Persuasion

Bejako Brand Guidelines 2025

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Bejako Brand Guidelines 2025

Our voice, our vision, our visual identity

Brand Mission/Purpose/Vision/Values

Here at Bejako, our primary mission and purpose is to turn cool marketing ideas into reality. We aim to transform over-thinkers into over-doers. Our goal is not just to help readers understand how influence works but to prove to themselves they can do it too.

Typography

Times New Roman, size 20px, in columns of 80 characters. The font is undeniably ugly and hearkens back to mandatory 5-page high school essays on the Scarlet Letter or Crime And Punishment. Nonetheless, our internal research has found this ugly font and blocky paragraphs increase reader engagement by 258%.

These typography guidelines must be used throughout the website and in all emails.

Logo

A horned quadruped, presumably a mouflon, walking between two walls that are narrowing to a point. Beyond that point is a round corral. There is a man at the corral, waiting for the horned quadruped.

This logo represents a desert kite, an ancient trapping/domestication mechanism.

As with all images, this logo should be used sparingly — yes on the website masthead, never inside emails.

Color palette

Black and white, which symbolizes the take-it-or-leave it nature of the Bejako brand. This palette also invites readers who choose to “take it” to supply their own preferred colors via imagination and visualization.

Voice and tone

At Bejako, we rely heavily on text to communicate with readers. Voice and tone are therefore paramount. Bejako voice and tone can be summarized in the following three adjectives:

“Surprising”

Via novel facts, boiled down. In the words of copywriting legend John Caples, “Overwriting is the key. If you need a thousand words, write two thousand. Trim vigorously. Fact-packed messages carry a wallop.” Via new interpretations or points of view, preferably analogy. As computer visionary Alan Kay put it, “A change in perspective is worth 80 IQ points.”

“Inspiring”

Bejako is not simply about inviting readers to observe and admire, but to inspire them to do and create. (Refer to brand mission/purpose/vision at the top.)

“Angsty”

Is it the worst time to be alive? Or the best time to be alive? At Bejako, we are still trying to figure this out, and we communicate accordingly.

Links

Each piece of communication must end with a link, underlined and in blue (#045FB4). The link should lead to an offer, preferably a paid offer, though occasional free offers are acceptable. A reason why should be given for clicking through. Example:

If you’re looking for a different philosophy of modern marketing, which works even if you don’t have your own audience or offer, and works even better if you do, then take a look here:

​https://bejakovic.com/ronin​

How to handle phone interviews with prospective clients

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Earlier today, while chipping away at my upcoming book, I remembered an important client-getting lesson from my days of getting on calls with prospective clients.

From 2015-2019 or so, I worked with dozens of copywriting clients, mainly via Upwork.

To get those dozens of clients, I had to get on hundreds of sales calls or job interviews, depending on how you look at it.

A typical call would go like this:

The prospective client and I would get on Zoom — or maybe it was Skype then — and we’d exchange some pleasantries.

Then the potential client would say, “Ok John, why don’t you tell me a little bit about your background?”

I’d take a deep breath. And then I’d launch in, telling the client all about the projects I’ve worked on… the results I’d gotten for previous clients… my methodology and philosophy of writing sales copy. Plus if I had the opportunity to do so, I’d slip in a few hints about being smart and reliable and easy to work with.

When I thought I’d covered all the most important and impressive stuff about myself, with my face a little red and my lungs empty of air, I’d finally pause to see if the client had any other questions I could answer.

I used this strategy for a long time.

It was a very instinctive and natural thing for me to do. It probably went back to elementary school days, and being quizzed and tested by the teacher to see if I knew the right answer.

And yes, this approach did work on occasion — if I delivered a great pitch and all the stars lined up.

The typical response would be something like, “Sounds great, John. We really like what we hear. We’re still talking to a few freelancers but you’re definitely at the top of the list. We’ll get back to you in a few days once we make the decision.”

Sometimes that meant I got the job. More often, it meant I didn’t.

Fortunately, I soon discovered a much better response to “Tell me a little bit about your background.”

I don’t have concrete stats to back it up, but I estimate this much better response doubled my closing rate, meaning that for every three or four sales calls I had to get on, I closed two new clients, instead of just one.

Plus, this new way of responding made the whole sales call dramatically easier to do.

Perhaps you know what my new response was, either because you know enough about sales, or because you’ve heard me talk about this before.

But in case you don’t know, and you’d like to know, then I have an offer for you.

This offer is only good for the next 24 hours or so, until tomorrow, Thursday Mar 20, at 12 midnight PST.

The offer is a guide I’ve written about the mysterious, unfamiliar, and sometimes dangerous business side of copywriting, the side of managing clients and making a name for yourself.

This guide is called Copy Zone.

I’ve only made Copy Zone available a few times in the past, and only for a day or so, like today.

On page 94 of Copy Zone, you can find the strategy I started using on sales calls with prospective clients instead of trying to wow them with my credentials.

On the other 175 pages of Copy Zone, you can find my best advice on how to make a good living as a copywriter, all the way from getting started, even if you have no clients and no experience, to becoming seen as an A-list copywriter, if that’s your ambition.

Warning:

Copy Zone sell for $197 right now.

That’s very expensive, considering it’s just a PDF of 175 pages.

All I can say to defend that very expensive $197 is this:

If I could go back 10 years, and talk to myself in the first days when I had the idea to start working as freelance copywriter, then this would be the most condensed and practical info to shortcut those first few days, few months, and few years of working. It would also be my best advice about moving forward, as far forward as your ambition will drive you.

I believe this information would have been worth tens of thousands of dollars to me over the years, or maybe more.

Maybe it can be the same for you.

In any case, if you are a copywriter or you want to become one, then just one small copywriting job, which you win thanks to the ideas inside Copy Zone, could completely cover your $197 investment, and then some.

Of course, it’s your decision. But the clock is ticking. If you’d like to grab a copy of Copy Zone before it goes back into the cave again:

Copy Zone

“The best joke in the world”

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“Thanks very much. I just wanted to recommend a documentary to everyone, and then I’m gonna go.”

That’s the beginning of a six-minute comedy routine that standup comic Gary Gulman delivered on the Conan O’Brien show back in 2016.

That routine has since been called the “best joke in the world,” “beyond ballsy,” and “perfectly written.” That’s coming from other comedians.

The public liked Gulman’s routine too. The recording of it has racked up millions of views over the years across various platforms.

Gulman says this six-minute routine has became the biggest thing he’s ever done. At the end of his live standup comedy sets, he sometimes asks for requests. Inevitably, people ask for this joke.

Gulman’s joke is about a documentary on the men and one woman who were responsible for abbreviating all state names down to two letters.

I won’t try to retell the joke here. I will tell you that even if it’s one six-minute joke, it gets a laugh every 10-15 seconds. Even that opener, about just recommending a documentary and then going, gets the audience laughing.

Now here’s something extra I wanted to share with you:

In an interview, Gulman was asked about this “state abbreviations” routine. How long did it take him to write?

The answer is pretty shocking.

Gulman said he first wrote down the joke in 1994, about 6 months after he started doing standup. The Conan O’Brien spot was in 2016.

In other words, 20+ years passed before Gulman’s “state abbreviations” joke was ready for prime time, and not just because Gulman was polishing it.

“The entire world had to change,” says Gulman, “in order for me to convince people that there was a documentary about something as unusual as abbreviating the states.”

I’m not encouraging you to sit on your hands for 20 years because “the time for your idea” hasn’t come yet.

Gulman was very active from 1994 to 2015. He built out an entire career in the meantime… became a star among comedians… and managed to get on Conan and Letterman and wherever else.

All I’m really suggesting is the value of being both productive AND patient. Of putting lots of ideas out there… and of having the sense that some of those are promising but not quite good enough yet, and simply waiting while something else clicks, or conditions change just enough, or a new wrapper comes that you can wrap your solid but unpolished lump of coal in.

I realize my message today probably sounds wooly and not practical, so I won’t try to sell you anything on the back of it.

Like I said, I just wanted to recommend a comedy clip, and then I’m gonna go. Here it is:

Competition contradiction

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A paradox? A contradiction?

As part of the research for my new book, I’ve been going through a book by Sam Taggart. Taggart is the founder of D2D Experts, an online education company for door-to-door salesmen.

Taggart has a long but distinguished career selling door-to-door, everything from knives to solar panels to security alarms. His door-to-door selling career started at age 11, and culminated around age 35, when he finished as the #1 salesman in a company of 3,000 reps.

Anyways, grok this, if you can:

On page 44 of his book, Taggart’s top recommendation for motivating yourself is to look at all the other salesmen around you, to start tracking their results, and to start thinking of them as competition you have to beat.

And then on page 64, Taggart says how the best salesmen only view themselves as real competition.

Huh?

It’s easy to dismiss this as just contradiction or fluff inherent in a lot of sales material.

But I don’t think so.

A while back, meaning 3 years ago, I wrote about 6 characteristics of people who manage to do the seemingly impossible.

These 6 characteristics came out of a study of pro athletes who came back from devastating injury to compete at the highest level again… as well as star Wall Street traders who managed to beat not only all other traders, but the randomness inherent in the market as well.

One of the common characteristics of such people was that they simultaneously had a short-term view of the task to be accomplished, as well as a long-term view.

In other words, these folks looked at their situation from both 3 feet away, and from 3,000 feet up in the air. They did so the same time, or at least switching constantly between the two.

And so I think it is with Taggart’s advice — and so it is in many other situations in life.

We all want the “one thing” to cling to.

But quite often, particularly in the most important things in life, you gotta hold two opposing thoughts in your head, and you gotta live by both of them.

Of course you don’t really gotta. You don’t gotta do anything. But if you are currently worried by competition, whether that’s other businesses who target same audience as you, or other solutions or trends that tend to wipe out what you’re doing, or simply people within your own company who try to outperform you, then it might make sense to:

1. Make a list of all these villains, to keep track of their activity, and to start viewing them as competition to be beaten

2. To ignore them and to focus on doing the best you can

Anyways, I’ll have Taggart’s advice — not this, but something less contradictory — in my new book, full title:

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

My goal is to finish and publish this book by March 24. The way things are going, I might have to shave half my head, like Demosthenes, to keep myself from leaving the house until the book is finished.

In any case, I will be writing about this book and how it’s progressing, plus what I’m thinking about doing to make it a success when it comes out.

If you are interested in the topic of this book, and you’re thinking you might wanna get a copy when it comes out, click below. I’m planning some launch bonuses and I will be dripping them out early to people on this pre-launch list:

​​Click here to get on the bonus-dripping pre-launch list for my new 10 Commandments book​​

Zag when you’re zigging

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A reader writes in reply to a recent email to say:

===

John, if you weren’t so angsty you would be hilarious. I’m quite certain you will get your next 10 Commandments book done in time to meet your self-imposed deadline (the best kind of deadline, btw) and I love seeing behind the curtain as you keyboard warrior your way there.

However, the title is insufferably long! IMHO

===

I’ve had several people write in about the title of the new book, and to more or less suggest I might do better.

I can understand.

The conventional wisdom is that a nonfiction book title should be short, ideally one punchy word:

Blink

Behave

Nudge

Contagious

Sapiens

At 23 words and 206 characters, my title definitely doesn’t roll off the tongue in quite the same way:

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

Will it work? The fact I have readers writing in to complain about it is encouraging, but I will have to see whether this translates into interest in the book from people who are not already in my audience.

If you’re wondering why I would choose a title like that in the first place, the answer is simply that I find it amusing. But also, there’s the powerful psychological principle of contrast. If everybody is tripping over themselves to come up with a punchy one-word title, then having a 23-word title makes it more likely my book will stand out.

I’m probably not telling you anything new by saying it pays to zag when everyone else is zigging, to contrast yourself to others in your market.

But there’s another kind of contrast you can do. It’s widespread across the influence disciplines I’m profiling in my new book. As opposed to contrasting yourself to others — what you might call external contrast — this second kind of contrast is an internal contrast — to zag when you YOU are zigging.

Maybe know exactly what I mean. Or maybe you can guess.

In any case, I am devoting an entire chapter, specifically Commandment IV to illustrating and laying out this powerful idea.

And on that note:

My angst-producing goal is to finish and publish this book by March 24.

Until then, I will be writing about this book and how it’s progressing, plus what I’m thinking about doing to make it a success when it comes out.

If you are interested in the topic of this book, and you’re thinking you might wanna get a copy when it comes out, click below. I’m planning some launch bonuses and I will be dripping them out early to people on this pre-launch list:

​​​​Click here to get on the bonus-dripping pre-launch list for my new 10 Commandments book​ ​​

The magic of not using a person’s name

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When I was, I don’t know, 18, my grandfather handed me a book. “Read this book,” he said. “It’s very important.”

The book was How To Win Friends And Influence People, by Dale Carnegie. It was one of my grandfather’s stock book recommendations. I think he gave me another copy a few years later.

I read the book then, and several times since.

It really is important. It’s full of simple but useful advice like, smile… be interested in other people… remember and use people’s names.

Of course, you can do all this stuff and still get nowhere, or do worse than simply not doing anything.

I remember a Mitchell & Webb skit in which two guys meet at a dinner party. One of them, played by Robert Webb, is introduced as a real “people person.” Sure enough, he does everything Dale Carnegie advises, dialed up to 11.

The guy he’s talking to, played by David Mitchell, doesn’t pick up on it at first. But then he starts to sense something strange. And eventually it dawns on him:

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Ohhh, I see what’s going on. You think you’re good with people. It all makes sense now. The fake mateyness… the rapey arm-touching… the way you keep using my name in a way that makes me feel oddly violated, as if you’d just dipped your cock in my drink.

===

In short:

There’s something known as “calibration.”

In long:

When you learn any new technique and persuasion strategy, you gotta twiddle and tweak the knobs until you dial it down to the lowest possible effective dose. Otherwise you go from being a people person to being that guy or gal who “thinks he’s good with people.”

I’m telling you all this in anticipation of my new book, all about persuasion and influence, of the full and magnificent title:

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

My goal is to finish and publish this book by March 24.

Until then, I will be writing about this book and how it’s progressing, plus what I’m thinking about doing to make it a success when it comes out.

If you are interested in the topic of this book, and you’re thinking you might wanna get a copy when it comes out, click below. I’m planning some launch bonuses and I will be dripping them out early to people on this pre-launch list:

​​​Click here to get on the bonus-dripping pre-launch list for my new 10 Commandments book​ ​

Lies and legends of the left brain

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A couple years ago, I came across a bizarre and eye-opening story told by neuroscientist V.S Ramachandran.

Ramachandran was working with split-brain patients, who have surgically had the connection between their left and brain hemispheres cut to control seizures.

In an experiment, Ramachandran demonstrated that these patients effectively had two different minds inside one skull. One mind would like chocolate ice cream best, the other vanilla. One believed in God, the other didn’t.

This story was my first exposure to strange and wonderful world of split-brain research.

I had always thought all the “left-brained/right-brained” stuff was just bunk. I didn’t realize it’s based on pretty incontrovertible scientific proof, going back to research on these split-brain people.

I recently came across another split-brain story, this one in a book by neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga.

Gazzaniga did his PhD at Caltech under a guy named Roger Sperry, who went on to win the 1981 Nobel Prize in Medicine for this work.

Sperry and Gazzaniga were pioneers in working with split-brain patients. These patients seemed to be perfectly normal. But thanks to a bunch of clever experiments, Sperry and Gazzaniga managed to tease out some strange things happening in these patients, which reveal real mysteries of the mind.

For example, the scientists would simultaneously show two images to the patient in such a way that each image only went to one hemisphere.

The patient was then asked to point, with his two hands, to cards connected to the image he had just seen.

One time, a patient was shown a picture of a snow scene for the right brain… and a chicken claw for the left brain.

He then pointed to images of a shovel and a chicken (with the left hand being controlled by the right brain, and the right hand being controlled by the left brain — we’re cross-wired like that).

So far so good. The different sides of the brain had seen different images, and could identify those images by pointing with the hands they controlled.

But here’s where it gets really tricky and interesting:

Gazzaniga had the intuition to ask the patient to explain why he had selected the two images, the one of a chicken and the other of a shovel.

One last scientific fact:

Verbal stuff happens mainly on the left hemisphere (again, we know this based on these split-brain experiments).

In other words, when verbalizing stuff, this patient didn’t have access to the information about the snow scene his right brain had seen. The part of his brain that could speak had only seen one image, that of a chicken claw.

The fact this patient had no possible idea why he had pointed to an image of a shovel didn’t stop him. He immediately and confidently replied:

“Oh, that’s simple. The chicken claw goes with the chicken, and you need a shovel to clean out the chicken shed.”

Hm. Do you see what happened?

This split-brain patient, or rather the left mind in his skull, came up with a story, consistent with the facts he knew (the fact was he had pointed to a picture of a shovel).

Of course, in this case, the story was completely fabricated and wrong, and had nothing to do with the actual reason (that the other half of his brain had seen a snow scene and had connected it to the image of a shovel).

To me, this is really fascinating. Because it’s not just about these rare few people who don’t have a connection between the left and right brain hemispheres.

This same thing is happening in all of us, all the time, even right now as you read this. It’s just not so neatly visible and trackable in connected-brain humans as it is in split-brain humans (hence why this research won the Nobel Prize).

This is cool knowledge on its own. But it also practical consequences, and gives you specific technique to practice in case you want to influence others.

This technique is nothing new. But it is immensely powerful. (And no, it’s not “Tell a stawrry.”)

You probably know the technique I have in mind. But if not, you can find it in my upcoming book, full title:

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

My goal is to finish and publish this book by March 24.

Until then, I will be writing about this book and how it’s progressing, plus what I’m thinking about doing to make it a success when it comes out.

If you are interested in the topic of this book, and you’re thinking you might wanna get a copy when it comes out, click below. I’m planning some launch bonuses and I will be dripping them out early to people on this pre-launch list:

​​Click here to get on the bonus-dripping pre-launch list for my new 10 Commandments book​ ​

Lilla

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I will call the girl Lilla, because that really was her name. I met her on the sidewalk of a busy street in Budapest, Hungary.

I’d been walking with a group of friends down the Kiskörút — the “small ring road” in the center of Budapest — when an attractive girl of about 25 walked past us.

I wheeled about without saying a word… jogged back through the crowd of people… stepped in front of the still-moving girl… locked my eyes on hers like two suction cups… smiled… and held up my hands to make it clear I had something to say to her.

She stopped. I asked if she spoke English. She said she did. I gave her a compliment, saying that she looked nice. She smiled and said thank you.

We chatted for a few more minutes. Eventually, I said I have to go, but that I’d like to invite her for a drink one evening. Lilla, for that was her name, smiled and said, “Ok. Here, take my number.”

After I put her number into my phone, we talked for a couple more minutes, and then said goodbye. Lilla walked on the way she was going, and I rejoined my friends, who were waiting some way down the street, nodding their heads in approval.

If you think I’m trying to boost myself up as some sort of supernaturally talented seducer, let me tell you the sad truth:

For the first three decades of my life, I was entirely useless with women. Shy, passive, avoidant.

That changed when I discovered “daygame” — a collection of online wisdom for how to approach a woman on the street, start a conversation, and then get her phone number, with the clear and stated goal of inviting her out one evening.

It took a couple months of daily practice to perform this mating dance naturally and with confidence. But soon enough, an interaction like the one with Lilla became typical.

I could stop almost any girl on the street and have a pleasant conversation. Many times, those five-minute chats ended with plans to meet again one night for a drink.

And so it was with Lilla. I invited her out a few days later.

Lilla lived far in the outskirts of Budapest. Since I suggested the center as the meeting place, she said that 6pm, right when she finished work, was really the only time that would work.

What to do? 6pm is not the sexiest time of the day, but I already had plans for every other night. So I agreed.

To make this seduction even less likely, it turned out Lilla didn’t drink alcohol.

So here we were, at 6:30pm, with the June sun still high up overhead, sitting in a tea house in the fifth district in Budapest, sipping rooibos, and having the most intensely boring, chemistry-free conversation imaginable. Lilla’s friends, my job, her travel plans.

Lilla’s English was fine but not perfect. Or maybe she just wasn’t “that kind of girl.” In any case, all my attempts at sexual innuendo fell flat as they made their way across the table.

I looked inside my teapot. It was nearing the end. I couldn’t imagine that a second round of rooibos would help any. Something had to change.

“How about we go for a lemonade?” I asked. “I know a place around the corner.” Lilla said fine.

As we strolled through Budapest’s fifth district, my mind raced over my options. A lemonade was clearly not any kind of real solution. Where would we take our conversation now, sugar or no sugar? Another 40 minutes of pointless interview chatter wouldn’t do either Lilla or me good.

And then, suddenly, I had a moment of inspiration. I thought back to the collection of online pick up wisdom I had read. I remembered something. And I stopped walking.

Lilla stopped too, and turned to me to see what’s up.

I locked eyes with her, again suction-cup-like. I said, “Give me your hands.” I held out my hands to her as I said this.

For a moment, Lilla hesitated. Quite natural. She had really just met me a short while earlier. I hadn’t explained what I wanted her hands for, or what I was planning to do. I just stood there, my eyes on hers, my hands held out, smirking a little, not saying anything.

Slowly, a little smile spread across Lilla’s face. She looked down at her feet and then back up at me. And she put her hands in mine, curious to see where this would lead.

Are you curious also? I hope so.

Because this is one of the more personal stories I’m including in my new 10 Commandments book, full title:

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

Earlier this week, I went to the crossroads and made a pact with a traveling salesman who lurks there a lot.

This traveling salesman promised he’d make sure I finished this book by March 24 if only I would sign some kind of contract he had.

I signed, and as a result, I have been making great progress on a final push to get this book published by March 24.

In the meantime, I will be writing about this book and how it’s progressing, plus what I’m thinking about doing to make it a success when it comes out.

And on that note, if you are interested in the topic of this book, and you’re thinking you might wanna get a copy when it comes out, click below. I’m planning some launch bonuses and I will be dripping them out early to people on this pre-launch list:

​​Click here to get on the bonus-dripping pre-launch list for my new 10 Commandments book​​

Do you subscribe to the New Yorker?

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You probably don’t. But I do.

I subscribe to the New Yorker because the New Yorker’s feature articles are well-written fluff, which exposes me to new ideas.

But if I’m being 100% honest, that’s not the only reason.

There’s also the New Yorker cartoons, which I find funny. In fact, the zeroth issue of my Daily Email Habit service, which I have on the sales page as an illustration of what customers get every day, features a cartoon from New Yorker.

A few years ago, the New Yorker started running a cartoon caption contest.

In each issue, there’s a new cartoon without a caption, inviting completely new caption submissions.

There’s also last week’s cartoon with the top 3 captions, inviting readers to vote among them online.

And then there’s the cartoon from two weeks ago with the winning caption, the caption that got the most “funny” votes in the past week.

(This week’s winner is for a cartoon that shows a psychiatrist’s office with two clocks sitting on the psychiatrist’s couch. The clocks have eyes, arms, and legs, and one seems to be exasperated. The winning caption reads, “I was born in New York. I grew up in New York. Then we move to California and she expects me to change.”)

Here’s a curious thing I found out in a recent New Yorker article about humor:

Even the top-rated New Yorker cartoon caption entries receive mostly unfunny ratings. (The options when voting are “funny,” “somewhat funny,” and “unfunny.”)

In other words, even when it comes to the funniest captions, most people will think it’s not funny at all. Not just not less funny than really he-he ha-ha. But totally unfunny and flat and stupid, with not even a smile resulting.

Very very interesting.

From what I have read and seen inside my own head, the sense of what’s funny, like shoe size, is highly individual.

In general, the only joke we will consider laughing at is a joke we can identify with in some way, much like the only shoe we will consider wearing is one that actually fits on our foot, however tightly.

Maybe you are not funny. Maybe you’re not trying to be funny.

But maybe you’d like to make money and have influence and have stability in your life.

I keep promoting the idea of writing daily emails as a means to all three of those outcomes.

But I know that a good number of people out there are hobbled by the thought that they aren’t writers… that they have nothing to say… or that they have no right or authority to say anything, even if they might have something to say.

Writing for sales and influence works in the same way as humor.

It’s identification first… authority and expertise second, or maybe 3rd.

On the one hand, this means that, regardless of how much of an expert you are and how much authority you have, most people will simply never be moved by what you write. Again, even the top-rated New Yorker cartoon caption entries receive mostly unfunny ratings.

On the other hand, it also means that even if you have little expertise and less authority, there will be people who read and are influenced by what you write, simply because they identify with you as a person, however tangentially. If you’ve ever been in a relationship, and felt pressured to change as a result, you’ll even find two clocks on a shrink’s couch funny if they share the same frustration as you.

All that’s to say, if you want to influence and make sales to an audience that I personally have no hope of ever influencing or selling to, you can do so, starting today, simply by virtue of being a unique person with unique interests, experiences, life conditions, and attitudes.

Which brings me back to Daily Email Habit.

Daily emails a great way to influence and sell, because they are a constant drip of you, and your unique interests, experiences, life conditions, and attitudes.

I can help you get started and stick with daily emails, even if you worry that you have nothing to say, or no right to say it. For more info:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

The maple syrup theory of influence

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Fascinating fact about me:

I studied math in college.

Like I said, fascinating. And it gets even more so, because I was never good at math.

Not in elementary school. Not in high school.

Somehow though, when college came, and I could choose to study what I wanted, and I never again had to take any math classes, I wound up taking math classes, and lots of them.

I think I was trying to prove something to myself. I managed it, too, because it turns out you can get a lot done with just curiosity and internal motivation, even in the absence of talent.

Anyways, one time I was taking a math class about “complex analysis” — about how to work with complex numbers, which have both a real and an “imaginary” component (ie, involving the square root of -1).

Whatever. Don’t worry about the math.

The important thing is simply that complex numbers have their own bizarre rules for how they are multiplied and divided, how you take a derivative, how you do integrals.

I never understood complex numbers, not really. But I diligently worked through the course.

I remember a specific homework problem, and the epiphany that came with it.

I was struggling to apply the rules in the textbook. But with some derring-do and with a few leaps of logic, I managed to finally solve the problem and reach the answer.

The answer was simple and elegant.

I remember a feeling of understanding washing over me. I got it, whatever this particular section was about. It made sense to me now. All the struggle and confusion and work had paid off.

Then, as a proper diligent student, I double-checked my answer in the back of the textbook.

It turned out I was 100% wrong. Not just that I’d made some screwup in the calculation, but that I was completely off track. I had misapplied and misunderstood the rules. My feeling of understanding, which had washed over me and given me such relief, corresponded to nothing in reality.

When I was a kid, like 9 years old, I had a feeling I understood myself and the world perfectly.

It was pretty late in life, in my late teens or maybe my early 20s, when I started to notice cracks in my confident understanding of the world.

Gradually, I started to develop a theory that emotions like certainty, understanding, and insight are like maple syrup.

Maple syrup can be poured over whatever you want — pancakes, French toast, waffles.

Likewise, emotions can be poured over ideas that are true, ideas are not true, or even ideas that are complete waffles, meaning some kind of undefined nonsense, like my understanding of complex analysis rules.

On the one hand, it doesn’t get more unsettling than this. I realized my most basic, certain feelings of rightness are not actually reliable.

On the other hand, it was a powerful realization.

For one thing, it was liberating.

It meant that, even if I’m sure — if it cannot, will not, won’t work, if it’s black and not white, if I am right and not wrong — I don’t really know for a fact. It pays to go get some real-world data — the equivalent of checking the right answer in the back of the textbook.

For another, I’m not the only person whose emotions work like this. I find it’s pretty universal.

And it turns out there are ways to get other people to pour their own emotional syrups — whether of desire, or of insight, or of trust — over pancakes, French toast, waffles, donuts, rice, hot dogs, sponge cake, and pretty much any basic foodstuff you may have to offer them.

You can make hot dogs sweet and sponge cake delicious, even irresistible, if you pour enough maple syrup on them.

And you can make honest, dry, uninspiring information exciting and eye-opening and urgent, much in the same way.

Perhaps you’d like some specific techniques of influence, which you can apply to get your audience to pour out their own emotional maple syrups over your offers?

You can find such techniques, delivered daily to your inbox, inside my Daily Email Habit service.

You even double-check your own answers against my answers, which like today, tend to be based on the day’s Daily Email Habit prompt.

In case you’d like to prove something to yourself:

https://bejakovic.com/deh