Sam Walton built Walmart from the ground up – starting from 1 variety store in the 40’s to thousands today. When he passed in 1992, he had a net worth of $8.6 billion.

Sam Walton: Made in America, is Sam Walton’s autobiography of his life and work.

Starting in the 30’s, he talks about growing up during the Great Depression, and the impact it had on his life. After discussing his childhood, he takes you on a 50 year retailing journey, from his days running his first store, to owning a national brand and a company bringing in billions of dollars a year.

Sam Walton was a nobody living in the Midwest, and became one of the richest individuals in the United States by the time he grew old.

This autobiography sheds light on his thoughts while creating the massive retail empire of Walmart, and gives insight into how to create an amazing business through serving.

The rest of the post includes a summary of Sam Walton: Made in America, takeaways from this autobiography, and a reading recommendation for you.

Book Summary of Sam Walton: Made in America

Like many autobiographies, Walton starts with a discussion of childhood.

Sam Walton grew up in the Great Depression and this time left a lasting impression on him: EVERY DOLLAR MATTERS. When money is scarce, you can’t afford to be wasteful. Whether it was food, clothing, transportation or fun, there was an opportunity to be efficient and not to waste your hard earned cash. 

Having this thought and philosophy instilled at an early age had a great impact on his life in later years when he started in business.

Sam Walton: The Retailer and Merchant

After graduating college, Sam went to work at a retail store and quickly realized he really enjoyed the role. He was born to be a merchant, he writes, but the issue was, his handwriting was horrible and the management group at the time didn’t like how he played by his own rules.

After leaving this role, he bought his first store in Arkansas – a Benjamin Franklin store.

He was quite successful for 5 years, bringing in a solid profit through his hard work and constant need for improvement.

However, due to inexperience and a lack of legal know-how, he had to sell this store and start from scratch.

While it was a great learning experience, he wasn’t going to make that legal mistake again.

How Sam Walton Built Walmart

After his legal mishap with the Benjamin Franklin store, where he wasn’t able to renew his lease, he set off to start buying more stores.

It was at this point he realized there was an opportunity for him to persuade customers from other variety stores. If he could profitable make sales by offering lower prices and passing on the savings to the customer, then he could be successful.

He didn’t understand why a retailer needed to get 30-50% margins on every single product in the store. A margin of 5-10% would suffice, and after implementing these changes, his stores took off in sales.

Learning how to stretch every dollar, working from dusk until dawn, and being efficient and customer focused allowed him to create a lean and successful business.

The customers were incredibly happy and loyal, and his shareholders were satisfied as well.

He was always pushing to become a little better, and it showed.

Over 30 years, his retail empire grew and grew and grew. There were many tough times, but all of the hard work paid off. Here are his store numbers over time:

Year	1960	1970	1980	1990
Yearly Revenue	$1.4 Million	$31 Million	$1.2 Billion	$26.0 Billion
Yearly Profit	$112 Thousand	$1.2 Million	$41 Million	$1.0 Billion
Stores	9	32	276	1528

In 40 years, he built Walmart from the ground up. 9 stores to 1528 stores in 40 years is absolutely amazing growth – especially for someone from the Midwest who Wall Street thought was nutty and unconventional!

Sam Walton’s Ten Rules of Business

At the end of the book, Sam provides us a list of 10 rules for his success in business. He had never done this before, and decided to do it for the book for the first time in his life.

Here are his ten rules of business:

1. Commit to your business
   • Be tenacious and always look to improve your service or product.
2. Share your profits with all of your associates, and treat them as partners
   • Be generous and pay your people appropriately.
3. Motivate your partners
   • Ensure your people are listened to and motivated so they give their best.
4. Communicate everything you possibly can to your partners
   • Information is power, and the more information your people can utilize, the better they can do their job.
5. Appreciate everything your associates do for your business
   • Everyone in your business is doing their best and deserves thanks.
6. Celebrate your successes
   • Stop being so serious, it’s okay to be happy for your successes and give yourself a break.
7. Listen to everyone in your company
   • Everyone is unique and has great ideas.
8. Exceed your customers’ expectations
   • Providing immense value to your customers will give them no choice but to choose you as their store of choice.
9. Control your expenses better than your competition
   • The leaner your organization, the easier it is to manage tough times.
10. Swim upstream
    • Don’t be afraid to go against the grain.

Unfortunately, Sam passed away in the 1990’s, and cannot pass on his wisdom anymore. These tips are incredibly beneficial for someone in business, looking to start a business, or interested in creating an empire like Walmart.

Takeaways from Sam Walton: Made in America

With every book you read, it is a must to have takeaways and actionable items to implement in life.

The main takeaways from Sam Walton: Made in America were Sam’s focus on the customer, Sam’s focus on frugality and efficiency, and Sam’s tenacious approach to self-improvement.

The customer comes first in business (and life). Adopting a philosophy in which the work, service or product you put out should be geared to satisfy your customer at the highest level.

By focusing on making the customer experience the best it can be will bring you great success.

Putting tougher a piece of crap product won’t bring you pleasure or success – and it certainly won’t make the people giving you money happy.

Second, frugality and expense management is crucial in business and life.

Sam, worth billions, flew coach and drove his truck until his passing days. He didn’t feel the need to live lavishly because it didn’t make him happy.

Being able to save and make strategic moves when necessary allowed him to live comfortably and build his brand.

Finally, Sam’s tenacious approach to self-improvement, and the daily improvement of his business spoke volumes to me.

Consistent efforts WILL lead to massive results. 

He flew around the globe looking at other stores, figuring out what was working and what wasn’t working, and implementing the great ideas in his stores to ensure future success.

Daily disciplines added up over time will help you reach your goals. Sam Walton knew this intimately and his results showed.

Our Recommendation for Sam Walton’s Autobiography

Sam’s story was incredibly inspiring, and shed light on a true American entrepreneur. This businessperson autobiography motivated me to become better as an individual, and as a business owner.

Sam constantly was looking to improve a little bit each and every day. He studied the competition ruthlessly, and wanted to ensure the customer was experiencing the maximum benefit from Walmart’s service.

It wasn’t enough to do something right once, and then have an amazing finished product. No, you have to do it each and every day.

You must look to make an impact on your customers, readers, clients, or whoever you are serving. 

If you are an entrepreneur, or a student of business or American history, I would recommend giving Sam Walton: Made in America a read. Walmart and Sam’s Club are 2 iconic storefronts still prevalent today after many years. There is always something to learn from successful people and companies.

Readers: do you focus on providing your customer a great experience in your work? Are you inspired reading about incredibly successful people?

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Are you someone who is looking to climb the corporate ladder, but struggling? Why does it seem like others magically can get promotions, and you aren’t having the same luck?

You put in long hours, you get things done on time, you show passion in your work, and you are emotionally invested in the company. Why haven’t you been promoted yet?

Why does your co-worker who seemingly does less work get the promotion? What skills and strategies are they using which are helping progress their careers?

In Stealing the Corner Office: The Winning Career Strategies They’ll Never Teach You in Business School, by Brendan Reid, explores the dynamics of career advancement in Corporate America.

Stealing the Corner Office is a fantastic guide for advancing through the ranks in Corporate America. Reid, a seasoned executive, offers a collection of controversial yet effective tactics and strategies for people who want to learn the real secrets for moving up the corporate ladder.

The rest of the post includes a summary of Stealing the Corner Office, takeaways from Stealing the Corner Office, and a reading recommendation for you.

Why does it seem your manager is so incompetent? What did they do to get them to where they are? What strategies are they using that we can replicate and employ to take control of our career?

Book Summary of Stealing the Corner Office

Stealing the Corner Office is a playbook and how-to guide for advancing through the ranks in Corporate America.

Reid spent 15 years of his working career in middle management. During his time, he became frustrated with his lack of progression. Why was it that people who seemingly were less smart, less “hard-working”, and less reliable moving up the corporate ladder and not him?

He was practicing all of the conventional career tactics:

• Being passionate about his work and ideas
• Working to the point of exhaustion
• Vocal and anxious to debate topics vigorously
• Driven to deliver quarterly results
• Emotionally invested int he company
• Demanding of his employees and co-workers

He started to wonder, why wasn’t he the one being promoted and advancing in his career?

It turns out, conventional wisdom is not what will get you to the top of the corporate ladder – we must be tactical and smarter about your career goals and the strategy to achieve those goals.

In Corporate America, there are three players:

• Incompetent Executives
• Smart-but-Stationary Managers
• Poor Souls

The Incompetent Executives are the people we loathe, but seemingly can’t crack the code of how they got to where they got.

Stealing the Corner Office uncovers the strategies of the Incompetent Executives, and how we as Smart-but-Stationary Managers or Poor Souls can change our daily actions at work to set ourselves up for advancement.

The 7 Tactics of Stealing the Corner Office

The majority of Stealing the Corner Office are the 7 tactics which can help you advance in your corporate career.

The 7 tactics of stealing the corner office are:

• Never be passionate about your ideas
  • Your managers have other plans than to entertain your ideas.
• Embrace the change everyone else hates
  • Your managers have a plan, and to be promoted, you’ll need to implement their plans successfully.
• Learn to promote your products
  • Sales and marketing techniques can be used to sell yourself!
• Avoid the farce of results orientation
  • Quality is usually more important than quantity.
• Don’t be part of the herd
  • Be unique! Standing out will allow you to get noticed by upper management.
• Find big problems to solve
  • If you can solve a $1,000 inefficiency, or $50,000 inefficiency, which help more to convince your manager you are able to take on more responsibility?
• Don’t hold people accountable
  • Your work is your work. If others aren’t helping enough, this is their problem

These tactics are unconventional, and this is exactly the point. The traditional methods aren’t working today, and so it’s important to try alternative methods.

Reid walks you through different scenarios and stories which touch on all of the tactics listed above. While going through these scenarios and stories, you can relate and put yourself into the shoes of the managers and employees he describes.

Stealing the Corner Office is a great learning tool and guide to understanding the principles of advancing your career.

Takeaways from Stealing the Corner Office

With every book you read, it is a must to have takeaways and actionable items to implement in life.

The main takeaway from Stealing the Corner Office is how advancing in today’s corporate world is possible by working smarter, and not necessarily harder.

Trying to solve big problems, and falling in line will result in bigger and better responsibilities and promotions.

A secondary takeaway is how important it is to have a positive attitude, and look to be unique in your interactions and work. If you don’t try to stick out, someone else will pass you up for the next level role.

Our Recommendation for Stealing the Corner Office

Corporate and career success will not happen over night, but over time you can improve your situation and reach your goals. By staying consistent with your learning and reading, you will be able to achieve success.

You are in control of your destiny. You can cultivate a winning mindset which will lead to achievement and getting what you want.

If you are struggling to advance your career in Corporate America, I’d recommend you pick up a copy of Stealing the Corner Office.

Stealing the Corner Office will help correct your actions which are holding you back and get you on the path to management. I truly believe the strategies in Stealing the Corner Office will help you get to the next level.

Readers: are you looking to advance your career at work? Are you a natural leader or follower? Do you get frustrated by incompetent managers?

Why do some messages persuade and other don’t persuade? What makes sales and advertising organizations successful? When are the principles of persuasion and influence most successful, and when do these principles not work?

Pre-suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade, by Dr. Robert Cialdini, is an incredible book about how you can create situations which will increase the chances of persuading your audience.

In Dr. Cialdini’s Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, we learned about the 6 key principles of persuasion, and how to salespeople use these tactics to try to get you to buy their product or service.

In contrast to Influence, Pre-suasion looks to discuss the scenarios and situations where the odds of persuasion can increase.

Pre-suasion looks to answer the question, “What can someone who wants to persuade do before they start to present their message, product, argument, etc.”, whereas Influence talks about ways to connect during a discussion or sales pitch.

When making a decision, who we are can affected by where we are emotionally, physically, etc.

Through extensive research, Dr. Cialdini has found a number of factors which can be used to sway an audience to become more receptive to your ideas and goals.

For anyone interested in psychology, sales and marketing, and leadership, Pre-suasion is a fantastic book to read.

The rest of this post includes a summary of Pre-suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade, takeaways from Pre-suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade, and a reading recommendation for you.

Book Summary of Pre-suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade

For many years, social psychologists focused on what strategies could be employed to persuade in the moment.

In Dr. Cialdini’s other book, Influence, he lays out the 6 principles of persuasion in detail:

1. reciprocity
2. scarcity
3. liking
4. authority
5. social proof
6. commitment/consistency

While these are very important and beneficial to understand, what else can affect a message and interaction? How can we improve the odds of our message being received in a positive light?

Are there any other things to consider in addition to these principles of persuasion?

In Pre-suasion, Dr. Cialdini looks to answer the question, “what can communicators do before they speak to get their message accepted?”

Through research and investigation, Dr. Cialdini shares with us his discoveries and a number of tips to apply in life when trying to persuade others.

The Importance of Attention in Pre-suasion and Influence

When looking to communicate, the first thing that should be considered is framing your argument and the attention of your audience on a specific perspective.

If something is readily able to be thought of, then it will be easier later on for those thoughts to come out.

One example in the book talks about how in the 2000s, the media focused more on the troops and army who were fighting in the Iraq War vs. the strategy and politics surrounding the war.

Because of the elevated attention and focus on how great the troops were and everything they were doing, there was less focus on some of the shortcomings of the campaign.

In terms of public perception of the war, since the media wasn’t producing as much content on these shortcomings, the public thought the war efforts were worthy of support.

Along these same lines, if you can connect with your audience and help them imagine and feel the benefits (or consequences) of a certain situation, you can get buy in.

This has happened many times with false accusations during investigative interviews.

Over time, the interviewers will slowly guide the interviewee into constructing a story of being guilty of the crime.

By making assertions like, “do you recall doing X to the victim?” and then if the interviewee answers, “well I don’t remember, but I can imagine doing this”, following up with “Yes, well you can imagine, maybe you did end up doing this act”, this can be very potent in getting a confession of guilt.

How to Gain and Hold Attention

Now that we have established the importance, how can you gain and hold attraction when communicating?

First, there are a few things which will always gain a person’s attention:

• sex,
• violence,
• and the unique

However, these things need to be aligned with both what your audience’s needs are, and what your message is.

For example, it wouldn’t make sense to show a violent clip and then ask for someone to buy diapers. This is not congruent and definitely would not be a way to persuade someone to want to buy diapers.

Instead, there are certain types of information which will hold an audience’s attention:

• the mysterious,
• the unfinished,
• and the self-relevant

Cliffhangers work because humans will naturally be curious and want to know more. If you are given everything in one go, then you won’t want more.

By employing these thoughts, you can gain the attention of your audience, keep it, and then work to deliver your message using techniques described in the next sections.

The Effect of Association on Pre-suasion and Influence

When looking to persuade and influence, association is incredibly powerful. Both language and imagery can be used to affect our thinking positively, or negatively.

Similar to using affirmations to change your internal thought processes, association is very powerful when used to connect ideas and feelings to guide a conversation.

However, it’s important to note that using the right associations are how you can bring about change.

One of my most favorite examples from the book was how a health care organization does not use any language related to violence.

Instead of using the word “target”, they use the word “goal”. Instead of using the phrase “beat their competition”, they use the phrase “outpace their competition”.

Since they are a health care company that looks to help others, violence should not be a thought on any employee’s mind.

In addition to language, geography and someone’s physical location can affect their thinking.

If you are trying to work on a project which requires a lot of creativity, being in a room which is very boring could be a negative.

Likewise, if you are trying to do something problem solving intensive, then it might not be optimal to be distracted with many colors and noises.

Using Pre-suasion to the Fullest

As I mentioned in an earlier paragraph, pre-suasion is all about how to connect with your audience before going into presentation.

Once you have drawn attention to the appropriate pieces of information, and used association to further guide your audience, then Dr. Cialdini says you should then use the six principles of persuasion to further guide your audience.

Again, these six principles of persuasion are as follows:

1. reciprocity
2. scarcity
3. liking
4. authority
5. social proof
6. commitment/consistency

These principles are so powerful that they generate substantial change in a wide range of circumstances.

One last point which is discussed in the book however is the importance of unity.

Embracing unity when looking to persuade involves tapping into the fundamental behavior of human beings.

There are two ways in which unity can be achieved: in being together, and in acting together (and these can happen at the same time).

One example is when dealing with family members vs. strangers – I’m guessing you would rather help your family member because they are “one of us” and of the same bloodline.

You also can see this in fans cheering for their favorite sport teams; total strangers can become best friends for a few hours at a game.

Unity and the want to feel together with others is fundamental to humans, and is another way we influence an outcome.

Depending on the context, suggesting you are on the same team, by experiencing similar experiences, and connecting through a past living situation, birthplace or birthday, can influence and attract others to your message.

Is Pre-suasion Ethical?

Using the strategies of persuasion and influence to gain an advantage in communication can be used for good or bad.

In the context of this book, Dr. Cialdini devotes an entire chapter to discussing the ethics of pre-suasion.

His argument is that pre-suasion should only be used for good, and if used for bad, at least in the area of business, then there will be negative consequences for those bad acting businesses.

Dr. Cialdini hypothesized and proved that through experiments that if a business is unethical, then these businesses will suffer from:

• Poor employee performance
• Employee Turnover
• Employee Fraud

At the end of the day, pre-suasion can be used for good or evil, and we need to be aware of this fact.

As consumers, we need to be aware of these tactics when looking for products and services, and as communicators, we can be aware of some of the strategies we can use to attract others to our message.

Takeaways from Pre-suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade

With every book you read, it is a must to have takeaways and actionable items to implement in life.

The main takeaway from Pre-suasion is how you can change the frame and narrative of a situation by using different language or imagery.

By changing the way you approach a situation with certain statements, actions and questions, you can guide a situation towards a result you want.

Funnily enough, I experienced pre-suasion first hand the other week at the bar.

I was talking with a girl about finances, how she is a Dave Ramsey enthusiast, and how she was paying off debt.

One area of personal finance, which is more on the travel and lifestyle side of things, is credit card hacking. With credit card hacking, you look to hit a certain level of spending ($2,000 in the first 3 months for example), and after hitting this “minimum spend”, you will get cash back or airline miles.

At the bar, there was a “minimum spend” for using your card to pay.

When she said she needed to get another drink to meet the “minimum spend”, I got excited because I thought she was talking about credit card hacking!

Instead, she told me she uses a debit card and she just needed to get to a $10 purchase to use her card.

What a face palm moment for me, ha!

This situation proved and showed to me it’s entirely possible to be susceptible to prior discussion when thinking and making decisions in the future!

My takeaway is pre-suasion is not only possible, but very potent.

Pre-suasion should be used for good. By reading this book, I now know some more ways to get buy in from others.

Our Recommendation for Pre-suasion

Pre-suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade will help you gain a better understanding of the human mind and human behavior.

If you are in sales, deal with clients on a regular basis, or are involved in presentations towards people you need to get approval from, Pre-suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade is a must read!

Even as a consumer, or as someone interested in psychology, Influence is a fantastic book. Influence will open your eyes to some of the tricks and techniques of big corporations and sales companies.

By reading Pre-suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade, you will learn how to set yourself and your message up for greater reception, and discover ways to align your audience the right way before you start your pitch.

After reading, you’ll learn how to become a skilled pre-suader, and know how to gain attention in the right way.

In my pursuit to improve my thought process when encountering new situations, I decided reading Think Like a Freak, by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, would be beneficial. What I’m finding, as I read more, the same concepts come up over and over. Think Like a Freak has many of the same concepts and stories I encountered when reading Decisive (book review) and Originals (book review).

For example, in Think Like a Freak, they discuss the story of Zappos, a shoe company, where during the training program for new employees, they offer everyone the chance to leave the program for $2,000 cash. If a person wants to leave, they will get $2,000. If not, they will continue to be trained in and be an employee of the company. Zappos offers this chance to take the money and leave because they want to weed out anyone who is looking to make a quick buck. By weeding out potentially bad employees, they save money in the long run. This story was also shared in Decisive as a way for a company to “ooch”.

Takeaways from Think Like a Freak

While there is some overlap with other books, there was some new information that I took away from Think Like a Freak about how to improve my critical thinking. One of the major keys to critical thinking is allowing yourself to say “I don’t know” and then searching for the answer.

I’ve started to apply this in my day job, and I believe it makes a person look better when asked a difficult question. Obviously, you don’t want to say “I don’t know” to every question. When you say, “oh, I didn’t consider that”, or “okay, I was overlooking that point and will go and search for the answer”, your manager will be much more receptive and open to any shortcomings. If you try and fib and beat around the bush, your manager may not appreciate that.

Never Stop Experimenting

Another key takeaway I have from Think Like a Freak is the need to experiment and try new things to gain experience. I’m at a very interesting point in my life. Currently, I’m in a great financial situation for my age group. I’m trying to build on that, but in the mean time, experiences are extremely important as well.

One thing I want to keep working on in the coming months is striking up conversations with strangers and trying to connect with them as fast as possible. I will try to take them out of their normal daily routine and try to inject life into their lives through my easy going-ness and ability to make people feel comfortable.

Remarkable Quotes and Passages from Think Like a Freak

Some other notes, quotes, and takeaways from Think Like a Freak:

• First and foremost, always try to be aware of your knowledge and what limitations you have. It is perfectly acceptable to say “I don’t know.”
  • We really don’t know ourselves all too well. We make false assumptions about our abilities and we fail to acknowledge what we don’t know.
  • “Making grandiose assumptions about your abilities and failing to acknowledge what you don’t know can lead unsurprisingly, to disaster.
• When solving problems, it might be best to put away our moral compass.
• The key to learning is feedback. Use experiments to get feedback.
  • “Knowledge is not mastery. Execution is mastery.” – Tony Robbins
• Ask the right questions to get a full view of the problem. It is important to not just focus on your own issues.
  • Redefine the problem. Ask a question like: how can we simplify this?
  • Seek to view problems from a new angle. Try to figure out how the world works.
• “It is the brain, not the heart or lungs, that is the critical organ.” – Roger Bannister
  • Artificial barriers are made-up. Ignore them and break through them.
• Have fun, think small, don’t fear the obvious.
  • Find the root cause of the problem. By finding the root cause, we can understand the problem at the lowest level and build from there.
    • Think small, think detailed. By examining the smaller issues, we can start to understand the big issues.
  • As long as you can tell the difference between a good idea and a bad one, generating a boatload of ideas, even outlandish ones, can only be a good thing.
  • Don’t be afraid to ask about the “obvious”.
• Understanding incentives of all players in a given scenario is a fundamental step in solving any problem.
  • Figure out what really matters to other people, not what they say they care about.
    • Don’t listen to what people say they want; watch what they do.
  • Try to shift the frame and mindset of the other person from adversarial to cooperative.
  • Never ever think that people will do something just because it is the “right” thing to do.
• Our behavior is enormously influenced by our environment, mindset, and circumstances.
• If you want your argument to be truly persuasive, it’s a good idea to acknowledge not only the known flaws, but the potential for unintended consequences.
  • Consider the other side’s argument to gain credibility.
  • Tell a story; stories capture our attention and therefore are good for teaching.
• “Let go of conventional wisdoms that torment us. Let go of the artificial limits that hold us back – and the fear of admitting what we don’t know.”
• Our resources are not infinite; you cannot solve tomorrow’s problems if you aren’t willing to abandon today’s dud.

“Let go of conventional wisdoms that torment us. Let go of the artificial limits that hold us back – and the fear of admitting what we don’t know.”

Our Recommendation for Think Like a Freak

Overall, I would give Think Like a Freak 3/5 stars. My major takeaways from this books are that it is okay to say “I don’t know”, to try different things and experiment, and the fact people are driven by various incentives.  Think Like a Freak is a quick read with some interesting stories and good thinking points.

If you are looking for a book on how to change your thinking, I would recommend Decisive (book review) and Originals (book review). Both of these books are more comprehensive and will help you change your thinking, decision making, and outlook on various situations.

Have you read any of the books by Levitt and Dubner, such as Freakonomics or Super Freakonomics? What do you think of books like these? Do you try to improve your decision making process?

Many elite competitors believe success in their sport is 90% mental. Having a strong mental game is equally as important as being technically strong (if not more).

How can we work on our mental abilities for success?

In With Winning in Mind, Lanny Bassham, Olympic Gold Medalist in Rifle Shooting, provide us a framework for improve our mental strength.

Early in his career, Lanny Bassham realized all the practice in the world wouldn’t matter if he didn’t have the right mental management system in place during competitions.

Once he started focusing on his mental game, he won multiple gold medals and proved his strategy of mental strength worked.

Over the years, Bassham has trained multiple athletes and professionals. Through his methods, he has produced many winners. I was interested in With Winning in Mind because I’m consistently looking for an edge in life, and also want to develop a strong mental game to complement my other skills.

In this post, I’ll share with you a book summary of With Winning in Mind, some takeaways from With Winning in Mind, and my book recommendation for you.

Mental management is the process of improving the probability of having a consistent mental performance, under pressure, on demand.

Book Summary of With Winning in Mind

In With Winning in Mind, Lanny Bassham starts by describing the three parts crucial for mental performance.

The three parts critical for a successful mental game are the following:

• Conscious Mind
  • The Conscious Mind is what you use when you visualize or think during a competition.
• Subconscious Mind
  • The Subconscious Mind is utilized when you become proficient, the concept of “not having to think about a task”.
• Self-Image
  •  A person’s Self-Image is how you think about yourself. If you believe in yourself, you have a positive Self-Image and are able to succeed at a high level.

By working on these three areas, you will be able to become stronger mentally and perform better.

Lanny Bassham’s Mental Management System

Over the years, Bassham reformed his methodologies and strategies and has came up with a system, The Mental Management System.

The Mental Management System looks to grow each of the 3 parts of Mental Performance.

When the Conscious Mind, the Subconscious Mind, and the Self-Image are in balance, you will have your best performances. If any one of those are out of balance, your performance will suffer.

In With Winning in Mind, Bassham gives you concrete steps to get you to the next level of mental performance.

The Nine Principles of Mental Management

With the framework of the Conscious Mind, Subconscious Mind, and the Self-Image in place, Bassham talks about the Nine Principles of Mental Management:

1. Your Conscious Mind can only concentrate on one thing at a time.
2. What you say is not important. What you cause yourself or others to picture is crucial.
3. The Subconscious Mind is the source of all mental power.
4. The Self-Image moves you to do what the Conscious Mind is picturing.
5. Self-Image and performance are always equal.
   • To change your performance, you must first change your Self-Image.
6. You can replace the Self-Image you have with the Self-Image you want, thereby permanently changing performance.
7. The Principle of Reinforcement: The more we think about, talk about and write about something happening, we improve the probability of that thing happening.
8. The Self-Image cannot tell the difference between what actually happens and what is vividly imagined.
9. The Principle of Value: We appreciate things in direct proportion to the price we pay for them.

The most important principle is #5: your Self-Image and performance are always equal.

If you don’t believe you can do a task, then you won’t be able to do it. If you have a positive Self-Image and know it is “like you” to be able to do something, then you will do it with ease.

Tap into the Power of Affirmations

Many people lack in the Self-Image component of the three mental components.

With this said, it’s possible to grow your Self-Image. Through affirmations and visualization, you can grow your Self-Image. You can improve your situation and replace your current Self-Image with the one you want.

If you want to become a world class athlete, tell yourself you are one. Tell yourself you can lift heavy weights, run fast, and are agile.

It is important to reinforce the positives vs. focusing on the negatives. If you focus on the errors, you reinforce that it is “like you” to make errors.

Focusing on the positives and saying, “It’s like me to be successful and it’s like me to be able to do it”, you can accomplish whatever you put your mind to.

Mental management comes down to focusing on the task at hand consciously, having and trusting your ability to perform the task subconsciously, and knowing it is “like you” to do the task.

By having a balance between your conscious and subconscious minds, and your self-image, you can succeed in anything you do.

Takeaways from With Winning in Mind

With every book you read, it is a must to have takeaways and actionable items to implement in life.

The main takeaway from With Winning in Mind for me is the power of affirmations and the importance of a strong Self-Image.

If you don’t believe in yourself, then you won’t reach your goals. If you believe in yourself, you can accomplish anything you want in life.

Another takeaway is the power of visualization. The brain cannot tell the difference between what is occurring in reality and what is occurring in your imagination.

If you visualize yourself acing an interview, crushing the competition, or negotiating a raise, you can trick your brain into actually believing you did these things successfully.

Having a strong mental game is as important as having any other skill. It’s important to work on your mental abilities and tap into your full potential.

Our Recommendation for With Winning in Mind

With Winning in Mind is a must read for you if you want to improve your mental game.

You will be presented a strategy for mental performance which is concrete and attainable. With Winning in Mind is not your typical self-help book, and will help you complement your existing self improvement practices.

If you are struggling with the mental side of competition and are looking to improve your current mental game, I’d highly recommend picking up With Winning in Mind.

Do you ever struggle in competitions with your mental game? What do you do to re-focus? What are some of your goals for this year?

Living a healthy life is so important. Your health is your true wealth, and it’s important to be healthy mentally, physically, and emotionally. In this post, you’ll learn 5 steps you can take to be healthy and live happy.

This is probably obvious to you, but when you are healthy, you are able to do so much more with your time, energy and life, than when you are unhealthy.

However, you might think you are healthy, but in reality, are lacking in one area of life to fully experience life.

Understanding that health is a combination of focusing on the physical, social, emotional and mental parts of life will make leading a healthy lifestyle and living happy much easier.

In this post, I’m going to share with you 5 steps you can take to live healthy and be happy, and why each of these steps is important to focus on for a balanced life.

5 Simple Steps to Be Healthy and Live Happy

First, as I mentioned briefly above, health is a combination of the following factors:

• physical
• social
• emotional
• mental

With each of these factors, doing different things will allow us to stay balanced and sane during times of trouble, but also to be balanced during the good times as well.

Before getting into the things to focus on for being healthy, I want to ask you two questions:

What’s your purpose? Why do you live life? 

With a purpose in mind, you’ll be able to attack these steps in a much easier way.

If you want to be healthy to be able to spend more time with your kids, that is a great purpose. Maybe you want to be able to travel with your friends, and not have to worry about getting tired. It’s also possible you just want to feel better about yourself and improve your self-esteem.

Whatever reason you have, you will be able to accomplish your goals since you have a purpose and motivation to do so.

Below are the 5 things to focus on for living a healthy life:

1. Do Physical Exercise
2. Be Socially Active
3. Keep in Mind Your Mental State
4. Practice Good Hygiene
5. Eat a Balanced Diet

Let’s go deeper into each of these below.

Do Physical Exercise

One of the first things that people think about when thinking about health is physical exercise.

It’s very common think that the healthiest people are the ones who are the runners, bikers, lifters and athletes of the world.

This is true, but only one piece of the health puzzle.

Doing physical exercise contributes to relaxation, sleeping well and also improves self-esteem.

However, for your health and wellness, you don’t need to play a sport professionally. You can walk, run, go to the park to exercise, bike, swim, climb, whatever you want! All of these ways can contribute to your physical fitness and keeping your body active and fit.

Be Socially Active

Next on the list is being socially active.

As a human, you are a social creature. Whether you are an introvert, extrovert, or a mix of the two, you need some level of social interaction to be healthy and sane.

Depending on your interests, don’t forget to have social activities, getting together with friends, and enjoying time with the family.

Being social active helps our mental and emotional state. Being alone all the time can cause depression, nothing like a warm sharing with the people you love.

Keep in Mind Your Mental State

In sports and competitive games, having a strong mental game is just as important as having the skill and knowledge of the game.

Having a sane and strong mental state in life is equally as important.The main thing to maintain a healthy life is to have a positive attitude. This must go hand in hand with optimism and enthusiasm.

That being said, sometimes it’s hard to always be positive and to keep a optimist outlook on the world.

Keeping in mind your mental state refers to keeping in mind your emotional and psychological state.

To do this, you need to take time for yourself and understand how you are feeling and what you are thinking. You should reduce noise and distractions, and enjoy a state of tranquility to reduce stress and fatigue.

Spending time in nature and getting fresh air sometimes helps me relax. For you, find an area of serenity to calm down and relax, and focus on yourself.

Practice Good Hygiene

Next, practicing good hygiene is important for being healthy.

Maintaining cleanliness and order both at home and personally, so you will avoid suffering from diseases and infections.

Washing your hands before eating, showering, brushing, washing your clothes are just some of the things you should always do.

Taking a shower after a long hard day is always such a nice feeling, and by staying clean, this will play into other areas of your healthy life.

Eat a Balanced Diet

Finally, the last (but certainly not least) step to health is eating a balanced diet.

Having a balanced diet does not mean that we stop eating what we like – however, we must eat what’s healthy for our bodies, and within reason. You can still have your favorite ice cream, but maybe not every day.

Eating a balanced diet will allow your body to be healthy.

For example, if you eat a lot of sweets you can damage your teeth. Replacing them with fruits and vegetables can be far more beneficial to provide you with energy, but also with vitamins and nutrients.

Likewise, getting enough protein is very important for active people.

Eating a balanced diet of natural foods while also enjoying your favorite treats (within reason) is very possible to attain in practice.

The key here is to STOP BUYING JUNK! If the junk food isn’t in the house, you can’t eat it!

By making a plan, buying the right food, and having self-control, you can change your eating habits and diet for the better.

With these tips, I hope you can get on to a healthier life and live happy.

Practice These 5 Steps, Be Healthy and Live Happy!

I hope this list of simple steps to healthy living has been beneficial for you, and you can take this advice and start making changes for the better in your life.

Living a life with purpose, a life of intention, and a life of health will allow you the opportunity to perform better at work, have more friends, and have more energy to do daily tasks.

Right now, I’m trying to focus in on eating a balanced diet, as what you put in your body is very important – trash in, trash out!

Readers: what area are you going to work on first to become more healthy?

Are you looking to become great and successful, or are you happy if you can have just enough?

Do you want to be the best you can be, or is settling for average good enough?

Are you happy with where you are in life, or do you want more?

Over the past year, it’s been tough – obviously we’ve all had to make changes and reassess our lives with the many changes in the way we do our work, travel, spend time with friends and family, and do things on a daily basis.

With this, I know I’ve lost a little bit of the fire in my belly to keep striving and working each day, however, recently, with Spring just around the corner, I have a new desire and new motivation to get back to the grind.

A few weeks ago, I was reading a book about mindset, and one of the quotes that stuck with me was the following:

People by and large become what they think of themselves.

If you believe in yourself and believe that you can do amazing things, you have a better chance at doing just that.

You can do anything you put your mind to.

However, if you believe that you are average, or you are comfortable with where you are in life and don’t need to make a change, then nothing will change.

Over the past few weeks, since reading this book, I’ve assessing everything I do through this new lens.

By believing I’m more, and expecting more, I can become more.

By demanding excellence in my day to day life, I can become great.

Let’s dive more into how you can demand excellence in your life, and get on to living the life you want and deserve.

Consistent Actions WILL Lead to Great Success Over Time

To achieve success in anything you do, you need to break it down into what actions you are going to take on a daily basis to acheive that goal.

Consistent actions added up over time will lead to success – this is one of the core beliefs that I talk about on this blog and how I live my life.

For example, let’s say you want to become fit and build your strength.

If you do 30 push-ups and 30 squats today, you’ll feel good for a little while, but tomorrrow, you’ll wake up and not see much of a change.

However, if you do 30 push-ups and 30 squats every day for a week, you will start to notice some changes in your body and your strength.

Do this for a few weeks, and even a few months, you’ll have done THOUSANDS of push-ups and squats. You will feel better about your body and you will be stronger.

What would be impossible to do in a day became easy over 6 months or a year.

That is how champions and success is made.

Intentional daily actions each day lead to success over the long term.

You can control your day to day actions and with this in mind, let’s now talk about step two in this process: demanding excellence in everything you do.

Demanding Excellence in Your Day to Day Activities

Have you ever heard of the phrase “practice makes perfect”?

What about the phrase “perfect practice makes perfect”?

Each of these phrases get to the point of how consistent actions (practice) and demanding excellence (perfect practice) can lead to success (perfection).

Demanding excellence is a mindset shift which will help you align your practice with your goals.

It’s not enough to just go through the motions and do just enough to get by – no, you need to do the right steps and adjust your strategy over time to ensure you are on the right path.

What does demanding excellence mean?

Demanding excellence means:

• Setting big goals and having high expectations of yourself
• Developing a daily routine which pushes your limits and expands your abilities
• Researching and problem solving when you get stuck
• Staying disciplined when times get tough
• Going the extra step to get what you want

Let’s dig a little deeper on each of these before wrapping up the article

“A person with great dreams can achieve great things.” – Bob Rotella

Demand Excellence through Setting Big Goals

What are you goals? What are you trying to accomplish? Where do you want to be in life in 1, 3 or 5 years?

Write down your answers and have them with you before we continue.

Now, take your answers and ask yourself, what would the next step above these goals look like?

What I mean, is let’s say you have a goal to get a new job that pays $75,000.

Why stop at $75,000?

What would life look like if you had a job that paid $85,000? What skills would you need to get to this level? Is there anything stopping you from getting this higher paying job?

Becoming successful is done first by setting a huge goal. If you want to shoot for the moon, then you better aim for the moon.

If you aim for less, you’ll hit less. If you expect less, you’ll get less.

Setting big goals and having high expectations for yourself will lead to helping you get on the right path mentally and physically.

Demanding Excellence in Your Daily Routine

Each day, you have an opportunity to take action towards your goals.

Each day, you can either be working towards your goals, or neglecting and moving farther away from your goals.

During each day, I’d recommend trying to do something little to help you stay on track for your goals.

Next, after establishing the routine of doing a little each day, you can start to add on more and more. Then over time, you can continue to make tweaks to make this daily routine more effective and efficient for you.

Then, as you become comfortable, demand excellence in what you do, and strive for perfection.

Demanding Excellence and Expand Your Knowledge

As you start on your journey to success, over time, you’ll come across road bumps and barriers.

The way to navigate these barriers is done through experience, knowledge and problem solving.

To gain this knowledge and experience, you need to be constantly doing, learning and experimenting.

Continual growth can only be done when you are constantly recieving more and more stimulus into your brain.

Reading books, learning a new language, starting a side hustle, or taking courses can all be beneficial for you in expanding your knowledge and capacity to do more.

Demand Excellence and Stay Disciplined

I’m not a runner, but something I’m always impressed by is when I see people running in bad weather.

Training for marathon race in bad weather has to be one of the worst experiences I can imagine. But to get to where they want to be, a runner needs to get out there, rain or shine.

Looking at the weather before the run, it could be so easy to say “I’ll do it tomorrow” or “Maybe another day”.

But to be great and demand excellence is to push through these tough times and stick to your plan.

The people who aren’t willing to grind through these tough times are the ones they will be passing during the race – so it will be worth it.

For you, doing things daily and sticking to those tasks will lead to the results you want. Stay disciplined and you’ll be on the way to excellence and success.

Demand Excellence by Going the Extra Step

Going the extra step is how successful people become successful.

Just showing up, doing the minimum, and doing what is necessary will not get you to the high level you want.

Instead, putting in a more time than is required, doing extra reps, finding efficiencies, and pushing for that little extra bit will get you on a better trajectory.

If you want to become the best in your field, get the body you want, or make more money, then you need to be willing to put in more to get more.

Think of it this way – let’s say everyone around you also wants to get to where you are going.

How can you speed up the time it takes, so that you get there first?

It’s going to be a combination of working smarter AND working harder.

Go the extra step – it’ll be worth it.

Get on the Path to Success Today

Each of these posts on mindset will help you get on the right path to living the life you want and deserve.

Whether you are just starting on the path to success, grinding each day in the middle of the journey, or almost to the end, I hope that you can benefit from the advice above.

In the coming weeks, I know that I will be demanding more and more out of myself, and I’m excited to see the results from my efforts.

It’s not enough to just go through the motions and expect things to change – we need to do a little more each day, and try to break through existing barriers to make breakthroughs.

Whatever your goal is, I know that through having higher expectations for yourself, taking steps daily, and going the extra mile will get you the results you want.

Demand excellence and get on the path to success.

Readers: what goals do you have? What are you trying to achieve this year? What are you doing daily to achieve those goals?

6 months to 6 figures – it sounds too good to be true. In the next 6 months, could you go from your current position in life, and turn yourself into a person capable of producing $100,000 in value?

Do you think it’s possible in this day and age? What habits would you have to implement to make this happen?

6 months is 180 days. Think about what you could accomplish in 180 days…spend an hour a day for 180 days and that’s 180 hours. Spend 2 hours a day on something for 180 days and that’s 360 hours. Spend 8 hours a day on something for 180 days and that’s 1,400 hours.

If you want something, taking action and doing the work will result in getting closer to your goals.

6 Months to 6 Figures, by Peter Voogd, is a no-nonsense book about how you can develop yourself into a person with skills worth 6 figures.

6 Months to 6 Figures not a business plan – there are no business ideas in the book. Instead, Voogd presents actionable steps to get you started towards your goals.

Below is a book summary of 6 Months to 6 Figures, takeaways from 6 Months to 6 Figures, and a reading recommendation for you.

“The moment you take responsibility for everything in your life, is the moment you can change anything in your life.” – Hal Elrod

Book Summary of 6 Months to 6 Figures

6 Months to 6 Figures gives you a framework and plan to develop thoughts, goals and habits to become a person with skills worth 6 figures.

To develop these skills, Voogd discusses six musts you need to address on your journey to success.

To become someone worth 6 figures in 6 months, you must do the following:

• Have Absolute Clarity
  • You must have clear goals and a clear vision of what you want in life.
• Increase Your Confidence
  • What good are goals if you aren’t confident you will reach them? Why bother then?
  • Having confidence in yourself is half the battle.
• Shift Your Circle of Influence
  • You are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with.
  • If you want to be a millionaire, spend time with other millionaires.
• Exhibit Consistent Energy and Motivation
  • If you devote 1 hour a day to your goal, over 180 days, you will have put in 180 hours.
  • How much closer to your goal if you have put 180 hours into your work?
• Create Intentional Result Rituals
  • Your habits and actions determine your success. Be intentional with every action and step you take.
• Continually Focus on Growth and Learning
  • If you aren’t growing, you are dying.
  • Nothing stays the same over time, there is always something new to learn, a problem to solve, or a situation to provide value to.

These 6 musts give us a framework and road map to achieve any goal we set for ourselves.

Applying the 6 Musts for Success

Let’s go through an example of how you can apply the 6 musts from above to create a framework for your goals and dreams.

What is your goal?

First, what is your goal? To figure out your goal, ask yourself questions to dive deep into your wants and desires:

• Are you looking to get a promotion at work?
• Do you want to start a business or blog?
• Do you want to lose weight?
• Are you looking to save money and become financially well off?

What exactly do you want? Answer these questions for absolute clarity (Must #1).

What is your Why?

Next, why do you want your goal?

If your goal is to lose weight, is it because you want to be healthy? Do you want to look better for dating purposes? Are you looking for more energy?

If you are looking to increase your income, why do you want to do this? Is it to spend more on your family? Do you want to go on more vacations?

What’s your why? Your why and your reasons will bring you motivation and confidence (Must #2).

Who will Help You on Your Journey to 6 Figures?

Who is keeping you accountable? Who is helping you on your journey?

Ask other people who are more successful for tips. You don’t want to make the same mistakes other people have made, so look to add some mentors to your life (Must #3).  These mentors could be found online, (a virtual coach, a podcast host you love, or YouTube influencer), or in person.

Consistent Efforts WILL Result in Massive Success

Consistency is the key to success over time. No one can accomplish their goal in 1 day. No one is an overnight success.

To achieve your goals, each and every day, remind yourself of your goal. Staying consistent will keep the momentum going and growth continual (Must #4).

Remember, 1 hour a day for 180 days is 180 hours. Skip 1 day, and you’ll have to put in 2 the next. Skip a week, and you have to play catch-up over next week.

Take action today and get a little closer to your goals!

Creating Habits Which Will Naturally Bring Success

After you establish consistent habits, ensure what you are doing is resulting in results (Must #5).

Ask yourself, “Which of my actions are bringing me the most success?”

Going into your project, you can plan and plan and plan, but some things will inevitably not go as foreseen.

The ability to be flexible and handle these problems in a proper way will be predicated on your established habits. If you have the proper habits of success in place, you will be able to navigate any situation and stay on track.

Never Stop Learning and Growing

Finally, never stop learning (Must #6).

Read books, read lots of books.

Talk to your mentors, meet like-minded individuals.

Get out and have experiences. Don’t be afraid to say “I don’t know”!

With this attitude, you will go very far in life.

By applying these 6 musts, you will be on your way to accomplishing your goals and achieving your dreams.

“If you aren’t showing up to be better than you were yesterday you will not last in real business.” – John D. Rockefeller

Takeaways from 6 Months to 6 Figures

With every book you read, it is a must to have takeaways and actionable items to implement in life.

My main takeaway from 6 Months to 6 Figures is how important habits are for success.

You don’t become successful over night. Instead, you become successful over time because you become the person who naturally will be successful.

By setting goals, living intentionally, and establishing the habits of learning, networking, and action taking, you’ll be on your way to achieving your dreams.

Another big takeaway is the important of your network. You are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with. This applies in all areas of life: wealth, relationships, career, political views, and health.

If you are looking to become healthy, it probably doesn’t make sense to hang out with people who go to the bar every weekend and get blackout drunk!

Choosing your friends wisely will be critical to your success.

“If you are the smartest person in the room, you are in the wrong room.” – Richard Trendi

Our Recommendation for 6 Months to Figures

6 Months to 6 Figures is a quick, no-nonsense book with many actionable steps and quotes from various leaders of the self development world.

6 Months to 6 Figures is one of the best self development books I’ve read.

I’d highly recommend it for you to read if you are looking for books to read for success. Another self development book I’ve read which I love is The Slight Edge, but The Slight Edge has a little more fluff.

Life is made up of small decisions, and through each of these small decisions, you can either be making the right choices or wrong choices. By making the right decisions daily and forming productive habits, you can go a long way!

Through applying the 6 musts learned in 6 Months to 6 Figures, you’ll be on your way to increasing your value and building an amazing foundation of habits for the life you want and deserve.

What habits are you looking to implement in your life? Is there an aspect of your life you are looking to improve? What’s holding you back if there is something?

How are some sales people able to persuade people to buy their product? How do certain sales people seem to be able to influence potential customers towards a sale? Is there a science to their sales methods? Are there principles of persuasion which you should be aware of to combat these methods?

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, by Dr. Robert Cialdini, is an incredible book all about how to influence, persuade and the principles of persuasion.

Dr. Robert Cialdini is the psychology expert in the rapidly expanding field of influence and persuasion.

His thirty-five years of rigorous, evidence-based research along with a three-year program of study on what moves people to change behavior has resulted in this highly acclaimed book.

Influence explains the psychology of why people say “yes”—and how to apply these understandings.

Through Dr. Cialdini’s extensive research, he has identified the 6 key principles of persuasion, and shares them with us in this fantastic book.

The rest of this post includes a summary of Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, takeaways from Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, and a reading recommendation for you.

Book Summary of Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

Have you walked into a store, chatted with a sales manager, made a purchase, and then regretted the purchase upon driving home?

Have you ever received a sales phone call, and then produced to purchase whatever junk the salesman was making?

What about donated to a cause you didn’t actually believe in, but were sold on through your conversation with the volunteer?

Enter Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion and the 6 principles of persuasion.

How to Influence and The 6 Principles of Persuasion

Influence is all about human psychology and how we, as humans, can be persuaded to do different things based on different stimuli and information.

In Influence, Dr. Cialdini argues there are six universal principles of persuasion:

1. reciprocity
2. scarcity
3. liking
4. authority
5. social proof
6. commitment/consistency

These principles are so powerful that they generate substantial change in a wide range of circumstances. Some of these principles you are probably aware of, while other principles of persuasion you might be learning for the first time.

Now, let’s go deeper into each of the 6 universal principles of persuasion I listed above.

The Principle of Persuasion of Reciprocity

The first universal principle of persuasion is reciprocity. 

People are more willing to comply with requests (for favors, services, information, concessions, etc.) from those who have provided such things first.

The rule of reciprocity is essentially, I do something for you, and in return, you do something for me.

If you receive a gift, a service or a favor from someone else, then you are more likely to give something back to that person.

Humans naturally hate being in debt to someone else, and so even a small gift or favor can lead to larger reciprocation.

For example, according to the American Disabled Veterans organization, mailing out a simple appeal for donations produces an 18% success rate; but, enclosing a small gift (personalized address labels) boosts the success rate to 35%.

Give and you shall receive! That’s the power of reciprocity.

Another way reciprocation works to persuade is when companies offer you a service or product at a higher price, but then follow up with a lower price.

By making this concession, it seems like they are doing you a favor!

The Principle of Persuasion of Scarcity

The second universal principle of persuasion is scarcity.

People want more of the things that they can have less of.

Grandma’s cookies come to mind – growing up, I could only have 2 cookies after dinner, but I always wanted more!

People find objects and opportunities more attractive to the degree that they are scarce, rare, or dwindling in availability.

Even information that is scarce is more effective. How many advertisements have you seen where the commentator says, “For a limited time, act now!”?

A beef importer in the US informed his customers (honestly) that, because of weather conditions in Australia, there was likely to be a shortage of Australian beef.

His orders more than doubled. However, when he added (also honestly) that this information came from his company’s exclusive contacts in the Australian National Weather Service, orders increased by 600%!

Many businesses will use sales to make it appear as though something is scarce. Now that you know about this principle of persuasion, you’ll want to be on the look out for it!

The Principle to Persuasion of Liking

The third universal principle of persuasion is liking.

People prefer to say yes to those they know and like. You are much more likely to help your friends and family than a stranger on the street.

In one example, research done on Tupperware Home Demonstration parties shows that guests are 3 times more likely to purchase products because they like the party’s hostess than because they like the products.”

If you are looking to persuade someone, becoming that person’s friend and ally is definitely a good strategy.

Through asking good questions, learning about the other person, identifying what problems that person is trying to solve, and by looking to be of value, you can get the other person on your side.

Friends like doing things their friends are doing, and by becoming familiar to the other people you are interacting with, you can tap into the principle of liking.

The Principle of Persuasion of Authority

The fourth universal principle of persuasion is authority.

This principle of persuasion is pretty straightforward and something we usually learn early on.

The principle of authority is that the greater the perceived authority of the person, the more likely you are to comply with their demands and comments.

People are more willing to follow the directions or recommendations of a communicator to whom they attribute relevant authority or expertise. These authorities include doctors, lawyers, businesspersons, police officers, etc.

We generally trust people with credentials and a lot of education.

One study showed that 3 times as many pedestrians were willing to follow a man into traffic against the red light when he was merely dressed as an authority in a business suit and tie.

Authority is very powerful and should be used carefully.

You will see this a lot on mainstream news where “experts” come out and give their opinions on certain topics.

It’s important to think critically for yourself when these situations occur.

The Principle to Persuasion of Social Proof

The fifth universal principle of persuasion is social proof.

People are more willing to take a recommended action if they see evidence that many others, especially similar others, are taking it.

One researcher went door to door collecting for charity and carrying a list of others in the area who had already contributed. The longer the list, the more contributions it produced.

Another example is bartenders who will stuff the tip jar to make it seem like they already have received a lot of tips during the night.

That’s the power of social proof as a tool for persuasion.

Another example of social proof is letters of recommendations. If you are being recommended by others, then it is usually a sign you are competent and ready to get the job at hand done.

The Principle to Persuasion of Commitment/Consistency

The sixth universal principle of persuasion is commitment/consistency.

Naturally, humans do not like to contradict themselves because consistency is a socially attractive trait.

It looks bad if you say you are all about health, but you eat a horrible diet and don’t exercise.

Likewise, it is admirable if you say you are all about health, and lead an active and healthy life.

People are more willing to be moved in a particular direction if they see it as consistent with an existing or recent commitment. “You are a nature loving person and our conscious about your health. Would you like to try some organic food that was made without harming the Earth?”

Consider how small that commitment can be and still motivate change forcefully: Gordon Sinclair, a Chicago restaurant owner, was beset by the problem of no-shows—people who made table reservations but failed to appear and failed to call to cancel.

He reduced the problem by first getting a small commitment. He instructed his receptionists to stop saying, “Please call if you change your plans” and to start saying, Will you call us if you change your plans?”

The no-show rate dropped from 30% to 10% immediately.

That’s the power of commitment as a way to persuade.

Takeaways from Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

With every book you read, it is a must to have takeaways and actionable items to implement in life.

The main takeaway from Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion is the power of words.

By changing how you say certain statements and ask certain questions, you can guide a situation towards the result you want.

Everyday, we are bombarded by sales ploys and deceitful techniques. There are many people out there who are trying to make a quick buck.

Now that I’ve learned about these six principles of persuasions, I will be able to have a better handle on my thinking and decision making going forward.

Through understanding these different techniques of persuasion, we can do a better job of avoiding some of these sales traps and psychology tricks.

Our Recommendation for Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion will help you gain a better understanding of the human mind and human behavior.

If you are in sales, or deal with clients on a regular basis, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion is a must read!

Even as a consumer, or as someone interested in psychology, Influence is a fantastic book. Influence will open your eyes to some of the tricks and techniques of big corporations and sales companies.

By reading Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, you will learn the principles of Influence and the principles of persuasion.

After reading, you’ll learn how to become a skilled persuader and also learn how to defend yourself from people who want to persuade you!

 

Why do we do the things we do when under pressure? Are split-second decisions natural, or can we train our minds to change our biases and reactions to stress?

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, by Malcolm Gladwell, looks at thought processes when making decisions; in particular, our thought processes when making split second decisions.

When we make split-second decisions, we are really vulnerable to being guided by our stereotypes and prejudices, even ones we may not necessarily endorse or believe.

By understanding how these split-second decisions are made, from a psychological perspective, we can better understand the human psyche and come up with ways to better navigate some of these tough situations.

The rest of this post includes a summary of Blink, takeaways from Blink, and a reading recommendation for you.

Book Summary of Blink

How good people’s decisions are under the fast-moving, high-stress conditions of rapid cognition is a function of training and rules and rehearsal.

You are out for a walk in the park at night. Out of the corner of your eye, you see a man walking.

In a split second, you have already made up your mind; he is out to get you and is not your friend.

Your heart starts racing, your pace picks up, you tense up.

What happened in that split second? Why did you make a quick judgement on that man?

Blink is all about examining situations like this, and getting to the root cause of the thoughts during these moments.

In Blink, Gladwell talks about the following three points:

• Decisions made very quickly can be every bit as good as decisions made cautiously and deliberately.
• When should we trust our instincts, and when should we be vary of them?
• Snap judgments and first impressions can be controlled and educated.

Gladwell goes through various situations to discuss the concept of “thin-slicing”, making judgments based on a very small amount of information.

He talks about situations involving psychologists trying to determine if a marriage will end in divorce, outcomes of police and criminal encounters, emotion recognition, and war situations.

Let’s go into each of the three points listed above in more detail now.

Quick Decisions Can Sometimes Be Better than Thought Out Decisions

On straightforward decisions, deliberate analysis is best. On complex decisions, our unconscious thought processes may be superior.

Throughout the book, Gladwell discusses the concept of “thin-slicing”, or the unconscious mind’s ability to find patterns and meaning in the most fleeting “slices” of experience and impressions.

One interesting discussion from Blink is how quick decisions can sometimes be better than well thought out decisions.

Many times when we grow up as kids, we are told to think critically and logically.

However, thinking hard about a situation will not always lead to the desired result. Sometimes, going with a gut feeling is the right way to go for a tough decision.

When We Should Trust Our Instincts

Decisions made very quickly can be every bit as good as decisions made cautiously and deliberately.

Analysis paralysis is a real detriment to a lot of people’s daily lives. Sometimes the best decisions are made with instinct and trusting that our guts are right.

An interesting rule of thumb is that making decisions should occur when you have between 40% and 70% of the relevant information on a situation.

You don’t need all of the information to make a decision, and sometimes your best guess will actually be the best!

Snap Judgments Can be Controlled and Educated

Prejudging is the kiss of death. You have to give everyone your best shot.

Unfortunately, in a high stress environment, a person’s ability to read a situation will decline rapidly.

One example covered in Blink is the situation of a police officer shooting an unarmed man just because the man is holding a black leather wallet.

Since the police officer is under stress, and cannot fully understand the situation, they sometimes will make the wrong gut call.

However, operating under stress can be controlled through taking a walk, breathing long and deep breathes, and relaxing before going back into the heat of the moment.

Takeaways from Blink

With every book you read, it is a must to have takeaways and actionable items to implement in life.

One of the main points in Blink is we only need a little bit of information to make wise decisions if we can determine what is the right information.

For example, professional face readers can tell if you are lying just by looking at particular muscles and parts of your face. They don’t need to look at your whole face to get what’s going on.

The takeaway is if we can identify the key parts to a problem and make it simple, we can do a lot more with a little.

For example, personal finance is fairly complex. There are many different personal finance terms and concepts, and it can get confusing.

However, personal finance success is simple if you stick to the personal finance basics:

• pay yourself first
• save
• invest periodically (dollar cost averaging)
• don’t take on too much debt

It’s about finding and doing the simple things which will lead to a successful result.

By thinking critically and learning about what is crucial for success, and sifting through the noise, you can figure out what matters for you and your life.

There are many complex problems which can be reduced to simpler elements. Even in the most complicated of relationships and problems, there is a clear and identifiable pattern.

Our Recommendation for Blink

We need to respect the fact that it is possible to know without knowing why we know and accept that – sometimes – we’re better off that way.

Blink is an enjoyable read, and a relatively quick read.

The main takeaways from Blink is humans are very vulnerable to our stereotypes and prejudices. We are also capable of making smart decisions with practice, rules, and repetition. Also, not everything needs to be explained. There are things we like because we like them and things we don’t like because we don’t like them.

Blink would be a fantastic book for you if you are interested in learning more about human’s thinking processes or decision making.

Readers: Do you ever catch yourself thinking, why did I make that split second decision?