Influential Writing

Yesterday didn’t work out as I planned

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Yesterday I left Stockholm, Sweden, around 10am, with plans to fly and arrive, after a layover in Belgrade, Serbia, to my home town of Zagreb, Croatia, by about 2:30pm.

Things didn’t work out as I planned.

First, I didn’t make my connecting flight in Belgrade (I blame Nikola Tesla Airport for this).

Second, there were no other flights from Belgrade to Zagreb yesterday, so I decided to take the bus, which left at 4:15pm. The drive is about four hours, but factor in about an hour for the border crossing, and we should be in Zagreb by 10pm?

Again, things didn’t work out as I planned.

I had many adventures last night, including…

– Walking through the corn fields for hours alongside the 3-mile-long border-crossing queue…

– Seeing an old Serbian man on my bus watching two-black-dudes-and-a-blonde hardcore porn on his phone…

– Border police openly asking for a bribe of two beers and 50 euro to allow the bus to skip the line and cut down the wait by an hour and a half…

– Stumbling around an Orthodox cemetery in the dark, in no man’s land, between the Serbian and Croatian border, at the witching hour…

– Driving out of the way to some small village to swap bus drivers, Le Mans style, after our bus driver became too exhausted to drive in his 10th hour behind the wheel…

… but I really can’t go into any of that in tremendous detail. That’s because my bus, which was supposed to arrive around 10pm, ended up arriving at 4:05am, almost 12 hours after it set out.

I dragged my carcass to the nearest hotel and had a lousy and short night of sleep.

Right now, as I write this, I’m exhausted. And in any case, it’s soon time for me to get back on the bus and head for the Croatian coast, so I can meet up with the rest of the numerous and warlike Bejakovic clan in the seaside resort town of Opatija.

So without further ado, let me just get to my offer. It’s my Simple Money Emails course, which I’ve promoted a few times over the past week, and made sales of each time I promoted it.

In one email this week I featured a testimonial I got for SME from online creator Kieran Drew. Yesterday, I got another high-profile testimonial, this one from Maliha Mannan, founder of The Side Blogger, who helps people monetize their skills via blogging and newsletters. Says Maliha:

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So… since you’re promoting SME, thought I’d share this…

Like Kieran Drew, I too, go through this course… often… haven’t really counted, but often… and yet, I forget stuff. Today, I was re-reading the 12 rules of emails and when I came across #6, I was like… Oookaayyy… I just violated rule #6… inside a promo email no less!

Anyway. Good stuff. One of my more underrated investments of all time.

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For more information on this underrated investment, or if you’d like to help support my daily bus habit:

https://bejakovic.com/sme/

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

10 books I could not write from content I’ve created recently

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I have a habit, 10 daily ideas, that I got from James Altucher.

It’s the first thing I do each morning after turning off the meatlocker like air-conditioning in my apartment and brushing my teeth.

This morning, the topic was “10 new books I could write from the content I’ve been writing about lately.”

It’s a prompt I come back to from time to time. I go through emails I have written recently, and ask myself how I could generalize them, or combine them with other emails have written, and turn them into a book or a course or whatever.

Here’s what I came up with today:

#1. “101 Magic Words”

I already got 5: “Rosebud,” “One,” “Big,” “Black,” “Love.”

#2. “Mystery Merchants: How To Create And Profit From Curiosity”

Everything from Robert Collier to Novak Djokovic.

#3. The nature of reality

Ok that’s not a title, but it’s the core idea, and one I come back to a lot in these emails, including a few times over the past few weeks (“Amputees needed,” “The dark side of social proof”).

#4. Overcoming procrastination/avoidance/resistance to doing what’s needed

I try to distance myself from this topic and from the people who seek out such info, but the fact is I’m one of them and that’s why I find myself writing about it repeatedly.

#5. “How to be an effective teacher”

Certainly not by writing a book titled “How to be an effective teacher.” But I have written a lot, including recently, about how to get people to pay attention, to understand, to accept, to remember, to apply information.

#6. “Online Info Business Quick Start Guide”

Yeah, I won’t be writing that, but I could, since I have content that would definitely fit into such a book.

#7. “Influencers, or what really happens when somebody has a platform”

This is connected in my mind to #3 above, the nature of reality. I’ve written about the strangeness having an audience, and, when you think about it, the equal strangeness of being in somebody else’s audience. Not a practical topic, but interesting to me.

#8. “How To Choose A Niche”

Again, this won’t be happening, but it could.

#9. “Consumption & Digestion”

Related to #4 above. I have an entire training on this, which I’ve sold for good money before. But some part of that training, plus a few recent emails, could become a book as well.

#10. “Flip The Script”

Oren Klaff unfortunately already wrote a bad book by this title, which is a shame, because I find the topic very interesting. I know I could develop it with lots of examples, from different disciplines and different eras (I wrote an email once about a 4th-century B.C. greek general who “flipped the script” to keep assassins from his bedside and poison from his cup).

I don’t know what will come from these ideas. Maybe something. Maybe nothing. In any case, there’s no lack of opportunities.

The point is, if you are writing emails daily, generating a bit of content regularly, this can serve multiple purposes.

It can make you sales today.

It can build a relationship with readers so they keep reading tomorrow.

And it can be repurposed next week or month into a book that gets you lots of new subs to your list, or to a course that gets you lots of new dollars under your mattress.

That’s why my subject line today was “10 books I could not write” rather than “10 books I could write.” Because the idea is, these books will already have been written — by somebody, not me, at least not in that moment. All I really have to do, in that moment, is the editorial work of pulling together that writing and adding a cover on it. And of course, reaping the benefits.

It can be the same for you.

It happens bit by bit. Within a few weeks of daily action, you already have resources that you can do something more with.

But you do gotta take some action though. Maybe even now.

If you want my help in starting and sticking with the habit of writing daily emails, so you can make sales, and grow a relationship with readers, and have the building blocks of future books and courses:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

How to keep your readers from feeling cheap, cheated, or used

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I got an email yesterday from Parker Worth, whose online profile describes him as “just a guy with a neck tattoo.”

Maybe Parker’s a bit more — he’s got an online audience of over 70,000 people spread across X and LinkedIn and his email list, and he’s built a nice business on the back of it, teaching people how to write online.

Parker is apparently reading my new 10 Commandments book. He wrote in to say:

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Loving the book so far man.

Super refreshing especially in the age of AI Amazon garbage.

Will give it a solid review once finished

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On the note of AI garbage, a telling story:

While doing research for this book, I was looking for articles that discuss the use of misdirection in the movie The Sting, which I reference a few times in the book.

Not only did The Sting win the 1973 Oscar for best original screenplay (and Hollywood screenwriters are one of the disciplines I profile in my book) but the movie is a realistic depiction of how con men used to play the “big con” (and con men another group I profile in the book).

So while looking for something on the use of misdirection in The Sting, I found a 2,000-word blog post, published in mid 2024, that discussed exactly this topic in depth.

At first, the blog post seemed highly relevant to what I was looking for and had me nodding along.

Gradually a few small tells started to show — odd discrepancies with character names and plot twists from the actual movie, which I’ve seen a bunch of times and know well.

Finally, as the blog post recapped the climax of the movie as it never happened, I realized this was completely made up AI garbage, which had nothing new or unique or even true to say about what I was interested in. Realization made, I cursed at my laptop for a few minutes and made particular note of this blog to make sure I never come back there and waste my time again.

Point being:

You can fool some of Bejako some of the time, but you can’t fool all of him all the time.

I’m not sure what my point is beyond that except to say, these days, it’s more important than ever to give people something that feels real.

This is not new with AI. It started long before, with the ability to automate your communication (via things like email autoresponders), and even before that, with mass media that allowed one person to speak to thousands at the same time.

None of us wants to feel cheap, cheated, or used.

That’s why I spent so long doing research for my tiny new book, reading dozens of other books, watching hours and hours of obscure videos on YouTube, digging through 100-year-old newspapers, and thinking up how to integrate my own real-world experiences from my past and present careers of writing sales copy, picking up girls on the street, and selling myself to prospective clients on sales calls.

I discarded ten times the material that I finally deemed was actually good enough to include in the published version.

That’s ok. I believe all this research and prep are a major reason why I’ve heard from so many people, like Parker above, who tell me that they love the book. If you would like to see if you might love it as well:

https://bejakovic.com/new10commandments

Somebody has beat me to the 10 Commandments of Con Men

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As you might know, I have been working, toiling, grabulating for the past two years on my new book, full title:

10 Commandments of Con Men, Pickup Artists, Magicians, Door-to-Door Salesmen, Hypnotists, Copywriters, Negotiators, Political Propagandists, Stand Up Comedians, and Oscar-Winning Screenwriters

I had a minor heart attack earlier when I discovered that somebody has already beat me to the core concept. An Austrian con man named Victor Lustig, who lived and scammed in the early 20th century and who apparently sold the Eiffel Tower twice (!), apparently kept a list of 10 Commandments of Con Men. Here’s old Victor’s list:

1. Be a patient listener

2. Never look bored

3. Wait for the other person to reveal any political opinions, then agree with them

4. Let the other person reveal religious views, then have the same ones

5. Hint at sex talk, but don’t follow it up unless the other person shows a strong interest

6. Never discuss illness, unless some special concern is shown

7. Never pry into a person’s personal circumstances (they’ll tell you all eventually)

8. Never boast – just let your importance be quietly obvious

9. Never be untidy

10. Never get drunk

Are you impressed? Yes? No?

All I can tell you is that, after I read Lustig’s 10 Commandments, I personally took a big sigh of relief. I found his 10 Commandments rather dull and uninspiring, and fortunately, I found that there’s zero overlap (well, minus the hinting at sex talk) between his commandments and the 10 Commandments I have in my new book.

Most importantly, I was reminded once again that the value is almost never in the ideas (ie. commandments) themselves, but in how those ideas are presented, illustrated, and made to shine.

That’s why it took me so long to complete my book. And complete it I did.

I can tell you that, following two years of ups and downs, missed deadlines, and a few dozen readers writing me messages to the effect of “done is better than perfect,” I am proud and a little nervous to announce that my book will finally be published.

When?

Tomorrow.

Why not today?

Well, maybe Lustig was on to something. Don’t pry into my personal circumstances (I’ll tell you all eventually). Meanwhile, I have nothing to promote to you today — but I will tomorrow.

Platform is magic

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I went for a walk this morning and as I was dodging the puddles from last night’s rain, I listened to a podcast, a conversation between James Schramko and Dean Jackson.

In case those names are not familiar to you, both belong to Internet marketers who have been in the business a combined 50+ years.

Both James and Dean have made many millions of dollars for themselves and many more for their clients and customers.

Whatever. The point is simply that, in the little corner of the Internet where I live, these guys are influential and established and respected. I’ve known about each for many years, and I’ve been paying attention to both intensely over the past year.

This morning, while listening to the podcast, James Schramko talked about changes he had made to his business following the advice of his friend, a guy named Kory Basaraba.

That caught my attention and maybe made me step into a puddle.

The fact is, I’ve known Kory for years. A few years ago, back when I was still doing freelance copywriting stuff, I even worked with him.

Through this experience, I know Kory is smart, successful, and established. But on hearing his name being mentioned on a podcast, by two people I follow, I felt some sort of electric jolt.

I don’t know how wide of a reach this Schramko/Dean podcast episode might get. Maybe a few thousand people, maybe tens of thousands? In any case it’s not Joe Rogan.

It doesn’t matter. My opinion of Kory, while it was positive before, suddenly jumped. He got the warm bright glow of a star in my eyes.

Of course, I’m a hardened cynic and a bit of a wizard when it comes to knowing influence spells. So I quickly shook my head to clear my mind from this strange persuasion.

But I wanted to share this story with you, such as it is, for a bit of motivation.

I don’t understand what it is about having a platform. Maybe I’ll figure it out one day.

Right now, my best answer is that having a platform is simply magic.

A few hundred or a few thousand people around the world listen to you. It’s not a tremendous amount of reach or power. But it doesn’t matter.

The very fact of having a platform, of speaking to a group of people, gives you status and authority and charisma, and even the power to transfer that to others, simply by mentioning their name. That’s magic.

The motivating part is that, if you haven’t done so already, you can do this same thing for yourself.

Nobody’s stopping you from starting a podcast, or writing an email newsletter, today.

Like I said, you don’t need a tremendous overall audience to have a tremendous influence on the people who do listen or read to what you have to say. I can vouch for that from personal experience, having been both on top of the platform at certain times, and in the audience, looking up, at other times.

I know nothing about podcasting. But I know something about newsletters. Such as for example, that the more often you send emails, the greater your influence over the people in your audience.

And with that in mind, let me point you to a service that can help make it easier to send something every day, so you can work your magic quickly:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

Announcing: 1% Writer

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Today I’d like to clue you in on a new offer called 1% Writer.

It’s not my offer.

I’m not even an affiliate.

It’s Kieran Drew’s new offer to go along with his upcoming birthday.

I asked Kieran recently if he’d be one of the people to read my new 10 Commandments book and give me feedback. He turned me down because he was busy putting this new course together.

But Kieran made me a deal, which was that he’d promote my new 10 Commandments book to his audience when I do publish it.

In turn, I said I’d gladly promote his 1% Writer to my audience.

The thing is, I haven’t seen, read, or profited from 1% Writer myself. (It’s a live cohort course, delivered by email, which will kick off next week, May 8.)

I’m still happy to promote 1% Writer to you, for the following two reasons:

Reason #1 is Kieran himself.

In case you don’t know the guy, he has a huge audience (something like 250,000 people across various platforms), and he’s made a huge amount of money in a few years’ time by selling stuff to that audience (north of $1.2 million).

Kieran’s done it all with nothing but his little typing fingers.

Clearly, he knows a thing, two, or maybe even three about how to succeed online by just writing.

What’s more, he’s directly coached a bunch of other people who have gone from zero to hero in that space, so he knows how to pass his knowledge on to others.

I’ll also say I read Kieran’s newsletter myself, when I’ve largely started to ignore most of the other people I used to follow online.

Add it all up and the sum is that I know, respect, and endorse Kieran for what he does in general.

Reason #2 I’m happy to promote 1% Writer is that it costs a whopping $33, or $1 a day. (The course lasts for 33 days, since Kieran is turning 33, and apparently there’s a mathematical connection between the two facts.)

What do you get for $33?

Says Kieran, this course has his best advice, compressed down into 33 lessons, about how to grow your audience, build authority, and turn your ideas into income.

He also says it’s the highest value-to-dollar ratio product he’s made.

I’ve happily promoted Kieran’s high-ticket courses in the past, and I’ve seen the thought and care and value he’s put into those offers.

If he says 1% Writer is the highest value-to-dollar product he’s made, I believe him. That takes nothing away from his high-ticket offers, but it does make 1% Writer an attractive offer, and one to consider seriously.

Of course, you make the final decision. To help you do that, you can find out the full details about 1% Writer, including that May 7 deadline, on the page below:

​https://1pw.kierandrew.com/

Mr. Malaprop

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About a month ago, my friend Sam forwarded me a WSJ article about a Ford executive named Mike O’Brien. Over the course of his decades-long career, O’Brien compiled a list, 2,229 items long, of his colleagues’ corporate malapropisms. A few examples:

“I don’t want to sound like a broken drum here, but…”

“Let’s not reinvent the ocean.”

“It’s no skin on our back.”

“Too many cooks in the soup.”

“We need to talk about the elephant in the closet.”

Last night, I called my mom. She’s one of the people I’ve sent an early draft of my new 10 Commandments book to. Being my mom, she’s found the book tremendous. “I’m just so impressed that you know so many facts, and can refer to all these stories, and know the names of all the directors and the screenwriters of the movies you talk about…”

I had to set my mom straight.

It’s writing. Writing.

My mom wouldn’t agree with this, but the fact is, in real life, I’m not all that smart, educated, or informed.

I say stupid stuff all the time. I don’t remember names or dates at all. I’m prone to using cliches and saying generalities. I’ve definitely slipped into worse malaprops than the ones above from O’Brien.

But in writing, it doesn’t matter. In writing, you can take a moment to think. You can look things up. You can pack your writing full of relevant facts. You can edit, so you don’t publish something that ends up stabbing you in the foot.

I don’t know if anybody needed to hear that or not.

In any case, my new 10 Commandments book, which will have a chapter about the elephant in the closet, is nearing publication.

Yesterday, I made an offer related to this book, or maybe asked for a favor. Let me repeat that once more:

Do you have an audience of your own? A newsletter, an online community, a local book club or bingo group?

What I want is for you to promote my book when it comes out. Of course, that means nothing to you and does nothing for you. I don’t know what I can offer you to make it worth your while to promote my book when it comes out, but I am open to all kinds of ideas, from straightforward to outlandish.

If you are open to it as well, at least in theory, hit reply. Let’s talk, and maybe we can figure something out that works for both of us.

The day after

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Yesterday around 1pm, I finished writing my Daily Email Habit puzzle and was about to upload it to Kit. But my Internet had stopped working. The odd thing was I checked my phone, and not just the wifi was down, but it looked like the cellular network, too.

I shrugged and went to take a nap because… I live in Spain.

I woke up twenty minutes later. The Internet was still down. I looked inside the fridge to see if there was anything interesting happening there. It was dark. Aha. The power was out.

I opened the the circuit breaker box — all the circuit breakers were fine. I opened the front door of my apartment. The hallway outside was dark except for the emergency light.

Ok. So the power is out in the entire building. There was a notice a few days ago about some utilities work being done, maybe this was it.

I decided to go to the gym, because there was nothing else to do. The elevator wasn’t working so I took the stairs. On my way down, I passed a couple with a baby who were climbing up. The woman was carrying the baby, while the guy, panting, was carrying the stroller. Lucky for them, they live on just the second floor (the building has 12).

As I stepped out into the sunshine, I saw a bunch of people standing around on the street and talking. All stores, restaurants, and banks were dark and empty. I guess the was power out everywhere in my neighborhood?

I passed by a local brunch place. The waitress was explaining to the guests, “It’s everywhere! My boyfriend in Madrid says it, there’s no connection anywhere.”

I got to the gym, which was dark, silent, and full of people. I did my workout among suppressed grunts and increasingly stifling air (the AC wasn’t working).

I heard one of the trainers explain to somebody that this power outage is happening “en toda España.” Somebody else said Portugal too. Others were saying it’s in France and Italy as well (turned out to be exaggerations).

I walked back home. Drivers were carefully stopping at every zebra and intersection because the stoplights weren’t working either.

The streets were packed with people. Neither the metros nor trams were running. The whole city seemed to be either standing on the streets or walking home because no work could be done. An alarming number of women were sitting on park benches and reading books.

Convenience stores were the only thing that was somewhat open. Each one had a queue of people waiting at the front door. The store owners were letting in people one by one to do basic shopping if they could pay in cash.

As tends to happen, the sun started to set. I went for a walk and saw firefighters in front of a pharmacy beating down the rolling security shutter. It must run on electricity. I guess the firefighters were trying to close it by force for the pharmacists, to prevent a breakin at night.

I stood on my balcony as night fell. I was looking forward to seeing the city in total darkness for once. But it wasn’t to happen.

It turned out some buildings still had electricity — the fire station next door, various hotels, an entire neighborhood off on the hillside.

Still, Avinguda Diagonal, the main artery next to my house, was almost entirely dark. So was my little street. My own apartment was even darker.

I made a salad for dinner — the only food I had left in the house that didn’t require a stove to prepare. I had to move the cutting board to the window because the counter where I normally work was so dark I was afraid I would chop off a finger tip while slicing the cherry tomatoes.

By around 9:30pm, my apartment was like a cave. There was no Internet and I had switched off my phone earlier to conserve the battery. I lay on the couch and turned on the backlight on my Kindle to read in darkness.

Around 10pm, I heard cheering and clapping outside. A neighboring block had gotten its power back. But my block and most other blocks around me were still in the dark.

I went to bed around 10:30pm, feeling exhausted. I guess following the natural light cycle does that to you.

And then, some time during the night, I’m guessing around 2am, I woke up to loud beeping. My fridge was back and it was helpfully signalling that the temperature of the freezer was dangerously high.

All that’s to say, as of this morning, everything’s normal once again, and without even an interruption in my daily email cadence.

I have to admit I was actually looking forward to the possibility of a continuing power outage, and to having a proper, unavoidable excuse to not writing my daily email today. What would that be like? I’ve been writing a daily email for years now, every day, without fail. I was excited by the prospect of change. That’s something for me to think about.

Meanwhile, I can tell you that the curious day yesterday reminded me of a curious book I’d read two years ago. In fact, this book was the first book of my year-long Insights & More Book Club, which brought together a few of my readers specifically to read books that offered a mind-bending new perspective.

The first book of the book club fit the bill.

Even though the book is 100 years old, it was written in a particularly interesting and influential style, which I think can be relevant for anyone writing online today.

It also did lead me to moment of real insight, a perspective shift, which sticks with me to this day. I mean, even to yesterday, when I was really thinking about it.

If you’re curious, you can find the book, or maybe even read it yourself, at the following convenient link:

https://bejakovic.com/masses

What matters more than results

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Last year, a dude with some personal domain email address signed up to my list.

I make a habit of doing a bit of detective work on new subscribers. This led me to a New York Times article about the dude from 2015.

At that time, said the article, he was the manager of an investment fund with $35 billion under management.

I wrote him a 1-1 email, as I do sometimes with new subscribers, to say hello, to mention the article about him I had dug up in my snooping, and to ask what a person of his profile is doing signing up to a daily email list like mine, about writing and marketing and effective communication. He replied:

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I basically do the same thing I did for the pension fund, but now for a small group of direct clients. I also run quite a bit of money for other investment advisors and their clients. I manage about $1.2 billion total – I’m a solo shop, do it all myself.

I decided a few years ago that I wanted to be out of the public eye – 20 years was enough, so I’m pretty secretive and off the grid.

My results are still among the best in the country, but I’ve learned in the retail investment world perceptions matter more than results. So I generate best in class returns mostly for myself and personal pride.

My business actually runs and grows off the image I portray to clients and prospects. I’ve learned that I’m lucky enough to have the ability to naturally make complex things simple, which people are dying for in the investment business.

I’ve developed a somewhat unique way to communicate, mostly using very focused, simple communications. Especially in the world of AI, I think this skill will matter more than most. So I’ve become a closet student of writing, copywriting, communication, etc. That’s how I can across your newsletter. I bought your book too.

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I thought that was curious and wanted to share it with you.

Here’s a dude who, so you might imagine, lives and breathes by measurable results. I mean, either he makes his investors money, or he doesn’t. Either he outperforms the other guy, or he doesn’t.

Except, as he says, that doesn’t really matter, not as much as perception, as the image he portrays to his clients and prospects.

That’s something to keep in mind, if you yourself work in a field that’s supposedly results-based, and particularly if you work in a field that’s more fuzzy and wooly.

So how do you build up and maintain an image that clients and prospects are willing to pay for?

The message above from the investment advisor spells it out.

I can only add that he also told me he sends “clients and prospects periodic emails about the markets, my strategy, etc.”

Maybe it’s something you could profit from too? If you’d like my help on that:

https://bejakovic.com/deh