I’m an old, old man. Let me tell you just how old:
I was the washing dishes this morning — my way of staying off the computer right when I get up — when I felt my back start to seize up.
This has happened to me a few times before in my life, always when I was doing some sort of quick movement, usually when it was cold.
Today was the first time it has happened just on its own, while I was behaving myself and in fact elbow-deep in hot water.
(Maybe it’s because I’ve been going to the gym a lot these past days. And when not at the gym, I’ve been doing yoga at home, and yoga, from what I’ve experienced, is an excellent way to get cramps and pull muscles and cause joint injuries.)
In the past, when my back seized up, it was extremely painful, and usually took days to fully resolve itself.
Today I managed to intercept it early.
I stopped what I was doing. I straightened up. I breathed deep. I went to lie down on the floor a bit. I put my back against the radiator in the bathroom to try to get muscles to unspasm. I even went to the pool a bit later and swam for a half hour, which seems to have helped things.
As a result, my back hasn’t been nearly as bad today as in the past when this happened.
But I can still feel it a bit, and when I sit or turn, I get the sense that my back is just waiting to fully seize up.
I will be traveling back to Croatia tomorrow, five hours on various airplanes. I’m hoping to avoid traveling in extreme pain whenever I turn or bend or straighten up.
Do you have any suggestions for me to cure my spasmy back muscles? Anything at all? I’m willing to entertain whatever you can propose.
In other news, yesterday I asked people for new offers they are planning to launch in 2026. I was curious about the offers themselves, and also curious about how people are going about defining these offers.
I got a buncha responses.
Here’s one that caught my eye.
A reader kicked off by telling me he will be launching “a group coaching membership with a 1:1 coaching offer built around it (adding email coaching and *maybe* calls).”
This reader went on to say what this shiny and elaborate hammer is intended for:
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The market is people over 40 who are feeling the effects of age, from less energy, aches and pains, unwanted flab, and such things.
[The reader explained how hard it is to differentiate yourself in that space, or to say anything really new. He concluded with:]
The whole fitness space is the definition of a saturated Stage 5 market, and that’s true even when you dig into several layers of niches and sub-niches.
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In the words of Byron Katie:
Is that true?
Can you be 100% sure that it’s true?
Like I wrote above, right now I would entertain any kind of cure for my almost-but-not-quite seized back.
I wouldn’t really look at the testimonials or endorsements or credentials of the person suggesting it to me… I wouldn’t be concerned about it being a new mechanism… I wouldn’t care whether I have a relationship with the person who’s offering help.
In other words, I, a person over 40 who is feeling “the effects of age, from less energy, aches and pains, unwanted flab, and such things” would be willing to listen to pretty much the first person who would come and promise to have a solution for my highly specific health issue.
I don’t know if “almost-but-not-quite seized back” is a good market to go after.
But it seems like talking about this could at least make for an effective ad… or an email hook… or maybe an Agora-style bonus to give people along with a free trial of the “group coaching membership with a 1:1 coaching offer built around it.”
That’s it. That’s all I got for you today.
I think the marketing and sales implications are clear.
The only thing that might not be 100% clear to you is how to dig up such “layers of niches and sub-niches” where the riches lie in your market.
For that, I’ll direct you to my group and community, Daily Email House.
Inside the group, you can ask questions and I can chime in with comments and occasional answers, and sometimes further questions.
In case you’re having a hard time getting out of “hammer selling” brain and into the frame of solving present pains of the market, here’s my cure for that: