Tag: inspiration

Books to help you beat worry, anxiety, and stress

conorkelLeave a comment

Give the ol’ newsfeed a rest and feast your weary eyes upon these lovelies instead.

Here for your viewing pleasure are a few tomes that inform my own approach to managing stress, anxiety, and worry:

1. Grow Rich With Peace Of Mind by Napoleon Hill

This is my #1 Napoleon Hill offering.

His book Think & Grow Rich gets a lot more press (and is the best-selling personal development book of all time) but I like “With peace of mind” even more.  Hill was in his eighties when he penned this one, had lived through more ups and downs by then, and the hard won wisdom it reveals practically leaps off every page.

It’s also more concise, and his list of 43 characteristics of the ‘man who is consistently himself’ (Note it was published in 1967 – there’s good advice for the ladies here too) is one of the best things I’ve seen.

2. How To Stop Worrying And Start Living by Dale Carnegie

Again, Dale Carnegie is probably more famous for his How To Win Friends And Influence People, but I can’t get enough of this book.  I’ve given it to clients and they’ve made it mandatory bed time reading too.

Each chapter is easy to follow and it’s filled with great stories and examples of folks thriving by using these principles.

It was first published in 1944, so another one that’s stood the test of time.

3. Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

Speaking of being tested by time…

Now we go back even farther.

Marcus Aurelius was a philosopher and the emperor of Rome from 161 to 180 AD.  If you’ve seen Gladiator, he was the old emperor killed by his son Commodus at the start of the movie.

This one’s an outlier because it was probably never intended by its author to be a coherent whole.  It’s more like a collection of his notes that were compiled and published after his death.

Some say it’s cynical but I don’t agree.

Many of its ideas are based in Stoicism, and are all about practicing acceptance, not getting attached to things, and focusing on becoming the best version of yourself – all viewpoints which, if you embrace them as your daily MO, can make you almost “worry-proof”.

4. Biographies.

This one’s more of a category than a specific book.

One of the reasons I love reading biographies is they grant you such a long-term perspective.   You can read about a person’s life and all the setbacks they overcame.  And you can read about a life in another time.  Often reminds me there’s nothing new under the sun.

Every age has its shocks.

The world keeps ticking on.

In fact, Warren Buffet makes a practice of reading old newspapers for the same reason.  He says looking at long gone, sensationalist headlines about events that are now mere echoes in time keeps him grounded.

My favorite biography (and perhaps my favorite book) is Titan, the biography of John D. Rockefeller by Ron Chernow.  I also loved Nelson Mandela’s autobiography A Long Walk To Freedom and the Walter Isaacson biography of Benjamin Franklin.

Something about getting lost in these amazing, epochal lives leaves me with a persistent sense of calm.

On a different-but-related note, having a solid plan for a free marketing channel (that more than 60% of business owners rate as their most profitable) could also give you a leg up on the next few months, as life burps and sways its way back toward normal.

Hence, I recommend my new book Stealth Email Secrets.

It reveals for the first time the complete email marketing system I use to increase sales and customer loyalty for my clients.  I honestly believe anyone can use this system to sell more of ANY product or service, in ANY economy.  You can read it in a single afternoon and start using its secrets to make more sales as soon as tomorrow, if you want.

(Plus it’s just an entertaining/informative read per my usual muscular style.)

Available in Kindle or paperback, you can grab your copy from Amazon:

Click here to get The Muscle’s NEW book.

Also, I just knocked 40% off the price of the paperback (Kindle is just $9.99).

Personally, I’d always rather have a physical book in my hands.  Call me old-fashioned.  I know you might prefer that too and understand many folks are tightening their purse strings right now so figured I’d help out.  I also know that for some this could be potentially business-saving information.

You can thank me by leaving an absolutely glowing review, should you feel so inclined. 😉

However, I won’t be keeping the price this low forever.

Be sure to grab your copy TODAY so you don’t miss it:

Get my Stealth Email Secrets book for 40% OFF.

Well, there you go.

Books to lighten the load, as it were.

I hope they’ll be as good to you as they’ve been to me.

Happy Stress-Busting,

Conor Kelly

“Best business email in response to the CV crisis I have received.”

conorkelLeave a comment

Question:

How well are you communicating with your customers during this time?

98% of what’s landed in my inbox as a response to the crisis from various businesses has ranged from pointless to inane, such as suggesting I sing the Happy Birthday song to myself twice when washing my hands (no joke, that was part of a real email a business thought to send me).

Most have had me running for the unsubscribe link.

With one of my clients this week we took a different tack.

Here’s just a sample of the responses we got:

====

“This is a wonderful message.  You will always have my business!”

“Thank you folks for reaching out and offering your generous support and good spirit to the community.”

“You are awesome.  So thoughtful!”

“That is the best business email in response to the CV crisis I have received.”

====

Now I have to give credit to this client because the initiatives were 100% his idea.  He’s good that way, and a smart marketer in his own right.  My contribution was knowing how to frame them effectively, and with a certain amount of flair.

Here’s the point:

You have an opportunity right now.  The word ‘crisis’ comes from the Greek krisis.  It literally means “turning point”.  So you have a choice; you can fall silent as some people will surely tell you to do.  Or you can use whatever platform you currently have to show leadership.

Now is the time to BUILD relationships.

Not let them go cold.

Think for a second about the relationship capital contained in responses like the ones above.

Case in muscular point: I started my personal training business in 2008.  Believe it or not the easiest and most profitable years, as far as marketing ROI anyway, were between 2008 and 2011.  One theory I have is when times are tight people clam up and stop marketing aggressively.  I was doing the opposite.  That meant less competition.  And indeed the business grew nicely during those years.

There’s no doubt about it, we’re headed for a recession.

You might need to make some sacrifices in the months ahead.

Don’t let it be your marketing, unless you want to fade into oblivion.

Alright, I’ll climb down off of my soap box now.

(And wipe it down thoroughly.)

If you’d like me to help you quickly grab more market share in the coming months while your competition is hitting the snooze button, go here to request your no-stress Free Brainstorm Call to find out if we’re a fit:

https://conorkelly.com/free-brainstorm-call/

But time is short.

My schedule is filling up.

And I’ll be marketing more, not less.

Happy Relationship-Building,

Conor Kelly

Weird St. Patrick’s Day

conorkelLeave a comment

This is weird.

With St. Patrick’s Day essentially canceled this year, here for your viewing pleasure are a few MORE strange St. Paddy’s Day facts:

*The original colour worn by Patrick and to mark St. Patrick’s Day…was blue.  It became green the more the party went global – ostensibly due to the Emerald Isle’s greenness, shamrocks, leprechauns, every Irish national sporting uniform ever, and the green in the Irish flag.

*Patrick’s real name was Maewyn.

Very Lord of The Rings.

*Herpetologists – i.e. folks who study reptiles agree that there probably never were snakes in Ireland for Patrick to drive out.  Too cold.  So the snakes of legend are thought to be metaphorical.  At least they weren’t the ironic kind – those smug bastards.

*Once upon a time, in the ol’ U.S. of A. the Irish were considered a migrant crisis.

Good one to remember.

As they poured in to the states on the Eastern seaboard, they were discriminated against harshly.  Now they’re a force in American culture and politics.

#Truth

*The world’s shortest St. Patrick’s Day Parade takes place in Hot Springs, Arkansas and is just 98-feet (or 49 leprechauns) long.

Crucially, this allows for more pub time.

*In the town of O’Neill, Nebraska (named for its Irish founder) residents wear green not only on St. Patrick’s, but on the 17th of every month.  That’s dedication.

*On the tiny Caribbean island of Montserrat, St. Paddy’s Day is a national holiday.  Montserrat boasts a rich Irish and African heritage.

Like me.

(The Muscle began in The Ivory Coast.)

*Finally, here’s a clip of one of my fave Conor Kelly productions.  It’s a workout routine I shot while vacationing in Ireland, with just about the most scenic backdrops of any workout video I ever done seen:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jWfldJTGik

It’s timely, as it can be done at home.

Well that’s all for the weird and the wonderful of the day.

If you’d like done-for-you emails like this one that both delight and SELL your subscribers, follow the rainbow to find your no-stress Free Brainstorm Call here:

http://www.calendly.com/conorkel/emailincome

And what a pot o’ gold she is.

Mark my words:

With everything that’s going on…and everything that’s coming…email is about to become that much more important as a marketing channel.  Don’t wait.  Start now, or your competition will figure this out first.

I’m currently booking projects for next month and I expect my calendar to fill up.

I leave you with this Irish blessing:

May love and laughter light your days

And warm your heart and home.

May good and faithful friends be yours

Wherever you may roam.

May peace and plenty bless your world

With joy that long endures

May all life’s passing seasons

Bring the best to you and yours

Happy St. Patrick’s Day,

Conor Kelly

Kobe Bryant’s most underrated success secret

conorkelLeave a comment

Still processing this news.

My main reaction is shock.

Kobe was one of those larger-than-life entities that seemed to be almost omni-present.  At least to me.  It’s surreal to think that he won’t be around anymore.  Then there’s sadness.  We’re the same age.  I have a daughter.  That his is gone – so young – is heartbreaking.  I feel for his family, and the families of the other victims that have been devastated by this tragedy.

Honestly, I don’t know where to file this one.

It’s like the circuitry in my brain is missing the connections to make sense of something like this.

At the same time it’s so fascinating to hear all the stories about him.

Many reflect his kindness, his sense of humor, his curiosity, his intelligence.  Most exalt his work ethic.  And this is just my observation, but few reflect what I think was perhaps his most important quality that we all can learn from: his confidence.

In some of the stories this was even a knock on him when he first came in the league, because he kept saying what he was going to do, and people around him didn’t like that.

Our culture praises humility.

Until you do what you say you’re going to do, you’re cocky.

Once you’ve done it…well, now you’re confident.

But here’s the thing:

From everything I’ve heard, he just had this enduring faith in the process.  Without it, those 4:30am workouts of legend wouldn’t have been possible.  Trusting the process is the root of confidence.  It’s in the process that we develop skill and mastery.

It would do us all well to remember that.

(This is a “note to self” for me as much as I offer it to you.)

Harv Ecker once said:

If a hundred-foot oak tree had the mind of a human, it would only grow to be ten feet tall!

Small thinking is a disease.

Kobe was one of the lucky ones born without it.  That, together with his intuitive understanding that time and encouraging the natural process of GROWTH to work its magic can win championships (and do many other great things) led him to have an unshakeable belief in what’s possible.

What an example to follow.

R.I.P.

Remember, great athletes don’t have a lock on this.

There’s no reason you can’t use this “secret” too.

I’ll leave you with what Kobe said to a young female sports reporter when she interviewed him at the outset of his career.  No one knew him yet.  And she wasn’t well known either and struggling for respect in an industry dominated by men.

He said to her:

“We’re gonna be ok.  And they have no idea what’s coming.”

To Your Greatness,

Conor Kelly

Good copy pumps up The Muscle’s already insanely jacked baby finger

conorkelLeave a comment

Meet Manfred Hoeberl.

In the mid-nineties, Manfred was one of the top strongmen on the circuit, and a contender for the title of World’s Strongest Man.  He was Austrian (form the same town as Arnie in fact), six foot five, and 325 pounds of solid muscle – not an ounce of fat.

At the time he was said to possess the largest muscular arms in the world at twenty six inches in circumference!

Dayum.

For my dineros, Manfred’s best feature was his interviews.

About half of them sounded like they were taken verbatim from an SNL Hans and Franz sketch.  On one notable occasion, in ’93, Ol’ Manny was having a hard time recovering from a vehicle pull, and the show’s coverage took a statement from an onsite doctor, who described his condition as a symptom of *sheer size*.

Hehe.

Then, cameras panned to a hunched over and out of breath Manfred who commented (remember, same Arnie accent)…“I’m suffering from …the buildup of lactic acid…in my huuuge mah-scles.”

Don’t think Kevin Nealon and Dana Carvey could have scripted it any better.

And they had some zingers…

“I’ve got more mah-scle in my baby finga then you have in your whole bah-dy.”

“Better not open your belt, you might cause a flaaabalanche.”

Anyway, the point of such ramblings?

One of their best (and most apt) slogans is hear me now, believe me late-ah.

In it is contained the essence of what I call *coachability*.  Unless you’re coachable, you’re not a candidate for transformation – business, or otherwise.

Being coachable is suspending disbelief, doubt, or judgement long enough to implement what your coach or consultant recommends, and find out for yourself if it’s on point.  Listen now, believe when you’ve done it…and experienced the RESULTS.

Anytime I find myself resisting coaching/mentoring/professional advice, I ask (1) how much do I trust the source of the information, and (2) am I being coachable?  If the person is good to listen to on the subject in question (i.e. has a proven track record), I think ‘what have I got to lose’ and give it a whirl.  This built in truth meter has allowed me to make leaps that would never have occurred otherwise.

A great mentor once told me, “Success is easy. Find someone who’s already successful at what you want to do, and learn from them.”

The Muscle likes.

Don’t make it more complicated than it needs to be.

Chew on that one a bit more as you steady yourself to pounce on those 2020 big goals.

And if you’d like my help with any copywriting of email campaigns or sales pages (or critiquing thereof), lather yourself in baby oil and pump your way to my muscular waiting list to be notified as soon as a spot opens up:

Instantly join The Muscle’s waiting list by clicking here.

I’ll give you fair warning:

I might not have the accent, but I am prone to obsessive flexing.

Happy Hearing and Delayed Believing,

Conor Kelly

…
…

Canadian Strengthsgiving

conorkelLeave a comment

_MG_0079

Ten years ago this very day…

Yours Muscularly pulled a 28,000-pound school bus in Yonge-Dundas Square in Toronto (like Toronto’s ‘Times Square’) to raise money and awareness for TFSS, an organization dedicated to feeding hungry students in Toronto schools.

At the time I was running a personal training biz.

Some high-school kids found me online and invited to be a part of a presentation on nutrition they we’re doing for their class.

I accepted.

What I wasn’t prepared for was their statistics on malnourished youth, poverty, and hunger in Toronto schools.  I know how important the right nutrition is for health and brain power.  And didn’t think these kids were getting a fair shake.  So I decided to do something about it.

I found the charity and approached them with this crazy idea.

To my surprise, they loved it.

It was going to be ideal as part of Feeding Hungry Students Week, their big fundraiser and publicity push each year, which was about 11 weeks away.

Now I’d done vehicle pulls during my competitive career as a strongman.  But since retiring from the sport five years prior I’d hadn’t approached anything that resembled that level of training.  I was 170 pounds (compared with my competition weight of 220).  I’d have 11 weeks to train for it (I ended up gaining over 20 pounds during that stretch)…all while planning and organizing the event.

What followed was one of the craziest and most rewarding journeys of my life.

(I’ve been thinking I should write a book about it.)

Why do I bring this up?

Well, first it’s my 10-year Strengthaversary.

So it’s been on my mind.

And second, it was perhaps the most successful marketing campaign (and certainly the most successful from a media coverage standpoint) I’ve ever produced.  There wasn’t a single major media outlet in Toronto that didn’t cover it.  I was on TV, Radio, and in newspapers.  Sometimes all three at once…or at least that’s how it felt.  All wearing gear branded to my business, and all referring to me as ‘the owner of Evolution Fitness in Toronto’.  And that night, we we’re on the 6 o’clock news on EVERY channel.

For the charity, the figure was something like $20,000 raised.  Plus, they’d never had that kind of media attention for their programs.  They were thrilled.

Here’s the point:

It was unique hook (with a sensationalist twist).

Even cold-calling the busiest and most jaded editors and producers…with their phones ringing, their inboxes full and deadlines dropping…when I told them what I was up to they’d stop and say:

“I’m listening…”

I might well share a few marketing lessons from this experience over the next little while.

For starters, how can you model this idea for your business?  Let’s consider the possibility that you can’t pull a bus.  Totally ok.  Could you put on your own charity fundraiser and add to it an element of the extraordinary?  Could you make an offer that no one else in your industry is willing to make?  Could you be the ‘whistle-blower’ who calls out the nefarious practices of big companies in your industry?

(That last strategy landed me my first interview on national television when I promised to expose the big gyms dirty, dirty ways.)

Point is:

Yes, you need people to care…

But first you need their attention.

This is a rule not only of marketing, but of all forms of persuasive communication.

Alright, that’s enough for now.

I’m shipping off soon as it’s Thanksgiving Weekend here North of the border.

In honor of that day ten years ago, random acts of kindness, and all things strength and/or marketing I do hereby dub this day Strengthsgiving.  May yours be full of high-quality proteins…

With a delicious side-helping of creamy, fluffy generosity.

Hungry yet?

🙂

Happy Strengthsgiving,

Conor Kelly

P.S.  Unfortunately, I don’t have any footage of the event of I’d share it with you.  I’m working on getting some archival footage from one of the various media outlets.  Stay tuned.

 

Drink thee of this profitable smoothie

conorkelLeave a comment

“The more you read, the more you will know.  The more you learn, the more places you’ll go.” — Dr. Seuss

I hate to burst your bubble…

But for anyone who thinks losing weight is hard, gaining weight is much harder.

(That’s if you’re trying to add the right kind of weight.)

I don’t care what anybody says, force feeding yourself copious quantities of plain chicken breast and rice seven times a day…sucks.   Back in my strongman days it got to the point where I almost couldn’t stand the sight of food.

I went to all kinds of extremes.

Eating by the clock.

(Instead of when hungry – which I almost never was.)

Calculating calories.  (Not counting; this was before My Fitness Pal and other smart phone apps that make tracking your cals a cinch nowadays…back then I literally used an almanac and a calculator).

Taking digestive enzymes.

Drinking flax seed oil.

I could go on.

As a trainer I’ve also had many clients whose goal was to build muscle.  One point I’d consistently drive home is you have to put in the building blocks.  Your body doesn’t synthesize muscle out of thin air.  Protein and calories are the raw materials it needs.  That’s why you’ve got to have a caloric surplus.

What’s this all have to do with you?

Writing, producing content, copywriting, and finding marketing hooks is the same.  You need an idea surplus.  You’ve got to regularly feed your brain plenty of building blocks from which those are created.

How do you do that?

By reading.  A lot.

I try to make it a point to read at least two hours per day.

If I’m being honest, it usually ends up being closer to one hour.  What do I read?  Primarily, anything having to do with marketing, copywriting, or persuasion.  But I also “supplement” with a variety of subjects from magazine articles (I love The Economist), history books, books on science, biographies, and literature and fiction too.

What this does is give me a vast pool of data, facts, stories and ideas to pull from when in a creative mode.  All these healthy ingredients go into the blender of my subconscious and emerge as a green smoothie of knowledge.  I use this to connect two or more ideas in ways that form “hooks” useful in teaching, influencing, and selling (as I’ve done with the calorie surplus thing here).

What I’ve discovered:

I have two main types of readers.

The first type is interested in getting better at doing email, copywriting, etc. so they can do it themselves.  If that’s you, I just handed you what has been a BIG ingredient in my success (and the success of many others) on a vibranium-plated platter.

The second type is grinning, rubbing their hands together…

…And simply biding their time until they get me to do all this shebang for them.

If you’re the second type, and doing that volume of reading sounds both prohibitive and unappealing – never fear.

I attack such tasks with fanatical zeal so you don’t have to.

Get your vitamin boost and request your Free Brainstorm Call here:

http://calendly.com/conorkel/emailincome

And if not…

Happy Reading,

Conor Kelly

The amazing true story of Whitney Houston’s epic superbowl performance

conorkelLeave a comment

On Monday it will be 7 years since Whitney Houston’s death.

And since I just watched Whitney, the Kevin MacDonald documentary of her life on Netflix, here’s a story I think you’ll find interesting.

First, a little context.

I was never a fan of her music.

And I’ve never had any particular fondness for the U.S. national anthem either.  When well sung it’s rousing, to be sure.  What I’m less about is its war imagery and vague undertones of neo-imperialism.

That said there’s one clip of Whitney Houston I’ve watched at least 50 times…her singing of The Star Spangled Banner at the 1991 Superbowl.  I think it’s one of the most insane vocal performances mine ears doth heard.

I get chills every time.

I never knew the story behind it, though.

To hear her music manager tell it, they gave her rendition some serious thought.  You see, African Americans have also had an iffy relationship to the anthem because it’s about some of the state organs of violence that – at times – have been targeted toward black people.

The song is typically a waltz performed in 3/4 time.

So what they decided to do was adapt it to 4/4 time.

They reasoned this would give Whitney more space to hold out the big notes.

Plus, all black music is in 4/4.

He redid the arrangements.  Had the orchestra rehearse it.  And they hated it.  Nevertheless, he sent Whitney the recording, “what do you think”?  But never heard back.  It wasn’t until a week before the big game that he saw her and she admitted she hadn’t heard it.

She said, “play it.”

Then leaned back, closed her eyes, and listened intently.

When it was over, all she murmured was, “got it.”

What the world heard that day was the unrehearsed first take. 

 Watch it here:

 

 

 

For anyone who knows anything about music, let alone performing, that is…CRAZY.  It’s genius on another level.  Here she was this young woman with a big voice, on the world’s greatest stage, letting it all hang loose.

Uninhibited.

Free.

Indeed, freedom is ultimately what the lyric is meant to convey.

And it’s what you feel as she sings it.

I don’t think it’s possible to overestimate the power of this moment.  I may not be her #1 fan.  But for that alone, damn if she wasn’t one of the most badass singers to ever walk this planet.

Hats off, Ms. Houston.

R.I.P.

One more thing…

Genius and talent played a role.

But that level of command, both musically and over her performance, would never have happened if her mother Cissy – herself an accomplished vocalist – hadn’t drilled them into her from a young age.

What if she hadn’t?

Happy Inspiration,

Conor Kelly