Saturday 10 March 2018

HOLD YOURSELF ACCOUNTABLE

You are your greatest enemy. You were born you and all alone. Even if you have a twin you actually came out at different times.
You've got a whole lot to explore about yourself and your world. You've got to discover yourself. You have no idea the amount of energy stored up in you. There is a lot of potentials buried inside of you that you need to dig up to express. You might be living in someone else's shadows because you feel inferior of your own self and until you beat that, you'll keep living the dreams of another.
Do not let the fear of leaving your comfort zone, questioning the usual, defying the status quo, or inferiority, hold you back from discovering your true self.
They told you you can't, have you actually tried. Your background is nothing to write home about, have you done anything differently. You tried and tried.., keep trying till you break it through. Quit the excuse rounds because it won't get you there from here.
Listen, you are writing a story and it will be told to generations, it's entirely up to you to decide its contents.
I just want you to stop seeking for sympathy. Lions entertain no weakling. You've got to push yourself to the breaking points. You are who you choose to be.

Saturday 3 March 2018

It is all about the right attitudes

ICONS OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP

3 Killer Persuasion Techniques You Can Learn From Billionaire Warren Buffett

Psychologist Robert Cialdini dissects what makes the world's most successful investor so incredibly persuasive.

By Jessica Stillman

@EntryLevelRebel

If you want to persuade others, there are endless tips and tricks available. Most of them tell you how to package your argument to make it as convincing as possible, but according to psychologist Robert Cialdini, even if you heed every bit of advice out there on the topic, you've still ignored the most important part of persuasion.

A huge chunk of persuasion happens before people even know what you're selling, he says. This "pre-suasion" is all about establishing your credibility and relationship, and it's often the difference between people embracing your ideas or tuning you out.

"Research done in the last 15 years shows that optimal persuasion is achieved through optimal pre-suasion: the practice of arranging for people to agree with a message before they know what's in it," he writes in The Los Angeles Times.

So how do you learn this skill? You can do a lot worse than observe billionaire investor Warren Buffett, Cialdini says.

1. Build unity

When it comes to persuading people, trust often matters more than the content of your ideas, and you get people to trust you by demonstrating that you're all on the same team. Buffett knows this and demonstrated it in his 2015 letter to shareholders.

Aiming to convince readers that his company, Berkshire Hathaway, could continue its improbably long run of incredible success, he opened by saying that the message contained in the letter, was "what I would say to my family today if they asked me about Berkshire's future." That's a masterstroke, according to Cialdini.

"The result was a flood of favorable reaction to the letter (with headlines like 'You'd be a fool not to invest in Berkshire Hathaway' and 'Warren Buffett just wrote the best annual letter ever'), as well as a per-share increase for the year of nearly five times that of the S&P. I can say that, as a Berkshire Hathaway stockholder, I have never since thought of selling any shares. After all, Buffett had given me the same recommendation he first declared he'd give to a family member," he comments in the article.

2. Admit mistakes

Admitting your errors upfront might sound like a terrible way to persuade people. After all, who would have confidence in someone who bumbled badly in the past? But Buffett proves that showing you're human straight off can actually be a brilliant move, Cialdini says.

On The James Altucher Show (hat tip to Business Insider), Cialdini praised Buffett's 2012 shareholder letter for this reason. Buffett kicked it off with an admission that "for the ninth time in 48 years, Berkshire's percentage increase in book value was less than the S&P's percentage gain."

"It's disarming every time he says, 'You know, we made this mistake.' I believe the next thing he says to me--and that's where he puts the strength of the last year," Cialdini explains. "He's just readied me to listen to and process the next thing he's going to say more deeply because he's established himself as a trustworthy source."

3. Make fun of yourself

Buffett understands that showing vulnerability can, paradoxically, strengthen your argument. As we saw in the last section, he does that by admitting missteps, but he also strives to come across as more human and believable by making fun of himself.

Every year, at their annual shareholder meeting, Buffett and his right-hand man Charlie Munger play a video that makes them the butt of jokes. These videos "humanize them and make them seem like they're not arrogant, know-it-all types, but very much in keeping with the image of who they are as honest, straight-talking people who will reveal their foibles if those foibles exist," Cialdini told Yahoo Finance.

You Have All The Resources Available, Just Make A Search

Read 200 Books This Year by Making This 1 Tiny Change to Your Routine

A little math proves you do have enough time to change your life with books.

By Jessica Stillman

@EntryLevelRebel

There's no secret to how to get smarter. You read. A lot.

Really, that's it.

And if you don't believe me, there's a whole host of luminaries, from Warren Buffett and Bill Gates to Richard Branson and Barack Obama, who will tell you the same thing.

But if building your brainpower is that straightforward, why don't more people do it? For the same reason that we fail to do lots of worthy but less urgent self-improvement projects--we're all really busy.

But are we really? A new article by Charles Chu of site Better Humans raises an eyebrow of skepticism at people who claim they simply don't have enough time to feed their intellect with books. And he has math on his side.

The simple math that proves you do have enough time to read

Chu tells the story of how reading 200 hundred books a year (yes, 200!) for the past several years has helped him turn his life around, reconsider his career, and become much happier. It's a fascinating tale. But Chu also anticipates the objections. That's great for you, some might say, but my life is chaos.

Nope, counters Chu. If you're anything like the average American, you actually have plenty of time to read just as much as he did. All you have to do is make one little substitution in your life. He starts with how much time you need:

"First, let's take a look at two statistics:

The average American reads 200 to 400 words per minute

Typical nonfiction books have about 50,000 words

Now, all we need are some quick calculations:

200 books x 50,000 words/book = 10 million words

10 million words/400 wpm = 25,000 minutes

25,000 minutes/60 = 417 hours

That's all there is to it. To read 200 books, simply spend 417 hours a year reading."

Before you object and say that there's no way you have 417 hours a year to spare, Chu points out a few uncomfortable facts:

"Here's how much time a single American spends on social media and TV in a year:

608 hours on social media

1,642 hours on TV

If those hours were spent reading instead, you could be reading more than 1,000 books a year.

Here's the simple truth behind reading a lot of books: It's not that hard. We have all the time we need."

He's not the only one pointing out that the only reason many of us don't have time for books is because we're addicted to screens (time that we often fine wildly unfulfilling). Design for Hackers author David Kadavy has also noted that if you simply pick up a book every time you get that itch to mindlessly browse your feeds, you'll hit your reading target in no time.

If you're still thinking this change sounds easier said than done, then check out Chu's complete post for specific tips on making the switch, or read other experts' advice on how to read more despite your busy schedule.

So what do you think: Would you be willing to substitute most of your social media time this year for reading good, old-fashioned books?

Growing at your own pace