Week 59 - Say my name 😎

Hey my friend, today let’s talk about why you should remember people's names and why it’s important to have a mindset of trying, failing, and updating all the time! 🤓🤓

Try This Yourself

I’ve recently started reading Dale Carnegie's “How To Win Friends And Influence People” (check the title), and I wonder how I’ve never read it before! 😲 It’s an amazing book on human connections, and the funniest part: I already follow most of its ideas without knowing about it.

Have you ever noticed that when you are in a crowded, noisy place and someone is saying your name, you’ll hear it amidst all the other noise? And you immediately become alert just to know that they are searching for someone else 😅

It makes total sense! Our brains are wired to the sound of our names because we need to understand what the hell is going on, and whether we need to fight or flee (I mean, hopefully not, still it works that way).

The sound of a personal name has a magical power, so you definitely need to use it. And it’s okay if you need to remember 2-3 teammates, but what if you need to remember 100 names?

Here is the trick from Dale Carnegie’s book that Napoleon the Third used:

“Napoleon the Third, Emperor of France and nephew of the great Napoleon, boasted that in spite of all his royal duties, he could remember “the name of every person he met.

His technique? Simple. If he didn’t hear the name distinctly, he said, ‘So sorry. I didn’t get the name clearly.’ Then, if it was an unusual name, he “would say, ‘How is it spelled?’

During the conversation, he took the trouble to repeat the name several times, and tried to associate it in his mind with the person’s features, expression, and general appearance.”

I can tell from personal experience that many people were very surprised when, after a brief meeting, I could recall their names weeks and even months later.

But no matter how hard I try, remembering someone’s name from the first try doesn’t always work.

So here is my personal trick that works for me:

When I forget someone’s name, instead of replacing their name with ‘hey’, ‘sorry’, ‘could you, yes you..’ etc., I go and tell: “Hey, it might sound weird, but can you please remind me of your name?”

At this moment, I feel so awkward and uncomfortable asking for a person’s name, even though we know each other, that my brain does its best not to allow this situation to happen ever again. That’s exactly how I remember that person’s name for life 😁

tl;dr Our names mean a ton to us, and the more people you remember by name and actually use their names in conversations, the stronger connections you’ll have.

Expand Your Mindset

To get something done, we need to take action. To take action, we must overcome our fear of failing. And not just failing, but actually dealing with what others might think about us when we fail.

Still, to move forward in life, it’s super helpful to have an MVP (minimum viable product) approach. Which means that instead of overcomplicating and building the whole system from scratch, we start with one super small step, fail on it (if needed), get feedback, learn, and improve.

It was a breakthrough moment for me when I learned that to build an application, you don’t need to really build it. You need to make a landing page that explains what it is, for whom, what challenges it solves, and a CTA to sign up (or even pre-order).

If that doesn’t work, you either improve your landing page and try again or focus on something else.

This way, you save a ton of time, money, and nerves, and get results faster!

And coming back to Dale Carnegie, he says it’s actually very good to admit you might be wrong and eager to learn.

For example, when something you’ve been creating doesn’t meet someone’s expectations, do not become defensive, trying to prove how wrong that person is.

Instead, say: “I may be wrong. Let’s examine the facts.”

Even if you’re right and that person is wrong, by having a discussion, you’ll get to a solution together. And that’s so much better than fighting around who’s wrong and who’s right.

tl;dr To get things done faster and more effectively, implement a mindset of trying, failing, and improving. And admitting you might be wrong won’t make you look stupid. It’ll actually make you more likeable and help build relationships with people.

So yeah, that’s it for this week, and if you have any questions, thoughts, ideas, or personal examples of how to build better human connections, please answer this email, or connect with me on LinkedIn, and let’s talk 🤗🤓

💡 What influenced me this week 💡

Thoughts of the week:

•  “If you’re half in, you’re actually all out.” - Sahil Bloom’s newsletter

• “Your buyers already read someone. Find that person and skip the ad networks.” - Indie Hackers newsletter

• “Thinking, planning, strategizing, and organizing often get in the way of doing.” - Sahil Bloom’s newsletter

• “Try stuff. Fail quickly. Learn from each failure. Try more stuff. The cost of failure is much lower than you think. Nobody's judging you. Nobody cares.” - Sahil Bloom’s newsletter

• “Here is why we care, here is why we are competent to solve the problem, here is your life after we solve your problem.” - StoryBrand podcast

• “Pay 60% of the original price. The novelty of the price makes people purchase.” - Markus Husemann-Kopetzky, Nudge podcast

• “Beliefs change our biology by first changing our behaviors.” - Nir Eyal, Nudge podcast

• “The higher the cognitive load, the harder it is to understand how your product is connected with survival, the lesser the amount of sales.” - StoryBrand podcast

• “Answer 3 questions: What do you offer? How does it help your clients? What are they supposed to do next?” - StoryBrand podcast

• “When people say, ‘Thank you,’ answer ‘My pleasure.’” - StoryBrand podcast

• Do you need some Fukitol? 😅🙈🤣

  

Song of the week:

Book and quotes of the week:

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

“It doesn’t pay to argue, that it is much more profitable and much more interesting to look at things from the other person’s viewpoint and try to get that person saying “yes, yes.””

“Try honestly to see things from the other person’s point of view.”

“You deserve very little credit for being what you are – and remember, the people who come to you irritated, bigoted, unreasoning, deserve very little discredit for being what they are. Feel sorry for the poor devils. Pity them. Sympathise with them.”

Tools that I use with referrals:

• Descript - for anything around podcasting and video editing

• Beehiiv - for a newsletter (that’s what you receive 😅)

• Text Blaze - to access message templates with shortcuts (like “/ty”)

• Exali - promo “FROMYURII” - indemnity insurance for independent experts in Europe

• Manus - for building complex systems and projects

Daily actions:

• tell 1 person what I’m thankful to them for

• read a self-development book/listen to a professional podcast for 15 minutes

• make a valuable post/comment on LinkedIn

• tag 15 people in my connections database

• connect with 30 interesting people on LinkedIn

• invite 5 people to join the 👋Friendworking newsletter

Weekly actions:

• transcribe one new episode of the Creator Spotlight and Personal IPO (bi-weekly) podcasts, learn something from them, and connect with guests on LinkedIn

• connect 2 people who I believe need to be connected

• invite 30 people to follow the Community ROI podcast (and ask for some feedback).

If you have any thoughts, ideas, or questions, please 👇

And if you’d like to have more 👋 Friendworking in your life 👇

See you next week! 👋