Five With Flores

A few weeks ago I blogged about being nervous before giving a presentation in Florida.

Part of the reason I was so stressed out is because I have really wanted to steer my career in a slightly different direction for a couple of months and I considered this speaking opportunity a grand step in exactly that right direction. I ended up being a big hit, but that is neither here nor there.

The more immediate reason I was stressed out, nervous, and so on before going up was Jonathan Fields.

Jonathan used to be a big time lawyer. He had one of those six figure jobs that they train you in this country you are supposed to grow up to want to have. He worked at one of the power firms in New York, handling bazillion dollar deals.

Until his body told him to stop.

Jonathan had a radical medical condition — a growth ended up having to be removed!!! — that he interprets as his body rejecting his career path.

So he decided to go from one day being a big shot lawyer to working as a personal trainer for $12 an hour.

No, he didn’t fall on his head or anything… He was learning the ropes of the fitness world. He transitioned personal training to becoming a fitness entrepreneur, had some associated adventures along the way, until finally opening his own yoga studio in the greatest city in the world.

… On September 10th, 2001.

Yikes!

So he took the biggest financial gamble of his career — his life — right as the New York economy was crumbling under the weight of the greatest tragedy ever to occur on American soil.

But Jonathan saw this as an opportunity to open his doors — for free initially — and help the New York community heal.

I’d say there was a happy ending (because he was eventually able to grow his yoga business to a great success)… but it was not an ending at all. Jonathan recently sold his stake in the yoga studio because he wants to write, blog, and Tweet full-time.

You see, he has become a kind of career chameleon.

Kind of appropriate to the turn I want to take in my own career, kind-of.

So what was the big problem?

Jonathan was up before I was.

On the one hand, he is this wonderful, earnest, and engaging speaker. A true inspiration for anyone who wants to take his own life by the horns and steer his ship to whatever beat of whatever drummer he wants… While making a fine living! Pretty great, right?

He’s an awfully tough act to follow.

Jonathan is one of those “quality human beings” who are just so honest and well-intentioned, out there to actually help you out.

Like I said, he’s an awfully tough act to follow.

So what does this have to do with anything?

Jonathan’s book, Career Renegade: How to Make a Great Living Doing What You Love is out on Amazon now.

Career Renegade is not just Jonathan’s story, it’s a system that anyone can use to… well… make a great living doing what they want! Jonathan has become famous for finding bloggers who make $200,000 from their kitchen tables or guys who play video games professionally. Sound fun?

Career Renegade is brand new so I haven’t read it yet, but I hope I’ve communicated one per cent of how inspiring a speaker he is. He has poured the last couple of years of his life into this effort, and I know that if you are looking to figure out how to discover the best path for yourself — “bad economy” or not — or find out how you can happily and successfully live towards your best destiny, the $11.20 is going to be a no-brainer.

Especially in this time of economic turmoil, where the news is declaring it “the worst financial situation since the Great Depression” every night, you might want a little Career Renegade in your back pocket.

I’ll write a more proper review of the book once I’ve actually read it, but Jonathan Fields? The guy, the speaker, the Renegade has my highest recommendation.

LOVE
MIKE

(I’m guessing you’ll love this)

MichaelJ is sick! Also some things are not available at any price. Others are available for between $4.99 and $24.

First of all, sorry for the few / lame updates the past week or two. I am back in New York and have been in I think five cities in three days (Cleveland, Richmond, New York, Ft. Lauderdale, New York again) between Thanksgiving and now. Most recently I flew down to Florida for less than 24 hours to do a speech, back in the office the next day (today).

I am wiped from traveling and the speech / presentation.

Millionaire copywriter Dr. Harlan Kilstein let me do a presentation at his Tactic7 seminar which was daunting. I have done presentations about being awesome at Google before but… like… only at Google or at seminars talking to Googlers. So yes, it’s a big honor to be one of the few online marketing experts to actually present at the epicenter of the online marketing universe, but the stresses are very different. Sure it can still be intimidating, but when you are speaking at Google, you are sharing with a room full of professionals who basically get paid to be there.

Presenting at Harlan’s made me nervous because the situation was reversed: Entrepeneurs and students were paying to hear me speak. Yes it was Harlan’s event and I was just a guest speaker for the day but the people present paid a deep four figures to sit in that packed room so it was important for me to do a good job.

Luckily I aquitted myself quite adequately.

Unluckily — and if you know me in real life (instead of just listening to my videos) you can probably imagine this — I spent a lot of my speech shouting at the top of my lungs. Specifically I repeated THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING FOR five or ten times, Gregorian chant style (if Gregorian monks, you know, shouted THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING FOR at the top of their lungs).

So I have no voice now.

Which is kind of horrible because I am going to do a video on my Star City Blightning Beatdown tonight. I kind of have to. I did the footage more than a week ago, intending to do the video while I was home in Ohio, but wall to wall family stuff came up for a week and the raw files have been sitting on my computer for however long. But the Star City $5K event is less than two days from now… So when you get to see the video (which will be later tonight, getting back to the “sorry for the few / lame updates the past week or two” bit up top), you will have to deal with my non-voice. I am the equal and opposite of Blackagar Boltagon. My voice is THAT un-powerful at present.

So what does this have to do with this blog post’s headline ["Not Available at Any Price!" if you forgot]?

While I was at Tactic7 I met up with fellow presenter, quality human being, and Career Renegade Jonathan Fields, an imminent Amazon.com best seller and expert in social media (you know, like this blog). Jonathan turned me onto Twitter. So if you want to follow me on Twitter (no one is following me on Twitter, please follow me on Twitter, I want to feel popular), I am unsurprisingly FiveWithFlores, that is, Twitter.com/FiveWithFlores. Apparently I previously registered my Madmanpoet self some time in the distant past, but I have since forgotten the password to Madmanpoet’s account. Poor Twitter.com/Madmanpoet. You are alone forever. Long live FiveWithFlores!

Jonathan pointed out the agile use of “not available at any price” in a sales letter he showed me, and I just found something also not available at any price (though my use is dramatically less agile).

I was perusing 80sTees.com, home of The World’s Greatest Tee Shirt (sorry… still not in stock in M, L, or XL… did anybody bug them yet? I didn’t [yet]), and came upon this Decepticon belt:

I am not sure if that Decepticon belt is cool or lame; only that it is bright purple. However I have the following little mice turning gears in my noggin:

1) It’s only $4.99 (meaning that if it turns out to be lame, I blew less than a latte), and
2) It fits up to 38 inches (meaning I’m good… Is there anything more embarrassing than buying a belt you can’t fit into?)

So I’m thinking to myself, “Self, there is a reasonable possibility this belt is lame. Maybe there could be some other belt that is definitely cool, or at least not lame?”

So I came upon this belt:

IT IS NOT AVAILABLE AT ANY PRICE.

Zero dollars?

Really?

I had to double-take.

This Thundercats belt is $0… You know, like my lifetime winnings in individual Pro Tours.

Yet it is in stock.

How can this be?

When price = $0, that throws the whole cool / lame cost / benefit matrix completely out of whack. Free things are basically automatically cool, or at least not lame.

Then I read that you actually have to buy a Thundercats tee shirt to get the NOT AVAILABLE AT ANY PRICE belt “for free.” Oh, that’s how they get you. Actual commerce and product purchases. The arrogant bastards. You have to pay them before you get goods and services. How gauche. Maybe they should just let me buy The World’s Greatest Tee Shirt instead of it being out of stock. Did I mention “bastards”?

Anyway, I was leaning towards this one, because then I can pretend that I didn’t know there was a double entendre (my life is more or less non-stop shenanigans, and pretending I didn’t know I was committing a faux pas is basically my favorite scam):

The only problem is that if you have a daughter and you want her to be proud, independent, free-thinking, and strong, you have to at least THINK ABOUT / consider certain ridiculous actions and intentional unintentional double entendres, especially if you want to dodge the ire of the Mrs. For the unmarried among you, there is a high benefit to relatively low cost in dodging the ire of the Mrs.

So what is a man to do in order to shotgun a free Thundercats belt?

There is the Underoos-looking route:

Or alternately the hipster “I found these Underoos crumpled under my bed” route:

Personally I like the second one more, but I am worried the Mrs. will mistake it for a ratty old shirt and will accidentally throw it away.

This is more difficult than “Figure of Destiny” or “Tarfire the Birds of Paradise” on turn one.

So long story short, video + Magical post later tonight.

Thanks everybody for continuing to love what Mike Flores loves. If I can get my free Thundercats belt in time for the Star City $5K, it will match my deck of choice (Blightning Beatdown, obv).

LOVE
MIKE

Firestarter:
What is actually more difficult? Figure of Destiny / Tarfire the Birds of Paradise on turn one or Underoos-looking Thundercats shirt / “distressed” Underoos-looking Thundercats shirt?

PS
Dont forget to follow me on Twitter!