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 my now globally-notorious big damn rant on the subject. This was one of the more popular posts I’ve written, so it deserves an annual rediscovery.

So, without further ado… here’s the third redux of that 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 Great Depression (offering us Nixon’s wage-freeze, record unemployment, an oil embargo, and 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 pre-Web 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 get to defend the OPPOSITE viewpoint that you currently hold for any subject. This forces you to look beyond your petty biases, and 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 brainwashed 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, if you’re so inclined…)

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, during their formative years.

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 folks who are successful at achieving goals were not born with the necessary attitude.

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 applaud 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 it. 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 nonsense 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 counter-productive — you had a bad experience once when you were 12, and so what? Get over it, put on your Big Boy or Big Girls 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 step 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 go 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 “The Prof” Carlton

Tuesday, 3:39pm
Reno, NV
“Well, you’re sitting back, in your rose-pink cadillac…” (Stones, “Dead Flowers”)

Howdy…

I’ve been going through shoeboxes stuffed with old photos, discovering treasure right and left.

Hard to believe some of this stuff is decades past, but since I’m forever being asked what it was like working so closely with Gary Halbert for so many years, I thought you might get a kick out of some virtual album-viewing.

This month, April, is the fifth anniversary of Gary’s exit from this mortal coil. He remains dearly missed, and the great work he accomplished in his career still reverberates loudly among entrepreneurs (including those who only learned about him long after he split).

I was just hosting our Platinum Mastermind group, in San Francisco, this past weekend… and damned if Gary’s teachings and stories didn’t pop up in the interplay frequently and with shocking relevance. His effect on the marketing world was profound. I am one lucky, happy bastard to have spent so much quality time with him as co-conspirator, partner and close friend.

In fact, I’m staring at my phone right now, knowing that if he was still alive, he’d be calling right about now. To chew over some absurd matter in life, to share business gossip, to discuss a book, to float new project ideas, to rip into life with gusto again and again and love every freakin’ second of it.

The teachings of Gary will endure. There are precious few videos out there with him, but that’s all right — his audios, which are plentiful, are like experiencing him in your brain, and I recommend them. His sons, Bondo and Kevin, are doing an amazing job keeping Gary’s prolific writings available (and relevant).

Still, you kinda had to be there in the room with him to get the full brunt of his personality. He was truly a force of nature, unique, powerful and unwilling to settle for anything less than spectacular in his dealings with the universe.

Anyway, if you haven’t read my post “For Gary” yet (which I wrote in the hours after learning of his unexpected, untimely passing) go here.

You’ll find multiple other postings related to the dude all over the blog archives, too. All free, of course.

But today, I’m just gonna share a few photos I’ve dug up, and maybe a related story or two.

Gone, but never forgotten, pal.

Photo #1: Up top, with Gary leaning against his car.

Okay, so I’ve been told it’s coral pink, not rose pink. (Remember, I’m red-green color blind.) And it’s a Rolls, not a Caddy.

Still, Gary loved the Rolling Stones (and the quote I open with, above)… believing himself to be the advertising world’s embodiment of Mick Jagger. And he was, too. I tried to teach him how to play guitar a couple of times (at his insistence), but what he really wanted was for it to be 1964 again… so he could form a rock band and rule the world.

We never trashed hotel rooms… but we did tour the country, and worked our stages with panache and boldness and a rock-and-roll attitude that shocked our audiences. Until, that is, Gary’s unique marketing advice broke through (thanks to the stunning results he insisted on compiling, in spite of the naysayers who wanted to keep business boring)…

… after which, it really did become a kind of road show. (See the Circus Halbert poster, below.) Each day was an unpredictable stew of surprises and horrors and gut-busting fun.

Favorite Memory: Gary bought that Rolls in Los Angeles, for his girlfriend. The big secret was that used Rolls Royces were actually pretty cheap — the folks who drove them mostly wanted only new ones. Still, it was a fancy freakin’ automobile, with all these vulnerable parts to it, and Gary was loathe to ever drive it.

One day, up in the Hollywood Hills, we had to get somewhere, and he decided I was gonna drive the Rolls — again, officially his girlfriend’s car. So we got in, and I tried to quickly familiarize myself with the cockpit. Looked straightforward enough, until I let off the parking brake before turning on the ignition. In a Rolls, the brakes don’t work if the car ain’t running.

Seriously. No foot brakes. The car was parked on a steep hill, and we instantly started rolling backwards, picking up speed.

Oh, wait, did I mention that the STEERING doesn’t work, either, with the engine off?

In a second, we were careening downhill, backwards, with no control. About to go off-road.

Gary and I looked at each other and screamed in unison. Doing the 3 Stooges proud.

The car slammed into the hillside and stopped. We got out and surveyed the damage — not much, it looked like. We decided to never, never tell the girlfriend. Pinky swear. I started the car (having figured out the idiosyncrasies of the damned thing) and we headed toward our meeting.

A block later, a Mercedes tailed up close behind and began honking, so I pulled over. It was David Caradine (“Grasshopper”), who had noticed our tailpipe was stuffed with dirt. Probably would have caused the engine to blow up. He got down on his knees and yanked out clumps until it was clean, then stood, smiled, and got back in his Mercedes, job well done.

I looked at Gary. “That was weird, right?”

“In a Rolls, we’re just part of the Hollywood Tribe,” he said, and we continued on our adventure.

Career Lesson: You really should try to know what the hell you’re doing before embarking on a project. However, faced with an obvious lack of knowledge and simultaneously causing real damage… at least get a good story out of it. (And no, I never drove the Rolls again, my choice.)

Photo #2: Gary at his Big Desk in the 9000 building on Sunset Blvd, with girlfriend…

I love this photo. It was a peak moment, soon after I joined his operation as a writer and co-hort. Clients were bribing us to take them on (and we had so many offers, we were turning down even stupid-lucrative projects with a shrug)… Gary had a stable home life in the Hollywood Hills and a great office with a great view… plus his newly-acquired boat, The Sea Hunt, was anchored nearby in Marina Del Mar…

… and I was having so much fun and adventure, I resented having to sleep at night to recharge. There was so much happening, so much to learn and profit from and laugh about, that you just never wanted it to stop. And it didn’t, for a very long and happy stretch.

We actually were a pretty tight advertising team, Gary and I. The now-infamous term “Operation MoneySuck” was coined to define Gary’s habit of closing the door of his office — locking the assistants and secretaries outside to deal with the small-shit problems (like the landlord making a fuss, the printer crashing, emergency calls flooding in, etc) — so we could concentrate on closing clients, plotting campaigns, and finishing copy.

You know — the activity that brings in the moolah.

Still… no one would ever confuse our offices with a “normal” ad agency. Gary had a peculiar quirk: He actually functioned better amidst chaos, than when things were calm. Wrote some of his best ads by hand in airports, putting off boarding til the last second. Liked to spread absurdly-false rumors to the staff moments before starting a seminar, so everyone was running around anxious, with tensions flaring (until we got hip to his scheme). He hated relaxed situations. Just hated them.

Favorite Memory: Once, while road-dogging around the Keys (definition: Goofing off), we swung by the office to “see how things were going.”

The place was humming like a well-oiled machine. Phones getting answered, files being filed, stuff gettin’ done. So Gary got busy screwing it all up. By the time we left, five minutes later, there were papers fluttering through the air, ignored phones ringing angrily, a chair knocked over with a crash, and everyone running around like the joint was on fire, with hair out of place and files spilling from their arms.

I swear that Gary never touched anything. He just gave some conflicting instructions, whispered something in a secretary’s ear that instantly set her off, and capriciously changed the deadline for some upcoming project. It was like introducing a herd of bison onto a smoothly flowing freeway — immediate chaos.

And we went back to our road-dogging, Gary smugly happy about another job well done.

Career Lesson: After a year as Gary’s sidekick, I dubbed his operation “Circus Halbert”, and commissioned this poster from an artist friend (Mark Landstrom) for Gary’s birthday. Because, like a real circus, what looked like barely-tethered madness was actually a well-tested method of getting stuff done. (The poster now proudly hangs in Bond’s home.)

I’d been toiling for “real” agencies and the largest direct mailers in the world until then… and I realized that getting actual results (like winning packages, and bloated profits) had nothing whatsoever to do with how well-run the office was. Or how close you operated to a protocol that made accountants and Vice Presidents happy.

We were a small rebel band, solving problems as we went, far ahead of the main column and into territory that freaked out everyone else. It’s not an environment that just anyone can thrive in — you gotta have real entrepreneur blood in your veins, and a taste for risk that brings other men to their knees. Plus: A huge sense of humor about the whole thing.

Don’t sweat the small shit. And don’t allow “common sense” to overwhelm your instincts, once you’re proven to yourself that your gut has been trained to be right more often than not.

Photo #4: Trying to film the madness.

Yeah, yeah, we look like a bad late-80s Hair Band… but I swear to you this was all normal at the time.

Hey, go check out your own photos from 1990, if you were around then. Goofy glasses, gnarly haircuts (with perms galore), and zero sense of style.

Yep. We had to work our coolness with no tools. It was raw, and to my mind better: Nowadays, you can fake being hip by buying the right clothes and paying close attention to minute-by-minute style changes… and not have a shred of substance. Why you’d do that, I cannot fathom, but it’s pretty rampant in the culture.

Here, we have Mr Cool himself, the great Dan Kennedy… who had organized an infomercial centered on Gary, shot on this Key West wharf and in a Phoenix studio. Using my boyhood baseball hero, Dodger flame-thrower Don Drysdale (rotation-mate of Sandy Koufax, probably the best pitcher the game has ever seen) as the celebrity interviewer. (That’s him on the far left.)

I’m there to cause trouble (and keep Gary on track). His girlfriend did the girlfriend thang, keeping it from descending into a Boy’s Club.

Sadly, the infomerical never scored as a big hit. Dan did a great job, but it was a doomed experiment to try selling serious biz advice and advertising tactics to drunken late-night TV viewers. Didn’t work. Damn, it was fun making it, though.

Favorite Memory: Gary and I actually wrote some of the very first infomercials in the late 80s… when a client discovered he could book late-night spots on cable for nothing — literally nothing, it was FREE broadcast time because the stations didn’t believe anyone could sell anything at 2am, ever — and summoned us down to a local LA studio where he scored scrap time with cameras and sets. The dude got filthy rich before the cable TV world wised up and realized the bonanza that was late-night programming.

He really had the whole process nailed down: Cheapest studio time available, whatever set was laying around, zero production values (like lighting, make-up, or rehearsals). If he had secured an hour on, say, the BET network that night, then he shot exactly one hour’s worth of a show. No editing. Warts and all, that thing went live.

There wasn’t much writing for me to do, either. Mr. Infomerical had found some inventor who had a product (I don’t even remember what it was) that might sell on late-night TV. So I sat the inventor down and interviewed him for notes, looking for hooks and ways to position the thing as “must have”. Then I gave the notes to Mr. Info… who never bothered to introduce himself to the inventor before the cameras started rolling. The first minutes of tape had Mr Info chattering away like a used car salesman, while the inventor looked around asking “Are we filming already?”

At the hour mark, bang, “Cut!”, Mr. Info walks away to get the film in the can and sent to BET… while the next inventor is brought into the studio looking like dazed prey, and I set about grilling him for talking points. The infomerical would run that night (again, for free)… and if the phone bank in Utah lit up with orders, it ran again. If it bombed, it was tossed, and the next show filmed that afternoon ran in the following spot.

It was a ruthless assembly line, yet with almost no overhead. Mr. Info had figured out the game completely, and made a mint before the secret leaked out to competitors, who promptly introduced the current era of “real” informercials (which, last time I checked, required six figures in production costs and media buys before you even knew if you had a winner or a bomb).

Career Lesson: Everyone agrees that the early days of Internet marketing were like the Wild West — few rules, lots of opportunity, the entire game being created as we went.

Every detail of the way you now market online had to be invented, and the early years of this century are going to be the subject of books, movies and lore forever. Those of us doing the inventing were just clearing a path to get where we needed to go: A viable, safe place where good ol’ capitalism could thrive online.

However, us old-timers knew the bigger secret: EVERY marketplace in history starts out like the Wild West, and follows a similar path to acceptance and viability. It all comes down to fundamental salesmanship and street-level psychology… plus a few copywriting chops, when you’re ready to go after bigger markets.

My career spanned the re-emergence of direct response direct mail (which had gone largely dormant in the 70s), the invasion of the infomercial, the rise of toll-free and reverse-toll (900) phone numbers, the biggest self-publishing boom since Guttenberg inked his first sheet, and the explosion of the Web. (And Gary’s career went even further back, to pre-computerized mailing and the hey-day of print ads.)

And yet, it’s all just different vehicles for a killer sales message. The fundamentals do the heavy lifting, always and forever.

Photo #5: Preparing to prowl and howl at the moon…

Gary and me in his Key West hovel, just before he moved to Miami Beach. Gary left Los Angeles (shortly after we met) because he claimed it didn’t have enough truly sunny days. The guy needed massive quantities of Vitamin D from the sun, and got surly when denied his fix… so he researched the places available boasting the most sunshine, and promptly moved there.

Personally, I despised being a “local” in the Keys. Fun for a day or two, but grinding after a week or more. Hot, humid as hell, populated by drunks, reeked of sulphur, hot, humid, hot and hot year-round. I like my high desert multiple seasons, thanks.

But we had us some times down there, yes we did. He never stayed anywhere very long, though — went from the North Hollywood Hills semi-mansion, to the famous Bahia Mar hotel in Fort Lauderdale, to a trashy compound on Vaca Key (and then a bitchin’ little house on the marina next to his boat), to an entire two-story heritage building in Key West, to multiple apartments in Miami. Working his way north, south and elsewhere.

Favorite Memory: On our first visit to Key West, we docked late and headed out to the tourist area (foolishly) to find a hotel. We made his son Bond sleep on the boat.

But the island was all booked up, even at the usurious rates they charged. Finally, we stumbled across an old hotel on Duvall Street that not only had rooms available, but was absurdly cheap. Like, $14 for the night. So Gary and I each snagged a room, and went back out to cause some trouble downtown.

What we hadn’t noticed — and the signs were obvious — was the hotel we’d picked was so cheap because the rooms usually rented out by the hour. The primarily gay clientele checked in, partied, and left all night long. The plumbing didn’t even work (a dead cockroach fell out of the showerhead when I tried to turn it on). And there were no locks on the doors.

At two a.m., exhausted from travel and carousing, we barricaded the doors of our rooms and tried to catch at least a few z’s while the hotel remained as busy and loud as a prison riot.

Bond was the only one who got any sleep that night, peacefully rocked into slumber by gentle waves. And he never, never let us forget how we thought we’d snookered him into staying on the boat.

Career Lesson: You can get too cocky trusting your snap decision-making process — it’s a trap for all successful entrepreneurs, and the consequences can be brutal. I’ve seen many a biz owner hit it big, and believe his success was all based on his personal mojo and mysterious ability to just be a great marketer right out of the blocks.

And it just ain’t so. You tend to forget the hard work that brought you your early successes (just like women forget about the pain of childbirth, I’ve been told)… and your memory gets warped by your Ego. Your goddamned Ego, which needs to be strangled daily and locked away somewhere safe in your brain… or it will create constant havoc with your ability to make good decisions.

Personally, all of my failures in business and in life are the grist of my best stories. As long as we lived through it (or most of us did), there’s a story to be told. And within that story lies a lesson that may or may not have been learned.

The key to a long, full and successful life is to recognize this, and embrace it, and keep learning.

Also: Learn to laugh at yourself. We’re all Bozo’s on this bus, essentially slap-sticking our way through the universe, shaved apes believing we’re actually noble creatures bending Life to our will.

Ha.

Just, ha.

Photo #6: On the Sea Hunt, heading to paradise.

Gary loved boats and scuba, and was elated to have located one of the original Jeffries dive boats created for the early 60s TV series “Sea Hunt” (which starred Lloyd Bridges as a scuba diver, which is funny because Lloyd hated the ocean and never went underwater for any of the episodes… or so I’ve heard. Good story, anyway.).

I knew a little about small cabin cruisers, because my Pop had ordered one from Sears back in the fifties (seriously — you could even buy pre-fab houses from Sears back then), which arrived in a series of boxes that he had to construct. Had one Mercury outboard engine, a cabin that slept two comfortably, and was the coolest playhouse I had as a kid. He got rid of it before I hit my teens, though, so my memories were a little weak…

… but I seemed to recall that wooden boats were a bitch to maintain. Fiberglass was much more efficient.

But Gary wanted the mojo of that ancient Jeffries, and he had it shipped to Florida when he moved there about a year after I joined his operation. I refused to move, so I became bi-coastal (racking up 100,000 miles on Pan Am very quickly).

On the first trip there, Gary decided his son Bond (then still in high school) and I needed to learn how to scuba dive… so we took the course offered at the Bahia Mar hotel in Ft. Lauderdale. The idea being that we’d get certified, then truck on down to Key West and dive the underwater National Park there (a coral reef). Many stories stem from this simple beginning (including having a former British Special Forces drunk as our teacher, who took us for a wreck dive on our first deep-ocean qualifying dive in the Atlantic, against all PADI regulations) (it was super-cool, though).

This photo is on the Sea Hunt, of Bond and his Pop, cruising down the interstate waterway on our maiden voyage.

Favorite Memory: I’m sitting here laughing, just trying to pick a single memory I can write about here. That damn boat and I have a long, long history together, and I’ve got stories about it that serve as anecdotal evidence both of Gary’s genius and his capacity for creating pandemonium.

Soon after this shot was snapped, though, Gary decided to take a nap… and handed the controls over to me. I, who had never steered a boat before (and certainly not one with crossed-up rudders like the Sea Hunt) (which later explained many of the frequent accidents and collisions with piers and other boats). I did my best, but once we hit an area littered with crab-traps, I was toast. I promptly snagged a buoy rope, which wound around the prop and left us stranded in the water.

Damn it. I put on my mask, and went under to see if I could unwind the rope. Very shallow water, very choppy, with the boat going up and down five feet or more… and I was almost instantly conked by the hull and knocked unconscious for a moment. I awoke floating in seaweed, with Bond pulling me aboard. Bond grabbed a knife and went back under, managing to cut the rope and free us, and off we rumbled again toward the middle Keys.

The boat had failed in its first attempt to murder me.

Career Lesson: The key to long-lasting success… especially when you’re moving fast, and risking mucho while stumbling along doing your thang in strange waters… is to have trustworthy pals watching your back. Cuz we all do stumble, yes we do…

Photo #7: Hot Seat action.

Here’s a scene from one of those infamous $7,000-to-get-in Hot Seat seminars in Key West. (This might have been the time the tropical storm hit and flooded the town — and hotel — and cut the power… which left the entire audience with nothing to do on Day Two except wander downtown and get roaring drunk on Duval Street. They claimed it was the best seminar ever…)

That’s A-List writer David Deutsch behind Gary (who, from the way he’s standing, is deep into either his famous “sorting mail over a trash can” speech, or his biz-op tale involving rutting porcupines).

Favorite Memory: My main job at these events was to be Gary’s straight man — I was on-stage the whole time, keeping track of what was going on, prodding him with tips, and (most importantly) trying to make him spit up coffee laughing.

We were merciless with each other, and held faux-grudges (keeping score on who had the most recent “win” at making the other look silly). As I’ve said, Gary liked operating within chaos, and I did my best to keep things unhinged.

At this event, there was a long, serious spell where some attendee was droning on and on about their marketing woes… and as I scribbled notes, I leaned over to Gary and mentioned that — if you scrunched down and leaned over a bit — you could look up the dress of the woman in the third row.

Delivered, of course, just as Gary was sipping coffee. He managed to keep it down, but was so distracted during the ensuing Hot Seat — twisting his body and dropping the mic so he could lean down to get it, all in ways that had the audience wondering what the hell was going on — that I nearly lost it stifling my laughter.

It was almost better than the time Gary dropped his pants in front of the Mormon audience at a Utah seminar (to prove he wasn’t wearing women’s underwear, as I had publicly accused him of earlier in the event). Ah, but that’s another story…

Career Lesson: Life’s a grind when you take everything too seriously. You need to find that balance where you can have fun, while accomplishing a lot. You’re no good to anybody if you burn out.

Gary lived life with gusto and a sense of awe. Every freakin’ day was an adventure, both good and bad. (Also both screamingly funny and heartbreakingly sorrowful. That’s life.)

Okay, that’s all for now.

If you guys like this kind of trip down Memory Lane, maybe I’ll do another post like it. I’ve got more photos I’ve found. In fact, here’s one last one.

This is one of my favorites. It’s at Gary Bencivenga’s amazing seminar in New York. Though I’d actually worked with Gary B before (writing bonus reports for him in the 80s), I’d never met him. What a treat.

Joe Polish, Gary, Gary B and I posed for a shot at the after-hours party, and Joe had it matted and framed (and then gave it to me). Gary B liked the shot a lot — he dubbed it “The Four Amigo’s”.

I’ll end by saying I wish all of you the same kind of rollicking, ass-kicking life I’ve enjoyed. The way to achieve it isn’t hard, and there are no obstacles that can hold you back that others have not already faced and defeated.

You just need to get after it, and learn your lessons.

Gary remains such an important part of so many people’s lives because he was a role model. Not one you’d want your kids to emulate, particularly — he could make hash of his personal life, and did so regularly.

But he did it with grace, and humor, and a deep love for life and his fellow humans. What he did well, he did brilliantly. And what he did wrong, he did with enthusiasm and the sincere hope that things would work out eventually.

We’ve all got to come to terms with our own peculiar vulnerabilities and blunders and dark needs… and how we do that defines who we are. Nobody’s perfect, and most of us are shit-weasels struggling to get a handle on the game. (Gary referred to himself as The Head Shitweasel, by the way.)

This was fun. I’m still chewing over that decades-long adventure with Gary, which ended too soon. I hope you enjoyed me sharing some of it with you.

Stay frosty,

John

P.S. This is good.

Just had a long chat with Bond and Kevin, Gary’s sons. I hope they climb into the comments section here to add, rebuff, or expand on these stories.

Meanwhile, if you’re jonesing for more Gary, Kevin has slapped up a special page with a screaming deal on The Brainstorm Tapes here… exclusive for you and other readers of this blog post.

I’m on the tapes — it’s a session we did before holding the first big seminar (“The Seminar Of The Century”, at the Century Plaza in LA, which featured Jay Abraham, Joe Sugarman, Michael “E-Myth” Gerber, and a circus-worth of other stars). You can hear Gary honing his chops, telling many of the stories that later became well-known staples in his events.

No one had figured out how to do real Hot Seats yet, either — we finally nailed it during that later seminar. Here, we relied on tried-and-true “brainstorming” to solve business problems.

It’s powerful stuff. If — as I have been teaching folks for decades now — you understand how critical the fundamentals of great salesmanship are to becoming mega-successful…

… then you’ll want to grab these tapes immediately. (Just as all the top writers devour old books like “Scientific Advertising” and “Think And Grow Rich”, so too are these tapes an amazing treasure trove of timeless wisdom and mojo.)

Kevin, as a gesture of good will to blog readers here, also added a special bonus.

It’s a smokin’ deal, again exclusive and special only for blog readers.

Go here to check it out, if you’re so inclined.

Saturday, 2:21pm
Reno, NV
“Well, do ya, punk?” (Clint Eastwood, “Dirty Harry”)

Howdy.

What’s Lady Luck done for you lately?

Humans have a strange relationship with Luck. Rome conquered the known world, yet firmly believed in a goddess named Fortuna who ruled over their fates. More modern successful folks than you can count consider luck to be a con-game. “I make my own luck,” is a common refrain… and yet these same smug studs often indulge in stark superstitious behavior.

I imagine more than a few folks have earned a PhD or two going deep into the concept of luck. Is it a random thing in the universe (like snake-eyes rolling exactly when you call it)…

… or part of a pre-determined script you’re just playing out (so of course the dice came up ones — it was part of your life’s plot-line)?

Or is it something much more mysterious and powerful?

You’re really got to settle this for yourself, I learned… because it’s in your wiring, and can affect the trajectory of your life.

However, if you look for advice from others about luck, or research it in any direction… it’s just a bottomless pit. You’ll find hard-core physicists talking about luckily stumbling upon some discovery they could easily have overlooked…

… and starry-eyed romantics believing that Fate brought them love when, actually, it was all part of a well-planned seduction. (Richard Feynman, Nobel Prize winning fizzy, had a beatnik’s appreciation of the mystical side of life… and I think it was Cary Grant who notoriously won the swooning love of a major — and majorly reluctant — actress by staging a mugging, so he could “save” her… which triggered her “White Knight” adoration pump. And he never told her it was all a set-up.)

It’s a very dangerous concept, too. I’ve seen obsessions with Luck ruin people, who believed they were swamped with the “bad” version of it and just gave up. And I’ve seen the positive side of it propel others to riches and fame, because they believed they were Lucky and had the confidence to match.

This is on my mind, because I’ve been ruminating lately on the turning points in my long career. Deconstructing how the big breaks happened, and how I ended up where I am. I’m tempted to say I’ve been a very, very lucky boy…

… except that, once you break it down and examine the details, every single big break happened through proactive movement on my part.

It may have looked like Luck from the outside, but there was a shitload of preparation, skill-building, and high-alert observation that preceded every level-jump I enjoyed.

And yet, I’m also very aware that things could have easily turned out completely differently. A second thought on a decision here, a hesitation there, an overlooked opportunity or frozen-by-fear moment of inaction there…

… and I have a hard time imagining what kind of life I’m leading now. I might be a warehouse manager in San Berdoo, or a dirt-poor wannabe writer in Sacramento pouring cappuccino at a dive coffee bar, or struggling cartoonist in Portland, or…

… I shudder to think about just how bad it could have been. Especially since the multiple game-changing events that started when I was sleeping on friends’ couches, broke and hopeless…

… were all fragile moments of fleeting decision-points.

I remember a story some guy once told me: In a big city, he hailed a taxi… but before he climbed in, a beautiful woman asked him if she could take it instead. Gallantly, he let her have the cab.  She hesitated, settling in the back seat, and asked him if he wanted to share the ride uptown. “No,” he said. “I’m headed downtown.” The cab took off… then stopped, as she rolled down the window to say one more thing: “You know, you will never know what might have happened if you’d taken me up on that offer.”

And the cab pulled away, leaving him with a Big Damn Question that would haunt him for the rest of his days.

I also had a friend who skipped going to a Jimi Hendrix concert, even though he had a ticket, because something important came up. To this day, he cannot remember what was so damned important… but he very much remembers missing seeing Jimi play live, because the great man died soon after. Perhaps this is a trivial example, but it touches on the larger point.

These stories remain swimming in my mind, after so many others fade away, because they remind me of the constant possibility for adventure and plot changes in our lives.

I’m appalled when I meet folks who are bored with life. Are you fucking kidding me? Bored? We’re a race of brainy, built-to-endure loonies on a spinning orb in the middle of a vast universe…

… with absolutely nothing or no one holding the power to control what you do next. Sure, there are laws, steel bars, fences and scowling mates (plus your own sense of decency and fear) abounding everywhere…

… and for most, the decisions to survive, to go along to get along, to take the easier path, to avoid rocking the boat… all makes perfect sense. And if you succeed too much at this, yeah, you can find yourself bored and wondering what the hell happened to your life. You’re too nice and safe and warm and free of dangerous excitement.

No shame in living that way, of course. Unless it eats at you. (That would be the first clue that you have entrepreneurial blood in your veins, you know.)

The folks who seem to exert actual control over their lives can be scary. I’m reading Steve Jobs biography, and the dude was worth $100mil in his twenties, and almost blew it all with his half-crazed need to keep pushing the envelope. He was driven. He took risks… big ones, that often ended in disaster. He eventually nailed down his place as a Hall of Fame super-success story… but it wasn’t a smooth ride.

This is why I urge all entrepreneurs to read lots and lots of biographies. You need to understand the process that great people put to use in their lives of adventure… grabbing opportunity, losing many times over, always having Achilles heel-type deficiencies that creates chaos in personal relationships, and never, ever, ever arriving at their moments of glory by an easy route. Some seek out greatness, others have it thrust on them…

… and most just seem to have been guided by something akin to Luck, being in the right place at the right time, and succeeding where others had failed just a short time before or after.

The thing is… you’ve got to come to terms with how you perceive your ability to spot opportunity, to deal with the thin air in the higher levels of adventure swirling just out of reach right now, and to understand exactly why your “Luck” is either going in a good direction or a bad one.

The tales below may or may not help you out. As trivial as they seem, they represent major shifts in the way I confronted the possibilities of life and career. This is personal shit here. I wouldn’t be sharing it, if I didn’t think it might help some dude out there struggling with the same issues (or missing some big break because of a twitchy, unnecessary fear).

Here’re the 3 turning points I experienced that helped me come to terms with Lady Luck:

Feelin’ Lucky Point #1: I played organized baseball until I was 16. Superstition is rife among athletes… as it tends to be in any group where competition is brutal, and losers suffer humiliation while winners enjoy endorphin dumps and wild euphoria.

And you’re faced with constant challenges to your physical skills, your mental state, even your notion of who you are and what worth you provide to the planet.

It’s even worse when you’re a shortstop. I clutched at the barest minimal skills required for the position, holding the job on my Colt League team by my fingernails. The majority of infield grounders and line drives came my way, and I was often the first guy to get dirty each game by diving for balls just out of easy range.

In the sandlot, baseball is fun. (My favorite game of all-time is over-the-line, two on two. I played this well into my twenties, after work, with games that went on until the darkness forced us to quit.)

Under the lights of a real ball park, in full uniform, with announcers and crowded stands and a real scoreboard…

… not so much fun.

I felt out of control… and became convinced that Luck played a huge role for me in every game. And I developed the most bizarre superstitious behavior imaginable.

It went far beyond not stepping on the lime chalk lines heading on and off the field. I had my rabbit’s foot, I had my belt clasp very precise on the left side, I pounded my glove exactly three times as I settled into my spot before each pitch…

… which was all fine. The catcher pounded his cup, the first baseman spat on the bag, and the center fielder shook himself like a wet dog… all before the next pitch. Routines. We all needed a little Luck on our side, with so much chaos impending with each swing of the bat. (My favorite scene in baseball involves a bases-loaded stretched-out triple to the gap — the entire field explodes into action, and even the most disciplined teams descend into madness during the play.)

However, my superstitious rituals started getting out of hand. I remember noticing, as the pitcher wound up, that there was a big dirt clod a foot in front of me. So I quickly stepped on it, and got back in position. Ball one.

Then, I saw another dirt clod, big as a shoe, to my left. Bam, got it. Ball two.

Then, oh Mother of God, I realized that I was surrounded by dirt clods. They were everywhere.

And they all needed to be stomped.

For weeks, I was able to attend to the endless task while warming up before each inning, and I was careful to always be back in position during the game before the ball arrived at the plate.

But those fucking dirt clods kept multiplying. Pretty soon, I was out there dancing and stomping like a Dervish before every pitch, muttering to myself and looking like a complete idiot.

At the same time, my fear of somehow not pacifying Lady Luck really got out of hand. I was so convinced that my performance at shortstop depended on crushed dirt clods that it affected my already meager skill levels. And began to bleed into life outside the ballpark (to the point I couldn’t have a dime in my pocket — bad, evil coins! — and stepping on a sidewalk crack would ensure a full day of nameless horror.)

I woke up during sweaty nightmares full of taunting clods and grounders skipping between my legs while the galleries laughed and laughed…

And I am so proud of what I did next. I was just a kid, but I figured what the hell — if this superstition crap was gonna get me, let’s give it full access. So, the next game, I just let the dirt clods be, and put myself at the total mercy of the Gods of Superstition.

And I had a normal game.

At that point… at that tender age… I made one of my first life-long vows. I vowed to never fall victim to superstitious rituals again. If I ever suspected that future outcomes depended on me performing some unrelated task or action…

… then I purposely violated that ritual. Just to see what cosmic wrath awaited.

I’ve never been let down. Cosmic wrath has, for decades now, demurred from crushing me. And, in fact, I feel I’ve led a fairly “lucky” life… as in, being pretty happy about how things have turned out. The “bad” luck I’ve experienced almost always presented amazing lessons to learn, which then helped me get even more done. And any “good” luck I’ve stumbled upon is just icing on the cake.

I can’t even imagine what kind of nervous, stress-addled nutball I’d be today, if I hadn’t crushed those superstitious feelings early on.

Superstition is fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of being out there all alone with no magical back-up. This hurts you twice — first, it sets you up to accept failure as a “punishment” rather than as just one of many possible outcomes…

… and, second, it robs you of any sense of accomplishment when you win. It ain’t the rabbit’s foot. It’s you, and the preparation and skill-building and focus you put into the task, that made things happen.

I like mystery, don’t get me wrong. I have a very deep spiritual side, and I do not believe for a moment that I’ve got life “figured out”.

However, I do know that superstition sucks. And it’s got nothing to do with finding a big break.

Feelin’ Lucky Point #2: While in college, my wayward pals and I gathered up our meager extra bucks and drove to North Shore Tahoe to try a little “adult level” gambling. We were all experienced poker players, so we weren’t exactly babes-in-the-woods…

… but I’d never been inside a real casino before. It was exciting, and I had no illusions that I would return a rich man.

However, a very important lesson was awaiting me.

My friends all trooped into the Crystal Bay Club through a side door, but I wanted to go in properly, through the main gates. Before I reached the entrance, however, a guy slightly older than me approached…

… and offered me his very nice leather coat for ten bucks.

It was snowing. He had on a tee shirt under his coat. I raised my eyebrows.

“I just need ten bucks to get even at the tables,” he said. “C’mon, it’s a good coat.”

I was barely 21, and in no position to either judge the dude or offer advice. So I declined the offer, and went into the casino.

That scene has stayed with me my entire life. Right there, in a feverish 30-second encounter, was a mini-soap-opera on addiction, and all the insanity that comes with a belief system about “changing your luck” or “getting back in the game”.

Now, I enjoy gambling. I’ve tried most of the vices available in modern civilization, and gambling is one of those once-in-awhile pleasant departures from the grind of living sensibly. However, I can get the same thrill from playing dime-ante poker (with a $2 max burn) with longtime friends… or working to win spare change from Pop and siblings in our frequent rummy games… or playing a quarter-a-hole golf… as I ever got from an all-night crap game in a sordid Vegas low-life casino. (The now-demolished Frontier, if you must know, had a never-advertised $1 craps table with 10x odds that attracted players from all over the globe. I went a few times with a pal for the pure Hunter Thompson story-value, and it was like being in a Fellini movie, surrounded by grotesque hard-core gamblers from far-flung corners, drinking heavy and praying for one more long roll before the sun came up…)

I love competition. Against another player, against the odds, against all rational possibility. But it’s not a lifestyle, and it’s no Master Plan to live a good life. It’s just training.

The lesson: Go up against impossible odds once in a while. Learn how your gut handles the pressure, learn how your mind works in losing situations, learn how your system reacts to pulling off feints or destroying your opponent.

These are good tests, both to judge where you’re at as a human being in an unpredictable world… and whether you can evolve new skills required for advanced gamesmanship (which include losing well, assessing risks, and understanding why so much of life follows game-like rules).

You can do this playing chess, too. But I like the added risk-taking of having money involved — even dimes and quarters.

It’s that attitude — of seeing how I played a hand given the stakes (and losing a quarter to Sis is easily as bad, emotionally, as dropping a Franklin to a blackjack dealer) that led me to the “Gun To The Head” theory of professionalism. With a gun to my head, I wouldn’t dare write an ad that strayed from the proven fundamentals of great salesmanship.

However… and this is important… one of those fundamentals is TAKING RISKS with your knowledge of the market, the prospects, and the competition. You can’t “play it safe”. You just don’t take wild risks that don’t have a chance in hell of working.

But you DO risk things… like pushing the boundaries of what your client and marketplace expects.

And I know my gut, and I know how much risk I’m okay with taking… because of all those gin rummy and late-night poker games where I had to make decisions loaded with consequences. (I was very, very lucky to grow up in a loving but INSANELY competitive family. Sis taught me to never pass up a chance to gain the upper hand, and never offer mercy. It’s the best kind of competition, and it mimics real life in the business world.)

So, yeah, pray for the Jack of Spades, and feel lucky if you grab it and win the hand. And know, from experience (not guessing) that sometimes you can win with skill and a good plan…

… and sometimes you can win by sheer wild fortune, without having a clue what you just did. (Or, just as easily, lose to someone else the same way.)

Just be sure to learn your lessons when they land in your lap. Both the good ones, and the painful ones.

Feelin’ Lucky Point #3: Last point.

One of the best moves I made, early in my freelance career (when I was living month-to-month), was to stay hyper-alert to anything that might be an opportunity to make money as a writer.

Today, after an exciting and fruitful 30-year-career, I can confidently tell rookies that maybe — MAYBE — one or two big opportunities will arrive in their lives. But these opportunities will not announce themselves. They will come as whispers on the wind, easily missed.

And they will often arrive as confused, non-obvious situations that defy logical possibility.

I first met Gary Halbert at a party at Jay Abraham’s house that I had no intention of attending. I was leaning toward not going, and then heard that Halbert was going to be there… for a short time (as was his habit).

Now, I barely knew about Halbert. He had just come back on the direct response advertising scene (after a vacation in Boron, courtesy of the The Man), and had just started publishing his newsletter (which he continued to write right up until his death a few years ago).

I was in a very different part of the advertising world at that point, working with corporate clients and agencies. But I felt drawn more to the entrepreneurial side, where Gary excelled. Less rules, more risks, more payoff if you won, more fun all the way around. (Being a “fun” dude in a corporation pretty much ensures you’re never gonna get anywhere, you know.)

And so, I sensed that meeting Gary was something I needed to do. Even with no idea of the consequences. So I went to the party, and introduced myself to him, as he sat with his new red-headed girlfriend in a corner, happily insulting everyone who ventured near.

He was the most arrogant, abrasive, and manipulative guy I’d ever met… and I liked him immediately. We did not “hit it off” right away… and it would take another year of dancing around each other before he asked me to join him in his marketing adventures. And, just to complete the story, I had to turn my back on a fortune to do so — I was one of the rising stars in the corporate direct response world (working with game-changers like Jim Rutz, Gary Bencivenga, and Steve Barwick), and fees were rising like crazy.

But I took one look at the boring life I’d lead as a writer for the big mailers… and another look at the sheer pandemonium and excitement of a stint with Halbert…

… and never looked back.

Was it “lucky” of me to meet, and eventually become one of Gary’s closest friends? There was a brief window there, where this could happen. I didn’t plan it. But I jumped on the opportunity when it presented itself (and pushed my skill levels even higher during the time we sniffed each other out, knowing I needed max professionalism to earn a spot on his team).

No superstitious rituals needed. No banging my head against the wall, and no lamenting the cruelty of Fate.

Maybe Luck exists. I’ve certainly felt lucky before… both with good luck that thrilled, and with bad luck that crushed my spirit.

But the best lessons I’ve learned along the way all point to a very Zen-like answer: The universe is both precise and rational… and totally unpredictable and full of surprises.

And here we are — fragile little bundles of brain and guts and nerves, easily smashed by large rocks and bad business moves alike. Sometimes struggling, sometimes cruising, always one event away from being in a totally different and scary situation.

I’ve “created” Luck out of thin air, and I’ve had it slam up beside me unannounced and deliver a bounty. And I’ve had it vanish just when I needed it most, or stupidly assumed it would hang around forever.

I’ve built up my relationship with Lady Luck over a long time. She’s not as much mysterious, as she is unpredictable.

Don’t rely on her. But don’t ignore her, either.

Get to know yourself… and how you handle the vicissitudes of stress, risk and life’s amazing surprises… and your relationship with Luck will take of itself.

Stay frosty,

John

P.S. I dunno. That’s just my take. What’s your relationship with Lady Luck? Are you where you are today because of a stroke of luck, or nothing but hard work, or a combination of the two?

How did you learn to play the game of business?

The comments section is open.

P.P.S. Don’t forget… the totally awesome rejuvenated Freelance Course is still available at an almost embarrassingly low new price. And yet, you still get the update bonuses (where a bevy of the most successful freelancers copywriters I know share their personal tactics for finding high-quality new clients right now, in this economy, in the hottest niches).

To score the details on this must-have package (if you’re serious about your freelance career… whether you’re a rookie, or a veteran writer needing to move up a level), just go here:

Click here to get the details on the Freelance Course.

Friday, 1:48pm
Rancho Cucamonga, CA
“Cuz the thought that I coughed up my head is the event of the season…” (“Mr. Soul”, Buffalo Springfield)

Howdy…

You like music, don’t you?

And you like getting filthy-stupid rich in business, too, right?

Well, join the club. In fact, it’s astonishing to me how many wily online entrepreneurs are not just music lovers (we’re talking the “nutso” category of fan here), but also musicians. Some keyboards, a drummer hither and yon… but more often guitar. It’s something we quickly bond over…

… even though I’m a totally old-school rocker, and most of the younger dudes are either speed-thrashers (who worship Yngwie Malmsteem) or Tone Monsters who embrace the technical side of digital music-making (with an engineer’s-level command of effects).

Which just pisses me off. The story of my early musical career fits right in with other geezer tales of walking ten miles to school in the snow (and eating gravel for lunch). We were as close to analog as you can get and still be pumping noise through electronics.

Back when I started playing, the Beatles were still touring, and everyone plugged their guitars straight into the amp (which had actual springs for reverb). The only “effects” we produced was the occasional accidental squeal, or — if we were lucky — a gutteral growl from a blown speaker that was still alive.

My first stomp box was a simple one-button fuzz-tone that mugged the signal and distorted it like a mofo. (My pal Bob made it in Shop Class.) (It sounded like a Tyrannosaurus Rex trying to eat the building, and sometimes startled dancers near the stage.) Later, I bought a used Morley wah-wah… and even later I loaded up on Boss pedals and digital amps with sampled sounds and all hell broke loose.

But basically, I’m still that guy who was most impressed with Dave Davies of the Kinks (who slashed his little amp’s speaker with a razor blade before recording “You Really Got Me”). Simple, non-technical abuser of equipment (and pentatonic modes).

So what’s this got to do with making money?

A lot… at least as far as becoming a successful entrepreneur.

Because it’s all about attitude… from my humble experience, anyway.

You hear a lot (from guru’s) about the need to be passionate about your business. To get, and remain, excited with the process of fulfilling your dreams… so you can’t wait to get to the office again and stoke the magic that brings in the bucks, fame and happiness.

And hey — if you got that kind of mojo in your system, go for it.

However… that image of constant, unrelenting bliss is kinda total bullshit. I know a lot of entrepreneurs… and none of them are swooning while going through bills, meeting payrolls, fixing a glitch on their website, or desperately trying to meet crushing deadlines.

They’re not necessarily unhappy, either. But it’s not like the 7 Dwarfs singing merrily as they head for the mines.

Being an entrepreneur means there’s work to be done, every day. Overall, yeah, you’re moving closer and closer to goals that mean something to you…

… and when you sit back and reflect on your career, you smile and your heart skips a beat. Because you’ve done, and are doing, something that very few people ever pull off.

You’ve created a biz out of thin air, and made it successful. You’re the backbone of American industry.

Still… I get a little pissy with authors and motivational speakers who insist it’s all about the passion, cuz it’s just not. I know many multi-millionaire biz owners who get bored shitless with their gig, and constantly dream about the day when they sell the joint and do something else. Anything else.

Oh, they’re intensely invested in what they’re doing, and love to talk about it and commiserate with colleagues who understand and especially love to launch new ideas and make them work.

But it’s the semi-drudgery of the day-to-day details, and the constant movement against resistance (both internal and external, as your brain and the outside world conspire to derail your plans) that delivers the moolah. And the moolah can buy you time, and in that time you can pursue your true joys. (And yes, sometimes that true joy means starting another project… but for most, it means indulging in the guilty pleasures of someone with many desires and dreams. And the bliss is real when you realize you suddenly have the money, the time, and the access to the right tools to make those non-biz related desires come alive.)

I think the motivational stuff serves a purpose… especially in the early days of any career where your confidence is shaky and you really do need to rally your emotions and energy and brain-wattage to the tasks at hand. I used to read a new Og Mandino book for every new biz book I devoured… to give my soul the “atta boy” it needed to rush once more unto the breach (while I delicately survived week-to-week on each incoming fee).

But there were actually THREE things going on there:

(1) I studied biz books…

(2) I absorbed self-help crap…

(3) AND I took it all out into the real world the next day and used it all to earn my bread.

For too many wannabe entrepreneurs, the process is stunted. It’s just focusing on the motivational crap. And planning to, real soon, God willing, maybe take your show out on the road.

It just never occurred to me to dink around with learning from books and juicing up my mojo… and NOT waltzing out into the cold cruel world to see if I got killed or rewarded.

That attitude was the KEY to every trace of success I have. Basically, I can sum it up in one sentence: “What the fuck, let’s go do it.”

You wanna know where that attitude came from?

It came from picking up a guitar as a kid… right after hearing that slightly distorted kickass rock tune “You Really Got Me” on Mom’s little Motorola kitchen radio one day (not too long after my first adolescent hormone-dump). Mom had always kept that radio tuned to the country station (KWOW), but inexplicably decided to see what was up on the pop station KRLA. I walked in, my heart stopped, and I nearly fell to my knees as British Invasion rock and roll penetrated every membrane in my system.

Done. Hooked. Let’s talk Pop into buying me a gee-tar and see what happens.

Now, I didn’t even know the word “entrepreneur” existed. (Heck, I had barely incorporated “bitchin’” into my vocabulary at that point, let alone big foreign words.) But there were a bunch of us who caught the fever around the same time (I was part of that huge Boomer glut of kids that blew up the school system in California, and I can’t even imagine what it was like for our parents to behold this blossoming of rebellion amongst their offspring… who, weeks earlier, had been happily wearing Davey Crockett coonskin hats and ignoring the opposite sex)…

… and a percentage of us figured out “The Code”: Get good enough to be in a band… get IN a band… and go play in front of people.

Seemed simple enough.

However, it was my first big lesson in entrepreneurship to discover that many of my cohorts just couldn’t pull the trigger.

This included most of the truly talented musicians I knew. They were good, they were courted by bands… and they refused to get involved. Sometimes, they were just perfectionists who couldn’t bear the thought of subjecting their talent to any kind of “test”. Sometimes, they were too distracted by other things, like sports, or a special girl, or (shudder) a job.

And sometimes, they were just plain scared.

For me and my cohorts, it was “what’s the big deal?” We pushed hard to master the basics… and I beg forgiveness to all the neighbors who had to hear us grind through “Gloria” twenty times in row in Pop’s garage through that first clunky summer.

But we did push. I found a partner in Bob Stevenson, a kid my age who was ahead of me musically… and who took the time to show me barre chords, and help me break down the songs we thought we could pull off in a band. (Which meant listening to singles and albums over and over and over, wearing down the vinyl and needle to nubbins.) (And pissing off the entire older generation, who hated rock and roll anyway, and ESPECIALLY hated hearing “Good Lovin’” on a scratchy 45 leaking from my bedroom all afternoon.)

We found bass players, and drummers, and singers from among our friends… from word-of-mouth at other schools… and from other bands. And we ushered them into our band, and escorted them out of our band like we had a revolving door… trying to find that right mix of talent and responsibility and commitment to the cause. (Starting to sound similar to starting a real business?)

Then, without batting an eye, we auditioned for jobs even before we had a bass player who knew the songs. And got gigs at Sunday afternoon socials, at junior high dances, at private parties, at Battle Of The Bands, at supermarket openings. We were fearless. Yes, we were raw, screwed up often, and hacked up songs like chopped liver for an omelet…

… but by God, we showed up, set up, and pounded out four sets of rock and roll like heroes. Even in our nascent state, we weren’t that far away from the best bands in the area (and this was just outside of Los Angeles, where the Byrds and Buffalo Springfield played high school proms before they hit it big).

Rock is a very forgiving medium. Major, minor and seventh chords will get you anywhere you want to go with sixties-era pop. And NO ONE had decent PAs, or Marshall stacks, or even monitors. Playing a gig from an unfamiliar stage (or, worse, crammed into a living room or in the corner of the banquet hall) meant strange acoustics… so we were like brave mushers heading into the wilderness, to live or die by our own wits. (I spent many a gig hearing only the drummer, and just barreled along, damn the torpedoes, assuming the bassist and Bob and the singer were in the same pocket.)

There were moments of sheer bliss… but those moments arrived only after weeks of hard work. We had to figure almost everything out from scratch, because the phenomenon of Do-It-Yourself bands was still new.

We learned that the average “full night” gig had four sets (of approximately 50 minutes, with a 10-minute break)… and that meant we needed a song list with at least 40 different songs. We tossed two or three songs for every one that made it on that list (either because we just couldn’t pull it off, or because nobody danced to ‘em). We sometimes had contracts that specified we’d play two fast songs and then one slow one, all night long. (The contracts also stipulated we’d arrive with fresh haircuts and a clean “look”… this was back when most bands invested in uniforms, to look like pro entertainers.) (We went with black slacks and white shirts with paisley vests optional. Which we already had in our closets — all our money went for gas, strings, equipment and the occasional six-pack hidden backstage.)

Here’s the thing: We weren’t the best musicians. We lacked polish, and experience, and we were doing it all on our own. No adults involved in any way, shape or form.

But what we lacked in fundamentals, we made up for with cojones and a commitment to making the band work. (“Sure, we can play at your dance Saturday night.” Sotto voice: “Bob, can we get a drummer by Saturday, and find a PA with mikes?”)

This was pure, raw, unadulterated entrepreneurship, in blazing glory. The guys who wouldn’t commit… or who couldn’t get on stage without wetting themselves… or who never felt “ready” to take on a gig…

… gone.

No time for ‘em, no matter how talented they were.

This is important: It never occurred to me to NOT be in a band. I loved playing, it was a gas doing gigs, and I suspected that meeting Bob and finding a rhythm section that shared our attitude was a rare thing we should take advantage of while it was hot.

I had zero clue how to do ANY of it before we started.

We were motivated up the yin-yang. We paid attention to the needs of a live performance — equipment, songs, practice/practice/practice. And we took every gig offered, no matter how small, weird or scary.

Years later, when I decided to become a freelance copywriter, I just booted up the same mojo. Motivation, dedication to getting good, and taking my act out into the world.

The bliss, when it arrives, will drop you to your knees (just like the Kinks dropped me in the kitchen).

But there’s a good bit of drudgery and work required, too. Overall, it’s the kind of experience that delivers a never-ending, ongoing thrill that most people will never know. Because, even if they have the urge, they can’t get past the requirements to move beyond “really, really, really wanting to do it”… but never acting on it.

Which is where most motivational guru’s will leave you, stranded and flapping around like a beached fish.

And that’s the truth, Ruth.

Rock on… get your butt in gear… and…

Stay frosty,

John

P.S. You got a good story about playing in bands as a kid? Love to hear it. Also how you earned your entrepreneur stripes… it’s all related, you know.

P.P.S. I’m visiting the town I grew up in (and had all these music-related epiphanies) — Cucamonga, right on Route 66 — for Pop’s 92nd birthday. He’s still as active as he was in his sixties, still a great guy, and I still owe him big-time for buying me that first Vox guitar…

… and for putting up with years of us making a racket in the garage. He remains an essential part of who I am, and how I got here.

I love ya, Pop. Happy birthday.

P.P.P.S. Final note: If you’re interested in knowing exactly how I put together my now-legendary career as a freelance copywriter… from scratch, figuring it out as I went, and coming up with a solid “shortcut” plan that any writer can use to leap past your competition and get your own career going on high heat…

… then check out the re-release of my classic “The Freelance Course“:

Go here to see what the fuss is about.

Saturday, 2:23pm
Reno, NV
“Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to?” (Travis Bickle, “Taxi Driver”)

Howdy. Sorry about being such a potty mouth right off the bat there… but that Taxi Driver quote is just too perfect for setting the stage.

Here’s what’s up: I’ve been involved in high-end, professional-level brainstorming and masterminding for, oh, around 30 years now. I think I’m starting to get a handle on it, too.

Okay, I’m joking. After spending half my career butting heads, arguing and mentally-wrasslin’ with legendary thinkers like Gary Halbert… with a LOT of money, reputation and consequences on the line…

… I actually DO know a little something about working over an idea, ripping away the bullshit, and uncovering the overlooked, ignored, and spot-on nuggets of truth and success-potential most people miss.

The process is very much like sausage-making: Not pretty, and not for the weak-kneed.

However, if you truly desire to run an idea, project or plan through the gauntlet of REAL brainstorming…

… it’s still the fastest way to load up your war-chest with tactics, strategies and solid creative mojo. So you can get moving on conquering the world (or your niche, whichever).

But here’s the kicker: Hardly any veteran marketers have a clue how to brainstorm effectively.

Folks just naturally suck at it. And recoil in horror when confronted with the real thing in action. (“No!“, they cry. “It just CAN’T be that brutal!“)

At least… they recoil until they’ve had time to test-drive the ideas that come from real brainstorming… and see some results. Then it’s all smiles and glad-handing and “Let’s do that AGAIN!”

Still, I catch a lot of heat from uninitiated colleagues over the way I host brainstorm (or a mastermind) sessions. We call ‘em “Hot Seats” for a reason — I’ve seen grown men cry, and steel-eyed entrepreneurs crumble like stale cupcakes while getting the full treatment. (Of course, again, they’re often back for more, with fatter wallets, after the shock wears off and they get a chance to put things to a real-world test.)

Now, I understand why so many people take offense to having their ideas run through a merciless gauntlet — where you get zero points for “nice try” — and sometimes see them savagely destroyed (when it’s a sucky idea). I feel the same way — that’s your baby there, your darling little idea, fresh in the world and hoping for a little encouragement. We all want our ideas to be brilliant, fabulous breakthroughs that change the world.

And it’s hard not to take it personally when hard-core veteran brainstormers cruelly crush it to death.

But it’s just part of the process. Immediately after the cruel crushing, the Ideas That Actually Stand A Chance Of Working start exploding out of people’s heads.

Seriously — I’m not trying to be the Bad Guy here. I’m out to save you heartache and bankruptcy if you’re on the wrong track, and get you to see past the stars in your eyes how your idea’s gonna fare in the cold, nasty world out there….

… so we can concentrate on how a few well-debated better ideas (based on experience and pro-level judgement) might just blow open the floodgates of moolah and happiness.

Because that’s the way I’ve learned real-world brainstorming works best.

I don’t enjoy disemboweling dreams. But I couldn’t sleep at night if I didn’t tell someone the truth about their plans, when I knew from experience they were on a suicide mission. And getting the bad stuff out of the way is how you allow savvier, better-positioned stuff to make it into your plans.

So, I’m always happy to see validation of my sharply-honed style from the guys in lab coats who test everything within an inch of its life.

Today, while perusing past issues of the New Yorker (still the best damn Thinking Man’s mag around), I came across an article titled “Groupthink” by the excellent reporter/writer Jonah Lehrer. (Read it here online.) In it, Jonah dives into the current, still smoldering research on brainstorming…

… and it backs me up.

“Nice” isn’t the right attitude for successfully brainstorming anything.

But using viciously confrontational debate-style exploration of an idea… yep, that’s the way to go. Not pretty. But super-freaking effective.

I’ll let you discover the details of his reporting yourself. However, here are a couple of sausage-making points:

Sausage-Making Point #1: The way most business folks are taught to brainstorm is just plain wrong. It was championed back in 1948 by a partner in BBDO (still a hot ad agency on Madison Avenue)… and his notion was that a good brainstorm session should have zero negativity in it. Members are not allowed to disagree with anything anyone says, or to be a dissenter.

And, it was first disproven in 1958 at Yale… but by then, the public had gotten this “be nice” notion too welded in its collective mind to dislodge.

Heck, I remember Halbert repeating those very instructions before hosting an early brainstorm I attended with him. (He then proceeded to violate his own rules, but only because of the sheer idiocy of the incoming ideas from the group. Still… point taken. He believed the no-negativity/no-debating rule had been proven.)

I’ll bet you’ve heard it, too: The best way to get good ideas from a group of people is to set strict ground-rules, so no one feels dissed, embarrassed, or confronted with criticism. No Negative Nellies. No Devil’s Advocate. No Contrarians.

There, there, that’s a nice group — nice way to stay positive. All ideas are equal here, while we brainstorm.

But that doesn’t work nearly as well as rolling up your sleeves and getting into an intellectual bar brawl.

Sausage-Making Point #2: Couple of quick quotes from the article: “Imagination can thrive on conflict.”

“… dissent stimulates new ideas because it encourages us to engage more fully with the work of others and to reassess our viewpoints.”

And… “Maybe debate is going to be less pleasant, but it will always be more productive. True creativity requires some trade-offs.”

Hear, hear.

I’m not saying that “niceness” can kill an idea… but it sure comes up short as a tactic for sculpting a gnarly creative plan that has a shot at working in the real world.

Sausage-Making Point #3: People confuse the concept of “creativity” all the time. And it can burn you.

Outside of the biz world, it can be anything you want it to be. Because the consequences of being wrong are minimal.

But inside the maelstrom of entrepreneurial endeavors… the concept of creativity takes on an entirely new meaning. Prospects won’t buy your cute little product, idea or plan just because it’s “nice”, or even refreshingly clever… or if you really like it, and you really, really, really want them to like it, too.

Nope. They’ll buy it only if it’s the snarling beast they require to accomplish what they need done, out there in the real world of heartbreaking, illogical and unfair buying trends. Solve a problem, create new opportunity, foster happiness, help them achieve desperately needed results.

This confusion is RAMPANT among even veteran business owners.

You don’t suddenly get hip to the insider-tactics of success just because you launched a business, you know. There is no moment of divine intervention, where savvy, experience, and a deft ruthlessness is suddenly downloaded into your prefrontal cortex.

Good grief — some of the dumbest and least creative individuals I’ve met in my career held the fanciest Vice Prez positions in the marketing department.

Best cautionary story: One early client was an agency in LA that snuck me in the back door to do jobs, because their own staff writers just weren’t getting results.

One day, I decided to go meet these ink-stained wretches in their native habitat, to see what the problem really was.

I still shudder, thinking back on the horror behind that door.

Way down one of the back halls of the building, in a windowless room, two sad-eyed copywriters faced each other over the cleanest desks I’d ever seen. (My rule: If the desk doesn’t look like a bomb went off, I’m slacking.) They each had one typewriter (this was a year or two before PCs arrived) with a fresh sheet of paper rolled in… one sheet of notes or marked-up copy… one standard issue lamp… and a pencil.

That was it. Nothing on the walls. No bookshelves. No phone.

I’ve seen prison cells on MSNBC’s “Lock-Up” with more personality to them.

Turns out, all the austerity was a direct order from the marketing VP… who believed shit like “writers write, they don’t think“, and “distraction is the enemy of creativity“. (And, probably, “the best writing always comes from slave labor toiling without hope.“)

Seriously. Nothing on the wall. No books. No radio. Just the life-sapped shallow breathing of their co-worker five feet away (and, I guessed, the occasional mournful sigh or choked sob of despair).

Geez. No wonder they couldn’t write good copy.

I met that VP. Smug, sadistic, self-assured nincompoop. Happily murdering his agency’s ability to create good advertising.

Thank God he despised me for my cavalier attitude, my lack of a tie, my unkempt slovenliness, and my cocksure reputation as the agency’s “go to” freelancer. I loved getting results with my copy, because I knew he lost sleep at night praying for me to fail. Silly bastard.

I have lived, breathed and immersed myself in the process of creating good advertising for decades now. Effective brainstorming is essential.

It’s not a nice thing to have, if you can get it.

It’s ESSENTIAL to success. Nobody kicks ass in the biz world alone. There’s too much going on, and even the most creative guy alive can get in his own way.

I don’t mind taking heat for the way I host my Hot Seat seminars and masterminds. I know I can turn around the serious entrepreneurs in the group, because egos die quickly and the bullshit gets tossed immediately in a good brainstorm…

… and then we get down to the business of solving problems and force-feeding success into plans. (When I’ve been a guest at other people’s brainstorming sessions, I try to tone it down… but often, I just can’t stand it anymore when people are glossing over the truth while trying to be “nice”, and suddenly I’m knocking the air out of the room with some brutally-honest biz advice. Which often runs entirely counter to what was being heralded as a “nice” idea by everyone else, and I gotta weather being the azzhole until other savvy folks in the room grudgingly back me up.)

(But screw it — there’s money, lifestyles and other people’s future at stake when you’re talking about business plans… and I refuse to sit by while someone pleasantly describes the latest suicide mission they’re embarking on, with the apparent thumbs-up of the room, cuz no one wants to tarnish the atmosphere with negativity. If I know something that needs to be shared, I’ll share it regardless of the group conflict it may ignite. And I’ll continue to match up my 30 years of experience against whatever you got, Bucko, when it comes to creating a plan that will work in the real world to bring in results.)

I love P.J. O’Rourke’s book title: “Age and Guile Beat Youth, Innocence and a Bad Haircut“. Kinda sums up what happens when sheltered folks run smack into experienced veterans. (If you’ve never read P.J.’s non-fiction, you’re in for a treat. Go buy all of his books now. Killer writer, thinker, and super-smart observer of life.)

Basically, it’s almost impossible for a true pro to be “nice” when the bullshit is flying, and somebody’s walking into a trap covered with it.

The Take-Away of all this: Toss any long-held nonsense you may be harboring about how to best use brainstorming, and get hip to what veterans know works (and what the current research continues to back-up, despite the lingering urban myths about the process).

Understanding “creativity” doesn’t seem to be the human default brain setting. Some guys seem to know how to coax great ideas out of groups, but in most cases people need help making a brainstorm session work well.

And you do NOT need to be a creative genius to get maximum benefit, either. You just need to understand how to brainstorm effectively.

This is a game for anyone in business (regardless of how creative or non-creative you think you are). All you need to do… is get wise to the insider tactics that get results.

Make sense?

Stay frosty,

John

P.S. All right…

… this is too good to not share: If you’d like to learn — firsthand, in real time — how a great mastermind works…

… and start uncorking great hyper-successful ideas and sculpting them to work like crazy in the real world…

… with the help of the best gathering of fellow brainstormers you’ll ever meet in your lifetime…

… then you need to check out our Platinum Mastermind group.

I’m not gonna pitch you on it. Either you understand the power of masterminds, and you’re finally ready to goose your own success through the roof with fresher, better, more powerful ideas and bullshit-stripped projects… or, I dunno, maybe you enjoy struggling alone in business.

This is a way to, instead, have a dedicated group of colleagues watching your back (and giving you full, uncensored benefit of their experience and skills).

Go here, and see if this kind of gathering is for you: Platinum Mastermind.

P.P.S. You don’t agree with me, do you. I can sense the hostility brewing behind your fevered brow. Nobody likes having long-held myths knocked down and violated like this. Kinda kick-starts the argument gene in your DNA, no?

So, the comment section is open, below. Let’s hear what you got…

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

Howdy…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So, okay… I’m outa here for now.

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

Meantime, stay frosty.

John

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

Howdy…

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

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

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

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

… and why they care about getting there.

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

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

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

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

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

“Goal Setting 101 And
The January 15th Letter”

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

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

Or should be.

It’s all in the telling.

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

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

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

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

The depths of winter and discontent.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That shit can wear you down.

Now, I have two things to say about this:

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

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

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

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

And what you’re going through is not abnormal.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Maybe you’re one of ‘em.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How does that work? Easy.

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

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

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

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

And eagerly court the Unknown by starting another project.

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

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

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

But worth a Shakespearean suicide?

No way.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And it’s a damn hard one to make.

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

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

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

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

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

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

And because it’s hard, it’s avoided.

Well, screw that.

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

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

And that brings us to…

Thing Numero Dos: Goals are all about change.

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

Or “get rich”.

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

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

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

And my question to them is: What reputation?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It’s a huge deal-killer.

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

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

Money, as they say, talks.

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

You can’t bank criticism.

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

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

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

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

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

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

You need a plan.

You need goals.

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

It was a wake-up call for me.

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

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

1. Decide what you want.

2. Write it down, and be specific.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So I crossed them out, and forgot about them.

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

I’m stunned. This is powerful voodoo here.

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

The keys are action. Movement.

Ask, seek, knock.

These simple actions will change your life forever.

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

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

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

Half of that would suffice just fine.

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

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

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

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

Right now, they aren’t that guy.

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

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

Tough choice?

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

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

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

My trick to setting goals is very simple:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yet, I still had my best year ever.

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

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

Now, it’s on power-glide.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You have enormous control over your future.

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

Stay frosty,

John

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

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

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

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

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

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

Meanwhile, get busy with your January 15th letter.

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

Howdy…

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

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

Care-free losers, if you need a label.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Just not the same things those smug elitists lusted after.

Because what I craved most of all… was time.

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

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

Silly me.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yep. I was the shallow one.

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

Older, maybe wiser, certainly more experienced now…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

… but it’s still true.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And maybe that’s true for you.

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

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

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

Ruminating.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

… is, for me, a wondrous thing.

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

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

Don’t have anything to ruminate about?

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

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

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

You can get what you want.

The thing is…

… WHY do you want it?

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

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

This all takes rumination.

Think about it.

Stay frosty,

John

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

Howdy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here’s that zombie post. Enjoy:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And it goes by fast.

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

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

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

Silly me.

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

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

Fine.

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

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

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

Stop and think for a second.

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

No. We use long copy in our marketing…

… because that’s what WORKS.

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

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

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

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

… or you don’t make the sale.

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

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

Oh, really? Like who?

“Lots of people.”

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

“Yeah.”

And how are your ads pulling, compared to theirs?

“They’re creaming us.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

It ain’t working so hot for you.

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

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

Do what works. Get hip, to get rich.

And stay frosty.

John Carlton

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

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

P.P.S. By the way…

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

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

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

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

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

Fast.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Howdy…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cuz it’s an art form.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And on and on.

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

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

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

I like to say that good salesmen lead better lives…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(a) Actually desire a goal…

(b) Plan for achieving it… and…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You go.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh, I got plans.

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

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

Here’s my advice:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

… DO IT.

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

Ground Rule #7: You go, girl.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stay frosty,

John

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