One surprising claim in David Rock’s book was that evolution hardwired a desire for zero-sum status in our brains. That is to say, I feel good when I am somehow superior to someone else. There must be a winner and a loser. I thought the status claim was a bit dubious. I’ve never felt like someone is dramatically above or below me in some social pecking order. If it never applied to me, how can it apply to anyone else?
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As those of you who know me personally know I have a new obsession in the form of positive psychology. My main gripe is that I cannot find trustworthy online guides on the topic (like one would for, say woodturning or baking). Thus I was delighted to find the blog of Zachary Burt. He has not written a huge amount of content, but the posts are well written and well reasoned. Check out his posts on entrepreneurship and positive psychology.
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Several months ago I finished reading Brain Rules by John Medina and I’ve been raving about it ever since. Medina is a noted brain researcher and the book contains the 12 things he wishes the lay public knew.
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For reasons unknown I spent most of yesterday dealing with salespeople. One common component of all the salespeople was the instinct to “Close”. The longer the contract period (these were all service companies) the stronger the close instinct.
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I listened to an interview with negotiation coach Jim Camp on Mixergy and learned much from the experience. He evangelizes (for lack of a better word) a negotiation strategy based on rules rather than outcomes, which rules out “win-win” as a strategy. He also posted the audio copy of his book “Start With No” on his website, called (not surprisingly) StartWithNo.com. I’m listening to the audio version now and I’m learning useful things. So far, the economic basis for negotiation (consumer surplus, gains from trade, etc) is omitted and he affirms several obvious points that everyone needs to remember and explains several subtle points in detail.
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After writing yesterday’s post on lessons learned from eight years in business, I thought I would come up with my listing of great books that have helped me starting out.
I follow Tyler Cowen’s notion that if you you finish every book you start you’re wasting time on crap. On average I finish less than half of the books I start. Since I’ve gotten a Kindle I’ve upped my selectivity considerably. Before anyone asks, I have yet to finish Getting Things Done by David Allen.
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Overall Grade: 6/10
I recently picked up a copy of The Power of Less by Leo Babauta (I was using a gift certificate and that was the only interesting thing Barnes and Noble had in stock). Babauta blogs as www.zenhabits.net and I imagine most of the content originally appeared there. It is an easy, fast read.
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Last night I decided to package up some of my insights I’ve gathered in my seven and and a half years as an introverted small business person into a convenient e-book. Being a self-diagnosed Aspie, I’ve categorized most of my feelings into Jungian Archetypes with descriptive names and stories behind the names.
Overall Ranking: 8/10
The first book I purchased on my new Kindle was Ignore Everybody by Hugh MacLeod. I bought it based on this review by Derek Sivers. On the whole, I liked it very much. In fact, I read it in one sitting. Here are my thoughts:
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