be re-reading soon.

And by the way, if you’re puzzled by why I would tell you all this, you clearly need to re-read Great Leads. It’s right there on page 83, before the analysis of Vic Schwab’s How To Win Friends & Influence People ad.

But if by some cruel twist of fate you don’t have your own copy to reach for, here’s a very smart way to invest $11.42:

https://bejakovic.com/great-leads

People think for emotional reasons and then justify with logic

by

Today, I’d like to tell you the most mindblowing and unsettling idea I’ve been exposed to over the past six years… and how you can use the insight gained from this in copywriting and persuasion.

The idea comes from neuroscientist Donald Hoffman.

Hoffman studies vision and is convinced — based on all the research he’s done at his lab at UCI — that what we “see” in our minds is nothing at all like the world out there.

In other words, what you think of as reality is anything but. Schrodinger’s cat is neither dead nor alive. Instead, there is no cat.

This conclusion of Hoffman’s work is not a new idea. There are thousands of years of philosophy and about a century of hard science that say much the same thing.

But even with all the science and logic, most people still find this idea pretty hard to accept, or even absurd.

Hoffman knew this. And he knew that if he wrote his pop science book, The Case Against Reality, relying on science and logic, his message wouldn’t get through. So instead, he argued like this:

Imagine a blue rectangular file icon in the lower right corner of your computer desktop.

This icon allows you to interact with the file in a way that matters to you.

But does this mean the file itself is blue, rectangular, and lives in the lower right corner of your desktop? Of course not.

You can probably accept that the innards of your computer aren’t just slightly different from what you see on the screen.

​​Instead, the reality is completely different… immensely more complex… and pretty much unknowable if all you do is interact with the desktop interface.

But that’s just how it is with human consciousness, Hoffman argues.

The fact that you see letters on a screen right now doesn’t mean there are really letters on a screen in front of your eyes. What’s more, it doesn’t even mean that there are such things as a screen… or your eyes… anywhere, outside of your own consciousness. Your “reality” doesn’t “really” exist.

Like I said, I found this unsettling and yet mindblowing. Perhaps you do too. If so, let the feeling linger for a moment. And in the meantime, let me get to the copywriting and persuasion:

Thanks to a reader named Lester, I found out a cool new term, “guided apophenia.” It was coined by Reed Berkowitz, who is an augmented reality game designer.

Apophenia, by the way, is “the tendency to perceive meaningful connections between unrelated things.”

And guided apophenia is how Berkowitz described the similarity between augmented reality games and the phenomenon of QAnon.

This similarity is also not a new idea. But the following bit in Berkowitz’s article was new to me:

Recently, a report published in 2018 in the journal Human Brain Mapping found that Aha! moments also activate the brain’s reward systems.

Basically, that “A Ha!” moment when puzzle solving (even when incorrect) is extremely pleasurable and also may help encode what we learn in a new way.

In other words, solving puzzles is extremely rewarding from a biochemical standpoint and the thoughts we gain from them are special to us.

In case it’s not clear:

This is scientific proof for something I’ve believed for a while – that insight is a feeling, much like desire, fear, or curiosity. And the same way that desire, fear, or curiosity can put us in a trance and make us susceptible to suggestion… so can the feeling of insight.

This newish science is really all I wanted to tell you today.

But had I said just that, then like Donald Hoffman, I doubted my message would get through.

So instead, I tried to flood you with the feeling of insight, by telling you the most powerful analogy I could think of.

Because, like other feelings, insight is transferable. If you feel insight because you successfully connected two unrelated things in your mind — say, computer desktops and human consciousness — then that feeling rubs off on other things nearby.

In my email newsletter, I spelled out exactly what this means for copywriting and persuasion. But unfortunately, you missed out on that, because you’re not signed up for my email newsletter.

So let me make a suggestion:

Consider signing up. Your marketing savvy — and perhaps your consciousness — might open up as a result.

“Sign of the Elephant Guarantee”

by

Right now, the top seller in the competitive “manifestation” niche on Clickbank is an offer called the BioEnergy Code.

The VSL for this offer tells the story of Angela Carter, a woman on a journey to find wealth, health, and a feeling of connectedness… by following the golden thread of the elephant.

Elephant?

Yes, elephant.

First, Angela walks into a bookstore in her home town. She closes her eyes and prays for guidance. And she spots a travel guide with an elephant on it.

Next thing you know, Angela’s traveled to Nepal. A boy on the street tugs on her shirt. “Go see the elephants,” he says, and he points across the street.

This leads Angela to a guru who tells her the secret of manifesting anything she wants.

She manifests a new and amazing life for herself. She’s ready to head back home. And she wants to make the guru’s secret public, so others could benefit also. But the guru balks.

“This knowledge stays in Nepal!”

But our hero is prepared. “What if we contribute a portion of each sale to a save-the-elephants charity?”

The guru mulls this over for a second. “Deal!”

This explains why you can now buy the BioEnergy Code for $37 on Clickbank. Pretty standard stuff and not particularly inventive. But this next part is.

When it’s time to close the sale on the set of guided meditation mp3s and chakra-release PDFs, Angela makes the following guarantee:

I call it the “Sign of the Elephant Guarantee”.

Here’s how it works.

Within 24 hours of saying “yes” to The BioEnergy Code…

I guarantee you’ll receive an unmistakable “sign” that you’re on the right path.

It’ll feel like something just got unblocked so you can see your path more clearly than ever.

It may not be an “elephant” like it was for me in Barnes & Noble and the tea shop in Kathmandu…

But it WILL be so clear and so unmistakable, it will be the “Elephant in the Room” – a sign that your fields of BioEnergy are about to be cleared and unleashed.

All I ask is that you give your source 24 hours to manifest this elephant in the room sign.

And if you don’t experience this elephant size sign, simply email me and I’ll promptly refund every penny.

I thought this was genuinely clever. This short bit of copy does so much.

I sat down, and off the top of my head, I wrote 7 good things that come out of this guarantee. I was going to highlight the most valuable of these 7 things in this email, but I realized they are all too important.

So I will make you an offer with a 100% no-questions-asked money-back guarantee… for a full 24 hours.

I call it the “Sign of Clickbank Insight.”

Here’s how it works:

Within 24 hours of reading this email, I guarantee you will receive an unmistakable sign having to do with Clickbank.

Oh, it might not be a big Clickbank logo on a sales page that you visit. But it will be there if you watch for it.

It might be some email newsletter mentioning Clickbank… or it might be an online run-in with a copywriter or marketer, such as Stefan Georgi or Ian Stanley or Chris Haddad, who has been closely tied to Clickbank in the past.

Once you see the sign, you will feel a clear and unmistakable lightbulb moment. “Aha! So this is what that Bejakovic guy was talking about!”

I guarantee this will happen. All I ask is that you give the universe 24 hours to organize this moment of insight for you.

And when it happens, then sign up to my email newsletter.

Reply to my welcome email and tell me about the sign that you saw… and I will spell out the 7 chakras of the “Sign of the Elephant guarantee.”

I mean, I will tell you what I thought was so good about this guarantee… and how you can use this in your own marketing and copy to one day make it to the top of your own Clickbank category.

Or… your money back.

A brief and noble email

by

The land of the ancient Spartans is Laconia, and so from the ancient Spartans we get the adjective laconic. It describes speech which says much in few words. Example:

When Philip of Macedon was tearing through ancient Greece, he sent an envoy to Sparta with a menacing yet indirect message. Should Philip come to Sparta as friend or foe? The Spartan answer:

Neither.

What! Nobody talked to Philip this way! So he rushed back a second envoy, with a more direct message. If he invaded Laconia, he would rout the Spartans and kick them out from their lands. The Spartan response:

If.

So Philip shrugged, picked up his armies, invaded Laconia, routed the Spartans in battle, and kicked them out from many of their lands.

And my point is — well, I guess you see my point.

Terseness might sound noble or clever. But it has little to do with effectiveness. So don’t rely on it for persuasion. But do keep it for entertainment. Like this:

A group from the island of Samos once came to Sparta seeking aid. They were starving.

They made a big, long speech, as was customary at that time.

When the speech finally finished, the Spartans said they could no longer remember the first half, and so could make no sense of the second half. Petition denied.

The hungry Samians glared at each other.

And they asked for a second hearing.

This time, they brought an empty bag. They pointed to the bag and said, “The bag wants flour.”

The Spartan magistrates shook their heads. “You could have done without saying, ‘the bag’.” But fine. They granted the Samian request.

And now:

I won’t make a big speech. I will just point to my empty newsletter optin form. And I will say, “wants your information.” I hope you will grant the request.

“START, EVERY TIME, WITH THIS INVIOLABLE RULE:”

by

Last night, I had a few extra hours left at home before my flight to warmer climes.

So there I was, sitting in the kitchen, talking with my mom. Suddenly, she looked at the clock. Her eyes lit up.

“Do you want to watch Scent of a Woman?” she asked.

It’s her favorite movie, or one of them. A 90s Hollywood melodrama about a blinded army colonel, played by Al Pacino, who really enjoys women and yelling at the top of his voice.

If you’ve never seen the movie, I’m about to spoil it for you:

The entire two-and-a-half hours is the colonel’s last grand tour around New York City before he attempts to kill himself. Disabled life isn’t worth living, he believes.

Of course, the colonel doesn’t succeed in killing himself.

There’s a climactic scene in a fancy hotel room in which the colonel’s chaperone, an earnest 17-year-old boy, wrestles, cajoles, and begs the colonel for his gun and his life.

“Give me one reason not to kill myself,” Al Pacino yells at his usual 11, while shoving the gun in the boy’s face.

“I’ll give you two,” says the chaperone, tears running down his face. “You can dance the tango and drive a Ferrari better than anyone I’ve ever seen.”

The colonel exhales. His shoulders slump. He turns around. “I’m gonna need a drink,” he says. And he starts disassembling his gun.

I hope you’ve been sufficiently emotionally aroused. Because now I’d like to sell you a piece of writing advice by film director and playwright David Mamet (Glengarry Glen Ross, Wag The Dog, Hannibal).

At one point, Mamet wrote up a short guide for a few writers working under him. Like Al Pacino, Mamet also enjoys yelling, at least in print, so he wrote his advice mostly in caps:

“START, EVERY TIME, WITH THIS INVIOLABLE RULE: THE SCENE MUST BE DRAMATIC. it must start because the hero HAS A PROBLEM, AND IT MUST CULMINATE WITH THE HERO FINDING HIM OR HERSELF EITHER THWARTED OR EDUCATED THAT ANOTHER WAY EXISTS.”

Going back to Scent of a Woman, you can see how neatly the hotel scene fits this rule:

The colonel has a problem. He’s lost his self-respect and he believes he cannot enjoy life any more. But he finds himself thwarted in his desire to end his misery. And he is educated that, in spite of his disability, life is still worth living.

So there you go. A simple way to write melodrama, which is really all you should be doing when you write sales copy. Just follow Mamet’s rule.

…

Yes?

What, you want more?

Solid copywriting advice is no longer enough for you?

Jeez. All right. Let me try impressing you with another quote. This one comes from a miserable German philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer:

“Pedantry also is a form of folly. It arises from a man’s having little confidence in his own understanding, and therefore not liking to leave things to its discretion, to recognize directly what is right in the particular case. Accordingly, he puts his understanding entirely under the guardianship of his reason. Therefore, the pedant, with his general maxims, almost always misses the mark in life, shows himself to be foolish, absurd, and incompetent.”

The point being, you can write serviceable melodrama by following rules, like the one that Mamet lays down. But you’re not likely to ever write something really great. Or even to produce a breakthrough piece of sales copy.

That’s not to say that rules don’t have their place. But maybe Mamet was wrong.

Maybe you shouldn’t start START, EVERY TIME, WITH THIS INVIOLABLE RULE.

Maybe you should just END BY CHECKING YOUR LIST OF RULES, to make sure you HAVEN’T WRITTEN ANYTHING IRRETRIEVABLY STUPID WHILE TRUSTING YOUR INSTINCTS.

Ok, enough shouting. Here’s a quiet message instead:

Every day, I write about marketing and copywriting. Often I include movie illustrations for the points I’m making. If this kind of thing makes your eyes light up, consider signing up for my email newsletter here.

Things “worthy of compliment” in 12 of my competitors

by

I recently finished reading a book called NLP about NLP by two NLP experts, Steve Andreas and Charles Faulkner.

I’m interested in somehow patching a few Y2K-sized bugs in my own brain software, and so this kind of neural programming stuff is right up my alley and then through a little door.

Anyways, at one point in the book, Andreas and Faulkner advise the following:

“Find what’s worthy of compliment in your competition. Since you have been encouraging yourself to be complimentary to others, your senses have been opened and relaxed. You will have undoubtedly found yourself acquiring the skills of others without directly concentrating on them.”

Too easy? Who knows. I decided to try it out.

But then right at the start, I hit a snag. I had trouble coming up with my “competition.”

There’s nobody I really think of in that way. That’s the whole point of writing daily emails and creating unique offers like Copy Riddles.

But ok — ultimately, I am competing for people’s attention, for space in their inbox, for their hearts and minds, and possibly for their learning and growth dollars.

So I made a list of 12 such competitors. They all either write daily emails or have something to do with direct marketing.

For each competitor, I listed the first thing that came to mind — stuff they do, which I admire.

​​It turned out to be a surprisingly fun and eye-opening exercise. I suggest it to you — whether you’re a business owner, marketer, or freelancer.

Perhaps you’re curious about my list. You can find it below, with the names stripped out. After all, my goal today isn’t to name drop in bulk or to call people out.

But perhaps you can still guess who I have in mind — all are people I’ve mentioned previously in my newsletter. And here’s what’s worthy of compliment in each:

1. Willingness to get on camera regularly in spite of having the charisma of a bag of lentils
2. Community management
​3. High-priced offers
​4. A business built around a single core product that’s been running for years
​5. Emotional copy in spite of being very emotionally flat as a person
​6. Personality-based emails
​7. Writing fast
8. Surprising historical anecdotes
9. List building
10. Self-aggrandizement
11. A deep trove of personal experience and interests
​12. A really unique viewpoint

If you’re in the marketing and copywriting space, all these people will probably be familiar to you.

​​Except perhaps #8. He is well-known, but is not in the marketing space.

A​nd #12. He was once a direct marketer, but is today something… not quite definable. If you’re curious, I’ll tell you more about him, including his name, in my email tomorrow. You can sign up here to read that.

A bit of magic and faith to persuade hardened cynics

by

I hear it’s Christmas time, so here’s a little gift. It’s taken from the Christmas classic Miracle on 34th Street.

If you’ve never seen the movie, it’s about department store Santa who just might be the real Santa Claus.

He looks like Kris Kringle…

He acts like Kris Kringle…

He even calls himself Kris Kringle.

Of course, while Kris Kringle soon makes some folks believe that magic is real and he is Santa… a few cynics refuse to allow faith into their hearts.

And so Kris Kringle winds up in the kounty kourthouse. He’s on trial and the point is to prove he is not really Santa, because Santa doesn’t really exist.

And then there’s the following scene, which I thought you might find valuable:

KK’s lawyer and the opposing lawyer both approach the judge.

KK’s lawyer holds up three letters from kids to Santa, which have been delivered to Kris Kringle.

Since the USPS is legally bound to deliver letters to the intended recipient, the lawyer argues, the US Government is throwing its authority behind the fact that Kris Kringle is actually Santa.

The opposing lawyer says, “Come on, three letters to Santa, that proves nothing.”

“I have additional exhibits,” KK’s lawyer says. “but I hesitate to produce them.”

The judge is intrigued. He insists. “Let’s see them. Put them here on my desk.”

“But your honor…”

“Put them here on my desk!”

It turns out KK’s lawyer has been holding back. Three letters not enough? How about this:

A dozen mail carriers carrying sackfuls of letters come into the courtroom. They pour them out onto the judge’s desk. The judge ends up buried in letters, all addressed to Santa, and now delivered to Kris Kringle.

Case closed!

Look, it’s a family movie, and it’s about Christmas and faith. It doesn’t have to make 100% sense.

But sense or not, I think that courtroom gambit is a powerful technique, and something you can benefit from in your own marketing.

Maybe you can see exactly what I have in mind. Or maybe you’d like me to spell it out.

​​In that case, write me an email and simply state your wish. You can address your email to the North Pole or to me specifically. Google will deliver it either way. Oh, and don’t forget to sign up to my newsletter before Christmas.

My #1 favorite editing tool

by

Do you ever have a turkey on your table, a tired, beat-up, ugly old bird… but you still try your damnedest to turn it into a powerful and proud eagle?

You know what I mean:

You squint at the turkey, you look at it from the left and the right…

You primp the tail feathers a little to make the thing seem bigger and healthier than it is…

You tuck in that wattle to give your bird a more raptor-like profile… and then you watch with disappointment as the saggy skin expands again…

You’ve had all this happen, right?

Well, I’ve definitely had it happen. All the time. In fact it happened just last night.

Last night, I spent an embarrassing amount of time to write today’s email. This involved much research and thinking and shuffling of possible things I could say. The basic idea was an old personal story, which I was hoping to tie into a specific copywriting moral I had in mind.

And so there I was, tilting my head to the left, squinting a little, and trying to smile.

“It’s almost there,” I said to myself. “Just tuck in this saggy bit… fluff up up the end part here… and it will be great.”

But then, in a moment of weakness or maybe luck, I took a break. I checked my inbox. It turned I had an email myself — another copywriter’s newsletter.

“Let me just read it,” I said. “Maybe it will help me finish my own email.”

The other copywriter is someone I won’t name to protect my pride. But perhaps you’ll be able to guess who I have in mind.

His newsletter yesterday was making fun of people who tell lifeless stories as a way of drawing an uninspired moral.

He even included a short sample email he’d whipped up just to mock the kind of tired stuff he had in mind.

I shifted in my seat. I swallowed. Slowly, I took this mocking, fake email from the other copywriter’s newsletter… and I put it side by side with the email I was planning to send out. In parallel, I ran down both pages:

Same saggy wattle… check.

Same bony, unmuscled carcass… check.

Same scraggly tail feathers… check.

No, it wasn’t the exact same bird. But it was definitely the same species.

Which brings me to my copywriting moral, or rather, a piece of advice I keep repeating to myself.

I keep repeating it because I keep forgetting it, and I waste a ton of time as a result. Perhaps my reminder will be useful to you as well:

In my experience, the most powerful editing tool is the backspace key.

If a phrase, sentence, paragraph, section, or even entire email isn’t quite willing or able to fly, right now, as it is, without primping and massaging… then out it goes. The sooner, the better.

I have much, much more to write on this topic. In fact, I did write much more. And then, I threw it out. Trust me, this turkey — I mean this email — is better off for it.

“That’s fine for today,” I hear you say. “But what about tomorrow? Will that bird fly?”

I can’t say for sure. If you want to give it a try, you can join the club here.

A simple habit for enjoying yourself at parties and inventing almost irresistible offers

by

Today I want to tell you how to enjoy yourself at every party you go to from now on… and how to come up with offers that your market is 98% sure to love.

Let me set it up with a bit of drama:

A few days ago, a friend I have from my decade of living in Budapest, Hungary, forwarded me a screenshot of the following Instagram post.

The post was written by a Lainey Molnar, a Hungarian illustrator now living in the Netherlands.
​
​Lainey became an Internet star recently because of her “women empowerment” illustrations.

As an Internet star, she was fielding some Internet questions recently. One question was why so many Hungarians choose to move away from the motherland and live abroad.

​​Lainey responded:

​Because the mentality is simply unbearable for anyone who aspires for a healthy psyche (and let’s not get stared on the political system, we already clocked in like 12 years with a Trump before Trump)

It’s a culture of mediocrity, always dragging everyone down. They’re jealous, petty, always blame everyone else for everything, They constantly gossip, meddle, and walk over others for gain. Brrrrr, I can’t stand being there for more than a few weeks.

So here’s what got through my skull:

If Hungarians really are as miserable of a people as Lainey makes them out to be — not true in my experience — then going by the tone of her two paragraphs above… she sounds like a perfect Hungarian, whether she lives in Amsterdam or Budapest.

And that’s my point for you today:

Whatever the apparent topic of conversation, people are almost always talking about themselves.

Once you realize this, you can have fun at every party, just by listening to others and asking yourself… what is this guy really saying? What is he revealing about himself that he doesn’t mean to?

And same thing with your customers and prospects.

Everything they say about you… your competition… the world at small and at large… is mostly about them.

And just by listening or, as Ben Settle likes to say, reading between the lines, you can get a lot of valuable intel. Intel you can use to inform your marketing and your offers… and give people what they truly want — even if they could never express it directly.

At this point in my emails, I usually like to take the core idea I am talking about and do a demonstration. But today, we can do the opposite.

If you like, you can probably read this very email, and find I am talking about myself. Maybe in ways that I didn’t even mean to expose, some perhaps quite negative.

So if you have some insights that you’ve gleaned about my personality through this email or other emails… and if you want to shock me with them, I am here, ready.

Just write me directly and fire away with your piercing observations. Do it for me. And do it because you will be starting a habit which will benefit you for years in your personal and business life.