Dread Pirate Roberts

How to spot a lie

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Four days ago, I sent out an email inviting readers to reply with one truth and one lie about themselves. It turned out to be both fun and informative.

I got hobuncha responses.

Inevitably, a few people didn’t follow the instructions I gave. Not much I can do there.

Others followed the instructions perfectly but then went one further, and told me which of their statements was the lie and which was the truth. That’s my fault. I forgot you can never be too specific in your CTA.

But the vast majority of people played the game as intended. As a result, I found out some interesting and true stuff about my readers. A curated selection of the most intriguing:

“In a small town in Thailand, a monkey on top of a tree threw a stump which hit my forehead and crushed part of my teeth.”

“Last April I appeared on the UK TV quiz show Countdown, 24 years after first applying as a 12-year-old and being told to wait for my vocabulary to develop.”

“I was almost bitten alive by a poorly-anesthetized tiger in an animal photoshoot session in Thailand when I was just a high-school student.”

“As a senior in high school, at a small, private day school in Harrisburg, PA, I set 2 school records in basketball. At 5’7”, I scored 44 points in one game and 309 points for the season.

So how did I do? Could I distinguish the true statements like the ones above, and separate them from the lies, like the following:

“I met Kevin Costner at the premiere of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and he was quite rude.”

“My daughter packed her own school lunch today and it was only waffles and syrup.”

“I got hit over the head with a stray chair at a pro wrestling show, and got to go backstage afterwards to meet the roster.”

I will tell you honestly, I dug myself into a hole at the start. I made a lot of wrong guesses. But I slowly realized two things kept happening over and over:

#1. When one statement was hyper-specific and the other was vague, it was more likely that the vague statement was true and the hyper-specific was false

#2. When one statement was outrageous and the other was bland, it was more likely that the outrageous statement was true and the bland statement was false

The common element to both of these realizations is “persuasion knowledge.” It’s kind of like the battle of wits between the Dread Pirate Roberts and Vizzini the Sicilian in the Princess Bride.

Bejacco the Croatian: “Only a great fool would not look to specific details to verify a statement. But I am not a great fool, and you know that I am not a great fool, therefore I can clearly not choose the hyper-specific statement in front of me!”

Spoiler alert:

In The Princess Bride, the Dread Pirate Roberts wins the battle of wits because he has developed immunity to iocaine powder, a deadly, odorless, tasteless poison that he puts into both cups, the one in front of him, and the one in front of Vizzini.

Likewise, over the course of playing this truth/lie game, I developed immunity to the persuasion knowledge of my readers. I then went on a tear, guessing almost all of the last two dozen truths/lies right, using the two realizations above and a few more like them. In spite of the bad start, I eventually ended up in the black, with more right guesses than not.

My ultimate point for you is a fundamental truth, something I heard a very great copywriter say once.

As a marketer, you have no power. Your only power is anticipation — knowing how your prospects are likely to think and behave, and adjusting for that.

And with that, let me end this email with a tease. I won’t tell you which great copywriter said the above. But I will tell you it is one of the A-list copywriters I built my little 10 Commandments book around.

​​If you haven’t gotten that yet, and you would like to see who is inside, and maybe unravel the riddle of who said that anticipation is the only power marketers have, you can find the book below:

https://bejakovic.com/10commandment

How to build up immunity to writing huge amounts of copy

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June 22, 1941, exactly 79 years ago, saw the start of the largest military operation in history, code name Barbarossa. 3 million Third Reich soldiers and 600,000 Third Reich horses headed east and invaded Russia.

In spite of all that man and horse, it didn’t work out well for the Germans.

No surprise there. Just another instance of the most famous of the classic blunders of history:

“Never get involved in a land war in Asia.”

That line comes from a scene in The Princess Bride (book or movie), in which the Dread Pirate Roberts wins a deadly battle of wits.

He wins because he has spent the past few years building up an immunity to iocaine pwder, a colorless, odorless, instantly dissolving poison.

Which brings me to the inspirational pitch I want to make to you today:

It’s incredible what you can get used to, if you only start small enough and then build up.

Take for example, writing.

I started writing emails regularly about three years ago, At first, I did it only twice a week, and for another of my sites.

I then bumped up the frequency to three times a week. And then every day.

As of today, I’ve written 500+ emails for this list alone, and that’s in addition to hundreds (or thousands) of other emails I’ve written for clients, including several daily email lists I’ve worked on and continue to work on.

I would never have been able to put out this amount of content each day when I first started. But over the course of a few years, I slowly built up an immunity to it.

And so can you. If you get started now. And if you’re motivated enough to survive the deadly battle of wits that is the freelance copywriting marketplace.

But maybe you’re confused. I’ve referred several times to emails but this is a blog post. But it started out as an email, and as part of my daily email newsletter. If you’re interested, you can sign up for it here.

Dread Pirate Leonardo’s to-do list

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Leonardo Da Vinci used to keep many notebooks and in some of them, he entered his daily to-do items. It’s not your typical laundry list:

– Examine the Crossbow of Mastro Giannetto
– Ask about the measurement of the sun promised me by Maestro Giovanni Francese
– Draw Milan

When did Leonardo find time to do all this plus paint the Mona Lisa plus design the first tank plus make important anatomical discoveries?

I don’t know.

But I suspect he had the same attitude as Westley from The Princess Bride.

Westley is just a poor stable boy when he sets off into the world to make his fortune.

But before he gets anywhere, his ship is captured by the Dread Pirate Roberts, who never takes prisoners. So when Westley offers to become Roberts’ valet, the Dread Pirate agrees, but just for that one day.

In the evening, Roberts says, “Good night, Westley. Good work. Sleep well. I’ll most likely kill you in the morning.”

This goes on each day. Westley learns as much as he can in that one day. He makes himself as useful as he can aboard the Revenge, DPR’s fearsome ship.

And each night, he hears the same. “Good night, Westley. Good work. Sleep well. I’ll most likely kill you in the morning.”

In time, Westley becomes a master of fencing, he learns how to run a pirate ship, and he even inherits the title of “Dread Pirate Roberts” when the current Dread Pirate Roberts decides to retire.

And he does it all done one day at a time.

With the threat of imminent death hanging over him.

Which is basically the situation we all find ourselves in.

So personally, when I get overwhelmed with future plans and goals and things I’d like to accomplish but I haven’t even started on yet…

I just remember the encouraging words of the Dread Pirate Roberts — “I’ll most likely kill you in the morning” — and resolve to learn and do as much as I can for today.

That might be something to consider if you’re feeling overwhelmed with your own to-dos. And if learning how to write effective sales emails is among your to-dos, then check out the following:

https://bejakovic.com/profitable-health-emails/