Persuasion

The gruesome adventures of Mussolini’s corpse

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On today’s date, April 28 1945, the leader of fascist Italy, Benito Mussolini, was executed by Italian partisans in a small town next to Lake Como. But it turned out death was only the beginning of the adventures of Mussolini’s corpse.

The next day, the corpse was taken to Milan. It was dropped off in a square recently renamed to honor 15 partisans killed by Mussolini’s forces.

There, on the ground, Mussolini’s corpse was kicked and spat upon by passersby.

The corpse was then hanged by its heels from an Esso gas station.

Hanging upside down, the corpse was stoned by an angry crowd. One woman fired five bullets into the corpse, one for each of her five sons who had been killed by Mussolini’s soldiers.

Mussolini’s body was eventually taken down, and buried in an unmarked grave in a cemetery north of the city.

The end?

Oh no.

Next year, on Easter Sunday 1946, Mussolini rose from the grave, or rather, his corpse was dug up by three fascist sympathizers.

The decaying mass that was left of Mussolini was then kept in a trunk for over 10 months, and smuggled around from place to place.

​​Eventually, the Mussolini trunk made its way to a Franciscan monastery near the town of Pavia. There, the corpse was recaptured by Italian authorities.

The end?

You wish.

The new Italian government couldn’t decide what to do with Mussolini’s remains.

In fact, the government kept agonizing over this question for over ten (10) years.

I couldn’t find out exactly where Mussolini’s corpse was kept all this time. But the conclusion was that, after intense political deal-making, Mussolini was finally reburied, in 1957, in a crypt, with marble fasces on the side, in a cemetery in his home town.

The end, finally.

​​A gruesome story, right? And so… illogical.

I mean, the guy was dead. The war was over. Fascism had ended. Why all the fuss over what would happen to the rotting flesh of the man who had once ruled Italy and caused death and destruction?

Well, because that’s how our brains work. What I mean is…

It’s impossible for our brains to take in all of a complex historical process, even if it’s happening around us.

And while it’s not impossible, it’s certainly hard and unpleasant to keep an abstract concept like “fascism” in our minds for very long.

But a specific person… with a name… a title… and all the ready-made emotional reactions that we humans get in response to other people… well, that’s very easy and natural to keep in mind.

But forget all this stuff I just said. And just remember Benito Mussolini and his traveling corpse.

Because whether you want to promote an idea, or bury one, you will find it much easier to promote a person, or to execute one. Figuratively of course. And then to figuratively kick and spit on the corpse, and let it hang by its heels for all the world to curse.

By the way, do you hate Benito Mussolini? Or love Bill Burr?

Then you might like my email newsletter. You can try it out here.

Selling drugs to kids

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IN ONLY SIX MONTHS, that formerly desperate man bought a $385,000 house with half down, and became a millionaire in less than a year. He also bought a vacation house, put away enough to cover his kids’ college educations, easily stopped his bad habits, and attained complete personal and financial freedom… all accomplished automatically, without effort or willpower!

That’s the back envelope copy from a direct mail sales letter written by one Jeff Paul.

​​Jeff was a student and protege of Dan Kennedy, and this sales letter is actually selling Dan’s Psycho Cybernetics program.

I’m sharing this copy with you for two reasons:

First, because I want to point you to Info Marketing Blog. It’s got a few decades’ worth of brilliant direct response ads, and smart and interesting commentary. And if you need proof of that, the guy who runs Info Marketing Blog, Lawrence Bernstein, was called out as a valuable resource during Gary Bencivenga’s farewell seminar by Gary Bencivenga himself.

Second, there’s a masterful marketing and copywriting lesson in those two sentences of copy above. It’s right there at the end:

“… automatically, without effort or willpower!”

When I look outside at the people I know… and when I look inside, at my own feelings and frustrations… I find this is what we all really really want, deep down.

Peace. No effort. Definitely no struggle, and no demands on our willpower. No opportunity for it to go wrong. Instead, all done automatically, by some mechanism outside of us.

That’s why smart marketers like Dan Kennedy and Jeff Paul, and millions of others like them, make those promises.

And if you want to sell, in big numbers, at high prices, you should make these promises too.

Only be careful those desires you stimulate in your sales copy don’t seep into your own subconscious.

Because in my experience, life is all about effort, about exerting your willpower, about getting things done yourself instead of sitting around and wishing they could be done automatically.

How exactly do you reconcile selling something to people that you wouldn’t consume yourself? It seems a little like going down to the elementary school each day to sell drugs to kids, while being religious about never allowing that filth near your own family.

I don’t have a good way to reconcile these things for you. But facts are facts. And if you want to see some market-tested facts, here’s Jeff Paul’s complete sales letter. It’s worth reading. So much so that I’ll even talk about it tomorrow.

Sign up for my email newsletter if you want to read that when it comes out. And here’s the link to the sales letter if you want to get a head start.

https://infomarketingblog.com/wordpress/jeff-pauls-greatest-story-selling-ad/

Misdirection is not illegal

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Last autumn, a conservative writer named Alexander Macris wrote about Florida governor Ron DeSantis. DeSantis was planning a new state militia and he was facing a lot of blowback.

To which, Macris had this bit to say:

“If state defense forces are both constitutional and common, why the outrage? Part of the outrage is simply partisan, of course. If Ron DeSantis walked on water like Jesus to save a drowning child, the Daily Beast would report it as ‘DeSantis refuses to get wet to save drowning child.'”

I found that made-up Daily Beast headline funny and clever. It got me wondering why. So I put my finger on the page and traced out exactly what’s going on.

Here’s what I figured:
​​
Macris brings your attention to an unimportant detail (what De Santis wouldn’t or didn’t do)… to keep your attention from the actual, important, big thing (that he “walked on water like Jesus to save a drowning child”).

There’s a name for this type of thing. It’s called misdirection.

“Magic is misdirection. And misdirection is getting people to look at the wrong place at the right time.”

That’s a line from the 1978 movie Magic. I don’t know much about magic, though I love it. But I have heard pro magicians say that yes, magic is at core misdirection.

And it’s not just magic where misdirection has value. Writing too, like that fake Ron DeSantis headline above.

​​And if you’ve gone through my Copy Riddles program, then you’ve also seen A-list copywriters use misdirection to create intrigue and make sales. Like Gary Bencivenga did with this intriguing warning:

“If you’re a man, do you know why you should never wear a gold bracelet to a job interview?”

Well, do you? If not, I’ll tell you in a second how you can find out.

For now, my point is that misdirection is not just tricky, but it can be valuable, too. So keep an eye on it.

Or keep an eye on me. I’ve started collecting examples of misdirection. And maybe one day I will put them together into a little presentation, and show you how you can misdirect people’s attention, in your writing, with the snap of your fingers, for your benefit and maybe theirs.

You can help me get this done sooner. If you have any good examples of misdirection, anything that comes to mind, whether from magic, design, political PR, tabloid journalism, thriller novels, con artistry, standup comedy, or persuasive and influential writing, then send them my way.

In exchange, I’ll tell you the secret to Gary’s bullet above, in case you don’t know it already.

Oh, and sign up for my email newsletter. Bet you didn’t see that coming.

Turning into the people you hate the most

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Last month, Al Jazeera reported the following curious fact:

“Right-wing Israeli Jews dress as Muslims to enter the Al-Aqsa compound in efforts to change the status quo at Islam’s third holiest site.”

The Al-Aqsa compound, known by Jews as the Temple Mount, has been restricted since the year 2000 in the interest of public safety. Only Muslims are allowed to pray there.

Trouble is, while this 37-acre area is the third holiest site in Islam… it is also the number-one holiest site in Judaism.

Many Jews want the Temple Mount back. They want it back bad.

How bad? From the Al Jazeera article:

“The 26-year-old swaps his orthodox Jewish clothes with a thobe – a traditional garment also called a dishdasha or jalabiya, worn by many Palestinian men, and his black kippa for a white prayer skullcap. Peering into a mirror, he slicks his long, dark sidelocks back with hair gel to hide them under the cap, mumbling a few Arabic words to refresh his memory.”

It’s not just comsetic changes, either. The article says that the Jews sneaking into the Temple mount will take Arabic classes and study the Quran to be able to get past the security guards screening any non-Muslims from the Al-Aqsa compound.

So what?

So maybe you’ll say I’m taking an unwarranted leap here, but this brings to mind a quote from Eric Hoffer’s True Believer:

“Though hatred is a convenient instrument for mobilizing a community for defense, it does not, in the long run, come cheap. We pay for it by losing all or many of the values we have set out to defend.”

Hoffer’s argument is that in fighting the enemy, you often become the enemy.

I don’t know how universally true this is. Maybe it just sounds good because it’s shocking and counterintuitive. But I feel there’s definitely a kernel of truth there.

In any case, it brought something else to mind also. It’s the most valuable thing I got from Ben Settle’s Villains book (actually from Ben’s promo emails for that book):

Villains are proactive, and heroes are reactive.

In other words, Villains make the heroes and authorities react to them, while heroes wait for something to happen, always chasing after the fires set by the Villain to distract them as they carry out their machinations. (And notice when a hero does try to be proactive, you end up with Ultron…) If you look around at the most successful people in business and life, they may not be evil, but they are Villains, and do the same thing.

You might not like the idea of being evil… of being anybody’s enemy… of being a villain.

Fine.

Just remember Eric Hoffer and Ben Settle above. And at the very least, make sure you’re not cast as a hero.

​​Instead, set your own agenda, and then follow it.

Otherwise, you’ll end up playing catchup to other, more proactive people around you… and the shame of it is, in time, you will end up dressing, acting, and even thinking in ways that you hate the most.

On an unrelated note:

I have an email newsletter where I often write about persuasion, marketing, and psychology ideas. If that kind of thing fills you with religious fervor or at least some curiosity, you can sign up to my newsletter here.

“Filthy animals”: How to become a star and embarrass your mom

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Colby’s phone was ringing. He looked at it and his head sank to his chest.

It was his mom again. He would have to finally talk to her. And he knew what she would say.

“This is horrible, Colby,” his mom yelled as soon as he answered. “How could you? I just saw it again on ESPN! You called them filthy animals! An entire country, and you called them filthy animals! This is not how we raised you Colby! I should come over there and wash your mouth out with a bar of soap!”

You might know who I’m talking about. Colby “Chaos” Covington, currently the number-1-ranked welterweight in the UFC.

In case that doesn’t mean much to you, let me explain:

Covington is a professional MMA fighter. And he’s good at fighting.

But it turns out fighting is only a part of his job.

So in spite of being good at fighting, Covington was at one point on the edge of getting dropped from his contract with the UFC.

He was just not very exciting to watch or listen to.

So Covington started wearing a MAGA hat and name-dropping Donald Trump at every opportunity…

He started talking up his support and admiration of the police, right as the BLM movement was dominating the news…

And then, he went into his fight against the Brazilian fighter Damian Maia, in Sao Paolo, Brazil.

And right after beating Maia, during the post-fight interview, as the crowd started whistling and booing, Covington yelled into the microphone that Brazil is a dump and that Brazilians are filthy animals.

“What do you want me to do, mom?” he said when she finally gave him a chance to speak. “They really were acting like animals. They were all drunk, and they were throwing things at me and booing.”

So that’s the point I want to share with you today.

Covington says his public persona is really him. He’s not making it up.

He is a Trump supporter. He does admire and support the police and the military. And he thought the Brazilian crowd, before and during and after his Sao Paolo fight, was being incredibly rude.

The difference is, Covington took all those things… and he took them to 100.

It definitely worked for him. He had his UFC contract extended… he started making much more money… and he became one of the biggest names in the sport today.

And it can be the same for you, too.

You don’t have to be a natural to succeed at anything. Including having a personality.

You can even have fun doing it. A/B test different aspects of who you already are… exaggerate them, caricature them… and see what people respond to.

Money, fame, and opportunities will follow.

And in case you’re wondering:

Yes, I am telling this to you as much as to myself. Because this is an exercise I have been slacking off on doing.

So if in the near future you want to see me contradicting myself blatantly… or writing about crystal skulls and Akashic records… or announcing that I have converted to Taoism… well, sign up to my email newsletter. And get ready to witness my transformation.

 

Flash roll: The following presentation has been paid for by Desert Kite Enterprises

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I’ve been on a hiatus from the usual marketing mailing lists over the past few weeks, so it took me a while to find out that Joe Sugarman died recently.

I’ve written a lot about Joe and his ideas in this newsletter.

In part, that’s because Joe’s Adweek book was the first book on copywriting I ever read. It gave me a lot of ideas to get started in this field, and to a good extent influenced my writing style.

But also, I’ve written a lot about Joe just because he was such a successful direct marketer, who was willing to publicly share the many million-dollar insights he had over his long career.

I found out Joe had died from Brian Kurtz’s email last Sunday. Brian also sent out a link to the infomercial for Joe’s BluBlockers — which became Joe’s biggest success, bringing in over $300 mil.

I actually bought a couple pair of BluBlockers a few years ago. So I was happy to finally see the full infomercial. In a nut, the entire 28 minutes is just a frame around a bunch of on-street testimonials that Joe collected for BluBlockers.

But ok.

Maybe you’re starting to wonder if this email will have any kind of marketing lesson, or if I will just reminisce about Joe Sugarman.

I do got a lesson for you.

​​Take a look at the following bit of sales patter delivered by Joe in the infomercial. It comes after some testimonials by people who say that BluBlockers allow them to see as well as they do with prescription sunglasses.

“I know BluBlockers aren’t prescription sunglasses,” the host babe asks Joe, “but why do so many people think that they are?”

Joe responds:

“BluBlockers block 100% of blue light. Not only the ultraviolet light but the blue light as well. Blue light does not focus very clearly on the retina. And the retina is the focusing screen of the eye. Now all the other colors focus fairly close to the retina. But not blue light. So if you block blue light, what you see is a lot clearer, and a lot sharper.”

If you have read Oren Klaff’s book Flip the Script, you might recognize this as a flash roll. It’s basically a rapidfire display of technical language used to wow — or hypnotize — the prospect into thinking you’re legit.

(To make it clearer: the original flash roll was a term used by undercover cops. They flashed a roll of cash to a drug dealer to show they meant business.)

For over two years, I’ve been collecting ideas related to the use of insight in marketing. That’s when you say, “Ahaaa… it makes so much sense now!” And in that way, you become open to influence.

Several people have suggested to me to include Klaff’s flash roll idea. I resisted.

After all, what is there to intuitively make sense of in Joe’s argument above? He’s just throwing some technical facts at you. They could be completely made up. You have no way to actually experience or validate those facts for yourself.

But it doesn’t matter.

The people who told me the flash roll creates a feeling of insight were right. I was wrong.

That same feeling of deep understanding — which is usually triggered when you experience or understand something for yourself — well, it can be triggered, on a slightly smaller scale, just by an adequate display of authority.

“So you’re telling me to include more authority in my sales copy?” you ask. “That doesn’t sound very insightful.”

What I’m actually telling you is that there are better ways of creating insight. But if you got nothing else, then some technical jargon, or perhaps a scientific study, can be good enough to get people to say, “Ooh… I get it now!” Even though they really don’t.

As for those more powerful ways of creating insight, I’ll write about that one day, in that book I’ve been promising for a long time.

For now, I’d like to tell you about an interesting article. It’s titled “Beware What Sounds Insightful.”

This article points out the unobvious truth that there are mechanisms of creating the feeling of insight… and that they can dress up otherwise mundane or even ridiculous ideas as something profound. It even gives you some more examples of flash rolls, by some of the most insightful writers out there on the Internet. In case you’re interested:

https://commoncog.com/blog/beware-what-sounds-insightful/

Outrage with stupidity to milk info out of cagey or indifferent adversaries

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Two years ago, just as the whole world was shutting down due to the first wave of corona, the president of the UFC, Dana White, got trolled into revealing a highly guarded secret.

A bit of background:

The UFC hosts mixed martial arts fights, and in April 2020 they were supposed to host the biggest and most anticipated fight in their history, between Khabib Nurmagomedov and Tony Ferguson.

These two fighters were both on 12-fight win streaks in the UFC, and they were scheduled to fight four times already. Each time, the fight was cancelled at the last minute for some reason.

This time around, as sports organizations around the world cancelled events because of corona, Dana White refused to give in. “We’re going ahead with the fight!”

The only problem was they couldn’t figure out where to host it. It was originally supposed to be in Brooklyn, but that was out. In fact, any other location in the US also became untenable.

“The fight is still on, guys!” White would repeat whenever asked, though he wouldn’t give any more details.

So as the fight date neared, speculation kept increasing. Fans were alternating between getting resigned to the inevitable fifth cancellation… and hyped when some new possible location for the fight surfaced.

Meanwhile, even Tony and Khabib, the fighters who were supposed to be fighting, didn’t know for sure if the fight was still on.

So that’s the background. Would the fight happen? Would it get cancelled a fifth time?

The answer finally came when somebody created a fake Twitter account, mimicking a well-known MMA journalist, and tweeted:

“#BREAKING: Dana White and Vladimir Putin have reached an agreement on travel arrangements for UFC Lightweight Champion Khabib Nurmagomedov to come to the United States. He will fight Tony Ferguson. It’s happening folks. #UFC249 will go on as scheduled April 18.”

To which Dana White, big goof that he is, immediately blasted out a Tweet saying that it ain’t so, that Khabib is not fighting, and then to prove it, he finally revealed the whole card that was scheduled for this corona-infested bout.

Which brings us to an eternal truth, something called Cunningham’s law:

“The best way to get the right answer on the Internet is not to ask a question; it’s to post the wrong answer.”

The sad fact is that in business, in love, and on online forums, there are many times when people are unwilling to answer your questions. Maybe the person you’re talking to is indifferent, or cagey, or hurt, or they just don’t like the implied power dynamics that come with you asking and them answering.

So if you ever find yourself in this situation, swallow your pride, and publicly make a dumb, completely wrong assumption about the right answer. If Cunningham is right, and I suspect he’s at least a little bit right, then your outraged adversary will jump in and say, “No! You’re so wrong! Let me tell you how it really is…”

But I think this Cunningham and his law go even farther. If you just swap out “right answer” and you swap in “response,” you get a good recipe for how to get yourself publicity and an audience online.

Of course, unless you want to be just a troll, you’ll have to figure out a reasonable argument to justify a seemingly “wrong” opinion that you use to attract attention. But it can be done, and guys like Matt Stone (aka Buck Flogging) and Ben Settle prove it. Outrage and reason are a powerful combination. Aloe vera on its own is pretty bland and slimy, but it sure feels good once you burn your hand on the stove.

And if you want less outrage, not more:

You might like my daily email un-newsletter. I avoid outrage, even though I know it’s good for business. Instead, I try to make my ideas appealing in other ways. In case you’re curious, you can give it a try here.

Mood is a thing for cattle and loveplay, not selling

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Last night was the first time I’ve ever walked out of a movie theater.

I nervously edged forward in my seat… I clutched my jacket and my backpack… I waited for the end of the scene… and then I gritted my teeth and pushed through the long row of legs and their groaning owners and the boxes of popcorn these leg-owners were holding.

Once I had tripped and stumbled over all these people, I made my way through the darkened theater, out the emergency exit, and out into a world of light and air and freedom.

I asked myself later what had happened to me. After all, I’ve suffered through worse movies than this, the 2021 version of Dune. Why did I decide to bolt this time?

Maybe it was the fact it was my first time in a movie theater in over two years.

Maybe it was the movie itself. After all, compare the same line from the mysterious 1984 version, which I like a lot, to this present, lifeless version:

“Not in the mood? Mood’s a thing for cattle and loveplay, not fighting!”
— Dune (1984)

“Mood? What’s mood to do with it? You fight when the necessity arises, no matter the mood!”
— Dune (2021)

So yeah, there were those reasons. But I realized what the biggest reason was simply:

I had gone to see this movie by myself.

I’m in transit between two cities. I had some free time, and a few people had recommended this new Dune. So I decided to go to the movies, even though I had no one to go with.

It turned out to be a rare blessing.

I didn’t have to bribe, convince, or beg anyone to agree with me. I didn’t have to look over to my movie partner, look imploringly at the exit, and then look back, trying to see if the person next to me understood that now’s time to get up and get the hell out, and avoid wasting two more hours of perfectly good life.

In my experience, that’s often not the case. Not when it comes to movie going. And not when it comes to life in general.

I recently wrote about the many hooks that keep people stuck in the status quo. Even when the status quo is dull, sepia-toned, and threatens to drag on endlessly, like this new version of Dune.

Well, other people are the most powerful of these hooks, both directly and indirectly.

That’s an unavoidable fact of life. And it’s something you will have to deal with in your marketing.

So my point for you is this:

Many marketing gurus will try to sell you new tricks to help you agitate the spleen out of your prospect. The idea being, once you get somebody in the right mood, he will finally take action.

A dangerous mistake, I say.

In the words of Jonah Berger, instead of asking what would encourage change, ask why things haven’t changed already.

And if you are trying to get your prospect to take real-world action… or make a transformation in his life… or just make a really big purchase, which might end up helping him… then think about other people in his life. And somewhere in your marketing, equip your prospect to deal with these other people.

​​Give your prospect a buying system, not a mood. After all, there’s a world of light and air and freedom at stake.

Now, in a moment, I’ll give you a chance to transform your life, by signing up to my email newsletter and getting a steady stream of valuable persuasion and marketing ideas.

But you might think how your spouse, kids, or wife might react if they see you reading yet another newsletter on your phone, when you should be paying attention to them.

When they try to make you feel guilty about it, tell yourself, and them if you like, that it’s a temporary sacrifice, so you can build a better life for all of you.

But that’s all assuming you sign up to my newsletter. It’s not for everyone. But maybe it is for you. If you want to find out, here’s where to go.

How to effectively divide and rule

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Legend says that in the early days of Rome, the city was made up of two races — the Romans and the Sabines.

The Sabines felt like second-class citizens, and hated the Romans.

The Romans didn’t trust the Sabines and worked hard to keep the Sabines down.

Tension threatened to tear the young city apart.

So the leading men of Rome — Romans and Sabines both — elected a new king in the hope of getting out of this crisis.

The new king’s name was Numa. He was a Sabine by birth. And he fixed the problem.

Numa eliminated Roman-Sabine strife. He united the two races into manageable citizens of Rome. He set the ground for what was the become the great Roman empire.

The question is how?

How do you take two groups that hate each other, and unite them into a cohesive, ruleable whole?

Well, here’s one thing Numa did:

He created new guilds based on occupation.

There was a guild for the musicians, one for goldsmiths, another for shoemakers. Each guild had special privileges, rituals, even their own unique patron god. And crucially, each guild cut across racial lines – each included both Romans and Sabines.

It worked.

This illustrates an idea from Eric Hoffer’s book True Believer. Writing about the idea of “divide to rule,” Hoffer had this to say:

“An effective division is one that fosters a multiplicity of compact bodies — racial, religious, or economic — vying with and suspicious of each other.”

Maybe you’re not sure exactly what this means. So let me give you another, more modern example.

Have you heard of Josh Wardle, the guy who made the viral game Wordle? Which, by the way, was so much fun to play until the failing New York Times ruined it?

Well, before making Wordle, Wardle worked at Reddit. And one project he had there was called Orangered vs Periwinkle.

As you might know, Reddit is a bunch of separate and sometimes antagonistic communities.

But on April Fool’s in 2013, every Reddit user was automatically assigned to one of two made-up teams. Team Orangered or team Periwinkle.

The outcome was a ton of engagement and activity on the site. New bonds being formed across subreddits. In Wardle’s words:

“Uniting people through difference is easy. Essentially what we did is we just put people on separate teams. And it turns out people are really really good at creating stuff when they say, ‘I’m part of this group, I’m not part of that group.'”

Wardle has a vision of using this “divide to unite” trick to stir creativity and create greater unity on a big scale.

But I’m not recommending anything like that to you. This email is not my call for the greater brotherhood of man, or for an ever-expanding union through the clever use of new divisions.

That’s because I believe that size is evil, or at least inhuman. After all, the Roman empire, like all other empires that came after it, crushed and destroyed to serve its own ends of growth. And Reddit is kind of a sewer on most days.

So I have no clear takeaway for you today. I just wanted to point out this curious technique of dividing to unite.

You will have to decide how you want to use it. Whether to unite people, hopefully in a good cause… or to be aware of it, so you can resit being co-opted into a new divisive group, because you don’t want to contribute to anybody else’s inhuman ends.

Not convinced?
​​
Well, maybe you want to read more about my idea that size is evil. If so, take a look here:

https://bejakovic.com/the-most-dangerous-idea-in-america/

Dark and disturbing

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Today’s email is dark and disturbing. I mean it. Read at your own peril.

Many years ago, late one night, I was watching TV and I saw a fragment of a courtroom drama starring Robin Wright. (She also played Buttercup, if you’ve ever seen the Princess Bride.)

In the movie, Wright’s character is testifying against her violent and abusive ex-boyfriend. Even so, she is still in love with the guy. She even interprets his acts of violence as signs that he cares.

I’ll admit, this made me morbidly curious. It had a ring of truth to it. But after all, it was just a movie.

Then a couple days ago, I shared a Rolling Stone article about get-rich-quick master David Bendah. And while I was looking at that article, I saw something in the sidebar. The number 1 trending article on Rolling Stone right now:

“Marilyn Manson: The Monster Hiding in Plain Sight”

It’s same story as that movie I saw long ago. But it’s real — or at least that’s what many of the women Manson has been with claim, including in court.

One of Manson’s exes reports being locked in a cramped, soundproof space that Manson called the “Bad Girls’ Room.”

The first time it happened, she was screaming and kicking to be let out.

In time, she says, she learned to stop fighting, because Manson enjoyed her struggle.

In other words, this happened many times. This grown, independent woman was locked up in a soundproof closet space as punishment… she was humiliated and horrified… and she came back for more.

Another woman, actress Esme Bianco from Game of Thrones, claims Manson abused and raped her for 2 years.

The final straw, Bianco says, was when Manson started running around his all-black, meatlocker-cold West Hollywood apartment, smashing the walls with an axe, and screaming that she was “crowding him.”

2 years of rape and abuse. And it had to take an axe for a successful Hollywood actress to finally get out.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to blame the victims here.

I just think that looking at extremes in life shines a light on more everyday situations.

For example, how conflicted we all are.

There are bad situation in life. And yet, so many hooks, physical and mental, keep us from packing up and leaving.

There are also many possibly good future outcomes. And yet, so many hooks, physical and mental, keep us from moving towards these outcomes.

So that’s my takeaway for you.

Maybe there have been times when you’ve made people an amazing offer. And you couldn’t understand for the life of you why people weren’t running to take you up on it.

Well, there is the chance that your offer was not as amazing as you thought. Or maybe you botched the marketing.

But even if you get everything just perfect, only a few percent will ever respond to even the best offer.

Why?

Well, for reasons like this, the conflicts that exist in us, even in the most extreme situations.

And if you keep this dark and disturbing truth in mind, and find ways to address it, you might have a chance to sell — and maybe help — a lot more people.

Or not.

As another example, I have an offer for you. Marketing and copywriting and persuasion lessons… delivered to your inbox in small, fascinating packages, each day… all for free. Will you take me up on it? Well, I won’t be surprised if you don’t. But if you want to, here’s where to go.