Come on… be honest. How many e-newsletters can you actually read?

When I started my business last year, I subscribed to a kabillion newsletters about copywriting and freelancing. One of my books had a list of successful copywriters and their websites, and I dutifully visited them all, signing up for their free ebooks, their weekly newsletters, their seminar announcements.

My inbox grew each week. I figured I had to subscribe since they were successful and I wasn’t. I decided that what they had to say would be worthwhile, even though I hadn’t read it.

In the last few weeks, I’ve done the same thing on Twitter. I have been following the marketing and writing people who have 2000+ followers. I figured they must be doling out pearls of wisdom that would make me a better person, right?

But here’s what happens. I was getting 5 or more expert newsletters a week. I was getting 5+ Twitters a minute. And when they came in, I’d move them out of the way so I could get to things I wanted to read.

The moral? It’s time to cull. Let’s cut out all the emails and Twitters and other distractions that do not contribute to our conversations. As a producer of an e-newsletter myself, I’d rather deliver to a few hundred who want my info than to thousands who never read it. And perhaps when we cut down on unwanted emails, we’ll be better able to keep up with the ones that deserve our attention.

Twitter seems to be buzzing about a new Nokia ad with Bruce Lee and ping pong. I’ve gotten several tweets about it, at least two with nothing but the prompt “This is the coolest video ever!”

Both times I received a tweet like that, I clicked on the link. Why? If Nokia sent me a direct email that said, “Here’s the coolest link in the world,” I would not have clicked. But random people in TweetLand? I listen to them.

That’s the power of word-of-mouth marketing. When you get a recommendation from a friend, even if it’s not a close friend, you’re more likely to take a look.

Here’s the video. I keep trying to figure out why everyone thinks it’s the bomb.

Self magazine just told me that according to a study in Women’s Health Issues, “people who moved for their general well-being sweat longer than those whose goal was to shed pounds.”

Ahh.. that explains a lot. When I first started training for a marathon, my primary motivation was to lose the pounds. I ended up gaining 10 pounds during the first training season (what?? I was hungry, dang it!), and then putting on another 10 after the event. Yeah. Not good.

But then I got dumped, and I joined the gym that very day. I started running because it felt good, and I was tired of feeling bad. I started thinking of the nights at the gym as gifts to myself… an hour or more on the treadmill, a half hour in the hot tub, another 30 minutes in the sauna. I made an event out of each night, and, eventually, the pounds came off.

Now let’s apply the same logic to careers. If you’re reading this at work right now, ask yourself the tough questions about where you really want to spend the majority of your waking hours. Are you working for your paycheck — just doing it for the numbers? Or are you doing something that gives you pleasure that happens to have the ancillary benefit of helping you to pay the bills?

Somali pirates have hijacked a supertanker in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Kenya. This made big headlines because of the size of the ship — the biggest vessel every hijacked. But apparently it’s a big problem on a regular basis. Right now 18 vessels are being held for ransom, and most of the ransoms are paid, according to NPR. If the pirates are caught, they’re usually released because no one really knows where to try them. And apparently you can’t really shoot them when they come after you.

Some very clever entrepreneurs have started a company called Anti Piracy Maritime Security Solutions, which follows its company name with “Non-Lethal” in parentheses.  For $30k, they put three men and a bunch of pirate-deterring equipment on a ship, and they ward off potential pirates. One technique: They hook up an iPod with an audio system that blasts really obnoxious noise that is unbearable to human ears up to 1000 feet away.

The point of this little news brief is to demonstrate an opportunity that someone took advantage of to make a living. It’s kind of like the clever people who developed the industry of “staging” houses to sell them. Interior designers come into a house and make it adorable and comfortable so it’ll sell faster.

The Anti Piracy company is poised to make a heck of a lot of money in the next few years, since piracy is on a dangerous upswing. The people who stage houses? Not so much. Their businesses are struggling as the real estate industry sags.

So how do you find an opportunity and ride a wave, then turn that wave into a sustainable business? What if governments all of a sudden figure out a way to stop the pirates, or what if the ships themselves figure out a better way to deter an attack? Where will the new Anti Piracy company be?

I’m riding a wave myself, brought about from the struggling economy. Companies are cutting back on their internal marketing staffs, but they still need stuff written. In fact, many of them know that they need marketing material even more now than they did before, since they HAVE to reach out to keep making a living. So I’ve got some job security in this economy, but what happens when the economy improves?

My clients are all looking forward right now. Many of them are successful today, and they’re all creating strategies with me to remain successful. It’s a reminder to me to keep doing the same, to think through business scenarios that may reflect what the future will hold.