Search

Then along comes Sir Gary of Halbert with a killer
"Elegant Solution". I said to myself, "Self,
why don't you get phone books from all the big cities in the United States and
extract, for example, everybody who has the last name 'Clarke'. Then, just type one
letter with the opening 'Dear Mr. Clarke' and also personalize it several…

I continue this conversation with myself, "After you finish typing that one letter, take it to a printer and
tell him you want 1000 of these letters printed up. While the printer is doing
his thing, you get 1000 envelopes typed to all the Clarkes from those phone
books."

But I wasn't finished yet, "And
Gary, once you get the 'personalized' letters from the printer, you fold and
stuff them in all the envelopes which contain the names and addresses of all
those 1000 Clarkes. Put a live stamp on each one and drop them in the
mail."

My version of a "personalized" letter
cost about a penny... as opposed to... a computer-generated, personalized letter
which cost profusely more.

Looking back on it, it doesn't seem like much of
an idea, does it? But, it was an "Elegant Solution"... because of
which... over 600 million letters were mailed... and... at an increcible profit.

Other times, an "Elegant Solution" can
be short, simple and to the point. Follow along closely to yet another true-life
story. I recently received a letter from one of my subscribers. Due to my
misplaced sense of couth and kindness, I am going to eliminate his name but,
here's his letter, word-for-word:

Dear Mr. Halbert,

Wow! You are one passionate guy who has found his
calling and is living it! I don't know how I found you but I've read your
newsletter archives and I see one thing: There are people who have a job or a
career or a calling. You live, eat, and sleep and exude passion for…

I am a residential architect. I have the idea to sell my
house plans via the web. My wife says, "You want to sell plans and there
are a million other sites out there? How are they going to find us? How are you
going to drive people to our site? How are you going to compete with the
well…

In the scope of it, she raises a lot of good points
which I was aware of but, excitement overtook me. So, I switched to "How To
Design Your Own Home CD". Then my wife says, "Fine, that's ok, but you
can only sell it for $15.95. Do you know how many you have to sell for us…

As you can see, I am an expert on homes in the
Northeast. But I need an expert like yourself. I don't mind hard work, I
just want to go in the right direction.

So how do I ask for help?

Thank you very much,

Peter

I read his letter several times. I decided I
wanted to help "Peter" so I gave a lot of thought as to how I should
answer him. I sent him a fax which contains, what I consider, a brilliant
"Elegant Solution". My fax said:

Dear Peter,

There is no way I or anyone else can help you
with your marketing unless you are willing to divorce or murder your wife.

Gary C. Halbert

You know, I can hear a bunch of you laughing at my
advice... and... I must admit it is somewhat humorous. But, you know what else?
It's dead on correct…

There is no way in the world "Peter" is
ever going to achieve any of his dreams as long as the most significant person
in his life is a woman which should be thought of as "Negativity On
Steroids".

Often, my seminar attendees bring their wives with
them. Not always, but usually, I feel sorry for these men. The real…

Of course "Negativity On Steroids" is
not limited to females. Whenever I'm in a brainstorming session and everyone's
hurling out one idea after another, inevitably, some guy pops up and says, "Let me play the Devil's Advocate. What if this (always a bad
thing) happens?"

You know what I do at that point? I very bluntly
insist I will no longer continue brainstorming if that particular person is
allowed to remain in the room. Why? Because the people I've just described, the
"Negativity On Steroids" type people, are in my opinion, the worst
kind of criminals in all humanity. I identify them as...

"Dream Thieves"!

There is nothing more valuable a person can steal
from you than your dreams.

Thank God not all "Dream Thieves" are
successful. If they were, we wouldn't have electricity, radios, televisions,
automobiles, telephones, computers, cell phones, or any of the luxuries of
civilization we have today. No, "Dream Thieves" would still have us
living in dank, dark…

I think stealing a dream should be a capital
crime. Because...

Without Our Dreams...

We Are Nothing!

Let's switch gears and explore something which could be
considered the opposite of an "Elegant Solution". We're going
to discuss here what you should do if, deep in your heart, you want your company
to fail.

Say you and your Evil Twin decide to create a company, and you
want it be dysfunctional and you want it to screw up everything it touches. Your
Evil Twin goes out to recruit all the people who will work for this company.
When he's finished you ask him, "Okay
Evil Twin, are all these individuals criminals and/or…

Your Evil Twin replies, "Yes.
I know they all are criminals and/or screw ups... but... only 65% are
documented. That just means the other 35% haven't been caught yet."

He continues, "Look
at this: I've got 535 people to work for us. Seven have been arrested for fraud;
19 for writing bad checks; 71 of them have…

He finishes by telling me, "Look
bro, I've selected 535 people to work for us and 352 of them are scumbags who
have been caught. That's almost two-thirds. So you know damn well, catching the
other 183 is just a matter of time. The entire bunch make...

"The Perfect
Group Of People To

Screw Up Everything
They Touch!"

And the Evil Twin was right... because... what I described with real
numbers (they are not fake) are the people who make up the United States
Congress. These are the folks who are telling us how to run our lives.
Just think how much more efficient everything is now…