Posts by Mark Morgan Ford
The Good and Bad of France
“The French complain of everything, and always.” – Napoleon Bonaparte My first trip to France was a stopover en route to my two-year stint as a Peace Corps volunteer in West Africa. Although that visit lasted less than 24 hours, it made an impression on me. I was thoroughly taken with the big, gothic churches,…
Read MoreHow to Maintain the Right Attitude When Challenged
“It is our attitude at the beginning of a difficult task which, more than anything else, will affect its successful outcome.” -William James Well, here we are in Paris. On the plane, one of the things I thought about was the fact that, when I travel overseas, I am often less able to solve problems.…
Read MoreHow Much Wealth Do You Need?
“The trappings of lifestyle are often that – traps.” – Thomas Leonard On Monday, I talked about Lee Eisenberg’s book The Number, which asks the question: How much money do you need to retire? The book is full of interesting data and some good ideas – but it never provides a useable number. Instead, Eisenberg…
Read MoreWhat’s Your Number?
“Don’t simply retire from something; have something to retire to.” – Harry Emerson Fosdick How much money do you need to retire? To quit working and be financially secure for the rest of your life? Have you thought about that? Lee Eisenberg has. In fact, he’s written a book about it. Eisenberg is a former…
Read MoreThe Fast Track to Six Figures
“The ladder of success is best climbed by stepping on the rungs of opportunity.” – Ayn Rand When American Writers & Artists Inc. asked me to help develop a program to teach people copywriting, we considered lots of different names for it. I was always a little uncomfortable with what they chose – “Michael Masterson’s…
Read MoreThe Baby-Boomer Money Problem
“Our seniors’ retirement should never rely on the bull of political promises or the bear of the market.” – Barbara Mikulski Recently, ETR reader Chris Collier wrote me the following e-mail: Dear Mr. Masterson, “You are always talking about starting to invest and accumulate savings for retirement in one’s twenties and thirties. I don’t recall…
Read MoreA Philosophical Ride
“When a man says money can do anything, that settles it: He hasn’t got any.” – George Bernard Shaw Question: What would you do with your money if you had all you could ever need? I was asked that question, strangely enough, by the limo driver who was taking us home from the Miami airport…
Read MoreGetting to the Bottom of Japanese Selling Strategies
“Prestige is the shadow of money and power. Where these are, there it is.” – C. Wright Mills America is usually given credit for being the ultimate consumer society, but compared to the Japanese we are miserable plodders. If you don’t believe me, ride the escalator into the basement of any good-sized, top-quality Tokyo department…
Read MoreThe Secret Power of the Japanese
“Appearances are a glimpse of the unseen.” – Anaxagoras Earlier, I wrote about the great service we received during our stay in China. I didn’t honestly think it could get any better – but the way we have been treated at the Four Seasons (Marunouchi) in Tokyo has topped it. Let me give you a…
Read MoreGrow Your Business Like China, Part 3
“Growth is an erratic forward movement: two steps forward, one step back. Remember that and be very gentle with yourself.” – Julia Cameron Last week – on Tuesday and Friday – I talked about how a Confucian saying got me to look at business-building in a new way. On Friday, I explained that Confucius’s directive…
Read MoreGrow Your Business Like China, Part 2
“Life leaps like a geyser for those who drill through the rock of inertia.” – Alexis Carrel Since our job at ETR is to find little secrets in our quotidian world that illuminate wealth and power and personal success, I’ve been dutifully mulling over that saying by Confucius since I read it the other day:…
Read MoreGrow Your Business Like China, Part 1
“All growth depends upon activity. There is no development physically or intellectually without effort, and effort means work.” – Calvin Coolidge On the flight to Beijing, I read a book K had bought for me, Iron & Silk by Mark Salzman. It is an account of the author’s time as a teacher and martial arts…
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