Leadership, both as a research area and as a practical skill, encompasses the ability of an individual, group or organization to “lead”, influence or guide other individuals, teams, or entire organizations.
Everything in life is a negotiation. Everyone alive is a salesperson.
Sales are the backbone of any enterprise. Sales establish trust and rapport between the company and its customers. Sales directly influence crucial financial metrics. Therefore, a company’s ability to compete against stiff competition. Yet, sales isn’t really a subject in our basic education. Mastering the art of sales, however, can make the difference between a good life and a great life. In an effort to learn more about the art of salesmanship, I bought three more or less fundamental books about the process of selling.
How To Master The Art Of Selling By Tom Hopkins
Tom Hopkins learned early on that sales is “the highest-paid hard work — and the lowest-paid easy work.” It can be an easy endeavor without much effort to make ends meet or it can be the greatest adventure and highest reward ever experienced. It is entirely up to the salesman. But, it requires craft, skill, and expertise to be honed frequently and stress-tested often. Buy Hopkins at ThriftBooks.
Sell It Like Serhant By Ryan Serhant
Ryan Serhant made a splash on Million Dollar Listing New York. In his book, he argues that anybody can become a salesman. Furthermore, anyone can get lucky and accomplish one huge sale. But can you repeat the sale? Can you consistently sell at a high profit margin? Sales is not about one sale; it’s about every sale you make. Buy Serhant at Barnes & Noble.
Zig Ziglar’s Secrets Of Closing The Sale
Hillar Hinton “Zig” Ziglar was a college dropout turned salesman who would redfine the art of selling. He described himself as a pack rat taken copious notes from many great salesman over a lifetime of sales. In “Closing The Sale” Ziglar outlines fundamental strategies to take the sales pitch from zero to one. From psychological sales aspects that differ when it comes to closing the sale to the necessity of objections and resistance when you’re in the eye of the hurricane; the toughest part of any sales negotiation, Ziglar structured his book as a manifesto, ready to read rather than a cover-to-cover liaison. Buy Ziglar at (the) BookDepository.
Ballistic books is a series to present literature of interest. Each edition is dedicated to a specific topic. I found it challenging to discover and distinguish good from great literature. With this series, I aim to mitigate that challenge.
Meditations is an afternoon conversation with a ruler of the Roman Empire: intimate, ethical, and full of wisdom.
Timeless is another adjective to describe this translated compendium of the thoughts of Marcus Aurelius. Gregory Hays, associate professor of classics at the University of Virginia, translated the delivered writings of Aurelius in the most concise, clear manner available without diluting its original tone. Hays recommends that the reader familiarizes themself not only with Stoicism but also with the underlying role of philosophy in ancient life. While Meditations isn’t really a meditation per se, I found myself in agreement with Hays. Aurelius created his works throughout the course of his life. It’s nearly perfectly detached from historical events. And it overwhelmingly omits names and locations of Aurelius’ present time. Grasping the full context almost mandates an ancient philosophy deep dive as a prerequisite to reading Meditations.
From the beginning, it becomes clear that Aurelius’ main theme revolves around: (1) the present moment and (2) death. These two main themes reoccur more often than others which gives Meditations a melancholy with urgency. It is almost as if Aurelius saw human suffering, experienced pain for himself, and took to the paper to find the means to cope with it. Hays writes in his introduction on the book of Marcus:
“If you desire to master pain Unroll this book and read with care, And in it find abundantly A knowledge of the things that are, Those that have been, and those to come. And know as well that joy and grief Are nothing more than empty smoke.”
Philosophy is art. Perhaps you can classify it as an art of life. This makes it futile to investigate patterns or factual statements. For it is up to the reader to interpret and extrapolate meaning. Meditations does that like no other book I’ve read recently. Its concise, to-the-point paragraphs offer a situation, an interpretation, and a solution. For example
“You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.”
—Book 2.11
These two sentences convey a powerful urgency hard to emulate with inspirational, motivational, or modern hustle-porn content. Yet it was written 200 decades ago. It makes me want to drop writing this post and return to the important things in my life. But Aurelius doesn’t stop at mere urgency. He connects it with the interpretation of time and that we, as humans, are often overly obsessed with what was or what will be despite having zero power over either. In his words:
“Each of us lives only now, this brief instant. The rest has been lived already, or is impossible to see. The span we live is small–small as the corner of the earth in which we live it. Small as even the greatest renown, passed from mouth to mouth by short-lived stick figures, ignorant alike of themselves and those long dead.”
—Book 3.10
As we live our lives in our corners, I often observe the indescribable urge to compare with others of similar lifestyles, circumstances, and heritage. It’s a natural urge and nothing worthy to suppress, but the act of comparing is the thief of joy. Aurelius learned this throughout his life and condensed it into:
“The things you think about determine the quality of your mind. Your soul takes on the color of your thoughts.”
—Book 5.16
It’s a call to set your mind free from comparison or worry about what others may think. It directly ties back into his two main themes: the present moment and death. Lastly, I found this short list of remembrance to be powerful and worthy to mention here, so I can come back and reread it when I need to have clarity in life:
“Remember: Matter. How tiny your share of it. Time. How brief and fleeting your allotment of it. Fate. How small a role you play in it.”
This provocative new book on religion and work in the technology sector will make you see life in a different light.
According to 4 U.S.C. §4 the United States is one Nation under God. H.R. 619 (84th) passed and approved by President Dwight D. Eisenhower mandates the official motto of the United States “In God We Trust” to appear on all currency issued by the Federal Government of these United States. Without a doubt, religion and spirituality are deeply rooted in this country. Hence it comes as no surprise when Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley Carolyn Chen posits “Work Becomes Religion in Silicon Valley” in her new book Work Pray Code.
“Today, companies are not just economic institutions. They’ve become meaning-making institutions that offer a gospel of fulfillment and divine purpose in a capitalist cosmos.”
The colorful, borderline-sacred language of this statement illustrates Chen’s ambitions to base the premise of this book on the workplace is replacing religious needs. At her core argument, Chen reasons companies create a meaningful work experience by emulating religious themes, omitting the spiritual or discriminating aspects of faith, which is becoming a substitute for exercising religion outside of work and with the community.
“Religions and companies are collective enterprises. They are ‘faith communities’, communities that support the act of faith. On one level, faith communities do this by articulating the articles of faith– the doctrines, creeds, and sacred texts and teachings. For most companies, and many other organizations, these articles of faith are their mission statement and statement of core values.”
Taken at face value, Chen makes it appear that companies’ mission statements emulate or are synonymous with religious beliefs. However, a closer look reveals that the mission statements of neither Google, Meta (née Facebook) nor Microsoft purport articles of faith. Taking it a step further, if Chen defines religions as collective enterprises, I’d argue companies may as well be independent organizations each governed by unique financial and economic goals, limited by available budget and human resources. A number of technology companies operating out of Silicon Valley engage in eco-friendly sustainability to power data centers and other parts of the organization, but is the water supply division of Meta truly vested in the intricacies of reviewing python code to reign in inauthentic behavior and other automated malicious behavior on Instagram? Could each division link the other’s efforts back to the mission statement? Whose division will shut down first to protect the integrity of the mission statement? I have doubts.
“In the Silicon Valley workplace, work and life are no longer separate and opposing spheres because life happens at work. In fighting the notion that work and life occupy distinct spaces and times, tech companies are reviving a much older way of organizing society. In agrarian societies, work and life were integrated for both women and men. The farm was both home– where people ate, slept, and played– and workplace– where people labored and participated in the economic system. Industrialization began to impose stark boundaries between work and life, particularly for men. Work became confined to a particular space, time, and logic– the factory, with its rhythm governed by the values of efficiency and productivity. Life– defined as activities that don’t contribute to production– happened outside of the factory in the home, church, neighborhood, bowling alley, baseball diamond, saloon, hair salon, and so on. […] Today’s tech company is returning to the undifferentiated spheres of its preindustrial predecessor, however, by making life a part of work.”
This paragraph resonated with me for its accuracy and insight. Coming from a farmer’s family, I experienced some variation of an undifferentiated sphere where work and life all took place at the same time. Somewhere along the road, it all separated into standalone parts of our day. As a technology company, an unrelenting global market of competition for highly-skilled talent as well as pushing products directly to the consumer in real-time is an incentive to maximize productivity and workforce utilization by ensuring a highly-skilled employee is 100% focused on its division’s roadmap and driving execution of it.
I cannot make up my mind about this book. On one hand, Chen makes a valid point by stating technology companies emulate religious characteristics in order to alleviate their employee’s spiritual needs. Moreover, I subscribe to the general argument of mindfulness in conjunction with corporate materialism appears to create an industrial-technology complex that emanates virtues and exercises characteristics of religions. On the other hand, however, I fail to identify a link between a technology company using methods and characteristics developed to further religious beliefs resulting in a replacement theory that Chen appears to offer in her introduction. I view these efforts as motivated by raw capitalism: to benefit its workforce and increase productivity, utilization, and retention as a side effect. Furthermore, her focus is exclusively on technology companies located in Silicon Valley. In reality, however, technology companies are located all over the United States with varying numbers of full-time employees. Limiting her research on the technology sector alone appears to be a flimsy base for a solid argument too. For example, 3M, General Motors, Kraft Heinz, and even Exxon Mobile have a history of wide-ranging benefits similar to Silicon Valley. Setting aside economic motives, Chen missed out on exploring these other sectors including academia, which is known for its fraternal, cult-esque exclusivity, and the almighty military, which is known for strict indoctrination and behavioral codes.
Altogether I learned a lot about the perception and correlation of both religion and Silicon Valley. Whether it applies to the modern workplaces as Carolyn Chen weaves it together remains to be discovered by the reader. Perhaps concluding with more critique than praise for Work Pray Code is a good thing for it forced me to reflect on some preconceived notions about religion. Chen devoted an entire chapter to the art of reflection and I found Lin Chi’s quote to question more perfect to end: “if you meet the Buddha, kill him.” But before you do, read this book.
Do you have what it takes to be a leader? Probably not. But that’s all right. In her mid-twenties, Julie Zhuo answered the call for leadership when she became a manager at Facebook. In her book, she compiled her mistakes, lessons, and strategies to lead people and create better organizations – so you can learn to become a leader.
What do you do when everyone looks to you for guidance and leadership? Some thrive in the spotlight. Others crumble and fail. Julie Zhuo went from being the first intern “at this website called Facebook” to becoming a Vice President of Product Design in her 13.5 years at the social network. Her career is not a career of an outlier but a results-driven, hard-working individual. Managing people is no different. Managers are made, not born.
The Making of a Manageris a field guide for growth. First, I read it cover-to-cover. Then I realized how powerful each chapter is by itself and started keeping it near my desk to calibrate my thinking against experiences at work. Zhuo describes her growth through a forward-leaning approach to people management. Most notably, her approach seeks to stress test her own leadership protocol to fail – only to allow her a chance to improve it. It’s hard work. Dedication. And (my personal favorite) thoughtful questions directed at peers, partners, reports, but perhaps most importantly herself. After all, leadership starts with managing yourself.
Any entrepreneur will benefit from her early experience at a company that would grow to redefine how people connect with one another. Any employee in a large organization will relate to her tactful yet challenging questions during individual and group meetings. Zhuo’s relatable and empathetic writing style reels in any reader contemplating a career in people management. That being said, the market for business books is quite saturated with leadership or self-improvement books and to some, her experience might be too far from reality given her unique circumstances coming up at Facebook. To this day, I truly enjoy reading her posts or notes and the general public can do so too on her blog The Looking Glass, or on her website at https://www.juliezhuo.com/
Everything you ever wanted to know about gathering strangers, colleagues, friends, or family under a variety of circumstances so they will connect and cherish the event.
Priya Parker is an expert in conflict resolution. Throughout her career, her work often required facilitating high-stakes meetings between different political leaders around the world. This helped her to collect first-hand experience about how we connect with one another and what makes a gathering meaningful. In essence that is what The Art Of Gathering – How We Meet And Why It Matters is all about. It’s a root cause analysis that identifies the levers to make an event become a lasting memory. Her premise is centered around the fallacy of the “chill host”. A chill host is overly concerned about the logistics of an event instead of caring about the people and their experiences. It’s the type of “hands-off” host who sits back on the night of the gathering. Parker argues the event starts at the moment of the first conception and it ends (sometimes) long after people have left the premises. A host needs to identify beforehand the “why” they’re really gathering. What meaning is to be conveyed by bringing a certain group of people together? Who to invite? Who to cut? And where would be the optimal environment to accommodate individuals’ preferences? A host needs to be disciplined, proactive and leveraging pop-up rules.
An illustration of the former is about her first experience with the female period. When she was eleven years old, she got her first period – at a friend’s house. Insecure about it, she didn’t tell anybody, but went back home and told her mom eventually. Eleven is an age where beliefs and judgments correlate with people’s reactions. Her mom’s reaction to learning about her daughter’s first period was one of celebration. She danced, hooted, and hollered with joy. Inadvertently or intentionally, her mom taught her daughter that being a woman, the unique features that make a woman female, was something to be celebrated, cherished, and embraced. Her mom even threw her a period party. How about that!
Whereas an example for the latter is what Parker coined “The Château Principle”. Thereunder the host needs to realize that the choice of venue is among the most powerful levers over the guests’ behavior. Her example revolves around the infamous failure of merger negotiations between the French cellphone provider Alcatel and the American telecommunications equipment provider Lucent. (Read this analysis for more details) Initially, both parties prepared the merger diligently in good faith and geared up to create a “marriage of equals”. To finalize the deal, both parties were supposed to meet in a nondescript airport hotel in New Jersey. However, when an Alcatel executive fell ill, they requested the meeting to be held in France in the Château Des Mesnuls, a renaissance style castle. While it’s speculation to find out the real reasons for the failure of the merger, a few Lucent executives recounting the negotiations observed how the château brought out the Frenchness of the French. Alcatel employees became comfortable asserting their dominance on home turf which reflected a certain arrogance and hubris that tipped the negotiations to fall apart. Location, location, location is real-estate wisdom that also applies to gatherings.
Parker wrote The Art Of Gathering across 281 pages segmented into 8 chapters. It is a quick and easy read yet I found some paragraphs could have been edited more succinctly. Her voice can come across as overbearing or patronizing, but I view this as part of re-learning a part of my life that I neglected for far too long. Notably understanding gatherings as social contracts with certain responsibilities is incredibly helpful. In addition to offering practical tips on how to discover, structure, and select event details I was surprised by how easy it seems to translate her findings to cyberspace, e.g metaverse gatherings in virtual reality or group events and chats on Facebook. Anyone quite interested in the subject of crowd psychology will be able to fill in knowledge gaps and view certain aspects of their social gatherings through a new, fresh lens.
Book recommendations ebb and flow. Some find me by chance. Others are the product of premeditated research. The Art Of Gathering was recommended to me by my dear friend Nichole. The story of how we met goes beyond the scope of this blog, but I will document this: it was under the most random, endearing, and meaningful circumstances crammed into one weekend somewhere around Seattle. Flying boxed wine bags, neon lights, and deep, mind-absorbing conversations included.
In case you are not into reading an entire book on the single topic of bringing people together then I would recommend watching this video. Parker says “how we gather is how we live”. How do you live your life?
