In the spirit of succeeding in business by revealing more, not less, I’ve recently decided I should drink my own Kool-Aid on that one more, and start sharing a wider range of my writing passions with you, my loyal readers. Bit-by-bit, I’m going to share pieces of my past comic writing on this blog—and current comic writing to if I manage to find some hours to tear myself away from “serious” writing and go back to my roots.

I know there’s a risk of alienating some of my more “upright” readers—very little good comic writing is polite—but that’s a risk I’m willing to take. I’d rather be remembered for what I revealed about myself, than for what I concealed. 

So, with that prologue, here is a previously unpublished piece I wrote 9 years ago, when I was 26, about a disturbing series of events that occurred between 8th and 9th grade. The piece is called “Flunky”. . . Enjoy! 

***

I should have known something was wrong with Troop 5 right away. The guy who invited me to join was the weed dealer at my middle school, Martin Luther King, Jr. Junior High. “You should really come check out our meetings. They’re a lot of fun,” he told me one day during morning break.

Purdue was not the kind of guy who would have considered whittling or basketry “fun,” so his enthusiasm in the Boy Scouts piqued my interest. At fifteen, he was the oldest kid in eighth grade. He seemed to tower over us—a pale, built white guy with greasy, shoulder length black hair. His right hand was permanently crippled—from having punched it through a glass pane once to impress a date, rumor had it.

I also should have known something was wrong with Troop 5 when I found out where it met: a block away from Telegraph Avenue, the main commercial strip near the UC campus. It was impossible to walk a minute down this street without dreadlocked person someone blocking your path and offering to sell you “herb” or “bud.” An unsuspecting person might think she had just stumbled into an outdoor bazaar where, for some reason, fresh oregano was being sold by white rastafarians.

Troop 5 met on Friday nights in the indoor basketball court of a nearby church.  The meetings consisted of eating pizza and playing “peg-ball.”

To play “peg-ball,” you split into two teams, and each side gets half the basketball court.  One side gets the ball first, and the objective was to throw it as hard as you could at someone on the other team, pegging him with it, preferably on the face or better yet the nuts. It was a semi-inflated rubber ball, so if it actually hit you in one of those places, howls of laughter emanated from the other side, as you crouched over, clutching your face or gonads. If you pegged someone, your team got a point. The team with the most points at the end of forty-five minutes won.  That was “peg ball.”

I suppose the adult leaders volunteering those Friday nights felt they were doing something positive for the community.  “At least they’re off the streets, doing something constructive, instead of out doing drugs,” I overheard one parent volunteer say to another, proudly, as they watched us play. I remember judging this comment at the time. Even in eighth grade, I felt I had done many more constructive things while high—surfing, playing music, dancing—than standing around, eating pizza and throwing semi-inflated balls at fellow eight graders’ nuts.

If any of these apply to you, then you need to check out this interview I recently did, because we’re going to completely blow these fears and needless assumptions out of the water for you.

How to Succeed in Business By Revealing *More* of You, Not Less
A Dialogue with Danielle LaPorte and Michael Ellsberg
Listen to the interview via the link above. (Right-click to download; CTRL-click on a Mac)

Today, I have the privilege of catching the one and only Danielle LaPorte for a very special discussion.

If you’ve read my book, you’ll remember Danielle from my section “Radiating Your Way to Success,” about personal branding. Danielle, blogger extraordinaire and author of The Fire Starter Sessions (out next month from Random House in a quarter-million dollar book deal) was one of my absolute favorite dropout superstars I interviewed during my entire time writing my own book. The top 3 reasons I love Danielle:

1. She has an insanely infectious, controversial, and no-BS personality which is unmistakably hers.
2. She has unapologetically made her unique personality the *centerpiece* of her business life, to wild success, rather than trying to hide it and fit in.
3. She’s funny as shit.

So if you want to have fun, AND feel emboldened to reveal *more* of your personality in business, not less, AND be inspired, join us for this lighthearted treat.

Why am I sharing this free audio class for you? Because so many so many people out there are trying to “conform your way to success.” You feel, “If I can just fit in…” or “If I can just hide the weirder, more vulnerable, personal sides of myself and pretend to be normal… THEN I’ll succeed.”

STOP IT!

The best way to get out of this pernicious fear-based conformism loop is to let Danielle hit you over the head with a verbal, spiritual, inspirational soul-whack only she can deliver.

How to Succeed in Business By Revealing *More* of You, Not Less
A Dialogue with Danielle LaPorte and Michael Ellsberg
Listen to the interview via the link above.
(Right-click to download; CTRL-click on a Mac)

Olivia says: “For the first time, science and technology have taken charisma apart. They’ve figured it out. And turned it into an applied science. In controlled laboratory experiments, researchers could raise or lower people’s level of charisma as if they were turning a dial. I will teach you how to turn that dial, for yourself, and for others.”

Olivia’s message in one sentence? “Charisma is not innate; it CAN be learned; and here’s how.”

Got you more than a little intrigued? Charisma impacts everything you do, from your work life, to your leadership, to your dating and romantic life. If you want to learn how to amp up the dial on your own charisma, join us tomorrow for a free live teleclass:

How To Teach Yourself Charisma
Michael Ellsberg interviews Olivia Fox Cabane
Tuesday, March 27th, 3PM Eastern (12PM Pacific)
Register here:

According to Olivia, most of us learned our present level of charisma so young that it seems innate. The reality is that it is learned, and you can learn it at any age.

Many people believe it depends on beauty. In reality, it depends on body language.

What are the top 3 things to increase your charisma now? Olivia is going to share all three on this juicy call—so join us!

Finally, she’ll be answering the question: Is charisma dangerous? The short answer is: yes. That’s why her final chapter is entitled “Use Responsibly.” Olivia will be sharing with you secrets that could change your social life forever. So use the force wisely.

See you tomorrow!

How To Teach Yourself Charisma
Michael Ellsberg interviews Olivia Fox Cabane
Tuesday, March 27th, 3PM Eastern (12PM Pacific)

Register via the form above.

Participants were asked to work through the steps I outlined in the article (or at least, the initial steps), keep a running diary of their results in a blog, and post post their results three months later. Whoever got the most impressive results wins 6 months of 1-on-1 mentorship with me.

Lesson #1: Do not underestimate the passion of Tim Ferriss’s audience!

Holy moly! On the day the contest ended, December 29th, I received over 60 submissions, in both the comments section of Tim’s blog, and emailed to me through my site.

I suppose I could have outsourced the reading of these blogs people created, to an assistant. But I figured, if you took the time to take this contest seriously, I wanted to take your submissions seriously. So I personally read every word of every post of every blog submitted.

Like those restaurants say, “We handcraft our menu items so please allow for extra time”- I handcrafted my decision after lots and lots and lots of reading—and some more reading on top! I apologize that I kept you waiting a while for my response. If I do a contest in the future, I’ll figure some way out of getting you the personalized attention you deserve without taking so darn long and keeping you on the edge of your seats for so long!

At any rate, thank you for your patience. And we have a winner!

Now, before I announce that winner, let me say—more important than the quantity of submissions, I was blown away by the quality. The amount of energy nearly all of you all put into your courses of self-study was humbling. Wow, Tim, you do choose some passionate and motivated fans! :-)

Here’s what I was looking for in a winner. The contest cut off three months into the 9-month program, right in the middle of Steps 3-5 (which all take place concurrently, and correspond with months 3-5 of the program). While I didn’t care if you got past these steps (given the short time frame), I was looking for people who did at least get past the reading/learning of Step 2, into the human interaction of Step 3, “Learn the Basics of Good Networking.”

Almost everyone demonstrated impressive results in Step 2, “Showcase Your Learning.” However, to my mind there was a clear winner in going past Step 2, into the realm of bringing his new learning out into the world with other people. And that winner (and the winner of the contest was)…. drumroll please….

Garri Jung. Garri, 23, says in his first post that he set out to teach himself direct response copywriting, in which he had no background. Now, like a lot of the contestants, over the next several months he did an impressive amount of reading on the topic, amassing a powerhouse of information on his chosen field.

However, where Garri truly excelled was in bringing his new learning out into the world and getting out of the sandbox with it, even while his skills were very fresh. This passage from his blog convinced me that Garri was “The One:”

These few months have been awesome.  I rewrote sales pages for the great guys over at Global Garden Friends.  And wrote a sales video script for them.

Then, I helped this guy, an antique photo restoration master, bring his skills and knowledge to the world via an information product.  Check out the sales page – I wrote it after interviewing the site’s creator – Dan West.

Beyond that, two good friends of mine are in the process of writing ebooks and setting up blogs around their areas of expertise.  The first is a cybersecurity guru – and he’s going to be publishing a great DIY guide to securing your data.  Reading and editing the drafts of that book inspired me to change ALL my passwords, update all my programs, and start getting serious about securing my data.  Paranoia is contagious.  More on this as the book gets closer to completion and we start putting together our marketing for it.

The second ebook is from a good friend involved in the Fine Wine Investment Community.  It’s a great guide to that lightly regulated investment market.  Just reading the draft of it before writing the sales copy taught me tons.  More on that as we get closer to launching it.

Finally, I helped this girl get more than 500 responses to her in-depth fitness survey.  So much of writing sales copy transferred over to writing survey requests.  Getting people to take their time and fill out a survey may even be more difficult than getting them to hand over their money.  Maria wants to more narrowly tailor her video-blogging to her viewer’s needs, desires, and habits in 2012.  Definitely check out Fitness Reloaded, it’s a great site about fitness minimalism.

What most impressed me about Gary is that he has clearly has built up a strong basis, in just three months, for making his new field into a career for the rest of his life. I am inspired to help that. Great work Garri. I look forward to working with you in the next 6 months!

Honorable Mention

As I said, there were many other impressive entries. Here are a few that caught my eye. (I’d like to send each of you mentioned below a signed copy of my book—so get in touch with me through my website!)

Pablo Sanchez set out to teach himself motion graphics, and this video showcases what he learned in three months. Wow, amazing work Pablo!

Matthew Weintrub, a pensive, philosophical, poetic young man, made a beautiful site called “Y I Love Women,” interviewing a series of amazing women in his life – all in order to teach other young men about why they should learn from, respect and love the women around them too. I love the concept.

Jacqueline Burton, studying to be a holistic health counselor, accomplished an enormous amount in 3 months. Way to go Jackie!

Erica created Lavishly Natural, an enormously detailed and impressive blog about nourishing naturally curly hair, for black women. I’m blown away by the amount of passion and time Erica put into this project. Though I am neither black nor a woman, Erica I’m going to be reaching out to you because I do have curly hair which is often extremely unmanageable—maybe you have some tips for a curly white dude too! I’ll trade you some business mentoring for some curl mentoring! :-)

The REAL Winners

I know this is a cliche, but in this case, I think it is entirely true. The real winners are ALL OF YOU—all those who participated in the contest. You all demonstrated just how much you can learn about a new field, in a short space of time. And many of you launched exciting new careers.

I’m proud of all of you. Thank you so much for participating!

Well, this Thursday at 7PM Eastern, I’m excited to share with you a live class with my two greatest and *favoritest* teachers and mentors of all, Bryan Franklin and Jennifer Russell, who will be seriously schoolin’ us on:

From 6 Figures to 7 Figures (With Satisfaction & Fulfillment)
A Live Teleclass – Michael Ellsberg Interviews his Mentors Bryan Franklin and Jennifer Russell
Thursday, February 23rd, 7PM Eastern. 4PM Pacific Claim your spot here

If you’ve read my book, you’ll remember Bryan as the dropout millionaire who opens the book, the very first story on the first page of the Introduction (where he gets the chance to run circles around a Harvard MBA). Bryan has created multiple seven-figure business in his career from scratch- with no college credential. 
Also, Bryan and his partner in business and life, Jennifer, contributed a great deal of the framework of Chapter 7, on The Entrepreneurial Mind-set vs. the Employee Mind-set– that was their brainchild (which I give them credit for in the book.)

On Thursday, they’re going to be sharing for 90 minutes about a topic I know you are likely to be very interested in: how to go from six figures in your business to seven figures.

Now, I can’t speak to that topic from personal experience, as I’m at six figures myself now (I know a lot about how to go from 5 to 6, as I’ve just made that transition in the last few years :)

However, like you, I’m very interested in this topic, so I’ll be grilling the heck out of Bryan and Jennifer so I can learn everything I can from them, and sharing it with you live on the call.

They’ll be talking about the key shifts in scale, business organization, marketing, and of course mind-set, that have to occur to ramp up your business from the 6 to 7 figure transition.

And THEY know a hell of a lot about this–not only because they’ve both done it themselves. Even more relevant, in the last few years, six of their own students have grown their own businesses to 7 figures as a direct result of implementing strategies suggested to them by Bryan and Jennifer.

But here’s the most important part. This isn’t just about money. (If you make more money, but the things you have to do to get there make you miserable, what the hell is the point?)

Money doesn’t give you meaning in itself- if it did, there wouldn’t be so many millionaires who turn to drink and drugs out of despair!

So, the second part of the title, “With Satisfaction & Fulfillment”, is key to this class.

More than any other teachers I know, Bryan and Jennifer are committed to making sure your business and career are integrated with your deepest sense of your values, mission, and purpose on the planet, and also with your sense of vibrancy and aliveness.

(Indeed, I always am very open about crediting a lot of my own success in creating my dream career as a writer to having studied with them intensively.)

Could it be possible to grow your business revenue while also growing your sense of meaning, flow, and contribution?

Bryan and Jennifer say you’re actually *more* likely to grow your earnings if you also grow your sense of contribution and purpose through your business.

I know it’s a controversial assertion, but they have a lot of direct evidence from their own experience and that of their students to back it up- so let’s hear what these master teachers have in store for us.

Join us:

From 6 Figures to 7 Figures (With Satisfaction & Fulfillment)
A Live Teleclass – Michael Ellsberg Interviews his Mentors Bryan Franklin and Jennifer Russell
Thursday, February 23rd, 7PM Eastern, 4PM Pacific
Claim your spot here

Looking forward to talking on Thursday!

–Michael

Chip founded one of the fastest-growing boutique hotel chains in history, Joie de Vivre Hotels, at age 26, grew it to over 30 properties.

He recently left the company, in great shape (both him and the company!) to pursue a full-time passion teaching about how human development fits into management and business growth – starting out with this fantastic book.

I could try to explain emotional equations myself, but probably the best explanation will come from watching the super cool, short animated book trailer Chip put together below. (I promise you’ll learn something new about your emotions by watching it.)

Chip’s basic idea is that most emotions can be understood by breaking them down into their component parts.

For example, here’s one of my favorite of Chip’s equations from the book:

Anxiety = Uncertainty x Powerlessness

Now think about that. Kind of makes sense, right?

If you’re uncertain about something (such as you’re not sure what exactly is going to happen during an adventure trip) but you feel empowered to deal with whatever challenge arises, then you’re not going to feel anxiety, you’re going to feel that tingle of thrill or excitement.

But take the same uncertainty, and add a sense of powerlessness in the face of it, and don’t have thrill, you have that familiar hobgoblin of all entrepreneurs, anxiety.

With these equations, you can actually gain some control (or at least major insight) into your emotions. So, for example, with anxiety, now that you know it is the product of uncertainty x powerlessness, the remedy is simple. If you’re really anxious about something, Chip recommends making a list with four columns.

• First, what you don’t know about it.
• Second, what you do know about it.
• Third, what’s in your power to change about it.
• Fourth, what’s not in your power to change about it.

This exercise, if you try it, will do two things for you:

1) You’ll actually realize you know a lot more about the situation than you thought (there is less uncertainty), and that you can do more about it that you realize (you are more empowered).

2) By focusing your attention on the columns of certainty and empowerment, you’ll noticeably begin to feel less anxious about the situation.

Try it!

Chip’s book is full of wonderful equations like this, and simple exercises which can change your life. It’s one of the most novel and intriguing takes on our emotions I’ve ever read.

I hope you’ll join us tomorrow, Tuesday, January 17th, at 1pm Eastern, 10am Pacific, to hear Chip tell us all about Emotional Equations, and how you can use these fast, simple techniques to enjoy a better life at home and in your business or workplace.

To register, fill in the form below, and you’ll be given access info instantly.

See you tomorrow!

–Michael

You will be conducting web research, outreach, and relationship-building with journalists and writers on topics related to my recent book The Education of Millionaires. Topics include the student debt bubble, revolutionary innovation and disruption in the education field, out-of-work college graduates (perhaps you are one?! :), #OWS as it relates to student debt and disgruntled college graduates, debates over the value of higher education, and the rising trend towards youth entrepreneurialism and entrepreneurial self-education.

Depending on your success with the above research and outreach, the apprenticeship can then get into deeper aspects of the entire process of book creation, writing, pitching, and marketing. Learn about researching book ideas, writing proposals, pitching projects, writing and editing drafts, and designing future book launches.

You Must Be….

The skills required for this apprenticeship (and which you will develop massively by participating on the team) include:

• networking savvy (tact, grace, social intelligence, strategic thinking)
• writing skills
• web research
• social media savvy (blogs, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn for professional networking)
• graceful and diplomatic email manner (one of the most valuable and most difficult-to-master career skills I know of!)
• initiative in coming up with your own ideas related to our projects

You will get my absolute commitment to your own professional and career development and success beyond this apprenticeship. People pay me a lot for my coaching/consulting/guidance, and you’ll be getting a lot of it if you demonstrate ambition, initiative and engagement. The more you put in, the more you’ll get out.

I will also provide marketing/sales guidance and mentorship for your career, and quality connections and referrals among my vast network, where appropriate.

This is a particularly valuable opportunity if you are looking to break into (or advance a career in):

• PR/Publicity
• Digital marketing
• Writing/book publishing
• Blogging
• Journalism

My expectation is that you commit a minimum of 5 hrs/week (more is welcome). Because it is totally flexible, you can do this apprenticeship from anywhere with an Internet connection, though I want at least a few on my apprentice team based where I live, NYC. So extra brownie points go to those in the NYC area.

You will be managed by my rockstar Brand Manager Rachel, with plenty of facetime (or ‘Net time) with me each month.

How to Apply

Fill out the form below with as much of the requested information as possible (required fields marked with *asterisk.)

And, since this is all about questioning the status quo of higher education, here’s a fun twist:

Do not mention your educational credentials anywhere in this application. I want you telling me about your real-world experience, not resting on your theoretical laurels.

I could care less if you have three MAs, two Ph.Ds and an MBA from Harvard to boot—all are fine. But what I really care about is your enthusiasm, and your real-world chops. If you mention anything having to do with your formal educational credentials anywhere in your application on this page, your application will be deleted immediately. 

Not that I have anything against formal higher education or anything ;-) I just prefer hearing about your real-world experience, not your classroom experience.

I will be judging your application based on your enthusiasm and passion for the apprenticeship, your motivation, your already-existing savvy with social media, and the amount of fluency, grace, and personality (yes, personality!) you convey in your writing in the application.

Does this apprenticeship sound fun? Does it sound educational? Does it sound valuable? Get to it!

Applications are rolling until the apprentice team is full. Due to volume, I am not able to respond to all applications personally. If I think we’re a good match, you’ll hear from me within 2 weeks. If you don’t hear from me within 2 weeks, assume that for whatever reason I felt other applicants would make a better match. Thank you!

–Michael