Personal Change

Money don’t love Spruce Goose

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On a beautiful day exactly 72 years ago, Howard Hughes put down the telephone and took hold of the controls.

He was piloting the largest flying boat ever built.

I’m talking about the Hughes H-4 Hercules, aka the Spruce Goose.

In spite of the nickname, The Goose was mostly birch. That didn’t stop it from being enormously expensive for the time, and with good reason. As Hughes put it:

“It is over five stories tall with a wingspan longer than a football field. That’s more than a city block. Now, I put the sweat of my life into this thing. I have my reputation all rolled up in it and I have stated several times that if it’s a failure, I’ll probably leave this country and never come back. And I mean it.”

Well, I guess Hughes didn’t mean it all that seriously. Because he didn’t leave the country, even though, by all practical measures, the Goose turned out to be a failure.

After all, once Hughes lifted The Goose above the sparkling waters off Long Beach, CA, it flew for less than a minute, for less than a mile.

That was its one and only flight.

And even this one lousy flight came well after the end of World War II, even though The Goose was designed to be a war transport plane, and even though the whole point of building The Goose out of spruce (or birch) was the wartime restriction on materials such as aluminum.

So yeah, the Spruce Goose remains a great illustration of a massive, optimistic, and very impractical and useless project.

The point being, don’t be like Howard Hughes.

Because money don’t love Spruce Goose.

Money loves speed.

(I’ve tried to track down who coined that saying, but I don’t have a definitive answer. The farthest back I’ve been able to go is to direct marketer Joe Vitale, who is mentioned in Mark Ford’s Ready Fire Aim as promoting the idea that fast is more profitable than perfect.)

Of course, I’m not saying to cut corners and be sloppy in your work.

​​But if you put the sweat of your life into one project, and roll up your whole reputation into one thing, odds are you’ll wind up with a multi-million dollar goose on your hands. And the bitch won’t even fly.

An inconvenient truth and goals

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In a slap to avocado-munching environmentalists worldwide, a new study published in Nature reports an inconvenient truth:

Organic farming is worse for the environment.

Yes, organic practices reduce climate pollution caused directly by farming.

But they also reduce crop yields.

Which means more land has to be used to feed all the hungry mouths out there… which means more forests have to be cleared… which releases more carbon into the atmosphere… which is bad, bad news for those cliff-climbing walruses in the Arctic.

So will Greta Thunberg and her ilk finally start lobbying for heavier pesticide use?

Will they up their ingestion of GMOs to fight climate change?

Just my guess… but I think it’s unlikely.

I’m sure Greta will find a way to save the world, and all the people in it…

While still being strict and saintly about the food she puts into her own body.

In other words, she will continue to move toward her goal, while still staying true to her basic principles.

If that’s what she does, then good on ‘er.

I mean, I’m personally very callous about climate change. And I prefer my food as inorganic as can be. So it’s not like I’m personally invested in the outcome of resolving climate change while keeping our veggies and fruits “crunchy.”

I just feel that the basic recipe — keep moving forward, adjust when you realize you’re slightly off course — is the core of success in any field.

And you don’t have to take my word for it. Maxwell Maltz, who wrote the super influential self-help tome Psycho-Cybernetics, preached something similar:

“Your brain and nervous system constitute a goal-striving mechanism that operates automatically to achieve a certain goal, very much as a self-aiming torpedo or missile seeks out its target and steers its way to it. […] The torpedo accomplishes its goal by going forward, making errors, and continually correcting them. By a series of zigzags, it literally ‘gropes’ its way to the goal.”

Conclusion?

1. Have a clearly defined goal
2. Grope towards it
3. Allow your brain to correct course as needed

Simple? ​​Yes.
​
​But also your best bet for eventually getting to where you want to go — even if that goal is uncertain, complex, and has never been achieved before.

The libertine’s guide to motivation

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“Man is a free agent; but he is not free if he does not believe it, for the more power he attributes to Destiny, the more he deprives himself of the power which God granted him when he gave him reason.”
― Giacomo Casanova

At some point in my life, I became obsessed with an unpleasant idea.

“Maybe the future is all predetermined?” I thought.

Even if we had no say in how the future would turn out, it could still feel like we do. Maybe the universe has been rolling along for eons just so it could force me to write this exact blog post today, and even make me feel like I did it all by myself.

I don’t wanna get bogged down into the philosophical nutty grutty here.

People have been wrestling with this question for thousands of years, without coming up with any conclusive answer.

My own solution to the conundrum was simple.

“I could be wrong in two ways,” I told myself.

Either I believe there is free will, but there actually is no such thing. In that case, no problem! I had no choice in the matter to begin with.

But what about the other way to be wrong?

Maybe I convince myself there is no such thing as free will, but free will actually exists. This seems pretty tragic.

So my conclusion was to believe in free will, because whether I’m right or I’m wrong, I’m okay.

I thought I was pretty clever with this solution.

Until a few days ago, when I found out that this argument has been around, in one form or another, for at least 400 years.

French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal used it as an argument for believing in God (it’s even known as “Pascal’s wager”).

And I guess people (like Casanova above) have been using the same basic idea to motivate themselves to action in the intervening centuries as well.

The point being, I don’t know whether it’s your destiny to be successful or not.

I just feel you could be wrong in two ways.

Maybe you’re not destined for success, but you go through life acting as though you are. In that case, no big loss if you fail, and no fault of your own.

But maybe you are destined for success, but you do your damnedest to thwart destiny and to wind up as a big failure instead. Maybe you even succeed in failing. And that would be pretty tragic.

I hope the conclusion is clear.

Maybe even motivational.

And so ends my libertine sermon for this Sunday.

Completing a marathon in 54 years

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You think it’s taking you too long to achieve your goals?

Well, let me tell you the unlikely story of marathon runner Shizo Kanakuri.

Kanakuri represented Japan in the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm.

Unfortunately, things were against him from the start.

The journey from Japan to Sweden took 18 days, and involved taking the exhausting Trans Siberian Railroad.

Upon arriving to the land of meatballs and pickled herring, Kanakuri found he also couldn’t handle the disgusting local food.

And to make things worse, on the day of the race, it was unbearably hot. Many of the runners tried to protect themselves by wrapping towels around their heads, to little effect.

Final outcome?

Kanakuri passed out halfway through the marathon.

And he was so ashamed of his failure to complete the race that he didn’t even notify the Olympic authorities. Instead, he left Sweden and made his way back to Japan.

Fast forward to 1967.

Kanakuri was 75 years old by then.

And the Swedish Olympic authorities, who had treated Kanakuri as a missing persons case across two world wars, finally tracked him down in Japan.

They invited him back to Sweden, so he could complete his half-done marathon.

Kanakuri accepted.

He went to Sweden, jogged across the finish line, and completed the marathon.

His time? A record 54 years, 6 days, 5 hours, 32 minutes and 20.3 seconds. Kanakuri said about his accomplishment:

“It was a long trip. Along the way, I got married, had six children and 10 grandchildren.”

So if your current goals are dragging, take comfort in knowing you probably still have a few decades on Shizo Kanakuri.

On the other hand, don’t use this tale as an invitation to dawdle and delay and drag your feet.

Like in Kanakuri’s case, it makes sense to accept helpful invitations, such as the one he got from the Swedish Olympic Committee. For example, if you are in the ecommerce business, and you’re looking for help in getting customers through advertorials, then here’s an invitation you might like:

https://bejakovic.com/advertorials/

The shiny object psychopath in the mirror

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I read an article once about a neuroscientist who discovered he was a psychopath.

He was conducting a study and examining a bunch of brain scans.

Some of normal people, some of known psychopaths.

Murderers…

Rapists…

Successful Internet marketers.

And then, I think by accident, he also looked at his own brain scan, which was there on his desk as part of another study.

The verdict was clear:

The parts of his brain responsible for empathy and morality showed “significantly decreased activity.” He was a clear-cut psychopath.

“Whaddya know?” he said, and went on with his life as usual. ​​

Well, I had an experience like that a few days ago.

I was doing research on a market that involved a lot of business opportunity seekers, AKA “shiny object junkies.”

These people tend to fly from opportunity to opportunity, never completing a project, always believing that the next course or seminar they buy will finally set them on the path to “financial freedom.”

And while I was reading the various stories and testimonials of these unfortunate souls…

I had an unfortunate realization myself.

I might be a shiny object guy.

Not in everything, of course. I’ve made it work with copywriting, and I’ve been successful in several other areas in my life.

But with business stuff… the promise of the 4-hour work week… the magical idea of passive income… well, there I keep flitting between different projects, getting enthusiastic about the next new idea, and abandoning what I already have.

Maybe that doesn’t sound familiar to you. Or maybe it does. The point is I (and maybe you) can’t keep doing this.

The fix is simple.

You pick a project, build an asset (like a website), and let it accrue value on its own. But you have to build it up to a certain point rather than simply jumping to the next shiny thing.

Awareness of the problem is a good first step.

For example, the neuroscientist psychopath didn’t actually go on with his life as usual. I made that up. In reality, he decided to make a conscious change:

“I’ve more consciously been doing things that are considered ‘the right thing to do,’ and thinking more about other people’s feelings. At the same time, I’m not doing this because I’m suddenly nice, I’m doing it because of pride — because I want to show to everyone and myself that I can pull it off.”

So if you’ve got shiny object addiction, it’s ok. You can choose to move past it consciously. If for no other reason than to prove everybody wrong.

Just don’t be yourself

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“If you want success in whatever industry you are in — obviously find ways to hack it — but by being truly authentic, you do not have to gravitate to the world. The world will gravitate to you.”
— Andrew Schulz

It seems everybody’s talking authenticity.

“Just be yourself. That’s how I got successful.”

Only one problem:

You don’t hear the failures talking about the value of being authentic.

“Yeah man, I’m such a dull, needy, badly dressed guy… and judgmental and sexually timid to boot… but my dating life has NEVER been better. Since I really started to be my authentic, value-sucking self, girls are blowing up my phone each night, asking me to come over and play Mario Kart.”

It just doesn’t happen.

I think the reason why is obvious:

Authenticity only works if you are attractive. Or if you can write winning sales letters. Or whatever the criterion of success is in your field. An authentic potato is still a potato.

But contrary to what you might think, my point is not to rag on authenticity and suggest you should hate yourself or deny your inner drives and instincts.

I just think this talk about authenticity brings up a much bigger and more interesting issue.

And that’s that there are certain questions without a simple, straightforward answer.

So the question of, “How do you get successful?” has a two-part, contradictory answer.

1) Sometimes you gotta trust your gut and be yourself (authenticity).

2) Other times, you need to go against your instincts and respond to external feedback (self-improvement).

​When should you do 1 and when should you do 2? Well, that’s where it gets tricky.
​
This two-sided, yin-yang, beans-and-rice duality explains (to my mind at least) why we haven’t been able to conclusively answer some seemingly simple questions, even though smart people have been racking their brains on them for thousands of years.

In politics. In personal relations. In simple topics such as happiness and how you should live your life.

But anyways, maybe I’m getting too philosophical. I just wanted to point out that people love simple answers, and if you accept that sometimes there are no simple answers, you can actually save yourself a lot of grief and maybe even make better progress than if you continue to dig a deeper hole.

And with that, I’m signing off. ​​

If you need help with advertorials, check out the following:

https://bejakovic.com/advertorials/

And if you need entertainment for the moment, I can recommend going on YouTube and checking out a few minutes of Andrew Schulz’s comedy. He’s very authentic and he’s very funny, if you can get past his jackass stage persona.

The dangers of gratitude rituals

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I just got an email notifying me that today is “World Gratitude Day.”

I’m not buying it.

I think “gratitude” is just another mental virus spread by the overlords who run the Internet.

“But studies! They show that the happiest people all practice some form of gratitude!”

Studies also show that the most swole guy at the gym spends a lot of time mirin himself in the mirror.

Does that mean that a spindly ectomorph should try to put on muscle by a daily “mirroring” ritual?

No.

Without the genetics, the workouts, the diet, and possibly the synthetic hormones, no amount of mirror gazing will turn a skinny guy into Franco Columbu.

What it can do is just make him feel worse about being frail and underdeveloped.

Same thing with gratitude.

You might think I’m exaggerating. I’m not.

​​I tried practicing gratitude some years ago, back when the idea spread like wildfire through all the positive psychology blogs.

A “gratitude ritual” didn’t make me any happier.

It did make me feel like a bit of a hypocrite (“Am I really grateful that I had food to eat today? That beef stew wasn’t very good”) and it also made me feel more anxious than usual (“What’s wrong with me? Why amn’t I more grateful?”).

Conclusion: I’m personally offended by gratitude.

But that doesn’t matter none.

Because “gratitude” is still a massive worldwide trend.

And that’s something all marketers should carefully track.

At least if you want to make money in riding that trend, or in recognizing when it might be coming to a close.

I think the gratitude train is slowly running out of steam.

But if that’s true, something else will come and replace it soon.

Watch out for that and it might make you some money.

In the meantime, if you want to celebrate “World Gratitude Day” by treating yourself to some insightful info on writing ecommerce advertorials, then check out the following:

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Rejection therapy for copywriters

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A couple of years ago, a friend of mine got rich in crypto.

He started with a small investment. And in the space of a couple of months, he turned it into a small fortune. Then, slowly and painfully, he lost most of it as the crypto tide turned.

These days, even though the moment has passed, he can’t let crypto go.

“It’s rewired my reward circuitry,” he says.

So he obsessively continues to listen to crypto podcasts. He keeps checking the news. And he hopes against hope that he will be able to regain that rush he got when he made his fast crypto money.

Reward circuitry.

It’s a messed up thing.

In my personal case, the issue is that I’ve spent much too much time in school. And in school, there’s really only one reward system. Either you get the right answer (pat on the head), or you don’t (disappointed look).

The thing is, that’s not how the world works. It’s certainly not how copywriting works. And yet, because my reward circuitry has been wired up during my decades of formal education, that’s how I think.

So for example, I am writing a new lead for a VSL right now. And I submitted my ideas so far to the copywriting coach I’m working with.

He came back with various bits of feedback. Insightful stuff. Completely fair. And likely to help me write a much better finished product.

But that’s not what my initial reaction was.

My initial reaction was, “Oh no. It wasn’t the right answer. I didn’t get a pat on the head.”

The only way out I can think of is to consciously fight against this, and to try to rewire my reward circuitry by hand.

It’s kind of like that rejection therapy that was popular a few years back. Each day, you try to get somebody to tell you no.

“No, I can’t give you a ride home right now.”

“No, you can’t sit in my lap.”

“No, I won’t pay for your burrito.”

When somebody tells you no, that’s when you win. You’ve just accomplished your goal for the day.

What I have in mind is similar. Except the goal is to find a new takeaway that will help you make your copy better.

“Pat on the head? Thanks, but what I could really use is a pointer on how to tighten up this headline.”

When you do this, you win the game for that day. And over time, maybe even your reward circuitry will adapt. At least that’s what I’m hoping.

Airbnb arbitrage

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Over the past few days, been reading a lot about “Airbnb arbitrage.” It works like this:

You lease a house or an apartment.

You then put it up on Airbnb, with the landlord’s blessing (you might have to try a few landlords before finding one who’ll agree to it).

You outsource all the Airbnb work like cleaning and handling communications…

You pay your lease…

And you keep the difference.

In a typical case, with a couple of hours of work a month and $2k of startup capital, you can create $1k-$2k cash flow each month (the Airbnb earnings are typically 2x-3x what the rent is).

And since it requires practically no work, you can rinse and repeat with a second property, and a third, and fourth. I’ve read case studies of people who have a dozen or more of such cash-cow properties, none of which they own.

I bring this up for two reasons.

First, you might find it interesting to investigate Airbnb arbitrage yourself. It seems like a genuine opportunity right now if you get the details right. But as with all arbitrage, it won’t be around forever.

Second, I find this Airbnb arbitrage kind of inspiring.

I’ve read stories of seasoned property investors who are saying, “I can’t believe how well this works.”

In their mind, there’s no comparison to the traditional route of taking out a mortgage for $300k, buying a house, finding long term tenants, all for a couple hundo a month.

With the Airbnb scheme, you get about 10x the cash flow, with 1/100th of the risk, and you can repeat as many times as you want.

Same thing if you’re a wannabe entrepreneur and your goal is to create “passive income.”

The standard route to this utopia is to create an online business.

And it’s definitely possible.

But it’s unlikely that you’d be collecting $5k a month within 2 months, which is what many of the Airbnb arbitrage people seem to accomplish.

And the point of all this, to me at least, is the power of a change in perspective.

The right change of perspective opens up incredible opportunities, and eliminates a lot of struggle and hard work.

Even if you’re not interested in starting your own Airbnb empire, I think this is something valuable to keep in mind.

Anyways, the reason I’ve been doing all this reading about Airbnb arbitrage is because I’m rewriting a lead for a VSL. ​The VSL sells a course, which lays out all the details about how to do this Airbnb stuff successfully.

I won’t try to sell you on the course itself.

I won’t even try to sell you on hiring me to write a VSL for you. But if you want some advertorial knowledge, which you could use to create traffic that leads to a VSL, then check out the following:

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Nobel-prize winner’s motivational discovery

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In 2016, a Japanese scientist named Yoshinori Ohsumi was given the Nobel Prize in medicine.

His discovery?

The biological processes underlying autophagy.

auto=self

phagy=eating

It’s literally how our own body consumes itself every day, in millions of little ways.

We do this self-eating for lots of different reasons.

When we’re in a state of starvation, autophagy kicks in to give us fuel for energy.

When we’ve had an infection, autophagy cleans up the bacterial or viral mess that’s been left behind.

It’s also a way of quality control, fixing some of the negative effects of aging, such as malformed proteins that could mess you up.

In other words, autophagy is a very important and necessary process. And it’s no surprse that if autophagy goes missing in your body, all kinds of problems can pop up, including Parkinson’s, diabetes, and cancer, too.

But why am I rattling on about autophagy in this newsletter that’s supposed to be about marketing and the business of copywriting?

Well, I heard someone say once that hunger — ie. autophagy — should be considered an essential nutrient for good health.

And I believe the same goes for good health in business and marketing.

And no, I’m not talking about “you gotta want it” kind of hunger.

I’m talking about actual starvation.

As in, being faced with the chance that you will run out of money, your business will be shut down, and you will have to go to your parents, hat in hand, asking for a loan to tide you over until things get better.

Of course, nobody wants to live like this all the time.

But unless you do experience a period like this every so often, you’re probably also not reaching the optimal level of business leanness, health, and success.

So if you are currently starving, take heart that it might be good for you in the long term.

And if you’ve been living the fat life for a while, it might be time to take some bigger risks and see how that improves your own internal cleanup processes.

But maybe I’m just saying all this to comfort myself.

Because right now, I’m taking on some big risks in the hope of big payoffs.

I’ll let you know how it goes, whether it leads to actual starvation or a new level of success.

In the meantime, if you want to see how to write some lean sales copy, especially about a health product, and especially to an audience that cares about the prestige of Nobel-prize-winning discoveries, then you might like the following:

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