Audiobook Review: Sell It Like Serhant

Introduction

At the start of 2019 I had absolutely no idea who Ryan Serhant was. By June I’ve watched every season of Million Dollar Listing New York, follow the VLOG (which you can find on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/user/OfficialRyanSerhant and I would highly recommend), watched his Sell It Like Serhant show and have listened to his audiobook of the same name.

For those that don’t know, Ryan Serhant has gone from hand model and to highly successful Real Estate Broker in Manhattan over the space of ten years. A great example that the American Dream is still alive and available to those that are willing to put in the extreme level of work needed to stand out and who get blessed with a little luck along the way.

I personally class Serhant in the same breath as Dwayne Johnson, not in terms of global recognition, but because neither man is afraid to show the tremendous amount of effort that’s required to make it and they are both motivators to those climbing the same mountain.

The Book

Sell It Like Serhant, is a sales masterclass in 6hrs and 13mins. Using a combination of stories, humour and lessons Ryan guides the listener in how to become the best seller they can be. Whether it’s the stages of selling or using FKD to be the CEO of your own sales life there are lessons there for people in every sales role. At one point, Ryan states that he wants to see a time when sales is seen as a destination career and this book is definitely helping that cause.

What about those that aren’t from a sales background? Is there anything in it for us? Of course there is. The lessons that guide others to becoming a better salesperson can really be used to improve any career. Want to be a better software engineer? Learn as much about  the product as possible. Want to become a better politician, keep following back with your constituents and find your hook.

The fact that the book is read by the author really brings the subject matter to life and when used as well as this sets the audio apart from the print. His unique blend of enthusiasm and humour comes across throughout. The overall quality of the recording is extremely high and I truly believe it when he says that he was aiming to make the audiobook perfect. There are few books where the audio is without error and this is one of them. I’ve listened to it four times now and can’t fault it.

Summary

This is a well written and well read book that while aimed at helping salespeople to become better at their job contains lessons for all of us. One of my favourite takeaways is the idea of the wall. That memory or experience or feeling you don’t want to ever go back to that drives you forward and provides the fire for your motivation.

It’s not going to be a surprise after all that but this is a 5* book and you can find it on Audible here.

First 30-Day Challenge - The £50 Challenge

Recently I've been doing a lot of reading into the area of personal development. After a bit of introspection I've come to the shocking conclusion that I may in fact not be....prepare yourselves...perfect. I know. I know. I'll give you a second to come to terms with it.

OK, feeling better? Good, let's continue. I've realised that at 36 I need to make a few changes if I'm going to stay fit and healthy and hopefully be able to enjoy my life with my family for as long as possible. There's really no point in trying to change 10 things at once though, or 5 or even 2. The best way to making real, lasting changes is to make incremental adjustments. This brought me back to one of my favourite Ted Talks, Try Something New For 30 Days by Matt Cutts, linked below.

I'm going to keep track of each challenge here both for fun but also as a way to keep myself on track. I've a couple of ideas for this year mostly focusing on health and fitness but the first one is going to be financial fitness.

Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash

This isn't going to be easy, but then why bother if it was. For the next 30 days I'm living off only what's in my wallet. It's not like I've loaded it up either, I've £50.22 to get me through the month...see you in a month Starbucks.

When you start to factor in petrol etc, £50 literally won't take you far so one additional rule for this challenge: any money needed beyond the starting amount has to be earned from somewhere other than my day job wage and it can't be from savings or borrowed. This is going to make things interesting.

So lets get this underway. Today is Day 1.

Day 1: £50.22

Everyone Should Watch Tim Cook’s 2017 MIT Commencement Address

On June 9th 2017, Apple’s CEO Tim Cook took to the stage at MIT and addressed this years graduating class. Throughout the speech you can hear echoes to the address the late Steve Jobs gave to the Stanford class of 2005 but make no mistake this feels like it’s personal and coming from the heart and to me it was brilliant. I cannot recommend it enough. If you decide you don’t have time to listen then just take away this one line:

Measure your impact on humanity not in the likes, but the lives you touch; not in popularity, but in the people you serve. - Tim Cook 2017

Tim strikes the perfect balance between hope, caution and responsibility. Your role in this world is to find how you can best serve humanity. Don’t let the negative voices, no matter where they come from, divert you from doing what you believe to be right and don’t let yourself become one of those voices. Sticking to your values and making the world better for everyone is not easy and is not going to be easy. Embrace the challenge.

Technology can help us meet that challenge but technology itself does not care either way. It’s how we use it that allows technology to improve or destroy each others lives. Lets use it for the good of everyone not just the few.

WWDC 17 - XCode & Return Of IB #MassivePunt

There's no shortage of predictions and leaks around what Apple will announce at WWDC tomorrow. I'm going to add one more.

Since this is the developers conference and iPad seems to be getting a renewed focus I'm going to predict/hope for XCode on iOS. I don't expect something that's as powerful as the Mac version but I'm thinking a Swift code editor and potentially the return of Interface Builder. Being able to lay UI elements out on an actual iPhone and iPad screen would be fantastic. Checkout your code onto iPad, do some changes and submit it to your CI workflow for building etc would be very powerful.