If you need to vent, I welcome thee in this cate-go-ree... Ahem. I'm a rather woeful person... at times. I started the "Thread of Woes" in John's group, which, if I were to share all my woes, would be the perma top-post, and I can't possibly do that to John's group, so I figured I may as well start a category here. You're welcome to vent (just... maybe keep the family drama out of it so we're not in too deep... I don't want this to be a family therapy group, mainly because it makes me uncomfortable and I never quite know what to do with it...) I'll start 👇

If you subscribe to my newsletter, you know that I've been trying to grow on LinkedIn for about a year, but only had a breakthrough recently (a month ago). Well, this last week was my best month on that platform. I got 136 new followers in the last 7 days... highest 7-day growth so far. And with that, I've crossed 1k followers (at 1,091 followers as of writing this). I also got at least 10 new subscribers from LinkedIn last week (that I can tell). One of these new subscribers is someone who works at MemberPress (the membership plugin I use for the Vault). Which is curious because I've considered pitching them for a long-term sponsorship in the past, so... this... might help? All in all, it has been a great week and I feel like I'm going in the right direction re/ LinkedIn. This coming week, I'm planning to do some direct promos to my Vault and 1-1 coaching calls. I doubt I'd get any takers (direct promos don't usually work on social media from what I've seen so far), but I want to test it out anyway. Will update if I do end up getting any new customers or members. In the meantime, you can always get my LinkedIn Starter Kit here if you're curious about that platform.

Many, many years ago, I was reading "Norwegian Wood" by Haruki Murakami, and in it, there's an exchange between our very average main character, Toru Watanabe, and his more dashing and charming friend, Nagasawa, that left a deep, deep impression on me. Both Watanabe and Nagasawa are loners, offbeat characters, who have little in common with their peers, including the books they read. When Watanabe comments on Nagasawa's favorite authors (Balzac, Dante, Joseph Conrad) not being very "fashionable," Nagasawa replies with: "That's why I read them! If you only read books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking. That's the world of hicks and slobs. Real people would be ashamed of themselves doing that. Haven't you noticed, Watanabe? You and I are the only real ones in the dorm. The other guys are crap." --- Of course, this is a work of fiction, and in the world of fiction, a character can be rude and declare the rest of the world crap... Even so, I think there's merit in reading things nobody else is reading. So, my question to you... let's maybe help each other find books that are not on Amazon's best-selling list or worse, on the New York Times' best-selling reads. And to keep things from going out of control, let's stick with books that taught you the most about marketing, selling, doing business, or writing in general. Even if the books weren't marketed as such. I'll start 👇

The winner of the rights to monopolize my Sundays, from now until the end of 2026, is @Nick Bandy with his signature bid: $1,569. ================================= Today is your chance to tap in and benefit from my 9,000+ subscriber email list, which is not only constantly growing, but growing by 30-90 subscribers... PER WEEK! Leads? Yeah, we got 'em. But it's not just leads. This is your opportunity to get in front of a sea of buyers, hungry for info on how to succeed online with their own businesses. Starting with a bid of just $2! Here's what I'm offering: 👉 Put your list growth on autopilot for the rest of the year. [You get a classified ad in my Sunday newsletter for the rest of this year (42 Sundays left in 2026).] 👉 Get my direct input and help on your ads/offers to get you the best results from my audience. [I've been sending emails since 2018 and know what my people respond to. Will gladly give you my input as often as you like to make sure your offers are positioned in the way that's most likely to land with my audience.] 👉 Test out new offers/appeals/hooks/lead magnets without risk. [There are 42 Sundays left in this year, which allows you to promote your main offers as often as you want, and also test out small new bets if you ever want to take a week off from promoting a known winner.] 👉 Benefit from my own mad scramble to grow my list. [List currently growing at 30-90 new people PER WEEK. In addition, I'm doing list swaps, am networking like I just got out of Harvard MBA, am even (secretly, don't tell anyone) working on a cold traffic funnel to grow my list even more with buyers. No hard promises here, but my personal goal is to get my list to 20k people by the end of the year. Whatever number I manage to reach, all these people will see your offers and ads, every Sunday, for the rest of 2026.] Wanna see what my ESP's backend looks like? Here's a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7k4-F0yTthM&t

EVERYONE! This is your (less than) 24-hour reminder that we're starting the auction (where you would be bidding on a chance to win classified ads in my newsletter, every Sunday, for the rest of the year) tomorrow at 9 AM PST / 12 PM EST. And I have a bribe prepared for you... if you choose to bid at least the minimum ($2): 👉 A case study of how I got 50 subscribers in 48 hours AND made a little over $10 per subscriber within the same timeframe. The best part? This case study is NOT an anomaly. It is re-creatable, over and over. (I've done it!) 😎✌️ We're starting my basement/backyard AUCTION party soon, so make sure to be on time! (Cleaning the house and hanging up string lights in the backyard as I type this... yes... I'm a multitasker like that...)