FEAR.

Good old fear, here we are again. It comes not-so-cleverly cloaked in post titles such as:

• How to get over the fear.
• Negotiating with fear to get your life back.
• Moving through fear to achieve your goals.
• 8 ways to harness fear’s energy like a frickin’ windmill.
• What’s that smell? Oh that? Don’t worry, I just went fear in my pants.
• “Mommy, I can’t sleep. The Fear Fairy is making a sandwich in my closet.”

(You wish other people were coming up with stuff that good.)

I swear, if I had a dime for every breakthrough method for living with fear, I’d have at least enough money for a sizable burrito.

Well, instead of just complaining about it, I’m going to continue complaining about it while also give you my unsolicited opinions on how to stop this madness and get on with life once and for all. You’re welcome.

Fear 101

First off, what is fear?

It’s an emotion. Like happiness, or sadness. It happens to not be a very fun emotion, but it is one nonetheless.

You’ll notice, if you’re paying close attention, that I just put fear-focused life-coaches out of business. See, because fear isn’t a bridge you can “traverse”. It’s not a mountain you “get over”. And it’s certainly not a used car salesman that you “negotiate with”.

It’s an emotion.

The bitch about emotions is that they come about by living life. Happiness is a reaction to awesome things happening. Sadness is a reaction to sad things happening. And fear, well, that’s what you feel when you think stuff is scary.

Life and emotions… they’re inextricable from each other.

If you want to feel no emotions, don’t be alive. (Disclaimer: That’s not a suggestion. I’m talking hypotheticals here. Sheesh.)

So excluding death and nonexistence, we’re left with one option: feeling different emotions.

If you want to feel different emotions, do things differently than the way you’re doing them.

Fear, decisions and you

Now that I’ve delivered that happy news, let’s look at what we do about fear.

Nothing. At least not directly.

Here, let’s start this off with an example, as it’ll help you see where I’m heading with this tirade. And it’ll also show you that I’m not “one of the lucky ones” who was born with the amazing capacity to feel no fear.

I’m afraid of flying

Fact: I’m afraid of flying. I hate it. You know the part I hate most? The part between getting on the plane and then getting off again hours later. I don’t just hate taking off or landing or the smell of those awful TV dinners they serve. I even hate making the reservation, knowing it means I’ll have to fly.

Problem: Recently I had to get to Florida from Seattle, a six-hour flight.

Result: I could either fly to Florida or decide not to.

Here’s the mental process that went on in my head (and this might drive it all home for you, seriously):

• “I have to get to Florida.”
• “Fuck me if I’m driving or sitting on a train for a week.”
• “Shit. Looks like I’m flying.”

Or, if you prefer a more stick-it-on-the-refrigerator-for-the-kids version:

• What do you have to do?
• What are your options?
• Make a decision and get on with it.

See where fear is in there? Nowhere, that’s where. It’s got nothing to do with it.

It doesn’t matter why I’m afraid. It doesn’t matter how I can harness it, what it feels like “deep down inside”, if I fill out your online coaching questionnaire, what it has to do with my cerebral cortex, or if it’s Freud’s left nutsack that’s responsible.

I either get on the plane, or I don’t.

Fear has a role, I guess, but a fairly minor one. Like the dude in the stands at the football game, whose entire contribution was showing up naked and holding up a big foam #1 finger.

Fear is a residue, a piece of baggage, a key fob. Fear is the little fish that rides around on the bellies of majestic sharks.

It’s nothing in comparison to you, the real you and what you decide to do.

YOU decide on your life. You’re the driver. Maybe you decide not to fly because you’re afraid. Or maybe you just go right on and fly anyway, urinating and white-knuckling it the entire way. It’s your call.

The very important thing to remember is this:

When you make a decision you’re going to experience some result. What matters is if it’s the result you want.

Let’s put this baby to bed, for now

Here it is, one more time: The Good Stuff:

• Look at what you want to accomplish
• Figure out how best to accomplish that thing
• Make the decision, get on with it and assume responsibility for all that that entails

Every second you spend traipsing through fear’s garden of yuck is a second you waste on being alive.

Fear sucks, but it just happens to be part of life sometimes. It comes about when things are changing, often for the better.

So go out, make decisions, choose your paths and take responsibility for how that affects others and yourself.

And if your life coach ever brings fear up, tell him I say he’s fired.

Yeah, Charlie, but what do we actually DO about fear?

Now, as a warning, we’re going to talk about this fear thing once more. Next week I’m going to put up the defining post on the practicalities of fear in life. And I’ll even give you some ideas on mitigating it a bit.

I mean, for all my grandiose talk about just getting on with things, fear certainly makes it uncomfortable to do so sometimes. It can lead to poor decisions and a life going the opposite direction from where you intended, and that’s no good.

So we’re also going to talk examples next week. Practical, real-life examples. We’ll look at what happens when you make decisions based on what you want, and what happens when you decide based on avoiding fear.

Until next week!

Doctors and internet specialists have just discovered an awful new disease called Subscriberitis.

It infects people of all races and income levels, but those most susceptible are young, very young, elderly, middle-aged, super old, male, female and anyone who subscribes to newsletters and blog feeds they don’t need.

There are many symptoms of Subscriberitis, including but not limited to:

• A full inbox
• Rapid and psychotic bashing of the “Delete” key
• Repeated dishonest use of the “Mark as Read” function
• Fear that your feed reader must be malfunctioning
• Paranoid suspicions that people update their blogs for no other reason than to piss you off
• Flagging interest in the affairs of others, even family
• Also dry eyes, cotton mouth, shriveled privates, swamp foot and constipation. Possibly also stunted growth and death.

Luckily there’s a free and somewhat ticklish self-exam you can perform in the privacy of your own home…

How to know if you have Subscriberitis

This simple and 100% accurate exam can be completed by simply answering Yes or No to the following questions:

• Do you have too many blogs to read?
• Do you even care about all those newsletters?
• Can’t be bothered?

If you answered yes, no or maybe to any of those, you have Subscriberitis really really bad.

Luckily there’s a cure.

How to cure Subscriberitis…at least for a little while

If Subscriberitis is the unprotected exposure to too many blog posts and newsletters, a logical cure would be to just get rid of a bunch of them.

And that’s exactly what we’re going to do. It’s time to start practicing Safe-Subscribing.

But wait! We don’t want you unsubscribing to everything under the sun or doing something you’ll regret later. Take IgniteLiving here. Unsubscribing to this blog would be a terrible life decision.

So, here’s a handy system that can help you determine…

Which subscriptions to keep and which to throw out.

1. I mean, really? Do you even read it anymore?
It’s painfully obvious, but why not just dump the ones you don’t read? I had a bunch of blogs in my RSS reader that I didn’t read for months. There was even one in there about math. Math?! What the…I’ve never even heard of that.

So a couple times a week, without even glancing at them, I’d highlight a handful of these feeds, click “Mark as Read” and go on my way. After a while, I realized I can save myself a bunch of time and just unsubscribe altogether.

2. Money, honey
Does the newsletter or blog subscription make you money? Does it increase your bottom line? Does it help you in any way to improve your business?

3. Time
Any newsletter or blog post is an investment on time. You have to read the stuff, right?

Well, is it worth your time? Does spending 15 minutes reading the information improve your life by 15 minutes? Will those 15 minutes have a return on investment? Or does that time just disappear, leaving you with nothing but a lasting rash?

4. Must-have Interests
I love playing guitar. It’s more than a hobby, but not at all related to my business or income. But that said, there’s more to life than money, and I can’t live without a bit of frivolous guitar immersion. It’s a must-have for me, lest I lose my angelic disposition.

And that’s the dividing line right there: is it a must-have or just a frivolous infatuation?

I mean, for three days last year you took a passing fancy to earthworm reproduction and the migratory patterns of cabbage, and now your feed reader looks like you’re preparing for a quiz show.

These and a bazillion other subjects don’t really warrant invasions into your life whilst you’re busy getting your show on the road.

And in those times when you do need a quick fix, well, that’s what Google’s for.

5. Happiness
A lot of people like TheOnion, a website devoted to humorous fake news. And certainly a lot of people visit YouTube. While neither TheOnion nor YouTube give us much, if any, monetary return on our investment, we don’t need to live spartan lives either. A certain amount of laughter and frivolity is absolutely as necessary to us as money and food.

Do the newsletters and blogs you subscribe to at the very least make you happy or provide laughter you might not otherwise get?

6. Broken Record Phenomenon
Here’s an example of the Broken Record phenomenon. I used to follow a guy who had great info about increasing sign-ups to your site and newsletter. I watched a video he made, learned about strategic spots to place sign-up forms and some resources to put in my sidebar.

Fast forward a couple months, now he’s got another handful of posts up and a dozen other videos and guess what they’re about? Strategic newsletter sign-up areas and sidebar resources. It’s a snooze-fest all up in here now. Deleted.

7. What happened to the old you?
One fella I used to follow focused on 3D modeling, something I’m rabidly fanatical about. And it’s not the most popular topic, so I was thankful I’d found him. But he suddenly changed tack on me, and pretty much all he talks about anymore is pinball. Yeah. From computer modeling to pinball.

I believe that’s the first lesson of How to Misuse Your Audience 101.

8. Is it an aggravation?
A while ago on Twitter I saw this witticism:

“Wealth impedes knowledge.”

And I just sort of went, “Gosh, really? That’s idiotic.” And because it was said by a guy of at least a little influence, I started envisioning all the kids out there taking it to heart, saying: “Hey, Pa, I hope I’m dirt-poor when I grow up so I can be really smart.”

It’s very petty of me, but I hate seeing stupid information like that because I get all bent out of shape and cry like a little baby. (Hey at least I’m honest, right?) To keep from losing the limited sense I still have, I don’t subject myself to the festering pustules on the underbelly of the web.

If it’s an aggravation, it’s probably best to be rid of it.

To be cured, you have to act

You brought Subscriberitis upon yourself, and only you can get rid of it.

If any of this seems complicated, just remember this simple bottom line:

If you don’t need it, don’t read it, and don’t get any joy from it, toss it out.

Also remember this:

It’s your inbox. What shows up in it is your responsibility.

I really hope the above helps you manage your Subscriberitis a bit better. With time, dedication and ongoing vigilance, you can expect to be cured and experience a full recovery.

Oh, and also remember to apply lotion. It’s got nothing to do with the cure, but it’s still nice.

A brilliant idea, this one. Genius even.

It’s so unique, there’s no chance that anyone on the whole bedamned interwebs has ever thought of it. This magnificent post will nearly write itself, earn you a big fat wad of cash and an appearance on Oprah.

And just out of curiosity, and to prove to yourself how much of a pioneer you are, you go to Google to search for the topic. As you press “Search”, you just know the results are going to come back as a “BIG FAT ZERO!”

But as your heart drops through the soles of your feet, what you see instead is this:

Millions of results.

That’s the look of competition, and it hurts. It feels like theft, because it was your idea.

Well, lucky for us there’s hope.

You don’t need to hit a grand slam, reinvent the wheel or find life on other planets every time you write.

Next time you’re expecting virgin writing territory, but instead come to find a well-trodden path complete with discarded candy bar wrappers and beer cans, try one of these 8 Ways to Freshen Up All The Blog Posts People Steal From You.

Be fancy and write it better

You know how many sportswriters and sportscasters talk about the Pittsburgh Steelers? I have no idea. But between all the newspapers, radio shows, TV programs out there, you can bet there are a LOT of people talking about the Steelers from week to week.

But only ONE person gets the coveted National Sportscaster or Sportswriter of the Year award. Just one.

Why? Because they do their job better, louder, funnier than everyone else.

You can do that, too. If you’ve got a knack for writing, write your blog posts better than the next guy.

Tend a bit to the poetic side? Inject that into your posts.

Have a great sense of humor or dry wit? Again, target your writing with those sensibilities.

All of a sudden, that “same old blog post” is fresh and exciting.

And lest you forget, keep in mind that the internet is one huge suck-fest for the most part. The majority of it looks bad and is written even worse. Good writing on its own can become reason enough for your post to shine.

Prove the subject/author right with personal experience

If the topic you want to write about is a “7 Ways to do ” sort of thing, give us your experience with it when you actually tried those seven things. Tell us why it worked and how it worked for you.

Better yet, make it a case study. People love case studies, as they act as proof that something can be done. If you can do it, so can Jill and Bob.

By the way, these are also BRILLIANT posts for affiliate marketing purposes. As you discuss your process, you can talk about (and sell) tools you used, courses you followed, books you read, etc.

Prove the subject/author wrong with personal experience

You followed all the advice in The Four-Hour Workweek to the letter, failed miserably and could only deduce that Tim Ferriss probably ate paint chips as kid.

Perfect blog topic! Tell us exactly what you did, what the real results were and what didn’t work. And just like case studies of success are great, negative case studies have the same potency.

Taking it further, once you’ve bared your soul and told of your own destruction, turn it right around and end the post with what eventually ended up working for you.

Again, these posts can be great for affiliate purposes.

Take the rocket science out of it

You might remember this idea from “There’s Something About Mary”:

How do you improve on an Eight-Minute Abs workout? Seven-Minute Abs!

People (me included) tend to inflate ideas, make things complicated or overly convoluted.

This is where you come in. If you have a knack for simplifying, take an idea that’s been butchered by technicalities or dry details and make it something more generally palatable.

Take an idea that seems like Rocket Science and turn it into Seven-Minute Rocket Science.

Expand on it

Dammit! Someone already wrote 101 Uses For a Dead Cat.

That leaves the market wide open for 99 More Uses for a Dead Cat, or similar titles in the pigeon and hamster niches.

Be Contrary

Sometimes stoking the fire is exactly the thing to do. You can counter the original opinion/post with fact, or counter fact with your interesting opinion

Why not try a little fisticuffs with an opinion-versus-stats riffing? It doesn’t really matter what side you’re on, provided you’re portraying your side coherently.

But people love to read opinion, and they love to read about real-life stats, too. So what can be better than a little of each in the same post? Maybe a cupcake.

Make it a story

Aside from just writing about the same topic but writing it better…you can take it a step further and write a story about it.

A technical blog post about how to card count at a Vegas blackjack table is one thing. But how about a true story of you or a friend, actually card counting at a real casino. Did you win big bucks? Get taken out back and beaten by the pit bosses?

Mix Genres

You may have noticed the recent surge of zombie fiction and blog posts entitled “How Vampires Can Teach You to Write Better.”

This genre-mixing is often intended to breathe new life into old topics by looking at them at entirely different angles. Not only does this offer a fresh approach, it can also grab readers who might not have ordinarily flocked to the subject. Meaning, someone might read your “How Vampires Write Better” post because they want to write better or because they’re fans of vampires.

How do you go about this genre mixing? Well, just survey yourself for what you like, what you know about and what you love. Most of us know, love and experience many different things in life. Find two and smash them together.

• Ex: What an architect can teach you about computer science
• Ex: How a runway model sold $45,000 worth of zombie fiction
• Ex: 6 reasons an NFL quarterback will beat you at Blackjack

More than one way to skin a cat

In this post we talked about breathing new life into old ideas, even when those ideas were yours first and stolen by a bunch of ruthless bastards.

The important thing to remember is that there’s always a way to grab that idea back and make it something fresh. And heck, with a little thought and effort, you might end up with something even better.

Of course, these are just a few ideas for overcoming the “it’s all been done before” blues. I’d love to hear how these might work for you. Even better, do you have tips or tricks that you use?

Let’s hear about it.

For now, write it and publish it. Don’t let your predecessors work you out of a job.

So why is Ryan here with a guest post? One, I’m a man of contradictions. Two, Ryan is the real deal. Three, Ryan has experienced first-hand a lot of the things we’ve discussed in past blog posts. And, four, this shit is well-written and just plain ol’ funny.

Please, everyone, give Ryan a warm welcome…

It’s said that 50% of small businesses fail within the first 5 years. Just last month, I became part of that statistic. Where you could once see a flourishing blog design business that was experiencing rapid growth and was actually making money in it’s second year, you now see a farewell letter from the owner (myself) with an Emo sentiment.

It’s a crying shame, right? Or is it?

You see, the interesting part about my business failing wasn’t that it failed – that’s obviously pretty common – but why it failed. Like I said, I was making money. I wasn’t just generating revenue, I was in the black. In fact, I was pretty comfortably in the black. I had reached that crossroads that so many entrepreneurs face.

“If I did this full time, I could support my family, without a boss, and do things on my own terms. I could make the rules and I could also make more money than I ever have. Give me five years and Jay-Z will be asking me for a loan.”

This was the thought that occupied my mind on so many sleepless nights. On one hand, I could smell the freedom. On the other hand, I started to feel trapped.

A Rude Awakening

After another one of the sleepless, excitement-filled nights, I woke up and looked at myself in the mirror. Lindsay Lohan after a three night Vegas bender would have said I looked like crap.

I was stressed beyond belief. My eyes were sunken. I had put on weight and as I stood there I realized that I hadn’t put my boys to bed in over a week because of how late I had been working. Every alert from my phone raised my anxiety level. Even the dirty emails from my dad that almost made me chuckle were instantly deleted without even a preview. It was almost like I had forgotten how to enjoy life completely.

At first I wanted to blame my sorry state on poor time management skills, the Iraq War, or those clever Taco Bell commercials, but I knew better. Granted, there were things I could have done more efficiently. We can always do things more efficiently. However, in my heart of hearts I knew that I was growing to hate what I once loved.

I Dropped the Bomb

For the next 30 days I evaluated where I was at with my business. I was considering closing the doors, but that decision was ridiculously hard to make for a number of reasons.

1. The money I was making was awesome – It’s really hard to turn work down as an entrepreneur because you’re never 100% certain where the next gig is going to come from. Put the fact that your family is benefiting in a really big way from your endeavors, and cutting off that income stream becomes even harder.
2. I made great friends – I had worked with a number of bloggers and had developed great relationships with them. I had become their go-to guy for all things tech-related. It was nice to have people depending on me and most of those people had come to reciprocate their gratitude in a big way. I never spent a marketing dollar but had referrals coming in nearly every day. I felt like pulling the plug on the business would leave them feeling abandoned or betrayed.
3. I’m terrible at saying “no” – I had this weird fear of people hating me if I told them I wasn’t doing any type of design work anymore. I’ve always been a people pleaser and my business life was no exception. I didn’t know how I was going to tell people that I wasn’t going to be able to help them out. Protip: I’ve since found that simply saying “I can’t help you out” works pretty well.

After the 30 days were up, I took a nuclear approach to closing the doors of my business. I put up a landing page where my website had been and that was the end. I finished up projects for current clients and then I was out for good. I don’t know that I’d recommend the same approach for another business owner on their way out, but it’s what worked for me.

Why did I ultimately decide to shut it down?

I noticed that all of my reasons for not closing the business were motivated by fear and money. Fear is a terrible motivator and can only be effective for so long. Money might help you hold on a little bit longer out of necessity, but you’re probably going to be miserable along the way. I know I was.

What’s Next?

Boy howdy I had a rough time coming to grips with the fact that something I thought I really loved had become a total burden in my life (Did I really just use “boy howdy” in that last sentence?). Not to say that I hate design and development now. I don’t at all. I just didn’t love it in that particular context.

The good news is that my entrepreneurial spirit is still strong. Don’t think for a minute that I left my business without a plan for something else fun.

I’m happier now. I may not be taking baths in stacks of money, but who wants to take money bath anyway? I mean, have you seen where that stuff’s been? It’s good to say that I’m exercising more. I’m writing more. I’m working on some more of my personal projects and last but definitely not least, I’m spending more time with my wife and boys.

It may take guts to change direction in your business, or even let it fail, but if the end result means you’re a better version of yourself, take The Beatles advice, and just “let it be.”

And that’s how we’ll kick off Part 2 of our series on writing. (If you haven’t read Part 1 yet, make sure you do at some point. It’s a good’n.)

This week we’re going to look at the kind of bad writing advice that makes me grind my teeth at night and run into stationary objects with my head:

“Use personality in your writing, but only sparingly.”

Ugh. Right?

This is sort of like telling the beginning driver to always keep their hands at 10 and 2 o’clock on the steering wheel. It’s workable advice until they need to turn a sharp corner, at which point both of their arms snap off at the elbows.

Worrying about your personality when you’re sitting down to write will do nothing but haunt you with a noxious introverting residue. Why? Because the emphasis is all wrong. Let’s sort that out first.

What you say comes before how you say it

Personality isn’t the target or end product of writing.

The end product of writing is to convey a written message.

Sounds simple, because it is.

Any writing project, whether fiction, non-fiction or some corporate website copy, starts with something to communicate. There is a core message first and foremost.

Examples of core messages:

• The history of how your company was formed (business)
• A sex scene that takes place inside an Army tank (fiction)
• The technical specifications of industrial fan #647A-U (technical)
• What you think about cats (personal experience)
• How you make money online using affiliate marketing (instructional)

Now that you’ve got a core message, you get to engineer it and decide how you want to present it.

How much personality can you inject and still get the core message across?

There’s really not a right answer to this, but you can probably get away with much more than you think.

You’ll have to figure it out from project to project, but I can tell you how I do it. I have fun when I’m writing. And I have fun reading what I’ve written. That’s a pretty good litmus test. If what I write puts me to sleep, you can bet my readers aren’t going to think too highly of it either.

So inject personality, and a lot of it. You’re going to turn your readers into a bunch of rabid freaky fans if you do.

And I’d like to present for evidence a comment I received on one of my blog posts a while back. It said something like, “I don’t care what you sell, I’m going to buy it because I love your writing.”

On the other hand, guess how many comments I’ve gotten that said, “Wow, your writing is really boring. Do you have anything I can buy from you?”

You’re going to lose the customers you didn’t want in the first place.

Yes, injecting personality is dangerous. It will cost you customers. Good news is you didn’t want those people anyway. They’ll be wishy-washy conservative customers/clients who may or may not buy from you, and who will probably want their money back if they did.

So yeah…lose those people. Because you’ll lose far more people by showing zero personality.

Breathing life into copy…examples

Does this copy written for a fast car sound familiar?

“The V8 fuel-injected engine goes from 0-60mph in 3 seconds.”

Okay. Not bad. At least it’s information people want, and you won’t get fired for writing this drivel.

Or you could say:

“Have you ever felt a V8 fuel-injected engine push you from 0-60mph in 3 seconds? Well, it’s damn fast. So fast you might actually swallow your wisdom teeth.”

Same information, different personality.

How about selling some bricks:

“Our brick delivers benefits beyond curb appeal, including natural insulation.” (Paraphrased from an actual website)

Not awful, but it’s a bit of a yawner, no? But even bricks can be exciting!

“Tired of having a house that turns into a meat locker during the winter and an active volcano during the summer? Not anymore. Our brick is naturally-insulated. That means your house’s temperature will be regulated throughout the year, so you can forget about adjusting the thermostat 48 times a day. Not to mention you’ll save a bundle on heating bills, leaving you plenty to spend on your crack habit.”

Just kidding about the crack habit part, but you get it, right?

All goofing around aside, the point is that you have a choice between giving people what they expect to read (passive), and something that grabs their attention (active).