TCC Podcast 33: Taking Uncomfortable Action with Ry Schwartz

Our first guest to make an encore appearance on the club podcast is Canadian copywriter, Ry Schwartz, who just flew in from Costa Rica in time to talk with Rob and Kira about: • the new “product” Ry is launching soon with his girlfriend • using masterminds to meet potential clients • how he deals with “freak out” • how he vets clients (sometimes he asks them to sing with him) • how he conducts his R&D (and what client work has to do with it) • what he does to get people to take “uncomfortable action” • how he invoices for “giving a damn” • what he would do today if he had to start over from scratch There’s so much good stuff in this episode that we’ve already listened to it three times before we released it. Don’t miss all the great advice Ry has to share. Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript. The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Sponsor: AirStory Copy School Joanna Wiebe Marc Angelo Capalla Superhero Academy The Wonder Twins The Babysitters Club Futurism High Existence The other Ry Schwartz podcast Marian Schembari Carpool Karoke Sam Woods TGIFridays Amy Porterfield Tarzan Kay Gabby Bernstein Jeff Walker Ryan Levesque Kira’s website Rob’s website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group Intro: Content (for now) Outro: Gravity Full Transcript: The Copywriter Club Podcast is sponsored by Airstory, the writing platform for professional writers who want to get more done in half the time. Learn more at Airstory.co/club. Rob: What if you could hang out with seriously talented copywriters and other experts, ask them about their successes and failures, their work processes and their habits, then steal an idea or two to inspire your own work? That’s what Kira and I do every week at The Copywriter Club Podcast. Kira: You’re invited to join the club for Episode 33 as we chat with copywriter Ry Schwartz about what he would do if he had to start over from scratch, how he thinks through email sequences, how to focus when you’re freaking out, and vetting new clients. Joins conversation in progress... Kira: Well, maybe we can start there. We’re not doing an official intro, I don’t think. I want to hear more about your travels and where you’ve been and why you’ve been traveling and what you’ve been doing off the radar. Ry: Yes. Yes, so I’ve been really on the road since mid-February. I’ve been location-independent for three or four years right now. I never really took advantage. I get very romantic about the idea of travel, but in practical terms, I can’t leave my house without packing for Cliff Bars, just because I have this intense fear of starvation. It really took a lot to pull the trigger on that, but it’s something that my girlfriend, Sue, and I were talking about for two years, just even considering relocating to Costa Rica for the winter, because who wants to be in Montreal in the winter? Then yeah, I finally pulled the trigger. I surprised her with this three-week trip, part of it at this mastermind. A few of the things are already taken care of for us and we don’t have to pack too many Cliff Bars. Yeah, we ventured down there in mid-February. It was initially supposed to be on the backend, at the end of the launch I was doing with the Copy Hackers. We were going to launch Copy School. I was going to create my new program within in, and then we were just going to celebrate with this three-week cathartic release in the jungle. As luck would have it, our launch dates got pushed back. I was actually in the jungle trying to get any kind of Wi-Fi possible in any location possible in order to write emails for the launch and just work with that pivot. God bless Joanna for being patient with that. I’m like, “I literally am in the middle of the jungle. There is no Wi-Fi present. The only Wi-Fi providers are three hours away and they really don’t give a crap about my product launch right now.” Yeah, that was part of the adventure was working on that and getting things lined up while also enjoying and submitting to the jungle experience and being present to that. That was super wild. To make matters even crazier, and this is where the story really takes some interesting turns, is our first live webinars to launch our new program were literally scheduled for the day we were getting back from Costa Rica, so all the work was there. Three days before we are scheduled to come back, my girlfriend starts not feeling so well. She’s going to hit me when listens to this. Kira: Oh, boy. Ry: I’m so getting in trouble, but ... Okay. Maybe she won’t listen to this. I’ll just make sure she doesn’t listen to it. This is super, super intimate information here, but yeah, she starts throwing up wildly, not your typical I ate too much at that buffet kind of throwing up, like the nasty stuff. Yeah, I was like, “I don’t know, maybe she caught some foreign jungle virus and she’ll be fine because immune systems are awesome and we’ll be okay,” but it just kept persisting. At this point, I got to add to the story, we actually left the jungle. The later part of our trip was actually meeting, this was a terrible idea on my end, but it was to move from the craziness of the jungle and this festival we were at in the last few days where people are just doing all sorts of crazy things and staying up until 3 a.m., listening to crazy music. Moving from that setting to Laguna Beach where we were actually meeting up with my parents and my sister for three days of family time. It was during this family time that Sue really was having this weird post-jungle virus which intuitively I was like, “Yeah, I don’t know, this might not just be a jungle virus.” I Ubered to a CVS, bought a pregnancy test. We had no reason to think that a pregnancy test would be needed. We were reverse trying. We were un-trying to get pregnant, and then, yeah, it was like, “Pee on the stick and see what happens,” just put that aside easier, and it came back positive. Of course, I’m like- Kira: Oh. Ry: Yeah, I know, gasp. Then like... Rob: Wait, are you announcing to the world on our podcast? Ry: I think this is the official world announcement. Rob: Wow. Kira: This was unexpected. Ry: There was total denial, complete denial, because once again, we were reverse trying. There was no reason to expect this, so take the same Uber back to the same CVS and get eight more brands of pregnancy test, pretty much. Kira: Oh, my goodness. That sounds about right. Ry: Just like, “Drink a lot of water because we’re going to be doing this all afternoon.” Yeah, one by one, they all started coming back positive. There’s this total freak-out. The immediate feeling is we felt like rebellious 17-year-olds that just screwed out their lives and can’t go to college anymore. Yeah, that was like just this moment of complete shock and overwhelm, and then in two days, we’re launching this new course. I’m giving birth to something. My girlfriend is eventually going to give birth to something. So much freaking birth happening right now and we were still stuck in Laguna Beach. We raced back to Montreal, still in denial about the pregnancy, so we go to the hospital, a walk-in clinic there, and I’m literally preparing for tomorrow’s launch webinar in the waiting room trying to see what my fate holds, because I still don’t believe all nine pregnancy tests, because those things are totally unreliable. Rob: Because, yeah, why? Yeah. Ry: Yeah. Yeah, and it turns out ... You need someone in a lab coat to say you’re pregnant before you finally believe it, but we get that confirmation. My world totally flips, total overwhelm, come home, somehow try to process that while processing our big launch the next day, yeah, get on that webinar, I think, on two hours sleep, and it all somehow worked out. What I learned out of that process is that, after all these years, I still have the capacity to freak-out. I am not this unbreakable thing. I’m like, “Whoa, this is that stress thing people talk about all the time, like, ‘Oh, that’s where it lands.” It was just super heavy, but we did it. Yeah, fast-forward, three weeks later, she is definitely confirmed pregnant. Kira: Oh, my goodness. Ry: It’s awesome, and I’m feeling really good about that. The launch went really well. Rob: Wow. Ry: We have a bunch of amazing students in the program and just having a blast doing that. Yes, total crazy post-Costa Rican turmoil. Yeah, the jungle does crazy things to you, apparently, like pregnancy. Rob: I am so staying away from the jungle. Kira: I’m not going to the jungle. Ry: Yes, stay away from the jungle. Kira: I will not be going to the jungle anytime soon. Ry: Yeah, finally, here we are, I’m finally able to take a deep breath and be like, “That was unexpected,” but it worked out. Yes, that is what I’ve been up to. My life is pretty boring. Kira: Whoa. Ry: Yeah. Rob: That’s crazy. I have 15 questions that I want to ask, and they now all feel really small and insignificant. I mean, we should just end it here. Call it the birth announcement podcast, and we’re done. Ry: Let’s call it a day. Yeah, put it in like the bonus material. You know what? I’m so ready for small and insignificant in life. I’m like, “Stop giving me the big tsunami waves. Give me something manageable that I could actually stay on my surfboard.” I’m good with small and insignificant. I like small and insignificant. Rob: Let’s do it then. You went to Costa Rica as part of a mastermind. Ry: Yes. Rob: Tell us about that. We’ve talked about masterminding on the podcast several times with different guests. Tell us, what do you get out of a mastermind and why did you go? I know a lot of times, masterminds are secretive. You’re not allowed to share the stuff that’s going on in them, but the extent that you can, and you’re being open today, tell us about it. Ry: Yeah, that’s a great question.