Issue #2401

• WEALTHY: How to spot market volatility before it happens (Rick Pendergraft)  
• HEALTHY: Copy that cat – and you’ll feel better (Jonny Bowden)
• WISE: Jim Rohn on making decisions

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:

• How a simple coin flip can change your life (Michael Masterson)
• Your Web designer may not like this… (Alexis Siemon)
• It’s Good to Know… about music seizures
• Add "adumbrate" to your vocabulary

== Highly Recommended ==

Should Making Money Online Be This Easy?

I hear stories of budding Internet entrepreneurs jumping through hoops to make a buck. And sure, many times building a solid, long term business does take real effort. But you can also quietly pocket some decent dough online for much less work.

In this case, you can copy the exact steps one man used to make $187,296 in one day.  No, that’s not a misprint.

What’s stopping you from doing the same? The program is called Instant Internet Income and I guarantee it works exactly as it says.  Take a look and see just how easy making money online can be.

Too Many Witches 

By Rick Pendergraft

If you’ve spent some time in the investing world, you have probably heard the terms "triple witching" and "quadruple witching." But that doesn’t mean you know what they are or why they should concern you as an investor. 

A triple witching day is when stock options, stock index options, and stock index futures all expire on the same day. A quadruple witching day is when stock options, stock index options, stock index futures, and single stock futures all expire on the same day. 

These days happen on a quarterly basis, and the financial media usually makes a big deal out of it. Why? Because the expiration of these derivatives can, and will, cause increased volatility in the market. 

If you are a short-term trader, you certainly need to be aware of witching days. They occur on the third Friday of March, June, September, and December. If you are a long-term investor, triple witching and quadruple witching days will have little impact on you. Just be aware that when they happen, the market may get a little crazy. When you’re prepared for some volatility, you won’t overreact.

[Ed. Note: Once you've got an investing system, you can sit back as the money rolls in. Investment analyst Rick Pendergraft has uncovered a genuine, legal, and easy way to make potentially serious amounts of money for very little work. Get the details on Rick's rather embarrassing method right here.]

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 "It doesn’t matter which side of the fence you get off on sometimes. What matters most is getting off. You cannot make progress without making decisions."

Jim Rohn

How to Decide Between Two Equally Good Things

By Michael Masterson

Number Three Son had narrowed down his summer internship choices to two. But he was stuck. Where should he go? The office in Mumbai or the one in Melbourne?

Each had its benefits and drawbacks. India was more exotic, but Australia was more familiar. India might offer him more challenges, but Australia would give him a more personalized mentorship. India had more resources, but Australia was focused on what he wanted to do.

How do you choose between two good options when they are so evenly balanced?

Number Three Son asked for advice. His mother said one thing. His aunt said another. His friends were equally divided.

I was sitting on the porch, enjoying a Padron Aniversario 1964 (Natural) when he put the question to me. "This is driving me nuts," he said. "How do I decide?"

"Why don’t you flip a coin?" I suggested.

"Flip a coin? Is that how you make your important decisions?"

"Not always. But sometimes."

 "I can’t believe that."

I told him the story about how I got into the direct-marketing business. If you are a longtime ETR reader, you may have heard it before, so I’ll retell it very quickly.

It was 1981. I was sitting on a beach in Key Largo, watching jet skiers cutting back and forth on the Gulf’s crystal blue water. Next to me sat Tom. Tom’s hair curled at his shoulders. He was smoking what was then called a "doobie." Tom’s job was to put people on the jet skis and then take them off. That was it. And it appeared to be about all he was capable of doing.

I had just been offered three great job opportunities. A desk position at the Miami Herald, a reporting job at the St. Petersburg Times, and an editorial management slot with a newsletter publisher in Boca Raton. In my mind’s eye, I could see three career paths ahead of me: publisher, journalist, or marketing maven. All three appealed to me. I couldn’t choose.

So I decided to leave it up to Tom. I explained the jobs, the benefits, the drawbacks, and my thoughts about where they could lead me. Tom listened semi-attentively. Then, when I had told him everything there was to tell – all the details and all the nuances – I put my hand on his bronzed shoulder and said, "What should I do, Tom? Which way should I go?"

He took a what-we-then-called "toke" from his doobie, exhaled contentedly, and with a glassy-eyed gaze said, "Boca. Go Boca, man."

That, in fact, is exactly what I did. I took the Boca job and things turned out very nicely.

Just hours before Number Three Son had tracked me down on the porch, MaryEllen Tribby and I had spent some time with Brian Andreas, an ETR reader and an attendee at the business-building bootcamp I ran last year. In describing his amazing success in business, Brian said, "Everybody thinks that you can go through life making logical decisions based on factual input. One logical decision after another. But when I think about my career, it is clear that many of the most important directions I took were impulsive or arbitrary. Life doesn’t unroll in a straight line. It’s more complicated than that."

I thought about The Black Swan, the best-selling book that made a similar point. Life’s most critical events, the author argued, cannot be predicted.

Those thoughts were in my head when I suggested to Number Three Son that he flip a coin. Both opportunities were likely to be very good to him. But it was impossible to predict how they might develop and what benefits they would provide.

I pointed out that asking Tom to make my decision back in 1981 was the equivalent of flipping a three-sided coin. I wasn’t relying on Tom’s wisdom. I was simply using him to arbitrarily pick one of three good choices. What I did with those opportunities and what I got from them would depend on my actions later on.

So Number Three Son went into his room and put on some music. And when he was ready, he flipped a coin.

"What did the coin tell you?" I asked.

"It said to go to Australia."

"And how do you feel about that?"

"I feel good, actually."

"That’s great," I said. "So now you’ve decided. Now you can go forward and make something of that opportunity. It’s entirely up to you."

I didn’t tell him that if the coin toss had made him feel bad I would have told him to ignore it and go to India. That’s one useful outcome of making decisions arbitrarily. Sometimes they will show you how you really feel about the choices you’re considering.

This happened to me about eight months ago. The stock market had me worried, and I was thinking about pulling out all my money and putting it into cash. I called up one of the advisors I most respect and asked him what I should do. He made a very cogent argument for staying in the market. I thanked him for his advice, hung up the phone, and sold my stocks. Not because I don’t trust him. I do. But because his advice forced me to reckon with what my gut was telling me. And my gut was telling me to get out.

We store our emotional intelligence in our limbic brain. We do our rational thinking in our neocortical brain. The two are connected, but they don’t always communicate well with one another. Sometimes you need a coin toss to help you know what your limbic brain wants you to do.

For Number Three Son, his limbic brain had already told him to go to Australia. That’s why he felt good when the coin toss came up Australia.

Just to be clear – I am not suggesting that all decisions should be made by tossing coins. I don’t believe that at all. Quite the opposite, I believe we should use our rational faculties to analyze problems, to break them down into smaller issues and figure them out. But when the rational answers are in, you must compare them to your gut instinct.

Good decisions are made when both parts of your brain are saying the same thing. And when your rational mind tells you that both options are good and you are not sure what your limbic brain is saying, then an arbitrary decision-making process like flipping a coin can be very helpful.

[Ed. Note: Making better, faster decisions is just one way to propel yourself into success. The more goal-setting techniques - like Michael's coin flip - you can master, the faster you can accomplish all you set out to do. We've got boatloads of advice - all you have to do is put it into action. Start making your dreams come true right now.]

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== Highly Recommended ==

It’s Not Too Late to Achieve All Your Goals in 2008

If your New Year’s resolutions have fallen by the wayside, don’t worry.

You’re not the only one who resolutely vowed to achieve certain things in 2008… but got too caught up in work and family and personal issues to make any real progress.

It doesn’t mean that you don’t WANT to find a new job… or add $100,000 to your income… or lose 35 pounds… or keep your house organized.

And it certainly doesn’t mean that you don’t CARE about accomplishing these goals.

It just means that – like millions of people – you just don’t have enough time to get what you want.

We’ve developed a program that helps you create time, overcome obstacles, and regain control of your life. 

And don’t worry – it requires only 15 minutes of your time each day.

Get all the details here.

SEO Don’t: Using Fancy Flash Designs for Your Site

By Alexis Siemon

Optimizing your website for the search engines can help you get more traffic and, eventually, more sales. That’s why it’s so important to avoid certain website pitfalls. For instance, it’s a bad idea to use images for your critical site content. The search engines just can’t "see" content that’s in graphic form.

A close cousin to that potential SEO disaster is using Flash to design your website. If your designer or Web development firm suggests a cool Flash design, resist the temptation and say no.

This always makes my designer friends grumble, because they love to have the freedom to make a really cool Flash site. And I don’t blame them. But, alas, just like images, search engines can’t see content that is programmed in Flash.
 
Now, as I write this, news has come out that Google and Yahoo are working closely with the makers of the Flash program to rectify this issue. The two search giants are now able to crawl some Flash content. While this is exciting news, there are still limitations. Not all search engines are involved in this new development, and not all content contained within a Flash application can be crawled. To be on the safe side for now, you should still stay away from Flash.

Recently, I was asked to make a few suggestions on how to improve the SEO of a friend’s website. As soon as I saw that the site was designed exclusively in Flash, I knew the only piece of advice worth giving them: Redesign.

What should you do if you have a Flash site? Well, like I said to my friend, I recommend a redesign. If you are dead set on implementing Flash on your site, use it in non-critical areas only. Use HTML for your navigation and content and reserve the Flash for special areas where you would normally have images.

[Ed. Note: With expert advice from people like Search Engine Marketing Specialist Alexis Siemon, you can cut the time it takes your business to succeed in half. Get the insider secrets into starting and growing your own Internet business right here.]

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Qi Gong for Stress Reduction and More

By Jonny Bowden, PhD, CNS  

You may have never bothered to wonder why a cat grooms itself all day. But you should. The answer could impact your health.

Princeton researchers inserted electrodes into the brainstems of cats, and then recorded what was happening over the course of the cats’ day. Not much. Until they started grooming themselves. Then their levels of serotonin – a feel-good neurotransmitter involved with stress-reduction and overall well-being – went through the roof. It actually increased 40-fold! How’s that for a stress reliever?

There’s a lesson here. Concentrated, repetitive motion raises serotonin activity. Which brings us to one of the best stress reducers in the world: qi gong.

Three decades ago, Herbert Benson, MD, the pioneering doctor who helped introduce the concept of mind-body medicine to the U.S., studied qi gong while he was researching what he termed "the relaxation response." He concluded that to reach a state of deep relaxation, all you have to do is control your body, your breathing, and your mind.

Qi gong is a family of mind-body exercises that share all of those elements: regulation of the body, regulation of breathing, and regulation of the mind. In qi gong, as in many meditative practices, you control your mind by concentrating on a single thought. It can be a word, a mantra, a sound, a letter. You regulate your breathing in some controlled way (such as breathing in on a slow count of 4 and breathing out on a slow count of 4), and you add some regular, specific movement to handle the body part of it. Those three components are the trifecta of increased serotonin activity – and with it, greater energy and well-being.

At the University of Southern California, Irvine, Dr. Shin Lin (a visiting professor from Shanghai University) has found significant, measurable beneficial effects on the nervous system from doing qi gong. Other researchers have demonstrated that when you practice certain movements – such as those in qi gong – you get enhanced blood flow. Couple that with an increase in serotonin levels, and you’ve got a great prescription for lowering stress while increasing your overall energy.

[Ed. Note: You can increase your energy, decrease your stress, and feel healthier just by making a few simple changes to your diet and lifestyle. Learn how to feel better and live longer right here.

And get more ways to improve your health naturally with health expert Jonny Bowden's latest book, The Most Effective Natural Cures on Earth. Learn more at www.jonnybowden.com.]

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It’s Good to Know: Music Seizures

Musicogenic epilepsy is a rare condition (only 150 cases have ever been reported) in which sufferers have seizures when they hear certain types of music. The seizure-inducing tunes are different for each individual, and range from classical to reggae to jazz to rock and pop.

Doctors aren’t sure why the music has such a negative effect on these patients, but they think it might have something to do with the rhythmic pattern affecting brain activity. As with other forms of epilepsy, sometimes this condition can be treated with medication. Surgery to remove part of the brain is the last resort.

(Source: Scientific American)

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==Highly Recommended ==

How to Get Others to Agree With You

People are different in so many ways in their preferences and personality traits, yet there are common threads you can pull – and just like puppet strings – you can make the marketplace move to your control.

Within reason, of course.  But I want to introduce you to a book (that has long been out of print) that contains many secrets for persuading others to see your point of view.  Want to harness and direct the desires of an entire industry – for yourself or a client?  There are techniques for helping you do that in this book.  Want to use these secrets to further your career?   You can certainly do that.   Want explosive sales growth?  Just use the methods and techniques in this book and watch what happens.

But how can you get it if it’s out of print?  We secured rights to republish this book.  Then, we brought in ad experts and millionaire businessmen who have used these secrets to make millions.   These experts explore and uncover why and how these secrets work in great detail.  You get it all.  The book – and the interviews and commentary as bonuses.

Please hurry if you want a copy, as we are not guaranteeing our inventory is sufficient to handle all the orders. Click here to get all the details and to order today. 

Word to the Wise: Adumbrate

To "adumbrate" (uh-DUM-brate) – from the Latin for "shadow" – is to foreshadow or give a sketchy outline.

Example (as used by T.S. Eliot in Notes Towards a Definition of Culture): "The way of looking at culture and religion which I have been trying to adumbrate is so difficult that I am not sure I grasp it myself except in flashes, or that I comprehend all its implications."

[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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This entry was posted on Monday, July 7th, 2008 at 5:10 am and is filed under Daily Issues .