Epistles of Planet Perry - reinventing the light bulb at age 4

Mel,   It was Christmastime. I was 4 years old. I was playing in our living room next to the Christmas tree.   I LOVED the Christmas lights where the bulb is colored and partly clear and you can see the filament glowing inside the bulb.    I was admiring our Christmas lights on the tree, mesmerized by the shining filament. It gave me an idea.   I went into the kitchen and got a twist tie. One of those paper-coated wires from a bread bag.   I stripped the paper away, unplugged the Christmas tree light cord, and looped the wire from one electrical prong to another.   I plugged it into the socket. I couldn’t wait to see my new improvised light bulb!    It made a brilliant flash and a loud POP. The circuit breaker tripped. The lights in our house went black.   My mom went into hysterics in the kitchen.   What was left of the melted wire turned from yellow to orange to red. Then bluish afterimages on my retinas in the darkness.   That wasn’t the first time unbridled enthusiasm would lead to an unexpected surprise.   Like the day I rode my “horsey with wheels” down the stairs and busted out my front teeth.   Like my job at a Fortune 500 co where I sent a fax announcing the company’s stock had tragically plummeted and was closing on Friday. That got me fired.   What gets you in the most trouble – the stuff that got you fired or burned the house down – is also your supreme gift.    And the surprise does NOT always turn out bad.   I experienced those same emotions and anticipation when I fired up my first Google campaign in 2002.   When I launched my first seminar.   When I announced a $10M prize.   When I started a biotech company.    What mischief has burned YOUR fingers? What superpower lurks behind your biggest disasters?   What tantalizing possibility is looming ahead of you RIGHT NOW?   Perry Marshall   ***NOTE: This email address isn't monitored! If you need help, please email: support@perrymarshall.com Not interested in this topic? Click here to be removed from the Epistles of Planet Perry series. If you’d rather not receive *any* more emails from us, Unsubscribe Perry S. Marshall & Assoc 805 Lake Street #295 Oak Park, Illinois 60301 United States

Epistles of Planet Perry - about BURNOUT

My body waited until it felt safe, then shut down for repairs.

Mel,   Burnout can sneak up on you.   My first burnout I was in my 20s and forcing myself into overdrive. Laura was 8 months pregnant with our first child. She had just quit her job to be a full-time mom. I was working a new job, running a business on the side. Slugging down motivational tapes like espresso. I was getting an ulcer.   One night I came home from work and I was supposed to head out right after dinner and hustle some more.   I flopped down on the bed and gestured towards heaven. “I just can’t push myself any further. I surrender.”   I stayed home and took a nap.    The ulcer went away.   Fast-forward to six years after I started my current business. It had been slow at first, but a magic carpet ride ensued starting about 3 years in. Suddenly, for the very first time in my life, momentum had kicked in and I could sense some extra margin on the horizon.   I was entertaining a vague idea of a short sabbatical. Take a couple of months off, read some books, renew my energy and throw myself back into work?   My body and soul had different plans.   Literally at 10am one Thursday morning, a midlife crisis assaulted me like a sack of bricks and wet cement. I was speaking at a seminar two days later and the audience could feel my “off” energy. I got negative remarks in the feedback forms. For the next 6 months I was a mess.   In hindsight I can tell you that once my body had seen it was relatively safe, it decided to shut down for repairs. I was wildly off my game for a year.   This was the first time I developed any real sense of taking care of myself.    But I learned. Because of the work I needed to do to dig out, I realized the degree to which I had neglected my own sanity, my marriage, I became GOOD at self care. Certain things became non-negotiable. Like... not letting baggage pile up. Not shoving things under the rug.   A year and a half ago, I was working on some VERY exciting projects... burning the candle at both ends in a good way. Then a couple of people warned me about the tension between my vocational work and my life work.    They detected early warnings.   I paid close attention.   I downshifted in a major way. Changed the way I run my company and my life.    A major commitment suddenly shifted and I had even more space. I chose, very deliberately, to hold that space open. Nature abhors a vacuum, but I maintained the vacuum anyway.    Then Laura shifted into a new space of her own. I did not see that coming.    She had been working on stuff that had haunted her for YEARS. (Those who attended Intervention Seminar heard the Reader’s Digest version. At some point I’m going to share more of that with you.) She hit a major inflection point and decades of crap fell clean away.   We’ve been experiencing a renaissance in our relationship.    Two weeks ago, we went to Greenland together. Greenland might just be the most under-rated place on earth. 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle experiencing midnight sun, icebergs, tundra, the freshest air you’ve ever breathed, and a surprise solar eclipse in the air on the way home.    I got back from that trip last week and felt a new signal:        MOJO IS BACK.   I am feeling a new undercurrent of creativity.    Flowing from a surplus instead of a deficit.    Even before that, I’d been on a mighty creative streak this year. I’ve been mostly quiet about it though, because I haven’t felt ready to share.   But now I am.    The ancient Greeks had two words for time:        CHRONOS = clock time         KAIROS = divine moment in time   The window of opportunity when you release an arrow and it flies to its target.   This is a Kairos time right now. Just as we talk about thin places, this is a thin time.    In 2001, a month and a day after 9/11, the company I worked for got sold. They offered me a job and in the post-9/11 chaos, it was sooooo tempting. But one woman said to me, “Times of maximum uncertainty are times of maximum opportunity.”    I’d have a hard time naming a more uncertain time than right now.   And that’s the point:        Kairos.   Sense the signal to release .... and let the arrow fly.   Perry Marshall     ***NOTE: This email address isn't monitored! If you need help, please email: support@perrymarshall.com Not interested in this topic? Click here to be removed from the Epistles of Planet Perry series. If you’d rather not receive *any* more emails from us, Unsubscribe Perry S. Marshall & Assoc 805 Lake Street #295 Oak Park, Illinois 60301 United States

The Epistles of Planet Perry, Part 1

I almost forgot these two stories

Mel,   I have a document on my hard drive called “God Comes Through.”   It’s 44 pages. Grows longer every year.    It’s my chronicle of cool synchronicities, harrowing circumstances and miraculous interventions.   One year we had wrongly calculated our tax liability. SURPRISE – suddenly we needed $40,000 to pay the IRS. The money was due immediately. Had no easy means to pay it.   After church service, I went to the prayer person at the front. The person prayed for money to show up.   Two days later, my marketing manager Jack emails me:    “Hey Perry I found forty thousand dollars under your couch cushions. An email address had been changed somewhere and ClickBank couldn’t send you updates or payments. Your balance is $40K.”   We transferred the $40K and paid the IRS.   Another crazy story:   Two years ago we had a Roundtable meeting in San Diego. First meeting of the year. We had a brand new member named Ted who was 84.    His business partner came to dinner. During dessert I asked:   “Hey, where’s Ted?”    “Ted is in his hotel room. He has severe back pain today. Barely made it here. He’s doubled over, can hardly stand up. I don’t think he can come to the meeting tomorrow. Is there anything you can do?”   It was 8:30 at night. Where are you gonna find a chiropractor at 8:30PM on a Tuesday?   I did try. I asked around, found the phone number for everyone I knew in San Diego, texted half a dozen people. Collected a few names. Every single phone call landed me in a voice mail box of some office that *might* be open at 10am tomorrow.   The only thing I could think of to do was pray for him myself. I asked his partner if we could go see Ted.    We rode the elevator up to his room.   This made me EXTREMELY uncomfortable.    Why?   Well... I do know a number of people who literally have gifts of healing. They do this sort of thing. It’s a click on their dial. I’ve got a lot of books with stories about such things.    But it doesn’t feel like a click on MY dial. I’m not practiced at it.    Yet I had to admit, in a few tight spots, it HAD worked a couple of times. And I had zero options.    We knock on Ted’s door.    It took 2 minutes for Ted, doubled over in anguish and unable to stand upright, to shuffle over to the door and open it.   We go in.   I had zero idea whether Ted has a religious bone in his body. I was nervous he might be offended.    “Um, Ted, is it OK if I pray for you?”   “YES! Absolutely.” Wasn’t offended in the slightest.   “Is it OK if I put my hands on your back?”   “YES! Absolutely!”   I did what I had learned from Jeremy Flanagan (the same Jeremy that worked at PSMA for 20+ years). I was with him once in India and he just prayer-warriored over two women for about 40 minutes until their symptoms went away.   (Which is a story for a different day.)   I start, and Ted says, “I can feel heat coming from your hands. My spine is starting to feel better.”    I kept going for about 20 minutes, and by the end Ted was all aglow. Standing up straight, bending his waist, waving his hands in the air, with a huge grin on his face.    The next morning he came to the meeting jubilant. He was telling everyone about it.    I was bewildered. I didn’t really think that was going to work. But backed into a corner... wow, looks like it did.    I don’t know if this sounds cliche or not, but... It wasn’t me. I was just the willing conduit.    Q: What IS a miracle anyway?   Is it $40K mysteriously appearing when you need it?   Is it me doing the job of a chiropractor, without cracking Ted’s back?   Is it a window suddenly opening after you’ve been pounding on some door that wouldn’t budge?   The reason I have a “God Comes Through” document is:   I think such things are written on invisible ink in our minds. If you don’t ACTIVELY remember them, you forget them.    If you don’t write them down, they disappear.   I’ve noticed that people have a funny tendency NOT to document miraculous events.    I suggest you make your own “God Comes Through” document. I bet you’ve got more stories than you think you’ve got. It only takes one to start.   WRITE ‘EM DOWN. That one story, just because you choose to remember it, becomes an ATTRACTOR.    Perry   ***NOTE: This email address isn't monitored! If you need help, please email: support@perrymarshall.com Not interested in this topic? Click here to be removed from the Epistles of Planet Perry series. If you’d rather not receive *any* more emails from us, Unsubscribe Perry S. Marshall & Assoc 805 Lake Street #295 Oak Park, Illinois 60301 United States

Quick introduction – high-end hardware for handbags & footwear

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Solar eclipse shining in the sea

Instead of hitting the floor running, uncrumple your soul first.

Mel,   Laura came to Greenland with me. We got home last night.   Before this year, we used to almost never travel together. Six kids, mountains of responsibility. Me running the business, she being MamaLaura. Zone defense.   Now that the kids are mostly self-sufficient... now that we can complete a sentence without constant interruption... our way of being together has changed.    In January for the first time, I took her to my fabled “thin places” in Ireland. She fell in love with the land and the magic grass, just as I had. And now Greenland.   Greenland might be the most under-rated travel destination on earth.   Greenland is not for everybody. If you demand hot sun and shimmering beaches; if cool summer days at 50F / 10C sounds like misery to you, don’t bother.   But... if a light jacket and cool breezes and midnight sun sound like joy for you... dazzling resplendent icebergs in glistening deep blue... the freshest air your lungs have ever breathed... if the scent of tundra and jagged mountain crags call your name...    ...Then a spot you may never have given a moment’s thought to could be your next happy place.    We were booked to go home yesterday, August 12. That was also the day of a solar eclipse stretching from Iceland down to Spain.    We were en route from Greenland to Iceland, then to Chicago.    IF our plane was on time, we MIGHT get a shot at seeing the eclipse through the Reykjavik airport windows between flights.   But our plane was delayed 2 hours. Plus, 150,000 who traveled to Iceland to see the eclipse were about to miss it because it was overcast.    Late in the flight, the stewardess announced that the eclipse was about to begin.   From above the clouds, we would be able to witness the whole thing out of the right side of the plane.    At our seats, the wing and engine blocked our view of the sun. It looked like we were going to have to settle for other peoples’ pictures.   The sky went dark. Far out on the horizon I could see “dawn.”    Then I looked down. Through thin clouds we could make out the reflection of the sun and moon in the ocean below.   Because the plane happened to be going east, we experienced about 2 minutes of totality.   I snapped these photos:     A wave of cheers rippled through the plane as we all celebrated a singular event in history. None of us passengers could have planned this. All relished it together.                                                             ~   A poignant memory kept returning during the trip.   I was in my 20s in my “slammin’ down motivational tapes” phase. I remember driving through ghetto neighborhoods seeing unemployed people standing around on the street corner with nothing to do. I was slightly jealous of them. They had time on their hands. I had kids in diapers and debt and obligations.     I subscribed to a travel adventure magazine. There was an article where a guy was dropped off in the middle of Alaska for a week. He described how peaceful it felt to walk through virgin tundra, to absorb the quietness and solitude.   It took days for him to tease the frantic “big city” pace out of his system. At first he couldn’t synchronize with the glacial pace of the arctic. Lichen grows a millimeter a year. Tundra takes centuries.    But finally he was able to just... BE.   That story haunted me for years. I craved that in the worst possible way. ALL OF IT was out of my reach financially and logistically.    I could only dream of what it might be like to sit in the tundra and watch a caribou walk by.    I dreamed of it anyway.                                                             ~   Travel is a great gift. IF you can go to your happy place, go.    Yet: the single best habit I’ve cultivated is Renaissance Time each morning. Even if you can’t visit your favorite spot physically, you can travel there spiritually. Instead of bounding out of bed and hitting the floor running, you uncrumple your soul first.   The first Renaissance was 500 years ago. We’re overdue for another.   A New Renaissance becomes possible when certain things speed up.    But it still doesn't happen until some of us slow down.    Running 6000 RPM all the time is a false economy. It FEELS like you’re getting ahead, but you don’t. You just burn the candle at both ends until there’s nothing left, even as you tell yourself it’s so virtuous.   Frantic is just... frantic.   Sanity starts HERE and NOW. Not 30 years from now.    Seize the day, Perry   If you’d rather not receive *any* more emails from us Unsubscribe Perry S. Marshall & Assoc 805 Lake Street #295 Oak Park, Illinois 60301 United States

The reason your last hire didn't fix it

I want to introduce you to someone.

Mel, His name is Jeremy Flanagan. He's been my Director of Operations for 22 years. Employee #1. The person who kept the wheels on the bus while I was off building theories, writing books, and chasing the next big idea. Here's what I've watched Jeremy do, over and over, for two decades: Walk into a situation that looked like a people problem. Or a systems problem. Or a "we just need better software" problem. And find the thing nobody else could see. Not the symptom. The actual structural reason things kept breaking. It's almost never what the owner thinks it is. It's usually tangled up in the best thing about how they operate. Their instinct. Their judgment. Their ability to read a situation and make the right call before anyone else in the room even sees the problem. That's what made the business successful. It's also what's keeping it stuck. You cannot delegate what you cannot describe. And if your best operational knowledge lives entirely inside your experience…if it fires through instinct before deliberate logic ever catches up…then you can't describe it. Which means your business can't run without you. Jeremy calls this the Genius Bind. He's built a 3-week engagement called The Discovery to address exactly this. He gets inside how your business actually operates…not the org chart version, the real one…identifies the hidden structural constraint, and hands you a roadmap to remove it. Full refund if he doesn't show you something genuinely new. I've put my name next to this because I've watched him do this for 22 years. And because the most expensive thing in your business right now is probably an operational constraint nobody has ever named. If you're doing $250K or more and you know you're the bottleneck…but you haven't been able to fix it…this is worth five minutes of your time. Begin the Discovery → Perry P.S. This isn't a course. Jeremy isn't teaching you how to do operations. He's doing the diagnostic work himself, handing you the map, and showing you exactly what needs to change and why. Done for you. Not done at you.   Not interested in this topic? Click here to be removed from this series. ***NOTE: This email address isn't monitored! If you need help, please email: support@perrymarshall.com If you'd rather not receive any more emails from us, Unsubscribe Perry S. Marshall & Assoc 805 Lake Street #295 Oak Park, Illinois 60301 United States