Every month I send the direct mail Letter to subscribers. From time to time I send random gifts, insights and absurdities to the people on the waitlist, too. About 1/10th of it will make it into the digital realm.
Here’s one…
“It is easier to accomplish the impossible than the ordinary”
-Ken Kragen
Remember that time Jack Skellington stumbled upon Christmas Town and decided…
“Hey, you know what…
If this ‘Sandy Claws’ can do this,
I can do it, too!”?
I’ll come back to this in a moment, but first I feel like I need to explain why you’re holding this in front of you right now.
Good things come in 3's.
Ken Kragen was one of the most fascinating people I’ve ever met. I’ve only spent one day with him, but over the course of that day, he explained how he organized “We Are the World” in 1985, Hands Across America in 1986, and managed to consistently get his clients on the billboard top ten.
His secret to success is what he called the “Rule of Three”.
If an artist had three big events over the course of a year, he would try and delay the first one and expedite the last one so that those two events converged toward the middle event. If he could get three major events to happen over the course of a few months, instead of a year, his client would make the billboard top ten, every single time.
Ben Hardy, Author of “10X is Easier Than 2x” and I have been talking a lot lately about books. Every time we discuss his plan for writing more books he talks about wanting to write them in trilogies.
A couple of months ago at a Genius Network event, Connor Boyack, founder of the Tuttle Twins empire, echoed the same sentiment; "Good things come in 3".
And, when Christian Bale was asked why they turned down a fourth Dark Knight movie, he said it’s because the goal was always a trilogy.
My immediate conclusion:
The brain likes 3's.
The universe likes 3's.
3's are good.
So I started thinking about writing a trilogy.
If I were to write or film a trilogy it would look like this:
BUMPERS. You must first know yourself, and be honest about where you’re at and where you want to be. “You can’t win a race you don’t want to be in”. Bumper is about getting in the right race and then learning to appreciate when bad things don't happen. Like bumpers at the bowling alley, it’s a system to keep yourself out of the gutter. It's simple in concept, but difficult in practice.
VELOCITY. Once you have the structure to keep you from blowing up, you can confidently move forward. However, you need to stay intentional that "forward" represents the right direction for you. Again, more difficult than it sounds. You can move really fast in a big circle or in the wrong direction. You think you want speed, in reality, you want velocity.
FORCE MULTIPLIERS. If you have the structure to keep yourself out of the gutter and have added direction to your movement (velocity) you can then learn to identify, engineer, and utilize leverage to get more done with less effort, less risk, and a greater number of options. A force multiplier is a tool that amplifies all of your other efforts; it’s the tool of “exponential”.
(Another set of names for the same trilogy would be: Clarity, Certainty, and Collapsing Time)
Note: If you want to go deeper, pick up Letter 0 and Letter 1. If you don’t have Letter 0 or Letter 1… you’re out of luck and forever stuck. (JK. Backorders are available. Email support@v3Letter.com with the subject line: Backorders)
“Bumpy Sleigh Ride, Jack?”
- Santa Clause
Not only does the universe like 3’s but, anecdotally, I have observed the following:
The more books an author publishes, the more books they sell. Duh.
Video is all the rage right now
Giving stuff away for free is the popular macro trend
And I find myself thinking…
“Hey, you know what…
If these guys can do this,
I can do it, too!”
..and then I remember the most important lesson of all…
…The lesson Jack Skellington learned as he came crashing to the ground after being “blown to smithereens”. A lesson straight out of Bumpers:
“The degree of success you can sustain depends on how aligned your pursuits stay with your unique disposition”
In other words, if you try to be someone you are not, you are a ticking time bomb.
And here’s the truth:
I don’t want to write a trilogy with a beginning, conflict, middle, resolution, and end. Life is not a snapshot, it’s a motion picture, and it’s full of the unknown and expected.
I have no interest in fighting a war of attrition for attention on the inter-webs.
I give out as much free stuff as possible, but that’s not my business. My business is built for and around purpose-driven people that want to accomplish shit, they aren’t spending hours watching instagram reels.
“That’s Right… I AM The Pumpkin King! Muahaha!”
- Jack Skellington
For the last four years, I have done the “12 Days of Nicsmas” over the 12 days leading up to my birthday. I’ve had people call me in the middle of it laughing, I’ve had people call me in the middle of it crying. I’ve had emails and letters sent to me; you can see a letter Jeff Moore wrote me on Day 7 of the last Nicsmas at www.Nicsmas.com1.
Here’s why I am telling you this…
Nicsmas is right around the corner
…and I’m taking my Holiday back.
Nicsmas this year will be live and it will be for Letter subscribers only.
If you’re a Letter subscriber and can’t make it, that’s okay …
Every month will be Nicsmas
Delivered Directly To Your Inbox
Each month I will be going through the best content, courses, workshops, recordings, and articles lying around, pulling them off the internet, improving, updating, and packaging them up for Letter subscribers.
Each month I will be sharing what is working for me - and what is not working - for me and my partners.
Each and every month I will test sending something ridiculous to all subscribers or segments of subscribers - just to see what happens.
And then I’ll tell you about it.
Instead of getting lost in the sea of distraction and uncertainty that is YouTube and Instagram shorts, Nicsmas and The Letter are designed for focus, intent, and impact. You can keep it at your desk, take notes, highlight it, earmark it, and beat it up.
My Holiday.
My game.
My rules.
…And I hope the experience helps you step into your game and play your rules.
There will be no trilogy.
No beginning. No end. No grand resolution.
This is an infinite game, wherein the goal is not to win, it’s to keep getting better. It’s an ongoing dialogue, and I’m looking forward to having it with you.
As you can see, I’ve sent a copy of Bumpers to get started. If you head over to freebumpersbook.com you can also get:
Bumpers Audio Companion: This is not a reading of the book, it's a presentation and Q&A session for Joe Polish's 100k group, expanding on Bumpers and discussing practical examples.
Bumpers Scorecard: A downloadable scorecard to measure where you are now and your progress over the course of a year.
Bumpers Accelerator: 6 short videos and a bonus video designed to help you implement and customize Bumpers to your life situation.
How To Set Sustainable Goals: A 60-minute bonus video breaking down how I think about setting sustainable goals.
For the best of the rest…
Keep an eye out for the next time the Letter opens enrollment.
See you on the other side,
Nic
PS. If you’re looking for the Letter it can be found here:
PPS. If the Letter is cost prohibitive for you, that’s okay. It’s not for everyone. There are plenty of free resources, you can apply the ROL framework2 to get the most out of anything.