The Pope and Anthony Fauci are using this “Millionaire’s Secret” to create products that look, feel, and sell like blockbusters

A few weeks ago, I was listening to an interview that James Altucher did with Peter Diamandis and Tony Robbins. And right as I was about to fall asleep, Tony said:

“Peter was going to go to the Vatican… where, believe it or not, every two years they have this regenerative medicine conference that the Pope actually hosts.”

“Woof,” I said, suddenly wide awake. And I lifted my nose up in the air, like an Irish setter that scents some game in the bushes.

It turns out there really is such an event. It’s called the International Vatican Conference.

The last one, which happened last May, was attended by the Pope himself, along with Anthony Fauci, the CEOs of Moderna and Pfizer, Ray Dalio, Chelsea Clinton, Cindy Crawford, David Sinclair, Deepak Chopra, and of course, aging rock star Steven Perry, the lead guitarist of Aerosmith.

Unfortunately, this latest International Vatican Conference was virtual and not held in real life​. Otherwise, you could write a Dan Ferrari-style lead, and paint the picture of the Pope walking down the soft red carpet in the gilded Hall of the Blessing, exchanging secret handshakes with Chelsea Clinton and wink-wink-nudge-nudging Ray Dalio.

I’m telling you all this for two reasons.

Reason one is that it’s a cool story I hadn’t heard anywhere before or since. If you’re looking for a hook for a VSL, now or in the coming months, I figure you can’t beat the intrigue of the Pope and Anthony Fauci and the CEO of Moderna in an invitation-only, world-shaping event held inside the Vatican.

Reason two is that maybe you don’t have a product to promote. Or your product simply doesn’t fit this Dan Brownish Vatican conference, and you’re struggling to find something equally intriguing.

In either case I would tell you, drop whatever you’re doing right now. And seriously consider creating a new business or at least a new product, built around this Vatican conference.

Because, as master copywriter Gary Bencivenga said once, great products are “those with a clear-cut, built-in, unique superiority supported by powerful proof elements.”

Gary’s advice was that you should create a product around a strong proof element to start, rather than create a product, and then start truffling out proof to support what you got.

Which is great. Only one thing I would add:

If you can additionally make your foundational proof dramatic and intriguing — again, think Dan Brown — well, then you’re really in for the kind of gold haul that would make the Vatican sit up and take notice.

So there you go. That’s my generational-wealth-building idea for you for today.

And when you do create your Vatican-scented regenerative essential oils, or whatever, and it ends up turning you into a multimillionaire, just remember me and send me a small finder’s fee. I’ll be grateful to you. And I’ll use it to take a trip to Rome and visit the Vatican — but just the outside.

Oh, and sign up for my email newsletter. You won’t believe the secrets and intrigue that are hiding inside.

The thinking man’s horoscope

Detailed and Reliable — LOW
Nurturing – LOW
Tough — LOW

Today I went through a part of Ray Dalio’s personality test. It takes 40 minutes to complete. I gave up after just 10. But based on those 10 minutes, Dalio’s test still spit out an uninspiring estimate of who I am (results above).

You’ve probably heard of Dalio. He’s a billionaire investor. A few years ago, he wrote an influential book about his way of thinking, called Principles. Well, now he has released a free online personality test, called Principles You.

Dalio got enthusiastic about personality tests a while back. He started by giving a bunch of his employees the Myers-Briggs.

“It gives you clarity of how people think!” Dalio said.

And to prove his point, he had those same employees fill out a survey after they got the test results. “How accurately does this describe the way you think?” 85% gave it a 4 or 5 on a scale of 1-5.

Impressive, except:

If you’ve been reading my blog over the past few weeks, you’ll know I recently wrote about cold reading. That’s when you tell people something about themselves without knowing anything about them.

In the very first cold reading experiment, all the way back in 1949, 39 students were all given the same personality profile. It came straight out of a horoscope.

And after reading their profile, 34 out of 39 students gave the profile either a 4 or a 5 on a scale of 1-5. That’s 87%. A finding that has been replicated since, and not just by Dalio.

But what the hell do I know?

I’m just some guy. And Ray Dalio is a billionaire.

​​Maybe his Principles You test really is more useful and accurate than a horoscope.

Either way, all I really want to suggest is that, up and down the success and skepticism ladders, people love categorizing others… and they LOOOVE being categorized themselves.

I think those two loves come from very different drives. I won’t get into that here. But I will leave you with this:

Entire businesses have been built by putting people into buckets. (Michael Gerber’s E-Myth comes to mind.) And if you need a unique mechanism… or you need a unique position in the market… then perhaps you can get started by creating a new diagnostic test. My suggestion for a name? Buckets You.

On a related note:

If you are honest, ambitious, and reliable, then you might get a lot of value out of subscribing to my email newsletter. Click here to try it out.