| Saturday - September 12, 2009 If we advertised our businesses the way the medical establishment promotes some of its most popular "cures," we'd be thrown in jail. Misleading advertising is verboten in most of the business world. Except, that is, when it comes to selling bypass surgery, statin drugs, and other so-called miracles of modern medicine. That's the conclusion you'll come to if you read Worried Sick by Nortin M. Handler. I ordered the book after I heard Handler speaking on National Public Radio. He was explaining how deceptive medical statistics can be. Example: A recent study to determine whether a new drug could lower the risk of non-fatal heart attack in healthy, middle-aged men. The study itself was properly done. The results, though, were expressed in confusing terms. And the conclusion -- that it lowered the risk of heart attack by 29 percent -- was erroneous. The men who took the drug had a 4.6 percent chance of having a non-fatal heart attack over the next five years. The men who took placebos (i.e., the control group) had a 6.5 percent chance. The difference between the group that took the drug and the group that didn't was, indeed, 29 percent. But the actual difference was only 1.9 percent -- the difference between 6.5 percent and 4.6 percent. The researchers concluded that the drug worked. Thus, it was recommended as an effective way for middle-aged men to reduce the risk of heart attack. Ka-ching! Add another billion dollars to America's legal drug cartel. Here's another way of expressing the same data. If you are a middle-aged man, your chances of NOT getting a non-fatal heart attack in the next five years are 94 percent. (Your chances of NOT getting a fatal heart attack are even greater.) If you wanted to spend money to take a drug -- a drug that has some potentially dangerous side effects -- then your chances of NOT getting a non-fatal heart attack would increase to 95.9 percent. If the results were expressed that way, would you take the drug? Of course you wouldn't. Pharmaceutical companies, who sponsor most of these "objective" drug tests, insist on using relative risk percentages. And the mainstream press parrots them -- probably because they don't understand what they mean.
"I'm too old to start over and too young to lie down and die." That's how Lou, a recently unemployed bond salesman, summed up his life to me and Joe last night at Joe's cigar bar, The Cigar Connoisseur. The man was 54 years old – four years younger than I am, but he looked 65. He was overweight, out of shape, and pale. His face was the mask of a beaten man. Lou had made good money selling for 30 years. But then, last month, he lost his job. He had spent a week angry and blaming others. Spent another weak blaming himself. Then made some phone calls and got two interviews with former competitors. "But they didn't pan out," he said. "Every brokerage room lobby is crowded with unemployed guys like me." Joe and I looked at each other. "And so that's all you did?" I asked. "You gave up after that?" "Don't you watch the news?" he barked. "There's a recession going on!" We were silent for a while. "Maybe you should think about starting a new business," I suggested as nicely as I could. That's when he said, "Hey. Get real. I'm too old to start over and too young to lie down and die." "Well that's exactly what you are doing," I thought. I remember the moment when I almost gave into the concept of aging. I was in a swimming pool at the edge and pushed myself up to get out. But instead of putting a foot on the coping, I put my knee on the tile instead. I realized instantly that (a) this was the first time I had ever done that and (b) if I kept doing that before too long I'd be slithering out of the pool on my belly like a sea lion. So I went back into the water and got out the youthful way. And to this day, I still thrust myself out of a pool like a young man. Aging may be inevitable, but giving into it is the fastest way to grow old. Joe himself was a good example. He had a full career in the casino business and then retired and started his two cigar clubs in South Florida. He's been at them now for less than six years and he is very successful and very happy with his new lifestyle. I mentioned this to Lou but he had an answer for that too. "Joe stared over when he was 45," he said. "Six years from now, I'll be 60." And now finally I had an answer for him. "And how old will you be in six years if you do nothing?" I said.
Matt Furey has good advice about how to get motivated to work out when you don't want to. "All I do," he says, "is live life in the smallest chunks I can." Here's an example of what he means: Matt hates long flights. But when he must take one, he asks himself if he can stay sane for one minute. Of course, he can do that. So he gets through that one minute and then goes on to the next. Before he knows it, he is calm and enjoying himself. He uses the same technique with his morning exercises. Instead of getting agitated over the thought of 60 minutes of hard work, he asks himself if he can do 60 seconds of wall chair. The answer, of course, is yes. After he's done a minute of wall chair, he challenges himself to do a minute holding the push-up position. As the minutes go by, his resistance diminishes. This is exactly how I get books written. I write and publish at least two books a year writing them in small chunks, sometimes as small as 100 words at a time. This is also the way Bob Bly has become so successful, writing one breakthrough marketing package at a time for several clients and writing books on the side. "Use this method," Matt says, "and I assure you that you'll be kicking butt in no time flat."
Scarcity is not a new principle for economists and investors. The less there is of a commodity, the more valuable it becomes. But what if there were a commodity with a "value" measured not only in dollars ... but in something far more critical? What if there were a commodity so precious that, without it, EVERYTHING would die? Well, there is. I'm talking about water. The changing climate, mismanagement of water resources, and plain old wastefulness (think desert landscapes crowded with swimming pools) have depleted this natural resource and turned water into a smart investment. Charles Newcastle, Editor of The Liberty Street Letter, notes that two companies in Asia have begun massive, multibillion-dollar irrigation projects to counteract the problem. "I expect the stock price of these two companies to double, and possibly triple, in the next 12-18 months based on current demand and contracts in place," says Newcastle. A recent issue of The Liberty Street Letter revealed exactly which two companies stand to soar during the coming Asian bull market. Newcastle also revealed four ways you can invest in water, plus three water-related investments to avoid at all costs. You get access to The Liberty Street Letter when you join The Liberty Street League, an elite group of wealth seekers. Headed by Newcastle and a band of experienced "profit pros," the League offers unexpected, against-the-grain advice and insights into little-known methods of making money. Sign up today to become one of the select few who are privy to opportunities that are quietly making millions for those in the know.
Here is an easy PACE workout you can use to jumpstart your day: Start by walking at about 3.5 miles per hour for two to five minutes. Note your heart rate. If you are in good shape, it will be about 80 beats a minute. Make this your base rate. Then do six to eight one-minute sprints, each one followed by one minute of walking at that 3.5 miles per hour rate. Make the first sprint comfortable. I start at 7 miles per hour. Then I increase each sprint by half a mile an hour so that my last sprint is 10 miles per hour. Two things to note: (1) The maximum speed your heart beats at, and (2) the lowest speed it drops to before the minute of rest is up and you sprint again. The goal is to get your heart beating as fast as you can at your highest speed (in my case, that's at 10 miles an hour) and to drop as low as possible after the minute's rest. My goal is 160 beats and 80. I have hit 156 and 99. I will keep at it until I hit my target -- and then I will change my routine completely. For more information on PACE go here.
If you are an employee, there is at least one thing you should be doing to get through the economic meltdown in one piece: Make yourself invaluable to your boss. This is not a good time to goof off or try to coast by. Expect that your company will fire a big percentage of its workforce. Make sure you are not among those who are sent away. It will be awfully hard to get a new job in the next few years, as the economy continues to shrink. Your goal should be to become a prized asset to the business. That means coming in early, working late, completely understanding your responsibilities, improving your skills, volunteering for extra work without extra pay, and communicating your progress to your superiors. As I explain in Automatic Wealth for Grads. "Developing these habits isn't easy. You may be thinking, 'I'm not sure I want to work that hard.' If so, consider this: Most employees work to simply get by. Even employees who seem productive often waste much of their time doing non-critical work like writing long memos about issues that aren't critical to the business ... or arguing points that don't much matter ... or working on projects that don't really affect the company's bottom line ... "Hard workers eventually succeed even against those who have advantages. You can do better than someone who is smarter, richer, and luckier than you -- so long as you are willing to work harder than that person does."
I saw an advert for a "combat training class" in a NYC cab. The class is run by a woman. She wears fatigues. So do her students. Not entirely unique. (My sister was doing the same thing 30 years ago.) Still, it distinguishes her from the crowd. What is more interesting is that she is selling a six-week course for which she offers a 100 percent, money-back double guarantee. (She guarantees both weight loss and satisfaction.) It is a strong guarantee for a six-week program. And it occurred to me that I hadn't seen any guarantees on fitness or martial arts programs. Most offer free introductory lessons. But once you sign up, there are no refunds. It's a tough business. They have fixed overheads and have to fight to make a profit. So I can understand why they don't want to offer guarantees. Which is exactly why this ad caught my interest. And since it has been running for a while (I've seen it four times), I can only assume it's working. The first time I saw it, I sent an e-mail to several of my friends who are fitness and martial arts instructors, suggesting they might benefit from this simple marketing technique. Half of them thought it was a good idea. But the other half had reservations. They were afraid people would take advantage of them. I don't think they would. It's hard to ask for a refund face-to-face if you know you've been getting good service. It would be very rare individual who would dare to do so. If I had to guess, I'd say the bad debt would be less than 5 percent. That's a small price to pay for a considerably higher rate of response to your ads.
There seems to be a trend with our readers. I get the feeling they share our distrust of government meddling in natural health ... A THB reader shares Melanie Segala's view of a frivolous action brought by the Federal Trade Commission and FDA against a supplement company. "The FTC/FDA is a disgrace. The FDA has been bought and paid for by Big Pharma. Big Pharma is sucking the life blood out of our health care. The FDA is like a rogue cop protecting the bad guys to fatten their bank accounts. "This FDA action against Lanelabs is about government control and freedom, not product safety or effectiveness. We need an honest, non-corrupt agency to regulate the supplement business, which we do not have at this time. (Don't hold your breath for getting one.)"
[Ed. Note: Michael Masterson welcomes your questions and comments. Send him a message at AskMichael@ETRFeedback.com.] | 
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