"1 dog year is 7 human years" is what I've always heard....but that's not totally accurate! 

This super cool chart clarifies that statement with more info based on weight:

How old is your pet according to this??

...and how old do you think this little guy is?? 🙂

Here's a funny story how over the years I've swung the price of this book (This Is Earl Nightingale) from $15 to over $450 several times. 

Currently if you search this book it's at $244: 

....yet 5 days ago it was about $20 🤔

So I talk about this book all the time. I originally bought a copy ~15 years ago that was signed by the author Earl Nightingale:

If I’m ever confused, pissed off, sad, or lazy (or other non-desirable state)….I pick up this book and open a random chapter:

Within a few minutes of reading one of the chapters (each 1 to 3 pages long), I generally have a paper/pen out and am jotting out the quickest solution to my problems.

It’s almost like a sure-fire way to make me feel better since it gets me thinking RATIONALLY about an issue I may have, rather than just “oh poor me complain complain complain” shitty circular thinking that gets you no where.

So for a $15 book I bought 15 years ago, it's had massive returns for me!

So 5 days ago I posted an Instagram Reel about the book, and I watched the price go from $20, to $150+, to $200+ 😂

It's a combination of enough people wanting to buy an original copy (no longer printed), and a very limited supply of those copies, plus this isn't like a super popular book lots of people sell:

I personally have an affinity for this book because it was one of my most-referenced books of the last 2 decades. 

Earl Nightingale has so much wisdom that's sometimes tough to swallow and very matter-of-fact.

Here's some fun little nuggets of wisdom from it:

“Your total environment is an exact and merciless mirror of you as a human being.” 
- Earl Nightingale

“The amount of money a person receives will always be in direct proportion to the demand for what he does, his ability to do what he does, and the difficulty of replacing him.” 
- Earl Nightingale

"A happy plumber makes a greater contribution to the world than a miserable university professor."
 --Earl Nightingale

“We become what we think about. People who think about becoming lawyers, become lawyers. A bad environment makes you think bad thoughts. A beautiful environment makes you think beautiful thoughts.” 
-Earl Nightingale

Can you simply describe your own product/service with this framework?

Example 1: 
Feature: Sun cream. 
Benefit: No sun burn. 
Experience: A burn free summer. 

Example 2: 
Feature: Blackjack Guide.
Benefit: Win more money than your friends.
Experience: Bragging rights from your weekend in Vegas.

Example 3: 
Feature: QMS building framework.
Benefit: Connect, Organize and Visualize your QMS data.
Experience: Faster quality management decision-making than your competitors.

Example 4: 
Feature: Micro exercises.
Benefit: No burnout.
Experience: A refreshed mind and body.

Write your product/service out like this, and reply to this email with your answers!!
• Feature: ?
• Benefit: ?
• Experience: ?

I've been very resistant to these "Shorts" videos for a while....but I'm not gonna deny some of these results:

Suuurreee the numbers are all probably highly inflated, but it's an interesting format to get tons of different information in a small amount of time. 

I posted our analytics on all these platforms in last weeks SWIPES Email, and I'll update again after roughly a month of posting!

I'm currently thinking through my 2023 goals, and perhaps some “Month-Long Experiment” ideas for 2023 plus their desired results.
Here's an example:

#1.) Observe Sabbath (no religious connotation): 
I would pick a day of the week to use little-to-no technology.

Result:
Hope to read more, disconnect just enough, regain long focused periods without distraction of fun technology.

#2.) Sober Month No drinking, no nothing, mayyybbbe caffeine. 

Result: Just make sure can still do it, no way to escape, reduced calories, potentially better sleep.

#3.) Calorie Restriction Month 
Set a strict calorie cutoff for each day. 
2,100 calories for workout days 
1,500 calories for non-workout days 

Result: 
At those numbers I guarantee go into a calorie deficit. Forces me to make good food choices, and high penalty for poor choices. 

I’ve tried many of these before, and usually find some small action to get the desired result faster without doing a month of the same thing. Ideas I’m not 100% sure need a full month but seem interesting: 

• Everyday writing habit month 
• Wake up really early month 
• Morning/evening stretching month (maybe while I brush/floss)
• Solve a trivial inconvenience each day 
• Track all of your time for a month
• No added sugar month

I really liked this blog post documenting a bunch of similar experiments and their results.

Do you have any month-long experiments you'll be doing in 2023??

CopyWork is a copywriting exercise where you hand-copy ads to learn how they were written. 

When you learn piano you first copy other songs, then later you create your own songs. 

It's a similar concept with copy. 

You first copy famous pieces, then create your own.

For example here's a world-famous Volkswagen ad:

Here's a CC student's CopyWork for that popular Volkswagen ad:

Here's another students rendition of it:

And another:

If you want to practice CopyWork on your own, here's 31 different ads to pick from:

Feel free to pick one of those ads, write it out on a sheet of paper, and reply back to this email with a photo of it!
 

Last week I became one of those "Short Video" people. Last week we posted one video per day to: 
- TikTok 
- LinkedIn 
- Instagram 
- Facebook 
- YouTube Shorts 

Here's the results after one week on each platform →

TikTok: Bad 

The first video we posted got ~700 views, then all downhill from there. 
Possible reasons: 
- I just suck. 
- I'm not a great demographic fit for TikTok.
- We've only been consistent for for one week and need more time.

 

Instagram: Pretty good 
- Getting some views. 
- Getting some comments and messages about vids. 
- People reaching out saying they like them. 

The increase in reach are very visible on Instagram:

I do feel kind of self conscious that I mostly use Instagram for purely personal reasons, and now I'm blasting people with, "HEY IT'S NEVILLE LEMME TELL YOU STUFF ABOUT COPYWRITING!!!!"

LinkedIn: Decent

- People watch and comment.
- People messaging about the vids.
- LinkedIn in seems like a solid platform that's not as glamorized as TikTok, and I think the bar for content is MUCH LOWER. 

One neat thing is LinkedIn stats show you detailed demographic info:

 

Facebook: Meh. 
- The shorts don't look good on Facebook Pages, it's not made for it.
- Views are meh.
- Engagement is very low. 
- It gets SOME views, but engagement is like zero compared to our other posts.

 

YouTube Shorts: Good
- Getting likes. 
- Getting comments. 
- Getting subscribers. 

The plan is to keep posting at least once per day across all platforms. 

I noticed when other friends did this it took about 2 months straight before any real growth happened.

It'll be an interesting experiment to see if people like these! I'm open to feedback to improve!! Email me back if you have suggestions!
 

When you incentivize something....you get more of it.

Around 2003 Google introduced its ad product called AdSense,  and it literally “ignited” the web! 

Content publishers could finally make money from their content, so more was made.

Twitter is about to throw its hat in the ring, giving rev-share to content makers for video and written content:

Pretty much every publishing platform is now giving creators money for content (of course only a small percentage of creators get enough traffic to create real revenue), but it's a good step in the right direction.

The most common cold email I got this year was people/agencies offering to make YouTube Shorts, IG Reels, TikTok Clips etc (like I showed above).

It kind of reminds me of people cold-pitching making websites in the early 2000's, and people cold-pitching building Apple iOS apps in 2008.

Short video clips have kind of turned into a media form of their own, so it's logical this is a big service being offered all over the place.

Here's some sample cold emails I get everyday:

I've engaged with many of these pitches, but the major problem I've seen with these pitches is:

I ask for samples of their work, and they are very poor quality 😞

Most of the clips they send me are poorly picked, or poor quality. 

Compare that with some of the recent clips I've had released with captions, graphics, and lots of editing: 

I've tried making some of these Shorts clips myself just to figure out how much work it is....and honestly it's almost as much work as making a full YouTube video 😂

There's so much editing, shortening, and picking out solid lessons that goes into it....it's much harder than it looks. 

Last week was my 40th birthday, and I'm thankful to have friends/fam that surprised me with like 2 weeks worth of celebrations! Think I got like FIVE cakes for this bday 😂

The week before my bday a group of us went to Mexico City:

I got several Mexico City bday surprise cakes 🙂

A Spa Day...

Then back in Austin a surprise party on actual bday:

Then over the weekend a BIIIGGGGGGG SURPRISE came when I was lured out to the lake with the help of Sam and Sara:

Where a bunch of friends were waiting and surprised me in the driveway of this dope house with the "Dancing Tesla" feature where it plays music and flashes the lights 😂

I got ANOTHER cake!

I was so surprised, had no clue this was happening:

My friend Noah was there (also a lot of people wore onesies) 😂

He cooked an awesome lunch one day:

Noah also did a full roast 😂

My friend Nick Gray was there too:

He organized a bunch of fun games including "Sardines" and "Celebrity":

One day we all jumped in the lake....and it was 37F degrees outside 🥶

Then immediately jumped in the hot tub 🙂

The house was ammmmaaazzziinnggg:

Someone really thought through all the details:

It was probably one of the best layouts of any house I've ever been in:

Anyways, it was an awesome birthday and I was thankful for that and all the fam/friends involved in putting it together!!

20 years ago I was in a college entrepreneurship club with 200 members.

Only 2 people out of 200 actually had a business: 
- Me (ran a rave equipment drop shipping site). 
- Dude who patented a roofing device inspired from his family’s business.

Since then entrepreneurship has boomed, and I think a few things have changed:

 

1.) It was VERY taboo and weird to openly speak about money.

It was common courtesy to NOT ask people about money or finances…and you rarely heard people openly discuss their personal finances.

I used to openly list my finances on my first blog NevBlog.com, and this was considered an insane move. 

Nowadays people openly say on their Twitter profile “I sold a company for $10.5m.”

So it's cool to see people more open about money, so more people can learn how to make it.

 

2.) Owning a business was HARD, cost a lot of money, and little information was available.

Even a website cost a lot of money in hosting/bandwidth. Just owning a computer cost thousands of dollars.

Nowadays you can run a huge website or social following from a phone, essentially for free.

 

3.) Owning a business wasn’t cool. It was looked upon as an odd and un-safe thing to do.

Entrepreneurship was starting to become slightly cooler, but it was investment bankers and finance people that were looked upon with admiration, not entrepreneurs.

That’s changed.

It's neat to see in 1 generation "starting a business" go from a fringe/weird activity to a mainstream thing possible for anyone! 

I asked people what they wanna build in 2023, you can see 300+ responses here: 
copywritingcourse.com/blogs/233-what-are-you-building-next-year

The most common answers with 10+ responses each were:

• Start an eCommerce store (surprisingly tons of these)
• Starting a blog.
• Starting a social media presence.
• Building community membership site.
• Start a retail website.
• Start freelancing or consulting.
• Write a book & blog combination.
• A side income of some sort.
• Get to multiple streams of income.

The things is, all of these things are do-able in one year. 

If you break a year down into 4 quarters (3 months each), you can easily "work backwards" into your goal:

So this Black Friday we're offering 1 year of Copywriting Course for 55% off if you grab it before tonight!

If you use coupon code BLACKFRIDAY (expired) right now, you'll get 55% off, PLUS TWO FREE MONTHS of access!

That means if you buy today you'll have access to:
- Unlimited copywriting training, including any new stuff added.
- 24/7 copywriting forum for help, advice, and re-writes.
- Weekly Office Hours where you can come chat with me directly.

....alllllll the way till the end of next year!

Copywriting course is usually $97/mo, so times 14 months that's $1,358.

If you buy right now you get all 14 months for $497.25 😮!! 

55% off for Black Friday + 2 Free Months. Our lowest ever offered!
GRAB IT NOW.

Use coupon code BLACKFRIDAY (expired) at checkout for 55% off plus 2 free bonus months. This deal goes away tonight so grab it now!

Sometimes a simple comparison helps you *instantly* understand something. 

This simple graphic seen on Instagram *instantly* shows your fullness level after eating 400 calories of 
oil -vs- beef -vs- vegetables:

I first learned what a "calorie" was when I was 26 years old, and comparisons helped me understand it better.

I ate King Size Snicker's bars all the time which were 440 calories each.
"440 calories" on it's own meant nothing until I started comparing it to  other foods.

I was shocked I could eat 12 clementines and get less than 440 calories! I even made this image for myself back then:

These comparisons slowly helped me discern good foods and bad foods.

Using comparisons (or "analogies") are very useful when explaining something!
 

 

I love this quote:

Quote

The mediocre teacher tells.
The good teacher explains.
The superior teacher demonstrates.
The great teacher inspires. 
- William Arthur Ward

I'm not a big hot sauce person, but for some reason this one just hits the right spot:

- Very flavorful.
- Goes on anything.
- Not hot enough to wreck stomach.

Cholula is great in general, but the Chipotle flavor is even yummier!

Yesterday was my 40th birthday, so here's 40 lessons l've learned about life...

Just kidding, I dunno anything, I'm just gonna have fun 🤩

I was in Mexico City last weekend celebrating a bit, and this weekend I'll be in Austin. 

Friends have stuff planned but I don't know what it is yet 😬

"Be clear, not clever" is generally great advice, especially when trying to sell something. 

However sometimes "cleverness" and "beauty" can work!

For example I think this graphic of bicycle parts is both beautiful and clever:

 

Or what about this clever (and kinda funny) ad for Pringle's Hot & Spicy 😂

 

Or this beautiful Rolls Royce ad just showing how pretty the car is:

When selling and writing, I think clearness is best.....but every once in a while some cleverness and beauty can go a long way!

The "Compression of Information" marches forward as we get better technology. 

For example I made a 7 minute video about "Becoming Indispensable", but recently put out a YouTube Short video that's only 39 seconds....and to be honest it kinda gets the same point across, but 10x more efficiently!

To me, copywriting has always been about getting information from one brain to another brain....or one brain to a MILLION brains. 

Whichever the most efficient method is best. 
 

This "compression of information" has happened to reading:
🕓 🕓 🕓 Books: Days to read.
🕓 🕓 Magazine Articles: Minutes to read.
🕓 Tweets: Seconds to read. 

Also it's happening to video:
🕓 🕓 🕓 Movies: Hours to watch.
🕓 🕓 YouTube Videos: Minutes to watch.
🕓 "Shorts" Videos: Seconds to watch. 

I've been experimenting with some shorter form content all this year, maybe you could follow me on those platforms to see it?

• Instagram
• YouTube
• Twitter
• TikTok
• LinkedIn

Do you like shorter form content? Do you consume it?? Reply and let me know!

Here’s some clever ways to turn boring data & stats into easier visuals:

1.) This was a clever way to spice up a boring “bar chart” and make it into a “Battery Bar Chart!” 📊

2.) Instead of boring bar charts show boring megaton data, this chart uses nuclear explosion visuals to show the different sizes of nuclear blasts.

3.) Instead of using words and data to describe lethality of different drugs, these viles each show a lethal dose of 3 different drugs, and shows how shockingly little is needed to overdose.

This visual hits home harder than plain numbers and data:

We are visual creatures. Our minds are ~6X likely to remember a message if it's combined with an image:

So if trying to get data across, sometimes it's beneficial to make it an image!

This is a neat quote:

Quote

“The amount of money a person receives will always be in direct proportion to the demand for what he does, his ability to do what he does, and the difficulty of replacing him.” 
- Earl Nightingale

This is a cool way to judge which career path or business to get into:
→ Demand for what you do
→ Your ability to do it
→ The difficulty of replacing you

In fact we could make a measuring scale out of this:
→ Demand for what you do (Rate 1-5)
→ Your ability to do it (Rate 1-5)
→ The difficulty of replacing you (Rate 1-5)

A janitor is a job associated with low pay because MOST people in the world are capable of doing the job.

If an average janitor needs to be replaced, it's very easy:
→ Demand for what you do (3)
→ Your ability to do it (3)
→ The difficulty of replacing you (1)

If an average brain surgeon needs to be replaced, it's very difficult:
→ Demand for what you do (5)
→ Your ability to do it (3)
→ The difficulty of replacing you (5)

I've given other note-taking and organization apps like Notion and Coda many solid tries....but I keep winding up back on Google Docs.

90% of what I love about Notion is being able to navigate to different pages quickly via it's sidebar menu.

If Google Docs had something like this, it would like beat the pants off any other up-and-coming app.
I wish Google Docs would add this functionality, like:

 

Editing a physical paper "back in the day" had a whole markup language of its own, shown in this graph:

If you were an editor or proofreader, you would know most of these!

I only knew two of these symbols: The "insert" mark ^ and the paragraph mark ⁋

How many of these symbols did you know??

Features -vs- Benefits is a common discussion in copywriting. 

Feature: Something your product has (ex "Water Resistant Cloth").
Benefit: Result after using your product (ex: "You stay dry in the rain").

For example you can sell the features of an umbrella: 
Unbreakable stems, wooden handle, water resistant cloth.

-or-

You can sell the benefits of an umbrella:
Keeps you dry in the rain, keeps the sun off when it's hot.

 

Selling the "benefits" of a product is usually the wiser decision. Even David Ogilvy said so:

My advice on the Features -V- Benefits debate is:
 

USE BOTH!

I prefer trying to sell the benefit, and backing it up with the features. So:

Love the use of "rhyme" to help people remember important stuff.....such as which bear to run from 😬

Something I got from people's comments on Twitter were Polar Bears are by farrrr the most dangerous bear!

• If they're Polars, they'll soon be spitting out ya molars
• If it's a Polar, you cannot control her

If you take away one thing from this email....it's don't play with Polar Bears 😂

Checkout this beautiful Western Electric ad that visually shows the history & evolution of the telephone up till 1964 ☎ 

Fun fact: Crude forms of analog video calls existed back in 1964. You had to book a time slot, and it cost $100+ for 15 minutes, but it existed!

Goals. They're important to have. It drives you towards something.

For example here's my November 2022 Goals:

If I'm ever wondering what to do, I can look at this sheet of paper sitting on my desk and start working on getting one of those three things scratched off. 

We do this in our community where we ask people to list out their goals in our Goals Tracker (If you're a member go post now)!

One word of advice: Limit your monthly goals to around 3 major goals. Anymore and the list becomes daunting:

Feel free to respond to this email with your November goals. 

Also respond to this email with "I WANNA CHAT" if you want to chat with me for 10 minutes!

This graphic shows all the hidden work that goes into writing and sending emails to a large number of people, including:

Sending emails seems like such a simple little thing, but there's often a lot behind the scenes!

A few days ago I woke up and it was rainy and grey skies outside. I decided to stay in bed and work. 

While sipping coffee and working from bed, I had one of those moments where you look around and think, "This is nice 😊"

Get the mug reference?? 😛

You can make your life so much more convenient if you buy multiples of commonly used items:

There've been some purchases in my life where after years of frustration I would think, "Why the hell didn't I do that sooner???"

For example:

When I first moved into a house I would have to bring phone chargers and laptop chargers into different rooms allllll the time. Sometimes I wouldn't have one in the room, so my devices would start to die. 

Instead one day I spent a few bucks and bought chargers galore for every room. 

I put them everywhere. There's on in my closet for when I get ready, one in my bathroom, an iPhone and USB-C in my kitchen: 

I use chargers all the time, so shuffling them back and forth through the house was a huge waste. 

 

ANOTHER EXAMPLE:
I like randomly stretching, and I have one of those foam roller thingies I keep in my garage gym. 

But...

Sometimes I wanna use it in the living room.
Sometimes I wanna use it in the master bedroom. 

But I have to go get it, so I don't use it!

So in a flash of brilliance, I BOUGHT THREE:

A simple cheap purchases like this encourages me to stretch more, and spend less brain power on useless tasks like shuffling foam rollers between rooms!

I mentioned last week the CC Blog has side menu bars that show member content, but only members can access it:

So if a non-member clicks, they see this error message which gets shown between 1,000 and 1,300 times per day:

I asked people if they could give that an update, and two people really stood our: "Cinderella" and "Joe." You both are getting sent t-shirts for your contribution!

Cinderella's version was this clean two-column:

Joe's version was this "sales page" style message:

 

Here's a funny "Swipe File In The Wild" I saw yesterday while walking around my neighborhood....this hilarious van promoting their plumbing service 😂

Here's the side of the van featuring a dude "flying" above an air conditioning condenser unit 😂

Sometimes I'm skeptical of advertisements that are purely just "funny" but don't actually work. Many bar/restaurant signs are like this:

However this Radiant Plumbing van totally caught my eye, made me laugh, and made me take a pic....and now I'm talking about it here to 56,734 people current on this SWIPES email newsletter....so maybe it works!

Something to remember when selling your product:

People generally don't want the product itself, but rather the change it brings:

I question the accuracy of this information, but I found this to be a cool visual layout for showing what age you "peak" at certain life skills or events.

According to this chart, my plan to die at 85 on November 17th, 2067 is justified 😂

Take the information in this chart with a grain of salt...but I do love the way it's laid out.

There's this "Tooth Gem" fad happening where you can get a small fake diamond put on your tooth:

✦ It's NOT permanent.
✦ You can peel it off anytime.
✦ It'll last up to a week.
✦ It costs roughly $50.

It's getting kind of popular:

At an event this weekend they were giving them out for free, so a group of us decided to get them 😂

It required a 2-minute "procedure" where they use dental glue to place the fake diamond, then use a UV light to harden it.

It kind of looks like you're getting a dental cleaning:

It was a fun little thing to do, not permanent, and a fun conversation starter!

 

Since most of us work from home, your office area has become increasingly important. 

Here's an evolution off my own office spaces as technology became more and more a part of our lives:

 

College dorm room setup circa 2002:

 

College dorm room plastic desks:

 

Then for many years after I had the standard desk + computer combo in various apartments:

 

Of course I'd randomly work from other tables or balconies on the laptop just to switch things up:

 

There was even a hot minute where I attempted to go "100% laptop only" in order to not be attached to a desktop. I tried using an up-down rolling desk:

 

That worked decently....but ultimately it wasn't great for long periods of work, and frankly it looked stupid:

 

Then came the era of making a whole room into an office:

 

Each version was a little different as video become more important and I had to make the offices look prettier on camera:

 

Now many offices need teleprompters, good lighting, designed backgrounds, 3 camera setups, microphones etc:

 

My current office serves as a reading room, recording studio, workspace for others, and can also turn into a queen bedroom for spillover guests:

 

The ironic thing is, I'd say 50% of the time I just work from a laptop with friends on the dining table 😂

This crappy error message gets seen over 1,000 times a day on Copywriting Course:

It's a pretty crappy error message, and not very effective. I made it really quick as a placeholder and never updated. 

Do YOU have any ideas on how to make this error message awesome? 

I'd like it to convey why someone should join the Copywriting Course.

People see this error message when they try to view member-only material, but they are not a member. 

For example: We have a "Live Feed" sidebar on the blog with member-only material:

 

If someone clicks one of those links without being logged in, they see that crappy error message:

I thought it'd be a fun experiment to take suggestions from this Friday S.W.I.P.E.S. Email list. 

Reply to this email with your copy suggestions or design suggestions!

If I use your ideas, I'll send you a C❤️PY tshirt!

I want to put this in my "Cool-Vintage-Ads-I-Want-To-Have-Framed" collection!

This is 1958 Fender Amps print ad that promotes Fender's musical superiority over other guitar amps. 

The imagery on this one is lovely!

Good friends bring up hard conversations, even if it's unpleasant.

If you see a bad habit a close friend is doing, it might be worth the difficult conversation to bring it up, because no one else will.

Often times they don’t KNOW they’re doing it, and someone telling them might be first step to solving it.

I've learned a few things when approaching this:

I’ve learned to first “ask” if someone wants feedback first. Only if they accept do I give it.

I also have learned to use the "Compliment Sandwich" where you start the conversation off with saying you love the person, and that's why you're bringing up this issue. Then you tell them the issue. Then you remind them that you are there to help with it.

In the past I've simply told people out of the blue, "YOU TALK TOO MUCH AND IT'S ANNOYING" and it can come off very abrupt and rude or like an attack 😬 

I'm currently doing a “Healthy Week” with some peeps that includes:

🧁 No added sugar
🍔 1,500 calorie limit on no-workout days
🌮 2,000 calorie limit on workout days
☕️ Cut back on caffeine

Everything has been super easy...except the caffeine thing. 

YEESH 😳

I went without caffeine for 2 days and it felt like I never “woke up", I had headaches (which I never get), and wasn’t motivated to work much.

I’m not against caffeine, but wow…didn’t realize cutting back would be so hard, I definitely was zonked 😬

The problem is I used to not drink caffeine on the weekends in order to "reset" my tolerance each week, however this year I've drank caffeine pretty much every single day. 

So I was drinking 300mg to 400mg a day (still safe range, but high). 

I cut back to under 200mg this week. 

Next week 100mg and under. 

Then periodic "tolerance resets" by either drinking no caffeine or weekends or switching to lower caffeine grade tea.

Here's a fun recent purchase: A single speed bike! (Not a fixie, just single speed)

The main cardio exercise I get is riding my bike to my gym that's exactly 1 mile away. 

On the way there it's relatively easy, but on the way back it's ROUGH because it's alllllll hills with steep grades 😳

Since this is my main form of cardio exercise, I decided to buy an extra bike that's just ONE SPEED. 

No downshifting on hills to make it easier. My other bike has 21 gears to switch between:

This new bike has ONE gear, see how simple the gearing system looks in comparison?

Benefits of this single speed bike:
✔️ Forces me to get better cardio.
✔️ The bike is super simple. Very few components.
✔️ Silent. There's no gears that whine, click, or make noise.

Downsides of this single speed bike:
𝗫 Not fun to ride on hills, you will get sweaty.
𝗫 Slow starting from a standstill. Takes extra time to cross the road.

It's incredibly difficult to pedal this thing up hills. I've had to literally stop and push off just to get momentum going if I stop....so it's working!

The whole point of this purchase has been to force me to push harder on these gym rides. There's no other option. 

If I don't push hard, I literally don't get home 😂
 

Here's a cool way I've seen someone make new friends and meet new interesting people: By having a super interesting offer. 

Example 👉🏼

Two years ago me and my buddy Noah rented a house in Malibu, CA. and this guy Jon Senstrom reached out and asked us if we wanted to go spearfishing. 

OF COURSE THAT SOUNDED AWESOME! 

Our house was directly on the beach (brag 😏) so he came over and brought alllll this stuff for us to go spearfishing with:

He brought everything we needed including wetsuits, spear guns, weights, fins etc....

He gave us some training and taught us how not to die while spearfishing:

Here was the loot after going out!

He then spent the rest of the day teaching and helping us prepare the fish into sushi:

Then we made some of the fish scraps into ramen!

Jon said if he wants to meet someone, he'll offer to take them spearfishing, which is a pretty unusual thing. 

He's met so many cool people through this, and it costs him nothing! He already has all the equipment, he already has the know-how, and it's a super memorable experience for everyone. 

What a creative way to meet cool people!

"Crappy Marketing" is a fun way to get attention, and recently the North Carolina Department of State Treasurer got in the action. 

Check out this hilarious graphics designer request they did that went viral and got ~100,000 likes! 😂

They totally got inspiration from other marketing stunts like this and it totally worked!