 So, can we talk about a release date for a book? No. I mean, you can ask me, I don't know what I'll say. Hello, intelligent beings of this marvellous planet. Welcome to the 42 Courses podcast and thanks for listening. Dan Nelkin is an award-winning freelance creative director for Canada's top creative ad agencies, the world's largest brands and rising startups around the world. And he's the author of the soon-to-be-released A Self-Help Guide for Copywriters due out in October 2021. He has a quickly growing newsletter entitled A Self-Help Guide for Creatives where he helps marketing professionals build their creative craft and confidence. You can join over 3,000 people by subscribing at nelkincreative.com. As Dan says, it's free, short and dead easy to unsubscribe. I always look forward to his next post on LinkedIn and the latest newsletter because I'm a huge fan of his humor, wordplay and fantastic creativity. So I'm really happy to say hello to Dan Nelkin. Hi. Well, that makes one of us, friend. I'm kidding. Actually, I watched, you sent me an example of someone you've interviewed and he was amazing. I'm forgetting his name, but the body language. Mark Bowden. He's actually in Canada where you are. Oh, really? But I watched his TED Talk and he said something about public speaking and that really resonated with me and I hope helps me through this, but he talked about being more inauthentic. And so, because I think when we do these things, like if I was being completely authentic and embracing my anxiety, I would be way more awkward. I think the thing is to say, oh, I'm so excited to be here. It's not that I'm not, but you know what I mean? I think that was just such a wonderful piece of feedback, I think, for anyone, especially me where I try, when I write to have an authentic tone of voice, especially when I'm sharing. And if I am awkward or anxious, I often will write that. But for these kind of things to be curled up at a ball interviewing me probably wouldn't be the best for the people watching. Does that mean that you're the kind of classic stereotypical copywriter, the introvert, like kind of, you know, wordsmith, but doesn't like, you know, being extrovert in front of people? Yeah. I mean, I think I'm a bit of both. Like I think a lot of people are in whatever setting. But I think as a writer, especially in the ad agency world, you're just, we have often lots of time. There's lots of people looking at things. They're thought through, they're overthought and overanalyzed. So I'm quite comfortable in writing when I'll write a piece. If I don't feel like it's ready to share, I'll wait a week or two weeks. But with something like this, I need a response right away. And you know, it's like being a writer in a boardroom, I'm like, you're the writer. What's a fun way of saying X? I'm always like, I did think of a hack though yesterday for this call. I can just, you've asked a question that I don't have an answer to. Yeah. I'll just pause and you'll think my screen is frozen. Reframe classic. Yes. Anyway. So we jumped in and I didn't even say thank you for your time, but I'm really excited to speak to you because I'm a new fanboy, let's say. And I know your audience is growing so quickly on LinkedIn and Twitter and just to explain to people that might be experiencing you for the first time, what it is that you're the kind of content that you're putting out on those channels? Yeah. So I have written a book that I've been working on for way too long. Maybe it's normal for a book, probably is. And so I was really kind of alone in that process. I also had never embraced social media. And so it's kind of just before the pandemic kicked off, I thought, you know what? I'm just going to start posting content from this book because I'd already been working on it for a while and I said, it will help me see if it resonates with anyone and also help me kind of refine the content. And so I just made a commitment to post something once a week on LinkedIn. So that was it. And what I've done is I always felt like in ad agencies, they tell you how important it is to work on your craft. I was never really explained to me what the hell that meant. I was like, OK, I get it. Art directors, it was often said about them. And I thought, oh, they know lots of colors or whatever that meant for an art director. But for a writer, which was actually a title I never embraced and probably rebelled against early in my career. And so I think what happened was I became an insecure copywriter, insecure only about my ability to write to strategy wise. Coming up with ideas, I was confident, but actual writing. Yeah, it wasn't my strong suit. Or if I did have any skill in it in the beginning, it kind of faded. And, you know, I felt like I have gone too far in my career to still be insecure about writing headlines. So that's what the book is about. I feel like it's a foundational skill. And I feel like I've dumbed it down. I think it's probably the dumbest book on copywriting ever written. It's what I needed. And, you know, what I'm most shocked by is not that it helps someone who's starting out or two years into their career. I'm shocked that very senior people in this industry around the world are reaching out to me to say thank you. And I had a suspicion that would be the case because I was, you know, quite senior, as you can tell by my hair. And there was a creative director at Lululemon at the time. He was writer background, met him for lunch. And I told him kind of about what I was working on. This is probably five years ago. And I told him about my insecurity in writing headlines. And he said, I feel the same way. And I was like, eh, I started to ask more people, more of my peers. And yeah, it wasn't everyone, but there was a lot felt that way. And so I felt like there was something missing. Obviously this industry for 30 years is shifting more and more visual. And so I think I felt pressure to think more visually, which I really enjoyed. But, you know, my skills as a writer weren't developing. So I'm working on them now and sharing that. Well, I disagree about the dumbing down because I've had the honor of reading through the preview. And, you know, I've been a copywriter for many years and I found really great stuff in there. And, you know, the the frameworks, the tools that you're using for for banging out the headlines. And the I want to come to that in a bit about the the processes that you go through. It's really, really, really interesting for for new. And as you say, senior copywriters, I think, anyway, thank you. You're sticking with the the newsletter for a moment, which is absolutely fabulous. The there's an electricity as an electricity in your sentences. So you must be really proud of that. And but what I wanted to say about it is I heard I think another podcast where I was listening to you and, you know, when you're starting out a new thing that there's there's all the stuff you can find on LinkedIn and everywhere, business advice is just start right when you're starting something new. But I think you're starting with the newslets, the the origins of it, the history of it was don't start. Was that the thing? Don't start. Because you took ages to get it going and you were doing a course, right? Yeah, well, you book it was supposed to be started out as a potential course that may be one day. It's funny now, and I don't know why, but just last week was something I shared. And I guess the audience is growing and you can see how, you know, it amplifies when you get to a certain level and it grows grows quicker. But I don't know if there was like a hotline for universities around the world. But for the first time since I started doing it, probably four or five messes last week to ask me to speak to graduating classes coming in the fall. So I'll be doing I'll be doing that. But yeah, don't don't start. Well, when I was sharing articles on LinkedIn, I used to tag them because someone said, oh, I missed these, I enjoy your articles, but I don't always get them. I said, you should start a newsletter, which sounds like I never thought of starting it never wanted to start. I don't like them. And so I just would tag the articles. Just said, hey, if you want to subscribe to the newsletter, I'll probably never start and to your email address here. And people seem to like that. And I'm like, are they signing up because they like the content or like that I maybe won't actually start it. And then I thought, well, it got to, I don't know what it was at that time, like 500. I thought, OK, I guess I should do this. And I'm so glad I did. I think because I don't like what I don't like about newsletters. I think, honestly, it makes me good at it, but I. I want to provide value and I don't want to take up too much time. And sometimes I think if I can provide more value. But it make it would make it longer, I still don't do it. Um, because I think over time, it's just like, well, I can't not talk like this now because I'm sharing this content about being a good creative. So many, um, iconic creatives would say, don't work yourself to exhaustion in any one session, like leave something in the tank for the next. Even if you're going good, in fact, some say, stop when you're going good. So you know where to pick up the next day. And I just feel like I could write the most amazing newsletter one week. But if it was too long, um, yeah, I think I would exhaust people. So I don't, I don't have the time either to, to write too long. And I don't want to, it's just something short at the beginning of your week to hopefully get you thinking a bit differently about creativity. OK, and actually, we haven't mentioned about like your actual history before the newsletters and everything. Can you just give a quick rundown of what you've done in your, in your career? Yeah, yeah. Um, so I went to, I'm in Canada, by the way, which I think you may have mentioned. I'm in Vancouver. I went to Toronto for at that time, the only ad school in Canada. And then after that, I got a job driving a forklift back here in Vancouver. And then I got my first agency job in Canada. And then I got my first agency job after about six months. And I was working at Costet, the biggest Canadian agency in Vancouver, which was not, not very creative at the time. And then I moved on to TBWA, Shiet Day, Vancouver. And then I was there for a little while, starting to do well, you know, the whole whatever advertising awards thing and winning a bunch. And but that's kind of when I burnt out. And from there, it's been kind of, I don't know, I left in this like decent sized client fellow, my lap. I didn't want to start an agency, but at that time I didn't want to work for one. So whatever, I gave it a name and hired some people. And I never grew beyond that one client. I never wanted to. I didn't have, you know, a new business partner or anything. And then once, once that ended, I was ready for change and actually worked for an animation studio for four years as a creative director and a partner in that. And then that's when it was funny, because I was out of the ad scene for about probably 10 years, because I had my own little agency and I wasn't entering things in award shows. That's why I didn't care. It was like my quality of life was was most important and happiness because I had burnt out and I was happy. So once that ended the animation thing, that was amazing too. And kind of business dried up and slowed. So I was like, well, what the hell am I going to do now? And someone called me a good agency and we're like, hey, we want you. Do you still do this? Can you? I'm like, I'm not sure. And I went in and did a job and I don't think I was very good. But I was partnered with one of the top creatives. He's one of the top in the world. His name is Rob Sweetman. And I felt like an advertising caveman who had just been thawed. And man, he was so sharp. And so I worked with them on and off for a bit. That's 123 West. They're an amazing agency, great people. And yeah, people just started to hurt. I was I was back and I think thought maybe I had passed away or something. I don't know. And everyone started calling and then I got it back. And I think the breakout had me just thinking very differently about creativity, that's what I wasn't doing. And I was still creative. I wasn't doing this exactly. And I think I brought a different perspective and I could also see what I felt was maybe wrong and inefficient about the process. Yeah, it was very cool because I felt like I kind of got out of it and came back and loved it in a different way. And then it just started to get calls from agencies and brands. And while working on this content, kind of at the start of that, I felt like there was a room for something like this. So that sounds like return the Jedi. You turned up like Luke all dressed in black. Yeah, yeah, the Dagobah system. Yeah, exactly. Hey, but just jumping back to the start there. This is this is a really interesting thing because you were doing manual work and and then you then you say you just jumped into the agency world. And this is really interesting for people starting out their careers. I wanted to change careers. Lots of people want to get into marketing. How did you do that jump? That's a big jump. How did you manage that? You know, I don't know why there was always something inside of me that. I thought I worked in a blue collar town, but yeah, I guess I did. You know, that was just what you did. I remember when I was doing I was quitting my job in the warehouse. And at the time, my girlfriend at the time, her was her grandma. It's like, you know, that's a really good job. Or maybe you should consider driving a bus. Like there wasn't there's a low ceiling. I was like, I just knew that wasn't a good job for me that I wouldn't be happy. So, you know, I drove a forklift before I worked in advertising. And I left to go. I was making decent money. It probably was a 50 percent pay cut. You know, I think the biggest lesson in that, the pay cut when I went and started in advertising, I went to an ad school. I left this this warehouse. You know, I thought for sure I would make it and this would be my career. And I didn't I think I was the only one of almost 60 students that didn't get an internship with an agency. So I had to start paying back my student loans and came back to Vancouver and table between my legs went back to the warehouse on the Canada. And yeah, they they punished me. It was Union. They didn't want me back. But so they threw me on like garbage duty, which you normally have for, you know, four hours a week. But I did it every day about seven hours for probably three months. I didn't complain. I just kind of I knew I knew it wasn't my future. I knew enough in the ad school that I could do it. So I think that's maybe the lesson for people who want to get into it. Like, there's just something about it. I knew I could do it and I just believed in it and kept going. I worked on my portfolio, a throw in garbage into that bailer. And walked into an ad agency and it's DDB. And they didn't have anyone set me down the road. And I was on a week to week contract making peanuts. Every Friday, I didn't know if I would come back and. Man, I got some briefs and booked my arse off and they had to hire me. But that that's a really interesting bit because you weren't working in it, but you you said you were working on your portfolio. So what was like you were making your own briefs and your own tasks for yourself or you were rewriting stuff that was already out there? Yeah, yeah, no, I think so to get a job in an ad agency as a copywriter or director, you know, any on the creative side, you need a portfolio of your work. And back then it was like five print campaigns. So one idea executed three different ways and you needed five of those. So I worked on it. Obviously I had a book coming out of school that some agencies liked. Yeah, I didn't get an internship because I think the school think they maybe thought I had an attitude. Maybe I did. I don't know. I would just say what I do now. I think my content works. I say what other people are thinking sometimes, but not saying. And I said it then. I didn't mean a fence by it. And I think maybe they're worried about me making the school look bad. I don't know. OK, all right. But jumping forward. So you eventually award winning. So I'm interested to know as an award winner, would you say that those are your proudest bits of work? Or is it that's just not involved in it? Like, what are the the highlights of your copy or creative directive career? You know, you know, it's funny. I can't even. Even the biggest awards that I won. It's that it's not that work doesn't stand out. That's not always the case. I'm not saying this across the board. Some creatives have done amazing, better work than I have. And I'm sure it's deserved of the wards. And that's what they're most proud of. But I guess for me. Yeah, it's the human kind of struggle or the wonderful people that stand out for me or the things I had to overcome like that. And there was a McDonald's brief very early on in my career. I didn't it was when I was on this week to week contract was a creative team beside me working on McDonald's new thick cut McDonald's wedge fries are back. But for a limited time only, the brief that that was the brief that was the payoff line in the TV spot. Anyway, they said, here's a brief. Our director said, you can think on it if you want, thinking, whatever, he just give me like whatever, something to chew on. But I wouldn't come back with anything. But I was competitive and also I knew when I get my shot, I'm going to do it. And there was TV on that brief, billboards, radio. And now within two days, I walked over and I go, here's something. It was like full sketchbook, hundreds of ideas, put them all on the wall with theirs. Yeah, I'm making like eight cents an hour. Creative director comes, looks at all the work, picks eight things to present that were all from my sketchbook. But he didn't know because our director sketched him up. I knew, I knew they knew. And that was early in my career. That campaign was so successful and I actually changed the brief because the brief they want to focus on limited time only. And I thought they should focus on these being a bigger fry. But there was all these low carb diets at the time. That's right. It was that guy. I don't know if he had it out there, Subway. And there was that guy, Jared. He's a fireman and a Subway fan. He's Jared. And he apparently lost all this weight from eating footlong subs. That was their thing. And so they were afraid to embrace these big high carb products. And I was like, I didn't get to present because I said, I mean, they just left me at my desk. But anyway, that that went through the campaign was so successful that to pull it because they had sold so many of these wedge fries and they only budgeted to buy a certain amount. So that was like a huge, huge thing for me. I remember that the I was told after the creative director said to the team, well, how was working with Dan? Nope, they didn't say anything, even though it was mine. And I think the art director had told me years later that he was leaving it for the writer to say something because he didn't, you know, want to like overstep and when this person didn't, he said he went back and told the creative director that he'd love to work with me. And that, I think, kept me off a forklift that because he had no idea I'm not the type and never will be to say I did that. And, you know, I think I probably would have made it still because I knew I did that. And that was enough to probably that was a key key moment for you. Huge. Yeah, I had a few of them for sure. But at this stage, you weren't, I imagine you weren't doing the kind of processes that you have in your book about like the banging out the headlines, 100 headlines, 50 headlines in 30 minutes, you hadn't reached this. No, no, no. You know, yeah, I was a bull in the beginning with my brain, I think. And I just I loved I did love it, though. But I came the ideas came easy. The writing never never did. I could come up with ideas for days and I did way too much. What I said earlier about, you know, stop while you're going good, like I go to bed with a sketchbook and there's like ink marks. I remember my bedsheets and stuff like it wasn't good. I think that came from insecurity, though. And this, you know, people have gone through way worse struggles than I have. I'm quite privileged. But this my own struggle to get the job to whatever my own doubts and other people who doubted me, you know, even my dad saying, you know, he couldn't take my losses and was like, you know, maybe you should maybe you're not good enough is actually what he said, which is like he can do that to I think it's to shock me to be like, geez, you know, if he's not and he keeps pushing, I'm just going to present this option to him. You should probably consider it. I knew, though, you didn't know what I was doing in the sketchbook. I knew. But no, I didn't have I had a lot of anxiety, which I didn't realize. I think I maybe had fake confidence, grow it up and then a career started and cracks, you know, you act like you know everything. And all of a sudden there we go. Well, yeah, I have to say you're flying now because the the the wordplay in the book in your in your LinkedIn stuff, your Twitter. Yeah, I just look so much forward to reading your sentences. Let me give an example. One from the book. OK. If you've been in the advertising business for more than three hours, you'll be familiar with this question, but it's a good one to revisit, even if your name rhymes with David Bogleby. Love it, love it, love it. And that's one of your your things, you say, leave it till the end, leave the pay off until the end, right till the end. Fantastic. But I wanted to ask you about this because obviously, you know, it's a book on copyright in this day with Ogilvy, this burn back, et cetera, et cetera. Do you think that these legends are like, you know, just from a time aspect and from a sociological aspect for are they too far removed for people that are getting into copyrighting now to have them as their heroes? Or do you think it's like you have to respect the classics, respect the masters and yes and no. I think, you know, when I read a lot of times, like if it's their books or quotes, where they help me now, it's like bigger picture. I think that has really stood the test of time. I don't have any top of mind, but they're like thoughts on working with clients on the industry, on creativity. You look at, oh, I'm going to forget his name. It's it's got like three first names, but Webster is one of his psychist middle name. The old school ad man who wrote the like five steps to coming up with ideas. Bill Burnback, I believe, wrote the forward in his book. He did. That is incredible. I just reread that not long ago. It's like a five step technique to produce producing ideas. I think you can find it like a PDF somewhere online. That stood the test of time. I think the big picture, things from them, absolutely. Little picture and craft. I never worked with them. And I'm sure back then, craft and writing. Was the dominant part of this. You would just send it to the. I weren't called art directors then, whatever they were, guys in the studio. Very beginning, you would just. Bill Burnback was the first to put them together. Yeah, but the writers led the way. They would like write the copy and say picture kind of goes here and send it up to the to the puppets. And then this still bugs me. But the giving art director is such a way better title than copywriter. You always see like job boasting. They want art directors and like copywriters. Just like I saw a brief once. I won't name the company. Or maybe I will now. On the brief, it said creative. Plus the copywriting was required. I was like, yeah, not happy with that. Yeah, you mentioned about working on your craft. And it's it's it's a thing in the book, of course, as well. So you said that the back in the day, you were you were told to work on it, but you didn't know what it meant. So what do you think it means now? Yeah, it's a good question. I thought about it. Obviously, I think it just means to learn and grow. And I think we can be so I had a guy message me the other day. He just started working in advertising. First job decent agency. He's he's 20. And he's like, you know, I feel like I don't know anything. I was like, you don't like that's because you don't that's OK. And I think we feel like we should know for some stupid reason. I think it might be harder even for people. I started I was 27 going on 28 when I started. So I some people and I had gray hair since I was like eight, I feel like. But so I think they assumed that this guy's been doing it a while. And I was like, well, I better pretend that I have. And then I think with that approach, it took me a lot longer to learn things. You just assume that confidence will develop over time. But it actually it really doesn't. You have to be deliberate with working on your craft. Often like related to basketball players. You hear about these guys, all athletes, I'm sure. But I was surprised the first time I heard an athlete who's LeBron James or Kobe Bryant, someone say. Reference their sport as a craft, working on their craft. And when you look at what these guys do and girls, you know, if they're good with their left hand, they'll work on their right hand. They obviously have their dominant skills, but they're working on their craft and their weaknesses. And I what I did was just I just focused on my strengths. And the longer my career is gone, the demand for those other things has like increased or to be able to teach them and help people. And when there's a bit of a hole there, I don't know, got me thinking. And, you know, one thing I've learned from sharing content are the things that we experienced the strongest. In agencies, our greatest insecurity or anywhere is usually when we feel most alone and want to hide and run through a wall or a window, but I've realized that when I share those things, those are when you have the most company. They're the most relatable things. And that's helped me sharing content is when I come across one of those thoughts, I'm pretty sure I've got one and I share. And most of the time I'm right or people say thank you. And it's good to know that other people are going through the same way and feel the same way. It lessens it. OK, this is normal. It was like a Jerry Seinfeld who said I heard him recently on a podcast that he said he once heard that depression was like part of a kit that kind of comes with creativity. And he said, and when I learned that, I kind of accepted it because, you know, without that, I wouldn't have this. And he talked a lot on this podcast about creative people and by creative people, I mean people. But I think people who are drawn are more to creativity, professional creatives. I think they're more sensitive people. I think you're sensitive to observations and humanity and things. And so. Probably because you have to be you have to put yourself in the customer shoes. You have to be empathetic to be a copywriter in particular. Right. Yeah, yeah. I had a podcast with a guy called Derek Walker in the States, a copywriter, and he's got his own agency and really Brown Brown Brown. Yeah. Yeah. And he's he was doing some really fantastic insights like respect the craft of copywriting. And I said, what do you mean by that? And he said, like, you know, there's no company in the world that has released a product overnight. They take three years to do R&D and then, hey, you want us to write something, the copyright is you want us to write something that will change people's minds and all the things that are required for someone to purchase and you want us to do that in 48 hours. No. Yeah. And and he was saying that I said, what advice have you got for young copywriters? And he said that you have to you have to respect the craft in the fact of saying no to unmeasurable deadlines because you're saving yourself from the burnout and like you were saying. Yeah. He said, if you keep saying yes, you'll never be able to say no. Yeah. Yes. It's difficult, though, when you're when you're young and you're new at the game, right, you know, saying, yeah, well, I think the hardest thing when you're young is like that you don't know what you don't know. I think that's why more experienced people have to look out for those timelines, have to look out for those people on those timelines also feels good to say yes. Recently, an agency a few weeks ago said, can you just help us on this little thing? They had a writer who was away and wanted me to take over. And I said, it's only five hours. But I've never done a job in the history in the last 20 years. That took five hours. And I looked at the schedule and there was about three hours of meetings. I was like, I don't know how this is possible. And it wasn't super tiny thing, but it took, you know, 12 hours. Next week, an agency called me and said, hey, we have a really small thing. I just finished. I've been doing longer stints. So I've not been like, and I had a month off. So I was like, well, I'll take a little little job here and there. Just a couple. And anyway, there's another agency who phoned and said, five hours. I was like, what is going on? I'm like, I'm friendly with someone else. That agency did the same thing. And I'll tell you this one job is probably 15 hours, but I can do it. And if I'm not in any meetings, I'm like, I can probably do it in 12. But I think going back to your point and your chat with Derek if you're not aware of your process, you don't even know how long it takes for you to come up with things. If you don't have a process, it gets even harder. If you're going to have a meeting in there and you're going to stress and spend some time telling yourself you're not good enough and your career is over, you know, you need to dive for that. So, yeah, I think the short timelines are I had a I'm talking so much, I guess that's the point a little bit. But I had a very unique contract recently for the startup based out of Spain. And it was three months, but it started out as one month. And the first month was really rare. He said, I said, I'd like to do we had a conversation and his brand's business is just doing well, we just never brand. And I said, give me a month. I'm just going to come up with ideas on every platform. He didn't know what his brand was. I didn't know what it could be. And normally, you know, you start with a strategy and then you develop creative. But I always feel like they should be developed together. Like strategy should be creative, creative, strategic, but separating them is I find they're too separated. And anyway, so I just came up with a ton of ideas, which really, when you have a ton of ideas and different avenues to explore, each one is kind of a strategy. So that was the first month. And I feel like this is it. And we nailed it down to one thing. And then he's like, well, I actually have some specific things coming out that we need to create ads for and need messaging around. And he wanted me to create something. Another document was I was really happy with it was rules for the company. He's kind of like a modern guy. It's like work for four days a week, very much aligned with kind of my approach to things. And so I wrote this document and then I decided the one thing was wrong from that we got out of that month. And I said, I want to redo it all. I think it's wrong and I think it's this. Let me write it up. And he said, yeah, OK, actually, I didn't tell him what I thought it was, but I just said I thought it was wrong. And I spent another month creating two different documents. And I feel like I nailed it and he was so happy. And we both were never get that chance. It was three months to figure it out. And I work for companies where you get two weeks or agencies will call me because I still freelance for agencies or brands. I prefer I prefer brands, especially smaller ones. But the agencies, I think clients are more demanding. They need more content on more platforms faster than ever before. And agencies are going just like to Derek's point. Hopefully he sounds like he's saying no, which is awesome. And sometimes you got to turn things around quickly. But some agencies I've worked for five years ago versus now the change is ridiculous in timelines. Yeah, so so what advice would you have for for any level of copywriter who's like who's in that like that whirlpool or the the washing machine of it all? And, you know, you spoke about burnout. What what advice would you have for them for like to avoid burnout if if if any at all possible? You know, honestly, it can be hard because you are working for a company. And a lot of these agencies, Shai Day used to be nicknamed Shai Night and Day. A lot of them had nicknames like that, the one in LA. It kind of became the culture. So I think it's once you're in it and you buy in and it's not fair to blame agencies. You know, I think it's to blame. I think if there's one takeaway from like what I'm doing is that we're doing creativity wrong. Way wrong in agencies. And I think it's going to be exposed. It is being exposed by burnout. There was a survey done recently. I don't have it in front of me, but I forget the company who did it. But it's former ad guys who started like it's like they assemble freelancers and freelancers can get work through this like hub and they're massive. But they did a survey amongst thousands of agency creatives, the amounts that have left to freelance that are experiencing burnout and different like questions around burnout was like really, really high. So I think creatives need to push up against the system. I think we need to educate. I'm trying to do that. I think that's where I want to move things from like helping copywriters. What should you really all this is just I thought about helping myself. So what I wish I had earlier and I can't change that, but I can help other people do it. So but my advice to people, my best advice and a lot of creatives don't like this, that you know, you're kind of structuring creativity, adding a process you can't, you know, it's an art man, like there is some like whatever I call them orthodox creatives that would fight against that. But I think that's the key, you know, something called or what's it called lateral integration, like left brain, right brain. And I think what happens in the creative world, it's separate. Even you got a count side creative, like it's not different. And by identifying with this no process process and just winging it and I remember even saying, you know, you can wear whatever you want to work. Oh, yeah, I love my job. I used to say this and I knew as I was saying it, that I was full of shit. Oh, I can take my sketchbook and go, you know, we're on the coast here, hang my feet in the water and come up with ideas. Well, I can show up whenever I want, leave whenever I want. There was something like all those things are true. But there was something about it that never felt right for me. I was lying to myself because I knew it was really hard. And I think the key is making creativity way more boring. I think thinking of it as magic is killing people. Creatives is not. I think if we can make creativity way more boring and unsexy and add more structure, I think that's how you can kind of we can start. We'd be way better creatives, I think. You have to leave room, obviously, for it to be like what it could be anything. Yeah, but all you need when you're creative is a start, something in front of you to make better to think about differently. And there's these cards that I always show these guys ad house in New York City, Tom Christmas, someone I'm like a big fan of and listen to his podcast and he's one of the deans with Paul Fix of Ad House. And they've put out these cards. It's a deck of cards. I think it's just called Ad House of Cards. There's 35 cards. And it's based on like science shows. There was a crazy study done not by them that said all advertising was like 90 percent can be traced to these six techniques. And then then what these cards are are 35 different approaches inspired from those six techniques. So you can use them, you know, they're meant to just be like just like fuel or inspiration when you're concepting it. I think they're really onto something with that. It's now become a course. And that really resonates with me. And I think it just proves that mostly you look at movies, like they're all the same, different characters, different, whatever, scary person. Well, there's some great frameworks and processes in your book. So it's highly recommended. When can people get hold of this? Then when is your book coming out? I think they have to have me on their podcast so I can send them an unfinished version. They can get it sooner. No, you know what? I. I think within a month I having some issues. There is a strong learning curve I'm self publishing on my eye line. I bet has been so weird through this whole time. I keep noticing I'm looking at you and then the camera. I'm hoping within a month. And so I've hired, I told you earlier, a publishing consultant. Finally, I needed the help to get this thing done quickly. And this person is currently ghosting me. I hope she's OK. I hope to hear from her soon. I bet she's the best at being here while we're doing this, hopefully. But if not, you know what? It's kind of a kick in the ass for me to get going and do some of the things I was going to pay her to do. So let's say, what's the date? September 17th, you can buy a self-help guide for copywriters October 17th. I'll make it October 19th. That's my number. I like the number. Or a nice Christmas gift for somebody. There you go. Yes. Yeah, exactly. I'll say sometime, sometime. Hey, just last question. You've spoken a lot about ideas and you've got tons of ideas. Where where are they coming from? Where do you get your inspiration? Is it from your I don't know, your socialization when you grow up? We living with funny people. Where do you go now for inspiration? Well, yeah, I think there's I mean, my head goes to places. There's what shaped me. And then there's now, which I don't know. Yeah, what shaped me? I'll do this quickly. I think naturally I'm a rule follower. I just wanted to be a good boy as a kid. But my life was kind of chaotic. Rules were broken all around me, my older brothers. It wasn't a ton of structure, which is interesting, which that's what I'm. Oh, that's funny. This has been a whole therapy session. I didn't realize this book is all about structure. I didn't have it growing up. So I miss school a lot. I barely graduated high school. But my because the rules were broken around me. Like curfews. So I was watching things I shouldn't have been watching at night. And my older brothers, they were really funny. They were taught me how to break rules. And so I think I had this kind of duality. I think that's what kind of makes me a decent strategist and and creative as well. So that's, I think, what shaped me. And I think now where I get inspired, man, you know, I wasn't inspired at all for years. I always wanted to do something other than, you know, writing for brands, something for myself, which I want everyone in the world, especially advertising creatives to do. I think it's so important to have full creative control to just do whatever the hell you want, whenever you want, however you I think it's very important. Because I think once you start, that's when you get ideas. Something to think about. I shared a post, I don't know what it was a few days ago on LinkedIn. About Norm MacDonald, a Canadian comedian. It was a tribute to him. I just had this thought that, hey, you know what? I'm going to take his jokes and then I'm going to, you know, interpret them as if they were a copywriting technique. And I did it in one night. That next morning, I thought, ah, this is not very good. I'm not going to share it. I actually messaged a friend and he said, yeah, I think it's good. It makes sense and it's important to us to do it. And I was like, yeah, whatever. It's all about learning. It's gone like the most popular post I've ever shared. It's got a lot of looks. It was over a hundred thousand something views, which is a lot for LinkedIn. And my point is if I hadn't been sharing content or started doing this, I wouldn't have had that idea. I had also had the idea a while ago to do the same thing with like rap lyrics and tie them to like a copywriting tip. And so for you. Oh, yeah. About your burnout, what you were talking about before. Check yourself before you wreck yourself ice cube. There you go. There you go. Nice. That's the first one. What would that be? That's the. Check yourself before you wreck yourself. The opposite. No, I know what it means. I'm thinking of the copywriting tip. Yeah, that's like avoid burnout. Oh, yeah. OK, there you go. I stop. OK. Oh, I got it. I got it. I'm thinking of like I have these headline techniques. So I'm like anyway. Yes. OK, I got it. I will give you credit. So so anyway, my point is, you know, because I'll get people when I write something like that. And it does well, like, oh, how did you come up with this? But it's you get momentum. You just got to start and it's hard to start. It's hard to kind of keep going. It's hard to always don't do it. No, I'm kidding. It's not hard to always keep going. It's hard to start. You're just overcoming your like what internal resistance. But it gets easy. It gets hard to not do it after a while. You just have to get past that threshold of whatever you're doing for yourself. You can do it. You just have to do it. And it took me a long, long, long time. And I encourage everyone to to create something for yourself. Like, I don't know. You have this podcast. Like how I know it's for a company, but it's you doing it. Like, I don't know how does it feel for you to do it? It's a lot of work because I do a lot of research for each guest and everything. You have to read books. Yeah, tons. And but yeah, you get into that momentum. And and if you're enjoying it, it's it's it's not really. Too taxing. Yeah. Yeah, it's good. Hey, I know that you said in your book that you don't like being put on the spot because you have all these frameworks and stuff and the processes that you go through and you need the time and everything. But I want to ask you, oh, here comes the freeze frame. I want to ask you a question I normally end with and actually Trevor Noah stole it. And I saw him asking Anthony Fauci this question the other night. So this might be the last time I ever asked it. So you have to choose to fight between a horse sized duck or 100 duck sized horses. Rest of you choose to fight and why? Oh, wow. I've been asked this many times. All right, I'm going to go. Straight, Dan, this is me, my left brain. I'll see if I can do a right brain with my left brain. I'm going to do some math for, I'm going to say duck weighs about five pounds and there's a hundred of them. That's a hundred horse, a hundred duck sized, duck sized horses. So I'm going to call one horse sized duck. So they're five pounds each times a hundred. That's five hundred pounds. And a horse is probably like, what, 1500 pounds? So I would take the little guys. I think I could squash them in the actual, like if I'm really in a fight for my life. I think it might be more impressive to like if I lost to the duck, it wouldn't be as embarrassing. I think the picture of the newspaper. But now if I use my right brain and take this into the marketing world, I think if you want something done, never, never give it to a committee. I think the the hundred might be disorganized. You'd have a bunch of people who didn't know what to do. I think you'd have a bunch of people probably work paying attention. It didn't want to be there. You'd have just layers of decision making. You'd have people asking, is this the right thing to do? I think they'd be too disorganized. So if I'm answering from that side, yeah, I think either way, I'm going to take the hundred little ones. I could I could I could smoke them. Yeah. Nice. And I've never I've asked that question thousands of times in my corporate career and stuff. I've never had that that analysis at the front of that brilliant stuff. Fantastic. Oh, yeah. OK, Dan, just tell everyone where they can find you for your newsletter and LinkedIn. OK. Yeah. Yeah, newsletter is nelkincreative.com or you can just buy me Dan Nelkin on LinkedIn. Add me as a contact. You can follow me or send an invite. I don't need a message. You don't have to if you can't think of anything. Just I'll accept it. Don't try and sell me anything. But yeah, fire away with any questions. I will always get back to you, whatever your question is. Great. And I will put those links in the show notes as well. Dan, thank you so much for your time. I know everyone's time is so precious and I'm really, really grateful and I'm a huge, huge fan of your words. So long may it succeed the newsletter and the book as well. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. That really means a lot to still. Yeah, I'm just I'm just taking it back always that people are having a positive experience and liking it and yeah, hopefully I get used to it. But I'm not yes yet. So thank you very much. I appreciate it. And great to meet you and thanks for asking. I really enjoyed this.