The best lifehack I discovered since ’00

But before I can share it with you, here’s some context you need:

See, if you’ve been on my list for any reasonable amount of time, you’ll probably know I’m big on bouldering. I try to go bouldering at least once a week… unless I’ve got injuries and my physical therapist forbids me to.

Anyway.

Last week I finally got myself a hangboard—a wooden training instrument with specific sized holes to train yourself to hang on to small ledges with anywhere from all 5 to 2 fingers per hand.

A great and useful tool.

In my case, I mounted it above the door of my room where I work, read, sleep, relax, and more than occasionally waste some time—I’m in there a lot.

I also enter and leave a lot, whether it’s to get something to drink, to eat, to go to the toilet, to go on a walk, to the gym, talk to people, whatever it is.

So my new lifehack?

Simple.

Every time I either enter or leave through my door I have to use the hangboard at least once.

It’s the easiest thing ever. It takes all but 5 seconds and it’s always “on the way” to whatever I want to do.

The result?

I get tons of practice and training in without even thinking about it, let alone even realizing I’m “training”.

Now I don’t know how this might be useful in your life, but what I do know is that you could use this same strategy to force yourself to write a small opening line (or a subject line) to an email everytime you think of an idea and want to write it down.

You want to write it down anyway, so why not practice creating more curiosity in your writing?

Anyway.

Another way to learn how to create more curiosity in your writing and improve your persuasiveness is by checking out Email Valhalla here: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla

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Let me take you down memory lane

It’s not Thursday today, but I was in a nostalgic mood and thought it time for a throwback.

More precisely, I went back and looked at one of the very first “daily emails” I wrote.

Here it is:

===

Look.

If you had one shot.

Or one opportunity.

To seize everything you ever wanted.

One moment.

Would you capture it?

Or just let it slip?

Yes I've just quoted Eminem.

Why?

Because I'm a big fan first of all.

But also because I need to remind myself of this way too often.

I'm working towards building my dream life every single day.

And it feels good.

Too good sometimes.

I'm working so hard to reach a certain milestone.

And when I reach it? I have to celebrate ofcourse.

But that celebration can become dangerous.

I become complacent. I stop putting in the same level of effort that got me here.

I need to become aware of the fact that the race isn't over. Far from it.

There's still so much more to do.

I have to remind myself to keep on the lookout. On the lookout for great opportunities to come along.

And most importantly. To jump on them as soon as I can. No hesitation.

Opportunities that can change your life are rare to find. Don't let them get away from you.

===

It then goes on to promote my consulting calls.

But the content of the email itself isn’t important right now. What’s important is that I hope you can clearly see how my emails today differ with the ones I was writing a year ago—and how much better my emails are today.

Goes to show you the power of consistent practice.

Anyway.

If you’d like to get your consistent practice in as well and master the art of daily email writing, then check out Email Valhalla here: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla

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Your daily reminder

If there’s anything I learned about email marketing it’s the following:

To get people to do anything, you need to remind them as often as you possibly can.

So with that said.

Here’s a reminder to you that I’ll do a copy critique for up to 2 of any emails of your choice if you buy Email Valhalla in the next 24 hours (or if you’ve already bought it previously).

Simply reply to this email with whatever you want me to critique and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.

Here’s the link to check out Email Valhalla: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla

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My keyboard stopped orking

I used to be an avid gamer.

I’m talking 10+ hours a day (or however many hours of free time I had available that day) for weeks, months, and years on end.

These days I still like to dabble in the occasional video game—it’s part of my job in some way and helps me in the pursuit of my curiosity and content creation endeavors—but it’s nowhere the same amount as I used to.

Still, it left me with many valuable experiences, and insights, not to mention social skills and English language proficiency (I taught myself how to read, speak, and write English from a young age through video games—true story) and a unique frame of mind about how I see and approach the world that I wouldn’t have if it weren’t for my years of gaming.

Some other things I gained are the tools and equipment.

One of which is a mechanical Corsair gaming keyboard—something that makes writing a simple email a lot more fun.

But with a mechanical keyboard comes the problem that once in a while one of the switches (the things underneath the keys that push down when you press them and spring back up when you release the key) stop working.

I had one such faulty key a few days ago.

So there I was, without a working ‘w’ key.

The solution?

Take apart my entire keyboard, unscrew a dozen of screws, dismantle it piece by piece, remove the switches, see why it’s not working, try to come up with something to fix it.

Long story short, I got it working again.

Now it was time to reassemble my keyboard.

But just then I happened to get stuck when it came time to screwing the screw in the right places. Some wouldn’t fit and others fit too easily. I was stumped for a while until I realized the keyboard used 2 different size screws, yet the difference was so small it was hardly visible.

After figuring this out I easily got the right screw in the right places on got the keyboard together and working once again.

Moral of the story is, sometimes you’re doing everything just right, only to have used a wrong-sized screw in the wrong place and nothing works.

That’s often the case when it comes to writing copy, and more specifically email copy, as well.

I’ve had plenty of emails that bombed early in my career only to try that same email again a year later, with just one or two small revisions, and suddenly they turned into top-performing emails that earned me anywhere from $500 to $1,000 per email.

The difficult part is realizing you’re working with 2 different-sized screws.

So to help you out, I’m doing something I’ve never done nor advertised publicly yet, something I’ve only done with clients behind closed doors (and with wonderful success stories).

And I’ll do it entirely for FREE.

Well, more or less. I’ll do it for free for everyone who’s bought Email Valhalla.

Here’s what I’ll do:

If you own Email Valhalla (whether you bought it 2 months ago or you buy it today), you may send me up to 2 of your emails for me to critique. I’ll tell you what I like, what I don’t like, where you should pay more attention to, how you can improve your emails, and most importantly, how you can revise your email to generate more sales, clients, clicks, opt-ins, referrals, or whatever your goal is.

There’s only one condition:

You have to send me your 2 pieces of email copy within the next 48 hours for me to critique your copy.

It can be anything, an email you’ve previously sent out for example or a new one you’re planning to send as a standalone or ones that’s part of an upcoming launch—whatever you want.

Anyway.

If you don’t have Email Valhalla yet and you’d like me to critique your email copy, then get it here today: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla

PS:

Once again, here’s what to do:

  1. Make sure you’ve bought Email Valhalla previously or buy it today

  2. Send me up to 2 emails you’d like me to critique within the next 48 hours

  3. ???

  4. Receive my copy critique and use that to write better emails in the future that’ll help you get paid.

Final time, here’s the link to get Email Valhalla: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla

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Why are all dwarves Scottish?

So here’s a question for you.

If you’re anything like me—an avid enjoyer of fantasy—you might have noticed how almost all dwarves in popular media nowadays get portrayed as Scottish.

(Something that’s, as I’ve recently learned, not unique to just dwarves, Vikings often get the same treatment in modern media—just look at How To Train Your Dragon).

But why?

I thought about this just a few days ago when, for both educational and inspirational reasons, I started playing The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt for the first time ever (yes I know, shame on me, should’ve played it already a long time ago).

In the game, you’ll come across many species, including dwarves, which are all portrayed as Scots.

This isn’t the only case, far from it.

At first, you might rightly want to point fingers at Tolkien’s Lord of The Rings—like almost every fantasy trope out there.

Simply watch the films and you’ll confirm that idea.

Except, Dwarves were never mentioned or hinted to be Scottish in Tolkien’s original books. If anything, they appeared to be Jewish more than anything else.

So where do you go looking for historical fantasy influences if not for Tolkien’s works?

That’s right, Gary Gygax’s Dungeons & Dragons.

And you’d be mostly correct.

It so turns out that the Scottish Dwarf can be traced back to early D&D novels. Some sources say Gary Gygax was influenced by yet another work of fiction a few decades before there was any mention of Dungeon & Dragons at all.

But that’s truly the end of our little rabbit hole.

Either way.

If someone mentions Dwarves in today’s day and age, chances are you’ll think of a short, red-headed, somewhat chubby, little fellow, going around, throwing out insults with his Scottish accent while wielding either an axe or a pickaxe in his hand.

Because as everyone knows…

If a dwarf ain’t a blacksmith or a miner, he ain’t no dwarf.

And that’s all because of one man who knew what he wanted to do, was passionate about his work, didn’t let anyone else tell them what he could or couldn’t do, and wouldn’t shut up about it until he was sure everyone knew what he was working on—and even then he’d keep on talking about it day after day, because that’s how much he enjoyed it.

Goes to show you the power of persistently sharing your work and talking about your interests.

As far as that goes nowadays, there’s simply no better way to do so than through daily email.

To learn more about how to go about writing daily emails, click here: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla

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Am I a Dan Koe copycat?

Many moons ago I received a message from a reader telling me how my writing is “like Dan Koe, but CLEAR!”

That was a sign I was doing at least something right.

Since then my writing has evolved a lot—as everything you do should do if you're actually growing—and it differs immensely from Dan's writing now.

But I still like to look back at this message with a smile on my face.

Partly to stroke my ego.

But more importantly, to see how far I've come in 1) emulating and incorporating ideas from people I admire (or used to admire at the time) and 2) how I evolved and incorporated everything I've learned into my own style, my own writing, my own creations.

Starting out as a "me too" business is a great starting point.

Staying one isn't.

And the best way to “find your voice” is by writing a lot and writing often.

It helps if that writing practice is as fun as it can be—something I’m currently writing a new course about, which you’ll hear more about soon.

As for now.

Learn how to write better emails (ones that sound more like ‘you’) with Email Valhalla.

Check it out here: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla

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To book or not to book

Over the past two years, I’ve built quite a book collection.

Almost to the point where I need to buy a whole new bookcase just to store all of them—and I thought this one would last me a lifetime already.

Still I’ve already learned lots of things, useful consequences, of owning physical books.

For one, I find myself picking up books I’ve already read and flipping through pages I’ve marked every few days.

This helps me a lot with coming up with ideas to write about, but also allows me to develop a deeper understanding of difficult topics simply because of the frequent repetition.

Because as you may (or may not) know, people learn best by repetition.

So that got me wondering.

That new writing course I’m thinking about—the one I talked about in yesterday’s email with the idea of “How to make writing fun, easy, and enjoyable (while writing faster than ever before)”.

Well, why not create it in book form?

I love books. They’re useful, easy to go through (you can take them with you wherever you go), and can be strategically placed in sight to help you pick them up once in a while and learn through repetition.

Long story short.

I found books to be one of the best formats for educational content.

Plus, I’d force myself to learn how to create and publish a book, something I’m planning on doing eventually anyway, so why not learn it now?

Not sure if that’s actually what’s going to happen.

But thought I’d share it with you.

In the meantime, check out Email Valhalla here for more of the good stuff: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla

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How ideas (and offers) come to fruition

This morning I got up and, as usual, went to my desk, powered on my PC, and started reading through my long list of potential topics and valuable ideas to write today’s email about.

But then, out of nowhere, I remembered a conversation I had last year with a friend and reader of mine (not sure he wants me naming him).

He messaged me—out of the blue—and asked whether I had a course about writing emails.

(I’ll paraphrase this to the best of my ability, since, you know, it’s been a while)

“Uh, yeah I do, that’s kind of my main thing—I’ve got two different ones, actually,” I answered.

“No, no. I mean a course teaching how to do the actual writing,” he replied. “How to get up each morning and put your pen on the paper or your fingers on the keyboard. How to make a daily habit out of it. How to keep it fun and exciting. See, you’re one of the best people I know to talk about this stuff because almost no one writes as much as you do, and definitely not with the same passion and enjoyment as you.”

Now, I wasn’t quite convinced of the idea at the time.

I said it was intriguing and wrote it down on my long list of interesting ideas to think about, but it’s been there ever since and I never gave it another thought.

That’s until today…

The idea came back to me after when in the past 2 weeks a few readers told me they had trouble writing emails and/or content. Some mentioned they didn’t have the time to do so, others said they just didn’t have the inspiration or the discipline to get the job done.

All of this combined made me realize how much I could help by creating a product such as this one.

As for the name, the design, the format, the delivery, the main selling point, or even the chapters of the course itself, I have little to nothing.

All I have is a seed in my mind shouting “How to make writing fun, easy, and enjoyable (while writing faster than ever before)” and I shall water and care for this seed for the next few weeks to see what wonderful exotic plant will come out of it.

In the meantime, if you want to master the art of email marketing or how to grow your own email list and sell your own products, then check out Email Valhalla for more.

Click here to learn more: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla

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First impressions matter

In came the following message via LinkedIn a couple of days ago from a loyal reader:

===

“… I still show your welcome email to clients as an example of personality infused welcome sequencing.

Nuff respect.”

===

The guy’s clients in question?

7+ figure CEOs looking to grow and transform their personal brands.

Goes to show you the power of making a good first impression.

Anyway.

If you’d like to learn how to level up your welcome email, or your whole email game in general, then check out Email Valhalla here: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla

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Do you have your own email list/newsletter?

I might have something exciting for you.

But first.

Do you have an email list or newsletter you own? One you write to regularly (at least once a week) and with at least 500 subscribers?

If so, I’ve got an amazing opportunity for you that’ll benefit us both—assuming you’re interested in growing your list, at least.

And no, I’m not trying to sell you anything. There’s no paying involved anywhere.

If you have such a list and are curious to know more, simply reply to this email explaining what type of email list you own and I’ll tell you everything.

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