I Will Teach You To Be Rich » Videos http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com Personal finance blog for college students, recent graduates and everyone else -- including entrepreneurship -- for getting rich. Featured in the Wall Street Journal and New York Times. Tue, 07 Feb 2012 16:11:54 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v= What The Pros Know About Networking That You Don’t http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/what-the-pros-know-about-networking-that-you-dont/ http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/what-the-pros-know-about-networking-that-you-dont/#comments Fri, 20 Jan 2012 17:57:47 +0000 Ramit Sethi http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/?p=7845

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When I was on the Today Show a couple years ago, I sat down to prep a few minutes before air time. About 45 seconds before we went live, Meredith Viera came onto set. She took one look at the topic sheet, then reached out to shake all of our hands. In the next 30 seconds, she asked a couple questions to get to know us, and then we started the segment.

What was fascinating was that, within those 30 seconds, she was so personable that we instantly felt a connection to her (“Wow, she’s so friendly!”). And I realized that the masters — like the world’s top TV anchors, politicians, and business leaders — are the best for a reason. One of their skills is the invisible talent of being able to instantly connect with someone. Bill Clinton, for example, is legendary for this.

How was Meredith able to instantly connect with all of us? Was it about the words she used? The body language she employed? Or was there something deeper going on?

Building soft skills and deep personal relationships is a mystery to most of us. And what we don’t understand, we’re skeptical of.

That’s why we’re almost all skeptical of “networking” and “building relationships.” We all hear phrases like “The majority of jobs are found through personal contacts.” But how does that actually work? How do you go from knowing your friends to turning that into jobs?

We don’t understand how this works, so we create false dichotomies like…

  • “Whatever, networking is for douches”
  • “I’m not good at selling myself”
  • “I’d rather get a job based on WHAT I know instead of WHO I know”

They say hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. I will add Ramit’s Maxim #38: Hell hath no fury like an anonymous internet commenter who sees something going on he does not understand. Witness the angry comments on my Lifehacker post from yesterday.

We get skeptical of things we can’t immediately grasp. We see people who are doing insanely impressive things (like my students earning tens of thousands of dollars), and we don’t understand how it’s possible they’re doing it but we cannot. So we start throwing around words like “Ugh, he’s just a networker/slimeball/fake.” This is for people we’ve never met, but we’re sure they must be…otherwise, how would they be doing so well?

To try to do something about it, we seek out shiny tactics to earn more and find our Dream Jobs. We try them — like tweaking our resumes and finding a new job website — but we’re never really sure which random techniques will work and which ones won’t. We’re basically shooting in the dark, never aware of the entire game being played around us.

The Million-Dollar Sentence: Some of the best advice I’ve ever received

A few years ago, I got introduced to a senior person at a company very similar to IWT — except they were earning $40m/year. I was curious to learn what insights they’d had along the way. (I outline this very principle in The Best $20 You’ll Ever Spend.)

“Ramit,” this woman told me, “your tactics are great, but over time, they’ll become commodities. But when you can connect with people’s psychological and emotional barriers, you can massively help them.”

My initial reaction was denial: “You don’t understand…my tactics are REALLY GOOD.” But a few days after that call, I started to understand.

Now, years later, I think about that simple sentence almost every week. If you’ve been reading my site for years, you’ve seen the changes over time — I’ve stuck by my idea of providing you the best tactics to earn more, save more, and get an edge in life, but I’ve also started to rail against “information seekers” who simply want yet another tactic…without ever delving into their own psychological barriers.

In fact, I could give you the best tactics in the world, and if you have psychological barriers, they simply won’t matter. There are infinite numbers of worthless bloggers who will give you “Top 10” lists…but we already KNOW we should be spending less than we earn. We “know” we should be networking. We “know” we should be working out.

Yet we don’t. Why?

The subtle answer to this question is why I’ve been able to get results for IWT readers like this — and why most “experts” continue writing yet another worthless piece on 5 ways to save on groceries — or useless career advice.

And it’s precisely what we’re going to dig into today — a look behind the veil — in the area that has been the single-most influential area of my life.

* * *

What we WANT vs. what we NEED

I get a lot of people emailing, wondering how I grew my blog or monetized or got on TV. Or sometimes they just want to know about themselves, like how they can interview better or find their passion.

What they WANT is a shiny tactic — like the actual email scripts I used to reach out to people. Losers love tactics.

What they NEED is to understand the strategy behind it.

I realized that the sites that provide only tactics quickly become a morass of useless, pageview-generating “Top 10” lists desperately consumed by shiny tactic-seeking losers.

Yet sites that provide “strategic advice” are often so high-level that they’re not actionable.

I want to give you both, but show you how they work together. Earlier this week, I gave you the actual email scripts you can use to meet extremely busy people.

Today, let’s go deeper. Let’s examine the strategy and psychology of building a great network — a group of people who WANT to help you. A group of people who keep an eye out for jobs and can actually get you hired at jobs that aren’t even public yet. We can ALL have friends and business relationships like this — and none of it involves being sleazy, slimy, or scammy.

Let me show you how.

How To Separate Yourself from Scammy Networkers

Michael Ellsberg at Forbes just wrote a long piece on building relationships and the importance of single-author blogs. He quoted me at length:

“I asked Ramit the Million Dollar Question: let’s say you’ve identified this Holy Grail blogger. How do you get on his or her radar?

“Here’s the worst way. The worst way is to send one email with a ton of content saying, ‘Hey, I would love for you to review my product. I think it’s great. I think your readers would really love it’ and then it’s just a bunch of gibberish markety stuff.

“Guess what? Any big blogger gets at least 50 of those a week. I wish we could answer all of them, but they just get deleted. The more effective way is to take a long-term approach. The real misfortune is that nobody else does it. So people will nod and say, ‘Yeah, I should really do that,’ and then they don’t.

“You want to focus on the idea, ‘I’m going to add value to this person over time.’ The first thing you could do is leave some thoughtful comments on their blog. Next, you could send them some email saying, ‘Hey, that was really great, but I thought you may have missed this one point. Here’s an interesting article with a different perspective on it.’ If you thought it through and did some research, the author will think, ‘Wow, thanks very much!’ and you are not asking for anything.

“All of a sudden now you’ve differentiated yourself first by adding value. You are not going directly for the kill. Eventually, you could reach out and say, ‘Hey, these are a couple of things I noticed you’re doing that I think that I could help with. I’d love to connect you to this person, etc.’ Then eventually, you can ask, ‘If it’s okay, I just want to ask you for about 60 seconds,’ and ask them about your thing and say, ‘Do you have any advice?’ and ‘Do you think maybe this might be interesting to your audience?’

“No pressure. One mistake people make is they often have a ‘one shot and done’ attitude about this: ‘If I don’t get my pitch in, and they don’t like it, it’s over.’ Wrong. It’s really about building a relationship over the long-term. Sounds like a lot of work? Good! Because 99% of people will not do that. That’s why they will send one email, it will be rejected and they’ll complain that, ‘Oh this blogger’s not nice,’ or ‘Oh, it’s too hard to get media. If only I had connections.’ The point is to reach those people, it’s not about luck or magic, it’s about being really thoughtful and systematic about how you can help them first.”

Now let’s deconstruct what’s going on there.

The 5 Barriers to Becoming a Master Connector

Networking is one of those things we nod, shrug, and say, “Yeah, I need to figure that out.” But we don’t:


Ironically, in our search for tactics, we become less and less likely to take action. We say things like, “I don’t know where to begin.” Two days ago, I gave you scripts and powerful tactics to start meeting busy people so you could learn from their expertise and shortcut your learning cycle by months or years. How many of you actually did it?

Instead, we constantly search for more and more tactics. And we make assumptions that people who network are sleazy, etc. (To see what I mean, go check out what the young/engineering guys at Hacker News say about my friend Tim Ferriss. The bitterness is palpable, because it’s easy to be skeptical on the internet.)

All of these are assumptions, but we never test them. Some of my really good friends, like Tim, are consummate networkers, but if you met them in person, you’d just like them because they’re cool and fun.

It turns out that we have deep psychological barriers around networking. And because it is such an invisible art — with no clear step-by-step formula — it’s easy to let the barriers overwhelm us.

Watch this video where I deconstruct these very psychological barriers:


Based on our research of 20,000+ people, here are some of the top psychological barriers around networking. Remember, without understanding your own barriers, no tactic matters.

  • “It’s not about WHAT you know, it’s about WHO you know.” This phrase has been bitterly spit out by countless unemployed Brooklyn hipsters who make me want to take their plaid Keffiyehs and shove them…never mind. You know what? They’re right! The more you progress in your career, the more important relationships are — sometimes even more than your technical skills. So you can either (1) Whine about the way the world is constructed and complain about the President/tax policy/geo-political affairs and why you don’t have the right connections, or (2) Learn the skills of meeting the right people, helping them, and learn the invisible game being played around you.
  • “I’m not the kind of person who could network. I hate selling myself.” The invisible script here is “only naturals know how to network” and “I’m not that kind of person.” Wrong, wrong, wrong. When you meet people who have learned to build long-term relationships, you realize how much practice they’ve put into it. There’s a secondary invisible script here: People who use this phrase typically don’t have any positive role models as examples of ethical networkers. It’s not sleazy or slimy. In fact, it’s the height of serving other people — like how my friend got $20,000 of my time.
  • “I wouldn’t know what to say.” Of course you wouldn’t — you haven’t done this before. I look back at some of my early emails to meet people and they were just awful. But you study the greats, you practice, and you get better. If you ever heard a kid saying, “But I don’t know how to ride a bike!” you would laugh, pat him on the head, and shove his ass on that bike. You would not let him use “I don’t know how” as a crutch…for the rest of his life. Again, I can’t wait to be an Asian parent.

3 Case Studies: Learning Instant Soft Skills

I recently ran a program called “Dream Job Elite,” a focused course where I taught a small group of students some of my most inside material on finding Dream Jobs, interviewing, negotiation, and soft skills.

I invited them to New York and spent hours and hours showing them subtle tweaks on how to improve their storytelling, persuasive skills, and body language. As much as I wish I could help everyone one on one, this was an elite, $12,000-a-head program designed to demonstrate that all of us can make rapid gains using subtle soft skills.

I want to show you these examples because they’re people just like you — who made massive gains in their ability to connect with people.

“I used to think I was really good at networking, but this…showed me what a novice I was…”

“I used to think I was really good at networking, but this module showed me what a novice I was.

I knew that important people were always busy, but I never took the time to think through what they were feeling on their end and how to impress them by making their lives easier.

I’ve reached out to 5 people who are either directly related or indirectly related to my first choice and second choice dream jobs. I used the methods in module 4 to craft emails that were brief but effective with specific times so it makes it easier to say yes… I’m waiting to hear back from three and the other two already responded but we’re working through scheduling conflicts. I should be able to have coffee with them sometime around Thanksgiving.”
– “Jessica,” Dream Job Elite graduate

“Of the 5 e-mails, I got 4 responses. 3 offered to respond…”

“I really think this [course] gives more structure and guidance to how I approach networking.

The multi-touch strategy is a great way to keep in touch without just taking and never giving back. It is also an easier way to follow up after the initial meeting, which I’ve always had trouble with, and gives me guideposts on what I should be doing after the initial meeting.

I reached out to 5 people this week. All were cold e-mails to people I do not have connections with. Of the 5 e-mails, I got 4 responses. 3 offered to respond to questions and communicate via e-mail.”
– “Steve,” Dream Job Elite graduate

“I’d honestly never even considered this…”

“[I learned] very specifically what my goals should be from these initial meetings with experts on my potential dream jobs. Prior to the lesson, I understood the general idea that I should be getting in touch with experts on particular job titles, but now I know exactly what my I’m after: 1) “Would I enjoy this job?” 2) “Can I get this job and how to best do so?”

[I learned] that acting on an expert’s advice is a way to add value back to them. (I’d honestly never even considered this). I’ve always gotten hung up on how to give value back to an expert who’s helped me. This always turns in to a barrier for me and I tend to not follow up for a long time. And I always assumed their advice was for me to simply take back and execute quietly on my own. So, it’s great to understand that top performers really do like seeing their advice put into practice and knowing that a new contact is succeeding.

Have reached out to 6 UI Designers at Apple in total so far RESULTS: 50% response rate = 1 IM chat, 1 email with my questions answered, 1 offer to answer my questions on Quora.”
– “Lance,” Dream Job Elite graduate

By the way — I have the actual before & after videos, showing the actual teardowns and techniques employed. You’ll be astonished when you see them. And I’ll give some of you access, soon.

How can you apply this TODAY?

I love pointing out that there are always hundreds more comments on the posts where people can just jot down something they feel vs. posts where I ask them to do something concrete. It’s a classic example of using small barriers to avoid kooks.

You saw this earlier this week, when people spent tons of time writing email scripts…but how many of you actually emailed people and set up a coffee meeting?

Today, I challenge you to try putting this into practice.

To Do Today

  1. Leave a comment: Identify 3 barriers you have about networking (e.g., “I always thought that networking meant ____ but recently, I realized that it means _____. But I’m still stuck at _____.”)
  2. Tell me 1 specific thing you will do by MONDAY — 3 days from now — to start on the path to meeting interesting people. Do not say something vague like “I’m really gonna try hard to think about who I should meet,” because if you do I will kill you. BE SPECIFIC.

I will be doing a live webcast covering how to interview — the exact phrases, body language, and answers to master interviewing. This will be next Monday, 1/23 at 9pm EST. “Waaa Ramit, I live in Antarctica, can u pls record it?” No recordings, no whining. If you can make it, I’m thrilled to show you inside techniques you’ve never seen.

Sign up below so I know where to send the invitation link.

Can’t see the above form? Click here to join the list.

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Last night, 3,000+ IWT readers from all over the world tuned in, live, to learn the inside techniques to craft a winning resume. These are the same techniques I used to get jobs at Google, Intuit, and many other companies.


Attention jackasses: These are not my curtains. I’m not 78 years old. I was at a hotel.

I had nothing to sell. I just wanted to show people that — instead of blaming the economy, or believing that “I don’t have enough experience” is a valid excuse — they could take their Dream Job search into their own hands.

Here’s what attendees had to say:

“Just watched an AMAZING livecast on #resume writing with @ramit, I am EXCITED to do my year-end review, wow.”
- Ashley

“@ramit great info tonight. I’m actually going to apply it to my RESUME WRITING SERVICE!! haha that last comment hit me hard”
- Rod W.

Watching @ramit tear down a resume. Love his insights. bit.ly/best-resume
Libby K.

The #1 question I’m getting today is, “Can you send me a copy of the webcast?” The answer is no. When I said I wasn’t sure I would record it, I meant it. This was a one-time only event for the people who invested their evening into learning how to craft a master-level resume.

But I can give you the next best thing. I have an excerpt of the best of my resume advice — including my teardown of the resume that helped many of my students secure jobs from the world’s top companies.

You won’t get the entire presentation from yesterday. But you will be able to see some of the critical insights that you can apply to make your resume stand out from all the unwashed masses.

This 15-minute video is only available via my Dream Job launch list. Here you go…

Can’t see the above form? Click here to sign up.

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Welcome to Week 2 of the 3-week Dream Job Boot Camp.

As you know, I got tired of seeing the same old career advice from 68-year-old people who have never been through serious recruiting. As a result, even when they tried to offer advice — even when they genuinely believed it would help! — it really didn’t. There’s only so many times we can listen to someone tell us to shorten our resume to 1 page before we start to contemplate suicide via a butter knife.

Instead, I want to pull back the veil on how top performers find their Dream Jobs.

These are people who use their immense personal networks to land jobs before they’re ever announced. These are people who negotiate tens of thousands of dollars of raises — without being adversarial. And these are people who have found their passions, and they’re being paid well to do them every day.

You don’t have to negotiate $20K raises or tap into a network of 75 CEOs. Even if you did 1/10th of that, that’s a Big Win.

The code for this week is: ACCELERATE. I want to help you take the things you’re ALREADY doing…and accelerate them. The truth is, most of us could get huge wins if we focused on doing the right things (e.g., not wasting time at yet another career fair or mindlessly updating your resume) and did them masterfully. You actually do LESS, but do it better.

Here’s an example from one of my Dream Job Elite students:

 

What I Covered in Week 1 of the Dream Job Boot Camp

Last week, we covered how to decommoditize yourself — or how to stand out in ways that immediately separate you from other people trying to find their Dream Job.

Here are posts you should be caught up on:

As you read these, identify 2 insights you can apply to your Dream Job search. For example, “I used to do ____ and now I realize I should be doing ____.”

Now, here’s what’s coming your way this week.

Tonight: Resume Teardown

TONIGHT — Monday, 1/16 — a Live Resume Teardown. I’m doing a live event at 10pm EST (7pm PST) where…

  • I’ll take an actual resume and tear it down, live, showing you what works and what doesn’t
  • Then I’ll show you the actual resume I used to get job offers at Google, Intuit, etc — and the psychology and reasoning behind the EXACT words I used
  • You’ll learn how to get deep in the heads of the hiring manager so you can read their minds
  • By the end of this, you’ll have insights into resumes that you can IMMEDIATELY put to work
  • Once you know how to make your resume stand out, you’ll also see how this fits into your entire Dream Job search. This is a powerful strategic + tactical approach.

By the way, please don’t ask about recordings or complain about the time zone. I know there’s no perfect time for everyone, but the truth is this site has gotten so large that I can’t appeal to everyone. Still, I’m optimistic: In the past, hundreds of people from around the world have stayed awake because they valued the material and knew they could not find it elsewhere. I’m not sure if I’ll release a recorded version, so hopefully you can make it.

To get access to tonight’s Live Resume Teardown, you’ll have to be on the Dream Job launch list. Here’s the link:
http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/dreamjob

Coming This Week: Natural Networking

One of the most requested areas of finding a Dream Job is how to network. Check out these questions I got:

“Networking. I want to network and provide value instead of the leech-based networking that actually comes to my mind. The problem is 1) I don’t keep up with people in my network, 2) I am not sure what actually consists of who is included in my network (such as hiring mangers where I didn’t get the job, do hey count? and 3) my current network is small and the people in it are people I have known for years but we share different goals.”
-P. Hunter

“Networking, I think, is the most important. Most of the interviews I’ve gotten in my current career have come through connections of varying degrees of strength. But I’ve historically had a strong aversion to putting myself out there, actively getting to know people. Partly this is due to my personality — I like being the one sought, not the seeker. But mostly it’s due to my ineptitude in approaching effectively.”
-Jenny B.

“1. Worst career advice…where do I start? I have to go with: “Just network.” OK, maybe not terrible advice, but nobody tells you HOW to network in an unsleazy way, and then use that network to get a job.”
-Dave

Networking CAN be done without being sleazy, slimy, and scammy. Everyone has a network. And even if you don’t have years of experience, there are ways to reach out to busy people where they will WANT to help you.

I decided to hook you guys up with some of the inside techniques you can use to meet hiring managers, CEOs, and extremely busy people. This includes:

  • How to connect with anyone — the specific email text to use, the mindset, and even the words to use when you meet them
  • How to make it worth a busy person’s time — even if you don’t have years of experience
  • The common mistakes people make when trying to network (hint: going to useless networking events with a bunch of unemployed people is not “networking”)

I have new material, videos, and action steps for you this week.

Here are the results many of my students have gotten using these techniques:

“In week 1 of outreach, it took me about 12 days to get roughly a 60% conversion rate (where conversion is defined as direct contact with a target). Here I am in Week 4 of outreach and my Monday e-mails have already yielded that same 60% hit rate and two deferrals (illness and maternity leave). So, if you exclude those 2 responses I’m at 80 – 90% response rate in 36 hours as opposed to 60% in 288 hours. I’m loving it and it’s really pushing my confidence level.”
–Chris, Dream Job Elite graduate

* * *

“I have been following Ramit for 2 years or so; his refreshing “get out there the do it” approach has created some great results. One piece of advice I followed was to spend $10 and take some out for coffee to find out about what they know, pick their brain etc.

I called a guy I had met once or twice at an industry-specific networking function and he was on the board/committee of the group. I asked him about how the group was structured and about getting on the committee; 14 months later he is the President and I am the vice-president! If Ramit hadn’t suggested I spend the “best $10 of my life” who knows where I would be instead!”
–Michelle

To Do Today

1. Share a comment with your 2 biggest insights of last week. (For example: “I realized that I’ve been doing X all wrong…from now on, I’m going to do Y”). Also share a comment about the ONE THING I can help with on tonight’s Resume Teardown for you.

2. Be sure you’re on the Dream Job Insider’s List for tonight’s Live Resume Teardown. Here’s the link again. See you at 10pm EST.

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Here is a fascinating insight I discovered out of the millions of emails I have tested and sent to my IWT Insider’s List: You would think the best emails I send are the value-packed psychological insights, or the marketing nuggets, or the interviews I do with close friends like BJ Fogg and Tim Ferriss.

Nope.

The single-best email I send is where I tell you what I’m GOING to give you.

Note: That’s NOT the actual email with the amazing material or life-changing insights. Instead, it’s the email telling you what you’re GOING to get.

Any idea why?

Two reasons:

  1. Because we love the anticipation of a free gift
  2. Because someone telling us what we’re GOING to get requires no work

In other words, it’s easier to feel good about the good stuff that’s coming than to actually USE the good stuff!

This is actually a very deep lesson on human behavior.

We “Claim” We Want to Do Something…But We Don’t

Any of these sound familiar?

  • “Yeah, I really should work out more”
  • “Yeah, I really need to get my finances together”
  • “Ugh, I hate my job. I need to figure this shit out”

We intuitively know this. All of us have something like this in our lives, usually around money, health, relationships, and careers. And when you ask people why, they are often unable to explain their own behavior — but they are delighted to opine about others.

Question: Why do some people whine while others take action?
Answer: 380+ responses. Answers like, “It’s very simple…people are just lazy” or “He is clearly afraid of XYZ and if he just did ABC he would be successful.”

Question: Why don’t YOU take action?
Answer: “I dunno…” or “I’m just lazy…” or “I had a really busy project last year, but this year is different…”

In other words, we feel ultra-confident about assigning reasons for OTHER people’s behavior…but we are clueless about our own. In fact, we’re terrible at both!

Be honest: All of us have something we “claim” we want to do, but we haven’t taken action on it. Why? Do you really think you’re going to figure it out later? Do you really know why you haven’t done it?

If your answer is “I’m lazy” or “I’m not motivated,” then you are missing the entire point. You’ve already lost because you’re using the wrong language. See, if you believe you’re “lazy,” then the only solution is to “try harder” — and we know that simple willpower alone won’t solve it. So what do we do?

We try random tactics. If we’re looking for our Dream Job, we decide to fix up our resume…or go shopping for new clothes because it’s an “investment”…or browse around for “interview advice.” But we don’t understand why. When it doesn’t work, we do it again. And again and again! Kill me please. Worst of all, we have no insight into how the actions we’re doing will pay off.

‘How does this resume fit into my entire job search? Oh well…I should just do it anyway. It can’t hurt…’

Our fears start taking hold:

“…if I met someone today whose brother was a fiction editor at some great literary journal, I’d be terrified to ask for the connection, because then I’d have to show some of my work to the editor, and then he would provide feedback, and then I would have to do more things to get better.”
-Lindsay

“I learned about weaknesses I didn’t know I had–communication, procrastination, sabotage.  I remember saying how it felt like such hard work, but as I look back, I was working harder, not smarter, in fear of going at it on my own.”
-Katelyn

“Self confidence is a major contributing factor.  I’ve been reading Ramit on and off for years and never implemented any of his strategies.  I rationalized that I was a perpetual loser, and that these were all great things for someone really together and talented to do.  As a consequence, I’ve struggled as the low employee on the totem pole with the lowest salary, most hours, and least fringe benefits.  At home I just left the big pile of bills sit there for MONTHS unopened because I was too scared to face my own debt.  And I’ve let my personal life and family ties go to hell because I was so used up at the end of every workday.”
-Tracey

There’s a better way. There’s a way to actually see the entire chessboard in front of you instead of moving one piece at a time. Instead of using random tactics, it’s possible to have a bird’s-eye view of the entire game.

So, instead of random tactic after random tactic, what should we do?

The answer is to use systems.

Systems and Tactics: What a Personal Trainer Taught Me

I was always a tall, skinny guy. In college, I had the body of a supermodel…a female supermodel. So I decided to change that and start working out. And over the next few years, I tried a series of tactics to see what would work.

Since I started, I’ve gained 45lbs (intentionally) and learned how to look like a normal human being.

The way I did it is directly related to how you can find your Dream Job.

See, I could have just picked a random tactic. Let’s say, lifting. Or eating more. Or reading a ton of books, or betting with my friends (which I did).

Recently, I decided to get a trainer to get to the next level. Look at the psychology behind this decision — and how you can apply it to your next 8 weeks.

The psychology of using a personal trainer
 

(Note: If your first thought is, “But Ramit, waa….we can’t all afford a personal trainer,” then you have missed the point. First, this is an EXAMPLE of a tactic you can use. Second, the system matters, not any individual tactic. Third, most people reading this could afford a trainer if they prioritized it, which I cover in my book.)

What you are seeing here is the game being played around you. Clueless people look at random tactics. They jump on the fad diet, the shiny budgeting software, the fanciest productivity tool. Smart people see behind it and realize any individual tactic is just a random tactic — but the SYSTEM of testing different approaches is profoundly important.

How to Use this Systems Approach to Radically Improve Your Resume

I’m going to show you a tactical approach to improving your resume and making it stand out more than 99% of other people. In fact, in our research, we’ve seen this approach help people’s resumes “semi-automatically” float to the top of the pile.

Then, I’m going to show you how this tactic fits into the entire system of finding your Dream Job. The actual psychology and nuts & bolts behind it.

Here’s how I’m going to do it:

  • On Monday, January 16th at 10pm EST, I’m hosting a live webcast
  • I’ll take an actual resume and tear it down, live, showing you what works and what doesn’t
  • I’ll show you the actual resume I used to get job offers at Google, Intuit, etc — and the psychology and reasoning behind the EXACT words I used
  • You’ll learn how to get deep in the heads of the hiring manager so you can read their minds
  • By the end of this, you’ll have insights into resumes that you can IMMEDIATELY put to work

Once you know how to make your resume stand out, you’ll also see how this fits into your entire Dream Job search. This is a powerful strategy + tactics approach.

Many of you listed your #1 challenge as improving your resume. Some of you said, “I send in resume after resume, but I never get a response.” That is a problem with a clear fix — EVEN if you don’t have massive experience, EVEN if you didn’t go to the best college, EVEN if you have spotty work experience. The actual language you use, the positioning you adopt, the methods you employ — these are immensely powerful.

This is something I want to help you with because even with this small tactic, you can see immediate, astonishing results.

If you’re interested, I’m inviting members of my Dream Job launch list to watch live, and I’ll host a Q&A after.

You can join here:

Can’t see the above form? Click here to sign up.


See you Monday.

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Today, a story about how a salesman sold me thousands of dollars worth of clothes I wasn’t going to buy.

As you read this, try to spot the differences between an average salesman and this top-performing salesman.

A couple months ago, I got an email from a sales guy at a clothing store I’ve bought from before. (I don’t buy clothes that often, but once in a while I’ll do a year’s worth of shopping, and I must have filled in my email address while checking out.) He said, “Hey Ramit, it’s ____ from ____. We’re having a 40% off sale starting next week, but if you come in this week, I can put aside the clothes so you get first crack.”

Sounds good, I thought. So I scheduled some time and wandered in on a Friday around 2pm. This is my life. Blogging and shopping for clothes on a Friday afternoon. I would be an incredible trophy wife.

I was running early and the guy wasn’t there yet, so I walked around the store and picked up a couple clothes. Nothing was really working out. I was getting ready to leave when the guy walked in. “Hey man,” he said. “What’s up?”

I told him I was just about to leave, so he said, let me show you some of the stuff we have. He then walked around THE SAME STORE I HAD WALKED AROUND, found a bunch of pieces, and showed me how to combine them in a way I would have never thought of.

I ended up buying thousands of dollars of clothes that day.

Now, let’s analyze what happened.

He deeply understood his audience. The customers who shop here are not primarily concerned by price. They’re looking for a high level of service and clothes that are perfect “for them.” Getting a personal email from their guy at the store to invite them into a sale before anyone else? For the target audience, that is the definition of service.

He was extremely good at his job. He saw patterns that I did not. He wasn’t ever pushy. And he offered to help me get the clothes tailored in my timeline (service). Notice that most people think that being good at their job is enough. It is not.

He made me happy to pay. I love hearing from people who think that persuading people always involves deception, like this person who emailed me 2 days ago:

“Ramit, I do not want to read a half hour American-style infomerial before I get to your point. Christ!

Get to the fucking point at the start, dont lead me on a tour through your childhood first.

1. you grab me with the intro so I click on the link

2. there’s an unending page of infomercials (plural)

Please dont waste my time with sales. Hire a copy editor.”

–Elizabeth W.

Look at that last line: “Please don’t waste my time with sales.” Her invisible script is: “Anyone selling something is bad.”

Wrong, wrong, wrong. This invisible script assumes that the person being sold to is some naiive person who has no agency. Look, I’m not some doe-eyed 8-year-old. I know how persuasion works in the sales process. You think I’m going to get “cheated” out of my money? In fact, once he showed me value — I got first crack at the merchandise, 40% off, and new clothes that I needed — I was delighted to pay.

When you understand these principles — deeply understand these principles — you can use them to secure your Dream Job…and people will be HAPPY to hire you. They’ll be happy to pay you more. Even if they know the exact techniques you are using, they’ll be powerless to stop you. And there’s no reason they would, anyway, because you are taking a 100% ethical approach — just like my sales guy at the store.

LET ME REPEAT IT AGAIN FOR SCAMMY MORONS THAT SOMETIMES SLIP ONTO THIS SITE TO USE MY STUFF FOR NEFARIOUS PURPOSES. IF YOU USE THIS TO TRY TO SCAM SOMEONE AND I FIND OUT, I WILL CREATE A PAGE CALLED IWILLTEACHYOUTOBERICH.COM/IDIOTS AND I WILL LIST YOUR FULL NAME THERE. Trust me, it will happen.

Now, I know this works because some of my own staff have used random Dream Job techniques “against” me, and they worked. And I created the Dream Job system!

Now, I get to teach the system to you.

Introducing Competence Triggers

In the hundreds of comments about the lies we’ve been told, one of the code words was BETRAYAL. We feel betrayed because we were told if we study hard and get a good job, we’ll be successful.

But let’s deconstruct that. What does get a good job mean? Part of getting a good job is becoming good at what you do. But typically, that’s where the advice stops. Most people genuinely believe that “being good” is enough. But in a world where there are millions of other good people, you can’t just be good — you have to stand out. Think about it: There are thousands and thousands of “good” salespeople in NYC. How come this guy made a fat commission off me? Yes, he’s good at picking out outfits (like 5,000,000 other people in NYC). And yes, he’s a nice guy. But there’s something else.

He made it because he is a master of what I call Competence Triggers — the signals that show you are a top performer. Take a look.

Let me explain carefully so I don’t get morons accusing me of teaching how to trick people.

Competence Triggers are not a trick to hide your deficiencies. Of course you have to be good at your craft. If we took the typical illiterate blog reader and simply decided to copy the guy’s tactics — sending an email, inviting in someone early, etc — it might work for a few minutes. But if he wasn’t good at his job, he would quickly be discovered.

If you try to put lipstick on a pig, you will be discovered. (Interestingly, the more advanced you are, the quicker any deception will be discovered, because you’re competing with increasingly smart people).

But Competence Triggers signal that you are potentially worthy of further investigation. Like my Craigslist Penis Effect, they show that unlike the unwashed masses, you are at least somewhat credible — and when used correctly, highly credible.

If you internalize these Competence Triggers, and the psychology behind them, you can get amazing results like this (check the timestamp on the first one):

Or this one:

Or Mel, from a recent comment:

“I actually used your negotiation tactic to negotiate a 25% raise and more responsibility within the first 90 days of my employment. Being a contractor at this company did not make it an easy task for me to get more money before I had been with them for a year.”
-Mel

Nice.

I’ll be teaching you the ins and outs of Competence Triggers, including the exact ones you can use in your Dream Job search. And best of all, my top students have internalized these triggers to be able to use them in social situations and relationships. They are truly one of the most versatile techniques you’ll learn on IWT.

Introducing the 3-Week Dream Job Boot Camp

Last week,  we saw that there’s a game being played around us that we don’t know about.

We’ve seen that there are deep psychological frameworks, mindsets, and techniques you can use to land your Dream Job…to find your passion…and to negotiate an enviable salary.

We’ve also seen that I have no patience for whiners. (You want to complain about the macro economy as a reason for why you don’t have your Dream Job? Leave this site.) I also have no patience for terrible career advice that’s never tested. I’d rather have 5 people who take action than 5,000 whiners — which is how I get success stories like the ones above.

About 18 months ago, I decided I was tired of seeing the same old terrible career advice. I’d already helped a bunch of friends get jobs, but I wanted to systematize what I’d learned so you could use it. So that instead of answering random questions like “What should I say in my cover letter?” and “How do I find out what companies to apply to?” I could turn over a seriously comprehensive system to answer ALL your questions — even the ones you don’t know you should be asking.

I could have made some series of blog posts, or a random $27 ebook. But those are the kinds of things that people read on their lunch break, then say “I L1ke d1s guy,” and then do nothing with.

I wanted to think bigger.

You guys have seen some of the videos I’ve been putting up and probably wondered what’s going on. I took 2 routes.

Starting tomorrow, I’m launching a free Dream Job Boot Camp. This is a 3-week free course via my blog and Dream Job Launch list that will take you behind the scenes of mastering your Dream Job search. I’m going to share scripts, case studies, and teardowns — where I take people, live and on camera — and show them how to take their interviewing skills to the next level. Their negotiation skills. Their storytelling skills.

I will put this free material up against anyone’s paid career advice, and I believe mine will come out on top. But that’s for you to decide, not me.

Let me tell you why I’m doing this. I already told how disgusted I am at the terrible career advice that so-called “career experts” dispense. From the 500+ comments posted last week alone, I can tell this has hit a nerve. But I’m also tired of hearing people in their 20s and 30s complain about the economy and delegate their job search. “I’ll do it later,” we say. Or “I sent in 20 resumes last week,” they say. I just shake my head. There’s a game being played around them that they don’t even realize.

A top performer would never send in 20 resumes. A top performer would have already put the pieces in place so that when he’s looking for a Dream Job, he has a network of people LOOKING FOR HIM. He would know how to distinguish himself, knowing that if he submits his resume through the front door (or, god forbid, a jobs website), he’s already lost the game.

He would know that money is not the only part of a Dream Job, but he would understand how to be compensated for the amount that he truly deserves.

And a top performer would build a simple, testable system to figure out:

  • What is my Dream Job?
  • How does that relate to my passion?
  • Where are the broken “links in my job search chain” and where should I be spending time? Improving my resume? Interviewing skills? Negotiation? What??
  • What are the things I do NOT need to do?

I spent the last 18 months building that system and now I want to share it with you.

Here’s how this is going to work for the next 3 weeks of free material.

Week 1: Decommoditizing Yourself. Too many idiots think that if they sent in 20 resumes this week, they’ve done their job. If you think it’s sufficient to take the same actions as 5 million other people, frankly you don’t deserve a job.

Instead, I’m going to show you how to stand out from other people using the very words in your email, the phrases you say in in-person meetings, and even the psychological techniques you use when scoping out WHO to meet. Most importantly, you’ll learn about the psychological barriers you have that you didn’t even know you had — and how to tackle them.

Week 2: Networking. Another area where people whine using this heart-attack-inducing phrase: “Well, maybe if I went to STANFORD, I could…” or “It’s not WHAT you know, it’s WHO you know” (most used by 20-something dudes and especially tech-y people).

Total nonsense. You have a network, even if you don’t realize it. I’ll show you how to find it, and I’ll show you that people actually WANT TO HELP YOU — if you approach them in the right way. (Hint: Don’t ask someone to be your mentor. That is a classic low Competence Trigger.) You’ll learn both the theory and the exact scripts you can use to build an incredible network. I’ve done this with best-selling authors, journalists, and CEOs — and not only does my technique work, but I’m so comfortable with the approach that I’m simply going to give it to you, openly. THAT is the test of how ethical your approach is. Would you be comfortable having it seen by 300,000+ people? Judge for yourself.

Week 3: Interviewing and Negotiation. Just wait for this. Watch me take real people on video and take them from being 7s to 9.5s in a matter of minutes. Watch me sit down with interview masters and learn how they would approach every situation at the highest levels (e.g., Tier 1 management consultants). And learn how you can create a “mental toolbox” to store these techniques when you walk into an interview or negotiation. God I’m getting so excited right now.

All of that is my gift to you for reading my material and FOLLOWING THE ACTION STEPS.

Btw, you know the difference between people who read my stuff as intellectual entertainment…and people who take action?

Whiners who read but do nothing:

“Obviously, you are…a huckster who preys on the younger and more gullible college set along with those who feel left out of a closed economic system. You think you are filling a gap. Now, you are hawking a book. What is new here? Absolutely nothing! Your tripe bores me — go get a real job.”

As you can see, my inbox is filled with unicorns and love. Now look at people who actually take action:

“I’ve increased my salary from $67K to $80K/yr in less than one year using your negotiation techniques and getting into my boss’ head.”
–Chad

“Today, with your help/encouragement to figure out how to stand-out and be exceptional at my job and articles on negotiation, I just scored myself a $10,000 raise on an offer that was already a few grand over my current contractor position!!!! The best thing is that all I have to do is show up to the same job tomorrow and keep doing what I’ve been doing.”
–Marshall

“By doing some prep and using your advice (including watching your videos), I was able to increase my salary by almost $5,000/year and receive paid-time-off for a 2-week vacation all within in a 10 minute conversation. Thanks Ramit!!”
–Clay

Who would you rather be?

And by the way, of those successful students, do you think they’ll stick with me for the next 10-20 years? Of course — they’re students for life. That’s what I want for you.

The Dream Job course. So we’ve covered the free material coming your way starting tomorrow.

What I didn’t tell you was that I really wanted to think big for this Dream Job material. Not some random series of blog posts alone. Not some $27 ebook. To step it up, I invested over $250,000 into this material, countless staff members, over 20 cross-country flights, and years of testing and research. My goal is for my free material to beat any other paid material out there. I have the means to invest in you first, and I know that when I do — and you find success — you’ll be a student for life.

Obviously, it doesn’t make sense to invest $250K of my own money, then just give it away free. So I figured, why not do both?

The 3-week Dream Job Boot Camp is completely free. Use the stuff to get results like tens of thousands of others have.  All I ask is that you take action and not passively consume it. This is not some psychological buffet.

And after the Boot Camp, I’ll be releasing the full Dream Job course. This will be a premium course and it won’t be cheap. But if you’ve come to know the quality of my material, you know that it will be the single-most comprehensive course on finding your Dream Job ever created, covering everything from “What IS my Dream Job?” down to “Give me a video of how I respond to THIS interview question…and show me the right body language to use.” 100+ hours of video, dozens of tested scripts, and other stuff I’ll share later.

So you can decide. Try the free stuff. See how valuable it is. For a small percentage of you, you’ll want the advanced stuff and I’ll be happy to offer the next level of material through the Dream Job premium course. I thought this was a pretty good compromise.

I hope you guys like this approach, because I didn’t want to just offer you a 10-part series of blog posts. Anyone can do that. But it’s difficult to share the level of insight and depth that I want to share with you if you’re limited to a few posts. So I’m going to offer you material you’ve never seen before — and I believe that if you’re serious about finding a Dream Job, you’ll know that it’s worth investing more than 5-10 hours. This is the rest of our lives we’re talking about.

So here’s what to do.

1. Leave a comment with the following:
- Share ONE Competence Trigger that you’ve used successfully (example: “When I walk into a bar and I’m confident/with friends, I get better reactions than when I’m desperate…”). Be specific.
- What’s a situation that you’d like to optimize but you’re not sure which Competence Triggers would apply? (Example: Interviews, negotiation, informational interviews.)
- BONUS question: In the student examples above, why do some people whine while others take action?

2. Sign up for the Dream Job Boot Camp list below. You’ll also get access to a private Dream Job blog where I’ll be releasing private scripts, videos, etc.

Are you ready?

If you can’t see this email box, click here to join the Dream Job Boot Camp.

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Today, some gut-wrenching stories about the worst career advice you’ve been hearing for the last 25 years.

It is truly amazing how bad most career advice is. The only comparable industry is “financial literacy,” which mindlessly repeats the same 5 tips over and over, is completely out of touch with how real people use their money, and genuinely believes that the world needs yet another compound-interest chart. Even the name “financial literacy” makes me want to urinate all over my computer.

So it was with great trepidation and reluctance that I began doing career research.

In true IWT style, we have an extraordinarily rigorous process for studying advice: We buy every course, product, and book. We study them intensely, keeping blind notes and comparing them. We build iterative models and frameworks, relentlessly test them, and in some cases rip them up and start again (in early 2011, we spent 4 months and tens of thousands of dollars on one approach because we’d missed something subtle — only to have to throw it all away). By the time you ever see a course from me, it has been quietly vetted by tens of thousands of people.

After all this research, what I found was seriously disheartening.

I found advice written by people who haven’t looked for a job in 30 years. (In fact, most career experts have never found a top-tier job.) If they haven’t interviewed with the world’s top companies, how do they know how the game is really played?

I found advice that tried to be “modern” — by slapping on words like “social media” onto the same old tired advice that’s been passed around for 50 years.

I found that career advice for women is almost unreadable. With phrases like “You go, girl” and approximately 68,000 references to shoes and “climbing the ladder,” I found myself wondering: Are women really this dumb? The answer is no. But the advice is.

So here are 5 of the most egregiously bad pieces of advice — THIS IS REAL CAREER ADVICE — that we found. Seriously, these are actual things that people wrote and were paid for.

Some of the worst career advice on the internet

I pulled these 5 pieces of hilariously bad career advice from our internal research vault.

Let’s start with…

1. The #1 thing you need for a job search is…

Yes! If you’ve been looking for your Dream Job, the first thing you need is NOT a strong network, or a process to identify your targets, or a way to narrow down the infinite universe of job options available to you. No, you don’t need to understand your psychological barriers, or the interviewing game, or how to master negotiation.

Nope! You need business cards.

2. This is what passes for “scripts” from other sites

Notice my favorite part: the last line.

Simple! Just expand! Hey…start a business. That’s right, just start it. Now, get some customers and you’ll be a millionaire!

3. Follow your passion!

It sounds logical to find your passion using self-examination. But has that worked for you? Just like “keep a budget” sounds logical for money — but doesn’t work — looking inward is only a small part of the puzzle. On its own, it doesn’t work. Of course, you would need to test it to realize this. Bonus: Notice the very American idea of looking inward, as if you can “think your way to clarity.” Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Here’s my view on passion:


This is me smiling

4. Don’t close any doors!

Notice that this idea of “keeping all of your options open” is so deeply entrenched that many people cannot fathom another way. But if you’re honest with yourself, you know that having too many options is crippling.

5. If you tweet it, they will come.

ARE YOU SERIOUSLY SHITTING ME?

Why is this career advice so bad?

That seriously passes for career advice — in SOME OF THE LARGEST MEDIA SOURCES IN THE WORLD.

Are you kidding me?

Is anyone else outraged?

I’ll tell you why I’m mad.

I’m mad because this terrible advice is written NOT to help people, but to drive pageviews. If one of these writers helps literally zero people, it doesn’t matter — they still get paid. In fact, I am changing “Doesn’t matter, had sex” to “Doesn’t matter, got paid.”

God I love that song. Anyway, since these career “experts” are never held accountable, you get low-quality writers who come up with obvious ideas, then write the same article 1,500 times. GTFO, horrible advice-givers.

I’m mad because we’re fed platitudes for our entire adolescence (“Go to college! Get a good job! Buy a house!”) and provided no guidance on how the game is actually played. For example, who ever told you that buying a house is very often a horrible investment? Who told you that submitting your resume through the front door of a company (via its website) is a quick route to being considered a total commodity — like the hundreds of other applicants?

I’m mad because the career advice we get is unspecific at best, and blatantly wrong at worst. Telling people to get business cards? Please leave this industry and never come back. I have literally never, ever gotten any job because of my business card. In fact, I will bet anyone with a $1,000 set of business cards that I could out-perform you in any job interview.

(I’m going to teach you how to do EXACTLY that — including the words to use in an interview — on the Dream Job launch list.)

After we spent 4 months going down the wrong path of constructing our Dream Job material, we realized we had taken a wrong turn and we had to go back and do it all again. But that’s not what makes me mad. I’m mad because I realized 90%+ of the books we read had never tested their theories with real people.

When you read other personal-finance books and they start with, “Let’s figure out how much you’re spending,” do you know what the vast majority of readers do? They put the book away. Nobody wants to write down what they spend because it makes them feel guilty. Of course, you would only know this if you tested your material. The same is true here: Most career “experts” sat in their room, concocted some ideas that SOUNDED reasonable, and wrote a book. They never tested it. They never systematically identified the flaws in their plan. They just “put it out there.” And the results have been terrible.

That’s one of the reasons we get people like Beth:

“I am angry that I am working in a silly job after spending a lot of money on a master’s degree to get out of silly admin jobs. It makes me feel foolish, BROKE (student loans), and like I’m a waste of space. I’m not contributing the world in a way I consider positive.” — Beth H.

And I’m mad because most of YOU have never taken the time to learn this material. Yes, the media gives us bad advice, and so do our parents, but when was the last time YOU took a successful friend out to coffee to learn how s/he did it? When did you ask one of your top friends how they got their job, and asked them do a practice interview? When was the last time you systematically tried to figure out the job game?

It’s fun to blame everyone else, but you ultimately need to take responsibility for yourself. I want to kill you right now.

The result of this? We end up feeling betrayed by a system that promised us success, but never gave us the tools to find it. In a fascinating comment on Reddit, someone wrote about why men often seem bitter about not finding women (substitute jobs for women, yeah I said it):

“I think a lot of Reddit is young dudes that focused on school and homework and such and figured that if they just checked off the boxes their parents and teachers told them were important, everything would fall in their laps. Especially if you’re a smart kid, opportunities seem to come to you pretty much constantly and everyone tells you you’re great. So they do well in school, do all their homework, focus on studies, and eschew social occasions for being dumb/beneath them.

Then when the hot girl doesn’t fall all over them for having good grades or being an engineer or whatever, they get bitter because hey, man, I’m smart and I majored in a real major not that liberal arts crap and so on. I’m doing everything I’m supposed to do! They feel entitled to have the girl of their dreams just because they’ve checked boxes and do the “But I’m a NICE GUY” thing and when that doesn’t happen, they get more and more angry and settle into the “Women are just crazy bitches!”

One of the code words of our generation is BETRAYED. We were promised so much, but the chasm between expectations and reality is vast.

(By the way, this isn’t just for people with low or middle incomes. I know people with 6-figure jobs who feel the same way.)

We graduated into a terrible economy, a world with more choices than ever before, and an entirely new life situation to navigate. Our parents’ advice (“Pick a good job and stick with it!”) worked for them, but today is simply irrelevant. Worst, there is nobody who’s been through it — someone we trust who understands how the system REALLY works — who can take us through it.

You’re not finding Mildred, the 62-year-old lady at your career services office, throwing her fist down on the table and saying, “LISTEN UP, ASS. HERE’S HOW YOU GET A BIDDING WAR STARTED BETWEEN FACEBOOK AND GOOGLE.”

It’s no surprise that we end up feeling betrayed. Take a look:


Seriously, whoever picks these screenshots needs to be hurt

And so an entire generation — our generation — has been raised with this low-level anxiety in our heads that we NEED to find our passion, but we don’t know how. Start a twitter page? Clean up our resume? Buy a new suit? WHAT? WHAT DO WE DO?

We’re repeatedly told to find what we’re passionate about…but how? We see our friends posting stuff on FB they’re doing — traveling, getting prestigious appointments, buying a new car — and we just don’t know how to craft our lifestyles to be about that. Some of us even have these things — a nice apartment, a new car — but we’re still not happy.

Over time, we naturally become more risk-averse.

#1: I am afraid to fail. Not so much out of fear of failure itself, but moreso the fear of wasting time and energy in doing so. While typing this, I realize this is more like a FEAR OF RISK: I feel like I should not put my efforts into something when I am not certain that the payout will be worth the time I put in.
–Eric M.

How many of us would do ANYTHING to find our Dream Job…but we’re not sure what to do? Notice how over time, we become more and more concerned with wasting our time. The phrase goes like this: “Yeah, I would try anything…but how do I know it will work? I don’t want to waste my time on something that won’t work.”

Sound familiar?

The ultimate irony

The ultimate irony is that there are top performers getting the BEST jobs in this terrible economy. And most of us don’t even know that it’s happening.

Most of us simply accept what we read in the mass media, which is produced for the LCD — lowest common denominator. I don’t give a damn about the LCD. I’m not writing this for people who are unemployed or have $10-an-hour jobs. They need an entirely different skillset. I created this material to impress my Stanford friends, because I know that you’d rather have material that brings you HIGHER rather than panders to the most basic needs (“Wear a clean shirt!”) ever. There’s enough of that worthless advice out there.

I’m focused on results. Like how one of my students got a dream job offer within weeks of starting my Dream Job program…even before he finished the 8-week program.

So, ignore the terrible advice that is designed for pageviews, not results. There is hope. There is a SYSTEMATIC way of finding your passion, turning that into clear steps to find your dream job, and interviewing against people with years more experience — and winning. I’ve done it, I’ve helped MANY people do it, and I want to show you how.

TO DO TODAY

Leave a comment with the following:

  1. What is the most ridiculous piece of career advice you’ve ever heard? Be specific please.
  2. How has bad career advice kept you from achieving your goals? A SPECIFIC EXAMPLE PLEASE.
  3. When you graduated college, where did you think you’d be in 5 or 10 years? Where are you now? Please share a specific story about the difference between expectations and reality.


Can’t see the above form? Click here to sign up.

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I have a special talent for making women cry. It’s not intentional, it just happens. I remember, one year during college I was an RA, and one Saturday I had a series of back-to-back meetings with my residents to try to resolve all kinds of problems. I hate my roommate! I just failed my test. What should I do with my life? Stuff like that. By the end of the day, I was pretty hungry. So it was with great disappointment that I looked at my calendar and realized I had one more meeting, this one with two roommates.

One of them was a really sweet girl who just wanted the normal college experience. The other roommate was a little odd — she would wake up at 5am and immediately start typing really loudly and calling people on the phone to talk about her grades. While I was hearing their complaints, all I could think about was how my stomach was slowly eating itself. 15 minutes later, I found myself in the very odd situation of having two women crying on my futon while I ate a bag of Flaming Hot Cheetos. “Want some?” was pretty much all I could muster. The Cheetos were really good though.

What I learned from helping my residents — and later my friends — was that for many young people, there’s a game being played around us that we just don’t realize. It’s true of money (nobody teaches us this stuff), of jobs, of relationships, and of health.

This year, I want to help you cover some of the most important techniques, frameworks, and tactics you can use anywhere to live a richer life. These will help you find your passion, earn more, find your Dream Job, learn extreme social fluency, interview against the world’s top companies (and win), and integrate powerful systems into your life — instead of relying on fleeting willpower.

I was also debating including a 3-month series on cutting back on lattes, but I decided I would rather inflict 1,001 teen-angst/emo-style cuts on my body, then have my bloody corpse kicked around in a citrus field.

So, let me show you how I learned about the game being played around me — the origin of these powerful systems.

What Is The Game Being Played Around You?

In my early 20s, I finally discovered there was a game being played around me that I didn’t even realize.

I was working out regularly but not seeing any real results: Even after 6 months of trying to gain weight, I saw exactly 0 change. As a tall/ectomorphic guy, I had the body of a supermodel — a female supermodel. Not good.

I wondered why girls always went for bad boys, then complained about how these guys treated them…but avoided nice guys.

I couldn’t understand how some authors, bloggers, and business people blew up, while my blog couldn’t even get more than 5 comments per blog post.

What did I do? Did I decide to do exhaustive research and unearth the secrets of working out, women, and business? Did I dedicate 4 hours per day to create and test different approaches, then take detailed notes, then iteratively improve?

Of course not. I told myself I needed to “figure it out” some day. When I was out with friends, I would complain about it with them. Then I did nothing.

It was completely irrational! In the back of my head, I never connected this low-level feeling of complaint/malaise with actually CHANGING THINGS. I was just content to complain…or defer it until another day.

You guys know that I was studying persuasion and social influence at Stanford. I started to understand how human behavior really works. And as I started to study it intensely, I discovered fascinating insights. Mostly about myself.

Like your racist uncle who monopolizes Thanksgiving by saying that Obama is “too different than us Americans” (but who is really just racist), it turns out that, for people in our 20s and 30s, the phrase “I need to figure it out” is also CODE for something much deeper.

Here’s what it really means:


Look at that shirt. Shit just got real.

(In the video, you hear me referring to a Dream Job course. More on that later.)

For most of us, there is a game being played around us that we don’t realize.

For example, look at this quote from the New York Times:

“We did everything we were supposed to,” said Stephanie Morales, 23, who graduated from Dartmouth College in 2009 with hopes of working in the arts. Instead she ended up waiting tables at a Chart House restaurant in Weehawken, N.J., earning $2.17 an hour plus tips, to pay off her student loans. “What was the point of working so hard for 22 years if there was nothing out there?” said Ms. Morales, who is now a paralegal and plans on attending law school.

The game being played around Stephanie is that she believes she is owed a job. I’m willing to bet she believes if she sends out her resume enough, she “should” get a job. Only when it doesn’t happen, we blame everyone else…but ourselves.

“I have applied to hundreds and hundreds of jobs in that time, and despite a strong educational and professional background and outstanding references I have yet to get so much as an interview. ” –NYT

Over the years, I learned that I could blame the economy, I could blame women, I could blame everyone else…or I could try to deeply understand the game that was being played around me. For example, there were guys working out who were getting pretty ripped. Why wasn’t I? Ok, so women kept going back to what I considered “bad boys”…why? And I systematically learned the intricacies of building a business until, for example, I earned over $100,000 in one hour.

I found it fascinating that we’re “supposed” to know how to master these skills, but nobody ever actually teaches us how. Think about it: You graduate from college and you’re suddenly supposed to get a job. Who taught us how to do that?

We’re supposed to find a life partner. Who taught us how?

We’re “supposed” to buy a house, provide for a family, be healthy, respect our elders, have proper etiquette, travel around the world…but who taught us how?

That’s what I want to teach you: the actual strategies and tactics that I tested to get disproportionate results. Not vague platitudes (“keep a budget!” + “spend less than you earn!” + “Be yourself!”) but rather, actual strategies that have worked under repeated stress-testing. Stuff that is bulletproof and will work — including the actual word-for-word scripts that IWT has become known for.

It strikes me that the vast majority of people have huge, unrealized potential. Think about all the things we dreamed about doing at 22, right out of college. By 25, how many of us thought we’d have traveled around the world? Be making 6 figures (for some of us, even more). Or have an enviable job that we were passionate about — and made a huge impact?

Just a few years later, it’s amazing to see the difference between dreams and reality.

Now here’s where it gets interesting. MOST people, looking at the difference between their dreams and reality, begin to blame some external forces. The economy is bad! Those girls should choose me for me. Ramit, you’re out of touch…it doesn’t work like that.

But a very elite group of people realize that external forces like “the economy” mean very little to them. Look at this link, for example — it’s a discussion thread about a guy choosing between working at a hedge fund or Facebook/Google/etc.

Stop. Don’t throw up your hands in exasperation. Don’t say, “That might be fine if you went to STANFORD, but I could never get a job like that.” Maybe you can’t. But you can certainly learn from the discussion. Study the words they use. Analyze their mindset. What makes these people able to get elite jobs, while other people complain about the economy?

For my IWT students who have internalized this, they realize that macro-economics has nothing to do with their personal finances. These people begin to focus on systematically improving themselves.

I’ll prove it to you. In 2010 and 2011 the press was writing about how the economy was in tatters, which is a great way to sell advertising. OMG! CHICKEN LITTLE! RUN LOLFTW!! Yet in that same year, here are the results some of my students got:

“I’ve been a IWTYTBR reader for years, have the book and bought Earn1K. I’m now running a side business… that earned $25k+ last year.” – Jordan G.

“I finally asked for a review from my boss about a year after I began working here (freelancers don’t generally get a review)… Instead of making about $28,800/yr I now make $38,400. Almost a $10,000 raise feels like a lot, but I feel even better about it being a 33% raise – which was not left unmentioned by my boss. He told me it was unprecedented.…it’s really thanks to you that I had the confidence and the script to execute. A $10,000 raise was earned from about $15 for your Ebook, and a little extra reading and planning. I will definitely buy more products from you – whatever you’re puttin down, I’m pickin up!”
– Tessa

“[I interviewed for a senior position and] blew the interviewing managers out of their toilet seats. Why: because I changed the script, used the briefcase method, job shadowed my potential client, wrote a detailed proposal with 5 things they can do TODAY to save the company $1500/week EVEN IF they don’t hire me. Ramit, thanks for the extra $10k, 5+ weeks of vacation, and 6% 401k.” – Justin R.

(There are literally thousands of other comments like this here, here, and here.)

Bottom line: Let other people accept macro circumstances as an excuse for not hitting their goals. You know you have a very good shot at controlling your results using a systematic approach to testing. All to discover the game being played around you.

What I Learned From Testing My Assumptions

This is where it got interesting. As I started building systems to crack these codes and I started testing them, I found patterns I hadn’t seen before.

Think about these scenarios:

We all have friends who somehow knew what they wanted to do from day one. Not only are they successful at it…but they love what they do! How did they do that? Most of us have multiple interests, and it’s insanely hard to choose something and close the other doors. Yet somehow, these friends chose something, focused on it, and it worked. How did they do it?

Or we all know friends who are not as smart as we are, yet they’re more “successful” (whatever that means, e.g., more money, better lifestyle, etc).

Or we have friends who walk into a room and command attention, but we can’t put our fingers on how they do it.

Interestingly, we often complain about these important areas of our lives, but we do nothing — the exact behavior I exhibited in college. I was going to “figure it out” some day. For example…

Money complaints. I learned that most people complain about money for their entire lives, but never take one weekend to read a good book about how to automate their finances. They believe in “trying harder” to save, rather than using the power of psychology to make their money automatic.

Why “bad boys” get girls. I discovered that the “bad boys” most guys complain about actually have certain confidence triggers that they display. Had I not learned this, I’m sure I would still be complaining bitterly about the girls making these choices. Totally irrational! Yet how many of us do this with jobs/money/careers?

Interviewing mastery. If you ask 100 people what they do in a job interview, 90-95 will say “Answer their questions.” Congratulations — they’ve already lost. “Answering questions” is what everyone else does, while top performers walk in and convey a crisp message. These two approaches might sound similar, but they are profoundly different in practice. (I’ll show you the actual videos of how I did this later.) Once I learned how this worked, I started getting closing interview after interview, even beating out MBAs while I was a sophomore.

For the past 8 years — since this blog has been around — there have been random commenters/emailers who asked for access to the system I built to secure $100,000+ in college scholarships, or how to ace the world’s toughest interviews.

I was never comfortable releasing them because they had worked for me, but I wasn’t sure they would work for everyone. But about 18 months ago, I started thinking what would make the biggest impact on us living a Rich Life.

Not yet another post on cutting back on something, but something transformative.

Beyond Money. A Rich Life

I want to live a rich life, so it’s amusing to me to see that so many sites focus only on the money part, as if money is everything. Hilariously, even within the money part, these “experts” focus on one thing: cutting back. “No, you can’t buy that latte! No, you can’t buy those jeans. Of course not, you can’t go on vacation.”

If you’re reading this site, you realize you don’t want some 60-year-old dude waving his finger in your face and telling you what you CAN’T do with your money.

You certainly don’t want to be making your own laundry detergent.

Instead, let’s talk about what we DO want. I WANT to buy my friends a round at the bar and not worry about my credit-card statement the next day. I WANT to take spontaneous trips. I EXPECT to be able to buy a gift for my family and not worry if I have the money in my account.

How do we do that? Money is a part of it, but only a small part. I’ve covered earning more money, saving money, and automating money, and I’ve been impressed with the results that you’ve locked down.

Then, over the last few years, I’ve been doing research to figure out the BIGGEST area with the most potential on helping us live a rich life.

Think about it — where do 97%+ of us spend 8+ hours/day?

At our jobs.

And when you think about it, these 3 areas of living a rich life — our jobs, our finances, and our relationships — have one thing in common: We’re “supposed” to know how to master them, but nobody ever taught us how.

That’s why I’m delighted to share some of my very best material on Finding a Dream Job with you in 2012.

This year, I’m going to pull back the curtain to reveal some of the techniques I’ve used to secure job offers at some of the world’s top companies (including Google, Intuit, and a multi-billion-dollar hedge fund), generate millions of dollars of revenue, and negotiate hundreds of thousands of dollars in salary increases. Every one of these techniques is tested and proven to work with not just me, but a panel of students and friends who I’ve been quietly working with for several years.

Not just how we did it, but the actual word-for-word scripts, the actual emails, even the intonation I used in negotiations — all of which you can use, immediately.

It’s finally time to unveil them.

Now, it would be easy to roll out twenty “Top 10″ lists, but I find them to be totally worthless, and I’m not here to waste your time — or to be your intellectual entertainment. Go read TMZ if you want that.

If you’re in your 20s or 30s, the rest of your career is a long time. To not be spending your time doing the HIGHEST and BEST use of your time is a travesty — something I find depressing. Can you imagine being in the same company 15 years from now? On the other hand, can you imagine strategically using your job to help you live a rich life?

What’s amazing about your dream job is that the vast majority of people do the exact same thing: They “update their resume,” (if you use these words, you have already lost…I’ll explain why in Week 3). They submit their resume through a website. And they wait.

Again, if you’ve done any of these things, you’ve already lost.

I can walk into a non-profit tomorrow and get a job. I don’t even like most non-profits. My top-performing friends can get laid off on Tuesday and have a new job by Thursday. I have access to people at the world’s top companies, and I’ve secured permission to have them share their best techniques on how to beat the hiring process. Not through tricks or manipulation, but through a thoughtful, systematic process — not random tactics (“Submit my resume to that job posting!!”) that 99% of job-seekers do.

This includes a SYSTEM everything from figuring out “What is my Dream Job?” to the most tactical questions of all, like “What is the perfect answer to that interview question?”

Sorry, but I won’t tolerate excuses. I’ve catalogued literally thousands of excuses and I’ve tested responses to all of them. For example, one of my favorites is “That only works if you went to Stanford.” False — I’ve tested this material with people from all levels of education. Another: “Well, you need more experience to get that job.” Maybe, but I’ve showed people how to beat out people with 10 years’ more experience. Imagine walking into an interview and getting a Dream Job — more responsibility, higher pay, and something you’re excited to do every day — and watching those people with 10 years’ experience walking out the door, rejected, stopping at the donut shop to contemplate their next pointless tactical maneuver. Ah, the love of watching dejection in action.

Anyway, what if you could use process for discovering your Dream Job, then know how to set yourself apart from other candidates…before you ever walked in to the interview room?

What if you could use these very same techniques instead of sending your resume through worthless recruiters or job-hunting websites?

I know you can, because I’ve tested it with thousands of data points. This will be challenging. This will require a total mindset shift as I show you a new way of approaching a rich life, because this material goes to the core of psychological and behavioral change techniques I write about.

But the rest of your life is a long time.

Some of the material you’ll learn:

  • How to discover our passion. This is the #1 question — “What is my passion?” What if there was an actual, step-by-step process that worked? One that didn’t require you to try to guess what you’ll love doing for the next 30 years. (Hint: It does not involve sitting in your room and making lists of the things you love…no matter how many career books tell you to do that.)
  • How to interview against the world’s top companies — even if you don’t have as much experience as other candidates. (Hint: 80% of the work is done before you ever walk into the room. But the other 20% involves very specific phrases and body language.)
  • How to negotiate the salary you deserve. (My students negotiate, on average, $10,000 more per negotiation.)

You’ll learn how to make your resume stand out so it rises to the top of the pile without submitting it through the “Black Hole of Doom.” And how to use your network to find jobs for you (even if you don’t think you have a network, you do).

All of this, to understand the “game being played around you” — so you can first see it, then master it.

You know what I’m most excited about showing you? The actual, nitty-gritty tactics, including the ACTUAL COPY of emails to send, the ACTUAL WORDS to say when you take people out for informational interviews, and the ACTUAL WORDS and BODY LANGUAGE to successfully interview and negotiate?

You can tell how much I love using actual, tested material, rather than worthless high-level career advice (“Don’t apply for a job you’re not qualified for!” “Make your resume 1 page!” “Definitely get on Twitter!”). Get the hell out of here.

If you want to stay at your current job, great — let me show you how to get a substantial raise and more responsibility.

If you want to find your Dream Job, even better — I can show you how, and I can point you to other people doing what you want to do who have made similar transitions.

And if you want to use this material for more than just your career — for example, to improve your social fluency, storytelling, or even psychological insights of what other people want — feel free. It’s here for you.

Here’s the plan: I’ll release a lot of this material here, on the blog. It will be free, but I’ll challenge you with lengthy posts, videos, and scripts. I love when whiny people complain about the length of my posts, because they are basically raising their hands and telling me they’re illiterate. Go read http://animalsbeingdicks.com/ and get the hell off my site please.

Then I’ll be releasing some deeper material on my Insider’s List. Again, it’s free, but to get this more tactical series of videos and scripts, you’ll have to trust me enough to join my list — and I know I need to earn that trust. And later, for those of you who want to go even deeper into implementing these tactics, I’ll have some new course material for you.

The rest of your life is a long time. And a core part of living a rich life is about mastering your career. Use these frameworks and techniques however you like — but I’m confident you’ll be surprised with how effective they are. These are some of my best techniques that I’ve ever developed.

In 2012, I’m going to show you techniques, frameworks, shortcuts, and actual tactics you can apply — tested techniques, including the very word-for-word scripts and emails that have secured 6-figure jobs, meetings with CEOs, natural networking to meet new business contacts and friends, and insane results in interviewing and negotiations.

Finally, this is important, and it’s important now. When we’re in our early 20s, most of us take whatever job we can find. We mess around for a few years, but in our mid 20s, something changes: Some people find careers — discovering what they love and what they excel at — and they rapidly advance. Others meander around, never sure what the next step is. By 30, the chasm between the two is so large, it’s difficult to bridge it.

Which do you want to be?

That’s why we can’t wait to “figure it out” some other day. Let’s start right now.

Today, I have three questions for you:

1. Is this interesting to you?
2. If you could have me write about anything related to finding your passion, interviewing, resumes, negotiation, or social skills, what would it be? Please be SPECIFIC — write as much as you need to — so I can hook you up with my best stuff.
3. What IWT advice have you implemented in the last year? (In other words, if I give you what you want from question #2, how do I know you’ll take action?) BE SPECIFIC.

Leave a comment below!


Can’t see the above form? Click here to sign up.

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I was speaking at a conference recently and my buddy pulled me aside. “You have to meet this guy Chase Jarvis,” he told me. “He’s one of the world’s best photographers.”

Chase and I ended up sitting next to each other, and I learned some fascinating stuff about him. For example, I learned that if he gets TEN photo clients per year — just 10 — that’s a “great year” for him. (Just think about that. Is anyone else also fascinated by mastery?)

He also runs a web show where he interviews people like Sir Mix-a-Lot (a personal writing hero of mine for his timeless classic), Tim Ferriss (who introduced us), and famous photographers. Now, you’ve heard me mock Twitter as being worthless for my business. But when Chase tweets, 15,000-30,000 come and watch his web show…concurrently. Holy shit.

Anyway, at this conference, I ended up giving him some advice about the business side of photography while sitting on a bus, my usual spot for wisdom-dispensing, which he later wrote about:

“No one has single-handedly given me better insight about the business side of art/photography than has Ramit Sethi. [Go ahead and read that again.] In a single conversation earlier this year he dropped so much knowledge on me that I couldn’t take notes fast enough.”

I’m telling you this because he recently invited me to his studio in Seattle, where he and I recorded 1.5 hours of material how creative people can master business. This is usually material I save for private talks and my premium students, but today I wanted to share it with you.

The video is 90 minutes long and you guys are gonna love it. It includes word-for-word scripts you can use in negotiations, business, and even personal relationships. You’ll learn some of the material I learned from my top instructors and mentors. And I dig into the psychology of creative people — or anyone who’s tried to persuade someone else to do something.

Happy holidays and enjoy : )

The URL I mention in the video is iwillteachyoutoberich.com/chase

Check out Chase’s blog — it’s got amazing material for creative people and I guarantee you’ll find at least 3 game-changers in an hour.

* * *

P.S. The $10,000+ winner of my giveaway for one year of a virtual assistant is David Zuidema. Congratulations! David, please check your email for details.

Happy New Year and I’ll see you in 2012. Prepare to dominate.

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Did you ever listen to that radio show Loveline? Adam Carolla and Dr. Drew would be fielding questions from teenagers about their sex lives, and invariably there would be some 16-year-old girl who would call up with her question:

“Uh…hi…my boyfriend is unemployed, bald, fat, and 24 years older than me. And he beats me. What do you think I should I do?”

Cue 1 million people simultaneously screaming “LEAVE HIM!!!” into their radios. It’s so obvious to us.

But to her, her question is unique.

Now, when I go on TV, 90% of the time, I get the same 7 questions:
“I’m in debt. What should I do?” … “No matter what I try, I can’t seem to save. What should I do?” …. “What should I do with my money to grow it?”

SAME QUESTIONS, OVER AND OVER!

But to them, their questions are unique.

And two days ago, when I asked for your questions on finding a dream job, I got back hundreds of comments. There were some very good questions.

But you’ll also notice that most of them were HIGHLY UNSPECIFIC. If you ask a dumb question like “How do I improve my resume?” expect a vague response back.

One of my goals is to show you how to ask the right questions. Asking the right questions is not sexy — I’ll never create a course about it or get written up in a newspaper for it. But if you still think that “How do I write a cover letter?” is your major barrier to finding a dream job, you’re missing the entire game that’s being played around you.

I have a presentation I put together called the “80/20 Guide to Finding a Job You Love.” I wasn’t going to release it yet, but I decided to open it up to you today.

You’ll find an hour of material you won’t find anywhere else, including:

  • Where most of us waste our time on the job search
  • The psychology of why we spend time on pointless job-hunt tasks
  • Invisible Scripts that affect our behavior…without us even knowing
  • The 3 most effective job hunting activities that will get 80% of the results in 20% of the time (and that most people don’t do at all).

When it comes to finding a dream job, most of us ask all the wrong questions. You could have the perfect resume, but if you’re submitting it through Monster.com, you’re still competing with thousands of other people with outstanding resumes.

  • How can you shortcut the entire job hunt?
  • How can you find out what you love — and then find jobs that let you do just that?
  • And how do you get paid what you deserve?

300,000+ people read my blog and emails every month, looking for a richer life. Finding a job you love is a huge piece of any “rich” life. I want to help.

So instead of writing some vapid “Top 10″ blog post, I decided to go in-depth and share detailed strategies, mindsets, and stories about how to short-circuit the process that so many people waste time on. And like the rest of the material on IWT, it’s been tested, refined, and optimized before it ever saw the light of day.

Though this is premium material that I could charge for, I’m making it available to you free because I want you to start thinking about how to apply IWT principles to your search for a dream job. And I know you can find one — even in this economy — in the next few months. It’s eminently possible.

First, here’s a 5-minute sample, which I think will surprise you when you analyze what works vs. what doesn’t work:

Now, get the full 46-minute video…I think you’ll enjoy it.

If you can’t see the box above, click here to get the 46-minute video. If you’re already a subscriber, enter your name and email in the box above to watch the video.

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During the 2008 election, Senator Obama went to visit Marc Andreessen, the founder of Netscape, to discuss tech policy. Andreessen, never one to mince words, asked Obama, “How concerned should we be that you haven’t had meaningful experience as an executive — as a manager and leader of people?”

Obama’s reply?

“Watch how I run my campaign — you’ll see my leadership skills in action.”

That is a powerful response. And like him or not, his campaign was executed masterfully.

“Watch me and see.”

My goal is to give you the strategic and tactical advice to say that with confidence — and then back it up. Say it when you’re starting a new side business. Say it when you’re negotiating for a job. Say it when you’re trying to pick up a new hobby.

In fact, this is exactly what I said on the first day of this year. Whenever you try something different that challenges people, you’ll get trolls and whiners. So when I launched my 30-day course on hustling, the common criticisms were: This is the same old stuff, you’re only doing it to make money, this stuff doesn’t work, I don’t have time.

“Watch me and see,” I said.

30 days later, here are some of the incredible results that IWT readers have gotten:

$13,000 RAISE
“When the interview panel asked about my education experience, I handed each of them a copy, explaining that I wasn’t able to fit all my experience on the previous resume. They were definitely impressed by the preparation and foresight. I start next month earning $13,000 more a year! (Plus I used your techniques for not giving away my salary expectations.)” – Amy

NO MORE PROCRASTINATION + $2,500
“In the course of just a few weeks, I’ve essentially BEAT my procrastination habit, which was slowly killing my freelance writing career. I applied for and landed a new gig editing and writing for a well known personality’s website. I earned about $2500 more (AMAZING!) than I usually do simply by accepting more assignments with the confidence that I could complete them.” – Tanya

$10,000 PROMOTION
“In the last month I have successfully negotiated a promotion that includes a 6k raise, with an additional 1k each month for the next four months, and then a review to see if the 1k per month continues.” – Karen

TRIPLED PROFIT
“Prior to taking the hustle course, I sold my hand made gnomes for $40 each (in December I sold 13 X$40 for a total of $520). Using the info from the hustle course, I have sold 7 gnomes X $200 for a total of $1400–nearly 3 times the profit for half the price.” – Karen

Negotiated $1,500 in savings on a Ford F-350 Pickup
“I did successfully help a friend save more than $1,500. I started by just offering general money saving advice to a number of people, but that was not well received. A person who doesn’t even need the money–took my advice (and the free copy of IWTYTBR) and used it to negotiate an additional savings of about $1,500 on an Ford F-350 pickup.” – Wayne

You can see more results here, here, here, and here.

Now I want to show you what I was doing behind the scenes.

A 30-day hustling challenge: Why?

I started off with several bombastic promises for the course:

  • You’ll get more done in 30 days than you accomplished in all of last year
  • You’ll be able to save hundreds or even thousands of dollars
  • You’ll be able to get disproportionate results, or extraordinary outcomes that are disproportionate with the amount of work you put in.

Here’s why:

Most people have become comfortable with mediocrity.

For many of us, the people around us rarely challenge us. For example, it’s almost taboo to call someone out for bullshitting their way through yet another excuse. Instead, we allow ourselves to use the same old tired cliches: “I don’t have enough time to do that,” “I could never get X results,” “I didn’t go to X university / I don’t have Y,000 blog readers / I don’t live in Z city.”

Interestingly, when I call out loser commenters on this site — respectfully but firmly — they love it. Few people around us have the honesty to tell us we’re simply making excuses for things we could do.

And so I wanted to show you that with a week’s work with the right guidance, you could accomplish more than in an entire year.

Guidance matters.

I got 2 months’ of results from 2 months of working out with a personal trainer. I learned more from a conversation with a master copywriter than from 4 months of reading books. And in this course, I showed you tested methods to change your behavior, including experts like BJ Fogg, Derek Sivers, and Tim Ferriss.  Telling yourself to “try harder” is not enough. Telling yourself you could get the information for free “if you really wanted” is delusional. Trusted guidance matters.


I’m well aware that the surrounding market is sleazy.

The name “I Will Teach You To Be Rich.” A course on earning more money. If you were to stumble on this site, what would you think first? Scam, of course.

I work in one of the most difficult markets of all: money. Where there’s lots of money to be made, there are scammers. There are schemes. And there are a few legitimate people who offer incredible value.

That’s why I have to prove that my material works — to separate myself. And proof doesn’t come from me saying it works, it comes from you actually getting results on your own.

Yes, there are other background factors that enhance credibility — like the fact that I have a book, or went to X college, or have 300,000+ readers/month — but there is nothing as persuasive as you getting results.

But if we’re speaking frankly, most of the material on earning money is pure sleaze. In fact, go search for [earn more money] to see what I mean. Compare any of that — free or paid — to the material you’ve read here.

My goal is make my free content more valuable than anything else out there. Which means that my premium content is of a quality level that most people have never seen before. Here’s what one of my readers sent me:

“I really like where you are heading. Your free material is better than what I paid for in college. You should have a “Ramit in lieu of college” course, because your info is much more applicable to the actual world.” – Wayne Patton

I hope I can continue to do that for you, because I know that in a world filled with “Top 10” lists and linkbait junk, true quality is rare — and when I spend time investing in you and you get results, you’ll keep coming back…and one day explore some of my premium offerings.

Skepticism is not a strategy.

I spoke to one of my top Earn1k students last week — she earned over $80,000 in 8 weeks — and she was talking about how much her entire viewpoint has changed. Once you realize that you can control your situation — how much you earn, how much you work, where you live, etc — it’s amazing to look back at ourselves a few years ago…when we were skeptical and disbelieving that any of this could work.

Skeptics always have an excuse because it’s easier to be skeptical than to take the risk of trying something and possibly failing. Skeptics use codewords — much like racists do — to mask their fear and loathing of something different. For example, they’ll say they don’t have enough time (when everyone has the same 24 hours per day). They’ll complain about having “already tried that,” but when you dig in and ask them what they actually tried, they’ll demur.

There’s nothing I hate more than vocal skeptics — not only because they cheat themselves out of their own potential, but because they convince others that they can’t do it, either.

As Seth Godin said,

“A check in your wallet does you very little good. It represents opportunity, sure, but not action.

Most of us are carrying around a check, an opportunity to make an impact, to do the work we’re capable of, to ship the art that would make a difference.

No, the world isn’t fair, and most people don’t get all the chances they deserve. There are barriers due to income, to race, to social standing and to education, and they are inexcusable and must fall. But the check remains, now more than ever. The opportunity to step up and to fail (and then to fail again, and to fail again) and to continue failing until we succeed is greater now than it has ever been.”

I write for the As, Bs, and Cs — but I systematically ignore one of them.

Imagine the world has As, Bs, and Cs in any field. In this one, the As are already managing their money, they’ve read my book (and others), and they’re earning as much as they need to lead the lifestyle they choose. They’re already doing it.

The Bs are the greatest in number. They have the potential to do something great, but for whatever reason — like actual barriers, self-imposed barriers, or external responsibilities — they  haven’t achieved what their potential first. They can be reached if you communicate to them in the right way.

The Cs are a lost cause. Sure, they might be salvageable to help, but that’s not something I’m interested in or capable of. This enrages certain people who believe that we should help everyone, but I live in the world of practicality, not utopia. If I have the chance to help an A become an A+ in 3 months, or a C become a B- in 3 years, who am I going to choose? There are other people who make it their life’s work to work with Cs, but it’s not me.

And so this is also applicable for you. When I teach negotiation, or interviewing, or automation, or even earning more money, I teach you how to focus on the right level of analysis for you. It’s ok not to please everyone. I’d rather spend my time hyper-focused on exactly your needs than try to serve everyone.

I’m separating out the people for the next step.

The first step was hustling. We covered how to use automated scripts to live anywhere, quit your job, or get promoted.

Then we covered the psychological techniques from the worlds of social influence and persuasion to dominate your goals.

Next, I showed you how to negotiate better than 99% of people to get higher hourly rates, meetings with top executives, and how to convince people to pay you for your valuable services.

And finally, I showed you the fundamental differences between people who win and people who dream, and the characteristics of both.

Now I’m turning the entire hustling series on its head to show you how to take your new skills…and get paid for them.

For the last 30 days, every post on this site has had a box to join a free Earn1k Insider’s List. While this is the last public post on the 30-day hustling course, I have an entire week of new material for the people who took action and signed up.

Even with tens of thousands of new people who signed up, it’s still incredible how few people (relatively) take even the smallest step to sign up for something where they’ll get more free material. It goes to show you how low the bar is for taking action — and why people who take action get disproportionate rewards.

The Invisible Scripts — What’s stopping you from the next step?

Last week I asked you “What do you want more of?” But inside that survey I snuck in a question: “What do you worry about?”.

Do any of these sound familiar?

“I worry about spending too much time doing the wrong things.” – Justin

“I worry about being ordinary when I see others doing so well for themselves with the actions and risks that they have taken.”  – Erik

“I worry about not having big enough ideas, or not knowing enough people.” – Erica

“I worry about wasting all my time reading your site and like minded sites and not taking action, missing out on a great deal of reward. I just don’t think my ideas are good enough and that I have the determination to carry them through. I’m very good at starting things, not so great at finishing.” – Phil

“I worry that about not having enough savings to launch a business. I worry about not having enough skill to make money on the side. I worry about not being able to connect with the right people to make money.” – Wade

“I worry that I will be stuck in my current low paying and dead end position because I do not know how to tackle applying for and landing better jobs.” – Julie

This month has been all about giving you baby steps to show you that hustling works. Negotiation works. Your own barriers can be overcome (relatively easily) to get you disproportionate rewards.

You can get big results with small actions.

You can leave your job within 6 months and work for yourself (or travel). Not all of you, but many of you.

You can control how many hours you work, how much you make, and where you live.

So in the survey, I also asked this:

Based on those responses, I’ve put together a 1-week MBA on hustling — going step-by-step to find the right idea to start earning money on the side. This starts on Sunday.

In private, I’ll include far more detailed material than the stuff you’ve read so far. For example, in a webcast, I’ll show you not only what to say, but how to say it – and then I’ll do live teardowns of negotiation tactics.

Here’s some of what I’ll be releasing next week on the Insider’s List only:

  • A 3-step process you can follow to find your first profitable idea and start getting paid right now
  • Live webcasts, including The Psychology of Mind Reading: How to Get Deep Inside People’s Heads
  • Case studies on how some of my students — just regular people — earned tremendous amounts of money and have quit their job, traveled, or simply stuffed their bank accounts

With the free material you’ve seen so far, my goal was to get you to accomplish more than you accomplished all of last year.

With this Insider’s List, I’m stepping it up: My goal is to make this one week worth more than the average MBA.

And after a week of that material, which is still free…

Earn1k 2.0 launches

Earn1k 2.0 is the culmination of the work I’ve been doing on hustling, earning more, and psychology over the last two years.

Personally, I don’t really care about the dollar value in my bank account — but it’s a fairly accurate marker of whether you’re doing something valuable or not.

That’s why I teach my students how to earn $1,000 on the side first — then $1,000/month — then $2,000, or $5,000, or $10,000/month.

Some of them want to work more to earn more. Others want to work less and are more than satisfied with a few extra thousand dollars every month.

Some of them quit their jobs, never to set foot in a 9-to-5 office again.

But it’s not for everyone.

By definition, the people who haven’t taken 8 seconds to sign up for the Insider’s List will not be invited to join Earn1k. That’s because I’m not publicly releasing it this time. I’m just opening it up to people who have raised their hands and asked to take it to the next level.

It’s not for people with credit-card debt.

It’s not for people who are still stuck on basic questions like “How do you stay motivated?”

It’s a little ridiculous to tell people who Earn1k is NOT for, but I also feel confident enough to choose my customers since I’ve helped hundreds and hundreds of students get results.

Here are a few Earn1k students telling their story:




You can join the Insider’s List here: Earn1K insider list sign up form

Sneak peek at next week

This is a simple overview of what’s coming next week. You’ll see far more detail starting Sunday.

Step 1: Start with your goals

Too many people jump into the tips/tactics without understanding why they’re doing what they’re doing.

It’s better to do something WRONG than to do nothing at all. But if you can spend a little time planning — and still continue executing — you can save hundreds of hours of missteps.  Starting with your goals helps point you in the right direction for getting started.

For example:

“I just want more money” - Let’s say you simply want to earn an extra $1,000/month because you want to pay down student loans. Great! Your first goal, then, is to generate income. As a simple rule of thumb, figure out the most profitable market that matches your skills and pursue it relentlessly.

“I am passionate about painting” – Conversely, if your passionate about painting, you wouldn’t want to, say, start a freelance business helping with marketing and sales.  You already know you want to earn income painting, so spend your time researching different services you can offer to create paintings that people will pay for, like re-designing an entire room of your customers house to fit the painting.

Remember: Start with your goals and follow up with the tactics.

Step 2: Match your skills to earning money on the side

This is a simplified process to turn your skills into side income. Next week during the private course, I’ll get into it in extreme detail. But I encourage you to try these principles with your skills.

I’ve written about this in detail, but just take it one step at a time.

  1. What industry are you in? Oh, finance? Ok, you probably don’t want to be a freelance investment banker. But..hmm….you spend all day doing analyses. How can you use that? Example: Excel is a breeze to you. Maybe there are people (like me) who HATE Excel yet need detailed analyses for their business. Could you build models for other people?
  2. Identify your skills and interests — then think more broadly. People want to pay you money to solve their problems. Are you great at writing press releases? (I’d pay for that.) Are you fluent in Chinese? Boom, I’d instantly be a tutor for Chinese kids since their parents will love/trust someone who speaks Chinese — even when tutoring their kids for any subject.
  3. If you don’t have any marketable skills, there are still options. Etsy is a perfect example of people making great side income — and many of them don’t have any skills that would commonly be considered “valuable.” Yet they do well selling niche products to a niche audience. If you aren’t some professional with software-engineering skills or online-marketing experience, that’s okay.

Remember: People pay for solutions, not your skills.

For example, last year I did a webcast where I was suggesting ways for people to earn money on the side, and I mentioned that I hate cooking, am not good at it, and would love it if someone cooked for me. I got an email later that night from Andrew who said, “Ramit, I can help. I can teach you everything you need to know over one weekend, and you’ll know 3-5 great dishes to cook.” I appreciated the offer, but wrote back, “Thanks for the offer! But you don’t understand. I don’t want to learn — I want someone to do it for me.” He ended up sending me another proposal and 2 weeks later I started paying him over $1,000/month to prepare all my meals (Read the detailed case study on how he did it here: from $0 to $1,500 in 2 weeks.)

Again: People have problems. They want solutions. They don’t care what you’re “interested” in.

Step 3: Identify skills that people will pay for

Start by thinking of how your skills can solve other people’s problems right now.  Write down the top three skills you have that can solve other people’s real problems today.

Now, which one of those is most likely going to actually pay you for your services?

“Niche it Down” to target your market.

You’ve probably heard this a million times, but note that this is a critical piece in selling your skills as a service, and one that many people skip for the latest SEO tactic because tactics are easier to chase.

The first question: Who are you targeting?

Most people will say: “Anyone interested in using social media for their business.” Or, “Uh… people with terrible websites!”

Wrong. It’s nearly impossible to reach everyone and anyone, being specific is key.

Let’s say you need a website for your carpet cleaning business. Who are you going to hire to handle that for you? Acme Graphic Design and Web Development, where they build websites for giant corporations and commercial industry? Or Jack’s small business web design, which targets only local small businesses looking for a simple setup?

Of course you’d choose Jack… and you’d pay more, too.

Remember: the more specific you are, the more you can charge.

During the bonus week I will be walking you through step-by-step how to go even deeper and identify skills people will pay for with 2 more advanced frameworks.

Step 4: Join my private bonus week to start getting paid to hustle.

I’m going even deeper into this concept during the bonus week to help you find your first profitable idea and start earning money on the side.

Enter your info below to join the list and start getting paid.  I’ll see you inside next week:

(Can’t see the above form?  Click here.)

I’m closing the list down on Sunday at 3pm Eastern (2/6) before the private week begins, so sign up now if you’re ready to start getting paid for hustling.

And that’s it. Thanks for reading the 30-day series on hustling. It’s been a pleasure.