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| I used to dread the thought of public speaking. And when I was forced to make a speech, I did a terrible job – which only made me dread the next speech even more. It was a vicious cycle. When I became the editorial director of a newsletter business in South Florida in 1982, I found myself in an uncomfortable position… I had to conduct meetings and give presentations at industry functions on a fairly regular basis – something I was ill-prepared to do. So, I decided to enroll in a Dale Carnegie program for public speaking. Somehow, I registered for the wrong course. Instead of focusing on speech-making, it had a broader goal. And that program changed my life. It taught me the importance of setting goals and taking action. But it also taught me to be more comfortable as a speaker. My speech-making skills improved almost accidentally. Every week, we had to read a chapter of Carnegie's classic book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, and then make a two-minute in-class presentation about how we were going to put the principle of that chapter to work in our lives. On Thursday evenings after work, I would drive a half-hour to the meeting place. During that drive, I thought about what I was going to say. It was difficult in the beginning, but it got a little easier each week. By the end of the 14-week course, I was performing at a near-professional level. I had won several awards in competitions and was routinely rated at the top of the class. The final session was a sort of commencement ceremony. Relatives and friends were allowed to attend, which tripled the size of the audience we had to speak to. I gave the last speech. I was still a little nervous when I got up to the podium, but I'd learned a lot by then. So, I took a deep breath and did my thing. I got a strong round of applause. Several people I didn't even know came up to congratulate me… and one suggested I should become a comedian. I wasn't foolish enough to take his advice to heart, but it did make me happy to think I had made so much progress in so little time, starting from practically zero. How did I conquer my fear of public speaking? The same way you would conquer the fear of anything else. Humiliation and Humility A big part of what we are afraid of is embarrassment – being shamed in front of other people. When embarrassment is extreme, we call it humiliation. If you pass gas at a fancy dinner party, you feel embarrassed. If your big project at work fails miserably – and you've been bragging it would be a "sure thing" – you feel humiliated. Humiliation is what happens to embarrassment when it's mixed with pride. The prouder you are, the more failure hurts. Which brings us to our cure for the fear of failure: humility. I'm guilty of priding myself. I'm proud of my writing, for example, and the success I've had in business. So, I have to keep reminding myself to be humble about those things. But I'm not proud of everything I do. I take no pride in my ability to dance, sing, or speak foreign languages because I do those things so badly. And because my ego isn't involved, I'm not embarrassed to ask stupid questions, to show myself as a beginner, and, ultimately, to fail again and again as I attempt to master those skills. The truth is, when I started out in business, I wasn't very good at that, either. Again, that made it possible for me to ask lots of questions, look stupid, and make mistakes… which accelerated my learning curve. That last observation brings us to an important principle of success. I call it "the secret of accelerated failure." It's a principle I developed in the early 1990s. The principle of accelerated failure is this: To develop any complex skill, you must be willing to make mistakes and endure failures. The faster you can make those mistakes and suffer those failures, the quicker you will master the skill. At the Palm Beach Research Group, we teach this secret to our managers. We encourage them to allow their employees to fail. Not to fail stupidly. Not to make the same mistakes over and over again. But to feel free to fail at something – so long as it was done in the pursuit of knowledge. If you play golf or practice Brazilian jiu-jitsu, you know this to be true: If you tense up and focus on avoiding mistakes, you will learn very slowly. If you relax, let the mistakes happen, and learn from them, you will advance quickly. It starts with being humble. Humble enough to accept the fact that when you begin anything new, you're likely to do it poorly. Humility Is Nature's First Gift Pride prevents us from admitting we are incompetent. But we're all incompetent when we're learning. Think of how a baby learns to walk. He begins by crawling, then advances to "forward falling" (as my brother calls it), then to walking like a little drunkard, and then, finally, to walking masterfully. Babies don't feel shame, because they're not proud. There's a reason pride doesn't invade the human psyche until 6 or 7 years of age: There's simply too much to learn before then. If toddlers had pride, it would take them years – or even decades – to walk and talk properly. Humility is a much-underrated virtue. It provides us with at least three significant advantages:
If Humility Is the Solution, How Does a Proud Person Become Humble? Now we are coming to the most important part of this discussion – a practical plan for defeating the fear of failure. Here's how you can do it:
Defeat your fear of failure by being happy – and even eager – to try and fail until you succeed. That's how Edison invented the lightbulb. That's how Michael Jordan, a very mediocre basketball player in high school, became the greatest hoops player of all time. They weren't afraid of failure. You shouldn't be, either. Regards, Mark Ford Source: Daily Wealth Follow us on Twitter: @blacklioncm |
Showing posts with label Palm Beach Letter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Palm Beach Letter. Show all posts
Monday, December 7, 2015
Four Easy Steps to Banish Fear and Change Your Life, Today
Friday, November 13, 2015
How to Read an Extra 52 Helpful Books This Year
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| You can give yourself a competitive edge – one that could pay you big dividends one day – by doing a little carefully calculated extra reading this year. I know you are busy already, but what I'm about to suggest won't take too much time – and the benefits you'll get from it will be wonderful. I'm going to show you how to read an extra 52 books this year and every year thereafter… Every day, new nonfiction books are published on every possible topic. Some of these contain information and advice that will help you achieve your goals. The trick is to locate the good ones and read them quickly, efficiently, and strategically. Tracking down good books is easy and fun. Make it a habit to browse bookstores, especially in airports and train stations (where business and self-help titles are abundant). Pick up any title that interests you. Scan the table of contents. If it seems promising, read the first page. If you find the book interesting and easy to read, hold on to it. Keep going until you have twice as many books as you can read, and then keep the ones you are most excited by. If you follow these simple steps, you'll be eager to get home and start reading. Eagerness alone won't get you through an extra book a week, no matter how interesting and well-written it is. To keep up with a weekly schedule, you have to find a way to cut your reading time by less than half. If you approach nonfiction books tactically, they don't take very long to "read." The first and most important thing is to realize that books like these are raw material for your imagination, not finished artwork. So you should go through them as you might go through a big pile of kindling, looking for a few straight, dry pieces. Don't waste your time fooling around with what's not important. And don't feel compelled to read every word. I like to think that every good book has one big secret to convey and several smaller ones. Your job is to find out – as quickly as you can – what they are. There are many ways to speed-read, several of which I've tried over the years. The system I use now allows me to get through most business books in two to four hours. Here's how I do it (and I'm a painfully slow reader):
Once you get used to this way of reading, you'll find it addictive. You'll have a constant stream of new ideas coming to you that will help you in every important area of your life. You'll get smarter and better with each passing week – and that will make you feel better and more confident. Your friends and colleagues will notice the difference. And sooner or later, one of the ideas you pick up will be the big one that takes you to the next level. Start today by going to the bookstore after work and picking up your first title. Feel free to mark it up with a pen or highlighter, but remember that you are not looking to study it in detail but to select from it a few very helpful secrets. Use the scanning method I recommended if it helps, but make sure you get through this book within the next seven days. The most important thing to remember is not to try to learn too much. One big idea and a half-dozen little ones are plenty. Get them down and move on. Regards, Mark Ford Source: Daily Wealth Follow us on Twitter: @blacklioncm |
Wednesday, October 14, 2015
How to Become Financially Independent in 7 Years or Less
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| You are middle-aged. Your net worth is meager. Your income is barely sufficient to meet expenses… and those expenses are going up. The Great Recession is looming. Economists are predicting things will get worse. What can you do? Should you give up your dream of retiring comfortably one day? Should you accept a future of increasingly meager existence? Should you grow bitter and curse the powers that be for putting you in this situation? Or should you take responsibility for your situation and make changes? That last question was rhetorical, of course. But sometimes, I wonder if people really do understand their options. There are things that happen in life that we can't control. But we can control the way we respond to them… I understand that when you are halfway through your life and are barely making ends meet, it seems like the only chance to become financially successful is to win the lottery (either an actual lottery or the stock market equivalent of one). So it may be frustrating to hear some rich guy from Palm Beach telling you that you can't quickly turn $25,000 into $1 million by investing in stocks. But I believe – no, I am certain – that anyone who has modest intelligence and a positive attitude can become financially independent in seven years or less if he or she is willing to work enormously hard. You do not have to give up on your dream of being wealthy. You always have the ability to change your financial life. It will take a bit of time and patience. And it will require that you change some of the thoughts and feelings you have about wealth and your relationship to wealth. The first thing you must do is accept the fact that you are solely and completely responsible for your current financial situation. Before you react defensively, read that sentence again… I didn't say you are the cause of your situation. I said you are responsible for it. By taking responsibility for your current condition, you also assume responsibility for your future. Nobody can change your fortune but you. And nobody else will. The sooner you accept that reality, the sooner you will shed the anger and blame and begin to feel financially powerful. I'm not giving you a pep talk. I'm telling you the truth. I've done it myself, and I've coached dozens of people to do it, too. It is a simple adjustment of your thinking, but it is extremely powerful. It works instantaneously. Without it, you cannot move forward, even by a single inch. The next thing you must do is set realistic expectations. I've had people tell me that they don't want to make 10% or 15% per year on their money. They think returns like that are "ho-hum." They want some incredible stock tip or some secret get-rich-quick technique. But when I hear people say that, I think, "This person will never become wealthy." Realize that 10%-15% is a high rate of return. Warren Buffett – the most successful investor of all time and the third-richest person on the planet – has averaged 19% on his investments over his entire career. And realize that the journey to millions of dollars is earned $100 at a time. You must be willing to accept this fact to move your financial life forward. Your financial life is like a train that has stalled. And right now, you want to be driving it at 100 miles an hour. But it can't go from zero to 100 miles an hour in no time flat. Inertia is against you. Be happy with 10 miles an hour now… and then 20… and then 30. This is how wealth accumulates – gradually at first, but eventually at lightning speed. The third thing you must do is thoroughly understand the difference between spending, saving, and investing. With every paycheck you get, cover your necessary expenses first (bills, mortgage, etc.). Then put some money toward saving. And then put some money toward investing. Then and only then – after you have "paid yourself" – should you add to your "spending" account. The fourth thing you must do is recognize that your net investible income (the amount of cash you have after spending and saving) is the single most important factor in determining how quickly you will become wealthy. Commit to adding to your income with a second income. Make an honest count of the number of hours each month you devote to television and other non-productive activities. Devote them to wealth-building instead. Cast aside the comfortable shoes of victimization. Put on the working boots of a financial hero. It's not fun to realize, in the midst of your life, that you haven't acquired the wealth you want. But the good news is your past doesn't have to be a prologue… unless you allow it to be. You can change your fortunes today by doing the four things I've just told you to do. You are only 47, not 87. You have plenty of time to increase your income and grow your net worth. Why do you assume all is lost? As any 87-year-old will tell you – you have a whole wonderful life ahead of you… a life that can be rich in 100 ways. Regards, Mark Ford Source: Daily Wealth Follow us on Twitter: @blacklioncm |
Wednesday, September 16, 2015
How to Get a Raise at Work
| How to Get a Raise at Work |
| By Mark Ford, wealth coach, The Palm Beach Letter |
| Wednesday, April 3, 2013 Stansberry & Associates: Mark, you're a successful entrepreneur… a highly paid consultant… and an accomplished writer. You've also built a reputation as one of the country's foremost experts on wealth building. For many people, the biggest source of potential wealth is their salary. We've heard you say that earning just a few percentage points more each year will help you become a millionaire by the time you retire. Could you explain how to get a raise… and how it can make a huge difference to a person's long-term wealth? Mark Ford: Absolutely… There's no question about it. Earning just a few percentage points more each year can make you much, much richer over a lifetime. To show you how, let me start with an example… My brother hired SP for $20,000. On the same day, he hired LJ for $30,000. Keep in mind… I'm using initials to avoid embarrassing these people. They both had the same qualifications: college degrees, a bit of experience interning for investment companies, and the desire to make a lot of money. SP stood out from day one. He was the first one to work every morning and stayed after everyone else, including my brother, went home at night. LJ was good but rather ordinary. Flash-forward 13 years. SP is making more than $2 million every year and LP is making $38,000. SP has already outpaced LJ by more than $10 million. By the time they both retire, SP will have a net worth well in excess of $50 million, while LJ will be lucky if he has anything in his bank account. S&A: What accounted for the difference? Mark: It was not intelligence. It was simply the fact that SP decided to become a superstar while LJ was content to be ordinary. That's how I see it. But let me try to prove it to you with some simple arithmetic. Joe Ordinary is 25 years old, makes an ordinary $30,000 per year income, and gets ordinary 3.5% yearly increases. Over a 40-year career, he will make a little more than $2.6 million. Sarah Superstar, also 25, averages 5% yearly increases. Over the same 40-year period, she will earn $3.8 million – more than $1 million more than Joe. If Sarah can keep her expenditures down and live on the same amount of money that Joe is making, she will retire a millionaire while Joe will be forced to live on food stamps and handouts. That's how big a difference a mere 1.5 percentage points can make when we're talking about raises. And that 1.5 percentage point difference, from the studies I've read, is what Sarah can expect by working hard and making smart decisions throughout her career. S&A: Is there a plan someone can follow to achieve that "extra" 1.5 percentage points? Mark: There is… and if you stick with it, you could become a multimillionaire in no more than 20 years. But there's something even more exciting than that. Your path to wealth must start somewhere. So in addition to that "blueprint," I can also give you a plan to get an increase of at least 10% one year from now… S&A: To most people, that sounds almost too good to be true. Where do we begin? Mark: Let's start by taking a look at how salaries work in a typical business environment. Businesses exist to provide products and services to consumers. Healthy businesses measure their success in terms of their long-term profits. As an employee of a business, it's your job to help your company produce those long-term profits. You may think your job is something other than that. You may think, for example, that your job is to answer the phone or deliver the mail or write marketing copy. Nothing could be further from the truth. Your job is to produce long-term profits. The secret to getting above-average raises each year is to accept that as your fundamental responsibility – and to transform the work you are doing now in such a way that it will produce those long-term profits. The better you can do it, the more money you will make. It's as simple as that. Salespeople generally make more than accountants, right? That's not because salespeople are smarter than accountants. Nor do they necessarily work harder. But the job they do is seen as more financially valuable than the job accountants do. That is the one and only reason they get paid more. S&A: What if you are working as a low-ranking employee right now? Mark: I would tell you not to worry. My plan works just as well for a low-ranking employee as it does for top brass. In fact, it works better. Conventional business roles and conventional salaries are the reality for 80% of the workforce – for people who come to work and put in a full day and have a good attitude and hope for the best. For most of the other 20% – people who are smart and willing to work harder – the business world will reward them with better raises and more in total earnings over a 40-year period. But there is a smaller group of employees – maybe 25% of that 20% (or 4% of the whole) – who will average even higher raises. Those employees will also earn far more throughout their business careers… enough to make it possible for them to retire rich. There are more than a dozen employees I've worked with personally during the past 20 years who have taken this less-travelled road. None of them are older than 45 (most are in their 30s), and they are already all multimillionaires. If they continue as they have been – and there is no reason why they shouldn't – they will all be among the top one-half of 1% of the population in wealth when they decide to retire. S&A: So let's talk about how you're going to make that happen for yourself. Mark: Start with this: Make a commitment to become the most valuable employee in your department in six months and the most valuable employee in your boss' view in one year. These two goals are not necessarily synonymous. As you may already know, what your boss thinks about you and who you are may be two different things. The first job of anyone who wants to become a superstar is to actually start doing more valuable work. The second job is to gradually let your boss (and your boss' bosses) know that. Make that commitment now. Then make a list of all the ways you are currently valuable to your boss. And then make another list of things you can do to increase your value. That list will be a good source of ideas for you. Let's say you implement this plan at the start of the year. In January, for example, you might make it a point to get your boss his most important report a day earlier than normal. In February, you might tell him he can delegate to you the sales calls he hates to make. If you use a daily task list, you should be making great progress by the spring and have completely upgraded your responsibilities by the middle of the year. Now is the time to start letting your boss know about your achievements (in the event that he hasn't noticed already). Guide all of your business decisions by one sole criterion: How will this action help my company increase its long-term profitability? Meanwhile, be sure to stay humble and credit other people for their assistance when they have, in fact, helped you. Be conscious of your boss' ego, too. Give him credit whenever anyone compliments you on some achievement. A statement as simple as "I couldn't have done it without Jeff's help/wisdom" will usually do the trick. And take the time to write your boss and key fellow employees the occasional memo thanking them for their help. By following a two-tier strategy – contributing more to the business and making friends along the way – you will ensure that your path to success will be quick and easy. As your responsibilities increase, your boss will begin to depend on you. Eventually – and this may happen in six months, or it may take a year – he will see you as an entirely different and more important employee than any of the others he deals with. He will begin to think of you asindispensable. At that point, you should have no trouble getting your 10% raise. You might do much better than that. S&A: Is there anything else an employee should do to make sure they get that raise? Mark: Yes… and it's very important not to skip this step… Establish relationships with other employees who have a higher rank than you. Ask them for their help and insight. Volunteer to help them do their jobs, and do that work after hours. Your goal is to develop a back-up network of powerful people who see you as an up-and-comer. These people can be instrumental in getting you the raise you deserve if your boss, for whatever reason, fails to give you your due. If you can, develop relationships with colleagues from other businesses in your industry, too. You never know – a few of them may offer you more than 10% to come and work for them. Here's a key point: The habits you have to work on now in order to get yourself that 10% raise will be the same habits that will help you double or triple your salary in the future. Superstar employees don't do a hundred things better than ordinary, good employees. They usually do just a handful. You'll discover and perfect your handful next year in seeking to please your boss, and you'll be able to use those new skills to go all the way to the top. S&A: But what if the actions you have to take to please your boss are not the best thing for the business? Mark: I receive this question often. Some businesses – and this happens more frequently with larger, corporate businesses than with growing enterprises – become politically divided. In such businesses, it's possible to get a job working for someone who cares more about himself and his own power than about the company's future. If you have such a boss, you should really try to find a better one. But if you can't, you will have to be a bit duplicitous. You will have to do everything you can to please him while you are carrying out your plan. But at the same time, find someone else in the company, someone with power, who is willing to mentor you. That person will be either one of your boss' equals or one of his bosses. Most importantly, he must be someone who is committed to the company's long-term profitability. Remember, that is the bottom-line measuring stick for the success of any business. Work to please your mentor at the same time as you work to please your boss. By pleasing your boss, you'll get your big raise next year. And by pleasing your mentor, you eventually will be able to abandon your boss' rotten ship and secure a much better position. S&A: All great advice. Any closing thoughts? Mark: The greater your contribution to your company's success, the higher the salary you will demand. And the best way to be a big contributor is to practice a financially valuable skill. There aren't a whole lot of financially valuable business skills to choose from. Though it's good to know how to analyze a spreadsheet or engineer a new design, if you want to make dramatically more money than you're making now, you are almost certainly going to have to start doing at least one of the three things businesses traditionally pay big bucks for: selling, marketing, and/or managing profits. You've probably heard this before… and you might be thinking this advice does not apply to you because you don't work in a sales or marketing role. That's not the case at all… You don't need to change your profession to contribute a financially valuable skill to your employer. While you work as an accountant or lawyer or engineer, work also with the sales and marketing team to find out how you can help them. Do this voluntarily. Make friends and connections. Do honest and good work for them. Eventually, you will be seen as someone who can step up to take a senior position. I know two accountants, three lawyers, and one engineer who did that. I also know a data input operator, a proofreader, and a customer service person… they are all CEOs or COOs today making hundreds of thousands with seven-figure net worths… But even if you choose not to do that, you can and should be able to boost your salary by 10% next year. And here is how you are going to do it… First, make a resolution to be more valuable to your boss and/or your business. Do it now. Write it down. Second, make a list of all the ways you are currently valuable to your boss and/or your business. Third, make a list of a dozen or so ways that you can increase your value to your boss and/or your business. And pick at least one of them as your objective for next month. And fourth, figure out some way to communicate to your boss or to your company's president that you want to make a bigger contribution this year. (No need to tell him you want a higher salary. He will "get" that without your saying so.) If you set for yourself the goal of getting a 10% raise next year and you get just half of that, you will still be much richer when you retire than you will be if you ignore this advice and go back to accepting the ordinary. So please – start with that 10% goal. Decide to be a much better employee in six months and have a network of people in place who understand your value in one year. Then get that raise and watch your wealth grow. S&A: This is all very useful information. Thanks, Mark. Mark: You're welcome. Source: Stansberry Research |
Friday, September 11, 2015
How Every Decision You Make Can Make You Richer – or Poorer
| How Every Decision You Make Can Make You Richer – or Poorer | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| By Mark Ford, wealth coach, The Palm Beach Letter | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Tuesday, May 22, 2012 You go to lunch with a colleague. Everything is good. When the waiter puts the bill on the table, the total is $26. Do you pick it up? Do you wait and hope he does? Or do you suggest you split it? On the surface, this is a minor decision. But in truth, it is one of a million chances you've had, have, and will have to become wealthier.A cheapskate might look at it this way: If I pay the whole bill, I'll be $26 poorer. If we split the bill, I'll be $13 poorer. If I can get him to pay it, I'll be $13 richer. To the cheapskate, the best decision is obvious. So when the bill arrives, he gets up to "go to the bathroom," hoping he'll be $13 richer when he returns. But I have a different view. Wealth building, like quantum mechanics, often operates according to laws that seem contrary to what is "obvious." Paying the tab, in other words, might actually make you richer. Because the $13 you spend on your lunch partner might give you a return of much more than $13. Your generosity might signal to him that you are the kind of person he can trust. It might tell him you are someone who is willing to give first without demanding recompense. If he sees you in that light, a relationship might be seeded by this small investment on your part. A year later – it is possible to imagine – he might recommend you for a promotion when he himself gets promoted to head up your department. It depends on your assessment of his character. If he impresses you as a person who believes – as you do – in reciprocity, you will know that the $13 is a wise investment. If, on the other hand, he shows you that he is a person who believes in exploiting others, the wise move might be to pay only your share of the bill and not develop the relationship any further. In either case, you are richer.In the first case, you are richer in a potentially lucrative business relationship. In the second case, you are richer in knowledge – knowledge about him that can help you avoid trouble or seize opportunity in the future. I am making two points: First, almost every event in your life is an opportunity for you to become richer. And second, by seeing every situation as a wealth-building opportunity, you can take the actions that will gradually make you very rich. The people I call "instinctive wealth builders" understand this on a gut level. They see every transaction – social, personal, or business – as a wealth-related opportunity. They are always angling, even subconsciously, to increase their wealth. Most of us aren't born with that instinct. For us, a casual conversation is just a casual conversation. And choosing to join a club or hire or fire an employee is that and nothing more. But the moment we put this principle into practice, we see the world very differently. Its potential is no longer limited. It is enormous, maybe even infinite. And we view every action we engage in as a chance – big or small – to increase or diminish our wealth. Train yourself to ask the following four questions – keeping in mind that every situation, big or small, is an opportunity for you to become richer…
Look at every situation you find yourself in as an opportunity to make yourself richer. And I do mean every situation, even the most mundane. This includes:
Some of your opportunities will be small and some large. But by asking yourself these four questions first, you will bring your batting average way up…If you make it a habit to approach every situation this way, it will soon become automatic. And before you know it, you will have seized hundreds – even thousands – of wealth-building opportunities… each one making you a littler richer. Regards, Mark Ford Source: Daily Wealth |
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