Jump over the river, fall into the mud

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Yesterday I had another long walk scheduled.

More precisely, I mapped out a nice relaxing route, mostly through parks and the occasional forest where I live. The total length was 30 kilometers—that’s about 18.5 miles or around 16,745 refrigerators for the hamburger people—and would take me about 7 hours to complete, including the occasional eating or toilet break.

And so I went on my way in the early afternoon.

It all started well. Amazing scenery, great weather, no prediction of rain at all that day, sunny and warm, but not too warm that I was sweating all the time. Everything was just right.

An hour into my walk I ended up in one of those small forests.

I looked at my phone to figure out my directions, and Google Maps told me to turn right, over the bridge to cross the river, and continue walking in the same direction.

Except…

There wasn’t a bridge in sight.

I went back and forth a few times, thinking I must have passed it somewhere and it might be hidden in between some bushes. But no luck.

Luckily, the river was small enough for me to consider just jumping over it. It was a big enough river to make it a challenging jump, but the ground were I was walking was also a bit higher than the ground on the other side, so I had some luck there.

After a (rather short) bit of thinking it over, I decided to just go for it and jump over. With all the sports and physical activity I do, a little jump over the river shouldn’t hold me back, should it?

Anyway.

I got ready, took a step back to get myself a running start, and just went for it, not thinking about the consequences at all.

Luckily I made it over the river, all in one piece, and without getting wet.

Except, I now found myself a foot deep in what apparently turned out to be a wet and barely solid underground of mud (which wasn’t clear just by looking at it). So much so that I actually lost my shoe right after I jumped and tried to continue walking.

So there I was, happy that I made it and didn’t get wet, yet my feet, shoes, and bottom of my trousers were covered in mud.

Now, I’m not trying to dissuade you from jumping over rivers—I’d happily do it again. But this experience did bring up a good point… No matter how much you prepare, or how well you plan everything out, there will always be stuff you didn’t (or couldn’t) account for that’ll mess up your plan and alter the course you’ll have to take.

Luckily, as the great Matt Furey used to say “Nothing bad ever happens to a writer”.

Read it again and think about why that might be the case—powerful stuff.

And that’s why I’ll highly recommend you to check out Email Valhalla so you can learn how to write better emails that’ll get you paid (and so nothing bad will ever happen to you).

Click here for more information about Email Valhalla: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla


What does it mean for something to be “fun”?

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For the past week, I’ve been back on track, writing more than I have been in quite a while.

More specifically, I’ve been working on what will most likely become a physical book, with the preliminary placeholder title of “How to Make Writing Fun, Simple, and Enjoyable (while writing faster than ever before)”.

It’s been a lot of fun, so far (meta, right?).

But the whole premise got me thinking: What does it mean for something to be considered “fun”?

For starters, and contrary to popular belief, if something’s “easy” (that is, entirely without a lack of challenge), then I’ve got it on good authority it ain’t going to be a “fun” experience. There’s simply nothing LESS FUN than boring activities.

This is what many of these “I want to sit on a beach and drink pina coladas all day” types of people miss.

They only say such stuff because they currently aren’t capable of doing so (as humans we tend to want the things we cannot have—such is the cruel way of life). In fact, if they could, chances are they wouldn’t even want to. Maybe you’d enjoy it for a day or two, sure. But after three, four, let alone a full week, you’d be entirely sick of it and you’d crave for some challenge, some excitement in your life, something to dedicate yourself to and actually work on achieving something worthwhile and meaningful (what’s considered meaningful differs from person to person).

But what does this have to do with writing?

You see, if I could hand you a cheat sheet with the exact steps to take, the exact actions to make, and the exact buttons to press (such a cheat sheet doesn’t exist, but let’s assume it does), then writing for you would be the most boring task you could think of.

It’d be monotonous, repetitive, factory-like work which, no matter how much results or how good of an outcome would come of it, none of it would bring you fun, much less true joy.

So, if making the practice “easy” doesn’t do the trick, then what will?

Well, that’s what I’ve been thinking about—intensely. And I finally figured it out.

See, everything that’s fun can be boiled down to 2 ingredients.

And once you know these two it’s easy to inject them into almost every single activity you do (making it so you can turn almost any activity or experience into one that’s as fun as it can get).

Imagine how much more work you’d get done if what you were doing! You wouldn’t even consider it “work” anymore at that point.

So what are those two ingredients?

Well, to figure that out you’ll have to buy my book when it releases.

Until then, why don’t you check out Product Creation Made Easy? I’m using almost the exact same method I teach in there to write (and eventually launch or publish) the book. I say almost, because as with anything, there’s always room for adaptation and improvisation—which I show you how to do in the course as well.

Anyway.

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


This 5-star testimonial inspired a rant about product creation

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Once upon a time, I received the following email from a long-time reader who got his hands on my Product Creation Made Easy framework (and who prefers not to share his full name):

===

I have a couple more items to go but just wanted to let you know that I've had a number of 'a-ha!' moments.

Favorites include: Prevalidation and minimal viable product and ideation.

Another thing that I personally appreciate is that it's not spread out in 50 modules. This hits the important things and gets me started – great for busy folks like me.

So far – easy 5 star product.

===

I’m partly sharing this to boost my ego and tell you about my confirmed 5-star-worthy product and how it helps people create profitable digital products in 21 days or less from start to finish—that is, from ideation, all the way to launch and beyond.

But that’s not all.

More importantly, I’m sharing this to show the importance of knowing who your customers are. In my case, that’s, more often than not, busy folk working a job, taking care of their kids or other family members, while using almost all of their remaining hours to work on their creative passions and build something that’s uniquely theirs.

More.

Whether you’re writing a book, recording an album, working on a video game, running a fitness business, tending to your garden, improving your cake-baking skills, or getting your digital marketing agency up and running (all of which are real examples of people I spoke with on my list)… When creating a product, any type of product, a written digital course, a mentorship program, poetry, a card game, or a limited-time small-scale rollercoaster experience in your backyard, when creating such a product, all the principles are—and will always remain—the same.

Now, some guru’s or experts you follow might not like to say or hear this.

But that’s only so they can feed (and sell) you the same crap over and over again by disguising it as somehow “being different” or “only working in this market”.

Which is nothing more than a pile of crap.

Everything inside Product Creation Made Easy is as evergreen as it gets. It’s always been useful, it will always remain useful, and it’s as applicable in your market as it is in the next guy’s.

The only downside?

There’s no hand-holding or spoon-feeding.

I give you the tools, the reasoning, the examples, and the know-how to create your next (or even your first) profitable digital product in 21 days or less. But I can’t create it for you. That’s something you’ll have to do yourself.

It’s as they say, you can bring a horse to water but you can't make it drink.

Anyway.

Here’s the water, go and drink some: https://alexvandromme.com/product


AI is a poor man’s solution

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If you’re thinking about using AI to aid your writing—that is, to have it write for you, regardless if it’s the entire first draft or just a single sentence—then you’re better off rethinking your life choices.

Now, I don’t say this to be rude.

In fact, I say this to help you as best I can.

See, I say this to help you become a prolific writer, not by making you as productive as you can in the least amount of time, but by making writing such a fun and enjoyable experience for you that you’d do it whether you get paid or not.

So what’s wrong with AI?

Think about it like this:

Let’s say you’re a professional and experienced guitarist. Ever since you can remember you’ve been playing the guitar. You love every single second of it. Whenever you play it feels like heaven on Earth. You can’t get enough of it. It’s your one true passion and your biggest source of pride and accomplishment.

But now it’s time to write a new song, or a whole new album even.

Then suddenly, someone, doesn’t matter who, a friend or someone who you’ve never met at all, comes along and he or she offers to play the guitar in your new album so you have less work to do and can focus on putting out more albums in less time.

Chances are you’re not going to accept that offer—if anything you’re going to politely show them the door while laughing in their face about how stupid of an idea that was.

Not only would the quality and the feel of your work drop drastically (after all, everyone’s “touch” is unique and can’t be replaced, no matter how good someone tries to), let alone the sheer stupidity of outsourcing that which you enjoy doing.

This is what you’re doing by letting AI do the work.

You’re creating sub-par content, which, believe me, people WILL notice. They might not realize exactly what’s going on, but they will feel that something’s different about your work—and not in a good way.

But even more importantly…

You’re not even giving yourself a chance to enjoy and come to love the process!

And for the love of everything that’s holy, don’t listen to the AI shmucks who tell you about how “AI is going to steal our jobs!!” and “You have to learn how to work together with AI or you’ll be left behind!!!!”.

If anything, they’re only projecting their own lack of skill, passion, and creativity onto the market.

Don’t get caught in the same trap as those bottom-of-the-barrel feeders. Stay clear of using AI to replace your writing.

And so it goes for coming to love the writing process.

Anyway, I haven’t finished my “How to make writing fun, easy, and enjoyable (while writing faster than ever before)” book yet. But check out Email Valhalla in the meantime if you want to learn how to write simple emails that keep getting you paid: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla

It ain’t about what you’ve got to offer.

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Instead, more often than not, it’s about how you paint that offer.

Sure I could tell you about how I’ve got a 12-module course that’ll teach you the ins and outs of product creation, without any of the laborious and time-consuming task of doing interviews, surveys, or any of the nonsense ‘market research’ methods.

I could go on and on about how every module is written with simplicity and clarity as the main focus. And how it takes less than 3 hours to go through while covering all three different phases of developing and selling a new product (I.e., ideation, creation, and launching) without leaving not a single important detail behind—yet still making it so easy even a 10-year-old could do it.

I could say that.

But would that be as impactful as telling a story about how almost everyone who went through my course, no matter their skill level, whether they were a course creation master, or had no prior experience creating any kind of content whatsoever—let alone having written even a single article anywhere—and applied my teachings told me how much they learned from the course… and more importantly… how fast and easily they made back their initial investment ten times over.

I’ll take my chances and say that way of saying it would have a bigger impact.

Anyway, while we’re on the topic.

Why don’t you check out my Product Creation Made Easy framework out?

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


The best lifehack I discovered since ’00

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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


Let me take you down memory lane

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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


Why are all dwarves Scottish?

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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


Am I a Dan Koe copycat?

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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


To book or not to book

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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