From My Work-in-Progress Basket
283 articles filed under From My Work-in-Progress Basket.
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From My Work-in-Progress Basket
Early-Stage Investing: What You Need to Know About This Hot New Alternative to the Stock Market
“The best early-stage venture capital investments appear obvious in retrospect; however, very few of them are actually obvious when you make them.” – David Sze Early-Stage Investing: What You Need to Know…
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Ready, Fire, Aim: Defining The Critical First Step
“New ideas pass through three periods: (1) It can’t be done. (2) It probably can be done, but it’s not worth doing. (3) I knew it was a good idea all along!” – Arthur C. Clarke If Ready… Fire… Aim Is the Right…
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When Marketing Copy Stops Working For Your Business
“Creative without strategy is called ‘art.’ Creative with strategy is called ‘advertising.’” – Jef I. Richards The Problem With Most "Good" Marketing Copy" “Sales been growing amazingly for two years. Now, all…
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Passing the Pink House in Winter
With Unmitigated Joy What I loved about you then was your profile – how you were always looking out into some middle distance. When I would speak to you it was difficult to know if you were even listening. It…
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The Gap Between Wanting And Becoming A Writer
“What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.” – Zig Ziglar Becoming and Being “If you want to be a writer, you have to write. A writer is someone who…
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Stock Investing: The 4 Key Metrics I Look at for Future Gains
“An expert is someone who has succeeded in making decisions and judgements simpler through knowing what to pay attention to and what to ignore.” – Edward de Bono Stock Investing: The 4 Key Metrics I Look at…
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Stock Stories Can Seduce Even Skeptical Investors
“A good story is always more dazzling than a broken piece of truth.” – Diane Setterfield When Considering Stock Investments, Don’t Trust the Stories Forty-five years ago, my partner came into my office…
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Work, Hunger, Give
I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was duty. I worked – and behold, duty was joy. – Rabindranath Tagore Work, Hunger, Give How to Enjoy Life in the Real World For some time now in…
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A Simple Formula For Buying Dividend Stocks
“Investing should be more like watching paint dry or watching grass grow. If you want excitement, take $800 and go to Las Vegas.” – Paul Samuelson My Simple System for Knowing When to Buy a Stock A reader…
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The Need for Speed
Some people are analytical. They tend to move slowly, crossing their t’s and dotting their i’s. Others are action-oriented. They tend to move quickly, impatient for solutions. To grow a successful enterprise…
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You Are Who You Are: Be Thankful for That!
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.” – Martin Luther King, Jr. You Are Who You Are: Be Thankful for That! It’s damn hard to be thankful. We know we should. Every shrink, spiritual…
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Training Your Business Instinct For Profitable Decisions
“Two things control men’s nature, instinct and experience.” – Blaise Pascal Head vs. Gut, Part II: How to Educate Your Gut Instinct to Help You Make Profitable Decisions In Part I of this essay, we talked…
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Trusting Your Gut Over Business School Analysis
My post today is about developing your gut instinct to help you become a more effective business leader. I’m sending it from our home in Nicaragua. As you may have heard, the country was battered by Iota. The…
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Identifying And Nurturing Your Rarest Employees
“Management is about arranging and telling. Leadership is about nurturing and enhancing.” – Tom Peters Cultivating the “Super” in “Superstars”: the Handful of Employees That Will Make Your Business Soar Yes…
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Scary but True: China Paves the Way for a US Digital Dollar
“A weak currency is the sign of a weak economy, and a weak economy leads to a weak nation.” – Ross Perot Scary but True: China Paves the Way for a US Digital Dollar On November 6, I said that I could imagine…
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Twelve Big Lessons From A Thousand Mistakes
“Ultimately, there is no such thing as failure. There are lessons learned in different ways.” – Twyla Tharp 12 Things I’ve Learned About Living a Full Life I’ve got a thousand ideas about how to do things…
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Most Voters Lack Knowledge To Make Informed Decisions
“We in America do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate.” –Thomas Jefferson Are You Qualified to Vote? “Voting is the most important responsibility we have as…
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The 7 Best Gifts We Gave Our Children
“There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give to our children. One of these is roots, the other, wings.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe The 7 Best Gifts We Gave Our Children There is a view of…
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Why Your Broker's Departure Tests Client Loyalty
”There is a difference between listening and waiting for your turn to speak.” – Simon Sinek Why I Wasn’t “Loyal” to My Broker I called my broker but was connected to someone I didn’t know. She told me my…
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Voting As An Independent Thinker In 2020
“Not voting is not a protest. It is a surrender.” – Keith Ellison How to Vote If You Consider Yourself an Independent Thinker Most of the people I know have locked down on certain slogans that parade…
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Why “Profiting From Your Passion” May Be a Big Mistake
“Life is long. Success is difficult. Passion is fleeting.” – Michael Masterson Why “Profiting From Your Passion” May Be a Big Mistake When I first retired at 39, I bought a half-interest in an art gallery…
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Why Business Plans Matter Less Than You Think
“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.” – Lao Tzu Advice to…
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Beyond Stocks And Bonds: Building Real Wealth
“The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.” – Michael Porter How to Make More Money Than Wall Street Wants You to Make The investment “advisory” business in America is a huge, multibillion-dollar…
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Lessons From “Losing a Million Dollars
“People who lie to themselves about investing are the same as overweight people who blame their genes for their obesity.” – Robert Kiyosaki Lessons From “Losing a Million Dollars” Growing up in a family of…
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How Race Politics Could Reshape The 2020 Election
“If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, that would have gotten you labeled a radical 60 years ago, a liberal 30 years ago, and a racist…
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Asking Strangers For Advice You're Not Ready For
“There is an inverse relationship between the value of advice given and what people are usually willing to spend for it.” – Michael Masterson Why It’s a Bad Idea to Ask a Someone You Don’t Know for Advice… and…
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Warren Buffett's Strategy For Building Lifetime Wealth
“Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.” – Warren Buffett How to Invest in Stocks for Lifetime Wealth With a net worth of $66 billion, Warren Buffett is the…
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Building Wealth As An Employee: Ten Proven Strategies
“Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings.” – Salvador Dali 10 Ways to Get Rich as an Employee Most people know me as an entrepreneur, a person that has started and/or consulted with dozens of…
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Tariffs Promise Protection But Deliver Economic Pain
“Globalism began as a vision of a world with free trade, shared prosperity, and open borders. These are good, even noble, things to aim for.” – Deepak Chopra Free Trade or Trade Wars? The Facts Are Clear…
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US COVID Death Rates Compared To Other Nations
“As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.” – Albert Einstein A Realistic Look at the Lockdown If you get your news…
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Principles of Wealth #10
Every asset class and financial strategy has its own inherent characteristics, investment advantages and disadvantages, profit and growth potentialities, and risk profiles. The smart investor understands this…
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11 Ways the COVID Lockdown Will Change the World, Good and Bad
“I’d like to think that anxiety is a form of emotional intelligence – alerting one to future threats that others ignore. The problem is it doesn’t work that way because anxiety is always forward facing. By the…
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Survival of the Fastest
Note: The following essay is an excerpt from the upcoming new and revised edition of Ready, Fire, Aim. Survival of the Fastest The first challenge an entrepreneur faces in launching a new business is to figure…
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The Foundations of Economics, Part I: Hesiod’s Formula for Growing Wealth
Work hard. Spend wisely. Save assiduously. Respect the law. If I were to write the Ten Commandments of Wealth Building, those might be the first four. Cultures that embrace these values grow rich and prosper…
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Principles of Wealth #8
“The possessors of wealth can scarcely be indifferent to processes which, nearly or remotely, have been the fertile source of their possessions.” – Charles Babbage Principles of Wealth #8* When buying…
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Is Automation Scarier Than COVID-19?
“If you don’t have a real stake in the new, then just surviving on the old… I don’t think is a long-term game.” – Satya Nadella Is Automation Scarier Than COVID-19? Does automation put people out of work?…
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Western Civilization's Greek And Roman Roots
“History is philosophy teaching by example.” – Thucydides Western Culture in One Lesson, Part I Today, let’s talk about this idea of Western Civilization. The idea that America and Western Europe share a…
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Abolishing Public School: A Dictator's Education Plan
“Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputations… can never effect a reform.” – Susan B. Anthony What I Will Do as Dictator Pro Tem Part I: My Educational Reforms I don’t want to…
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Principles of Wealth #7
To acquire wealth, it is helpful to know what it is… and what it is not. There are many sorts of wealth. This essay is about only one of them: financial wealth. Financial wealth can easily be defined as net…
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Sweden's High Taxes: Why Swedes Accept Them Willingly
“People everywhere enjoy believing things that they know are not true. It spares them the ordeal of thinking for themselves and taking responsibility for what they know.” – Brooks Atkinson Sweden’s Democratic…
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What Successful Cultures Know About Hard Work
On July 27 and July 29, we talked about Asian-Americans, pointing out that they are, as an identity group, the richest and most successful ex-patriots in the world. Comprised of at least a half-dozen…
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Don’t Get Stuck at a Measly Million Dollars in Revenues
Note: The following essay is an excerpt from the upcoming new and revised edition of Ready, Fire, Aim. Don’t Get Stuck at a Measly Million Dollars in Revenues “Innovation is the specific instrument of…
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Friendship: Who… What… Why… and How?
“Years ago,” AS said, “when we were in Myrtle Beach, I asked you how many real friends you had in Florida. You asked me to define friend. I said, ‘Someone you could ask to pick you up at the airport.’” I asked…
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The Corona Economy: Assessing Unprecedented Economic Damage
“Collette said hope costs nothing. But it does. It costs the time you spend hoping.” – Michael Masterson The Corona Economy: How Bad Is It… Really? It’s time for another look at our Corona Economy. Time to…
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The Innovation Myth
Note: The following essay is an excerpt from the upcoming new and revised edition of Ready, Fire, Aim. The Innovation Myth Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have…. It’s not about money…
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Six Lessons From A Master Art Collector
“I collect human relationships very much the way others collect fine art.” – Jerzy Kosinski Collecting Art: The Six Lessons I Had to Learn* If done correctly, a first-class art collection will serve as a…
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How to Buy Gold Bullion Coins
A Quick Guide for Beginners “We desire gold not for its true value but for the glittering illusion of value it gives.” – Michael Masterson Suddenly, everyone wants to buy gold! I’ve been reading about gold for…
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Korean Family's American Dream In Baltimore
In the mid 1990s, when I began consulting with Agora, the business had its headquarters in a mostly black Baltimore neighborhood. It was about a mile from the inner harbor, where I had an apartment on the…
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Asian-Americans Rise From Laborers To Success
“When feelings are strong, reason declines and facts get distorted in a miasma of context.” – Michael Masterson Asians in America, Part I: Why Are They So Successful? Let’s take a break from identity politics…
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Update on My Investment Portfolio
Why I’ve Just Sold Most of My Stocks “Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful.” – Warren Buffett I’ve just sold about 75% of my stock portfolio. I’ll tell you why… The Economic…
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