The 15 Commandments Of Human Behavior by Bob Bly

I think everyone who wants to be a kind and decent human being should adhere to these "15 commandments of human behavior":

1. Don't brag. It makes those less fortunate than you feel bad about themselves. You feed your ego at their expense.

2. Don't give unsolicited advice. People don't like it and anyway, who asked you?

3. Be generous with others. In social situations, always reach to pick up the check first. In your business dealings, make sure the other person comes out a little bit better than you.

4. Be kind to children and animals.

5. Help those in need.

6. You have two ears but only one mouth, so nature is telling you to listen twice as much as you talk.

7. If it's not too late for you to heed this advice, have kids while you are still in your 20s.

8. Spend a lot of time with your kids while they are young and still want to be with you. Once that time is gone, it's gone forever.

9. Keep your mind and imagination active. If nothing else, read a lot of books.

10. Don't waste time and energy being jealous of the rich, successful, powerful, famous, thin, buff, athletic, talented, and good-looking. As Max Ehrmann said, "There will always be those greater and lesser than you." Almost everyone in my gym is younger and fitter than I am. I don't care.

11. Don't avoid going to the doctor because you are either stoic, macho, or afraid. Delaying going to the doctor when you have symptoms could literally kill you, as it did my grandmother and my father.

12. Exercise at minimum 3 hours a week. Three out of ten Americans do not exercise at all. I had a period of a few years when I did not. Terrible.

13. Don't waste too much time with social media. Real life is better.

14. Be humble, not arrogant. Humble people are forgiven if they stumble; arrogant people are not.

15. Be a nice and kind person. Treat others with good manners and respect.

Bob Bly is the author of "World's Best Copywriting Secrets" and has written copy for more than 100 companies including IBM, Boardroom, Medical Economics and AT&T. He is the author of more than 75 books and a columnist for Target Marketing, Early To Rise and The Writer. McGraw-Hill calls him "America's top copywriter".

When It Comes To Setting Goals, Get Real by Bob Bly

Napoleon Hill famously wrote: "Whatever your mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve."

Earl Nightingale similarly said, "We become what we think about."

This is the biggest load of horse hooey since the Law of Attraction.

Just because you want something doesn't mean you can have or do it.

For instance, today I will start conceiving and believing that I will replace Jeter as the next Yankees captain.

I'll let you know how that goes.

I think NYU professor Tamsin Shaw sees things much more clearly than Hill or Nightingale.

In the New York Review of Books (10/9/14, p. 4), she writes that what we do and become is largely guided by "our internal dispositions and talents, our inborn nature."

In other words, we achieve in areas we are good at, like, and have a natural aptitude and talent for.

The people I know who are successful all pursued activities that they were naturally inclined to do and enjoyed.

Instead of just wishing, believing, and conceiving, ask yourself: what do you like? What are you good at? What do other people say you do well?

And most important of all, what do you absolutely love to do more than anything else?

Next to my family, the greatest plus in my life is that I have a job—writing—that I absolutely love.

I am not the best writer in the world. Far from it. But every day, I work to be the best writer I can be. And it pleases enough people that I make a very handsome living from my writing.

My poor dad lived in the purgatory of having a job he hated. I designed my life so I would not have to do that, though I admired the sacrifice he made to provide for his family.

Fortunately, dad got pleasure not from work but elsewhere: his family, friends, and many hobbies, including bowling, poker, tennis, fishing, and collecting coins and stamps.

Loving work as I do, I do put my family first, but friends are peripheral (my most active friendships are with peers in my profession; personal friends I rarely see) and I never developed any hobbies, because I agree with Noel Coward who said: "Work is more fun than fun."


Bob Bly is the author of "World's Best Copywriting Secrets" and has written copy for more than 100 companies including IBM, Boardroom, Medical Economics and AT&T. He is the author of more than 75 books and a columnist for Target Marketing, Early To Rise and The Writer. McGraw-Hill calls him "America's top copywriter".

What Spiderman Can Teach You About Luck And Success by Bob Bly

In the movie Spiderman III, Flint Marko a.k.a. the Sandman tells his estranged wife, "I am not a bad person; I've just had bad luck."

Some people may think saying such a thing amounts to little more than making excuses.

But Marko did indeed have bad fortune: his young daughter was seriously ill.

Conversely some motivational speakers and self-help writers say that luck should not be a factor in your life or success, and that you are solely responsible for your life as it is.

And years ago, a high-powered executive in a TV commercial said with disdain when an employee wished him luck in an important meeting: "Luck is for rabbits."

To which I say: horse hooey.

Example: At a National Speakers Association meeting where I was also a speaker, I listened to a motivational speaker who said in his talk, "It's not the road; it's the runner."

The audience clapped in appreciation...except me. I sat stone-faced and offended.

I wanted to tell him, but didn't, that what he said was not true.

The more accurate statement would be: "It IS the road AND the runner."

Despite what positive thinkers tell you, luck is a huge factor determining the quality of your life, though certainly not the sole factor.

And luck, by definition, is beyond your control, which means much of the quality of your life (but not all) is beyond your control.

Sorry, but that's just the way it is.

The remedy is to exert control over those things you can in fact control, one of which is your reaction to your luck, bad or good.

W. Mitchell, Epictetus, and others have said words to the effect that "it's not what happens to you; it's how you handle it."

I disagree. I believe it IS what happens to you AND how you handle it.

If you have bad luck and are not handling it well, the quality of your life will suffer even more.

And maybe you want to seek some help, be it a psychotherapist, anti-depressants, a support group, a coach, or whatever.

But do not blame yourself or punish yourself because you feel you are not coping well.

You are doing the best you can at this time under the circumstances.

I urge you to seek the help I just mentioned so you can gradually do and feel better and better.

By the way, you should ruthlessly prune from your life anyone who criticizes the way you are coping and says they could do better if they were in your shoes.

You know and I know they most likely could not.

Remember, it's easy to criticize. But no one knows what you are facing or how difficult it is to handle unless they have been through the exact same thing. And 99.99% of people have not.

I close by quoting Stephen King from his new novel Mr. Mercedes: "Life is a crap carnival with shit prizes."

Bob Bly is the author of "World's Best Copywriting Secrets" and has written copy for more than 100 companies including IBM, Boardroom, Medical Economics and AT&T. He is the author of more than 75 books and a columnist for Target Marketing, Early To Rise and The Writer. McGraw-Hill calls him "America's top copywriter".

School Is Never Out For The Pro by Bob Bly

Some time ago, I casually mentioned in my e-newsletter that I was taking a writing course.

One of my readers, JN, was absolutely shocked.

"YOU are taking a WRITING course?" she asked incredulously.

The implication was given that I have been a writer for over 3 decades, my taking a writing course is either frivolous or silly—a waste of time and money.

JN could not be more wrong.

"School is never out for the professional," I answered concisely.

It's my observation that folks who are really at the top of their field are constantly reading, studying, learning, and attending lectures in their specialty.

Why? To raise their mastery and skill to an even higher level.

On the other hand, those who are at the bottom seem to feel they learned everything they need to know at college, trade school, or on the job.

And they exhibit little or no desire to spend more time learning it better.

To me, this attitude seems lazy and counter-productive at best and dangerous at worst.

Can you imagine going to a doctor who didn't keep up with the latest medical research?

Of course not.

So why is the idea of a writer taking a writing class so surprising?

JN's reaction reminds me of an American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA) weekend writing conference I attended many years ago.

The person sitting next to me and I were both studying the curriculum in our conference brochures.

"This looks good," I said, pointing to a page, "a session on how to write book proposals."

She sniffed haughtily.

"I wouldn't need to go to THAT," she said in a snobby, superior tone. "I am ALREADY an author and I have written a published book."

At the time, I had written 30 published books. But I didn't tell her that.

Instead, I just went to the session. And I learned a lot—enough to sell 50 more books since then (and counting).

Maybe JN thought that, seeing as I presumably know how to write, I would be better off taking a course in flower arranging or bookkeeping or PowerPoint.

But as busy adults, you and I have extremely limited time. We can take only so many courses.

And you will get a far better return on your investment in education by taking courses in things you are already good at—your strengths—rather than areas in which you are weak.

Why?

Your strengths are what make you successful.

The other stuff doesn't much matter.

In his book "Strength Finders" (Gallup Press), Tim Rath writes: "People have several times more potential for growth when they invest energy in developing their strengths instead of correcting their deficiencies."

Yet, notes Rath, 77% of parents think that a student's lowest grades deserve more time and attention than the subjects the student is best at.

Think about it this way; in a horse race, the winning horse can earn tens of thousands of dollars more than the horse that "places" or "shows" (comes in #2 or #3).

Yet often, especially in major races, the first-place horse beats the second-place horse by only a fraction of a second.

Therefore, if the horse and jockey make a massive effort to improve in speed, and beat their previous time by only a second or two, they can win instead of place or show—and make the owner and jockey a lot richer.

On the other hand, a racing horse is a lot less powerful, and can pull a lot less weight, than a Clydesdale—those humongous horses that pull the Budweiser beerwagon.

If you strength-trained the racehorse for years, it could probably get stronger.

But it would never get even close to the Clydesdale in strength...and it wouldn't earn a dime more on the track.

Many things about success are counter-intuitive, and the notion of training is one of the most counter-intuitive of all.

Most people, when they see classes being offered, gravitate toward classes on subjects they are weak in, hoping to improve their skill level from minimal to acceptable, or learning something new.

For instance, I am not an expert in search engine marketing, which is a hot topic in Internet marketing.

So to correct the defect, I signed up for the Direct Marketing Association's Certificate Program in Search Engine Marketing (SEM).

I took the class and learned a lot about search engine marketing—useful for me as a copywriter.

But I have also learned something else...

Namely, that no matter how much I study search engine marketing, I will never know more than a small fraction of what the top gurus—like the ones who wrote the DMA program—know about search engines.
So does that mean I gave up learning SEM...and did not optimize my website?

No. I am still learning SEM. And my website was optimized. But not by me.

Instead, I did something a lot smarter than trying to do it myself.

I went out and found a top SEO consultant, who (with my assistant's help) optimized the site for me (although I DID write the copy).

As you can tell, I am a big believer in specialization and the hiring of specialists.

There is so much to know, no one can know it all. And trying to do so is futile.

As Thomas Edison once said, we don't know one-millionth of 1% about anything.

Given the overwhelming amount of information in the world today, and our increasingly limited time to master it, I am convinced that we get the best ROI on learning and training by focusing on our strengths and learning to do what we do well even better.

I have found that, with rare exception, most people are only really good at one thing.

In particular, I am wary of professionals with hyphenated expertise (e.g., writer-designer, illustrator-photographer); I find that these folks are usually good at only one of the two designations—and usually mediocre at the other.

I also agree with the late direct mail consultant Dick Benson, who said: "Do what you do best in-house; buy everything else outside."

Bob Bly is the author of "World's Best Copywriting Secrets" and has written copy for more than 100 companies including IBM, Boardroom, Medical Economics and AT&T. He is the author of more than 75 books and a columnist for Target Marketing, Early To Rise and The Writer. McGraw-Hill calls him "America's top copywriter".

The One Thing You Need To Be Good At by Bob Bly

The other day, my oldest son expressed to me his concern that he would not be successful as an adult.

Why not? Because (in his mind) there are quite a number of things he isn't good at (math is at the top of the list).

I shared with him an encouraging success secret that I now pass on to you.

Namely, that to be extremely successful—in business, career, and wealth building—you don't have to be good at a lot of things.

In fact, you can attain an extremely high level of success even if you are really good at only one thing.

Warren Buffett made this point some years ago in a college lecture he gave with Bill Gates.

He said, in essence, that he (Buffett) is not very strong, not very fast, not very physical, not very athletic.

"If I was dropped in the middle of Africa, I'd be eaten by a lion within 2 minutes," he told the audience.

However, because he is good at only one thing—investing in the stock market—Buffett is an extremely wealthy man.

In my neighborhood, parents worry incessantly about whether their kids will be successful.

They fret over the kids' grades...piano lessons...sports...extra-curricular activities...even how many friends the kids have...summer camp...you name it.

My kids have it easy, because I don't worry about any of these things.

As long as they do their best, I don't obsess over their grades or what extra-curricular activities they should be doing but are not.

I tell them what I just told you...

Find the one thing in life that you love—that turns you on, that you are passionate about—and keep doing it.

The more you do it, the better you get at it.

With an early start and years of practice, your kids will get good at the one thing they love, become extremely competent, and therefore never have to worry about supporting themselves or being out of a job.

Of course, to ensure financial success, this "one thing"—the singular passion—must be something others will pay money for.

To paraphrase Aristotle, "Where your passions intersect with the needs of the public, therein lies your vocation."

Like Warren Buffett, I have very few talents and am not good at most things.

The list of what I am mediocre or bad at is very long indeed.

I'm incompetent at fixing things around the house, for example.

And I have a depth-perception problem that makes me lousy at tennis, baseball, or any sport where you have to hit a ball with a stick.

But I was always a voracious reader. I love books, reading, and writing. I began to write early—amateur comic books in elementary school, short stories in junior high school, articles for the papers in high school and college.

I spent so much time in college writing for our paper—it was a daily, and I became the features editor—that my writing began to improve significantly.

I realized writing was the one thing I love to do, have an aptitude for, and am good at.

And in copywriting, I found an area of writing where I could be paid handsomely for my efforts.

A mistake many people make is to continually work to improve themselves in areas where they are weak.

What you should do instead is to improve yourself in the one area where you are strongest.

Why?

Today we are a society of specialists.

When I was a kid, and the tiles in our bathroom began to crumble, my dad strapped on a tool belt and fixed them.

Today when my bathroom has a cracked tile, I call the tile guy—and pay him to fix it.

Success does not come from being a jack of all trades, and a master of none.

It comes from mastery of a skill or body of knowledge that others—an employer or customer—will pay you to share.

If I were to take a course in tiling, I would learn a little...but my abilities would be nothing compared to my tile guy, who has been doing this for 40 years.

I spend my time increasing my knowledge of marketing, which helps me make more money in my freelance copywriting and Internet marketing business.

Society admires the Renaissance man, the well-rounded individual.

But more often than not, it's the singularly focused individual—Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Tiger Woods—the person who is exceedingly good at just one thing—who reaps the greatest rewards.

 

Bob Bly is the author of "World's Best Copywriting Secrets" and has written copy for more than 100 companies including IBM, Boardroom, Medical Economics and AT&T. He is the author of more than 75 books and a columnist for Target Marketing, Early To Rise and The Writer. McGraw-Hill calls him "America's top copywriter".

The 25-50-25 Rule For Success by Bob Bly

"I was quite eager to learn about marketing and began reading everything associated with it," one of my subscribers, KM, told me in a recent e-mail.

"However, with all that's published on marketing online today, I find myself reading more than applying.

"How do I separate the worthy reading, that which would benefit my business, from the interesting but time-consuming reading that is of little practical value?

"Sometimes I force myself to read almost everything, fearful I may overlook some exceptional information or nugget. Help! Where do I stop?"

I hear this story all the time...

You are interested in something—whether it is copywriting, Internet marketing, whatever.

But you are overwhelmed by all the information being offered on the subject (after all, we live in the Information Age).

So you go "information crazy"...buying every course, attending every conference, reading every e-book, listening to every audio CD, and dialing into every webinar you can find.

Before you know it, a month...6 months...or a year has gone by—and you are no closer to your business or career goal.

That's because you've spent all your time reading, studying, and learning the thing you are interested in—rather than actually DOING it.

Sadly, you are suffering from a syndrome I call "analysis paralysis".

All the information you are taking in has overloaded your circuits.

You can't process it all, sort through it, and figure out what to do first.

So instead, you do nothing. You take no action—other than to order yet another course or report to read.

You have become a marketing information junkie—avoiding the harsh realities of the business world by retreating to your favorite comfy chair with yet another neat marketing book.

You spend all your time READING about starting a business. So there is no time left to actually start or run a business.

You are an "armchair entrepreneur"—more enamored with the idea of entrepreneurship than the actuality.

Fortunately there is an easy solution: the 25-50-25 rule. It provides a simple guideline to help you get unstuck.

It says there are only three ways to learn a process (e.g. starting an Internet business) or a skill (e.g., copywriting): studying, observing, and doing.

Are you spending too much time studying and reading about Internet marketing or freelancing—and not enough time actually doing it and getting your business off the ground? Then apply the 25-50-25 rule.

The 25-50-25 rule says that to master a skill or process, and put what you learn into practical action, you must divide your time as follows:

>> No more than 25% of your time is spent studying i.e. reading books, going to boot camps, attending workshops, listening to CDs in your car.

>> No more than 25% of your time is spent observing—watching what successful people in your field are already doing; e.g., if you want to become a direct mail copywriter, this means reading and analyzing the direct mail you get in your mail box each day.

>> At least 50% of your time is spent actually DOING the thing you are studying and observing e.g. if you want to sell information products on the Internet, you are creating your first product...designing your website...or building your list.

The idea is similar to Michael Masterson's notion of "ready, fire, aim". He says that you should take action right away, and then learn as you go.

Acquiring business knowledge is a worthwhile activity. But without action, that knowledge is worthless to you.

KM's worry that, by not reading everything, he may miss a 'nugget' of information is accurate: you will never know everything there is to know in your field, or even most of what there is to know in your field.

But so what?

You don't have to know everything—or even most of what there is to know—to succeed in most endeavors.

For example, there are hundreds of strategies for making money on the Internet.

But you can make a six-figure annual income online using only a handful of them, even if you never bother to learn the others.

In freelance copywriting, there are many top writers who only write one type of promotion. Or work in one narrow niche. And they make a fortune doing so.

When we were kids, our parents and teachers told us to study, study, study.

But I see many people today much more enamored with studying marketing and reading about business, marketing, writing, and entrepreneurship than actually doing.

Well, I understand that. Reading about marketing is fascinating and fun.

But the money is in the doing, not the reading.

Follow the 25-50-25 rule, and you'll be doing—and making money—at least half the time.

The More You Learn, The More You Earn by Bob Bly

Years ago, a famous rock star—I recall it being either Madonna or Cyndi Lauper—returned to her high school to speak at an assembly.

Although she had not graduated, she told the kids: Stay in school.

"The more you learn, the more you earn," she said.

Nowhere is this truer than in the business world.

Your success is likely to be directly proportional to the amount of knowledge you possess.

Knowledge about your products, technology, market and your profession, i.e. copywriting, website design, engineering.

Yet, even though we live in a knowledge-based economy, most of us graduate school knowing relatively little of what there is to know of the world—or even about our college major.

And with the dizzying pace at which new knowledge is created, the gap between what we know and what there is to know seems to grow exponentially with each passing day.

As Thomas Edison observed, "We don't know one millionth of one percent about anything."

Professor Richard Dawkins said in an interview with Scientific American magazine (7/07, p. 89): "All of us are ignorant of most of what there is to know."

So, with all of us knowing next to nothing, what can we do to learn—and thereby earn—more?

First, find a niche—an area of specialization—and concentrate your efforts within that niche.

The narrower the area of your specialization, the better your chances of at least keeping reasonably up to date in the field.

Second, become an "information junkie".

Read constantly.

I recommend every person seeking success in some area of business read:

1) The leading trade magazines in their industry.
2) A daily newspaper.
3) A weekly news magazine such as Newsweek, Time, or U.S. News & World Report.
4) One or two of the top e-newsletters or blogs covering your area of interest.

Third, read widely.

Even though you are a specialist, you need to acquire a solid base of knowledge outside your field.

Of course, your time is limited, so even here, you must choose your course of study carefully.

So what should you read and why?

MU, a Ph.D. candidate and consultant in the science of innovation, says that to be more innovative and creative you must read in "adjacent areas".

An adjacent area is something different from but at least peripherally related to your major field.

Example: a systems analyst might read in architecture, because both deal with designing systems (the former a computer application, the latter a building).

Why do you need to read in adjacent areas?

Research shows that the ability to be innovative is dependent on possessing a wide storehouse of knowledge from which ideas can be generated.

People who are not well read have a limited store of knowledge, and therefore are hampered in their ability to come up with new solutions.

Of course, reading is not the only way to learn. Doing things is equally or in some cases even more valuable as a learning tool.

According to an article in Prevention magazine (10/07, p. 175), new experiences—doing new things—stimulates production of dopamine, a chemical involved in learning and memory.

In addition, new experiences build brain mass and increase mental agility, while the absence of novelty causes the brain to shrink.

Solution: take up a new language, hobby, sport, musical instrument, or any other activity that offers continual fresh challenges.

When does all this learning stop?

Never.

"School is never out for the pro" is old advice and still true today.

You might protest: "But I am too busy putting out fires at work for all this study and learning!"

Then do it after hours.

In his book "212: The Extra Degree", S.L. Parker advises: "Add a few hours each month to your professional development outside of the work day."

By doing so, you can add the equivalent of a full week of work on your most valuable asset: you.


Bob Bly is the author of "World's Best Copywriting Secrets" and has written copy for more than 100 companies including IBM, Boardroom, Medical Economics and AT&T. He is the author of more than 75 books and a columnist for Target Marketing, Early To Rise and The Writer. McGraw-Hill calls him "America's top copywriter".

10 Ways To Attract Prospects Like A Magnet by Bob Bly

I recently re-listened to an absolutely great audio cassette program, "The 28 Principles of Attraction" written by the late Thomas Leonard and published by Nightingale-Conant.

The program presents success principles which, if applied diligently, will cause opportunities, success, and wealth to come to you, rather than you having to go out and look for it, says the author. Here are my top 10:

1. Recognize and tell the truth.
2. Market your talents shamelessly.
3. Develop more character than you need.
4. Unhook yourself from the future.
5. Add value just for the joy of it.
6. Thrive on the details.
7. Deliver twice what you promise.
8. Affect others profoundly.
9. Become unconditionally constructive.
10. Master your craft.

Source: Thomas Leonard, "The 28 Principles of Attraction", Nightingale-Conant.

Bob Bly is the author of "World's Best Copywriting Secrets" and has written copy for more than 100 companies including IBM, Boardroom, Medical Economics and AT&T. He is the author of more than 75 books and a columnist for Target Marketing, Early To Rise and The Writer. McGraw-Hill calls him "America's top copywriter".