The Diary of a CEO: The 33 Laws of Business and Life

“Stop telling yourself you’re not qualified, good enough or worthy. Growth happens when you start doing the things you’re not qualified to do.”

“if you want to keep someone’s brain lit up and receptive to your point of view, you must not start your response with a statement of disagreement.”

“The most convincing sign that someone will achieve new results in the future is new behaviour in the present.”

“When you find yourself disagreeing with someone, avoid the emotional temptation, at all costs, to start your response with ‘I disagree’ or ‘You’re wrong’, and instead introduce your rebuttal with what you have in common, what you agree on, and the parts of their argument that you can understand.”

“Step 1: Learn First you must identify the topic you want to understand, research it thoroughly and grasp it from every direction. Step 2: Teach it to a child Secondly, you should write the idea down as if you were teaching it to a child; use simple words, fewer words and simple concepts. Step 3: Share it Convey your idea to others; post it online, post it on your blog, share it on stage or even at the dinner table. Choose any medium where you’ll get clear feedback. Step 4: Review Review the feedback; did people understand the concept from your explanation? Can they explain it to you after you’ve explained it to them? If not, go back to step 1; if they did, move on.”

“THE FIVE BUCKETS 1. What you know (your knowledge) 2. What you can do (your skills) 3. Who you know (your network) 4. What you have (your resources) 5. What the world thinks of you (your reputation)”

“The Law: You must never disagree In the midst of a negotiation, debate or heated argument, try and remember that the key to changing someone’s mind is finding a shared belief or motive that will keep their brain open to your point of view.”

“In 2019, I advised a large global B2B company to ban the job title ‘salesperson’, to stop using the term ‘sales’ and replace it with a ‘partnerships’ team. More people responded to their emails, and their sales rose by 31 per cent. As I suspected, a job title with the word ‘sales’ in it, primes the people you contact to believe you’re going to pester them to buy something they don’t want – conversely, the framing of the word ‘partner’ suggests the person is on your team.”

“Healthy conflict strengthens relationships because those involved are working against a problem; unhealthy conflict weakens a relationship because those involved are working against each other.”

“Stories are the single most powerful weapon any leader can arm themselves with – they are the currency of humanity. Those who tell captivating, inspiring, emotional stories rule the world.”

“Being able to simplify an idea and successfully share it with others is both the path to understanding it and the proof that you do. One of the ways we mask our lack of understanding of any idea is by using more words, bigger words and less necessary words.”

“One can have no smaller or greater mastery than mastery of oneself; you will never have a greater or lesser dominion than that over yourself; the height of your success is gauged by your self-mastery, the depth of your failure by your self-abandonment. Those who cannot establish dominion over themselves will have no dominion over others.”

“This third law – to never disagree – is the critical skill that will allow you to become an effective negotiator, speaker, salesperson, business leader, writer – and partner.”

“Framing isn’t about lying and deception; it’s about knowing how to present your product or service through the most factual and compelling lens. For example, it’s more appealing to say a food product is 90 per cent lean than to say it contains 10 per cent fat. Both are true, but one frame is more psychologically alluring. These examples illustrate an important but too often forgotten principle in branding, marketing and business: reality is nothing more than perception and context is king.”

“We usually start our professional life acquiring knowledge (school, university, etc.), and when this knowledge is applied, we call it a skill. When you have knowledge and skills you become professionally valuable to others and your network grows. Consequently, when you have knowledge, skills and a network, your access to resources expands, and once you have knowledge, skills, a valuable network and resources, you will undoubtedly earn a reputation.”

“1. The Peak-End Rule: The two moments that matter most The peak–end rule is a cognitive bias that describes how people remember an experience or event. Simply put, we judge an experience according to how we felt at its peak and at its end, rather than by some perfectly aggregated average of every moment of it. Crucially, this applies to both good and bad experiences! Businesses and brands take note: customers will judge their entire experience on just two moments – the best (or worst) part, and the end.”

“the art of becoming a great communicator, conversationalist or partner is first listening so that the other person feels ‘heard’, and then making sure you reply in a way that makes them feel ‘understood’.”

“your success will be defined by your attitude towards the small stuff – the things most people overlook, ignore or don’t care about. The easiest way to do big things is by focusing on the small things.”

“The Law: To master it, you must create an obligation to teach it Learn more, simplify more and share more. Your consistency will further your progress, the feedback will refine your skill and following this law will lead to mastery.”

“A 2008 study in Appetite found that the group of volunteers who tried not to think about eating ate more than the group who didn’t. The first group exhibited what is called a ‘behavioural rebound effect’. Similarly, a 2010 study in Psychological Science found that the group of smokers who tried not to think about smoking actually thought about it even more than the group who didn’t. This reminds me of a small piece of advice my driving instructor said to me when I was 18: ‘Steven, the car will go where your eyes are looking. If you want to avoid crashing into the cars on the side of the road, don’t focus on the cars on the side of the road, because you will veer towards the parked cars on the side of the road. Look forwards, into the distance, where you want the car to go.’ This seems like a fitting analogy for breaking and making habits: you will end up doing the thing you’re focusing on, so don’t focus on stopping smoking, don’t fight it; focus on the behaviour you want to replace it with.”

“So, here’s what needs to be done if we want to increase our chances of being heard by someone on an opposing side. According to Sharot, if you want to keep someone’s brain lit up and receptive to your point of view, you must not start your response with a statement of disagreement. When you find yourself disagreeing with someone, avoid the emotional temptation, at all costs, to start your response with ‘I disagree’ or ‘You’re wrong’, and instead introduce your rebuttal with what you have in common, what you agree on, and the parts of their argument that you can understand. The strength of any carefully reasoned, logical argument isn’t likely to be recognised when you open with disagreement - regardless of how much evidence you have or how objectively correct you are.”

“las empresas modernas que operan en este mundo tan cambiante, impredecible y turbulento exigen que los empleados de todos los niveles sean capaces de pensar de forma independiente.”

“Eres una agencia de contratación: esa es tu prioridad, y los emprendedores que lo comprenden son los que ponen en marcha empresas que cambian el mundo.”

“We usually start our professional life acquiring knowledge (school, university, etc.), and when this knowledge is applied, we call it a skill. When you have knowledge and skills you become professionally valuable to others and your network grows. Consequently, when you have knowledge, skills and a network, your access to resources expands, and once you have knowledge, skills, a valuable network and resources, you will undoubtedly earn a reputation. With these five buckets and their interconnected relationship in mind, it’s clear that an investment in the first bucket (knowledge) is the highest-yielding investment you can make. Because when that knowledge is applied (skill), it inevitably cascades to fill your remaining buckets. If you truly understand this, you’ll understand that a job that pays you slightly more cash (resources), but gives you far less knowledge and fewer skills, is a lower-paying job. The force that clouds our ability to act upon this logic is usually ego. Our ego has an incredible ability to persuade us to skip the first two buckets – convincing us to take a job simply for more money (bucket 4) or a job title, status or reputation (bucket 5), without the knowledge (bucket 1) or skills (bucket 2) to succeed in that role. When we succumb to this temptation, we’re building our career on weak foundations. These short-term decisions – your inability to delay your gratification, be patient and invest in your first two buckets – will ultimately catch up with you.”

“two buckets – convincing us to take a job simply for more money (bucket 4) or a job title, status or reputation (bucket 5), without the knowledge (bucket 1) or skills (bucket 2) to succeed in that role. When we succumb to this temptation, we’re building our career on weak foundations. These short-term decisions – your inability to delay your gratification, be patient and invest in your first two buckets – will ultimately catch up with you.”

“get”

“Those who hoard gold have riches for a moment.Those who hoard knowledge and skills have riches for a lifetime.True prosperity is what you know and what you can do.”

“Existem apenas dois baldes que um terremoto profissional não tem como esvaziar. Ele pode levar sua rede de contatos, seus recursos ou até impactar sua reputação, mas nunca conseguirá remover seu conhecimento nem suas habilidades.”

“The late spiritual leader Yogi Bhajan once said, ‘If you want to learn something, read about it. If you want to understand something, write about it. If you want to master something, teach it.’ At”

“Taking no risks will be your biggest risk. You have to risk failure to succeed. You have to risk heartbreak to love. You have to risk criticism for the applause. You have to risk the ordinary to achieve the extraordinary. If you live avoiding risk, you’re risking missing out on life.”