This page is about me, Clay Collins. If you’re interested, Tracy’s written a good post about our customer service philosophy here.
Hi, my name is Clay Collins, and the sad truth is that my “about page” has never been fully transparent.
So, because I’ve been beating the drums of full transparency for a long time (while personally having the least transparent “about page” possible), I’ve decided to go out on a limb, re-write this page, let my freak flag fly, and hopefully give you a deeper sense of who I am . . . in the hopes that you’ll do the same.
I’m doing this because . . .
Telling You Anything But The Complicated Story Is A Disservice
For some time now, my about page has been neat and clean. It was an about page I could show to my family. It was the kind of about page that wouldn’t raise red flags to speaker selection committees.
It was safe.
But I’m going to do something different because in this society . . . so-called “successful people” (at least financially successful ones) are usually portrayed as being highly productive earlier risers who work hard, have their ducks in a row, get a lot done, set goals, and do all the stuff Steven Covey and Tony Robbins and David Allen and Peter Drucker say to do.
And not only do I think this portrayal is unfortunate . . .
. . . but it’s also 100%, grade A, first-class bullshit.
(In my case, it’s always been better to ignore almost everything and instead focus only on things that give me illegal amounts of happiness).
Anyway, I really want to drive this point home: Despite what publicists who write press bios WANT you to think, it is a complete myth that financially successful people and market leaders have their shit together, have their ducks in a row.
So I’m Going To Try And Do Something A Little Different
I’m going to try and do something a little different, because I’ve seen person after person tell neat and organized and linear and sensible stories about how their businesses became successful (even though that’s rarely they way it happens).
I’m doing this because most people have been told an outright fucking lie about what creates business success (we’ll get to these lies a little later).
So Here Goes
I’m going to share my story and mission with you and talk about some of the stuff that’s worked.
And a whole lot of the stuff that didn’t (with the ugly details in there as well . . . because, frankly, I think you’ll learn a lot more from my flaws than from the stuff that worked).
But First
I had a friend in PR read this. And, before I take us off the deep end, I’m supposed to first show you the official, fancy bio.
So Here’s The Official, Fancy Bio
Here’s how Garry Schleifer introduced me a few weeks ago before a presentation to the members of choice Magazine.
“Clay Collins is widely regarded as one of the top internet marketers in the world. Now in his 30s, Clay left home at age 15 to start his first software company and (excluding his college years) has been a hard-core entrepreneur ever since.
Clay has been behind the scenes (advising and writing copy) for some of the most important and highest grossing information marketing campaigns on the internet. In addition, Clay has worked with clients ranging from large corporations such as Fox Television Studios to startups such as Brazen Careerist.
Clay has presented on some of the largest internet marketing conferences and stages in the world. And Clay was recently featured in the documentary “Add To Cart” which follows the history of internet marketing pioneers such as Christian Lander (Stuff White People Like), Gary Vaynerchuk (Wine Library TV), Andy Jenkins (Kajabi), Tucker Max, and Frank Kern.
All of Clay’s businesses have operated without investment capital and with a small lean staff. Clay grew up on a citrus farm in rural southern California and now lives in Minnesota where he spends much of his time hiking, backpacking, trying to suck less at bouldering, and spending time with friends and family.”
So that’s the clean version. The neat and simple version. The version that my family sees. The version I was supposed to write.
Here’s the Longer, More Complicated, Messy Version
Let’s start out with some of the dirt and flaws, because there are a lot of them.
Hmmm . . . where to begin.
- I can get one thing (and I mean ONLY one thing) done per day. If I’m writing a blog post, then that’s what I’m doing all day. If I’m on the phone one day, then I schedule all of the week’s phone appointments for that day. If I try and do more than one thing then nothing gets done.
- I simply, cannot, for the life of me get up before 10AM in the morning (my upcoming marketing conference will be starting at 11AM BTW). And I really don’t function without a full 8 hours of sleep, although I prefer 10.
- I’m about as productive as a lobotomized turtle when you remove a few spiritual practices (some of them extremely weird) from my life. For example, I’m completely hosed if I don’t meditate everyday (and thank my creator for the life I have). Also, every once in a while I have to (and I mean have to) go on a ritual “vision quest” . . . which basically entails randomly going backpacking into the woods by myself for an extended period of time. EVERY major product and business initiative from my company has been envisioned during these vision quests. And when too much time passes without one, I start going a little crazy.
- I have a very poor sense of time. The one time I had a corporate job, way back in the day, I showed up on time about once. (That said, I now have a system in place for ensuring that I show up early for speaking arrangements and phone appointments . . . part of this system is that I have to decline almost all speaking engagements and phone appointments, but when I agree to them, I’m there).
- I nearly failed out of preschool (can you even do that?), then dropped out of elementary school, dropped out of high school, dropped out of college, and dropped out of graduate school twice. (How all of this is even logistically possible is a topic for an entire lengthy blog post). That makes me a five-time dropout.
- When I was in elementary school my teachers thought I was an outright incompetent, uncoordinated weirdo, with the attention span of a gnat on amphetamines, who was clearly insane, crazy, and not in his right mind (the part about not being in my right mind is totally true : – ).
- I am pretty much 100% incapable of doing anything that I don’t find immensely interesting.
- It’s nearly impossible to reach me. Not because I think I’m better than everyone else. It’s just like a handicap or something. . . I’m really bad at responding to voicemails, emails, tweets, facebook messages, etc. Right now there are 4287 emails in my personal email inbox, about half of which are unread. I want to respond to every single message, but that somehow never happens. (That said, EVERY SINGLE customer email and business email received gets answered promptly by my business partner Tracy or our customer service team; if you’ve ever dealt with us, you know that we’re 100% dedicated to providing fanatical customer service).
As my friend Johnny B. Truant says, “It’s a miracle you can even tie your shoes in the morning.”
Anyway, despite all of this, I’ve been blessed to have a company that’s almost doubling in sales each year, makes an insane amount of money, and allows me to live an amazing life (I get to work when I want, go on vacations when I want, and take a month off when I want). I am also able to hire AMAZING PEOPLE (I’m grateful that they want to work with me . . . I love working with them), and only do work that I love with every piece of my being. (more…)
Clay Collins is widely regarded as one of the top internet marketers in the world. Now in his 30s, Clay left home at age 15 to start his first software company and has been practicing entrepreneurship, off and on, ever since. Clay has been behind the scenes (advising and writing copy) for some of the most important and highest grossing information marketing campaigns on the internet.
