NOTE: This is a guest post by Elizabeth Potts-Weinstein. I know, I know… I don’t really accept guest posts. But this is Elizabeth we’re talking about here. She’s like the female me. So I figure it’s essentially like me writing the post, except that I get to play Rock Band while “I” am writing. Now that’s leverage!

———————————————–

“Go ahead and come up with a topic” sounds like this really cool and awesome thing when you’re guest posting.

Until you’re cuddled up in bed with your laptop. Thighs sweating from the heat of the battery radiating into your lap. Your 5 year old whining from being forced (?!) to watch SpongeBob on Netflix streaming, yet again. The deadline is 87 minutes away.

And your eyes are watering from squinting at the blazingly white, blank, TextEdit screen.

Yep. That’s me. A few seconds ago.

Right before I asked myself various lingo-filled classic marketing questions: “Okay EPW (yes I call myself that when I’m alone. Yes, I understand this is weird.), what is the Johnny B. Truant brand?”

What topic would resonate with his audience? What’s his target market? What are the JBT unique selling points?

And one word came to mind.

Zombies.

Not brilliant yet witty tag lines full of internet marketing profoundity. Not wordpress sites, not questioning the rules, not jam sessions, not zero to business. No.

Just. Zombies.

And that, my dears, is the entire freaking point.

To find your tribe, to evangelize your brand, to engage your readers, to build a sustainable business …

you must share the glorious zombiefication that is you.

Now of course, yours might not be actual zombiefication.

Yours might be a dozen slightly creepy yet soft & cuddly housecats. Yours might be a smoke-filled RV driving down that one-lane “rental car contracts invalidated” highway on the south side of Maui. Yours might be a nerdy NSFW tattooed pole dancer in a snarky tshirt, hiding her iPhone sexts from her 5 year old “thank god she can’t read yet” daughter. (Yes, that last one is me. Oy.)

But sharing your glorious zombiefication is not the big secret of today’s blog post. No.

The big secret is that you must find the particular flavor of the sexy zombie pole dancer that’s living inside of you.

And as much as I wish I could sell you a “magical fairies growing you money trees in your backyard” solution to this problem … yeah. Sorry about that. There are no freaking magical fairies who can see into your soul. (Well, if there are, I think they’re busy. I mean, if you were a magical fairy, you’d be spying on sexy naked people instead of looking into the murk of people’s souls? Am I right?)

The only way to find your zombiefication is to stop talking about whatever you’re talking about now, and start talking about your zombieficiation.

But oy, it’s not that easy to switch. Oh yes, I know.

You see, if you could read my blog posts from 18 months ago (you can’t, those babies have been obliterated from the internets. I hope.), they would completely freak you out.

Because those posts were written by a lawyer.

(Yes, I was the lawyer. Just wanted to make sure that anyone who’s reading this while drinking or after being up all night with a newborn was on the same page with the rest of us. Are we all caught up? Right. Carry on.)

Those post were boring fancifications, dense with complexities. Never offending. Never taking a side. They were pantyhose and ties (and not in a kinky way).

Those posts were vanilla.

After reading my blog, people would meet me in person. They’d say, “wow, you’re cool / funny / interesting / relaxed / casual / nice and look more young / fun / cute / approachable / warm than I thought you would be!” in this happy yet surprised voice. Oy.

But I couldn’t figure out how to write any other way.

So I had to stop writing.

For six months.

But in the meanwhile, I had to do something!! I had to keep giving away “valuable content” and keep doing all that new age “relationship marketing” stuff!

So instead of writing, I made video blogs.

About how to seduce me. About how goals suck, focus sucks, info products suck, the marketing funnel sucks. About my divorce. About walking on the moon. About my kid. About my life.

And after shutting up for six months, after making dozens of videos blogs, I found myself.

When I went back to writing, the comment section on my blog exploded. (Not actually exploded, that would be scary and rackspace would probably cancel my hosting contract. I just mean I got lots of comments.)

For the first time, I met, even exceeded my goals for selling my programs. I found my tribe. Was able to speak the truth that everyone thought & no one was speaking.

Claimed my weird. Had fun. Went on adventures. Found my ecstasy.

All because I shut up the how of how I had been speaking, and found myself another how to speak.

So here’s is my simple-yet-scary invitation to you.

If you can’t find your truth by writing a blog post, if one how is not working for you, shut that how up and speak somehow else.

Make video blogs or stupid comedy sketches or short-length documentaries. Zing 140 character one liners on twitter. Take snarky photos and post them to your Flickr account. Draw cartoons. Make apple butter. Proclaim your insanities from the top of a banker’s box at the corner of 3rd and Market.

Bottom line … shut the hell up.

And, maybe for the first time, you’ll finally start to speak.

And find your sexy zombie fluffy cat smoke filled RV pole dancer.

I can’t wait to meet her. (I bet she’s hot!! Make sure you get her on video.)

#thatisall

—————
Elizabeth Potts-Weinstein (or “EPW,” as she calls herself even in private) can teach you how to get your sexy zombie fluffy cat smoke filled RV pole dancer thing going, whatever that ends up meaning, whether you think you’re good on camera or not. You really should check out her Live Your Truth on Video course (it’s up now and will close soon… check it pronto) so that you can get in on her live Q&A session where she’ll do critiques and shit. Seriously. This is fun stuff, kiddies.

What Sam Rosen says in the intro to his guest post below is true… I’m really not so into accepting guest posts because this isn’t so much a “business blog” as it’s “that one asshole’s blog.” When that one asshole isn’t the person writing, it feels strange. (Drew Kime holds some incriminating info on me, which is why I ran his post recently. But hopefully those hearings will be over soon and the statute of limitations will expire.)

So the reasons I’m running today’s guest post by Sam Rosen are twofold:

1. Sam is doing this really interesting thing that I’ve never seen before — 60 speakers in 60 minutes giving their best tips on online influence — and you all will like it. (I’m planning to like it myself, actually.) It’s totally and completely free, so there’s no reason not to do it. I also don’t stand to benefit from it at all, which both irks me and makes me feel like Mother Theresa.

2. I needed a post, and it made sense to talk about Sam’s thing (because naturally, I’m in it… since I’m a whore). However, I had the choice of doing the hard work myself or saying, “Yeah, Sam, why don’t you write it because I’m going on vacation in a bit and don’t want to write it myself? Have it on my desk by 9am tomorrow. And by ‘my desk,’ I mean to tie it around a rock and throw it through my window. And by ‘window,’ I mean my email account. And by ‘rock,’ I mean virus.”

So what follows is Sam working and doing my job for me. Enjoy.

——-

Recently, Johnny wrote that he rarely accepts guest posts. That’s not because he’s a cold-hearted, zombie-obsessed misanthrope who prefers hilarious chickens over fellow humans. It’s because he’s a pompous classist who only associates with Ivy League professors and captains of industry.

Okay, maybe not. If I added that biographical hue to Johnny’s non-existent Wikipedia page, I’d probably have at least 42 Truantians attempt to sue me for slander, including his biggest fan, Ann Coulter.

So why did he let me do a blog post?

It’s not because he has a penchant for Jewish entrepreneurs (JOHNNY’S NOTE: It’s not JUST because I have a penchant for Jewish entrepreneurs). I think it’s because my company, ThoughtLead, is doing something slightly unusual:

We’re putting on the shortest marketing conference ever. 60 of the web’s leading thinkers and doers (including Mr. Truant himself) will speak for 60 seconds each about how to increase your digital influence. On July 6th, at 6pm ET. It’s called the Influencer Project, and it’s sponsored by big companies (like HubSpot, Rackspace, and MarketingProfs).

How’d we think of the idea…and get so many people to join in on the fun?

We Questioned the Rules (Hmm… I like the sound of that. Maybe I’ll create an online course of the same title soon. Damn you, Truant! You win this time.)

You see, not too long ago, we launched another speaker series, called The Purposeful Product (which Johnny, Dave Navarro, and Chris Brogan are actually all speaking on this week). It got rave reviews. But it fell short of the buzz we had hoped for.

That’s because it wasn’t a disruptive idea. Despite the awesome speakers and content, the overall messaging was pretty standard. And, not surprisingly, it didn’t fly like we wanted it to (kind of like Truant’s chickens).

The Influencer Project, on the other hand, is different. It’s already spreading on Twitter, and people we don’t even know are blogging about it.

“A-listers” like Brian Clark, our Third Tribe fave, as well as Guy Kawasaki, Robert Scoble, Gary Vaynerchuk, Brian Solis, and John Jantsch are all speaking.

Frankly, we’re all a bit stunned, and that’s not just because Truant mailed us one of his chickens last night with the mysterious note, “She’s yours. Good luck.”

How to Think Disruptively

Truth is, we were tired of all the “me too” product launches, conferences, e-books, and blogs, and we wanted to do something radically different, something that created a lot of hoopla in a hurry.

So we questioned the rules, just like Johnny told us to (as well as getting a JBT apple-eating tattoo on our left ankles, which our parents weren’t too psyched about).

After recovering from the trauma of “inking” our ankles with Johnny’s admittedly dashing image, we endeavored to isolate five attributes of disruptive thinking. Here they are:

1. Think in terms of memes. “Question the Rules”; “Third Tribe”; and “Shortest Marketing Conference Ever” are all “repeatable” ideas that upend convention. They take schemas (rules, tribes, conferences) in the cultural zeitgeist and give them a twist. Think about Apple’s 1984 Superbowl commercial. It was 1984. The book 1984 represented all of the suits, the corporate meanies, the stodgy, uncreative bastards. They took that and turned it on its head.

So ask yourself: “Is this meme-worthy? Is this something that could spread?” If the answer’s “no,” you might be in trouble. If it’s “yes,” then keep going.

2. Create a collective ethos. If it’s just “your thing,” who cares? But if it’s about the community, if it’s an idea driven by people coming together and rallying around a cause, then you release a different kind of energy. We’re not lone warriors. We’re intersubjectively inclined human beings who, no matter how “big” we are, want to accomplish incredible things with others.

So ask yourself: are you facilitating a collective platform, or just worried about your own product, service, or idea?

3. Get other disruptors on board.  The “influencers,” the people who are already in the public eye, are usually disruptors by nature. They think in different ways. They have styles that set them apart from others. They create memes. By making it easy for them to say “yes” (read: 60-second interview, plus a collective ethos, plus a meme), you not only begin to adopt their thinking—you become their partner in crime. (JOHNNY’S NOTE: I’ve had to decline a lot of interviews lately. “60 seconds” is EXACTLY what made me do this one — they made it easy to say yes.)

So ask yourself: are you making it easy and attractive for other disruptors to join you in the cause of innovation, and maybe even the creation of a new internet shoe empire?

4. Use language—creatively and memorably. When we were inviting A-listers, we used the sentence: “60 of the web’s leading thinkers speak for 60 seconds each about how to increase your digital influence for good and profit in the next 60 days, on July 6th at 6pm ET.” That grabs attention. We intentionally created a sense of rhythm, repetition, and repeatability (you might notice that I’m kind of into alliteration; like Johnny’s zombies, it’s an unhealthy obsession) so that it would “stick” in people’s minds.

So ask yourself: is your language memorable? Do you sound like a white heterosexual middle class religiously unremarkable man living in America, or does your idea have stickiness, repeatability, “memetic” mojo?

5. Create a pattern interrupt. For a long time, everyone selling information products online was using long-form sales letters. Then, one day, Frank Kern did one big video with a huge “Add to Cart” button underneath. Many others followed suit, but he was the disruptor. For a long time, everyone was blogging, and then Twitter made you turn your “logs” (ahem) into 140 characters each. Now there are “corporate micro-blogging platforms,” but Twitter was the disruptor. What do these examples have in common? They took a pattern we were familiar with, and interrupted it.

So ask yourself: are you just following the same pattern, or are you interrupting—disrupting—it, like Tony Robbins does at his seminars when he bucks the “cheerleader” image and starts swearing?

Okay, so by now, you’re probably starting to get an idea of the “disruptive thinking” mindset. And if you’re not, it’s probably hopeless. (Just kidding. I heard that it took Johnny like 10 years to have his first good idea.)

So here’s a question I’d like you to answer in the comments: How can you be more disruptive in your own thinking, without stealing my idea (I know a lawyer, Truant)? What examples of disruptive marketing have inspired you lately?

(JOHNNY’S NOTE: And also sign up to listen to the Influencer Project. It’s free, and it’s the only project of it’s kind. Fo real, yo.)

NOTE:This is a guest post from Drew Kime of Cook Like Your Grandmother. I’ve largely decided that guest posts feel odd to me on this site and almost never accept them (though I do appreciate the thought), but I’m making an exception because:

Anyway:

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The lonesome stranger.

The lone gunman.

The Lone Ranger.

Lone wolf.

Lone survivor.

We’ve got this fascination with the heroic solitary hero. It’s a romantic ideal, the guy who makes it on his own … against all odds … without help or comfort from any quarter.

And it’s bullshit. Which isn’t surprising when you think about what “romantic ideal” generally means. It’s a mythic story that has power specifically because it doesn’t work that way in the real world.

Ewww, favoritism

Going it alone is a myth we like so much that we even demonize the converse. Quick quiz: What’s your first reaction to the word “nepotism”? Without being too specific I’m betting it wasn’t a really positive response. The idea that someone gets ahead based on family connections rather than innate talent offends our sense of fairness. It just seems wrong.

We don’t just hate the people using family connections, though. Use your friends and it’s the “good old boys network”. You might even be qualified, but if you got the job because of “connections” suddenly your whole background becomes suspect. Maybe you only got into college because you were a legacy. Maybe your father plays golf with the dean and he helped with your grades.

Even the people with connections know better than to admit it. Tori Spelling says that when she auditioned for Beverly Hills: 90210 she didn’t use her real name, so that she wouldn’t get the job just because her father was producing it. And I am so sure there wasn’t anybody working on the show who recognized her. [wink]

So if everyone with connections is using them (but denying it), and everyone without connections distrusts anyone with connections, what’s really going on here?

The dirty little (not so) secret

Here’s the deal. What if it’s your company, and your son looking for a job. Don’t you put him on the management track? Don’t you groom him to take over the company some day? Haven’t you worked all those years specifically so that you could provide for your kids?

Of course people with connections use them. We all like helping our friends and family when we can. It’s human nature. It’s also human nature to resent the “in group” when you’re the outsider.

Wait … “outsider”. That sounds cool. I’m an “outsider”. I’ll bet there are lots of other outsiders just like me. Maybe we can be a group! I’ll focus-group that, have my media team do some commercials calling my opponent a “Beltway Insider”, and make it sound like a bad thing.

Oops, a political reference. Why did I do that? Because it makes the point that the most connected, most “inside” people know enough to position themselves as outsiders … “Just like you.” To build affinity. They deny they’re using connections while trying to connect with you. Ooh, irony.

Besides, interviewing sucks

There’s no way someone can fairly evaluate you in an hour. But guess what? The hiring manager hates it as much as you do. So if he knows someone, or a colleague knows someone, who is at least minimally capable of doing the job, guess who’s going to get it?

But don’t go thinking you should aim for “minimally capable”. I hear of openings all the time, and I know people who are looking. And if there’s a match of course I’ll recommend them. But I’m not going to recommend someone who I think is going to fall on their face.

Lizard brain vs. human brain

If you’re looking for a reason to be angry, to feel left out and mistreated, to complain about the unfairness of it all, go ahead and listen to the lizard brain. The part of you that hates any group you’re not a part of.

Or you can use that big lump of gray matter wrapped around the brain stem — you know, the rest of your brain — and realize that you really want to join that group. You want to be a member of the group of “successful people”.

Maybe you can hold both ideas in your head at once: “I don’t like them” and “I want to be like them”. I can’t. [WARNING: Obscure reference alert!] I’m not Walt Whitman.

So instead of looking at people who have what I want and criticizing the connections they use to get it, I look at what I have that they might want. How can I convince them to let me into that circle. Why would they want to partner with me.

Everyone has connections. Everyone has an in. Everyone has opportunities, or can create them. Everyone can find the right people to help them.

Sometimes getting into the club isn’t the hard part. The hard part is deciding that it’s okay to want to be in the club.

Drew Kime writes about food at How To Cook Like Your Grandmother, and blames his wife for watching the “Inside Hollywood” episode where he got that Tori Spelling anecdote.

This is a guest post by Drew Kime of Cook Like Your Grandmother. It’s probably time I had a post from Drew because not only does he constantly snipe dry wit at me, but I also keep mentioning him various places as an example of someone who isn’t simply selling into the self-perpetuating internet marketing arena. I’ll be like, “Well, what if you wanted to be an affiliate for… um… not internet marketing information but… um… I don’t know… cookware?” And then I’ll remember that I actually know a guy who that would work for, which reduces the amount that I look like a bullshiter. Slightly.

Anyway, enjoy this post. It’s a good one.

——

The third-grade teacher asks the class, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” She gets the standard answers: cowboy, princess, firefighter, doctor. But Billy says, “I want to be rich.” Everyone laughs, then the teacher asks, “But what do you want to do?” Billy answers, “I want to make lots of money.”

Fast-forward about twenty years. Who from that class do you think has the highest net worth?

Gut check

Right now, you’re either thinking, “Yeah, that sounds like me,” or “Sure he’s rich, but I’ll bet he’s a shallow, self-important prick.” But aren’t you reading online marketing blogs because you want to be rich now? Why is it wrong for a 9-year-old to want to be rich, but okay for an adult? When did money as a primary goal become acceptable?

Those aren’t abstract philosophical questions. You really need to answer them for yourself to understand what you’re willing to do. Because unless you really, deep down, believe in putting the money first, you must be putting something else first.

Do you know what that “something else” is?

Online marketing … of what?

Look at all the courses that teach you how to do AdWords campaigns. How to identify niche markets and exploit them. How to optimize your landing pages to convert the long-tail keywords. PPC arbitrage … Affiliate marketing … ClickBank … Yeah, I speak marketing. I also know what all that stuff means and how to do it. But I don’t want to. It’s soul-crushing boredom.

I might discover there’s an untapped market for wombat grooming. Do some research and write an ebook. Start an AdWords campaign and start selling like crazy. Woo-hoo! But I really don’t give a shit about wombats, no matter how many rich people there are looking for a book on cleaning them.

If I want to spend all day doing work that I don’t care about, I’ll just stick with a job. You know, let someone else figure out the business plan, do what I’m told for eight to nine hours a day, and do what I want nights and weekends.

Money makes anything interesting, right?

Lots of jobs pay well not because they’re hard, but because they’re distasteful. Ask Mike Rowe, the Dirty Jobs guy. Or check this list of 10 High Paying Dirty Jobs. Number 1 on the list? Crime scene cleaner: “With a little experience under your belt and flexibility with your work hours, you can easily make about $75,000 a year with this job.”

So there are jobs out there that you could apply for today and start making a decent living. But you won’t apply for them, because you aren’t interested in the work. So why do you think pay-per-click arbitrage is going to do it for you? The money? Look at that list of dirty jobs again. Still think it’s all about the money?

Self-employed, but still just a job

The mythical salesman who can sell ice cubes to Eskimos, do you think that’s because he likes ice cubes? Or is it because he likes closing the sale? It’s the rush and the money. And if you’re doing it online instead of face-to-face, you don’t even get the rush.

What you get is research, analysis, number crunching and, if you do it all really really well: money. Are you okay with that, or does that sound like a “job”?

Follow most online marketing advice and you know to follow the data. It’s easier to find the desire than to create the desire, so it’s more profitable to sell to an under-served market than to create a whole new market. It’s not about what you want to sell, it’s about what they want to buy. To make big money online, you can’t focus on what interests you.

That’s the forumula for success I keep seeing. Ignore my own interests. Sell what other people want. Build the sites other people want. Discuss the products other people want. Study hard, work harder, and after about a year you, too could make $111.

Screw that

If you have interests other than money, there are plenty of free resources to show you how to effectively sell what you’ve got. And you’ll care about it because you’re learning how to more effectively talk about what interests you.

Unless … well … are you the exception? Are you the one who, back at the start of this article, thought, “Yeah, I was just like little Billy”? Then you probably could sell the wombat grooming book, and smile all the way to the bank. If that’s you, I’ve got a couple of cook books that could use some good affiliates.

Drew Kime teaches people how to cook like Grandma at How To Cook Like Your Grandmother. He has published the book of the same name, and Starting From Scratch: The Owner’s Manual for Your Kitchen.

The following is a guest post by Nathan Hangen, who I’ve gotten to know on Twitter. He writes some good shit for some of the same sites I write for, and he offered to write some good shit for me, and so I said, “Hell yeah, dude.”

I’m trying out the guest post thing on this site recently – one from Tim Brownson a while back, this one, and two more in the hopper. It’s strange for me to have folks writing on a blog that is about me more than it’s about any topic, but this is a very cool post and fits the tone here, and it’s also kind of about me, and pulls a reference from Fight Club, which I wrote about two posts ago.

He also wrote this a few weeks ago and because I’m incredibly organized, I’m not getting to it until now, so the time references that are off are my fault. Please FedEx tomatoes and I will throw them at myself.

Dig on it.

—–

Johnny B. Truant is a man on a mission. He’s on fire and literally kicking the shit out of life right now.

I just logged in to the Third Tribe today and there he is…front and center…taunting me with his excellence.

He’s over at Ittybiz, Copyblogger, Problogger, and a thousand other places it seems. There’s really not a spot I can turn to where he isn’t glaring at me…laughing his ass off.

Just when I was Comfortable
It’s not that I have a problem with Johnny being awesome; it’s that now that he’s stepped up his game, I have to step up mine. It’s like a game of chess…the minute you let up is the minute that a 15 year old kid comes and beats your ass.

If he’s the Verizon guy bragging about his awesome 3G network, then I’m a shabby Luke Wilson trying to pimp a shitty network, all while making really lame jokes.

If You Can’t Beat ‘Em…Join ‘Em
So, while I’m all about expanding the pie (thanks, Chris Guillebeau), I’m also pretty darn competitive, which comes in handy when trying to stand out in a crowded blogosphere. Because of that, I like to keep my eye on the growth of other bloggers in order to give me a little extra motivation.

The problem is that Johnny has raised his game too far, and now, my normal lazy tactics don’t work as well as they used to.

As a result, I’ve decided that it might be a better idea to learn from this guy than to compete against him.

3 Steps to Kicking the Blogosphere’s Ass

1. BE DIFFERENT.
Johnny is smart enough to know that there are dozens of already successful bloggers talking about how to blog for cash. Instead of jumping in those shark-infested waters, he decided to tweak a bit and talk mainly about what he calls “personality branding,” which apparently means finding a way to make money by being “the best YOU that you can be.” What I like about this is that not only are there relatively few people who see how the tide of marketing is changing (look at the success of the “Third Tribe” mentality), but that there are very few that take it as seriously as Johnny does.

And for kicks, he somehow also tosses in setting up WordPress blogs, as an additional service. Like, being the funny blog setup guy, too.

He’s not forcing himself into a niche that he hates in order to make a few bucks, and he isn’t using hit and run tactics to churn customers. He actually over-delivers, which is something that any service provider can learn from.

The key here? Do something unique instead of copying everyone else.

2. NETWORK TO EXPAND YOUR CONNECTIONS.
Networks are paramount to the success of any business, and to that end, Johnny has become a master networker. The guy was a nobody just a year ago, and now he’s hanging out with all the cool kids. How’d he do it?

First, he actually put money on the line to buy IttyBiz’s $400 Online Business School course when he was starting out…something that a lot of new business owners would be afraid to do. Next, instead of simply using the course, he also got in touch with Naomi Dunford, who made the OBS course, and worked out a win/win mentor/protegee relationship…brilliant move. Lastly, he continued to develop new connections and leverage the ones he already had in order to expand his network. Guest posts and phone calls…next thing you know, he’s on top of the world.

Of course, this wouldn’t have worked as well if he wasn’t good, but to be quite honest, aggressive networking still sort of works…even if you suck. (Johnny’s note: What are you saying, Nathan? Dammit.)

3. KEEP TRYING UNTIL SOMETHING WORKS.
Some of you know that Johnny was a comedy blogger for a while, but because comedy readers prefer reading and then leaving to actually spending money, it just didn’t work out. Instead of quitting, Johnny found a way to combine his personality (humor) with another skill (consulting and tech help), and then used that combination to make money by simply being himself.

Now, he can laugh his way to the bank…just because he was willing to keep trying new things.

If you read through his archives (as I did, and as any guest poster should do), you’ll see that he mentions trying different taglines and branding options to see what resonated best with his audience. Eventually, he found a combination that worked.

Lesson learned…if you aren’t constantly trying new things, then you’ll have a hard time finding what works.

A Desperate Plea

Instead of ending this post with your typical summary paragraph and call to action, I’d like to beg Johnny to take some time off to let that bloody fist heal.

Johnny, you’re like that guy at the poker table that keeps going “all in.” It’s really hard for me to continue being lazy when you keep raising the stakes.

Besides, it’s Superbowl Sunday, and instead of drinking beer and stuffing my face…I’m writing a guest post. Where’s the love man? (Johnny’s note: I love you, man.)

–

Nathan Hangen is a cool guy whose email signature proves that he’s just as all over the place as the guy who normally writes on this blog, so let’s just say that you should check out his blog and follow him on Twitter and kind of see which crazy places that takes you.

This is a guest post by my fish-and-chips-eating life coach, Tim Brownson. In it, he explores many untruths about me and mocks me openly. Enjoy.

And because I know that some fools will take what Tim says literally, um… yeah, don’t take this too literally.

Oh, and one last thing: good fucking luck figuring out what the hell he is saying through all of the Britishisms. The use of 3-D glasses is suggested.

—–

No man is an island. I’m sure you’ve heard that expression many times and I’m here to tell you it’s a load of old bollocks. For instance, my mate Bob Island that works at NASA can say categorically and without any risk of contradiction, he is indeed an Island.

Still, John Donne (the dude that first wrote that quote) maybe could have said:

“You know what? We all rely on other people to a greater or lesser extent. Sure, some people work alone and shit like that, but they still need electricity, transportation and cheese. So therefore, they rely on others and thus, are connected.”

Admittedly it’s not as snappy as the original, and he’d probably have been burned at the stake for heresy, talking about electricity centuries before Al Gore invented it — but technically speaking it would have been more accurate.

I don’t think I’m breaking client confidentiality when I tell you that Truant was a mess when I first met him. A blubbering, incoherent shell of a man that fantasized about Zombies and had nightmares about naked women.

His fruit fly fetish that you will know about if you have been reading for any length of time was quite frankly out of control, and his finances had people from Enron wincing in pain and offering help.

Even though he was on his knees and only a haddocks dick away from living under a cardboard box and smelling of urine for the rest of his unfortunate life, he still had the wherewithal to call and beg me to coach him.

Of course I mocked him to begin with, but 5 hours of sobbing down the phone is enough to break down even the steeliest of resolves. So eventually I crumbled and agreed to take him on as a client under the strict condition that he never told a living soul. At that point he asked if he could tell his Zombie buddies and I told him to grow up.

Zombies have lips too you know.

Why we work together

You may be wondering what possessed me to take on a lunatic like Truant. That’s a fair question, and one my wife asked me several times when I was wandering around in a daze, muttering to myself and wearing a thousand-yard stare after our early sessions.

Bizarrely, I stuck with it due to a gut feeling — a gut feeling that this wreck of a human being actually had potential. Not lots of potential you understand — I mean he wasn’t going to become an ‘A’ list blogger or anything like that — but he had enough to make me think he wasn’t such a tool after all.

The fact is, Truant was hitting the phones begging half of the Internet to help him. It was months later that I found out I had listened to the same five hour tape of him weeping down the phone that everybody else had.

I also knew that if I could pull several rabbits out of one hat and help JT get where he wanted I would cement my place in the Life Coach Hall of Fame. Of course I’m a modest guy, (talk of me commissioning that 40 foot statue of myself was grossly exaggerated. It was actually only 25 feet and made of bronze, not gold) and helping Hobo Johnny was way more important than me getting myself on Oprah.

At this stage I have to point out that I cannot divulge the exact magical tricks and life coaching wizardry that I performed on the Truantmeister to drag him out of the gutter and turn him into the fine(ish) upstanding human being you see before you today. After all, if you knew what I knew you’d be me and then where would I go? Needless to say though, they worked.

I don’t want to make this post all about me (actually that’s not completely true. I would love to make it all about me, but I doubt it would get published and that would be a waste), so let you tell me about the man that is normally writing for you.

It would be easy to say, ‘That lucky fucker Truant — he has all sorts of people helping him. I hate his guts and would gladly punch him in the face” I know I have, many times.

I know why he’s such a lucky fucker though, and amazingly enough it’s not because he has a rabbits foot hanging round his neck. The reality is his luck emanates from working his tits off and being prepared to ask for help when he needs it without worrying that he’ll look like a total wuss.

It’s not rocket science as I said to Bob Island the other day. It is common sense, though. Although I’m sure you know what they say about common sense: it’s not that common.

My New York Times best selling book (in my mind) How To Be Rich and Happy tells people to ask for help, because that is what smart people do. Of course 90% of people will laugh in your face, but so what? You just move on to the next person and sooner or later somebody will say yes.

In fact, I’m in the process of trying to raise $1,000,000 to print up copies of How To Be Rich and Happy to give away to people that can’t afford it. Trust me — I need help, and I know most people will say “No.” Actually, that’s not true… they’ll say “Sounds like a great idea Tim, I’ll get back to you” and then vanish off the face of the earth, but it’s effectively the same thing.

Johnny can afford to pay me now, which is ironic seeing as we hardly work together anymore. He has done a truly stunning job of dragging himself up by the boot laces. You can too if you aren’t where you want to be, because you really are good enough.

Don’t fucking argue, you are, and that’s the end of it.

I probably don’t know you, but what I do know is that unless Bob from NASA is reading this, you’re not an island. It’s not rocket science and it’s not only ok to ask for help, it’s uber COOL to ask for help. Because guess what? That’s what the most successful people do. Asking for help is the new black, so just do it. But not from me, I’m full.

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Tim Brownson is absolutely the kind of life coach you want if you’re a cool person and enjoy British accents. If you do nothing else after reading this post, head over and read his goal post and get off your ass and help if you can. This is a man on a mission.