Last month I lost a customer because, as he said:
“I love the advice and insight, but, as a Canadian, I can’t take the politics.”
On the one hand, I get and understand the impulse, and certainly don’t blame him for high tailing it out of here. I am not, never have been, and never will be everyone’s caesar cocktail. But, on the other hand, if he genuinely loves the info like he said then he’s probably neutering his own success.
For example, if I had his attitude I would never have:
* Learned the best troll monetization tactic I now regularly use (from FDR — who I utterly despise in every way)
* I also would not have benefited from learning some incredible networking & relationship-building approaches that have helped my business (from Obama’s inspiration Saul Alinski)
* And speaking of Obama who I am no fan of either — if I thought like he does, I would not have benefited from or taught an entire Email Players issue about his 2008 email fundraising campaign that took in $600 million (almost a billion in today’s money) in donations with JUST email
* Nor would I have gotten deep into the idea of media stacking I’ve been benefiting from in spades… and that had originally got me interested in co-owning a SaaS company (from William Randolph Hearst — even during his ultra liberal years before the very social causes he championed turned on him)
* Not to mention all the knowledge I’ve learned from studying Steve Jobs or would be using an Apple computer at all
* Plus the incredible insights about persuasion and influence from liberal trial lawyer Gerry Spence’s books — who was so good at his job he was once accused by the opposing lawyer of hypnotizing a jury!
* Frankly, I would not have probably ever experienced the joys of writing horror fiction, or been able to utilize and teach the lessons for copywriting and marketing gained from doing so, if I took the Canadian attitude (Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot was a big inspiration)
Those are just a handful of examples.
I have gone out of my way to learn from many other people I think are as vile and even outright evil as the night is long — Marx, Lenin, Clinton (Hillary and Bill), Stalin, Castro, Lyndon B. Johnson, James Carville, even the reverend Jesse Jackass… and the list goes on and on and on. And have benefited tremendously from doing so by simply taking the good ideas and discarding the bad (and bat shyt) ideas.
Something else:
I’d argue the less you “like” or agree with those you learn from, the better.
Because you are more objective about whatever lesson you learn from them.
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Ben Settle
