One of the more fascinating bios I read this year is called:
“The Earl Nightingale Story”
About (in case this isn’t obvious) Earl Nightingale.
I had zero idea how fascinating and interesting this guy was until reading this book. He was far more than just the sort of father-figure and founder of modern info publishing as we know it.
He was also a brawler with violent anger issues & PTSD.
He was in constant pain from adult onset gigantism (applying his own teachings about having a good attitude to stay sane despite the constant pain)…
And was all but an “honorary” mafia wise guy from what I can tell.
For example:
When a kidnapping attempt was made on his kids, he got a mysterious phone call from the head of the Chicago mob telling him it would be “taken care of” if that tells you something… and often met with the guy at his home, played pool with him, they knew his kids, and one of the guy’s body guards even got one of Earl’s daughters out of some serious trouble once…
Extremely fascinating guy to say the least.
He was also the “founding father” of modern content creation in many ways.
Here’s what I mean:
One of the businesses Earl owned early in his career was an insurance agency. And he had a knack for inspiring his sales people in his talks to them, which he held every week or so to keep them motivated and selling.
But, one time, he was in a hurry about to go on vacation and couldn’t do the meeting.
So, instead, he recorded an 11-minute talk for them.
And then went with his family on a boat.
Totally out of communication for a few months.
During that time he was gone, his team listened to the recording, were absolutely blown away by it… and suddenly, someone said something to someone somewhere… and that person said something to someone… and then, eventually, everyone wanted to listen to it – with people calling the Chicago radio station Earl worked at for it, constantly pestering his secretary about it.
This was before it was cheap to make info products.
I can’t remember the exact numbers.
But Earl’s secretary had to make an executive decision (that she thought Earl would possibly fire her for when he found out) to have something like ten thousand cassettes of his talk duplicated, which was probably the minimum order.
No print-on-demand-like options back in them days.
The result?
The #1 selling spoken word album in history at the time.
And all with zero advertising, marketing, internet, social media.
Just pure word of mouth.
When Earl came back to the Florida pier to dock his boat after being out of communication for a few months, he saw a bunch of reporters and a huge crowed waiting for him and, assuming he was being arrested for some reason, offered to turn himself in!
Crazy times to say the least.
(And that ain’t even the most interesting part of this bio)
This 11-minute recording Earl dashed out literally created an entire genre.
Franky, if you are an independent content creator you can at least partially thank Earl Nightingale for paving the way, as nobody was doing this sort of thing before then, or even knew you could do it, or even thought it was worth doing, or would be something people would buy.
Some more fun facts about this short bit of content that changed the world:
* Had absolute crap “production values” — like scratches, pops, and no retakes, just quickly batted out, almost as an afterthought
* Zero marketing or fanfare — all word-of-mouth
* Created “off the cuff” — no planning or plotting it out, total stream of conscious
Today’s snobby content creators would surely balk if they heard it.
And yet how many millions of lives did that recording change — either directly, or via the endless number of other training Earl created afterwards because of it, not to mention all the people he influenced, and the people those guys then influenced…?
We’ll never know.
Point is this:
You just never know what content is going to change your entire business.
In my own business, it’s very often the content I put the LEAST amount of thought into, just do it off-the-cuff, and sometimes even forgetting about it, that tends to be the most valuable, most profitable, and most “viral” (amongst my boys & ghouls at least).
This is why the content game is won by speed & volume.
I’m not saying to create crap or half ass anything.
But it’s like I like to say:
“To make more money than you do now, simply create more content than you do now, faster than you do now.”
And then get it out there.
Like tentacles probing and invading the marketplace.
So simple.
So easy.
So pleasant… if you know what you’re doing.
And yes, I said “pleasant.”
If you understand how to approach email — especially the way I teach to Email Players subscribers — banging out emails that sell your offers does not have to be some droning chore you hate and avoid. It can be a fun, exciting adventure you look forward to… and then enjoy even more when you see the proceeds rolling in from such content, the lives changed, the way people thank you for selling it to the because of the way it solved whatever problem for them that your product is designed to help with.
More on the paid newsletter here:
Ben Settle
