A few years ago, some­thing hap­pened that pro­vided incon­tro­vert­ible proof of the impor­tance of an infal­li­ble rule in copy­writ­ing. I knew it all along but never saw it proven to me in such a per­sonal and direct way.

What am I talk­ing about?

No, it’s not the head­line. It’s not being emo­tional. It’s not ben­e­fits. And it’s not split-​​testing, either. In fact, my open­ing para­graph gave you a clue.

Sure, the head­line, the ben­e­fits, and all those things are impor­tant. Very impor­tant. But the one ele­ment I’m refer­ring to, the one ele­ment that can trans­form flimsy, “yeah-​​right” copy into a sales-​​inducing pow­er­house, is…

… Proof.

Other than poor tar­get­ing and shoddy copy, the lack of proof in your copy is what prob­a­bly (and most likely) causes it to fail. But when I talk about “proof,” I’m not just talk­ing about one or two types, but seven. Yes, seven dif­fer­ent types of proof!

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I met Jason Fla­dien at a recent seminar.

He sat with Sylvie and me dur­ing lunch one day, where we had a chance to chat. One of the top­ics of con­ver­sa­tion was Sylvie’s breast can­cer. And there’s a rea­son why…

You see, recently Jason lost his brother Ryan to brain can­cer. Now, hav­ing had can­cer at 36, in Sylvie’s case, was atyp­i­cal. It’s rel­a­tively unusual for a woman to be hit with this dis­ease at such a young age.

But Ryan was only 8-​​years old!

It sad­dens me deeply when kids are hit like this.

They cer­tainly don’t deserve it. (No one does.) But while their fam­i­lies must cope with such a tragic loss, Ryan’s fam­ily was struck with another blow…

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As I’m going through some videos to pre­pare for my upcom­ing mul­ti­me­dia copy­writ­ing work­shop in Los Ange­les, I stum­bled upon this amaz­ing video.

If you ever wanted to attend a “lec­ture of a life­time,” this would be it. With only 4–5 months left to live, this uni­ver­sity pro­fes­sor gave his last lec­ture. It’s prob­a­bly the best one I’ve ever seen. Ever.

If you want some impor­tant lessons about reach­ing goals, achiev­ing dreams, the power of enthu­si­asm, and lessons that will lit­er­ally trans­form you, then watch it. Watch it from begin­ning to end… and then try to keep your eyes dry. I dare you.

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Just a quick lit­tle post to let you know what’s going on. First of all, I had a blast this week. Here’s the scoop.

For one, my wife Sylvie has just com­pleted her final of eight chemo ses­sions last Thurs­day. It’s been a really tough five months, but thank­fully, we’re done. There’s a bit of a break before radi­a­tion treat­ments start.

But for now, it’s a huge relief and a much-​​needed break.

The tough­est part of it all is, chemo truly knocks the wind out of Sylvie for a few days after­wards. Aside from the com­mon side-​​effects of nau­sea, exhaus­tion, bone pain and hair­loss, Sylvie also often com­plains of “chemo brain.”

It’s when your mind seems foggy, and you have a hard time con­cen­trat­ing or remem­ber­ing things. But it only lasts for a few days fol­low­ing chemo. (The best part is, we’re finally done.)

How­ever, the chemo ward got a lit­tle surprise…

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Octo­ber is Breast Can­cer Aware­ness Month. As you know, my wife has started a blog about her breast can­cer at Breast​Cancer​Vic​tory​.com. In addi­tion to being some­what ther­a­peu­tic for her, she’s not only enrich­ing people’s lives with her story but also cre­at­ing aware­ness about this silent killer.

Every 1.9 min­utes, a woman is diagnosed.

So any­thing you can do to help is so impor­tant. Even small things. Run in your local “run for the cure.” Talk about it on your blog or in your emails (early detec­tion and pre­ven­tion is the sin­gle great­est “cure”). Donate to it directly. Shop “pink” dur­ing Octo­ber when­ever you can (from retail­ers who donate por­tions of your purchase).

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