Michael Masterson is the founder and guiding force of Early to Rise, the world’s premier self-improvement and wealth-building newsletter. Check out some of his most powerful essays below for proven strategies and advice for building your wealth, being more successful, enjoying life to the fullest, and much, much more. And then sign up for Early to Rise to read Michael every week.
How to Become What You Want to Be
“If you want to be a writer, you have to write.”
I was sixteen years old when my father said those words to me. They were both kind and cruel. And I never forgot them.
The first time I can remember wanting to be a writer was several years earlier. I was eleven or twelve years old. It happened in the kitchen on a weekday night.
I had written a poem for Sister Mary Something at St. Agnes elementary school. My rhyming quatrain (AABB) was titled, pretentiously, “How do I know the World Is Real?” Click here to read more…
How to Think Like a Multimillionaire
Most people, when confronted with an obstacle, suffer some degree of shock and dismay. Even if they don’t consciously acknowledge the problem, their bodies respond in ways that make them less capable of bouncing back.
You may find it interesting to know, for example, that scientists have found that testosterone — the hormone that drives us to work hard and win — actually drops measurably in people who run into unanticipated problems. This clues the body to move into a defensive mode. We feel the impulse to slow down or shut down or run away. Click here to read more…
Making Our Lives Golden
Now that our last child is about to leave home, K and I are talking about getting television service. For about 20 years, we have been without it. The idea was that our children would become better readers without the distraction — and that objective was achieved. All three of our boys are voracious and skillful readers.
But now, as empty nesters, we are thinking that it would be kind of fun to watch some shows together — to spend an hour after dinner, sitting next to one another, laughing at the same things.
To test this hypothesis, we jimmy-rigged an antenna connection for the television set that we’ve been using to play DVDs. Click here to learn more…
How to Have Lots of Good Friends
It’s been said that if you want friends to help you in the bad times, you have to help them in the good times.
That’s not true. A truer statement is that friends come in two varieties: those who help you and those who don’t.
To some people, the helpers are the better friends. Not to me. I appreciate both equally. Click here to read more…
Motivation
I was once characterized by a book reviewer as a “motivational writer.” Apparently he felt that this moniker debased me. It didn’t.
I am very happy that my writing sometimes has the effect of motivating people. I find it hard to understand what is wrong with that. If he meant to imply that my work doesn’t have substance he should have said so. But I don’t think he dared say that because the book he was reviewing was about building businesses — and that is something I know a great deal more about than the average reader of that book, including him. Click here to read more…
The Only Business Start-Up Strategy I Recommend
When Mary Kay Ash retired from her job in 1963, she took her life savings, $5,000, and opened her own business. Boy, did it pay off! Mary Kay Cosmetics is now a billion-dollar company.
Or take Hugh Hefner. He financed Playboy with $8,000 in loans from 45 family members, friends, and other investors. Today, he’s a mega-millionaire. (His famous mansion, alone, has been appraised at $45 million.)
Successful entrepreneurs like Ash and Hefner who risked all their money (and sometimes their family’s money) to pursue dreams that others considered foolish get lots of press. And with good reason. Their stories are exciting and inspirational. But they are also misleading. Click here to read more…
The Ten Commandments of Charity
Down the road going north from my vacation home in Nicaragua, you pass two hamlets, both bearing the same name: Limon.
Most of the families that live there have at least one member who works for Rancho Santana, the residential real estate development my partners and I started 13 years ago. Some work as guards, some as groundskeepers. Others work as housekeepers or gardeners. Still others have found employment as bartenders, waitresses, lifeguards, plumbers, carpenters, mechanics, electricians, or laborers. Click here to read more…
