Two great posts from Keith Ferrazzi

People-Related Success is More Likely to Lead to Happiness

Posted on December 6th, 2012 by Keith Ferrazzi

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Happiness is big business these days. Books and programs seem to emerge daily offering the path to the holy grail of happy. During her Social Capitalist interview, motivational psychologist Heidi Grant Halvorson, Ph.D., author of Succeed: How We Can Reach Our Goals, offered her own secret formula for happiness – goals related to connecting to others.

When our goals are about connecting with other people, with the people in our personal lives and with our community, or when our goals are authentic to ourselves and are about doing things that we find interesting and enjoyable, that speak to something about us, these kinds of goals seem to lead to kind of an authentic happiness.
We don’t seem to get this happiness from pursuing goals that are more related to receiving validation from other people, or accumulating power or wealth for the sake of wealth. You can be happy when you reach those goals, but you don’t get that sense of lasting wellbeing.

Reframe your goals in terms of the relationship impact and you may be more successful and feel better about the outcome – win-win!
For more great insights, read the entire transcript or listen to the recording of Heidi’s interview here.

0 comments // In Social Capitalist

The Best Way to Get Something You Want is to Give Something They Need

Posted on December 4th, 2012 by Keith Ferrazzi

I talk all the time about leading with generosity, but James Altucher takes this give-to-get philosophy to a whole new level. During his Social Capitalist interview, Altucher shared how he works to develop ideas that he can use as currency when he wants to capture someone’s attention.

I think it’s very important to remember that you can't just call someone and say, “Hey, I would like to meet you,” because they’re never going to respond. And, in fact, that’s actually kind of rude. If I call the CEO of Goldman Sachs and say, “Hey, Lloyd, I want to meet you,” that’s almost rude. He’s a busy guy. I'm imposing upon his time.
What you have to do, and this has worked for me many times, is you have to give. You have to give something. So for instance, when I met Jim Cramer, I didn’t just write him and say, “Oh, Jim, I'd like to meet you. I'll be here for breakfast at 6 a.m.” Instead, I gave. I wrote, “Jim, here’s 10 ideas for articles you should write. I don't want to write them. You should write them. They’re ideas I'm giving you for free.” And Jim wrote back and said, “No, why don't you write them?” And then I started writing for TheStreet.com.
Another case: I wanted to work for a hedge fund manager. Instead of me just saying, “Hey, I want to work for you,” I said to him, “Here’s 10 trading systems that I've written the software for. I will give you all the codes for free. Just have them and enjoy yourself.” And he wrote back and said, “These are great trading systems. Haven’t we met?” And he ended up allocating some of his own personal money for me to start trading every day.
When you give, you’ll receive – and that’s the only way you’ll receive. People only want to make you money when you want to make them money. And again, that’s part of honesty as well. People are always worried, oh, well, I can't give my ideas away. Listen, you'll have more ideas.
If you flex your idea muscle every day, if you practice coming up with 10 good ideas a day, then your idea muscle starts to build, the way money compounds. It builds exponentially. So you'll have a flood of ideas you can give to other people. And if you just start giving ideas everyday to people, they’ll respond. Some people respond, not everyone. You can't expect 20 out of 20 to respond. One out of 20 is good enough if you’re constantly coming up with ideas.

For more of Altucher’s ideas on building success, read the full transcript or listen to the recording of this exclusive interview here.