The Little-Known Persuasion Secret Discovered by an “Infamous Atheist” That Will Put You in the Fast Lane to Dominate Your Market

It’s hard to throw a rock these days and not hit a news pundit.

The hundreds on cable news and thousands of bloggers, YouTubers, and Twitteratti make it harder than ever to stand out.

But in that “dead sea” of stupidity, mediocrity, and blandness, a relative few have been able to rocket to the top and create massive followings of passionate (and paying) supporters.

One the most popular is Sam Harris.

Harris, one of the most successful yet polarizing and controversial authors and podcasters today, is one of the few who rose way above the influence and income of the typical pundits.

To give you a sense of how well he does, I saw a credible site once that crunched the numbers and found that Harris makes, just from his podcast alone, $15,000 per episode. (Add in the profits from his best-selling book royalties and tour events and I’m sure that makes a nice living.)

I have no idea if that podcast figure is still correct (if anything, it’s probably much higher now since that post is a few years old).

Anyway, I’m bringing it up because a couple years ago, I heard him deliver a 10-minute or so monologue about how he managed to create such a thriving content business that leaves him with plenty of “walking around money” and has made him completely “un-cancelable” by both left wing and right wing politically-correct jihadis alike.

I doubt that only three or four percent of the hundreds of thousands of people who listened to him really understood the valuable public service that Harris was doing them completely free of charge

But I would bet my bottom dollar that a whole bunch of his audience would love to have a business like his where they get paid six and seven figure incomes to say whatever they want to millions of eager listeners each week — not to mention a whole basket of New York Times bestselling books and massive sold-out event venues.

Yet, almost no one has any interest in learning how to do it.

For me, however, it was like finding gold in the mythical city of El Dorado!

I’ll even go so far as to say that I believe this is one of the most important rules of making money in the information publishing/marketing business.

And it might even be THE most important one you read in this e-book.

That’s why I decided to share the complete monologue here (I’m not giving away any secret or proprietary information since you can look it up for yourself on Sam Harris’s free podcast anywhere) so you can get the same benefit — with the key points boldened.

So, without further ado, here it is:

“In producing the Waking Up course, I’m attempting to do something I’m especially qualified to do. I don’t consider myself the best at any one thing. But you don’t have to be best at anything to be almost uniquely qualified for something.

“For instance, I’m not by any stretch of the imagination the world’s best scientist. As far as what I do on a day-to-day basis, I’m more a philosopher. But I’m not the most knowledgeable philosopher in the world either. My PhD, after all, is in neuroscience — not philosophy. And there is no question there are books and papers I should have read but haven’t.

“I’m not the best meditator in the world. There are many people in the world. There are many people who have far more experience than I do practicing on an intensive retreat. I took some psychedelics back in the day, but there are people in that area who are far more experienced than I am.

“I know a fair bit about religion, but I’m not a religious scholar. I don’t read any of the primary languages in which the world’s scriptures were written. So this is a picture — it would seem — of just pristine mediocrity. But consider: how many scientists know as much philosophy and how many philosophers know as much science.

“Well, honestly the field narrows quite a bit. And then when I ask how many people have a similar degree of experience in meditation — that is, how many philosopher-scientists truly understand that introspection isn’t a dead end? How many have studied with great meditation teachers and spent a substantial amount of time on silent retreat? Well, now I can begin counting these people on my fingers.

“Similarly, when I ask how many people with real experience in meditation, who can notice, for instance, that the sense of self is an illusion and can speak about this honestly, not as a matter of theory but as a fact that can be observed in the present moment? How many of these people can understand enough science and philosophy to be appropriately skeptical of religion. That is, how many people with a mature meditation practice, understand that we have to get out of the religion business once and for all. This number is truly tiny.

“Now I realize this might sound strangely self-deprecating and grandiose at the same time. Needless to say, I don’t mean to be either. I think it’s just simply a fact, that, given my background and interests, and given the kinds of questions that have fascinated me for decades, and given the fairly unique opportunities I’ve had to pursue those questions, I’m not sure who else could produce this course….”

To sum it all up: What Harris has enunciated here is the brilliant insight that your true unique selling proposition is no one single expertise or ability. Chances are that most of you reading this, like me, are not the absolute best in your field.

Instead, it’s a whole bunch of expertise that you have (you can include intangible things like your personality as well), which you combine into a totally unique brand and voila: you’re in a market of one that none of your rivals can match.

(I hope you picked up on the earlier insight provided by David Ogilvy about being in the “business of you.” Harris’s insight is how you get to being in that business.)

Lesson: To succeed in business, you must put together all these different factors to create an indestructible money package. The best way to do that is to follow something like what Sam Harris proposed: simply write out all of your strengths, interests, and expertise.

Then, write out everything you can about your personality, interests, sense of humor, favorite books and movies and shows and websites, political and religious beliefs, sports you play, hobbies you have, your interesting personal and family history, places you’ve traveled to, life lessons you’ve learned — anything you can think of, really.

And that’s your specific brand — that is what makes you, you. And it’s what will attract your ideal prospect to your business.

David Lowenthal is an independent direct response fundraising serving libertarian and other freedom-loving nonprofits.

This chapter is part of his book 32 Jackpot Marketing Secrets from History’s Greatest and Craziest Persuaders! If you would like to discover more marketing secrets from some of history’s most successful entrepreneurs, copywriters, politicians, negotiators, lawyers, talk show hosts, actor/directors, political activists, and much more, you can download a copy of his FREE ebook, 32 Jackpot Marketing Secrets from History’s Greatest and Craziest Persuaders!, by signing up here.

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