Sticky Notes - Feeling stuck?

Three, maybe four years ago, I released a course on copywriting. The hope, originally, was to create something that students could get through in less than an afternoon and return to, again and again.

To date, Snow Cones has been taken by 2,698 students in over two dozen countries. It's helped marketers, writers, entrepreneurs and snow cone vendors of all shapes and sizes hone their writing chops and have a hell of a lot of fun in the process.

If you've yet to take the course –– or guide rather –– stop what you're doing, crack open your piggy bank and hit that black button down below. 

In journalism, there is a tragedy called “burying the lede”.

It’s when the journalist loses the reader because they’ve placed the hook somewhere deep down at the bottom of the story.

Folks tend to commit this same sin. But, with their careers.

They’ll compile a hundred items on their proverbial to-do lists and bury the only “to-do” that will actually move their career forward at the bottom of the page.

Most of the success we’re after can be realized by nailing that one “to-do”.

I have a note on my phone that goes off every day at 9 a.m. CDT that reads…

“Bangers Only”

It’s a reminder not to spend my 40-hours working on menial tasks but on “bangers”.

It’s a reminder to spend my time working on my own “Pancho & Lefty”… “Where is my mind?”… “Welcome to the jungle”… “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down”… “Midnight Train to Georgia” and so on.

Naval Ravikant, the founder of AngelList, uses the metaphor of lions and cows.

Cows graze all day on a to-do list so long it could choke a horse. Lions, on the other hand, choose a target and then –– bang.

Work like a lion.

Work like Towns Van Zant.

Work like The Pixies.

Work like Guns N’ Roses.

Work like Kris Kristofferson.

Work like Gladys Knight.

“Bangers Only”.

I read somewhere once that tigers have a hit rate of 10%. So, for every ten attempts they make at a hunt, they walk home with dinner once.

I then thought about the physical specimen that is a tiger; about how they weigh upwards of 700 lbs, about how they can jump 20 feet in the air, about how they can run at speeds of 40 mph, about how they can bat their paws so hard and so fast they can knock a bull’s jaw clean off its head.

Then, I thought about how silly it is for humans to think we can average a higher “hit rate” than tigers; how silly it is for humans to think we can go after something once and expect to walk home, grinning, with dinner in our mouths.

And, so I would never recommend anyone to go after something thirteen times or twelve times or even eleven times.

But, I would say that if you haven’t gone after something you really want ten times, you’d be a damn fool to count yourself out.

The difference, of course, between tigers and humans is that tigers don’t have the luxury of walking home with their tails tucked between their legs if they eat dirt nine times in a row...