30 day email experiment – I challenged myself to write an email a day to a select list of people to see what would happen… I’m publishing the first 5 here at my website blog and this is #1:

All right! – here we go…

A little back story – I got this idea for the 30 day email sprint from a guy named Perry Marshall, a marketing and business genius and someone who has been involved in a number of fascinating projects over the years, and written some great books along the way…

This idea appeals to me because it is so different from the way I usually write – the long gestation of ideas and a lot of re-writing. I figure my job is to inspire, inform, make a well crafted message that has a main point.  But some of my favorite people that I follow are a lot more spontaneous and experimental in their writing than I am, and try out ideas to see how people react. Sounds like fun!

I am discovering things all the time that make me think “I want to write about this, tell others about this” and then I don’t. So I want to see what it is like to follow up on that impulse a lot more often.

I also find myself wanting to connect you with people I find super inspiring. People like Brian Johnson, Mel Robbins, Matt Furey, Ryan Holiday…

Here is an example – I listened to a youtube short from Mel Robbins and ended up playing it again while I pointed my iphone at a microphone that is connected to my desktop computer.  Her speech was translated into text via microsoft word dictation. I then made a few edits in punctuation, and here you go:

Here’s a simple rule: never ever ever let your mood dictate what you do. You have to take action first because movement changes your mood.

Do not let the mood you’re in now dictate what you do next. Act like the person you want to become and when you start taking those actions and you start moving in the direction of your dreams and the things that you want and deserve in life your mood will follow.  It’ll feel great and you, my friend, will be getting it done…

This, to me, is pure gold…

I spent way too much of my life trying to get into the mood to do things… When I was in my twenties, it was trying to find the magic blend of coffee and joints… Too much of one followed by too much of the other… Somehow I never found the magic balance for more than a couple of minutes…  My addictions were either avoiding pain or trying to manage moods.

Eventually I had to quit everything (except coffee) by the time I was 29 and then I spent years trying other ways of getting in the mood to do stuff…

It is such a simple idea – you can express it in all sorts of ways – “imagine that you are the ideal version of you – write the script and then act it out” Actors don’t have to be “in the mood” to play a homicidal maniac, they just get going and act like one.  You act first, then you get the mood.

So I am now “in the mood” to write because I started writing. Damn! I wish I had known this 50 years ago!

Mel Robbins also has a great trick for taking action before your brain has a chance to lure you into paralysis by analysis – count backwards from 5 ( 5 4 3 2 1) and then use that to launch yourself into action.  I use this trick when I am on one of my cold shower phases –  5 4 3 2 1 , then crank the knob… In 3 seconds flat my overall physical state and “mood” are radically different.

Another way I use this is when I am stuck, I ask myself “what would a smart person do in this situation?” and then 54321 do whatever came into my mind…

Thanks for reading this!

Richard