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Today I’d like to tell you the story of a boy who became known as Thee-Thee.

When Thee-Thee was just ten years old, his father died. The family wasn’t rich before, but now they were poor. Thee-Thee had to go to work — every day, before and after school, weekends too — to help support himself and the rest of his family.

Thee-Thee kept working. And he kept studying. He finished high school and even some college.

But his first job out of college paid so poorly that Thee-Thee couldn’t afford a meal every night. His budget could just support the room he was renting, occasional laundry service for his two shirts, and dinners only five nights a week. The other two nights he had to go to bed hungry.

But Thee-Thee didn’t stop, and he didn’t quit. He kept working hard and being honest. He made his employers more and more money. And as a result, he himself progressed, further and further.

Thee-Thee started getting paid higher wages. Then he got commissions on the money he was earning his employers. Then he was given shares of businesses he helped grow.

In time, Thee-Thee became rich. He bought an ocean-going yacht. He lived in a palatial house surrounded by flower gardens admired across the state. He died a multimillionaire, back when that was the equivalent of what today is a billionaire.

You might recognize who I’m talking about. It’s a famous marketer and copywriter. Perhaps the most famous and influential of them all:

Claude C. Hopkins.

(Thee-Thee? Hopkins had a lisp. When he introduced himself — C.C. — it came out as Thee-Thee. This became his nickname around the Lord & Thomas offices — behind his back of course.)

I’m telling you the story of Thee-Thee Hopkins for two reasons:

First, because it shows what you can earn — “at a typewriter which you operate yourself, without a clerk or secretary, and much of it earned in the woods” — if you get really dedicated to this marketing and copywriting thing.

The second reason is that Hopkins’s life is a perfect illustration of a rags-to-riches story.

Back in 1995, scientists from the University of Vermont looked at 1,700 popular stories, spanning all eras. The scientists used some fancy computering to analyze all these stories.

The upshot was they found these 1,700 stories all boiled down to just six fundamental structures.

The first of these can be concisely represented by the character /. It is the rags-to-riches story, which I just told you about.

If you’re curious about the other five fundamental story structures, you can go look them up for yourself. Or you can just sign up to my email newsletter.

Because over the coming five days, I will illustrate each of these five other canonical story types in an email. And will tell you some extra storytelling tricks and ideas that can help you also.

So if, like me, you get off on the hidden structure behind everyday things, my next few emails might be interesting for you. And who knows, they might even be profitable for you. As Thee-Thee Hopkins almost said once:

“Our success depends on pleasing people. By an inexpensive test we can learn if we please them or not. And if some guys from the University of Vermont have already done that testing for us, all the better. We can guide our endeavors accordingly.”

In case you want to read those emails when I send them out, here’s how to get a spot on my newsletter.