From another book I was browsing through today:
16.9.08 - Stupidity Training
13.9.08 - Start Running
From a book I’m reading:
Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows that it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed.
Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows that it must run faster than the slowest gazelle or it will starve.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re a lion or a gazelle; when the sun comes up, you had better start running.
11.9.08 - 84-year-old preacher with 86 wives and 170 children, WANTS MORE
Mohammed Bello is 84 years old. He’s a maulvi. He has 86 wives, 170 children and lives in Bida, Nigeria.
Apparently his neighbours are a little upset with his lifestyle. They’ve painted it as a religious issue but surely the sociological and psychological aspects are far more fascinating? Anyone?
1.9.08 - Be Remarkable
You’re either boring or you stand out. You’re either invisible or remarkable. And, all your life, everyone has been pushing you to fit in. All your life you’re told to keep your head down, work hard, don’t make waves and get it done. What rubbish. Here, in 10 easy steps, is how to grow. How to stand out. How to get noticed, make a difference and have a shot at the big time.
31.8.08 - Ignorance is bliss…
It really is…
The ignorance we’re familiar with is the kind where YOU not knowing something allows you to be happier than if you had that knowledge. It holds true in a variety of cases, like how you’re happier the second before you’re told your parents left everything to your sister and nothing for you in their will.
I’m not one to argue for lack of information but wouldn’t you be happier if you didn’t know your mother was a whore? If that last sentence angers you, I’m sorry to have been the one to tell you. if it made you laugh, congratulations, you have no shame.
But there’s a second type of ignorance which keeps people happy, the kind where you deliberately keep OTHERS in the dark to ensure that they don’t want to kill you (anymore than they already do). You stay alive, they’re unaware of what they should be doing to you and everyone’s better off (i.e. you’re better off).
29.8.08 - Exponential Growth
Exponential growth is a simple and powerful idea. A good way to learn about it is to watch this series of videos.
26.8.08 - The real meaning of celebrity endorsement
When a product is used by the ‘most popular stars’ / ‘most popular websites’ etc, what does that tell you?
That it’s good?
Or that their marketing team did a great job of snagging the most popular people?
25.8.08 - What do they want?
Sorry, it doesn’t matter what ‘you’ want. What matters is this:
- People usually DON’T want what you want
- ‘Want’ means what they’re working towards subconsciously, not what they claim to want
- If people DO want what you want, they want it for themselves first
So how do you find out what people want?
24.8.08 - Spotlight
Think of ‘attention’ (one person’s focus of view or that of a group of people) as a spotlight. It moves in seemingly (but not actually) random ways, and is strongest when directed on one thing (and loses intensity and focus when shared between two or more things).
The bigger the number of people, the more powerful the spotlight (more focused attention) and the harder it becomes to manipulate it’s direction (inertia).
The point?
It’s much easier to move yourself to be in front of the spotlight than it is to move the spotlight to focus on you.
23.8.08 - Should you sell or should you hold?
You have a business that’s making you good money. It’s growing, people envy you and things are rocking.
Then someone comes along and offers you a lot of money for everything – more money than you could get if you sold the business today – and makes it clear that it’s now or never (the longer you resist, the more time they have to develop far enough to move forward without you). Do you sell out?
