July 15, 2010

Interview with Deborah Owens, author of the book A Purse of Your Own: An Easy Guide to Financial Security

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Mike Carruthers:
When you look at how most wealthy people got that way you realize that they look at money differently than other people and they understand that…

Deborah Owens:
The average person is usually wrong and they understand that they have to act the opposite than everyone else and generally they’ll be OK.

July 13, 2010

Interview with Ivan Misner, author of the book Networking Like a Pro: Turning Contacts into Connections

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Mike Carruthers:
Everyone who has a job has heard about the importance of networking.

Ivan Misner:
And networking has been around a long time but it’s been practiced badly. Whether people don’t understand it and the reason for that is that we don’t teach this in colleges and universities. We give kids bachelor’s degrees in marketing – they don’t have a clue how to network and they totally confuse networking with direct selling.
 

Ivan Misner, author of the book Networking Like a Pro...

You go to a business mixer somebody walks up to you and says, “Hi, my name’s John, you know we should be doing business.” And they try to sell rather than build relationships. Networking is more about farming than it is about hunting. It’s about cultivating professional relationships with other people and developing trust. People prefer people they know and trust.

How do you build those relationships? Ivan says it’s basically a 3-step process called V, C, P.

Stands for visibility, credibility, and profitability – you first have to be visible in the community; people have to know who you are and what you do. Then you have to establish credibility. Credibility is where people know who you are, they know what you do and they know you’re good at it. And only when you’ve gotten to credibility can you get to profitability where people know who you are, they know what you do, they know you’re good at it and they’re willing to pass referrals to you on an ongoing reciprocal basis. Where networking goes bad is where people try to jump ahead.

Jumping ahead is tempting because effective networking takes time. How much time?

It varies by profession but as a rule we tell people you’re looking at 6 months or more.
 

To hear the complete unedited interview, click here

July 9, 2010

Interview with Tom Rath, author of the book StrengthsFinder 2.0: A New and Upgraded Edition of the Online Test from Gallup's Now, Discover Your Strengths

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Mike Carruthers:
If you do what you love and what you're good at, you'll have a lot more success. Yet many of us are in careers we don't love.

Tom Rath:
It's amazing how people kind of wind up in jobs and careers that follow what a parent had done or perhaps what they got slotted into in high school or college.

July 7, 2010

Interview with Alex Bellos, author of the book Here's Looking at Euclid: A Surprising Excursion Through the Astonishing World of Math

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Mike Carruthers:
I was never particularly good at math I suppose because I found it so difficult, but it turns out…

Alex Bellos:
Even the people who are good at math find it difficult. Math is effortful it’s like a muscle that you need to train so it’s not surprising that people find math difficult – because it is.