Jun06

The Dip by Seth Godin

Posted In: Personal Achievement

The DipThe Book

The Dip by Seth Godin

The Dip is the fifth job interview where they never even call you back It’s the garage band playing to an empty club In the middle of nowhere. It’s the seventh time you fall on your butt while learning to snowboard. It’s the middle of the marathon, when the excitement of the starting gun is a dim memory, and the joy of the finish line is a distant dream. It’s any rough patch you have to get through before achieving your big goal…if in fact you’re chasing the riqht goal. What else? Oh yeah, it’s also the key to your career, your company’s future, and maybe your ultimate happiness.

Opinion on the book

We continue on our serie of good introductory book on different subjects. This book is I believe on of the easiest to read for someone who needs to get acquainted with the concept of ‘hitting wall’, meaning that period when it starts to get hard, and you don’t really know if it’s a sign you need to push through or if it’s a sign you need to stop there.

The Book in One Sentence

Choose what you want to compete in and become the best in the world at it.

Quotes

“Winners quit all the time. They just quit the right stuff at the right time”

“Quit or be exceptional. Average is for losers.”

Notes

# Be the best in the world

Zipf’s law :

The Dip Zipf's lawThe first one gets far more than the second one, always. It applies to resumes and college application rates and best-selling records and everything in between. Winners win big because the marketplace loves a winner.

It’s more important than ever to be the best in the world because I now can look EVERYWHERE for what I’m looking for. But it’s also easier because the categories are getting more specialized. You used to look for the best shop in town. Now you look for the best gluten-free bialys available by overnight shipping.

You just have to pick the right thing and do it all the way.

# Identify if you can do it

There are three different scenarios. The first one looks like this :

The Dip Seth Godin

The second one is the dead end. You put the effort, again and again, and nothing works. So you put even more effort because you think you’re facing a wall you have to push through, but it just seems to never happen.

The third one is worst, it is the Cliff. It looks like you’re making effort, but in fact you’re not. You’re just preparing yourself for a big fall.

The Dip Seth Godin

This applies to everything : the candidate to an election which seems totally unknow, the company launching a product nobody seems to care about, the young graduate who can’t seem to find a job…

Note that pushing through the Dip doesn’t necessary mean opposing brute force (time and effort) at it; it can (and often does) mean doing thing in a different way than what the competition does. But because it is hard, you need to go for something you’re passionate about.

In fact the Dip is an opportunity because most people will quit when facing it. It creates scarcity at the top, which creates value. The Dip is your chance to show what you’ve got.

# To Quit or not to Quit

But sometimes you’re not facing a Dip but a dead end or a cliff. How to make the difference BEFORE you invest tons of time and/or money? Well the book sadly doesn’t really help with that one… (yeah, sorry)

The only piece of advice would be that : if you find yourself in a position where you’ve invested the time/money and you’re end up mediocre, and it does not seem like you are going to get any better (competition too far away, you’re out of ressources…) then it’s time to ask yourself if you should think differently to overcome that, or if you’re just not playing in the right league and should quit. Sometimes it is just the tactic that is wrong. You may be in the good league, but you need to change what you’re offering.

Three questions to ask before quitting :
- Am I panicking?
- Who am I trying to influence?
Sergey Brin, cofounder of Google, told Seth :  “We knew that Google was going to get better every single day as we worked on it, and we knew that sooner or later, everyone was going to try it. So our feeling was that the later you tried it, the better it was for us because we’d make a better impression with better technology. So we were never in a big hurry to get you to use it today. Tomorrow would be better.”
Most people have never heard of you yet so why focus on people who did NOT like you?
- What sort of measurable progress am I making?

And a last piece of advice : Set your limit BEFORE you start! Decide when you’re going to quit before, so it’s a cold decision. Be realistic about it though, don’t decide to quit only once you’ve sold you’re kindneys to pay the bills…

Why you should (or should not) buy that book

This book is a nice introduction to the concept of ‘wall hiting’. Another more-in-depth book is coming soon on the subject of becoming the best at something, on mastering your subject (little clue here ;p ) so I would advise you wait for that one. This one has the advantage of being tiny (100 pages).

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~Thomas

 

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What about you? Have you read that book? What did you think of it?

May30

The Magic Of Believing by Claude M. Bristol

Posted In: Self Development

The Magic Of BelievingThe Book

The Magic of Believing by Claude M. Bristol

For more than four decades success-oriented Americans have turned to the no-nonsense, time-tested motivational techniques described in The Magic of Believing to achieve all their long- and short-term goals: a better job, an increased income, a happier marriage, or simply a good night’s sleep. Now it’s your turn to put Claude M. Bristol’s special “magic” into your life and into action !

Opinion on the book

As last week book was a good introduction to personal finance, this book is a nice introduction to self development. For some people it may just be enough, for some it is a good start, and for some it is just outdated (remember that this was first published in the 40s ! ).

The self development market has evolve a lot since The Magic Of Believing, but at the same time you realise that almost all of it relates to that book (I’m not saying it started everything, just that most self development adivces are the same). So this book is a good start, or a good reminder for later because it is very short, or fast if you get the audio tape.

The Book in One Sentence

Whatever you set your mind to you can achieve.

Quotes

“Through repetition, beliefs sink in”

Notes

# Power of thoughts

Working hard is not enough for success. Successful succeed throug thinking, hands were merely helper to their brain. You can get anything if you can make it the burning desire of your life. So you need to know what you want!

What do I want to achieve? The thoughts attract that upon which they are directed. They offer you :

  • constancy
  • intensity
  • power

But you have to believe with every fiber of your body!

# The Subconscious

The subconscious provides you with :

  • intuitive understanding of your body needs → it warns you, to preserve it
  • saves our life in case of immediate need → through fear or reflex for example
  • it’s operating in the psychic world, but it can be summoned and used by the conscious mind

To use it you’ll need to :

  1. Be sure you ask for something you believe to be rightfully yours and that you can handle : you’ll need to put absolute faith into your subconscious mind!
  2. Convey your needs to the subconscious with the spirit that the work has already been done. See and FEEL yourself as already successful!
  3. Go on with your life while yout subconscious work it out. At some point you’ll receive messages from your subconscious → act upon it immediately! Don’t think! Just do what it says, or you’ll lose faith in your subconscious and it won’t give you any more message

# Suggestion is power

Through repetition, beliefs sink in.

Ex : Repeat all over that it’s economic crisis and that’s exactly what happens. Repeat that it’s golden time for entrepreneurs and that’s exactly what happens!

# Mental picture

“assume the virtue if you have it not”

This is different than daydreaming!!

Plant the right seed (goal), and give it proper water every day (positive thoughts, constant focus and repetition) and it will grow into a strong tree that could break anything with its roots!

Write down what you want, or find relevant pictures, and put that everywhere! So it becomes part of your life, so you can see it at any moment without having to do anything!

If you’ve no idea how to get to your goal don’t worry, keep focusing on it, it will come to you (your unconscious mind is processing it as we’re speaking!)

But :

  • don’t talk about it or you will scatter your forces
  • act upon what come to you!! “Faith without action is dead”

# The Mirror Technique

  1. Stand in front of a mirror big enough so you can see your body to the waist up
  2. Stand still, breath deeply
  3. Look at yourself, in the depth of your eyes, tell yourself you’re going to get what you want, do it until you believe it

The goal here is to get that “trust in yourself” eye out of the exercise. And walk through life with it.

# Project your thoughts

If you want something, you need to associate with the people who already have it.

Why you should (or should not) buy that book

If you’re eally interested by what you read here and want to go further then this book is not what you need. Wait for the weeks to come, or if you really can’t wait go for something from Tony Robbins for example : it’s very accessible and dense at the same time.

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~Thomas

 

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What about you? Have you read that book? What did you think of it?

May23

Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki

Posted In: Personal Finance

Rich Dad Poor Dad CoverThe Book

Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money-That the Poor and the Middle Class Do Not! – by Robert T. Kiyosaki

Personal finance author and lecturer Robert T. Kiyosaki developed his unique economic perspective from two very different influences – his two fathers. This text lays out Kiyosaki’s philosophy and his relationship with money.

Opinion on the book

This is objectively a bad book, I have to be honest. BUT it is a very good start if you’re all new and fresh, and want to tiptoe into the waters of self-employment, and investing, and just get smarter about money. At least it is what it did for me, a long time ago now, so I thought it would be a good start for our book per week.

This is not a book about methods (it tries to be though, but it’s very dangerous advice, like “use your own company to get you a tax free rolex”, which will land you in jail. Fast. I also believe at some point he advised to invest in subprimes because the interest were goods and the risks were low, although I’m not sure about that…), it’s about motivation and trying to get into the “rich” state of mind, meaning not be someone who just spend every penny into craps and don’t invest in anything.

The Book in One Sentence

Start making your money work for you, stop working for your money.

Quotes

“Money is a powerful force. Unfortunately, people use the power of money against them. If your financial intelligence is low, money will run all over you. It will be smarter than you. If money is smarter than you, you will work for it all your life. To be the master of money, you need to be smarter than it. Then money will do as it is told. It will obey you. Instead of being a slave to it, you will be the master of it. That is financial intelligence. ”

Notes

#1 – There is no such thing as job security anymore

The common belief in our society is “work hard in high school, then go to a good university and work even harder, then get a good job and everything will be fine for you”. But in real life, most of the time it ends up with a “what the hell will I do now” after university, or a “is this my life, really?” in mid-career of after losing a job.

Lose your illusion and realize that there is no such thing as job security (look at the rate of unemployment after university. I wish there were statistic showing how many people actually work in what they studied there), so you better do what you like and want.

This being said – and this is out of the book – if what you want in life is to be an accountant and work for a big company, a peaceful office job, then go for it, there’s nothing wrong with that. Not everybody can or want to be a multimillionaire. But if you become an accountant become daddy said so then you better rethink your options.

#2 – Assets and liabilities

The author’s idea is simple : you have an income, and there are two things you can do with it : buy assets or buy liabilities.

For example if you buy a car you just bought yourself a liability that’s going to cost you money every month. Same if you rent a house.

But if you decide to invest and buy let’s say a little four apartments house and rent three of them, then you just bought yourself an asset : it’s not costing you anything but it’s actually earning you money!

So the regular middle class go that way :

Income → Buy things → Income goes up → buy more things → Get fired → Can’t pay for things anymore

Whereas the ‘rich’ income looks like this :

Income → Buy assets → more income from assets → more assets

And so on. You want to rethink the way you spend. Your income can’t be limited by what your boss pays you.

#3 – Create

Another advice is to create your own company, and this for two reasons.

First reason is that your regular Joe does :

1) Earns Money

2) Pays Taxes

3) Spends money

while a company :

1) Earns Money

2) Spends Money

3) Pays Taxes

While this is very true indeed, you have to be careful not to merge your personal finances and your company finances or else this could land you in jail. Careful here. BUT you sure will get a discount the size of the VAT of your country for that nice computer you’ve been wanting if you put that into ‘company expenses’.

Second : Create a company to actually do things. Create something, a product, whatever. The idea here, at first, is not to actually make millions but to work on what the author calls your financial IQ, meaning your capabilities to ‘play’ with the concept of money, and thus get yourself the formation required to become an investor, since people who are not investors have no idea what it feels like to be trying to sell something. So get yourself out there and get on the other part of the deal for once! Be a seller!

#4 – Passive Income

The principal lesson of the book is this : get yourself out of the equation. Start making your money work for you, stop working for your money. Which means that whatever you choose to build, work on the system so you’re not the center of it.

This is key because if you just have to work more and more to keep up with the growth, what is the point of it? You just built yourself another liability in time. For example opening multiple restaurants is nice. Having a franchise where people open restaurants for you is even better.

#5 – Invest

After becoming a creator, the author says you should have learned enough to become an investor. That is the ultimate step to financial freedom. Investing means you’re not really ‘working’ anymore in the common sense of the term, but you’re making your money work for you. Examples of this activity is real estate investing, or investing into other companies.

On the fact that you need money to do that, the author advises to stop thinking of money binary. Don’t be afraid to make offers, just go for it, offends people. How do you know that house hasn’t been on sale for two years and the owner is not desperate? How do you know that banker won’t loan you that money for the down payment, and the other one the money to buy what’s left of the house to pay? You don’t. Go for it, a ‘no’ won’t kill you. Working your ass off without saving anything can. Period.

Why you should (or should not) buy that book

If you’re reading that newsletter I don’t really think you need to buy that book, much more interesting stuff is coming in the future.

The only good reason to buy it would be as a present for someone who is currently struggling with his finances and has no idea what he is doing wrong.

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~Thomas

 

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________________________________________________________________

What about you? Have you read that book? What did you think of it?