Drive X: Why people online are such brutes

by

Following my email yesterday about a new 2-star review of my 10 Commandments book, a bit of a discussion developed inside my community, Daily Email House, around the topic of:

“How do you deal with trolls, critics, and know-it-alls in your audience?”

One House member replied that she “stopped caring and installed a ‘mean’ part of me that can trigger people.”

To which another House member replied with some interesting historical context:

===

The Internet has been like this since the age of the dinosaurs (the 1990s) when all we had were chat room and Usenet lists to abuse each other.

Back when everything was anonymous I did the same thing: develop a “mean” persona to play online because that’s the only way to survive a forest of predators.

After online turned social [sic] and we gave up on privacy, the urge to be a jerk behind a screen never went away.

It’s convinced me that a good portion of the public suffers from some kind of mental or emotional disturbance.

===

But if a good portion of the public has a mental or emotional disturbance… is it a disturbance any longer?

I’m not trying to be cute or contrary.

Rather, I think the House member above is on to a key insight about human nature.

It’s not that people are brutes by nature. But they do have a core human drive — let’s call it Drive X for the sake of mystery — which can turn them brutish.

Drive X is not the drive for sex, the way that Sigmund Freud taught.

It’s also not the drive for meaning in life, the way Victor Frankl taught.

Rather, Drive X is something entirely different, which permeates all our interactions with other human beings, online as well as offline.

When left unsatisfied, Drive X gives rise to brutish behavior.

But when Drive X is satisfied, people become open and relaxed and even compliant.

Which is why the world’s top influence professionals — from con men to copywriters to screenwriters — appeal to this Drive X and promise to satisfy it in their marks, prospects, and audiences, first and foremost, above all other considerations.

And that’s why, in my 10 Commandments book, I make Drive X the topic of the very first commandment, because it is PARAMOUNT.

If you have my 10 Commandments book already, you know what Drive X is, or you can look it up easily, at the end of Commandment I.

And if you don’t have my 10 Commandments book yet, you can find it below, and catch up to everyone who is clued in already:

https://bejakovic.com/new10commandments

Mmeh!

by

I’m back to Barcelona, I slept well last night, and I just went for a bike ride along the sea, where the Sunday morning weather couldn’t be more beautiful.

That’s why I was thrilled — well, at least not very put off — by a new and glowing 2-star review of my new 10 Commandments book.

An old, experienced, and spelling-challenged reader writes on Amazon:

===

Mmeh!

Not sure why I both this book. It has lots of anicdotes and examples of what magicians, marketers and sales people do to convince or con audiences but nothing really eye opening. While it may offer something unique to someone with no experience, I maybe too old and experienced for this crap.

===

To this reviewer, I say Mmeh!

It’s never fun or exciting to be told how a magic trick is done.

And the same really goes for learning the magic of copywriting, or comedy, or even pickup.

Persuading other humans to have a certain experience, or to do something you want them to do, is ultimately about putting on a show, an effect, a presentation for the audience to see.

Discovering the technique that goes into that cannot compare to the excitement and emotional stimulation that you feel as an unwitting participant or audience member.

Discovering those behind-the-scenes tricks can only become fun or exciting once again in case you become so obsessed and deeply enmeshed in the craft that good technique and ways to improve it become sexy to you on their own.

My reviewer above says he is too old and experienced. I imagine that means he has dabbled a lot, constantly buying more stuff in search of something novel and stimulating, but putting little of what he’s been exposed to into practice.

It’s hard to please an audience like that, and frankly, I don’t try to do it.

On the other hand, if you are new to the topic of influencing and persuading others…

… or if you are old and experienced, in the sense of having put a lot of what you’ve learned about human psychology into practice — whether selling, or making people laugh, or making girls say yes to you — then you are likely to find something unique, fun, and even valuable in my book.

For more info, or if you’d like to both this book right now:

https://bejakovic.com/new10commandments

Do you NOT (or would you NEVER) sell ads in your newsletter?

by

Yesterday, I asked whether you do (or would) sell ads in your newsletter?

I got some folks replying to say yes:

#1. Open to it across all of my media. I have 3 newsletters, 2 with about 40k subs and one with about 2k paid subs. Also IG with about 100k followers, YT with about 40k subs, Linked in about 30k followers. Also interested in buying ads in newsletters.

#2. Id be open it to. But I’m starting from scratch again (sort of) growing an email list of business owners, and copywriters instead of just investors… So interested in buying ad space perhaps

#3. I would. I’ve done it several times in the past, especially for my PowerPoint email list, but not recently.

That’s great, and I’ll add these folks to the newsletter ad sellers resource I’m putting together.

At the same time, I was shocked at how few people replied.

Is it that so few people with email lists read my emails? If so, then I’m doing something very wrong with what I write and sell and preach.

Or maybe it’s that the list owners who read these emails simply find the idea of running ads a no-go?

In that case, it’s a matter of my professional pride, as a self-employed investigative journalist, to find out more.

If you have an email list, and currently do NOT or would NEVER sell ads, either as a matter of principle, or from simple intuition, I’d love to know why.

Hit reply and let me know.

I’m not promising anything in return, except that I won’t try to convince or persuade you to change your mind on anything. I simply want to listen and understand your point of view better. Thanks in advance.

Do you (or would you) sell ads in your newsletter?

by

There’s a lot of interest in growing email lists via newsletter ads.

But there’s no good centralized resource of quality newsletters that offer ad spots.

And many list owners who would be open to running ads don’t advertise or even consider the fact.

Which got me wondering… do you sell ad spots in your newsletter? Or would you be open to it?

It could be a “classified ad” — a few lines of copy, tacked on to the rest of your regular newsletter content…

Or it could be “advertorial style” — a full email, dedicated to just the offer being advertised, written in your own words or voice.

And in case you don’t yet offer ads, but now I got you thinking about it, let me address a couple cloudy doubts that might be forming in your mind:

1. You always have the right to refuse an advertiser, so you only promote people who you can can vouch for, because they deliver good content & value.

2. Your list doesn’t need millions or billions of names to be interesting to advertisers. A huge list made up of a buncha bums is a pointless place to advertise. On the other hand, a small and highly engaged list, made up of quality people, can be plenty interesting to advertisers.

So do you (or would you) sell ads in your newsletter?

If so, hit reply and let me know. I’m putting together a little resource of newsletters that are open to sponsors or advertisers, and I’ll add you to it.

(And if you don’t have a newsletter, but do have an audience in some other shape — a community or podcast or YouTube channel — write in and let me know that also.)

Thanks in advance.

The sneaky Christmas legend of THE ONE

by

Today being December 25, let me tell you a story that happened on today’s date, supposedly.

The year was some time long ago, or thereabouts.

The place was London, though whether at St. Paul’s or not the French book doesn’t say.

Merlin had told the Archbishop of Canterbury to summon all the barons to London, for a sign would appear, showing who should become king and bring the realm out of lawless jeopardy.

And sure enow, during morning mass, right around the time that I’m writing this, specifically 11:02am, a great stone appeared in the churchyard, and an anvil atop that stone, with a sword, naked to the point, stuck inside the anvil. On the sword was an inscription in gold letters, which read:

“Whoso pulleth out this sword of this stone and anvil, is rightwise king born of all England.”

Maybe you know this story.

Lots of great knights tried to pull out the stone. They all failed.

Then on New Year’s day, a young boy named Arthur pulled out the sword, kind of by accident, and the sign was shown and the prophecy was fulfilled:

HERE WAS KING ARTHUR, NEW RULER OF THE REALM, KING OF ALL ENGLAND.

Good story, right? Right???

I don’t know whether this legend taps into something fundamental in the human psyche, or if it’s just that we’ve all been told it a million times over, in various forms.

One way or another, it’s snuck into our subconscious, where it does its damage. Because it’s not how reality works.

A few weeks ago, a member of my Daily Email House community, DTC copywriter and brand strategist Chavy Helfgott, posted a question in the group:

===

I recently put a new page on my website called “Client Love”, which features screenshots of feedback I’ve gotten from clients.

And I noticed that there was a lot of really, really enthusiastic feedback there. Like multiple “wows”, “I’m amazed,” and “blown away.”

Here’s my problem: despite this great feedback, there’s this niggling little worm in my brain constantly whispering, “You’re not really good enough.”

This is problematic because it’s difficult to sell myself as THE answer to my ideal client’s problem… if I myself doubt that it is true.

I guess my question is – anyone have any ideas how to get past this hump? Why is feedback from my own clients not convincing me? How do I convince myself that my work is valuable, so I can more successfully convince others of this, so that they hire me?

===

Lotsa House members chimed in with great suggestions and ideas.

The one I want to highlight today came from speechwriter and trainer Alexander Westenberg. Alexander wrote:

===

I agree with pretty much everything already said, but here’s an additional two cents: You say it’s difficult to sell yourself as THE answer, but to me I don’t see why you have to?

The way I like to look at it for myself (and pretty much everything else in life) is that you don’t have to be THE answer, just AN answer.

So for me, I’m a speechwriter and trainer. I have my way of doing things, and I honestly believe in it and in the value I bring. But a) there are other speechwriters out there, and b) some people prefer AI.

I provide AN answer to the problem of how to be a powerful and persuasive speaker. I’m even happy saying I’m one of the better answers — but I’m also happy saying that people can answer that problem in other ways.

===

Arthur legend notwithstanding, you don’t need to be THE ONE.

You can be ONE OF and still live a heroic life — a life where you take on great challenges that excite you, and get rewarded handsomely for your effort.

There are lots of ways you can be announce to the world you are ONE OF the better answers to whatever problem you are solving.

I think that having an online personal brand is one of the better ways to do that, though there certainly are other options.

I also think that, for having an online personal brand, an email newsletter is particularly attractive, and much easier to succeed with, though other platforms and formats can certainly work.

And if you do write an email newsletter, then I think a daily, personal-sounding email like what you are reading right now is a great way to go about it, though dailyish or weekly or occasional emails can work, and are certainly better than nothing.

And if you do choose to write daily emails, then one of the better ways to stick with it and be effective is to use daily prompts or topic categories for yourself, which keep your emails fresh and your mind focused, though of course using no structure and relying on inspiration each day is also an option.

You see where I’m going with this?

It’s an old story, one that I’ve told hundreds of times in these emails. But maybe you still don’t know how it ends? For that, take a look here, and see if you are willing to start on the journey that you are being invited upon:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

What do I write about NOW?

by

I woke up this morning to find out that, after about 8 years of this daily email newsletter, my dad finally found me online and signed up to hear from me every day.

“Oh God,” I said to myself, “what do I write about NOW?”

This always happens whenever somebody from my real life signs up for my newsletter. I suddenly get in my head and start thinking what people will think. It lasts a day or two. Then I gradually relax and get back to writing for myself.

To date, as far as I know, this newsletter counts among its readers my mom… my dad… friends I have had for 20+ years… girls I’ve known or dated or been in long-term relationships with… a mom of an ex-gf… several people I have only met in real life after being in contact with them via this newsletter… a motley collection of people I have never met in real life but that I have surprisingly fun and even important relationships with online, entirely via typing and maybe occasionally by Zoom… and then of course the large and mostly silent majority who sometimes read, sometimes reply, and sometimes buy from me and make my life, the way it is, possible.

I really struggled to write today’s email.

For one thing, because I’m in my head, like I said at the start.

For another thing, Christmas Eve is not very inspiring or exciting where I’m at right now.

It’s rainy and gray in Zagreb today. I’m currently at an Airbnb and getting ready to go for a Christmas Eve gym session, before heading for the Christmas Eve suckling pig roast at my mom’s and grandma’s.

In terms of email fodder, nothing much is going on compared with years past. (I checked my email from December 24 2024. I found the Holy Grail on Christmas Eve last year, and I wrote an email about it).

A final thing is that, though I’m no believer and frankly I have zero tradition of Christmas from when I was a kid (New Year’s was the big holiday then, with presents and a tree and a commie version of Santa Claus), I still feel some reluctance to go into my usual full-salesman mode on Christmas Eve. (I will reserve that for tomorrow.)

So lemme just say how strange and in a way miraculous it is to be able to do what I’m doing.

I wanna say thanks that you’re reading these emails, including presumably today, on Christmas Eve.

If you celebrate, enjoy your own version of suckling pig or however it is you feast today. If you don’t celebrate, I hope you’re doing well wherever you are in the world. In the words of my spirit animal, Ebenezer Scrooge, “A Merry Christmas to everybody!”

50 ways to leave your back spasm

by

Yesterday I asked readers for suggestions in dealing with an old-man back spasm that gripped me a few hours earlier.

Well I got suggestions.

Let me tell you some of ‘em, in the style of Paul Simon’s song 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover:

Limber up your hip, Chip

Take a magnesium pill, Bill

Stand more and sit less, Wes

Just listen to me

Roll on a massage ball, Paul

Become a supple leopard, Shepherd

Get some physiotherapy, Lee

And get yourself free

The people who wrote in with suggestions were not trying to sell me anything (thank God) and were just offering help.

(I appreciate everyone who took the time to write me. If I haven’t replied yet to you to say thanks, it’s only because I’m traveling today and am writing this from a plane somewhere between Vienna and Zagreb.)

That said, even though this was not a sales situation, I noticed something inside myself. It might be useful to you if you ever do try to sell people something.

Yesterday I said I’d entertain all suggestions for getting my back spasm to pass.

But today, as I was reading the suggestions my good readers sent in, I noticed I was immediately resistant to some.

It wasn’t because of the suggestions themselves, or because of the people who were giving the suggestion.

Instead it was the way those suggestions were made — with some small detail that simply didn’t fit with my actual situation.

For example:

One person mentioned lower back pain. That’s not where my pain is.

Others talked about chronic back pain. My thing is acute.

Sales trainer Dave Sandler called this “painting the seagull,” as in, forcing a seagull into your prospect’s mental vision of a beach, where the prospect doesn’t see one naturally.

Force the seagull in there, says Sandler, and you create a clash that makes the whole vision disappear. That was my experience today.

The fix to this is (switching metaphors) to play doctor. To ask more questions and get the “patient” to describe his own situation in detail.

Even if your diagnosis ultimately ends up the same, it’s much more likely to be accepted if you listen, and acknowledge the uniqueness of the person standing opposite you, and encourage their mental bubble to expand instead of doing something to make it pop.

This might be useful to you if you ever get on sales calls or anything like sales calls… with prospects for your coaching… or copywriting services… or simply your expensive-ass offer.

And if you want a new plan on how to sell or behave on sales calls, Sandler’s book is still my go-to recommendation. For more info, slip out the back, Jack:

https://bejakovic.com/sandler

Read this if you’re stuck with a “hammer selling” brain

by

I’m an old, old man. Let me tell you just how old:

I was the washing dishes this morning — my way of staying off the computer right when I get up — when I felt my back start to seize up.

This has happened to me a few times before in my life, always when I was doing some sort of quick movement, usually when it was cold.

Today was the first time it has happened just on its own, while I was behaving myself and in fact elbow-deep in hot water.

(Maybe it’s because I’ve been going to the gym a lot these past days. And when not at the gym, I’ve been doing yoga at home, and yoga, from what I’ve experienced, is an excellent way to get cramps and pull muscles and cause joint injuries.)

In the past, when my back seized up, it was extremely painful, and usually took days to fully resolve itself.

Today I managed to intercept it early.

I stopped what I was doing. I straightened up. I breathed deep. I went to lie down on the floor a bit. I put my back against the radiator in the bathroom to try to get muscles to unspasm. I even went to the pool a bit later and swam for a half hour, which seems to have helped things.

As a result, my back hasn’t been nearly as bad today as in the past when this happened.

But I can still feel it a bit, and when I sit or turn, I get the sense that my back is just waiting to fully seize up.

I will be traveling back to Croatia tomorrow, five hours on various airplanes. I’m hoping to avoid traveling in extreme pain whenever I turn or bend or straighten up.

Do you have any suggestions for me to cure my spasmy back muscles? Anything at all? I’m willing to entertain whatever you can propose.

In other news, yesterday I asked people for new offers they are planning to launch in 2026. I was curious about the offers themselves, and also curious about how people are going about defining these offers.

I got a buncha responses.

Here’s one that caught my eye.

A reader kicked off by telling me he will be launching “a group coaching membership with a 1:1 coaching offer built around it (adding email coaching and *maybe* calls).”

This reader went on to say what this shiny and elaborate hammer is intended for:

====

The market is people over 40 who are feeling the effects of age, from less energy, aches and pains, unwanted flab, and such things.

[The reader explained how hard it is to differentiate yourself in that space, or to say anything really new. He concluded with:]

The whole fitness space is the definition of a saturated Stage 5 market, and that’s true even when you dig into several layers of niches and sub-niches.

===

In the words of Byron Katie:

Is that true?

Can you be 100% sure that it’s true?

Like I wrote above, right now I would entertain any kind of cure for my almost-but-not-quite seized back.

I wouldn’t really look at the testimonials or endorsements or credentials of the person suggesting it to me… I wouldn’t be concerned about it being a new mechanism… I wouldn’t care whether I have a relationship with the person who’s offering help.

In other words, I, a person over 40 who is feeling “the effects of age, from less energy, aches and pains, unwanted flab, and such things” would be willing to listen to pretty much the first person who would come and promise to have a solution for my highly specific health issue.

I don’t know if “almost-but-not-quite seized back” is a good market to go after.

But it seems like talking about this could at least make for an effective ad… or an email hook… or maybe an Agora-style bonus to give people along with a free trial of the “group coaching membership with a 1:1 coaching offer built around it.”

That’s it. That’s all I got for you today.

I think the marketing and sales implications are clear.

The only thing that might not be 100% clear to you is how to dig up such “layers of niches and sub-niches” where the riches lie in your market.

For that, I’ll direct you to my group and community, Daily Email House.

Inside the group, you can ask questions and I can chime in with comments and occasional answers, and sometimes further questions.

In case you’re having a hard time getting out of “hammer selling” brain and into the frame of solving present pains of the market, here’s my cure for that:

https://bejakovic.com/house

Dude quietly bows out of Monetization Mastermind

by

This past summer I created an invite-only group called Monetization Mastermind. To start, I invited a small group of list owners I have done affiliate deals and list swaps with. The idea for the group is to make more such partnerships possible.

Initially, the group featured mainly list owners who sell courses around copywriting or email marketing, since that’s what kinds of offers I’ve promoted a lot in the past.

Over time, the group has grown, either by my invitation or by recommendation of the people inside. As a result, the profile of people inside has gotten more diverse, and has gone beyond course creators in the copywriting space.

So far, everybody who has joined this group has stayed inside, though some participate more and some less. But now I have the first person who has left the group. It happens to be one of the first people I invited inside the group. Two days ago, this dude wrote me to say:

===

I think I’m going to quietly bow out of Monetization Mastermind. I’ve been making an effort to network outside of copywriting groups and focus on a different audience. While I appreciate what you’ve built here and have tremendous respect for you and the folks in here, I need to put my energy elsewhere.

Thanks for putting it together. You’re doing a lot of good here. I appreciate you letting me be a part of it.

===

I don’t know the full details of this dude’s business.

On the one hand, it’s a tried and true strategy to take yourself and your offers to a new market, particularly one that is willing to pay you more.

On the other hand, based on what little I know of this dude and his business, my diagnosis is that his is an issue of offers.

Specifically, I think it comes down to a classic mistake, one I see others making all the time, and one I have made myself plenty of times too.

Internet Marketer Travis Sago, who is either unable or unwilling to speak other than in metaphor, calls this mistake “selling the hammer.”

The alternative being, selling the birdhouse, or the patio deck, or the chicken coop.

As Travis says, “Nobody is ever just buying a hammer. There’s an outcome they’re looking to get with that hammer”

Do I hear you groaning, or are you rolling your eyes right now?

I mean, this is really just that old chestnut about how nobody wants a quarter-inch drill, but a quarter-inch hole, except with other hardware, right?

Right.

But people find it surprisingly difficult to apply this super obvious and familiar lesson when it comes to their own hammers, ones that they have spent weeks or months designing and sourcing and forging.

Folks keep selling the hammer for years, or for as long as they stand, making new versions and crowing about the latest improvements… until they either wise up and start promising birdhouses and patio decks and chicken coops… or until they quietly bow out of the market, because their hammers are just not selling enough.

This got me curious.

Are you planning to launch an offer in 2026, an offer you need to be a success?

If so, I’m curious what offer you’re planning.

And I’m curious how you came up with your plan.

If you like, hit reply, unburden yourself, and tell me about your upcoming offer.

I’m not promising anything but to listen and maybe to ask some follow up questions.

But who knows, sometimes that can be the most valuable thing you can get, and can lead to insights that can make all the difference when you make the intimidating decision to actually go live.

The BEST kind of infotainment, for me, now

by

… is listicles. Let me give you 10 reasons why.

No, listicles ain’t it, though my recent email with 10 reasons why auctions can beat launches did work well. It drew a bunch of interest, including from some very successful course creators and audience owners.

I don’t think it was the listicle part of that email that did it. Rather, I think there were a few other reasons why that email drew big fish from deep under the surface of my email list.

Would you like to know what I think is the biggest of those reasons?

Would you like to know what I believe is the BEST kind of infotainment right now, which draws in even sophisticated and big-time marketers and business owners… and which also happens to be the only kind of infotainment I still regularly consume?

It’s not funny stories about what happened around the kitchen table last night…

… not personal reveals of childhood trauma…

… not pop culture references…

… not historical anecdotes…

… not insightful analogies that put familiar facts into a new context…

… not rants and raves…

… not, like I said, listicles.

Nothing wrong with any of those, and you can weave them into your emails, as I do, often.

But on their own, all of these have become insufficient, at least to draw my weary attention and interest.

Rather, the BEST kind of infotainment, in my immodest opinion, because it is the the ONLY kind of infotainment that still sucks me in on a consistent basis, is…

“What’s working for me now”

(… and its flip side, “What’s not working for me any more.”)

It’s important to highlight this is still infotainment. It’s still there to attract and give your readers momentary pause, to allow people to nod along for a minute and say hmmm.

It’s not heavy-handed teaching or nuance or complexity. And its ultimate and not-so-secret goal is still to sell – you as a trustworthy and successful and relatable person, and your current offer, whatever that may be, as a worthwhile and credible opportunity.

Why does “What’s working FOR ME now” work so well, for me, and on me?

Under the shiny “NOW” hood, it’s still the old-fashioned engine, made up of news and benefit and proof.

Except, in today’s world, news spreads quickly and soon stops being news, often before your audience has had a chance to even see your message.

And as for proof, we’ve all become skeptical and jaded and suspicious.

The fix to both is to share, not “What’s working now,” but “What’s working FOR ME now.” Not, “How TO” but “How I.”

So there you go.

Whether you’re new or established, my suggestion is to write more “What’s working FOR ME now” content.

Not only will it draw in even sophisticated readers, but it will force you to try out new things in your business, make them work for you, and then figure out how to package that up in a sexy and sellable way. And if you’re constantly doing that, you will find success, and soon.

By the way, “What’s working FOR ME now” is an expansive category that allows for lots of different experiments and reports.

One small slice of that category is what I’ve called my Most Valuable Email trick.

The Most Valuable Email trick allows you to create “What’s working FOR ME now” content quickly, without taking weeks or months to run an experiment and collect and process results.

In fact, I used the Most Valuable Trick in this very email. And like I say on the sales page, you can get going with it in an hour from now. If you’d like more info, or to get started today:

https://bejakovic.com/mve/