September 2017
16 articles published this month.
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Miscellaneous Briefs
The Question of Where
They say the three most important questions you must answer in life are: What am I going to do? Where am I going to live? Who am I going to live with? I think that is pretty close to the truth. If you don’t…
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Miscellaneous Essays
Let Your Business Expand Beyond You Clone Your Brand
AH had done amazing things while working for MM, a competitor of ours. And he did just as well when he came to work for us. He built his part of our company from less than $50 million to more than $100 million…
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Miscellaneous Essays
What to Do When Disaster Strikes
You reach for the mug and knock it over. Hot coffee washes over your laptop. You arrive home and realize you’ve left your bag, with all your IDs, on the subway. Your doctor reads your EKG and says, “Hmm. I’ve…
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Miscellaneous Essays
I Could Tell They Didn’t Like What I Said…
You can tell how well an audience liked your speech if, as you walk back from the podium, you look at those seated at the end of the aisles. If you’ve done well, most of them will be looking at you, smiling…
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Miscellaneous Essays
Creating Memorable Short Presentations 8 Powerful Secrets from TED Talks, NPR, Aristotle and Michael Masterson
For most people, next to the fear of dying, public speaking is their greatest fear. And what’s more difficult than giving a long speech? Giving a short one! “It’s such a little thing,” you tell yourself. “It…
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Miscellaneous Briefs
Why Vegetarians Crave Sweets
If you are a vegetarian, you may have noticed that you crave sweets. Not just sugar in your coffee, but sugary confections like pastries and candy. In The Vegetarian Myth, Lierre Keith, a former vegan…
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Miscellaneous Essays
From Life-Altering Advice to Tips on “Trailing Edge Technology” How Gary North Can Improve Your Life
Gary North, an economist, Christian philosopher and good writer whom I’ve known for 30 years, once gave me life-changing advice. We were talking about our careers. Our backgrounds and lifestyles are very…
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Miscellaneous Essays
8 Things I Know About Direct-Response Publishing
Over the years, I’ve learned a lot about direct-response (DR) marketing. In particular, how to be successful as a publisher of financial information. When I’m talking about the business to new employees (and…
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Miscellaneous Essays
The Art of Being a Great Interviewer (or How Howard Stern can improve your podcast)
Like every great performance artist, great interviewers make the interview look easy. Unfortunately, the apparent ease of what they do encourages too many unskilled and unimaginative sorts to start their own…
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Miscellaneous Briefs
So You Want to Be a Leader? Secrets From Attila the Hun
We sat down at a corner table with Number Three Son, ML (his fiancée), and two friends of theirs who looked to be attractive, smart, and good natured. Just the sort of people one would want to liven up a…
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Miscellaneous Essays
8 Ways to Beat the Blues… and 6 Ways to Manage Serious Depression
In 2011, after having experienced several bouts of mild-to-moderate depression, I was sure I understood it. And I was confident I knew how to beat it. My theory was that it was essentially a malady of…
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Miscellaneous Essays
Having a Supreme and Overriding Goal The Fastest Way to Grow Rich… (And Risk Everything Else)
You’ve probably heard this story already… When I was 33 I decided to become rich and made that my supreme and overriding goal. There were plenty of other things that I wanted to do – like reading books and…
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Miscellaneous Essays
Speak Like a Copywriter: 10 Rules for Having Better Conversations
There are times when I feel smart about my conversations. And there are times when I feel dumb. I feel smart when I give someone a good idea and they gladly agree to try it. I feel dumb when a conversation…
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Miscellaneous Essays
A Short Lesson in Writing Lift Letters
How good are you at judging advertising copy? More importantly, do you know how to fix weak copy when you see it? Test yourself. Read the copy below. It’s a “lift letter,” which is a short letter meant to…
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Miscellaneous Briefs
This is weird. Is this a sign of early onset dementia?
Nobody talked about dementia when I was a kid. I didn’t even know what it was until I was in my 40s. And back then it was described as a kind of “brain fog” that affected octogenarians. It wasn’t something I…
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Miscellaneous Briefs
I’ve done better with real estate than with any other category of investing…
And I’ve done it with everything from limited partnerships to buying and flipping properties to rental real estate and land banking. By far the safest and most lucrative has been buying buildings into which I…
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