I'm on my feet all day at work, so by 5:00 p.m. my lower back is usually aching. I wore XYZ shoes for the first time, and by 5:00 p.m. I felt like I could do another shift without blinking. I haven't felt this good in ten years.

Storybrand Principle Six: Every human being is trying to avoid a tragic ending.

What problem do you solve for customers? What will your customer's life look like if they buy your product? What consequences does your product help customers avoid?

When you add a plan section to your website, it's as though you're saying to your customer, "It's impossible to mess this up".

And that makes me wonder if what we really want from the formulas are the wishes, not God. It makes me wonder if what we really want is control, not a relationship.

In order to ease our customers' concerns, we need to place large stones in that creek. When we identify the stones our customers can step on to get across the creek, we remove much of the risk and increase their comfort level about doing business with us. It's as though we're saying, "First, step here. See, it's easy. Then step here, then here, and then you'll be on the other side, and your problem will be resolved.

Once a customer gets curious about how you can solve their problem, they may come looking for more information. This is where your website comes in.

PERHAPS ONE OF the reasons I've avoided having a clear ambition is that second you stand up and point toward a horizon, you realize how much there is to lose. It's always been this way.

But love doesn't control, and I suppose that's why it's the ultimate risk. In the end, we have to hope the person we're giving our heart to won't break it, and be willing to forgive them when they do, even as they will forgive us.

If we haven't identified what our customer wants, what problem we are helping them solve, and what life will look like after they engage our products and services, for example, we can forget about thriving in the marketplace.

Your customers are bombarded with more than three thousand commercial messages per day, and unless we are bold in our calls to action, we will be ignored.

Customers aren't looking for brands that are filled with doubt and want affirmation; they're looking for brands that have solutions to their problems.