Earlier today, I found myself at Europa Point at the tip of Gibraltar.
It was a sunny afternoon, with a few clouds rolling across the sky.
The massive rock of Gibraltar was to my back.
In front of me, to the south, across the Strait of Gibraltar, I could see Africa.
To the right was the Atlantic with a breeze blowing across to the left, where the Mediterranean started.
There was almost nobody at Europa Point today, except for one American couple walking a small black Scottish terrier.
As the three of them passed by, the woman looked down, smiled, and said hello. Her guy, who had the dog on the leash, paused for a moment. He grinned and said, “Where you guys from?”
“I’m from Croatia,” I said. I gestured to the girl next to me. “She’s from Ukraine.”
“Ukraine!” the guy said in shock. “We’re giving you a lot of money!”
The Ukrainian girl stared at him for a moment. “We appreciate it,” she said.
But he didn’t seem to hear her. “… billions of dollars! Billions!” The dog started pulling on the leash. They walked off into the breeze, but I could still hear the guy muttering to himself. “All my tax money!”
That made me chuckle and then think. And what popped into my head was, “Wherever you go, there you are.”
That’s the title of a book on meditation. The author of that book wanted to point out that the present moment is all you really have.
But it’s true the other way around also.
Most people go through their lives thinking, feeling, and reacting in the same automatic ways. Wherever they go, there they are. Nothing ever changes. Of course, it doesn’t have to be that way.
You might wonder what this has to do with copywriting or marketing. I won’t try to stretch it there. But I can tell you this:
Even though copywriting and marketing are why most people sign up to my list, I find the most response I get is when I write about topics that have little or nothing to do with making money. Such as the reply I got to yesterday’s email from a reader named Vivian:
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I just finished rereading your SME course, jotting down notes, and planning my own newsletter in these few days.
As I read more and more emails daily, I’m really getting all these vibes that I’m learning new stuff from you, not just copywriting wise.
And this email, along with other emails, make me so excited and anticipated for your free training. Even though I can’t make it live, because it’ll be 3am here in Malaysia, but I know for sure that I will instantly watch the whole recording and jot down the notes, and do everything I did about SME as to this training.
Can’t wait!
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That training that Vivian mentions will cover how I write and profit from this newsletter that you are reading now.
It will also talk about some fluffier, less tangible stuff that’s allowed me to stick with my newsletter for years, and to get to a place where I can pretty much write about whatever interests me, and still have people reading my writing and taking me up on my offers.
This training will be free. It will happen on Monday, January 22, 2024, at 8pm CET/2pm EST/11am PST. But you will have to be signed up to my email list first. Click here to do so.