what's on my mind:

A few months ago (September 28, to be exact), I wrote about a webinar I attended. The company attempted to sell me an education system about options. Specifically, how to benefit “100% gains no matter the market conditions.” I turned them down because I wasn’t sure how many months of their $200 per-month system I’d need to learn how to trade profitably.

Friday, I finally got my answer. Through free research and asking lots of questions and receiving various answers, I felt confident to enter an option order for the strategies the company was selling. Specifically, a Cash-Secured Put.

Let me tell you – sometimes, you just have to “pull the trigger” and try the strategies in real-life. Paper trading can go only so far. And, the real-life experience proves whether a student can apply what they learned through books.

So, anyway, I entered the orders and was quite surprised I didn’t understand the book-learning quite right. Mostly because I misconstrued some of the definitions. The errors could have cost me over $12,000. Instead, I just about broke even. From the experience, I studied even harder and, today, finally understand the strategy 100%.

But, back to the original question = how long would it take me to learn what the company was selling for $200/month? 3 months. @ $200/month, the education would have cost $600. Doing it on my own took longer to learn but cost less = basically, only the cost of the trading commissions, about $100.

Even better, I feel like I could teach the strategy to others in plain english.

Certain songs make me think about how creating music is so much like making a movie or publishing a novel. There are four points that have direct comparisons:

1. concise phrasing
2. synergistic expression
3. it’s a collaborative effort
4. there will always be critics

Listen to the words of a song. Do you notice how much visual information is passed along in so few words? Songwriters use concise phrasing to match lyrics to the rhythm of a song. Writers should be using concise phrasing to efficiently convey visual information. It’s what we call visual writing. Unlike singer/songwriters, writers use their words to set the pace and rhythm of the story; whereas, singers are usually tied to a preestablished tempo.

Think about all of the parts of a song. There’s vocals. There’s harmonies. There’s a beat. There’s a bass groove. A guitar adds some rhythm. Composers make numerous decisions about how each instrument affects the overall song. How musicians play their parts, the dynamics, are also important to the overall expression of the music.

Now, think about a movie you watched. If you’ve studied story construction, you know there are numerous elements that fed that final product. Viewpoint. Tone. Character. “Beats” is the movie industry’s word for the basic building block of stories. Inside those Beats, a writer decides what s/he intends to reveal to the audience. And, how it will be presented. S/he makes decisions about who will deliver the Beat. And, where it will be delivered. (Who, what, when, where, why, and how… sound familiar?)

This all leads into the final bullet point: it’s a collaborative effort. Ever attended or heard a table read of a movie script? It’s pretty dull stuff. Movies are made to be watched. Part of the interest of watching a movie depends on the Director of Photography’s choice of camera angles. Part of the emotion of the movie-watching experience is the music that sets the overall mood of a scene.

With music, the collaboration  starts long before the recording session begins. A musician plays or sings a melodic riff to others. Other musicians add pieces and parts to build an entire song. If you’re lucky enough to be playing in the big leagues, your song is handed to a professional who can tighten and tone and turn a tiny riff into a nationwide hit.

Not everyone will like the hit you’ve created. The general public has their favorite genres and other types of music will sound dissonant and/or unappealing. There’s no getting around this. People like what they like. But, the good news is: there’s a variety of genres and styles and audiences pay millions (maybe even billions) for the stuff they like.

For each person who says they don’t like a creative effort or that “type” of creative expression, there’s a hit that’s sold millions of copies. And, that, my friend, is why we keep creating. Someday, we hope to have that hit that sells a million copies.

Yesteray, I received a prophetic email. I’m currently evaluating its credibility. Basically, it predicts something big will happen to the global economies in the next 180 days. Of course, they want money to learn how to protect yourself. The thing is, the video provided enough information so I think I already know the strategy they’re selling.

The problem, as I see it, is that 401(k) accounts don’t have access to the “safe havens.”  I believe the only way to weather this financial storm, regarding 401(k) accounts, is with money market funds. So, that’s my investment strategy starting in February 2012.

I just finished all 12 modules of The Code Of Influence audiobook (got it for $1 on a 21-day trial basis); now, it’s time for a rant. By the way, you may not find the $1 offer when you visit the site. But, the end of this rant spells out how to find its hiding spot.

Today’s rant is about intuition and its affect on the process of influencing others:

p.103 is the first mention of “intuition” in the decision-making process. “…intuition is nothing more than your immediate reactions and the way you feel about them – not the way you think about them.” This got me thinking about how salesmen (of which the author of The Code of Influence is) must hate decisions based on intuition. To them, this sounds like “I have a bad feeling about this.” “I’m afraid I shouldn’t.” “It’s not right.” Most salesmen don’t have prewritten responses to these objectives. They have to ask “discovery questions” to get to an objection they know how to handle.

Malcolm Gladwell in Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking presented overwhelming studies that prove intuition is correct long before our conscious mind even realizes we’ve made a decision. Paul Mascetta tries to debunct this belief with “if you do not have extensive experience in making good decisions when it comes to certain areas, your intuition will be questionable.” I’m going to stick with “trust your instincts” since Mascetta’s argument is screwy. It’s not “experience in making good decisions” that causes the intuition to be questionable. It’s a mistrust in our intuition that causes our decisions to be wrong; thus, our overall experience in making good decisions is questionable.

p.226 Mascetta admits “most people have been conditioned to trust their intuition.” In this section, he’s talking entirely about the first impressions that physical appearance, body language, and physical language must all be in alignment or you’ll be perceived as shady. I got to thinking about how manipulators make conscious efforts to align these factors to cover their shadiness. In those scenarios, it is even more important for the target to “trust our instincts.”

Often, shysters try to overcome our intuition by driving us into conscious fear. This throws us into overwhelming emotional reasoning and leaves no room for the intuitive subconscious side. The invoked fear will sound like “you’ll miss out.” “Everyone else…” “Don’t be a loser.” (Of course, they won’t actually use the word, “loser.”) What are some strategies we can deploy to create space for intuitive reasoning?

Can we try something like I did last night: respond with “That’s exactly what I expected you to say.” The sales pitch was for a $200/month education system on options trading. The benefit they sell is “100% gains no matter the market conditions.” Funny thing is, they actually showed 700% gains in their presentation. Legally, they could only claim 100% gains because there were, less-obvious, trades that lost money. They played off the down-side by asking, “is losing 100% gains worth focusing on the smaller gains?” This was their attempt to 1) respond to the most-expected objection, and 2) create fear to overdrive the conscious mind and, thus, keep intuition from having space to speak or act.

Gut feeling, I didn’t have enough information to understand how many months of $200-per-month education I would need before 100% gains were realized. By the way, I never asked this question because I instinctively knew they already had an answer to it.

Overall, I felt in control throughout the sales call and stuck with subconscious decision making. Did I miss out on a great opportunity? I’ll never know. At least I strengthened my ability to recognize intuitive red-flags and another experience where subconscious decision making felt better than not making a decision at all or being dragged through high-pressure sales calls.

Emotion vs. Logic (p.106)

One final thought, and it relates directly with intuition: “Human beings very rarely [make decisions, scrutinize, and evaluate information on a conscious level. We like to think we do. In reality,] the reason behind a person’s action to make a purchase is associated with a decision that takes place on a subconscious level.” I think this is just more compelling evidence that supports advice to “be real,” which will appeal to your target’s intuition.

I have no intentions of returning The Code of Influence for a refund. It’s chockful of useful information. And, I bought it from a reputable distributor, ClickBank. If you’re not familiar, ClickBank is the most highly-trafficked site of tens of thousands of digital products. It’s pretty easy to spot a product page that’s part of the ClickBank marketplace. (Check out this associate’s page for a sample of the typical layout) At first glance, the entire site looks like sales copy.

If you need definitive proof whether a site is part of ClickBank, click on the ”Buy Now” button. Don’t be scared; it’s harmless going there and easy to back out of. Once you’re there, you notice ClickBank MarketPlace is clearly stated in the upper right-hand corner. That’s how you know you’re buying from a ClickBank vendor.

Speaking of “backing out,” that’s how you get the “special offers.” Close the sales copy. Exit the web site. Try to go to a different site. You’ll get the proverbial “second-chance offer.” What marketers refer to as the Exit Pop-Up Offer. Some sites save the best offer for 3 or 4 levels deep. In those cases, just keeping exiting the site until the offer doesn’t get any lower or the offer jumps to the order fulfillment page. That’s the marketer’s best deal.

With The Code of Influence, the best deal/lowest price comes up on the first pop-up. $1 for a 21-day trial of the audiobook. When I purchased, the full purchase price after the 21 days was $26. Unfortunately, you’ve missed that opportunity, the total cost of The Code of Influence is now $67.

It never fails. As a writer, I come up with a fresh, original idea (well, it’s fresh and original in my mind) and someone always says how it’s been done before. I have a standard response when I hear this.

First, there are no original plots. The writer’s influence over style and tone makes stories fresh.

Mostly, I respond how I need to write something that’s been done before so I can grow as a writer. It’s like a concert pianist who’s expected to perform a standard repertoire of musical pieces in order to build a favorable reputation.

I also think about the contradictions that “been done before” brings. I wrote what, by my standards, was original and never been done before. I couldn’t find anything to compare it to. Several reviewers said they couldn’t find anything like it, either. They even commented, “the originality of this concept is what will sell it, so don’t taint that by comparing to something that’s been done before.”

A little industry insight: when marketing a screenplay, we understand Hollywod is reluctant to buy unproven properties. So, we try to explain in our marketing materials how our fresh and original concepts are like something that’s already been widely accepted.

Back to the thought about my original concept — I couldn’t find anything to compare it to. I thought that was a strong selling point. Wouldn’t you know it? Someone actually asked, “what’s this like?” and “what does it compare to?” I couldn’t think of anything at the time; later, I came up with something and sprinkled some pieces of an established property into the mix. Now, it’s no longer fresh and original.

Of course, what’s the reaction: been done before. It’s all so contradictory.

Sneables are funny little characters with attitudes. They mimic our thoughts and feelings with their off-the-cuff, adult humor.

Sneables and their witty sayings are found on a variety of apparel (for men, women, toddlers, teens, and babies) and accessories (laptop sleeves, bathrobes, messenger and tote bags, scarfs).

Sneables will bring a ton of joy and laughter to people’s lives. Possibly, a whole series of books, cd’s, and movies will feature the Sneables. Check them out; see if they brighten your day…

Good news! After a brief outage (of 6 years), I was able to reactivate my online web presence about country music memorabilia. I can once again offer a catalog of over 150 million unique products dedicated to the men and women who write and perform country music. As a side note, I’ve already updated the links on my other site, specific to Detroit Lakes’ annual country music festival, WE Fest.

My rewrite of “America’s Ben Franklin in: The Electrocution String” has made the New & Notable Scripts section on Amazon Studios’ front page. I’ve seen it pop up twice now. I guess it’s some consolation for not making the semi-finals in the monthly contest. Then again, it may not be eligible for the contest as the project is a previous winner.

September 5, 2011 marks the date I start on a road to earn certification as a Creativity Coach (Screenwriting specialist). I’m not exactly sure what that entails, but I do have some expectations of what I intend to achieve.

As I perused some profiles of already-certified Creativity Coaches, I noticed a common thread. Namely, their goals are centered around “finding and fulfilling the creative side in one’s self.” And, said little about the actual finished piece of artwork.

I plan to work with clients who are already creative, but may need a push to complete a creative piece of work. And, that got me thinking about how my profile shown to prospective clients will compare and constrast to what’s currently displayed. Also, how my views of my role as a Creativity Coach will change over the course of the 12-18 month period of training. Here’s my current profile:

Currently pursuing certification as a Creativity Coach (Screenwriting specialist), my goal is to review your current scripts with an objective eye for technical (format, spelling/grammar, style, voice, etc) and storytelling (tone, pace, theme, character, etc) elements. And, elevate each to GREAT ratings! From there, you’ll arrive on the next level – an agent, manager, or producer.

I definitely see a need to help clients overcome doubts, fear, and anxieties that hinder the creative process. And, helping them understand the iterations of such processes. Ultimately, making the creative piece the best it can be builds confidence and goes a long ways towards busting blockades.