Good Manners: Nothing Is More Important
“We are all born charming, fresh, and spontaneous and must be civilized before we are fit to participate in society.” – Judith Martin (“Miss Manners”) I was complaining — not too long ago — about the bad manners of a friend of one of my sons. I was trying to…
READ MOREAdvice Needed … Advice Given
“Bringing up a family should be an adventure, not an anxious discipline in which everybody is constantly graded for performance.” – Milton R. Sapirstein (Paradoxes of Everyday Life, 1955) Dear Early to Rise, In the supermarket line today, my 10-year-old-son Aidan picks up two Snickers bars. I say, “I’m not…
READ MOREPaid Vacations
For the past six years, I’ve had a little sideline job that’s allowed me to relax on Caribbean white-sand beaches, play golf on some of Ireland’s and Scotland’s best links courses, and visit more than 25 countries around the world. Not only do I get to go on these trips…
READ MORE5 Secrets of Good Writing
Below, you’ll find five of what I believe are the most important secrets of good writing. Apply these techniques and tricks to every sentence you write, and I promise you that your words will be more powerful, more persuasive, and easier to understand. RULE 1: DON’T WASTE verbs The verb…
READ MOREHow To Be A Great Houseguest
“Not many sounds in life, and I include all urban and rural sounds, exceed in interest a knock at the door.” – Charles Lamb (“Valentine’s Day,” Essays of Elia, 1823) Travel the world as you will, stay in beautiful places, eat great food, drink fine wine, and amuse yourself with…
READ MOREHow Secure Is Your Business? What Are Your Top People Telling You?
In the months that followed September 11, Bush ordered a bunch of undercover audits of airport security. 783 were conducted. The results, according to an article I saw in USA Today, indicated an amazingly high level of incompetence. The president’s investigators were able to carry knives past screeners in 70%…
READ MORECreating – And Sticking With – A Standard of Employee Excellence
“To me, one man is worth ten thousand if he is first-rate.” – Heraclitus (Fragments, c. 500 B.C.) In a memo to one of my clients, I recommended that he create a policy for promoting a standard of employee excellence that would include his eliminating the worst 15% of his…
READ MOREPowercharging Your Networking
To solidify an acquaintanceship — that is, to get someone you admire to remember your name — you might want to try something brazen and calculating…such as sending a gift along with a personal letter. I was the subject of such a transparent and disreputable effort last week — and…
READ MOREResist The Temptation To Do Less As You Do Better
A crow sat in a tree, doing nothing. A rabbit saw the crow and asked, “Can I also sit and do nothing?” “Sure,” the crow answered. So the rabbit sat on the ground below the crow and rested. A few minutes later, a fox appeared, jumped on the rabbit, and…
READ MOREWhat’s More Important Than Making Each And Every Sale?
I once owned a seminar business. Our best salesman, Ziggy, outsold his colleagues by more than double. For three months, after the weekly sales sheets came in and he was again in the No. 1 slot, I’d ask him for his secret. “I just like to sell,” he said. “I…
READ MORESelling Yourself: The Secret Of The 100,000 Buckets
After finishing my copywriting program, one of my students decided to “get serious” about his future. He carefully studied the portion of the course that dealt with getting clients and did exactly what it said to do. He went to the local library, photocopied the part of a reference source…
READ MOREHow To Make $90,000 (Or More!) Working Seasonally
“There can be no high civilization where there is not ample leisure.” – Henry Ward Beecher (Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit, 1887) After 20 years of putting up with my amateurish Christmas lighting, KFF insisted on having our house done “properly” this time. She found a young man who would light…
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