Tolerance by Napoleon Hill Tolerance is the disposition to be patient and fair toward those whose opinions, practices and beliefs differ from one's own. In other words, it is the maintenance of an open mind. The tolerant person keeps his mind open to receive new and different facts and knowledge on all subjects. This does not mean that he will retain and adopt these new facts and knowledge as his own, but he will examine them and try to understand. Then he will endeavor patiently and wisely to reach a fair conclusion. The intolerant person, on the other hand, has fixed opinions on almost everything. Moreover, he generally expresses his opinions freely and emphatically, and most often with the inference that anyone who disagrees with him is wrong. This is a trait of personality which never adds to one's popularity. The one thing which people resent most is open effrontery in connection with their own opinions. Intolerance definitely limits an individual's privileges of appropriating and using the knowledge and experience of others. Instead of winning their cooperation, intolerance repels and makes enemies of those who would otherwise be friends. It stops the growth of the mind by cutting off the search for knowledge. It discourages the development of the faculty of imagination. It prohibits accuracy in thinking and reasoning

Make Me an Offer I Can't Refuse

By MaryEllen Tribby

"Why are you so upset?" my husband asked.

"Because this woman has been online and in the marketing world for two years and she is teaching people things that are incorrect," I replied. "It drives me crazy!"

Yes, I will admit it – it drives me nuts when I see this kind of irresponsibility. And I see it all too often. Men and women who tout themselves as experts... yet supply advice that's flat-out wrong.

I try to tell myself, She is probably a nice person and she probably believes the curriculum she is out there hawking is accurate.

But I want to shout at the top of my lungs, "STOP!"

It's not as though the right information is hard to find. Hundreds of GREAT direct response marketing tools – books, newsletters, DVDs, and white papers – have been published over the years that contain the correct information in them. These resources explain the fundamentals of direct response marketing, the tried-and-true strategies and proven methods that have been making sales for decades.

Of course, this body of work includes the masterpieces written by the original masters like David Ogilvy, Claude Hopkins, Dick Benson, Robert Cialdini, and Eugene Schwartz. But there are plenty of contemporary options written by successful businesspeople and marketers working today. Experts like Michael Masterson, Clayton Makepeace, Bob Bly, and your very own MaryEllen Tribby. (That's right: the best-selling book I wrote with Michael Masterson, Changing the Channel: 12 Easy Ways to Make Millions for Your Business, is all about direct marketing fundamentals.)

If the misguided marketer I mentioned earlier had only taken the time to study these masters and these fundamentals. If she had only taken the time to understand these fundamentals and apply them in a real business setting, then and only then would she (and anyone else in her position) be qualified to proclaim herself an expert.

Then it hit me like a ton of bricks. What bothers me so much about so many so-called Internet marketing "experts" is that they have never built or run a real business.

Often, they run "copycat" businesses – a company that's based on a modification of what other Internet marketers do. They simply duplicate it, add a little twist, spice it up with their own little flair, and Shazzam! They're an expert.

Well, guess what? It is a whole different ballgame when you are actually responsible for growing a business. When you are the one to brainstorm, test, and roll out REAL marketing campaigns. When you are the one to either hire the copywriter or write the copy. When you craft an offer and select the media.

But the real game changer is when your actions and the results you produce are responsible for putting food in your kids' mouths and a roof over your family's heads.

Until you:

1) Understand what the direct response marketing fundamentals are (The Holy Grail)...
2) Test, test, and test some more...
3) And have a "braggable" track record...

You cannot consider yourself an expert.

And, dare I say, you cannot assure yourself of your next paycheck.

Mark my words, until you've mastered the basics, you will always be scrambling to find the next "magic button," the next "instant fix."

Well it's time. It's time that we say, "No more B.S." That we resolve to practice the same things we preach to our kids: that education is the key. That we sit down and master the marketing essentials that have always worked in the past and will always work in the future.

The Art and Science of Direct Marketing – The Perfect Marriage

All of your direct response marketing campaigns should be a mixture of art and science. The art is in writing a sales letter and crafting an irresistible offer. The science is in tracking responses and using statistical computations to plan future campaigns.

Writing successful sales letters is a creative process – a matter of figuring out the market and devising a new promotion based on the customer's current concerns. List and media testing and analysis, by contrast, are left-brain activities – tracking responses accurately and running them through statistical models to determine future mailings.

To be successful, an entrepreneur needs to get both sides of their brain working: the creative and the analytical sides.

Although entrepreneurs should be comfortable with both sides of the marketing process, most tend to favor one side or the other. Those who are more mathematically inclined tend to focus on lists and media, while those who feel more comfortable as communicators pay attention to copy.

Today, let's focus on a critical – yet sometimes underestimated – element of any marketing campaign: the offer.

It is vital that an entrepreneur, business owner and marketing professional understand how to create an offer. Here's why: A good offer can easily double response rates. A bad or botched offer can easily kill a campaign that would otherwise be profitable.

The Offer: What Is It Good For?

The offer is the deal you make with your customer and the terms of that deal. The offer lays out what he gets for what he gives you. It includes the product or the service, all the promises made about the product or service, the price you're asking, any bonuses you're including with the product or service, and the guarantee.

The offer also includes the transactional details such as how the customer can buy the product, like an 800 number, "order now" button, or "send payment to" address.

All these details are important, and all of them should be spelled out in the sales copy and in the order device. Failing to spell out these details properly and fully could be a costly mistake.

Your Offer Must Be "Hercules" Strong

Every direct response marketing campaign should contain a strong offer. The offer should include an incentive or reward that motivates prospects to respond to your campaign, either with an order or with a request for more information (depending on your goals).

To be effective, your offer must pass the "10 Tests":

Test 1: Is your offer specific? Will the prospects understand exactly what they get and how to get it?

Test 2: Is your offer exclusive? Are you making your offer only to a select few (and making them feel that they are an exclusive bunch), or are you making your offer to everyone?

Test 3: Is your offer valuable? Will your prospects perceive your offer to be of value to them? Your offer may be inexpensive for you to make, but it must have a high perceived value to your potential customers.

Test 4: Is your offer unique? Is the deal you're offering only available through your business?

Test 5: Is your offer useful? Your offer can be exclusive but useless, or unique and useless. Make sure your offer helps your prospects save money, save time, do their jobs better, or something else just as helpful.

Test 6: Is your offer relevant? Do prospects want what you are offering?

Test 7: Is your offer plausible? Some offers are too good to be true, and others are just plain silly. Either way, your offer needs to be credible.

Test 8. Is your offer easy to acquire? The harder you make it for your prospects to obtain your offer, the lower your response rates will be. So make your order forms clear, simple, and short; your toll-free telephone number obvious on the page; and your terms and conditions of purchase concise.

Test 9. Is your offer urgent? Are you clear about the deadline of your offer? Is it an early-bird special or are you limiting it to only the first 250 people who respond?

Test 10. Does your offer have a guarantee? Did you strengthen your offer with a money-back guarantee? Perhaps you could even allow the subscriber to keep all bonuses and/or issues up to that point, or make sure the prospect knows that there is no risk whatsoever.

Take a moment now to go look at the offers of all your current marketing campaigns.

If you are just starting out and do not have any of your own campaigns, look at offers that you have responded to, either in the mail or online. Examine each piece and circle how many of the above tests the offer meets.

Be conscious of the "10 Tests" while going forward. you will find that the more often you see an offer repeated, the more of the above components it contains. That's because promotions that are getting responses and making money are the ones you see over and over again.

And aren't those repeat money-makers the kind of marketing packages you want for your business? You bet they are.

The Core Values of Early to Rise

By Craig Ballantyne

It was a cold, wet, and Saturday morning in late April of 2009, and I was tucked snuggly into the corner of a hip coffee shop in the west end of Toronto. For over two hours I sat there, engrossed in a book, filling out the exercises, and charting a course that would forever change my business.

After being told over and over and over again to read, "Mastering the Rockefeller Habits", I had finally pulled it from my shelf of mostly unread books, and walked two blocks down to a nearby coffee shop with pen and paper to do the work.

But I was skeptical. Most business books, I've found, would be better off as five page magazine articles, rather than being drawn out into 250 page paperbacks through the use of redundant examples. But not so with the Rockefeller Habits. From that day forward it has been the number one business book on my list.

Verne Harnish, the author, had created more of a workbook than a typical 'business book of the week'. From the planning of your meetings, to the one-page plan to your quarterly focus, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits was a literal blueprint for planning my business – in a simple, yet effective manner.

The exercise that truly stuck out was the development of core values. Both Harnish and legendary business book author, Jim Collins, have repeatedly shown that the best businesses in almost every industry rely on some sort of core values to guide their mission and define their values.

I often tell budding business owners that with a properly crafted set of core values, a business hardly needs an employee handbook, as the correct decision in almost any given situation can be identified with a brief review of the company's core values.

And so on that grey spring morning, while the smell of roasted coffee baked into my sweatshirt, I labored over the six core values that would guide my Turbulence Training fitness business for the next decade on our mission to help one million people transform their bodies and their lives.

Little did I know that creating core values for my fitness business would bring me one step closer to achieving my biggest goal to date in business – that of running EarlytoRise.com. It was the consistent taking of actions like this one, and sharing what I learned from these actions, that allowed me to build my reputation to the point where I earned the right to take over ETR.

Developing the core values for my fitness business also prepared me for the day when I would create the core values for Early to Rise, so that I could share them with you today. Matt Smith and I just finished putting these together for our team. Please note, however, they are not just for our employees and ourselves, but most of them also apply to ETR readers as well.

The ETR Core Values

#1 – Improve the Lives of Others

We teach valuable skills and foster the application of these skills so that our readers and employees can improve their lives. Never forget who we are trying to help and what we are trying to accomplish. It is all about helping our readers and clients transform their lives.

#2 – Encourage Self-Reliance and Personal Responsibility

While ETR teaches and preaches the need for and benefits of finding positive social support, networking with like-minded people, and attending educational seminars, at the end of the day it's still your decision to follow through on all of this. It is up to YOU and you only.

#3 – Live by Example

An ETR team member exudes the principles of EarlytoRise.com at all times, especially when representing ETR. We rise early, manage our time and energy, and are dedicated to a life well lived. We are, of course, not "all work and no play". Time is made for the finer things in life, enjoyed responsibly.

#4 – Concentrate on What Counts

We focus on what matters. Ignore the noise and concentrate on the big items that move the needle in your life towards your goals.

#5 – Deliver the Truth

We tell the truth and we expect others to tell the truth to us. The only way to build strong relationships among team members, with joint venture partners, and with our readers, is to always be truthful.

Print those out and keep those by your desk as you live by example.

Bok Choy Asian Cuisine & Sushi Bar

Bok Choy Asian Cuisine & Sushi Bar

Live Like You Were Dying

By Craig Ballantyne

"And I loved deeper and I spoke sweeter,
"And I gave forgiveness I'd been denying."
An' he said: "Some day, I hope you get the chance,
"To live like you were dyin'."
Tim McGraw

It was an odd place for such a deep conversation. I ran into my friend Rob in the hallway at a large Internet Marketing seminar. "Hey Rob," I greeted him with enthusiasm, "It's been a long time."

"Craig," he replied with hesitation, "I'm sorry I haven't been in touch lately, but my mother passed away."

"Oh Rob, I'm sorry to hear that," I replied sincerely as we sat down amidst the hustle and bustle of seminar attendees.

"Thank you. I appreciate it," he replied. "You know, seeing you write about your dad in your email newsletters really helped."

I nodded and thanked him. Back in 2009, the year after my father passed away, I wrote a series of 'personal notes' that I shared with my fitness readers. These included the many lessons I learned from my old man (mostly by watching him and learning what not to do – a topic for another day, perhaps).

As Rob and I continued our conversation, he said something that brought back vivid memories of the final day I spent with my father, one that reminds me to make the most of today.

"It was the strangest thing," Rob started to describe, "When my mom was in the hospital those last days, she hardly recognized anyone. Then one day, she sat up and we had this really great conversation, as if everything was fine. The next day, she passed away."

His story hit me hard. I had the exact same experience with my father.

On a beautiful sunny Saturday morning, September 6, 2008, to be exact, my father, who was very sick with cancer, wanted to go for a drive. That's how we had spent most of our time together in the last 18 months after he was first diagnosed with his illness. We'd hop in his truck, and I'd drive him around through the countryside to "check out the corn" or to visit his old buddies.

About a month before this sunny September drive my dad had been rushed to the hospital with severe abdominal pain. He and I rarely spoke about his illness, and frankly I don't think he ever accepted that he was dying, but I talked to his doctor who said my dad might be able to make it to Christmas. That was my expectation as we set out on our drive that late summer morning.

It turned out that Dad was in great spirits that day. He was moving better than he had been in weeks. This gave me a false sense of hope that he had turned the corner with his recent struggles and that he'd be this way for weeks.

Our first stop that morning was at a cousin's house to check out their new barn, and then we visited a gentleman who often sold my dad tractors. (That was my father's hobby, collecting and restoring old tractors.)

It was one of the best Saturday mornings of my life, and my optimism increased for a fall filled with similar drives through the countryside. We finished off with a trip to the local burger drive-in where my dad wanted to pick up a couple of milkshakes (that's about all he could tolerate eating at this stage).

Once we arrived home, he went to lie down, and I went out to the mall to buy him a new TV. I had my eye on a nice big 40-inch flat screen that would keep him entertained throughout the night when he couldn't sleep.

When I arrived home with his gift, his condition had already started to change. He wasn't really in the mood to watch TV and just wanted to sleep. That was fine, and we agreed upon another drive in the morning.

But he never did get a chance to use the new television set.

The next morning he woke up at 6am with severe abdominal pain. I brought him to the hospital where he was admitted, rushed to intensive care and placed on mind-fogging pain medications. We never did have another comprehensible conversation after that, and he passed away just two days later. Fortunately, my mother was able to get in contact me with at my home in Toronto, and I raced back to the hospital with fifteen minutes to spare so I could see my father one more time.

During the subsequent funeral home visitation for my father, I recounted this story over and over again to those who came to pay their respects.

My aunt nodded her head and explained this 'great day phenomenon' is a common occurrence. For some reason, many terminally ill people have a short-term revitalization for a day just before death.

They perk up, they move with ease unknown to them for months. They are alert, even chipper. They give optimism to their friends and family, and one more chance to visit with the person everyone used to know.

They lived like they were dying.

They took advantage of whatever the source of energy it is to give everyone one last memory. They gave one last glimpse of all the great days that had come before.

It happened for my friend Rob with his mother, and it happened on that sunny Saturday in September for me.

Whatever the source of my father's vitality that day, it gave me one last important memory to hold onto – to remember what really matters in life.

Listen, I hope you're in the greatest of health, but I also hope that you are taking time for what really matters in your life.

Our minutes are not best spent surfing over to another news website, or watching another television show, or arguing on the Internet.

How we spend our time is the most important decision we will make in our lives. What we do with each minute of every day determines our legacy, what our children will remember, and what we will leave behind.

Live every day with purpose. Live every day according to your mission and your plan. Have a vision for what you want to accomplish, and act in congruence with it.

Love deeper, speak sweeter, and give the forgiveness you've been denying.

Live passionately, live honestly, and live the best life that you can.

Zip the Lip

By Robert Ringer

As I watch the daily news, I am constantly reminded that an oversized ego can be the biggest obstacle to long-term success. Of course, everyone has an ego, so it's pointless to delude yourself into believing you're an exception. It's far better to acknowledge the existence of your ego and try to keep it under control.

A hungry ego is like a dinosaur lying on your front lawn. If you don't continually feed it, it might just decide to get up and step on your house. At its extreme, a bloated ego can even result in Egoruptcy, a form of bankruptcy caused by the investment of too much time and capital in one's vanity.

It's also wise to avoid becoming involved with others who appear to be afflicted with this insidious disease. Feeding the ego is habit forming and can lead the addict to commit dishonest acts in his desperation to feed his habit. And when he goes down for the count, he's liable to take you with him.

Following are some telltale signs of an individual suffering from Egoruptcy.

1. Trying to impress others with how well he's doing. (The more someone volunteers to tell you about his accomplishments, the less likely it is that he's accomplished much of anything.)
2. Constantly mouthing off about the deals he's working on.
3. Lavishly refurbishing his offices.
4. Talking incessantly about what he owns.
5. Talking incessantly about who he knows.

When most or all of the above signs are evident, the Egoruptcy clearly is in its advanced stages and the patient's condition has probably deteriorated beyond hope. Best you shield your face when passing him to avoid becoming infected.

How can you tell if you are developing Early Onset Egoruptcy? The most common symptom is perpetual movement of the mouth and tongue, especially when triggered by the desire to tell others about your plans.

Some years ago, I developed what I believe to be the perfect antidote to this constant, ego-feeding babbling. I refer to it simply as the Zip-the-Lip Theory, which states: If you've got something good going, shut up!

Put more gently: Learn to be both quiet and patient. The safest way to operate is behind the scenes with a low profile. There's seldom anything to be gained by giving the world advance notice of your objectives. How many times have you jumped the gun and talked about your plans, only to be embarrassed when they fell through?

If you manage to achieve your desired end, people will know about it soon enough. You may even gain a reputation for being humble as a result of not shooting off your mouth about what you're working on. Always remember, people love humility and hate arrogance.

The next time you're tempted to make a premature announcement to the world, remember that Old Man Murphy (of Murphy's Law fame) is out there somewhere, lying in wait to trip you up. It's simply not worth the risk of having a bunch of neurotics jealously gnashing their teeth and doing everything possible to see to it that you end up dining on your own words some fine evening.

The best way to let others know what you're going to do is to actually do it. The more confident you are about what you intend to accomplish, the less reason you'll have to risk putting your foot in your mouth. Your ego will be more than sufficiently assuaged, massaged, and patted after you have succeeded.

And the more you succeed, the more reason you'll have to feel secure, which should result in your having less of an urge to talk about your plans and more of a desire to produce results. Getting your ego out of the way gives you a clear mind to focus on success.

Granted, it can be difficult to suppress the instant-gratification urge to be highly thought of. But there's a big difference between difficult and impossible. No one can force you to do the wrong thing. Remember, the choice is always yours. A lot of things are difficult but not impossible. You always have a choice.

As retired Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade (played by Al Pacino) put it in the film classic Scent of a Woman, "I always knew what the right path was. Without exception, I knew. But I never took it. You know why? It was too damn hard." Translation: You always have a choice.

What is your choice when it comes to instant ego gratification versus long-term success?

What's Your Magic Number? Retirement Planning Anyone Can Do

By Mark Ford

How much money do you need to retire? A hundred grand? A half million? Ten million?

It is a very important question. Getting the right answer can determine how soon and how well you can retire.

In his book The Number, former Esquire editor-in-chief, Lee Eisenberg talks about why "the number" is so important. He says that for most people, it represents a free pass to a great life without financial stress.

That's what it always meant to me. When I was in my thirties, I had a number in mind. I figured that if I could achieve a certain net worth, I could quit work and live comfortably for the rest of my life. I hit that number when I was thirty-nine years old. But I quickly discovered that amount was not the number I needed... it wasn't even close.

Your net worth includes your house, your toys, and all sorts of other assets you may not be willing to give up in retirement. But your retirement "number" is the amount of money you have to save specifically for retirement. It is a fund of assets that will eventually replace your active income and pay for your expenses... after you've quit your nine-to-five job.

Because I didn't calculate my number correctly, I had to go back to work. I picked a new number–a real number–and worked another ten years to hit it. When that day arrived, I felt fantastic. I was able to change my priorities. I devoted the lion's share of my money to non-financial goals. I never worried about money again.

Reaching your number is a great feeling. If you haven't yet experienced it, what I'm about to say will put you on the right track...

Most people fail to achieve their retirement dreams, Eisenberg notes. There are two common pitfalls that stop them, he says:

Many people enter their forties and fifties are "ensconced in a cloud of avoidance and denial about the years ahead of them." They spend their early years not doing any serious retirement planning. They sense they are far behind from where they should be, but they don't want to face the truth. These are the procrastinators, Eisenberg says.

Other people do retirement planning, but they're sloppy about it. They don't know how to calculate their numbers correctly, so they pick arbitrary numbers and hope for the best. This is the mistake I made when I first retired. Eisenberg calls these people "pluckers," because they pluck numbers out of thin air.

You don't have to be either one of these people. You can begin to realize your retirement dreams today by discovering your retirement number.

Let's do that now. Let's figure out how much money you have to save in order to quit work and enjoy retirement.

To calculate your magic number, you need to know five other numbers:

1. How much money you have saved.

2. How many years you have to save money before you retire.

3. How much money you will need in order to enjoy the retirement you want.

4. What rate of return you expect to get on your savings.

5. The average rate of inflation.

Take These Five Steps and You'll Have Your Magic Number!

I am going to give you five calculations. Each one should take just a few minutes. The entire process, including all five steps, should take no more than half an hour. Please do it now. In terms of your future wealth and happiness, it may be the most fruitful thirty minutes you ever spend.

But before we begin, I want you to write down two numbers: 8 and 12.5.

Step 1: Write down how much money you have already saved towards retirement. This should include not only liquid assets (such as cash, stocks, and bonds) but also any illiquid assets (such as an auto collection or a second home) that you plan to sell prior to retiring.

Sell the house you own (if you own one) for a less expensive house more suitable for retirement and add any profits from the sale into your retirement savings.

For example, if your house is worth $350,000 and you will be happy in a smaller house that will be $100,000 cheaper, you can add $100,000 to your retirement savings.

Step 2: Write down how many years you have before you hit your retirement age. If you are thirty-five years old now and plan to retire at sixty-five years old, that number is thirty. If you are fifty-five years old now and want to retire at sixty-five years old, that number is ten. But be realistic. If your retirement fund is small right now, you might have to work another five years to reach your goal.

I told you above that I hit my number before my fiftieth birthday. That allowed me to start writing fiction and poetry several hours a day... and take lots of vacations. Since I still liked my line of work, I continued to spend some time every day as a consultant to publishers. And that turned out to be lucrative.

Keep that in mind when you hit your number. Like me, you may decide to keep working on a part-time basis. If you do, you'll be making more than you need. Enjoy it. Don't increase your spending.

Step 3: The next step is the one most people start with: deciding how much money you will be spending each year in your retirement to enjoy the lifestyle you want.

A good way to do this is to start with how much money you are spending now on your current lifestyle. I told you how to make that calculation in an essay I wrote a few months ago, titled Three Numbers that Are Essential to Your Wealth. I called that your lifestyle burn rate. What you are doing now is figuring out your retirement lifestyle burn rate (RLBR).

Take your current lifestyle burn rate and add to it any "extras" you want to enjoy. Let's say, for example, that your current lifestyle burn rate is $80,000 a year. To make your retirement more fun, you want to own an extra car–a sports car–and join a golf club. This will cost you an extra $10,000 a year. Add $10,000 to the $80,000 and you have $90,000.

Now subtract from $90,000 any expenses that you currently have but will no longer have when you are retired. This commonly includes expenses for your children and other expenses related to having a family with children. If those expenses are currently $15,000, then you will deduct that $15,000 from the $90,000 and you will be left with your true RLBR of $75,000 a year.

Got it?

One caveat: In determining your retirement lifestyle burn rate, you have to be realistic. If you are already fifty years old, have only $300,000 in your retirement savings account, and are currently spending $80,000 a year to live... it's unlikely you will get your RLBR up to, say, $500,000.

Step 4: Subtract from that number (RLBR) any income you are confident you'll be getting during your retirement.

For example, if you trust that Social Security will still be around when you retire, you can find out what your projected yearly Social Security income will be and subtract that from your RLBR. You can do the same with any pension income you expect. And finally, if you intend to work part-time during retirement, you can deduct that, too.

Working with the same $75,000 RLBR number, you deduct $15,000 a year you expect to get from Social Security, another $5,000 a year you expect to get from some pension, and another $5,000 a year you expect to get by working as a golf ranger two days a week. This reduces your RLBR from $75,000 to $50,000.

This is your net retirement lifestyle burn rate. Save this number.

Step 5: Now it's time to figure out your magic number, the amount of money you need to save in order to retire.

Using the same example, what we are looking for is an amount of money to invest that will generate $50,000 a year in after-tax income.

So how much money is that?

Again, that depends. It depends on the return on investment you can expect to get on your retirement savings.

If you expect to get only 5% on your money, then your number–the amount you'd need to save before retiring–would be $1 million. (One million dollars generates $50,000 a year at 5%.) If you could get 10% on your retirement funds, you could retire much sooner... since you'd need only $500,000 at 10% to generate $50,000 in annual income.

So what rate of return should you plug into this equation?

That depends on what kind of investments you use. If you put all your money in municipal bonds, you could be making 3%. (Municipal bonds are yielding only 3.13% today.) You could earn about 8% by putting your money in stock index funds (since 1970, they have returned 8.14% after taxes of 20%), but I don't like the idea of having my retirement fund in an index fund because the stock market can fluctuate greatly from year to year.

A better choice would be the kind of stocks we recommend each month in The Palm Beach Letter. They are selected to give you–at minimum–an 8% after-tax return. But I wouldn't want all my retirement funds in stocks, because even the best of them are still subject to annual fluctuations.

To compensate for the temporary low yield of municipal bonds and the volatility of the stock market, I've designed a simple three-asset portfolio that should give us 8% reliably and steadily. Or as close to that as one could possibly hope for.

A Sample Retirement Portfolio Strategy

I'm thinking of a portfolio consisting of high-quality dividend stocks, high-yielding bonds, and rental real estate.

Specifically, I would recommend an allocation of 50% rental real estate, 30% dividend stocks, and 20% high-yielding bonds.

In future essays, I'll talk in more detail about how I came up with these calculations, but I feel confident that you can expect the following after-tax minimums from each of these portfolios: 3% from bonds, 6% from dividend stocks, and 12% from rental real estate.

A portfolio that gave you 3% on 20% (your high-yielding bonds), 6% on 30% (your dividend stocks), and 12% on 50% (your rental real estate) is a portfolio that will give you just over 8% overall.

The Final Step: Now we are ready for the number. To figure out your number, take the net RLBR and multiply it by the reciprocal of the expected rate of return. These are the numbers I asked you to remember in the beginning of this essay: 8 and 12.5.

Using the same example, you would multiply the $50,000 (net RLBR) times the reciprocal of 8%, which is 12.5. Fifty thousand dollars times 12.5 is $625,000. That is your magic number!

So if your net RLBR is $100,000, then your magic number is $1,250,000. If your net RLBR is $300,000, then your magic number is $3,750,000.

Get it? Just multiply the income you will need by 12.5.

In case you are lost, let me break it down for you again using the original example. The following is just an approximation...

You need $50,000 a year from your retirement savings. Knowing you can expect to get an average yield of 8% a year, you do the math and determine that you need a total of $625,000 in your retirement savings portfolio. Twenty percent of that amount ($125,000) would be in bonds yielding 3% after taxes. That would give you $3,750 a year. Thirty percent ($187,500) would be in dividend stocks yielding 6% after taxes. That would give you $11,250. And 50% ($312,500) would be in rental real estate yielding 12% after taxes. That would give you $37,500 per year. The total of $3,750, $11,250, and $37,500 is $52,500.

Now remember, that is the minimum. If you got higher yields–even moderately higher yields–you'd do better. You will have more income than you need that year. You will have a choice: either save it for a rainy day or spend it. You won't need to save it, as your retirement fund will continue to produce 8% yields.

I'd like to end here, but there is one final number we haven't looked at yet... And that is the rate of inflation.

When planning for your retirement, you have to consider the effects of inflation on the value of your portfolio. That's because in most cases, inflation makes future dollars less valuable than they are today. The $80,000 a year we've been using in this essay, for example, will still be $80,000 in ten, twenty, or thirty years... but it will buy far fewer things than it can buy today.

So how do you account for that in your planning?

One way is by owning businesses that keep pace with inflation because they are able to raise their prices to match inflation. Many of the stocks we recommend in our portfolio are of that kind. Having 20% of your portfolio in such stocks will definitely help.

Bond yields should increase in the years to come as well. Today, they are low... and our plan is based on a 3% yield. But these are likely to increase in the years ahead. So that will be some help, too.

But the main inflation hedge you have in the portfolio I recommended is the rental real estate portfolio. Real estate, as a tangible asset, appreciates during inflationary times. According to The Case Shiller Index, which has tracked real estate sales of existing homes since 1987, the average annual increase for real estate is 3.6% over this 25-year period. Compare that to the reported Consumer Price Index during the same period at 2.9%.

I didn't count this appreciation into the mix when we went through the numbers. That means that half of your portfolio will likely increase by 0.7% above inflation, not counting the positive effects you might get from your stocks and bonds.

More importantly, as a landlord, you should be able to increase your rent to match with inflation. I've been doing that with my rental real estate portfolio for more than twenty years.

These factors should go a long way towards protecting the validity of your "number." But if you want to be extra sure, you can simply use a multiplier of more than 12.5–just to be sure. In the case of our existing example, you would multiply $50,000 by, say, 14, which would increase your number to $700,000 rather than $625,000.

Again, I feel safe using 12.5 as a multiplier (for the reasons I mentioned)... but if you have twenty, thirty, or forty years to go before retirement, then you might want to use 14.

I know this has not been the most exciting essay you've ever read from me. But in terms of your retirement planning, it may be the most important.

Please take the time to do your calculations today. The moment you have your number, you'll be motivated to begin the journey of achieving it. The sooner you begin, the sooner you can retire.

The world is not changed by people who sort of care.

by Sally Hogshead on March 16, 2012

The world is not changed by people who sort of care.

The world is not changed by companies who sort of care.
The world is not changed by employees who sort of care.

The world is not changed by leaders who sort of care.
Sort of caring will get you run over by someone who actually does care.
 
Sort of caring is the on-ramp to obsolescence– a road that starts comfortably enough, but soon leads to the despair of obscurity.

Who changes the world? People who are fascinated.
The world is changed by people who passionately, relentlessly care– sometimes, unreasonably so. People with the focus and excitement to bound through the Iditarod of obstacles that invariably blocks the path between “no” and “yes.”
When you’re fascinated by your work, you’re willing to personally invest yourself in the results. You come up with another idea, another solution. You don’t quit after the first “no.”

In my research, employees who fascinated by their company, are also more productive and more loyal. Think about it. When you’re fascinated by a project, you look for ways to build more, rather than ways to get away with less.

When you’re fascinated by your job, it doesn’t suck energy– it gives you energy. It adds to your sense of purpose, which in turn makes you care more the result.

If you want to sell anything worth buying,
or create anything worth owning,
you’ll have to more than sort of care.

One More Thing Before Setting Your Long-Term Goals: Figure Out Your Core Values

By Michael Masterson

Before you can jump feet first into master planning your life, you have one more job to do: Figure out what's really important to you.

Most people you meet on the street don't like their jobs, are unhappy with their family life, and want more money. They believe that if they could just do this or that, everything would be better.

Winning the lottery would make it all okay. At least that's what they think. But the truth is otherwise. Unless you live your life according to your core values, no success will be enough to bring you joy.

So before you attempt to set your goals, you have to spend 15 minutes figuring out your core values. What do I mean by core values? I mean the feelings you have about good and evil that are buried deep within your heart.

What does goal setting have to do with core values? It's all about insuring your long-term happiness. If you set goals that contradict your core values, you will wake up one day and say, "I did everything I said I wanted to do. But so what?"

You don't want to end up being yet another highly successful but fundamentally miserable person – a fate so common it's become a cliche. Here's how to make sure that doesn't happen...

Begin by imagining a funeral. It is taking place in an elegantly appointed room. The room is full of friends and family members who have assembled to talk about the deceased. You look around. You begin to recognize faces. "Who is the deceased?" you wonder. You look at the casket. Good God, it's you!

So what are the people at your funeral saying about you?

Imagine specific people: a parent, a sibling, a neighbor, a business associate, and even a stranger. Don't be vague about this. Think about individual, real people. And imagine them making very specific statements.

It's not enough to imagine your nephew saying something like, "She was a generous woman." You need to imagine a second, qualifying sentence, such as, "She always sent me expensive birthday presents."

And be honest. Don't sugarcoat the pill. Say it like it is. For example, your next door neighbor might be saying, "I thought he was a very inconsiderate person. He never picked up the mess when his dog crapped on my lawn."

Imagine everything the people at your funeral could truthfully say about you – and then think about the way their words make you feel.

If you don't feel good, it means that, in those relationships at least, you are not living your life according to your core values.

Now, for every negative statement you just imagined, ask yourself, "What would I like this person to be saying about me?" The answer to that question will reveal your core values for that particular relationship.

The goal of this exercise is to create a set of about a dozen sentences. Each sentence will be a statement that indicates what you think is important in a particular area of your life.

Let's say you imagined someone saying, "He was always struggling to make ends meet." That statement would make you feel bad, right? So then you imagine what you would like that person to say about you, and you might come up with, "He struggled for a while and then everything changed. He became very successful and died a wealthy person." If that statement makes you feel good, it's reasonable to say that acquiring wealth is a core value for you. And you would write it down like this: "I believe that financial success is a valuable and admirable accomplishment."

Got it?

Negative Statement: "He was always struggling to make ends meet."

Positive Statement: "He struggled for a while and then everything changed. He became very successful and died a wealthy person."

Core Value: "I believe that financial success is a valuable and admirable accomplishment."

I recommend that you shoot for about a dozen statements, because you want to address all the major areas of your life:

• Your health values
• Your wealth values
• Your self-improvement (personal) values
• Your social happiness values

Why?

Because your core values should determine your goals. And your goals have to be comprehensive.

Most goal-setting programs are not comprehensive. They focus on just one thing. Making more money. Or losing weight. Or being happy (whatever that means). Setting such singular goals can sometimes be effective if you have the flexibility in your schedule to focus on them. But most people don't. And that creates a problem. They start out enthusiastically and make progress for a while. But before long, life's many urgencies push their way in. Good habits are neglected. Bad habits return. Before long, the goal is abandoned.

You are going to avoid that very common problem by considering the full spectrum of your life – not just your health or your wealth but also your hobbies, personal relations, social obligations, and so on.

Here's what you should do now:

1. Take out a piece of paper and divide it into four boxes.
2. At the top of those boxes, write Health, Wealth, Self-Improvement, and Social Happiness.
3. Inside each box, write down statements in that category that you would like to have said about you at your funeral.

For example...

Under Health:

• "He was the fittest 80-year-old I ever saw."
• "He could run a mile in eight minutes."
• "I once saw him lift up a car by its bumper."

Under Wealth:

• "Of all the people who graduated from Riverdale High School in 1972, she turned out to be the wealthiest."
• "She had a huge mansion in Laguna Beach."
• "She left $4 million to charity when she died."

Under Self-Improvement:

• "He was the best chess player I ever knew."
• "He was also a published poet."
• "He knew more about home decorating than Martha Stewart."

Under Social Happiness:

• "She was the world's kindest mom."
• "She was also a very generous friend."
• "She was a strong supporter of breast cancer research."

Write down at least two such statements in each of the four categories. The purpose of writing them down is twofold: to fix them in your mind, and to have something specific you can refer to later.

You will be referring to these core values many times in the coming years. They should be a source of continuous inspiration. Treat them seriously. They are the crux of your master plan.

The Shawshank Redemption of Your Life

By Craig Ballantyne

"Get busy living, or get busy dying." – Andy Dufresne

Last Monday afternoon was cold and rainy here in Toronto. It was a perfect afternoon for lying on the couch, watching reruns of classic movies like "The Shawshank Redemption".

Now of course, I didn't actually do that, but the weather made me think of the movie, and a few powerful scenes that can actually teach us how to work towards the life of our dreams.

If you remember the movie, you know that our "hero", Andy Dufresne, goes to jail and eventually escapes by tunnelling out through the prison walls, crawling through a sewer, and acquiring his freedom in the dead of night.

But this wasn't something he did on the spur of the moment. In fact, Andy's plan required him to literally 'chip away at it' for several years. Each night when the prison lights went out he would chip away a tiny bit of rock from his prison wall to get closer and closer to his eventual escape.

That's exactly how I lived my life from the age of 13 to 31.

(Ok, minus the prison walls, solitary confinement, and prison issued uniform. But still, there are a few similarities, I assure you.)

Each day, starting from the beautiful spring morning in 1989 when I began my first job making $3.10 per hour at a local greenhouse and nursery, I chipped away at the obstacles in my way to design the life of my dreams.

Each day chipping away at the wall between me and my freedom, so that one day I could do ONLY the work that I wanted to do, when I wanted to do it (in my 'magic time'). To spend my time writing and teaching without having to report to a boss.

And you can do this too, by:

1) Using your time productively.
2) "Planning your work and working your plan." (That's a great quote I learned from speaking legend, Nido Qubein.)
3) Believing in yourself.

You may remember how in past articles and presentations that I told you that I would get up at 4:30am to work on my website business before I went to my real job as a trainer. I did that for 3 years. Chip, chip, chipping away at the proverbial prison walls that held me bound to working for someone else.

At the gym, I would work on my website business between seeing clients.

I worked on the subway ride home. Heck, I must have written so many chapters and so many workouts crammed into the corner of those subway cars...but no matter what the conditions, I rarely let a minute go by without chipping away at the walls and obstacles in my way. I squeezed every last bit of progress and productivity out of every minute of my workday.

If you ride the subway or commute in your car, are you using your time in the most valuable way? Are you reading and taking notes on the train? Are you listening to audio programs while you drive? Or are you making the common mistake of listening to talk radio or reading gossipy dailies, or worse, celebrity magazines?

This is your life. Your ONLY life. What you do with each minute matters.

Like Andy Dufresne, you must make every moment count. You must take every opportunity to chip away at what stands in your way of the life you dream about and deserve.

Chip, chip, chip away.

Chip away the barriers. Build the tunnel that connects your dreams with reality.

And when you break on through to your freedom, or your "Internet Independence" as I like to call it when my clients begin to build a second income with a website business, you'll then have the same thing Andy Dufresne had...the life he designed. If he could do it from a literal prison, you can do it from whatever 'virtual prison' you believe to be in right now.

You may choose to live on a beach on the Pacific Ocean, "a warm place that has no memory", as Andy described it in the movie, or you might choose to spend more time with your family...or supporting your charities, whatever YOU CHOOSE...it will be YOUR CHOICE when you achieve your Financial Independence.

So start chipping away at the naysayers. Chip away at the obstacles – no matter how big they are, they can all be broken down to insignificant pieces of gravel. Chip away the doubters.

I've told you in the past that my Mom had a lot of doubts about my success when I was younger. She was concerned I wouldn't be able to get a job with my "Kinesiology Degree". She wanted me to do something normal, like be an accountant.

But I planned my work and worked my plan.

I chipped away at the walls between my dreams and my freedom.

It didn't happen overnight, not for me. Not for Andy. And this isn't one of those scam sites that promises you overnight success, either. You'll have to work. You'll have to plan. You'll have to chip away.

But you also have to believe in yourself. You have to have hope.

No one can take away your belief in yourself or the hope you can have for a better future.

That's what will keep you chipping away and creating the life, freedom, and independence you dream about and deserve.

It's hope that drives you. It was hope that drove Andy.

Andy Dufresne: There's something inside... that they can't get to, that they can't touch. That's yours.

Red: What're you talking about?

Andy Dufresne: Hope...Remember Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.

The Abundance Vision

By Craig Ballantyne

So, you have an idea for an Internet business or product and are wondering how to make those first moves into turning it into a real, successful venture.

A crucial part of starting up your own Internet business is to identify where you want to go with it, and what you want to achieve. Knowing this helps you answer a lot of the other questions around how your business will operate, and what it might be able to do further along the road. A helpful exercise in understanding this is visioning.

You must create a vision for your business, and a simple way to do this is to write a post or a document as if it is five years into the future, describing your business.

Answer the following questions in your vision statement. How much money are you making? What do you do? Who are your clients and how do you work with them? How do people feel about your brand? How any people working within your organization feel about working there too. How many hours a week do you work?

It is important not to focus only on the more obvious measures of success, like the bottom line, but also things like perception of your business, because knowing what you want them to be at this future point helps you to drive your business practices and behaviours while you are starting out.

If you know where you want to be in 2017 then you have a clear direction on where you want to go. Your vision will guide all of the big decisions you make in your business. For example, if you know that you want to go in a specific direction with your idea, but someone comes along and asks you to get involved in an unrelated project, it will be easy for you to say, "No", because you understand this new project doesn't get you closer to your vision (and in fact would take you further away from your vision).

There can be exceptions, of course, but using your vision in your decision making process is helpful because there will be a lot of cool new things that come up as you go along and build your business, and you really have to focus on what's important to you.

When writing your vision you must be authentic, honest, and transparent. Be brave and write down what you really, really want to accomplish. Be specific about where you want to be. Don't hold back. This is your life. These are your dreams.

Once you've written your vision, you may choose to share some of it with your partners, friends, or team or you may choose to keep it all to yourself, but don't be intimidated or embarrassed to spell out your true vision.

It is also important to think big. If you've read Jim Collins' "Good to Great" book then you are familiar with the big hairy audacious goal (BHAG) recommendation. The BHAG is a goal that is set just outside your comfort zone. It should make you think, "There's no way I could do that, or is there?" There needs to be that slight belief that you could. This is fun and motivational, but you still need to be as specific as possible.

Donald Trump, who has done pretty well in business, once said "It is easy to think big." And it really is. It's just as easy to think big as it is to think small. Use this vision exercise to think big. Put your big goal out there to the world. Be clear and concise, and recognize this is much different than just a simple daydream. This is your roadmap for success, and requires you to take action.

Use numbers and specifics, and clear, unambiguous statements. As you write from the future about where you want to be, think in exact terms. Don't think, "I want to be making enough from my Internet business that I don't need to do any other kind of work", or "I want my Internet business to have made me rich", think of the exact amount of money that you would like to be bringing in, and the specific lifestyle that will afford you. It is really important to know what you want to do and where you want to go.

You can do this for any aspect of your life, too, as you perform the exercise. You can do this for your family, for example, writing, "In 2017 I want my family to be in this position, living here in this part of the country, and the kids going to school here. I want to be giving them these specific opportunities."

You can cover any details you want, if they are important to you. What car do you drive in 2017? Where do you go on vacation? What do you want your cholesterol levels to be? The vision exercise is an incredible tool because it gives you what a roadmap for your life. It also forces you to think not only of what is possible, which can be a very motivating idea, but also what is truly important to you. Knowing this will help you drive your business in the right direction for your own specific needs in life.

The vision that you come up with can then be distilled into a mission. Mission statements are common in business, and a lot of people don't take them seriously because so often they sound like insincere corporate speak. Use your vision for your business, for how it is perceived by its customers, for how people feel about working for it, for how you feel about owning it, and try and come up with a mission and a mission statement that really means something.

Refer back to your vision and mission as you progress, and use them to help shape your business and enable you to stay on the right track to make your original vision a reality.

Please watch this short Vision video where I take you through the complete exercise. Your future depends on it.

What Siri Means for the Future of Mobile Shopping - eMarketer

What Siri Means for the Future of Mobile Shopping - eMarketer

Why Quitting Things Helps You Achieve More

By Clay Collins

Modern life has us enmeshed in a web of unwanted and unnecessary commitments. Most of us spend the majority of our time doing things we don't want to do. We join committees because we think they'll look good on our resumes, go to birthday parties out of obligation, attend inane meetings, stay in bad relationships out of fear, take on unwanted work projects to gain favor with our bosses, stay in jobs we don't like instead of quitting.

Unwanted commitments seem to beget more unwanted commitments. They're like lies: they multiply fast. If you take on an unwanted project to please your boss, then the next time a similar project comes by she'll throw it in your lap. If you unhappily go to an acquaintances birthday party out of sense of obligation, they're likely to invite you over for dinner, or call you more often. You get my drift.

What Does this Have to do with Productivity?

Well, it's common knowledge that productivity naturally emerges from passion: when we love what we're doing, productivity becomes irrelevant. The corollary is that being unproductive results from doing things you'd rather not do.

And while it's a stretch to say that demand for productivity material is driven purely by job dissatisfaction and passionless living, I'm quite certain that the booming productivity industry would be far less lucrative without an overworked, overwhelmed, and continually stressed workforce. It's not the fault of productivity experts, they're just responding to market demand and they've done excellent jobs. It's just that elaborate productivity systems have all too often become crutches for passionate living. These systems are largely geared towards helping people do things they'd rather not be doing. There are people living passionately who still need productivity systems, but they're the exception rather than the rule.

The problem isn't that people don't have passions. Half of the bored-out-their-mind workforce knows what they'd do if they weren't so damn busy, and the other half would find their calling if they only had enough time to come up for air and breathe. The problem isn't lack of passion, it's lack of energy. It's lack of time. Perhaps a better time management system, or any number of hacks, would help. But these things are often temporary fixes for an un-ideal situation.

Passion and Productivity

Like many others, I've been quick to point out that the direct route to productivity is being passionate about what you do. This observation, however, is largely an academic point that doesn't do much to help the problem. Very few people hear that passion will make them productive and then-out of a dedication to productivity-immediately proceed to follow their dreams and become more productive. So, instead of talking about how passion will make you more productive, I'd like to re-frame the conversation by saying this . . .

Unwanted Tasks are the #1 Cause of your Productivity Problems

If you only did things you wanted to do, you'd probably be the most productive person in the world.

Q: What's the solution?
A: Stop doing things you don't want to do.

Of course it's not that simple, and I'll be spending the rest of this blog post trying to make sure that this solution isn't an oversimplification.

De-Simplification

OK, we all know that there are some things we have to do to avoid imprisonment and being horrible human beings. We have to pay taxes, we have to take care of our children (hopefully this is a joy), etc. The problem is that most people are very bad at differentiating between these very real non-negotiables and fictional non-negotiables.

What I'm saying is that if you want ultimate productivity you might want to think about aggressively removing everything you don't want to do from your life. Declutter your headspace.

Some Lists of Things you Don't Have to Do

You simply don't have to...

• Return all phone calls
• Respond to all email (I have 258 unread messages in my inbox right now)
• Stay on that committee you joined to pad your resume
• Take opportunities that "you'd be stupid to pass up"
• Stay in college
• Stay in grad school

It's not necessary to...

• Hang out with friends you only kind-of sort-of like
• Stick with everything you start
• Live up to others' expectations of you
• Have a respectable career, own a home, and be married by the time you're 35, 45, or 55

In order to make time for renewal, you might have to...

• Not buy great/cool/expensive birthday and Christmas gifts for everyone
• Make your husband file his own papers
• Let those who have become unhealthily dependent upon you take responsibility for their own lives

In order to jump-start passionate living again you might have to...

• Stop being an (unnecessarily) "responsible" person
• Quit projects that are no longer relevant
• Be happy with a less than permanently clean home

In order to come alive, you might have to...

• Pursue an occupation that doesn't put your insanely expensive degree to use
• Move back in with your parents
• Work a low-status, low-paying job in order to make time for your new endeavor
• Come to terms with your messy home
• Completely and utterly ignore your parent's and friend's expectations of you

If you really want to live passionately, you'll need to consider leaving nearly everything you're not passionate about. To live passionately you may have to quit your job, sell your home, rent a small apartment, and live simply for a while.

To get off the treadmill you'll have to realize that your high IQ does not obligate you to work 80-hour weeks in high-status professional career. Your high IQ also doesn't obligate you to get a Ph.D., or to put on any other golden handcuffs.

In order to de-clutter all the crap in your life, you might have to quit a lot of things. You might have to say no hundreds of times. You might have to back out of several commitments. And you'll very definitely run an incredibly high risk of looking like a flake, coming across as arrogant and ungrateful, and disappointing people who love you. But it will be the best thing you can do to truly live a passionate life.

Two Keys to Big Breakthroughs

By Craig Ballantyne

It is now March. Over 15% of the year has passed already. Are you 15% of the way towards your goals? If your plan was to write a 100 page book, you should have 15 pages done by now. If you had ambitions of making over $100,000 this year, you should already have made $15,000. Are you on track?

If not, we need to put some urgency in your efforts. You need to realize that the amount of time you have to take control of your financial independence is quickly passing. It is time that you cannot get back.

Fortunately, I have some good news. Some very good news. Here at EarlytoRise.com we're dedicated to showing you what really counts when it comes to building your financial independence. But it is up to you to take personal responsibility in putting this new information into action.

You can't just be an information gatherer. That's a mistake too many people make. Many folks invest enormous amounts of time and great sums of money in learning new facts and figures yet remain broke because they don't put any of this into use.

You must do the opposite and be an ACTION TAKE. Do. Get outside of your comfort zone. Avoid self-sabotage. Fail forward. Those who don't take personal responsibility and don't take action will be in the same place 12 months from now...only older. I know you're different, and I know you are one of these action takers that the world needs right now. You want a better life, and you deserve a better life, now go out and get it.

But remember, as Dave Kekich says, "No one gets old by surprise." We all know the clock is ticking, but left to the busy-ness and business of our lives, the days pass by, slowly at first, but rapidly in hindsight. The only person who controls what you do with this time is you. Only you control your future and your behavior today. Don't wait any longer to get started. You may start slow, as I did, but it is only by getting started that you will be able to achieve your goals.

For years I struggled with my website business. Frankly, I had no idea what I was doing, so I'm not sure you could even call it struggling. I was unconsciously incompetent.

However, I was passionate about creating content and helping others. My goal was to grow my newsletter list, and that's what I did for the first two years of my online 'career'. I wasn't even smart enough to think of selling anything until 2001. But along the way I practiced two key principles recently shared with me by one of my mentors, Bill Bonner.

The first principle he calls, "Accelerated Failure". This is where you make mistakes and you learn from them to move your business ahead. It's okay to make mistakes as long as you learn from them. That leads to the second principle, "Incremental Improvement". This is where we use what we've learned from our accelerated failure to do things better in the future. Some of my biggest mistakes have led to my biggest breakthroughs. With the knowledge you gain from them, you are able to achieve the best things in your life.

Everything you do should get better each time you practice it. Each day you should improve on the last. There will, of course, be slip-ups and bad days, but incremental improvement is more importantly a mindset. Always look to do better, but realize that without the lows in life, the highs would never really seem that high.

Just remember that the mistakes of your past are not who you are now. No matter what you've done in your life you have a second chance that starts today. It is your time to choose who you will be and who you will become, for the rest of your life. You are certainly not too old to add value to the world, to give, create or inspire. If you need to, let the past go and start fresh, right here, right now.

"Fill your life with positive expectations. Demand the best. Attitude and desire contribute to 90% of your achievement." – Kekich Credo #86.

Have the courage to attempt, and even enjoy the principles of Accelerated Failure and Incremental Improvement.

Drop the negatives from your life. Hang around positive people and share your goals with them. Good people want to help and they'll assist you in achieving your goals faster. It is easier for people to get behind you and help you succeed when they know where you want to go.

And most importantly, believe in – and expect more of – yourself. Make the passing time count.

How to Write an Email That Will Actually Get a Response


How to write an email?
What’s next? A post on how to tie your shoes?
I know, I know. Email is such an ubiquitous part of our lives that you might think that people would naturally have it down pat.
But having received thousands of emails over the past four years, I can say with certainty that frequency does not necessarily beget proficiency. Which is to say: a lot of people out there are pretty clueless about how to compose a good email. Even those hired as professional PR reps!
No matter how basic a life skill, it’s something you still have to learn. And unfortunately, nobody seems to be teaching young folks the components of an effective email, despite the fact that it forms the backbone of modern communication. Knowing how to write a good email—one that will actually get a response–is crucial to your success: it can make the difference between whether or not you get a job, find a mentor, get funding for an idea, or receive potentially life-changing advice.
You see, each email is essentially a pitch, even if you’re not literally selling a business idea. What you’re pitching is the idea that you’re worth responding to—and that can be a tough sell. The person to which you’re writing may get dozens, even hundreds of emails every single day, and they can’t possibly give every single email the same time and attention. So just like with face-to-face pitches, these people develop ways of slotting their emails into two tracks—those that get a response and those that get kicked to the trash folder. What determines the track you get funneled to is whether or not you raise one of the recipient’s red flags; an email can be your first impression with someone, and since the recipient doesn’t have much to go on, he or she will be looking for little, subtle clues as to whether they should hit reply or delete. These red flags can be really small things—things that may not seem at all fair to you–but they’ve probably found that 8 out of 10 people who exhibit those characteristics aren’t worth responding to, as it ends up being a waste of their time.
The blog Think Simple Now did a great job of outlining the way the sender of the email and the recipient of the email have very divergent perspectives:

Observing the Receiver

• Gets a lot of email.
• May receive compliments regularly, if they are a public figure.
• Regularly gets asked a standard set of questions and favors.
• Does not have a lot of free time.
• Does not mind helping you, if it is fast.

Observing the Sender

• Spends a long time crafting the ‘perfect’ (-ly long) email.
• Believes that their request is original, unique, and special.
• Believes that they are the first to ask for such favors.
• Cannot imagine why anyone would turn them away.
• Desires to tell the whole story, explained from every angle, so that the listener can understand their point of view.

The key to getting a response to your email is to put yourself in the recipient’s shoes and tailor your email accordingly. How do you do that? Well below we outline some of the things we look for in determining whether or not an email is worthy of a response. Now, the language may seem a little harsh. But this is not one man’s personal’s pet peeves—these are the same things that business owners, agents, and newspaper editors have told me they use in evaluating their emails; these are the things folks already say behind your back, and there’s no use in keeping it from people for the sake of being “nice.”
Note: These guidelines are only for emails that you write when you’re hoping for something from the recipient, even if it’s just a response. If you’re just dashing off a quick note to pass along some information or share your appreciation, or are corresponding with someone you’re very familiar with, the rules really don’t matter very much.
Respect the recipient’s time and make sure the email is even necessary. Everyone’s time is precious. When you send an email, what you’re saying is, “What I have to say is worth five minutes of your time, time you could be spending on your business or with your family.”
So don’t waste the recipient’s time with a question that you can figure out yourself. Exercise some self-reliance! I’m amazed at the number of questions I get that could easily be answered with a 10 second Google search (indeed, it is tempting to respond with “Let me Google that for you…”). After you exhaust Google, search the person’s website. Check out their past articles, their FAQ, and their About page.
On AoM we accept guest post submissions, and right above our contact box we have a link to the “Write for AoM” page that describes all of our guest posting guidelines, one of which is:

“Submit your guest post using the form below. Don’t email us asking if you can write for us. It will just get deleted. If you’d like to write a guest post, write it up, and submit it using the form on this page.”

And yet day after day we still get emails from guys that say, “Hi! I was wondering if I could write a guest post for you.” I used to still respond to these emails, but I found that 9 out of 10 of the people who couldn’t be bothered to read the instructions, couldn’t write a good guest post, either.
Begin with a salutation. Starting straight off with the first sentence of your email makes you sound abrupt. Instead, begin with “Dear ____” (for a more formal email), or “Hi _____” for a more casual one. But not “Hey ____” unless you’ve already established a rapport and history with the recipient.
I think the tendency to leave off the salutation is strongest when using a contact form to submit your message. But keep in mind that even when you use a contact form, it arrives in the person’s inbox looking like any other email.
Type your email address correctly in the contact form. This probably seems like a complete no-brainer. But people will ask me for advice, I’ll spend 20 minutes thinking about their question and writing a thoughtful reply, and then when I hit send, I’ll get a delivery failure notice. Arg! That’s 20 minutes of my life that I’ll never get back.
Address the email to a specific person(s). Do your best to find out the name of the person who will be reading the email instead of saying just “Hey everybody” or “To Whom It May Concern.” Using a person’s name builds rapport since it makes your message seem more personal and less like spam. If there are a couple of people in charge, address the email to both of them. Since Kate and I run the site together, people who address their queries to “Brett and Kate,” instead of just “Brett” automatically get extra points.
Spell the recipient’s name right. Again, a no-brainer, right? Yet we get emails addressed to “Brent and Kay” all the time. Misspelling someone’s name kills your rapport with the recipient before they’ve even read the body of your email. It tells the recipient that you either don’t know much about them or aren’t very detail-oriented. And if you follow the spelling error with, “I’m such a big fan of yours,” you come off as rather disingenuous.
Build a bit of rapport before getting down to business. Just as in any kind of pitch, you want to create a bit of rapport with the person before you start talking business. It makes the recipient of your email a little more inclined to like you, hear you out, and want to help you. Keep it short and authentic. Here are some examples of rapport-building intros:

“I am a loyal fan who has been reading your website for three years. Because of AoM, I now take James Bond showers, shave with a safety razor, and write weekly love notes to my wife.”
“I have been a customer of Jim’s Sporting Goods for the past 20 years. My dad bought me my first mitt there when I was 7.”
“I am a great admirer of your research on the howler monkey. Reading your book made me want to come to this university and major in biology. Which is why I’m writing to you today…”
“As a fellow native of Austin…”

Something I’ve been noticing PR people do lately is to say something like, “You have a great site. I really enjoyed [article I clearly just picked off the front page one minute ago].” When rapport-building is obviously phony, it backfires. You want to say something so specific that the recipient knows you’re not sending the exact same generic message to lots of other people and that your interest in them is genuine.
Keep it short and to the point. Again, everyone’s time is precious. Don’t send someone a wall of text. Don’t give them your life story. Get right to the point in as few sentences as possible. You might think that giving the recipient as much detail as you can will make it more likely that he or she will respond to you, but the opposite is true. A giant block of text makes the recipient feel overwhelmed; they’d rather just delete it than deal with taking ten minutes to read and digest your tome. If your idea isn’t interesting enough to grab someone in just a few sentences, then you need to work on your idea, and if the advice you need requires multiple paragraphs to explain, you either need to do more research yourself first or it’s simply not a question you should be asking a stranger over the internet.
Make your request crystal clear. Even though you want to keep your email short, be sure to make whatever it is you’re hoping to get from the recipient as clear and specific as possible.
This is my least favorite kind of email:

Hi AoM:
I really enjoy your site. I feel like it is a great fit with what we do. We should do some kind of partnership or something. What are your ideas on how we can do that?
Sincerely,
Vague Vinny

Of course I don’t have any ideas about how we can work together…you just entered my mind ten seconds ago! If you are contacting me, it is your responsibility to take a look at the kind of things we already do and then come up with an idea you think we might like—a clear, concrete proposal. Give the recipient a pitch they can say yes or no to. If you’re asking a question, make that question as specific as possible, one that it won’t take the recipient very long to answer.
The shorter your email and the easier it is for the recipient to answer your question, the more likely you are to get a response.
Don’t be a tease. Now for my other least favorite email:

Hi Brett and Kate-
I have an awesome idea that can help you improve your website. Write me back if you want to hear more!
XOXO-
Huckstering Harry

Why would I waste my time writing you back if I don’t know whether or not I’d even be interested in your idea? Automatic delete.
If you have a website, link to it. Don’t tell me about your blog or website without linking to it. I know it would only take me 5 seconds to Google the name of your biz, but I’m not going to do it. It’s just one of those deal-breakers. Make things as easy as possible for the recipient.
And when you link to your site, make sure it’s up and running! Numerous times people have pointed me to their site, and when I clicked on it, the site was down for maintenance. Delete.
DON’T USE ALL CAPS. The universal sign of the crazy man. Using all CAPS make you seem like you’re shouting. Automatic delete.
or all lower cases. Yeah I know it’s 2012, and capitalization is so 20^th century. And maybe someday the young people of the world will rise up and do away with capitalization altogether. But until then, when you’re dealing with 29-year-old geezers like myself, you should capitalize things that need to be capitalized, otherwise you seem lazy and dopey. If you can’t be bothered to take the time to push the shift key on your phone, I can’t be bothered to take your email as seriously as other people’s.  I know, it’s not fair, but 8/10 emails from people who don’t capitalize are, in fact, pretty dopey emails.
Proofread and spell check. Read the email over a few times to make sure everything is right. Remember, this is your first impression with someone—make it a good one. I know a newspaper editor who throws a press release away as soon as she sees a mistake. Personally I’m not looking for perfection—I’ve thought some of my own emails were flawless when I sent them, only to look at them later and see egregious errors. But do the best you can, and at least spell words that are important to the recipient correctly. “I want to write about manlyness” won’t get you very far.
Close with a valediction. Ending your message without a valediction and your name makes you seem brusque. Close with “Sincerely _____,” or “Best __________.”
Return the favor.  If somebody takes time out of their day to offer you free advice, do whatever you can to support their website or business! For example if somebody runs a shoe blog and sells shoes too, and you ask him all sorts of questions about what shoes to wear with what, and he kindly answers you, then buy your shoes from him! Only a scalawag asks for advice from a small business owner who’s willing to talk to him and then takes his business to some giant impersonal website to save a few bucks.
Follow-up once. But just once. If you still don’t get a response, they’re not interested.

8 Qualities of Remarkable Employees

Forget good to great. Here's what makes a great employee remarkable.

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Great employees are reliable, dependable, proactive, diligent, great leaders and great followers... they possess a wide range of easily-defined—but hard to find—qualities.
A few hit the next level. Some employees are remarkable, possessing qualities that may not appear on performance appraisals but nonetheless make a major impact on performance.
Here are eight qualities of remarkable employees:
1. They ignore job descriptions. The smaller the company, the more important it is that employees can think on their feet, adapt quickly to shifting priorities, and do whatever it takes, regardless of role or position, to get things done.
When a key customer's project is in jeopardy, remarkable employees know without being told there's a problem and jump in without being asked—even if it's not their job.
2. They’re eccentric... The best employees are often a little different: quirky, sometimes irreverent, even delighted to be unusual. They seem slightly odd, but in a really good way. Unusual personalities shake things up, make work more fun, and transform a plain-vanilla group into a team with flair and flavor.
People who aren't afraid to be different naturally stretch boundaries and challenge the status quo, and they often come up with the best ideas.
3. But they know when to dial it back. An unusual personality is a lot of fun... until it isn't. When a major challenge pops up or a situation gets stressful, the best employees stop expressing their individuality and fit seamlessly into the team.
Remarkable employees know when to play and when to be serious; when to be irreverent and when to conform; and when to challenge and when to back off. It’s a tough balance to strike, but a rare few can walk that fine line with ease.
4. They publicly praise... Praise from a boss feels good. Praise from a peer feels awesome, especially when you look up to that person.
Remarkable employees recognize the contributions of others, especially in group settings where the impact of their words is even greater.
5. And they privately complain. We all want employees to bring issues forward, but some problems are better handled in private. Great employees often get more latitude to bring up controversial subjects in a group setting because their performance allows greater freedom.
Remarkable employees come to you before or after a meeting to discuss a sensitive issue, knowing that bringing it up in a group setting could set off a firestorm.
6. They speak when others won’t. Some employees are hesitant to speak up in meetings. Some are even hesitant to speak up privately.
An employee once asked me a question about potential layoffs. After the meeting I said to him, “Why did you ask about that? You already know what's going on.” He said, “I do, but a lot of other people don't, and they're afraid to ask. I thought it would help if they heard the answer from you.”
Remarkable employees have an innate feel for the issues and concerns of those around them, and step up to ask questions or raise important issues when others hesitate.
7. They like to prove others wrong. Self-motivation often springs from a desire to show that doubters are wrong. The kid without a college degree or the woman who was told she didn't have leadership potential often possess a burning desire to prove other people wrong.
Education, intelligence, talent, and skill are important, but drive is critical. Remarkable employees are driven by something deeper and more personal than just the desire to do a good job.
8. They’re always fiddling. Some people are rarely satisfied (I mean that in a good way) and are constantly tinkering with something: Reworking a timeline, adjusting a process, tweaking a workflow.
Great employees follow processes. Remarkable employees find ways to make those processes even better, not only because they are expected to… but because they just can't help it.