EMM03: "The Things I've Lost" by Brian Arundel
My grandma survives on cookies, peanut butter sandwiches, and coffee — always with sugar and cream.
Alcohol and cigarettes used to be other sources of sustenance. But she hasn't touched either in the 29 years I've been alive.
Although she's 75, only a few streaks of gray scorch her brown hair. Nearly every piece of clothing she owns came from a thrift shop. And after a recent book haul at Goodwill, she's taken to reading.
Earlier this week, she told me about a Danielle Steele book she'd finished.
"Can you remember what it was about?" I asked.
"Oh, just life," she said. "It was a woman whose husband died, and now she wanted a new man and they were fighting over him."
(My grandma's husband died when I was a freshman in high school, and to my knowledge, in the 15 years since — she has not wanted a new man even for a second.)
I laid on my bed while we talked and looked out the window. The sky was working hard to decide whether it would prefer to rain buckets or let the sun shine through.
And as it labored over the decision, a rainbow materialized from the mist, spanning the window.
I held my phone on my chest, talking with my grandma on speakerphone. From my angle, the end of the rainbow landed directly on the phone.
My grandma had had a rough day.
My mom accidentally left her phone at my grandma's house. After she left, my grandma grabbed the phone and ran to the end of her street, hoping to catch my mom in time.
It didn't happen.
"I felt so stupid," she said.
Five minutes after this, she told me the same story again — almost verbatim.
My grandma has dementia.
She tries to speak, tries to say something that makes sense, tries to remember what she was going to say when she started talking, and can't do it.
"It just gets all twisted up," she says.
She can feel the thoughts spinning themselves in circles, tangling themselves up like a cat with a ball of yarn.
She knows her mind is going, fading into the mist like a rainbow that has suddenly become self-conscious of its brilliance.
I'm not sure where it's going. She isn't, either. That's the trouble with losing things. Sometimes we know where they've gone. Sometimes we don't. But if they're important enough — we feel them.
We know they're lost. We see and feel their absence — the places they used to be.
The piece we're reading today is called "The Things I've Lost" by Brian Arundel.
I could make a seamless transition here, but it feels kind of fucked up to try to smoothly transition from my grandma's dementia to talking about marketing. So I won't do that.
Instead, what I'll say is this:
I love my grandma. She's one of my favorite people in the world. Her dementia makes me sad. But writing about it makes me feel a little better.
And I hope this makes you think about the people in your life that you care about. Give them a call, because if you're like me — you probably don't do it enough.
Alright. We have work to do. Let's read this piece.
(After you finish reading, scroll down for the lessons)
Done Reading?
Alright, Here Are The Lessons We Can Learn From This Piece:
1. Use Lists.
It's no secret that I'm a big fan of storytelling emails, but there are many other effective types of emails you can write.
And one of those types is a "list" email.
Basically, you come up with a topic and then write a list around that topic. Generally, you'd want to include some thoughts around each item of that list.
Tim Ferriss's 5-Bullet Friday is a perfect example of this.
As an example, let's say you're a personal trainer. You could write an email about "the 5 mobility tools I've been loving lately." And in the email, you would include each item (like a foam roller, for instance), and then a few sentences about why you like this specific type of foam roller.
This format is super flexible too.
For example, Justin Goff sends an email every Sunday called "3 Sunday morning thoughts."
These are random thoughts that are sometimes related and sometimes not.
So you can choose a "broad" topic for your list and make it work too.
Sometimes, the only consistent them between the items in Justin's lists are that they are the things on his mind at that current moment.
So have fun with this format. Despite seeming a bit "rigid" at first glance, there's actually a lot of creative freedom in it.
2. Every Object Has A Story. Tell It.
Check out the first 2 sentences in the piece:
"Fleece hat and gloves: in the backseat of a Boston cab in 2002, before driving back to Maine. Round, purple sunglasses: in an Atlanta pool hall over drinks with Ashby, whose wife was determined to save their marriage by having a baby."
These are physical items, but each of them has a story.
What was Arundel (the author) doing before getting in the cab in Boston?
Why was he driving back to Maine?
Did he lose the fleece hat and gloves because he was drunk?
Or just because there was something else on his mind?
What about Ashby? Did he and his wife have a baby? What happened to their marriage?
Here's my point:
Look around at the things you own — the shoes you're wearing, the water bottle on your desk, the bracelet on your wrist — I bet at least one of those things has a story behind it.
And if it has a story behind it, you can write about it in a storytelling email.
This is a good tool to have in your back pocket.
So if you sit down to write an email to your list, but you're not sure what to write about — all you have to do is look around at a few of the things you own, pick one, and tell the story behind it.
3. Be Very Honest.
Check out these lines:
"My virginity: in 1980, a couple weeks short of 16, in a ritual so brief, awkward and forgettable that I have, in fact, forgotten it. My heart, or so I thought, in 1985, when Susie dumped me; my naivete, three months later, when I learned that she’d slept with at least three other guys I knew while we’d been dating."
Within the span of 3 lines, Arundel talks about losing his virginity, getting dumped, and getting cheated on.
Within 3 lines, you get a pretty clear picture of what dating was like for him between the years of 1980 and 1985.
And within those same 3 lines, you also get a dose of humor (about the "awkward and forgettable" time he lost his virginity) and empathy for him (from the end of the relationship with Susie).
If you want to develop a genuine connection with the people on your email list — or in your real life, for that matter — honesty is a great place to start.
Does that mean you need to write an email about the time you lost your virginity?
Eh, probably not.
"Being honest" does not mean "bearing your entire soul for the world to see." It just means telling the truth.
You don't have to tell the full story of the most embarrassing moment of your life. Instead, you can pick a less embarrassing moment — one you're comfortable with sharing publicly — and tell the truth about what happened and how you felt.
4. Use Long Sentences For Emphasis.
Let's look at this passage:
"Faith in politics—particularly a two-party system relegated to fundraising contests perpetuated by shallow sound bites, mudslinging and outright lies for the Mindless American Voter so that each party can pursue a majority with which to repress the other, with complete disregard for actually trying to improve the lives of citizens: gradually over time, culminating in 2000."
Regardless of your politics — stick with me, because there's an important lesson here.
Note the fact that this is one single sentence. You're breathless by the time you finish reading it. You can feel Arundel's frustration through the screen.
That's intentional.
This sentence feels like a rant, because it is a rant. It's passionate. It's raw. It's the exact type of thing that you would say to someone when you are severely pissed off about something.
So, if you're writing a "rant-style" email (like this one), don't be afraid to use a long sentence here and there to drive the point home.
5. Put Readers On A Slippery Slope.
I'm not saying that Arundel wrote this piece to express his political viewpoints. There are many reasons a writer writes a thing, and you can't always pinpoint the #1 thing that makes someone want to write something.
But for the sake of education, let's assume Arundel did write this piece to share his political viewpoints. Now imagine if he had started his piece with:
"I want to share my political viewpoint with you."
… odds are, you'd probably tune out. So he doesn't do that. Instead, he leads with something more interesting to you — stories and events from his life…
Then, only after you're 75% of the way through the piece and already committed to it, does he share his politics.
So what does that mean for your emails?
Although there are some times when it's okay to come straight out and say "Hey, I'm gonna try to sell you a thing…"
Most of the time, a better rule-of-thumb is to grab your reader's attention by telling a story from your life or sharing your thoughts on a topic your reader is interested in…
And then transitioning into a pitch at the end of your email.
(If you want to learn how to do that, my course, Stories That Sell, can teach you.)
How To Apply These Lessons To Your Email Marketing ASAP
Here's a quick summary of the lessons from this piece:
Use Lists.
Every Object Has A Story. Tell It.
Be Very Honest.
Use Long Sentences For Emphasis.
Put Readers On A Slippery Slope.
And here's how you can apply them to your marketing:
Write your own "list" email.
Include a CTA for your product somewhere in the email. You can do this in the body of the email with in-line links, like this.
And/or you can do it as a direct CTA in your last list item or as a P.S. like this:
Click here to find out more about my course.
As a quick refresher, here are 2 examples of list emails:
And if you're not sure what type of "theme" to pick for your list email, go with this:
"My [NUMBER] favorite [XYZ]"
You can take this in nearly any direction you want.
Talk about your favorite podcasts, your favorite TV shows, your favorite foods, or even your favorite vacations you've been on.
Ideally, this would relate to your niche in some way, but it doesn't necessarily have to.
Like I said, this is a very flexible email format — so have fun with it!
One more note:
I advise keeping your list to 5 items or less. More than that is okay, but the longer your list is, the more you risk people skimming it, instead of actually reading it.
But if you're writing an article, instead of an email, then you can write a longer list and get away with it.
Here's What You Should Do Next
Thanks for reading Email Marketing Motivation. Here's what you should do next:
Click here and join my email list. I'll give you a heads up when I publish the next episode of Email Marketing Motivation, AND you'll get free access to my subject line copywriting handbook, Subject Line Shortcuts.
Share this article with someone — or a group of people — who would like it. They'll be impressed by how smart and thoughtful you are.
Check out my course, Stories That Sell, if you want my comprehensive guide on how to write storytelling emails that earn more money for your business and help you connect with your audience in a genuine way.