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Episode 26: Breaking free from your job to find financial freedom
78 Plays2 years ago
It's about time we had an episode on business, entrepreneurship, and financial freedom!
Yet another eye-opening pandemic discovery that we had to learn the hard way was how in bed most corporations and large businesses are with the government.
Corporate America went right along with issuing vaccine mandates, putting millions of Americans in the impossible position of having to choose between their job or the jab.
There are other reasons, too, why people stay married to their corporate jobs long after they've lost their luster. Health insurance benefits are typically another big reason why we feel stuck at our soul-sucking jobs, especially if you do have a loved one who relies on those benefits.
Henry Bingaman has had a long and lustrous career as a freelance copywriter. He's worked with big names like Steve Harvey, Daymond John, Paul Rudd, and others during his career and has made millions of dollars.
He saw the impossible predicament many Americans were placed in during the pandemic and realized he could help people be more free by leaving their crushing j-o-b, and earn more money striking out on their own.
Henry now teaches people how to "break free" and start a lucrative career as a freelancer.
Henry started his freelance career back in 2008 in the midst of the last global financial crisis and thrived.
He can teach you how to do the same so you can become anti-fragile when the next crisis hits.
We enjoy some good banter with some even better pearls of wisdom thrown in the mix, too, in this fun conversation.
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Show Promos:
Henry’s Skill Stack mini-course: https://libertyalliancenetwork.com/skills
Podcasting the easy way with Zencastr: https://libertyalliancenetwork.com/zen
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Show notes page: https://libertyalliancenetwork.com/episode-26-breaking-free-from-your-job-to-find-financial-freedom/
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Subscribe to the 'What Can We Do?' podcast:
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3g0gfNLArRb1GijGAbSJ6u?si=d6f50a5a6caa4092
Apple podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/what-can-we-do/id1649251997
Rumble: https://rumble.com/user/WhatCanWeDo
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Follow on Twitter/X: @haleyinflorida https://twitter.com/haleyinflorida
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Transcript
Choosing Easier Ways to Accomplish Tasks
00:00:00
Speaker
Okay, tell me which of these things you would rather do. Would you rather walk five miles across town in the hot summer heat or hop in an air-conditioned vehicle to get to your destination instead? Would you rather dig a pit with a shovel or use an excavator? Would you rather use an iron washboard to wash your clothes or throw it in the washing machine instead?
00:00:24
Speaker
If we're being honest, we'd all choose the second options. Everyone likes doing things the easy way rather than the hard way if they can help it.
Introduction to Zencaster
00:00:34
Speaker
That's why I like podcasting with Zencaster. They make it easy to record, produce, host, and monetize your podcast all in one convenient location.
00:00:46
Speaker
I'll let you in on a little secret. The first few episodes of my show were video only because I thought podcasting was too hard and scary. That is, until I discovered Zencaster. They make it easy, especially for non-techies like me. What I like best is the fact that they take care of all the post-production work for you. You just toggle your preferences and Zencaster takes care of all the rest.
00:01:12
Speaker
With just the touch of some buttons, you have a crisp, professional-looking and sounding recording ready to be shared to the world. Easy peasy. So if you've been thinking about starting a podcast but think it's going to be too hard to figure out, try Zencaster. They make podcasting easy. Head to libertyalliancenetwork.com slash zen to check it all out. That's libertyalliancenetwork.com slash zen. Let's get back to the show.
Guest Introduction: Henry Bingaman
00:02:01
Speaker
All right, welcome back to another episode of Liberty Alliance Networks. What can we do? I am Haley Heathman, and today I am delighted to be joined by copywriter extraordinaire, Henry Bingaman. Henry has made a boatload of money in his copywriting career, hobnobbing with well-known figures like Steve Harvey, Damon John, Paul Rudd, Steve Forbes, and many more.
00:02:25
Speaker
He now applies the numerous skills he developed as a successful freelance copywriter and helps other liberty-minded professionals break free from their soul-sucking careers to start earning money on their terms, which is the ultimate freedom flex.
Henry Bingaman's Career Journey
00:02:39
Speaker
So Henry, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. Pleasure to be here.
00:02:43
Speaker
Yeah. So we've been acquainted through Tom Woods and the Tom Woods School of Life and everything. And you gave a killer speech at his conference last year. And I know you've been plugged into that as well. But I have to kind of make a confession myself. I was like, this show is what can we do? So I like to talk about solutions. And I've interviewed
00:03:06
Speaker
All sorts of people like the health freedom space, education alternatives, elected representatives, activists, etc. But I'm a little sheepish to admit I haven't had anybody on to talk about business or entrepreneurship. So I'm excited to rectify that with you because financial freedom is like a huge component.
00:03:24
Speaker
from getting out from the under the thumb of tyranny, whether it's
Freelancing Success Story
00:03:29
Speaker
corporate or government tyranny. So you have kind of positioned yourself as an expert in that. So why don't you give us a little bit of a brief background on yourself and what you're doing now.
00:03:41
Speaker
Yeah. So I've had an interesting, what, 16, 17 year career at this point. I started out, I mean, I did the whole, I grew up in an inner city, running Pennsylvania. It was one of the poorest cities in the country at the time. I just, I kind of felt like a loser. I just, I didn't know what was going to happen. I spent most of high school like smoking weed and playing sports. That was just my background. I didn't see any path forward. And that's what everybody did. Like most of my friends from high school never got out of that city. They're still living there.
00:04:08
Speaker
you know, working at car washes or in diners or in the service industry, that's just kind of what people that was what was expected of you that like the great jobs were, oh, you might become a mechanic or you might become like a carpenter or something, you could make a whole $75,000 a year if you work hard for 10 years. And I just couldn't I couldn't handle it. So
00:04:25
Speaker
I did I did do fairly well in school despite all the weed smoking. But I you know, I got a degree in fiction writing and I got a job at United Airlines as a flight attendant. That was my first job. And it was just soul sucking. Like I didn't like I hated. I ever since I was a little kid, I just hated being controlled. I hate when people tell me what to do. Tell me where to be. Tell me what to wear. That just doesn't fly with me. So I only did that for about a year. And then I discovered something called freelancing. So I became a freelance copywriter at 22 or 23 years old. I started doing it.
00:04:55
Speaker
And I very quickly, even though I was making a little less than I was at the airline, which is shocking because I was only making $20,000 a year at the airline, I was like, that's enough. I'm quitting. I'm doing this thing. And it was a real struggle in the beginning. I didn't know how to get clients. I didn't know how to run my own business. I didn't know how to do any of this stuff. And this was 2008.
00:05:14
Speaker
the middle of the great recession, nobody's hiring. And there wasn't YouTube the way there is today. I mean, there was a YouTube, but there wasn't the same, you can go online and learn all this stuff. There weren't courses on freelancing. So I pretty much had to figure it all out myself. And through some mentors and stuff, I eventually built up my income by, I don't know, my mid 20s. I was at six figures. By 30, I was a millionaire. By 35, I was making a million dollars a year.
Impact of COVID-19 on Freelancing
00:05:38
Speaker
So I went through all these tribulations and trials to just get there.
00:05:43
Speaker
And then 2020 hit, and I, you know, I was still copywriting. I'm still kind of just, I was doing it for financial services like newsletters that teach stock investing, health type companies that teach exercise programs, protein supplements, that kind of stuff.
00:05:57
Speaker
And I'm like, half my friends got fired or laid off or just were out of work. This COVID shutdown hit them hard. And I'm working from home. And I'm just like, none of this affects me, really. But I was just like, this career, this freelancing is so much more liberating. I don't have to deal with any of the BS that these guys are going through. I had no threat of a VAX mandate.
00:06:17
Speaker
I didn't go to restaurants for a couple years. I lost my season tickets to the Sixers because they wouldn't let me in for a while. But other than that, I was like, I'm still free. And these guys are like slaves to this corporation that they're working for. So I decided like this is unacceptable. I have to do something that has meaning. I stockpiled enough money. I'm not a big spender. So most of my income goes to savings or investments.
00:06:39
Speaker
So I'm like, I can take a chance, and I launched a podcast called Practical Liberty, just teaching people how to become free in a real practical sense, because you're not. When you're working for a corporation, when they're holding your income over your head, and it's literally, do your children eat or not is on the table? That's unacceptable tyranny. You have to be independent enough to say, I can earn money no matter what someone else wants me to do. I could dump one client and go to another if they have a vaccine mandate. This is ridiculous.
00:07:07
Speaker
So I started that, I kind of realized that the YouTube algorithms hate me at some point. Actually, you know what it was? I interviewed my, I was climbing, I was getting like 200 views a video, then 300, then 400. And then I interviewed Clint Russell a few years ago at the beginning of the Ukraine war.
00:07:24
Speaker
And we were just talking about why it's bullshit and we probably shouldn't start a nuclear war. And then my YouTube views went from 400 to like 50. Oh, they just they're like, we don't like this. And my channel never really recovered. So I actually started a new channel a few months ago called The Independent Pro.
00:07:40
Speaker
Which is strictly focused. I took all the libertarian stuff out. It's strictly focused on freelancing. And then, you know, that's actually growing. I'm now at like a thousand views a video in a much faster time because it's much more focused and I'm playing the algorithm. But then I get people on my email list and then I feed them the Liberty stuff. And so that's working out a lot better. And I still do Practical Liberty kind of as a
Alternative Platforms vs. Mainstream Media
00:08:00
Speaker
hobby. So I have a couple cool interviews coming up.
00:08:03
Speaker
That's where I'm at right now. So I have two channels, The Independent Pro, which you can find on Rumble and YouTube still for however long they let me keep it. And then The Independent Pro is on both. I never went the YouTube route because I just knew that the topics of conversation that I'm going to be having, they just weren't going to allow me to have on YouTube.
00:08:23
Speaker
Although I've been told maybe like you should at least have a presence there just maybe so it would show up in people's feed, but just the number of people I know that get demonetized and deplatformed and strikes and just like the headache that they have to incur to just, you know, have a presence on YouTube seems sometimes not worth it. Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't. And so yeah, I just do mostly strictly rumble now.
00:08:51
Speaker
My concern with Rumble though is it's also, isn't Peter Thiel, one of the big investors? He's the guy that also, like he's kind of in control of it and he also founded Palantir and he's like a big government contractor. I feel like they're setting you up to just take another fall. Like they're trying to co-op Rumble the same way or Rumble's just the alternative. It's the outlet that YouTube's not allowing, but I don't feel like as a long-term play it's safe, but then nothing on the internet is these days. So I don't really know the solution there.
00:09:18
Speaker
I just I want to have a presence everywhere I can as long as they'll let me. Right. Well, I feel like it's got to be better. I mean, it's not that these are the same, but, you know, better than like parlor or truth social, you know, like, yeah, I know. It's there's no great place to go right now. That's the problem. I mean, I and I think
00:09:37
Speaker
I mean, look, from what I understand, it seems like Rumble, they are fighting back. They're trying to fight back against the censorship and they are engaged in numerous lawsuits and I think they're suing Google again, which I was happy to hear. So I don't know. It's kind of like Elon Musk where you just like, you kind of don't know what to think of him, but at the moment it seems like he's on our side. Does that mean I fully trust him?
00:10:00
Speaker
No, but he's the only one out there that at least is pretending and is at least preserving liberty for
Freelancing vs. Side Hustles
00:10:07
Speaker
us. Now, maybe it's going to backfire down the line, but what are our alternatives otherwise right now?
00:10:16
Speaker
you know, yeah, I think I think the same about Elon is like he's an oligarch. He's in bed with the government like SpaceX relies entirely on government contracts. But he's the oligarch right now that doesn't hate freedom. He doesn't hate the little guy. So like, I'll take it from for what we got there's
00:10:30
Speaker
You have to use these tools in some way. So whatever is the one that doesn't hate me. Right. Well, and you can't let perfect be the enemy of good. And I think as libertarians, we're too guilty of that. We want a libertarian purity test everybody. And if they're not just the perfect libertarian, then they're just awful. And I think that we shoot ourselves in the foot with that. And yeah, so that's an ongoing conversation. We've already gotten into the weeds, which is totally OK. I love it.
00:10:59
Speaker
Tell me about freelancing versus a side hustle. Would you differentiate between the two and how would you differentiate between freelancing versus a side hustle?
00:11:13
Speaker
I kind of view a side hustle as something like Uber or one of those type of gig economy type things. There's no upside to a side hustle. It's very hard for somebody to take an Uber job and make it their full-time thing if they have another career. I know full-time Uber drivers, but there's not a lot of upside there.
00:11:35
Speaker
With freelancing you have the ability to scale so you have the ability to get to six figures, seven figures, maybe not seven figures in some industries, but you have the ability to turn it into a real career. So it might start out as people would call it a side hustle if you're doing writing on the side, like copywriting on the side or graphic design on the side.
00:11:51
Speaker
that can start that way but you could grow it into a full-time business for yourself. So that's I think the main difference is the income potential. So side hustle is it could just be freelancer. I guess I've never really thought about that, distinguishing them that way. But I would distinguish it between gig economy and freelancing.
00:12:10
Speaker
So you don't have to be a full-time freelancer. In fact, I don't recommend most people like just quit their job and start freelancing. I would recommend taking on a client on the side and getting used to it, getting used to client work, dealing with clients, managing clients, learning how to get clients in a consistent way before you make a full-time plunge to go full-time freelance.
00:12:29
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. I guess I would encourage people to start a side hustle, figure out what you're good at. And freelancing can be a lot of things. It goes by a lot of names, I mean. So it could be consulting. It could be contract work. There's a lot of different ways people talk about it. So I don't want to get bogged down in the term freelance. That's kind of the general term I use because that's how most writers talk about it.
00:12:49
Speaker
There was, it's funny, freelancing actually, the origin of the term started in the 1600s or 1500s with jousting knights in England. There were people that had skills but didn't have the nobility title. So they become a freelance, basically a lancer for sale that would go work for the upper nobility and they could joust in the tournament and win the noble, the glory and then the freelancer would get the money.
00:13:12
Speaker
And then there were some writers in the 60s in the US who thought that was a great term because they viewed their pen as a lance. So they became freelancers. And they were mostly working for newspapers and journalistic outlets, but that's where the term originated. So it originated with writers, which is why I tend to gravitate towards it. But contractor, consultant, that's all freelancing as well.
Overcoming Fear in Freelancing
00:13:32
Speaker
That's a crazy bit of esoteric knowledge you just dropped there. Give me some examples of freelancing careers or freelancing jobs that people might, especially ones that maybe you wouldn't consider, wouldn't think would be an option, but what are some specific examples of freelance careers?
00:13:54
Speaker
It spans almost anything. Literally almost any skill can be turned into a freelance career. So there's a story I like to tell about one of my coaching clients who was – he was an engineer and his company decided that he was – they had to move him and he was making $200,000 a year at this but he had a 45-minute commute every day and he was living at home with his sick mother like taking care of her. He was in his 50s, she was in her 80s.
00:14:19
Speaker
And the company's like, oh, you're moving to California. And he's like, no, I can't move to California. So he was his entire work schedule was like 70 hours a week to make that 200,000 if you count the commute and all that time. And I showed him how he could just do consulting for other companies that have junior engineers with all these problems that they don't know how to solve. And he was a senior engineer.
00:14:40
Speaker
So all he did was a couple hour call with them every week with three companies. He ended up charging them five grand a month and he didn't quite replace his income, but he got to like $100,000 for like a quarter of the work and he got to stay home with his mom and he didn't have to move to California and he got rid of the commute. So that consulting, that just literally just getting on a call with a couple teams of junior engineers and walking through their problems and saying, okay, you need to look here, you need to think about this, you need to do this. So that's one example. I have another guy that was
00:15:10
Speaker
I don't want to give his industry away because he's one of like seven people in the world that does this, but it's a very high tech industry. And he was getting 300,000 ish a year. And his wife had a kid and he's like, I just don't like the hours. So he took a paternity leave because these world corporations all let you do that.
00:15:27
Speaker
And he started his freelance career right after that doing the same thing just with a bunch of different companies. And it has to do with machine learning. And it's he ended up like he saved one of his clients, I think $20 million a month.
00:15:42
Speaker
Um, just on like planning out the legit, he used big data to like plan out their logistics routes. And I can't give too much more away than that, but he's on track. He sent me an email two weeks ago saying, I just signed my last contract. That'll guarantee me $1.1 million. My first year as a freelancer.
00:15:57
Speaker
So he's doing the same work just on a contract basis. And he's actually going to turn. He's not going to be a freelancer very long because he needs to bring in help. So he's going to turn more into an entrepreneur in a company. But 1.1 million is a freelancer. Your first year is not bad either. Yeah. And that's in big data. There's graphic designers that make six figures a year. I just had an interview with a freelance photographer that he got he made multiple six figures a year just doing two bar mitzvahs a month in New York City.
00:16:27
Speaker
And he had a system for selling, he had a system for upselling, he had a system for how he takes the pictures when he's there. So that was fascinating that you can make that much money as a photographer doing two shoots a month. So there's all kinds of things you can do as a freelancer. It's really just about like cutting out the corporation. You don't need a boss, you don't need somebody else to bring you the work. If you can go out and get the work, do the work and bill, you're insourcing a lot of these different processes that you typically outsource as an employee.
00:16:56
Speaker
all those things competently, you can triple quadruple your income as a freelancer, if you're good, if you suck. This is the catch. People that are bad at their jobs are getting way overpaid in corporations, because corporations have to kind of pay at, you know, there's all these anti-discrimination laws and all this stuff that makes corporations treat people as different cogs in the machine. So you could be the best person in your department, and you're getting paid the same as the worst person, because that's how the corporation works. It's just a big machine.
00:17:22
Speaker
So if you go out on your own, all of a sudden you're not just a cog in that machine, you get to charge what you're worth. So you have to be worth it, which is the catch. And a lot of people, they're scared to find out what they're really worth so they don't want to go freelancing. But if you have any confidence in your skills or your ability to learn skills, then freelancing I think is the way to go.
Skill Stacking for Unique Opportunities
00:17:39
Speaker
I think this is the bind that I think a lot of people find themselves in where they feel trapped in their current job or their current situation. As you alluded to, maybe they don't feel confident in their skills or abilities or maybe they don't feel like they have much to offer. I'll use myself as an example.
00:18:00
Speaker
I'm a jack of all trades, master of none. Yes, I can do a little bit of this and a little bit of that at a basic or maybe advanced basic level, but not enough to where I would feel like I can offer my services to somebody. I can do a basic WordPress design, but it's not anything exceptional. Or I can do a basic level of this. My whole operation. Do you have to be an expert?
00:18:27
Speaker
at your profession or at some sort of trade in order to be a freelancer? Or is there a way to overcome that jack of all trades or that feeling of like, I'm just not good enough to actually take myself into a freelance position? I think you have to really think about the value you're providing. So what every employee and freelancer and entrepreneur really does is solve a problem for someone, right? That's why somebody's paying you to solve a problem for them.
00:18:56
Speaker
Or you know, I guess relieve a pain would be another way to approach this but There's a lot of so I'm trying to think how to say this You don't need to be the best at anything like no like it's very very few people are world-class experts in anything yet a lot of people make very good money as a freelancer and they do that by combining different skills, so if you're a top 20%
00:19:21
Speaker
at writing and top 20% at designing things, you can have an extremely profitable career making advertisements, because you're better than most people at writing, you're better than most people at designing. So you put those together, there's very few people who can compete with you at all, even though you're not the best at either of them. So I talk about Scott Adams has his concept of the talent stack, I really revised it and call it the skill stack. I don't like, I don't like calling it talents because talents feels too like innate
00:19:47
Speaker
It's like you have to be naturally talented at something, a skill anybody can learn. So his example was he's not the best writer, he's not the best illustrator, he's not the best humorist, but he made Dilbert because he was pretty good at all three and he made whatever it was, $100 million from Dilbert.
00:20:02
Speaker
And I have kind of the same thing. With skills, I'm not the best writer in the world. But I probably am top 10% at this point in writing, just because I've been doing it so long. But I'm really pretty good at coming up with ideas. I'm a very good writer. I'm really good at understanding where people, the emotional state of people. There's just a bunch of things that I combine to become one of the best copywriters. And I'm really good at thinking visually, so I could write video scripts. And that's where my career really took off, is writing these video scripts.
00:20:30
Speaker
That's how I got to work with like Damon John and and some of those guys at Steve Harvey, Joe Montana. Because I could write these video scripts that they're like, okay, that's actually professional quality. I want to be in that and it sells something at the end. So I had all these skills that combined that made me you know, one of the best in the world at what I do. But I'm not the best at any one of those skills. There's guys that I know that can outright me that like their pros are just so beautiful, it hurts my soul that I can't write like that.
00:20:56
Speaker
But I make way more money than them because they don't have the selling skills. They don't have the visualization skills. There's just other things you need to add to that. Freelancing itself, being able to get clients is a skill. Being able to negotiate is a skill. And you learn all these things and you have to combine them together.
00:21:11
Speaker
So I mean, I was 25 when I started making $100,000, which is crazy. And it's just because I learned the skill of negotiating getting clients. I was a good writer. I wasn't the best. And I picked up all these other skills along the way, and I kept adding them to my skill stack. And that's what got me to the upper echelons of income. So no, you don't have to be, if you're the jack of all trades, you just need to figure out how to position the skills you're best at that are most valuable to different clients.
Marketing Skills with Viral Pitches
00:21:36
Speaker
That's why I have the skill stack exercise.
00:21:39
Speaker
And it really just teaches it walks you through it's a two hour exercise, you need three pieces of paper, and just walks you through your talents, your skills and your interest and how to combine those to turn yourself into a category of one that nobody else can compete with. It basically when you're a monopoly, it's the best position to be in there's nobody else that's going to do what you can do.
00:21:56
Speaker
Right. Yeah. I definitely think I'm going to have to check that out because I feel like I have all these disparate skills and yet I don't know how to put it together into one cohesive package. I feel like I have a lot to offer, but I feel like they don't overlap. I'm good at these. I'm a dog trainer, okay? But I like libertarianism. All these skills that seem like they don't really
00:22:18
Speaker
And you got the soft skills too, just like the personal skills, et cetera. So how do you marry them all? And that's where I kind of just struggle, because I'm like, I don't know how to connect them into one package that I can sell.
00:22:33
Speaker
right? Well, that's the other thing is people, a lot of people come up with their skills, they don't know how to position it. So in that exercise, I also have what I call the viral pitch, which is it's just, it's basically four sentences based on your own skills that gets other people to pitch for you, which is really cool. Because there's just a little feature of business owner psychology is they love to complain about their problems. And so
00:22:54
Speaker
They'll tell everybody, it's like, oh, I'm just having problems with this. And then all of a sudden, if you've put this cool little viral pitch in a bunch of different people's minds, when people, every time someone asks you, what do you do? And you have this little viral pitch ready, then whenever a business owner or somebody complains to them, they'll be like, oh, I know the perfect person for that. So that's part of the exercise as well. Hey, so how y'all liking the sound of this freelancing thing so far?
00:23:19
Speaker
Henry certainly makes a compelling case for starting up your own freelancing career, doesn't he? But if you're like me, you're intrigued by the idea of freelancing, but you aren't really sure what skills or expertise you have to offer that can make you money. That's where Henry's skill stack exercise comes into play. Step one of figuring out how to position yourself as a freelancer is to know your unique combination of skills and talents.
00:23:44
Speaker
Then, from there, you can position yourself in a way that clients find irresistible. Henry's Skill Stack class will walk you through the step-by-step process to discovering and marketing your Skill Stack in a way nobody else in the world can. You'll also learn the only four sentences you'll ever need to sell yourself to anyone with Henry's Viral Pitch Method.
00:24:08
Speaker
By the end of this mini course, you'll have a better understanding of your own unique skills, abilities, and talents that make you a market of one and highly sought after by those in your target industry. I've spent the last few days working my way through the course and let me tell you, this is serious stuff here. It does require some thoughtfulness and introspection on your part, but the end result will be well worth it.
00:24:33
Speaker
Now normally, a valuable class like this, taught by a world-class freelancer, would cost well over $100. It's actually the first module of his full-length, in-depth freelancing course that sells for $795. But he's offering it as a standalone class for just $29 for listeners of this show. Just head to libertyalliancenetwork.com slash skills with an S to get started.
00:25:00
Speaker
That's libertyalliancenetwork.com slash skills.
Networking for Freelancers
00:25:05
Speaker
Let's get back to the show.
00:25:06
Speaker
I feel like maybe you're kind of, well, maybe you are, maybe you're not like turning into maybe a employment agency. Do people come to you now? Because now that you've got this course that you're doing and you've made a lot of contacts and does anybody come to you and say, Hey, Henry, I really need somebody that does X. Can you, do you know of anybody? Can you find me somebody that has that made you like more valuable yourself because you've kind of built out your network a little bit?
00:25:32
Speaker
Well, that's I mean, this is also the secret to freelancing is you want to build a network. So I've had that for years is like, hey, I need somebody to design this website. Oh, I know a person. Or I need somebody to write this type of copy. Like, well, I don't do that. But I know a person for you. So this is, you know, when you're a freelancer, the best person to network with the best people to network with isn't clients, people that would hire you, it's other freelancers. That's your best source of referrals. So getting in a network of freelancers, it's just there's almost unlimited work when you have a bunch of people that are out there working.
00:26:01
Speaker
And you can position yourself in a certain way, especially, you know, you have that skill stack. It's like, well, I don't do that. But I know the perfect person for you. So yes, having referrals is the best. It's the best business strategy for freelancers. Yeah, I feel like you've kind of
00:26:17
Speaker
Like reverse done this, you know They say the adage like those who can't do teach and you're kind of doing the opposite because you could you were very successful in what you did and you've also you Deliberately because you know, you've kind of made yourself a lot of money, which is you know, good excellent And so you didn't have to do this. So you've kind of like had to reinvent yourself deliberately willingly, you know but have you has it been more challenging to kind of like position yourself in like this different and
00:26:46
Speaker
light and try and build a different kind of clientele. And there's lots of moving parts to trying to be like a content creator and get people into your funnel, et cetera, et cetera. Has that been like a challenge or have you kind of naturally been able to make the transition?
00:27:04
Speaker
Yeah, both. So like, I'm very good at certain parts of the business. So I'm now more of an entrepreneur than I am a freelancer, although I still do freelancing. But it's yes, it's been a huge challenge to just manage all this these new things that I have to do like getting YouTube videos up.
00:27:21
Speaker
So I've actually hired, I have a team behind me now. So I have basically a project manager who really, she's amazing, Rachel Mazza. She's, I don't know what you'd call her, an implementer. So I have the big visions and she like breaks it down step by step. Here's what we need to do. Here's what we reach out to. Here's the thing you need to write next. And then I have a video editor who makes the videos like really spot on and the thumbnails and the design and the title and the tags. I don't have time to do the research for what's gonna make something, you know, catch on in the algorithm.
00:27:51
Speaker
And he does. So it's great to have a team behind me. It does mean I'm not making nearly as much money as I used to be. But the upside of having my own business is unlimited. So I mean, I don't want to make it sound like I'm being super altruistic here. Like this is a bit I want to provide enough value that I get even richer doing this than I did doing just the freelancing.
00:28:09
Speaker
So I want to get rich by helping other people get rich, if that makes sense. This is the libertarian theory of value. It's like, you do better when you help other people do better.
Freelancing to Entrepreneurship
00:28:19
Speaker
I'm providing real value so I can get more value out of it. Right. I like what you're doing too, because you are actually, in some ways, I think a lot of the either make money online or affiliate marketing type careers, it's like a self-licking ice cream cone.
00:28:40
Speaker
in that like, hey, make money being an affiliate by buying my affiliate course that you can promote as an affiliate, you know, but it's like, is that, that's not really, I mean, yes, you can become successful. You can make money at that, but it's just like, it's just like this, like I said, self-lit. It's a literal pyramid scheme. It has to fail at some point. There's somebody that's going to get caught, you know, at the bottom holding the bag. It's no, it's terrible. I hate that stuff. Right. Yeah. I mean, and it can be lucrative. I mean, again, but yeah, until somebody's like,
00:29:09
Speaker
Until the money runs out, kind of. But that's what a lot of people do. They make these courses. How to be an affiliate. How to be an affiliate. And then they want you to sell the course of how to be an affiliate. And it just goes on and on and on and on. And they build up an empire, basically teaching people how to sell their courses.
00:29:24
Speaker
You're teaching, I say that the way you're differentiating yourself is because you are actually teaching real skills and actually trying to provide real value by helping people improve their lives. The funny thing is I don't even teach the skills. People have skills. They've been working for 5, 10, 20, 50 years. I literally have an 87-year-old who just bought my course.
00:29:45
Speaker
And so they have the skills already. I'm teaching them how to package it, how to manage clients, how to position it, how to understand their own value. So I'm literally teaching. The only skill I'm really teaching is freelancing. I'm teaching how to go out there and turn the skills and talents that you have innately that you've worked on for years into a lot more money than you've been getting paid in the market because the market is intentionally distorted. Like what we have is crony capitalism. It's all tied to the state. It's all BS.
00:30:10
Speaker
So but there's, you don't have to play that game is what I'm really showing people is you can go around their game. And there's like, there's a whole market out there that most people don't even recognize that they can tap into. And it's way more lucrative if you have the requisite skills. So I'm just teaching people how to package those and become more independent, become less dependent on that, that corporate, you know, shill machine. So that that's how I view it.
00:30:32
Speaker
I'm not teaching people how to become an engineer. I'm not teaching people how to do any of this stuff. I do teach them copywriting because I happen to be very good at that. But besides that, what I'm teaching is just how to package, how to get the most value out of your own skills.
Gaining Independence through Freelancing
00:30:44
Speaker
Right. Yeah. And I think in case it's not been like explicitly clear for like what like how this pertains to freedom and liberty, you know, I think obviously like COVID being the biggest example of how many people felt coerced into getting the jabs because their job was tied to it or even before COVID. A lot of people felt married to their jobs because of like health insurance. Hey, I get good health insurance benefits from this corporate job. And if especially if you do have
00:31:13
Speaker
maybe some health challenges in your family and like you can't not have those benefits then you're kinda stuck in that line of thinking so the reason what you're doing is important the reason why and how this can lead to a freer life life is so that you are tied down and like i like you don't feel like
00:31:31
Speaker
Your job is a ball and chain that you are like trapped in or committed to because of these benefits or what have you, um, that you would have to, that you're keeping you in it. Yeah. I mean, the health insurance thing is the biggest scam in the world. Not the biggest scam. There's a lot of big scams out in the world, but it's horrible. It's just, it, it really, I mean, you understand the captured market makes things 20 times more expensive than they have to be.
00:31:57
Speaker
that so the FDA is doing this, the health insurance market is doing this. We really need to get rid of this health insurance industry. But in the meantime, look, there's a guy, John Morrow, I think is his name. He lives in Mexico now. He's almost completely incapacitated. He's a writer, but he can't use his hands. He writes like he speaks text, and he makes well over a million dollars a year doing this. But he moved to Mexico originally because he could afford the health care there.
00:32:22
Speaker
and he couldn't get anybody's health insurance plan, because if he gets up out of his wheelchair, his bones automatically break. It's one of those horrible situations where he's just massively handicapped, but he has full-time care now in Mexico at a 10th of the cost, even with insurance, it would have cost him in the US. So there's a lot of ways to free up your life, but you can't be tied down to one job in one location to take advantage of these things.
Living Abroad for Freedom
00:32:44
Speaker
So that's one of the... I also have the X-Plan community, which is largely about getting a second residency
00:32:49
Speaker
getting some of your money out of the country, like taking advantage of the ability to move around and work remotely. And there's so many opportunities around the world that we think of America as the only place we have to be. It's the only place where we could possibly have liberty. And I'm very attached to this country. I'm not giving up my citizenship. I'm not pulling like a nomad capitalist type thing.
00:33:08
Speaker
But I do want someplace else to go if I have to keep my head down for a year or two, which seems like it's coming rapidly at this pace. Well, and the sad thing is that, especially now, once upon a time, yeah, America was like the last beacon of hope. But now, there's nowhere else to go, really. I mean, unfortunately, there's not some beacon of freedom and liberty that we could just move there. Because as we saw, again, with COVID, everybody
00:33:35
Speaker
Nobody is safe. There's nowhere that safe. So is that what you were doing in El Salvador? Yeah, that was more of a scouting trip. So I'm a Bitcoin or two. So El Salvador really is Bitcoin country. I have some friends that are there just living on Bitcoin, which is amazing. Plus, it's like a third of the cost or a quarter of the cost of living in the US. But as much as I liked El Salvador, it's still very poor. There was like only two of the hotels I stayed at had hot water consistently.
00:34:01
Speaker
The internet was in and out. It's like, it's, I loved it. I love the people. The optimism there is infectious. The country is beautiful. It's way too hot for me. Like I don't do that level of, I don't do 98 and muggy. It's just, that's too much. Although up the mountains is a little better. And then Bukele, I'm still on the fence about, like there's, there's so much I like about him, but he's an authoritarian at this point. Like he's, he's a good authoritarian. He's like the noble monarch at this point, you hope.
00:34:29
Speaker
But he's either going to be like an all-time hero or an all-time villain, and I'm not sure which way it breaks yet, so I'm a little too nervous to kind of move there. But I like places like Mexico where they just, they leave you alone. Like, their government is not great. Their political system still kind of sucks. The cartels are very influential.
00:34:48
Speaker
But in general, on a day to day basis, you're just left alone. Like most people don't pay taxes. Most people don't. They never interact with the government. They take care of each other. They form communities. It kind of is anarchic in that way. So it's like in a practical sense here more for you there. But in you know, who knows if the government gets stronger, if they if the cartel stops fighting with them, you never know what's going to happen. So yeah, you're right. There's nowhere perfect to go. You just kind of have to measure what's going to be best for you in the circumstances.
Community Building Over Political Reliance
00:35:16
Speaker
But Kelly that he pulled an interesting move just recently where he set his entire whatever executive branch down and basically said you're all under investigation for corruption and it's like
00:35:27
Speaker
That's a bold move. That's a good way to get assassinated, I guess. He included himself in it, but it'll be interesting to see what happens down there. I don't know. It's only a country of what, 6 million people? So it's not like anybody in the world cares that much about them. Although, obviously, the CIA was a big part of the original troubles down there with the Civil War and the gangs.
00:35:48
Speaker
But the CIA reaches everywhere in the world at this point, or I should say the intelligence apparatuses. It's not just the CIA. So there's nowhere you're really safe from them, from their influence, I should say. So I don't know, you can't really worry about it. You kind of have to just become this is why my podcast was practical liberty. It's like, what can we actually do? And one thing you can do is get your income out of these corporations hands, because these corporations do not care about you at all. Like you are not important to them.
00:36:14
Speaker
Um, but you can make yourself important to them if you're a freelancer who they rely on, but you don't want to be in their machine. You want to be outside their machine. Yeah. And I think there's like, obviously I think there's a big shift in, um, kind of the, I say small L libertarian community, um, starting with like, well, maybe not starting with, but like, including you being like practical Liberty. I think Tom, uh, Woods has more or less kind of shifted his, he's not.
00:36:41
Speaker
You know going so hard on like libertarian theory and philosophy and everything and he shifted his focus a lot on to Not officially practical Liberty, but that's what it is in practice with his Tom school of life My whole podcast is called what can we do where I'm trying to talk about like look I know that I know the problems I don't need to hear about the problems anymore. I
00:37:00
Speaker
I wanna hear about the solutions and try and get those out in the open because we don't need another podcast talking about the damn problems. I know what the problems are, okay? And this is my problem with like a lot of these, some of these influencers and like your conservative ink and everything because they are great. They're fabulous about
00:37:18
Speaker
elucidating about the problems and owning the libs and everything, but what are you doing with your platform if you are not organizing and strategizing real solutions to take back liberty or achieve liberty or to fight back against the left, which I just think that they don't do. They just sit there and they own the libs and they get a good sound bite out of it at a college campus or something.
00:37:41
Speaker
What's the strategy behind it? Or they'll do a big conference like, Oh, hey, we're gonna have a big conference with all these con inc influencers. And we're gonna, you know, again, rage. Where's the solution? What's the call to action? Does that does that drive you crazy as like a marketer? What's the call to action? You need to have a CTA to like, advance the ball.
00:38:02
Speaker
But it's worse because their call to action is always elect Trump or whoever our hero, DeSantis, the hero of the day is. And I think that's how the country gets rolled. I honestly think the whatever deep state or whatever you want to call them wants Trump in the next term, because they've done so much damage that the whiplash to that is going to be everything they want. It's going to be the digital ID, it's going to be some form of the CBDC, it's going to be the
00:38:28
Speaker
the free market carbon credits. It's all the stuff that conservatives, they're just gonna spin what the agenda they've been trying to push and hasn't been working, and they're gonna get all pushed through with, just imagine, it's gonna be so easy for Trump to get in there and say, they let 10 million, 20 million illegals into the country, we don't know who anybody is, America should be for America, Americans, that's why we all need this digital ID that's gonna guarantee your identity as an American. And only people with this ID will get access to American services.
00:38:57
Speaker
Okay, we just got the digital ID panopticon that we were all terrified of and we did it under the guise of like fighting immigration, the legitimate immigration crisis we have. So they caused the crisis, then they let the right wing in to solve it and then he becomes the ultimate, you know, bad guy in history. But it's just like the Patriot Act. It's like, I'm not saying they caused 9-11 necessarily, although I'm not not saying that.
00:39:19
Speaker
But the Patriot Act, as a response, it was done by right wing. It couldn't have got done by the left wing. The right wingers would have freaked out about that, as they should have. I don't know. I just think, yes. So I think the Khan Inc stuff, their call to action is the exact wrong thing. The call to action should be like, and that's why we're building communities, and that's why we're learning resilience, and that's why we're getting off Google and Microsoft and Apple devices. And I'm not perfect at this either. It's too hard to operate in the world without some of this stuff.
00:39:47
Speaker
But to try to transition away. And there might come a time when we have to just rely on our communities. And we literally can't use the internet anymore because they forced this ID down. So then what do you do? The only call to action I know of is become resilient, figure out what value you have to offer, figure out how you can position it, and then build a community around that. And then we just have to build a parallel thing when this all falls. But if you're stuck up in the corporate machine when this falls, you don't have time to learn new skills and the freelancing skills and the ability to sell yourself.
00:40:16
Speaker
if the crisis hits before you're ready. So, I mean, it is a business, but it's also kind of a mission. Like, dude, you got to get out of this thing. Like, you cannot tie yourself to a falling plane here. Like, you can't be attached to a disaster
Steps to Personal Freedom
00:40:30
Speaker
like this. You have to find ways to break apart. So, I don't know. I'm learning gardening. I know my neighbors. I have a house in the woods with guns. I got water. Like, I have all this stuff, and I have a community now that I can rely on and trade with if it comes to that.
00:40:43
Speaker
And I just think you have to be prepared to do a little suffering. And it's not always easy. It's not always fun. But I'm not going to be a slave. So you've got to learn some of these skills. I get frustrated, again, with people on our side.
00:40:59
Speaker
I feel like it's really, even the ones who might understand the problems, trying to lead them or get them to actually take action for the solutions. I get so frustrated trying to be like, okay, but like you said, making sacrifices. Why don't you do the easy things? Why are you still shopping at Target? Why do you still have a Netflix account? Why do you still have a Disney Plus account? This is the easy stuff. These are the easy sacrifices because I promise you, they're not going to get any easier than that once shit hits the fan.
00:41:28
Speaker
Why don't you do the easy stuff so that we don't have to do the big stuff?" It's like trying to get people to actually act is very frustrating and hard even when people know it's for their own good. I think we've maybe had conversations about that too, about how do you get people to present a solution or how do you move the needle?
00:41:54
Speaker
Act to budge you know and even if it doesn't include like spending money, you know, it's like Again, hey cancel Netflix you're saving money, but they don't want to do it and it goes back to I think something that you mentioned
00:42:09
Speaker
I was watching your independent pro videos yesterday just in preparation for this and one of the videos you did was about three ways or something about three ways to sell anything or but talking about Harry Brown talking about value and how that's subjective and and and you know so that's what you have to do is try and
00:42:30
Speaker
make it seem like it's in their best interest to do this. And like on a cerebral way, I think people get it. Yes, the world, the leftists are ruining everything, but yet they won't even do the easy things.
00:42:40
Speaker
They don't believe it. What it comes down to is they don't actually believe it's coming. Or they don't believe it'll be as bad as we say. Because libertarians and liberty-minded people have been talking about this stuff since the 60s. Ron Paul went back to the 70s. We have been talking about the coming crash and why you need gold and why you need to get out of the system forever. And logically, everybody knows it's right, but they don't emotionally believe that it's going to happen right now. Everybody thinks they're going to have time. And so I think that's what's going on here is like, well,
00:43:10
Speaker
I don't know. It's not that bad right now. I'll have time to see it coming. I'll be able to prepare. I can cancel Netflix whenever I need to. But I just didn't finish that series yet, so I gotta tag. I mean, I understand. It's like people just have to get comfortable being uncomfortable. It's a skill set that you have to practice. You have to go out there and do things that make you uncomfortable. Literally, start small. Cancel Netflix.
00:43:32
Speaker
just do it like that. That's the one thing and then see how your life changes and realize that it's not because 90% of the time we spend on Netflix is trying to figure out what the hell to watch on Netflix anyway, like it's not that that good. It's not that valuable. Right.
00:43:46
Speaker
So yes, get comfortable being up. Just do something. Take a little step. Install a VPN. Do the first step. Get proton mail, get off Gmail, and get on proton mail. Just do a little bit to take care of your privacy. And proton, by the way, has a great VPN. That's what I use. They actually have a suite of products, I think, now that will replace a lot of the Microsoft Google products that people use. And that's a private company. And it costs a little more in that case.
00:44:13
Speaker
What is your liberty worth to you? How prepared are you going to be? Just do something that's inconvenient that will make you 1% safer. And then try that every month. Just get 1% more free, 1% more disconnected from the machine. Take it incrementally. You don't have to do it all at once. You don't have to get rid of your Apple phone. I mean, I still use Apple.
00:44:34
Speaker
I want to get a de-Googled pixel, but at some point, but there's so much convenience I use. But 1%, start using a VPN. Start just doing little things to get off the grid, to get more free. Do one side hustle. Just try to get one client and one project. Just disconnect a little bit from your... Become a little less reliant on your employer.
00:44:55
Speaker
I don't know that's that's what I think. I think you I think you'd have a great conversation actually and they just reached out to me again today. Sean Patrick Tarrio I mentioned I sent you that interview I did with him and he does like the go ghost phones and everything and he just he just said he said a lot of the things you just said you have to be getting comfortable with being uncomfortable basically and like I don't even have a tv anymore so we don't
00:45:21
Speaker
The only streaming service I have is Amazon because I use Amazon Prime. But like I have a daughter and I think people tend to use their kids as an excuse too for why they can't do things. And this goes for various things like, oh, I can't get rid of necklace because my daughter loves this or I can't get rid of the junk food in my health house and get healthy because I don't want to punish my kids or something like as if getting rid of Cheetos and letting them eat natural organic
00:45:48
Speaker
healthy food is a punishment, you know? And so I think people just make that kind of excuse too, like they use their kids as for reasons why they can't make some of these steps.
Mindsets for Freelancing Success
00:45:59
Speaker
Yeah, my when I was a kid, this is funny, I was homeschooled for a couple of years. And my parents kept catching me and my sister watching Jerry Springer in the middle of the day. So they entirely pulled the plug. No, no channels at all. We had a TV, but it was just that we had a VHS with it. I don't know if people watching will even know what VHS is.
00:46:16
Speaker
Hey kids, it's a way that we used to watch movies. It didn't change our lives at all. It had no negative impact. I probably read, I don't know, five times the amount of books I would have if we had had TV. Instead of watching TV at night, I would go up and read whatever it was, Lord of the Rings. I liked all that fantasy stuff.
00:46:36
Speaker
or history or whatever i read biographies i'd like read everything because i didn't have a tv it actually improved my life in so many immeasurable ways and just becoming a better reader after all that like i don't know what impact that would have where would i be a writer if i hadn't read all those books as a kid so there's there's like there's rippling good effects that you don't even know that you can see from some of this stuff
00:46:56
Speaker
I think that's something that Tom Woods talks about a lot too, is how do you become a good writer? You have to read good reading. You have to know what that looks like. That probably, I'm sure, did help you immensely in your copywriting career because you did have to read and study and understand on a visceral innate level about what good writing looks like and word combinations.
00:47:19
Speaker
and things like that. You had something interesting on your sales page and you talk about, sorry, I'm switching gears again, because I wanted to ask you about this, the story you tell about your last dollar and how you basically were broke and yep, that is an in-depth.
00:47:41
Speaker
And I want to know, first of all, that's a really compelling story. But in my brain, I'm like, well, what did you do with that last dollar? What did you change at that moment? What did you start doing at that moment that you hadn't already been doing? Because I imagine if you knew what you needed to do to be successful, you already would have been doing it. So what changed? And what did you start doing differently at that moment that you hadn't already been doing? The real change was I stopped
00:48:07
Speaker
I just made the decision that it's not about the writing, it's about the money right now. I changed my mindset to I'm never going to spend this, so I need to figure out how to make more of these. I started looking at what other people were doing, and it wasn't about ... I had just been trying to get better at writing, better at writing, be a better copywriter. I was getting fairly good for a year or two in as a writer.
00:48:30
Speaker
But there were people that I could outright already that were making 100 times more money than me. So I just started watching what they were doing and studying what they were doing. And it was how they talked to clients. It was how they approached, how they positioned themselves. It had nothing to do with their writing. It was all about the marketing. So I really switched from a writing mentality to a marketing mentality. How do I position myself? How do I think about it? How do I understand the psychology of somebody who would give me money?
00:48:56
Speaker
And so that was the big change, is that I stopped worrying about the skill of writing and started worrying about the skill of freelancing. That's really the change that ended up happening. It's business skills versus just the technical skills. And that made all the difference. And then I started landing clients that were, I think, my first retainer job. Now, my first retainer was $2,000 a month. And then within four months, I was getting $5,700 a month. And that just changed everything. All of a sudden, I had steady income. I could start paying down some bills. I was getting a little bit of royalties here and there, which is just a performance bonus type thing.
00:49:25
Speaker
Um, and that was the year that I ended up making, no, I think I made $80,000 and then 101. So it wasn't, it wasn't directly to six figures, but it was pretty close. Um, and just from thinking, it was literally just honestly imitating what other people were doing in their positioning and then putting my own little tweak on it. Cause you can't be exactly like somebody else, but it was, it was going from a writer mentality to a business mentality. That's a really insightful, like.
00:49:50
Speaker
Yeah, that's like a crazy insight that you had that, you know, to know that that's what you needed to do to kind of reach that next step. And I think it positioned me from a way where like, I desperately need money right now. What do I do to get money? And the getting better at writing thing wasn't making me more money. So it was a natural shift to, okay, how do I sell myself better?
00:50:11
Speaker
I think what you're good at, maybe just innately, but also through copywriting is understanding the psychology behind a lot of these things. So like when you're copywriting, they talk about features versus benefits. So the feature is, oh, this has 10 megabits of RAM or whatever to, you can
00:50:34
Speaker
store a hundred photos or five thousand photos. Well, that's the feature, but what's the benefit? The benefit is never miss a memory. So you have to kind of dig deeper to figure out what is the emotional benefit to whatever this feature is.
00:50:49
Speaker
And you're applying that, too, to like, obviously to your writing, but getting into that psychological frame of mind, too, to understand, you know, the psychology between why people hire one person versus the other. So I think, you know, like, you're like the whole mindset and getting into the psyche, that's something that
00:51:07
Speaker
you have a unique insight and talent for. I don't know. It's not that hard to dig for benefits like you were just saying. You're right. You have this phone that does 10, whatever you said, how many megabytes or pixels. I don't even know the technical term there.
00:51:23
Speaker
But the question is, what does that mean to somebody? So and then you'll get the deeper benefits like, Oh, I won't lose memories. And what does that mean to you? It's like, Oh, I'll be I'll have to say I'll be able to relive these moments. And what does that mean to you? It's like, Oh, I will always feel like my child is there with me. Like you get to that benefit, you just have to keep going. And what does that mean? And what does that mean? Until you can't get to some until you get to one that's just like, oh, that pulls at the heartstrings. Because everything we do is emotional. We make all our decisions are technically emotional.
00:51:51
Speaker
We want to think we rationalize them later, but everything is really based on emotion. And if you have a terrible rationale for it, it should go away like you should be able to rationalize your way out of emotion. But the initial decision that we all make the initial impulse desire is straight emotion. So yes, getting deeper and deeper into the benefits.
00:52:10
Speaker
And it's literally just a practice thing. So many people, they just don't know to ask the question, and what does that mean, and ask it more than one time. But you can always dig down to that deeper thing. Then the other thing, psychologically speaking, is I actually knew about Jordan Peterson before almost anyone else, because I was online. I had heard about this thing called the Big Five personality type. And there was this Toronto professor that had all these free lectures with like 300 views on the Big Five personality traits.
00:52:37
Speaker
So I knew about Jordan Peterson before he blew up because I was watching his old YouTube videos, which is just kind of a fun fact. And the big five personality trait really is a fascinating way to understand people's identity. So when I'm building a persona, because you always try to write when you're selling, you try to write to one single person.
00:52:55
Speaker
and you have to create a persona. So what I was doing is using his big five personality traits to create the persona. It's like, oh, this person has higher neuroticism. They're less extroverted. So I was building these traits based on previous customers that the companies I was working with had. And so it's like, all right, who is the profile in the big five? And then what are the things that I need to say to that type of personality profile? So yeah, psychology has been fascinating to me.
00:53:22
Speaker
Uh, just the way the human mind works, but that's yes, psychology is a big part of it. Yeah. And then I don't know if it was like an automated response. Cause I remember I got an email from you, maybe just like for signing up and you're like, Oh, Hey, what would you like to know? And of course, if I taught one and I was like, well,
00:53:37
Speaker
Number one, I'm not going to say that, but I don't even know because, you know, like I said, I think this is just like an auto reply. But if so, it was done really well because it sounded like that was that was a genuine email because I've been thinking I've been thinking about a lot of people have asked me for a copywriting course. And I have I have a methodology. I have the seven stories methodology.
00:53:56
Speaker
that if you work with me, if the copywriters that mentor under me know the structure. But I was thinking about putting a course together, but it's going to take me months to do that.
Copywriting Techniques
00:54:04
Speaker
So I thought like, all right, if I do like a two hour webinar, what could I do that on that would be valuable and teach valuable copywriting skills. So I kind of sent out a survey. I got too many different directions that I'm not sure. I think I'm going to do like a two or three hour webinar like on
00:54:19
Speaker
how to write about yourself, like how to sell yourself through writing, because I think that that seems to be the big theme. People like I get so uncomfortable when I talk about myself in writing. I don't know how to write my own profile. So I think there's a lot I can teach there. So I might do something on that. But yeah, the seven stories is my big framework. I want to do that someday. I just man who has time? Right, exactly. Well, and I can't remember exactly everything that I wrote. I mean, I just wrote a few things. But one thing that like, to me, it's like that mind like that
00:54:48
Speaker
mindset shift about how to think like a copywriter. I've heard from copywriters, you and various others that I've followed and listened to, is that eventually you just get so good at it that you start thinking in bullet points. Marlon Sanders and other people I've seen, they're like,
00:55:09
Speaker
I write the sales letter before I even have the product. They're just that good. They already know the sales and the bullet points they want, and then they create the product based off of that. I think to me, that would be something that would be beneficial where it's like, how do you just get so... I heard it from Ben Settle. It's not his plan, but something he did when he was starting out is actually literally handwriting
00:55:38
Speaker
like bullet points and copy like copying other people's copy handwriting it so that it kind of like gets just seeps into that psyche so that it just becomes like a muscle kind of yeah that's the that that's very old school advice so all the old copywriting courses used to teach that so my first mentor and copy was Mark Ford who wrote his pen name was Michael Masterson and he wrote the original like
00:56:03
Speaker
super big copywriting course called it was called the accelerated program for six figure copywriting because he was trying to sell it in the title itself. And he built a company called AWAI off of that. And that that's their big advice is hand copy all these sales letter here, they give you a swipe file, which is just a pile of old sales letters that did really well, and you're supposed to handwrite them.
00:56:25
Speaker
I don't really like that advice. I know there's some neurological thing where the pen connects to your brain and it goes in and you learn the feel. I was born with a typewriter, like a computer. I think it was after eighth grade was the last time I've turned in a handwritten actual writing assignment.
00:56:45
Speaker
But so everything has been typing. So what I like to do is read a letter and try to write the sentence better, like read a bullet point and try to improve on it. How would I say this? And that teaches you to think like a copywriter. It's like, OK, I see what they're doing with this. Now, how would I try to improve it? And that's what I did is like I would see a sales letter like, how do I rewrite this headline so it's better? How would I rewrite this lead so it's more engaging?
00:57:07
Speaker
And I think that type of practice, along with some really good mentors I had over the years, who would just smack me upside the head and say, don't say it like that, you idiot. I'll say it politely for the video. So just writing over and over is the thing. But engaging your brain to actually think about it and then write it, I think, is much more effective than just copying it. Although I know people that copy sales letters and claim they learned a lot. It just was never my preferred technique.
00:57:33
Speaker
All right, well, we've kind of gone over a lot of, you know, the pros and why people would want to get started with a freelancing career.
Accessing Henry's Courses and Content
00:57:43
Speaker
The name of the show is What Can We Do? So, you know, dealing with lots of big issues in the world, loss of freedom is everywhere, whether this pertains to freelancing, copywriting, or something else.
00:57:56
Speaker
What is the way that you would answer that question? What can we do to maximize and achieve liberty or move the ball for liberty in our lifetime?
00:58:07
Speaker
Somebody asked the question the other day to a Zimbabwean who went through the hyperinflation, the real crazy hyperinflation. Who were the people that did the best during that? Who actually prospered during that crazy period in history? And it was the people that had the best community. So I think the best thing we can do is find a community who understands what's going on and get in there and actually make connections, actually make relationships,
00:58:34
Speaker
understand, offer your skills and find out what skills other people have and then collaborate. Nobody's going to be able to survive what's coming alone. Nobody's going to survive what's happening right now alone. You have to find a community. You have to get embedded in it. You have to become valuable to it. And yeah, I think that's the only way we survive this is together with other people who understand what's happening.
00:58:57
Speaker
Yeah, I totally concur with that. And I've had people on my show to talk about ways to build community. And it's harder than it looks, I think, too, especially in person one. I mean, but, you know, in a real emergency situation, it doesn't matter how many Facebook friends or whatever you've got that live all over the country.
00:59:13
Speaker
I ask people this all the time. Have you ever shaken the hand of somebody who made your food? I know my farmer. I know the guy I buy a cow from. I grow my own vegetables. I share with some of my neighbors. I personally know the auto mechanic that fixes my car. Can you shake hands with these people? Do you know them?
00:59:31
Speaker
Or is it just like, oh, I dropped it off at the pet boys? Or I don't know. I bought my food at Whole Foods. What do you mean, shake a farmer's hand? You have to actually have these networks. And look, I love my online networks. I'm building them. I'm part of them. But an in-person network is really, really crucial for your own sanity in some ways, but just also for, I don't know, these skills. And you can provide a lot of things. You have more talents than people realize. That's why I have this.
01:00:00
Speaker
But some people, they go through the exercise and like, Oh, I still feel like I have no talents. And then they show me their exercise. I'm like, Well, what about these three? Like people have so much more innate skill and talent and they understand they people devalue themselves. And I think being part of a community actually brings out your value and makes you feel more valuable, because other people in person appreciate what you can do for them. And there's a lot of different ways to do that. It's hard skills and soft skills. It's all there. It's all important.
01:00:27
Speaker
Yeah, well, Henry, thank you so much for your time today and talking to us. Where can people find you? How can people follow you? If they want to access your courses, tell us a little bit about that.
01:00:38
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, the best way to get into the courses is just go to henrybing.co slash skills. That should take you to the skill stack page. It's the $29 course. It builds you the skill stack. It's a two-hour exercise, helps you build the skill stack, walks you through the viral pitch. There's a couple other exercises in there that are kind of cheat codes that I like to tease.
01:00:59
Speaker
And then if you want to follow the show, it's The Independent Pro on YouTube or Rumble or Practical Liberty. There's a lot of great episodes I've done, Tom Woods, Clint Russell. I had Recktenwald and Joshua Smith on, although I kind of regret interviewing politicians. I just don't want to do that anymore. But they were good conversations. So you can follow me, Practical Liberty or The Independent Pro, or just go to henrybingman.com and you can find links for, I think, everything there.
01:01:24
Speaker
Yep. And of course, this will be on the show notes page too at libertyalliancenetwork.com slash what can we do? Henry, thank you so much for your time. I look forward to, are you going to be at the Tom Woods Practical Liberty Conference coming up? He stole my name and yes, I will be there. Good. Awesome. Well, I will probably see you there and look forward to staying in touch. All right. Thanks, Hayley.