Posts by Mark Morgan Ford
For Maximum Health, Pay Attention to Two Things
I read something yesterday that I thought you might appreciate. It’s a way of thinking about health — a two-pronged approach to staying healthy that comes from naturopathy, a healing system postulating that disease occurs when one of the body’s basic functions breaks down. Two of the body’s most basic functions are digestion and elimination…
Read MoreThe Most Important Line of Copy in You Email Marketing
“A good advertising man is a first-class pragmatist. If he has any basic theorem at all, it is that most advertising is an intrusion upon the time and attention of people; a justifiable one but an intrusion nonetheless. The reader has bought the magazine for something other than the ads. Therefore the copywriters undertake to…
Read MoreGive Yourself a Second Chance in Life
“Growing old is no more than a bad habit which a busy person has no time to form.” – Andre Maurois There is so much you can do in the second half of your life and so many examples of people who have accomplished great things as seniors. I’ve talked about several of them in…
Read MoreFive Written Acknowledgments
“Pride slays thanksgiving, but an humble mind is the soil out of which thanks naturally grow. A proud man is seldom a grateful man, for he never thinks he gets as much as he deserves.” – Henry Ward Beecher Periodically, we must remind ourselves to thank the people who matter most in our lives. Today,…
Read MoreThanksgiving: The Right Time to Count Your Blessings
Your health: You have aches. You have pains. You may have illness and infirmity. But you also have time every day when you can enjoy yourself and the company of the people you love and are loved by. Be thankful for that. Your wealth: You haven’t hit the Forbes list of wealthiest humans, but you…
Read MoreAn Easy Way to Make Your Child Very Wealthy
“With money in your pocket, you are wise and you are handsome and you sing well too.” – Yiddish proverb Let’s say my friends could afford to put $20,000 into such a fund. And let’s further assume that the fund provided a net return of 8% — which is lower than the stock market has…
Read MoreThe Current Stock Market Rally
“I may just quit my job at the plant to become a full-time stock market guy.” – Homer Simpson When Richard Russell launched Richard Russell’s Dow Theory Letters in 1958, he said that what then looked like the beginning of a bear market was merely a bull market correction. “Stay in stocks,” he urged his…
Read MoreOne Secret That Will Make You a Great Salesperson
“We should render a service to a friend to bind him closer to us, and to an enemy in order to make a friend of him.” – Cleobulus (sixth century B.C.) How do you develop the skill of selling when you hate the very idea of selling? The first step is to understand that there…
Read MoreAcknowledge the Behavior You Want Repeated
“The applause of a single human being is of great consequence.” – (Samuel Johnson) When you are acknowledged for doing something well, the pride you feel can be a seed that grows into a lifelong virtue. My father’s positive review of my first poem (which I wrote when I was 9 years old and titled…
Read MoreBusiness Checkup: The Four Ps
“It is not enough to understand what we ought to be, unless we know what we are; and we do not understand what we are, unless we know what we ought to be.” – T.S. Eliot (Religion and Literature, 1935) There are at least four critical aspects to any business — four areas of activity…
Read MoreHow To Do Anything You Want – And Get Paid For Doing It
“None will improve your lot if you yourselves do not.” – Bertolt Brecht (Roundheads and Peakheads, 1933) This afternoon, I dropped by my brother’s house. He told me that the business he started two years ago — a mail-order program that teaches parents how to teach their children about wealth building — has grown to…
Read MoreTips for Better Email Marketing
“Three hours of writing require 20 hours of preparation. Luckily I have learned to dream about the work, which saves me some working time.” – John Steinbeck (Steinbeck: A Life in Letters, 1975) Inside Direct Mail recently published a list of 48 tips for better e-mail campaigns. Most of them were ordinary. A few —…
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