Books I wished I read when I was younger, Part 1 - How To Pickup Chicks

The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists

Alright, not everyone is going to like this book.   But it’s a book on understanding the female psyche that the vast majority of men won’t just learn through osmosis.  Women think much differently from men, and in winning their favor, the mental approach of most young men is far off balance.

The Game follows a nytimes writer as he is immersed among a bunch of pick up artists trying to pick up girls and improve their “game”.  A lot of lessons are learned, and he eventually becomes very good at picking up women.  There was/is

This book will only work for certain types of men.  For the easily tempted and bittered men who already have a grudge against people, or women in general - the never ending quest for the favor of beautiful women can tear their life apart, leaving them a hallow shell.

For the weak of will and faint of heart, this book will do nothing, except maybe remind them of problems that haunt them when they are trying to go to bed at night.  Some men suffer from pride, and this is the greatest vice.  Pride prevents men from admitting they are wrong and seeking help.

For the men who are neither grudge-holders or too prideful, this book will serve as a wonderful step forward in understanding what attracts women.  The amount of knowledge in this book is worth that of 10 or more similarly sized books.

Some women will look at this book and think that they would never want a man who enjoyed reading about such things - fearing maybe, the objectification of women lies between the silky binding.  If I were a woman, the last thing I would want would be a guy that secretly think that deep down he has failed in a large part of what most consider success in the art of being a heterosexual male - attracting women. Better he comes to terms with that half of himself.  This book is written by a kind man who recognizes that all men and women are seeking happiness, and his perspective presents an honest approach to dealing with the challenge’s of manhood.

Passion of the Miest(er)

My  dad calls/called me the Miester all the time.  As in Scott-miester.   Hey, if you have a better title, we’re taking patches.

I saw Julie and Julia the other night and it got me thinking about passion.  Some time in the movie was spent not only talking about the two character’s passion for cooking, but also most interestingly, the time before they embraced their passion for cooking.   Julia Child’s time was especially titillating, as she spent these scenes in France, where I’d personally love to get a little lost, if only in terms of personal identity.

The time before great people realize what they are meant to achieve is always interesting to me because I’d like to duplicate their success, personally.  All right, I’m pretty sure I don’t want to write a book on cooking…but MealsZen is a cooking website.

Anyways let’s get down to brass tax.  What is passion?  How do you know when you have passion? and so on and so forth?  Well, here’s my theory.  Passion is when is the result of your creation is such ridiculous bad-assery that any amount of pain in the creation process becomes worth it.

Practicing isn’t fun.   Creating stuff sucks, especially if it’s time consuming.  Learning how to cook 524 recipes like Julie did sound’s  lot more fun then say, training for a triathlon, but it probably still starts to suck a bit after like number 5 and more so after say number 500.   I think that eventually your mind and body gets so habituated to practicing that you start to expect it and therefore, cease to dread it.  The fact is, we can get addicted to anything…good or bad. Seriously.  People get addicted to work all the time and EVERYONE knows how much work sucks…but they just get used to it.

Creating ceases to suck at the moment that you are done creating. At that point you are generally revelling in two things: first, that you are done creating and now you can go watch Adult Swim (sweet), and second, that you just created this THING.  Now, the being done part is always pretty much the same but this THING is always different.  In my opinion, how much you get excited about this THING is directly porportional to how passionate you are about this particular creation art.

So look at all the end results around you.   Does Beef Bourguigon sound like something ridiculously awesome?  How about Stairway to Heaven?

Is the Kindle too fragile?

I love my kindle.    If I had to choose between the iPhone and the Kindle…I would probably choose the kindle?

Why?

1. Because I love learning.
2. Because there is no monthly fee.
3. Because it helps me in my career as a software engineer.

However, in the past few months, I’ve seen my Xbox 360 get the Red Rings of Death, 2 kindles get broken, and my iPhone screen get seriously cracked.

This makes me wonder: am I relying too much on inherently fragile devices?

Books I wished I read when I was younger, Part 2 - How To Win Friends

Old school cover, old school wisdom

Before reading this book, if you had asked me what the most significant challenge in the average adults life was to be, I probably wouldn’t have said “Dealing effectively with others, of course!”.  Likely, I would’ve said some crap about inner peace and spirituality. Love-able people don’t talk about how they came to be so love-able. Maybe, they just woke up some day and it was there, like puberty.

But Dale lays down some serious pipe in the inner workings of like-ability, backed up by examples of how prominent historical figures in history have displayed these very characteristics. It reminds me a bit of my study of Cyrus the Great in Xenophon’s Cyropaedia and how he won the allegiance of so many.

I have no idea how this book came to my attention.  Really.  Isn’t that funny? All I can remember is something about how “If you’ve had problems dealing with people, you need to read this book yesterday”.

Here’s the basic outline of the strategy proposed to win friends and influence people.

Fundamental Techniques in Handling People

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

Six Ways to Make People Like You

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

Twelve Ways to Win People to Your Way of Thinking

1. Avoid arguments.
2. Show respect for the other person’s opinions. Never tell someone they are wrong.
3. If you’re wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.
4. Begin in a friendly way.
5. Start with questions the other person will answer yes to.
6. Let the other person do the talking.
7. Let the other person feel the idea is his/hers.
8. Try honestly to see things from the other person’s point of view.
9. Sympathize with the other person.
10. Appeal to noble motives.
11. Dramatize your ideas.
12. Throw down a challenge.

The sweet part about the book is that each and ever bullet point is baked up with real-life examples from common people at the time Dale was travelling around giving speeches, and from historical figures.

Chapter 5: The Secret of Socrates

In talking with people, don’t begin by discussing the things on which you differ. Begin by emphasizing—and keep emphasizing—the things on which you agree. Keep emphasizing, if possible, that you are both striving for the same end, and that your only difference is one of method and not of purpose. Harry A. Overstreet, author of Influencing Human Behavior, considers the word “no” as one of the most difficult handicaps to overcome. When a person says, “No,” they have invested their pride of personality, which demands that they remain consistent with themselves. They may later feel that, “No,” might not have been the best answer, but they have their precious pride to consider. Once having said, “No,” they feel they must stick with that decision. The most important thing you can do is get them saying, “Yes,” right from the beginning.

Socrates was one of the greatest philosophers the world has ever known. He changed the whole course of human thought by introducing a technique now called the “Socratic method.” This technique was based upon getting a “yes, yes” response from his opponents. He would ask questions, to which his opponents would have to answer, “Yes,” to. By asking many questions in this vein, he kept his opponents saying, “Yes” instead of “No.” His opponents would finally, without realizing it, find themselves embracing a conclusion they would have bitterly denied a few minutes before.

The next time we are tempted to tell someone he or she is wrong, let’s remember old Socrates and ask a gentle question – a question that will get the “yes, yes” response.

Principle 5

Get the other person saying “yes, yes” immediately.

Conclusion

I’d give this book a definite must read unless you live in a cave.  I’ve seen a lot of people make the mistakes outlined in this book - it’s very interesting.  One of the most interesting arguments in the book is the argument against criticism. Everybody criticizes at one point or another and I cannot recall anyone avidly speaking out against criticisms as a general technique.  In parenting books, I think I’ve heard of the concept of positive reinforcement but it was never clear whether that stuff really worked.

The agruement itself is long and well thought-out so I suggest picking up the book  and reading it yourself but this is what I recall:  suddenly, early in the book, the author starts reciting the stories of Al Capone and John Wilkes Booth - this confused the hell out of me, until it’s explained the one thing they have in common for the purpose of the book: they all did many wrong things, and were criticized by the highest arm of the law to their extreme deteriment.  All of them, however, still were quoted as having been wrong by the system, or someone else, or that they were still basically good people.  The moral: people will always blame someone else, so it’s pointless to criticisze.   That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t punish murderers - just that if we want better results out of people in our lives encouragement and appretiation is probably a better tactic.

These arguments are what make How to Lose Friends and Influence People a timeless gem and a Essays on Stuff must-read.