I don’t normally react to movies or TV shows while I watch them. Especially alone.
But I let out an audible groan in horror the other day.
I watched Dieter Dengler describe a beheading that came out of nowhere.
The documentary Little Dieter Needs to Fly is not long or visually graphic.
It tells the story of a soldier who flew in Vietnam, was shot down, captured, and became a prisoner of war for 6 months. He then escaped and was on the run for more than 3 weeks in the jungle before finally being rescued.
My face twisted as Dieter recounted the various ways he was tortured by the Pathet Lao troops.
I won’t recount them here.
He escaped with fellow POW Duane Martin.
They relied on each other to survive the horrors of the jungle, including monsoons and waterfalls.
In an effort to get some food, the two men were approached by angry villagers. As they held their hands up, a villager with a machete took off Martin’s head with one swipe of the blade.
When Dieter revealed this moment in the documentary, I couldn’t contain myself.
War is hell.
The world is hell.
This happened in the 1960s. We are not an “evolved” species since then.
As I stumbled away from the movie, I thought about other pieces of war history that I’ve watched over the years, from Band of Brothers to the more-depressing The Pacific.
And I wondered why people don’t watch these… and how society could benefit if they did.
(Yes, I’m going to tie this into freelance copywriting. Stick with me. It’ll pay off.)
We’re focused on the “wrong” darkness
In the mainstream, America doesn’t watch many war documentaries or movies.
But it’s not because we don’t like the dark.
Pop culture is loaded with darkness, from Breaking Bad to Netflix true crime documentaries to, like, 60% of podcasts.
True crime is big business. And it’s plenty dark.
Shoot, it’s a meme at this point to notice that the group consuming true crime content the most is wine moms.
So what gives? Why wouldn’t they also want to watch war stuff? It’s the same violence. The same grim story.
I have a theory.
As a whole, we all want to acknowledge and engage with the darkness of society. We feel a responsibility to it.
You can’t make a happy form of media these days without somebody accusing you of being “irresponsible” for excluding the dark side of it (even if it’s irrelevant – see reviews of The Greatest Showman).
But the last thing we want to do is feel responsibility for it.
We’d rather point at it from a distance and feel better about how “great” we are.
It’s easy to explain away the horrors of Jeffrey Dahmer’s exploits as evil and be wary of weird strangers. It’s a unique/different thing.
What about entire societies?
How do you explain a village coming out to the edge of a jungle, seeing two tortured and emaciated human beings kneeling in surrender, and immediately swinging a machete at them?
How do you explain an entire society of human beings – no different than you – displacing a group of people and sending them to gas chambers?
These are harder questions to answer.
Sure, we try. That’s why we all hold up Adolf Hitler as a unique evil.
Hitler was awful. But he was just a man. An evil man, but a man.
He led millions to commit horrible atrocities. But people today act like he had them all under hypnosis or something.
This isn’t a political take. I will ban and block anybody who tries to engage with me on that side of it. I’m making a point about consumption.
We are eager to engage with the dark side of history if it’s in a way where we can easily and cleanly carve out “good” and “bad”.
Then we can stay at a comfortable distance from the “bad”.
We don’t like to face entire swaths of people struggling – and failing – with the worst of human nature.
Okay, you ready for the pivot to freelance copywriting? Let’s see if I can pull this off…
We are “mental masturbators”
I don’t like this term, but it works.
You’re reading this because you’re interested in building a business. Or you already are.
Yet, you don’t quite have the success you want. Why is that?
Because you’re spending all your time engaging with content that separates you from the actual act of building the business.
Just like wine moms watching another true crime documentary aren’t actually engaging with realities of living in society like they think, wannabe entrepreneurs putz around with media that makes them FEEL like they are improving their lives and their chances of building a business… but they aren’t.
You read yet another productivity list.
You watch yet another video breaking down somebody’s morning routine.
You listen to yet another pep talk from some Tony Robbins-adjacent personality.
But you don’t DO anything.
Yeah, it’s great that you set up that spreadsheet, built that to-do list, or read about those copywriting principles.
Are you any closer to success today? Be honest.
We’re just mentally “jerking off” – feeling good but accomplishing nothing.
How do we break out of this? We have to ask ourselves 3 questions when we’re about to do something “productive”.
3 questions before you work on your business
- What is my goal? Get specific as possible. How much money do you want to make? And why? Be ruthlessly clear about the life you want for yourself.
- What has to happen to reach that goal? How many clients would you need to get to that goal? What does life look and feel like on a daily basis?
- Will this get me closer to that life? This is the most important question – so I’m breaking out of this list to talk about it more…
We are experts at justifying bad behavior.
“Well, this video is going to put me in a stronger mindset which will lead to more productivity. If I’m more productive, I’ll get blahblahblah.”
It’s a lie and you know it.
You got the dopamine from watching that motivational video. Now you don’t need to accomplish anything to feel good.
To answer #3 as accurately as possible, you have to be DIRECT.
“Did watching this motivational video get me closer to booking any clients?”
“Did listening to this podcast build my income at all?”
“Did setting up this new productivity system book any sales calls for me?”
NO.
You may feel like it.
But unless you sent more outreach emails or DMs as a direct result of turning on that video (or whatever), then it didn’t get you any closer to building your business.
The wine mom watching the true crime documentary has not moved any closer to understanding the nature of evil.
She is not more prepared for the evils of the world.
She doesn’t “get” it.
She has accomplished nothing.
Don’t be a wine mom.
Find the actions that will put you closer to the life and career you want – and ditch the rest.
What ARE those actions?
It’s easy to get overwhelmed with figuring out the best way forward.
What is the most efficient way to do this?
How do you strip away the “noise” and start getting clients?
I’m here to show you.
And the doors are closing in a matter of days.
I can give you the framework – proven to work for myself and others – that you can follow, step-by-step, to get freelance copywriting clients.
It’s the RIGHT kind of content to be consuming.
And it’s going away soon.
Click HERE before it’s too late >>> http://tommeitner.com/scf