Motivation

2022 in review

by

There’s a tradition around these parts:

Every January 1, I write an email reviewing my previous year, and publicly setting some new goals or themes for the coming year.

I will do that tomorrow. Today, though, I want to review 2022, and 2021, and maybe 2012.

Because in my life, I’ve noticed the following keeps happening over and over:

1. I set a new goal for myself

2. I work intensely on reaching that goal

3. I don’t reach the goal in any reasonable amount of time, and I gradually stop working to reach it

4. I forget all about the goal

5. Some time later, possibly years later, I realize that, somewhere along the way, through foggy or indirect means, I’ve actually reached my goal and got what I wanted so long ago.

This has happened over and over, starting in my 20s. It’s happening still today.

Maybe you want examples.

This very newsletter, which I believe I first dreamed about in 2012, is one.

There have been many more, a lot of them too personal to share even in this therapy-like email, including goals or “themes” I set in 2022 and 2021, some of which have come true over the past year or two.

But maybe you don’t want examples. Maybe you’re just wondering how this might possibly be relevant to you. So lemme tell ya.

The ultimate experience or breakthrough in Bejako’s Method for Producing Results is:

“It just happened! I don’t know what I did in the end, and most likely I did nothing, but the result is finally here!”

I’m a serious dabbler in self-help literature, and I’ve read from gurus who have experienced or witnessed the same. They extrapolate those kinds of experiences to conclude that:

1. Effort is not needed

2. Effort can in fact be counterproductive

After all, you weren’t trying and striving when you got the big result. Instead, you were relaxing and forgetting that you even had a goal. So you might as well relax and forget the goal, all the time, and “all these things shall be added unto you.”

I believe that’s a fundamental error. I have no proof for that, other than what I’ve experienced and achieved in my life, both personally and business-wise.

I believe all 5 steps of Bejako’s Method for Producing Results are necessary.

In particular, I believe that step 2, effort, often intense, dogged, frustrating effort, is necessary.

But that’s no kind of a conclusion to make, especially in a newsletter like this one, about direct marketing. Instead, let me tell you the more inspiring flip side.

If what I say above is true not just for me, but more generally, and I believe it is, then it applies to you too.

Right now, you might be in steps 1 and 2 above, working towards a goal but not yet seeing results.

Or you might be in steps 3 and 4, having given up on your goal and maybe even forgotten the goal altogether.

I’d like to propose that, if you see nothing happening, or you’ve concluded you never will, you have already done the work, or are doing work now, even if you’re not aware of it, to get to the goals you care about.

If you find yourself in 2026 getting to one of those goals, magically and seemingly without effort, write in and let me know. I’d love to hear about it. Because there is magic in the world, at least in my experience. It just doesn’t work on a 365-day schedule.

The sneaky Christmas legend of THE ONE

by

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

The year was some time long ago, or thereabouts.

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

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

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

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

Maybe you know this story.

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

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

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

Good story, right? Right???

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

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

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

===

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

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

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

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

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

===

Lotsa House members chimed in with great suggestions and ideas.

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

===

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

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

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

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

===

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You see where I’m going with this?

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

https://bejakovic.com/deh

Become an investigative reporter with high-level salesmanship skills

by

A bit of Bejako background:

I went to high school in a rich suburb of Baltimore, Maryland (we weren’t rich, but ok).

All the other kids in my class were ambitious and smart (one girl’s dad later won the Nobel Prize in chemistry). They worked hard their entire high school days. They ended up going to schools like Princeton and Stanford, and became lawyers and doctors and architects.

Meanwhile, 17-year-old Bejako had zero drive to go to college, and had no idea what kind of work he might ever want to do.

His best guess — the only option that kind of turned him on – was the idea of moving down to Annapolis, Maryland’s small, quaint, maritime capital, and becoming a reporter on some local newspaper that covered state politics.

Fast-forward to the present, and switch back to the first person:

While I never became a small-town reporter, the same lack of ambition and non-entrepreneurial nature I had in high school has stuck with me throughout life, now into middle age.

I am really not motivated by money, try as I have to change that. I’ve also never thought of myself as an entrepreneur or online business owner. And yet, that’s kind of what I’m doing now, and what’s more, I’m not really qualified to do anything else.

I’m telling you all this because a couple nights ago, I was reading a book about direct marketing. It said the following:

“Understanding your ultimate prospect has nothing to do with creativity. It requires relentless, investigative salesmanship. You need to become an investigative reporter with high-level salesmanship skills.”

“Hm,” I said to my pillow. “An investigative reporter on the salesmanship beat? That’s something I can imagine myself doing.”

And in fact, the very next day, I told myself to treat what I’m doing as investigative reporter. I started collecting data about offers I had made, successful or unsuccessful. I came up with theories about why things turned out as they did. I started trying to write up a story that makes sense that fits the data to the theory.

It’s been fun and it’s getting me to do things I should have been doing all along.

My point is not that you specifically should start treating your business as an investigative reporter.

My point is that, if “value-creating entrepreneur” or “small business owner” doesn’t really feel like a suit that fits you, there lots of other suits you can put on, including ones that you like the look of. And it will still be you inside the suit.

You gotta do certain things to see success if you have an email list and want to make money with it. Selling is one of them. Understanding your audience is another. Creating new offers is still another. But there are lots of ways to get yourself to do those things, including things that align with your own natural motivations and ambitions.

Or in the words of Internet marketer Rich Schefren, “Put your business goals of your self-development goals.” It’s much more likely you will see success if you work with your own psychology, rather than trying to change it.

So much for Monday Morning Mindset.

For some specific strategies on how to take your existing skills and interests and turn them into money, enough to pay for a house:

https://bejakovic.com/house

If you cannot persuade yourself to act however hard you try

by

This morning, a private detective I know here in Barcelona sent me a screenshot of a trending social media story:

“Couple Who Met On Dating App Rob Bank On First Date”

Can this really be true? I decided to do my own sleuthing.

It turns out yes, the story is roughly true, but with an important detail that’s missing in the headline above.

The man, Christopher Castillo, age 33, and the woman, Shelby Sampson, age 40, agreed to meet for a date.

Castillo asked Sampson to pick him up in her car. Once in the car, Castillo started drinking wine, presumably red. He then asked Sampson to pull over at a bank.

Castillo was gone for a few minutes. He came back sweating, wearing sunglasses and a hat (!), and holding an antique gun and a wad of cash.

He told Sampson to drive, which she did, for a bit, until the cops pulled them over and put the date to an end.

The crucial bit is that Sampson was not charged with anything, because, so the state believes, she had absolutely no knowledge of or participation in any criminal aspect of this first date.

This missing detail is what I found most interesting in the whole story.

I’ve never robbed a bank, but I imagine it’s hard.

The stock joke is that a typical man is unwilling to pull over and ask for directions while driving. Can you imagine how much more unwilling a typical man is to pull over, walk into a bank, hold up a gun, and ask for $1,000 in cash (and five years in prison, it turns out)?

No wonder Castillo was drinking in the car. And no wonder he felt he needed somebody “in his corner,” even if that was an unwitting and unwilling non-accomplice he had met on Tinder.

I found this interesting because, while I’ve never robbed a bank, I have done other, legal, things in my life. Some of these things I found personally very difficult to do, because they challenged my own identity.

There were times when no amount of auto-suggestion, willpower, or even red wine would push me over the threshold.

There were times when the only thing that would help me act would be having somebody “in my corner,” having a feeling of a home base I could come back to, even if that was somebody I had met minutes earlier and had no special relationship with.

I imagine this is all a bit waffly without specific examples. I might give those in another email.

My point today is simply that if you have something you know you should be doing (don’t rob a bank), but you cannot persuade yourself to do it no matter how you try, then having some kind of support or community of other people to rely on, however tenuous, can make all the difference.

Ideally, this is other people in real life. Real life seems to make a big difference.

But if you cannot find people in real life to act as a home base, then people online can sometimes act as a substitute. At least that’s the promise of online communities, groups, and memberships.

I am still keen on spinning up a new online community of my own, but I haven’t yet decided which (legal) things I would like to support people in doing.

While that’s going on, I can only recommend once again a community that I myself am part of, Travis Sago’s Royalty Ronin.

If you’re struggling to take the action needed to build your own audience… or to make deals with people who have an audience of their own… or to make your first $5k online… then you might find the support you need within Royalty Ronin. For more info:

https://bejakovic.com/ronin

Interesting psychological effect of making it easy on yourself

by

Get ready for a bit of inspirational massage:

I’m reading the autobiography of a guy named Bill Veeck, who was the last person to ever own an major league baseball team — in his case, Chicago White Sox and Cleveland Indians — without having an independent fortune.

At the time when Veeck got to Cleveland, the Cleveland Stadium had the biggest playing field in the majors.

(For all my non-baseball-loving readers: a baseball field consists of two parts, an infield and an outfield. The dimensions of the infield are strictly prescribed by the rulebook. The dimensions and shape of the outfield are not.)

Veeck found that his Cleveland players were discouraged by the size of their home stadium. They would hit a baseball 450 feet — a good ways by any standard — only to have it caught because the field was so large.

So Veeck installed a new fence which shrank the field.

Hitters started hitting better, because they thought they now had a chance to hit a home run.

So far, so normal.

But here’s the curious bit, which is both true and fit for one of those corporate office inspirational posters. From Veeck’s book:

===

There is an interesting psychological effect in bringing the fences within reach. After we put up the wire fence there were almost six times as many balls hit over the wire fence and into the old stands.

===

In case this isn’t 100% clear due to all the sports analogizing, the point is that:

1. Veeck’s players had convinced themselves they cannot hit a certain distance, say, 500 feet

2. Veeck changed the field so they only had to hit a shorter distance, say, 420 feet, to hit a home run

3. Within that smaller new field, six times as many players ended up hitting home runs of, say, 500 feet or more, which they thought they couldn’t do when the field was bigger

I’m not 100% sure what hte psychological term or explanation for this is.

Removing stress and pressure? Or finding a way around the players’ learned helplessness?

Whatever it is, I thought it’s a curious thing, possibly inspiring, and so I wanted to share it with you. Maybe it’s something you can find a way to apply in your own life and business, if there’s a fence, metaphorical or real, that has been unreachable for you, in spite of your best trying.

In other news:

In less than an hour from now, mentalist-turned-marketer Kennedy will go live on Zoom to share email copywriting and marketing secrets that took him from selling $27k of his flagship info product… to selling $544k of the same, to the same audience.

This is a live training that Kennedy is doing exclusively for readers of this newsletter.

If you have an email list, there might be valuable techniques you can pick up on this training which you can implement in your own list tomorrow.

Or who knows, maybe simply hearing Kennedy’s story in detail, and seeing that it is possible to go from selling $27k of an info product (quite common and manageable) to selling $544k of the same info product to the same audience (rare and frankly puzzling) is a doable thing.

Maybe not just for Kennedy, but maybe for others too. Maybe even you? I wouldn’t want to put that kind of pressure on you.

But if you want to hear Kennedy’s training, and get inspired, then a bit of time still remains for you to sign up:

https://bejakovic.com/kennedy

Can you digest this little and big lesson?

by

I got a little lesson and a big lesson for you today. Let’s see if you can digest them.

Little lesson:

Yesterday I heard a story told by Joe Polish, the marketer who runs $100k/year mastermind groups and puts on 3-day events that cost $10k to attend.

Joe’s story was about a curious consult he did with an entrepreneur who wanted to grow her biz.

Joe said, he could tell this entrepreneur was so tightly wound that she would soon crack. Instead of marketing advice, Joe got her to come up with and schedule a “Super Happy Fun Day,” which is just what it sounds like, both so she would enjoy life a bit and to recharge her batteries.

My reaction to this little lesson:

“Super Happy Fun Day? Not my kinda thing.” If that’s what you think as well, then read on for the big lesson. Joe said:

===

I’ve got a giant list right now of people who are trying to schedule things with me. One of my team members put up “cup of genius dot com” and it’s a 20-minute conversation with me for $2,000.

And it’s so funny. Because I can share some of the best insights for free to someone. They won’t do jack shit with it.

They pay me $2,000 for 20 minutes and there’s that focus, completely different level of digestion, that takes place.

===

I’ve heard this idea before. Frankly I don’t like it, or at least I don’t like to think it applies to me.

Joe’s little and big lessons nagged at me yesterday as I was at the gym (1, on the stupid elliptical) while listening to this podcast with Joe (2), and getting ready to go back to work (3). (The numbers, by the way, represent instances of overscheduling my life.)

So even though Supper Happy Fun Days don’t sound like my thing, yesterday throughout the day, I gradually filled out a slow and timid list of things I actually enjoy (dogs and fried calamari were on the list).

And then, as the day wound down, at about 11:30pm, perhaps because this was all bubbling in my brain, I on a whim bought a ticket to go to Lisbon today. I fly out at 4pm this afternoon, and I get back on Monday evening.

I still have a bit of time before I have to stuff my two black tshirts into my backpack, so let me remind you of the free live training that mentalist-turned-marketer Kennedy is putting on, exclusive for folks on my list, this coming Monday, September 22, 2025, at 9pm CET/3pm EST/12 noon PST.

Kennedy will share email copywriting and marketing secrets that took him from selling $27k of his flagship info product… to selling $544k of the same, to the same audience.

And yes, there will be something for sale at the end of Kennedy’s training.

But Kennedy’s training will be valuable in itself, even though you don’t have to pay for it. (I know, because I’ve seen the training myself, two years ago, at a live event that cost $450 to attend.)

Maybe if my email today opened up your mind to anything, it’s that there’s value, often great value, in the free pearls that people like Joe Polish and Kennedy and sometimes even myself hand out each day.

To sign up for Kennedy’s free training, and maybe to profit, whether you pay or not:

https://bejakovic.com/kennedy

Mystery of the unknown French boy

by

I got a story for you today that you can use to sell something new and untested:

On August 26 1900, during the 2nd Olympic Games, a team of Dutch rowers needed a coxswain.

If like me you don’t know what a coxswain is:

He steers the rowboat. It’s preferable to have somebody small and light in the role, so as not to create unnecessary drag and slow down the boat.

This being only the second Olympics, the Dutch team weren’t all that prepared. They had a coxswain but he was too heavy. So they pulled a boy from the audience. He was French (the 2nd Olympics being in Paris) and about eight years old. The Dutchmen stuck the boy at the end of the boat and told him how to steer.

And they’re off!

The 7 teams started rowing. The Dutchmen were working furiously. The unknown French boy was doing his best to keep the boat going straight towards the finish line.

7 minutes and 34.2 seconds later, the Dutch team, plus their unknown French boy-coxswain, pulled through the finish line… in first place.

A crowd assembled and started cheering the victors. Meanwhile, the unknown French boy slipped away into the throng, rejoined his family, and was never seen or heard from again.

In spite of decades of research, nobody has been able to track him down or identify him.

He remains “the biggest Olympics mystery of all” — the youngest Olympic gold medalist ever, though he never got his gold medal, and nobody even knows his name. Even today, he is only known as “unknown French boy.”

I found this whole story fascinating and curious.

I asked myself what done it.

I realized that, of course, participation in the Olympics, and Olympic gold in particular, is now an enormous honor, and sports are big business.

It’s unimaginable today to be successful at the Olympics without the highest levels of preparation and optimization, and even then, chances of success are slim.

Once upon a time, it was easy, or at least much easier. It was possible long ago for a bystander, completely unprepared or unskilled, to participate in the Olympics, and even to win a gold medal. And then, to value it so little as to slip away, rejoin the nameless crowd, without even a look over his shoulder.

But in spite of dramatic difference between then and now, a real gold thread connects the two. That’s where the fascination and curiosity come from.

That’s why I say this is a story you can use to sell something new and untested.

Once upon a time, the Olympics themselves were new and untested. In 1900, it was unclear if the Olympics would survive for a third iteration, and hard to imagine they would become what they are today.

Maybe you have an offer that’s new and untested like that.

If so, you can tell the story of the unknown French boy to open up your prospects’ minds to participating in your offer now, while it’s still early days and the opportunity is easy, rather than waiting for it to become established and highly competitive and almost impossible to win.

I myself have an offer that’s new and untested, to write and publish a book for you, for free. I only announced it two days ago. I’m talking to people who have replied so far. But I am looking for just the right partner.

Maybe that could be you? Maybe we could form a one-off team and win the marketing and money equivalent of an Olympic gold medal? For the full details of this opportunity:

https://bejakovic.com/the-catch-behind-my-me-write-book-for-you-for-free-offer

“I’m not the kind of person who” vs. “I hate this”

by

It’s 11:07am as I write this.

I’ve just come back from the gym down the road form the Airbnb in which I’m staying.

I’ve gone to the gym today even though I’m traveling — I packed my gym clothes and found a local place to go.

I’ve been going to the gym regularly, 3-4 times a week, sometimes more, for the past 15 years, without break or faltering. It’s become one of the most important things I do for my health and sanity and of course my striking good looks.

And yet, for the first few decades of my life, I knew for a fact that I’m not a gym person, that I only like “real” physical activity such as playing tennis or going for a swim, rather than a contrived workout like deadlifts and squats.

“Gym? Pff. Thank you. That’s not me.”

A long time ago, I read a book called Stumbling On Happiness by a Harvard psychologist named Daniel Gilbert. I don’t remember a lot from the book except the central thread of it.

We are terrible at remembering the past, says Gilbert. As an example, ask people who they voted for the in the last election, and a lot of people will actually, honestly claim that they voted for the winning party, even if they didn’t.

It’s not that these people are lying. Like George Costanza, they fully believe what they’re saying.

You might think it’s just some particularly weak-willed people who fool themselves and others like this. But this is something we all do all every day, to some degree, and are never aware of.

But wait, there’s more.

As bad as we are at remembering the past, says Gilbert, we are even worse at imagining the future.

Ask people how they will feel and what they will do if, say, they win the lottery or if their now-happy marriage ends in bitter divorce, and people will tell you lots of stuff, again honestly. Trouble is, it’s wrong, spectacularly wrong, and it has nothing to do with how they will actually feel or what they will do. And yet, this is how we live our lives all the time.

But back to the gym and to the idea of “I’m not the kind of person who…”

Says Gilbert, if you want to find out what something is like, say raising a child, then don’t ask people who have raised a kid 10 or 20 years ago. They will remember wrong, and they will effectively tell you lies, even though they don’t mean to.

Also, don’t ask people who haven’t raised a kid but who are either looking forward to it or dreading it — their predictions mean nothing.

The only kind of person you can ask if you want to get an honest sense of what raising a kid is like is somebody who is doing it right now. Somebody who is not hallucinating about the future, or making up a fairy tale about the past.

And that, I would like to suggest to you, is something that holds even if the person you are asking for advice and opinions is yourself.

Over and over I’ve asked myself, “Will I like this? Can I do this? Am I the kind of person who can be successful here?”

Over and over I’ve told myself, no no no.

Over and over I’ve tried doing the thing nonetheless.

Sometimes it really turned out I wasn’t successful even after putting in a good try. More importantly, sometimes it really turned out I hated the thing, and how it made me feel.

Other times, though, it was just like the gym. The thing became an important part of my life, a part of my identity, something I stuck with for years or even decades, even though I previously knew for a fact it would never be for me.

In the end, I’ve summed it up for myself by saying, “I’m not the kind of person who ever tells himself, ‘I’m not the kind of person who…'” The only way to know how you look and feel with a mohawk is to shave your head and walk around town like that for a few weeks.

And now let me remind you of my new 10 Commandments book, about con men and door-to-door salesemen and pickup artists.

This entire email has been grooming you in a way, in case the mention of those disciplines makes the hackles on the back of your neck stand up.

I’m not suggesting — it would be foolish to do so — that you go against your own deeply held moral values.

But if a part of you says, “I’m not the kind of person who can sell, seduce, confidently and smoothly persuade,” well, you might surprise yourself.

And if you want some tips and pointers on how to do sell, seduce, and persuade, as well as some psychology to help you make the identity leap easier, then take a look here:

https://bejakovic.com/new10commandments

The Power of Not Now

by

I’m reading a book called Straight-Line Leadership. The central message of the book is, “Just Do It.”

Of course, you can’t publish an entire book with just three words, so this three-word idea is developed in lots of different ways across 50 chapters. For example, in chapter 41, “Now Versus Later,” Straight-Line Leadership tells you:

===

The only time you can ever do something about anything is now.

The problem with individuals who tolerate mediocrity in their lives is that no matter what good idea for taking action comes up, it’s never going to happen now. It’s an idea for some distant future. People who struggle have great ideas that they will implement “some day in the future.”

Almost everyone, deep down, knows what to do to get whatever result they truly want. It’s just that they are not choosing to do it right now. “Getting around to it” is not leadership.

The future is a terrible place to put an action plan because the future does not exist. Literally.

===

It’s a good message. Clear, simple, powerful. But as with most clear, simple, powerful messages, it’s only half the story, at least the way I see it.

In my experience, some actions are simply too painful or frightening to take now. And no amount of repeating to myself to “just choose to do it now, because it’s either now or never,” changes that.

And yet, those actions become manageable in time. What’s changed? Time has passed. And also, something in my head has changed, due to trying to get myself to act now, and failing at it.

I guess I’m not the only one who feels like this.

I was recently listening to an interview with a wicked smart guy named Michael Levin. Levin is a professor of biology at Tufts. He works on strange topics that sound like the science of the 23rd century rather than the 21st. Stuff like, how do we tap into the electrical language that determines the way organisms determine their shape, so we can get people to regrow, say, an amputated arm?

Anyways, in this interview, which was more philosophical than scientific, Levin said:

===

A useful sense of free will is very time-extended. You don’t have, right now, complete control of whatever your next thought is going to be.

And in fact, as you think about it, free from what? Free from past experience? No. And you don’t want to be free from past experience because then you don’t learn.

Free from the laws of physics? No.

So what do you really have in the moment, like within a narrow timeframe? Maybe not much.

But over the long-term, by the application of consistent effort, what you can do is shape your own cognitive structure so that in the future, new things are open to you. Your own structure allows you to do new things.

===

What you have “free will” over is consistent effort. That might not translate into results. It might not even translate into action (this is the point of departure from what Straight-Leadership is saying above).

But consistent effort over the long term will in time change your brain, change your actions, and produce results that change your life. Some time. In the future. Even if it’s not cool to talk about that, because it’s supposedly “either now or never.”

So there you go. A philosophical and counterproductive email, at least from the perspective of selling you something today.

The straightforward message of Straight-Line Leadership, “Just Do It, And Now” is a much better message if you want to sell people stuff.

All I can say in my defense is that I wanted to write today’s email, because this newsletter serves several purposes beyond just selling you stuff.

That said, if you are ready to take action today, specifically around communicating regularly with your clients and prospects, and building up your image as a leader in what you do, then good on you.

And if you want my help with doing that, then take a look here:

​https://bejakovic.com/deh​

Bombarded by water

by

A-list copywriter Richard Armstrong once gave a talk in which he said how stupid it is to claim that we are “bombarded by information.” Says Richard:

“It makes no more sense to say we are bombarded with information than it would be to say that a fish is bombarded with water.”

A fish lives in water. It swims in water. It breathes water. In fact, it’s largely made up of water. And so it is with us and information.

I’m telling you this in case you are still on the fence about joining ChatGPT Mastery, which I’ve been promoting since Monday, and which will close to new members tonight, Thursday, at 12 midnight EST.

ChatGPT Mastery is about, well, mastering ChatGPT. And you may feel that info about ChatGPT is as abundant as ocean water. So why pay for it, and why pay the hefty $199 that ChatGPT Mastery asks of you?

The fact is, none of us have any hope of putting our arms, or fins, around the ocean. It’s too immense a body of water.

But there are small, local currents in the ocean which flow in the direction you want to go, and which take you there in less time and with less effort than it might take otherwise.

First, you either have to find these currents or have somebody else point them out. Second, and critically, you have to give these currents a chance to carry you along.

ChatGPT Mastery is one such forward-moving current, at least if your desired destination is automating parts of your business, freeing up your time, even (gasp!) increasing your productivity while working less.

I’ve pointed out this current for you. But you still have to give it a chance to carry you along.

Mind you, I’m not saying that paying for information guarantees you will benefit from it. I’d be a billionaire had I implemented and benefited from every info product I ever bought. And I’d be President of the U.S., due to sheer popularity, if all the people who bought stuff from me implemented and benefited from it. (Not really — The U.S. Constitution prohibits me from ever becoming president, since I wasn’t born in the U.S., but you get my point.)

That said, paying for info on how to master ChatGPT does make it more likely you will take this information for real and benefit from it.

As does the cohort nature of ChatGPT Mastery, with its start and end dates.

As does the fact that ChatGPT Mastery is delivered to your inbox daily, where you can’t ignore it as easily, and where it can keep nudging you to get some value from it.

You might think it’s silly of me to harp on these things. But I have been selling information online long enough that I know what a difference irrational things like these make to the value of information and teaching.

It’s these kinds of difference that actually allow you to slip inside that forward-moving current, so you can get carried along to your desired destination more quickly and easily.

Like I said, ChatGPT Mastery closes tonight at 12 midnight EST. If you’d like to find out more about it, specifically why I am endorsing it, here’s my original email from Monday:

===

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