Step 4: Trudge Through The Mud (Ch. 18-24) Flashcards
pg. 300
“My agent had told me rewriting the proposal would take thirty days…
…I finished in eight. When your back is against the wall, you learn what you’re capable of. I emailed her the 140-page document, prayed she could work her magic, and then, just eleven days after I’d turned in the leave-of-absence form—I got the publishing deal.”
after getting a publishing deal, what the COS for Gates said was necessary to even consider an interview, he replied in an email with
“congratulations”. then static. Alex followed up to no avail. he got the silent treatment.
pg. 318 (Warren Buffet on getting meetings)
“This is the thing,” I told Corwin. “Although people won’t meet with you for the reason you want,
that doesn’t mean they won’t meet at all. Just find another angle. Figure out what they need and use that as your way in.”
pg. 323 (Buffets take on being diligent)
“You didn’t read carefully,” Buffett said. “Look at footnote fourteen.”
Sure enough, there it was.
The writer was dumbfounded.
“While this story is short,” I told Ryan, “the lesson is huge, and I think it’s one of the biggest keys to Buffett’s success.
When everyone else skims a report, Buffett is obsessively scouring the fine print, going above and beyond, studying every word, looking for clues. You don’t have to be born a genius to read the footnotes—it’s a choice. It’s a choice to put in the hours, go the extra mile, and do the things others aren’t willing to do. Reading the damn footnotes isn’t just a task on Buffett’s to-do list—it’s his outlook on life.”
pg. 342 (Elliot talking of pipeline)
“That’s my point! You need to start working on building a pipeline and getting other balls in the air.
Business is not target practice.”
“it’s throwing up tons of balls and seeing what works”
after not getting the buffet interview, Alex…
dwelled and sat in a feeling of nothingness. felt defeated.
pg. 356. (Dean Kamen talking to Alex)
“Look,” he said, “I’m not here to give you a road map. I’m here to tell you: this is what you should expect to see. If I gave you the map Lewis and Clark made, it would be pretty easy to get from here to the West Coast. That’s why everybody remembers the names Lewis and Clark and nobody remembers who read their map and took the trip the second time.
“If you don’t think you can deal with this amount of uncertainty and failure,” he continued, “then wait for Lewis and Clark to deliver the map and you can be one of those people who does a good job following their lead. But if you want to be one of those people who do what these innovators did, be prepared, like they did, to fail and get frostbite and have people not make it. If you’re not prepared for that stuff, that’s okay: don’t do it. There is plenty of room in the world for other people. But if you do want to do it—if you want to go off and do really big things—be prepared for them to take way longer than you thought, cost way more than you expected, and be full of failures that are painful, embarrassing, and frustrating. If it’s not going to kill you, keep trudging through the mud.”
pg. 358 (Dean conversation continued)
“Okay,” Kamen said. “Here’s a big one: it’s better to prove it can’t be done than to exhaust the infinite number of ways to fail.”
He explained that when he’s kissed a lot of frogs but hasn’t made progress, he steps back and asks whether what he’s doing is actually impossible. Does it contradict the laws of thermodynamics, Newtonian physics, or some other fundamental principle”
“Restating the boundaries,” he said,
“is sometimes what gives you the insight to create an innovative solution.”
“Instead of getting frustrated by repeating the same old problem,” Kamen said,
“reframe the question in a new way that is amenable to a different kind of solution.”
Dan, the guy who “knew Buffet” ended up being a fraud, a major takeaway was…
“The lesson was clear: desperation clogs intuition.”
(Alex talking of how he wasn’t transparent with Dan either)
“My strategizing and lack of transparency backed him into a corner.
Dishonesty breeds dishonesty.”
pg. 403 (Larry King on interviews)
“That’s the biggest mistake you can make
You’re focused on what we’re doing, not why we’re doing it.”
Cal Fussman, who was at the breakfast meeting with Larry, brought up how…
“Cal explained that it’s still a human being making the hiring decision. Only after looking you in the eye can someone get a sense if you’re genuine. You may be using the same words in an email, but it’s a different experience in person.”
“People like human beings,” Cal said. “People don’t like random names in their inbox.”
nugget of wisdom the founder of TED (Richard Saul Wurman) gave Alex #1.
“You want to know the secret to changing the world? Stop trying to change it. Do great work and let your work change the world.”
