Copywriting

A brief and noble email

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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:”

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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.

Exciting copywriting breakthrough from an unlikely source

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A few days ago, I had an absolute breakthrough.

It started when an unpromising-looking email landed in my inbox. It was the newsletter of a copywriter whose emails I’ve tried reading in the past, unsuccessfully.

It didn’t look like this email would change things. It had a preachy subject line — and I lingered over the delete button for a moment.

“Uff, it’s your job,” I said to myself. “Just read the damn thing. The guy is obviously successful at what he does. Maybe he will surprise you.”

So I clicked to open the email.

And a kind of warm light descended upon me.

Pieces of copywriting knowledge, which had floated around in my head for years, without meaning or purpose… finally snapped together to form one magnificent Voltron-like insight.

Suddenly, the most elusive and profitable kind of front-end marketing — selling premium-priced supplements to cold Facebook traffic — became clear and simple.

I’m not sure why I had to wait for this email to have this insight. After all, I myself have had success writing front-end copy for cold Facebook traffic, including for supplements.

Perhaps it was this guy’s authority on the topic.

Right now, he has the respect, attention, and endorsement of the best of the best in this field.

​​I’m talking about the most successful copywriters out there, like Craig Clemons (who cofounded the billion-dollar Golden Hippo family of brands, and who even gulled Joe Rogan into sharing a VSL as a real documentary)…

… ​​and Dan Ferrari (who had a string of controls for the Motley Fool and Agora Financial, and who I got copy coaching from a few years back).

So maybe it’s authority.

Or maybe it was the way this email phrased it. Sometimes, a few words can make all the difference. And really, it was just one five-word sentence in that email that set off the breakthrough in my mind.

So what was the sentence? And will it set off a similar breakthrough in your mind?

Well, if you’d like to find out, then I’ll tell you that the copywriter in question is Stefan Georgi.

If you subscribe to my newsletter, odds are good you also subscribe to Stefan’s. So if you want to attempt your own copywriting breakthrough… just search your emails for “greens powder,” and Stefan’s December 2 email will pop up. The five-word sentence that I mentioned is the heading to point 2 in that email.

And if you’re not subscribed to Stefan’s list, you’ve got two options:

Option one is to simply read over my email today a little more carefully. Because I’ve got a habit of implementing good marketing ideas in my own emails, and today is no exception.

Option two is to go to Stefan’s site, jump through a few hoops, and get on his list.

After all, the guy is one of the most successful direct marketers and copywriters out there right now. It only makes sense to keep tabs on him.

Plus, it seems like he’s genuinely helpful, and if you ask him for a copy of his December 2 email, I imagine he would oblige. If you want to give it a try, here’s where to get started:

https://www.stefanpaulgeorgi.com/about/

My second brush with death

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A few days ago, I sent out an email about a girl who secretly reminded me of a bear — in all the best ways. After I sent that email out, I posted it to my site as a blog post… and then I got the following message:

“A bear huh wtf!”

It turns out that every few months, this girl checks on me via my blog. And thanks to famous female intuition, she picked just the right day, with just the bear story right at the top.

As soon as I saw her message, I spun around and looked at my front door. A thin, half-inch board of plywood.

A cold sweat ran down my back. I imagined her showing up at my door at any moment… and with one mighty swipe, tearing it off its hinges and— well, I should be careful what I say. She might be reading.

So let me switch gear:

Yesterday, I wrote about my more real recent brush with death — a car that fell out of the sky in front of me.

When I wrote that email, I hadn’t yet thought of any clear marketing takeaway for you.

Well, I’ve since thought of an obvious and powerful takeaway. And since it goes just as well with the topic of today’s email, I’ll share this idea with you now.

This marketing idea was a revelation to me when I first heard it. That’s why I even included it as Commandment IV in my 10 Commandments of A-List Copywriters.

The commandment is simply to give an occasion to your promotion. Give the reader an excuse to buy by answering the question, “Why am I hearing about this now?”

Of course, crap, transparently false occasions won’t do much and can even hurt you. (“Oh no! We’ve overstocked our warehouse again! Tee hee, so naughty we are! Oh well, time for a sale…”)

But if you can make your occasion feel real — cars falling out of the sky, a furious girl on a rampage — then you might have yourself a sales multiplier.

That’s one reason why I think Daniel Throssell’s Black Friday campaign this year did so well.

His feud with Matt Bockenstette gave it an occasion and made it feel real. People are starved for things that feel real, and so this feud made people pay attention and maybe gave them an excuse to buy.

And that’s the key point. Maybe, an excuse to buy.

Because I’ve seen so many successful and competent marketers lately… gnashing their online teeth and shaking their online jowls. “That Throssell character! And his shameless controversy seeking! Rrrr… rrreprehensible!”

I don’t know what this reaction is about.

It could be some honor among thieves thing. “Of course we want to agitate the shit out of our prospects — it’s ultimately good for them. But come on, not when we’re the prospects!”

Or perhaps it’s just shortsightedness. Thinking that Daniel somehow cheated his way to a big win.

I don’t doubt the occasion of the feud helped. But it would have multiplied a big fat zero had Daniel not had by far the best offer… and a relationship with his audience that’s tighter than anything I’ve personally ever seen.

And if you’re wondering what my stake is in all this:

Daniel’s been generous to me and we are on good terms. But perhaps you can believe me when I say I’m not shilling for him.

In part, because he doesn’t need me to.

In part, because I have my own offers to promote.

Well, that’s not really true. All I have is one single, tiny offer.

Because while my Influential Emails training is wrapped up for now… while Copy Riddles is in the hangar, getting spit-shined for its January 2022 flight… and while I work on new offers that I will launch over the coming months…

All I really have on offer is my tiny Kindle book, 10 Commandments of A-List Copywriters.

Among other things, this book will give show you A-list occasions, done right.

And speaking of which, if you haven’t bought this book yet, I’d appreciate if you’d do it now. I could really use the money — I’m looking to invest in a steel door for extra protection. Here’s how you can contribute $5:

https://bejakovic.com/10commandments

Copy Koala Millions™

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What if your pillow could do more than just help you sleep at night?

What if it could do something unbelievably good for you…

Like instantly give you MORE powerful copywriting skills than years of study ever could…

Putting your brain into full “copy god” mode as soon as you wake up in the morning…

Allowing you to effortlessly stamp out royalty-producing sales letters, emails, and Facebook ads IN JUST A FEW MINUTES’ TIME…

Knowing you’re now automatically and effortlessly zooming towards your wealth and income dreams… while burying the gnawing doubts and insecurities that have held you back for so long?

And what if it could also implant into your head ALL the copywriting courses you’ve ever bought…

While dramatically increasing your productivity… opening up secret doors to new opportunities… and skyrocketing your status in the industry?

Wouldn’t that be INCREDIBLE?

Well, when you consider the latest breakthrough, peer-reviewed studies on creativity and learning… from the most well-respected universities and research departments on the planet…

Or if you ask the countless thousands of women and men of all ages, from all walks of life, who have found this email before you…

You’ll find that this is not only possible…

But you should actually EXPECT your pillow to deliver you all of this and more.

And all it takes is just a tiny, 10-second tweak to your night-time routine that you’re about to see…

Ok, I’d like you to slowly emerge from your hypnotic trance and become aware of the real world once again.

The truth is, I do not yet have a magic offer called Copy Koala Millions™, which transforms you into an A-list copywriter while you sleep. But I have been working on it.

The backstory is that I went on Clickbank a few days ago. Among the Clickbank top 10, three weight loss offers all showed the same trend:

* Lose weight by stuffing your face (Biofit)

* Lose weight by sucking on smoothies (Smoothie Diet)

* Lose weight by sipping coffee (Java Burn, which I modeled for the copy above)

In each case, the mechanism is NOT some exotic discovery or awesome invention.

​​Instead, the mechanism is a beloved everyday activity. In fact, it’s probably something the prospect is already doing all the time.

So that’s how I got the idea for Copy Koala Millions™. Because lying down to sleep is one of my beloved activities. There are few things that thrill me as reliably as putting my head to pillow each night. I can’t be the only one, right?

It’s the old direct response advice:

Come up with the ultimate, magic-wand offer. Promise your prospect all the outcomes he could ever dream of… done for him by some benevolent external genie… who smiles kindly and shushes away all the objections your prospect used to have.

So that’s step one. Figure out exactly what your prospect would irrationally love to hear.

Step two is to then dial it back or pay it off so your offer isn’t a complete hoax.

In the case of Copy Koala Millions™ I’m happy to say I deliver fully on the promise.

At a special launch price of just $67, I’ll sell you an mp3 player preloaded with copywriting audio courses, masked with pink noise.

Simply turn on Copy Koala and place it under your pillow at night — takes just 10 seconds. You can also upload other courses you’ve bought if you want. In case you don’t have a pillow right now, I’ll be selling that as a $197 upsell.

Normally, at this point in my email, I would invite a response. “Write in and pre-order Copy Koala Millions™,” I would say, “at a special 75% discount. Offer good only until this Thursday.”

But I’m a little hesitant to do that. We haven’t yet ironed out all the kinks with the pink noise and I don’t want to get swamped with orders I can’t fulfill. So I’ll hold off for today.

Instead, I’d just like to point out that the underlying idea might be valuable to you. Because the weight loss market is definitely buying this “coffee” mechanism right now.

​​And the weight loss market is like New York City — the fashion that’s popular there today will be popular everywhere next year. Might be worth keeping an eye on. I know I will be doing it. And if you want to find out what new trends I spot, sign up here for my email newsletter, and prepare to be hypnotized.

7-time Mr. Emailympia’s self-improvement habit

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Werewolves were still roaming around when I woke up this morning. The clock showed 4:51am.

I lay around in the dark for a bit. I imagined laying around some more… but no! I jumped up, grabbed my stuff, and raced off to the 24-hour gym.

In case you’re starting to break out in a cold sweat, thinking this email is about seizing the day by the tail… don’t worry. The fact is, I should have stayed in bed.

Because in a few minutes, there I was at the gym, sleepy and foggy-brained. Somewhere in this haze, I thought it would be a good idea to lift a weighted barbell over my head.

My mind was elsewhere. My muscles were tired. I staggered forward under the unexpected weight… braked by standing up on my tiptoes… swayed back and forth… and almost dropped the barbell, plates and all, onto my skull.

A moment later, I stood there, looking at the now-harmless barbell on the floor. And I remembered something that 7x Mr. Olympia Arnold Schwarzenegger once said:

“Doing an exercise once with awareness is worth ten times an exercise done while distracted.”

Good advice for the gym.

But maybe you don’t care for the gym.

Maybe you just care for better marketing and stronger copy.

In that case, I can share a related idea by 7x Mr. Emailympia, John Bejakovic.

Here’s a little habit I used to practice in the old days of writing this email newsletter.

First, I made a list of what I called “1% improvements.” These were things that I knew made for better emails… but that I didn’t practice regularly. Not with any awareness at least.

My habit was to pick one of these 1% improvements each week. And for the rest of the week, with each email I wrote, I consciously and awarely practiced that idea.

Result?

Wealth, fame, and, like I said, 7 Mr. Emailympia titles so far. And who knows what the future holds? Hollywood stardom… a career in politics… or maybe marriage to a Kennedy.

So I’d like to suggest to you:

Make your own list of “1% improvements.” Pick one each week. Bring your awareness to it. And watch your returns compound, just like they are doing for me.

“Incorrect,” I hear an accountant saying. “In order for returns to compound, you have to keep your investment alive. And you said you stopped your 1% habit. Therefore, you are not compounding anything, you meathead.”

Fair point. So as of today, I’d like to announce I’m picking up this “1% improvement” habit again.

I won’t spell out which specific habit I’m working on this week. Maybe you can spot it in today’s email. And if not, don’t worry. You get another chance tomorrow. I’ll be back.