How to Create a Viral Book Trailer (or Get 1,000,000 Views for Almost Anything)

How do you create a viral video?

I am asked this quite a lot. I’ve been asked by authors, TV producers, and first-time Kickstarter entrepreneurs. In my experience, the answers are the same for all of them.

In this post, I’ll deconstruct one example: The 4-Hour Chef (4HC) book trailer, which is now the most-viewed non-fiction book trailer of all time. Roughly 1.5 million views and counting.

First, let’s make a distinction: creating a “viral” video is not the same a creating a “popular” video, but both can be valuable.

If you use ads to drive 1,000,000+ views, a video is not viral; it is popular. If your views come from organic sharing (or incentivized sharing like DropBox), it can be considered viral.

This post is also intended as a companion to my post, Behind the Scenes: How to Make a Movie Trailer for Your Product (or Book), which goes into equipment, planning, and (tons of) other details that I’ve omitted here.

For later — below are resources that will save you a TON of time and tail-chasing…

Feel free to skip the box for now if you like:

VIRALITY RESOURCES:

YouTube Channel stats – http://vidstatsx.com/
Viral video chart – http://viralvideochart.unrulymedia.com/all
Trending videos – http://www.youtube.com/trendsdashboard

Good blog posts on the topic, probably in this order:
-http://gawker.com/5912376/
-http://www.socialh.com/a-little-bit-of-math-measuring-virality/
-http://tinyurl.com/bnowj55

Outlets that cover trends and tools in online video well:
-Reelseo.com
-Tubefilter.com
-http://newmediarockstars.com/

YouTube Creator Playbooks
– http://www.youtube.com/yt/playbook/index.html
– http://www.youtube.com/yt/playbook/guides.html

Now, without further ado, here’s how we got ~1.5 million views for my latest book trailer…

This is like creating a comic book for the trailer, scene by scene. It’s the same process used by Pixar, among many others (video example here).

Here was my first stab for 4HC:

Click here to enlarge the below.

Click here to enlarge the below.

For the 4HC trailer, I brought in several specialists to help with production and promotion.

Please note that a team is nice-to-have and not must-have insurance. To date, my most viral video had zero budget. Here’s what gets you 4-5 million views:

That said, I like to tilt the odds in my favor whenever possible. Here’s my A-Team for doing so when funds allow:

- Directing and post-production – Adam Patch
- PR strategy and implementation – Ryan Holiday and BrassCheck
- Marketing, YouTube influencers, and experimental campaigns – Mekanism (Thanks, Jason and team!)

But how do you choose someone like Adam, if it’s not Adam? You ask for proposals, of course.

Typically, before you hire a production lead like Adam (who also acts as a general contractor for the production team), they will put together a proposal or “treatment”, which includes an itemized budget.

For 4HC, since I’d worked with Adam before, things started with my storyboarding and an in-person lunch with Adam.

Below is the 4HC “treatment,” cobbled together from our subsequent emails and conversations. It gives you a good idea of what you might expect you see:

4-Hour Chef video trailer Treatment

Once you agree on look and feel, you have to roll up your sleeves: it’s time to scout locations, find talent (if needed), and choose specific shots for a to-do list (the “shot list”) that you check off as you film.

Special thanks to Chris Young and the amazing ChefSteps team for letting us use their Mr. Wizard-like food lab in Seattle. We shot the entire trailer in Seattle as a result. Here’s the kind of fun we had (see first 15 secs):

Our full shot list is below. Note that “CU” stands for “close-up”, and “TT” stands for “tabletop”.

Not much to say here, other than shoot a TON of material when you have the chance. It’s easier to edit down than to add extra shooting days.

Below an example of original footage that will be magically changed in the next step. Here we used one of my favorite books as a stand in:

The first step is to cut down hours of footage into 120 or fewer seconds. This is tough but important work.

If you make the finished product look polished enough for broadcast, you might have opportunities (or make opportunities) to get it on major TV. Here’s the process I used to get bookings.

The 4-Hour Chef trailer was featured as my introduction on everything from Dr. Oz to The Hallmark Channel. It’s the perfect adrenaline rush and sales pitch wrapped into one. Especially for short-form TV interviews — typically 3-4 minutes total, with multiple hosts — you’ll be strained to get a word in edgewise. It’s fantastic to let your video hit the talking points, doing the sales job for you.

Now you have a “rough cut” of the trailer. This is first draft, without graphics or special effects.

Once the footage, cuts, and order of scenes is agreed upon, you arrive at “picture lock,” which means that the footage and length can’t be changed. Only at this point does it make sense for anyone to create time-consuming graphics, animation, or sync’d music. Something like this, for instance:

Here’s the complete progression from first “draft” to finished product. Can you tell what changes in each version?

Now that you’ve taken a shot, here’s the full commentary from Adam, taking you though it step-by-step:

And how exactly does Adam work his magic?

Let’s watch how Adam edits the opening atrium scene in The 4-Hour Body trailer, which also has roughly 1,000,000 views. But first, take a look at the finished trailer and notice the opening shot of me at my desk:

Now, we go behind the scenes:

For The 4-Hour Body trailer, I chose music first (Splinter by Sevendust), which I then set visuals to. This turned out to be a licensing headache marathon, and I explain the whole how-to process here. And that was with the band offering it for free! For this new 4HC video, we had custom music produced after the video was complete. The talented Luis Dubuc provided a sync’d jam, and we were ready to roll. No fuss, no muss.

Custom music need not be expensive, and you can even use crowdsourcing with start-ups like Audiodraft. I’ve used them before as well (see here and here).

First, a super basic note on uploading. ENSURE YOUR VIDEO CAN BE VIEWED ON MOBILE DEVICES!

25% of global YouTube views come from mobile devices. I screwed this up for The 4-Hour Body trailer, and I’ve been unable to reverse the mistake and make it viewable on mobile; as a result, I’ve lost hundreds of thousands of views.

No option to change — shite!

So, avoid being a dumb-ass like me and get it right the first time. Back to launching once you’ve uploaded…

The 4-Hour Chef trailer premiered on HuffPo, then it was reposted to my blog here. When I announced the post my Facebook fan page, we promoted it through FB’s paid mechanism. Notice that this was all done on 11/7/12 and 11/8/12 — roughly two weeks before official book launch on 11/20/12.

One of the most effective promotions I did was a unique BitTorrent bundle of 680MB+ of free content. For the super-low labor involved, it drove fantastic numbers:

Watched the trailer on YouTube: 293K people
Visited the author’s website: 325K people
Visited the book’s Amazon page: 852K people

But that was just one piece of the YT traffic puzzle.

When it comes to YouTube, you need to realize what you’re up against in terms of noise: 72 hours of video are uploaded every minute. To capitalize on the opportunity (it’s the second largest search engine in the world), you need to plan. Spray and pray almost never works — your competition is too good.

So, what to do?

First off, do not split your ammo. If you’re considering ads to help drive traffic, do it when it counts: the first 24 hours, when you can combine it with all PR for a synergistic effect. Momentum begets momentum, and early success begets later success. I often pile nearly all book launch media/interviews into a 5-7 day period (Check out this madness).

Team Mekanism was responsible for 99% of all my YT-related PR and directly and indirectly 50%+ of traffic. BitTorrent and my PR that week make up the rest. Mekanism combined extensive PR outreach with early judicious use of TrueView ads and StumbleUpon traffic (Disclosure: I advise StumbleUpon).

Here’s Mekanism’s explanation of what they did, first as PDF with screenshots, then as text:

4 hour chef coverage from Mekanism

Bolded emphasis below is mine:

To help support Tim’s book launch, Mekanism took a three tiered approach: connecting him to relevant online influencers, hosting a contest on Pinterest (to expand his exposure among the female demographic), and promoted content within Slideshare.

[TIM: Slideshare is hugely underused for product launches. We used it for The 4-Hour Body as well.]

Online Influencers:

To drive widespread awareness of The 4-Hour Chef, Mekanism reached out to credible online influencers to help drive word-of-mouth. Mekanism reached out to bloggers and YouTubers across a variety of verticals relevant to each of the different chapters within the book. For example:

• Food Enthusiasts
• Male Lifestyle
• Science + Tech Bloggers
• Mom Bloggers
• Lifehackers

In researching outlets and people, Mekanism took an approach very similar to that outlined by Mike Del Ponte in his Hacking Kickstarter post. The key is establishing relationships, and ensuring your content/message is tailored to each individual blogger’s audience. To accomplish this, Mekanism not only crafted custom pitches, but also provided a wealth of assets that could be freely used: exclusive excerpts, interviews with Tim (live or recorded), his video book trailers, images, etc.

Without a doubt, the most engaged audiences were those of several YouTube stars/channels, specifically SourceFed & WheezyWaiter. These appearances led to thousands of comments and likes and contributed to YouTube being the second largest traffic drive to Tim’s target landing pages.

Slideshare:

We wanted to see if it was possible to get a deck outlining the benefits of the 4-Hour Chef on the homepage of Slideshare, vis a vis having it rank on Slideshare’s ‘Top Presentation’s of the Day’ section. Slideshare was chosen because it has a well-educated and affluent user base that matches the target consumer of The 4-Hour Chef (69% college grads, 37% have $100k+ HHI).

First, a Slideshare deck was created to outline the benefits/chapters of 4HC. Next, we did the math to determine how many views, and in what period of time, were needed to drive the into the ‘Top Presentation’s of the Day’ section. Based on our observations, it seemed as though 15,000 views within a 24-hour period was likely enough.

Having this understanding of required viewing density, we uploaded our deck and promoted it via paid StumbleUpon ads and drove the content to the homepage of Slideshare via “stumbles,” ensuring everyone visiting the site the day of launch saw the presentation.

Keep in mind that the sum is greater than the parts. Here are more of the parts, written in a report to Tim:

“Slideshare Presentation
- Made the ‘Hot on Facebook’ and ‘Hot on Twitter’ section (on homepage)
- Was ‘Featured’ (also on homepage)
- Peaked as 2nd most popular presentation last night

Sourcefed Video
-#3 most liked & top favorited ‘How To & Style’ video of the day
-#5 most viewed ‘How To & Style’ video of the day
-#65 top favorited & most liked video on YouTube today (of all videos across all categories)”

BLOG COVERAGE
http://sourcefednews.com/workout-systems-roundup/
http://www.tubefilter.com/2012/11/19/tim-ferriss-book-trailer-youtube-4-hour-chef/
http://www.dannyroddy.com/main/my-interview-with-bad-ass-mother-fucker-tim-ferriss
http://www.tubefilter.com/2012/11/19/tim-ferriss-book-trailer-youtube-4-hour-chef/
http://www.insidehook.com/nation/tim-ferriss/
http://gearpatrol.com/2012/11/21/tim-ferriss-the-4-hour-chef/
http://www.5minutesformom.com/67553/an-interview-with-tim-ferriss-author-of-the-4-hour-chef/
http://newmediarockstars.com/2012/11/tim-ferriss-interview/

YOUTUBE INFLUENCERS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ggiUlMujSE&list=UU_gE-kg7JvuwCNlbZ1-shlA&index=2&feature=plcp
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olSnJC3juXw&feature=youtu.be
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nw7nZmqiH1I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7J8fiuG7z-I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAJBnwBxAWs

The goal of all of this, of course, is to build a rapid view count number that pushes the trailer above the noise. This then propagates into additional organic sharing, all of which sells books.

###

So, those are the basics of stacking the deck in your favor for online video. Most posts on “virality” are vague generalities, so I wanted to dig into the weeds. Hopefully you like this.

Are there any other details you’d like to see, or questions you’d like answered? Please let me know in the comments.

Posted on April 10th, 2013

View the original article here

How to Reduce Your Mail to Almost Nothing

It’s been estimated that the average American will spend about 8 months of his/her life opening junk mail. Would anyone consciously choose to do that? Probably not. But how many will end up doing it anyway?

And this is just the average. Some poor folks actually spend years of their lives processing junk mail. This is especially common if you have multiple sources of mail, such as your home and a business.

Each piece of unwanted mail you process is a needless waste of your life. It’s also a major source of distraction that gets you thinking about things that are off course for you.

Even if you don’t open most junk mail, it still wastes time to pick it up, look at it, identify it as spam, and trash it. And if you’re ever tempted or tricked into opening some of it, it wastes even more time. Even if you’re way better than the average, and you waste only 10 minutes per week dealing with junk mail, it will add up to nearly 87 hours wasted over the next decade. That’s like working more than 2 weeks full-time just to process junk mail. And this doesn’t even count non-junk mail that you may also process.

Fortunately there are many simple steps you can take to reduce this unwanted nuisance down to almost nothing.

The first step is to assess how much mail you’re actually receiving. If you process your mail every day or two, it may not seem like a lot. But if you collect it over a longer period of time, such as 30 days, you may realize just how much of a waste it is.

When I started traveling more and had my mail held by the Post Office, I noticed just how much would accumulate during my absence. Also, as I would recycle all my mail, I could physically see just how much would pile up during the two weeks between recycling pick-ups.

I recommend stockpiling all your unwanted mail for the next 30 days. Then you’ll see just how much there is.

Alternatively you could compile a list of what comes through, but I prefer to let the physical pieces pile up for an easy visual assessment. The recycle bin is an easy place to do that.

Another reason to keep each physical item is so that you can use the information on them to cancel them from being sent in the future. More on that later…

Now for each piece of mail that arrives in your mailbox, ask yourself whether it needed to be sent at all.

I find that in most cases the answer is an obvious no.

I realized that there were only two types of mail I actually want to receive: pieces containing checks, such as royalties or affiliate commissions, and packages containing goods that I specifically ordered. Everything else is superfluous, at least in terms of sending physical objects through the postal service.

There are also some notices which I’m okay receiving by mail, such as bills and tax forms, even though I don’t necessarily need to receive them by postal mail.

If you didn’t need to receive it, and if you’re likely to receive something similar again, consider it a candidate for elimination.

The next step is to manually opt out with each company that sent you something you didn’t need to receive.

Most junk mail will include a phone number or URL. I think the easiest approach is to call them. Phone them up directly, and get a live person on the line. In my experience this isn’t difficult. Then say, “Hi, I’d like to stop receiving all mailings from your company. Would you please add me to your opt out list? I’d really appreciate it.”

They’ll ask for your mailing address, do some database stuff, and that should do it. Usually these calls take about two minutes.

Sometimes it’s helpful to have the mailed item in front of you because if they have any difficulty finding you in their system, you may be able to give them an ID number or customer number from the address label. This makes it fast and easy for them to look you up.

When you do call, be as polite and friendly as you can. Most likely the person handling your situation is just some student trying to earn tuition money by working in a call center. I always get their name and use it when I talk to them. Don’t act like a jerk or treat them like dirt, or you may give them reason not to opt you out properly.

Often you can also opt-out online. Go to the company’s website, and look for a link to their privacy policy or a contact form. Sometimes the privacy policy will have a section with instructions on how to opt out of their mailings, usually a link to a form or an email address to use. Otherwise just use the contact form. I recommend the phone option, however, since it’s typically faster, and then you get confirmation that you’ve been successfully opted out of their mailings. If you email them, you may not receive confirmation that you’re opted out.

Note that you can even opt out of those coupon and local advertisement mailers. Just look for a phone number or URL on the front or back. Worst case you can probably find a number for their advertising sales. Call them up and ask to opt out.

Once you do opt out, give it a month or so to take effect. Don’t be freaked out if you still get something a couple weeks later. Often these companies have mailings queued up for weeks in advance. You have to allow time for their physical mailings to sync with the database update.

Be sure to call companies you’ve done business with, such as your bank, to ask them to opt out of mailed solicitations. For me one of the worst offenders has been Cox Cable (a major ISP in Las Vegas). They sent junk mail constantly to promote their Internet phone service, cable TV, etc.

Sometimes if you just get one nasty mail spammer to stop, it can save you a few hours over the course of a year. Realize that even 5 minutes per month processing junk mail is still an hour per year, and 10 hours over the next decade. Take two minutes today to save those 10 hours later.

My #1 nemesis when it comes to junk mail has been DirecTV. Sometimes I’d receive two junk mailings from them per week. I’m glad to be opted out now, but their incessant spamming has convinced me to never do business with them. They gave me the mental association that DirecTV = spammer. Their service is obsolete anyway, so perhaps that’s the reason for their desperation.

Additionally, ask these companies to set your account to the maximum privacy settings possible. Tell them you don’t want your info shared with anyone. It’s common for companies to share customer data for marketing purposes, so this step can cut down on a lot of junk.

Be sure to call:

your bankmortgage lendercredit card companiesinsurance providers (auto, home, life, health, etc)phone companiesinvestment account holderscable companyInternet providerany other mail-happy company with which you have an account

Watch your mail to see who’s mailing you.

One annoyance I had with Cox Cable is that they told me I could only opt out of their mailings for one year at a time. I thought that was incredibly lame, so I pushed back, but the guy told me their system is actually programmed to force him to enter an expiration date with a maximum of one year out. So I gave up and just added an entry to my calendar to call them again in one year to refresh my opt out.

Many vendors such as banks, credit card companies, and utilities now allow you to receive statements by email or via their websites, so mailing physical statements isn’t necessary. It’s cheaper for them, so sometimes they’ll incentivize you to switch to e-statements, or they’ll punish you with a “statement fee” if you don’t.

You can still print out hard copies if you need them.

Do whatever you think is best, but you can always try e-statements for a while and then switch back to paper if you don’t like it.

The Direct Marketing Association has a website that makes it easy for you to opt out of common catalog and junk mailings in one place. Their members use this service to screen their lists, and they have a lot of members.

Just visit DMAChoice.org and follow the instructions. You have to create a free account to use this service, but the process is quick and easy.

If you have a credit file with the major credit bureaus (which happens by default if you open any line of credit such as a bank loan, student loan, or credit card), you should know that they share your info with other companies that may result in your receiving credit card and insurance offers by mail. I’ve probably received hundreds of these offers.

If you’d prefer not to receive such spam, it’s very easy to opt out. Just call 1-888-5-OPT-OUT (1-888-567-8688), or go to www.optoutprescreen.com and follow the instructions.

You can opt out for 5 years or permanently. If you want to opt out for 5 years, you can do that by phone or online. If you want to opt out permanently, go to the website above; you just have to print and sign a short form and mail it.

I did the permanent opt out.

If you ever want a new credit card or some insurance, it’s easy to find vendors and apply online. There’s no need to deal with distracting junk mail for the rest of your life due to spam that originates from having a credit file.

Americans can also reduce or eliminate unsolicited telemarketing calls by visiting www.donotcall.gov. It should take about one minute to add your numbers to the registry. Just remember to do this again if you ever change phone numbers.

I used to get spam calls several times a week by telemarketer scum, but after adding my numbers to this list, it’s down to virtually nothing now.

For good measure you may want to add your fax number too if you have one. I don’t see how it could hurt.

For more info on this, see the Do Not Call Registry FAQ.

Kudos to the Federal Trade Commission for providing this service.

When you move it’s tempting to leave a forwarding address with the Post Office, so they’ll automatically forward mail from your old address to your new one.

This is convenient, but if you want to reduce your junk mail, I think it’s best to avoid using this service. It makes it too easy for the spammers to stay in touch.

Let the important mailers know your new address. Let everything else die.

When you move to a new place, you’re likely to get some junk mail from vendors who target move-ins, especially if you just bought a house. Bed, Bath, and Beyond comes to mind. Furniture stores are another typical source.

These mailings are often addressed to “Resident.”

Let the junk pile up for a few weeks after you move in. Then take 30-60 minutes to call everyone to opt out. Otherwise you may become a permanent addition to several new mailing lists, and this will waste hours, if not days, of your life down the road.

I’ve often maintained a PO box for my business, usually for receiving mail orders. But the longer I’ve held such mailboxes, the more spam they accumulate, especially if I list the address on my website. After a few years of having such a box, the mail they receive can become 95% spam.

Last month my current PO box, which I’ve had for a few years, was due for its annual renewal. I was about to cut the check when I paused and asked myself, “Wait a minute… do I really need this box anymore? What would happen if I dumped it?” It was probably getting about 65% pure spam, but nearly 100% of the mail received there was unnecessary.

Originally I opened the box to receive mail orders and for people who wanted to send feedback by mail. But for all the workshops I’ve had, maybe one person has ever registered by mail. And I’ve read enough feedback on my writing to last a lifetime, so I really don’t need the letters either. It was a fairly easy decision to close the box, which means less mail henceforth.

When I turned in the keys, I was handed a stack of packages that I never bothered to pick up, all of them sent by publicists hoping I’d review their stuff on my website. More fodder for the recycle bin. Henceforth this PR spam will end up in limbo.

When I first started blogging, I thought it was cool that publishers and their publicists would send me free personal development books in the mail, hoping to get a review on my website. But after several years of that, it gets pretty stale. Today, however, I’ll be happy to give them my PO box address.

Alternatively, if you don’t want to close your box, consider recycling it. Open a new box, and redirect your mail there till all the important stuff is shifted over. Then close the old box. This is a good way to periodically reset your spam to zero. I recommend doing it once every few years, or whenever the spam volume gets too annoying.

If having a consistent address is important to you, like if there are lots of places where your address is listed (i.e. old catalogs), then you may be stuck with the same box for a while. I preferred a stable mailing address when I sold shareware games during the 1990s since the mailing address was included in the free demos, which were spread all over the Internet. Changing my box would mean losing some orders from older demos.

While this isn’t always possible for businesses, if you can keep your mailing address off of public Internet sites, it should help reduce the amount of junk mail you receive. I’ve seen plenty of evidence that if you do post a mailing address online, you’re probably going to invite some additional junk mail.

It’s okay to enter your mailing address on online order forms when you want to buy something, such as from Amazon. Just don’t post it where it will be displayed publicly, like on a public discussion forum or on your Facebook page.

Despite the good they do, many charities, bless their hearts, can be notorious spammers. Donating to certain charities can trigger an onslaught of dozens of give-us-more-money solicitations over the following year or two.

If you don’t want your donation to be treated as spam bait, then when you make a donation, immediately ask the charity to opt you out of any future mailings.

For a while I was doing recurring automatic donations to a popular charity. They’d mail me monthly statements and a few solicitations each year. When I finally canceled those recurring donations, I received an onslaught of solicitous mailings from them. Such annoying behavior isn’t going to motivate me to donate more, but it does convince me to opt out permanently.

I appreciate the good that many charities do, but I’m not interested in opening their solicitations for the rest of my life. It’s easy enough to find a worthy cause when I desire to donate.

Be alert for potential sources of junk mail as they arise, and nip them in the bud quickly when you can.

Sometimes when I’d buy gifts for people, I’d get junk mail from the companies I bought from, even if I never bought anything for myself.

One time I bought a gift card to White House | Black Market for my sister via their website. Then I started getting lots of junk mail from them, addressed to me. I would never shop there for myself, but now I will never buy anything from them for anyone.

When you buy something online from a new vendor, ask to be placed on their opt out list right when you order. If you order online, there’s often a “special instructions” or comment box where you can notify them of this.

One thing that gets me a lot is when I make hotel reservations. After my stay, I often start receiving junk mail from the hotel. Seriously? Am I really going to revisit that Hawaii resort right after I just stayed there? Again, this kind of spam has the opposite effect and makes me less likely to return. I have to remind myself to opt out of hotel mailings right when I make the reservation.

Once a family member bought some gifts from Justice (a girl’s clothing store) for my daughter Emily, and the gifts were mailed to my house. I started getting an absolutely ridiculous amount of junk mail from them, addressed to Emily. Finally I had the sense to tell them to stop.

Worst case, you could have someone process and screen all your mail for you. I think this should be a last resort, however, and it doesn’t negate any of the above. Why have someone waste their life on pointless busywork when it’s faster and easier to cut off the flow of junk upstream? Don’t try to process spam more quickly. Stop the spam from being sent. Then no one needs to process it.

If you do use an assistant, then have him/her make the calls to reduce your mail to the bare minimum.

One of the best Seinfeld episodes is where Kramer decides he wants to stop receiving postal mail. He puts a brick in his mailbox, so the mail carrier can’t deliver any more mail to him. Eventually the Postmaster General has Kramer kidnapped and intimidates him until Kramer agrees to play by the rules and start receiving mail again.

How necessary is postal mail these days?

If the ideal is to receive no unwanted physical mail at all, how close can we get to that? I suppose that if you don’t have an address, such as if you live in an RV, then maybe you could do without mail altogether. But if you do have a physical address, do you think you could someday do the equivalent of putting a brick in your mailbox, so no further mail delivery is possible? You could still receive packages at your door if you want, but no more letters, cards, postcards, magazines, etc.

Does the postal service itself let people opt out?

Physical mail delivery was once a marvel, especially if you lived in Ancient Rome, Persia, or the Mongol Empire. Today it’s a dying technology that’s clearly becoming obsolete.

The U.S. Postal Service is in seriously bad financial shape, so bad that their very survival is in doubt. They raise postage rates, lay people off, and close locations, but they’re still hemorrhaging cash with no end in sight. We’re talking a multi-billion dollar deficit. A major downsizing is inevitable; it’s only a matter of time. If the decision were up to me, I’d either gut the service to the bones or kill it altogether. It’s best to put them out of their misery sooner; delay will be worse.

For any readers who still work in postal mail delivery, I’d start developing new career options sooner rather than later. I don’t think you have much time left. No union can save your job when the math is against you.

* * *

For the purposes of mail reduction, I suggest doing about 30 days of collection first, coupled with immediate use of the various opt-out services above. Then at the end of those 30 days, go through your stack item by item to make your phone calls to individual spammers, either in a single marathon session, or spread over the course of a week.

Then mark your calendar to do another round of mail reduction every 6 months or so. That should massively reduce the amount of unwanted mail you receive for the rest of your life.

It may take a few hours to complete these actions, but I think you’ll agree that the payoff is worth it. Would you rather spend 8 months of your life opening junk mail?

Even if you only apply some of the steps above, I think a 75% reduction within 60 days is an attainable goal, and I’m sure some will achieve a 90%+ reduction. If you really push it though, you should be able to reduce your incoming mail to almost nothing. Don’t waste your time processing crap that never should have been sent to you. Go have a life!

If you do discover a way to completely brick up your mailbox, please let me know… if you can figure out how to contact me, that is.

View the original article here

CSW Almost Sold Out

The Conscious Success Workshop starts in only 10 days (Jan 13-15, 2012 in Las Vegas). We’re close to selling out, so if you’re planning to sign up, please don’t wait till the last minute, or there’s a possibility we won’t have any seats left.

I estimate that we can sell about 6 more tickets before the room is at capacity.

This is the eighth 3-day workshop we’ll be doing in Las Vegas. When I look back on our first Conscious Growth Workshop in 2009, I see that we’ve really come a long way. I especially enjoy the process of designing workshops that are empowering, engaging, social, and practical.

I’d say that the main difference between CSW and other programs on success is this: A typical book, audio program, or workshop on success usually begins with setting goals. After you set some goals, you get a bunch of advice on how to take action to move towards those goals.

This approach does work for some people, but it usually fails. The problem is that it’s too likely that you’ll set socially conditioned goals to begin with — goals such as how much money to earn, what car to buy, how much weight to lose, or what kind of job to get. Those goals may look good on paper, but they’re not enough to center your life around — they’re too shallow and too boring compared to what you can create with a more conscious approach.

If you dive into goal setting too soon, you may come up with some ideas and feel slightly motivated as you write them down, but that motivation won’t last, and those goals won’t stick. That’s because the goals you set weren’t really yours to begin with. If you find yourself changing directions every few months and not sticking with any goals long enough to achieve them, the most likely reason is that you haven’t learned how to set goals consciously. The goals you set were just surface thoughts. If you did the same goal setting exercise a month later, you’d have come up with different goals.

At CSW we’re going to use a smarter and more conscious approach. We’ll address goal setting but not right away. First we’ll help you identify and discard socially conditioned surface goals. Once we get those out of the way, then we can go deeper into what you truly desire to experience in life. We’ll help you build a solid foundation of self-understanding with a variety of exercises, with the aim of creating a holistic life vision, not a disjointed set of goals. Once you have a clear vision for your life and you understand the person you wish to be, you can set goals much more consciously, but you can also enjoy a lot of fulfillment and success simply by sticking to your vision, even when you don’t set specific goals along the way.

CSW is designed to help you discover and embrace what it will take for you to be a success, based on your values and desires. Once you get in touch with that, it’s easier to get into the mode of doing success by taking action. This being aspect is crucial if you wish to experience the type of success that results from your own conscious choices, as opposed to the socially conditioned version of success that’s promoted by mainstream media. Conscious success will fulfill you deeply. Socially conditioned success may leave you feeling very empty inside, regardless of how much you seem to have achieved.

As a simple example, I enjoy conscious success as a writer because my writing is aligned with my true desires. I find it very fulfilling to share ideas with others around the world through the medium of blogging. I write when I’m inspired to write, not because I have to. I have no deadlines, no boss, and no editor. My articles are uncopyrighted by choice, so anyone can republish or translate them.

I enjoy this type of success because I’ve shed the socially conditioned version of success that doesn’t align with my truest, deepest desires. I don’t care if I have a New York Times bestseller. I don’t care about being on Oprah. I don’t care about making millions of dollars. I don’t care what the critics have to say. This vision of writing makes me very happy, and I feel tremendously successful on this path. On the contrary, I have friends who seem much less happy as writers, even though they’ve been on Oprah and have the bestseller accolades. They’re on a stressful treadmill; I’m free.

There will be many creative exercises to help you go through this process. Some are left-brained, others more right-brained. One exercise involves crayons.

If you’ve found that traditional goal setting has fallen short for you, or if you suspect your goals have been overly infected with what society has taught you to want, I think you’ll really gain a lot from CSW. One of my intentions for this workshop is that by the end of the first day, you’ll have more clarity about your true desires than you’ve ever had before in your life. I say this because most people never learn how to differentiate between true desires and socially conditioned ones, and I don’t know of any other workshops that teach people how to tell the difference.

One of the most powerful aspects of CSW is that it will help to unload false notions of success you’ve been conditioned to believe without question. This will restore your freedom to consciously choose what you desire to experience — and to create it without getting bogged down in false desires. It will be a richly rewarding 3 days for you to experience… and certainly for me to share with you.

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What TEDTalk would you play to open the school year? We counted your (almost 1,000) responses …

Over the weekend, we asked the TED community on Facebook this question:
“If you wanted to show a TEDTalk to open the school year, which one would you choose?” It’s inspired by a question tweeted from the #jed21 conference. On Facebook, almost 1,000 responses flowed in. The job of tallying the results — given in freeform comments — fell to our writer/editor Ben Lillie, as shown:

The pick of a good half of the commenters? Sir Ken Robinson, with more than 400 nods. However, as you can see, dozens of other TEDTalks got multiple mentions …

The full (long) list follows after the jump …

PS: The original poster on Twitter, @edtechworkshop, wrote in: “wow! I posted this ? on twitter last night and got about 10 responses. that I can handle… 599 comments in 1 hour is overwhelming! so far I am leaning towards Julian Treasure’s “5 Ways to Listen Better” for our teachers. Last time showed them Adora Svitak. I love Sir Ken, but feel like most people have already seen him. Want something new.”

Photo: TED/James Duncan Davidson

Ken Robinson 421
Salman Khan 30
Elizabeth Gilbert 21
Julian Treasure 21
Jamie Oliver 20
Jill Bolte Taylor 20
Brene Brown 19
Chimamanda Adichie 17
Sarah Kay 16
Benjamin Zander 15
Pranav Mistry 12
Hans Rosling 10
Thandie Newton 10
Tie Your Shoes 10
JK Rowling 9
Kathryn Schultz 9
Richard St. John 8
Temple Grandin 8
Adora Svitak 7
Aimee Mullins 7
Barry Schwartz 7
John Hunter 7
Neil Pastricha 7
Brian Cox 6
Grever Tulley 6
Steve Jobs 6
Sugata Mitra 6
Dan Arielly 5
Jane McGonigal 5
Mike Rowe 5
Phillip Zimbardo 5
Randy Pausch 5
Sam Richards 5
Simon Sinek 5
Tony Robbins 5
Wade Davis 5
William Kamkwamba 5

— Research Assistance by Shawn James, Jr.

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