If you’ve been a copywriter, a media buyer, or a business owner for a while, you have probably realized there are things that happen in this business that people don’t talk about a lot. At least publicly.

I’m talking about stuff that you kinda wished you knew about ahead of time, so you wouldn’t be so floored when it happened to you.

Copywriting and direct marketing make up a great business, and I’ve found most people, most of the time, are pretty decent. But not everybody all the time. And I know we generally like to be constructive and optimistic on this podcast. But I think it’s also valuable to know how things can go upside down or sideways. You can’t always avoid it, but you may be able to stop it or fix it before it gets worse.

Or at least deal with it better than you might have before you knew about what we’re going to talk about today.

Sometimes I think the best background for being a copywriter is having a previous life as a firefighter, an ER surgeon, or a hostage negotiator. Because on those occasions when things start to go sideways or upside down, it’s good to have crisis-management skills in the real world.

I wanted to put this show together because I thought about some of the things I wish I had known about before I became a copywriter, a direct response business owner, and later a coach.

To be sure, there are a number of annoying, disrespectful, and sometimes sheerly incomprehensible things that do happen. I don’t think it’s a good idea to believe you can wish it all away just by keeping a positive mindset. You know, because… some days are just better than others.

One of my favorite success writers, Robert Ringer, has a “Theory of Sustenance” which says, “Keep a Positive Attitude Through The Expectation of a Negative Result.”

A lot of fancy words, right? What does his elaborate theory mean?

It basically means: Shit happens. Do not worry about this, or let it throw you off balance. Sometimes, you’ll find that negative results are simply an inevitable part of the process of success. Including great success.

With practice and intention, you can learn to let go of the pain after a bit of time, and hold onto the lesson. Because there’s always a lesson.

I figured, we might as well talk about problems, just to be prepared for them before they happen. Everything I’m going to talk about today has happened to me or to someone I know.

Download.