10 Ways to Increase Your Arbitrage Power

The art of arbitrage - I believe - is the key to living smart. It allows you to get much more given the same amount of effort. What you do there is connecting to different worlds and then leveraging the “price differences” between them to your advantage. It’s just like what the merchants do in trading, only in this case you apply the principle to many different areas of your life.

In this post, I’d like to share 10 practical ways to increase your power of arbitrage. I will focus on three kinds of arbitrage: social, knowledge, and culture. Some of them are similar to the way you can increase your mental capacity. I think that’s because increasing your arbitrage power somehow requires you to also increase your mental capacity.

The emphasis is different though. In increasing your arbitrage power the emphasis is on connecting to different worlds, while in increasing your mental capacity the emphasis is on doing something just outside your comfort zone. Connecting to different worlds is the only way to recognize the “price differences” between them which you can then use to your advantage.

Social arbitrage

• Join new organizations
  Organizations are where you meet new people. The more organizations you are involved in, the more people you can potentially meet. Of course, you should join organizations which expose you to different people, preferably in different worlds as well. It’s useless if you join several organizations only to meet mostly the same people.
• Go to new events
  Unlike organizations, going to events doesn’t require long-term commitments. You just go there once, meet new people, and you’re done. But since you might not meet them anymore, the degree of your success will then depend on your follow-ups.
• Join new online forums
  In the Internet age, online forums are also great places to meet new people. Though you can’t meet them face-to-face, you have the flexibility to participate anywhere and anytime you like. Again, the key is meeting different people in different worlds, so you should join forums that expose you to different people.

Knowledge arbitrage

• Read books and magazines from different fields
  By reading books and magazines from different fields, you will learn the ideas and concepts of those fields. You can then bring the ideas and concepts of one field to another field to give it “fresh” ideas.
• Read old books
  You can borrow ideas not just from other fields, but also from other ages. By reading old books, you can bring the wisdom of the past to the present. Since most people are focused to learn only the current popular wisdom, your power of arbitrage will get a boost.
• Read history
  Why should you repeat the same mistakes which have been made by others throughout the history? Reading history allows you to learn from past successes and failures, and prevent you from reinventing the wheel.

Culture arbitrage

• Read books and magazines about different cultures
  This is the simple first step to learn from other cultures. Reading about different cultures allows you to know how different cultures think and act. Of course, it’s better if you can dig deeper using the other ways below.
• Learn new languages
  Besides opening your way to read literatures in different languages, learning new languages also helps you experience how people in different cultures think. This understanding gives you new “lenses” to see life through.
• Read literatures in different languages
  After learning new languages, the door is open for you to read content exclusively available in those languages. There are so many different cultures in the world; how could you possibly understand the world only through the lens of one culture or language?
• Travel to new places
  Of course, there is no better way to understand and learn from a culture than being in the midst of them. Whenever possible, travel to new places where you can experience different cultures. The insights you get would be priceless.

It may seem that doing all these would take too much time, but the important thing here is the quality of the time instead of the quantity. If you spend quality time on these, you will get all the benefits while still keeping your life in balance.

22 Things You Can Do Daily to Improve Your Life

There is no such thing as instant improvement in life. Instead, you can only grow yourself. And as you know in agriculture, growth can only happen little by little over time. Bare eyes won’t be able to see the growth of a tree daily, but over the years it will grow to a big tree.

Similarly, you grow yourself little by little everyday. The things that you do daily may seem small and insignificant, but overtime people will be surprised to learn how much you have growth in life.

Therefore, to improve your life, the focus should be on the small things you do daily. The key word here is daily. If you do not have the persistence to do these small things consistently, you won’t be able to see the results over the long term.

So here I’d like to share 22 things you can do daily to improve your life. Of course, you may not be able to do them all at once. Just start with the ones that benefit you most. Or, if you have done many of them, consider doing the ones that you haven’t done yet.

Here they are:

1. Be observant of what is going on around you. Open your eyes and ears. This way a lot of fresh ideas will come to you.
2. Take notes of every idea that comes to your mind. Never let any idea goes uncaptured.
3. Try to learn something from the people you meet. Find something you can learn in their words, their attitude, or even their mistakes.
4. Bring a book or magazine wherever you go. This way you can use any gap time for reading.
5. Allocate a minimum of 30 minutes to read a book.
6. Meditate. It improves your clarity which in turn improves your effectiveness.
7. Take time to reflect on your day. What have you done right? What have you done wrong? What can you do to improve yourself?
8. Drink water a lot.
9. Exercise.
10. Read a collection of quotes. I like to use Random Quotations.
11. Choose a quote of the day to ponder and apply. Preferably, it should come from your personal list of quotes which contains the quotes that resonate most with you.
12. Take notes of every expense you make. This is an effective way to keep your finance under control.
13. Do something for the first time. Either find something new you have never done before, or find a new way to do something (e.g. taking a different route to work). This is to increase your mental capacity.
14. Effectively read online articles.
15. Use timer to help you actually do what you need to do. Actually doing is the key to productivity.
16. Learn to use a tool, either to improve your skill with a familiar tool or to learn a new tool. A good start is to learn the keyboard shortcuts of the software you usually use.
17. Take time to review your life purpose and goals, preferably before doing the main activities of the day.
18. Rise early.
19. Listen to educational or motivational audio program when you are doing activities which do not need full concentration. Examples of such activities are exercising, driving, and queuing.
20. Be grateful for your day. Being grateful helps you develop a positive attitude toward life.
21. Read a random article from Wikipedia to expose you to new things you may never know before.
22. Have fun. Having fun helps you be passionate about life.

30 Ways to Increase Your Mental Capacity

If you want to grow in life, increasing your mental capacity is a must. By increasing your mental capacity, you will be able to handle more things and assume larger responsibilities.

It’s just like your physical capability to lift heavier and heavier weight in weight training. People with greater physical capability will be able to lift heavier weight effortlessly while those with less capability will tire themselves out or even not be able to lift it at all. So just like you should train your muscles to increase your physical capability, you should also train your “mental muscles” to increase your mental capacity.

But how should you do that? How should you train your mental muscles to increase your mental capacity? I believe the answer is similar to the way you increase your physical capability in weight training.

To increase your physical capability in weight training, you should train yourself by lifting weight which is just outside your current capability. If your current capability is 100 pounds for example, you can increase your capability by training yourself with 110 pounds. Though it may feel a bit hard in the beginning, you will find it effortless after some days or weeks of training. You can then add a little more weight, and by doing so again and again, after 1 or 2 years you will see your physical capability increase significantly.

The way to increase your mental capacity is similar:

Do things which are just outside your comfort zone.

This - I believe - is the best thing you can do. It introduces some inconvenience in your life, but only in a bearable way. As a result, your mental muscles will grow stronger and your mental capacity will increase.

To help you put it into practice, here are 30 ways to do things which are just outside your comfort zone to increase your mental capacity:

1. When someone asks you to do something, make your default answer “yes” (but don’t forget to say “no” when appropriate).
2. In a gathering (class, conference, etc.), sit next to someone you do not know.
3. Visit a place you normally wouldn’t (museum, monument, national park, etc.).
4. Eat at a new place.
5. Try a new kind of food.
6. Go to a conference or seminar in a topic you are not familiar with.
7. Email or call an old friend you haven’t met for a long time.
8. Initiate conversation with someone you don’t know.
9. Find the most unpleasant task in your to-do list and do it first.
10. Email or message someone you don’t know to initiate a friendship.
11. Learn a new hobby.
12. Learn a foreign language.
13. Join a new club and interact with the people there.
14. Practice an art you normally wouldn’t (painting, music, etc.).
15. Learn a new musical instrument.
16. Be dare to ask. This is to familiarize yourself with rejection.
17. Read fiction if you normally read non-fiction, and vice versa.
18. Read a new author.
19. Read an old book.
20. Visit a new genre of blogs.
21. Find friends from a new country (i.e. a country from which you haven’t had any friend before).
22. Find friends from different professions.
23. Volunteer for activities conducted by your social or business group.
24. Do your groceries at a different store.
25. Take a different route to work.
26. Attend an art festival.
27. Listen to a new genre of music.
28. In a bookstore or library, browse books in a section you wouldn’t normally visit.
29. Watch a new genre of movies.
30. Read history more than news.

30 Practical Tips to Make Yourself Indispensable to Others

The key to success is making yourself as useful as possible to others. You should make yourself so useful that you are indispensable to them. But how do you do that? How do you make yourself indispensable?

First of all we need to define what is meant by useful, since only by being useful can we become indispensable. Being useful means meeting people’s needs and desires. It is solving people’s problems. Consequently, there is actually just one rule to make yourself indispensable:

Find what people need and meet those needs.

The more you can do it, the more you will become indispensable. The next question is: how do you find what people need? Of course, there are a lot of needs people can possibly have. Fortunately, people’s needs and desires can be grouped into eight categories based on Abraham Maslow’s work. Here they are (quoted from Made to Stick):

• Physical: hunger, thirst, bodily comfort
• Security: protection, safety, stability
• Belonging: love, family, friends, affection
• Esteem: achieve, be competent, gain approval, independence, status
• Learning: know, understand, mentally connect
• Aesthetic: symmetry, order, beauty, balance
• Self-actualization: realize our own potential, self-fulfillment, peak experiences
• Transcendence: help others realize their potential

These categories allow you to see the full spectrum of human needs. In order to make yourself indispensable, all you need to do is focusing on meeting the needs in these categories. Of course, you should emphasize different categories in different circumstances. In some circumstances, you may be most helpful in Belonging, while in some other circumstances you may be most helpful in Learning. You should always be aware of where you can be most helpful.

In this post, I’d like to share 30 practical tips on how to do that for all of the categories except Security and Physical. These two categories comprise very basic needs which are usually well met in the modern world.

Here they are:

Belonging

1. Listen to your friends without interrupting nor being hurry.
2. Send them your warm greetings via e-cards.
3. Tell them how you miss them.
4. Send them special messages at their birthday
5. Comfort them in times of trouble.
6. Introduce them to your other friends to expand their networks.
7. Buy them gifts when you are traveling. Even small gifts matter.

Note: You can find more tips in 33 Tips to Become a Well Liked Person.

Esteem

1. Ask them how they are doing.
2. Praise them for the good jobs they have done.
3. Talk with them about their achievements.
4. Talk about how good they are in front of your other friends.
5. Be the first person to tell them about good news involving them.

Learning

1. Send them your favorite quotes.
2. Take the time to do small research to answer their questions.
3. Lend them your favorite books.
4. Spark their curiosity by asking them smart questions.
5. Tell them your favorite web sites to learn from.
6. Send them the articles you find that might help them.
7. Passionately share your learning experiences; it’s contagious.

Aesthetic

1. Lend them your favorite CDs or DVDs.
2. Tell them where they can learn to play music.
3. Tell them where they can learn to draw (Drawspace is a good start by the way).
4. Share your favorite wallpapers and pictures.
5. Let them know of interesting cultural events you hear about.

Self-actualization

1. Encourage them to find their life purpose.
2. Encourage them to follow their heart more than the expectations of others.
3. Share with them inspirational stories about men and women who are willing to pay the price to do what matters to them (e.g. Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa).

Note: You might find the materials in 37 Lessons to Help You a Live that Matters useful here.

Transcendence

1. Tell them about how joyful it is to help others by sharing your experiences.
2. Let them know about your favorite charities and why you like them.
3. When you are involved in a social activity to help others, ask them to join you.

15 Tips to Stay Positive in Negative Situations

There are times when we must go through negative situations. Maybe people say something negative about us, or they show rejection or even resentment against us. In such situations, it may be difficult to stay positive. We may be inclined to react negatively to them. That won’t do us any good though; doing so will just make the situation worse. People may behave even more negatively to us. Our day would be filled with anger and disappointment. At the end, nobody wins.

Though it’s not easy, it’s important to stay positive in negative situations. Beat the negative situations by staying positive. Here are 15 tips on how to do it; pick the ones that work for you:

1. Never respond when you are not calm. If you are not sure that you are calm, don’t respond. Take time to calm yourself down first.
2. Take a deep breath as a first step to calm yourself down.
3. Speak in gentle tone to reduce the tension of the situation.
4. Realize that you can find opportunities in negative situations. Albert Einstein said: “In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity.”
5. Look at the content of what people say to you for something positive that you can act upon to improve yourself. Don’t just reject the whole messages.
6. For the rest of the messages which is negative, simply ignore it.
7. Maintain positive view of the people. Maybe you don’t like their messages or behavior, but that doesn’t mean that you can hate them personally.
8. Realize that having negative feelings will just hurt you, not them. So there is no reason for you to have any negative feeling.
9. If you make mistakes, be open to admit it.
10. If you make mistakes, remember this quote by George Bernard Shaw: “A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.”
11. If you can, listen to motivational audio program to feed positive thoughts into your mind.
12. Talk to a positive friend who can encourage you.
13. Remember your favorite quotes to give you inspiration and motivation. This is one reason why you should have quote of the day.
14. Look at the negative situations as your training sessions for real life. The higher you climb in life, the worse the negative situations would be, so you’d better be prepared for them.
15. Realize that you can’t please everyone. In fact, nobody can. Sometimes you need to just let some people go. Realizing this will relieve you from a lot of unnecessary burden so that you can focus on the people that you can positively interact with.

13 Essential Rules for Investing

I just finished reading The Bogleheads’ Guide to Investing, and it is the best personal finance book I read this year. The book is very practical with tons of useful tips. It’s also witty which makes it fun to read. It’s philosophy of investing is long term with buy-and-hold strategy, and it proves the effectiveness of this strategy with numerous studies.

Here I’d like to share with you 13 investing rules I summarized from the book. I believe they are essential for successful investing. Here they are:

1. Choose a sound financial lifestyle

This is the first thing you should do before investing. There are three steps you need to take:

1. Graduate from the paycheck mentality to the net worth mentality.
   People with paycheck mentality spend to the max based on their net incomes. Their financial lifestyle is all about earning to spend. On the other hand, people with net worth mentality focus on building net worth over the long term.
2. Pay off credit card and high-interest debts
   Paying your high-interest debts is the highest, risk-free, tax-free return on your money that you can possibly earn.
3. Establish an emergency fund
   For most people, six months living expenses is adequate.

2. Start early and invest regularly

Saving is the key to wealth, so there is no substitute for frugality. And, due to the power of compounding, starting early makes a huge difference.

3. Know what you are buying

Know more about the various investment choices available to you, such as stocks, bonds, and mutual funds. Don’t invest in things you don’t understand.

4. Keep it simple

Simple investing strategy almost always beats the complicated ones. Index investing takes very little investment knowledge, practically no time or effort - and outperforms about 80 percent of all investors.

Instead of hiring an expert, or spending a lot of time trying to decide which stocks or actively managed funds are likely to be top performers, just invest in index funds and forget about it.

However, not all index funds are created equal. Many of them will also charge you high sales commission and high yearly management fee. Do not buy those. Only consider investing in no-load funds with annual expense ratios of 0.5 percent or less, the cheaper the better.

5. Diversify your portfolio

When it comes to investing, the old saying, “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket,” definitely applies. In order to diversify your portfolio, you should try to find investments that don’t always move in the same direction at the same time. A good mix for this is stocks and bonds.

6. Decide your asset allocation

You should decide what a suitable stock/bond/cash allocation for your personal long-term asset allocation plan is. This is the most important portfolio decision you will make.

Investments in stocks, bonds, and cash have proven to be a successful combination of securities for portfolio construction. At times, you will read about other more exotic securities (such as hedge funds, unit trusts, option, and commodity futures). It is advised to simply forget about them.

7. Minimize your investment costs

The shortest route to top quartile performance is to be in the bottom quartile of expenses.
Jack Bogle

Costs matter, so it’s critical that you keep your investment costs as low as possible. It is recommended to avoid all load funds and favor low-cost index funds.

8. Invest in the most tax-efficient way possible

For all long-term investors, there is only one objective - maximum total return after taxes.
John Templeton

Tax can be your biggest expense, so it’s important to be tax-efficient. One of the easiest and most effective ways to cut mutual fund taxes significantly is to hold mutual funds for more than 12 months.

9. Avoid performance chasing and market timing

I never have the faintest idea what the stock market is going to do in the next six months, or the next year, or the next two.
Warren Buffett

Using past performance to pick tomorrow’s winning mutual funds is such a bad idea that the government requires a statement similar to this: “Past performance is no guarantee of future performance.” And market timing (a strategy based on predicting short-term price changes in securities) is something which is virtually impossible to do.

The logical alternative to performance chasing and market timing is structuring a long-term asset allocation plan and then staying the course.

10. Track your progress and rebalance when necessary

Rebalancing is the simple act of bringing your portfolio back to your target asset allocation. Rebalancing controls risk and may reward you with higher returns.

Rebalancing forces us to sell high and buy low. We’re selling the outperforming asset class or segment and buying the underperforming asset class or segment. That’s exactly what smart investors want to do.

11. Tune out the “noise”

Most sales and advertising pitches from brokerage houses and money managers are variations of one single message: “Invest with us because we know how to beat the market.” Far more often than not, this promise is fictitious at best and financially disastrous at worst.

Here is a simple guideline: all forecasting is noise. Believing that “It’s different this time” can cause severe financial damage to your portfolio.

12. Master your emotions

When it’s time to make investing decisions, check your emotions at the door. Things such as blindly following the crowd, trying too hard, or acting on a hot tip will almost always leave you poorer.

Forget the popular but misguided notion that investing is supposed to be fun and exciting. If you seek excitement in investing, you’re going to lose money. Get excited about earning and saving money, but be very dispassionate when it comes to investing.

13. Protect your assets by being well-insured

To be a successful investor requires being a good risk manager. Managing risk means having a plan to cover the downside. That’s what insurance is all about - damage control to prevent the unforeseen from smashing your nest egg.

You need to consider the following type of insurance: life insurance, health care, disability, property, auto, liability, and long-term care.

Three key rules for being properly insured:

1. Only insure against the big catastrophes and disasters that you can’t afford to pay for out of pocket.
2. Carry the largest possible deductibles you can afford.
3. Only buy coverage from the best-rated insurance companies.

Note:
I hope you find these rules useful. I completely agree with all of them, including the “controversial” rule of “tuning out the noise”. A few months ago I read the book Fooled by Randomness which takes different approach but arrives at the same conclusion.

26 Tips to Stay Calm When Situation Goes Bad

Sometimes situations do not go as expected. A good day may turn bad, everything may suddenly go wrong. Needless to say, it’s difficult to stay calm in such situations. We tend to become confused, panic or even heated by anger. That won’t help you much to get out of the situation though. Handling a bad situation in such condition will just make it worse; you are more likely to make mistakes. That’s why it’s important to stay calm. By staying calm, you will be able to judge the situation wisely and take the appropriate actions.

But how do you stay calm when the situation goes bad? How do you calm your nerves while the world around you is falling down? I believe there are some simple things you can do. Here are 26 tips ; pick the ones that work for you:

1. Take a deep breath.
2. Do nothing for 5 minutes.
3. Take a nap.
4. Take a shower.
5. Listen to comforting music.
6. Listen to natural sounds.
7. Play music.
8. Share to a positive friend.
9. Meditate.
10. Ask “What’s the next action?” and focus on only that one thing.
11. Go to nature (mountain, beach, etc.).
12. Ride a bike.
13. Talk about other topics.
14. Drink a bottle of water.
15. Play games (just for a while!).
16. Go eat with someone who is not part of the situation.
17. Exercise.
18. Read spiritual texts.
19. Listen to spiritual audio programs.
20. Unplug the Internet.
21. Take a cup of coffee.
22. Say to yourself, “This situation is not as bad as it looks. Many people have handled situations worse than this successfully.”
23. Be grateful for what you still have (instead of looking at what you don’t have).
24. Be grateful for what you can learn from the situation.
25. Take a walk around a park.
26. Smile.

10 Simple Tips to Be Excited About Your Day

How many people are excited about their day? Not many, I’m afraid. In fact, when they start their day many people tend to think about all the burden they are going to face. Or they think about how boring the routine they are going to do. Only a few people are happy about their day, let alone be excited about it.

But of course, life will be more wonderful if we are excited about our days. Think about how different it will be if you go through your day with passion and enjoyment. Your enthusiasm will energize not just you, but also other people around you!

But how can you do that? Here are some tips:

1. Get out of the bed right away

You can be excited about your day right from the beginning. Getting out of the bed right away is like saying to yourself that you “can’t wait” to start the day. It sends a message to your subconscious mind to be excited about the day.

2. Exercise

Exercising in the morning before doing your other activities will make you physically fit to face the day. It will boost your energy level and make it much easier to maintain enthusiasm in anything you do.

3. Smile

There mere act of smiling will make you feel better about your day. Believe me, it is more difficult to think about how bad your day is when you are smiling.

4. Find simple wonders

It’s hard to be excited if you are drowned in a routine, doing the same thing again and again. But life doesn’t have to be so routine. Be observant and look at your surroundings. Find simple beauties in the breeze of the air, how the bird sing, or how people do things. Break the routine by looking for simple wonders here and there. There are a lot of them waiting to be found.

5. Watch your body language

Believe it or not, body language influences how you think and feel. If your body language expresses boredom, then your mind and feeling will soon follow. So stand straight, and walk full of energy. Express confidence through your body language.

6. Avoid being around negative people

Whenever possible, avoid being around negative people during the day. They will just drain your positive energy. Have you ever experienced having a good feeling, but after being with someone for some time you end up feeling bad? That’s how negative people could drain your positive energy.

So, be around positive people instead. By being around them, you will end up feel more energized.

7. Do something meaningful to you

It will be much easier to be excited about your day if you do what matters to you. If you do something meaningful, you will have a bunch of reasons to go through the day full of energy. But if it’s not, it will be harder to get yourself excited.

8. Learn to enjoy what you are doing

Sometimes you can’t do things you are passionate about. But you can still be excited about your day by learning to enjoy what you are doing. Even if you don’t like something, you can still learn to enjoy it. Read the tips on how to enjoy what you are doing no matter what.

9. Say something positive

When you say how bad your day is, you will just reinforce the negative feeling you have. Be careful with what you say; watch your words. Even if your day is not so good, talk about it in a positive way. For example, instead of saying “This is a bad day; I made a lot of mistakes” you can say “Well, today I learn a lot of useful lessons”.

10. Greet people first

Think about what an excited person will do when they meet someone. Will she just keep silent or wait for the other person to greet her first? I don’t think so. Most likely, an excited person will greet other people first. They just have too much energy. So do likewise and see how your excitement increases.

33 Tips to Become a Well Liked Person

Being well liked is what most people want in relationships. The benefits are obvious. You will get the help you need at the time you need it. People will give you information about new opportunities you didn’t know before. Above all, they will really care and love you.

But how could you get other people to like you? How could you become a well liked person? There is actually just one simple rule to follow: you should like other people before they like you. When people realize that you like them, it’s very likely that they will also like you.

Regarding this, I believe that there is one and just one message you need to deliver in your relationships. Delivering this message is the key to strong relationships, and here it is:

You are important to me.

That’s it. No more, no less. Not “your money” nor “your knowledge”, but “you” - as a person - are important to me. Anything you should do in relationships stems from this message. There more you succeed in delivering this message, the more people will like you.

So here I’d like to share 33 tips on how to deliver this message in your relationships. Consequently, these are also tips to become a well liked person. Here they are:

1. Give your contacts a big smile when you meet them. Make them feel that you are really happy to meet them.
2. Give your full attention to the people you converse with as if nothing else is important.
3. When they ask for your attention, leave whatever you are doing.
4. When they call you, greet them with enthusiasm as if you are longing for their call.
5. Don’t make them wait.
6. Print the list of your contacts and look at it in your spare time. It will remind you of whom to touch base.
7. Always reply your contacts’ emails and text messages.
8. Reply their emails and text messages in the first chance you get.
9. Shake their hands with enthusiasm.
10. Praise them sincerely when they do something good. Make them feel that you are proud of them.
11. Always return their calls.
12. Send a message to them on their birthdays. Even better, call them.
13. Drop your old contacts quick emails or text messages to ask how they are doing.
14. Remember their names and achievements.
15. Remember important facts about them, especially the things they really care about (you may want to write them down).
16. Introduce them to the people in your contact who may help them out.
17. Actively find the deepest needs they may have (without waiting for them to explicitly tell you).
18. Take initiative to give them the solutions they need.
19. Give thanks for them in your session of gratitude.
20. Mention their names in your prayer.
21. Talk with them about their life.
22. Ask them specific questions about things they care about. They will realize that you care enough to remember their facts.
23. Give them something precious you have. Time is a good candidate.
24. Go eat with them. Even better, treat them.
25. When you meet them, don’t look at your watch as if you have something more important to do.
26. When you talk to them, don’t look over their shoulder as if you are looking for someone more important to talk to.
27. Send them quick tips or articles you just found which may benefit them.
28. Message them encouraging words or quotes.
29. Lend them the best books or DVDs you have.
30. Talk to them about how you like your other friends. They will think that you may talk the same way about them.
31. Don’t talk negatively to them about how you don’t like your other friends. They will think that you may also talk the same way about them.
32. Occasionally mention their names in your conversation with them.
33. Be creative to give them small surprises every now and then.

11 Sure-Fire Ways to Have a Calm and Peaceful Mind

The fast pace of the modern world may put our mind in chaotic state. Information comes and goes, we must do this and do that. There are simply too many things that reside in our mind. While it may cause stress or even depression, at the very least it puts us away from a peaceful state of mind. But a peaceful mind is essential for our effectiveness. It keeps us calm no matter how the situation is, and it allows us to stay joyful during the day. At the end of the day, it makes us happier and more productive.

So here I’d like to share 11 ways to have a “mind like water”, a state of mind so peaceful that it’s like a calm water. Pick the ones that work for you:

1. Reduce your use of rational thinking

We need rational thinking, but we tend to overuse it in analyzing our situations and making decisions. That brings a lot of things into our mind which potentially also brings in noise. Is rational thinking really that important? I don’t think so. Even Einstein once said that “I never came upon any of my discoveries through the process of rational thinking.”

2. Listen to your intuition

While you should reduce your use of rational thinking, you should increase your use of intuition. Listen to your intuition whenever you need to make decisions. Your intuition often knows more than you think. Furthermore, since intuition works instantly, it won’t bring a lot of things into your mind. Your mind will remain calm and peaceful. No wonder Einstein said that “The only real valuable thing is intuition.”

3. Listen to your heart

Your heart tells you what is right to do. There is where your deepest value and principles reside. Following what your heart says helps you be true to yourself, and that has a great effect on giving you peace of mind. So learn to listen more to your heart, and do what it tells you to do.

4. Get the stuff out of your mind

This is a basic principle of Getting Things Done (GTD). In fact, the term “mind like water” comes from GTD. You should record the things you need to do or remember on an external system you trust so that they do not occupy your mind. This way your mind will be freed to focus on your current task.

5. Meditate

Meditation is one of the best ways to calm your mind and have a “mind like water”. Even if you do the other ways mentioned in this post, sometimes there is still noise left in your mind. Meditation is a good way to purify it. There are many forms of meditation to choose from.

6. Limit your information intake

Consuming more information often means introducing more noise into your mind. That’s why limiting your information intake is essential to have a calm and peaceful mind. The rule of thumb in consuming information is this: consume information no more than what is necessary. But how do you know what is necessary? Rational thinking may help you figure it out, but I believe that your heart and intuition can help you just as much - if not more.

7. Read spiritual texts

Spiritual texts are among the purest kinds of information you can possibly get. It helps you link together your mind, heart, and intuition. While generally you should limit your information intake, I believe that you can safely consume spiritual texts without introducing noise into your mind.

8. Eliminate unessential stuff

It will be easier to have a peaceful mind if you don’t have too much stuff to worry about. So always look for ways to simplify your life. Eliminate the things which are not essential so that you can focus on the essential. Elimination should be a constant part of your life.

9. Don’t think too much about yourself

We usually think about our own needs and problems most of the time. But self-centered thoughts rarely bring peace into our mind. Quite the opposite, it may make us feel stressed and frustrated. So don’t think too much about yourself; forget yourself for a while.

10. Do something for others

Instead of thinking too much of ourselves, we should think more of others. Think of what you can do for others and do it. There is joy in giving which will give you peace of mind.

11. Slow down

In whatever you do, you do not need to be in rush. Doing so may only bring you faster to the wrong direction. First of all, you need to know where is the right direction to go. Slow down so that you can clearly hear the voice of your heart and intuition.

7 Sure-Fire Ways to Develop Persistence

If I had to select one quality, one personal characteristic that I regard as being most highly correlated with success, whatever the field, I would pick the trait of persistence. Determination. The will to endure to the end, to get knocked down seventy times and get up off the floor saying, “Here comes number seventy-one!”
Richard M. Devos

There is no such thing as cheap success. If we want to succeed, we have to pay the price. And the road to success is long with a lot of obstacles. No wonder most people stop at one point or another after running into the obstacles. Only a few people have the persistence to keep moving forward, and these are the few people who succeed.

Persistence is essential. In fact, persistence is one of the most important characteristics successful people share in common. There is no other way to succeed but by developing persistence in our life, and here I’d like to share seven ways to develop it. Here they are:

1. Learn the life of successful people

Understanding that successful people do need persistence to achieve success will inspire you to be persistent yourself. So find and read the life stories of successful people throughout the history. While most people recognize them only through their achievements, by reading their stories we will understand the persistence they need on the way to success.

Here are some people you might want to learn about: Ludwig van Beethoven, Abraham Lincoln, Stephen Hawking, and Lance Armstrong.

2. Expect a hard way, not an easy one

One of the main reasons people giving up early is having wrong expectation. They expected the way to be easy, and they are surprised when they find the reality to be the opposite. Their enthusiasm quickly melts and they lose heart.

So start your journey with the right expectation. As I wrote above, there is no such thing as cheap success. Expect a hard way, not an easy one, and you will be mentally prepared when you encounter the reality.

3. Don’t underestimate the amount of time required

Just like you should not underestimate the difficulty of the journey you are about to take, you should not underestimate its length either. Of course, everyone wants to achieve instant success. But this, unfortunately, is not realistic. The journey to success is a marathon, not a sprint, so prepare yourself accordingly.

4. Have a big why

To keep your persistence, you need a strong source of motivation. How else can someone keep trying again and again without strong motivation? And such strong motivation comes from your purpose. You should know why you want your goal in the first place. And your why must be bigger than the obstacles. The bigger your why the better.

5. Know how to handle failure

Since failure is a certainty on the path to success, knowing how to handle it is critical. By knowing how to handle failure you will be able to keep your persistence. On the other hand, not being able to handle it will soon drain your mental energy. So arm yourself with the right tactics to overcome failure.

6. Find partners

Things will be much easier is you have partners with whom you can encourage each other. They can motivate you when you are in the low points of life, and you can do the same to them. Besides, your partners could give you valuable lessons from their experiences so that you don’t need to find them yourself the hard way.

7. Minimize your stress

To be able to keep your persistence for long time, you should minimize leaks on your mental energy. Stress is one such leak you should learn to manage. If you fail to do this, you won’t be able to stay on the track for long. Even if you do, you won’t be able to do your best since you’ve lost a lot of energy. So arm yourself with the tactics to minimize stress and preserve your energy.

How to Live Your Books and Not Just Read Them

Reading books is one thing, but actually living them is another thing. Many people just read a book without ever living it. But as you know, you can never get full benefit from a book if you just read it without putting it into practice.

Of course, it is easier said than done. Most of us just read a book once to get some ideas, and that’s it. But do you believe that we can completely grasp and apply the principles in a book by reading it just once? I don’t think so. Of course we can get some ideas from the book, but to effectively grasp and especially to apply them, reading it just once is definitely not enough. We need to read and reread it until the principles are internalized and applied in our daily life.

Having “Most Important Books”

While not all books deserve such rereading, there are some very good books that deserve it. These are the kind of books that will make significant difference in your life if you apply the principles in them.

Do you know of such books? I do, and I call them “most important books” (MIBs). These are the books that can greatly improve the way I think, work, or live. So I give my MIBs special attention. I believe the habit of having MIBs can significantly help us in our personal growth. There are two reasons for this:

1. It helps us internalize important principles for our life, and
2. It helps us apply those principles

As you may know, application is what makes the difference between 1% people who experience what a book say and the other 99% who just read it without experiencing it. If you want to be in this top 1%, having MIBs - I believe - is a good way to help you.

Applying the MIBs Concept

So how do you put this MIBs concept into practice? Here are some tips:

1. Make a list of all the books which application you think can significantly improve your life. Do not limit yourself in this step. Just list whatever books that come into your mind.
2. From the list that you have made, choose at most three books which can make the most significant difference to your current needs.
3. Have these books handy. Put them in a place where you can easily reach and read them.
4. Every now and then, when you have spare time, grab one book and read the important parts in it. It will help you a lot if you have highlighted the book before. That way you can just read your highlights, and only read the details if you think they are necessary.
5. Whenever you read a part of the book, think about how to apply it to your life. Think of some concrete actions you can take. If you want to, you can put them into your to-do list.
6. Do the same thing with the other (at most) two books which are also your MIBs.
7. Keep a book as MIB until:
• You are satisfied with your progress in applying the principles in the book, or
• The book is no longer relevant to your current need.
8. When you remove a book from your MIBs, you can choose another book by going back to step 1.

Why do I believe that this MIBs concept works? Because, for really important ideas, the key to successful application is repetition. Without repetition, it’s far too easy for those ideas to be lost in our mental attic. Having MIBs is an effective way to make sure that the important ideas will always have the place they deserve in our mind.

How to Get the Most Out of Your Books

Reading a (nonfiction) book is one thing, but getting the most out of it is another thing. Too many people only reach the surface of the book and never really get into the treasure that is hidden below it. Or maybe they get a portion of the treasure, but they lose the chance to get the whole treasure.

How do you know that you get the most out of a book? You get the most out of a book when it significantly improves your life to the greatest possible extent. Because of that, an important goal of reading books is getting actionable ideas. To get the most out of the books, you should then put those actionable ideas into action.

Here are some steps you can do to get the most out of your books:

1. Preview the book you want to read
   Before spending too much time on a book, you should know whether the book is worth reading. Preview the book by reading its cover, introduction, table of contents, and skimming through the chapters.
   Besides helping you decide whether a book is worth reading, previewing also helps you be familiar with the structure of the book. It helps you understand the big picture of the book so that whatever you read later can be put in the right context.
2. Decide your purpose and the depth of your reading
   If you think the book is worth reading, you should then decide your purpose of reading the book. Your purpose states the kind of actionable ideas you expect from the book. Is there a problem you expect to be solved? Is there an area in your life you expect to be improved?
   Next, you should decide how deep your reading will be. It deals with the amount of time you are willing to spend on the book. The more actionable ideas you think it has, the deeper your reading should be.
3. For each chapter you read:
1. Preview the chapter
   Go through the titles, subtitles, and pictures in the chapter. Just like previewing the book, previewing the chapter builds your familiarity with it and helps you put the details you get later in the right context.
2. Quick read the chapter
   Next, you can quick read the chapter. This step fills in the details of the context you build in the previous step while giving you a glimpse of which might be the important ideas.
3. Reread to highlight important ideas in the chapter
   This time you reread the chapter to decide which are the important ideas of the chapter. I’d suggest highlighting the important ideas you find. I personally use two kinds of highlights, one for important ideas and another one for very important ideas.
4. Create the book map
   After reading the whole book, I’d suggest creating a book summary of your own. Creating a book summary helps you internalize the ideas you get.
   The first part of such summary is a book map. A book map maps the structure of the entire book. Normally you can just use the table of contents as the book map, but don’t use a very detailed table of contents. The purpose of a book map is to quickly give you a glimpse of the structure of the book. Too much details may distract you from the big picture.
5. Write the ideas you get from each chapter
   Next you can write the ideas you get from each chapter by simply looking at your highlights in that chapter. Remember, your goal is to get actionable ideas, so you should focus on them. Writing the ideas you get helps you further internalize those ideas.
6. Write the main ideas you get from the entire book
   A good books often contains a lot of actionable ideas, so the list of ideas in step 5 may be too long to act upon effectively. You should then have a separate list for the main ideas from the entire book. This list helps you focus on the most important ideas so that it will be easier for you to apply them.
   If you use two kinds of highlight I mention in step 3.3, you can get the main ideas of the book by simply looking at your ‘very important’ highlights.
7. Create next action list
   Application is what puts you ahead of 90% or more other people who just read the book but do not apply what they learn. In fact, application is key. Actionable ideas are useless if you do not put them into action.
   To help you apply what you learn, decide what actions you will do to apply it. Look at your list of main ideas (step 6) to decide what the most important actions are.
8. Integrate the next action list into you master next action list
   After creating your next action list of the book, you can then integrate it into your master next action list. If you use GTD, I’m sure you have a master next action list. By putting the actions for the book there, the application of the book is now integrated into your daily workflow.

Don’t forget to be flexible. You do not need to apply all these steps to every book you read. For not-so-important books you can eliminate some steps. The more important a book is, the more steps you should use. ‘Important’ books are those which have bigger potential of changing your life.

106 Tips to Become a Master Connector

To succeed, who you know is just as important as what you know. In fact, relationships should be your top priority. The book Never Eat Alone talks about how to apply the timeless principles of relationships in the 21st century. It contains a lot of practical tips on how you could thrive in today’s world through your relationships. It’s one of the best books I read recently.

To give you the only gems, I’ve summarized what I learn from the book into 106 tips. Put these tips into practice and you will be a master connector who live a successful and fulfilling life:

1. Make other people more successful
   Real networking is about finding ways to make other people more successful. It is sharing your knowledge and resources, time and energy, friends and associates, and empathy and compassion in a continual effort to provide value to others, while coincidentally increasing your own.
2. Work hard to give more than you get
   It’s the value you bring that makes people want to connect with you. All this takes work. It means you have to think hard not only about yourself but also about other people.
3. Don’t keep score
   Don’t think of relationships as finite. In fact, it’s the exercising of equity that builds equity. There is no score to keep when abundance leads to even more abundance.
4. Remember that the key to success is generosity
   The currency of real networking is not greed but generosity.
5. Find your mission in life
   Intersection of your talents and desires is your “blue flame”. Which activities excite you the most, where you don’t even notice the hours that pass?
6. Be specific about what you want
   The more specific you are about what you want to do, the easier it becomes to develop a strategy to accomplish it.
7. Make setting goals a habit
   Something as simple as a clearly defined goal could distinguish you from all others. The kind of discipline that turns a dream into a mission, really just comes down to a process of setting goals.
8. Create a Relationship Action Plan
   There is a process involved in building a network. Your Relationship Action Plan consist of three sections:
   1. Your goals up to three years from now in three months increments.
   2. Names of people that could help you reach each goal.
   3. Strategies to reach the people you list in point 2.
   Once you have your plan, post it in a place where you will see it on regular basis.
9. Create a Personal “Board of Advisors”
   It helps to have enlightened counselors who will hold you accountable. They are your Personal “Board of Advisors”.
10. Build your network before you need it
    Reach out to others long before you need anything at all. The most important thing is to get to know those people as friends, not as potential customers.
11. Start connecting with the people you do know
    At the outset, concentrate on the people who are already part of your existing network.
12. Be bold
    Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Audacity was often the only thing that separated two equally talented men and their job titles.
13. Be willing to ask
    Nothing in your life could create opportunity like a willingness to ask, whatever the situation. Until you become as willing to ask for help as you are to give it, you are only working half the equation. Remember that the worst anyone can say is no.
14. Balance your fear
    Mustering the audacity to talk with people who don’t know you often simply comes down to balancing the fear you have of embarrassment against the fear of failure. It’s between choosing risk and striving for greatness, or risking nothing and being certain of mediocrity.
15. Treat people with respect
    Treat people with respect up and down the ladder.
16. Be transparent
    Openness has become a valuable and much-sought-after attribute.
17. Make friends
    Those who are best at it don’t network - they make friends. A widening circle of influence is an unintended result, not a calculated aim.
18. Do your homework
    Spectacular achievement is always preceded by spectacular preparation. Whom you meet, how you meet them, and what they think of you afterward should not be left to chance.
19. Be informed about whom you meet
    If you are informed enough to step comfortably into their world and talk knowledgeably, their appreciation will be tangible. The idea is to find a point of common ground that is deep and rich. Then you’ll have an opportunity to bond and impress.
20. Find out others’ interests
    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.
21. Don’t eat alone
    Food has a unique ability to facilitate conversation. Eating with other people is an effective way to build relationships.
22. Organize and manage your information
    The successful organization and management of the information that makes connecting flourish is vital. If you’re organized, focused, and a stickler for taking names, there’s no one that’s out of reach.
23. Make lists
    Create lists in your own categories (such as potential customers, potential acquirers, etc) that correspond to your goals. When you make such lists, it’s important you name the actual decision makers, and not just an organization.
24. Know the most important players in your field
    To make your goals possible, map the most important players in your field. Write down a list of “influentials” in that field.
25. List the people you already know
    Take time to list the people you already know such as: relatives, current colleagues, people you went to school with, former teachers, former employers, and so on.
26. Be flexible in organizing your information
    The way you organize your lists can be fluid. You could have lists by geographical location, by industry, whether they’re acquaintance or friend, and so on.
27. Use other people’s lists to make your lists
    One great resource for making lists is other people’s lists. Newspapers and magazines do rankings of this sort all the time.
28. Create “aspirational contacts” list
    Another category you might want to add is “aspirational contacts”. These are those extremely high-level people you want to know someday.
29. Just plunge right in to cold call
    When you are about to cold call, your fears will never be completely quieted. The trick is to just plunge right in. Envision yourself winning to win. You have to view getting to know new people as a challenge and an opportunity.
30. Be persistent
    Frequently, people won’t get back to you when you call or write them. You have to put your ego aside and persist in calling or writing. It is up to you to take the initiative. Sometimes, you have to be aggressive.
31. Make warm calls
    Use these four rules for warm calling:
    1. Convey credibility: mention a familiar person or institution.
    2. State your value proposition: what can you do for them?
    3. Impart urgency and convenience: in most instances, the sole objective of the cold call is to get an appointment.
    4. Be prepared to offer a compromise: go big at the outset, leaving room for compromise.
32. Make the gatekeeper an ally rather than an adversary
    Treat the gatekeepers with the dignity they deserve. Never, ever get on their bad side.
33. Never, ever disappear
    In building a network, remember: Above all, never, ever disappear. Invisibility is a fate far worse than failure.
34. Work hard to remain visible and active
    Keep your social and conference and event calendar full. You must work hard to remain visible and active among your ever-budding network of friends and contacts.
35. Clone an event
    You have to work hard to be successful at reaching out to others, but it doesn’t mean you have to work long. Clone an event to save time. You clone an event by inviting all the people you want to meet to join you.
36. Have fun
    Building network should be fun, not time-consuming.
37. Share your passions
    Shared interests are the basic building blocks of any relationship. When you are truly passionate about something, it’s contagious.
38. Emphasize on the quality of time
    Friendship is created out of the quality of time spent between two people, not the quantity.
39. Follow up or fail
    When you meet someone with whom you want to establish a relationship, take the extra little step to ensure you won’t be lost in their mental attic. Follow-up is the key to success in any field.
40. Do your first follow up soon
    Give yourself between 12 and 24 hours after you meet someone to follow up. E-mail is a fine tool for dropping a quick note.
41. Don’t forget to do your second follow-up
    In a month’s time, drop the person another e-mail, just to keep in touch.
42. Spend your time at conferences to meet people
    An all-too-common misperception is conferences are places to find insight. Wrong. Conferences are good for mainly one thing: they provide a forum to meet like-minded people.
43. Be a conference commando
    Don’t just be an attendee; be a conference commando. A conference commando is prepared in advance with information on who they were to meet, how, and where.
44. Give speeches
    Giving speeches is one of the easiest and most effective ways to get yourself remembered.
45. Collect as many follow-ups as you can
    Don’t be the persons that shadow their best friends the entire conference. Collect as many follow-ups as you can.
46. Connect with super-connectors
    Some people know many, many more people than the rest of us. Such people should be the cornerstones to any flourishing network. Once you become friendly with a super-connector, you’re only two degrees away from thousands of different people.
47. Get as many acquaintances as you can
    Often the most important people in our network are those who are acquaintances. Why? Because our close friends seldom know information that we don’t already know. The more acquaintances you have, the more powerful you are.
48. Know people from many different worlds
    The key is not only that we know thousands of people but that we know thousands of people in many different worlds, and we know them well enough to give them a call.
49. Exchange your network with someone else’s
    The most efficient way to enlarge your circle of friends is to connect your circle with someone else’s.
50. Create your own host committees
    Politicians have what are called “host committees”: group of well-connected people in their respective worlds. If you want more access to a world, see if you can find a central figure within that world to act as your own one-person host committee.
51. Build your “verbal fluency”
    “Verbal fluency” - the ability to confidently make conversation with anyone in any situation - is a common trait among the most accomplished people. “Getting-along skills,” more than anything else, determined who got ahead.
52. Be yourself
    When it comes to making an impression, differentiation is the name of the game. One guaranteed way to stand out: be yourself. Charm is simply a matter of being yourself. Your uniqueness is your power.
53. Use the power of vulnerability
    Vulnerability is one of the most underappreciated assets in business today. The power of the vulnerability principle in the art of making small talk is surprising.
54. Talk from your heart
    When you realize the best icebreaker is a few words from the heart, the act of starting a conversation becomes far less daunting.
55. Learn the power of nonverbal cues
    You have about ten seconds before a person decides, subconsciously, whether they like you or not. In that short period of time you don’t exchange a lot of words; their judgment is mostly based on nonverbal communication.
56. Develop conversational currency
    Be prepared to have something to say. Keep up with current events. Cultivate some niche interest.
57. Learn to listen
    One should seek first to understand, then to be understood.
58. Always remember the other person’s name
    Nothing is sweeter to someone’s ears than their own name.
59. Be sincere
    The surest way to become special in others’ eyes is to make them feel special.
60. Try to find out what motivations drive the other person
    In your initial conversation with someone, 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.
61. Help someone accomplish his or her deepest desires
    Initial invitation is just to connect strongly enough with other people to help them address the issues that matter to them most.
62. Make yourself indispensable to others
    Real power comes from being indispensable. Indispensability comes from being a switchboard, parceling out as much information, contacts, and goodwill to as many people - in as many different worlds - as possible.
63. Start thinking about how you’re going to make everyone around you successful
    When someone mentions a problem, try to think of solutions. The solutions come from your experience and knowledge, and your tool kit of friends and associates.
64. Take the initiative to help
    Don’t wait to be asked to help. Just do it.
65. Be a knowledge broker
    Performing social arbitrage when your financial and relational resources are thin is actually not too big a hurdle. The solution is knowledge. The ability to distribute knowledge in a network is a fairly easy skill to learn.
66. Be interested to others’ success
    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 (Dale Carnegie).
67. Ping all the time
    80 percent of building and maintaining relationships is just staying in touch (or “pinging”). Pinging takes effort. You have to keep pinging and pinging and pinging and never stop. You have to feed the fire of your network or it will wither or die.
68. Repeat and repeat again
    Becoming front and center in someone’s mental Rolodex is contingent on one invaluable little concept: repetition.
69. Create a rating system
    One way to make maintaining easier is to create a rating system for the network that corresponds to how often you reach out. For example:
    1. A “1″ gets contacted at least each month.
    2. A “2″ gets a quarterly call or e-mail.
    3. A “3″ gets reached at least once a year.
70. Integrate pinging into your workflow
    The important thing is that you build the concept of pinging into your workflow.
71. Be personal
    Always try to make any message as personal as possible.
72. Don’t forget birthdays
    Birthdays should be one of your favorite pinging occasions.
73. Get anchor tenants for your dinner parties
    We all have developed relationships with older, wiser, more experienced people. They are “anchor tenants”. Get them to add a little electricity to your dinner party.
74. Be interesting
    Virtually everyone new you meet in a situation is asking themselves a variation on one question: “Would I want to spend an hour eating lunch with this person?”
75. Be a person of content
    Content involves a much more specialized form of knowledge. It’s your differentiation. It’s the message that will make your brand unique. Have a unique point of view.
76. Be relentless in learning and presenting your content
    What will set you apart from everybody else is the relentlessness you bring to learning and presenting and selling your content.
77. Acquire content from someone else’s
    On some occasions, you can acquire content by simply appropriating another person’s innovative ideas and become a leader in distributing and applying those ideas.
78. Develop your own content
    On other occasions, you have to develop the content from scratch. That means taking all the disparate dots of information and connecting them in a way others have not.
79. Get the attention
    Once a resonating pitch is perfected, getting attention is less of a problem. Simply give the press what they need: great stories.
80. Be an expert
    The easiest route to become content creators is by expertise.Do what experts do: teach, write, and speak about your expertise.
81. Teach what you want to learn
    There’s no better way to learn something, and become an expert at it, than to have to teach it.
82. Use stories to communicate your content
    Powerful content communicated in a compelling story can energize your network to help you achieve your mission. In your stories, use emotion to convince your doubters.
83. Have a personal brand
    A powerful brand - built not on a product but on a personal message - is a competitive advantage. Good personal brands do three things: they provide a credible, distinctive, and trustworthy identity.
84. Be distinct or extinct
    Your brand articulates what you have to offer, why you’re unique, and gives a distinct reason for others to connect with you.
85. Focus on adding value
    To become a brand, you’ve got to become relentlessly focused on what you do that adds value. That means going above and beyond what’s called for.
86. Develop your Personal Branding Message
    What do you want people to think when they hear or read your name? Your positioning message should include a list of words that you want people to use when referring to you.
87. Package the brand
    Looks count, so you’d better look polished and professional. And why not create a personal Web site?
88. Broadcast your brand
    If you don’t promote yourself, no one else will. Like it or not, your success is determined as much by how well others know your work as by the quality of your work.
89. Start building relationships with the media
    You have to start today building relationships with the media before you have a story you’d like them to write.
90. Trumpet the message, not the messenger
    All your efforts at publicity need to feed into your mission, not your ego.
91. Do collaborative writing
    If you have any writing skills at all, you can get close to almost anyone by doing a piece on them, or with them. By writing collaboratively, you’re expanding your network exponentially with contacts that otherwise might have seemed out of reach.
92. Write articles
    Writing articles can be a great boost for your career. It provides instant credibility and visibility.
93. Be a good writer by keep writing
    To become a writer: “Write, then write some more. When you’re done - and here’s the kicker - keep writing.”
94. Go for the big names
    Are you only connecting with field mice? If you are, start turning your attention to reaching out to the sort of important people that can make a difference in your life and the lives of others.
95. Build trust to get close to power
    Trust is the essential element to get close to power; trust that you have no ulterior motives behind your approach; trust that you’ll deal with them as people and not as stars.
96. Join associations
    There is an association for everything. If you want to meet the movers and shakers directly, you have to become a joiner.
97. Build your own club
    Sometimes all clubs that seemed worth attending have their doors closed. There’s no reason not to build your own. Figure out what your unique selling proposition is, and start an organization. Invite those people you want to meet to join you.
98. Be humble
    Arrogance is a disease that can betray you into forgetting your real friends and why they’re so important. Be humble in your hike up the mountain. Help others up the mountain along with and before you.
99. Reach back to your past
    Reach back into your past regularly to touch base with the folks who have meant so much to you since you were a kid.
100. Find mentors
     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 or prestige.
101. Learn from many people
     There isn’t just one special person to be all things at all times. Mentors are all around you.
102. Build a successful mentoring relationship
     A successful mentoring relationship needs equal parts utility and emotion. Utility means promising something in return to your mentor. Emotion means your mentor becomes emotionally invested in your advancement.
103. Find mentees
     As much as you stretch yourself by reaching up, be sure you are stretching just as far to reach back and help others. You can learn so much from your mentees.
104. Hold your principles
     Connecting should advance, rather than compromise, your principles. Your determination to connect with others should never come at the expense of your values.
105. Don’t try to balance your professional and personal life
     Balance is a myth. Real connecting insists that you bring the same values to every relationship. As such, dividing your life between professional and personal spheres no longer made sense.
106. Build close relationships
     How many people can walk into your homes and just open up the fridge and help themselves? It is close relationships like these that keep you well-adjusted, happy, and successful.