The best way to engage a reader is to engage their imagination

When it comes to writing non-fiction—which includes blogging—too much of what I read is flat and colorless. Our Western minds governed by math and sequential logic concern ourselves too much with the structure of our arguments that we neglect the story-telling aspect of writing.

As writers, we must always remember that the best way to engage a reader is to engage their imagination. It’s been that way since we were children when we could get lost for hours playing with little toys because we inserted ourselves into the story we were creating. That’s the power of the visual aspects of our minds, and the more you write for the eyes of the mind, the greater chance you have of keeping the reader’s interest.

If You Can Captivate the Imagination, You Will Own Your Readers

This principle came home to me during a season in my son’s life when he and I were discussing the best way for him to prepare for a career in filmmaking. As much as he loved to study film and television, he was not interested in attending film school. He had studied film all his life, and he didn’t see the need to invest the time and money in a curriculum when he could be working hands on.

As an entrepreneur myself, I supported his decision to take a risk, but we did discuss the unique skill utilized by novelists as a means to better story-telling. In other words, I challenged him to study the creativity imposed on novelists because they don’t have the visual tools of filmmakers to easily engage their readers.

I told my son, “Think of the minute distance between a person’s physical eye and their brain. It’s barely a couple of inches, yet that small distance amounts to millions of dollars in production expense if you want to entertain someone.” In other words, to engage someone through their physical eyes requires scripts, actors, production crews, locations, sets, distribution, etc. The costs involved in filmmaking are enormous.

However, if you focus on engaging the “eyes of the mind” through the written word, then you only have to fill the “inner-screen” of the imagination in order to captivate someone. Instead of investing millions of dollars in special effects, you can create a similar experience by using a reader’s imagination through effective description—or “coloring”—in your prose.

How I Add Color to My Writing

It doesn’t require much to add coloring to your non-fiction writing. In fact, you don’t want to go overboard with this and actually try to sound like a novelist. If you do, your writing will scream, “technique,” and that will immediately discredit you.

I add subtle coloring to my writing to make my prose more engaging. Of course, writing articles and blog posts for my Metal Motivation project affords me even more opportunity for this because you expect colorful language in heavy metal. Here’s a sample of mine from a book I’m writing. This brief section on personal power is subtitled “You Sold Your Soul”:

Why haven’t you experienced more of your dominant side? It’s because you lack the deep sense of desperation that releases your ascendant self. It’s because your personal power is stifled by the sense of satisfaction with the way things are. It’s your compromise with life that entraps you. It’s your negotiation with mediocrity that limits you. It’s your settlement with hell itself to withhold your personal power in exchange for a life without risk, struggle, or sacrifice.

You might be existing on the bare edges of the next paycheck, but it’s enough for you. You might be dragging your heels to a job you don’t like, but you’ll endure the senseless boredom so long as you’re supplied with enough for rent and groceries. You sold your soul, but it wasn’t for rock and roll. You sold it to silence the beckoning voice that’s calling you to something greater.

Well, I’m here to tear up that contract, and this book is my rude intrusion into your world to create greater dissatisfaction with the way things are. My goal is to ignite your intensity, fan to flame your resolve, and increase your hunger to the level of a dog-like determination. My objective is to make you a rabid beast when it comes to changing your life, renewing your thinking, and maximizing your resources.

This is the only way to release your inner-strength. There is no magic to the process, but something does need to go off in you. A trigger needs to pulled. A bomb needs to be ignited. Something has to light the fuse that enrages you to war against the part of you that holds you back. You need a new slave master. You must become a power slave. You must submit yourself to your dominant side.

How do I do this? I do it the same way as I mentioned in the first part of this series: I write out loud. I am constantly writing a sentence or two and then reading them out loud with feeling. If the descriptives appeal to my visual sensibilities, then I know it will do so with my reader. And even though you can now tell what I’m doing in the above example, the coloring I added is not overbearing. It’s just enough to keep someone reading.

Writing out loud also gives me the feel for the length of sentences; where the stress points should be, and where to make my paragraph breaks—that’s what I described in my previous article on rhythm. Effective rhythm and subtle coloring combine to carry your reader through what could easily be a flat and lifeless piece of non-fiction. If you take some time to master the use of rhythm and coloring, you’ll not only better engage your audience, you’ll have a hell of a lot more fun writing. That will lead to more output, and you’ll soon become prolific and popular.

Write out loud!

The combination of rhythm and color will make you a bad ass writer, and bad ass writers get read!

When people think of me, they often think of my videos, but what I’m most proud of are my articles, one-liners, and Facebook status updates. In fact, it’s my writing that represents the real power behind my videos. If I could not communicate well with a keyboard, I could not do it well with my voice.

There are two basic forms of writing: fiction and non-fiction. I am a fan of non-fiction, but most of the reading that gets done is typically fiction. That’s easy to understand, since fiction is entertainment, but there are two simple methods to create non-fiction that engages the reader just as much as a novel. I’ll cover the first method in this article.

Writing With Rhythm

We love music because we love melody and rhythm, but these ideas extend into other forms of art, but we perceive them subconsciously. If you’re reading something that lacks “rhythm,” you can easily tire of it in the same way that you get frustrated with a poor piece of music. However, if you read something in which the writer displays a deft use of rhythm, you’ll read it simply for pleasure regardless of whether you’re interested in the topic.

What is rhythm in writing?

Rhythm: the measured flow of words and phrases in verse or prose as determined by the relation of long and short or stressed and unstressed syllables.

In writing, rhythm is a careful blend of different lengths and stresses within your sentences and paragraphs. If, for example, all your sentences are the same length, the mind of the reader becomes bored by the lack of changes. The reason for this is that each of us operates with a musical measure within our minds, and our internal sense of rhythm is what undergirds our interest in reading.

A Sample of Rhythmic Writing

Here’s an example from one of my articles that demonstrates the subtle use of rhythmic changes. This is from a chapter of a book I’m writing. The chapter is entitled “Powerslave: Discovering the Force Within”:

Why haven’t you experienced more of your dominant side? It’s because you lack the deep sense of desperation that releases your ascendant self. It’s because your personal power is stifled by the sense of satisfaction with the way things are. It’s your compromise with life that entraps you. It’s your negotiation with mediocrity that limits you. It’s your settlement with hell itself to withhold your personal power in exchange for a life without risk, struggle, or sacrifice.

First, take note of the different lengths of the sentences:

• Sentence One: 9 words
• Sentence Two: 14 words
• Sentence Three: 17 words
• Sentence Four: 8 words
• Sentence Five: 8 words
• Sentence Six: 21 words

You’ll notice that sentences four and five are the same length (8 words), but they are immediately followed by the longest sentence in the paragraph (21 words). It’s these three sentences that create the sense of rhythm and interest that will guarantee my reader will continue to the next paragraph. Listen to me read this same paragraph in order to hear the rhythm I intended. Just click the link below to open the audio file:

Reading Sample

Writing Out Loud

Did you hear the rhythm of the paragraph I just read? It creates almost a form of poetry, or song lyric, to something non-fiction. By doing this, I have a much better chance of engaging my reader than if I paid no attention to the lengths and stresses of my paragraphs and sentences. This is what helps to make non-fiction a form of art.

So, how do you create rhythm? You do it by reading your writing out loud. It’s really as simple as that. When I write something, I always go back and read it out loud. That way I can easily catch what might make someone else stumble as well as determine if the rhythm is obvious or not.

You’ll want to do this with the entire piece you’re writing and not simply paragraph by paragraph. The reason is you might end up creating the same rhythm (lengths and stresses) for each paragraph which will also create boredom and make your use of technique obvious. Great writing uses principles and methods that should go undetected—or at least not come off as manipulation.

As I said at the outset, if you do enough of this, it will have a dramatic effect on your speaking ability, because you’re training yourself to communicate in a way that is enjoyable. This will help to create even more value for you in whatever it is you do. Great communicators have a better chance of thriving in their respective professions because of the way they’re perceived. Give it a try!

In part 2, I’ll discuss the use of “color” in your writing. The combination of rhythm and color will make you a bad ass writer, and bad ass writers get read. That should always be your goal. Writing for pleasure should lead to writing for purpose. Metal up!

Start or you'll never get started!

Because of fear, we can put off writing that book or starting that blog. Because of a lack of confidence, we can spend years in preparation without ever launching because we think we must know everything there is to know about a subject before we’re “permitted” to write about it. This is not the case.

A number of years ago, one of my closest friends secured a book contract to write The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Self-Defense. He had created his own self-defense system as well as a number of inventions for police and security professionals, so he was a great candidate to author the volume. After getting the contract from the publisher, he now had the burden of putting together a sizable and thorough book on self-defense.

The deadline for writing the book was very short, so he needed a place to lock himself up in order to meet the rigorous publishing schedule. I let him use my rented office space. He moved in and set up a cot because he was going to be hammering out the sections day and night. I called him one evening to see how things were going, and he said something that was both humorous and insightful:

“Well, I’ve learned two things: one, I’m not a self-defense expert, and two, I’m quickly becoming one.”

He’s correct. Nobody is an expert before they write the book, but they soon become one afterwards. This is because writing stimulates a portion of our brains that causes us to learn more. The more you write, the more you learn, but the more you learn, the more you’ll write.

You may not have all the pieces you need to write a complete book, but you can gain those if you’ll just start the process. You may not have enough content for several blog posts, but you will gain more as you commit to writing.

Don’t allow the insecurity of not having all the information stop you from taking a step of faith in yourself. You can always fill in the gaps, but if we wait until you think you know everything, you may never get started.

In life, we are always changing the tire while the car is driving down the road. Just get started.

Lose your lust for cash, and you'll build an audience faster

Do you truly want to maximize your brand on social media? If so, then you damn well better make it free, because making commerce the basis of your enterprise is the surest way to remaining small in the new era of person-to-person communication.

Try to imagine where Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube—the giants of social media—would be if they were subscription-based services? Imagine if you had to pay a monthly fee to in order to have a Facebook account or watch videos on YouTube. One entity tried this: Classmates.com. They failed miserably under the dominance of free media like MySpace and Facebook. Now, Classmates.com allows you to register for free, but that window of opportunity was lost. They made commerce, instead of audience, their focus. If people want to reconnect with old classmates, they do it through Facebook.

The Only Asset That Matters is an Audience

In this season of social media, the most valuable asset is an audience because a sizable, committed following is like having capital—it’s a means of exchange in the next development of the information age. You can invest, barter, and influence when you have thousands of people linked into your brand.

If Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are built around the concept of free, then you better go and do likewise. That’s exactly how they grew so quickly. There was no financial risk to anyone for signing up. Heck, you don’t even need an account on YouTube in order to watch videos.

With such a massive audience, YouTube was able to attract advertisers and investors. I guarantee you the creators of YouTube had no five-year plan on how to make YouTube into what it is now. They had to seize the opportunities as they appeared, because social media was new territory. By keeping it free, YouTube could grow exponentially, and anything that grows that quickly will attract big money. In their case, it brought in Google to buy them out for $1.65 billion after YouTube being operational for just over one year. Again, that would not have happened if it cost viewers a monthly fee* to use the video-based site.

Raking In Something Greater Than Money

If you lead with fees, products, and “sign ups,” then you’re placing obstacles in the path of the user. With the power of a simple click, they can leave you forever, so if you have any chance of keeping them around, it’ll be because price didn’t drive them away. They then have time to consider your message, product, or service.

I’m often asked how I make money with my Metal Motivation project. Truth be told, I don’t. It costs me money as well as time, but in actuality I’m raking in something much greater than money. I’m accruing thousands of dedicated followers committed to spreading my message. Soon, I will hit a tipping point, and the growth will be exponential. At that stage, I will have true social media capital—viz. a dedicated audience—that will attract advertisers, speaking engagements, consulting/coaching clients, publishers, and television and radio producers.

Of course, I’ll sell merchandise and information products, but that is more acceptable now than it would have at the beginning. In fact, people regularly ask for them.

No More Powerful Word in Marketing Than “Free”

So, are you putting cost in the way of connecting with your audience? Then consider the simple maxim that “If it’s free, it’s for me.” As any marketer knows, there is no stronger word in copywriting than “free.” If something is free, then there is no perceived risk, and risk, as well as cost, are barriers to someone investing their time and money. Remove those barriers and your brand will have the freedom to move quickly and easily.

 *In addition to adding users by removing fees, YouTube also scores big by empowering users with the ability to easily embed YouTube videos on Facebook and web sites. Other video providers such as Break.com, FunnyorDie.com, and Hulu.com make it more difficult. It’s just another reason why YouTube remains the third most visited web site after Google and Facebook.

There is one radio station that everyone listens to: WIFM (What’s In It for Me?). No matter who you are, you are driven by personal benefit more than you think. It’s self-interest. Or as the Good Book says, “No man ever hated his own flesh.”

I recall an instance when a tree company contacted me about helping them with their marketing. They were adding a yard service that would test and treat all the trees and shrubs in a resident’s yard so that the plants would remain healthy and vibrant. Their existing marketing pieces featured the headline, “Make Your Neighbors Green with Envy!

That’s cute, but ineffective. Why? Because the benefit of a healthy yard is not making your neighbors jealous. At least that’s not what the majority of us want for our yards. What we want is a healthy yard that doesn’t take us all weekend to achieve. I changed the headline to, “Now You Can Have a Healthy, Good-looking Yard and More Time for Yourself!”

Effective marketing is about meeting the felt needs of your target audience. That would be their self-interest. In order to do that, you have to become selfless in your service.

Where this really makes a difference is in the arena of social media where the interaction with your audience is immediate and dynamic. Even though the medium is digital, it is still perceived as personal, and therefore, if you come across as being all about YOU, then you’re set to fail in this new era of communications.

There’s an old saying marketing that goes, “Don’t tell me about your lawn service. Tell me about my lawn.” That’s self-interest, and for you to appeal to someone’s self-interest, then you have to make yourself a selfless servant. In other words, your goal is to work as if it’s all about them, not your business. If you do that, you’ll create a strong sense of loyalty because your audience learns to trust you.

Don’t Tweet too much about yourself, and be sure your Facebook updates are all about the end user. Everyone is a sucker for themselves, so if you can provide content that benefits them, they’ll stick with you. When it comes time that they need someone to hire, they’ll hire you.

As it turns out, the secret of social media is no secret at all. It’s simply the tried and true principles of great service and great marketing that work whether in print, online, or in person. If you can be genuine about your service, and put their self-interest first, then you can “own” social media like you’re an expert.

It’s not a numbers game. It’s a people game, and people love themselves. Therefore, target their weakness. They’ll put no guards up around the soft underbelly of self-interest.

Strategic marketing is not what most people think it is.

Marketing and communications are about getting into the minds of the marketplace and getting people to take action. Anything short of this is a waste of time and money. If your business is going to succeed in times like these, then you can’t waste a moment or a dollar on something that doesn’t bring results.

My specialty is in equipping small businesses, home-based business owners, and non-profit organizations to better communicate what they’re doing. If they can utilize the powerful tools of communication, then the revenue will be there. If they can better differentiate themselves from any competition, then they can become leaders in their respective fields and industries.

It’s not enough to be good at what you do. If people don’t know who are, then they won’t use your services. Someone else with less talent could end up reaching them simply because they’ve branded themselves effectively. It’s important be to good at what you do, but if you can add the power of branding, you’ll be a two-edged sword.

Strategy and Tactics

In their powerful little book Bottom-Up Marketing, Al Ries and Jack Trout show how the power of branding works when it’s applied to creating marketing strategies. We all need a marketing strategy, right? Yes, we do, but Ries and Trout show that a lot of companies make the mistake of putting the cart before the horse when they lead with a strategy and then ask how they’ll implement it.

A strategy is not a goal. Like life itself, a strategy ought to be focused on the journey, not the goal. Top-down thinkers are goal-oriented. They first determine what it is they want to achieve and then they try to devise ways and means to achieve their goals.¹

What Ries and Trout are driving at is that instead of a strategy, you should begin with a tactic because “A tactic is an idea. When you look for a tactic, you are looking for an idea.”² You look for a tactical idea because it’s the idea that differentiates you from everyone else.

In other words, strategy is what you want you do, and tactics are how you do it. The objective is to break into the minds of the marketplace, and in order to do that, you need a differentiating idea. Ries and Trout refer to this as the tactic, and they define it as a competitive mental angle:

A tactic is an idea. When you look for a tactic, you are looking for an idea.
But the notion of an idea is nebulous one. What kind of idea? Where do you find one? These are the initial questions that must be answered.
In order to help you answer these questions, we propose using the following specific definition: A tactic is a competitive mental angle.
A tactic must have a competitive mental angle in order to have a chance of success. This does not necessarily mean a better product or service, but rather there must be an element of differentness.³

By being different, you’re more memorable, and you have a better chance of making your way through the clutter of other products and services. The goal is to find what makes you, your product, or business, different and then push that into the marketplace. What makes you different is your tactic, and that determines your strategy.

If you let the overall strategy dictate the path, you may miss a great tactic, or competitive mental angle, that could get you there quicker. Don’t just say, “I’m gonna open up a sports bar.” There are plenty of them out there. Maybe you have a special food item that you’d like to serve, but it would actually be better to build an eatery around that item, or theme, instead of another sports bar.

Let’s say your family is from Germany and your grandfather taught you how to cook some mean bratwurst. It might be better to open a German restaurant/bar on a strip of Chilis, Macaroni Grills, and sports bars. Now you stand out.

This would be leading with the tactic, and it would provide you with a competitive mental angle. If you did it well, word would travel fast. If you made sure all the architecture, furniture, and packaging looked like it was from an old German town, then you’d really be differentiating yourself from all the strip mall architecture.

Maybe you’re not looking to do anything as grand as opening a restaurant. It doesn’t matter. The principles of effective communication remain the same. Find a differentiating idea and then lead with it. Whether it’s just a blog, or a full-fledged business, your brand will move quicker.

Strive to be unique!

1. Al Ries and Jack Trout, Bottom-Up Marketing (New York, NY: McGraw Hill, 1989), 10.

2. Ibid, 8.

3. Ibid, 8f.

Branding is the power of effective communications

You must start thinking about creating a side business, full-time home business, or taking your small business to the next level. The world economy is destroying jobs and income, so the only one who will truly fight for your financial and professional future is you. The time to fight is now.

It’s never been easier to do this because of the power of the internet, and especially social media like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Still, these are only tools. The real power is found in branding, the essence of effective communications.

What is Branding?

Branding is when you’re able to create a permanent residence in the minds of the marketplace. In case you weren’t aware, the marketplace, as well call it, is actually just people, and people differentiate brands in their minds.

Branding is also likened to the actual branding that’s done by farmers to their cattle when they burn an indelible mark into the skin of the animals. The point is that the mark is permanent, and that’s the objective of all branding.

These brands can be so powerful that people will often use a brand leader when referring to an actual category. The popular examples of this are Band-Aid, Kleenex, and Coke. Nobody asks for an adhesive bandage when they cut themselves. They say, “Honey, do we have any Band-Aids?”

If you’ve got a runny nose, you usually ask for a Kleenex, and not facial tissue. Some people will ask for a tissue, but most people ask for a Kleenex. The point is that these individual brands have replaced the actual items when it comes to how people identify with them.

What Makes You Unique?

Branding, therefore, is essential to your own success whether you sell a product, service, or operate as a media personality. If you can create a strong brand, then you can create space for yourself in the minds you’re trying to reach. If you can create appeal and trust for that brand, then you can eventually sell to that audience, but first, you must create the brand.

Your brand must be distinct, otherwise people have no way to categorize you. What makes you unique? Is there anything special about what you manufacture, or sell, that nobody else does? If you’re selling your own personality, can you attach another interest to what you’re presenting that will make you stand out?

I did this with my side project, Metal Motivation. By simply attaching a rock/metal attitude and style to my philosophy of personal development, I was able to create a very strong and distinct brand.

Others may have thought of something similar, but they didn’t really execute on what was needed to create the brand and embed it in the minds of an audience. To do that requires a relentless commitment to pushing the brand through various means of social media such as blogs, videos, and podcasts.

Start Thinking Now About Earning Extra Income

No matter what it is that you’re trying to promote, there is a way to brand it and create an audience. I’ve done this personally with several clients, and when we first began the consulting process, I had no idea what that brand—or “big idea”—might be. I only know that it’s there, and my job is to help them find it. We always do.

However, whether they are committed to doing what’s needed to establish the brand is up to them. I can only help them find it, formulate it, and create the strategy to develop it. They have to be committed to working it out. Some don’t do it, because it requires a lot out of them. That’s why I try to work with them in the early stages of the program until they get a taste for it, see how it works, and then work it themselves.

The great advantage is that the era of social media has made the branding process much easier—especially for those who would like to be self-employed, or have a profitable side business they build in their part-time. Still, whether a major corporation, or a housewife wanting to sell recipes in her spare time, the principles of communication remain the same.

Social media has leveled the playing field to some degree, and in the kind of turbulent economic times in which we live, I would encourage everyone to do something to create extra income. You probably have a skill, interest, or area of knowledge that is shared by thousands around the world. You need to reach them. You may have wanted to do something in the past with your passion but haven’t known how to do it or even what to do. Just be assured that there is a way.

I would encourage you to keep up with this blog because I’ll be covering a great deal more about communications, creating side businesses, and taking your life and career to the next level. Be sure to sign up for the RSS feed or receive an update directly via email. Just use the icons at the top of this site.

Fulfillment, more than happiness, should be your pursuit

I think everyone has heard the song, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy,” but I’m not sure we’ve thought through the implications of that philosophy. I have several problems with that perspective, but my main critique is that it won’t lead to anything resembling a fulfilling life.

Seeking happiness for itself will not satisfy, and the idea that we should simply discard worry and decide to be happy neglects a greater purpose in life. It means you’re only making a decision about a state of mind, but it doesn’t encourage you to actually do or produce anything. Happiness is a good thing, but not when it’s the main thing.

What is Happiness?

Happiness is simply feeling or showing contentment, but as I’ve said elsewhere, unless there are reasons for feeling a certain way, then the feeling may not be justified. In addition, worry and happiness can also be indicators that something is still wrong and needs work. They serve as vital signs.

Having said that, I agree that happiness is a decision, and I believe that deciding to be happy in negative circumstances is a positive move, but only if you use it to keep you on the path to achieving something greater: fulfillment.

Happiness will keep you in the game, so choose happiness despite what you’re facing on a daily basis. My point is that making happiness alone your life pursuit will not lead to happiness. You’ll only be denying reality, which is that you don’t have any reason to be happy. You’re just choosing to be so.

Fulfillment is What You’re Looking For

Happiness is focused on a feeling of contentment, but fulfillment is satisfaction or happiness as a result of fully developing one’s abilities or character. This is a huge difference. Notice that fulfillment is a form of happiness, or satisfaction, that is the direct result of fully developing your abilities or character. In other words, fulfillment is when you have reasons to be happy.

I define success as maximizing your resources for a purpose greater than yourself, and that is the pursuit of fulfillment. It involves giving expression to who you are and what you can do. This shouldn’t be limited to careers or professions either. There is tremendous fulfillment found in being a parent. Investing yourself in your family should bring a sense of satisfaction.

What’s also important to note is that fulfillment comes from developing character. This is an area that I need to work on. It’s one thing to develop an inherent skill or ability, but it’s another thing entirely to develop character. Lately, I’ve had my eyes opened to my own flaws, and I’m working now from a renewed commitment to become a better man. My hope is that a great deal of my lack of fulfillment is because I spent more time developing skills than I did character. This makes me out of balance.

However, someone could have the opposite state as well. They could have highly developed character but still be too reluctant, or fearful, to develop their abilities. This is also living out of balance.

Happiness is a decision, but happiness pursued for its own sake is fleeting. It must have a greater purpose that it serves. Fulfillment carries the idea of being full, and that’s the end result of personal development.

It’s true that you should be happier than you are, and that happiness comes as a choice. Fulfillment, on the other hand, comes by maximizing your resources for a purpose greater than yourself. Happiness is good for you, but fulfillment leads to the good of you and others as you become a greater asset to this world.

The power of inspiration is a commitment to living out a story

From the Earth itself God formed a man out of the soil he gathered with his own hands. This figurine of mere clay was lifeless and empty until God breathed into it the breath of life. With this sudden burst of divinity, the first man became alive with intelligence, vision, emotion, and a drive to fulfill his creative potential.

I begin with the story of the Garden of Eden because it demonstrates the meaning of inspiration, and inspire is taken from the old French inspirer and it means to breathe, or blow into. It’s to impart a truth or idea into someone.

Acting Out What You See

We’ve all experienced inspiration at some point, and it does feel as if life has been breathed into us, because we are suddenly enlivened to do something we weren’t willing to do just moments before.

I remember vividly that whenever my brothers and I left the movie theater when we were young, we would immediately begin to act out what we’d just seen. As soon as the station wagon returned to the house, we were off to live out the story and characters we saw in the film—we’d be gone for hours. Of course, we always had to fight over who got to be the hero.

Before we saw the action movie, we had no vision, or inclination, to spend an afternoon living out a storyline. After we saw it, we were inspired to take the story and characters beyond what we saw in the movie. This is the power of inspiration: to create a full commitment to living out a story.

Becoming Idea-Driven

If our lives are dull and boring, they don’t require much skill to live. Everything becomes routine, and we begin to check out—spending most of our time in mind-numbing activities like watching television. We lack inspiration.

To be inspired is to have an idea, or truth, so breathed into you that it becomes woven into the fiber of being just as smoke absorbs itself into your clothes. You now become animated by something higher than your usual thoughts, and the idea saturates and taints all that you do and say. You are now an incarnation of something greater. Your life is now idea-driven.

This is the way to live, if you truly want to enjoy the human experience. Sure, parachuting, rock climbing, or cliff diving are all thrilling, but they’re also short-lived. Nothing will satisfy the human heart like devotion to an idea or truth. Nothing will bring such incessant pleasure than to abandon oneself to living out a personal story.

My Own Story of Inspiration

For me, my story is one of struggle, salvation, self-sacrifice, and heroism. I begin with the distinction that there is good and evil in the world, and these are manifested through people. I see humanity in need of help in order to steer it towards goodness and justice, but there are enemies in the way.

There are opponents who work to enslave people with greed, ignorance, lust, anger, and indifference. It is against them that I fight as a warrior. There are enemies in the mind as well—shackles of sadness, pain, fear, doubt, and insecurity. Through the two-edged sword of my mouth and pen I will hack away at these mind chains until people are set free to become everything they can be.

I am agent of change—a gladiator of goodness that calls upon the heavens daily to muster my strength to fight another day. This is how I “dress up” my everydays. This is how I view what I do. This is the life story I created to inspire me to work for you.

Inspiration Will Bring Life to Your Life

What is your story? What will inspire you to break the routine of your present existence to live a more fulfilling life? What great story—what great idea—will breathe life into your heart and move you to take more action?

Try to find something. Maybe it’s your children you live for. Then try to create a grander vision of your role in their lives and commit yourself to learning and applying everything you can to fulfill it.

Maybe it’s a business, band, or book that you want to create. Maybe it’s a group of people you want to reach. Whatever it is, inspiration is what brings life to your life. It’s what animates you to perform at your maximum level. It’s the only thing that truly brings satisfaction to what you do and who you are.

Unlike advertising, marketing pushes you to act now

What is marketing? It’s creating action. Did you think I was going to say that marketing is selling a product or service? Well, it is that as well, but if you think of marketing as selling alone, you miss the laws and principles that govern it. For me, unless I understand the principles—and I mean really get underneath them—then I never become one with them. If I can’t do that, I’ll never be able to maximize them.

For that reason, I define marketing as creating action in someone else. This is why marketing is the complete opposite of advertising, although people tend to put the two together: “I work in advertising and marketing.”

Anyone who says they work in advertising and marketing will not be proficient in either one of them. Why? Because they are completely different disciplines. Advertising doesn’t create action as marketing does. Sure, you might be prone to get out of bed and grab a late night burger because of a commercial, but that’s only because you were hungry enough to do so. However, you could just as easily have gone to another fast food restaurant than the one advertised, or even turned on your own grill to cook one yourself.

Marketing would get you out of bed and down to a specific restaurant for a specific item at a specific price.

Pushing a Brand or Pushing You to Act?

Advertising is about promoting a brand, not creating action. This is why most ads that you see don’t tell you a price, where to buy one, or how long you have to do so. Any advertisement that does tell you these things is doing a form of marketing. Most ads do not.

When you see a Coca-Cola commercial, it only shows you animated polar bears chugging bottles of Coke at the North Pole. The ads don’t tell you how much that Coke is, the specific stores to buy Coke, or whether they are on sale. The ad is only there to keep the brand in front of your eyes in the event you ever get thirsty for a soft drink.

Marketing is different. For example, think of telemarketers. Do they call your house at night to remind you of brand, or are they trying to get you to do something now? What about the direct mail postcards you receive in the mail? Do they simply advertise a brand, or do they promote a product or service while telling how much it is, where to get it, and a benefit if you act right away? That’s not advertising. That’s marketing. The telemarketers and direct mailers are trying to create action in you.

Marketing is Direct

What about those commercials you see on television for a specialty item that you can’t get in regular stores? Don’t they always give you a price? Don’t they throw out an incentive like “act now and you get two for the price of one?” And don’t they always finish the commercial with, “Call in the next ten minutes?”

Marketing is direct. It’s targeted to specific demographics with the intent of creating action. This is why I often tell my clients, “Don’t waste your money on advertising unless you’re featuring a price, a sale, and clear action steps on how your potential customer can get your product or service.” If you think showing a photo of your product or business with some copy is enough to get people to act, you’re seriously wasting your money.

Marketing and Branding: The Two Pillars to Success

If you have a business, blog, book, or band, then you must understand and maximize the principles of marketing, because unless you can create action in your audience, you’re whistling in the wind.

Marketing is a central part of the science of communications, and along with branding it represents one of two pillars that are the true secrets to maximizing the success of any individual or enterprise. I live by the principles of effective communication in everything I do, and I want to spend a few blog posts revealing to you some of the most powerful tools I’ve ever learned and used.

Once you understand the laws that govern communications, your whole life will change—I guarantee it. You’ll become so empowered by understanding these laws that you’ll be infused with inspiration, energy, and motivation to “put off procrastination” and get busy starting that business, promoting that blog, writing that book, or taking your creative enterprise to the next level!

I promise.