September 3rd, 2013 | Bret Thomson

A Desperate Mental Trick To Play On Yourself For Almost Guaranteed Instant Success

A somewhat scary and gruesome mind-game eliminates time wasting and immediately puts you into laser-focus for your best-ever results

I copped a meaty, slap-in-the-face reminder from Sir Gary Halbert this morn’n.

Reading one of his newsletters, he told the story of his earlier days of direct marketing.

The days when he went from failure to failure – struggling to even keep the electricity and water running…

And then something changed.

A mental ‘click’ that snapped him into a new state.

Desperation? Possibly. Whatever the case, this newfound philosophy (that I’ll share with you shortly) led to Gary writing one of the most successful direct-response letters of all time.

A 361-word letter that generated over 7,300,000 cash-paying customers (count the digits, that’s over 7 million customers)…

… Launching a mail order company that eventually employed 700+ people.

(Often banking over 20,000 bank checks per day!)

So what led to this phenomenal success?

It wasn’t a sneaky headline trick.

It wasn’t a new medium of marketing.

It wasn’t a brand new idea.

And it wasn’t some long-lost copywriting secret of the ages either.

Well, to be fair, Gary possessed a unique brilliance that stands unmatched, but all the magic sprung from a mindset shift.

Here’s what he told himself…

“Gary, what if you could only mail one letter, and if it didn’t get a response, you would, quite literally, be beheaded?

A bit graphic for you? Look deeper at the lesson here.

Gary put this life-or-death urgency on his letter and tackled it completely differently than ever before.

Put yourself in this position – When your life is on the line, here’s what you WOULD NOT do.

You wouldn’t take short cuts
You wouldn’t get lazy
You wouldn’t get distracted
You wouldn’t take unnecessary risks
You wouldn’t settle for average

If you knew your life was in jeopardy if your next promotion didn’t succeed, then here’s what you would do…

You’d make sure you’ve researched what your market WANTS (not what you think they need)
You’d make sure your message would reach your hungry targeted-audience in the most effective way so it would get noticed and not lost in the clutter
You’d make sure your message was crystal clear with zero room for confusion
You’d make sure you had every single objection covered and every desire nailed
You’d make sure your message was irresistibly compelling, exciting and above all… believable
You’d contact big JV partners who you’d usually cower away from
You’d rally up some free publicity and all those other tactics you know you “should” do but never get around to doing
And you’d make sure every second was laser focused on your purpose and not wasted on trivial, time-wasting, menial tasks that don’t get results

Well think about it…

Your head would roll if it didn’t perform, right?

So my question to you is:

How serious are you taking your marketing and business?

What level of commitment are you putting towards your next promotion?

Copywriting genius, John Carlton, uses the analogy of “Putting a loaded gun to your head” to demand that level of perfection in his promotions.

No wonder he’s one of the greatest of our time.

Intense, yes, but it eliminates sloppy and lazy work.

Remember this – “The enemy of success is to be comfortable”.

The way I see it… too many people are stuck being comfortable.

There’s no urgency, desperation and adrenaline when you’re comfortable.

I’d recommend you play whatever mental tricks you need – on yourself – in order to get this life-or-death intensity in your marketing and business.