Sunday, 9:08pm
Reno, NV
“Hit me.  Hit me again.  Again.  Arrrgh…” (Blackjack dude going down…)

Howdy.

One of the truly fun parts of being in business are the Life Lessons you get to learn.

Or, rather, you’re forced to learn (if you don’t want to spend your career blundering down the same blind alleys time after time).

Early on, I took notice of the various quirks people exhibited running a business… especially the entrepreneurs, who were unencumbered with the rule books that franchise owners and traditional corporations worked under.

Now, you’ll see startling examples of strangeness in any group of humans, doing anything, anywhere.  So the first lesson is probably to acknowledge that reality…

… and stop pretending we’re a race of logical, rational, functional beings going about the business of running a civilization efficiently and sanely.

We’re not.

And savvy, experienced biz veterans survive by learning to work within the limitations that come with dealing with other humans.

It’s actually one of the more fun parts of entering the biz world, once you get a handle on the basics of how spectacularly humans can screw something up.

Don’t get me wrong — I love people.  But I love them in spite of their near-consistent tendencies to botch things completely.  (I’m by no means above the fray).  (No one is.  Scratch the surface of the most “together” person you now, and you’ll find evidence of shocking weirdness.)

The reason little insights like these are so awesome, is that they can help you stay balanced… especially as deals go down and projects catch fire.

Some of the better lessons are cliches… but you’ve got to remember that they ARE cliches because they’re on-target (even though they may seem counter-intuitive).

For example, just yesterday I got to re-learn a fundamental lesson I’ve had to re-learn over and over again through the years:  No Good Deed Goes Unpunished.

Especially in business.  When you bend over backwards to help someone out… do not be surprised to have your selfless actions come back to bite you in the butt.

(In this latest episode, I over-delivered like crazy during a consultation with a rookie marketer… and just piled on the excellent advice, even dictating the exact copy he should use on his website.  Results: He asked for a refund for the consultation.  Just couldn’t fit all that primo advice into his newbie brain.)

(It’s like the old joke:  A woman approaches a firefighter who is drenched, shivering and huddled in a blanket.  “Are you the man who jumped into the freezing river to save my little boy when he fell through the ice?” she asks.  He nods.  And she says “Well, where are his mittens?”)

Another nugget: When you’re dealing with a client or potential biz associate…

… and he says “Money is no problem“…

… then you may rest assured that money is VERY much a problem.

In fact, every single time I’ve heard this comment uttered in my direction, it has been an omen of financial chaos to come. (And I’ve been doing this for decades now.)

To an experienced shrink (or an experienced cop), this is barely shrug-worthy, as far as revelations about human behaviors go.

Heck, ANY definitive statement offered by someone during a conversation with money on the line…

… elevates it to standard “mirror image” doubt.  (Fair warning given to freelancers, consultants, potential affiliates, people on the dating scene, and anyone making a bet: Take absolutely nothing said at face value in any conversation concerning moolah…

… and it’s a good starting point to consider the very real possibility that the opposite is true.)

People fudge the numbers in almost every instance when their ego or self-image is in play.  When discussing income with Players, you can pretty much cut any initial number offered up by the other guy in half, right off the top.  (When discussing past sexual partners — so I’ve been told — you can divide what a guy says by 3, and multiply what a woman says by 3.  Is this true?)

None of this means you get to run around yelling “GOTCHA!” at people, and challenging them on fiscal data (or intimate scorecards).

Not at all.

Rather, like a good poker player, you just keep your own math and your own insights safely inside your head…

… and do what you can to verify.  (That was a clever Bill Clinton phrase: “Trust, but verify“.)  (And he was talking about nuclear weapons treaties, I believe, not sexual dalliances.)  (It’s still a great operative phrase when you’re in a situation where you need to trust the other guy at least a bit in order to move ahead with the deal.)

Ah, poker.

Here’s the big insight I just re-realized while watching The World Series of Poker (which got me going on this blog post in the first place):

I love poker.  First, it’s a game of chance with multiple layers of skill, and that appeals to me.  Second, there’s a HUGE amount of psychology to the higher levels of play…

… and that fascinates me.

Third: Like many things, poker is a sweet little drama that mimics life in general.

Winners and losers… hopes and dreams (both the crushed and realized types)… risks and rewards and dangers and traps… the glory and the agony behind every shuffle.

And not all of the insights are subtle, either.

In fact, the most FUN stuff is way up there with Shakespearean tragedy.

In the opening sessions of the 2010 WSP (on ESPN, and thanks, Chad, for keeping it interesting), we have been treated to SEVERAL of the so-called “best players in the world” getting bitch-slapped by Lady Luck.

It’s worth stalking the reruns to see how this plays out in real time.

And just like the wise dudes long ago noted, “pride goeth before a fall”.

You see these poker stars start out cocky (as well they should be, since they are the best in the world, and the rest of their tablemates are mere mortals).

Then they get rueful, as the losses mount… but they don’t panic.  Yet.

Instead, they double-down on their cockiness…

… and slip ever-so-gently into what card players call “Full Tilt”.

Often within a very short period of time, the cockiness is replaced by a seething rage…

… rage at the other players, at the universe, at the cards, at everything within reach.

And once in the damp, nightmarish embrace of a Full Tilt, they go completely bonkers. And start betting wildly and inappropriately, acting much like King Canute ordering the waves to stop breaking on the shore (good luck with that, Kingie)…

… actually challenging the cards to go against Everything Good And Right (which includes them, because they are the best in the world), which of course the cards would never do, right, because, really, the only fair and correct outcome here is for me, the Recognized Poker Hero, to overcome the odds that afflict lesser peasants and win, win, win…

It’s great theater watching the Full Tilt boogie in action.

Big ending, usually, too, with tears, the thrashings of now-impotent rage (cuz all their chips are gone), and that loooooooooong walk across the floor (with ESPN tailing you) to the Loser’s Exit.

The first time I saw this in a poker tournament, I instantly realized how RELEVANT the entire Full Tilt menu was to business.  And politics.  And even interpersonal relationships.

The one big certainty that the “best” at anything tend to forget… is that when you’re still playing, you’re only as good as your last action.

The best copywriters, entrepreneurs, marketers, affiliates, launch managers, deal makers and heart-breakers in the world…

… can, and do, fail on occasion.  There are no guarantees in life, ever…

… and resting on your laurels is probably the WORST “action plan” you could have going into a project.

The most vicious humiliation I’ve ever witnessed was hearing a legendary marketer reduced to explaining to people how good he was… despite the little disaster he’d just engineered with his lazy cockiness and refusal to perform the due diligence required of the job.

NOBODY gets rewarded in this world because of “who” you are.

Nope.  Right up until that last shuffle before lights-out, you are only as good as the way you play the game in front of you.

Veterans talk so much about self-awareness — and a general Zen-like attitude to dealing with life — because it’s the only defense against going on Full Tilt you’ve got.

Those pokers players do it, every year, like clockwork, on TV during the biggest games of their careers…

… because they’re only human.

And it is our nature, as humans, to fly off the tracks under stress.

However, it is NOT your “destiny” to go on Full Tilt.  It is one of many options we can choose to take.

It’s just that, unless you understand yourself on a deep level, you won’t realize you HAVE a choice when the weirdness descends and your brain goes “boing, boing, boing“.

Pay attention.  Learn your chops, get good at what you do, and soak up everything you can from the grizzled guys with experience.

And heed their warnings.

Cuz the next dance on your card may be one nasty little boogie.

I dunno.  What do YOU think?

(And isn’t that just the cutest damn photo up top you’ve ever seen?  Get it?  Dogs playing Texas Hold ‘Em poker with milk bones?  Staying in on a 2-7 against a blossoming royal?

Man, it was tough getting the little darlin’ to pose for that one…)

Stay frosty,

John

P.S. Just a reminder, too… that I’m speaking at James Schramko’s spectacular Web-focused seminar down in Sydney, Australia, in a few weeks.

I’m recommending you check it out, even if you have no intention of flying to Oz to catch the fiesta.  Click here for more info:

Your Excellent Australian Adventure

Schrak still has lots of awesome free videos up on that site (including a sizzling interview with me) on the truly essential secrets of making a biz work online these days.  (Cuz, you know the entire marketing scene has been going through earthquake-level changes for months now… and will continue to mutate until the ONLY way to really make the Web produce for you will be through the resources you discover now, during this period of adjustment.)

And if you can make it, do it.

The best resources you ever have will be the network you develop with like-minded entrepreneurs… especially those who are adept at making the fundamentals work (so you’re never dependent on gimmicks or fads or schemes where you’re a slave to anyone else).

That’s why I’m headed down under.  I had zero hesitation when Schrak asked me to attend.  This is the good stuff.

Just check it out.  There’s no obligation or anything.

Howdy…

You got a favorite TV show?

I was a charter member of the first TV-addicted generation, and I may yet live to see the end of network television as we’ve all known and loved it all these seasons.

The Web’s already killed it for the youngest generations. Once the last of the Boomers wander off, we’ll take our fond memories of Howdy Doody and The Twilight Zone with us… and no one will much care, being too busy with fourteen incoming Twittering IMs on their ear/eye implants and a fresh scene loading up from the new Grand Theft Auto XXVII they just injected straight into their pituitary gland.

Sometimes I think about that — television, easily the most culture-shaping technology advance in the history of mankind… eclipsed before it reached seventy years old… murdered by hotter, more intensely interactive tech. (Okay — I know that television was actually viable in the 1920s, but get real. It wasn’t a cultural phenomenon until the fifties.)

But that’s not what I want to write about tonight.

Naw.

Instead, something else triggered my interest. We just watched the season-ending episode of “House”, which had everyone in the room reaching for tear-soaked tissues (including the cat, who was barely watching).

And, if you’ll give me a minute here, I’m gonna tie that show in with you making money with your ads. (VERY major lesson coming up, so pay attention.)

First, though, you gotta put up with some ranting: Television, overall, has followed the same arc that — in micro — the show Saturday Night Live has followed: Great for a couple of years… suck for several years… recover, and be great again… then quickly descend into Suckdom once more… and over and over, in a cycle that (someday) historians will probably be able to track down to the second. (“As we can clearly see, class, the show left the rails thirteen minutes into the first episode after Lorne Michaels left in season five… you can almost — chuckle – see it jumping the shark as Louise-Dreyfus sputters in yet another vapid, unfunny scene…”)

And I believe we’re currently in one of the recurring “up” bumps. Always good when you realize there are actually a couple of shows on that DESERVE to be watched. Not brain-dead watching, but active interest watching.

What do you Tivo?

We religiously record House, 30 Rock, The Office (though I suspect the shark is in mid-air on that one), and Manchester United games on Fox Sports. (Okay, Michele won’t watch soccer with me, and I can’t stomach Brothers And Sisters with her. Trade off.)

I love the medium, but I don’t “need” it. I grew up watching all the sixties sit-com, sci-fi, drama and kitsch I could cram into an evening (The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Addams Family, Outer Limits, The Prisoner, The Avengers, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., American Bandstand, She-Bang, Soupy Sales, Phil Silvers, Ed Sullivan, Gilligan’s Island, Star Trek, The Monkees… God, I’m embarrassed to admit all that…).

But I watched, primarialy, because it was there. Mom had the kitchen radio on all day (it’s how I discovered rock and roll), and the boob tube was cranked on when Pop came home, and wasn’t turned off until beddy-bye. (Laugh-In, Red Skelton, Where The Action Is, Your Show of Shows, The Match Game…)

Once I was old enough to beg Pop for the car keys, my evening rituals changed dramatically. I didn’t even own a TV through the seventies. (Never saw a single episode of Mork & Mindy, Mary Tyler Moore, or Three’s Company, thank you very much.) (One of TV’s “down” cycles, I would say.) (Showed up, often drunk, at friends’ houses with toobs for SNL, of course.)

MTV and cable brought me back to the fold, fitfully.

Now, I’m in a groove once again.

Gotta have my “House”, and the occasional Law & Order SVU. (BTW: Why is Rooney not playing for Man U lately? Did he get hurt? Traded? What’s up? He wasn’t in the Moscow grueler…)

Okay, back to the point of all this:

The last episodes (it was a twin-hour ending show) of House were pretty riveting television. I’m ALWAYS impressed with good writing (Boston Legal, CSI: NY, the commentors on the World Series of Poker, Californication)… and I’ve learned to watch both passively (to enjoy the moment)…

… and to go back over what just hooked me, and watch critically.

I like to break down exactly what the writers did to tweak my emotions, my interest, and ESPECIALLY my resistance to being sucked into the story.

That’s right. With every show, I challenge the writing to do its job.

We have an unwritten rule in the house: Any time either of us can start predicting the dialog before the actors speak it… that show is toast.

The shark has done jumped, when the script is so weak you can burble along with the actors in real time.

So here’s the thing…

… this House final episode (WARNING: Spoiler alert!) polished off one of the major characters. That’s not unique in television… but the way the writers did it defied what any viewer would have predicted.

It was as if… the script burned down the house.

Just created all kinds of emotional havoc and brain-tickling mayhem.

It was that riveting, and satisfying.

I can’t wait for next season. Seriously.

I’m pissed I gotta wait.

I’m addicted.

Consider what the writers did, as you consider how to write compelling, riveting copy yourself.

Sometimes, you gotta burn down the house just to get your prospect’s attention.

Not literally, of course (“you idiot”, House would add).

Figuratively.

Most ad copy is like an episode of Three’s Company — at best, vaguely suggestive, but nothing you’d remember the next day (or even the next hour).

Great copy, on the other hand, is like South Park — you simply cannot snooze through it.

You gotta be prepared for the reaction, too, if you ever get ballsy with your writing. Not everyone will cheer you on. “He can’t say that, can he?” will be a common response.

“Somebody’s got to do something about that repulsive material.”

“Can’t we shoot them, or deport them, or something?”

I’ve never gone for straight outrage, but neither were my first golf ads greeted with encouragement at the big golf magazines. They swallowed hard during the first round, took the money, and pretended not to notice how much those 3-page copy-dense beasts fouled up the pretty “look” of their publications.

When my client went back for multiple insertions, it was almost too much to bear.

Fortunately, the publishers were shameless money-grubbing whores, and the ads ran despite the cries of alarm from readers. (But only from readers outside our target market. The guys we were after LOVED those ads.) (Still do.)

We, essentially, burned down the nice golf house, like vandals in a riot.

Something to think about, the next time you absolutely have to get attention for your copy. Don’t you think?

What TV shows do you remember fondly? (I’d watch MTV for hours in the first years, when it was all video, all the time… and I still consider The Larry Sanders Show to be one of the best ever written. Entourage ain’t bad, though it’s occasionally infuriatingly stupid. The Simpsons, yeah. Seinfeld, I guess. What else am I missing here?)

Stay frosty,

John Carlton

P.S. Hey — we just put another super-hot Radio Rant Coaching Club show in the can. I cannot understand why any marketer with his head screwed on straight isn’t breaking a leg to get into this club — it’s fun, it’s informative up the yin-yang, and it’s without doubt the greatest single resource for marketers available today.

Check it out. I believe we still offer a free month’s trial, with no obligation to stay when the trial’s up. (Yep — you can rip us off.) Plus, since you get access to all the current shows still posted, it’s actually like getting 2 free months. (Again, no obligation to stay, ever.)

Here’s the link:

http://www.carltoncoaching.com

Later…

And most of my friends, by the time they arrive, are visibly hungry for an evening spent in degenerate splendor, throwing their money away. The more gritty the casino, the better, too.

I had an old friend come up for Superbowl weekend with his son, and we decided to watch the slopfest in the dirtiest, darkest, and most out-of-control sports book in town.

Gosh, it was fun.

Hot dog and a Heineken, two bucks. It’s like they were daring us to become slurring gluttons.

Anyway, at some point during the long afternoon — boring game, really, after the flurry of first quarter excitement — I wandered by the poker tables and stopped to watch.

I played a lot of poker in college, back when losing a four-dollar pot meant having to write a chit for later payment of your debt, cuz we were all basically broke. I learned a ton about the mechanics of the game, because I was trying like hell to win (the alternative meaning I might have to eat Top Ramen for the rest of the week).

And several of the guys who hosted the floating games went on to become pro gamblers of one type or another… so we were playing hard-core games (none of that “baseball” crap with thirty wild cards). I never learned the odds the way my math-oriented friends did… but I may have had a small edge in understanding human behavior.

You know — the “science” of tells and quirks.

Anyway, after college I went on to other bad habits, and never sought out another floating poker game. I tried my hand at a “real” game in a casino just once… and was promptly reminded of the old maxim: “If you look around the table and can’t tell who the sucker is… then you’re the sucker.”

The other players at that “real” game never even glanced up at me, and my full house — an astonishing hand to be dealt in a simple 5-card draw game — was beat by a better full house. This defied the odds so outrageously that I realized I was in way over my head, and I slunk away after that one hand, never to play again.

Still… sometimes I watch the action at a casino, and I get that old yearning for the thrill of not knowing what your opponent is holding.

In many fascinating ways, poker reflects life. That’s why it’s lasted so long as a popular — though thoroughly unwholesome — pasttime.

Watching that Texas Hold-Em game unwind last weekend, I was reminded of the two-pronged rule I learned from the better players I’d been up against in college.

It’s a simple rule, too. A good card player will either know…

1. Your “tell”…

2. Or your weakness.

You won’t even realize you’re being studied, either. Most rookie players have a tell — a tick, or a way of shifting in your seat, or a faint smile or frown that is like a red flag to an experienced player, announcing the contents of your hand.

On a slightly deeper psychological level, most players also have weaknesses. Maybe it’s as obvious as a taste for bourbon — which the host is happy to supply too much of — or maybe it’s more subtle, like a tendency to become distracted by long stories.

In my quest to survive those cutthroat poker games — because you had to play to win, and playing meant risking it all on a frequent basis — I learned to spot the guys looking for my tell, and purposely engaged in a disinformation campaign that, on a good night, allowed me one or two opportunities to suck him in with false tells when I suspected I had the better hand.

They hate that, getting beat at their own game.

The nurturing of weaknesses, though, was mostly over my head. I understood the concept, but after you get past the obvious stuff, like getting your opponent drunk or distracted, you sort of have to engage in some real sociopathic behavior, and I never had the stomach for it.

I always wanted to win, but I could accept losing, too. Part of life. Winning all the time would be boring, like playing against children.

But I’ve never forgotten how good some of those guys were at working on your weakness. If you had an anger problem, they would needle it mercilessly. If you’d just gone through a bad relationship spell, they had a juicy piece of disturbing gossip to nail you with at just the right time. If you were especially light in the wallet that night, they would feed on that vulnerability.

It’s painful to be on the receiving end, but damn it’s interesting to watch.

A disturbing number of people bring their poker chops into the business world. I say “disturbing” because, in my view, it’s good business to practice win-win as much as possible. But after you’ve been around the block a few times, you realize there are folks out there who aren’t happy with winning… unless someone else also loses.

Zero sum game, just like poker. I win, you lose.

Free market poker, so to speak. Vicious. Law of the jungle… like when there’s a drought, and suvival of the fittest goes into overdrive.

Anyway, it’s a good thing to remember, when you’re in negotiations over a matter. The other guy may be studying you for tells — ticks that reveal your decision-making process. (Certainly, car salesmen do this.)

It’s very hard to suddenly control yourself, too, if you’ve never practiced. Trying to be steely-eyed and “blank” almost never works. The good poker player can spot an eyelash quivering.

Easy way to blunt his advantage (at least for a while): Throw out false tells. Scratch your ear three successive times while agreeing with him, and if you’ve fooled him, you’ll have that one advantage in your bag of tricks for later. If you want him to think you’re agreeing, but you’re not, just scratch your ear.

The next move is yours, at that point, instead of his. It can be as dramatic as capturing his queen in a chess game.

Of course, once he catches on — and he will — you’ll be hard-pressed to fool him again.

But you will have that one opportunity to score big.

The weakness thing requires more practice. And I don’t like getting to that point, anyway — if any project I’m in comes down to that kind of deep psychological warfare, screw it.

I’ll go find a win-win situation elsewhere.

I think most people agree with me — game-playing in business is just bad vibes all the way around. Decent, well-meaning guys can win in today’s global economy, and do. We’re not in an economic “drought”, so you don’t really need to haul out the jungle tactics.

That’s why we have poker — a contained game where all is fair, and let the best (and most devious) man win.

You know, I sorta miss that old college floating game. Not the opportunity to dominate an opponent and take the pot… but the intensity of the learning curve, and the gut-check urgency of each dealt hand while I desperately tried to figure out the profiles of my opponents.

Those lessons, learned early, came in handy often throughout my career. That’s why I pass them on now.

Don’t be that sucker at the table. Just knowing that, sometimes, you’re gonna be up against the practiced sociopath can keep you from getting taken.

Stay frosty,

John Carlton
www.marketingrebel.com