The Takedown - Gunning For Dan John

Level 9000: Toppling A Guardian

Mar 20, 2024

It was 8:43, Friday March 1st, 2024.

I settled with my eggs and bacon at the hotel restaurant table. Pulled out a pen and paper, figuring I'd start throwing some thoughts down before The Event began.

Just as I was about to eat,

A familiar figure walked by.

"Dan John?" I said, perhaps a little too suddenly

The guy stopped and turned, maybe slightly startled, with an inquisitive look "that's me!"

"Joseph Robertson" I extended my hand.

He smiled and sat down.

And thus I had one of the most delightful breakfasts I've ever had in a hotel.

Up to this point, I'd read of Dan John1, watched some of his videos, I'd seen his comments on the articles I'd written, and his positive feedback to Nic. But now I got to meet and talk with him face to face.

It was a delightfully WEIRD conversation.

We actually ended up half writing an article which you may see soon (I don't want to spoil it, it's truly a magnificent piece of art), and we had to interrupt ourselves in order to not be late for the start of Day 1 of The Guardian Academy Event.2

I didn't know what to expect going into The Event, but it took only a few minutes of Nic and Dr Jeff3 opening for me to be fully pulled into the present and compelled to be completely there.

IM GUNNING FOR HIM

He chuckled.

He thinks he's all out there, top dog, 400+ people referred - he's got all the swag and benefits of that level of Ambassadorship5 ...

Of course he's smug.

But he doesn't know the dominoes I'm putting in place.

Yea, he's gonna read this.

If he's wise he won't let the Hubris blind him to what's coming.

I'M COMING FOR YOU DAN

In fact.

WE ARE ALL COMING FOR YOU

Because here's what I'm going to do.

I don't actually care if I win.

I just want Dan John to get KNOCKED OFF HIS PEDESTAL

So today,

I'm going to give you my secret tricks, techniques, and perspectives to help YOU refer people to TGA, and together we can show that smug fellow what for.

(I threw in some old language so he'd understand)

Now, I know what you might be thinking ...

"But Joseph, he's gonna see these too and just keep getting ahead!"

Nope.

He already does these things.

I'm actually going to give you DAN JOHN's secrets as well.

Are you ready?

A little bit of a warning to start:

This may look like marketing and selling, but it's really about communication of principle based ideas. You don't need to be a marketer or seller to figure this out. It's fundamental. And I think the way I approach this will make it all feel more accessible.

Plus, as Joe Polish would say, we're all selling ourselves every day all the time anyway. So, let's get good at doing this in a way that helps the people we want to help.

I need to begin with a few key philosophies and principles.

At the end of all this, I'm going to share with you an email I wrote to my list which puts it all into action.

You don't have to do it like me (in fact it may not be appropriate), but that's why I'm starting with the philosophies and principles. Because from there you can see how they are implemented in a specific strategy with specific tactics and tools (and backwards engineer to your own strategy/tactics/tools).

Convincing People.

You can't convince people of anything. Or more appropriately, for me it's not worth my time and energy to try to convince people of anything. That's one of my Bumpers.6

I had this conversation with my teenage son the other day. He spends a lot of energy trying to convince other people that they are wrong and he is right. There's nothing wrong with this, nothing wrong with him, it's a common perspective.

We're often taught in frameworks of "correct over useful." And while I have those conversations, this time I shared with him this Bumper of mine. Don't try to convince people of anything. This might sound odd coming from a copywriter/marketer, but I just understand a few fundamentals of humanity.

While you may arguably be able to change someone's beliefs, it takes a HUGE amount of engineering to do so, and then even if you do shift someone's beliefs, can you be sure they are in alignment with who they are?

I just don't like to go there.

There's too many people to help, and too much good to be done where you don't have to change beliefs. (And that's what people are really doing when they "convince" someone)

It's all about belief.

Instead of changing beliefs, I find it much easier to do two things:

Attract people who believe or are likely to believe the same things you do.

And create bridges of belief understanding so that if they DO believe what you believe, they can see that connection, and they can see how the way you talk and what you talk about aligns with their beliefs.

In other words, you don't try to change belief, you just connect the dots so people can see what you are talking about is what they believe in (or not, and those people will self-deselect).

If people believe the same things you believe, it's far easier to lead them. From a marketing/business perspective, I say if your prospects believe what you believe, you won't need to sell them anything, because the choice for them to buy from *you* will be obvious.

Let's bring in Lukas's Clarity Hierarchy.

IF you have alignment of Philosophies and Principles, the strategies/tactics/tools become obvious. Alignment of Philosophies are the strongest, but you can do a lot of effective work even just with Principle alignment.7

People who are currently listening to you, in whatever you do, who respond to you, who like to hear from you whether that's a text, a phone call, an email, a podcast, a video, etc - they definitely connect with you on some principle/philosophy level.

In other words, you don't need to convince them of anything, all you need to do is create a bridge of understanding, so that they can see The Path you are walking and inviting them on is obvious (if it's right for their situation).

(Btw, you can get Lukas’s presentation of his Clarity Hierarchy by visiting this page here)

Dan John does this.

You can read his articles here, but just for brevity I’ve cut an example where he talks about what he’s getting out of TGA and uses that as a bridge.

Of course, Dan has a sizable audience of people who follow and listen to him. But that doesn’t mean you can’t use the same principles and techniques to help people as well, no matter what you’re doing.

Let's bring it home with leading people into TGA

On the simplest level you can say something like:

I believe this,

Because of this,

And that's why I'm involved in this,

You can find out more about that here.

Example:

I believe in Raising the Floor.8

Because I used to spend all my time and energy going for more and more and more. I published a magazine all about coffee for 8 years and I spent the entire time trying to make the business growth explode, and in the end it all just collapsed on me.

When I learned Raising the Floor, as I was building a business as a copywriter, I applied those lessons. Instead of going for better and better months, I figured out all the ways I could increase my base level income.

I worked on long term client relationships, I established consistent revenue with those clients, and little by by little bit I raised the least amount I made each month. A year after I started down that path, my lowest month was higher than my highest month prior to my focus on raising the floor.

You can read more about Raising the Floor here: (and then you link to it)

Now that's a simple example. And the people who listen to you who are engaged, who likely believe what you believe, are going to see that, see the alignment, and have a very high likelihood of at least checking it out.

But,

You can't make them subscribe. You can't make them buy. You might be able to connect the dots and open the door, but they will only chose to buy when the time is right for them.

There tend to be 2 average buy windows - around 90 days and around 2 years. Straight from Dean Jackson of I Love Marketing ... 15% of your possible customers will buy in 90 days, the other 85% take up to 2 years or more.

While you may not be in business, people committing themselves to a new idea follow a similar pattern.

That means, if you want to grow on that Ambassador board, people have to got listen to you for a long time (years).

How do you do this for a long time?

How do you regularly engage with people and share?

I suspect many people reading this have tried at least once to share some insight they have learned from TGA and used that to try to convince people to come join. And then seen nothing or a little bit happen (not the least of which is because it's not worth trying to convince people of anything - in my estimation).

How do you share more frequently and get more people interested?

Leading The Horse to Water

Understand that other people 'buying' is not your choice. That's their decision.

The only thing you can do is lead the horse to the water, you can't force them to drink.

There are things you may be able to do to increase the likelihood of the horse drinking the water ... like doing little tricks along the way to make them feel more thirsty. Remind them how thirsty they are. Surround them in dry desert and play sounds of water running. Feed them food which makes their mouth very dry. Get them running so they become more dehydrated faster.

I mean, you can do that if you want to spend your time manipulating people.

But if a horse is gonna drink when the horse is thirsty ...

Perhaps all you need to do is offer the horse water every day and the horse will drink when its ready?

That's what I prefer. I don't like to manipulate. I just want the horse to drink when the horse is ready to drink.

How do you offer the horse water to drink every day without the horse getting annoyed that you are offering it water every day?

Ok enough of the horse analogy

Let me get into my work as an email copywriter.

I write emails.

I write an email every day for myself.

Without getting into the nitty gritty of how I arrived at this juncture, I have figured out a way of writing emails every day which people enjoy receiving every day, enjoy reading every day, which means they are receptive every day to the opportunity to go learn something new and grow.

Does that mean every day they are going to click through and read?

Nope

But I don't care.

I don't care if they take the action.

I care if they enjoy what I'm writing.

Because I know if they enjoy reading what I write, then they will keep reading.

And when they decide they are thirsty enough and ready for a drink, the opportunity will be there for them.

Want to see what that looks like?

Before I show it to you, a caveat:

For my email list this looks unique, but you can do it as well. Understand some key dynamics:

People subscribe to hear from ME

I am writing directly to them

I use personal experiences and stories from my everyday life in my writing,

So you can think of it like an ongoing story where I am the main character.

The most important thing to me is that I have fun writing. That's the only way I can keep writing every single day, is if I have fun in the writing and the telling.

The "formula" is simple.

I start with a moment from my day, either current day, previous day, and I tell a little engaging story. I structure it so there's tension. I tease. I do weird things. Sometimes I have conversations with objects. Sometimes my coffee interrupts and badgers me around. Sometimes I travel to other dimensions.

Whatever I feel like having fun with - to create an opening story/experience for the email.

And then whatever it is I end up writing, I figure out a way to bridge towards something related, or something relevant in the present day.

It's usually something on The Guardian Academy Substack. But if I have something that makes more sense elsewhere I use that.

TGA informs a lot of my thinking. So it's easy to lead the reader back here.

If you want structure for this thinking, go to Lukas's Clarity Hierarchy9 - if you're talking about a tool, lead back to the tactic your using that tool for, then lead that tactic back to the strategy the tactic is executing, then lead that strategy back to the principles being put into action with that strategy, and then point to those principles in TGA.

Here's an example email so you can see it all in action:

Subject: How DARE you present yourself this way

“And WHY exactly is he … late … this morning?”

The lady peered over her glasses at me,

Eyes progressively narrowing, accusing.

I simultaneously felt the guilt of being scolded by my catholic mother, alongside my appropriate millennial response to reject authority.

There was something in her voice, in her tone, her words, her eyes.

Like we were TRUANT

I felt like I was standing off against Roz from Monsters Inc.

Her lips pursed as she squinted at me over accusingly angled glasses, on the verge of either a further scolding, or to open her toothy maw to devour us for being BAD.

I look over at my son (14),

He’s got a confused concerned look on his face.

“Who the hell do you think YOU are???” I instantly thought in my head

This whole interaction has gone sideways.

Just moments before, as we walked up to the school and buzzed to be let in, we were greeted with “do you need something?” As if a kid going to school late is cause for alarm.

And we’re about to be … what … detained … for suspiciously arriving to school an hour late?

Let’s rewind the clock.

Precisely … 18 hours.

Back to “Try Everything”

We’re there at the rink and as I’m being stunned to death by 4 feet of ponytail dreadlocks swaying in the music …

My 14 year old son is gliding off the court.

Only this time,

One of his skates catches as he transitions from smooth silky court flooring to the rougher carpet.

He slips

Falls on his butt,

And tries to catch himself with his left hand.

Bang, sprain, ouchy, ice, etc.

The next morning, it was still hurting quite a bit so we decided to take a visit to the urgent care and have it looked at.

(good news, seems like it’s just sprained)

And that brings us to me walking him into school a little over an hour late, and the two of us standing there being interrogated by this front office person.

Does she think he doesn’t actually go to this school?

Is he in trouble?

What do we even do here? He’s just late, why is this a big deal?

(For further context, our son is a big nerd and loves school, he’s always on time, so this is an unusual and strange experience)

The lady just stands there.

She seems to be getting more tense by the moment.

I see the look in her eyes, **she’s about to press “THE BUTTON”**

When, as I glance back and forth between my son and the lady, I say

“Uh … we were at the urgent care” I point to his obviously wrapped wrist

(probably said in a more “duh what the hell is wrong with you” tone of voice than I intended)

She instantly relaxes,

“OH! of course, no problem, go to class” She smiles, nods, and turns around.

Suddenly we don’t exist.

Dude,

People are weird.

We walked into a situation where this lady clearly had an entirely preconceived notion and story in her head.

TRUANT she said to herself.

MISCREANT!

How DARE you walk into MY school LATE!!!

Everyone’s got stories in their heads, preconceived notions, ideas about the way the world is and should be, ideas about you and who you are and why you’re doing this.

Heck, as I’m writing this, I’ve started testing some ad ideas on Facebook for the AI Email Masters Course in the future…

(just initial idea testing, nothing major)

And I’m getting a TON of absolutely hate filled reactions. I’m presenting an idea for reducing production time spent on client copy and, it’s almost the same situation as that lady.

Like, I’ve walked into the building a suspicious malicious truant.

I’ve got THE DEVIL IN ME!!!

Apparently (if I use AI).

It’s all about that nuance of language and managing people’s expectations, meeting the story they have in their own head, the preconceived notions they have about you.

It’s all not easy.

It’s a messy process.

But it’s necessary.

One of the ways I think about, and talk about, the challenge of communicating ideas with others is through a concept presented in a paper called “The Rocky Road from Action to Intention.”

You can read a little bit about [The Rocky Road on The Guardian Academy here.]

I’m actually working on an updated version of that article, but this one is free to read in full (some of the articles I share require a subscription to TGA, but it’s only $10/mo and it’s really worth joining).

So,

Maybe you’ll read all this and think I’m a truant and have the devil in me for using AI.

Or maybe if you know me (and especially if you know yourself), you’ll realize those reactions are all other people’s problems with themselves … they see me, but what they really see is a mirror.

(More on that concept another time)

That’s it.

A fun story, transition into something relevant I can send the reader to. That’s a longer story than some (and it had a related story the previous day with a Skating rink we went to).

It can be short, it can be longer. Just as long as it’s fun.

The key is really simple … have fun with it, and make sure everyone else is enjoying it also. When people enjoy hearing from you, they keep wanting to hear from you.

And then when they are thirsty enough, they’ll drink from the source.

If you're interested in writing and TGA principles, you may enjoy my email list. I write frequently about copywriting and marketing, but everything I write comes back to TGA.

You can subscribe on my website here10

And if you'd like to have conversations about ways to KNOCK DAN JOHN OFF HIS SMUG LEAD ... comment below and let's take him down together.

If you’re looking for something to DO with all this right now … and you are inclined to write, you might consider creating your own Substack. Write your lessons and stories, lead them back into TGA.

Let us know if you do that, we’ll be happy to help you.

Live to learn. Give to earn
(we’re coming’ for you, Dan)
Guardian Academy

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