Yesterday, I was working on a sales letter for a client.
While I’ve written a few sales letters for clients in the past, this is the first one that will go out to an ice-cold audience. Meaning, it takes much more research, persuasive elements, thinking, editing, and the whole nine yards.
A sales letter to a cold audience is much different than one to a warm or hot audience, which is waaaay different from writing an email or email automation.
It’s also a bunch more fun. And something I’m looking to dive into more as the year progresses.
Anyway, I wrote over 3,000 words yesterday for this project. The past couple months I’ve worked on this project, I was only researching and planning.
Here’s why I bring it up:
I used a “hidden” tool to write the 3,000+ words I wrote for this sales letter.
And this “tool” held time still, kept me laser-focused (including ignoring my girlfriend’s seduction attempts when I went to the bathroom lol), and helped me bang out 3,000+ words in only 90 minutes or so.
This tool?
It’s an awesome lil app called Brain.fm.
(If’n you want, you can download it here: https://www.brain.fm/. And you should probably open this email in your phone and download it from there.)
Nothing helps you buckle down and get shyt done like Brain.fm’s focus “music” (if you can even call it music). It’s scientific approach to music which lights your brain up like crack — to borrow an infamous Money Twitter joke.
Brain.fm also has music for relaxing, sleeping, and meditating. But I haven’t checked these out yet. I either use the creative flow mix or the deep work mix.
And, this reminded me about the amazing power of music. So I figured I’d share some of my other favorite music go-to’s whether I’m writing, in the gym, on a road trip, or hanging out.
Maybe you’ll find some value in it. Maybe you’ll have the same music interests as me. But probably not.
That ain’t gonna stop me though.
Alright, let’s talk about my favorite writing music first:
The aforementioned creative flow or deep work mixes in Brain.fm.
This music works best when I want to focus so much my eyes hurt.
But I don’t always listen to Brain.fm when I write.
Other honorable mentions include:
* Grateful Dead live shows — they have minimal words, euphoric grooves, and provides me some dopamine rushes I ain’t mad about. (I don’t listen to their studio stuff when I’m writing because lyrics distract me.)
* Lofi hip hop 24/7 — this used to be my go-to. It’s a laid back, lofi hip-hop beat with even less words than Dead live shows. Also, this used to be my go-to music when I did busy work (like lead gen before I hired a lead gen agency to help). Search YouTube for it and try it out.
* Jazz music — again, my brain vibes with music with no words when I’m writing. And mixing in jazz gives me a much-needed breath of fresh air.
* Classical music — while this is my least listened to genre choice, it’s nice to switch thangs up from time to time.
This list above couldn’t be more different from my gym playlists…
In the gym, I only listen to rap music. And I’m talking fat beats, aggressive lyrics, and fast tempo songs.
I listen to rappers like Denzel Curry, Kendrick Lamar, Baby Keem, Isaiah Rashad, JID, J. Cole, and the list goes on. Spotify creates 1-2 hip-hop based daily mixes for me and I pick one and go.
And this is where the “lesson” (if you can call it that) of this email comes in:
Listening to different music puts my mind in a different space. When my lifting rap music comes on, my body knows it’s time to lift. When I put on my writing music, my mind knows it’s time to write.
In other words:
I’ve conditioned myself like Pavlov’s dogs to get my body and mind to do what I want instead of the other way around.
In fact, I’ve been “honing” this conditioning idea for the past couple years. And it’s something that sounds simple and probably won’t work at first, but will become your productivity secret weapon if you take it seriously.
Let’s end with a couple more of my music choices:
On road trips, I like listening to full albums of any genre, jammy and funky rock, and old-school rock hits. I’m more of a mellow rock guy than a metal one, and I prefer indie to hard rock.
And when I’m hanging out?
It’s a mix of all of these.
Maybe I throw on some mellow rap like Mac Miller (who I don’t listen to much in the gym besides a few songs). Maybe I throw on Dead studio albums. Maybe it’s R&B or The Talking Heads or Tame Impala.
But here’s something I try to do:
I try to keep my gym music, writing music, and “kicking it” music separate. This helps me condition my brain when I need to.
Anyway, maybe that helped you. Maybe it didn’t.
Regardless:
If you want to back the Brinks truck up with “silly” emails like these, without lifting a finger yourself… book a call. If you have a proven offer and an email list, maybe we can work together.