Alright, now I know what you’re thinking….
Man, what the hell does he mean!?
Does he really think exactly like Superman now?
Credits to the original owners
So here’s the thing.
If you can ask the same questions as your hero. You can develop their thought process and apply it to your life.
In this post, I am going to show you how I learned to write and think like my heros! And you can do it too!
First things first.
Who do you ideal the most? Or think of it this way, who could you learn the most from?
We have all had coaches and managers who can give us useful information. But understanding the thought process of the highest performers in history? Now that is something you can greatly benefit from.
When I was suffering financially from COVID-19, I decided it was time to follow the career path I ACTUALLY wanted to take.
So I set out to become a freelance copywriter.
What I did was find the legendary copywriters and their best work. I assembled a list of the best copywriters in history like Gary Halbert, Claude Hopkins, and Joe Karbo.
Credits to the original owners
Now that I had their work, I could go ahead and study them to learn all I could. Pretty standard right?
But here is where things took a turn...
I took each advertisement and rewrote every single sentence by hand. Yes, this took HOURS!
Oh but the knowledge I gained! The realizations I had… (more on this later)
How could I have not known these things before?
Once you have found one of your hero’s absolute best pieces of work.
Like one of Warren Buffett’s shareholder letters.
Or Gary Halbert’s Coat of Arms.
Or Joe Karbo's "The Lazy Man's Way to Riches".
Take that piece of writing, and...
Original AD
Hand Written
Original AD
Hand Written
Do this to think like anyone:
Bonus tip: Find an audio recording of them explaining what they are thinking as they write it. This will give away large clues as to why they write as they do.
And if you can write like them, you can think and act like them. And if you can think and act like Warren Buffett or Ray Dalio…
You might just be the next richest person in the world!
So here’s the thing.
After I rewrote Gary Halberts Coat of Arms, I realized that he writes at a 3rd-grade level, every single sentence teases the next sentence, and he LOVES the AIDA formula.
Great! Now it was time to handwrite other legendary advertisements to fully understand how they write.
So I took Joe Karbo’s “Lazy Man’s Way to Riches”, and handwrote that. This time around, I learned that people are captivated by the most interesting and impressive facts first. Also, testimonials are a key factor in persuading someone to take action.
You see, it can take hours to handwrite some of these longer articles. So I had to focus my time to make sure I was doing the most effective things.
What I realized, is that handwriting the absolute best piece of work once is the best usage time. This way you can move on and understand the next great person on your list.
From time to time, I come back to read what I wrote by hand. This helps me remember the main takeaways from their work.
Fun Fact: This is a perfect time to learn how to write with your left hand to become ambidextrous.
After learning MASSIVE amounts about how to write copy, I quickly realized that I could learn tons from high achievers in other areas of life. So I wrote this down:
Great people to learn from:
These people came to my mind:
And set out to find more people to learn all I could from.
It is really up to you to determine who you can benefit the most from.
Studying mentors and filtering advice became a core principle in my life. I explore this idea further in where this principle of filtering advice first took root.
As tedious and ridiculous as this sounds…
I highly recommend you handwrite some people’s work to truly propel you towards greatness!
Who will you study first? Let me know in the comments below!
