Change Your Life’s Prism

Through what lenses do you examine possibilities?

The first 2 lenses are intellect and emotion. Sometimes you use one, sometimes the other. This is normal.

Intellect employs hard facts and cold logic. Emotion relies on soft intuition and warm connections.
Will the first impression be made in the head or in the heart?

In all your communication and attempts at persuasion – especially in your advertising – be careful to make a deep, dual impression; one track in the head and another in the heart.

But what happens after that first impression has been made? Are there other, smaller lenses that read the second, third, and fourth impressions?

My friend Larry recently told me that a careful examination of all the biggest non-fiction books of the past 50 years revealed 4 common characteristics. These patterns solve riddles that few have ever considered.

Unless you’re a non-fiction author, you don’t really care what makes a non-fiction book successful, do you? But what if I told you these same 4 characteristics are the keys to successful advertising? I saw that. Your ears perked up like a hungry German Shepherd.

Communication, to be highly successful, must have:

1. A Big Idea
- Concept
- Insight
- Information

2. Nuts & Bolts
- How To Step-by-Step Instructions
- Examples

3. Entertainment
- Writing style
- Anecdotes
- Adventure
- Surprise

4. Hope
- Visualized Happiness
- Promise
- Inspiration

(1.) The Big Idea and (2.) Nuts and Bolts are more about the writer than the reader. Yet, these are the only things every writer of non-fiction feels a need to share. And now you know why we churn out more than one million dull new books each year and why most of our advertising is gruel.

Dull communications are about the speaker, the author, the product, the advertiser. Lots of examples supporting a big idea are merely white noise – the sound of traffic in a too-busy world – when there’s no entertainment and no hope.

Successful non-fiction – including highly effective advertising – is about the reader, the listener, the viewer, the customer. These beloved messages deliver (3.) Entertainment and (4.) Hope.

Larry shared with me this Big Idea. We can use it to lift the effectiveness of our communications to new heights. This should give you Hope.