Maxim #1:
Change your thoughts, change your life.

Dear Marketing Maven,

I chose this as my first Maxim because it’s the single most powerful idea behind everything I’ll share with you—the mother of all maxims.

As you will discover in this newsletter, the most effective way to influence the minds of others is to first unlock the tremendous power of your own mind. And the easiest way to do that is by choosing the right thoughts to guide you.

We humans live by our thoughts. Every day of your life, your repetitive thoughts shape the mental universe you live in.

In your career and every other area of your life, your dominant thoughts determine your actions … your actions determine your habits … and your habits determine your destiny. This means that if you adopt those thoughts that have been proven to lead others to wondrous success, you too will experience similar success.

And that’s why Maxims can be so valuable. Maxims are thoughts that serve as proven, easy-to-remember guiding principles for mastering any skill.

In any area of your life, if you adopt the right principles that maximize success in that field, and make these principles your habitual guiding thoughts, you will be far more successful than others who lack your proven guiding principles.

This is true whether you want to be a great copywriter, a successful investor, a wonderful spouse or parent, a loyal friend, or a wealthy entrepreneur.

“Change your thoughts, change your life” is not original with me. Decades ago, the popular self-help author Wayne Dyer published a book with this title. Thousands of years before him, the brilliant Stoic philosophers taught that the right thoughts could conquer any challenge to one's personal happiness.

As you’ll also discover, by mastering the art of changing your thoughts to change your life, you will become an expert at changing other people’s thoughts to empower them to achieve the changes they want in their lives. This will all become clear as you read future issues.

These Maxims will be especially rewarding for you and others if you use their proven power—as I hope you will—in the service of truly excellent clients, products, services, causes, and life-enhancing concepts. Do so and your life, and the lives of all those you influence, will be much richer in so many ways. You’ll be much happier as well.

In your next issue, I’ll share the best guidance I received as a young copywriter. To this day, I practice this all-important principle every time I write copy, and it pays enormous dividends.

For now, whenever you notice yourself entertaining thoughts that make you feel anxious, unhappy, confused, frustrated, sad, or in any way negative about your work, career, or, for that matter, any situation in your life, remember today’s six-word Maxim and know that a solution can be yours once you replace your current thoughts with those that will unerringly lead you to success.

Your habitual thoughts are your most powerful tools for influencing the actions of yourself and others.

The process begins with remembering today’s insight: