female speaker: beforewe do the introduction, i have a quick clip thati wanted to show first. [video playback] ramit sethi: hey, guys. ramit sethi here. i'm actually in the studioright now here in san francisco, recording some videosfor another project. today i want to talkabout social skills and how i used to bea freak of nature.
you have funded your 401(k). you've funded your roth ira. and it is all automatic. chase jarvis: how's it going? i'm chase jarvis. i'm an artist andan entrepreneur. and i'm lucky enough to besitting here with my man ramit. ramit sethi: it'sbecause we really got deep into the psychologyof, you know, becoming the best.
chase jarvis: yeah. ramit sethi: i want you to askyourself the same question. what business are you really in? susan cain: hi, i'm susan cain. i am author of thebook "quiet: the power of introverts in a worldthat can't stop talking." ramit sethi: your bookmade that very clear. and, as you mentioned, it'salmost, in a word, stigmatized. pamela slim: i'mpamela slim, author
of "escape from cubiclenation," and the upcoming "body of work." kris carr: hi, everybody. i'm kris carr, and i'm thefounder of kriscarr.com. ramit sethi: thankyou for coming in. if i asked you, whatpercentage of your income do you invest back inyourself, what would you say? [end video playback] female speaker:so that video clip
was a good intro for ramit. but just for those who arenot familiar with his work, he's known for his witty adviceon a wide range of topics, from personal financeto negotiation tactics, to testing systems. that's a lot of whatwe'll talk about today, to be your own masterof personal influence. and what he sharesis based on results of hundreds of tests he's runin his personal laboratory
of 500,000 monthly readers andabout 56,000 twitter followers, i guess. that's just a little bitof twitter there for us. and much of his work isbased on his background in personal influenceand persuasion that he studied at stanford. so today we'll hearfrom him and talk about his personalexperience and how he's leveraged hisbackground in psychology
to grow himselfand his business. so please welcome ramit. [applause] ramit sethi: thank you. female speaker:how are you today? ramit sethi: i'm great. thank you for having me. female speaker: yeah. actually, let me kill thevideo here so we can see that.
so let's talk a little bitabout your background first. and we've known thatyou have worn many hats. you've been an entrepreneur, abest selling author, business owner, financial guru,and you started out as a finance bloggera couple of years ago. so you even spoke hereat google a couple years ago about that book, "iwill teach you to be rich." so tell us a little bitabout where you've come from. where have you been?
and how did you go from beingthat entrepreneurially minded person-- graduate, towhere you are today? ramit sethi: well, i remember--i have a pretty big family. and when i was in highschool, my parents were like, ok, you want to goto college, which you have to because you're indian-- soif you want to go to college, you have to find scholarshipsbecause we can't afford it. and so i rememberbuilding a system to apply toscholarships rapidly.
so i applied toabout 65 of them. and it occurred to me, i lovethe systems part of this. i built the system. that's one of the systems i'mmost proud of because i applied in a really coolway, and i ended up paying my way through school. and i took thatfirst scholarship, and i invested itin the stock market. this is like '99, 2000.
that's what you do, right? and then i lost a lot of money. and i was like,ok, i better learn how this money stuff works. and so i started readingbooks on personal finance and investing. but at the sametime, i was studying psychology and persuasion. and do you remember that book,"the emperor has no clothes?"
female speaker: i do. ramit sethi: and it's like-- female speaker: movie too. ramit sethi: yeah. and i'm looking at this advicethat everyone's telling us. keep a budget. stop spending money on lattes. and i'm like, nobody does this. nobody listens.
my friends, thepeople in this room-- they don't want to stopspending money on lattes. they want to live a rich life. they want to go out. they want to buy a round ofdrinks for their friends. maybe they want to livein an awesome apartment or even have two apartments. and so this typical advicejust didn't make sense to me. and i started applying what ihad learned in the psychology
area to money. and i started trying to teacha class which nobody ever came to. and so it's like, all right,these lazy kids-- maybe they'll read a blogif i post a blog. so over time, i learnedhow to write in a way that-- a non- judgmentalway, where it's like, look, if you want to buy$300 jeans, cool. let me show you how to do that.
and so i took that blog. . and over time, i turnedit into a business. i wrote a book based onthe systems that i tested. and now, basically, my siteis not just about money. it's all aboutliving a rich life, whether that is travelingor finding your dream job or negotiating your salary. and it's all using thestrategies, tactics, and systems that we findin the world of psychology.
female speaker: and you evengot an offer from google at one point. ramit sethi: i acceptedan offer here actually. female speaker: youaccepted an offer. ramit sethi: well, itwas weird because-- ok, so the first time i appliedhere, i got rejected. and then i was like, whoare you to reject me? so i came back the next year. this is why i'm unemployable.
so i came back the nextyear, and i applied again. and it was like a fourmonth interview process. so they're juststringing me along. and then i was like, look,guys, i have five other offers, and i need a decision. and they're like, ok, ok. so they made me the offer. and it was an apmm,which was a great offer. and i felt like, wow.
and i decided to come here. so i accepted the offer. and then they were like, whydon't you take some time off? you've been in schoolfor a long time. and i was like, oh, i will. i will. so they're like,what do you need? two weeks? i was like, uh, i'll comeback in three months.
so i take threemonths for the summer. and at that time, myfriend was like, hey, come work on this startup. and i started working on it. it was called pbwiki,and it really took off. and so i came backto my recruiter at the end of thesummer, and i was like, can i have a littlebit more time? and she goes, what do you need?
a week or two? i was like, how about two years? and she's like,i don't think so. so i decided to gowork at the startup. and that was a verytough decision for me because a lot of myfriends worked here. the company was amazing. the position was amazing. but ultimately, i decidedto go the startup route.
but you came infor the free food. ramit sethi: i camein all the time. i mean, you don'tmake that much money as a startup entrepreneur. and then you haveall these friends. so i'm coming in like fourtimes a week to eat lunch, but i'm always goingwith different friends. that's a good tactic. ramit sethi: they didn'tcatch on for a long time.
female speaker: that'sa good strategy. good to share. well, that's a good point. you bring up rejection. and a lot of us haverejection all the time. and knowing that you've gonethrough what you've done, how do you handle rejection,even if it's not a google offer? if there's somethingbig or small,
what do you dowhen that happens? and how do you repair andcome back from where that was? ramit sethi: well, i thinkall of us have been rejected. my philosophy is most ofus are not rejected enough. and so i have a folder inmy gmail called failures. and if i'm not fillingthat up with at least four or five failures amonth, then i feel like i'm not trying hard enough. so a failure could be assimple as i emailed someone
that i want to havelunch with, and they just didn't reply to me, even thoughi tried a couple of times. or back in the day wheni applied for a job, and i got rejected,which happened a lot. one of the things that i try todo to improve my failure rate is to, number one,to surround myself with people who do the kindof things i want to do. so if you have people who are,let's say, more extroverted, or they're just great attalking to random people,
and that's somethingi want to pick up, i try to study themand model that. another thing is if you havetrouble going to the gym, i try to experiment in waysthat will make me go to the gym. is it folding my clothesbefore the night's over? is it hiring a personal trainer? notice that i didn't say,i try to sit in my room and say, ok, i'm goingto get better at this. changing your attitude issomething that most of us try,
but it rarely works. attitudinal changeis extremely-- there's a low correlationwith behavioral change. so for me and for my students,i focus on specifically, how do you change your behavior? and then theattitude will follow. that's a very different approachthan most of us are taught. we're taught things like, if ishow you this compound interest chart, then you'regoing to realize
how important it isto start investing. and then you're goingto start investing. that doesn't work. there's a million compoundinterest charts, and none of us invest. so what do we do instead? we create defaultsto start investing. we build automated systems. we build systems so that bydefault we do the right thing,
instead of hopingthat we're going to make the right decisionin certain times of the day. and that's a good pointabout following through with what you want to do,but you're not necessarily doing that. so tell us a little bitabout how we can all be a little better,whether we're wanting to invest orstart a new project and knowing thatwe should do it,
versus actuallytaking the action. how can we take that next step? ramit sethi: well, all of usknow what we should be doing. and typically, they're thesame four or five things. i want to work out more. i want to havebetter relationships with the people around me. i want to eat better. i want to travel more.
i want to save mymoney and invest. these are the classic fouror five things that we all know we should do,and none of us do it. so what we typically do is wego through these spurts of, ok, ok, ok, i knowwhat i'm going to do. all right. i'm motivated to do this today. i'm going to get this book. i'm going to read it.
and i'm going to buckle down. we use these words. if i try harder this month,i can save that $100. i'm going to go ona diet this weekend. and that doesn't work. we do it over and over. we're guilted by expertsgiving us these micro tactics. and i mean, if itworks for you, great. but frankly, we see the literacyrate, financial literacy rates.
we see how peopleare overweight. we see all thesebehavioral problems. so one of the thingsthat i focus on is willpower is not enough. we've had a rash of booksrecently about willpower. and we know tryingharder alone is not going to solve the problem. education alone is notgoing to solve the problem. that's quite a radicalnotion if you think about it
because think about what themost money experts believe. they say, let's teach thesekids about financial literacy. what kid ever woke upin the morning and said, yeah, i want to befinancially literate? nobody. what do they say? they say, i want to be rich. right? and so speaking in ourcustomer's language, whoever
it may be-- and this is whatwe do from a technical design perspective. this is what i do from acopywriting perspective. i can sit around and talkabout financial literacy, and exactly zeropeople will care. or i can talk aboutliving a rich life, automating your money so youcan get on with your life because no one wants to be amoney expert or a negotiation expert.
and in my experiencewith my testing, that is likely to reallygenerate behavioral change. female speaker: andspeaking of your site, "i will teach you to be rich,"where a lot of this is done, that name itselfseems a little weird. ramit sethi: oh, does? it? it seems so normal to me. female speaker: sotell us a little bit about what that's all about.
ramit sethi: well, i wassober when i picked the name. i was a college kid. but it wasn't like i was-- iwas just having a normal day. and i was like, oh,let me pick this name. and i have come toboth love that decision and regret it everyday of my life. it's a cool name. but let's be honest. the first time yougo to that site,
you're like, what is this? what is this weird site? who is this weird indian dude? what's going on here? and your defensesare up a little bit. and i understand that. when you go to mysite, you will see me with, say, stanford graduate. that's not for my giganticego, although i do have one.
it's because ihave three seconds to capture your attention. and you'll see meon the today show. you'll see a video orsomething like that. what i want people toknow is living a rich life is only in a smallpart about money. but there's so many otherthings that i talk about. so we talk aboutnegotiating your salary, finding your dream job,starting a side business.
and then one of the thingsthat i do with my site that i think is alittle different is-- has anyone here seen advicethat was just very generic? it's like, network. go find people who are inyour network and become their. friend you're like, ok. what does that mean? what am i supposed to do? who are these people,and what do i email them?
so what i do with my materialis try to go ultra-specific. here's the actual copy andpaste email that you can use. if you want to interviewbetter, if they ask you what's yourgreatest weakness, i show you what to say andhow to use your body language. i think the truesign of mastery is to be able to show people avery specific answer and then once they get thatanswer to teach them how to think aboutit in their own way.
so try to get reallyspecific, give them ultra-specific tactics,and always focus on mastery, not justquick wins, big wins. and i know on your site--i've been there a few times. and your pages are justscrolling in an endless way. and i think that'sreally interesting because you try to bevery specific and brief and give advice on howto connect with people. so why are those pages so long?
what's going on there? ramit sethi: all right. so who here has ever seenone of my sales pages for one of my courses? ok. so first of all, big shoutout to the front row here. these are some of my studentswho came in all the way from slovenia and dc. i want to give a bigshout out to you guys.
they've all seen my sales pages. my business model is i giveaway 98% of my material free. and then about 2% ofit is premium courses. these are online courses. they're video. they're recorded typically. they're not live with me. and they may range from14 days to eight weeks. they may range from acouple $100 to $12,000.
they're quite involved,and they typically take us 12 to 24 monthsto build and test. and we collect 100,000 plus datapoints for our biggest courses. some of our biggestcourses-- the sales page for those coursesis 57 pages long. and i know people in tech wholove-- especially engineers-- they love to say,just keep it short. just keep it concise. just give them what they need.
totally wrong. and that's one ofthe things i want to talk about today, challengingthese assumptions that we have with actual data,with actual testing. so 57 pages long. a lot of peoplesay, who would ever read a sales pagethat's 57 pages long? and i know a verysophisticated marketer. his emails are 15to 30 pages long.
and someone said to him, whydo you write those emails? who would ever reada 30 page email. and he laughs andsays, only the buyers. so if you think of somethingyou have an intense pain point with-- it could be back pain. it could be you have curly hair. if you have curlyhair, you think about curly hair everyday of your life. what's the weather like?
is it going to be frizzy? and there's a-- anywhere here? true? yeah, that's right. it's ok to admit it. so you see a page that'seducational, informative. it's got other people like you. you will read forever. and that's what we find whenwe've tested short versus long.
and frankly, directresponse marketers have known this for generations. long copy, particularlyfor more advanced material, almost always pullsbetter than short copy. female speaker: and i knowyou also have a lot of scripts that you give away for free. and like you said, 98%of your content is free. so do you have a favoriteone of those or something that you'd want to sharethat you enjoy talking about?
ramit sethi: i like one. so one of the thingsthat i know when i started doing thingsa little different was-- a lot ofpeople around me were kind of peer pressuring meto go back into the norm. so for an indianguy, you really have two choices for your professionand actually two choices for your car. so anyone know whatindian people drive?
toyota camry, honda accord. and then what about jobs? what are your two joboptions as an indian guy? engineer and doctor. ok, come on. let's call a spade a spade. so i'm doing thisweird thing where i'm doing thisonline wiki company, and i got this weird blog.
and they're just like,what is going on here? so i had to learn howto respond to that. and i think whenever you'retrying something new, you're in a veryvulnerable place. you're not even sure ifit's the right thing to do. and then you've got yourparents and your friends like, are you really sure about that? and they do thisconcerned troll thing. i'm just concerned about you.
are you going to be ok? has anyone hereexperienced that? ok, a lot of people. it can be very debilitating. and if you don'tknow how to respond, it can really get to you. so i tested a lot ofdifferent responses. and i liked this one. it's a "co-opetition"model, we'll call it.
and so what i used to dowas i would say, no, mom. this is what i want to do. and it was just-- thatnever wins with anyone, whether it's a relationshippartner or a parent. what i would sayinstead was-- i said, i don't really know if thisthing's going to work out or not. i really don't know. but i figure it's worth a shot.
and if it fails, who knows? but let me ask you a question. if you were in my position,what would you do? and so instead of fightingagainst their criticism, i co-opted it. and i actuallymade them my ally. and when i've sharedthat with my readers, they have found great results. because all of us,particularly when
we're going through thisworld of self development-- maybe we're learning yoga. maybe we're starting to loseweight or just trying improv. people around us will sometimesget uncomfortable with that. and they may pressureyou to stop doing that. maybe you're even justtrying to dress better. how do you respond to that? that's been a very goodscript for my readers. female speaker: that's good.
that's good. and then the other thingabout your site and business is that you do not acceptanyone with credit card debt. correct? ramit sethi: correct. i don't accept peoplewith credit card debt into my flagship courses. that decision costs meover $2 million a year. and i'm glad you brought it up.
so i believe that-- when icame out with this policy, i was very clear aboutwhy i was doing it. and i shared thecarrot and the stick. so i said, the carrot hereis an extra $1,000 or $2,000 from you-- it makes nodifference to my lifestyle. but it makes all thedifference to you. so don't spend your$1,000 with me. get my book from the library. focus on your savings.
pay off your debt. and then when the timeis right, come back. i'm still going to be here. so i shared it with love becausei don't believe that ethically i should be taking $2,000 fromsomeone with credit card debt. i don't need it. i don't want it. but then i put thestick down too. i said, if i find out that youjoined my program with credit
card debt, not only willi refund your money, but i will ban you for life. and so people are really scaredof me on my site, which i love. i'm like, great. and still people-- they defy me. they still join the course withcredit card debt sometimes. and we find out. and then we have to ban them. we put them on what's calledour dns, do not sell list.
and they're banned forever. but i believe thatwhen you start to become verygood at persuasion, it's like any skill. you can use it forgood, or you can use it for nefarious purposes. and so i have a very clearethical guideline on, who do we sell to, andwho do we not sell to? and i believe that if-- mysimple ethical guideline is
if everyone wererational, and everyone had all the informationin the world-- just assume for a minute--would they make this decision? would someone with 20grand of credit card debt pay $3,000 for a course? probably not, ifthey understood how interest rates workand stuff like that. they may not understandit, but i understand it. and so it's my obligationto not sell to them.
but on the other hand,if it is right for them, and i know it couldhelp them, then it's my obligation to sellaggressively to them. that's my basic sort of ethicalcompass for the business. female speaker: got it. so let's talk a little bitthen about mastering influence and more about thatpsychology behind it. so you have a lotof connections. you've got contacts from timferriss, "the 4-hour workweek,"
seth godin, the marketingmaven, pamela slim, kris carr, the folks we saw on the video. and how do you do that,put your best foot forward and keep an eye on thebusiness that you have? and then what advice wouldyou give us in this room or on the web, what we can doto start those relationships and connect in that way? ramit sethi: well, i thinkthat more and more, people are looking forgenuine connections.
and the way i made friendswith a lot of those people was just to email them. i just said, hey. and i always try to add value. one thing that you'll findwith especially people who are really, reallytime crunched is everyone wants a piece of them. so if you look in anyof those people's inbox, they get like 1,000plus emails a day.
and 900 of them are peopleasking for something. can you send me this? can you do that? can you write ablurb for my book. and so it is so refreshingwhen someone says, hey, i noticed that you'vebeen doing more videos. and i noticed thatthere's this one thing you could do toincrease your subscribers. and by the way, ijust did it for you.
and here you go. and you're like, whoa. that's amazing. and then that person addsvalue again and again. and all of a sudden, you'relike, who is this person? i want to know. also, whenever itry to email people, i always try to mentionany relationship we have. so if i were here, i woulddefinitely be saying,
i work at google. because a lot ofpeople will take your call if you work at google. when i was a collegestudent, i told them where i go to college. and 95% of people wouldsay, cool, let's do lunch. that's just ways that i do it. i think one of theother things to do is what i call the closingthe loop technique.
and that is to keep people--always stay top of mind. i don't know how many peoplehere have had this experience. but i know i've met people. and i meet them at aconference, or i email them. and we hit it off well. and then i just forgetto email them again. and a year later,i'm like, oh, wow. it would be really helpfulif i could talk to them. and the relationshiphas gone cold.
so i always like to staytop of mind for them. and typically, that meanssomething like emailing them a value added link orsomething that they would find useful atleast once a month. hey, here's somethingi'm working on. i just wanted tokeep you in the loop. and here's a little trickthat i taught my readers, which i love because now 30% ofthe emails i get use this line. i say, no reply needed.
if you think of abusy person, that's actually adding valueto them because they don't feel the guilt andurge to have to reply to you. you're like, hey,here's a cool link in the wall street journal. i remember when we talked. you told me about x, y, z. so i thought you'dlike this article. no reply needed, justthought you would like it.
you do that three or fourtimes, they're going to be like, this person is awesome. they're adding value tomy life, and they're not asking for anything. that's how i try to startbuilding relationships. female speaker: sono email blasts out to the 500 contacts youhave, bccing everyone. ramit sethi: well, i don't know. does anyone do that anymore?
female speaker: i don't know. does anyone do that? i think that sometimes peoplethink that's sufficient or that's a way to get after it. relationships arenot about efficiency. you want to be efficient? try the dating market. you just go up toa guy or a girl. you're like, hey.
that's not how youbuild a relationship. so i've seen people do thequarterly updates and stuff. and ok, that's fine. i skim it. and then it doesn'tresonate at all. i would much ratherget just a quick email. it could be five lines. hey, i was thinking of you. i remember what yousaid about this.
you should check this out. hope to talk to you soon. bye. that's so much moreeffective than a bcc blast. i mean, if you'reusing the word blast, you've already gone wrong. yeah. and i think it comes down tothe genuinity and authenticity, so really connectingwith that person,
researching them a littlebit, and just going in on that personalizedindividual email. that's a good idea. ramit sethi: i think it'sinteresting you said efficiency because particularlyhere in silicon, we're so deep in theworld of efficiency that we think everythinghas to be efficient. emails have to be short. do you know how long my emailsare, the ones that people
read and buy alot of stuff from? they're really long. what happens with that? one, it filters out allthe illiterate people. and so i'm like, good. get off my site. just unsubscribe. here's the link. get away.
but then the people who areleft are highly committed. they want to read it,provided it's adding value, and it's reallyinteresting and engaging. and we've tested it. we've done shortversus really long. why do you thinkwe keep doing long? number one, it's more fun. i like to write like that. but two, it actually works.
so i would urge everyone to stepout of the efficiency mindset. efficiency can begreat in certain areas. but if you're buildinga relationship, you don't be efficient. if you're communicatingwith someone, efficiency sometimesmatters, but prose and emotionalconnection also matter. well, it sounds like you'vegot a really good pulse based on all the testingthat you've done
on those in this room, thegeneration y, millennials, generation x, thatkind of thing. so what are someof the challenges that we face as agroup, whether it's silicon valley oranywhere, where we just want to be efficientand that kind of thing? what are some of the bigones that come top of mind? ramit sethi: for me,the biggest challenges that i see with myself andwith my friends and my students
is, number one, distraction. we just have an infinite numberof things that we could do. and i know just fromthe last 10 years. i used to be able to focus andjust write pages and pages. and now i'm checking myemail, going to reddit, reading hacker news, checkingall this crazy twitter stuff. and i think thesecond thing is-- it ties in, whichis too many options. and we have so many optionsthat it's easy to get paralyzed.
and it's a little ironicwhen we hear older people. our parents might sayto us, when i had a job, i was just happyto have any job. and i took that job, and istuck with it for 30 years. well, that's great. but that's not how theworld works anymore. and it's difficult tofind other people who understand because the onlyother people who understand that are the people like us.
we're going through thatsame thing right now. we don't have the answers. so i've really spenta lot of time working on how to help mystudents follow through, how to help them focus, how toremove all these ideas that you have to do this. you have to do that. you have to be onthis social network. you have to do allthese million things.
and really take an80-20 perspective to say, what are the keybig wins that matter? and forget therest of this stuff. if you just get these fouror five big wins in your life right, all the rest ofthis stuff falls away. female speaker: so how doyou not get overwhelmed with all of that? ramit sethi: well,i focus on big wins. so let's takemoney, for example.
who here feels like they are100% on top of their money? we got one nerd in theback who's like, me. i like that. audience: huge spreadsheet. ramit sethi: you havea-- ok, i knew it. you have a huge spreadsheet. the only guy who stilluses a spreadsheet to manage his money. and who here feels likethere's something, at least
one thing we should be doingmore with our money, probably more like 10 things? ok, almost every singleperson in the room. so then when wethink about, what should we be doingwith our money? it's like, we wakeup in the morning, and we could not go to coffee. we could cancelthat dinner we have. we could adjustour student debt,
change our asset allocation,increase our savings. there's a millionthings we can do. and when facedwith these choices, we do the same thing we'vealways done, which is nothing. what my approach is, andwhich is based on psychology, is there is a such thingas analysis paralysis. there is the paradox of choice. so what i tell people is focuson the four or five big wins. get a dream job.
negotiate your salary. invest automatically so youdon't have to think about it. it's not a decision. if you do thesefour or five things, it doesn't matter howmany lattes you buy. it doesn't matter if you buya small coke or a large coke. it doesn't matter. none of that stuff matters. those are microdecisions that are
irrelevant in thegrand scheme of things. people are like, youcould save $3 a day. that doesn't add up to anythingif you actually do the math. people are like, save $3 a day. in 48 years, you'llhave $12,000. that's it? and i'm going to live amiserable life every single day from here until then? what if i couldnegotiate my salary?
what if i could optimizemy credit score, just these four or five things. how many latteswould that be worth? and i could live thekind of life i want. so when it comes toso many decisions, i want to focus onreducing it and focus on just the major ones,ignore the rest. they will work themselves out. female speaker: so for us, wherewe've got these challenges,
and there's a lotgoing on in our world, we are all good at a lot of thatefficiency stuff, taking tests, getting good grades,especially here at google. so we want to gooff the beaten path. we want to take those risks. we want to work harder todo what our dream jobs are. so how do you takethat first step. and where can we excel to startmoving off the beaten path? ramit sethi: well, i thinkthat's pretty savvy to say.
if you've made ithere, you're probably really good at excellingon the beaten path. female speaker: don't allleave your jobs, by the way. i have to be very careful here. if you're here, if you'rewatching this, you're a nerd. you're really good--let's be honest. you're really goodat taking tests. you're really good at gettingthe approval of people who matter.
and honestly, that's important. when people say,oh, just do what you want-- if youwant to win, you have to learn howto play the game. and you have towin at that game. and then you can winat the other games. so i truly believe in that. i'm not one ofthese guys who says, skip college and justdo what you want.
i think college is important. and i think learning how tomaster these common situations like social skills, findinga job-- those are important. but at a certainpoint, i know a lot of people who made it tothe top of that mountain. they got the best job. they're gettingpaid a lot of money. and they're like, wait a minute. what else is it?
i made it up here,and the view isn't what i thought it would be. and so i think thatthere's a lot of things we actually can do. but it's incredibly scary. we can readjustour expectations, which is something thatmost of us don't want to do. we don't want less. we want more.
that's ok. so going along that route,one of the things i like to do is take micro steps. so i always encourage mystudents to start a side business, not to quittheir jobs entirely and try to raise $10 million in vc,but to say, you know what? there's something i like to do. maybe i'll try it on the side. i'm going to learn howto validate my idea,
generate a little revenue. and let me justsee how this goes. we can lookexpansively at saying, how do i improve in mypersonal development? this is really interestingto me because i have a lot of friendswho are-- they work here, or they work at top companies. and they're amazingat their jobs. they're so good.
and the personaldevelopment side of it-- it's interesting to mebecause about half of them are super intopersonal development. and half of them arenot into it at all. they think it's really weird toread a self development book. i'm curious, outof the crowd here-- who here never reads anykind of self development? i won't make fun of you. appreciate the honesty.
and then who here reads selfdevelopment books or courses or materials? wow. a lot of-- ok, so thepeople who came here. female speaker: a lot ofgooglers are developing-- ramit sethi: the people whocame here read self development. that's shocking. female speaker: [inaudible]. ramit sethi: ok.
amazing. i love it. so i actually thinkit's really interesting that there are people who arereally good at their jobs. they're at the best companies. and they're not reallyinto self development. i also think that it'sok to be a weirdo. i call people in thisroom a nerd and a weirdo. i actually love it.
i'm both of those things. and i'm fanaticalabout self development. so one of the thingsthat i would strongly encourage people to do whenthey're trying to go off the beaten path is to developthemselves professionally, whether that is books,courses, coaches. it could be free. it could be paid. find people who can saveyou years of heartache
by nudging you inthe right direction. that's workedincredibly well for me. so what are you doingright now to have personal developmentin your life? are you reading something? do you have a coach? ramit sethi: i do. i have all of the above. i read, i mean, tons andtons of self development.
i have someone who--one of my mentors is someone who-- iactually joined his class. and for 15 months, i flew fromnew york to la for 15 months straight, once a month, justto have 45 minutes with him. and it was incredibly--it was life changing. it changed the way ithought about business. i've invested in my health,so food and training. and i'm huge onself development. and it's made agigantic difference.
but even when i thinkabout self development when i was a college kid, ididn't have that kind of money. but for me, selfdevelopment back then was emailing someceo that i admired and just asking if i couldtake him out to lunch. and i put aside $20. the funny thingis nobody lets you pay when you're a college kid. so i saved that money.
but back then it was just--that was my self development. and i think as you get moresuccessful in your career, you can afford to join coursesor get a coach or things like that. and truthfully, that has madea huge difference for me. female speaker: and ithink going back to that and then incorporatingit into the systems model and testing, a lot of thata experimenting as well. what's going to work for me?
maybe emailingthe ceo for lunch. maybe it's a coachor whatever it is, a book, whatever fits intoyour lifestyle and your budget. so let's talk a little bit aboutthe systems and the testing that you've done. female speaker:you've created systems with improving a lot of thingsin your life, productivity, efficiencies, things like that. so what's a timesaving favorite system
that you have we couldall learn something from? ramit sethi: ok, ok. i could talk about this all day. but i have a couplethings that i'll share. number one, if it doesn'texist on my calendar, it doesn't exist. so i get randomto-dos in my inbox. and i'm like, don'tsend this to me. get it on mycalendar, and that's
the way it will get done. if it doesn't exist on mycalendar, it doesn't exist. so we all have thesekind of random things that we know we should be doing. and we actually don'tput it on our calendar. we resist doing it. but if we put it there,it's staring us in the face. so that's number one. put it on the calendar.
number two, i am almostfanatical about everything in one place. and i'm going to reveal howanal i am about certain things. i find it really stressful ifi'm supposed to write a paper or do something, and ican't find something. i don't have a pen ormy research document is even in the other room. i just won't get up. i'll just be like, oh,i'm not going to do this.
so i know myself. i need it to all be there. so i have constructedsystems that make it so when iopen up my writing calendar in the morning,everything is there. even when i open upmy calendar reminder-- this is how crazy it got. whatever, i'll just tell you. so i double click.
i used to double click the link. and my assistant wouldput "agenda," in, and when i double clickedit, it copied agenda. so i had to strip out theagenda from the url bar, manually backspace five times. and it just got mereally irritated. so i have a new policy. always add a hard return,so i can just double click the link, control l,control t, control whatever.
and it just pastes. and i do it like that. so i know this is areally micro example. but for me, if there was onelittle minor barrier stopping me from accomplishingwhat i wanted to do, i just wouldn't do it. and i think we all have that. but we guiltourselves into saying, oh, i should just try harder.
or you're just being lazy. i used to have this gym thing. i wanted to go to thegym in the morning. and my clothes werein the other room. and so i'd wakeup in the morning, and i would have to go to theother room and get my clothes. and i just wouldn't do it. i would just stay in bed. i'm not lazy.
but that one barrier alonestopped me from doing it. so i learned throughtesting to put my clothes folded on the floor. my shoes and sockswere right there. my gym compliance went way up. so i'm all about systems, evento the point of ridiculousness. whatever it takes tohelp me get the things done that i want to do. female speaker: and what are--so in that case, all of that
sounds really good. and i'm sure we're all goingto go right out of this room and test out some systemthat we've been thinking of. but what are somecommon mistakes? what can happen where itmight be testing something, versus actuallyimplementing a system that is typical for someonewho's new to this or doesn't know what to do? ramit sethi: well, i think i'vemade a few classic mistakes.
i thought that once ibuilt a system, that's it. it just runs andlives on its own, and you never have to change it. that's not true. sometimes i-- i used to goto the gym in the morning. and then i was goingout a lot at night. so my gym system in themorning didn't work. so i had to move thatlater in the day. sometimes i just got crazybusy, and my systems fell apart.
i couldn't find certain things. it's ok to have systemschange and be fluid. sometimes you haveto refresh them. i think that's one thing. i think the otherthing is just-- again, it comes back to being reallyrealistic with yourself. i know a lot ofpeople who-- they say, are you a morning person or not? i'm a total morning person.
i love waking up early. female speaker: i'm glad wegot this at 10 o'clock then. i do all my writing, all mycerebral work in the morning. and when you tell someoneyou're a morning person, it's very interesting. there's two things thathappen, two situations where people look at youin an almost religious way. when you tell them you're amorning person, they're like, oh, i wish i could be like that.
and when i tell them that assoon as i sit down in a plane, i fall asleep. they're like, wow, iwish i could do that. and i'm like, whatever. that's just the way i am. and also, i practiced to getgood at being a morning person. i think that sometimes we don'tacknowledge how we really are. so you'd have someonewho's really a night owl. and they're like, ok,i'm going to start
by waking up at5:45 in the morning and writing for three hours. that's not going to happen. that's not a realistic system. systems work for us. we don't work for the system. so i think it's critical to makeit a realistic part of who you are and what your interestsand capabilities are. female speaker: ithink that's actually
a pretty good point as well. and it's important to not justabandon the system or give up. i think a lot of us say,oh, that doesn't work. obviously the gymis just not for me. or i'm not going tobother to write anything, because i'm just-- ramit sethi: i'm notthat kind of person. female speaker: i'm justnot going to do that today or whatever it is.
so it's actually about that. and then just not beatingyourself up and saying, this simply doesn't work. i'm going to just tweak it. or i'm going totry one new thing and then implement something. and at google, we have alot of systems here too. we have a lot of data. we data all the time.
we make a lot of ourdecisions-- and many companies do as well-- just based on dataand facts and data, data, data and incoming things. so what do you thinkabout data and how that has made an impact onwhat your decisions have been? and is it all about the data? is there anything else there? and how has thatstructured your business? ramit sethi: we use data a lot.
we have analysts. we crunch numbers. we make projections. we split test many things. we have year longtests that we run. we do very, veryquantitative measurement. but at the same time, we're veryinterested in the qualitative. i would argueactually we're more interested in the qualitative.
when we design ourcourses-- again, these are the courses--they sometimes take two years tobuild and test. we're collecting 100,000,150,000 data points. and most of thoseare qualitative. especially at theearly stages, i want to know thewords people use. i want to know theemotions they feel. so we're asking all openended, qualitative questions.
in my emails-- if anyonehere is on my email list, you've seen me say,hey, please reply. i read every response. has anyone here written backto me and gotten a response? so if you're on my email list,which has 200,000 plus people, you can write to me. and i'm not saying always,but you'll get a response. i do that because iwant that kind of data. when it comes to art versusscience, we look at the data.
but sometimes, we haveto put the data aside, just because it's notthe right thing to do. so we have-- we had courseswhere the performance wasn't good, but it waswithin parameters. and we were just like, thisisn't the kind of delivery we want to makefor our students. it's not the kind ofexperience we want. so we pulled the course. but usually, the data isvery informative for us.
and i can talk about whatkind of split tests we run and our testing vault andsurprising results and all that stuff. i love talking about it. but in general, ithink most of us could depend ondata a little more. but the people who tendto depend on data often don't value the qualitative,which i value above almost all. female speaker: so it'squalitative and quantitative.
and in knowing that there'sthese systems we could all implement or think aboutin a different way now, what advice do youhave for implementing that on our personal growth,leading it back to that? and where can we go from there? so i recently ran a-- i'malways running weird tests, just simple ones. and one of them was, how do i--i could take a 30 minute nap, but i couldn't doa 15 minutes nap.
i would just sit in bed,and i wouldn't go to sleep. and i was like, i wantto do a 15 minute nap. so it took me six monthsto figure out how to do it. and it was-- i just-- and it'slike, there's no fancy excel regression thing that i built. it's on the back of apiece of notepad paper. i just wrote downa bunch of stuff. what did i eat? did that work?
what time of the day? was i stressed? all kinds of crazy stuff. and i discoveredwhat worked for me. it took me six months. and now i can doa 15 minute nap. same thing for-- here'sa test you can do today. someone comes up to you, andthey say, oh, what do you do? and most of us have theworst, most boring responses.
i'm an engineer. i am a marketing coordinator. and the person's like--their eyes glaze over. and they're just like, ok, bye. what if you couldactually test that and make it more interesting? so for me, people usedto say, what do you do? and i was like, i'm a writer. and they're like,oh, my cousin too.
my cousin's son is tryingto become a writer. i'm like, your cousin'sson is not a writer. your cousin's son is unemployed. so then i was like,i'm an author. and that got a verydifferent response. and whether it's,what do you do? where do you live? these are questionsthat we give answers to for our entire lives.
and most of us nevertest responses. all the responses were true. they were all authentic. but just a simpleway you word it can get peoplefascinated in you. or they can just be like,oh, nice to meet you. i'm going to go getthat shrimp cocktail. female speaker: so that'sa good challenge, i think, for us to take away todayand maybe try out today too.
just take an experiment. if someone you meetor talks to you, what would you say thatmight be a little different? and come up with howthat has affected what your outcomeis with that person. ramit sethi: or another test--so the social skills ones are really fun. i met a group of people. because my friendswhen they get together,
they ask you within the firstfive minutes, what do you do? anyone here-- areyou guys like that? you ask people what do you do? that's a common thing, right? because a lot ofmy friends-- they identify with the work they do. i met this group of peoplewho-- i hung out with them two or three times. and they never ask me what i do.
and i was like, whatis going on here? but i then said, you know what? i kind of like this becausewe're talking about stuff that i would normallynever talk about. it has nothing todo with my job. and i was like, thisis kind of refreshing. there is more to me than my job. so one of the thingsi did was i just created a littlechallenge for myself.
i was like, the nexttime i meet people, i'm not allowed toask them what they do. and it was really hard. i mean, it's reallyhard for me to do. female speaker:that's a good one. ramit sethi: so iwonder, if we take these little microchallenges, how does it help us grow socially? and it really did helpme find other ways
to be interested in people. that's a good one. i like that too. so in a couple minutes,we'll open up for questions. but just a couple of closingquestions i had for you. what is next, ramit? what are you going to do? what's on youragenda at this point? you've got a lot ofirons in the fire.
what are you working on? ramit sethi: ihave-- well, we're always trying to do new things. for me, it's all about helpingpeople lead a rich life. and so whether that'sin the business world, whether that'swith social skills, whether that's withrelationship stuff, if it's an onlinecourse, that's fine. if it's in person, that's fine.
whatever. we're agnostic to that. we just want to findout how to do it in a way that scales and usingour background in psychology and stuff like that. we look at areas wherepeople have a burning desire and the advice is horrible. and i'm like, that's for us. so money, burning desire,the advice is terrible.
how to start a business. a lot of people want to do it,and the advice is really bad. we're like, see you there. so we're always looking foropportunities like that. and that's beenpretty cool for us. so that's what's next,just more of helping people lead a rich life. i'm sure one day i'll do aramit sethi's parenting course. i always said, mychild is going to pay
for its entire existence inits first year of living. so i'm just waiting for that. female speaker: yeah, yeah. 20 or 21, something like that. and you talked aboutrejection earlier. and that brings up alot of fear for people. so what is yourbiggest fear when you're looking atdeveloping something or just in your personal world?
what are your fears,if you had to name one? because we all have them. ramit sethi: we all do. i think i have a couple. i think for me, onefear is being ordinary. i never wanted to be ordinary. and it made me nervousto see what my path might be if i took the default route. and then i thinkanother fear i have is
i think probably being alone. i'm a very extroverted guy. i need to be around people. one of my newyear's resolutions-- every year, i try to dosomething uncomfortable for me. and this year one of themwas seeing a movie alone because i hate-- i'llnever go to a movie alone. i never eat alone. i never see a movie alone, ever.
i'm terrified of it. and so i was like, ok,i'm going to do it. and june rolled around. september rolled around. and i live pretty closeto a movie theater. and i have a free passone of my friends gave me. they're like, here. so i have no excuse. and finally i was like,ok, i'm going to do this.
so i went. i went all in too. i got popcorn. female speaker: did you do adouble movie, back to back? ramit sethi: no, no. should i do that? i went at 3:00 pm on a thursday. and i loved it. but i have to admit,i was nervous.
i thought everyonewas looking at me. and what is thisloner doing here? you know what i mean? it was an irrationalfear, but we all have it. and i always talkto my students. there's nothingto be ashamed of. we all have these crazy fears. because a lot of myfriends are like, i love going to movies alone.
they love it. they're like, it's peaceful. and i hate it. but i went, and iforced myself to do it. and i have to say,i kind of liked it. i didn't love it. but i'll do it again. you took the microstep to get there. ramit sethi: exactly.
female speaker: great. and then this is thelast question i have. what would be the onetakeaway from today that you'd want our audienceto come out of this to really know more about, one key thing? ramit sethi: i wouldlove for everyone here to really challenge thecore assumptions we have. one of the simpleones i said was, oh, email should be reallyshort and to the point.
and that's just nottrue in all cases. i used to be 40 pounds lighter. and i'm not that huge of a guy. and i would say to myself, oh,i'm just a skinny indian guy. i can't get big. that was realnegative self talk. and if i had challengedmy assumptions back then, i would have learned howto actually eat right, lift weights, look like anormal human being.
so challenge the assumptions,whether it's social skills, whether it's the businessthat you're doing. a lot of this stuffcan be tested. and i think if youdo, you can find out that what a lot of otherpeople have been doing, best practices-- they've neveractually really tested it. so if that's one thingyou take away from today, think of some of thecore assumptions. i call them invisiblescripts you have.
and try to test themin little micro ways. they could reallychange your life. that's good advice. well, thank you. i want to thank youfor coming today. female speaker: and we'llopen up to questions. so we've got a micgoing around the room. and we also have a couplethat were submitted online. but we'll take theroom questions first.
does anyone have a question? ramit sethi: for me, what ilike to do is just to say, what is one key takeawaythat i can implement today? and get really specific. for example, iwouldn't say, i'm going to improve my social skills. i would say, the next10 people i meet, i'm going to introducemyself in a different way. that's one keytakeaway we could take.
or i would say, oh, ramittalked about invisible scripts. i'm going to google that, andthen i'm going to find out, what are my fiveinvisible scripts? and how can idismantle one of those? again, one of the bigideas behind "i will teach you to be rich," isbehavior first, then attitude. so a lot of people walkaway, and they think, i'm going to change myattitude about money or about negotiating my salary.
that's really, really hard. it almost never works. instead, what'sthe one behavior, the one action i cantake that's going to change for me in a measurableway in the next 24 hours. that's somethingi would recommend. audience: so you'rean ambitious person. you care aboutscaling your work. you want to reach asmany people as possible.
how do you balance thatambition with things you do, like weeding out peoplefrom your email list, specifically getting rid ofc players from your customer list, things like that? so how do i get rid of thepeople from my business or email list that i don't want? and i take a prettyclear stance on this. if anyone's on myemail list, you're going to be like, whatis this guy doing?
he's telling me to unsubscribe. he's threateningto kick people off. how is this a real email list? and i do that onpurpose because i believe that if youreally simplify it down, there are a players, bplayers, and c players. again, gross oversimplification. the a players are already doingthe things they need to do. they're the best.
they're alreadyoptimizing stuff. the great unwashed masses--is that offensive to say? i don't know. there there's a big group ofbs, and they could possibly be as with a littlebit of guidance. and in my world, the cs--maybe someone can help them, but it's not me. that's not my placeon this planet. that's not what i want to do.
i don't want towork with c players. i want to work with b playersand help them become as. and i want to workwith a players and help them become a pluses. so i'm very clear about whoi don't want on my site. and i tell them to leave. i make it really easy. i write really long things. so people who havea short attention
span-- they just leave. i tell people, we'renot here for frugality. if you want to cutback on lattes, here's the unsubscribe link. and here are somepeople i recommend. you're not goingto enjoy this site. please go over there. it will be better for you. i believe that you'redoing them a duty,
and you're notwasting their time. and they're not wasting mine. so if people don't take actionon what i'm recommending, i'm just like, why are wewasting each other's time? i know in the past,i used to-- hey, you really shouldcome to my class. you should come. and i would try hard,and no one would come. and when i changedthat, when i said,
here's who i'm looking for, andhere's who i'm not looking for, it really madeall the difference in making thosepeople more committed. audience: what are themost common mistakes made by average people thatseverely limit their ability to build wealth? ramit sethi: oh, ok. good question. one is waiting to startinvesting until they're rich,
when quite honestly, it'sthe other way it works. you become wealthythrough investing. the other thing is tryingto outsmart the market. oh, man. this is crazy. so so many tech people, a lot ofmy really smart tech friends-- they're so smart at their job. and then they think that becausethey're smart in this area, they're smart in everyother part of their life.
so they're like, oh,i'm going to invest in aggressive fundsand active management. they think they canbeat the market. i'm like, you can't. it doesn't matter howgood you are at your job. it doesn't matter howcomplicated your systems that you've built at work are. it's simple, low costinvesting, the stuff i talk about in my book.
automate it. move on with your life. that's one thing. and then the thirdthing that i've discovered in the last few yearsis really mindset about money. as i worked on money,i had to change the way i thought about it. growing up in animmigrant family, you learn certainvalues about money.
some are good. some are not good. on the good side, i wouldsay i learned to be frugal. i learned that you don't haveto buy everything you want. that was cool. on the bad side,i think i learned that if anyone chargeda premium price, i immediately assumed theywere trying to rip me off. and that was something thatwas really deep inside.
it was an invisible script. and i had to learn how toidentify it and overcome that as well. so i would take those threethings and try to work them. audience: how doyou make yourself aware of invisible scriptsthat you don't know are there. ramit sethi: that's avery tough question. the quick answer is,number one, there's some introspection that goes on.
number two, i useexternal frameworks. so i'll say, ok,these are the three things i'm working on right now. and why am i gettingstuck at this? and then i do the five whys. why am i getting stuck? because i'm not productive. why am i not productive? because i'm not waking up early.
why? and i really try to dig deep. and the third thing i tryto do is surround myself with other people whomight challenge me and say, hey, do you reallyneed to be doing that? or why are youthinking that way? what about this? and when i put those incombination, in concert, those things have helped me findmy own invisible scripts, which
i'm still discovering. thanks, ramit. thank you for coming today. if anyone else wants abook, they're in the back.
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