I almost talked myself out of going to the gym this morning. I've got a bunch of shit to do today. Calls. Projects. Emails. The normal stuff. So I'm sitting there mentally putting my day together... Trying to figure out what's important. What can wait. What I should do. What I really DON'T feel like doing. And the gym was dangerously close to getting cut.😂 Because when I thought about actually GOING to the gym... There wasn't much about it that sounded appealing (there never is). Get dressed. Drive there. Lift heavy shit. Sweat my ass off. Get dressed AGAIN. Drive home. Fuuuuu@$. I could get a lot of "more important" shit done in that time. But, against every voice in my head... I went. And later, I'm sitting in the sauna afterward feeling GREAT. Workout done. Feeling accomplished. And thinking... "Goddamn, I'm glad I came." Which is funny because... I HATE working out. But I LOVE "having worked out". And sitting there... I realized something. I had basically built a Hero Package for my own day. Not intentionally. I didn't wake up and say... "Today I'm going to construct myself an irresistible transformational offer." But think about it. I had a bunch of different things I could put into my day. And ultimately, I wasn't choosing them because I loved every individual THING I had to do. I was choosing them based on the DAY I wanted those things to create. That's a Hero Package. And we probably build little versions of them for ourselves ALL THE TIME without realizing it. You don't necessarily want to eat salad. But you DO ou want to feel healthier. You don't necessarily want to make the uncomfortable phone call. But you DO want the deal that might exist on the other side of it. The individual pieces aren't necessarily what we want. We want the OUTCOME those pieces create. And that's EXACTLY how we should be thinking when we build Hero Packages for our auctions. Think about it... We sit down and start listing all the "stuff" they're going to get.

I'm a huge Packers fan. So obviously yesterday I'm watching Packers/Vikings. And for most of the game... I'm feeling pretty damn good. Packers go up. Vikings answer. Packers score again. Penalty. Big play. Bad play. I'm watching the score. Watching the clock. Watching every possession. By the third quarter, Green Bay is up 22-10. And I'm thinking... We got this. Then Minnesota scores. 22-17. Okay. Don't love that. But we're still good. Then the fourth quarter happens. And suddenly I'm sitting forward in my chair. Every play matters. Every first down matters. Every penalty matters. Every second coming off that clock matters. And somewhere in the middle of watching my Packers completely shit the bed... I had this thought: "Holy shit. I'm watching an auction." Because think about what makes a football game fun to watch. It's not the score. It's the fact that... THE SCORE CAN CHANGE. One team takes the lead. The other answers. Momentum changes. Something unexpected happens. And suddenly a game you thought was over... AIN'T FU@$!NG OVER. That's EXACTLY what makes a live auction so addictive. Somebody bids $1,000. Another person jumps to $1,500. Nothing happens for a little while. Then somebody who hasn't bid all day comes flying in at $2,000. The previous bidder answers. You add a bonus. Somebody asks a question. Another bidder appears. And everybody watching starts wondering... WHAT THE HELL IS GOING TO HAPPEN NEXT? That's the game. And here's what really hit me yesterday: If the Packers had been winning 45-3 with four minutes left... I probably wouldn't have been glued to the TV. The game would technically still be happening... But psychologically? The game would be over. There'd be no uncertainty. No anticipation. No reason to keep watching. Same damn thing can happen to your auction. People think the entertainment comes from watching the PRICE go up. Not exactly. It comes from watching the battle. Who's winning?

I was at a friend's house last night watching the football game. And at some point during the game... He starts bitching about his car. Something needs to be fixed. Something else is making a noise. He's bitching about what it costs to fill it up. He's talking about maybe trading it in. Maybe getting something different. Blah blah freakin' blah. Meanwhile... In the driveway... Sitting literally TWO FEET away from the car he's bitching about... Is his old car. Paid for. Runs fine. Nothing fancy. But a perfectly good damn car. So finally I said... "Dude... you've got a perfectly good car sitting two feet away from that one. Drive THAT one and shut the hell up so we can watch the game." 😂 And that was pretty much the end of the conversation. Until later. Because on the way home I started thinking about it. And I realized... We do the exact same shit in our businesses. We're constantly stressing about the NEW car. What's my next offer? What should I create next? What do I need to build before I can make more money? We spend all this time... and money... and energy... trying to figure out what we're going to drive next. Meanwhile... there's a perfectly good car sitting in the driveway. Actually... If you've been in business for any length of time, you've probably got a whole freakin' used-car lot sitting on your hard drive. Old courses. Templates. Workshops. Ideas you started and never finished. Stuff you created five years ago and haven't opened since. And because YOU'VE seen that stuff a thousand times... you barely even notice it anymore. Just like that old car. You walk past it every day. It's just... There. But here's the thing: Familiarity doesn't make something worthless. It just makes it familiar to YOU. That course you haven't promoted in four years? Someone in your audience has never seen it. That workshop you did once and forgot about? Could be exactly what somebody needs right now. Those templates you made for yourself?

It's Labor Day. And I'm sitting at the park as I type this on my laptop. We're setting up for our annual barbecue and baseball game. Well... Technically it's sloshball. But that's probably another post entirely. 😂 Anyhoo... there's a little playground next to us. And a few minutes ago I overheard some kids playing a game on the teeter-totter that reminded me of something we used to play when I was a kid. We called it: "Charlie Brown, let me down." The basic idea was simple. One kid gets the other kid stuck way up in the air... ...and won't let him down. So now the kid dangling five feet off the ground has to negotiate. "Come on, let me down!" "What'll you give me?" And eventually... If the kid wants down badly enough... HE MAKES THE DEAL. And watching these kids today made me realize... That's a pretty damn good lesson in how to build an auction offer. YOUR OFFER SHOULD BE A LOPSIDED TEETER-TOTTER. On one side is what THEY want. Whatever change they're already sitting there thinking... "Fu@$. I WANT that." And on the other side? Is what you're asking them to give up to get it. And if those two sides feel perfectly balanced... You've got a problem. Because now they have to THINK about it. "Is this worth $5,000?" "Do I really need this?" "Maybe I'll wait." "I should probably talk to my wife." But that's not what you want. You want that teeter-totter so ridiculously lopsided in THEIR favor that the decision feels almost unfair. They should be sitting up there thinking... "WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO TO GET DOWN?" But here's where people screw this up. They know they need to make their side of the teeter-totter heavier. So they start piling shit on it. More. More. MORE. Until they've got this giant pile of shit sitting on one side of the teeter-totter. And they call it a VALUE STACK. They think making an offer lopsided means... MORE SHIT. But that's not necessarily value. Sometimes that's just weight. And weight isn't what makes somebody desperately want off the teeter-totter.

I was walking the dog early this morning. That weird little window where it's technically morning... but the night hasn't really left yet. The sun was just barely starting to come up. There was this cool breeze blowing through the desert. And for whatever reason... I stopped. I really took it all in. And I remember thinking... Holy shit. I fu@$!ng LOVE this. Which is kinda funny. Because I've lived here for many years. I've had thousands of Vegas mornings. But this morning was different. Not because the morning itself was different... But because this time I actually EXPERIENCED it. The breeze. The smells. The moon. The silence. All of it. And now? I want to do it again tomorrow. And the next morning. And the morning after that. And THAT got me thinking about the Hero Package I'm creating for an upcoming auction. Because that's what I want to create. Not a "package" An experience. I don't want them to just read a list of all the "stuff" they're getting. I want them to SEE it. FEEL it. WANT it. Because I didn't realize how much I wanted THAT morning... until I actually experienced it. That's the job of the Hero Package. Create the experience in their head before they ever actually have it. Put them there. Let them see it. Let them feel it. Let them start wanting to wake up there tomorrow... And the next day... And the day after that. Because once somebody has already experienced that future in their mind... they're not just bidding on a bunch of shit you're selling anymore. They're bidding to get there. And if you've done your job right... They'll bid to the freakin moon to make sure they do. Thankfully for me... All I need is a dog that likes to poop 🤣🤣