One of my childhood friends lost her dad to cancer a few years back.

She moved back home to take care of him during his last few months.

It destroyed her watching him die a slow, painful death.

I held her for hours in a Starbucks parking lot, almost every night. I remember her begging me (in indirect ways) to make the pain stop.

I did a lot of things to try and distract her (there’s truly NO LIMIT to what I’ll do at my expense to make a friend laugh)... but I doubt any of it really helped.

Eventually, he passed… and she went home (grief stricken + traumatized).

​

Next thing I know she’s obsessed with psychics.

It was so out of left field. 🤷‍♀️

She didn’t believe in any of that stuff before. She was anti ‘that stuff’ as long as I had known her – which was since we were 12.

But NOW… she’s the president of the John Edwards Fan Club (unofficially, of course)... and speaks fluent Sylvia Browne.

Sometimes it feels like I’m listening to an episode of the Montel Williams Show when I talk to her… but I get it.

​

Grief makes ya do weird shit.

I tried to write my sales page for 2 days last week… and nothing.

Wordsmithing crickets. 😶

​I just wasn’t inspired at all.​

So I decided to do something random.

​

I read all of Tarzan Kay’s emails from start to finish - as in every email I’ve received from her since I opted into her newsletter on 1/18/22.

All 344 of them.

I don’t know WHY, other than…

✅ I like to do weird shit when I’m in a black hole of emotions. It’s my way of creating a pattern interrupt, which I use to pull myself out of it. I once said ‘yes’ to everything I immediately wanted to say ‘no’ to (which is most things) for an entire year after I had a miscarriage.

Grief makes you do weird shit. (And yes, I know I’ve said it 3 times already)... it’s true!

✅ Tarzan’s one of my favorite people on the planet

✅ She’s one of the best copywriters on the planet (read: her writing is soooo good)

✅ AND, she’s one of the realest, rawest, coolest MFing humans on the planet

It (a.k.a my desire to feel inspired again) felt like a job for a writer who inspires me.

It felt like… maybe... if I surround myself with the words + wisdom of someone who I know can make me laugh so hard I almost pee + cry so hard I feel relief… then maybe I’ll start feeling inspired to write again??

​

It took 3 days to get through them all.

I didn’t even watch tv, yo! 👈That’s fucking huge for a trash tv addict like me.

TV is how I check-the-fuck-out… so it’s a big damn deal (thank you ME for 3 years of relentlessly working on myself) for me to be willing to choose a better way to cope with my pain.

So I read… and read… and read.

Both the words on the screen… and the ones between the lines.

She’s brilliant at being herself… not perfect, just brilliant. For me, she’s *chef’s kiss*.

​

It was inspiring AF to:

✅ Watch her write her way through a launch

✅ Weave her real life into her sales + marketing

✅ Flawlessly transition back + forth from heavy personal emails to entertaining strategic emails

😍

I had to pause a lot to digest her points because DAYYYUUMMM can that girl make a point.

​

If ‘Mic Drop’ was a country we’d need to get her a fucking crown.

She was exactly what the doctor ordered!

I walked away with a ton of food for thought + an Evernote fuuuulllll of ideas I’m inspired to write about.

Tarzan said to ‘write about what’s exciting you’ so that’s what I’m going to do.

More on that goal-shaped development tomorrow…

Right now, I can’t stop wondering what the weirdest thing YOU've done to get your groove back is… double-dog dare you to cat plop into the reply button and spill it!

​
​

To all the wonderfully weird shit that gets us through grief,

Dre ‘President of the Tarzan Kay Fan Club’ Beltrami

P.S. On a scale of 1-10, how fucking weird is reading 344 emails in 3-days to try and get your groove back? Come on, give it to me straight, I can take it! 😆

​