I just finished reading an interesting book, “The Greatest Salesman in the World” by Og Mandino. Its Chinese translation was marketed in the name “Scrolls of Wealth” in China and was very popular.

I didn’t realize it was published just 40 years ago in 1968, a best-seller since then, until I read some critics about the book. The story of the book was set in biblical time in Arabic world. It’s about a poor camel boy, Hafid, who eventually became the greatest salesman in his time with unmatchable wealth. However, I can see the story is just a “make-up”, like all the stories in the TV advertisements. Essentially, the author would like to sell his “manuals for salesman”, which he developed for his insurance company while working in rural New Hampshire, as he disclosed in the preface of the book.

The author is indeed a very good salesman for his ideas. The story is catching, persuasive, full of drama, even having a mysterious link to the Bible. Obviously, he followed his own advices to sell, capturing people’s interests, making connections through familiarity (Bible story), demonstrating success stories happened with other ordinary people, and making the items for sale seems scarce and rare thus valuable. Another interesting way he did his selling is to command the reader to read each principle (a chapter or scroll in the book) three times a day for a month. That’s almost like a religious practice. I have to agree it’s the best way to build the principles into habits.

Setting aside the sales pitches, I feel the principles promoted by the author are indeed valuable. It reminded me of two books I love, “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie, published in 1936 and “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” by Steven Covey, published in 1989. It focuses more on principles for living as The Seven Habits than the social techniques as Win Friends. Its ideas of achieving success through building good habits based on good principles make the Seven Habits book not as innovative as I thought.

However, I felt the book has two problems. First, some of the 10 principles for success, elaborated as 10 secret ancient scrolls, are vague. They cover a group of ideas instead of one. For example, “I will live this day as if it is my last”. This idea is powerful but not concise. To describe the principle, the author mentioned other ideas like “appreciation”, “don’t waste time to regret”, “get things done today” and more. Those can hardly be described as one principle. Instead, The Seven Habits are much more precise and fundamental.

Secondly, the author keeps luring the readers to follow the principles by the promises of getting rich and abundant. He keeps appeals to the greedy for material wealth and fame. But, in many places in the book, even the author himself contradicts his own idea of material-oriented life goals. People who don’t value wealth and fame probably will feel as frustrated as I did. Again, the Seven Habits did a better job. It didn’t set the goals for you. You can pick your own life goals and it just helps you to achieve that goal. It doesn’t alienate or exclude any groups of readers.

But, after all, I still feel this is a good book with a lot of thought-provoking ideas. Its way of story-telling and its poem-like writings are enjoyable. Despite the name, the principles it promotes can be used not only to salesman but to all of us who would like to live a rich and successful life, regardless the meaning of success. After all, success in modern world requires us to interact with other people. And in many occasions, that demands selling either tangible things like products or intangible things like ideas, services, or our experience and skill sets.

Some of my notes taken from the book about the 10 principles:

1. Beginning of a new life

• You can change your life by changing your thoughts
• Change requires commitment.
• We are the slaves of our habit. So build good habits.
• Read loud the principle three times a day. Every roll per month.

1. I will greet the day with my love.

• Love everything, sun, rain, animals, all the people, etc.
• Open other people’s heart with love.

1. I will persist until I succeed
2. I am the nature’s greatest miracle.

• I am unique. There is only one exactly like me in the world and in all time.
• Product and salesman are unique.
• Rare is valuable.
• Self-confidence.

1. I will live this day as if it is my last.

• Appreciation.
• No regret. Don’t waste time regret yesterday.
• Finish things today don’t wait for tomorrow.

1. Today I will be master of my emotion.

• Emotion changes constantly.
• Good and bad moods will circle around
• Productivity is based on mood.
• One’s own feeling influence customers.
• Control the emotion by counter action. Laugh when you feel sorry.
• Force the action to control the thought.
• Forget people’s bad treatment because their mood will change.

1. I will laugh at the world.

• Smile is the most human thing.
• Maintaining good mood helps living long life.
• Don’t take myself too seriously.
• Face the world positively.

1. Today I will multiply my value 100 fold.

• Shooting high by set a impossibly high goal.

1. I will act now.

• Only action can turn dream into reality.
• Don’t fear failure.

1. Cry/Pray for help.

• Never for material things.
• Pray for guidance.
• Show me the way
• Knowledge is the most valuable wealth.

Happy New Year!

I guess a lot of people are very happy to see the year 2008 passed by, just like myself. What a dramatic year! First we witnessed the house value dropping and foreclosures in the neighborhood, then the crisis of the subprime mortgage. Soon, the bad news crawled all over the financial sector. Investment banks, insurance companies, commercial banks, even big names like Bear Stearns and Leman Brothers burned down into ashes overnight. The darkness, like cancer, continued to spread into other industries, such as automobile and even high-tech. The stock market crashed. The unemployment rate soared. The words we heard most in the past several months are “great depression” and “bail-out”, not what we usually heard even in a bear market.

And the worst part, it’s not over yet. Although debating among each other, the economists agreed the economy won’t recover until the later half of 2009. And that’s from the most optimistic point of view.

With all the negative news, it’s very easy to feel depressed or stressed out in this unpleasant time.

Kind of like feeling depressed in the winter in the northeastern United States (where I am living), chilly, heavy wind blow, cloudy sky, crooked tree branches and yellow grass, no sign of life.

But, wait! We still got Christmas in winter time! Even the darkest nights were lightened up by the holiday lights!

Where can we find hopes and opportunities in the depressing days like now? Here are four directions to look:

History

Whenever we feel it’s the end of the world, we can read about the history. Most likely, the history will tell us the challenges we are facing now is hardly as big as the ones faced by our fathers and grandfathers.

If they can survive the Great Depression, the World War I and II, the Oil and Energy Crisis, and the Vietnam War, why we cannot survive this one? After all, we already got over with the dot-com bubble, in 2001. (List of Recessions in the United States)

The average recession will last 17 months, so we have reason to be optimistic about 2009.

Success Examples

Even in the hardest times, there are winners.

Dale Carnegie attracted thousands of peoples to his self-improvement training courses in the 30s, right in the middle of the Great Depression. Why? Because people were desperate to hear about how to become successful at their lowest points in life!

Another good example is Barack Obama, our president-elect. If Bush did a better job in his second term, if the Iraq war ended gracefully, and if the economy wasn’t so bad, we probably will wait longer for our first African-American president.

The hardest times have the best opportunity for ones know how to grasp it.

Change

Ancient Chinese believed the “new” will be born out of the “old”. When one force goes to its extreme, the reverse force is already born inside.

Take a simple example. Look at the high oil price we were facing at the beginning of year 2008. Everybody hated to see the price of gas continues to soar. Every time to the gas station feels like being robbed. But, there is a reason behind it.

We all knew that oil is not limitless in world reserve. Some scientist forecasted that we are going to running out of oil in several decades. But, since the oil is so cheap in world market (yes it’s still pretty cheap considering how rare a resource it is), there is not enough incentive to start looking for alternative energies. (source)

It’s the high oil price that eventually put the energy on the center of the agenda for the government. We heard that both president candidates talked seriously about energy in the campaign. After elected, Obama soon appointed a Nobel-prize winning physicist Steven Chu his energy secretary to carry out his campaign promises, “New Energy for America”.

What we can learn from this is the greatest challenge calls for the biggest change. Or in other words, dramatic changes can only be born out of the hard times.

Nobody will even think about change in sunny days. Why fix it when it’s not broken? People seldom have the vision to change the course until they hit the hard wall. But once they hit the wall, it’s much easier to persuade them to switch course than before.

Here come the opportunities. Be the leaders and advocates of CHANGES! That’s exactly what Obama did and why he succeeded in the hard times in November, 2008.

What changes are needed by the businesses in bad economic conditions like this?

It’s as simple as do more with less.

If you can provide an idea, a service or a product to increase the market share, profitability and productivity while cutting the cost, you will be the winner in hard times like now.

Here are just some of the common ideas:

Improve Productivity:

• Process Re-engineering
• Automate manual processes
• Upgrade the tools

Cut Cost:

• Outsource non-critical operations
• Re-negotiate the contracts with employees and suppliers

All those changes will be easier to carry out in hard times than in good times because people reset their expectations in doom days.

Opportunities are abundant now if you know where to look.

Self-Improvement

Unfortunately, some of us have already been heavily affected by the doomed economy, e.g. lost the job, lost half of the investment, lost the house, etc.

Why didn’t lights shine upon us?

Well, first we need to accept.

Suffering is unavoidable. Otherwise, it’s won’t be called “hard times”. The sooner we “accept” the fact, the faster we can pull ourselves out of it.

To accept, we need to understand.

Why this misfortune happened to me? Think in terms, “What did I do wrong?”, not in terms “This is all somebody else’s fault”. If we think it’s others’ fault, we will find ourselves powerless and helpless. Since we are not responsible, there is nothing we can do to change our current situation.

On the contrary, if we are determined our destiny is in our own hands, we can take control and get ourselves out of this hole we fall into. We can learn from the mistakes and start improving ourselves.

This is the best time to start deep thinking. In good times, we are too busy or too proud to think. We just follow the trend, believing everything will be fine. Now, we have time and motive to think deeply about our life, our priorities, our goals and the future strategies.

When we think everything through and have a plan for the future, we can move on to carry the plan out. Once the plan is accomplished, we are surely improved, if not totally reborn. We will have better jobs, better home, better investment portfolios, in summary, a better self, if we learn from our mistakes.

“Arise from ashes”. That’s the gift from the disaster.

Year 2009 is here, with dreams and hopes.

It’s time to raise our heads and look for the lights shining upon us. The dawn is coming for all of us who can learn from the history and the successful examples to bring changes into our work and lives, with the help of the darkness.

Have a happy and prosperous new year!

In the summer of 2002, I was promoted from a senior developer to a manager leading a four person team. I was thrilled.

As other technical managers, my thinking was really natural. Since I was promoted, that means my way of doing things was the right way. Now, I just needed to require everybody to behave like myself and my team would be the best!

I failed in no time. It’s impossible to require everybody to behave like myself. I was young and single. Just got my master degree of computer science from a good university. I can adapt to new technologies easily. I can work 12 hours everyday including weekend. All my team mates were married and have family to take care of. They were much older than me. They couldn’t frequently spend their after work time working over time and learning new technologies. And they had their own ways of doing things and learning.

Fine. I would take all the work. Whenever they didn’t know how to do the job, I took over. Gradually, I found this wouldn’t work either since I barely have any free time left. The output of the team was not satisfactory.

I was very strict on every one’s job, maintaining a very high standard. I constantly criticized my team mate’s work and asked them to redo it multiple times. Eventually, I found that they started to ask me for very specific instructions and wouldn’t start the work until they get the instructions. I felt I was exhausted and couldn’t handle it anymore.

Why didn’t they listen to me? Why couldn’t they do the good jobs as I did? Why did they keep asking questions? Why cannot they work independently by themselves?

At my darkest moment as a new manager, I started to question myself. Maybe it’s because ME? Maybe I am not a good manager?

In a Sunday afternoon, I still remembered very clearly, I was visiting one of my best friends. On one of her sofa, lied a little booklet. I picked it up, randomly, and read the title, “How to Win Friends & Influence People”. “Influence People”? That was exactly what I wanted then! There was a BOOK about it? Wow! I started to pick some chapters to read. It blew me away.

At that very day back to home, I ordered this book from Amazon.com, overnight delivery. I finished reading it first time in a week. And about 5-6 times afterwards.

It opened up my eyes about how to effectively interact with other people. The first time, I realized that there are knowledge about relationships with other people and it’s actually a skill that you can learn and master, as other technologies.

Here are all the skills talked in this book. They are exposed as Principles that you need to follow. Violating those Principles may resulting in a disaster in relationships.

Fundamental Techniques In Handling People

• Principle 1: Don’t criticize, condemn or complain.
• Principle 2: Give honest and sincere appreciation.
• Principle 3: Arouse in the other person an eager want.

Six Ways to Make People Like You

• Principle 1: Become genuinely interested in other people.
• Principle 2: Smile
• Principle 3: Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.
• Principle 4: Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.
• Principle 5: Talk in terms of the other person’s interests.
• Principle 6: Make the other person feel important – and do it sincerely.

How to Win People Your Way of Thinking

• Principle 1: The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.
• Principle 2: Show respect for the other person’s opinions. Never say, “You’re wrong.”
• Principle 3: If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.
• Principle 4: Begin in a friendly way.
• Principle 5: Get the other person saying “yes, yes” immediately.
• Principle 6: Let the other person do a great deal of the talking.
• Principle 7: Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers.
• Principle 8: Try honestly to see things from the other person’s point of view.
• Principle 9: Be sympathetic with the other person’s ideas and desires.
• Principle 10: Appeal to the nobler motives.
• Principle 11: Dramatize your ideas.
• Principle 12: Throw down a challenge.

Be a leader:

• Principle 1: Begin with praise and honest appreciation
• Principle 2: Call attention to people’s mistakes indirectly
• Principle 3: Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person
• Principle 4: Ask questions instead of giving direct orders
• Principle 5: Let the other person save face
• Principle 6: Praise the slightest improvement and praise every improvement. Be “hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise. “
• Principle 7: Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to.
• Principle 8: Use encouragement. Make the fault seem easy to correct
• Principle 9: Make the other person happy about doing the thing you suggested.

Dale Carnegie was a great public speaker. He conveyed his ideas strongly in this book via vivid examples. Although the book was written several decades ago in 1930s, it is still very applicable to today’s world and circumstances. Just read each principle and think about it. It’s easy to understand why each one of them should work. All are common sense and tap into the deep human nature. They are all simple and straightforward. Easy to put into action.

I learned a great deal from those techniques. However, I found out soon applying those techniques on my team mates didn’t work too well. They soon suspected that I was playing some games with them. The harder I tried, the more suspicious and less cooperative they were. Something was missing here.

My puzzle was resolved when I read Steven Covey’s “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People“. All Dale Carnegie’s techniques are correct and good. But you need to drive them with a sincere heart. Otherwise, people can easily see through your techniques and sense your underline motives.

To really make those techniques work, you need to change yourself first before you even try to change others. You need to adopt some new principles, deeply believe them and communicate them explicitly to people around you. You need to earn people’s trust. They have to believe you are doing all this for mutual benefit and for their own good before they will willingly work with you, Only until them, those techniques will become handy and can smooth out the process. But, not before that.

The matter of fact is people are willing to be led and influenced. People are willing to have someone to help them be a better person and live a better live. You just need to know how to do that.

Remember, change yourself first before change others. Trust come before techniques! Good luck with your journey among people!

I recommend a good book about dealing with the change. You may already read this little interesting book. Only takes 1 hour to finish, “Who Moved My Cheese“.

Here are some of the concepts it talks about:

Three stages of change:

1. Prepare for change
2. Gain change skills
3. Achieve a change

Change Skills:

1. Anticipate change
2. Take new actions now
3. Move beyond fear
4. Imagine real success

Hope it can help us to survive the constant changes and achieve greater success in our life!

My life is fundamentally changed after I read Dr. Stephen Covey’s awesome book, “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People“. A lot of positive things happened. I feel happy in life and more important, I feel I am in charge of my own life. Nothing feels better than that!

One of the concept I learned from the book is if one really wants to learn the materials and would like to apply them to achieve good results in life, the best way is to teach the materials to other people. From my past experience, I know that’s absolutely true.

“Knowing, but not doing, is not knowing”. Another concept learned. So, here is my action. I prepared a series presentations to help me teaching other people, “7 Habits”. I will post them here in a series of posts.

Here is the first one in the serie: 7 Habits Session 1: Problem and Solutions

It starts from talking about the problems we are facing and how to solve them by changing the way we see the problems.

I will love to share the experiences of applying 7 habits with any one who is interested in fundamental life changes.

Now, Enjoy!