Ben Settle

A few months ago, I saw somewhere a bit about how both Shakespeare and Gary Halbert would use so-called AI to help them write with if they were still alive today.

And with Shakespeare yes, I agree.

There’s strong evidence, apparently, he plagiarized and/or did not even write works he’s credited with.

If that’s the case, then so-called AI probably would have been right up his alley.

Gary Halbert, though?

I seriously doubt it, and not even for research or “brainstorming.”

This guy by his own admission said he did literal door-to-door research.

He even made fun of copywriters who avoided dealing people directly for research.

He also said – unless he was lying in his newsletter – he wrote his coat-of-arms ad by literally knocking on doors, asking people for feedback on his report that he’d been struggling to sell, then went back and re-wrote it based on what he learned, which then became the most-mailed sales letter ever written.

No “brainstorming” with so-called AI could have given him that research.

If anything, he said he would brainstorm with the market:

Directly, not hiding behind a computer like a timid lil’ rabbit, thinking it can be automated, shortcut, or reduced to asking a computer to what to write or give him ideas. He wrote about how he would even take his ads to a bar and buy a round of beers for the blue collar crowd there (who were his market) in attendance in exchange for them listening to him read his copy out loud to them.

I also suspect he’d have not trusted so-called AI’s penchant for hallucinating information.

And to further horrify the AI geek chorus of copywriters:

Gary said he didn’t even use a computer to write with!

He said he wrote his copy long-hand. And in his April 1995 newsletter he outright mocked & condemned the very idea of caring more about efficiency than effectiveness when writing sales copy. And he also said tools (like a computer) don’t make you a better writer, even if they make you a more efficient writer, and that efficiency means absolutely nothing with sales copy, and that effectiveness was everything.

I can already hear some goo-roo objecting:

“Ben you’re wrong! I KNEW Gary! And he would have used AI to write with!”

You mean the guy telling you to HAND write 1000s of bullets and long form sales letters to get a “neurological imprint” of what it’s like to write world class copy… and who would repeatedly bang the drum that “motion beats meditation”?

That guy?

I don’t know, Chief.

Going by his own writing, seminar training, and other teachings I possess, the idea of using any generative so-called AI sounds like the exact, polar opposite of what he wrote about efficiency and meditation vs motion and effectiveness. Not to mention his many newsletters (a lot of them still freely available on the internet last I checked) where he talked constantly about his tedious, manual, even “analog” processes for writing ads, bullets, stories, openers, and everything else.

And realize this:

Gary also claimed to have hated writing copy.

He outright said writing sucks, and he’d rather do anything BUT write.

He also has an entire newsletter just about that, too.

But even though he hated writing, he said he had to do all the above to write the winners. The only “short cutting” he talked about was with offer gimmicks like his post dated checks, etc. But I never once saw him talk about shortcutting the actual writing or market research phase or trying to make it go faster or more efficiently.

Plus, there is one other thing about this.

Gary was a stock trader, and even sold his own stock trading offer.

So I can only assume he was keeping up with the stock market, financial news, etc.

And that means he’d see what those of us who are not spittle-on-the-carpet FOMO addicts about so-called AI all know who look at the markets: the so-called AI industry is almost entirely one big ponzi scheme of money shifting & shuffling to keep the party (and dumb money speculators feeding it), and that the generative so-called AI companies especially are not making any money at all, despite $100s of billions spent.

I don’t really care if anyone “believes” that or not.

The cognitive dissonance about this from the AI geek chorus is unbreakable at this point, I’ve noticed.

But it’s easy to look up online if you want.

None of this is a big secret.

Even Google’s own search so-called AI will tell you this if you ask it. And everyone from Sam Altman to Mark Zuckerburg admit it’s all a big bubble. Frankly, at this point the only people who don’t know generative so-called AI is in a bubble that will pop are online goo-roos and their marketing moonies.

And so something tells me Gary would not be relying on it even if it did “work.”

Still, I admittedly did not know the guy.

Never met him, never talked to him, never so much as exchanged an email with him.

But the way I see it:

Unless the Prince of Print was a total hypocrite or else had some late life change-of-heart about what he wrote on the topics of efficiency vs effectiveness & meditation vs motion… and writing ads out by hand to get that  “neurological imprint” he insisted was so important… and also his hysteria about the dangers of technology like when he was banging the Y2K drum… one need only read his own writings and hear his own words on those subjects to see what he’d likely think of so-called AI today.

All right that’s it for today.

More on the paid Email Players newsletter here:

www.BenSettle.com/alt

Ben Settle

A reader asks the single most IMPORTANT question ever devised by the mind of mortal man:

Ben,

I need to (feel obligated to) buy something from you. I’ll let YOU tell me what I should buy.🫣 

My story. I started as an introverted Radio Disc Jockey back in the early 70’s. I was awful. I knew it so I asked to try selling Radio Ads to businesses. I loved it, but as you know media sales people are not trained on how to make any media work, just how to sell it.

I decided in the 80’s I would travel and spend money to see anyone who was considered a Marketing Guru. I traveled all over the U.S. and even traveled to Canada to see Ted Nicholas, and to London to see Jay Abraham.

You get the picture. I spent years and thousands of $’s for a real marketing degree. 

I started using what I learned to create marketing campaigns for locally owned businesses. Today I still consult 7 businesses on all of their marketing. My first client that I started working with 31 years ago … still a client.

I read every email you send. EVERY one.  I feel guilty because of the FREE IDEAS I get from reading them.

My guilt has caught up with me.  

Tell me which of your products I should buy.

Thank you,

I get the “which of your products should I buy?” question at time.

Certainly not every day, probably more like a few times per year.

And it’s a helluva good question to ask in my totally egotistical and biased opinion. But alas… I have no idea how to answer it for most people because they never give me any details I require to advise. A better question is to ask yourself first

“What is the skill I most want to learn, the problem I most want to solve?

Tell me that answer, then I can better advise.

Otherwise I am not much help with this.

Anyway, there are two kinds of people on my list:

1. Those who are a bit dull in the brain who think (and sometimes even complain about it) I give zero “value” because I don’t sit here and type out listicles and long form articles, and try to make people think instead, to become a little better, a little sharper, a little more effective at what you do each and every day

2. Those who see the value, like the guy above

If you’re in the first group, I suspect you’re not long for my World.

If you’re in #2, and are not sure what to buy, ask yourself the question above.

Then, and only then, ask me which book to buy.

The irony is, you won’t have to ask.

All right, end of purely self-serving email.

As far as “Ben don’t you give free stuff away???”

Listen, everyone who joins this free email list gets access to my free mobile app which has over 30 HOURS of training inside. I ain’t exactly hiding it, but it might as well be hidden people are so lazy about getting it. Much of the content has helped grow million dollar (literally) businesses.

And yet it’s all free.

Yours for the consuming.

The info inside the mobile app covers more topics, ideas, themes than I can even remember at this point.

And it’s all in there just waiting to be consumed, free, conveniently on your phone.

Don’t have a smart phone?

Not even an iPad?

Get ye back to your cave and rub your arms together to stay warm, I guess.

And coming from me that’s saying something!

Otherwise, it’s all here:

www.BenSettle.com/alt

Ben Settle

A while back I saw this tweet from Codie Sanchez

“You know what keeps me up at night as a CEO? That some government or world leader will do something stupid enough to make all our work not matter. Then you remember you can’t change that, so you just go back to building.”

There’s a hair-raising amount of truth to that.

And it’s one reason why I have long suggested to those closest to me in both family & business to prepare for the bureaucrat-created apocalypse to help save their own, personaly society (family & business, loved ones…) by:

* Selling stuff online as well as stuff OFFLINE (not being 100% reliant on the internet)

* Selling stuff locally, regionally, and globally

* Stacking medias & subscription offers and not relying on one of anything

* Building & mailing your list every day

* Using profits to stuff some saving away in T-bills (to protect yourself from bank collapses), bitcoin, precious metals (not just silver, gold, etc, but also lead – i.e., ammo), at least a little spot of land to grow stuff on, & even livestock. Some of this I talked about in my After School Special Email Players annual recently which was a letter to my own son about this and many other things. That is how important I consider it.

Whatever the case:

Volatile times are only gonna ramp up harder.

And voting harder for your favorite foreign-controlled muppet ain’t gonna change a blessed thing.

If you want to see what I am doing each month in my own business to keep things hopping and running, see the paid Email Players newsletter.

More here:

www.BenSettle.com/alt

Ben Settle

1. They’re usually much harder to sell than one-off offers

2. So if you don’t have super airtight email and/or lead gen game and a strong relationship with your list you are better off selling subscriptions on the back end vs the front end

3. They tend to attract the best, the smartest, and the most ambitious customers on your list – the ones you can take absolute pleasure in working your arse off to serve and support

4. And you’ll need those particular customers for your sanity if you’re sales copy/bullets and/or premiums are good, because your subscription offer will also attract a lot of the flakiest and sometimes semi-illiterate people on your list with zero self control over their dopamine addictions

5. I suggest trying hard to REPEL the above in your marketing from subscribing and blocking at first slight so they become some other business’ problem instead of yours

6. Unless, of course, you just want to take their money knowing you cannot help them, I guess

7. Subscription offers work more smoothly if you put what I call an “intermediate” sales page between the sales page and the order form that re-lists the most important things you want people to know to further curate

8. I not only have such a page for Email Players, but we have one for Low Stress Trading, too, and they work exactly as intended

9. Yes, they might “cost” you some sales

10. No, that’s not a bad thing, as it can save you a lot of time & frustration

11. If anything, it creates a smaller, but more engaged and eager-to-refer customer/client base in my experience

12. It’s not about squeezing every last nickel out of your market – if it is, you won’t last long or will find yourself hating your own business as many subscription-based marketers I know and/or know of do

13. You’ll still get customers that ignore the intermediate page, then turn around and ask questions that were answered on the sales page, the intermediate page, and the order form (again, see #4 above)

14. This is because a lot of people are functionally illiterate these days due to so-called AI, TikTok, and the social media dopamine-adrenaline engagement machine

15. But you will still get far fewer of the customers you don’t want if you use the intermediate page in my experience

16. The subscription bubble (everyone thinks they have a “Netflix model” these days) that started forming in 2021’ish has been hissing air, but it’s still got a ways to go, probably

17. Until then you might be better off focusing on selling bulk vs subscriptions

18. Will not explain what that means, you either know or you don’t

19. Subscription offers are not first about “content” but about Experience

20. That means fapGPT & other so-called AI tools that churn out content (if a content-based subscription offer, of course) will not be nearly as useful as the terminally online Sam Altman fan club thinks

21. Hardly anyone really cancels subscriptions (unless super expensive) because of money

22. They are lying to themselves and you when they say that, which is a good reason to ban them forever (why do business with liars?)

23. If it really is because of money (it’s not) they’d cancel ALL their entertainment (they don’t) subscriptions and daily sugar coffees (they don’t), and apply for public assistance (they don’t)

24. The real reason likely (not always) has more to do with lack of stimulation (i.e., you bored them, or didn’t enrage them, entertain them, excite them, adequately educate them, etc)…

25. The above is not “bad”, btw, it’s simply life, not everyone is going to be your ideal customer and you are not going to be everyone’s ideal business/person/service – which is why you must always build your list and mail it

26. “Buyers are liars” ain’t just a trope, so just keep building and mailing and serving whether times are good, bad, or stagnant

27. Dan Kennedy’s “Loyalty fatigue” phenomenon is another reason people don’t stick around

28. You may think it makes zero sense if you are solving someone’s problems, and they just sent you a ten page testimonial… but it goes back to Hitchcock’s commentary about logic vs effect

29. It’s ultimately YOUR fault for losing their interest or not curating them out earlier in the first place

30. If you focus first on service & Experience, you will inevitably replace those who leave your subscription with someone better, smarter, more eager to use your product

31. Take Gary Halbert’s advice about selling the foxes and ignoring the dogs – it’s one of the single most important things you can do if you sell subscription offers

32. Yes, there are still plenty of foxes left in most niches, as not everyone is a drooling-on-the-carpet TikTok brain’d, fapGPT-prompting zombie

33. However, the dogs are gaining in population, though, and probably 10 years from now any non-entertainment or necessity-related subscription offer will probably not be worth your time unless there’s a radical shift in the culture and/or social media is outright banned

34. One reason business is changing fast is because people are changing (not for the better) fast – which MIGHT reverse itself – out of self preservation – during a major economic collapse though, which I believe is not only inevitable but imminent

35. Either way, I suggest learning how to trade options using Low Stress Trading today, so you won’t give a shyt tomorrow no matter what happens – and maybe even profit from it all

36. That is what not only me, but many Email Players using Low Stress Trading are doing, who see the same writing on the wall I do

37. This is why I am in the trading business, not the subscription business (i.e.., not a book & newsletter publisher who trades, but a trader who publishes books & newsletters)

38. This includes our own software and Low Stress Trading companies that each have trading accounts of their own – and the profits from that trading will, if things continue on pace, dwarf the sales of the actual product sales in the not-too-distant future

39. There is no going back to 1999, 2009, or even 2019 in info marketing – that game is long over, and the people who will suffer most are probably the younger people (under 30)

40. None of this means you shouldn’t sell a subscription offer – you should if it’s the best way to serve your customers & clients, but if it’s not then why bother? Selling subscriptions just because your favorite goo-roo told you to is stupid on a stick anyway

41. Take all this as an “option” for thinking differently, and not as marketing gospel as there are always exceptions, and there is always nuance to these things

Finally, just to be clear about something:

Ain’t none of the above 41 parts are theory.

It’s straight from 16+ years of publishing various subscription offers (since 2009) – including my first one (the Crackerjack Selling Club, lasted one month before I realized I hated it), my old Crypto Marketing Secrets newsletter which lasted 30 issues before I switched to my Email Players print newsletter (going strong for over 14 years now), plus owning multiple subscription-based SaaS offers – including BerserkerMail, Learnistic, and most recently our Low Stress Trading subscription coaching/software hybrid business that itself has multiple subscription offers stacked on top of it.

So yes, I have a wee bit of real world experience with this.

The times they are a’changing.

Thus, my paid Email Players newsletter.

It can help you keep sales, and customers, and engagement no matter what kind of offer you sell assuming you have (1) an  email list and (2) an offer people want.

More here:

www.BenSettle.com/alt

Ben Settle

I speak of Dragon Warrior IV (from 1991).

And this early RPG (role playing game) is in my humble, but accurate, opinion a power education in business, marketing, selling, copywriting, and even World-Building skills. Willis will be introduced to it when he’s a little older. And I still play it myself when I want to learn a new skill or get a deeper understanding of a skill I already possess.

Reason why is, it teaches, almost by “osmosis” via playing it, skills like:

1. Thinking strategically v just tactically

2. Patience

3. Storytelling

4. Playing blackjack (a game many wealthy people play, not a coincidence)

5. World-Building

6. The dangers of not vetting strangers you let in to your own business community

7. The plight of customers/clients who are abducted by other businesses

8. The inherent flaws in farming off decision-making to so-called AI (see below)

9. Buying & reselling to make money when starting out with nothing (one of the characters you play is a family man & merchant named Taloon, who literally starts with $0, and you have to buy and sell, and use patience, to get good deals to build up his experience)

10. Disarming enemies/trolls with humor

11. The silliness & dangers of girl bossing

12. Dealing with the frustrations of being randomly attacked when going after a goal

13. The importance of building up the ‘scar tissue’ of experience to get things done correctly

14. Why people irrationally obsessed with the theory of evolution can’t be trusted

15. How to work within a team so everyone’s strengths are accentuated, and their weaknesses put aside

16. The importance of comedy in life

17. The utter time suck of going after elusive bright shiny objects vs focusing on your Mission

There are more.

But I can say without any exaggeration that playing this game has amped up my business, marketing, copywriting, and even Options trading skills. And yes, it also gave me a very early-in-life distrust of so-called AI.

How?

Because the game forces its AI on you to play the characters at a certain point.

In other words:

Your party gets attacked, and it’s idiotic AI plays all the characters except the main one, and takes the decisions (and all the fun) away from you. But, what I have been doing for years is, I used the old Game Genie to hack the game to make my own decisions with those characters, to make it all go a lot better, more smoothy, more successfully.

So-called AI is a great super calculator-like tool which it is by its own admission.

But you got people literally letting it write their ads and tell them what to do.

Or, even more amusingly, even try to start relationships with it.

I just saw a social media post about this, where the guy was literally bragging about using AI to talk to his customers to grow relationships.

I have also recently heard goo-roos are letting it write their customer testimonials too.

All of which has me thinking on something James Cameron said recently.

He has been running around saying he tried to “warn” us about so-called AI in 1984 with Terminator.

But I don’t think he has much to worry about with that.

The world is far more likely to look like Idiocracy than Terminator.

To avoid that fate for your own business and read more about the paid Email Players newsletter go here:

www.BenSettle.com/alt

Ben Settle

A couple months ago, Twitter user @gypsy_lovell dropped this zinger:

“The purge has begun. Every email I receive from ‘experts’ that recommends more GPT’s is getting dumped into a spam folder. Every marketing guru except @BenSettle_ is force feeding my inbox their one-of-a-kind custom GPT.”

The timing was almost perfect.

Because literally the day before she tweeted that, I was telling Stefania how I’m becoming torn between having fun warning about the foolishness of blindly going all in on generative so-called AI emails/copywriting due to FOMO and zero questioning the blatantly obvious bull shyt narrative pushed about it, and deliberately not talking about it, per Sun Tzu’s implied advice to not interrupt my opponents when in the middle of destroying themselves.

So I don’t know.

Probably at this point most of the guys parroting corporate CEO talking points have left my list, or have realized I have such a low opinion of their blind devotion to it and refusal to question anything, that there’s nothing left for me to do but Copy Troll their snarky drive-by comments.

It’s obvious they don’t even have any real opinions on it.

Their opinions have them.

Worse, it’s not even their opinions.

It’s always them citing some AI goo-roo’s opinion who haunts social media all day.

That won’t get me ignoring it for a while though.

Thus, why I talk a little about it in the paid Email Players newsletter at times. If you want to read more about it go here:

www.BenSettle.com/alt

Ben Settle

An Email Players subscriber (not sure he wants me naming him) asks:

…you suggest positioning as a Leader of your market instead of as an expert. What are the practical differences between those two positions? What can I do to be perceived more as leading my market? Doing daily emails certainly makes an impact on my market but I suspect they currently see me more on the expert side of the spectrum.

It’s more of a state of mind than a series of how-to steps.

When I think of an “expert” I think of the guy who can tell you about 300+ ways to have the sex, but can’t get a date on Saturday night with a pocket full of $100 bills and if his life depends on it.

Everyone is an “expert” nowadays.

And they are all easily ignored.

So in opinion and experience:

Yes, first & foremost, be there every day, that alone can move mountains.

But much better than reading about leadership in emails like this is to study great leaders. You can learn far more from books, documentaries, and observations about great Leaders than you will reading someone else’s writings about leadership – including my own here. Especially since a lot of it can’t really be taught, and can only be gotten via grinding experience plus observed, thought about, extracted, worked in to your way of life and doing business from others..

Some books I have found helpful are books from and/or bios about guys like:

* George Washington

* Andrew Jackson

* Steve Jobs

* Walt Disney

* Douglas MacArthur

* Arnold Schwartnxljdudgger

* Sylvester Stallone

* Frank Capra

* Fred Rogers

* The late Pastor Arnold Murray

* The old Mad Man ad agency founders like Ogilvy and Leo Burnett

* The story behind how Kurt Russell stealth-directed the movie “Tombstone”

Also check out books that talk about various leaders and what they did like The Rise & Fall of Ancient Egypt, 33 Strategies of War, Marvel Comics: The Untold Story, Rules for Radicals, and definitely the books of Exodus, Joshua, Judges, 1 & 2 Samuel, 1& 2 Kings, and the Gospel of John from the Bible.

In the latter, especially read where Jesus washes the feet of His disciples.

It’s Leadership at its highest level.

And also realize this:

With some of these resources – or others you find – a lot of it is learning what NOT to do.

Especially seeing choices you might ordinarily do thinking it’s the right thing to do, but is the opposite.

Finally:

Don’t ask me for specific titles/authors or where to find them.

Doing your own due diligence, reading reviews, asking around, spending time vetting & curating… figuring things out… is part of the process of discovery.

And don’t be a lazy bum and rely on so-called AI.

Not only will “Cliffs Notes” summaries do you zero good with this, but most of the crap it spits out is far from reliable, horribly sourced, and misses even the most basic nuance where all the real lessons are embedded within.

So there’s your marching orders if you choose to accept them.

But just pick one resource/person to study above that sounds good and start there.

Then another…

Then another…

And another, and another, and yet another…

Until you start imbibing – consciously and unconsciously – how great leaders, kings, and rulers thoughts, made decisions, and achieved their goals and/or totally screwed everything up even when everything was handed to them on a silver platter.

Yes, in a lot of cases you learn as many what “not” to do lessons.

But those can be even more invaluable.

To learn more about the paid Email Players newsletter go here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

Hey Ben, got a question for you (feel free to use it as content)

Context: I’m ready to ship a print newsletter to a list of companies I believe are my Dream 100. Most don’t know who I am. But I’ll give them a heads up via email, using all the principles I’ve learned from you over the years. The goal of the newsletter is to position myself as an authority and, ideally, partner up with them in the future.

Question: Out of the top of your head, what are 3 pieces of advice for me?

I’m being intentionally broad here despite doing (I believe) a lot of things right. So even if you tell me something I already know, it will still help because it will reinforce that I’m on the right track.

Probably it’d be:

1. Don’t look at these clients merely as clients but potential JV partners

2. Be more useful and of service to these clients than anyone else possibly can or is willing to

3. Any clients you talk to, if they say no, ask if they know of any colleagues who might be interested in your services, with an intro if they’re willing. And the ones who do talk to you, and you work for them, the second they compliment your services, ask if they have any peers or colleagues they think might be interested in your services, with an intro if they’re willing.

That was my advice.

And I agree with him that it could be useful for a ho’ bunch of others on my list.

And so here we are.

If you want to learn more about the paid Email Players newsletter go here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

Below is my latest Oregon Eagle newspaper article.

The Oregon Eagle being a newspaper founded by one of my long time customers Richard Emmons I bought ownership in to have at least some kind of “say” in the future of this state. I also figured it is something that can be passed down to Willis some day, so he has at least some kind of say, too.

Here it is:

If you want to drive free leads to your business’ website that are both free and are often all but “in heat” to buy your products or services when they arrive, then this article will show you how.

Here’s how it works:

Best-selling author of the “NO BS” book series Dan Kennedy teaches about what he calls “upstream leads.” These leads don’t find you from Facebook/Google ads, banner ads, magazine ads, newspaper ads, TV ads, radio ads, direct mail ads, or any other paid ads. Instead, they work their way “upstream” to you – swimming against the tides of mass advertising and distractions to find your business online. They often show up with a credit card in their hot little hands, can’t wait to get on your website’s mailing list (see my last Oregon Eagle article for how to build an email list), and don’t waste your time haggling over price or with ticky-tack complaints.

In other words, you don’t chase upstream leads, they chase you.

And when they come to you, they come correct.

This flips the script on the usual business/customer dynamic. And in my nearly 25 years selling online, I’ve yet to see a more rabid (to buy) lead than the upstream variety.

The good news is, there are many ways to acquire upstream leads, including:

* Lead swaps – where you make a deal with a business adjacent to yours (i.e., not direct competitors but serve the same “gene pool” of customers and clients, like an accountant/ insurance agent, or a plumber/electrician, or mechanic/car detailing service) to tell your mailing list, social media followers, and customers/clients about their website, and they do the same for your business. These leads show up pre-qualified, pre-sold, and likely pre-ready to buy.

* Joint venture with businesses – similar to list swaps, except you directly sell their offers to your list, social media followers, and customers & clients, and they do the same for your business.

* Barter your service to adjacent businesses in exchange for access to their customers – you provide your service to them and they then tell their mailing list, social media following, and customers/clients about your business website.

* Send press releases with valuable tips to the media to entice them to want to interview you – including to local radio stations (and podcasts), TV programs, and newspapers. This makes you a mini celebrity and lets you tap into the “halo effect.” This is when merely being interviewed by the media automatically makes you the “go to” business for people who trust that media.

* Post about problems your business solves to local social media groups – do this enough and people start assuming you’re the best option for fixing those problems, go to your profile, and look for a link to your website. The trick is to be like a doctor. Many of the most renown doctors aren’t the best at treatment, they’re the best at diagnosis. Thus, “diagnose” via regularly writing about problems your product or service solves.

There are many more ways to generate upstream leads.

But just picking the one or two above you like most can get you a steady flow of eager-to-buy leads coming to your website day after day, week after week, month after month, and even year after year.

===

If you want to learn more about the paid Email Players newsletter go here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle