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: