Saturday, 2:24am
Reno, NV
“If you see my little red rooster, please send him home…” (Howlin’ Wolf)

Howdy…

Just a quick dispatch here to let you know all is well, and I’ll be getting back to regular blogging soon.

I got waylaid by some things, including my first serious sports injury ever: A major boo-boo in my rotator cuff. Which is a marvel of biological engineering, but nevertheless prone to problems in people who insist on abusing it over a long lifetime.

So, while it doesn’t really qualify as a Shakespearean tragedy (yet), it has still consumed a lot of my time with MRIs, x-rays, doc visits, and now long painful (“Ow! Ow! Hey, that hurts, mofo! Ow, you did it again!“) physical therapy sessions.

Stuff like that can take over your brain for a few weeks. I’m not complaining — I have too many friends with more dire health problems (and I’ve been through other surgery dramas with people close to me many, many times) that puts this in perspective.

In fact, tonight — after another round with that sadistic physical therapist (the bastard) — I’m relatively pain-free, and able to type without problem.

And I’ve got several blog posts mapped out in draft form, waiting for my attentions. (With titles like “The Sociopaths Who Are Eating Your Lunch”, and “Learning How To Brag”… really fun, and essential stuff for anyone looking to live a better life and make more moolah without guilt.)

But it’s already Superbowl weekend, so you’re gonna have to wait a little longer for a real post. I’ve got an old, cherished college pal and his son (to whom I’m kinda like an uncle) coming up for what is now our rock-solid tradition: We find the sleaziest sportsbook in downtown Reno, settle in, and enjoy the chaos and pompous nonsense of the grand game amongst the weirdest set of characters this side of a Fellini movie.

God, it’s fun. And I expect Madonna’s halftime show to rile up the geezers in the crowd (and we can only hope for a few wrestling matches between blowhards and bums as people take the game personally).

This is our seventh year doing this. It’s a tradition. A day of futility, bowing to the corporate overlords on TV, sharing an American rite of bacchanalia unrivaled in other countries. For one glorious day, we get to let our classless Freak Flags fly among our fellow citizens, and stare at the same show for several hours.

It’s a little like when the Beatles were on Ed Sullivan. (That was a still-not-broken record crowd of 73 million, back when the nation’s population was HALF the current size. Boggles the brain.)

And I don’t even have a dog in the race. G-men, Pats, whatever. I lost interest when the 49ers got bumped. But I’ll work up a lusty howl for one of the teams anyway, and get my game on.

WARNING: Though I advise against it, I may (key word: may) post on Facebook during the melee. My rule is Don’t Drink And Post, of course… but it’s the Superbowl! C’mon, man. Loosen up a little. Life’s short.

If you’re not a “friend” on my Facebook page, then first: Shame on you.

And second: Go here to see why a few thousand people make it a regular pitstop in their day: www.facebook.com/john.carlton

I bounce between insightful business advice (the stuff you never hear about elsewhere, like the psych tricks behind great salesmanship) and casting a jaded (but usually amusing) eye on the culture at large.

I expect any posts this weekend to be in the latter category. But you never know! I might have a money-making epiphany while watching Madonna bellow at halftime.

So, okay… I’m outa here for now.

Again — I’m fine. I’ve got multiple hot posts coming up… and also some great news for entrepreneurs.

Meantime, stay frosty.

John

Tuesday, 1:31pm
Reno, NV
“Hey, you bastards, I’m still here!” (Steve McQueen as Papillon, floating away to freedom…)

Howdy…

First off… do not be alarmed if the design of the blog seems to be morphing — the programmer is fussing with the new design in real-time. We’ll get it all sorted out very soon.

Second… I’m re-publishing — for what has become a tradition on this blog — a portion of one of the more influential posts I’ve ever written.

What you’re about to encounter is a slightly tweaked way of looking at the best way to start your new year…

… but that tweak makes all the difference in the world. I’ve heard from many folks that this particular technique finally helped them get a perspective on where they’re at, where they’re going…

… and why they care about getting there.

So, even if you’ve read this post before… it’s worth another look. Especially now, as you gaze down the yawning gullet of 2012, trying to wrap your brain around a plan to make the year your bitch.

This is a critical step for entering any new period of your life. To keep your life moving ahead, you need to set some goals, dude. And most goal-setting tactics, I’ve found, are useless. Worst among them is the traditional New Year’s resolutions (which seldom last through January).

This tactic I’m sharing with you (again) is something I’ve used, very successfully, for decades…

… to reach goals, to clarify the direction of my life, and to change habits. I first shared it in the old Rant newsletter a few years back, and I’ve hauled it out here in the blog on a regular basis.  It’s timeless, classic stuff that will never let you down.

So let’s dive in. Here’s the relevant part of the post (slightly edited):

“Goal Setting 101 And
The January 15th Letter”

Yeah, yeah, I know a chat about goals can quickly turn into a boring, pedantic lecture. But then, so can a chat about space flight.

And, in reality, both space flight and your goals are VERY exciting things.

Or should be.

It’s all in the telling.

What I’m not going to discuss are “resolutions”. Those are bogus pseudo-goals that have the staying power of pudding in a microwave.

No. It’s merely a coincidence that I’m suggesting a review of your goals in January, just after the New Year’s supposed fresh start.

I mean… there’s not much else to do, so why not sit down and plan out the rest of your life.

This is, of course, a very damp, cold, and bleak time of year.

The depths of winter and discontent.

A good percentage of the population suffers fleeting depression because of lack of sunlight… thanks to the geniuses behind Daylight Savings Time, who arrange for dusk to arrive around 2:30 in the afternoon in these parts.

We also just got slammed with back-to-back-to-back “Storms of the Century”, each one dumping a record load of snow on us. I sent photos to friends, and many emailed back wondering when I’d gone to Antarctica to live.

We had a little cabin fever brewing. Didn’t help when the local PBS channel ran a special on the Donner Party, either. Three feet of snow drifting down, the lights flickering, enough ice on the road to make the SUV sidle like a Red Wing goon slamming someone into the boards.

The safest place was home… but man, the walls start to close in after a few days.

I’m telling you, I had excuses up the yin-yang for allowing my senses to get a little dulled. The natural response is to turn your mind off, and hibernate until March.

And I succumbed. Started moping around, watching CSI: Miami reruns instead of reading a book, surfing the Net for stuff I didn’t care about… you know the drill.

I’m sure you’ve done your own version of it now and again.

And I’m also sure you already know that no amount of “buck up” happy talk will mitigate the gloom.

In fact, there are a few enlightened health pro’s who say we should let our bodies wind down every year or so. Get a full system-flush type of cold, crawl under the covers for a few days and let the demons and other bad stuff bubble to the surface.

So you can purge the crud. Evacuate the used-up bacteria and tube-clogs out of your pipes, physically. And shoo the whispering monsters out of your head.

We’re not perfect creatures. We need to sleep, we need to recharge our batteries, and we need to stop and get our bearings. At least once a year.

So don’t beat yourself up for the occasional down period. We all have them, and the healthiest folks just roll with it. It’s not good to repress this stuff.

It only becomes a problem when you sink into clinical depression. That’s the cold, empty state where nothing looks good, and hope is an absurd memory.

I’ve been there. Several times. The year I turned 30 (for example) I lost my job, my girlfriend and my place to live all within a 45-day stretch.

That shit can wear you down.

Now, I have two things to say about this:

Thing Numero Uno: If you think you’re losing a grip on your mental state, seek professional help. Don’t head straight for pharmaceutical land, though — give “talk therapy” a try with a real, qualified psychotherapist.

Choose this therapist carefully. You’re going to dump every secret you have on him.

Keep in mind the fact that everyone goes through bumpy emotional states. And that the percentage of people who actually do lose it every year is rather small.

That’s why talking about your problems with someone who has perspective can be so beneficial — the first thing you learn is that you aren’t alone.

And what you’re going through is not abnormal.

Most of the time, you’re gonna be fine. Even when your problems seem overwhelming.

There are tools available to help cope. You don’t often come across these tools on your own.

This is one of the few times that the “science” of psychology earns its keep — finding out how others successfully dealt with the same nonsense you’re suffering through can change everything.

A good book to read (while you’re waiting for the spring thaw) is “Learned Optimism” by Martin Seligman. I’ve recommended it before, and it deserves another nod. (The blurb on the back cover, from the New York Times Book Review, starts with “Vaulted me out of my funk…”)

I haven’t read the book in a few years, but I remember the main lesson well. A study, explained up front, stands out: Someone tested the “happiness” quotient of a vast sample of people, including Holocaust survivors.

And it turns out that, at some point in your life, Abraham Lincoln was right – you are as happy as you decide to be.

This is startling news to anyone lost in despair. Because it seems like you’ve been forced to feel that way. With no choice.

But it’s not the case. The happiness study revealed that you can not tell from a person’s current attitude what sort of trauma they had gone through earlier in life. People who had suffered horribly could be happy as larks, while silver-spoon never-stubbed-a-toe folks were miserable.

The difference? Attitude. Optimistic people work through setbacks and trauma… while pessimists settle into a funk that can’t be budged.

And it’s a CHOICE. At some point in your life, you choose to either live in gloom or sunlight.

This realization rocks many folk’s boat. Especially the pessimists. They dominate society, politics, business, everything. And they are very protective of their gloom and doom outlook. Invested, heavily, in proving themselves right about the inherent nastiness of life.

Maybe you’re one of ‘em.

If you are, you’re killing yourself, dude.

The guys in lab coats who study this stuff say that heart disease rates are HALF for optimists over pessimists. So, even if you doubt the ability to measure “happiness” — and it is a rather rocky science — you still can’t deny the stats on dropping dead from a gloomy ticker.

Now, I am most assuredly NOT a clear-eyed optimist. I get creepy feelings around people who are too happy all the time.

But I do prefer having a good time, and appreciating the finer things in life (like a deep breath of cold alpine air, or the salty whip of an ocean wave around my ankles, or a secret smile from the wonderful woman I live with).

I’m just good at balancing out the bad with the good.

Being in direct response helps. Lord knows, there’s a LOT of bad with every piece of good news in this wacky biz.

Gary Halbert and I had a term we used for years: We’re “pessimistic optimists”. (Or maybe we’re optimistic pessimists. I forget.)

How does that work? Easy.

We expected horrible atrocities at every turn… and rejoiced when we defied Fate and unreasonable success rained down on our undeserving heads.

We grooved on the good stuff in life… and just nodded sagely at the bad stuff and moved past it as quickly as possible. Maybe cop a lesson or two as we scurried by.

If you focus on the bad things that can go wrong, you’ll never crawl out of bed in the morning.

When you finally realize that — not counting health problems — pretty much everything bad that business, or relationships, or politics can throw at you will not kill you… then you can begin to relax.

And eagerly court the Unknown by starting another project.

Have you ever had your heart broken? Hurts like hell, doesn’t it. Feels like your life is over.

Well, from my perspective, sitting here at “way past 50” and pretty darned happy, all those romances-gone-wrong that broke my heart long ago look just plain silly now. And my resulting deep depressions — where I was sure life was over — are just tiresome lessons I had to get through.

Not a one of those ladies was worth a burp of angst. They were fine people, I’ll agree to that. A few were exceptional (and very skilled at certain man-pleasing arts).

But worth a Shakespearean suicide?

No way.

It’s taken me a while, but I’m now a certified realist. My youthful idealism has drained away, and my brushes with hate-everything dogma never took.

And guess what? Contrary to what an embarrassingly huge number of self-righteous folks would have you believe… being a realist has not dented my passion for life one little bit.

In fact, it has opened up a whole new world of unexplainable spirituality (which cannot be contained within any formal religion).

I’m not against religion. Let’s have no “save my soul” emails here. One of my favorite friends to argue with has a doctorate in theology. And I have many other friends committed to various belief systems ranging from fundamentalist to Buddhist to humanist.

We get along because, on a deep level, we understand that true spirituality transcends whatever way you choose to express it or appreciate it.

I loathe black-and-white views of the world. It’s a shame that our great country has descended to this “you’re nuts if you don’t agree with me” mentality… but it’s part of the pendulum that’s been swinging back and forth ever since we left the jungle.

The far edges of our institutions — political, religious, cultural, all of it — are in spiritual and emotional “lock down”. They’re sure they’re right, they’re positive you’re wrong, and neither facts nor logic will sway their position.

Mushy liberals seem astonished that anyone would ever not love us, or want to destroy our culture. Repressed conservatives seem intent on crushing everyone who pisses them off (and that’s a lot of people).

It’s “whatever” versus “blind obedience”. And neither works so hot in the real world.

I have no use for dogma, or idealism, or punishingly-harsh rules that have been cooked up by hypocrites.

Hey — I’m in no position to tell anyone how to live their life. I’ve screwed up plenty, and if I have any wisdom at all, it’s only because I’ve survived some truly hairy situations.

But I don’t believe anyone else is in a position to tell you how to live, either. That’s gotta be your decision.

And it’s a damn hard one to make.

Fortunately, while I can’t tell you how to live, I can move some smooth (and proven) advice in your direction. Take it or leave it… but give it a listen anyway, cuz my track record on successful advice-giving is fairly impressive.

And I’m telling you that having a hateful, brooding attitude will stunt your growth. It will make you a smaller person, a less-wise person, an older and feebler person.

And you won’t grow. Not spiritually, not physically, not emotionally. Not in your business life, either.

Most people don’t want to grow, anyway. Growth only comes from movement and change… and the vast majority of the folks walking the earth with us today are terrified of change.

You can’t blame them, really. Change is a form of death. Whatever was before, dies. And whatever comes next must be nurtured with devotion and sacrifice.

That’s hard. That’s a hard way to live, always dying and being reborn.

And because it’s hard, it’s avoided.

Well, screw that.

I suspect, if you’re reading this, you are not afraid of change.

But you may not yet understand the power that REALLY giving yourself to change offers.

And that brings us to…

Thing Numero Dos: Goals are all about change.

That’s a subtle point many people gloss over. Rookie goal-setters often get stuck on stuff like quitting smoking, or vague concepts like “become a better person”.

Or “get rich”.

That seldom works. Goals need to be specific… and they need to involve profound change in order to take hold.

Halbert often talked about “image suicide” — the necessity of killing and burying the “self” you are so heavily invested in, before you can move to a new level of success.

I see this all the time in my consultations. Biz owners refuse to do even slightly risky marketing, for fear of damaging their “reputations.”

And my question to them is: What reputation?

Unless you’re the top dog in your niche, no one gives a rat’s ass about what you think or do. No one is looking at your marketing for inspiration or condemnation, because you aren’t the guy to look at.

No. What these scaredy-cats are talking about when they say “reputation” is what their family and friends think of them.

And that’s a sure sign of a losing attitude. That ain’t Operation MoneySuck.

My colleague Ron LeGrand, the real estate guru, is one of the best natural salesmen I’ve ever met. The guy understands the fundamental motivating psychology of a prospect at a master’s level.  And he knows that one of the major obstacles he faces in every sale… is what the prospect’s spouse (usually the wife) will say.

She can nix the sale with a sneer. Or she can nix it in the prospect’s head, as he imagines that sneer.

Ron counters both sides of the objection expertly. He encourages the prospect to get his spouse involved in the decision, so she becomes invested in it.

Or, he suggests waiting until the first big check comes in… and letting the money explain to her about what you’re up to.

This is the reality of most people’s lives. As much as they want what you offer… they are terrified of making a mistake. Cuz they’ll pay dearly for it at home.

It’s a huge deal-killer.

That’s why you include lots of “reason why” copy in your pitch — to give your buyer ammunition for explaining his decision to the doubters in his life.

However, as Ron knows, the best (and simplest) “reason why” is results.

Money, as they say, talks.

The top marketers seldom give a moment’s thought to what a risky tactic might do to their “reputation”. They don’t really care what people think about them.

You can’t bank criticism.

I know many marketers who are involved in projects they are passionate about… but which bore their spouses to tears. Some (like Howard Stern’s former wife) are even deeply embarrassed.

But they don’t complain much. Because the money’s so good.

Aw, heck. I could go on and on about this. The story of Rodale’s shock and dismay at the brutally-honest ad I wrote for their timid “sex book” is a great example. They refused to mail it, because of their “reputation”.

Yet, after it accidentally did mail, and became a wildly-successful control for 5 years, they suddenly decided their reputation could handle it after all.

The people who get the most done in life are all extreme risk-takers. They embrace change, because growth is impossible without it.

But you don’t go out and start changing things willy-nilly.

You need a plan.

You need goals.

Now, there are lots of books out there that tell you how to set goals. I recently found, in a moldy banker’s box, the ad for Joe Karbo’s book “The Lazy Man’s Way To Riches” that I’d responded to back in 1982. The exact ad! With the order form torn out… it was the first direct mail pitch I’d ever encountered, and it changed my life forever. Joe’s book was essentially a treatise on setting goals. And it’s good.

It was a wake-up call for me.

I’m having that crinkly old ad framed. Can’t imagine why I kept it, but I did. Pack-rat riches.

If you can’t find that particular book, there are dozens of newer goal-setting guides on the shelves. But they’re all based on the same formula:

1. Decide what you want.

2. Write it down, and be specific.

3. Read the list often, imaging as you read that you have already achieved each goal.

What this does is alter the underpinnings of your unconscious. When one of your goals is to earn a million bucks this year, and that goal burns bright in the back of your mind, each decision you make will be influenced.

So, for example, you won’t accept a permanent job somewhere that pays $50,000 a year. Cuz that isn’t going to help you attain your goal.

The problem is this:  To earn a mil in a year, you need to average around $50,000 every two weeks. This is why it can take a while to get your goal-setting chops honed. As I’ve said many times, most folks don’t know what they want.

And they aren’t prepared for the changes necessary to get what they want, once they do decide on a goal.

What kind of guy earns $50,000 every two weeks, like clockwork? It takes a certain level of business savvy to create that kind of steady wealth. It doesn’t fall into your lap.

What kind of guy makes a windfall of a million bucks in one chunk? That’s another kind of savvy altogether.

In that same moldy banker’s box, I also found a bunch of my early goal lists. And I’m shocked at how modest my aims were.

At the time — I was in the first months of going out on my own, a totally pathetic and clueless rookie — I couldn’t even imagine earning fifty K a year.

My first goal was $24,000 as a freelancer. And to score a better rental to live in. Find a date for New Year’s. Maybe buy a new used car.

Listen carefully: I met those goals. As modest as they were, it would have been hard not to. I needed them to be modest, because I was just getting my goal-setting chops together.

And I wasn’t sure if I was wasting my time even bothering to set goals.

Let me assure you, it was NOT a waste of time.

The lists I found covered several later years, too. And what’s fascinating is that many of the more specific goals I set down were crossed out – I wanted those goals, but didn’t feel confident about obtaining them.

So I crossed them out, and forgot about them.

A couple of decades later, I realize that I’ve attained every single one of those “forgotten” goals. The big damn house, the love of my life, the professional success, even the hobbies and the guitars and the sports car.

I’m stunned. This is powerful voodoo here.

The universe works in mysterious ways, and you don’t have to belong to a religion to realize this. The whole concept of “ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and the door will be opened” was well-known by successful people long before Luke and Matthew wrote it down.

The keys are action. Movement.

Ask, seek, knock.

These simple actions will change your life forever.

Back to making a million in a year: Some guys know what they need to do to make this goal real. They’ve done it before, or they’ve come close.

Setting the goal is serious business for them… because they are well aware of the tasks they’ve assigned themselves. Take on partners, put on seminars, create ad campaigns, build new products. Get moving on that familiar path.

I’ve known many people who started the year with such a goal… who quickly modified it downward as the reality of the task became a burden. Turns out they didn’t really want the whole million after all.

Half of that would suffice just fine.

To hell with the work required for the full bag of swag.

Other guys don’t know what they need to do to earn a mil. So their goal really is: Find out what I need to do to earn a million bucks.

Their initial tasks are to ask, seek, and knock like crazy.

And change the way they move and act in the world. Because they must transform themselves into the kind of guy who earns a million bucks in one year.

Right now, they aren’t that guy.

So, for example, reading “The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People” suddenly becomes an “A” task, while remodeling the kitchen gets moved to the back of the burner. Sharpening your ability to craft a killer sales pitch becomes more important than test-driving the new Porsche.

More important, even, than dating Little Miss Perfect. And test-driving her new accessories.

Tough choice?

Nope. When you get hip to the glory of focused change, you never lament leaving the “old” you behind.

It will be hard, sometimes, no doubt about it. Especially when you discover your old gang no longer understands you, or mocks your ambition. They liked the old, non-threatening you. They want him to come back.

But you’ve changed. And hot new adventures are going to take up a lot more of your time now.

My trick to setting goals is very simple:

Every January 15th, I sit down and write myself a letter, dated exactly one year ahead.

And I describe, in that letter, what my life is like a year hence. (So, in 2011, I dated the letter to myself as January 15, 2012.)

It’s a subtle difference to the way other people set goals. Took me a long time to figure it out, too.

For many years, I wrote out goals like “I live in a house on the ocean”, and “I earn $24,000 a year”. And that worked. But it was like pushing my goals.

Writing this letter to myself is more like pulling my goals. For me, this works even better. Every decision I make throughout the year is unconsciously influenced, as I move toward becoming the person I’ve described.

But here’s where I do it very differently: My goals are deliberately in the “whew” to “no friggin’ way” range. Mega-ambitious, to downright greedy.

There’s a sweet spot in there — doable, if I commit myself, but not so outrageous that I lose interest because the required change is too radical.

I’m pretty happy with myself these days. Took me a long, hard slog to get here, and I earned every step.

And I want to continue changing, because I enjoy change. But I don’t need to reinvent myself entirely anymore.

So here’s what makes this ambitious goal-setting so effective: I don’t expect to REACH most of them.

In fact, I’m happy to get half of what I wanted.

There’s a ton of psychology at work there. The person I describe a year away often resembles James Bond more than the real me. Suave, debonair, flush, famous, well-traveled… and in peak health. I hit all the big ones.

However, long ago I realized that trying to be perfect was a sure way to sabotage any goal I set. Perfectionists rarely attain anything, because they get hung up on the first detail that doesn’t go right.

Being a good goal-setter is more like successful boxing – you learn to roll with the punches, cuz you’re gonna get hit.

You just stay focused on the Big Goal. And you get there however you can.

I’m looking at last year’s letter. I was a greedy bastard when I wrote it, and I didn’t come close to earning the income figure I set down.

Yet, I still had my best year ever.

And — here’s the kicker — I would NOT have had such a great year, if I wasn’t being pulled ahead by that letter. There were numerous small and grand decisions I made that would have gone another way without the influence of what I had set down.

I didn’t travel to the places I had listed. But I did travel to other, equally-fun places. I didn’t finish that third novel. But I did position it in my head, and found the voice I want for narration. That’s a biggie. That was a sticking point that would have kept the novel from ever getting finished.

Now, it’s on power-glide.

There’s another “hidden” benefit to doing this year-ahead letter: It forces you to look into the future.

A lot of people make their living peering ahead and telling everyone else what to expect. Most do a piss-poor job of it — weathermen are notorious for getting it wrong, as are stock market analysts, wannabe trend-setters, and political prognosticators.

Yet, they stay in business. Why? Because the rest of the population is terrified of looking into the future. That would require some sincere honesty about their current actions… since what the future holds is often the consequence of what you’re doing right now.

If you’re chain-smoking, chasing street hookers, and living on doughnuts, your future isn’t pretty. For example.

Or if you’ve maxed out all your credit cards, and haven’t done your due diligence to start bringing in moolah, your future isn’t nice, either.

No one can “see” into the future for real. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try.

In fact, it’s easy, when you have a little experience in life.

Things you do today will have consequences tomorrow. If you put up a website today for a product, and you do everything you can to bring traffic to it and capture orders… your consequence can be pretty and nice.

Sure, you may get hit by a bus while fetching the morning paper… but letting that possibility scare you off of trying for something better is for pessimists (who are scheduled for early checkout).

You have enormous control over your future.

And once you realize that, you can set out to start shaping it.

Stay frosty,

John

P.S. For those of you who have been patiently waiting for me to re-release my transformational classic course on how to become a successful freelance copywriter (“The Freelance Course”)…

… I can happily report that all updates have been completed, and the little beast is off to the fulfillment house to be printed and packaged up.

The bonuses I’ve wedged into this new edition will absolutely blow your mind. Ten of the most respected, notoriously-successful, and sought-after freelance copywriters on the planet contributed to a bulging bonus report on how the good writers are scoring big jobs and moving ahead with their careers at lightning speed. Right now, in this economy.

It’s like having the top writers in the game sit down with you, and share their tested, proven and still-working best secrets on becoming successful, and growing more successful each year.

Plus, I’ve slashed the price of the course. I’m just in that kind of a mood.

You’ll get the whole story in just a short time from today, when I lay out the deal.

Meanwhile, get busy with your January 15th letter.

Wednesday, 12:36pm
Reno, NV
“Sittin’ on the dock of the bay, watchin’ the tide roll away…” (Otis Redding)

Howdy…

Mark, a lifelong pal of mine, lived with a girlfriend many years ago who taught us both a very devastating lesson.

At the time, Mark and I were hard-core slackers — lamely cruising through our late twenties, we took jobs without ambition to pay the rent and keep the fridge stocked with beer, and were pretty much maintaining the same lifestyles we’d had in college.

Care-free losers, if you need a label.

Susie, on the other hand, was roiling with ambition. Had a good job, with a plan to either rise quickly in that biz or seek better positions elsewhere. Her friends talked about the future a lot, and openly competed with each other over acquisitions like new cars, new clothes, expensive wine and all the grown-up Yuppie shit that sent shivers down my spine.

Cuz I was still going to clubs to see bands (and who can blame me, since it was that primo era when the Pretenders, the Police, Elvis Costello, the Jam, and Talking Heads were on their first west-coast tours)… still driving a 10-year-old decrepit Datsun truck… still dressing like I’d been shopping drunk at the Goodwill store… and still loathing the idea of “growing up”.

I knew something was wrong, of course. I was just floating on the surface of life, at the mercy of other people’s ambitions and without any goals or dreams or sense of purpose.

And I absorbed a lot of harsh criticism, both from others and from myself, for not doing anything constructive with my life.

However, looking back, I see things very differently now.

Yes, I was a slacker. But, while I was admittedly not doing a single goddamned thing to prepare myself for living out the American “dream” (house, career, family, etc)…

… I was, nevertheless, honing a particular strange skill that has served me extremely well over the ensuing years.

I was becoming an expert at ruminating. Pondering shit. Noodling over difficult thoughts.

I wasn’t smarter than the evil Yuppies around me. Far from it.

And, eventually, I too would learn to lust after material things that made my heart happy.

Just not the same things those smug elitists lusted after.

Because what I craved most of all… was time.

Time to read more books, listen to more music, indulge in more pleasure…

… and time to stare at the wall and go deep inside my own head. Ruminating on shit.

Silly me.

Here’s the cruel lesson Susie delivered: One evening, she admitted she despised me…

… because I helped Mark feel like he wasn’t alone with his own wall-staring.

And it was high time that he moved beyond that “thinking crap”, and got busy building a life worthy of her Yupped-out aspirations.

I was stunned. Not because she wanted to morph my pal into her own Ken doll — that goal of hers had been obvious for a long time.

No. I was stunned… because I truly believed that thinking deeply about things… even random things like how Power Pop had sprung from the ashes of punk rock, and how it all connected seamlessly back to mid-60s garage bands and the Beatnik philosophies that survived the hippie holocaust and…

Okay, you get the idea. I also thought a lot about “what’s it all mean” mind-expansion stuff, and where American literature was headed and how the endless Cold War was affecting local politics, and all the blossoming parallels between the post-WWI nihilistic Da-Da movement and the impending technology revolution (that would not be televised) and on and on.

So, yeah, I was a lazy, good-for-nothing slacker, restlessly pillaging the edges of the culture and irritating the Yuppies…

… but really? “Thinking” was now a bad thing?

It was with Susie. She was whip-smart, and full of energy and life-force…

… but for her (and her ilk), the definition of “success” had nothing to do with having more “time” to spend staring at walls, ruminating.

I’d just assumed that was everybody’s wild-ass dream.

And it scared the shit out of me to abruptly realize that most of the folks around me considered it a profound waste of time. And even highly distasteful, cuz it ruined the vibe when they wanted to discuss wine or stock market tips or country club memberships.

Yep. I was the shallow one.

How dare I suggest that living life using only the outer edges of your cerebral cortex was a hollow way to exist.

Older, maybe wiser, certainly more experienced now…

… I still get royally pissed-off remembering how much Susie’s “set me straight” lecture harshed my mellow for the next few years.

Of course, I also have to thank her, from the bottom of my heart, for shaking me up like that.

Because I struggled with that potential lesson for a very long time. Was ruminating on stuff really a waste for anyone wanting to get ahead? Was it really better to just get jiggy with the accepted lifestyle and Zeitgeist of the time… which, heading into the Go-Go Eighties, was quickly evolving into Gordon Gecko’s “greed is good” ethos.

I liked staring at the wall (or at the waves, or the clouds, or a blank piece of paper), disappearing into my head and… ruminating on things.

And being able to do more of it seemed an excellent element of a “successful” life. You know, maybe like what Aristotle (or was it Socrates) said about “the examined life.”

Today, I’m more convinced than ever that it is THE main reason to succeed.

I never saw Susie again (she soon left Mark for a hedge fund manager), but I did eventually became a hard-core capitalist-oriented entrepreneur, got my shit together, and started being aggressively proactive about setting and achieving goals. A true American rags-to-riches tale, and I’m proud of it.

But I never had the notion that simply “being” successful was part of a successful life.

In my view, you don’t need money to be successful. Money just solves the problems that not having money creates… so having “enough” money, in this culture, can help you stay clear of the time-consuming bullshit of scrambling to keep a roof over your head and food in your gut.

Massive wealth has the capacity to really screw you up. Of course, it’s more fun to discover that on your own, rather than taking anyone else’s word for it…

… but it’s still true.

The reason for this is kinda mystical, but easy to fathom: If you aren’t clear on WHY you want to get rich…

… then, once you get there, you’re gonna be one lost little puppy.

It’s like mobilizing your life to move somewhere you think will make you happy. You can do it, and you can wind up in a gorgeous penthouse in the best part of town… but if your next thought is “now what?”, then you may be left wondering what it all means. With no answer forthcoming.

The reason I connected so easily with early mentors like Gary Halbert was because we shared a fundamental desire: We loved to work hard, and we loved to be rewarded for that hard work with piles of moolah…

… however, the REAL reward was always the sheer luxury of “buying time”. Using money to hire assistants, job-out the grunt work, grease palms, skip lines and generally shortcut our way around the time-sucking parts of life.

Not so we’d have more time to work. No way.

So we’d have more time to indulge in the one thing a busy, harried life refuses to allow: Rumination.

There are tons of books and coaching programs and seminars available that claim to make planning out your life easy. They’ll help you with the “here’s what I want to do“, and “here’s how I can get that done” processes…

… but every single one I’ve seen is woefully deficient in helping you understand “WHY I want to do that in the first place.”

The “why’s” of life are mostly ignored. It’s taken for granted that big houses, fancy sports cars, better looking spouses, bigger/better/nicer/more expensive everything is of COURSE the preferred goal.

And maybe that’s true for you.

I will tell you it is NOT true for the majority of friends and colleagues I’m closest to. I’m closest to them because we are simpatico about what really matters in life.

And you don’t automatically figure out what matters, for you…

… unless you spend some serious time thinking about it. Pondering. Brooding. Daydreaming. Cogitating.

Ruminating.

Staring at the wall and diving into the cerebral gray matter.

Halbert was a great ruminator. I knew I’d found a lasting friend when we first took a long drive together, and after talking for a while, we both just got quiet and thought about things. Total silence in the car, as I drove us around Los Angeles and up the coast a bit.

And when we started talking again, it was rife with substance.

One of my pet peeves is meeting people who lived through something exciting…

… and don’t have a good story to tell about it.

They’ll grin and say “you had to be there“, because it was all so experiential and amazing and kinesthetic.

And I say “Bullshit“. I lived through similar adventures, and I can burn your ears with detailed stories about it… stories that have a point, that are interesting and thought-provoking and give the listener an almost visceral sense of what it was like.

But you can’t build these kinds of stories without thinking about it first. Without sitting back, going over the facts and emotions and unknown pieces, and finding the theme and plot and punch line. It doesn’t happen automatically, just because you were “there”.

Sitting back in a comfy chair — well-fed, content, undisturbed and undistracted — and letting your mind wander and explore and organize your thoughts, experiences and dreams…

… is, for me, a wondrous thing.

For the most part, our ancestors had few such pleasures, always needing to tend the fire, hunt for food, repair essentials, repel danger, and stay alert and focused for as long as possible before dropping into an exhausted slumber.

Success can buy you the time, free of want or disruption.

Don’t have anything to ruminate about?

Dude, you’re living through the most awesome times humans have ever encountered. There are endless options for adventure and fulfillment and legacy…

… and really freakin’ easy ways to attain whatever you desire, once you get your shit together.

You can set, plan for, and attain goals that your ancestors couldn’t even conceive of.

You can get what you want.

The thing is…

… WHY do you want it?

Refusing to consider this is a recipe for disaster. Wealth, fame and acquisitions can kill you just as quickly as saber-tooth tigers, Viking raids and a rumble for the crown.

Getting something doesn’t mean you’ll know what to do with it when you have it.

This all takes rumination.

Think about it.

Stay frosty,

John

Friday, 12:26pm
Phoenix, AZ
“Been there, done that…”

Howdy.

I am, today, resurrecting a post from a very long time ago…

… because the subject matter just won’t die. Like a zombie, it just keeps getting back up and stumbling forward to irritate and annoy me.

So let’s file this under “Necessary Reminders If You Wanna Get Rich“…

… cuz it’s one of those fundamental lessons for anyone who got into business to create wealth.

As opposed to, say, getting into business just to have something to do during the day.

Every successful entrepreneur will tell you the foundation of their wealth comes from paying attention to the fundamentals. The wild-and-crazy ideas are fun, the vows to take over the world make you feel awesome, and gorging on fresh technology is invigorating.

But you won’t earn a dime off any of it without knowing the nuts-and-bolts part of putting ideas, vows and tech into action.

Just like being really, really, really eager to demolish your opponent in a cage fight will get you killed if you don’t have the fundamentals down of hitting and getting hit.

Enthusiasm is great. Skills and knowledge are how shit gets done, however.

Here’s that zombie post. Enjoy:

I tell rookies to never, ever assume anything about anything. Ever.

Especially about your target audience. One of the biggest mistakes marketers make is to assume your prospect knows as much as you do about whatever it is you’re selling.

And it’s almost never true. You’re dealing with your product/biz/service day in and day out, and you’ve dealt with the details so often, it’s all second-nature to you.

But your prospect isn’t working in your office. Even if he’s in the same general market as you, he has other priorities. He may desperately need what you offer… but that doesn’t mean he’s researched you and your product as thoroughly as you might have, in his shoes.

If you assume he understands all the technical jargon and insider terms you’re laying on thick, you stand a good chance of losing him. Even when I’m dealing with rabid markets — like golf or guitar playing or cigar smoking — I use jargon sparingly, for emphasis.

Like adding spice for flavor — don’t overdo it.

That’s why it’s important to “translate” everything into plain English in your copy… even if you would swear on a stack of Bibles that “everyone knows what this means”. This is especially true when you’re slinging slang around.

I have to watch the assumption thing, myself. Constantly.

For example: When someone books an hour’s phone consultation with me, I assume they prepare. At least a little, teeny-tiny bit.

My hours aren’t cheap, and often it’s tough to squeeze the consultations into my schedule. It’s not like a friendly chat with the guy down the hall. When your hour’s up, it’s up.

And it goes by fast.

So, I’m always baffled when the guy on the other end of the line starts arguing with me about something basic.

Especially the stuff I assume he must know, or he wouldn’t be asking me for advice.

I assume, for example, that he would have at least glanced at the “Kick-Ass Copywriting Secrets” course first. You know, to sort of get an idea of where I’d be coming from.

Silly me.

The most recent consultation I had started out fine… but five minutes into it, I found myself in a heated argument about whether long copy really works in online ads or not.

I thought, okay… you wanna waste half the call going over one of the very FIRST and most OBVIOUS parts of what I discuss in my materials… and what EVERY top marketer knows, from experience and testing… fine.

Fine.

It’s good practice for me to go over the argument. Again.

But really, man. There are cheaper ways than a full-on consultation with me to learn one the FUNDAMENTALS of advertising-that-works.

Here’s a FREE explanation, in fact. Just in case you’re one of those guys who looks at top-grossing entrepreneurial sites, and wonders “do people really read all that copy?”.

Stop and think for a second.

We don’t use long copy for our sales pitches because we enjoy slaving over the keyboard.

No. We use long copy in our marketing…

… because that’s what WORKS.

In essence, your copy is your salesman. Face-to-face, he has to cover the entire sales message to make the cash register go ka-ching – cover all the benefits, explain all the features, establish credibility, and make a case for money trading hands, right now while the iron’s hot.

You wouldn’t tell your salesman to only use 100 words, and then clam up, would you? (Go back to the end of the line if you said “why not?”)

Your copy is your sales pitch. It’s long, because great sales pitches are long. You’re asking someone to part with money… and online, they can’t see your product, can’t hold it, can’t smell it… in fact, they have to take your word for everything.

Or rather, your words. And your words must convince, persuade, influence and close the deal…

… or you don’t make the sale.

That’s why the top marketers all use long copy.

“But,” says this Doubting Thomas on the horn, “There are a lot of people out there who insist that short copy is better.”

Oh, really? Like who?

“Lots of people.”

Nobody who’s making any money, I tell him. Does your competition use long copy?

“Yeah.”

And how are your ads pulling, compared to theirs?

“They’re creaming us.”

Soooooooo… how’s short copy working out for you, then?

That line is a favorite of folksy therapists. Someone explains how they’re sleeping with their brother’s wife, cooking up crank in the bathroom for extra cash, and getting in bar fights as a hobby.

And the therapist sighs and says: “So, how’s that working out for you?”

Humans are a stubborn bunch. All of us. We all have huge blind spots about certain things we do.

In marketing, it’s pretty simple, though, to know when your beligerence is unjustified: Look at your results.

If your bottom line isn’t what you know it should be… then you’re doing something wrong.

It ain’t working so hot for you.

You cannot argue your way to wealth in the open marketplace.

You gotta make your case, and do a good sales job. Everything else is just pissing in the wind.

Do what works. Get hip, to get rich.

And stay frosty.

John Carlton

P.S. If you insist on needing to air out this argument in the comments section, have at it.

I’ll be checking in. Let’s get this fundamental nailed down, okay?

P.P.S. By the way…

… I just slashed the price for a fresh, hot-off-the-presses copy of “Kick-Ass Copywriting Secrets of a Marketing Rebel”. For years it’s been hundreds of bucks (as was $299 as recently as yesterday)…

… but now it’s just $99. For the course that fundamentally transformed how even rookie entrepreneurs can create marketing that works like crazy. Every Big Dog marketer you know about in the online entrepreneurial world has this course on their shelves, recommends it to their followers… and many got their start through the specific techniques and proven tactics outlined in it.

If you don’t own it yet, get it here: “Kick-Ass Copywriting Secrets of a Marketing Rebel”.

It is very much NOT just about copywriting. To understand the mojo of great copywriting, you must understand the sheer power of classic salesmanship and result-oriented marketing…

… which means this course is a one-stop starting point point for anyone needing to get their entire marketing efforts into action.

Fast.

Armed with all the persuasive power of good old-fashioned salesmanship.

Exactly as I used it for my entire career. To make clients insanely wealthy, and to plump up my own bottom-line for my own business advventures.

Seriously — if anything I’ve told you over the years in this blog has hit a chord with you…

… then you’re ready to dive deep into the world of real success.

And it starts here. With a copy of the classic course “Kick-Ass Copywriting Secrets of a Marketing Rebel.”

Now available for the lowest price I’ve ever offered.

It’s time to get this essential tool for success into the hands of as many folks as possible again. Get it, devour it, use it.

This package, by the way, arrives with both the written course and the CDs of me walking you through everything. Time-tested stuff, easily the single most important resource you can own if you’re serious about making your biz work.

Okay, mini-rant over. Just go grab the course, will ya?

Thursday, 1:29pm
Reno, NV
“What this requires is a really stupid and futile gesture on someone’s part.” (Otter, “Animal House” pre-climactic scene)

Howdy…

Do you ever have the vague feeling that everyone around you is enjoying life more than you…

… or has their act together real tight, while you struggle and wake up in the middle of the night fussing over problems?

This is actually part of our default machinery as humans. Personally, I grew up as a kid believing that everyone was hiding the secrets of a happy life from me… they knew these secrets, and were smug about knowing and enjoying them. While I was left to desperate measures, trying to figure out each fresh pitfall and obstacle on my own.

If I could only catch a clue about what everyone else was thinking as they so smoothly navigated life, the secrets of eternal happiness and contentment would surely bloom for me.

My first big revelation as a teenager arrived like a bolt of lightning: After putting together a few clues…

… I abruptly realized that most people weren’t hiding secret thoughts from me at all.

They actually didn’t have a single coherent thought in their skulls.

And something snapped inside. I immediately began to question authority figures, who I had previously just accepted as superior beings. I got expelled for a few days because I refused to cut my hair (this was back when dress codes dictated every detail of your appearance)…

… I made both my English and trig teachers cry in frustration to my fresh “oh, cut the bullshit” attitude…

… a visiting state senator got so flustered at my refusal to accept his pat answers to hard questions (this was during the huge military build-up in Vietnam) that he mumbled something about my “permanent record” being soiled…

… and I nearly didn’t graduate after challenging the track coach’s authority to tell me how to live right (again involving my freaking hair length).

I was having my first mid-life crisis, at the ripe old age of 17.

I eventually calmed down (a bit)… but that glimpse of the reality of who I was sharing space on the planet with never became less valuable.

I’m not putting people down here. I’ll let my long history as a passionate and generous teacher speak for my love of my fellow humans.

However, this was my first taste of looking at life critically, and not accepting either “common sense” or shared belief systems at face value. There are good sides to this, and bad — I respected the brilliance and skills of the exceptional folks around me more… and boldly examined, without apology, the motives and personal issues of the “little Hitlers” who abused powerful positions (or just liked to fuck with people).

Trouble and adventure followed, and I wouldn’t change any of it. I felt awake, aware and open to all opportunities, unfettered by other’s ideas on how I should live.

All of this was also a tremendous advantage in my early career as a freelance copywriter, of course. It truly helps to know who’s got mojo, and who’s faking it for ulterior purposes, amongst your clients, prospects, customers and colleagues.

However… I want to talk about the process of mid-life crisis right now.

Cuz it’s an art form.

I figure I’ve had five or six major mid-life crises at this point…

… and I’ve enjoyed every damn one of ‘em. They’re highlights in my life.

I was lucky, I guess, to have the first one before I knew what they were. Probably a better definition would be something about encountering a fork in your path, and choosing to take one road over the other. Often with nothing more than a vague sense of why you’re making the decision.

With the caveat that — for many — the risks of choosing create so much internal commotion that you freeze up. You allow inaction to win, and continue breathing and waking up each day full of resentment and questions about “what it all means” and shame over never achieving your dreams.

But that’s a mouthful.  ”Mid-life crisis” has always communicated the same thing to me.

It’s regarded mostly as a joke in our culture. The cartoon image is of a struggling-to-be-cool guy with a comb-over and a beer gut in a flashy sports car trying to impress the chicks…

… and being laughed at. “Just settle down, Mr Mid-Life Crisis,” society says. “You look ridiculous. Go home and clean out the gutters.”

This attitude is as mis-guided as most of society’s views about the big events in life. If you haven’t lost someone close to you, for example, be prepared to enter a world of medical/legal/detail hell as you deal with your grief, and try to move on. Lotta wolves out there, and because you are unprepared (both emotionally, and tactically, because society refuses to look at death realistically) you can easily be shell-shocked prey.

And I just read some anecdotes on young folks getting married today (from a shrink’s blog)… where something like 70% of the soon-to-be-hitched believe they’ll get divorced. True or not, the stats on divorce are shocking…

… not for the damage it does to families, but for the utter disregard of “vows”. When the culture just shrugs at people routinely violating their “word”, trust flutters away like dust in the wind.

And on and on.

The thing is, our culture largely exists on a surface layer. Bopped to and fro like flotsam on the ocean’s tides, without clue or direction or purpose. Or honor.

This is why professional writers stand out among the business crowd: To be able to sell effectively, you must look at life and culture and reality not as you wish it was… and not as you feel it ought to be…

… but rather, you see life as it IS. The harsh truth, the deeper nuances, the entire range of dissonance, hypocrisy and absurdity that comes with being human in a concrete jungle.

I like to say that good salesmen lead better lives…

… because, for me, living with eyes shut is sleep walking. And I prefer to be self-aware, and tuned into the meta-reality around me (as much as I can with our pitiful tools of sense and cognition).

If you strive to be a true professional, worthy of the title, then you cannot live your life slackly. You can’t communicate well, you can’t persuade, and you can’t sell as flotsam.

You are ONLY as good as your word… regardless of how little the rest of the planet cares about vows.

You MEET your fucking deadlines, in other words, and you do your best work no matter how much you’re getting paid (or how small your client is).

For most writers, this kind of commitment comes only after a transformative revelation. A “duh!” moment, where you finally realize you can’t use your friends and family as role models anymore. They will resent you for starting to arrive on time, stick to schedules, and beg off from fun when you have a deadline to meet.

Your success will irritate the hell out of everyone, because you obliterate the standard excuses (“You can’t win against The Man”… “The little guy doesn’t stand a chance”… “It’s hopeless to even try winning at biz”… and so on). No one likes to have their excuses obliterated.

My third mid-life crisis arrived as the sudden realization that — as a 30-year-old slacker — my life was never gonna change unless I did something to change it.

It was like a cleaver separating my former life (beatnik partier wannabe-writer) from the sparkling new adventure spreading out before me.  It was a shock to the system to realize that I really could…

(a) Actually desire a goal…

(b) Plan for achieving it… and…

(c) Then go out and achieve it by implementing that plan.

It wasn’t fool-proof. And it was not easy. Nor did it guarantee success.

But it was like climbing a big mountain. You could spend your entire life wishing you could reach the top, lamenting the fact that you have no clue on how to even begin…

… or, you could get a clue (Step One) by researching mountain climbing, start hiking and learning the tactics of good climbing (Step Two), and be confident that… as each new step was made manifest… you could figure it out.

People who climb mountains, climb mountains. People who wish they could climb, just wish.

This is a metaphor for all of life. It’s what separates the doers from the dreamers.

I have fully embraced every mid-life crisis that’s come my way. Change, once you make friends with it, is the foundation of adventure and a wonderful thing to indulge in.

I got used to the occasional upheaval that came with these crises… like moving to another town (knowing it can take two years to feel part of any new community)… waltzing into situations where I was a total rookie (but armed with the knowledge that the NEXT time I encountered that situation, I would no longer be a novice)…

… and all the anxiety and turmoil that comes with shifting gears and choosing something dramatically different.

I quit the business world for a couple of years, and formed a rock band to play all the biker bars and hipster joints in Northern Nevada. I wrote bad novels for another year, and went deep into the world of published fiction.  (It sucks — I earned more with one freelance copy gig than the pro novelists I met earned in a year, even with a best-seller.) (And I would have never guessed that to be true, if I hadn’t gone down that path with total commitment to figure it out.)

I moved to different states, different communities, and different climates. (Big shock moving from my shack on the beach in LA, to the worst winter snowfall in 100 years up at Lake Tahoe. August 29th, swimming in the warm Pacific. September 29th, digging my car out of a ten-foot hill of snow.) (Hint: Dig out a glimpse of your license plate first. I dug out the wrong car twice before I figured that out.)

But that’s just me. Read biographies of people you admire (or loathe). Jobs, Gates, Einstein, Churchill, Nixon, JFK, Plato, all of ‘em…

… and take to heart how the ups and downs of their lives are critical points of decision. You go one way, your life changes dramatically. You go the other way, ditto.

But you go. You do not sit still with quivering lip, slick with fear.

You go.

I am proudly in the early stages of yet another mid-life crisis. And yes, I know I’m way past “mid-life” and all that. Again, it’s just shorthand metaphor for shooting down a fresh path, aimed far from the previous one I was on.

First step was to form a new side company, Carlton Ink, to channel my “dream” projects through. I used the term “Ink” as in writing ink, not tattoo ink, of course… and as a play on “Inc”. Just go with it. (This blog is my main entry page, so be sure to sign up, top right, or you’ll miss any notifications I send out for the exciting new shit I’ve got planned.)

I’m still deeply involved with my prior ventures like the Simple Writing System — I just moved away from day-to-day operations. I am especially still deeply involved in the now-infamous Platinum Mastermind (co-hosting with my biz partner Stan).

There’s never been a mastermind like this one before, and the NEED for this kind of intense, results-oriented insider group has never been greater. If you need to get in (there are limited spots), go here for more info.

(Side note: Just to drive home the point that mid-life crises are not just common, but constantly burping up in people’s lives… I asked the group in the last mastermind meeting to raise their hand if they were in, or felt near to a mid-life crisis.  Almost every hand in the room went up. This is important, because too many folks feel like they’re the ONLY ones going through this kind of turbulence. You’re not alone. It’s a major part of the human condition, and it’s PARTICULARLY intense for entrepreneurs.)

Second step was to indulge in a long-time desire of mine to have a truly cool logo.

So I cornered my uber-talented graphic artist pal Rick Allen (you can reach him yourself at InceptIncMail@gmail.com if you need primo design work done)…

… and had the logo done that is displayed up top here.

I just shiver in joy whenever I look at it.  I grew up surrounded by sixties SoCal car culture, loving the art, graffiti, tat’s and cartoons of the era…

… and always wanted my own rollicking graphic like this. Rick spent all of ten minutes listening to me gush and talk about the artists I worshipped (like R. Crumb, H. Bosch, and especially Rick Griffin and Robert Williams)…

… and then produced this gorgeous, stunning beauty. The old-style pen through the heart was my idea — a nod to the long line of scribes, going back to dudes etching on cuneiform clay tablets in ancient Sumeria, who are my brethren.

Here’s to ya, ink-stained wretches everywhere.

Step Three: Move ever-so-smoothly into a working semi-retirement… where I’ll tend to a couple of worthy clients (requirements: Big bucks, no whining, do what I tell you to do), and finish all these books and courses I’ve been ignoring for years.

Now, my “semi-retirement” will mostly resemble what other people do in a normal work-week.  I work damn hard at hobbies, side projects, and especially my own writing.

Oh, I got plans.

But before I finish up here, I need to lay out some basic ground rules for enjoying a good mid-life crisis.

I don’t wanna hear about anyone wandering off half-cocked, creating chaos in their wake chasing inappropriate love interests or signing up for the Navy SEALS at age 40. (You’ll get crushed in both instances.) Don’t be a cliche.

Here’s my advice:

Ground Rule #1: First and foremost, take care of those who depend on you. Don’t act irrationally, or without a well-thought-out plan. This is especially critical if there are children involved.

You can successfully go through a spectacular mid-life crisis without hurting others. It may only be 50% of what you wanted, but remember that most folks never do ANYTHING about their dreams… so you’re still way ahead. (So you take a family trek across Europe, instead of the bachelor sleaze-fest you think you wanted. Be a grown-up about this.)

Ground Rule #2: Make lots of lists, and keep them organized. This clears your head, and identifies what you need to focus on. If you’re determined to sail solo around the world, learn to swim first.

Ground Rule #3: Again, your homework is to read biographies. I’m serious about this. Learn how people who pulled off the spectacular accomplished it, and how they navigated their own foibles and the challenges of the world.

Ground Rule #4: Have an “exit” plan — both for your current situation (see Ground Rule #1) so you don’t leave collateral damage all over the place… and for at least a few months of your new direction. As much as you can, plan.

Now, I say that as a guy who rarely made good plans in my earlier crises. But I just didn’t know how, and was operating without a guidebook. I made up the rules as I went.

Don’t follow my early lead on this. Do your due diligence.

Ground Rule #5: Find support groups. It can be one person. (Mine, for several of my crises, was Gary Halbert, who talked to me frequently while I went careening off the walls in new adventures.)

Again, choose carefully — even your best pals may not be up for you leaving them in the dust, while you obliterate their excuses and go after your goals. Better to find like-minded colleagues already bloodied in entrepreneurial or life experiences.

Ground Rule #6: If you’re gonna do it…

… DO IT.

Don’t dink around, or do it half-assed. Don’t hurt anyone else. Research, prepare, gird thy loins. Then get busy.

Ground Rule #7: You go, girl.

Remember to enjoy the ride. Never allow despair to freeze you up. Get done what you need to get done, go deep, inhale and relish every detail, and get your gusto on.

Keep a journal, cuz your grandkids will wanna read it.

We only get one ticket, for one ride in this life. The big secret is: You’re in charge of your own script. Yes, a lot that happens will be unplanned, unfair and unwanted.

But for the rest of it, you’re in charge. Unless you choose not to be.

You don’t need to do what anyone else does. Find your own groove, and ride that puppy for all it’s worth. If you fail, you fail. Get back up, re-adjust, figure it out…

… and start again. Or move sideways into something else.

You can also choose to remain where you are. Absolutely no shame in that. The world needs a vast mob content to follow orders. It’s freakin’ scary when you wake up and realize you’re operating without a safety net — and it’s okay to not take that path (no matter how much the distant sirens call to you).

Just never forget that you’re choosing your path. Be at peace with yourself once that decision is made.

One last trick: Try to leave the world a better place, will ya?

Stay frosty,

John

P.S. What do you think of all this? Love to hear your thoughts, in the comments.

Wednesday, 11:56pm
Reno, NV
“Indeed your dancing days are done…” (Irish folk song)

Howdy.

I hope you’re doing well, and seizing the day.  As we all should, every day we’re alive.

Sometimes, for me, the best way to appreciate life is to, occasionally, also appreciate death. For all the sound and fury and chaos surrounding us on the Big Earthly Stage… for all the urgency of accomplishment and all the troubles of cobbling together a modern lifestyle…

… sometimes you just gotta stop and take a deep breath.

And know that, at some point, there will be one last breath like that… and then no more.

All of us sharing space on the planet have been granted a ticket to ride, and none of us know how long the ride will last.  Or how it ends.

Or, for that matter, what’s going to happen one second from now, let alone tomorrow or next month or next year.

And yet, life goes on.  And goes on well for some of us, and progresses haltingly for others. But it goes on.

For Steve Jobs, the dancing days are done.  I did not suspect his leaving us would affect me this profoundly, but it has.  I never met him.  And yet, our lives are intertwined.  I’m writing this on an iMac, using the friendly interface he championed (and forced the “who cares about fonts” geek-dominated virtual world to adopt), while my iPhone sits nearby (buzzing with incoming texts).

There will be plenty written about Jobs and his effect on how we live today.  I’ve already read a dozen articles online… and even the iHaters have to admit the world has shifted significantly with Steve gone.

For me, he was the Uber-Entrepreneur.  Dropped out of college because his energy and ideas bristled at the shackles of staid academia.  Aimlessly sought out ways to engage with life on a more grand scale, correctly sensing that the world was about to change fundamentally and forever.

And once that aimless energy locked onto a vision of what could be… he never stopped driving forward.

Several articles I’ve read have brought up the notion that Jobs didn’t actually “invent” the things he’s now being given credit for.  The same charge has been leveled at entrepreneurs since the dawn of time — disgruntled anti-hero types get heavily invested in dragging down icons out of a sense of justice.  Edison, Bell, Tesla, Einstein, Ford… they all have detractors who focus on the suggestion they didn’t “earn” their glory.

Jobs, to my knowledge, never claimed to be the sole dude behind any of the breakthroughs he was involved in, though.  He used “we” in his talks, and always had a team working with him. (Wozniak was the first member.)

You can pretend that the entrepreneur honchoing new stuff is merely an interchangeable cog in the wheel of invention.  That the light bulb, car, radio, television, space flight, Internet, personal computer and every other gew-gah supporting modern life would have been invented anyway…

… maybe later, maybe in some slightly different form, but it would all be here.

And that’s bullshit.  Anyone with a smidgeon of knowledge about the history of civilization can refute that idea.  The Web could have easily remained a pet project of the military-industrial-academic world.  The sky could easily today be full of zeppelins instead of jets, with no satellites orbiting above, no footprints on the moon, and no mp3′s murmuring in your earbuds.

Humans have a built-in drive to tinker with stuff, to make swords out of ploughs, to increase comfort and hide unpleasantness, to be curiouser and curiouser about things that blow up and move mountains and open minds.

But there isn’t one path to take, at any time.  The mobs resist change, king-makers subvert progress, and corporations don’t like crazy guys messing with the bottom line.

And that’s why the world we live in today… with the Web woven completely into daily existence, with once-dominant industries crippled even as brand-spanking new entrepreneurial opportunities bloom, with utterly and radically changed ways of finding and processing information…

… owes a ton to Steve Jobs.

I still marvel at how much we’ve been swept into the wake he created on the sea of modern life. I was like a motley fool stumbling around the edges of this vast tidal change, sometimes with a ring-side seat… never quite grasping just how profoundly things were shifting…

… but still enjoying the ride.

In the late 70s, I lived in a quasi-communal house in Palo Alto, just up the street from the famous garage where Hewlett-Packard was founded, a town away from the garage in Los Altos where Woz and Jobs had started Apple a few years before.  The guy in charge of the house I was in also happened to run the Artificial Intelligence lab at Stanford… so he had one of the first home connections to the Web (though it wasn’t called that yet).

He’d take us into the basement of the AI department after parties, where we’d run around like barbarians in the Alexandrian library — goggle-eyed at the refrigerator-sized mainframes chugging away, startled by the occasional mouse-like robots scurrying around… and completely mystified by what it all meant.  (Few people believe me about the robot mice, but they were there.  No idea why they haven’t been marketed, or what they could have been marketed for.)

I played text-only fantasy games on his home computer (attached to the Web through old-school telephone wires), with a poster of Bertrand Russell gazing at me.  (“Look down.”  ”There’s a troll with a sword lying at your feet.”  ”Wake up troll.”  ”Cannot understand command.  Try again.”)  This was a decade away from Leisure Suit Larry, for crying out loud, and even PacMan wasn’t out yet.

My housemates were mostly Stanford grad students.  (I was working in the art department of a local computer supply catalog, overseeing photo shoots where we naively put floppies upside-down into drives… cuz we were so clueless about all this computer crap, which surely wasn’t going anywhere anyway, you know.)

I had not the vaguest idea what any of this meant for the future.

I scored an early PC, cobbled together in a Pacific Coast Highway storefront with handwritten signs announcing the sale of “computers you can use in your home”.  (I had two IBM disc drives, and had to load a DOS floppy first, take that out and load a word-processing program — now obsolete — and use blank floppies in the second drive to store my writing.)

(Huge, cumbersome 5-1/4″ floppies, too, not the small ones.  Those things were as big as the New Wave singles on vinyl I still bought at the record store.)

And Gary Halbert and I actually attempted to market what is now called an “information product” on the World Wide Web — before anyone we knew had encountered a phone modem or owned an email address.  (It bombed.)  A decade later, I at least had the sense to establish an online presence with a crude website for my biz.  I had an early podcast available (when I had to explain to people what a podcast was), one of the first online merchant accounts BofA created, and dove headlong into the blog-o-sphere back when they still called ‘em “weblogs”.

But I was just a rider on the train.

The guys doing the driving were the ones breaking a sweat.  And the corporate types (IBM, MicroSoft) were headed one way, while Jobs and his team stubbornly headed out in another direction.

There was never any guarantee we’d wind up where we are now.  Humans resist change. The majority refused to believe man could fly, or transplant organs, or survive in a chaotic entrepreneur-friendly democracy.

Never mind mobile web surfing.

And that’s why Jobs was so freaking important.

I hang out with a lot of geeks.  They’re good people, smart as hell, and they’re having a blast in this Brave New Wired World.

But the breakthrough was in making it easy for guys like me to come along.  I’ve never tried to program software, don’t know a thing about code, and would be just as lost now as I was back in the AI basement…

… if guys like Jobs hadn’t pushed so hard for friendly interfaces and user-centered computing.

Even hard-core iHaters can’t deny that, in may ways, we live in Steve’s world.  He honchoed the teams that brought us here — doing the job of the visionary entrepreneur (who knows when to nix otherwise impressive geek breakthroughs, and when to fast-track the head-scratchingly obscure other breakthroughs no one else believed in… yet).

The corporate types are just fine with keeping new technology away from the masses.  If The Man had his way, we might still be on dial-up modems, with streaming video reserved for the wealthy and the military.  (And the only way to get music would be on CDs.)

Don’t think for a minute that The Man is happy about social media, instant messaging, and unfettered access to all knowledge.  That’s why they’re eavesdropping so much, and experimenting with shutting down the Web when they’re scared.

I don’t know what the world is going to look like next year.  Or even tomorrow.  We live in exciting times… and that excitement cuts both ways, good and bad.  Scary and delightful.

However, I do know I’m gonna miss Steve terribly.

There are lots of rebels out there, plenty of smart folks willing to take on The Man and never settle for “good enough” technology.

But there aren’t very many with the ability to communicate their vision.

And it’s fair to wonder if there’s anyone left with the mojo to honcho a team to make that vision real.  (Remember, Jobs was fired from Apple, resigned when his failures threatened the stock price, and pretty much swam upstream against corporate know-it-all’s and “common sense” for his entire life.)

I have high hopes.

I intend to hang around for a long time, and I’m enjoying being an itsy-bitsy part of the history still being written about this turbulent, wacky, chaotic birth of our Brave New Wired World (at least on the marketing side).

And Steve’s passing reminds me not to take any of it for granted, ever.

The dude was an Uber-Entrepreneur, and he changed the world.  We got to be bit players in the movie, enjoying the constant re-booting of reality and possibility…

… and now we’re already into the next act.

With no script.

Again, I have high hopes.  I’m also scared, because I study history… and this movie could easily take a wild left-turn at any time.  Just like it has so often in the past.

For now, though, I’m not worrying about the future.

Today, I’m reflecting on the ride so far.  And enjoying the privilege of having been around while Jobs was shaking up the joint.

What’s your take on all this?

Stay frosty,

John

Monday, 3:32pm
Visalia, CA
“Only your real friends will tell you when your face is dirty.” (Sicilian proverb)

Howdy…

I’m handing the blog over to our good buddy Jimbo Curley again this week.  He’s done several guest posts, all hilarious, all excellent insight and info for marketers, writers and anyone in biz.

Jim and I go back a looooooooong time.  And my favorite story of how we became brawling colleagues is included here — this tale sends grown men into gasping fits of laughter whenever Jimbo re-tells it in the bar (where, during seminars, all the REAL networking and professional bonding takes place).  Last week, it was the Phoenix Hilton, for Joe Polish’s and Dean Jackson’s shockingly-good “I Love Marketing” event.

So this is fresh stuff.

Jim’s the real thing.  A top, consistently smokin’ hot copywriter and a keen observer of human behavior (and buying psychology).  He’s an original teacher in the Simple Writing System, and one of the very few writers I’ve personally asked to write FOR me.

This post is must-reading for anyone wondering how their latest and greatest ad is gonna do in the real world.

Warning: Do NOT drink coffee while reading this.  Or you’ll snort it through your nose during the funny parts.  Which is funny in itself, the image of hundreds of readers all over the globe spitting up coffee at their desks at the same time, courtesy of a master storyteller.

Okay, you’ve been warned.

Here’s Jimbo:

Thanks for the intro John.

I’ll dive right in.

Today I want to talk about a Street-Marketing lesson I call “How to take it in the shorts… and love it”.

It’s about how to get qualified critiques for your writing.

First, I’ll hit you with the big setup statement.

Here it is: Writers do not work in teams.

Stay with me on this.

Because while you can divvy up the many tasks necessary for creating a new product… building a house… or robbing a bank…

… you CAN’T do that with writing good copy.

Yes, it’s true that writers often spend time collaborating with dubious friends in coffee shops and bars…

… throwing back shots, playing grab-ass, expressing deep and passionate opinions about things they’d LIKE to write about…

… but let’s face it, THAT is not writing.

That is a little something known as “fun”.

Writing, on the other hand — the actual process of putting words onto a page — is work…

… done by ONE person…

… alone…

… inside his or her own head.

Ernest Hemingway did not whip off chapters while harpooning whales off Nantucket Island or slugging down Orujo with his buddies at a Spanish bullfight.

No. He did it like the rest of us mortals have to…

…in front of a keyboard or putting pen to paper… pounding out copy…

…alone… alone… alone.

Take a moment and allow that idea to settle-in.

It’s important, because the solitaire nature of writing creates a unique problem — especially for the new writer.

It’s something I call the “Blind Spot” effect — that strange phenomena that blocks the writer from actually seeing his or her own work.

It’s kinda like gazing into mirror. While you may be looking at the exact same face that everyone else does…

… you somehow just don’t SEE your face. You know exactly what everyone else looks like, but you don’t know what YOU look like… until other people clue you in.

Weird, huh?

It’s like Kent Jankowski… a silly, clumsy, likable kid that I knew from Catholic grade school in Wisconsin.

When he wasn’t getting slapped around by the nuns, he was busy tripping over his own shoelaces during basketball practice.

Well, in junior-high something wonderful happened to Kent.

High levels of testosterone and good genes transformed his oversized bulbous head from a featureless ball of silly-putty…

… into a perfectly-proportioned chiseled block of marble.

He quite suddenly became a handsome specimen of young manhood, complete with beard stubble and — cue audible gasp from his longtime pals — flocks of lovely young ladies cooing after him.

As he strolled by me one day with the gorgeous Jan Flowers hooked on his arm, a giddy Jankowski leaned toward me and whispered…

“Curley… check it out… Jan Flowers!  Vroom-vroom…”

It was good to see that goofy kid still existed just below the surface.

Anyway… my point is that Jankowski discovered he was a hot commodity not because he was able to judge his own looks in the mirror.

Nope. It was because young women were telling him with words and actions.

This is a little something called “feedback”.

And it’s exactly the same with your writing.

Only the most accomplished and experienced writers can even begin to truly “see” and judge their own work.

I’ve been a working writer for over 25 years and STILL have trouble with blind spots… and absolutely depend on review and feedback.

Problem is, most writers have no clue on WHO to turn to for this kind of critique work.

Okay, here’s a quick story that’ll spell out the FOUR types of feedback available to you.

I’ll keep it brief.  When I was about 10 years old, I spent an afternoon in my room sketching out a pencil drawing of a horse.  (Drawing is a lot like writing… a solitary activity fraught with creative blindspots).

And the masterpiece I created was so amazing… and so near to touching the face of genius itself… that I simply HAD to show it around to various friends and family members.

What happened next taught me a valuable lesson on differentiating between the various kinds of criticism.

I won’t waste your time with all the details, but generally, the feedback I received fell into these categories:

1. Mom. She told me my artwork was “wonderful”, thus confirming everything I already suspected about my killer horse-drawing skills.

2. The older neighbor kid. He said the drawing was “stupid” and that I was wasting my time because I was stupid too.

3. My favorite uncle. He told me that he very much liked the “doggie” that I drew…

4. The big brother. He pointed out that the horse’s legs were drawn way too short, thus making it look like a mutant dog.

In general, those are the four types of criticism that you will face too. Let’s cover each of them in a little more detail.

1. First, mom.

Her response was predictable… to lavish praise on me no matter what.  I could’ve drawn a picture of our house burning to the ground with my siblings hanging lifeless from the windows and her response would have been “very nice. Keep up the good work.”

Yes, it’s comforting to know that people love you enough to lie to your face under any circumstances.

Serial killers have mom’s who still love and support them, (“He had nothing to do with those 12 dead people in his basement…”).

But you simply can’t trust the “mom’s” in your life for honest feedback and constructive criticism. Getting a pat on the back for lousy work will NOT help you improve.

2. The older neighbor kid — or what I call the “Eddie Haskell” critic — gets his kicks out of mocking others. He does it for various reasons — jealously, pettiness, envy, sadism, whatever. Who knows.

This type of critic is usually interested in making sure that you don’t make him look bad, and he’s quite prepared to throw a wrench into your gears to stop that from happening.

Learn to recognize these people (it isn’t hard), don’t solicit their opinion, and simply ignore their criticisms.  (Side note from John: The business world is crammed with Eddie Haskell’s like this, folks.  Never, ever, ever underestimate the potential level of jealousy, pettiness, envy and outright cruel sadism undergirding opinions you get from others.)

3. Next… the good-natured uncle, or what I call “from the mouths of babes”. This can actually be quite useful feedback. In fact, if you’re like most new writers, this is probably the only useful kind of critique available to you.

It’s “from the hip” comments that can pull back the curtain and shed some light on your blind spots.

For example, a few years back, I was raking leaves on a cold and windy autumn day. After a couple hours I finished up, bagged-up the leaf piles, and returned into the house.

As I removed my shoes, my 4-year-old grandson looked up at me with a puzzled expression and said:  ”Grandpa… you look like a clown.”

I was shocked.  A clown? What the…

I knew the boy couldn’t be openly insulting me… for Pete’s sake, he was 4 years old.

I glance into the hallway in the mirror and — sure enough — my small tan beanie-hat, windblown hair, and red nose made it look like I was ready to pile out of a miniature car with 35 other friends.

For a writer, this kind of honest feedback can be pure gold.

Because when well-intentioned people inadvertently blurt out untrammeled insights — it can provide you quick inroads to trouble areas of your work.

I mean, if a favorite uncle thought my horse was a dog… or an innocent child said I looked like a clown… well, it makes no sense to argue with that kind of insight. (“Damn you, Uncle, that’s a horse not a dog…”).

Instead, set aside your ego and USE the feedback.  This is where the cool, ego-less attitude of the real professional comes in.

In direct response writing, especially, you can glean stunningly-useful information this way.

For example: I often plop down my copy in front of people I consider to be a perfect prospect for the product I’m writing about.

I KNOW I have a winner when they ask if they too can buy the product.

In one instance my unsuspecting subject asked how the client “could afford to give away so many free bonuses”. I knew right then and there that at least THAT part of the ad copy was effective.

But here’s the thing: You should not DEPEND on this kind of “from the mouths of babes” feedback. It’s hit or miss and is almost never followed up with concrete advice.

Which brings me to the fourth kind of critic:

4. The older brother… or what I call “The Mentor”.

Okay… let’s be clear about something. When it comes to direct sales copywriting, there’s usually serious money on the line…

… building websites, PPC campaigns, banner ads, shopping carts, hosting, not to mention the hard costs of producing the product itself (including paying the writer, if you’re using a hired gun).

Which means there’s a mountain of pressure on the writer. The ad must perform.

Split testing and continual tweaking will later on help direct and focus the pitch, yes. Wonderful stuff, testing.

However… for the original out-of-the-chute version, you’ve got to start somewhere. You need the raw first effort, to be able to test or tweak.

Which, for the pro writer… means you’re coming up with your best initial “shot in the dark” control piece.

And, with so much on the line… and with you as the only one critiquing the writing at this point… means you need an outside opinion on your work.

Your top-choice option is of course to seek out expert advice from someone who understands the sales process… and can give you specific constructive criticism.

Like my older brother, a self-professed artist, who pointed out the horse’s legs were too short.

THAT is specific constructive criticism.

Or John Carlton.

Some 15 years ago — when we first met — John had me rip-up an ad that I had worked on for over four days.

Our telephone conversation went something like this:

“Hi John. Did you get the ad I faxed you?”

“Yes Jim, I got it. Could you please print it off while we’re on the phone here?”

“I’ve got it open on my computer, John. I’m looking at the ad right now.”

“Good.  Print it off anyway.”

“Uh, John… I could make any edits right here on the computer.”

“No. Print it.”

“Okay… one second.”  Sound of printer clanking away.

“You have it printed yet?”

“Yes, John, I got it.”

“Are you holding in your hands?”

“Yes, John. I’ve got it in my hand right now.”

“Good. Now tear the piece of shit up.”

“What?”

“You heard me. I said tear it up.”

“(sigh) Uh… okay John, I get it. It’s not very good…”

“No-no-no. Jimbo… you’re still not hearing me. Listen very carefully. I want you to set down the phone, hold that copy up to the receiver, and tear it up. I want to HEAR you tearing it up. I would also ask you to burn it, but I’m afraid you’d probably torch your whole damn office in the process.”

I did exactly what he demanded and tore it to shreds.

After that, John started improvising a sales message straight off the top of his head which was a hundred times better than what I had worked on for four long days.

Over the next months John continued to provide me deep insights and feedback on everything I wrote.

He taught me the advanced 17-point layout of a sales message… tricks to overcoming sales-killing objections… how to drive home the most important selling points… super-persuasive bullet-writing tips… how to establish proper voice and cadence… and on and on.

Thus began my road to fortune and fame. Writing sales copy, I learned, is a very specific and delicate process that would NOT come to me in my sleep.

I needed to learn it through coaching and mentoring.

John’s become a lot nicer in his old age. But it was my willingness to accept tough constructive criticism that ultimately allowed me to move forward.  (John used to be oh-so-proud of occasionally making clients cry during his “tough love” consultations… and it’s hilarious to see some of those clients brag about it later, wearing their tears like badges. “Carlton made me cry once.  Thank God I had the sense to get past the pain of that reality check, and implement what he was telling me…”  He’s not a mean guy — in fact, he’s way too generous with his advice and help — but he will not waste time soothing anyone’s ego when money’s on the line, or the future of a business venture.  So, while he’s mellowed somewhat, he’ll still kick your freakin’ butt when you deserve it.)

I now make a very comfortable living from the skills he taught me. You can too.

It’s like something I read from screen writing expert Syd Fields.  He pointed out that there was an extreme SHORTAGE of screenwriters in Hollywood.

What? Shortage of screenwriters in Hollywood? Heck, didn’t every waitress and delivery boy in LA have a tattered script tucked away in their hip pocket ready to whip-out at a moment’s notice?

Yes, Syd acknowledged that WAS the case.

But his point was this: There are very few QUALIFIED screen writers… people who know the craft, understand how to tell a story… and are capable of formatting a script so that a producer can use it as a blueprint to actually MAKE a movie.

It’s the same with writing effective sales message.

There is an extreme SHORTAGE of good direct response writers.

Which means you and other copywriters are now faced with enormous opportunity.

And there’s something else working to your advantage too:  Today, almost all online markets are extremely vulnerable.

It’s true. Prove it to yourself. Take 20 minutes and cruise the internet. The place is a direct marketer’s wet-dream… and yet it’s top-heavy with poor or non-existent sales copy.

Which means one well-written sales campaign could easily high-jack and dominate any one of these markets.

This is once-in-a-lifetime stuff… like strolling the gold fields of California in 1848 deciding which one you’ll tap into.

The downside: History has shown that gaps like this fill up fast. But right now, as it sits, anyone possessing even crude skills to create effective sales copy can crush the competition for their own product…

… or for the products of countless fumbling industries.

But it all hinges on your willingness to set aside the ego and accept some simple construction feedback and coaching advice…

… from someone other than your mom.

Fortune awaits you… but it won’t wait forever.

For better marketing,

Jimmy Curley

P.S. John here again.

Did you spit up coffee?

I’ve seen a lot of people snort stuff out through their nose upon hearing that “Now, tear it up” tale for the first time.  And it’s all true.  (Also true: I’ve mellowed.  A bit.)

Now…

… if you, too, want to learn all the details (and inside sneaky shortcuts) to writing sales message at the same scary level that respected experts like Jimbo (and all the other writers I’ve helped) now regularly perform at…

… then get your butt over to the Simple Writing System right now.

Just go here:

Finally learn the pro-level secrets of writing sales copy… fast, simple and easy.

Just check it out, okay?  See what you’ve been missing.

P.P.S. Also, if you want to see what kind of Tough Love gets ladled out during a standard phone consultation with me, just pop up to the Consulting tab up at the top of this page, and follow the simple instructions for contacting my assistant Diane.

Monday, 8:28pm
Reno, NV
“Just take those old records off the shelf, I’ll sit n’ listen to ‘em by myself…” (Bob Seger)

Howdy…

At the end of this post, I’ll explain how you can win a bitchin’ prize that will make you the envy of all your friends forever.

First, though — let’s learn something about marketing to humans, whadya say?

Here’s two quick “how to deal with the screaming chaos” tips for everyone in business today who’s just a tad freaked-out at the way things seem to changing so damned FAST:

Screaming Chaos-Dealing Tip #1: If you’re older, you need to cultivate solid relationships with younger folks who can help you understand the Zeitgeist of the dominant culture out there.  (Yes, even if you hate it.  Especially if you hate it, actually.)

And I’m not talking about having your nephew program your TV remote while you mow the lawn.

Nope.  I’m talking about entrepreneur-minded young adults, who just happen to be totally wired into the Grid…

… and can translate current trends while offering you some solid, smart perspective.

And…

Screaming Chaos-Dealing Tip #2: If you’re a young entrepreneur, you need to cultivate relationships with geezers who can give you some perspective on how we GOT to this current state of affairs.

Key thing to remember: You must limit your cross-generational relationships to smart, aware, and open-minded people.

Which means you’re fishing in a VERY tiny pool.

For the most part, the generations despise each other.  Partly because of the tendency for folks to stay within their peer group both socially and economically… and partly because most old farts get grumpy, and most young studs develop an intolerable arrogance right after their first flush of pubescence.

I was an arrogant little punk when I was young.  And I remember meeting some girl’s father at a party, who took me aside twice during the evening.  The first time to admonish me (with finger waggling in my face) for having long hair and a bad attitude (and I did), which he insisted was gonna ruin my chances for living a good life (and also negate any chance I had with dating his daughter)…

… and the second time — after he’d drained a bottle of Scotch — he took me aside to tearfully explain how much he wished he was young again (sob, choke) and how us kids had it right about life while his generation was a pack of fools…

… and could I maybe move in with him and his wife and daughter, cuz I was such a wonderful, awesome dude?  (I respectfully declined.)

That pretty much summed up my youthful insight toward the elder generation: Conflicted, embarrassingly creepy when they tried to “rap” with us, and kinda sloppy with the booze.

And I hoped I died before I got old.

Then, one day I was in a big business meeting… and realized I was ten years older than the next oldest entrepreneur in the room.  I had, in what seemed like a freakin’ blink, gone from the young hotshot kid in the room, to the grizzled veteran guy.  Twenty years had passed.

Lemme tell you, I now have some solid respect for the weirdness that is growing older in American culture.

My saving grace is that I’ve never been an “ageist” — defined as someone who discriminates against others on the basis of age.  It’s a stupid concept… but the culture kind of ensures it happens, because there are precious few chances for the generations to legitimately interact and fairly judge each other.

I lucked out.  Back in college, my anthropology prof forced us to get out into the community, find people in the very late stages of life… and record their stories.  (Or flunk her course.  She was an early mentor, and knew how to get stuff done, tell you what.)

THAT was a genuine wake-up call for me. The older generation wasn’t much for trying to communicate with the younger one, and vice versa… (our motto:  ”Don’t trust anyone over 30″)…

… and yet, once all the bullshit labels were yanked away, and real listening occurred…

… well, hell.  These were fascinating people, brimming with life experience I could only hope to encounter myself.  And they had fallen in love, suffered tragedy, made mistakes, lucked into a few good things, and had adventures that made the sci-fi stuff I was devouring look shallow and dull.

It’s not across the board, of course.  Some people never do anything worth telling a story about, and others are just plain boring zombies mad at the world.

But then, this applies equally to many of your peer group, no matter what age you are, or what segment of the socio-economic-ethnic culture you’re from.

So it’s important to always be on the lookout for people of all stripes and thinking that can add value to your life.  Regardless of anything else that defines them.  The real wealth in this all-too-short ride is to enjoy the full gamut of what’s on the menu.

And this brings us to the subject of this post.

Which is very much NOT earth-shaking…

… but is, rather, one of those interesting “little pieces of psychology” that nevertheless work their way into the top of your Bag Of Tricks as a salesman.

The lesson here will help any marketer trying to reach across the generational divide… and give you a hint as to how people have changed in the actual ways they measure each other up.

Here’s the story: Michele’s nephew David is (and I can back this up) among the savviest and most intensely-geared-toward-success entrepreneurs of his generation.  And he’s in his mid-twenties, for cryin’ out loud.

He’s my go-to dude whenever I have questions about how the younger generation thinks and acts.  (His biz is Next Big Sound, a company he started while still at Northwestern that is working with all the big music companies.  It’s basically a focal point online to measure how hot new bands spread their music far and wide.  Very hip, very ultra-modern, very cutting-edge… and taking complete advantage of the Web.)

And yeah, David has helped me program much of the various computerized and mechanical crap I’ve stuffed into my office.  (He’s been a life-saver, especially when I switched from PC to Mac.)

He is as deeply grounded in his generation’s psyche and habits as anyone you’ll meet.

And I’m a glutton for observing the cerebral changes constantly happening in our culture. I like to find sneaky shortcuts to understanding how people in my target markets THINK and ACT.

So… while the following may seem trivial to some readers…

… let me assure you that the underlying psychology is profound for any marketer looking to connect with an audience.

Here’s the exchange David and I had a short time ago:

Yo, David…

In my time (last century), you could walk into someone’s living quarters, spend 5 minutes perusing their record collection and the books on their shelves…

… and pretty much know what you needed to know about them.  Straight, square, hip, cool, interesting, or boring.  (Or how much dough they had, based on the number of new albums vs. used record store buys.) (And how obsessive they were, by how well they treated their collections, and what kind of stereo/turntable/components they had.)

For example: A single Carpenter’s record (or a Yanni cassette) was like 3 straight strikes, if you were dating.  And more than one Yes album (or not owning Dark Side of the Moon) was a sure clue you were dealing with a nerd.

So…

… is there an equivalent for YOUR generation?  Do you hop on Facebook and check out anything specific, say, the way my gen studied albums and bookshelves?

Seems like most iTunes libraries are too large, and too casual, to get much info.  But maybe I’m wrong.

See, my generation didn’t spend money easily.  If you bought an album, you agonized over it.  It meant something.  Same with books.

Now, at 99cents per tune, your Iggy Pop and Queens of the Stone Age mixes don’t necessarily mean you even like the music.  Does it?

Or would you look for more general things, like emo, or trance, or hip hop vs rock, or something like that?

Thanks.  This might be a great blog post (for my generation, and for the marketers in yours).

John

David’s reply (and I’ve left his random capitalization and slang intact… another clue to his gen’s writing style, which reflects their agile thinking processes):

Hi John.

Spoke with a friend about this yesterday and debated the various cultural things we consume that also represent us… came up with a few things:

iTunes library / iPod

What’s in someone’s iTunes library doesn’t mean anything. Our libraries have gotten so stuffed with random hard drive dumps of music over the past 10 years that browsing someone’s library is impossible (it’s too big) and determining their taste from that selection sucks. You nailed it with the ‘costs money to buy an album’ argument that used to hold true, now everything’s so free/cheap there isn’t enough scarcity for it to matter. That is, until you sort someone’s library by play count. Seeing the Top 100 songs someone has listened to is totally telling. Which leads into…

last.fm scrobbling

Last.fm is a sort of popular social network around music that CBS bought for a ton of money a few years back ($280mil). It’s pretty simple – anywhere I listen to music that has the ability to ‘scrobble’ reports to last.fm what I’m listening to and then shows me all sorts of cool stats and my musical affinity with another person. It’s always a good proxy for if I’ll get along with someone.  Here’s my profile: http://www.last.fm/user/dodecasyllabic

fragmentation/long tail/top 40/the radio/the internet

After writing all that I realized two things. There’s been so much talk about the long tail and the internet fragmenting things and there never being another Johnny Carson because how the hell would all of america crowd around our TVs all the time when we have the internet now. That’s the first thing – there’s some fundamental thing that prevents massive selling albums and everyone the same age liking similar stuff. But the second thing is that I think there are really two types of people – those that still listen to the radio and know what’s on the Top 40 and those that only consume via the internet and have no idea what’s ‘popular’. There’s hybrids, of course, but that’s the bigger thing that separates people now – are they ‘internet’ people or normals? My view is probably skewed since I’m pretty much always surrounded by internet people – they find their music on Mp3 blogs and Hype Machine and started subscribing early to rdio like I did.

what blogs they follow in google reader

Seeing what someone chooses to read on a regular basis, and if they choose to read on a regular basis beyond facebook status updates and gossip sites at all, is pretty big.

who they follow on twitter

I like seeing who I follow in common with someone on twitter. That’s telling. They opt-in to these streams… and who they choose says a lot, i think..

So is there an equivalent in my generation? no, probably not. and that’s a bit unfortunate… but you figure it out pretty quickly by putting some music on and seeing how they react. lucky for me I always have an excuse to talk about music because of NBS and that helps figure it out quickly…

David

All right… so is this a huge wake-up call for marketers?

Perhaps… if you’ve been cross-marketing to generations and you hadn’t yet realized how differently each one “measures up” new people.  Or communicates with their peers.

The main lesson: You’re never gonna be totally hip to someone in a different generation.

I mean, I still think the current crop of pop stars are embarrassingly untalented twits… and I will never, ever understand how rap became a cultural mainstay.  (Though I like hip-hop.)

And this comes from a guy who — in my own youth — worshipped garage bands who could barely play their instruments (the Seeds, the Stones, the Ramones, etc)…

… and who remained oblivious of my father’s discontent with “that damn racket“, which was so awfully different than the smooth swing jazz he grew up with in the 40s.

Still… you should try to at least know the fundamentals of how current market segments communicate (or fail to communicate) with each other.  And how peer groups spread the message on anything (your old-school “word of mouth”).

Just don’t be that old guy with a comb-over trying to be hip around the kids, getting all your slang wrong.  (“Hey, kiddo’s, I’m a hip jivester, too, gimme some skin, man…”)

And please — if you’re a kid — don’t tell me your favorite Beatle’s song is “Yellow Submarine” and expect that to start any kind of bonding process.  I was Kinks’ kinda dude, anyway…

PRIZE!

Okay, time for the game.

Here’s the task, and reward: The first person to name all the albums in the photo up top, in the comments section (don’t try to trump anyone by going to Facebook, now)…

… wins a free copy of my book “Kick-Ass Copywriting Secrets of a Marketing Rebel“… personally signed by me.  You’ll be the coolest kid on your block.

This is easily the toughest task I’ve ever had in this blog.  Some of those albums are freakin’ obscure… and there are a couple where all you can see are small bits of the cover.  (If I have to start dropping hints, I’ll start in a day or so.)

I imagine some Boomer who lived a life parallel to mine will scoop this one quickly.  Or some kid who grew up surrounded by Daddy’s tattered album collections…

Anyway, the comment section is open for any thread you wanna start, besides the contest.

Got any good stories or tactics to share on quickly evaluating someone?

Stay frosty,

John

P.S. I might be a big slow to respond in the comments — next week is Golf Week with my old pal and partner Stan Dahl.  Five days of scurrying around the finest links we can locate, with no distractions.

We’ve done this every year for around 15 years now.  Done it in Key West, Los Angeles, San Diego, Orlando, Phoenix, the California coast near Big Sur, Tahoe, Las Vegas…

… all over the freakin’ map.  It’s killer fun.  And I knew we were on to a good tradition when I noticed that other golfers we mentioned Golf Week to always got this misty-eyed look, obviously wishing they could come along.  Or have their own tradition going.

Ah, the stories Stan and I have.  Can’t share ‘em here, of course.

Still, I’ll be checking in through the wonders of the World Wide Web.  So, carry on.

Howdy…

Let’s have a nice chat about betrayal.

Not the big kind, like Shakespeare grooved on (with people dropping like flies, slain by their best pals)…

… but rather the small kind that happens way too often in business.

As in, between you and your colleagues.

Here’s what happened to spur this line of thought: I was just in Austin (Republic of Texas) to speak at an event packed with marketers.

Now, a lot of things happened while I was down there… including a few stories full of intrigue and dramatic plot twists…

… but one little thing happened that could easily harbor the most serious consequences for anyone trying to learn something about being a savvy, successful biz owner.

Let me set the story up for you: Often, when I speak to new audiences, I like to cajole and browbeat the crowd as I put them through some exercises.

It’s all in good fun, and it’s a rare marketer who doesn’t appreciate this kind of old-school learning tactic — essentially School O’ Hard Knocks training, where you’re pushed out of your comfort zone, which wakes up your brain and makes the exercises memorable.

It’s really the only way to learn and have it stick that ever worked with a stubborn, anti-authority kinda rebel like me.

So I return the favor when I teach.  (To mitigate the verbal thrashing and jive-talk, I also like to give out bottles of beer during the interaction.  It gets folks a little more motivated to speak up… especially since I often ask for the person with the suckiest exercise answer to stand up first and take their punishment.  I also sign the bottles.  This time around, we handed out longneck bottles of Lone Star when I liked the answers, and some other dismal local brew when I didn’t.  One of the signed bottles of Lone Star later got auctioned off, hauling down $200 for charity.)  (Much higher price than any of the other bottles I’ve seen being flogged on eBay…)

Okay.  Back to betrayal.

Now, what I find fascinating during these interactive sessions…

… is how often the people who are positive their answer is pure shite, completely contemptible and unworthy…

… are actually on the right path. And just need a little honest nudge to be totally righteous.  (I’ve lost count of the folks in this category who’ve gone on to great things — all they needed was a small morsel of encouragement, and maybe a good kick in the butt to get moving.)

However… even MORE fascinating for a student of human behavior… there are also those folks in the audience who are ever-so-slightly smug in their certitude of being correct…

… even looking forward to getting an enthusiastic thumbs-up…

… who are actually waaaaaaaaaaaaay off base, and about to wander down that dark, nasty alley where businesses go to die.

The smart folks in this second category quickly shake off the shock of being told “Nope, you done screwed that up big-time, cowboy”…

… and immediately set about correcting course.

The less-smart ones resist, squirm, and double-down on their original path.  What the hell do I know about it, anyway?  I’m just a 30-year veteran with a loose truth-telling gene in my brain.

Hang with me here.  This is important.

The exercises I like to use really put the audience through their paces in the fundamentals of creating great sales messages.

No fluff.  It’s fun, brisk work… but deadly serious if you’re looking to jack your biz up a notch or two on the profit scale.

Those of you who’ve been through the Simple Writing System would recognize one of these exercises as The Barroom Conversation:  How would you actually address a stranger, face to face, in a bar where you just overheard that he has a problem that what you offer… fixes?

Basically… when you have just a second or two before the other guy either edges away, or lashes out to smack you down…

… what do you say?

The answer you give may well determine how effective you are at selling stuff for the rest of your days.  You can either head toward World-Class Land (where all them rich folk live)… or remain wandering the barren wasteland of clueless sales naifs.

More advanced students will recognize the subject of this exercise — it’s your USP.  Or, how you position yourself uniquely in your market, in order to sell.  (In a strictly real-world situation, it would be how do you present yourself, in a public place where complete strangers don’t usually chat with each other without introductions…

… in order to not freak the prospect out, and create an environment where he might be eager to hear the rest of your persuasive message.)

Now… back in Austin, there was this very nice gentleman who fell into Category Two — certain he was on-the-money with his answer to the exercise…

… when he was actually miles away, and headed in the wrong direction.

He still got a signed beer.  And I helped him see why his thinking was fuzzy — I actually had zero clue what he did, or what he was offering, based on what he gave as the answer to the exercise.

His message was vague to the point of leaving many of us with the notion he was maybe in the business of introducing executives to hookers.

After a few sputtering moments of re-explaining, though, I realized he was, instead, a serious go-between who connected biz owners with each other for joint ventures.

Oops.

Sorry about the hooker thing, there, buddy.

But here’s the kicker: Several other attendees piped up, saying that they also didn’t know what the guy had been talking about during the event…

… and they had shared meals with the guy, and spent long period of times with him talking about biz.

He was stunned.

And he turned around to face the room, a tad stricken, and said “But why didn’t any of you TELL me you didn’t understand what I was saying?  I thought we were communicating just fine!”

And that, right there, is a lesson for the ages, folks.

Basically:  Who’s watching your back?

I don’t remember a whole lot of anything else from my speech at that event…

… but I remembered this particular situation very clearly.  It took all of two minutes, but it was easily the most critical lesson to be learned all day.

It’s beyond the power of networking.  This guy WAS networking.  He was connecting with folks, staying very involved, working the room.

But he made one big mistake: He trusted his own view of reality.

He took the smiles, nods and friendly banter of fellow attendees literally… believing everyone was in rapport with him, and understanding him completely.

When, actually, he may as well have been speaking gibberish.

Now, once he realized what was up, he was fine.  It was good to know now that he needed to be clearer… before he risked more money, time and will to live with his project.

But that’s standard operating procedure for helping businesses get on track.  Not having a clear message is easily the MOST common blunder marketers make.

A much nastier problem… is that part where no one will tell you when there’s a booger hanging out of your nose.  Most of your not-yet-close-friends in your network simply are not inclined to shoulder any responsibility like that.

And even your buddies often won’t tell you when your gray roots are showing.

The lesson here is… there are levels to intimacy most folks don’t understand, even in business.

Hell, maybe especially in business.

In fact, it’s kinda like the circles of Hell in Dante’s Inferno. Let’s see if we can’t organize it, just a bit… going from the biggest outer circle, to the intimate tiny one nearest your heart:

First, Really Big Circle: Strangers, who vary from being oblivious to you, to not caring even a tiny bit whether you live or die.  Rubber-neckers, happy to view any wreck you’re part of, but not willing to do anything to help.  At all.

Second, Pretty Big Circle: Colleagues outside your inner group of confidants.  You likely represent a means to an end to them — they regard you as someone who might be vaguely connected to future profits or ventures, or you’re a distant blip on their radar.

Third Large Circle: Colleagues at the edge of your inner group.  Name and face recognition is higher, and if you get out much to events, you may start seeing them regularly, even breaking bread or quaffing brews in the bar occasionally.  (And the bar, at marketing events, is where all good professionals know the REAL networking action happens… just FYI.)

These colleagues are on the fence about becoming closer to you, or becoming competitors, or deciding you’re not someone worthy of further engagement.  You’re still both unknowns in each other’s world.

Fourth, Gettin’ Smaller Circle: Newly minted insiders.  Still predatory, still might screw you in a biz deal… but also still might become lifelong pals.  But not yet.

Fifth, Fairly Tight Circle: Pals with whom you’ve shared some kind of adventure with. A partnership or co-venture requiring deep knowledge of each other… or some version of the classic “you don’t really know someone…

… until you’ve been with them while you’re both lost, wet, tired, and hungry” (ancient pre-wedding advice from some uncle or other).  (Hey, think about it — that’s solid advice…)

Sixth, Tiny Circle: A longtime pal you’ve had occasion to trust, and who has come through for ya.  Someone who shares the Professional’s Code: They make a habit of showing up where they said they’d be, when they said they’d be there, having done what they said they’d do.

Read that a couple of times, if it sounds strange to you.  Never judge a man by what he says he’ll do… rather, judge him by what he does.

Someone makes it into this circle when they’ve expended energy to get you into a meeting you’d otherwise never gain entrance to, or have passed along fresh gossip (before it’s ancient history), or didn’t hesitate a nano-second before recommending you to others as a go-to-guy.  They’re watching out for ya.

Count yourself lucky if you have ONE of these Sixth Circle types in your life.  You know you’re feasting on life when you have a dozen.

Seventh, And Smallest Circle Of All: A trusted road dog who would take a bullet for you.  True friend, who has had opportunities to prove his friendship and come through shining.  He not only will tell you when you’ve got egg on your mustache… he’ll defend you when you’re not around.

You never borrow money from this road dog — he’s already pressed it into your hand, before a word was said.  You don’t pay him back because of a contract — you do it because it’s the right thing to do.

And when you’re completely comfortable riding in silence for an hour together, you know you’ve hit Friendship Paydirt.  You may argue, you may even not see each other for a few years as life intervenes…

… but when you re-engage, you just pick up the conversation where you left off.

Oh, hell, I could go on… but I’m getting kinda sentimental here.  Cuz I’ve been blessed with a few of these kinds of friendships, and I won’t get to pick some of them back up until I sidle up to that big Algonquin Table In The Sky myself, to rejoin ‘em.

So let’s leave the circles as seven for now. It should at least be enough to make my point (and maybe get you thinking about who you’re hanging out with).

This isn’t a comprehensive list of friendship types, by any stretch. And there ARE strangers who will help you out, altruistically, on occasion.

But the lesson today is this: You can’t assume even the colleagues closest to you will tell you when your fly’s open.

When you find that person in life — the one who pulls you aside, not the one who tries to humiliate you in front of everyone — it may not mean you’re destined to be great friends.

But I’ll tell you what — anyone who won’t be honest with you (especially when it’s kinda important, like when you’re walking around with bird shit in your hair, or you’re about to tank your biz because you’ve screwed up your USP) isn’t yet in the running to move up the circles.

Just something to think about, as your entrepreneurial adventure brings you into contact with more and more people, and the lines between friendship and colleague blur.  (And it’s something to consider the next time you’re in a position to help someone… even though you may have to be uncomfortable for a moment.  Which the vast majority of folks will avoid like the plague.)

What’s your take on the subject?  The comment section is open.

Oh… and you’ve got an eye-booger on your lash…

Stay frosty,

John

Tuesday, 3:29pm
Reno, NV
“I can’t seem to face up to the facts, I’m tense and nervous and I can’t relax…” (Talking Heads, “Psycho Killer”)

Howdy…

What’s the matter, Bunky?

The news got you down?  The economy keeping you up at night?  Are sales in the toilet, creditors stalking you, clients not returning calls, the sheer angst of living in a modern tech-drenched world chewing holes in your gut?

Would you like to hear how grizzled veterans handle the evils of stress?

It’s good stuff… because, as everyone should realize, you don’t get to BE a grizzled veteran if you can’t handle stress.  Cuz that shit will eat your ass alive and send you to an early grave.

In fact, this is easily one of the fundamental tools for surviving the Bidness Never-Ending Cage Fight.  I noticed, in the first years of my freelance career (when I was searching semi-desperately for clues on how to become successful), that there were biz owners who were having fun… and there were other owners not having any fun at all.

Age had nothing to do with it.  Nor health (though the fun-havers consistently were in better shape).  Nor gender, nor — and this is important — how successful they were.

The difference was simply how they handled stress.

Not what they KNEW about stress.  Jeez Louise, some of the worst ones could quote verse-and-chapter on the latest Ivy Tower studies, and would rattle off their blood pressure, pulse and Vitamin D levels at the slightest provocation.

No.  What mattered was how they dealt with it.

Because if you’re alive… dude, you’re gonna encounter stress.  Rich, po’, self-employed, unemployed, smart, dumb, pretty, pretty ugly, alert or half-asleep…

… humans have been guaranteed an unrelenting marriage with stress ever since we left the real jungle for the asphalt one.

So, basically, forget about avoiding it.

What you want to do… is learn how to kill it.  Over and over and over again, as often as necessary, whenever you need to do it.

You can develop your own way of doing this.  And good luck to ya.  Stress is a Class Triple-X Monster that has ground down many a good man to a sobbing little nubbin’ before.  It changes you at the cellular level… where brain synapses snap, where your DNA percolates, where the microscopic Engines O’ Evil fire up and start generating the crap that will clog you up.

Most folks “deal” with stress by waiting for it to boil over into crisis-mode, so they can spend their savings and every moment of consciousness left trying to fix what’s broken.

There’s a plan for ya.

Much better plan: Just gather a couple of good tools for your Bag O’ Tricks, and use them.  And gird your loins, and get after your dreams knowing you’ve prepared the best way possible to engage with the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

To get you started, here’s what I came up (which has worked fairly nicely for 30 years):

Stress-Murdering Tactic #1: Moderation in all vices.

I am not a guy to emulate, if you’re looking for clues to a perfect lifestyle.  Got my faults (yeah, yeah, I know it’s a long list), and did some dastardly things in my time…

… but you know what?

I yam who I yam, and I’ve come to terms with it.  I used to fight with myself over the little things, like “how to be the best person I can be.”  And that just caused problems.

Because I was defining the word “best” the way OTHER PEOPLE would define it.  I was comparing myself, constantly, against measurements erected and maintained by someone else.

Once I let go of that ridiculous pursuit, I kind of settled into a nice groove.  I’m not the healthiest guy you know, but I’m not a walking keg of butterfat, either.

What I realized is that I like my little line-up of vices.  And life would not be as happy or — gasp! – successful as it is, if I didn’t cut myself some slack.

The first rule for battling stress — if you can’t walk away from it (which is actually the best rule, when you can pull it off) — is to be healthy.  Because stress destroys everything good in your system, and uncorks massive floods of the bad stuff.  Your endorphins get smothered and gang-raped by adrenaline and stomach acid.

We all know the recipe for being “healthy”: Clean up your diet, get your ass outside and exercise, and stop partying so much already.

Still, how you do that has a little flexibility.

For example: I love me some hamburgers.  Yes, I do.  So once a month (sometimes — sometimes — twice) I treat myself to a burger-and-fry orgy at In-And-Out.

Not every day.  Not every week.

Every once in a while.

I’ve got friends who are fit and thin, subsisting on twigs and lawn clippings, who never, ever, ever, ever even think about eating a slice of pizza.

Okay, they’re happy (or smug) about being healthy.  But no pizza, ever?  That’s not enjoying a successful life in my book.

I also have aggressively-clean-living friends who are nice people… but everyone is always waiting for them to leave, so the party can get started.  They’ll live to a ripe old age… but remain boring-as-fuck until the end.  I’ll take a few less years, and stay with my plan of going for the gusto, thanks.

Make up your own mind about what “healthy” means to you… and then get after it.  A fit, clear-headed, well-rested dude will be able to withstand more stress than the guy with the perpetual hang-over, bulging gut and wheezing arteries.

Still, life is for living.  Passion, desire, and raw urges are part of the deal… as long as you maintain moderation according to your system.  (That means, some of you can’t indulge in some things, because you can’t moderate it.  So you don’t do those things, or drink that stuff, or subject yourself to situations where you lose all sense of moderation.)

Stress loves it when you go overboard, on anything.  Work, romance, sports, hobbies, day trading, video games, whatever.  We’re an obsessive species, for sure.

That still doesn’t mean you have to live like a monk.

To start getting the better of stress, examine your life choices… from what you eat, how you treat your body and what you spend your time at, to why you’re punishing yourself with immoderation and too much of a good thing.

Wanna know a secret?  I’ve hung out with athletes, trainers, health guru’s, doctors and other health-oriented experts for decades…

… and most of them do NOT live a strict life of no-fun.

In fact, they’re some of the randiest bastards I’ve ever dealt with.  Healthy body, sleazy mind.  Sometimes, somehow, they make it work.  The really successful ones have… wait for it… mastered the art of MODERATION.

So being healthy puts some mojo on your side in your battle with stress…

… but it doesn’t make you immune to it.

Stress is like your psycho ex, absolutely committed to stalking you for the rest of your days.

So get healthy, which gives you some breathing room.

But you still gotta find a way to HANDLE incoming stress when it slams into your system.

Which brings us to…

Stress-Murdering Tactic #2: Write up private “Status Reports”, constantly.

One of the ways stress gets you is to weasel into your brain and set up camp… so you’re thinking about bad stuff all day long, and waking up in the middle of the night (coated in slimy fear-sweat) to go over it all one more time, in detail.

Sometimes stress arrives like a car crash — sudden, violent, earth-shaking and dominating all your senses.  Like getting a call from a lawyer who gleefully announces you’re going to have to dance with him now, while he sucks up your net worth and lifeforce like a vampire.

Shudder.

Other times, the stress sneaks in under the guise of repeated, relentless tiny thumps against your heart and head.  It’s insidious, and you may not even notice that you’re a stressed-out nutcase until your hair starts falling out in clumps.

Or your doc notes that your blood pressure has spiked to “Dead Dude Walking” levels.

This is when you essentially hand over script-writing duties for your life to Mr Stress.  And his idea of a great plot line is the one where you’re sleep-deprived, leaking bile, and developing an alarming little twitch over your left eyebrow.

You wanna bust Mr. Stress in the chops?

Here’s my main tactic:  Write yourself a letter.

Take the phone off the hook, lock the door, and give yourself a solid hour to do this.

In this letter, you are writing to yourself 24 hours from now.  You are writing out a “Status Report” of your life at this moment.

Lay it all out.  All your troubles, all your faltering plans, all your suspicions about coworkers, all your fears about your health, happiness and future.

Be specific.  I like to use numbered items, so I don’t have to bother with segues between paragraphs or sentences.  Just lay out one thought, hit “return” on the keyboard and start on the next numbered item.

Don’t limit yourself, in any way.  You’re going to take pains that no one else sees this Status Report… so don’t hold back.

Stay focused on the fact that you’re writing to yourself, 24 hours hence.

What you’ll have, when you’ve exhausted all items on your mind, is a combination “To Do List”, and a candid assessment of your state of mind right now.

If you’re stressed, your plans for dealing with any of this stuff may actually be horrifically wrong.  But don’t get analytical about it while you’re writing.

What you’re doing is a very cheap psychological trick.

See, your brain is obsessing on what’s stressing you out…

… because it fears you’re going to forget about the details.

So it wakes you up, and eats at you all day long, just going round and round in a loop.

Writing it all down — all of it, the bad ideas and the brilliant realizations and the mundane shit that you can’t quite believe you care about — allows your brain to relax.

It’s all down in the Status Report, brain.  It’s safe.

Like a dog napping near his buried bone, you can relax.

By giving yourself a 24 hour “grace period”, you can REALLY relax… because you’re not giving up on what’s bugging you, you’re just putting it aside for a bit.

Now…

… go do something else.

Anything else.  Hell, go have some fun.  Leave Mr. Stress back with the Status Report, where he’ll be just fine for one day, and get jiggy with some vice (in moderation).

Here’s what will happen: Your unconscious will continue to mull over what you’ve written.

You’ve taken much of what was probably vague and non-specific, and made it “real” in your Status Report… so your unconscious now has much more to go on than before.  It will examine your thinking, deconstruct your plans, and poke at your soft spots.

Meanwhile, the conscious part of your brain is getting a much-needed respite from obsessing over your problems.  You may even be able to sleep like a baby, knowing your letter is safe somewhere, and your internal genius is cooking everything nicely.

And when you get BACK to your Status Report in 24 hours…

… you will suddenly have perspective you couldn’t muster before (because obsession blocks it)… you will be able to see your plans in fresh light, more realistically… and lots and lots of stuff that is kick-starting your stress engines will be visible.

Do you doubt this can work?

I can only tell you this “let the unconscious work it out” is a primary tactic for people who write professionally.  The great adman David Ogilvy slept on problems, after assigning his mind the task of arriving at a solution when he awoke.  I (and many other writers I know) stuff my head with info, and then go take a nap or a walk or engage in a hobby… knowing that when I return to my desk, I’ll have multiple headline ideas flood my consciousness as soon as I hit the keyboard.

The headline that bubbles up may or may not be the one that makes it to the final draft.

Nevertheless, the hard work of sorting through the vast amounts of info has been done, and clarity ensues.  And you will have a fresh view of things, which is impossible when you’re down in the trenches of stress.

Finally…

Stress-Murdering Tactic #3: Change things around.

Armed with your new clarity about what’s stressing you out, and why…

… you now have options you may have not believed were possible before.

My favorite consulting tactic for a long time has been the “Two Lists” technique.  You make two lists about any subject — your job, your new product, your love life, whatever — and on List One you write out all the things you want to happen, or want to engage in…

… and on List Two you write out all the things you do NOT want to happen, or have to engage in.

Then, as much as you can, arrange things so the items on List One happen, and the crap on List Two do not.

Get moving on changing things.  Mr. Stress HATES it when you’re proactive.

Simple, but profound.  You want to make a ton of money, fast?  But you don’t want to go to jail?  Then drop your plans of heisting gold from Fort Knox.

You want a steady income, but also a lot of free time?  Then don’t start a boutique biz in a mall.

You want a great, lasting relationship, minus the drama of strange-fruit romance?  Then stop dating hookers.

And so on.

Much of the stress in your life — and please trust me on this — is from your internal “Fight or Flight” instincts… which are the default options all humans have, which are also thwarted, teased, and stalled in perpetual high gear when you try to navigate modern life.

Sometimes, you just gotta man up and deal with it.  But in your ape-mind (the primitive part that has no clue whatsoever we aren’t still in the jungle lollygagging in ponds and gorging on bananas) every threat has a beginning, but no END.

It’s just full-bore “THREAT! RUN AWAY! NO, FIGHT! NO, SHIT YOURSELF AND HIDE! NO, BITE SOMETHING!”…

… even when it’s just a voice message from the IRS about some deduction you took a year ago.

Or even if it’s an earthquake that knocks all the books off your shelf.  Or news of a stroke in the family, or the stock market tanking, or a glimpse of your psycho ex hiding in the bushes across the street, or I dunno.

Choose your poison.

The thing is… sometimes you’re under stress because you don’t know what to do to resolve a problem that wasn’t your fault and you couldn’t have foreseen.  You’ve got to wait, and you feel out of control.  And that sucks.

Or… sometimes you’re just hitting yourself in the head with a hammer, and you’ve somehow convinced yourself you HAVE to keep doing it, because…

… well, there’s the rub.  And that “because” may not hold up so well once you examine it, let your unconscious get after it, and give it a fresh look.

Maybe your stress is coming from the fact you’re doing something you don’t really need to be doing.

Mr. Stress doesn’t care why he’s in your head. Legitimate reason, or bullshit reason, it’s all the same to him.  Rubbing his hands together, he’s just eager to open the valves on your adrenaline and cortisol and other poisonous reserves.  For him, it’s heaven to have the Stressed-Out Movie play all day and all night long, over and over and over again.

You’ll never get rid of the little bastard completely.  He’s a weed, a zombie that returns from the grave without notice.

But you CAN murder him when he arrives.

It’s justifiable homicide, too.  And life is soooo much nicer in a low-stress groove.

I’ll bet there are twig-eating, fun-deprived folks reading this in a lather right now, seething about being called “boring”… and outraged that anyone would defend pizza.

So, have at it in the comments already.

What’s your stress-busting tip?

Stay frosty,

John