Success in Life = (The People You Meet) + (What You Create Together)
Section 1 – The Mind-Set
Chapter 1 – Becoming a Member of the Club
- The people who had reached professional heights unknown to my father and mother helped each other. They found one another jobs, they invested time and money in one another’s ideas, and they made sure their kids got help getting into the best schools, got the right internships, and ultimately got the best jobs.
- Before my eyes, I saw proof that success breeds success and, indeed, the rich do get richer. Their web of friends and associates was the most potent club.
- When you help others, they often help you – reciprocity
- Success in any field, but especially in business, is about working with people, not against them.
- I learned that real networking was about finding ways to make other people more successful. It was about working hard to give more than you get.
Chapter 2 – Don’t Keep Score
- What’s the secret to success? Generosity
- You’ve got to be more than willing to accept generosity. Often, you’ve got to go out and ask for it.
- Until you become as willing to ask for help as you are to give it, you are only working half the equation.
- A network functions precisely because there’s recognition of mutual need. There’s an implicit understanding that investing time and energy in building personal relationships with the right people will pay dividends.
- If I’m going to take the time to meet with somebody, I’m going to try to make that person successful.
- Don’t ask “How can you help me,” but “How can I help you”
- Business cycles ebb and flow; your friends and trusted associates remain.
- It’s better to give before you receive. And never keep score. (e.g., who’s turn is it to get lunch)
Chapter 3 – What’s Your Mission
Goal setting: The key is to make setting goals a habit. If you do that, goal setting becomes a part of your life.
Step 1 – Find Your Passion
- Before you start writing down your goals, you’d better know what your dream is.
- The intersection is what I call your “blue flame” – where passion and ability come together.
- Look Inside: create a list of dreams and goals. Next to the first list, I write down in a second column all the things that bring me joy and pleasure, the achievements, people, and things that move me. When I’m done, I start to connect these two lists, looking for intersections, that sense of direction or purpose.
- Look Outside: Next, ask the people who know you best what they think your greatest strengths and weaknesses are.
- Our achievements grow according to the size of our dreams and the degree to which we are in touch with our mission.
Step 2 – Putting Goals to Paper
- Create a Relationship Action Plan – this will connect your goals to people, places, and things that will help you get the job done.
- Further detail here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140612171618-1052611-want-better-meetings-embrace-relationship-action-planning-rap/
- In the first section, I list what I’d like to accomplish three years from today. I then work backward in both one-year and three month increments to develop mid- and short-term goals that will help me reach my mission.
- I created an A goal and a B goal that will meaningfully contribute to where I want to be three years from now.
- Once you have your plan, post it in a place (or places) where you will see it on a regular basis. Share your goals with others. Make sure your goals are written down.
- Goals must be specific, believable, and challenging/demanding.
Step 3 – Create a Personal “Board of Advisors”
- It can be made up of family members; perhaps someone who’s been a mentor to you; even an old friend or two to have external vetting of your goals.
Chapter 4 – Build It Before You Need It
- Harness your preexisting network – have you investigated the friends and contacts of your parents? How about your siblings? Your friends from college and grad school?
- It’s easiest to reach out to those people who are at least tangentially part of your network.
- Focus on your immediate network: friends of friends, old acquaintances from school, and family whom they could introduce you to help fulfill your goals.
Chapter 5 – The Genius of Audacity
- It never hurts to ask – the most important act in his life. The worst anyone can say is no. If they choose not to give their time or their help, it’s their loss.
- Find a role model – pay attention to their actions. Over time, you’ll adopt some of their techniques.
- Set a goal for yourself of initiative a meeting with one new person a week.
Chapter 6 – The Networking Jerk
- It’s better to spend more time with fewer people at a one-hour get together and have one or two meaningful dialogues than engage in a wandering-eye routine and lose the respect of most people you meet.
- “Dear Keith, I hear you’re a good networker. I am, too. Let’s sit down for fifteen minutes and a cup of coffee.” Why? I ask myself. Why in the world do people expect me to respond to a request like that? Have they appealed to me emotionally? Have they said they could help me? Have they sought some snippet of commonality between us?
- Don’t treat those under you poorly: You must treat people with respect up and down the ladder.
- Be transparent: People respond with trust when they know you’re dealing straight with them.
- Don’t be too efficient: Reaching out to others is not a numbers game. Your goal is to make genuine connections with people you can count on.
- An inner truth about the skill of reaching out to others: Those who are best at it don’t network – they make friends.
Section 2 – The Skill Set
Chapter 7 – Do Your Homework
- Before I meet any new people, I’ve been thinking of introducing myself to, I research who they are and what their business is. I find out what’s important to them: their hobbies, challenges, goals – inside their business in and out.
- I want to know what this person is like as a human being, what he or she feels strongly about, and what his or her proudest achievements are.
- Be up to date on what’s happening within the company of a person you want to establish a relationship with. Did the person have a good or bad quarter? Do they have a new product? Trust me, all people naturally care, generally above and beyond anything else, about what it is they do. If you are informed enough to step comfortably into their world and talk knowledgeably, their appreciation will be tangible.
- As William James wrote: “The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.”
- Setting out to know someone inevitably means understanding what their problems or needs are.
- The point is, once you’ve done everything you can to prepare you still have to reach beyond the odd collection of data points that add up to our public identity and to get someone as an individual. Find a way to become part of those things that are of most interest to them, and you will have found a way to become part of their life.
- During mixers, I like to hang out near the bar.
- Find a point of common ground that is deeper and richer than what can be discovered in a serendipitous encounter. Armed with knowledge about a person’s passions, needs, or interests, you can do more than connect; you’ll have an opportunity to bond and impress.
- I never shy away from mentioning the research I’ve done. I always make a special effort to inquire about the people I’d like to meet. Inevitably, people are flattered. Wouldn’t you be? Instantly, the other person knows that rather than suffering through a strained half hour with a stranger, they’re able to connect with someone with whom they share an interest, someone who has gone out of his way to get to know them better.
Chapter 8 – Take Names
- Establish a 90-day, 1 year, and 3-year goals in the Relationship Action Plan.
- I mapped out the most important players in both the online and games industries, from CEOs and journalists to programmers and academics. My goal was to get to know almost all of them within a year.
- Aggregate the people you know and create call sheets by region, listing the people I know and those I want to know. When I’m in a given town, I’ll try to phone as many people as I can.
- I have lists by geographical location, by industry, by activity (runners).
Chapter 9 – Warming the Cold Call
- Remember, if you don’t believe you are going to get what you want from the call, you probably won’t.
- You have to view getting to know new people as a challenge and an opportunity.
- Cold calls are for suckers. I don’t call cold – ever. I’ve created strategies that ensure every call I make is a warm one.
- Frequently, people won’t get back to you. You have to put your ego aside and persist in calling or writing. When you finally connect with someone, just dive in as you caught them on the first call (not expressing how annoyed you are for having to reach out multiple times)
- When I call someone directly whom I haven’t spoken with before, I try to call at an unusual time. Someone who is busy is more likely to pick up their own phone at 8:00 A.M. or 6:30 P.M.
- I left a message: “I just want to reiterate my excitement regarding our meeting. I’ve never heard John talk so flatteringly of a business associate. I understand how busy you must be. I haven’t heard from your administrative assistant, but I’m sure I will. See you soon.” At no point do you want your interactions to become strained. Creating and maintaining a sense of optimism and gentle pressure around the appointment is all part of the dance.
- In fifteen seconds, I used my four rules for what I call warm calling:
1) Convey credibility by mentioning a familiar person or institution – in this case, John, Jeff, and WebMD.
2) State your value proposition: Jeff’s new product would help Serge sell his new products.
3) Impart urgency and convenience by being prepared to do whatever it takes whenever it takes to meet the other person on his or her own terms.
4) Be prepared to offer a compromise that secures a definite follow-up at a minimum.
- Draft off a reference: When you mention someone both of you have in common, all of a sudden, the person you’re calling has an obligation not only to you, but also to the friend or associate you just mentioned.
- State your value: you’ve got very little time to articulate why that person should not try to get off the phone as quickly as possible. What can you do for them? Selling is solving another person’s problem. And you can only do that once you know what those problems are.
- Talk a little, say a lot. Make it quick, convenient, and definitive. “We should get together sometime soon. I’m going to be in town next week. How about lunch on Tuesday”
Chapter 10 – Managing the Gatekeeper – Artfully
- Always respect the gatekeeper’s power. Treat them with the dignity they deserve.
- Acknowledge their help. Thank them by phone, or with flowers or a note.
Chapter 11 – Never Eat Alone
- Invisibility is a fate far worse than failure.
- In building a network, remember: Above all, never, ever disappear.
- I’m constantly looking to include others in whatever I’m doing. It’s good for them, good for me, and good for everyone to broaden their circle of friends (e.g., workout with potential employees, conduct an interview on a run, ask employees for a car ride to the airport)
- If I’m meeting someone whom I don’t know that well, I might invite someone I do know just to make sure the meeting does not become a waste of time.
Chapter 12 – Share Your Passions
- Shared interests are the basic building blocks of any relationship
- Friendship is created out of the quality of time spent between two people, not the quantity. There is a misconception that to build a bond, two people need to spend a great deal of time together. This is not the case.
- It’s astonishing how much more you can learn about someone when you are both doing something you enjoy (e.g., working out)
- Contrary to popular business wisdom, I don’t believe there has to be a rigid line between our private and public lives.
- Your passions and the events you build around them will create deeper levels of intimacy. List of activities to try: coffee, conferences, invite to share a workout/hobby, meal, special event (book signing), concert, volunteering, entertaining at home.
Chapter 13 – Follow Up or Fail
- FOLLOW UP IS THE KEY TO SUCCESS IN ANY FIELD
- Give yourself between 12-24 hours after you meet someone to follow-up.
- When I leave a meeting, I put the name and email address of the new acquaintance in my contact list and program my calendar to remind me in a month’s time to drop the person another email just to keep in touch.
- But remember – and this is critical – don’t remind them of what they can do for you, but focus on what you might be able to do for them. It’s about giving them a reason to want to follow up.
- Another effective way to follow up is to forward relevant articles to the people in your network who might be interested.
- Other follow up tips: always express gratitude, include an item of interest from your meeting/conversation, reaffirm commitments you both made, be brief and to the point, timeliness is key.
Chapter 14 – Be a Conference Commando
- While others quietly sit taking notes, content to sip their free bottled water, successful connectors are setting up one-on-one meetings, organizing dinners, and, in general, making each conference an opportunity to meet people who could change their life.
- Help the organizer. Better yet, be the organizer.
- An opportunity for you to come in and help out – and become an insider in the process.
- Once you’re on the inside, you can find out who will be attending and what the hot events will be. And you’ll find yourself at all those unlisted dinners and cocktail parties that are thrown for the conference poobahs.
- “I’m really looking forward to the conference you’re putting together. I’m interested in helping make this year the best year ever and I’m willing to devote a chunk of my resources – be it time, creativity, or connections to make this year’s event a smash hit. How can I help?”
- Listen. Better Yet, Speak: Giving speeches is one of the easiest and most effective ways to get yourself, your business, and your ideas seen, heard of, and remembered.
- If you take the first step and get to know the organizer, landing a speaking gig isn’t that tough.
- Organize a conference within a conference. Before the event, I’ll scout out a nice nearby restaurant and send out pre-invites to a private dinner that I’ll host alongside the scheduled affair. This works best at long 3-day conferences.
- Master the Deep Bump – The two minutes you’re given with someone you’re “bumping into” whom you are looking to meet. Your goal should be to leave the encounter with an invitation to reconnect at a later time.
- Deep bumps are an effort to quickly make contact, establish enough of a connection to secure the next meeting, and move on.
- In two minutes, you need to look deeply into the other person’s eyes and heart, listen intently, ask questions that go beyond just business, and reveal a little about yourself in a way that introduces some vulnerability (yes, vulnerability; it’s contagious!) into the interaction. All these things come together to create a genuine connection.
- Bill Clinton – shakes persons hands with two hands or clasps a person’s elbow to create instantaneous warmth. He’ll make direct eye contact, and, in that feeling moment, ask a personal question or two. His questions always revolved around what the other person was thinking, what was troubling them.
- Follow up – During speeches, I’ll sit in the back and write follow up emails to the people I just met at the previous break. Everyone you talked with at the conference needs to get an email reminding them of their commitment to talk again.
Chapter 15 – Connecting with Connectors
- The most important people in our network are those who are acquaintances
- Strength of weak ties: Your weak ties, on the other hand, generally occupy a very different world than you do. They’re hanging out with different people, often in different worlds, with access to a whole inventory of knowledge and information unavailable to you and your close friends.
- Restauranteurs: I like to call ahead and ask to speak with the owner (though the maître d’ will do) and tell them that I go out regularly, sometimes in large parties, and I’m looking for a new place to entertain, a lot! Once you get to know the owner, it’ll become like your very own restaurant.
- Hunt out people who look and act and sound nothing like you do
- Connect with the connectors
Chapter 16 – Expanding Your Circle
- The most efficient way to enlarge and tap the full potential of your circle of friends, is, quite simply to connect your circle with someone else’s.
- If you are sharing someone else’s circle of friends, be sure that you adequately acknowledge the person who ushered you into this new world and do so in all the subsequent connections that they helped foster.
- Never forget the person who brought you to the dance.
Chapter 17 – The Art of Small Talk
- The one trait that was common among the class’s most accomplished graduates was “verbal fluency” – not GPA.
- So, what should your objective be in making small talk? Good question. The goal is simple: Start a conversation, keep it going, create a bond, and leave with the other person thinking, “I dig that person.”
- When it comes to making an impression, differentiation is the name of the game. Confound expectation. Shake it up. How? There’s one guaranteed way to stand out in the professional world: Be yourself. I believe that vulnerability – yes, vulnerability – is one of the most underappreciated assets in business today.
- Power, today, comes from sharing information not withholding it.
- Be honest, open, and vulnerable enough to genuinely allow other people into your life so that they can be vulnerable in return.
- The best way to become good at small talk is not to talk small at all.
- Power of non-verbal cues: give a person a hearty smile, maintain good eye contact (70%-100%), unfold your arms and relax, nod your head, and lean in, learn to touch people (their elbow).
- When meeting someone new, be prepared to have something to say. Keep up with current events. Cultivate some niche interest.
- In conducting small talk, we should be aware of the different styles at play and adapt to the person we’re talking with.
- The concept of the Johari Window has helped me become conscious of my need to adapt my conversational approach to each person I want to connect with. One helpful technique I use is to try and envision myself as a mirror to the person with whom I’m speaking. What’s the cadence of their speech? How loudly do they talk? What’s their body language? By adjusting your behavior to mirror the person you are talking to, he’ll automatically feel more comfortable.
- Make a graceful exit:“there are so many wonderful people here tonight; I’d feel remiss if I didn’t at least try to get to know a few more of them. Would you excuse me for a second?”
Section 3 – Turning Connections into Compatriots
Chapter 18 – Health, Wealth, and Children
- When meeting someone new, I try to find out what motivations drive that person. It often comes down to one of three things: making money, finding love, or changing the world.
- The only way to get people to do anything is to recognize their importance and thereby make them feel important. Every person’s deepest lifelong desire is to be significant and to be recognized.
- Helping someone accomplish his or her deepest desires is critical not only to forming a bond with someone but to keeping that bond strong and growing.
- When you help someone through a health issue, positively impact someone’s personal wealth, or take a sincere interest in their children, you engender life-bonding loyalty.
Chapter 19 – Social Arbitrage
- If you want to make friends and get things done, you have to put yourself out to do things for other people – things that require time, energy, and consideration
- Successful connecting with others is never amount simply getting what you want. It’s about getting what you want and making sure that people who are important to you get what they want first.
- You can be more successful in two months by becoming really interested in other people’s success than you can in two years trying to get other people interested in your own success.
Chapter 20 – Pinging – All the Time
- 80 percent of building and maintaining relationships is just staying in touch. I call it “pinging.” It’s a quick, casual greeting.
- Becoming front and center in someone’s mental Rolodex is contingent on one invaluable little concept: repetition.
- If you want to transform a contact into a friend, you need a minimum of two face-to-face meetings out of the office.
- You need to nurture a developing relationship with a phone call or e-mail at least once a month.
- Personal events like birthdays and anniversaries make a special point to reach out to people during these times.
- Categorize your relationship action plan into a few categories: customers, prospects, important business associates (actively involved with or hoping to do business with), and aspirational contacts.
- Add 1, 2, 3 to each name on the list. 1’s – get contacted at least once a month. 2’s – quarterly call/email. 3’s – acquaintances
Chapter 21 – Find Anchor Tenants and Feed Them
- Six to ten guests, I’ve found, is the optimal number to invite to a dinner. When someone says they cannot come because of another dinner or engagement, I often suggest they come before the dinner for drinks and appetizers, or even after, for dessert and drinks.
- Thursdays are wonderful days for dinner parties. It doesn’t cut into people’s weekend plans and yet folks are willing to go a little late knowing that they have only one day left in the work week.
- Get your invites out early – at least a month in advance.
- KISS – keep it simple stupid. Good food, good people, lots of wine, good conversation. Always underdress just so no one else feels they did.
- Don’t seat couples together.
- Relax: If you’re having fun, odds are that they will too.
Section 4 – Connecting in the Digital Age
Chapter 22 – Tap the Fringe
- Connect only to people whom you know enough to feel confident introducing them to others in your network.
- Make at least one quality introduction a month.
Chapter 23 – Become the King of Content
- Generosity + Vulnerability + Accountability + Candor = Trust
Chapter 24 – Engineering Serendipity
- Your goal as you move through the world should be to create a force field inside of which people feel safe to play by different rules. Model the traits that support serendipity – curiosity, generosity, passion, and humility.
- Optimistic mindset – key to being success is to “being open to new things and people”
Section 5 – Trading up and Giving Back
Chapter 25 – Be Interesting
- “Would I want to spend an hour eating lunch with this person?” Consultants’ airport question: “If I were trapped in JFK Airport for a few hours, would I want to spend it with this person?”
- People don’t only hire people they like; they hire people who they think can make them and their companies better.
- I’d latch on to the latest, most cutting-edge idea in the business world. I’d immerse myself in it, getting to know all the thought leaders pushing the idea and all the literature available. I’d then distill that into a message about the idea’s broader impact to others and how it could be applied in the industry I worked in. That was the content. Becoming an expert was the easy part. I simply did what experts do: I taught, wrote, and spoke about my expertise.
- How to become an expert: get out in front and analyze the trends and opportunities on the cutting edge, focus on your strengths (the trick is not to work obsessively on the skills and talents you lack, but to focus and cultivate your strengths so that your weaknesses matter less).
Chapter 26 – Build Your Brand
- Starting today, you’ve got to figure out what exceptional expertise you’re going to master that will provide real value
- To become a brand, you’ve got to become relentlessly focused on what you do that adds value. Can you do what you do faster and more efficiently? If so, why not document what it would take to do so and offer it to your boss as something all employees might do? Do your initiative new projects on your own and in your spare time? Do you search out ways to save or make your company more money?
Chapter 27 – Broadcast Your Brand
- Pick the three most interesting points about your story and make them fast, make them colorful, and make them catchy.
Chapter 28 – Getting Close to Power
- Start to reach out to important people who can make a difference in your life and the lives of others.
- The more accomplished the people we associate with, the greater our aspirations become.
- Power by association – power that arises from being identified with influential people (e.g., personal assistants)
- Trust is the essential element of mixing with powerful and famous people – trust that you’ll be discreet; trust that you have no ulterior motives behind your approach; trust that you’ll deal with them as people and not as stars; and basically, trust that you feel like a peer who deserves to be engaged as such. The first few moments of an encounter is the litmus test for such a person to size up whether he or she can trust you in these ways or not. They often fret over the fact that their public persona becomes indistinguishable from their private personality. They feel misunderstood and underappreciated for who they really are. To assure them that you’re interested in them for themselves, rather than what the public perceives them to be, stay away from their fame and focus, instead, on their interests.
Chapter 31 – Find Mentors, Find Mentees, Repeat.
- If you hang with connected people, you’re connected. If you hang out with successful people, you’re more likely to become successful yourself.
- Finding a talented, experienced mentor who is willing to invest the time and effort to develop you as a person and a professional is far more important than making career decisions based purely on salary and prestige.
- Two crucial components for mentorship: they offered their guidance, and I promised something in return. A successful mentorship relationship needs equal parts utility and emotion.
- The best way to approach utility is to give help first, and not ask for it. If there is something whose knowledge you need, find a way to be of use to that person.
- If you can’t help them specifically, perhaps you can contribute to their charity, company, or community.
Chapter 32 – Balance is B.S.
- Refrigerator Rights Relationships: How many people can walk into our homes and just open up the fridge and help themselves? You need to feel comfortable walking into someone else’s kitchen and rummage through their fridge without asking.
- When our lonely lives catch up with us, we turn to self-help literature for answers, but it isn’t self help we need, I’d argue it’s help from others.
Chapter 33 – Welcome to the Connected Age
- Vipassana can give ourselves the time and space we need to come to a better understanding of who we are and what we really want.