Full Tilt Boogie

Spot on John… as usual. 🙂

I, too, find it a lot more appealing (and sexy) when you just stay and work your butt on the sidelines as the unassuming bystander no one spares a second glance upon, but when the much awaited applause breaks, all the spot lights suddenly make a beeline for you – much to everyone’s surprise – or chagrin.

The only reassurance real pros need is not the ego-stroking of people fawning over who you are and what you’ve done in the past – but the confidence brought about by doing your homework and busting your butt to deliver on the work at hand.

Sidenote: Do you know where that ‘rookie marketer’ lives? I might drop by and whack some sense into his ‘newbie brain’… LOL! 😀

Hey JC,

Another fine post.

I love these hard-won insights into human nature.

The naked human animal is a scary thing. Digging into anybody’s reasons for doing things (the REAL reasons, not just the excuses we make) is a huge eye-opener, especially for us copywriters.

And you know, since you made the post about Ego a while ago, I’ve developed a ghoulish fascination for watching the people around me let their Egos drag them through life. Even when the results are plain car-crash ugly.

Interesting stuff my friend.

-Flashman

The grizzled veteran presents another REAL lesson about business life (and life in general).

Excellent.

John, you oughta’ write a book “The Life Lessons And Hard Knocks Of A Marketing Rebel,” filled with these kind of stories…just priceless.

Wow… you just made poker interesting to me for the 1st time… it’s normally kinda boring… No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: hit me like a ton of bricks because boy can you get your butt handed to you and it happens at least 50% of the time for me, but it’s still worth doing for those 1 in every 2 people… Cool tip on staying on your toes.

John – It’s posts like this that make me keep coming to your site. Great insights on life, not just copy writing. Somehow I’m motivated to set up a poker night with my buds . . .

To quote Bob Dylan, “When the Foot of Pride comes down, there’s nooooo going back”.

Thought I caught a little HST in this post. I really miss Hunter’s writing. Did you enjoy his stuff?

Great read John, love that about over delivering as well, hate those favors that come back to haunt us.
Good to hear your going to James, have know James for a long time and literally watched him start out to killing it!

Any way thanks for the great and grizzly advice.

Money’s not a problem. How many times do we have to relearn that lesson. Great advice. However, Trust But Verify may have been used by Clinton, but it originated with Ronald Reagan.

Hey John, Thanks for esplainin the photo above – I didn’t get it at first. The canine perspective is so down to earth, laid back and have the best poker faces around. They study you intently before making their next move. They sniff you out, trying to find out where you’ve been and what may be your next move. They are very trusting, sometimes to a fault, but they always verify. They learned that from one of their own, who incidentally. had a room in the White House. Human business owners can take a page from our furry friends. Work within the limitations you are given, trust, but verify, and always sniff around before you commit. Play the hand you’re given at the time you receive it. And learn from experience.

All clients….

I still have that infamous email you wrote framed over my desk.

John, as a beginning marketer, I am still learning the emotions, wants and desires within the market place (as well as within myself) but the picture of sitting at a poker table trying to “read” the actions of player is very strong. There are many ‘tells’ there but in internet marketing, there are no ‘tells’ to work from, it is all based on our ideas and creative imagination to find out what works or does not. Thanks for your insight – will return to obtain further ‘word pictures’ to improve my marketing work.

We are all human and react in different ways. Your nugget about “Money is no problem” is very true. However, I find a lot of people I deal with mainly say money is a problem and when it comes to the crunch they generally have more than they say they have to invest. As humans no one wants to let on before hand as they like to keep their winning hand up their sleeve just as they do in poker! Forever testing the water before jumping in.
Great Post with a lemon twist! 🙂

Great post John. I’ve spent the last year working on going pro in poker (live not online) and I’m not there yet. Here’s just three of the things I’ve learned:
1. The game magnifies your mental deficiencies by magnitudes
2. You can’t let your mind drift at all. As you said – your only as good as your last hand and you need to concentrate on what is going on now. Remember what happened in the past – learn from it- but don’t dwell there.
3. You may not be superstitious when you start playing poker but after a year of experiencing variance – the idea of “poker gods” and “lady luck” start to take on new significance.

I’ve always wondered why it is always “Lady Luck”???
Maybe in the good old days when we lived by a strict “Code” it was thought we would behave better if “Lady Luck” struck us down…now if “Manly Luck” was to strike me down then I’d get back up and try and tear him a new…

Anyway call them customers, clients or Patients it seems to be a Lucky Day when one of them doesn’t try an surprise me with some new variation of human nature…

I love the line, “Cuz the next dance on your card may be one nasty little boogie.” It’s great. Kind of reminds me of one of my favorite authors – Tom Robbins.
Also, Marvin (1st post) is so right. I have had the privilege to learn from some of the top people in the music industry, and amid an industry full of ego these are the nicest and most humble people you meet at the very top – who love what they do and keep doing a fantastic job every time (giving each project their great talent and a lot of hard work and dedication, never resting even after doing it for many decades).
Good stuff.

Hi John

Love your post – can soo relate to it (and I don’t know how to play poker)

Life is a series of cycles – how we respond to something – good, bad, evil or even plain ugly and dirty is what makes or breaks us.

I have gone through a patch where my copy stunk – I was in limbo, as my life was like a full-tilt
(not quite at the edge). I stopped and remembered to breathe.

You know its now worth getting sooo worked up over!

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

And heed their warnings.

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

Thank you heaps and keep the words flowing 🙂

all the best

momdownunder

[…] “Full Tilt Boogie” […]

I love poker too! I even get up early to watch it on tv. It’s on a 2am. I just saw Phil H shoot a video of everyone at the table and put it on twitter with his smart phone, WOW
I can see your point about the poker analogy.
I just love when these guys have shit for cards and win a big pot. The bluff, I see this everyday, some people just bullshit their way thru life and have no worries. No worries until someone figures out your bluff. Then it’s time to go play hide and go seek

John,
Brilliant post mate,

As always another golden nugget distilled into my young writing brain from a grizzled vet.

So true about what you said about money, I’ve had people ask for “samples” of my work, sometimes get me to write copy for them and them no pay me, other times just take the samples and try haphazardly to cut and paste it together….

I wonder if they’ll ever realise how much of a bitch karma can be at times.

All in all thanks for this lesson on “Trust but Verify”.

Best,

Adil

P.S. still gotta send you something at some point as a thank you

The way we play is a mirror image of how we work. Realizing this helped me question and improve the way I work.
Markus Trauernicht

“Often within a very short period of time, the cockiness is replaced by a seething rage…
… rage at the other players, at the universe, at the cards, at everything within reach.”

Experienced the exact same thing during real estate negotiations this past week. Buyer started taking everything out on me because she wasn’t getting what she wanted. I completely understand the brain going “boing, boing, boing”.

Great post, John!

It’s like matchplay in golf. Unless you are aware that what you did in the previous rounds is irrelevant to today’s round you have every chance of getting crushed.

You blow out the first two guys and you get into this mindset that this matchplay thing is easy. Then all of a sudden you play the next match and it’s not going the way the other two went. Next minute you’re knocked out not knowing what the heck happened.

Got to block out the past and focus on today. Deal with it in the context of today not yesterday.

Hi John,
Good points to rememer….as you noted, a Zen attitude with all things in life is wonderful, however being mere mortals, it’s not something we can always adhere to. And suffer the consequences as a result!
By the way, King Canute only did the “stop the wave” thing to prove to his subjects that it was not he that had ultimate power in life, that there was a greater power than his and they should pay tribute where it was due.
Thanks for the wonderful writing and post!
Patricia

John,
Great stuff once again.
“you’re only as good as your last action. The best copywriters, entrepreneurs, marketers, affiliates, launch managers, deal makers and heart-breakers in the world…”

This is so true, and so terrible at the same time. The example that comes to me, being a football fan, is Brett Favre. Everyone talks about his interception last year against the Saints. Did it suck, ya, but he has all the records he holds because he lays it on the line like that. He’s not afraid to take risk, and unfortunately when you take enough risks, some of them are going to come back and bite you square in the ass…CHOMP! But that’s better than sitting on the “sidelines of life,” watching everyone else have fun and try to make the most of their lives.

And then you have Gary Larson of “The Far Side,” who just walked away from his comic. He wanted to quit before he wasn’t funny anymore and he did. However, I think he should’ve kept it going. His arsenal would be bigger than ever for stuff to write about these days.

But as long as one just goes about their business, learns from the lessons of life and uses them to propel themselves and others onward and upward, it won’t really matter what others think…unless you let it.

My personal favorite:

A person lays this line on you within 5 minutes of meeting them:

“I’m a Christian.”

I’ve never seen anyone ACT like a Christian after telling me that they are one when I first meet them.

I *always* grab my wallet when I hear this line, and I usually have to turn my head and cough to stifle my reflexive guffaw.

Good points – reinventing oneself as necessary to stay in the game and get ahead vs resting on laurels is key to success. I learn more about human nature at 1st base at the Bellagio playing blackjack than just about anywhere else, gotta give poker a go someday too.

I like seeing how people react under pressure, when money’s on the line. The number one rule, and this is true of traders as well, in seeing hundreds of players come and go is, virtually nobody seems to follow the freaking rules. There’s rules to success. I sit there for hours at first base, breaking even, up a little, down a little, during dealer shift changes, the players come and go and don’t play by strict best-case rules like they should (I do.). I ask the pit bosses and dealers, all over vegas, ‘why don’t they play by the rules?” (#1 basic strategy error is they stand on 15s/16s btw). They shrug and say, “they want to use their instinct”… which is another way of saying, and this is true of human nature, most people don’t do what it takes to follow the rules of success to make it.

While that makes it easier on us who do follow rules to outcompete and build empires, it still leaves me shaking my head… why don’t people do what it takes, the work ethic/discipline/learning from the best/taking action to implement, that it takes to succeed? I still don’t understand. insights anyone? I’m really baffled about why the majority of people don’t do the hard, specific things they need to, to become successful. Baffles the heck outta me (and I’ve got two degrees in psych and none of it clarifies… fear of success? self esteem? why don’t they follow the rules?)…

Anyways good points John re not resting on one’s laurels, cuz “you’re only as good as your last hand”.

-k

Another monster post, me Lord.

Great reminder to ride the big waves as they come, but never take your eye off the horizon.

There’s always a sand bar (or even a great white) just drooling for a slice of your skin.

K-man

As usual, I love it!
John, you always bring valuable insights and actionable applications for real life.

Parenthetically, I posted a somewhat related post to my blog. I’d be uber-flattered if you checked it out at http://donnie-bryant.com/blog/when-ego-gets-in-the-way.

Don’t worry, there’s a link back to this post at the end.

Thanks for the great material, John.

Damn it, one more great post, and they just keep commin. Today i walked down the main street in my hometown, just going for a walk, get some fresh air you know… And as i walked it suddently dawned upon me… all these people. Teenagers hooked on cellphones, girltalking on cafees, business-suits high on status. Old women trying to catch up with the youngsters because they wanna feel young again.

The consumer-world can seem scary, bizarre and crazy. and its filled with all kinds of weird fantasies and irrational behavior reinforced over and over again.

But behind all that, if you know what to look for, you’ll find that there are predictable patterns to why people do what they do. Principles of human behavior that will help you navigate through this wicked consumer-jungle, so that you can present yourself as the authority over people’s world.
They are looking for someone to fulfill their fantasizes god damn it, be that guy

Understand your costumer/client. know how to deal with him. Because he’s not very good at dealing with himself.

[…] P.S. John Carlton recently wrote a similarly-themed post on his blog. He took the Texas Hold’em Poker angle. Great stuff. Take a look at “Full Tilt Boogie.” […]