Keith Ferrazzi

The tireless Rajesh Setty just launched a great new service to help folks get recommendations on books and more from people they trust.

Click below to check out 10 books I recommend for rounding out your relationships reading.

Link: http://www.suggestica.com/keithferrazzi

4 comments // In Never Eat Alone

Ian Ybarra

Not the Pro Football Hall of Fame! Even with the Chargers' 9-2 start with Philip Rivers at the helm, there are still many years before anyone will be able to make a call on that.

I'm talking about the Connectors' Hall of Fame, into which folks like Bill Clinton, Katharine Graham, and Paul Revere were inducted in Never Eat Alone.

In a recent Sports Illustrated article about the painful two years Rivers had to sit the bench and stand the sidelines before getting his chance to perform, it's clear that Rivers understood how relationships could make or break his success when he would finally join the first team.

...he sat [the bench].

But he didn't sit back. During those two seasons Rivers willed
himself into the Chargers' inner circle. On the practice field he'd
show his competitiveness by barking at first-teamers like linebacker
Donnie Edwards: "Y'all better be ready, I'm gonna hit 'em all today."
In the locker room the 6'5", 228-pound Rivers made a point of bouncing
from cubicle to cubicle, chatting up the veterans whom he might someday
command in the huddle. "I tried to build relationships," says Rivers.
"If I wound up being the starter, I didn't want to have to walk up to
guys and say, 'Hello, my name is Philip.'"

All-Pro tailback
LaDainian Tomlinson howls at this revelation. "Is that what he was
doing? You'd never know it. It was like he was another guy in the room
having a conversation with his teammates."

Full story at SI.com - "Worth the Wait" (subscription required)

3 comments // In Never Eat Alone

ERM allows you to create an
automatic process to scale intimacy, focus on building deeper real
relationships with key influencers who will help you succeed, and
achieve the full potential of your network. But we never let our
clients forget that building better relationships will bring each of us
more joy in our long and demanding days and ultimately in our lives.

More at...
CRM magazine: "Building Better Relationships Through ERM: A proactive mindset and process for deepening bonds"

1 comment // In Never Eat Alone

Keith Ferrazzi

From leadership expert Jim Citrin's new column at Yahoo! Finance...

Just about everything we do in both our personal and professional
lives is dependent on other people. And how you interact with those
people has a direct effect. Even such seemingly "non-relationship"
things as learning from a teacher in school or getting a ticket from a
police officer are directly affected by your relationship skills.

I
just had this conversation with my kids, two of whom are in high
school. "Who do you think the teacher will be more supportive of when
it comes to assigning grades -- the student who does his work with a
positive attitude, who goes in for extra help and pays full and engaged
attention in class, or the one who sits back, even if they have the
same test scores?"

I love that Jim is already teaching his children the importance of relationships to their academic/professional advancement while they're so young.

Some parents, unfortunately, have the mindset that their children should learn this way of the world on their own, or "the hard way," perhaps because they did.

But I think Jim has the right idea, to teach children the build it before you need it lesson and help them start setting themselves up for success as early as they want, so--as all good parents hope--they have it better than we did.

3 comments // In Never Eat Alone

Ian Ybarra

I like the idea of sending e-cards rather than paper cards to save time and money, but I couldn't bring myself to send one because it seemed like my only choices were singing turkeys or too-warm-and-fuzzy messages on pastel flowers.

But now, there's Delivr.net, which lets you "search over 3,000,000 [Creative Commons] licensed images, or lookup your own CC licensed pix on Flickr to create a unique custom greeting card."
Perfect. Just the right photo and the right message is all I need.

Thanks to Uncle Mark's Gift Guide & Almanac 2007 for the useful tip.

13 comments // In Never Eat Alone

Today I had an interesting call. I spoke with
Kristen Silverberg, the Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs. She’s a very charming woman, sharing anecdotes about
her three year old niece, as well as being as intellectually stimulating as
they come.  We brainstormed some great ideas for incorporating ERM
(executive relationship management) and PRM (personal relationship management)
into international relations.

Kristen brought up the conflicting ideas surrounding our
country right now, not only involving criticism from the outside, but debate
from the inside as well.  She focuses the bulk of her time on the Security
Council working on negotiations with resolution language. Funny, one of
the main criticisms the United States faces is that of “going it alone,”
and this is becoming a dignity issue for the rest of the world. We are
starting to appear, from the outside, as though we don’t need the help of other
countries, and that couldn’t be more untrue.

I couldn’t help but see how this relates to each of us as
individuals – the struggle with being able to ask for help, and letting other
people help. The interesting thing about it is that when a person, or in
this case, a country, is brave enough to ask for help, it increases the value
of that country as a brand.  I can’t remember a time when brand USA was more
valued than after 9/11, or when Katrina devastated our southern coast. The
pinnacle of intimacy is letting people help you and being able to ask for
help. When you ask for help, you’re at once showing respect for their
abilities and letting them inside your walls.

There are so many things in our lives that make us build
up walls around ourselves. The sad thing is that we think our walls are so
unique, that no one else has the same ones, but at the end of the day, we all
have similar worries and frustrations and we are all looking for the same
things, deep mutual understanding with others.  The way we get there is to
help people get comfortable to “exhale.” Get them to talk about things they are
passionate about.  Tell people about our own past struggles. It comforts
others to know that we haven’t had it easy either, that life is a struggle for
all of us.

Kristen sees this all the time. She said that people
in foreign diplomacy are always traveling to ask someone for a meeting, or to
ask people to stand on their side.  They want to be sure they haven’t been
abandoned.  To ask for this kind of help means asking to share some level
of intimacy with them.

While some people may look at this plane of intimacy as
insincere, it’s important to realize that if your heart is in the right place
then it isn’t trite at all.

I believe what Kristen is doing is so important and
needed right now. I have said for a long time that the “brand” of the United States of America needs some attention, and Ms. Silverberg appears to share that sentiment. Not
that we should focus too much on promoting brand USA for the sake of promotion.
Without changing our relationships, that sort of marketing would be hollow and
only alienates people and countries and groups that could help us, and us them. We need genuine relationships to strengthen our country's brand just like our personal brands.

16 comments // In Never Eat Alone

Relevant links
Senator Evan Bayh

Danny Meyer's book, Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business

0 comments // In Never Eat Alone

Relevant links
Steve Rubin, one of the most influential people in books

Gore Vidal's new memoir: Point to Point Navigation

0 comments // In Never Eat Alone

Just like Keith describes in Never Eat Alone Chapter 16 "Expanding Your Circle"...Rob Felber (Felber & Felber Marketing), Roger Balser (Balser Wealth Management), and Jeff Nischwitz (CBIZ) put their networks together for an evening at The Club at Key Center in Cleveland. Rob and Jeff served as guest bartenders for their "thirsty and generous colleagues," whose donations and tips were passed on to E CITY Cleveland, a local non-profit
that teaches young people in Cleveland about business and
entrepreneurship. Rob Felber said, "We just hoped to top 50 people, so we were shocked when attendance went over 225!"

No surprise here, though. When you're in the practice of building real relationships and you put together an event where people can expand their circles and contribute to a good cause, you'll draw a shockingly large crowd, too.

1 comment // In Never Eat Alone

Carved by the Ferrazzi Greenlight team

3 comments // In Never Eat Alone