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Never Eat Alone Speed Summary: 15 Core Principles in 3 Minutes

Never Eat Alone is a 2005 book by Keith Ferrazzi. It provides secrets for networking and relationship success, primarily for businessmen and women, but ultimately for anyone looking to improve their social network quality.

A 3 Minute Summary of the 15 Core Lessons

#1 Success is People You Meet and What You Make Together
According to Ferrazzi, success in your life can largely be defined by the people you meet and what you make together. This is another way of saying that knowing the right people and collaborating with excellent coworkers or friends will yield greater dividends in every aspect of life satisfaction than working alone.

#2 People Can Help You More Than You Think
Arguably the entire premise of the book centers around the idea that people provide you with more soft benefits than you may originally believe. Mentors are more responsible for your eventual success then your talent, and the guidance of your peers can help you stay on a path to success rather than falling off or making lots of mistakes.

#3 Networking is Purposeful
There’s networking in terms of finding casual social acquaintances, and then there is purposeful social networking that is designed to connect you with individuals who can help you reach your goals. You’ll need to find people who are as successful or more successful than you and form real connections with them to benefit from networking’s true potential.

#4 Generosity is Key
Another major idea of Ferrazzi is that generosity is a huge factor for overall success. You have to both give generously and be extremely willing to accept the generosity of others. This ties people together and forges relationships and institutions that are based on trust and mutual assistance. Generosity is far from a weakness; it’s what makes networking super effective.

#5 No One Succeed Alone
Ferrazzi claims that the myth of the self-made man is more harmful than it is helpful. The truth, in his eyes, is that no one succeeds alone and all worthy endeavors are undertaken by teams that support one another and help a project or business reach its maximum potential.

#6 Don’t Worry About What the World Can Give You
Ferrazzi advises everyone to stop worrying about what they can get from the world and their peers. Instead, he suggests that you should focus on what you can add to the world or give to your companions. By adding value to the lives of others, your own life will become more valuable and you’ll inspire a system of generosity that eventually comes back to benefit you as well.

#7 Your Network Determines Who You Are
Rather than an individual, self-made image, who we really are is defined by who we know and who we spend our time with. As an example, if we surround ourselves with healthy and happy people, we are more likely to ourselves by both healthy and happy. On the contrary, surrounding ourselves with negative people will make our paths more difficult.

#8 A Goal is a Dream with a Deadline
This smaller idea is crucial when forming new connections with others and outlining your life goals. It’s important that you don’t let your dreams run away from what is practical or realistic. Instead, focus on what you can realistically achieve an outline a clear plan in which you can reach all of the goal’s metrics or victory conditions.

#9 Find Your Passion
Many people attempt to complete their goals or follow their dreams without actually discovering their passion. Actually sitting down and thinking about what you truly love and what you are good at will allow you to find your passion and create worthwhile goals that make meaningful progress toward creating a good life. Don’t just follow the crowd; instead, think of your goals and surround yourself with people like you.

#10 3 Supervisors
Ferrazzi specifically recommends that creating a “personal board of advisors” is a good idea for anyone. This isn’t to say that they actually determine your actions, but having trusted friends who you can rely on for support or supervision is critical. He advises selecting three friends or mentors who can support, supervise, and hold you accountable.

#11 Don’t Disappear
As you build a network, take pains to never disappear for too long or without a good explanation. Out of sight, out of mind, as the saying goes. Whether you are an employee or executive, you should talk to those above and below your station and always be seeking to make new connections.

#12 50 People
Ferrazzi specifically advises that everyone should talk to at least 50 people per day. This ensures that you get enough new social activity to stimulate your networking muscles and you are suitably seen throughout all levels of your organization. The more you focus on your network, the bigger and better it will get.

#13 Be a Speaker
It’s always good to cultivate skills when it comes to listening to others and absorbing feedback. But it’s even more important to become a confident and trusted speaker. Speakers have an easier time meeting other people and expanding their network. You should seek out opportunities to speak at conferences or meetings to make use of this fact.

#14 Become an Expert
Whatever your passion is, it’s a good idea to become an expert in it. Experts have intrinsic authority on whatever subject they speak about. This allows them to grow their network of underlings and superiors even more effectively. Experts also enjoy greater life satisfaction and will find it easier to meet with other experts in their field. Such a positive feedback loop is excellent for overall life success.

#15 Weak Ties Matter
While the connections in your social network that are already strong are important, the weak ties are even more critical. These are relationships such as acquaintances or work companions. Focus on these networking relationships as they help you find new information, ideas, and job opportunities. More than your core network, they will help you expand your social web and gain new advantages from networking.

Top 10 Quotes from Never Eat Alone

  1. “Success in any field, but especially in business is about working with people, not against them.”
  2. “Real networking was about finding ways to make other people more successful.”
  3. “Poverty, I realized, wasn’t only a lack of financial resources; it was isolation from the kind of people who could help you make more of yourself.”
  4. “Who you know determines who you are—how you feel, how you act, and what you achieve.”
  5. “Wherever you are in life right now, and whatever you know, is a result of the ideas, experiences, and people you have interacted with in your life.”
  6. “Human ambitions are like Japanese carp; they grow proportional to the size of their environment. Our achievements grow according to the size of our dreams and the degree to which we are in touch with our mission.”
  7. “I believe that every conversation you have is an invitation to risk revealing the real you.”
  8. “Your network is your destiny, a reality backed up by many studies in the newly emergent fields of social networking and social contagion theory. We are the people we interact with.”
  9. “By giving your time and expertise and sharing them freely, the pie gets bigger for everyone.”
  10. “Friendship is created out of the quality of time spent between two people, not the quantity.”

Free PDF Download of the Summary to Save or Print

Go here to download the Never Eat Alone PDF Summary.

Ferrazzi’s 10 Rules for Success

The Famous Keith Ferrazzi Ted Talk

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Never Eat Alone Summary

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