20130322

How to be interesting (in 10 stupid-simple steps):

1.Go exploring.
Explore ideas, places, and opinions. The inside of the echo chamber is where all the boring people hang out.


2. Share what you discover.
And be generous when you do. Not everybody went exploring with you. Let them live vicariously through your adventures.


3. Do something. Anything.
Dance. Talk. Build. Network. Play. Help. Create. It doesn’t matter what you do, as long as you’re doing it. Sitting around and complaining is not an acceptable form of ‘something,’ in case you were wondering.

4. Embrace your innate weirdness.
No one is normal. Everyone has quirks and insights unique to themselves. Don’t hide these things—they are what make you interesting.


5. Have a cause.
If you don’t give a damn about anything, no one will give a damn about you.
 
6. Minimize the swagger.
Egos get in the way of ideas. If your arrogance is more obvious than your expertise, you are someone other people avoid.

7. Give it a shot.
Try it out. Play around with a new idea. Do something strange. If you never leave your comfort zone, you won’t grow.


8. Hop off the bandwagon.
If everyone else is doing it, you’re already late to the party.  Do your own thing, and others will hop onto the spiffy wagon you built yourself. Besides, it’s more fun to drive than it is to get pulled around.


9. Grow a pair.
Bravery is needed to have contrary opinions and to take unexpected paths. If you’re not courageous, you’re going to be hanging around the water cooler, talking about the guy who actually is.

10. Ignore the scolds.
Boring is safe, and you will be told to behave yourself. The scolds could have, would have, should have. But they didn’t. And they resent you for your adventures.

7 life lessons from the very wealthy

Please excuse the very wealthy for feeling a bit under siege lately.

Taxes for the top 2 percent are very likely to go higher. Uncle Sam’s share of capital gains and dividend income might rise, and means-testing for Social Security and Medicare is probable. In the United States, the very rich hold most of that wealth in dollars, which are worth increasingly less. As income inequality has grown dramatically in the nation, the very wealthy are blamed for all manner of social ills.

Rather than pile on the wealthy, this week I’d like to approach the subject of money a little more philosophically. There are surprising insights to be gleaned from the experiences of the very wealthy regarding their investments and experience with wealth.

Some context: In my day job, I come into contact with very high-net-worth individuals. These include young technologists with modest portfolios to families that measure their wealth in nine and 10 figures. For the math-averse, that’s hundreds of millions to billions of dollars.

Over the years, I have had some fascinating conversations with people who have hospitals and graduate schools named after them. I’d like to share some of the things I have learned from these folks.

1. Having money is better than not having money.

Sure, this may be obvious, but let’s get it out of the way upfront. Money may not buy you happiness, but it buys many other important things. Like financial security, excellent health care, education, travel and a comfortable retirement. In a word: freedom.

2. Don’t become “cash rich” and “time poor.”

Devoting all of your waking hours to making money is a problem, especially in professions with a partnership fast track. Lawyers, doctors, bankers and accountants can get so caught up in the competitive nature of their jobs that they lose touch with their family. Any semblance of a normal personal life disappears, and a very unhealthy balance between work and home can develop.

Work is the process of exchanging your time for money. Remember: What you do with your time is far more meaningful than the goods you accumulate with your money. If you are working so much to become rich but you ignore your spouse and miss seeing your kids grow up, you are actually poorer than you realize.

3. Memories are better than material objects.

You may be surprised to learn that among the monied set, expensive cars, yachts, houses, jewelry and watches come at the end of the list.

Their priorities? Memories and accomplishments. This was especially true when it came to family. Toys matter less than good times.

The rule of diminishing returns is a harsh mistress with luxury goods. Do you really think $100,000 audio speakers sound 20 times better than a pair of $5,000 speakers? (They don’t). Is a $250,000 sports car five times faster than a $50,000? (It is not). These days, you can buy quite a lovely home for $1,000,000 (and much less in the country’s interior). Those $10,000,000 manses are not 10 times roomier. Anyone who has owned a $10,000 Rolex will tell you that a $39 Casio keeps better time.

When discussing the benefits of wealth, I have heard again and again about amazing experiences, family get-togethers, vacations, shows, sporting events, weddings and other events as these people’s most important life experiences. While these things cost money, nearly every family can afford reasonable versions of them.

4. Watch your “lifestyle leverage,” especially early in your career.

Those partnership-track careers? The dirty little secret: Those firms love to get their young employees leveraged up. They will even help you get that way, co-signing mortgages for big houses or even directly lending you the cash on favorable terms.

They encourage up-and-comers to spend extravagantly; they extend lines of credit to their rising stars. You need a big house with a jumbo mortgage; you cannot pull up to a business meeting in anything less than the best luxury car. It is part of their corporate culture.

Isn’t that nice of them?

Not really. The big banks, investment shops, law firms and accountants have learned how profitable it is to have “golden handcuffs” on their best employees. These highly-leveraged, debt-laden wage slaves will work harder, put in longer hours and stay with the firm longer than those debt-free workers.

Besides, overleveraged employees do not leave to work at a new start-up or a smaller, more family friendly competitor.

You recent graduates: Remember this when you are offered credit on generous terms. Your leverage is your detriment.

5. Having goals is incredibly important.

I have a friend who is a serial entrepreneur. He was a board member in a household-name dot-com from the 1990s. He sold his stock — too early, I warned at the time — for $30 million. (It would have been worth $90 million a few months later.)

But that didn’t matter to him — he planned to use that money for his next company, which he promptly built and sold for $250 million. He rolled that l into his third venture, which he cashed out of for a cool $1 billion. His long-term goal, and the ability to execute that vision, are what led him to incredible success.

He once said something that has stayed with me: “I am always surprised at how many people have no goals. They simply let life’s river flow them downstream.”

There is a Latin phrase associated with military actions: “Amat victoria curam.“ It translates as “Victory loves careful preparation.” You would be amazed at what you can accomplish with planning.

6. You must live in the here and now.

Goals are important, but don’t miss out on what is happening today.

This is especially true among entrepreneurs, corporate execs and Type A personalities. Do not let dreams of that mansion on a hill prevent you from enjoying the home you live in.

This is an area that can easily veer into cliche. Rather than risk that, I’ll simply remind you of what John Lennon sang in “Beautiful Boy”: “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”

7. It helps to be incredibly lucky.

I am struck by how many very wealthy people I know — especially tech entrepreneurs – have expressed being grateful for their good luck. Again and again, I have heard the phrase: “Being smart is good, but being lucky is better.”

Rather than leave you with the impression that success is simply a roll of the dice, I am compelled to remind you what the Roman philosopher Seneca the Younger was reputed to have said: “Luck is where preparation meets opportunity.”

I don’t know whether it’s better to be smart or lucky, but I would suggest that making the most of the opportunities takes more than just dumb luck.

20130317

Derren Brown’s Guide to overcoming Awkward Situations

Navigating life’s stickier situations

Life. It’s always waiting around the corner, ready to stick out a gnarly ankle to send you tumbling into the muddy puddles of social peril. Whether it’s coming a cropper with oversharing youths on public transport, failing to network at work parties or finding yourself face to face with an aggressive drunk on a Saturday night, you never quite know when you’ll be caught in an awkward or potentially dangerous situation. But, as we’re always keen to lend a hand, we asked thought-pestering psychological illusionist Derren Brown to give his tips on avoiding the everyday obstacles of 21st-century existence, guiding you safely home with your dignity, takeaway curry and smartphone all intact.

How to… handle aggressive situations

This is simply about not engaging with your aggressor at the level they expect. I was coming back from a hotel at about 3am one night and there was a guy in the street with his girlfriend. He was really drunk, clearly looking for a fight and he started kicking off at me. I had a routine ready in my head for this sort of situation and it worked a treat on this occasion. He asked me that typical aggressive rhetorical question — “Do you want a fight?” You can’t say “yes” or “no” — you’ll get hit either way. So, I responded with, “The wall outside my house is four-feet high.”
I didn’t engage at the level he was expecting me to, so immediately he was on the back foot. He came back with, “What?” and I repeated my bizarre response. I delivered the line in a completely matter-of-fact tone, as if he was the one who was missing something here. Suddenly, he was confused. All his adrenaline had dropped away, because I’d pulled the rug from under him. It’s the verbal version of a martial-arts technique called an ‘adrenaline dump’, whereby you get the person to relax before you hit them. A punch will have much greater impact if the recipient’s guard is down. I stuck to this surreal conversational thread with my assailant, saying things like, “I lived in Spain for a while and the walls are really huge, but in this country they’re tiny.” After a few of these exchanges, he just went, “Oh f*ck!” and broke down in tears. The guy had all this adrenaline and was on the point of really laying into me — I was seeing myself beaten to a bloody pulp — but these non-threatening nonsense statements broke that aggression down and he genuinely started crying. I ended up sitting next to him on the kerb, comforting him. It’s the same with guys that come up and ask to “have a look at your phone”, and you end up handing over your stuff and hating yourself for doing it — you can use the same approach. My PA had some stuff nicked in a Tube station recently, and I said to him, “If you’d just starting singing, they would have left you alone.”

How to… get someone on the bus to turn their music down

This is the same principle as trying to keep the seat next to you free. Don’t put your bag on it and stare at your feet, because people sense what you’re trying to do and it doesn’t work. Instead, you should smile at them as they approach and pat the seat invitingly. That guarantees it’s kept free, as no one wants to sit beside a nutter. Similarly, when someone’s playing their music loudly, don’t directly ask them to turn it down. Instead, catch their eye. Nod, smile — maybe even conduct along to the music they’re playing or go and sit down next to them. Generally act like you’re enjoying their awful din, which will promptly weird them out to the point that they will turn it off just to get you off their case. I had a friend who used to walk home every night through a dodgy part of London and there were always gangs of guys out on the street. He’d get abuse from them, so he’d cross over on to the other side of the road. Then, one day, he stayed on their side of the street and walked past them shouting, “Hello! Good evening!” He never got any hassle after that.

How to… evade a persistent charity collector

The best way out of this situation is to initially engage fully with them and feign interest in what they are saying. Then, at one point, ask for clarification regarding exactly what they’re raising money for and immediately appear disgusted by what they tell you. So, they say, “We’re trying to raise money to save the dolphins,” and you reply, “I’m sorry? To save the dolphins?! Oh, God. That’s disgusting.” Appear utterly outraged, as if they’ve somehow got the wrong end of the stick. This should baffle them enough to leave you alone. Charity ‘muggers’ occasionally recognise me, and I always stop and say hello. Recently, however, one of them managed to turn the conversation quickly from how much they enjoyed my shows to how much money I was willing to give them. So, there was no way I could say no to signing up. I plucked up the cowardice to cancel the direct debit the next day, though.

How to… avoid embarrassment when you can’t remember someone’s name

I was in this situation with someone famous, and because I don’t watch TV I have a terrible time with famous people’s names. Who was it? I can’t even remember now. Anyway, I wouldn’t tell you even if I could — it would be embarrassing. But they approached me and knew my name, and I couldn’t remember theirs. What I did was to say, “Oh, I was writing about you in an email the other day,” — which is flattering, firstly, and gets you off on the right foot — “but I think I spelt your name wrong. Don’t you have a strange way of spelling it?” He then had to spell his name for me. Problem solved. It even works for simple names — if you find out they’re called Chris, you can just say, “Oh, I thought you spelt it with a ‘K’.” If they’re called Tom — “I thought you had an ‘H’ after the ‘T’.”

How to… return a meal at a restaurant

I’m generally quite fussy, so I do end up sending stuff back occasionally. The problem with this one is that you’re engaging with the waiter, not the chef, and the chef is the person who’ll be doing the spitting if you complain about his food. So, you need to worry about what the waiter tells the chef. The best trick is to frame your complaint as a compliment. Say, “Excuse me, could you please tell the chef this is the best steak I’ve ever had… but would it be possible for him to cook it a little longer?” You could even add a question — ask which herbs he used, say, “They’re delicious... but could it could be a tad more well-done, perhaps?”

How to… make friends in a room full of strangers

The key thing, initially, is remembering people’s names. I have to do this on-stage with volunteers from the audience and it’s no good pulling off ‘amazing mind feats’ if you can’t remember the name of someone you met two minutes ago. My technique is, when you are introduced to someone, to make a visual link between them and whatever their name reminds you of. So, if I meet someone called Tom, I immediately think of my friend Tom from university, who had ginger hair and lived in a castle. I’ll picture this new Tom with a big red mane, standing on top of a turret and whenever I see him again, that visual will immediately present itself. So, if somebody’s called Mike and they’re wearing a stripy jumper, I’d imagine a big stripy microphone — that’s what ‘Mike’ makes me think of — the more bizarre the image, the better, as if it’s too ordinary, you’ll forget it. If you’re like me at parties, and you often find yourself looking round, thinking, “I don’t like these things, what the f*ck am I doing here?” take a minute to review the people you’ve met and see how many names you remember. People are always delighted when you approach them again later in the evening and remember their name. If you’re not hugely confident, just turn the spotlight on the person you’re talking to. Ask them questions and be engaged and enthused by their answers. It’s very simple — the nicer you are to people, the more they will like you.