Adam Street's Blog
The spiritual and practical path to freedom to do your art

Beating Entrepreneurial Fibromyalgia with 1%

When my mom was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia her doctor gave her a cheery little nugget of wisdom.   

He said something like…

You will have pain everyday for the rest of your life.

Well, that was harsh I thought…

But he wasn’t doing it to be crass, or to be a dick.  

He was doing it because to him, that was the reality of Fibromyalgia.  And he said if she could internalize that now, it wouldn’t be as bad.  

This doc’s philosophy goes against my overly Pollyanna-ish like nature but I get it.  

This is also why I tell entrepreneurs and service pros that marketing is hard.

Copy writing is hard.

Figuring out your product, your message, and the best media for you is hard.  

This is why Swipe and deploy and copying ads have a tipping point.  They work and they’ll get you started but you almost never see the success of the original.

Eugene Schwartz said it best.

“Each and every formula is simply the written solution to a particular problem that occurred in the past.  Change even one part of that problem, and you need an entirely different formula.  That’s why memorizing theories won’t make you a scientist…or rewriting somebody else’s headlines won’t make you a copy writer.”

I could steal all Lebron’s moves and the Laker’s wouldn’t be calling me anytime soon.  

Great teachers help you learn and understand foreign and complex ideas.  That’s what makes them great teachers.  

That is what I aspire to do.  

That’s why I do what I do.

That’s how I’m wired.

But I’m not going to lie to you and tell you it’s easy.   Or that if you take my course you’ll become the next David Deutsch and 10x your income in six months.

But when you KNOW it’s hard.  All you have to do is little things.  

Like get 1% better everyday.  

The compound effect of daily improvement will make you an entrepreneurial bad-ass.  It might take 6 months it may take 6 years.      

But it WILL happen.  

Better to put your faith in that than some mamby pamby hocus pocus course.  

If you need a little “Riddikulus”:  https://adamstreet.net

Adam “Expelliarmus” Street

What’s your prospect’s Boogy-Man?

There’s tons of rules for great storytelling.  

There’s the classic books by Joseph Campbell and his ‘Heroe’s Journey’.  

And a butt-load of other books based on Campbell’s work too.  Which is saying something because Campbell’s books are already pretty plump…

The bottom line is this… 

There’s one super-important story element you need to always have.  You can get rid of almost every story “rule” and still have a descent story.  Everything but this one thing. 

It’s what I use in my marketing.

And my comic books.

It’s what I taught my college students (and Girl Scouts by the way…).

Your stories need a VILLAIN.  

Your bad guy is what powers your story.

Crappy villain=mediocre hero.  Mediocre hero = mediocre story.

Cliffhanger was a great movie because  John Lithgow was a great bad guy.

When we talk about Silence of the Lambs, do we talk about Jodie Foster?  Nope.  Hannibal Lecter, baby!

When you tell your story you better have a good villain.  Your story is only as good as your defeat.

When you speak to your audience, who is their villain?

The gurus say to ask, “what keeps them up at night?”

F*#! that!   

What pisses them off?  What boogy-man is lurking in the dark that is going to get them?

Don’t believe me?  

Ask someone who hates “The Vid” vaccine, what they don’t like about it.  They will talk your ear off.  

This would happen if the topic was medicine.  

What to eat.

Religion.

How to raise kids.  Whatever.

Don’t be milquetoast.  Find what gets under your avatar’s skin and talk about it.

Need help?  https://adamstreet.net .

Adam

Scumdog [wanna-be] Millionaires

Over the years I’ve picked up a variety of skills.  One is the ability to spot a Scumdog [wanna-be] Millionaire.  I met one this week.  Scumdog [wanna-be] Millionaires are narcissistic and almost always men for some reason.  

Their playbook is to charm you with flattery and drone on and on about ALL the famous people they know and how big an opportunity it is to work with them.  And then they make you a ridiculous offer to work on their art project. 

I met a Scumdog [wanna-be] Millionaire this week.  Even though hype and b.s. was oozing from every pore in his body, I decided to do a test sketch for him.  He was in a hurry and I figured it was something I could knockout fast.

In the end, my drawing wasn’t a good fit.  He tried to give me edits but the smell of scope creep started kicking in like fresh cut onions.  I sent an email and bounced off the assignment.  

Like a true Scumdog [wanna-be] Millionaire he never responded.  No thank you.  No nice to meet you.  Nothing.  I even offered a referral (which I now regret).

So what’s to be learned from the Scumdog [wanna-be] Millionaire?  

Too many people say one thing and mean something else. Most aren’t as nefarious as Scumdog but you want evolve how you speak to your prospects.  For example…

When Scumdog [wanna-be] Millionaire said:  Adam you’re so talented and fast…

What he really meant was:  You can do this quickly so you won’t mind me trying to screw you over on price.

Before you may have said:  “My course isn’t expensive, it’s an investment.”

Now you may want to say: “Yes, my course is expensive. I did this to offer the best quality and value so my students get big results.”

Like a smart phone we constantly need to update ourselves.  If not you’ll be a Ford Edsel driving among newer, faster, and better cars.

For daily updates like this one join my email list at:  https://adamstreet.net

Adam