W.H.Y (not) me
AtomicIdeas from 'Backable'
Why are some people able to achieve so much, while others who are equally talented (or even more) struggle?
Why are some startups (with not so great ideas) able to raise soooo much money while the ones with real stuff struggle?
Why is it that the one who isn’t the most deserving gets promotion while the ones who worked hard / showed results..failed to?
Well, the answer to all this lies (and this is an eye opener) is in backability.
The key to success in business isn’t talent, connections, or ideas – it’s the ability to persuade people to take a chance on your ideas.
Sharing AtomicIdeas from the book: Backable by Suneel Gupta (Harvard University).
Drawing lessons from hundreds of the world’s biggest thinkers, Suneel shows how to craft a story that will make your ideas irresistible, and teaches techniques that will help you overcome objections, close deals, and bring your ideas to life.
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No one makes it alone. But there’s a reason why some people can get investors or bosses to believe in them while others cannot. And that reason has little to do with experience, pedigree or a polished business plan. Backable people seem to have a hidden quality that inspires others to take action. We often chalk this up to natural talent or charisma . . . either you have ‘it’ or you don’t.
But that’s not true.
AtomicIdea 1: Convince Yourself First
What moves people isn’t charisma, but conviction. Backable people earnestly believe in what they’re saying, and they simply let that belief shine through whatever style feels most natural.
If you don’t truly believe in what you’re saying, there is no slide fancy enough, no hand gesture compelling enough, to save you. If you want to convince others, you must convince yourself first.
As you’re figuring out whether an idea fits you, ask yourself if you’ve fallen in love with it. And as you dig in deeper, keep checking in with your elephant, paying attention to whether new challenges are fueling you or depleting you.
AtomicIdea: Cast A Central Character
Bill Gates once showed his daughter a video of a young girl with polio. The girl was holding a pair of dilapidated wooden crutches and trying to walk down a dirt road. After watching the video, his daughter turned to her father and said, “Well, what did you do?”
Gates told his daughter his foundation was eradicating polio. He shared the numbers with her—the hundreds of millions of dollars they were deploying, the goals they’d set, and the metrics they’d already hit, including shrinking the number of cases in Nigeria from seven hundred per year to fewer than thirty. “No, no, no,” interrupted Gates’s daughter. She pointed back to the video and asked, “What did you do for her?”
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