I’m in one or other of them. I’ve had a few beers and I’m not really sure of the difference.

I’ll ask the nearest clever looking Monacan. (Wow – Spell Check actually thinks that’s a word. Cool!)

I think he’ll tell me that Monaco is a country, whilst Monte Carlo is a town or district….

What I will tell you is that it’s beautiful, hot and sunny and that I’ve just won 20 Euros on Roulette.

The drinks are on me!!

Now… obviously we both know that this blog is the greatest blog in the world.

That’ a given.

But there are a other blogs that rock too. And today, before I head back to the bar to meet my rather exhuberant friends, I’m going to introduce you to a few of them.

But here’s the deal. I don’t want you reading these blogs, falling in love with their charistmatic writers, and forgetting all about me, leaving me sad and alone with no-one to hear my hystrionics.

No. Instead, you are going to go read these blogs, fall in love with their charismatic writers and think I rock even more for introducing you to such luxurious internet awesomeness.

Do we have a deal?

Good.

Now without further ado… let’s go.

My favorite blogs about writing, blogging and stuff

Copyblogger

This is one of those blogs that is so good that it makes me feel totally inadequate every time I visit.

It’s all about copywriting: the art of writing in a strategic, persuasive and compelling manner so that people will take action.

If you have a business on the internet then you should inhale this website. Eat it for dinner every day.

You’ll soon get more traffic, more subscribers, more sales and more money.

It’s so good it makes me sick.

Men with Pens

A brilliantly named website which is to receive its fair share of visitors looking for something  else altogether…

These guys are writers, freelancers, designers and entrepreneurs.

You’ll learn a lot from them.

ProBlogger

ProBlogger, by Darren Rowse, is the best resource on the internet about blogging, bar none.

Everything you ever need is here.

My favorite blogs about marketing and consumer behavior

Seth Godin’s Blog

Seth Godin is a marketing genius. His blog rocks too.

He dispenses bite size nuggets of insight which are both tasty, nurtitious and make you tons of money. Cool.

The Pyschology of Shopping

Learn all about why you buy what you buy.

Philip Graves, the writer of this blog, is probably the cleverest man in the world.

He has an awesome accent too. Check out the video on his front page.

My favorite blogs about sales and stuff

The Sales Eagles

No nonsense sales advice from two no-nonsense guys, Steve Chambers and Rob Northrup.

Go here for strategies that work.

Check out their personal blogs too. Click on their names to visit.

Duane Cunningham

Regular readers will know Duane. He’s into persuasion and sales.

I think he hawks timeshare for a living, but we don’t like to talk about that.

You go here for straight-talking inspiration. His blog posts are a blast. But be warned… Duane has a bizarre center alignment fetish.

My favourite coaching blog

A Daring Adventure

Tim Brownson is a British Life Coach, living in Florida.

His hilarious blog is full of advice that will help anyone to have a more awesome life.

My favorite blogs about health, meditation and general hippy stuff

Functional Solutions for Living

Anthony is my new health and meditation coach. His writing and inisghts kick butt.

He’s like a Zen Master you could go for a beer with.

DarrylPace.com

Darryl is an awesome dude.

If you want to lose weight, or you want to get totally stacked, then Darryl is your man.

John Ho’s Blog

John does a daily numeroscope.

It’s like a daily horoscope, but with numbers. It’s incredibly entertaining and John is a great guy.

I think Numerology is a load of rubbish, but I love John’s blog!

My favourte blogs about personal development, productivity etc…

Rock your Day

The writer of this blog, Dave Navarro, does not play guitar in Jane’s Addiction.

But he is one of the most productive people in the world. He’s fun too.

Go to his blog and you can learn to be productive and fun too.

KevinHogan.com

Kevin’s website isn’t really a blog, but it is updated with new articles every week and it’s very very good.

It looks like your dog chewed the pages of wikipedia and spat it out all over your screen. But the content is absolutely fantastic.

If you model Kevin’s dedication and work-ethic you’ll be running the world in a few years.

Warrior of Success

Lynn Lane is a gentle warrior.

He’s a great guy and he can help you lead a more purposeful life.

My favorite blog about dating and relationships

April Braswell

April is the nicest lady in the world.

If you follow her advice then you will be innundated with more love and great sex than you could possibly handle. You’ll have to give it away or get more storage or something.

That’s a guarantee.

My favorite pointless blog that amuses me

Men who look like old lesbians

Hmmm….

This is self explanatory, really.

The “this has taken bloody ages and I need to get back to the bar” list

(These are just as good as the others. They’re only down here because I’m tired of typing…)

Great Wealth – Become rich through statistics and economics.

www.donshepherd.me – Awesome photography

Neuro Performance and Health – Hippy health stuff

The Wind in Your Vagina – Hilarious DaddyBlog.

Urban Monk – Chilled out personal development

I know I’ve missed some really awsome blogs here.

If you’re reading and you have an awesome blog and I’ve missed you out of my list, then I’m very sorry.

It’s probably not because I don’t love your blog. It’s probably because I’m a bit tipsy!

Gotta dash…

Happy reading!

JJ Jalopy.

Being a Physics graduate and uber-nerd, this kind of thing makes me very excited.

So, if you were to say:

JJ. What are your 5 most read blog posts? And why do you think they were more popular than the others?

…then I would say…

#5 – 10 Simple Things That Will Immediately Increase Your Quality of Life

What is it? And why will you like it?

It’s an light-hearted list of 10 easily applicable things you could do right now to make your life rock a little more.

It’s amusing and (a little bit) helpful.

Why was it popular?

People love lists because they can scan them. Many of the most popular posts on the internet are in the format of a list.

Many of my posts go on and on and on and on.

This one doesn’t. It’s a nice bite size piece of internet fun.

I hawked it around Twitter a little bit and it got re-tweeted a few times. (That means that other people liked it and sent the link to their friends.)

Why did it do for me?

Yes. Thank you for asking.

I picked up 10 more RSS subscribers and 4 V.I.P. e-mail subscribers the day this post was published.

It helped to reinforce my brand message that learning should be fun.

#4 – How to Market Test your Business Idea in Under Ten Minutes

What is it? And why will you like it?

It’s a veritable Market Testing Kit in a box.

It’s a 7 minute video.

A slice of earth shattering value.

If you have an idea for an online business, run it through these tests. If it comes out the other side with 5 yeses then your idea has a great chance of being profitable.

If you do the things in the video, I’ll be expecting lots of praise and adulation when you make your first million. Thanks.

Why was it popular?

Because it’s bloody brilliant.

Because it’s a video. Lots of people like video on the internet. (I’d much rather read than watch video, to be honest.)

It got Dugg a few times. (That means people told other people it was awesome on the website Digg.com).

It was promoted on Twitter and Facebook. (Thanks everyone!)

I also flogged it to death in my Jalopy Gang V.I.P. Newsletter.

What did it do for me?

People got to see me and hear my funny accent.

I got the opportunity to connect with them in a new and powerful way. This is important.

It brought in a small amount of new traffic to my website from Digg and YouTube.

It reinforced my core brand theme of giving massive value. Gosh, I’m generous.

#3 - How to Write a Super Crazy Awesome Blog Post

What is it? And why will you like it?

It’s a how-to guide to writing blog posts which people will actually read and enjoy.

Why was it popular?

It’s a How-To guide. These are great blog fodder.

It has a good title, which explains exactly what it’s about and describes the tone of the piece.

This knocked about on Twitter a little bit. Some people thought it was funny and useful. Others thought it was an opinionated, naive and one-sided account of blogging. (I agree.) All attention is good attention in terms of generating new visitors.

Many of my readers are bloggers themselves. A few readers sent a link to this post to their friends and family.

This post was as viral as I’ve been in the last two months…

What did it do for me?

It brought me new fans – people who still read the blog today. (Hi there! Looking good!)

It reinforced my core brand themes of making learning fun and giving massive value.

I’d only written about ten blog posts at the point I wrote this. Acknowledging this in the post, I set myself up as an apologetic authority.

#2 – An Important Decision to be Made

What is it? And why will you like it?

It’s a challenge to bring yourself fully to the decisions you make in life – in particular your decision to start your own business, or not.

Why was it popular?

It underpins everything we talk about here.

It was the second most popular post on the site, despite having a really sucky title.

The reason? As one of my first and my most commented post, a link to it was always available from the front page of the website. (I have since removed this link.) This shows how effectively you can guide people to the content you want them to see.

What did it do for me?

It introduced my own personal story. It set the tone for the rest of the blog and helped to set the foundations for the brand.

#1 – How to fix your visual editor after a Wordpress 2.8 upgrade

What is it? And why will you like it?

Hmmm…. It’s a nerdtastic guide to fixing a common bug in a common piece of blog software. It has computer code in it and everything.

I don’t even understand half of it.

Why was it popular?

Lots of bloggers recently upgraded their Wordpress software to version 2.8 and encountered a problem with their visual editor.

I posted this on the day after the upgrade was released. I have been the second most popular google search result for Wordpress 2.8 Visual Editor for the last week and a half. This brings me a lot of traffic.

What did it do for me?

It wasn’t really… It was an interesting experiment in search engine optimization, but that’s about it.

It’s not impossible that, rather than fixing their problem, one of these visitors will stick around on my blog, realize it rocks and become a raving fan.

But it is unlikely.

It’s cool to look at the visitor graphs though!

Hope you enjoyed that little journey.

See you soon!

JJ Jalopy.

I was reading a well known productivity blog earlier today and it pissed me off.

It was 10 AM. I was on my 15th coffee of the day, working through last year’s to-do list. I’d eaten a Mars bar for breakfast cause I thought I didn’t have time to make anything else. My veins were protruding through my eyeballs. I felt confused, tired, overworked, uninspired.

And here was this blogger dude talking about how he walks bare feet on the beach every morning, meditates for hours a day, eats only raw food, plays with his kids all day and breezes through is to-do list in a calm and efficient flourish of Zen-like productivity!

Bully for him, I thought. There is little in the world more annoying than smug productivity advice.

It would be great to be like that, I thought. It really would.

But I have a boss who forces me to work late in the evening. I have a boss who interrupts me with work questions at all hours of the day. I have a boss who stops me from spending quality time with my family and friends.

He’s insensitive. He’s fickle. He fails to see the big picture. He bosses me around.

Yes, my boss is a jerk. 

My boss is me.

My boss is a jerk. My boss is me.

Ah, the perils of the home business owner…

One of the reasons we start a home business is to get away from the control of someone else.

No longer will I have to put up with that angry, irrational, unappreciative control freak who treats me like crap, we think.

And that’s great.

But it sucks if you then become that irrational unappreciative control freak and start treating yourself like crap.

Whoops.

In the Jalopy Gang Newsletter I sent out to my awesome V.I.P. list yesterday (sign-up at the top of the screen) I shared a great question to ask yourself throughout the day when you’re about to make a decision or take a new action, or enter a new environment. It was this:

Is this what being good and respectful to myself looks like?

Well… I’m an enormous hypocrite and I haven’t been asking myself this too often.

And if I had I certainly wouldn’t be eating Mars bars for breakfast…

So yes, it’s time to coach myself a little better.

See you soon!

JJ Jalopy.

P.S. Definition of Linkbait from seomoz.org: Link-worthy, Linkerati-Targeted Content.

P.P.S. Definition of Linkbait from JJ: This. Feel free to link the crap out of it. I won’t mind.

So Manchester United lost the football tonight.

Still… life goes on. Especially if you could care less about Manchester United.

Today I thought I’d share with you what I’m up to, and then send you away with a chocolate surprise as I get busy with aforementioned stuff.

You’re soon going to see a few changes around here:

A New Cleaner, Clearer Website Design

A new splash of paint.

There’s a ton of really awesome stuff on this website.

But it’s a right bitch to find it, and the layout of the site is rather confusing.

So I’ll be taking the time to sort that out. The new design will be:

• cleaner
• easier to read
• lighter
• whiter
• like fresh laundry on a summer day
• funner
• more JJ. (Oh yeah.)

If you come and visit and the site looks as if a child drew it on your screen with half-chewed crayons, then you probably caught me in the middle of upgrade limbo.

I know there are ways and means to update a website in such a way that the changeover is almost seamless from the visitor’s perspective. I also know we probably won’t bother ourselves with such folly.

So if it looks like crap, that’s why. It’ll get better. Honest.

More Really Cool Stuff.

I’m busy making really cool stuff for you. If you’ve been paying attention to my coaching marketing blueprint then you’ll know that the last step is:

Explode your Business. Get leverage on your time.

In my business, this means making cool stuff to help as many people as possible. There’s some really great free stuff coming up which I’ll make available to existing and new subscribers to my awesome Jalopy Gang newsletter, as well as some slightly-more-than-free-stuff that I’ll be revealing soon.

Some secret other stuff which is just like so totally cool it’ll make your eyes pop out and your head fall off, at which point you won’t mind so much about the eyes.

Yeah, some of that too. Subscribers will find out soon!

As I’m so busy, I’ll posting a bit less often on here from now on. Not a lot less, mind you. We’ll still hang out and laugh and learn together.

To make up for that – and as a present for being so lovely and reading down so far – I’m going to share my super awesome brownie recipe with you.  These are the best brownies in the whole world. Enjoy!

Here’s your shopping list. 

• 200g Butter
• 200g of the finest dark chocolate money can buy
• 100g of milk chocolate
• 50g of cocoa powder
• 275g of caster sugar
• 90g of flour
• 3 big eggs

This makes enough brownies to last a couple of hours, regardless of the number of people you have. They’re good. Really good.

Now the instructions. Pay attention!

Cut the butter and break the dark chocolate into cubes. Put them in a bowl. Rest the bowl on top of a saucepan filled about a third full with water. If the bowl touches the water then you either have an inappropriately shaped bowl or too much water – remedy the situation!

Now but the saucepan on a low heat and stir the butter and chocolate as it begins to melt. 

Once melted remove the bowl from the pan and allow the melted chocolate to cool.

As it cools, sieve the flour and cocoa powder into a bowl to remove any lumps.

Chop the milk chocolate into chunks with a knife or whatever garden implement you feel like misusing.

Put the eggs and sugar into a bowl and whisk like crazy until you get a nice fluffy sweet mixture. This mixture is delicious…

Now pour the melted (cool) chocolate over the fluffy eggy goo and fold it together with a spatula. Keep going in a figure of air so everything is the same lovely chocolate color. Be nice and gentle because we don’t want to get rid of the lovely fluffiness of the egg goo.

Now sift the cocoa and flour mixture on top of the chocolate goo. When it covers the top, fold the dry mixture into the goo. This will look horrible and dry at first, but bear with it. Keep going gently until you’ve folded in all the cocoa and flour and you end up with a fudgy, sticky consistency.

Finally, stir in the milk chocolate chunks. 

Stick the mixture into a shallow baking tin that you’ve prepared in whichever non-stick way you like. Make sure it covers the whole surface of the tin.

Whack it in the oven for about half an hour. You can tell when it’s ready because it won’t wobble in the middle when you shake it.

Now allow them to cool, chop them up and eat them.

They are best served with wine, coffee good music and great company.

TASTY!

See ya later, Alligator!

JJ Jalopy.

It’s a beautiful sunny day in Londontown and there’s a beer outside waiting for me…

…just as soon as I get my AWESOME Jalopy Gang newsletter finished.

Not sure if I’ve mentioned this before, but it’s totally brilliant.

Reading it makes you instantly cleverer, richer and more attractive.

If you would like to be stupid, poor and ugly then please don’t put your email in the box below.

This week the newsletter is better than ever. It’s jam packed with instantly applicable advice on getting client testimonials, and it’s absolutely hilarious if I do say so myself. You will laugh. Oh, how you’ll laugh.

Just to prove it, here’s an article from the newsletter…

How to be more productive by doing less stuff.

Most of us spend a lot of time doing stuff we don’t want to do.

We attend meetings that waste our time, we stay late at work because we think it will impress our boss, we hang out Dave and Sue twice a year even though we think Dave and Sue are terrible bores.

Productivity advice is big business. There’s a whole ton of boring books written about how to be more productive. There’s a whole industry devoted to squeezing the maximum amount of work out of a workforce who, in most cases, would rather be doing something else.

Probably the most famous is Getting Things Done, by David Allen.

David Allen: Productivity expert, Party Animal, Ladies Man.

It’s actually a very good book if you like that kind of thing. (Which I do, a little.)

It’s basically a complete system to help people to do more stuff they’d rather not be doing.

It’s generally accepted knowledge that productivity springs naturally from the fire of passion.

If we’re doing stuff that we love, then we are productive.

Do you need to motivate yourself to play with your kids? Or go fishing? Or go for a beer with a good friend?

No, because we love doing these things. We are passionate about them. At least some of us are.

If we flip this on it’s head, we might conclude that being unproductive results from doing a load of stuff we don’t really want to be doing.

So how to I stop being unproductive? What’s the solution?

Well the solution is to stop doing stuff you don’t want to do.

If you only did what you wanted then you’d get an enormous amount done.

Yeah, but it’s not that easy is it? Some of the crappy stuff I just have to do.

This is true. And it would be grossly irresponsible of me to claim otherwise.

You really should pay your bills. 

You really should do your tax return.

You really should pick up your son from soccer practice. 

There are a number of things that you might not want to do, but you really should to avoid death or imprisonment. 

There are a number of things that you might not want to do, but you really should to avoid being a terrible person. 

Thing is, we’re not always very good at being objective about what we have to do, and what we really don’t have to do but just think we do. (For example, many people will think that I should rewrite that last sentence because it’s ugly as sin, but I won’t because I’m lazy.)

Here’s some stuff that you really don’t have to do.

• You don’t have to hang out with Dave and Sue. They’ll cope. And maybe they find hanging out with you a bit of a chore too. (They don’t, obviously. They think you’re brilliant. But you can see my point.)  
• You don’t have to answer the phone when you’re in the middle of something important. They’ll leave a message. Or they’ll call back if it’s important. It’s okay.
• You don’t have to return all your phone calls.
• You don’t have to reply to all your emails.
• You don’t have to send birthday cards.
• You don’t have to go to valueless meetings just to show your face.
• You don’t have to finish everything you start.
• You don’t have to get up early every day.
• You don’t have to stay in college if you don’t love it.
• You don’t have to stick in a job you hate.
• You don’t have to have a well-paying professional career simply because you paid a lot of money for your degree.
• You don’t have to have goals.
• You don’t have to have a five year plan. 
• You don’t have to live up to other people’s expectations of you.

Aren’t I just going to end up annoying and upsetting everyone?

In order to rid your life of stuff you don’t like doing, you’re going to have to say No a lot. You’re probably going to disappoint people who are used to you behaving in a certain way. 

You might run the risk of people thinking you are a flaky, self-centered, arrogant, egotistical.

But I’m not advocating that you go too far with this. I’m intending this as a re-balancing exercise. I don’t want you to make a religion out of giving stuff up. Don’t make it a total lifestyle decision. Don’t become a selfish idiot.

The key is to create space for the passion to grow in your life by eliminating the shoulds that cause you anxiety and stress, and replacing them with the “work” you love.

The message, summed up in a cheesy alliteration-heavy catchphrase?

Do what you dig. Don’t do what you don’t dig.

See y’all tomorrow!

JJ Jalopy.

SUBLIMINAL MESSAGE: Sign-up for my newsletter. It’s totally brilliant.

Happy Memorial Day Weekend.

I hope you have a fantastic time with the people you love.

Here’s 10 simple things that you can do right now to immediately improve the quality of your life…

1. Get a teapot.

2. Have a bit of a tidy-up. Then have a nice cup of tea, made in your new teapot.

3. Put the phone back on its stand thing. It looks untidy lying down like that.

4. Get a mac. If you’re going to be sat in front of a computer you might as well make it a nice looking one. Like my beautiful silver iMac. Even if it crashes, you don’t get mad ’cause it’s just so pretty…

5. Tidy your computer desktop. You’ll never achieve Productivity Zen Mastery with all that crap in the way. So put those icons away somewhere. Do this: http://kinkless.com/article/kinkless_desktop

5. Buy loads of toothpaste, shampoo, soap, toilet rolls etc. Having to buy that stuff all the time is annoying.

6. Always have scissors, wrapping paper and tape in an easily accessible place. Wrapping up presents is painful enough at the best of times. Why make it harder on yourself?

7. Drink good wine. It’s nicer than the cheap stuff, you know. You deserve it.

8. Go outside. Go for a walk. Get some air. Sit under a tree. Hug it if you like. Just get outdoors. It’s good for you. 

And from Mrs. Jalopy…

9. Paint your nails. It makes life funner.

10. Carry tissues at all times.

Ta-ra! See you tomorrow!

JJ Jalopy.

I hope you had a great week.

I want to share this with you. It’s one of the most beautiful music videos I’ve ever seen, by the Icelandic band Sigur Rós.

If you have the time… then take a deep breath, relax, and enjoy six minutes of exquisite beauty.

Click here to view the embedded video.

See you tomorrow!

JJ Jalopy.

Come on in. I’ve just made a pot of tea.

How are you?

Mrs. Jalopy was up early this morning to go off to a big coaching training and networking event. 

I stayed in and laid in bed ’till the early afternoon…

I love a good weekend lie-in!

It was great!

(Yeah, that’s right. There are no kids in Family Jalopy just yet.)

Then this afternoon, before I got dressed, I did some networking of my own from the comfort of my man cave.

Earlier this week, inspired by an awesome book I’d been reading, I revealed the intimate details of an evil plan to get more readers to my website prior to my book launch.

One of the integral parts of the plan involved finding people with blogs that are relevant or semi-relevant  to what I do and are awesome enough to have a gang of enthusiastic followers interested in the kind of stuff I write about.

I’d then comment on their blog in a value-adding, amusing,controversial or plain obsequious manner to attract the attention of blogger and blogger cheerleaders alike.

Then, both blogger and blogger cheerleaders fall in love with the JJ style, come and hang out here in Jalopyland and tell all their friends. Global domination soon ensues.

Global Domination. But first, tea.

Cool.

So today I did a few useful things as I sat at my computer, sans pants.

I found the very best writing on the internet in the coaching / consulting / personal development and internet marketing fields, and I commenced Operation CommentBomb.

This intimidated me a little. There’s a lot of fantastically awesome stuff out there. 

But my stuff is awesome too. I hope.

Another cool thing I did was install a thing called CommentLuv on my blog.

This is a really cool plug-in (the technical term is thing) which allows me to reward my JalopyGang cheerleaders by automatically leaving a headline link to their last blog post in their comment.

If you have a blog then add a comment below and see how it works. Be sure to put the URL of your website in the relevant box on the comment form. If you can’t think of anything to say, then feel free to tell me you think I’m brilliant. I won’t mind.

The plan is to get more people active on my blog by making the comments more useful to readers and commentees alike.

Why? Well…

• Post titles are more fun and eye-catching than your name or the name of your website. My awesome readers are more likely click on a link if it’s an intriguing sounding post title.
• I can keep up with my readers more easily.
• Commenters get an extra link to their website in their comments!
• Readers see a selection of posts from people who enjoy the same kind of thing as them.

So, yeah. This rocks, essentially.

And part of my networking operation will involve commenting on a number of blogs with CommentLuv installed. 

For an example, check out the embarrassingly sycophantic comment I left on the blog of Life Coach and supremely talented writer Tim Brownson. 

Why not suck up to me too?!

Get involved!

Speaking of which… thanks for all the praise and feedback about my awesome Jalopy Gang Newsletter. The next issue hits your emailbox tomorrow so sign up below if you don’t want to miss out!

One of my favorite comments came from my friend Jon, who claimed that my latest newsletter (which I thought was a bit rubbish) read the way I sound when I’ve had a few beers.

Probably won’t be including that testimonial anywhere other than this post here! Thanks mate.

Anyway… it’s been a hard day of lie-ins and playing on the internet – so I’m going to head to the sofa now with Mrs. Jalopy, watch TV and eat some Chinese takeout.

Mmmmm…

Have a wonderful weekend folks!

JJ Jalopy.

The weekend starts here! Make it a good one.

I’m exhausted. I’ve had an incredibly busy week. It’s been great though.

I found out earlier today that my Dad is an avid reader of my blog. How cool is that?! Hey Pa!

He says he might write a guest post sometime soon. No pressure, Dad, but it would sure be awesome if you did!

Outsourcing to the family is beginning to look like an integral part of the Jalopy Plan for World Domination!

So…

Have you ever done something really stupid?

Have you ever done something really embarrassing?

Have you ever done something really mean?

Have you ever done something so outrageously shameful that you can’t help but wince when you so much as think about it?

Aaaaaargh....

Yeah, me too.

We all suck sometimes. 

This is a fact of life. Sometimes we screw up. Sometimes we’re mean to each other. Sometimes we take our frustrations out on the people we love the most. Sometimes we feel insecure. Sometimes we yell and shout. Sometimes we throw things in frustration. Sometimes we get angry and swear too much. Sometimes we do hurtful things to each other. Sometimes we say things we don’t mean. Sometimes we say things we’ll later regret. Sometimes we do things we’ll later regret. 

And after a monumental fuck-up, we get angry at ourselves. 

And then we often do just about anything we can to block it out and forget about it.

So we go about our lives as we were…

…and then we go and screw stuff up again.

And that’s fine, you say.

Nothing wrong with screwing stuff up, you say. It’s a learning experience.

But when did you do that learning? 

And why did you do that same stupid thing again?

Well, I have some expertise when it comes to doing stupid things. I’ve probably done most of the stupid things that it is possible to do. At least those that don’t involve a great deal of bravery, anyway. And I’ll continue to add new stupid things to my repertoire of life experiences for as long as I live.

Hopefully it’ll be different stupid stuff in the future.

I hope I never again decide to make bad jokes at the expense of a bunch of drunken cowboys in Wendy’s at 2:00 AM in Oklahoma City.

I hope I never again send the wrong email to my boss…

Well, you get the idea.

So how can we use these experiences constructively?

Well, the process I’ve just made up is a nice simple one, that goes like this…:

1. Allow yourself to react

So you screwed up. Doesn’t it feel bad?

Allow yourself to be annoyed. Allow yourself to be angry. Allow yourself to kick the door. Allow yourself to feel embarrassed that your toe hurts because you kicked the door.

Allow yourself to tell yourself you’re stupid; that you suck; that you’re unworthy; that you’re not good enough.

(But only if you actually react like this, of course! Don’t be mean to yourself intentionally. That would just be silly!)

Just allow yourself to feel whatever you feel. 

2. Realize that it’s done. It’s over. And you’re okay

Look. You’re okay. That really dumb thing you did didn’t kill you.

No-one came and crushed you with a big rock.

This is a good thing. Everything is okay,

3. Realize that telling yourself you suck isn’t really very helpful

It’s very nice of you to tell yourself you suck, really.

You have your best interests in mind. 

You probably think that telling yourself you suck is an important destination on the path to future non-suckage.

And you might well be right. Who cares. Just realize that the rest of your life would be a whole lot nicer if you stopped.

If that doesn’t motivate you then realize that you really will suck if you keep telling yourself you suck. And no-one wants that.

4. Learn the lessons

Okay, so you screwed up. It wasn’t the first time and it won’t be the last time, but we can decrease the chances of you making the same mistake again by answering the following questions.

Why did you screw up? 

What would you do next time?

What actions can you take to minimize the likelihood of doing the same stupid thing?

5. Remind yourself of the lessons you learned

So, time has passed and you no longer spend every other second of the day thinking about your fuck up.

This is a good thing.

But don’t forget about the lessons you learned just because the emotional charge may have gone.

Set up a system to remind yourself of the positives you got from the experience to reinforce the actions you started to take in step 4. 

The last step is the one most people skip. It’s certainly the one I often forget about. Thankfully I’m very rarely in a Wendy’s in Oklahoma City these days…

Well I hope this post entertained you at the very least. I know that you don’t ever do dumb stuff like this, but I hope you can see the value in this for others!

See y’all tomorrow!

JJ Jalopy.

Hey there!

Welcome back to Casa Jalopy.

Let me pour you a glass of wine. It’s a cheap Chilean Shiraz today – half price from the supermarket.

Yep, I’m living the V.I.P. lifestyle to the fullest. Diddy would be proud!

Unfortunately you missed dessert. We had a Gu chocolate souffle each. Have you tried them?

They’re the best thing in the world. (Well, apart from me!)

They’re delicious. Every taste is like a spiritual orgasm! They’re even better than the awesome chocolate brownie recipe that I shared with you in my last newsletter.

My newsletter sucked a bit last week, actually. Sorry about that. I was tired. I wrote way too much. And it was formatted like crap.

BUT… it’ll be waaaay better next week. So sign up here!

The Jalopy Gang Newsletter – A newsletter so awesome that it knows when it sucks…

Yeah, I know. And I call myself a marketing expert!!

Yesterday I had a busy, amazing, productive and love-filled day. When I blogged about it, my buddy Christian asked me to elaborate on what I’d been doing.

Well, like any self-respecting attention-seeker, I love talking about myself . What I’m about to talk about is almost entirely irrlevant to anyone wanting to learn about starting their coaching business, setting up their home business, productivity tips, marketing advice, or any of the cool coaching and mentoring stuff I talk about, so feel free to the section below entitled JJ stops rambling here to get to the content!

So what was I doing?

Well… I completed the arrangement of an asset securitization for an automotive vendor finance portfolio.

Ever wish you hadn’t asked something?

<<If you care, insert your own paragraph here about credit rating agencies, responsibility, asset-backed securities, credit crunch, capital adequacy, balance sheet restructuring, Megan Fox or Stephen Hawking, or Megan Fox and Stephen Hawking together with a big bowl of strawberries.>>

The details are unimportant, thank God. What is relevant is the sense of achievement that comes from doing a job really well. THAT rocks.

JJ stops rambling here!

Right. Let’s get out the blueprint.

This. Again.

You found your niche coaching market.

You personalized your prospective coaching client or customer and created a customer avatar, a representation of your average coaching client. You sat inside their head for a while and you understood their problems and their worries. You understood what scares them. You understood how they feel about their friends and their family. What obligations they feel they have. What their hopes are.

Then created an image of the kind of person they would like to talk to. How would they make them feel? What experience would that person have? How would they make them feel better about themselves? How would they help them solve their problems?

This was the first step to finding solutions to their problems.

So what’s next?

Well if you like, pretend for a moment that you are JJ Jalopy.

…

Now come away from the mirror and get back here. Concentrate!

That’s better…

Now your customer avatar (following mild-mannered ladies man Eben Pagan) is an awesome lady called Marjorie. Recap here…

Now, as a coach, the answer to your coaching clients’ problems is going to involve You. 

You are going to form an essential part of your brand. Your business communication is going to largely based in the way You communicate.

That’s a given. And it’s massively important, actually. Don’t go thinking you need to put on a serious business hat when you’re running your business and that you can relax and be yourself when you get home.

However it is that you are – that rocks. That’s why I love you. Be like that when you’re playing business.

HOWEVER…

You are a complex and multifaceted individual. You are a socially sophisticated person. You do not interact in the same way at the Vicar’s house as you do when you’re sharing a glass of wine with your best friend.

Unless the Vicar is your best friend.

You do not bring the same aspects of yourself to every situation.

Remember the image we constructed of the person your customer would most like to talk to? Let’s call this person your business avatar.

In constructing your brand and communication plan we want you to:

• be totally authentic
• emphasize the aspects of your personality and communication style which are consistent with that of your business avatar.

Make sense?

Cool. Write this down. Think about how this feels to you. 

And in the next post in this series I’ll discuss how I do this in my businesses.

Until then have a wonderful evening. I’ll see you next time!

JJ Jalopy.