Yu-kai Chou

Influencers are generally too busy with their emails, meetings, tweets etc

There are always benefits when more influential people know about you and think positively of you. If they like you, they are able to give you shootouts, advice, connections, and all that good stuff. However, it’s often very difficult to get their attention since they’re always bombarded with all sorts of things.

Twitter creates that opportunity for you to contact them instantly. But still, you’ve tweeted out to them before, and either they completely ignored you, or they responded back, made you feel great, and you know they forgot about you right after.

Engage your followers those you follow

Most advice out there tell you to engage your followers. I can’t agree more with that. However, if you want to get non-followers to know who you are (read: not to “follow” you), you’ll need to do more than that.

Based on some of my own experiences on Twitter, I learned a few things that can get peoples’ attention on it. With a bit over 20,000 followers, I’m definitely not a web celebrity or a big time influencer(they’re usually in the millions), but it is still impractical for me to really know everyone on my list. But there are somehow some folks that I’ve seen over and over again that I just feel I know them in some way, even when I know absolutely nothing about them besides they respond to my tweets or retweet me every once in a while.

These are people who go on my radar on a regular basis, although I don’t talk to them much. As time goes by, I become more and more familiar to them. It’s interesting, because I don’t even necessarily like them (some of them are kinda rude to others), but when they ask me for help, I usually follow through and do it for them. I feel like they are my Twitter friends, despite the lack of past communication.

A while ago, one of them for some reason stopped tweeting me. I didn’t really notice that he stopped when it happened, but after a few months, he retweeted me again. When I saw it, I thought, “Oh yea! This guy! I haven’t seen him for such a long time!” and so I tweeted him and asked how he was doing. We still don’t talk much, but I’m definitely part of his resources now. Out of all my followers, this guy was able to build implicit friendship with me with just a few tweets here and there.

If you are consistently and persistently there for someone, you can become his/her friend.

Getting tweets is not annoying because people are not EXPECTED to respond

A lot of people would ask, “Well, wouldn’t it be really annoying if I keep tweeting them, when they don’t even want to respond?”

That’s sometimes true for email, but on Twitter as long as you are saying appropriate and relevant things, people don’t mind. The difference between Twitter and email here is that in emails, people are expected to respond to you. This creates some implicit pressure and annoyance when you are constantly sending them something.

But in Twitter, oftentimes a response to their witty comment or expression of gratitude does not give people this kind of pressure. They simply feel that their tweet is getting more responses from others and will probably feel good about themselves.

This is the same philosophy as constantly commenting on other blogs. If you do it once, it’s almost as if you haven’t done anything. But if you are always there commenting whenever someone has a new post, you will be discovered. Like right now Johann Ly can ask me any favor and I’ll probably say yes

So don’t worry about annoying people (obviously don’t tweet them 20 times in one day). Just stay persistent and good things will come.

Here are 7 steps to  become known by influencers:

Step 1: Make sure your Twitter Icon is distinctive

You should have nailed this by now. Most people on Twitter identify you as your little icon instead of your name. Your image needs to stand out from the rest so that people make no mistake if they have talked to you before. I purposely made my Twitter icon more “digitalized” with the white background so it’s easily recognizable when people see it. If you haven’t even nailed down this part, you should check out one of my most popular posts: How to Start, Settle, and Fall in Love with Twitter.

Step 2: Follow the Lists of people you want to connect with

This is the important part. Once you know who you want to meet (famous investors, programmers, retail company accounts etc etc), you should either put together your own “awesome people I want to meet” list, or go on sites like Listorious to find that group of people. Try to only focus on a handful of groups because the purpose of using lists is to narrow it down to a manageable amount of people that you can actually engage and build relationships with. Follow the list through Twitter so it can be piped into your apps.

Step 3: Setup the lists as columns in your computer Twitter Clients

Once the lists is added onto Twitter, you should create a column for each list in your computer Twitter Client such as Seesmic, Tweetdeck, or Hootsuite. They all offer tools that help you import lists and engage with them. Make sure that the column is at a place that you will easily see on a daily basis, instead of hidden somewhere so you’ll be reminded to do this often.

Step 4: Setup the lists as columns on your mobile Twitter Client

Besides setting the lists up on your computer, you also want to make sure you set it up on your mobile apps. I personally feel that Tweetdeck is the best on the iPhone(though I don’t like it as much on the desktop) because it allows you to store/view multiple lists very easily.

Step 5: Devote 15 minutes a day to respond to and retweet everyone on the list

After you have it set up on your Desktop/Web client, try to devote 15 minutes everyday to engage the people on the list. Retweet what they say with a few words before it (like “That IS pretty funny! RT @cow….”) , respond to things they say, and cheer them on when appropriate. The point is that you don’t even need to say anything intellectual. You can just say, “Good luck with your meeting!” or “Wow, that’s pretty amazing!” “Thanks for sharing the link” and that’s all fine. The point is to get them to see you icon on a regular basis, even if they ignore you.

Step 6: Engage your Follow Lists through mobile whenever you are waiting for something

Do the exact same thing when you are outdoors waiting for something. If you are waiting in line, on the bus, at a meeting where the other person is late, just take out your mobile phone and tweet away. You want to be there as much as you can. I actually never feel bored anymore when I’m waiting for something since I really just tweet away (even when I’m waiting for food to be served in a fast-food place). Before doing this, I would only tweet out once, then respond to a few @ messages, maybe check out a few interesting trends or keywords, but really most of it is just finding something to do but not necessarily productive. This makes life more interesting.

Step 7: Do this continuously until the people recognize your name and start to respond to you

After you do this for awhile, people will start noticing you. By then, when you actually need some help, you have a good chance of receiving by just tweeting them, “Hey, I was wondering if you could help out and share this” or “Hey, I have some questions regarding ecommerce sites. Is it possible to ask you some questions?” If they actively remember you retweeting their stuff and responding to them whenever they are sharing their feelings, you have good odds of this going through.

Ultimately, you want to think of them as real friends instead of “targets.” However, since you had no chance of becoming friends naturally, it’s useful to apply strategies to build genuine relationships. When a guy’s pursuing a girl, he’s looking for a genuine relationship, but he’s also gotta be a little tactful and shrewd to stand out from all the other men who are trying to get her attention.

What are other ways to meet people that are usually too busy to talk to you?

Have you ever tried out other ways to make important and busy people talk to you besides the typical cold email or getting referrals? It would be awesome if you can share it in the comments so everyone can learn.

It is more blessed to give than to receive

Before I start to write about this topic, I’m going to assume that you are a good natured, helpful, and considerate person who is not trying to suck out the life blood out of everyone around him. If you think my assumption is incorrect, go back to the post where I talk about how Integrity, Sincerity and Optimism are the first three cores of FD Networking (out of six).

In order to level up in the game of life, you need to always be prepared to help others. When you are aiming to become powerful, you are not just yourself, but the group of people you have influence over. When that’s the case, peoples’ business is your business, and you benefit if these business are going well. You should always take others’ welfare to heart and strive to make the group better as a whole.

But sometimes you need help

I’ve always been the type that tries to help everyone and has a hard time saying no. My Cofounder, who is also my Classmate and Pledge Bro said that at UCLA, “Everyone knew [me] as the young entrepreneur who … would go out of his way to help you out“. It’s such a given that after awhile, when someone says, “Hey, can you do something for me?” I just immediately respond, “Yes. What is it?” (this usually surprises people a little) because I know that I’ll probably say yes at the end anyway, so might as well make it seem cooler than being persuaded at the end(another principle that I will touch on in later posts). I mean, common, if he says something ridiculous like ,”I need you to kill someone for me”, I’m sure no one’s going to pin me to my word if I then say, “Actually I’m really sorry, but that’s a little over the line.”

And up to a few weeks ago, I’m always the one connecting people to others, giving people tips and ideas, and occasionally fill in for some chore-like work. That made me happy. But as my company is getting into a stage where I need to raise money and get lots and lots of expert advice to stay on the right track, I realized I needed help. I realize I can’t do this by myself and I need others to connect me as a trusted source to potential investors and industry expert. Now that became difficult.

Getting past the emotional barrier of asking for help

To be honest,  I’m not used to asking for help. In many ways, it’s so much easier to offer help than to ask for help. One part of it is that I didn’t want to inconvenience other people. Everyone’s busy and I shouldn’t burden them with my problem. On the other hand, they might say no and make things awkward, even hurting the friendship. But I think the biggest problem of all (and I believe it’s the same for a lot of people) is pride.

Pride is the enemy of Power.

When you ask for help, you are humbling yourself and putting yourself at the mercy of others. You are no longer the person who has the answer, who has the solution, who understands. You are the person who has a question, who has a problem, who is looking to be understood. And taking that position is definitely not as fun.

It’s even worse when you have done nothing for this person. If you have done him a favor in the past, it’s pretty straightforward. But how do you approach an acquaintance and ask for help?

A man with pride has the power of one, but a man without pride has the power of many

The past two weeks has been amazing. I have received so much help from so many amazing people that I knew very little beforehand that I really started to see how beautiful this world can be. Some of these people are casual friends with me, some of them I met through the internet, some of them I bumped to at an event, and most of them I rarely speak to, but they all took a lot of initiative, went out of their ways and connected me to other great people as well as unbiased advice. Of course, I got some rejections too, but even that wasn’t as bad as anticipated.

I want to thank all the great people who has taken initiative to help me in more ways than I asked for: Jessica Mah from Indinero, Noah Kagen from GetGambit, Chris McCann from Startup Digest, Ray Wu at BoundaryFree, eCommerce Guru Jason Billingsley, Tracy Lee from LiveUmbrella, Hiten Shah from KISS Metrics, Dan Martel from Flowtown, Cina.org President Vicki Young, and Genevieve Kayat from Enthalpi Advisory. They all get my highest recommendations.

And again this is just in the past couple of weeks. I still am on a long journey that needs a lot more help from a lot more people, and I’m excited to see what great people I’ll connect to in the future.

Greater than Zero is greater than Zero

When asking for help, some people wonder, “why bother? The chances of this successful person helping me is so low it’s just not worth the effort.”

However, the reality is that the worse that can happen is that they say no, which is also the default result if you don’t ask. If you don’t ask, your chances of getting the help you need is zero. If you do ask, you have a small chance of getting the help you need. That should really be a no brainer, AS LONG as you appear sincere and do hope to help them too in whatever endeavors you can.

Sometimes asking when you know you will get rejected can be strategical too. If you ask someone a favor and was rejected not because of how much they like you but their inability to help at that level, often times they will be more prone to saying yes the next time you ask something that’s more manageable to them. You’ll never know if you don’t ask.

Your friends are there for you

If you have lived your life as a decent person, chances are you have tons of friends who are willing to help you out when you need it. They just don’t know when you need help and what kind of help you need. Sometimes after the fact they even get upset at you for not telling them about what you need earlier since they could have saved you from misfortune. Therefore, asking for help is not like being rude, invasive, or pushy, it’s about letting people know what you need and giving them an opportunity to help you.

If you have true friends, they’ll be seizing those opportunities whenever they get a chance.

What about you?

Have you ever had a situation where you had to lower your pride and ask for peoples’ help? How did that go? Would love to hear you share about your experience on the comments section below, even if it completely bashes what I say.

Your Core is your driver

It all starts here. Your Core. Without your core, you are easily swayed by others, you become a product of conformity, and you cannot be a leader. Your Core is what stops you from being an NPC (Non-playable character) and allows you to become the Hero.

Have you ever talked to someone and you instantly felt that there was something about the person that made him/her respectable or even intimidating? And that person may not be very physically large, particularly good looking, and he hasn’t said enough things for you to truly conclude that he is highly intelligent. Nevertheless, it seems like he is really smart, knows what he is talking about, and you can really rely on him. That is usually because he has a strong Core. He believes and trusts in himself, and that conviction spreads to others.

My own story on discovering the Core

When I was little, I moved a lot (I still do). Whenever I get into a new environment, it’s usually an uphill battle in all aspects of my life. I don’t speak the language, I’m behind in school, and there were cultural shocks so people thought I was a jerk or a joke. And after I worked really hard and finally got caught up to everyone on everything, I would be moved to an entire new environment where I sucked again.

Now this process wasn’t fun growing up, but I learned a lot of things. I think it taught me a lot of useful lessons in becoming an entrepreneur, but inn this post I specifically want to share what I learned about the Core and how it affects everything.

In the earlier days of my childhood, I’ve always been trying to be like others, always trying to fit in. I was coreless, and wanted to be accepted by the kids in that new environment. I soon learned that what’s polite and correct in what place could be offensive and rude in another. In my past attempts to become accepted, I’ve played the roll of the clown that everyone laughs at,  or the kid who doesn’t mind being bullied. It was not ideal, but at least I was accepted and played a part in that social community.

At one point in life (though a bit late), an epiphany hit me: “why should I try so hard just to be like others? They’re not necessarily better. Why don’t I just think up an ideal person I want to be, and just be that person?”

From that point on, I decided to live my life and behave not as how others would accept me as, but what I think is right. I wanted to be someone who is sociable, helpful, confident, direct, has compassion towards others, and someone with integrity.

Having a strong core helps you obtain trust and respect from others

After I made that big decision in life, something changed. I noticed that all these people that I tried so hard to be like in the past started to lean on me instead. It turns out that most people in society are not sure of themselves and do not know what to believe in. They are swaying within their own core, and once they see that you are solid and firm, they believe in you instead.

So things started to change for me. Once I started to really believe in myself, I noticed that more and more people began to trust me and respect me (how much of that is deserved is another thing). For most of the years, I didn’t understand this dynamic with the Core. I just thought, “Maybe I just look trustworthy or I look smarter than I really am…”

This is until I met other people with extremely strong cores. There are times when I meet “cool people who are confident about themselves”, which usually pretty popular folks. But then in rare occasions, I simply meet some “impressive” people who for some reason pounds my chest with a lot of pressure when I talk to them.

When I tried to figure out what they do to have this effect on me, I realized that it’s a very subtle thing, but just the way they hold themselves and speak instantly creates an aura that I have no choice but to acknowledge and react to.

After those experiences, I started to notice the strength of everyone’s core. Some people, when they talk, you know they are trying to get your approval, and their core is really a bit external of their bodies. While others you can tell that they are confident with their core inside of them, but it’s not particularly strong, so a person with a stronger core could easily influence them.

After a while, being able to pay attention to everyone’s core allows you to make decisions in how you want to interact with others. But most importantly, it allows you to discover, understand, and build your own core.

The Core is not just for show, but for essence.

Up to this point, I keep talking about how having a strong core can influence how others treat you, but in reality it’s something that gives you internal strength, instead of external benefits.

Having a strong core allows you to be more emotionally stable. Because you have full trust in yourself and are firm within, you won’t freak out and act irrationally to uncontrollable situations. You’re able to just take in information, process, analyze, and decide on the best action.

Also, having a strong core prevents you from feeling jealous of others or fall from peer pressure. You know your value, and you know there are things you can’t do. None of that should affect you as you continue to live on your life with value and dignity.

Having a strong core also allows you to pursue your goals, since you you will be affected by less external obstacles like peer pressure and internal obstacles like fear and self-doubt. To be successful, it is very important to build that strong core.

How to develop a strong core?

So the question is really, how do you develop a strong core? Everyone can agree that having a strong core is good, and everyone wants to hold firm and believe in themselves, but when it comes down to it, how do you develop that core when you don’t think you do things better than those around you?

Having a strong core is an attitude, which means it one of the easiest things to do, and one of the hardest things to do. Easy because it doesn’t require any skill. You just change your attitude. Hardest because most people don’t know how to control their mentalities. After all, it takes good attitude to change your attitude.

The truth is that having a strong core doesn’t mean you have to be the best at anything. It doesn’t mean you have to be perfect. It simply means you are happy with who you are. If you are completely content with yourself without any insecurities, you will be able to develop a strong core.

And having a strong core is displayed not by what you say, but how you say it (or handle situations). Both people with strong and weak cores can say, “I am completely ignorant on this topic so whatever you say counts”, but the person with a strong core will say it in a manner that does not show insecurity nor helplessness, but as a best-strategy case, whereas the person with a weak core will be more unsettled. This dynamic is subtle in body languages and tones, and is pretty hard to convey through text on a blog, but hopefully you’re able to see what I’m talking about.

A Strong Core starts with Integrity

It’s really important to have integrity if you want to develop a strong core. In order for you to be happy about yourself, you need to make sure you don’t do anything you think is shameful. Essentially, integrity is important here because there’s always going to be people that are smarter and dumber than you, but you can be confident because you are able to say that, during tough times when difficult decisions need to be made, you can make the right decisions that other people won’t be able to make.

Similarly, the majority of the people around you don’t need to trust your abilities, but they do need to trust your character all the time. That’s why your character is ultimately what allows people to respect you, and what enables you to respect yourself.

Focus on good character, and you will have a stronger core.

Having a strong core is one of the fundamentals of my FD Power Coaching system, so I’ll elaborate more on that in later posts. For now, just make sure you maintain a strong character that you can be proud of.

What about you?

Do you have experience with slowly building up a strong core, or have met someone with a such a strong core that you wanted to follow them or were intimidated? I look forward to learning from your experiences!

Become powerful within your existing friends

There are many people who are not interested in becoming powerful and impactful in the world, but almost everyone wants to be influential and respected among their friends and peers.

However, the majority of the people do not become that, mostly because they are so comfortable with their existing social statuses in their groups that they don’t know how to make it different.

Here are some guidelines to help you become more influential within your circle. Your circle could mean anything from your small group of friends, your class, your department, or your entire organization.

1. Become the best

This is the most straight forward but most difficult way to become influential. It simply means being the best at whatever your group is doing. In fact, most respectable and influential individuals from a group are the ones that have mastered their skillsets the most, whether it be basketball, sales, programming, or just video games.

The way to do this is simply matching talent with hard work and becoming the best. Nothing fancy. Interestingly enough, a lot of people who become extremely successful later on in life still highly respect their childhood friends who were remarkable in a game they played, even if the friends are not very successful themselves.

One key to note is that the activity you excel at must be shared by all the people in your circle. If you are the best at chess in a chess club, you will be respected since everyone is doing it. But if you are best at sales but your circle does marketing and finance, then it doesn’t work as well. Finally, conduct yourself in a manner that minimizes jealously (elaborated in another post)

2. Become useful

If you don’t have the ability to become the best at what you do (by definition the majority of the people), another way is to become useful. This means that you are always there to help everyone out, and always have the right resources handy when it’s needed.

This is much easier to accomplished because you do not need to be the most talented at something. You just need to be the most prepared and most available out of all. If you are the one that brings something when no one else thought it would come in handy, or you remembered a piece of information that suddenly was needed, people will start to trust you. Eventually, as you are there for everyone and people start to rely on you more and more, you start to gain in respect and influence.

One key to note is that you want to make sure you don’t do it in a manner that suggests people can simply take advantage of you. You want to make sure you maintain a strong core and are only helping because you want to help so don’t feel like people can trample over you. Learn how to say no when you have to.

3. Become audacious

This is something interesting, but people usually respect others who can overcome their own fears. Most fears are not encountered on a regular social basis, but stepping out of the norm, being an uncomformist, and approaching new people in public is something that most people are uncomfortable with.

If you are always taking initiative in contacting people, organizing events/hangouts, talking to strangers in the group’s behalf, you usually earn a lot of respect from the group. It’s a strange social energy that displays that you are confident and know what you are doing. Sometimes this translates to charisma, which can be obtained without really being good at anything else besides being audacious.

Again, how you do this is essential. You need to do this in a very positive and sociable light. Anything else can make you seem weird, obnoxious, or creepy. Just like hitting on girls, there’s only a thin line between smooth and sleazy.

4. Become a maven

Another way to develop influence in your circle is to be the trusted advisor of this group. This means that even though you might not be the best at what you do, you are the most knowledgeable in the field and have a passion in sharing your knowledge.

To be a maven, you do need to be passionate about the topic and are constantly updated on the latest news and developments on that topic. You need to know a large amount of relevant information, it’s sources, and how it is comparable to similar products. Once you have that established, even the top performer will come to you for the best and updated information. Now you are respected like a coach, or Yoda.

5. Become a connector

Finally, the fifth way of becoming more influential in your circle is to become a connector. This is probably the easiest as you don’t need to have any skills of your own, but simply the enjoyment of making new friends and helping them out with your existing friends.

Whenever someone in your circle has a need, you know the friend who can solve the need, and you make a connection. The first helped person now owes you a little favor. You can then use this favor to help someone else, and that someone else also owes you a little favor. As time goes by, everyone will owe you a little favor and you have become very influential as your network grows. People then need to maintain a good relationship with you because you are their window to all the resources out there in the world.

If you have seen the movie, you’ll notice that the Godfather actually is not the best at any skill, he isn’t necessarily “useful” or a maven, he is not more audacious than many others, but he is a connector that everyone needs to depend on. His influence comes from his network and how he is able to leverage that for himself and his friends.

Summary: Be Remarkable, Provide Value, and Be Proactive.

Everyone has different styles, and not every guideline above fits you. If you do all of them, you are bound to be extremely extremely influencial in whatever circle you are in (charismatic and confident leader who is the best at what he does, shares tons of knowledge, there when people need him, and connects people to tons of others), but depending on who you are, sometimes you just need to do one and you will become more respected and influential amongst your peers. Most of them are not too hard. It just takes a little heart and a little action. Always try to Be Remarkable, Provide Value, and Be Proactive.

It’s time for you to share your ideas or destroy mine. Lets have a dialogue in the comment section below.

Power Coaching: Life Coaching for highly motivated and ambitious individuals

For 2010, I am starting a series on Power Coaching. That’s basically teaching people how to become powerful in whatever fields they are in and things they care about. It is similar to the common Life Coaching, but more geared towards ambitious individuals who does not just want to live a comfortable and stable life but want to become the best in what they do and become influential and impactful in this world.

This would be an extension to the FD Lifestyle that I created in 2005. (Check here to see my presentation at Google on it)

Is Power Bad?

I first want to make a disclaimer that “Power” has a slightly negative connotation, as people say “power corrupts” and how the rule of nature is the “powerful exploiting the weak.” However, I believe power itself is neutral.

Power just allows one to make something happen, so it could be used to do extreme good, or extreme evil. In the context of this blog, Power simply means being resourceful and influential enough to create an impact in whatever you care about.

Finally, since I like to draw analogies from the gaming world to this world, Power is just a common phrase in being really strong at something (and isn’t that where a lot of passions lie? Many people couldn’t do what they want in the real world so they decide to be a hero in a virtual world).

Again, I am not teaching you how to gain “freedom” or create passive income that allows you to chill at the beach all day. Sure, these would be very useful in becoming powerful, but that’s not the end goal. The goal is not to let you live a “free” life but to let you live a “fulfilling” life. It’s the life of “With great power, comes great responsibilities.”

If you were playing a game and you had absolute “freedom” in running around, going to town, the fields, eat and buy stuff, but you don’t have a mission, would that be fulfilling? Probably not.

This blog will be about how to beat the game.

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Today is the first day of a new decade.

Yes, some argue that 2011 should be the beginning of the new decade, but I don’t care. At least my bank uses the format 1990-1999 and 2000-2009 to determine one period. Perhaps if I failed on my goals this year, next year I will say “NOW is the beginning of the new decade. ROAR!!”

But lets hope not.

THIS is going to be the year. This is going to be the year where I straighten out everything in my life, where I finally launch the long-boiled fleet of Carriers, D-Web enabled Corsairs, handful of Arbiters, and of course a couple observers.

I’m not going to make a “New Years Resolution.” I don’t think they really get met much. It’s more like a joke that appends “expected to fail and renewed the year after” (and I do have high respect for those who actually meet their NYR for an entire year). Instead, I will create principles of how I should live my life in 2010, a “plan” or “strategy” on how to become a stronger character on my server, conquer harder quests, and beat the game of life.

Here are the things that I think are essential in 2010 for me to convert all the things that I have built up to into actual success:

2010 is the Year of Hustle

I like to think through a lot of things, contemplate how everything comes together, see trends, match personalities and parties, and analyze everything on each step while I am taking actioning. As a result, my execution might be slower than it could be. This is the year where I WILL improve my execution and hustling. After all, in our industry the first to market usually does not produce winners. It’s the ones that execute the best that are the winners.

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As some of you guys know, due to family reasons and a bit more, I have temporarily left the US and am now operating from the lovely Vancouver in Canada. Leaving the Golden State was tough, and the team wondered if I could still be running the company from here.

But afterall, our team was virtual even before I left the states. We had members from a variety of places, and even team members from the same city don’t sit and work together. So as long as the time zone wasn’t different, it was not as terrible.

To prove this point, we recently entered a Vator.tv competition for $10,000 sponsored by Elance, called “A New Way to Work“. We previously got 10th place in a competition out of 140 startups and pitched the Viralogy idea in front of a number of different investors. We also won 1st place at a VC Pitch Competition.

This project was designed to illustrate the advantages of working virtually on a team without an office. Since we have people from Los Angeles, San Francisco, Vancouver, Seattle, Texas, New York, and even Turkey, this was fun to make as we each share our experiences.

An excerpt:
Breaking the mold of a localized business allows me to plan my hours and my days the way I want. Whether I work at 2 p.m. or 2 a.m. is up to me, and it allows me to manage my productivity effectively. If I need to spend more time with my dog or my fiancée during the day so that I can burn the midnight oil at night, I can do that. If I want to spend my day working on my netbook in a coffee shop, I can do that too. It’s a large responsibility that can be incredibly rewarding if managed well.

Working virtually means that our staff is extremely flexible and respectful of each other’s needs in terms of time. For example, we hold a weekly company meeting at 8 p.m. Those meeting times are extremely rare in the normal corporate culture, but we have found it to be a perfect time to collaborate and think creatively. When you can work in a virtual workplace, you have increased flexibility not only with respect to location, but time as well.

If you want to run a virtual office and don’t know how, check out the blog de Viralogy!

We have huge blindspots

Most of us want to become better at what we do or become a better person in general. The problem is that we have too many blindspots for ourselves to really find out what we really need to work on. When something goes wrong, we can think of a hundred external factors for that reason, but we genuinely cannot see our own faults.

And when it comes down to it, most people WANT to know their flaws that they don’t see themselves. The problem is, it’s considered impolite for people to tell you of your faults when it is not completely necessary. Most people are non-confrontational, and not everyone takes criticism constructively.

Use the magic mirror around you

The solution to this? Just ask. I have experienced and seen numerous times when someone randomly asks, “What can I do to improve myself?” And immediately, almost without thinking, people give the asker a very constructive list of things they can work on. It’s like they’ve been thinking about it all along but never felt comfortable enough to share it.

By asking this very simple question often, you will constantly find things you are blinded by and can improve on. This works especially well when you ask people who can benefit from your improvement (like being more considerate to loved ones, setting more accountability for the team).

For instance, if the Queen from Snow White had a magic mirror as good as the “straight-forward friend”, the mirror would tell her that her problem is not that she’s not fair enough, but “You are too vain, self-conscious, and jealous of others. You can never be happy if you can’t accept yourself. You should just be happy with who you are and love life.” I consider that an infinitely better solution than trying to poison an innocent girl to death.

Set up Mirror Alerts

Often times, even after we know we need to improve something, it’s never instant, and we usually make the same mistakes over and over without realizing it. So after you know what you need to improve on, a good follow up is, “Thanks! Can you remind me every time I do that again? Sometimes I’m not aware of it…” And now you gave people the permission to harass you whenever you screw up. Pretty awesome.

What straight-forward advice have you gotten from friends, or one’s you have given to friends?

Reading is good, but socializing is more fun! I look forward to your ideas and experiences in the comment section!