Never Eat Alone summary

Many people fear rejection, and this fear can prevent them from approaching others and hence building a supportive network.

Fear of rejection is familiar to all of us and is nothing to be ashamed of. Few of us are natural networkers with the courage to approach strangers to try to win them over.

A good networker will never ask, “How can others help me?” Instead he will ask, “How can I help others?”

The basic thinking behind this is clear and simple: the more ready you are to help others, the more ready they will be to help you in return.

One of the myths surrounding networking is that you should start looking to others only when you need their help.

This is a big, though unfortunately common, mistake. It is like trying to buy safety vests after your ship has already started sinking.

Really getting to know other people is not about how much time you spend with them but rather about the way in which you spend time with them.

Friendships and close acquaintances are formed by spending quality time with each other. You should therefore pay great attention to relationship glues; in other words, those factors that have the power to turn a contact into a real friend or trusted acquaintance.

What is the major thing that a Hollywood star and a good networker have in common?

In order not to disappear entirely from the scene, both will be ready every single day to make new contacts and to connect with other people.

“Would I want to spend an hour with this person at dinner?”

Almost everyone asks themselves this question in one form or another when they meet a person for the first time.

Super-connectors are quite simply people who have thousands of contacts. What is remarkable about them is firstly the sheer number of contacts they have, and secondly that their contacts come from all different walks of life.

By the 1960s, social psychologist Stanley Milgram had already brought the power of these super-connectors to light. Milgram sent identical letters to 160 people living in Omaha, Nebraska, and asked that they ensure the letter reached a stockbroker in Massachusetts. They were not, however, to send the letter directly to the stockbroker’s address. Instead, they should look among their acquaintances for someone they thought might know the stockbroker.

Whatever you want to become in life, be it the president, a chief executive or a top athlete, you are never going to get there by chance.

Instead, you must make your life goals very clear and concrete, and then decide how you are going to set about achieving them. Only then is it possible to develop strategies that will enable you to find success.

A mission does not become a reality overnight. Just as if you were building a house, you need the right tools and the right plan.

Both the tools and the plan are combined in the Networking Action Plan (NAP). The NAP helps us to achieve our goals because it provides us with a clear to-do list of tasks we can incorporate into our daily routine, and it also motivates us to be active in working toward our goals.

We are surrounded by brands. We are confronted with them on a daily basis, and they are responsible for the way we perceive things. On seeing the three-stripe logo, you immediately think of Adidas. The stylized bitten-apple image will immediately make you think of Apple.

But it’s not only companies and products that can create brands – completely normal people can do so too!

Great musicians know it, and so do sports stars. If you don’t have a good coach behind you, you will be unlikely to perform to your best.

Young artisans learn their trade through an apprenticeship; they begin developing their own style only after they have worked with the old masters of the profession. The same goes for business: young people can learn a great deal from experienced professionals. Hence, any good management will introduce a mentoring program that allows experienced workers to pass on their knowledge to the junior staff.