Success Loves Speed
Issue #2246
- WEALTHY: The only way to profit from a hot tip (Rick Pendergraft)
- HEALTHY: A little exercise can go a long way (Craig Ballantyne)
- WISE: David W. Johnson on excellence
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:
- How the "Fiddle Theory" can help you accomplish your goals (Robert Ringer)
- Everything I know about starting and growing a business (Michael Masterson)
- It’s Fun to Know… about super space bugs
- Add "polemics" to your vocabulary
You Already Know Fortunes Are Made from Trading. The Question Is: WHAT Are "They" Trading Most? (And It’s Not Shares or Commodities!)
… Thirty times more trading going on than the stock market and mostly investment banks doing it. Ummm… Maybe "they" know something you don’t? Click here to learn more…
Investing in 2008: The Lowdown on Tips and Rumors
If 2008 is going to be a successful year for your investments, you need to be wary of two things: tips and rumors.
Some tips sound too juicy to ignore. But before you take action, consider the source of the tip. If you get a hot tip from your plumber or your barber, for example, you probably want to avoid it. These people may be great at their profession, but chances are they don’t follow the market all day, every day, the way my colleagues at Investor’s Daily Edge and I do. Tips from non-professional traders may occasionally work out, but most of the time you will be throwing money down the drain.
As for rumors, they are nothing but teasers. Remember the scene in the movie Wall Street when Bud Fox calls the reporter and whispers "Blue Horseshoe loves Anacott Steel"? The reporter leaks the story, and the stock starts shooting up. Well, Hollywood tends to over-dramatize things. In real life, this rarely happens.
When I first started trading options, I hit a huge winner on a takeover bid. After that, I started looking for the next takeover target and listening to all the takeover rumors. I gave back a lot of what I gained on my big winner by investing in several rumors that never panned out.
Save yourself money and headaches by not investing in hot tips and rumors. If you receive a hot tip or hear a promising rumor, go ahead and do some research on the stock. If it meets your investment criteria, you might decide to invest in it. But do it because you believe in the stock, not because you believe the tip.
[Ed. Note: Rick Pendergraft, a two-time winner of the "Top Trader" award at Schaeffer’s Investment Research, is a contributor to ETR’s free e-zine, Investor’s Daily Edge. Learn how to protect your portfolio and multiply your money - in any market - by clicking here.]
"There are no speed limits on the road to excellence. We can’t be fined for speeding."
David W. Johnson
Kicking Off 2008 With ETR: Success Loves Speed
Last January, Bob Bly wrote an article for ETR titled "The Best Business Advice You’ll Ever Get." In it, he credited Joe Vitale with making him an extra $200,000 a year. The philosophy that was the focus of that article is so important that I’d like to bring it to the fore again - and weigh in with my own views on it.
I’ve written a lot about the importance of acting sooner rather than later, without waiting to figure out everything in advance. Nothing says this more succinctly than Joe Vitale’s aphorism: Money loves speed.
When I mentioned this in a recent teleseminar, one of the callers asked if I could be more specific. He wanted to know why money loves speed. First off, let me say that this is not just true about money. Success - in all areas of life - loves speed.
- If you want to buy tickets from a scalper for a big game that’s sold out, get there first. Tickets love speed.
- If you want a job that you just found out about, get there first. Jobs love speed.
- If you want to get the guy or gal who has your heart pounding, get there first. Romance loves speed.
- If you want to get the investment property that just came on the market, get there first. Investment properties love speed.
And so on. I don’t recall ever succeeding at something because I got there last.
So, why does success love speed? The answer is to be found in the dictionary. Action is defined as "the causation of change." Whatever result you want, it’s a change from what you now have. By definition, then, a change has to take place for you to get from your present status to that result.
Following are some of the more important reasons why I believe action begets results.
1. When you do too much planning, there’s a tendency to think of one reason after another why what you’re contemplating won’t work.
Many of the reasons you come up with may be correct. But the important thing is that it doesn’t matter. Why? Because, as you move forward, circumstances continually change - and those changes often render irrelevant many of the concerns you may have before taking action.
In other words, don’t try to figure out steps two, three, and four before taking step one. The legendary Joe Karbo once told me that he ran his first ad for The Lazy Man’s Way to Riches (a million-copy seller) before he even began to write the book! In fact, he told me that the ad he wrote served as an outline for the book itself. Talk about going against conventional wisdom…
2. When you procrastinate, you tend to lose your enthusiasm.
That, in turn, causes homeostasis to set in. Homeostasis is the tendency to live with existing conditions and avoid change. You get comfortable with the way things are and allow your great idea to fade into the comfort zone of oblivion.
But when you take action, your creative "juices" flow faster, your resourcefulness kicks into high gear, and the things, people, and circumstances you need to accomplish your objectives are drawn to you almost like magic. This is not hocus-pocus. I’ve done it enough times to be able to assure you that it really works.
3. Even though changing circumstances often negate many initial concerns you may have had, they can also place new obstacles in your path.
As a result, if you wait too long before taking action, the opportunity may become less and less appealing as those obstacles start to make their appearance.
I wrote about this danger in my book To Be or Not to Be Intimidated? under the auspices of the Fiddle Theory, which states: "The longer you fiddle around with a deal, the greater the odds that it will never close."
Time is your ally when you take action. But time is a two-sided coin. If you hesitate or procrastinate, time becomes your worst enemy. As a general rule, I assume that if I take action, perceived problems will tend to disappear - and that the more I hesitate, the more time I give new obstacles to come on the scene.
4. Perhaps the most important reason of all for taking action now is that time is finite.
No matter how proficient you are, you can only accomplish so much in a lifetime. Every second that’s wasted reduces the totality of what you can accomplish by one second.
Some people maintain that a constant feeling of urgency to accomplish more is stressful, but I find the opposite to be true. I feel more stress when I procrastinate - when I’m not doing what I know I should be doing. There’s not a worse feeling in the world than to be conscious of the fact that your finite supply of time is ticking away while you’re straightening your desk drawer.
Of course, nothing in life is perfect. There will be times when moving too fast can end up hurting you. Based on my own experience, what I gain from moving fast far outweighs any losses that result from too little planning.
That being the case, when you fall - and you will fall - simply pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and take more action. Success could care less about mistakes. Success loves action. Think seriously about making this your mantra for 2008.
[Ed. Note: Take a gigantic step toward achieving all your personal and professional goals - faster than you ever imagined - with Robert Ringer’s best-selling personal-development program. And sign up for his Voice of Sanity e-letter here.]
Grow and Protect Your Wealth in the Mutual Funds of the 21st Century
Most investors put their money in mutual funds, then forget about it. Most of the time, this is a big mistake. While mutual funds offer diversity and professional management, they can be expensive… and most under-perform the market.
Instead, consider the mutual fund of the 21st century - Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs). Not only do they offer low fees and extreme diversification… but a wisely structured ETF portfolio can dramatically outperform the market.
ETF Edge is an affordable service that can help you choose just the right ETFs at just the right time. Want to get rich the lazy investor’s way…? Click here to find out how
Notes From Michael Masterson’s Blog: Finally… Ready, Fire, Aim Is Out!
My new book, Ready, Fire, Aim: Zero to $100 Million in No Time Flat is my sixth book. But it’s still exciting - seeing it on the shelves. I hope it sells well. It is a good book, I think. In many ways my best book.
Ready, Fire, Aim contains just about everything I have learned about starting and growing entrepreneurial businesses. It exposes the biggest myths about business, such as:
- That successful businesspeople are careful planners
- That you need a lot of money to start a multimillion-dollar business
- That luck is a big factor in success
- That having confidence or connections is necessary
[Ed. Note: Read more about the story behind Michael’s new blockbuster by clicking here.]
How Active Do You Need To Be?
If you listen to the cardio queens of the exercise world, you’d think you have to run a quarterly marathon in order to stay fit and healthy. But that’s far from the truth.
In a study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, researchers studied 252,925 men and women aged 50 to 71. Those getting a moderate amount of exercise (at least 30 minutes on most days of the week) had a 27 percent decreased risk of death. And those that did vigorous exercise (at least 20 minutes three times per week) had a 32 percent decreased risk of death. Even those who got less than the recommended amount of moderate exercise had a reduced risk of death when compared to inactive individuals.
Surprisingly, a little bit of exercise goes a long way in helping reduce your risk of death. So while you might not be a big fan of "sweating it out," realize that even a brisk 30-minute walk each day can be enough.
[Ed. Note: Fitness expert Craig Ballantyne is the creator of the Turbulence Training for Fat Loss system. For a free online source of information, motivation, and social support to help you improve your health, lose weight, and get fit, sign up for ETR’s free natural health e-letter.]
It’s Fun to Know: Super Space Bugs
Astronauts and future space colonists beware. Experiments conducted during a recent space shuttle mission have shown that common bacteria become much more powerful when taken into space.
Arizona State University scientists blamed genetic alterations for the transformation of salmonella, which often causes food poisoning, into a superbug that was three times as likely to kill laboratory mice in space than on Earth. The researchers stressed that strict attention to hygiene will be the only way to prevent debilitating disease outbreaks on future long-term space missions.
(Source: BBC)
You CAN learn to become wealthy!
Success is not encoded in an individual’s DNA and does not transfer from father to son or mother to daughter. It is a process - and learning the process is a major KEY to setting up for success.
Today I’d like to offer you two complimentary reports to help you get started: “How To Get What You Need To Succeed In Life" and "Simple Guidelines for Creating Abundance In Your Life."
There will be many steps you take towards your goals where it will feel like you’re taking two steps forward and one step back. You will have breakthroughs, triumphs, and opportunities to overcome adversity.
But to keep moving forward, you just might need a friendly kick-in-the-pants every once in a while. Here’s how to stay energized towards action and success every day of the year.
- Charlie Byrne
Word to the Wise: Polemics
"Polemics" (puh-LEM-iks) is the practice of putting forth controversial arguments, especially concerning religion, philosophy, or politics. The word is from the Greek for "war."
Example (as used by Richard Brookhiser in a New York Times review of Christopher Hitchens’ new book): "Earlier this year, the Atlantic Monthly Press began to publish a series of books on ‘books that changed the world.’ Now comes Thomas Paine’s ‘Rights of Man’: A Biography, by the journalist and polemicist Christopher Hitchens."
[Ed. Note: Become a more persuasive writer and speaker … build your self-confidence and intellect … increase your attractiveness to others … just by spending 10 VERY enjoyable minutes a day with ETR’s new Words to the Wise CD Library.]
Michael Masterson
Copyright ETR, LLC, 2008