NevBlog

Neville's Digital Surrogate Brain

Archives for 2013

Show some fucking passion poster

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Posted this on the blog, and two weeks later this randomly shows up in the mail!

show-some-fucking-passion-poster2

I love it!!

Happened to have a leftover frame that was the right size, and hung it up in my reading room:
show-some-fucking-passion-poster1

Thank you random poster people that sent it to me :-)

Guessing this is you??
https://gfda.myshopify.com/

Sincerely,
Neville

 

P.S.  I got to play with Google Glass (and take selfies of myself in them).  Cool technology, will pass on this 1st generation of them for now, but the 2nd and 3rd iterations will be AWESOME.

google-glass-selfie

December 2013 Goals

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Dammit I hate posting these so late in the month, but here-goes my December 2013 goals:

December 2013 Goals

1st I’m porting the copywriting courses to MemberMouse.  Existing members won’t notice a thing, but moving forward I’ll be able to do cooler stuff with a proper membership system rather than my current method of using Frontpage 2003.  (Wow, I still use a TEN year old piece of software for my webpages).

 

Next I’ve been dying to send out another NevBox because people loved them so much, but I didn’t wanna just do ANOTHER one on copywriting (at least not right away because at the time I felt I couldn’t live up to the same value the first one provided).

This particular one is going to be called the “Life Changer” NevBox.  I’m really excited about it because the change it should have on a person will be immense.

I was at odds with this at first, because the best customers (from a strictly business perspective) are people will a lot of money.  However I think THIS particular product would have the GREATEST net-effect on people without a lot of money.

I still felt strongly about doing it, so I’m continuing despite the possible economic risk.

Just got back from Cancun for an Indian beach wedding, that was my only hope for a warm winter.  Hope you’re staying warm too!

Have you ever heard someone say…..

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Have you ever heard a girl say:


“OMG I HATE DRAMA!!  I can’t STAND people with drama!”

I’ll take a solid bet that crazy b*tch has some DRAMA going on!!!!

If she HATES drama so much, it probably means she goes through so much drama, that she hates it.

Have you ever heard a person say:

“HOLY BEJEEZUS I HATE MONDAYS!!”

One.) Who still says ‘holy bejeezus’??

Two.) What this person MEANS to say is, “Boy do I hate the work I PERSONALLY have to do for 5 weekdays in a row, starting with Monday.”

Three.) This person in blaming “Monday” as being the enemy….not their shitty job.

People who don’t feel what they’re doing is “work” generally don’t complain about it much.

These types of negative attitudes shown above might seem pretty harmless, but when people agree with you after saying those statements, it re-enforces the bad behavior in you.

You: “I hate people with drama.”
Other person: “Yeah people with drama totally suck.”

You: “God I don’t wanna go to work tomorrow, Monday suuccckks!!”
Other person: “I’m withya man.  Wish I could have another day off.”

See what happened?

You completely get off the hook for YOUR shitty mindset.

Instead of doing anything about reducing drama in your life or making your work life better, you just continue on with the negative patterns and blame external things.  

I’m sure you’re guilty of this from time-to-time. I sure am.  

 

So here’s a little self-improvement task:
I want you to notice just one negative thinking pattern you have.

Basically any attitude where you blame SOMETHING ELSE other than yourself.  But in reality it’s YOU that can control that situation.

I want you to tell me what this attitude is because:
1.) I’m nosey.
2.) By writing it out, it’ll help you correct it (if you want to).

Leave a comment below and let me know what you blame on SOMETHING ELSE, but in reality it’s YOU that can control it:

Sincerely,
(Nosey) Neville

 

P.S.  I will be physically shipping FIVE NevBox’s to the best comments (worth $97/each).

I hate you stats (even though I need you)

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Statistics can be complex for dumb people like me.  BUT they can be made super easy, if you display the stats in an easy way.

Here’s the kind of stats I personally like seeing:

This is a HEAT-MAP overlay of my site from my CrazyEgg statistics.  The more people click on a certain part of the site, the more it “heats up” on the image:

nevblog-crazyegg-stats-heatmap-550px

 

This is a CONFETTI overlay of NevBlog.com from my CrazyEgg statistics:
nevblog-crazyegg-stats-confetti-550px

Same stats in both pictures, but different types of presentation.

The point is within a SECOND you can tell what’s being clicked on….and what’s not being clicked on.

Now, my blog has been sort of “tweaked” because of these stats, so everything is getting clicked on a fair amount, but it wasn’t always that way.

The main goal was to tweak the site so the email signup gets lots of attention.  The next goal was to make sure all the links were at least semi getting clicked on. Then I removed all the stuff that NEVER got clicked on.

#ghettostats

 

 

BONUS COOL FACT:
On the confetti overlay, you can see these “lines” every few inches.  Those are from mobile users scrolling!  Cool!

top of staircase

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Saw this pic on Reddit.  It was titled:

“My wife hung this above our staircase.  My work life and sex life immediately got better.”

show-some-fucking-passion

November 2013 Goals

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More than a week into the month and I’m just posting my November 2013 goals….BAD NEVILLE!

But the good part is, the only real work I set out for myself this month has already successfully been accomplished.

Well, at least all the consulting slots have been completely booked up, and now I will have to do them all (it’ll be a buuussy ass week)!

november-2013-goals

I’m already rocking a neatly-trimmed beard for Movember, so it’ll probably get all bushy by the end of the month.

October 2013 was nuts since I was out of town every weekend and going to conferences and such, so it’ll be nice to be home in Austin for a little while.

My birthday is this month too, so I’ll have to whip up some small celebration plans.  I’m not even going to ATTEMPT topping my 30th birthday of crashing Cuba!

Hope you’ve got YOUR November 2013 goals planned out also!
Sincerely,
Neville (who turns 31 years old this November 17th)!

Cool ass trick to find people talking about your niche

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Cool ass tip I just learned for finding people ACTIVELY talking about your niche/product/whatev:

1.) Google a word or subject. Like “wantrepreneur”.
2.) Under “More” in Google search bar, select “Discussions”.
3.) Under “search tools” select “past 24 hours”.

BAM. List of everyone talking about wantrepreneurs in last 24 hours.

You can chime into these discussions, see what they’re saying, use their language for your marketing, get ideas.  Whatever.

Use away.
-Neville

P.S.  Share or “like” this with friends or colleagues.  Extremely powerful research tool.

why can’t I party as much on a friday as I get older?

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It’s FRIDAY!!  In college that used to mean soon as it became dark outside I would get jitters to go out.  I literally had to go out on the weekends.  Hanging with friends, frat parties, clubbing, bowling, art gallery opening, picnics, meteor watching parties, house party…..I ALWAYS had to do something on the weekends, I literally could not stay home or I’d get jittery.  

This was probably a remnant of my childhood since my parents were very socially active.  I remember through elementary school, middle school, and high school, it was pretty much the norm to attend at least 2-3 parties over the weekend plus other activities.

Friends at school would tell me their family just, “stayed at home and got a movie from Blockbuster and ordered a pizza.”  This was LAME I thought, since that was never a normal thing for my active family.

Even after college I kept that pace up…..actually I increased it.
Remove the classes + add some income = party time!

Now all this partying wasn’t just drinking and crazy stuff.  A lot of times it was cool events and social clubs and entrepreneur clubs and tech meetups, but it was still an active social life.

However, now that I’m 30 (almost 31), it’s slowed down a bit.

People always say “As I get older I can’t drink as much” or “As I get older I can’t go out as much.”

…..I understand that, but I don’t think it’s fully a function of age.

For the drinking part, physiologically you CAN drink as much when you’re older, but the increased fat, decreased muscle mass, age-related problems, medications, and decreased frequency of drinking (aka lower tolerance) causes this for the most part.

For the going out part, I agree some of it is a decreased stamina issue as you age, but I think a whooollee lot of it is a DESIRE issue.

Let me nerdily calculate this out for you:

Let’s assume I entered college at age 18.  I was in college for 5 years (slow track for me).
How many times do you think I went out?

45 weeks a year I did at least two events (extremely lowball figure) = 90 x 5 years =
450 times.  
After college from age 23 till 26 I went out 5 days a week probably 45 weeks of the year.  45 x 5 x 4 =
900 times.

From age 26-30 went out maybe
400 times.  

…..ok, enough fuzzy math (and notice I was only account for 45 weeks a year not 52….I assume all those numbers are WAY more especially during the crazy holiday times.

THE POINT OF THIS IS:

By the time someone with a reasonably active social life is 30, they’ve been “out” over 2,000 times!

 

That number kinda blows your mind right??

When I was 23 if someone said, “Hey let’s randomly go out to 6th St!” (austin’s party area) I was sooooo down.

But at age 30 if someone said, “Hey it’s Tuesday let’s randomly go out to 6th St and get drunk” I would probably say ::in nerdy excited voice:: “No thanks I’m gonna sit at home and get some work done then read, then blog, then play with my 3D printer.”

That’s not always true, but it happens more and more frequently as I get older.

But it’s NOT a function of age, it’s a function of experience.  

Those two things just happen to correlate to each other.

To prove this….see if you know someone who missed out on much of their youthful freedom.  Maybe they got married crazily early then got a divorce when older, or always lived at home with strict parents, or had to provide for their family and never got to play.

When these people get older then all of a sudden come into freedom, they start going out with the youthful exuberance of a 21 year old, even though they’re weirdly old to be acting like that.  But eventually they get over it….like after going out 2,000 times :-P

Anyhow, there was no real point to this email other than to present an alternative view of this.
So if you’re not going out as much, it’s not because you’re old…..maybe you’re just not as EXCITED for the same old stuff anymore.  And maybe other things in life become more exciting.

With that, have a GREAT Friday!  And think of something to get excited about!
Maybe add some Novelty, Beauty, Growth, & Love in your day?

Sincerely,
A 30 year old Neville Medhora

P.S.  If you want, lemme know in the comments what get’s you excited as you’ve gotten older.  I’m FASCINATED by the changing enjoyments of people.  Would love to hear yours, no matter how silly :-)

and the winner is…..

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I wrote a long email about this, proofread it, and thought it was BORING AS HELL, so instead I will summarize with an image:

That was WAY easier/cheesier than the boring post I wrote!

Oh, by the way, a few days ago I made a small form to enter contact information for copywriting jobs.

So if you’re a copywriter (or a hopeful copywriter) then enter your information in this form to be on the list:
https://www.copywritingcourse.com/get-hired/

I have been showing the listings to people who ask me:
“Do you know any copywriters I can hire?”

…and it’s already resulted in several people getting gigs.  I’ll be passing the info to some of the biggest copywriters around, so it can’t hurt at ALL to list yourself.

With that, I gotta pack, and head out with Daniel to vegas!  You can checkout his blog here:
https://www.whypinto.com/

(Turns out I actually met Daniel at SXSW this year….so I know I’m not bring a total weirdo)!

Sincerely,
Neville Medhora

P.S.  I totally forgot to buy more copies of my own book and give some out at the conference :-/   If you end up grabbing the book, please let me know what you think! (NevMed @ gmail.com)

Attending a nerdy conference FinCon

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So this past weekend I attended a conference for financial bloggers called FinCon.

I honestly didn’t know this existed until a friend said he was going.  So at the last minute I decided “what the hell” and tried to go.

The idea of a bunch of nerds who blog about their finances online getting together at a conference made me laugh.  FREAKIN LOSERS!!

Then I realized I was one of the first people online to publicly list his finances online……
And that my blog is literally named “Neville’s Financial Blog”……….

So I started to make some plans for headed to St. Louis for it, but FinCon was already sold out, and every hotel within 1.5 miles of the conference center was sold out! (apparently the St. Louis Cardinals was in the finals and the stadium was right next to the event).

Bummer.

Fortunately they had a “ticket exchange” and a “roommate exchange” for late stragglers like to me, so I scalped a ticket and found a roommate to split a room with.

Now I’ve actually been to a lot of conferences over the years, and it’s pretty clear the same thing happens each time:

You get a certain amount of value out of the speakers and events, but you get the MOST value from just meeting other people at the conference.  

So if Lazy Larry stays home and watches every speech online and takes notes….he’ll come away with some good nuggets of information.

But if Friendly Freddy actually goes to the conference, and even misses a few of the sessions because he’s hungover……he will still get more out of the conference than Lazy Larry because he’s at the conference mingling, making friends, going out to breakfast/lunch/dinner with all the other nerds at the conference and building up a network of like-minded people.    

Anyhow……soon after arriving I realized FinCon is the ONLY place where it’s appropriate to walk up to a stranger and ask
“Hi, what’s your blog??”

Even more interesting was that you’d usually have heard of the persons blog.
A conversation begins.
Interesting things are shared.
Friends are made.

Enough babbling, here’s some of the trip in pictures:

A selfie of me on the train (I didn’t know St. Louis had a decent train)?  I’m jealous.
fincon2

This was my roommate Romeo, who was more responsible than me and made proper room plans ahead of time!
fincon14

Pretty quick you meet people you sort of know already through their blogs and make friends:
fincon5

Billy and Steve…..I’m taking a wild guess they’re probably talking about blogs:
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Pat Flynn was such a cool guy.  I’d read his stuff before, and it was great hearing him talk and getting to know him better.
fincon10

The St. Louis Arch.  I saw it 20 years ago with my family.  The building on the left was the Hyatt where everyone stayed, and the arch was LITERALLY right out the window, a very cool view!
fincon9

Naturally I took a handstand picture under the Arch:
fincon6

On Friday night there was a party at the Hilton in this super-awesome rooftop club/restaurant thing they had.  It had complete panorama views of the city, the Arch, and overlooked one of the final games for the Cardinals.

It was so cool to hear/see the roar of the crowds from above!
fincon7

This next picture won’t mean much to anyone else, but I’m including it here so I remember this:
Derek Halpern waived his speaking at the conference and instead told them “I’ll speak if you spend all the money on an open-bar closing party.”  After that party was done, a group of 30+ people were trying to get cabs to a different place, and logistically it wasn’t working out very well.

Out of the clear blue, a big-ass party bus pulls up, opens the door, and a woman holding a giant can of Budweiser gets out and goes, “Need a ride??”

We all pile in and get a ride to the bar we were trying to go to.

I ASSUMED the woman worked for Budweiser and this was some promotional stunt.  Turns out it was a church bus and the driver was just trying to make extra money!  It was just one of those funny moments where you think, “That couldn’t have worked out ANY better!”
fincon12
heart 2 heart ministries

Then Patt Flynn showed us that he can dance really well….
fincon13

And then some of us had a fancy-chmancy Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse dinner (get the filet):
fincon11

And that was FinCon!
Sincerely,
Neville Medhora


P.S.  While I learned a lot from going to the sessions, the main benefits of these conferences comes from making new friends and hearing stories you otherwise wouldn’t just sitting behind a computer.

Now I wish there was some more time for me to hang out in Austin, but this weekend (Oct. 24th – 27th, 2013) I’ll be going to vegas for a small copywriting conference.

It’s going to be between 50 and 80 people, and some of the copywriting legends like John Carlton and Joe Sugarman will be there.  THIS is a huge opportunity to hear some of the really big-time guys speak….but more importantly……hang out with them for the whole weekend on a personal level.

I also happen to be taking one person WITH me to the conference for free.  If you wanna be that person, register here: (Monday is the last day to enter, I’m picking the winner Tuesday morning)!
https://www.copywritingcourse.com/vegas/