Issue# 2695
- WEALTHY: The de-coupling myth (Andrew Gordon)
- HEALTHY: What makes a super-antioxidant bad for you? (Shane Ellison)
- WISE: Thoreau on finding yourself
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:
- How to get off the hedonic treadmill (Alex Green)
- 5 copywriting blunders (Clayton Makepeace)
- It’s Good to Know… about changing the car radio with your eyeballs
- Add “pastiche” to your vocabulary
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Why China Can’t Save Us
De-coupling lives again, but I wouldn’t bet the farm on it.
Remember when it made the rounds over a year ago?
The idea was that even if the U.S. economy caught pneumonia, the rest of the world would at worst get a bad cough. It was argued that Europe and China were much less reliant on the U.S. economy than ever before. And China, with its massive import needs, would also keep economies from Brazil to Australia humming.
This gave governments, businesses, and investors hope. It was about as good as any other unproven theory – but it didn’t quite work out, did it?
America’s economic malaise quickly spread to other countries, including China in a very big way, and they caught much worse than just a cough.
Fact is, replacing the U.S.’s massive market is easier said than done. China’s quickest road to recovery is helping the U.S. recover. That’s why, despite a lot of moaning and groaning, China will continue to finance our growing debt and take their chances on a future devalued dollar.
China’s leaders understand better than most people in America that their heady economic growth was entirely dependent on our “borrow-and-spend” behavior.
With no replacement in sight, it’ll be next-to-impossible for China to turn around its economy. De-coupling has once again miscast China. China is no savior. The crisis began in the West and will end in the West. Only then will a recovery spread elsewhere.
Read my lips: A rescue is not around the corner. You should continue to invest defensively (in gold, for example) or bet the market short, because it still has another leg down to go.
[Ed. Note: You can read more of investment analyst Andrew Gordon's commentary on world markets and his advice for how to deal with them in these tough economic times in Investor's Daily Edge, ETR's free sister publication.]
“Not till we are lost, in other words not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves.”
- Henry David Thoreau
The Power of Negative Visualization
By Alex Green
When Norman Vincent Peale wrote The Power of Positive Thinking 60 years ago, he received a stack of rejection slips from publishers.
Dejected, he threw the manuscript into the trash, forbidding his wife to remove it. She didn’t.
The next day, however, she took the manuscript, still inside the wastebasket, to a publisher who accepted it. The book became a foundation of the human potential movement, selling more than 20 million copies in 47 languages.
Much of Peale’s homespun advice sounds quaint or even amusing to us today. Still, the book did a good job of articulating a basic truth:
To a great extent, you create your world with your thoughts. Most personal achievements begin with an abiding faith that we can and will accomplish them.
Even realizing your goals, however, will not lead to lasting satisfaction. That’s because human wants are insatiable.
Most of us are trapped on what psychologists call thehedonic treadmill. We work to achieve what we desire. Those things satisfy us for a while, but we soon adapt to them and dissatisfaction returns. So next time, we set the bar a little higher…
Our lives can easily become a pastiche of unfulfilled desires. We yearn for a better-paying job, more recognition, greater social status, a newer car, a bigger house, a firmer abdomen, perhaps even a sexier spouse.
Dissatisfaction is not all bad, of course. Desire can motivate us to achieve good things in our lives, too.
But a continual sense of lack creates anxiety. It undermines our satisfaction. Peace of mind eludes us.
Fortunately, the ancient Stoic philosophers had a technique you can use to override the adaptation process and recapture the contentment we seek. It’s called negative visualization.
The technique is to spend some time each day imagining that you have lost the things you value most. Vividly imagine, for example, that your job has just been terminated, that your house – with all your possessions – has burned to the ground, that your partner has left you, or that you have lost your sight, your hearing, or the use of your limbs.
This sounds horribly bleak, I know. But the Stoics were onto something here. They understood that everything we enjoy in life is simply “on loan” to us from Fortune. Any of it – all of it – can be recalled without a moment’s notice.
Epictetus reminds us, for example, that our children have been given to us “for the present, not inseparably nor forever.” His advice: In the very act of kissing your child, silently reflect on the possibility that she could die tomorrow.
The Roman philosopher Seneca advises us to live each day as if it were our last, indeed as if this very moment were our last. He’s not suggesting that you drop your responsibilities and squander the day in frivolous or hedonistic activities. He’s encouraging you to change yourstate of mind.
Maybe you are already living the dream you once had for yourself.
Along the way, however, you became jaded, bored, numb to the blessings that surround you. The goal of the Stoics would be to wake you up, to make you appreciate what you have today.
Some will argue that negative visualization is fine for those who are happy, healthy, and prosperous – but how about the troubled, the less fortunate?
Negative visualization works for them, too. If you have lost your job, imagine losing your possessions. If you have lost your possessions, imagine losing the people you love. If you have lost the people you love, imagine losing your health. If you have lost your health, imagine losing your life.
There is hardly a person alive who could not be worse off. That makes it hard to imagine someone who wouldn’t benefit from this technique.
Adaptation diminishes our enjoyment of the world. Negative visualization brings it back.
It also prepares us for life’s inevitable setbacks. Survivors of tornados, earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters, for example, may suffer terribly. Yet afterward, they often tell us that they were just sleepwalking through life before. Now, they are joyously, thankfully alive.
No one should need a catastrophe to feel this way. You can attain the same realization through negative visualization. Moreover, it can be practiced regularly, so its beneficial effects, unlike a catastrophe, can last indefinitely.
Try it and you’ll see. I’ve found it’s perfect for when you’re standing in line or stuck in traffic, time that would be wasted otherwise.
By contemplating the impermanence of everything in your world, you can invest all your activities with more intensity, higher significance, greater awareness.
In sum, Norman Vincent Peale got it half-right. Positive visualization helps you get what you want. Negative visualization helps you want what you get.
[Ed. Note: Alex Green is Investment Director and Chairman of The Oxford Club, and is the bestselling author of The Secret of Shelter Island: Money and What Matters. His new book - described by Michael Masterson as "shockingly good" - explores money, meaning, and the pursuit of the good life. To pick up a copy, click here.]
Wealth Attraction Secrets That Can Turn You into Your Own ATM Machine
Imagine for a moment you are a pitcher toiling in the minors for years.
You are good, just not great… frustrated you think if only you had that “missing ingredient” to put you over the top-put you into “The Show”, the MAJORS.
Then you get a phone call which changes your life. In fact, its so mind boggling that you think it’s a joke, that’s because it’s “The GREG MADDUX…” 4 Time Cy Young, 350 game winner and FUTURE HALL OF FAMER, Greg Maddux!
All Greg wants to do is personally coach you for 30 days and give you “his” inside secrets to executing three different pitches. Once he does- you are remarkably transformed into a major leaguer… just like that!
Or what if you’re a swimmer on your high-school swim team. You are up for a big tournament in 30 days… this is THE one you need to win to get that college scholarship!
Problem is, there’s LOTS of competition and you might not be good enough.
That is until your coach comes into practice with MICHAEL PHELPS, 8 time OLYMPIC GOLD WINNER Michael Phelps… and he personally coaches you for 30 days and gives you “the missing ingredient”, that will boost your endurance and speed 10x times to what it normally is. CHA-CHING college was just paid for!
There you are… struggling like every other American through the greatest economic crisis of the 21st century… bills are paying off… your house needs repairs (or maybe you are about to lose it).
To add insult to injury your new business is NOT taking off. You are at your breaking point-and then it happens:
The co-founder of the 1st Home Shopping Network and personal mentor to no less than 4 billionaires contacts you.
This rich man wants to give you the “missing ingredient” you need to attract wealth — the one that will turn you into a mean, lean, money making atm machine!
And the best part? He is guaranteeing your success in just 30 days!
RING! Pick up the phone… it’s the billionaire mentor and he wants to make you an offer you can’t refuse! Click here to get all the inside details…
Is Your Copy a Welcome Interruption?
When we marketers and copywriters approach a prospect with a direct-mail piece, an e-mail blast, a print ad – or any other kind of sales promotion, for that matter – we are interrupting his life.
The simple act of putting sales copy before a prospect brings him to a fork in his road – forcing him to make a decision to either (1) read or (2) not read our message.
And every time his eye moves from one sentence to the next… from one paragraph to the next… or from one page to the next… he reaches yet another fork in the road – and gets to decide whether he’s going to keep reading our message or abandon it.
Writing a kick-butt headline to grab his attention is only the beginning. Our job is to make sure the prospect makes the right decision – the decision to continue reading – at every one of these forks in the road.
So what could make your prospect make the wrong decision and drop your promo into the nearest trashcan?
Off the top of my head? Here are five:
1. Interruption. Your prospect’s kids just shoved the family cat into the dishwasher. He hesitates, but ultimately decides that dealing with the immediate crisis is somewhat more pressing than reading your message.
Remedy: Pray for the cat.
2. Unsuitability. Your prospect already has a computer and quickly decides your computer catalog is of no interest to him whatsoever.
Remedy: Shoot your list broker.
3. Disbelief. Your claims seem so exaggerated or even dishonest, the prospect figures he can’t trust anything you say.
Remedy: Tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
4. Boredom. Your copy is so brain-dead boring, he’d rather eat week-old sushi than continue reading.
Remedy: Get a personality.
5. Exhaustion. Your copy is so dense, difficult to read and impossible to follow, he simply gives up.
Remedy: Copy that’s so good it takes no effort to read it.
[Ed. Note: Master copywriter Clayton Makepeace publishes the highly acclaimed e-zine The Total Package to help business owners and copywriters accelerate their sales and profits. Claim your 4 free moneymaking e-books - bursting with tips, tricks, and tactics that'll skyrocket your response - at MakepeaceTotalPackage.com
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Acai Berry: Wonder Cure or Marketing Noose?
By Shane “The People’s Chemist” Ellison, M.S.
It’s finally here – the wonder cure that Americans have been waiting for. It’s called acai. Whether you are a member of The Fat Cow Hall of Fame, being ravaged by high blood sugar, or being overcome with cancer, you’re being told that acai is your key to optimal health and longevity. If you believe this, the Oprah and Dr. Oz marketing noose is already around your neck.
Acai berries are great. But acai drinks and other acai products are loaded with sugar – natural and otherwise. Remember your mom telling you to avoid sugar?
Most people don’t do it. The average American chokes down a whopping 160 pounds per year. A healthy human body can’t take more than 10 or 15 pounds annually.
Acai products are marketed as super-antioxidants.Cinnamon is light years ahead when it comes to antioxidant content, but you can get that for pennies on the acai dollar at your local grocery store – which is why marketers aren’t telling you about it.
Acai products do contain a negligible amount of anthocyanidins, natural substances that can be a huge asset to your cardiovascular system. But you can obtain quadruple the amount – for pennies on the acai dollar – from a big organic salad or bilberry (an over-the-counter nutritional supplement).
Still, neither cinnamon nor bilberry is a wonder cure. Nothing can overcome America’s addiction to bad habits, especially wanton sugar consumption. Want a real wonder cure? Remove the marketing noose and abandon sugar.
[Ed. Note: Shane Ellison's entire career has been dedicated to the study of molecules - how they give life and how they take from it. He was a two-time recipient of the prestigious Howard Hughes Medical Institute Research Grant for his research in biochemistry and physiology. He is a bestselling author, holds a master's degree in organic chemistry, and has first-hand experience in drug design.Take advantage of his knowledge and insights to look and feel your best in 90 days.]
It’s Good to Know: Changing the Car Radio With Your Eyeballs
Electronics giant Toshiba is developing technology that will allow drivers to change radio stations, turn up the AC, and more with simple head and eye movements. The system, which includes a dash-mounted camera, will even recognize when they are dozing off or take their eyes off the road and then kick in safety features (like an alarm to wake them up).
(Source: Wired)
* Highly Recommended *
How Would an Extra $3,000 a Month Change YOUR Life?
Picture this…
While you slept last night, your bank account was pumped with cash. It doesn’t matter where you are or what you’re doing, you just help yourself to the money from any ATM, anytime of day. All because of a conversation you had over a coffee, let’s say.
Then, think how you’ll spend it. If nothing else, it’s a very nice safety net isn’t it?
And what if it didn’t cost you anything to make this?
Word to the Wise: Pastiche
A “pastiche” (pa-STEESH) – from the French – is an incongruous combination of materials, forms, motifs, etc., taken from different sources; a hodgepodge.
Example (as used by Alex Green today): “Our lives can easily become a pastiche of unfulfilled desires.”
[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 Words to the Wise CD Library.]
Similar Articles:
- The Power of Negative Visualization – When Norman Vincent Peale wrote The Power of Positive Thinking 60 years ago, he received a stack of …
- Wonder Cure or Marketing Noose? – It’s finally here – the wonder cure that Americans have been waiting for. It’s called acai. Whether …
- Acai: A Sweet-Tasting Superfood – Like berries and chocolate? One food naturally bursts with those delicious flavors, as well as with …
- See It and Achieve It: The Power of Visualization – Years ago, very early in my career, I attended a two-day training session on the power of visualizat…
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- A Powerful Persuasion Tool That’s as Simple as “Imagine This…” – You’ve got a big meeting with a potential client. If you can reel in this one for the company, you’v…
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Read all sections and enjoyd the reading.Life turning sugestions.
Dalsukh
remember GRATITUDE! with gratitude as a habit of feeling no visualization efforts of either kind are needed. Cultivate gratitude as a constant state of being.
Outstanding advice! Appreciating what the stoic philosophers had to say brings balance to positive thinking and affirmation. Doing so brings a large degree of thankfulness to your attention. Thankfulness calms the nerves and adds perspective and grace to your life. Great advice. I feel better already.
Uh-oh… What’s that black cloud forming in the distance. If I didn’t know better, it sure looks like death, famine, and pestilence coming this way… at least now I have two ways to think about things though.
Who was that character on Saturday Nite Live who used to look in the mirror and say: “Doggone it… I’m good enough, I’m smart enough… and doggone it, people like me.” Something like that anyway. That character needs the stoics, huh?