This is an update of a post I did awhile ago… very relevant for today thought don’t you think?
Could it be that the real secret to profitability is to be Intelligently Lazy? Could it really be the more Intelligently Lazy you, are the wealthier you become? And what about Alligators?
Well, like a lot of revelations, this one popped up rather unexpectedly right after I took a Green Pill this morning.
With this revelation came a whole breadth of understanding like revelations often do. Point in fact, one of those revelations is I can tell you are Intelligently Lazy too because you are here reading this.
Hopefully, if I communicate this to you correctly, you are going to want to become the laziest person you know.
You may not know it yet, but I am actually giving you quite a compliment. Let me explain to you why, by giving you two old adages you may have heard before.
- Most people are too busy making a living to ever become wealthy
- Most people are too busy doing urgent things, rather than important ones
This is because, as the old saying goes, it is hard to drain the swamp when you are up to your ass in alligators.
You are probably saying OK, what the heck is he talking about? Well, I bring this up for a couple of reasons that I will make clear in a minute. Here are some scenarios so that you can see what I mean.
Which Pill Are Your Taking Everyday?
I am going to call this option #1 or the Red Pill which is the Intelligently Hard Work Pill. You can use your intelligence, work hard, and spend a lifetime trying to figure out how to do things on your own. This is what 99.999% of people do.
I am going to call this option #2 or the Green Pill which is the Intelligently Lazy Pill. You can read a book or a blog and learn the basics from someone else who may have spent their whole life learning about a subject or perhaps spent millions of dollars learning what works best and then emulate what they do, or even hire them. These people most likely love what they do and are therefore very, very good at it.
So I ask you this, which pill would you rather take? The Red Pill or the Green Pill? Which one do you think is going to cure your malaise called lack of wealth or put more money in your pocket the quickest? Which do you think is going to work the best?
Now if you are here, you have the propensity to be Intelligently Lazy which is a great thing in that you are out trying to learn something from someone else on how to be profitable. Now what we have to do, and this goes against nearly all conventional wisdom, is get you to become even lazier by learning from others even more.
Once you recognize that the lazier you become in this particular area, the faster profits are going to start hitting your bottom line.
I am going to reveal something else that I know about you. You are involved in selling or marketing something. You have a website or work in a business that sells something to customers who then give you money.
Even if you are not directly involved sales or marketing, nothing happens with any business until there is a sale. With that in mind, and remembering how we decided that taking the Green Pill is the only smart way to go, how many books have you read on sales and marketing lately?
Hmm…do you think it might be a good idea to up your reading list a tad?
I am going to suggest that you read some of the following so that you are not inadvertently slipping yourself a Red Pill.
1. Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins – You can download this one free in PDF format by going Here
2. Ogilvy On Advertising by David Ogilvy
3. How to Advertise by Ken Roman and Jane Maas
4. How to Write a Sales Letter that sells! by Drayton Bird
5. Obvious Adams: by Robert R. Updegraff
6. Personality Language by Marilyne Woodsmall and Wyatt Woodsmall. If you click on the title, you can get $5 off of this book
7. www.21to21.com and of course this site.
Are there others? Absolutely, and I will post more at a later time, but these should get you pointed in the right direction. So the choice is really just how Intelligently Lazy can you become and how fast can you become truly lazy? Your bank account could become larger right away.
You can get most of these books on Amazon.com and if you buy used versions, you can pick them up for only a few bucks.
Doing Things That Are Urgent Versus Doing Things That Are Important And Alligators
Here is where it can get out of focus sometimes.
You need to figure out which alligators are merely a pain in the butt and is not putting you in mortal danger. These non life-threatening alligators can take the form of having 20 things to do seemingly all of the time, having customers needing attention, an email that has to get out, or just trying to keep up with all the different things going on that absolutely demand your attention right now.
Could you put off sending that email to customers until tomorrow? If that’s the case, use the time today to read a chapter out of one of the books above and make your email even better.
The result could be you getting a better response rate and getting 5 more orders which in turn eliminates an alligator that was biting you. It can take the form of a vendor looking for payment or alligator that said you really should get a new computer.
I am not suggesting you make a list per se, although I do find once you write down the alligators’ names, they are usually a lot less scary.
Then you simply take a step back and look at what you can do to be more Intelligently Lazy about things. Oftentimes, it will make several other alligators go away as well.
Now I mentioned that I got the revelation after taking my Green Pill this morning. I was reading some Drayton Bird who was a partner of David Ogilvy’s and is a pretty smart Bird if I must say so.
I have been pushing for Planned Ignorance as well with myself and my clients, which is a whole other subject and I will explain at a later date. Because of this, when Bird mentioned Intelligently Lazy, it fit in with what I have been observing over the years with successful people and in my own success. Let me have another one of those Green Pills please, Gulp!
The choice is really that easy and we make the choice every day, whether we realize it or not.
Cheers,
Andrew Anderson
PS Here is to taking only Green Pills!