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.

Saturday, 8:44pm
Reno, NV
“They’ve all gone to look for America…” (Simon & Garfunkel)

Howdy.

I want to wish the country a happy birthday on this fine July 4th.

She’s looking not too shabby for 235 years old.  I’ve been here for a lot of those b-days, too… and here are a couple of random thoughts (before I get drowned out by fireworks):

Random Thought #1: I’m not gonna discuss politics, and I hope you have the presence of mind not to start in on it yourself in the comments.  However… as far apart as we seem today on the multitude of problems faced… I can tell you it has ever been thus.

At our very best, the country has always been like a dysfunctional family forced to co-exist at a perpetual holiday dinner.  My own family shows signs of it occasionally — somebody gets hot about some subject, voices rise, someone gets called an idiot, feelings are hurt…

… and then, minutes later, all is well and we’re laughing about some story from the family archives.  (I had uncles who couldn’t get through a game of gin rummy without throwing cards across the room and giving us kids an excellent lesson in swearing like a sailor before the aunts corralled them back into some semblance of civilized behavior again.  I miss those old farts, and a whiff of beer and cigars can take me back instantly…)

I was doing “Duck and Cover” drills under my desk in grade school, back when we were pretty sure the Commies were about to rain nuclear bombs on us.  My first notice of politics was when Kennedy was shot, and I was stunned to learn the first congressman I met (in a high school event) was a total brain-dead tool.

We’ll never get along completely as a country.  One man’s sensible solution is another man’s call-to-arms, and it will never change.

I realized this permanent division of political thought early on… and it’s helped (a bit) to alleviate the frustration.  I’m a political junkie, but I stay out of the public cat-fights that so many others love to start and never seem able to finish.

Like that dysfunctional family, you just gotta hope that — at the end of the day — we can put our differences aside and remember that we’re all in this crazy experiment in self-governance together.

Random Thought #2: Probably because I don’t wear my politics on my sleeve, I’ve got friends all over the political map.  Right-wing nutballs, liberal chickenhawks, dudes with loaded guns in every room, feminists on edge, Bible thumpers with an eye on the school board, deniers, accusers and nervous paranoids…

… you name it, I’ve got a pal somewhere walking the walk.

And I never discuss politics with most of them.  And we remain friends by ignoring the occasional outburst, and never, ever trying to change anyone’s mind directly.

It’s my experience that no one’s mind has ever been changed (I suspect in the history of the world) from an argument.  Facts won’t do it, personal experience won’t sway anyone… and you sure as hell won’t accomplish anything by insulting your opponent.

Alexander Hamilton — one of the Founders — was killed in a duel by Aaron Burr over… politics.  Nice work, guys.  Both were hugely influential (Secretary of the Treasury, and Vice freakin’ Prez), and both careers ended instantly — one dead, one done forever as a politico.

I know what it’s like to get so mad… so full of rage and so damned sure that I was on the side of the angels (while the other guy was obviously in league with pure evil)… that violence seemed like a dandy next step.

But long ago, I also learned how easy it is to let that rage go… and let the steam just dissipate, while rational thought returns.

You ain’t gonna change his mind.  And he aint’ gonna change yours.  And guess what?

That’s why this whole experiment in self-governance got rolling in the first place.  There was never gonna be any unanimous decisions, on anything.  So you vote for a representative, who does the job or gets voted out.  Three separate branches will hash it out, legislatively, legally, and (hopefully) leadership-ly.

The one constant I’ve seen over my decades of being addicted to watching politics (best reality show on the planet, BTW)… is that the loudest and meanest voices belong to folks who haven’t got a fucking clue how the government actually runs, or why the machinations of the beast works as it does.

There are no simple answers, just like there’s no simple way to shut up your dumb-ass brother-in-law with all his weird “fix the world” solutions.

Yes, it’s frustrating.  But it has ALWAYS been frustrating.  We had a civil war over it.  Assassinations.  One long, chaotic and maddening intellectual (and too often, physical) brawl that will never end.

Still…

Random Thought #3: As infuriating as it can be to try to coexist with so many fellow obviously-bonkers countrymen…

… I have a secret weapon against sinking into a funk about it.

And that secret weapon is nothing more than this realization: It’s a safe bet that — at most — maybe a few of my ancestors ever felt free to speak their minds.  At any point in their lives.

I come from solid working-class stock, as far back as the meager family tree has been tracked.  And I can easily imagine some distant Carlton… wracked with the same anti-authoritarian tendencies I have… spending his entire existence biting his tongue to avoid the gallows.

And wondering, desperately, why his thoughts and beliefs weren’t just as valid… and just as worthy of being aired… as the jerk-wads in charge.

It would blow his mind to know that I can pretty much write about whatever subject I like… and spout whatever nonsense pops into my head… whenever I feel like it.

Blow.  His.  Freakin’.  Mind.

Yeah, sure, there still are lines you can’t cross publicly.  Sedition, yelling “fire” in a theater, provable slander… the First Amendment is still a work in progress.  Not too long ago, they threw comics in jail for saying what you can now hear on regular cable stations 24/7.  And it kinda twists your gut when fanatics get a pass to offend people at funerals.

And what the heck is up with cash now equaling free speech in elections?  I wish more of the budding plutocrats out there would remember that Ben Franklin (among others) mostly distrusted the common dude’s intellect… but figured the vote was still the best of all paths to take for self-governance.

Every Fourth, I take a deep breath and give serious thanks that no one’s boot is on my neck censoring the crap that flows through my brain… as it was for just about everyone else in history.  What we’ve got is imperfect, it’s a legal mess getting messier all the time, and even constant vigilance is no guarantee it won’t be snatched away tomorrow by The Man.

But right now… for at least this 235th birthday… the rickety allowances of free speech is (as far as I’m concerned) still the crowning glory of my homeland.

Last Random Thought: We’re pretty spoiled.

Back when I was dead broke and living out of my car… I still enjoyed privileges and cool shit that past kings would have eaten their own arms for.  Plenty of inexpensive nourishment for body and soul, and even as a edge-walker in the economy, the means to enjoy life on a level unimaginable to my ancestors.

In that beat-to-shit ’81 Celica fast-back — both the ugliest and the most fun car I’ve ever owned — I had shelter, enough comfort to occasionally have sex in, a vast range of travel, free radio, piles of tapes, books, newspapers, a guitar, clothes, food, even my old typewriter and reams of paper.  And well-kept roads under the wheels.

One night, sitting on the hood watching the stars as the ocean boomed on the rocks directly below me… well-fed, guitar in my lap, a snug night’s sleep in the car ahead of me… I remember thinking I wouldn’t trade my life for any of the most privileged existences I knew about in history.

Drafty castles, Huns swarming, a mouthful of rotting teeth, no pizza or cold beer, lucky to make it past 30, a world teeming with ghosts and superstition, no TV or radio or media entertainment of any kind (except for poor Yorick, I knew him, Horatio…)…

Screw that.

We live in interesting times.  And we have a catbird seat for monitoring the action (if you’re paying attention).

As annoyed as I am sometimes with the old broad, I’m tipping my hat to her on her birthday and wishing her many, many more.

And my love for her is genuine.

Stay frosty,

John

P.S. Have at it in the comments… but no political bullshit, all right?  You’ve got ample other places to do that to your heart’s content.

Tell you what.  Just for today… let’s celebrate what we have in common, all right?

Wednesday, 9:04am
Baltimore, MD
“Don’t follow leaders, watch the pawking meters…” (Bob Dylan)

Howdy.

Do you like change?

You know that most folks hate and fear change, right?  It’s all so unpredictably messy, and rudely forces you out of your comfort zone.

Bleah.  Yuck.  Keep it away.

Well, guess what?  Successful entrepreneurs love change.

More specifically, they love the opportunity to alter the way things are… both within their market, and in their lifestyles.

If you’re limping along on anemic sales, and suddenly a new tactic or project jacks response through the roof… that’s a good change.

If you roll out a hot, fresh campaign (aimed at demolishing competition and hoarding all the market share to yourself), and it bombs… that’s a bad change.

However, you can’t enjoy the first without risking the second.  Which kinda defines entrepreneurship in a nutshell:  You do something, there’s a reaction, and you deal with the gains or losses.

Maintaining the status quo is never a valid option in biz.  You keep moving and adjusting, like a parade negotiating twisting streets and weather changes.

You set up camp and settle in, though, and you’re like the Donner Party.  I’ve seen many businesses eat themselves alive, trying to avoid change.

There is stress inherent in both situations.  When you resist change, the anxiety and internal turmoil builds and festers.  When you engage with change, you are constantly flushing out the bad ju-ju, keeping your system in good working order.

It’s kinda like early dating.  I viscerally remember staring at the phone with Susie Q’s number in my hand, completely freaked-out over the looming possibilities.  Still, it was better to dial her up, mumble and fumble the conversation and face the consequences…

… than to walk away and pretend this trial-by-hormone-fire wasn’t something I had to deal with.

And I did both, over the course of a lifetime.  Engaged, avoided, sort-of-engaged, and sort-of-avoided situations loaded with consequence.  You win some, you lose more, you get a lot of ties.  (You can take this metaphor of dating-to-biz a long way, too.  I, for example, successfully asked some very attractive women out… and had epic horror-story dates.  And, my courage failed on other attempts to pick up the phone, and I later discovered — like, at the 10th reunion of my graduating class — that a truly sordid, amazing adventure in sure-thing sex had been missed.)

(That’s easily the greatest danger in going to your reunions, you know.  Susie Q walks up, gives you that upside-down pity smile, and asks why you never called her, because if you had, well, OMG she would have so jumped your bones and…

… well, it’s too late now, of course, but jeez, you shoulda called…)

Becoming an entrepreneur initiates an alarming increase in the number of decisions you must make in life.  Where your buddies, who are working in a regular J-O-B with The Man, can space out the big decisions and coast a bit…

… you now are faced with a never-ending To-Do-List of choices, each crammed to bursting with consequences.

If you’re in business, you are not gonna get around this fact o’ life.

However, here’s a piece of hard-earned advice that may help you out: The most fundamental decision you need to make, as an entrepreneur…

… is simply how you’re going to play the game.

It’s “Step One”, and everything else that happens flows directly from it.

You basically have 3 options:

1. Choose to know nothing about your market and how to succeed in it…

2. Or choose to know something about it all, and see what happens…

3. Or… and this is not a trick question, folks… you can choose to become an expert in what you do.

This includes being the most-informed and knowledgeable dude among your competitors… in what you do and how you do it.  Creating product, providing services, conducting campaigns, managing resources, building alliances, raking in the moolah and everything else that happens or doesn’t happen in the successful high-end part of your niche.

I will share a secret with you, which I learned in the course of consulting with boatloads of clients over the decades:  Most biz owners never get past Level Two here — they know “something” about their market, prospects and competition… but don’t go deep on any of it.

And it’s fine to live in the shallow end of the pool.  Lots of company there.

But choose to do so, if that’s what you’re gonna do.  Don’t let it just happen.

If you insist on winging it with your biz, and the stakes are low (as in, you are not investing your life savings, and you didn’t quit your day job yet)… then you can come away with an experience and adventure to tell your grandkids about when the project fizzles.  No shame there.

And I’ve known many biz owners who escape disaster despite being pretty much complete-freaking-idiots.  They use money in place of knowledge, and hire experts to run the joint.  This can actually work, if you have enough capital to ride out the rough spots.

Again, though, just be conscious that this is your plan: To act like a spoiled rich kid, buying everything and everyone you need to get anything done.

And if that realization creeps you out…

… then make the very simple decision to become an expert yourself.  The details of doing so are easy, once you’ve made that initial commitment — you figure out what you know and what you don’t know, and set about filling in the gaps while gaining mastery over the steps.

I haven’t had to call anyone for a date in a while, since I’m in a very happy long-term relationship.  But even back in my wild-ass bachelor days, the decision to ring a lady up or not never approached the red-line anxiety of those early attempts in my teens.

Years of raw experience, trial-and-error, plus a healthy sense of humor about the absurdity of it all had turned me into a grizzled master of the process.

The hard part was just deciding to do it.  To change from being that shy kid who couldn’t pull the trigger… to becoming that guy dedicated to figuring it out.  I shared notes with friends, interviewed women to get their take on the experience, read everything I could find on the subject and road-tested advice to see how if it actually worked or not.

Making that decision to just get hip changes everything.  Each fragment of info builds and sets up deeper understanding, and your mastery builds quickly when you have opportunities to implement stuff.

That’s important.  Being an expert in the intellectual theory of relationships won’t get you a date for the prom.  Putting things in motion is the difference between the successful entrepreneur and the info-junkie who can’t let the curtain go up.

This may seem like common sense, but the actual practice of it — going deep into the mastery of what you’re doing — is rare.  So it ain’t so common.

And making the choice to become a master will open the floodgates of change in your life, in the best way possible.

Love to hear your thoughts on the subject.  The comment section is open.  (And sharing of dating horror stories is encouraged… surely there are further marketing lessons to be gleaned from the tales of woe we all have…)

Stay frosty,

John

Monday, 7:55pm
Reno, NV
“But it’s all right… in fact it’s a gas…” (The Stones, “Jumpin’ Jack Flash“)

Howdy…

It’s time for another orgy of graduation rites across the land…

… and, in honor of it all, I am re-posting last year’s rant on the subject.  It was one of the more popular posts I’ve written, so it deserves an annual rediscovery.

So, without further ado… here’s the post:

Nobody’s ever asked me to give the commencement speech for a graduating class.

That’s probably a good thing.  I’m pretty pissed off at the education system these days, and I might cause a small riot with the rant I’d surely deliver.

See, I have a university “education”.  A BA in psychology.  (The BA stands for, I believe, “bullshit amassed”.)  I earned it several decades ago…

… and while I had a good time in college (height of the sex revolution, you know, with a soundtrack that is now called “classic rock”), made some lifelong friends, and got a good look at higher learning from the inside…

… that degree provided zilch preparation for the real world.  Didn’t beef me up for any job, didn’t give me insight to how things worked, didn’t do squat for me as an adult.

I waltzed off-campus and straight into the teeth of the worst recession since the Depression (Nixon’s post-Vietnam wage-freeze, record unemployment, gas-lines, near-total economic turmoil)…

… so, hey, I should have a little empathy for today’s grads, right?

Naw.

While today’s graduates are facing similar grim economic times, there’s been a significant change in the concept behind a college education.  Somehow, over the years, a bizarre mantra has taken hold in kids minds: “Get a degree, and it’s a ticket to the Good Life.”

A job is expected to be offered to you before the ink is dry on your diploma.

And it really, really matters WHICH school you get that diploma from.

You know what I say?

Bullshit.  Okay, maybe if you go to Yale or Harvard, you can make the connections on Wall Street and in Washington to get your game on.  Maybe.  (More likely, those connections are already available, if you’re gonna get ‘em, through family bloodlines… and the Ivy’s are just playing up their famous track records in a classic sleight-of-hand.)

Put aside the advancement opportunities offered to spawn of the oligarchy, though… and the realities of life-outside-of-academia do not jive at all with the propaganda doled out by the university systems.

Many of the richest guys I know are drop-outs.  Some are HIGH SCHOOL drop-outs.  The few friends who did go to the kind of school whose name causes eyebrows to rise…

… are ALL working far outside their major.  To the point that nothing they learned has proven to be even remotely useful to their adult life.  (Unless they stumble upon another over-educated dweeb at a cocktail party and get into a bare-knuckle Trivial Pursuit marathon.)

Too many people get all confused and bewildered about “education” as opposed to “going to college”.

It’s not the same thing, folks.

Some of the most clueless individuals I’ve ever met have impressive diplomas… while nearly all of the most savvy (and wealthy) individuals I know done got educated all on their lonesomes.

I learned more about history, business and psychology in 2 weeks of serious library surfing (with a speed reading course under my belt) than I did in 4 years of college.

And I learned more about life in 3 months of hanging out with street-wise salesmen than I did from ANY source, anywhere, up to that time.

By all means, go to college if that’s part of your Master Plan to having a great life.  You’ll meet interesting people, and it’s a Rite Of Passage for many Americans these days.

But don’t do it blindly.  Just cuz The Man says it’s what you’re “supposed” to do.

Do some critical thinking before you jump in.

And if you really want that degree in Russian literature, or women’s studies, or political science, or whatever… then fine.  Go get ‘em.  Grrr.

Just KNOW that you can probably educate your own damn self on those subjects… and even get a deeper understanding of it all… by reading every book written about it, and interviewing a few experts.  And if you can get private mentoring from someone, even better.

This can all take place during evenings and weekends, over the course of a few months, while you hold down a day job.  Even if you buy the books, instead of hitting up libraries, you’ll have spent less on this specialized education than you’d pay for a single semester in “real” school.

And, unless you’re the laziest screw-up ever, you’ll actually learn MORE in those few months of intense immersion… than you would with a full-on degree.

You know how I can make this bold claim with a straight face?

Because this is what I’ve been doing as a freelancer for decades.  Every time I wrote for a new market, I spent weeks immersing myself in it… learning everything I could about it from the inside-out.  And this process often made me more of an expert than the client himself.

And I did it over and over and over again.

It was just part of the job.  All top freelancers do this.

Once you lose your fear of self-education…

… you can finally let it sink in that WE LIVE IN THE FREAKIN’ INFORMATION AGE.  The joint is crammed to bursting with books, ebooks, videos, websites, courses…

… the whole world is CRAZY well-stocked.  There are teachers and coaches and mentors available if you need supervision.  (I’ve partaken of this opportunity frequently over my life.) Boards and fan-zines and forums and membership sites abound (for bitching and moaning, as well as for networking with peers).

It’s a cornucopia of knowledge, experience and adventure out there.

Yes, there are blind alleys and pitfalls and wrong turns…

… but once you’re committed to learning something, these are just brief excursions off the main drag… and you can use even your failures as advanced learning tools as you gain expert status.  (In fact, it’s really required that you screw up at least a little bit.  Otherwise, you never get perspective.)

And best of all…

… you can engage with life as you go.  And skip the jarring nonsense of the Ivory Tower bubble.

(One caveat to self-education: You must, early on, read up on how debates are actually taught.  Or join a debate club.

I’m serious.  Best thing I’ve ever done.  As you sample debating, you should demand that you are given the OPPOSITE viewpoint that you currently hold for any subject.  This forces you to look beyond your petty biases, and to open your mind to other points of view.

This is a HUGE advantage to have in your toolkit throughout life.  Everyone else will be hobbled with un-examined party-line nonsense and indoctrinated crap they can’t even begin to defend when challenged…

… while you — with your rare ability to walk in anyone’s shoes, and to feel the pain or glory of alien thought patterns — will forever more see beyond the sound bites and cliches.  And be able to eloquently explain anything, to anyone.

You will actually begin to sense vestiges of “truth” in the wreckage of our modern culture.

I don’t have to tell you how that might apply to marketing, do I?)

Most people will not go this route of self-examination and immersion-learning, of course.  The concept of taking control of your own education seems kinda threatening and foreign to the majority out there.

We spend the first years of our lives sitting quietly in classrooms, being trained to believe we don’t know shit (and that Teacher knows everything).  That’s excellent training for hitting a groove in college and post-grad pursuits…

… but it’s piss-poor preparation for Life In The Concrete Jungle.

Again, nothing wrong about going with the status quo.  No shame.

Just don’t expect to learn much about the way the world works.  You’re learning how academia works.  Different animal.

Wanna hear my short speech on how to prepare yourself for life?  (I’ve edited this from a recent post I wrote for the Simple Writing System mentoring program.  Lots of great stuff keeps coming out of that gig…)

(Okay, quick plug: Check out www.simplewritingsystem.com to start your own adventure as a high-end sales master…)

Here’s my mini-rant: I’m extremely prejudiced about this subject, of course.  If I ran the world, everyone would get at least a taste of being an entrepreneur.

It will taste bitter to most people.  And that’s fine.  No harm, no foul.  Move on to getting that job with The Man.

But for some… it will be sweet nectar.  A thrill like nothing else they’ve ever experienced before.

Being an entrepreneur takes balls.

But you don’t have to “be” a ballsy kind of person.

You just have to understand how to implement your goals… which requires a little savvy about getting stuff done in the face of opposition and obstacles.  Which is the definition of “ballsy”.  Most of the people successful at achieving goals were not “born” with the necessary guts.

They learned the skill of living life with guts, just like they learned every other important skill associated with the gig.

I OFTEN intervene even with long-time professionals (like freelance writers, or veteran biz owners) who are screwing up their efforts to be successful.

My main advice:  “Stop being a wuss.  Everyone is scared.  The successful ones acknowledge that fear, put it aside, and just get busy taking care of business.”

It really is that simple.

Life beyond childhood is for grown-ups.  If you’re scared, you can take a regular job somewhere, and stay far away from the risks and realities of being your own boss.

On the other hand… if you’ve got entrepreneur’s blood in your veins… and you really DO want to be your own boss…

… then allow the reality of doing so to wash over you, and embrace it.

Everyone is unsure of themselves out there.  There are no guarantees in life for anything… and getting into biz is among the riskiest things of all to do.

A tiny percentage of skydivers will die each year while jumping… but a vast chunk of rookie business owners will fail.

This is why you pursue the skills of salesmanship.  Learning how to create a wicked-good sales message, how to close a deal, , and how to bond with a target market is the PRIMARY weapon you want walking into ANY business environment.

Will you still fail?  Maybe.

But you will NOT fail because you don’t know what the hell you’re doing. If knowing how to persuade and influence can make your business sizzle, then learning salesmanship means you’re armed to the teeth.  Like everything else in life, having the right tools for the job at hand is the best way to put the odds in your favor.

MOST people are not meant to be their own boss.  The world needs followers, too.

Here’s what I tell students in the Simple Writing System, when doubts about their future bubble up:  ”Just by diving into the SWS, you have shown that there is something different burning inside you.  No one held a gun to your head and forced you to come here to learn these skills.  You decided to join all on your own.

“Even if you’re not yet sure why you’ve joined us here… you need to understand that MOST people would never even consider doing anything like this.

“Independence freaks most people out.  The thought of standing up and taking responsibility for the birth and success of a business is terrifying… and most will refuse to even entertain the thought.

“This is, by the way, why you should always enter the entrepreneurial world WITHOUT relying on your current crop of friends for support.

“They will not support your efforts.  They think you’re batshit crazy for daring to even consider being your own boss.  They will (consciously or unconsciously) sabotage your progress if they can, and rejoice in your failures… because if you DO succeed, that kills their main excuse for not succeeding themselves.  Most folks believe success is all about luck and magic.  When you dig in and actually do the work necessary to succeed, you piss all over their world view that The Little Guy Can’t Win.

“If you’ve made friends or started a network of fellow travelers here in the SWS, great.  Most entrepreneurs have to operate alone (until they find places like this, where they can find help, advice and coaching).  That loneliness just intensifies the fear and sense of risk.

“But I’ll tell you the truth:  As scary as being independent is…

“… once you’ve tasted it, you’ll be hooked.”

Most entrepreneurs who enjoy even a little success instantly become “unemployable”.  After thinking for yourself, after taking responsibility for your success or failure, after engaging the world fully aware and experiencing the thrill of living large…

… you’re worthless to a boss.  He can’t use anyone who thinks for themselves.

Are you wracked with doubt?

That voice you hear — the one knocking you down, digging a knife into your gut and highlighting your worst fears — is JUST A VOICE.

In psychoanalytic talk, it’s your “Super Ego”… the scolding parent’s voice, the doubter of your abilities, the whiny little bastard bent on keeping you down.

And it can easily be sent packing.

Most people allow others to rule their lives.  Rules and bad advice and grim experiences dating back to childhood somehow become “the way it is”…

… and regardless of any proof otherwise, they will obey that voice until they die.

And yet, all you have to do…

… is acknowledge the voice (“Yes, I hear you, you little shit“), realize it’s not your friend… and lock it in a dungeon deep in your brain, where you can’t hear it anymore.

I speak from experience on this subject.  I was ruled by The Voice Of Doom for the first half of my life.  I didn’t even try to take responsibility for my success, because The Voice told me it was hopeless.  That I was hopeless.  That Fate had nothing but failure in store for me.

Then, I realized that The Voice was actually full of shit.  I proved it, slowly at first, by setting a goal outside The Voice’s warnings… and then achieving it.  And then doing it again.

It’s like superstition.  I used to be the most superstitious guy you’ve ever met.  Literally, my life was dominated by superstitions.

Then, one day, I just decided to see how real those superstitions were.  So I violated every single one of them.  On purpose.  If I had previously thought some action was “bad luck”, I would do it, blatantly, just to see what kind of bad luck occurred.

And, of course, no bad luck ever appeared.

The human brain is crammed with bullshit like this.  Superstitions, bad rules, dumb beliefs, unfounded fears and ridiculous feelings of guilt and shame.

Especially guilt and shame.

You know what a fully functioning adult does?  They don’t approach life believing it should be a certain way, or wish that life was a certain way.

No.  They engage with life the way it really is.  You make your own luck.  Rules sometimes make good sense, but deserve to be broken when they’re clearly stupid.  Belief systems often have nothing to do with reality.  (You can “believe” you’re gonna win the lottery with all your heart and soul… and it won’t change reality one tiny bit.)

Fear is a natural part of our defense system… and it can get out of hand in modern times.

So you need to dig in and get to know your fears.  Some are fine — don’t walk down that dark alley if you’re not prepared to deal with the things that happen in dark alleys.

Others are bullshit — you had a bad experience once when you were 12, and so what?  Get over it, put on your Big Boy Pants, and re-engage with life.

And shame?  Guilt and shame are useless.  On the road of life, feeling guilty about something is like setting up camp and refusing to move or progress any further.

Instead, try “remorse” — recognize when you’ve done something wrong, clean up the mess, fix what you’ve broken as best you can, and make amends to people you’ve hurt.

And don’t “vow” to do better next time.

Instead, actually DO something to change your behavior or habits. Promises are bullshit. Action is the only way to move through life in a positive way.

Don’t promise to do better.  Just do better.  This will probably involve learning something new — a new skill, a new way of dealing with life, a new set of behaviors.

Doing this will set you apart from the majority of other people out there, too.

The modern Renaissance Man or Woman is something awesome to behold.  While the rest of the world increasingly sinks into a snoozing Zombie-state — indoctrinated, fooled, manipulated and played– you have the option of becoming MORE aware, more awake, more alert and ready to live life with gusto.

However, no one is going to force you to do this.

If you want to join the Feast of Life, you have to stand up and earn your seat at the table.  You will not be invited in.  You will not stumble in by accident, or stroke of luck.

Nope.  You must take responsibility for your own life… figure out what you want… and then go get it.

It’s a daunting task for most folks… too daunting to even contemplate.

For the few who know it’s what they want, however… it’s all just a matter of movement and action.

Yes, it can be scary.  Life is terrifying, at times.

It’s also only worth living, for many people, when you get after it with all your heart.

There are no replays on this game.  No second tickets for the ride.

You’re allowed to sleep through all of it.  Most folks do.

If that’s not good enough for you any more, then welcome to the rarefied air of the entrepreneur world.

It’s fun, it’s thrilling, it’s scary, and there’s no safety net below you.

I wouldn’t have it any other way.

And that’s the commencement speech I’d give.

Put you to sleep, didn’t it.

Okay, my work is done here.

What would YOU tell new grads?  Lay it out in the comments, below…

Stay frosty,

John

Saturday, 2:33pm
Reno, NV
“When I look back on all the crap I learned in high school, it’s a wonder I can think at all…” (Paul Simon, “Kodachrome”)

Howdy.

Someone recently asked me to offer a clue on how to nurture critical thinking.

It’s a fair question.  And while I’m no neuro-scientist, I talk about critical thinking a lot, because it’s the foundation of great writing, killer salesmanship, and engaging the world with your throttle wide open.

However, it’s not an easy subject to grasp if you’ve seldom taken your brain out for a spin around the Deep Thought Track (as most folks have not).

So let’s explore it a little bit here…

Critical Think Point #1: Yes, I know the headline on this article is a grammatical car wreck.  It should be “how to think critically”, or at least “how to critically think”.

But this botched phrasing is actually part of the lesson I’m sharing here.

Consider:  The vast majority of people sleep-walk through their lives and careers, never going beneath the surface of anything.  They process, at most, a small fraction of the information they see, hear or read about.

It’s pretty much GIGO.  Garbage in, garbage out.

So the first job of any good marketer is to deliver some level of brain-rattling wake-up call for the prospect.  To literally jolt them out of their semi-permanent reverie, and initiate a more conscious state of awareness.

Cuz you can’t expect a somnambulant zombie to be proactive about following through with your request for buying something.  Or opting in.  Or even just continuing to read.

Thus: Good ad writers make full use of the incongruous juxtaposition of compelling sales elements — or, for short, the “hook”.

Ideally, you want the induced “WTF?” reaction strong enough to unleash a splash of adrenaline, or even physically make ‘em bolt up and take notice.  (As in, “That can’t be right! This violates my entire sense of what’s real!”)

However, you’ll also take a milder reaction, as long as you get a reaction.  And a little slang, or some nifty grammatical tweaking can sometimes do the job.

Now, a word of caution: To jumble up common phrases or to use slang in something important for your bottom line — which is the definition of any ad — requires you to consider the consequences.  And to completely understand the reactions you’re going to trigger.

This should be an easy step for any marketer.  Just think about your audience, and get in touch with how they’re going to receive the message you’re sending out.

And yet, most marketers just won’t do it.  They base expensive, long-term campaigns on vague ideas of how the message is gonna resonate (or not resonate) with prospects.  It’s not even “ready, fire, aim”.  It’s “just throw it out there, and pray it works.”

So the first step to developing a “critical think” mindset: Start walking a mile in the other guy’s shoes.  Really consider what your prospect’s life is like, what fuels his movements in the world, why he does what he does.

You can’t do this casually.  You’ve got to elbow your own ego and belief systems aside, and deflect snap judgements before they take hold.

Critical Think Point #2: In short…

… you’ve got to start thinking like a salesman.  And see your prospects (and the world in general) not as you wish they were…

… and not as you believe they should be.

Instead, you start looking at people and things as they ARE.  The raw reality, minus all spin.

Opinions, common sense, long-held beliefs, even principles and convictions…

… it all has to run the gauntlet of your internal Bullshit Detector.

This includes both the other guy’s actions and thinking behaviors…

… and your own.

You gotta clear your brain of a LOT of nonsense before you can even begin to approach the “truth” of any situation.  As a human, your default setting is to believe that your thoughts, actions, codes of honor, and beliefs are the real deal.

And you measure everything else against that rock-solid bastion of truth and goodness that hogs all the attention in your mind.

So, first: Realize that the other guy has the SAME default setting.

He is positive beyond question that he’s right, and you’re an idiot.  Just like you were thinking how much of a moron he is, and how lucky you are to be so righteous and close to the “real” truth.

This gets heavy, quickly.

You also need to run your instincts (and gut feelings) constantly through your BS Detector, especially when you start out…

… because we’re all front-loaded with piles of unchallenged assumptions, erroneous notions you mistakenly think is “common sense”, and vast rivers of lingering Big Lies and propaganda that has been fed to you for decades by teachers, the media, your parents and The Man.

Basically, you just gotta get over your bad self… and then get past the surface layers of the market you’re in (and all the people populating it)…

… and get clear on how people actually behave and act.

For example, they will SAY they always buy “quality” over cost, when asked…

… and then consistently choose bargain-priced crap over the slightly more expensive well-made stuff when it comes to opening their wallet.

That’s just the tip of it, but it’s a clue.

When you start adopting critical thinking, you are scuba-diving deep into the seldom-explored hidden realities of The Adventure Of Humans In The Asphalt Jungle (otherwise known as The Big Soap Opera We All Live In).

You can no longer be like the typical oblivious neighbor of the recently-caught serial killer, who always says to the TV crew “He seemed like a regular guy… kinda shy, I guess, but he kept the yard looking nice…”.

Oblivious marketers get eaten.

Critical Think Point #3: Finally (for this session, anyway)…

… start actively re-examining everything you read and hear.  (Everything, including news articles, data, info-rich books, email, all of it.)

Here’s a simple trick: Re-word what you read if you aren’t “getting it”.  You can do this in your head, or write it down if that helps.

When I wrote “critical think” instead of “critical thinking” for the title of this article, I was reconstructing a common phrase that usually goes into one ear and straight out the other.

Tweaking common language is like a big stop sign for your brain.  Try it, next time you’re reading something you feel is important.  Reconstruct the concepts, sentences, and ideas into new language.

Have fun with it, too.  Consider how the concept might be interpreted in street slang, or translated for an 8-year-old.

Force your brain not to just be a passive “intake bucket”…

… but to examine stuff to the point that you can rephrase it without losing the meaning.

Even if it’s nonsensical.  (In fact, you’ll remember nonsensical phrases better, because they’re strangely memorable.  The first poem I ever learned, which I still remember, was from a Roger Miller song: “Roses are red, and violets are purple, sugar is sweet and so is maple surple.”  Memorable.)

To sum up: The initial steps of developing some critical think chops are…

1) Wake up and start thinking like a salesman.

2) Tune your Bullshit Detector up to high, permanently.  Use it on yourself, first, and then blast the rest of the world with it as you go.

3) And, practice absorbing info to the point of being able to translate it into something an 8-year-old would understand.

We’ll explore #3 more later.  The act of deconstructing ideas and plans and sales messages is THE main tool in any good marketer’s kit.

For now, let’s hear if you think I’ve missed something with these first steps.

Cuz part of being awake is to take your ideas out for a walk in the cold, cynical world every now and then, and invite pot-shots.  See if the little buggers can withstand scrutiny and abuse.

So have at it in the comments.

Stay frosty,

John

P.S. I’m wondering who’s gonna be first to name that Roger Miller song?

Saturday, 7:14pm
Reno, NV
“Out of 9 lives, I’ve lived 7…” (The Band, “The Shape I’m In”)

Howdy…

I almost called this post “Web 2.oh no!”

And I know I’m just gonna scratch the surface here…

… but a few rules need to be laid down by somebody concerning this “Brave New World of No Freakin’ Privacy Left At All”.

Now, I’ve never noticed much “common sense” actually being very common among my fellow humans…

… but Jeez Louise, the arrival of social media and smart phone cameras has turned us all into ethically-challenged TMZ-level paparazzi.  No sense of right or wrong, no sense of crossing a line or going too far.

And people are gonna get hurt.

Do we need a collective and not-very-subtle whack upside the head here?  Metaphorically speaking, that is.

You decide…

Slap Some Sense Into You Rule #1: Just because you have a camera and recording capabilities on your smart phone, doesn’t mean you have a license to USE it.

Yes, the rest of the world is hurtling toward a Zuckerberg-envisioned future where “privacy” will be a quaint notion that strangely only irritates geezers… sort of like how we now view petticoats, doo wop and basic manners.

However, I would caution privacy-anarchists that this “nothing you do is a secret to us” mindset is how Stalinist Russia maintained control over citizens (see also “1984″, by George Orwell).

Now, what you do in your own sordid life is up to you, of course.  Including allowing basic privacy rights to be dismantled and shed.

However, as a professional, you’ve got to recognize boundaries.  Because there’s a lot at stake here.

We may need to amend The Professional’s Code.  The original (and I’m pretty sure this is my phrasing):  ”You show up where you said you’d be, when you said you’d be there, having done what you said you’d do.”

Now, we gotta add:  ”And you won’t take a freakin’ photo without getting permission.”

The reason I think we need this new rule is directly related to a couple of incidents at After-Hours parties during seminars.  I love hanging out with other writers and the strange breed of entrepreneur now dominating the biz world.  These cats are fun, smart, and brimming with fascinating tales of Life In The Marketing Fast Lane.

They also tend to play as hard as they work.

Which means the “insider’s only” after-hours parties can look, to an outsider, like one part college dorm bacchanalia, one part Special Forces hazing, and one part Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.

Now, I assure you that — as far as I know — the parties only look like this to an outsider.

Except for a few truly-insane individuals (who I suspect are headed for the hoosegow anyway), these after-hours celebrations are just collaborative ways to let off steam.  And share war stories with pals.  And laugh heartily and with gusto at M*A*S*H-level puerile humor.  Maybe pull a prank or two.

Okay, and maybe a little singing too loudly, off-key.  Until hotel security shows up.

The thing is, you’re hanging out having fun with people you like…

… and trust.

And I’m pretty sure that snapping photos or recording conversations with the idea of embarrassing someone is a pretty basic violation of that trust…

… and rises to the level of assault when it can harm someone professionally.

Okay, fine… if you’re a licensed detective out to catch a cheating spouse, you’re excused, I suppose.  (And you — why the hell are you cheating, anyway, you no-good louse?)

But if you’re not packing a gumshoe ID, then why are you snapping shots of anything that could be seen as compromising the integrity, or the reputation of a colleague?

And before you mimic the Google buzz-brain CEO who said (on CNBC) “… if you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place…”

… just check out the latest round of career-ending gaffes among celebs, politicians, biz owners, and innocent students.

In most cases, they tweeted or texted or said something stupid… and everyone would have long since forgotten about the faux pas IF IT HADN’T GONE FUCKING VIRAL.

You can argue that stupidity is a perfectly acceptable reason to lose your job, or your social standing, or even your self-respect.

However, one glance at the astonishment on the faces of the virally-crushed victims shows you that — minus the Web — they were absolutely not anticipating global blowback from their casual asides or what they mistakenly thought were cute posts.

We’re talking about tasteless jokes from professionally-tasteless comics (Gilbert Gottfried)… clueless coeds who just need a reality check (the UCLA student who posted a rant about Asians talking on cellphones in the library)… and kids getting nailed with sex offender records for sexting each other.

And that’s just in the last couple of days.

I dunno know about you… but even after multiple decades making my way through society, I still say more stupid things than smart things.

And I can think of a hundred times, right off the top of my head, where I said or did something offensive or insulting or tasteless… and immediately wished I could take it back.

That’s what humans do.  Make mistakes.

Hopefully, you’re doing your best to clean up your messes, make real amends (not just mumble “sorry, dude”), and strive to become a Zen self-actualized person.  So you limit the damage you do caroming off the culture as you blunder along the best you can.

Just keep the Golden Rule in mind at all times, if you get confused about the appropriateness of what you’re about to share on the Universe-Wide-Web:  Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you.

And if you really, really, really don’t care if that shot of you picking your nose goes viral…

… because you have no boundaries or sense of privacy…

… then at least get in the habit of asking people if it’s okay to take a photo or record a moment.

And take “no” for a final answer, dude.

Slap Some Sense Into You Rule #2: Self-inflicted idiocy is not permission to pile on.

The 3 examples I used above are all of tweets, posts and texts that were voluntarily launched into the ether.

In our freshly-soiled world of TMZ-paparazzi-rules, you’re ripe for public flogging and humiliation if you do nothing more than step into view somewhere.  Or “allow” yourself to be caught by a camera (with or without audio).

So self-inflicted embarrassment offers no immunity at all from global shunning.

Nevertheless… at the end of the day, you — as the person helping something go viral — gotta live with yourself.

One of my favorite ways of dealing with assholes is to remember that I can walk away and get on with my life…

… while the asshole has to go home, go to bed, and wake up as the same pathetic loser jerkwad he was the day before.

So while he may have won a skirmish with me, overall he’s trapped in a living hell.  I wouldn’t want to spend 5 seconds inside his skin, dealing with whatever demons have made him such an insufferable wanker.

What’s this got to do with forwarding a photo?

Think about it.

A real pro doesn’t just consider the stuff he might get caught doing.  He also cares when it’s simply a matter of anonymously doing the right thing or not.

There IS karma in this world.

And even the smallest act of piling on makes you guilty as hell when someone gets hurt.

Slap Some Sense Into You Rule #3: “PWC”.

That means “Posting While Compromised”.

Don’t do it.

Like angry emails, the best advice is to get cold before hitting “send” whenever your inhibitions have been doused with liquor, strong emotions, or anything else.

Just don’t do it.

What may seem like just the coolest friggin’ thing to post on your Wall at the moment…

… is — if you’re pickling your brain — probably not cool at all.

And you shouldn’t be sharing it.

Tomorrow, looking at it with a clear head (but blood-shot eyes), you still have oodles of time to post, hit “send”, or upload.

We shouldn’t need basic rules like this.

But the evidence shows we do.  Especially as professionals trying to have a little mildly-inappropriate fun after working hard to create solid, ethical and high-quality deliverables under deadline.

A very old, and very excellent piece of advice for living well is:  ”Dance like nobody’s watching.”

It’s a metaphor for living life on your terms, not somebody else’s.

It’s just damn hard to pull off when you realize there are fifty cameras aimed your way, ready to immediately upload hilarious evidence to the cloud if you screw up.

And here’s a note to Zuckerberg: You’re gonna miss your privacy when it’s gone, dude.

Hey — you got a different take on all this?

Let’s hear it in the comments.

Stay frosty,

John

Thursday, 2:39pm
Reno, NV
“Hey, you bastards, I’m still here!” (Steve McQueen as Papillon, floating away to freedom…)

Howdy…

I’m re-publishing, below, a portion of one of the more influential posts I’ve ever put on this blog.

It’s just 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.

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 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 shit.

Here’s the relevant part of the post:

“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 ten 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.

Current studies show that heart disease rates are HALF for optimists over pessimists. So, even if you doubt the ability to measure “happiness” — 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 have a term we’ve used for years now: We’re “pessimistic optimists”. (Or maybe we’re optimistic pessimists. I forget.)

How does that work? Easy.

We expect horrible atrocities at every turn… and rejoice when we defy Fate and unreasonable success rains down on our undeserving heads.

We groove on the good stuff in life… and just nod sagely at the bad stuff and move past it as quickly as possible.

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 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 “just past 50” and pretty darned happy, all those women who 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 embarrassing 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 best friends is an ordained minister with a doctorate in theology. And I have 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 talks 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 friend 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-nixer.

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, 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 2009, I dated the letter to myself as January 15, 2010.)

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. I know I’ve been hammering you about coming to the big damn Action Seminar on February 25-26 in San Diego.  It’s a work of love on our part… the exact interactive, get-your-game-on, actually GET MOVING event I wish other seminars would try to be.

I don’t think we’ll offer this again.  It’s a huge endeavor to pull off… especially corralling all the notoriously-successful copywriting superstars, the world-renowned Big Dog marketers, and the behind-the-scenes wizards that we (and many of the best in the game) rely on for the insight, skill set, and result-boosting tactics we’ve crammed into this seminar.

Even better: We’re focusing entirely on attendees, and your needs regarding planning for success and moving past the sticking points holding you back.

We’re doing Hot Seat consultations, right there on stage with audience members.  We’re looking at attendee’s copy (with the faculty of pro writers from the Simple Writing System tearing into these critiques like their lives depended on making the copy work).

And we’re surveying the audience, and answering every single question in detail, with specifics on stuff like what to do (exactly) to attain the breakthrough that can change your life.

This is a serious opportunity to network with like-minded entrepreneurs… to finally learn how the best plan for success… to get what might be the most important Reality Check of your life (from hard-core success-junkies that can give you the insight for dramatically growing your biz or career)…

… and it’s a great way to find out what the next step is for YOU, in YOUR specific quest to break out of the pack and start cooking on all cylinders.

Time is short, and there are a limited number of spots available.

To get the details (and see what the fuss is all about), click here.

And I’ll see you in San Diego…

Sunday, 1:01pm
Tampa, FL
“Won’t you get hip to this timely tip, and take that California trip…” (“Route 66″, Bobby Troup)

Howdy…

I asked our old pal Kevin Rogers to guest post here, while I’m off galavanting around the west coast on biz trips.  (First stop: San Francisco, for the quarterly meeting of our super-awesome Platinum Mastermind group.)

I laughed reading this post.  There are excellent lessons for everyone below (especially if you’re struggling to find your footing in this current economic turmoil)…

… and I just want to be clear, up front, about one crucial detail:  There is a HUGE difference between making yourself useful (after doing the necessary preparations)…

… and just being a lazy-ass stalker looking for a handout.  I met my own primary mentor, Gary Halbert, by slowly proving myself through actions.  I never asked for anything, and never pretended to be anything I wasn’t.

Most of the time, the difference between a life frozen in place… and a life that roars along in the fast lane… turns on a single moment where you realize “Hey, I can DO this”.

And that moment usually comes from discovering information, or advice, that you couldn’t quite piece together on your own.

This is where teachers come in.

This is where taking that critical action-step of reaching out and grasping opportunity is the order of the day.

Okay, enough preamble.  Here’s Kevin:

Hi.  Kevin Rogers here.

Since the head honcho is away this week and asked me to fill in (always a humbling honor), I thought I’d share the story of how I was able to “weasel my way” into John’s world…

… all the way from being a guy he’d barely noticed writing about him on marketing forums… to eventually becoming a trusted insider (and even working alongside him as his go-to-writer).

There’s a huge lesson in here anyone can use to skip several rungs up the ladder of marketing hierarchy and claim your seat at the royal feast of the clued-in and well-connected.

This lesson is based on an old philosophy that says: In order to achieve your goals, choose someone who has already achieved those goals and model their thinking.

This story backs up that theory, with two small addendums:

1. Modeling your subject’s thinking isn’t as simple as reading a biography or daydreaming about how they might react in a certain situation… but rather, getting into a room with them to find out what truly makes them tick.  And…

2. When it comes to scoring a meeting with your subject… it’s probably going to require you to swallow your fears to make it happen.

Here’s the story: A couple of years into my budding freelance copywriting career (while I juggled a 9-5 day job with writing for clients), I was suffering from serious input overload.

You know, that nagging feeling that even though you’re doing okay… you’re still constantly aware of how much better you could be doing…. and you really want to be doing better RIGHT NOW.

It was messing up my mojo pretty bad, too…

… because every time I’d read a great blog post or forum thread about some killer sales writing tactic, I felt like I HAD to incorporate it into the project I was working on at the time.

Even if I had finished the writing and was ready to send it off to the client, I’d stay up all night rewriting to infuse the copy with new magic potion I’d just discovered.

Not sure if that qualifies as passion, dedication or OCD (or maybe all three), but looking back I’m sure it hurt some letters as much as it helped others.

(It for sure wasn’t making life any easier for my wife, who had her hands full with our two preschoolers while I worked 8 hours at my “real” job and spent another 8-10 in the back room typing out an escape route, one sales letter at a time.)

Regardless, I had no choice. I was officially obsessed with mastering this craft. The same way every successful freelancer copywriter I’ve met since became obsessed with it.

So, to tame my habit of chasing down and applying new tactics, I decided I’d pick just ONE master copywriter and obsess exclusively on him.

My philosophy was:  If I truly could model the patterns of just one master copywriter so intensely that ultimately I’d gain the ability to call on them at will — as if the guru were sitting next to me, eager to assist — then I’d be able to minimize my learning curve and fast-track my career.

I chose to focus exclusively on Carlton because his style resonated with me best… and we seemed to have a lot of similar personal interests (blues guitar, beat culture, Travis McGee novels)…

Plus, it goes without saying that if I could become half the copywriter John is, I could manage a very long and prosperous career.

So, along with pouring over his exceedingly rich blog archives, I began seeking out and snatching up everything the man ever produced.

Which was not an easy task because, back then, there was no Simple Writing System (which would later hand me his formula on a silver platter)… and much of John’s best stuff was long off the market (so finding it was tough).

And — key point here, folks — I cut myself off from every other resource.

No more hours spent trolling forums, no more subscribing to marketing blogs. I became a hermit in the “religion” of Planet Carlton.

(John gets spooked when I talk about this obsession, by the way, which makes it all the more fun to write about here.)

And it paid off.  I learned, and I put what I learned to excellent use.  However, by the time I’d finally drained all the knowledge I could from all the resources I could find on Carlton… I still wasn’t satisfied.

The next logical step was to reach out to the man himself.

I joined his Insider’s Club and quickly messaged him to ask if he offered private coaching.

He didn’t at the time. “Freelancers need a lot of coddling, I just don’t have the bandwidth,” John explained in his reply.

Turns out the last time he offered coaching to freelancers, Harlan Kilstein had ruined a good thing for all of us by nagging John almost daily with questions.

(Probably no coincidence, though, that Kilstein became the first of John’s students to earn a fortune as a freelancer.)

John also hadn’t hosted a workshop or seminar in a while, and showed no signs of hosting an event anytime soon. So there was no direct access.

Undaunted, I hung around and soaked up what I could from John’s blog, and especially the forum in the Insider’s Club.

Soon I found myself helping other members as much as I was seeking help. All that dedicated study had made me a pretty useful savant, and before long John was requesting that I chime in on threads.  He recognized me, by name.

Finally, I saw an opening… when he finally decided to host another event.

“I see you’re going to be in Chicago doing a Hot Seat Seminar the same time I’ll be in town, “ I emailed him. “I might have a day to kill, any chance I could hide and watch from the back of the room?”

I had absolutely no plans to be in Chicago, but I had lived there for years and was eager for a trip back. Other than that I had only one purpose there: To meet John.

Shockingly, John accepted my offer — he often brings in outside experts and writers to his events, in order to give clients the most bang for their buck. He even invited me to join everyone for a dinner they were hosting that night.  It was clear that my hard work learning the craft, and helping out in the forums, had given me a foothold.  I was, suddenly, an invited “veteran writer”.  (The other expert he’d invited, you should know, was the amazing Dean Jackson — a deeply respected insider among marketing wizards.)

I couldn’t believe that in two weeks I’d be in the room with the man I’d been studying relentlessly (John likes to call it “stalking”) for months.  Literally singing for my supper.

Part of me worried that I’d made a huge mistake. It’s seldom the smartest idea to get in a room with people you deify.

That’s why I’m never up for meeting my favorite musicians… what if they turn out to be a major asshole in person? The songs will never sound the same after that. (Thank you very much, Chris Robinson of the Black Crowes.)

Oh well. Too late now.

I told my wife the news. She’d heard every Carlton story ten times by then and was excited about the meeting, but she had a different concern: “What are you going to say when he asks what you’re doing in Chicago?”

I laughed, “He’ll never remember me saying that! Why would he give a shit what I’m doing there?”

I arrived at the Hard Rock Hotel about 15 minutes before the first Hot Seat was scheduled. The small “Gretsch” boardroom was filling up with attendees. Stan Dahl, John’s longtime biz partner, was in the front making notes. I introduced myself. He shook my hand and quickly returned to his notebook.

“Anything I can do to make myself useful?” I asked.

“Nope. All under control. John’s dealing with an issue at the front desk, should back in a minute,” Stan said, with a hint of tension.

Christ, maybe this was a bad idea.

The room was tight. I took the chair in back with a blank name card in front of it. It was the ninth place at an eight-seat conference table. No hiding in here. I scribbled “KEVIN” onto my placard and pulled out a notebook.

At 8:57 John walked in. He grabbed a pen and tried to write something. No ink. He chucked it across the room into a trashcan. Stan rolled his eyes.

Yep, definite tension.  This was a session filled with clients who had paid thousands of dollars for advice and consultation that might change the rest of their lives.  It was not a casual meeting.

John surveyed the room, “Okay… we’re ready to get started. I guess Kevin never made it.”

“He’s right there in front of the tag that says ‘KEVIN’,” Stan quipped.

“Oh… Kevin. There you are. You look different than I pictured,” John said, taking on an easy tone.

I stood up to shake his hand, “Thanks for having me John, it’s a real honor.”

“Yeah, it worked out well I guess…” he replied. “So… what is it you said you were doing here in Chicago?”

Time froze. Everyone waited for my answer. All I could picture was my wife whooping with laughter at her victory.

“Oh… well, uhhh,” there was no use. “Just visiting old friends and ya know… this.”

“Uh… okay,” he said. “Well, let’s get started then…”

Fortunately, the rest of the morning went more smoothly. I laid low for the most part, but John called on me a few times and I was able to provide some coherent content.

“Great input,” he said before lunch. “Don’t be afraid to speak up.”

I felt like a made man.

Later that night we had steaks and — having done my homework, and knowing that John loved blues — I drug John and Stan to Buddy Guy’s “Legends” Blues club on Wabash where Buddy himself sat perched near the front door. A steady procession of awestruck fans lined up for a chance to shake that supernatural right hand.

Turned out to be Buddy’s 51st anniversary in Chicago. After some rally from the crowd and prodding from the band, Buddy Guy made his way to the mic and sang an impromptu medley of “Hoodoo Man Blues” and “Love Her With A Feeling.” The room was electric.

For me it was the perfect capper to an amazing journey… and the beginning of a brand new one. That moment of truth, taking action while smothering the nagging fears in my head, was a major turning point in my life.

I’ve been absurdly privileged in developing a friendship and business relationship with John over the last 3 years. I’ve learned more about running a business and, of course, copywriting than any Ivy-covered university could teach in that span.

Plus, I’ve been paid well by clients while learning all this, instead of going deep into student loan debt.

And all it took was some blind ambition, a gut check against my fears, and one plane ride to Chicago.

I still scroll around the marketing forums occasionally. Every time I do there’s at least one new thread from someone asking for help “getting started” as a freelance copywriter.

They always receive heaps of parrot-like advice about the long list of “must read” books to buy and courses to take, how they should write sales letters by hand a hundred times each, get a job selling door to door or try promoting affiliate links on ClickBank…

… and, hey, it’s all valid stuff, more or less.

But for me and the other copywriters I know who are living the ultimate freelance lifestyle (commanding high fees, working with Big Dog clients, making their own rules)…

… the faster, more successful path came down to 3 simple steps:

1. Turn off the noise and focus on learning from one source at a time.

2. Write every day with the goal of beating your own best results.

3. And… most important of all… get out and meet the people who’ve figured out the secrets to achieving the same things you want.

If you have any designs on accelerating your own career this year…

… whether that means taking your existing skills or your existing business to the next level…

… or simply making this the year that you stop “working on” becoming an entrepreneur and finally make it happen…

… then you seriously MUST attend the “Action Seminar” John is hosting this February in San Diego.

I won’t belabor the benefits of attending… because they should be obvious by now.  It’s a once-in-a-lifetime chance to share space with the people who have achieved the same goals that you’re now after.  John has front-loaded the joint with experts and go-to-guys like you cannot believe until you experience it yourself.

And instead of doing the obsessive, year-long mind-stalker thing I did with John….

… you can simply ASK the experts at this incredible event how they do what they do so well… what it takes to make and meet goals quickly…and what they would do if they were you, starting from where you are right now.

And guess what?

They’re happy to tell you! Because we all remember the struggle and we all had people help us out along the way.

You might be amazed at how much a small effort on your part (like, getting on a plane to a super-nice Southern Californian locale and attending a well-structured, interactive 2-day seminar) will do to bolster support for your career.

Doers love to help doers.

It’s the dreamers and the whiners who get left behind.

Of course, what I’ve shared with you here is just my story. What happens to you depends on what you do after the handshake.

But I can promise that none of it would be possible if I hadn’t gotten into that room in Chicago.

You don’t have to spend a year in reclusive study and then weasel your way into a meeting. Or listen to the blues… or even care who Travis McGee is. All you have to do is be in San Diego Feb 25^th and 26^th and be yourself.

Get all the details on the Action Seminar here.

If this really is your year to create your own damn turning point, I can’t wait to see you there.

All the best,

Kevin

Saturday, 3:17pm
Mendocino, CA
“Under my thumb is a squirming dog who just had her day…” (Stones)

Friend…

Do you suffer from the heartbreak of envy?

Are you jealous of friends and colleagues who attain success, while you continue to struggle?

Would you like to learn a simple cure for feeling inferior to others?

Well, then step right up…

Here’s the story: I grew up with the definite impression that ambition was a moral failing.  The operative phrase was “Don’t get too big for your britches”…

… which was a cold warning to anyone who dared attempt to rise above their (vaguely defined) place in life.

And one of the greatest joys was to gleefully watch the collapse and humbling of the High & Mighty.  I believe there’s some evolutionary fragment left in our systems that wants a solid check on keeping folks from leaving the pack.

Now, if you risk failing and succeed, that’s great.  We were there for ya the entire time, Bucko.  Rooted for ya.  Got yer back.

I think our innate need for leadership allows for a select few to “make it” without hostility.  And, as long as they provide whatever it is we need from them — protection, entertainment, intellectual stimulation, decisive action, look good in a tight sweater, whatever — they get a pass.

But we seem to have a ceiling of tolerance for others moving up the hierarchy too fast.  Whoa, there, buddy.  Where do you think you’re going?

And when the unworthy grab the brass ring, it can trigger a hormone dump that’ll keep you up all night.  Because, why did HE make it, when he’s clearly not the right dude to win.  This is totally fucking unfair, and makes ME look bad now.

The lucky creep.

I hope he screws up and gets what’s coming to him…

And so on.

I’ve felt it, you’ve felt it, the nicest person you’ve ever met has felt it.  Humans are constantly comparing themselves to others, and we do not like it when Mr. Envy comes a’knockin’.

Dan Sullivan (of Strategic Coach) has a good take on this: He suggests you stop comparing yourself to others… and instead, compare yourself to yourself.  Get happy with the progress you’ve made from wherever you were before.  Don’t allow your brain to start measuring how short you came up against your lofty dreams, or other’s success. (Which is what most folks do.)

I like that tactic.

However, I have another one I’ve been employing ever since I began my solo career, so many decades ago.

It works, and I think you’ll like having it in your tool kit.

Back then, as a raw rookie, I was dangerously inept.  And woefully inexperienced and unprepared for the tasks ahead of me.  Had I allowed my Inner Scaredy-Cat to win the argument, I never would have left the house to go snag my first gig.

Worse, as I moved into inner circles (at joints like Jay Abraham’s offices), I began to encounter other writers my age and younger… who were light-years ahead of me in every category.  Fame, skill, wealth… and especially that precious sense of feeling like you earned your place in the world and belonged there.

Mr. Envy showed up frequently, and occasionally I would find myself secretly wishing for these guys to fail.  I mean, why them and not me yet?  The bastards were too big for their britches…

But that wasn’t gonna work. If I wanted to earn my OWN place in the world, I realized I needed to knee-cap Mr. Envy, and lock that demon away somewhere forever.

Because the better way to look at things… was to congratulate these guys on their success, learn from their adventures getting there, and encourage even more success for them.

There was, I knew (once Mr. Envy was muzzled), plenty of room for everybody in the writing game… and the other guy’s success didn’t impact my own even a little bit.

In fact, once I selflessly began networking with them, they helped me out.  It was win-win, all the way.

Still, though… that nagging sense of “Gee, I wish I was him” kept lurching back into my head. I wanted to be an MTV rock star, a drooled-over novelist, an infamous international lover, a frequent guest on Larry King (this was a long time ago, folks), David Letterman’s best friend, a gazillionaire with no worries about rent or…

And that’s when I stumbled on this extremely cool CURE for envy.

I’m sure I nicked it from some other source, somewhere… but I haven’t been able to find it explained anywhere else.  Maybe I really did invent it.

At any rate… it works.

Wanna know what it is?

Okay.  Here is my…

Super-Potent Envy Cure: When you find yourself wishing you were someone else… or at least in their shoes, enjoying all the great stuff they seem to be enjoying…

… just imagine being inside their skin — really inside them, being them — for 5 minutes.  Dealing with everything that makes them who they are.

And then see if their life still looks so good.

Most envy comes from a lack of something, perceived or real.  When you’re broke, the dude with two hundred bucks in his checking account looks like a winner.  When you’re desperately horny, the guy getting laid all the time looks like the hero of a 007 novel.  When you’re being ignored in your market, the mogul with the big business machine looks like a cushy gig.

This is where your street-level salesmanship comes in.  (Which is what I’ve been trying to share with y’all over the past 6 years here in the blog.)

Great salesmen lead better lives.  Not because they sell lots of stuff… but because they live in the real world.  You can’t be efficient selling when you’re hobbled with a belief that the world (and everyone in it) “should” behave a certain way… or you wish they would.

Naw.  You gotta be hip to how people actually operate.  So you take off the blinders, and peek behind the masks, and get to know your fellow high-end primates REALLY well, from deep inside their hearts and minds.

This raising of the curtain — shocking at first — will actually make you love people more… while also helping you understand why they do what they do.  You’ll understand why good people do bad things, why bad people do good things, and why the inner life of everyone around you is unique.

And while you love your fellow beasts…

… once you feel comfy with yourself (because you’re finally going after your goals and engaging in your own rollicking adventure in life)…

… you won’t want to spend even a full minute inside the skin of anyone else.

Because it is CREEPY AS HELL in there.

I love to read autobiographies and biographies.  (Or skim them, when they’re horribly written.)

It has changed my outlook — and my petty jealousies — to learn the real story of the people I once idolized, and often wished I was living their life.

Wow, does it ever change your outlook.  Especially when you discover the wicked little secrets that fueled their motivation to attain whatever it is — fame, acclaim, wealth, accomplishments — that triggered your envy button.

The novelists loathed themselves.  The movie stars craved adulation like junk.  The great lovers were joyless asshole sociopaths.  The wealthy barons were infested with sick needs.

Big men still pitied themselves over Mommie’s inattention.  Forceful leaders were quivering lakes of insecurity.  Debonair social stalwarts harbored unquenchable dark desires.

Yes, there are folks out there who succeed without secret vices and immature cravings.

They’re also boring as hell.  And you’d be screaming for release after ten seconds inside their skin.  (Many have just been unusually successful at quashing their sweaty-palmed desires.  In fact, the boring ones are often sitting on the nastiest payloads of demons.  See: Every Bible-thumping politician recently caught with hookers and drugs.)

You want wit, a lust of adventure, forceful opinions and a knack for winning in your heroes?

I do, too.  But I’ve learned to like them despite the roiling mess of complexity coursing through their veins.

In fact, I embrace it.  I like my heroes flawed — it brings out the luster of their accomplishments.

It also highlights the elusive (and quickly disappearing) moments of satisfaction they seek.

You’re alive.  You are here on this earth with a ticket to ride that expires (sometimes sooner rather than later).  You may wish you had a better set-up… finer bone structure, a thicker mop of hair, more muscles, more impressive genitals, bluer eyes, a rich uncle with you in the will, whatever hang-up is spoiling your enjoyment of life…

… but the simplest way to attain lasting happiness is to let your dumb-ass desires drift away, and get jiggy with who you are now, and what you’ve got to work with.

It’s kind of Zen, and it takes effort to get there.  But it’s worth it.

You can’t be happy all the time, but you can actually enjoy the down times, too, once you change your basic orientation from “I wish” to “Here I am”.  Some of the most satisfied people I know are butt-ugly trolls who have learned that natural beauty is fraught with negative side effects (and not worth pursuing)…

… and that, at the end of the day, what really counts is what you bring to the table in terms of being a quality human being.

I’ve known a MOB of successful people in my career (including many of the most famous and infamous “bigger than life” legends in business).  I’ve been friends with them, been let in behind the scenes, and hung out long enough to see behind the mask.

And I wouldn’t want to spend 5 minutes inside any of their skins, ever.  I like who I am, with all my faults and all my regrets and all my inherent stupidity.  I fit well inside my own skin.

And — though it took a VERY long time — I earned my place in the world.  Really earned it.  Nothing happened from wishing, or cheating, or relying on luck.

Naw.  I blundered my way into the Feast of Life.  Utterly fucked things up along the ride… but kept learning from mistakes, kept cleaning up my messes and fixing what I broke when I could, kept trying and growing and staying true to the goals that resonated with me.  That’s all I had going for my sorry ass.

We’re all pathetically flawed.  All of us, from James Bond on down through your neighbor who just bought the new Jag (and won’t stop gloating about the deal he got).

Nobody gets out of here unscathed.  You can’t live without making mistakes and stepping on toes.

And yes, sometimes you will get too big for your britches, when you’re going for the gusto.  When it happens, buy new ones.

Stay frosty (and true to yourself),

John

P.S. My recent reads include the autobiographies of Keith Richards and Christopher Hitchens.  Keith’s may be the best-written of all-time — he’s a brilliant storyteller, used a writer who knew him for decades to help collect his thoughts coherently… and he is tough on himself.  Hitch bares all, but can be a bit long-winded.

The key to biographies is NOT to settle old scores, or try to spin your existence so your legacy looks better.  Screw that nonsense.

The key is to spill the beans, relentlessly.  Lift up your mask, raise the curtain on your demons, cop to your trespasses.  And share the juicy details. The story is not the broad overview, but the detail.  You lived it, dude.  I wasn’t there.

What happened?

P.P.S. What biographies or autobiographies have you liked?

And let us know, in the comment section here, how you’ve handled envy (good or bad) in your life.  Along with the realization that your fellow passengers on this whirling planet are one scary-ass species…

Wednesday, 11:56am
New York, New York
“Truckin’, like the Doo Dah man…” (Grateful Dead)

Howdy…

Sorry for the little vacation here from the blog.  I’ve been hunkered down in “launch mode”, on the road, and ministering to various biz projects…

… all of which have messed with my “sit down and write, dammit” time.

I’m actually handwriting the first part of this post in a hotel room, just before heading to La Guardia to fly home after a week in the Big Apple.  (Those of you following me on Facebook may have seen pics of the dispicable weather display we braved to watch the Jets b-slap the Vikings on Monday Night Football.  We spent 4 solid days in meetings, while the city basked in perfect Fall splendor… and the one time we ventured outside, thunder and lightning and a deluge of biblical size dumped on our sorry asses.)

(Still, it was worth the drenching.  Great story to tell whenever anyone needs one-upping on weather disasters…)

By the time you read this, I’ll be back in exciting Reno, catching my breath.

I am one bone-tired road dog, I’ll tell you what.

And I can’t wait to be sitting back at my cluttered desk, writing.  Dammit.

So…

… quick post here, just to get the blood moving again.

I was thinking about this subject while reading up on the gossip whirling around the online entrepreneurial community.  It’s starting to jive with the blistering political attacks dominating the mainstream news cycles…

… and it’s scary.

The details of the gossip don’t really matter.  Rumors come, rumors go… same as political movements and all other fads and moments of temporary insanity.

But there is an overriding theme here that will never go away:  A rabid distrust of intellectualism.

In plain English:  Americans are suspicious of folks who claim to be “the smartest dudes in the room”.

Now, I understand the righteous anger many people feel toward the high-paid quasi-felons in our culture — arrogant Wall Street psychopaths… brainiac political wonks… pundits and guru’s who seem to enjoy talking down to people who aren’t hip to their insider privileged knowledge… and anyone who sneers at you because they deem your opinion to be dumb.

But here’s the thing:  I’ve spent decades hanging out with idiots and geniuses…

… and I can tell you there is both real wisdom in simplistic worldviews, and real doofus-moron-dipshit cluelessness in Mensa-type thinking.

And vice versa.

In other words… smart isn’t always smart.  And dumb ain’t always dumb.

Where folks get confused, I’ve found, is in figuring out the intellectual credibility of the other guy.

This took me years to figure out, and it might help you, too… when you’re trying to judge whether someone deserves your attention or not.

Here’s the breakdown of what I’ve learned:

Intellectual Credibility Factor #1: Some people arrive in life front-loaded with raw intelligence.

They have a high IQ, a bloated cerebral cortex, feisty synapses, or whatever it is in the brain pan that allows a small percentage of the population to excel at thinking about complex stuff in ways that leave the rest of us gasping in awe.

Intellectual Credibility Factor #2: Some people gorge on education.

They are walking libraries and resource centers on facts and figures and historical implications.

Intellectual Credibility Factor #3: Some people earn street-level savvy from serious time in the trenches.

No theory for these dudes.  They know what they know, because they learned it from doing it.

Intelligence.  Education.  Street savvy.

Which do you think wins out in the game of life?

Go ahead, think about it.  And think back on the times you’ve encountered someone you either wanted to trust, or had to trust…

… and how you decided to move ahead, based on your assessment of their brain/resume/experiential mojo.

I’m betting a lot of readers here would pick “savvy” as the most important.

And I’m here to tell you that I’ve known street-wise guys who — within their world — could absolutely demolish any outsider.

But the key words there are “within their world“.  It’s way too seductive to believe that because you’re a stud in one area of life… say, in a specific market or business model…

… then you will be just as studly in any other area of life you choose to invade.

And it’s just not so. Surgeons who fearlessly root around people’s essential organs, saving lives and kicking butt against disease… are often the most vulnerable patsies to financial scams.  Wildly successful biz owners get their heads handed to them when they venture into politics.  Sports heroes can’t keep a decent relationship together.

Just for example.

One the primary things I look for when consulting with clients is how much ego they have invested in their personal myth.  If they believe they “should” succeed at something, because they’ve succeeded at something else…

… we got problems.

Same with raw intelligence.  For whatever reason, many of my closest friends growing up had IQs in the stratosphere.  They chewed through school like a tiger devouring prey, and I marveled at their capacity to think Big Thoughts.

However, not a one of them has accomplished much in life.  Several are struggling to make a decent living, and they’re really trying, too.

I remember a study many years back — can’t find a trace of it on Google right now, but it was a big conversation point for a while in the late 80s — that claimed the “ideal” IQ for an entrepreneur was somewhere above average and below Mensa-level.

It’s easy to see why you’d need a certain level of intelligence to comprehend being in business.  It’s less easy to see why more brain power doesn’t translate to more comprehension.

What I’ve seen in my friends is that too much IQ-wattage muddies practical thinking.  It’s not even getting bored with the day-to-day necessities of running a biz… it’s more like an inability to see the simple path to success.

I’m not saying that you’re doomed if you’re super-smart.

It’s just not a guaranteed Ticket To Ride to the good life.

Same with education.

One of the core pieces of advice we give to budding entrepreneurs…

… is to STOP educating yourself at some point.  Often, you don’t need to read another book, or take another class, or get another degree.

Instead, what you desperately need to do is put what you already know into ACTION.

I’m a voracious reader.  I will never stop the self-education process, and there are parts of my college years that still come in handy.

Nevertheless… there were only 3 books that fueled my own launch into the entrepreneurial world: Think And Grow Rich (Nap Hill)… How To Win Friends And Influence People (Carnegie) (also known as “the salesman’s bible”)… and Tested Advertising Methods (John Caples).

All other books — while still providing insight, advice, new skills and useable tactics — were just sub-categories of those three.  My self-education was transformed instantly when I discovered those classics.  (Published originally in the 30s and 40s, no less.)

The Big Dog entrepreneurs I’ve worked with shared a common idea about over-educated biz experts.  The joke was that you could hire someone with an MBA (a master’s in business)…

… but they wouldn’t be of any use until after you knocked the nonsense out of them.

No.  Education alone can just load you up with stuff you can’t (or won’t) put to use.

Intelligence, alone, can turn simple implementation strategies into obstacles.

And savvy, alone, can blind you to new realities.

The best place to be?

Having all three in the mix, of course.

This seems like one of those “duh”, super-obvious observations, doesn’t it.

And yet, I’ll tell you that the MAJORITY of clients I’ve counseled and worked with over the years have been befuddled by it.

It’s natural to look for partners, colleagues, advisors, friends and allies who bring something essential to the table.  And to search for the voodoo fueling the success of your competitors.

For me, judging credibility finally made sense when I realized how intelligence, education and savvy all fit together.  The combo is not a guarantee of success…

… but it sure puts all the right elements in your favor.

The remedy for fuzzy thinking remains simple:

a) Wake up. Examine your life, and soak up reality.  Use critical thinking to learn from your successes and your mistakes. (Critical thinking is nearly a lost art in modern business.  Putting it to use can instantly erase any lack of measurable intelligence.  A frosty, hyper-aware and open-minded person trumps “genius” every time.)

b) And then apply what you’ve learned, as you build up experience. Theory stops when you start actually trying to create results.  Drop all bullshit belief systems that hold you back (like magical thinking and anti-intellectual bias).  “Truth” may be hard to nail down in this complex world, but “reality” in business can be measured in results and resilience in the market.

c) Read. You are responsible for your education… and it’s your job to go outside the box to get the good stuff.  School is fine, as far as it goes.  Devouring libraries and interviewing experts and going deep with research (by never allowing any single book or author to define what you know about any topic) is infinitely better.  But do your reading while you…

d) ACT on what you discover and learn. You don’t win by having the most books on your shelves, or the highest tower of notes on your desk.  Implementation is King in business.  Movement is rewarded in the universe.

e) And a little mentoring can trigger massive leaps in figuring shit out.

The goal is to be intelligent, educated, and savvy.  These elements moderate, boost, and compliment each other.  Without all three, there are gaps in your ability to get stuff done.

Part of allowing reality to govern your pursuit of goals is to counter-act the limitations that come with intellectual isolation.

Alone, we all start obsessing on our faults.  We all have moments of doubt (sometimes looooong moments of it)… we all screw up… we all are blind idiots at times.

If, in your head, you have some BS belief system cooking that insists you’re a terrible person for fouling things up occasionally… or you’re unworthy of success… or you’re being punished for some vague trespass earlier in your life…

… then part of your education is to corner that belief system, beat it to a pulp, and bury it somewhere it will never crawl back from.

If you’re scared because you keep encountering situations where you don’t know what to do next… then building on every moment of experience you have, and learning from it, is what constitutes the kind of savvy to be competent and confident.

Be eager to attain competence and confidence, but don’t panic while you’re in the process.  Be patient, and keep pushing.  The tipping point will arrive sooner than you ever dreamed possible.

And if, while examining yourself, you come across gaps in necessary knowledge…

… go forth and fill those gaps in.  With coaching, mentoring, specific courses or books or memberships… whatever makes sense and gets it done.

The “knock” on Internet information marketing is that too many people are trying to make money pedaling lame info.

That’s one way to look at it.  Focus on the bogus shit out there, and smear the entire market as worthless.

The other way to look at it…

… is to marvel at the abundance of legitimate knowledge, insight and personal access to mentoring available.

Yes, there are charlatans in abundance.  So what?  Life is a smorgasbord of choices, some bad, some so-so, a few that are spectacular.

Put together what you’ve got, fill in what you need, work the system for more and better experience as you continually examine the entire ride.

Get hip, get knowledgeable, and use the intelligence you have.

No?  You don’t agree?

The comments are open for ranting, opining, and arguing.

For those of you who missed me while I’ve been gone, it’s nice to be back.

For those of you complaining that the blog went a couple of weeks with no action (yes, I read your “crickets chirping” comments)… well, just remember that this is a FREE fucking blog, okay?

And I missed your belligerent musings, too.  Seriously.  One of the great things about this blog — and what keeps me coming back for more — is the interaction in the comments section.

The threads that sometimes get going here are just mesmerizing and evil raw fun.

So have at it.

We’ll do another Quiz soon, too.

Hope you’re enjoying autumn.  My favorite season, you know…

Stay frosty,

John