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...'Louder Than Words' is a great book by Joe Navarro.

Who is Joe Navarro??

Not many can say they were personally approached to join the FBI, but this is exactly what happened to Joe Navarro while he was working as a police officer at the tender age of 23. He accepted their offer and became one of the youngest agents ever to join the renowned investigative agency.

Joe spent the next 25 years at the FBI, working both as an agent and supervisor in the areas of counterintelligence and counterterrorism. Through his work he was able to study, refine and apply the science of non-verbal communications. His acumen in this field and his success as a spy-catcher, led Joe to begin training FBI agents and the intelligence community.
Retiring from the FBI in 2003, and meeting overwhelming demand for his notable insights into human behavior, Joe has dedicated himself to speaking and consulting with major corporations worldwide.
Today Joe is recognized as one of the world’s foremost authorities on reading non-verbal communications and he is regularly interviewed on programs such as NBC’s Today Show, Fox News, ABC’s Good Morning America, CBS’ Early Show, and for publications such as The Washington Post and Psychology Today.

Well, that's him. 

The book I am talking about is called Louder Than Words.

According to Amazon:   "International bestselling author and behaviour expert Joe Navarro helps you successfully navigate the business world by understanding what your boss and coworkers are really thinking. Why is it that some people have all the elements of success education, skills, integrity, motivation but can't seem to move from effectiveness to excellence in their careers? Behaviour expert Joe Navarro reveals the long-sought answer. Louder Than Words teaches how to master nonverbal intelligence, the ability to interpret and use nonverbal signals in poker terms, 'tells' in business to assess and influence others. Drawing on his decades in the behavioural sciences, Navarro shows how to use his simple yet powerful 'comfort/discomfort' model to decode what's really being said at meetings, interviews, negotiations, presentations, business meals, and more, including the casual exchanges that often impact decisions and reputations. Jump-start your career as you discover how to: Read body language to understand what clients, coworkers, interviewers, or interviewees are thinking, feeling, or intending, and discern nonverbal cues of concern, disagreement, or doubt even over the phone. Master the all-important first impression and use settings, seating, and gestures to inspire and captivate. Recognise habits that send the wrong message, from nail biting to wearing inappropriate attire and see what posture, work practices, workspaces, and even electronic habits say about people. Become culturally aware and gender-sensitive, from best handshake practices to personal space preferences. Learn what the 'comfort dividend' can do for you and your business. Explore how the concept of 'curbside appeal' applies to you and your business, and can mean the difference between average and exceptional. Use Louder Than Words to close the deal, keep your customers, secure new ones, and lead your company with confidence. For job seekers looking to stand out from the pack, this book is your get-back-to-work bible."
To me, it's a work of art.  It's a very easy to read book which takes what some people would deem a difficult subject and turns it into something that anyone can understand.

There are countless observations and metaphors.  He talks of the Nixon/ Kennedy debate which everyone listening on radio thought Nixon had won. The larger, TV viewing audience saw a different debate from what was heard.

It condences all of the information you need to be able to read the body language, facial expressions and non-verbal communication of everyone in any situation. You not only get a better understanding of what is REALLY going on but also, it allows you to get the upper hand in numerous day to day situations.

The subjects covered range from the fundamentals of nonverbal intelligence to applied nonverbal intelligence, and includes sections on how you look, how you are perceived and also how your organization is perceived.

Your code of dress is analysed (put those sports socks back in the drawer!) and also how you talk on the phone and what your desk looks like!  He leaves no stone unturned.

This is not just a book for personal use.  It can be applied in the corporate world and has thought provoking ideas that will make you re-evaluate how you are promoting and running your company.

Once you have read it, every time you look at someone you analyse them.  You get to know the signs and the things NOT to do.

Warning!

Do NOT put your hands in your pockets

(unless you are getting your money out to buy this book!)

Joe Navarro can be found here:
Twitter: @navarrotells
Web: http://www.jnforensics.com/
Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Louder-Than-Words-Exceptional-Intelligence/dp/0061771392

POWER ANCHOR

Let's take a look at a powerful NLP technique you can use right now. I teach this one to people who are about to stand in front of groups and speak or who are going to be stepping on stage or who need a little boost.

 Here's how it works…

Think of three times in your life when you felt very powerful and in control. Write them down (one sentence describing each). Now stand alone in a room.

Think of the first situation. Recall it in full color with sound and anything else that could make it real to you. At the moment when you feel fully back in that moment, slap your left bicep with your right hand and say, "Power!"

Do this with each of the three memories. Remember, you want to anchor the feelings by slapping your left bicep when you feel the memory at its most intense moment.

In NLP, this process is called stacking anchors.

Now that you have the anchor installed, you can fire it off as needed. The next time you are in a situation requiring confidence, slap your left bicep with your right hand and say, "Power!"

Just as sure as Pavlov's dogs salivated when they heard that bell, you will feel confidence surging through you!

Try not.  Do, or do not.  There is NO try!  Do it!  And enjoy!

John Assaraf - The Answer

I have read John Assarafs book, The Answer and I highly recommend it.  Here is a very insightful interview from Success Magazine in 2010.  Buy the book, The Answer, TODAY and read it!

John Assaraf is here: http://www.johnassaraf.com/

Success Magazine is here:  http://www.successmagazine.com/


John Assaraf Has the Answer



How the self-proclaimed "Street Kid" took himself from the streets of Tel Aviv to entrepreneurial success.


K. Shelby Skrhak June 8, 2010

John Assaraf will tell you that achieving your goals and dreams is just a matter of believing you can and will do it. That’s how this New York Times best-selling author of The Answer took himself from the streets of Tel Aviv to the world stage of business and industry.

“Despite an early upbringing in war-ravaged Israel, where his childhood games were punctuated by gunshots and even bomb blasts, John turned away from the violence and ultimately created a life of incredible strength, contribution and love,” writes The Secret author Bob Proctor, in his foreword for Assaraf’s Having It All: Achieving Your Life’s Goals and Dreams.

When he was 8, Assaraf’s family fled the war-torn country for Montreal, where the outgoing boy went to work helping to support his family. While his friends were in class, Assaraf was often truant, delivering newspapers, picking up orders from the pharmacy or pressing clothes at the dry cleaner.

However, roaming the streets, Assaraf fell into a rough crowd of petty criminals, and found companionship and belonging in this small group of kids. “That’s where I got the nickname The Street Kid,” Assaraf says.
To help keep him out of trouble, his parents sent him to work at a Jewish community center across the street from their apartment. Assaraf grew to love the job, where he spent his evenings listening to rich and established gentlemen tell tales of their success. “They would talk about losing and making money, ill health, marital problems and infidelity, God, and a host of other things about which I could never hear enough,” Assaraf writes in Having It All: Achieving Your Life’s Goals and Dreams. “I learned that it was normal to have challenges, and that other families went through similar crises.”
This experience proved formative for Assaraf, who learned from these successful men and a string of other powerful mentors to develop his own strength and intuition.

Building Himself, Building a Fortune

Today a best-selling author, international speaker and featured expert on the critically acclaimed self-help film The Secret, Assaraf is no stranger to entrepreneurial success. With nothing but enthusiasm under his belt, he dove into a real estate career in the early 1980s—better known as a recession.

“Interest rates in the real estate market were 21 percent,” says Assaraf, who at age 19, made an impressive $30,000 in his first year selling real estate. The next year, he made $150,000. “I was young and naive and nobody told us that was not normal. I did well despite what was happening around me.”

Applying what he had learned in his early real estate career, Assaraf helped take RE/MAX of Indiana to more than 1,500 sales associates who generate more than $5 billion a year in sales.

Then, during the Internet boom, Assaraf developed the marketing and sales strategy that generated more than $30 million in revenue within 12 months for Bamboo.com. Bamboo then merged with IPEX and went on to become the world’s leading provider of imaging infrastructure for the Internet.

More recently, Assaraf founded OneCoach, a company that helps small-business owners and entrepreneurs grow their business revenues.

Assaraf, who’s built four multimillion-dollar companies in the last 20 years, says recessions like the one he experienced in the ’80s offer entrepreneurs opportunities to fix what’s broken and then promote the unique benefits of what they have to offer.

Starting June 28, John Assaraf will team with SUCCESS magazine for the six-week Entrepreneur Challenge to help would-be business owners take the next step and guide existing entrepreneurs in finding renewed inspiration. Based on the principles in his successful books, Having It All and The Answer, Assaraf will write twice-weekly blog posts to share the secrets of success as a business owner.

The Street Kid’s Tips for Success

Assaraf says business owners who enter entrepreneurial ventures with the right tools have what it takes to innovate, communicate and achieve business success in any economy.

1. Start with the right mindset. Assaraf says, when it comes to our mindsets, we’re often victims of conditioning and genetics. “The latest research suggests that 96 to 98 percent of all our thought patterns and behaviors are based on our conditioning,” he says.
When faced with negative circumstances, some people are conditioned to move forward despite them. They can go through turmoil and emerge successful. They see the world differently than those who allow outside circumstances to control their thinking. It’s important to realize you have no control over bad things happening, he says: “The only things we can control are our own thoughts and actions.”

2. Think of circumstances differently. Having the right mindset requires that entrepreneurs, in particular, not look at the recession as a reason for failure or lack of opportunity, but rather as a reason for innovation. The entrepreneur should ask the important question, Why is a particular business failing and how can I take a different approach to make it work?
“Whenever there is a recession, which I prefer to call a reorganization, innovation starts to happen. When innovation starts to happen, we start to think about different ways to serve the consumer’s needs,” Assaraf says. “That’s when you start to develop a brand around resolving the problem and creating products and services that people need during those tough times. Times that are challenging will actually bring out the weaknesses of the masses.”

3. Next step: Fill a need. Before launching any kind of marketing campaign for a new (or existing) business, ask this question first: Is there really a need in the marketplace for your product or service?
The adage, Build it and they will come, is 1970s and ’80s thinking, Assaraf says. Today, it’s, Find out what they want; then build it.
Once you build it, make people want it because of the experience, Assaraf adds. When filling a need, realize that the client experience is even more important than the product. A great example is Starbucks. Starbucks doesn’t sell coffee; Starbucks sells an experience. “That’s why they’re able to charge $4 for a $.10 cup of coffee,” he says.

4. Ask yourself, what makes you different? One of the most important elements of developing a successful marketing strategy is to understand what it is about your product or service that makes it unique. You can compete on quality, price or experience. Assaraf warns, however, that competing on price is often a losing battle. Rather, most business owners should look at how they can create a positive and memorable experience for their customers.
Entrepreneurs who do not find and promote a special niche will get lost in a crowded marketplace. “[If] they don’t know how to differentiate themselves from their competition, they become a commodity versus an experience. When you become a commodity, you will always be fighting on price. When you become an experience for people… they don’t compare your product or service to everybody else’s because the experience is so much greater than the product or service itself,” Assaraf says.

5. Clear the clutter. In this media-saturated world, your charge, says Assaraf, is to create a lasting impression on the consumer’s mind that differentiates you from everybody else.
One of Assaraf’s clients, a dentist, partnered with a local limousine company to provide transportation for teenage patients. The dentist absorbs the $25 it costs to pick up and bring home teenagers for their dental appointments. Marketing the time-saver to parents was a big hit, and students quickly spread the word about riding to the dentist’s office in a limo. A good marketing concept built on creating a memorable and positive experience, successful promotion and word-of-mouth led, in this case, to an explosion of business during the next 12 months.
“In today’s world, when we’re getting 50,000 messages a day, from… billboards, television, radio, e-mail, print, calls, etc., we have to differentiate ourselves. We have to do something that’s unique and different so that we stand out from everybody else who is yelling and screaming, ‘Pick me! Pick me!’ ” Assaraf says.

The Iron Lady - Movie Review

I saw the movie 'The Iron Lady' yesterday. I am glad that I did because I have waited to see this from the very first moment I heard that it was in production.

I have enormous respect for Margaret Thatcher (MT) and have read her memoirs. My only regret is that I have not met her...yet!

Although the movie is well made it isn't about MTs political history and achievements.
It is about old age, dementia and memories.

If you are looking for political intrigue, you will be disappointed.
But, if personal anguish is your idea of a great night at the movies then you will absolutely love this film.

I hit my twenties during the 80s.  It was a great time of opportunity for people if they were willing to get up off their backsides and do something.  We had the Yuppie, Loadsamoney, and a big bounce back from a crippling recession.  Monopolies were gone and opportunity was everywhere.  The clothes were...weird, and so were some of the haircuts but if you lived through it...you loved it.  It was a time of Wall Street, Dealers, and mobile phones that looked like house bricks.
 
I also remember the strikes, the bags of rubbish on the streets because of dustmen strikes, the unions striking, the economy, the high unemployment, the IRA bombings, the riots.  In fact, if you substitute Al Quaeda for IRA, it's not much different today.
 
If you had no idea of those times, and/or no experience of those things happening you would have left the cinema wondering WHY there were people throwing bags of rubbish onto the street, why people were banging their fists on MTs car and why (or maybe even who) blew up the Grand Hotel in Brighton during a Conservative party conference.
 
None of these events are explained.  They are memory flashbacks in the movie, flashbacks by a woman who is remembering events in her past.  She knows why they happened so the director/ writer thinks we do too and no explanation is needed.
 
The Falklands war is treated as a catalyst of power in MTs tenure as Prime Minister.  Her decision and her order "Sink it!", when referring to the Belgrano, is a very exciting moment, played with great tension though, I am sure, the actual event took a lot more decisive thought than in the movie.  The rationale, regarding the game of chess being played at sea with battleships as the chess pieces around the Falklands was not fully explained and the decision to sink the Belgrano could be seen in the movie as a gratuitous one.  It most definitely was not.
 
The Director, Phillida Law (Mamma Mia), has described much of the film as a work of imagination.  I would think 'lack' of imagination more the point.
 
This movie focuses on an elderly lady, wandering around her police protected, bullet proofed windowed, apartment in Chester Square, Belgravia, looking for her long dead husband Denis.  He pops up in a pink turban, or walking like Charlie Chaplin.  He is a ghost, or rather a figment of MTs imagination.  He is used as a foil for MT to look back at a life full of decisions, strategies and challenges.  It's fun but after a while, annoying. 
 
Also no mention is made of his business acumen.  Denis Thatcher, already a millionaire when he met and married MT, financed his wife's training as a barrister and a home in Chelsea; he also bought a large house in Lamberhurst, Kent in 1965. His firm employed 200 people by 1957, but he sold it to Castrol on 26 August 1965 after suffering a mild nervous breakdown in 1964. He received a seat on Castrol's parent board, which he maintained when Burmah Oil took it over in 1966. He retired from Burmah in June 1975, four months after his wife won the Conservative Party leadership election.In addition to being a director of Burmah, he was chairman of the Atlas Preservative Co, vice-chairman of Attwoods plc from 1983 to January 1994, a director of Quinton Hazell plc from 1968 to 1998 and a consultant to Amec plc and CSX Corp. He was also a non-executive director of Halfords in the mid-1980s.  He calls himself a successful businessman in the movie but how many people know what he achieved?  In the movie he is demoted to nothing more than the adult equivalent of a childs imaginary friend.
 
I can only com parethe performance by Leonardo de Caprio in Aviator, a movie about Howard Hughes, with the performance of Meryl Streep.  De Caprio gives an outstanding performance and anyone like me with knowledge of Hughes can appreciate the portrayal by de Caprio and also be aware of the preparation it took to achieve the performance of a lifetime.  To such an extent it is like watching secret home movie footage of Hughes.
 
Upon leaving the cinema one could only talk about how brilliant Hughes was, how weird he was, what a strange and damaged man he was, how achieved so much whilst suffering from OCD.
 
Here, with the Iron Lady, one comes away from the cinema talking of one thing only: Meryl Streeps performance.  As amazing and spellbinding as it is, the performance is what is being talked about in bars and restaurants post movie and in the press.
 
But, what of the woman herself, the subject matter, Baroness Thatcher?
 
If you have only heard of MT at school you would not know of the power struggles, the political machinations, the feminist issues, the decisions, the speeches....
....Surprisingly no mention of "The Lady Is Not For Turning" or "The Mummy Returns"....
...because there is no substance or explanation of the key and iconic moments that were the make or break of her as Prime Minister.
 
This is a great movie to see if you know about MT and/or lived through the 80s.
If you know nothing about MT you will learn nothing about her from this movie apart from she became an MP, she became PM, she became old and forgetful.

Meryl Streep gives a performance that will undoubtedly lead to an oscar.

But, again, what of the subject matter herself? 
For who she is, for who she was, for what she achieved...Margaret Thatcher deserves more than this.  Much, much more.

Mayans? Schmayans!

2012 is the year the world ends.

2012 is the year the Mayans say it's going to be 'game over'.

Errm...

Actually:

2012 is a year of great opportunity.

Can you imagine believing the rubbish about the end of the world only to find that you sold your business and your home and spent all the money for nothing when, surprise, you wake up next morning and you are still here?  And, what's more, so is everyone else?


It's New Years Day today.  What are you doing?

LOST:  One whole year.  Last seen yesterday.  Contains uncertainty, lazyness and no achievement. (could u place an ad like that? Be ashamed!!  Be very ashamed)


The Mayans said the world will end in 2012.  If it does,it does.  But, if it doesn't?  What condition will your life be in the day after?  Plan ahead!

Do you wake up and say 'I can't wait to be mediocre today!'. I could tell you to get a life but why don't you just change the one you have?


Is watching TV tonight going to earn you money? Get you new clients? Expand your business? NO! So...Turn off the tube and get out your Notebook/ Planner!

If you are sitting there thinking 'Wow, a whole year ahead of me'?  I guarantee you will soon be saying 'Where the hell did that year go?' And you will say that sooner than you think!




What are you doing today? Watching TV? Reading the paper? Sleeping? Get off your ass and make a to do list and put a deadline in there!

The Mayans were wrong.

This can be the best year ever if you make it so!

Go and do it.  I am!

Happy New Year x

2012

A happy new year to you all.

May you get everything you wish for, attract, and manifest in 2012

David Moore