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Every issue of this newsletter gives you the exact systems, strategies, and principles I’ve used to generate 8 figures (almost entirely) with email marketing. So you can build your own systems that will carry you through the next algorithm change or recession. This is what actually works.

In today's issue:

Picture a dim bar in the 1960s, sticky floors, smoke hanging in the air, when Marilyn Monroe walks in. You somehow work up the courage, approach her, and ask for her number. She smiles, grabs a napkin, wipes a wine stain aside, and writes it down for you.

The napkin is filthy. Wine stains, someone’s nose, probably worse. Now answer honestly: do you take it?

If your answer is no because “my standards require better paper,” you’ve already lost the plot. Because it was never about the napkin; it was always about what was written on it.

I use this example a lot because it exposes the lie most people quietly live inside. They say they want results, but what they really want is emotional safety. They want to feel proud of the thing before anyone else sees it, which is exactly why they keep polishing, tweaking, adjusting—and never releasing.

I’m seeing this again now that I’m back to coaching. Ninety days is usually enough to build something real. Pages get written. Emails get critiqued. Funnels get built in Kartra or ClickFunnels. And then everything just… stalls.

They won’t hit send.

When I push, the excuse changes shape. They’re “still tweaking.” It “doesn’t feel right.” It “needs more work.”

Here’s the truth most people avoid: if perfect is the requirement, shipping becomes impossible.

The irony is brutal. The things I felt most confident about tended to bomb, while the stuff that scared me usually worked far better than expected. Confidence turns out to be a terrible predictor of results.

I once sold an $8,000 coaching program that was basically a pile of webinars dumped into a messy members area. The design was bad, the user experience was worse, and Denis reminded me of that every other week. I kept asking three questions: Are people buying? Are they using it? Are they getting results?

The answers stayed yes, yes, and yes. Eighty-eight real success stories later, the lesson was obvious.

The market doesn’t reward polish. It rewards usefulness, and usefulness can only be judged after you release. So whatever you’re sitting on—the email, the funnel, the product, the video—stop cleaning the napkin and put the number out there.

The internet is drowning in complexity right now.

Everyone's building massive sales funnels, creating endless content, managing social media accounts, dealing with customer support. The list never ends.

Steve Clayton and Aidan Booth took the opposite approach - they stripped everything down to one webpage and three clicks. That's the entire system.

The system doesn’t rely on AI and requires no selling or product creation…

Just a simple webpage that generates $2,145 per day.

Tomorrow at 2 PM EST, we’re breaking down exactly how this works in a live session. 

You'll see the simple webpage, learn how to carbon copy it, plus see how it can generate $7K in 7 days.

There's a strict 200-seat limit, and we’re expecting a full house.

Most people think the fastest way forward is to learn more. Another webinar. Another course. Another book. Another tactic that promises a three-percent lift if you just bolt it on.

I lived there for years. Any free moment I had went to consuming something, and I felt guilty when I wasn’t learning. If I wasn’t watching, reading, or studying, it felt like I was falling behind. The irony is that I wasn’t moving at all.

Here’s what finally clicked. I only moved when I was creating, not when I was consuming. And worse, most of what I was “learning” wasn’t new. It was the same ideas, recycled with a shinier wrapper and a different buzzword.

So I did something that felt irresponsible at the time. I stopped chasing novelty. I started saying no—no to new tactics, no to new tools, no to ideas that sounded exciting but didn’t change outcomes. At one point, I went an entire year without reading a single new book, which felt like heresy coming from someone who used to read fifty a year.

What replaced it was repetition. Depth. Doubling down on what already worked. Because principles create results, while tactics mostly create distraction.

Human behavior hasn’t changed in a hundred years. The channels keep shifting, but persuasion still runs on the same rails. When you understand that, the urge to constantly “keep up” fades fast.

Here’s the uncomfortable part. Learning feels productive because it’s safe. Creating forces exposure. Creation invites judgment. Creation makes you choose.

So here’s the challenge. For the next seven days, don’t add anything new. Take one thing that already works and push it deeper, harder, cleaner. Build instead of browse.

I brought Jon Benson on, thinking we’d talk about email tactics. Instead, we went straight into the part most marketers avoid—the part of the brain that actually decides to buy.

Jon calls it the monkey mind. The emotional engine that reacts first and lets logic clean up later. He breaks down why people buy on emotion, justify with reason, and why writing at a fourth-grade level often outperforms “smart” copy aimed at professionals.

What stuck with me wasn’t the neuroscience. It was the honesty. The idea that if you don’t understand your own wants, fears, and blind spots, you’ll never truly connect with anyone else’s. Copy stops working the moment it turns polite, safe, or performative.

If you’ve ever wondered why technically correct emails still fall flat, this conversation will sting in a useful way. It’s less about what to write and more about who you’re willing to be when you write it.

Fair warning: this episode may cost you a few subscribers. It’ll probably earn you better ones.

This book didn’t teach me how to write better emails. It showed me why most emails fail before the first sentence even matters.

Jon breaks down email as a relationship, not a broadcast. You’re not writing to a list. You’re writing to one human who’s distracted, skeptical, emotional, and deciding in milliseconds whether you’re worth attention. The mechanics are simple. The honesty requirement isn’t.

What makes this book useful right now is that it punishes fake intimacy, safe language, and clever nonsense. If your emails sound polished but don’t get replies, clicks, or sales, this will explain exactly why.

Read it slowly. Then write something slightly more uncomfortable than usual. That’s where the opens come from.

I close better than ads,
Cost less than funnels,
And grow when customers are happy.

What am I?

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