Inspiration

Sunday morning startler

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This morning I went out for my usual walk, and as I stepped out the elevator at the bottom of my building, I felt something odd inside my shoe, right at the toe.

Probably just my sock crumpled up? Or maybe a pebble?

I sat down on the stairs to investigate.

I took off my shoe and shook it. Nothing fell out.

I looked inside. Nothing.

I reached to straighten out my sock and— GAH!! — I instinctively threw something away.

In the dim light of the building lobby, I took a closer look at what I had just touched and tossed.

It turned out to be a live gecko that had been stuck to my sock. It must have crawled into my shoe during the night and gone to sleep.

It’s no big mystery how the gecko got inside my shoe.

The Mediterranean house gecko is endemic to the Barcelona area.

I’ve often seen the little guys inching their way up the outside walls of my building.

For the record, I live on the 9th floor.

It must take a whole evening for a gecko to slowly make his way up the wall to where I live. But I guess it doesn’t matter to them. They like high places… time is passing anyhow… and so they might as well climb.

Now that I’ve opened up this fascinating topic, let me go full-gecko:

You might know the Geico Gecko slogan, “15 minutes could save you 15% on your car insurance.”

Well, I got an update for you:

“$10-$15 could get you 10-15 new subscribers on your email list.”

For the past few days, I’ve been promoting a new offer with that promise. The background:

I will be building up a new list I’ve launched via paid ads, starting at $10-$15 a day, and aiming to get 10-15 subscribers for that money.

If you like, you can follow the same process I will be following (a course by an expert list builder, which costs $495), plus you can get my copywriting feedback and marketing insight as a free bonus.

10-15 new subscribers a day is not exactly a rocket launch.

But like my shoe gecko shows, a bit of progress, repeated consistently, gets you up to high places, and sooner than you might think.

Like I wrote yesterday, I will be promoting this offer for another week.

But if you decide you want to jump in by the end of today, at 12 midnight PST, I will do two things:

1. I will put you into the Skool community as soon as I open it up on Monday

2. I’ll give you a special mystery bonus to say thanks. This special mystery bonus is about a strategy that’s not covered in the list-building blueprint I will be following… but a strategy that I’ve used in the past to offset the cost of running ads, and in one case even eliminate it

Of course, don’t decide now if want to join me or not. Simply decide if this sounds interesting to you, and and if it does, hit reply and say so. I can get you the full details, and you can decide then, and maybe even in time for today’s mini-deadline.

Just suck it up

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HER: “Are you upset with me?”

ME: “No, I’m just in a bad mood.”

HER: “What’s wrong?”

ME: “I really don’t want to talk about it.”

HER: “Ok… but is it something I did?”

ME: “No, but I really don’t want to discuss it.”

HER: “I see… but maybe I can help? If you would just tell me what’s wrong…”

This is the kind of conversation I’ve had a thousand and one times with various girlfriends.

Whenever I’m feeling upset, bad, uncertain, miserable, the last thing I want to do is discuss it.

In my experience, bad moods tend to pass — sleep fixes almost anything.

​​But when I try to give a form to my bad moods, when I crystalize the dark clouds in my head into little droplets called words, then somehow all that negativity becomes real and permanent. And if I go one step beyond, and share those words with somebody else, it becomes doubly real and permanent.

HER: “Are you still feeling bad about X?”

ME: No. [thinking to myself, no, I wasn’t, until now.]

This is not to put the blame on any of my ex gfs. I know they were just trying to help. I also know I’m the odd one out, and that most people actually feel better when they discuss what’s bothering them.

BUT!

I was still pleased to come across a study a while back, published in the prestigious journal Science, that pretty much backed me up.

Two cognitive scientists at Cambridge had a hypothesis that suppressing negative thoughts not only would not harm mental health… but would actually improve it.

They set up an experiment where they trained some 120 people, across 6 countries, in the techniques of sucking it up. The result was just as they predicted:

– no paradoxical increase in negative thoughts
– less frequent, less vivid, and less anxiety-producing negative thoughts

So there you go — just suck it up.

Or don’t.

It’s likely that this Cambridge study is just a swing of the pendulum. We’ve been told for so long that it’s important to express what you feel, it was inevitable somebody somewhere would try to say otherwise.

And I’m sure that if you like to talk things out when you feel bad, there are plenty of studies to back you up also.

Maybe it’s just like Walker Percy said, that modern science cannot say anything about you specifically as an individual.

That’s my bit of inspiration for you for this Sunday.

​​If you want some more, you can find it in my 10 Commandments of A-List Copywriters.

Most of those commandments have to do with copywriting and marketing. But a few have to do with thinking and living. As you can imagine, those are the most valuable ones. If you’re interested:

https://bejakovic.com/10commandments

The most likely solution to all your problems

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At the risk of sounding like an idiot, let me pay off today’s subject line by telling you about my olive tree:

I have a small olive tree on my balcony. It arrived as a present for my birthday two years ago.

(Btw, if you ever want to get me a present I’ll love, a plant is a good bet.)

Right now, my olive tree is thriving. It’s got lots of healthy leaves. Small shoots are popping out everywhere. There’s even one green olive that’s maturing, which I’m planning to cure when it’s fully ripe.

But earlier this year, my olive tree was only causing me worry.

Each day, I went out onto the balcony to inspect it. Leaf after leaf was turning yellow and falling off. No new shoots were visible anywhere. At this pace, my olive would soon become barren and die.

I stood there each day, inspecting my olive tree and worrying.

Was it some kind of fungal infection? Had the soil become depleted? Was it bad feng shui?

It was only after weeks or maybe months of this that it occurred to me that the olive tree might be parched for water.

I mean, it’s sitting on my balcony, exposed to the blasting Barcelona sun, for many hours a day, day after day. Maybe a cup or two of water, twice a week, just wasn’t enough for all the heat?

That’s why I said I risked sounding like an idiot.

I told you how healthy and thriving my olive tree is today. Watering it every day is the only change I made from then to now.

Watering a plant is the most obvious thing to do to keep it alive and healthy. And yet, I thought of every other rare and novel explanation first, while my olive tree turned yellow and withered.

Now that I’ve risked sounding like an idiot, let me risk sounding like your mother:

Maybe don’t have an olive tree. But maybe there’s another area of life that’s struggling, withering, or causing you worry. Maybe it’s family, or your health, or your business.

A rare and novel explanation might really lie behind your problems.

But more likely, there’s a common, obvious explanation to it all.

You can’t keep going the way you’ve been going, inspecting and worrying. Most likely, you just gotta water more regularly – or do whatever the equivalent is for the problem you’re seeing.

But enough gardening wisdom. On to sales:

Maybe you have a business. Maybe you’re working too hard, or you’re not making consistent sales, not as many as you’d like.

What’s the real reason?

Maybe you need to optimize your ads… or increase the conversion rate on your landing pages… or innovate and come up with totally new products, new funnels, new sources of traffic.

Maybe.

Or maybe just gotta get your existing customers to pay you more frequently. Maybe you just gotta email them more, instead of allowing them to wither away. And if you want something to make your emailing easier and faster:

https://bejakovic.com/sme/

Why I sent you an empty email yesterday

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This morning, I woke up to an inbox full of messages that read:

“Hmm??”

“Huh??”

“Wha—??”

“I’m sure others are writing to tell you the same, but hngh??”

“Why?? Why?? WHY?? I need do know”

The story is that I sent out an email last night with the subject line, “Why is Alec Baldwin telling me to Always Be Closing?”

That email went out with no body copy, but only with the placeholder text that reads “Text goes here.”

Two things about this strange event:

#1. It was unintentional, and I blame ActiveCampaign for it, as I do for many other things.

I wrote my email, put it into ActiveCampaign, and scheduled it. For some reason, ActiveCampaign didn’t save the body copy.

This has happened a few times already. Each time before, I caught it at the last minute by noticing something’s off in the tiny preview window at the end. Last night I didn’t.

#2. I am amazed by how little I am bothered by this event. Maybe it’s because it’s genuinely a tech muckup out of my control, and not something that I feel responsible for. Or maybe I have just been sending emails long enough that I have built up a pachydermous outer layer that protects me from the slings and arrows and “huh??”s of the world.

So my brief inspirational message to you:

If you are afraid of writing something and publishing it because you think you might muck it up, and everyone will know, then do it anyhow, because 1) you will muck it up, 2) everyone will know, and 3) eventually you won’t be bothered by it.

Also, if you’d like to know why Alec Baldwin is telling me to Always Be Closing, here’s that message, with the body copy included this time:

https://bejakovic.com/why-is-alec-baldwin-telling-me-to-always-be-closing/

My Prime Directive for writing this email newsletter

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A few weeks ago, marketer Matt Giaro interviewed me for his podcast.

Maybe because Matt also writes daily emails, or maybe because he’s into direct marketing, but he asked me questions I actually enjoyed answering and had something to say about.

The result is that this podcast appearance is one of my less horrific ones.

At one point, Matt asked me how I think about tying up my emails into the offers I’m making.

I told Matt how I think about that. But then I told him something that I think is much more important.

​​In fact, it’s my Prime Directive for writing this email newsletter.

It has never been to make money.

Maybe you think I’m signaling how good of a guy I am by telling you that. That’s not it. Consider this:

My Prime Directive also hasn’t been to provide value for my readers, or even to entertain them.

Nope.

My Prime Directive for this newsletter is very unsexy, very uninspiring, and a bit inhuman, almost Borg-like.

It’s simply… to keep this newsletter going day after day.

I’m writing this email from the Athens airport, waiting for my flight to Barcelona.

I’ve been in Greece for the past 5 days. It’s a kind of vacation, though each day I found a break in my “vacation time” to write this daily email.

Perhaps that’s because I’m a bit of a obsessive-compulsive beaver.

Or perhaps it’s a perfectly logical, rational decision. In the words of Morgan Housel, the author of The Psychology of Money:

“What I want to have is endurance. I want to be so unbreakable financially in the short run to increase the odds that I will be able to stick around as an investor for the stocks that I do own to compound for the longest period of time. If you understand the math of compounding, you know that the big gains come at the end of the period.”

… and I’d add, it’s not just stocks. This is also true for other assets, such as skills you’re building, knowledge you’re stacking up, content you’re creating, or email subscribers you’re attracting.

That said, just because my Prime Directive is rather inhuman — “resistance is futile, another email will follow tomorrow” — doesn’t mean I can’t on occasion try to make these emails valuable to you.

So let me take this moment to remind you of the old chestnut, which is no less true because it’s preached so often:

The best time to finally start something you have been putting off for an eternity — is today.

It doesn’t have to be an email list you write to daily.

There are plenty of other good investments out there, which you can start investing a nickel’s worth of time, energy, or money into right now.

But if you don’t hate writing… and if you happen to like flexibility and independence… then an email list of engaged readers is a good investment to start today.

And if you want some practical tips about how to do that in a way that meshes with your sense of self, assuming you’re not a natural-born salesman, then the podcast I did with Matt might be worth listening to.

The topic for that podcast was “How to send daily emails that make money without selling.”

The topic came up because I heard from a few people that it never seems I’m selling in these emails.

Of course, that can be because there are times I’m not actually selling anything, like today. (The Borg can subsist for months without food.)

On the other hand, there were also unbroken periods — stretching for years at a time — when each email I sent ended with a CTA to buy a paid product I was selling.

And yet, people somehow didn’t find it salesy… and they wanted to know how I do that.

If you’re curious too, I break it down in the interview with Matt. The link is here:

The light at the end of the tunnel

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“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, and the thing is, I love you.”

“What?”

“I love you.”

“How do you expect me to respond to this?”

“How about, you love me too?”

“How about: I’m leaving.”

That’s the start of the last scene of the 1989 romantic comedy When Harry Met Sally. In case you haven’t seen it, the movie goes like this:

The first time Harry and Sally meet, they hate each other. The second time they meet, Harry doesn’t even remember who Sally is. The third time they meet, Harry and Sally become friends. Then they sleep together, and things go south and they stop being friends.

And then one New Year’s Eve, Harry finally realizes he loves Sally, and he runs to meet her, and he declares his love. And she says, “I’m leaving.”

The fact is, screenwriter Nora Ephron and director Rob Reiner both felt that movie should end like this.

​​No way should it end with Harry and Sally winding up together. That’s not how the real world works. People in those kinds of relationships don’t end up together.

That’s how the first two drafts of the movie actually went. The bitter truth.

But in the third draft, Ephron wrote this final scene, and Reiner shot it. After Sally’s “I’m leaving,” Harry delivers a speech about all the little things he loves about her, and they kiss and they wind up together, forever, in love.

And that’s how the movie was released, and it was a big, big hit.

So what’s the point?

Well, maybe it’s obvious, but you can go negative and cynical and sarcastic for the whole movie, but you gotta end on an inspiring, positive note.

​​It’s gotta make sense to people and give them a feeling of hope, at least if you want to create something that has a chance to be a big big hit, something that can appeal to a wide swath of the market.

Or in the words of screenwriter and director David Mamet:

“Children jump around at the end of the day, to expend the last of that day’s energy. The adult equivalent, when the sun goes down, is to create or witness drama — which is to say, to order the universe into a comprehensible form.”

But now I have a problem:

I’ve just pulled back the curtain. And what’s behind the curtain is not so nice. So how can I end this email on an inspiring, positive note?

Well, I can admit to you that the world is a large and complex and often unjust place. But it does have its own structure. And just by reading these emails, you’re finding out bits and pieces of that structure, and that helps you make more sense of the world you live in, and it helps you shape and influence the world for the better.

I can also tell you that the above bit, about Harry and Sally and Nora and Rob, is part of a book I’m working on, the mythical “10 Commandments of Hypnotists, Pick Up Artists, Comedians, Copywriters, Con Men, Door-To-Door Salesmen, Professional Negotiators, Storytellers, Propagandists, and Stage Magicians.”

I’ve been working on this book for a long time. But there’s light at the end of the tunnel.

In the meantime, do you know about my other 10 Commandments book, 10 Commandments of A-List Copywriters?

It also collects bits and pieces of the structure of the world, and it can help you understand and shape that world for the better. In case you’d like to find out more:

https://bejakovic.com/10commandments

Riveting, personal story to fill my mistake quota

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Hold on to your seat, and prepare to be riveted by the following true and very personal story:

Two days ago, I meet up with my friend Adrian. Adrian suggests we go out to dinner tonight, just him, me, and my dad. (Adrian is also friends with my dad.)

I say fine.

Adrian and my dad and I text yesterday to confirm the place and time for the dinner. We quickly agree.

But then it turns out Adrian’s wife would like to join also, along with their 3-year old daughter. Oh, and can we move dinner three hours earlier because of his daughter’s bed time?

I’m not thrilled by the idea — the early dinner, the wife, the kid. I honestly tell Adrian the earlier time doesn’t work well because I also have a family lunch to go to in the afternoon.

He says he’ll check with the wife.

Throughout the rest of yesterday, there’s more tussling over WhatsApp. And then finally, in the early evening hours, Adrian decides to go back to the original plan, the original time, and the original company for the dinner.

TA-DAAA! The end.

Now that you’ve read this, I want to apologize. I know this story was only riveting in how stupid it was.

​​But how else to get the following point across in a way that sticks?

A couple months ago, I bought a book called Suddenly Talented by Sean D’Souza.

Sean you might know — he’s an Internet marketer who’s been in the game since before Google, and I’ve written about him often in this newsletter.

Sean is best known for his unorthodox marketing ideas. But he’s branched out also — to courses and workshops about cartooning, photography, and learning and skill acquisition, which is what Suddenly Talented is about.

I actually haven’t read Sean’s book yet.

​​But there’s a WhatsApp group for everyone who’s bought the book, where Sean holds court and explains his ideas about how to get good at anything, and quick.

One idea will probably be familiar to you — it’s to get okay with making mistakes, whether you’re drawing, learning a new language, or trying to write a daily email.

But Sean takes it one step further.

​​In his own workshops, he actually gives his students a mistake quota.

​​​In other words, he tells his students that they have to actively and consciously make a certain number of mistakes before he will let them even attempt to do the thing right.

Result? I don’t know, but I can guess:

1. People loosen up. They realize that a mistake is not as fatal as it might seem in their imagination.

2. People actually learn something, by actively dancing around the “right” thing to do. In the words of Claude Debussy, music is the space between the notes.

“Fine fine,” you might say, “enough with the poetry. Does this really work?”

I don’t know. But it sounded interesting enough to give it a try. That’s why I opened with the pointless and uninteresting story above.

Don’t open your emails like I did.

Or do. Do it to teach yourself that hey, even a terrible email doesn’t really cost me anything, and hey, maybe I’ll even learn something by doing things wrong.

Are you convinced? Are you not convinced? It’s okay either way.

But in case this email triggered something in your brain, you might want to check out my Most Valuable Email training. It comes with a swipe file of 51 interesting ideas, many of which have proven valuable to me and to the people who have gone through MVE, sometimes even paying for the entire course.

If you’d like to find out more:

https://bejakovic.com/mve/

I don’t want people to see me fail

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It finally happened.

Yesterday afternoon, I reached the entrance to my apartment building and, for the first time ever, I realized that I’d left my keys at home.

I’ve been paranoid about this for months, ever since I started living alone again.

I don’t know any of my neighbors. The friends I have in town are away more than they are here. My landlord takes days to respond to my text messages.

If I were ever to lock myself out, who the hell would let me back in?

Fortunately, a few weeks ago, I acted on this paranoia.

I hid an extra key to my apartment somewhere inside the building. That meant I would just need to get inside the building and I could get back into my apartment.

Like I said, yesterday I finally forgot my keys.

But as I stood there at the building entrance, with a backpack full of groceries and a large leek in my hand, I refused to ring any of my neighbors to let me in.

Instead, I sat down on the bike rack that’s right in front of my building.

And I started to wait.

And wait…

And wait… until finally somebody came out of the building, and I could rush in beside them.

Maybe you’re wondering if this email will ever get to a point. So let me get to it now.

Why didn’t I simply ring some neighbors, politely explain the situation, and ask if they would let me in?

Brace yourself:

It’s because I hate to ask and be rejected…

Because I never want it to be known that I need something, which I might not get…

Because I don’t ever want to try and be seen to fail.

Stupid, right? Even nonsensical? Particularly in such a low-stakes, perfectly natural situation as just ringing a doorbell to ask a neighbor to let me in?

If you think my reasoning yesterday was stupid or nonsensical, I completely agree with you.

In fact, that’s why I’m telling you about it. Because it’s easy to recognize stupid and nonsensical reasoning in others, and maybe draw a conclusion that you can apply to your own life.

This “don’t want people to see me fail” is a strong instinct inside me.

On occasion I indulge it, in small, trivial things, like yesterday.

But in other situations?

Let me just focus on the business stuff.

Every time I write and send a new daily email to thousands of people, a voice inside me says, “What if people think this is dumb?”

Every time I launch a new offer, that same voice says, “What if this bombs? Everybody will see!”

And every time I have an idea for a change in this newsletter, the voice pipes up again. “But what if it doesn’t stick? People will know I tried and failed…”

The fact is, people don’t know I tried and failed, not most of the time, and certainly not most of the people.

That’s because nobody looks at my emails and offers with 1/1000th of the care and devotion with which I look at them.

And as for the people who actually notice when I do mess up, or when I try something and it doesn’t go like I planned — those people actually tend to like me better for it. Go figure.

In a second, I’m gonna pitch my Simple Money Emails program. But before I get there, maybe there’s something you can learn from my sitting outside my building yesterday, leek in hand, and waiting and waiting.

Specifically, if you’re afraid that:

1. You will write daily emails and they will be bad, or that

2. Nobody will sign up for your list, or that

3. People will sign up for your list and then (gasp!) unsubscribe, or that

4. People will sign up for your emails but not buy from you, or that

5. Worst of all, you will start sending daily emails, but not be able or willing to stick with it, and the whole world will know that you tried and failed at this new experiment…

… then I’d like to propose that nobody will notice, and if they notice, they won’t care.

I can tell you this because each of the above has happened to me. (Regarding #5 above, this newsletter, which has been running non-stop for close to 6 years now, is my third or fourth attempt to stick with writing daily emails. I failed every other time.)

My point being:

In spite of all of those awful, horrible things happening to me, and even though I’m a sensitive soul, I’m still standing. I’ve actually learned a bit in the process, and I’ve built something valuable as a result of it all.

Maybe you can do so too.

And if you fail?

Nobody will notice. And if they do, they won’t think bad of you.

​​The table stakes are very, very low. If you try and fail, you haven’t lost much, if anything.

On the other hand, if you manage to stick with it, the upside is huge.

And now, for my Simple Money Emails program.

You don’t need this program to start your email list or to start writing daily emails.

But if you want a bit of support and guidance along the way… if that will help you get started… and if you want to get going now instead of just waiting, waiting, and waiting some more… then Simple Money Emails can be a good investment.

If you’d like to find out more about it:

https://bejakovic.com/sme/

A hard way to live

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There have been periods of my life — years at a time — when I’ve made a habit of walking up to strange but attractive women on the street, giving them a compliment, and starting a conversation.

It’s surprisingly hard to do.

Not because of the women. The worst that ever happens from their side is a polite thank you and a smile.

The best that ever happens — well, I’ve had two long-term relationships that started in this way.

No, the reason it’s hard is because of my own fears, insecurities, and the stories I tell myself.

For example, if I see an attractive woman walking on an empty street, I will think, “It’s not a great place to go talk to her… she will be freaked out because there’s nobody else around.”

On the other hand, if I see even one other person around, I will think, “It’s not a great place to go talk to her… everybody will be standing around and watching.”

In other words, right is bad, left is bad, and you don’t want to go straight either.

A hard way to live, no?

I’m telling you this because yesterday I wrote an email promoting a new book by Travis Sago. As I said in that email, I’ve listened to Travis and learned more from him this year than from anybody else.

Even though Travis doesn’t sell any courses for less than a few grand, and even though his yearly mastermind costs something like $50k, this book is a $9.99 summary of his best marketing ideas.

And yet, in reply to my email yesterday, I got the following message from a reader:

“It’s only got 42 reviews… not great”

I’m featuring this reader reply because I recognized myself in it. Maybe you can recognize yourself too.

Specifically, maybe you can recognize the part of the brain that likes to make living hard. It says things like:

“It’s only got 42 reviews… not great. It can’t be, if nobody else is reading it.”

Or…

“It’s already got 420 reviews… not great. Everybody else has read this, so I can’t get any advantage from it.”

The fact is, a good idea is a good idea, whether it comes in a new or old package, whether it’s popular or fringe.

I’m currently re-reading the Robert Collier Letter Book, which was published 100 years ago and which has hundreds of 5-star reviews. I’m also reading Travis’s book, which was published a month ago and has 42 5-star reviews.

I could give you more proof to back up Travis’s credibility.

Would more proof matter to you?

Maybe. Or maybe that part of your brain that likes to make living hard would still pipe up with a new story.

One thing I’ve learned over all those years of walking up to women on the street is that you don’t always have to accept all the stories your brain serves up.

Life can be easier, more successful, and actually more pleasant that way.

Also, if you’d like to get Travis’s book, and maybe learn something valuable, here’s the link:

https://bejakovic.com/sandwich

Last call for Water Into Wine

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Tomorrow evening, at 8pm CET, I’ll put on the Water Into Wine workshop with a few people.

This is the last email I will send about this workshop. I’ll take the remaining time to talk to people who’ve expressed interest and any who might still do so.

One thing I’ve heard in these conversations is that people default to a few set ways of positioning their offers.

Sometimes those default, set ways work.

​​Other times they don’t, or they fatigue after a while.

​​But people are stuck with their existing positioning ideas, and cannot see new opportunities.

This reminded me of the most popular TED talk of all time, by Sir Ken Robinson, a British expert on education.

Robinson used to live in Snitterfield, England, the birthplace of John Shakespeare, the father of William Shakespeare. Says Robinson:

===

Are you struck by a new thought? I was. You don’t think of Shakespeare having a father, do you?

Because you don’t think of Shakespeare being a child, do you?

Shakespeare being seven?

I never thought of it. I mean, he was seven at some point. He was in somebody’s English class, wasn’t he?

[the crowd laughs]

How annoying would that be?

[more laughter]

===

Robinson’s point in that TED talk was that we all have loads of creativity, but we have it beaten out of us in school.

Well, maybe not beaten out of us, just beaten into hiding.

So yes, you had ample creativity once, and you probably have ample creativity still.

​​And creativity is one option for repositioning your offers like I’ll be describing during tomorrow’s workshop.

But creativity is not required.

I’ve gruesomely dissected this method of repositioning to take the creativity out, and to make this a step-by-step process you can follow.

It will still require testing and some work, but it won’t require superhuman creativity — just the right knowledge of magic, and that’s what I’ll give you.

Assuming that is, that you’re on the workshop call tomorrow.

Again, this is the last email I will send about it.

If you’re interested, the only way to get in is to first write me an email and express interest.

It might make sense to hit reply right now, so we can talk and see if this workshop is a good fit for you.