Harnessing Copywriting Magic: Insights from David Deutsch

Hey everyone. Today's guest is an expert copywriter as well as a copy and creativity coach. His copy has generated over a billion dollars of direct sales for his clients, working with big brands and companies like Procter and Gamble, Merrill Lynch, American Express and much more. What I loved about our conversation today with David is that it touched on finding your voice as a writer, the fundamentals of copywriting in your business, or just what to notice out in the world. And has a practical example of how AI can enhance a particular touch based profession.

Right.

In particular copywriting, but how it's not a replacement for people. If you are curious about copywriting for your business, or how AI can help you connect with people, or how to move people with words, and this episode is for you. So I present to you our conversation with David Deutsch. Welcome to the Meaningful Revolution podcast. Today's guest is a master copywriter, a copywriter and creativity coach and friend of the podcast, David Deutsch. David, welcome.

Yeah, great to be here. Thank you.

Excellent. Starting off, I like to introduce people through a story and as a with an extensive career in copywriting, could you, David, maybe highlight a story on why you love copywriting so much? Whether it's what got you interested, interested in it or a big moment while you've been in this career that really highlights why you love this subject?

I think I love copywriting because I love learning and there's a lot of things about copywriting, writing in general that have to do with learning. One is all the things that you have to learn in order to do the copywriting. Right. I have to learn about your business, I have to learn about the people that you sell to. If I'm writing about high blood pressure, I have to learn about how. High blood pressure, how does that work? What is high blood pressure? Right, Right. How does blood circulate through the body and what does it mean and what are the different drugs and things? And I think also when you write, you learn, right? You start to write, you go, you know what? I really don't understand whatever it is that I'm writing about, Right. I have to learn it more. I have to think about it more deeply. And you're, you're thinking as you're writing. So I think I really like that aspect of it. I love copywriting too. For all the people that I've met, we're talking, right? I've met you now you're one of the people that I've met thanks to copywriting. If I was an accountant, we would might never have met. Right. Or I would have met less interest. No offense to accountants, but I would have met less interesting people, generally speaking. But I've gotten to meet all. I've gotten to meet some of my heroes, right. Jay Abraham, Dan Kennedy and John Carlton and even worked with them. And I like the delight of going off on another question, but I like the delight of just putting words together and it working, when it works, when it clicks. And I. I think. And I liked when I got more into direct response, when I got away from ad agency Madison Avenue Advertising and more into I write something, someone uses it, and I can see the sales numbers going up. I like that too. I like numbers. I like keeping score. It's like a video game, right? Oh, look, more. Oh, look, the conversion rate is going up. Oh, it's going down.

That's amazing. Yeah, yeah. So part of it is. So I love just like the learning part of having to do it in my own business, which as a small business owner, I'm not the best copywriter. Maybe you'll have some tips on that as we talk. But it is such a fascinating feel from what I've put together because it's also combining like consumer psychology. It's trying to get people, I feel, at its base and maybe you could correct me on this. Like copywriting is trying to get. Move people into action, whether it's to assume an identity or to go and do the thing that you're suggesting to buy the product or wash your hands with public health message. How would you define copywriting? I guess would be a good question. Start the conversation.

I like your dimensionalization of it too, also because I left out that part of yet fascinating, because there's a psychological element involved. You have to understand a little more about people. Right. You have to observe why do people buy? You have to look inside yourself. Why do I buy? Right. What. What makes me not buy when there's something I want? Is it because I don't trust? Or when the behavioral psychology thing, the whole. What do they call it? Behavioral science, Behavioral economics. Yeah. Why do people do things? They don't always act in their own best economic interest. Right. They act a lot of times out of emotional things. They act out of fear. They act out of. We'll spend more. We'll spend more money to not lose money than we will to make money. Right. We care not, not losing. That's basic things like that. So copywriting is so many things, really. It's not just the actual putting words on the page, which as a coach is something I have to get people away from. Because it's almost like they become people who are perfectly good persuaders away from the computer. They sit in front of the computer, write copy, and they become just putting words together. Oh, I have to say, what's a good headline? It has to be something and has to have a benefit and has to have this and that. And. And whereas if they just were going to convince their spouse or whoever to go to this movie instead of that movie, they would be wonderfully persuasive and they wouldn't be thinking, should I start with this story? Should I start with a startling. What should the headline be? They would just persuade. So I think it's that. It's persuasion, it's understanding psychology, and it's the craft of writing, too. Because writing is also. Copywriting is also writing. It's a craft of putting words together, of how did they go together, just like in painting, what colors go together, how try to get perspective, the science of perspective. And of course, these days, thanks to AI, it's also a technology. It's also understanding technology. How do I not. How do I use my computer? How do I open a Word document or a Google Doc? But now it's, how do I use this AI thing to make me a better writer? Because the more I understand it, the more I can, the more it can help me.

I love that you brought up AI, because the original idea when we were talking over email was to talk about copyright writing and how AI has changed field. Because something I've been very passionate about is how these tools have the potential to change how we do things. And I've been experimenting in my business. So you've been in industry for quite some time as an expert. How has the field of copywriting changed maybe in the last 20 years? And then how do you see maybe AI impacting how we're actually doing copy now?

Wow, that's a big question. For the past 20 years. It's always changing and it's always not changing. Steve, what's his name? The. I can't remember. The head of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, asked in an interview, tell us which five years and ten years down the road. And he said, I'm not interested in the future, not interested in what's going to be different in five, 10 years. He says, I'm interested in what's going to be the same. Right. People are going to want stuff. They're going to want it quick, inexpensively, as possible. Right. And that's what I'm interested in. And I'm going to Continue to provide. It's the same thing with writing, with copywriting. It stays the same. People want certain things. People respond in certain ways to certain banishments, to certain appeals. They want to trust before they buy. They care more about loss than about gain. All those things stay the same. The format changes, right? 20 years ago, I was doing more direct mail, right? Sending mail Now, I still do that, but I do less of that now. Things are online and we can test faster, and all sorts of things are possible. And then in terms of recently, with the whole AI Thing, it changes and it doesn't change, right? And some of it's. I'll start with the band, right? There's a lot more junk out there because people are like, oh, I can use AI to write this stuff. And then they just send it out, and they don't have the discernment to tell. It's really not that good, because AI is. But it's sounding like good copy. But if you really know what you're doing and you really. Or if you really read it carefully, maybe you could see it's got this soullessness to it that needs you to jump in there and edit it. Or even to go back and forth with AI and say, hey, this is sounding a little soulless. Can you sound like someone who's passionate about the subject? Can you take on this Persona? So that's the negative. The positive is it's a wonderful assistant, right? It's quick, it's almost no cost, it's tireless. It knows an infinite amount of stuff. And just like some eager intern, right? You say, give me 20 headlines, right? They're probably not going to be great. Maybe only one of them is good, but you could take that one and turn it into something good. Or if it gets you. Even if it gets you. Even if they're all terrible, but they get you thinking in a different direction that you weren't thinking it. You know, that's invaluable, and it's. It's having someone to brainstorm with 24 7. But you have to know. You have to know how to ask it the right questions. You have to know the. The tricks, as it were, right? Even to ask AI what should I be asking you in order to do what I want, Right. Give me a prop would do that for you.

Yeah, that's one of my favorite tricks for to, like, ask me questions I haven't. What else do you need to know to make this more clear? Like, that I get a lot of running room with. Yeah. I love the conversationalness of it, of being able to, like you said, have that, like, assistant or intern or that brainstorming partner to. To help you create ideas. So I. You mentioned something when you were giving that description thread, maybe to. To pull on, and that is have you found. So I. I think you already answered this, but we'll address it. One of the questions I've really been asking people is how do we keep that, like, thumbprint of humanity on our work, where you don't want to just be like, generate me 50 headlines and then you just pick five of them. Like, there's. It's. It's like you said, could sound a little soulless or not connective. Um, how do we, as copywriters or creatives or writers use it as a tool to assist that rather than a crutch or.

What's that? There's an old saying, and I think Ogilvy quoted it maybe at one point, to not use it as the drunk uses a lamppost for support rather than illumination. That's. You're right. That's the question. And it's. There are different stages, right? There's the initial stage, right? What do you tell it in the beginning? Do you give it human stories? Hey, AI, I want you to do this. And here's my experience with it. Maybe please incorporate that and give it at the same time. I believe in conversations with AI and iterations. A good. Nothing like a good prompt and giving it good information to start with is part of the art. And then, as you say, the conversation with it, right? Oh, could you make this a little more emotional? Could you. Here's a story maybe to incorporate into there. So that's the middle part and then the end part. Don't just take what it gives you and cut and paste it and put it in your copy document, right? Like, really edit that. Let it go through you. Let it go through your humanness. And maybe even one of the things a guy named Dan Rosenthal taught me is even about revising copy. That's not from AI. He said, never cut and paste. Said always retype. Because if you cut and paste, you'll. If you don't cut and paste, you'll put nuance into it that wouldn't be there if you just cut and pasted it. He said, even if there's a price change, don't just retype all the copy because there'll be parts where a different price going to make you say something a little differently, right? You're not going to say, oh, it's so inexpensive because price went up or that's a heavy handed example. But just little things that may change. It's the same thing with AI Copy. Don't just cut and paste it, look at it and type it in. Right. But then you're going to make little subtle changes to it. I make a lot of changes to it. Right. I would never use it as it comes. So anyway, that's one trick is don't, don't cut and paste, retype it.

I love that. I'm also curious then, as you are processing this, as someone that has an eye and a lot of experience with copywriting, what are you looking for? I guess it would be probably the same if you had an intern or an associate, a junior level copywriter who's just starting out in their career or AI. An AI response like what are you looking for in copyright that can tell give you like a initial, like quality read. Like this is okay, this could be better. Or this is something that's a jumping off point for a different idea.

Yeah, to some extent it's just how you feel about it. And I think really good copywriters maybe aren't necessarily really good copywriters because they can write really good copy. I think they have a better perception of what bad copy is. It's like listening to music. You go, oh, that was out of tune. Really good musicians. And here it's out of tune. Right. That was the wrong note. That doesn't belong. And it's the same thing with writing. You hear, oh, that's not. That's incongruous. That doesn't make sense in relation to what just happened or you know, how AI will sometimes. I saw something the other day and it said something about a come to our party and enjoy the vibrant event. It was actually an event, outdoor event and enjoy the vibrant atmosphere. And you could tell it was AI because no one's going to talk about their event and say we're going to have a very vibrant atmosphere. Right. It's. You can't even almost. I can't even say why, but it's just, it's not quite the right word that someone would use. And sometimes it'll get a little flowery, which I guess that is too. The vibrant atmosphere, the scrumptious food and drink. Right. No one's going to say, even people who aren't great copywriters. No, you're not going to think that's scrumptious food and drink. You're just going to say we have to have delicious food and beverages. You know, you want to be able to react to the copy as a human. Because, again, that's your competitive advantage over AI, is you can react to it as a human. AI can react to it as, okay, I've read 8 million pieces of copy like this. I know what words generally come after what words. I see what words here come after what words. The algorithm says it's off here, it's off here, and blah, blah, blah. But it can't respond to it on that emotional level, right? It only say, yeah, this kind of sounds like the kind of thing humans respond to. And if you read great novels or something, the opening of great novels, right? A Moby Dick or a Catcher in the Rye, or like that rant that Catch in the Rye opens with, I forget I'm sick of this crap that I get from that or whatever. AI wouldn't have the same appeal, I think, to generation after generation as that cry from the heart which Salinger really probably lived when he was growing up and against the falseness of the 50s, where he was, that he was growing up in. So I'd say the first thing is right, to react to it as a human. Then you can get technical, right? Go. Oh, is this sentence. Do these sentences go together? How does this sound? Does this have punch? Is it flat? Is it soulless? Learn what makes soulless copy. Why is copy soulless? A lot of times copy is soulless just because it doesn't come from a person. That was another thing I learned from Dan Rosenthal, was that there's a difference between saying something like, you can get a dis. When you go to Disney World. Did you know that you can get a secret pass that enables you to bypass the line and get a discount for. This is a travel thing we were doing, as opposed to, I have a friend, and every time he goes to Disneyland, what he does is that's there's a human talking there now. And that's even. That kind of makes a difference, right? Between. So it could be you talking about a friend, but it's coming from a person. It's about a person. Whereas AI can be very third person, not having a point of view because it's programmed to not be. Have too much of a point of view to not be controversial, to be. And again, since it's trained on a million things, it can't help but be a kind of least common dominator. What is that? Lowest common denominator, average of all these things, the good things, the bad things, the mediocre things. It's taken them all and homogenized them into something that sounds the way. And I think that's part of the danger. Going on a little rant here. But part of the danger of AI is it's so good at sounding meaningful, profound, or sounding like the sort of thing that you want to write about generally sounds.

I definitely agree with that, which is why I asked the question, like, how could you pick out good copy or not? As someone that had a career in like tech and like putting code through it and trying to figure out like, is this good code? And it's really great for encapsulated ideas, but when you start to relate ideas together, I found you can get into kind of trouble because it's very, like you said, generic. And I think people need to remember that it's also a conglomeration of everything that has been put into it and doesn't cover anything new. So it doesn't have any new ideas. It can combine and maybe give you a generalized version of something. Yeah, I definitely agree with the danger.

Of.

It'S watered down and you really need to be paying attention to the output and questioning it. I think that's the main skill here is how do you question the output of these tools in a way that helps you get the results that you.

I think the other thing too here is voice, right? What does it mean when has a voice, right? So read Hinds Thompson. Right. Read Norman Mailer, read Tom Wolf. The people that have a distinctive voice and try to find what your voice is, right? Because AI doesn't really have a voice. It's not going to write like Linda Thompson. And I'm not saying you should either because you'd have to take a lot of parts. You want to have that because people like that. They like reading stuff by people with a strong voice that sound, okay, this is that person.

I guess the question then becomes how do you. And this is like the big philosophical question, how do you find your voice? Because as someone that like likes to play music and I've written music and I'm not really great at it. Where do you find that perspective or that, that thing that's uniquely you or how do you trust in your own voice? Maybe that's another side of that question.

Yeah, yeah. I think you play around with it, you experiment with it, you free write. I think a lot of people never allow themselves the opportunity to write uninhibitively. Right? So try writing. I'm not going to do anything with this, like morning pages, that sparks thing. Right. I'm not going to do anything with this. Never going to show it to anyone, never going to read it again. But I want to just say, what if I wrote?

And.

I guess the thing is too, that we have a lot of different voices in ourselves, right? We're really many different people. We're angry people, right? You can be Jim Cramer and be angry all the time. And he's probably funny sometimes, and he's probably not angry sometimes, but his voice on his show, and I presume in his writing, is an angry, railing against things kind of voice. So maybe try railing for a while. What are you angry about? What are you about? Right? Try being funny. Try being humble. Try being, you know, like James Altucher, right? Try being more transparent than you would like to be. Like, what if I were just transparent? What if I was just an open wound? What if I just wrote. What if I wrote only about stuff I don't really feel comfortable writing about? Altucher does. And he's very. I don't know, only. But he does that. And that's why people love reading him, because he'll be like, yeah, I hate writing about my failures, okay? I've been writing a lot of failures. I love hearing about your failures, man. I'm so sick of hearing about people's successes. And I learned so much from how you failed. I love it. Give us more of that and find what you enjoy, what connects to you. I think a lot of times, oh, boy, this is a whole sidetrack. But a lot of times genius is just people found a way of doing something that worked for them. Like Jackson Pollock. He was probably. He was a mediocre painter. One day he tried painting and just splattering the paint on the canvas. And for some reason that worked for him. He was able to do it in a random way because it's really hard to randomly throw stuff around the campus, around the can. And he was able to do it in a way that just expressed energy. There's so much. People are, to this day fascinated by his paintings. And they sell for hundreds of millions of dollars, the big ones. I think a lot of times people are like, they're over here, but their genius is over here. I remember Descartes once said, the reason that I am Descartes and great philosopher is one day I decided whenever I read something, I will be able to express the ideas as well as or better than the person that wrote those ideas. And he said, that is how I became a great writer and a great philosopher. So again, it's a matter of finding a way of doing something that works for you, right? And it's the same thing with voice. What voice works for you? Where do you feel comfortable? Right on. Yeah.

As you're talking about this, I'm hearing maybe because I've also heard this in terms of creativity, that, that sometimes volume can help you figure out where your voice or genius really is. But I think that's. To paraphrase what you're. You're saying is try a bunch of different things and, and see what sticks. I'm curious you, have you seen that in your career as a copywriter, outside of the AI stuff? Do you think it's about trying things? And is it about also trying to find high quality examples to think about to emulate and copy?

Yeah. Oh, I think it's about both. I think the high quality examples give you fodder, give you patterns that could. How do I use that pattern? That's all intelligence is, right? It's just reproducing patterns. That's why intelligence tests are this shape. Okay? Now this shape. Which shape comes next? Because I want you to. I want to see if you could see that pattern that was over here and apply it over here. And that's the same thing with copywriting. You look at a great piece of copy and you try to see. It's like the. They laughed when I played when I started, I laughed when I sat down at the piano. But when I started to play that. And people take that and they say, okay, the pattern is they laughed when this. But this. Right? And no, that's not pattern. The pattern is more redemption. Right? The underlying pattern is this idea that of being laughed at, of being scorned, of not being appreciated, and then a transformation happening. It's not about that exact word of they laughed. Why, when. Right? And once you learn to see patterns in things, you see, okay, this is what this person did. This is what this ad did. How can I do that? How can I use that pattern for this? Or you just try them on, see if it fits. Does this pattern fit? Does this pattern fit this pattern? Look what happened when I use that pattern.

It all comes back to pattern recognition.

Yeah, it does. Because otherwise you're always reinventing the wheel to some extent, and it's hard to see underlying patterns. People see superficial, and then they get a template and they copy that template. Everything sounds alike and. Right. I was once like you and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And. But it's not your fault. The real. The real problem is this, the same template over and over again, and people start to recognize it. They know what's coming and then you're dead. Right. Because the worst thing is to be predictable. No one's going to around for predictability. If I know the outcome of the game, I'm not going to watch it. True. Yeah.

So how do you then recognize these patterns and still have that element of surprise? Because that seems to be maybe where the art lies and some of the.

Copywriting, I think an interesting thing. I'm really fascinated by movies, maybe partly because I like to watch them, but also because I think screenwriting is something that every copywriter should study. Because screenwriters know how to show and not tell. They know how to tell a story. They know how to keep us interested in as it moves along. And I think you see that most, maybe especially with movies, in terms of reproducing patterns, right. This isn't a movie. But the Flintstones was really the. The Honeymooners in the Stone age. The Jetsons was the Flintstones in the modern age. And there's probably other examples too. But they were all unique and wonderful TV programs. But they all had the exact same template, right? Husband and wife, they fight in a good natured way. They. The husband is always coming up with schemes to do things that have to be unraveled. And the same thing with movies, right? Like Star wars is a western in outer space, right? That's how you do that. That's how you make it interesting. And it's the same thing with copywriting. It's. What do you. What flesh do you put on those bones? Makes it unique and different, right? What are you telling me about whatever it is, blood pressure that I never heard before. What are you telling me about being coached, right. That I never heard before about it. Oh, that's an insight. I didn't know coaches also did that, that they're working with me on a different level, whatever it is, right? If you can just keep being new and keep being relevant and keep talking about the prospect in a little left turn. But people are always interested in themselves, right? If you tell me about David Deutsch, I could keep the old Ogilvie, I think it was Ogilvy quoted someone saying, nobody reads. Nobody reads one copy. And Ogilvy said, I could. The story that somebody said, I can make you read 500 pages. And the guy says, how? And he says, all I have to do is say these 500 pages are all about you. It's your life. It's a base. I'm reading it. And it's the same thing. As long as you're talking about me and what I want and my dreams and my fears and how I can defeat my enemies and accomplish the things I want and prove wrong. The people that doubted me and understand myself better then I. I forget what you said, but in terms of making the copy relevant, right? That even within a template of this is the opening and it's a pattern interrupt and then we talk about the problem, and then we talk about the real problem and we talk about the solution. Even within that. If you're always talking about me, I'm glued to the page.

It's the.

The.

Golden rule, right? Like, the most interesting word in the English in any language is your name, right? So cool. I love that it actually is adjacent to me. Another question of what are like common pitfalls in the creative process. Losing sight of the person you're trying to grab the attention of, right? Prospects, client. Not being obvious, so there's not like a surprise. You, like, see the pattern coming. I don't know how many times if you've ever had a sales pitch or someone trying to persuade you and you're like, okay, you're just setting up the thing that you're going to ask me for. And I'm like, you're not hitting the mark. I really don't want to be here right now or whatever. Are there any other kind of things to look out for when you are analyzing or creating copy either with a tool or in a group or by yourself?

I think it all comes back to losing sight of the person that you're talking to. Because if you lose that, you lose everything. If you have that, you have everything, right? Talk about things that are relevant, you'll talk about them. You'll see where it's boring because you're. You've got them in sight. You see, they're bored, right? And so that's really. The art is to always be apart from your copy and looking at it as a prospect would look at it even I think biggest thing in a way is falling in love with your first idea or falling in love with an idea. Oh, okay, I got a way to write this copy and that there's another idea. That's where you talked about volume, right? If I would come up with 10 more ideas, I would have another one. But damn it, this copy got to get written and I'm in a hurry and so I'm going to go with this idea. Got it.

Okay. Falling in love with your ideas, losing sight of the prospect. Are there maybe another kind of adjacent question? Like when you are writing copy or brainstorming for an Idea. Are you thinking of different, like psychological things to, to. I want to call it like a checklist. Maybe it's not. I think it's more of an intuition. And I feel like you have to be very empathetic when you're in that space of creating. And maybe you could talk about that too. But like how are you thinking about the psychology of putting together a sales letter or a webpage or something?

Yeah, that's a good question. I think a lot of it's intuitive. And again, if you're keeping the prospect in mind, you're intuitively doing psychological things, just like we all do, right. Trying to convince our spouse to go to one restaurant or another. We're going to employ some psychological things we're going to know. Okay. They like romantic settings. Therefore I'm going to highlight that it's a very romantic setting. But I think that it's almost to some extent it's a go back afterwards and say, okay, did I. Sounds very manipulative to say, did I employ these psychological tactics? But it's a little more, I think it's a little more like a court case, right? Did I present my case in the most powerful way possible? Did I? And it's, it's a jury. So it's gotta be, it's gotta be. There's gotta be an emotionality to it, right? Can't, just, can't do facts. Cause juries aren't always moved by facts. Did I just prove my case beyond a reasonable doubt? What am I missing? Did I connect everything in a logical way? Where would 12 men or women, where would they find fault in the argument? Why would they convict my client instead of letting him go free? So I think that's just as important as the writing, is what you do after the writing, how you look at it in an objective way. Did I really prove that case and did I move people? Is there enough emotion in it? My client could be wrongly convicted. I've got to stir them up a little bit about that. That's a serious thing, right. Someone could lose their life or spend their life in prison if I don't. So I can't just be. Okay. There are five logical reasons why you should not convince my client. It's gotta be, don't send this innocent man to prison. Why you don't put that on your conscience. Yeah, let em think about that in the jury room.

Yeah, that, that speaks to me having a, a big chunk of my career in like software engineering and programming. It's very much in my business trying to get out of here. Are the five things that this is going to do for you without addressing how it's going to help you, any of the emotionality behind what that does for you. So I definitely don't make that case enough.

I think ultimately people want. They don't want stuff they don't want to solve a program, they don't want a book, they don't want a newsletter, they don't want a course, they don't want coaching, they want transformation, they want to be different, they want to be the person that they were meant to be. Obviously with what you do that's even more pronounced is literally to help them do that. But I think anything that they buy, right, they want to be. They don't want the stuff, they want what the stuff will transform them into in their own eyes or in the eyes of others. Right. So you don't want to be selling stuff, you want to be selling what they can become. And this stuff that you're trying to sell them is just a means to that end. But people get a little caught up in. And there's one hour tapes and there's all these workbooks and there's. Look at all this stuff, right. People are like, wow, I gotta listen to eight hours of tape, I gotta read stuff. Get outta here.

Yeah, you're making me do all this extra work for.

You know, that's all just a means to an end, Right. What they want is that journey to get to where they want to be and they want you to help them on that journey. And yeah, if they have to listen to some videos and that's fine and it's good to know they're in there. But it's supportive to the main contention, which is you will be closer to what and who you want to be after you do this. Yeah, you know that, right. People don't, probably some do, but people don't use you as a coach because they want to be on the phone with you for an hour every week.

I'd like to, I'd love to think that. But.

It is pleasant to just get to talk about yourself for an hour a week. It's ultimately. That's not why they do it. When they're done, they are transformed after each session they're more inspired, they're a different person. And at the end of however long they're different. They're high performing now just what wanna be.

Absolutely. Yeah, it's more of the. Yeah, it's that change of. At the end of that experience, I'm doing more of What I want to do in my life or I've started that business or made that big life change in a career or whatever. It's not about the actual coaching process.

Right. So awesome.

So I've picked up in this conversation too. You seem to, you love movies, you've mentioned books, all sorts of other copywriters. I'm curious, do you have, as a copywriting and writing coach, do you have what would be your top three or five inspirations for writing what really you think is beautiful or just as close to perfect as it could be when it comes to putting words together?

Oh, gosh. In terms of copywriting, it's Gary Halbert's writing, it's Gary Benson Venger's writing, John Carlton's writing. Just so power. Some of the classics, like Claude Hopkins, John Caples, people like that writer writing. I like really interesting books, fiction people like Tom Clancy and some of the people that have continued the Tom Clancy books, they always suck me in. I'm always like, I think I'm just going to read the first couple of pages and see if I like it. And then sure enough, I'm sucked into the whole thing again. Or John Grisham, such a simple writer in some ways, but writes so clearly and so interestingly. And of course, a lot of what we do is storytelling. A lot of what we do in copywriting, a lot of what we do in coaching is telling stories. Poetry, I find very inspiring. I think all copywriters should read poetry because it teaches you how to say things in very few words, how to put emotion into things. The Bible, the King James Bible is so amazing with stories and the emotion and the musicality and beauty of the language. If you ever see a translation of the translation because it's in English. If you still look at the King James version of something and then you look at like the, the. I don't know what it's called, the Common Bible or something like that. Right. Like a modern version of it. It'll be like the King James be you let he without sin cast the first stone. And the modern one will be like, you know, unless you're perfect, you shouldn't call other people not perfect or something like that. Like you say, okay, wow, that was beautiful the way they took it and made it like a tangible picture. Right. If you're not perfect, don't accuse other people of not being perfect. There's no picture there. I can't see that. Whereas letting you without sin cast the first stone, that I could see that I could see people throwing Stones at each other. I could see, like, hesitating. So you learn from that Shakespeare, you know, my God, he could pack so much into so few words. And so, yeah, those sorts of things really inspired me and made me like, yeah, I'm a writer. Writer. But I'm in the tradition of Shakespeare and the King James Bible and Brian Grisham and Tom Clancy, by golly. So I get all excited about. Because it is magic, right? We take these 20, 26 letters, we take 10,000 words or whatever our vocabulary is, and we arrange them together and magical things happen. We get people to do things. We help people get the word out there about their business. We change people's lives, give them information.

Yeah, you know, the. It's the infinite combination, infinite possibilities type thing. But yeah, it's amazing that words can have such an impact in people's lives.

Yeah.

And you don't even realize, like, I'm not sure if you've ever had the experience of going to a different place where they don't speak English and you can't read any of the signs around you and how maddening that is slowly, over time, you know, and. Yeah, just how. Well, go ahead. Yeah.

I just tell you to realize how much communication is going on. Think about it. Until it's not, because it's not in English. And then you thought about it.

Yeah, we're so saturated in it that. Yeah, you don't realize it. This has been a fantastic conversation. I asked this question before we start wrapping up, but is there anything else about copywriting or AI that you wanted to talk about that we didn't get to today?

No, I think we pretty much got pretty circled around until we. We touched on everything. Copywriting again, find your inner persuader. I think that's the main thing with people is they write from a different place than they talk. And I don't mean like conversationally, just people say things on In Copy that they would never say to someone in person. New killer program let you kill your competition. And really, would you persuade someone to write that in person? Would you tell that to your mother? You wouldn't bullshit your mother. Why are you trying to bullshit people? You think they're not smart enough to see that, Right? Yeah. Just find your humanness and with AI, use it. Don't let it use you and keep experimenting with it because it's just going to get smarter and it's just going to get better and better at doing stuff. So I think the more you can just get in that habit of using it, get it to Plan your next vacation if you've got to do something. How can I get AI to take a first draft at this or to do this? Let's just see what happens. Because otherwise you're going to. We'll be left behind if we're not doing. Because it's going to start getting incorporated everywhere. For better or worse, it's going to start getting. But there are. There are things that it does. And like with everything though, just remember there are pitfalls, right? It's like with anti lock brakes, what they find is in a way they do just as much harm as good. Because people think, oh, I got anti lock brakes. I can just drive on ice when they kill themselves. Wait a minute. You're defeating the whole purpose. It's like that with AI. Oh, I got AI. I can just paste it right in the. No, you can't.

Or you can, but the risks are great.

Metaphorically speaking.

Yeah, I love that metaphor. To wrap us up, if the good folks want to learn about your coaching for copy your creative writing or learn a little bit more about you, where would be the best place to follow you or to look you up?

David, that would be at. Speaking of writing and a couple of words, here's one report on copywriting and there's one free report on creativity. And you can get information about my courses and things get on my E letter and there's free stuff there. So head on over to speakingofwriting. Com.

Okay, awesome. We'll put that in the show notes for y', all, so check those out. David, we appreciate you being on today and sharing your expertise and your presence. This is super fascinating. I have two pages of notes here too. But yeah, it was an absolute pleasure.

Yes, same here. I enjoyed talking with you.

Awesome. All right, with that, I'll see you guys in the next episode of the Meaningful Revolution. And take care. All right. I hope you like this episode of the Meaningful Revolution. This episode with Dr. Sarah Lavelle with was really amazing. We talked about psychology, we talked about AI. We had a practical use case for how AI can help you assist in a therapy practice. In this particular example, we talked about what to look for in mental health apps as AI starts to entrench in that space. In particular, we talked about in general how to enact change in your life through motivational interviewing and how AI as a tool can enhance your relational profession. So if you love this episode, I think you're gonna love the episode with Dr. Sarah Lavelle. So check that out over here and we'll see you on the next episode of the Meaningful Revolution podcast.