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

Howdy…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So, okay… I’m outa here for now.

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

Meantime, stay frosty.

John

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

Howdy…

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

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

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

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

… and why they care about getting there.

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

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

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

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

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

“Goal Setting 101 And
The January 15th Letter”

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

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

Or should be.

It’s all in the telling.

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

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

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

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

The depths of winter and discontent.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That shit can wear you down.

Now, I have two things to say about this:

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

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

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

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

And what you’re going through is not abnormal.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Maybe you’re one of ‘em.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How does that work? Easy.

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

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

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

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

And eagerly court the Unknown by starting another project.

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

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

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

But worth a Shakespearean suicide?

No way.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And it’s a damn hard one to make.

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

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

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

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

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

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

And because it’s hard, it’s avoided.

Well, screw that.

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

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

And that brings us to…

Thing Numero Dos: Goals are all about change.

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

Or “get rich”.

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

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

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

And my question to them is: What reputation?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It’s a huge deal-killer.

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

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

Money, as they say, talks.

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

You can’t bank criticism.

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

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

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

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

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

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

You need a plan.

You need goals.

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

It was a wake-up call for me.

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

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

1. Decide what you want.

2. Write it down, and be specific.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So I crossed them out, and forgot about them.

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

I’m stunned. This is powerful voodoo here.

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

The keys are action. Movement.

Ask, seek, knock.

These simple actions will change your life forever.

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

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

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

Half of that would suffice just fine.

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

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

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

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

Right now, they aren’t that guy.

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

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

Tough choice?

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

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

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

My trick to setting goals is very simple:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yet, I still had my best year ever.

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

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

Now, it’s on power-glide.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You have enormous control over your future.

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

Stay frosty,

John

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

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

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

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

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

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

Meanwhile, get busy with your January 15th letter.

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

Howdy…

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

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

Care-free losers, if you need a label.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Just not the same things those smug elitists lusted after.

Because what I craved most of all… was time.

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

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

Silly me.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yep. I was the shallow one.

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

Older, maybe wiser, certainly more experienced now…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

… but it’s still true.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And maybe that’s true for you.

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

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

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

Ruminating.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

… is, for me, a wondrous thing.

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

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

Don’t have anything to ruminate about?

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

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

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

You can get what you want.

The thing is…

… WHY do you want it?

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

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

This all takes rumination.

Think about it.

Stay frosty,

John

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

Howdy…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cuz it’s an art form.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And on and on.

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

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

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

I like to say that good salesmen lead better lives…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(a) Actually desire a goal…

(b) Plan for achieving it… and…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You go.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh, I got plans.

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

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

Here’s my advice:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

… DO IT.

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

Ground Rule #7: You go, girl.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stay frosty,

John

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

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

Howdy…

What’s the matter, Bunky?

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

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

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

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

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

The difference was simply how they handled stress.

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

No.  What mattered was how they dealt with it.

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

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

So, basically, forget about avoiding it.

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

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

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

There’s a plan for ya.

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

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

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

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

… but you know what?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Still, how you do that has a little flexibility.

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

Not every day.  Not every week.

Every once in a while.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So get healthy, which gives you some breathing room.

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

Which brings us to…

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

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

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

Shudder.

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

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

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

You wanna bust Mr. Stress in the chops?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now…

… go do something else.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Do you doubt this can work?

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

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

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

Finally…

Stress-Murdering Tactic #3: Change things around.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And so on.

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

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

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

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

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

Choose your poison.

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

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

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

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

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

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

But you CAN murder him when he arrives.

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

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

So, have at it in the comments already.

What’s your stress-busting tip?

Stay frosty,

John

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

Monday, 9:27pm
Reno, NV
“Oops, I did it again…”  (Britney, God love her…)

Howdy…

I’m on a roll here, grabbing criminally-ignored posts from the blog archives…

… and re-posting them prominently, so you criminally ignore them no longer.  With a few minor edits, of course, tailoring the prose to fit today’s quirky needs for advice.  (Hey, you don’t fit into your old high school jeans anymore, either, you know.)

Here, we have another dangerously-tasty post from not too long ago… which, I believe, requires no explanation other than to say it’s some serious insight into the writer’s brain.

You do NOT want to venture into this quagmire without a guide.  Which is what I’ve written here — a short “guide to the writer’s mind”.

Not exactly a hot Disneyland ride, but if you’re in business it’s some wicked-valuable info.

So, indulge, and enjoy (if you dare):

I’m gonna need your feedback on this.

See, I’ve always been a wave or two out of the mainstream… and that’s actually helped me be a better business dude, because this outsider status forces me to pay extra attention to what’s going on (so I can understand who I’m writing my ads to).

This extra focus means I’ve never taken anything for granted — especially not those weird emotional/rational triggers firing off in a prospect’s head while I’m wooing him on a sale.

And trust me on this: Most folks out there truly have some WEIRD shit going on in their heads, most of the time.

It can get spooky, climbing into the psyche of your market.

Still, though, it is, ultimately, exquisite fun. This gig as a professional writer — figuring out how to get people’s attention, influencing decisions that will change their lives in profound ways, and weaving stories and glory out of blank pages — can be more invigorating than leaping off Half Dome with a tiny parachute.

I’m sure you don’t believe me. Few do on this matter.

But the raw truth is… good copywriters work in the deep grooves of Real Life, where it’s strange and dangerous and… well, fun.

At the next seminar you go to, check out the bar in the hotel. You’ll find the best writers in a gaggle near the back of the room, rolling on the floor and holding their bellies from laughing so hard.

What’s so funny?  Everything.

Writers are like M*A*S*H doctors on the front lines — so deep in the mire of human existence, they need to laugh to keep from going mad. Because the world is one batshit-crazy joint…

… and they are neck-deep in it, getting up-close-and-personal with the insane stuff that decent folks try their best to ignore.

To an observer’s eyes, writers can seem irrepairably neurotic. And share a tear for the spouse:  For both the male and female of the species “Writer Erectus”, it takes a super-smart, confident, and wry partner to keep a relationship going. There’s no such thing as “settling into a rut” when half the marriage is a writer.

You better have the chops to deal with serious “wild and crazy” intellectual (and, sometimes, physical) acrobatics.  It might help to think about writers as being semi-tame monkeys, itching to revert to chandelier-swinging at the slightest provocation.

Except, of course, for those uncomfortably looooooong periods where the writer is staring off into space, or so transfixed by the Word document in front of him that you almost want to check for a pulse to make sure he hasn’t left the corporeal realm entirely.

From deep good fun, to deep near-comatose thinking.

It’s a roller coaster, trying to befriend, live or work with one.

Which may be why writers seldom get any respect.

Which also may be why most of my closest friends and confidants… are also writers. We “get” each other.

We don’t have to explain why we consider writing so much… fun.

Even when it’s painful.

Like I said… we’re weird. Not in step with the rest of the world.

And yet… we MUST connect with the rest of the world, to be able to write sales copy. So we become amateur shrinks, rookie hypnotists, gluttons for inside info… and world-class students of human behavior.

Normal people can’t be bothered with observing other humans closely. Too much trouble, and it’s hard, anyway.

Better to just adopt a convenient world view — “us” and “them” — and be done with it. Be a little loving, a little hating, do business, mow the lawn and take your kids to church. Hope for the best, fear the unexpected, kill all messengers with bad tidings.

Writers, however, will shrivel and die when forced to be “normal”.

Screw that. We read what we like (even if it’s nasty and especially if it’s prohibited)… we think bizarro thoughts that would bring normal people to their knees in horror… we sing out loud and fall hopelessly in love… and we don’t notice the sun setting — we observe the dappled thunderheads huddled over frozen mountains, swallowing the blazing orb hungrily, giddy for the starry onrush of night.

So, yeah. Fun, with life, with words, with living as deep and fearlessly as possible… if the gig wasn’t rife with these things, most of us would be doing something else.

And money?

Well, for most of history, scribes were slaves. Then (big upgrade) they were groveling servants of the ruling class — never equal, never respected much.

Then — when the novel appeared in the early 19th century — a funny thing happened: Writers started earning money for their efforts.

And, sometimes, the wealth accumulated. Mark Twain was a rich and respected world-traveler. Charles Dickens, Oscar Wilde, and Alexander Dumas used their notoriety as story-crafters to rise above their normal “station” in life.

By the time direct response advertising became a thriving industry (early twentieth century), the utter importance of writers made them minor rock stars among advertisers.

Now, with the global reach of the Web, a guy who learns to write well — to communicate, persuade, and close the deal — will have to struggle NOT be have piles of money thrown his way.

And yet…

… and yet, as my friend Rich Schefren observed in a recent chat: “John, it’s ironic that you — the guy who helped so many of us get our start in marketing and using words to sell — seem perpetually trapped in what is viewed as the most UN-SEXY part of the business world.”

And he’s right.

I hate him for pointing it out… but he’s right.

It’s probably part of the appeal that keeps me in the game. I thrive on being an “outsider”. I get itchy whenever I’m too “accepted”, or feel myself slipping into the mainstream. Don’t like it. Will do something anti-social to break rapport, and stir shit up.

If my slovenly little corner of the biz world ever truly became “sexy” enough to gain total mainstream acceptance, in fact… my head would implode.

And bats would fly out, and little tiny monsters would scrabble from the steaming wreck of my neck, where just a wee dangling smidgen of ape-brain was left, snarling and spitting…

Professional ad writing is not sexy.  (With all due exceptions for Don Draper in “Mad Men”.)

It’s not raiding pension funds for profit… it’s not gaming the stock market for windfalls… it’s not gory entertainment like cage fighting… and it’s not sexy like the “magic” of launches and social networking scams and posting funny YouTube shit is sexy.

The irony kills me, every day.

In Hollywood, moguls gnash their teeth and directors consult astrologers while investors shovel money at box-office-boosting stars in a never-ending attempt to make their movies “huge hits”.

They do everything, in fact, except respect the ONE thing that truly matters: The fucking script.

You know — what the WRITERS produce.

Same with business. I teach freelancers to walk into a client’s office and OWN the situation. Charge a gazillion bucks (payable immediately), and make the client like it. Set cushy deadlines that please you, order folks around, and generally run things like an asshole.

Why? Because you’ve got to smack clients upside the head like that — and sometimes BE an asshole — to get the respect you require to do a good job.

Because while your skills at writing are the FOUNDATION of success in every single project out there… most clients refuse to admit it.

This hard-core “own the joint” attitude is 180-degrees opposite of how most freelancers go about dealing with clients. They crawl into a new client’s office on their knees, begging to be hurt and whipped and abused. They accept “vendor” status, and get paid on 60-day invoices. They allow their best stuff to be trampled and rewritten and shat on by lesser mortals… because they’re closer to the old slave scribes than to the Web millionaires using copy to get rich.

You want sexy?

How about having fun and making money.

You know — like the folks who bother to learn the deep, dark art of viciously-effective copywriting.

Okay, I know there are lots of members of the opposite sex who realize how super-bad-thexy writers truly are. Most of the writers I know aren’t widely appreciated in the biological pool, but within certain groups they are lust-candy. To a certain part of the population, brains being used for bad behavior… just so we have a good story to write about later… is the sexiest thing going.

But in the broader scheme of things, writers are always going to be outcasts.

Which brings me back to that table in the back of the bar at the seminar.

Who cares about respect, when you get to hang out with the smartest, funniest, most interesting folks in the room all the time?

I like the money that arrives from knowing how to write. I love the fun that comes with seeing the world differently than almost everyone else.

And I’ll just continue to be ironically pleased with a sexiness that only I and a few others seem to see.

It’s a very secret club. You earn admission only by embracing the craft, and being demanding of yourself in getting really, really good.

For those of us in the back of the room, it’s the ONLY club worth being in. We’d belong even if the money wasn’t stupid-huge.

To the writers out there: Can I get some testimony? How do you guys experience the frustration of not being understood, of working alone so much of the time, of owning a brain that goes to amazing places other people can’t even dream about?

I know that none of you would give up your hard-won chops as a writer, not for all the money in the world. We hold all the true power in life, and in the culture.  Pen mightier than the sword and all that.

And in business, too — it’s the writer who makes the magic happen.

Still, what do you guys think? Am I being too dramatic here? Not dramatic enough?

Love to hear from y’all…

Stay frosty,

John

P.S. Two last thoughts:

Thought #1. As always, if you crave knowing what writers know about the world and about business…

… just click here to see what’s available through the Simple Writing System.  That’s your first step — get the inside scoop, and learn the basics of quickly becoming the best writer you’re capable of becoming.  (Plus the sneaky advanced-yet-simple stuff filling this system that can make you ridiculously-good, in case you decide to go pro).

That’s your ticket to the club, so to speak.

Thought #2. And if you’re already a pro writer, stay tuned…

… cuz we’re gonna revamp the infamous “Freelance Manual” soon.  Which is all about the specifics of living the good life as a freelance copywriter:  Finding and managing clients… getting paid the big bucks… and grabbing your seat at the head of the Feast Of Life, where the adventures are fast and furious.

It’ll all be available soon.  Hang tight…

Tuesday, 2:32pm
Reno, NV
“And you may ask yourself, where does that highway go?” (Talking Heads)

Howdy.

Quickie post today…

… on a very important topic.

You hear me nattering about “Operation MoneySuck” all the time.  And some folks are confused about what it means.

So let’s do a refresher.

Here’s the story: Early in my career, I was hired by advertising legend Gary Halbert to help him write ads for clients.  The first day I arrived at his offices on Sunset Blvd (in West Hollywood), we were scheduled to slam out copy and plot “next moves” with some current clients.

However, just as my butt hit the chair across from his desk, two (count ‘em, two) secretaries AND his red-headed girlfriend (notorious for getting her way) burst in with bad news.

Lots of bad news, in fact.  The printer had just broken down, and shit needed to get copied NOW.  Some guy was ranting and raving on Line 2, threatening legal action over something.  The landlord was on the way up in the elevator, because there was a problem with the lease.  The bank was on Line 1, and so on.

These women were shaking with panic and consternation, freaked out by the urgent crisis-level emergencies that…

… HAD…

… to be dealt with…

…NOW!

I sighed, and started to gather my stuff, ready to split until Gary had attended to all of this mayhem.

Instead, he held up his hand… shushed everyone… and gently ushered the secretaries AND his red-headed girlfriend (notorious for getting her way) out the door…

… and locked it.

Returning to his desk, he picked up a pen and said “Okay, let’s get busy.”

I was stunned.  What… what… wait a minute… what about all that…

“Operation MoneySuck,” he said, rifling through his Rolodex for the number of a client we needed to call.  ”Screw all that irrelevant stuff.  We’re gonna bring in the bucks.”

And we did. For the next several hours, we finished ads, nailed down deals, and consulted with clients.

When we finally opened the door again, all was calm outside.  Line 1 and Line 2 were quiet, the landlord was gone, the printer chattering happily and kicking out dot-matrix copies.  (It was a while back, folks.)

All the “emergencies” had been taken care of, without us.

And we had put in a solid session of writing and wrangling with clients.  Which generated income, new business, and a good deal of killer brainstorming.

The lesson of Operatin MoneySuck couldn’t have been clearer.

It’s this: If you are the person in charge of bringing in the money, then that is your Number One job — to bring in the money.  It’s also your Number Two job, your Number Three job, and so on.

More: ALL problems are “emergencies”, in one way or another.  They’re a show-stopper to some, an ulcer-inducing nightmare for others.

However, if your job is to bring in the moolah… and an hour of you doing that can generate, say, a thousand bucks in fees or sales…

… then, when you scurry over to start looking at the printer when it snarls up…

… that means you’re paying someone (you) a thousand bucks an hour to read the manual and pull out jammed paper with uncoiled paperclips.

While NO ONE is picking up your job of bringing home any bacon.  So you lose twice.  Net loss of two thousand smackeroo’s per hour.  (Plus, you’ll most likely just fuck up the printer and have to go buy a new one anyway.  What are office printers running nowadays?  $150?)

The importance of this attitude kept getting nailed home for me as I noticed how many entrepreneurs and biz owners routinely took their eye off the ball… trying to “save” a few bucks by doing everything themselves.

And, at the same time, I noticed that the really successful dudes had personal assistants, secretaries, and grunt labor at their beck-and-call to do all the “small shit” (as Halbert called it).  Which guaranteed that their lives bopped along smoothly (with dishes washed, dry cleaning picked up, bills paid, fridge stuffed, landlords mollified, and so on)…

… and ALL of their main energies went into doing what they did best:  Create wealth.

So that’s Operation MoneySuck.  For me, it’s a code-word for my colleagues (and my brain) that means we’re gonna focus on the raw green core of business right now.  And nothing else.

You are free to interpret it however you like… as long as, when you’re done, you’ve made serious progress toward your goals of feeding the financial monkey in your life.  Yes, the emergencies in your life need to be tended to.  And you need to pay attention to your health, the rent, your Significant Other’s needs, family obligations, and all the nagging details of being a fine upstanding member of modern civilization.

But you BEGIN with a solid understanding of what your JOB is in life.

Make sense?

Get clear… and be specific… on what it is, exactly, you do that causes cash to be delivered into your bank account.  In this “2.0″ modern world, you may need to include some things that are, say, one step removed from the actual act of converting a customer.  If you have an online biz, for example, then writing the sales message is critical to make sales happen.

However, generating traffic (if you haven’t got any) is a precursor to hauling prospects in front of your wonderful sales pitch.  So all the things you may need to do right now to divert leads into your world becomes Operation MoneySuck.  Including hiring someone to do it for you.  Or hiring someone to find someone to do it for you.

Radical example: This attitude of “get it done”, at the highest professional levels, is something awesome to behold.  Let’s say you’re a copywriter, and you have a deadline tomorrow morning at 8am for something you need to write tonight.  And you drop your laptop in the toilet at 1am… so it’s not just dead, but it’s Ugly Dead.  All files flushed, gone, not backed up.

What do you do?

Less focused folks would punt.  Call the client early, apologize profusely, and try to negotiate more time.

Not the “real” pro.  He would immediately figure out his options.  Borrow a computer, even if it means calling an old girlfriend (who hates your guts).  Steal one.  Call up pawn shops, all-night stores, anywhere that might have a working computer.

BUT… he would only spend a short time on this side project.  As soon as bribing, begging, theft and shopping were ruled out…

… he would pick up a pen, pencil or crayon, and start writing (using notebooks, napkins, paper towels, anything that worked).  And FINISH the writing part of the gig.  Grab a 20-minute nap, proof-read the scribbling… and be waiting at the most logical place to score a way to get it into a Word document the moment that place was open: The city library, Susie’s apartment, Best Buy, a hotel business center.

So he could finish the rest of what was required to meet his deadline.

So he would get paid.

That’s Operation MoneySuck.  Give that man a round of applause.  That’s a pro.

And yes, I’ve done (more or less) versions of this kind of insane meet-the-deadline-no-matter-what behavior throughout my career.  Because I’ve been the guy whose job it was to bring home the moolah.

If this kind of dedication, determination and raw discipline is not in your toolkit right now… it can be.  You start by committing to a goal.  And you move forward from there.

You really can astonish yourself with your ability to do things that — yesterday — you would have routinely regarded as “impossible”…

… but you can’t get there by dreaming about it.  You may even need guidance, from a mentor or coach to watch your back as you establish your private beach-head in the world of professionalism.

Lemme tell you, though…

… once you get a taste of living life with this kind of verve, awareness and Zen-warrior “get it done” mojo… you will feel and be more alive than you ever believed possible.

And that’s why successful entrepreneurs sometimes seem so cocky.  It’s because they’ve experienced Operation MoneySuck (whether they call it that or not)…

… and it rocked their world.

I dunno… are you buying all this?  It’s all the dead-solid truth… but I know that most people recoil in horror at the thought of going after a goal like a pitbull after a squirrel.  (Pure lethal focus.)

I learned the methods of living this way slowly… because I had to pull myself out of the Slacker Mire, with little guidance or advice.  So when I realized what Halbert was doing in that long-ago office on Sunset Blvd, I grasped that lesson close to my heart and kept it there until it became a part of me.

It’s worth it.

Love to hear what you think, in the comments.

Stay frosty,

John

P.S. If you’re looking for a little guidance yourself, here’s a good place to start:  CarltonCoaching.com.  That’s our brand new site explaining all the ways you can score private coaching from me, plus mastermind opportunities and access to our stunning new membership area (crammed with resources that will make your quest for wealth, fame and happiness as easy as going down a greased slide).

Click here to find out more.

P.P.S. There is a fresh story brewing about the Action Seminar (just 10 days away now, in San Diego).

If you crave the company of other hard-core “live with gusto” success-junkies, you need to see the new (and VERY intriguing) way you can now be there with us.  No matter what your situation is.

Just click to see what’s up.

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…

Howdy.

By the time you read this, I’ll be back home in Reno… a better man for having spent a week in San Francisco.

Even though it was all business, I still get invigorated just from hanging out in that city by the bay.  It’s one of the few things California did right (though they’re working hard at ruining it).  (Bastards.)

And while I was gone, the last blog post went freaking bonkers.  Nearly 200 comment posts (most of them well-thought-out and elegantly delivered, too).  (With the occasional funny disruptor, of course.  It wouldn’t be a good Quiz without a big healthy dose of irreverence.)

So, a big “thanks” once again to Robert Gibson (SWS veteran teacher and all-around good dude) for being ring-leader while I was off.

And congratulations to the winner.  Who we’ll announce here in a second.

First, though, let’s clarify what the answer is.

The question was: What’s the 4th big observation about money that changed my life so dramatically… that an avalanche of good stuff followed (including the phat opportunities to work with Gary Halbert)?

Now, let me remind you that this is MY observation.  This is not a hard-and-fast law of nature, like gravity or death and taxes.  It’s what I discovered, and followed through on, early in my career…

… that changed the way I moved through the world at a cellular level.

There were a ton of good answers in the last post, a smattering of nonsense, and a lot of pure guesswork…

… but, as I said, everyone essentially won just by firing up the cognitive process in your brain.  We don’t spend enough time in critical thinking mode.  Giving those muscles a work-out is ALWAYS a good thing.

The answer was, indeed, scoring what I called “Screw You Money” (in one of the several get-your-act-together chapters in “Kick-Ass Copywriting Secrets of a Marketing Rebel”)…

… which is also known as “Fuck You Money” in harsher circles.

Someone even quoted the exact passage from KACS, which I found startling.  I get ripped off a lot, but being actually quoted like that doesn’t happen very often.  Makes me feel all fluttery and embarrassed.

And, of course, the correct answer was nailed in the first flurry of incoming posts.  And multiple folks got it right throughout the threads.

This gives me hope.

Now, a few things must be explained here for the people unfamiliar with the concept.

First, don’t get sidetracked by the harsh language. The concept comes from savvy veterans in the front-line trenches of business… especially salesmen working on commission and entrepreneur-freelancers working without a net.  These dudes know how to turn a memorable phrase.  (And any opportunity to insert filthy shock-words is a big bonus.)

However, the “screw you” part is NOT about being an asshole, or running around with a tough-guy attitude.

It’s quite the opposite, in fact.

By putting aside enough money to take the pressure off having to score an immediate paycheck…

… you simply become more confident…

… and more CHOOSY about who you work with.

When you’re starving, or absolutely depending on that next payday to make the rent, your options are limited.  You will take a job you might turn down in better circumstances…

… or get involved with someone you might otherwise stay away from.

However, when you have a stash set aside to cover your butt, then your options explode.

And, when appropriate, you can say “Best of luck to ya” to any potential gig that rubs you the wrong way… and happily traipse off to go see what else the universe has in the way of adventure.

Tip: While you may imagine it would be joyful to actually say “Go fuck off” to someone who has insulted you, or who is too slimy to work with…

… the truth is that — once you feel real confidence in your life — you never have to utter those words.

It is MUCH more satisfying to rise above petty insults, and to simply say “No”… and move on with your life.

In fact, this subtle, non-aggressive attitude often carries MORE oomph than you can imagine.  Many of the too-rude-to-live psychopaths you’ll encounter in your career got into the business world because they crave power.

And, for most of the folks they deal with, money equals power.

By having the real confidence of being able to turn down a bad biz gig (because you really don’t need the bastard’s money)…

… you take away ALL of his power.

He won’t believe you’re walking away from a payday, and if you’re lucky you’ll get to see him sputter and clutch his evil heart as he struggles to avoid fainting.  Nobody walks away from money.  It’s an outrage.  It’s… it’s…

… it’s turning the world upside down.

And, as you calmly stroll away (never letting the door hit you in the butt), you have the double-treat of enjoying his impotent rage…

… as well as savoring REAL freedom.

You don’t need his money.  You don’t need the grief of that job.  You are (as much as a human can be) in charge of writing the script of your life’s adventure.

No one else — including the government — will give you a safety net anywhere near as powerful as knowing you’ve earned a stash, which is set aside to watch your back.

There are few “rules” to getting this Screw You Money together:

Rule #1: You gotta earn it first.  Which means, if you’re now living paycheck-to-paycheck, you need to start setting aside 20% of everything you make.  I don’t care how much you’re pulling down… if you spend it all, you’re an idiot.  You’re guaranteeing yourself financial slavery.

Learn to save.

Rule #2: The amount you put in this stash is up to you.  I recommend at least 6 months of your nut as a starter amount — so, if you never earned another penny, this dough would cover all the expenses to continue living as you live now.

(Side note: If forced to tap into your stash, you also know you could back off living high on the hog, and stretch it out longer.)

The amount you need is individual, however.  Lots of folks get nervous about a 6-month cushion, and require a deeper safety net.  That’s fine — figure out what you need to feel confident enough to walk away from a bad but well-paid situation and not freak out.

That’s your Screw You Money.

Rule #3: This is where people get confused.

This stash is NOT a savings account.  It’s not a rainy day fund.  It’s not “mad money”.

It is a REAL TOOL for a serious professional.  When you consider the “ammo” you want in your bag of tricks for a great career, confidence is a nuclear bomb.

You “win” when you never touch your Screw You Money. You want to die, peacefully in a comfy bed (with whatever other details you want involved in your Happy Ending), and be able to whisper the location of your stash to your heir, who will be the first person to access it since you put it together.

Got that?  You can’t think of this stash as “money”.  That will confuse you, and you’ll obsess on it…

… and spend it on some “emergency”.

This isn’t money.  It’s a tool.  It’s the support system for your professional confidence.

Don’t put it into investments.  Don’t put it somewhere you can easily access after a few beers (and the inevitable “great idea” that always seems to occur in a bar, late at night).

Figure out where it needs to go hide, so you half forget about it (but still know where it is).

Then go live your life with gusto, and earn so much and have so much fun that you never have to even consider dipping into your Screw You stash.

Live bold, and confident.

Here’s how this tactic affected me: I worked hard, in the first years of my career, to claw my way into the tight little list of writers working with the largest mailers on the planet (like Rodale, Phillips, Agora, etc).

I was climbing the hierarchy with a bullet, and enjoying the ride…

… but I knew there were other adventures out there, too, in biz.

When Gary Halbert started his newsletter back in the mid-80s, I knew I had to pursue a relationship with the dude.  I weaseled my way into the edges of his biz, and liked what I experienced.

With the large mailers, the money was huge…

… but the markets were limited to health and finance.  I was getting bored.

With Halbert, the money was a roller coaster ride (from zero to vast fortunes)…

… and the client base was totally entrepreneurial.  A never-ending adventure filled with whacky people, novel-worthy story-lines, and always The Unexpected.

It could get scary, but never boring.

So I walked away from a gig with the big mailers that was on track to bring in millions…

… and hitched a ride on a new life in the entrepreneur’s lane, with no guarantee at all where we were headed or what was about to happen.

It was one of the easiest decisions I’ve ever made.

And knowing I had my stash set aside made it a no-brainer.  There was zero fear that I was putting my life-style at risk (even though I was taking a HUGE career risk).

It was excellent use of the kind of confidence that comes from Screw You Money.  And I didn’t have to say “Screw you” to anyone.

I just pursued something that sent surges of excitement, exhilaration, and adventure through my veins.

I have no idea how you, or anyone else, will use this tool.

It may never make a big difference for you.

Still, the bed-rock confidence of having it will influence your decisions, big and small.

Especially since most people will never understand this level of confidence, or have a clue how to attain it.

Make sense?

Good.

The winner is the 4th one to comment (Robert made sure I recognized this).  Eric Transue.

Other posters came real close, but Eric nailed it.

Again, great job to everyone who chimed in.

My over-worked assistant, Diane, will be getting in touch with you, Eric, about delivering your prize.

That was fun, wasn’t it.  We’ll have to do it again soon.  I love giving away prizes, when they’re well-earned.

Hope your summer’s going well.

Stay frosty,

John