Category: Course Notes

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These came from a series of Darren Daily’s originally posted January 2022.

Table Of Contents
  1. 1. Forget Normal
  2. 2. Manage your MEDS
  3. 3. Manufacture Luck
  4. 4. Live like a Lion
  5. 5. Eradicate the Negative
  6. 6. Stop Shoulding Yourself
  7. 7. Start Small to Go Big
  8. 8. Give up more.
  9. 9. Live in 3D
  10. 10. Stick With Less
  11. 11. Plan for Rain
  12. 12. Stay Limber
  13. 13. Start Before You’re Ready
  14. 14. Fuck Fear
  15. 15. Stay in your Genius
  16. 16. Bring Your Love to Work
  17. 17. Trust the Gut
  18. 18. No Regrets
  19. 19. We are ALL One
  20. 20. Show More Gratitude
  21. 21. Pay It Forward.
  22. 22. My One Word/Strategy for ’22

1. Forget Normal

There is no status quo or normal anymore.

Having a high tolerance for uncertainty will be your competitive advantage.

Do not seek normal. Normal is obsolescence.

My thoughts:

“You’re either Netflix or Blockbuster.” – Me

I’m going all-in on the metaverse. It is the inevitable future.

2. Manage your MEDS

  • Mind
  • Exercise
  • Diet
  • Sleep

“Winners are those who have mastered the fundamentals.”

Commit to:

  • Watch Darren Daily daily.
  • Regular exercise routine you know you can maintain all year long.
  • Cut sugar, cut carbs, cut processed food.
  • Get to bed early.

My thoughts:

I don’t have a problem getting to DD every morning.

I do have a problem being motivated to exercise.

I do have a problem w/ changing my diet.

I do not have a problem waking up early but I do have a problem falling asleep and so I’m always tired and require afternoon naps.

3. Manufacture Luck

Luck is the outcome of thousands of micro actions.

Habits and disciplines put you in position to “get lucky”

To achieve big goals, focus on simple and easy micro actions.

My thoughts:

Re-read my Compound Effect notes.

Re-read my BMC notes.

Go through Jumpstart again.

4. Live like a Lion

Lions don’t chase squirrels; they reserve their energy for the antelope.

Be courageous. Speak up. Demand attention.

Lead from the front. Do whatever it takes to feed and defend your pride.

Lead with courage and confidence this year. Only give energy to big game payouts.

My thoughts:

I need to figure out what are the little things that don’t get me anywhere and what are the big game payouts I should be focusing on.

5. Eradicate the Negative

If you constantly feed your brain with negative input, your outlook will be negative.

You CAN NOT parse and separate it out with conscious logic.

Our neural net operates in the unconscious background.

Protect the inputs that feed your very vulnerable and sacred neural network with a FEROCIOUS VENGEANCE.

My thoughts:

I feel like I need social media marketing to reach the level of success that I want, but I can’t afford to hire someone to do it for me.

I need to figure out a way to manage social media without having to view social media.

I’ve already cut “general” news and only focus on industry news.

I spend over an hour reading every day. Some non-fiction/educational material (teaches knowledge) and some fiction (teaches empathy).

6. Stop Shoulding Yourself

Any goals or resolutions that you put on your list year after year, just stop.

Put everything through a filter: can, should, must?

Only the “musts” should be on your list.

My thoughts:

Two things that keep ending up on my list are learning new languages (several) and learning to program.

I’ve invested A LOT of money into learning to program buying books, courses, online classes, etc, and it just doesn’t seem to click. Perhaps that is not a superpower I will develop.

Which is really tough because I feel like this would be a huge benefit to my endeavors in the metaverse.

Perhaps art is a better way to go.

I do still believe in long term benefits of me learning languages so I will keep that for now.

7. Start Small to Go Big

Forget all your resolutions and goals. Focus only on small daily actions.

Log them in your journal.

It will be your small, seemingly insignificant, moment-to-moment choices that will accumulate and compound into the massive transformation you seek.

My thoughts:

I still need to build routines.

A lot of the small choices I make are good due to the mindset shift I’ve had over the last couple years, but I need to make it a priority to set up routines for the stuff that I know will improve my life.

8. Give up more.

You’re doing too much.

You need to delegate more.

Quit everything that is not in your superpower.

We are designed to be world-class in only 1-3 things.

Delegate the rest.

My thoughts:

Going back to number 6…I need to figure out these things. What should I be doing? What should I be giving up? How can I do what I’m best at and still be involved in the things I want to be?

Right now I can’t afford to delegate so do I need to either Automate or cut out entirely?

9. Live in 3D

  • Life in 1D is if you’re only focused on what affects your life.
  • Life in 2D is when you see things through the eyes of others.
  • Life in 3D is when you can see from the big grand scheme of things.

If something is bothering you, ask yourself: In 20 years, will this matter?

If it won’t make your eulogy, let it go.

My thoughts:

I don’t think I have a problem with living in 2D but I definitely need to step up to 3D and start asking myself “in 20 years will this matter?”

In the recent past I’ve written down what I want people to say at my funeral. I need to make sure I’m sticking to that.

10. Stick With Less

The pandemic taught us to live with less.

Don’t re-clutter your life. Protect your less is more lifestyle.

My thoughts:

I don’t think I’ve recluttered but I also don’t think I really cut back during the pandemic. I was already a homebody with too many projects half started or half finished.

I need to keep simplifying and decluttering.

11. Plan for Rain

Businesses who were prepared for disaster thrived during the pandemic regardless of mandates, etc.

Plan for the worst and hope for the best.

Prioritize the funding of your personal savings accounts and you business reservers NOW.

My Thoughts:

My biggest goal for this year is getting out of debt and the goal for next year is to build up 12 months of living expenses in savings.

12. Stay Limber

Those who are most adaptable survive.

Help others thrive.

Be the one that is the most adaptable to change.

Chang is coming!

Stay flex. Stay limber. Expect Constant disruption. Be agile. Adapt quickly.

My Thoughts:

I don’t think I have a problem with this one. I keep my business small (just me and Upworkers) so that I can do whatever needs to be done to keep up with the times.

13. Start Before You’re Ready

The truth is: you’re never ready and you’re gonna suck when you start.

Just start. Then get ready. Figure it out along the way.

Doing is the best practice and prep. Mistakes are your best teachers.

Start. Now. Before you’re ready.

My Thoughts:

This is something I need to work on. I spend way too much time preparing for things before I do them.

14. Fuck Fear

Fear is an illusion.

The only antidote to fear is stepping into it.

Fear is your only obstacle.

Stop pussyfooting around already. Step up, say Fuck Fear, and step into it.

My Thoughts:

Lately I’ve been considering doing things that I’ve always feared, like skydiving, just to desensitize myself to fear.

“Fear is the mindkiller.” – Dune

15. Stay in your Genius

Our uniqueness is our strength.

Based on our interests, life events, etc, what has all of that built us to uniquely do? Life has prepared, trained, tested us to do something. What unique problem can we solve? What unique story can we tell?

Find and double down on your unique genius.

My Thoughts:

I’ve been trying to find my unique genius for years now. Still working on that.

I really think my strength is in writing and communication, but there are so many other things I want to do with that that I think will enhance it.

I just can’t tell if I’m wasting time on those things or if the additional skills will fuel my unique genius.

16. Bring Your Love to Work

The joy is in the journey, not the destination. There is no destination.

“Winners value the process. The day to day journey. Losers over-value the destination, the reward. And under-value the process, the work.”

Choose to bring joy to everything that you do.

Find intrigue in the improvement of everything.

You don’t have to love your work. You have to choose to bring love to the work.

My Thoughts:

Definitely something I should be working on more.

17. Trust the Gut

Our intuition speaks to us.

Trust yourself. Do as you are told by you.

My Thoughts:

I’ve been getting better at this lately, but it’s definitely something I need to keep in mind at all times.

18. No Regrets

For every decision, ask:

  • Will I regret trying?
  • Will I regret not trying?

Make a list of things you could never regret doing.

Make your NO REGRETS list and spend more time on things you never regret and no time on things you do.

My Thoughts:

My best friend’s wife is a pastor and she speaks to a lot of people on their deathbed. I asked her what they tell her. One thing she said was “they often say they wish they worked less to spend more time with their friends and family.”

I want to build a lifestyle where I don’t say that on my deathbed.

19. We are ALL One

Stop playing a Zero SUM game.

It’s not us vs them.

Our differences are mostly illusions.

We are all one interconnected species.

Divided we will die. United, we might live.

My Thoughts:

I’m happy to hear Darren say this because I’ve been getting really down about it lately.

Online I see a lot of the word “evil” being used to describe anyone who’s not right-wing (whatever that means anymore).

I’ve been to bars where people yelled “Democrats go home!” and other such things.

I’m not a Democrat myself, but I know those people wouldn’t want me there either.

And I know the vice versa is going on out there, too, even though I haven’t seen it.

But I have friends all across both the political and religious spectrums.

Sometimes I do struggle with it, but overall I don’t think I have a problem seeing us all as one.

I hope more people become like that.

20. Show More Gratitude

A lot of people helped us get to where we are.

Appreciate them for it.

It will enhance the day for every person you say thank you to.

Gratitude is the most magical force of all.

My Thoughts:

I need to make sure I am writing down at least 1 thing I am thankful for each day.

And I definitely need to tell the people around me that I am thankful for them.

21. Pay It Forward.

I am not here to consume. I am here to contribute.

I am here to be a net positive. Not a net negative.

Never only consume. Contribute back (and more) everything you’ve been given and everything you gain.

My Thoughts:

This is definitely high on my priority list, but I need to remember I’m not doing it for me.

I do struggle with knowing “helping people will come back around to me” and it makes me feel less altruistic about it.

I need to stop thinking I’m doing it for me and make sure I am doing it for them.

22. My One Word/Strategy for ’22

“Leverage”

The use of something small to gain a very high return.

Find the 1% of activities, tasks, functions, resources, that deliver a 4000% return on capital, time, energy, effort.

Apply to 10 specific areas to life.

Measured and held accountable.

  1. People – No longer tolerate average performance. Great people are great leverage. A least 20x their cost.
  2. Goals – Set 3 goals max, banner goals, when achieved make this year the best year ever.
  3. Projects – Not all ideas are good. Many cost too much. Fast, Easy, Profitable? Do them one at a time, with excellence.
  4. Relationships – Focus on the few most important, deminish the rest.
  5. Fitness – Focus on just a few, do them consistently.
  6. Focus – Focus on what you will eat, not what you won’t eat.
  7. Environment – Optimize your work environment for high performance and sane living. Increase concentration and deep work. Do the same for home environment for the sake of mental + emotionally calm.
  8. Learning – Double down on a few things that get me towards the banner goals.
  9. MOO Methods of Operation – Quarterly, Monthly, Weekly, Daily. Massively improve output. Daily = Routine, Email Rules, MVP Jam sessions.
  10. Self-Care – “There’s nothing more pitiful than a ready and willing mind…but an incapable body.” – Jim Rohn

My Thoughts:

The one of these that will affect me the most this year is “Projects”.

I’ve known for years that I am a man of too many projects.

This year, I won’t be that way.

I’m going to be following the 37Signals/Basecamp strategy of small projects completed in 6 weeks, and then a week off.

As long as I have a day job, I’ll still be working on that week, but in the future when I’m on my own again, I will be treating that 7th week as a “Small Scale Sabbatical” – https://sabbatical.blog/about/.

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Conversion Class Micro Course by VeryGoodCopy

Conversion Class Micro Course by VeryGoodCopy Review

10/10 will read over and over again.

This micro-course is a fantastic primer for newcomers to copywriting, and full of great reminders for those who have been writing for years.

Also, the idea of micro courses is brilliant and I’m absolutely going to rip that off.

Conversion Class Micro Course by VeryGoodCopy Notes

Coming soon.

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30 Days to Better Writing by seanwes

30 Days to Better Writing is was a course by Sean McCabe of seanwes.

Update 2022: Sean McCabe has taken the course down and disappeared. I could not complete it in time to get a full set of notes. RIP.

The course objective is to build a writing habit in 30 days of consecutive daily writing.

Each day, Sean includes tips and advice, and optional writing prompts.

I’ve gone through this multiple times and enjoyed it every time.

I am taking and sharing my notes this time to help me internalize them.

Day 1 Stats

  • Word Count: 1270
  • Comments: Was a good brain dump. Got out lots of ideas I can build upon and act on. Mostly for the day job.

Notes

Any ideas we don’t write down will die when we die.

Writing something down increases the likelihood of it happening.

Writing is the starting point of all other mediums

  • Speeches
  • Products
  • Songs
  • Books
  • Podcasts, etc

It all starts with writing.

Writing is a skill that can be developed, and one of the most important skills available to humans.

If the best athletes train daily to improve their abilities, so should writers.

If you’re not good at writing now, that’s okay. You can learn.

Anything you care about and want to improve at must be practiced daily.

You don’t have to publish daily. You don’t have to share everything you write. But you must write.

Writing…

  • clears your mind
  • improves your speaking
  • improves how people see you
  • can grow your audience
  • can put your name on the map

Commit to writing daily. It must be scheduled.

Chain writing to another habit.

Example: After waking up, make coffee. Once coffee is ready, sit down and write.

Sean suggests starting for 20 minutes per day.

Set goals as time instead of word count.

It doesn’t need to be perfect. Don’t worry about spelling or grammar or anything else.

Just write.

Set a timer for 20 minutes and write until it goes off.

Sean offers the following writing prompts:

  • What made you enroll in this course?
  • What are 3 ways you think writing will benefit you?
  • What are you afraid of when it comes to writing?
  • What sacrifices will you have to make in order to carve out half an hour a day for writing?

Day 2 Stats

  • Word Count: 1226
  • Comments: Another good stream of consciousness…did some planning and got some clarity. Used the writing prompts.

Notes

Getting started is the hardest part…but once you get started it’s easy to keep going.

One problem is that you don’t schedule the writing, which gives you the “freedom” to put it off.

Also schedule the end…the limited time helps.

Too many options, too much time, and too much freedom will paralyze you.

Don’t worry about the first words being the right words. They won’t be.

Write all of the words, right and wrong. Delete the wrong words later.

You can’t edit what you haven’t written.

Start with stream of consciousness writing: write down every thought.

This bridges the connection between your mind, fingers, keyboard, and document.

Don’t worry about whether or not it makes sense. It doesn’t matter if it’s relevant.

Sean’s writing prompts for the day:

  • What is one of your favorite things to do outside of work when you have free time?
  • What do you enjoy most about this activity?
  • Why have you not dedicated more time to this activity?
  • Do you think that’s a good excuse?
  • What do you propose to do differently or sacrifice so that you can spend more time doing the things you enjoy?

Day 3 Stats

  • Word Count: ~250
  • Comments: Wrote significantly less today BUT that’s because instead of stream of consciousness writing and/or following prompts, I decided I needed to get some rough outlines of my processes down. This is a very important task I’ve been putting off for some time.

Notes

Start your day with writing.

Plan your topic for tomorrow, the night before.

You won’t have to waste time trying to figure out what to write about.

Your brain will get started processing the topic.

Getting your writing done first thing means you’re coming off the charge of sleep.

Kind of like what Mark Twain (I think?) said about eating the biggest frog first.

This also reminds me of something Sean said a while back…what you do first in the day shows your priorities.

If you save writing as the last thing, you’re setting it as a low priority.

But this is 30 Days To Better Writing, so obviously we’re making writing the priority.

Sean recommends waking up early.

I don’t agree that is the key…as Tim Ferriss says in his book Tools of the Titans (BJ Novak chapter), “For lifelong night owls like me, it’s nice to know that when you get started each day seems to matter less than learning how to get started consistently, however your crazy ass can manage it.”

I have found that I do my best writing first thing in the day, and in an interruption-free setting.

It doesn’t matter if that’s at 6 AM or 9 AM, as long as it’s first and distraction free.

YMMV; it’s up to you to figure out what works best for you.

Sean was able to write millions of words in a year “with a daily commitment and a decision to maximize my output by writing at the most productive time.”

Don’t shortchange yourself by writing at a time where you write less!

Here’s my steps to figure out when you write better, adapted from Sean’s advice:

  1. Write whenever you want for 7 days straight.
  2. Log your output — time spent and words written.
  3. Commit to waking early for just one week.
  4. Write as the first thing you do in the morning.
  5. Log your output.
  6. Do the same for writing at various other times of the day.
  7. Compare your results.

Included writing prompts:

  • Write about how much you hate waking up early.
  • Write about your plan to start waking up early.
  • Write about the benefits you’ve seen from waking up early.

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Next Level 7 logo.
Next Level 7 logo.

These are my notes from all 6 lessons of the Next Level 7 Audio Course by Brian Clark.

Next Level 7 Lesson 1 – The Rise of 7-Figure Small

We no longer need a staff to achieve 7 figures.

Automation, data, outsourcing, the internet, and shifts in the general workforce have led to amazing increases in capacity, productivity, and innovation.

Direct response marketing:

  • Audience (who you choose to serve)
  • Offer (what they want to buy)
  • Copy (how to best communicate)

it’s not about the money — it’s about designing your business for maximum leverage and freedom.

Step 1: understand that things are no longer the same in the world of blogging, podcasting, and content marketing in general.

Next Level 7 Lesson 2 – Moving Beyond Content Marketing

Content marketing = giving away valuable engaging information. Introduce offer, use copy to lead to sale.

You develop an audience by providing unique value to the “who” you’ve decided to serve.

We have lots of content on the internet, but less attention.

People are looking for curation — lists of what’s good to read, what’s good to buy — curated by humans rather than algorithms.

Thought: we know word-of-mouth is the strongest marketing.

Curators become trusted experts as much (or more) than those who create original content.

People are curating content and sharing through email newsletters and achieving success as well as becoming “trusted experts”.

Next Level 7 Lesson 3 – Make the best online sales channel your main thing

Email marketing remains the undisputed champion for digital marketing and sales and is the channel that’s absolutely indispensable.

For every $1 spent on email marketing, you get $38 in return. That’s because people spend 5.6 hours per day checking email — up almost a half hour since 2017. Plus, email remains 40 times better at converting people than social media.

We could:

  • Instead of blogging, podcasting, creating content, we could make email “the thing”.
  • Use other people’s content instead of creating it all yourself.
  • “curate products and services to create a revenue AND allow you to better understand what products and services you should create for your specific audience”

Create a value proposition so compelling that people enjoy getting email from you.

Case studies:

  • The Hustle, 
  • theSkimm, 
  • Morning Brew, and 
  • Dave Pell’s Next Draft
  • Nat Eliason

Put audience value over short-term profit in order to build a highly lucrative business in the long term.

We need an approach and process that allows us to hit the fundamentals, without losing humanity or creativity, and remove the guesswork of what our audience wants.

Next Level 7 Lesson 4 – What the World Needs Now is Smart Editorial Guidance

HBO introduced a new tagline in 2019 — Recommended By Humans.

Recommended By Humans is a tool that provides a colorful canvas you can drag around on your desktop or mobile phone, and features 36 unique video suggestions and over 150 curated recommendations from real HBO fans. They also deliver those recommendations by (surprise!) an email newsletter.

People want more human, less algorithm.

The social media aspects of the internet are actually reducing knowledge and wisdom thanks to spurious information and self-reinforcing echo chambers. 

Ad-driven digital media is turning our greatest repository of knowledge into crap.

Thought: this is especially true with modern journalism. Now-a-days, it’s all about getting clicks.

Smart people are looking for other trustworthy smart people to tell them what’s worth their time and attention.

That trust eventually translates into who to hire (you) and what to buy (what you recommend and create).

The role of trusted editor gives you more prestige, authority, and even celebrity than the usual content marketing route.

The world doesn’t need more content, it needs more clarity.

Curation is the ticket to success if we correctly separate the signal from the noise.

Looking at Facebook and other social media, we have learned that AI-curated content creates echo-chambers and promotes crap content.

AI’s can be manipulated by humans.

Thought: every time Microsoft (or someone) puts out a new Twitter bot, it’s only a matter of time before it learns to spit racism.

Curation requires very human qualities like communication, empathy, creativity, strategic thinking, questioning, and even dreaming.

AI doesn’t have judgement and taste.

People need other people to act as human filters for the technology that editors and curators use to sift through a mountain of information in search of truth and value.

Proof: how many people use RSS feeds to curate info for themselves? Not enough! But I do. I’m already ahead of the game.

There’s a very good possibility that the curation-based business you build today will run itself via AI and automation in the not-so-distant future … with your audience never knowing, and while the business continues paying you exceptionally well. 

Thought: This quote above seems kind of antithetical to the course so far but I think I get what he’s saying.

UPDATE: Brian’s response:

Here’s what I meant here:

Just like people like you use RSS feeds and “normal” people don’t (and it’s been around 20 years!), people like us will be early adopters of advanced tech for curation, and “normal” people won’t. Plus, people still want to identify with a human — you.

So, there’s likely a long runway for our businesses to become more automated before our audiences turn to the machines directly. That’s all I was trying to say.

There are currently an unlimited amount of niches to bust into with this.

Using all this for client services:

  • Your potential clients want relevant and timely information
  • Online courses tend to be outdated
  • They subscribe and eventually hire you, or
  • At the very least you have the potential to sell digital products to them.

Next Level 7 Lesson 5 – A Process for Building Your Perfect Business

The success of Next Draft, The Hustle, The Skimm, Morning Brew, Podnews and many others doesn’t mean we’re too late. It proves that this is a business model that works.

People know that no matter how useful information is, content marketing comes with an agenda.

Trust is declining for those who only share their own content.

How many people are struggling to get any interest in their content, much less their email list, because the idea of subscribing to another single-source newsletter is just not attractive to people?

Would you rather subscribe to 10 different email newsletters to stay informed about what matters to you? Or instead, one or two authored by people who do the work for you.

Curating content over time will reveal gaps that we can then create specific content to fill.

Curated email newsletters provide the ideal vehicle for freelancers, solopreneurs, and small startup teams. First of all, you’re not limited by how much great content you can create.

Curation + email marketing = a data that provides insight to guide our business decisions.

It’s the opposite of the guess-and-fail approach of “product first” entrepreneurs.

Data points we will easily collect:

  • what they open, 
  • what they click on, 
  • how they think of themselves, and ultimately, 
  • the things that they buy (not what they just say they’ll buy)

“We don’t make money when we sell things. We make money when we help customers make purchase decisions.” – Jeff Bezos

The above quote isn’t actually true about Amazon, but it could be for us.

Curated shopping sites like The Wirecutter and Canopy cut through the crap and quickly tell us what we need to know before sending us over to Amazon (and taking an affiliate commission).

NOTE: the New York Times bought Wirecutter for $30 million!

Product and service curation can lead to large amounts of revenue without ever developing products and services of your own. But here’s the flip side of it — you might find yourself compelled to do it anyway, because this form of curation is incredibly enlightening market research that you get paid to do.

Next Level 7 Lesson 6 – The Blueprint for Building Your Perfect Business

This lesson is just a sales page for the “7-Figure Small Intensive” course.

https://unemployable.com/next-level-7/
Sign up for the course (free) here. ⬆️