Step #1 – Realize That Art Never Happens In A Vacuum
If you have time, I highly recommend that you watch this documentary:
The first step to becoming a master at anything (even and especially business/copywriting/online marketing) is to realize that true masters rely on the previous work of others to a massive degree.
Mastery doesn’t mean reinventing the wheel.
Mastery doesn’t mean creating something that has never existed before.
According the documentary Everything Is A Remix, our favorite books, movies, companies and even inventions are simply a byproduct of this process:
1. Copy
2. Transform
3. Combine
Even Steve Jobs admits that the success of the Mac rested on this process:
This system is the same no matter what you want to master.
If you want to write great fiction (something I am working on personally), the first step is to copy, then transform and then combine the different elements from great stories that you love.
Want to write the best sales letter you have ever written?
Find your favorite sales letters, pull bits/elements/lines/paragraphs from those sales letters, change them to meet your needs and then combine them all into your sales letter. (this is why you need to start building a swipe file – it will cut down on the time you spend writing the sales letter as well)
Want to be the greatest entrepreneur who has ever lived?
Then look at what your favorite people are doing in business. Copy their moves, then transform them to fit your personality, your style and combine all those elements together.
This is how you create masterful work. This is how you reach proficiency. This is how you create an income out of nothing.
Step #2 – Copy The Great Masters
I just have to beat this issue home because it is such a simple idea that I am afraid people will be turned off by its simplicity even though it is THE ANSWER to your problems.
If you aren’t making the kind of money you want to be making – it has to do with issues of mastery.
Sure, you might be working your tail off. But if it takes me 1 hour to make 30 widgets and it takes you 50 hours to make 30 widgets you simply won’t make it UNTIL you can make at least as many in an hour as I can (this is called competition in the marketplace and is the most powerful example in the case for becoming a master).
It doesn’t matter what you want to do with yourself/business etc.
Consider this:
Want to know how I learned copywriting?
I purchased a $0.58 legal pad, went to Clickbank.com and started copying down – word for word – all of the sales letters that made me want to buy.
Total cost to me: $0.58
Want to know how I got good enough at Facebook Ads to get $0.29 buyer leads into my funnel?
Every time I logged onto Facebook I did the ole’ Ctrl + Print Scrn and created a swipe file of HUNDREDS of Facebook ads that caught my eye.
Total cost to me: $0.00
Want to know how I [insert the next thing to be mastered]?
I copy.
I copy the masters so much that their greatness just can’t help but rub off. That tiny little fraction of greatness that you get from their mastery is enough to give provide the forward momentum that you could ever need.
Step #3 – Choose Your Fate
Have you ever heard the line:
“Jack of all trades, master of none,
Often times better than a master of one”
Well it is crap.
Complete and utter garbage.
The sooner you wipe that idea from your mind the sooner you will become the person you want to become.
I am sure you have heard the age old analogy regarding life and walking through open and closed doors. I am sure you heard it as a teenager:
“Well son, some doors of opportunity are only open for a certain amount of time blah, blah, blah”
Ok dad. Whatever.
The reality is that you and I begin each day sitting in a lobby. In that lobby there are 15 – 20 doors wide open for us to walk through. On the other side of each of those doors are rewards. There is nothing for us in the lobby but stale mints.
If you feel like your career/art/business/novel/love life is “stale” or if you find yourself saying “why am I not getting any closer to my goal” or if you feel like you are in a nightmare where you feel your feet running and running and running but you can’t get away from the bad guys…
It is because when you wake up in the lobby each and everyday, you decide to spend your whole day there instead of just picking one of the damn doors and walking through to your rewards.
I bet I know exactly what you do. I bet your to-do list looks something like this:
1. Read some blog posts at Copyblogger, Source Wave and MikeShreeve.com (of course…)
2. Plan that sales page for the offline offer
3. Search for images for a Facebook ad to build that list for my online product launch
4. Read “The War Of Art”
5. Go through new training on CPA stuff
This is bad. This is so, so bad.
If your schedule looks like this, and if you call this “work” – you will never master anything.
Hate to be blunt. But here is the deal.
First, you have the potential to forget up to 94% of everything you learn. The more time you spend “researching” and “planning” the more time you are wasting. Period.
Second, you never even left the lobby. You can’t split your body and have half go the the CPA door and the other half go through the Facebook Ads door. It ain’t happening. Sorry.
Here is what a master’s schedule looks like:
1. Review new training on lead gen to figure out how they set up their landing pages.
2. Set up the landing page.
3. Drive traffic to the landing page.
4. Check results.
5. Celebrate being rich.
The key to mastery is to step through one of those doors.
Just choose ONE! It is the only way to make progress.
I know it might feel like you are closing the doors to possible opportunities, but let me let you in on a little secret.
Opportunities don’t exist as potentials.
Think about it this way, if someone offers me a job as a VP of Marketing somewhere, is that a good opportunity for you?
Step #4 Get In Trouble
This one took me years to learn.
Nobody has ever become a master by sitting on the sidelines.
If you want to become great at something you have to expose yourself to pain.
Whether that is physical pain (to become a great athlete)
or
Emotional pain (to become a great artist/writer/singer/healer/etc.)
or
Mental pain (to become an innovator, a professor, a thought leader)
or
Social pain (to become a great business person/networker/connector/builder or organizations)
Masters are the most scared individuals in society. They have hurt, they have stressed, they have cried, they have pushed beyond what the rest of us have.
That is why they are the masters and we watch them with awe.
But you can gain their same experience. It only requires a willingness to get yourself into trouble. To step outside that comfort zone. To say,
“Yes. I know my writing sucks, but I am going to publish my short story anyways.”
And then get ripped to pieces by negative reviews.
or
“Yes. I know that my business isn’t perfect and I feel like throwing up talking to people, but I am going to follow my dreams anyways.”
And then you make mistakes. You do things wrong. You get into trouble (non of it legal trouble though hopefully).
You get hurt.
This is the path to mastery. If you don’t like it, then I am sorry to say you simply aren’t cut out to be a master.
And that is ok too.
If everyone is a leader, then who are they going to lead?