Remember That Life Is Fleeting
As I told you before, I’ve made it a point to spend a few moments every day sitting back and paying attention. I recommend it strongly. Just after Christmas, I received the following letter from RS, a longtime ETR reader and a copywriting student of mine, with a reminder of…
READ MOREPromise #8 for the New Year: To Build Your Network of Support
On January 8, 2001, I resolved to make one new business or social contact per week. I suggested you do the same. My goal was too lofty. It was not possible for me to cultivate a new relationship every week of the year. I did manage, however, to make about…
READ MOREPromise #7 for the New Year: To Grow Richer Every Day
On January 7, 2001, I made a two-part resolution: (1) to make more money than I had made in 2000 and (2) to invest a higher percentage of my gross income than I had previously. If you were with me on January 7, you were asked to do the same.…
READ MOREYou Too Can Invest More Profitably
Dear Early To Rise Reader: Success in business and in life depends on making good decisions and avoiding self-destructive behavior. This is especially true when it comes to investing. Most investors lose money because they have bad psychological habits…habits that work against sound trading decisions. I want to recommend a…
READ MORELearn (Or Perfect) A Financially Valuable Skill
On January 4, 2001, I asked you to promise yourself that you would learn (or perfect) a financially valuable skill. I asked you to forget (at least temporarily) about all the interesting talents you have that nobody will pay you for and focus, instead, on developing the one ability that…
READ MOREAchieve Something You’ve Always Wanted to Accomplish
On January 3, 2001, I promised myself that I’d do something great and frivolous this year — something I’ve daydreamed about but never took seriously. It would be one of those things I would like to try to do had I my life to live over again. You see, I…
READ MOREWhy You Shouldn’t Expect (Or Want) Our Goverment’s Help
Recently, Forbes Small Business magazine convened a meeting to poll some of its readers on how they felt George Bush has done with regard to small business. They rated him highly for his efforts to end estate taxation and for dismantling a Clinton proposal that would have forced small-business owners…
READ MOREA Lesson Everyone Needs To Learn To Become A Success In Any Field
“The honest man must be a perpetual renegade, the life of an honest man a perpetual infidelity. For the man who wishes to remain faithful to truth must make himself perpetually unfaithful to all the continual, successive, indefatigable renascent errors.” – Charles Peguy DF, a friend and colleague, wrote me…
READ MOREAgreements: Written? Oral? What?
“Wrong must not win by technicalities.” – Aeschylus (The Eumenides, 458 B.C.) A very common question among businessmen: Is it prudent to “paper” deals? During the 25 years I’ve been in business, more than 90% of the deals I’ve made have been oral. Usually, the process is some version of…
READ MOREIf You Want That Better Job, Go After It Like You Mean It
“There is one quality more important than ‘know-how’ … This is ‘know-what’ by which we determine not only how to accomplish our purposes, but what our purposes are to be.” – Norbert Wiener (The Human Use of Human Beings, 1954) Yesterday (in Message #487), we talked about your career. I…
READ MOREDo You Want A Better Job?
“Every man is the architect of his own fortune.” – Sallust (speech to Caesar, first century B.C.) Few of us are entirely happy with our current work — and if we are for a while, eventually some of it, at least, becomes ho-hum. There’s nothing wrong with wanting a better…
READ MORE14 More Good Rules For Getting A Better Job
“Do more than hear, listen. Do more than listen, understand.” – John H. Rhoades Jeffrey Fox tells the following story in his book “Don’t Send a Resume”: Douglas MacArthur, the legendary World War II Army general, was looking to hire a new aide. After a staff review of candidates, MacArthur…
READ MORE