The Ultimate Sales Letter:

Attract New Customers. Boost Your Sales.

by Dan Kennedy

Dan Kennedy is the most successful highly paid direct-response copywriter in the
country.

Writing sales letters is the art of copywriting, which is selling to people using the written
word. The more you write, the easier it gets.

Writing copy that sells is not a creative act so much as it is mechanical process,
adhering to formulas, and assembling essential component parts within a reliable
framework.

Part 1: Before You Write a Word

There are a couple big ideas in this short introduction to the rest of the book:

- Fear not! Writing shouldn’t be scary. There’s no magic and you don’t have to be
especially qualified.
- You know your business best. Or, at least you should. Don’t forget this knowledge
when you start writing your sales letters.
- Have a swipe file. Build a collection of great ideas, hooks, headlines, and anything
else that you might use in your own sales letters. It’s called a "swipe file" because
you’re swiping ideas from these sources of inspiration.
- "Think selling." This is one of the more important ideas to consider when writing
sales copy. The end goal is to make a sale. Everything that you say or write should
have a clear purpose. The clear purpose here is to sell.
- Don’t worry about perfect. Especially when you are beginning to write your sales
letter, you are not going to produce a finished product on the first go-round. In fact,
you might only have a massive list of ideas that are in no way cohesive. That’s okay,
because it’s a start. That’s all you need.

Part 2: The Kennedy System

Dan Kennedy describes writing a sales letter as a system. This is why you have no
reason to fear writing, because it’s not really a creative endeavor at all when you
systemize it.

The Kennedy System is just a bunch of steps that, if followed, should elicit positive
results.
Step 1: Get “into” the customer.
In order to write a good sales letter, you have to deeply understand your audience.
There is no shortcut to doing this, and many great copywriters spend most of their time
immersing themselves in the world of the customer.

Step 2: Get “into” the offer.

Every sales letter has some sort of offer, whether that’s a coupon or a 5–figure training
seminar. Remember, you’re a salesman. Understand your product inside and out, and
you’ll be much better at selling it.

Step 3: Damaging admissions and address flaws

There are many reasons that the recipient of your letter either won’t want to respond or
will be skeptical of your offer. Take time to recognize those, and then be ready to
address them in your sales letter. Unlike a regular sales conversation, you will have to
sell, overcome objections, and close the deal in one letter. Make sure that you anticipate
your roadblocks.

Step 4: Get your letter delivered

With email, the big consideration is to make sure that you have the right email address,
and that you get through to the person you are trying to reach rather than a gatekeeper.
No matter how you do it, make sure your prospect gets your letter.

Step 5: Get your letter looked at

Again, in the book Kennedy is talking mostly about physical letters, but there are
equivalent techniques that you can use to get an email read.

Namely, the subject line of your email is extremely important. There are plenty of ways
to write a good subject line. Start paying attention to what subject lines you personally
respond to. Screenshot them and put them in a swipe file. When you need to write a
subject line, look at these examples and take some ideas to try for yourself.

Step 6: Get your letter read

AIDA stands for Attention, Interest, Desire, Action. Grab attention, create interest,
develop a desire, and make the prospect take action. If you go in this order, you will get
your entire sales letter read.

Part of grabbing attention and creating interest comes with good headlines. For a more
modern equivalent, think clickbait titles (annoying, but functional): 14 Secrets That
Celebrities Use to Stay Fit.
Step 7: Beat the Bugaboo, or pricing
The sales letter’s end goal is to make the prospect purchase something, so price must
be considered in the letter itself. You will have to address price at one point, so the
writer must be careful not to get the letter immediately trashed when the prospect reads
the price. Some techniques:
- State price relative to value. If you have a product that could make your prospect
lots of money, then tell them! "This course will quadruple your income in 6 months —
and it’s only $999.99! Even if you only make $5,000 more this quarter, you’ll have
made back the money you spent on this course five times over!"
- Offer options. Give your prospect different ways to buy. You may offer something at
double the price you actually expect them to buy at, and then offer a second option at
the desired price. This makes the second price seem much less hefty, and more
attractive.
- State the price in terms of payments. A $24,000 course for business owners is
much less scary when broken down into payments of $2,000. It’s the same price, it
just seems more feasible in smaller amounts.

Step 8: Motivate Action

There are some pretty slimy techniques to motivate action in a sales letter. Kennedy is
pretty clear that the sales letter and sales in general is inherently manipulative, which
may turn some heads.

Nonetheless, his techniques include any form of intimidation, which is as simple as a

limited time offer, for example. A limited time offer threatens to take away the product if
action is not taken swiftly, and is a form of intimidation.

Additionally, you can demonstrate concrete ROI for the prospect, give them a money-
back guarantee, or appeal to their ego and make them do something because they’re
just that type of guy or gal. Your goal remains the same — get them to take action and
take the next step, whether that’s making a purchase or scheduling a phone call with a
salesperson.

Step 9: Write the first draft

You’ve got information at this point, and you should know how to address pricing issues,
what your headline and big offer will be, etc. Now, sit down and start putting the pieces
together! If you have writer’s block, lower your standards and keep writing. This is only a
first draft, and will not be perfect — just get all of your content down on paper and go
from there.

Step 10: Rewrite for strategy

Inevitably, the first draft won’t be great, and surely won’t be ready to send. While
rewriting for strategy, you will add headlines, add examples, make the writing more
clear, and start to whittle away at the content to make it more succinct in certain areas.
Breaking up the long text of your sales letter is crucial. There must be subheadings,
because there will be people that only read the big text, not the smaller copy. Including
these subheadings and making them as clear as the detailed copy itself is called the
double readership path. It creates two paths of reading the sales letter, and should
make just as much sense when read on one path as the other.

Step 11: Rewrite for style

This is the part where you make the entire sales letter reader-friendly, which is the
purpose of rewriting for strategy, too.

The focus in this step is reducing as much text as possible while still conveying the
same idea. Remove all excess words.

Step 12: Answer questions and objections

FAQs are great, but they are not the most effective way to answer questions.

Kennedy advocates for you to list out every possible question and objection that your
prospect could possibly have, and answer them all in the sales letter. While answering
to these objections, include a direct answer, and also other explanations or testimonials
that back up the claim you are making with your answer. This is key to validating your
answer and truly overcoming that hurdle.

Step 13: Make them act immediately!

The sales letter should demand a response today, not tomorrow. Tomorrow, your
prospect will have already forgotten about your letter. Don’t let them wait! Use limited
time offers and premium offers to get your prospect to spend their money immediately.
Deadlines also work, as they spark a sense of buy-or-flight in the buyer.

Step 14: PS: Use a postscript!

The PS at the end of the letter is one of the most important parts of any letter, and
especially a sales letter. There are many who skip to the end of the letter to look at the
signature, and the PS is just another place that you can put an intriguing headline and
get your prospect to start reading.

You can also use it as a final way to make an offer that you haven’t mentioned
throughout the rest of the sales letter.

Step 15: Use checklists

In the book, Kennedy includes 35 questions to ask yourself about your sales letter. It’s
an excellent way to revise and put the finishing touches on your letter. Maybe you
develop your own checklist at one point, but you can buy the book and start with Dan
Kennedy’s.

Step 16: Use graphic enhancement

This section is all about gimmicks that you can use on a physical letter to make it look
better and more enticing.

Step 17: Rewrite for passion

After all the editing, revising, and cutting, make sure that it still has something to say
and still evokes emotion. Don’t be purely logical, and don’t spit out statistics left-and-
right with no aim other than to recite all of the numbers that you pay attention to
personally. Your customer doesn’t care! Make them care about what matters, which is
your product and how it can help them.

Step 18: Compare yours to others

You know what a good sales letter or landing page or prospecting email is, because
you’ve received them before. Put whatever copy you’re writing next to a much better
example. If it sucks, it’ll become immediately apparent. Figure out where you’re falling
short and don’t hesitate to go back to the drawing board.

Step 19, 20, & 23: Test drive your sales letter
Send it to yourself. See what happens when your sales letter ends up in your inbox. Did
you almost delete it immediately? Were you intrigued? Test it on someone else: did they
open it? What were they interested in, if anything at all?

Half of the game here is being able to objectively look at your letter and decide whether
or not you did a good job. It might help to get some outside input, just in case you’re
missing something big that makes your sales letter a complete bust.

If you’ve been developing a landing page or writing a sales letter via email, bring it to life
by sending it to yourself. See what it looks like in your inbox, notice what the excerpt
says, see if the subject line gets cut off in your email program… pay attention to all of
those details, and make adjustments accordingly.

Step 21: Revise your design

Meet with your designer again to make sure that everything looks nice and pretty and
it’s all easy to read. Hopefully, they’ll pay as much attention to the design of your letter
or page as you have on the writing.

Step 22: Edit (again)

Check twice. Check thrice. Check until you can’t check anymore.

Step 24: Take a break

Sit back for a couple days and don’t do anything with the letter at all. Don’t look at it.
Don’t think about it. Nothing.

When you come back to it after a few days, you’ll be a more objective in your analysis of
your work. Edit it again with your fresh pair of eyes. Take your time. Don’t skip this step.

Step 25: Phone a friend

This goes along with sending your sales letter for a test drive, but go ahead and ask
your friends what they think of your creation. Have them take a look at the whole
package, and see if they’re interested. Have them read the copy and critique it. Don’t
take it personally if you get criticized — it’s for the best of your sales letter.

Step 26: We’re almost there

Check it again.

Step 27: Press send

Whether you’re actually putting a sales letter in the mail or just pressing send on an
email, it’s time. Put your work in front of your customers. Hopefully, your work will pay
off very soon, and people will begin to respond to your sales letter.

Step 28: Test

If you’ve got some variables that you want to test, do it. Send out one batch of letters
with one picture on the front of your letter, send another batch with a different picture,
and see which one gets more response. This is done all of the time in the digital
marketing space and is called A/B testing.

Step 29: Outsource

Perhaps you’ve read all of these steps and done nothing. Maybe you should just hire
somebody else to do it, because either you don’t have the time, skill, or care to do it.
There are plenty of copywriters out there.
 Unscripted:
Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of
Entrepreneurship
by M.J. DeMarco

The script is today’s Matrix. It is a framework which was created to keep you where you
are. It is modern day slavery.

In the film The Matrix, Neo realizes that most people on earth are living in an imaginary
world. A parasitic machine species is feeding humans a virtual reality, distracting them
from the harsh truth.

Every human being has a script to follow. But we do our best to cross the t’s and dot the
i’s. We never go off-roading from the script.

What is a script?
A script is a series of mental norms. When the traffic light is red, stop. When Keeping Up
With The Kardashians airs, watch. The script is universal. It rules how you speak and
what you wear and just about anything and everything you can think of. And for the
majority of us, we did not select it.

This is the essence of MJ DeMarco’s idea in Unscripted. Your money issues are not
about your life issues. Instead, they are regarding your script.

The script is imposed by others and ultimately by yourself. It’s akin to a zombie virus. It
uses its host to expand its presence. It doesn’t have to be visible. Knowing that it exists
will diminish its power on you. The script maintains itself through illusion and self-
deception.

Seeders preach all of the myths that make up our scripts. They do this to make you into
an M.O.D.E.L. Citizen. That is, Mediocre, Obedient, Dependent, Entertained, and
Lifeless.

"The ideal tyranny is that which is ignorantly self-administered by its victims. The most
perfect slaves, therefore, are those which blissfully and unawaredly enslave
themselves."
What makes sidewalkers, slowlaners, and fastlaners different?
Some may say it is intelligence. Others would call it luck. The rest will say their place of
birth. These are answers given by mostly slowlaners and sidewalkers. For them the
problem is external.

But if you speak with a real fastlaner, he/she will tell you all this is BS. The real problem
is you. And it isn’t your mistake for the reasons you believe. It’s not that you don’t hold
the correct education, or that your job is not right. It’s not even that you have the wrong
parents.

It’s your script.

Slowlaner, Sidewalker, and Fastlaner

Perhaps while growing up you were told that being rich is for snobby people. It’s only for
the elite who cheat others. So the only answer which makes sense is to stay poor. This
is a script, and following it makes you a sidewalker.

Or maybe you have heard that the wealth comes from a great job and by saving for
retirement. This is also a script. If you followed it, you would become a slowlaner.

To be a fastlaner requires you to let go of this old script. It is high time you go rogue off
the script. Become Unscripted.

DeMarco says that the onset of this journey starts with a “Fuck This” event. This is the
lowest of your low. Maybe you get expelled from school, or fired from your job of 15
years. The agony of following the script eventually gets so bad that you decide that it’s
worse than just discarding it altogether.

Now you are on your own. Maybe you’re an entrepreneur. But you’re in untested waters,
and you have no idea of the real path. People around you are probably thinking, "What
is wrong with this guy?!"

But slowly you will start building your financial freedom. The new life demands new
bearings. New systems for how to act.

Giving Value
The Scripted are fascinated with the result. "What is my salary? Is this coat on sale?
Will I look cool wearing it?"

Conversely, the Unscripted know that the heart of entrepreneurship is solving problems.

The final aim of the Unscripted is financial independence. So obviously they will seek
ways to earn money. But in the micro, their focus is on giving to others.
DeMarco uses the term "bro-marketing" to explain the modern trend of internet
marketers who try to get rich by gaming the system. They try to sell a rubbish e-book
with professional copy. There is no value in their offering, only strategy.

Ironically, such bro-marketers never get wealthy anyway. Their selfishness and laziness
prevents them from actually creating something valuable, and it ultimately restricts them
from successfully selling their lousy book.

The Unscripted focus on solving problems and giving value to the world. And the world
gives them tons of money in return for it.

Productocracy
This is a word DeMarco came up with to define a product which offers value. Such
products do not need as much marketing because their value draws people.

As an example, he provides his bestselling book The Millionaire Fastlane. He self-

published it with basically zero marketing budget. Very few copies sold when it first hit
the shelves. But it was such a fantastic book that word spread fast, and ultimately sales
sky-rocketed.

A Productocracy cannot be destroyed by the whims of the world. It’s akin to a restaurant
that is always packed, be it weekday or weekend.

Forget About Passion

DeMarco says that even though it’s vital to find relevance in your job. you do not have to
be passionate about all of it.

He says he hates public speaking and interviews, but he does them anyway because he
knows they are essential to living his dream life. He isn’t driven by the temporary
pleasure of each activity. Rather, he’s driven by the overall meaning of his life.

When your job has relevance, you do it even if you do not feel like it. And you get a
sense of fulfillment by just being on that road. Meaning is the driving force for the
Unscripted.

He also debunks the myth that an entrepreneur should have a passion for his product.
What an entrepreneur really needs is a belief in his product’s value. It is not even
relevant if the entrepreneur ever uses his product.

Consider a man who makes millions owning rehab centers. He has little knowledge of
drug rehabilitation. But he knows the systems and that they provide value to others.
Hyper-Realities
Hyper-realities are a set of realities we all mistakenly think are real. Sadly, they are not.
And they’re restricting your financial freedom.

One hyper-reality is the days in a week. There are no real days in a week. It is a
complete human construct. It’s a hyper-reality that becomes harmful as you get locked
into believing things like the idea that certain events can only occur at certain times and
certain days. "Monday-Friday, 9am-5pm" is the working days and hours. The weekend
is "time off."

The Unscripted life means you are not bothered about such hyper-realities. An
Unscripted may work 3am-10am on a Sunday. It’s not mandatory to do what everyone is
doing.

Another hyper-reality is money. What is money? Is it just a paper with a popular leader
in it? Or some digital numbers on a screen? Bitcoin? Gold coins? You cannot point to
what real money is. Because there does not exist any "really is." Money was made by
humans to solve a need.

Still, most of us are convinced about the reality of money. We believe our real problem
is that we do not have it enough. Our bank accounts might agree. But, as money is just
a method of exchange, our real problem is different. We have the problem of exchange.

"You are owned by your shit, which is owned by your debt, which is either owned or
profited by a corporation. So you work for a corporation, everything you buy comes from
a corporation, everything you watch is produced by a corporation, and the debt you owe
is held by a corporation. Ah."

Do What You Love Myth

To seek financial freedom, we hear the advice of "Do what you love" very often. The
idea here is that if we do what we love, we will never work a day in our life.

But there’s a problem with this idea. Doing what we love does not focus on what the
market requires. Instead, it focuses on our desires. You may love exercising and going
to the gym, but that doesn’t mean that becoming a personal trainer will make you rich.
The market does not care what you love. It is selfish and is bothered only about its
needs.

A similar idea was spoken about in the E-Myth Revisited. You may know how to do a lot
of things. But, that does not mean you should do business out of them. The skills
needed to make apple-pies and the skills for running an apple-pie business are
different.

Doing what you love is a myth. Many Gurus promote this myth. Recognize the
difference between “putting love into your job” and “doing what you love.”
 RELENTLESS:
From Good to Great to Unstoppable
by Tim Grover

Tim Grover is an absolute legend. If you’ve never heard of him, he’s the guy who helped
Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade, and other NBA champions get to the top
—and most importantly, to stay at the top.

He’s worked with hundreds of top athletes and is an international authority when it
comes to sports performance and motivation.

As Kobe said, he knows more about the mental side of sports than anyone else.

In his book Relentless: From Good to Great to Unstoppable, he shares his insights into
the mindsets of the most successful and accomplished athletes of our time. He shows
us what it takes to go from good to great to unstoppable.

Good to Great to Unstoppable

The philosophy of a cleaner can be summed up in three words: "I OWN THIS."

You don’t have to love the hard work, you just have to love the result. The only
difference between feedback and criticism is the way it is perceived. To be truly
successful in life, you need to stop waiting on being told what to do and how to do it.

If you can’t see your goal and how to get there, how can anyone else? All you need is a
relentless drive for the end result. Don’t let anything stand in your way.

Everything you need is already inside you. Don’t place any limits on yourself and don’t
listen to the limitations others try to enforce upon you. Let your results speak for
themselves.

Being unstoppable means never being okay with “good enough.” It means engineering
your life to make sure you get what you want, and then continuing to work hard to get
what’s next.

Being relentless means not just getting from good to great, but continuing the fight to
becoming unstoppable.

Being relentless means being a cleaner.

A cleaner never stops pushing higher and higher. Cleaners are self made and are never
in it for the money. They take complete control of the situation and don’t try to blame
others when things go wrong.

The defining trait of a cleaner is his addiction to the feeling of success. Cleaners are
never content.

You can’t be relentless in everything. Being a cleaner in business or as a parent

requires sacrifices and trade-offs in other areas of your life. The only thing a cleaner
cares about is the end result. Not the instant gratification felt along the way.

Coolers, Closers, and Cleaners

There are three types of people in any given group: coolers, closers, and cleaners.

A cooler is popular because they are careful and rarely takes sides. They can handle a
certain amount of pressure, but need someone to step in when things get too intense.

A closer can perform at a very high-level, but prefers glory and recognition to success,
and needs to be told what to do.

Coolers are good, closers are great, and cleaners are unstoppable.

The 13 qualities of a cleaner:

1. When everyone else has had enough, you keep pushing yourself harder
2. You shut everything else out and control the uncontrollable
3. You understand who you are
4. You have a dark side that refuses to be good
5. You thrive under pressure
6. When everyone is looking for the panic button, they come looking for you
7. You don’t compete with anyone. You find your opponent’s weakness and attack.
8. You make decisions, not suggestions
9. You don’t necessarily love the work, but you are addicted to the results
10. You would rather be feared than liked
11. You trust very few people, and you expect a lot from those people
12. You never accept failure
13. You don’t celebrate victory because you always want more

Do the Work
Every day, challenge yourself by doing something uncomfortable. Cleaners do the
hardest thing first. There are no shortcuts. Invest in your life. There is no point in having
wealth if your body is too unhealthy to reap the full rewards. A cleaner has no “off”
switch—they are always on.
It All Starts Above the Shoulders
In every pursuit in life, mental conditioning is the key to improvement and success. Your
body will follow once your mind is strong. Your level of mental focus and concentration
will define your ability to succeed in life.

The cleaner is always in charge of his feelings. He never shows emotion unless that’s
what is required to spur others into action.

Get In “The Zone”

When you’re in “the zone,” you don’t have to think to perform. You’re calm and
collected, and focused on your goal. Emotions make you weak. The only exception is
controlled anger, which can be channeled into constructive energy. It’s okay to feel
nerves or anxiety, but a cleaner can control those emotions.

Relentless by Instinct
We are born relentless, and only taught to relent later. Early in life, our natural drive and
instinct is suppressed to fit societal norms. Like a lion in a cage, we lose our ambition in
exchange for comfort and fitting in. That inner fire is still inside of you, and you need to
tap into it to become elite at what you do.
You don’t need a book to tell you what you already know about how to get better. The
best form of self betterment is instinct.

That’s the difference between a closer and a cleaner. The closer knows what to do, a
cleaner feels it.

The Dark Side

Every cleaner has a dark side. The dark side is what drives the insatiable thirst for
success. To be able to use it effectively, you must learn to control it before it controls
you. A real cleaner does not give a damn about what other people think about them or
their dark side.

A closer feels the need to justify themselves and can’t handle the pressure. A cleaner
doesn’t respond to external stimuli. They don’t care about what other people think and
don’t let the pressure get to them.

Start thinking of stress as a good thing. Stress gets you out of your comfort zone, and
pushes you to get better and better.

“Pressure can burst pipes, but it can also make diamonds."

Confident vs. Cocky
There’s a difference between confidence and cockiness. Confidence means believing in
your abilities, yet having the wherewithal to know when things aren’t working out and
making the appropriate changes.

People who are cocky are unable to admit that they are wrong, and as a result, are
unable to adjust and adapt.

Relentless Leadership
The quickest way to alleviate pressure is to accept responsibility for it. Always own up to
your decisions, good or bad.

If you are a cleaner, be a leader. Focus on people’s strengths and build them up,
instead of their weaknesses. Watch for people’s reaction to criticism. Do whatever it
takes to ensure that you're building people up and not the opposite. Help people get up
to your level.

If you’re managing or coaching a cleaner, let the cleaner retain some amount of control.
Find out their strengths and put them where they need to be. Set the example yourself
to bring people up to your level.

Forget Inner Drive–Do the Work

Inner drive is worthless until it manifests itself into real action. You have to act to
succeed at anything. Don’t follow your passion, work at it. Trust yourself. Make a
decision and act on it. Trust your preparation and your instincts.

Figure out what you do and become great at it by working really hard. Don’t try to be
good at everything. Do the work. Don’t quit just because it gets hard.

What Are You Willing to Sacrifice?

Ask yourself what it’s going to take for you to get what you want out of life. Then ask
yourself what you are willing to sacrifice to get it.

If those two lists don’t match up, then you don’t want it badly enough. If you’re okay with
being “okay,” that’s fine. But if you want more in your life, you have to be willing to
sacrifice and work harder than everyone else.

Don’t Chase Dollar Signs

Don’t do anything just for the money. Money will make you soft and complacent. Seek
out opportunities to make yourself better in whatever you do. Someday the money will
run out, and somebody else will always be making more than you. Look beyond the
dollar signs and ask yourself what you’re doing to get better.
Your goal should be to leave behind a legacy that lasts.

Don’t worry about fitting in, and don’t be afraid to be feared rather than liked. There is
no passion or fire in being thought of as “nice.”

Cleaners don’t feel the need to fit in. They would rather be feared than liked or
respected. A cleaner lets his actions speak for him, and gets respect as a result.

Focus on results and let those results do the talking for you.

The Richest Man in

Babylon
by George S. Class

George S. Clason was a soldier, businessman, and writer. The Richest Man In Babylon
is his most popular piece of work, consisting of numerous parables, metaphors, and
stories set in ancient Babylon. It’s an absolute finance classic.

Originally published in 1926, the advice in this book is still as sound as it was almost a
century ago.

The Babylonians discovered many of the basic principles behind wealth, such as saving
a small part of your income each month, investing it wisely, learning how to lend money
instead of borrowing it and how to protect your wealth.

As a series of short stories, the book teaches straightforward lessons that aim to show
that the secrets to wealth-building are unchanging and remain applicable throughout
history.

The common theme of the tales is that a person can work hard, learn from their
mistakes, and become wealthy. While none of the concepts are likely to be earth-
shattering for most readers, they encapsulate the fundamentals that are the basis to
money management.
The primary lesson comes from Arkad, the so-called richest man in Babylon. At the
behest of the King, Arkad shares his "seven cures to a lean purse" so that both
individuals and society as a whole can reap the benefits of fiscal growth.

1. Start thy purse to fattening: This point is actually the crux of the book. It’s the
classic principle of paying yourself first. Clason recommends saving at least 10% of
all income earned. Even in his example of those who are paying off debt, he still
advocates setting aside this one-tenth. If you want to save money for your future,
you must begin by consistently setting aside part of your earnings today.

2. Control thy expenditures: Essentially, this is learning to live within your means and
avoiding lifestyle inflation. Clason deems lifestyle inflation to be an "unusual truth" of
humanity. He states, "What each of us calls our 'necessary expenses’ will always
grow to equal our incomes unless we protest to the contrary."

3. Make thy gold multiply: Your wealth should extend beyond your income. Put your
money to work by making smart investments and taking advantage of time and
compounding interest.

4. Guard thy treasures from loss: Here, the book encourages the protection of
principle from loss. It is easy to criticize this idea, as most of us feel that investment
vehicles that have the potential to lose value, such as stocks, are essentials part of
a balanced portfolio. If you take a bigger picture view, however, the lesson becomes
more palatable. The penalty of risk is the potential of loss. Know your risk aversion
and understand the risks in your portfolio.

5. Make of thy dwelling a profitable investment: Clason’s argument is that it makes

more sense to make payments that will eventually become equity rather than giving
money to a landlord.

6. Insure a future income: This boils down to retirement planning and insurance. You
cannot afford to be unprotected. Provide in advance for the protection of your family.

7. Increase thy ability to earn: Position yourself to make more money by improving
your skills and making yourself more employable. Strive to become wiser and more
knowledgeable. Train yourself, go to classes, take jobs on the side; whatever you
chose, set specific and measurable performance goals and start working to earn
more money now.

The book’s other main lesson is the "Five Laws of Gold" that Arkad teaches his son.

1. Gold comes easily and in increasing quantity to the person who saves at least
1/10th of their earnings

2. Gold labors diligently and multiplies for the person who finds it profitable
employment
3. Gold clings to the protection of the person who invests their gold with wise
people

4. Gold slips away from the person who invests gold into purposes through
which they are not familiar

5. Gold flees the person who tries to force it into impossible earnings

The remainder of the book is peppered with lessons and insight. Here are some
highlights:

- Choose wisdom over money

- Borrow sensibly, as the unintelligent use of debt will undoubtedly become a later
burden
- Seek luck by working hard and accepting opportunity, not by waiting for one-off
successes
- To bring your dreams and desires to fulfillment, you must be successful with money.
- The laws of money are like the laws of gravity: assured and unchanging.
- “It costs nothing to ask wise advice from a good friend.”
- It’s simple to say, but many people never achieve a serious measure of wealth
because they never seek it. They never truly seek it, focus on it, and commit to it.
- Do not take advice on finance from a brick layer. Go to people who are experts in a
particular subject if you want expert advice. It’s too easy for amateurs to give out
advice.
- Surround yourself with people who are familiar with money, who work with it each
day, and who make lots of it.
- Enjoy life while you are here. Do not overstrain to save.
- The more we know, the more we may earn. The person who seeks to know more of
their craft is capable of earning more.
- You cannot arrive at the fullest measure of success until you crush the spirit of
procrastination within you.
- Above all you should desire safety for your money. Better a little caution than a great
regret.
- The soul of a free man looks at the world as a series of problems to be solved.
Meanwhile, the soul of a slave whines, “What can I do?”
- If you are in debt, live on 70% of what you make. Save 10% for yourself. Use the
remaining 20% to repay your debts.
- Stick with the plan. Money accrues surprisingly quickly and debts are gone fast with
discipline and consistency.
The book can often feel simplistic and repetitive, but the advice about earning and
saving is sound. By its nature, a book that is set in the days well before modern banks
and organized markets is going to be sparse on details. This is not the book to read if
you are looking for a how-to guide or specific techniques. Rather, this is a book that
takes a theoretical approach to examining personal monetary policy.

At less than 100 pages, The Richest Man In Babylon is a quick read. This book would
be an excellent choice for those who respond to qualitative motivation and storytelling. It
would also be a particularly pertinent book for those that may feel overwhelmed by the
all the recent market turmoil.

If this book accomplishes anything, it demonstrates that the fundamental truths to

wealth building are still applicable today.
Breakthrough Advertising:
How to Write Ads That Shatter Traditions
and Sales Records
by Eugene Schwartz

Breakthrough Advertising is an absolute classic in the field of marketing. It was written

by Eugene Schwartz in 1966. He was a legend in the direct mail copywriting business.

The book’s publisher claims that the ideas in Breakthrough Advertising have generated
millions of dollars in revenue for its readers, and this is one of the few books that I would
believe that claim.

Unlike many copywriting gurus, Eugene Schwartz had skin in the game and practiced
what he preached. A lot of advice to be found online or in popular copywriting/
advertising books comes from “gurus” who are great at selling the method, but have
limited success actually implementing their strategies.

Breakthrough Advertising is exempt from this category because Eugene Schwartz had
skin in the game: he commonly worked for address lists instead of money and actually
made his money reselling his clients new products of his own. He also waited until later
in life to write about his strategy and process, which I take as a good sign that a how-to
book will include more impactful details.

Nassim Taleb has proposed a concept for predicting the value of books based on their
age: a book that is still read after 25 years will survive another 25, while books
published this year will mostly likely become obsolete within another year.

Given that this book is still considered one of the best in its class over 50 years later,
you can bet it will continue making people tons of money for decades more.

BOOK REVIEW
The bulk of the book is taken up with dissecting specific examples. Schwartz was a
mail-order copywriter, and most examples are long-form advertisements in magazines
and papers.

Per Schwartz, the first job of the copywriter is to perform a thorough analysis of a
market, for three purposes:
- To detect existing mass desires that created that market
- To define and focus those desires in terms of a single image or desire or need
- To channel those forces toward once inevitable solution – your product

The role of copy

Copy connects consumers with problems to products that solve those problems. It is not
possible to create problems, or create solutions — only to make existing problems and
solutions obvious and actionable for the reader.

The copywriter in his work uses three tools: his own knowledge of people’s hopes,
dreams, desired and emotions; his client’s product; and the advertising message, which
connects the two.

The book lays out Three Steps of Planning Effective Copy:

The book lays out these steps to planning copy:
6. Consumer need: what is the mass desire that creates this market?
7. Consumer awareness: how much do these people know today about the way
your product satisfies their desire?
8. Consumer sophistication: how many other products have been presented to
them before yours?

Each step is treated with meticulous detail in the rest of the book.

Mass Desire
Mass desire is defined as the “public spread of a private want.”

"[Advertising] can only take the hopes, dreams, fears and desires that already exist in
the hearts of millions of people, and focus those already-existing desires into a
particular product."

Mass desire falls into two categories:

- Permanent forces (mass instinct, widespread technological problems)
- Forces of change (consumer trends, mass education, influencer economy)

Forces of change (trends) are harder to predict and exploit than permanent forces like
the desire to be attractive, or the desire to be well-liked.

As an example, Schwartz points to the trend towards larger, wider cars. Auto
manufacturers who attempted to buck the trend failed to sell cars, even when the car
was superior to the larger "status symbol" cars in every practical way.

When examining the product or service being sold, you can expect that it’ll appeal to 3-4
desires. You must pick the most urgent desire to be satisfied in the ad.

States of Awareness
One of the most powerful tools in Breakthrough Advertising is the framing of "consumer
awareness."

Identifying the state of awareness is key to functional copywriting.

A consumer who is ready to buy only has to be shown the brand and a reduced price to
buy.

A consumer who doesn’t know they even have a problem the product can solve will
react to a brand and price with indifference, or by ignoring it.

A succinct explanation of their problem, however, will get their attention and move them
down the funnel towards making a purchase.

Schwartz splits consumer awareness into five stages:

1. Problem and product aware: prospect wants to buy, just needs an invitation to do
so
2. Product aware: The customer knows of the product but doesn’t yet want it
3. Desire aware: Customer knows their desire but not the specific product
4. Need aware: Customer has a need but hasn’t considered products to satisfy it
5. No awareness: Customer is completely unaware that they even have a need to
be solved

The first level requires zero creativity to make a sale. Each level requires an increasing
degree of planning and creativity.

Overcoming Prospect Objections

Schwartz offers four methods for overcoming objections that hold back a sale:
1. Simplify a complex problem
2. Escalate the value by redefining the product to meet additional needs
3. Reduce the price (or redefine price in terms of value)
4. Eliminate alternatives: destroy other ways for prospect to satisfy desire (whole
chapter dedicated to this)

Understanding Irrational Consumer Behavior

Why is the desire for a status symbol enough to make someone buy a car that’s twice
as big and expensive as what they actually need? Or in modern terms, why buy an
Apple product when Android is just as good, or arguably more versatile?

You have to be aware of character roles, and avoid directly playing to them.

For example, advertisers can cater to men’s desire to be more virile by suggesting that
tobacco smoking makes you more manly. But since this is absurd to state, it’s shown
implicitly: by making the star of cigarette ads cowboys and similar masculine
archetypes.
Camouflage: Match Content to Context
Schwartz shows examples of tailoring full-page ads to fit the context of the magazine or
paper they’re published in. These are heavily tailored to context, matching the format
and style as well as the tone and voice of the context brand. This is done mainly to
borrow credibility from the context.

This chapter is surprisingly relevant to current trends in content marketing, and includes
a lot of the common tropes like citing celebrity advocates, references in larger
publications, etc. "As Seen On TV" and "As Seen On TechCrunch" are essentially the
same strategy.

In an online context, this is why Google Adwords or content marketing are so much
more effective than random banners, even if they’re algorithmically targeted towards a
reader’s profile based on mounds of data.

Customers are “banner blind” because the banner doesn’t match the context of the
content they’re willingly engaging with.

Some Actionable Takeaways from Breakthrough Advertising

- Determine the reader’s desire, awareness, and sophistication, and sell to that specific
group. Effective copy can only work on one group at a time.
- Products satisfy desire to fit in or attain status as much or more than they satisfy
actual problems.
- Headline should never sell. Headlines or any “first impression copy” has one job:
make them keep reading.
- To overcome objections: simplify the problem, escalate the value, reduce price, or
invalidate alternate solutions.
- Preventative products are best sold to someone who cares about the prospect, not
the prospects themselves. (Example: life insurance. Person is unlikely to buy unless
convinced of the suffering family members would undergo if they were to have an
accident.)
 Ready Fire Aim:
Zero to $100 Million in No Time Flat
by Michael Masterson

That’s not a typo. The title of the book is Ready Fire Aim. It describes the lifecycle of a
company from startup to mature company and the management decisions and styles
that are appropriate for each stage along the way.

Masterson states that there are four stages of entrepreneurial growth. It’s important to
understand which stage your company is in, and to focus on the Main Challenge of
each stage.

- In Stage One, Infancy, the most important thing is selling

- In Stage Two, Childhood, the most important thing is creating new products
- In Stage Three, Adolescence, you need to turn your chaotic growth into order
- In Stage Four, Adulthood, you need to become entrepreneurial again

The title of the book describes what the priorities and sequence of activities of a CEO
should be:
- Get the product ready enough to sell it, but don't worry about perfecting it
- Sell it
- Then, if it sells, make it better

1. INFANCY
The Supremacy of Selling
Rule Number One of Entrepreneurship is the Supremacy of Selling. Without sales, it’s
impossible to sustain a business. The big mistake that most wannabe entrepreneurs
make is doing the opposite: spending all their time doing anything but selling.

Rule Number Two of Entrepreneurship is that there is a direct relationship between the
success of a business and the percentage of its capital, temporal, and intellectual
resources that are devoted to selling.

The Optimum Selling Strategy ("OSS")

For every business at any given time there is one best way to acquire new customers.
To discover your OSS, answer the following four questions:
- Where are you going to find your customers?
- What product will you sell them first?
- How much will you charge for it?
- How will you convince them to buy it?

Creating Great Copy

Creating advertising copy is an essential part of the job of a CEO. Don't delegate this to
somebody else. Do it yourself. As founder and CEO, you know your product best.

The four marketing concepts you need to know to create great copy are:
- The difference between wants and needs (you are in the want business, not the
needs business)
- The difference between features and benefits (your copy should focus on the
benefits)
- How to establish a unique selling proposition (USP) for your product (highlight a
single benefit above all the rest)

A solid USP has three components:

- the appearance of uniqueness
- usefulness
- conceptual simplicity

All effective sales efforts have four components:

- The Big Idea
- The Big Promise
- Specific Claims
- Proof of Those Claims

2. CHILDHOOD
Once you’ve figured out how to successfully sell one product, you transition from
Infancy to Childhood. This is typically the period of growth from $1 million to $10 million
and beyond.

Now it’s time to start brainstorming and either add more products to the mix or
significantly improve your existing products. You also will probably have to tweak your
selling strategy, or even come up with a new one.

In a Stage 1 business, you’ll probably be able to earn a good salary for yourself, but
your business probably doesn’t have any equity in it. Stage 2 is all about building equity
for the long haul, making your business actually worth something to others.

The key to Stage 2 growth is innovation, period. You need ideas for develop new
products, and you need ideas to update old ones. The growth of your business in this
stage is directly related to the speed of your new ideas. The quicker you can come up
with good ideas, the faster your business will grow.
Don’t worry about marketing your product at this stage. Just make sure it’s good and get
it ready to sell. Your first sales are going to come from your existing customers anyway.

3. ADOLESCENCE
Stage 2 was all about rapidly developing products and getting them out the door. Stage
3, then, is all about structure.

If multiple products become successful, you’re going to have a major enterprise on your
hands without much structure around it. Once your business starts developing multiple
layers of leadership, your focus is to build some reasonable structure that can contain
all of the growth.

The surest sign that you’ve reached the adolescent stage of growth is that there’s
simply too much information being thrown around for you to keep track of it all. You
either can’t get the access to all of the data you want (meaning the data tubes are
clogged) or the sheer volume of data is overflowing everything. At this point, you can no
longer have your hands on every tiny decision at the company and that means it’s time
to transition from being an entrepreneur to being a corporate leader.

In Stage 3, you’re still marketing. But now you’re marketing to potential great
employees, investors, and a large variety of consumers, all at the same time. It’s not
your job not to make every last little decision, but rather to make sure you’re
surrounding yourself with decision makers who can make good decisions and are
empowered to do so.

Once you get good people into your organization, give them almost infinite upside: the
better they do, the better off they are, almost without limit. You should be surrounded by
people of such a caliber that you can just point them in a general direction and let them
loose to show what they can do.

When you find these people, mentor them and cultivate them.

Eventually, a large growing company will run into bottlenecks and bureaucracy.
Masterson offers one central cure for all of this: make your company’s central mantra
about the customers, period.

4. ADULTHOOD
If you’ve managed to get a lot of good people on board, developed some sensible flows
of information, and the company’s products are still growing and you’re still adding new
people, you have a real winner on your hands.

Unfortunately, it also means that you’ll have to step back even further – the company is
now out of your hands and effectively running itself.
The best you can do now is guide it. Find strong, ethical leaders who can keep pushing
things forward and keep asking the right questions.

It’s also at this point where you’ve got a huge asset that you’ve built up – your business
is worth a ton. What do you do with it? Take it public? Sell it? Keep running things and
eventually pass the business off to your handpicked successors?

In essence, your role is now that of an investor in the company. You’re likely the largest
shareholder in the company – and perhaps the only shareholder.

Your focus should be on building long term value for that share. Make choices that keep
the business growing, but keep it ethical and healthy so that it will stay vibrant for a long
time.

In some ways, it’s still about the same things it was when you started: a reflection of
what you consider ethical and right, and built on the backbone of your ideas. Keep that
in mind – and make sure the people who will run your company in the future believe in
the same things.

That way, your investment will continue to pay dividends for a very long time – in both
the literal and figurative sense.
 Influence:
The Psychology of Persuasion
by Robert Cialdini

Dr. Robert Cialdini is known globally as the foundational expert in the science of
influence and how to apply it ethically in business. He wrote Influence after spending
three years "undercover" applying for and training at used car dealerships, fund-raising
organizations, and telemarketing firms to observe real-life situations of persuasion.

He found that influence is based on six key principles: Reciprocity, Commitment and
Consistency, Social Proof, Liking, Authority, and Scarcity.

His Six Principles of Persuasion have become a cornerstone for any organization
serious about effectively increasing their influence.

1) Reciprocity
Social obligations – Humans inherently dislike being indebted to someone, so much so
that often a small gift or favor will lead to a larger reciprocal response. People all over
the world exploit this.

For example, Hare Krishnas will offer a 'gift' of a flower when soliciting for donations
(which they refuse to take back). As the receiver cannot unburden themselves from the
subconscious debt, the social pressure to donate leads to a higher donation rate than
merely soliciting alone.

An Indian supermarket sold $1000 of cheese in a few hours by inviting customers to

slice their own free samples.

2) Commitment and Consistency

We tend to remain consistent to our commitments once we have made them, because
consistency is a socially attractive trait. Studies have shown that voter turnout increases
when people are asked if they’re going vote.

This is why you should write down/verbally state your goals, as you then stand a much
greater chance of actually sticking to them.

Households were called and asked to predict what they would do if they were asked to
volunteer for three hours to collect for charity. Three days later, they were called again
and asked to collect for charity. This led to a 700% increase in the number of volunteers.
Aristotle said "We are what we repeatedly do." We will act in ways that are consistent
with our identity, beliefs and values. When American POWs in Korea were labeled and
treated as collaborators, they started cooperating as if they actually were.

3) Social Proof
People are influenced by what others do. At an unfamiliar event or situation, we look to
others on the correct etiquette. Sometimes bars or church collections will exploit this
fact by "salting" the tip jar or donation plate by having money already placed there or
having a stooge give money to stimulate others to tip.

This effect is amplified by how similar the person whose actions we are watching are to
ourselves.

4) Liking
As a rule, we prefer to say yes to those we like over those we don’t. Our view of people
depends upon several key traits: attractiveness, similarity, compliments, contact &
cooperation, conditioning, and association.

Studies found we automatically attribute traits such as talent, kindness, honesty, and
intelligence to attractive people. It’s not an accident that 'attractive’ political candidates
received two and a half times the votes of unattractive rivals.

We like people who are similar to us, with the same views, interests, beliefs, and values.
So we need to find areas of shared interest to increase rapport and connection.

For 12 years in a row, Joe Girard the title of #1 salesman, selling on average five cars or
trucks a day. He said the formula behind his success was simple: he provided both a
fair price and person who people liked to buy from. However, one of his key tactics was
the use of compliments. Every month he sent every single one of his 13,000 former
customers a holiday greeting card containing a personal message. The holiday greeting
changed from month to month (Happy New Year, Happy Easter etc.), but the message
printed on the face of the card never varied: "I like you."

Endless chain – If a salesman approaches a potential client and says, "Your friend
recommended this for you," it increases the chance they will make a purchase. Turning
the salesman away is much harder, because it’s like rejecting a friend.

5) Authority
The greater the perceived authority of a person, the more likely people are to comply.

Hospitals have a 12% daily error rate because nurses and junior doctors will very rarely
challenge the decision made by an authoritative figure, despite receiving potentially
lethal, or bizarre requests.
We often perceive and interact with people with authority differently. The more power a
person is deemed to have, the more generous people are when estimating their height,
and the more cautious we are with our conversations.

6) Scarcity
We are more motivated to act if we think we’re losing something than we will to gain
something.

"Save $50 a month on _______" would not be as effective as "You are losing $50 a
month on _______." An item that is scarce is more desirable than one that is freely
available. A high pressure environment like an auction can lead an item being sold for a
significantly elevated price as the buyers fear losing out to another person.
Thick Face Black Heart
The Warrior Philosophy for Conquering
the Challenges of Business and Life
by Chin-Ning Chu

The author was born in Tianjin, China in 1946. She grew up in Taiwan and emigrated to
the USA in 1969. She became a successful business consultant and business
management writer, and died in 2009.

The book combines Eastern philosophy with stories from ancient China. It’s not for the
faint of heart.

It’s based on a philosophical treatise called "Thick Black Theory", which was written by
Li Zong Wu. It was first intended to be published as a series of essays in The Chengdu
Daily in 1911. However, the adverse reaction to the first installment was apparently so
intense that the rest of the series was cancelled.

According to the author, we attain success in life by cultivating our warrior spirit and
dedicating ourselves to expressing our own unique nature and in-built killer instincts.

Thick Face, Black Heart is the secret law of nature that governs successful behavior in
every aspect of one’s life. Often we are so concerned with what makes us feel good that
we forget what makes us great.

Understanding how to surmount pain, doubt, and failure is an important aspect of the
game of winning at life. A successful life is one that is lived through understanding and
pursuing one’s own path, not chasing after the dreams of others.

You will learn that by adapting and adopting non-destructive ruthlessness, you will gain
the freedom necessary to achieve effectiveness in the execution of your life’s task.

"Thick Face" is a shield. It protects you from criticism and the negative opinions of
others. The thick-faced person has the ability to put aside self-doubt. He refuses to
accept the limitations that others have tried to impose on him, and he doesn’t accept
any limitations that we usually impose on ourselves. In his eyes, he is perfect.

"Black Heart" is a spear. You use it to do battle with yourself and others. A black-hearted
person is above shortsighted compassion. He’s ruthless, though not necessarily evil. He
focuses his attention on goals and ignores the cost. He has the courage to fail.
At its most basic level, the Thick Face Black Heart philosophy has no moral
implications. It is purely about addressing how to get what you want. Thick Face is
totally unconscionable; Black Heart is absolutely ruthless.

For example: "Many of us were taught that when someone slaps you, you should turn
the other cheek. This is not always the best course of action. There is a time to submit
to being slapped, and there is a time to hit back twice so you will not be slapped again.
… If you turn the other cheek because you are afraid to hit back, it does not mean you
are morally superior. It simply means you are a coward."

Fair warning: many of the principles in the book are essentially amoral, even criminal –
and sometimes horrifyingly so.

However, the author also adds another key element: Dharma, which means 'duty' or
'right action.' She writes that all beings have their own Dharma and all situations and
circumstances have a specific Dharma.

Dharma is not determined by the mind, but is already built in as part of the way the
universe works. The choice is simply whether we adhere to it or not.

Chu’s prescription is to recognize your duty, and to fulfill it with dedication and duty.

The ultimate courage of a Thick Face, Black Heart warrior is "dispassion." This means
having the courage to fight in spite of fear; to be able to detach from the emotions
associated with defeat so that its presence does not thwart you.

When you act in harmony with the Universal Will, your actions are aligned with the good
of all. You are neither self-righteous nor too eager to please, nor are you seeking
approval.

In conquering, you are ruthless. In action and non-action, you are changeless. You are a
true Thick Face, Black Heart practitioner.
 48 Laws of Power
by Robert Greene

Law 1: Never outshine the master

When it comes to power, outshining the master is perhaps the worst mistake of all.
Never take your position for granted and never let any favors you receive go to your
head.

Always make your masters appear more brilliant than they are, and you will attain the
heights of power.

Law 2: Never put too much trust in friends, learn how to use
enemies
If you hire a former enemy, he will be more loyal than a friend, because he has more to
prove. In fact, you have more to fear from friends than from enemies. If you have no
enemies, find a way to make them.

Since honesty rarely strengthens friendship, you may never know how a friend truly
feels. Friends will say that they love your poetry, adore your music, envy your taste in
clothes—maybe they mean it, often they do not.

The key to power, then, is the ability to judge who is best able to further your interests in
all situations. Keep friends for friendship, but work with the skilled and competent.

Law 3: Conceal your intentions

Don’t hide your intentions by closing up (appearing secretive will make people
suspicious).

Rather, hide your intentions by talking endlessly about your desires and goals—just not
your real ones. You will kill three birds with one stone: you appear friendly, open, and
trusting; you conceal your intentions; and you send your rivals on time-consuming wild-
goose chases.

Use smoke screens to disguise your actions. This derives from a simple truth: people
can only focus on one thing at a time. It is really too difficult for them to imagine that the
bland and harmless person they are dealing with is simultaneously setting up something
else.

As Kierkegaard wrote, “The world wants to be deceived.”

Law 4: Always say less than necessary
Winston Lord had worked on a report for days. After giving it to Kissinger, he got it back
with the notation, “Is this the best you can do?” He rewrote and polished it, and finally
resubmitted it. Back it came with the same curt question.

After redrafting it one more time—and once again getting the same question from
Kissinger—he snapped, "Damn it, yes, it’s the best I can do." Kissinger replied: “Fine,
then I guess I’ll read it this time."

Power is in many ways a game of appearances. When you say less than necessary,
you inevitably appear greater and more powerful than you are.

A person who can’t control his words shows that he cannot control himself, and is
unworthy of respect. But the human tongue is a beast that few can master. It strains
constantly to break out of its cage, and if it is not tamed, it will run wild and cause you
grief. Power cannot accrue to those who squander their treasure of words.

Law 5: So much depends on reputation; guard it with your life

Always be alert to potential attacks and thwart them before they happen.
Meanwhile, learn to destroy your enemies by opening holes in their own reputations.
Then stand aside and let public opinion hang them.

Doubt is a powerful weapon. Once you let it out of the bag with insidious rumors, your
opponents are in a horrible dilemma.

Once you have a solid base of respect, ridiculing your opponent both puts him on the
defensive and draws more attention to you, enhancing your own reputation.

Law 6: Court attention at all costs

Surround your name with the sensational and the scandalous, because it’s better to be
slandered and attacked than ignored. Every crowd has a silver lining.

At the start of your career, you must attach your name and reputation to a quality, an
image, that sets you apart from other people. Create an air of mystery.

Remember: Most people are upfront, can be read like an open book, take little care to
control their words or image, and are hopelessly predictable. By simply holding back,
keeping silent, occasionally uttering ambiguous phrases, deliberately appearing
inconsistent, and acting odd in the subtlest of ways, you will emanate an aura of
mystery. The people around you will then magnify that aura by constantly trying to
interpret you.
Do something that cannot be easily explained or interpreted.

Law 7: Get others to do the work for you, but always take the
credit
Use the wisdom, knowledge, and legwork of other people to further your own cause.
Not only will such assistance save you valuable time and energy, it will give you an aura
of efficiency and speed.

In the end your helpers will be forgotten and you will be remembered. Never do yourself
what others can do for you.

Law 8: Make other people come to you; use bait if necessary

For negotiations or meetings, it is always wise to lure others into your territory, or the
territory of your choice. You have your bearings, while they see nothing familiar and are
subtly placed on the defensive.

When you force the other person to act, you are the one in control. It is always better to
make your opponent come to you, abandoning his own plans in the process. Lure him
with fabulous gains—then attack. You hold the cards.

Law 9: Win through your actions, never through argument

Any temporary triumph you think you have gained through argument is really a Pyrrhic
victory. The resentment and ill will you stir up is stronger and lasts longer than any
momentary change of opinion.

It is much more powerful to get others to agree with you through your actions, without
saying a word.

Demonstrate, do not explicate.

Law 10: Infection: Avoid the unhappy or the unlucky

You can die from someone else's misery—emotional states are as infectious as
diseases. You may feel you are helping the drowning man but you are only precipitating
your own disaster. The unfortunate sometimes draw misfortune on themselves; they will
also draw it on you. Associate with the happy and fortunate instead.

When you suspect you are in the presence of an infector, don’t argue, don’t try to help,
don’t even pass the person on to your friends. You will become enmeshed. Flee the
infector’s presence or suffer the consequences.
Law 11: Learn to keep people dependent on you
To maintain your independence you must always be needed and wanted. The more you
are relied on, the more freedom you have.

Make people depend on you for their happiness and prosperity and you have nothing to
fear. Never teach them enough so that they can do without you.

Law 12: Use selective honesty and generosity to disarm your

victim
One sincere and honest move will cover over dozens of dishonest ones. Open-hearted
gestures of honesty and generosity bring down the guard of even the most suspicious
people.

Once your selective honesty opens a hole in their armor, you can deceive and
manipulate them at will. A timely gift—a Trojan horse—will serve the same purpose.

Law 13: When asking for help, appeal to people’s self interest,
never their mercy or gratitude
Self-interest is the lever that moves people.

If you need to turn to an ally for help, do not bother to remind him of your past
assistance and good deeds. He will find a way to ignore you.

Instead, uncover something in your request, or in your alliance with him, that will benefit
him, and emphasize it out of all proportion. He will respond enthusiastically when he
sees something to be gained for himself.

Even the most powerful person is locked inside needs of his own, and if you make no
appeal to his self-interest, he merely sees you as desperate. Or, at best, a waste of
time.

Law 14: Pose as a friend, work as a spy

Knowing about your rival is critical. Use spies to gather valuable information that will
keep you a step ahead. Or even better, play the spy yourself.

In polite social encounters, learn to probe. Ask indirect questions to get people to reveal
their weaknesses and intentions. There is no occasion that is not an opportunity for
artful spying.
Information is critical to power, but just as you spy on other people, you must be
prepared for them to spy on you. One of the most potent weapons in the battle for
information, then, is giving out false information.

By feeding people wrong information, you gain a potent advantage. Spying gives you a
third eye, but disinformation puts out one of your enemy's eyes.

Law 15: Crush your enemy totally

All great leaders since Moses have known that a feared enemy must be crushed
completely. Sometimes they have learned this the hard way.

If one ember is left alight, no matter how dimly it smolders, a fire will eventually break
out. More is lost through stopping halfway than through total annihilation. The enemy
will recover, and will seek revenge. Crush him, not only in body but in spirit.

Sometimes it’s even better to let your enemies destroy themselves. Leave your enemy
an escape route. A retreat is the ultimate demoralizing defeat. Let them be the agents of
their own destruction. The result will be the same.

Law 16: Use absence to increase strength and honor

The more you are seen and heard from, the more common you appear. If you are
already established in a group, temporary withdrawal from it will make you more talked
about, and even more admired.

You must learn when to leave. Create value through scarcity.

At the start of an affair, you need to heighten your presence in the eyes of the other. If
you absent yourself too early, you may be forgotten. But once your lover’s emotions are
engaged, and the feeling of love has crystallized, absence inflames and excites.

Giving no reason for your absence excites even more.

Law 17: Keep others in suspended terror; cultivate an air of

unpredictability
Humans are creatures of habit with an insatiable need to see familiarity in other people's
actions. Your predictability gives them a sense of control. Turn the tables. Be
deliberately unpredictable. Behavior that seems to have no consistency or purpose will
keep them off-balance and they will wear themselves out trying to explain your moves.

Beware, though. Too much unpredictability will be seen as a sign of indecisiveness, or

even of some more serious psychic problem.
Patterns are powerful, and you can terrify people by disrupting them. Such power
should only be used judiciously.

Law 18: Do not build a fortress to protect yourself, isolation is

dangerous
The world is dangerous and enemies are everywhere. Everyone has to protect
themselves. A fortress seems the safest.

But isolation exposes you to more dangers than it protects you from. It cuts you off from
valuable information, and it makes you conspicuous and an easy target.

It’s better to circulate among people, find allies and mingle. You are shielded from your
enemies by the crowd.

Law 19: Know who you’re dealing with—do not offend the wrong
person
There are many different kinds of people in the world, and you can never assume that
everyone will react to your strategies in the same way.

If you deceive or outmaneuver some people, they will spend the rest of their lives
seeking revenge. They are wolves in lambs' clothing.

Choose your victims and opponents carefully. Never offend or deceive the wrong
person!

Law 20: Do not commit to anyone

When you hold yourself back, you incur not anger but a kind of respect. You instantly
seem powerful because you make yourself ungraspable, rather than succumbing to the
group, or to the relationship, as most people do.

People who rush to the support of others tend to gain little respect in the process, as
their help is so easily obtained. Those who stand back find themselves besieged with
supplicants.

Do not commit to anyone. Stay above the fray. But be courted by all.

Remember: You have only so much energy and so much time. Every moment wasted
on the affairs of others subtracts from your strength.
It is the fool who always rushes to take sides. Do not commit to any side or cause but
yourself. By maintaining your independence, you become the master of others. Play
people against one another and make them pursue you.

Law 21: Play a sucker to catch a sucker; seem dumber than your
mark
No one likes feeling stupider than the next person. The trick, then, is to make your
victims feel smart—and not just smart, but smarter than you are. Once convinced of
this, they will never suspect that you may have ulterior motives.

Given how important the idea of intelligence is to most people’s vanity, it is critical never
inadvertently to insult or impugn a person’s brain power.

Law 22: Use the surrender tactic: transform weakness into power
When you are weak, never fight for honor’s sake; choose surrender instead. Surrender
gives you time to recover, and time to wait for your opponent’s power to wane. Do not
give him the satisfaction of fighting and defeating you—surrender first. By turning the
other cheek, you infuriate and unsettle him. Make surrender a tool of power.

People trying to make a show of their authority will be easily deceived.

When you surrender, you have an opportunity to coil around your enemy and strike with
your fangs from close up.

Law 23: Concentrate your forces

Conserve your forces and energies by keeping them concentrated at their strongest
point. You gain more by finding a rich mine and mining it deeper, than by flitting from
one shallow mine to another.

Intensity defeats extensity every time.

Concentrate on single goal, a single task, and beat it into submission. You will need
help from other people, usually those who are more powerful than you. More energy is
saved and more power attained when you affix yourself to a single, appropriate source
of power.

Law 24: Play the perfect courtier

The perfect courtier thrives in a world where everything revolves around power and
political dexterity. He has mastered the art of indirection; he flatters, yields to superiors,
and asserts power over others in the most oblique and graceful manner.
Learn and apply the laws of court politics and there will be no limit to how far you can
rise in the court.

The laws of court politics:

- Avoid ostentation
- Practice nonchalance
- Be frugal with flattery
- Arrange to be noticed
- Alter your style and language according to the person you are dealing with
- Never be the bearer of bad news
- Never affect friendliness and intimacy with your master
- Never criticize those above you directly
- Be frugal in asking those above you for favors
- Never joke about appearances or tastes
- Do not be the court cynic
- Be self-observant
- Master your emotions
- Fit the spirits of the times
- Be the source of pleasure

Law 25: Recreate Yourself

Be the master of your own image rather than letting others define it for you.
The world wants to assign you a role in life. And once you accept that role you are
doomed.

Do not accept the roles that society foists on you. Remake yourself into a character who
commands attention and never bores the audience. Working on yourself like clay should
be one of your greatest and most pleasurable life tasks.

Incorporate dramatic devices into your public gestures and actions—your power will be
enhanced and your character will seem larger than life.

Law 26: Keep your hands clean

You must seem a paragon of civility and efficiency. Your hands are never soiled by
mistakes and nasty deeds. Maintain such a spotless appearance by using others as
scapegoats and cat's-paws to disguise your involvement.

A cat’s-paw is someone who does the dirty, dangerous work for you. He grabs what you
need, hurts whom you need hurt, and keeps people from noticing that you are the one
responsible.

Let someone else be the executioner, or the bearer of bad news, while you bring only
joy and glad tidings.
Law 27: Play on people’s need to believe to create a cult-like
following
People have an overwhelming desire to believe in something. Become the focal point of
such desire by offering them a cause, a new faith to follow. Keep your words vague but
full of promise; emphasize enthusiasm over rationality and clear thinking.

Give your new disciples rituals to perform, ask them to make sacrifices on your behalf.
In the absence of organized religion and grand causes, your new belief system will bring
you untold power.

Five rules of cult-making:

- Keep it vague, keep it simple
- Emphasize the visual and sensational over the intellectual
- Borrow the forms of organized religion to structure the group
- Disguise your source of income
- Set up an us-vs-them dynamic

Law 28: Enter action with boldness

If you are unsure of a course of action, do not attempt it. Your doubts and hesitations
will infect your execution. Timidity is dangerous. It’s better to enter with boldness. Any
mistakes you commit through audacity are easily corrected with more audacity.
Everyone admires the bold; no one honors the timid.

Hesitation creates gaps, boldness obliterates them. Audacity separates you from the
herd.

When you are as small and obscure as David was, you must find a Goliath to attack.
The larger the target, the more attention you gain.

Law 29: Plan all the way to the end

The ending is everything. Plan all the way to it, taking into account all the possible
consequences, obstacles, and twists of fortune that might reverse your hard work and
give the glory to others.

Improvisation will only bring you as far as the next crisis, and is never a substitute for
thinking several steps ahead.

By planning to the end, you will not be overwhelmed by circumstances and you will
know when to stop. Gently guide fortune and help determine the future by thinking far
ahead.
Law 30: Make your accomplishments seem effortless
Your actions must seem natural and executed with ease. All the toil and practice that go
into them must be concealed. Same with all the clever tricks.

When you act, act effortlessly, as if you could do much more.

Avoid the temptation of revealing how hard you work—it only raises questions. Teach no
one your tricks or they will be used against you.

Law 31: Control the options to get others to play with the cards
you deal
Give people a sense of how things will fall apart without you, and you offer them a
choice: I stay away and you suffer the consequences, or I return under circumstances
that I dictate.

The following are 7 specific tactics.

Color the Choices: Propose three or four choices of action for each situation. Present
them in such a way that the one you prefer seems like the best solution compared to the
others. Works best against an insecure master.

Force the Resister: This is a good technique to use on children and other willful people
who enjoy doing the opposite of what you ask them to. Push them to “choose” what you
want them to do by appearing to advocate the opposite.

Alter the Playing Field: In the 1860s, John D. Rockefeller began secretly buying up the
railway companies that transported oil. When he then attempted to take over a
particular company, he reminded them of their dependence on the rails. Refusing them
shipping, or simply raising their fees, could ruin their business. Rockefeller altered the
playing field so that the only options the small oil producers had were the ones he gave
them.

The Shrinking Options: Raise the price every time the buyer hesitates and another
day goes by. This is an excellent negotiating ploy to use on the chronically indecisive,
who will fall for the idea that they are getting a better deal today than if they wait till
tomorrow.

Weak Man on the Precipice: Similar to “Color the Choices." The weak are the easiest
to maneuver by controlling their options. You have to be more aggressive with them.
Work on their emotions—use fear and terror to propel them into action. If you try
reason, they will always find a way to procrastinate.
Brothers in Crime: Attract your victims to some criminal scheme, creating a bond of
blood and guilt between you.

Horns of a Dilemma: A lawyer leads witnesses to decide between two possible

explanations of an event, both of which poke a hole in their story. They have to answer
the lawyer’s questions, but whatever they say they hurt themselves. The key to this
move is to strike quickly. Deny the victim the time to think of an escape. As they wriggle
between the horns of the dilemma, they dig their own grave.

Law 32: Play to people’s fantasies

People rarely believe that their problems arise from their own misdeeds and stupidity.
Someone or something out there is to blame—the other, the world, the gods—and so
salvation comes from the outside as well.

Never appeal to truth and reality unless you are prepared for the anger that comes from
disenchantment.

Life is so harsh and distressing that people who can manufacture romance or conjure
up fantasy are like oases in the desert: everyone flocks to them. There is great power in
tapping into the fantasies of the masses.

Law 33: Discover each man’s thumbscrew

Everyone has a weakness, a gap in the castle wall. That weakness is usually an
insecurity, an uncontrollable emotion or need. It can also be a small secret pleasure.

Either way, once found, it is a thumbscrew you can turn to your advantage.

How to find the thumbscrews:

Pay attention to gestures and unconscious signals. Find the helpless child: look to their
childhood. Look for contrasts: an overt trait often reveals its opposite. Find the weak
link. Fill their emotional void. Feed on their uncontrollable emotion.

Always look for passions and obsessions that cannot be controlled. What people cannot
control, you can control for them.

Law 34: Be royal in your own fashion; act like a king to be treated
like one
The way you carry yourself will often determine how you are treated. In the long run,
appearing vulgar or common will make people disrespect you.
A king respects himself and inspires the same sentiment in others. By acting regally and
confident of your powers, you make yourself seem destined to wear a crown.

Law 35: Master the art of timing

Time is an artificial concept that we ourselves have created to make the limitlessness of
eternity and the universe more bearable, more human.

Since we have constructed the concept of time, we are also able to mold it to some
degree, to play tricks with it. The time of a child is long and slow, with vast expanses;
the time of an adult whizzes by frighteningly fast.

Never seem to be in a hurry—hurrying betrays a lack of control over yourself, and over
time. Always seem patient, as if you know that everything will come to you eventually.
Become a detective of the right moment; sniff out the spirit of the times, the trends that
will carry you to power.

Learn to stand back when the time is not yet ripe, and to strike fiercely when it has
reached fruition.

Law 36: Disdain things you cannot have; ignoring them is the
best revenge
Remember: You choose to let things bother you. You can just as easily choose not to
notice the irritating offender, or to consider the matter trivial and unworthy of your
interest. That is the powerful move.

Desire often creates paradoxical effects: the more you want something, the more you
chase after it, and the more it eludes you. The more interest you show, the more you
repel the object of your desire. This is because your interest is too strong—it makes
people awkward, even fearful.

Uncontrollable desire makes you seem weak, unworthy, pathetic.

Law 37: Create compelling spectacles

Striking imagery and grand symbolic gestures create the aura of power. Everyone
responds to them. Stage the spectacles for those around you, full of arresting visuals
and radiant symbols that heighten your presence.

When you dazzle by appearances, no one will notice what you are really doing.

People do not always want words, or rational explanations, or demonstrations of the

powers of science. They want an immediate appeal to their emotions. Give them that
and they will do the rest—such as imagine they can be healed by the light reflected from
a rock a quarter million miles away.

Law 38: Think as you like but behave like others

If you make a show of being different, flaunting unconventional ideas and behavior,
people will think you look down on them and will retaliate against you for making them
feel inferior. It’s better to blend in with most people and share your real views only with
close friends and like-minded people.

Appearing to fit in while expressing your ideas in a kind of code for a selected audience
is a more useful approach than martyrdom.

Law 39: Stir up waters to catch fish

Anger and emotion are strategically counterproductive. You must always stay calm and
objective. But if you can make your enemies angry while staying calm yourself, you gain
a decided advantage.

Put your enemies off-balance. Find the chink in their vanity through which you can rattle
them, and you will hold the strings to control them.

Law 40: Despise the free lunch

What is offered for free is dangerous—it usually involves either a trick or a hidden
obligation. What has worth is worth paying for.

By paying your own way you stay clear of gratitude, guilt, and deceit.

It is also often wise to pay the full price—there is no cutting corners with excellence. Be
lavish with your money and keep it circulating. Generosity is a sign and a magnet for
power.

Law 41: Avoid stepping into a great man’s shoes

What happens first always appears better and more original than what comes after.

If you succeed a great man or have a famous parent, you will have to accomplish way
more than them in order to outshine them. Don’t get lost in their shadow or stuck in a
past not of your own making. Establish your own name and identity by changing course.

Slay the overbearing father, disparage his legacy, and gain power by shining in your
own way.
Law 42: Strike the shepherd and the sheep will scatter
Trouble can often be traced to a single strong individual—the stirrer, the arrogant
underling, the poisoner of goodwill. If you allow such people room to operate, others will
succumb to their influence.

Do not wait for the troubles they cause to multiply and do not try to negotiate with them.
They are irredeemable. Neutralize their influence by isolating or banishing them. Strike
at the source of the trouble and the sheep will scatter.

Within any group, trouble can most often be traced to a single source. It’s almost always
the unhappy, chronically dissatisfied one who will always stir up dissension and infect
the group with his or her ill ease. Before you know what hit you, the dissatisfaction
spreads all throughout the group.

Act before it becomes impossible to disentangle one strand of misery from another, or to
see how the whole thing started.

43: Work on the hearts and minds of others

When you coerce people, it creates a reaction that will eventually work against you.

You must seduce others into wanting to move in your direction. A person you have
seduced becomes your loyal pawn. And the way to seduce others is to operate on their
individual psychologies and weaknesses.

Soften up the resistant by working on their emotions, playing on what they hold dear
and what they fear. Ignore the hearts and minds of others and they will grow to hate
you.

So when you seduce people, use a two-pronged approach: work on their emotions and
play on their intellectual weaknesses.

44: Disarm and infuriate with the mirror effect

The mirror reflects reality, but it is also the perfect tool for deception.

When you mirror your enemies, doing exactly as they do, they cannot figure out your
strategy. The Mirror Effect mocks and humiliates them, making them overreact. By
holding up a mirror to their psyches, you seduce them with the illusion that you share
their values; by holding up a mirror to their actions, you teach them a lesson.

Few can resist the power of the Mirror Effect.

45: Preach the need to change, but never reform too much at
once
Everyone understands the need for change in the abstract, but on the day-to-day level
people are creatures of habit. Too much innovation is traumatic, and will lead to revolt.

If you are new to a position of power, or an outsider trying to build a power base, make
a show of respecting the old way of doing things. If change is necessary, make it feel
like a gentle improvement on the past.

46: Never appear too perfect

Appearing better than others is always dangerous, but most dangerous of all is to
appear to have no faults or weaknesses. Envy creates silent enemies.

It is smart to occasionally display defects, and admit to harmless vices, in order to

deflect envy and appear more human and approachable. Only gods and the dead can
seem perfect with impunity.

Do not try to help or do favors for those who envy you. They will think you are
condescending to them.

47: Do not go past the mark you aimed for; in victory, know when
to stop
The moment of victory is often the moment of greatest peril. In the heat of victory,
arrogance and overconfidence can push you past the goal you had aimed for, and by
going too far, you make more enemies than you defeat.

Do not allow success to go to your head. There is no substitute for strategy and careful
planning. Set a goal, and when you reach it, stop.

48: Assume formlessness

By taking a shape, by having a visible plan, you open yourself to attack.

Instead of taking a form for your enemy to grasp, keep yourself adaptable and on the
move. Accept the fact that nothing is certain and no law is fixed.

The best way to protect yourself is to be as fluid and formless as water. Never bet on
stability or lasting order, because everything changes.
 The Big Leap:
Conquer Your Hidden Fear and Take Life
to the Next Level
by Gay Hendricks

Early in the book, Hendricks identifies four main operating zones.

Four Main Operating Zones

- The Zone of Incompetence: You are bogged down doing tasks you are not good at,
that others can do much better; the solution is to avoid doing them altogether
- The Zone of Competence: You are competent at doing the activities, but others can
do them equally well; delegate and let others do those tasks, and free up your time to
do the things that make you unique
- The Zone of Excellence: You perform activities extremely well and make a great
living, but you are capable of so much more; you are quite comfortable and may be
tempted to take it easy, but there is only one place you will truly thrive, and that is in
the next zone
- The Zone of Genius: This is the zone where you liberate your true genius, and it
puts you on the ultimate path of living a successful and satisfied life

The book encourages you to think about how much time you are spending in each
zone, with the ultimate goal being to spend as much time in your Zone of Genius as
possible.

According to Hendricks, with an investment of 10 minutes every day, you can get
yourself to the point where you're spending 70 percent or more of your time operating
from your Zone of Genius.

The reason that most of us never reach our Zone of Genius lies in the Upper Limit
Problem, which is actually four hidden barriers based on fear and false beliefs. We
artificially limit our happiness, because we don’t think we deserve it all.

Four Hidden Barriers that Hold Us Back

1. Feeling Fundamentally Flawed: You feel that something is wrong with you.
Perhaps you have feelings of undeservedness and unworthiness. So you think it’s
impossible for you to live a successful and fulfilled life. In the past, every time you
experienced success, these thoughts infiltrated your mind and somehow you
sabotaged yourself.
2. Disloyalty and Abandonment: You refuse to expand and embrace true success
because you feel that if you do, you will have to leave your friends and family
behind, and you do not want to be alone.
3. Believing that More Success Brings a Bigger Burden: You feel like somehow
you’re a burden to others, and those feelings immobilize you and prevent you from
rising to your true potential.
4. The Crime of Outshining: You believe that if you become too successful you will
make others look bad.

How to Overcome Hidden Barrier One:

When you experience success and the thoughts of being flawed or unworthy come into
your mind and create cognitive dissonance, acknowledge them and recognize that you
are facing an Upper Limit Problem. It’s decision time. You can go back to how things
were, or you can let go of the limiting belief and move to a higher level.

How to Overcome Hidden Barrier Two:

The best way to move beyond this Upper Limit Problem is through communication.
Speak openly with your family and friends, and things will most likely work out.

How to Overcome Hidden Barrier Three:

Whenever these feelings of guilt are triggered, recognize that you’re experiencing an
Upper Limit Problem, and realize that you have nothing to be guilty of. So release the
guilt.

How to Overcome Hidden Barrier Four:

This Upper Limit Problem is common among gifted children, and the best solution is
typically to "turn down the volume of your genius." You don’t step fully into your Zone of
Genius but rather hold back on the full potential you have to offer.

Common Upper Limit Behaviors:

- Worrying
- Blame and criticism
- Getting sick or hurt
- Squabbling
- Hiding significant feelings
- Not keeping agreements
- Not speaking significant truths to the relevant people

These Upper Limit Behaviors are signals you need to expand instead of contract.
They’re telling you that it’s time to open up and embrace a new high-water mark of
positive energy that’s trying to establish itself in you.

Underneath a headache might be an insight that a powerfully positive as the pain is

negative. The surface pain is often caused by resisting the underlying message.
Almost all of us have a story about why we don’t access our genius. When we are within
that story, it is very difficult to know that it’s just a story. What makes those stories seem
so real (hard to recognize as "just stories") is that they were being told before we were
born.

We’re born into stories that keep us from accessing our genius. We grow up among
those stories and become like fish that aren’t aware of the water they’re swimming in.
For example, in one family the story might be that genius leads to irresponsibility.

Here is Hendricks’ process for beating the Upper Limit Bug:

- I notice myself worrying about something.
- I let go of the worry-thoughts, shifting my focus away from them.
- I wonder: what positive new thing is trying to come into being?
- I usually get a body feeling (not a thought or idea) of where that positive new thing is
trying to come through.
- I open my focus to feel that body feeling deeply.
- I let myself feel it deeply for as long as I possibly can.
- Later, I often get an idea of the positive thing that was trying to come through.

It’s an odd human behavior, that we all possess an innate inner resistance to to
happiness. It typically manifests in behaviors of fear and self-sabotage.

If you were to take the time to look within and uncover why you resist happiness, the
answer would likely be related to fear – a fear of achieving your full potential. Because
here’s the thing: when you become the best you can be, that means there’s no more
excuse for why you aren’t making your dreams come true.

To quote Hendricks: "If I cling to the notion that something’s not possible, I’m arguing in
favor of limitation. And if I argue for my limitations, I get to keep them."

But when you identify and remove the fear and false beliefs, you are ready to rewrite
your life story and invent a new life based on your true genius.

One of the main techniques Hendricks describes for overcoming fear is breathing. He
cites a 1900s psychiatrist named Fritz Perls, who developed Gestalt therapy. Perls
discovered that fear is, essentially, a sort of breathless excitement.

As Hendricks says, "'Fear is excitement without breath.’ Here’s what this intriguing
statement means: the very same mechanisms that produce excitement also produce
fear, and any fear can be transformed into excitement by breathing fully with it."

Usually our breath gets shorter when we’re scared. To counteract this, you can take
back control by breathing slowly and deeply. If you’re about to give a presentation, for
example, this’ll help you turn stress into energy and deliver a great talk.