Arnold Schwarzenegger

Free new newsletter idea

by

Today I want to give you an idea for a new newsletter, free for you if you want to run with it. But first, a bit o’ background:

A couple days ago I was at the gym, stretching and listening to one of only two podcasts I ever listen to, Mike Mandel’s Brain Software Podcast.

In this episode Mike had a guest, Scott Adams of Dilbert and Trump fame/infamy. Adams has written a new book, and he’s going around to promote it.

I finished listening to that podcast but I was still not done with the gym. The podcast app jumped to the new episode of the second of only two podcasts I ever listen to, the James Altucher Show.

In this episode, James had a guest, also Scott Adams, still promoting his new book.

That’s the background. It’s relevant because Adams’s new book is called Reframe your Brain. It’s all about reframes — different ways to look at situations, changes in perspectives that make you happier, wiser, or simply more effective.

My point in telling you this is to show you that now is a good moment to launch a newsletter, one I have been thinking about for along time, exactly on this topic.

I was planning on launching this newsletter myself.

​​But I simply have no time to do it along with this marketing newsletter you’re reading now and the other health one I’ve got running.

​​So I’m giving you the idea if you want it, for free.

The name I thought of for this newsletter was Great Reframes. It would be in the vein of Letters of Note, in case you know that.

Each issue would simply give readers an interesting and valuable reframe, along with a bit of a story or historical anecdote to make it stick. For example, your first issue could cover one of the classic and most powerful reframes of all time:

“Pain is just weakness leaving the body”

… which is how Arnold Schwarzenegger hypnotized himself into pushing harder at the gym, and how he ultimately won seven Mr. Olympia titles.

I’ve been collecting such reframes for a while. I got a few dozen of ’em so far. They’re everywhere once you get yer antennae up.

Scott Adams collected a bunch of his own reframes into his book. Scott’s book is both a resource for you if you choose to launch this newsletter, and it’s also free publicity, a horse to ride, an occasion to justify your new newsletter. The time to get going is now.

“Yea sure,” you say, “but what about the money? Weakness leaving the body is nice and all, but how about some money entering my wallet?”

If you want to monetize this newsletter, then you got a few options, depending on what you like to do:

You can position this Great Reframes newsletter as a resource for investors, along the lines of Morgan Housel’s Psychology of Money.

​​You could make the reasonable claim that a change in perspective is an invaluable investing tool. At the end of each issue, you could simply pitch stuff that would be interesting to investors — exclusive access, high-priced analysis.

Or if you want to promote yourself and your writing services, you could position this as being an inspiring resource for entrepreneurs and hustlers.

​​You could get entrepreneurs all motivated and inspired with your reframe, and then simply suggest they hire you to write whatever it is you write, since you’ve just demonstrated you can do it well.

Or you could go full-consumer, and simply aim this at self-help junkies. Give them a new reframe in each issue, and then sell them courses, retreats, coaching, whatever.

So there you go. In the slightly modified words of info publisher Bernarr MacFadden:

“Not having your own newsletter is a crime — don’t be a criminal”

… which is another good reframe for you to use in an issue of your new newsletter.

And as I said yesterday, if you do decide to create this newsletter, and you need a platform to actually send your newsletter and a website to get people to opt in to it, then I recommend Beehiiv.

Beehiiv is what I use for my own health newsletter, and it’s great, a rare piece of online software that works well and is a pleasure to use.

​​In case you’d like to get this newsletter started now, for free, go here:

https://bejakovic.com/beehiiv

Insurance against bad clients, present and future

by

Three days ago, after I announced that I’d let Arnold Schwarzenegger shortcut his way into my coaching program, I got an reply from a long-time reader and customer, with a sad but familiar story:

===

I was lucky with a sales letter I wrote. I made a proposal. Their board loved it. When I actually wrote the piece the attorneys tore it apart. Can’t do this. Can’t say that…

I felt like walking away from it because I knew their ideas wouldn’t work. But they were still excited. I should have walked away, but it paid pretty good, and if it sold this gig would bring a lot more work. I didn’t walk away. I needed the money. It bombed. Not one response.

Fortunately for me, my contact said, “At least we know this type of advertising won’t work for us.”

I thought, “No. Your attorneys won’t let it work for you.” But I said, “You’re right, who would have thought it would have done so badly?”

===

I say this story is sad but familiar because in the past all those things happened to me as well.

​​I got to working with clients I should never have worked with. I stayed with bad clients because I needed the money and because of the promise that it would bring future work. I had clients, or people working for them, rip up my copy, replace it with their own, and then tell me that what I wrote didn’t work.

The guy who wrote me the above message wanted to know if I had ever had business insurance as a copywriter. You know, to protect myself in these kinds of situations, when my copy produces zero sales, and the client has a team of lawyers.

The fact is, I never did have business insurance as a copywriter.

What’s more, I figure the way to deal with above situations is not after the fact, with insurance, but proactively, by choosing the right clients and by setting the right expectations.

It’s not an easy thing to do. But it’s not immensely difficult either. There are different ways you can go about it. But if you ask me how, my recommendation is to check out Steve Raju’s ClientRaker.

Steve’s process will help you both 1) choose the right clients, and 2) set the right expectations with those clients.

​​You can think of it as an investment — insurance against any bad clients you have now, or might be tempted to take on in the future.

Registration for ClientRaker closes in just 8 short hours, at 8pm CET/11am PST. And in fact, the first ClientRaker training will happen later today. If you’d like to get in while there’s still time:

https://bejakovic.com/clientraker

I’ve decided to let Arnold Schwarzenegger shortcut his way into my coaching program

by

Two days ago I was told that The Austrian Oak, Arnold Schwarzenegger, has started sending out daily emails.

I was curious so I signed up for his list. A fun thank-you page popped up:

“Come with me if you want to subscribe! Check your email! DO IT NOW!”

Good job, big guy. But I wondered about the actual content — will Arnie write it? He’s already had an A-list career as a competitive athlete, a business man, a movie star, and a top-level politician. So why not an email copywriter?

But no. It turns out Arnold employs two editors-in-chief who write the actual emails. Inspiration + diet + health advice. The content feels correct but a bit bland, a bit too earnest, a bit too how-to.

I skimmed the first day’s email. I skipped the second day’s. I’m not looking forward to the third day’s.

The point is unavoidable:

Arnold Schwarzenegger has figured out the importance of daily email, even at this stage of his enormously successful career. Some kinds of influence you just can’t shortcut or replace.

Unfortunately, he’s delegating the writing of the emails to these two editors-in-chief. That’s already a huge minus, because what his audience really wants is something that feels like real, one-on-one contact with Arnie.

To top it off, the content is lacking spice.

For all these reasons, and as a way of saying thanks to the entertainment that Arnold Schwarzenegger provided early on in my life, I’ve decided to take the following dramatic and unprecedented step.
​
I offer coaching on writing daily emails. My goal is to get business owners writing daily emails effectively and efficiently. That means:

1. People should enjoy reading your emails.

2. People should do what you tell them to do as a result of your daily emails (Arnold is promoting his Pump Club and preselling his new book, set to be published in October).

3. Writing these daily emails should be manageable, so it fits it into your otherwise busy schedule — in between shooting your new Netflix action show, pumping iron, and trying to mediate the war in Ukraine, for example.

I don’t often advertise this coaching program. I don’t often take on new students. I also don’t accept most people who express interest in this coaching.

But since Arnold has shown so much promise in so many other fields, I’ve decided to accept him into my email coaching program, without the usual screening call I make everyone else go through.

I’m just waiting for word of this uniquely good news to reach him. Once this happens, I will probably get an email from Arnold, and we will coordinate our busy schedules and find a regular time to talk that works for both of us.

I have little doubt that his daily emails will improve dramatically very soon after, and we will make that October book launch a huge success.

And while Arnie and I work to get our schedules synced, I might take on another coaching student.

In case you are interested, reply to this email. Tell me a bit about yourself — who you are, what you do, who you do it for.

I’ll tell you if I think you’re in a place to benefit from the coaching. And if I think you are, we will get on a call to see if it really is a fit. Except Arnold, nobody gets to skip this step.

If it is a fit, then we can start working together towards the goal. As someone asked Arnold once, “What is best in life?”

I don’t have his exact quote in front of me. But he responded with something like:

“Crush your readers’ indifference… see money driven to your bank account… and hear the lamentation of your competitors.” With daily emails, of course.

Gratuitous fun to make readers stand up and beg for buttermilk

by

For the first 20 or 30 years of my life, I had this serious mental defect where I couldn’t enjoy a good bangemup action movie.

“So unrealistic,” I snuffled. “So predictable.” That’s how I wasted decades of my life.

Thank God I’ve grown up.

​​Because now I can watch and enjoy movies like True Lies, James Cameron’s 1994 action comedy.

​​True Lies stars Arnold Schwarzenegger as super spy/boring suburban dad Harry Tasker, and Jamie Lee Curtis as his stodgy/talented wife Helen.

The initial reason I watched True Lies was the following famous line. It’s delivered by a used car salesman who’s trying to seduce Helen and is unwittingly confiding to Harry about it:

“And she’s got the most incredible body, too, and a pair of titties that make you wanna stand up and beg for buttermilk. Ass like a ten year old boy!”

Which modern Hollywood screenplay would dare have that?

But even beyond the risky dialogue, I was surprised by how fun this movie is. I guess that’s the only word to describe it. For example, as the movie goes on, you get to see:

– an old man sitting on a public toilet, calmly reading a newspaper, during the first shootout between Harry and the bad guy

– Harry riding a horse into an elevator, and an aristocratic couple in the elevator getting whipped in the face by the horse’s tail

– Tia Carrere (the evil seductress in the movie) rushing to grab her purse before the bad guys drop a box with a nuclear warhead onto it

– a pelican landing on a teetering van full of terrorists and sending it crashing off the bridge

– Harry saving the day flying a military jet, perfectly landing the plane on a city street, and then accidentally bumping a cop car

The point is that all these details are what I call “gratuitous fun.”

They weren’t in any way central to the action of the movie… and even the comedic part of the plot could have done without them.

They were just pure, unnecessary fun that made the movie sparkle a bit more. And I guess they helped it become the success that it was, netting almost $400 million in 1994 dollars.

I think the message is clear:

This year, surprise your readers with some gratuitous fun in your online content, in your sales messages, and even your one-to-one business communication.

​​People love James Cameron’s movies. They will love your stuff, too. In fact, you’ll make them wanna stand up and beg for buttermilk. Whatever that means.

And if you are too close to your own marketing to know what “gratuitous fun” might look like… well, maybe you can get some ideas from my own marketing. If you like, you can sign up for my daily email newsletter here.

7-time Mr. Emailympia’s self-improvement habit

by

Werewolves were still roaming around when I woke up this morning. The clock showed 4:51am.

I lay around in the dark for a bit. I imagined laying around some more… but no! I jumped up, grabbed my stuff, and raced off to the 24-hour gym.

In case you’re starting to break out in a cold sweat, thinking this email is about seizing the day by the tail… don’t worry. The fact is, I should have stayed in bed.

Because in a few minutes, there I was at the gym, sleepy and foggy-brained. Somewhere in this haze, I thought it would be a good idea to lift a weighted barbell over my head.

My mind was elsewhere. My muscles were tired. I staggered forward under the unexpected weight… braked by standing up on my tiptoes… swayed back and forth… and almost dropped the barbell, plates and all, onto my skull.

A moment later, I stood there, looking at the now-harmless barbell on the floor. And I remembered something that 7x Mr. Olympia Arnold Schwarzenegger once said:

“Doing an exercise once with awareness is worth ten times an exercise done while distracted.”

Good advice for the gym.

But maybe you don’t care for the gym.

Maybe you just care for better marketing and stronger copy.

In that case, I can share a related idea by 7x Mr. Emailympia, John Bejakovic.

Here’s a little habit I used to practice in the old days of writing this email newsletter.

First, I made a list of what I called “1% improvements.” These were things that I knew made for better emails… but that I didn’t practice regularly. Not with any awareness at least.

My habit was to pick one of these 1% improvements each week. And for the rest of the week, with each email I wrote, I consciously and awarely practiced that idea.

Result?

Wealth, fame, and, like I said, 7 Mr. Emailympia titles so far. And who knows what the future holds? Hollywood stardom… a career in politics… or maybe marriage to a Kennedy.

So I’d like to suggest to you:

Make your own list of “1% improvements.” Pick one each week. Bring your awareness to it. And watch your returns compound, just like they are doing for me.

“Incorrect,” I hear an accountant saying. “In order for returns to compound, you have to keep your investment alive. And you said you stopped your 1% habit. Therefore, you are not compounding anything, you meathead.”

Fair point. So as of today, I’d like to announce I’m picking up this “1% improvement” habit again.

I won’t spell out which specific habit I’m working on this week. Maybe you can spot it in today’s email. And if not, don’t worry. You get another chance tomorrow. I’ll be back.

Gratuitous fun to make readers beg for buttermilk

by

For the first 20 or 30 years of my life, I had this serious mental defect where I couldn’t enjoy a good bangemup action movie.

“So unrealistic,” I snuffled. “So predictable.” That’s how I wasted decades of my life.

Thank God I’ve grown up. Because I just watched and enjoyed True Lies, James Cameron’s 1994 action comedy, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as super spy/boring suburban dad Harry Tasker, and Jamie Lee Curtis as his stodgy/talented wife Helen.

The initial reason I watched True Lies was the following famous line, delivered by a used car salesman who’s trying to seduce Helen… and who is unwittingly confiding to Harry about it:

“And she’s got the most incredible body, too, and a pair of titties that make you wanna stand up and beg for buttermilk. Ass like a ten year old boy!”

Which modern Hollywood screenplay would dare have that?

But even beyond the risky dialogue, I was surprised by how fun this movie is. I guess that’s the only word to describe it. For example, as the movie goes on, you get to see:

– an old man sitting on a public toilet, calmly reading a newspaper, during the first shootout between Harry and the bad guy

– Harry riding a horse into an elevator, and an aristocratic couple in the elevator getting whipped in the face by the horse’s tail

– Tia Carrere (the evil seductress in the movie) rushing to grab her purse before the bad guys drop a box with a nuclear warhead onto it

– a pelican landing on a teetering van full of terrorists and sending it crashing off the bridge

– Harry saving the day flying a military jet, perfectly landing the plane, and then accidentally bumping a cop car

The point is that all these details are what I call “gratuitous fun.”

They weren’t in any way central to the action of the movie… and even the comedic part of the plot could have done without them.

They were just pure, unnecessary fun that made the movie sparkle a bit more. And I guess they helped it become the success that it was, netting almost $400 million in 1994 dollars.

I think the message is clear:

This year, surprise your readers with some gratuitous fun in your online content, in your sales messages, and even your one-to-one business communication. People love James Cameron’s movies. They will love your stuff, too. In fact, you’ll make them wanna stand up and beg for buttermilk. Whatever that means.

My growing respect for the beat-up Irish clown

by

A few weeks back, MMA fighter Conor McGregor announced he would retire.

At one point, McGregor was the UFC lightweight champion. Right now, he’s best known for trash-talking, street brawls, and taking any opportunity to promote his own brand of Irish whiskey.

For me personally, he’s an easy guy to hate.

How could you not?

McGregor talked a lot shit prior to his last fight. He then got his ass kicked convincingly over four rounds, and had to tap out. This didn’t keep him from talking shit — and he still keeps it up, even now that he is supposedly (but unconvincingly) retired.

​​To top it all off, he looks and acts like a clown — albeit a dangerous, aggressive clown.

That’s how I felt. Until recently.

Recently, as I watched various clips of Conor McGregor prior to his last fight, I got a strange impression.

I realized that in spite of all the boasting, here was a man who realized full-well that he would go into the cage and probably get beat up, and beat up badly.

He was willing to get punched and kicked and strangled by one of the most dangerous men on the planet.

And he was willing to make a fool of himself before and after the physical beatdown.

And for what?

For long-term success, that’s what. McGregor reportedly earned $100 million last year — only a few million of which came from his fight money. The rest came from endorsements, and increasingly, from his own business ventures.

Like that whiskey company, which is now selling more bottles than Jameson.

And that was my strange impression — that McGregor’s provocative fight persona is all done with an eye to the future. And it’s working for him.

Because of this, he reminds me of another sports figure who went on to have big success in business (and further).

I’m thinking of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

And so I wasn’t surprised to find that McGregor and Schwarzenegger hold each other in very high regard.

But anyhow, what’s the point of all this?

It’s simply to recommend a bit of Conor McGregor’s attitude.

Of course, you don’t have to allow yourself to literally get brutalized in pursuit of massive amounts of money.

But figuratively? Maybe learn to take a punch. And allow yourself to get laughed at, to be mocked, and to be humiliated.

After all, you’ve got a plan. And you will be a success one day, while everybody else will still be cackling at their keyboards and behind their TV’s.

At least that’s how I look at it. And if you want more of my thinking on the psychology behind success in marketing, you can find it here:

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

How to dupe Hollywood’s 2nd biggest action star into humiliating himself

by

Back in 1992, a terrible movie came out called Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot.

(If you want to go on YouTube for a minute to check out the trailer, go ahead. I’ll wait.)

It starred Sylvester Stallone as a tough cop who has to team up with his overbearing mom to solve a case.

Stallone later said this was the worst movie he’s ever made, and he expressed regret for getting involved.

Critics seem to agree.

Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot has a remarkable 8% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with one reviewer generously saying, “Give it half a star for being in focus.”

All right, so the movie sucks.

The question then becomes, why would Sylvester Stallone, one of the biggest action stars of the 80’s and early 90’s, agree to be in this clearly terrible production?

The answer is simple.

​He got conned.

It turns out Stallone had a long-running “Whose is bigger” competition going on with the other massive action star of the period.

I’m talking about Arnold Schwarzenegger. Who is clearly a better politician than Sly. Case in point:

Arnold read the script for Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot.

He saw immediately that it was godawful.

And dyed-in-the-wool politician that he is, he then leaked something to the press about how he was tremendously interested in the movie.

Knowing how Hollywood works, he also asked for a huge amount of money to star in the movie.

So of course the producers then approached Stallone, hoping to get a better deal.

And since Arnold had made it known he wanted to do this movie badly, Stallone accepted, thinking he’d swiped a good opportunity from out of Arnie’s jaws.

Clever.

And an illustration of the most fundamental principle of human persuasion, which I heard goes back to Wall Street financier Bernard Baruch:

“Find out what people want, and show them how to get it.”

Of course, you sometimes have to dig deep to find out what people really want.

Stallone didn’t want money. Or even a hit movie. His real motivation was to one-up Schwarzenegger.

Sometimes it takes political genius to uncover this (like in the case of Arnold and Sly).

Other times, you simply have to do extensive research. And if you want to see my approach to doing research to figure out what people really want, specifically for writing up sales copy, then you might like the following:

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