It happened to by older brother a few years back. The cult of vegan got ahold of him… and suddenly he was an instant expert on all things food and health. :/ I could go on for days about the way they mislead people with outright lies and backwards logic… But, the most annoying one has to be “The China Study”. If you’re ever had a run-in with the cult of vegan you’ve no doubt heard this one. It’s a book by Dr. T. Colin Campbell that touts itself as “The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted..” What it

This was posted over on LinkedIn by a freelancer named Ahmad: === Got rejected multiple times on Upwork. After being rejected, I started to research freelancing and realized that I was not ready. So, I spent countless hours on YouTube and Skillshare to grasp the maximum knowledge of freelancing and how to dominate it. (Lex DeVille, Josh Burns, and John Morris — Thanks for sharing the valuable content) Today Alhamdulilah, I have completed my first year on Upwork and here are achievement highlights!! – Among Top 10% Mobile App Developers – Among Top 20% Web Developers – At 4th Place

For one of my clients… We’re redoing an API and we came across this file, written by a no-longer-employed-with-us developer that was 12,000 lines of code! Now, I hope I don’t have to explain to you how insane that is. Even worse, it wasn’t organized top-to-bottom. So, to read it, you had to jump up and down in the file. Through 12,000 lines of code! I’ve done some dumb things in my coding career — we all do as we learn — but, not quite THAT dumb. In case, it’s things like this that are the “unadvertised bonuses” of my

This guy I know… Seriously, though… I once read about a technique used by veteran prostitutes to ensure they always get paid. (And before you fire off your angry email, I’m not commenting AT ALL on the industry, either way. Frankly, people can do what they want, in my opinion… but whatever.) It’s quite simple really. They demand payment upfront. Sounds simple enough, but apparently, it was a lesson that had to be learned — and patrons were far less likely to pay after the service than before. Makes sense, but I find a lot of freelancers ignore these words

September 5th, 1989. That day changed my life forever. Our little S-10 pickup was struck, on the passenger side, by an oncoming car at 65 mph. We flew 30 feet in air, spun 180 degrees and slammed into the a telephone pole… again, on the passenger side. Where I was sitting. With no seat belt. I was inches from dying both times. We slammed to the ground and my dad, my little brother and I were all thrown from the truck. Oddly enough, I was the least injured. My dad was the worst. He severed part of his spinal cord

I’m watching Criminal Minds on Netflix. Season 7, Episode 10. Jimmy Hall. A Philadelphia boxer whose son is dying and he goes on a killing spree because he doesn’t know how to cope. There’s a scene after they catch him. His son is dying. And they let him in to see him. And, he tells his son it’s okay to let go. That letting go doesn’t make you a quitter. It just means, in that moment, you gave it your best — and it’s just time to let go and move on. And then as he tell his son he

Another lesson learned in the windy sand dunes of Iraq. The day I arrived on base (I was about 30 days behind everyone else because I had to stay in Kuwait and load all our equipment on the convoys taking them to Iraq)… I had been there less than 5 minutes. And my platoon sergeant said… “Hey, glad you made it safe. So, here’s the deal… you’re now a squad leader. And, you’re also going to be our supply warehouse NCOIC (the guy in charge).” Uh… whaaaaat? I went from regular ol’ grunt to suddenly in charge of the most

Welcome to “JMO After Dark”… Just messin’. I was laying in bed, last night, and was thinking about you. Well, an experience I had with a client early in the day that I thought would make for a good lesson for you. Another simple thing to make clients love you. Want to put you on retainer. Tell their friends to hire you. And, pay you more to keep you around. But, it was like 1am and the fam was asleep, so I had to whisper and the video is well… pitch black. If that rustles your jimmies, this won’t be

Got a quickie for you, today. No… not that kind, dirty mind. A little vid-yo I put together on a simple little freelance secret I learned back in my G.I. Joe days. A new client of mind reminded me of it and I wanted to share it with you. It’s one of those simple little secrets… That I’ve used for years to get (and keep) monthly retainer clients. Anyway, it’s waiting for you in the app. Link is here: https://learnistic.me/37PB. If you don’t have the app, yet… that link will walk you through installing it. Later, Good Johnny Idea Engine

I wrote a whole blog post about this awhile back… But, the idea is pretty simple. We all know 2020 being strapped to the front of a runaway roller coaster with no brakes. And, 2021 isn’t likely to be a whole lot better. Whiners will sit around and moan and complain. Winners will do something about it. My plan? You’ve probably heard a zillion times that, during tough times like this, there are always winners and losers. People who get wrecked and people profit wildly. Amazon, Nintendo, Clorox — they’ve all seen huge gains. Meanwhile, local businesses across the country

Here’s another message I got… this one from Ani: === I took this course 5 days ago and created an Upwork profile and everything according to course instruction and today I got 2 projects all thanks to this course. === As I’ve said… I ain’t hummin’ Reveille with all this. But, let me give you a bit more on this. Something you can take with whether you want to take my Upwork course or not (because, frankly, it’s NOT for everyone). Because, the thing you should be wondering is… How? I’ve shown you examples of Upworkers who were dead in

Just got this message from Tessa: === I’ve been following your course on upwork doing the specialized profile. With a small portfolio and only 3 other jobs I’m 2nd on the search for Twitch, crazy! Thank you for the course. === I tell you all the time… I’m not whistling dixie on this stuff, chuckles. I’ve spent the better part of a decade scavenging for every ounce of information on “hacking” Upwork I can find. Testing that info myself… and then putting it out to over 27,000 other freelancers to test. This shyte works. The key to the whole thing

It was the second conference I’d ever attended. I was with a client of mine and he knew the guy who was putting it on. So, about halfway through we got to go in the back and eat pizza with this guy and his staff. I honestly think he was trying to show off a bit. But, he started talking mad shyte. All the little things they were doing to manipulate the audience. Hitting all their hot buttons… Increasing their desire… Priming them to buy… Until the big finale where they’d pitch their expensive coaching program. I’m an entrepreneur through

I’ll tell ya this… it has nothing to do with talent. I recently had another fupastar send me one of their hysterical emails complaining about… “John, why for you talk about da munies”. I get these from time to time… any time I talk about the business side of web development. Well… heaven forbid! God forbid I talk about the thing all of us are not-so-secretly after — and help people to build a lucrative career around their web development skills. What a monster! Of course, this is the very thing that holds most developers back. Hell, most people. Because

Can we cut the BS? Seriously. I see a lot people posing. On their Instagram or Twitter, spouting a bunch of koombaya, “we’re all in this together” nonsense. The truth? We all want ours. I had a weird dichotomy growing up. I literally lived in a trailer home. And not one of these fancy, clean double-wides. An old, dirty, mice-infested single-wide. I wore clothes with holes in them. I was a poor, dirty river rat. Yet… I went to a private high school. With a bunch of kids who were, at a minimum, middle-class. Many came from the wealthiest families