Most of the readers of this blog are entrepreneurs – out there in the world beating new paths, asking new questions, and questioning old answers.

And many of us are parents as well, trying to give our kids a good start in life.

One of the “givens” of that good start has been quality schooling.

So it was with some shock that I found myself, last fall, the parent of two “drop-outs.” Following our family’s year in South Africa, neither of my children could maintain their interest or their spirit in a conventional school setting. (And they went to a pretty alternative school, by most standards.)

As I struggled to make sense of their choices and keep in check my knee-jerk reaction to force them to go to school for their own good, I looked for guidance and advice from people who knew what they were talking about.

Luckily, through my 17-year-old daughter, I found Blake Boles.

Blake is an entrepreneur, educator, social activist, and force of nature. He runs UnSchoolAdventures.com, a travel and learning program for homeschooled teens. He’s written three books, including College Without High School, Better than College, and The Unschool Adventures Guide to Online Travel Fundraising (which is available for free at UnSchoolAdventures.com).

I interviewed Blake about the connection between schooling, homeschooling, unschooling, and entrepreneurship. He shared a vision of Self Directed Learners (an all but extinct animal in our school systems) as a model for an entrepreneurial life.

If you have kids who are bored in school, or who feel like there’s so much more to life, or who feel bad about themselves because of their social or academic “shortcomings,” this could be one of the most important interviews you ever listen to.

Enjoy, and please comment. What did you agree with? Disagree with? Wonder about?

Right-click to download the interview in MP3 format.

Up to that point I had been a professional student and teacher, never making more than $29k a year. Peter’s generous offer and promise of advancement as his fledgling company grew made me very eager to get as good at marketing as I could, as quickly as possible.

So I did what all good students do: I went shopping for books.

I started with standard marketing textbooks and bestsellers: Kotler on Marketing, a book called “The End of Marketing as We Know It” by Sergio Zyman (of Coca-Cola), “Experiential Marketing” by Bernd Schmitt, and so on.

As I tried to implement their advice on behalf of a scrappy startup that was trying to change all the rules of the organization development business (our tag line was “Change Rules!”), I began to see that convention marketing wisdom was useless.

Worse than useless, in fact.

Following the mainstream playbook was a recipe for utter failure.

But I didn’t know where else to look. Or even if there was somewhere else to look. And based on results, I wasn’t earning my salary.

Stumbling upon good advice

By chance, I met a guy who introduced me to the work of Dan Kennedy. He lent me Dan’s Magnetic Marketing course, a giant sloppy 3-ring binder and 5 cassette tapes for the staggering price of $247.

I would never have paid that much money for the course, but once I started listening, I was hooked.

Here was someone who, despite the fact that I disagreed completely with his political and philosophical views, finally made sense about marketing.

I bought my own copy of Magnetic Marketing, and became a subscriber to Dan’s newsletter.

Through him I met Ken McCarthy, who taught me about using the Internet as a direct marketing medium before I could get corrupted by the dotcom bubble mentality of Silicon Alley.

Through Ken, I met Perry Marshall, who opened my eyes to AdWords and the wonders of digital split testing and psychographic segmentation.

I’ve read tens of thousands of pages about AdWords since 2002, and I’ve gotta tell you, the insights I gained from Perry’s first version of The Definite Guide to AdWords (which was about 23 pages long, as I recall) still guide me to this day.

And you know what? Unless you follow Perry, or me, or any of a dozen or so other “renegade” teachers, you’ll be building campaigns based on Google’s default settings, and you’ll be failing miserably.

I was open to this whole rich vein of “renegade” marketing because I was desperate. I would never have looked at Magnetic Marketing had I been chugging along doing mediocre work.

I was only open to this radical (and radically effective) approach because I had a strong desire to succeed, and was desperate at my lack of success.

Which brings me to the point of today’s email

I’ve just co-written a book about health, diet, medicine, and lies.

It’s as anti-conventional and renegade as anything I’ve ever seen on the topic.

Because mainstream health and diet advice is, if anything, 100 times worse than mainstream marketing advice.

The main author of the book is the famously controversial scientist Dr. T. Colin Campbell. He wrote The China Study back in 2004, and has been challenging the medical establishment and the food industry since the early 1970s.

Why am I telling you this in a marketing e-newsletter?

For two reasons:

1. I want this book to become a #1 Bestseller. I want it to change (and save) as many lives as possible. I want to share the truth – utterly suppressed by the mainstream media, by government, and by the medical establishment – that roughly 95% of all Western diseases are preventable through a proper diet.

2. You come to me for marketing advice: copywriting, strategy, metrics, etc. But the truth is, you implement only to the extent that you have energy and clarity. When you’re tired, sick, sluggish, foggy, then you won’t be able to implement anything effectively. So as far as I’m concerned, your health and wellbeing (and that of your family) is one of the keys to running and promoting a successful business.

The book was released today, May 7, 2013. I’d like it to hit #1 on amazon (it’s currently #34, so this is very do-able) so the mainstream media will not be able to ignore it (so far they’ve done a fabulous job).

The Big Bribe

And so I’m going to bribe you like I’ve never bribed before :)

The book is called Whole: Rethinking the Science of Nutrition.

If you buy a minimum of three copies today (one to keep and two to give to people you care about), I will give you free and immediate digital access to my $999 Traffic Surge course.

You’ll get the PDF manuals, a couple of recording implementation webinars, homework assignments, and 38 short video tutorials showing you exactly how to use AdWords strategically to grow your business. I taught the course last in 2010, so some of the screen shots are dated, but the strategies are evergreen.

Three copies of the hardcover edition of Whole will set you back $51.06. And it will make a fabulous Mother’s Day gift :)

Here’s what you do

1. Go to amazon and purchase three or more copies of Whole from this link:
http://www.amazon.com/Whole-Rethinking-Nutrition-Colin-Campbell/dp/1937856240/fitfam-20

2. Go to this page and register for Traffic Surge:
http://askhowie.com/ts-course/index.php?/register/CFOWf2

Yes, it’s on the honor system. You don’t need to email me a receipt or anything like that. I trust you.

And please pass this email on to anyone you think could benefit, either from Whole or Traffic Surge.

Many thanks in advance
Howie (Howard) Jacobson

If you’re ready to roll up your sleeves and become a Checkmate master, you can learn more about the Checkmate Home Study course here.

Or if you’d like my marketing agency, VitruvianWay.com, to do it for you, give us a shout here.

I screen-captured the session and uploaded it to YouTube for your viewing pleasure. (And for my SEO benefit ;)

Whatja think? Comments are open, below…

Learn all about Leads into Gold

Snap up your copy of Leads into Gold for just $122.

Right-click to download the conversation in MP3 format.

In the 54-minute conversation, Debra shared her powerful and compassionate insights about gratitude, life, productivity, peace and joy:

• Why our obsession with productivity actually gets in the way of gratitude and, ironically, true productivity.
• The number one enemy of happiness: our habit of comparison.
• The link between feeling deprived and feeling entitled.
• How to lick the habit of complaining.
• The two words that help when we’re on a rant.
• How we can play mental and linguistic tricks on ourselves to put ourselves in a good mood.
• The incredible long-lasting power of a “gratitude letter” – and how to write and deliver one.
• How to harness the power of curiosity to overcome ingratitude.
• Why abundance can make us ungrateful.
• How marketing that harnesses the power of gratitude leads to longer-lasting customer engagement.
• The 80/20 gratitude secret of frozen yogurt punch-cards.
• A definition of idolatry – and it surprised the hell out of me!

I left this conversation feeling so uplifted! My hope and intention is that Rabbi Debra’s words will have the same effect on you.

Right-click to download the conversation in MP3 format.

For more from Rabbi Debra: RabbiDebra.com

The books she mentioned:

Thanks: The New Science of Gratitude

Titles by Zelig Pliskin

Rabbi Debra Orenstein’s books

Thanks to Nancy Faass and ASJA for the opportunity to think out loud for an hour :)

My 30th HS reunion is on March 23. Despite the fact that I am a mostly enlightened being, with no trace of shallowness in my soul, I find myself wanting to look really good that night. Like, 10-pounds-lighter good.

My first response was to judge myself for having those needy, status-seeking thoughts.

And my second response was to judge myself for judging myself.

(For the sake of brevity, I’ll skip the recursive loop that continued for several days.)

But my 12,548th response was to simply accept that motivation as something alive in me at the moment.

And yes, I will be very happy to be at 168 instead of 178. For one thing, I tend to go jeans shopping when I’m at a very happy weight, so I’ll have a much more robust wardrobe. For another, my yoga side bends will have less of a shelf to rest on. And for a third, I’ll look better when I give talks on my new book about nutrition and diet!

So now I’m thinking, let’s use that shallow desire to impress people I haven’t seen in 30 years (and wasn’t particularly able to impress when we were together) as an engine, as leverage to get me to take better care of what goes into my mouth.

I intend to keep a daily food log, noting everything that goes into my mouth. Like time tracking, I’m hoping for insight and awareness at the moment of choice, and accountability with myself.

And great abs on March 23 ;)

Your turn:

Do you have motivations that you’re a little “ashamed of,” that are nevertheless in alignment with goals that are important to you? What do you do about them: repress them in order to be good, or ride them to higher purposes?

This morning I had the privilege of interviewing Ben about web design (where it is now and where it’s going), the importance of Story, the Hero’s Journey, reductionistic and holistic thinking, and the simple steps folks can take to improve their online business results.

Not a short call, but well worth it. If you need added incentive, tell yourself that this is a $67 product that I accidentally posted for free:

Right-click to download as an mp3.

And please return here to leave a comment, question, or complaint.

I’ve crafted the Camp Checkmate Home Study Course to guide you to a more soul-ful business, in addition to growing your revenue (for most businesses, the two goals are actually the same).

The price goes up on March 1 – a gentle way of helping you commit, here and now, to growing your business by coming into your full and unique power.

Learn more here…