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Eight strategies for deferring procrastination
The wonderful thing about life is there’s always something else you could be doing. Something more fun, more satisfying (in the moment), more hedonistic.
It’s great for living, not so great for writing.
Because it means while you should be at your desk, thrashing the qwertys until you bleed, you sometimes procrastinate.
We all do it. Heck, I did it before writing this. It’s normal and not a problem… until it becomes a problem.
Then you have a choice:
Settle for mediocrity and a blank page, or
Get down to work, you champion.
Here’s the thing, though:
Procrastination doesn’t have just one cause. It may seem like it’s all the same sort of ‘I don’t feel like it’ feeling, but it’s not.
I counted eight triggers for procrastination, each pretty different from the others.
If you have a go-to procrastination busting strategy, this is why it doesn’t always work. Sometimes the procrastination you’re busting isn’t the right one.
Given that, you now have a clear path forward.
Learn the different causes of procrastination and a strategy for each.
Then you’ll always be able to get writing, unhindered by what stops lesser people. And without procrastination, your destination - whether it’s a novel, a self-help book, a memoir or whatever - comes closer to reality every day.
The eight flavours of procrastination are just some of the things I cover in my latest course. If you complete my Productive Writing course, you’ll learn:
· the real cause of Writer’s Block (and seven remedies for it),
· how to write more content, to a higher standard and in less time, using my “Three Phases” approach,
· a simple secret to entering the writing flow state,
· how to overcome a lack of time, energy and motivation,
· eight different types of procrastination and how to bust each one.
And if you use my affiliate link below, you can learn all that (and everything else on Skillshare) at no cost for your first two months.
Cancel in that time and you won’t pay anything.
Or hang around and enjoy plenty of awesome, quick and engaging courses.
Here’s the link:
https://skl.sh/2PymK9O
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Self-hypnosis by cosmic overload
The goal of self-hypnosis is to communicate directly with your unconscious. That’s not an easy thing to do, as your conscious mind can interfere.
That’s one of its roles - to protect you, even from yourself.
This is why these techniques need to be used with care. Use self-hypnosis for changes you’re sure you want…
Anyway, here’s one such technique for you. It bypasses the conscious mind beautifully, giving you direct access to your inner mind.
And from there, you can change all sorts of things.
To get the conscious mind happily out of the way for a moment, you can do all sorts of things. You can soothe it, charm it, confuse it, distract it…
Or you could simply overload it.
Critical thinking takes a lot of energy. It’s a powerful muscle, but one you can tire out. Once it’s tired, you have little choice but to slip nicely into a pleasant trance.
Here’s one way I used on myself, quite by accident, recently:
Imagine the world as it is. This enormous planet, with more in any corner than you could explore in a thousand years. This bubble contains all of human history and every form of life that we know of.
Earth is a tiny planet in our solar system. Jupiter is over 11 times larger. Our entire world looks like a small moon next to it.
And of course the Sun is bigger than that. It’s about ten times larger than Jupiter again, dwarfing everything else in the solar system.
Keep that scale in mind.
Sagittarius-A* is a supermassive black hole at the centre of the galaxy. It’s over four million times heavier than the Sun. Imagine if it were a planet like Earth, just how much life and history you could fit on it.
The Milky Way, made of hundreds of billions of stars, is hundreds of thousands of times heavier than Sagittarius-A*. Each star is like an island, many with their own planets, each with its own unique system of planets, asteroids and exotic bodies.
And the Milky Way is one galaxy. We primitive apes, without leaving our planet, have observed two trillion other galaxies… meaning there’s probably a lot more out there than that.
Two trillion galaxies.
The universe is big.
I dare you to hold the scale of it in your mind.
When you reach your mental limit, know you can sink back gently into a nice trance. Overload your conscious mind and that’s what’s waiting for you.
It’s not a typical self-hypnosis technique, perhaps.
But it might be the perfect one for you, right now.
If you enter a trance, though… then what? What do you do with it?
Ah, well, you’d probably like a book bursting at the seams with what to do in trance.
Happy to oblige, fellow cosmonaut.
Here’s your link:
https://guided-thought.com/downloads/unlock-vault-self-hypnosis/
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How to create perfect writer’s block
A while ago, I was curious about what the research said on writer’s block. Academics and their students write a lot, often under tight deadlines, so I knew there had to be something out there.
Boy, was I on to something there.
I found a paper on the topic that, while a little dull and long, captured a lot of wisdom on the topic. And, being a scientific paper, they tested the wisdom.
How might think writer’s block comes about when you’re under too much (or too little) pressure. That’s not it - in fact, emotions have nothing to do with it.
What stops you from letting the words flow freely from your possibly immaculately manicured fingertips?
Seven bad writing habits - any one of which can bring your writing rate to a grinding halt.
And if you indulge in all seven, you’ll have writer’s block so severe you’ll never form a single sentence.
Assuming you don’t want writer’s block, that gives you another angle:
Get rid of these bad habits.
Rethink your approach to writing.
And you’ll always have something to say for your readers. No more forcing sentences out of your brain, no more agonising over the cleverest phrasing.
Simply writing a lot more, and enjoying the process.
These bad habits are just one of the things I talk about in my new course. Learn what they are, stop doing them and enjoy productivity like you’ve never experienced.
If you complete my Productive Writing course, you’ll learn:
· the real cause of Writer’s Block (and seven remedies for it),
· how to write more content, to a higher standard and in less time, using my “Three Phases” approach,
· a simple secret to entering the writing flow state,
· how to overcome a lack of time, energy and motivation,
· eight different types of procrastination and how to bust each one.
And if you use my affiliate link below, you can learn all that (and everything else on Skillshare) at no cost for your first two months.
Cancel in that time and you won’t pay anything.
Or hang around and enjoy plenty of awesome, quick and engaging courses.
Here’s the link:
https://skl.sh/2PymK9O
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Get the most out of your learning
We’ve always described the human brain with metaphors. It’s too hard to describe it, you know, accurately.
Back in the day, people saw the brain as like being a vast, complex set of pipes and hydraulics.
Then the metaphor changed. As soon as telephone exchanges became popular, the brain was like them.
Then, of course, the famous “a brain is like a computer” comparison.
With the internet, we see a powerful, dynamic, ever-changing network. Finally - an almost-decent comparison.
Because the brain is not a computer, set of circuits or bundle of pipes.
If it were something so mechanical, learning would be easy. After all, how does your computer learn a skill? You install new software and…
There is no ‘and.’ That’s it.
With our wet, squishy brains, though, it’s not that easy. You might want to learn something and struggle. Even if you don’t struggle, it takes a lot longer to learn a skill than to program a computer.
It doesn’t work as it should. Something as simple as remembering someone’s name can elude you. Genius-level skills take decades of hard work.
And between those two extremes is everything else that can escape your attention.
This is because learning is not a conscious activity. It happens purely on an unconscious level. Some part of your inner mind decides what to learn and what to ignore.
It follows deep logic of its own – simply ‘wanting’ to learn something isn’t enough to convince your unconscious.
Not by itself. The logic is complicated.
Everything you learn has to fit in with everything you already know. You don’t just add a fact to your brain – that fact is assessed against every other fact, perspective and paradigm you have.
This is what stops you from learning the wrong things. Some things, like “the sky is solid” and “you owe me ten grand” don’t gel with your version of reality.
This is why your brain sometimes ‘switches off’ its learning ability. It’s for your own protection.
How do you switch it back on?
All it takes is a little hypnosis:
https://guided-thought.com/downloads/accelerated-learning-system/
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How to achieve your writing dream
Many people dream of writing something great. Maybe they have a novel churning away inside them. Maybe they want to write a textbook to educate and inspire people.
Most of us would like to write something…
And most of us don’t.
It’s not a question of talent, as anyone can write in their unique voice.
It’s not knowledge - the world is full of amazing writing to act as your teacher.
Most would-be writers are defeated by themselves.
It’s so common there’s almost no shame in it. People admit to being failed or wanna-be writers all the time. Writing takes a lot of time, passion and a burning desire to put your vision in words.
If you want to write, then you probably have the passion and desire. But do you have enough to set aside the time?
Well, that’s up to you to figure out.
What I can help you with is making the most of your time you do use.
Because there are a lot of bad writing habits out there. Of course there are, because no one really teaches you how to write productive. You’re just expected to figure out how to use your time as you go.
Or you could learn things the proper way:
If you complete my Productive Writing course, you’ll learn:
· the real cause of Writer’s Block (and seven remedies for it),
· how to write more content, to a higher standard and in less time, using my “Three Phases” approach,
· a simple secret to entering the writing flow state,
· how to overcome a lack of time, energy and motivation,
· eight different types of procrastination and how to bust each one.
And if you use my affiliate link below, you can learn all that (and everything else on Skillshare) at no cost for your first two months.
Cancel in that time and you won’t pay anything.
Or hang around and enjoy plenty of awesome, quick and engaging courses.
Here’s the link:
https://skl.sh/2PymK9O
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What’s the deal with my hard-to-find donation button?
A little while ago, I made a change to my subscription service. By that, I mean I got rid of it. People can now access most of what used to be behind a paywall.
It’s not free so much as pay-what-you-want now. You can download any and all of my hypnotic guided meditations. Then, if you want, you can donate some money via my PayPal account.
It’s a big change.
(And there are bigger ones coming. Oooh boy.)
But some of you are wondering…
Whether you’re whispering behind my back or muttering under your breath…
What on earth is wrong with me?
Sure, I have a donation button… way at the bottom of the page. It’s hard to find and there’s no clever marketing to get you to cough up.
I could place the donation button at the top, surrounded by juicy calls to action.
I could, if nothing else, ask for people’s emails before they can download these hypnotic guided meditations. I did spend hours recording those, not to mention years learning how to create them.
These are reasonable opinions and sensible suggestions.
And, yes, I considered all of them.
One problem, though:
I don’t want people to donate unless they want to. That donation button, hidden away at the bottom, is there for your benefit, not mine.
I honestly don’t care whether you donate or not. It’s not like that’s paying the bills or anything.
You might care, though.
You might feel guilty for “taking advantage” of me.
Or you might know the more you sacrifice to gain something, the more you appreciate it.
So those hypnotic guided meditations are there for you, for whatever you want to give (or not).
For now, at least.
Who knows when I’ll change my business model again?
(Because, yes, the next change might see those disappear… dun dun dun….)
So if you’ve unsure, you better grab them now.
And if you want to throw some money my way, you’re welcome to.
You can find the audios and the somewhat hidden button here, for now:
https://guided-thought.com/awakened-thought/
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Everyone can, but not everyone should
If you’re a hypnotist, then you know that anyone can use hypnosis. Once you’re trained to look for it, it’s amazing the reframes, pattern breaks, embedded commands and regressions people use without even realising.
What separates you from the layperson is that realisation.
You use hypnosis deliberately, strategically and with a clear intention.
To other people, this is just normal speaking. For you, you align the hypnotic elements so they all support each other. You don’t do what other people do, which is stuff like encouraging people to relax while stressing them out at the same time.
(Unless that’s part of your therapeutic style, in which case I’m intrigued and please tell me more.)
The point is anyone can use hypnosis. And they do, whether deliberately or not. You can’t communicate well (arguably, at all) without at least a little trance.
But just because everyone can use it, doesn’t mean they should.
You know how full of pitfalls hypnotherapy can be. You know to watch for abreactions, accidentally reinforcing negative beliefs, dissociation from resources, identity crises…
Laypeople don’t know what those terms mean, let alone how to avoid them. That’s why you’re the professional.
And let me submit this to you:
Marketing is the same.
Laypeople can use marketing and persuasion all the time. Convincing people to see the movie you want is a great example.
And yet laypeople don’t know the pitfalls, let alone how to avoid them.
Sometimes they get lucky.
Sometimes they’re gifted communicators.
Most of the time, they write something that seems reasonable… but goes nowhere.
There’s no golden thread, no persuasion architecture, no future pacing tied to benefits, no interesting copy… just a pile of words that don’t quite add up to anything.
That’s why you get great results when you outsource.
You’re hiring a professional, one who writes ads that compel, intrigue and motivate readers into action.
Ads that serve, grow and enhance your business.
Because I don’t know what your conversion rate is right now, but wouldn’t it be nice if it were a little higher? What would a couple of extra percent - let alone more - do for your business?
This year, next year… until you replace it with something even better?
What would that do for your reputation, your income, that light feeling in your chest that says you’re making a difference?
Let’s find out together:
https://battenandking.com/services/
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How to avoid becoming a Stalin-era factory
There’s a story from the dimmest, darkest days of the Soviet Union:
There’d be a factory making, say, 5,000 widgets a month. Stalin would swan in and order them to make 12,000 this next month.
Out of a combination of patriotism and a desire to keep breathing, the factory manager would agree.
So they’d postpone all maintenance, make people work 20 hours a day and burn through their stockpiles of raw materials.
Though it almost killed them, they pulled it off. 12,000 widgets in one month - a new world record for widgets.
Stalin turns around and says, great, I know expect you to make 12,000 every month.
The managers and workers would do the best they could. But without maintenance, equipment started breaking. Without rest, workers started making mistakes and getting injured. It wouldn’t take long for production levels to plummet.
Then Stalin would execute them or send them to the gulags for failing.
There’s a moral in this:
Well, two. The first is, if you own a factory or a nation, don’t do this.
The second is don’t do this to yourself.
Many people make drastic changes. They change their work habits, their diet, their hobbies, their lifestyle…
Or maybe they quit smoking.
At first, it works well.
But it’s not sustainable because, like the factory worker pushed to the edge, they can’t keep it up forever.
If your change requires willpower to keep alive, then it’s going to fail eventually. You might have great willpower and you can always improve it. But no one has strong willpower all the time - that’s not how brains work.
But what if you approached it differently?
What if the factory was remodelled and expanded, its workforce doubled and retrained?
And what if you quit smoking without needing to rely on willpower?
Well, that’s a different story. A much happier, more successful story.
And that story begins here with this, your call to action:
https://guided-thought.com/downloads/breathe-freely/
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Do you work for your business or does it work for you?
Entrepreneurship can be a little different from what’s promised.
It can be a cold, lonely struggle. When you go from the cogs of a vast company to running a small one, the sudden isolation can be intense.
It can be irritating, dealing with a thousand tiny hassles that could somehow wreck your enterprise.
And it can, in a word, suck. All of a sudden, you’re on your own with no safety net.
Of course, these are also the best parts of being an entrepreneur.
You have freedom and control.
You have authority and responsibility.
As for the pressure… well, isn’t that what you signed up for? You can no longer coast and rely on a cushy salary - now, you’re success is entirely in your hands. What better way is there to bring out your best self than forcing it?
Sink or swim.
That doesn’t mean you have to be foolhardy about it, though.
If you want your business to work for you, rather than you work for it, then you’ll need a few things.
The right strategy.
The right relationships.
And plenty of time, elbow grease and drive - things you already have, otherwise your business wouldn’t exist.
I can’t help with all of that.
But I can help with some.
I may be a freelancer but I don’t work ‘for’ clients - that’s not my style. The way I see it, we work together. Your success becomes my success, and vice versa.
It’s more like a partnership - only without the entanglements. You are, after all, the boss.
And together we can do great things. Your marketing isn’t some optional add-on to your business - as a coach or hypnotherapist, it becomes part of your service. After all, isn’t your role to inspire, to elevate, to transform? This makes marketing Step One of your process.
Meaning people arrive at your door primed and ready to become their best selves.
Meaning they transform quicker, easier and more powerfully.
So you do right by your business, your clients and yourself.
Whether you want to handle your marketing yourself or outsource it, you might like what I have to offer. So why not take a peek:
https://battenandking.com/services/
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Why I write terrible headlines about how to live your purpose
There’s a lot of anecdotal evidence and A/B testing that shows what words work in headlines.
Words like ‘new’, ‘discover(y)’, ‘scientific’, ‘latest’…
Because people want the cutting edge. They want to beat everyone else to the next big thing.
I know I do.
But I tend to avoid using those words in my headlines. Not always, of course… just less than what others in this industry might do.
It’s not deliberate. I just find myself using other words, like ‘ancient’ and ‘proven’. Because I think we’ve all bled on the cutting edge at some stage.
There’s a lot of exciting research going on. At the same time, there’s a lot of exciting wisdom buried in the past. There’s an idea which I think I stole from Taleb which goes, the older a problem, the older the solution.
So if you want to know how to be a good parent, citizen or spouse, read the oldest texts and see what they say.
And if you want to lead a fulfilling life of purpose, then you can imagine what the oldest books say on that:
Be true to yourself.
Be of genuine service to others.
It’s good advice, not matter what century it is.
And if you want some truly ancient, timeless solutions, then I’d point you towards meditation. It survived the millennia, sprouted at every corner of the world and took the West by storm for darn good reasons.
What if you’ve struggled with meditation before?
Or find the way it’s taught frustrating?
I get it.
Which is why I wrote my own guide for people like us:
https://amzn.to/2Pe0jVN
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Are you getting lost in the crowd?
The stats around what happens on the internet every minute are a smidge overwhelming. Thousands of tweets, videos, photos, articles and podcasts flew into the global ether in the time it took me to write this sentence.
On the one hand, it shows there’s a market - nay, an appetite - for content.
And, boy, is there. We’re voracious for new things to consume.
But while demand is high, so is supply.
Meaning: people want to see what you’ve got, but how will they ever find it?
There are a few simple ways.
Like putting your content out on as many channels as you can. I have no idea how you’re reading this - it could be almost anywhere online.
Every platform is a new chance to capture some eyeballs.
But that’s focusing on the medium. The real juice lies in the content itself.
You do you make content that stands out from the crowd?
This is going to sound trite, but to stand out it needs to stand out.
In other words, it can’t be what everyone else is doing. That way lies madness.
But you can’t act randomly either. Some people stand out for all the wrong reasons.
So what’s the answer?
It lies with having a plan - a strategy for cultivating your voice. With the right guidelines, you can highlight what’s unique in your brand… and what’s unique about you. That will repel some people and attract others, which is much better than being overlooked.
You have a unique voice - it just needs a little training.
Here’s how you can get your hands on some:
https://battenandking.com/services/
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When not quitting smoking is better for your health
Many ex-smokers went through a transition like this: they were a smoker but didn’t want to be, so they quit. They struggled and fought and resisted until it became easier to not smoke.
Maybe you were one of the lucky ones who simply stopped one day.
For most people, it’s not that simple.
It’s a strange improvement though. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a definite improvement.
And not an easy one to make.
Still, here’s why it’s unusual:
Smokers feel they have no choice. They want to quit but they struggle to.
Ex-smokers also don’t have a choice. They can’t let themselves smoke or they’ll risk falling back into old habits.
What makes it strange is, while not smoking is much better for you, so is having options. When you have choices, you don’t have to fight yourself or resist the wrong options. You can do whatever works for you.
This makes the best possible strategy being able to smoke, but never doing it. You become like people who have never smoked - they don’t resist the urges because they don’t have any.
How do you get to be this way?
Well, I make no guarantees.
But your odds improve sharply when you approach quitting the right way.
You can fight a habit - and keep on fighting it - or you could transform it from the inside.
Patches and e-cigarettes don’t do this, but hypnosis can. And you might get to the stage where you could have a smoke and not think anything of it. It doesn’t appeal to you, nor does it fill you with guilt. You simply choose not to continue.
That makes quitting as easy as not doing something should be.
You can read all about how hypnosis can transform, delete and corrupt this habit here:
https://guided-thought.com/downloads/breathe-freely/
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How the Tyranny of Value caught me out
I’ve talked about a few marketing failures recently. Partly because they’re fun to talk about, partly because they’re valuable teachers.
It’s funny, though, how I’m always talking about other people’s failures.
Well, no longer. Join me as I point the accusatory finger back towards myself.
In my early days as a marketer, I cobbled together a few sales letters. I followed the rules you’re ‘supposed’ to follow. It had all the right pieces - a captivating headline, an opening paragraph that sucked you in, evidence, testimonials, guarantees, a call to action…
It even offered quite a lot of value. It included a few secrets from my product people could take and use right away, no purchase needed.
I was inexperienced enough to believe the common lie: “if I give away awesome stuff for free, people are going to want to see what I charge for”.
This sales letter crashed hard.
So I thought, okay, I’ll add some more value from the product upfront. If I give away enough of the good stuff, people will…
Well, whatever I was thinking people would do, they didn’t.
It stayed crashed.
It took me a long, long time to figure out the problem. Eventually I rewrote the sales letter from scratch. I must have absorbed some good principles, because it started doing better.
The strange thing was the new sales letter didn’t give anything away. Sure, it was worth reading for its own sake, but I wasn’t handing out precious content for nothing.
Even so, it did much better.
Because there are a few things to keep in mind when giving away value:
The first is less is more. Give away too much and it kills the reader’s interest.
The second, and third, are not-so-secret elements that make your copy shine. More than that, it makes your audience read it in the first place… then become motivated to take action.
It’s hard to imagine good copy that doesn’t use both of these.
Even so, it took me a long time to learn them. Even with my better-than-average education, I don’t remember being taught this. Much more emphasis was given to less important things, not these two vital ingredients.
Oh, well. Live and learn, as they say.
I’m much better now, as I automatically add it to most of my writing.
(Including this article.)
Experienced marketers will spot what they are and be surprised I’m making a big deal about them. That’s because they forget not everyone knows this stuff. Once upon a time, they had to learn it.
If you don’t know what I’m talking about, then how can you be sure your ads aren’t missing it too?
One of the services I offer is reviewing what you already have on your website. It’s mostly from an SEO and usability angle, but I’m more than happy to look at your copy too.
I’ll even design a strategy to improve your future ads. It’s worth doing what you can so your marketing inspires people and attracts would-be clients.
All you need to do is reach out here:
https://battenandking.com/services/
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The wisdom lying in obsolete physics
You can learn a lot by scrutinising the latest research. Some of the stuff coming out of psychology and neurology these days is wild.
But it’s not the perfect approach.
For one thing, you’d have to read a lot of scientific papers (which are optimised to be unreadable).
For another, the trick with the latest research is you don’t know if it’s any good. Science is like any procrastinating genius - they do amazing work, but only because it takes its time. The latest papers may be mistaken, misleading or outright fraudulent. And you won’t be able to tell for a decade or so.
You can relax, though, because that offers two ways forward:
Read the best research from a decade ago…
Or read the best ideas from thousands of years ago. Because if an idea has survived that long, who knows whether it’s a good idea or not. But either way, it says something about humans and the way we think.
Doubly so if different cultures cotton on to the same idea independently.
Take, for example, the idea of elemental magic - two cultures both decided the universe was forged from fire, earth, water. Sure, the Greeks called the next element ‘air’ while East Asia had ‘wood’ and ‘metal’. That’s still an impressive overlap.
We now know this is not an accurate model of physics, so it doesn’t tell us much about the world.
But it does tell us something about people. Something about how we think made us view the world this way.
“It’s simple” doesn’t explain why this simple idea beat all the others.
Or how it existed at both ends of Eurasia.
Maybe many of our thoughts burst, lift, flicker and transform, filling you with a warming glow.
I know many of our thoughts are solid, stable, strong and unyielding.
Perhaps a lot of unconscious processes flow and settle, flow and settle.
So early scholars looked at the world and realised fire, earth and water were pretty similar to what they felt.
Now, I know some of you have no idea what I’m talking about. How can thoughts ‘move’ or ‘resist’ or ‘flicker’?
Well, maybe they can’t.
But if that metaphor doesn’t resonate with you, you might need to up your introversion game.
Thoughts have a shape, colour, energy, movement and location to them. If you’re not fully away of all these for all your thoughts (and I certainly aren’t), then you’re missing something from your own experience.
It might be the answer to those troubling or confusing thoughts.
Or the key to having those amazing moments where you radiate confidence, enthusiasm and creativity.
And a dozen other things you can’t even imagine yet.
There are many ways to interface with your mind like this.
Here is, in my biased opinion, the best:
https://guided-thought.com/downloads/unlock-vault-self-hypnosis/
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What’s too boring for content marketing?
The idea with content marketing is you create something useful and entertaining. Then at some stage you slip in some sales and a call to action.
This content could be an article, like this, or a podcast, photo… heck, it could even be a video game. It’s your chance to be creative.
But what if your business is… well, boring?
What if you provide a valuable, necessary service that’s dull as mud to talk about?
It doesn’t matter - anything can be made interesting.
Yes, even the most tedious, uninteresting details of your business.
You might not believe me, which is fine. After all, who am I? Sure, I’m an experienced, handsome and well trained content marketer, but I’m hardly a global brand or anything.
Then let’s turn to a brand that is.
GE, who you may have heard of, has a pretty cool content marketing strategy. Their Instagram account overflows with awesome photos of really cool equipment.
Jet engines, solar panels and wind turbines.
Which, hey, are all impressive things.
But not all the photos are that grand. Plenty, especially earlier on, were much more mundane.
Think warehouses, forklifts and packaging.
What could be more boring than storage and shipping? Important, yes, but hardly adrenaline-inducing subjects.
And yet, GE made it work. Beautiful photos of mundane things make for great content.
You can do the same. All it takes is a little creativity.
Anyway, enough of that.
No matter how you run your business, there’s time and space for content marketing. If you’d like the bounce some ideas off me, feel free to reach out:
https://battenandking.com/services/
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I’m sorry, the world is your what now?
It’s a strange expression, ‘the world is your oyster’. I think I get the sediment.
Uh, sentiment.
Because the world can seem like a tough, brittle place, but inside is an allegedly delicious sea creature.
Or maybe the world takes an irrelevant speck of sand and turns it into a beautiful pearl.
Either way, I’m not sure I agree.
Although that’s nice and all, it also misses the point.
Because the world can take anything, not just a bit of grit. It can take a natural resource, an idea, a tragedy, a community and work with that.
And it can turn those into anything - not just pearls.
Something beautiful, sure.
Or something inspiring.
Or something useful - maybe even lifesaving.
The point is the world isn’t your oyster. No, it’s your molecular dissembler. It can handle anything you give it.
And there’s nothing special about the world.
Because there is something special about it.
It’s made of people - people like you.
So if the world can transform anything into anything, then so can you. Your brain, after all, has hundreds of billions of neurons. Each neuron can have several, even dozens of connections or more. It’s a web of complexity much more intricate than a mere planetary civilisation.
When someone tells you the world is your oyster, you can take it or leave it. Because who cares about worlds and pearls when you have you?
And as transcendent as you are, there’s always room for improvement.
Luckily, personal growth doesn’t have to be hard.
In fact, it can be as easy as dozing.
That’s the great thing about hypnotic guided meditations. All you need is to sit back, listen and let the changes unfold within you.
What change do you want today?
Deep relaxation.
Confidence.
Focus.
Clarity and creativity.
All of that, and more, are waiting for you to begin.
So begin because it’s never too early to start growing:
https://guided-thought.com/awakened-thought/
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What’s even more valuable than value?
Here’s a pretty common mistake for new marketers to fall into. Most experienced marketers avoid this one. Not all, but most.
But I wonder how many learned the hard way.
Because I hear a lot of marketing folk saying “add value, add value. Add value!”
It’s terrible advice, because someone new might interpret that wrong. They might read that and think they need to, you know, add value to their marketing.
So they start giving away valuable information for free.
This is particularly common with content marketers. After all, if your content lacks value, then why is anyone reading it?
Here’s the thing, though…
Blindly giving out value doesn’t help your sales.
In fact, it could hurt them.
Have a look at what experienced marketers do. Their copy is interesting, engaging and persuasive. And it might contain a little bit of value - a helpful tip, perhaps.
But that’s not the main thing that’s going on.
That value is a subtle note, like a hint of spice in a complex stew. It doesn’t take much for spice to become too much, and it’s the same with value.
This is why people say to add value to their marketing. People like a little sample, a taste, some proof you know what you’re talking about.
But don’t make the mistake of giving away too much for free.
Because value is only useful for you when you add something else to the mix. Another spice to offset the value’s flavour.
Have none of this and your marketing will be bland and unappealing.
Yes, even if you’re giving away million-dollar secrets to anyone who reads.
People will read and go no further. Why would they? All of a sudden, your billion-dollar secrets - the really good stuff - doesn’t seem that interesting.
And yet there’s one thing that can make any offer much more enticing. In fact, you need to be careful with this. Use this wrong and you’ll overhype your offer, leading to refunds and complaints.
It’s something all the great marketers use.
And it’s something I’ve learned from them.
And I’m happy to share it with you. I’ll design a kick-arse marketing strategy that weaves this - plus dozens of other neat little things - into it.
I’ll explain how it works, how to use it and how to talk to whoever handles your marketing about it.
All you need to do is get started:
https://battenandking.com/services/
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