Remember learning Greek mythology in school?

I’m going to give you one name, and I want you to think about the first image that pops into your head …

Hercules.

What’d you think about? Was it what you read in that dusty old history book, or was it the unforgettable Disney cartoon?

That, my friends, is the power of storytelling in action.

According to Chip and Dan Heath in their book “Made to Stick”, stories are an incredibly important element in creating ideas that stick.

We humans process information much more efficiently when it’s in the form of a story, and we’re therefore much more likely to remember it.

We quickly forget a dry recitation of the facts.

And yet, most marketing is just that: fact after fact after fact …

“Buy this widget from us, and it’ll do this, this and this.”

That doesn’t stick.

If you want your marketing to really sizzle, if you want people to remember it, you need to turn your marketing messages into stories.

I’ve broken down the classical elements of story below so you can begin to think like a storyteller, and make your marketing messages stick …

The protagonist leads the way

You don’t have a story unless you have a main character — also known as the protagonist — whom the audience empathizes with.

The protagonist helps the audience become emotionally engaged with the story.

That’s why very emotional scenes, such as love and action scenes, are so powerful.

Think about horror movies, particularly when the killer is chasing the protagonist.

The audience is on the edge of their seats because they are experiencing the same fears and rush of adrenaline as the protagonist.

Who or what is the protagonist — the hero — of your business?

Your antagonist is their antagonist

In addition to a protagonist, a story also needs an imposing antagonist — someone (or something) hindering the protagonist from reaching her goal.

The antagonist creates conflict.

An antagonist can be a person, an entity, or even the protagonist herself (for instance, the protagonist trying to overcome her own fear).

Tap into and talk about a common “enemy” to bond with your customers, and their loyalty to you will grow very strong, very fast.

The protagonist must be on the move

Boring stories are ones where things happen to the protagonist.

Engaging stories are ones where the protagonist takes action to defeat the antagonist.

In other words, there’s an active struggle.

Let’s say there’s a story about some really bad guys who steal a boy’s dog. The boy is sitting on his couch, crying, missing his dog terribly.

A few moments later, a police officer knocks on the door and delivers the slobbering, excited dog back to the boy.

Boring.

We’d rather see the boy chasing down the bad guys, trying to get his beloved dog back himself.

Are you boring your clients/readers/customers?

This is a cardinal sin of marketing.

Boring kills sales.

No plot, big problem

Of course, a story isn’t a story unless it has a beginning, a middle, and an end.

The beginning sets the stage, showing what the protagonist’s life is like before the antagonist disturbs it.

After the antagonist is introduced, we enter the middle of the story where the protagonist fights the antagonist, trying to accomplish a particular goal.

Then, we reach the climax.

All seems lost. The protagonist makes one more dramatic move and defeats the antagonist totally.

In the end we see how the protagonist restores order to his life.

What’s the “plot” of your content marketing?

Is there a beginning, middle, and end present in your messages?

The moral of the story is …

Lastly, great stories have an overarching message, or moral.

For instance, the moral of “Beauty and the Beast” is that we shouldn’t judge people by their looks.

What’s the major message — or, moral — of your business or idea?

Distill it into one or two very clear lines that you repeat, like a mantra, over and over in all of your marketing efforts.

Pulling it all together

Now, let me bring this all together by diagramming one of the greatest marketing stories of all time: Apple, Inc.’s “1984″ commercial.

Take a minute to watch it here:

The protagonist in this story is the running woman.

The antagonist is “the man” on the screen (Big Brother for you “1984” fans).

The plot here is interesting. There is a beginning, middle, and end, but the commercial only shows us the climax, and merely hints at all the other elements.

We can determine the beginning of the story was that the woman and society were living free. Then, Big Brother came and forced everyone to conform. But the woman — possibly alone — resisted (the middle).

Now, when there is no hope left and the entire culture has submitted to the will of “the Man” (the climax), she takes one last action: she destroys big brother by launching that hammer through the screen.

And she does it in front of the entire world.

As the screen explodes, we know that both the woman and society have been freed from Big Brother once and for all.

The moral? We must act to overcome tyranny and conformity.

And the marketing message? Macintosh will set you free from the tyranny and conformity of the other droning, boring PC manufacturers.

See how stories really help make a marketing message stick?

Apple could have just said, “Hey, we make better computers, and here’s why …”

Instead, they told a story.

Take a look at your marketing message and ask yourself: How can I use a story to make my message stick?

It’s how we humans communicate with each other best.

Go tell your story …

About the Author: Ready to create relationships with your customers that lead to more sales? Want to build a business consumers know, like, and trust? Check out Brandon Yanofsky’s website, B-List Marketing, and discover how.

When people arrive at your website, they’re looking for instant guidance. They want to know what you’re about, and if you can help with whatever they’re looking for.

That’s the function of your tagline. It’s an up-front statement that encapsulates and delivers your big-picture promise – and it’s got to hit the mark with your target audience in seconds.

First up, here are two articles on ways to formulate a killer tagline:

• How to Create a Rock-Solid Tagline That Truly Works
• Does Your Tagline Create Clarity or Mystery?

Creating the perfect tagline is an expression of your positioning, so also check out these two articles about developing your winning difference:

• Differentiate Your Blog or Die
• Take 15 Minutes to Find Your Winning Difference

Now, for the cool part:

In the past, we’ve done interactive tagline clinics in the comment section. Basically, you tell us:

1. what you have to offer
2. the type of people you’re trying to reach
3. your current tagline if you’ve got one

Then, people like Roberta, James, Sonia, Jon, and yours truly will provide guidance and suggestions. We’ll even write your actual tagline for you should the proper inspiration hit.

And of course there’s no charge. So if you want help with your tagline, get started by telling us in the comments!

About the Author: Brian Clark is founder of Copyblogger and co-founder of Scribe. Get more from Brian on Twitter.

Before I talk about our reasons for shutting down Inside the Third Tribe (our community of next-generation internet marketers), I want to stress that it had nothing to do with our members.

In fact, they’ve been amazing. More than 2,000 smart, motivated entrepreneurs, hungry for knowledge and passionately applying the education we provide.

And it’s not because I don’t believe in the community. In fact, I think it’s one of the most remarkable projects I’ve ever been involved with.

Unfortunately, we’ve had some issues with the team that I no longer believe we can reconcile.

There were hints all along, as there usually are. But at the recent South by Southwest Interactive conference in Austin, it became clear that we couldn’t continue as we had been.

We were somewhere at the edge of town when the drugs began to take hold.

Brian said something like, “I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive . . .”

And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was heading for downtown Austin going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down.

And Brian’s baritone voice was bellowing: “Holy Jesus! What are these [expletive] animals?”

“Bats, Brian,” I said. “Austin is known for its bats.”

You have to understand, he’s been under a lot of stress

He’d seemed lucid enough back when we were planning out how we’d approach the conference. Lucid, but showing some signs of strain. We had launched too many projects back to back, and frankly, South by Southwest tends to bring out Brian’s . . . eccentric side.

His voice was fast on the phone when we were making plans, but he sounded reasonably in control of himself.

“You’re going to need plenty of legal advice before this thing is over.”

“Really? OK,” I said, grabbing a pad of paper to take notes.

“And my first advice is that you should rent a very fast car with no top. This blows my week, because naturally I’ll have to go with you. And we’ll have to arm ourselves.”

My voice faltered a little. “Sorry, did you say arm ourselves?”

But you know, I’ve followed Brian down a lot of strange rabbit holes, and so far we’ve always done all right.

So we got the convertible, and the guns, and the 55-gallon drum of creamed corn, and he pulled some kind of connection that let me secure a tank of medical-grade ether.

I try not to ask too many questions when he gets like this. Which makes it my fault too, I realize.

He couldn’t stop talking about retirement, about how much he wanted to walk away. “Social media is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs.”

“Right, but there are good people too!” I kept saying. “You know there are.”

But he wasn’t in any kind of space to hear me. As I’ve come to realize, there is nothing more helpless and irresponsible than a man in the depths of an ether binge. He took another hit and sank into a dark silence while I circled the Austin airport.

We were there to pick up Chris Brogan

Brogan . . . now there’s a piece of work. I don’t mind the first-class airfare or the Rolls Royce or paying for all the booze. Whatever. The man’s got his issues. But picking up the tab for those identical twin Thai massage girls is just . . . I don’t know, it gives me the creeps. Plus it’s hell on our profit margins.

He was hysterical, as usual, as he careened out of baggage claim. His voice kept getting higher and higher, talking about not getting his due, not getting his respect, not feeling the love.

“Don’t you understand? Don’t you get it? I’m still huge!” he shrieked.

“Brogan,” Brian said, in the dangerous voice.

That’s the first moment when I started to get nervous. Brian’s dangerous voice is . . . well, dangerous.

“I’m everything I ever was!” Brogan screamed. “Who have we got now? Nobodies! Can’t you see it? I’m still big! It’s social media that got small.”

Brian pulled out something that looked like a gun, and I nearly passed out. I don’t know if you realize this, but since 9/11, pulling out a gun in a U.S. airport is like wearing a giant sign saying, “Dear TSA dudes, please blow our heads off. Thanks tons, love, Copyblogger.”

Brian squeezed off two tidy shots, but instead of a sound like gunfire, there was a sort of whuff.

Brogan hit the floor like a sack of irradiated meat.

“Damn it, Brian, what the hell was that?” I grabbed the gun and stashed it, then tried to lift Brogan’s head off the linoleum and check his vital signs. Actually, my words were a little stronger than that. You have to be firm when Brian gets this way.

“Elephant tranquilizer,” Brian said. “Brutal stuff. Very bad. He’ll be having hallucinations of having his intestines gnawed by naked mole rats for about . . . ” Brian checked his watch, “the next 12 to 16 hours.”

Don’t even ask me how we got him into the car. There wasn’t room in the back seat (thanks to the creamed corn) but somehow we managed to fold him into the trunk of the convertible and we headed for the hotel.

Brian got snippy with me for insisting we crack the trunk for air, but the last thing in the world I need is a social media darling dying of asphyxiation in the trunk of my rented car. I do have a few boundaries.

Then there’s Darren Rowse

Darren, Mr. “Nice Guy” of the interwebs, was supposed to meet us in the hotel bar. We couldn’t manage to get Brogan out of the trunk, so we left him there, the trunk propped open by his elbow, twitching and sweating and muttering something about a close-up.

I don’t know if you know Darren. He’s . . . well . . . he’s something of a character.

He was slumped, as he usually is, giggling on the red plastic bar stool. He turned his manic grin to us and patted the machete that he always carries. “You call that a knife?” he said. He held up the machete proudly. “Now that’s a knife.”

“Yeah, right, hi Darren,” I said. I was starting to get tired. One of them at a time I can usually take, but between Brian in an ether funk and Chris hallucinating on elephant tranquilizer, the last thing I needed was Darren’s incessant self comparisons to Crocodile Dundee. “That’s awesome, honey. Put it away before you make the bartender nervous, ok?”

“Of course it took me a week to crawl this far,” he muttered, giggling. “I thought I was a goner. I said to meself, Darren old son, find yourself a nice comfortable spot and lay down and die.”

“Rowse,” Brian nodded in greeting, his teeth clenched.

Darren stroked the machete thoughtfully. “Up North in the Never-Never, where the land is harsh and bare, lives a mighty hunter named Darren Dundee.”

Brian began to growl.

“What the [expletive] is he [expletive] on about?” Darren snarled, the giggle dissolving. “Is he taking the [expletive] out of me? Because if he wants a fight, I’ll give him a [expletive] [expletive] [expletive] fight.”

“Both of you, play nice, please,” I begged. “Just ten minutes of peace and then you can start in on each other.” I was desperate for a drink. But one of us had to keep a clear head, and as usual, it looked like it was me.

“He’s [expletive] high again.” Darren’s eyes narrowed.

“I wouldn’t recommend sex, drugs or insanity for everyone, but they’ve always worked for me,” Brian said, with a majestic dignity that almost made me love him again.

From there it just went downhill

Anyway, I guess you remember the rest of it from the news accounts. They didn’t get it exactly right, but it was close enough.

Brogan is doing better in rehab than any of us could have hoped, so I’m crossing my fingers. We don’t think the U.S. will try to extradite Darren for what happened to that biker, and let’s face it, the guy did pull a knife on us. Poor bastard.

Brian’s wife won’t give me any details, and when I drove out to their place to try and figure it out, he took a shot at me. You know, it’s Brian. He’ll be ok. He always is.

If I were going to write the truth about everything I know, about 600 people — including me — would be rotting in prison cells. So I’m going to have to leave it there.

All I know is I can’t do this any more. I’m walking away while I still can. I booked a massage for later this morning, I’m going to go cash my settlement check, and then I’m going to take a walk on this beautiful first day of April and try and figure out what to do with the rest of my life.

Until then, you all take care, ok?

P.S. This post is 100% Brian’s fault.

P.P.S. Thanks, Hunter.

About the Author: Sonia Simone is currently the only one working at Copyblogger and the founder of Remarkable Communication. She also co-founded Inside the Third Tribe before it collapsed into a vortex of drugs, ego, and identical twin Thai massage girls sometime just prior to April Fool’s Day, 2010.

A 40 year-old unsolved murder mystery. Strange cryptic codes in a bible. Sweden, sandwiches, and many, many cigarettes. The badass-est female protagonist since . . . forever. And an author who has, posthumously, caused quite a ruckus in the book world and in the minds of conspiracy theorists everywhere.

Yes, I’m talking about The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. If you haven’t heard of it, the rest of us are inviting you to come out from under your rock. Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest) is topping bestseller lists as we speak and the theatrical release of Dragon Tattoo hits the U.S. next week.

I had the good fortune of screening an advanced copy and, of course, my mind went blog, blog, blog. Because that’s what blog obsessed people like us do. So here are the blogging lessons I learned from this tattooed ‘girl’ . . .

Gasoline feeds a fire, but first there has to be a spark

At one point in the movie, a man lies under a car. Having just flown off the side of the road, both he and the car are demolished, gasoline is spilling out everywhere . . . and he waits, watching, trapped. Finally there’s a spark . . . and then fire, total combustion.

So often we have all of the ingredients, right? The design is just right, the writing is perfection, the research says that there’s a need for the content . . . but then, nothing.

No traffic, no comments, no buzz. No combustion. What’s missing?

There has to be a spark.

Maybe it comes in the form of a new partnership, a referral, or an outside event (like a shortage of light bulbs) that makes your product (candles) suddenly burst into high demand.

Maybe you have a life-changing event that triggers your passion. Maybe you read a book that causes something to click in your brain or your heart.

And then, there’s no stopping the heat.

Nothing more, nothing less

Lisbeth Salander, the girl with the dragon tattoo, is a woman of few words, but they’re always the right ones. She communicates through her gestures, carefully chosen words and even her silences. To some people around her, this is maddening. But others totally get it and they pay incredibly close attention to her. They listen closely . . . and they also watch.

As a blogger, what you don’t say can be as important as what you do say.

Do you find the positive in challenging situations, gleaning lessons and inspiring others? Or do you bitch and moan, spreading negativity?

Do you stick to your topic? Or is your blog scattered, full of everything under the sun?

Do you promote everything that could be remotely related to your blog? Or do you bow out of a big launch that, for one reason or another, isn’t quite right for your readers?

What is the significance of what you leave on the blogging room floor?

Document everything

In the movie, as Blomkvist and Salander try to solve the mystery, they are aided again and again by the record-keeping of other characters, the police, the newspapers, and themselves.

It’s the last, ‘themselves,’ that holds the lesson.

Working to uncover this decades-old secret, the investigators look for the needle in the proverbial haystack. With so much unknown, their path to discovery lies in documenting every thought they have, literally pinning them to the wall for examination — and never, ever brushing aside even one moment of insight or possibility.

Ideas for blog content, joint venture partnerships, promotions, ebooks — and even tweets and Facebook updates — often shoot through our brains at a fast and furious pace.

Blogging fodder is everywhere. It’s in the conversation you have with the souvlaki guy outside your building every day at lunch, it’s in the color of the car that just drove by, it’s in the ad that you saw for hairplugs.

If you don’t grab these ideas as they fly by, they will keep flying. Trust me.

Write it all down. Nail it to the wall. Even the thoughts that seem impossible, unreachable, or just plain ridiculous.

The clue to your own success will lie in your own observations and insights. Don’t lose them.

It’s hard to be brilliant all by yourself

The story’s protagonists bounce their ideas off one another — and often hear brilliance in their partner’s ramblings.

Blogging is about community. Who can you bounce ideas off? Who might hear your mumblings and, in turn, grab you by the shoulders and tell you that you’re actually onto something? Who can you help by being a sounding board?

You might have someone’s missing piece in your back pocket.

Like a tattoo, things are permanent on the internet

Lisbeth has many tattoos, including a dragon covering her entire back. Getting ink like that is a serious commitment. Yes, you can have laser surgery to get a tattoo removed, but from what I can tell, it never completely disappears. A scar is left behind. And I’m told the process is neither pleasant nor easy.

If we really want to get deep here, we can go so far as to say that your memory of the tattoo can never be removed.

Blogging is also a commitment. We commit our time, we commit our creativity, we commit our resources. And every time we hit ‘publish’ we commit to our ideas.

The internet is a pretty permanent place and it’s hard to ‘take it back’ once the words are out there. Yes, you can go to the trouble of having something uncached — but again, it isn’t pleasant or easy. People will remember your post, they may have even printed your words on paper. We’re time-stamped and cached, linked to and quoted, and even scraped.

Be as sure as you can be each and every time you share.

Don’t underestimate anyone

Played perfectly by Noomi Rapace, Lisbeth is mysterious, tattooed, and pierced. She’s also tiny, often mistaken for a skinny, 14 year-old boy and underestimated because of her small size.

But she’s able to fight off grown men — both physically and mentally — time and again. I believe the appropriate term here would be scrappy ass-kicker. And it works to her advantage. She has surprise on her side and she’s impressive, even to those who don’t particularly like her.

With a blogosphere more crowded than a Twilight premier (and some days with just as much screaming), it’s a phenomenal idea to stand out.

It’s the old case of man bites dog. What can you do, how can you say it, where can you share it so that it lands like a snowman in a cranberry bog? (That is: with a splash, much coolness, and bright by contrast.)

Lisbeth is also the underdog. To be honest, she’s the runt.

But a few people look beyond that (or don’t even see it at all) and take a chance on her. It helps her, of course, but it also helps them. They don’t see her size, her income, her appearance, her odd personality, her history. They see her skill, her brilliance, her dedication, her inherent goodness.

How many Top 10, 25, 50, 100 lists have you seen that tout the best bloggers, the best writers, the twitterati?

Sadly, many people get caught up in these lists and think that these people are the only ones to do business with or read, because they look good on paper. But we all start somewhere.

Chris Brogan just wrote that it took him 8 years to get 100 subscribers on his blog — and look at him now.

As bloggers we can only help each other and the quality of the blogosphere by discovering new talent, sharing what we know and giving people a chance.

No matter how small and skinny . . . no matter how many tattoos.

About the Author: Julie Roads invites you to join the Dragon Tattoo Blog HUNT — an internet wide scavenger hunt tied to the feature film launch of bestselling book The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

You can win great prizes — free movie tickets, books, movie soundtrack, posters and more. To join the contest, start at the beginning of the HUNT by visiting www.dragontattoofilm.com/contest for full details and the first clue. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is in theaters near you starting March 19th.

THE NEXT CLUE: Rachel Bilson & Christina Ricci are celebrity supporters of this national network that fights violence against women. Their strong volunteer program just goes to show that when kindness RAINNS, it pours.

We tell you about the power of stories quite a bit. And now we’re able to see what happens in our brains when we encounter a compelling story.

But how do you learn to tell these types of stories? Often, just by studying great ones.

Take 37 seconds to read this one:

______

The soul of the city is in a football game three seasons ago, the return to the Superdome, on a Monday night when those of us who love New Orleans first realized the city would be back. It was Sept. 25, 2006 — Payton’s and Brees’ first home game.

The Friday night before, Payton gathered his team in the empty stadium. People had died there, just 13 months before. The bodies were stored in a catering freezer. The building seemed unfixable, and now the Saints stood at midfield. On the video board, Payton played a movie about the hurricane. It showed it all, the dark, dark water, the archipelago of rooftops, the fear on the faces of an abandoned city, the slow pan of the Humanity Street sign barely visible above the current. It showed the Superdome with its roof almost torn off. It showed a city that looked as though it would never return. Then the video ended. The players, standing at the center of a rebuilt stadium, all shiny and new, talked about what they had seen and how important they were to the people who would fill these seats the next night.

They understood.

The game began and, less than two minutes in, the Saints blocked a punt and recovered for a touchdown. One of my best friends, a chef who grew up in the city, sat on his couch in Mississippi and wept. So did thousands of people in the Dome. For 37 seconds, an eternity on television, the announcers stayed quiet, the only noise coming from the screaming of the crowd. Thirty-seven seconds, while a city went completely and totally insane with joy.

Wright Thompson, ESPN.

About the Author: Brian Clark is founder of Copyblogger and CEO of Copyblogger Media. Get more from Brian on Twitter.

The doctor cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, but I have bad news.”

He paused, looking down at the floor. He looked back up at her. He started to say something and then stopped, looking back down at the floor.

That’s when Pat began to cry.

She’d argued with herself about even coming to the doctor’s office. Her baby was a year old, and he hadn’t started crawling yet. He tried, yes, dragging his legs behind him as he struggled to make it just a few feet on the floor, but it didn’t look right. Everyone told her that she was worrying over nothing, and maybe she was, but she told herself that she would take him to the doctor, just to be safe . . .

“Your son has a neuromuscular disorder called Spinal Muscular Atrophy,” the doctor said. “It’s a form of muscular dystrophy that primarily affects children.”

Pat was speechless. Everyone had told her she was silly. She had hoped she was wrong, prayed she was wrong, but still . . . she knew.

“What’s going to happen to him?” she managed to say.

“Where most children grow stronger as they get older, your son is going to get weaker. He’ll lose the ability to move. He’ll lose the ability to breathe on his own. And one day, he’ll catch an infection that will spread into his respiratory system, giving him severe pneumonia . . .”

She held up her hand to stop him. “You’re saying he is going to die?”

He nodded. “There are three types of SMA. Caught this early, your son almost certainly has Type I. Most children with Type I die of pneumonia before the age of two.” He paused. “I’m sorry.”

Pat looked up into his face and saw that he really was sorry. It made her angry. Not because of his pity, but because in this man’s eyes, her baby was already dead.

“Don’t be sorry,” Pat said, wiping tears away from her face. Her voice was suddenly very calm.”He isn’t going to die.”

“It’s important you understand the situation, Mrs. Morrow. The pneumonia . . . he won’t be able to fight it.”

“He won’t have to,” she said. “I’ll fight it for him.”

The miracle of mothers

Over the next 16 years, I had pneumonia 16 times. But I never died. It sounds strange to say it, but my mother wouldn’t let it happen.

She orchestrated a team of more than a dozen doctors. She slept in a chair beside me in the hospital, sometimes for as many as 30 days in a row. She pounded my chest and back every two hours to loosen the mucus, covering my chest and back with bruises.

Today, at 27 years old, I’m one of the oldest people in the world with my type of SMA, and people tell me it’s a miracle. And I agree, it is. But the miracle isn’t just me. It’s a mother who fought like only a mother can to keep me alive.

By “alive,” I don’t mean just “not dead,” either. You’d think my mother would have been satisfied for me to live at home, tucked away from the world where she could protect me, but for her, that wasn’t living. She insisted that I be great.

When my elementary school principal decided that disabled children didn’t have a place in her school, my mom appealed to the school board and turned every board member’s life into a living hell for two years.

She won.

When I wanted to play basketball, she forced an astounded coach to reinvent the rules of the game so that I could be the “ball carrier” for the team, and no one could take the ball away. Not surprisingly, everyone wanted me on their team.

When I could no longer pick up a pencil, she arranged for honors students at local colleges to help me with my homework after school. I graduated at the age of 16, not only near the top of my class, but with college credit.

If you’re a mother, none of these things surprise you. Some mothers are weak, sure, but the vast majority fight for their children, especially when those children are defenseless. It’s not because they’re trying to be heroes. It’s because that’s their job.

And I think we can learn something from them. Not to minimize what mothers do, but I’ve come to believe that our job as writers is not all that different.

Fighting for your ideas

Growing up, I always had to fight to get people to listen to me.

The worst part about being disabled isn’t the pain or the struggle but how the world tries to shove you into a corner and pretend that you don’t exist. After all, what could you possibly have to contribute? You’re going to die soon, poor thing. Here’s a nice, quiet room and some morphine to ease the pain.

They don’t proactively hold you back, no, but they don’t expect you to succeed either. I’ve spent my entire life fighting against the weight of those expectations.

Like when university professors were flabbergasted when, on the first day, I asked my attendant to raise his hand, so I could answer the question that no one else could.

Or the vaguely constipated look on the face of a venture capitalist when I asked for $500,000 of startup capital for my first software company.

Or the disbelieving stares of people at a real estate conference when I gave a talk about buying million-dollar homes without even being able to get up the stairs to see the inside of them.

Their disbelief has never stopped me, of course. It’s not a matter of persistence or strength or attitude, as some people think. It’s a matter of shame.

How could I possibly look my mother and father and all of the others who have sacrificed so much for me in the eye and tell them, “I can’t?” I couldn’t bear it. The shame of dishonoring their sacrifice by giving up would poison my soul.

And so I fight

If my mother could ignore a doctor who would condemn me to death, then I can ignore my inner demons who tell me I’ll never make it as a writer.

If my mother could demand that I achieve straight As in school, then I can demand greatness from every blog post I publish.

If my mother could lobby school administrators and government agencies to get me the help I needed, then I can lobby bloggers and social media power users to get my idea the attention it deserves.

Not to imply that I’m unique, because I’m not. Yes, I’ve had to overcome a lot of adversity, but so does every creative person who wants their ideas to see the light of day.

If you want to succeed, you can’t wait for the world to give you attention the way a cripple waits for food stamps to arrive in the mail. You have to be a warrior. You have to attack with the madness of a mother whose child is surrounded by an army of predators.

Because, let’s face it, your ideas are your children. Their future is as tender and delicate as that of any newborn.

You can’t just write them down and expect them to succeed. Writing isn’t about putting words on the page, any more than being a parent is about the act of conception. It’s about breathing life into something and then working to make sure that life becomes something beautiful.

That means spending ten hours on a post, instead of 30 minutes.

That means writing a guest post every week, instead of one every few months.

That means asking for links without any shame or reservation, not because you lack humility, but because you know down to the depths of your soul that what you’ve done is good.

You have to realize that your blog is more than just a collection of ones and zeros floating through cyberspace. It’s more than the words on the page. Your blog is a launchpad for your ideas, and you are the rocket fuel that lifts them off the ground.

So burn it up, baby.

Your ideas are counting on you.

About the Author: Jon Morrow is Associate Editor of Copyblogger. Get more from Jon on twitter.

You know me as James Chartrand of Men with Pens, a regular Copyblogger contributor for just shy of two years.

And yet, I’m a woman.

This is not a joke or an angle or an analogy — I’m literally a woman.

This is my story.

Once upon a time, I found myself having to make some hard decisions.

The welfare application was on my kitchen table. It was filled out and signed, waiting for me to bring it to the people who would decide whether I’d be able to make rent next month or put food on the table.

I hated looking at it. I didn’t want to be in this situation. I’d thought that when you start over, make a clean break, life was supposed to get better, right?

But here I was, out of money and out of choices.

I had two young daughters to take care of. I was single and alone, having left an unhealthy relationship, and I was living in a crappy, tiny apartment.

I’d used up my savings trying to make ends meet, supplementing as best I could with the money I earned from a dangerous part-time job that gave me all of 4 hours pay a week at minimum wage. I had been looking for a better job, but there were none to be had in the low-income/high-unemployment area where I lived.

And I couldn’t get a full-time job anyway — I was still on the waiting list for a spot in daycare.

How did I get here?

It was ironic. I’d once had a respectable, safe job in a corporate office. I’d had the nice salary, the paid vacations, the opportunity for advancement. I had formal education, diplomas, brains, and skills, and life had been good.

Now it wasn’t.

My older daughter told me she could look for work to help pay the bills.

She was 12.

As a last-ditch resort, I turned to the internet. There must be something I could do. There must be jobs out there . . . maybe in writing. I was a good writer.

And sure enough, there was writing work for me on the ‘net, work I could do from home that paid quickly. I signed up with the company, thinking I was so lucky to have this chance to pull myself out of the mess.

I struggled to get gigs — there was tough competition from more experienced hustlers. When I did manage to grab a job before someone else could, I worked hard and wrote well. I wanted to do my best.

I earned $1.50 an article. I averaged $8 a week.

I was treated like crap, too. Bossed around, degraded, condescended to, with jibes made about my having to work from home. I quickly learned not to mention I had kids. I quickly learned not to mention I worked from my kitchen table.

I quickly learned that this sucked.

So I started looking for better gigs and clients, now that I knew there was writing work to be had.

I scoured Craigslist and job sites and gig auctions and sent applications to all sorts of people.

And it worked. I started getting real clients, for real pay. I was earning more, feeling good. I even began hiring people to work with me as a team.

But . . . it still wasn’t really working

I had high-quality skills and a good education. I was fast on turnaround and very professional. I hustled and I delivered on my promises, every single time. I worked hard and built the business, putting in long hours and reinvesting a lot of the money I made.

I really, really wanted to make this work.

But I was still having a hard time landing jobs. I was being turned down for gigs I should’ve gotten, for reasons I couldn’t put a finger on.

My pay rate had hit a plateau, too. I knew I should be earning more. Others were, and I soaked up everything they could teach me, but still, there was something strange about it . . .

It wasn’t my skills, it wasn’t my work. So what were those others doing that I wasn’t?

One day, I tossed out a pen name, because I didn’t want to be associated with my current business, the one that was still struggling to grow. I picked a name that sounded to me like it might convey a good business image. Like it might command respect.

My life changed that day

Instantly, jobs became easier to get.

There was no haggling. There were compliments, there was respect. Clients hired me quickly, and when they received their work, they liked it just as quickly. There were fewer requests for revisions — often none at all.

Customer satisfaction shot through the roof. So did my pay rate.

And I was thankful. I finally stopped worrying about how I would feed my girls. We were warm. Well-fed. Safe. No one at school would ever tease my kids about being poor.

I was still bringing in work with the other business, the one I ran under my real name. I was still marketing it. I was still applying for jobs — sometimes for the same jobs that I applied for using my pen name.

I landed clients and got work under both names. But it was much easier to do when I used my pen name.

Understand, I hadn’t advertised more effectively or used social media — I hadn’t figured that part out yet. I was applying in the same places. I was using the same methods. Even the work was the same.

In fact, everything was the same.

Except for the name.

The answer was plain. Without really thinking much about it, I tried an experiment when I chose my new pseudonym:

I became a man (in name only)

Taking a man’s name opened up a new world. It helped me earn double and triple the income of my true name, with the same work and service.

No hassles. Higher acceptance. And gratifying respect for my talents and round-the-clock work ethic.

Business opportunities fell into my lap. People asked for my advice, and they thanked me for it, too.

Did I quit promoting my own name? Hell yeah.

Eventually, I had earned enough income and credibility to get a mortgage, and I bought a tiny, modest house for me and my kids in a quiet town near my mum. It was the first home of my life I could truly call my own, paid for by long hours and hard work. Paid for by my own sweat and tears, at the tender age of 37.

It’s nothing new

Using a male pseudonym when you’re a woman isn’t anything new. Writers have been doing it for centuries. George Eliot, George Sand, Isak Dinesen. Even the Brontë sisters, championed today, wrote as Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell back in their time.

Why did they do it? To have their work accepted, because women weren’t supposed to be writers. Their work had a much better chance if their audience didn’t have to get over initial skepticism that a woman could write at all, much less do it well.

Since then, we’ve had feminism. We have the right to vote, to own property, to be members of Parliament and Congress, to get a job, and to be the main breadwinner of the family. And yet apparently we haven’t gotten past those 19th century stigmas.

The evidence was right there in front of me.

I never wanted to be an activist, or to fight the world. I’m not interested in clawing my way up a ladder to a glass ceiling. Life’s too short for that.

I just want to earn a living and be respected for my skills. I want my kids to be happy and have access to what they need. I want them to go to university and have good opportunities in life.

When it started to take off

I really didn’t think any of this would ever happen, to be honest.

The blog I’d started to get some clients and show off my skills? For a long time, so few people read it that weeks would go by without a single comment.

But things changed. Slowly at first, but then all of a sudden they picked up speed. There were more comments on the blog, and more again.

I didn’t overthink it — I just answered them and kept on blogging to earn clients.

Then my blog hit Michael Stelzner’s list of the Top Ten Blogs for Writers. The flood of people who came to visit was overwhelming.

And they liked what I wrote.

And I thought to myself, “Oh shit. What do I do now?”

What I did next

I was in too deep to back down, too survival-minded to do anything but go forward, and, quite honestly, too scared I’d lose everything I’d worked so hard to build.

So I didn’t do anything at all. I didn’t really know what to do.

I thought about it a lot, though. And logic told me that the loss of my real name was a small concession for the ability to be able to support my family and ensure their financial security for years to come.

Truth be told, if just a name and perception of gender creates such different levels of respect and income for a person, it says a lot more about the world than it does about me.

Why am I telling my story now?

Well, people talk.

For three years, I’ve kept my true name and gender pretty tightly under wraps and only confided in a tiny handful of people I trusted. But there was always that risk that someone, someday, would end up spilling the beans. And for years I sat braced for that moment.

And sure enough, someone I trusted got mad and decided to out me. (Someone who, incidentally, was using a male pseudonym and identity too. Go figure.)

Here’s the thing.

My life, my terms. No one handed me anything. I’ve worked damned hard for this. I took care of myself and my family, and I’ve given the best of my creativity and knowledge to each of my clients and my readers.

I’d like to keep doing that.

P.S.

Oh, my real name? Well, I never really wanted that revealed, totally apart from the gender issue. I know better than most how quickly and profoundly revealing just a tiny bit of personal information can affect (and even destroy) people’s lives.

I have kids. I’m not interested in making myself vulnerable in that way.

So please. Just call me James.

About the Author A rose by any other name would still turn in the great writing for clients that James does at Men with Pens.

(Author’s note: I have to extend my thanks to Kelly for the help she gave me with the original draft of this post. Her kindness made a difficult task so much easier.)

I’m a big fan of Leo Babauta.

His book, The Power of Less, is required reading for anyone who wants a rewarding life.

But many of Leo’s followers think doing less means, well, settling for less.

I’m here to tell you it can mean achieving much more.

In the last 4 years, I’ve been living the power of less.

In fact, I started with that philosophy well before I knew it was one.

Do Less to Achieve More

I annoy many of my partners and friends with my approach.

But the reality is, engaging in busy work is not the secret to success.

Success comes from ignoring the busy and sticking with developing content and pursuing projects that matter to your goals.

That means you need time to think.

Enjoy the Stillness

Don’t get me wrong, I work hard and push the envelope.

But I choose the things I pursue very carefully.

And that means ignoring the immediate until I know the right thing to do.

Again, this often annoys people who want my immediate attention.

But when it’s right, I act . . . and everyone involved is a lot happier with the eventual outcome.

Don’t Do Things That Don’t Matter

The stereotype of the successful person is one who juggles multiple cats in the pursuit of maximum return.

I’m telling you to drop most of those cats, and lovingly embrace that special one.

Making clear decisions about content and projects that work requires clear vision, and you don’t achieve that in a frenzied, haphazard mode.

Right decisions require the right mindset, and a clear path to achieving the goal.

How clear is your mind right now?

P.S. No cats were harmed in the writing of this post.

About the Author: Brian Clark is founder of Copyblogger and co-founder of DIY Themes, creator of the innovative Thesis Theme for WordPress. Get more from Brian on Twitter.

I’ve written another piece of extended content, this time for Lateral Action. Rather than sending you over there, I’ll just tell you about it here.

It’s a free 31-page PDF report (don’t worry, it reads fast) called The Lateral Action Guide to Becoming a Creative Entrepreneur. It’s probably the most personal I’ve gotten about my history, but it’s still heavy on actionable, real-life examples.

Here’s what you’ll discover:

• Why I quit my cushy law firm job and turned to online publishing.
• How I failed miserably.
• How I then succeeded miserably.
• How I learned my lesson the hard way.
• The allure of the global microbrand.
• The rise of the “feeder” business.
• Why small is beautiful (and powerful).
• The 37signals approach to market research.
• Real-life examples of tiny, highly-successful entrepreneurs.

Plus, a deeper examination of the 5 critical components of the new entrepreneurship:

• Create (Don’t Compete)
• Lead (Don’t Manage)
• Communicate (Don’t be Shy)
• Automate (Don’t Duplicate)
• Accelerate (Don’t Stand Still)

This report is totally free . . . you don’t even have to provide an email address.

Click here to download the PDF.

About the Author: Brian Clark is founder of Copyblogger and co-founder of DIY Themes, creator of the innovative Thesis Theme for WordPress. Get more from Brian on Twitter.

In a recent Copyblogger post discussing how the king of content is being slowly usurped by the Crown Prince of Context, author Larry Brooks referenced the remarkable opening scene of Quentin Tarantino’s new movie Inglourious Basterds.

There are few writers like Tarantino, and though his verbal carpet bombs and kinetic escalation of violence aren’t for everyone, there is no doubt that the dude follows his muse. Those who love him will eagerly wait in lines wrapped around the block to show their support.

In short, Tarantino sells it every time. And by it, I mean an ironclad belief in the worlds he’s created.

On Larry’s post, a great conversation continued downstairs in the comments, where a second Tarantino clip was referenced, the “Sicilian Scene” from True Romance. Though I love both movies, I was inspired to write this post by a scene from Tarantino’s earliest feature, Reservoir Dogs.

Selling it

In Reservoir Dogs, Tarantino assembles a marvelous scene, on the surface about gaining the confidence of the men the protagonist plans to double cross. Closer inspection reveals the scene for what it really is, a seven-and-a-half-minute love letter to the art of storytelling.

The film itself is about a bank robbery gone bad, though Tarantino manages to turn the adage, “show not tell” upside down by showing only a few seconds of the robbery, while his characters sit around for the rest of the film swapping one slice of story at a time.

Spoiler alert: The hero of the tale is Mr. Orange, an undercover cop, played by the superb Tim Roth, masquerading as a fellow bank-robbing miscreant. The success of his cover hinges on convincing the other criminals of his authenticity. He does this, in part, by reciting “The Commode Story,” a fictitious anecdote that is not only amusing, but also easy to sell to the other delinquents because it deals with a dicey encounter with the law.

It is in the Commode Story where Tarantino becomes the teacher.

It’s all in the details

“An undercover cop’s gotta be Marlon Brando . . . . you gotta be naturalistic as hell — ’cause if you ain’t a good actor — you a bad actor, and bad actors is bullshit in this job.”

It’s the details that sell your story, according to Officer Holdaway, played by Randy Brooks, delivering lines obviously written for a Sam Jackson Tarantino could not yet afford.

Holdaway instructs Mr. Orange on the finer details of selling the story.

“You’ve got to memorize what’s important so you can make the rest your own.”

He then continues to expand his point with something Copyblogger has frequently preached:

“Remember, this story’s about you and how you perceive the events that went down.”

He wraps up with a version of the same sage writing advice Brian’s been posting for years:

“The only way to do that is to keep saying it and saying it and saying it and saying it.”

As the scene unfolds, we watch as Mr. Orange rehearses the story in his room with slowly mounting confidence until he owns the narrative enough to deliver it without flinching in a smoky bar populated by criminals, any one of whom could end him in an instant.

Eventually, we find ourselves breathlessly watching as the Commode Story unfolds via flashback and Mr. Orange’s voiceover.

We watch as a man packing massive amounts of marijuana finds himself entering a bathroom containing not one, not two, but four police officers and a K-9 unit. As the camera pans the officer’s narrowed eyes, the dog’s fervent attention, and follows Mr. Orange as he tries to casually go about his business without getting busted, the narration adds to the palpable sense of danger.

We feel the tension even though we know Mr. Orange has manufactured every word and was never actually in danger of being busted.

Why?

Because Mr. Orange owns the story.

Own your story

The more you write about a particular topic or in a specific genre, the tighter your work will naturally become. Your expertise will grow. Better words will come to you, and they’ll show up more quickly.

If you write about widgets, write the hell out of your widget copy.

Loving your widget is a great start, but you also have to know your widget inside out and upside down. You must know every surface, every detail. Knowledge and passion will shine through the copy and accentuate the differences between you and everyone else writing about widgets.

If you want to be a great writer, you’ve got to own the story. Fiction or sales copy, know your story like nobody else and you will write words that no one else can touch.

About the Author: Sean Platt is a direct response copywriter and independent publisher. Follow him on Twitter.