Comedy

Eureka! The opposite of a humblebrag

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In this newsletter, I have a questionable habit of dissecting jokes to find out what their digestive and pulmonary systems look like. I’m about to do it right now as well, and I honestly think the result is gonna be amazing.

A couple days ago, I wrote about an interview I’d listened to with a Dublin barman, Brian Wynne. Here’s how Wynne introduces himself at the start of the podcast:

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As Michael Crichton said, I do sometimes suffer from a “deplorable excess of personality.”

I’m a friendly kind of an outgoing chap. I become friends with people easily. That’s what makes me, um, fit the bar trade so well is that, uh, I’m extremely likable… I’m incredibly handsome, intelligent, witty… you know? I am the most humble man in Ireland.

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Now here’s a riddle for ya:

If you ask people what characteristics they hate most in others, the top 2 Family Feud responses are likely to be 1) Arrogant and 2) Fake.

And yet, here is Wynne being either arrogant (“I am the most humble man in Ireland”) or fake (maybe he’s just saying he’s the most humble man in Ireland, but he doesn’t really mean it).

Of course, you probably don’t agree with either of those negative diagnoses of Wynne.

I can tell you that when I listened to him introduce himself in this way, I certainly didn’t get irritated by his supposed arrogance or repulsed by his supposed fakeness. In fact, he put a smile on muh fehs. I imagine this effect comes through in the transcript as well.

So the riddle for ya is:

What is Wynne doing/saying to make his message come across as it does?

I don’t have a good name for the effect he’s creating, but it’s kind of the opposite of a humblebrag. Maybe it could be called a boastful bond.

In any case, I have my own insightful ideas about what exactly Wynne is doing to achieve this effect.

My insightful ideas take advantage of my experience of 5+ years of running this daily newsletter, plus of course my own native intelligence, which truly is… something spectacular. An intelligence to behold. In fact, I might be the most brilliant man to ever write an email newsletter of middling reach and questionable influence.

If you’d like to get my immense insights on this topic, all I can really recommend is that you be signed up for my Daily Email Habit service before tomorrow, because I will have a daily puzzle and accompanying hints that allow you to do a “boastful bond” in your own emails as well.

After all, there’s no sense in just knowing how to do something without actually putting in in practice. And putting in practice is what Daily Email Habit is all about. If you’d like to sign up for it in time:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

“The best joke in the world”

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“Thanks very much. I just wanted to recommend a documentary to everyone, and then I’m gonna go.”

That’s the beginning of a six-minute comedy routine that standup comic Gary Gulman delivered on the Conan O’Brien show back in 2016.

That routine has since been called the “best joke in the world,” “beyond ballsy,” and “perfectly written.” That’s coming from other comedians.

The public liked Gulman’s routine too. The recording of it has racked up millions of views over the years across various platforms.

Gulman says this six-minute routine has became the biggest thing he’s ever done. At the end of his live standup comedy sets, he sometimes asks for requests. Inevitably, people ask for this joke.

Gulman’s joke is about a documentary on the men and one woman who were responsible for abbreviating all state names down to two letters.

I won’t try to retell the joke here. I will tell you that even if it’s one six-minute joke, it gets a laugh every 10-15 seconds. Even that opener, about just recommending a documentary and then going, gets the audience laughing.

Now here’s something extra I wanted to share with you:

In an interview, Gulman was asked about this “state abbreviations” routine. How long did it take him to write?

The answer is pretty shocking.

Gulman said he first wrote down the joke in 1994, about 6 months after he started doing standup. The Conan O’Brien spot was in 2016.

In other words, 20+ years passed before Gulman’s “state abbreviations” joke was ready for prime time, and not just because Gulman was polishing it.

“The entire world had to change,” says Gulman, “in order for me to convince people that there was a documentary about something as unusual as abbreviating the states.”

I’m not encouraging you to sit on your hands for 20 years because “the time for your idea” hasn’t come yet.

Gulman was very active from 1994 to 2015. He built out an entire career in the meantime… became a star among comedians… and managed to get on Conan and Letterman and wherever else.

All I’m really suggesting is the value of being both productive AND patient. Of putting lots of ideas out there… and of having the sense that some of those are promising but not quite good enough yet, and simply waiting while something else clicks, or conditions change just enough, or a new wrapper comes that you can wrap your solid but unpolished lump of coal in.

I realize my message today probably sounds wooly and not practical, so I won’t try to sell you anything on the back of it.

Like I said, I just wanted to recommend a comedy clip, and then I’m gonna go. Here it is:

Do you subscribe to the New Yorker?

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You probably don’t. But I do.

I subscribe to the New Yorker because the New Yorker’s feature articles are well-written fluff, which exposes me to new ideas.

But if I’m being 100% honest, that’s not the only reason.

There’s also the New Yorker cartoons, which I find funny. In fact, the zeroth issue of my Daily Email Habit service, which I have on the sales page as an illustration of what customers get every day, features a cartoon from New Yorker.

A few years ago, the New Yorker started running a cartoon caption contest.

In each issue, there’s a new cartoon without a caption, inviting completely new caption submissions.

There’s also last week’s cartoon with the top 3 captions, inviting readers to vote among them online.

And then there’s the cartoon from two weeks ago with the winning caption, the caption that got the most “funny” votes in the past week.

(This week’s winner is for a cartoon that shows a psychiatrist’s office with two clocks sitting on the psychiatrist’s couch. The clocks have eyes, arms, and legs, and one seems to be exasperated. The winning caption reads, “I was born in New York. I grew up in New York. Then we move to California and she expects me to change.”)

Here’s a curious thing I found out in a recent New Yorker article about humor:

Even the top-rated New Yorker cartoon caption entries receive mostly unfunny ratings. (The options when voting are “funny,” “somewhat funny,” and “unfunny.”)

In other words, even when it comes to the funniest captions, most people will think it’s not funny at all. Not just not less funny than really he-he ha-ha. But totally unfunny and flat and stupid, with not even a smile resulting.

Very very interesting.

From what I have read and seen inside my own head, the sense of what’s funny, like shoe size, is highly individual.

In general, the only joke we will consider laughing at is a joke we can identify with in some way, much like the only shoe we will consider wearing is one that actually fits on our foot, however tightly.

Maybe you are not funny. Maybe you’re not trying to be funny.

But maybe you’d like to make money and have influence and have stability in your life.

I keep promoting the idea of writing daily emails as a means to all three of those outcomes.

But I know that a good number of people out there are hobbled by the thought that they aren’t writers… that they have nothing to say… or that they have no right or authority to say anything, even if they might have something to say.

Writing for sales and influence works in the same way as humor.

It’s identification first… authority and expertise second, or maybe 3rd.

On the one hand, this means that, regardless of how much of an expert you are and how much authority you have, most people will simply never be moved by what you write. Again, even the top-rated New Yorker cartoon caption entries receive mostly unfunny ratings.

On the other hand, it also means that even if you have little expertise and less authority, there will be people who read and are influenced by what you write, simply because they identify with you as a person, however tangentially. If you’ve ever been in a relationship, and felt pressured to change as a result, you’ll even find two clocks on a shrink’s couch funny if they share the same frustration as you.

All that’s to say, if you want to influence and make sales to an audience that I personally have no hope of ever influencing or selling to, you can do so, starting today, simply by virtue of being a unique person with unique interests, experiences, life conditions, and attitudes.

Which brings me back to Daily Email Habit.

Daily emails a great way to influence and sell, because they are a constant drip of you, and your unique interests, experiences, life conditions, and attitudes.

I can help you get started and stick with daily emails, even if you worry that you have nothing to say, or no right to say it. For more info:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

Even better than getting rid of cliches

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“The good salesman combines the tenacity of a bull dog with the manners of a spaniel. If you have any charm, ooze it.”

— David Ogilvy, The Theory and Practice of Selling the Aga Cooker

You ever find yourself spewing cliches? I know I do, particularly when I write a quick first draft. But I hate cliches, or rather, I hate being seen as a person who speaks in cliches.

Fortunately, it’s easy to fix in writing. That’s what second drafts are for. You can always take a cliche out and replace it with something less cliched.

But better yet, in my humble opinion, expressed from my humble couch in my humble home, is to take the cliche and somehow extend it, exaggerate it, subvert it. I believe the term of trade is “hang a lantern on it.”

A couple more examples, with the cliches and lanterns highlighted for you. From Gary Gulman’s “the best joke in the world”:

“All you have to know for this is that we have fifty states in America and they each have a two capital letter abbreviation. But that wasn’t always the case! Up until, I WANNA SAY, 1973… [beat] and so I WILL.”

From William Goldman, I believe in the Princess Bride though I can’t find the original quote:

“It had SEEN BETTER DAYS (or at least ONE BETTER DAY)…”

There’s nothing quite so funny as explaining a joke, so I will end this email here without killing yet another funny example for you. But I hope you get the point. In the words of screenwriter and director David Mamet:

“I used to say that a good writer throws out the stuff that everybody else keeps. But an even better test occurs to me: perhaps a good writer keeps the stuff everybody else throws out.”

Today’s email is brought to you by my Daily Email Habit service. It forced me to write an email I wouldn’t have written otherwise. And it turned out to be useful, for me at least.

Maybe this practice could be useful for you as well? If you’d like more info on Daily Email Habit:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

An old Soviet joke from a modern Russian prison

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Here’s a Soviet joke for you:

A shy, unathletic, bookish boy is walking across a snow-covered courtyard in Moscow, past a group of kids who are playing football.

The ball rolls to the boy’s feet. He decides against habit to join in the game. He kicks the ball awkwardly, and it veers off and crashes through the window of the janitor’s apartment on the ground floor.

The janitor emerges. He’s a huge, bearded man, who has clearly been drinking. He roars and starts to chase the boy.

The boy runs for his life, thinking to himself, “Why do I need football in the cold and the snow? I should be at home, safe and comfortable, reading a book, conversing with my favorite author Ernest Hemingway.”

Meanwhile, Ernest Hemingway is in a Havana bar, drinking rum, with a salsa band playing next to him. It’s hot. Hemingway thinks to himself, “God I’m sick of this heat and rum and salsa. I should be in Paris, the center of the world, drinking Cavalos with my great friend Jean-Paul Sartre, and discussing philosophy.”

Meanwhile, Jean-Paul Sartre is in a Paris cafe, in a cloud of cigarette smoke. He’s taking part in an abstract but heated discussion that means nothing to him. “God how I’m sick of all these cigarettes and cafes and empty discussions,” thinks Sartre. I should be in Moscow, talking to my friend, the great novelist Platonov, about things that are real and mean something.

Meanwhile, back in Moscow, Platonov is running across a snow-covered courtyard. And he growls through his gritted teeth, “God I swear if I ever catch him, I’ll kill the little bastard.”

That’s from the memoirs written by Russian dissident Alexei Navalny. Navalny wrote down the Soviet joke above — “my all-time favorite joke” — while in prison in the Pokrov correctional colony.

You might know Navalny’s story. Back in 2020, he was poisoned by the Russian secret service with a nerve toxin, almost died, but somehow made it to Germany to get medical treatment.

He recovered over the course of months. During this time, he cold-called Russian secret service agents and tricked them into revealing how they had poisoned him (I wrote about the crazy story ​back in December 2020​).

In spite of the assassination attempt, Navalny decided based on his principles to return to Russia.

He was promptly arrested as soon as he landed at the Moscow airport. He was then charged with embezzlement, fraud, and extremism, and was tossed in jail.

That was back in 2022.

Navalny never made it out of jail. He died earlier this year, on February 16, at age 47, under mysterious circumstances in the “Polar Wolf” prison, which sits in Western Siberia above the polar circle. “All necessary resuscitation measures were carried out but did not yield positive results,” the prison statement read.

I’m telling you this because somehow, during all this, Navalny remained cheerful and optimistic, in spite of the fact he was in prison in Siberia, in spite of the fact he had a 19-year sentence, in spite of the fact he knew he was really in for life, one way or another.

All that’s to say, if you think that whatever you’re writing about is too serious for joking, that your audience cannot and will not stand lightheartedness, that certain topics are sacred, well, it might be worth reading some of Alexei Navalny’s posts from prison. They are fascinating, inspiring, and well-written. Plus they might give you a change of mind on some things.

In case you’re curious:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/10/21/alexei-navalny-patriot-memoir

Failed magicians, unfunny comedians, and me

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I spent the whole morning working today. I got nothing done, including this email, which was supposed to be written hours ago.

Still, hope lingers inside me. Maybe it will all somehow turn out ok.

Because the fact is, I wasted the entire the morning in research, trying to find good examples of a technique I don’t have a good name for.

My most good name for this technique is “calling out the vibe.”

Maybe you don’t know what I mean by that. I guess that’s part of the problem.

Calling out the vibe is what comedians do when their jokes aren’t landing. They call out the awkwardness and lack of response. The audience often laughs at this point, out of recognition and relief.

You can also use this technique if you’re nervous on a date or during an interview. Call it out. Put your nervousness into words, and see how the mood improves.

Or of course, if you’re trying to write your daily email, and your attempts are awful, just awful, too awful to send out, call that out. That’s your email right there.

You might think this is simply about being honest, or making the other side feel better because you fess up to your own troubles.

That’s part of it. But it’s not all of it, or even the main part.

Magicians call it out if their audience has grown suspicious.

Hypnotists observe their subjects deeply, and call out the physical changes they see as the subjects enter trance.

And wise negotiators call out the fact that their adversary has gotten too enthusiastic during a negotiation — too eager to say yes.

There’s some magic when you accurately call out the vibe. Try it yourself and see.

Another confession:

I had an offer planned for today, but well, it doesn’t fit any more.

So let me remind you of my Simple Money Emails program. Because calling out the vibe in your email is great. But you can’t do it every day, not unless it’s true.

And even if what you’re calling out is true, your audience might get tired after the third consecutive email that starts, “I spent the whole morning working today. I got nothing done, including this email…”

So what do you do on all those other days?

The answer can be found inside Simple Money Emails, which gives you 9 tried-and-true, use-them-every-day email openings.

These 9 openings don’t require an entire morning’s worth of research and false starts.

​​In fact, many of the most successful emails I’ve ever written, which are documented in the Simple Money Email swipe file that goes along with the program, took me all of 15 or 20 minutes to write.

If you’d like to find out more about Simple Money Emails, and how you can write such emails yourself:

https://bejakovic.com/sme

How to deliver a racist rant

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Before we dive into the racism, I’d like to remind you of my Copy Riddles program.

​​Somebody once told me that Copy Riddles is expensive, considering it just teaches you one niche copywriting skill.

I have to agree. But I also have more to say about it at the end of this email.

For now, let me tell you about the late great Patrice O’Neal.

As you might know, Patrice was black — a fact that will be relevant in just a moment.

Patrice was also the favorite comedian of a huge number of top comedians of the past few decades. Bill Burr, Norm Macdonald, Andrew Schulz — those are a just a few top comedians I found after a two-minute Google search, who all said there was nobody as funny as Patrice.

I’m using that to set up a contrast to the following. Because racist rants aren’t funny, are they?

Maybe they are. Or maybe they can be.

Take for example, Patrice’s HBO special, One Night Stand. It aired in 2005.

Patrice opens up without any of the usual, “Good to be back, how are you guys doing” fluff. Instead, he launches straight into his material. He says:

“So how many people are getting sick of the Hindu obstacle course at the airport?”

The audience laughs uncomfortably. They’re sensing this might not be stuff they should be laughing at, and they’re wondering where Patrice is leading them.

In fact, the audience is right to be wary.

Patrice is about to launch into a 5-minute racist comedy rant, mocking and imitating Indian people who work at airport security and who run convenience stores.

“I don’t mind foreigners,” says Patrice at one point, “but don’t be FROM your country.” And after he finishes mocking Indian accents, Patrice moves on to Mexicans.

This is the kind of stuff that wouldn’t fly for white comedians since the days of Don Rickles in the late 60s and early 70s.

And in fact, it wouldn’t fly for Patrice either, not in 2005. Except for one thing.

In between saying “How many people are tired of the Hindu obstacle course” and launching into his racist impressions, Patrice delivers one miraculous, life-saving line.

​​It goes like this:

“So how many people are tired of the Hindu obstacle course at airport? [He pauses while a few nervous laughs acknowledge the inappropriateness of this statement. Then he continues] I mean… I’m a racist, but it’s getting…”

… and here Patrice continues into the rest of his set, with the audience suddenly loose and laughing, and ready to laugh more at the rest of his jokes, racist though they are.

My point is not that you should be racist.

My point is also not that you should laugh along with racists, or condone racist behavior.

My point is simply how much you can get away with, if you correctly anticipate your audience’s objection, and call that objection out ahead of time. Even if you don’t do anything else but call it out.

Now back to my Copy Riddles course.

It’s true that Copy Riddles is expensive. It’s also true it only teaches you one copywriting skill, and a niche one at that.

On the other hand, experts in the field, like Ben Settle, John Carlton, and Gary Halbert, have all said that this one niche skill is what all copywriting comes down to.

All these guys have made millions of dollars from copywriting, and some have specifically credited millions in earnings just to this one skill.

When you look at it that way, maybe Copy Riddles isn’t so expensive after all.

Of course, it’s going to depend on your situation, and what you’re looking to do.

If you’d like to find out more about Copy Riddles, and see if it could be a fit in your quest to write more effectively, and even make good money in the process, then take a look here:

https://bejakovic.com/cr

I got a hot date tonight HONK

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Yeah, about my hot date… I’ll get to that in a second.

First, here’s a scene from the animated TV show The Simpsons. The scene illustrates a valuable/funny point about influence. But hold on.

I grew up watching The Simpsons. If you didn’t, that’s no problem. You don’t need to like The Simpsons or even to have ever seen a single episode to get what this scene is about, or to understand the underlying point.

Scene:

Moe the bartender is being interrogated by the police for shooting the local billionaire, Mr. Burns.

Moe is hooked up to a lie detector machine. He’s asked if he ever held a grudge against Mr. Burns. He answers no. But the lie detector machine HONKS to indicate he’s lying.

“All right,” Moe says. “Maybe I did. But I didn’t shoot him!” Sure enough, the lie detector machine DINGS to confirm Moe’s statement as true.

“Checks out,” says the cop. “Ok sir, you’re free to go.”

So far, so conventional. But then, Moe executes the following rapid-fire descent into humiliation, to the sounds of the lie detector machine:

“Good,” he says. “Cause I got a hot date tonight!” HONK

“A date.” HONK

“Dinner with Fred.” HONK

“Dinner alone.” HONK

“Watching TV alone!” HONK

“All right!!!” Moe says. “I’m gonna sit at home and ogle the ladies in the Victoria’s Secret catalogue!” HONK

Moe hangs his head. “Sears catalogue.” DING

“Now would you unhook this already please! I don’t deserve this kind of shabby treatment!” HONK

That’s the end of the scene. Maybe you found it funny even in my transcript above. But if you didn’t, trust me that it’s funny in the original version.

The question is… why?

Is it just funny to find out Moe is a loser? That’s part of it. But would it have been as funny if the scene simply went:

“Good. Cause I got a hot date tonight!” HONK

[Moe hangs head] “Actually, I’m gonna sit at home and ogle the ladies in the Sears catalogue.” DING

My contention is no. That wouldn’t be nearly as funny. Which brings me to the following valuable point that I promised you:

“We build interest by adding more: more movement, more color, more sound, more light, more people, more intensity, more concentration, more excitement. In short, anything whatever that the spectators regard as increasing will also increase their interest.”

That comes from a book about magic and showmanship. In other words, the above advice about adding more is how expert magicians build the audience’s interest.

But it works the same for comedy.

And in fact, it works the same for copywriting.

Stack a bunch of moderately interesting, or funny, or insightful stuff on top of each other… and the effect is multiplicative, not additive.

And with that punchline, we conclude today’s episode. DING

But if by any chance you want more simple tips on building interest and desire in your readers, you can find that here:

https://bejakovic.com/sme

Problem: There’s nothing happening in my brain

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It’s day three after my flight back from North America to Europe. Jet lag skipped the first night, but kicked in last night.

I went to bed at 10pm, woke up at 1am, lay awake, got up, read for a while, went back to bed, tossed and turned some more.

I’m guessing it was 5am by the time I finally fell asleep again. I slept until 10am and woke up like I was emerging from a month-long coma.

I’m telling you this because it’s now a few hours later. I’ve gone outside to clear my head. I’ve had breakfast. None of it has helped.

It’s time to write my daily email. But because of this disturbed sleep and resulting confusion, and because it’s very late for writing by my usual standard, there’s absolutely nothing happening in my head.

No new ideas for today’s email.

Nothing good based on recent reader replies in my inbox.

Nothing in my extensive journal that sparks any kind of miserable light in my mind.

In situations like this, I have enough experience that I can brute-force my way and write something acceptable. And that’s what I started to do today as well.

But then I caught myself.

I realized that the fact that nothing is happening in my brain today is my topic for today’s email.

I recently listened to an interview with a stand-up comedian, Chris Grace. Grace was talking about what he does when things are not going well, when his jokes are falling flat, when the audience isn’t responding. He said:

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My main tool is that I never pretend that it’s not going the way it’s going. And I think this is a pretty common standup tactic, which is just to call out exactly what is happening in the room.

​​I think the skill level here is how aligned you can be with the exact energy of you plus the audience. So if there is a certain tone happening or if there is a vibe, the closest you can get to accurately naming that vibe and building from there, it can help you unify the room sometimes.

===

I heard somewhere that the legendary copywriter Gene Schwartz threw out all of his winning sales letters and ads.

Schwartz didn’t have a swipe file to consult. He didn’t have templates. He looked at each sales situation as unique. And he tried to align himself and call out the exact vibe of the market he was writing to, right in that moment. This is how he paid for a penthouse on New York’s Park Avenue… a world-famous art collection… and an all-around ritzy Manhattan lifestyle.

It works in dating, too.

​​I once went on a first date with a Norwegian girl. She was a very smooth conversationalist. I believe she was a psychologist, or maybe a therapist.

Through her professional training, this girl kept the conversation on our date going without the slightest hitch. She made me feel she is very interested in my life story… what I’d studied in my many years of college and grad school… what I think about turtles, life, and the universe.

I kept talking and talking. Gradually, panic started to build inside me. I realized I was drowning in quicksand.

So when the Norwegian girl smoothly transitioned from one waning topic and opened up yet another avenue of promising scientific discussion, I cut her off.

“No, we’re not going to talk about that,” I said.

“We’re not?” she asked. “Why not?”

“Because we need to do some first-date stuff.”

She laughed. “What do you have in mind?”

“This is the moment during the first date when you and I have to work together. We have to see if we can create some kind of sexual spark between us.”

The girl’s eyes sparkled for the first time that night. And the conversation shifted to much more promising waters, about the strange hookup culture in Norway, about how dating worked in Hungary where I was living at the time, and about the kinds of things she found attractive in men.

I’ll leave off that story for now. And I’ll just remind you of the power of calling out the vibe, whatever it is — particularly if it’s not working in your favor.

That’s free, highly specific advice on persuasion and influence.

For paid, more widely useful advice, specifically a framework for owning persuasion and influence skills of all kinds, take a look here:

https://bejakovic.com/mve

I shot a moose

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“I shot a moose once,” says Woody Allen. The audience at the comedy club starts chuckling.

“I was hunting upstate New York,” Woody explains, “and I shot a moose.” It’s the beginning of a 3-minute routine. But it’s already funny.

The question is why.

If you don’t want me to kill this joke for you, then stop reading now. But if you’re curious why “I shot a moose” is already funny in itself, and how this can help you write better stories, then read on.

Still here? Let’s dissect this:

“I shot a moose once,” says Woody. The audience chuckles.

Partly it’s the improbable setup. Woody Allen, small, city dweller, nebbish, hunting in upstate New York.

But partly it’s the moose itself. The same improbable setup would not be as funny if Woody said, “I shot a deer.”

Why moose and not deer? A few possibilities:

Moose look funny. They have the round muzzle, the cauliflower antlers, they are oversized and look ungainly.

Also, moose are less common than deer. Maybe that makes the story less likely to be real, and therefore more absurd.

Finally, the word moose is funny for some reason to English speakers. Perhaps it makes us think of “moo” as in cow. Perhaps it’s the unexpected unvoiced “s” at the end. If the animal’s name were pronounced “mooze,” it might not be as funny.

In good comedy routines, as in good stories, the comedian takes you down a meandering garden path. What’s important is not the destination – the punchline — but the journey along the way.

So how do you organize a meandering stroll for the greatest effect?

Like a fountain in a real garden, some things are guaranteed to please during a comedy show — mockery, mimicry, slapstick.

Other times, it’s just important to stroll and take surprising new turns. What exactly lies around the corner doesn’t matter too much, as long as it’s new.

And then, there’s the unimportant detail that’s actually important. The cabbage patch instead of the flower bed… or the moose in the Woody Allen routine.

So why the moose?

We can guess, but ​​nobody knows for sure, not even Woody Allen. Whatever it is about the moose, the fact is this seemingly unimportant detail is actually important.

The point of today’s email is not the moose. It’s that fascinating gardens, like great stories and funny comedy routines, rarely spring forth fully formed.

They are the work of careful craftsmen.

Comedians like Woody Allen will deliver the same routine hundreds or thousands of times, each time perfecting the delivery and testing out small variations, including all the unimportant details. It’s the collection of all those details that ultimately “get the click.”

So that’s my takeaway for you.

If you have a story to tell, but it’s not clicking, maybe it’s not the story. In fact, it’s almost certainly not the story.

Retell it again, tweak it, add in stuff, take out stuff, polish it.

A new audience will keep thinking that it’s new. An old audience will need to be reminded. And to both an old and a new audience, the final walk down the garden path that you deliver will be more fascinating and stimulating than what you started with.

I wish I had a storytelling training to sell you right now. I don’t have one. But I’ve actually written quite a lot about storytelling, and experimented with storytelling techniques myself.

You can learn and profit from my experiments. They are one part of what’s documented inside my Most Valuable Email course, specifically in the Most Valuable Email Swipes #13,#16, #17, #18, #19, #20, and #22.

For more information:

https://bejakovic.com/mve/