Bejako After Dark, my new OnlyFans project

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I’ve spent a lot of time in Ubers the past few days, jetsetting back and forth across my home town of Zagreb, Croatia.

A part of that experience has been listening to the local pop radio stations, which seem to be the music of choice for Uber drivers here.

(Bear with me for a minute. I promise to give you a good payoff to this story.)

During an Uber today, an awful pop song came on the radio. A woman was singing a childish tune over a reggae rhythm played by synthesizers. The chorus kept repeating (translated from Croatian):

===

When you’re alone, you need to go to the sea

When you’re alone, you need a friend

When you’re alone, you need a bottle of wine, you need a nice girl

===

“What is this horror,” I asked myself after the chorus repeated for the 45th time. Then on the 46th repeat, the final line changed:

“When you’re alone, you need a bottle of wine, you need Severina”

“Oh ok that makes sense,” I said.

In case you don’t know — and if you do, I have questions for you — Severina is the most nationally and internationally famous singer from Croatia.

Starting in the early 90s, for a decade and more, Severina recorded dutiful and horrible songs like the one I heard today. Her career wasn’t going anywhere.

And then, in June 2004, a sex tape involving Severina leaked out. Thanks to the wonders of the Internet, the tape was quickly viewed more times than the moon landing.

As you can probably guess, Severina’s sex tape transformed Severina’s music career.

It opened up huge new audiences both locally and internationally. It helped her change her image to a kind of sex vixen.

It got a lot of musicians, including some respectable ones, interested in working with her. And it has kept her music, awful though it is, playing on the radio, even today, 20 years later.

But I promised you a good payoff to today’s story, and a sex tape ain’t it.

Along with listening to Severina, I am also reading a book titled Veeck As In Wreck. It’s the autobiography of Bill Veeck, who was one of the most innovative and influential owners of a major league baseball team in the history of the sport.

At different times, Veeck owned the Chicago White Sox and Cleveland Indians.

But he started out by working for the Chicago Cubs, back when the Cubs were a horrifically losing team. Of course, no fans wanted to go see the Cubs since they were so bad, and the Cubs’ stadium, Wrigley Field, sat empty.

Veeck managed to turn all this around. Well, not the Cubs’ losing record, but the attendance problems.

Veeck managed to sell out game after game by introducing creative giveaways (live lobsters, a horse), spectacles (fireworks, before any other baseball teams had ’em), and schemes (a dwarf playing as designated hitter). As Veeck put it in in his autobiography:

“A team that isn’t winning a pennant has to sell something in addition to its won-and-lost record.”

And now I’d like to point out something crazy that might have slipped your attention:

Both the Chicago Cubs and early-stage Severina were in the entertainment business — sports and music. I mean, what sells easier and better than sports and music?

Except, of course, for the Cubs and Severina, being “entertaining” wasn’t enough. They both kind of sucked at that, and so they had to tack on a second degree of entertainment — a circus environment, a sex tape — in order for fans to care or at least stomach their first degree of entertainment.

And that’s the point I wanted to get across to you.

If you’re selling something important and dutiful, you can sell more of it by trying to be entertaining. You probably already know that – it’s the “infotainment” idea that people like Sean D’Souza have been championing for two decades.

The thing is, you might not be much of an entertainer. Or you might be decent, but you might simply be in a marketplace where everybody else is also entertaining, and maybe as well as you.

In that case, you can still lap the pack if you offer a second-degree of entertainment — entertainment of a different kind, preferably in an entirely different format.

And with that, I’d like to announce I’m launching a new project, an OnlyFans channel, Bejako After Dark — no, you wish.

But I am thinking about this topic of second-degree entertainment seriously. In time, some good idea will land on me. Maybe it will be OnlyFans.

In any case, until that happens, let me just turn you on to something I’ve already created — an entertainment of a different kind, in an entirely different format, in which I bare myself quite naked:

https://bejakovic.com/new10commandments

“Don’t tell me what to think!”

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I got on a plane a couple days ago. As we were waiting on the tarmac following boarding, a typically incomprehensible announcemnt came on over the PA:

“Good afternooon ladies and gentleWAGGG this is your caBTANG Daniel GWOCKXHYHY BHGGeaking. Due to a HSINGLT BNT XXXOXFFWGDDDEDDELOXHGGGHRE, BBBNJDIO YDIOW NCHUNFI SX KNNI 30 minutes. We apologize for the inconvenience.”

The woman sitting in front of me flagged down a stewardess. “What did the captain say? That we will be late?”

The stewardess nodded. “We will be 30 minutes late taking off because we lost the slot. We have the next slot in 30 minutes. But it’s ok, it’s not a big deal.”

“Not for you!” said the woman in front.

The stewardess tightened her lips. “It is for ME,” she said. “But it isn’t for YOU.” And she marched off.

I wrote this down because it made me chuckle. Such a commonplace interaction. One person says something designed to offer consolation or advice… the other person bristles at this… the first person bristles at the bristling.

As you might already know, you can’t tell anyone anything.

Even helpful or benevolent statements can and will be twisted into their opposites. It’s a reflex that’s as reliable as a kick when you tap on somebody on the knee. And if you don’t agree with me, that just proves my point.

All of this raises the question, how can you possibly communicate with others, when you can’t tell them anything?

I have much to say about that, but I can’t tell you about it — at least not here. Like I said, that wouldn’t work.

Instead, what I’ve done is I’ve written it up in a colorful book, my new 10 Commandments book.

The topic of reactance — of people bristling whenever they feel somebody is telling them something, or trying to influence them or steer them — is one of the main currents that runs through this book. Eventually, it bubbles up to the surface in Commandment VIII, “Thou shalt tell nothing.”

If you’d like to find out what thou canst do, since telling is off the table:

https://bejakovic.com/new10commandments

A simple way to get course buyers to consume and profit from your info

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Until tonight at 12 midnight PST, I’m promoting Kieran Drew’s new offer “Productize Your Knowledge.” Kieran’s launch of this offer will stretch into next week, but I am offering two extra bonuses only if you buy and send me your receipt by 12 midnight tonight.

For example, a long-term reader and customer named Ricky (not sure he wants me to share his last name) forwarded me his receipt last night and wrote:

===

I picked this up tonight. Thanks for offering it with some bonuses, I’m looking forward to the 3rd Conversion training (that’s the bonus that led me to pick you over others, FYI).

===

3rd Conversion is a training I put on last year, about how to get people not just to buy, but to consume and implement your info products. The goal is to take one-time buyers and turn them into people who actually profit from your info, so they get their money’s worth, and so they buy from you again.

All in all, 3rd Conversion features 19 techniques to encourage consumption and implementation. All 19 are “live” techniques, in the sense that I use them regularly myself.

Some of these techniques are involved, some are basic. But even the basic ones can make a big difference.

I’ll tell you a basic one right here, as a teaser. It’s simply to “re-sell” course buyers on the course, inside the course itself.

In other words, I continue the same kind of stuff, inside the course, that I did in my emails and on my sales page to get people to buy. For example, when new customers go inside the course area for 3rd Conversion, they actually see the following testimonials from previous customers:

“JOHN this was one of the best trainings I’ve been a part of. I cannot express how excited I’ve been and I’m already reworking my presentation’s overdue slide deck.”

— Jeffrey Thomas, in-house copywriter at MarketingProfs

“I just wanted to drop you a quick note to say how much I absolutely loved your live class. It was perfectly timed for me, especially since I’m putting out my own offer for a done-for-you course blueprint. Your presentation was not only engaging but also such a clever demonstration of your course content in action – I was taking mental notes the whole time! (And trying to resist writing everything down lol)”

— Antonet Vataj, owner of Ann Vee Marketing

“Finally got the chance to use what you taught in the 3rd Conversion training. And it went great. I did a workshop on influential and persuasive storytelling, and I modeled it according to what you taught. First time I’ve done a workshop and after sending the recording getting replies about how much people loved it.”

— Pete Reginella, email marketer and copywriter

The goal of this “re-selling” is to get new buyers once again excited about what they bought and intrigued about consuming it, as opposed to overwhelmed or disgusted by the task of watching a bunch of videos or reading a bunch of pages of how-to instruction.

I last sold 3rd Conversion for $197.

The other bonus I’m giving away until midnight tonight is my Most Valuable Postcard #1, about the most important number to focus on if you wanna have a successful business selling products or services or a mix of the two. Really, this is about more than a number — it’s about a philosophy that impacts everything you do, from how you get leads/traffic, to how you sell them, to what you deliver to them.

I last sold MVP1 for $100.

When you put those two bonuses together, you get a total of $297 of real-world bonuses, which happens to be the price that Kieran is selling his PYK for during the launch. (If you happen to already own both my 3rd Conversion and MVP1, but you get Kieran’s PYK through my link, then I will make sure you get another bonus bundle of equal or greater value.)

As for Productize Your Knowledge itself, Kieran does a thorough job explaining what it is on the sales page below. Two things I’d highlight:

1. This is not a collection of “secrets” about how to create a course. Rather, it’s a proven mechanism to take what you know or do already and turn it into an info product people want to buy.

2. If you buy during this launch, Productize Your Knowledge is an implementation group more than a course, because Kieran running an 8-week live bootcamp after the launch, where you get support, community, and accountability as you develop your info product.

For all the other details on Productize Your Knowledge, there’s the sales page below. Again, if you want my bonuses, read over this sales page, make up your mind, and forward me your receipt before 12 midnight PST tonight:

https://bejakovic.com/pyk

How cool are you?

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If you’ve ever wondered if you’re cool, I mean really cool, you don’t have to wonder any longer. You can now know with absolute certainty, thanks to a group of scientists who have conclusively studied, analyzed, and answered this question, from here to eternity.

Based on a worldwide study of 600 people, published a few weeks ago, the scientists say coolness breaks down into the following six characteristics:

1. Extroverted

2. Hedonistic

3. Powerful

4. Adventurous

5. Open

6. Autonomous

So you just gotta look at yourself honestly, decide how you measure up on each of these traits, add up the scores, and ta-da!

I did this exercise myself. And if you’re curious about how cool I am, I’ll tell you:

I’m as extraverted as a late-stage Howard Hughes… as hedonistic as Greta Thunberg… as powerful as Steven Seagal… as adventurous as Fred Rogers… and as open as Winston Churchill.

In other words, on the first five measures of coolness, I score a cool, hard ZERO.

All that’s left to me is trait six, autonomous.

I do pretty well there.

I live where I want, I do what I want, when I want and with who I want. I have enough money to satisfy my appetites and then some, without a boss to answer to, a constituency to appease, or a strict to fulfill.

If I want to change where I am or what I do or how much time I spend doing it, I can — I have done so in the past and I might do it again.

No man is an island, entire of itself, but I am autonomous enough to score myself as a 10 on the autonomy scale, giving me a solid 16.6% overall coolness rating.

The thing is, 16.6% is as good as 100%, at least when it comes to having a personal brand online.

In fact, once upon a time, I wrote a daily email with the hidden goal of communicating how I value autonomy over all kinds of other goods. I got a shocking number of “that’s right!” replies from long-term readers and customers, or people who have since become such.

I wrote that very deliberate email after hearing Dan Kennedy say how autonomy is the core appeal that underlies his popularity and standing and authority as a marketing guru.

That might be a valuable something to consider if you are trying to sell people stuff online.

And on that note, as I wrote yesterday, if that’s a world you’re looking to get into, then Kieran Drew is launching a new offer, called Productize Your Knowledge.

The end result of Productize Your Knowledge is you take what you already know or are already doing for clients as service work, and package a part of that into a product that sells, just for you, without making more demands on your time or lifeblood.

Like I wrote yesterday, Kieran’s Productize Your Knowledge is not a collection of “secrets” on how to create a course.

Instead, it’s both a process to help you go from where you are now to having a info product that actually sells and makes money.

It’s process that Kieran himself has followed, and also a process 7 private clients each paid Kieran $2,997 to help them implement, earlier this year.

Kieran lays out the process on the sales page below. And while you can read the sales page and then follow the process and try to do all this yourself, it’s worth considering paying Kieran for Productize Your Knowledge now. Three reasons why:

1. The launch price of $297, which will go up to $497 after the launch

2. The “Product Summer Bootcamp” community — basically an 8-week implementation and support group kicking off after the launch, with Kieran leading, giving feedback, and possibly cracking the whip (though don’t hold me to that last one)

3. Two free bonuses which I am adding in:

BEJAKO BONUS #1: 3rd conversion (last sold for $197)

Kieran’s Productize Your Knowledge guides you how to making a great info products people wanna buy. But the fact is, you can sell great info, and have people excited to pay you for it, and yet won’t consume it and won’t implement it.

3rd conversion shows you how to take care of that next step, and dramatically incraeses the odds people consume and implement the info you sell.

Not only does this make it more likely that one-time buyers buy the next thing from you and turn into long-time customers, but it makes it so you feel good continuing to sell info products instead of wanting to hang yourself (ask me how I know).

BEJAKO BONUS #2: Most Valuable Postcard #1: Nota Rapida (last sold for $100)

… all about the most important number to focus on in your business, whether you sell info products or services.

The fact is, I never cottoned on to this until I started selling info products. And out of the many mistakes I made while working as freelance copywriter, not focusing on this number is the only one I truly regret.

Whether you’re planning to completely shift to selling products or you want to sell a mix of products and services, I belive the info in this Most Valuable Postcard will keep you happy, wealthy, and wise.

These two bonuses I’m offering add up get a real-world value of $297, which is what Kieran’s PYK sells for during the launch.

If you want to get PYK but you already have both my 3rd Conversion and MVP #1:

Then write me and I will give you something of equivalent or greater value as a bonus.

Kieran’s launch, including the special launch price and the Product Summer Bootcamp, runs until next week.

However, if you want to also get the free bonuses I am offering, there’s a tighter deadline, tomorrow, Sunday July 6, at 12 midnight PST.

The sales page for Kieran’s offer is below.

If you have knowledge or expertise… if you’ve been thinking about turning that into products you can sell… if you want Kieran’s guidance and even personal feedback on what you’re doing so can get this product done in the next eight weeks instead of the next eight months or the next eight years… then take a look at Kieran’s page below, and decide if Productize Your Knowledge is for you.

If you do decide to join, forward me your receipt. I will then get you hooked up with 3rd Conversion or Most Valuable Postcard #1 — or if you already have those, with something of equivalent or greater value.

Here’s the sales page:

https://bejakovic.com/pyk

Announcing: Productize Your Knowledge

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Starting today, I am promoting Kieran Drew’s new offer, Productize Your Knowledge.

The end result of Productize Your Knowledge is you take what you already know or are already doing for clients as service work, and package a part of that into a product that sells.

Like I wrote yesterday, Kieran’s Productize Your Knowledge is not a collection of “secrets” on how to create a course.

Instead, it’s both a process to help you go from where you are now to having a info product that actually sells and makes money.

It’s process that Kieran himself has followed, and also a process 7 private clients each paid Kieran $2,997 to help them implement, earlier this year.

Kieran lays out the process on the sales page below. And while you can read the sales page and then follow the process and try to do all this yourself, it’s worth considering paying Kieran for Productize Your Knowledge now. Three reasons why:

1. The launch price of $297, which will go up to $497 after the launch

2. The “Product Summer Bootcamp” community — basically an 8-week implementation and support group, with Kieran leading, giving feedback, and possibly cracking the whip (though don’t hold me to that last one)

3. Two free bonuses which I am adding in:

BEJAKO BONUS #1: 3rd conversion (last sold for $197)

Kieran’s Productize Your Knowledge guides you how to making a great info products people wanna buy. But the fact is, you can sell great info, and have people excited to pay you for it, and yet won’t consume it and won’t implement it.

3rd conversion shows you how to take care of that next step, and dramatically incraeses the odds people consume and implement the info you sell.

Not only does this make it more likely that one-time buyers buy the next thing from you and turn into long-time customers, but it makes it so you feel good continuing to sell info products instead of wanting to hang yourself (ask me how I know).

BEJAKO BONUS #2: Most Valuable Postcard #1: Nota Rapida (last sold for $100)

… all about the most important number to focus on in your business, whether you sell info products or services.

The fact is, I never cottoned on to this until I started selling info products. And out of the many mistakes I made while working as freelance copywriter, not focusing on this number is the only one I truly regret.

Whether you’re planning to completely shift to selling products or you want to sell a mix of products and services, I belive the info in this Most Valuable Postcard will keep you happy, wealthy, and wise.

These two bonuses I’m offering add up get a real-world value of $297, which is what Kieran’s PYK sells for during the launch.

If you want to get PYK but you already have both my 3rd Conversion and MVP #1, then write me and I will give you something of equivalent or greater value as a bonus.

Kieran’s launch, including the special launch price and the Product Summer Bootcamp, runs until next week.

However, if you want to also get the free bonuses I am offering, there’s a tighter deadline, this Sunday at 12 midnight PST.

The sales page for Kieran’s offer is below.

If you have knowledge or expertise, if you’ve been thinking about turning that into products you can sell, if you want Kieran’s guidance and even personal feedback on what you’re doing so can get this product done in the next eight weeks instead of the next eight months or the next eight years, then take a look at Kieran’s page below, decide if Productize Your Knowledge is for you.

If you do decide to join, forward me your receipt. I will then get you hooked up with 3rd Conversion or Most Valuable Postcard #1 — or if you already have those, with something of equivalent or greater value.

Here’s the sales page:

https://bejakovic.com/pyk

How to save time “productizing your knowledge”

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Last week, I got a text message from Kieran Drew, who has a big newsletter and an even bigger audience in the creator space.

Kieran wrote to say he will be stopping by Barcelona in a couple weeks’ time, so let’s meet up.

Yes definitely, I said. I kept reading.

Also, the message went on, Kieran will be launching a product soon about “productizing your knowledge.” Maybe I’d be interested in promoting it as an affiliate?

“Oh God no please,” I thought. “Not a course of ‘secrets’ about how to build a course.”

Here’s my problem:

There’s no doubt you can make money with a course. I’ve done it. Kieran’s done it even more than I have. So have thousands of other people.

But to make a course and then actually make money with it takes time and effort that dwarf anything you might pay for the “how to” info itself. This is why a course on how to build a course is an investment that’s particularly unlikely to pay off for the vast majority of people.

Now here’s a spoiler:

I have since agreed to promote Kieran’s “productize your knowledge” offer. I did it because I’m greedy and unscrup—

No.

I did it because, out of politeness, I asked Kieran to send me his sales page. “I’ll take a look,” I said. “I’ll let you know if it’s something I could do a good job promoting.”

Kieran sent me his sales page. And since I’m as literal-minded as a three-year-old and I feel compelled to do things I said I will do, I took a look, even though I was sure this was not something I was going to promote.

Here’s three things that flipped me:

#1. There’s a legit mechanism

Right at the top of Kieran’s sales page, I found out this is not primarily a bunch of “secrets” about how to make a course, but a genuine mechanism about how to make an info product that sells.

The thing is, rather than teasing you about this mechanism so you have to buy to find out, Kieran actually lays it out on the sales page. That might not be good for sales, but it’s a positive in my book.

#2. Who it’s for

Before turning this process into an info product (hint), Kieran took on 7 private clients, each of whom paid $2,997. Kieran helped these clients implement this process themselves.

I took a look at who signed up for that, and it was people who had legit knowledge to share — athletic performance, personal finance, injury specialists.

This gave me a bit of an aha moment.

I realized that, while I’m not happy to promote an offer on “productizing your knowledge” to the vast majority of people, there is a segment of people who actually have expertise and knowledge.

Some of those people are looking to go the next step from their current service or one-on-one work, and Kieran’s process can be genuinely valuable and helpful for them.

#3. This is not primarily a course, at least not during this launch

During this launch, Kieran’s offer is really an implementation group, a cohort with feedback and accountability along with how-to info. That’s because Kieran’s running “Product Summer Bootcamp,” an 8-week private community, as part of this launch.

Speaking of:

Kieran is launching his offer tomorrow.

Again, the process he is teaching inside is outlined on the sales page.

You can read the sales page when it goes live, take the process for yourself, and run with it.

It will take weeks or more likely months to implement — that’s inevitable.

If you decide to pay Kieran $297 to get the tools, tips, direct guidance, accountability, and support to shave off weeks or maybe months off that time, you will be able to do so tomorrow.

I will also have a couple of congruent bonuses, not to entice you to buy if this isn’t right for you, but to make it more likely you have a successful long-term business, selling your products or a mix of your products and services. But more on all that tomorrow.

A mystery on today’s date

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At 10am on July 2, 1937, precisely 88 years ago, the following happened:

An overloaded plane, 5,000lbs over its normal weight, rumbled down a grass runway.

Observers at the airport thought the plane had actually fallen down the cliff at the end of the runway, but a few moments later, the plane reappeared, apparently airborne, and gradually rose up into the clouds.

Aboard, there were only two passengers: a navigator, named Fred Noonan, and the most famous female aviatress of all time, Amelia Earheart.

Earheart and Noonan were completing the final leg of their round-the-world flight, crossing the Pacific from Melanesia back to the U.S.. If successful, Earheart would become the first woman to fly all the way around the world.

But Earheart and Noonan never made it to the next stop. Some 20 hours later, also on July 2 (thanks to crossing the international date line), they disappeared somewhere over the Pacific, never to be heard from or seen again.

Except… maybe they were heard from or seen again?

A woman in Texas picked up an SOS radio transmission the next day, in which she heard a woman who claimed to be Earheart, and a man groaning in background. The two were supposedly stranded on an uninhabited island in the Pacific.

Then again, a Japanese woman on the island of Saipan claimed she had personally witnessed Earheart and Noonan, following their crash on the island, being executed by the Imperial Japanese Army.

There were also claims that Earheart was captured but not executed by the Japanese. In this scenario, she was forced to work as Tokyo Rose, an English-speaking radio broadcaster used to spread Japanese propaganda during WWII.

And finally, there was the theory that Earheart completed her flight as planned but immediately chose to go into obscurity, only to reappear years later as a New Jersey banker.

All in all, around 100 books have been written about Earheart and what really happened to her.

Organizations and well-funded expeditions have been established to really get to the bottom of it.

Numerous TV shows and documentaries have tried to shine light on the mystery. I’m surprised Angelina Jolie never made a movie about Earheart.

Now I think you will agree with me, because I happen to be right about the matter, that none of this would have happened had Earheart simply crashed and burned in a certain death, or had she even managed to complete her round the world tour as expected.

There’s something about the mystery of not knowing what really happened, a lack of closure, which drives intense attention or even obsession, which cannot be created in any other way.

If you have basic knowledge of copywriting, you are familiar with this human quirk, and you probably even exploit it via “open loops” in your copy.

What you might not be familiar with is the underlying neurology of why we feel the need for closure so strongly, or how the same neurology can be exploited by magicians (if you ever hear a magician tell a corny joke, that’s why), by negotiators (Jim Camp’s advice to “negotiate in the bathroom”) or by hypnotists (to perform a rapid induction that gets 5 weeks’ worth of hypnosis down into 3 minutes).

If any of that sounds intriguing to you, take a look at Commandment X of my new 10 Commandments book, waiting patiently for you here:

https://bejakovic.com/new10commandments

Sloppy agree & amplify

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I’m reading a frustrating/fascinating article about Curtis Yarvin. Yarvin has been writing various blogs for close to 20 years, in which — so says the article — he advocates for shutting down the American experiment in democracy, and a return to monarchy.

You might think, so what, another Internet kook.

The difference is that Yarvin has the ear of the rich and powerful.

He’s apparently buddy-buddy with Vice President J.D. Vance, and, according to the article, he has become a kind of Machiavelli for Silicon Valley billionaires Marc Andreessen and Peter Thiel.

And that’s where the trouble, or rather the sloppiness, starts.

Says the article, after Thiel wrote his book Zero to One and went on a publicity blitz, he reached out to Yarvin for advice. How to handle the inevitable question he would get from journalists, about getting more women into tech?

(Thiel apparently thinks this is a misguided question, and that the numbers of women in tech are fine as is.)

Here’s Yarvin’s advice, from the article:

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Yarvin suggested that Thiel deploy a pickup-artist tactic called “agree and amplify” — that is, ask a journalist, who probably had no solution in mind, what she would do to tackle the problem. “The purpose here is not to get the interlocutor to sleep with you, but to get her to fear this issue and run away from it — and ditto for future interviewers,” he wrote.

===

I’m not sure who’s to blame for this nonsense — Yarvin, or the author of the article I’m reading, or both. But this is 100% not what agree & amplify is. It doesn’t even make sense when you think about the name:

Agree & amplify = First you agree, and then you amplify, or exaggerate, to make the whole thing absurd. For example:

JOURNALIST: Don’t you agree we need more women in tech?

THIEL: I absolutely do. I also think we need more women in coal mines, in slaughter houses, and on oil rigs, all of which are places of employment where women are vastly underrepresented.

I suspect Yarvin still hasn’t read my 10 Commandments of Con Men, Pick Up Artists, etc. But it seems he needs to. He’s getting his commandments confused, and he’s giving out bad advice as a result.

Agree & amplify, and the strange psychology of why and when it works, is Commandment VI.

I have another commandment, Commandment VIII, about what Yarvin recommended to Thiel, to take the journalist’s question and reverse it.

Thing is, reversing a question is unlikely to have the effect Yarvin predicted, but the technique can be used to get people to work with you instead of against you, and to sell themselves on your plan, as if they came up with it on their own.

If you’d like more (properly researched and fact-checked) detail on all this, or you simply want to learn some powerful communication techniques that straddle the world of pickup artists, political propagandists, con men, and other savory and unsavory types:

https://bejakovic.com/new10commandments

10 hacks for writing daily emails

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I’ve been writing daily sales emails, first for clients and then for myself, since 2017. In that time, I estimate I’ve written 3,000+ such emails. I have learned a thing or a thousand in the process. Here’s 10 of ’em, selected for impact and ease of use:

1. Write a 1-2-3 outline. Point 1 is your opening. Point 2 is your takeaway. Point 3 is your offer. Each point should be a few words to a sentence max. If you cannot express what you want to say in 3 points and each point in max a few words, your email will turn out a mess with startling probability.

2. Repurpose the headlines of long-running but little-known sales letters as your subject lines. One of my most successful (notorious) ones:

“Start a profitable repositioning business… with your own home as headquarters”

3. If you are ever in a horrible crunch for time or brainpower, you can always write a super basic email using the following format:

– Where you are right now

– How you are feeling

– Why you are short of time/brainpower to write a better email

– Why you’re writing an email nonetheless (and make this into a net positive for you reader)

– A link to your offer

An email like this can be just 150-250 words. It’s something you can do in 5 minutes or less, even if you’re brain-dead at the time.

4. Reuse content you’ve already written in other emails (eg. my point 3 above), or in your courses, books, blog posts, comments on Facebook, comments on Reddit, letters to your grandma.

5. The #1 most powerful editing tool is the delete key. If something isn’t quite working, take it out instead of trying to fix it.

6. If you have written a cliche, either take it out or “lampshade” it — exaggerate it and draw even more attention to it.

7. If you have written something your reader already knows, either take it out or acknowledge your reader already knows it, and explain why you are still talking about it.

8. Writing ungrammatical gets people to pay more attention, to notice and remember you more, and maybe even to be amused. It sometimes also draws replies from very intelligent people, replies which can be profitably put to work in future emails.

9. Just about anything can be a daily email topic. If it doesn’t look like it, it’s because you’re not looking close enough. Look closer.

10. It’s helpful to restrict yourself in terms of topic, style, core idea you want to get across, etc. It saves time and makes your emails more impactful and surprising day after day. For help with that:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

New money from old courses

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Do you have an old course that’s not selling much any more?

Or do you know somebody else’s great course from a ways back?

If so, here’s my deal for you:

1. Hit reply.

2. Tell me what the course is.

3. In turn, I’ll share with you a resource about how to make new money from this old course, without paying for ads, or running a promo, or recruiting affiliates, or becoming an affiliate yourself.