TLDR; Win one of my favorite books. Deadline Thursday, June 3, 2026 at 11:59 Eastern Time. Read anything good recently? Something that’s not very mainstream, but nonetheless entertained you, made you feel something, or taught you something. I don’t want recommendations for bestsellers or Kindle pirate werewolf romance smut. Whichever THREE people send me the best recommendations win a fantastic prize. 👉 I will mail you a copy of the most surprising and entertaining book on influence I’ve read in the past 10 years. (No, it’s not Influence by Cialdini. That would be lame.) You don’t need to be a marketer to get value out of this book—in fact, I believe it should be required reading for every business owner and digital entrepreneur. Let me have your recommendations—top three contestants by 11:59 PM Eastern Time on June 3 WIN. Drop a comment in this thread to participate (email replies don’t count):

Quick quiz for you. Which of these license plates makes its respective state the most money, and why? You should be able to tell without looking up any revenue figures from state departments of transportation. Bonus Points: How can you use the same technique as the winning license plate in your business?

If you could only solve one of these problems, and you could solve it TODAY, which would it be?

I think I banned complaining from this group. Somewhere. It's probably in the rules. Would you like to complain about clients? Working in isolation? Existential dread? They're all fair game. Possibly, we can come up with solutions here, too...and stop complaining. But where's the fun in that?

The auction has ended! Congratulations to @Gasper Crepinsek for taking home my very own "Upwork Retirement Proposal" and a big stack of bonuses for the very nice sum of 35,000 pennies! JUST IN CASE YOU MISSED IT, HERE'S WHAT WENT DOWN... Get the exact Upwork proposal template I used to land $159,000 in low-stress retainers while I work 15-hour weeks and travel the world. ⬇️⬇️⬇️ I don't freelance on Upwork anymore. Not because it stopped working. Because ONE proposal template worked so well it retired me. 👉 $159,000 in contracts. 👉 Clients who hired me over 50+ other applicants. 👉 Clients who APOLOGIZED for wasting my time when they couldn't afford me. 👉 $12k retainers from people who'd never met me. Now, I hire people to push the buttons while I look at graphs and tell jokes on Zoom calls. In May, when we go to Japan for 2.5 weeks, other people will keep my machine running while I eat raw fish next to Mt. Fuji. All from Upwork clients. The place everyone says has zero high-paying clients. 🙄 Here’s what we’re gonna do. Grab a walker. Amble on over to the cafeteria and snag a cup of prune juice. Then meet me in the day room and let’s reminisce about the good ol’ days when Upwork was still Elance… 🎉🎉 Welcome to the Upwork Retirement Auction! 🎉🎉 Winner gets the Upwork proposal template that retired me from Upwork—plus, I’ll show you how to “reverse engineer” it for any job your heart desires. Bids start at one cent. Bids can only go UP by one cent. AND... EVERYONE who bids at least one penny in the auction gets a free bonus: The Profile Rescue Kit, which'll fix everything wrong with your profile (that clients actually care about) so you can stop obsessing over which angle to take your next headshot pic. 🤯 But wait, there's more...lol. 🤯 IF... If we get a ton of action on the auction, we'll unlock truckloads of additional hot bonuses for you to stuff in your pockets. One more thing: You're getting the exact proposal structure that pulled six figures out of a platform I no longer compete on.