Jan, 2018

To Sell Is Human by Daniel Pink

benmunoz
January 27, 2018
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The Big Idea: Even if you’re not a “salesman”, you probably have to sell or persuade people all the time. Therefore, learn how to sell.

  • Everyone sells.
  • Physicians sell patients on treatments. Lawyers sell juries on verdicts. Teachers sell students on coursework. Entrepreneurs sell investors on visions. Writers sell producers on scripts. Coaches sell players on plays.
  • Before the internet, sellers had all the information on their product so they were able to deceive and manipulate.
  • Today, buyers have more information and leverage, so the balance has shifted.
  • Instead of Always Be Closing, the new ABC is Attunement, Buoyancy, and Clarity.
  • Attunement
    • Show empathy
    • Be humble
    • Mimic strategically
    • Put yourself in their shoes
    • Be ambivert not extrovert
    • Ask others “where are you from?”
  • Buoyancy
    • Instead of stating “I will ___,” ask yourself “how will I ___?”
    • 3:1 ratio of positive to negative emotions is better than infinite positivity.
    • Develop an optimistic explanatory style to deal with rejection: rejections are temporary not permanent, specific not universal, external not personal.
  • Clarity
    • The ability to move people hinges less on problem-solving than on problem-finding.
    • Problem finders tend to be more successful than problem solvers.
    • Problem finding is about asking the right questions and being good at curating information.
    • One of the most essential questions is “compared to what?” Frame your offerings in ways that contrast its alternatives and clarify its virtues.
    • 5 Frames: less frame (paradox of choice), experience frame (experience vs physical), label frame (names matter), blemished frame (include a negative), potential frame (potential is more powerful than actual)
    • “On a scale from 1 to 10…” “How can we move that up?”
    • Books: Influence, Made to Stick, Switch, Mindless Eating, Nudge
    • Ask 5 Whys
  • How to Pitch
    • Don’t present a pitch end-to-end. Start your pitch and invite the others to create it with you.
    • 1. The One Word Pitch. Simplify everything to one word.
    • 2. The Question Pitch. “Are you better off than you were 4 years ago?”
    • 3. The Rhyming Pitch. “If the glove doesn’t fit, you must acquit.”
    • 4. The Subject Line Pitch. Utility first. Curiosity second.
    • 5. The Twitter Pitch.
    • 6. The Pixar Pitch. “Once upon a time…Every day…One day…Because of that…Until finally.”
  • Learn from improvisational theater. Listen closely. Make the other people look good.
  • Service is at the core of sales.
  • To serve, make it personal and make it purposeful. Eg. Radiologist viewing photos, hospital hand-washing to protect others, fundraisers reading stories about alumni who received scholarships.
  • Be grateful. Always act like the other guy is doing you the favor. No matter what.
  • Look at all your signs and ask if they are emotionally intelligent and well-designed.
  • Treat everyone well.

The Resilient Farm and Homestead

benmunoz
January 19, 2018
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The Big Idea: An efficient, eco-friendly homestead takes good planning and years of work to become stable and self-sufficient.

  • Modern, industrial agriculture is incompatible with a rapidly growing population and resource depletion.
  • Well-designed permaculture systems promote biodiversity and restore land back to health.
  • Nut trees are the core of good permaculture.
  • A nut tree is simply more effective and efficient at converting sunlight and rain into value, over the long-term. A nut tree orchard is also a pasture, a game reserve, a shelter for understory berries, and a site for medicinal plants.
  • (See chapter 2 for seventy two permaculture design principles.)
  • Before you begin, do a deep site analysis, observing water, sun, temperature, soil, topography.
  • The purpose of a plan is to avoid huge mistakes so you can know where to experiment.
  • Understanding and shaping water flow and storage is fundamental to your farm.
  • Understand keylines, swales, and ponds.
  • Overgrazing in the 19th and 20th century has destroyed most of America’s rich topsoil.
  • Strategies to rebuild your land’s topsoil:
    • Compost, urine, humanure.
    • Biochar.
    • Fungi.
    • Remineralization.
    • Cover cropping.
    • Tall grass grazing.
    • Subsoil plowing.
    • Keyline agriculture.
    • Deep root perennials.
  • Strategies for growing food:
    • Plant permaculture guilds.
    • Start a forest garden.
    • Emphasize perennial plants.
    • Know which foods should be staples (rice, meat, eggs, fruit, nuts).
    • Until your systems can produce staple foods, vegetable gardening will comprise the bulk of your yield and your work.
    • Among your annual vegetables, emphasize reliability and calorie foods such as potato, winter squash, cabbage, garlic, and carrots.
    • Learn to preserve food via kimchi and sauerkraut.
    • Emphasize crops that also provide medicine or rebuild the soil.
    • Fungi are very underrated.
  • Fuel and shelter advice:
    • Learn how to use wood as your main fuel and heat source.
    • Biochar has been used for thousands of years to amend soil.
    • Passive solar home design uses large, south-facing windows to trap the sunlight and warm the home.
    • Good home design considers sun, water, wind, surrounding landscape, elevation, views, noise, and road access.
    • Solar south is not always the optimal solar orientation. On a west-facing slope, a home has a late solar day.
    • Foundation advice: extend the foundation wall higher, go deeper for frost stability.
    • Roofs should be steel or slate.
    • Normally, go with a cheaper and faster stud wall frame home. A timber frame is prettier, though. You can do a hybrid if you like.
    • Never use spray foam insulation. Use cellulose for ease of use, low toxicity, sustainability, resistance to mice, and reusability.
    • In terms of insulation, a few large windows > lots of small windows.
    • Use daylight or LED for lighting.
    • Consider getting a landline for phone service.
    • A wood stove can serve many functions: space heater, water heater, stove, and oven.
    • Good home design can reduce the need for heating, A/C, and fans.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos Summit Interview

benmunoz
January 5, 2018
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The Big Idea: Be resourceful, think long-term, and have a sense of adventure.

  • I learned self-reliance and resourcefulness on my grandfather’s Texas ranch.
  • Building Amazon is a constant flow of problems solved by self-reliance and resourcefulness.
  • About letting his kids use power tools, “I’d much rather have a kid with nine fingers than a kid who lacks resourcefulness.”
  • About his choice of wife, “I wanted a woman who could get me out of third-world prison if necessary.”
  • About abandoning a good life to start Amazon, “When I’m 80 years old, I want to minimize the number of regrets I have.”
  • My space exploration company Blue Origins requires long-term thinking.
  • Big problems can be solved if you think long-term.
  • While our competitors have a 2-3 year time horizon, Amazon has a 10+ year time horizon. That is a tremendous competitive advantage.
  • I don’t like to multi-task. I am focused on whatever the task I’m on. If I’m reading email, I’m reading email. If I’m relaxing, I’m relaxing.
  • A sense of adventure is one of my core values. Choose a life of adventure and you’ll be more proud of this when you’re 80.
  • Exposing yourself to new things and creating is all about having a sense of adventure.
  • To me, fellowship means traveling down the road together. It encompasses more than friendship.
  • On work-life balance, “If I’m energized at work, I’m a better husband-friend-father. And vice-versa.” Is your work energizing or draining? Both sides of my life give me energy, so it’s never been a problem.

 

How to Grow More Vegetables by John Jeavons

benmunoz
January 5, 2018
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The Big Idea: Grow Biointensive (a variant of organic farming) produces more food per square foot while also building soil, using less water, using less fertilizer, and requiring less fossil fuel.

  • Industrial agriculture depletes 6 pounds of soil for every 1 pound of food produced.
  • Organic agriculture also depletes soil as it produces food.
  • Grow Biointensive and permaculture builds soils as it produces food.
  • Grow Biointensive farming builds soil, uses less water, uses less fertilizer, requires less energy, and increases food production per square foot.
  • Grow Biointensive relies on human labor instead of external inputs.
  • Similar to Grow Biointensive: agroforestry, no-till Fukuoka farming, Asian blue-green algal wet rice farming, natural rainfall arid farming, and indigenous farming.
  • Build compost (using earthworm) for soil fertility.
  • Deep soil preparation (double digging) sets a foundation for building good soil.
  • Companion planting enhances growth and plant health.
  • Carbon-efficient crops produces carbon for compost.
  • Calorie-efficient crops produces lots of calories.
  • Open-pollinated seeds preserves genetic diversity.
  • A holistic farming system minimizes waste and required inputs.
  • Start small and build from there.

How I Built This: Patagonia

benmunoz
January 4, 2018
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The Big Idea: We’re here for the long-term. That means we need to treat everyone well and make quality, long-lasting clothing.

  • I started Patagonia to make better quality climbing gear for myself. Our profit margins were about 1%
  • Patagonia branched out into clothing when I wore some local clothing and people started asking me where I got them. It was much more profitable.
  • I make product decisions based on intuition, not data.
  • “If you wait for the customer to tell you what to do, you’re too late.”
  • We had to slow down growth because we wanted to grow only out of retained profits.
  • I hated laying people off during one of our early recessions.
  • Our earliest mistake was growing too fast.
  • We fixed things by slowing things down and putting ourselves on a growth plan that aimed to make sure we were in business 100 years from now.
  • Our advertising budget is tiny. Because we are private, we can grow as much or as little as we think is right.
  • “There are two kinds of growth. One is where you grow stronger. The other is where you grow fatter.”
  • We have the largest garment repair facility in North America. We’ll repair any Patagonia clothing forever. So that incentivizes us to make clothing that lasts (or can be easily repaired.)
  • I studied Japanese and Scandinavian business and management models in search of a better way of doing business.
  • Ant colonies don’t have bosses. Every ant knows what to do. We hire motivated, young, independent people and leave them alone.
  • “Let my people go surfing.” I don’t care when you work as long as the job is done.
  • Our employees are so independent they are almost unemployable anywhere else.
  • We started a childcare and learning center at the company for employees. Why not?
  • We’re not going to sell the company. We’re not going public.
  • We’re here for the long-term. That means we need to treat everyone well and make quality, long-lasting clothing.
  • You’re not going to beat Coca-Cola at their own game.
  • But if you play a different game, you can win. Pick a game where there is little competition. Be creative. Break the rules.
  • I never took a penny of investment. I still own 100% of the company.
  • Patagonia reportedly did $750mm in sales last year.

https://one.npr.org/?sharedMediaId=504852483:505017995