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

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

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

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

So says musical genius Jacob Collier.

“Every note can be played with every chord, as long as you find the right ideas and consequences to support it with.” (paraphrased)

He’s not just spouting BS either.

He proves the statement to be true time and time again.

Which goes against almost everything most people have ever been taught about music (if they’ve even been taught anything to begin with).

But this isn’t just for music. This goes for almost everything you do, every product you build, every service you launch, every art piece you create, every story you write, and even personal flaws you might have as a person or a business.

Nothing is ever “wrong”.

You just haven’t found the right ideas or scenarios to apply them to.

List all of your so-called “flaws” and find a way to turn them into a strength. Take away all of the ammunition your opposition might have, remove potential buyer’s objections, and better specify your target market (which includes repelling non-suitable buyers).

As for an example.

My flagship course, Email Valhalla, is an all-text, no video, no audio, no nothing other than plain-text course.

Some might call this a flaw.

I don’t agree.

I made the deliberate choice to keep it all text.

First, I simply don’t enjoy creating video or audio content. Writing is my bread and butter. And if I enjoy writing more, then you’ll enjoy reading it more as well (not to mention the fact that the content will simply be more valuable, more though-true, better put together, and of a much higher quality than it would be if it were in any other format).

Secondly, I find it hard and difficult to learn from video courses. They take too long to go through, it’s hard to stay focused since you’re easily deceived into believing you’re listening and studying while you’re mind is drifting off and not really focusing on the true meaning of what is being said.

Whereas text requires you to actively read (and think about) what is written.

This leads to me getting better results out of books and written courses than out of video courses or webinars.

And, assuming I do a good job of attracting like-minded and similar people, I’m guessing that’s the case for most of my readers, including you, as well (not to mention that my main form of communication, email, is a written medium).

So that’s that.

The flaw of it being only a written course isn’t so much of a flaw anymore, now is it?

Anyway, if you liked what I said, you might want to check out Email Valhalla and get it for yourself here: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla

I rewatched Logan—the Wolverine movie—a few days ago.

And while this isn’t the first time I realized it, it made me think about how much your current state of mind or current interests and curiosities shape the way you look at everything you see and hear.

Here’s what I mean.

The movie revolves around Wolverine—an otherwise insane mutant whose abilities include having razor-sharp claws he can extend and retract out of his knuckles at will as well as super-human regeneration, aka, everything he gets wounded, it’ll heal almost immediately—making him virtually unkillable.

But that’s not what we see in Logan.

No in the film we learn that the Adamantium—the metal that’s fused with his skeleton and what his claws are made from—inside his body has been poisoning him, making it so he’s slower, weaker, slowly dying, and only barely regenerates.

What does this have to do with anything?

See, this time around while watching, my mind immediately went “oh wow, that’s a great marketing lesson”.

Let me explain.

When building a business, if done right, you can make it so you can steal Wolverine’s power of super-human regeneration, or in business terms, you can survive, recover from, potentially even thrive, from everything that happens to you if you’ve got your foundations right (such as building a great relationship with your customers, backing up your list, and making sure you stay in constant contact through email).

But, and this is a big but.

You can still get sick, your business can still deteriorate and lose its powers…

When the disease finds itself on the inside.

If you’re making mistakes, if you’re messing things up, if you don’t understand your business fundamentals or your vital marketing principles, then your business doesn’t stand a chance.

So there.

A lesson from the man, the myth, the legend, Logan, The Wolverine, himself.

Anyway.

One of the best ways I know, according to my biased, but experienced and more-than-qualified self, is through my flagship course Email Valhalla.

Click this link for more information: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla/

I once heard someone (who's a lot smarter than me) say "Every business is in the marketing business".

Well, so far I've never met a business, no matter how small or how big, where that's not the case.

No matter how good your work is, you need people to know about it or else you'll be doomed to remain a starving artist forever.

Another thing I discovered recently is that many people, my younger self included, have this wrong belief that marketing is 1) either something extremely difficult and requires talent or 2) something that takes a lot of time and distracts you from what you actually want to create or, worst of all, 3) believe marketing is wrong.

All of which couldn't be further from the truth.

I've never met anyone who wasn't "talented" enough to make it work. Hell, I'm confident I could take my entire framework and teach it to a 10-year-old in less than a week.

More.

I've worked with many people, some even single parents with 3 toddlers running around, who used my entire framework while only requiring 20 minutes a day to make it work.

And lastly…

If you truly have an amazing product, something that speaks to people on a whole different level, something everyone should know about because it'll improve their life, whether physically or mentally, then it's your duty to market it as hard as you possibly can.

If anything, it'd be unethical NOT to make other people aware of it.

That said, marketing isn’t for everyone—or at least not the way I do it.

See, how I go about things requires genuine curiosity and interest in your customers. You need to be able to sit down and truly think and empathize with your customers. If you're not passionate about what you do—if you can't talk about it for hours on end—this won't work out.

Why?

Because I don't work with copy-pastable templates or formulas. I work in a way that humanizes things and relies on your personal curiosity and genuine passion.

Anyway.

If you’d like to learn more about how I approach marketing, especially email marketing, then you might want to check out Email Valhalla here: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla

I know I’m not new or original with this one, but one of the best skills you can develop to aid your marketing efforts is the art of storytelling.

People have been telling stories for thousands of years (the oldest recorded story in history—The Epic of Gilgamesh—is over 4,000 years old).

Stories are how we learn and remember.

We evolved that way.

There’s simply nothing more entertaining than a well-told story.

More.

We all know how to tell stories. We do it all the time.

When you’re talking about your vacation to friends and family, gossiping about that awful customer experience you had to your co-workers, or when you made up that story as to why you couldn’t participate in swimming class to Miss Stephanie, your 5th-grade science teacher.

That’s all storytelling.

So it amused me when, a few days ago, I came across a bunch of people online discussing the best storytelling books and courses to learn from.

Why?

Well, the best way to learn (or rather improve, because you already know how) to tell stories isn’t by buying books on courses on the topic. It’s by practicing, by simply telling (or writing) stories each and every day.

If that’s not enough for you.

Then the second best way is to immerse yourself in great storytelling, which is easily done by watching great movies, reading more novels, and, if this is your thing (which it definitely is for me), going through and playing the best story-driven video games and experiencing the rollercoaster of emotions it makes you feel.

I’ve picked up a consistent daily reading habit since late 2022 and have been (re)watching a lot of incredible classics for the past few months, as well as re-visiting some of the all-time best video game releases in the last decade.

Now I’m not saying you should do the same.

I’m interested in game development, for one, so this works out.

But find the medium you enjoy and truly immerse yourself in it. By doing so you’ll essentially pick up the skill of storytelling through osmosis.

That is, as long as you consistently practice telling stories while you’re immersing yourself in them.

And the best way I found to easily and enjoyably share stories with other people is by writing daily emails—not to mention the fact it’ll also get you paid.

Anyway.

Check out Email Valhalla here to learn more about daily email writing: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla

You want freedom over your time.

You want the freedom to work from wherever you want, with whomever you want, whenever you want, and on whatever you want.

But that doesn’t mean sitting on the beach all day drinking cocktails all day.

That gets boring quickly.

No, you do want to work. But you want work that allows for creative self-expression and interesting challenges to overcome. To keep pushing yourself further, to achieve more today than you achieved yesterday.

As the old adage says, it’s about the journey, not the destination—yet it never feels as such.

In short.

You don’t want less work.

You want less meaningless work so you can replace that time with more meaningful work. You might not even call it “work” anymore when it comes down to it.

But that’s what it is.

Work you truly and utterly enjoy doing.

And the only way to get there, and more importantly, stay there, in my humble and accurate opinion, is to start building something of your own. Develop your own skillset, build your own offers, grow your own customer base, and become your own employer (this includes working as a freelancer if that’s what you enjoy most).

Then, and only then, when you’re truly free to work on whatever you want while getting paid more than enough—which is only to rid yourself of all the symptoms that come with not being paid enough, not the goal in and of itself—then and only then will you truly live the life you’ve always dreamt of living, even if you don’t realize it yet.

You don’t want money.

You want the freedom of self-expression and meaningful work.

So stop wasting any more time and get to it.

And if I can recommend you a immensely valuable skill to learn that’ll be incredibly useful to you, no matter what path you’re going down, then it’ll be to learn and master the fundamentals of marketing, and more importantly, email marketing. Because that’s going to enable everything else you’ll be doing.

Anyway.

To learn more about my solution to master email marketing fundamentals, check out Email Valhalla here: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla

Yesterday I went to a basketball game for the first time in my life.

In fact, this was the first time I ever went to a live sporting event in a big stadium (aside from the martial arts ones I participated in myself when I was younger).

And man what an experience that was.

I found it absolutely astonishing how, during the whole 2 hours I was there, there was always something going on. Most of the time it was the basketball game in question—obviously.

But even when they called a timeout, during the mid-time break, and even during the 10-second windows when the ref called some mistake and they had to reset the game/give someone a free throw, at every single point, they’d tactically entertain the viewer with something else.

Whether it was a 10-second piece of hype music, asking the supporters to clap their hands, or the cheerleaders giving a 30-second performance, there wasn’t a single moment to feel bored.

Now I know next to nothing about sports (to be frank, it’s a miracle I even went to this event, but that’s a story for another time).

But I imagine this level of constant entertainment wasn’t invented/discovered/created from the start. There have been many breakthroughs throughout the years to become as competent at entertaining people as this event proved to be—with all of it’s different moving parts of the system combined.

Truly a masterclass of entertainment.

And I’d recommend everyone to go to events like these more often themselves to learn how to become a great entertainer—an invaluable skill when it comes to marketing.

Anyway.

That’s enough for today.

If you’d like to start improving your entertainment game today instead of waiting to go and see some local sporting event (or watch one on television), then definitely check out Email Valhalla to get yourself started.

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