More staff?

This morning, I got a reply from a reader who wrote:

===

Great insights, btw do you need more staff? Thanks

Have a good day!

===

I guess it was a great pattern interrupt because it made me blank for a full five seconds.

“More staff? What… where… how much staff do I have now?”

In the past, I’ve hired people for one-off jobs, such as creating book covers or converting an email-based course into a website-based course.

But I’ve never had an employee and frankly I don’t ever want an employee.

In fact, at one point back in 2020, I wrote down 10 characteristics of the kind of business I would like to have. Number 2 on the list was:

“I don’t have to manage people. I can do it all myself or outsource parts of it that I don’t feel like doing.”

I’m telling you this while being fully aware it’s nothing to boast about, and is even rather stupid.

As every reasonable and successful person can tell you, hiring people takes the mushed peas off your plate, allows you to focus on the stuff you like to do and are good at, and makes you more money overall while leaving you more free time.

What’s not to like? I don’t know. I should have an employee. Maybe I should even have two.

But I don’t want one. I don’t want two or more either. And in the words of business coach Rich Schefren, in the end the only real option is to “put your business goals ahead of your personal development goals.”

Rich’s point is that it takes a long long while to change the person you are — like the rest of your life, and even then, you might not be all that different than you are today.

It doesn’t make sense to wait for that.

You might as well figure out how to live your life and run your business and make money with what you got, instead of telling yourself that you should have some other stuff in your pocket, or you should be a different person in your head, and then you will be ready.

What’s made it so that I’ve been able to survive in spite of refusing to hire or manage anybody is pretty simple. It’s daily emails.

In fact, my entire business now is really built on the back of writing an email to my list every day. I started writing daily emails as a way to get better at writing copy, back when I was working with clients. Then it became about potentially attracting clients. Then, after I stopped working with clients, it became about selling products.

At every step of the way, the common thing was simply writing an email each day about something that I found interesting and valuable, and (most of the time) tacking on some kind of an offer.

Not only does it pay the bills these days but it’s transformed my life — I’ve learned a ton of stuff about what I do that I would never have learned otherwise, I’ve become a better writer and marketer, and I’ve even developed a low level of star status in a very niche industry.

I don’t think I’m particularly unique in being able to do this. The main thing is to start, and to stick with it for the long term.

I’ve created something that can help you both get started, and stick with it, if that’s what you’d like to do. To find out more:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

A question I’ve been dreading

Last week I got a question, one I’ve been dreading, from long-time reader Neil Sutton.

Neil is an architect by day and by night, he puts on his copywriting pajamas and works as a copywriter helping businesses who want architects as clients…. which I have to say is kind of brilliant. Anyways, Neil wrote:

===

Hey John,

Here’s a picture of me eating a PopTart and scrolling through my Bejako emails, trying to find where I missed the email about your new 10 Commandments book launch.

[Neil included a gif here, showing a small monkey, possible a rhesus macaque, eating a pop tart and scrolling on a phone]

Did I miss it?

===

The back story is that, some time in February, I had the bright idea to publicly announce a deadline — March 24,2025 — by which I will finish and publish my new book, titled:

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

Well, the deadline came, the deadline passed, no emails went out announcing the book because the book is still not finished or published.

I failed with my self-assigned public deadline, and a few people, Neil among them, have spotted something off.

I can only tell you that just this morning, I finished the introduction to the new book, which was the last part waiting to be written. The book just has to go out to a few folks for edits + suggestions. The cover is already done.

All of which means the book will be finished and published…

Who knows when. I’ve burned myself already by setting and publicly announcing a deadline I failed to meet. I won’t be repeating that mistake again.

Two things are for sure:

One, I am working on it. And two, I will get it done.

In the meantime, if you haven’t read my original 10 Commandments book, you might find that interesting and valuable.

The original 10 commandments book was successful enuff that I decided to copy the core concept, the structure, and even the cover style for the new 10 Commandments book.

If you’re looking for ideas to help you influence others, or just to better understand your own mind, then take a look here:

https://bejakovic.com/10commandments

Announcing: ChatGPT Mastery

Today I’d like to recommend to you a 30-day program called ChatGPT Mastery, which is about… mastering ChatGPT, with the goal of having a kind of large and fast horse to ride on.

Here’s a list of exciting facts I’ve prepared for you about this new offer:

#1. ChatGPT Mastery is a cohort course — it kicks off and ends on a specific date — that helps you actually integrate and benefit from AI.

The idea being, things in the AI space are changing so fast that anything that came out even a few months ago is likely to be out of date.

And rather than saying “Oh let me spend a few dozen hours every quarter researching the latest advice on how to actually use this stuff” — because you won’t, just like I won’t – you can just get somebody else to do the work of cutting a path for you through the quickly regenerating AI jungle.

#2. I myself have gone through through ChatGPT Mastery, from A-Z, all 30 days, during the last cohort.

I didn’t pay for it because I was offered to get in for free.

I did go through it first and foremost for my own selfish interests — I feel a constant sense of guilt over not using AI enough in what I do — and only then with a secondary goal of promoting it if I benefited from it enough. So here I am.

#3. ChatGPT Mastery is created and run by Gasper Crepinsek. Gasper is an ex-Boston Consulting Group guy and from what I can tell, one of those hardworking and productive consulting types, the kind I look upon with a mixture of wonder and green envy.

But to hear Gasper tell it, he quit his consulting job to have more freedom, started creating info products online like everybody else, realized he had just bought himself another 70 hr/week job, and then had the idea to automate as much of it as he could with AI.

He’s largely succeeded — he now spends his mornings eating croissants and sipping coffee while strolling around Paris, because most of his work of content creation and social media and even his trip planning have been automated in large part or in full.

#4. Before I went through the 30 days of ChatGPT Mastery, I had already been using ChatGPT daily for a couple years. Inevitably, that means a good part of what Gasper teaches was familiar to me.

Other stuff he teaches was simply not relevant (I won’t be using ChatGPT to write my daily emails, thank you). The way I still benefited from ChatGPT Mastery was:

– By having my mind opened to using ChatGPT for things for things I hadn’t thought of before (just one example: I did a “dopamine reset” protocol over 4 weeks, which was frankly wonderful, and which ChatGPT designed for me, and which I got the idea for while doing ChatGPT Mastery)

– By seeing Gasper’s very structured, consulting-minded approach to automating various aspects of his business, and being inspired to port some of that to my own specific situation

– With several valuable meta-prompts that I continue to use, such as the prompt for generating custom GPTs

#5. The way you could benefit from ChatGPT Mastery is likely to be highly specific to what you do and who you are.

The program focuses on a different use case every day. Some days will be more relevant to you than others. The previous cohort covered topics like competitor analysis, insights based on customer calls or testimonials, and of course the usual stuff like content and idea generation, plus hobuncha more.

If you do any of the specific things that Gasper covers, and if you do them on at least an occasional basis, then odds are you will get a great return on both the time and money and that ChatGPT Mastery requires of you, before the 30 days are out.

Beyond that, ChatGPT Mastery can open your mind to what’s possible, give you confidence and a bunch of examples to get you spotting what could be automated in what you do, plus the techniques for how to do it (I’ve already automated a handful of things in what I do, and I have a list of next things to do).

#6. The time required for ChatGPT Mastery is about 15-20 minutes per day for 30 days. The money required is an upfront payment of $199.

I can imagine that one or the other of these is not easy for you to eke out in the current moment.

All I can say is that it’s an investment that’s likely to pay you back many times over, in terms of both time and money. And the sooner you make that investment, the greater and quicker the returns will come.

#7. If you’d like to find out the full details about ChatGPT Mastery, or even to sign up before the cohort kicks off:

https://bejakovic.com/gasper

What it’s like to finally sell Guinness

My friend Biff recently texted me to say he had been listening to the What It’s Like To Be podcast, which I’ve written about often in these emails.

That podcast features interviews with people in different professions, with the goal of finding out what it’s like to do their job.

(As is often true of these kinds of podcasts, the host is somebody famous or influential, who has decided to do a pet project. In this case the influential person is Dan Heath, author of the book Made To Stick, which I’ve also written about many times in this newsletter.)

Anyways, I had not been listening to the What It’s Like To Be podcast for a while – there’s too much damn stuff to listen to.

I felt guilty after Biff wrote me to say he had heard some good episodes lately.

So at the gym two days ago, I put on the latest episode, to find out what it’s like to be… a barman.

A barman is apparently what in Ireland they call a bar tender. Except not really, because a barman also acts as a kind of standup comedian as well as a therapist or self-esteem coach, which U.S. bar tenders are typically not certified for.

But let me get to the point of today’s email, the valuable message that can maybe make you millions of cents or even dollars:

The barman — name, Brian Wynne – said that his pub has been around for 30 years. But in spite of it being an Irish pub, in Dublin, they didn’t sell Guinness until three weeks ago. He explained:

“We’ve been open since ’96 and we put our first Guinness tap in three weeks ago. We make an equivalent porter. When I say equivalent, I mean it’s vastly superior, of course, but I can’t say that. I’m sure your lawyers will have a go at you for allowing me to say that kinda thing.”

Dan Heath then asked Wynne how Guinness is doing after the first three weeks. Wynne replied:

“Oh, it’s outselling everything else we have. You spend 20 years explaining to people why we don’t sell Guinness ’cause our products are superior and more Irish. You make jokes about it. I have so many anecdotes and lines all built up about the sale of Guinness, which we don’t have, and then we do have it in…”

… and it outsells everything else, without even trying.

I wanted to share this with you because it’s a truth that goes far beyond the Irish pub.

I thought to myself, as I listened to Wynne while doing my fire hydrant exercises, how many online business owners find themselves in same position?

They work to create a “vastly superior” product… they turn themselves into the equivalent of a barman who educates and jokes and soft-sells… they show up day after day in front of their prospects… and yet, sales still a fraction of what they could be, if they only sold what people already really wanted, ie. a Guinness instead of their no-name vastly superior equivalent.

Do with that what seems meet.

As for me, I’ll take me to do some market research. I’ll even offer you a trade:

Hit reply to this email and tell me the last digital info purchase you made. It could be a course… some live training or coaching… a new newsletter or membership you subscribed to… or an ebook (except Amazon kindle ebooks, that’s too broad for my purposes).

I’m curious to find out what you’ve already spent money on, and maybe I will start selling the same.

And in return?

I’ll reply to you and tell you my own latest digital info purchase. (It’s not Travis Sago’s Royalty Ronin, I promise that.) I will tell you that it’s an ebook, that I paid $209 for it (yes, there are no missing decimal points in there), and that I have so far taken 9 pages of notes from it.

I’m not sure it will be as useful for you as it has been to me, but if you’re curious to find out what it is, you know what to do.

How to make your 1:1 coaching an easy yes

A couple days ago, business coach Steph Benedetto posted the following in my Daily Email House community:

===

I’ve written 110 emails by now and the journey has been nothing short of amazing with many hidden benefits that really belong on the sales page. 😍

I expected to get increased clarity about my message, and was surprised right away about just how much clarity it gave me.

I figured there would be increased reader engagement, but I had no idea the depth of connection it would create.

But here are some of the benefits I didn’t see coming:

– New offers appear that I never planned to write. Somehow they appear out of thin air!

– Building out my sales letter with testimonials and a double guarantee — without sitting down to “work on my sales letter.”

– Love letters and comments from readers.

– My business is evolving with new events and services as I type them.

– My personal growth journey is documented in these emails; it gives me a place to articulate insights and take them deeper through sharing.

– Two people inquiring about my new 1 Year Being Unstoppable Mentorship with the disclaimer “it’s not affordable.” I didn’t see that coming!

[Steph then goes to share as proof a bunch of love letters she got from her readers and customers, and then concludes with…]

It really is building up desire to work with me. When I reach out to people who are engaging to explore 1:1 coaching with me, they’re an easy yes.

Daily emails have helped me see the value of me being me and sharing it, with all my quirks and flaws.

This is some life-changing shit, my friends. If you write the emails, the magic will happen.

===

I’ve long been crowing and croaking about the many benefits of writing daily emails. Steph does a great job recapping these many benefits, and she even lists a couple benefits I myself haven’t experienced yet. But there’s something else I want to highlight in this particular email.

I followed up with Steph to ask what exactly she does to “reach out to people who are engaging to explore 1:1 coaching with me.”

She replied:

===

I invite people to a conversations on most days, not just from email comments. It’s the way most of my clients happen. If a reader is responding to me and I know them, it’s easy to invite them to connect. The context will vary. If I don’t know them yet, I might invite them to a chat about their question or comment.

===

In my experience, this is a pwerful 2-step playbook that a lot of people could profitably use, particularly those selling high-ticket coaching, products, or services.

I could run on about this and share my own experiences applying Stephs daily email + one-on-one reach-out system. But the fact is, I’m at the airport as I write this, waiting for my smiling plane to board, which really and truly leaves me with just enough time to say the following:

Reaching out to your best prospects one-on-one is a very underused tool.

But it’s only likely to be practical and profitable once you’ve laid the ground work of building relationship, stirring desire, and changing minds, which is what daily emailing is all about.

If you’re not writing daily emails yet, or even if you are, but not very consistently, then I can help you either start the habit, or stick with it and be consistent. For more info:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

The largest copywriter in the Netherlands gives me his endorsement

Comes a message from Robin Timmers, whose website bills him as the “grootste copywriter van Nederland.”

Google informs me that, translated from Dutch, this works out to “the largest copywriter in the Netherlands.”

I guess a more elegant translation might be, “the greatest copywriter in the Netherlands.” Though as Robin told me, the tagline is meant to be ambiguous, since he stands over 2 meters tall.

Anyways, Robin writes:

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Hey John,

Just finished MVE and am now halfway with SME.

Man … MVE is so simple, so easy-ish to implement, but such a strong concept and format.

Awesome course, awesome idea.

Same for SME.

Really simple, really powerful and easy to implement, and model with your own ideas.

I’m very happy with both courses, and can’t wait to start with Copy Riddles.

===

In case you don’t know… MVE is my course Most Valuable Email. SME is my course Simple Money Emails.

You might not know that because I haven’t promoted either course in a few months, ever since I started selling my Daily Email Habit service.

I find my enthusiasm for promoting those courses has dipped.

In part, it’s because Daily Email Habit is not just a daily prompt to write an email… but a distillation of the best ideas in both SME and MVE, as well as ideas I don’t have in either of those courses, particularly around building up status and authority.

And Daily Email Habit presents all this to you as an easy and manageable drip-drip of information, in your inbox, every day… rather than as a course, one which you may go through once or maybe not even once, which then sits behind some forgotten login or in some folder you never check.

But much more important:

Unlike those two course of mine — or any other courses, by me or anybody else — Daily Email Habit is really built around the idea of daily, practical, real-world implementation, rather than simply passive consumption of information.

Because even things that are easy-ish to implement, like Robin says the MVE trick is, tend not to get implemented, not without a lot of stubborn nudging and reminders from the outside.

That’s what Daily Email Habit is for. If you’d like to find out more about this “grootste e-mailservice”:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

A cautionary tale for course creators

For five years, David Perell had kind of a dream online business.

Perell sold a high-ticket, cohort-based course, Write Of Passage, teaching people how to write online.

Write Of Passage sold for $4k a pop. It had 2,000+ buyers.

Like I said, a kind of dream business, at least in the little space of online course creators and such.

I mean, Perell was writing and helping people to do something positive for themselves. He was working in line with his own values and interests. And he was pulling in great money with it.

And then, last November, Perell shut it all down. In an email announcing that the current cohort of Write Of Passage would be the last one, Perell wrote:

“You need more than a great product to make a business work, and the main thing we were missing was a dependable flow of new students.”

I agree with Perell’s first conclusion. I don’t agree with the second.

You do need more than a great product to make a business work. Particularly if your product sells for a one-time fee (even if that’s $4k), and if you have a whole supporting team of coaches and facilitators and staff and whatever, and you’re running ads or paying affiliates to get those $4k sales.

But I don’t agree that the solution needs to be MORE NEW STUDENTS.

I’ve been making a 6-fig income off this newsletter for the past few years, off of just a few hundred buyers, way fewer than Perell’s 2k. I’ve even embraced this attitude formally. My goal is to make more sales from the same number of readers.

It’s a well-known direct marketing truth that all the profits are made on the back end.

It does take more than a great product to make a business work. But instead of chasing the mythical “dependable flow” of new students… you can just commit to creating a sequence of great new offers. (An offer by the way, doesn’t require creating a new product, though a new product will typically make you a new offer.)

Now about that:

As I wrote in my last email, last year, right around the time that Perell was shutting down his multimillion-dollar dream biz, I came up with a new system for myself to help me get more predictable success with new offers.

I applied this system when I had the idea for my Daily Email Habit service. It worked great.

So far, I have only shared my system with the people inside my Daily Email House community.

This month, I will make this system available a bit more widely. I’ll be sharing it with a few people on my list, if I think it can actually be useful to them.

I will make you a deal right now:

If more predictable success with new offers is something that could be useful to you, then hit reply and tell me a bit about your current offer situation. In turn, I will add you to a private announcement list, so you have the opportunity to get my system when I release it later this month.

Figure it out

A while back, a dude wrote me to say:

===

Hello John,

I am interested in joining your Daily Email Habit, but I have a question.

Do you teach us how to set up the newsletter?

The reason why I am interested in DEH is because I want to build the habit of writing daily emails. So I don’t need anything complicated.

I just want to know how to set everything up and get started.

===

Back when I initially conceived Daily Email Habit, I thought of providing some kind of quick-start guide to the tech necessary to send emails.

I decided against it. I realized didn’t want people who couldn’t figure this on their own to sign up for Daily Email Habit.

Not because I have anything against them personally, or think badly of them.

I just realized that anyone who is already blocked at this first slight hurdle is unlikely to deal well with the hundred and one other hurdles, obstacles, and problems that come up in the process of running, writing, and profiting from an email newsletter. And so I’d rather not take their money.

(To his credit, the dude who wrote me the above did figure out the tech on his own, and did sign up for Daily Email Habit after that.)

There’s a bigger point here:

12+ years ago, I read Joe Sugarman saying that he looks at problems as opportunities. It blew my mind at the time. Since I’m slow on the uptake, it’s still something I haven’t internalized fully.

But how else could it be?

A problem forms a moat that keeps everyone from doing it, whatever “it” may be.

If you figure out a solution, you’re insulated from the competition of billions of other people who might jump in otherwise.

On the other hand, if you choose to sell your solution, you’re almost guaranteed a market, because none of us is as unique as we like to believe.

A problem is by definition an obstacle, and if you remove it, it makes for a freer flow of energy, desire, and value, which money is one avatar of.

Working to solve a problem is energizing, and moves you to action. It also builds a mindset of self-reliance and resourcefulness.

Before you solve your problem, it makes for an opportunity to connect with others by asking for advice, sharing frustrations and setbacks that result in connection and credibility.

After you do succeed in solving your problem, it gives you instant authority and wizard-like status with those who come after you, and an attractive charismatic character to those around you. After all, you appear to be lucky, success comes easy to you, and everything works in your favor.

And maybe biggest of all, solving problems gives you a change of perspective. It forces you to think, get out of your groove, change up a familiar way of working.

And when you do hit upon a solution, it’s likely to be one that generalizes, and that you can reuse for future obstacles or problems, creating a kind of virtuous upward spiral.

All that’s to say, problems really are opportunities. (Thanks, Joe.)

As for the problem of setting up the technology to send daily emails, I’ll only say I use ​Convert Kit​. It’s very newbie friendly (perhaps too much so). That’s all the tech advice I have to give.

And if you solve your tech problems, and then are faced with the problem of what to send your list, that’s what Daily Email Habit is about.

I purposely made it in a middle ground between complete and paralyzing freedom at one extreme… and a templated, paint-by-numbers approach at the other.

There’s already AI — or freelance copywriters — if you want your emails written for you.

Daily Email Habit is there to focus your mind each day in the right direction, and get you in the habit of solving little problems — puzzles as I call them — which build up your brain, your skill, your authority, and your assets. If you’d like to get started today:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

Don’t think of Greenland

Back in 2019, Internet personality James Altucher ran a crowdfunding campaign to raise $100,000,000 to buy Greenland. He felt Greenland was too important not to be bought.

Altucher is a smart guy. He did his research to back up his claim.

His primary reason for wanting to buy Greenland?

Rare earth minerals, like yttrium, scandium, neodymium, which are used in modern-day technologies such as LED screens, wind turbines, and electric vehicles. Rare earth minerals today almost exclusively come via China, which puts the U.S. in an awkward and dangerously dependent position.

But don’t think of China, and don’t think of Greenland.

Because I read a story this morning in the Wall Street Journal, about how the U.S. is trying to feed its growing mineral hunger — by farming.

Apparently, certain plants are “hyperaccumulators,” and pull out lots of minerals from the ground.

The U.S. has millions of acres of barren, mineral-rich soil.

The minerals in this soil are not of high-enough concentration to deserve being refined by traditional means. But they can be farmed into plants, which can then be incinerated to produce a cost-effective new source of minerals.

If it all works out, farming might become a viable new source of rare minerals for the U.S. economy.

So don’t think of Greenland.

But do think how this story offers a simple, classic, and memorable example of what business and innovation are all about:

An abundant and cheap resource (land in this case)… a new or better process (hyperaccumulating plants)… and a rare and valuable end product (rare minerals).

Also, do think of how this might apply to you and your business.

Because what resource is more abundant and cheap than ideas, gossip, and news stories?

And yet, with a simple enough process, these cheap resources can be turned into rare and valuable end products — sales copy, or marketing content, or even highly priced courses, books, and training.

What is that simple enough process?

Daily emails, exactly like the one you’re reading now.

My email today happens to be based on today’s Daily Email Habit puzzle.

If you’d like to engage in your own “hyperaccumulation” process, and use daily emails to convert cheap and abundant resources into rare and valuable assets, then consider checking out Daily Email Habit today, before tomorrow’s puzzle appears and then disappears.

And whatever you do, don’t think of Greenland.

Here’s the link to take things into your own hands:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

A rule you can take to the bank

“If you talk less, you’ll sell more, and that is a rule you can take to the bank.”
— David Sandler

What, you’re still reading?

Even though I’ve paid off the subject line?

Insatiable. All right…

I can tell you I’m re-reading David Sandler’s mysteriously titled book, You Can’t Teach A Kid To Ride A Bike At A Seminar.

In case you don’t know Sandler, the man was a sales trainer, and his book is about his sales system.

Sandler was influential enough in the world of actual sales — the world of cold calling, going to prospect’s offices, sitting across the table.

But his ideas are much better known in the world of online marketing because negotiation coach Jim Camp, who influenced a million and one Internet marketers, apparently got most of his negotiation system, often verbatim, by being a Sandler franchisee.

Aaanyways…

Sandler says to talk less. To draw out your prospects to talk. To listen, and to get them to sell themselves.

It’s good advice. I tried it. It worked like magic, back when I used to get on calls with prospective copywriting clients.

It’s great advice for sales copy too.

Back when I was writing sales copy — thousands of words every week of advertorials, and VSLs, and sales emails — I made it a policy to “write as little as possible.”

That didn’t mean to have a VSL of 150 words or a half-page advertorial.

Instead it meant “getting the market to write your marketing for you,” as Travis Sago likes to say. To mirror and feed back things that people in the market already said themselves, in their own words, instead of coming up with my own arguments and language.

So that’s a tip for you. Talk and write less. You’ll sell more.

Here’s another tip. The above tip is great advice if all you’re looking to do is to sell, today.

But if you’re writing a daily email newsletter, particularly one for yourself and your business, then there’s a second purpose to your emails.

This second purpose is more wooly. Much less measurable than sales. It also happens in the vague future, rather than the clear present.

I’m talking about getting people to open your emails again tomorrow, and to give you an honest hearing. About gradually, getting people to see you as an authority, a leader, a trusted guide in all kinds of questions in their life.

Sales today are necessary and nice. But really, all the profits in email are in this long game, in the ongoing relationship, in the back end.

And that’s a rule you can take to the bank.

And now, on to my offer. If you don’t buy it today, I’ll promote it again tomorrow, and maybe I’ll convince you then.

Or maybe I’ll convince you today?

My offer is my Daily Email Habit service. It’s a new prompt/puzzle each day, delivered to your inbox, to help you write your own daily email.

The dual goals for Daily Email Habit are 1) making you sales today and 2) establishing your influence and authority, so you have an asset in your email list that only grows in value tomorrow, and the day after.

If you’d like to get started with those dual goals, and now:

https://bejakovic.com/deh