By John T. Reed

“It may very well become a classic. No hype, no emotional appeals, no motivational gibberish. Instead, you get a lifetime’s worth of practical advice and wisdom from a very successful man. You will not get this invaluable guidance anywhere else. Read this book, several times, if you are serious about living a successful life — however you define it.“– W. J. Mencarow, Editor of THE PAPER SOURCE JOURNAL

How to succeed during a time of crisis

Succeeding has never been easy. But sometimes, it’s harder than others. This is one of those times.

• $29.95, 324 pages
• Find ways to win not excuses for losing
• Reader comments
• Table of Contents
• New material in the second edition

New 2nd edition of Succeeding

I just came out with the second edition of my top book: Succeeding. Furthermore, the new chapters I added include:

• Investment
• Risk

If you have been hurt by the recent financial meltdown, or are worried about it, you will welcome the new chapters on investment
and risk. If you had the book before, and followed its advice, you would now be better off or at least less worried. Better late than never.

Now a much bigger book

The book went from 205 pages in the first edition to 320 in the second.

The number of chapters went from 47 to 50, but there are actually five new chapters, not three because two old chapters were replaced with new ones. The five new chapters are:

8 What you can change and not change

24 Investment

25 Risk

48 Health

49 Appearance

The new risk chapter in Succeeding was totally rewritten from scratch. The first edition had a chapter called “Calculated risks.” That chapter was good as far as it went, but it did not cover a wide enough scope or give as many risk-management tools as the new edition.

You know you have to take risks to achieve high success in many cases. You also know that skill matters. The risk chapter in the 2nd edition breaks it down into luck and skill. It tells you what areas you can acquire skill in, like job knowledge, and what areas where skill cannot be acquired, like forecasting market prices.

Some things in life are luck—both good and bad. Others are skill. Succeeding tells you which are which. Values of stocks are luck. You can neither forecast nor control them. So you need to take steps to protect yourself from bad luck while being in a position to benefit from good luck.

Protection was available

A more mundane example would be buying real estate with a non-recourse mortgage. If it goes up, you get the profit. If it goes down so that your equity is wiped out, you are not obligated to remain in the home and continue paying on the mortgage. Millions today are in big financial difficulty because they did not know about, or take advantage of, that widely-available risk-management tool.

Skills that make you money

With regard to the areas in which you can acquire useful skills, Succeeding tells you how to do so, and how to structure your career so you, not your boss, get the lion’s share of the financial benefit of the application of your skills. The calculated risks discussed in the first edition only apply to those areas where you have considerable skill.

My top seller

Succeeding has been the book I sell the most of since the first edition came out in 2003. I now sell a total of 30 different books. 20 are about real estate investment; 8 about coaching; 1 about self-publishing; and Succeeding.

Many people who have bought one copy of Succeeding subsequently buy multiple copies for friends or relatives.

More pages and more chapters: previous content updated where needed

Two years ago, the first edition of Succeeding sold out. I did not have time to write a second edition, so we just reprinted the first edition. Now that second printing has also sold out and this time I did take time to produce a second edition.

Succeeding in today’s world did not get any easier in the five years since 2003 when I wrote the first edition of the book. We have been hit by the subprime crisis, a dramatic shift in the balance of political power in the U.S. and many other countries, soaring commodity prices especially oil, and we are told we may be on the cusp of a recession or worse.

Far more competitive world

But the more important reason why Succeeding is needed is that the world is far more competitive than it was five years ago. Globalization,
astonishing leaps in communications, the Internet, and technology are changing all the rules.

Bureaucracy did not become any more fun in the last five years. And corporations did not become any more loyal to their employees. More than ever before in modern times, you are on your own. Your children are going to be on their own. More than at any time in recent memory, we need the best possible advice on how to make the best of our strengths in order to prosper.

I read through the entire first edition marking up many needed changes and improvements and updating facts that have changed. I also found that I needed to add new chapters.

What you can change and what you cannot

In the first edition, I touched on the fact that you need to get to the right situation for you. In the second edition, I have added a whole chapter on the things you can change and the things you cannot and how you should deal with each category.

Don’t try to change your personality

Millions of people are wasting huge amounts of time trying to change their personality to please their boss or their girlfriend or boyfriend.

Number one, you cannot change your personality. All you will accomplish is turning yourself into a phony. Secondly, and more important, you don’t have to change your personality. What you do have to change, if your personality clashes, is your boss or your career or your girlfriend or boyfriend.

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Your success and happiness require that you recognize those things about you that you can change and those you cannot. And you are going to know which they are because I put lists of each in the second edition. I also discuss item by item how you change the things that can be changed, for example, when moving to a new geographic location is advisable and when it will not solve the problem in question.

Your unique ability

A Canadian book called Unique Ability has a good discussion of how to tell when you are well matched to your career. I recommend
that book and I paraphrase that discussion and add my own thoughts on it in the 2nd edition of Succeeding.

Don’t forget to spend your wealth

With regard to wealth accumulation, I have noticed that most people tend to forget the purpose of wealth. It’s to spend it! They accumulate, then accumulate more and more, then they die. The second edition says to make sure you remember the purpose of money is to spend it. Your goals schedule of accumulating it should also include a schedule for liquidating and spending it.

Two ways to wealth

There are two ways to accumulate money: saving/investment and building equity in a business. As stated above, the 2nd edition includes a new chapter on investment.

In the last 30 years, investment has entered a new era marked by the advent of low-cost, non-profit broad index funds, financial
engineering, and a new understanding of related topics like behavioral economics which fills the gaps between the original traditional economic thinking based on rational man and the actual irrational craziness that sweeps markets regularly.

Investing your money

A consensus has emerged among experts ranging from Warren Buffett to Yale’s Chief Investment Officer David Swenson to me. I explain the details of that in the second edition of Succeeding.

Asset allocation based on your age

The percentage of your savings in bonds should be your age plus about 15%. For example, if you are 40, you should probably have about 40 + 15 = 55% of your savings in bonds.

Many investors put too much in stocks, especially older investors. Furthermore, there is only one category of bonds that you should be investing in. The others all have too much risk for their yield and they contain call provisions which give the bond issuer a “heads I win tails you lose” deal.

Which bonds

The 2nd edition of Succeeding explains the only type of bonds to buy and why. The new investment chapter also covers automatic
savings plans, watching by your employer, asset allocation, foreign stocks, REITs, your time horizon, taxes, fees, back testing, rebalancing, inflation protection, and other issues. As you probably know, succeeding financially requires saving and investing wisely. The 2nd edition of Succeeding tells, in detail, how to do both.

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Risk management

Risk management is typically completely left out of other success books, but it is crucial. There are multiple ways to manage risk.

One way to manage risk is to join with other investors who are relatively unconcerned about speculative market risks. They typically will agree to deal structures that enable you to benefit from good luck but protect you from bad luck and let you also profit from applying your skills to part of the investment, particularly where the investment vehicle is real estate, that you have some control over.

Breaking up is the mirror image of getting engaged

When you think about it, breaking up with a member of the opposite sex is very similar to getting engaged. Both relate to opposite sex relations and both are intended to be permanent decisions. Accordingly, the 2nd edition of Succeeding recommends dialing down, which is easier said than done, instead of “I never want to see you again” break-ups—especially when you are younger than 25. The world of romance is full of stories of people who broke up then got back together later—sometimes many years later. What a waste!

Health

If you’ve got your health, you’ve got everything. That saying is wrong. There’s a lot more to life than being healthy. But the converse IS true. If you don’t have your health, nothing else matters. Poor health prevents you from succeeding and from enjoying success if you succeed. To be a wealth millionaire, and enjoy it, you need to be a health millionaire as well.

The new chapter on health tells you that good health comes from:

• good health habits
• good safety habits
• annual physicals
• vaccinations and tests when recommended
• prompt attention to symptoms or injury

But that list alone is not enough. You need to know the details of what good health habits are.

Your world is full of public service announcements and doctors telling you to do more of this and less of that. I would not say anything on the subject if I had nothing new to say. But I researched this subject extensively recently and found a lot of stuff that most people do not know but need to know.

In 2005, I turned 59 and was bothered by the fact that the next birthday would start with a 6. Between my 59th and 60th birthdays, I lost 30 pounds. In the 2nd edition of Succeeding, I tell how.

Eating less better than exercise

Will exercise cause you to lose weight? Absolutely, but it’s the harder, dumber way. If you are some sort of masochist, you can exercise your way to a proper weight. But it’s a heck of a lot easier to do it with diet. For example, if you drink a can of Coke, you need to walk a mile to get rid of those calories. It’s faster and easier not to drink the Coke to begin with.

The less you eat, the more important the quality of your diet becomes. Succeeding discusses the mainstream supplements you should take—vitamins and minerals. I am not into any kooky or “alternative” medical stuff. But I did research and report on the proper nutrition in Succeeding.

Being overweight is a habit. So is being a healthy weight. Neither is harder than the other, although the transition from overweight to healthy weight takes a little effort.

Cardiovascular and strength fitness

Now don’t get me wrong. I am not against all exercise. Indeed, you need to exercise for good health—both aerobic cardio (I ride an exercise bicycle every other day—and weight training (I do upper or lower body weight lifting every other day).

The only exercise I discourage is exercise designed to counter the effects of over-eating. Don’t over-eat to begin with. For one thing, if you are ambitious to succeed, you do not have time to over eat or to exercise for hours a day to remove the resulting fat.

You also need to be careful not to overdo exercise. Too much exercise can cause over-use or acute injuries. Also, I have found in my own life that I occasionally set overly ambitious exercise goals. The result usually is that I stop exercising altogether. Because the session becomes too daunting. Better you should set more modest goals and actually achieve them religiously than set unrealistic goals on paper and end up getting no exercise at all.

Tricks of the health ‘trade’

As with diet, there are a number of tricks to optimizing your exercise. Succeeding tells you about setting goals, exercising as you age, the correct kind of exercise, and so forth.

Playing sports, for example, can be a bad idea. It is too intense, affects too few muscles, and is likely to cause injury. After college, it’s hard to find teams at competitive levels that match your ability and age and to find compatible teammates. Team sports also usually require long commutes that take precious time. Those and other revelations about healthy exercise are in the new edition of Succeeding.

Motivate you to be healthy

I try not to write rah rah stuff in Succeeding. I leave that to all the other authors on the subject. But I do recognize that most people need to be more motivated with regard to health. Rather than engage in rah rah, I instead lay out some hard facts designed to motivate you to take better care of yourself. Failure to do so adversely affects your love life and business relations with others.

Poor health also starts a chain of dominoes falling. Overweight leads to diabetes which leads to other diseases and limits the ability of doctors to treat other diseases and so forth. Too often, your friends and relatives do not tell you what you need to hear about your health or appearance because they don’t want to hurt your feelings.

Since you’ve read my books before, you know that I do tell you what you need to know regardless of whether it is what you want to know. Arguably, that makes me a better friend to you than those who won’t tell you what you need to know.

Appearance

Another new chapter in the 2nd edition of Succeeding covers appearance. Many would say your appearance is not, or at least should not, be important. I won’t argue that it should not be as important as it is. But I disagree that it is not important. Numerous studies have shown that appearance is often decisive in the selection of presidents, executives, and spouses.

Your appearance does affect how others relate to you. If they can see you, that is. If unchangeable parts of your appearance—like skin color or handicap—adversely affect your ability to achieve success, consider media where you cannot be seen like radio, writing, Internet or direct-mail businesses, etc.

If they can see you, as is the case for most people, you need to make a favorable impression. You do that by taking care of yourself health wise including things like weight, muscle tone, and teeth. You also do it by posture, hair, dress, and other daily decisions.

The new chapter on appearance covers both health and daily decisions with my usual practical details, not the rah rah, “empowering”
psychobabble you normally get in success books.

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Your appearance is perhaps most important to you. To the extent that improving your appearance boosts your self-confidence—and there is tons of evidence that it does—your chances of achieving your goals will increase—maybe dramatically.

Confidence is extremely important. Don’t let correctable appearance issues hold you back unnecessarily.

Succeeding today requires more precise matching

The main message of my book Succeeding is that you need to get a very accurate and complete handle on who you are, then match who you are with a career opportunity. The better you do that, the more successful you will be and the happier you will be with that success.

In today’s world, this is more important than ever before. A hundred years ago, the keys to success were believed to be working in your father’s business or the family farm, getting a “good” union job in a factory, or going to college. But in today’s world, where you must compete with others world wide, you’d better find the career that matches you better than any other so you have your best chance to compete.

Marriage is key to career and vice versa

Similarly, your marriage is key to your success. Your spouse must share your dreams and be able to tolerate the difficulties of your career. For example, if the best career match for you is a career with risks, and your spouse freaks out because of the risks, you have the wrong spouse.

It is also true that the quality and character of your spouse or lack thereof can doom you to misery even if he or she has no issues with things like your career choice or the difficulties of that career. You must match up well with your spouse in terms of consumption of alcohol and drugs, child raising decisions, adultery, and so forth. Divorce rates are as high as they have ever been. Today, many children are being raised by their grandparents or a single parent. This is a very, very bad situation that can happen to anyone and you need to take more pains than previously to do better than that with your spouse choice.

The 2nd edition of Succeeding’s second longest chapter is the “Spouse choice” chapter. (The “Career choice” chapter is a little longer.) Most success books say little or nothing about spouse choice. They figure it just happens by chance as you go about your life. That is a formula for disaster.