Posts by Early to Rise
All About Fats and Being Fat
“Never be afraid to try something new. Remember that amateurs built the ark. Professionals built the Titanic.” – Dave Barry If “early to bed, early to rise” is the most important advice you can follow when it comes to success in life, staying lean is the most important thing you can do in terms of…
Read MoreHow To Put Your Prospect In The Mood To Buy
To determine the best emotional context to use in order to reach your prospect, it’s useful to think in terms of opposites. And the way to do this is to ask yourself the following seven questions about your product: 1. AFFORDABLE OR EXPENSIVE? MMF told me a story that demonstrates the importance of answering this…
Read MorePR is a Two-Way Street
“It is easier to add to a great reputation than to get it.” – Publilius Syrus (Moral Sayings, 1st century B.C.) If you play it smart, you can create a reputation for your business with PR that is bigger than you could possibly buy with advertising or word-of-mouth goodwill. A basic program for the growing…
Read MoreAre You A Victim of “Monkey Business”?
“Troubles hurt the most when they prove self-inflicted.” – Sophocles (Oedipus the King, c. 430 B.C.) In his book “Monkey Business,” William Oncken describes this all-too-common — but easily fixed — problem that most managers run into: It’s 10 o’clock Monday morning. You are walking down the hall on your way to your office. This…
Read MoreGetting Tough With Troublemakers
“If you hit a pony over the nose at the outset of your acquaintance, he may not love you, but he will take a deep interest in your movements ever afterwards.” – Rudyard Kipling (“False Dawn,” Plain Tales from the Hills, 1888) Although KM doesn’t like for me to say so, New Yorkers have Rudy…
Read MoreAn Important Leadership Secret
“To do great things is difficult; but to command great things is more difficult.” – Friedrich Nietzsche (Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1883-92) Let’s start with this: It’s not enough to have a goal and articulate it; you must turn that goal into specific objectives that are communicated clearly and have attached to them (a) standards of…
Read MoreThe Myth Of Positive Thinking
“In the arena of human life, the honours and rewards fall to those who show their good qualities in action.” – Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics, 4th century B.C.) One of the most popular myths about success is the power of positive thinking. The idea, in a nutshell, is that you can change your life by changing…
Read MoreBanish Your Workday Distractions
“We’re all muddlers. The thing is to see when one’s got to stop muddling.” – Iris Murdoch (A Word Child, 1975) We’ve talked about why you need to (a) do mostly, if not only, important tasks and (b) focus on doing them well. We’ve examined the foolishness of multitasking and identified several common ways you…
Read MoreHow To Gain Power By Being Mysterious
“No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself, and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.” – Nathaniel Hawthorne (The Scarlet Letter, 1850) In his Oracles, the 17th century Spanish writer and Jesuit priest Baltasar Gracian advises readers who want power to “keep…
Read MoreDon’t Send Out Resumes – Send Out Sales Letters
“It is folly for a man to pray to the gods for that which he has the power to obtain for himself.” – Epicurus (Vatican Sayings, third century B.C.) As I said yesterday, resumes don’t work because they are all about you. Sales letters work because they are all about the customer (the company you…
Read More“The Art of War” and Other Balderdash
“You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.” – Jeannette Rankin I continue to read a business book every week in an effort to find some good new ideas to share with you and to save you the time of reading most of it, which may be very bad, yourself.…
Read MoreThree Powerful Investing Secrets From A Very Successful Investment Club
“Better one safe way than a hundred on which you cannot reckon.” – Aesop (The Fox and the Cat, 6th century B.C.) Whenever my friends ask about investment advice, I recommend they join the Oxford Club. It’s a membership group that has been helping individual investors for more than 20 years. In a recent club…
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