“The greatest sin for a writer is to be boring.” – Carl Hiaasen, Born Mar. 12, 1953. If you can manage to keep yourself free of this sin, the world can be yours. It doesn’t matter if you’re not so convincing, or so poetic, or so informative. Your readers will forgive you for that. Just […]
The Cure for Boredom and Being Boring: How to Be Interesting All the Time Read More »
“The questions don’t do the damage. Only the answers do.” – Sam Donaldson, Born Mar. 11, 1934. In Sam’s field of journalism, that can be true. A probing question that gets an answer from a prominent figure is often revealing in a way the answerer may not have meant. And often, it can be damaging
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“For imagination sets the goal picture which our automatic mechanism works on. We act, or fail to act, not because of will, as is so commonly believed, but because of imagination.” – Maxwell Maltz, Born Mar. 10, 1899. The vast majority of people possess withered and disused imaginations. Having to deal with the real world
Paint a Pretty Picture and Prospects Become Purchasers Read More »
“Most successful pundits are selected for being opinionated, because it’s interesting, and the penalties for incorrect predictions are negligible. You can make predictions, and a year later people won’t remember them.” – Daniel Kahneman, Born Mar. 5, 1934. Gurus need to make a lot of predictions. That’s really why people follow us at all. People
“A vision of truth which does not call upon us to get out of our armchair – why, this is the desideratum of mankind.” – John Jay Chapman, Born Mar. 2, 1862. I know two things for sure. 1. You just learned a new word. 2. J.J. made a true statement above. Everyone has a
What People Want: Wisdom at No Cost; Truth Without Sacrifice… Read More »
“Secrecy sets barriers between men, but at the same time offers the seductive temptation to break through the barriers by gossip or confession.” – Georg Simmel, Born Mar. 1, 1858. Secrets are power. Sharing secrets can weaken you and allow others to damage you. Generosity with plans and innovations can lead to disastrous competition. Even
The Real Secret About Why People Love Fake “Secrets” Read More »
“Each work has its own space, which should neither be conceived as a sort of cage nor regarded as extending to infinity.” – Marino Marini, Born Feb. 27, 1901. Marino here was a sculptor. And like carving stone, copywriting is an art constrained by certain limitations. For the sculptor, there is an outer limit to
The Constrained Shape of Effective Persuasion Is… Read More »
“Gifts make slaves.” – Levi Strauss, Born Feb. 26, 1829. Cialdini stated this in a less harsh way. He calls it the Law of Reciprocity. When you receive a distinct item of value from someone else, you are compelled to grant them something in return. We feel that we owe them. That we are indebted
How to Mentally Enslave People With One Stupid Trick – It’s Irresistible! Lol, Sorta. Read More »
“The two enemies of human happiness are pain and boredom.” – Arthur Schopenhauer, Born Feb. 22, 1788. It may seem like a shitty thing, to sit around plotting ways to make people unhappy with their current existence. But that is what we do for a living. We don’t describe products and services. That’s ditch work.
“The price of a work of art has nothing to do with what the work of art is, can do, or is worth on an existential, alchemical level.” – Jerry Saltz, Born Feb. 19, 1951. Information is like art in this way, at least when it’s for sale. For example, imagine a piece of information
