Titans Xcelerator

Going it on your own

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Yesterday, in a restaurant in Barcelona’s Eixample district, I organized a “direct response dinner.”

6 people (ok, 6 guys) where there, all of whom work in direct response.

There was a copywriter for an ecom retention agency… there was the owner of a big dropshipping business… there was the head of ops for a lead gen agency… there was the owner of a dating info biz… there was Thom Benny’s business partner Elmo… and there was me.

Over fish curry and ground beef, we talked about what’s up in life and business.

Halfway through the dinner, we switched seats to switch up the conversation.

At the end, everybody stood around outside the restaurant and talked some more and exchanged contacts. I announced I would make this a regular event.

A few years ago, I gave a presentation in Brian Kurtz’s Titans XL group. After that presentation, Brian and I exchanged a couple emails, and he invited me to join Titans myself.

I wrote Brian to say thanks, that I can see Titans is a good group, but that I know from past experience that I don’t function well or last long in groups. I said that even though I know it’s not smart, I always end up going it alone. To which Brian replied:

“Not that I need to teach you anything, John…but whether it’s my group or someone else’s (or one you manufacture on your own), “going it on your own” is a huge mistake.”

That has stuck with me for years. It was a key motivator for why I decided to create my Daily Email House community, and later, why created the Monetization Mastermind. It’s also why decided to organize the dinner last night.

I’m kind of weird and awkward whenever I’m invited to other people’s stuff. I don’t really participate. I look for any excuse to skulk out.

I could tell myself that’s silly, and wait for myself to change and become a better, more sociable, more well-adjusted person.

Or I could simply work with what I’ve got, and figure out how to do something with it. In my case, that’s meant following Brian’s advice, and “manufacturing” groups and communities of my own.

I’m telling you this because maybe it applies to you as well.

Maybe what applies is the specific idea that, if you don’t function well in other people’s groups, then you should manufacture one of your own.

Or maybe what applies is the broader idea to stop waiting for yourself to become a better person in order to get what you want. (Business coach Rich Schefren phrases this as, “Put your business goals ahead of your self-development goals.”)

Final point:

I personally knew everybody I invited to dinner last night, with the exception of James, the head of ops for a lead gen agency.

I had never met James before or interacted with him in any way. I invited him because he is inside Travis Sago’s Royalty Ronin group, and I figured anybody who is in Ronin is ok in my book and is worth meeting. (James turned out to be great.)

Royalty Ronin is the only group I’m a member of in any meaningful way, and the only group I’ve managed to stick around in for more than a few weeks. (I’ve been in Ronin for over two years now.)

That’s not because there’s magic inside Ronin that makes me into a chipper and regular participant. (I rarely post and I comment even more rarely.)

Rater, I stay inside Ronin and I keep lurking there because I’ve learned so much from Travis Sago, both via the ton of expensive trainings that he makes available for free inside Ronin… and via observing Travis and what he does. (This is stuff that might or might not make it into future expensive trainings, but it’s yours free if you only pay attention.)

If you wanna see if Ronin could work for you, whether you participate in groups or not:

https://bejakovic.com/ronin

P.S. If you do make it past free trial and stay inside Ronin, write me an email and let me know. I have some bonuses with your name on them.

Counterpoint to the screwing

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I was at gym not long ago. Instead of working out, as I should have been, I was listening to a particularly interesting episode of the James Altucher podcast.

This particular episode was particularly interesting because James was interviewing Steven Pressfield, the author of the War of Art and some other books.

It turns out James plagiarized a valuable ideas from one of those books. I later plagiarized the same idea from James.

But I’ve written about that before.

What I haven’t written about is that I recently contacted Brian Kurtz, the former Boardroom VP and current marketing mastermind organizer.

I wanted to see if Brian would like me to give some kind of presentation to Titans XL, his virtual mastermind/community.

Several people who are in Titans XL are also customers and readers of my newsletter. In fact, one such reader suggested the idea that I present at Titans XL.

I’m grateful to that reader. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this myself. After all, I’ve been reading Brian’s stuff for years, and I often refer to his stories and experiences in my own emails. I’ve learned a ton from the guy, both directly and indirectly.

All that’s to say Titans XL and me might be a good fit.

They might be almost as good a fit as Steven Pressfield and porn. Because as I found out listening to that interview:

After Pressfield moved to Hollywood, hoping against hope to become a screenwriter, he got a gig rewriting a screenplay — for a porn movie.

At the time, Pressfield had worked a number of odd jobs, including as an advertising copywriter. He knew how to write.

But could he write a good screenplay? And more importantly, could he write porn?

The producer of the porn movie, a “really nice family man” according to Pressfield, took Pressfield out to breakfast at the start of the project.

Sitting in a restaurant in Santa Monica, with the sun shining in his eyes, the producer leaned in. “Here’s what I want you to do, kid,” he said. And he gave Pressfield two rules of effective porn storytelling. Here’s one of ’em:

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Whenever there’s a screwing scene, always have something else going on at the same time.

For instance, if it’s the wife and the pool repair guy, and they’re in the bedroom, have the husband coming home unexpectedly in the middle of the day, unbeknownst to his wife. Then we can cut back and forth from the couple in bed to the husband coming home, and now you got something interesting going on!

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Speaking of which:

After I wrote Brian Kurtz about that Titans XL idea, I got an automated email saying Brian is mostly unavailable until April 24th. He’s planning and then hosting his final in-person Titans mastermind event.

April 24th has passed. I’m still waiting to hear back from Brian for real. Maybe he’s taking a break after the big event. Maybe he’s just busy. Maybe he’s ignoring me. Maybe he silently decided that I am not a good fit to present to his community, even though I think I am.

But I continue to be hopeful, though with each passing day, I’m getting more unsure. I’ll let you know how it goes.

And as for Steven Pressfield, he applied the two rules of porn storytelling in that script rewrite. He realized how important and valuable these rules were, so he kept applying them later in his other screenplays and even his novels. As he says, the “principles of storytelling I know are all movie principles.”

I told you one of the two storytelling rules above. And if you’re curious about that second one, you can dig up that James Altucher episode, and listen to it yourself.

Or you can just take me up on the following offer:

Sign up to my newsletter. Once you get the welcome email, hit reply and tell me about any paid communities or masterminds you are currently in.

​​If you’re in Titans XL, that’s fine. If it’s another marketing mastermind or community, that’s fine too. If it’s not marketing, but some kind of other paid community or mastermind, that works also.

If you do that, then in return, I’ll write you back and tell you the second of Pressfield’s two porn storytelling rules. I’ll also tell you how Pressfield used those rules in other non-porn scripts he wrote. And I’ll even tell you how smart marketers, maybe even me on occasion, use the same storytelling rule in their own sales copy and marketing content.