Personal Change

Gary Halbert’s first and most important lesson

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A long time ago, in a beautiful city far, far away…

I worked as an IT office drudge, and I decided I had had enough.

Fortunately, I knew a guy who was doing freelance copywriting.

I thought I could do the same, so I took a week off my regular IT job to sit at home and try it out.

I wanted to see if I could do the writing, and what it would be like to work by myself.

The writing part was fine, and I decided that I would give the freelance life a shot.

However, there was one problem.

Two days after starting my stay-at-home work experiment, I started to get depressed.

Not sad.

Not hopeless.

Just my nervous system seemed to be slowly shutting down, and I found it hard to concentrate or feel very motivated about achieving anything.

And again, this happened just two days after trying to work from home by myself.

The good thing was, I had a suspicion of what the problem was.

And I had a quick fix for it.

In fact, it’s an idea I got from the Prince of Print, old Gary Halbert himself.

It’s something that Gary once called his first and most important lesson.

And it’s something I continue to apply to this day, and that I consider to be vital in making me a successful freelance copywriter.

The thing is, this has nothing to do with writing.

Nothing to do with persuasion.

And yet, without it, I could never have succeeded in making a comfortable career, working a couple of hours a day, usually in my pajamas.

Anyways, if you want to know what this important lesson is, you can rifle through the thousands of pages of content that Gary Halbert has left online as his legacy. It won’t be a waste of your time.

However, if for any reason you don’t want to go that route, there is a second option.

You can also consult my upcoming book,  which covers freelance copywriting on Upwork.

I’m making my way through all the sections I’ve planned out for this book, and I should be finished with it by the end of the month.

If you want to get notified once it’s out, simply sign up below, and I’ll send you an email to let you know when I finish. And then, you’ll have Gary’s secret lesson all to yourself. Here’s the link to get notified:

https://bejakovic.com/upwork-book-notification-list/

Freelancing incels on Upwork

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Around April of this year, a polarizing new term entered everyday language.

The word is “incel,” short for involuntary celibate.

This is typically a man, one who meets three criteria:

First, he’s not getting laid, and he can’t see a way to get women into his life.

Second, he’s suffering for it.

Third (and possibly most important), he wants to feel like a victim.

These incel guys have had a lot of hate piled onto them once their secret Internet lairs became exposed. I’m not sure that’s wise or fair, considering that A) these guys are suffering and B) many other people in our society like to feel like victims.

Consider for example, a post I saw in a copywriting group on Facebook a few days ago. The text read,

“Well, then. Serves me right for trying Upwork again.”

… and below this was a screenshot of a message that this freelancer got from a potential Upwork client. The client was trying to clarify what the freelancer’s rates were: 0.15 cents per word (which seemed too low), or 15 cents per word (which the potential client said was way out of their budget).

Now, I’m not here to discuss these rates, but rather the attitude. You see, this post and the thread that followed seemed to be made up of unsuccessful freelancers wringing their hands and shaking their heads about how Upwork clients are terrible and how they don’t offer fair wages for fair work.

To me, this sounds a lot like those other incels. Their problems are different, but the victim mentality is the same.

The fact is, there are good clients on Upwork. I know, because I work with them, month after month, year after year. And yes, I know they are far outnumbered by people who cannot or will not pay you what you want. That doesn’t mean you cannot make Upwork work.

But the thing is, nobody owes you anything.

And so, rather than going on Facebook and complaining about how you can’t find good clients on Upwork (or going on Reddit and complaining about how you can’t get a girlfriend), I think it’s much better to take the attitude that this situation is your own fault and your own responsibility to improve.

So how to improve it?

As I mentioned a while back, I was interviewed about how I managed to become successful on Upwork. I’ve had that interview transcribed, and I’m going to expand it a bit and make it into a little Kindle ebook. For now though, if you want to read the raw transcript itself and see how to become a top-rated, well-paid copywriter on Upwork, write me an email, and I’ll send you a copy. Here’s how to get in touch:

https://bejakovic.com/contact/

Roger Federer offers a bit of negotiation wisdom

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Last night, Roger Federer lost in the semifinals of the ATP year-closing tournament.

This means that Federer, possibly the greatest player who has ever played tennis, still has just 99 titles under his belt.

Asked by a journalist whether he needs that elusive 100th title, Federer responded:

“I don’t NEED it. I will breathe air if not.”

It might sound as if Federer is simply debating semantics, or that he’s even a little testy after his loss.

That’s not what’s going on.

Here’s a bit from an interview earlier in the week when he was asked a similar question:

“Personally I’m still not thinking of the number 100. I won’t let that get in my head, make me go crazy because it should be something I’m excited about and not something I should feel extra pressure about.”

This exactly mirrors what negotiation coach Jim Camp says.

One of Camp’s main rules is not to get needy. In other words, don’t trick yourself into thinking you need something when you actually don’t, and when you have all the things (like air) that you actually do need.

There was a time when I didn’t fully get the importance of this.

“There’s no difference,” I used to think, “between really wanting something and needing it.”

If that’s how you feel now, I won’t be able to convince you otherwise.

All I can do is tell you that I noticed, personally, that needing something actually seems to take place in an entirely different part of the brain than wanting that same thing. It seems to be an entirely different chemical process, and an entirely different emotion.

In short, even though it might seem needing and wanting are closely related, in truth they couldn’t be further apart.

As Jim Camp himself wrote in his book Start with No:

“As a negotiator aspiring to excellence, you must, at all costs, avoid showing need. In order to avoid showing need, you must never feel it. You do not need this deal. But what happens if we simply substitute the word and the emotion ‘want’ for ‘need’? The dynamics change. […] ‘Need’ is death, ‘want’ is life.”

I doubt Federer read Camp’s Start with No, but he seems to have learned the same lesson on his own.

And even though he only has 99 titles to his name, it’s hard to say his focus on wanting instead of needing has left him with a lack of motivation or success.

Something to think about, whatever your chosen field is.

A special note if you happen to be in the health field and you want (not need) more effective marketing:

You might like my upcoming book on email marketing in  the health space.

Along with advice on actually writing emails and structuring email marketing sequences to sell supplements and health info courses, this book will also have a section on the mindset you should adopt to be successful in today’s marketing-saturated world — such as the Roger Federer/Jim Camp lesson above.

Anyways, if you’d like a free copy of this book when it comes out (I’m planning to sell it for $17 when it is out), put your red RF headband on, and sign up at the link below:

https://bejakovic.com/profitable-health-emails/

How to lift the fog of procrastination

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Cal Newport, a computer science professor who also writes about productivity, once had an interesting theory about procrastination. In Cal’s own words:

“The evolutionary perspective on procrastination, by contrast, says we delay because our frontal lobe doesn’t see a convincing plan behind our aspiration. The solution, therefore, is not to muster the courage to blindly charge ahead, but to instead accept what our brain is telling us: our plans need more hard work invested before they’re ready.”

(Put simply, we procrastinate when we don’t have a convincing plan.)

When I first read this theory, I thought it was flat-out stupid. I can’t remember why I disliked this idea at first. Nonetheless, it stuck in my mind, and it’s grown on me with time.

That’s because I’ve noticed it’s exactly what’s happening whenever I procrastinate. If I’m ever vague on my strategy for moving forward, I might be able to force myself to move for a while. Pretty soon though, I find I can’t get myself to move at all.

I’ve also noticed the inverse. That is, I’ve noticed that when I improve on my plan, when I clean it up and make it tighter, then suddenly I’m energized to get to work. Seemingly complex problems often resolve themselves simply by writing down what needs to be done, and then putting those tasks in some kind of sensible order.

It’s like a driver in a fog. With nothing to guide him, the driver will eventually slow down and stop, confused and disoriented about where he’s going. However, if there are nice white lines painted on the ground showing where the road goes, he can move forward — slower than in perfect weather, but forward, nonetheless.

Keep your eyes on the lines and you’re fine

Incidentally, this is how I managed to write a 15-page sales letter recently in just a few days. After about a week of research, I wrote an outline, broke it up into sections, arranged the sections into a list of alternately important and easy things to do, and chugged away down the list, without thinking too much along the way.

This is the difference between being fast and not ever finishing. If I had tried to simply sit and write, it wouldn’t have just taken me longer. Odds are, I would have gotten bogged down completely, and not moved past the first two or three pages.

Why you should ride the void like Indiana Jones

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Stepping out into the void

“You must believe, boy”
— Indiana Jones’s dad

There’s a scene in the 3rd Indiana Jones movie where Indy has to take a leap of faith.

His father has been shot, and the only way to save him is to retrieve the Holy Grail, which cures and heals all.

Only one problem.

The Holy Grail is on the other side of an enormous rocky chasm.

There’s no bridge.

No way across.

“No man can jump this,” says Indy.

And then he realizes what he has to do.

So he takes a deep breath. Closes his eyes. And steps out into the void.

.

.

.

.

.

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And yet he doesn’t fall.

Instead, he has stepped onto an invisible bridge, which, now that he’s stepped onto it, actually becomes visible, and leads him to the Grail. Father saved, evil guy defeated, the end.

I thought of this scene because I am trying to illustrate (to myself) and important copywriting lesson I heard today.

It came from David “world’s greatest copywriting coach” Garfinkel.

David was talking about the 6 main reasons that keep good copywriters from becoming great.

The first of these, however, is not limited to copywriting. In a nutshell, David is saying this first reason that holds copywriters back is a lack of confidence.

This might not sound like a great revelation, and in fact, it isn’t.

It’s what David said next that matters.

“How do you develop confidence?”

Successes can help.

So can failures, if you learn from them.

But according to David, neither of these is really the key to developing true confidence.

Instead, he says that confidence comes from knowing that you can deal with the inevitable setbacks that you will come across in any complex project. In other words, trusting that you will be able to problem-solve when the need arises.

I think the invisible bridge is a good metaphor for this.

The first time, it simply requires a leap of faith (that’s when you throw yourself into a situation without certainty that you will succeed).

From then on however, the bridge becomes visible, and you know that you can succeed — you have confidence — because success ultimately comes from handling real-life situations in real time.

And like I said, this isn’t limited to copywriting only.

It applies to any situation in which you need confidence.

For example, I’ve heard similar advice from pick-up coaches.

The RSD guys have a popular mantra, “You are enough.” To me, this  is ultimately about trusting that you’ll be able to handle yourself in the moment.

And daygame master Yad teaches something similar, except he phrases it as, “You have to learn to ride the void.” In other words, get comfortable with the tension of running out of things to say, because that’s when the best things happen.

So why ride the void?

The same reason why Indiana takes the leap of faith.

Because the Holy Grail is on the other side.