Muriel Maignan Wilkins, coauthor of "Own the Room," on the flaws everyone's too polite to point out.
from http://bit.ly/15PL3HT
from http://bit.ly/15PL3HT
Friday, January 30, 2015
First Look At The Enfield Haunting
Amityville, the Black Hills of Maryland, Eden Lake… Enfield? Okay, the sleepy north London suburb isn’t as synonymous with horror as those other locales, but residents might beg to differ.
from Pocket http://bit.ly/1Cjg1Go
Readers Race To Finish James Patterson's Self-Destructing Book
Action fans can now sample a bit of real-life danger while enjoying the fantasy of a James Patterson novel. For a very (very) limited time, readers can race against a ticking clock, and either finish the story or accept the explosive consequences.
from Pocket http://bit.ly/1yegenH
Nendo Chocolate Collection Employs Texture to Affect Taste
Chocolate as a work of art or as an element of aesthetics is nothing new in the world of design. And Japanese design studio Nendo is no stranger to having chocolate in their body of work.
from Pocket http://bit.ly/1yegbrW
Massmutal Program for Adulthood Takes Place Over Wine
With services like Skillshare and General Assembly, millennials increasingly look to modern sources for learning and advice. But meeting for a cup of coffee will always remain an emblem of catch-ups and mentorship.
from Pocket http://bit.ly/1yegdAg
Archibiotect Would Transform Paris into Ecological Playground
Cities are often touted as the forerunners of more ecologically sustainable habits for the human race, but they are also prone to more severe versions of some problems that other areas face, such as heat islands, smog and, especially lately, problems with housing affordability, sustainability and o
from Pocket http://bit.ly/1yegbbw
Magnetic, Multi-Touch Keyboard Will Change Mobile Typing
At coffee shops, in business meetings and on public transportation, we type on our smartphones as often — if not more often — as on our laptops.
from Pocket http://bit.ly/1zdVtwD
Adidas Ultra Boost Trainers Engineered For Running
Adidas is bringing wearable tech to sneakers via Ultra BOOST, a running shoe like no other that promises to distinctly enhance the user’s performance. It works with the newly designed BOOST technology that has been years in the making.
from Pocket http://bit.ly/1zdVrow
Microsoft Reinvents the Traditional Whiteboard
Microsoft revealed The Surface Hub, a digital whiteboard and modern conference room experience for businesses.
from Pocket http://bit.ly/1yegd36
Turnstone Furniture Collection Turns Office Into Coffee Shop
Design Agency Turnstone specializes in office furniture with a difference and is set to release a range of interiors that help blur the line between home and office.
from Pocket http://bit.ly/1zdVr8a
7 Stories You Need to Know Today
Here come the robot bylines, millions per week, in fact (The Verge) Eyes on the road, hand on the wheel – a new Google patent envisions a future where cars feature more intuitive gesture controls (Quartz) Unmanned aerial vehicles will not share airspace with football on Sunday, as the FAA ruled
from Pocket http://bit.ly/1yegao5
Meet Ross, the IBM Watson-Powered Lawyer
When most people think of IBM’s cognitive computer Watson, they imagine the machine as a contestant on Jeopardy, answering trivia at lightning speed.
from Pocket http://bit.ly/1zdVpNr
First Look At The Enfield Haunting
Who you gonna Spall?
Amityville, the Black Hills of Maryland, Eden Lake… Enfield? Okay, the sleepy north London suburb isn’t as synonymous with horror as those other locales, but residents might beg to differ. The Enfield Haunting, a Sky Living drama capturing the spooky goings-on that took place in the Hodgson household in 1977, will, judging by these first-look stills, be both clammily scary and full of outlandish ‘70s fashions. Any malign presence undeterred by Timothy Spall’s demonic shirt/jacket/tie combo immediately has our fear and respect.
{The Enfield Haunting First Look Pics}
Spall stars as Maurice Grosse, a newcomer to the world of paranormal research and a man recovering from recent tragedy. He finds himself drawn in by the strange events of Green Street, EN3. Before you can say “Don’t go there!”, Britain’s answer to Peter Venkman begins investigating the poltergeisty phenomonon, as his wife, Betty (Juliet Stevenson), finds out to her increasing dismay.
The third factor here is Matthew Macfadyen’s Guy Lyon Playfair. He’s the more sceptical mind of the two, trying to keep Maurice’s theories to more “plausible” areas. Considering the show is based on Lyon Playfair’s book This House Is Haunted, maybe he came round to Maurice’s way of thinking after all.
Also co-starring are Rosie Cavaliero, Eleanor Worthington-Cox, Fern Deacon and Elliot Kerley, with The Killing's Kristoffer Nyholm behind the camera. Catch The Enfield Haunting across three 60-minute episodes in the spring.
from http://bit.ly/1zdVsc5
Readers Race To Finish James Patterson’s Self-Destructing Book
A New York creative team has equipped the author's latest page-turner with a dangerous finalefrom http://bit.ly/1yegenH
Master’s Program for Adulthood Takes Place Over Wine and Coffee
The Society of Grownups sells financial advice classes and workshops to needy millennialsfrom http://bit.ly/1yegdAg
Geometric Chocolate Collection Employs Texture to Affect Taste
The collection by design house Nendo was introduced at the Maison & Object in Paris with complementary chocolate furniture setfrom http://bit.ly/1yegbrW
Magnetic, Multi-Touch Keyboard Will Change Mobile Typing
TextBlade magnetic device overturns how we do mobile typing with sensory approachfrom http://bit.ly/1zdVtwD
Archibiotect Would Transform Paris into Ecological Playground
Fantasy archibiotecture imagines an ecologically pioneering Paris in the year 2050from http://bit.ly/1yegbbw
Microsoft Reinvents the Traditional Whiteboard
The Surface Hub digital screen allows distributed teams to actively participate in business meetingsfrom http://bit.ly/1yegd36
Adidas Leveraged Adaptive Tech to Deliver Your ‘Greatest Run Ever’
Sports giant's Ultra BOOST is step in right direction for companies merging design with technologyfrom http://bit.ly/1zdVrow
Furniture Collection Wants Work to Feel Like Your Favorite Coffee Shop
Campfire line aims to make employees feel as though they're away from the office while at the officefrom http://bit.ly/1zdVr8a
7 Stories You Need to Know Today
Robots meet AP journalism, 3D printing meets Hershey, and a smartphone app meets birth control refillsfrom http://bit.ly/1yegao5
Meet Ross, the IBM Watson-Powered Lawyer
University of Toronto team launches a cognitive computing application that helps lawyers conduct world-class case researchfrom http://bit.ly/1zdVpNr
Ask the Readers: Will you find other options besides Turbo Tax this year?
Tax season is fast approaching and, if you are among the diligent, chances are you have already started your annual tax preparation.
from Pocket http://bit.ly/161m83U
Thursday, January 29, 2015
Noam Murro Says Blink
He managed to channel Zack Snyder’s OTT style with 300: Rise Of An Empire, but for his next film, Noam Murro is looking to get back to something original. He’s signed on to direct a thriller called Blink.
from Pocket http://bit.ly/1EtpM5v
Rachael Taylor Join's Marvel's A.K.A. Jessica Jones
The rate of casting announcements for the second of the Marvel/Netflix series, A.K.A. Jessica Jones, is increasing.
from Pocket http://bit.ly/1EtpJGV
New Avengers: Age Of Ultron TV Spot
It might not be receiving the Super Bowl TV spot treatment, but Marvel has made sure we’re all still anticipating Avengers: Age Of Ultron with a new ad. Cue the heroes squabbling and the robotic drones causing havoc…
from Pocket http://bit.ly/1EtpM5s
Meet The New Jurassic World Dino
Kept almost totally off screen in the trailers so far, Jurassic World’s big addition – and we do mean big – to the dino family has now been revealed. Well, sort of. Some new imagery on the official site for the film offers some details on the giant creature known as Indominus Rex.
from Pocket http://bit.ly/1EtpM5n
Karl Urban Joins Pete's Dragon Remake
It would appear that Michael C. Hall is allergic to dragons. Actually, there isn’t a given reason why he’s decided to leave the new Pete’s Dragon film, but it means good news for Karl Urban fans as the Star Trek actor has stepped in to replace him.
from Pocket http://bit.ly/1EtpJGK
John Wick Duo Wanted To Direct Cowboy Ninja Viking
They’ve made a huge impact Stateside with their directorial debut, Keanu Reeves vengeance thriller John Wick, and now studios are courting David Leitch and Chad Stahelski. Universal has them in early talks to direct genre-mash graphic novel adaptation Cowboy Ninja Viking.
from Pocket http://bit.ly/1EtpJqr
How to Learn From Your Mistakes
Everybody makes mistakes.
And everybody should make mistakes. They are unavoidable when we step outside of our comfort zones. Avoiding mistakes means avoiding growth.
But we can’t repeat our mistakes. We need to learn from them. When we do, we turn negatives into positives and move forward. When we don’t, we simply run in place.
In this episode of The Lede, Demian and I share personal stories of mistakes we’ve made — some big and some small — and how we learned from them, and we describe the thought process necessary to do so consistently.
We discuss:
- Recovering from technical errors (notably, a rather embarrassing one Jerod made recently)
- Walking away from security in pursuit of happiness
- Self-compassion in the face of mistakes
- Why it’s okay to want recognition for your hard work
- How to mobilize into action quickly when things go wrong
- Letting go of stubbornness in favor of learning
Listen to The Lede …
To listen, you can either hit the flash audio player below, or browse the links to find your preferred format …
- Click here to download the mp3 | 43.0 MB | 31:07
- Click here to subscribe via iTunes
- Click here to listen via Stitcher
- Click here for the RSS feed (non iTunes)
- Click here for the show archive
React to The Lede …
As always, we appreciate your reaction to episodes of The Lede and feedback about how we’re doing.
Send us a tweet with your thoughts anytime: @JerodMorris and @DemianFarnworth.
And please tell us the most important point you took away from this episode. Do so by joining the discussion over on LinkedIn.
The Show Notes
- Authority Rainmaker — Copyblogger’s live training event that will provide you with an integrated online marketing strategy combined with the best ways to implement it. Plus, great parties and networking
- The episode of Podcast on the Brink that Jerod recorded without his mic plugged in
- Space Ghost Coast to Coast
- My Copyblogger — free membership that gives you access to 16 high-impact ebooks, a 20-part Internet marketing course, and a weekly roundup of all fresh Copyblogger content
- The Three Signs of a Miserable Job — by Patrick M. Lencioni
- Rainmaker.FM — build your digital sales and marketing platform
- A 30-Minute Copywriting Course from a Master of the Craft — John Carlton interview on The Lede
The Transcript
Please note that this transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and grammar.
The Lede Podcast: How to Learn From Your Mistakes
Jerod Morris: Welcome back to The Lede, a podcast about content marketing by Copyblogger Media, hosted by me, Jerod Morris, and my golden-haired copy writing co-host, Demian Farnworth.
The Lede is sponsored by Authority Rainmaker, Copyblogger’s live training event that will provide you with an integrated online marketing strategy combined with the best ways to implement it. Plus, great parties and networking, as you would expect from any event hosted by Copyblogger.
Among the esteemed folks who will be taking the stage and sharing their experiences: Henry Rollins, Daniel Pink, Sally Hogshead, Danny Sullivan, Ann Hanley, and so many more. Including me, which as you might imagine, I am quite excited about.
So come see us in May in Denver, learn lessons, and make contacts that will take your online marketing to the next level.
For details, go to authorityrainmaker.com.
Today’s episode begins a two-part series during which Demian and I are going to use some of our best and worst professional moments to teach important micro and macro lessons that will, hopefully, help you with your online marketing, as well as your work and life in general.
And yes, it is a series inspired by recent events, namely a gigantic oversight by me that led to an embarrassing mistake when I was recording a podcast. And (leans back from the microphone to produce a distant sound) audio that sounded like this! (Leans back in.) Awful. Unless, of course, some good came from it. I think it did. See what you think now in the latest episode of The Lede.
Demian, how are you doing today?
Demian Farnworth: I’m doing well, Jerod. I’m looking forward to tomorrow.
Jerod: Yeah! So for those of you listening to this, we are recording this the day before our Copyblogger company meeting occurs where all Copyblogger folks from all across the world are meeting in Dallas, Texas.
When this actually airs a week from today, next Tuesday, that meeting will be done. But I’m looking forward to it, Demian. We don’t get to see each other that often, and it’ll be good to be able to spend some time in person together.
Demian: Yeah. It’s always nice to see people face-to-face that you’ve been in contact with through Skype and email, and you finally get to shake their hand, hug their backs, and stuff like that. Looking forward to it, man.
Jerod: Yeah. Yeah. It’ll be a lot of fun.
Personal stories of failure to teach online marketing lessons
We’re starting a new series here, as I introduced at the beginning of this episode, where basically we’re going to use our personal stories of both success and failure to teach some important online marketing lessons, both in a macro sense and a micro sense.
And we’re going to start today with mistakes, because obviously, it’s kind of that old cliché: You learn more from your failures than your successes.
In the next episode, we’ll talk about how there are very important lessons to learn from your successes as well, but I don’t think we have to spend too much time making the case for how much you can learn from mistakes.
Yesterday, we were talking about what we wanted to do for this episode, and I just happened to make a gargantuan mistake yesterday that led me to thinking about this, and I was glad you were excited about the idea too. (Laughs.) But …
Demian: (Laughs.) It wasn’t the Copyboger, was it?
Jerod: (Laughs.) No, it wasn’t that one.
Demian: Oh, okay.
Jerod: We’ll get to that one in a minute.
Demian: Right.
Recovering from technical errors
Jerod: I host this podcast called “Podcast on the Brink” for the site Inside the Hall. It’s one of my side projects. I’m a big Indiana basketball fan.
Demian: Right.
Jerod: I host this podcast for them, and yesterday we were recording a new episode, and everything was going great. We recorded the episode. It all went really well, I thought. Had some great questions, and the conversation was really good, and I was just feeling spectacular about this episode of the podcast once I was done recording it.
Demian: Right.
Jerod: And …
Demian: But …
Jerod: So, yeah. Here comes the “but.” So I open up the audio file before I’m going to put it in GarageBand, and my audio just sounds really distant, really echoey, and my heart just sinks.
Demian: Oh …
Jerod: And I’m like, “Oh. No.” And so I look to the left, and my microphone is not plugged in to my computer.
Demian: Ohh … Are you kidding me?
Jerod: No. So the only thing picking up my audio was just the computer mic, and obviously if that had been just me doing a monologue, or even if it had been us doing it, I would have re-recorded it. But this is an interview with somebody else who kind of fit it into their schedule, and couldn’t exactly just re-record.
Demian: Right.
Jerod: The good thing is that the audio was bad, but it wasn’t so bad that we couldn’t run it. Clearly there would be a certain level where you just can’t run it, but I decided: Okay. It’s a little bit embarrassing for me to put this out there, but it’s still … for the audience, it’s still really good information.
It’s still a good interview. So I think it’s still worth it to put it out there. I’ve just got to kind of fall on my sword a little bit. And so …
Demian: Right. Sure.
Jerod: And so I tried to think,” Okay. This mistake happened, now what can I do to make sure it doesn’t happen again?” And that, I think, is kind of going to be a theme with the mistakes I talk about, which are kind of specific things that happen.
What can you do to help prevent them? So now, on my microphone, I’ve got this little Post-it note that says, “Plug me in, you jack wagon!”
Demian: (Laughs loudly.)
Jerod: So that way, because every time I record …
Demian: I’m looking at mine, making sure it’s plugged in, too. Yeah.
Jerod: Every time I record, I have to obviously talk into the mic, and so now I’ll have to see it, and it’ll remind me to plug it in.
And I also thought, “Look. I can’t just let this audio go out there this bad, because people have come to expect a certain level. That’s really going to throw them off.” So in the intro that I do for that show, I told the audience what happened. I was like, “Brain fart by me, I forgot to plug this in …”
Demian: (Laughs.)
Jerod: ” … so the audio you’re about to hear is not what you normally expect. It’s not up to usual standards. But the content is so good we wanted to play it for you anyway. And it’s not terrible, so I think you’ll still enjoy it.”
And then I also sent out a tweet that said, “Hey, the next time I criticize IU’s coach or any of the players for something they do on the floor, just send me a tweet that says, ‘Hey idiot, remember that time you forgot to plug in your microphone?'”
Demian: The microphone. Right.
Jerod: So a little opportunity for self-deprecation. It sucks because I hate putting a podcast out there that doesn’t have audio that at least meets a basic, minimum level of quality.
But, hopefully, I think it’s even a chance to be a little human in front of your audience. Have that moment of self-deprecation. Hopefully the system I’ve put in place now will help …
Demian: (Laughs.)
Jerod: … because I think that’s the big theme here, Demian, that we’re going to talk about. When you do make a mistake it sucks. Number one, how do you own it, and number two, how do you grow from it?
Demian: Right. Right.
Jerod: If you can do those two things with each mistake, it can make them positive in the long run.
Demian: Yeah. I think that an event like that reminds us that we’re human and humbles us, and I think that’s the proper response to it.
But here’s the thing, right? So say that your audio just wasn’t there. You could have flipped that into an episode of Space Ghost Coast to Coast where you’ve been asked bizarre questions, and then the other person answers it, and it’s like, “Where did that come from? What does that mean?” And that would have been hilarious. Maybe you can do that as a bleeper some day down the road.
Jerod: That would have been awesome. I should have thought of that.
Demian: (Laughs.) Well, you still have the file, so you can do it again, I’m sure.
Jerod: Yeah. Exactly.
Demian: All right.
Walking away from security in pursuit of happiness
Jerod: Let’s go over to you, Demian. The first mistake that you want to lay bare and discuss what you learned from it.
Demian: I think my first one is staying in a job too long. There was a job that I had. It’s an interesting job. It’s probably one of the most interesting jobs I ever had; I actually worked for a television evangelist, and you know, we all know the feelings we have for such things.
But I got the job because I needed a job at the time, and I was offered a pretty interesting and sweet position, and so I took it. I was there I think a total of five years, or maybe it was three-and-a-half.
But I stayed there 18 months too long, and it was because of the security I got from having a job — the security I had from the pay that I was getting, and the benefits that I got were great. So it was kind of like that golden handcuff situation, but I was absolutely miserable.
What I allowed myself to do was to be carried away by the good things, instead of saying, “Okay, this is just a bad situation.” I didn’t enjoy going to the job. The people I loved. I loved working with the people. I was a managing editor at this time, and I had a stable of six writers and three proofreaders.
I loved mentoring them, and I loved coaching them and building them up. But everything else outside of that was just no fun, and it eventually took me to a point where I just had a collision with management, and this is the point where I said, “I’m just done. I need to quit; otherwise I’m just going to continue to hang onto this job and make mistakes.”
So at that point there, I walked away from that. This was in April of 2011. I just quit that job without any plan B — without any exit plan, and went into the freelance world, which we’ll talk about later on.
But I walked away from that thinking, “You know what? I’m a loyal guy. I like to be loyal, and I can be loyal to a fault.” But there are times when you have to have the courage and say, “Okay, enough of the security thing. The quality of my life is miserable, so I need to make a change. I need to be more aware of myself and be aware of those signs, and sort of deal with those signs early so I don’t let things get out of hand.” Does that make sense?
Jerod: Oh yeah. Absolutely. Could you even take a lesson from that in terms of strategy?
Something that you’re doing that you’re kind of comfortable with, but maybe it doesn’t feel right. But at some point you’ve just got to say, “Hey. We’ve got to shift gears. We’ve got to do something else. Because this just doesn’t feel right.”
Demian: Right. Exactly. It could be a lot of things. The design theme of your website, it could be an autoresponder you need to update, but you’re just like, “It works, and I don’t have time, and I don’t want to deal with it,” whatever. But I think the lesson to walk away with is: Deal with problems as soon as you can.
Self-compassion in the face of mistakes
Jerod: You talking about switching jobs is a nice segue into my second mistake, which you actually alluded to earlier. Because there was a moment several months ago when I thought I might be looking for a new job.
Demian: (Laughs.)
Jerod: Because … when we send out emails, right now I’m the last person who touches that email — who actually hits “send,” who schedules emails, and at Copyblogger we send out emails to lists 150,000 people big.
I mean, these are mass emails that are going out to a lot of people. And they’ll go out to different lists. StudioPress lists, and My Copyblogger, and Rainmaker Platform. And so for each one of those, obviously, the “from” name and the “from” address are different. So we have to specify those.
Well, unfortunately the “L” button on my laptop sticks. Even more unfortunately, there’s an “L” prominently featured in the word “Copyblogger.”
Demian: (Laughs.)
Jerod: I was setting up this email to our My Copyblogger list, just about 160,000 people on it. And I type in “Copyblogger” as I normally do, check through all the other things, and send it out.
And mind you, we had already done test emails on this, but when you actually set up the email to send, you have to do that again — that part isn’t saved from the test. You have to, again, type it in manually.
I’m on all of these lists just so I can see the emails when they actually go out live, and an email hits my inbox, and the “from” says “Copybogger.”
And again, it was that heart-sinking feeling of, “You have got to be kidding me.”
The thing is, you know, on a podcast when you just record it privately you have the decision, “Hey. I can now decide if I want to put this out there to the world and show them this moronic moment of mine, or I can just keep it private.” With this, it was already out there.
Demian: Right.
Jerod: There’s nothing I could do to change it, and really, this isn’t particularly a spot where self-deprecation is going to do any good, although I guess I’m doing that right now for everybody.
But really, I was terrified obviously of what Brian and Robert and everybody is going to think about this. Like, “Who is this idiot that we have sending out these emails?” And so I’m thinking, okay. What can I do with this?
My first thought is, okay, my stupid computer. The “L” thing is sticking. But it’s like, okay. That’s just shifting the blame from what the problem was. The problem is, I just don’t have a good enough system in place to double-check myself on this.
And I think it’s a point when something like this happens, you have to have a little bit of self-compassion and say, “Look. You’re not an idiot; you’re not a failure. This mistake could have happened to anybody, but it doesn’t need to happen again.” Right?
Demian: Right.
Jerod: And so that’s why I instituted some systems of not just double-checking, but triple-checking the little envelope part to make sure all of that is spelled correctly.
And actually, I even went to the level of instead of typing in “Copyblogger” when I’m on my laptop, I just copy/paste it from a known source. I’m a little OCD about it now. But you just kind of put some processes in place to protect yourself, because when you have 20 different things to check, things can slip through the cracks.
No reason to beat yourself up, but it is a good opportunity to say, “Hey, what can I do better to make sure this doesn’t happen again?”
So I did that, fortunately — knock on wood — haven’t had another similar situation like that. And hopefully that continues.
Demian: Right. It’s the old adage, you can make a mistake, just don’t make it twice.
Jerod: Right.
Jerod: Right. Exactly. Exactly. So there’s my second mistake, Demian. Over to you now for your second.
Why it’s okay to want recognition for your hard work
Demian: So as a continuation of my story, when I quit that job with the television evangelist I started working for myself. And as a freelance copy writer, you will find that there is an abundant amount of work to be done in the ghost writing industry.
Lots of CEOs, lots of people, companies, want you to create content in their name, and some of it paid really well and I found myself in the situation of getting more and more, and eventually almost 90 percent of my income was based upon ghost writing work. And it was almost exclusively for one person, too.
I did a lot of this type of work, and I got no credit for it. I got paid pretty well for it, but I got no credit for it. I had spent nine months, and I wrote probably 36 articles in that nine months which amounts to a little bit over five a week. And these weren’t pushover posts. These were of the 1,500-word variety.
I had invested a lot of energy and time into them. I got no credit for that. No professional equity out of that except for the money and the reputation with the particular person I was working with, and he did recommend me on to other people. But I found for my own self I was not at all happy doing that work.
In fact, I looked at myself, and I said, “You know, it’s okay that you want recognition. It’s okay that you don’t want to be anonymous in doing this type of work. That’s just part of who you are. That’s part of how you view payment.”
Because I enjoy that feedback that I get, and it spurs me on to create better and better content. But if I’m doing it for somebody else and they’re getting all the credit — that just drove me nuts.
Jerod: What’s the big lesson that you take from that moving forward?
Demian: Just to recognize that it’s okay to want recognition, to recognize that it’s okay to say, “Hey, you know what? I feed off the attention that I get from other people, and when people say “great job,” that really spoke to me. When people share it. That sort of thing is okay, because that’s what I was missing.
Patrick Lencioni wrote a book called “The Three Signs of a Miserable Job.” Those signs are anonymity, irrelevance, and immeasurement. And what he means by that is that if you’re not noticed, you’re ignored, and then nobody really cares about you. Then, you can’t measure your performance.
I was missing those three things in that particular work. Even though I was getting paid well for it, I could see how those particular articles were doing, and they all did fairly well, but it didn’t tie back to me. And I didn’t feel very valued in the sense that people knew that I was writing that.
Of course, I was not the one who was getting all the traffic, was getting all the attention, was getting all the comments, was getting all that sort of equity that comes behind creating all those articles. And so I just walked away from it, saying, “That’s okay that I felt that way.”
And it’s okay to desire those things, because I’m built in such a way that I’m a words-of-encouragement type of guy. That’s what spurs me on, and that’s what lights a fire underneath me. And that’s okay. That’s totally okay. And so for me, I walked away from it, and I have never done ghost writing work since then.
Jerod: And it wasn’t necessarily serving your overall big-picture goal, and it wasn’t serving your motivation, certainly. And so it just wasn’t really destined to be a positive, long-term activity. And you’ve got to move on to something else that’s going to be.
Demian: Right. Absolutely. That’s right.
How to mobilize into action quickly when things go wrong
Jerod: Very good. So here’s another one of mine. I actually changed this up, kind of last minute.
Demian: Uh-oh.
Jerod: And it’s another recent one that just happened, actually. Monday was Martin Luther King. Jr. day, or last Monday, when people actually listen to this. And we had a post scheduled to go out on Monday.
Well, normally on holidays like Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, and Veterans’ Day, and Labor Day, and Christmas, obviously, we don’t put out posts that are centered around content marketing, or promotions, or anything like that. It’s just more something simple to either honor the day, or nothing.
And so we had this post all ready to go, and the date had completely just gone over my head, had totally forgotten that it was Martin Luther King, Jr. day. Both Stefanie and I. We just hadn’t even thought about it.
Demian: I hadn’t thought about it, either.
Jerod: And so we get an email late Sunday night that said “Hey, we shouldn’t be running this on Monday,” and late Sunday night doesn’t give you a whole lot of time to scramble. Plus we had agreed to put that post out there around a date for the guy who was doing something for a launch.
It was kind of an, “Oh crap, we’ve got to figure something out,” and so in that case, again, I think it’s best to just instead of burying your head in the sand and not doing anything, take action right away, and meet the problem head-on.
Demian: So what did you do?
Jerod: Well, we contacted the author and made sure that moving his post to Tuesday was going to be okay, and everything was still in line with the launch, and that was all fine. Then we shuffled up the calendar. So that worked well.
Now, it might not have, and we weren’t going to run anything on that day, but it might have made us go back on something that we had committed to, which you never want to do. So more importantly, we’ve got to make sure this doesn’t happen again. And that’s an easy thing.
It’s an easy thing to make a mistake on, because you get in the hustle-bustle of every day, and if your editorial calendar doesn’t have the holidays listed on it, it can be easy to overlook. But it’s also something easy to fix. Which again, like you said, making the mistake the first time isn’t the big deal. It’s if you make it the second time. Because then you clearly didn’t learn anything.
Demian: Right. So I’m guessing you guys went in then, and on the editorial calendar put in all the holidays for this year?
Jerod: Yeah. Exactly. Just so we have them in there, because when we’re scheduling, that’s what we’re looking at. So it needs to be there. It doesn’t do us any good if it’s on our personal or professional calendars. It’s got to be in there, on the editorial calendar. And so those little things.
On one of his recent episodes of Rainmaker.FM, Brian Clark talked about the importance of details in the little things, and how you never know which detail or which little thing is going to make a difference. But in the aggregate they’re so important.
There are going to come times you’re always going to miss little details, but if you can learn from them, shore it up, put a process in place around it, now you’ve eliminated that detail from becoming an issue in the future, hopefully, and you progressively get better at adding all of those little details up so that in the aggregate, they can really help make you successful.
Demian: That’s right.
Jerod: Fortunately, we have a responsive team, that even on Sunday night when something bad happens, we’ll mobilize into action to get everything fixed. So kudos to Stefanie for that.
Demian: Right. And of course, I think it helps too. We don’t have a culture of fear. We know we’ll probably get an email, “That was stupid, don’t do that again,” but we’re not fearful in any sense, so it allows us to take risks and to do things.
Because otherwise, if you’re in a culture of fear, what you end up doing is asking for permission for everything, and that is a bureaucratic nightmare, and you want to avoid that at all costs.
Jerod: It’s funny that you mention that, because we went to this Team Turnaround summit last week, and that was one of the big things that Annie talked about at the summit — having a culture of safety so that people on a team feel safe coming and saying, “Hey, I made this mistake,” or “This happened,” without that fear of judgment.
I was talking earlier about being fearful of losing my job. And I was kidding. I mean, obviously I wasn’t because I think at Copyblogger we do have an environment where we feel safe. You can say, “Hey, we screwed this up, but here’s what we can do with it moving forward.”
But also a culture of learning from your mistakes, which I think is just as important as a safety culture, or a culture of, “Okay, this mistake was made, now let’s be proactive about putting something in place so that it doesn’t happen again.”
Demian: At the same time, you think about it, a little bit of that anxiety is healthy because it keeps you on your toes so that you’re alert and sober when you’re making decisions, and you’re checking twice, three times if you have to. So a little anxiety is healthy, but if that’s the over-riding theme through your job, then that’s of course not healthy.
Letting go of stubbornness in favor of learning
Jerod: Absolutely. So your third and final mistake that you want to talk about?
Demian: All right. This one was a big one, so let me boil it down. When I got into this business of copywriting, I was — this is probably surprising — I was a big snob, I was obstinate, I was unteachable, and I still am in a lot of ways, but I like to think that in the last 20 years I’ve wizened and matured a little bit.
I came out from a degree in English Literature into the marketing/advertising world with a chip on my shoulder, thinking that nobody could teach me anything. I needed to learn things, but I was not at all very accepting of criticism, of instruction. Rejection hurt really, really badly.
And so I would just protect myself and ignore people who would try to help me. I would listen, shake my head, but then go and do my own thing. And that was just what happened there, the problem was that it drew out my learning curve.
Instead of taking the lessons people were giving me and then honing and improving my craft that way, I was determined to do it on my own because I had it already figured out. And that’s just an emotionally unhealthy place to be.
It took some time, events of humbling and just a sort of softening of the heart, and thinking “This is not all about me, and I need to recognize other people, and they have things to teach me, and I can be taught, and I don’t know it all.” So that was a large teaching moment for me.
I think for all of us, we have to recognize when we are involved with criticism, when we meet new people, when we meet people who are older than us or even younger than us, we have to ask the question: Do they have something they can teach me? We need to be open to those opportunities to learn from them, no matter who it is and what the situation is.
Of course, I think someone who deals with criticism maturely always asks the question, “Is there any truth in what they’re saying?” And then they sift the chaff out and keep the wheat. So that’s the sort of thing that you have to do, and that’s a great way. It’s the only way that we can learn and grow. But early in my life I was not interested in that.
Jerod: Was there a specific event at all that helped change your mind on that, or just a gradual maturation process?
Demian: I think a little bit of both. It was a gradual maturation process, and of course my wife has been so incredibly gracious and forthcoming with information, which has helped me grow.
But there were a few moments, too. I asked John Carlton to help me. I just kind of sucked up. Well, I knew John Carlton was a legendary copywriter, and I said, “I’m going to ask him, get his take on this email newsletter sales letter that I was writing.”
Part of me, to be honest, wanted to do it so he could say, “You are a stud!” You know? But what he came back with was, “You’re lazy and you’re missing so many steps.” What he told me brought everything that I’d been learning up to that five years — the lightbulb went off, and everything that he said finally made sense to me.
And part of that was sort of a watershed moment for me, too, because even though he wasn’t a mentor, he was mentoring me in a sense of how that can help and improve a writer’s craft, because at some point you just hit a wall and from a very subjective standpoint you’re learning, but then you have somebody that comes from the outside say something to you, and a problem or an issue that’s been vexing you ever since finally becomes very clear.
So at that point, I really started seeing the value of listening to people, and looking, actively looking for feedback, and actually taking that feedback and looking for mentors, and looking for coaches, and looking for people who were better than me that I could study from.
Jerod: And specifically with respect to online marketing, the song that ends each one of these episodes by The Head and the Heart, says, “I wish I was a slave to an age-old trade,” and there’s a reason why that’s there, not just because the song sounds good. But because so much of what we do and what we teach, when it comes to online marketing it’s based on age-old principles and has been done before, and people have blazed that trail and shown how to do it, and so it’s so important.
I fight this all the time, wanting to just kind of go off my instinct or guess, or what I think is right, but we don’t really need to do that. It’s so important to step back sometimes, and realize that there are so many people that we can learn from, and so much out there. So I think that’s a great lesson.
Demian: I believe so, too.
Jerod: Well, next week we’re going to flip the script here, and we’re going to talk about successes and what we can learn from our successes. I think the main point of these two episodes is the importance of constant learning, but doing so intentionally.
Because there are so many little events that come up, whether it’s a failure or a success, that we can learn from. And just like the details in the aggregate make the difference, those little lessons that we can learn — little, or some of them big — those in the aggregate are going to make the big difference in us growing and developing both individually, professionally, and with whatever our goals are in terms of online marketing.
So, any final thoughts here, Demian?
Demian: Yeah. At our Copyblogger meeting, there’s a tradition of karaoke every time we get together, and Jerod is the boy band stud of karaoke. I think what we need to do is somehow record one of the songs you sing and then share it on the next episode of The Lede. Because you know, I think our audience deserves that.
Jerod: Don’t you think that would be more appropriate to go in the “failure” episode than the “success” episode?
Demian: No! (Laughs.) Not at all, Jerod.
Jerod: I might have to make myself scarce that night.
Demian: We’ll find you, buddy.
Jerod: (Laughs.) I don’t doubt it. I don’t doubt it. Well, hey man, safe travels. Looking forward to seeing you tomorrow.
Demian: Yeah, you too, buddy.
Jerod: And looking forward to sharing this episode, and the next one with all the listeners of The Lede.
Demian: Absolutely. Take care, buddy.
Jerod: Okay. You too.
Demian: Bye.
Jerod: Thank you all for listening to this episode of The Lede. If you enjoyed this episode, if you’ve been enjoying past episodes, please consider giving the show a rating or a review on iTunes. We would greatly appreciate it.
And don’t forget to go to authorityrainmaker.com. Get all of the details on our live training event that is coming this May in Denver. You will not want to miss it.
We will be back in two weeks with the completion of our two-part series here that highlights a few failures, a few successes, and most importantly, the lessons that we learn from them so that you can learn those lessons as well.
Until then, talk to you soon everybody.
*Credits: Both the intro (“Bridge to Nowhere” by Sam Roberts Band) and outro songs (“Down in the Valley” by The Head and the Heart) are graciously provided by express written consent from the rights owners.
About the authorJerod Morris
Jerod Morris is the VP of Marketing for Copyblogger Media. Get more from him on Twitter or Google+. Have you gotten your wristband yet?
The post How to Learn From Your Mistakes appeared first on Copyblogger.
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Noam Murro Says Blink
On to direct a new thriller
He managed to channel Zack Snyder’s OTT style with 300: Rise Of An Empire, but for his next film, Noam Murro is looking to get back to something original. He’s signed on to direct a thriller called Blink .
Hernany Perla’s script follows what happens when a man is left paralyzed after a famous and still-unsolved bank robbery. When criminals kidnap him and hold him hostage, determined to pry the secrets of the incident out of his head, he’s forced to outwit his captors. The twist being, he can only control his eyes, and he’s got to figure out the big mystery of the heist.
Atlas Independent wants this one up and shooting in the summer, so expect the casting announcements to come thick and fast. The central role promises to be a challenging one, at the very least.
Murro is also attached to direct the comedy drama All Families Are Psychotic, but that one will likely have to remain sitting in development for now, as Blink is on a much faster track.
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New Avengers: Age Of Ultron TV Spot
'You've meddled with something you don't understand...'
It might not be receiving the Super Bowl TV spot treatment, but Marvel has made sure we’re all still anticipating Avengers: Age Of Ultron with a new ad. Cue the heroes squabbling and the robotic drones causing havoc…
There is a lot here that we’ve seen in previous trailers, but some of those moments are expanded upon and you’ll find plenty of new footage lurking within the relatively short trail.
Among the highlights this time? Plenty of mystery about a strange medical procedure, Thor (Chris Hemsworth) accusing Tony (Robert Downey Jr.) of meddling in things he doesn’t understand, more Hulk vs. Hulkbuster action and James Spader’s technological terror Ultron threatening to tear the team apart from the inside. And if the growing tension between them present here is any indication, he might just succeed…
With Scarlett Johansson, Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Jeremy Renner, Samuel L. Jackson, Don Cheadle, Elizabeth Olsen, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Stellan Skarsgard, Cobie Smulders and Paul Bettany all put through their paces by writer/director Joss Whedon, Avengers: Age Of Ultron lands in the UK on April 24, before heading Stateside on May 1. For some exclusive peeks behind the scenes of the film, pick up the latest Empire in traditional magazine and digital formats.
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