The best self-promotion strategy nobody is talking about.

The tremendous compounding effect of doing good work. Market yourself like a pianist. As Honey Copy has grown, little by little, I've begun to shift how I advertise my own services as a copywriter and creative director. Once upon a time, I'd tell the world how good I am. Now, I try to do really good work and then allow the work to speak for itself. When I think of this approach to marketing, a pianist comes to mind. Imagine going to listen to a pianist and the pianist spends the entire show humbly bragging about his pianistic philosophies and his accomplishments and his approaches to his work... you would almost certainly feel cheated, shrug the asshat off as a crook and pay an angry visit to the ticket booth, demanding a refund. Pianists don't do this though, do they? When you go to see a pianist, the pianist sits his ass down at the piano and he plays. He allows his work to speak for itself. The planet's worst copywriters, graphic designers, creative directors, photographs, marketers and admen are the antithesis of pianists. They cling to Linkedin and Twitter, talking about doing the work but never actually showing any of the work they're talking about doing. The only reason this horsehit flies is because it's happening within creative fields. If lawyers, doctors, engineers, rocket scientists and nurses behaved in this manner, the world would say "shut the fuck up and get back to work". There will be a day, in the not-so-distant future, that "content marketing" (AKA: talking about doing versus actually doing) won't put dinner on the table for these hacks. But, until then, to beat them, you have to do really good work and allow this work to compound. Let me give you an example in my own work... A year back I wrote product descriptions for a badass upstart cookie company called [Last Crumb](. (You can read those product descriptions [here]( just scroll down the site and hover your mouse over whichever cookie tickles your fancy.) Being that they were an upstart, they were operating frugally and so their budget would only allow a third of my normal rate. I said "yes" because 1). the cookies were delicious, 2). they said I had full creative control and 3). I selfishly wanted to add them to my portfolio. Fast-forward to today, Last Crumb has blown the fuck-up and between follow-up projects from them, introductions they've personally made to other brands, as well as the leads that have come in from people seeing the work I did for them and loving it, I'd guess this one project has lead to $25,000 in additional copywriting projects. In closing, doing good work (and sharing said good work) has a tremendous compounding effect. So, just do good work. It's really that simple. But, I digress. By [Cole Schafer](. [Speaking of good work...]( If you love me, say it. If you love me and what I do, you can say it with your words or your wallet. Here's how... 1. You can [tweet me]( or [Instagram me]( (free). 2. You can buy my 1st book, [One Minute, Please?]( ($25). 3. You can buy my 2nd book, [After Her]( ($25). 4. You can subscribe to [Chasing Hemingway]( ($10). 5. You can buy my writing guide, [Snow Cones]( ($97). 6. You can buy my freelancing guide, [$100k]( ($97). [Or, you can buy me a Moscow Mule.]( How Adolf Hitler and Bruce Lee got so much done in so little time. If Adolf Hitler wasn’t a racist, power-hungry, tyrannical super-villain, he could have made a killing on productivity courses circa-2007, back when The 4-hour Work Week was all the rage. During his rule, Germany invaded and conquered something like twenty countries across Europe and Africa, with many of his victories happening alarmingly quick –– like the strike of a bolt of lightning. Hitler used a strategy he coined “Blitzkrieg”, which translates to “Lightning War” in German. Heavily influenced by 19th-century Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz and his “concentration principle”, Blitzkrieg would concentrate a massive portion of an armies resources upon a carefully chosen target of the enemy, striking a staggering blow (not unlike a bolt of lightning) that would put the momentum in the hands of the attacking army. *In walks Bruce Lee* I don’t mean to reach here, but Blitzkrieg reminds me of a martial arts maneuver [Bruce Lee]( popularized called [The One-Inch Punch](. Bruce Lee could generate enough force to knock a standing man down onto his ass with a fist positioned just an inch away from the adversary’s chest. He was able to unleash this kind of power with just an inch of runway because he wasn’t just using his arms but his entire body, generating momentum from his legs, hips, core, chest and back and then focusing it behind a single point of impact: his fist. The One-Inch Punch, to me, feels like the physical embodiment of a philosophical principle thought-up by Napoleon Hill but beloved (and perhaps even made famous) by Bruce Lee called a “[Definite Chief Aim]( –– it’s this idea of realizing the specific, clearly defined purpose to one’s life and investing the vast majority of your energy, skills, resources and grit to achieving it. Something I’m noticing about high-performers –– be it evil dictators, martial arts wonders or business moguls –– is their ability to move with great tenacity upon a very focused target. These concepts of Blitzkrieg, The One-Inch Punch and Definite Chief Aim go against the grain of what’s popular, at least today, in the way of creation and productivity, where consistency certainly seems to trump power. While there is certainly a great deal gained from consistency and the ability to show up day after day, few are asking what is lost. I’ve found myself wondering if work should be a steady and consistent never-ending jog or a series of sprints split up between rest, recovery, reflection and stillness. [Well, that went longer than expected.]( Why Oliver Sacks was so fond of the word "but". The late, great Oliver Sacks was something of a polymath. He was a neuroscientist, a naturalist, a historian and a writer of something like sixteen books. In Insomniac City –– a top ten book for me personally –– his lover and partner, Billy Hayes, offers a small glimpse inside the more intimate side of Oliver Sacks’s life. Hayes portrays Sacks as being a wildly curious individual. But, curious about the fabrics of the world that most aren’t at all that curious about –– fabrics like the word “but”. *Billy Hayes is writing now* “Oliver often said that ‘but’ was his favorite word, a kind of etymological flip of the coin, for it allowed consideration of both sides of an argument, a topic, as well as a kind of looking-at-the-bright-side that was as much a part of his nature as his difference and indecisiveness.” In contrast to the beautiful way in which Sacks embraced the word “but”, there’s also a clever (but rather pessimistic) saying that goes something like… “Nothing someone says before the word ‘but’ really counts.” Until seeing this excerpt from Billy Hayes on Oliver Sacks, I wasn’t aware that the word ‘but’ could work both ways… “The day has been sunny but…” “The day has been rainy but…” Perhaps living well is reaching for the latter. [But, but, but...]( P.S. 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