When Michael Masterson Was a Daydreaming C Student... the Must-Have Low-Tech Device for Every Internet Business... the Perils of Perfectionism... and Much, Much More
By Michael Masterson
In today's issue, I discuss how being labeled an underachiever got me to where I am today. I also explain why you should keep your goals nice and simple. Then I write about the dangers of deceptive marketing. It can work in the short-term, but it quickly destroys your business. On the health side, Total Health Breakthroughs Managing Editor Jon Herring recommends some ways to keep fit… at the office. Later in the week... Bob Bly reveals the tool all online marketers must own -- and it's not a computer, piece of software, or anything digital. David Cross explains why your customers want less, not more. And they're prepared to pay for it. Master copywriter John Forde tells us how Miles Davis and a lucky sweater can help you become a faster writer. Finally, Bob Cox, founder of our Epiphany Alliance personal success program, tells the story of how he overcame his worst character flaw. Could the same thing be keeping you from fulfilling your potential? -----------------------------------------------------Highly Recommended ----------------------------------------------------- Why Julie Gladly Left Her Six-Figure Job With the help of Brian Edmondson, real estate expert Julie Broad quit her job and started an online business. "As a result of Brian's guidance, I earned $500 my first month, $2,000 my second month, and $5,000 my third month," says Julie. "I'm confident I will earn $10,000 or more every month from now on." Now, Brian will walk YOU though every aspect of getting an Internet business up and running.
"All personal achievement starts in the mind of the individual." W. Clement Stone What Does It Really Take to Change Your Life?
By Michael Masterson
I was 14 when I first heard the word "underachiever." Mrs. Growe, my ninth-grade English teacher, used it to describe a student who had, in her opinion, failed to work to his potential. The student? Yours truly. "Mr. Masterson," she announced to the class, "is the classic example of an underachiever. He doesn't complete his work assignments. He shows up late for class and then wastes his time daydreaming. As a result, he produces C work. From a child with modest potential, I would be happy with mediocre results. In his case, I am very disappointed." I was not surprised by the assessment. It was accurate. I couldn't deny it. The female maturation process held my interest at that time. That and football. And goofing around with my friends. And just about anything else but schoolwork. I wasn't a good reader. And I couldn't sit still during class. Much later, I discovered that I was suffering from a combination of dyslexia and what is now called "attention deficit disorder." But neither Mrs. Growe nor I knew about such things then. As far as she was concerned, I was a perennial slacker. I shared her opinion. At least once a year, however, I promised myself that I would "turn over a new leaf." I sensed, as Mrs. Growe did, that I was not as dumb as my grades suggested. And I felt, deep down in my bones, that eventually I'd make a success of myself. But before I could be successful, I had to change something very fundamental about myself. And that change began at the end of my senior year, when I woke up one day and realized I was disgusted with myself. I was tired of being a perennial screw-up. I was sick of getting lousy grades and playing the fool in class. I wanted to become the person Mrs. Growe thought I should be. But it seemed to be too late. There was only a month to go before graduation, and it was obviously impossible to rectify four years of poor performance in so short a time. Since my grades were mediocre, I had no chance of getting a college scholarship. And since my parents couldn't afford to help me with tuition, I had no choice but to attend a community college. The community college was happy to take my $400 a year, and would be equally happy to give me the Cs I had been earning in high school. But I wasn't willing to live that life any longer. Oddly enough, it seemed that my lack of academic success at that point in my life was a benefit in disguise. I was about to put myself in an environment where mediocrity held sway -- where I would be competing with other high-school screw-ups just like me. But what if I used the remaining time I had in high school to prepare for a new and better life in college? What if I directed my energy toward developing skills and habits that would help me succeed over the next four years? And that's exactly what I did. The Saturday after I made my big decision to change, I drove my '56 Bel Air to Nassau Community College in Garden City, NY. I gathered together everything I could find about the school. I brought it all back home and spent the rest of the weekend carefully reading every pamphlet and brochure. I was doing something I had never done before: getting ahead of my competition by planning my success. In the next few weeks, I became a minor expert in that little college. I knew every course they offered, every major they offered, and every teacher who'd be teaching freshmen that year. Taking the initiative to plan my success gave me a very positive feeling. I could actually feel myself changing. I was becoming -- even before I began -- a serious and committed student. I realized that I would be starting college as a brand-new person. None of my teachers would have heard about my high school antics, and none of my fellow students would be expecting me to be the class clown. Starting college without the bad reputation I had established in high school was like a gift from the gods. I could walk into my new classes as an interested, enthusiastic student who was there to succeed. And that's what happened. I showed up for classes in September on time, prepared with the required texts. I sat in the front row and raised my hand whenever the teacher asked questions. I did my homework assignments and spent my spare time studying. Between attending classes, studying, and running a house-painting business on the side, I worked 16 hours a day, seven days a week. By the end of the first semester, I had the reputation of being an A student. Throughout the rest of my college and graduate school career, I never regressed. I sometimes think about what would have happened to me if I hadn't finally become disgusted with myself. Or if I had failed to make those preparations that allowed me to turn over a new leaf. It's highly likely I would be grinding out a living somewhere, working a job I didn't like, struggling to pay my bills and making futile resolutions -- knowing I'd live out my life as a bootless loser. The difference for me was the simple realization that if I didn't change myself, my life wouldn't change -- not then or ever. I had wasted my high school years making promises I never truly meant to keep. But I was tired of doing that. Thinking back, I can see that there were several factors that allowed me to change in a serious and committed way: - First, I had bottomed out emotionally. I had finally reached a point where I truly detested myself for not achieving what I felt was my potential.
- Second, I made a decision to change completely -- to go from being a C student to the top of my class.
- Third, I recognized that I would have to change not just my work habits but the way I thought about myself. I would have to "become" the A student I wanted to be.
- And last, but not least, I took action immediately. I didn't wait till September to make the change. I started right away by preparing myself to succeed during my final months of high school.
Have you made resolutions that you've failed to keep? Held dreams of success and happiness that you've failed to fulfill? Do you sometimes feel that, however much you've done, you are still, in part, an underachiever? If so, there is good news. Your past behavior has no bearing on your future work habits. If you can change the way you work -- even a little -- you can change the way you live. Most people reading this will think, "I don't need another motivational speech. What I need is a change of luck." I'm here to say that luck had nothing to do with the change in my life. And it needn't have anything to do with whatever changes you would like to make in yours. Had I waited for luck to come to me, I might be waiting still. My life changed when I got fed up and started planning my success. You, too, can change your life if you are (a) dissatisfied with the lack of success you've had so far, (b) willing to make a big change -- and not just a minor adjustment, (c) prepared to start working differently and thinking about yourself as a different kind of person, and (d) willing to start now by preparing yourself to succeed. P.S. One of the best ways I know of to get ready to succeed is by finding a mentor. Without the mentors in my life, I know for certain I would not be where I am today. Bob Cox, who runs ETR's Epiphany Alliance program, wasn't my personal mentor. But he has mentored four men who went on to become billionaires. And he has helped thousands of ETR readers fulfill their dreams. You can find out more about Bob and his coaching program here. -----------------------------------------------------Highly Recommended ----------------------------------------------------- Need Help Simplifying Your Life? Success mentor Bob Cox discovered a secret… it's one that grew his income by 300%, helped him co-found a local start-up that grew into a $2-billion-a-year enterprise, and allowed him to retire for the first time at age 36. The same secret - which Bob calls the "Hourglass Epiphany" - could be your key to being successful. You can get the full details on the "Hourglass Epiphany" - and find out how to use it to create your own life of relaxed accomplishment - right here.
In your eagerness to get more customers, you may one day be tempted to make promises and claims that are deceptive or misleading. Resist the temptation. Why? Not because it won't work. I can tell you from experience that hype and deception do work. At least they do at first. Customers want to believe your product can perform miracles for them. So they have a built-in capacity to believe claims that are exaggerated -- even absurd. But if you sell a customer a Mercedes and deliver a Hyundai, he's going to be disappointed. And a disappointed customer is not one who is likely to buy from you over and over again. That may not seem like a big problem. But it is. Because initial sales are expensive to make. In the long run, they are generally made at breakeven or at a loss. So you need those back-end dollars for your profits. Deceptive and misleading advertising destroys the relationship you have with your customers. This will eventually destroy your business. Not only that, but deceptive and misleading advertising is also dumb advertising. It requires no cleverness or persuasive skill, so you never develop those talents. Furthermore, deceptive and misleading advertising locks you into a hypey cycle that is personally unrewarding. Sell your product hard. Sell it strong. Sell it like you believe in it. And if you don't, find a product you can believe in. Obesity Begins in the Office Researchers studied 1,600 full-time workers. They found that those with the most "total daily sitting time" were 68 percent more likely to be overweight or obese. Their findings were recently published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Surprise, surprise. For those of us who work at a desk all day, some level of inactivity is a given. But your workplace doesn't have to be a completely sedentary environment. Bring a couple of dumbbells to the office. Pick 'em up for a few minutes every hour or two. Or learn some of the bodyweight exercises that ETR contributor Matt Furey teaches. Spend two or three minutes doing Hindu squats every time you get up to go to the bathroom. Your metabolism will be higher for the entire day. When Joe Mokwa became Chief of Police for St. Louis in 2001, he had a big problem on his hands. Since 1962, St. Louis had been plagued by an average of 145 homicides a year. How did Mokwa handle it? He made it his goal to get the number below 100. And he transmitted that monumental challenge to the head of the homicide unit by writing the number "99" on a piece of paper and handing it to him. The message was simple but clear. And the following year, the toll plunged to 69. As this example illustrates, you don't have to make a goal less ambitious to get it accomplished. Sometimes, all you have to do is make it simpler. Prior to Chief Mokwa's simple challenge, a dozen efforts had been made over a period of 20 years to lower the city's homicide rate. But by forgetting about who was going to do what and how each step would be accomplished -- by allowing the homicide unit to figure all that out -- Mokwa did what nobody else was able to do. That's one reason simple goals are so powerful. Instead of attempting to sort out all the details at the outset, you break through inertia by deciding on what you want to accomplish and immediately start working on it. Ready. Fire. Aim. You handle the details as the need arises. Another reason simple goals are so powerful is that they are easy to understand -- for you and anyone else involved in their execution. Simple goals make decision-making easy. You need only ask yourself, "Which choice is more likely to get me closer to my objective?" Nine times out of 10, this will give you the right answer.
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"Thank you for Michael's article on Goldman Sachs. They, along with the big banks in this country, have been part of the problem for a long time, and why we are in this current economic and financial mess." John Fagan -----------------------------------------------------Highly Recommended----------------------------------------------------- Ready to Sell? In his book Ready, Fire, Aim, Michael Masterson reveals how to develop quality products -- that the market wants -- and sell them. And it's not about coming up with "the next big thing." That is a recipe for disaster, Michael says. Find out more here...
Today's Words That Work: Bootless Bootless (BOOT-lis) -- from the Old English for "unpardonable" -- means useless. Example (as used by Michael Masterson today): "I sometimes think about what would have happened to me if I hadn't finally become disgusted with myself.... It's highly likely I would be grinding out a living somewhere, working a job I didn't like, struggling to pay my bills and making futile resolutions -- knowing I'd live out my life as a bootless loser."
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