As expected, my last blog post gen­er­ated quite a num­ber of com­ments. Some were insight­ful, even a few of the neg­a­tive ones, and I appre­ci­ate them all. Thank you.

How­ever, from most of the com­ments I’ve read, includ­ing some of the pos­i­tive ones, it seems a lot of peo­ple missed the point I was try­ing to con­vey. They thought it was about Face­book user­names and there­fore no big deal.

Well, it wasn’t about Face­book specif­i­cally. It was about hav­ing integrity and respect, and doing what’s right.

They missed it, and that was prob­a­bly my fault. My pas­sion for the topic and oppo­si­tion to the con­cept of “friendly extor­tion,” which I blogged about in the past, caused me to write more force­fully than the norm, and I was less than clear than I should have been.

Face­book wasn’t the prob­lem. It just so hap­pened to be the tool used in this case. It was more about the scarcity mind­set and the sense of enti­tle­ment peo­ple have in think­ing this was accept­able behav­ior and that we should tol­er­ate it.

So I wanted to clear the air. I recorded this quick lit­tle video after I woke up this morn­ing — oh, and please ignore the fash­ion­able bed-​​head hairdo.

Please let me know what you think…

Seems I’m rant­ing a lot these days, and a lit­tle more opin­ion­ated than the norm. Per­haps it’s my bro­ken back, which is killing me, that’s mak­ing me more sen­si­tive or irri­ta­ble. I don’t know.

But some­thing some­one recently said in my copy­writ­ers forum irri­tated me. And it’s not what this per­son said specif­i­cally, but the mind­set behind it that’s both­er­ing me.

In a thread about an Inter­net mar­keter who was recently arrested (yes, it had some­thing to do with forced con­ti­nu­ity, but it had more to do with refus­ing refunds and avoid­ing cus­tomers than it had to do with forced con­ti­nu­ity itself), one mem­ber said:

“There is NO such thing as an hon­est busi­ness man. (…) Ask any accountant.”

Now, I have no clue as to why this per­son said this. And my opin­ion here is not about this per­son specif­i­cally. Again, it’s about the think­ing process that some peo­ple have when they make such assertions.

Per­son­ally, I believe this view of busi­ness peo­ple is skewed, off, and wrong. It’s destruc­tive, too.

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If you’ve ever been a fol­lower of Napoleon Hill’s “Think And Grow Rich,” then you’ve cer­tainly heard of the con­cept of the Mas­ter­mind Group.

The con­cept is quite sim­ple: find peo­ple you want to asso­ciate with, and try to meet with them reg­u­larly. Peo­ple who you admire and trust, who are sup­port­ive, and whose opin­ions you value.

But there’s a big dif­fer­ence between what Napoleon Hill teaches, and the way most groups today are formed. (And in that cat­e­gory I include blogs and forums, too.)

In fact, par­tic­i­pat­ing in one may hurt you. And per­haps do so with­out you even know­ing it.

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Now that I’m back from my hon­ey­moon, my inbox and forum have been flood­ingly busy! In fact, one thread on my Copy­writ­ers Board gar­nered so much inter­est that it cre­ated close to 10 pages worth of posts.

It’s a member’s take on “Michel Fortin’s Suc­cess Secret.”

Dale King, the author in ques­tion, pos­tu­lated that in every post and arti­cle I write, there’s a “secret” to my suc­cess. Although he hinted that the secret can be found in the book “Think and Grow Rich,” the rea­son why the thread became so pop­u­lar was because Dale never revealed it until the very end.

It’s a great exam­ple of the Zeigar­nik effect and keep­ing peo­ple inter­ested in your copy. It was so pow­er­ful that some peo­ple became out­right pissed off at Dale’s reluc­tance in reveal­ing “the secret” and posted harsh com­ments as a result.

In order to assuage the dis­grun­tled, here’s what I said. The secret is…

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