- WEALTHY: A profitable sideline business that’s perfect for many people (Don Hauptman)
- HEALTHY: Dropping pounds begins at breakfast (Jonny Bowden)
- WISE: James Russell Lowell on looking on the bright side
- Are things really getting worse? (Alex Green)
- Could your next e-mail cost someone a customer? (Suzanne Richardson)
- It’s Good to Know… how to stop wi-fi thieves
- Add “minatory” to your vocabulary
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:
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Can You Create Another Income Stream as a Consultant?
By Don Hauptman
If you possess valuable knowledge and experience, you might be able to share it – and get paid for it – as a consultant. This could be a lucrative sideline to your current business or career. Consultants are well compensated – as much as hundreds of dollars per hour.
The word “consulting” might call to mind an image of a huge multinational firm sending teams of dozens of its staffers into Fortune 500 corporations. But many consultants have solo practices. Anyone who can help companies solve problems, avoid mistakes, or increase revenues deserves the title.
Companies often need expertise that isn’t available in house. For example, to handle a project for which they don’t want to hire a full-time employee. Or to offer a fresh approach to a problem.
Executives and entrepreneurs I interviewed told me that the consultants they hire must have experience specific to the company’s needs, that they must be practitioners and not theorists, and that they must be able to supply direction and specific, useable answers.
I’m a copywriter, but I had a sideline as a consultant for 30 years. Clients who hired me said “We want you to show us how to improve our marketing.” Or “Explain to me and my direct-mail guy how we can write packages ourselves that will pull better.” Or “Spend a day with us as a coach.”
Can you diversify into consulting? Quite possibly. Are you good at what you do, and do you have the ability and the enthusiasm to communicate your knowledge and skills?
Think about what sort of information and advice and intelligence you’re capable of offering, its value, what you could charge, how to identify prospective clients and persuade them to hire you.
Whom do you know who might be interested? Your employer? Clients? Contacts? Could you write an article or give a talk that demonstrates your expertise for an audience of qualified prospects?
Establishing your reputation, networking, and marketing are the keys to building a successful consulting practice. No one would claim that it can be achieved overnight. But I did it – and so have many others.
[Ed. Note: Don Hauptman writes ETR's Saturday column, "The Language Perfectionist." The above article was adapted from his just-published e-book The Versatile Freelancer: How Writers and Other Creative Professionals Can Generate More Income by Seizing New Opportunities in Critiquing, Consulting, Training, and Presenting. It includes additional advice on breaking into consulting, along with details on diversifying into other rewarding sidelines. The book comes with a free bonus report and a 100 percent money-back guarantee of satisfaction. Order your copy without risk here.]
“Let us be of good cheer, however, remembering that the misfortunes hardest to bear are those which never come.”
James Russell Lowell
A Thorn With Every Rose
I recently attended an Oxford Club chapter meeting at the Grove Park Inn, a historic hotel on the western slope of Sunset Mountain near Asheville, NC.
Passing the enormous stone hearth in the lobby one morning, I noticed an engraving on one of the stones. It was a quatrain by Frank L. Stanton, a columnist for The Atlanta Constitution in the 1890s: “This world that we’re a- livin’ in / Is mighty hard to beat; / You git a thorn with every rose / But ain’t the roses sweet!”
This was once the most quoted poem in the country. But the mood has changed.
According to a recent CBS News/New York Times poll, Americans’ views on the general state of the country have hit an all-time low, with 81 percent saying the prospects for the United States are declining… the worst-ever number for this barometer.
Some will argue that this just reflects the current economic slowdown or the monumental unpopularity of President Bush. But pollsters report that, for decades now, large percentages have said the country is going downhill, life is getting tougher, our children face a declining future, and the world, in general, is going to hell in a handbasket.
Clearly, we have serious problems. There is the threat of nuclear proliferation, the specter of terrorism, and the unpleasant fact that our troops are bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan.
From an economic perspective, the federal deficit keeps growing, home prices are falling, the currency is weak, food and fuel prices have jumped, credit is tight, and the stock market recently entered bear market territory.
No wonder Americans are in a foul mood. Especially if this perspective – one that is repeated endlessly by the national media – accurately represents the big picture.
But it doesn’t.
The media delivers the world through a highly distorted lens. It doesn’t report buildings that don’t burn, planes that don’t crash, or companies that are hiring instead of laying off.
You wouldn’t know it by listening to the pundits, but our general lot is getting better, not worse.
As Greg Easterbrook of the Brookings Institution recently wrote in The Wall Street Journal, “Living standards are the highest they have ever been, including the living standards for the middle class and the poor. All forms of pollution other than greenhouse gases are in decline; cancer, heart disease, and stroke incidence are declining; crime is in a long-term cycle of significant decline, and education levels are at all-time highs.”
Despite the gloomy headlines, most of us have it pretty darn good.
Consider that in the first half of the twentieth century, most people earned a subsistence living through long hours of backbreaking work on farms or in factories. On the whole, Americans now work less, have more purchasing power, enjoy goods and services in almost unlimited supply, and have much more leisure.
In the first half of our nation’s history, most Americans lived and died within a few miles of where they were born. Nothing traveled faster than a horse and, as far as they knew, nothing ever would. Today, we have instantaneous global communication, 24-hour broadband Internet access, and same-day travel to distant cities.
Formal discrimination against women and minorities has ended. There is mass home ownership, with central heat and air-conditioning and endless labor-saving devices: stoves, ovens, refrigerators, dishwashers, microwaves, and computers.
Medicine was almost non-existent 80 years ago. In 1927, for example, President Calvin Coolidge’s 16-year-old son Calvin Jr. developed a blister by playing tennis without wearing socks. It became infected. Five days later, he died. Before the advent of antibiotics, tragedies like these were routine.
Advances in medicine and technology have eliminated most of history’s plagues. There has been a stunning reduction in infectious disease.
We complain about the rising cost of health care. But that’s only because we routinely live long enough to depend on it. The average American lifespan has almost doubled over the past century.
In short, we enjoy economic and political freedoms denied to billions throughout history. We live long lives, in good health and in comfortable circumstances. By almost any measure, we are living better than 99.9 percent of those who have inhabited this planet.
Yet we routinely tell pollsters that life is hard and things are getting steadily worse.
I think it’s time to take the larger view.
In The Progress Paradox, Easterbrook writes:
“Perhaps Western society has lost its way, producing material goods in impressive superfluity but also generating so much stress and pressure that people cannot enjoy what they attain. Perhaps men and women must reexamine their priorities, demanding less, caring more about each other, appreciating what they have rather than grousing about what they do not have, giving more than lip service to the wisdom that money cannot buy happiness.”
How do we do this? We can re-order our lives so that they are less hectic, less stressful.
We all have problems. But as Robert Ringer says, whatever your troubles, the odds are small that anyone is going to throw you up against the wall and pull out a machine gun.
We can start improving the quality of our lives simply by changing our perspective. And we can accept that if something is missing in our lives, it is probably a sense of gratitude, not material possessions.
It’s worth taking a moment to appreciate your incredible good fortune just to be alive.
In Unweaving the Rainbow, Oxford biologist Richard Dawkins writes: “We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of the Sahara. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively outnumbers the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here.”
True, it’s not a perfect world. But it’s the only one we’ve got. And we’re only here once.
Still, as my Dad used to say, “If you work it right, once is enough.”
[Ed. Note: If you take a look at the big picture, you're incredibly lucky. And one reason you are so blessed is because you have the opportunity to change your situation. One problem you can tackle right away is your finances. Alexander Green - editor of the free e-letter Spiritual Wealth and the Investment Director of The Oxford Club - can help you find solutions to your financial troubles in his new book, The Gone Fishin' Portfolio.He reveals his proven, market-beating investment strategy that empowers you to successfully manage your own money. Learn how to turn $100,000 into $1.3 million minus much of the stock market's risk right here.]
Is There Really a Money “Code” That Brings You Quick Profits?
Look, I’m no conspiracy-theorist… but yes, there is. “They” have been using it for years, and what I’ve discovered could be a sure-fire way to make fast profits time and again. See exactly what I’ve found by clicking here…
The Evils of E-Mail Forwarding
“Some people just don’t care about their customers,” my friend Aileen snapped. “I’m ready to dump this vendor and find someone else!” She was fuming – and it was all because of a common e-mail mistake.
The e-mail hadn’t been sent to Aileen. “Jennifer,” a wedding cake baker, had sent the nasty e-mail to Aileen’s wedding coordinator. (If you’re curious, the e-mail said something like “Your Oct. 4 client wants what? Is she nuts?”)
And the wedding coordinator had included that e-mail in the one she sent to Aileen.
I’m sure the wedding coordinator wasn’t trying to cause problems. She just didn’t think before forwarding the e-mail to Aileen. And I’m equally sure that Jennifer wasn’t trying to be malicious. In fact, I bet if she’d known that Aileen would see her e-mail, she would have chosen her words much more carefully.
E-mails – especially forwarded e-mails – can be misinterpreted …and possibly even ruin your career.
It’s so easy to click “forward” on an e-mail – or to copy someone else when you reply to the sender – that you may forget that you could be breaching someone’s privacy… or passing on sensitive information… or inadvertently making waves.
As Michael Masterson says, “Forwarding someone’s e-mail without asking his permission is impolite and potentially troublesome.” So keep these three alternatives in mind:
1. Whenever you feel the urge to forward on an e-mail, stop. Start a brand-new e-mail. And paraphrase the other person’s relevant comments.
2. When you forward an e-mail, delete EVERYTHING from it that’s irrelevant. For instance, a friend e-mails you… and mentions that she’d like to be a speaker at your upcoming conference. You forward your friend’s request to your event director – but first you delete her recap of last weekend’s cocktail party.
3. ASK. It’s super-easy to ask your friend/colleague/potential partner if you can forward their e-mail to someone else.
[Ed. Note: Has this type of e-mail disaster happened to you? Let us know the details here... but be sure to keep names and specifics out of it to protect the innocent!]
Can Eggs for Breakfast Help You Lose Weight?
For years, conventional dietitians have wrongly told us that the only thing that matters in weight loss is calories. While calories count, they are far from the whole picture.
In a new study published in the International Journal of Obesity, researchers divided 152 men and women into four groups. Groups One and Two were given standard weight-loss instructions: Reduce calories by 1,000 and eat a “low-fat” diet. Group One was told to eat a breakfast built around two eggs. Group Two was told to eat a breakfast built around bagels. Everything else was the same, including the total calories both groups consumed at breakfast.
Group One (The Egg Diet) had a 61 percent greater reduction in BMI (body mass index), a 65 percent greater weight loss overall, and a 34 percent greater reduction in waist circumference compared to Group Two (The Bagel Diet). All measures were statistically significant.
Groups Three and Four were not given any weight-loss instructions. The researchers told them not to change anything about their diets, except for breakfast. Group Three added eggs to their breakfast, and Group Four added bagels. Neither of these groups showed any significant changes.
What this study ingeniously shows is that, in certain contexts, the choice of foods can make a huge difference in a weight-loss program – even when the number of calories is kept the same. Unfortunately, as Groups Three and Four showed, merely eating eggs rather than bagels won’t cause you to lose weight if you continue to eat too many calories. But as part of an overall fat-loss program, those eggs may make a huge difference.
[Ed. Note: Add eggs to your low-calorie breakfast, lose more weight. Who knew good health could be that simple? Natural methods - including the foods you eat and the supplements you take - can have a powerful effect on your health. For more health enhancers, check out nutrition expert Jonny Bowden's book, The Most Effective Natural Cures on Earth.
And for more simple methods that can help you feel better and live longer, check this out.]
It’s Good to Know: How to Stop Wi-Fi Thieves
When you pay good money for a wireless connection, it’s annoying to discover that your cheap neighbor is using your connection every day. Instead of getting his own, he’d rather just leech off yours, slowing down your connection in the process. You can use a password to block wi-fi thieves, but there’s a way to do it that’s a lot more fun.
“Upside-Down-Ternet” is a service that was designed by and for folks who cannot stand wi-fi parasites. It doesn’t stop people from using your connection. Instead, it makes everything they view on their screen appear upside-down and backward. And if the thought of that isn’t enough to put a smile on your lips, you can also redirect every site they attempt to access to a different one that you set up. Use your imagination.
(Source: PC World)
== Highly Recommended ==
The Best Feeling in the World
Accomplishing a simple goal can have powerful, long-lasting results…
Once you finally learn to play the trumpet, or start a business, or get promoted to CEO, or get your pre-baby body back…
You’ll notice that people start treating you differently. They’ll respect you more. They’ll compliment you. They might even try to imitate your success.
And the way you’ll feel about yourself is unparalleled. You’ll have new confidence. New happiness. Some new stress, perhaps. But new pride in yourself and your abilities.
Achieving a goal you’ve had for years… There’s nothing quite like it.
It’s time for you to feel proud of yourself.
Word to the Wise: Minatory
“Minatory” (MIN-uh-tor-ee) – from the Latin for “threaten” – means menacing.
Example (as used by George Eliot in The Mill on the Floss): “He was often observed peeping through the bars of a gate and making minatory gestures with his small forefinger while he scolded the sheep with an inarticulate burr, intended to strike terror into their astonished minds.”
[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.]
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Bucky Dent’s, Yankee and Tampa e-mails are great!
What a great column. Admittedly things are challenging in the current economy, but that is relative to the hyper-inflated numbers of the prior years.
As you say the media portrays things from a very distorted viewpoint. Unfortunately people buy into the “doom and gloom”, and yet to continue to live lives of affluence.