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Are you plagued by “writer’s block”?

(I prefer to call it “blank page paralysis” because that terminology at least provides some clue as to how to overcome it.)

As I began writing today I felt a bit of this “paralysis” creeping into my psyche.

That’s when I was reminded of perhaps the world’s most effective 3-word success mantra.

Sorry Nike, it’s NOT “Just Do It”.

That sentiment is correct. But the directions are still just a little too unclear.

No, the three words I’m alluding to come from the “Prince of Print” himself, legendary copywriter Gary Halbert.

If you’re familiar with Halbert – as I’m sure most of my readers are – you know that he had more than a few tricks up his copywriting sleeve.

“Operation Money Suck” is one you’ll hear about.

That’s where you focus on the activities that “bring in the money” to the exclusion of literally everything else.

A powerful concept in business – something we should all be thinking about regularly.

But “Operation Money Suck” is NOT the 3-word phrase I’m referring to.

No, it’s even simpler than that.

And I find it provides almost instant clarity when I am stuck on what to do.

The phrase I’m referring to is this:

“Movement over meditation.”

Getting into motion is the KEY factor to making things happen.

You can’t go anywhere unless you first START moving.

This advice is so utterly simple – and yet for that same reason, I think we often take for granted its true power.

Nothing gets accomplished without action.

It’s perfectly fine to think. 

There’s nothing wrong with thinking whatsoever (in fact, it’s a rare skill these days).

But to remain “in thought” for too long without taking action is the death of your entrepreneurial success, your sales ability, your content creation capacity, whatever it is you are trying to accomplish – it is ALL stifled by inaction.

Get out of “meditation” mode.

When you fool yourself into believing that you are getting work done by analyzing things in your mind, by ruminating and mulling things over, by “thinking things through” for another day or two. Realize this:

There is a time and a place for critical thought – and it’s ALWAYS! 

But it can’t get in the way of your getting things in motion, getting things in action, getting things done and out the door.

Get into “movement” mode. 

Make your default position to be that of taking action – no matter how minuscule. 

Every action builds upon the previous one. 

No mountains get climbed by pure thought alone.

Every mountain is conquered by the smallest of steps, repeated.

It requires the will to put your feet down one after another, again and again, until the job is done.

Yes, sometimes this process is agonizing and laborious.

No, it is not always a “walk in the park”.

It can be grueling.

But given the option of getting things done or not, the answer – if you want to make more money and create a better life for yourself, over the long term, at least – should be as obvious as a hot apple strudel being stuffed down your gym shorts.

How did Halbert overcome “blank page paralysis”?

Here’s where the utter simplicity of Halbert’s genius is exposed. 

When plagued by “writer’s block” Halbert’s recommendation was to literally begin writing the words “blah, blah, blah, blah, blah” until you thought of something else to say.

Now, the fact is that most copywriters (or writers in general) likely won’t follow this advice…

Because it’s “too simple” for them.

But here’s where the psychology (or function) of the human brain takes over.

When we find ourselves in movement, with some momentum, AND when we are engaged in a task that we are both challenged by but also enjoy, then we enter a state often referred to as “flow”.

In a flow state, the passage of time seems to disappear from our awareness, and we are engrossed in our activity – the laboriousness of the task is superseded by our fascination and enjoyment of the sheer activity of doing.

That is a semi-meditative state in itself.

And THAT is the hack in the “movement over meditation” philosophy.

When properly executed, movement can BE meditation – while being immensely productive at the same time.

Let this idea rub its fingers on the walls of your grey matter for a while, and start testing out the theory.

It begins, of course, with movement.

Go get ‘em, tiger.

Paul

P.S. I’m writing a short book on how writers (and “wannabe” writers) can develop skills that get them past this “blank page paralysis” quickly and also help them develop into faster, more consistent content creators.

If you’d like to be notified when this book is completed sign up below. 

I don’t know how much I’ll be selling it for when it gets released, but I do know that those who sign up now will get the best deal when it’s ready.

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Today is day 2 of a 10-day challenge I am participating in. 

The challenge is simple enough: focus on ONE thing (something that will be a major mover in my business or life) for 10 days straight.

My focus is on creating content for my website. Specifically, a new post every day, and a promotional email of some kind to my list.

I am aiming to accomplish my tasks for these next 10 days in the most efficient way possible. Which means…

I intend to be entirely lazy about it.

Most people do not have the same opinion about laziness as I do.

When it comes to efficiency, laziness might be more valuable than hard–workingness.

Laziness is the impulse to do in one step which most people believe requires many steps.

Laziness is the voice that says “Is there a way I could do this in 5 minutes instead of an hour?”

Laziness is true mind over matter – when done correctly.

You see, laziness is seen outwardly as sloth, lounging around, lack of activity. But I argue that there are plenty of truly productive lazy people who are probably lounging around their houses right now. 

Wait, ‘productive lazy’ people? Isn’t that an oxymoron?

At first glance, it seems that way. 

But there’s one thing people aren’t seeing about the productive lazy person:

Their thoughts.

The thoughts of a lazy person might blow the average ‘hard worker’ away. 

While hard workers are busy working hard — under the impression that hard work is the cure-all fix for every scenario in life — they have a tendency to overlook the simple improvements they could be making.

I’m not against hard work. In fact, it is essential. 

But it’s also essential to consistently (and drastically) improve your abilities. And ironically that impulse – for me, at least – is driven by utter laziness. 

So what is the ‘good’ kind of laziness?

Think about the 80/20 principle for a moment. 

This principle states that 80 percent of our success actually comes from just 20 percent of our activity. 

This is true almost across the board with everything.

20% of your business activities will produce 80% of your income.

20% of your eating habits will be responsible for 80% of your health and weight outcomes.

This means that, in theory, there are a plethora of activities (up to 80%) you are doing every day that could either be drastically improved upon without much extra effort (or maybe even with less effort) — and in fact, there are likely activities that you could even stop doing entirely without much negative consequence whatsoever (possibly even a positive outcome).

This is the type of laziness that we could all benefit from.

It is NOT mental laziness. 

Quite the opposite.

It is merely physical laziness.

It takes considerable thought and mental effort to take account of what activities you’re engaging in every day that could be actually holding you back from accomplishing everything you hope to.

It not only requires thought, but something that seems to be in even lower supply than usual nowadays: awareness.

Improving your situation begins with awareness — being conscious about your activities.

Very active people often have to hit a wall before they come to this awareness. 

It is a mental wall they finally become exhausted from running up against over and over.

That mental wall is the unwillingness to embrace ‘laziness’.

So many of us are indoctrinated into thinking that laziness is bad or wrong, and definitely not to be encouraged. But this opinion about ‘laziness’ is a bit of a red herring that causes much more damage than it fixes.

Yes, outright laziness is not to be praised. 

But the idea that things could always be improved, made more effective and efficient, and with less effort, is the general theme of all technological progress and breakthroughs in human history.

To achieve more than you can now, you will either have to make more efficient systems or input much more energy. 

Because we all have finite amounts of physical energy allotted to us, we would do ourselves a favor to focus on improving the efficiency and effectiveness of our activities, before committing to doubling or tripling our efforts.

The truth is… you have to work really hard at being lazy!

It’s not something most people are used to doing. But it is entirely worth your while.

By getting the hang of being lazy, you might just be able to multiply the effects of your efforts (ie. your successes) by orders of magnitude.

Unfortunately, there is no “one quick and easy magic pill” solution for this. 

But what I’ve found DOES help is learning (and re-learning) the basic fundamentals of your craft.

It’s in the fundamentals where the biggest levers for improvement are found. (Where the biggest sources of laziness are waiting to be discovered.)

There’s almost no waste when it comes to studying the fundamentals.

Claude Hopkins, in My Life In Advertising, states that (paraphrasing) a man cannot be expected to master much more than the basics of any craft in one lifetime, thus he is always served by diving ever deeper into the fundamentals.

Speaking of Claude Hopkins…

His work contains some of the most fundamental information regarding salesmanship and direct-response advertising there is, and to this day he is still regarded as the hallowed father of modern advertising.

Over the coming days (or weeks – we’ll see) I’ll be putting out a concise breakdown of some of Hopkins’ most important lessons and influential advertising ideas.

This is the type of basic information that beginners need to know – and that experts never tire of reviewing. 

It is the fundamental fodder of all great advertising achievements in the last 100 years.

To be one of the first to know when this Claude Hopkins deep-dive is ready – and to be sure you get the best possible price for this training – sign up below right now.

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Harken copywriters and marketers, and heed these words of paradoxical selling psychology.

You may be familiar with the AIDA formula for selling:

Attention → Interest → Desire → Action (→ Sales)

Or the more pared-down PAS approach:

Problem → Agitate → Solution (→ Sales)

Well, what if I told you there was an even simpler sales formula?

It goes like this: Sleep → Sales

That’s right. 

Sleep. 

(But not like you’d normally think of it.)

Let me explain by quickly discussing… 

The Only Two Ways To Make A Sale

Ok, there may be more than two ways to make a sale, if you want to split hairs. This particular distinction comes from a book written by someone whose name is quite well-known in the direct response sales world. (More on that below.) 

Anyway, here’s the skinny of the situation as far as I see it:

One way to make a sale is by logically laying out the pros and cons of your offer. 

This is a good first step, but not entirely sufficient to deal with the slippery psychology of someone who isn’t in a terrible hurry to part with their money.

The other way to make a sale is through simple suggestion. 

At this point, I usually hear the taunts and jeers of the non-believers: 

“Suggestion?! Isn’t that just about the most feeble way to try to sell anything?” *Hissss hisss hisss*

Well, yes and no. (And stop hissing at me!)

Of course, a simple logical suggestion would be a rather feeble attempt at selling indeed, and would likely only work on a prospect who was already 80-90% sold on your product or service. 

For example: Selling cold lemonade to someone who is hot, sweaty, and parched from being out in the summer heat all day would be no more difficult than saying to them: “Lemonade?” They’re already 80-90% sold. But that same prospect wouldn’t be so easily swayed in that exact moment by the offer of “Best rates on life insurance in town” or “Free tax consult” now would they?

No, we need something more than an ordinary, logical suggestion to have any persuasive effect – especially on prospects whose attention might be focused on anything but our particular product or service.

What’s required is a ‘hypnotic’ suggestion.

You see, the true power of suggestion relies on people first being put into a semi-hypnotic ‘sleep’ state, where they are open and susceptible to the ideas being suggested to them. (Remember our equation: Sleep → Sales)

This ‘susceptibility’ is entirely dependent on being able to bypass your prospect’s conscious brain and speak directly to their subconscious.

The reason this is so crucial is that once a suggestion is accepted at the emotional subconscious level, the brain then comes up with a way to justify it at the logical conscious level – and not the other way around.

Yes, we are terribly emotional creatures.

It’s been verified by neuroscientific research.

And for those who have a hard time with this idea and insist that you really do make your decisions based on logic and reason rather than emotion – I hate to break it to you… but the decision to use logic and reason is in itself an emotional decision. (Shout out to the late negotiations expert Jim Camp for this simple but significant insight.)

To recap: Rather than relying on logic to foment sales, use the power of suggestion instead. For a suggestion to work, it can not be made to the conscious brain (ie. the part of the brain that would logically consider the pros and cons of a scenario before taking action), it must be made directly to the subconscious brain. 

And this is achieved by putting your prospects to ‘sleep’.

Something to mull over in the old noggin.

The exact steps for ‘putting your prospects to sleep’ and having them ‘wake up’ with a lot less money in their bank account (…but in an ethical way) are among the topics I discuss in my regular email newsletter.

And if you want to know the name of the well-known figure from the direct response world that came up with the distinction that there are two ways to make a sale – logically, or through suggestion – sign up now and I’ll reply with the exact quote from his book. 

I can guarantee not 1 in 50 copywriters or marketers has read it. (I’m fairly confident in my wager because I myself have not read the entire thing yet.)

And, now for some shut-eye.

Paul

Enter your name and email address in the form below to find out who the well-known marketer I alluded to in this post is, and to stay up to date with my full series on ‘hypnotic’ sales psychology plus many other topics in the gamut of persuasion – from copywriting & propaganda, to mind control & beyond.

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