Let’s start with a quote…

Here are a couple verses from the song “Hurricane,” in the musical Hamilton — and sung by Lin-Manuel Miranda as the character of Alexander Hamilton…

When I was seventeen a hurricane
Destroyed my town
I didn’t drown
I couldn’t seem to die

I wrote my way out
Wrote everything down far as I could see
I wrote my way out
I looked up and the town had its eyes on me

They passed a plate around
Total strangers
Moved to kindness by my story
Raised enough for me to book passage on a
Ship that was New York bound…

I wrote my way out of hell
I wrote my way to revolution
I was louder than the crack in the bell
I wrote Eliza love letters until she fell
I wrote about The Constitution and defended it well
And in the face of ignorance and resistance
I wrote financial systems into existence
And when my prayers to God were met with indifference
I picked up a pen, I wrote my own deliverance

Here’s the whole song on YouTube.  That last verse in my quote is intense.

I keep thinking about that.  And how in that moment — especially the last few lines — I feel an incredible affinity with Hamilton as a writer.  (What he writes next will destroy his political career, but that’s another story.)

Last month, I saw Hamilton again…

If you haven’t seen the musical Hamilton, I strongly suggest it.

… Even if you don’t like musicals.

… Even if you don’t like hip-hop (it’s the first commercially successful Broadway musical to heavily feature hip-hop music).

… Even if you aren’t into the story of America’s founding fathers (it’s about a bunch of them).

If you are, at all, able to go — GO.

Or at the very least, you can listen to the soundtrack.  (Links: Amazon, YouTube, Spotify.)

Lin-Manuel Miranda has rightly — in my opinion — been compared to Shakespeare for his wielding of verse in drama for the stage.  The work is genius.

But this is an article inspired by Hamilton, not an article about Hamilton.

Hamilton wrote his way out — I wrote my way up…

I (fortunately) was born into much better circumstances than Hamilton.

But writing has been just as important to my life.

In college, I was directionless.  But then I discovered psychology and poetry, and between writing about those two I found enough motivation to graduate on time, degree in hand.

But then I didn’t know what to do with my life.  So I landed a job answering customer service calls for the local gas company — I was the guy you called to scream at when your service got shut off for not paying your bills.

And it was at that job — between calls — that I read books like The Well-Fed Writer, The Copywriter’s Handbook, Guerrilla Marketing, and Scientific Advertising.  Where I discovered copywriting and the wild world of entrepreneurial direct response marketing.  And where I discovered I could really write my way up.

So while I worked that job, I wrote cover letters to sell myself as a copywriter — even before I had a lick of experience, or a résumé to suggest I could pull it off.  I wrote my way up to interviews and a job that paid twice as much as I was getting answering angry phone calls.

And then I kept writing my way up.

I wrote marketing for the company that hired me, helped them more than double the business, landed them on the Inc. Magazine list of America’s fastest-growing private companies, and more than doubled my income again while there.

And I kept writing.

I wrote an email that landed my first copywriting client.  And then I wrote a letter that opened many more doors.

And I kept writing.

I wrote an entry into a catalog cover design challenge for AWAI, and scored $200 in prize money plus a spot on their radar.  And then I wrote much more for them as a client, as I launched my freelance copywriting career.

And I kept writing.

I wrote letters to (and spec leads for) clients I wanted to work for, to get gigs I’d thought would be impossible.  And I got them.  First with folks like Brian Tracy and Nightingale-Conant.  Then with a whole slew of financial publishers, up through today.

And I kept writing.

I wrote my way up onto Brian Kurtz’s radar when he was second-in-command at Boardroom.  And then stepped up to write his sales letter for what I believe will be the marketing event of my lifetime, The Titans of Direct Response.

And one of my longtime copywriting heroes, Gary Bencivenga, wrote me to say, “Great job on the seminar copy! It’s very hard to write for other writers … doubly difficult when they are copywriters … and triply challenging when it’s about their bios! But you did it … and your promo sings.”

And I kept writing.

That same year, I launched Breakthrough Marketing Secrets, and since then I’ve published well over 1.7 million words of original content on marketing, advertising, internet business building, entrepreneurship, copywriting, personal development, and more.  Plus created a library of additional training on these topics.

And I kept writing.

I’ve written my way into rooms I never thought I’d be in.  I’ve written my way to meeting heroes I never thought I’d meet.  Since 2005 (and even before), I’ve written my career, my business, and much of my life into existence.

Writing is a powerful way to create the world you want…

Last week I released a video about manifestation and the law of attraction, as explained in Neville Goddard’s book, Feeling is the Secret.

I admitted I was skeptical about manifestation and attraction.

But as I reflect on the above, it’s clear I’m practicing manifestation in my own way.

Alexander Hamilton wrote the American financial system into existence.

He wrote the Federalist Papers, themselves the advertorials that sold The Constitution to the American people.

He wrote to manifest.

And I’ve written to manifest.

When I needed a new laptop, I wrote myself a laptop — it started as an idea, then I wrote an email campaign that generated revenue which I used to buy a laptop.

When someone broke into our house and stole our iPad, I wrote a new iPad for our family.  (And as I write this, I remember we got our first iPad as a bonus for writing I’d done years’ before!)

Likewise with every marketing campaign I write.  Not all of them are as goal-directed.  But in every case, it starts with an idea, and then I write, and then it generates sales and revenue and income for me.

And often, I’ve written my way into those very opportunities.

When you put pen to paper or your fingers to the keyboard, you are wielding the very power of creation itself.

This is the “one sales letter can change your life” promise made famous by Gary Halbert.

When you know how to write persuasively, you can shift and shape the world around you, and create the life you want.

You can write advertisements, letters, speeches, presentations, books, and more.  You can make a difference for yourself, your family, your business, your community, your country, your world.

This is the power of persuasive writing — including copywriting.

You can manifest and create breakthroughs.

What’s the next thing you’ll write into existence?

Yours for bigger breakthroughs,

Roy Furr