500
很激动，还记得那时满一年的时候，我还因为自己没有持续跟读而懊恼，如今有了战友许丽娜的支持和鼓励，我也持续了相当长的时间了。有战友的路上不孤单。
今天说的这个和昨天免费分享带来价值是一个真做就真有效果的实例。499篇讲到，如果你有好的作品开始的时候没有赚到钱，是因为没有分享出去，当你分享出去给大多数人带来一定价值后，就会有需求的人订购你的服务和产品。这一点清晨朗读会就做到了，我不知道王老师是因为知道这篇文章的道理后做的，还是做了以后发现这个人也懂这个道理。但是有一句话千真万确，当你知道一个道理后，真正做到了就会真正有收获。如果你和我一样想赚钱，也有自己的产品和服务，不妨就按照他们的这种模式，先免费分享，当大多数人受益，觉得你这东西有价值了。那么自然会有订阅用户购买你的产品。另外说一下，王老师的每日推送是免费的，但也有付费的，你可以选择免费的，如果你没有付费的需求。
500 days
Today is the 500th day of our Morning Reading Club! As I mentioned the other day, we also recently passed 100,000 subscribers. I wanted to take a moment to say thank you, and to share some of what I’ve learned.
So, first of all: thanks! I’m truly grateful for each and every reader, for each and every comment. I’m excited to know that the material I share here has been helpful for you on your journey of learning English.
Now, here are some things I’ve learned:
- Persistence matters
I’ve never persisted in a daily habit as long as I have with the Morning Reading Club. But posting something each day has been so important in growing the community here. There have been a couple of events that have added a lot of new subscribers all at once (thanks, Xiaolai!), but mostly the growth has been fairly steady, and I’m sure that is due to the daily, consistent nature of the posts. That said, I should do a better job of promotion!
Persistence also matters for you as well. I get feedback from readers all the time, and the ones who have truly built a habit of daily practice are the ones who have seen impressive results.
- Regularity matters
I’ve learned that it’s important to share at a regular time each day, otherwise it’s hard for readers to build their own practice habit. I used to get up in the morning to record, but that meant that the posts didn’t go out at a regular time. Now I usually record in advance, and we set the posts to automatically post at 6:15am.
Regularity is also important for building your own practice habit. You don’t have to practice in the morning, but in general it’s good to have a specific time of day when you practice. I’ve heard from readers who practice first thing in the morning, right before they go to bed, while they go to the bathroom, while they walk to work or school, while they cook, and so on, and it’s generally the readers who have chosen a specific time to practice who are able to build up the habit.
- One size doesn’t fit all
I try to choose a variety of materials and levels for our daily practice materials, and I truly believe that anyone, no matter their level, can benefit from practicing what I share here. However, I’ve learned that sometimes difficulty can be a barrier that prevents people from persisting with the practice, and so I think in the future I should provide some alternate materials for more basic learners.
These are just a few things that I’ve learned. I’m sure that I’ll keep learning on the way, and I always appreciate the feedback and suggestions that you give me.
Thank you for joining me on this journey. Will you still be here on day 1,000?
499
免费并不是真的免费，因为免费是基于人性一定会回报的原理才敢大胆免费的。如果不免费你的价值不会得到很快的认可，也就不会得到传播。而一切成功的商业模式到最后倒是要传播出去，让更多的人知道的。
Working for Free
By Steve Palvlina
Many people ask me how they can start generating income from a new line of work, especially work that is highly creative or artistic. Some have already created quite a bit of content like albums or books or paintings, but they aren’t making any money from it. Some have a decent level of skill, but they don’t have any customers or clients and don’t know how to get people to start paying them.
I usually tell such people to stop focusing on trying to get money and to focus instead of delivering value. I point out that creating a work of art or building a skill provides no value to anyone, so it won’t generate income. Sharing your creations or skills with others, however, is what delivers value, and therein lies the potential to generate income from your work.
therein在那方面
If you’ve created an album, a book, or a painting, how many people are enjoying it each day? If it’s sitting in a box in your garage, there’s no income potential because no value is being delivered.
One of the best ways to show people the value of your work is to share it with them for free. This minimizes other people’s risk and makes it easier for them to receive your value. In this manner you can start sharing your value immediately.
For example, if you want to start generating income as a web site developer, focus on sharing your skills for free. Invite as much free web work as you can manage. Ask for referrals. Focus on clients where you can deliver a lot of value in a fairly short period of time by working from your strengths. Decline any clients that aren’t a good fit for you. If you’re halfway decent at what you do, you should have no shortage of small businesses willing to let you help them for free. Once you start getting more qualified free referrals than you can handle, you can start charging a fair price for your work. Some of your free clients will probably become paid clients if you impressed them, and you should also benefit from ongoing referrals.
referrals介绍
498
有意思的片段。
Draft No. 4
By John McPhee
Progression
A B C
D
In the late nineteen-sixties, I was working in rented space on Nassau Street up a flight of stairs and over Nathan Kasrel, Optometrist. Across the street was the main library of Princeton University. Across the hall was the Swedish Massage. Operated by an Austrian couple who were nearing retirement and had been there for decades, it was a legitimate business. They massaged everything from college football players to arthritic ancients, and they didn’t give sex. This, however, was the era when massage became a sexual synonym, and most evenings—avoiding writing, looking down from my window on the passing scene—I would see men in business suits stop, hesitate, look around, and then move toward the glass door at the foot of the stairs. Eventually, the Austrians had to scrape the words “Swedish Massage” off the door, and replace them with a hanging sign they removed when they went home at night. Meanwhile, the men kept arriving at the top of the stairs, where neither door was marked. When they knocked on mine and I opened it, their faces fell dramatically as the busty Swede they expected turned into a short and bearded man.
In this context, I wrote three related pieces that became a book called Encounters with the Archdruid. To a bulletin board I had long since pinned a sheet of paper on which I had written, in large block letters, ABC/D. The letters represented the structure of a piece of writing, and when I put them on the wall I had no idea what the theme would be or who might be A or B or C, let alone the denominator D. They would be real people, certainly, and they would meet in real places, but everything else was initially abstract.
497
The Executive Computer; 'Mother of All Markets' or a 'Pipe Dream Driven by Greed’
By Peter H. Lewis
Sometime around the middle of this decade -- no one is sure exactly when -- executives on the go will begin carrying pocket-sized digital communicating devices. And although nobody is exactly sure what features these personal information gizmos will have, what they will cost, what they will look like or what they will be called, hundreds of computer industry officials and investors at the Mobile '92 conference here last week agreed that the devices could become the foundation of the next great fortunes to be made in the personal computer business.
"We are writing Chapter 2 of the history of personal computers," said Nobuo Mii, vice president and general manager of the International Business Machines Corporation's entry systems division.
How rich is this lode? At one end of the spectrum is John Sculley, the chief executive of Apple Computer Inc., who says these personal communicators could be "the mother of all markets."
At the other end is Andrew Grove, the chairman of the Intel Corporation, the huge chip maker based in Santa Clara, Calif. He says the idea of a wireless personal communicator in every pocket is "a pipe dream driven by greed."
496
Procrastination is a Practice Ground for Life Mastery
By Leo Babauta
There isn’t a person among us who doesn’t procrastinate — put off your work for the day, distract yourself, put off pursuing your dreams, put off putting your work out in the world for fear of being judged.
But here’s the thing: most people think that this procrastination is a problem.
Most people stress out about being a procrastinator, and feel bad about themselves for doing it.
Au contraire (that’s French, don’t bother looking it up, it means you’re way wrong).
Instead, procrastination is the perfect place to practice all the most important life skills.
Our tendency to procrastinate is exactly how we’ll see how our minds work, and learn to be better at all the difficulties of life. Because life will always have these difficulties, no matter how much we’d prefer to avoid them, and how we respond to them will determine everything.
Let’s work on our responses to the hardest things in life.
How We Usually Respond
When we procrastinate, this is the usual process:
We have something difficult or uncomfortable to do.
We don’t feel like doing it, because it’s difficult, uncertain, uncomfortable.
Our minds habitually turn away from this task, and find a more comfortable, certain thing to do, like watching videos or playing games or checking email or social media.
We run to the easier thing, and then put off even thinking about the other thing.
We feel bad that this happens, and start to form a negative image of ourselves. We rain harshness and criticism upon our psyche.
This makes us less likely to do better the next time around. It’s a vicious cycle, I tell ya.
We can learn to do better.
495
The Mind of John McPhee
A deeply private writer reveals his obsessive process.
BY SAM ANDERSON
When you call John McPhee on the phone, he is instantly John McPhee. McPhee is now 86 years old, and each of those years seems to be filed away inside of him, loaded with information, ready to access. I was calling to arrange a visit to Princeton, N.J., where McPhee lives and teaches writing. He was going to give me driving directions. He asked where I was coming from. I told him the name of my town, about 100 miles away.
“I’ve been there,” McPhee said, with the mild surprise of someone who has just found a $5 bill in a coat pocket. He proceeded to tell me a story of the time he had a picnic at the top of our local mountain, with a small party that included the wife of Alger Hiss, the former United States official who, at the height of McCarthyism, was disgraced by allegations of spying for the Russians. The picnic party rode to the top, McPhee said, on the incline railway, an old-timey conveyance that has been out of operation for nearly 40 years, and which now marks the landscape only as a ruin: abandoned tracks running up a scar on the mountain’s face, giant gears rusting in the old powerhouse at the top. Hikers stop and gawk and wonder what the thing was like.
“It was amazing,” McPhee said. “A railroad created by the Otis Elevator Company. An incline of 60-something percent.”
Then he started giving me directions — 87, 287, Route 1 — until eventually I admitted that I was probably just going to follow the directions on my phone. McPhee kept going for a few seconds, suggesting another road or two, but finally he gave up.
“Well,” he said. “The machine will be telling you what to do.”
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