Scott Adams

Free new newsletter idea

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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

What I learned from copywriting

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Copywriting pays for my food, my rent, and my collection of black t-shirts.

Copywriting allows me to work on a Saturday, if I so choose, and skip Monday through Wednesday.

Copywriting has put me in touch with multimillionaires and even one billionaire.

It’s exposed me to strange new worlds, such as beekeping, billboard wholesaling, and penis enlargement.

But all that is kids’ stuff. Where copywriting really impacted me, where it changed me in ways I didn’t expect, is the following:

A. It taught me to read.

David Deutsch said, “If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn’t read 50 books one time each; I would read 10 books five times each.”

Other famous copywriters say the same.

So I reread books now. And I find mucho stuff in there that I didn’t see before. My brain changed in the meantime.

Also when I read, I’m much more careful. I keep stopping to ask myself, “Is this interesting? New? Useful? Could it be useful if I combined it with something else I’d read?” It’s slow and it’s work. But it’s a better use of my time than flying through text and not getting anything out of it.

B. It gave me a real acceptance of the moist robot hypothesis.

Scott Adams says we are all “moist robots”:

“Humans are wet robots that respond to programming. If you aren’t intentionally programming yourself, the environment and other people are doing it for you.”

This sounded outlandish when I first heard it… then amusing… then interesting… then believable… then obvious. Copywriting provided me with plenty of real-life examples. There might be something more inside of us, some capacity for experience and reflection… but most of what we do is moist robot.

C. It exposed me to the Gene Schwartz sophistication/awareness models.

This is so valuable whether you’re writing copy or doing any other kind of communicating. It can be summed up with the idea of starting where your reader/prospect/adversary is… But how do you do that? Schwartz’s models tell you exactly.

D. It taught me the low value of secrets.

And also the low value of supplements. And the low value of opportunities. In general, through copywriting, I’ve developed a suspicion of anything new being advertised for sale.

E. It taught me the enduring power of listicles.

For getting attention. Not necessarily valuable attention. Which is why I used the headline “What I learned from copywriting” instead of “5 things I learned from copywriting.” As Mark Ford said recently:

“If you want to get cheap readership, listicles are great. But they don’t do a good job selling anything, or getting serious attention, or creating a fan out of the reader, especially at higher price points.”

F. It taught me how to get rich.

I’m not sure if I ever will be rich. But I might.

Through copywriting, I’ve had an amazing business education. I’ve gotten to look behind the curtain at dozens of successful enterprises. I’ve found out exactly how they get their customers… what they sell to these customers… and how they keep selling more.

Maybe one day, I’ll turn that knowledge into actual success. Speaking of which, let me repeat something I wrote a few months back:

​​”Perhaps success is simply about choosing a field where you don’t mind getting better. Where the daily work is something you find enjoyable enough — or at least, not too repulsive — so you can continue to get better at it day after day.”

Copywriting is not my passion. I don’t have any passions.

But I don’t mind the daily work, and sometimes I even find it enjoyable. And that’s something I never thought would happen.

Maybe you’d like more articles like this. In that case, you can sign up for my daily email newsletter.

D. Trump’s first pillar of persuasive power

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Twigger warning:

This post is about billionaire businessman, master persuader, and father of five D. Trump. Because while working on some secret stuff today, I had the feeling that Trump uses repetition as a persuasive tool.

But it was just a hunch. And then I found a transcript of the third presidential debate between Trump and H. Clinton. In the first few seconds, Trump said the following:

Something happened recently where Justice Ginsburg made some very, very inappropriate statements toward me and toward a tremendous number of people, many, many millions of people that I represent. And she was forced to apologize and apologize she did.

But these were statements that should never, ever have been made. We need a Supreme Court that in my opinion, is going to uphold the Second Amendment and all amendments, but the Second Amendment, which is under absolute siege.

I believe if my opponent should win this race, which I truly don’t think will happen, we will have a Second Amendment, which will be a very, very small replica of what it is right now. But I feel that it’s absolutely important that we uphold because of the fact that it is under such trauma.

By my count, this short snippet features:

– 6 instances of words repeated for effect

– 2 instances of phrases repeated for effect

– 4 instances of ideas repeated for effect

So I think my hunch about Trump and repetition was spot on.

(I only found out later that I was not the first to spot Trump’s use of repetition. Far from it. It turns out Scott Adams wrote about it in his book Win Bigly, all the way back in 2017. According to Adams, repetition is the key pillar of Trump’s persuasive power, along with simplicity and images.)

Now maybe you don’t like Trump. Even so, you might still be able to learn something from the man. Because you too can use repetition at different levels of your persuasive message. Words. Phrases. Ideas. Across space and time.

It’s worth trying. Because repetition creates belief… it increases desire… and it makes sure your message actually reaches your prospect.

If that sounds familiar, it’s because I wrote about it in another post a few months ago. But it’s a very valuable lesson… and worth repeating.

And here’s something I repeat at the end of each of my posts:

I have an email newsletter. It’s the best. Really. If you’d like to try it out, you can sign up here.

What I learned from copywriting

by

Copywriting pays for my food, my plane tickets, and my collection of black t-shirts.

Back when I had an apartment, it also paid for my rent.

Copywriting allows me to work on a Saturday, if I so choose, and skip Monday through Wednesday.

It’s put me in touch with multimillionaires and even one billionaire.

It’s exposed me to strange new worlds, such as beekeping, billboard wholesaling, and penis enlargement.

But that’s kids’ stuff. Where copywriting really impacted me, where it changed me in ways I didn’t expect, is the following:

A. It taught me to read.

David Deutsch said, “If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn’t read 50 books one time each; I would read 10 books five times each.”

Other famous copywriters say the same.

So I reread books now. And I find mucho stuff in there that I didn’t see before. My brain changed in the meantime.

Also when I read, I’m much more careful. I keep stopping to ask myself, “Is this interesting? New? Useful? Could it be useful if I combined it with something else I’d read?” It’s slow and it’s work. But it’s a better use of my time than flying through text and not getting anything out of it.

B. It gave me a real acceptance of the moist robot hypothesis.

Scott Adams says we are all “moist robots”:

“Humans are wet robots that respond to programming. If you aren’t intentionally programming yourself, the environment and other people are doing it for you.”

This sounded outlandish when I first heard it… then amusing… then interesting… then believable… then obvious. Copywriting provided me with plenty of real-life examples. There might be something more inside of us, some capacity for experience and reflection… but most of what we do is moist robot.

C. It exposed me to the Gene Schwartz sophistication/awareness models.

This is so valuable whether you’re writing copy or doing any other kind of communicating. It can be summed up with the idea of starting where your reader/prospect/adversary is… But how do you do that? Schwartz’s models tell you exactly.

D. It taught me the low value of secrets.

And also the low value of supplements. And the low value of opportunities. In general, through copywriting, I’ve developed a suspicion of anything new being advertised for sale.

E. It taught me the enduring power of listicles.

For getting attention. Not necessarily valuable attention. Which is why I used the headline “What I learned from copywriting” instead of “5 things I learned from copywriting.” As Mark Ford said recently:

“If you want to get cheap readership, listicles are great. But they don’t do a good job selling anything, or getting serious attention, or creating a fan out of the reader, especially at higher price points.”

F. It taught me how to get rich.

I’m not sure if I ever will be rich. But I might.

Through copywriting, I’ve had an amazing business education. I’ve gotten to look behind the curtain at dozens of successful enterprises. I’ve found out exactly how they get their customers… what they sell to these customers… and how they keep selling more.

Maybe one day, I’ll turn that knowledge into actual success. Speaking of which, let me repeat something I wrote a few months back:

​​”Perhaps success is simply about choosing a field where you don’t mind getting better. Where the daily work is something you find enjoyable enough — or at least, not too repulsive — so you can continue to get better at it day after day.”

Copywriting is not my passion. I don’t have any passions.

But I don’t mind the daily work, and sometimes I even find it enjoyable. And that’s something I never thought would happen.

Maybe you’d like more articles like this. In that case, you can keep browsing this blog… or you can sign up for my daily email newsletter.

How Trump outsmarted Mueller

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During the last election, I spent a lot of time reading Scott Adams’s blog.

Adams was one of the few people to bet on Trump very early. And as Trump kept winning, first the primaries, then the election itself, Adams often talked about “cognitive dissonance” — that disorienting feeling when external evidence contradicts our mental models of how the world works.

Well, there’s a lot of cognitive dissonance floating around the Internet today, following the release of the Mueller findings over the weekend.

People simply cannot figure out what went wrong, and how it is that Trump isn’t already under indictment or even in jail.

Well, I’ll tell you how.

It’s because Trump outsmarted Mueller. He was ahead of Mueller every step of the way. He had the Democrats by the nose and Mueller looking in all the wrong places.

And you know how Trump outsmarted them all?

It’s straight out of Limitless. He used a new smart drug called Reviva (which he also used during the election). According to Trump, “Your brain deteriorates as you get older, this pill keeps my brain young & sharper than ever.”

Ok, it’s time to take a moment to breathe.

None of the story above is true — well, except for the cognitive dissonance surrounding the Mueller findings.

The rest of it — the bit about Trump gobbling down a designer smart pill — is something I’ve just read in a very successful, currently running advertorial.

And here’s why I bring it up.

An ad like this could never run on TV.

These days, it also cannot run on Facebook or Google.

And yet I’ve seen this same ad a half dozen times over the past few weeks.

No FTC injunction. No White House cease-and-desist order. Nobody to stop whoever is running these ads from making mountains of golden, shiny shekels. How is this possible?

It’s simple:

​​Email drops.

In other words, paying for placement in an email newsletter (in this case, Newsmax).

Email drops still seem to be a kind of Wild West of advertising. They make it possible to reach large numbers of people, often using the kind of copy you want (instead of what Facebook wants). And that’s why they can be a great option for advertisers who are looking for new (or alternate) sources of traffic.

Of course, you don’t have to use email drops to sell shit products.

And you don’t have to tell lies to sell whatever it is you are selling.

You can also use email drops to successfully sell decent products with more-or-less ethical marketing. And if this is something you’re interested in, you might find valuable ideas in my upcoming book:

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