Inferiority

Top 3%

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I just finished playing today’s Which Year puzzle. I wrote about Which Year yesterday:

A new puzzle game, currently trending on, or speeding along, the digital superhighway.

Which Year shows you photos, and you try to guess the year the photo was taken. The closer the better.

Yesterday, I made the claim that the main reason Which Year has quickly gained popularity is not the core idea (solid, even if it’s nothing magical), but the tweak, taken from Wordle, that new puzzles are only available once a day, and everybody gets the same.

But there’s another big reason for Which Year’s fast success, and it’s again taken from Wordle:

After you finish puzzling today’s Which Year puzzles (5 separate images), you see your score compared to everyone else in the world.

I placed in the top 3%, and am very proud to tell you so, which is really the point of meh email today. The point goes all the way back to one of the founders of psychotherapy, Alfred Adler.

Adler disagreed with Freud that sex is the basis of man’s struggle in life. Instead, Adler believed that a feeling of inferiority was the core human experience and drive.

You might think I’m really stretching this email, having started out with a trending puzzle game 10 sentences ago and now telling you about psychotherapy and inferiority as the basis of human experience.

But that’s kind of Adler’s point. Wanting to not feel inferior — not wanting to be first necessarily, but definitely not wanting to be last, or close to last — is a key driver of everything we do, all the time. It’s the reason for the clothes we choose, the vacations we take, and the games we play, whether hidden (such as Mine Is Better Than Yours) or overt (Which Year).

Translate that to marketing and business, and you get:

If you wanna motivate people, then appeal to what’s already motivating to them. Bolt a bit of scarcity or inferiority-avoidance onto your core idea — solid, even if nothing magical — and you can create a global hit. Or at least something that’s not in last place, or close to last.

So much for motivation. In other news:

This morning, I’ve shipped off the draft of my new 10 Commandments book to a few friends for feedback. While that’s happening, I would like to remind you of my own daily puzzle game, which integrates some fundamental human motivators that I cribbed from Wordle. You can find out more about it here:

​https://bejakovic.com/deh

P.S. Yesterday, I asked three “Which Year” text puzzles. Here are the answers:

1. The first (and so far only) killer swamp rabbit attack on a U.S. president happened on April 20, 1979. (The president was Jimmy Carter.)

2. Nutella debuted on Italian store shelves on April 20, 1964.

3. Oil prices dropped below zero (if you could buy a lot, and have somewhere to put it), on April 20, 2020.

“You’re pretty funny”

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A few days, I ago got an email from copywriter and business strategist Nadia Dalbani, who wrote:

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John.

I’ve read 3 of your emails in a row. I haven’t had time to read them the past few days, so I had to have a read-a-thon (a John-a-thon!).

Anyway, I’m so close to buying Daily Email Habit even though I totally read the sales page and you DID say don’t buy this if you don’t plan to *actually* have a Daily Email Habit – I only email my list once a week, so I initially left like yup, NOT for me.

But I can confirm, even reading your emails in reverse order, I am definitely more convinced to start an every single day email habit due to your pitches.

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I remember hearing a story once about how Bill Murray and Chevy Chase got into an actual fist fight on the set of Saturday Night Live.

The two apparently hated each other. It all came to a boil one day when Murray said to Chase, “You’re pretty funny.”

Chevy Chase then started swinging.

I’ve always wondered why “pretty funny” is such an insult, at least if you think of yourself as funny. It’s much more insulting than, say, “not funny.”

(If you have any insight on this for me, write in and let me know.)

In any case, that’s a little how I felt after reading Nadia’s email.

“Pretty good email. Pretty, pretty good. Almost got me. But not quite.”

Nadia lives in London. After I read her message, I started getting ready to buy a ticket so I could fly there, confront her in person, and maybe start a fight.

Fortunately, yesterday I got a new message from Nadia, just in time:

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Alright, alright, it took, like, 3 more emails, but you got me. I’m mega excited to start Daily Email Habit 😄

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Like I say, this is particularly fortunate, not only because it will prevent an ugly confrontation on the streets of London, but because it also backs up the very premise of Daily Email Habit.

For one thing, the emails Nadia responded to were based on prompts I sent out as part of Daily Email Habit. (I eat my own dog food most days.)

For another thing, this little case study backs up the general principle of putting out a daily email… gradually building up desire… gradually chipping away at objections… all while keeping readers interested enough that they keep opening and reading your emails.

This is really what Daily Email Habit is there to help you do.

And if you are thinking of getting started, I can only recommend you act now.

My Prospective Profit Price event is coming to a close tonight at 12pm midnight PST.

After that, the price for Daily Email Habit goes up from a modest $20/month to a wallet-busting $30/month.

Also, Daily Email House, the lively community that I’ve created for those who write more or less daily emails, will stop being a free bonus tonight at midnight.

If you have any questions, or to join now, take a look at this pretty good sales page:

https://bejakovic.com/deh