This is every good book with notes I've read since 2016. For a category view, use: Health, Wealth, Happiness.
The fundamental struggle of life is recognizing we have a body and a mind. If you can’t handle the dual, you’re in trouble. The body is “creatureliness”, yet you are ‘A worm and a God’
Humans are primarily status driven. And the status of one human comes from how the other humans treat them. If your product or service changes how other people treat your customer, which it does in some way, it pays to show how. If you lose weight, do your kids have a new role model? I used to talk about how a business's competitors notice their phones don’t ring as much because all their customers are flowing to that business.
The virtue of prosperity is temperance; the virtue of adversity is fortitude.
All negotiations arise from weakness. Serious negotiations imply a weakness in the position of at least one of the parties involved in the negotiations, unlike day-to-day bargaining, where no such weakness need exist. The first thing to be done, perhaps the most vital thing, is to establish exactly where those weaknesses lie.
Nutrition is a skill, dieting is a skill, working out is a skill, making money is a skill, meeting girls and guys is a skill, having good relationships is a skill, even love is a skill. It starts with realizing they’re skills you can learn. When you put your intention and focus on it, the world can become a better place.
When you spend time or money on experiences, they are not only enjoyable in the moment—they pay an ongoing dividend, the memory dividend. Every time you remember the original experience, you get an additional experience from mentally and emotionally reliving the original experience. It’s why people keep photo albums—and why, if their house is on fire, they usually grab their albums before trying to save just about any other possession.
Do what makes you uniquely happy and do not compromise your desires. Recognize everyone else is different and unique - both in what makes them happy and therefore how they act.
Even in very young people you can see that a decision has been taken to appear tough, or stupid, or defiant. (Why should anyone wish to look stupid? Because then your teachers expect less of you.)
Guidara: Unreasonable Hospitality
When a table spent the meal talking about a movie they'd loved, we dropped off a DVD of it with their check. A couple celebrating an anniversary mentioned they were staying at a nearby hotel; we made sure there was a bottle of champagne waiting for them in their room when they got back with a handwritten note thanking them for trusting us with such an important occasion.
The bank has to win the suit for the same basic reason that governments won't give in to hijackers of airplanes when they demand money or whatever else. It's tempting to make the payment and save the passengers' lives. You probably would make the payment if you knew it never was going to happen again. But that's the point: not just that it might happen again, but that if you make the payment it becomes more likely that it will happen again.
Fluent powertalk is about the unsaid and the currency is usually reality-information. Sociopaths pay attention to what you have, and how well you bargain with it.
Kapil Gupta: The Complete Collection
While you were trying to tie the loose ends which keep coming untied... darn those loose ends. They just don't stay tied do they. Life was passing you by. The only thing that will change between now and the end of your life is your understanding that this is all you have. When you die, things will be left unfinished. Some dreams will be left unfulfilled. The kitchen will remain half cleaned. And the lives of your neighbors and those of the rest of the people in all of society will go on as if nothing happened.
This book gives three "right" questions, and the Eventual Innovators should put these questions on a wall in their office: Step 1: What is this product used for (e.g., a faucet's tasks are Wash hands, Obtain drinking water, Brush teeth, rinse hair etc.)? Step 2: Are there any steps that I can remove/combine from that task? (Every step has 1 verb, 1 object) Step 3: What tasks are the very next tasks that the customer will want to perform after using my product? (e.g., the hotel printing your boarding pass for check out recognizes an adjacent task and facilitates its completion).
Matt Mochary: The Great CEO Within
Feedback framework: A. Like - These are the specific actions that I like that you are doing. B. Wish That - These are the specific actions that I wish that you would do differently.
Remember that thou art an actor in a play of such a kind as the teacher may choose; if short, of a short one; if long, of a long one: if he wishes you to act the part of a poor man, see that you act the part naturally; if the part of a magistrate, (do the same). For this is your duty, to act well the part that is given to you; but to select the part, belongs to another.
A great analogy allows a customer to instantly grasp a feature and then describe the feature to others. Ex. 1,000 songs in your pocket.
Suffering is merely high intense clarity of thought which forces you to recognize things as they are.
Andy Grove: High Output Management
Idea: Make a central “problems list” for the company and send it out on Friday for problems that don’t have a clear solution, as well as names of people in charge to collect ideas. This way you harness the genius of different departments and weak ties/random connections.
Because love does that. It shines on the good and bad alike; if makes rain fall on the saints and sinners alike. Is it possible for the rose to say, "I will give my fragrance to the good people who smell me, but I will withhold it from the bad?"
David Marquet: Turn the Ship Around! Turning Followers into Leaders
Encourage “I intend to.” messages from your team. “Captain, I intend to submerge the ship. We are in water we own, the depth has been checked and is four hundred feet, all men are below, the ship is rigged for dive, and I’ve certified my watch team.” “Very well.” Not, “Request permission to.,” or ”I’d like to,”
There is nothing worse in this world than levity. Lighthearted men are the instruments of any party, flee from them as you would fire.
You will always have to pay for your humanity.
If you ask your robot to cook Italian dinner and it does it, you’ll consider it intelligent even though the original goal was yours. In fact, it adopted your goal through your request, then broke it down into a hierarchy of subgoals of its own, from paying the cashier to grating the Parmesan. In this sense, intelligent behavior is inexorably linked to goal attainment. Intelligence is the ability to achieve complex goals.
You can segment your (and your competitor’s) businesses into multiple product-market pairings. If you can find a way to segment the market in a way that minimized your competitors strengths and maximizes yours, there is a huge opportunity to concentrate your resources into that segment.
So What? Means so what, until they know how what you have that can benefit them. Ask a member of your target audience to complete the following sentence: All I really care about is ___________. If you can anticipate—and address—the So What Question, you will be much more successful in business and in life.
A stock is a collection. A flow is a movement, a growth or a decline. Your self-esteem is a stock. Even if you wake up today and commit to a large positive change, you must understand that you are changing the flow. If the stock is largely negative, it will get positive much faster than before you made the decision, but it will still be a long time until the stock’s value is positive.
The root of wealth is activity, and of evil its reverse.
Archelaus, king of Macedon, walking along the street, somebody threw water on his head. “Ay but,” said he, “Whoever it was, he did not throw the water upon me, but upon him who he took me to be." You didn’t throw water on me, you threw water on the man you mistook me for.
Jeb Blount: Fanatical Prospecting
“Prospect: “We're really happy with our current provider.” “That's fantastic!” (Anchor). “Anytime you are getting great rates and great service, you should never think about changing. All I want to do is come by and get to know you a little better. And even if it doesn't make sense to do business with me at the moment, I can at least give you a competitive quote that will help you keep those other guys honest.” (Disrupt). “How about I come by on Tuesday at 11:30 AM?” (Ask)
This book made me consider the importance of a regular eating schedule on my circadian rhythm.
Ethan M. Raisel: The McKinsey Mind
We liked the the 35-hour workweek so much we did it twice a week
Olivia Cabane: The Charisma Myth
Lower the intonation of your voice at the end of sentences, reduce how quickly and often you nod, and pause for 2 full seconds before you speak. (Allow yourself to take their full statement into consideration).Sapolsky: Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers
Acute Physical stress - You are a zebra, and a lion has just mauled your leg. The body’s responses are brilliantly adapted to this. Psycho-social stressors - We live long enough to generate stressful events purely in our heads. These events rarely correlate to actual danger. To mitigate psychological stressors, you need an outlet for your frustration where you believe you are in control, boxing, hugging, eating.The Red Queen Problem: the faster you run, the more the world moves with you and the less you make progress.
Jordan Ellenberg: How Not to be Wrong
Math is a science of not being wrong about things, its techniques and habits hammered out by centuries of hard work and argument. A mathematician is always asking: “What assumptions are you making? And are they justified?”
The Little Book That Builds Wealth
A company is worth the present value of the cash we expect it to generate over its lifetime. A company with a moat is worth a premium because it will generate profits for a longer stretch of time. Real Moat List: Intangible assets (Brand, Patents, Licenses), High customer switching costs, Network effects, Cost advantages/economies of scale (process, location, ownership, vertical integration, or partnerships).
Jessica Livingston: Founders at Work
Education is valuable marketing. “It seems to work as well as running ads” We’ll teach people stuff, and some tiny fraction of those people will become customers.
Malcom Gladwell: What the Dog Saw
Why is a two year old so terrible? Because they are systematically testing the notion that something that gives her pleasure might not actually give someone else pleasure—and the truth is that as adults we never lose that fascination.
Toastmasters Book of Body Language
The downward facing palm projects power and authority. Squeezing the thumb against the fingertips creates an ok gesture which can make the audience perceive you as focused and goal oriented.
Bachelard: The Poetics of Space
There is a rationality to the roof. It gives mankind shelter from the rain and sun he fears. Up near the roof all our thoughts are clear. As for the cellar, it is the foremost dark entity of the house, the one that partakes in subterranean forces. When we dream in the cellar, we are in harmony with the irrationality of the depths. The unconscious cannot be civilized. It takes a candle with it when it goes to the cellar and sees shadows dancing on the walls, even though civilized electricity lights the whole cellar.
Remove weasel words - Weasel words: Can’t, Need (you only need water every five days, food after starving for a month, and shelter to keep you warm), Bad, Try
Nothing is good or bad but thinking makes it so.
A man with a good understanding faculty must consider what it is to die. He can conceive of it as nothing other than a work of nature, and he that fears and work of nature is a very child. Man can part with no life properly, save for that little part of life which he now lives: and that which he lives, is no other, than that which at every instant he parts with. A man cannot truly part with the future or the past, for how should a man part with that which he hath not?
Theodore Levitt: The Marketing Imagination
The marketing imagination begins with the assertion that people don’t buy things but solutions to problems. Ex. Charles Revson said “In the factory we make cosmetics. In the store we sell hope.” Ex2. Leo McGinneva said that people buy quarter-inch drill bits because “they don’t want quarter inch drill bits. They want quarter-inch holes.”
Pat Conroy: The Pat Conroy Cookbook
The kitchen is not a place of labor, but a field of fantasy and play. If you can read and follow directions, you can cook.
A car has a governor which limits the flow of fuel and air so it doesn’t burn too hot, limiting the car from going its maximum velocity. We have a governor too. Deep in our minds, and it reads our life story and forms the way we see ourselves. It delivers pain and exhaustion, and fear and insecurity, trying to stop us before we risk it all. The governor stops us at 40%. Stretching your pain tolerance, using your discipline, letting go of your identity and all your self-limiting stories allows you to blow past that 40% to closer to your full potential. You have to remember that that initial blast if pain and fatigue or extreme discomfort is just your governor talking.
Difference between pleasure and enjoyment: Everyone takes pleasure in eating. To enjoy food is more different, it requires paying attention to the various sensations provided by a meal. We can experience pleasure without any investment of psychic energy, whereas enjoyment happens only as a result of unusual investments of attention. Without enjoyment, life can be endured, and even pleasant. But it can be so only precariously, depending on the luck and cooperation of the external environment. It is by being fully involved with every detail of our lives, whether good or bad, that we find happiness.
The distance separating our eyes means that there is a difference between the view each produces—thus there is no single “correct” view. The displacement, parallax, is what allows us to perceive depth and greater meaning.
Michael Breus, PhD: The Power of When
Wake-ups are completely normal. We all wake for a few seconds at the end of every 90-minute sleep cycle before beginning another one. Deep sleepers don’t remember doing it, but it happens. Light sleepers, like dolphins, are more prone to wake-ups than most. Change your perspective on those wake-ups—they’re an expected, healthy part of sleep.
Jeffrey J. Fox: How to become a Rainmaker
The plumber who generates the most revenue doesn’t charge $50 for a service call, he sells a clean, dry basement for $100, saving the customer’s thousand dollar carpet. If your product solves a problem then the question should be answered in dollars. Ex. Selling software to hotel. The reason the customer should do business with you is because your product will generate $2 per room per night by more accurately capture and bill usage of hotel phone lines.
Robert Greene: The Laws of Human Nature
One illicit desire almost all people desire is voyeurism: to peek inside the private lives of others. You can incorporate this into your work by giving the impression that you are revealing secrets that should not be shared. Some will be outraged but all will be curious. These could be secrets about yourself and how you accomplished what you did, or it could be about others, what happens behind the closed doors of powerful people and the laws they operate by. Offer new, unfamiliar, exotic to create a covetous pull.
The primeval part of the brain watches how you are treated by other people. It renders a determination of your value and assigns you a status. If you are judged by your peers as of little worth, the brain restricts serotonin, making you more physically and psychologically reactive.
Dr. Russo and Dr. Schoemaker: Decision Traps
Good coaches help people realize their full potential. They focus on a few key points—often simple points. Once you master these points, your play improves enormously.
PR consists of finding what the public doesn’t like about you, and fixing it in a way that everyone notices. Ex. A department store might discover that its clerks had a reputation for bad manners, and initiate formal instruction in courtesy and tact.
Thomas C. Foster: How To Read Literature Like A Professor
In all versions of the Faust legend, the hero is offered something he desperately wants - power or knowledge or a fast-ball that will beat the Yankees - and all he has to do is give up his soul.
David Oglivy: Oglivy On Advertising
St. Augustine has this to say about pressure: 'To be under pressure is inescapable. Pressure takes place through all the world: war, siege, the worries of state. We all know men who grumble under these pressures, and complain. They are cowards. They lack splendor. But there is another sort of man who is under pressure, but does not complain. For it is the friction which polishes him. It is pressure which refines and makes him noble'. Pressure makes diamonds.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb: The Black Swan - The Impact Of The Highly Improbable
The bell curve ignores large deviations, cannot handle them, yet makes us confident that we have tamed uncertainty. A small number of Black Swans explain almost everything in our world, from the success of ideas and religions, to the dynamics of historical events, to elements of our personal lives. Extremes - particularly like the Black Swan, carry an extraordinary cumulative effect. If you want to get an idea of a friend's temperament, ethics, and personal elegance, you need to look at him under the tests if severe circumstances, not under the regular rosy glow of daily life.
Stu Heinecke: How To Get A Meeting With Anyone
Gifts are a natural solution for a contact campaign because they make the recipient feel excited. Ex. Send a Dr. Seuss book "Green Eggs and Ham" because it's one of the best sales books. When you call, identify yourself as "Chris-I-Am". You can talk about Sam's transformation from unsuccessful to successful from the first to second half of the book and how you could do it for your potential client. The most important factor when giving art is to follow a theme which connects to the value you plan to bring to your VIP members.
The building of perceived value is probably the single most important selling skill in larger sales. In a large sale, you need to develop minor imperfections in their existing product (if they are using one) and evolve into clear problems, difficulties, or dissatisfactions. Then, finally, these must become wants, desires, or intentions to act.
Entelechy - the realization of potential.
Charles Duhigg: Smarter Faster Better
Remember that the future isn't one thing. Rather, it is a multitude of possibilities that often contradict one another until one of them comes true. Think of the future as multiple outcomes floating loosely in the air with different weights—their probabilities. Many things can happen, how can you make the one you want more likely to happen?
Richard Dawkins: The Selfish Gene
Think in terms of what is in it for him. Speak in terms of other’s interest when influencing them. Even charity can be thought of as selfish, if they did it to feel good.
Benjamin Franklin: Silence Dogwood, The Busy-Body, and Early Writings
Endeavor to be perfect in the calling you are engaged in; and be assiduous in every part thereof; INDUSTRY being the natural means if acquiring wealth, honor, and reputation; as IDLENESS is of poverty, shame, and disgrace.
Poor Charlie's Almanack - Expanded Third Edition
It is not greed that drives the world but envy.
Ben Horowitz: The Hard Thing About Hard Things - Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers
Why startups should train their people: People are the most important asset. Don't stop at recruiting the best people. Functional training can be as simple as training a new employee on your expectations for them, or as complex as a multi-week engineering boot camp to bring new recruits up to speed on the historical architectural nuances of your product. No startup has time to do optional things. Training must be mandatory. There is no investment that you can make that will do more to improve productivity in your company. Being too busy to train is like being too hungry to eat.
David Ogilvy: Confessions of an Advertising Man
If you detect the stench of conceit in this book, I would have you know my conceit is selective. I cannot read a balance sheet, work a computer, ski, sail, or play golf. But when it comes to advertising they call me King. When Fortune published an article about me titled “Is David Ogilvy a Genius?,” I asked my lawyers to sue the editor for the question mark.
George S. Clason: The Richest Man in Babylon
Don't eat the children of your savings, for they will never be able to have children of their own that will also work for you. First make an army of golden slaves before you enjoy a rich banquet.
Stephen R. Covey: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
Pygmalion Effect - higher expectations will lead to higher performance. And, "What you are shouts so loudly in my ears that I cannot hear what you say" - Emerson
Start with why, then how, then what. Most companies do it backwards. Ex. Southwest was not built to be an airline. It was built to champion a cause. They just happened to use an airline to do it.
Steve Johnson: Where Good Ideas Come From
Good ideas are works of bricolage; they're built out of the detritus of old ideas and ossified tradition. We take the ideas we've inherited or stumbled across, and we jigger them together into some new shape. Look to exaptation - hijacking a trait or invention optimized for a specific use and using it for a completely new endeavor. Like Gutenburg borrowed the wine press and transformed it into the first movable press.
Jay Abraham: Getting Everything You Can Out of All You've Got
"Look Mr./Mrs. Prospect. There are a thousand people you can turn to for xyz service if that's what you want. The people that do it, I know about half of them, and there very nice men and women, and I think they're very ethical, and I think they to a very fine job for what they are and what they do. But our approach, our strategy, our positioning is totally different." Then you can get into why you're different and why your experience is better.
Ray A. Kroc: Grinding it out, the making of McDonald's
"Work is the meat in the hamburger of life"
Robert B. Cialdini: Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion
Contrast Principle: In an experiment, each student takes a turn sitting in front of three pails of water: one cold, one lukewarm, and one hot. After placing one hand in hot and the other in cold, the participant puts both hands into the lukewarm water simultaneously. Even though both hands are in the same bucket, the one previously in cold water will feel hot, and the one previously hot will feel unnaturally cold based on the nature of the event that precedes it. How to utilize this principle - Clothing stores are instructed to sell the more expensive item first, if a customer requests to purchase two types of items. Ex. A man might balk at spending $95 for a sweater, but may decide to after just having bought a $495 suit. This is contrary to the common sense view, but massively effective.
Daniel Kahneman: Thinking, Fast and Slow
A simplifying heuristic is (roughly, a rule of thumb), used as a crutch for the lazy brain when making a difficult judgment. Intuition heuristic - when faced with a difficult question, we often answer an easier one instead, usually without using the substitution. Experts use intuition. Amateurs however, would also use intuition, but the question/problem is more difficult for them. So instead, they answer a related, easier question intuitively, like "do I like Ford Cars?" instead of the more complex: "Is Ford stock underpriced?"
Peter Drucker: Managing Oneself
Ask, 'What are my strengths?' - A person can only perform from strength. The only way to discover strengths is through feedback analysis: Whenever you make a key decision or take a key action, write down what you expect will happen. Afterward, compare the results with your expectations.
Robert Greene: The 48 Laws of Power
So much depends on your reputation-guard it with your life. Through reputation alone you can intimidate and win. Learn to destroy your enemies by poking holes in their reputations. Doubt is a powerful weapon. Once you let it out of the bag with insidious rumors, your opponents are in a horrible dilemma. On one hand they can deny the rumors, or even prove you have slandered them. But a layer of suspicion will remain: why are they defending themselves so desperately? Maybe the rumor has some truth to it? And if on the other hand they take the high road and ignore you, the doubts will be even stronger. If done correctly the sowing of rumors can so infuriate your rivals that in defending themselves they will make numerous mistakes.
Charles Duhigg: The Power of Habit
Simple 3-Step loop: First, there is a cue, a trigger that tells your brain to go into automatic mode and which habit to use. Then there is routine, which can be physical or mental or emotional. Finally, there is reward, which helps your brain figure out if this particular loop is worth remembering for the future. The Golden Rule of habit change - you must keep the old cue, insert a new routine, and keep the old reward. You can't extinguish a bad habit, you can only change it. Belief is the ingredient that makes a reworked habit loop into a permanent behavior. Without belief, without faith, the loop falls apart in times of high stress.
Keith Ferrazzi: Never Eat Alone
The secret to living is giving. Untallied generosity rules the day for the long term, don't keep score when adding value/buying lunch.
Use social currency to go viral. People want to share something that makes them feel in the know, makes them look a certain way to the friends who will see it.
Writing starts with putting your desk in the corner, and every time you sit down to write, remind yourself why it isn't in the middle of the room. Life isn't a support-system for art. It's the other way around.
Dale Carnegie: How to Win Friends and Influence People
Everything you and I do springs from two motives: the sex urge and the desire to be great. John Dewey phrased it differently, saying that the deepest urge of human nature is "the desire to be important"