I've made a fairly substantial living being the guy who operates outside the box.
Business owners pay me outrageous sums to come in and shake up their thinking...
look at their marketing model with the eyes of someone far outside their cramped corporate culture...
and, most of all, create new marketing that makes them quiver with anxiety.
If a client isn't nervous about posting or mailing a piece I've written for him, then I know I haven't done my job.
World-class advertising isn't soft and squishy, folks.
It's dangerous.
Attitude.
I think about it a lot.
I didn't set out to be a rebel...
it just so happened that by not caring much for the prejudices and rules (especially the rules) of whoever was claiming to be the authority figure at the moment, I appeared to have a bad attitude.
Naw.
I'm just thinking my own thoughts.
Trying hard to see things as they are, and not as they "should be" according to some lame ideology.
Or, worse, as other people wished things were, so they could stop being nervous about the uncertainty of it all.
Life is uncertain.
Good stuff happens, bad stuff happens, and in the grand scheme we really only get to exercise a tiny little bit of control.
You're never gonna change anyone's mind about anything.
Idiots will never recognize the folly of their ways, and creeps will forever plague our plans and dreams.
Again, so what? The best copywriters and marketers - the guys I know who are raking it in and living the good life - are mostly flexible and open-minded.
Maybe not in all categories...
but when it comes to opportunity and the possibilities of any given situation...
they're ready to entertain any thought or idea that has a chance to work.
If you're feeling a little hamstrung in your life right now...
check to see that it isn't your attitude.
Your prospects are very likely not like you at all...
and if you can't get into their heads and understand their perspectives, you're not gonna do very well.
On the other hand, if you can get your mind around the Zen concept of having an attitude that's really an anti-attitude...
you're going to finally experience some vicious-good juice coursing through your system.
All those little dams in your body that are necessary to maintain your uptightness will burst...
and what happens when you break free will, frankly, blow your mind.
It's not something you can imagine before you do it.
You just gotta trust me on this one.
The feast of life isn't open to anyone with their nose stuck up in the air.
And you know what? They wouldn't understand what was so much fun at the feast, anyway.
Something to consider, as you toy with the next step you take, no matter where you think you're headed.