FEMALE SPEAKER: Before
we do the introduction, I have a quick clip that
I wanted to show first. [VIDEO PLAYBACK] RAMIT SETHI: Hey, guys. Ramit Sethi here. I'm actually in the studio
right now here in San Francisco, recording some videos
for another project. Today I want to talk
about social skills and how I used to be
a freak of nature. You have funded your 401(k). You've funded your Roth IRA. And it is all automatic. CHASE JARVIS: How's it going? I'm Chase Jarvis. I'm an artist and
an entrepreneur. And I'm lucky enough to be
sitting here with my man Ramit. RAMIT SETHI: It's
because we really got deep into the psychology
of, you know, becoming the best. CHASE JARVIS: Yeah. RAMIT SETHI: I want you to ask
yourself the same question. What business are you really in? SUSAN CAIN: Hi, I'm Susan Cain. I am author of the
book "Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World
That Can't Stop Talking." RAMIT SETHI: Your book
made that very clear. And, as you mentioned, it's
almost, in a word, stigmatized. PAMELA SLIM: I'm
Pamela Slim, author of "Escape From Cubicle
Nation," and the upcoming "Body of Work." KRIS CARR: Hi, everybody. I'm Kris Carr, and I'm the
founder of kriscarr.com. RAMIT SETHI: Thank
you for coming in. If I asked you, what
percentage of your income do you invest back in
yourself, what would you say? [END VIDEO PLAYBACK] FEMALE SPEAKER:
So that video clip was a good intro for Ramit. But just for those who are
not familiar with his work, he's known for his witty advice
on a wide range of topics, from personal finance
to negotiation tactics, to testing systems. That's a lot of what
we'll talk about today, to be your own master
of personal influence. And what he shares
is based on results of hundreds of tests he's run
in his personal laboratory of 500,000 monthly readers and
about 56,000 Twitter followers, I guess. That's just a little bit
of Twitter there for us. And much of his work is
based on his background in personal influence
and persuasion that he studied at Stanford. So today we'll hear
from him and talk about his personal
experience and how he's leveraged his
background in psychology to grow himself
and his business. So please welcome Ramit. [APPLAUSE] RAMIT SETHI: Thank you. FEMALE SPEAKER:
How are you today? RAMIT SETHI: I'm great. Thank you for having me. FEMALE SPEAKER: Yeah. Actually, let me kill the
video here so we can see that. So let's talk a little bit
about your background first. And we've known that
you have worn many hats. You've been an entrepreneur, a
best selling author, business owner, financial guru,
and you started out as a finance blogger
a couple of years ago. So you even spoke here
at Google a couple years ago about that book, "I
Will Teach You to Be Rich." So tell us a little bit
about where you've come from. Where have you been? And how did you go from being
that entrepreneurially minded person-- graduate, to
where you are today? RAMIT SETHI: Well, I remember--
I have a pretty big family. And when I was in high
school, my parents were like, OK, you want to go
to college, which you have to because you're Indian-- so
if you want to go to college, you have to find scholarships
because we can't afford it. And so I remember
building a system to apply to
scholarships rapidly. So I applied to
about 65 of them. And it occurred to me, I love
the systems part of this. I built the system. That's one of the systems I'm
most proud of because I applied in a really cool
way, and I ended up paying my way through school. And I took that
first scholarship, and I invested it
in the stock market. This is like '99, 2000. That's what you do, right? And then I lost a lot of money. And I was like,
OK, I better learn how this money stuff works. And so I started reading
books on personal finance and investing. But at the same
time, I was studying psychology and persuasion. And do you remember that book,
"The Emperor Has No Clothes?" FEMALE SPEAKER: I do. RAMIT SETHI: And it's like-- FEMALE SPEAKER: Movie too. RAMIT SETHI: Yeah. And I'm looking at this advice
that everyone's telling us. Keep a budget. Stop spending money on lattes. And I'm like, nobody does this. Nobody listens. My friends, the
people in this room-- they don't want to stop
spending money on lattes. They want to live a rich life. They want to go out. They want to buy a round of
drinks for their friends. Maybe they want to live
in an awesome apartment or even have two apartments. And so this typical advice
just didn't make sense to me. And I started applying what I
had learned in the psychology area to money. And I started trying to teach
a class which nobody ever came to. And so it's like, all right,
these lazy kids-- maybe they'll read a blog
if I post a blog. So over time, I learned
how to write in a way that-- a non- judgmental
way, where it's like, look, if you want to buy
$300 jeans, cool. Let me show you how to do that. And so I took that blog. . And over time, I turned
it into a business. I wrote a book based on
the systems that I tested. And now, basically, my site
is not just about money. It's all about
living a rich life, whether that is traveling
or finding your dream job or negotiating your salary. And it's all using the
strategies, tactics, and systems that we find
in the world of psychology. FEMALE SPEAKER: And you even
got an offer from Google at one point. RAMIT SETHI: I accepted
an offer here actually. FEMALE SPEAKER: You
accepted an offer. RAMIT SETHI: Well, it
was weird because-- OK, so the first time I applied
here, I got rejected. And then I was like, who
are you to reject me? So I came back the next year. This is why I'm unemployable. So I came back the next
year, and I applied again. And it was like a four
month interview process. So they're just
stringing me along. And then I was like, look,
guys, I have five other offers, and I need a decision. And they're like, OK, OK. So they made me the offer. And it was an APMM,
which was a great offer. And I felt like, wow. And I decided to come here. So I accepted the offer. And then they were like, why
don't you take some time off? You've been in school
for a long time. And I was like, oh, I will. I will. So they're like,
what do you need? Two weeks? I was like, uh, I'll come
back in three months. So I take three
months for the summer. And at that time, my
friend was like, hey, come work on this startup. And I started working on it. It was called PBwiki,
and it really took off. And so I came back
to my recruiter at the end of the
summer, and I was like, can I have a little
bit more time? And she goes, what do you need? A week or two? I was like, how about two years? And she's like,
I don't think so. So I decided to go
work at the startup. And that was a very
tough decision for me because a lot of my
friends worked here. The company was amazing. The position was amazing. But ultimately, I decided
to go the startup route. FEMALE SPEAKER: Yeah. But you came in
for the free food. RAMIT SETHI: I came
in all the time. I mean, you don't
make that much money as a startup entrepreneur. And then you have
all these friends. So I'm coming in like four
times a week to eat lunch, but I'm always going
with different friends. FEMALE SPEAKER: Yeah. That's a good tactic. RAMIT SETHI: They didn't
catch on for a long time. FEMALE SPEAKER: That's
a good strategy. Good to share. Good to share. Well, that's a good point. You bring up rejection. And a lot of us have
rejection all the time. And knowing that you've gone
through what you've done, how do you handle rejection,
even if it's not a Google offer? If there's something
big or small, what do you do
when that happens? And how do you repair and
come back from where that was? RAMIT SETHI: Well, I think
all of us have been rejected. My philosophy is most of
us are not rejected enough. And so I have a folder in
my Gmail called Failures. And if I'm not filling
that up with at least four or five failures a
month, then I feel like I'm not trying hard enough. So a failure could be as
simple as I emailed someone that I want to have
lunch with, and they just didn't reply to me, even though
I tried a couple of times. Or back in the day when
I applied for a job, and I got rejected,
which happened a lot. One of the things that I try to
do to improve my failure rate is to, number one,
to surround myself with people who do the kind
of things I want to do. So if you have people who are,
let's say, more extroverted, or they're just great at
talking to random people, and that's something
I want to pick up, I try to study them
and model that. Another thing is if you have
trouble going to the gym, I try to experiment in ways
that will make me go to the gym. Is it folding my clothes
before the night's over? Is it hiring a personal trainer? Notice that I didn't say,
I try to sit in my room and say, OK, I'm going
to get better at this. Changing your attitude is
something that most of us try, but it rarely works. Attitudinal change
is extremely-- there's a low correlation
with behavioral change. So for me and for my students,
I focus on specifically, how do you change your behavior? And then the
attitude will follow. That's a very different approach
than most of us are taught. We're taught things like, if I
show you this compound interest chart, then you're
going to realize how important it is
to start investing. And then you're going
to start investing. That doesn't work. There's a million compound
interest charts, and none of us invest. So what do we do instead? We create defaults
to start investing. We build automated systems. We build systems so that by
default we do the right thing, instead of hoping
that we're going to make the right decision
in certain times of the day. FEMALE SPEAKER: Yeah. And that's a good point
about following through with what you want to do,
but you're not necessarily doing that. So tell us a little bit
about how we can all be a little better,
whether we're wanting to invest or
start a new project and knowing that
we should do it, versus actually
taking the action. How can we take that next step? RAMIT SETHI: Well, all of us
know what we should be doing. And typically, they're the
same four or five things. I want to work out more. I want to have
better relationships with the people around me. I want to eat better. I want to travel more. I want to save my
money and invest. These are the classic four
or five things that we all know we should do,
and none of us do it. So what we typically do is we
go through these spurts of, OK, OK, OK, I know
what I'm going to do. All right. I'm motivated to do this today. I'm going to get this book. I'm going to read it. And I'm going to buckle down. We use these words. If I try harder this month,
I can save that $100. All right. I'm going to go on
a diet this weekend. And that doesn't work. We do it over and over. We're guilted by experts
giving us these micro tactics. And I mean, if it
works for you, great. But frankly, we see the literacy
rate, financial literacy rates. We see how people
are overweight. We see all these
behavioral problems. So one of the things
that I focus on is willpower is not enough. We've had a rash of books
recently about willpower. And we know trying
harder alone is not going to solve the problem. Education alone is not
going to solve the problem. That's quite a radical
notion if you think about it because think about what the
most money experts believe. They say, let's teach these
kids about financial literacy. What kid ever woke up
in the morning and said, yeah, I want to be
financially literate? Nobody. What do they say? They say, I want to be rich. Right? And so speaking in our
customer's language, whoever it may be-- and this is what
we do from a technical design perspective. This is what I do from a
copywriting perspective. I can sit around and talk
about financial literacy, and exactly zero
people will care. Or I can talk about
living a rich life, automating your money so you
can get on with your life because no one wants to be a
money expert or a negotiation expert. And in my experience
with my testing, that is likely to really
generate behavioral change. FEMALE SPEAKER: And
speaking of your site, "I Will Teach You to Be Rich,"
where a lot of this is done, that name itself
seems a little weird. RAMIT SETHI: Oh, does? it? It seems so normal to me. FEMALE SPEAKER: So
tell us a little bit about what that's all about. RAMIT SETHI: Well, I was
sober when I picked the name. I was a college kid. But it wasn't like I was-- I
was just having a normal day. And I was like, oh,
let me pick this name. And I have come to
both love that decision and regret it every
day of my life. It's a cool name. But let's be honest. The first time you
go to that site, you're like, what is this? What is this weird site? Who is this weird Indian dude? What's going on here? And your defenses
are up a little bit. And I understand that. When you go to my
site, you will see me with, say, Stanford graduate. That's not for my gigantic
ego, although I do have one. It's because I
have three seconds to capture your attention. And you'll see me
on the Today Show. You'll see a video or
something like that. What I want people to
know is living a rich life is only in a small
part about money. But there's so many other
things that I talk about. So we talk about
negotiating your salary, finding your dream job,
starting a side business. And then one of the things
that I do with my site that I think is a
little different is-- has anyone here seen advice
that was just very generic? It's like, network. Go find people who are in
your network and become their. Friend You're like, OK. What does that mean? What am I supposed to do? Who are these people,
and what do I email them? So what I do with my material
is try to go ultra-specific. Here's the actual copy and
paste email that you can use. If you want to interview
better, if they ask you what's your
greatest weakness, I show you what to say and
how to use your body language. I think the true
sign of mastery is to be able to show people a
very specific answer and then once they get that
answer to teach them how to think about
it in their own way. So try to get really
specific, give them ultra-specific tactics,
and always focus on mastery, not just
quick wins, big wins. FEMALE SPEAKER: Yeah. And I know on your site--
I've been there a few times. And your pages are just
scrolling in an endless way. And I think that's
really interesting because you try to be
very specific and brief and give advice on how
to connect with people. So why are those pages so long? What's going on there? RAMIT SETHI: All right. So who here has ever seen
one of my sales pages for one of my courses? OK. So first of all, big shout
out to the front row here. These are some of my students
who came in all the way from Slovenia and DC. I want to give a big
shout out to you guys. They've all seen my sales pages. My business model is I give
away 98% of my material free. And then about 2% of
it is premium courses. These are online courses. They're video. They're recorded typically. They're not live with me. And they may range from
14 days to eight weeks. They may range from a
couple $100 to $12,000. They're quite involved,
and they typically take us 12 to 24 months
to build and test. And we collect 100,000 plus data
points for our biggest courses. Some of our biggest
courses-- the sales page for those courses
is 57 pages long. And I know people in tech who
love-- especially engineers-- they love to say,
just keep it short. Just keep it concise. Just give them what they need. Totally wrong. And that's one of
the things I want to talk about today, challenging
these assumptions that we have with actual data,
with actual testing. So 57 pages long. A lot of people
say, who would ever read a sales page
that's 57 pages long? And I know a very
sophisticated marketer. His emails are 15
to 30 pages long. And someone said to him, why
do you write those emails? Who would ever read
a 30 page email. And he laughs and
says, only the buyers. So if you think of something
you have an intense pain point with-- it could be back pain. It could be you have curly hair. If you have curly
hair, you think about curly hair every
day of your life. What's the weather like? Is it going to be frizzy? And there's a-- anywhere here? True? Yeah, that's right. It's OK to admit it. So you see a page that's
educational, informative. It's got other people like you. You will read forever. And that's what we find when
we've tested short versus long. And frankly, direct
response marketers have known this for generations. Long copy, particularly
for more advanced material, almost always pulls
better than short copy. FEMALE SPEAKER: And I know
you also have a lot of scripts that you give away for free. And like you said, 98%
of your content is free. So do you have a favorite
one of those or something that you'd want to share
that you enjoy talking about? RAMIT SETHI: I like one. So one of the things
that I know when I started doing things
a little different was-- a lot of
people around me were kind of peer pressuring me
to go back into the norm. So for an Indian
guy, you really have two choices for your profession
and actually two choices for your car. So anyone know what
Indian people drive? Toyota Camry, Honda Accord. And then what about jobs? What are your two job
options as an Indian guy? Engineer and doctor. OK, come on. Let's call a spade a spade. So I'm doing this
weird thing where I'm doing this
online wiki company, and I got this weird blog. And they're just like,
what is going on here? So I had to learn how
to respond to that. And I think whenever you're
trying something new, you're in a very
vulnerable place. You're not even sure if
it's the right thing to do. And then you've got your
parents and your friends like, are you really sure about that? And they do this
concerned troll thing. I'm just concerned about you. Are you going to be OK? Has anyone here
experienced that? OK, a lot of people. It can be very debilitating. And if you don't
know how to respond, it can really get to you. So I tested a lot of
different responses. And I liked this one. It's a "co-opetition"
model, we'll call it. And so what I used to do
was I would say, no, mom. This is what I want to do. And it was just-- that
never wins with anyone, whether it's a relationship
partner or a parent. What I would say
instead was-- I said, I don't really know if this
thing's going to work out or not. I really don't know. But I figure it's worth a shot. And if it fails, who knows? But let me ask you a question. If you were in my position,
what would you do? And so instead of fighting
against their criticism, I co-opted it. And I actually
made them my ally. And when I've shared
that with my readers, they have found great results. Because all of us,
particularly when we're going through this
world of self development-- maybe we're learning yoga. Maybe we're starting to lose
weight or just trying improv. People around us will sometimes
get uncomfortable with that. And they may pressure
you to stop doing that. Maybe you're even just
trying to dress better. How do you respond to that? That's been a very good
script for my readers. FEMALE SPEAKER: That's good. That's good. And then the other thing
about your site and business is that you do not accept
anyone with credit card debt. Correct? RAMIT SETHI: Correct. I don't accept people
with credit card debt into my flagship courses. That decision costs me
over $2 million a year. And I'm glad you brought it up. So I believe that-- when I
came out with this policy, I was very clear about
why I was doing it. And I shared the
carrot and the stick. So I said, the carrot here
is an extra $1,000 or $2,000 from you-- it makes no
difference to my lifestyle. But it makes all the
difference to you. So don't spend your
$1,000 with me. Get my book from the library. Focus on your savings. Pay off your debt. And then when the time
is right, come back. I'm still going to be here. So I shared it with love because
I don't believe that ethically I should be taking $2,000 from
someone with credit card debt. I don't need it. I don't want it. But then I put the
stick down too. I said, if I find out that you
joined my program with credit card debt, not only will
I refund your money, but I will ban you for life. And so people are really scared
of me on my site, which I love. I'm like, great. And still people-- they defy me. They still join the course with
credit card debt sometimes. And we find out. And then we have to ban them. We put them on what's called
our DNS, do not sell list. And they're banned forever. But I believe that
when you start to become very
good at persuasion, it's like any skill. You can use it for
good, or you can use it for nefarious purposes. And so I have a very clear
ethical guideline on, who do we sell to, and
who do we not sell to? And I believe that if-- my
simple ethical guideline is if everyone were
rational, and everyone had all the information
in the world-- just assume for a minute--
would they make this decision? Would someone with 20
grand of credit card debt pay $3,000 for a course? Probably not, if
they understood how interest rates work
and stuff like that. They may not understand
it, but I understand it. And so it's my obligation
to not sell to them. But on the other hand,
if it is right for them, and I know it could
help them, then it's my obligation to sell
aggressively to them. That's my basic sort of ethical
compass for the business. FEMALE SPEAKER: Got it. OK. So let's talk a little bit
then about mastering influence and more about that
psychology behind it. So you have a lot
of connections. You've got contacts from Tim
Ferriss, "The 4-Hour Workweek," Seth Godin, the marketing
maven, Pamela Slim, Kris Carr, the folks we saw on the video. And how do you do that,
put your best foot forward and keep an eye on the
business that you have? And then what advice would
you give us in this room or on the web, what we can do
to start those relationships and connect in that way? RAMIT SETHI: Well, I think
that more and more, people are looking for
genuine connections. And the way I made friends
with a lot of those people was just to email them. I just said, hey. And I always try to add value. One thing that you'll find
with especially people who are really, really
time crunched is everyone wants a piece of them. So if you look in any
of those people's inbox, they get like 1,000
plus emails a day. And 900 of them are people
asking for something. Can you send me this? Can you do that? Can you write a
blurb for my book. And so it is so refreshing
when someone says, hey, I noticed that you've
been doing more videos. And I noticed that
there's this one thing you could do to
increase your subscribers. And by the way, I
just did it for you. And here you go. And you're like, whoa. That's amazing. And then that person adds
value again and again. And all of a sudden, you're
like, who is this person? I want to know. Also, whenever I
try to email people, I always try to mention
any relationship we have. So if I were here, I would
definitely be saying, I work at Google. Because a lot of
people will take your call if you work at Google. When I was a college
student, I told them where I go to college. And 95% of people would
say, cool, let's do lunch. That's just ways that I do it. I think one of the
other things to do is what I call the closing
the loop technique. And that is to keep people--
always stay top of mind. I don't know how many people
here have had this experience. But I know I've met people. And I meet them at a
conference, or I email them. And we hit it off well. And then I just forget
to email them again. And a year later,
I'm like, oh, wow. It would be really helpful
if I could talk to them. And the relationship
has gone cold. So I always like to stay
top of mind for them. And typically, that means
something like emailing them a value added link or
something that they would find useful at
least once a month. Hey, here's something
I'm working on. I just wanted to
keep you in the loop. And here's a little trick
that I taught my readers, which I love because now 30% of
the emails I get use this line. I say, no reply needed. If you think of a
busy person, that's actually adding value
to them because they don't feel the guilt and
urge to have to reply to you. You're like, hey,
here's a cool link in the Wall Street Journal. I remember when we talked. You told me about x, y, z. So I thought you'd
like this article. No reply needed, just
thought you would like it. You do that three or four
times, they're going to be like, this person is awesome. They're adding value to
my life, and they're not asking for anything. That's how I try to start
building relationships. FEMALE SPEAKER: So
no email blasts out to the 500 contacts you
have, BCCing everyone. RAMIT SETHI: Well, I don't know. Does anyone do that anymore? FEMALE SPEAKER: I don't know. Does anyone do that? I think that sometimes people
think that's sufficient or that's a way to get after it. RAMIT SETHI: Yeah. Relationships are
not about efficiency. You want to be efficient? Try the dating market. You want to be efficient? You just go up to
a guy or a girl. You're like, hey. That's not how you
build a relationship. So I've seen people do the
quarterly updates and stuff. And OK, that's fine. I skim it. And then it doesn't
resonate at all. I would much rather
get just a quick email. It could be five lines. Hey, I was thinking of you. I remember what you
said about this. You should check this out. Hope to talk to you soon. Bye. That's so much more
effective than a BCC blast. I mean, if you're
using the word blast, you've already gone wrong. FEMALE SPEAKER: Yeah. Yeah. And I think it comes down to
the genuinity and authenticity, so really connecting
with that person, researching them a little
bit, and just going in on that personalized
individual email. RAMIT SETHI: Yeah. FEMALE SPEAKER: Yeah. That's a good idea. RAMIT SETHI: I think it's
interesting you said efficiency because particularly
here in Silicon, we're so deep in the
world of efficiency that we think everything
has to be efficient. Emails have to be short. Do you know how long my emails
are, the ones that people read and buy a
lot of stuff from? They're really long. What happens with that? One, it filters out all
the illiterate people. And so I'm like, good. Get off my site. Just unsubscribe. Here's the link. Get away. But then the people who are
left are highly committed. They want to read it,
provided it's adding value, and it's really
interesting and engaging. And we've tested it. We've done short
versus really long. Why do you think
we keep doing long? Number one, it's more fun. I like to write like that. But two, it actually works. So I would urge everyone to step
out of the efficiency mindset. Efficiency can be
great in certain areas. But if you're building
a relationship, you don't be efficient. If you're communicating
with someone, efficiency sometimes
matters, but prose and emotional
connection also matter. FEMALE SPEAKER: Yeah. Well, it sounds like you've
got a really good pulse based on all the testing
that you've done on those in this room, the
Generation Y, millennials, Generation X, that
kind of thing. So what are some
of the challenges that we face as a
group, whether it's Silicon Valley or
anywhere, where we just want to be efficient
and that kind of thing? What are some of the big
ones that come top of mind? RAMIT SETHI: For me,
the biggest challenges that I see with myself and
with my friends and my students is, number one, distraction. We just have an infinite number
of things that we could do. And I know just from
the last 10 years. I used to be able to focus and
just write pages and pages. And now I'm checking my
email, going to Reddit, reading Hacker News, checking
all this crazy Twitter stuff. And I think the
second thing is-- it ties in, which
is too many options. And we have so many options
that it's easy to get paralyzed. And it's a little ironic
when we hear older people. Our parents might say
to us, when I had a job, I was just happy
to have any job. And I took that job, and I
stuck with it for 30 years. Well, that's great. But that's not how the
world works anymore. And it's difficult to
find other people who understand because the only
other people who understand that are the people like us. We're going through that
same thing right now. We don't have the answers. So I've really spent
a lot of time working on how to help my
students follow through, how to help them focus, how to
remove all these ideas that you have to do this. You have to do that. You have to be on
this social network. You have to do all
these million things. And really take an
80-20 perspective to say, what are the key
big wins that matter? And forget the
rest of this stuff. If you just get these four
or five big wins in your life right, all the rest of
this stuff falls away. FEMALE SPEAKER: So how do
you not get overwhelmed with all of that? RAMIT SETHI: Well,
I focus on big wins. So let's take
money, for example. Who here feels like they are
100% on top of their money? OK. We got one nerd in the
back who's like, me. All right. I like that. I like that. AUDIENCE: Huge spreadsheet. RAMIT SETHI: You have
a-- OK, I knew it. You have a huge spreadsheet. The only guy who still
uses a spreadsheet to manage his money. And who here feels like
there's something, at least one thing we should be doing
more with our money, probably more like 10 things? OK, almost every single
person in the room. So then when we
think about, what should we be doing
with our money? It's like, we wake
up in the morning, and we could not go to coffee. We could cancel
that dinner we have. We could adjust
our student debt, change our asset allocation,
increase our savings. There's a million
things we can do. And when faced
with these choices, we do the same thing we've
always done, which is nothing. What my approach is, and
which is based on psychology, is there is a such thing
as analysis paralysis. There is the paradox of choice. So what I tell people is focus
on the four or five big wins. Get a dream job. Negotiate your salary. Invest automatically so you
don't have to think about it. It's not a decision. If you do these
four or five things, it doesn't matter how
many lattes you buy. It doesn't matter if you buy
a small Coke or a large Coke. It doesn't matter. None of that stuff matters. Those are micro
decisions that are irrelevant in the
grand scheme of things. People are like, you
could save $3 a day. That doesn't add up to anything
if you actually do the math. People are like, save $3 a day. In 48 years, you'll
have $12,000. OK. That's it? And I'm going to live a
miserable life every single day from here until then? What if I could
negotiate my salary? What if I could optimize
my credit score, just these four or five things. How many lattes
would that be worth? And I could live the
kind of life I want. So when it comes to
so many decisions, I want to focus on
reducing it and focus on just the major ones,
ignore the rest. They will work themselves out. FEMALE SPEAKER: So for us, where
we've got these challenges, and there's a lot
going on in our world, we are all good at a lot of that
efficiency stuff, taking tests, getting good grades,
especially here at Google. So we want to go
off the beaten path. We want to take those risks. We want to work harder to
do what our dream jobs are. So how do you take
that first step. And where can we excel to start
moving off the beaten path? RAMIT SETHI: Well, I think
that's pretty savvy to say. If you've made it
here, you're probably really good at excelling
on the beaten path. FEMALE SPEAKER: Don't all
leave your jobs, by the way. RAMIT SETHI: Yeah. I have to be very careful here. If you're here, if you're
watching this, you're a nerd. You're really good--
let's be honest. You're really good
at taking tests. You're really good at getting
the approval of people who matter. And honestly, that's important. When people say,
oh, just do what you want-- if you
want to win, you have to learn how
to play the game. And you have to
win at that game. And then you can win
at the other games. So I truly believe in that. I'm not one of
these guys who says, skip college and just
do what you want. I think college is important. And I think learning how to
master these common situations like social skills, finding
a job-- those are important. But at a certain
point, I know a lot of people who made it to
the top of that mountain. They got the best job. They're getting
paid a lot of money. And they're like, wait a minute. What else is it? I made it up here,
and the view isn't what I thought it would be. And so I think that
there's a lot of things we actually can do. But it's incredibly scary. We can readjust
our expectations, which is something that
most of us don't want to do. We don't want less. We want more. That's OK. So going along that route,
one of the things I like to do is take micro steps. So I always encourage my
students to start a side business, not to quit
their jobs entirely and try to raise $10 million in VC,
but to say, you know what? There's something I like to do. Maybe I'll try it on the side. I'm going to learn how
to validate my idea, generate a little revenue. And let me just
see how this goes. We can look
expansively at saying, how do I improve in my
personal development? This is really interesting
to me because I have a lot of friends
who are-- they work here, or they work at top companies. And they're amazing
at their jobs. They're so good. And the personal
development side of it-- it's interesting to me
because about half of them are super into
personal development. And half of them are
not into it at all. They think it's really weird to
read a self development book. I'm curious, out
of the crowd here-- who here never reads any
kind of self development? It's OK to admit it. I won't make fun of you. OK. Appreciate the honesty. And then who here reads self
development books or courses or materials? Wow. A lot of-- OK, so the
people who came here. FEMALE SPEAKER: A lot of
Googlers are developing-- RAMIT SETHI: The people who
came here read self development. That's shocking. FEMALE SPEAKER: [INAUDIBLE]. RAMIT SETHI: OK. Amazing. All right. I love it. So I actually think
it's really interesting that there are people who are
really good at their jobs. They're at the best companies. And they're not really
into self development. I also think that it's
OK to be a weirdo. I call people in this
room a nerd and a weirdo. I actually love it. I'm both of those things. And I'm fanatical
about self development. So one of the things
that I would strongly encourage people to do when
they're trying to go off the beaten path is to develop
themselves professionally, whether that is books,
courses, coaches. It could be free. It could be paid. Find people who can save
you years of heartache by nudging you in
the right direction. That's worked
incredibly well for me. FEMALE SPEAKER: Yeah. So what are you doing
right now to have personal development
in your life? Are you reading something? Do you have a coach? RAMIT SETHI: I do. I have all of the above. I read, I mean, tons and
tons of self development. I have someone who--
one of my mentors is someone who-- I
actually joined his class. And for 15 months, I flew from
New York to LA for 15 months straight, once a month, just
to have 45 minutes with him. And it was incredibly--
it was life changing. It changed the way I
thought about business. I've invested in my health,
so food and training. And I'm huge on
self development. And it's made a
gigantic difference. But even when I think
about self development when I was a college kid, I
didn't have that kind of money. But for me, self
development back then was emailing some
CEO that I admired and just asking if I could
take him out to lunch. And I put aside $20. The funny thing
is nobody lets you pay when you're a college kid. So I saved that money. But back then it was just--
that was my self development. And I think as you get more
successful in your career, you can afford to join courses
or get a coach or things like that. And truthfully, that has made
a huge difference for me. FEMALE SPEAKER: And I
think going back to that and then incorporating
it into the systems model and testing, a lot of that
a experimenting as well. What's going to work for me? Maybe emailing
the CEO for lunch. Maybe it's a coach
or whatever it is, a book, whatever fits into
your lifestyle and your budget. So let's talk a little bit about
the systems and the testing that you've done. RAMIT SETHI: OK. FEMALE SPEAKER:
You've created systems with improving a lot of things
in your life, productivity, efficiencies, things like that. So what's a time
saving favorite system that you have we could
all learn something from? RAMIT SETHI: OK, OK. I could talk about this all day. But I have a couple
things that I'll share. All right. Number one, if it doesn't
exist on my calendar, it doesn't exist. So I get random
to-dos in my inbox. And I'm like, don't
send this to me. Get it on my
calendar, and that's the way it will get done. If it doesn't exist on my
calendar, it doesn't exist. So we all have these
kind of random things that we know we should be doing. And we actually don't
put it on our calendar. We resist doing it. But if we put it there,
it's staring us in the face. So that's number one. Put it on the calendar. Number two, I am almost
fanatical about everything in one place. And I'm going to reveal how
anal I am about certain things. All right. I find it really stressful if
I'm supposed to write a paper or do something, and I
can't find something. I don't have a pen or
my research document is even in the other room. I just won't get up. I'll just be like, oh,
I'm not going to do this. So I know myself. I need it to all be there. So I have constructed
systems that make it so when I
open up my writing calendar in the morning,
everything is there. Even when I open up
my calendar reminder-- this is how crazy it got. All right. Whatever, I'll just tell you. So I double click. I used to double click the link. And my assistant would
put "agenda," in, and when I double clicked
it, it copied agenda. So I had to strip out the
agenda from the URL bar, manually backspace five times. And it just got me
really irritated. So I have a new policy. Always add a hard return,
so I can just double click the link, Control L,
Control T, Control whatever. And it just pastes. And I do it like that. So I know this is a
really micro example. But for me, if there was one
little minor barrier stopping me from accomplishing
what I wanted to do, I just wouldn't do it. And I think we all have that. But we guilt
ourselves into saying, oh, I should just try harder. Or you're just being lazy. I used to have this gym thing. I wanted to go to the
gym in the morning. And my clothes were
in the other room. And so I'd wake
up in the morning, and I would have to go to the
other room and get my clothes. And I just wouldn't do it. I would just stay in bed. I'm not lazy. But that one barrier alone
stopped me from doing it. So I learned through
testing to put my clothes folded on the floor. My shoes and socks
were right there. My gym compliance went way up. So I'm all about systems, even
to the point of ridiculousness. Whatever it takes to
help me get the things done that I want to do. FEMALE SPEAKER: And what are--
so in that case, all of that sounds really good. And I'm sure we're all going
to go right out of this room and test out some system
that we've been thinking of. But what are some
common mistakes? What can happen where it
might be testing something, versus actually
implementing a system that is typical for someone
who's new to this or doesn't know what to do? RAMIT SETHI: Well, I think I've
made a few classic mistakes. I thought that once I
built a system, that's it. It just runs and
lives on its own, and you never have to change it. That's not true. Sometimes I-- I used to go
to the gym in the morning. And then I was going
out a lot at night. So my gym system in the
morning didn't work. So I had to move that
later in the day. Sometimes I just got crazy
busy, and my systems fell apart. I couldn't find certain things. That's OK. It's OK to have systems
change and be fluid. Sometimes you have
to refresh them. I think that's one thing. I think the other
thing is just-- again, it comes back to being really
realistic with yourself. I know a lot of
people who-- they say, are you a morning person or not? I'm a total morning person. I love waking up early. FEMALE SPEAKER: I'm glad we
got this at 10 o'clock then. RAMIT SETHI: Yeah. I do all my writing, all my
cerebral work in the morning. And when you tell someone
you're a morning person, it's very interesting. There's two things that
happen, two situations where people look at you
in an almost religious way. When you tell them you're a
morning person, they're like, oh, I wish I could be like that. And when I tell them that as
soon as I sit down in a plane, I fall asleep. They're like, wow, I
wish I could do that. And I'm like, whatever. That's just the way I am. And also, I practiced to get
good at being a morning person. I think that sometimes we don't
acknowledge how we really are. So you'd have someone
who's really a night owl. And they're like, OK,
I'm going to start by waking up at
5:45 in the morning and writing for three hours. That's not going to happen. That's not a realistic system. Systems work for us. We don't work for the system. So I think it's critical to make
it a realistic part of who you are and what your interests
and capabilities are. FEMALE SPEAKER: I
think that's actually a pretty good point as well. And it's important to not just
abandon the system or give up. I think a lot of us say,
oh, that doesn't work. Obviously the gym
is just not for me. Or I'm not going to
bother to write anything, because I'm just-- RAMIT SETHI: I'm not
that kind of person. FEMALE SPEAKER: I'm just
not going to do that today or whatever it is. So it's actually about that. And then just not beating
yourself up and saying, this simply doesn't work. I'm going to just tweak it. Or I'm going to
try one new thing and then implement something. And at Google, we have a
lot of systems here too. We have a lot of data. We data all the time. We make a lot of our
decisions-- and many companies do as well-- just based on data
and facts and data, data, data and incoming things. So what do you think
about data and how that has made an impact on
what your decisions have been? And is it all about the data? Is there anything else there? And how has that
structured your business? RAMIT SETHI: We use data a lot. We have analysts. We crunch numbers. We make projections. We split test many things. We have year long
tests that we run. We do very, very
quantitative measurement. But at the same time, we're very
interested in the qualitative. I would argue
actually we're more interested in the qualitative. When we design our
courses-- again, these are the courses--
they sometimes take two years to
build and test. We're collecting 100,000,
150,000 data points. And most of those
are qualitative. Especially at the
early stages, I want to know the
words people use. I want to know the
emotions they feel. So we're asking all open
ended, qualitative questions. In my emails-- if anyone
here is on my email list, you've seen me say,
hey, please reply. I read every response. Has anyone here written back
to me and gotten a response? OK. So if you're on my email list,
which has 200,000 plus people, you can write to me. And I'm not saying always,
but you'll get a response. I do that because I
want that kind of data. When it comes to art versus
science, we look at the data. But sometimes, we have
to put the data aside, just because it's not
the right thing to do. So we have-- we had courses
where the performance wasn't good, but it was
within parameters. And we were just like, this
isn't the kind of delivery we want to make
for our students. It's not the kind of
experience we want. So we pulled the course. But usually, the data is
very informative for us. And I can talk about what
kind of split tests we run and our testing vault and
surprising results and all that stuff. I love talking about it. But in general, I
think most of us could depend on
data a little more. But the people who tend
to depend on data often don't value the qualitative,
which I value above almost all. FEMALE SPEAKER: So it's
qualitative and quantitative. And in knowing that there's
these systems we could all implement or think about
in a different way now, what advice do you
have for implementing that on our personal growth,
leading it back to that? And where can we go from there? RAMIT SETHI: OK. So I recently ran a-- I'm
always running weird tests, just simple ones. And one of them was, how do I--
I could take a 30 minute nap, but I couldn't do
a 15 minutes nap. I would just sit in bed,
and I wouldn't go to sleep. And I was like, I want
to do a 15 minute nap. So it took me six months
to figure out how to do it. And it was-- I just-- and it's
like, there's no fancy Excel regression thing that I built. It's on the back of a
piece of notepad paper. I just wrote down
a bunch of stuff. What did I eat? Did that work? What time of the day? Did that work? Was I stressed? All kinds of crazy stuff. And I discovered
what worked for me. It took me six months. And now I can do
a 15 minute nap. Same thing for-- here's
a test you can do today. Someone comes up to you, and
they say, oh, what do you do? And most of us have the
worst, most boring responses. I'm an engineer. I am a marketing coordinator. And the person's like--
their eyes glaze over. And they're just like, OK, bye. What if you could
actually test that and make it more interesting? So for me, people used
to say, what do you do? And I was like, I'm a writer. And they're like,
oh, my cousin too. My cousin's son is trying
to become a writer. I'm like, your cousin's
son is not a writer. Your cousin's son is unemployed. So then I was like,
I'm an author. And that got a very
different response. And whether it's,
what do you do? Where do you live? These are questions
that we give answers to for our entire lives. And most of us never
test responses. All the responses were true. They were all authentic. But just a simple
way you word it can get people
fascinated in you. Or they can just be like,
oh, nice to meet you. I'm going to go get
that shrimp cocktail. FEMALE SPEAKER: So that's
a good challenge, I think, for us to take away today
and maybe try out today too. Just take an experiment. If someone you meet
or talks to you, what would you say that
might be a little different? And come up with how
that has affected what your outcome
is with that person. That's a good idea. I like that. RAMIT SETHI: Or another test--
so the social skills ones are really fun. I met a group of people. Because my friends
when they get together, they ask you within the first
five minutes, what do you do? Anyone here-- are
you guys like that? You ask people what do you do? That's a common thing, right? Because a lot of
my friends-- they identify with the work they do. I met this group of people
who-- I hung out with them two or three times. And they never ask me what I do. And I was like, what
is going on here? But I then said, you know what? I kind of like this because
we're talking about stuff that I would normally
never talk about. It has nothing to
do with my job. And I was like, this
is kind of refreshing. There is more to me than my job. So one of the things
I did was I just created a little
challenge for myself. I was like, the next
time I meet people, I'm not allowed to
ask them what they do. And it was really hard. I mean, it's really
hard for me to do. FEMALE SPEAKER:
That's a good one. RAMIT SETHI: So I
wonder, if we take these little micro
challenges, how does it help us grow socially? And it really did help
me find other ways to be interested in people. FEMALE SPEAKER: Yeah. That's a good one. I like that too. So in a couple minutes,
we'll open up for questions. But just a couple of closing
questions I had for you. What is next, Ramit? What are you going to do? What's on your
agenda at this point? You've got a lot of
irons in the fire. What are you working on? RAMIT SETHI: I
have-- well, we're always trying to do new things. For me, it's all about helping
people lead a rich life. And so whether that's
in the business world, whether that's
with social skills, whether that's with
relationship stuff, if it's an online
course, that's fine. If it's in person, that's fine. Whatever. We're agnostic to that. We just want to find
out how to do it in a way that scales and using
our background in psychology and stuff like that. We look at areas where
people have a burning desire and the advice is horrible. And I'm like, that's for us. So money, burning desire,
the advice is terrible. How to start a business. A lot of people want to do it,
and the advice is really bad. We're like, see you there. So we're always looking for
opportunities like that. And that's been
pretty cool for us. So that's what's next,
just more of helping people lead a rich life. I'm sure one day I'll do a
Ramit Sethi's parenting course. I always said, my
child is going to pay for its entire existence in
its first year of living. So I'm just waiting for that. FEMALE SPEAKER: Yeah, yeah. 20 or 21, something like that. And you talked about
rejection earlier. And that brings up a
lot of fear for people. So what is your
biggest fear when you're looking at
developing something or just in your personal world? What are your fears,
if you had to name one? Because we all have them. RAMIT SETHI: We all do. I think I have a couple. I think for me, one
fear is being ordinary. I never wanted to be ordinary. And it made me nervous
to see what my path might be if I took the default route. And then I think
another fear I have is I think probably being alone. I'm a very extroverted guy. I need to be around people. One of my New
Year's resolutions-- every year, I try to do
something uncomfortable for me. And this year one of them
was seeing a movie alone because I hate-- I'll
never go to a movie alone. I never eat alone. I never see a movie alone, ever. I'm terrified of it. And so I was like, OK,
I'm going to do it. And June rolled around. September rolled around. And I live pretty close
to a movie theater. And I have a free pass
one of my friends gave me. They're like, here. So I have no excuse. And finally I was like,
OK, I'm going to do this. So I went. I went all in too. I got popcorn. FEMALE SPEAKER: Did you do a
double movie, back to back? RAMIT SETHI: No, no. Should I do that? OK. I went at 3:00 PM on a Thursday. And I loved it. But I have to admit,
I was nervous. I thought everyone
was looking at me. And what is this
loner doing here? You know what I mean? It was an irrational
fear, but we all have it. And I always talk
to my students. There's nothing
to be ashamed of. We all have these crazy fears. Because a lot of my
friends are like, I love going to movies alone. They love it. They're like, it's peaceful. And I hate it. But I went, and I
forced myself to do it. And I have to say,
I kind of liked it. I didn't love it. But I'll do it again. FEMALE SPEAKER: That's good. Yeah. You took the micro
step to get there. RAMIT SETHI: Exactly. FEMALE SPEAKER: Great. And then this is the
last question I have. What would be the one
takeaway from today that you'd want our audience
to come out of this to really know more about, one key thing? RAMIT SETHI: I would
love for everyone here to really challenge the
core assumptions we have. One of the simple
ones I said was, oh, email should be really
short and to the point. And that's just not
true in all cases. I used to be 40 pounds lighter. And I'm not that huge of a guy. And I would say to myself, oh,
I'm just a skinny Indian guy. I can't get big. That was real
negative self talk. And if I had challenged
my assumptions back then, I would have learned how
to actually eat right, lift weights, look like a
normal human being. So challenge the assumptions,
whether it's social skills, whether it's the business
that you're doing. A lot of this stuff
can be tested. And I think if you
do, you can find out that what a lot of other
people have been doing, best practices-- they've never
actually really tested it. So if that's one thing
you take away from today, think of some of the
core assumptions. I call them invisible
scripts you have. And try to test them
in little micro ways. They could really
change your life. FEMALE SPEAKER: Yeah. That's good advice. Well, thank you. I want to thank you
for coming today. RAMIT SETHI: Thank you. FEMALE SPEAKER: And we'll
open up to questions. So we've got a mic
going around the room. And we also have a couple
that were submitted online. But we'll take the
room questions first. Does anyone have a question? RAMIT SETHI: For me, what I
like to do is just to say, what is one key takeaway
that I can implement today? And get really specific. For example, I
wouldn't say, I'm going to improve my social skills. I would say, the next
10 people I meet, I'm going to introduce
myself in a different way. That's one key
takeaway we could take. Or I would say, oh, Ramit
talked about invisible scripts. I'm going to Google that, and
then I'm going to find out, what are my five
invisible scripts? And how can I
dismantle one of those? Again, one of the big
ideas behind "I Will Teach You to Be Rich," is
behavior first, then attitude. So a lot of people walk
away, and they think, I'm going to change my
attitude about money or about negotiating my salary. That's really, really hard. It almost never works. Instead, what's
the one behavior, the one action I can
take that's going to change for me in a measurable
way in the next 24 hours. That's something
I would recommend. AUDIENCE: So you're
an ambitious person. You care about
scaling your work. You want to reach as
many people as possible. How do you balance that
ambition with things you do, like weeding out people
from your email list, specifically getting rid of
C players from your customer list, things like that? RAMIT SETHI: Yeah. So how do I get rid of the
people from my business or email list that I don't want? And I take a pretty
clear stance on this. If anyone's on my
email list, you're going to be like, what
is this guy doing? He's telling me to unsubscribe. He's threatening
to kick people off. How is this a real email list? And I do that on
purpose because I believe that if you
really simplify it down, there are A players, B
players, and C players. Again, gross oversimplification. The A players are already doing
the things they need to do. They're the best. They're already
optimizing stuff. The great unwashed masses--
is that offensive to say? I don't know. Whatever. There there's a big group of
Bs, and they could possibly be As with a little
bit of guidance. And in my world, the Cs--
maybe someone can help them, but it's not me. That's not my place
on this planet. That's not what I want to do. I don't want to
work with C players. I want to work with B players
and help them become As. And I want to work
with A players and help them become A pluses. So I'm very clear about who
I don't want on my site. And I tell them to leave. I make it really easy. I write really long things. So people who have
a short attention span-- they just leave. I tell people, we're
not here for frugality. If you want to cut
back on lattes, here's the unsubscribe link. And here are some
people I recommend. You're not going
to enjoy this site. Please go over there. It will be better for you. I believe that you're
doing them a duty, and you're not
wasting their time. And they're not wasting mine. So if people don't take action
on what I'm recommending, I'm just like, why are we
wasting each other's time? I know in the past,
I used to-- hey, you really should
come to my class. You should come. And I would try hard,
and no one would come. And when I changed
that, when I said, here's who I'm looking for, and
here's who I'm not looking for, it really made
all the difference in making those
people more committed. AUDIENCE: What are the
most common mistakes made by average people that
severely limit their ability to build wealth? RAMIT SETHI: Oh, OK. Good question. One is waiting to start
investing until they're rich, when quite honestly, it's
the other way it works. You become wealthy
through investing. The other thing is trying
to outsmart the market. Oh, man. This is crazy. So so many tech people, a lot of
my really smart tech friends-- they're so smart at their job. And then they think that because
they're smart in this area, they're smart in every
other part of their life. So they're like, oh,
I'm going to invest in aggressive funds
and active management. They think they can
beat the market. I'm like, you can't. It doesn't matter how
good you are at your job. It doesn't matter how
complicated your systems that you've built at work are. It's simple, low cost
investing, the stuff I talk about in my book. Automate it. Move on with your life. That's one thing. And then the third
thing that I've discovered in the last few years
is really mindset about money. As I worked on money,
I had to change the way I thought about it. Growing up in an
immigrant family, you learn certain
values about money. Some are good. Some are not good. On the good side, I would
say I learned to be frugal. I learned that you don't have
to buy everything you want. That was cool. On the bad side,
I think I learned that if anyone charged
a premium price, I immediately assumed they
were trying to rip me off. And that was something that
was really deep inside. It was an invisible script. And I had to learn how to
identify it and overcome that as well. So I would take those three
things and try to work them. AUDIENCE: How do
you make yourself aware of invisible scripts
that you don't know are there. RAMIT SETHI: That's a
very tough question. The quick answer is,
number one, there's some introspection that goes on. Number two, I use
external frameworks. So I'll say, OK,
these are the three things I'm working on right now. And why am I getting
stuck at this? And then I do the five whys. Why am I getting stuck? Because I'm not productive. Why am I not productive? Because I'm not waking up early. Why? And I really try to dig deep. And the third thing I try
to do is surround myself with other people who
might challenge me and say, hey, do you really
need to be doing that? Or why are you
thinking that way? What about this? And when I put those in
combination, in concert, those things have helped me find
my own invisible scripts, which I'm still discovering. FEMALE SPEAKER: Great. Thanks, Ramit. Thank you for coming today. If anyone else wants a
book, they're in the back. [APPLAUSE]
