3 Major Health Goals…and How to Achieve Them
- WEALTHY: Can Renee go from starving artist to millionaire? (Michael Masterson)
- HEALTHY: The "baby steps" approach to success (Doc Darville)
- WISE: Andy Warhol on making changes
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:
- Clearing up the confusion (Patrick Coffey)
- How safe are your saved digital files? (Suzanne Richardson)
- Add "intransigent" to your vocabulary
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- Patrick Coffey
Dear Michael Masterson: "Can I become a millionaire through art?"
"I am a professional artist, and I have been painting for about 20 years. At the moment, I have paintings worth $500,000, all covered nicely in my studio and our small flat. How can I find buyers? Do you know anyone owning an auction house? I strongly believe that I can be successful, though I have not figured out how to market these ‘hidden treasures,’ as I always call them.
"The reason why I am so convinced these artworks can make a traffic change in my wealth, health, and wisdom growth is that when I sold a few paintings in previous years, I managed to pay for my education (two masters degrees and a doctorate which I have yet to complete). For now, tell me: Can I become a millionaire through art?"
Renee Robinson
Kampala, Uganda
Dear Renee,
No, I don’t think you can become a millionaire through art. Nor do I think you should try.
You are a working artist. Presumably, you get a good deal of personal satisfaction from painting. That’s something to be happy about. Be happy.
You want to sell your paintings, but you don’t know how to go about doing so. In the past, you’ve managed to sell a few at high prices. Can you do that again?
It is highly doubtful that your paintings will fetch more than a few thousand dollars apiece, unless they have already been bought by major collectors and magazines. You can try to sell them through auctions, but you will find that most of the big auction houses don’t carry amateur artists. Your best bet would be to find a retail gallery or a gallery broker that can represent you and promote your work for you.
A dealer will charge a good commission, and you should be glad to pay it if he’s selling paintings for you. To protect yourself, though, sign on with one for no more than a year at a time. That will give you the opportunity to cut him loose and go with someone else if you don’t like what he’s doing.
The best way to find someone to represent you is to find galleries that carry art similar to yours. Make friends with the gallery reps, and make presentations until you make a deal. Get an attorney to handle the contract for you.
If your paintings are good and you find a strong outlet for them, you should be able to earn a six-figure income after the various commissions are taken out. If you are not satisfied with that kind of income, you should consider another career. You can continue to paint as a hobby, but to make the big money you will need to spend most of your time marketing and selling, not painting.
- Michael Masterson
"They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself."
Andy Warhol
Kicking Off the New Year With ETR: 3 Major Health Goals … and How to Achieve Them
By Doc Darville
What are your health goals for 2007? Whether you’re trying to drop 10 pounds, be more flexible, or improve your diet, this is the year you can be fit, strong, and healthy.
According to Duke University Medical Center health psychologist Ruth Quillian Wolever, keeping your goals realistic and attainable is the key to success. As a regular ETR reader, you should be familiar with this idea. It’s one that Michael Masterson has repeated dozens of times. And I couldn’t agree more. It is the only way to make lasting changes that you can build on over the long haul.
Michael also encourages you to be specific about exactly what you’re looking to accomplish. New Year’s resolutions like "I’m going to get back in shape" or "I’m going to lose 20 pounds" are too vague to allow you to take the actions necessary to achieve your desired result.
So this year, I want to encourage you to come up with one major health goal. And instead of focusing on the end result, I want you to outline the specific, small actions you’re going to take to make that goal come to life.
If you’re like most Americans, one of the following resolutions will (and probably should) find a top spot on your list of goals for 2007: to lose weight, get fit, or quit smoking.
Here’s how to turn those resolutions into specific, attainable goals.
1. Lose Weight
Probably the most popular New Year’s resolution is to lose weight. (Not surprising, considering that an estimated 67 percent of adults between the ages of 20 and 74 are overweight.) Many people try to do it with a fad diet that completely changes the way they’re used to eating. They may lose the weight … but then watch the pounds pile back on once they go back to their normal diet.
Instead of going for a quick fix, you need to develop a specific, realistic plan of attack that will guide you toward long-term success. So rather than giving your diet a complete makeover, change it bit by bit. For instance, rather than resolving to cut all sugar from your diet (an unhealthy and practically impossible goal), you can resolve to quit drinking soda … or exchange your breakfast donut and coffee for a hard-boiled egg and an apple.
Another way to slim down is to eat better foods. Rather than restricting your diet, you can focus on expanding your options to include whole fruits and vegetables, grass-fed beef, wild fish, nuts, berries, and naturally raised poultry.
By approaching your goal this way - although you may not shed the pounds as quickly as you would with a crash diet - you’ll see a long-term improvement in your health … and the weight loss will follow.
2. Get Fit
Just as popular as losing weight is the resolution to get into shape. But an undefined goal like "I’m going to start working out" leaves a lot of room for error.
Again, you need to be realistic and specific if you expect to be successful at achieving this goal. Here’s what I would do. I’d come up with a plan to walk, swim, or hit the gym for 15 minutes a day at least twice a week on specific days. And I’d stick to it like glue.
Fifteen minutes a day, two times a week is nothing in the grand scheme of things. But it can do wonders for your health, physique, and energy levels. And once you start feeling your juices flowing, you can gradually pick up the pace. By that, I mean add another 15-minute workout to your week … or add another 15 minutes to your Tuesday jog.
By the end of the year, you could find yourself working out three to four days a week for 30 minutes a shot and not even remember how you got started on doing it.
Walking … biking … a Karate class - it doesn’t matter what you do as long as you are active on a regular basis. One step at a time is all it takes.
3. Quit Smoking
According to the CDC, over 45 million American adults were smokers in 2005. And because smoking is such a dangerous addiction, eliminating or curbing tobacco use is another New Year’s resolution that many people make. Unfortunately for most smokers, quitting is a lofty goal that’s much easier said than done.
But it is possible - and the health benefits of quitting are unbelievable. You’ll reduce your risk of lung cancer, heart disease, stroke, and you’ll slow the rate of decline in lung function.
Here’s an approach that can help you beat the odds: Come up with a timeline that weans your body from smoking over the course of a few months. Let’s say you smoke a pack a day - that’s 20 cigarettes. Every month, starting in January, you’re going cut out two cigarettes. And if you can just stick to that simple action plan, you’ll have painlessly erased smoking from your life forever before the end of the year.
(Check out the CDC website for more suggestions to help you stop smoking.)
Don’t Get Discouraged
Maybe your next door neighbor will go out, buy a home gym, start on the latest diet, and lose 20 pounds by the end of February. But where will he be this time next year … or the year after that? He’ll likely be right back where he started, making the same health resolutions he made the year before.
Fad and crash diets just don’t work - and trying to force yourself to go to the gym five times a week for an hour when you haven’t exercised in years can leave you out of breath, in pain, and feeling very discouraged.
There’s no need to set yourself up for failure when success is well within your grasp.
That’s why I’m suggesting you pick one major health goal for the year - and then outline a specific plan for accomplishing it.
Once you have a definitive plan, start taking those baby steps right away. And when you begin to see results, keep reminding yourself how good it feels to be improving your health for the long term.
[Ed. Note: Doc Darville is a police officer and certified personal trainer who specializes in training senior citizens. Add lean muscle to your frame and reach all your fitness goals with Doc’s Forgotten Fitness program.]
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ETR Insider Report: Didn’t I Buy This 6 Months Ago ...
By Patrick Coffey, ETR’s Web Marketing Manager
Most of the information that would-be entrepreneurs receive about Internet marketing is not helpful. Not that it’s all bad … it’s just not very useful for someone just starting an online business.
For instance, why would you want to read advanced search engine optimization tips if your website is brand-new?
The truth is, this should not be your primary focus. Search engines like Google give preference to older sites. Plus, certain "black hat" techniques can actually get you in trouble.
How about advice on increasing your Web traffic?
There is no denying that you need people to visit your site. But before you ever focus on traffic, you need to focus on developing a website that sells.
These are some of the issues we are looking to tackle in ETR’s new (free) e-letter - Internet Rant- geared toward Internet start-ups. And though we’ve only recently introduced this service to ETR readers, we started testing it outside of ETR about two months ago. At that time, we decided to offer it as a bonus to people who buy our Instant Internet Income program.
I figured this would be a perfect fit, since Instant Internet Income program is for people looking to start an online business. Plus, it allows us to provide ongoing support to those people.
So we set up a process whereby anyone who bought the Instant Internet Income program would be sent an e-mail one day after purchase welcoming them to the Instant Marketing Rant newsletter.
That’s when it all went wrong …
We started to get a flurry of e-mails.
"I didn’t order this, don’t bill my card!"
"Didn’t I buy this six months ago? Why am I getting this e-mail now?"
"I think I received this e-mail in error. I haven’t purchased anything recently."
"What happened?" we wondered. "Why are these people so confused?"
Turns out our welcome e-mail was accidentally sent to everyone who’d ALREADY purchased the Instant Internet Income program. Keep in mind that this is our most popular Internet program. So we had thousands of confused people. Here is how our e-mail started:
Dear Instant Internet Entrepreneur,
Congratulations on purchasing the Instant Internet Income program. Your course should be arriving in a few business days.
In the meantime, I’d like to give you something to get you started on your Internet business.
You may not know me, but I’ve discovered why you are not making any money online …
Well … finding such an e-mail in your inbox would make sense if you’d ordered the program yesterday. But if you’d ordered it six months ago?
Needless to say, our customer service team was not happy with me. They spent nearly half the day sending out e-mails to clear things up.
Most of our understandably confused customers were understanding. And it turns out that, once we explained it to them, they were really excited about our new e-letter. In fact, since that big e-mail fiasco, we’ve signed up 50,000 new subscribers!
[Ed Note: If you’re interested in starting an Internet business, you definitely want to check out our free e-letter service, Internet Rant. We’ll even give you $113 worth of free gifts just for signing up.]
It’s Good to Know: The Limited Lifespan of Burned CDs
By Suzanne Richardson
If you’re in the habit of burning important files to CD - like those digital photos of your child’s first Christmas - you may want to rethink your storage medium.
While a standard photograph can last for decades - even a century or more with proper storage - a digital photograph stored on a CD can last for a maximum of about 20 years (with ideal storage conditions). That’s because the dye coatings on CDs deteriorate over time, eventually rendering the contents unreadable.
So how you can you hold onto your files for the long term? Here’s a breakdown of your options.
- Keep hard copies. Pros: Original versions can last for decades and beyond. Cons: You’ll need plenty of storage space to hold boxes of your original CDs and photo albums and printouts of your unfinished novels and PowerPoint presentations.
- Store everything on a hard drive. Pros: Saves space and money. Cons: Eventually, parts of hard drives can wear out, meaning you’ll need to back up your backups.
- Use magnetic tape. Pros: According to Kurt Gerecke, a physicist and storage expert at IBM Deutschland, this "superior storage medium" can have a lifespan of 30 to 100 years. Cons: Eventually, even this storage medium deteriorates.
- Buy professional-grade discs to house your files. Pros: Tom Peterson, product line manager at a company that sells CD and DVD replicating equipment to corporations, says professional-quality CDs and DVDs can last for up to 100 years. Cons: High-quality can mean hard to find as well as expensive.
(Source: PC World)
What is having the Secrets to a Lifetime of Automatic Income Worth to You?
Think about taking just one simple step today… and finding that in a few weeks, you have a chance for $3,000, $6,000, $12,000 or more (maybe MUCH more) to be dropped into your bank account each and every month… with almost zero effort on your part… and practically no costs. Read on…
Word to the Wise: Intransigent
Someone who’s "intransigent" (in-TRAN-suh-junt) - from the Latin for "not to compromise" - is inflexible, refusing to moderate a (usually extreme) position.
Example (as used by Garry Wills, author of Reagan’s America in The New York Times): "He [Robert Bork] was intransigent at times, and almost playfully yielding at others."
Michael Masterson
Copyright ETR, LLC, 2007