Simone Seol

I ugly-cried on a live 2 days ago.

I’ve posted a drawing of my own vulva on Instagram for the world to see.

I’ve written about my insecurities, failures and embarrassments in my marketing copy.

I have been called the Queen of Authenticity… but here’s what you might not have assumed: I am actually a fiercely private person.

What I show you are very carefully-selected pieces.

I have never shared about the biggest traumas of my life, and probably never will.

These are the kinds of things that will probably be tender inside me until the day I die… and are NOT for public consumption.

I do not share deeply about my marriage.

I talk about how wonderful my husband is, but the intimate reality of my relationship is way too precious for me to blab about to the world.

I don’t talk much about my Christian faith.

It’s something that is at the very heart of who I am, and I do not want to invite the projections, misunderstandings, questions and debates of the world onto the thing that is the most sacred to me.

I have very few “real life” close friends. With them, I share a history, intimacies, and a sense of humor that you will never see me air online.

Yes, what I show you is curated. But this isn’t me engineering a certain ‘image’ to manipulate your perception of me.

This is about respect.

I show MYSELF respect when I protect what is most tender, intimate, and precious inside me from the public.

And I show YOU respect when I do not put a responsibility on you that you have never consented to take on: that of safeguarding, honoring, and loving on my tenderest places in the very specific way that I require.

And yet, I am truthful with you.

I constantly challenge myself to be even more truthful with you in ways that are congruent with my values… and appropriate to the relationship we have.

Truthfulness does not equal dumping all of my shit on you to deal with.

Authenticity does not equal showing you all of my bleeding wounds so that you can feel like you now have to take care of me.

My friend, I love you. I would love to grow closer with you.

And we can only have a healthy relationship when we have boundaries that allow us to enjoy each other in ways that are safe for both of us…

… and incrementally move into greater degrees of intimacy with fully-informed, mutual consent at every step.

Want to build relationships like this in your business through your copywriting?

I will teach you how.

It’s all happening inside my new course, Writing with the Sword, which kicks off tomorrow.

See you there.

​Writing with the Sword begins today.

Tomorrow, I’m dropping the very first transmission, which will…

• obliterate the “I don’t know what to write about” syndrome for good

• solve the “I don’t know who I’m supposed to write to” dilemma entirely, for all time, and for everyone (yes, that includes if you don’t know what your business is or what your offer is or if you are mid-transition)

• bring the difference between extractive copywriting and humane copywriting into brutally clear light, and show you exactly how to opt out of the former

• get you starting to write — in the company and support of hundreds of like-minded friends — in ways that immediately start to pull in the best allies for your business.

I’M NOT KIDDING AROUND.

Let’s do this.

P.S. — Here, we are strongly anti-FOMO.

Want to learn copy from me, but you’re feeling energetically or financially overstretched? No worries. Your timing is the best timing, urgency is a lie, and there is no such thing as missing out.

Please know that the course is always going to be available for you to buy later as a self-study version.

And my game-changing masterclass that fired shots heard ’round the internets, which only costs $25: How to write specific copy​

Enjoy. Go slow. Trust yourself. Trust your timing.

Love you.

Extractive capitalist business coaching culture has taught us that business is a vending machine.

Like this:

We add the ‘right’ input (i.e. the right strategies and ‘clear’ messaging and whatever), we’re supposed to get money output.

It has also taught us to see PEOPLE as vending machines.

Neither your business, nor your people are a vending machine.

Don’t get me wrong. This isn’t a morality lesson.

If this whole “treat people like a vending machine” strategy actually worked to get people real money when they need it, believe me, you’d see me teaching it.

I’d be the first to get it to you.

(Caveat: it actually does work. for the few who are deeply committed to being completely fucking shitty. They keep it up year after year and their conscience doesn’t get in the way, and work on their shitty tans on their stupid yachts bought with scammed money. The result is the post-apocalyptic landscape of dysfunctional relationships, dysregulated nervous systems and emptied bank accounts we’re seeing littering the online business-sphere.)

Here’s what I know, in terms of cold hard business pragmatics.

Approaching people like they’re a vending machine (“how do I write this CTA so they’ll buy?”)…. doesn’t work.

And worse: it repels people who might otherwise have been interested in your thing.

Clear, succinct “I help” statements, in the absence of a genuine community of human relationships that’s gathered around your YOU-ness… doesn’t work.

And worse: it makes people tune you out even when they would have otherwise loved to get to know you, because you sound like literally everybody else on social media and they can’t tell you apart.

I’m being way blunt about all of this because there is such a persistent toxic myth that you can either choose between (1) some kind of romantic idea of you just being ~authentic~ and frolicking through a field of daisies, taking it slow, ‘trusting the universe’…

… or (2) doing it the ‘strategic’ way that is ‘pragmatic’ and actually makes you money fast.

THIS DUALITY IS A MYTH.

Writing humane AND effective copy is actually what makes you the most money, in the most sustainable way.

And humane AND effective copy is NOT the same thing as just ~being yourself~, posting a bunch of random shit and hoping some of it ‘sticks.’

It is a deeply confronting engagement with the aliveness inside you, and holding yourself to such a high standard of integrity in your relationships so that you genuinely become a safe place for others to spend money.

Here is my wish for you:

You become so skilled in doing that, that people are transformed just by reading your writing, and the world becomes a safer, more beautiful and humane place just because of your writing….

… so much so that it becomes a no-brainer for people to support you with their money.

Because whatever you’re doing… they know they want more of it.

For ALL of our sake.

There is a method to this madness. And it is many galaxies away from extractive capitalist copywriting.

I will teach it to you. ALL of it. The inner work, and the skill-building.

And we will journey through 7 weeks together, with tons of support from me, to make sure it becomes embodied.

Because nothing else will do.

My unconventional copy course “Writing with the Sword,” an unapologetic “fuck you” to everyone who’s ever told you to squeeze yourself into an “I help” statement, begins Wednesday.

Jump in now.