What Pain Do You Cherish?
Hey there. Tim here.
This week's issue is a little different. I'm not talking to you about money or marketing or growth. Rather, I'm talking to you about pain. Learning to channel my pain into positive energy has been my secret to success.
Please hit reply with let me know your story. How does pain work for you or against you?
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1. What Pain Do You Cherish?
I heard someone ask a profound question on a podcast today. The question was …
“What is a pain you cherish?”
When I ask you this question, what first comes to mind? My guess is you don't immediately think of a physical pain. Rather, you think of an emotional pain.
Because emotional pain is the pain that cuts the deepest.
So, what is it? What pain do you cherish?
For me, it’s obvious. I cherish my addiction.
A Walk Down Linton Ave
It’s strange, because out of all the terrible places that my active addiction brought me, the lowest point in my life was was actually after I got sober.
I was about 6 months into my sobriety and my life was not going well. I managed to get a job selling advertisements in a magazine and I was fired after 2 weeks of employment. I didn't make a single sale.
The manager gave me $150 to help me out and sent me on my way. At the time, I was staying at a halfway house. I was walking back from the office to my halfway house and I can so clearly remember the heat.
It was August in south Florida, and the sun was blazing hot. I had no money, no food, and was too ashamed and embarrassed to ask anyone for help.
I was completely screwed. I was out of options. What was I going to do?
The First 90 Days Of My Sobriety
Getting through the first 90 days of my sobriety was brutal. I swear to you, I was in withdrawal for 3 straight months. I would completely sweat through my bed sheets every night. I threw up constantly. Honestly, I still don’t understand why I was sick for as long as I was. They say opiate withdrawal can’t kill you, but I sure felt like I was dying. Somehow, I got threw it. I had lost weight that I couldn't afford to lose, I was terribly skinny and sickly looking, but I was still sober.
Getting through those first 90 days gave me a strange feeling of hope. I figured "it can't get any worse than that, there's nowhere to go but up from here."
So to get through all of that only to find myself in a hopeless situation almost broke my spirit. I didn’t see a reason to keep going.
I did what people told me to do. I stayed sober, I went to meetings, I puked in the toilet every night and suffered through it with a blind belief that things would get better.
Yet here I was, stuck in the blistering heat with no money and no food and nowhere to go.
I felt pathetic and worthless. I was very under weight and if it weren’t for my cousin saving my ass, I would have been on the street.
It hurt so bad. Even thinking about it now makes me emotional.
That’s the pain I cherish the most.
I'm Grateful For That Pain
I wish I could take that moment and crystalize it into a physical manifestation. I would turn it into a trophy and put it on my desk. I would pray to it every night.
That was the most painful moment of my life.
It's strange because it wasn't the "worst" moment, meaning I've had much worse things happen in my life than getting fired from a job. But that was my lowest emotional point. And it was the moment my new life officially started.
It was the closest I ever came to giving up. But since I got through that walk down Linton Ave, I can get through anything.
2. How To Get Freelance Writing Work
This week, Ethan and I talk about our experience hiring writers, and how to get noticed if that’s the kind of work you want to do for a living.
We talk about structuring portfolios, how to do outreach, what actually matters, and what’s a waste of time. Plus we include examples from our work at Copyblogger, Sober Nation, Stodzy, Trends, and Hampton
Click here to listen to the full episode.
3. Join The Copyblogger Academy
Our community is thriving and I hope you’ll consider joining us. If you join, you will learn how to build a brand, build the foundation of your success, and invest in your future.
Who Is The Copyblogger Academy For?
Members are professionals who are serious about growing their online authority and scaling their business. We do this by attracting high paying clients through quality content marketing.
Who Isn’t a Good Fit For The Copyblogger Academy?
Amateurs’ who want quick wins, cheap dopamine hits, and aspire to become TikTok influencers.
4. More Proof That You Should Start A Podcast (With The Data To Back It Up)
In last week's newsletter, I gave you some interesting insights about the future of the podcast industry. I also gave you some insights about the failure rate of podcasts, and why the most important thing for you to do is simply not quit.
This week, I doubled down on my argument with even more data.
I hope this paints a picture for you and shows you how simple and manageable it is to become a top 1% podcast.
Click here to watch the video.
5. The Courage To Ask
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The reason most people suck as sales is because they're too afraid to ask for what they want.
Without a doubt, the most common mistake people make is spending time with a prospect, giving them more information than they need (this is because it's a coping mechanism for anxiety), and then never actually asking for the sale.
Click here to view the Tweet and leave a reply.
I hope you all have a great week. As always, feel free to hit reply and let me know what you think or if you have any questions I can answer.
Love you guys.
Talk to you next week.
Tim