Notes From My Journal
560 articles filed under Notes From My Journal.
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Notes From My Journal
A Renewal Notice From Medium.com
In most areas of commerce, subscription services are required to notify their customers about renewal charges before they are done. And even where they aren’t required, notification is a good idea because it…
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Notes From My Journal
Book Review: How to Elevate Your Life by Robert Glazer
“He that gives good advice, builds with one hand; he that gives good counsel and example, builds with both.” – Francis Bacon Book Review: How to Elevate Your Life by Robert Glazer I swear – almost everything I…
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Notes From My Journal
Why Writers Listen Differently Than Everyone Else
“We write to taste life twice: in the moment and in retrospect.” – Anaïs Nin A Letter to Friends and Family From Someone That Writes for a Living I know what you think. That I’m self-centered and antisocial…
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Notes From My Journal
Feeling Gloomy About the Future?
Here Are 1O Bits of Good News The news media understands that bad news sells better than good. So it’s not surprising that if you allow yourself more than, say, 30 minutes a day reading newspapers or on social…
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Notes From My Journal
What I Learned About Love
Once a month, I spend an hour talking to BK about success in life and business. He usually begins the conversation with a question about some business-related issue he’s been thinking about. It’s always a…
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Notes From My Journal
An Extremely Stupid Essay About Language
The latest from the language police: We are no longer allowed to say “committed suicide.” Dictonary.com has published many insanely dumb essays proscribing language before, but this has to be one of the…
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Notes From My Journal
Ten Early Decisions That Shaped My Career
“When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” – Yogi Berra I’ve written several times about the key decisions we make as adults: what we choose to do, where we choose to do it, and with whom. But there are…
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Notes From My Journal
Why Modern Abstract Art Prices Have Gone Insane
“Art = technical competence times emotional honesty squared.” – Michael Masterson I’ve been looking seriously at art for nearly 60 years, collecting it for about 40 years, and selling it for about 30 years…
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Notes From My Journal
Learning Languages Through Quora's Imperfect Translations
“It is astonishing how much enjoyment one can get out of a language that one understands imperfectly.” – Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve Quora is a knowledge-sharing website where questions are asked and answered –…
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Notes From My Journal
Auto Debt, Student Debt, Federal Debt: What’s Not to Love?
“It takes as much imagination to create debt as to create income.” – Leonard Orr Auto Debt, Student Debt, Federal Debt: What’s Not to Love? Bill Bonner has been writing a series of interesting essays about…
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Notes From My Journal
Kill Your Inner John Bolton” by Caitlin Johnstone
“We each have a miniature John Bolton,” Caitlin Johnstone says, writing in Taki’s Magazine. And he’s “living rent-free inside our heads, ruining our peace and promoting world domination at every opportunity.”…
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Notes From My Journal
Decades Of Anti-Poverty Efforts Have Failed
Every politician, college professor, social warrior, and NYT columnist today is concerned about wealth and income disparity. The general view is that there is a lot of it. Globally, but also within the good…
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Notes From My Journal
About AZ…
AZ and I have a friendship that is at least partly about our common career paths. We met after K and I had moved to South Florida. I was beginning a new job as editor of a newsletter publishing company. He had…
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Notes From My Journal
Thousands of autonomous delivery robots are about to descend on US college campuses
I just read an article about a new trend in delivery services on Peter Diamandis’s blog, Abundance Insider. Here’s what he wrote: Thousands of autonomous delivery robots are about to descend on US college…
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Notes From My Journal
What 13 Highly Successful People Like Warren Buffett and Donald Trump Read Every Morning”?
I’ll be damned. Most of the most successful entrepreneurs in the USA don’t follow my advice. Judging from this article on Entrepreneur.com, most of the big shots spend the first hour or two of their days…
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Notes From My Journal
Jeffrey Epstein: What Can We Believe?
I am not big on conspiracy theories. I’m 100% sure Hillary Clinton was not involved in the global pizza parlor/child slavery industry. I’m 50/50 on JFK. But so far, I’m thinking that Jeffrey Epstein did not…
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Notes From My Journal
The Copywriter's Dilemma: Finding Your Own USP
HW writes to ask for help in “coming up with a USP” to market his business. He’s a copywriter for and business coach to small businesses. “It’s funny,” he says, “I routinely help my clients with their USPs…
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Notes From My Journal
Women's Wealth And Income Are Rising Faster
A few weeks ago, I gave you good news about the gender income gap. In that essay, I explained how the data have been manipulated in a way that makes it look like the wage gap is a much bigger problem than it…
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Notes From My Journal
Evaluating A Friend's Startup Investment Opportunity
Number One Son recently asked my opinion of a potential investment opportunity – a startup business looking for funding. “These guys are friends of ours from NY,” he told me, “and they’re building a…
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Notes From My Journal
Finding Relevance As An Older Entrepreneur
At my age, 68 (or “in my 69th year,” as K likes to put it), I feel like I’m surrounded by teenagers whenever I find myself in the “real” world of Internet marketing seminars. More to the point, I feel like…
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Notes From My Journal
21 Ways to Make Your Life Miserable
Believe that, as a human being, you are entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Believe that, as a citizen of the wealthiest country in the world, you have the right to free health care, free…
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Notes From My Journal
A Hard Question… and an Easy Answer
GT has a problem. Last week, he sent me this email: Hi Mark, I’ve had another great week of work experience at the SB office! I really enjoy writing copy, as well as the process of learning and improving at it…
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Notes From My Journal
The Fed's Rate Cut Isn't About Working Class Relief
I just read an astonishing essay by Jeanna Smialek in The New York Times arguing that the Fed’s recent rate cut is motivated by a desire to boost incomes of the working class and create more income equality…
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Notes From My Journal
Naming An Art Show: Why Clever Is The Enemy
I’ve been working with my partners in the art business to put on a major annual art show in Central America starting next year. It’s going to be big and fun – a combination of Art Basel and the Academy Awards…
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Notes From My Journal
The Cost Of Choosing Constant Work
Most of the people I work with – either as colleagues, employees, or partners – know that I don’t believe in time off. My approach to working is not “balanced.” I am working 24/7, 365 days a year. I’m not…
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Notes From My Journal
How Social Connections Shape Life After Sixty
When you get to my age (68), you arrive at crossroads that are different from the ones you encountered before. The choices may be similar. But the decisions you make have more importance because you don’t have…
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Notes From My Journal
Building Richie Havens A Green Room Overnight
I met Richie Havens in the basement of The Right Track Inn, a bar on Long Island that I was a part of in the early 1970s. It was a bucket of blood when Mike and Al bought it. Mike recruited Steve and me to…
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Notes From My Journal
Ten Surprising Facts About How People Build Wealth
I’m working on a little book that’s tentatively titled New Ideas About BuildingWealth. My thesis is original in the sense that it came from thinking about my own experience and the experience of friends and…
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Notes From My Journal
Four Fundamental Ways To Build Wealth
On July 1, I wrote about an idea I’m developing that I hope to make into a small book called something like Building Wealth in 7 Lessons. I suggested that, at base, there are only three ways to make money: by…
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Notes From My Journal
Speaking of Speaking to…
“I’d be happy to speak to that topic in a moment,” he said. “I’d be happy if you spoke about it,” I replied. I don’t like this parvenu expression “speak to” when its meaning is “speak about.” It feels…
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Notes From My Journal
Conversation Overheard at Breakfast at the Four Seasons in Amman
“He said I should cover up. That I was showing too much skin or something, and it was like distracting!” An American teenager, having breakfast with her parents at the table next to ours. Her parents were…
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Notes From My Journal
A Trick I’ve Been Playing on Myself Since I Had to Make My First Business Speech
Last week Agora had its global publishers meeting in Dubai. We chose Dubai because it was a compromise location for our publishers that travel from Europe, the Americas, and the Far East. And also because it…
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Notes From My Journal
My Very Anal Daily Routine – Just in Case You’re Interested
Every so often I get a letter asking about my daily routine. As if, I suppose, it would be useful to others. Everyone must find his own routine, but I do understand why someone would ask. I love reading about…
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Notes From My Journal
I Finally Did it… I Picked Up the Phone!
I am phonophobic. No, that’s probably not right. I’m phone-o-phobic. Like many writers, I am scared shitless of speaking on the telephone. When email became ubiquitous 25 years ago, I felt like it had been…
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Notes From My Journal
8 Other Things That Money Can’t Buy
”Money can’t buy happiness.” A cliché? Sure. But as is usually the case with clichés, it’s true. Problem is, because we hear them so often, the mind filters them out and we ignore them. This cliché, in…
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Notes From My Journal
The New York Times Takes on CBD
Nearly everyone I know is taking some form of CBD. Jiu Jitsu athletes are rubbing it on their muscles before training to reduce soreness and accelerate heating. Executives are eating it during the day to calm…
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Notes From My Journal
Walking: Fast and Slow
K and I share many of the same interests. But moving, biped style, from one destination to another isn’t one of them. We can’t walk very well together because — despite her shorter gait — she outpaces me by…
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Notes From My Journal
The Last Quarter: a Delicate Conversation to and From a Sculpture Studio
The last quarter of one’s life is a time for – among other things – getting rid of non-productive assets. When Suzanne and I started Ford Fine Art, I was very much aware of the nature of the business, having…
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Notes From My Journal
Saving Serious Money With Solar Power in Nicaragua
I asked Bismarck, the resident director of FunLimon, our family’s community center in Nicaragua, how that “whacky solar power experiment” was going. He said the panels and related equipment were installed and…
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Notes From My Journal
Competing for Eyeballs: An Alternative to Shock Tactics
The cover story of last week’s The New York Times Magazine featured this headline: “My Cousin Was My Hero. Until the Day He Tried to Kill Me.” Catchy, for sure. But it’s a headline you’d expect to see in a…
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Notes From My Journal
How NOT to Do an Interview
If you have any ambitions of doing a podcast, you will eventually need to learn how to do a good interview. Of the many skills involved in podcasting, you’d think interviewing was the least difficult: Pick a…
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Notes From My Journal
Are You Ready for the Next Stock Market Meltdown?
How comfortable do you feel about your stock portfolio? A few weeks ago, Bill Bonner posted a warning on his blog – an essay titled “We’re Raising the Crash Flag.” Bill has always understood economics better…
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Notes From My Journal
18 Things You Absolutely Should Know About Investing in Art
Ah, Gabriela! My middle school crush. Her father, Eric Albreicht, an eminent art critic, had lined every wall of their home with beautiful paintings. The walls of our house were lined with books. (Books were…
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Notes From My Journal
My Partner Is Much Richer Than I Am - So Why Don’t I Invest Like He Does?
Bill Bonner (partner/mentor/friend) made a massive fortune by investing 80% of his time and money in a single business. He is a cautious investor. But he’s also – from my perspective – a very courageous and…
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Notes From My Journal
Career Doubts and Regrets: Here’s How to Eliminate Them
A friend and former protégé, who went off to start his own very successful business, wrote me a while back. He said: Today I find myself wealthier than ever before. And I suppose freer than ever... yet I find…
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Notes From My Journal
This Is Why I Can’t Stop Teaching/Writing
I met TR maybe 10 years ago. He came to the only seminar I ever gave on entrepreneurship. It was expensive – 10 or 25 grand for three days. (Can’t remember.) It was designed for people that were already in…
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Notes From My Journal
Okay, I May Go Broke – but That’s Fine With Me
We were talking about buying another building to accommodate a growing employee base. NM made the case for it, but BW was reluctant. He suggested we wait six months to give the stock market time to crash…
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Notes From My Journal
Ruminations of a Traveling Man
K and I have lived in or traveled to a shitload of countries. (I should buy a map and put pins in it.) In terms of cost and benefit, there are only three ways to travel: Budget Immersion Style, Group Discount…
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Notes From My Journal
Binge Out!
The language police have struck again. According to Dictionary.com, I’m not allowed to describe my bouts of overeating chocolate kisses or over-watching Netflix as “binging.” The dictionary opines: “When most…
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Notes From My Journal
Thoughts on Jefe’s Death
I wrote about the death of our dog Jefe (left) last week. I said that he gave us so many gifts – so many moments of laughter and love – during his lifetime. Thinking about it since then, it occurred to me that…
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