The mystery deepens: Scientists shocked, Robert Collier not so much

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Somewhere outside of time, in an alternate dimension made up purely of destiny, growth, and power, the eternal essence of Robert Collier is shrugging its shoulders and saying, “Didn’t I tell you so?”

A few days ago, I read a fascinating article on the pop science site Quanta Magazine.

It was a summary of recent physics research that’s threatening to break down how we’ve thought about science for, oh, the past 500 years or so.

The situation in a nut is that particle physicists are find value in a radical idea, anti-reductionism.

The standard view of science, the one we’ve had for those 500 years, is reductionist. The trees explain the forest. If you want to know more about the forest, learn more about each tree. And if you want to learn more about each tree, learn about its cells. And so on, down and down.

Well, once you get all the way down, where these physicists are looking… it turns out influence might go the other way too.

In other words, you can’t tell the whole story by looking at the trees. The forest as a whole contributes some fundamental part of the picture, and explains the trees also. At least that’s the latest theory.

So what does this mean?

Does it mean that mystery merchant, Robert Collier, was right when he wrote the Secret of the Ages? Will anything your mind imagines trickle down to the subatomic level? Will your intent change the very fabric of the universe?

I have no idea. I imagine the physicists would say absolutely no, and that it’s a huge and unwarranted leap.

It’s all a deep mystery, if you ask me.

But you didn’t ask me. In fact, you might be reminding me impatiently that this is a newsletter about marketing.

So let me map this to the matter of influence in writing.

I have long tried to look at successful copy — and influential writing more generally — and break down why it works. After all, it’s got to be all there on the page.

By looking closer and closer, at each sentence and even each word, I’ve found out the answers to many influence and persuasion mysteries, some of which I’ve shared with you in this newsletter.

And yet, it’s never the whole story. Like Dan Kennedy once said about Gary Halbert’s copy, there is some magic in there. Even somebody as deliberate and trained as Dan himself can’t see where the magic lies… but it’s there, because of how customers responded.

“You’re really killing me here, John,” I hear you say. “What exactly is your point? Can you just tell me what to do and let me be on my way?”

Well, I’m telling you to spend time looking at the small scale of copy. The arguments, words, and structure.

But there’s something else that makes up the total effect of what you write. Something on a much bigger scale. The overall feel, intent, or — shudder — even vibration of what you are writing.

You might be looking for practical advice. The best I can do is leave you with these words of another mystery merchant, Matt Furey:

Truth is, everything you write – whether a simple note to a friend or an advertisement for your business or a chapter going into a book – carries a vibration of some sort, and the stronger your personal vibration while writing the greater the likelihood that those who are somewhat sensitive will feel it.

If you’re in a bad mood when you write, don’t be surprised if the reader doesn’t like what you wrote. Conversely, if you’re in an incredibly positive and vibrant state, the reader may feel such a strong current coming from your words that you lift him from the doldrums of depression into an exalted state of mind.

Then again, if you’re somewhere near neutral when you write, don’t be alarmed if no one bothers to read anything you put out. Make no mistake about it, if you want your writing to get read, it better have some ZAP.”

Last point:

For more anti-reductionist writing and influence advice, you might like to join the destiny and power movement, also known as my email newsletter. You can sign up for it here.

How to effectively divide and rule

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Legend says that in the early days of Rome, the city was made up of two races — the Romans and the Sabines.

The Sabines felt like second-class citizens, and hated the Romans.

The Romans didn’t trust the Sabines and worked hard to keep the Sabines down.

Tension threatened to tear the young city apart.

So the leading men of Rome — Romans and Sabines both — elected a new king in the hope of getting out of this crisis.

The new king’s name was Numa. He was a Sabine by birth. And he fixed the problem.

Numa eliminated Roman-Sabine strife. He united the two races into manageable citizens of Rome. He set the ground for what was the become the great Roman empire.

The question is how?

How do you take two groups that hate each other, and unite them into a cohesive, ruleable whole?

Well, here’s one thing Numa did:

He created new guilds based on occupation.

There was a guild for the musicians, one for goldsmiths, another for shoemakers. Each guild had special privileges, rituals, even their own unique patron god. And crucially, each guild cut across racial lines – each included both Romans and Sabines.

It worked.

This illustrates an idea from Eric Hoffer’s book True Believer. Writing about the idea of “divide to rule,” Hoffer had this to say:

“An effective division is one that fosters a multiplicity of compact bodies — racial, religious, or economic — vying with and suspicious of each other.”

Maybe you’re not sure exactly what this means. So let me give you another, more modern example.

Have you heard of Josh Wardle, the guy who made the viral game Wordle? Which, by the way, was so much fun to play until the failing New York Times ruined it?

Well, before making Wordle, Wardle worked at Reddit. And one project he had there was called Orangered vs Periwinkle.

As you might know, Reddit is a bunch of separate and sometimes antagonistic communities.

But on April Fool’s in 2013, every Reddit user was automatically assigned to one of two made-up teams. Team Orangered or team Periwinkle.

The outcome was a ton of engagement and activity on the site. New bonds being formed across subreddits. In Wardle’s words:

“Uniting people through difference is easy. Essentially what we did is we just put people on separate teams. And it turns out people are really really good at creating stuff when they say, ‘I’m part of this group, I’m not part of that group.'”

Wardle has a vision of using this “divide to unite” trick to stir creativity and create greater unity on a big scale.

But I’m not recommending anything like that to you. This email is not my call for the greater brotherhood of man, or for an ever-expanding union through the clever use of new divisions.

That’s because I believe that size is evil, or at least inhuman. After all, the Roman empire, like all other empires that came after it, crushed and destroyed to serve its own ends of growth. And Reddit is kind of a sewer on most days.

So I have no clear takeaway for you today. I just wanted to point out this curious technique of dividing to unite.

You will have to decide how you want to use it. Whether to unite people, hopefully in a good cause… or to be aware of it, so you can resit being co-opted into a new divisive group, because you don’t want to contribute to anybody else’s inhuman ends.

Not convinced?
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Well, maybe you want to read more about my idea that size is evil. If so, take a look here:

https://bejakovic.com/the-most-dangerous-idea-in-america/

7 minutes to productivity

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Let me tell you how I prepared to write this email:

I set a timer on my phone for seven minutes.

Then I sat down at the kitchen table, put my head in my hands, and started to press my thumb against my teeth. ​​I stared out the window… I stared at the sad house plant across from me… I tapped my fingers on the chair. I played the Bee Gees “You Win Again” in my head, and I realized I don’t remember the lyrics. I gradually got more and more antsy, tapping my foot on the floor, looking out the window and trying to peek into the neighbor’s house.

Finally, just as I was ready to jump out of my skin, the timer rang, and my seven minutes were up. ​​I got to work right away.

And that’s the idea I want to share with you.

I once read an article by marketer Sean D’Souza. Sean was talking about how he organizes his work day. He separates his tasks in different blocks. And in between each block, he takes a special kind of break:

He gets down on the floor, puts two books under his head, and just lies there.

I tried Sean’s system exactly, including the two books. But each time, within a minute, the same thoughts raced through my head:

​​​”What the hell am I doing? Why am I lying here? I’m not tired. If I want a break from work, fine. But let me go read a magazine for a minute or check my email or at least wash the dishes.”

That was a mistake. Because whenever I did go do something, well, that would often stretch out into 10, 15, 30 minutes. And at the end of my “productive” break, I’d have to force myself back into work.

I realized only later the essence of Sean’s system.

It’s to do nothing.

​​Even seven minutes of doing nothing drives me slightly insane. I find I’m eager and thrilled to get to work.

​​Plus the fact that I haven’t done anything — well, except playing the Bee Gees in my head — this usually allows all kinds of surprising ideas to bubble up. Ideas which would have been suppressed had I gotten external stimulation, even if that meant washing the dishes.

Perhaps this won’t be useful to you.

After all, perhaps you’re not like me. Perhaps you have a deep and broad capacity for work because of ingrained self-discipline. Or perhaps you genuinely look forward to the work you do.

I find I actually enjoy the work I do. Even so, I always feel resistance to getting started, and getting re-started after a break. In my experience, expectation is nothing like experience.

That’s why taking short do-nothing breaks has worked great for me. I get my work done sooner. I do better work, because I get more use of that time of day where I’m good for anything. Plus I find it very easy to convince myself to start doing nothing, and I find it even easier to stop.

So that’s my productivity idea for you. Try out my do-nothing breaks. Or think up your own tricks to work harder, with more focus and intensity.

Because working harder is the difference between huge success and failure.

​​If you have nothing else going for you, can go far simply by working harder. The good news is, like Gene Schwartz said once, working harder doesn’t mean working longer. In fact, it can even mean working shorter. Or doing nothing at all.

Are you still here?

This email is done. In record time. But if you’d like to read more essays I write about marketing, copywriting, and personal change, sign up here for my newsletter.

Should getting more client work really be this easy?

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The first advertorial I ever wrote, back in 2016, started off by telling the story of Arcan Cetin, a man who walked into a department store in Washington state, took out a shotgun, and shot four people, killing three of them. ​​

​​When Cetin finished his killing spree, he put the shotgun on the cosmetics counter and walked out of the store.

This advertorial promoted some kind of service to help people get a concealed weapon license. (In my research, I found out that the no. 1 reason people wanted a concealed weapon license was the fear of mass shootings.) The headline I used, a swipe of a classic Gene Schwartz headline, read:

“Should obtaining a concealed carry permit really be this easy?”

This advertorial must have done ok because the client hired me to write some more copy for him after that.

​​From what I could understand, he had a bunch of offers in the gun and gun training space, and he was running a ton of traffic to them.

I think I did a good job with those followup projects too, but really I never found out. ​​After I delivered those projects, the client didn’t ask me to write any more stuff. ​​When I tried following up with him a few months later — “Hey how’s it going? Do you need any more help with copy?” — I never heard back.

So here’s my tip for you today, in case you’re a copywriter who works with clients:

The early time in a client relationship is often the best time to really find out what a business does, to ask lots of questions, and to set yourself up so you maximize the LTV you can get with this client.

After all, when I first got hired by this guns-and-ammo guy, I got on a call with him, like I do with every other client. He was accommodating and open, and answered any questions I asked.

But here’s the thing. I only asked questions that were relevant to this one project.

Had I thought to find out a lot more about his business or businesses, beyond just the project I was hired for, I would have been in a much better place later, when I wanted him to hire me for more stuff.

The bigger point is this:

In my experience, many business owners think of hiring a copywriter as a one-time, unavoidable expense. Not in terms of money. But in terms of their attention and time.

Once that one time is over, business owners often want to put you out of mind, and get on to next things. You can slip off their radar easily. And if you follow up later by naively saying, “Hey, how’s it going, do you need help with anything?” — well, that just creates more work for them, not less.

So the next time you start work with a new client, become genuinely interested in their business, way beyond what is relevant to your own project.

Then squirrel away that knowledge, and use it later.

​​It might be the most unfairly easy way to get more client work down the line — without ever having to hunt for new clients.

And now, you might like to know I am preparing a guide all about the business side of succeeding as a copywriter. It’s called Copy Zone. If you’d like to find out more about it when it comes out, sign up for my email newsletter.

Dark and disturbing

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Today’s email is dark and disturbing. I mean it. Read at your own peril.

Many years ago, late one night, I was watching TV and I saw a fragment of a courtroom drama starring Robin Wright. (She also played Buttercup, if you’ve ever seen the Princess Bride.)

In the movie, Wright’s character is testifying against her violent and abusive ex-boyfriend. Even so, she is still in love with the guy. She even interprets his acts of violence as signs that he cares.

I’ll admit, this made me morbidly curious. It had a ring of truth to it. But after all, it was just a movie.

Then a couple days ago, I shared a Rolling Stone article about get-rich-quick master David Bendah. And while I was looking at that article, I saw something in the sidebar. The number 1 trending article on Rolling Stone right now:

“Marilyn Manson: The Monster Hiding in Plain Sight”

It’s same story as that movie I saw long ago. But it’s real — or at least that’s what many of the women Manson has been with claim, including in court.

One of Manson’s exes reports being locked in a cramped, soundproof space that Manson called the “Bad Girls’ Room.”

The first time it happened, she was screaming and kicking to be let out.

In time, she says, she learned to stop fighting, because Manson enjoyed her struggle.

In other words, this happened many times. This grown, independent woman was locked up in a soundproof closet space as punishment… she was humiliated and horrified… and she came back for more.

Another woman, actress Esme Bianco from Game of Thrones, claims Manson abused and raped her for 2 years.

The final straw, Bianco says, was when Manson started running around his all-black, meatlocker-cold West Hollywood apartment, smashing the walls with an axe, and screaming that she was “crowding him.”

2 years of rape and abuse. And it had to take an axe for a successful Hollywood actress to finally get out.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to blame the victims here.

I just think that looking at extremes in life shines a light on more everyday situations.

For example, how conflicted we all are.

There are bad situation in life. And yet, so many hooks, physical and mental, keep us from packing up and leaving.

There are also many possibly good future outcomes. And yet, so many hooks, physical and mental, keep us from moving towards these outcomes.

So that’s my takeaway for you.

Maybe there have been times when you’ve made people an amazing offer. And you couldn’t understand for the life of you why people weren’t running to take you up on it.

Well, there is the chance that your offer was not as amazing as you thought. Or maybe you botched the marketing.

But even if you get everything just perfect, only a few percent will ever respond to even the best offer.

Why?

Well, for reasons like this, the conflicts that exist in us, even in the most extreme situations.

And if you keep this dark and disturbing truth in mind, and find ways to address it, you might have a chance to sell — and maybe help — a lot more people.

Or not.

As another example, I have an offer for you. Marketing and copywriting and persuasion lessons… delivered to your inbox in small, fascinating packages, each day… all for free. Will you take me up on it? Well, I won’t be surprised if you don’t. But if you want to, here’s where to go.

The first frame is the worst frame

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I have a fish I’d like to sell you today. It’s not a freshly caught fish.

​​It’s actually been sitting around for 18 months. But trust me, this particular fish has hardly spoiled with time.

​​Today it’s just as tasty and nutritious, well almost, as it was 18 months ago, the day that it was caught.

So are you interested? How much would you pay for this fish?

A lot?

A little?

A negative amount? Would you actually pay me to keep this fish away from you?

One day last week, I got a newsletter email from a marketer. The email started off with something like, “I don’t have a lot of time today. So I’m resending a really good email that I wrote a long time ago.”

​​And then below that, there was the 18-month-old email, looking at me with its dead, clouded, fishy eyes.

Actually, I just assume that that’s how the old email was looking at me. I didn’t even check. As soon as I saw that intro about not having time and about resending an old email, I clicked away.

The point of my message today — the freshly caught fish I am actually trying to sell you — is not to say you should never reuse old emails.

My point is simply to be mindful of how you frame your message. Because often, the first frame that our minds jump to is the worst frame.

I’ve seen beginner freelance copywriters try to sell themselves. They do so by framing their message with an explanation of how they are new in the industry and how they have no experience.

I’ve seen business owners try to sell their products. They start off their sales letters by telling the unremarkable life story that brought them to the moment of sitting down to write that sales letter.

In all these cases — the re-warmed 18-month-old email, the self-defeating self-promotion, the boring and pointless sales letter — the problem is the natural human desire, or perhaps need, to explain ourselves.

Don’t explain yourself. Nobody cares. And it’s hurting your message.

Instead, think of how to frame your message so it has the best chance of influencing your reader.

Trumpet your own authority. Or soothe your reader’s ego. Or if you’re truly selling a fish that was caught 18 months ago, then say this thing is delicious and nutritious — and stop yourself there.

But enough fish-mongering. If you’d like to read my emails regularly, and see how I never apologize for the content I send, then sign up for my newsletter here.

The Prince of Get Rich Quick

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At age 23, David B. was flat broke and was waiting tables to make ends meet. Full of shame and unsatisfied ambition, he made a commitment to himself that by age 28 he would be worth $1M.

And sure enough, by age 27 1/2, David was worth over $1M.

By age 29, he was bringing in $6M a year, living in a mansion overlooking San Diego, and driving a big white Rolls Royce.

How did he do it?

Well, that’s the topic of a 1989 Rolling Stone article about David Bendah, titled The Prince of Get Rich Quick.

I’d never heard of David B. until a few days ago. But back in the 1980s he was apparently a big deal (hence the Rolling Stone story). He started a publishing business that was bringing in tens of millions a year selling get-rich-quick books.

Bendah eventually did land in jail, but that was only when greed got the better of him, and once he moved from selling get-rich info to running a full on envelope-stuffing scheme. (After all, why bother with a product when you can just sell your own marketing?)

The Rolling Stone article on Bendah is eye-opening and has many ideas that can make you rich or save you from losing it all (like Bendah). They are as relevant today as they were in 1989.

I won’t spell out all these many idea. There would be no point. Instead, I’ll give you just one:

“In all of Bendah’s books, the crucial step toward success is getting beyond ego problems, which he interprets as understanding and accepting who you are and what talents you have.”

I think Bendah’s advice is actually spot on. It just needs to be extended a bit further.

In Bendah’s case, his talents were obviously in the promotion of opportunities. And who he was was was a die-hard opportunity seeker in his own right – or at least that’s my interpretation of how he wound up in jail, even after having created a successful, multi-million-dollar business.

Your own talents and your own instinctive drives might be different from Bendah’s. But whatever you have inside you, it’s worth facing it honestly… using it for all it’s worth… but also keeping an eye on it, if it’s something that can get you in trouble.

Anyways, I once bounced around the idea of creating AIDA School — a classroom-style place to learn direct response copywriting.

​​That’s not gonna happen. But maybe one day I will create just the curriculum for AIDA School. And if I do, the David Bendah Rolling Stone article will go in, and will be required reading.

In case you’re curious about learning more about direct response copywriting and my future AIDA school curriculum… then sign up for my email newsletter, where I will talk more about both. And in case you want to read the David Bendah article now:

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/david-bendah-the-prince-of-get-rich-quick-52915/

 

Back to the Boardroom era?

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Last autumn, I was writing a few sales emails for an SEO agency. So I spent an hour on Google, trying to find stories of people who had been penalized, by Google, for doing shady SEO stuff.

And after an hour, I had little to nothing to show for it.

Not because such stories don’t exist or because people haven’t written about them online.

But because people’s actual stories have been crowded out by billions of SEO-optimized listicles with titles like “10 Google Penalties That May Be Affecting Your Site” and “The Complete list of Google Penalties and How to Recover.” ​​And then there’s worthless Medium, which showed up at no. 2 for a Google search on “Google penalty stories”:

The most insightful stories about Google Penalty – Medium
Read stories about Google Penalty on Medium. Discover smart, unique perspectives on Google Penalty and the topics that matter most to you like SEO, …

Page after page of Google results like this gave me no actual, credible, human info. And I guess it’s not just me that it’s happening to.

A recent article in the New Yorker talked about the growing mass realization that Google search sucks. Partly because Google as a company has decided to go fully evil. Partly because we have all started to rely so much on Google… that the Internet has warped itself to appeal to Google’s tastes and preferences.

The result is page after page of horrible, inhuman fluff, broken up perfectly with H1 and H2 headings, made up of regurgitated and repurposed low-quality information or even flat-out lies.

Which is something you can either be frustrated about…

Or if you’re like me, you might decide to see it as a business opportunity.

The tech nerds on Hacker News can try to come up with a new search engine to beat Google.

But this is a newsletter about marketing. So let me tell you it smells to me like we might be headed back to the days of Boardroom.

The past 15 or so years, coinciding with rise to monopoly of Google, have also seen a rise of personality-based marketing businesses.

Coaches, gurus, and experts of various stripes have been selling information at high prices — not based on the quality or quantity of the info — but based on their own perceived authority, trustworthiness, and the relationship they have built with their audience.

That was the only way you really could charge for information online.

The days of Boardroom — charging $39 for a book of tax-saving or health or consumer tips — without a face you could trust and a guru you could feel is your friend… why pay for that?

After all, it seemed that Google made that kind of information available for free.

Except again, we’re now in an age where there’s so much information, and so much bad information, all available for free, that there might be an opportunity to simply start a business curating good information and selling it online.

So if you’re looking for a side project, new business, or a way to help millions of people navigate their lives better, consider reviving Boardroom.

Bring together valuable, trustworthy information. Charge for it. Build a list. And then do it all over again.

You probably won’t ever be able to charge thousands of dollars for a single book or five-hour video course, the way you can if you are selling based on personality.

​​But you will be able to reach a much bigger pool of people — which creates valuable opportunities of its own.

Or you can watch me do it. I’m planning to take my own advice. I will write up the results in my email newsletter. You can sign up to join it here.

Cheap, easy, and definitely worth it

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A few days ago, I sent out a George Foreman-themed email asking for testimonials. Either for my newsletter and products… or for me personally.

I got back some good responses. Just what I was hoping for. For example, copywriter David Patrick wrote me to say:

“If John is behind anything, then I’m sure it’s going to be good. In fact, he may very well be the best thing to happen to America… at least when it comes to persuasion and influence! No, really!”

Others wrote in to say that I’m not only the best thing for America, but “maybe even the world”… that I am a “vital resource”… and one person, who shall remain unnamed, wrote in all seriousness with:

“John Bejakovic and persuasion. You can’t beat that. He made me like cats. Even though I used to hate them and they used to hate me. So he’s a great person to find out about a new product that’s about persuading stubborn prospects. Or cats.”

I also got less flamboyant, perhaps more useful testimonials. I will drip those out in good time, in upcoming emails and sales pages.

For today, I just want to point out something obvious that you might already know, but that I had to learn. In fact, I didn’t learn it until only a couple years ago, when I was writing a VSL for a get-rich-in-real-estate guru.

In one of his content videos, this real estate guru talked about his “buyers list” — the list of people you can flip a house to.

But a buyers list is so much more than that, the guru said.

​​He then rattled off all the connections, employees, business opportunities, sources of funding, and personal relationships that resulted from his list, and from the personal emails he would send to them on occasion.

“Huh, interesting,” I said, a dim light slowly flickering to life in my head.

​​Time passed. I stared into space.

​​The light flickered a little brighter. “Ohh… yeah… I get it now!”

Because it’s not just a “buyers list” that can do all that. It’s the same with any email list, when it’s built right and managed right.

The fact is, my newsletter list has given me — often without me even asking — business partners… JV partners… copywriting clients… consulting clients… free products… insider tips and valuable ideas I wouldn’t know about otherwise… job offers… podcast appearances… mastermind appearances… and many, many new relationships with people, some of whom even became my friends, mostly online, but in real life as well.

Like I said, I had to have somebody point this out to me. That a list is a relationship, and that it’s good for a lot more than just a certain kind of one-way traffic.

Maybe you’re amazed I could be so dense.

But I am far from a natural when it comes to promotion or marketing or business. And yet it doesn’t matter.

You can find a spot for yourself, and be successful in time, even if you’re not a natural showman, salesman, or “scheme” man.

Lots of people have walked the road before you. Many of them are willing to point out, sometimes even for free, just where you should put your feet to take the next step to success.

Such as for example, starting and running your own email list. It’s cheap. Easy to do. And it’s definitely worth it.

If you want to see, how I do it, sign up to my list. You might learn something about copywriting and marketing and business along the way. Here’s where to get started.

More on people’s deepest secrets, fears, and desires

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INTERVIEWER: I think finding something that helps you find fulfillment and happiness is important. And if that happens to be heroin, and you got it under control… maybe it’s okay.

MATTHEW: I do, but then it’s the money thing. It’s a lot of money.

INTERVIEWER: How much do you spend? How much do you spend a week?

MATTHEW: A month, probably $1,500. So I could have a nice apartment.

That’s from an interview with Matthew, a functional heroin addict. Matthew says he smokes heroin, every day, all day. And yet he has a job, and he does it well, and nobody knows.

The interview with Matthew is part of a YouTube channel called Soft White Underbelly.

I discovered Soft White Underbelly a few weeks ago. It features hundreds or maybe thousands of in-depth interviews with drug addicts, homeless people, child abuse victims, prostitutes, escorts, inbred Appalachian families, gang members, a high-level mob boss, a strychnine-drinking Pentecostal preacher, a conman who ran real-estate frauds totaling in the tens of millions of dollars, and various others on the outside of what you might call mainstream society.

I won’t lie — I got sucked into this channel because of purely prurient curiosity about the lives of escorts and prostitutes and even a male gigolo.

I’m not sure what my persuasion and influence takeaway for you is today. Except that, in my experience, being interested and curious is like a superpower in almost any field.

You achieve focus by being interested. And you achieve interest, if you don’t have it already, by seeing details.

I talked yesterday about how there are primal urges that motivate all people — except these are secrets most of us will never share with others. Often, we can’t even face up to them on our own, in the dead of night, as we’re falling asleep, with the covers pulled up to our eyeballs.

But the people who are interviewed on Soft White Underbelly are incredibly open about the most shocking, intimate, painful, and humiliating things in their lives.

Maybe some of these stories aren’t true. But I bet many of them are. And they’re very revealing.

Yes, these are extreme stories of people coping with bad life situations and bad life choices.

But like I said yesterday, the human experience is similar among all of us. And a person doesn’t need to have extreme abuse or trauma or misfortune to fall into the same patterns of thought and behavior as the people on Soft White Underbelly.

So if you pay attention to the details of their stories… it might be useful both to understand others better, and to understand yourself better.

Or who knows, maybe I’m just trying to justify my own prurient fascination.

In case you want to decide for yourself, let me recommend a SFU interview to start with.
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​​It’s with a black-hat hacker, who started in the 1980s by phreaking phones and early ATMs, then graduated to more lucrative and high-scale tech exploits ($10M for hacking the DirectTV receiver), and culminated about 10 years ago with… well, I won’t spoil it.

If you’re interested, the full interview is below. But before you watch it, if you want more ideas on understanding yourself and other people better — both for profit and for curiosity’s sake — then sign up to my email newsletter.