My Impressions: Build Your Network Build Your Bottom Line

This was the other “free gift” after I got an offer “I could not resist” to subscribe to Entrepreneur magazine for a year…

Sorry no link with the picture this time because I didn’t see it on amazon. 

So we learn in Bschool that networking is one of the most important things to be successful in a career.  I have seen time and time again how people with less “skills” or “talent” easily surpass their peers in terms of advancement opportunities.  Taking a close look at those scenarios (of course very limited sample size), network is often the striking difference.

Some people are naturally outgoing, for them, they just need to “refine” each time they meet people.  But for naturally awkward and introverted people (like me), just getting out of the house is extremely difficult.  First three years in Pittsburgh, I rarely went out.  I didn’t go out to meet friends, I don’t go out to eat, I don’t go shopping, I don’t go to the movies.  It’s not a “oh poor Johnny he has no friends” type of thing.  It is more of a, “I am so happy I can sit in my chair, watch my free youtube and drink my beer with nobody judging me or bugging me.”  I’m actually very happy to sit on my chair, alone, at home, with that beer.   

The book serves in time for a quick reminder to myself for what do I really want out of life?  Am I happy with “just having a job” right now?  Content-wise it is real short. I wouldn’t call it a book.  I would call this a manual. 

Succinct, simple, lots of templates and examples, exact procedures.  I thought it was pretty good value for being a “free gift.” 

To try to summarize the main message of the book:

Three stages:

    1. Visibility: Get out there, meet people, referrals

    2. Credibility: Be really knowledgeable in your field, integrity, responsible

    3. Profitability: Mutually beneficial relationship

Other Important Points:

• Profitability is not found by bargain hunting, but cultivated from farming. 
  -> Reminds me of a saying from long ago basically saying you should do things fast with things to be fast, and slow with people to be fast.  If you are fast with people…  It actually becomes really slow…  Somehow I can’t say it as artistic as I heard it.  It sounded much more inspiring when I heard it…  Sorry!
• Increase your network data base to 1,000
• Always be sincere and ask: How can I help?  -> Some people do this to me, and I always feel warm and fuzzy inside.  I am naturally inclined to trust these zealous helpers…  This is a very strong contrast to people that keep raising more questions and problems when there are already plenty that haven't been solved...

My Impressions: Influence - The Psychology of Persuasion

Nearing the end of November.  I have started 39 books in 2016 and just finished book 29.  Likely I won’t hit the 50 book mark…  Maybe next year.  In my defense a lot of the books I started are “textbook style” such as Excel 2013 Power Programming with VBA…

Anyway, so how I stumbled upon this book was because Tai Lopez’s youtube advertisement kept on hitting me.  I was just trying to stream my favorite Miley from The Voice and Tai kept on showing up between videos showing off his huge mansion and fancy cars trying to persuade me to buy his course and become a wealthy man like him.  I researched his course, I read about reviews, I tried really hard to evaluate how dope his method is.

Look at how lovely Miley is!

The truth is, I found his video quite captivating.  I was curious to keep on watching it…  It was long, I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t really stop. 

I came across one reddit post basically saying his ad has more learning value for sales and marketing than his whole course he is trying to pitch (inclined to agree).  Tai’s ad packs all the psychology of persuasion in his video ads (though clumsy), and that in itself is kind of an art piece.  The original poster then mentioned this book for reference…  So I thought, read the source!  And here we are.  

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, Revised Edition

Now the content is pretty tight.  Every time I read a new example, I think to myself, “Damn, the real estate agent used that on me,” or “Oh that’s what happened at the car dealer.”  Chapter two talks about the rule for reciprocation: Krishnas giving people a ‘gift’ – a book, and then asks for a donation.  This exact thing happened to me at the O’Hare just a few weeks ago.  Apparently this rule is so powerful that people feel obligated to give even if they don’t like the requester.  I didn’t.  I hate it when people ask me for money and make it feel like they are doing me a favor. 

The main idea is, over the centuries, humans have evolved in such a way that like Pavlov’s dogs, we are conditioned to behave certain ways without thinking about it.  Press the button, something happens.  Many of the examples from the book still hold true.  But the same time, some of these techniques have been over-exploited so much that people now have an auto-hate response towards them.  The really scary ones are the revolutionized methods based on these principles that haven’t been publicly recognized.  This is war.   

I recommend people to read it and safeguard yourself...