Wilson Greatbatch died in September this year, but there are many who owe their lives to him. He invented the heart pacemaker, and what’s particularly interesting is that he did it by accident.

In 1956, Greatbatch was building a heart rhythm recording device, when he mistakenly inserted a resistor that was the wrong size. He noted that the circuit it produced emitted intermittent electrical impulses which seemed to mirror those of a human heartbeat. This single observation led to the development of the modern pacemaker, half a million of which are implanted every year.

He was just lucky then? Well not quite. You see, when he ‘got lucky’ he was working hard and he was taking action with something. And then when he had the lucky break, he invested his own time, effort and $2,000 savings into converting the chance discovery into something useable and marketable. During the development phase, he was forced to feed his family from his vegetable garden.

You see, that’s the thing about luck-you’re more likely to stumble across a piece of it if you’re taking action (any action!) with something. And if you do, it will usually only benefit you if you take hold of it, and use it as a stepping stone to something tangible. The people you hear about getting rich through a lucky break were usually working hard when they got it, and then worked even harder to turn it into money and a better life. Luck, on its own, is rarely enough.

Another Invention By Accident

While working for Eastman Kodak in 1942, Harry Coover, attempted to create some material to make a transparent gun sight. It wasn’t a success. The resulting compound was simply too sticky. The same thing happened again when Kodak scientists were working on polymers for aeroplane canopies, and it was then that Coover – soon to be Sir Harry Coover – realised they might have discovered something useful after all.

Superglue went on sale for the first time in 1958. Aside from being responsible for more than its fair share of visits to hospital casualty departments, it’s made a big contribution to modern life. And it all came about by accident.

History is littered with examples of people who set out trying to do one thing and failed, but somehow managed to end up doing something better. What did they have in common? They were all trying to do something!

Today’s National Day   

NATIONAL TELL A LIE DAY!  

PUBLISHERS NOTICE

Important Notice:

How To Get Weekly Compensation
From The “Get-Rich-Quick-Gurus”

I’m receiving £938 a week straight out of their pockets! To find out how YOU could do the same visit…

www.streetwisenews.com/fortune

An anonymous gold prospector has found the UK’s largest ever gold nugget. The 121.3g (4.2oz) lump, which is in two pieces that fit together like a jigsaw, was discovered at the bottom of a Scottish river using the technique of “sniping” – lying face down in the water wearing a diving mask, snorkel and dry suit. The previous record holder is the 85.7g Douglas Nugget, discovered in 2016 using the same technique.

Storm Atiyah helped UK wind farms generate almost 45% of Britain’s electricity on a Sunday last month. Customers on some smart-energy tariffs were even paid to use the excess. Octopus Energy paid 2,000 customers 5.6p for every kilowatt-hour used in certain overnight periods.

IT’S BEEN A BAD MONTH FOR …

Boris Johnson had to shave £400,000 off the asking price of his former marital home when he sold it recently. The four-bedroom, five-storey end-terrace in Islington, which he shared with his second wife, barrister Marina Wheeler, was put on the market in May for £3.75m, but eventually sold for £3.35m. The pair bought it in 2009 for £2.3m and will share the proceeds of the sale.

Thousands of small businesses could be plunged into debt after the collapse of a dubious digital advertising scheme. They signed up to lease screens displaying advertisements, with the revenue from these expected to cover their monthly payments. The advertisements did not appear and the agency went bust, but the contract they signed means the lease payments must still be made for three years.

Perfect Porridge

I don’t make porridge very often these days, and one of the main reasons is that I rarely get it right. I can’t be bothered measuring out the ingredients and so it ends up either the consistency of lumpy milk or lightly set cement.

One solution of course is the pre-measured satchets you can buy now, but they are expensive and it doesn’t help with the milk. Porridge-eating entrepreneur Tim Evans has come up with a different solution. He’s just launched his first product, the Oats Made Easy Porridge Bowl which takes the hassle out of the process.

The idea is remarkably simple. The bowl has two lines marked in ceramic pen one for the level of oats and the other for the level of milk. Just pop in the ingredients, stick it in the microwave and you have perfect porridge every time.

Today’s National Day   

NATIONAL COMPLIMENT DAY!

PUBLISHERS NOTICE

I Have Some Very Good News…

Financial trading can be very complicated, or it really
can be as simple as this: 

1. Load up a piece of bespoke software  
2. Set up some simple checks and balances
3. Let it loose on the markets
4. React to some
5. Collect your profit! 

…And Repeat

You can now get on the inside and start profiting from this straight away. To find out how visit:

www.streetwisenews.com/wizard 

Next year Vanguard, the world’s second-largest fund manager, is launching Britain’s cheapest private pension to date, throwing down the gauntlet to its competitors and fuelling expectations of a price war.

The self – invested personal pension (Sipp) will have an annual administration charge of 0.15%, capped at £375. That is far below the industry average of 0.35%. There will also be no additional costs for exit fees, valuation statements or transfers.

Vanguard says the Sipp will initially only be available to people who are building up their retirement savings, not those that have already started drawing on them. A pension drawdown service is expected to launch in the next year.

Someone putting the full £40,000 annual pension allowance into the Vanguard Sipp would pay £172 a year in charges. The same amount in a Vanguard fund held in the most expensive platform’s Sipp would cost up to £400 a year.

Compounded over decades of pension saving, these fees can add up. A 43-year-old investing £40,000 for the next 25 years would save almost £10,000 with Vanguards Target Retirement fund if invested Vanguard’s Sipp instead of a higher-cost platform.

Two years ago Vanguard introduced an Isa and investment platform credited with starting price war that has forced rivals to push down their costs. The Sipp, which promises to let savers sign up in just ten minutes, could shake up the market again by forcing another reduction in costs.

There’s more good news. Vanguard has some of the lowest fund fees in the industry. A typical Vanguard fund fees in the industry. A typical Vanguard fund comes with an average fee of 0.2%. Hargreaves Lansdown, the biggest investment platform, charges an average fund fee of 0.94%.

Note too that the account-fee cap applies across all the products you hold with Vanguard, whether that’s Sipp, Isa or a general account. The drawback to the Vanguard Sipp is the choice of funds. It only offers a limited own-brand selection.

Hargreaves Lansdown charges more – a 0.45% management fee plus fund fees and some dealing charges – but offers a full range of funds, investment trusts and UK and international shares.

Some investors will pay more in order to get access to a far wider choice of investments. But the success of Vanguard’s Isa shows that many will opt for a limited selection in return for low and clear charges.

Manify It!

There’s a particular type of shop which I hate, and which my wife seems to gravitate towards for some reason. They smell horrifically florid – hardly surprising since half the stock seems to comprise of dried flowers, pot pouri and scented candles.

I really can’t stand anything about the places – but particularly the smell – which is why I was interested to read of a business set up by 13 year old Hart Main from Ohio.

Hart didn’t like the smell of the ‘girly’ candles his sister bought, and decided to create something different. ManCan was born and led to the development of a whole range of ‘manly’ scents including coffee, campfire, fresh cut grass, bacon and dirt!

What a great idea – and from a 13 year old who started the business by saving his paper round money.

The business he created poses a wider question though – what other primarily single sex products could be modified or adapted so that they appeal to the opposite sex?

Today’s National Day   

NATIONAL LAUGH AND GET RICH DAY!  

PUBLISHERS NOTICE

I Have Some Very Good News…

Financial trading can be very complicated, or it really
can be as simple as this: 

1. Load up a piece of bespoke software  
2. Set up some simple checks and balances
3. Let it loose on the markets
4. React to some
5. Collect your profit! 

…And Repeat

You can now get on the inside and start profiting from this straight away. To find out how visit:
www.streetwisenews.com/wizard 

Just read something which, aside from being fascinating, may provide a ‘light bulb’ moment for someone.

BT’s network has 75 million miles of copper wire. At today’s price that’s worth around £50 Billion – which is more than three times the company’s market capitalisation of around £15 Billion! So the company is worth far more in scrap value than it is for it trading and profitability potential.

Now I know the company aren’t about to throw in the Telecom’s towel and go into the scrap metal business, but that got me thinking; How many individuals and companies are sitting on big assets which they don’t really think about?

And is there a way they could capitalise on these assets outside of their regular trading activity. Perhaps it’s worth thinking about your own hidden assets. They may be more modest than BT’s, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be life changing for you.

3,000 Lunches A Day – And No Kitchen

A San Francisco company run by two Stanford business graduates provides lunches for over 3,000 office workers in the bay area each day, and they don’t cook or prepare a single one.

Eat Club’s secret is that they are middlemen – reaching deals with individual restaurants each day, negotiating discounts, and then delivering to their customers for a flat $7.50 a head. Nothing fancy- just three menu choices each day.

This seem like an excellent business model – let someone else invest in a restaurant, kitchens and everything else that’s needed, and then simply sell what they produce. If consumer tastes change, the company aren’t locked into one kind of food and can very quickly change supplier.

I can’t think of any reason why a business like this wouldn’t have a great chance of success in any major city – and with much lower risks and start up costs than a traditional catering operation.

Today’s National Day   

NATIONAL I WANT YOU TO BE HAPPY DAY!  

Important Publishers Notice:

How To Get Weekly Compensation
From The “Get-Rich-Quick-Gurus”

I’m receiving £938 a week straight out of their pockets! To find out how YOU could do the same visit…

www.streetwisenews.com/fortune

How will you react to The Great Beach Test?

The answer will have a huge impact on how successful you’re likely to be in turning your business, venture or idea into serious cash.

I’ve recorded a short video, explaining what it’s all about – and what you can do to instantly turn things around if you fail the test – which you can view below.

Take a look now, by Clicking Here.