From Corporate Conformity to Creative Freedom: Chris Mason's Revolution in Breakthrough Advertising

You know, mass desire is the force that already exists in the world that we don't create it, it's there already. And essentially what we do is we take it and we channel it towards the product or service that we're selling.

Hey, I'm Joe Fear and welcome to the Hustle and Flowchart podcast. This is where we talk all about building businesses so they give you the freedom and fuel for your life. I'm not here to help you build a billion dollar business, but I am here to help you create a business with systems that work for you so you can make more money than you need just by working. You know, I was a chronic hustle mode kind of guy, and I want to share my experiences and mentors I've met along the way to help you reframe things to be the most effective as an entrepreneur. I wish I had this guidance and insight when I was younger. So that's what I'm doing here for you. Please share and enjoy.

Hello. Hello, we are back and my name is Joe Fear. This is the Hustle and Flowchart podcast, of course, and today I have a very special guest, new friend, Chris Mason. Guest he actually is business partners with another favorite podcast guest I've had on it two times before, Brian Kurtz of Titan Marketing and also Breakthrough Advertising. He has the rights. That's of course, Eugene Schwartz's book from the 60s. Well, Chris Mason here, he's on the podcast and he has been working with Brian to make Breakthrough Advertising, the iconic book about copywriting, persuasion and understanding customers and where they're at and desires and how to mold writing and persuasion. These pieces that get someone to take an action based on their needs wherever they're at. I know that's kind of a mouthful there, but Chris has made that super actionable and knows this content inside and out. So we're going to talk about breakthrough advertising and the takeaways, some big concepts of how you can reframe how copywriting and marketing works and applies to your business. And also we're gonna talk about Chris's journey from being a musician and actually selling to music labels and figuring out how to songwrite. And he took that into the corporate world, learned some different things. He actually packaged up both those things and now works for himself with Brian and doing some other things. But he talks about the journey and the stressors and the fear of the golden handcuffs of being in the corporate ladder forever and being st doing something that just might be sucking his soul. But he found a way out and he breaks down exactly how he did that, his strategies and the guardrails that he lives by now that he owns his own business and does his own thing, making sure that he's not going to burn out or go down that corporate mindset. And basically he's running his life now. And it's. It's a great episode. It was a fun conversation with Chris. I think you're going to be excited and you're gonna learn a lot about his journey and also some great takeaways when it comes to improving your marketing and copywriting. And definitely check out breakthrough advertising.com and Chris's website, chrismason.net to get more. So let's dive right in. All right, Chris, we're rolling, man. Thanks for joining me today.

Absolutely. Thank you, man.

Yeah, so we had a mutual buddy, Tina Marie, who's on the podcast recently, and of course, your partner in crime that is in business, Brian Kurtz. And he's been on the show a couple times now. He's one of the favorites, actually. A lot of folks love when he comes on, just so open and honest. And, you know, then obviously Breakthrough Advertising got the rights to that. So it's like, that is like a. A bible for copywriting and, you know, persuasion and.

That's right. Absolutely.

And you guys are in. In it together, creating some cool stuff around that as well. Excited to see your journey and talk about how. How everything came to be.

Absolutely. I'm excited to. To meet you in person or on the zoom screen. Appreciate you having me on.

Yeah, man. You definitely have a journey that's interesting and I want to dive into because a lot of folks might be able to relate to you in some parts where, you know, you were in corporate, it was a Fortune 100 company, and you had a couple kids. I'm sure you still have them, and, you know, sole provider, at least, like kind of the breadwinner, I guess, of. Of the income side of things. And you took the leap out of corporate for. For some reasons that we'll talk about here. And. And you found your way in entrepreneurship, and I'm curious of your approach and all that. So before we get into that, give folks a quick overview of, like, what they should know about. About you, what should they know about Chris and kind of what you're up to now. And then we'll dive into the backstory.

Thank you for that. As far as what I do now, the main focus for me is that I work partnering with Brian on all things with Titans Marketing. We launched and run a virtual mentorship program called Titans Accelerator and then just released a study guide for breakthrough advertising along with a video library training course called Breakthrough Advertising Mastery. And that, that came, let's see, that was at the end of 2022, so around November is when we started shipping those out. So, so my, my, my sort of day to day is, is just focused on getting more, more awareness and trying to help people connect the dots into why breakthrough advertising is important. If you want to understand marketing and psychology and persuasion and, and then, you know, now I'm, I'm spending time just thinking about, you know, it presents an opportunity for me to kind of step out from behind the scenes a little bit and, and share more of my story, my, and my journey. And I feel like I'm in a place now where, where that's interesting to me and something that I, that I want to do.

Interesting. Well, here we go man. We'll start off some of that right here in this show. Yeah, that's why I've always, well, you know, going to Breakthrough Advertising really quick. Like I just, like I mentioned earlier, it's like the Persuasion Bible. I feel like, I mean it's, Eugene Schwartz wrote that, you know, just advertising genius. And there's so much that was learned from you know, like the whole stages of awareness and usps. You know, just like really understanding where to meet people with messaging and the fact that you've put that into an actionable thing, that's a lot because that book is dense and I mean it's gold. And yeah, just from like looking at what you guys have done there, that's, that's an undertaking that you and Brian have done. Prophecy on that. And I didn't realize it was so new too last year.

Yeah, I mean it took the whole process was about, was about two years to create it. So it's, it's. We started with. It is actually born out of Titans Accelerator. There was a small study group, it's called the Breakthrough Advertising Study Group that one of the members started just inside the group and when I saw like the high intensity interest in like learning that, that text, I just got the ideas like you know we've, Brian and I, we had always talked about, you know, we, we should put a, a course or something together for breakthrough Advertising. And we thought well we'll get somebody like you know, Paris on Propolis or somebody to come in and teach it because he's a amazing copywriter and has a passion around the text too and but you know, we just kind of had the idea like let's let's see what we could do. And so I just took it upon myself and I said, well, let's do a two week boot camp where we just teach the first three chapters because that's always what we would recommend to folks is you just start with the first three chapters because that's, that's really the foundation that the rest of the book is built on. And you know, a lot of the examples that Gene gives in the book of, you know, when he's talking about what a stage 2 awareness headline or something looks like, they're not really headlines that necessarily you would run or even, even could run today because back when he wrote it, you know, they didn't have the regulations and so you can make all these health claims that you can never make today. But he, he says something in the, I think it's in the intro of the book where Breakthrough Advertising is really a book about how to think. And that's what, that's when it clicked with me is like he, he's sharing like how he views the world and how he views a market that he wants to create. And that was the other thing is like he, he says you're becoming a market maker. So you're identifying what, what the desire is and then figuring out a way to channel it towards your, your solution. So it's, it's more of like a, as much as it's a copywriting book and psychology and persuasion, it's like what your posture towards the market should be.

That makes a lot of sense and I think it'll make some, some more sense as we get into this too, because I feel like that's what you're, you're doing. Yeah, because it's, it's kind of finding the market and speaking to them. It's not, it's not changing their desires or creating a desire, it's. You're tapping into their desire, where they're at and understanding that. So I want to, I want to go back to your journey, how you even got to that point, because I feel like you were kind of, you were kind of doing that and you mentioned music was in your past as well. I'm sure it's still around hopefully. So yeah, talk, talk a little bit about. Because I think that came before corporate, you know, like your time in music. Because I played guitar, I was in bands and stuff. So I know, I know that. I know a lot of people listening to. Let's talk about that and then how you got into corporate and kind of like what that shakeup looked like. In your life there?

Yeah, this is great because I never talk about the music part of my, my story. But yeah, I came to Nashville in 2003. I was a songwriter and, you know, I was just writing kind of this Americana music and traveling around playing, just playing really small shows, coffee shops and things like that. And I was, my wife and I were married in 2003, so we moved up here and I was on the road a good bit. And the thing that I, you know, looking back on it, you can see a lot more than when you're in the middle of it. But the thing that I really liked most about music was the actual songwriting process. Like, what I realized and kind of burned me out is like, I just didn't enjoy having to get up and entertain people, but I, but I really enjoyed like telling a story. And so when I, when I realized, like, I don't really want to have to be the, the guy on, on stage and, you know, promoting shows, but I like, I do like the writing. I kind of got interested in the, the business side of music. And so I, while I was figuring out what to do, MySpace was around, if you remember that way day. And so I started a little agency selling to these MySpace marketing campaigns to record labels and had a couple management music managers where I would do marketing for their, their artists. And, and that's where, if you remember MySpace, like you, you had to, you had to learn a little bit of HTML. Yeah, you had to, you had to learn how to do a little bit of design work. And so I learned those skills and the, my, my biggest client was a record label and they got purchased by Warner Brothers and I lost that client because Warner Brothers came in and was like, let everybody go. And so I was, I was talking to a mentor of mine who I met with every week and I said, you know, I just don't feel like I really understand business. Like, I, I feel like I'm missing something. He said, you know, you should think about just getting a job and, and learning business on somebody else's dimension. And so that made a lot of sense to me. And I just, I got a, I had a friend who worked at this healthcare company and he helped get me in. And that's, that was an eight year journey for me in the corporate world. And I, it was very valuable. Like, I learned a lot about just how to be a better business person, how to be accountable to other people on a team. So I mean, I learned a ton of skills and. But you know, I always had this pull to, to Kind of do my own thing and, and there was a point in 2012 where I got this promotion, I went to a new company and it was a much more traditional corporate world and it just wasn't going to be for me long term. And so I started just figuring out how I could start something on the side that hopefully would eventually turn into something. And I got introduced to copywriting, so I got introduced to direct response marketing. And it really clicked with me because it was just another, it was a different way to tell stories is what I saw. And I was, I was attract. Attracted to like the, the, the NLP and persuasion stuff. But I mean really at the end of the day it was like I love that it's measurable and that I can, I, I can go deep on, on a story whether it's personal or somebody else's. And the kind of pulling at the emotional heartstrings is really similar to songwriting. And so I just started looking for clients that, that I could help and.

Random shortage of that random.

Yeah it was a random thing. And so on nights and weekends I was doing client work. I ended up.

Guys, Dane Maxwell and Andy Drish, they ran a company called the F Foundation. They wanted to launch a podcast. I applied for that, that gig and got hired by them as part time and Brian was one of the guests on the show. And that's how I met Brian and.

We kind of networking via podcast. There you go.

That's it. That's it. That's. That's sort of the, the, the high, high level overview I guess of, of how I was in the corporate world and then eventually met Brian and then that was in 2013 and, and I had enough work on the side that I, that I left the corporate world.

Yeah man. And that's. It's smart to do that. You know, it's for one to get the training in the corporate on someone else's dime. I think that's super valuable. I did that for a little bit but jumped in a little early I would say and learned a lot on my own. But I could see in retrospect I'm like yeah, with the structure especially in a position if you're in one where you can have maybe some flexibility but have that structure at the same time and get that hands on training, test some ideas out if you had that liberty. But then also building something on the side. It's like having now money and then future money and somehow just hacking it as best you can. That was all was that prior to kids while you're Building this up or were they in the picture by then?

No, no. Our. Our daughter was born in 2008 and our son was born in 2011. And. And then 2012, I sort of had this. I don't know if you call it a midlife crisis, but it's just like, what am I doing? Like, this is. I am, you know, moving up the corporate ladder. Like, I can see the golden handcuffs coming and it's like, oh man, if I don't do something, like, I'm going to be here till I'm 65. But my. Stayed home with the kids who were dependent on me for the. The sole source of income. And I remember, you know, I listened to. I listened to a ton of podcasts back then. I was. It was just listening to stories of people who had started their own businesses. And I always thought like, man, I. All these, all these people talking, they're like in their 20s and they don't have anything to lose when they leave their jobs. And. And so it was, it was a mixture of like, inspiration and frustration of like, not hearing anybody like me. Yeah. I think part of me wanting to, to get on shows like this now. You know, not that I've achieved like some pinnacle of success where I'm always still growing, but. But I have been able to build something post corporate and I, I have. I had the sense that there are other people still in their. In their corporate jobs where I was, you know, with little kids and just terrified of, you know, my, My biggest fear was that. That we were going to be homeless. And I knew it was irrational, but I was just like, that was a legit fear for me. I was just like, coming home like, hey, we don't got any money. We're going to live in the, in the back of the Camry.

We'll find a way. Yeah, we'll find a good over. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, hey, man, that's. I think that fear drives us, you know, to, to figure it out. It's our back against the wall moments. And yeah, you could, you could have kept pursuing the corporate life and gotten the golden handcuffs. And you know that because that's a legitimate fear too. I remember that was one of the things that really got me to take action, is seeing people when I was working in a construction company, but in a corporate kind. I was in marketing and just seeing like the older. The people in their 60s, right, close to retirement, they're just like glazed over zombie. Look, don't talk to me. I'm like, shit, I don't wanna look like that guy, you know, he don't look happy. So that's, I mean props and I think a lot of people are in that position. They might not be future pacing or planning for it. But you're right. Like it's never too late. But you just gotta have a plan and take some action on the side, build some relationships and maybe slowly build it up or just take the leap comes when it, when it feels right. Like when was the leap? Like when did you know that was the time for you?

I, I knew, I knew it was coming. I actually just finished writing like a three part guide on this that, that, that I haven't published yet. Like I'm still reviewing it but basically like I, my fir. My very first step was like I wanted to find out why I was so unhappy because I was like, you know, the worst thing would be to jump to something else and just end up, in, and end up kind of in the same place. And so I was like, why the heck am I so unhappy in, in this role? Because it wasn't, it wasn't the company's fault. Like it was, it was me. Right. And so what, what I realized and I went through this process of. And really what the way I figured that out was I got really clear on what I wanted my life to be like. And then I compared it to what it was like now. And that showed me the contrast between the two. And the two things I was able to identify was I wanted the ability to have unlimited upside in what I did. So I wanted to be able to that earn money detached from the time that I put in to something. And then for me at that time, I wanted location independence. I didn't want to move anywhere. I just wanted to feel the freedom to be able to if I wanted to. And those became my filters. I judged every opportunity by whether or not it would get in the way of those two things. And so I had resisted consulting because it felt like time for money. But, but then I realized that, that I could do consulting and achieve those two, two things with time. And as soon as I started consulting like it, it started the, the, the kind of the, the flywheel and I saved up six months of, of income. So I didn't save up six months of expenses. I did six months of income.

Yeah.

And, and once I had those two, that, that step one of that clarity of why I was unhappy and then the, the income to know that if, you know, all my business went away, like I could figure something out in six months. I knew I was Ready? And then there was a July day where my boss came to me and she said, hey, we've got these interns. And I was just promoted, this director. And she said, I would like for you to start mentoring them. And as soon as she told me that, I was like, no.

I can't. I can't do that. And, and so by October, I had been had, had left.

Nice. Yeah. You can't pass down your own feelings to people you're mentoring who might be. Have a whole different path than you. Yeah. Because that's not fair to them.

That's right.

It's not fair to you either. Or anyone.

Nope. No, not, not at all. My heart wasn't in it. And, you know, I just couldn't fake it anymore. And especially if I was going to be, like, advising somebody early in your career, I was like, no, I can't.

Good on you.

I didn't want that responsibility.

Yeah, how about that? I want to go back to the consulting reframe, because that is a pretty common thing. And I've got, I've, I've gone through evolutions as well. And, and now I've come to the realization I love consulting for the reason that, like, it can open up doors that were never open before. You know, even if you start with just a strategy session, it could develop into so many ways. So, like, what was the reframe for you to get out of the time for money thing?

The first thing I knew is that consulting would give me location independence. And then the other thing, because when I got introduced to the copywriting world, I also got introduced to the idea of earning royalties on, on your work. And I knew that that was a little bit of a, you know, people didn't really do that as much anymore. But, but because you talk about levels of awareness, because I knew that that kind of solution existed in the world that there were freelance copywriters doing consulting that were earning royalties. I knew they didn't start that way. So I was like, there, there is something there that will allow me to achieve unlimited upside. I know it yet. And the thing that I have is like, I know how to work and I know how to, you know, I'm okay at copy. And, and, and so I just, I, I, I took the leap because I thought, into consulting because I thought that I could achieve those two, those two filters that I talked about earlier. And, and that was just a reframe for me. And, you know, there's something too, about just when, when you've been thinking about doing something for, for so long or wanting like you've got this burning inside of your chest of just like, I've got to do something, but I, I don't want to do the wrong thing. You know, you're scared of like wasting or I'm scared of wasting time on something that doesn't pan out, which I did. I had, I, I could tell you a list of products that I tried to launch before consulting. You know, just horrible, horrible ideas that had no market research behind them. But I thought they were like cool app ideas. And, but consulting was like, this is the fastest path to cash ultimately. It's like I can, I can write something, I can get paid for it and I can set it aside to create my sort of revenue way so that I can get out.

Yeah. And that's a, that's a great way to put it. Cause there's a lot of folks who might not just go down there because they feel like they're a handcuffed to a client or whatever. But it's honestly, yeah, it's fastest way to cash. It's a great way to maybe build up something on the side while you're currently in. Even if it's your own business that you might, might want to somehow get out of for whatever reason. You said something too that, that's interesting is you didn't want to translate the way that you're working in corporate to your own work, like at home or wherever you're. You're at. Like, what are some of the obviously location independence and unlimited upside, I think are huge filters. Are there any other things that you, that you always remind yourself are almost like principles so you don't fall back into the corporate way of thinking or hustle and grind potentially?

Well, I don't know if it's a principle, but it's just kind of like a, maybe a guardrail that I have of like I, I try at all costs and I'm pretty, I'm good about it now. I've gotten into some situations. It's just part of your journey. But where like I don't want to be in a position where I have to ask permission for anything. And I, I, and I, I don't think I really could have realized that when I was in the corporate world. But I've looking back on it like that was something that just wasn't for me. And it wasn't because, you know, I don't blame my boss. Like, it's nothing like that. It's just like, I just don't like, like for me it I, I feel almost like I'm a kid again, if that makes sense. Like, I have to ask permission to take time off to go on vacation, and I just, I just didn't like that. And, and so that's sort of like the guardrail now of, like, I, I just want to avoid anything that imposes its own will against me. And, and when I, when I did start having regular side income coming in, had this realization of, like, I'm now giving permission to the company and to my boss to pull me into meetings. And like, like, I had leverage at that point, and I, and I felt more powerful. I was like, oh, I'm letting them do this. I was always letting them do that. But now I had an option, and it was a very freeing thing.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's the, that takes a lot of pressure off you, especially with options with control. I mean, that's, yeah, that's huge because you could quickly even get it out of control if it's your own doing, you know, and you can kind of blindly go there. And I know you're, you're, you're getting consulting or you work with Tina, who, you know, entered Intro to Us, and she's huge on, you know, boundaries and tracking your time and pacing. That's a, that's one of my big takeaways from her, is that pacing aspect. Because as a kid or as an entrepreneur, it's like, man, there's a million things he could test and try and experiment with, and we all love to get in there and try it out ourselves, but that can quickly overwhelm us or distract from the main thing.

I, I, I had this, and I built it up over time, just this list, like, I guess you call them affirmations. There was a video, folks could probably find it. It was from early 2000s. It was Frank Kern doing, doing this talk called the Core Influence. And it was just this process of, you know, visualizing your ideal future. And then I got introduced to. I don't remember if it was the Millionaire, Fast Lane or some other book like that. Yeah. Where, where it's like all these different affirmations that you would, like, just put into your head. And I, I was, I'm not big into that stuff, but, like, at the time I was just like, I need, I've got to do something. I gotta feel like I'm doing something. And like, I was just willing to, to not question it and just do it. And I gotta tell you, man, like, I look back at that list and I, and I, and it says Like, I live in this kind of house. Like, there's so much of that that is. That is true for me now. And I'm like, that's kind of. That's kind of creepy. That's kind of weird.

I'll correct myself. It wasn't. It wasn't Grant Cardone. MJ DeMarco. I was like, wait, hold on. That was wrong. That's right. That millionaire fastly. Yeah. Another book similar to that name, but, yeah. Holy crap. Painting your perfect day. Your picture. Like, what core influence was with Frank Hearn? It clarifies, almost creates, like, this North Star that. We hear that term tossed around a lot, but it's true. It's like, if you don't know where the hell you're going, how can you get there? And how can you plot your course at least a few steps ahead to kind of go that direction? I think Tina even calls it, like, anchoring. Like, figure out your anchor, and then you can kind of like. Like, wobble around that point and get a little closer. But it keeps you focused. If I'm remembering that correctly, I want to get into the breakthrough advertising and what you're doing there and. And from your perspective, you know, coming in, you know, you have Brian Kurtz. He's been in it for a long time. You know, he got the. What the publishing rights, I believe, of the book from Eugene Schwartz's family, if I'm remembering correctly. Was it Eugene's wife? I think it was, yeah.

Barbara.

There you go. Yeah. So there's so many takeaways from the book. But I'm curious, from your perspective going into it, like, how would you. And you've already given us some, but, like, it's. It's had massive impact and obviously in your life. But maybe start with you, like, what were some, like, big aha moments with breakthrough, and then, you know, translating that out to where it could be maybe some actionable things. We can pass the folks listening here, too.

For me, the. The biggest one, and it's on the very first page, and it's the. It's the Mass. Mass desire chapter. And the quote is something along the lines of, mass desire is the force that already exists in the world that we don't create it. It's there already. And essentially what we do is we take it and we channel it towards the product or service that we're selling. And that was a huge red pill moment for me because my idea of direct response in that whole world was, you know, it felt a little bit like you were tricking People. It was like you were there, there was this way of, of writing and crafting an offer that, that you were like NLP and that stuff. It felt kind of sneaky. And you know, and, and I'm not, I'm not saying that in a, in a judging way. That's just like, when I, when I read that from Gene, I was like, oh, it's, it's actually not that there. And there are like, I can change my view on what it is that we're doing. And, and with, with Gene, it was more this posture of like, we're going to look and see what problems people want to solve in their lives, you know, and they usually fall in the big categories of health or wealth or better relationships. And then there are like, you know, there's sort of the surface level. And then you get under and you figure out, like, what are the specific transformations that people are really looking for? And, and then the, the process that he walks through then is once you've identified this, this mass desire that you want to channel. And the visual that I use in the boot camp that we teach is you think of desires like this, this river that it's just running, it doesn't even know that you're there, doesn't care about you. And, and what we do as marketers is like, we're trying to find a spot to get into the river and, and like divert some of that water over our way. And then you get into, okay, well, what does my market understand about their own desire? What do they understand about problem that they're trying to solve? Do they even know that they, they have a problem? You know, do they know that there are solutions? Do they know that my solution exists? And so the level then that's stages of awareness. And that's really a way to, to segment the, the people that you're going after. And it lines up perfectly with what's taught now of, you know, top of funnel, middle of funnel, and bottom of funnel.

Yep.

So the folks who are most aware of those are the ones at the bottom of the funnel. They're probably on your email list. And then, you know, going up, up to the top of the funnel, those are more the, the problem aware and the, the unaware of what you're of even what their own desire is. So the mass desire and what are what the job of a marketer and a copywriter is was probably the, the biggest thing I was like, I, I had the job description wrong. You know, that, that was the biggest I had.

Huh. That makes sense. Because people Thinking marketers or copywriters without knowing or if you're jumping into it. Yeah. It's like how do I, how do I get them to think like me or to see the problem? And I guess there's hints of that that you could sprinkle in, but really. Yeah, that you should be, should. But like it's matching where they're at. And I like the river analogy too because I mean we, we cycle through desires depending on conditions and time and age, whatever. There's always a flow of more people, you know, coming through. But, and we change of course too. So that's probably why we should have different offers, different lead ins, all of these things to match that desire at whatever time.

That's right, that's right. And, and you know, Gene, that, that for the first part of the book, it's all about just writing the, the headline and the lead in, you know, so that it's all about like, how do you get attention. And that's, that's with your headline but a body copy underneath it. And then the second half of the book, that's where he.

Specific techniques of, you know, once you've got the attention, then what are some techniques that you can use to, to keep it and sort of lead them down the path that you want to take them. And so, and, and he says, you know, these are techniques that I've discovered and I came up with the names. You'll have your own. So it's like, even as you read through it, it's not like this is black and white. This is, this is the only way to do it. He's like, this is what's worked for me. And there, there are certainly other things, other, other techniques out there. And I, I, I, I appreciate that as well because it sort of gives you, he's given you permission to sort of explore the, the space, so to speak.

Yeah. Because he's laying down the foundation, the principles of this, of advertising. And like you said, the times have changed. The, the regulations, rules have changed in the game. Now we're dealing with AI, you know, and, and there's anybody, quote unquote, can write copy, but at the same time, even using AI it's like really like that's not gonna, it's more to it, I guess. Do you have any thoughts on that and how like this new tech is playing into copywriting and what you're doing?

Yeah, for sure. I mean, I do think that eventually it'll get to the point where it will and it already is in many cases, like depending like if you're talking about like an abandoned cart email sequence, like AI can already do that, indistinguishable from a human and eventually it'll be good enough to look at a market and you know, help you come up with unique mechanisms. And it's probably already doing that right now. But I, I think the, the value of learning and understanding a book like Breakthrough Advertising, which, you know, having been written in the night 1960s when you know it wasn't a book that was, that was put out like they are today, where it's really like a sales letter to sell you a high ticket program or something. Like there was something that's a little more genuine about it to me and, and trustworthy and, but because it does teach you how to, how to think and how to think about the market, that is going to be an essential component of learning how to use the tools of AI. That's true for, for quite a while. So you, you know, it's, it's sort of like you have to, you have to understand how to direct AI as a professional marketer, copywriter in order to get the, the kind of output you're looking for. And, and so that's that, that's how I, you know, David, David Deutsch, he calls it copy thinking.

Yeah, yeah, that's right. You know, I think that's a huge, I'm happy you said that. It teaches you how to think and there is this genuineness to the book Breakthrough Advertising and I'm sure in your course as well, because it's, it's, it's breaking that out into actionable bit. So you know, obviously it applies but, but yeah, I think about that with people jumping to tech or AI or anything really. It's like if you don't know how to think or direct the tool you're using, then how can you ever trust the output, the result of that thing? And now we all have access to this like immensely powerful thing. And it doesn't just give you gold automatically, you gotta direct that thing, refine it and it comes through understanding the principles, fundamentals of it.

Yeah. And the other thing, you know, as you were talking, I was thinking this, that the word that I mentioned before that Gene uses, and I believe it's in the intro, is like I'm going to teach you how to think like a market maker, somebody who knows how to create a market around an idea. And that's a valuable. If you look at now the landscape of AI. Like the question then is like, well, what markets are being created now as a result of AI. And so it's like, what are, what are the things that you can do and give to people that AI can't? And so I think that what, what you'll end up seeing is like the value of information and courses is going to go down, but you can pair that up with things that are uniquely human. Like, like what we do in the boot camp, as an example.

Yeah.

Give me some examples where we give you, we give you information, but then we walk you through how to do it as well. Well, so, so AI would give you the information, but AI is not going to hold your hand. It's like, good luck and answer your, your questions. Right. And so I, I think that, that markets like that are being created now. And I, I see kind of these Sprint and Cohort things popping up in the creator community that, that, that other folks on Twitter and whatnot are, are, are starting to sell. And I, I think that, you know, if, if you're just relying on disseminating information that you're going to have to start adding in things that are uniquely human that AI can't, can't replicate. You know, tactile things even.

Oh yeah. And, and of course, multimodalities, like in person or a workshop boot camp kind of thing where it's.

Exactly, yeah.

Bouncing off ideas like the, the human side, our humanity should never go away. And I know, like, Elon Musk is like freaked out about that, you know, and all that, understandably, you know, so again, it's like a tool, but it's not your only tool. Like, use your brain, know how to think, understand where it all came from in the first place, because it's all based off of that anyway, or at least other stuff that might be less effective, you know, so it's knowing how to read the output and engineer that in a way that still has that human element to it.

Right, right. If AI copywriter, or just like any other copywriter gives you something that, that it, that it created, like, you've got to judge it and you've got to know that, oh, this, this is missing, you know, X, Y and Z. Or this, this needs to kind of have a, A, A, a different way to talk about the mechanism or it didn't quite get the mechanism right. Like, like you've got to be able to be the boss of it and, and, and then deploy it instead of trusting the output because you can get the dopamine hit of like, oh man, I didn't have to write all this. But you do have to you do.

Have to judge it or else someone else will and it'll be in the fact of no sales or something. You're going to get a result nonetheless.

Yeah, that's right.

I'm happy we're talking about this because I've definitely used AI already for copywriting and it's a whole different way of thinking and I definitely don't rely on it, but as a tool to, to maybe give me a starting point based off of some kind of framework or thing, like a section of whatever and, and then from there maybe refining a word or two or rephrasing things. Very valuable, but at the same time. Yeah. Dangerous if you just, Just take it for, for face value as it is.

Yeah, I, I mean, right now I'm the same way. Joe is like, it, it helps you get over that. That blank page. That's right. Because a lot of times I know I can move faster if I just have something to react to, even if it's, you know, copy. That's. That's not good. I need to see it so I can say, oh, no, that's not what I want. I want something like this. And it helps you kind of get there faster, you know?

Yeah, man. There's a tool that. I'll just shout it out because I've never shared it, but it's a newer one. It's called AudiOpen AI P E N. And it's, it's an AI type tool. I think it's free up to a certain amount of notes, but you can like ramble into this thing.

Thing.

And it's, it's definitely using Chat GPT on the back end and then it rewords your ramble. It's like free for like three minutes or something. So if you ramble, like the premise of what you want to write or something, it's going to give you a decent starting point. It's not copy, but like if you prompt it as such and you're like, hey, this is the kind of tone like, at least get the ball moving. And that's what I've been using for all sorts of different things. Could be for emails too, but then from there obviously spin it into your own thing and refine it.

But yeah, yeah, I'll tell you, the way I've been using it is I've been building the habit of doing a daily email and I want that to be sort of the hub of the content that I start putting out. So I, I'll write my email and then I'll put it into Chat GPT and I'll tell it to create a podcast script so I can see what it does. Because I have this idea of like I could do these short podcasts based on the emails that I do and then I ask it to create a Twitter thread for the content. And I, I, I've used some of the Twitter threads, you know, or I take pieces of it. Yeah, I've never just copy and pasted it, but I tell you man, I can get all of like I do the email in 20 or 30 minutes and the, the other 20 or 30 minutes I've got the Twitter thread and the, the podcast recorded and I'm just doing this just to practice, to build the habit. I'm not even publishing this stuff that's good. But I do it all in an hour, you know.

And yeah, you build that habit and who knows where it'll go. And once you do start posting because I mean, and there's a new tool every day coming out, it feels like, you know, for, to essentially one click and it'll do it all for you. But yeah, you can just use chat GPT, create some prompts that you kind of trust, maybe you personally refine and then just copy them, you know, like keep, keep those up and keep testing. I think it's a fun experiment, man. And yeah, and it gives you a lot more feedback too on your work. You do it consistently well. Hey, dude. Chris. I mean this has been, this has been fun for one shout out where people could join your, your daily emails or soon to be daily emails at least.

Yeah, my website is chrismason.net and you can see what I'm up to there. Love to connect with anybody who wants to reach out.

Cool, man. And then shout out Breakthrough Advertising the, the Mastery Program. And I guess a quick, you know, 30 second pitch on that because I think that's a perfect next step for people here too.

Absolutely. So breakthrough advertising.com is you can learn all about the book there and then also the companion study guide called Brick Through Advertising Mastery that Brian and I just released a little while ago with Breakthrough Advertising Mastery, we have exercises and these sort of mini assignments for each chapter to give you the practice, to practice what Gene is talking about. And then the other cool thing is in the second part of Breakthrough Advertising Mastery and, and this was a huge undertaking, is that we have all the ads that were mentioned in the book. So when Gene is giving an example of a headline like for, you know, stage two, Stage three Awareness, he just gives you the text, we've got the full ad as it ran back in the 50s and 60s. And then at the bottom, we say, you can see where Gene talked about this ad on page 28 or page 92. So you can sort of look at Breakthrough Advertising, what. What lesson he's trying to teach from this ad, and then look and see the actual ad that he was looking at as he was writing. I may be more proud of that, that second undertaking. And there was a guy, Luis from Brazil, who's on Brian's list, who had collected those ads and was just instrumental in helping us put that. Put that together.

That's rad. Yeah, man, that's. It just connects all the dots, and it's just going to sink in, all these core concepts. All right, yeah, go jump into that. Y' all listening? I am as well. So breakthrough advertising dot com. And, yeah, dude, Chris has been fun, and I know working with Brian, I'm sure is a treat. So tell him hi for me, too. I'll reach out to him. But, yeah, maybe we'll have him on again, too, if he's. If he's up for it. So appreciate your time, man, and get on some more podcasts. I can't wait to hear yours as well. I like the Daily idea, by the way.

Yeah, man. Yeah. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Got it.

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