Your Once-a-Year Wake-Up Call
“I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live.” – George Bernard Shaw The single most powerful, most life-improving, most intellectually expanding, most emotionally uplifting thing you can do for yourself is to wake up earlier than you are waking…
READ MOREHow To Write Better Copy By Being Honest
“Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.” – Thomas Jefferson The unflinching principle of all successful advertising … of all marketing … of all business … of all relationships … is one of the oldest success secrets in the world: “Do unto others as you would have…
READ MOREHow to Respond to Potentially Embarrassing Questions
“Mistakes are a part of life; you can’t avoid them. All you can hope is that they won’t be too expensive and that you don’t make the same mistake twice.” – Lee Iacocca (Iacocca: An Autobiography, 1984) You are making a sales presentation or speech, feeling your oats, when someone…
READ MOREMake Your Problem Solving Skills 3x Stronger
“Problems are only opportunities in work clothes.” – Henry J. Kaiser (1882-1967) According to an article in the MIT Sloan Management Review (covered in a recent issue of Executive Leadership), good problem solvers use different parts of their brains to solve different types of problems. Essentially, there are three very…
READ MOREHonesty, Integrity, and All That
“The measure of any man’s virtue is what he would do, if he had neither the laws nor public opinion, nor even his own prejudices, to control him.” – William Hazlitt (Characteristics, 1823) I like the general idea of honesty and integrity and would like to think of myself as…
READ MOREThe Most Important Persuasion Tip
“If you would convince others, seem open to conviction yourself.” – Lord Chesterfield (Letters to His Son, Feb. 22, 1748) When I critique advertising copy, I use a bag full of tricks I’ve collected over the years to make the job easy and quick. I’ve detailed these in AWAI’s copywriting…
READ MOREHow to Achieve Moral Perfection: The Ben Franklin Formula
“What is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.” – Ernest Hemingway (Death in the Afternoon, 1932) Ben Franklin, one of the worlds wisest writers and the thinker upon whose advice ETR is based, began his adult life with a…
READ MOREWhat Kind of Advice Should You Be Following?
“Never trust the advice of a man in difficulties.” – Aesop (“The Fox and the Goat,” Fables, sixth century B.C.) Since I began writing ETR every day, I’ve begun paying attention to books, newsletters, and videos that talk about success. The great majority of them are written by 20-something journalists…
READ MOREMake Important and Powerful People Want to Be Your Friend
“A mighty flame followeth a tiny spark.” – Dante (“Paradiso,” The Divine Comedy, c. 1300-21) There are two things almost all people like to do: 1. talk about themselves 2. talk about something they know a lot about You can put these facts of life to work for you in…
READ MOREWhat To Do When You Can’t Do What You Want To Do
A new client that agreed to sign up with you suddenly cancels. A promised promotion evaporates. The deadline your plumber swore to passes without anything’s having being done. When something you are counting on doesn’t happen, it can be such a drag. But it doesn’t have to be. The trick…
READ MOREInteresting Trend in the Advertising World
Dear Early to Rise Reader, Last Monday, The USA Today reported on an interesting trend in the advertising world. Many of the world’s biggest and most successful companies, the paper reported, are now turning to direct-marketing (which they call the “ugly step-child” of the advertising world), instead of traditional, glitzy,…
READ MOREA Basic Success Secret That Many Self-Help Gurus Just Don’t Get
In a recent e-mail article titled “Attitude is a very important word,” Earl Nightingale says that “of all the words in all the languages of the world … ‘attitude’ is the most important.” “More than any other single thing,” he says, “your attitude will determine … what happens to you.”…
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