Category Archives for Gary Halbert

Thieving Bastards

Sunday, 7:36pm
Reno, NV
“A thief believes everybody steals.” (E.W. Howe)

Howdy…

For those of you bugging me about the next Quiz…

… it’s coming, it’s coming.

Soon.

Tonight, though, I’ve gotta get something off my chest.

And so, a Rant.  By little Johnny Carlton:

Ahem.

There seems to be a parasite bug infecting the brains of many marketers out there.

Let’s call this bug… “Theft“.

It’s not going away anytime soon.

In fact, the very word has been mutating for a long time now… so that what would have easily been labeled “stealing” in the bad-old pre-Web days…Read more…

Avoid The Void

Monday, 11am
Reno, NV
“Facts are stupid things.” (Ronald Reagan, ’88 GOP convention)

Howdy…

Well, that was fun.

Over 650 comments on that last quiz so far (with a bullet).  Some really good responses, too.

Also some really out-there ones, which always makes for giddy reading.

The main thing, of course, is that so many folks put on their Thinking Caps and went for it.  As I’ve said before: You win just by trying with this kind of brain stumper.

Anyway…

… we have a winner.  I’ll let you know who it was in a minute.

First, let’s relieve the tension and reveal the answer already.

Or at least head in that direction.  It’s probably worth noting that only a tiny handful of the comments were on the right path.

The question was vague, on purpose.  This is high-end street-level psychology…

… and one of the main features of this kind of advanced salesmanship is that it is NOT easily understood by most people.

In fact, you’ve likely encountered the answer to this quiz before in your life… but because it didn’t “fit” with your intuition and belief about “how things work”, it didn’t stick.

Most of what classic salesmen know about people runs counter to what the majority calls  “common sense”.

This is startling to rookie marketers.  Confusing.  Disorienting.  Challenges long-held beliefs about the nobility of human endeavor and the lofty inclinations of the human brain.

Thus, we saw long sub-threads in the comments that ignored the entire concept of a “glitch” in people’s thinking…

… and instead dove into all kinds of elaborate explanations of how a successful sales pitch might smoothly proceed with dignity and logic.

It’s good to have these discussions, if you desire to get anywhere in marketing.

I, too, had trouble getting into the minds of my prospects at first.

This is why I jumped on every opportunity that arose, early in my career, to hang out and grill every “street wise” marketer I ran into.

Cuz those guys knew how to SELL.

No theory.  Just experience (and the bank accounts to prove it).

This group included:

… Jay Abraham and Gary Halbert (both of whom had door-to-door selling experience where, if they didn’t make the sale, they didn’t eat that day)…Read more…

Kickin' Ass and Forgettin' Names

Monday, 8:24pm
Reno, NV
“… and in the early mornin’ fog, I looked into those Mystic Eyes…” (Van Morrison, with Them, “Mystic Eyes”)

Howdy…

Had a little extended email exchange with our old pal Shawn Casey today.

See, he’s about to turn the Big Five-Oh… and I offered him the same gift that Gary Halbert offered me when I turned 50: An open invitation to hear about all the horrific shit he has to look forward to as his body slams full-force into official middle age.

Halbert used to absolutely delight in detailing for me some of the more evil indignities of waving bye-bye to youth.

Let’s just say your days of indulging in a bar brawl, and sleeping it off so you can do it again the next night, too…

… are over.

(Bonus insight: However, you can still have fun minus the dangerous stunts and life-threatening bravado that used to cap a good night out.  Who’d a thought?)

I’m still laughing from that exchange with Shawn.

In truth, if you’re healthy, it ain’t all that big a deal sliding into your fifties.  If you’ve spent the last four decades thrashing yourself, then yeah, you may be looking at getting your ticket punched early.

But if you listen to your body, keep the stress under control, get some freakin’ exercise once in a while, and avoid chunking out like Jaba The Hut…

… well, it’s actually kinda nice being a grizzled, older ape.

The real pleasures of life are just as intense… and you’ve pretty much identified which ones you want to focus on.  (I spent my youth sampling almost every forbidden fruit in the feast… which I felt was my duty as a buddng writer.  Many of those experiences were just downright awful, and yet they’d looked so good from a distance…)

And — even if you dinked around a lot for the bulk of your youth (as I did) (and, boy, was I good at dinking around) — you can’t help but have gathered a ton of experience.

And stories.

And whatever mangled philosophy of life that got you this far must have something going for it… or you wouldn’t have made it.

Now, the reason I’m writing this post…Read more…

Photo Orgy

Thursday, 10:06pm
Reno, NV
“There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs.” (Ansel Adams)

Howdy…

I grew up in a photo-loving family.

Pop still has his trusty Kodak folding camera — a true antique now — and I cannot yet bring myself to dig through that box in the garage with all my old cameras (cuz I know it’s time to start assigning them new fates somewhere else).

I swear to you I still have a box of Polaroid film in the butter drawer of the fridge. Might even be the last batch they ever made (and R.I.P. Polaroid, dear departed friend).

Mom was the photo archivist of the family, and even as other families gravitated toward 16mm film, I retained a purist’s preference for the snapshot over the home movie.

(Side note: I remember meeting someone 20 years ago who mentioned that they were on video from the moment of their birth, and it was unsettling.

Now, it’s rare to meet anyone under the age of 30 who isn’t cataloged on film through their entire childhood. I can’t even imagine watching myself being born. I have a hard time watching old seminar footage of me from ten years ago, for cryin’ out loud.

Anyone out there hauling around a library of self-referenced film with them? What’s it like?)

I believe I fell in love with photography the moment I saw my first photograph… and realized it was actually a moment in time captured forever.

And I formed some very intense ideas about what makes a “good” photograph as a third-grader thumbing through the still-amazing stack of Nazi photos Pop brought home from his stint as a rifleman during WWII.

(There’s no way to tell for sure, but those two dozen shots seem to be a German officer’s front-line cache of “Here’s what I did during the War” snapshots. Fascinating subject material that forced us to imagine what the story actually was behind those uniformed men… especially the one with the open bullet wound in the dorsal lat.)

As I grew up, I would become captivated by very few photos in the piles coming back from the drugstore of family and friends and pets and outings.

I never questioned why I found those few snapshots so iconic.

Later, one of my first jobs in advertising was overseeing the photography for a computer supply catalog every quarter.

That job meant gathering all the equipment (cables, monitors, furniture, floppies, etc) and spending a week or so with a professional photographer in Palo Alto trying to make plastic crap look good.

(I won’t bore you with the hassle that pre-digital photography presented — the need to refrigerate film, manually load it, and nurture it like a fragile duck egg until it could be color-separated and made “camera-ready”, which means ready for the printer to fuss with during the offset process of applying wave after wave of ink until the correct color was achieved.)

(Okay, sorry, I think I just bored you there.)

Anyway… I learned a lot about the technical aspects of photography (like using mashed potatoes as a substitute for ice cream, cuz the real treat wouldn’t survive under the required hot lights for a good shot).

Pro photographers in the ad field earned big bucks. They knew the voodoo.

But you know what?Read more…

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

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…

The Wit And Wisdom Of My Old Buddy Halbert, Part 1

Thursday, 7:47pm
Reno, NV
“Nothing is impossible for a man who won’t listen to reason.” The Big Ugly Guy

Howdy…

Today would have been Gary Halbert’s 70th birthday.

Had he still been among us, I would have sent him (as I had for nearly 20 years) a hand-drawn, relatively obscene birthday card, which would leave him tickled for days. (You knew my first paying job was as a cartoonist, right? I was the only student on both my high school and college newspaper who was paid — a fat five bucks a strip, too, I’ll have you know — and while the aspiring journalists muttered about it, they mostly admitted that my modest weekly cartoon strip wasn’t half bad.)

Gary always made an appropriate fuss whenever anyone did anything for him. You felt appreciated, and eagerly anticipated the next time you could do it again.

It was not an obvious lesson in living well… but for those of us paying attention, it was a good one. He hadn’t grown up receiving much praise. Many another young man would’ve become bitter over that lack of encouragement… but not Gary.

Instead, he considered his options: Become a moody, sour asshole mad at a world that withheld pats on the back…

… or rise above the easy reactions, and choose the high road.

Dude took the less-traveled, more scenic route.

Gary had a lot of faults. No one disputes that.

But he also strove to do the right thing, whenever faced with forks in the road. He used as guideposts little sayings like “When faced with two choices, the harder one is probably the right one to make” (author John D. MacDonald, in his “Travis McGee” novels) (which Gary turned everyone he cared about onto) (I’ve read them all).

I was struck by how carefully Gary had assembled a personal “rule book” to live by. Many of these rules were simple sayings, or secular proverbs, or cliches. Their pedigree didn’t matter — what counted was how well they worked in the real world to help you be a good man and make better choices in difficult situations.

So there was seldom anything obviously profound in these rules. I’d heard most of them before.

The difference with Gary was…

… he actually got serious about trying to follow these rules.

Oh, he would screw up. I would not be surprised to hear from some biz associate or other, as a result of this post, claiming all sorts of shenanigans on Gary’s part. And I won’t get into it. I knew Gary well, and (way back when) was in the room during a few business transactions that later went sideways. And I’ve known a few businessmen who would abruptly shut up in mid-rant about Gary when they discovered who I was. Because I knew the truth, which was always much more complex than they would have you believe. (And guilt harder to assign.)

The denizens of the entrepreneurial world dearly love to trash-talk.

One of the first rules I picked up from Gary: Even the richest and most influential marketers are — at heart — still back in high school, nursing petty grudges, gossiping without shame, and overly concerned with an imaginary pecking order that serves no purpose other than bragging rights.

That insight has helped me tremendously over the years.

I am never surprised by the way rumors zoom around among my colleagues. I do not take things too personally, either… because (just like in high school) sometimes, it’s just your turn to be the grist for the rumor mill.

Get over it.

I keep my nose clean, go the extra mile, practice generosity generously, and never forget that I have to re-earn my reputation all over again every single day.

Keeps ya humble.

Few people who knew him would ever use the word “humble” to describe Halbert. And yet, as his long-time “road dog” who got to share thoughts at an intimate level, I would not hesitate to call him that.

Life humbled him. The demands of family, and meeting the nut for his payroll, and living up to his own legend were not simple tasks. Every day, he engaged life knowing that all manner of risk and danger and pitfall loomed — especially for a man bent on pushing the envelope and grabbing all the gusto available.

To many outsiders, he seemed like a super-confident “laugh at death” kinda silver-backed male. And he worked hard to earn his Top Dog title, and keep it.

But, when it was time to kick back, the humility returned. No one conquers life completely, not really. At best, you get one or two shots at achieving something great… or, if you have the fortitude to stay with it, you may get a chance to establish a legacy of good work. A legend, perhaps.

But you will never make life your bitch.

One of the ironies of leadership is that… if you don’t have doubts, you aren’t worthy of leading.

The great leaders just learn to navigate those doubts, and work through them until you can finally say “this is what we’re gonna do”… and be willing to stand behind that decision. Right or wrong.

And this ain’t Hollywood… so you aren’t guaranteed anything. Even good people fail spectacularly, and are ruined.

There’s no safety net out there.

Outsiders seldom see or acknowledge this wrestling match with doubt. They want their leaders to be principled, steadfast, and good at looking confident. They will also pillory any leader they perceive as “weak”.

Of course, outsiders have the luxury of being so hard on their leaders because they themselves will never have to face down a dilemna with no easy solution… or be responsible for all consequences of any action taken.

Naw. That crap is for leaders. Much better to sit back and let others figure things out. Besides, it’s fun to heckle and gripe and moan about leaders. If they can’t stand the heat, they should stay outa the kitchen, yadda yadda yadda.

I wanted no part of that game.

My lack of ambition both helped and hurt my relationship with Gary over the years. He was always pushing me to throw my hat into the guru ring, and I resisted because I knew from observing him that the job of “leader” mostly sucked.

I was more than content to be part of the power behind the throne. I didn’t need or want the lights at center-stage. I was much more interested in the “inner workings” of success… the stuff we dissected and discussed and cogitated on when no client could see or hear us.

When I was finally ready to become a teacher, I was REALLY ready. I’ve spent a long damn time digging deep into the functional details of success and the malfunctions of failure… and I’ve logged years worth of long, intimate chats with perhaps the most creative, brilliant and hard-core true advertising genius of our time.

I can tell who “gets” the really profound nature of this biz, because they love to hear the details of these discussions.

Most people find these stories boring. Or so opaque and vague as to be incomprehensible.

Most folks want the larger-than-life stories, with the easy punchlines. (Like the time Halbert dropped his pants in front of an all-Mormon business audience, just to see if he could shock them.) (Okay, and also to prove he wasn’t wearing women’s underwear, as I had insisted during the seminar.) (God, we were brutal with each other on stage.)

(Boxers, if you must know.)

(Oh, there are lots of stories about inappropriate dress with Halbert. Once, flying in late the night before for a seminar co-hosted with Michel Fortin, I found Michel in the bar and was shucking and jiving when Gary called my cell. He was up in his room, getting ready for his presentation, and insisted I come up to say hello. So Michel and I took the elevator up, knocked on Gary’s door… and he answered wearing jockey briefs and a Rolling Stone tee shirt. And maybe black socks. I was used to it — the guy never cared about clothes, and was impervious to embarrassment like that. He just liked to be comfy. You got in the habit of insisting he put on some friggin’ pants, and went on with the conversation. Poor Michel, though, looked stricken. It’s a good thing we were slightly hammered, so the shock could dissipate quickly… and we could get on with talking business and gossiping about other colleagues.)

(Gary also had an astonishing ability to trash a hotel room within minutes of checking in. It’s like his suitcase would explode or something. Piles of camera equipment, stacks of ads he’d ripped out of magazines on the plane, food trays, mysterious briefcases bursting with marketing reports and bottles of vitamins, a dozen pairs of glasses shrewn about, harmonicas, novels, cassette and VHS tapes and CDs, and impressive collections of the coolest toys from Sharper Image… either already broken or about to be, cuz Gary was rough with toys.)

The man embraced life, and USED everything he owned.

For a timid guy like me (who sometimes wouldn’t wear a “nice” shirt for years, because I didn’t want to “ruin” it) (and thus would give it away to Goodwill, never worn), this was another profound lesson… something missed or shrugged off by others.

The lesson: Don’t be terrified of your appetites.

Life respects and appreciates a person with a good appetite, well indulged.

A little moderation is nice, just to avoid excess. But dive in with gusto, dude.

A lesson like that is even more meaningful when you discover that Gary was essentially a shy guy, devoid of any natural confidence. His upbringing tried to put him into a box, where he would be a good little sheep.

And he squared his shoulders, refused the limitations ladled onto him… and got busy making his own damn place in the world.

You gotta respect that. Every day, he dug deeper into his reserves of guts, brains and strenght than most people even suspect a person can dig… and went about the never-ending tasks of attempting to wrestle the universe to its knees.

He wasn’t fearless. He faced down his fear.

And he wasn’t a “gifted” genius. He loaded up his mind, body and soul with the tools he needed to do battle and win. It was a lifelong process. Not easy. But he loved the action.

Another lesson: Enjoy the process.

Hell… LOVE it, if you dare.

Finally, here are two of the biggest, and most lasting lessons I got from The Big Ugly Guy:

Big Damn Lesson #1. Gary had a vicious temper. Most people don’t know this, because they never saw it. I never caught more than a glimpse of it myself in ten years of road-dogging.

It wasn’t because he was keeping a lid on his temper.

Nope.

It was because, long before I met him, he realized he needed to dominate it. Not just lock it down… but obliterate it.

And he did. Using a unique pairing of innocent sounding rules that pack a lot of hidden power.

Thus: “All mistakes made from enthusiasm are forgiveable.”

Too many people secretly enjoy getting pissed off, or else have no control over it whatsoever. And they see every blunder that affects them as a personal insult.

I made several critical mistakes when I first started working with Gary. I expected to be at least berated and humiliated. One of those errors probably should have gotten me fired.

But no. Gary’s lusty use of humiliation was reserved for “fun” times. He dearly loved the give-and-take of manly insults and mockery, which you only delivered to friends you valued… and NEVER in anger. (Part of the reason we hit it off so quickly was my ability to nail his ass as good as he nailed mine.)

And those mistakes? Forgiveable. I was eager to prove myself in the job, and I moved too fast for detail work.

There was no sign that Gary was struggling to keep his cool. He was relaxed, figured out how to mitigate the damage and get back on track… made sure I realized the lesson… and we moved on.

Anger is a negative emotion. It will eat away at your lust for life, and poison your mind.

It is both a stupid reaction to anything (anything!)… and completely avoidable at all times. If you believe you have no control over your anger, you’re deluded. You do have control, and you can exert it immediately. It’s a learned habit. In our more animalistic past, back in the jungle, “rage” had a purpose in our survival toolkit. It’s long past useful, except in very rare cases.

Anger confuses most people. Their own is disorienting, and other’s is threatening. There is no power in anger.

But you can’t expect most folks to understand that.

Thus, the companion rule for this one is: “Do not mistake my kindness for weakness.” (From “The Godfather”, I think.) Power doesn’t rely on rage. You give up too much getting mad.

This is deep stuff, kids.

Most of the world may have heard these rules, but they ignore them.

Big Damn Lesson #2: “No good deed goes unpunished.”

This one often illicits a smile. It’s funny, in a twisted way.

But as a rule, it underscores another reason to nurture patience and Buddha-like good nature… even in the heat of business battle.

You do not offer help or favors with the idea that you win “points” by doing so. Human nature doesn’t work that way.

In fact, the person receiving the favor is put into an unsustainable state of discomfort — “owing” you because you did me a favor means I’m in debt. Unconsciously, or consciously, I will adjust this uncomfortable state until I’m feeling just dandy about myself and the way things are going.

This means — for many folks — that doing someone a favor means you will soon be a needle in their hide… and it’s YOUR fault this awkward situation exists. Cuz you helped.

You bastard.

Therefore, it will be okay to take further advantage of you. Punish you, in fact, for having the nerve to help me out.

You laugh.

But if you pay attention, you’ll see this rule is true more often than not.

Now, I could go on with details, but I’ll let you explore this rule for yourself.

The deeper significance isn’t in “knowing” that people are fucked up and will screw you for no good reason.

Naw. The real value of this rule is realizing that people are contrary creatures, often acting against their own best interest… and able to turn into ungrateful pissants while thinking themselves completely and utterly justified and righteous.

You don’t stop doing people favors, though.

You just don’t notch up a “favor owed” on them. You expect nothing in return.

If you do someone a good turn… you do it because it’s the right thing to do. Not because of any quid pro quo.

This isn’t “business as usual”. Working with Halbert, it was NEVER “business as usual.” Often, I would scratch my head for years figuring out how a lesson fit into my own life.

Very much worth it, though.

There is massive wisdom in small rules.

Knowing these rules is one thing.

Living them is quite another. It’s not easy, and it often goes against your “common wisdom” intuition.

Gary had no foundation to work up from when he created the man he became. He had to make it up as he went, struggling and failing and risking everything many, many times. No advantages…

… except a love of discovering “hints” about living well within little sayings and rules like this.

For me, his legacy had nothing to do with what others would call “success in business”.

For me, it was always about living life with more gusto. Chewing up the scenery, and forcing people to make room for you at the Feast.

Thanks, pal. Much appreciated.

And I’m doing my best to spread the real wealth around.

Happy birthday.

Stay frosty,

John Carlton

P.S. Gary’s sons (Bond and Kevin, who I’ve known for most of their lives) are finally able to rev up the old website again.

If you aren’t on their list, you are hearby informed that they are posting previously-unposted newsletters (from the early days, when Gary’s work was like an H-bomb going off in the business world).

Bookmark the site: http://www.thegaryhalbertletter.com

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…

Tech Snobs, Geek Angels, and Dinobots

Monday, 7:33pm
Reno, NV
“You called me… Bizzaro. Must be my name.” Bizzaro, Superman’s twisted doppleganger (circa 1958)

Howdy…

I think I just created a new word.

Tell me what you think of it.

It came about this weekend while Michele and I were taking her nephew David out for a “grill lunch”. A grill lunch is where you hold someone you care about (but haven’t seen for a long time) captive for a couple of hours while you grill them on every detail of their lives.

When I was growing up, I always resisted such info-mining, and became a petulant, sulking zipped-lipped prisoner, offering nothing. To this day, the worse way to find out how I’ve been or what I’ve been up to is to ask me directly.

Child psych still works pretty well with my type, though. Trick me into spilling the beans, and I’ll give it all up.

I’m easy that way.

Nephew David, however, is of better stock. He handles grill lunches with grace and wit, and he’s a joy to hang out with.

He’s also my main contact in the new generation coming up the ranks. He’ll be a senior next year at a major mid-western university, studying subjects that didn’t exist when I was in academia.

That is, he’ll be a senior if his summer “project” doesn’t haul in a million bucks, which it could. The kid is tech-savvy to a scary degree, both as a creator of sites and ideas, and as a cutting-edge consumer of technology. And now he’s honing his business chops, too.

He’s got entrepreneur’s blood in his veins, and he smells the financial adventures ahead.

However, my guess is that, like his other summer projects, he’ll experience some success, gain amazing experience, have too much fun, and finish out his education like a champ.

Or, as he refers to himself: Like a budding tech snob.

In other words: He’s SO wired into the virtual culture, that he has a sixth sense of what’s coming down the pipe… and waiting a bit longer to launch into the business world might be an advantage during this phase of the blossoming online world.

What I’m taking from talking to him… is a cultural warning: Increasingly, the gap between tech-savvy kids and technophobic geezers threatens to become an unbridgable chasm.

However, it doesn’t necessarly mean the tech snobs will automatically win.

Take, for example, how the ability to be in “constant contact” with your friends has morphed into something weird and icky: A few short years ago, the dude with the cell phone permanently screwed into his ear — so he could chat with both hands free — was either a cultural warrior bravely navigating the far reaches of technology (as he saw himself)… or a shallow chatterbox, devoid of deep thought (as the people around him thought).

This condition (“Phone-Welded-To-Brain-Itis”) is no longer startling to encounter. You see someone walking around in a distracted state, babbling loudly to no one in particular, and you just shrug. He’s not crazy — he’s wired.

Though, sometimes I can’t help myself from leaning over and telling him to say “hello” to Kathy, and that I sure hope she gets those packages out to Fed Ex in time. I mean, I felt such a part of his conversation (it’s called “cell shouting”, with no known cure), it’s like we’re now old buds.

Anyway…

… cell shouting now seems SO innocent, with the arrival of “micro blogging”.

Texting constantly to people wasn’t enough. No.

Now, it’s critical to keep whole populations of other folks hip to exactly what you’re doing at this very second.

Wow.

I can see where this is going, too — once we combine GPS systems, micro-video, and IM with Twitter into something that can be wired directly to your autonomic nervous system, you can be a walking reality show.

Everyone you know will have instant, unrelenting access to your every thought, action, and movement. Like “The Truman Show”, only more invasive. (“Hey, everybody — my iPhone just alerted me that Susie’s blood pressure spiked twenty points, so she must have arrived at the prom… and… wow… looks like she’s gonna fart…”)

Listen: I live with someone, and I often don’t know where she is in the house, or what she’s doing… and I don’t NEED to know.

A little mystery, folks, is not necesarily a bad thing.

Here’s some insight from a guy who’s walked both sides of the knowledge divide: When I first met Gary Halbert, I was composing ads on a personal computer (early model), playing hip video games, and totally clued-in to the cultural Zeitgeist… while he was still usng a No. 2 pencil and a legal pad, had zero video-game dexterity, and considered MTV as something akin to an alien invasion of UFOs.

I was in the room when he was ridiculed by other writers, in fact, for his retro-style. Younger, hipper, more tech-savvy writers actually shook their heads and pitied the guy.

That was an important moment for me.

Because I knew that the accoutrements of writing — whether pencils and paper, computers and hard drives, or chisel and clay — were irrelevant IF YOU HAD NOTHING TO SAY.

What Halbert possessed was deep experience and knowledge of classic salesmanship… stuff that transcended the physical act of writing. Or talking, for that matter.

For me, it was a major epiphany that still reverberates in my career today.

Technology is fun, and important. And, especially with the arrival of the Internet, you very well may be left behind if you refuse to get hip.

But, dude… it’s still JUST human-to-human communication. No matter how much electronic whiz-bangery occurs between the thought in your skull and the receipt of that thought by another person… the rather crucial issue of IMPORTANCE still matters most.

I often get blank stares from seminar crowds when I bludgeon them with the concept of learning classic salesmanship early in their quest for wealth and fame. I understand how confusing it can be, too. In many of the first marketing seminars we gave (back when we were inventing the model), we would often get some guy who would stand up and announce that he’d just popped for THE most expensive and tricked-out computer in existence… and now he wanted to know how to make money with it.

We’d sigh, collectively. And then patiently explain that, no, it’s not the equipment that brings in the bucks. It’s the brains behind the equipment.

In fact, in most cases the equipment is just a side-show.

I do not remember ever having any of those guys do a double-take as we explained all this, and suddenly say “By Jove, you’re right! I need to learn salesmanship and marketing skills!”

Usually, they stared at us without comprehension. Our answer couldn’t find a toe-hold in their brains.

Back to kids and tech: Nephew David called himself, in a moment of rueful self-actualization, a “tech snob”… because he is SO wired into the technological hinderlands, that he gets bored with “dumb” tech (like software or games or devices diluted for the masses).

When you can write code, you have little patience for people who can’t make their new GPS system work in the car. (We call our GPS “Know It All Betty”, cuz the voice sounds like a Betty, and she DOES pretend to know it all… especially when you miss a turn, and she goes into “scold mode”…)

His aunt Michele, however, sees him as a “Geek Angel”. Because he can explain things in ways she can understand.

To her credit, she first takes the technology she wants to learn to the absolute furtherst reaches of her learning curve… so she’s not bothering him with questions she could find out herself.

When she presents a problem she can’t figure out, she really can’t figure it out… because she’s spent massive hours in dead-ends, and needs help.

A Geek Angel will never be out of a job. He possesses a rare ability to both immerse into the mysterious Tech Culture and thrive… and yet still be able to sit with unfortunate earth-bound tech-illiterates, and reveal some of the magic to make their lives better.

I’ve heard many tech-savvy people complain about the way clueless friends waste their time with incessant demands to “fix” their buggy computers, or detangle the electronic miasma of their TV remotes. (I have 3 remotes for my plasma, sound system and cable, which can all be thrown utterly out of synch when the dog sits on one of them. Don’t you?)

I sympathize. I learned long ago not to tell people I’m a writer. Trust me — soon after revealing your occupation, one of the folks you’ve just enlightened will approach you with a killer offer: “Hey, man. I’ve got a great story to tell. How about you write the screenplay, using my idea, and we’ll split the profits from the movie 50-50?”

I’ve had guys get ugly when I’ve begged off, too. Hey — all I had to do was write up their idea, you know, do that “typing thing” for a few hours. Greedy bastard. How dare you withhold your pathetic little writing tricks from the rest of us?

I’m sure it’s the same when you’re super tech-savvy, among the tech clueless.

And you ARE an angel when you help, though. Consider it a good deed, which will fortify your karma. (But make sure your second help session includes contacting a professional outfit that offers computer help, so your desperate technophobes have an alternative path when their bugged-up laptop crashes the next time, and they can’t find you.) (Or, you don’t want to be found.)

Anyway…

Here’s the new word I invented: “Dinobot.”

It is, of course, a quasi-clever combo of “dinosaur” and “robot”… and I consider it a description of the best place to be in business right now.

Part old-world, part new-world.

It’s important to have a certain level of tech savvy, if you’re gonna do any online marketing. If you’re new to the Web, this transition may be painful… but it’s critical.

The Web is technology made manifest, to get gnarly about it.

It’s a new life form — there is now a world of flesh and blood, and a world of virtual data.

And we need to learn to thrive in BOTH.

Gone are the days when a marketer could proudly proclaim to be ignorant of new tech. (Hey — it wasn’t that long ago when direct mail, print and broadcast media were the ONLY way to go.)

Also gone are the days when simply being hip to the latest and greatest software applications will give you any astounding advantage online. (Again, not too long ago, just having a pop-up squeeze page would so overwhelm a visitor to your site, that he’d give you his email and name out of existential fear.) (Man, those were the days, weren’t they?)

I don’t expect to win over many converts… but I’ve always taught that the best position to be in… is to straddle the worlds of old-time salesmanship and ultra-modern tech.

Thus: Dinobot. A little bit of the stubborn street-wise classic salesman… welded to a shrewd knowledge of what the ‘Net is capable of providing you in terms of traffic, attention-getting tactics, and practical social networking.

Emphasis on the word “practical”.

Look — I have immense respect for my colleagues in the online entrepreneurial world. Some of these guys are pulling down vast fortunes while literally creating the business model for Web marketing that will be around for decades to come.

True pioneers.

However, the models they’re creating are all based on concepts that go way back. Essentially, online biz is all about finding a hot market, becoming the “go to guy”, and creating a greased slide sales funnel. Just like offline marketing.

The difference, of course, is in scale, and cost. What would have worked in, say, direct mail… and cost you fifty grand to pull in two hundred grand… can now be re-fitted for the Web, and cost a couple of hundred bucks to bring in the same two hundred thou. Or more.

And instead of months using the postal system… you can use email, and get ‘er done in a few days.

The Web has created an opportunity for anyone to become a filthy-rich capitalist from their kitchen table, using a laptop and a few low-cost online vendors for processing orders and managing data.

I have been one lucky son of a bitch to have a front-row seat for much of this current marketing revolution, too.

I make no claims for exceptionality, other than I have remained open to opportunity my entire career… and I happened to start in the old-world model of direct mail and infomercials, and smoothly segued into the new-world model of online marketing.

And from this cat-bird seat, I can tell you without doubt that the guys raking it in… are all using classic salesmanship, welded to a basic understanding of the current technology. They are NOT geeks. They hire electronic cowboys to wrangle the technological details.

It’s an important realization.

The world is fast moving to a new class system: The top layer will be the guys who know how to USE the technology to their advantage… and they do not need to be masters of the code and electronics.

The second layer will be the geeks who roll up their virtual sleeves and immerse in the Grid to keep the tech alive.

The bottom layer will be a tiered mess of technology consumers. Some will be mostly clueless. Others will be wired to the max, with a satellite connection installed in their brains.

But they’ll still be “just” consumers.

You wanna grab a seat at the top?

Become a dinobot.

Dude, I’m telling ya. It’s the path less trod, but it’s the way to go.

Okay, I’m done.

What do you think?

Stay frosty,

John Carlton

P.S. Increasingly, the coaching we do in the “Radio Rant Coaching Club” (which is all virtual, by the way) settles into a groove of convincing people to find happiness with a balance of high-tech savvy and classic marketing skills.

It helps to realize, as you clamber aboard the Web, that you need both. You’re able to move ahead quickly, and you’re not surprised by any sudden gap in your knowledge base.

We’re creating a race of dinobots.

Check it out: Go to http://www.carltoncoaching.com and see what’s available.

The world is changing under your feet. Hooking into the right resources for info and tactics and savvy is essential.

Just a suggestion.

P.P.S. Okay, here’s an update (a week later): Enough parents have written in to inform me that Dinobot has already been taken by the Transformers juggernaut.

Bummer.

I’d toyed with other options before choosing dinobot: Geek-o-saurus. Techosaur. Dinology.

You guys got any suggestions?