Editor's Note: Over the course of our wealth building journey, we have sent you many opportunities to generate extra streams of income. All these ideas have a few things in common - you can start them with little or no capital, with just a few hours of focus a week, you can do them from home, and without an elaborate education or specialized skill-set i.e. anyone should be able to do them.

A few of these ideas are writing or communication-oriented. In fact, the first and most important idea was that of copywriting, not only for those who want to use copywriting itself as an extra income opportunity, but also for those who want to understand the power of persuasive communication in selling - whether you want to sell a service, a product, an idea, or yourself.

Whatever business you want to start, or idea you want to pursue, the power to communicate well - in speech and writing, gives you an enormous advantage. After talking to many of our members who want more input on the area of communicating well, we have decided to create a series on persuasive communication, Wealth Through Personal Power.

Below is Marks first essay in the series…

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Double Your Personal Power by Mastering One Simple Strategy I've Used to Make a Fortune In any organization, power moves inexorably to those who speak well.

By well, I don't mean eloquently. I mean persuasively. There is an art and a skill to persuading people to accept your ideas. In today's essay I will tell you about the simple, four-part strategy that I use.

It is a strategy that is responsible for a great deal of the success I've had in business. It can be used online, on the phone, and in person. And you'll be able to use it as soon as you finish reading this.

But before I reveal my technique I'd like to persuade you that speaking well is indeed a very powerful success tool. Because if you have any doubt, you won't put my trick to work, will you?

Think about some of the most powerful people in the world. Oprah Winfrey, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffett, to name a few.

What do these people have in common? Intelligence? Yes, but there are plenty of intelligent people who don't have power and who aren't successful. Our universities are filled with them. No, intelligence is not it.

What these three people share is the ability to speak well and persuasively.

Oprah Winfrey is a master speaker. Her secret to becoming the world's most powerful woman (and there is no doubt that she is - even more powerful than Hillary Clinton, another great speaker) is that she found a way to make millions of people believe she cares about them.

Bill Gates became one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the history of America not by being a computer genius (he isn't) but by knowing how to convince a select group of people that he could deliver a system that could change the world.

And Warren Buffett? His persuasion skills have been a huge part of his success.

“Speaking well is… the number one reason for career advancement,” Virginia Avery asserts in The Power of Your Speech. “Every time you meet with a client or make a presentation, your image is affected - for better or worse.”

Woodrow Wilson, Avery points out, began his career as a reserved political science professor with a stilted speaking style. When he decided to go into politics, he set about becoming a skillful orator. And when he delivered his inaugural address as the 28th President of the United States, it was said that “not since Lincoln has there been a president so wonderfully gifted in the art of expression.”

“If all my talents and powers were to be taken from me by some inscrutable Providence and I had my choice of keeping but one,” Daniel Webster once said, “I would unhesitatingly ask to be allowed to keep the power of speaking, for through it I would quickly recover all the rest.”

Although I consider myself a writer first and foremost, my skill at speaking has been responsible for most of my most important accomplishments.

Saying the right thing got me a 25% share in the first information product I created. That stake in the business made me a millionaire in less than two years. Speaking well landed me additional partnership deals in the years following that first one. As a result, my share of the business grew to include one-third of a group whose yearly revenues exceeded $135 million. Less than two years after I “retired” at 39, I talked my way into a high-paid gig that has generated a substantial seven-figure income ever since.

Speaking persuasively continues to help me form partnerships and make alliances that are both pleasurable and profitable.

So… have I convinced you that being able to communicate persuasively is a critically important success skill?

Then my next question to you is this: What are you doing about becoming a more persuasive speaker? What steps are you taking right now? Are you reading books on speaking? Are you taking courses? Are you thinking carefully about how you communicate with your colleagues, your clients, and your boss?

How would they rate you as a persuasive speaker? If the answer is anything other than “great,” you have work to do!

And don't tell me you “don't have enough time.” Stephen Covey poked holes in that argument in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

In the rush to get everything done that we are given to do every day, said Covey, we tend to take care of the urgent tasks first and push off the non-urgent ones. Yet, it is the important-but-not-urgent tasks - like those that help you improve your speaking skills - that will make the greatest long-term difference in your life. So you have to make them a priority. And once you make them a priority, they will get done.

It is impossible to overestimate the value of speaking well. Whether you are negotiating a lease on a car, presenting an idea at a business meeting, having a conversation with a powerful person you've just been introduced to - what you say and how you say it matters.

So let's begin your mastery of speaking with the simple four-part strategy I talked about at the beginning of this essay. As I said, you can put this strategy to work immediately. And you will notice the difference as soon as you start.

Persuasive speaking has four parts: knowing what you want, understanding what the other person wants, understanding the possible objections, and then presenting your case as simply as possible.

Step One: Figure out what you want.

Let's say you've been invited to take part in a business meeting… or perhaps you're gearing up to have an important conversation with a family member. Spend some time beforehand thinking about the topic you will be discussing. Figure out how you can benefit from it. Set a specific, measurable goal for yourself. Then figure out how you can achieve that goal.

This may seem like an unnecessary step. You might be thinking, “I don't need to think about what I want. I am always aware of it.”

In fact, most people don't know what they want. They have some general impressions of what being successful means. But they don't analyze those impressions. They don't break them down. They don't understand how to achieve them strategically.

Step Two: Figure out what the other person wants.

Contrary to what some self-improvement gurus will tell you, you won't get what you want in life simply by asking for it.

Everybody is ultimately motivated by self-interest. Achieving your specific goals, therefore, is a matter of figuring out how you can satisfy the desires of others.

If, for example, your goal for that business meeting you've been invited to is to be nominated to head up an upcoming project, plan for it by making a mental list of how your nomination will help each person attending the meeting. Figure out how, in leading the project, you can provide that.

Most important, think about how you can direct the project so that it will achieve growth and profitability for the company. Spend some time formulating the phrases you will use to drive that point home.

By putting the company first, you will enlist the respect and support of just about everyone. You will establish yourself as a natural leader. And then, when you explain how the project will benefit each person individually, you will see how quickly they line up to support you.

Step Three: Take time to consider the objections.

After figuring out how you can achieve your goal by providing benefits to others, make a list of the objections you might encounter.

Good copywriters do this when they write a promotional package. Good public speakers do this before giving a speech. You should do it too before making any informal presentation.

Of course, it's not enough to list potential objections. You must craft concise arguments that will overcome those objections. You must show your listeners that you are sympathetic to their concerns and that you have a plan to deal with them.

Break the objections down into their component parts. Analyze those parts. Discover their weaknesses or find ways to minimize them. Base your thinking on research, if you have time to do it. But also think about your past experience. Remember that your ultimate objective is to find solutions that are good not just for you but for the people you're speaking to.

Step Four: Keep it simple.

After you have taken these first three steps, you will be very excited to present your case. But then you will start coming up with all sorts of extra ideas. All sorts of secondary benefits and arguments that might be useful if you were writing a long paper, but which will only hamper your effectiveness if you include them in your oral presentation.

So before you make your pitch, make a conscious decision NOT to mention these secondary considerations. Just focus on the main idea and the primary benefits. And state them as clearly and compellingly as you can.

Ready, Fire, Aim

Most of us, most of the time, speak impulsively. We are stimulated by some event or remark and utter the first thing that pops into our heads. We don't stop to consider the effect our statement will have on those to whom we are speaking. Neither do we consider how our words will affect us. Yet they surely do.

“Words are all we have,” Samuel Beckett said. And this is often true.

You can't force your colleagues to listen to your ideas. You can't force your boss to give you a raise or a promotion.

You can't force your spouse to agree with everything you say. But if you follow these four simple steps before you speak, you will be amazed at the persuasive power you will have.

Best, Mark

The journey of a thousand manuscript pages (or even 150) begins with a single idea. Here's how to find one.

Many people who attend my book-publishing semi­nars already have a book idea in mind. Others, however, have a strong desire to write a book, but are stuck on coming up with a suitable topic. If you fall into this category, here are 10 sources of ideas for books you may want to write:

Job Experience

An obvious but often overlooked source of book ideas is your job. Thousands of excellent books have been written by authors about a skill, expertise or career experience gained on the job.

This is how I came to write my first book, Technical Writing: Structure, Standards and Style (McGraw-Hill). My first job after graduating college was as a technical writer for Westinghouse Electric Corp. in Baltimore. After several months writing technical materials, I began to feel the need for a writing guide to assist technical writers with matters of style, usage, punctuation and grammar. (For example, does one write 1/4 or 0.25 or one fourth in technical documents?) Being book-minded, I went to the bookstores and found nothing appropriate.

My idea was to compile a style guide for technical writers modeled after the best-selling general writing style guide, The Elements of Style, by Strunk and White. I wrote a content outline and book proposal, and began to pursue agents and publishers. I was extremely lucky: The first agent who saw Technical Writing agreed to represent the book, and within three weeks, he sold it to the first publisher to look at it, McGraw-Hill. The advance was $8,500 - not bad for a first-time author in 1981 for a short (100-page) book.

Not every book I've written since has sold so quickly and easily. But subsequently, I have written a number of books based on skills and experiences gained in various careers and jobs.

Do you hold a highly desirable position or work in a glamorous industry? Then you can write a book telling others how to get into your line of work.

Have you developed specific and valuable skills such as computer skills selling, marketing, finance, negotiating or programming - skills that others need to master? There's a need for a book telling them how to do it.

A Course You've Taught

If you get the opportunity to teach a course, keep in mind that the topic and content outline you develop for the course may have appeal to a publisher as the outline for a potential book on the same subject.

In 1981, a private seminar company offering low-cost public seminars in New York City asked me to do an evening program on marketing and promotion for small business. The pay was lousy, but I accepted. A year or so later, I took the course title and outline, turned it into a book proposal, and sold my second book, How to Promote Your Own Business to New American Library.

If you want to write nonfiction books, there are two advantages to teaching a class or seminar. First, in developing and teaching the course, you will simultaneously be doing most of the legwork necessary to produce a book on the subject. Therefore, once you've presented the course, transforming it into a book is a relatively quick and easy next step (or at least quicker and easier than doing a book from scratch).

Second, teaching the course positions you as an expert in the subject, making you more attractive to book publishers. They figure that anyone who can lead a course on the topic must have a substantial amount of information and expertise to share. If you taught the course at a prestigious, well-known institution, that further boosts your credibility.

A Course You've Taken

Taking courses can also give you a fresh infusion of ideas and information that can become the basis for a book.

The same private seminar company I was teaching small business promotion seminars for offered a number of courses in different career areas, which as an instructor, I could take for free. After taking several, I came up with the idea of doing a career book on how to break into some of the more exciting, glamorous industries and professions, such as music, film, advertising, travel and television. The book, Creative Careers: Real Jobs in Glamour Fields, was published by John Wiley & Sons.

Warning: When you take the course, don't steal or plagiarize the instructor's seminar, reprinting it word for word as your book. Consider it a starting point and supplement it with additional research from many other sources (book articles, interviews, other seminars, etc.).

If the instructor does have good information you want to reprint (such as lists of contacts and resources), get his permission in writing. You can also ask the instructor if he or she will agree to be interviewed by you for inclusion in the book.

Life Experience

“It is in the totality of experience reckoned with, filed and forgotten, that each man is truly different from all others in the world,” writes Ray Bradbury in Zen in the Art of Writing. Every person and every life is unique, and this is why they say that everyone has at least one book inside them. What has happened to you has not happened to other people, and your experiences will make for a book that is either instructive, entertaining, moving or any combination of these.

This applies to everyone. For example, if you have chosen to remain single, you can write Living Alone and Loving It or a similar book on the joys of being single. If you are married with children, you have unique experiences as a parent, and can share your knowledge and experiences with others in an entertaining or informative book. If you are married but have been unable to have children, you have credibility to write a book on infertility. If you and your spouse have not had children by choice, you can write a book on Choosing to Live Child-Free. If you have only one child, you can write Raising the Single Child. If you're a single parent, you can write Straight Talk and Advice for Single Parents.

In 1982, the New York City engineering firm employing me told me I would have to relocate. My fiancee did not want to leave Manhattan, so I resigned and started a new career as a self-employed industrial writer, producing brochures and data sheets for chemical companies and industrial equipment manufacturers.

The transition from employee to freelancer was an educational experience, one I knew many others would go through (or would hope to, someday). This became the topic of my book, Out on Your Own: From Corporate to Self-Employment, also published by Wiley.

A Process Or Task You Know How to Do

Through work, leisure or life experience, we all have done things that many other people have not done, and therefore know a good deal more about these things than they do. The inexperienced would like to learn from your experiences and avoid your mistakes, and a book is the ideal vehicle for this.

For instance, after resigning from the engineering firm and becoming a self-employed industrial writer in 1982, I was forced to learn how to succeed in the commercial writing field on my own; there was no book to guide me. I made many expensive mistakes and learned from experience.

To help other writers speed the learning curve and avoid these mistakes, I wrote Secrets of a Freelance Writer, published by Henry Holt & Co. The book is about the process of running a freelance writing business, covering everything from getting started and finding clients to setting fees and negotiating contracts.

A Hobby

Hobbies that fascinate you no doubt fascinate a lot of other people. As a hobbyist, you have much more knowledge than a journalist or other outsider who would have to research the field from scratch. Why not turn your hobby into a profit center by writing a book about it?

One of my hobbies is collecting comic books. I love Superman, Batman, Wolverine, and the other DC and Marvel superheroes.

When I graduated college in 1979, I burned with the desire to write a book and get it published. I started two book projects. One was a Harlequin romance novel, which I started not because I enjoy Harlequin romance novels - I've never even read one - but because I figured it would be easy to do.

I was wrong. I wrote 40 pages of the worst Harlequin romance novel of all time before abandoning the project.

But writing those pages taught me an important lesson: Don't select a topic or form for your book just because you think it is commercially viable and will make you a lot of money. If you do, your lack of enthusiasm will show through in your writing.

On the other hand, if you are passionate about your topic, your enthusiasm will show through in your writing. The book will be easier and more fun to write, and the final product will be much better in quality.

The second book project I started working on was a trivia book on comic book superheroes, written in quiz form. For example: What are the six types of kryptonite? (Green, red, blue, white, gold, jewel.) What was Spider-Man's major in college? (Physics.)

I wrote a short manuscript and, having no contacts in publishing, and no knowledge of the publishing business, sent it to editors at various paperback publishers with a cover letter. It was rejected by all. I gave up and put it in a drawer.

Years later, when I was cleaning out some files, I came across the manuscript. I was going to throw it out, but instead mailed it to my literary agent with a note saying, “Do you think you can do anything with this?”

Six weeks later, she called and said she'd sold the book. I was speechless, The book, Comic Book Heroes: 1,101 Trivia Questions About America's Favorite Superheroes From the Atom to the X-Men, was published by Citadel Press.

The second lesson I learned from this experience was: A book idea that doesn't sell now might sell later. If you get rejected by publishers, don't throw away or forget about the book proposal. File it and make a note to take another look at it in six or 12 months. Sometimes you have success on the second or third try because the timing is right. Other times, you see the idea from a fresh perspective, rewrite it, and make the sale with the revised book proposal. When asked to address the graduating class at Oxford, Winston Churchill, a great writer, stood up, and said only, “Never give up,” and sat back down. These three words are good advice for authors who want to sell book proposals to publishers.

Eventually, a third lesson revealed itself: Every book published gives you credibility that can lead to more book contracts in the same field.

I enjoyed writing the comic book trivia book. After it came out, I thought about doing trivia books on other topics in a similar format.

I was always a big Star Trek fan. This resulted in two books with Harper-Collins: The Ultimate Unauthorized Star Trek Quiz Book and Why You Should Never Beam Down in a Red Shirt. As publishers began to see me as a writer of popular culture trivia, I received several more contracts along this line, including What's Your Frasier I.Q.?, a quiz book on the TV show Frasier.

Books about hobbies can be how-to, money-making, reference, specialized or general information. If you have an interest in tropical fish, for example, you could write How to Keep Tropical Fish (how-to), How to Breed Tropical Fish for Fun and Profit (money-making), An Illustrated Guide to Aquarium Fish (reference), Care and Breeding of Fancy Guppies (specialized) or Your First Fish Tank (general).

Notice that the first six methods on this list involve you, the author, having some special insight, experience or information on the topic of your book. Author and publisher Dan Poynter says, “Write about something in which you are a participant. The world needs more books written by writers who are also experts, not writers who are journalists.”

“Concentrate on the area that interests you, and if you're not an expert now, you may become one,” writes Tom Peeler in The Writer. “And even if the area of interest still requires consultation with recognized professionals, specialization will allow you to develop regular sources and will give you credibility with them.”

One of Gary Larson's Far Side cartoons shows an author autographing his book at a book signing. The caption reads, “After being frozen in ice for 10,000 years, Thag promotes his autobiography.” The title of the book: It Was Very Cold and I Couldn't Move. Obviously, no publisher expects you to have 10,000 years of experience in your subject matter. But writing about something you know, have experienced or have achieved is one route to coming up with a book idea a publisher will buy from you.

Tidbits of Scattered Information You've Collected Or Compiled

Are you interested in a specific field of knowledge or study? And are you the type who clips articles and collects tidbits of information on your topic? If so, you can convert this passion for information by compiling your collected knowledge into book form.

For a while, I became fascinated with all the toll-free consumer help lines and hotlines I saw advertised, giving free information on everything from AIDS prevention to gardening tips to stock market quotes. I became an obsessive collector of these numbers, clipping articles and writing down 800-numbers I heard on the radio and saw on TV. Finally, I compiled them into a book, Information Hotline U.S.A., published by New American Library.

Similarly, a friend of mine, Don Hauptman, is obsessed by language in general and word-play in particular. Don is a collector of information, and began collecting acronyms (such as DNA, LSD, scuba, laser). When his collection got large enough, he turned it into a book on acronyms, Acronymania, published by Dell.

A Gap You've Found in the Reader's Knowledge You Know You Can Fill

An excellent way of finding marketable ideas is to talk with people and find out what they want and need to know, then write a book to satisfy that information need.

For example, an attorney with good negotiating skills heard many clients telling him that they, too, wished they had good negotiating skills and would like help becoming better negotiators. The attorney became a millionaire by writing and selling books, audio and videotape programs, seminars and training sessions in negotiating skills.

Working as a business consultant, I saw there were dozens of books on sales, but almost nothing on how to generate leads for salespeople. I proposed The Lead Generation Handbook, which sold to Amacom, the publishing division of the American Management Association.

And when we moved out of New York City and bought a home in the suburbs, we knew nothing about plumbing, electricity, gardening, cars, aluminum siding, roofing, or the dozens of other things every homeowner eventually becomes familiar with. I thought, “Why not write a book that will be an instruction manual for first-time homeowners?”

I wrote a proposal for a book titled The Homeowner's Survival Guide. No one was interested, and I put the proposal away in a file and forgot about it. Several years later, a major publisher - one for whom I've now written several books - came out with such a book with the exact same title.

Another lesson learned: Pay attention to your own gut feelings. Had I kept trying with this book, as I advise you to do, it might very well have sold within a year or so. But I gave up on it, and now another author's name is on the cover.

An Existing Topic You Can Target to a Specific Audience

A common situation is the author who wants to write a book on a specific topic but finds the field overcrowded.

This happens to all of us: You get an idea for a book and get excited about it. Then you visit the bookstore and find two shelves' full of books on the same topic, books that seem very much like yours. You become discouraged by the competition, give up and drop the idea. Don't! You can still write that book. You just need a fresh slant, angle or hook.

One of the easiest and most successful methods to finding this fresh slant is to target your book toward a specific audience within the market. For example, a seminar leader told me she wanted to write a book on presentation skills, but was afraid to try because so many books already exist. She mentioned at one point that she trained mainly women. I asked her if women making presentations in the business world face a different set of challenges than men do. “Of course,” she replied.

“Then,” I suggested, “the title of your book should be Presentation Skills for Women.”

In the same way, I wanted to write a book on selling, but found the market overcrowded. Since my experience is in selling services vs. products, I offered Holt a book on Selling Your Services.

Whatever Interests You

In addition to finding out what interests other people, an excellent source of ideas is what interests you. You are a curious, intelligent, creative human being, constantly thinking and wondering about the world around you. Chances are what interests you will interest many other people, too.

I'm a big Stephen King fan, as are many others. Having written the TV and comic book quiz books, I naturally thought of doing a quiz book on Stephen King. My agent promptly sold it to Kensington Books, a paperback publisher in New York City.

I recommend you keep a notebook, file folder or computer file labeled “book ideas,” and whenever an idea for a book comes to mind, write it down and save it. Don't worry whether the book will eventually interest a publisher. Creating ideas and analyzing/assessing ideas are two separate activities, and should not overlap. Don't hold your creativity back; let the ideas flow and quickly get them all down on paper. Later you can decide which won't work and which merit further effort.

But first, you must have the idea.

Best, Bob Bly

I have been in the marketing business for more than 30 years. And in all that time, I've read only a handful of books on advertising.

I love books and read plenty of them. But I didn't think I'd find anything in a book about marketing that I didn't already know.

I'm embarrassed to admit that. Since I write books on marketing - and expect people to buy and read them - it's downright hypocritical of me not to read other books. Don't you think?

About a year ago, we published an essay by Clayton Makepeace. He excoriated marketers who haven't read any of the great books on advertising.

That hit home. How could I assume I knew it all? How unbelievably arrogant!

So I promised myself I would read all of the world's greatest advertising books. I asked friends for recommendations and consulted published lists (including Clayton's). I ended up identifying about 25 books that seemed to be widely considered “musts” in the industry.

Some were the old classics:

Scientific Advertising by Claude C. Hopkins

Confessions of an Advertising Man by David Ogilvy

Ogilvy on Advertising by David Ogilvy

Tested Advertising Methods by John Caples

Billion Dollar Marketing by Maxwell Sackheim

My First 65 Years in Advertising by Maxwell Sackheim

Ziglar on Selling by Zig Ziglar

Breakthrough Advertising by Gene Schwartz

And some were modern classics:

Power Packed Direct Mail by Bob Bly

How to Sell Anything to Anybody by Joe Girard

The Ultimate Sales Letter by Dan Kennedy

Your Marketing Genius at Work by Jay Abraham

I asked Giovanna, my personal assistant, to find them for me. Several were out of print and available only in first editions that were very costly. Determined to have a complete library, I told Giovanna to go ahead and order them all.

They began arriving a week later. Two books one day. Three books the next. I cleared two bookshelves in my office and started lining them up.

They looked great. I was excited to read them. But for months, they just sat there.

Then, last month, I had a series of meetings with the marketing managers of one of my clients. These were people who were making key decisions on tens of millions of dollars' worth of advertising campaigns. They were professionals. And they were confident they knew what they were doing.

But they didn't. Not really. For the most part, they were making decisions based on advice their bosses had given them. For example, one young executive told me he was doing an advanced early renewal program for a newsletter. I asked him what he hoped to accomplish by that since the subscribers were already signed up for automatic renewal. He said, “We'll get the money in faster.”

I said, “But you have plenty of cash. You'll be using a valuable advertising slot to bring cash forward when you don't need it.”

He didn't look like he understood me.

“What you should be doing,” I explained, “is increasing the lifetime value of your subscribers.”

He still didn't look like he understood. So I explained that the merchant's instinct to bring money in quickly does not make sense when you are building a quality business based on trust and good service. What you want to do is to offer your customers additional value all the time at reasonable prices.

The light bulb finally lit up and he looked excited. “This is really great,” he said. “I can see how we can make more money this way.”

I could tell you about half a dozen disturbingly similar conversations I've had since then - all of them with marketing executives who had several years (in some cases, decades) of experience.

The point is that even among educated professionals there is an alarming lack of specific knowledge about the principles and practices of direct-response marketing.

You can't be a great marketer (or copywriter) if you are making decisions based on hand-me-down protocols. You must understand the science behind what you are doing.

It scared me to think that my client was running his business with so many empty cylinders. So I persuaded him to let me develop a retraining program for his marketing people.

Part of that program would consist of ideas I've been jotting down for years. But another part of it, I decided, would be a Recommended Reading List comprised of the best of the books sitting on that shelf in my office collecting dust.

So now I had a purpose to read those books. And I began with the oldest one: Claude Hopkins's Scientific Advertising, first published in 1923. You might wonder whether a book published more than 80 years ago has anything relevant to say to the marketer of today. That was certainly a thought in my head as I picked up the slender volume.

Two hours later, I put the book down and tried to sleep. But I couldn't. I couldn't stop thinking about everything I had just read.

Scientific Advertising is an amazing piece of work. It is the fruit of a master marketer, the accumulation of a lifetime of experience boiled down to 89 fast-reading pages.

Hopkins was a mentor to legendary Madison Avenue advertising guru David Ogilvy. Ogilvy is often called the father of modern advertising. But he learned most of what he knew from Hopkins.

Hopkins was the first one to argue that advertising has only one purpose: to make sales. Clever and entertaining advertising might win awards, but the company that pays for such advertising is wasting its money.

Hopkins was also the first one to preach the importance of knowing the customer and emphasizing customer benefits rather than product features. Customers don't care about your product or about you, he boldly asserted. What they care about is themselves.

He was also one of the first to argue that long copy will almost always perform better than short copy. That was a revolutionary thing to say at the time. And even today, many marketers - including Internet marketers - have a hard time believing it.

If those were the only ideas in the book, it would be well worth the two hours it would take you to read it. But there is so much more.

Hopkins also recognized the power of advertorials - advertisements that have the look and feel of editorial. This is still one of the most powerful and least understood techniques of direct-response marketing. Hopkins had it sussed out more than 80 years ago.

One of the major problems with the advertising on the Internet is the proliferation of fancy layouts and eye-popping graphics. Hopkins explained why that is likely to diffuse the message and reduce sales. Yet advertising professionals today continue to make this basic mistake.

Another gem from the book: the importance of plain language. I've written about the power of clarity of expression many times, and it is a foundation of the writing programs I developed for American Writers - & Artists Inc. (AWAI). Still, the majority of the advertising I see online is full of flourishes and jargon.

And yet another one: When writing advertising copy, never write to a group of people (even though you are writing to thousands). Imagine that you are writing to a single person and make the copy feel like it is personal.

Of all the many great and wise ideas in Scientific Advertising, the one that impressed me most was Hopkins's comment on intimacy. “Intimacy,” he said, “is much more important than salesmanship.” I am willing to bet that nine out of 10 people who read that have no real idea what it means.

It took me 30 years to learn what I know about marketing and copywriting. I learned mostly by experience. And as I said at the beginning of this essay, my initial reluctance to read books on advertising was the product of confidence and arrogance.

There is no doubt that what you learn from experience is more deeply learned than what you learn by reading. But as you are gaining that experience, it certainly doesn't hurt to read great books written by the masters. I keenly wish I had read Scientific Advertising when I was starting out.

If you haven't read Scientific Advertising, you should read it now. If you have read it, you should read it again. Read it seven times - until you understand everything I've mentioned in this essay and everything else you'll find in the book.

Best, Mark

Getting fired is not fun. But getting fired when you think you are doing a good job - that really sucks.

The purpose of today's message is to alert you to an important danger: Someone at your business may be thinking of letting you go.

In fact, it may be more than one person. It may be two or three powerful, influential people. Maybe even a committee.

Does that seem ridiculous? Even impossible? After all, you are showing up on time, completing your assignments. Maybe you aren't the boss's pet or the company superstar, but you are more than earning your income. How could anyone even think of firing you? They should be giving you a raise!

I've fired my share of people. It's never fun. But calling someone into your office who thinks he's doing a good job, and giving him the “you're out of here” message - that kind of surprise attack is very painful.

And here's the thing: Senior executives talk about firing middle managers all the time. Just as middle managers discuss letting rank-and-filers go.

We discuss these “worst-case scenarios” when we encounter bad work, or when our business is suffering.

When those two factors collide - that's when you get surprise firings.

Forbes magazine did a cover feature on a particularly difficult aspect of this subject (firing senior employees).

The article pointed out that “in the old days,” such a firing meant the employee would go through a period of introspection and planning, followed by another job with a more suitable company… often doing more challenging, better-paid work.

That's not the case today.

“Get fired when you are in your 50s today,” Forbes warns, “and you can scramble for years - and still find nothing.”

Forbes dubbed this “the cold new world of the prematurely, involuntarily retired.”

Case in point: Bob Miller, 55, an energetic, accomplished senior insurance executive who lost his job in 2003, and hasn't been able to replace it since. According to the magazine, Miller now passes his time making phone calls, reading, and “mulling over what the hell happened.”

As I said, I've fired my share of people - including well-paid, midcareer executives like Bob Miller. When it came time to call them into my office and deliver the news, I was always astonished to see how surprised they were.

No one - save the business owner - is entirely secure in his job.

When the economy turns against your industry, chances are, your company will react. In an attempt to trim the budget, the first thing a CFO will do is take a look at all the well-paid execs and ask, “Who can we do without?”

I just came out of a meeting with one of my clients. The company is doing very well. For several years, it has experienced amazing growth in both revenues and profits. The customer base is expanding, and new products are being created almost every month. Naturally, the employee base has increased.

So, what is the response to all this good news from the top brass?

“We need a nuclear fallout plan,” the CEO announced at the senior strategy meeting. “Things have been going too well lately. Chances are, something will happen. If it does, I want to be prepared.”

With that as the rationale, divisional vice presidents were asked to prepare plans for sustaining a “significant drop in revenue - one that could destroy profits and even set the company into monthly losses.”

The contingency plans were to identify which products and people would be cut. When the lists came in, there were a good number of fairly senior executives deemed expendable.

I don't think this contingency layoff will occur. Thanks to strategies implemented over the past dozen years, the company is too stable to suffer too badly in an economic slowdown.

But the exercise reminded me that even in good times at good companies, job security isn't guaranteed.

In fact, I'll bet at least one of those executives designated as expendable will be dismissed in the coming year. Not because business got bad, but because his boss realized he wasn't working up to snuff.

That's something I remember about firing those surprised executives. Although they showed up for work and did their jobs, none of them were star performers.

In all the firings I've done (and I'm counting in the dozens, here), I've never fired a superstar.

So, that's one thing that needs to be said. An executive's best chance of keeping his job, regardless of how well his company is doing, is to rank in the top 10% of the employee base. Not in terms of seniority or salary (in this case, that's an onus rather than a benefit), but in terms of his reputation for performance… how well he gets the job done.

But being a superstar employee doesn't give you 100% assurance against dismissal.

There are companies out there that are so screwed up, so political, so disconnected from their business purpose, that they allow really great employees to be fired for personal or political reasons.

If you work for such a company, your good work is no protection for you.

Of course, you shouldn't be working for such a company anyway, because there is no future in it. It's better to quit and get another job - even a job with less pay - at a better company. (But, get the new job before you quit your current one. When it comes to your livelihood, discretion is always the better part of valour.)

How to Tell If You Might Be Fired

Take the following quiz. Each “yes” answer is worth one point.

I am considered among the top 10% of performers in my entire company. I am on the cash-flow side of my business. That is, I am either a marketer, sales person, profit center manager, or product creator. I am the best person in my department, and everyone in my department believes that is so. I am personally responsible for profits - not sales - of at least five to 10 times my annual compensation. I am currently in a very positive stage of work development in terms of contributing to the company's success.

If you scored a perfect 5, you have nothing to worry about.

If your score was 3 or 4, you are probably okay. But get to work on improving the areas you are currently just “okay” at.

If you scored less than 2, you need to be concerned. Although you may be satisfied with your efforts and output, it's quite possible your boss is not.

The best way to find out is to schedule a personal interview (over lunch or coffee) and ask a series of questions that are nonthreatening (yes, bosses can feel threatened), such as:

Is there anyone in my group whose work habits or skills you think I could learn from? What would you say are my strongest and weakest characteristics as an employee? What are three things you'd recommend I do to improve my contributions to this company? On a scale of one to five, how would you rate me on the following?:

Understanding of job Passion for work Job knowledge Job performance Reliability Punctuality Ease to manage Future prospects

If there are several people - influential and powerful people - at your workplace who would indulge you in such an interview, you'll find out all you need to know.

Whatever you do, don't argue.

Accept the implied criticism graciously, and thank them sincerely. They have taken their time to help you achieve your goals. You should be grateful.

I have written on the subject of making yourself a better employee many times in the past. It's also a key part of one of my books, Automatic Wealth. Any work you do to improve yourself as an employee will also improve your basic business skills - the ones you'll need later on to run your own home-based startup business.

The basic steps toward making yourself invaluable to your company are:

Face reality. Make a realistic assessment of how valuable you are. Identify your weaknesses. Come up with a specific plan for improvement. Set detailed objectives with deadlines. Learn the key secrets of your company. How does it make sales? How does it convert sales to profits? Identify your greatest business skill or strength, and make sure it is something you can contribute to your company's sales or profits. While you are correcting your shortcomings, spend an equal amount of time enhancing your strengths. We make our greatest strides learning to do better what we already do well. This is especially true when what we do well counts.

And remember: It takes 1,000 hours (less 25% or 30%, if you have a good mentor) to become competent at a complex skill. That means you can make yourself a valuable employee by devoting 20 weeks or less of your full-time attention to it. Twenty weeks is only five months. That's not a lot of time to invest in your future.

I've been fired once, when I was working as a waiter at Scotty's restaurant in Rockville Centre, New York. I still feel a twinge remembering the shock and humiliation when Scotty sat me down and said, “Son, I've got to let ye go.”

I promised myself that wouldn't happen a second time.

Develop your financially valuable skills so you'll have job security until the day you can afford to walk away happy. Those same skills that will keep you safe now will make it easier for you to develop your own profitable business in the future.

When it comes to personal productivity, we all have the chance to have good days or bad days.

Good days are those that leave you feeling good because you have accomplished your most important tasks. Bad days are those that leave you feeling bad because you have failed to do anything to advance your most important goals.

If you want to have a better life, you must fill it with good days. The best way to do that is to organize your day according to your personal priorities - doing the most important things first.

It's easy to do. Yet most people don't. Eighty percent of the people I know - and I'm including all the intelligent and hardworking people I work with - do exactly the opposite. They organize their days around urgencies and emergencies. Taking care of last-minute issues that should have been dealt with earlier. Or doing tasks that help other people achieve their goals while ignoring their own.

Doing first things first. It is a very simple discipline. Yet its transformative power is immense. It can change your life - literally overnight.

It changed my life. Several times, in fact.

I've used this amazing technique to write six books, produce a record, and script and direct a feature-length film. I used it again last year to write 350 poems - one a day, after I began on January 15. And I am using it this year to get that book of poems published and to write six other books (five business books under the Michael Masterson pen name, and a novel with my personal byline).

MaryEllen Tribby used this technique to write her first book on marketing, “Changing the Channel,” which John Wiley & Sons published in 2008.

It is the single best technique I know for change. And it's the fastest and easiest way to turn your life around if you are not happy with the way it's been going so far.

Doing first things first. Is that what you do?

Here's what I do:

I get up early - never after 6:30 a.m.

I get to work early - never later than 7:30 a.m.

I spend my first hour doing a task that advances my most important goal.

If I'm going strong, I spend the next hour doing the same thing. If not, I switch to a task that advances my second-most-important goal.

I spend my third hour on another priority.

Only after four hours of doing important work do I allow myself to deal with less important work and other people's urgencies.

By the time most people start wandering into the office - between 8:30 and 9:00 - I've done at least an hour and sometimes two hours of work that is helping me achieve my important goals. Goals that correspond to my core values. Goals that will immensely improve my life.

That's how to begin a very good day!

I do this five days a week. And on weekends, I find at least two more hours each day to devote to my top priority. In a year, this averages to about 600 hours. Six hundred hours may not sound like much, but it is.

Six hundred hours is fifteen 40-hour work weeks. That's almost four working months! Think about it.

Here's what you can accomplish in 600 hours:

Learn to speak a foreign language with moderate proficiency.

Become a reasonably skillful ballroom dancer, with a good command of the swing, the fox trot, the salsa, and the hustle.

Achieve a blue belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu or a brown or black belt in one of many other martial arts.

Develop a decent singing voice and feel comfortable singing at parties.

Write five 60,000-word books on a subject you know.

Write and edit two novels or 365 poems.

Write, direct, film, and edit a 30-minute movie.

Start a multimillion-dollar side business.

Do any of those things sound interesting to you?

Now let me show you how I organize my workdays to tie into my long-term goals. Here is the exact schedule I followed on a recent Friday:

6:30: Woke. Dressed. Sprinted, walked, stretched, and meditated on the beach.

The first thing I do is sprint and stretch and meditate. This is the most important thing I can do (besides eating well) to ensure a long and happy life.

7:00: Showered. Changed. Went to my home office.

7:30: Revised two poems written last year.

8:00: Wrote a new poem.

8:30: Wrote 600 words of a new fiction book.

9:30: Wrote 600 words of the marketing book I'm working on.

10:30-11:30: Wrote an essay.

I devote four hours entirely to writing - which is one of my four top priorities. About half my writing time is spent on creative writing and about half on business writing. This reflects a balance that corresponds to my current goals.

11:45: Went to the office. Trained in Jiu Jitsu with my trainer. Showered. Changed.

Jiu Jitsu is a hobby for me. It strengthens me, expands my mind, humbles me, and invigorates me.

1:00: Met with my assistant. Assigned tasks to her.

1:30: Luncheon meeting.

2:45: Another meeting.

3:30: Did a phone interview

4:00: Met with PP to discuss real estate holdings.

I don't take any meetings until after my midday workout. (I've trained everyone I work with not to interrupt me in the morning.) Beginning at noon, my day takes a dramatic change: from a schedule devoted to my primary objectives to one that is devoted to others' needs. Most of the meetings scheduled during the afternoon, for example, accommodate the wishes of others. They have time to see me each day, but it's only after I have taken care of my own top priorities.

4:30: Returned phone calls to GP, DT, and LG.

I return phone calls in the late afternoon. It's not a top priority for me. It's as simple as that.

5:00: Wrote a blog entry.

If I have a spare half-hour during the afternoon, I devote it to an important but not urgent task… like writing things that don't have to be done by a specific deadline.

5:45: Reviewed and returned e-mails.

My penultimate task of the day is to review and return e-mails. I used to do it twice a day. Now I do it only once.

6:15: Planned the next day.

This is the last task of my workday.

6:30: Had a fitness workout with JM.

Feeling good about accomplishing most of my priorities, I often reward myself with a second workout.

7:30: Got home for dinner on time!

None of what I've said so far should astound you. It's all good common sense. It's advice we've been giving you on Common Sense Living for years.

But it's one thing to recognize a good technique and quite another thing to learn to use it. Most people who read this essay will think to themselves, “I should do that. I should wake up early and spend time working on my dream.” They'll think it, but they won't do it. They may get into the office earlier, but when they do they'll probably turn on their computer and read their e-mail.

People sometimes ask me if it's really necessary to get up early. “I'm a night person,” they say. “I get my best work done after dark.”

“Sure you do,” I think when I hear that.

I used to say the same thing. But I was wrong. And I think you will change your mind if you allow yourself to experience the natural, unbeatable advantage of doing your most important work when your body is fresh and strong.

Get up early. Get to work early. Do your important but not urgent tasks first.

Over the years, I've had the awkward duty of declining raises to dozens of employees. Most of them simply sulked and disappeared. But, a few of them took the experience as a wake-up call and fought back. They didn't see themselves as losers, and they weren't going to let me view them that way, either.

If you get turned down for a raise, arguing with your boss won't do you any good. But if you can take advantage of the situation by following the suggestions listed here, you may be surprised at how dramatically you can improve your future income.

Thank your boss.

Yes, thank him or her. If you didn't get the raise you wanted, there is a very good chance it's because you didn't deserve it. If you are like most people, this idea is going to be very hard to try on. But, if you spend some time thinking very objectively about your performance - asking yourself questions such as, “Was I always early?,” and, “Did I stay late?,” and, “Was I always eager and energetic and helpful?” - you will probably come to see your performance for what it was: less than stellar.

If you thank your boss for making you see the light, you'll shock him or her into paying attention to you. If you follow that up with some kind of modest pledge to do better, your boss will be watching for you to do so.

Come in earlier.

There is no more impressive way to show you are serious about your work than to get in earlier than you have been. A half-hour is enough. If you can, get in before your boss does. Get in earlier, and make sure your boss knows it.

Work harder.

However hard you've been working so far, it hasn't been enough to establish you as the No. 1 worker in your department. Getting in earlier and then paying complete and serious attention to your work will demonstrate your intent. As time goes by, the extra time and energy you give your job will show up in higher-level skills, better knowledge, and - most probably - more money.

Get more training.

Take every chance you get to become better educated about your job. Take advantage of whatever programs your company offers. If something comes up, and your company doesn't want to pay for it, pay for it yourself. (As with working harder, you don't want to let your extra training go unnoticed.)

Help your boss plan your future.

After a few weeks as the “new” you, ask for an appointment with your boss. He or she may be afraid you are going to ask for a raise. Assure your boss nothing is further from your mind. When you get your boss alone, reconfirm your gratitude for the wake-up call, brief him or her on the changes and improvements you've made, and then ask what else he or she thinks you can do to move forward even faster. Don't ask for anything in return. Make it seem as if job satisfaction is your only interest.

This is a radical approach.

Ninety-five percent of people who read this will never give it a try. You may be the exception. If you are, you will see dramatic results. Your income will improve in six months or less - and it will keep improving thereafter.

Before you know it, you'll be at a whole new level. Just as important - or maybe more important - your job satisfaction will skyrocket.

You'll like your job better because you'll be better at it - and everyone around you will take notice, including your boss.

If you could be on a first-name basis with anyone in your trade or industry, who would it be?

Whose power - or position - would you most like to gain access to?

Who, among all the people you know, could have the most positive impact on your future?

Imagine having an address book full of people like this - people you could turn to for help or advice whenever you need it.

You can build such a network. It'll take some time and effort, but it can be done. And it'll be valuable.

You can't create a VIP contact list by simply contacting the “right” people and asking to be their friend. You have to first win their interest. Then you must earn their trust.

You can win their interest by using a technique I've recommended before: Write a short and sincere letter to the target individual, complimenting her on a specific thing she did that you honestly admire.

For example, if someone in your industry just came out with a great product or clever marketing campaign, write them a simple letter saying how much you like it. A handwritten note will almost always be read. And it'll be appreciated, as well… if it doesn't feel false. So don't overdo your praise, and be specific. And don't ask for anything in return.

A publisher whose career has been meteoric told me she reads the trade journals. And when she sees a story bylined by a powerful person - whom she'd like to have in her network - she writes a personal note complimenting him on his article.

“It's amazing how often you'll get a reply,” she notes. “And how open they are to starting a correspondence.”

You can start today.

Make a list of all the people who could give your career a real boost. Your list could include people who run successful businesses similar to yours. It could also include people in unrelated fields who have qualities or skills you'd like to have.

Start with the person at the top of your list and work downward, looking for a reason to write a complimentary note. Or search for their publications on the Internet. If you put in a bit of time, you'll find reasons.

Make a commitment - perhaps a letter per month or per week - and stick to it. Ten names isn't enough. You're looking for 100 and hoping half of them will say thank you.

The thank you notes are what you're looking for. But they're just the first step.

You've gained their interest. Now it's time to earn their trust.

This will take longer - months or years. Earning their trust means showing them you're not just a fan, but someone who can add value to their lives and careers.

You can do that by sending the occasional clipping on a subject of mutual interest. Clippings have a greater impact than links.

The next step, if this first step seems to be working (i.e., you get thank you notes), is to ask for advice. You might ask the contact's opinion on a certain matter, suggest a possible joint venture, or request a personal interview. You can, for example, say something like this:

“I know you're very busy - but if you ever have a spare half-hour, I'd love the chance to get some advice from you on my own business.”

If you get an answer, don't try to push the relationship faster than your target person wants. (This, of course, is good advice for all relationship building.)

If he seems neutral or slightly negative, back off. Move on to other people. Remember, you're looking for genuine relationships, not trying to be an annoying pest.

At some point in this process, you'll realize you have a real relationship. You'll be communicating on a first-name basis, and there will be “good will” in the content of your communications. Your target may even reach out to you… to ask a question, recommend a contact, or suggest something you might do together.

That's what you're looking for - a mutually respectful relationship. Then - and only then - you might be able to suggest doing business together.

To review:

Gain interest first, earn trust later. Always be specific and sincere in your praise. Don't expect to receive an answer to every note you write. Ask questions. Be grateful for answers. Suggest business only when your target person is ready.

If you commit yourself to this program, you'll eventually be on a first-name basis with a handful of very influential people. This will have a positive - though unpredictable - impact on your future.

Of all the skills you can have - the ability to speak like Winston Churchill, to paint like Rembrandt, to calculate like Albert Einstein - none will help you achieve wealth as well as knowing how to sell things.

Every private enterprise - every school, every art gallery, every restaurant, law office, hospital, building supplier, hardware store, and entertainment complex - survives and prospers by virtue of its commercial activity.

In my own life, this lesson was hard to learn. Coming from a non-business background, I looked at the commercial world from the outside in. A bookstore, to me, was a place where bookish people gathered to page through old volumes, talk about literature, and make bookish friends. When I fantasized about owning my own (as I often did), I saw myself sitting in a comfortable leather chair, catching up on the classics and having conversations with beautiful women wearing reading glasses.

I had a similar delusion about art galleries. Until I actually bought one. A successful local art dealer I knew told me in passing one day that he was planning on retiring in a few years. I immediately suggested that he allow me to buy into his business.

In my mind, I was going to be sitting in that same leather chair, reading those same classic books, and chatting with those same bespectacled women in my bookstore dreams. The only difference was the conversation. Instead of chatting about Proust, we'd be musing about Pollack.

A month after I started, I bought myself out of the art business. I realized almost immediately that the dream I'd bought into was, in fact, a business based on hard-core selling. Something that I found offensive at the time.

It was a very expensive lesson. But it taught me a great deal about business and life that has been enormously helpful to me since then.

The reason this art dealer had been so successful (he was making a very high income even during periods when other dealers were going out of business) was because he was an expert at selling art. His knowledge of art history was limited. He wasn't ignorant, by any means. He knew the important, inside stuff. What type of paintings a particular artist was admired for, what periods of production were considered the most valuable, etc. But his main skill was in (a) getting people to come into his shop and then (b) getting those who bought to keep buying, year after year.

I began to see that virtually every private enterprise functions that way. To keep doing what you want to do (and to make a profit from it), you have to (a) attract customers at a reasonable cost and then (b) convert them into repeat buyers.

Let's call the first task making the “front-end” sale and the second task making the “back-end” sale. In the years that have passed, I've learned to look at virtually every private enterprise - from regional theatres to restaurants to pet hotels - in terms of these two selling skills.

And this perspective has given me an inside view as to how these businesses operate. It's no longer a mystery to me why, for example, so many restaurants and small hotels go out of business. Why people in the travel and leisure business make so little money. And why most good small businesses fail when they attempt to get bigger.

This fundamental perspective has also allowed me to provide advice to all sorts of different businesses in almost every conceivable industry. I can see now how every successful business is based on understanding the correct answers to two very simple questions:

What is the most cost-effective way of attracting customers?

What is the best way to keep those customers buying?

If you can learn to see your business that way and can one day discover the correct answer to these two questions, you will quickly become known by everyone in your company as a bit of a marketing genius. That will happen because you will understand your business from the inside out. You will know it better than 90% of your fellow workers.

Even the stickiest problems in business - which are always “people problems” - can be analyzed effectively by considering possible outcomes against these two objectives:

* Lowering the cost of acquiring new customers.

* Increasing the lifetime value of each existing customer.

The primary purpose of a good business is not to produce profits. It is to provide good value. But the most effective, least political, and ultimately most enduring way of measuring the value you provide is twofold.

First, by the profit you generate each year. (That pays the bills.) And second, by the long-term profit value of each customer. (Which is a measurement of how much they value your products and services.)

If you want to radically increase your income, my advice is to turn yourself into a marketing genius. And the best way to do that is to:

* Understand how your business works in terms of front-end and back-end selling.

* Become an expert in one or both of these forms of selling.

The most popular prescription for happiness is also the stupidest. I'm talking about the idea that you can defeat depression by “paying attention to yourself.”

Paying attention to yourself doesn't make you happy.

In fact, the more attention you give yourself, the less happy you're likely to be. Focusing inward can perpetuate your feelings of hopelessness.

Think of the least happy people you know. What are they always talking about? Their accomplishments. Their troubles. Their hopes. Their worries. In short: themselves.

I have a friend. Let's call her Shelly. Shelly's a smart, good-looking woman. But she can't maintain long-term relationships. “People are always disappointing me,” she says.

Every time I see her, she talks nonstop about all the people who've failed her. She complains about her boss. She gripes about her husband. She does it with a certain sense of humour - but it's all “Wah! Wah! Wah! What about me?”

I've suggested she'd be happier if she did some volunteer work or took on a hobby. Perhaps got a pet. But she doesn't listen.

To the outside observer, Shelly has nothing to complain about. She has perfect health. She has a healthy family. And she is financially secure - putting her among the luckiest people on Earth. Yet, from her perspective - from the inside - she sees nothing but negatives.

You probably have a Shelly in your life. Maybe more than one.

The trouble with the Shellys of the world is they spend too much of their valuable time thinking and talking about themselves. Their lives never get any better. And they can't figure out why.

They believe the solution lies in getting other people to feel sorry for them. They don't understand that seeking attention is a big part of their problem.

It feels good to have people pay attention to you. But even at its most intense (imagine being a movie star), the pleasure dissipates almost as soon as the attention shifts away.

It's like taking drugs. The effect is temporary. It's addictive. It leaves you wanting more. And each time you get more, it's not enough.

Eventually, it kills you.

The next time you're feeling sad or angry, recognize there is a way to become happy again.

Here's how…

Accept the fact that it's perfectly normal to feel crummy sometimes.

Despite your core strengths and your many accomplishments, you will occasionally find yourself down in the dumps. It's natural for ambitious people (like yourself) to feel that way.

As productivity expert Tim Ferriss says, “The occasional bouts of self-doubt and sadness are an integral part of building anything remarkable.” If you're upset because of something you did to yourself, forgive yourself.

It's okay. You screwed up. What matters is what you do next, not what you just did.

I sometimes get angry when I feel pressured by work obligations. But when I examine the reason for all the work, it's usually because I volunteered to take it on in the first place.

When I recognize my mood is being affected by my own prior actions, I remind myself I'm lucky. “It's okay you're angry. But you don't have to be. You can get through today. And you can have better discipline tomorrow.” It helps me feel better instantly. If you're upset because of something someone else did to you, take a chill pill.

Count to 10. Recognize you can't control the behaviour of other people. The only thing you can control is your response to their behaviour. Nobody can take that away from you.

I used to get upset when my family, friends, or colleagues made a mistake. I realize now how stupid that was. It didn't do me any good. And it made me unproductive, unhappy, and unpleasant to be around.

I changed by learning to turn the other cheek. The moment I stopped resenting others for their shortcomings, I began to feel better about myself.

It's amazing how well this works.

Somebody bumps into you on the street and you sprain your ankle. You have a choice. You can be angry at that person. You can be upset with yourself for not being more aware of your surroundings. Or you can forgive the person and yourself and change the way you think about your injury.

Rather than rue the inconvenience of being laid up for a week or two, see the recuperation period as a gift - the chance to start a new project or catch up on your reading. Don't let unrealistic expectations interfere with your relationships.

(This is a subcategory of not allowing the behaviour of other people to upset you.)

Instead of being upset by your spouse's habit of (fill in the blank), resolve to accept the fact that she won't be changing, and find a way to forgive her…and even love her.

Instead of being angry your child's a slob, find a way to love him for his strengths while gently teaching him (by showing, not telling) the advantages of being orderly.

Instead of being angry at your business partner because she didn't perform as well as you expected her to, learn to appreciate what she brings to the table and negotiate a new deal with her out of love, not anger.

Accepting people for who they are doesn't mean allowing them to make your life miserable. On the contrary, it means being realistic - realizing that 90% of the time, a person's fundamental characteristics can't be changed.

If you find a certain behaviour unacceptable, change the way you deal with it (something you can do) instead of trying to change the person (which you can't do). If you're upset because of circumstances beyond your control, take a double dose of chill pill.

If it's one thing psychology has taught us, it's that you can deal with your troubles more effectively if you define them as “problems” (which can be solved) or “predicaments” (which can be coped with).

Getting caught in a storm or catching a cold isn't a reason to get mad at yourself. Neither, by the way, is being caught in a worldwide economic collapse. If you're unhappy at work, find a way to care about what you're doing.

As Nobel Prize-winning author Albert Camus said, “But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads?”

You won't experience happiness if you work at a job you hate - or if you do poor work on a project you like. But if you learn to care about the work you do, you'll find your energy will improve and you'll start to enjoy it. Engage in a sport or challenging exercise - something that's so demanding, you can't think while doing it.

Walking, stretching, and yoga are great forms of exercise. If you do them with a tranquil mind, they'll make you healthy and happy.

But if you do them when you're sad and feeling sorry for yourself, they'll give you no relief. You will forget about the exercise and focus on your negative thoughts. That will make things worse.

Jiujitsu and weightlifting are good examples of challenging exercise. They require complete focus - giving you no time to think about anything else. Recognize your health has a great deal to do with your mood.

If you feel bad much of the time, you probably need to make a few lifestyle changes:

Eat healthy. Eating too many carbohydrates will make you crazy, cranky, and tired. To have consistent energy all day, use food like fuel. Eat six smallish meals a day…avoid junk food…and favour organic food, lean meat, and plenty of protein. Sleep (and rest) adequately. For me, adequate sleep is a major contributor to feeling good. Studies show people who get seven good hours of sleep a night live longer, suffer from fewer illnesses, and achieve more because they have more energy. If you get tired during the day, take a short nap. Get advice about antidepressants from a good doctor. I'm generally against putting chemicals in my body. I much prefer natural cures. But antidepressants have helped some people close to me, and they may help you, too. Take positive steps to pay less attention to yourself and more attention to others.

A few examples:

Make your friends happy. Smile when you see them. Listen to their stories. Give them the advice they want and shut up when they don't want any. Become the person they turn to when the chips are down. Learn to love - and help them overcome - their faults. Above all, be loyal. Be a reliable and steady resource for your business colleagues. Help them achieve their goals. Not because you want them to reciprocate in some way - but because you care about them and want them to succeed. Do something for someone you don't know - a stranger, a foster child, or a sick or poor person who can benefit from your help. Spend time and money.

Make this outward focus a natural part of your life. Do it purposefully and deliberately until it becomes second nature. You'll know when that happens because you'll feel happy most of the time. And when you become sad or angry, you'll be able to get over it…quickly and easily.

You reach for the mug and knock it over. Hot coffee washes over your laptop.

You arrive home and realize you've left your shoulder bag - with all your IDs and banking information - on the subway.

Your doctor reads your EKG and says, “Gee, I've never seen anything like this before!”

Life dishes out such disasters, big and small. How we react to them says much about our characters and bears heavily on our ability to carry out a happy, successful life.

If I can't find my wallet, I'm prone to think it's been swiped by a sophisticated geek who's already stolen my identity and emptied all my bank accounts.

Waiting for the results of any sort of medical test, I imagine the worst possible outcome.

That, for some reason, is how I'm wired.

My wife, K, is the opposite. She's a natural optimist and doesn't fret at all about the small disasters (except those involving dinner parties). And she confronts the larger ones with a positive frame of mind.

Having a positive disposition is helpful when you're faced with a challenge - big or small.

And although these sorts of emotions are deeply ingrained and very difficult - if not impossible - to eradicate, it is possible to develop mental habits that'll help you overcome your fears and respond to crises - big and small - productively.

Recently, my nephew got himself into some trouble at school and told me it had really overtaken him emotionally. He couldn't sleep, couldn't study, could barely eat, etc.

Knowing what I knew about his situation, I believed he was overreacting. But I knew - because I'm built that way - that his fears felt real to him.

So I wrote him a note with the following advice, based on my own struggles with negative thoughts and feelings:

Make friends with the devil.

What is it that's scaring you? It's probably some “worst-case” scenario that you keep running through your mind.

An optimist, like K, will tell you not to worry about that. She'll remind you, quite correctly, there is a good chance something less than the worst case will occur.

But such advice is useless to the person who's already got the worst-case scenario in his head. It is, after all, a very scary movie. And he's the star of it. Not thinking about it is not an option.

The solution that works for me is to let the movie play itself out in its entirety. I allow myself to imagine the worst… in vivid detail. And then I find some way to see myself accepting that dire reality.

If, for example, my mental movie is one of identity thieves stealing all my money, I direct a mental scene where I'm sitting in my banker's office and he tells me the bad news. And then - close up - a smile comes over my face.

The banker looks at me, astonished and confused. “Mr. Ford, did you hear what I said? You are wiped out. Penniless.”

“Yes, young man,” I see myself saying. “I understand quite clearly. I've been relieved of the burden of all that wealth.”

And then I walk out the door, still smiling, while he watches me… dumbfounded.

I'm having a bit of fun with this, but I'm very serious. This is something I've learned to do over the years, and it works amazingly well.

The simple act of picturing yourself being okay with some imagined disaster is soothing. And if you do it over and over again, that soothing feeling will seep into your psyche, exorcise your fear, and make you stronger and more productive.

Invent a third act.

This little trick - creating a mental movie scene - is very powerful. But there's something else I've been doing recently that adds to the beneficial effect. I create, in effect, a third act to my mental movie.

As you'll remember, the second act ended with me walking out of my banker's office with a smile on my face. That's not bad, but it's hardly the end of the movie.

To give the movie a happy ending, you need a third act. And my third act is about me finding the silver lining.

Every disaster has a silver lining. A torn ligament might put you in bed for a few weeks, but it can also give you a chance to read those 10 books you've been meaning to read. The traffic jam you feared might give you a chance to have that conversation you've been putting off.

Even terminal cancer has a silver lining. You have some amount of time to organize the end of your life and say your goodbyes. You wouldn't have that chance if your fate was to get run over by a train.

So the first step is to practice imagining yourself being okay with the worst-case scenario. And the second step is to identify a silver lining and imagine yourself enjoying it.

Again, this is not the sort of thing you can do once and be done with it. This is a process that gets better every time you repeat it.

But the good news is the more you do it, the easier it is to do it again. You may still have the same old bad instincts, but they'll last only until you begin your positive mental movie. From that point on, everything will get better.

Develop a Plan B.

Having dealt with the worst-case scenario, you will be calmer and more able to assess the likelihood of the various possible outcomes… and make plans for each.

Disaster planning of this kind should deal with at least three eventualities: worst case, bad case, and good case.

Imagine each one. Assess its likelihood. Figure out what you can and can't do about it. Always look for the silver lining.

Take action.

Making friends with the devil, finding a silver lining, and developing an action plan will make you feel 100% better - and you can do all that in a matter of hours (or days, at most). But that improvement in your emotional state won't last unless you start acting on your plan.

As in all other areas of life, action is critical when you are faced with disaster. The moment you start moving your response plan forward, you'll be making progress… and lessening the chances of things ending up really bad.

You'll feel better about yourself the moment you start, and you'll continue to feel better as long as you're taking positive action.

Getting to work early is such a common virtue of successful people that I'm tempted to call it the single most important thing you can do to change your life.

I wasn't always an early riser. For most of my twenties, if I saw the sun rise it was before going to bed. And in my thirties, I'd struggle to get in to the office by 9 a.m. I wasn't afraid of the work. Most days, I'd put in 12-14 hours. But since I had accustomed myself to late hours in college and graduate school, I saw no reason to change my waking and sleeping habits. 'I do my best work after midnight,' I used to say. And for a while, I even believed it.

My conversion happened in my early forties, after I'd already become financially independent. That being the case, I can't argue that it's impossible to become successful unless you get up early. I did it. And plenty of others did it, too. But I can say that the success I've had since then has been more dramatic…and has come a lot easier.

At the time of my conversion, I was working about 65 hours per week, beginning each workday at 9 a.m., working until about 8 p.m., and working at least half a day on Saturday and Sunday. (Needless to say, I wasn't seeing much of my family.)

My partner at the time was getting to work at 7:30 or 8 a.m. (I can't be sure, of course, since I was never there to greet him!) and leaving at about 6:30 or 7 p.m. He was working about the same number of hours as I was during the week but didn't work at all on weekends.

I was jealous of his weekends, and promised myself repeatedly that I'd not work weekends either. But when Friday came to a close, I never felt my work had been done. There were always several very important matters needing attention. Therefore, one weekend after the next became filled with catch-up work.

My family didn't like it. I didn't like it. But the really frustrating thing was that nobody at work seemed to notice all the extra time I was putting in. In fact, I was getting ribbed about coming in late.

After working especially late one night, I stopped for gas at about two o'clock in the morning. As I handed my credit card to the lady in the glass booth, she said, 'Man, you look beat!'

'I've been working almost 12 hours a day,' I told her. 'And half-days on weekends.'

She looked at me, unimpressed.

'You talk about it like it's a virtue,' she said.

'Well, if working long hours isn't a virtue,' I shot back, 'what is?'

'Getting to work first,' she said.

It was bizarre - being lectured about virtue by a gas jockey at 2 a.m. But I knew she was right. For all the extra hours I put in, my partner - who had his weekends free - had cornered the market as far as the puritan work ethic was concerned. He seemed more virtuous not only to our employees but also, I suddenly realized, to me!

There is something about getting in earlier that seems wiser, nobler, smarter, and just plain more industrious than working late. Getting to work earlier says something about being energetic, organized, and in control. Staying late leaves the opposite impression: You are diligent but disorganized, earnest but erratic, hardworking but a drudge. In How to Become CEO, Jeffrey J. Fox puts it this way:

If you are going to be first in your corporation, start practicing by being first on the job. People who arrive at work late don't like their jobs - at least that's what senior management thinks… And don't stay at the office until 10 o'clock every night. You are sending a signal that you can't keep up or your personal life is poor.

The lady in the glass booth was right. Getting to work first was better than working until dawn. From that moment on, I resolved to come to work earlier.

And I did. At first, it was difficult and my success was sporadic. But then I came upon a plan that worked. I resolved to set my alarm clock a minute earlier each day. A single minute would feel like nothing, I figured. Yet in the course of two months, I would have moved the start of my day back by an hour.

I used this minute-per-day program to move my at-work time from 9 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. and then to 8 a.m. and then to 7:30 a.m. Nowadays, I typically wake up at 5:30 a.m. and arrive at my desk (or my workout) at 6:30 a.m.

'Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise,' Ben Franklin advised almost 300 years ago. Taking that path really did make a big difference in my life. And I'm not the only one. There are several studies showing that successful entrepreneurs and most CEOs typically get to work at least an hour before their employees. Most of the wealthiest people I know get up early.

In fact, this is such a universal trait among successful people that I WILL now call it the single most important thing you can do.

You go to lunch with a colleague. Everything is good. When the waiter puts the bill on the table, the total is Rs 900.

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 Rs 900 poorer. If we split the bill, I'll be Rs 450 poorer. If I can get him to pay it, I'll be Rs 450 richer - richer than I would have been if I had to pay for my meal. To the cheapskate, the best decision is obvious. So when the bill arrives, he gets up to 'go to the bathroom,' hoping his colleague will pick up the check.

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 400 bucks you spend on your lunch partner might give you a return of much more than Rs 400.

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 Rs 400 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…

'In what way is this an opportunity for me to become more wealthy?' (Note: I don't ask, 'Is this a wealth-building opportunity?' - because every situation is a wealth-building opportunity.)

'What is the potential of this opportunity?'

'What are the possible problems with this opportunity?'

'What can I do to seize this opportunity?' 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:

The first thought you put in your mind when you wake up each morning. What you listen to on your commute to work. How you greet your boss and fellow workers. What you talk about at the coffee machine. The expression on your face and the firmness of your grip when you shake hands. The conversation you initiate with the person next to you on a plane. Whether you buy a brand-new car or a used one. How your voice sounds when you answer the phone. How you prepare for a meeting. Whether you buy your clothes at Saks or Marshalls. Whether you go out to lunch or eat at your desk. Some of your opportunities will be small and some large. But by asking yourself the four questions above 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.