“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.” Scott Adams
We all like to think that we have complete autonomy over our thoughts and actions, but that’s not entirely true.
We are all the result of our past.
We are a complex mix of our genetics, upbringing, peers and environment.
Everything you read, including this email, changes your brain a little.
Everything to see and everything you hear also changes your brain a little.
That’s what Scott means when he states that we respond to programming.
He is absolutely correct that we either program ourselves or someone else will do the programming.
I know this is a true statement because I learned about this many years ago and set about reprogramming myself to be the person I wanted to be rather than the person I was.
It worked.
People who knew me before I began the process cannot believe how much I have changed.
There is more power in you than you might think.
The question is – “Who do you want to be?”
What I did was look around me and chose people who had the behaviours and attributes that I wanted for me.
Then I copied them.
I cloned their behaviours into myself.
In time I owned those behaviours, and they became a natural part of me.
It’s not about faking it until you make it as some would have you think.
It’s about taking those behaviours and mentally becoming that person for the time you need it.
The more you do that, the more the behaviours become embedded.
You’ll find that eventually, you won’t be doing that mental shift because the behaviours are now your behaviours in those situations.
Sure, sometimes the old behaviours surface, but those times are rare now, and I can quickly shift away from them.
Your turn.
Pick some behaviour of yours that is holding you back.
Find a person, or imagine one, who has the behaviour you want to substitute with yours.
Clone that behaviour in the situations your old behaviour gets in your way.
Keep doing that and you will have that breakthrough.
Regards, Brent.
P.S. There is only one spot left for those who need mentoring help.
I expect that to be snapped up shortly after this email hits your inbox, and this offer may not be made again for several months at the soonest.
It will not be at the same discounted price when it returns.
You don’t have to know more than everyone else, which is most likely impossible, but you do need to know more than 70% of the population.
You can reach that target much more quickly.
If you buy, or borrow from the library, three books on a subject and read them carefully, you will know more about that subject than 70% of the population.
From your position of strength, you can begin writing about the subject and people who know less than you will gravitate to your posts.
Instant expert status is yours.
Then you hang out in the same places as those who want this information.
Answer their questions and link to your posts.
What you are doing is building your audience.
That audience needs infotainment to be grown.
An excellent way to do this (and expand your audience simultaneously) would be to have regular viral contests where they can win prizes.
These prizes may be a mug, a T-shirt, a zoom consulation, or a free copy of your book in return for spreading the word using something like Upviral or Perkzilla.
I’ve watched Daniel Throssell do this with great success.
He used an even simpler process.
He offered a video of a critique he did for a subscriber (which they paid for) in exchange for proof of a post promoting his email list.
All successful marketers have built an audience to whom they sell stuff.
How well you do that will determine how well your business and income grow.
Regards, Brent.
P.S. I still have a couple of places left for the mentoring offer.
This is a trial, so I’m limiting the number of participants to what I think I can manage.
If you’re not ready to get started or grow what you have, that’s fine, and please don’t clog up a space from which someone else can benefit.
Despite all the excuses people have, there is only one way to go broke.
It’s always too much debt.
Sometimes people have manageable debt until they lose their job and have a drop in income.
Sometimes rising interest rates turn a manageable debt into an unmanageable one.
Sometimes other life circumstances cause change to your debt load and ability to service it.
My wife and I managed to work ourselves out of debt before we retired, and we managed to accumulate sufficient funds to be able to retire a year earlier than initially planned.
It makes all the difference.
Neither of my two brothers is in anything like our financial position despite my attempts to help them.
There’s only so much you can do for people who cannot see the truth of what’s offered.
I refuse to do anything for them until they take the first steps, but once they do that, I’ll be right there to help and guide them.
It’s not going to happen, though, because they both think they know better.
Comparing our current circumstances should be sufficient for them to see that what they’ve been doing isn’t working that well.
It’s the same with my marketing.
I’ll show you where to start, and you can then ask for as much help as you need.
Regards, Brent.
P.S. Here’s a dumb offer for you.
You can ask me any questions you like about marketing via email three times a week for a year.
I’ll reply to your emails within 24 hours and give you homework to do in those replies.
The whole point of this is to progress your business and income, not to fill up my inbox.
I’ve been reading recently about how marketing and magic are related.
It’s exciting stuff because it all links to how your mind works.
We all have brains that work in basically the same way, sure, there are differences between us, but the fundamentals haven’t changed significantly in centuries.
It’s those fundamentals that the magicians exploit.
It’s mostly about distraction and ‘forcing’.
This article is about how big tech companies use those fundamentals to keep you using their platforms.
When I split up with my first wife, I had no job, little income, no savings and nowhere to live.
I had a car that I couldn’t afford and which had dropped in value by 50% due to a Government decision, so I couldn’t cover the remaining cost by selling it.
I had trouble making decisions because I was suffering from depression.
I was lucky though.
I had parents who were prepared to help me get back on my feet.
Without their help, I could have been homeless.
That’s how simple it is to go from home ownership to homeless.
When you have little or no income and no home, you are only one missed rental payment from eviction and homelessness.
You need less income to survive and thrive when you own your home.
A national study recently found that people in Australia who live on their pension alone can manage when they own their home, but if they’re paying rent, they struggle to make their money go far enough.
As some wag said, “I have too much month at the end of the money.”
Your Internet business can pay your mortgage when you build it right.
Stop thinking of $10k per month or six figures a year.
Think in terms of that extra $100 a week.
Is that easier to get your head around and your belief system rocking?
I understand it’s often easier to use those and other accounts to sign up for and sign into other sites.
It’s a terrible idea though.
You know they track you so they can push advertising at you “for your convenience”.
The more places you use your account details for increases exponentially the amount of data they have on you.
Add that to the way they track where you go, which stores you visit, and listen in to the conversations you have; these companies know more about you than you do.
They can predict your behaviour with fantastic accuracy.
Most of the advertising you see as you wander aimlessly around the Internet is targeted to you specifically.
OK, so you might think that this is all pretty harmless.
You might think you’re not doing anything wrong, so where’s the harm?
“I’ve got nothing to hide” is a common statement I get when I talk about this invasion of our privacy to people IRL.
So why do you have the doors of your house or apartment shut and locked?
Why do you lock your car door when you leave it?
Because some people might steal your possessions?
What if they didn’t steal anything but went through your home and tried on your underwear or other clothing?
Would that bother you?
What about if you spotted someone taking photographs of you or your kids on a daily basis?
Would that bother you?
How about if you discovered a hidden microphone in your home or car?
That’s right.
You already have one of those.
You carry it with you everywhere.
You even pay monthly for the privilege of carrying it around.
Your mobile phone is useful for you, but it’s more beneficial for the companies who make them and sell them to you.
You pay them to collect your data and sell it to other people.
Do like I do and turn the data off when you’re not using it.
It’ll still work just fine as a phone and camera, but you screw up their tracking and data collection, and the microphone in your pocket doesn’t work either.
Regards, Brent.
P.S. Something a bit light-hearted after that rant.
I’ve put together a collection of coffee mugs for your entertainment.
