This helpful magazine guide shows how to use a cast iron skillet...the guide is so good you can cut it out of the magazine and frame it.

I love when helpful information is so good it can be art!

It reminds me of this Guinness Oyster Guide that was designed for bars to clip it out of a magazine and frame it in the bar (and conveniently advertise Guinness to all the bar patrons)!

Here's an interesting thing about copywriting: 

A lot of copy can be replaced by a simple image.

This one-image ad shows a great Before/After example of a shower that was old, but has been remodeled: 

This is a perfect example of the classic copywriting advice:

SHOW, DON'T TELL!

The image does all the heavy lifting, not much need for additional copy!

....this other bathroom remodeling ad takes it even a step further, and cleverly uses "This Morning" and "Late Afternoon" in place of "Before and After."

By giving specific times this ad demonstrates not only that they can remodel a bathroom, but also how FAST they can remodel a bathroom!

I've watched some great documentaries lately and thought I'd share!
- Ms Cleo doc (HBO)
- Shaq doc (HBO)
- Bernie Madoff doc (Netflix)
- Playboy Hugh Hefner doc (Amazon)
- Dana Carvey Show doc (Hulu)

I had run out of documentaries to watch so I asked for recommendations, here's some of them you all wrote back:

• Man on Wire
• Operation Odessa
• My Octopus Teacher
• Icarus
• The Dissident
• Redeem Team
• Coinbase documentary
• Toni Morrison documentary
• Air
• The Elephant in the Living Room 
• Pepsi, Where's My Jet?
• Full Swing
• Fire of Love
• Bill Russell doc
• Roadrunner
• Dealt
• The Great Hack
• (watched) Free solo
• (watched) Andre the giant
• (watched) Comedian by Jerry Seinfeld
• (watched) Stutz by Jonah Hill

I keep a list on my phone of docs to watch, hope this helps you add to yours!

Soon after this email goes out, I'm headed off to go to a friends bday party at this ranch in an undisclosed location!

Should be fun 🙂

I heard a friend talking about a daily check-in practice his team does at work called: P.E.I.

You rate each of these from 1-5:
Physical: How you feel physically.
Emotional: How you feel emotionally.
Intelligence: How sharp or clear you feel.

Everyday when they meet the team shares their PEI. This lets you know if someone is grumpy, or isn't 100% fit to do a certain task.

 

Years ago I made a small checklist to see why I would be grumpy on some mornings:

...however this PEI methodology is much simpler and better. 

On a day where you are:
Physical: 2
Emotional: 2
Intelligence: 1

...that may not be the ideal day to do creative work. So you know you need to rest up and handle your life before you're at optimal creativity. 

I thought this was a cool check-in practice and hope you try it out!

This interesting scribble shows you the different endings of surgical terms, and what they mean:

I learned something from this, but wish 12 year old Neville knew about this! 

Then I could've invented terms like:

• Buttectomy: You cut your butt off.
• Buttplasty: You change the shape of your butt.
• Buttrraphy: You sew up your butt.
• Buttdesis: Your butt is stuck together.
• 😂

Happy Friday! Let's start today with an example of “Lumpy Mail” which is mail with an object inside that makes you curious to open.

This came from Self Publishing School and included a metal bottle opener.

When I got the mail I could feel it had something hard in it (giggity) so it got me curious.

When you open it there was a handy bottle opener!

"Lumpy Mail" is great because when people check their mail they often have two piles:

The 'A' Pile: Personal letters and stuff they want to open.
The 'B' Pile: Stuff you just toss in the garbage.

If you send mail that seems like it has something inside it...it'll more often get put in the A-Pile!

This is a fun diagram showing the meaning of life for different theories and philosophies. 
I thought this was a perfect perfect combo of images + text working to educate!

Why write lots of copy, when you can show a picture? Instead:
➡Show Don't Tell!⬅

Here's some graphics that convey wayyyy more information in a small space rather than large amounts of text.

Show Don't Tell #1.) The 12 Major Hair Types

There’s a lot of different hair types, but this chart makes classifying them very simple with examples of each:

Is there something in your industry you could simply explain with a graphic like this?

 

Show Don't Tell #2.) Keep guacamole green!

This combination of images and callout text taught me something I never knew....several ways to keep avocado guacamole nice and green for longer!

 

Show Don't Tell #3.) Different types of pasta

This helpful chart instantly taught me more about pasta than I've ever know, thanks to a quick combo of images and a little text:

 

Show Don't Tell #4.) The hardness scale in one image

This simple graphs shows a lot of helpful data in one simple-to-read chart. I love how it relates "hardness" to everyday things we can understand like a "fingernail" or "copper coin."

I'm gonna refrain from making any jokes 😂

Awwww F it I'm gonna make one joke!!

heh heh heh 😏

Two weeks ago we went out to a 500 acre ranch for my buddy Noah's birthday and it was really fun!

We did ocean fishing, pond fishing, hunting, and lots of grilling...here's a few random pics from the trip (apologies if you don't like gun/fishing pics 😬)

Some of the guys:

 

Huge ranch with one main house, and 6 smaller houses:

 

Cowboy Neville 🤠

 

Main house had hunting lodge vibes:

 

Some guys:

 

Hey I caught a fish in the pond!

 

Skeet shooting:

 

Went fishing and found this random shack built on stilts in the middle of the ocean and climbed on it:

 

We did a piñata for Noah's bday and shot it with a shotgun instead of hitting with a stick 😂

 

It worked 🌮

 

This pic looks so Texas 😂

 

So does this pic...goats + ranch + hunting truck

 

We went night hunting for boars using night vision stuff, never done that before and it was kinda neat:

Lots more photos, but that's enough for now! 

Why do Le Labo candles smell so much superior to other candles?

I've spent hundreds of dollars on these candles (FREAKIN CANDLES!!) and wanted to know why I couldn't find a cheapo knock off.

Honestly it was a difficult question to answer through Google, so I resorted to Twitter. 

Apparently it has something to do with certain fragrances costing thousands of dollars per ounce:

Other factors are the type of wax used and "fragrance load."

As someone whose worked in copywriting/marketing, I'm often skeptical of expensive products that are expensive only because of marketing.

Skin care is a big culprit of this. This $14/bottle of CeraVe lotion is probably the same (or better) than most $100/bottle lotions:

So I'm not 100% sure why Le Labo candles smell so damn good to me, but it seems like high quality ingredients (plus a dash of fancy marketing) is the cause!

To combat being a lazy asshole who goofs off all day, I have been using this site called CaveDay.org. It's a place to virtually co-work over Zoom, and I've used it a ton this month!

Normally I do 1-hour work sprints, but yesterday I did a 3 hour "Work Cave" with 80 other people on the call:

Essentially it's virtual co-working, but done really well!I love to co-work, in fact I get more done in co-working sessions than an entire day being alone.

I regularly invite people over to work with me:

....but scheduling in-person co-working is hard, and sometimes we just chat a bunch and don't do solid work. Also it's really hard to setup co-working EVERY SINGLE DAY with friends. 

So instead I "Book a Cave" and join the Zoom call with others who are also working:

I'm currently writing another book, and finding long periods of focused time to write is difficult, so I've been using CaveDay a ton...as well as for my daily regular work.

Full Disclosure: I'm not part of CaveDay, it's just a product I like, and I'm using affiliate links in the description (if you join from my link I get a small cut).