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Tuesday, August 14, 2007

ETR Insider Report: What REALLY Goes On in the ETR Office

By Suzanne Richardson

You might expect to hear ideas about business building, investing, and health being bandied about at ETR headquarters. And you'd be right. But it goes WAY beyond just talk. For one thing, ETR staffers snack on the things we recommend in ETR, including almonds, sardines, shakes made with whey powder, and the occasional square of dark chocolate. For another, we share exercise techniques with each other.

For example, during my recent visit to ETR headquarters, Jessica Kurrle, ETR's Marketing Associate, mentioned that her arms were worn out from all the Spiderman push-ups she'd been doing as part of ETR's fitness and weight-loss challenge. Naturally, I was curious. So she got down on the floor and demonstrated for the whole office.

These unusual push-ups are not only good for strengthening your shoulders, upper arms, and chest, but, as Jon Herring pointed out, "They provide an added element of resistance for your core." And strengthening your core can restore flexibility and protect your back from injury.

Here's how you can do these Spiderman push-ups on your own:

. Get into push-up position, making sure your hands are lined up with your chest.

. As you're going down into a normal push-up, lift your right leg up to the right side, bending your knee. (Make sure your leg is parallel with - not perpendicular to - the floor.)

. Draw your bent knee up to touch your bent elbow.

. Repeat with the left leg.

. Do 10-15 repetitions on each side.

For variations on this exercise, search for "Spiderman push-ups" on Google or YouTube. Tomorrow, I'll tell you about another unusual push-up you can try.
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Value Investing in the New Growth Era

By Andrew M. Gordon

After seven years, the reign of value stocks is finally winding down. I'm not telling you that you should be giving up on investing in "value" and only investing in "growth" - but, as the economy slows, finding value stocks with a record of raising revenue will get harder. Plus, many of the successful value stocks have been taken out of play. As investors gobbled up these bargains, they boosted share prices and valuation so much that they're no longer considered a good value.

Moving into the "growth" era presents some new challenges. Ex-value companies may not have the tremendous earnings growth upside to justify an investment, and many growth companies that were good investments a year or two ago are now prohibitively expensive.

But just because they're harder to find doesn't mean there aren't still plenty of value companies out there that make great investments. Just go to one of the many free search engines available on the Internet and look for P/E ratios of less than 15 and PEG ratios of less than 1.2.

And, remember, value companies don't have to wow investors with their earnings prospects as the more expensive growth companies do - which makes them more versatile investments for when the economy is going great... and not so great.

[Ed. Note: Andrew Gordon, ETR's Investment Director, has authored several books on energy markets, global countertrade practices, and the hot growth sectors of China and Russia.]
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So You Made a Mistake? No Need to Grovel

By Michael Masterson

You blew your stack and said something to your spouse that you shouldn't have - and it wasn't the first time.

So how do you apologize without looking as if you are weak/insincere?

There's only one way: You have to resolve - in the most serious way - that you won't behave like that again. You have to think about what you said, why you said it, and try to recognize what signaled your unwanted action.

Get that signal clearly in your mind. Feel it. And then imagine yourself reacting to your spouse in some other, more effective and less harmful, way. Imagine your preferred behavior over and over again until it feels natural.

Once you've trained yourself to have an instinctively good response to the imagined situation, you'll feel surprisingly confident that you'll be able to handle the real thing. And the truth is... you probably will.

After you've done all this work - and not before - make your apology. Don't humiliate yourself and don't grovel. You made a mistake - one you've made before - but you've also taken the time to correct it. You are no longer the person you were. Your apology should reflect that fact.

Cast your apology in the past tense. Say, "About our argument yesterday. I have given it a good deal of thought and realize my behavior was wrong. I have thought about better ways I could have handled the situation, and will act differently in the future."

If you mean it, it won't hurt so much to say it.
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It's Good to Know: New Features for Your Cellphone

Tired of shooting pictures or video on your cellphone and having to wait until you get home to upload them to the Web? Samsung is set to release a phone with software that allows users to edit images and video, add background music and captions, and then upload the results directly to user-generated websites such as YouTube. Unfortunately for U.S. users, the phones are currently available only in South Korea.

(Source: IDG News Service)
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Word to the Wise: Dour

"Dour" (DOO-ur) - From the Latin for "hard" - means, harsh, sullen, or inflexible.

Example (as used by Tim Hilton in John Ruskin: The Later Years): "John James Ruskin's dinner table was far too lively for the dour John La Touche."

Michael Masterson
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These articles appear courtesy of Early to Rise [Issue #2115, 08-08-07], the Internet's most popular health, wealth, and success e-zine. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com/.

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