Category Archives for freelance copywriters

Toys And Fresh Air

Monday, 7:30pm
Reno, NV
“He… could… go… all… the… way…” (Berman, MNF of days gone by…)

Howdy,

Do you ever get any of those weird epiphanies about life?

The ones that burst into consciousness like the first bloom of dawn… after a particularly dark and ominous night?

They aren’t necessarily the kind of insight that drops you to your knees and propels you off into a completely different direction.

But they are a critical plot point in your life’s story.

Here’s what just happened to me (and see if you can’t identify with it):

For the last week (has it only been that long?), the global news has been a horror-show.

Politics is tearing the country apart (again)… we’ve got a financial mess that may make the dot-com bust look like a picnic… and, personally, I’ve got biz pressures building up in my head like the Mother Of All Brain Farts.

So, I’ve diving into every distraction within my grasp for Miller Time. (Miller Time, for the uninitiated, is the built-in “reward” I insist all my freelance students create for themselves. It’s main task is to help you officially call an end to the day, which helps prevent burn-out.)

(I came up with the idea while working with Halbert, as a coping mechanism. Without a set point in time where I said “That’s it — done for the day”, the pressure of the tasks at hand would suck me into even longer work hours…

… and that’s not good.

In fact, that’s bad. Very bad. I burned out once, and that’s all it took for me to never, ever, ever want to do it again. Required three years of remedial goofing off to be able to catch my breath.

And I was young, too. I’ve had students ignore my advice on this — dudes in their twenties, cooking with peak internal fuel — and flame out like a dunked match.

Miller Time is serious play time. You quit working. You have a little fun. You give it a freakin’ rest.)

So, anyway…

Obviously, I have a much different philosophy about stress than most business owners.

I don’t avoid stress. In fact, if there’s something stressful on the plate for tomorrow… well, that’s the first thing I wanna dig into.

No avoidance on this monkey.

However…

… neither do I regard stress as something “good”.

It is (and current research backs me up) probably the source of all the bad shit in your health profile.

So how you DEAL with it… is probably one of the most important decisions you make early in your career.

Because you’ve got to make dealing with it a habit. Breaking the stress up and jettisoning it from your system must be on your “A” list of things to do each day.

Otherwise… you’re putting that career in serious danger of short-circuiting.

For me, toys play a big part of “steam removal”. I’ve loved games and toys my entire life — and that’s what guitars, cars, iPhones, Web-surfing, Twitter, cable TV, iTunes, barbeques, and every quest you engage in for anything outside Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is: Games and toys.

It’s been a long, long time since anyone could claim to have a handle on how civilization works. The well-educated dudes of the early Renaissance MAYBE could claim a decent savvy in every skill and knowledge-base in exisitence.

But that’s simply not possible today.

Humans have never been in this situation before — where NO ONE has a handle on how the essentials of the civilization works.

It’s like nobody’s in charge anymore. It’s like glancing down the aisle and noticing that the pilot’s gone. The driver has disappeared. No one goes into the boiler room anymore, because no one knows what to do in there.

A large part of the mob deals with this sense of not being in control… by zoning out. I doubt there has ever been this large a percentage of the population zomibified before in history. Just willingly oblivious.

In my experience, you can’t really hide from stress, though. It builds up, it festers, it infects every joint and synapse in the system.

For those of us who are incapable of ignoring the blinking warning signs now flashing… (and our global engine has been overheating for a very long time)… it’s more important than ever to manage stress.

You do NOT make it go away by eating it like candy. It won’t leave unless forced out.

Thus… to be effective today (and oh my God do we need effective people in the mix right now)…

… you gotta choose your battles. You can work every day. You can gear up and charge monsters every time you go into “work mode”.

But you can’t do it 24/7. You’ll fry.

So… playtime becomes an essential tool.

What rocks your Miller Time boat may change, often, thoughout your life. That’s to be expected.

So you gotta keep a tab on your own responses.

You know what makes you happy… what sucks you in so thoroughly and pleasurably that you forget the smell of the trenches for a while.

Don’t focus on the “what”, however.

Instead, focus on how you feel. You will have to alter things — the games, toys, distractions, etc — that trigger the right response often.

And the new stuff is only going to work — only going to help you disengage so you can re-charge — if it nails the wheelhouse of your pleasure center.

At various times, playing music has been “it” for me. But then I go into another phase, and I need something else. Drawing comes and goes — hours spent completely absorbed in putting ink on paper, creating visual worlds from nothing.

Games, too. I played the first Doom like a junkie. No other game since has held my interest like that. Collecting rare stuff, too. Reading history… I’ve been lucky to have a long list of stuff that works.

But here’s the one tip I really can give everyone: One of the most enduring, and most pleasurable, Miller Times available…

… is simply going outside and feeling the universe swirl around you.

Fresh air, the cool breezes of early fall, the coming harvest moon (big as the sky), the leaves changing so fast you can almost see them turn.

Especially now… especially with so many entrepreneurs welding themselves to cyber-space at a desk…

… it’s essential to reconnect with Nature.

In as giddy a manner as possible.

Just my two cents.

What’s your Miller Time consist of?

Stay frosty,

John

P.S. One last funny aside: I dove into the world of Twitter with gusto this week. Not obsessed, but having great fun…

… sorta like the first time Mom let me loose in the Fun Zone at the LA County Fair. (Never been a place like that before, nor since. Total art deco sprawl of mazes, haunted houses, vast wheels that spun you in circles half the size of a football field, tight little capsules that swung like hammers at 3 G’s, pulling your cheeks back as they dove… all of it way too dangerous to ever be allowed today…)

I explored the apps of Twitter-land, strolled into little-travelled areas, spelunked in the nether regions of the software (as far as I could go without using code, I suppose).

And today, a new follower told me that, hey, he was happy to see me on Twitter…

… but, dude, I was tweeting too MUCH. “Cool it,” he implored.

I laughed.

Because I had found a new toy that let fresh air into my system. Fun, distracting, with some of the elements of a game. (Trading witicisms and barbs with fellow word-meisters. That’s invigorating, for me.)

And I laughed because I suspected it was time to put the Mac to sleep…

… and go outside for some real air, too. A long hike, paying attention to things. Soaking up being alive for another season.

I’m stressed, no getting around it.

Lots to be stressed about. Unless you’re a zombie, and that’s not a job I’ve ever gone after. (Can’t meet the basic requirements of accepting bullshit.)

So I need all my tools, and I need to able to use them elegantly… and that requires rest, distraction, and rejuvenation.

Miller Time.

You on my Twitter follower’s list yet?

It’s www.twitter.com/johncarlton007…

Tip For The Week

Thursday, 8:40pm
Rancho Cucamonga, CA
Just a block off Route 66 in the skitchy heart of the southland…

Howdy,

Quick note here today.

I’m still in my hometown (yeah, I grew up in Cucamonga, what’s it to ya?), visiting my family. Pop still lives in the same house he bought just after WWII, and it’s hard for me not to feel like I’m 15 again when I’m there.

Not that I feel all young and vibrant.

Naw. More like I get back in touch with how freakin’ clueless I was for the first half of my life.

It was a great childhood, a gruesome adolescence, and even now ghosts from my past haunt every corner of the neighborhood. It’s Memory Alley.

Always interesting/spooky/insightful to go back to old stomping grounds. I love my family. And I’m still chewing over how that town shaped who I am today…

Anyway, enough about me.

Here’s something about YOU: Since the last couple of posts here, I’ve been pondering long and hard about what “makes” an entrepreneur.

A lot of people — including me — talk about the value of goals in launching any entrepreneurial venture.

Figuring out what you truly want… setting a plan in motion to attain it… and following through.

There is, however, a difference in “understanding” goal-setting behavior…

… and actually DOING it.

And here is what I propose you do this weekend: Give yourself a nice, brutal Reality Check.

Are you spending enough time figuring out what you really want to do when you grow up?

This is not a trick question — most rookie goal-setters need to refine their skills at this over a frustrating period of time.

The first goals you set are likely to be things you actually don’t want, after all. There is an art to looking deep into your own heart and soul, and coming to grips with what REALLY rocks your boat…

… and what will continue to make nice waves in your future.

It’s never enough to want to be “rich”. You must spend time thinking about what “rich” means to you. Not to your buddies, or your colleagues, or anyone else.

You.

And, if you decide you want to be filthy rich… well, you’ve got to do more than just set a goal. You gotta work out your plan to get there.

With lots of little goals along the path.

If you’ve yet to make Dime One online, for example, then a goal of becoming a billionaire online isn’t a goal… it’s a dream. You’ve got to earn your first buck. Then your second. Then start automatic pipelines, and go on from there.

Your first goal may be to weed through all the info available out there… find the resources you feel you can trust… and dig in.

Those subsequent “dig in” steps — the actual goal-by-goal step-ladder that will take you toward your desired destination — cannot be glossed over.

And, there are consequences to consider. You may not yet know what awaits you as a cash-generating genius. But you sure can start to examine how your life changes as you go.

I’ve written multiple blogs about how every detail of your life can morph in strange ways when the money starts coming in. Ken Calhoun, in the last comments section, tells a great story of how friends and family wrestle (often unsuccessfully) with your rise in status, liquidity, and self-confidence.

It’s not always pretty.

The more you “arm” yourself with insight like this, the less surprised you’ll be when you hit each milestone in your quest for a better life.

You’ll be… uh, what’s the word… prepared.

Goals are great. They saved my life.

But I’ve known too many people who ONLY set goals. They never go after them.

Movement is key.

And you’ll feel better about moving toward your goals, if you spend some serious time thinking about them.

Play with them. Mold them. Constantly put them through your “What if?” grinder. (What if you can’t do it with your first idea? Will you try again? Try something else? What?)

The “secret ingredient” of great goal setting… is to cogitate obsessively on the consequences of actually meeting your goals, once you set them. This not only helps you blow through failure… but also creates a “vision” of yourself that keeps your motivation hot.

This requires “forward thinking”… which doesn’t come with the default equipment you’re born with.

You gotta exercise it.

Without goals, you’re just being taken for a ride by Fate.

Goals do not guarantee anything… except, once you take steps to attain them, you will move SOMEWHERE new in life.

And you’ll be doing as much of the driving as possible.

Fate will still screw with you. But you’re no longer helpless.

At first, even five minutes of focused “forward thinking” will make you sweat and want to go do something else.

Get over it. Stick with it.

Soon, you’ll be an ace at peering into the fog down the line, and you’ll be able to exert more control over events than you ever dreamed possible in your pre-goal-setting days.

This weekend, get your five minutes in. Move through the sweat and avoidance.

Jump-start something new.

Let me know how you do.

Stay frosty,

John Carlton

P.S. I just checked with my office… and as I get ready to go to the airport to come home, one of the 5 seats is still open for the Chicago Hot Seat one-day event this September 25.

To get the details, go to www.carlton-workshop.com.

C’mon, people — this is one of those rare opportunities to get face-time with me and Stan. It just may be the virtual ass-kicking you need to get moving…

The Dark Power Of Passion

Monday, 10:09 pm
Reno, NV
“Living well is the best revenge.” George Herbert (1593-1633)

Howdy…

Okay, already.

Time to reveal the answer to last week’s burning question: “What do you think is the single most powerful motivation driving many entrepreneurs to outrageous success?”

First, though…

… allow me to humbly praise everyone who took a shot at the answer.

At last count, there were over sixty responses.

Some were great… some were wild-ass stabs that missed by a mile… and some were just plain weird.

Again: There is no real “wrong” answer. If you had a driving motivation — or anything else goosing you in the right direction — vastly different than what I’m about to reveal…

… then great. It proves the adage that there are many ways to skin a cat.

However…

… during my decades in the front-line trenches of the marketing world…

… I haven’t seen a great variety in the methods used to really make it big.

Mind you, I hear all kinds of interesting ideas about how it’s done… from good-hearted folks who haven’t done it yet.

They really, really, really want their worldview to be true, too.

They want success to happen because you’re a good person, with a mission to accomplish.

Sadly, this isn’t the way things often work.

The most dangerous time of any entrepreneur’s career…

… is in the very first months. When the pressure is on, the risks are great, and there isn’t much of a cheerleading section rooting you on.

During the early stages, it’s super-easy to stop and quit. No one will blame you. Nice try, dude — you did your best.

Now, welcome back to Slacker City. And let’s forget all about those nasty dreams of independence and wealth…

No. You need a particularly potent brew of juice in your system to power through the unrelenting obstacles sent by the universe to crush all rookie business owners.

There were some GREAT answers in the comments. Don’t get me wrong.

But most of them were about how you continue your success, AFTER you’ve attained it. And how you enjoy and enlarge on the opportunities offered by a proven entrepreneurial adventure.

Once you break free of the initial onslaught of trouble, horror and monstrous soul-killing problems…

… and you get some real traction…

… then you can shake yourself like a dog emerging from the swamp…

… breathe deep and fill your lungs with the rarified air of freedom and wealth and fame…

… and start focusing on your next subset of goals. Like saving the world, or helping others do what you did, or creating new opportunity for your brethern still slaving under the lash of The Man.

However, you gotta GET out of that swamp, first.

Most don’t.

The independence attracted me, and was a factor in deciding to say “Screw it, I’m gonna give it a try.”

But I didn’t believe I could actually have true independence… until it became a reality. I had to pinch myself, constantly, when it looked like I was gonna pull it off. I knew it could be taken away again, without notice.

What fired me up every morning, especially when things backslid and looked bleak…

… was a very passionate juice coursing through my veins.

DaveC was close, with his post in the comments.

But GregJ nailed it early. He wrote “Someone told them they couldn’t do it or it won’t work and it pissed them off.”

I don’t know if Greg knew this from experience, or was guessing, or had been reading my stuff for awhile and remembered me broaching this very subject before.

Doesn’t matter.

All the positive answers were good. I mean that. I’m a positive guy, and all my goals are positive. I have no enemies that I know of, either in life or in business. I wish harm to no one.

However…

… in the fevered early days of my race to independence…

… with risks and dangers everywhere (I had zero savings, no safety net, no Plan B)…

… I needed STRONG mojo.

I needed… (blare of trumpets)…

Negative motivation.

Let me tell you — there’s a LOT of strength and fortitude to be harnessed for your cojones in being royally pissed off.

For me, it was the first copywriter I ever met. Eileen. I remember every detail of her vividly… and I think of her often.

Especially when cashing big checks.

All long-time readers know this story. I was a lowly, starving paste-up artist in a Silicon Valley art department… and I’d never realized that someone was getting paid to write all those words I was aligning on my camera-ready art boards.

The lifestyle fascinated me. To be able to rake in fat bucks just… writing? Are you kidding me?

So I asked Eileen how you get to be a copywriter.

“It’s too hard,” she hissed. “You’ll never figure it out.”

This was not a nice woman.

A hot ember burst into full flame deep inside of me at that very moment. You’re telling me… no? You’re judging me? You’re withholding information because you feel freaking superior to me?

I was almost thirty at the time. And I’d never felt that kind of passion before. In fact, I thought internal heat that intense only happened in the sack, from the ancient biological urge to merge.

This was new.

It was a startling emotional response. It energized me in a strange, new way. Like Spidey being bitten by the radioactive spider.

And I stole her copy of “Tested Advertising Methods” (by John Caples)… and read enough before she stole it back to realize I COULD become a copywriter.

Whether I WOULD or not was yet to be determined.

I had nothing but a glimpse of what “might be”.

Now, I was strangely contenet with being a slacker at that time. No ambition. No dreams. No plans.

Just bouncing on the surface of life like so much jetsom and flotsam.

And I’ll testify right here and now: I might have continued to slack off…

… if Eileen (that gorgeous bitch) hadn’t off-handedly challenged my self-worth.

The casualness of her put-down was extra fuel for the fire.

The heat roiling inside me was tinged with humiliation, and the realization that — wow — she might be right.

And I’d never know… unless I got my act together and went after it.

It took another two years for me to cobble together a thin “bag of tricks”, and hone my skills to a point where I felt — okay — I’m diving in.

I never said “I’ll show you.” I never spoke to Eileen or saw her again.

Didn’t need to.

It’s easy to argue with people about your “worth” and your plans.

But it’s empty yapping.

The big revelation I had that day… was I needed to get my ass in gear.

Not with words.

With action.

Again: Money didn’t motivate me. Never has. (I’ve turned down more money in my career — by refusing to take jobs that didn’t interest me, or by protecting my outrageous need for massive quantities of free time — than I’ve actually earned.)

The concept of participating in business, and yet being independent intrigued me… but I had no personal experience to help me visualize what, exactly, independence would feel like.

It wasn’t enough of a driving force to help me get up after being knocked down… and get immediately back in the game.

For me… and for many others I know… it’s a sort of “snapping point”.

One second before, you were your old, slacker self.

And one second after the spark… you’re someone else.

Juiced with a fever that won’t be doused until you prove your detractors wrong.

Remember — I never saw Eileen again. My passionate drive was internalized.

I don’t care if she knows what happened to me or not. I don’t care.

Heck — I’d hug her, if I ever met her again.

Look — I can’t tattle on my colleagues. You’ll have to take my word that I know about many of their deep, dark motivations.

I can tell you my old pal Gary Halbert had his “snapping” moment. His family took great pleasure in every failure he encountered in his attempts to break the code on creating wealth.

He failed a LOT, too.

It got him down. But it never finished him off.

Because he enjoyed the broiling motivation that can only come from being told “you can’t do it.”

Not everyone reacts this way.

Most slump, when faced with failure or challenges to their dreams, and shuffle off in defeat.

There’s no shame in that. The life of an entrepreneur is often mean and brutish and short… and it’s not for everyone.

However, for some… there very much IS shame in letting others define you.

And it burns hot.

It’s great to want to help others, and make the world a better place. But you gotta get to a point where you have the power and money to DO that, before you realize those dreams.

Bill Gates, I’m willing to bet, wasn’t giving billions to needy causes before he had multiple more billions in his pocket. Starting out, he probably gave a bit to charity, and mostly as a tax deduction. (Not doubting Bill’s generosity, nor his committment to help out. Just saying he couldn’t DO it until he became successful.)

And the US swim team may or may not have beaten France in the relay during the Olympics without the extra juice of France’s insult beforehand.

But the US team had that quote from the French team captain (“We came here to smash the Americans”) on their lockers. They weren’t expected to win.

They did.

Go ahead.

Tell me I can’t do something.

I dare you.

Love to hear your further comments and ruminating on this subject…

Stay frosty,

John Carlton

P.S. In case you haven’t heard…

… my biz partner Stan and I are going to Chicago later this month…

… and we’ve decided to go a day early, so we can offer a one-time, one-day Hot Seat super-intensive workshop.

A Hot Seat is where we corner you, and dive deeply into every problem you have in business. And fix them.

It’s a transformative process, and for a horde of entrepreneurs, small business owners, and online marketers… a customized Hot Seat with me was the trigger for putting their success on overdrive.

Details: September 25, all day long, in downtown Chicago. We’ll give you the hotel info when you sign up… IF you score a seat.

There’s only room for 5 attendees. Hot Seats are incredibly intense and thorough, and we cannot do more than 5 in a day. So that’s the limit.

We’ve already emailed our list about this. When we held a one-day Hot Seat event in New York city in July, it sold out like that.

So if this is something you even think might appeal to you… go to this link for more details:

http://www.carlton-workshop.com

Your Tip For The Week

Shakin’ All Over

Thursday, 5:31pm
Reno, NV
“Quivers down my kneebone… I got the shakes in my thighbone…” Guess Who (“Shakin’ All Over”)

Howdy,

Have you ever been so freakin’ nervous you almost lost control of bodily functions?

Two things made me suddenly think about this unseemly subject.

First Thing: We have an Afghan hound in the house with a bark that rattles windows four blocks away… and he has come thisclose to eating the mailman, the Fed Ex guy, three neighbors, and a flock of Jehovah’s Witnesses who dared knock on the door.

And that’s just over the past month or so.

But here’s the kicker: He will break down into a sobbing lump of useless self-pity if Michele or I so much as look at him cross-eyed.

His bark is a mask for the social vulnerability he suffers.

He doesn’t really want to rip out your throat.

Deep inside, he’s just a confused, awkward puppy, trapped in an adult dog’s body. Scared shitless of the world. (Literally shitless, whenever fireworks or lightning are nearby.) (Yeah, it’s a mess.)

Second Thing: I was recently advising someone about “getting his ass out in the marketplace as an expert”… and the guy actually started shaking.

Just the thought of stepping onto the metaphorical stage of life, and performing… sent this poor guy into a stuttering implosion.

He not only had no “bark”… he had no cojones, either.

This got me thinking about my own journey from stuttering fear-meister to swaggering bluster-bomb.

It’s relevant… because, in business, my line is: If you truly have a great product that your prospect should own… then shame on you if you don’t step forward confidently and BE that guy he needs you to be… so he can feel good about buying.

You can’t sell from your heels, people.

(I love to trot out the old quote by Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones: “It’s not that I’m all that great of a guitar player, you know. It’s just that I can step out in front of ten thousand people and DO it.”)

(Talent comes in WAY behind cojones when it comes to carving out your niche.)

Anyway, back to me…

I am not an extrovert by any stretch.

In fact, I chart pretty heavily toward “total thumb-sucking, light-avoiding, cave-dwelling introvert” in basic personality tests.

You can tell an introvert from an extrovert pretty easily: When the extro is around people, like at a party, he gets energized. The introvert finds it a chore, and leaves the event drained.

It’s all about energy transference.

Now, I was lucky to grow up with a sizeable contingent of good friends — who I went all the way from kindergarten through high school with — which saved me from having to “make” new friends until I hustled off to college.

And, in college, for whatever reason, I was immediately taken in by a group of goofballs who somehow saw my potential for furthering their goofball yearnings.

However, it took me a long time to get to “know” most of these people.

Seriously. It was decades before I finally felt comfortable around most of them.

Nearly all of the people I’m close to, I’ve been close to for half my life. (I’ve known my business partner, Stan, for 25 years, and our contract writer, Mark, since we were nineteen.)

I tell you this to illustrate how ill-equiped I was to become a guru.

I stuttered as a kid… and frequently found myself getting stuck on words as an adult whenever I encountered uncomfortable situations.

Meaning, any new situation where people I didn’t know were looking at me.

In grade school — back when I was convinced that everybody else knew things they weren’t sharing with me (and that’s why life seemed like such a mystery) — I even burst into tears in class math competitions. (One little girl — Peggy The Bitch, I call her — repeatedly tripped me up with the question “What’s 5 times 0?” I nearly always said “5!” before realizing my blunder and being told to sit down while the rest of the class continued the competition.)

(Ah, childhood humiliation. What a concept.)

As a teen, a good (longtime) friend convinced me to learn guitar so we could start playing in bands. He wanted the excitement and recognition of being on stage. I just got a thrill from playing music.

So he fronted the many bands we formed, happily, from center-stage… and I happily lurked near the far edge, out of the limelight, content to concentrate on the tunes.

I was kinda like Garth, from Wayne’s World. Thrust into the action on the coattails of a raging extrovert.

Freelancing was a natural for me. It required long, lonely hours inside your head… and you were excused from looking like the regular “suits” in the agencies because, as a writer, the more outrageous you appeared, the more they believed you must possess the “goods”.

Idiots.

Halbert, of course, was THE uber-extrovert. He publicly listed his main hobby as “finding new methods of self-aggrandizement”.

I stayed behind the scenes as much as possible. My main job, in fact, during seminars was to handle everything but the actual delivery of the action onstage.

It was Halbert’s show, and I liked it that way.

I had defined myself as an introvert, and never considered it could be any other way.

I even had a “defining moment” — back in college, when I was introduced to my first “real” girlfriend’s beloved sister, I started laughing uncontrollably. Not because anything was funny… but because my body betrayed me, and just went off in an inappropriate spasm.

I was humiliated, because after lamely stuttering about why I had burst out with guffaws (I could come with nothing good to explain myself), the awkwardness just got deeper and deeper. My girlfriend forgave me (and even sorta found it endearing — I was her “bad boy” artistic-type boyfriend, so weirdness was expected).

But her sister forever thought I was an A-Number One Doofus Jerk-Off.

Rightly so, I might add.

Around uncomfortable situations, I was that guy.

However…

After, oh, around thirty gazillion private consultations and Hot Seats and meetings with clients once I became a sought-after pro… all of whom initially tried to “alpha male” me into submission, because they wanted the writer (me) to be their slave…

… I started to think that maybe I had unwisely “defined” myself.

As anyone who has gotten freelance advice from me knows, I quickly learned to walk into a new client’s life and OWN the bastard. I knew that I held all the cards — he needed copy, couldn’t produce it himself to save his life, and thus was in zero position to be dictating terms to me.

I ain’t shy, professionally.

Now, my technique may or may not help others. (I developed a “stage personality” for these consultations I called Dr. Smooth… and let this “alternative John” take over.)

(And damn, but that Doctor was good at taking control and bullying clients.)

It’s a standard tactic, adapted from acting. No big deal, nothing revelatory about it.

However…

What it did for me was immediately obliterate that old “defining moment” that I had regarded as my “fate”.

I wasn’t really a socially-retarded loser.

I just played one in life.

Cuz I thought I’d been… assigned… the role.

If you’ve ever seen me speak at seminars, you know I’m no wallflower these days. I’m totally comfy in front of any size crowd, because the “mystery” of what’s going on has been solved in my mind.

It’s not about me.

It’s about the content of what I share.

(Plus, of course, I know so much about the people in the audience nowadays… from all those decades of delving into the psychology of salesmanship… that I don’t even need to imagine anyone naked to be calm.)

(It’s just us folks in the room. Good people looking for good info, plus maybe a little entertainment along the way. And a speaker line-up of “just-plain-dudes” having fun in the limelight.)

My point: You can do what you need to do.

If your market is crying out for someone to stand up and be the go-to-guy… you really can do it.

Like Keith Richards, you can get your chops honed to a degree that gives you enough confidence to be “onstage” (however you define the stage — it can be your website, an actual stage, or infomercials or any other media)… where you will deliver what the folks paid to see.

There are vast armies of “experts” out there (especially online) with no more real skill or insight or knowledge than you have.

Often, they have less.

What they DO have, that so many others refuse to cultivate, are the cojones to step up and BE that guy the audience needs you to be.

I can tell you this with absolute certainty (because I personally know it’s true): Most of the top guru’s in the entrepreneurial world — especially online — are former dweebs, stutterers, social outcasts and semi-dangerous nutcases.

They are, essentially, gawky and lonely and scared little kids trapped inside an adult’s body.

What they have done, however…

… is to re-define WHO they are when it counts.

Everyone, at some time or another, feels the urge to crawl back into bed and pull the covers over their head. Life is tough, business tougher. Hamlet’s slings and arrows constantly rain on everyone’s parade, and NO ONE gets a pass.

However…

… the winners define themselves.

I’m still an introvert. I still have my awkward social moments. I still occasionally stutter.

But those things do not define me.

Long ago, I threw away the role “assigned” to me… and just created my own new one. Which allows me to do whatever needs doing to further my goals… including climbing up on stage alone and engaging a thousand people as a ringleader.

Life sucks when you’re crawling around under the weight of unnecessary self-loathing, self-pity and self-expectations you can never meet.

Life rocks when you re-cut the jigsaw of your personality, and make something new according to who YOU want to be.

Just food for thought.

Love to hear your experiences with self-defining moments.

It’s heartening to hear so many commenters in past blogs finally come to grips with internal battles they’ve sometimes struggled with for years.

Hey — it’s fun when this stuff starts working.

Stay frosty,

John Carlton
www.carltoncoaching.com

P.S. We are very close to finishing up a new venture here that — if you crave rollicking adventure in your business life — will absolutely light up many people’s worlds.

It’s a limited opportunity… but the folks who truly know, in your heart, that one of the spots was meant for you… will instantly understand what has to happen to get involved.

Just a few more days…

Jerks, Genius, and Juice

Monday, 9:43pm
Reno, NV
“I’ll tell you what matters most in life: @#&*, %&*#@, and #@%&*. And if there’s any money left after that, more @#&*.” The Big Ugly Guy

Howdy.

Let’s talk more about Halbert’s legacy, what d’ya say?

His name keeps cropping up, both in praise and in confusion.

I’m thinking this is gonna be the case for a long time to come, too. The guy both intrigued and mystified people. While he was still around, he didn’t need anyone to speak for him, because he loved to engage in dialog about his theories, his lessons, and his own legacy.

And once he had your phone number, you could expect frequent late-night calls on every important subject under the sun.

(One thing I’m fairly proud of is realizing, years ago, how valuable and precious those calls were. It was never lost on me that I was privy to the intimate thoughts and ruminations of a towering figure in the game.)

Now that he’s causing trouble in another realm somewhere, it’s fallen to his old pals to metaphorically watch Halbert’s back.

It’s an interesting situation. When I first began my career, advertising legends like Claude Hopkins and Robert Collier had fallen off the face of the earth. Their books were out-of-print, and if you mentioned their names — even in a hard-crowd of marketers — you’d get blank stares.

Life’s like that. Some of the greatest groups in rock (if you count influence as a sign of greatness) spent their entire existence in near-obscurity. (Good example is The Flying Burrito Bros. Founder Gram Parsons’ voice has buckled the knees of many a now-famous musician — U2’s “Joshua Tree” album is a tribute to the dude, just for starters — and he’s an honored guest in the Rock Hall of Fame. But they were pretty much ignored during their brief glory days. Same with Arthur Lee and his band Love. Yet… whenever I urge some young musician to seek this music out — and I’m not alone in doing this — the result is always the same: No one who finally discovers this stuff can understand why it’s been overlooked, and remains nearly hidden except for small pockets of rabid fans.)

When Gary and I first met, we bonded because we were like “advertising geeks” sharing a respect for the forgotten genius of guys who died before we were born.

When I found out he had a thrashed photocopy of The Robert Collier Letter Book… and was willing to let me copy it… it was like discovering buried treasure.

It’s kinda hard to understand, now that you can find copies of nearly everything ever published online. And a whole fresh generation of guru’s are making sure that their students, at least, don’t forget about the past again.

There’s juice in the old stuff. While most of the rest of the world sinks into myopic delusion (believing that nothing old can possibly have value), the savvy few know better.

And continue to profit from this vast stash of overlooked swag.

Anyway…

I refuse to look at Gary’s stuff as “old”. Some of his references are dated, sure — especially in the 20-year-old newsletters. His genius was forged in the gnarly and complex world of direct mail and direct response print ads.

And yet he was hip to the ways marketing was morphing online. No one would mistake him for a tech-geek, but he was pointing out profit opportunities on the Web right up to the end.

No moss growing on that boy.

And because the fundamentals will never change — it all comes down to killer salesmanship, whether you’re marketing online, in the mail, on TV, or bouncing signals off satellites for passing UFO’s — his teachings will never become obsolete. No matter how dated you find some of his references.

He remains a primary source of what I call “the good stuff”. Not a secondary source, but a PRIMARY one.

A whole bunch of the guru’s out there would be mute without Gary’s influence, inspiration, and specific teachings.

Nevertheless…

… virgin mobs of rookies are crowding into the online marketing game every day.

And their first obstacle is to wade through the bullshit out there… and find trustworthy resources for info, tactics, and tools. And there are endless minefields of misinformation, wrong directions, and evil intentions looking to suck them in.

I do not envy anyone arriving in the online marketing world without friends or at least a clue.

But I do try to steer as many as I can reach straight, whenever possible.

Last week, a rookie posted something interesting on Michel Fortin’s “Copywriter’s Board” (a free online gathering place for freelancers of all stripes and persuasions).

Title: “Are all copywriters jerks?”

The entire thread includes input from a lot of smart writers, and it’s a fun read.

Usually, I just lurk in those forums (cuz, you know, I’m a little pressed for time). But this “jerk” post was right in my wheelhouse — the subject was Gary’s writing “style” (and also mine and a few other guru’s) and how… offensive… it was.

The writer was genuinely disturbed by the attitude and tone of “this guy Halbert”. It was exactly the sort of post that Gary would have loved to respectfully engage with… and I figured I’d chime in, since he couldn’t.

Respectfully, but with a heavy emphasis on reality.

Not that Gary (or any of us) needs defending. We’re all happy to let our stuff speak for itself.

But something in my gut was telling me that newbies were not getting good introductions to some of “the good stuff”… and might wander away never giving it the chance it deserves.

So here’s my post in that thread, below.

It’s a message that may bear repeating a few times, as “ancient history” online increasingly gets defined as anything older than last week…

Here’s my post:

Hey —

I’ll have you know I’m not a jerk… I’m a curmudgeon.

Seriously, though, the posters here who mention the importance of “real world” knowledge about how biz gets done are right on. I know ALL the copywriters mentioned in this thread, on a personal level. And I’ll share a secret: Behind the scenes, it’s a locker room out there.

Top writers are nearly always wicked smart, and they devour life in large chunks.

They have no fear of any subject… and (key point here) they respect language in all forms. Especially slang and the way people actually speak to each other.

Still, I totally understand why some folks think many of us cross a line with our ribald writing and outrageous public attitudes.

However, none of us do it just for shock value. In fact, my SOP is to emphasize to fresh prospects that I’m not everyone’s cup of tea, and I mean it. We never schedule consultations with anyone who isn’t hip to my teaching tactics (which are, admittedly, brutal and in-your-face). You gotta walk in with your eyes wide open. (You’re allowed to blush, but we’ll be merciless regardless.)

Halbert, in fact, has a very specific warning on the first page of his website. I won’t quote it here, cuz I don’t to give anyone a conniption fit. But it’s VERY specific.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with demanding a certain behavior code from the people you learn from.

There’s also absolutely nothing wrong with putting up an “adults only” sign, and getting on with things in an aggressive, , uncensored, no-holds-barred way.

Choose your poison.

And be happy in your work.

God bless the First Amendment.

John Carlton

PS: When I write for joints like Rodale, BTW, I am Mr. Nice Guy to a nauseating degree. That’s because my copy has to reach an almost ridiculously large audience… and you’re right to believe that, once you’re outside specific niches with identifiable language preferences, the Zeitgeist tends to skew socially conservative. (It’s like network TV versus cable.)

In the pieces I’ve done for Rodale in the “sex info” market, I believe I dance around the inherent voyeuristic and naughty details in a way that sneaks past people’s internal censors with the best of them.

Let me tell ya, that is tough to pull off, too. You must have total command of the language… combined with a street-level savvy of buyer psychology. (And yes, the majority of these “better sex” DVDs go to your neighbors, co-workers, and other people who are completely and boringly normal.)

Another interesting fact: Halbert’s most famous ads are also squeaky clean, language-wise. Do not confuse his newsletters — a teaching vehicle to hard-core business people — with his ads aimede at buying audiences. Very different animals.

Our first seminars together were also models of propiety and professionalism. Miss Manners would have been proud. (Later on, we got a little raunchy, of course. Attendees loved it, demanded more of it, and wore their experience like a badge of honor.)

The great revolution in teaching now playing out has centered around the idea of offering people (who self-select themselves, voluntarily) the opportunity to see behind the curtain… and experience how business actually gets done. For folks without access to real back rooms, this is a priceless glimpse into the world of movers and shakers. Putting up with a little bad-boy behavior seems, to me, to be a small price to pay for such a valuable resource.

Over my career, I’ve encountered countless business situations where we had to wait for the fussy folks to leave the room before we could get down to the “real” business at hand.

Yes, it can be shocking to move beyond surface-level observations of how people behave, especially in positions of authority and responsibility.

It’s also the only way to learn how things get done. (Listen to the Nixon tapes from the White House to get a taste of how people in power talk about you when they don’t think you’re in earshot.)

Final observation I’ll share here: Some of rowdiest and most obscene-joke-loving business people I’ve ever encountered… were self-identified as strictly religious, hard-core conservatives.

My first experiences with “back room” business kinda shocked me, too. Soon, though, I learned to love it. It’s not a place for idealists or party poopers. But for writers who crave action and adventure and fun, it’s the only game in town.

Anyway, just thought I’d pass on my insights from the front lines.

Again — everyone is COMPLETELY justified in setting limits and boundaries. And there are lots of markets where rough-and-tumble attitudes don’t cut it. You don’t have to hang out with anyone you consider a jerk, ever.

That’s what’s great about this brave new online world: There’s a place for everyone.

Stay frosty.

John Carlton

Okay, we’re back to the blog here, and I’m signing off.

P.S. By the way… we got our Yankee tickets for New York. I can’t wait.

Also: When I get back from this crazy trip that starts next week (Vegas with the Walkers, South Carolina for Ron LeGrand’s seminar — which is shaping up to be THE event of the summer — and then our Hot Seat “flash mob” in NYC) we’ll be scheduling consultations for the rest of the season.

We’ve been putting people on “hold”, because our schedule has been so nuts… but we’ve got a handle on it now, and if you want to explore getting private “hands on” consulting from me (or, even better, me and Stan in tandem), pop over to www.carltoncoaching.com and get busy.

There are VERY few spots open for the “Launching Pad” option. Get in touch with my assistant Diane if you’re finally ready to make your move…

Luck Of The Draw

Monday, 8:59pm
Reno, NV
“You’ve got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?” Dirty Harry

Howdy,

Did luck have anything to do with how you got where you are today?

Do you consider yourself generally lucky, either in life or circumstance? Or cards, maybe?

I run into the concept of “luck” a lot in business. And since I’ve had such a stormy relationship with luck throughout my life, I perk up whenever I hear anyone talk about it.

I’ll come clean right off the top, though, before going further: I consider “luck” (at least the way people I grew up around think about it) as a form of superstition.

Which almost consumed me in my youth. The idea that unrelated things could influence the outcome of certain events, once it takes hold in your head, can dominate your life. Being in sports didn’t help.

Here’s my example (love to hear yours, too): I played hardball until I was 17, and while I couldn’t hit worth a damn — no peripheral vision — I was considered agile enough with the glove to start at shortshop with my Colt League team.

I still have nightmares about the anxiety. At that level of ball, the left side of the infield handles most of the action… and it’s brutal. (Some of those guys were only a few more years away from pro ball.)

I always considered third basemen as fortunate bastards — you’re so close to the batter, you have no time to think when a shot comes your way. You’re totally into reactive mode. Every play is bam-bam.

Fifteen feet farther back, at short, you’ve get enough time even with a hot grounder for your fevered brain to go through a dozen different ways you could screw this play up before the ball reaches you. The anxiety ate me up. (If I hadn’t gotten a handle on that nervousness, I surely would be crippled with ulcers today.)

Every pitch presented a new opportunity for physical pain (ever had a baseball going 4,000 mph take a wicked hop and careen into your face, groin, or neck?), and the humiliation of letting down your team with an error. The irony is, I had a good fielding percentage… yet, I felt no elation at making a play. That was my job, to make the play. No glory in just doing your job out there.

No glory. But an avalanche of shame and self-loathing if you didn’t perform absolutley perfectly.

Yeah, I was kinda hard on myself. I should have quit, and devoted myself to the band. (For whatever reason, I had zero fear of mounting a stage to play music. No anxiety, and no sense that I had to be perfect, either. It was fun.)

Anyway… isolated out there at short, with vast stretches of infield dirt in every direction, I somehow got the idea that if I smashed all the dirt clods around me before each pitch, I would be protected from errors.

I have no clue how that thought got into my head. The pitchers refused to step on the baseline going in and coming out each inning, and you weren’t supposed to talk to them while they had a no-no going… and other guys had their lucky socks (phew!) and their must-do routines to avoid jinxes… but I have never come across another jock who thought of dirt clods as holding any power over outcomes.

Once the thought took hold, though, it obsessed me. At first, I just had to stomp the clods next to me. But by mid-season, I would spot a clump six feet away, and NEED to scurry over there as the pitcher wound up, crush it, and get back into position before the ball reached the plate. I must have looked like a bugged-out meth addict out there, desperately looking for things to stomp, and dancing left and right when I should have been settling in and getting ready for action.

Finally, the coach grabbed me by the scruff between innings and asked me what the HELL I was doing out there, huh? Was I channeling Fred Astaire, maybe? Or Ginger Rogers?

So I gave it up. The little dirt clods would mock me, and the anxiety ran hot through my gut… but I quit. The horror of riding the bench trumped my fear of fate.

Here’s the Final Jeopardy question, of course: Did not killing the dirt clods affect the outcome of my play at shortshop, once I altered my behavior?

The answer is no, it did not.

However, in the grip of superstitious thinking, empirical evidence like that cannot make a dent. I did not come away from that forced experiment with any new sense of freedom.

Most of the people I knew back then “believed” in superstitions, sometimes to ridiculous extents. So I wasn’t gonna get any sensible advice from them about dealing with my own need to “protect” myself from bad things using unrelated behavior rituals, lucky charms, and magical thinking.

THey were, in fact, all for rituals, charms, and magic.

This paranoia went on for years… and then, one day, I just snapped.

It was soon after I’d discovered the power of setting goals. In a way, setting a goal, and going after it, is the opposite of superstition.

Instead of being at the mercy of “fate”, or mysterious forces that cause things to either go well or go badly for you…

… with goal setting, YOU are in control.

It’s like two opposing models of looking at the world.

When you feel mostly out of control… and you’re not being proactive about regaining control… it’s easy to believe that events are entirely out of your hands. You need luck.

On the other hand… when you’ve done your homework, and visualized outcomes, and put everything you possibly can in your favor… you exert actual control over how things will turn out.

When you’re prepared, you may welcome a lucky break here or there.

But you don’t NEED it. You will succeed or fail from your own exertions.

Anyway, one of my early and most fundamental goals was to become “comfortable in my own skin”. I sensed that most anxiety and low self-esteem came from not taking control.

And, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that superstition sucked.

It was a negative force. It came from weakness, and fear, and a refusal to face life square on. (I was studying Carl Jung at that time, too… and one thing he said about nightmares leaped out at me: “When you are chased by a monster, stop and confront it. You will see that the monster’s strength comes from your fear. He has no power when you face him down.” That hit me hard — I’d spent most of my life believing I had to run faster in my nightmares.) (I don’t have nightmares much anymore, and while I miss the adventure, I don’t miss the anxiety.)

So I made a simple vow: No more superstition.

No matter how much I felt I “needed” to obey the demands of the superstitious monsters deep inside… and no matter how much they threatened me with horror and humiliation and pain if I refused their burnt offerings… I just stopped engaging.

And years of pent-up fear fell away, instantly. I was no longer a prisoner to irrationality.

Even better… I started keeping track of results.

And guess what?

Things are going to happen, or not happen, or happen in odd ways, regardless of any superstitious thinking involved.

The ONLY thing that affects the outcome… is preparation. Being aware, awake, and alert to the odds. Hip and ready to rumble.

And, especially, hyper-alert to opportunity.

Hey — for all I know, “luck” actually exists. I know I’ve been a pretty lucky guy for most of my life… starting with having the good sense to be born to good parents in a good generation, in a good little town in a good country that offered all kinds of basic freedoms and opportunities.

However… the opportunities in life didn’t “change” around me when I got hip to going after them.

No. What changed was my attitude about opportunity. When you allow notions of luck and superstitious belief to dominate, you have little incentive to grab onto opportunity… because, hey, if I’m in a lucky streak, I can be picky.

But when you have a set of goals to measure any incoming opportunity against, you know exactly what to do. If the opportunity moves you closer to your goal, then you jump on it. If it doesn’t… well, you’re allowed to reconsider your fundamental goals, but when you’re dead set on something specific (like being an entrepreneur) then it’s easy to let even hot opportunities go (like taking another job with The Man, regardless of how attractive the salary is).

I’ve been very lucky with the way things have turned out in my life. And yet, despite the fortunate series of events that allowed me to grow up near the center of the cultural maelstrom on the west coast, soaking up the peak experiences of my generation (I was 13 — the perfect age — when the Beatles hit US shores, and went through college with what became “classic rock” as the soundtrack behind the sexual, social and consciousness revolutions we enjoyed) and somehow staying safe in spite of all the factors sending me toward danger (the draft ended my last year in college — I was set to go, too) (and all those car wrecks… jeez, I should’ve been diced, sliced and minced a dozen times over, and yet never broke a bone) — despite all that cool, fascinating action…

… I wasn’t comfortable in my own skin.

In fact, I was miserable. I was having a damn good time… but the lack of having a “place” in the world left me feeling like an exile in the culture. I was bereft of any anchor, or purpose, or direction.

It may well have been lucky that a woman I was dating had just been fired from her job with the ad agency, and was reading the Want Ads when I stopped by one afternoon… and she pointed out this “weird” little ad by a guy named Jay Abraham talking about Claude Hopkins or some other such nonsense. Wasn’t that a funny ad? What freelancer in their right mind would answer such a goofy ad?

But it was focused goal-attainment that got me to jump on that opportunity, regardless of whether “luck” put it in my lap or not. (That woman lost all respect for me by going to see Jay, by the way… and Jay at first told me I didn’t have what it took to work with him, which would have crushed me a year earlier… but I suspected he hadn’t actually read my submitted pieces, which was true, and because I also suspected this was a guy on my path to where I wanted to go… I burst into his offices unannounced and nearly got in a fight. We made nice, though, and I ended up working with him for a couple of years — writing for free, in exchange for being able to sit in on meetings and have free run of his offices — which led to that “fateful” party where I was introduced to Gary Halbert, recently out of the clink and raring to go, and so on…)

Luck is for pussies.

Goals are what gets things done.

The point of all this: My youthful obsession with luck and superstition and the idea that I was essentially NOT in control of my life was aiming me in a direction where… at my current age… I would still be uncomfortable in my own skin.

I think about this all the time. Especially as I watch my colleagues and friends and neighbors go about their day. Many still believe that money will buy them happiness. Or a new car will do the trick, or a new spouse, or moving to a new city, or whatever.

I’d have to guess that 90% of the people I know are squirming in their own skin. Not comfy at all.

I never get jealous when I hear about some dude scoring big bucks in a launch, or a new biz venture, or even from an inheritance. I USED to, before I realized what my own main goal in life was.

Now, I have a simple test: Whenever I meet someone new, or meet up with someone who’s the toast of the town… I gauge their inner comfort.

And I wonder: Would I want to spend a single minute inside their skin? BE them for any length of time?

In my earlier days of angst and cluelessness, I quickly assigned massive levels of happiness and contentment to anyone with a better basic set-up than I had. My default position was that everyone else was having a better time than I was.

Now, though, I guess I’ve attained a sort of Zen ease.

I haven’t met anyone who isn’t riven with inner turmoil in a long time.

And I don’t know anyone I’d like to trade places with, even for a short time.

I worked hard to get comfy in this battle-scarred, weathered, grizzled body of mine.

I kinda like it in here, now. A lot.

And luck had nothing to do with me getting to this lovely point.

Well?

What do you think about luck, superstition, and envy?

Love to hear your thoughts…

Stay frosty,

John Carlton

PS: Don’t forget that I’m speaking at Ron LeGrand’s “Info and Internet Marketing Bootcamp” the last weekend of June. In South Carolina.

I consider Ron the most consumate salesman I’ve ever met, period. I have NEVER spent more than a minute with him, either on the phone or in person, without learning several killer Master’s Level lessons in classic salesmanship.

And my guess is, this event may be one of the last times you’ll get to see him live like this. He’s one of those guys who isn’t working because he needs the money — instead, he just loves teaching. Still, I know this is a rare event where he will BE there, speaking and interacting with the audience. We’re talking history here.

If you — like me — value the lessons of masters, you’ll want to check out the opportunity here:

http://www.RonLeGrand.com/Carlton

I’m really looking forward to this event. Never been to SC…

Copywriting Crisis

Monday, 2:19pm
Reno, NV
“C’mere, I wanna talk to you…” A mugger in Ry Cooder’s “Down In Hollywood”

Howdy…

While down in San Diego for the Kern seminar, I managed to grab a couple of meals with Jeff Walker (of Launch Formula fame).

Always a treat to hang out with Jeff — smart cookie, funny, lives life according to his own damn rules.

Plus, he always says shit that makes me think.

This time, while everyone else was yammering at the table (one of the perks of going to these events is sharing meals with groups of fascinating folks)… Jeff leaned over and asked me something that has been gnawing at my brain for a month now.

“Do you think,” he whispered, “there’s a crisis in copywriting right now?”

For the few minutes we had to talk, he laid out a harrowing plot line: Increasingly, top marketers who are quite capable of writing their own stuff (like Jeff, and Rich Schefren, and Tellman Knudsen, and Mike Filsaime, and dozens of others) are hiring copywriters to handle the task.

Hey — even pro scribes like me are always on the lookout for hot talent to tackle some of the mounting writing chores that any successful online biz encounters.

And here’s the rub: Increasingly, freelance copywriters have learned to “talk” a good game… but can’t walk the walk.

They’re asking for — and getting — top fees.

And then either screwing up the project, or delivering inferior work.

This is not good, people.

I probably share some of the blame for this miserable state of affairs. Back when I started my freelance career (last century), freelancers were not treated well. You were more like a vendor, a guy merely supplying an unimportant service, and respect was hard to come by.

You often got paid last, almost as an afterthought. And you were expected to follow the whims of the client like a good slave, and not rock the boat.

I quickly decided this was bullshit. Most of the clients I had in the first couple of years — and this included veteran direct response agencies (who should have known better) — were so clueless about good selling strategies… that it would have been a CRIME to allow them to dictate what was written.

So I spoke up, argued, and insisted on following my “Gun To The Head” philosophy of writing what was NEEDED… not what would please the client.

This necessitated a chance in client-management, too. Rather than come in sheepishly, hat in hand, and act like a vendor… I realized I needed to blow the doors down and OWN the joint if I was gonna be a successful freelancer.

The strategy was simple, and based on experience: Most clients needed a freelance copywriter because they (or their staff) couldn’t write an ad that worked.

I knew how to do that.

Therefore… I was sort of like “the adult in the room”. The guy who could clearly see what was going on, what was needed, and how to do it.

In fact… whenever I delivered finished copy that the client “loved”… I knew I’d failed.

The best copy isn’t safe and nice and loveable.

It’s dangerous.

I wanted my clients nervous as hell, and squirming as they read the ad. My job wasn’t to make them happy. It was to make the ad a success.

To do that — to get into the position where I could push “the right thing” through — required a very ballsy attitude. Take no prisoners. BE that guy who demands and deserves respect… and who proves his worth by ACTIONS.

You don’t earn that kind of respect by talking a good game.

Naw. You earn it by earning it. By doing your job, over and over, and producing results that prove you know what you’re doing.

Back in my bachelor days, I remember meeting many guys who lied about their circumstances in order to get the attention of women.

“But you don’t really own a Porsche,” I would say. “And you’ve never sold a screenplay to Hollywood.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Mr Suave And Debonair would reply. “It’s all about perception.”

Oh yeah?

These guys would actually “get” the initial attention they craved. And, I guess if you’re after the most shallow and fleeting relationship encounters possible, sometimes they were “successful”.

But it always seemed creepy to me. Bare-faced dishonesty should trigger shame in your heart, not elation at gaming the system.

On the other hand…

… when you actually possess “the goods”… the real crime is in hiding from your responsibility to do what you need to do to accomplish “the right thing.”

If, as a copywriter, you know from experience and talent what should be done in a project or ad… then pure professionalism demands that you stand up and make your case.

If that requires a little attitude, maybe a little bullying or bludgeoning of the client, then that is part of your job: You treat the gig as if the business was yours, and the consequences personal.

Top writers do that. They are, despite working for a fee, partners with you for the duration of the job. (The best of the best often work on a percentage of the deal, which makes them real partners… with a very real stake in the results.)

The lower rungs of the freelance world are still valuable, of course. There are mountains of writing jobs out there that do not require the attention of wise veterans who’ve been around the block a bunch of times.

I’m not going to dis any copywriter out there who is willing to accept “fulfillment” jobs, where no input from him is expected or wanted — you just need to write a coherent piece of copy that clearly communicates what the client needs communicated. I’ve done that in my career (even after I adopted the “hard-core pro attitude” for most jobs). Sometimes, you just need to apply your skills as a communicator of the written word, and leave your attitude and consulting and “making ’em squirm” tactics back at the office.

HOWEVER…

This “crisis” that Jeff was talking about almost entirely stems from this attitude thing.

Here’s what’s happened: A whole generation of freelancers have learned how to talk their way into getting big gigs.

And they simply do not have either the skills or the experience to pull off what’s required.

This sucks. Both for the freelancer — who gets tarred with a bad reputation — and for the client, who is out the hefty fee… and still doesn’t have copy he can use.

I wrote the notorious “Freelance Manual” five years ago, ironically, to try to nip this situation in the bud. I saw two things happening, as a result of the explosion of marketing online:

1. There was a growing need for good copy… and…

2. There was a dearth of good copywriters able to do any of it.

That Freelance Course is not available right now. This is not a pitch for it. You couldn’t get it even if you wanted it, for any price.

No.

I’m trying to make a point here: In that course, I had exactly three sections.

“Get Good” was the first section.

“Get Connected” was the middle section.

And “Get Paid” was the last.

That course created a bit of a sensation among would-be freelancers. It was the first time a pro had let rookies and outsiders “in” on the tactics of managing clients, networking with the Big Boys, and negotiating huge fees.

That trilogy — get good, get connected, and get paid — is still the foundation for a fabulous (and fabulously wealthy) freelance career…

… but…

… you gotta embrace the entire model.

You can’t skip the “get good” part. That’s where you earn the right to “get paid”.

What Jeff Walker has noticed is the tip of the iceberg out there. Since hearing it from him, I’ve since heard complaints from a huge section of the marketers I hang with… all on the subject of freelance copywriters presenting themselves as something other than what they are.

They talk a great game. They get the big fees. They seem connected, they network well, and they know how to manage clients.

But they forgot to get good at what they are supposed to do to earn those big fees.

In that Freelance Course, I made what I thought was a clear warning: Do not attempt to break into the “A” list of clients until you are ready.

How do you know if you’re ready?

If you have to ask… then you’re not ready.

The best writers have all served some kind of long apprenceticeship, where they were free to make mistakes and learn from them… without hurting their reputations, or hurting any big client who took a shot with them.

The lucky ones found mentors, who personally took them under wing and taught them the ropes.

The Freelance Course was meant to fill in the blanks for those many writers who couldn’t find a mentor.

The writers who followed my advice in that course (the first one of its kind) have done rather well for themselves. They get the best jobs, for the biggest fees, and they enjoy sterling reputations among marketers who hire freelancers.

They are a minority, however, it seems.

Whether the mob of freelancers out there mucking up the joint ever saw my course or not (and there are now several other guides to freelancing out there that are just fine) I cannot say.

One thing is certain, though: Too many are not learning to walk the walk before they get up on the soapbox and start talking the talk.

In business, when you’re the bottom-line owner, you will find out quickly if you have what it takes to thrive. Reality will smack you down in a hurry if you skip the fundamentals, or try to game the system without paying your dues and learning the ropes.

Freelancers, however, can actually hover above the rules of consequence. For a time, anyway. They get paid to produce an ad, and they can walk away from the project afterward.

This is NOT an excuse to do shoddy work. Pro’s — the real heroes of copywriting, the guys who become legends and own reputations that read like novels — throw themselves into every project with full force. There is NEVER an excuse to give less than 100% — if you accept a job, you are a partner in the project until you’ve done what needs to be done.

So, I suppose this is a warning shot across the bow of freelancers out there.

The top marketers — the guys who WILL pay top dollar for copy — are aware of this crisis.

And they talk with each other.

The rewards of taking the time to get good, before you start negotiating the big buck fees, are staggering. (And you can still earn a handsome living while you’re honing your chops and putting your nose to the grindstone, learning and getting experience.)

The damage, however, that you do by presenting yourself as something you’re not… is permanent and will murder your career.

Freelancing is a wonderful profession. But you don’t just waltz into it fully formed. You gotta master the craft.

Clients can suck. That’s a primal lesson all freelancers learn early, especially when they mentor under me.

However, when you are able to confidently swim the choppy waters of writing for multiple markets (and multiple clients), it’s all just part of a day’s work.

The clients may suck, the job may require you to think overtime and sweat more than you’d prefer at the keyboard (doing draft after draft until it’s right)… and your gut may wince at the moments of severest anxiety (like just before results come in).

But it ain’t digging ditches, is it.

It’s earning a living (and a damn good one, too) doing something you SHOULD love: Writing.

Copy is the foundation of business. All business, and all marketing. No video, website, print ad, email, text message, direct mail letter, fax, infomercial, radio spot, or anything else with a sales message… is created without someone sitting down and knocking out the copy. (Even “spontaneous” video is “written” — though the “script” may be in your head, assembled a nano-second before coming out of your mouth. It’s still copy. It’s still gotta be created.)

Writing is, in fact, the foundation of civilization as we know it. Scribes have always held a special place in society, because they are masters of communication.

Respect the gig.

Actually get good before you tell clients you’re good.

Don’t be shy about honestly assessing what you can do for any given client, and neotiating a truly fair fee that is a win-win for both of you.

You’re worth a higher fee when what you produce can quickly bring measureable results that make your pay irrelevant, because your stuff works.

This current crisis will end, one way or another, as the freelancers who actually produce are identified. The marketers with deep pockets are wary, pissed off and getting increasingly hip to how they can get “taken” by not-yet-ready-for-prime-time writers.

I do not understand why so many rookie writers are in a breathless hurry to get the big fees.

The ride is half the fun, people. Earning your success is a thousand times more satisfying than gaming the system… and it’s worth more, too.

Okay.

Warning shot fired, and canon put away.

What do you think about all this? I’d love to hear from both freelancers and marketers who hire freelancers…

Stay frosty,

John Carlton

P.S. If mentoring is something you feel you need, in order to get your own ride going at top speed… don’t forget the opportunities of my coaching club.

Just read the copy on this link, and see if it isn’t something that fits the bill for you.

Free trials, you know.

Just a thought — if you’re considering moving ahead in your career, especially online.

Here’s the link:

http://www.carltoncoaching.com

Lying Little Weasels

Monday, 9:28pm
Reno, NV
“You can always tell when he’s lying to you — his mouth is moving.”

Howdy…

Has anyone lied to you today?

Have you loosed a zinger yourself?

Do you have a sophisticated grading system for your own non-truths, so you can ameliorate any guilt you feel when you only lie a little tiny bit? Or only lie to, you know, spare someone pain? Or keep them blissfully in the dark?

I’ve been thinking a lot, lately, about lies and the miserable bastard weasels who use them as tools for doing business and for controlling their social lives.

One of the hardest lessons to learn, while I was sculpting my career, was how to deal with lies. In all their myriad forms and nuances.

I hung out with shrinks as much as I could — both as paid listeners and as biz colleagues (cuz most psychologists desperately want out of the job of professionally raking the muck in other people’s brains and hearts… and every time one would sense an opening through Halbert or me into the entrepreneurial world, they jumped at it). (Some of the weirdest stories I have entail shrinks and marketing misadventures.)

Dudes who study human behavior (and all its sordid and disheartening variations) professionally know some amazing things about people. For a salesman, this is fabulous insider knowledge, and we crave and seek it.

And one of the main things I picked up from a shrink wannabe-entrepreneur… was his idea of how to divide the human population into three basic categories:

1. Those who saw the world as mostly safe…

2. Those who saw the world as mostly dangerous…

3. And those who had a well-defined, balanced view of things as they really are.

This last group might well be called “adults”. Not as in “you’re just turned 21, so you’re now an adult”… but rather “you’re the only guy in the room who isn’t driven and tortured by demons, guilt and sick needs.”

I must say: Growing up as I did… snug in the biggest bulge of the post-war Baby Boom and nurtured by parents devoted to giving their kids a real childhood (without spoiling us)… I treated the entire world around me as a big, mostly-safe playground. I easily took too many risks, pulled too many completely stupid stunts, and contantly put myself and others in situations where somebody could have gotten seriously hurt or killed.

Living through it made us stronger. Amazingly, no one suffered any permanent damage (other than a few nasty scars, busted bones and popped vertebrae).

My cousins (co-agents of adventure with me throughout childhood) and I are just stunned by the leeway we were given: We absolutely had to be home at certain hours, and we never dared break that taboo. We had to be polite to grown-ups, and do what we were told. We had a few chores here and there, and any added responsibilities that came up were to be done without complaint.

Other than that… we were like little Viking mauraders, unleashed on the neighborhoods to pillage and lay waste to everything we could tear up, burn, or steal.

Mom would wave goodbye on a typical summer day, warn us to be home for lunch… and then she would not have a clue where we were or what we were doing for the next four hours. We’d show up, dirty and panting (and maybe a little bloody), gobble food, and leave again until dinner.

No questions asked, no information offered.

The world was ours. As far as the folks were concerned, kids needed to be kids… and you just sort of hoped some sense or help from angels or something would intervene in any serious danger.

(Once, exploring New York City with my pal David Deutsch, we started chatting with a couple eating pizza next to us, because David has a couple of kids nearly the age of their two young boys. I was shocked to learn that the oldest boy — who was almost thirteen — had NEVER been out of their Manhattan apartment without adult supervision. NEVER! They talked excitedly about maybe allowing him to take a walk around the block or even — gasp! — ride the subway for a stop or two… alone. Maybe they’d let him do that, in the near future. Maybe. I’m still stunned at that — kids growing up without the space to get in trouble, and figure out how to get OUT of that trouble. I don’t think that’s a make-up skill you can master very easily, once you’re an adult…)

Anyway, my point is that I grew up with this possibly exaggerated sense of how safe the world was. This caused some problems as I got old enough to drive… and challenge other boys for the right to date some girls… and try to find my place in the hive.

We started losing friends in car crashes. I myself was in around a dozen bloody wrecks before I left college, and I’m pretty sure our Boomer sense of invulnerability was behind our dumbest choices and decisions.

I was in high school before I started realizing that some of the other kids didn’t share my sense of entitlement to enjoy the wonders of the world. They were hostile to the idea of unfettered adventure, or had such strict home rules they never dared dream of going out at night to see what might happen… or, sometimes, they just seemed cowed and broken.

Like the weight of the world was crushing them.

I even went out of my way to make friends with some depressed kids, and drug them into my social circle almost as a sponsor. But there was always some horrible secret burning inside them, and they tended to suck energy out of the room rather than supply energy.

Many years later — after life had delivered some very adult-like blows to my self-esteem — I got a good taste of what depression could do to you. It tightened you up, bled you of vigor, and exhausted your heart just getting through a day. Fun was hard to come by.

The world seemed… hostile.

I have empathy for people in all the categories now. Been there, felt that, survived all of it.

Makes you humble. And gives you insight.

The world, as I now clearly see it, is both dangerous and delightful… often at the same time. I hitch-hiked for years without problem (and with a novel’s worth of adventure) before I even knew what a serial killer was. Can’t even imagine doing it now. Can’t believe I never had any trouble before. Would NOT recommend it to anyone today.

There are dark alleys, here and there, you can wander through without fear. Mostly, though, I avoid them all. (I’ve been writing for the self-defense market too long, perhaps… seen too much of the bad side of people.)

I have no allusions of safety among my fellow citizens. Nor do I keep a loaded pistol next to my bed, though. (I prefer the baseball bat.)

What’s all this got to do with lying?

Everything.

See, when the world seems safe, you don’t look for lies. You take people at face value, and accept statements as either true or possibly true until they are proven otherwise.

This seemed like a great way to move through the world, for a long time.

Once I went deep into the business world, however, I realized I was being seen as a fool for having so much trust in other people. I started encountering whole roomfuls of folks who considered everything you said an outrageous lie until you could be proven to have told the truth.

Lying as the default position?

This was like Alice in Wonderland for me. I wasn’t sure I wanted to live in a world where you couldn’t trust most folks, most of the time.

It felt too… lonely. Like it was you against the world, every second of the day.

Fortunately, I soon discovered a whole segment of business people who felt as I did. Except, they had developed a kind of “lie radar” inside their intuition that operated 24/7, quietly and in the background.

They would always entertain whatever they were told as true, but not act until they got the report from their “lie radar”. It might start with a feeling, that you followed with a little easy research or a phone call to someone who might confirm or deny certain elements, followed with some mild questioning of the speaker.

I liked this approach. It didn’t matter if the other guy was lying through his teeth, because I wasn’t gonna act one way or another on what he said until I verified it. There was ALWAYS something positive to pull from any meeting or experience in business… even if what I pulled from it was a little practice in being patient, and testing my immediate intuition against hard-core research into facts.

I don’t feel so lonely, as I would if I walked around (like many folks I know) assuming that everyone was lying through their teeth, and out to get me.

I probably get “taken” a few more times than the paranoid dude… but I’ll enjoy my calmer life (full of friends who share my worldview of “mostly not dangerous”) and accept the occasional screwing like a man. (Besides — I’ve also noticed, in my long career, that the pissed-off, brick-on-shoulder guy always looking for the scam also gets tricked fairly often anyway. His snarling defenses are like an empty moat, as worthless against a skilled liar as the most gullible dude around.)

I get irked when people lie. Don’t get me wrong.

But I don’t take it personally (unless it IS personal) (which hasn’t happened to me in decades).

People lie. For all kinds of reasons. They can’t handle getting yelled at, they’re just trying to spin things so they don’t look like idiots, they think they can avoid responsibility or consequences… it’s a long list.

Some do it just because they can.

Others do it to position themselves.

And when you think about it… once you get over the myth that lying is an aberration in human behavior, and realize that most folks waddle through their day weaving one tall tale after another (often for reasons they can’t even fathom themselves)… there’s little downside to conducting yourself with full knowledge that everyone around you is delivering a soupy mix of truth, half-truth, and damned lies every single day.

Heck — James Bond, one of my literary heroes, was a professional liar. Just part of his toolkit for survival. I have friends who exaggerate so much, you start to doubt every detail they offer in a story… and yet, they remain friends. I just work a tiny bit harder to find the nuggets of truth in what they say, and ignore the fluff.

I’ve been a lifelong fan of tall tales, too. I’ll add a few outrageous details to a story, just to emphasize some angle, or to call attention to the absurdity or irony of a plot twist. (“The poodle was, like, twelve hundred pounds. Couldn’t fit through the door.” “We loved going spelunking in the county sewer pipes, where you could walk for miles in six-foot diameter tunnels in pitch darkness. Sometimes, we’d lose one of the kids if he fell behind. I’m sure there’s at least one of them still down there, turned into a troll.”)

Professionally, however, I have developed a sharp ear for red flag lying, after years in the smoldering center of the biz world. Sometimes it’s just a tiny blip on my “lie radar”… a tick that others can’t even detect.

This happened last week, when one of my assistants related the “confirmation” of all email problems being fixed by an Infusion customer service rep. To my ass’t, the FUBAR situation must have been cleared up, because the CSR weasel told him it was.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “Tell me exactly what that ‘confirmation’ was.”

“He confirmed all was okay,” said my ass’t, confidently. “He said everything should be fixed now.”

Should?

SHOULD?

“Terminate the batch emailing,” I ordered. “Right fucking NOW.”

One weasel word, which slipped by less experienced ears, froze my gut.

And, it turned out, I was right to be alarmed. The bug wasn’t fixed at all, and if we hadn’t terminated the job, tens of thousands of blank emails would have gone out… ruining my reputation and denting our credibility. (As it was, several thousand did get out… thanks to the lying little CSR weasel at Infusion.)

Words matter. Doctors repeated told my family — back when my Mom took sick — that they were “confident” they could predict how the cancer would take her out. Six months, for sure, some said. Three months, said others.

This didn’t sit right with me. I dug deeper, and discovered than four different docs had four different ideas of what KIND of cancer she had. Bone. Breast. Liver. Lung.

They were lying.

They didn’t know what the hell they were talking about.

We didn’t ask them for a prediction of when it would be over. They just offered it.

Lying weasels.

What IS it about so many people… that they are simply incapable of saying “I don’t know”?

I have searched in vain, my entire career, for the answer to that ridiculous question.

There is no shame in not knowing an answer.

And yet, to my mind, there is TERRIFIC shame in making something up, as if your imagination and your desire to be a know-it-all trumped reality.

Lying is all around us.

It’s a piss-poor way to get through a situation, but some forms of lying are just built into the human hard drive.

Work on your own “lie radar”. Simply make a mental note of what someone tells you, and then check it out. They don’t need to know what you discover. But you do.

You don’t “win” anything by confronting a liar, most of the time. Many people cannot abide by what they consider an affront against Truth, and they will verbally assault anyone they catch lying. As if the universe will not be right until the lie is confronted, confessed, and scorched by the light of day.

And these avengers lustily engage in lie-witch-hunts while ignoring their own culpubility in twisting things once in a while.

It’s not your job to set everything straight in the world. In my experience, liars don’t often “get away” with much, over the long haul. They may see short-term benefits, but they’re living a spiritually unhealthy life… and it catches up with you, eventually.

The Zen warrior would rather learn the truth in secret, than share in a communal lie. That can be lonely… but when you surround yourself with honorable people, the truth is always welcome, and you can even forgive small transgressions (since you don’t act on their version of things without fact-checking everything first, anyway).

Sure, it’s complex. Tangled webs and all that.

Work on your intuitive radar.

All top marketers possess it… and most became good at it only after years of disciplined practice and follow-through.

Stay frosty,

John Carlton

P.S. Just a small warning — the slots in the “Launching Pad” consulting program are dwindling, especially in the near-term.

To see how you can be “John’s New Best Friend” for a month, and get unbelievable personal access to me (and Stan) while going deep into your biz and plans, go to:

http://www.carltoncoaching.com

And see what’s going on. It’s intense mentoring, as the folks who’ve been through it will tell you.

And I ain’t lying.

P.P.S. One last thing — for folks like Karen, who aren’t getting their email notifications when I blog (thanks, Infusion)… just remember that I’m being fairly faithful to a Monday-Thursday schedule. I blog on Monday, and then again on Thursday of each week.

That’s the plan.

Rain or shine. (Though I did miss a couple during the heavy traveling days recently.)

So go ahead and drop by, even if you haven’t gotten an email.

I’m always dinking around here with some idea or notion or whatever…

Gloating

Thursday, 8:17pm
Reno, NV
“…and I’m doing this, and I’m signing that…” Mick Jagger, “Satisfaction”

Howdy,

I’m gonna be flat-out honest with you: I’m freaking exhausted.

The “17 Points” workshop is in the can, but it took a piece out of us to pull off. Three entire days, morning to evening, locked in mortal combat with Truth, Insight, and The Path To Riches & Spiritual Fulfillment.

Man, it was fun.

But grueling. In that “everything got revealed (and then some)” way.

I’ll be sharing more of what exactly was shared at this one-of-a-kind event later… but for now, I just want to gloat a bit.

I mean… NO ONE else puts on events like this. I honestly believe hosting one of these marathon teaching workshops would kill your average guru. Even the ones half my age. Just curl ’em up and leave a singed hulk trailing wisps of bacon smoke.

You really shoulda been there, you know.

Oh, wait… you were invited. But you missed out on your spot by not gaming the auction, didn’t you.

Ah, well. I’d say “next time”, but without an act of God (like the video spontaneously combusting), there won’t BE a next time. My entire career was metaphorically aimed at this one single in-depth workshop… and I pushed myself as hard as I’ve ever pushed.

And I ain’t never giving it again.

It was just too exhausting.

Have you ever stood on your feet for three solid days, keeping your mind completely engaged, in fever-pitch mode… working without a net, in front of appropriately-greedy people who have paid big bucks for the opportunity to suck every scrap of wisdom from your skull?

I can’t say I recommend it.

Other folks put on big damn seminars with a mob in the audience, and as impressive a line-up of speakers as they can bribe or cajole into showing up. The actual host is onstage for only a short amount of time. He’s more of a ring-leader and MC.

I like that model fine. It’s a good way to present a lot of stuff to a lot of people.

But my DNA just won’t allow me to host that kind of event.

I cut my teeth, long ago, with Halbert, doing intimate and shockingly-interactive seminars with relatively small groups of people… most of whom were highly skeptical of the whole scene. We had no script, no “battle plan” for how to proceed, no clear idea of what was gonna happen from hour to hour… and it was just us on the stage, with little or no backup.

And we liked it that way.

It was theater-meets-the-barroom-brawl time. We took each attendee through their paces, and kept the entire event utterly and completely focused on real-world solutions to the actual marketing problems they brought to us.

No theory. No bullshit academics. No clever speeches. And no pitching.

Just raw, nasty, front-trenches marketing hard work.

Once you get a taste for that kind of impromptu action, “regular” seminars full of talking heads seem boring and nowhere near dangerous enough.

My seminars are always small, always unpredictable, always pumping adrenaline and endorphines… because the live, unrehearsed, uncensored interaction of host-and-attendee IS dangerous and exciting.

Hey — the action kept me going for three packed days.

Kept the attendees on their toes, too.

It was a raging success, by all metrics.

But I’m never, ever, doing it again.

Still, I’m sitting here laughing out loud, remembering some of the stories we pulled from the extended weekend. It was great having my long-time buds David Deutsch and Garf (David Garfinkel) as wingmen, watching my back from the audience. The hotel was perfectly placed between Chinatown and North Beach (where Kerouac and The Dead hung out) — fabulous food, ambience up the yin-yang (literally, if you went into Chinatown), all the energy that comes from hanging out in the nerve-center of a bitchin’ city like San Francisco.

Plus, witnessing Deutsch attempt to murder Garf with an IED of olive oil and glass was just priceless. Later, we all made up and toured Carol Doda’s old haunt for laughs, along with the new “Beat Museum” (Ginsberg’s typewriter!).

Ever had a Chinese foot massage in a room filled with top Web marketers, all half-drunk and giggling?

I’m truly sorry you missed this event, I really am.

We may have a few video snippets to share with you, soon. But we will not be releasing the DVDs of the event (like we have for the other seminars/sweatshops I’ve held).

Naw. This one was too special. For now, the hot stuff is staying in the vault.

And I’m gonna bask in the warmth of having pulled it off for a little while here.

A little creative gloating. There hasn’t been anything in any of the other marketing events you’ve heard of… that is even remotely close to what was shared in this workshop.

I wish you coulda been there.

Stay frosty,

John Carlton
http://www.carltoncoaching.com

PS: Just a note to the curious here — the schedule for the much-desired “Launching Pad” coaching option (what we call around the office “Be John’s New Best Friend For A Month”) is starting to look like the 405 during the morning commute. In other words: Packed.

Over the past months, while we’ve been on the road (to Kern’s “Mass Control” event, Eben’s “Altitude” spectacular, Schefren’s Orlando seminar, and everywhere else we’ve been traipsing around) people have aggressively cornered Stan or me and grilled us on the availability of this super-intense consulting opportunity.

If even a fraction of those folks follow up, we’ll be booked solid soon. It’s first-come, first-served, though… so, while there are spots on the schedule, you have a shot.

Check it out at http://www.carltoncoaching.com.

Mahalo.