[HN Gopher] Summary: Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi with Tahl...
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Summary: Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi with Tahl Raz
Author : chegra
Score : 73 points
Date : 2021-06-13 12:46 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.chestergrant.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.chestergrant.com)
| kstenerud wrote:
| All I've found is that the more I help people, the more I get
| taken advantage of. It hasn't stopped me from helping others
| (although I probably should...), but it really galls me when they
| toss me aside after my usefulness to them has passed.
| jlos wrote:
| Oddly enough, you'd have better results if you asked the person
| to help you out instead. I'm missing the research but hand-wavy
| explanation is that you justify having done something for
| someone by becoming more attached to them. I also think asking
| for help is a sign of vulnerability and signals trust
| jes wrote:
| For much of my life, I engaged in "Nice Guy" behavior.
|
| A common Nice Guy pattern is helping someone else with the
| (unstated) expectation that they will reciprocate. Glover calls
| it a "covert contract." I had to learn that I was doing this,
| and it was embarrassing to learn that I was, in fact, doing it.
|
| Google "Robert Glover" and "Nice Guy Syndrome" if you want to
| check whether this might have some applicability to your
| situation.
| BeetleB wrote:
| There's not too much of a difference between what Keith
| Ferrazzi is saying and "Nice Guy". He's saying the more you
| help people, the more you'll get back. The only difference is
| that he's not saying that _each_ person you help will help
| you back, and that you shouldn 't expect they will. But the
| overall message in the book is that the more you help people,
| the more they'll help you in the long run.
|
| With that pointed out, the top comment in the parent cannot
| be dismissed by a mere labeling of "Nice Guy". His experience
| is a valid criticism of Keith's message, and it is a reality
| that the message is not universally applicable. You
| definitely will get people who'll take advantage of you.
| They'll see that you're willing to help them, and they'll
| keep coming to you for more and more help. There will even be
| folks who'll get upset when you don't help them. That you
| have to put barriers between yourself and such folk is not
| something the book handles well (read it years ago so I may
| be wrong).
| nicbou wrote:
| His book was really interesting, although there is at least
| one decent online summary that should suffice to get the
| idea.
|
| Another one - I don't know if it's in that book - is that
| people generally feel the need to reciprocate nice gestures.
| Unwanted help can feel a lot like unwanted debt.
| kstenerud wrote:
| No, that doesn't seem to match what I'm dealing with.
|
| Specifically to my situation: I help someone I've known for
| awhile, and afterwards I expect that it will develop a closer
| working relationship of some sort in the future because
| they'll remember that I helped them out and that we can work
| together to accomplish things.
|
| What really happens is that after I've helped them, they're
| not interested in any collaboration anymore unless it meets
| their immediate needs, and definitely aren't interested in
| helping out if I need it in future.
| markozivanovic wrote:
| That's the whole point of the 'nice guy' shtick.
|
| Doing something and expecting something in return.
| kstenerud wrote:
| That wasn't how Robert Glover described it. Quoted from
| his website:
|
| Who is a Nice Guy?
|
| * He is the relative who lets his wife run the show.
|
| * He is the friend who will do anything for anybody, but
| whose own life seems to be in shambles.
|
| * He is the guy who frustrates his wife because he is so
| afraid of conflict that nothing ever gets resolved.
|
| * He is the boss who tells one person what they want to
| hear, then reverses himself to please someone else.
|
| * He is the man who lets people walk all over him because
| he doesn't want to rock the boat.
|
| * He is the dependable guy at work who will never say
| "no," but would never tell anyone if they were imposing
| on him.
|
| * He is the man whose life seems so under control, until
| BOOM, one day he does something to destroy it all.
|
| ----------------
|
| This is very different from someone who does someone else
| a solid, and then that person "owes him one". Someone
| gets you free tickets to the game, and 3 months later you
| get them an introduction that helps them out. It's not a
| 1:1 thing obviously, but there's an expectation of loose
| reciprocity over the years.
|
| In all relationships you have to be on the giving part at
| least some of the time, otherwise you're just a user. And
| if you're on the giving part all of the time, you're a
| doormat. Both are unhealthy.
| ehnto wrote:
| It can be tough no doubt. I like to view it as the cost of
| being the kind of person who helps. It takes an excess of
| strength to help, so you can see yourself as being strong
| because of that. You have an excess of capability in some
| dimension and you're willing to share it. Sometimes a person
| may take advantage of you, but that's a commentary on them, not
| on you.
| nicbou wrote:
| If you find yourself doing things for approval, rather than out
| of goodwill, you are bound to be disappointed.
|
| If you are disappointed that nothing came out of it, you might
| have been making covert contracts as someone else pointed out.
| stadium wrote:
| I can relate somewhat and found that when the foundation of the
| relationship is "helping," then after that need is gone, most
| of the time so is the relationship. I was hoping for some sort
| of deeper or more meaningful friendships, or sense of
| community. It's been hard to come by from those situations.
| From my side, I realized that the longing for something deeper
| and authentic actually made the relationship transactional and
| inauthentic.
| [deleted]
| ipsin wrote:
| I enjoy this sort of content. Are there feeds similar to HN that
| focus on goals and social networking specifically?
| 1qazxsw23edc wrote:
| The one thing I like about any engineering and sales position is
| that you just can't lie about your skills, you can either build
| or sell something or you can't. There is no bullshit you can
| create at least within the organisation. And contrast it with
| other managerial jobs, where you can pretend to do the job as
| long as you can and 'network' around and when you're called out,
| you can just jump to another ship.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| I wish someone would do a study on self-help books/materials, to
| see if they actually have ever helped anyone.
|
| My issue is not that the advice they give is necessarily _wrong_
| , but it's that the format usually goes something like this:
|
| 1. Survey lots of "successful" people.
|
| 2. Identify common behaviors of these people.
|
| 3. Recommend that other people practice these behaviors.
|
| I mean, just look at the title, "Never eat alone". I don't doubt
| that most successful people have a wide network and rarely eat by
| themselves. I just don't think that telling an introvert, or
| worse, someone who is painfully shy, that making them engage in a
| behavior that is naturally uncomfortable for them will lead to
| equivalent level of success. I kind of feel like it's the same as
| telling an alcoholic "stop drinking".
| rchaud wrote:
| You could do the same for anything that purports to help
| people: training centres, home schooling, higher education.
|
| They'd all have the same result: works for some, not for
| others. Works better for those that put in the work, than for
| those that expect the product to do all the heavy lifting.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > I just don't think that telling an introvert, or worse,
| someone who is painfully shy, that making them engage in a
| behavior that is naturally uncomfortable for them will lead to
| equivalent level of success. I kind of feel like it's the same
| as telling an alcoholic "stop drinking".
|
| Half of the battle in many struggles is convincing the person
| that it's possible to change their situation. Telling stories
| of people who succeeded in changing can be enough to show that
| the reader has some control.
|
| Some people get stuck feeling as though everything in their
| life is purely the result of external factors out of their
| control. This leads to a sense of helplessness and no attempts
| to change the situation.
|
| Some self-help books really are helpful at inspiring people to
| believe that they actually do have some, albeit usually not
| total, control over their situation. This can be enough of a
| nudge to get people making the changes they need to make to
| start moving in the right direction.
|
| They're not usually miracle fixes or one-shot solutions, but
| they can shake up the status quo and point the reader in the
| right direction. No self-help book would simply tell an
| alcoholic to "just stop drinking", but they might provide steps
| for identifying triggers that lead to drinking, taking
| gradually more control and accountability for their
| consumption, and provide example success stories to show that
| people really can overcome alcoholism.
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| I think you provide a plausible theory for how some self help
| books help some situations.
|
| But I agree with the GP that strong empirical data would be
| useful as well.
| akeck wrote:
| This critique of such books is covered in the book "The Halo
| Effect". It's a good book.
| hebrox wrote:
| For a time a really was into reading business books like
| "From Good To Great". "The Halo Effect" cured me of my
| addiction :)
| zffr wrote:
| In this case I think the title is just meant to be something
| provocative that will get you to take an interest in the book.
|
| The actual book focuses more on the importance of networking
| and relationships.
|
| I haven't finished reading it myself yet, so I can't say with
| 100% certainty, but so far it seems pretty clear that the
| author's main intent is not to suggest that you should always
| eat with someone else.
| serjester wrote:
| Personally I read the book years ago and found many pieces of
| actionable advice. For example after years of having very
| distinct friend groups, I started mixing them together and the
| result was great. Tons of small tips like that.
|
| Yes you're right, this book isn't for a serious introvert. But
| Keith never claims it is? Writing a book for everyone leaves
| you with a book that's useful to no one.
|
| If I write a book about compilers, maybe even mention my book
| will make someone a better programmer, I don't expect the
| frontend guys to complain it's not accessible to them. I
| honestly struggle to understand where this mindset comes from.
| tedunangst wrote:
| The marketing for self help books rarely seems to indicate
| who the target audience is, other than everyone. I imagine
| the blurb for your compiler book would not be "The book
| everyone needs to read to understand how to use a computer
| better."
| vladf wrote:
| Why would a publisher narrow its target purchasing
| demographic preemptively?
|
| At the end of the day, the point is book sales, not to
| actually make you successful (even if that's the effect for
| some small slice of the people who actually buy it).
| sokoloff wrote:
| I don't know. Telling an alcoholic to "stop drinking" seems
| like pretty unambiguously directionally correct advice (albeit
| difficult to execute) in a way that "never eat alone" is not.
| In that way "never eat alone" is probably _much worse_ advice.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Telling an alcoholic to "stop drinking" is also _completely
| useless_ advice. How many alcoholics do you think are like
| "Oh wow, you're right, if only I had known that all along..."
| sokoloff wrote:
| Telling an alcoholic _who knows they are one and is trying
| to recover_ to "stop drinking" is probably useless. There
| are numerous alcoholics who are some combination of unaware
| or in denial and for whom that advice is not (necessarily)
| useless.
| _dibly wrote:
| Yeah, being unaware of your alcoholism doesn't make it
| any less influential on your behavior. If anything,
| telling someone who is in denial about their alcoholism
| to "stop drinking" seems like the most useless option.
| lr4444lr wrote:
| This is Newhartian Technique. See the master at work:
|
| https://youtube.com/watch?v=Gjc6V4QaxIY
| etothepii wrote:
| This is why I tried to develop A-B.fit. The hard part is
| working out what messaging leads to good outcomes, not what
| actions.
|
| "You're overweight", says the Doctor, "you need to eat less
| and move more." "No s*t Sherlock with my IQ of 147 I'd
| never managed to put that one together myself," I replied.
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| There are probably better ways to discuss the topic with
| someone trying to help you.
| BeetleB wrote:
| > There are probably better ways to discuss the topic
| with someone trying to help you.
|
| There are definitely better ways to discuss the topic
| with someone you are trying to help.
| jmchuster wrote:
| "never eat alone" is probably useful advice in the sense of
| "oh, i always eat alone, but this book says that successful
| people are doing literally the opposite of what i always do,
| maybe that means that there is a huge blind spot that i am
| missing, and that maybe i should try doing something to at
| least not miss that blind spot, and then i can decide what
| actions i need to take"
| karaterobot wrote:
| The person you're responding to was not saying that "stop
| drinking" is directionally incorrect, but that it was not
| helpful (that it will not lead to an equivalent level of
| success).
| chegra wrote:
| Oh, I observe this too. But when reading, you might come across
| a tidbit of information that might be useful. I am planning to
| follow it up with books in contrast: Deep Work and Quiet. You
| can think of a book as a buffet, and you pick and choose what
| is applicable and toss the rest.
|
| The way how I meet people tend to be like, do something
| interesting then people contact me, simple formula, more
| introvert style.
| jokoon wrote:
| It's easy to recognize the religious belief in he stereotype of
| winners and losers that stems from social darwinism in such
| article.
|
| Those lyrics from Marilyn Manson are quite relevant:
|
| "Slave never dreams to be free"
|
| "Slave only dreams to be King"
| z5h wrote:
| "When you help others, they often help you." But also "Stop
| keeping score" ... "Never keep score.".
|
| You can't ever know if the first statement is true without
| keeping score.
|
| In other words: to get the things you want, convince yourself and
| others you are being selfless then ask them for stuff.
|
| Anyone who is interested in helping people out truly selflessly
| can secretly send me money on a regular basis, and I'll make sure
| it goes to people who need it and take credit for it. You can be
| helping and not keeping score just like the book suggested.
|
| Wait... to get the book or a course or coaching I need to pay
| first? Oh I see... it's "give me exactly this much stuff first,
| so I can tell you how you should never do that."
| UbrtrbNchDneRle wrote:
| This type of "advice" never was free, but I feel like since
| about mid 2020 the economy of fictional goods exploded. E.g.
| everyone and their pony got a monetized podcast now, teasing
| you with access to their mental production. I really hope this
| isn't driven by necessity, but boredom, or I fear we are
| heading for a major crisis. I don't see how the economy can
| sustain this much bullshit. Liebe. Freiheit. Ad nauseam.
| hypertele-Xii wrote:
| Failing to keep score has gotten me robbed and conned.
| Definitely keep score. Not _exact_ score, but when your
| "friend" asks you for a loan, do consider if they paid off the
| previous one.
| BeetleB wrote:
| Yeah - loved the book but this one was hard to swallow. I agree
| with him in one sense[1], but not to the extreme.
|
| At some point in your life your time and resources will be
| quite constrained, and you simply can't help everyone. You need
| to strategize who to help, and identifying "leeches" requires
| some level of score keeping.
|
| I've certainly had multiple people speak ill of me to others
| saying that I stopped trying to connect with them. They fail to
| mention that in the last N years, they never connected with me.
| It was always me initiating the phone call/email, etc. And I
| can say that definitively only because I had phone and email
| records going back years. Simple thing to script.
|
| (BTW, not recommending you stop calling people because they
| never call you - merely illustrating people's lousy behavior in
| response to it).
|
| [1] You're always going to have to give a lot more than you
| receive. Networking is fundamentally very inefficient, if you
| make this a metric.
| z5h wrote:
| I wouldn't mind the message if it were delivered a bit more
| honestly. Maybe: do some favours to folks before you need any
| in return... then don't be shy about asking for help when you
| need it... especially from those you've done favours for (and
| their peers and family). But don't expect help in return from
| everyone.
| the_arun wrote:
| I wish all these were part of academic curriculum - may be in
| High School that taught kids - how to establish genuine
| connections with people.
| etothepii wrote:
| Another _post hoc ergo proctor hoc_
|
| 49. Study after study shows that the more speeches one gives, the
| higher one's income bracket tends to be.
| koalafied wrote:
| From the wording of this sentence it's not even clear if the
| higher income came after more speeches. Only that they are
| correlated.
| etothepii wrote:
| I cannot believe this is true:
|
| 14. In 1973, when the same class was resurveyed, the differences
| between the goal setters and everyone else were stunning. The 13
| percent who had goals that were not in writing were earning, on
| average, twice as much as the 84 percent of students who had no
| goals at all. But most surprising of all, the 3 percent who had
| written their goals down were earning, on average, ten times as
| much as the other 97 percent of graduates combined!
|
| It might make a difference, but not 10x in 20 years.
| cloche wrote:
| That's because it's made up. The study never happened yet it
| keeps getting repeated in numerous self-help books.
|
| https://ask.library.yale.edu/faq/175224
| tedunangst wrote:
| Even if it were real, pretty stupefying that nobody considers
| if it's an outlier or why the study was never repeated at any
| other college. Provides some insight into the critical
| analysis vs confirmation bias in these books.
| etothepii wrote:
| The worst bit is if it was 10% and 25% it would still be
| hugely impressive figure to someone who understands numbers
| but actually plausible.
| b3morales wrote:
| Yup, and even if the stat were true the presentation is
| textbook conflation. Did the 3 percent "succeed" _because_ they
| wrote down their goals, or did they write down their goals
| _because_ they were driven to "succeed"?
|
| Do we seriously think that if every one of the 84 percent were
| tasked with sitting down and writing goals they would have
| morphed into 10x earners? A few would, sure, but not most or
| even many.
|
| I also personally object to the singular focus on monetary
| income (I want numbers on how many of the 3/84 percenters
| reported being happy, doing work they considered important,
| fulfilled, etc.) but that's just a side note. It's standard
| cherry-picking fare for this kind of advice.
| xmprt wrote:
| I also think some advice that was valid when it was studied
| back in 1973 isn't so valid anymore. The world has changed a
| lot in 50 years.
| galacticaactual wrote:
| There's always a lot of criticism when it comes to books like
| these. For those of you critical, I would encourage you to ask
| "what do the anecdotes in this book say about universal human
| patterns" instead of "what is the recipe I'm supposed to follow
| to be successful."
| jokoon wrote:
| "Life success" is such an ideological concept.
|
| The stereotype of winners and losers stems from social
| darwinism.
|
| I'd answer with those lyrics from Marilyn Manson:
|
| "Slave never dreams to be free"
|
| "Slave only dreams to be King"
| tsimionescu wrote:
| The problem most people have is with the very idea that there
| are 'universal human patterns'.
| galacticaactual wrote:
| Anyone that has a problem with the idea that these exist is
| not living in the real world.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Here's something I wrote a couple of days ago[0], that sort of
| applies to any of these "recipe for success"
| books/speakers/videos/TED Talks/fireside chats/whatever:
|
| _> Of course, the issue is that for every 10,000 appalling,
| messy, featured-on-rotten-dot-com failures, there 's one
| spectacular success. Since humans are biased to think of
| successful outcomes as more likely than they actually are, the
| ingredients for that success become a "recipe," and are slavishly
| reproduced, without any critical thought, or flexibility.
|
| > It's like a witch doctor's formula for headache cure is bat
| urine, dandruff from the shrunken head of a fallen warrior chief,
| eye of newt, boiled alligator snot, and ground willow bark. The
| willow bark is what did it, but the dandruff thing is the most
| eye-catching ingredient, so it gets the credit, and everytime the
| chief gets a hangover, they start a war.
|
| > Somewhere down the road, a copycat substitutes hemlock for the
| willow bark, and headaches become a death sentence._
|
| But all that said, it's fairly commonsense stuff. Relationship-
| building is important.
|
| For me, I'm an introvert, and I don't believe that superficial
| relationships are ideal (but are, nonetheless, often absolutely
| required). I like to have more meaningful ones, if possible; with
| deeper human connections.
|
| But I won't start a meaningful relationship, unless I am willing
| to commit to it.
|
| Part of "commit to it," is that I hold up my end of the
| relationship, and act with Integrity.
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27471953
| coldtea wrote:
| Alternative reading: productize your life, whore yourself,
| network and back-scratch others, and keep your eyes on the rat
| race, to achieve some kind of endpoint (measured as a career
| progression) that it was instilled on you into a young age as
| "success".
| bitwize wrote:
| > 2. Poverty, I realized, wasn't only a lack of financial
| resources; it was isolation from the kind of people that could
| help you make more of yourself.
|
| A.k.a. social capital, which is another way people of some races
| and backgrounds are privileged, and others marginalized. And
| which makes books like these utter nonsense that victim-blames
| the very people they are ostensibly trying to help.
| bingidingi wrote:
| I live in a poorer part of a rich city and even things like
| playdates for kids are difficult to arrange because people have
| been conditioned to fear this part of the city. "It's too far"
| is a common excuse, but the same parents are driving twice as
| far to hang out with other people in the group (but don't you
| dare point that out!).
|
| I was slightly aware of this social isolation before having
| kids, but you could mostly navigate it by learning what you
| couldn't talk about. Innocuous things poorer people talk about,
| like expensive housing, gentrification, problems with extended
| family, fixing your own apartment/house, foodstamps, my
| childhood... bring any of that stuff up and it's like you
| suddenly have two heads.
|
| That always made me feel shameful about growing up poor... but
| navigating that stuff while trying to interact with my kids'
| friends' parents has become outright infuriating. I live in a
| nice little house in a quiet neighborhood and because of my zip
| code it might as well be a leper colony. If you mention any of
| this you get ostracized in such a polite way you could almost
| be convinced that they're doing you a favor.
| marcinzm wrote:
| >bring any of that stuff up and it's like you suddenly have
| two heads.
|
| I feel this is a defensive mechanism against guilt. Those
| well off feel guilty about not helping their "friends" who
| are struggling.
|
| Although this ostracization goes both ways, seeing someone
| talk off handedly about losing more money than your family
| has seen in a decade doesn't make one feel good or wish to
| interact with them in the future.
| bingidingi wrote:
| Yeah maybe... it's just exhausting. It feels like there are
| so many presumptions about how someone is because of what
| they make or where they live that you don't even have a
| chance to befriend people who might be in a different
| economic class. Once you start tying those economic
| presumptions to race as well, "never eat alone" feels like
| an impossibility.
| johbjo wrote:
| If a game has strong positions and weak positions, then these
| positions may have different tactics. "Offensive" or "defensive"
| etc.
|
| This reads to me as "tactics for those in winning positions". The
| test is, what if everyone followed these rules?
| russellbeattie wrote:
| I hate networking and loathe networkers. People who get their job
| done by emailing, making phone calls and sitting in meetings are
| leaches. They know little which isn't told to them (they're too
| busy socializing to read a book), produce nothing, leave the
| details and hard work to others, yet somehow are given all the
| credit and reap all the benefits.
|
| Never Eat Alone is basically a guide to creating and maintaining
| insincere relationships with others so you can use them to do
| work for you. Just like Tom Sawyer, it's considered clever if you
| get all your friends to paint the fence so you don't have to. I
| personally find it nauseating.
| BeetleB wrote:
| Most successful useful products do not sell solely based on the
| merit of the code/engineering behind them. While it's true that
| without your coding skills they may not make money, it's also
| true that without people's sales and networking skills, you
| will not make money.
|
| Of course, when a company gets to a certain size, such leeches
| that you describe very clearly exist. The notion of "failing
| upwards"[1] is clear once you look for it. However, don't make
| the mistake of generalizing from the leeches who are in the
| minority to the others who are performing a useful role.
|
| [1] Including getting fired only to find better jobs. Over and
| over again.
| etothepii wrote:
| Unfortunately this is not true.
|
| I've recently started my own software business and the reality
| is that _all_ the work is going out talking to potential
| clients and understanding their problems.
|
| Writing some code at the end is usually trivial once I've
| actually understood the problem.
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