Best Copywriting Habits From The Top Copywriters In The World - Strategies and Daily Productivity ⏰

basically um the only question i want to know is the day in the life of david deutsch or perry bell basically your day what is the day of a top copywriter look like you know i know everybody has different different procedures on how they do their research your different writing procedures but really just kind of curious about the day in the life of i started doing this when i was an athlete first person i ever did this was was al order he was a neighbor of mine he was an olympian olympic discus thrower and i

was aiming for the olympics but then i carried into my real estate career with uh trump and barbara corcoran all friends of mine today and um let's not discuss trump but um they're all friends of mine today and um so what i found is when i asked people what they thought i needed to do to be successful they would give me great tips but when i asked to see their day time i used before computers when i asked to see their day timer i got to see what was important to them how they spent their

time um that's kind of basically what i want to do just kind of see what's important to you guys how do you spend your time um on a work day does that make sense yeah sure and you're pretty curious specifically around like copywriting because a lot of us really do entrepreneurial projects and stuff like that too but we're all entrepreneurs we all have our own businesses right um but all you guys are not me but you guys are some of the top copywriters in the world so i just wanted to get like you know i'm

picking sean's brain all the time david was over but then i'm not long ago i'm always picking his brain stefan i'm in your group um i pick barry perry's brain when i can get a hold of him and uh so all of you guys are mentors to me so i thought it would be nice to have everybody on a call and just see what the average work day and the le in the legendary copywriter's life is like i i can go first and and then just listen because mine's going to be super brief and probably

the least helpful so [Laughter] seriously it really probably is i i'm a person of little discipline so um i don't the only thing that i do consistently every day is take a bath for about an hour as soon as i get up and uh i'm not kidding i'd seriously that and i've got a pad like this one that i carry with me and i i've got one by the by the tub and and i i uh i listen to the news in the morning and hear the news of the day and if something pops up

it's interesting i and i start just making notes of whatever pops into my head while i'm sitting there quietly before my wife wakes up because when she wakes up you know everything goes to because it's all about her so what do i normally get up barry five okay yeah i get up around five a.m so i spend from five to six most mornings in a bathtub with you know soap and hot water glistening off my naked body can you feel that you're gonna you're getting a visual i think we want to get the rest of

these guys off this coal maybe i'm telling you so yeah i do that and i and i really really i just make notes of whatever i'm you know whatever i'm thinking about and and then i when i start my day man it's a freaking grind now because i don't get to write i really don't get to write a lot um if i write it all it's on the weekends you know i really because i'm i've got you know five five primary business uh units that i'm i'm overseeing and then i'm a minority investor in six

more so i'm talking to those guys all day long they're calling me ask me this ask me that and i i know i denote things along the day that are interesting that i see or a trend or you know what something that you know is some new language that's entering the common vernacular that wasn't there you know before um i read i read women's magazines weirdly enough i buy i find this this magazine called women's first i don't know if you guys have seen that on supermarket shelves just it's a headline treasure trove that yes

best headlines on anything on that magazine right now i think it's the best headline writers i've seen so i grabbed headlines off there and headline ideas off there it had a lot of frameworks off there and um and i i watch daytime tv some because i like the stories i i've got a story i wrote a survival story off of a product off a story that i saw in ellen degeneres about a guy this woman was in the flood in nashville and her house flooded and her neighbor came to eventually it's a long story but

her neighbor finally came to get her on a jet ski and she was on her roof and she hopped from her roof to a jet ski and when they got about 40 feet from the house the whole thing exploded from a gas explosion and uh and it made a killer story for my uh for my survival space and i just borrowed the story from ellen degeneres you know so um yeah so you know what i do to be a great copywriter i don't know that i am a great copywriter anymore i'm an okay copywriter now

i used to write some really great copy i think copy i'd love to hear from you guys like do you guys go through i'm sure you go through spurts where it's harder and you know as so somebody like uh um you know that it's been doing this a long time i find that i wrote my best stuff about 10 years ago i don't think what i write today is as good as what i wrote 10 years ago so do you guys have that same you know issue and if so have you you went through it

and how did you circle back around if you did i'd be curious of that but that's kind of my day well when you write when you write on the weekends you get up do you um have anything in particular do to get like i've heard john caldwell has his favorite pair of sweats and a t-shirt or something that he wears any any rituals that you have that you get that get you prepared for writing we just get right into it no i write with a borders hype at all i just talk so um and i

usually write i've got a really weird way of doing it you know i write my head in my lead first and then i write all my sub headlines and then um when i'm done with the subs when i'm done with my sub headlines um you know i usually go write the offer next and then i go fill in the body that and i don't do is you know i used to do it very formulaically with like i had my 21 step sales letter formula that i used for a long time i used it and i

sold it and i gave it to people and and it was effective now i just write the head and lead tell a story and make an offer and and the hardest part for me is um not the hardest part but the the part that that probably takes the most time now is the story you know what's the story going to be about i've got to find some interesting material because i'm not my market you know and in the survival space particularly i'm not even a conservative you know i'm pretty much a liberal but a middle

of the road to liberal right i don't own a gun but i'm the american gun association uh you know so i'm not riding in my own market which i kind of like you know because i think i don't have that bias toward what i think is you know what i prefer what i don't prefer and i write to the women's market all right to make up and i write to home decor and crafts and stuff like that so i'm writing to pretty much all markets that i don't um participate in you know but i do

usually slant them toward business which i like and towards bison so um no i just i i sat down with a recorder and i i s you find dig and find the story hopefully i've heard some story in the last couple of weeks and i'll kind of sit down and figure out how i can tell that story and spend a yarn at the end to get people interested in whatever it is that i'm selling and um yeah i spent most of my time writing the you know the the uh the call out the grabber grabbers

are harder headline promise headlines are easier for me now i love finding a great grabber you know at the top of the letter and those are hard to come by and everything else from me i kind of do it formulaically now um but but yeah that's that's me yeah i think you told me once i think we were in mexico and you said you're not good at many things you became rich because you know how to tell a good story yeah and i i'm you know the thing that about me and copier i'm fast i'm

really fast so like i'll write a whole letter in you know three hours top to bottom yeah with a blank piece of paper and then i'll let it lay for a night and then the next day i'll come edit it and i'll let it lay for a night and then i'll come back in and tweak it maybe one more time then it's good to go so when i do write i can write a lot i just i don't i don't write you know i know a lot of people are methodical and spend a whole lot

of time weeks at a time on a letter or whatever i don't know i don't know if anybody that's even really true or not i think that most people say they spend three weeks on a letter it's been two weeks and six days off and then they write the letter that's me if i say it's gonna take three weeks that's what i'm gonna do i promise you and terry how do you what do you feel is key to doing that quicker the concentration of time the uh not caring about whether what you write is perfect

or not what enables that yeah i don't care perfect at all and and usually what happens is i end up with something really really really long you know because i'm writing with a i'm writing with a voice recorder and i write with a voice recorder i can type just about as fast as i can do the voice recorder by the way if you're using google google docs their voice recorder is so much better uh and and now i use uh i'm using a thing called uh otter dot ai and i love them yeah otter is

fantastic because they've got ai that goes in and kind of corrects after the fact what they feel your intent was of what you were writing so they're so i think that i just just because i'm talking if i'm in the right mood i can walk around and talk and tell the story and and then when i'm done that you know i'll quit and then the next day i'll come usually sometimes i'll have to rearrange the parts of the story because i was you know rambling on and i got out of sequence and um and i'll

rearrange the parts and try to do one thing that i do do that that i don't think a lot of people do i don't know if they do or not but when i'm completely done i take the story and i put it into um i do two things i put it into hemingway app um and i'd let him i try to get it down to where it scores at a fourth grade level which is not hard for me because my vocabulary is just about there to start with so so uh because i'm from i went

to public school in kentucky so [Laughter] you know limited to a lot of y'alls and ants and but uh i do that and i try to get to four fifth fifth to fourth grade level in hemingway app and then when i'm completely done and i think it's all perfect um i put into something called natural readers and natural readers is a an app it's free or these both of those apps are free or you can buy a 20 paid version i have to pay version and it reads the letter back to me like personally and

um and i'll probably do three more edits after that because there'll be so much stuff in there that just sounds dumb when it's read back to me you know you'll get that you know such as and all that out of the way you you won't you know uh it on paper you know after two or three edits it looks right but when you hear it read back to you um it doesn't sound right so i'll pause it then and just make your edits as you're listening to it is that what you do i don't even

pause it i can make them kind of in real time and then i'm typing you know but i'm making my edits in real time i'm positive i have to but generally speaking i'm running that on a uh i'm usually running out on an ipad and then i'm doing my typing on another computer so but if i have to i can pause you know you can obviously pause it but but that to me those last two things have probably made my copy what i think my copy now is not as good as it used to be

but i think what i'm writing now is better because of those two things does that make sense yeah and guys anybody who wants to ask questions or whoever's up do it i'm i'm just here to listen but that's kind of it for me i don't do anything else that's special or different i don't put on you know pink uh hello kitty socks like john benson does but i think the whole time the rest of time we should spend talking about john benson since he's not here what do you think reporting i'll make sure i get

him this recording yeah he wanted to be here too he was he was very disappointed he's got something with his accountant today no worries i'm just messing with you anybody have any other questions for perry no i make a comment though on him talking about how you know he used to write great copy i don't know if it's that or the changes in the market perry depending on you know what niche you're in obviously i'm in health so it's a little bit different but i look back at the pages i wrote 2010 2011 and i'm

just like gosh this is freaking terrible how does this freaking convert um so i think that your copy gets more sophisticated but so does the market and so i think the copy has to be better because i think it's harder to convert people um that's just my opinion as i've seen my copywriting evolve over time i've just done i look back i'm like man i got 12 000 customers from this little tripwire offer and the copy is absolutely horrendous well if i we sent that out today it wouldn't convert with a so yeah i'm kind

of the opposite the stuff that we send out today that i wrote 10 years ago kills and the stuff that i wrote today i don't know if it kills or not because i typically just hit delete and say screw it because to me it sounds like so maybe maybe it's not as bad as it sounds i'm just more of a critic now yes we're our owners critic right so yeah i got a quick question for you perry when you write your copy you kind of just write it the way you talk which is what john

carlton's always told me to do he told me to do what you do record it into the thing because i've been in sales my whole life or do you try to like really get like do you really put a lot of effort into getting fancy and finding these hooks that they can't google and things like that my my very best uh i think when i'm in the right mood to write copy i'm in a good mood a positive mood and my copy is funny okay like um i write i write pretty good copy drunk you

know i really i can drink if i want to sit if i'm drinking sometimes we'll have people over the house or whatever and we'll drink some wine or whatever if i'm feeling really good i go down the basement i'll write some copy because i you know i found that i you know if you read like i've got a letter somewhere you can probably find it called um it's an up for an offer creation master class that i did if you google it's like prairie belcher offer creation something offer creation mastery or offer creation whatever and

i wrote that sales letter um after hanging a bunch of buddies drinking all night i started writing at like 10 and i wrote it until like 2 a.m and it's funny as hell you know and and i i think those are the things for me especially in bizap like biola memorial hot dog cart offer it was hilarious you know told them it told uh uh you know a story about a guy named sally all this stuff it's really awesome and uh but it was funny and i found that that's the best copy for me and

i know in health maybe you can't be so funny or you know people think you can't be funny and financial i disagree i think he can be i did i wrote a letter one time for um um uh what's his name um hubert centers called the trash can trader and he learned how to trade sitting on an upside down trash can in the back of a oil change garage and uh and he's a big old redneck and he's hilarious so i wrote it like from him i kind of wrote it the way that hubert would

talk you know if he was just hanging out with you talking and it was a great success and then i wrote one for john carter his partner who's an oxford scholar and all that i had to do it was a totally different super dry yeah style and and i i hated writing that letter i enjoyed writing hebrew slider a lot you write mainly your own stuff or do you hire out i i haven't written anything for anybody in 10 or 12 years i just who would like to go next okay i'll pick on people david

all right um i spend less and less time actually writing and more time training people and you know working with people kind of creative directing um helping other copywriters um the time that i do write my biggest challenge is productivity um and so i'm always looking for ways to be more productive because i also write better when i'm more productive yeah i write better when i'm when i write in a concentrated burst rather than letting it take you know two months to write something so one of the things that i've started doing is it's kind

of pomodoro method but it's basically i'll write for 22 minutes i'll do something for 22 minutes of writing and then i'll break for eight minutes and i find that whatever level of add or whatever it is that i have that's like perfect for me a half hour is a little too much an hour is way too much of doing any one thing 22 minutes i can kind of i can get through that i can see the end in sight so i kind of tend to do it in 22 minute bursts um so getting up early

helps a lot um i think perry said he gets up at five i've been trying to get up at like 5 30. i find that that just sets a whole different tone with my day i think stephanie do you write first thing or do you like exercise or do something else yeah i do other stuff first thing i probably should write first thing yeah um i'm sure that would be helpful um that's something that craig valentine i think talks a lot about in his course um the um the other thing that i find interesting too

is stefan do you remember when um i think it was jason moffatt wrote on on your facebook thing about uh numbers how it was a numbers game kind of a thing about he you and your relationship to numbers oh yeah with um talking about like with poker it's like i play poker yeah professionally back in the day yeah i think to a certain extent and what fascinates me about like you do like two two sales letters a month right i do like one sales letter every two months so it kind of interests me that and

i think part of that in addition to you having some really good systems and you know templates and things i think part of that is you've kind of figured the odds are the more stuff i get out the more success i will have yeah so i may ultimately like my letter may have a 80 90 chance of winning your letter has an 80 chance of winning but you get out four of them in the time that i get out one so you've got four letters that have an 80 chance of winning to my one so

i've been trying to get a little more conscious of how perfect do i really want to make because i will i can polish something to eternity um how perfect do i really need to make it where is the sweet spot where is the law of diminishing returns um how can i get you know something out faster um i think a lot of that has to do with even establishing deadlines right if i give myself a week to do it it'll take a week if i give myself a month to do it it'll take a month

which is basically basic parkinson's law kind of thing but i do find that the more i can concentrate my effort like it'll take me 100 hours to write something if it takes me a month or two months to do it i can probably do it in 50 hours if i do it in one month and if i did it in like two weeks it would probably take me 25 hours if i could concentrate it into that two weeks that's a good insight david yeah i think they actually there's actually a study that they did of

software programmers and they they found something very similar which was that if they took a certain amount of time after they had written a program if they debugged it right away there was a certain uh you know it would take them like 10 hours they debugged it like a month later it would take them 100 hours because they had kind of forgotten all the stuff that they had put in there and they had to go back and look things up and what did i do here it's the same thing with writing right right after you

write it you can go back you can edit it you can improve it but a month you know if it's a month between you and you wrote the opening and when you get to the ending who remembers anymore kind of like what's in there yeah not at your fingertips anymore the even the research isn't at your fingertips anymore do you have a particular way of um this is a little bit off topic but like when you're doing research on a project i know most of you guys work on multiple projects at a time do you

save things like in google apps um all the links and everything else that goes on with it or how do you organize yourself when you're writing i basically i put it in a document okay i'll save links and stuff in a document a lot of times that'll be an outline of the actual promotion itself so i'll get a piece of reader oh this goes here the link to this goes you know in this section i'm sorry i'm not distracted i'm getting texts from michelle his secretary whoops um jay just texted me desiree has me at

three o'clock tomorrow pacific time i think now it's like today eastern time let me ask you can you jump on for two minutes question mark sorry about this sure sorry um while you're asking i'll jump in i mean dude well just because i think david one thing that i do definitely play the um the spread a little bit more i mean of course i want every piece to be you know a winner and and i put effort and care into it um part of that's because the first people who are hiring me the lions publishing

guys in romania back in 20 i guess 13 14. they were the first ones to hire me everything but they were they were the first ones where i started making good money and they were trying to do this blockbuster model which took that like approach which was essentially you know i got paid if i could do 12 sales letters in a month i got paid like eighty thousand dollars and if i did four sales letters and a month i got paid four thousand dollars so this huge uh discrepancy but i had to write really fast

and that it made like you know perfection kind of the enemy um but they also had this blockbuster mentality the whole thing was like hey we're just gonna throw out as much stuff as we can and some of them will be home runs and some of them will be okay and some of them will bomb uh but i think the other way i look at that philosophically is um and this is probably a huge advantage for me having only done like you know digital like vsls and sales letters online and never like direct mail stuff

is i kind of look at it as a really iterative process too where i think you know as long as i'm following my methodology and processes and things like that that i'm gonna you know it's gonna be usually a pretty good letter that that does well but i can always go in and you know tweak from there if the big idea is is right if the you know hook is right if all that stuff is right then it's usually just messing with the headline and the lead and so like at that point um like i

kind of don't that helps me to like let go of it a little bit like i just did it for um mike geary and ed scout and offer for them that was a beat your control and i did um and it beat their control by like right like about about 12 percent better than their control right now right which is okay cool you know 12 percent thank god i beat it because yeah from an ego perspective you want to always win but they're like oh we can't we're hoping for more but i'm like all right

i can you know like let me give you some different headlines let me give you an alternative lead or two to test and you know doing that i'm sure i can get to like 30 or 40 better than like the control which is where they would be happy so um the only thing i've got i run into trouble with is if i don't tell the client that i have that approach sometimes because then they're like you know it drives me crazy when it's like six months later and they're every single word they're pouring it over

and you do just launch the damn thing like it's gonna make sales and we can always tweak and optimize from there so that's kind of the baseball analogy is just get on base yeah get on base then we'll worry about scoring exactly yeah yeah that's a great point i mean the other point is i don't think one thing i think that i've learned the longer i'm in this the more i realize it's impossible to tell certain things to a large extent you don't know whether something's it's gonna who who you know who would have known

a drunken guy on a trash can is gonna work who would have known jim rutz's um read this or die is going to work who would have known you know there's so much in what we do that we don't know so you might as well just get it out there and see if it's got you know traction i agree a thousand percent that's uh you know i it's like the music business to me you know they do they put 10 songs on an album for a reason you don't know which song is going to be

a hit if you only put out one song on an album your odds of a hit have been reduced by 90 percent yeah and look at that look at how many people thought you know bohemian rhapsody would never be a hit and look at how many people thought movies like ishtar would be a hit you know it's you just never know just quickly touch i see a library behind you which we all have um do you also make sure you read on a regular basis like every day do you have a good habit of reading

yeah i i read a lot some of it's just for enjoyment um more and more i find that what i need to do is to study not to read because i love reading i love to collect information and it's just a collection but it's much more beneficial if i really take something and really like apply it like for instance to take eugene sports's breakthrough advertising and really go through it and study it and understand it on a deeper level and figure out how to apply it more would be much more valuable than reading like three

more books about copywriting yeah it makes a lot of sense well david do you have anything else you wanted to share no i've been using wrong did anybody use rome or hear of it what is it how do you spell it it's a note-taking app that um enables you to cross-reference things so it's kind of anyone ever use um workflowy yeah we do yeah it's like worth chloe on steroids it's like you if you bracket something on rome it will go to the page where that is like if you bracket if you're writing about something

and it includes the word meditation if you bracket it it goes to the meditation page so when you call up your meditation page it pulls from the notes that you took about this book that maybe wasn't about meditation but had something interesting on meditation and it pulls it out and shows it to you there so you've got this thing on meditation which has stuff pulled from all these different things that you've had meditation in so it's kind of instead of being like a hierarchical okay i read this book i read this book here's my notes

from this book here's my notes from this book you're able to pull from all the books that you've read the stuff about meditation or the stuff about leads or the stuff about whatever it is that you may want to you know pull from so it becomes this web this interconnected web instead of you know just this list or you know flat hierarchy and you know people i know it probably doesn't sound like much but people who have used it have been you know like the first first users whatever they call that first innovators people that

have been using it i've been like this is like a game changer this has changed my life in terms of taking notes what's the name of it again david rome our uh roam and it's from rome research yeah i'm signing up for it right now looks pretty cool you can get that out of otter too which is interesting and otter it you can search once you've done your note on otter it turns everything to text and then that text is searchable and you can go back and read the text uh with search and then when

you click on the text it'll actually play you the audio under the text yeah that's pretty cool yeah there's there's a lot to be said for you're really smart to do that for capturing everything you know you never know when you need a phone call when you can use a phone call david hi yeah hey jay how are you i'm great how are you doing i'm good excuse me one but i'm i i'm also discombobulated because we thought it was a different time hold one second please jay thanks for jumping on i appreciate it john

how are you how are you i'm uh good older shorter fatter just better looking yeah david i have a question before we start i i have a memory jay of the first time i talked to you on the phone when i was thinking of buying um your marketing genius at work and they i called the office and they transferred me to you because you would say the sales pitch and i said how are you and it was the same sort of thing i was so struck by you went well my sinuses are acting up and

you had some like little witticisms and clever things and it's like the same thing now it's it just reminded me of that i was so struck by it it i want to address john thank you see if you can do something for me i have a new new new ad that i've been working and it's about 3500 words and it needs to be produced down to 1800 and it's a david ogilvy type that just uh it just enumerates really realizations people don't have i.e variability uh price differences all kinds of things that i'm good at

with a very little reference to me but i need somebody great i can pay to turn it into a meaningful uh wall street journal ad can you recommend somebody that isn't going to do down and dirty uh sort of bizap type stuff for me later i mean but what i didn't know you've gone but i'm looking for one i asked brian and i haven't heard back from him yeah i'll think about it any of you guys know anybody like that i've tried people and they end up making it want to be a biz op i

mean a lower market and it's not what i want but you're not looking for a copywriter what are you looking for just somebody to edit your copy well it could be a copy editor but not a copyright it could be a copywriter but i've already got more copy than i've got too much dense copy with a little bit of hyperbole but it's very infor it's very informative very interesting again it's interesting that somebody doesn't know it my whole pardon my voice my promise when i came to fame in the public sector was that i taught

people fundamental dr stuff that non-dr people didn't know but i've been exposed to so much variability and and alternative realities in my life that i have an interesting construct now and i've been trying ads david john everybody who's on the phone that are a little bit more about me i'm not as great a copywriter as i once was david has written for me i never did your ad i should probably do your ad david maybe we should dust it off for the 87th time i get motivated i try doesn't work i go back and retreat

to status quo but i'm really interested in playing with this approach and i need somebody to take it and uh wrestle it to the ground you know a lot of times people who edit books who edit newspaper you know newspaper editor type people journalism edited people have a really good ability to to edit and it might be good i have asked but i i've learned in my life to not uh this is going to sound maybe um cover surreptitious it is not i will normally ask three people to do it uh all three of whom

seem to have the uh the the perspective of the market and see what comes in i've got a book editor the guy that did three of my books i mean he's a ghostwriter working on it but i want to have two other alternatives just so one might work so yeah but you're right but david you look good okay john what do we what do we need from me while i've got time i've got 20 minutes okay um let me get that in a second i apologize i'm going to do an email introduction to um ron

terozzi and he runs 5wpr manhattan probably the most successful pr company in the country right now he might be able to help you with what you what you're working on right now thank you and john you're looking up thank you it's all fat these days though jay yeah i'm starting to get back into it now um it's been it's been um a rough couple of years as you know i do how's your heart right now getting there i had all my teeth removed in the last month they were thinking that might be causing issues yeah

it's like right now you have temps right now right now i got dentures and then implants will go in in six months it's a pretty cool i've had a lot of implant dentists i've helped it's amazing what they can do now it is amazing yeah just taking it out my my teeth were so bad because i had all caps on them for 40 years yeah they basically i went for oral surgery and they said most of the surgery was done just cleaning up the disease in my mouth my teeth fell out well i mean it's

it's it's very hard we all i mean there's so i'll tell you and you know this i'm i'm sort of trying to dodge all kinds of bullets as i get older but you know whatever tries to get us hopefully doesn't get us yet is never what we expect it's always going to be i guess you could call it surprise not funny but you got to laugh at it because you could prepare you can prepare for this you can prepare for that and then something else that something you know people get lung cancer that don't smoke

yeah you know people get uh you know like you you exercise like mad so it's it's just very ironic and fascinating if you if you can stand back and look at it clinically and not you know take it personally and go and say the world's unfair i i've long ago come to the belief that whatever happens people have short-term empathy but their own lives are so complex that they don't have a lot of time to they care but they can't really be that that supportive carry so we have to say okay well if the world

doesn't really care we might as well not worry about it ourselves and just bounce back and into the ring as best we can that's true well let me honor your time and everybody else's as well this call is about a day in the life of so in the day in life of jay abraham now um everybody on here is a legendary copywriter we all have not made but we all have our own businesses and um just want to kind of see what like what does your day look like what do you get up and do

uh when you're writing what does that look like you want me to just free for me yeah just free from it well you would feel much more comfortable if you heard perries jeremy right there hi barry perry are you there yeah how are you doing man good it's good talking to you um so uh first of all let me disclaim i think there was did you ever see the movie lucky slevin and it's great movie with uh josh ask art i can't remember his name is in the bruce willis but he talks he sees this

older woman who sort of decrepits sitting in a wheelchair and he says there was a time there was a time when she was hot and vibrant there was a time i think i was a very good copywriter i would not uh acknowledge that now for many reasons but i will tell you what my day is and i'll tell you what my day used to be like at such a time when i was i have good or bad i want to say evolve but it might be devolved but i'm more of a strategist and a masterful

thinking partner today vis-a-vis when i was younger and wrote a lot of very impressive copy when i wrote copy i had studied a lot i had ingrained myself i had a reflective discipline i would i would iterate about 30 times if i was writing something and i got to a point this is when very long copy a long copy i guess is still relevant online but when long copy was really at its peak 16 22 page letters if i came to a stopping point i would not try to fix it i would go right back

to the beginning and start over again handwriting on yellow pads because i figured that something was wrong with the flow and i would spend weeks on something i would go and usually hang out in the back bedroom and not i would bathe but i wouldn't shave and i would eat intermittently and i could never use a computer or a typewriter so i'd always do it on the floor with a pillow writing and handwriting and writing and handwriting but i did a lot of very successful things today i don't really do that i think about things

a lot i uh i will review things that i think are really interesting not looking for a copy to emulate but looking for concept to emulate i like concept more i've always thought that a concept will trend a good concept great concept will transcend a bad bad copy but great copy won't transcend a shitty concept so if i have to default not being as great a copywriter anymore i want to have a great concept john that's just me so i i used to write something 30 40 times before i release it today very honestly if

i do it more than twice it's a it's a rarity so my stuff is is macro inspired and micro crap i mean you know i for example if i send you what i'm talking about it's eight pages 36 or 3200 words and there's really cool concepts here and i probably revisit them again at the end and they're not in the right order and i basically today because it's not what i really want to do i have an email list it's not that big because we didn't ask for opt-ins for years we just gave stuff away

i'm more interested in real businesses and and uh so i only sell stuff for one of two reasons one because i have a you know seven eight people and i don't want to subsidize it so i'll sell stuff to our very meager list we're doing something right now which is very cool have you guys seen what we're doing yeah the the uh the summit with you and tony and uh yeah yeah so that's pretty cool and and it's a fun but it's a concept play you know it basically it's a concept is it's a marathon

no one's ever done anything like that and i used footage that i own of tony and i together for his 85 and 150 000 um clientele and it's really great footage but it's a great story i i don't think anymore of writing great copy i think of having great concept and and strategy behind it and i don't know that that's true for my own account i've done very well for clients i i find what i do in i mean i've got i'm a conflicted soul i do a lot of stuff for other people we'll do

stuff to our email list what you saw was an inspirational sort of thing i've been thinking about it for a long time and thought it'd be sort of fun because i owned i owned all this footage i never used and i thought well i'm going to take it all together and turn it into something and re-articulate it in a different way and again i wrote the copy you know over a weekend one one and a half times so it can be improved massively but it's pulling seven to one and we're getting a 36 or so

percent conversion which they i don't know anything online they said that's good that sounds really good to me i think jay yeah i mean it's and and you know we're we're it's a really interesting i've already conceptualized four or five or seven different elements of it that are very unique i'm more interested in strategy plays than copy but how i do things uh my typical day john is mostly uh is mostly uh consequential critical strategic thinking for others so i would typically have in a busy day not today but in a busy day i would

have seven consults i would have to write something i would try to write something to send out to our list i go back and forth try to sometimes sell sometimes just do you know fun things nobody else would do at christmas time we sent out a collection of christmas music and christmas videos and movies and we just did something we just sent a collection of some of the greatest commencement speeches uh right before the the first to get people to think differently about the future and i do things like that and i'll write it you

know sometimes my brain will take over and it's inspired most of the time it's adequate but it's usually always conceptually strong and strategically strong but it's probably copy weak i had started again which is interesting david will appreciate this when i was younger and i was really good i read claude hopkins david ogilvy albert lasker george hodgkiss john caples over and over and over and over and over again maybe a hundred times i hadn't read them for years i read uh scientific advertising my life in advertising for the first time in maybe two years a

couple of months ago i read i'm reading the the um the robert collier letter book again i'm reading rudolph flesh because i want to be a better communicator not just a greater strategic and conceptualist because i think it's important i personally i'm uninspired with facebook the kind of people that i want to reach we don't reach very effectively we just did twenty or thirty thousand dollars worth of experimentation on facebook and ninety percent of the people we got we're all wannabes and and lo and and they're very nice men and women but it's not the

market i target um i i um i'm very good at doing certain things i will i will read a newspaper and i will highlight phraseology i like and at the end of reading that paper or that magazine i will take all those phrases and try to make it say something it doesn't matter to me it's just an exercise uh i will spend time going through but i i really like phraseology and that depict really great mental imagery so sometimes as a therapeutic release from the insanity of the day in our life i will look up

uh the top uh book reviews or movie reviews or uh any kind of review where you see very interesting um and i'll separate flowery uh words from very descriptive graphic imagery that is really powerful just to see what uh ways i can expand my ability to communicate dimensionally uh but i i used to be very disciplined i'm really totally undisciplined i have 16 000 emails on my on my one email account i still pay 29 stupidly for an aol account i never learned how to organize them i have boxes and boxes in middle of the

night i'll get up and write copy and i won't write it down i'll just mentally do it and forget it in the morning and i've got pads and pads of of ads i've written and mailing pieces i've written that i've put concepts that i never use and i can't read anyhow because i have double carpal tunnel but it's sort of intellectually trying to keep at my age my intellectual prowess and my mental uh majesty sort of uh it's not honed at least lubricated a bit so i mean i don't know that i'm in a day

of j you know i get up i have a half a pot of coffee what time do you normally get up jake it varies sometimes i get up at 6 30 sometimes i get up at 8 30. it depends on on what i did the night before normally i go to sleep around 10 o'clock but sometimes i'll work i used to drink a lot i don't drink much anymore i like scotch and bourbon but not very much i am obsessed with the human condition i'm fascinated i love trying to explore the spectrum of humankind that's

really interesting to me so anytime i get a chance for example i did an interview a private interview a couple of of uh like a year or so ago with uh warner earhart and with somebody and i was reviewing that because i love to see how many different ways different people see life who are really interesting uh i always try to have a lot of you know we we try to always look for deal flow and i spend more time talking to people and reflecting on what they say how they say it what their what

their world views are how that reconciles or doesn't with mine stuff that i don't know that everybody else does but i've become hopelessly curious i was thinking this morning about how most people benefit by learning uh logistics because logistics is really the connection of how things flow and and most people don't even think about that and when you understand it it gives your mind more connectivity if that makes sense but i go into really weird weird uh chasms chasms whatever i don't know that i mean i don't have much discipline anymore i got lots of

to do and i do it today i did you know i've got three or four groups that i counsel for two or three hours a month i got clients i do and then i have stacks and stacks of things i need to do and i'll do them intermittently but i'm probably the antithesis of everybody else here not with pride probably with my add and my undisciplined mad scientist has taken over my my structural um capabilities so i don't know that i would be a good person to want to emulate if i'd be a terrible one

because i'm totally undisciplined now and and i just i'm just lucky i have enough residual value in my brain to get by but i would not recommend you wanting to share jay a typical day in jay's life but it's fun it's i mean my life is experientially fascinating because i don't deal very much anymore with the probably the normal um the normal uh sort of category of activities that many of these people do not that i mean i so wish i had stayed sometimes in the advisory information business because there was a time i was

very strong in it and i sort of abandoned it but now i just deal with the most diverse spectrum of operating businesses around the world and a few of them are information marketers a few of them are are influencers most of them are you know just product service companies all kinds and and i find it very stimulating uh i don't know is that good or bad john that's good we'll get into we're getting to see what's important to jay and that that's the important thing the reason i do this is i started i mentioned this

in the beginning but i started doing this as an athlete when i was a teenager then i brought it into my my adult career when i went my first career was really manhattan real estate and i wanted to interview donald trump and barbara corcoran and the whole group and see what was important to them i asked him three questions the last question was always give me the day in the life of let me see a calendar let me because if i can find out what's important then i know you know basically what i can implement

into my life hey john this is perry i've got a bug out i've got a three o'clock hard stop but um i'd love to hear the rest i'd love to see the recordings when you're done but guys good to talk to you i've got a i got to run and do a thing we'll send this out terry thank you thank you very much my pleasure take care guys see you good brother thank you so much and john i'm gonna have to be rude as well because i wasn't playing i haven't won but i'll be happy

to you know spend some more but i don't know i mean i'm so delighted to be as transparent to all of you but i don't know that i would want to emulate me today as far as discipline i would want to emulate you know the world that i've been able to to uh sort of habitat because it's very interesting and very stimulating and very um it's dimensionally very very rich with uh a broad spectrum of of perspectives and and and realizations and it's you know it's it's you're going you're traveling through all kinds of different

domains all the time so it's very fun but i don't do it the way i would fire myself if i were my own client let me give let me ask you one more question then we'll let you go yes if you were talking to a budding copywriter how would you tell him to spend his day uh i would tell him it depends on what he was trying to do if he's trying to master his his work i would say depending on what you're trying to you know to focus on you got to learn the real

market i don't think many copywriters really have an empathic they don't examine appreciate uh understand the realities the values the definitions of the market i've learned to to travel into the minds of different markets they wanted to to really uh be be focused on i wanted to know that their job is not to really represent the the client their job is to represent the prospect because a very different distinction i would um i would tell them to uh you know to really master a lot of the old books i think i mean i'm sure there's

a lot of new methodology that i should probably learn myself but i don't think the old masters had the luxury of technology or graphics or sexuality they had to understand how human nature functions and i think that's immutable i would tell them to [Music] you know to really to to try to study not the the the things people say in ads that are successful but that the elements that are really driving them because it's a very different thing and i think it's it's uh it's ask a lot of questions and listen and then reflect i

don't think a lot of you know i've i've been uh fascinated and shocked by copywriters not really having any clue of the real depth of meaning uh that their target audience has to whatever the product or services i don't think i think that that the worst thing that ever happened with online marketing it's just my opinion is that it um a lot of buzzwords for many years were able to be used with a lot of bullets and it sold and i don't think most copywriters have a clue what what connection to the market that they're

trying to reach really is all about and i think you can't really empathize or celebrate or or advocate or or or or really represent that market if you don't appreciate them i was always fascinated i had a client years ago who was a very successful uh litigation attorney that did personal injury and he only did you you'll relate to this now he did not that you had a problem dental malpractice but he wouldn't take a client if he didn't live in their home over a weekend because he wanted to know firsthand what they were what

they're suffering what their pain what their you know what it was like to be them in their life and he he he didn't believe he could advocate i had a um a criminal attorney one time i said how can you represent uh uh rapists and murderers he said i have to first of all find something genuine about them that is admirable maybe they were a good son or you know they went to church and something and i think that we as i don't consider myself a meaningful copywriter but copywriters have to be connected to the

market at a deeper level than they are now and i'd say you got to connect but you have to know you know there are there's there's methodology and and and that's good to know but there's there's i mean i think i mean i i was reading a lot of david ogilvy and david will probably appreciate this and i was thinking a lot about the big idea that i don't think a lot of copywriters really focus any more on the big idea and the big idea can be a very disarmingly simple concept but it's still a

big idea if it's properly uh revered and advocated and dimensionalized i don't know if that helps it does it does um i know you got to go jay i really appreciate it no i'm sorry for the time confusion and hopefully this helps and everybody thank you and um and i appreciate it i'm glad you're feeling better and um you can show your new teeth to me next time we see each other when will they get those in um i'll have the um the implants hopefully in by april and uh jeff moore is going to be

bringing me out to one of their masterminds and he's hoping that you and i could be together absolutely by the way i think that one of the greatest under um appreciated skills is the ability to listen and hear i agree okay thank you hey jay let me introduce my wife real quick because you walked me through my divorce i forget to me how are you how are you i am very well where are you living these days john in north carolina and is that is that real i like the brick behind is that real brick

no i a i use we just moved into this house a couple of months ago and my office is a mess so it's kind of like a screen saver it looks really impressive [Laughter] i like your background oh yeah it's real unfortunate yeah let you and i touch base in a couple of weeks let's touch base in a few weeks i want to hear what you're up to as well all right thank you goodbye everybody thank you brother appreciate it all right we're dwindling because he's got to stay on because he's recording that's true i

have no choice so you can't go anywhere sean now sure and i know what he does on a daily basis because i should i pick sean's brain about every third day but um how do you spend your day sean well first i i just kind of like wanted to piggyback off something jay mentioned it was i think i was reading this i think it was like the boron letters or something like that where it talks about how you shouldn't pay attention to what your market says they buy you should pay attention to what they buy

and then he used the national enquirer versus the bible as an example so like if you surveyed your customer list right to get an idea of what product you should create next they're not going to necessarily tell you the truth like if you ask them if they read the bible they're more likely to say yes and lie to you if you ask them if they read the inquirer they're more likely to say no and lie so anyway i just that brought that up when he was talking about that stuff and i think it's something we

always got to remember as copywriters and of course i'm not just a copywriter i'm doing all kinds of stuff so i mean that's really my day is what hat am i wearing uh so i like uh i do like uh dan sullivan set up kind of like focus on a focus day a buffer day and a recreation day so i kind of look yeah i look at my days like that like today's a total buffer day every tuesday because i'm on the phone almost all day right so i can it's totally a buffer day i

went got an oil change today when i had a break so that's the type of stuff i'll do where yesterday was a focus day so i think the number one thing to look at for me personally and this is like i think coming from the school craig valentine is my day doesn't start in the morning my day starts the night before and if i just plan and i pack my stuff ahead of time for the gym and look at what i'm going to eat for my first meal and i script out my day and i

fill up my water bottle and i lay out my gym clothes like literally i'm and i sleep eight hours without exception eight to nine hours every day i just operate better that way i've tried to wake up early and all i want to do is sleep all afternoon so that's just me personally i think you need to find what works for you so what time do you get up sean usually uh 6 30 to 7 30. okay i wake up um but one of the things that uh from a psychology perspective your brain is in

theta mode when you wake up uh which means your subconscious will absorb the information that you put into it when you first wake up so it's garbage in garbage out so about four or five days of the week i make sure that when i wake up within the first 15 to 20 minutes that i'm absorbing something or reading something that's gonna put me in the right spot so i have a mind movie that i'll watch about four or five days of the week sometimes it's my goal cards other times it's a devotional as a christian

but i think you know starting your day like that is how you're gonna live your day so if you start going down rabbit holes on facebook and instagram which i removed all social media apps from my phone now except for youtube and i find that makes a huge difference because you're not just you know subconsciously tapping away on that but that garbage in garbage out right if you wake up and you're exposing yourself to that then you're going to be distracted you're not going to be able to hone down on your copy so depends on

the deadlines for me so if there's hard deadlines that i have to have copy or certain aspects of a funnel ready um then i'm waking up in the morning i'm taking that 10 minutes to get that information in my brain then i'm jumping around the computer and i'm going to knock out at least two to three hours and i'm going to use not a power montero method i think stapan's a fan of that too i like 45 minute blocks a working 15-minute break i try to do three of those before noon on my focus days

um and i find if i do that i'll get more done in that before noon than i would the whole day if i don't start my day that way now when there's not deadlines in place and i'm not in a hurry sometimes i'll carry out that theta mode rating doing like an hour of power where i'll work out and then i think also you know doing things that increase your creativity so i try i get in the sauna at least five or six days of the week for a half hour no technology unless i'm watching

my my movie and i'll read books um you know and do what i need to do to to increase my creativity and the other thing i'll do is like i'm an overwriter i write slow and i'm an overwriter so i my converts and i do a very good job just takes me a long time to write it and i usually overwrite like perry was mentioning and then i hack out the unessential um so on days that if there's a deadline john i mean i'll be you know i'll do those three sessions i'll go wash it

all off at the gym get a workout and sweat go to the sun do my hour power and then i'll i'll do another night session that's not so structured right so if i have a deadline like i mean when i have deadlines i'll write copy till midnight and and sometimes you know i'm like perry like you know i'll get drinking and i'm like man i'm in the zone you know what i mean so sometimes the creativity lights up in the morning for me and sometimes i hit blocks and if i if i hit blocks you

know i'll try to push through for a little bit but sometimes i think just taking a break away from the copy and i'm talking like at least 24 to 48 hours maybe even longer sometimes after you've been working on something so for example and i don't necessarily consider myself even a even a copywriter as much as i do just like a marketing funnel expert because this last vsl that i wrote uh it literally took less than five days to write the script um but it took two and a half months after that to build it

out yeah oh i did you know i'm filming b-roll with my wife and you know we were you know working back and forth with the designer getting it locked down you got music and you got all the video and the imagery and so all that you know took a a one week copywriting project and turned it into three months now with that being said this was after i wrote the original one that kind of bombed i think it would have probably did good a couple years ago which goes back to perry's point about copy then

versus now i think it would have did really well but it didn't do that good this year so i also finished that up in like 14 days okay so to me i invested three months in this new one and it's fricking crushing it we're gonna try to take it to number one on clickbank and so is that three months time gonna be worth it well absolutely because i spent a two week time on the first one and we didn't get anywhere with it so it just depends like i know staphon's really fast so yeah i

mean those are my days john i mean you know my focus days are structured like that and then of course the buffer days are like today and then the recreation days is just be present with my kids and my grandkids and shut off the shut off the phone and and you know get that break but uh taking a break away from copy after you've been you get googly eyed after a while you're looking at it over and over every day every day every day and i think those breaks are super important so um yeah that's

really all i got guys i mean what time do you go to the gym usually sean well typically i usually go between like noon and two o'clock okay uh now there's also something that i'll do when i get up and i do my little ritual sometimes i'll just get the out of here because i'm less likely to interrupt myself at a coffee shop or even sitting at the gym at a table with headphones in working then i am here at home i mean it's always something there's a noise in the basement there's an amazon delivery

at the front door you know it's always something that even if it doesn't interrupt you you'll you can interrupt yourself because you're at home you'll get thinking of something in the back of your mind oh i gotta go check on that not even thinking about it and then you just broke your focus so i think that timer really helps because when i set that timer there's something psychologically about it that if i hear something or i'm going to get nope my timer's on i can't go do that until this is done and then i stay

focused on the task at hand so stupid little psychological trigger but it does work well i think it's like dan sullivan's time system you know he calls it his entrepreneurial time system it creates a sense of urgency so when you set that 45 minute timer or hour timer it's urgent if you don't get it done it's over when when the buzzer goes off it's already so you got to get done yep yeah now you used to work out early in the morning like i did right like i do right yeah i mean you know it's

january so i'm stepping it up a little bit so i'm trying to do like a 15 20 minute cardio session when i read my goal cards and watch my my movie when i wake up right now but i'm immediately going right to work i mean what is uh you know you know i haven't heard of the my movie crew i'm sure you stephanie you remember the my movie crew oh i did google mine movie crew i've heard of my movies i don't prefer the crew specifically like yeah i can't remember the the lady who ran

it uh when it first took off like about 10 years ago and then i met the guy who actually bought her out um but basically you just take each area of your life uh you could do like the five f's so like you know faith family fitness finances future you just take those areas of your life and then you create slides uh powerpoint slides uh weaved in with picture and video that basically just it's like a 10 year vision on what you want to achieve so i started that in 2008 and i've had to remake

uh two or three different ones now because i just crushed all the goals on them so when i first started making them like i remember i put i made a slide and said i'm you know we'll make 100k a month and i mean at that point in time i was broke living out of my car almost divorced so i thought there was no way in hell i could ever achieve that and then of course two years later we blew that off the map and i just got rid of that slide so you know i guess

you got to find what works for you um for me that's just planting those seeds in my head and i think we're living in a world especially like with kovid you know and all this stuff it's very easy to get distracted so you really have to be in control of your environment i think a great book for you john would be willpower doesn't work by ben benjamin hardy fantastic he talks about forcing functions and uh it kind of piggybacks on you know this whole time or just the whole time or an environment like if i

put myself in the gym at a table with my clock my timer there's no interruptions i've controlled my environment and now i know i'm going to be productive or if i'm at home doing that my chances of being interrupted not being productive are a lot higher so tons of psychology about the environments that we surround ourselves with and obviously that applies to people as well so um but i really appreciate you having me on i it was funny when i saw this list i was telling my wife i was like oh man john's got like

you know all these badass millionaires and legends in our industry and then there's me and me i don't know if you remember what you were not when you and i first met you told me and i was dead broke at the time i had lost everything i had a successful business previous to that but you had told me now that you're doing this you'll be a millionaire within a year remember that at the um biltmore no i don't but it stuck with me and you were right good stuff man so yeah i mean i meant

guess you could have stefan close it out man that's pretty much all i got all right you're up all right um yeah i feel like i'll anchor the ship here but um first of all it's actually been a lot of fun just listening to everybody and sharing uh their habits and and things like that it's got me thinking about a lot of different stuff uh but yeah i so right now for me i wake up early i wake up like five to five thirty when i'm really in the zone it's like four or four thirty

which i enjoy i i struggle with the trade-off of having a young daughter who doesn't go to bed until like eight or eight thirty when i'm waking up at 4 30 in the morning it means like i basically put her to bed then i get in bed and read for a half an hour and then i can go to sleep like nine like 9 15 and you know that's that's fine i enjoy that because i get all this magical morning time like i literally call my morning time the magic warning time stefan's magic morning time

because my daughter's not up my wife's not up my daughter doesn't get until like eight right now my wife doesn't get up until like eight so uh you know if i'm up at 4 30 or five it's like three plus hours of just completely uninterrupted deep work time and that's definitely when i'm the best at you know writing copy and the most productive i more recently like i've i had a coach named monique linder who told me to kind of like just just wake up and start doing whatever your biggest like needle mover is like

which is often writing copy and do that first like first thing like don't check email don't go on facebook and for the longest time i kind of ignored that and still pretty productive but then maybe a few months back really i started just doing that most of the time not i'm not perfect but a lot of the time and especially if i have like a letter that i really need to write or copy i really need to write and so that was that's actually been a huge game changer because i you know i wake up

at let's say five i make myself cough i have one cup of coffee just one for keurig like i don't over do it on coffee personally but um and then if i you know say i'm writing from at 5 15 and i go to like 7 30 or 7 45 even an hour and 15 minutes an hour and a half of like just really focused uh like deep work on writing copy i just i'm always amazed by how much i get done uh you know this is different when i was younger i mean i know

i think i'm like the youngest guy on this call i know sean's pretty young too but um you know like i'm just trying to say i think sean looks young shawn just looks yeah you want your grandpa too yeah yeah that's right shawn doesn't care i remember that because i remember copying starter so yeah like i'm 35 right so i know it's funny when i'm like oh when i was younger but um yeah it's been like all day writing now with having other businesses and a lot of other stuff going on uh i have like

phone calls i have meetings i've also other kind of stuff so but i never i try to always schedule that stuff for the middle of the day like you know like 10 at the earliest ideally in the afternoon like uh and a couple good hours a day of writing copy for me like it just can still really move the needle a lot and i write pretty fast too so um that's my biggest thing and then like just like sean said no like yeah not looking at facebook not looking at social media not checking an email

not really looking at my phone not even like i used to read the news like i read like i have a digital subscription so i read wall street journal and i go to the las vegas review journal and i'd go to the union tribune with the la times and i have like subscriptions all those papers so i'd read the news because you know but even then it's like so much stimulation because you're clicking on all the stuff and you're going to all these articles and there's all these ideas flooding into your head and so i

even just stopped doing that and i found that it made a huge difference for me so you know that's my my biggest thing i can talk about more of my habits but i don't know well no it's important one of the reasons i wanted to do this is i i kind of relate to what jay is saying he's not disciplined anymore i was highly disciplined until i had my open heart surgery and the last two years of kind of throwing me off so it's really it's really helping me out hearing what's important to people so

basically you get up you get right to you get right to work how long do you typically get right for two or three hours and then you'll take a break yeah i'd say an hour and a half to two hours sometimes up to three and um i do you not always but i'll often use pomodoros like uh similar to what david does and sean like especially if um especially i'm not feeling motivated because i do 25 minutes of writing five minutes off when i set a timer on my phone and uh yo cause mentally for

me it's like all right i can do 25 minutes even if i'm not feeling motivated at all it's like it's 25 minutes i can do that and generally the first pomodoro i kind of drag ass a bit and maybe towards the final five or seven minutes like i'm starting to actually get somewhere and getting excited or warmed up or tuned like in and then the alarm goes off i'm a little annoyed but i'm like all right take a five minute break and then by the next one i'm really and by the third pomodoro i'm like

in the heat of it and i'm like really pissed when the timer goes off because i'm i'm vocally pomodoro what is that it's really just a time method it's exactly that it's basically like 25 minutes or whatever period of like kind of straight work uninterrupted no distractions and then five minute break and then in the five minute break you're supposed to like go take a walk or like drink water or do things like that like not go on facebook but uh i'm not perfect about that you know all the time but it's just a way

of tricking your mind because again you're like all right i can do 25 minutes right if i say because if i sit down and i'm like i'm gonna write for the next three hours or four hours but i like had one too many tequilas the night before or i'm just not in the mood or whatever it is then um you're like yeah i don't really want to let me go on facebook i'm gonna do this like you just find ways to distract yourself and it's amazing how fast the time flies by and suddenly it's like

7 30 or 8 or 9 and you've got calls and then you feel pissed off because you didn't actually get any writing done that day and you're kind of mad at yourself and you're scatterbrained because like sean said garbage and garbage out like i really i've noticed that too i mean there's studies about how facebook and you know uh like it totally screws up your dopamine right it's like a slot machine because you're getting notifications and like buttons and you're the endless scrolling is like a constant jackpot it's like just totally screws of your brain

um so but you know if i just sort of again if i can just jump in for 25 minutes and then that's easy to do a couple chunks of that so it makes it all much more manageable i like that do you guys have any questions for stefan well for each other pretty eat your big frog right in the morning man i mean that's the i think that's the overlying theme here with everything you know and it's defined that's been that's forcing function has been a game-changer for me i have it right like i have

this when i have this man up checklist of things that i need to accomplish every day and then i rate myself on a discipline score and a productivity score at the end of the day the very first thing is no email or social media until afternoon yeah so once noon hits i can go check my email now there's exceptions to that because i'll have to dig it like if i need my designer to finish up a graphic or something i'm gonna have to go email them but i make it a point to get the in

and get the hell out right because otherwise you're going down a rabbit hole and it's 30 emails and 30 minutes later now you've totally used up all your juices so um yeah and and uh i think that's the key man is do as much as you can before noon and then the rest of the day's gravy yeah i totally agree i think another lesson i've learned too about that is like you know i'll schedule calls i have a call at like three today with like my accounting people my time and like uh you know i'll

do whatever i'll do after if i have to but it's also like if you get those big needle movers done you don't need to sit at your computer or your desk and try to fill the rest of the hours you know because then that's kind of not motivating either if you're like yo you get your big you you you slay the beast you get the big thing done and then you kind of like don't have anything that afternoon and you can go enjoy time for your family or work out or exercise or and but you

sort of make yourself feel guilty like no i need to sit here at the desk and find activities and um you know so i don't know that just has been helpful for me and then it makes it more if you have fewer hours in your work day then um if you haven't you're way more motivated to actually get stuff done because you're i have to get this done if i don't get done i'm going i'm leaving that too like i literally start i schedule tomorrow and friday 10 30 to 12 30 i'm taking my daughter

to the playground so like two hour blocks for wednesday and friday of this week and um so i'm like well i'm writing a letter that i really want to finish this week and um i wrote you know about maybe 1500 2000 words i wrote some this morning so it's like as long as i wake up early and write for an hour and a half two hours like i will you know i'll finish the letter on friday even doing that stuff but i i feel like there's more urgency versus like if it just sort of spills

into the rest of the day and well i can write it at 10. oh so 11 i can read it at 11 and again it's only the day is gone so it's just so much better and the momentum the little wins that gives you so much more confidence in your day too plus you're not stealing time away from your daughter yeah that's true too it's a little bit of accountability for you like she deserves my time so it gives you accountability to get the done as as probably the oldest guy in this call stefan do

not pass up that time with you with your daughter yeah you know my oldest son is actually older than you jimmy he's two years older than you you're 35 right yeah he's 37. and um i got a great relationship with him and all of my kids but i do have regrets i worked way too hard when i was young i sacrificed way too much of my time unnecessarily you know but you're in a business you're you're in a good business in a good position now you don't need to do that but i you know basically

my habit has always been up at four bed by 10 or 11 at the earliest and i've kind of got off of that but now the habit i'm trying to break is working at it very early in the morning because i think you're right i get i go to the gym i come back and i'm distracted and i don't really i'm not as productive as i could be as if i just hit it right off the right off the um right out of the gate like you guys are doing something that uh just an exists

quick story about this morning i got up and started writing i'm working on a tripwire offer for joel and um i got i got a creative block you know and and uh on the lead i just didn't i had like two or three different leads and i'm like i don't like any of them and i'm so i was like you know what i it's a buffer day so i'm gonna not even feel guilty about this i'm just gonna go to the gym and frickin sure enough i was halfway through my workout and the freaking whole

idea about the lead hit me yeah yeah i jumped off the treadmill and started taking notes so there is something to be said for changing your environment when you're at it when you have a writing block right and getting out of that element i mean sometimes just picking up your computer and going to a different room in your house can make a huge difference and and benjamin hardy talks about this a lot in that book willpower doesn't work so all right guys what else you got david you got anything to add oh white one i

sent you i sent you guys a link to something called action machine it's really cool it's basically pomodoro method but it gives you like like let's say a grid of 12 squares and each square can be a pomodoro setting so you set it for you know 22 minutes let's say in my case or stefan it would be like 25 minutes and so you can actually do a whole series of them and keep track of okay this one's for this client this one's for that client this is to do that so at the end of the

day you could see what you did you can kind of plan out your day like that it's just a really cool way to do it even if you just use it as a timer are the upsells on this program worth getting uh pro i don't know probably not i'm not sure you could even get the program okay if you have trouble some of you guys might know abraham um but if you have trouble with it let me know i'll i'll see if i can get you my execute file i don't really know exactly how to

do that but it seems to be kind of out of print because it's had that under construction thing for a while but it's it's really worth you know getting okay well i'm gonna look into it and i'll let you know guys i really appreciate unless you have something else we'll end it we've been on a little longer than i hoped but i really do appreciate everybody's time i know it's all valuable and um i can't thank you enough for being on guys yeah you know john i think it's a matter of finding what works for

you because everything is so different for you know each person yeah i agree you know you're a very driven person and a very person with good willpower i have like no willpower so everything that i do is to set up willpower in advance like to force myself into situations where i must do what i must do you know yeah well willpower is a finite resource you know it depletes as you as the day goes on so um it's just like people all the time what what's your secret to motivation because you know the way i

have my gym habits there isn't one just right do it so there's no that's the motivation just doing it all right guys i'm gonna bail out here all right good to talk to you guys and staphon when you get a chance can you email us out to everybody or to me like it forward yeah i'll put it in a google drive and i'll send you the link uh pretty much after we finish here thanks guys and guys i really appreciate everybody's time happy new year awesome happy new year guys thank you happy new year bye