* I meant to post this about 6 months ago. Oops *

Last Summer we held our 2nd annual Maverick Business Insider Summer Extravaganza event for Maverick1000 members and Maverick Business Insider newsletter subscribers. This 1-day event covered the maverick philosophy of make more, have more fun and give more.  (If you weren’t there – you missed out!!)

We started off the day with the workshops and a presentation I gave on “3 Pillars of an Extraordinary Entrepreneurial Life & Business” and the newest trends for 2010 online & beyond.  Then a highlight of our “hard work” was throwing paper airplanes around for the “Airtime Mastermind”.

Here’s a picture that captures it well -

Air Time Mastermind in full flight

Everyone got a piece of construction paper to write down their most pressing issue or problem in business. Then they folded up their plane and launched them around the room. Everyone had to grab someone else’s plane and write down an answer to their question. We got some great conversation going and insights to problems attendees faced. (In fact, this ‘game’ is so cool that we developed at Maverick – we posted it on the GameStorming book’s blog – http://www.gogamestorm.com/?p=291)

Then after filling up on a summer BBQ lunch, we headed out for Airsoft close quarter combat facility. Now in case you haven’t seen Airsoft or heard of it – it’s billed as similar to paintball…WITH all the fun, but WITHOUT the pain. (Umm….no!) Those damn pellets hurt for sure.

At the Airsoft facility, suiting up for the games with Mavericks Dr. Adam Summers, Mike Cline and William Lee. Notice William (who we affectionately referred to as Rambo). When they asked if anyone had played before, he didn’t say anything. He chose instead to go for Shock & Awe when he started suiting up. Vests, extra magazines, a backup handheld gun (with flashlight), an automatic primary weapon (with flashlight AND silencer), ninja mask and more. The room got a little quiet as his violent side started to show.

Did someone call for S.W.A.T.? (William is just practicing for the Maverick Covert Ops experience in October.)

Now for the Giving part – we had a “Charity Chicken”. What the hell is a charity chicken you may ask? That’s a perfectly valid question and one we’re not exactly sure the answer to either. But for some reason myself and Chris Zavadowski both got into the suit to bother people inside the playing field until we were shot. (Trust me, even with the damn suit on you still felt the bullets.) Anyone who shot the chicken would donate $10 to Village Enterprise Fund, one of the self-sustaining charities Maverick consistently supports. Here’s an action shot of the “Charity Chicken”:

The Charity Chicken also lays eggs during the game (good for bonus points and special powers). Chris decided he should get some practice beforehand...

The #1 player, and winner of a $500 charity donation in his name (2nd place got $250 and 3rd place got $100 -- they both chose American Cancer Society, and William chose the Dizzy Feet Foundation), why not pour some beer into your trophy? At least, it looked like a good idea.

To determine the trophy winners (and winners of the charity donation prizes), we held a special sudden death match at the end of the day with the top guns. 1st place went to Maverick Global Intrepid member, William Lee (“Rambo”).  2nd place was snatched up by David Dolak and 3rd place went to Jared Polin.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a Maverick event without a few other fun awards.  Rakhi Sharma won the “Lost Cause” award for her er, um….skills.  And Maverick Member, Adam Summers, snatched up the MVP trophy for his awesome teamwork covering his buddies’ asses.

Here are all the awesome Members who stepped up to shoot the poor chicken (i.e. Chris and me) and donate to charity:

Jon Butt (www.jononfire.com)
Mike Cline (www.techguyswhogetmarketing.com)
Robert Dickson (www.porcupinewebsitedesign.com)
David Dolak (www.dolphinjewelry.com)
Mostafa Azab
Jonathan Flaks (www.jfcoach.com)
Christian Hammarskjold (www.wideopenbaja.com)
Jeffrey Kirk (www.webgeniussummit.com)
William Lee (www.candytelegram.com)
Andy Miller (www.andymillerinternational.com)
Gary Nealon (www.rtacabinetstore.com)
Jared Polin (www.froknowsphoto.com)
Buck Rizvi (www.ultimatelifespan.com)
Rakhi Sharma (www.cheenifortots.com)
Jeffrey Sherman
Adam Summers
Jimmy Sweeney (www.honesteonline.com)
Ron Tager
Joe Tice
Joe Zapolski

And our most coveted prize went to Maverick1000 member, Gary Nealon.  He was given the award for Big Mother Clucker for hitting the defenseless chicken the most out of anyone and making the biggest charity donation. (Thanks Gary!)

And if you think your Maverick members would let the chicken cluck off into the sunset – you’ve got another thing coming. The next day a fearless group of Mavericks took to the air for a skydiving adventure. Many of the members experienced their first freefall and the chicken went along for the ride too.

Let's be honest, nothing says classy like a chicken hat.

Maverick members with limited edition 'Carpe Diem Bitch' t-shirts and one chicken head are ready to jump.

Now at the jump site, I’m sure they’ve seen some wacky things – but I suggested that maybe we could get the Chicken up in the air. After asking if I was kidding or not, they checked in with my instructor…and he gave a very hesitant, “Okay”. He cut off the chicken wings so we weren’t working with a ‘squirrel suit’ and then checked me out in the harness.

All systems go for project 'chickens aloft"

Here’s Chris giving me a friendly “hug” before we take off -

Insert your own caption here.

And here we are in full-on chicken glory

If you haven’t seen enough or plucked your eyes out – you can check out a quick highlight reel we put together here:
http://animoto.com/play/9kGbhKiQTkDc2F0xUWVYBA

I look forward to hanging out with you at the next Maverick Business Insider Extravaganza!  (But you have to be a Maverick Business Insider to attend. Check out http://www.MaverickBusinessInsiders.com for a special free package I’ve put together for you!

Just back from our Maverick EPIC excursion to South Africa for World Cup, Safari and cage diving with sharks. Pretty awesome! I caught up with the group on the second part of the trip because I didn’t want to miss Zoe’s 3rd birthday. Here is my little princess awaiting her cupcake with Zak eagerly eyeing them from afar…

I hung out with Zo-zoz and then took a red-eye over to London and then hot tailed it over to Cape Town the next day to join everyone else.

By the time I got there I had seen all sorts of photos and videos on Facebook from the Safari at Sir Richard Branson’s Lodge in Ulusaba. The guys were literally feet away from animals and had lots of stories about hippos and leopards nearly taking them out. What’s more, I unfortunately missed a day of teaching the Maverick members conducted at the Branson School of Entrepreneurship in Jo’burg.

But as soon as I landed in Cape Town the adventure started in full swing for me with a scenic helicopter tour taking us out to the Cape of Good Hope and beyond. (Though I have to admit I did fall asleep a few times in the helicopter. The funny thing is I’ve been on one 3 times and have fallen asleep now twice. Hmmm….forgot Ambiens -- just get me to a chopper.) Take a look at this amazing landscape of the Cape before I dozed off:

Later in the afternoon it was off to Table Mountain, which gets its name from its distinctive flat top. Overlooking Cape Town, it’s certainly one of the most distinctive features of the city. And, as Mavericks do, we decided to give it a little adrenaline boost by abseiling (or rappelling) off the summit. Billed as one of the highest commercial abseils in the world, you’ve got a solid 112m (about 350 feet) drop. It was great to see some of the members who had never done this before have the confidence to lean all the way back and let their hands go for their “pre-departure” pics.

As you can tell from the picture here it’s a long way down – especially when there was a little surprise in store for many of us who didn’t see the big drop-off.

The next day was one of the marquee experiences with a Great White cage dive. We literally came face-to-face with one of the most unforgettable and terrifying creatures on the planet in their own environment. A close encounter with a Great White shark is something that will be indelibly imprinted in your mind forever.

We were taken about 20 minutes off-shore to “shark alley” where we dropped anchor and started chumming the water. Of course, during the safety briefing they emphasized to keep your hands and legs inside the cage but somebody had other ideas…

The cages were actually a lot smaller and a lot thinner steel than I would have imagined. Of course, some of the guys started mentioning how on YouTube they saw all sorts of Great Whites chewing through steel cages. Nice!

(

Maverick member Craig Handley got this sweet shot of a shark actually attacking the fake seal they use to lure in the Great Whites.

The sharks were literally within inches at some points, and one time I couldn’t help myself but give him a little quick High-Five on his fin. I don’t think the shark really enjoyed that because he turned around, bit a buoy by Craig’s foot and gave the cage a little ram to let us know who was boss.

There’s a bit of a back story to this, and it all started about 3 years ago on our first ever Maverick experience in Baja when we went gray whale watching in San Ignacio. All the brochures showed people touching the whale. I wanted to do that but I never got the chance. It became one of the running jokes -- but this was my redemption!

The next day was definitely one of the highlights with us hitting the finals of World Cup with Netherlands v. Spain in Soccer City. The gang really got into the spirit with a lot of us going for costumes supporting our favorite squad.

It was a pretty evenly split group with very random reasons for cheering on one country over another. For me, I love Amsterdam so I had to go with Oranje. For other members, it was equally as capricious with Susan Hill deciding the Spanish men were hotter than the Dutch – hence her support for Espana. Tony Ricciardi really stepped up the game when he bought some wonderful bikini brief underwear with South Africa emblazoned on the backside. I think it made us look like super heroes (or just goofballs):

We did have a ton of people wanting to get pictures with us at the stadium and that’s a pretty good showing considering some of the other awesome costumes we saw. Everything from neon orange tuxes to big, furry orange overcoats. I have no idea where these Holland fans find this stuff – but man, were they into it.

I had followed the World Cup at home watching most of the games and some of the biggest news was the annoying vuvuzelas. On TV it sounds like an angry swarm of bees incessantly buzzing. But in person it wasn’t too bad. I had some ear plugs all ready but didn’t need them. In fact, there is some good rhythm to people playing them and it made the atmosphere that much more unique.

I tried to make sure I soaked in every second inside Soccer City. It was so cool to have gone from watching and following the World Cup online to actually being there in person for the finals. Plus, I’m excited that this adventure also got 2 more items checked off my Ultimate Big Life List.

I think this picture about says it all for the flight back to Cape Town. I think we arrived at like 5:30 in the morning…and after being up nearly 24 hours everybody was all tuckered out! Ahhh!!!

I have to mention the airline we flew on – Kulula. I’d never heard of them before but they’ve got some fabulous marketing. Some serious personality and fun built into their business. So here’s a marketing lesson…

Cheeky Ambush Marketing

Kulula Airlines is one of the low-cost airlines in South Africa and they definitely don’t take themselves too seriously. They had everyone laughing during the pre-flight safety briefing, talking about how there are special seats with more leg-room off the wing if they dismantle or tamper with the smoke detectors in the lav, etc. Really good stuff. I remember when SouthWest Airlines was getting accolades for their witty service – but these guys take the cake.

Here’s a video of what an announcement is like on this flight:

What’s more, the airline uses their actual planes to get people talking. I immediately noticed this airplane out on the runway and had to photograph it. It’s their “flying 101” scheme with arrows and witty copy pointed to different parts of the plane. Here are just a few of the call-outs:

• black box (which is actually orange)
• landing gear (comes standard with supa-fly mags)
• tail (featuring an awesome logo)
• loo (or mile-high club initiation chamber)
• co-captain (the other pilot on the PA system

This is a perfect example of Astonishment Architecture™ put into place before you have an interaction with the customer. This was such a unique design that literally hundreds of thousands of people (or millions, according to other web sites) had seen the plane. It got the conversation going and propelled it – which is exactly what you can do by doing things a little differently.

Another big marketing bonanza for them was entering the conversation already going on inside the heads of everyone around South Africa during World Cup time. Here’s their full-page ad with the event-that-must-not-be-named:

This was, I’m sure, a calculated marketing push by the airline which they thought may draw the ire of FIFA for trying to ambush or sidestep one of their official sponsors or profit from the World Cup on the sly. And that’s exactly what happened with threatened legal action – which only poured more gasoline on the fire for even more publicity. Kulula then took it a step further and publicly “apologized”. And in their peace offering they said they’d fly Sepp Blatter, the FIFA president all around the country for free.

The next wrinkle was Kulula “found” a boston terrier named “Sepp Blatter” and has consequently flown him around the country.

Then their next strike was a follow-up ad to make sure there was no possible inference to the World Cup but it definitely was in their cheeky sort of way. At the top of the page you’ve got something that might look like a vuvuzela, but the call-out says: “definitely, definitely a golf tee.” Then there’s the man who appears to be playing soccer, but thank goodness -- we are assured he’s actually doing the hokey pokey and “putting his right foot in, his right foot out”. I love it!

Kulula Airlines also knows the power of strong customer service stories to spread their message. If you saw Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com, keynote our Underground® seminar you might have heard him reference the funeral story. The short version is a woman ordered a pair of boots from Zappos for her husband. Tragically her husband died the same day the boots arrived and she called Zappos to return them. The Zappos customer service rep took it upon themselves to send flowers to the funeral and this became a major story in support of their company values of customer service.

Here’s Kulula’s version during the World Cup. They had a Japanese passenger who had somehow ended up with his ticket couriered to the wrong city. Kulula went above and beyond to make sure the ticket arrived in time for him to attend the match and enjoy the World Cup. Bravo! The full story is on their Facebook fan page.

[Note: If you want to see more marketing ideas that incorporate fun, personality and get people talking...you can get a monthly does inside our Maverick Business Insider newsletter!]

I always believed the Olympics would be an amazing experience and it didn’t disappoint. It’s with great pleasure I can check off another item from my Ultimate Life List. When I originally started my list I knew it would lead to a lot of cool experiences and the Olympics are way up there.

(Side note: I’m so committed to making sure you create your own Ultimate Life List that I have a cool gift coming for you soon.)

My trip out to Vancouver was a quick one, but I ended up cramming a lot into the trip thanks to my friends who live in the area. The first night I hooked up with my buddy and fellow Maverick member Aymen Boughanmi, plus Randy Charach and his wife, Shanna, for dinner. You could immediately sense a great energy in the town. Walking to dinner Shanna was sporting the must-have item from the Olympics – the red Canadian mittens.

It was the only thing Missy wanted me to bring back – but they were pretty impossible to find. Half my damn trip was being on the lookout for those elusive mittens.

The next morning I left Vancouver for a quick 1-day/night jaunt over to Whistler. Originally I was just going to stay in the city and watch curling that day. (Yeah I know -  curling. I figured there had to be more to it than what I could see on TV). But I got a better offer. Francis Wolffe,, one of the foreign licensees  we had on the Underground Licensing Profits MasterClass series, was actually living in Whistler for a few months and volunteered to pick me up and bring me back. Awesome!

So we left at 7am so we could get a few runs in on the mountain. Francis and I actually got to watch the men’s Super G from the slopes with Bode Miller picking up a solid Silver for the U.S.

After the event we hit the slopes and I did my best impression of Bode. I was excited when we finally took a break for some burgers and beer because I hadn’t skied the whole year and my thighs were burning. Not the same case with Francis – he used to ski 150x/year and was probably a bit bored with our runs.

Later on inside the village I found us a scarf/mitten combo that looked like bear paws. I told Francis I’d buy him a pair so I wouldn’t be the only idiot from the States wearing it.  Here’s a shot with my paws at the Whistler Sliding Center while watching skeleton.

Now, as silly as the paws are they had a lot of people asking where they could get them -- and they were warm. I loved them.

Watching skeleton was pretty wild because they let the crowd get within a few feet of the course and you can really see how fast these athletes go. Skeleton is a little like luge, but headfirst and nothing between you and the ice at 80mph except a flimsy cafeteria tray. The real sport is trying to catch the guys on camera since they whiz by in a blink of an eye and you have to anticipate when your digital camera is going to snap a shot. Here’s the best one I got after a lot of trial and error:

It looks awesome!! I actually want to try it and so far I found a 3-day school in Alberta that actually teaches you how to do this and get your skeleton license.  (Anyone want in?)

I have this crazy idea I could somehow get into the Sochi 2014 winter games back in my mother land. We’ll see.

Anyway, back at the Whistler Sliding Center there was quite a competition heating up with Canada’s Jon Montgomery holding onto first place by just a fraction of a second. Amazing, considering they do 4 runs. The place went absolutely nuts with their native son picking up an unexpected gold on home soil.

Here’s his winning run I filmed until the IOC takes it down

Later that night the athletes all came down to the CTV pavilion for interviews and I watched Jon get handed a pitcher of beer from a fan – and he immediately started chugging it! So frickin’ awesome! I loved it! Here’s a video I found of this:

We went outside to see the crowd watch Jon get interviewed by the Canadian television program and at the end they burst out in a spontaneous O’Canada. It was really cool and I even joined in:

Later that night I got the inside skinny on the elusive mittens. They were outside of Vancouver at a store called ‘Zellers’. Francis and his girlfriend where nice enough to go out of their way to make sure Missy and now all her friends got mittens. It truly was the ‘mecca of mittens’. YES!

Back in Vancouver on Saturday was the beginning of my all-hockey-all-the-time event schedule, starting with a little warm up game with Slovakia and Lativa. I didn’t really care too much about either team; however my friend and business coach Cameron Herold was only going to be in town for that one day so that was the game we picked. It was a somewhat uneventful game with Slovakia dominated the much-smaller Lativians.

After the game Cameron and I met up with 2 more guys with roots in Vancouver -- Adam & Mathew Toren from YoungEntrepreneur.com -- who also have a glossy Vancouver city mag. A great dinner at GoldFish and then we hit a few of the clubs, meeting a few more guys including Aymen & Randy again. The whole city was pretty hopping with hordes of people enjoying the celebratory spirit of the games.  Quite frankly, there might have been wilder spontaneous parties in the spirits then inside the clubs.  I finally had to say enough is enough around 3 AM to get ready for “Super Sunday” as they called in Canada.

Super Sunday was 3 huge hockey games that mirrored the last 3 Olympic gold medal games. We had Russia v. Czech at noon, U.S. v. Canada at 4:40 and Sweden v. Finland at 9 pm.

I met another friend of mine, Craig Brockie, to start the day’s festivities with Russia v. Czech. I was really excited for this game, with Alexander Ovechkin and Alexander Semin from the Caps playing for Russia along with their other line-up of superstars.

Your outfit for a big game is critical. I had my #8 Russian jersey, Capitals hat and my new favorite accessory, the blue paws. Then planning ahead I had a Team USA shirt under the Russian jersey and Swedish shirt ready afterwards.  The great thing was my paws actually fit the color schemes for all 3 teams!

I was surprised how many Washington Captials Ovechkin jerseys were floating around the arena. On the way in there was one gal who mirrored my outfit, and she was from Washington DC too so we had to get a quick pic.

Since I was born in Moscow -- and because of Ovechkin and Semin – I was definitely rooting on Russia. I don’t know what the hardcore real Russian fans made of me. I was chanting in Russian with my American accent.

It’s cool seeing how the fans get really worked up for International play. You had Czech fans with their faces painted and then you had Russians who brought the biggest damn flags I’d ever seen. This really doesn’t do it justice.

My buddy Craig wasn’t really cheering for either squad so he just wanted a good game and kept elbowing me every time the Czechs scored with the hope of going into overtime. No thank you. With the Russians losing to Slovakia in a shoot-out the other night they needed this game to move on to the quarterfinals. It would have been a huge upset for them to exit the tournament this early. Russia actually looked like they came out to play this time. The big point in the game was Ovechkin laying out Jagr in an open ice check at center ice. It was ridiculous! Here’s an animated gif for your watching pleasure:

Russia took home the ‘W’ with a 4-2 win. Then a quick change to put my Russian jersey around my waist and voila -- instant USA fan.

It was time for the biggest, most anticipated game, USA vs. Canada. It was by far the hardest ticket for me to snap up. I picked one up the day before from a guy on Craigslist. (Gotta love Craigslist – that’s how I found my apartment in Vancouver to stay in, too!)

Good news is I was in – bad news I was the only American supporter around me.

The entire stadium was a sea of red with a few smatterings for USA supporters. Serious enemy turf. The crowd was so pumped until it was stunned into silence with about 40 seconds in with the first USA goal. I almost felt bad for the home fans during the game. Even Missy was texting me during the game hoping for Canada goals.

One of our Maverick members from Buffalo, Dave Lally, is friends with the assistant coach from Team Canada, Lindy Ruff. (Actually, the coach came to the Maverick Iceland trip with us in August.) So Dave is traveling with Lindy and his wife and I meet him after the first period and he’s got a Canada jersey and hat on. Traitor!

Dave said he half stood up on the first goal and started looking to give high-fives, until he remembered how he was dressed. My blue paws were perfect for high-fives with the random US fans I saw in-between periods. I thought the Canadians would be really mean and nasty after the loss but not really. Even “Captain Canada” and “Boy Canuck” posed for pics after their loss to the U.S.

I think the Canadians probably took the cake for costumes and solidarity but the Swedes were a pretty passionate bunch too.

I gave my support to the Nordic boys in yellow and blue since Backstrom plays for the Caps. Ready for change #3 I put on my team Sweden tshirt.

In between games I hung out in a “holding area” and talked to a few Swedes. It was really incredible to hear their knowledge of the sport and to know which of their countries athletes plays for which team. They knew right away about Backstrom at the Caps, and they even remembered Calle Johanson and Bengt Gustavason.  Bengt goes way back – some serious history.

And I got the low-down on the chant I had to know in order to root for “my” team. I only got the first part of it, but it was enough to ingratiate me to my new buddies. “Heya Sveda…!”

I ended up 3-0 on the night with every team I supported winning. Maybe there’s something to this. In fact, I’ll make myself available for rent for the Gold Medal game on February 28 if you’re a serious fan and want to assure victory for your team…and I’ll bring the blue paws out too.

In just a few nights I got some really incredible highlights -- and another unique experience that’s priceless. The only thing I wished I had done different was bring the kids out but I think they were a bit too small. Maybe for Sochi in 2014. It would be a real treat to take them and my dad.

Okay, at the beginning of this post I mentioned that seeing the Olympics has been on my ‘list’ for quite awhile. And I decided to put together a resource to help you create and get more items checked off your own Ultimate Big Life List. I’ll be posting a pretty cool ebook for you shortly!

I’ve always been a fan of creating lists -- and I’m not the only one. I’ll be interviewing Ted Leonsis (former AOL exec & owner of the Capitals) shortly. He’s come out with a new book called “The Business of Happiness”, and one of the major sections is all about creating your own list…so this very good timing. Sign up here to hear it – http://www.MaverickBusinessInsider.com/happy/

And finally if you haven’t had enough here’s a montage video I put together with my trip:

Happy New Year! And welcome to part 4 in this continuing series…

I’m a big believer in having a lot of fun in how you work and how you play.

Maverick Rule #31 says “Make your business AND doing business with you FUN!”

As a self-described “adventure junkie”, I’ve found that my own life-changing experiences (such as Running with the Bulls, Bungee Jumping, Sky diving, Exotic Car Rallies, Baja racing, Zero-Gravity flights, etc.) have not only brought a profound sense of accomplishment but also led to breakthroughs in ideas, focus and business thinking.  Trust me, you don’t have to get as extreme as I do sometimes – but you do need to break out of your typical routine. Fresh thinking and big ideas come from new experiences away from the office! Plus, as you open yourself up to new adventures or experiences it opens up different ways of thinking about issues in your business (and life).

Let’s start…

By and large, most people’s businesses are B-O-R-I-N-G! I’m talking Zzzzzzzzz city! Even the good sales letter sites do not use this technique to breathe life into their site beyond the typical benefit-driven headline, subheads, etc.

I’m talking about giving your site (and yourself) a unique personality in the marketplace. First, let’s talk about giving a site a personality. Here’s one of my favorite examples – www.Demotivation.com and www.Despair.com

The personality of being sarcastic, entertaining and against the grain comes out just about everywhere on the site. Here are a few examples, starting with Demotivation.com.

From the FAQs about their book “The Art of Demotivation”:

1. Is this book for real?
As sure as the ISBN is 1-892503-40-9, this book is for real. If you don’t believe us, order a copy and watch as our real financial department really charges your real credit card for thirty real dollars.

2. What is the overall message of The Art of Demotivation?
Here’s a message for you: Buy the book! You’re too old for Cliffs Notes, dude.

12. Will there be a paperback version of The Art of Demotivation?
A paperback version? Would you sell a 1997 Louis Roederer Cristal champagne in a Juicy Juice box? We’re about quality. If you want a paperback, go read the newest John Grisham book. I think it might have something to do with lawyers.

26. Is it possible to get Dr. Kersten’s autograph on my copy of the book?
Dr. Kersten autographs each and every Chairman Edition of The Art of Demotivation with a personal message. He can’t be bothered with Manager or Executive Editions. Money talks, yo.

This book comes in 3 editions – up to the $1,195.00 Executive version. Check out some of the copy from that page –

Now on Despair.com they sell some of my favorite prints which are the opposite of ‘Successories’. I bought some of my friends this year for the holidays. They are hilarious! This is the one I bought my buddy Bill Glazer:

Look at the navigation bar on the site – even the way the buttons are labeled gives you more of the site’s personality. There’s a button for “Spin”, in which people can view and sign up for audio & video podcasts. And then instead of “customer service” or support there is “disservice”.

Check out the “Contact” us link

Contact Us

As should be quite apparent, Despair takes great efforts to avoid contact with virtually everyone. However, we recognize that, from time to time, it becomes necessary for someone to reach us. (e.g. notifying Dr. Kersten of various nominations, particularly those with cash components)

(PLEASE NOTE: All order and product-related inquiries should be sent via our Troubled Ticket form.)

And when you click to contact them – they have a picture of their own poster about “Apathy: If we don’t take care of the customer, maybe they’ll stop bugging us”.

Now a true personality for your website has to be carried through in all the little communications with customers and prospects. To see how far they take their personality – here’s the response after you fill out a “troubled ticket”:

They really have this personality plugged into every nook and cranny of their website – I love it!

Now you might be thinking that you’ll repel some customers and people will get a little pissed off after this type of treatment. The answer is absolutely yes! And that’s a good thing because you don’t want to be plain vanilla if you are in heavily competitive marketplaces. Go ahead and polarize your prospects/customers to either love you or hate you. There’s no money to be made in the middle. Look at Howard Stern. There are people who absolutely love him and now pay Sirius radio a monthly subscription just to listen to their “god”. But on the other hand there are lot of people too who will tune in just to see what Howard says so they can hate him more.

Let me show you a few more examples of a site personality…

Here’s one: www.CordaRounds.com. It’s a site that sells horizontal corduroy pants (and shorts) instead of vertical. It sounds kind of stupid but this company has got a lot of mileage out it and their customers are really into it. The founder of CordaRounds, Christopher Lindlands, does a great job of bringing in the quirky, wacky and fun side of their product on the site. Take a look at their “motto”, in which they call themselves, very firmly tongue-in-check, an Evil Multinational Corporation:

What started out as a joke has become a real business. In 2005 they sold 3,000 pairs of courdarounds. The fun, quirky and wacky style comes across just about everywhere on the site. In fact, here’s the “technology” behind these remarkable breakthrough pants:

And once you get into the actual store – the same personality is evident. Check out this product photo:

Here’s another site to check out – www.CDBaby.com – that doesn’t quite go as far but it tells you in no uncertain terms you’re not dealing with a conglomerate. Check out the personality that comes through in their emails about when your CD ships:

Thanks for your order with CD Baby!

Your CD has been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with

sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.

A team of 50 employees inspected your CD and polished it to make sure
it was in the best possible condition before mailing.

Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over
the crowd as he put your CD into the finest gold-lined box that money
can buy.

We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party
marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of
Portland waved ‘Bon Voyage!’ to your package, on its way to you, in
our private CD Baby jet on this day, Wednesday, August 7th.

I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby.  We sure did.
Your picture is on our wall as ‘Customer of the Year’.  We’re all
exhausted but can’t wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!

Thank you once again,

Derek Sivers, president, CD Baby
the little CD store with the best new independent music
phone: 1-800-448-6369  email: cdbaby@cdbaby.com
http://www.cdbaby.com

* * *

Themed Marketing for Mavericks

One of the biggest issues most businesses have is not being BORING!

You want your customers and prospects to be thinking “Wow! What’s this crazy guy (or gal) going to do next?”

It’s no secret that the majority of your customers/prospects live somewhat typical lives. So it’s not enough anymore just to present an offer filled with benefits but it’s also got to entertain them and keep it exciting.

I’m going to let you step behind some of my best-selling campaigns that involved “themes”. Now don’t think you need to create some sort of corny, fake image that’s not really you – you don’t. You want to keep it fun and keep the sales message in the forefront of your prospect’s mind.

Let’s start with my very first one – that was “Yanik’s 30^th Birthday Bash!”

I decided I was going to hold a super blowout party for my 30^th birthday and invite all my best customers/prospects to it.

Over 531 people came to my little birthday party (see the pic above) and it was the biggest Internet Marketing-only seminar at that time.

I brainstormed what a birthday party has and then planned my promotion – and the actual event – around it. People everywhere love to have fun! Entertainment is something people spend their last nickel on because everyone wants to have fun.

So here’s what I did…

First, starting with the promotion. Here’s the first page of the sales letter – notice me in the goofy birthday hat:

A few guys on my hockey team saw this picture and gave me a hell of a time at the next game we had. But the picture really fits perfectly. You may or may not want to be this “goofy”, but don’t throw away the idea of “Birthday Bash” in your honor as a perfect sales event. I know 2 other info marketers who took this concept, and one ended up doing multiple 6-figures from this event. (His was a 40^th Bday Bash!)

I also tied my event into a charity – Make-A-Wish Foundation®. I worked with the Central FL chapter (instead of trying to contact National headquarters) and they were extremely accommodating . Here’s the paragraph describing the charity requirement and a second optional (FUN) gag gift contest:

* *

There is one simple requirement for getting into the Birthday Bash:

1. There is a $50.00 charitable donation required to attend. The whole $50 will go to Make-a-Wish® of Central and Northern Florida. Your donation will help grant the wishes of children with life-threatening medical conditions. I’ve personally donated thousands and thousands of dollars to the Make-a-Wish Foundation ® and I’m hoping that we’ll able to grant at least 2 or 3 wishes with the amount we raise. The $50.00 donation is paid now and is non-refundable to hold your spot — but there is no fee for the event.

The event is going on at Disney’s Coronado Spring Resorts. We have negotiated a special rate of only $131/night with the hotel for seminar attendees (During prime vacation time this is a real steal). Information for registering will be given to you (only) when you have confirmed seminar registration. Let me assure you, Disney’s Coronado Spring Resorts is a great resort that you’ll really enjoy! It’s close to all the Disney parks and other attractions.

And then there’s also a second OPTIONAL admission requirement that gets you entered into a fabulous contest!
2. (OPTIONAL) A gag gift for me. Show up with some sort of silly or funny gag gift for me and you’ll be entered into a contest for the “best gag gift”. The winner will be decided by an attendee vote. You might want to give this gift a bit of thought because the winner will receive either a half-day consultation with me (that’s s $2,000.00 value) or $500.00 in cash. And the runner-up will get their choice of one of our best-selling products or $200.00 in cash.

* *

It was pretty cool that we were able to raise $25,000.00 for Make-A-Wish® and really make a difference in a lot of kid’s lives.

As far as the gag gift contest – that got pretty out of control during the event. I loved it! We got piles and piles of gifts. Some were definitely a bit off kilter. One guy from the UK thought it was a “stag” party and handed me a ream of porn magazines. Another guy brought over some endangered animal pelt that he smuggled into the country. Someone else gave me a family heirloom passed down through generations.

I mean, you name it – I got it. Fart machines, dancing birthday bears, a giant sack of fake money (I liked that one), a picture of me with Al Gore saying I invented the Internet, a blank book “written” by me called “Everything I know about the Internet”, etc, etc. We even had a beagle come out and bark “Happy Birthday” to me.

I bring all this up because it’s all part of the birthday party theme. If you are going to do a theme go for it all the way! We had confetti on the tables, balloons all over the seminar room, banners, etc. We even brought out cake (yes, very thin slices) for everyone, and Mickey Mouse even came out to lead the crowd in singing happy birthday.

All these little touches made it a lot of fun for everyone attending, even if each speaker was selling something. The whole attitude of most of the people there was that they’d never had such a great time and learned so much.

Underground Theme

Okay let me showcase another theme you should be well versed in…my very own Underground Online Seminar®.

I’ve already shared the thinking behind the Underground and how it was meant to be a complete 180 degree shift from any other Internet event, since every speaker is a “real-world” doer and not someone who sells “How to Get Rich Online” as their main business. So at a brainstorming meeting with my own MasterMind group the theme become a SPY theme.

I really try to play up the theme in every communication and “touch” a prospect has from me relating to the Underground. It’s evolved a bit since the very first event and I’ll share with you some interesting examples along to way to show…

Here’s one of the first direct mail pieces that went out:

Instead of having speakers or presenters, we had “Rogue Agents” with their front and spy-profiles like they were “wanted”. I gave each speaker a distinct agent name. Here are a couple of the first graphics:

I truly tried to tie in everything into a full spy experience. The event was (and still is) held in Washington, DC because that’s the spy capital of the world. And once attendees got to the event they were immersed in the world of the Underground.

We had 2 checkpoints set-up to sign their NDA (called the “Cone of Silence” which nobody picked up on from Get Smart) and then they were handed their spy briefcase.

Now inside the briefcase was the attendee manual, a T-shirt (“Official Underground Agent”) and official Underground sunglasses.

The theming continued throughout the event with the VIP dinner being held at the Spy Museum in Washington, DC. We had a private dinner there and really played it up. To enter there were 2 Russian border patrol guards checking for passwords. And then Boris and Natasha showed up for a little entertainment. And finally, the whole group went on a private tour of the Spy Museum.

For the next year’s Underground® II – I went even further…

This time I used a specific spy theme – “Austin Powers” – instead of a combination of all spy themes. I wanted to keep it different enough that people who attended #1 would still be surprised and excited with #2. Underground® II sold-out even faster than the first one – and we added 100 more seats.

And going with the movie theme, here’s a little preview movie poster I had created before we announced the event:

I really got into ‘character’ for this one. Actually it wasn’t hard, because I love Austin Powers and that was one of my favorite Halloween costumes ever. And we decided to up the ante a lot and bring in professional entertainment for the VIP dinner. I hired an Improv troupe from Canada who were all “Second City” alum. They were awesome! We called it a ‘mystery spy whodunit dinner’ and everyone was roaring in their seats….especially when I was killed off. Somebody started yelling “Search the dead guy for drink tickets!”

I decided to go full tilt and hire a celebrity tied to the theme, so I booked “Mini Me” – AKA Verne Troyer – from the Austin Powers movies. Surprisingly it’s not as much as you’d think to book a celebrity (depending on their status) and it can really add a lot to your events. Here’s a picture of me, Verne and our “Roller Girls” (see, I told you I went all the way with the theme).

Having a celebrity there not only gives you excitement but provides additional reasons to contact your customers.

The next year for Underground® III I kept up the theme but this time it was a “Mission Profitable” theme and I brought in Peter Graves from the original TV series. And when I did the Underground® UK we had a James Bond theme with the prize being an Aston Martin race day experience. This year we’re doing “Get Smarter” so I’m sure there will be something with a shoe phone!

Using Holidays & Events

You don’t need to rack your brain for a theme or something to add fun into your business. Just use a calendar of holidays and events to find your perfect excuse.

A few Halloweens ago I released my “Ultimate At-Home Internet Copywriting Course”.

I planned the launch during Halloween and wanted to create a bit of a stir in the Internet marketing community to try to get some people talking about what I was doing. So my idea was to become “Count Yanik”. You see, the previous Halloween I dressed up as “The Count” from Sesame Street. Missy said I was the most annoying guest at the party because I went around counting everything…

“One, Two, Three beer bottles…..Ahhhhh…..Ahhhh!!!…..”

“One, Two, Three, Four, Five hot dogs…..Ahhhhh…..Ahhhh!!!…..”

Okay, so maybe I was annoying – but I had fun.

Regardless, I had one good photo of me in my purple make-up, monocular and black cape. That became a key part of my campaign. I sent our subscribers to this page with a message from the “Count” – http://www.UltimateCopywritingWorkshop.com/count/

It’s a flash animation file I had created where you see a purple bat fly into the screen and turn into a talking “Count Yanik”. Then I turn back into a bat and fly out of the screen. I paid $150 to have this created at www.Rentacoder.com – super cheap.

Then on the landing page there’s even more Halloween theme. I really got into it with the “bloody” text. Actually Missy told me I had to tone it down so people could read it better. I settled on just the headline in dripping blood.

And there were a couple sections of the letter where I mixed in more fun elements of Halloween:

Bonuses:

Guarantee:

I added a follow-up audio postcard – http://ultimatecopywritingworkshop.com/trickortreat/ (this was my Halloween costume pic from 2 years ago):

* * *

Okay now how about results?

This sold over six-figures of my copywriting course in the first week on the market. Actually more specifically 114 packages for a total of $145,350.00. So this stuff works!

Now there are a couple big points I really want to make sure you get before I go on with a other examples:

#1 – Make your marketing fun and have people wonder, “What is this guy/gal up to next?”

Fact is, most of your prospects and customers probably lead fairly normal and mundane lives. If you can give them something to get excited about or even live a little bit through what you do – you’ll have ‘hooked’ them in.

#2 – This is critical! Don’t make your theme or “fun” idea take away from the sales message. Big advertisers do this all the time and waste all their money. They try to use humor or something clever in their advertising but have no salesmanship. The fun or theme aspect of your promotion cannot stand on its own without the fundamentals of direct response (i.e. compelling offer, deadline, headlines, benefits, etc). Bottom line – don’t confuse this with being cute or clever and not actually selling. There is a big, BIG difference.

#3 – “Reason Why” copy works perfectly for most of the events or themes you create. As you know, most retailers will use some sort of event (i.e. Presidents Day) for a sale. Well that’s a pretty weak reason why, but most people will accept just about any excuse for a special deal. However, when you combine it with real meaningful reason why copy it works even better, even if the reason is a bit contrived. For example, I did a “Save Yanik’s Marriage” sale when I needed to clean out our stockroom because Missy was pissed off at me.

Using this psychological ‘hot button’ can massively increase your Marketing success.

Max Sackheim, famous for the long-running ad “Do You Make These Mistakes In English” and originator of the book-of-the-month concept, says this: “Whenever you make a claim or special offer in your advertising, come up with an honest reason why, and then state it sincerely. You’ll sell many more products this way.”

Adding More Fun to a Regular Business

I’m always interested in what companies do to add more fun to their business. Certainly booking a hotel room usually isn’t the most exciting thing in the world (well – I guess it can be if you’re going to a cool resort), but otherwise a room is pretty much a room. I’m a big fan of the “W” hotels.

Here’s a promo I got from them promoting a “Sleep-a-Way Camp” theme. Smart.

Notice the copy – it ties into this theme, from the s’mores to bug juice. Good stuff and a little inspiration for you to think up something fun for your customers. Personally, I think simply delivering a straight product/service will only get you so far. The companies that will excel are the ones that deliver true experiences and entertainment for their customers. People are bored. People are busy. People are jaded. You need something to break through all of that.

Creating More Fun Away From Business

Okay, now let’s switch gears and talk about your personal life. I know for many entrepreneurs (including me) the default mode is work. There are always too many projects and too many to-do’s left undone. That’s why I firmly believe you need to have something else scheduled and on the calendar.

Think back to when you were a kid and what activities or interests got you really jazzed and excited. Somehow as ‘adults’ many of us have lost that sense of fun and inspiration. What did you like to do? For me, it was playing sports, drawing and making people laugh. That’s why I still play ice hockey and beach volleyball. It’s why I’ve taken art classes and stand-up comedy classes. I make sure to incorporate what gives me enjoyment into my life by actually making it a priority.

How many times have you heard yourself saying, “I’d love to ___ BUT I can’t because I’m too busy.” That’s total bullshit. What you’re really saying is that activity does not have enough priority in my life. Or I feel guilt around having fun.

Don’t just settle for enjoying life when you squeeze it in between your business. Here’s a great quote from Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz, New-York Times Best-Seller “The Power of Full Engagement“:

“…the richer and deeper the source of emotional recovery, the more we refill our reserves and the more resilient we become.”

Put fun activities, rewarding experiences and exceptional adventures on your calendar and protect them like you would any ‘real’ appointment.

I’ve previously written a lot about this, so instead of just copying and pasting I want to link over to the posts. It’s well worth reading them!

Creating your Ultimate BIG Life List

I’ve always been a fan of lists and I know many other successful people share this notion. What better list can you create than a list for your most memorable and exciting life? I call this my “Ultimate BIG Life List”. (Btw – you see many of mine on this blog on the right-hand side.)

Shutting down the 3-most common excuses for not checking off items on your ‘Ultimate BIG Life List’

At this point a little voice inside your head might be whispering (or shouting) about all the reasons you can’t do this kind of fun stuff in your business or in your life. It’s these excuses that will sap the spirit and energy out of your life. As entrepreneurs, we’re naturally inclined to create so let’s smash these final excuses to create what you really want in your life & business.

Creating your own Fun…Or how to stop “I’m Bored Syndrome”

You don’t have to wait for the EPIC over-the-top experiences to add more fun into your life; I’ve done something I call “tweaking the fun” with regular, everyday activities. See what you think.

I think we’re wrapping up with the next part – part 5 talking about ‘Giving More’. See you on the next installment.

** Update**

You can now download this series of blog posts (and the other posts they refer to) here. http://www.surefiremarketing.com/decade/

A few weeks ago we held our ‘Totally Rad 80’s Maverick Road Rally’ heading from LA to Napa. Starting with getting pink hair, the Mavericks really got into the spirit of the 80’s and helped to support Breast Cancer Awareness month. Here’s the photo that made the “Picture of the Day” in the LA Times blog:

Actually our little entourage made the front page of TechCrunch.com after the event. Click here for the full story.

The first evening Paul Mitchell students styled up our hair with all sorts of pink Mohawks, tails, ‘Fu-Manchu’s’, coiffed mullets and more! Plus, we had the Variety Boys and Girls club kids there who got into too. Here are the kids and members with the totally must-have 80’s accessory – a DeLorean:

(Random gross fact here: I was rocking the Don Johnson/Miami Vice look the first day and I bought my white shoes on eBay. If you look closely I’ve got no socks on!)

Our special business icon guest was billionaire John Paul DeJoria, who holds the rank of #261 on Forbes list of World’s Richest with an estimated $2.5B net worth. He told his story of how went from homeless to billionaire. Looking at this candid pic you’d think I was the homeless one – but this was the ‘flock of seagulls’ look for day 2.

I took quite a few notes during John Paul’s presentation. And one of the things I wrote down that really stood out for me was when he talked about how having no money makes you creative. I firmly believe that.  J.P. talked about he had a pending deadline to pay his printer for the shampoo bottles they just screened – so he went knocking on doors. He made 12 orders giving the salon owners better-than-risk-free offers. Then he drove to a big distributor, showed them the 12 checks and said, “Here are your first 12 orders.” Proof, right?

Then, he asked the distributor if he could get paid upfront for the product if he gave a 5% discount. They agreed. Then 5 minutes later he pulled around the back of the building, made the delivery and asked for the check. It was brilliant!

But that kind of creativity wouldn’t work unless you’ve got the absolute best product.  J.P. continually harped on this, from the shampoo business to Patron tequila. He has a quote, “You want to be in the reorder business”. Think about it. It’s possible to make the initial sale but it’s the reorder that will make you rich.

And guess what….even after J.P. was a billionaire and started the Patron tequila company with a friend, he still started small. He didn’t invest millions into the project – they bought 1,000 cases to test it out. And he still totally believes in making his product the absolute best. He told us how he spends significantly more to buy the very best agave plants that go into his tequila. And he was always thinking just a bit different. To get distribution he couldn’t use a regular liquor distributor because they wouldn’t talk to him and the notion of competing against Cuervo was ridiculous. So he decided to go to beer and wine distributors since they call on the exact same customers. Smart.

John Paul was such an inspirational guest and he told everyone he changed his schedule just to be with us – that was really humbling. After saying our goodbyes it was time to hit the open road. All the Mavericks drew partners and cars. The range of cars were classics like ’67 Vettes to Aston Martin and Lambo convertibles all decked out in Rubik’s Cube stickers and 80’s fun.

Part of the Road Rally involved shooting “video missions” for points. There were some pretty funny 80’s related missions. Everything from “Preach the gospel as an 80’s character” to “High-five a biker at a stop sign”. Lots and lots of silly video was collected (as you might imagine from these pics).

The guys driving the Lamborghini had obligatory custom headwear. Here’s Mike Koenigs, founder of Traffic Geyser, at the helm and Mike Hill, CPA Tsunami, co-piloting.

A pretty cool highlight of day two was riding in one of only 3 Zeppelins in the world. I kept badgering the pilot to let me sit in the co-pilot seat and I finally got my wish (though we were on the ground).

From the Zeppelin tour we headed to downtown San Francisco to meet up with Chip Conley, the CEO of Joie De Vivre, a boutique hotel group in CA. Chip is a really incredible guy and author of one of my favorite recent business books, “PEAK”. I strongly suggest you get it to see how you can incorporate Maslow’s hierarchy of needs into your business ventures. And if you have a chance in CA – stay in one of his properties. Hotel Vitale in SF is where we stayed and the Ventanna Inn is his as well.

Then after dinner the 80’s party really started. Full-on 80’s regalia came out for our night out! My buddies Jonathan Mizel and Tim Ferriss met us out to enjoy the evening. Here’s a tiny glimpse at the 80’s madness:

Giving Back to Young Entrepreneurs

The next morning we spent time with a group of aspiring young entrepreneurs from the Bay Area providing real-world advice and brainstorming their business ideas. All part of the Maverick mission to have 1,000,000 young entrepreneurs from ages 13-23 start their own businesses. Here’s Maverick Member Mike Hill and Mo Alkady brainstorming with kids on their ideas before they present in front of the group –

My favorite part about the session was showing up “regular” and then throwing out wristbands and 80’s glasses for the group to wear. I told them sometimes you have to get out of your comfort zone to be an entrepreneur!

And here’s the winner of our $500 in start-up funding – their idea was to do video tours of Bed & Breakfasts around the Bay Area as a ‘best practices’ association to other B&Bs. (Yes, I’m rockin the mullet wig and rainbow wristbands!)

And finally we headed to Napa from San Francisco and enjoyed an ultra-exclusive cave tasting dinner.

It was incredibly cool. Not only because of the wines they poured – the absolute best ‘cult’ wines in Napa from Screaming Eagle ($1700/bottle) to Colgin and Peter Michael – but because dinner was actually inside the cave. The acoustics in that place were completely nuts. It was hard to hear the person directly in front of you but you could plainly pick-up the conversation on the other end of a 22-person table. I don’t know if they were quite ready for us and knew what to expect but they rolled with it. Here’s Hal Oates from Porthos.com pouring a bit of Screaming Eagle down my gullet.

Now of course, hanging with one billionaire is never enough.

So about 2 weeks after the Road Rally I headed back to Los Angeles for a private brainstorming lunch with Virgin billionaire Sir Richard Branson. This was a small group of about a dozen entrepreneurs organized by my buddy, Joe Polish. There were 3 or 4  Maverick members part of this free-form discussion with Richard asking him questions. As I’ve mentioned before, Richard is one of my business heroes and I’ve been fortunate to spend time with him on Necker Island but I always walk away with a new distinction.

Building an Empire

This time somebody at the table asked him about his 300+ companies and how they inter-relate. He explained that at first he didn’t go in 100 different directions but that it started from a natural ‘evolution’. His record store created the notion of a record company and that gave way to merchandizing for the artists and then management. Followed by distribution and even operating the venues. He said you need a natural reason to expand the brand early on and to make sure when you leave you don’t leave the company damaged by your departure.

That made a lot of sense about naturally building and expanding instead of trying to start-up a couple dozen, unrelated products/services – no matter how much my ADD wants to.

You might get a kick out of this picture because if you look closely and zoom in I was caught doodling while listening to Branson. (Though in my defense I’ve read studies that you take in 28% more info when you doodle.)

Saving Pumpkins

After lunch I had a little bit of spare time so I set out to find something interesting to wear for the Rock the Kasbah black-tie charity gala going on that evening for Virgin Unite. I ended up in a pretty odd area of LA with 2 other Maverick members, Craig Handley and Tony Riccardi.

I knew I was on the right track when I saw a sign advertising “Tuxedos $129.99”. Awesome! I went in and asked for the oddest vests and tie sets they had and got a bright orange number. Perfect! We each bought one and I had to get one for my buddy, Joe Polish, to make sure he would be utterly embarrassed.

Here’s the two of us looking dapper:

I went around telling people I met that I was trying to raise awareness for pumpkins and every time you carve a jack-o-lantern you kill a pumpkin. I think some people even believed me until I told them it was a joke. The other story was my dad was a construction worker and that this was an homage to him.

We had an upfront and center VIP table to see performances by Estelle, Gavin Rossdale (from Bush) and Natasha Bedingfield.

Estelle singing American Boy

Gavin Rossdale, unplugged from 20 feet away

Natasha Bedingfield

Prettty cool. There were even a couple celebs in attendance, from Lindsay Lohan to Paula Abdul to Sharon Stone. But more exciting for me was seeing some of my business colleagues and meeting business icons like George Zimmer, Men’s Warehouse founder and CEO.

It was quite an event with all proceeds going to support Virgin Unite and Richard’s mother, Eve’s, initiatives teaching girls in Morocco. My buddy Dean Graziosi and online marketer, Russell Brunson, both generously opened their wallets to bid on naming one of the Virgin America Planes.

Halloween

I got home and Zak was ready, psyched and totally set for Halloween. Now that he’s 4 years old he definitely gets the concept of knocking on doors and getting candy. Not much creativity on his part for a costume though – he went with last year’s Thomas the Train outfit. But he still loves Thomas so I guess that’s fair. This time Zak was accompanied by his little 2-year old sister, Zoe, in her princess outfit.

Last year Zo-zo’s didn’t last very long in her giraffe outfit and crawled upstairs to go to bed – but this year she made a valiant effort of hitting about 6 houses before we carried her home. Zak loved trick-or-treating but I think he got the biggest kick when he came home and started giving out candy to all the kids coming to our door. And there were a bunch of them. Here’s a pic showing just how much candy I bought so I could be prepared. (Last year I had almost as much and I ran out.)

I swear they bus kids into our neighborhood or something. They come in packs like little jackals but Zak loved it. Here’s a quick 2-minute video I show of the little dude giving out candy. He would yell out the door, “Who wants trick or treat?” like that would get more kids to come to our door. You’ll get a kick out of this video:

I want to share with you a cool form I created for myself and have only shared with a few people. I think it’ll have a profound effect on your bottom line, your happiness and your esteem. Seriously! Each Sunday evening I have started using this form planning for the next upcoming week.

(Note: You are welcome to reproduce as many copies as you want but you cannot sell it and you must not modify it.)

maverick multiplier worksheet

You can download it here – maverick multiplier worksheet

Okay now you’ve got it let me go over the different parts of this form with you.

Part I: Weekly Awesomeness Awareness

It’s always easier for us to beat ourselves up and think what went wrong in our business and personal lives. This isn’t the spot for that. Take time to reflect on what went well! The power of gratitude has been proven to elevate our happiness and that’s what gets us into a positive state of mind.

Think about everything that went right this week. What are you making progress on? What’s actually working? Because it’s too easy to fall into a negative, self-defeating spiral when you find something wrong and then more and more things start sticking out about your life and business. Nobody has a perfect business or life – but by bringing positive focus to what’s going well you’re setting up a great week.

Part II: Make More, Have More Fun and Give More Back Section

If you’ve seen any of the Maverick Manifesto video – you know these intersecting 3 circles are the things that really drive me. I think it’s a balanced approach to entrepreneurship and unless we are planning and committing to creating this in our business lives it won’t happen.

I need to tip my hat to Cameron Herold who has been coaching me a bit. Cameron is the former COO of 1-800-Got Junk and helped build that to a $100M organization. One of the simple concepts he keeps stressing to me is creating a “Top 3″ list of most important must-accomplish tasks for the week. If nothing else, you must get these done. It’s a pretty simple concept but powerful. So I took that concept and instead of just being financial related let’s turn the focus on all 3 areas.

So take time before the week starts to think about your 3 most important, proactive moneymaking tasks and also about how you are going to create fun in your life and what you’re going to do to give.

Try this out and let me know what you think by leaving a comment.

Just got back from Iceland for our Ultimate Maverick Viking Experience – it was quite an adventure! The first funny recollection is thinking about how our group was bombing around in a fleet of shiny, brand new black Lincoln Navigators – I think we had like 6 of them in our “motorcade”.

Our drivers were weaving in and out of traffic and basically completely disregarding the speed limits. People watching must have thought there was some dignitary or actual VIPs in there. Nope – just us.

Okay where do I start? So many interesting ‘Maverick Moments’, from the moment we got up on day one to the final good byes – it was pretty non-stop…especially when you mix in a good helping of Reykjavik’s wild night life (which doesn’t even get going til 1 AM!)

Let me try and hit a few highlights –

The first day after our Icebreaker session and lunch we headed out to do some ATVing over incredible lava fields and through swift water.

I tried to get one of our guides to screw with member Chris Zavadowski and tell him that he owed several hundred dollars for damages incurred for bumping me and passing me – but Chris didn’t bite. Damn!

From there we headed to the one of the most famous spots in Iceland, the Blue Lagoon. The Blue Lagoon is this huge geothermal spa with supposed healing properties in the mud. At least a few our members, who will remain nameless, fell for this propaganda and this is how they ended up:

And making a big splash was our new VP of Operations, Andrew Way in his water wings in the lagoon.

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Side note: I guess this would be a good time to introduce Andrew. As you see he jumped right into the culture of Maverick Business Adventures. Andrew is actually leading operations and managing all our different businesses so please welcome him (and give him a hard time) when you meet him at an event or Maverick trip. Those of you in the online world might know him since he came from Eben Pagan’s company. I’m finally moving from a one-man band to developing a team. I’ll be sharing some of my thoughts around this evolution soon.

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The next day was the big tectonic plate SCUBA and Snorkel adventure at the Silfra Ravine. Located in the Thingvellir national park, this crack in the earth filled with crystal clear water is the dividing line between America and Europe. It’s a pretty extreme dive with strong currents and 3 degree water temperature – plus add to the fact there are around 300 small earthquakes in the national park.

For me this was like learning to swim by being tossed into the deep end because I’d just got certified a week before this trip (nothing like a deadline, huh?) like a few of the other guys too. Here’s our Maverick SEAL team of members Juan Luis Hernandez, Mike Cline and Mike Geary, ready to deploy into freezing waters:

And then you’ve got the B-team of snorkelers trying to look tough: (From left to right: Tim Schmidt, Andrew Way, Chris Zavadowski, Barry Dunlop, Ash Kumar and Kenneth Castiel)

Kidding (kinda).

I give the snorkelers a hard time because I barely passed my SCUBA open water cert without drowning myself or having a panic attack under the water – and these guys waltz in and enjoy the 300 feet of visibility – which made it almost as good as SCUBA in this instance. There’s a really funny skit if you can catch that Jerry Seinfeld does about SCUBA. Essentially he is swimming around saying, “Look there’s a fish, a rock…who cares…don’t die…don’t die…don’t die.”

Missy was laughing because I went through all this prep to get my certification and there wasn’t even a fish to look at – the water is too cold for aquatic life. But it was pretty damn cool to get in between the tectonic plates. There are some cool videos on YouTube if you type in ‘Silfra Ravine’. Here’s me (with my new Icelandic furry cap) rubbing Chris Zavadowski’s tummy for good luck before the dive:

After the dive we did a little caving inside caves formed by lava flow. Here’s founding member, Aymen Boughanmi, enjoying the fact he’s pretty skinny for some of the tight spots in the cave.

On the way home we stopped at two incredible Icelandic icons – the Gulfoss Waterfall and Geyser. This is the actual “geyser” that gave its name to all other erupting hot springs in the world. At the site there is one extremely active geyser, Strokkur, which sprouts up to 90 feet into the air every 90 seconds. At one point I found myself the unknowing recipient of the explosion. Check out this video that Mastermind and Maverick member John Carter captured of me on the phone with Missy while getting ‘geysered’: http://tweetreel.com/?4st47

The next day we were up and out again with an expedition to Solheimajokull Glacier Tongue for walking and climbing on the glacier. The Glacier Tongue extends down from one of Iceland’s largest glaciers, Myrdalsjokull. We had to stick crampons on our boots and learn a little bit of handling the ice ax. This activity was a little bit of a disappointment since I thought we’d actually get to do some double ax-climbing but I guess we’ll save that for the encore trip to Iceland in 2011. Here are the Maverick members at the (sorta) summit:

And here’s a shot showing a little more of the glacier texture. All the black stuff is volcanic ash from past eruptions in the area. As the ice melts, it creates deep cracks and ravines in the ice surface – trust me, you don’t want to step into one of those babies.

From there we headed to another glacier for a totally wide-open snow mobile experience on an ice-covered volcano. Our guide volunteered info that the volcano we were riding over is actually 20 years past-due for blowing…yikes!

Before snowmobiling the lunch buffet was literally carved out of snow & ice and so were the seats Maverick members were sitting on.

Behind our lunch spot was a nice hill that seemed to make a perfect spot for sledding and I wasn’t the only one that thought so. New member, Drew Regitz, decided the same thing and took matters into his own hands…er ass…and slid all the way down. I grabbed some trash bags and a few members for us to enjoy some old-school, seriously low-budget sledding.

After snowmobiling only a few people were on the inside of a pretty hilarious anecdote with our VP, Tim Warren. Tim decided to try and hijack the Russian missile carrier launcher we came in on. (Yes, we arrived via an authentic piece of Soviet military gear).

To his credit he got it started but then couldn’t figure out how to turn it off before the real driver got back. When the driver arrived nobody said anything and I’m sure he knew he didn’t leave the missile carrier running while we were snowmobiling.

Now perhaps the icing on the cake (okay, a really nasty tasting cake) was the traditional Icelandic dish of “Harkarl” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakarl. Which believe it or not is putrefied, rotting shark. Yup! I saw this on a TV show and knew I had to get it for our fellow Mavericks. You can read up on it at Wikipedia but essentially it’s shark that’s been left to rot in the ground for 9 months and then hung to dry another 9 months or so. It’s quite nasty – but the smell is much worse than the taste. I had 3 pieces because I wanted Kim, our Operations Mgr,  and our one host, Emma to have some. So they made me take pieces with each of them. I was hoping somebody would puke but we weren’t so lucky.

Maybe if we served it first-thing in the morning while some of the members were recovering from the Reykjavik nightlife I would have had a better shot at that. Speaking of the night life – the town definitely knows how to party. It’s funny, during the week the bars close at 1 AM and not many people are out. Come the weekend you’ve got some wild, craziness that goes on til 6, 7 even 8 AM. What I found really wild was people love smashing glass bottles on the street and the next morning a street cleaner comes by and cleans it all up. Amazing!

Here are members Juan Luis Hernandez and Dave Lally doing their best Viking impersonations at night:

Our special business icon guest was Morten Lund, the wild VC investor most famous for investing in 85 high profile tech start-ups including VOIP star Skype (sold to eBay for $4.3 billion). Morten told a fascinating story of his ups and downs and a true no-holds barred business session. He was very candid about his financial windfalls and failures. Many of the members said this was the best business conversation or talk they’ve ever heard because there was no sugarcoating anything..

The final day was capped off by our Young Entrepreneur session held at the University of Reykjavik. Our vice president of Maverick, Tim Warren, put together a fabulous session with about 90 students.

We started with our regular round table discussion about entrepreneurship and then quickly moved into groups giving each group a Maverick member. This was something totally new because we decided to spend a lot of extra time on this day because of the Icelandic economic situation. Here’s member Tim Schmidt whipping his group into shape:

I had my own group and it was pretty cool watching how we brainstormed an entire business idea and really added some outrageous additions to the idea. The idea was something like “7-minute Green Chef” and maybe you’ll hear more about it. But some of the ‘hook’s and unique aspects of it were killer. Our chef would use only fresh ingredients and whip a healthy meal for her family in 7 minutes or less. She would do it live via webcam with a countdown timer going. That way we’re instantly creating content for something she does every night anyway. We’ll let people get an email with the next day’s ingredients so they can follow along live. All of this was about leverage and we brainstormed how to take it from just an info product to a certification program and beyond. Very exciting stuff – but I’m biased since that was my group.

Each group got to get up and ‘pitch’ our members and the audience with their business idea. We had some cool ones like an “Adventure Party Bus” that goes around Iceland to all the cool adventure locations.

Then our Maverick members took some of the ideas and made them better by brainstorming and ‘plus-ing’ them even more.

For each of the winners (via audience applause) we gave away $500 in seed capital for infrastructure stuff (i.e. web hosting, autoresponder, etc) and then they also got some ongoing support from members and myself. (That’s worth significantly more than the $500.)

All-in-all a pretty rewarding and exciting day. At the end of the session, I asked the audience how many were going to go out and start their business ideas and about ¼ the group raised their hands. Pretty awesome! All of this one step closer to our 2020 ultimate goal of empowering and supporting 1,000,000 young entrepreneurs to start their own ventures.

Phew – what an adventure! If you missed it – there are still 2 big Maverick experiences for the tail end of ’09 (if you qualify). The next Maverick experience is the ‘Totally Rad 80’s Maverick Road Rally’ – October 1 – 4, 2009 from Los Angeles, CA to Napa Valley, CA.

Grab your gnarly car, your neon shades, feather back your hair or coif your mullet because we’re headed “Back to the Future” for 80′s-themed Maverick Road Rally experience!

http://www.MaverickBusinessAdventures.com/80srally

Of course as a Maverick event this isn’t JUST a straight trip up the coast. Each day there will be a new adventure starting with your first clue in the morning leading you to your classified route and “80’s missions” to record. Each mission has a point value assigned to it and like a ‘video scavenger’ hunt you’ll have to decide which item you want to capture on film to win the rally. But the only points you are credited for is if you film you mission on tape. The competition-o-rama is going to be fierce for each 2-person car competing for cheesy (yet wonderful) 80’s prizes.

Starting in a mystery location around Los Angeles, CA we’ll motor up the coast to Big Sur, San Francisco and then finally arriving in Napa Valley, CA. Along the way there are lots of surprises from special guests to special exclusive activities like riding a 246-foot long Zeppelin (one of only 3 operating in the world!) and a private ‘cult’ wine tasting dinner at a top Napa winery.

Plus, we’ve just confirmed our special business icon guest, John Paul DeJoria.

Ranked #261 on Forbes list of World’s Richest with an estimated $2.5B net worth. J.P. will be joining us on this first leg of the rally from Los Angeles and sharing his incredible rags-to-riches story. How he went from homeless to billionaire by co-founding John Paul Mitchell Hair Care Systems and Patron Spirits Company.

And then the final 2009 experience is November 6-8th Vegas Air Combat experience…

Imagine being a fighter pilot for a day. You’ll suit up and climb aboard an aerobatic, Italian-built fighter aircraft ready for an authentic dogfight in the sky. You are at the controls and you are actually flying except for take-off and landing (pilot’s license not required). This is the REAL deal, it’s not a videogame or simulator.

Vegas is known for extremes and following Air Combat you’re in for a truly unique dining experience, Forbes magazine named it “one of the 10 most unusual restaurants”, Dinner in the Sky! You’ll be suspended 180 feet in the air overlooking the famous Vegas Strip enjoying a 5-star gourmet meal. Seriously! A crane hoists an entire dining table with everyone securely strapped to the table for a dining experience you won’t soon forget.

But this wouldn’t be a Maverick event if it didn’t keep getting better and better…

Special Bonus Business Icon: Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com will be joining us during the ‘Sky’s the Limit’ Maverick experience. Tony has built up Zappos.com from nearly zero in sales in 1999 to over $1B (Yes, Billion with a ‘B’) in 2008. You’ll get a special behind-the-scenes “field trip” to Zappos.com headquarters where you’ll get to see for yourself how Tony’s built an incredible Zappos.com culture founded on customer service to get where he is. He’ll also provide a candid and uncensored presentation on his business philosophy to specific nuts and bolts of heading up a $1B ecommerce giant while still maintaining a small company excitement. (Side not: Tony was also a featured keynote speaker at Underground 5 – the DVDs of that event will be available soon.)

Nearly every successful entrepreneur I know has gone through or has grappled with burnout. I think by nature entrepreneurs are inspired, passionate and many-times a bit (or a lot ADHD) and all of this contributes to a feeling of malaise or burnout.

I’ve personally gone through it and come out the other side several times and many of these 4 techniques have helped me. (Note: This is a highlight of the 9 ways that I just shared with Maverick Business Insider members.)

1. Truly Disconnect – In a world where we are constantly tethered to our blackberries and ‘Always-On’ connections there’s something magical about truly disconnecting.

That doesn’t mean I’ll ONLY check emails in the morning – but truly and totally being out of touch. On a recent trip to Baja I did something that might seem a bit over-the-top. I completely ‘black holed’ all my emails during that week. Meaning – I had them all deleted with a note directing people emailing me who to contact for help or support while I was gone and then asking them to email me again after my return if they needed. Most people would be scared to death to do this in case something incredibly urgent comes through and is missed. Oh well.

How many times do you come back from vacation even more stressed out because you’ve got 2,313 emails sitting in your inbox? As you are sorta disconnecting there’s always a tiny voice in the back of your head replaying over and over again, “Wow! I wonder how much email I’ll have to catch up on. I wonder what’s going on?” By totally cutting this off you free up more “Psychic RAM” in your head.

2. Refocus on your successes – Many times the feeling of burnout occurs because things are NOT going “right”. And right is a relative term in relation to what we believe it should be. (Now I have my own crazy notion that everything ends up ‘right’ – for whatever that means – in the end anyway.)

Instead of focusing our energy on what’s wrong – which only creates an endless spiral of more and more negativity – I believe it’s important to change the focus. Take out a piece of paper and start making a list of every “victory” you’ve had during a certain time point. It could be this quarter, this month, this day, etc. Once you adjust your focus your selective perception kicks in and you’ll see there is significantly more that’s good than bad going on. (You might or might not have noticed this is a variation on being grateful. Your gratitude connects you back to the source of your original success.)

3. Set a big vision that you cannot achieve on your own – I admit, I’ve only just started doing this but it leads to a real powerful change of direction, intention and motivation.

Perhaps you’ve heard of a “Big Hairy Audacious Goal” or BHAG coined by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras. This is the kind of goal that gets teams rallying around it and lets people transcend what they thought was possible. One famous example is Microsoft’s original goal of “A computer on every desk and in every home.” When you create a big vision or goal like that – you’ll find people getting on your team to help achieve it. My friend, Tellman Knudson, has set the goal of raising $100M by running across the country barefoot. I think that fits the bill.

Our company’s 2020 goal is 3-fold:

1) Motivate, inspire and educate 1M young entrepreneurs to start their own ventures.

2) ‘Mavericktize’ 1M successful entrepreneurs to ‘buy-in’ to the philosophy of making more, more fun and giving more.

3) Have 1M cumulative items checked off entrepreneurs BIG life lists.

And the ultimate goal is to “Change the Way Business is Played”. To me that means bringing more fun into business and never doing things the same way it’s been done. It’s something that can inspire me (and our team) out of funks.

4. Get back to the fun – Think back to when you were a kid and what activities or interests got you really jazzed and excited. Somehow as ‘adults’ many of us have lost that sense of fun and inspiration. What did you like to do? For me, it was playing sports, drawing and making people laugh. That’s why I still play ice hockey and beach volleyball. Why I’ve taken art classes and stand-up comedy classes. I make sure to incorporate what gives me enjoyment into my life by actually making it a priority.

How many times have you heard yourself saying, “I’d love to ___ BUT I can’t because I’m too busy.” That’s total bullshit. What you’re really saying is that activity does not have enough priority in my life. Or I feel guilt around having fun.

Quite frankly for most entrepreneurs work is our default unless there is something else scheduled. Don’t just settle for enjoying life when you squeeze it in between your business. Here’s a great quote from Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz, New-York Times Best-Seller “The Power of Full Engagement”:

“…the richer and deeper the source of emotional recovery, the more we refill our reserves and the more resilient we become.”

Put fun activities, rewarding experiences and exceptional adventures on your calendar and protect them like you would any ‘real’ appointment.

Quite frankly, the inspiration for Maverick Business Adventures came from a period of my personal burnout and ironically the unique nature around it can help other entrepreneurs avoid or recover from burnout. I hope you’ll give some of these ideas a try when you’re feeling burnout occurring or when you attempt to break free from it.

Wow!

I’m back from Necker Island, Sir Richard Branson’s private island…what an incredible experience. Before we get to the stories – the most important part of the trip was to raise money for Virgin Unite. This was our first joint Maverick Business Adventures and Centurion Mastermind trip lead by maverick member, Joe Polish and his partner, infomercial king, Dean Graziosi.

Pictured below are the 3 of us together with Sir Richard Branson holding a check for $447,000.

Maverick Business Adventures and Centurion Mastermind raise nearly half a million dollars for Virgin Unite

I’m incredibly proud of this trip because these funds will go to jumpstart a brand new program helping teach entrepreneurial skills to underprivileged youth across the U.S. Plus, some of the funds will go to support the Branson School of Entrepreneurship in South Africa. (In fact, just got our BETA test of the Maverick mentorship off the ground days before arriving on Necker.)

So what happened on Necker?

Well…on the business side we had an all-access Q&A session with Sir Richard Branson. This is not something we had last year. I shot a couple quick guerrilla videos for you. (Note: Most likely we’ll taking our best brainstorming sessions, exclusive interviews on the island more and putting it out into an incredible product with proceeds going to Virgin Unite.)

I jotted down a ton of notes from the 1 hr+ we had with Richard. Here’s one page from my private journal:

My private journal notes from Q&A session with Branson

If it’s hard to read but here are a few of my favorite quotes from the session:

“Find great people and give them extreme freedom in the short run this will be difficult but it frees you up for bigger things.”

“If you are going to make a difference you have to work hard at making a difference.”

“As you get older you will leave behind your children and that’s your legacy.”

Plus we had a couple powerful brainstorms with the USA’s head of Virgin Unite, Darin Spurgeon and investment relations mgr (former PA to Branson), Nicola Duguid. Branson sat in on the main brainstorm for the Virgin Unite team with some killer ideas coming from attendees.

Then we capped it off with an optional, focused brainstorm around the idea of a group called “Entrepreneurs Unite”, which would let successful entrepreneurs get involved in initiatives ‘powered’ by Virgin Unite. It was exciting to see some of the attendees from last year’s Necker trip report back on the things they’ve done. Everything from donating 25 cents per book sold to planning a $100M barefooted run across the country.

A bit crazy and that’s Internet marketer, Tellman Knudson for you. (I told Tellman I’d be in the chase bus and I’d pay extra sponsorship money if I could throw out nails and tacks in front of him.)

Actually Tellman got married to his long-time partner, Jodi, on the island. You can see their 2 ½ year old son, Torger, napping while this is all going on. Pretty funny and Branson was the ring bearer. You just never know what will happen on Necker.

Tellman Knudson and Jodi getting married

Speaking of what happens on Necker. A few of you might recall last year when I sorta got kicked off last year as a joke. (Read about it here for a recap)

So here’s the letter I got when I showed up on Necker from the General Mgr this year:

Welcome letter from Necker Island manager

Anyway I didn’t see Gordo for several days while there until a fateful Monday afternoon. You see, they got some new golf carts on the island and they are pretty fast. Maybe 30mph or so is the top speed. Anyway, I was late to jump on the boat to Moskito island (Branson’s adjoining island he just bought). I was hauling ass around a blind turn until I look up in shock and see another golf cart bearing down on me. Shit!!

I slam on the brakes but still end up in a head-on collision.

Boom!

I look up and guess who is in the cart? Of course, it’s Gordo. So of course I say, “Hi Gordo, nice to see you again. Thanks for the letter.” Ack!

Nobody was hurt but there was enough force to smash down the bumpers into the tires making both carts un-driveable until repaired. Nicely done. I figured out what happened, he’s British so he was driving on the left-hand side of the road and I was on the right-hand side of the road. Only adding to my rap sheet at Necker.

Good news is I did make the boat to Moskito island and after lunch on the island we competed in Beach Olympics with Mavericks vs. Centurions. Here’s a picture of the tennis ball game played like musical chairs with a few less balls than participants each time.

Beach Olympics on Moskito island

It got a bit heated with me and Dean Graziosi being the last 2 finalists. I have to hand it to him -- the guy is quick. I tried to dive over him for the final ball but mis-timed it slightly. At least the audience enjoyed watch us compete. I am almost embarrassed to admit the Centurions won though I need to take up some gripes with the International Olympic Beach committee considering our group is significantly more athletic but somehow we got on the short end of the stick here. Ah well, always next years rematch.

One of my biggest goals this year was to finally get up on the kiteboard. Unfortunately I did for only about 2 seconds…I’m slowly progressing.

On the final night we had some outrageous wigs and glasses for dinner and dancing. Gordo told our crash story to everyone during ‘Maverick Moments’ and he presented me with my own car for use on the island next time. It’s a kids toy car with ‘Maverick’ on the side and then ‘Yan Man’ on the license plate. Pretty funny. At least they have a great sense of humor on Necker.

I think every Maverick member there has a defining story and hopefully we’ll see even more members next year when we do it again (if they let me back on the island).

Whoa..

Looking at the last post it’s been awhile. Sorry. I wanted to catch you up on some business stuff and adventures.

#1: Let’s start with our last Maverick Business Adventures Ultimate Baja experience…

This was our 2nd time (and my 3rd) going off-road Baja racing. It still seems somewhat crazy that they get you take these Porsche-powered dune buggies 80mph+ through nearly any type of terrain.

It probably wasn’t more than 30 minutes into leaving the ranch when my co-driver and buddy, Joe Polish, ran into a tree. I mean totally and completely ran smack dab into the tree. He said he thought he could make the turn. At least we weren’t flying so the damage wasn’t too bad – but it was still pretty funny because Joe got us stuck in the tree. The entire front grill of the car was entangled in this poor tree and when we got pushed out – we took 1/3 of the tree with us. I shot some quick video of the aftermath here:

Then here is the removal of said tree:

The next day, motorcycle mogul, Jesse James, came-in for a private business session and to hang out with all the members. Jesse never really does anything like this and it was a real treat to have him with us giving some big lessons on branding and how to be authentic. That was probably my biggest take-away…saying ‘no’ to the stuff that just makes money and that doesn’t passionately resonate with you in a genuine way.

Jesse James took several members on a ride with him and the best one had to be Millionaire MasterMind and Maverick member, Barry Dunlop. Jesse and Barry were trailing our leader, Nick, but he didn’t quite make it through a soft spot of mud. He got completely stuck but not before Nick totally ‘roostered’ Jesse and Barry. The Baja racers don’t have windshields so their each of them and their car was totally covered in mud. I couldn’t help but laugh. Here is a pic with Jesse and his mud-covered helmet (it’s actually semi-clean at this point).

Here’s part of the aftermath -

The last day of driving we had to traverse some of the most hair-raising, switchbacks in Baja. It was probably a 800-1000 foot sheer drop in some spots with about 1 foot on either side of the cars. I was real excited to get the radio call back from our leader informing us (car #5) that we had no reverse in our car. Essentially I had to bump our car a bit into the rock and push the clutch down to put into neutral. Then it would roll backwards and I’d hope first gear would engage before we spilled over the edge of the cliff wall. (Fun!) Here’s a quick pic that doesn’t even do this area justice:

I think my final “Maverick Moments” has to take the cake. I have to lay blame with my buddy, Brad Fallon. Because the night before in Guadalupe Canyon, Brad was telling one of the team leaders, James, that he really wanted to get back onto the test track again at the Ranch.

Brad “I think I can really clean up on that loop!”

James “What? Are you kidding? I’ve only had one other client want to do the test track again after all the crazy terrain we traveled.”

So we left it at that until we rolled into Horse Power Ranch.

James (on the radio) “Ok – who wanted to do the test track again?”

Yanik “Um….that would be Brad.”

James “Ok, a victory lap is in order”

James proceeded to lead us to the test track on the Ranch and I flipped it into second gear and started peeling around the turns. I got caught in a huge Baja dust cloud and at the last-second when it cleared car #4 was directly in front of me. It was too late to stop and I plowed right into them. Ugh! I dented my grill and broke my front headlight. And the guys in car #4 (Kim from our team and Tim Storm got a nice shake-up thanks to me.) I went the entire trip without a major mishap and ended up smashing my car on the “victory lap”. Well played sir.

And just to make sure I don’t live it down Maverick member, James Shramko, captured some of the aftermath on tape:

After drinking a few beers and showering up it was time to head out to our Super Bowl party with Super Bowl MVP and Heisman trophy winner, Desmond Howard. Here’s me doing my best (worst) Heisman pose with our football piñata:

Truly Disconnecting While Away

I want to point out something I did that might seem a bit over-the-top. I completely ‘black holed’ all my emails during my week in Baja. Meaning – I had them all deleted with a note directing people emailing me who to contact for help or support while I was gone and then asking them to email me again after my return if they needed. Most people would be scared to death to do this in case something incredibly urgent comes through and is missed. Oh well.

How many times do you come back from adventures a little bit more stressed out because you’ve got 2,313 emails sitting in your inbox? Or worse, you try to knock them out each day while on vacation. I believe in truly disconnecting and recharging your batteries. I came back feeling relaxed and invigorated. It was interesting because the members with iPhones got connections in a lot of places and you could see them getting on their phones, checking stuff, connecting online, etc. My little low-tech Razr phone didn’t have a connection and I couldn’t be happier. Except for my SAT phone to call and check in on Missy and the kids – I loved being without email, my laptop and cell phone. (I fully recommend it.)

#2: Underground 5

A few weeks after returning from Baja -- we put our 5th totally sold-out Underground Online Marketing Seminar. (Note: a limited set of recordings will be available soon.)

This was our biggest event yet and I truly think the best one. The caliber of attendees and speakers there were pretty amazing. To give you a small idea – I’d be talking to one person and they told me they took their business from $5M -- $38M (damn!). I’d turn around and another guy was telling me how he bought all the intellectual property of a well-known video game producer and was using them for PC-games (cool!). I mean seriously there was more than enough brainpower in the audience to supply a month’s worth of non-stop sessions.

This year’s spy theme was 007 and it was fun hanging out with our Bond Girls. Here are we are greeting guests for the VIP dinner and Casino Royale night. Not sure if you can tell or note but in my hands are a Martini and a Walther PPK. As some of my buddies found out it was loaded! (Yes, it had those air pellets – and they definitely sting)

Once again the event was totally sold-out! Here’s a pic of the group including one very short attendee in the front with me. (Zak!)

We truly had an incredible line-up of speakers including our 2 keynote presenters, Tony Hsieh from Zappos.com and Bob Parsons from GoDaddy.com. To let you guys in on some of the great content I cornered both of these gentlemen during the event. Take a look:

And finally here’s one of my favorite shots -- George Lazenby, who played James Bond in ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service’ and yours truly duking it out in front of my Aston.

The kudos from the event were overwhelming. Do a search for #UG5 on Twitter and you can see a candid stream of thoughts and interaction from attendees. I was considering making #5 our last Underground but so many people told me I needed to do another one that I’ve decided to go ahead and host #6. It’s going to be March 12-14, 2010 in Washington, DC so mark your calendars early. And if you want another view point on the event here’s a video one of our attendees made in DC:

Okay and finally a little rest in the sun…

#3: Family Vacation in Florida with Missy, Zak and Zoe