If you’re wanting to truly influence people and change the world in some meaningful way, I am wholly unconvinced this normal template for almost every single doc I’ve ever seen is really the best.

Here’s the normal doc template in 7 steps, as experienced by Greg:

1. Start out with a few seconds of each of the several talking heads you’re going to feature in more detail later on in the doc. Try to include someone famous and respected so you can put their name on the title credits, even if you disagree with what they’re saying (like Noam Chomsky).

2. Establish the “problem” – clearly stated. Intersperse cuts from some old 1950′s movie or classroom educational piece to hold audiences attention in between talking heads.

3. It didn’t used to be like this. Better times were had before. “So how did we get from there to where we are today?” Cue history part of the show. Include even more 1950′s black and white bits, maybe some stuff from an old horror movie when you want to jokingly refer to something as “scary” etc. Maybe begin some type of half-ass cinematic sequence we can refer back to later to create the illusion we’re telling an interesting “story”

4. Take us on a lackluster romp through history as it pertains to our topic. Do lots of History Channel-like panning over still photos. Ken Burns effect crap. Some archival footage from these older times, if it exists. Forgettable voiceover.

5. Now we’re back up to the present day. Few more talking heads shots. “So what can we do about this?” Now let’s talk about possible SOLUTIONS, or if we’re really biased, we’ll only talk about our one favorite pet solution and make it look as good as possible, never (or seldom) mentioning any negatives.

6. The “Yay we can do it!” part of the show. Cue inspirational, upbeat music. Cue talking heads saying a bunch of crap you’re not really listening to at this point because they could be saying anything and it would sound good when combined with the background music. Show lots of vague shots of people coming together and singing around the campfire type stuff. Maybe some smiling children recovering from disease holding American flags, blah blah blah.

7. “It’s up to you” – call to action. Usually some flavor of “call your congressman” or “go to some website” – FUCKING YAWN, DUDE! WTF!!! That shit NEVER helps anything! Cut to black credits and continue playing happy music. la la dee fucking da

THE END! Woohoo! Win awards at film festivals and pretend like you’re making a difference in the world! Yay!

Except nothing changes. Rinse. Wash. Repeat.

So what’s the alternative?

I’m dreaming up something more revolutionary. I keep thinking of that Pink Floyd movie “The Wall” and wanting to create something like that in a doc, but obviously something that will make SENSE to the average dude. I’m thinking about combining The Wall with what Michael Moore used to do that made him so famous. If it’s done right, that could make some real waves worth talking about.

I think you have to be relentless, uncompromising, unfair, and artsy to the extent you know what people are really thinking and you bring that out in your work graphically to keep their attention – and deal with objections much like a good salesman would do. That way you can be biased with your topic, but still cover the other bases to create the illusion of fairness. Unanswered questions at the end equals less persuasion.

Making your documentary along the 7 steps I described above is just lazy. Where are the new ideas, the innovation, the creativity? There’s a little out there, but not nearly enough.

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They say government-created lending institutions were a “dumb” idea; FEMA’s waste of half a trillion dollars after hurricane Katrina was due to “ineptitude”; the war in Iraq is “idiotic”; the state-controlled educators are “incompetent”; the military is “mismanaged”; the subsidy of ethanol is “a colossal failure”; the Fed is “foolishly” inflating; the welfare system “doesn’t work”; the immigration department “can’t do its job”; the war on drugs is a “failure”; and so on.

Be that as it may, perhaps we’re asking the wrong questions.

Consider this: Over the past 40 years, members of the House of Representatives have enjoyed an average re-election rate of 94%! In the last few elections, they have enjoyed a re-election rate of 97%!

What is stupid about that?

Obviously, politicians are not wasting a dollar on mismanaging anything. Government is designed to serve the people IN it, and for that purpose it works great. The public gets fleeced, cheated, punished, and crushed, but that’s just a side effect.

The favor-trading process, in which special interests fund campaign coffers in exchange for pet legislation, is a form of unnatural selection that weeds out those who are unwilling or incapable of predictable, reliable and discreet power brokerage, which is a rare, delicate skill. People who can rob their fellow citizens blind, throw their money down rat holes, plague them with endless rules and punishments and simultaneously get their victims to confer upon them society’s highest level of respect are in some intuitive way, geniuses.

Members of Congress may be short-sighted, dishonest, corrupt, pragmatic, hypocritical, immoral or amoral, but they are not stupid. They know exactly how to influence voters, hand out tax stolen money and manipulate the political system to enhance their personal, social, and financial status while making it look as if they are upstanding citizens trying their gol-darndest to provide services.

And the public buys it.

So… which group is stupid?

Until this crony system of control is shattered, electing your favorite politicians each time will just be like loading a different bullet into the same gun, sighing “I hope this one doesn’t kill so bad.”

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“OF COURSE it’s not!” they’ll protest, “Just look at ____” and then they’ll rattle off whatever their favorite Utopias are they’ve read about recently. “We’ve GOT to do something about this,” they’ll add and proceed to explain how if people weren’t so damn “greedy”, we’d be able to pull through this “together” etc etc.

To add insult to injury, a group called Mercer just published their 2011 Quality of Living Survey results, showing the absolute best (and worst) places to live in the world.

But you would have to go all the way down to #29 to find your first U.S. city, which is Honolulu, Hawaii. Even our beloved New York, the great American powerhouse, ranks a pathetic #47.

Most other websites looking at this report would start going into all the statistics, economics and political differences that make for a great place to live.

I’m not going to do that.

Instead, there is a much more simple way to gauge whether the United States is still for you, or whether you should consider taking your business to greener pastures – like some of my wealthier friends have started to do.

When you ask, “Greg, is the U.S. still the best?” Here is my honest answer:

I’m still here. We got a ton of problems but nothing that can’t be fixed, eventually. Problem is, I don’t want to be the freest, happiest 90 year old, I want it now We all need it now, because we have to consider our life span. What’s most important in a country is how well you think you can achieve the things you value. We still live in a place where I think its possible for me, but that may change. The moment it changes and you no longer think you can get what you want, it’s time to go somewhere else.

Changing human nature ain’t gonna happen. And changing society takes more time than most of us have got. But you CAN change your personal circumstances if they don’t suit you, by voting with your feet to a place that allows you to be a happier more fulfilled person.

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This sort of thing eventually led you to roll your eyes and zone out anytime someone started talking about things like “government”, “freedom” and all that stuff.

Don’t. Not this time.

You see, I used to be just like that. I used to not care about ideas of government, took any notion of freedom for granted and hated the very idea of politics and wanted to avoid it at all costs. That stuff was for “other people” to complain and bicker about while I just tried to get on with living life and having fun.

All of this began to change when I seriously got into business for myself and started to make my own money. And all of it permanently changed when I began to see with my own eyes how powerful these ideas are – how the right ideas can uplift you to the highest pleasures of your existence – or the wrong ones can utterly destroy your soul and will to live.

And even worse – there are people out there right now at this very moment, hard at work dedicating their time to ensure your soul is crushed and your will to live is numbed so you just don’t care anymore.

That, my reader, is evil.

I’ll do whatever I can to stop it. Not for your sake, but for mine. Because it makes me feel alive and happy to live surrounded by other other people who also feel alive and happy.

The whole thing starts with ONE IDEA: knowing (and understanding!) your rights.

FIRST AND FOREMOST… you have a right to your own life. Sounds simple at first but this means a whole lot of different things. The right to your own life is the only fundamental right – and all other rights are based on this one.

It means you have the right to do everything in your power to PRESERVE and ENJOY your life to the fullest extent. I’m sure you’ve heard many young women (and some guys too) say they want to “live life to the fullest” – it’s obvious people adore and want this idea in their lives…

…but how to do it? I mean, how do we ACTUALLY live our life to the fullest? By what means?

One answer (and this may sound strange at first, but listen carefully) : The right to Property.

Without property rights, none of your other rights are possible. We live in a world where each of us has to sustain our lives by our own effort. And if you do not have a right to the RESULTS of your own effort, then you have no means to sustain your life. A good example of this is owning your work. If you create something and do not own it, and someone else benefits from it, you are a slave. It’s also like if a skilled contractor came over to my house and installed a bathtub, and if I denied him ownership of his work and did not pay or reward him, he is a slave.

But don’t make this mistake: the right to property does NOT mean you have a right to a particular piece of property or some object. It is not a guarantee you will earn anything, but only a guarantee you will own it IF you earn it. This is the right to gain, keep, and dispose of material values.

The right to life also means you have the right to support yourself by your own work, AND MAKE AS MUCH OR AS LITTLE MONEY AS YOUR SKILL  AND ABILITY WILL ALLOW. It does not mean other people will provide you with the necessities of life, but that no one can take away your ability to provide for yourself. You also can not be deprived of your life for the benefit of anyone else.

You have the right to liberty. Really, what does “freedom” actually mean? Freedom from what, exactly?

It’s simple. It is freedom from ANY kind of force. Freedom from any kind of rape. Freedom from being forced to do anything you did not AGREE to.

It does NOT mean freedom from your landlord, freedom from your employer, or freedom from laws of nature which do not provide us with automatic prosperity. It simply means freedom from being forced to do something at the threat of a gun or being thrown in jail.

Your knowledge, your ability to think and act on your thoughts do not happen automatically. You must CHOOSE to do these things and choose to do them well. And your survival as a human being absolutely DEMANDS that you are free to gain knowledge, think and act without interference from anyone else.

None of us are perfect. We make mistakes. That is why we must be free to agree or disagree with each other, to cooperate or pursue our own individual plans, all according to our own individual judgment.

If someone pointed a gun in your face and screamed “BUILD ME A HOUSE!! And I want it to be the most CREATIVE, AMAZING house EVER built or else I’ll BLOW YOUR BRAINS OUT!!”

This is impossible. Even if you’re a very skilled home builder, it would be impossible to do this. Your mind, a rational mind, does not work under force; it does not subordinate its grasp of reality to anyone’s orders, directives, or controls; it does not sacrifice its knowledge, its view of the truth, to anyone’s opinions, threats, wishes, plans, or “welfare.” Your mind may be hampered by others, it may be silenced, proscribed, imprisoned, or destroyed; BUT IT CANNOT BE FORCED; A GUN IS NOT AN ARGUMENT!!

ALL of our knowledge and achievements we have today – ALL of the things that allow us to live here in the United States and around the world better than kings did long ago (yes even the poor here in the U.S. can enjoy more luxury than the king of France did hundreds of years ago) – ALL of it has come from the dedicated work and integrity of FREE MINDS.

America’s abundance was not created by public sacrifices to “the common good,” but by the productive genius of free men who pursued their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortunes.

And this is so important because we owe our very survival to great minds… and our future survival DEPENDS on how free we allow great minds to roam and play right now. This isn’t dusty old history in some boring school textbook. This is HERE and NOW. Everything depends on our freedom.

Now don’t fall for this trick, either: some people will try to fool you and say that we are not “truly” free because we have no right to murder. They go on to say that since we can not kill, freedom is not determined by right, but by whatever society says we are free to do.

But this is silly and ridiculous. It is not society that forbids killing, but the other person’s right to their own life. So goes the saying “you are free to do anything you want as long as it doesn’t infringe on the rights of someone else.” Within your own rights, your freedom is absolute.

You have the right to the pursuit of happiness. This is SO IMPORTANT – the pursuit of happiness means your right to LIVE FOR YOURSELF and choose what private, personal, individual happiness means to you… And then have the freedom toward achieving it. Different things make different people happy. There is no one-size-fits-all life and our Founding Fathers knew it. We are all happiest and most creatively productive when we are let loose to run free with our minds and abilities.

This is no guarantee you will achieve happiness. No one can guarantee you that. But you can be allowed the freedom to decide what happiness means to you and go after it with all your might. If you’re wrong, you can change and go do something else. If you’re right, the world will be your oyster.

Where do your rights come from?

It’s not a law, or president, or king or society that gives us our rights. Rights don’t come from anywhere, they just ARE. You and I are human beings and our rights are required by conditions of our existence for our survival on this planet. If we are to live here, together, it is right for you to be free to use your mind, to act on your own free judgment, and to work for your values and keep the product of your work.

If living a happy life on this planet is your goal, then you have a right to live in this way. And any group, gang or government who tires to take these rights away from you is wrong. They are wrong and they are evil. They are against you living your life and must be stopped at all costs.

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And barely any of it actually works.

Well, I’ve solved this problem. Doing it my way will cost you around $88, with $50 of that being a one-time cost.

I used to keep wild hours that fluctuated weekly, if not daily. I could never seem to get to sleep at the same time every night, so I’d stay up later… which would screw me up for the next day and I’d feel horrible… then I’d go to bed too early (or too late) again… which would mess me up for the NEXT day, and on and on and on…

It was a vicious cycle that saw no end in sight. I couldn’t get any meaningful work done and never seemed to have enough time in the day to do the things that really mattered.

Until about 3 months ago, when I stumbled across some experiments that have literally changed my life.

Here’s your New Plan, all laid out nice and neat for ya:

Step 1. California Poppy Extract – Cost: $8.95/oz

Go to Vitacost.com and get a 1 oz bottle of California poppy extract. Before bed each night, put 20 drops in a cup and then put a little water in the cup. Just a LITTLE water – enough to swallow in one gulp. Swig it down and continue on to step 2. (California poppy extract will increase your deep wave sleep on average by around 20%)

Step 2. Almond Butter (I prefer Barney Butter – smooth – $7.72/jar) and Flax Oil – $16.89/bottle

Eating two tablespoons of organic almond butter on celery sticks before bed eliminated MOST of the mornings where I woke up feeling like shit. Ever wonder how you can sleep 8–10 hours and STILL feel tired? The likely culprit: low blood sugar. Make a pre-bed snack part of your nutritional program. One to two tablespoons of flaxseed oil (120–240 calories) can be used in combination with the celery-and-almond-butter to further increase cell repair during sleep and thus decrease fatigue.

Go see BarneyButter.com for the almond butter (12 pounds of the stuff just arrived at my doorstep the other day) and Vitacost.com for the flax oil (I get the 32 oz because I like bulk and it saves precious money)

Step 3. Cholesterol! (yay!) – Cost: depends

Eat at least 800 milligrams of cholesterol (about 4 or 5 large whole eggs) and 40 grams of protein within 3 hours of going to bed. This will allow you to go to sleep FASTER, and combined with the other steps basically knocking you out cold when it’s time to sleep.

Personally I do not eat eggs every night because good eggs are expensive when you eat that many all the time, so I’ve engineered my evening meal to contain the necessary protein (via chicken breast) and cholesterol to see me through the night.

Oh, and if you’re one of those fossils who still think cholesterol is bad, you need to do some reading up on HDL versus LDL cholesterol.

Step 4. Cold bath or shower – Cost: Free

Take a cold bath or shower 1 hour before bed. I didn’t believe this at first and resisted it… but after I actually started DOING it, the results are amazing.

Don’t fight me on this, just TRY it and you’ll see. Freeze yourself and prosper.

Step 5. Use a WakeMate – Cost: $50 one time

When it was first released to the public, I was among the first people to get a WakeMate. Basically the WakeMate is a little wristband you charge up during the day and wear during the night while you sleep. It monitors my movements while I sleep and then communicates via Bluetooth to my iPod Touch to wake me up at a time when I’m in a lighter phase of sleep and thus will be more likely FEEL BETTER the second I wake up.

I’ve been using it for about 45 days now, and I can say that IT WORKS. Get one. Despite some recent software bugs they’ve had lately (all of which have been fixed), the device and concept WORKS.

What you do is set an alarm for a time you want to wake up – then the WakeMate will use that time as a target to wake you up sometime within a 20 minute window, no later than that target time. You can also add tags to your night’s sleep so you can look back on your sleep history and see what sorts of variables affected your sleep positively or negatively.

The online “analytics” feature allows you to upload your sleep stats to your own account on the WakeMate website every morning so you can graph and analyze your sleep data over time. This has been VERY helpful for me to nail down exactly what is helping me and what isn’t.

Step 6. Sleep in a cool room – Cost: Free

Use a single bedsheet with room temp of 67 to 70 F – as low as 65 but test different socks to keep your feet warm. Lately I’ve been profiting from this colder winter by turning my central heat OFF and just letting the temperature do whatever it wants.

The results have been good, I’m saving heating bill money and I realize that I sleep better in a cold room as long as my feet and hands are warm and my blood is circulating well.

Side note: Taking cayenne pepper every day (40,000 BTU) lately has allowed me to let temperatures in my home reach what would normally be extremely uncomfortable levels. In fact it’s so cold in here right now, no one else can stand it! No one but me of course. With all the things I’m doing and experiments I’m running, my body is generating so much excess heat that I actually feel like I need ICE PACKS on my neck in 65 degree rooms! This is awesome and combining this with what I’m doing to make my testosterone levels skyrocket makes me feel like some kind of superhuman who can melt stuff with his eyes… or… something like that

Step 7. Wake up with (natural) UV light shining in your face – Cost: Free

We are evolutionarily programmed to respond to and feel AWAKE and ALERT when the sun comes up and hits our face in the morning. But so many people (me included) live in houses and apartments that are shut off from natural sources of light by curtains, shades, etc.

You must make certain you do NOT wake up each morning in a DARK room! That is very bad for your brain, because you’re essentially “tricking” your mind into still thinking it’s night time, thus your mind will keep you groggy and sleepy.

But when you start waking up to real UV light, you will train your body back into its natural habit of revving your engines to start the day. Combined with all the other stuff on this list, you’ll feel ready to go INSTANTLY when you wake up. Gone will be the “yawn, stretch, think about going back to bed, slog outta bed, etc” phase and you’ll hop out of the sheets and get moving right away. Also, this will help you go to sleep much faster the following night.

The source of your UV light doesn’t have to be natural sunlight but it helps. A good alternative are those little lights they use to treat SAD (seasonal affective disorder.) They are high-end blue light emitters and work just as good.

And there you have it; 7 real life steps I personally follow every day that have changed how I sleep and how I feel every day, thus truly changing my life and allowing me to get more done and feel better about it.

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They are responsible for a huge chunk of our economy. Many are run by good, courageous heroes who are on their way to bigger and better things in life. However, many are run by fools, and will stay small and insignificant for the rest of their pathetic days.

Small mind = small business, unless you are limiting your growth by lifestyle choice or pure laziness.

In any event, you will inevitably have to deal with many of these people on YOUR way to bigger people and better opportunity. Some will help you get to your goals faster. But the idiot small businessman is an automatic dead end. Unless you know how to handle him, he will rise up from his little swamp, wrap his slimy arms around you and drag you back down to the depths from which he came.

You’ll choke, suffocate, and drown in his puddle of half-baked business ideas, wildly inaccurate visions of reality, unrealistic profit projections, and total lack of proper funding.

This is preventable and avoidable. I’ve dealt with so many of these guys in the past 10 years I’ve now created a set of rules that weeds them out permanently – fast and forever.

Here then is my own personal set of rules I consider before I get involved with ANY new business deal or venture:

Rule #1. NEVER deal with anyone who is broke. Period.

If they have no money, run. Simple as that. People who are serious about their business ventures and passions will find a way to get the necessary funding and be prudent about its use. If they have no money and haven’t risked anything trying to get some, then you should write them off as dreamers who need to get their head screwed on straight.

What’s more is people with no money tend to have scarcity mindsets that cause them to make BAD decisions much more frequently than someone who knows he’ll have enough to eat and have a house for the next 3 months. The person who is comfortable financially will make more calm, rational decisions, especially when under pressure.

Bad small business people also typically create projects in which the cash flow is either undefined or so far into the future as to be unknowable. Only get involved in projects that can SCALE. That means they’ll make a small amount of money almost immediately and then be able to grow revenue from there by expanding the efforts. Special Note: I don’t mean profitable almost immediately, I just mean somebody needs to be paying for something the project produces within a short period of time. There needs to be revenue. Real money needs to exchange hands. This keeps people realistic and gives you something to work with.

As Gary Halbert always said, “You can’t multiply zeroes.”

Rule #2. Ask for 3 people who have done business with them before, who would do so again.

If the person you are considering working with can’t produce the names and phone numbers of 3 people who have done business with them before, who would do so again, that should set off more Red Alerts in your mind than a nuclear attack. Something is definitely wrong here.

And if they don’t have 3 people who would deal with them again… guess what? YOU’RE NOT GOING TO BE THE FIRST. Life is too short to experiment with your own livelihood in this way. People typically do what they’ve always done and if this guy is a screwup or a cheat, he’s going to treat you the same way.

This one simple rule will eliminate most of the bullshit in your business life. (Now if I could just get women to produce 3 letters of recommendation from 3 guys who would date them again, we’d be rockin’ HA!)

Rule #3. NEVER take ownership “sweat equity” as your only compensation

Early in my career, I broke this rule often and it was ALWAYS to my peril. One sure sign of a joker businessman with a bullshit project is how willing he is to throw around “ownership” but how UNwilling he is to part with any actual green, spendable dollars.

You need to arrange the deal to where you get paid SOMETHING, even if the project is a complete failure… which it probably will be. YOU MUST ALWAYS COME OUT AHEAD, WIN OR LOSE. Stack the deck in your favor from Day-1. You should not have to suffer for his own bad judgement and lack of foresight.

That’s not to say you should never take ownership equity. In the off chance the project actually succeeds, you don’t want to be kicking yourself for not taking a piece of the action. So yes, get as much as you can, but never take ownership as your ONLY form of compensation.

Which reminds me…

Rule #4. Get paid SOMETHING up front

I can’t be any more clear than that. Make sure you get paid real, spendable money up front. The more you get him to pay, the more he will personally invest in you and the project and therefore the more successful the project is likely to be.

This goes hand-in-hand with the “never deal with anyone who is broke” rule. When people pay for something, they value it more than if they got it for free. I run into this all the time in the information business. There is a lot of information and resources out there that are free… but hardly anyone uses them because “since they’re free, they’re can’t be as good as this other more expensive option” – even if people don’t think that consciously, it’s going on somewhere in their minds.

Likewise, people will respect and value you and your time more when they pay you more money. They have more invested and they’re more serious about making the relationship work.

Rule #5. Ideally, arrange for small monthy payments

Sometimes you’ll find it lucrative to get involved with a businessman who is competant, knowledgeable, and has money, but just not a LOT of money. Instead of asking for some larger sum up front (and lose him because he cannot pay), in this case what you should do is arrange for smaller monthly payments to be made to you – preferably by his credit card.

If he balks at this, get suspicious. Explain to him that even though this monthly amount is much less than your normal rate, the retainer keeps you on staff and available for action and advice. And during the months that he does not “use” you, the recurring payment makes up for any money you would normally get, but spread out over time to MAKE IT EASIER ON HIM.

Keywords there. You’re doing this because it “makes it easier on him” because you “want to work with him” but still “need to get compensated for input in the meantime until the project launches.” Of course in reality this is to benefit you too because he will most likely forget about the monthly payments ticking away on his credit card, gracefully blended in along with his strip club visits and a ton of other monthly payments he racked up and forgot about. And another reason you want it on his credit card instead of payment by check is because he never actually SEES the money leaving his hands each month so therefore it is LESS REAL to him. It’s also automatic which means he has to confront you to NOT pay you, which if he’s a chickenshit, will most likely not do.

Rule #6. NEVER take advice from someone who makes less than you do at the same goals you’re trying to accomplish

There are many non-expert experts out there who love to hand out bad advice.

There are people who will tell you how to make money on the internet and when you go look at their website, its a piece of turd that gets no traffic at all when you examine the traffic statistics. (Even worse, they expect you to not notice this or too dumb to notice it themselves, which is even more damning to their credibility.)

There are graphic designers out there who say they know how to create the best product packaging, the best websites, whatever – and many of them haven’t sold a damn thing in their lives.

And finally, among the worst in my opinion are investment advisors and financial planners who AREN’T RICH (they SHOULD be if their advice was any good), real estate agents who are timid terrible negotiators, and bankers who don’t even understand their own business.

A good example: Very often whenever I go in to my bank, the teller sees that I have extra money and tries to get me in to see one of their investment advisors. I usually say “no thanks”, do my business and leave. One time I said “sure lets see what they can do.”

First question I asked was “Are you or your family rich? Or at the very least, do you have what you would consider to be ‘a lot of money’ at your personal disposal?” Of course the answer was various excuses and flavors of “no.” Then why would I want to invest my money with someone who himself isn’t where I want to be in life? The purpose of investing is to make the highest return in the least amount of time while keeping the principal safe. If they can’t do that for themselves, they sure as hell ain’t gonna do it for me. I left his office by adding, “The main reason I have the extra money in the first place is because I stay the hell away from ‘investments’ like the kind you promote.”

Then I said “poppycock”, looked at the time on my pocketwatch, adjusted the monocle in my eye, and marched off gripping my lapels. (Not really.)

Rule #7. Chuck ‘em like an empty soda can as soon as it’s clear they’ve lost all commercial value

Sometimes good, well-intentioned projects go south. Fast.

It can be anyones fault, but the result is always the same; the project, idea, relationship has taken an irreparable turn for the worse and therefore has lost all commercial value to you.

That’s why you need to keep one hand on the ripcord to your Golden Parachute at all times. Winners are winners because they cut their losses short and let their profits run. Losers do the opposite. Don’t stick around and beat a dead horse; have that backup plan ready, pull your ripcord and FLY AWAY. Fly away to somewhere, anywhere else.

At the heart of it, this is a relationship with a commercial purpose. That purpose was to enrich you and anyone else involved on the project. But now it is headed for an inevitable crash. And commercial relationships need to be treated coldly and calculating so that no one loses sight of what reality actually is. Cut it off at the knees.

“But,” you might ask, “how would I know if it is just a temporary problem or that some inevitably fatal error or flaw has been made or discovered?”

That is where confidence in your own business knowledge, competancy, and ability to reason come into play. You have to sharpen these skills every day or they’ll start to get dull. You’ll never know when you’ll need them.

So read the works a lot of (real) experts who have already been where you want to go, study the past history of your busness and industry, and keep a pulse on what’s happening now and into the future. Be amazing. Because only the strong survive. And only the strong should.

As an extra piece of advice and probably THE most important rule of success I can give to you: Never… ever… EVER… allow yourself to be put into a position of need. That is my personal #1 rule. Because when you need something (be it money, a home, or even a boyfriend/girlfriend/wife/husband) then you will always be at the mercy of someone else. You’ll be under their power. Your personal power will be limited. Some part of you will be controlled.

The man who does not “need” the business deal to happen, holds all the cards.

The man who does not “need” the bank loan, is free to buy whatever home he chooses however fast he chooses. (And if he chooses a loan anyway, he can get one at the best terms with least hassle.)

The man who does not “need” a woman to feel like a whole human being, can attract the higher value women in the area and choose from them those which he enjoys most.

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Seriously.

Not even a sniffle.

It was at least 12 years ago since I had a cold and even longer since I came down with the flu. And except for a couple checkups, I haven’t been to the doctor in a decade.

Normally I don’t think about stuff like this, but looking over my notes today I was reminded of an old blog post written by my friend Jason where he talked about how a lot of people have commented to me that I’m “lucky” or that “nothing bad ever happens” to me. Sickness and disease are often among those “bad things” they mention.

Well, I need to set the record straight: bad things happen to me all the time. The only reason most people don’t notice is because I’m often fairly well prepared when Lady Fate drops by to sprinkle some shit on my parade.

Like a hitman silently slitting the President’s throat, it is preparation and prevention that lets me deal with my problems quickly, quietly and without fuss.

Since nature trapped us in these damn bodies of ours, we’d better take good care of them for as long as possible. Even if you’re a worshiped genius who uses $100-dollar-bills as toilet paper, life’s no fun when you’re fat, sick, and ugly.

So here are 3 things that slimmed me up, sculpted my body, and beefed my immune system into a cigar-chomping badass motherfucker.

#1.General Eating Habits

I eat two low-calorie meals per day. In rare cases when I’m especially hungry, the third meal is always very small. And since they’re usually the same, I never have to worry about portion sizes, fat, cholesterol, or any of that other nonsense. Template the meals once and never worry about them again.

My main food mostly consists of 90% lean beef (with the remaining 10% almost entirely cooked out by my Flavorwave infrared oven), sometimes Alaskan salmon, sided with vegetables like corn, green beans and spinach. Sometimes I swap out the meat with a small helping of Stouffer’s Meat Lasagna. I never snack in between meals or in front of the TV.

You might think I’d get tired of this after awhile. But in 4 years, that has never happened. Why? Well, I discovered that if you eat only when you’re absolutely starving, you train your body to a Pavlov’s dog-like response to the welcome relief the meal inevitably brings. That way, you’re always satisfied.

When I eat alone, I usually do not drink while eating. Doing that weakens the stomach acids and makes it more difficult for your body to digest the food. So I do my “heavy drinking” after the meal and throughout the day. I’ve found green tea (with lemon juice added to increase absorption), MateVana, and Samurai Chai to be the best drinks. They’re all either low-calorie or no-calorie and the latter two jumpstart your brain similar to coffee, but without the jitters and unhealthy side effects. I never put additives in my drinks.

After eating in the morning, I then mix up a glass of whole milk (yes, whole) into a chocolate whey protein shake, which gives me an added boost of about 26 grams of protein and a few more calories. This is also the drink I use to wash down my buckshot load of nutritional supplements that we’ll talk about here in a minute.

Then I pour a mug of tea and get to work.

By the way, have you ever looked at the whole milk label? It’s not that much different than 2%. One of my friends thought for years “whole milk” meant something like “100%” or some other obscenely high number. No no no… whole milk is about “3 1/2%” – only 3 more grams of fat and 20 more calories per serving. Hardly the heart-stopper many believe. Still, why whole milk? Because that’s how it comes out of the cow. In other words, it hasn’t been messed with as much as the other milks. Skim milk is “ok” but I find it too watery for my liking. Surprisingly, Sam’s Club sells good milk guaranteed to have no hormones or any other crap in it… for about $2.20 per gallon. (Aside: Funny how right next door at Walmart, the milk DOES have hormones, costs more, and tastes worse… incredible how screwed people are when they don’t want to pay the $45 annual membership fee.)

As for alcohol, I seldom drink. When I do, it’s usually wine which has about 12-18% alcohol. At that level, the worst case scenario is you get a little loopy after downing a bottle. It’s the easy-going, fun kind of loopy. No big deal. The hard stuff leaves a dry-as-dust trail of fire down the throat, makes you look and feel like shit, and wrecks your body over time – not fun. The only mixed drink I really like is the White Russian or Irish Cream.

#2. Nutritional Supplements

Our bodies are just one big chemical cocktail. A chemistry experiment that doesn’t function properly without the right molecules floating around in the right places.

That’s why I’m big on supplements. You can’t get all the weird mix of stuff your body needs just by eating the food you find at the store. Even if you’re rich and buy all the best stuff, it’s still damn near impossible. There’s a lot of reasons for that, but it has a lot to do with how our food is grown and processed these days and also because you can’t possibly scarf enough of all the stuff you’d have to eat to get every single nutrient.

That’s why it’s good to supplement. Here’s a complete list of what I take every day:

500 mcg B12 (in liquid spray form) – This is AWESOME for energy. If you’re a slug in the morning, start taking this and you won’t even have to “wake up” – you’ll hop right out of bed, ready to do whatever.

5,000 to 10,000 IU Vitamin D3 – This makes depressed people happy, boosts the immune system and helps with tons of diseases, including all kinds of cancer and many virii. Your body makes a certain amount of vitamin D whenever you’re exposed to the sun, but many of the soaps people use when bathing cause it to leave the skin before it has time to be carried away by the bloodstream. Also since most people work indoors, they’re never exposed to the right amount of sunlight for it to do them any good. Certain people (me included) get depressed in the winter time for lack of sunlight. Supplementing with D3 solves these problems.

2,000 mg Vitamin C - I shouldn’t have to tell you about vitamin C. You should already know how much ass it kicks, but you probably aren’t getting enough of it. I’ve found 2,000 mg (that’s 2 grams) per day to be the ideal for me. I used to have a problem with bleeding gums whenever I brushed my teeth, but since I started doin’ C, I have healthy strong gums. This one alone is also a major factor into never catching cold or getting the flu. Hell, I can even hang around sick people and not get anything. You betcha.

Misc assortment of B1, B2, B6 - The additional B vitamins link up the nervous system with the rest of your body and helps it all communicate with one another. This solves a bunch of muscle issues and boosts your energy even more.

1 standard multi vitamin with everything - There are a lot of trace minerals that are hard to get in food and expensive to buy separate supplements for, so a good gel-cap multi-vitamin is a one-stop-shop to cover all the miscellaneous B.S.

800 IU Vitamin E - Actually this is the only supplement I take where I’ve not noticed any sort of tangible benefit. There was some study published awhile back where they said vitamin E made people slightly more likely to die sooner, but then some doctors called bullshit on the study citing bias, incomplete facts, and an inherent flaw in the study itself. So who knows? The only reason I still take it is because the bottle isn’t empty.

Calcium, Magnesium and Zinc combo - Now THIS one is awesome. Taking these 3 separately won’t do you nearly as good as taking them all at the same time. That’s because they all rely on and enhance each other in various ways. The calcium is great for bone-strength, the magnesium keeps the calcium from turning into arthritis (and a lot of other good benefits) and the zinc… well, let’s just say the zinc helps certain parts of a man’s body perform with absolute reliability and precision

2,600 mg Flaxseed oil - Flax seed is a great source of omega-3 fatty acids, which help your brain perform at its best and antioxidants help slow down the oxidation process that slowly damages your cells over time and eventually kills you… literally. The more we can slow down this oxidation process, the longer we’ll live and the better we’ll feel while doing it.

3,000 mg Fish oil - More antioxidants and omega-3′s. Actually now I’ve replaced my traditional fish oil with a mixture of several oils (including fish oil) that provide omega-3, 6, and 9 all in one.

1,200 mg Sun Chlorella - These are weird little green crumbly bits of a type of single-cell plant organism grown from freshwater green algae. It contains tons of amino acids, vitamins, and minerals. Awesome little plant. Helped improve my mood and clean out my digestive system when I first started taking it.

26 extra grams of protein via shake - I already talked about this one in the food section above. The extra protein from whey builds muscle much faster when combined with a good workout. Actually this 26 grams is pretty small compared to what I should be taking if I were more serious about bodybuilding. I’ve heard some meatheads say to inhale the same number of grams of protein as your body weight per day. So if you weigh 150 pounds, you take 150 grams of protein.

All that may sound like a lot to you, but this is real life and most people don’t even get a fraction of what they need. A lot of young people (up to age 34) eat junk and don’t notice many side effects, so they think it’s fine… but the only reason their body can handle the malnutrition is because they’re so young. Soon enough the body will cough, wheeze, and choke they’ll end up like everyone else on death row who thought prevention was for saps.

Right now I’m considering adding a few more things to my list because recently I read this:

The biggest breakthrough in anti-aging medicine in our lifetime involves telomere biology.

Each time your cells divide, they copy your DNA to make the new cell. But the telomeres – the sections of DNA at both ends of a chromosome – get shorter with every copy. And the shorter your telomeres are, the “older” the cell acts.

Once the telomeres get to their shortest length, your cells can no longer divide, and damaged or diseased cells aren’t replaced. This causes a chain reaction that weakens your tissues and organs. And that can only lead to disease… and, ultimately, death.

Fortunately, there are some ways to start to slow down the rate at which your telomeres are shortening right now…

1. Lower your homocysteine levels. According to a report in the journal Atherosclerosis, high levels of this amino acid can shorten your telomeres as much as 3 times faster.

I help my patients lower their homocysteine levels by having them supplement daily with the following:

Vitamin B12 – 500 mcg
Folic acid – 800 mcg
Vitamin B6 – 25 mg
Riboflavin (B2) – 25 mg
TMG (trimethylglycine) – 500 mg

You can find these supplements at your local health food store. If you don’t want to take them all separately, you can use the same formula I give my patients.

2. Take vitamin C. This inexpensive supplement is a powerful antioxidant. And recent studies – including one reported in the journal Life Sciences – show it can slow telomere shortening by over 50 percent. I recommend 2,000 mg per day to my patients.

3. Take SOD. Besides protecting your cells from the damage of toxins and stress, SOD (superoxide dismutase) has been shown to slow the rate of telomere shortening. I recommend 500 mg a day. You can find it at your local health food store. Or you can check out my formula, which contains SOD as well as other potent cell protectors.

All men should be taking 200 mcg of selenium and at least 200 IU of vitamin E daily.

Hmm, so I guess vitamin E isn’t so worthless after all.

#3. Workouts

The building I live in right now has a full-blown gym in the basement, so I like to sneak down there late at night when sane people are asleep to do cardio and pump iron.

What I’ve learned is if you’re going to do cardio, do HARD cardio for shorter periods of time instead of lighter cardio for longer periods of time. In other words, it’s MUCH better for your body to bust your butt for 15 minutes than it is to walk long distances. Walking or running long distances when its easy will actually do more wear and tear on your body over time with less health benefit.

So what I do is a quick mile to a mile and a half on an incline while carrying weights and swinging my arms back and forth naturally. This SUCKS when you first start out, but after about a week it gets a lot easier.

Then I do leg and arm curls, bench press, sit-ups, pullups, and several other kinds of weights to top everything off. Recently I also got the P90X workout DVDs to help me with a good stretching routine, some Yoga, and more hardcore ways of strengthening my body. The whole goal of that system is to vary the workout enough where the muscle development never plateaus, leaving you with a straight line of growth.

Overall, I’m sure there are a few tweaks I could make to my system. But after 4 years of testing… everything I’ve described here really does work wonders for me. It keeps me in shape, healthy, and of course… I never get sick.

If you have any sort of weight or health problem, maybe it would help you too. Give it a try and find out.

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1. Blatant Indicators of Positive Reputation Beat Subtle Luxury

Consider a face-off between the Toyota Prius and… a stylish Lexus.

Even Lucifer Himself couldn’t make me drive a dorky Prius.

But a recent split-test between these 2 cars revealed that when shopping in public, people are willing to spend more on a product they don’t really want as long as it makes them look like positive contributors to the greater good of society.

When the whole world’s looking (and can see the “green” eco-conscious logo) people buy the doe-eyed Prius. Then as you lock ‘em up in a room with no one to judge, they turn into me… a shameless consumer of pretentious luxury. The heated steering wheel. The baby seal skin leather seats. Plumes of toxic exhaust from a rumbling engine. Sickeningly delicious cheeseburgers in non-biodegradable containers.

Oh yes. We consumers are a dastardly lot.

And for the same reason, this is why clothes and other products with big, blatant logos sell better than those with more concealed identities:

Louis Vuitton’s classic “LV” on their bags. Abercrombie & Fitch’s garish tags. Polo Ralph Lauren’s pony. Apple’s glowing chrome apple.

People seek out the brands that best display their own particular set of personality traits. Regardless of what “flavor of the month” personality analysis books you may have read (not your fault, publishers barf up more of them than any sane person can handle), all human traits can be summed up as a measure of these 6 characteristics:

• General Intelligence - generally, how smart you are

• Openness - how receptive you are to new people and ideas

• Conscientiousness - your self-control, willpower, reliability, consistency, dependability

• Agreeableness - your level of warmth, kindness, sympathy, empathy, trust, compliance, modesty

• Stability – your ability to maintain control of emotions, deal with stress, ability to adapt

• Extraversion - how talkative, funny, expressive, assertive, socially confident you are

This model has been consistently proven to work over the past 40-some years. Like a delicate radio, all of us are tuned to different settings of the six. Different combinations make the difference between the neighborhood axe murderer and your Aunt Betsy. In all, there are 729 different personality types – which is one of the many reasons you won’t find a ton of experts on this topic.

I’ll write more on this advanced market segmentation in upcoming posts, but for now just understand the prime motivators for most purchases are rooted in a desire to express indicators of specific settings of the “Central Six” characteristics. That’s why there’s a market for so many different brands… we’ve got hundreds of personalities to display.

2. People Will Love & Respect You More If You’re Magical

Traditionally we as marketers are taught to “find out what a market wants and deliver it to them profitably”… but Apple Inc is one good example of a company who behaves differently.

Until Steve Jobs releases the new JesusPhone or whatever, no one has a clue what he’s up to. Mere mortals can only guess. And that’s precisely the allure of his mystique.

Nerds over at UCLA did a test where subjects read 2 equally positive performance reports. Employee A was praised for particular skills like “aptitude with numbers” while employee B just kinda “has a way of making things happen.” In another one, a CEO was praised for “long hours and loyalty” and the other for “insight and vision.”

In both tests, people preferred to work with the guy who’d achieved success via mysterious powers. Not only that, but people also wanted to hug him more and get “lucky” gifts from him.

What this means to you and me is it’s a good thing to not let lesser mortals peek behind your curtain. No one needs to know the wizard isn’t wearing any pants as long as you get the job done and perform with excellence.

Back in high school is when I first discovered the benefits of shrouded secrecy. My ninja skills with computers went purposely unexplained. Once I was called out of an important exam to rescue the principal from digital doom. When asked about the exam, my biology teacher shooed me away saying “Oh nevermind that Greg, you’ll get an A anyway.” Back then I had free reign of the halls and senior year no one even batted an eye if didn’t show up until afternoon.

These days, similar things happen to me because of Pay Per Click (PPC) marketing. It’s amazing what people will do for you if you can work some voodoo on their campaigns that cuts their cost per sale to 25-50% of what it was.

There’s a question traded among marketers with a wink of the eye that goes, “So how many years did it take for you to become an overnight success?”

I love that because it’s so true. You hammer away at a skill for years, seemingly without benefit, and then… one day… the planets align and BOOM you’re a hit.

Another way to say it is “Success is when preparation meets opportunity.” That’s the key thing that makes you look magical to others.

3. Fast Food & Big Tobacco’s Dirty Little Marketing Secret

It’s fairly common knowledge that the larger the plate, the bigger the bowl, or the bulkier the package… people will consume more.

But what you may not know is the mere presence of healthy options on a menu (or the warning sign on a pack of cigarettes) can make people snarf down more junk than ever.

They call it “menu mentality” – the pleasant industry discovery that adding healthier food options to a menu keeps the bureaucrats and medical-types at bay, while satisfying the customer’s guilty conscience, thus… giving them the mental green light to order whatever the hell they want.

One of the most important things in the universe to understand about people is just because they CAN do something doesn’t mean they WILL.

Add salads and grilled chicken to the menu and… like magic… you get more orders for burgers and fries. Label a bag as “low fat”, “low carb”, or “low-cal” and you get more sales. And this is important: You get more sales not because more people buy your stuff, BUT BECAUSE THE SAME PEOPLE BUY MORE OF IT MORE OFTEN!

This, once again, is my favorite subject at work: segmentation. People will do what they will do. Always and without exception.

Take a moment to re-read that again. People will do what they will do. Always and without exception. The implications of that are more profound than you can possibly imagine at first glance.

If we want to influence people positively, we must be draconian and remove all undesirable options from the table. Instead of a choice between “healthy” and “unhealthy” we change the game to “healthy” and… “healthy.”

This is also why school lunch programs will continue to breed fatties until pizza, chips, and soda are gone completely. But that won’t happen. Why? Because people will do what they will do.

Several schools I read about who tried this had parents (and kids) in a literal riot. Picket signs, yelling, screaming, fighting. Desperate parents snuck twinkies to kids through the chain-link metal fence at recess in an act of defiance.

No exaggeration.

You might dismiss this example as ridiculous, but wait:

Parents did this because they’re part of a segment – a segment of society that will find a way to eat crap no matter what you do to stop them.

You can’t change that with mere rules. They will find a way around the rules. You can’t offer alternative options. They will ignore those options. They will have their cream filling and jiggly tummy. And to hell with you and your hard body and steamed vegetables.

I used this food example because it’s something most of us can read with a smile. But the same goes for any segment of a population. There’s a segment of people who drink alcohol (prohibition didn’t work). A segment who smoke (warning labels and PSA’s don’t work). A segment who like marijuana (even though it’s illegal in most countries, anyone who wants it can still get some within a very short period of time).

People will do what they will do. More on that powerful concept another time.

4. Product Placements Only Work When The Plot Depends On The Product

Three things were huge in 1982: video games, the movie ET, and Reese’s Pieces candy.

The latter 2 were no accident. When Steven Spielberg approached the Mars Company (M&M’s) to have their product featured in the film, they turned him away. That’s when Hershey stepped in and offered Reese’s Pieces. Sales of the candy tripled within 7 days of ET’s debut and over 800 theaters all across the country started stocking Reese’s Pieces for the first time.

Or take Tom Cruise. In the early 80′s, sales of Ray-Ban sunglasses were flat and the company struggled to make ends meet. After Risky Business, sales rose 50% and another 40% when Top Gun came out. Sales of aviator jackets surged and Navy recruitment soared 500%!

Product placement is powerful, but like most things, people tend to screw it up when they don’t know what they’re doing.

A more recent example is the James Bond movie, Die Another Day. As far as James Bond movies go, this one is considered by many aficionados (me included) to be the worst of the lot. Part of it was because of the shallow reliance on technology and part of it was because they featured 23 brands inside 123 minutes. Some critics called it “Buy Another Day.”

Casino Royale did infinitely better, but many brands went unnoticed. Why?

Well, as any Bond fan knows, the British MI6 agent is mainly known by these products:

• Walther PPK gun

• Omega watch (formerly Rolex in the old originals)

• Smirnoff Vodka Martini

• Bentley, Aston Martin, and BMW cars

• Clothes designed by Tom Ford (more recently)

• Casino games, especially baccarat

The only reason these became synonymous with Bond is because of their integration into fascinating story plots over the course of many years. When James briefly drives a Ford car rental to get to a hotel or sends a package FedEx, no one gives a shit.

But we remember how tough it was for Bond to give up his Beretta for the new (and better) PPK. We remember the times it saved his life. We remember the vodka martini he orders from Dr. No as it slowly dawns in him the drink might be his last. And we remember the little saw blade and laser Q Branch outfitted in his watch to cut rope or melt metal.

These are meaningful product placements. Mindless cameos will be forgotten.

If you enjoyed our little romp through Marketing Land today, you won’t want to miss upcoming posts on my site… there’s lots more crowd manipulation magic where this came from.

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Investors predicted it would crush golf carts, wipe out global warming, and render cars obsolete in big cities. It was hyped through the roof as some kind of “mystery transportation device” that would “revolutionize how we travel.”

They invested in factories to crank out 480,000 Segways per year to make way for what would surely be an explosive phenomenon.

Personally I too was excited at the time, thinking someone had at long last invented the hover board from one of my favorite movies, Back To The Future 2.

Imagine my complete disappointment when, in 2001, the Segway was released… to the thrill of no one. Consumers took one look at it and yawned. It was nothing more than a $3,000 glorified scooter… and one that made you look like a total dork at that.

Eight years later now in 2009, sales just passed 50,000… TOTAL. It’s target customers are fat mall cops.

(Since then, Dean has moved on, working to invent a water purifier that runs on bull shit… literally.)

I mention this catastrophic failure because it demonstrates in gory detail THE biggest money secret of all time.

…A secret so valuable that once you truly figure it out and put it to work, you will be envied… you will be hated… and men and women from all walks of life may even seek to murder you for it.

What is it? Simple:

Sell something people desperately WANT!

Not “need”… not “might want”… and definitely not “should want”…

…What’s that? Are you over there rolling your eyes at me, thinking “C’mon Greg, that’s obvious! Of course people have to want what you’re selling!”

Well, if that “secret” sounds obvious to you, then that means you’ve never tried to actually USE it to make any serious money.

Because every single success story I’ve ever read (including my own successes I’ve had with certain products) relied more on stumbling into the right combination of market, message, and product than it did on crafting some magical guaranteed potion of desire they thought would sell (or even more dangerous is something you want to sell simply because you love it.)

I’ll say that one word again, because it’s so important: STUMBLING.

Here’s the unvarnished truth you won’t hear from anyone who hasn’t actually fought tooth and nail with their own money in a marketplace trying to sell some widget:

EVERYBODY STUMBLES INTO THEIR SUCCESS.

Yup, it’s true. Everybody. It’s not planned. That’s exactly why:

• Drug companies spend billions on marketing trying to figure out which drugs will be a hit with buyers… BECAUSE THEY DON’T KNOW. With all the R&D that goes on and with all the years of experience they have in that industry, they still do almost as much guessing as I did back when I was still living with my parents trying to figure out how to make a buck.

• Google, with all it’s BILLIONS of READY CASH locked up in some vault somewhere, still can’t figure out how to make more money with something other than little classified ads. It’s true: literally 95% of their money comes from Adwords, which are nothing more than 120 character classified ads that get displayed when someone uses their search engine. Google has a ton of other projects going on including mapping the globe photographically, scanning in every book in existence, and reinventing Microsoft Office… plus their employees are encouraged to spend 20% of their working time on their own “pet projects” in hopes one of them will become the Next Big Thing. Why? BECAUSE GOOGLE DOESN’T HAVE A CLUE WHAT’S GOING TO MAKE MONEY!

• Untold thousands of marketers online and millions more of the Great Unwashed Masses herd and stumble around every day constantly in search of a gold mine they can leech onto and suck dry before someone else comes along to do the same. They buy $2,000 marketing courses, kits, and software and go to $10,000 seminars in hopes that ONE will contain the magic bean they can plant to grow their own money tree. It’s kinda funny because these products are almost always marketed at business owners who want to make more money from their existing business… yet who do you ACTUALLY see at the meetings and message boards? Desperate nomads in search of a drink of pure water amid the desert of dry bleakness that is their lives. The main person getting rich here is the seller of the course, software, or seminar – for he realizes that selling “make money” products is always a reliable gold mine to tap when you’re out of original ideas… but if he’s really honest with himself, even he stumbled into his success in one way or another.

• Joe Sugarman (whom I’ve met in person – wonderful guy with a wife who could melt butter from across a room), made good money with his electronics catalog company JS&A (in the 70′s, pre-Sharper Image) but didn’t actually become a billionaire until he was forced out of business and tried a new idea of selling sunglasses that block the blue spectrum of light, making it MUCH easier to see in bright sunlight… thus, BluBlockers were born and Joe made a killing on infomercials and later in stores. Oh and get this: Joe didn’t even invent BluBlockers – he stumbled into them by hearing about the concept from some other guy!

• Michael Dell started selling computers out of his college DORM ROOM. It was just something he was doing anyway that happened to blow up and get huge. Nowadays he’s a billionaire because of the #2 X factor below. He had the skills to succeed but still stumbled into his initial opportunity.

You can have the most awesome marketing system in the world, but you won’t sell a damn thing unless you’re offering people something they WANT. Marketing is your jet engine, but a product people want is your fuel.

Not only that, but not all markets are created equal. Your choice to sell one type of product or another will either make you rich or severely limit your income… even if you dominate the industry! For example, there’s a pre-set limit to your income if you decide to manufacture paper towels. Also, the maturity of the industry will determine how much you can make. Sure, diamonds are hugely profitable, but just go and try to compete with the De Beers family. Ha!

As for me, I stumbled into every major success I’ve ever had. Ever! The only difference between me and someone who’s broke are these 2 things:

1. I’ve stepped up to the plate to bat (and struck out) more times than any “normal” human being has the stomach for. Most… no, ALL the people I know would’ve just given up after a couple things didn’t work. Back when I sold insurance door to door, my boss told me that he’s seldom seen someone so impervious to failure as me. I could make 120 sales calls per day to complete strangers and had 4% of them on average let me come over to their house to talk insurance. Unheard of for a newbie. Still, I hated that gig and left after awhile because I didn’t really believe in the product and figured out it was a lot easier to make money with advertising than in-person phone calls and visits.

2. Once I have a hit ad/product combination, I have studied enough marketing and business to fully exploit the success for maximum return on investment. This one is really the “X factor” because even if someone has enough determination to keep punching at the jagged steel of opportunity with a bloody fist until it pays out, it still takes an unreal amount of knowledge and experience to extract maximum money from it before someone else comes along and screws up the whole thing (and they will – it’s not a question of IF but WHEN.)

I said earlier that success is never planned. That isn’t completely true. You can plan to have success with SOMETHING… but you can never plan to have success with a PARTICULAR thing.

Just ask Dean Kamen with the whole Segway disaster. His company of 200 employees owns over 500 patents in the U.S. and worldwide. Five hundred! So from his point of view, who cares if Segway didn’t work out? Even if his success rate is less than half of one percent, he can still get rich and afford to provide incomes to 200 families.

Thomas Edison was the same way. He cranked out thousands of inventions, yet most of us only remember his life for ONE thing: the lightbulb.

Think about that for a minute… your WHOLE LIFE spent sweating, testing, and trying… and in the end you’re remembered for one, maybe two successes if you’re lucky. The rest of your life is only of interest to specialists and nerds… or nerdy specialists.

This is how it works for EVERYBODY throughout all history. No one is immune. Not billionaires… not George Washington… not even fucking Einstein. (Washington lost far more battles than he won, and the only reason we even know about Einstein today is because a prominent physicist at the time just happened to see one of Einstein’s research papers and invited him up to his place out of curiosity to see what this whole “relativity thing” was. Einstein worked hard on his theories, but he stumbled into his fame and success.)

I would be the last person to dump on The Secret, but no matter what New Age Attraction Hippies say, getting rich and building a legacy ain’t easy. And that is the real reason why people will envy you, hate you, and maybe even want to kill you when you discover a gold mine that pays real dividends.

It’s HARD to keep going in the face of failure… and most people are lazy. Tap an oil well gusher and you better have a backhoe ready to dig it out and suck it dry because it won’t be long before the buzzards begin circling your exposed body.

That’s why Napoleon Hill said the major thing you need for success is a “definite major purpose” – because without that you will lack the drive needed to get back up and keep coming at ‘em, bloodied and beaten.

You almost have to want it more than living life itself. “It” means different things to all of us. If you don’t feel a kind of raging drive for what you’re after… if success were guaranteed and you wouldn’t drop everything to run off for it tomorrow with reckless abandon… it’s a sure sign you’re chasing the wrong thing for the wrong reasons.

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“…And remember, please drive home safely. We want you to be our customer for a long time, so we do care about your safety,” she ended suddenly chipper,“Thank you!”

At first blush the recorded fembot’s words would fly over my head, barely noticed among a sea of commercial background noise. But this time, for whatever reason, I paid attention… and could scarcely believe what I’d just heard.

She might as well have said:

“…And remember, get back to work soon. We want to suck as much value out of your pathetic average lifespan of 78 years as possible. That’s our logical justification for your safety. Thank you!”

A month ago, I turned 27 years old… am I really getting this cynical already? Geezus, what would I be like as an old man? Or am I finally waking up to some sort of Matrix-like Truth?

Or maybe… I just think too damn much.

Whatever the case, my sleepwalk was disturbed and what I discovered gnawed on my mind. As a marketer, if I’m trained to keep an eagle eye on these hidden forces that direct our thoughts every day and many still fly right over my head… what must it be like for the average person to whom these messages are aimed?

Damn.

Subtle influences are all around us. In the next couple posts, I’ll share some of the most useful and interesting I’ve discovered during the past few months.

#1. Sacrificial Lamb Offers

This is where a marketer creates one offer solely for the purpose of selling another, which is the REAL offer they wanted to sell in the first place.

Take this example: You want to renew your subscription to The Economist (or in my case maybe Penthouse would be more appropriate.)

They give you 3 options:

- Economist.com subscription – $59.00
- Print-only subscription – $125.00
- Print & web subscription – $125.00

And no, that’s not a typo… those last two really are the same price. That’s the whole point.

The presentation above was split-tested with this one:

- Economist.com subscription – $59.00
- Print & web subscription – $125.00

Makes more sense doesn’t it? Logically, yes. But if your goal is to make money and bring in more subscriptions, it’s a failure.

Here’s what happened on a test of 100 smart MIT students when presented with offer #1:

- Economist.com subscription – $59.00 – 16 subscriptions
- Print-only subscription – $125.00 – 0 subscriptions
- Print & web subscription – $125.00 – 84 subscriptions

Total money made: $11,444

On offer #2:

- Economist.com subscription – $59.00 – 68 subscriptions
- Print & web subscription – $125.00 – 32 subscriptions

Total money made: $8,012

A huge increase in profitability just by throwing in a “sacrificial lamb” that nobody wanted.

More tests were done with women rating mens attractiveness. I’ll spare you the gory details but the end result was women were FAR more likely to choose a man who was the “better” version of someone who looked a lot like him, while often ignoring the great looking guy who was completely different.

The basis here is the brain is a big comparison machine… and it’ll take an easy choice over a hard one any day. Comparing 2 things that are similar is easy. Throwing in a rogue 3rd complicates things so the mind prefers to ignore or discount it.

So if you’re a real estate agent and need to sell a particuar house, find another just like it (but worse) and a 3rd house that’s wildly different. Show all 3 to the buyer on the same day. To avoid springs and sprockets flying out of their head, they’ll want to ignore the “different” house and focus on the 2 similar ones. Since the one you want to sell is the best, they’ll have to fight off some powerful mental forces to abandon it. The day is yours!

The same principle is what causes people to drive all the way across town to save a few bucks on gas, but think nothing of shelling out an extra $3,000 for heated seats in a car. The cost is all relative to it’s immediate comparison.

#2. Anchors

Stuff is only worth what we think it’s worth. So when introducing something new to a group of people (or a marketplace) the best way to establish its value is to present it alongside other similar things that already have a perceived value in the mind of your audience.

That’s what Jean-Claude Brouillet did with Tahitian black pearls:

To me they look like polished musket balls. Ugly. I’d grimace a bit if my girl wore ‘em. But the New York elite cared a lot when Brouillet displayed them in a Saks Fifth Avenue alongside diamonds, rubies, and emeralds.

The valued gemstones provided a basis of comparison (an anchor) and made the crazy price tag on the black pearl add to the high end mystique. Everybody “had” to have them.

People anchor themselves to existing price tags. This is also how you get markets to grossly overpay for a bottle of wine, coffee, clothes, or break out of a long-established price mold for a commodity.

Starbucks did precisely this when they were first starting out. Instead of “small, medium, large” they offered “short, tall, grande, and venti”…instead of “black or with cream” they had Caffe Americano, Caffe Misto, Macchiato, and Frappuccino. You can’t easily compare it to Dunkin Donuts.

And I’m addicted to Ralph Lauren clothes due in part to their use of anchors:

Ralph Lauren’s masculine yachting idealism

If she asked me to murder for her undying love, I’d be tempted to consider it

And finally…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iV_ixqCTnQ4

The ultimate idealization of wealthy youthful elitism, adventure, and sense of belonging – the girl at 15 seconds makes me melt and the guy at 50 seconds cracks me up

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ip5_hl4kAAY

Some more world-class anchoring for youthful fun and adventure

Traditional economic theory says we eat Big Macs, smoke, take vacations, listen to music, marry, have kids, vote, etc according to our likes and dislikes.

But traditional economic theory is bullshit.

Mostly we make buying decisions based on 2 things:

1. How much pleasure it gives us privately, and…
2. How it makes us look to others based on how we want to be perceived.

That’s really it. We establish our identity and then set out to discover the brands and products that best display it. Or if we have no identity, we look for a basis for one in the realm of stuff out there that already exists.

#3. The Explosive Power of the Lowly Penny

Consider two bowls of chocolate – one of truffles and one of Hershey’s Kisses.

We offer the truffles to passersby for 15 cents and the kisses for 1 cent. Each customer can only choose ONE. The truffle is obviously much higher quality and the price isn’t too much higher when compared with the kiss so 73% take the truffle and 27% take the kiss.

The same is true for whenever we charge 2 cents for the kiss and 16 cents for the truffle, keeping the margin of difference even.

Now we lower the price of each by 1 penny.

We offer the truffles for 14 cents and the kisses for 0 cents – free. Now 69% take the kiss and only 31% go for the truffle.

Traditional economic theory (again, bullshit) says that since the price difference stays the same, then the consumer will evaluate the decision the same. But this simply isn’t true.

Amazon.com discovered this when they started offering free shipping if you spent a certain amount of money. Buy more than you planned and save $4 bucks. Sales went up across the board… except France, where the French division was charging 1 franc for shipping instead of “free.” They wiped out the charge and sales boosted in proportion to the other countries.

Same goes for museums. On free entrance day, the place is packed. Charge a few bucks and the crowd thins out by 90%

So what’s really going on here? Why would someone take the “free” offer for something they don’t really want as much over a lower price on something they actually DO want?

Ah, welcome to one of my favorite subjects in the whole world… segmentation. Come inside, make yourself comfortable, and let’s chat for awhile.

Money is a way of demonstrating commitment. When you purchase something for real dollars that you got through selling your time at a job or providing value through a business, you’ve performed an action that separates you from millions of people on this planet… even if it’s something as small as buying a Hershey’s Kiss for a penny.

When I offer you the truffle for money and the kiss for money, you’re likely to choose the one that you prefer… hell, you’ll have to spend the money to get something anyway, so why not snatch the bargain on the expensive truffle?

But something magical happens when the Kiss is free. Now all commitment is released and it becomes a decision of “give up something” or “give up nothing.” The people who weren’t really serious about the chocolate will take the kiss, and the people who truly love their chocolate will still buy the truffle.

And if you’re the marketer of truffles, it is that smaller 31% (who are still willing to shell out money and spit in the face of “free”) from where your biggest profits will ultimately come.

Hark unto me: That lowly cent, almost flee-like with insignificance, acts as a giant knife hurling out of the sky – slicing the butter of society into 2 groups:

- the people who will DO, and…
- the people who will NOT do

That’s all it takes… a $1 trial or a simple penny to prove a customer’s commitment and therefore ongoing highest profitability. To separate the players from the wannabes. To divide the buyers from the non-buyers. To glimpse inside the minds of a mass of people.

I’ll talk more about this concept in future posts because with the right segmentation – one can conquer any world he wishes.

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