I was finishing up some sales email templates as part of a contract. I had something pretty good, but I figured there's always room for improvement, so I dug out eight to ten of my favorite books to see if there was any more juice I could squeeze out.

When I do work like this, I go to a number of different sources. So I opened up a few books centered around email templates, some books on marketing, some books on consulting, a book on networking, and two books on sales. These are some of my favorite books covering their respective topics.

What shocked me -- and I mean, shocked -- is that there was a piece of advice given in almost every single book that I'd never noticed before, despite having read these books many times.

Mars Dorian's motto in life is, "When you’re not trying to fit in, you’re free to stand out."

Mars is an illustrator, designer, blogger, and consultant focused on helping you and your business stand out. He's edgy and embraces authenticity even to the point where his work can be quite controversial -- but he's also got brilliant insights and excellent artisanship. 

To promote his recent GiveGetWin deal where you can get a copy of his illustrated guide to branding and standing out, Mars sat down with Sebastian Marshall and opened up about reaching the highest levels of creative potential, owning where you're at, and becoming truly exceptional at your craft. Enjoy --

"How To Break Through With Your Work" by Mars Dorian, as told to Sebastian Marshall

I start my day with 2-3 hours of learning. After breakfast and before I do any work, I start learning and dissecting something related to my craft.

I learned an interesting lesson about rules today.

I had an 8AM Tokyo-time Skype call back to the United States. Tokyo is notorious for its surprisingly poor WiFi, so I went to an internet cafe.

The internet cafes in Japan are interesting -- you get your own private cubicle that has a computer with a very large monitor and noise-canceling headphones, comfortable chairs, pillows, and sometimes blankets. In the rest of the cafe, there's also comic books, DVDs, and a selection of free teas, coffees, juices, and sodas. Sometimes they have other amenities for free or for sale -- often they'll sell dress shirts, do laundry, have showers, selling grooming kits, and sell other kinds of hot food and snacks.

It's incredibly obvious, but usually neglected -- you need to spend less than you take in to accumulate cash.

Most people do not give this much (any?) thought, or at least don't take action on it. So, they tread water. Or worse, accumulate debt.

If you're able to spend less than you earn and bank the difference, your cash position goes up. This puts you ahead of the vast majority of people already.

But, then you can wind up in a tricky position.

Especially once you become good with money, you realize you can turn it into working capital at a pretty good rate. Someone who has spent some time learning the in's and out's of a few marketing channels, or technology, or throwing great events, or... whatever... can then turn free cash into useful production, which turns back into cash, at a good clip.

A consultant goes into a company and gets an assignment to improve sales.

He talks to various people in sales, and asks who the best salespeople in the company are.

There's pretty consistent agreement -- the best salespeople are Mary, Joe, and Matt.

It's not quite an axiom, but it seems like people unused to money who come to have a lot of it, shortly thereafter have no money again.

It's easy to understand why someone who wins the lottery and fritters it away goes down that path, but cash is just as dangerous in the hands of someone who is legitimately disciplined and working hard for their money, putting together good transactions, and building up a base of cash.

Money does all sorts of strange things to your psychology. Here are three big ones:

*It makes you think you're smarter than you are: when you've earned well, you tend to think it's because you're brilliant. You systematically underestimate the effects of market conditions and being in the right place at the right time, both of which can be tricky to replicate without large amounts of experience (and, even then).

*It makes you think you've reached a new level permanently: once you've gotten good at earning money, it's therefore permanently easier. This may or may not actually be true, and almost never to the extent you think with the first successes you have.

Leo Babauta has inspired millions through his writing on Zen Habits, where he's shared his experiences in building up great habits, cutting clutter and junkfood from his life, learning about great parenting and building a wonderful family, eliminating debt, increasing his income and productivity, and living a life that's more happy through and through.

Leo is now graciously participating in GiveGetWin with a practical class on "action-oriented contentment", and he sat down with Sebastian Marshall to share his thoughts on what motivates him, around what contentment is, on trusting yourself, on being compassionate and compassion as an impetus for action, on self-compassion and treating yourself well, and happiness in general. Enjoy:

"Practical, Action-Oriented Contentment and Compassion" by Leo Babauta, as told to Sebastian Marshall

I used to get distressed if I was working on something in business or getting into a conversation, and then things just dropped off. I worried that I screwed up or did something wrong. Maybe whoever I was talking to hated me, even?

But no, it's not like that. Nobody hates you. Everyone's just busy, and people you're looking to work with are probably more busy than normal -- after all, you found out about them and want to work with them, meaning they're doing something cool, which makes them more busy than normal.

When you don't get a reply from someone or something falls off, it's usually not because people hate you. They most likely didn't judge you harshly. Probably they just got busy. I've got emails and calls to return from people I really like and know pretty well that I haven't returned yet, because I've got a long list of other stuff to do too. Everyone at least somewhat busy has stuff like that.

That doesn't mean you give yourself a pass on whatever it is -- if you write interesting compelling emails or calls, if you get introduced through someone trusted and well-known, and you can find a way to stand out and make it really interesting right away (not always easy!), then you've got a better shot.

But, even then. People are busy, things drop off. Nobody judged you harshly; nobody even cares. Followup a few more times. Or contact someone else. But don't get down on yourself. People are busy, and you've got to followup with them a bunch to get things done. It's just how things are and is no reflection on you. No reason to feel bad. You just hustle some more.

Instead of accepting my inbox as the status quo, today I started to think about why it isn't empty.

My email usually isn't empty.

Why?

*Partially due to not having quite perfect discipline on the kinds of processes (a la David Allen's Getting Things Done) that reliably get through email*Partially through getting a large volume of email*Partially through not having better systems in place*Partially through not having cultivated faster decisionmaking (though, I'm pretty fast)*Partially because having email in the inbox is just the default state, albeit a very slightly unpleasant one.

All of those I'm aware of. But perhaps one more -- I hadn't really sat and reflected on why have this email specifically in my inbox.