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When I was in the Army, we had this cadence we’d sing every morning as we marched over to chow. It went like this:
“Here we go again. Same old s!@# again…”
Kind of feeling that way today. No matter how much you try to help people… it seems some just never learn.
You might remember last week I sent you an email about all that mindset “woo-woo” stuff. And, I told you the story of my dad, his accident and how his disability payments nearly killed him.
You also might have noticed I threw in a little jab at Bernie. Specifically:
“Here’s the most powerful thing I learned about making that switch: Anything and everything you come across… even the most moronic or twisted ideas you might see (like a Bernie sanders speech) parse it out. Find the value in it. Don’t wholly accept or reject ideas. Don’t write people off because they belong to Team A or Team B. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Find the value and be grateful for it.”
I think a good and mostly uncontroversial idea.
But, some people only see what they want to. Most people thanked me for the email, but little ol’ “Jamie” the Bernie-bot (names changed to protected the guilty) sent me this:
“Here’s some business advice to YOU. Never, never make fun of a political candidate in a mass email.”
Business advice from a Bernie-bot? Pretty rich!
Maybe she should go “re-distribute” that advice to someone who needs it.
Anyhoo, she completely missed the point. I actually said you should be careful of wholly dismissing advice because you disagree with one part of it. Instead, parse through it and find the value. And there was plenty of value to be found.
But wait… am I doing the same to her?
Nope.
I actually heard what she said, but I’ve already thought this through. In fact, I’ve talked about it many times before.
Business isn’t about being everything to everybody.
Think of the people who do that:
Politicians, used car salesman, lawyers…
Most of us can’t stand these people specifically BECAUSE they try to be everything to everybody. Nobody thinks of the slick used car salesman telling everybody what they want to hear and thinks, “That guy is awesome!”
Being too slick, too professional, too everything to everybody actually makes people trust you LESS.
Have an opinion.
And when you express it… you’ll naturally attract the people who think like you and repel the ones who don’t. And, your following will be much more loyal. And the clients you work with will be much less of a pain the arse.
And, you’ll have less headaches.
So, if you’re a Bernie-bot… say so and attract other Bernie-bots to you. If you’re on the Trump train, attract other Trump-trainers. If you’re a Christian… attract other Christians. If you’re Muslim, other muslims… etc.
In other words… be who you are.
You don’t have to change that to “be professional”.
Now, speaking of business advice the thing that drives my entire business is YouTube. It’s the source of almost all my traffic, Google rankings, etc. And, to me, YouTube is the single quickest way for ANYBODY to start making a living online.
Want to prove to people you’re an expert in PHP?
Create a quick 5-10 video series and upload it to YouTube. Potential clients will find you, see for themselves you’re good and hire you.
I get quote requests every single month because of my YouTube channel.
In fact, if you’re going to listen to nothing else I say… starting a YouTube channel around your career is the one thing I’d do.
Of course, there are some tricks to getting noticed, building a following and ranking high in YouTube searches. Which is why I recommend Phil Ebiner’s YouTube Masterclass.
https://johnmorrisonline.com/YouTube
You’ll get everything I learned (the hard way) to grow my channel to over 130,000 views per month… handed to you in about 6 hours instead of 6 years like it took me. This is the shortcut:
https://johnmorrisonline.com/YouTube
And look you don’t need to me some rock-star, camera-loving extrovert. Cool if you are… but it’s not required. I’m a shy meat-head from the Midwest. If I can do this kind of thing, you definitely can. And frankly… your ability to make a living from code in the future may very well depend on your ability to demonstrate your skills like this.
P.S. That link is an exclusive discount link I got from Udemy. So be sure to get the discount before it expires.
P.P.S. If you liked the show, give it a like and share with the communities and people you think will benefit. And, you can always find all my tutorials, podcast episodes and more on johnmorrisonline.com, @jpmorris on Twitter and youtube.com/johnmorrisvideo.