The book is an interesting take on what it takes to attain a happy marriage and why only ~30% of us end up in happy marriages. The book is divided into three sections - what is love, why we fail in the game of love and what can we do differently to succeed at it.
While the book is overall a good one, unfortunately, it contains a lot of generic financial advice which I decided not to include in the summary. Choose a sound financial lifestyle Borrowers borrow money from the future in the form of credit loans till the lifestyle collapses, consumers consume money paycheck to paycheck, keepers focus on accumulating wealth over time. The focus on net worth mentality over paycheck mentality actively works in keepers favor.
The book talks about various psychological tactics used by compliance practitioners like salespeople, waiters, car dealers, and fundraisers to influence us into saying yes to something to which ideally we would have said no. The author went and took sales jobs as a car salesman and waiter to see these tactics in action. He referred to these tactics as six weapons of influence. Each of them forms the basis of a chapter in the book. Weapons of influence Weapons of influence consist of identifying fixed action patterns and exploiting them. Compliance practitioners use them as a basis for influence.
The book is an impressive collection of unusual stories aimed at promoting a non-conventional way of approaching problems and solving them.
Some salient notes from the book If there’s an elephant in the room, introduce it. Even if you are in the position of strength, be fair. Have something to bring to the table, people would be more welcoming of you to join in then. Get the fundamentals right, fancy stuff does not work without that. When you are screwing up and nobody says anything, they have given up on you (that’s a really bad place to be). Playing sports is not about learning the technicalities of the game but about teamwork, perseverance, sportsmanship, the value of hard work and ability to deal with adversity. The brick walls are there for a reason. They are not there to keep us out, they are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Manage time explicitly like money You can always change your plan, but only if you have one. Ask yourself: are you spending your time on the right things Delegate your work as much as possible What’s more fun than fulfilling one’s own dreams is to help someone else fulfill their dreams. Use positive language, “When does this [Disney] park close?” is to be responded with “This park is open until 8 PM”. Don’t complain about your problems, whining does not help, focus on working harder instead. Almost everyone has a good side, if you wait long enough, it will come out. Focus on what people do not what they say. Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted. You can be an optimist if you have a contingency plan for what to do when all hell breaks loose. A bad apology is worse than no apology. No job is beneath you, do your best at whatever job you are put to. Rights come with responsibilities. If you lead your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself. The dreams will come to you.
The book talks about inflection points which if not handled carefully, are drastic (10x) enough to put a company out of business.
The book is an excellent collection of rules which the author discovered while finishing his Ph.D. and transitioning into a full-time faculty position.
At some point, the incumbent’s product’s performance exceeds the demand of most customers. Then the “edge” that these performance metrics provided is lost, and the customers’ value proposition changes. They start valuing some other metrics, along which a disruptor’s product has better performance. The disruptor has an early mover’s advantage as well as leading to the demise of the incumbent.
The book emphasizes heavily life education, glorifies college dropouts, and questions college education except for specialized fields like law and medicine.
The book is an insightful journey into the contemporary understanding of the human brain and how scientists are trying to replicate it. Major takeaways from the book are listed below.