what's on my mind:

today’s essay comes from a misinterpretation of a text-based message placed on an online screenwriter’s forum. I was advised, “you seriously over-analyzed that simple statement. try the laid-back approach next time.”

Since my new years’s resolution is to stay out of petty debates with nameless/faceless individuals on the Internet, I’ll vent today’s feelings here.

I was, actually, trying to be witty. lesson learned:

“straight-face comedy is hard to pull off (especially in text-based messages)

I’ll be sure to put in next time”

I am, actually, the most laid-back person this guy will ever meet.

I have been accused of over-analyzing things before. In the world of story analysis, polishing every story beat so it shines bright is an admirable trait and marketable skill. Especially in a community of writers who are nit-picky, the laid-back approach – depending on fate and destiny to carry me through – doesn’t build connections with literal personalities.

In other words, when I’m laid-back, clients doesn’t just automatically show up on my doorstep. I am, undoubtedly, also doing a disservice to my clients by under-analyzing and not getting every story detail to perfection.

Most professionals appreciate a detail-oriented, competent coach. Even Terry Fador (Las Vegas headliner) works meticulously with other professionals to elevate his show’s entertainment value from 9 to 10. I’m here to help amateurs emulate professional habits and effective action steps.

Feeling bad for the hundreds of Fargo PRACS employees out of work because the company shut down. Trying to find a way to reach out and offer hope. I’ve been through the ups and downs of job hunting after a lay-off.

It takes time – more time than most can go without a pay check. But, time that can still be used in a productive manner.

I’m inspired to spread some hope as I have openings with flexible hours to fill those vacant days. Believe me, the work is more fun than sitting around and worrying about the future.

But, I don’t know how to reach those who would benefit from what I have to offer. And, let them know I’m genuine and credible. There are so many schemes, games, and lies going around, I hope they don’t fall in to those.  The work I offer has no fees or financial investment.

Hopefully, through fate or circumstances, they’ll find their way to iLivingApp.com/NealB. And, we can talk about the short-term possibilities.

Let me frame this post first, before I talk about it. It originated from a forum thread at Talentville (http://www.talentville.com/forum/index.php?topic=966.msg6132:topicseen#msg6132). The discussion started when an excerpt from the first few pages of the LOST series was used to validate a point, “It’s critical to draw the reader in on the first page.”

I commented on how the excerpt was a great example. But, warned that spec scriptwriters (a.k.a. amateurs) should not copy every single aspect as some elements are not acceptable for amateurs to use. Besides, I added, the writer probably didn’t sell this script based on its writing. Instead, they sold it through pitch sessions.

When you sell a script through a pitch session, certain “taboo” elements are never seen. They are even ignored during development because the producer was hooked on the concept and the style rather than the words on the page.

I didn’t do any research to validate my point; it was my instincts talking.

A later post talked about the “camera angles” in the script and whether a spec writer should write that way. I answered, “No.” Again, I didn’t research to support my opinion.

I theorized the Director might have added these elements long after the sale was final. Some clues that this may be true is the voicing of the phrases. “Angle on…” “Tight to…” “Hold on…” This is how the Director sees the world.

Like I said, I did no research to support my theories; I only relied on instincts. But, the discussion intrigued me enough to test whether my instincts were correct. And, this is what I found —

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_(TV_series)

Conception

The series was conceived by Lloyd Braun, head of ABC at the time, while he was on vacation in Hawaii during 2003 while listening to Autistico. Braun ordered an initial script from Spelling Television based on his concept of a cross between the novel Lord of the Flies, the movie Cast Away, the television series Gilligan’s Island, and the popular reality show Survivor, which began script development for Lost.

Jeffrey Lieber was hired and wrote Nowhere, based on his pitch to write the pilot. Unhappy with the result and a subsequent rewrite, Braun contacted J. J. Abrams in January 2004, who had a deal with Touchstone Television (now ABC Studios), and was also the creator of the TV series Alias, to write a new pilot script.

Although initially hesitant, Abrams warmed to the idea on the condition that the series would have a supernatural angle to it, and collaborated with Damon Lindelof to create the series’ style and characters. Together, Abrams and Lindelof also created a series “bible,” and conceived and detailed the major mythological ideas and plot points for an ideal four to five season run for the show.

Lost‘s two-part pilot episode was the most expensive in the network’s history, reportedly costing between US$10 and $14 million, compared to the average cost of an hour-long pilot in 2005 of $4 million. The series debuted on September 22, 2004, becoming one of the biggest critical and commercial successes of the 2004 television season. The world premiere of the pilot episode was on July 24, 2004 at Comic-Con International in San Diego.

[end of research]

I added the last phrase, about premiering at Comic-Con, because of its relevance to the objectives of Amazon Studios. They favor visually-inclined “taste tests,” and use Comic-Con as their proving grounds.

Yesterday, I patched cracked walls as I prepped my house for sale. As I removed layers of paint and patchwork, I realized the previous owner did a lousy cover-up when he went to sell the house. All the while, Mike Holmes’ (host of Holmes on Homes) voice echoed in my head:

“See there. They just painted right over the fiberglass mesh instead of adding joint compound first.”

“Yeah. Right there. More shortcuts of paint over joint mesh.”

“We’re going to repair this right. May even make you wanna stay in the house now.”

Just wanted to share comments received on the first round of reviews for Anti-Virus Annihilators webisode 1. But, first, a summary of the series:

What really happens inside the computer after you report a virus? Cyber-crime fighters digitize into super-hero gear to fight off the infections. If Dr.Chaos and DDS.GunHo get their way, every virtual landscape (smartphones, Facebook profiles, etc) in the world will be under their absolute control. Generating the possibility the crime fighters will forever be locked out of the digital world, or trapped inside a dead computer.

And, now, the notes:

• “With all sincerity, I think the concept of characterizing and bringing to life a team of Virus Crime Fighters is ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT. Seriously. It’s a great web series idea. And I can see that it could expand to many rich hilarious (web)episodes. I think it’s truly original. This idea has so much potential. I really believe in it.”
• “Your script is good. My biggest problem is that it really lacks the humor that would make it great. It needs way more LOL moments.”
• “I like your characters. I really enjoyed their chemistry. They’re friends, at work. You can tell they’ve done this before.”
• “You have an amazing concept. And great bones for a hilarious webisode. Now work on slapping on the flesh.”
• “You have the potential to make something truly breakthrough.”

Over the weekend, I wrote version 1b of the story, addressing the above notes. Will update you after the reviews have been posted.

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.