Issue #2311
- WEALTHY: A reliable indicator of a market revival (Andrew Gordon)
- HEALTHY: Say goodbye to soy (Craig Ballantyne)
- WISE: William Pitt on "early to rise"
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:
- The morning routine that changed my life (Michael Masterson)
- Why Seth Godin isn’t impressed by great ideas
- It’s Good to Know… about the HDTV rip-off (Charlie Byrne)
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Making Your Own Headlines
I can see it now. The first good week the market has, there will be a slew of headlines using the same words but making very different points. Version one: "The Market Is Turning Around!" Version two: "Is the Market Turning Around?" Which one is right?
It’s going to take more than a week for the market to turn around. So, right away, you’ll know that a market revival isn’t a done deal. After one good week, it’s very possible the market will head down again. That’s only bad if it goes down further than its previous low. If it doesn’t, that could be a sign that the market is recovering.
But before you jump back in, watch for it to go back up. If it goes higher than its previous high, that would be another good sign.
To make sure the market has indeed turned around, it should make higher lows and higher highs two more times. Now, in order to lock in your conclusion that the market has reversed directions, do a Google search for ISM (Institute for Supply Management). Find their latest readings for the manufacturing and service sectors. If they’re both over 50, it means both are expanding.
That’s all there is to it. It’s not right 100 percent of the time, but it’s 100 times more reliable than trying to make sense out of the latest hysterical/euphoric headlines.
[Ed. Note: ETR's Investment Director, Andrew Gordon, is the editor of INCOME, a monthly financial advisory service that uncovers income-generating stocks that promise safety (first and foremost), along with much-higher-than-average profit potential.]
"I would have inscribed on the curtains of your bed, and the walls of your chamber: ‘If you do not rise early, you can make progress in nothing.’"
William Pitt
A Life-Changing Early-Morning Routine
When it comes to personal productivity, we all have the chance to have good days or bad days.
Good days are those that leave you feeling good because you have accomplished your most important tasks. Bad days are those that leave you feeling bad because you have failed to do anything to advance your most important goals.
If you want to have a better life, you must fill it with good days. The best way to do that is to organize your day according to your personal priorities – doing the most important things first.
It’s easy to do. Yet most people don’t. Eighty percent of the people I know – and I’m including all the intelligent and hardworking people I work with – do exactly the opposite. They organize their days around urgencies and emergencies. Taking care of last-minute issues that should have been dealt with earlier. Or doing tasks that help other people achieve their goals while ignoring their own.
Doing first things first. It is a very simple discipline. Yet its transformative power is immense. It can change your life – literally overnight.
It changed my life. Several times, in fact.
I’ve used this amazing technique to write six books, produce a record, and script and direct a feature-length film. I used it again last year to write 350 poems – one a day, after I began on January 15. And I am using it this year to get that book of poems published and to write six other books (five business books under the Michael Masterson pen name, and a novel with my personal byline).
MaryEllen Tribby is using this technique right now to write her first book on marketing (which John Wiley & Sons will be publishing at the end of this year).
It is the single best technique I know for change. And it’s the fastest and easiest way to turn your life around if you are not happy with the way it’s been going so far.
Doing first things first. Is that what you do?
Here’s what I do:
- I get up early – never after 6:30 a.m.
- I get to work early – never later than 7:30 a.m.
- I spend my first hour doing a task that advances my most important goal.
- If I’m going strong, I spend the next hour doing the same thing. If not, I switch to a task that advances my second-most-important goal.
- I spend my third hour on another priority.
- Only after four hours of doing important work do I allow myself to deal with less important work and other people’s urgencies.
By the time most people start wandering into the office – between 8:30 and 9:00 – I’ve done at least an hour and sometimes two hours of work that is helping me achieve my important goals. Goals that correspond to my core values. Goals that will immensely improve my life.
That’s how to begin a very good day!
I do this five days a week. And on weekends, I find at least two more hours each day to devote to my top priority. In a year, this averages to about 600 hours. Six hundred hours may not sound like much, but it is.
Six hundred hours is 15 40-hour work weeks. That’s almost four working months! Think about it.
Here’s what you can accomplish in 600 hours:
- Learn to speak a foreign language with moderate proficiency.
- Become a reasonably skillful ballroom dancer, with a good command of the swing, the fox trot, the salsa, and the hustle.
- Achieve a blue belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu or a brown or black belt in one of many other martial arts.
- Develop a decent singing voice and feel comfortable singing at parties.
- Write five 60,000-word books on a subject you know.
- Write and edit two novels or 365 poems.
- Write, direct, film, and edit a 30-minute movie.
- Start a multimillion-dollar side business.
Do any of those things sound interesting to you?
Now let me show you how I organize my workdays to tie into my long-term goals. Here is the exact schedule I followed last Friday:
6:30: Woke. Dressed. Sprinted, walked, stretched, and meditated on the beach.
The first thing I do is sprint and stretch and meditate. This is the most important thing I can do (besides eating well) to ensure a long and happy life.
7:00: Showered. Changed. Went to my home office.
7:30: Revised two poems written last year.
8:00: Wrote a new poem.
8:30: Wrote 600 words of Sin, my current (and first-to-be-published novel).
9:30: Wrote 600 words of the marketing book I’m working on with MaryEllen.
10:30-11:30: Wrote an essay for ETR.
I devote four hours entirely to writing – which is one of my four top priorities. About half my writing time is spent on creative writing and about half on business writing. This reflects a balance that corresponds to my current goals.
11:45: Went to the office. Trained in Jiu Jitsu with Marcel. Showered. Changed.
Jiu Jitsu is a hobby for me. It strengthens me, expands my mind, humbles me, and invigorates me.
1:00: Met with my assistant. Assigned tasks to her.
1:30: Luncheon meeting with AS.
2:45: Met with MaryEllen and Charlie Byrne.
3:30: Did a phone interview for Ready, Fire, Aim.
4:00: Met with PP to discuss real estate holdings.
I don’t take any meetings until after my midday workout. (I’ve trained everyone I work with not to expect to be able to interrupt me in the morning.) Beginning at noon, my day takes a dramatic change: from a schedule devoted to my primary objectives to one that is devoted to others’ needs. Most of the meetings scheduled during the afternoon, for example, accommodate the wishes of others. They have time to see me each day, but it’s only after I have taken care of my own top priorities.
4:30: Returned phone calls to GP, DT, and LG.
I return phone calls in the late afternoon. It’s not a top priority for me. It’s as simple as that.
5:00: Wrote two ETR briefs and a blog entry.
If I have a spare half-hour during the afternoon, I devote it to an important but not urgent task… like writing things that don’t have to be done by a specific deadline.
5:45: Reviewed and returned e-mails.
My penultimate task of the day is to review and return e-mails. I used to do it twice a day. Now I do it only once.
6:15: Planned the next day.
This is the last task of my workday.
6:30: Had a fitness workout with JM.
Feeling good about accomplishing most of my priorities, I often reward myself with a second workout.
7:30: Got home for dinner on time!
None of what I’ve said so far should astound you. It’s all good common sense. It’s advice we’ve been giving you in ETR for years.
But it’s one thing to recognize a good technique and quite another thing to learn to use it. Most people who read this essay will think to themselves, "I should do that. I should wake up early and spend time working on my dream." They’ll think it, but they won’t do it. They may get into the office earlier, but when they do they’ll probably turn on their computer and read their e-mail.
People sometimes ask me if it’s really necessary to get up early. "I’m a night person," they say. "I get my best work done after dark."
"Sure you do," I think when I hear that.
I used to say the same thing. But I was wrong. And I think you will change your mind if you allow yourself to experience the natural, unbeatable advantage of doing your most important work when your body is fresh and strong.
Get up early. Get to work early. Do your important but not urgent tasks first.
[Ed. Note: Learn specific strategies for how to take action on all your business and personal goals with ETR's Total Success Achievement program. It's not too late to sign up and learn how to make your longest-held dreams come true. Click here to learn more.]
A “Dumb” Way To Make Money Online
Listen: If you want to impress your friends and family with how you made a killing online by using all sorts of high tech wizardry and Internet knowledge, that’s fine. But this chance won’t be interesting for you…
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Reader Feedback: "You’ve had a huge impact on my life."
"I’ve been a huge fan of ETR for several years. I’ve been following your advice on a daily basis, and I’d like to sincerely thank you for sharing your wisdom and encouragement. I was an entrepreneur for 9 years, building a lawn maintenance company that generates $800k in annual revenue and operates without my daily input. I’ve also invested in several residential investment properties in a college town, as well as several billboards along a highway. A few years ago, I went back to school and earned my MBA, and now have an actual job in corporate America.
"I’m not trying to toot my own horn, but I’m 31 years old, own a profitable company, own investment real estate, and work for a Fortune 100 company. At the same time, I’ve always tried to balance work with a healthy lifestyle and my wonderful family. What I’m trying to say is that you’ve had a huge impact on my life, and I just thought you should know."
- Darin M. Bowers
Charleston, IL
Worth Quoting: Seth Godin on Ideas
"Ideas are easy, doing stuff is hard….
"History is littered with inventors who had ‘great’ ideas but kept them quiet and then poorly executed them. And history is lit up with do-ers who took ideas that were floating around in the ether and actually made something happen. In fact, just about every successful venture is based on an unoriginal idea, beautifully executed."
(Source: Seth Godin’s blog)
Building Better Bones
Early in my career, I attended a lot of nutrition research conferences. And it seemed like no seminar was complete without the requisite symposium on the role of soy protein in building better bones.
I was always skeptical of those claims – and now there’s a study that challenges them.
European researchers studied 237 early-post-menopausal women (average age of 53). For one year, the women consumed a soy product diet (providing 110 mg of isoflavones) or a control diet without soy products. The results showed that, contrary to popular belief, the soy isoflavones did not improve the women’s bone mineral density.
Instead of soy, I recommend good old-fashioned weight-bearing exercise to improve the strength of your bones. At the very least, every woman should have a daily walking program. In addition, women should perform at least two total-body resistance-training workouts per week.
Not only will this improve your bone mineral density, you will also get stronger. And strength and muscle mass can help reduce your risk of falling as you age.
[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 Good to Know: HDTV Rip-Off Update
Just before the holidays, I wrote about avoiding paying $50 to $100 for "monster" cables when buying High-Definition TV gear. I said you could pay $25 and get the same quality.
Well, leave it to Amazon.com to "lower" the bar. They’re now offering a six-foot HDMI cable for the grand total of… $2.04. (You can get essentially the same cable from "monster" suppliers for just… 86 bucks!)
As of this writing, 417 customer reviews gave the Amazon product an average rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars.
[Ed Note: Charlie Byrne is Creative Director at Early to Rise. Sign up for e-mail delivery of his blog and get edgy and useful ideas on copywriting, marketing, and other category-defying posts.]
How to Get the Heart of 370 Business Magazines in Just 30 Minutes a Month
Did that headline catch your eye?
How about this one:
"32 Ways to Save Time and Money From the Pages of Good Housekeeping."
Gene Schwartz knew the power of a compelling headline. He wrote those two – and went on to generate over $2 billion in advertising sales during his career.
Now you can find out, step-by-step, how to accomplish breakthrough marketing results no matter what you are selling, with our "accelerated marketing" program.
If you are involved in any form of sales, the benefits you’ll receive could be worth hundreds of thousands to you in future earnings. Click to continue…
- Patrick Coffey
Word to the Wise: Penultimate
"Penultimate" (pih-NUL-tuh-mit) – from the Latin for "almost final" – means "next to the last."
Example (as Michael used it today): "My penultimate task of the day is to review and return e-mails."
[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.]
Copyright ETR, LLC, 2008
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