Persuasion

[Psych Psundays] Kids are stupid

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Last Sunday, I kicked off a new series in this newsletter, Psych Psundays. The reaction to that first issue was positive:

#1 “Love this, love the concept”

#2 “LOVED THIS. Thanks!”

#3 “This was awesome, John! Grazie”

#4 “Excellent thoughts and incredibly timely… for me, anyway.”

#5 “I love Psych Psundays.”

Let me see if can keep it going for another week.

Today’s installment of Psych Psundays is built around two highly instructive videos I watched this week.

The first was posted in the subreddit r/KidsAreFuckingStupid.

It showed a girl, about 3, standing on a nice-looking wooden deck, made up of normal wooden boards laid tightly together.

In spite of this being perfectly solid and perfectly safe ground to stand and walk on, the little girl was screaming her lungs out, and was otherwise paralyzed with fear, unable to take a step. The caption for the video read:

“She thought she would fall through the cracks.”

That leads me to the first curious bit I want to share with you on this Psych Psunday:

A hundred years ago, a psychologist named Jean Piaget was one of the first psychologists to observe children very carefully — their speech patterns, their ideas, their way of looking at the world.

Piaget found that children’s thinking is black and white, magical, absolute.

To children, ideas are the same as things, with the same concreteness and reality. An idea, if it pops up in a kid’s head, must be true, has always been true, will always be true, isn’t made false by evidence or by previous ideas that contradict it.

That’s why, if a kid gets the idea idea that she can fall through a 1/8-inch crack in the floor, why, she can. WAAAAAAHHHH!

Stupid kids, right?

Anyways, let’s move on to the second highly instructive video I watched this week. It was an interview with actor Dustin Hoffman.

Hoffman was talking about the early days of his career, back when he was unknown, but had just gotten rave reviews for an off-Broadway play.

Even though he had no movie experience, Hoffman suddenly got an invitation to come out to Hollywood and read for a part in a big new movie that was being cast.

Hoffman flew out, and met the director, Mike Nichols. The meeting went down like this, in Hoffman’s words:

===

He [Mike Nichols, the director] comes over to me, and immediately I’m feeling miserable.

I just have bad feelings about the whole thing. This is not the part for me. I’m not supposed to to be in movies.

I’m supposed to be where I belong. An ethnic actor is supposed to be in ethnic New York in an ethnic off-Broadway show.

I know my place. And I can read him. I feel I can read him, like he feels like he’s made a big mistake.

===

Turns out, Nichols didn’t feel he had made a big mistake.

In fact, Nichols gave Hoffman the lead role in that movie, the Graduate, which would make Hoffman into an international star, and would in time lead him to a couple Oscars and an estimated net worth of around one hundred million dollars.

So kids are stupid. They think that just because a thought popped up into their heads that they can fall through a 1/8-inch crack between wooden boards, that this makes it so.

But, I’d like to claim, the kind of black-and-white, imagined-is-real thinking of children stays inside us forever. Adults still operate on the same basic machinery.

We feel we know how the world is. In fact we KNOW how it is, with 100% certainty. You can hear it in Dustin Hoffman’s words above:

“This is not the part for me.”

“I know my place.”

“He feels like he’s made a big mistake.”

So that’s my second curious bit for this this Psych Psunday. Great. Now what? What do you do with this?

Does it mean that your intuition, your gut feeling, your sense of what’s real is always wrong, because kids are stupid, and we’re all kids inside?

No, clearly not.

But it does mean that how you feel, I mean, how you know the world to be, with 100% certainty, is not necessarily what the world really is like.

And maybe that’s an inspirational takeaway we can end this Psych Psunday on.

The next time you are faced with a new opportunity and you find yourself knowing for sure that this is not for you… this is not your place… the world does not want you to go in this direction… take another step.

You might find the ground under you solid and safe, and you might also find a couple Oscars, or at least a million dollars or two, in your future.

[Psych Psundays] Why don’t you… yes, but

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I thought to introduce a new little series I could do every week, Psych Psundays.

I’m not a psychologist nor do I play one on TV, but I am interested in pop psychology. I read books about it, and I have a kind of live lab via this newsletter and other marketing I do. Plus I have a mind myself. I keep tabs on it. Sometimes I learn stuff that way too.

Let’s see if this new series could be interesting to you or not, and if it is, how long I can keep it going.

The first installation of Psych Psundays starts off with a reader question I got a few days ago:

===

Hey John, how are you? I just wanted to ask if you could recommend a resource for audience building without video based content.

I’m writing daily emails but I can barely grow my newsletter, Twitter is filled with AI and it feels hollow.

The little subscribers I’ve gotten are from communities where I shared a little value with a link in my bio.

What would you recommend?

Thanks a lot and I hope you have a great weekend.

[name]

P.S. You don’t owe me crap of course so feel free to ignore this and go on with your day!

I just thought I’d ask you because I love your daily emails, it’s actually why I started writing daily.

===

I didn’t reply to this guy.

On the one hand, I enjoyed the flattery.

On the other hand, I suspect this was an attempt at playing a game, one that I no longer enjoy.

Right now, I’m reading a book called Games People Play by a guy named Eric Berne. The book was kind of a big thing back in the 1960s. It’s basically about repeated “games” — patterns of communication that people engage in, not for the stated and obvious purpose, but for ulterior motives.

The first “game” discovered by Berne was called “Why don’t you… yes but.” It’s the game I feel my reader above is asking me to play with him. It goes like this:

First, one person brings up a problem, say, they can’t grow their newsletter.

Then other person (or persons) jump in with suggestions:

– Why don’t you get on Twitter? Yes, but Twitter is filled with AI and feels hollow

– I hear YouTube works well, why don’t you try that? Yes, but I don’t want to create video content

– Why don’t you just keep posting in communities if that’s worked for you? Yes, but that takes way too much time

– Why don’t you try running ads? Yes, but I can’t afford ads

– Why don’t you try doing list swaps? Yes, but my list is too small for list swaps

– Why don’t you just invite perfect prospects to your list one by one? Yes, but that would be so slow and anyways who would say yes

The fact is, there are 1,001 ways to grow your newsletter. There are entire (free and high-quality) websites dedicated to cataloguing those ways. I myself have written about the topic dozens of times, including earlier this month.

But none of that really matters.

Because the point of playing “Why don’t you… yes, but” is not to get a workable solution, but to keep going until all the suggestions run dry, and the original person asking for advice can say, “See, I knew they had nothing for me.”

Ok. So now I probably sound like a dick, and a conceited dick at that.

I mean, have I really told you anything new here? Or have I just put a fancy new label on something that everybody already knows and does, while singling out a poor reader who just asked a question?

Fine. Let me tell you something else I read in Games People Play, which might be genuinely new and useful to you. Says Berne:

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While almost anyone will play this game under proper circumstances because of its time-structuring value, careful study of individuals who particularly favor it reveals several interesting features.

First, they characteristically can and will play either side of the game with equal facility.

This switchability of roles is true of all games. Players may habitually prefer one role to another, but they are capable of trading, and they are willing to play any other role in the same game if for some reason that is indicated.

===

I can tell you that, until not too long ago, I myself was a ready player of “Why don’t you… yes but.”

Like Berne says, I happily played either side. I would both bring up frustrations and dismiss offered solutions… and at other times, I would also offer advice, have that advice dismissed, and then offer more advice.

I played either side happily because it made me feel smart and righteous.

Curious thing:

I noticed recently that I don’t play this game much any more.

These days, if people offer me advice, I nod. If it’s somebody I trust and respect, I do exactly as they say. Otherwise, I just let it go.

And on the other hand, when people come to me with their frustrations, I also nod. And then I say, “That sounds frustrating. What do you think you will do?”

Maybe, maybe, this change is tied to a bigger change in me, to being more proactive, less of a “thinker” who is mainly interested in collecting information, and a little more of a “doer” who at least sometimes tries and sees what will happen for real.

So that’s my mildly inspiring takeaway for you on this Pysch Psunday.

Maybe you are a habitual player of “Why don’t you… yes, but.”

If so, it’s not any kind of lifelong condition. If you like, you can change, starting right now.

And if you are having trouble getting yourself to take action, in spite of knowing what you should do… well, maybe Eric Berne is right about the “switchability of roles.”

I could tell you how to apply Berne’s idea to become more proactive, more of a doer. Except it would kind of defeat the whole point of this email.

Summation of stimuli

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Here’s a personal defect on the scale of Derek Zoolander’s “I can’t turn left”:

I am particularly bad at coming up with “hot takes.”

The way I’ve gotten through life in spite of this defect has been to skip the news and consume things nobody else is consuming, because then even the most lukewarm take still tingles.

That’s how I’m currently making my way through a 574-page behemoth titled Principles of Psychology, from the year 1890, by a man named William James.

It’s slow going. I imagine it will take me till the end of this year to finish at the pace I’m reading.

But it’s been worth it already. On page 39 I came across the following idea, which James call “summation of stimuli.” Even though it’s extremely lukewarm on the surface, it still made me tingle. Says James:

===

The law is this, that a stimulus which would be inadequate by itself to excite a nerve-centre to effective discharge may, by acting with one or more other stimuli (equally ineffectual by themselves alone) bring the discharge about.

===

No? That doesn’t make it clear? I told you the book is slow going. James goes on to explain in slightly clearer language:

===

The natural way to consider this is as a summation of tensions which at last overcome a resistance. The first of them produce a latent excitement or a heightened irritability; the last is the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

===

Maybe that doesn’t help either. James fortunately gives a concrete example:

Take a dog (19th century scientists loved doing experiments with dogs).

Apply a weak electrical current to a nerve in the dog’s leg.

The current is too weak to set the dog’s leg to twitching.

But repeat the same weak current enough time, at a close enough interval, and somehow, even though none of the currents was enough to set the dog’s leg a-twitching, a-twitching is what you get.

“Ok,” you might say, “thank you for that lukewarm take on dog leg twitching. I gotta g-”

Wait! There’s more.

Because this isn’t just about dogs getting stimulated and starting to twitch. This is the basic neurology that underlies… pretty much everything, or at least a lot of human psychology and mental life.

I mean, I don’t have proof for what I’m about to say, because I’m only 15% through James’s psychology book.

But my guess is that this “summation of stimuli” is why one of the most fundamental techniques of persuasion, repetition, actually works.

If I say “I’m the best,” that doesn’t make it so.

But if i say “I’m the best,” every day, for years and years, and you’re forced to listen to me, then somehow, even though each individual claim is as hollow as every other one, the summation of them all turns into something with substance.

Maybe I start to genuinely believe I’m the best. Maybe you start to believe it too. And if we both believe it, then it does make it so.

Now let me make this practical to you:

In my Daily Email House community, a discussion sprang up today (ok, I sprang it up) about whether email marketing is dying.

I sprang that discussion up because I’ve seen “RIP Email Marketing” a surprising number of times in the past week alone.

The conclusion among House members was that email marketing is doing fine, but in any case, it was never about email marketing, not really, but about having a great relationship with your audience.

And the first step, and the most fundamental step, of building a great relationship with your audience is… summation of stimuli.

Showing up regularly, ideally every day, and ideally in different formats. Such as daily emails… and a community.

Speaking of, if you’d like to have your say in the conversation about email marketing and whether it’s dying or not, my Daily Email House is now accepting new members. If you’d like to spring up and join us:

https://bejakovic.com/house

Why fhe unsubscribe

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A couple days ago, I promoted a book by marketer Denny Hatch.

Not, as said in the email, because I read the book or planned to read it.

Instead, I recommended the book based on the strength of Denny’s reputation, as well as on the endorsement of one of my own readers, Jeffrey Thomas, who felt so strongly about this book that he worked with Denny to bring it back to life after many years of being out-of-print.

I honestly recommended Denny’s book as well as I could without reading it. I gave my (rather unique) reasons why I won’t be reading it, and I gave reasons why you should. From what I can tell by my Amazon Affiliates portal, I actually drove Denny some sales.

Good deed? Bad deed?

Well, turns out Denny Hatch was subscribed to my newsletter.

Turns out he read that email from a couple days ago.

Turns out he unsubscribed today. And not only did he unsubscribe, but he wrote in to tell me so:

===

Why fhe unsubscribe:

February 17, 2026 by John Bejakovic

“Today I will recommend to you a book that I have not read and that I have no plans on reading.” [the first sentence of the email I sent to promote Denny’s book]

===

I’m not foolish enough to let a good “reason for unsubscribing” go to waste, even if that reason comes from a respected elder in the field.

So let me draw what lesson I can from this. It’s the most basic and fundamental lesson of them all:

Make people feel okay. In other words, make them feel seen, acknowledged, and respected.

And vice versa. If you make people feel unokay — ignored, dismissed, or disrespected — then even if you are somehow, objectively, but-why-can’t-you-see-it doing right by them, it won’t matter none.

They won’t be happy, and they will even feel the need to get back at you, to get the last jibe in.

This is such a fundamental law of human nature that I put it as Commandment I in my “10 Commandments of Con Men, Pickup Artists, etc.” book.

I’ve read that book, and I recommend it to you based on my own reading. But ok, I also wrote that book, so maybe that doesn’t count for so much.

Instead, let me share a bit of recognition and acknowledgement I just got regarding that book.

It comes from a successful online educator in the finance space. He just signed up to my list a few days ago, after reading my book and opting in for the bonus chapter. He simply wrote:

===

I’m reading your book now for the 2nd time. Amazing what you can pick up the 2nd time around!

===

Honestly that’s the best praise I think a book can get. I’m feeling quite okay right now as a result.

If you’d like to read my 10 Commandments book as well, maybe once, maybe twice, and learn some fundamental lessons about human nature, and how you can use them on occasion to bend reality to your will, and feel okay as a result:

https://bejakovic.com/new10commandments

Follow up about yesterday’s follow up

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Yesterday, I sent an email telling readers to:

1. Find out who their highest-LTV customer is

2. Reach out to that customer and simply catch up

A couple hours after that email went out, I got a message from a long-time reader who runs a paid newsletter, which she sells via a $2k yearly subscription. The reader wrote:

===

What a great idea, John!

I sorted my Google spreadsheet and found 11 current subscribers stood out as paying in the 5 figs, some of whom surprised me.

Sent them each a nice note since no one in [industry] answers the phone, while they do respond to emails.

Every one of them responded within an hour. Several good convos came out of this.

Also reached out to 6 expired subs worth over 5 figs.

One is in between jobs and will sub once they land somewhere.

Two have retired and miss the blog dearly.

One is waiting for the new 2026 budget to open.

One just re-upped their subscription and thanked me for the reminder.

===

That’s-a what I’m a-talking about!

Particularly impressive I thought was the last line, about somebody who had lapsed as a customer, and who ended up making a $2k purchase after being hit with a little reconnect message.

This morning, I took this to heart and created a spreadsheet which I titled “Follow Up Systems.” It’s a more structured way to follow up with people than simply counting on a kind guardian angel to remind me to do it. My spreadsheet has following columns:

* who

* when (eg. email, Skool)

* where

* about what

* next followup date

* next followup content

I noticed that creating this spreadsheet already took a lot of anxiety around the topic of followup out of my head.

Today, I found myself following up with people just so I could fill in the spreadsheet.

Tomorrow, I figure I will add any conversations in there that have stalled in the meantime.

And then in the days that come, I will sort this spreadsheet by the “next followup date” column, and follow up with people I said I should follow up with then.

Maybe it’s worth creating a spreadsheet like this for yourself right now, if you’re looking for clients, referrals, JV partners…

… except, that’s just the structure, the scaffolding.

What about the content? The stuff you actually send to people?

I figure you have a few options:

1. You can wing it each time.

2. You can craft your own system based on what worked and didn’t work for you.

3. Or you can take somebody else’s system that works.

The Notorious Nick Bandy has a system that works, called Ghostbuster Sequence.

It’s a series of 5 mostly templatized/somewhat adaptable followup messages you can send to clients, referrals, JV partners to get them to say yes or no.

Either a yes or a no is ok. What’s not ok is not following up at all or sending one message and treating silence as a reply, and letting it eat away at your little entrepreneur heart.

Btw, when I say Nick’s system works, here’s a recent story he shared about it:

===

Last year I set my eyes on an A+ potential partner, he tried ghosting me. I even wrote about him on the sales page for The Ghostbuster Sequence.

I busted the ever-loving ectoplasm out of that ghost…

Totally flipped the script…

Got HIM chasing ME.

But I got busy…went to Singapore…hibernated for a month, chillin’ with my wife and toddler.

I’m a busy and very important guy.

🦥

He kept following up…over and over again.

And today? Just sent over his entire customer and lead database.

The LIFEBLOOD of his business.

THIRTY THOUSAND CUSTOMERS.

30k!

Do you know how hard I’m rubbing my hands together right now? With an average deal size of $20k and up?

To me. Some random guy. I’m dressed like a K-Drama fanboy in my profile picture. You should not trust this dude with your business. But he did.

Why? Because I’m the best copywriter in America?

No.

Because I read this 9-page, poorly formatted PDF and I know that NO isn’t NO.

===

That 9-page PDF Nick read?

It’s Nick’s Ghostbuster Sequence, which he himself rereads and applies.

The Ghostbuster Sequence will set you back a mighty $54. But it could legit be worth tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars to you if you only put it to use.

If you wanna get it, and better yet, want to start using it today, in just five minutes from now:

https://bejakovic.com/ghostbuster

Free 3-step plan to get more testimonials, perform an X-ray of your market, have buyers recommit to what they just bought from you, and possibly even drive more sales

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Here’s a 3-step plan to get more testimonials, perform an X-ray of your market, have buyers recommit to what they just bought from you, and possibly even drive more sales:

STEP 1. Sell an offer.

STEP 2. Offer people a bonus if they buy the offer now.

STEP 3. When people buy, send them an email with the promised bonuses. At the top of that email, paste in the following mystical, secret, wizard-like spell:

===

Thanks for taking me up on [the name of your offer].

I’m curious, what made you do it?

===

Yes, that’s it.

Yes, I can see your jaw drop and your eyes roll back in your head from mock amazement.

All I can say is, don’t knock it till you try it.

I’ve been doing this all week long with people who took me up on my recommendation for the 1-Person Advertorial Agency.

As usual when I interact directly with people on my list, I’ve been blown away by how little I know, how pale my own imagination, and how rich and surprising it is to go out to my market and talk to them.

You want examples?

I’ve gotten a dozen responses so far, with varying answers to “What made you do it.” Three categories have been prevalent so far:

A. The opportunity of the beast

This being a biz-in-a-box offer, it’s inevitable that people would cite the opportunity of it. Ok, that’s not surprising. But still, it’s different and more insightful to hear it in people’s own words:

#1. “I still don’t plan on leaving my job which I like no matter how successful it is though I might stop working overtime and do this instead once it starts paying. In the meantime it’s not that much of a time commitment that I can’t do both.”

#2. “I like Travis [Sago]’s model of working other’s lists but this method looks equally profitable but might be more helpful in expanding my skills.”

B. A point of differentiation

I hadn’t thought of this one at all, and I didn’t talk about it in my emails. And yet, multiple people brought up the uniqueness of advertorials as opposed to other things copywriters can offer:

#1. “It’s also a point of differentiation since it seems that everyone who hasn’t firmly planted their flag in the email copywriting camp (i.e. most copywriters/marketers) has rebranded themselves as a creative strategist overnight (soon-to-be most copywriters/marketers).”

#2. “Clients who are willing to spend money on advertorials are more serious overall. Meta ads is the bright shiny object that everyone and their dog in law wants rn. But advertorials have been around way longer and sophisticated clients like them a lot.”

C. Because of me

1-Person Advertorial Agency is a great offer, I think its value is self-contained.

And yet, the fact that my readers know and trust me (and maybe even like me???) definitely helps sell the offer, and makes it more credible — even when I say I haven’t used this system myself:

#1. “Plus, as a previous buyer of yours, products you recommend carry more weight than other offers.”

#2. “The fact that you are promoting it. Especially your honesty in saying you have not been taken the course yourself.”

So there you go. Sell something. Then ask people why they bought, and you shall receive.

And now, an important announcement:

The opportunity to get 1-Person Advertorial Agency + the bonuses I am offering is ending tonight at 12 midnight PST.

Along with the core 1-Person Advertorial Agency offer (full details at the sales page below), I am offering the following bonuses:

#1 Horror Advertorial Swipe File, which you can feed to the AI beast so it produces better, or rather, more horrifying advertorials

#2. 26 Rules of Client Management for Copywriters, taken from my Copy Zone guide to the business side of copywriting

#3. Most Valuable Postcard #1: Nota Rapida, which digs into the topic of building long-term relationships with copywriting clients much more deeply

#4. Ghostbuster, Nick Bandy’s 5-stage sequence for reactivating (reanimating?) dead clients or prospective clients

If you wanna get that, you will have to act today. But why not act now, while it’s on your mind? Here’s where to go:

https://bejakovic.com/advertorial-agency

Where to buy crack

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A few days ago, I saw a video on YouTube that has since been taken down, I’m guessing because of the provocative topic.

The video was by a former crack addict, now turned sobriety coach. The title of it was something like:

“I am a crack addict, I can find crack anywhere”

The dude told a story to illustrate:

He used to have a white collar job (tech sales, “always the next easy thing”). At the same time, he was also a crack addict as his true primary occupation.

One day, his boss and he flew to a sales conference in a new town, I believe Orlando.

Sales conference is fine. But the real question was, where to buy crack in this new town, and quick?

The dude couldn’t just ask other sales conference attendees. “Hey are you from here? You know a good place to buy some crack?”

But he did get the info, and from the other conference attendees, and immediately.

Of course he didn’t ask directly.

Not only would he be compromising himself, but more importantly (crack being his primary occupation and interest) he wouldn’t actually find out where to buy crack.

The other conference attendees couldn’t verbalize the answer, either because they would find the question personally threatening or offensive, or because it’s something they had never thought about, because “where to buy crack” is not the way they think about their city.

So what did the guy do?

Simple. He asked, “Hey are you local? Where should I NOT go? Which part of town am I likely to get knifed or gunned down in?”

As the dude tells it in the now-deleted video, within 15 minutes, he had taken a cab, bought a crack pipe, and was smoking. This led to a three-day crack binge, getting fired from his tech sales job, and a shameful flight back home, sitting next to his former boss.

And now, you know where and how to get crack if you ever find yourself in a new town. But if you’re not planning to travel anywhere new, let me point out how this is also relevant to you right where you are.

Forget about the crack for a minute. Put that aside.

Instead, think about trying to sell your offer.

I’ve heard sales described as “the process of getting the truth on the table.”

How do you do that, though?

You can ask, of course:

“Are you overweight by 40lbs or more?”

Sometimes that can work. But in many cases, it won’t — either because people find the question personally threatening or offensive, or simply because it’s something they had never thought about, because it’s not the way they think about their situation.

Maybe the crack-finding parallels are becoming clear now.

The fix, in both cases, is to ask your leads about symptoms. People might not know they have the problem (or in the case of crack, opportunity). But they sure do know the symptoms, and much of the time, they are willing to tell you.

Over the past few weeks, I have been helping a few folks who have email lists and who had previously tried offering coaching to their audience, only to hear an orchestra of crickets. I’m helping them package up said coaching into $1k+ offers that are easier to sell and deliver.

The kind of asking-about-symptoms I just told you about is a part of this process.

Is having a $1k+ offer, which you can readily sell to your list, something that interests you?

If so, hit reply and let me know.

You can’t buy anything here. But if you do reply, I’ll give you a 1-page overview of how this process works, so you can go do it yourself if you like.

Drive X: Why people online are such brutes

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Following my email yesterday about a new 2-star review of my 10 Commandments book, a bit of a discussion developed inside my community, Daily Email House, around the topic of:

“How do you deal with trolls, critics, and know-it-alls in your audience?”

One House member replied that she “stopped caring and installed a ‘mean’ part of me that can trigger people.”

To which another House member replied with some interesting historical context:

===

The Internet has been like this since the age of the dinosaurs (the 1990s) when all we had were chat room and Usenet lists to abuse each other.

Back when everything was anonymous I did the same thing: develop a “mean” persona to play online because that’s the only way to survive a forest of predators.

After online turned social [sic] and we gave up on privacy, the urge to be a jerk behind a screen never went away.

It’s convinced me that a good portion of the public suffers from some kind of mental or emotional disturbance.

===

But if a good portion of the public has a mental or emotional disturbance… is it a disturbance any longer?

I’m not trying to be cute or contrary.

Rather, I think the House member above is on to a key insight about human nature.

It’s not that people are brutes by nature. But they do have a core human drive — let’s call it Drive X for the sake of mystery — which can turn them brutish.

Drive X is not the drive for sex, the way that Sigmund Freud taught.

It’s also not the drive for meaning in life, the way Victor Frankl taught.

Rather, Drive X is something entirely different, which permeates all our interactions with other human beings, online as well as offline.

When left unsatisfied, Drive X gives rise to brutish behavior.

But when Drive X is satisfied, people become open and relaxed and even compliant.

Which is why the world’s top influence professionals — from con men to copywriters to screenwriters — appeal to this Drive X and promise to satisfy it in their marks, prospects, and audiences, first and foremost, above all other considerations.

And that’s why, in my 10 Commandments book, I make Drive X the topic of the very first commandment, because it is PARAMOUNT.

If you have my 10 Commandments book already, you know what Drive X is, or you can look it up easily, at the end of Commandment I.

And if you don’t have my 10 Commandments book yet, you can find it below, and catch up to everyone who is clued in already:

https://bejakovic.com/new10commandments

The sneaky Christmas legend of THE ONE

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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:

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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?

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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:

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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.

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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

50 ways to leave your back spasm

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Yesterday I asked readers for suggestions in dealing with an old-man back spasm that gripped me a few hours earlier.

Well I got suggestions.

Let me tell you some of ‘em, in the style of Paul Simon’s song 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover:

Limber up your hip, Chip

Take a magnesium pill, Bill

Stand more and sit less, Wes

Just listen to me

Roll on a massage ball, Paul

Become a supple leopard, Shepherd

Get some physiotherapy, Lee

And get yourself free

The people who wrote in with suggestions were not trying to sell me anything (thank God) and were just offering help.

(I appreciate everyone who took the time to write me. If I haven’t replied yet to you to say thanks, it’s only because I’m traveling today and am writing this from a plane somewhere between Vienna and Zagreb.)

That said, even though this was not a sales situation, I noticed something inside myself. It might be useful to you if you ever do try to sell people something.

Yesterday I said I’d entertain all suggestions for getting my back spasm to pass.

But today, as I was reading the suggestions my good readers sent in, I noticed I was immediately resistant to some.

It wasn’t because of the suggestions themselves, or because of the people who were giving the suggestion.

Instead it was the way those suggestions were made — with some small detail that simply didn’t fit with my actual situation.

For example:

One person mentioned lower back pain. That’s not where my pain is.

Others talked about chronic back pain. My thing is acute.

Sales trainer Dave Sandler called this “painting the seagull,” as in, forcing a seagull into your prospect’s mental vision of a beach, where the prospect doesn’t see one naturally.

Force the seagull in there, says Sandler, and you create a clash that makes the whole vision disappear. That was my experience today.

The fix to this is (switching metaphors) to play doctor. To ask more questions and get the “patient” to describe his own situation in detail.

Even if your diagnosis ultimately ends up the same, it’s much more likely to be accepted if you listen, and acknowledge the uniqueness of the person standing opposite you, and encourage their mental bubble to expand instead of doing something to make it pop.

This might be useful to you if you ever get on sales calls or anything like sales calls… with prospects for your coaching… or copywriting services… or simply your expensive-ass offer.

And if you want a new plan on how to sell or behave on sales calls, Sandler’s book is still my go-to recommendation. For more info, slip out the back, Jack:

https://bejakovic.com/sandler