Issue #2668
- WEALTHY: Why Brazil and Russia should be on your investment radar (Ted Peroulakis)
- HEALTHY: Fitness lessons from Animal Planet (Matt Furey)
- WISE: Erma Bombeck’s theory on how the human brain works
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:
- 6 steps to eliminating e-mail overload (Michael Masterson)
- What focus and concentration can do for you (Bob Cox)
- It’s Fun to Know… about the U.S. air marshals’ high-tech communicator
- Add “bildungsroman” to your vocabulary
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The Best Ways to Invest in BRICs, Part 1
BRIC is an acronym for the combined economies of Brazil, Russia, India, and China. These developing countries have seen their stock markets plummet along with those of the rest of the world, but now is a great time to invest in them. Their stocks are oversold and they still have high growth potential. Plus, BRICs typically have lower labor and production costs, so companies in other countries are looking into the opportunities they offer for foreign expansion and trade.
Today, let’s look at Brazil and Russia, which are destined to become the world’s leading producers of raw materials.
In the past, Brazil had high inflation, but the economic climate has been quite stable under President Lula da Silva. And the land is rich with natural resources. The ethanol industry, in particular, is very strong and growing. The world is seeking alternative sources for traditional fuels, and Brazil is well positioned to take full advantage of this.
The best way to play Brazil: iShares MSCI Brazil Index (EWZ). This exchange-traded fund holds a nice basket of Brazilian stocks and seeks to mirror the Brazilian stock market as measured by the MSCI Brazil index.
Russia has some big negatives – with political issues and organized crime among the main concerns. And investors don’t like the idea of investing in companies that could be nationalized overnight. But Russia’s energy sector is still a powerful force in the world, and its cheap assets are quite attractive. Russia is one of the largest producers of palladium, platinum, diamonds, nickel, and gold, making it a natural resources powerhouse that should do well as commodity prices recover.
The best way to play Russia: Market Vectors Russia ETF (RSX). This exchange-traded fund holds a nice basket of Russian stocks and seeks to mirror the Russian stock market as measured by the DAX Global Russia+ Index.
[Ed. Note: Investment expert Ted Peroulakis and 8 of his fellow moneymakers will be gathering in Miami this June to share exactly how you can use their top recommendations to make a fortune in today's market. Get all the details here.]
“I have a theory about the human mind. A brain is a lot like a computer. It will only take so many facts, and then it will go on overload and blow up.”
Erma Bombeck
Information Overload: The E-Mail Problem
Chris Schroeder – CEO of Health Central Network – bragged at a recent information-publishers’ conference that there were 2,000 items in his RSS feed inbox awaiting his attention. When I read this in an article by Bob Bly, I couldn’t help but shake my head.
“I have news for Mr. Schroeder,” Bob wrote. “If you have 2,000 unread items in your RSS feed, it is anything BUT an ideal way of getting information. Over-subscribing to free content via RSS feeds is an invitation to information overload disaster – equivalent to getting a Sunday New York Times delivered to your door every day of the year.”
Bob is dead right.
E-mail information overload, in particular, is a huge problem for entrepreneurs and small-business owners. Unfortunately, most of us are more or less addicted to it. Consider these facts, according to an eROI survey:
• 66 percent of Americans read e-mail seven days a week.
• 61 percent continue to check e-mail while on vacation.
• 41 percent check e-mail first thing in the morning.
• 26 percent say they can’t go more than two to three days without checking e-mail.
Is that bad?
I believe it is. For one thing, it is a significant cause of stress. In Bit Literacy: Productivity in the Age of Information and E-mail Overload, Mark Hurst says, “It may sound enticing to subscribe to the latest e-newsletter, but it’s demoralizing to see a pile of issues awaiting reading….”
But stress is just one problem. Consider this: A psychiatrist at London’s King’s College administered IQ tests to three groups. Group 1 did nothing but perform the IQ test. Group 2 was distracted by e-mail and ringing phones. Group 3 was stoned on marijuana. Unsurprisingly, Group 1 did better – by an average of 10 points – than the other groups. The e-mailers, however, did – on average – six points worse than the stoners.
As Gertrude Stein pointed out long before e-mail was invented, “Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense.”
If you want to work smart and happily (and who doesn’t?), you need to get control over your e-mail inbox.
The first step, says Tim Ferriss, author of The Four Hour Work Week, is not to feel guilty. “Recognize that you receive too much information. It’s not your fault. Just accept that there is more information than time, and that it’s increasing every day.”
Ferriss says that there are three ways to deal with e-mail overload. You can “live by reaction” and feel increasingly stressed and confused. You can opt out by not reading anything. Or you can practice “bit literacy” by getting “some information – the right information – without trying to get all of it.”
He recommends going on a “media diet” – i.e., getting rid of most of what is coming into your e-mail box and keeping only that which provides useful information on a reliable basis.
You can then divide the good stuff into “worth scanning” and “solid gold.” E-mails worth scanning are from sources that reliably deliver at least some relevant information. Solid-gold e-mails are from those rare sources that provide useful tips and insights every single time.
I would like to think that you would put both Early to Rise and Ready, Fire, Aim into your solid-gold category.
Your solid-gold e-mails should be read first. And both your solid-gold and worth-scanning e-mails should be read not thoroughly but intelligently and strategically – the same way as I’ve suggested business books should be read.
But even after whittling your inbox down to these two categories and reading the information strategically, you may find that you are still spending too much time on e-mail.
If that is the case, follow the Power of One rule. Scan your solid-gold e-mails until you find one good and useful idea – an idea you can implement immediately. Then stop reading.
Remember, you don’t have to know everything – or even most of what there is to know – to succeed at most endeavors. There are hundreds of ways to make money on the Internet, for example, but you can easily make a six-figure income by using only a few of them.
And finally, I’d recommend – as I have so many times in ETR – that you open your e-mail only once a day, toward the end of the day.
I have repeatedly found that if I read my e-mails first thing in the morning, as so many people do, I’m emotionally exhausted by the time I finish. It saps my energy when I need it most. And then, lacking energy, I don’t want to do anything very difficult or important. So I find myself taking care of “clean up” or “preparation” tasks – the kind that make you feel organized but don’t advance your career or help you achieve any of your major objectives.
I have also found that when I try to deal with work-related e-mail in the morning, I spend about twice as much time on it as I should. That’s because I tend to get involved in “discussions” that are unimportant or irrelevant to my goals.
That type of e-mail is full of the problems that other people are trying to get you to solve for them. If you ignore it until the end of the day, you will find that much of it already will have been taken care of – leaving more time for you to take advantage of the really good stuff, the information-packed, solid-gold e-mails that you really want and need.
[Ed. Note: How many e-mails do you get each day? What do you do to curb the information overload? Let us know right here.]
Why It Doesn’t Matter If the Markets Tumble
If you’re one of the millions of people concerned by the latest turbulence in the markets, I’ve got some good news for you.
It doesn’t matter if the markets tumble.
One investor delights when the stock market lurches up and down. His name is Frederick James and you won’t see him on Larry King or in the Wall Street Journal.
That’s because he’s always preferred to remain part of an elite group of investors who extract their profits in the background while the masses of regular investors see their nest eggs vaporize.
But, now Frederick has decided it’s time to share the wealth. He has agreed to reveal his secrets to ETR readers. Get your special report right here.
The “Be Here NOW” Success Technique
By Bob Cox
Recently I observed a training session for one of my business clients. When a couple of the attendees started goofing around, Lisa, the woman running the session, raised her voice and said: “People – this was paid for by your employer. You are on company time, and I intend to maximize the use of that short time we have together. So please work with me and be here now!”
“Be here now.” That phrase – referring to the awareness of not only being in the moment but staying in the moment over an extended period of time, free of distractions – struck me as being very much in tune with the overall goal achieving process.
Here’s how to apply it to your goals:
Rule #1. Concentrate on defining your objective.
What do you want to accomplish? What matters to you? Why do you want to achieve that particular goal?
Rule #2. Concentrate on one part of your goal at a time.
Break down your ultimate goal into smaller chunks. Keeping on eye on the big picture is great. However, you have to focus on the individual steps that will get you there.
Rule #3. Concentrate on controlling your situation.
When focusing on those individual steps, control your natural tendencies (we all have them) to drift away from the task at hand and/or stop trying if it becomes too challenging or takes too long.
Rule #4. Concentrate on completion.
To achieve any goal, you have to make a commitment to reach the finish line. Strengthen your resolve and keep yourself motivated by visualizing the end result – how excited you’ll be and how great you’ll feel when you reap the rewards of your hard work.
[Ed. Note: Bob Cox is a success coach who can help you achieve goals in every area of your life: professional, social, personal, and beyond. Check out his program here.]
Stretch Like a Tiger
By Matt Furey
What you do in the first few minutes of your day sets the tone for the rest of it. That’s why it is important to begin your day with thoughts of happiness, success, great health, and prosperity.
As soon as your feet hit the deck, you want to be launched into the realm of success – the “get something done today” realm. No more putting off till tomorrow what you can and should do today. No more dilly-dallying.
One way to help set yourself on this course is to always have a daily goal – especially a daily fitness goal. And if you achieve that goal first thing in the morning, the rest of the day is going to be awesome.
Yesterday, when my son Frank and I arose, I asked him how many push-ups he wanted to do. He chose the number – I counted. Then I asked him how many Hindu squats. Again, he chose the number and I counted. We did the same for sit-ups.
Then I went to work on my own Hindu push-ups and other stretches.
The Hindu push-up is a bit like a cat stretch. I’m not a big TV watcher, but, contrary to what some think, there are some good stations. Animal Planet is one of them.
Last night I watched a special they had on wild cats. Everything from lions to tigers to cheetahs to leopards to mountain lions and a lynx.
Watched a mountain lion nab a deer, drag it through the forest, latch onto its neck, and PULL it up a tree to bend it over a branch (for safekeeping). Now, let me tell you, that’s some major league strength.
So watch how wild – as well as domesticated – cats stretch. They stretch backward hundreds of times per day. And they do it as soon as they wake up.
You, my friend, would be well advised to do likewise. It will not only increase your strength and flexibility – it will ENERGIZE you for hours.
Move your body the way it wants to be moved. Stretch like a cat and you’ll know why cats stretch the way they do.
[Ed. Note: You can learn all about this form of exercise in Matt Furey's Combat Conditioning book and DVDs. Go gobble them up NOW by sprinting over to his site. .
And for more simple but powerful exercise techniques, as well as strategies for eating better and getting fit, sign up for ETR's FREE natural health newsletter here.]
It’s Fun to Know: The U.S. Air Marshals’ High-Tech Communicator
Among other things, U.S. air marshals are charged with heading off terrorist attacks on passenger jets. And one of the most important “weapons” in their arsenal is a high-tech, multi-function communications device.
They use the Federal Air Marshal Service Communication System, software that runs on any wireless PDA, to communicate with other air marshals on the aircraft, airport ground crew, cockpit crew, and flight attendants. They also use it to “plug into” the aircraft systems to keep track of the plane’s location, how much fuel is left, and where the nearest airport is.
(Source: Wired)
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Word to the Wise: Bildungsroman
A “bildungsroman” (BIL-doongz-roh-mahn) – literally German for “education” + “novel” – is a type of novel that’s concerned with the moral, psychological, and intellectual development of its (usually) young main character.
Example (as used by William Boyd in a New York Times review of The Servants’ Quarters by Lynn Freed): “What has started as a spirited and intriguing South African bildungsroman is transformed into something altogether more romantic, and perhaps more predictable.”
[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, 2009
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you are exactly right about the emails really none of them are really of any prticular use that is going to put money in your pocket that i have found they’re all ought to make money and if you don’t have money it is hard to make money
First, I set a limited schedule for checking email, and I stick to it. Second, if I find I am automatically receiving stuff that I no longer read (like newsletters), I cancel those subscriptions – especially if someone sends me 2-3 per day. Third, I limit how many news programs I watch – no more than one per day (and many days, I don’t watch the news at all)unless something special is happening. I don’t read newspapers – I figure if something really important is happening, I will hear about it. Besides, I used to be assistant editor of a newspaper group at one time, and I learned that most of what’s in the papers is exaggerated, extrapolated, glorified, or simply made up. All the news that’s fit to print, unfortunately, ain’t necessarily fit to read.
I can’t imagine becoming stressed at the number of E-Mails in my box. I have more important things to worry about than E-Mail overload.
I think people need to get a life. Why give doctors more excuses to provide you with yet another pill to relieve stress from something as unimportant as this article.
I have put myself on a fairly rigid email-only-the-hour-before-clocking-out diet. I had realized that if I gave myself all the time I wanted, I would take 2 hours every morning to read email. One surprising thing was that the 2-hour period was the same, whether I read email every day or every other day. Every-other meant that I could delete more faster because the “immediate crisis requiring response” had essentially not come to pass. Yesterday’s news can’t even be used to wrap fish when it comes at us digitally.
Hi Michael,
You make good and useful points. And you’re right, it isn’t the first time you’ve made them.
My e-mail actually gets opened three times each day.
At 9:30 am – to look at e-mails specifically from clients I do editing for. Anyone sending me material for editing knows I work on it in the morning.
Again at 3:30 pm – to look at any other e-mails from clients.
Finally at 8:00 pm – to pick out which newsletters look promising. I do exactly what you suggest – I scroll through the newsletters to find one (maybe two) that I’ll take the time to read.
There are two other things I do that readers might find helpful.
First is to disable the automatic Send/Receive in Outlook. It used to bug me constantly that the program was pulling in new e-mails while I was working.
And I only have it open for short periods of time!
And second, at the end of the day I mark all the newsletters as read. That keeps the big, bold number from climbing next to that folder.
Anything I want to “remember” gets marked with a flag. (Outlook offers 6 or 7 different flag colours.) I use the flags because the newsletter folder gets emptied once a month.
My strategy is a little different from yours, but I bet they both help us get more done in a day.
Sincerely,
Conrad Hall
Hey–I have cats. I know cats. I AM a cat. Stretching like a cat works.
I receive several hundred emails a day but I only open a dozen or so. I scan the “from” column, combined with the “Subject” line and open only the important or interesting ones. I also avoid T.V. like the plague, only getting the news I need (online) rather than being bombarded by the trash, negativity and sensationalism of television.
I get roughly 80-100 emails a day from sites that although are not directly related to my work, I still have an interest in, i.e.: political, financial, health, etc. Unless I have an immediate (within 24 hours) need for that type of information, I simply send the email to a corresponding folder. When I do have a need for a particular type of information I just go to the folder and scan the subject lines to determine which is relevant.Prior to doing this I would waste about two hours of my mornings digesting information that was important, but of no immediate use.
Hi there, it was great reading the posts submitted by you. I am the IT team leader of my company. Your posts convinced me to purchase a multi-function printer. It really has helped me a lot. Thanks
I SKIM THROUGH THEM AND THEN DELETE.
Hi, this was a great article and I recently received an email with similar information from Tracy Repchuk. You two might want to get together and write a book about this! I wake up to over 300 emails each morning and 80% of them are from marketers trying to sell me something. The other 10% are from marketers offering free seminars and books and the last 10% are personal. It sometimes takes me 3 hours upon wakening just to go through and delete, read or file the email. I am going to start going through and unsubscribing from many of them, especially the ones who just try to sell me stuff and never offer anything free, not even free information. I think more people should be aware of this and come up with easier solutions because it would take me all day to sit and open and unsubscribe from each email. Today I told myself to just unsubscribe from one person each day so it isn’t overwhelming. I don’t remember signing up to half of these things in the first place! Although there are many people out there who do offer a lot of great free things like information, books, seminars. Those people I will stay subscribed to. Thank you for this article, the more people who write about it, the more aware I become about realizing the need to do something about it!
Thank you,
Melanie Vertalino
All these e-mails drive me to drink. Heres what I do. I zap them all out, anything dated yesterday or earlier. I do not go to my computer every day or if I do, it is only to certain favorites. Computers are fascinating, and they will enslave you. I need some time to call my own.
I have learned to skip most of the “content” in most emails-i.e.-ETR as they are just more sales copy. ETR when it first started had many informative short items, now it seems it is over 50% sales leads for other things/email subscriptions. It is turning into just more junk mail !!