Quotes
"People don’t decide their futures. They decide their habits, and their habits decide their future." —F. Matthias Alexander
"Get busy living or get busy dying." — Stephen King.
"Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up."— Thomas A. Edison.
"Money and success don’t change people; they merely amplify what is already there." — Will Smith.
"Do all the good you can, for all the people you can, in all the ways you can, as long as you can." — Hillary Clinton.
"A wise person will make more opportunities than they find. Always strive to be a value bringer on the job, in business, and in life. Now and then, ask yourself, How can I add value today? — Teronie J. Donaldson (Yep- that's me - cool, right?)
Notes/Observations
Bill Gates infamously said, “I would choose a lazy person to do a hard job because they will find an easy way to do it.”
Lately, when I get stuck on a project or challenge, I think about how a lazy person would try to do it.
A lazy person will cut any corner to not do what they have to do and, when done right, stumbles upon a quicker, more effective solution.
Articles
Watched
Wakanda Forever
Incredible movie!
I honestly wasn't sure how the movie was going to play out without Chadwick Boseman but I was thoroughly impressed. The acting, writing, and story was amazing.
Strategy
Be careful of the debt you take up.
Too much debt taxes your future, time, and energy.
Watch how you spend as that money could be used to invest in yourself - which pays the best rewards.
A cool strategy I recently picked up is to Treat your credit card like a debit card. when you have access to an infinite amount of credit, it’s stupidly easy to overspend.
Book of the Week
Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It by Chris Voss
3 Lessons from Never Split The Difference That Can Improve Your Social Skills
As a parent of young kids, I negotiate all the time. And sometimes, not to my advantage but everywhere else, out-negotiating others makes a difference.
In Never Split the Difference, Voss aims to teach you how to take control of the conversations that will influence your life and career.
Voss shares many exciting stories and universal lessons in negotiation from his 24 years of experience in hostage negotiations.
The book's primary focus is negotiating with people, not against them.
Three takeaway:
1- Listen deeply - To understand someone's worldview.
It starts with understanding that people want to be understood and accepted. And listening is the cheapest and most effective way to get that done.
The FBI has found the most effective negotiation approach starts with empathy. By doing so, a negotiator demonstrates a desire to understand what the other side is experiencing. The beginning of a good negotiation sounds similar to a conversation with a therapist.
2 -Ask Calibrated Questions
Voss mentions using Calibrated Questions which are open-ended questions with no yes/no answer.
These questions allow your counterpart to talk more about their wants and needs, enabling you to gather more information about the other side without being too aggressive or pushy.
Hollywood movies often depict good negotiation as aggressive - two people pushing hard to get what they want but Voss says a forceful approach gets you nowhere and only invites resistance.
3- Keep your emotions in control
There will be times when you'll be in a negotiation, and the other party throws an extreme anchor at you that could distract you and set you off.
One way to keep your emotions in control is by being mentally prepared before going into a negotiation.
Being mentally prepared means keeping calm and composed - Once you can do that, you retain control over the negotiation and, most importantly, over yourself!
Which is a huge advantage.
Ultimately this book is more about emotional intelligence and effective listening than anything else.
Question
Will you do it today or tomorrow?
The idea we’ll have more time in the future is an illusion. What have you been putting off that you should be working on today?