“Never eat alone” and other networking rules. Kate Ferrazzi: “Never Eat Alone” and Other Networking Rules Never Eat Breakfast Alone

Everyone has known for a long time that connections solve any problems. Not money, not power, but connections. Unlike the post-Soviet space, America and Europe have long believed that one of the main skills of a manager and businessman should be communication skills. This implies the ability to communicate with different people, build a network of useful acquaintances, and use them to your advantage.

The person in this book has more than five thousand contacts in his phone book, and all these contacts have a certain benefit for him. Some can help with money, some with advice, some with affection and love. And he will teach each of the readers how to properly build such a network of acquaintances. It will help you realize your ambitions and abilities, and teach you how to network competently.

Networking is, translated from English, a working network. The social and professional activities of networkers are aimed at solving any complex life problems with the help of a circle of friends and acquaintances. This could be placing a child in kindergarten, or finding a job, or even solving business issues and problems. At the same time, the essence of networking is not in the banal use of people, but in long-term and mutually beneficial cooperation. Help should be mutual.

The book should become a reference book for entrepreneurs and mid-level businessmen. She can teach you not only how to competently build relationships with people, but will also show you how not to lose the respect of your subordinates (or vice versa from your superiors).

Keith Ferrazzi's book is a bestseller. In the West, she is constantly included in the Forbes list. In addition, the author wrote it based on his own experience. He himself is a practicing networker and heads a consulting agency. The book was co-authored by journalist and writer Tal Rez (a graduate of Harvard University).


Absolutely every person needs support. Even if everything is fine at the moment, sooner or later we may need help - this is where strong connections with people you can always rely on will be useful. It’s no longer a secret that connections are everything. That is why in the modern world you simply cannot do without.

Networking is not just a buzzword or the ability to fill your address book with the right phone numbers. This is a special way of life, the desire to help without expecting anything in return. Making other people happy and giving more than you receive is the true art of networking.

Keith Ferrazzi and Tal Rez, in their book Never Eat Alone, talk about the main rules of networking and how following them will help you learn with other people.

About Keith Ferrazzi and Tal Rez

Keith Ferrazzi is rightfully considered the #1 networker in the world. According to the World Economic Forum, Kate is the “Global Leader of the Future” and perhaps the most sociable person in the world. The author has had an incredibly successful career in marketing and has significantly increased the visibility of renowned brands such as The Luxury Collection, Sheraton, W Hotels, Westin and Deloitte Consulting.

Currently, Kate runs her own company, Greenlight, is the author of two best-selling books on networking, writes for the most famous magazines, appears on television and constantly gives master classes and lectures.

Tal Rez is a graduate of Harvard Divinity School with a passion for philosophy and a journalist.

Summary of the book “Never Eat Alone” and Other Rules of Networking"

Never Eat Alone and Other Rules of Networking consists of a foreword, an author's guide on how to read the book, and five main parts containing a total of thirty-three chapters.

Part 1: Tune Your Mind

The first part of the book includes six chapters and, in addition, is further divided into stages. With this division, the author emphasizes the first basic steps that a reader who wants to master the art of networking must take:

  • Find your dream
  • on paper
  • Create your own advisory center

Part two “Communication Skills”

In the second part of the book, the author describes relationships with other people. All eleven chapters of the second part are divided into subchapters, each revealing its own skill in detail. After reading, you will be able to easily establish communication with other people in person, by phone and by e-mail, you will be able to expand your social circle, learn to maintain small talk, etc. In addition, you will learn a few words that will be very useful to you in communication and will help you express your thoughts briefly and concisely.

The third part “How to turn acquaintances into comrades-in-arms”

This part of the book contains four chapters in which the author explains in detail what needs to be done and how to behave so that ordinary acquaintances become your associates and even friends.

Part four of “Communications in the Digital Age”

Consists of three large chapters, further divided into subchapters. Kate Ferrazzi will teach you how to communicate effectively online, how to create content that is guaranteed to get noticed, and how to maintain the right level of relationships with others.

Fifth part “The ability to take and give”

The last part of the book will become for you a real guide to creating and maintaining an individual business image, a personal “brand” that will be of interest to people around you. All nine chapters of the fifth part of the book will help you form the correct image of yourself in the eyes of other people. The author will teach you to sincerely help people around you, not to give in to pride and to remain real in any situation.

The main rules of networking from Keith Ferrazzi

The author of the book has become a real expert in networking. Thanks to Keith's communication skills, his telephone directory contains more than 5,000 useful contacts, including presidents and government officials of various countries, show business stars, influential businessmen, as well as other famous representatives of various fields of activity.

In his book, Keith Ferrazzi shares the basic rules, the observance of which allowed him to achieve such dizzying popularity and success:

  • Look for ways to make other people happy while trying to give more than you expect in return.
  • If you're building a career around connections, remember that your growth also benefits the company. You are introducing your company to other people and they are interested in promoting you
  • Expand your circle of acquaintances. More connections mean more information, and as you know, it opens the way to a successful career
  • Take care of the colleagues, clients and friends around you, value them more than your place in the company itself. In difficult times, they are the ones who will be able to lend you a helping hand or give you useful advice.
  • Don’t isolate yourself – this significantly reduces the likelihood of professional achievements
  • Networking is the art of helping other people and providing them with tools that can help them solve problems in their professional and personal lives.
  • Absolutely everyone needs support. Always look for those people you can always count on
  • Remember, networking is a dialogue. Avoid one-way communication and try to build only open relationships with other people
  • The main principles for achieving success in any activity are efficiency and quality, and only after that – the quantity of work completed
  • Maintain close relationships with people. This way, you will always feel their participation, will be able to consult with them on important issues and count on feedback
  • Bring together passionate people with similar interests. With such groups you can safely take on the development and promotion of any project
  • Strong relationships are one of the main incentives in work for most people, which can also increase efficiency
  • Ask your loved ones what they like and what they don’t. This way you will understand your strengths and weaknesses and be able to identify points of growth
  • Your achievements directly depend on what you dream about and the coincidence of your plans with your mission
  • Remember the theory of probability: the more people you know, the more likely you are to receive valuable advice, support or work during the most difficult periods of life
  • Strengthen relationships with those you already know
  • Don't wait for the right or right moment for you: when you start your own business. Relationships with other people need to be built in advance
  • Learn. Absolutely all people experience fear - this is completely normal. If you conquer fear once, each subsequent time it will become easier for you to overcome it.
  • Meet new people at least once a week. Where and how you do it does not matter. Meet a new colleague, a random person on the bus or in a bar - each time it will become easier and easier for you
  • Always think about who you meet, how you do it, and what impression you make. Always be prepared to make the best impression
  • Find out more about other people. You can if you know his needs and problems that he wants to solve
  • Believe in the result. Before you make an important call or meet the right person, program yourself for a positive outcome and cast aside all doubts
  • Mention famous people you already know the next time you meet. This will help overcome wariness and win over your interlocutor.
  • Think through your arguments in advance. If your conversation with the right person will be limited in time, you must know exactly what you will tell him
  • Don't get lost. You should always be visible to the people you interact with.
  • Remind yourself. To make sure that the person has not forgotten you, remind him of yourself in the first couple of days after meeting him
  • Be real. Don’t hide from your interlocutor what makes you different from him, be yourself
  • Be attentive to your interlocutor. Regardless of the time you spend together, stay focused on your new friend and your conversation.
  • Get ready for an abstract conversation. Talk to your new acquaintance not only about business, tell him about your interests and hobbies (books, golf, travel)
  • Adapt to your communication style. Try to be flexible so you can
  • Focus on the interests of others. Think about what your interlocutor wants to receive
  • Train others to become an expert. This is the best way to learn everything about any activity
  • You can change others' opinions about yourself at any time. If you put in the effort every day, people will simply change their opinion of you and your abilities.
  • . You should never stand still, always try to do more than is expected of you

By following all the listed rules, in a short time you will be able to master the art of networking and experience the first impressive results.

Brief summary

The main thing that Kate Ferrazzi focuses on is that networking is not at all an attempt to “trade friendship,” but the ability to be useful to other people without demanding anything from them in return. Make networking your life philosophy, and you will immediately notice how the quality of your communication and life in general has improved!

Keith Ferrazzi, Tal Rez

Never Eat Alone and Other Networking Rules

Preface

Once upon a time in the recent past, people who know how to create and maintain good connections were ridiculed in cinema and the press, calling this phenomenon pro-Hindia. But this is a special talent, a special lifestyle, which is aimed primarily at creation and advancement; a talent that today is called the fashionable word “networking”.

The book “Never Eat Alone” is not only about how to write down a lot of useful phone numbers in a notebook - it is about something more important: about the desire to help each other, take care of each other, give more than you receive (without expecting nothing in return), making other people happy. This is what Russia really needs today.

Deliberate isolation in a very narrow circle of friends leads to the fact that we limit the range of our interests, deprive ourselves of fateful meetings, and after this, new opportunities that could change our lives for the better. Loneliness among people is becoming an increasing problem in the modern world.

I would like to hope that readers, taking at least a part of Keith Ferrazzi's experience, will be able to make their lives and the lives of their loved ones more rich and exciting. Perhaps this book will push you to get out of the “chest” of consciousness those ideas that you despaired of ever realizing only because the necessary connections did not exist.

There is always an opportunity for everyone to expand the circle of people who could provide you with support and other opportunities in the future. One of the rules that you can arm yourself with right away is to always do good deeds selflessly and without expecting anything in return. Help others, and this will open you up to a world of “accidental” success in different areas of your life. And you will definitely always be able to have breakfast, lunch and dinner with interesting people - if, of course, you want it.

Rostislav Ordovsky-Tanaevsky Blanco, founder of Rosinter Restaurants Holding

Part one

Tune your mind

How to become a member of the club

Connections are everything. Everything in the world exists only in connection with everything else. Nothing can exist in isolation. It's enough to pretend that we are independent beings who can live on our own.

Margaret Wheatley

“Lord, how can I get into this circle?” I asked my younger self, puzzled, as a first-year student at Harvard Business School.

I had no work experience or financial training behind me. Looking around, I saw around me purposeful young people who already had elementary degrees in business. They already had experience in analytical work at the most prestigious firms on Wall Street. Of course, I felt out of place.

How could a guy from a working-class family with a Bachelor of Arts degree and a couple of years of work in a regular factory compete with the purebred scions of the McKinsey and Goldman Sachs families, who, it seemed to me then, already knew business from the cradle?

I was a provincial guy from a small town of steelworkers and miners. The area was so rural that from the threshold of our modest house we could not see the neighboring houses. My father worked at a local steel mill and worked in construction on the weekends. My mother cleaned the houses of doctors and lawyers in a nearby town. My brother escaped small-town life by choosing a military career. My sister, while still in high school, when I was just starting to attend, got married and left.

As soon as I entered Harvard Business School, all the unpleasant memories of my childhood came back to me. The fact is that, although we had little money, my parents decided to provide me with all the opportunities that my brother and sister were deprived of. They pulled me up in every possible way and sacrificed everything to give me the same education that only children from rich families could afford. My memory took me back to the days when my mother would pick me up from private school in a beat-up clunker, and all the other kids would sit in limousines and BMWs. Their constant, merciless mockery of our car, the synthetic fiber clothes I wore, my sneakers, which were knockoffs from a well-known brand, reminded me every day of my status in life.

These life experiences have served me well, strengthening my resolve and motivating my desire to succeed. He showed me a clear boundary between “to have” and “not to have,” and made me hate my own poverty. I felt like an outcast in society, but these feelings made me work much harder than anyone else around me.

It was hard work and dedication that got me into Harvard. However, there was one more circumstance that set me apart from my fellow students and gave me a certain advantage. The fact is that long before arriving at Cambridge I learned one thing that was inaccessible to my peers.

As a boy, I got a job at a golf club, where I carried bags of clubs around the course for wealthy homeowners who lived in the next town and their children. While doing this business, I often wondered why some people succeed in life and others do not. During those days, I made one observation that changed my worldview.

Carrying bags across the field, I watched how people who had reached heights in life that my parents never dreamed of helped each other. They found good jobs for each other, invested money and time in ideas that their friends had, helped each other place their children in the best schools, placed them in internships at the best companies, and eventually found them the most prestigious jobs.

I have learned from my own experience that success breeds success and the rich get richer. Mutual assistance from friends and acquaintances was the most reliable guarantee of success. I realized that poverty is not just a lack of financial resources, but also isolation from a certain circle of people who can help you realize your own abilities.

I have come to understand that life, like golf, is in a sense a game. People who are well versed in the rules of the game are more likely to succeed. And one of the most important rules of life was that if you know the right people and know how to use these connections, you can become a member of the elite club, even if you started life by bringing bags of clubs.

I realized that intelligence, talent and origin are not the most important things in life. Of course, all this also plays a role, but it turns out to be useless if you don’t learn one thing: you can’t do anything alone.

Fortunately, I was passionate about achieving something in life (to be honest, I still worry about not being able to succeed). Otherwise, I probably would have just stood on the sidelines and watched other people's lives, like many of my friends who served at the club.

I first realized the incredible potential of human relationships while interacting with Mrs. Poland. Carol Poland was married to the owner of a large woodworking factory, and her son Brett was my age and friend. At the time, I really wanted to be like Brett (he was athletic, rich, and a big hit with the girls).

Carrying the clubs for Mrs. Poland, I did everything possible to help her achieve victory in any tournament. Early in the morning I walked the entire distance, noting for myself all the difficult places. I was checking the speed at which the ball rolls on the grass. Soon victories really began to fall on Mrs. Poland. Each time during the women's tournaments, I did so much work for her that she began to celebrate my achievements in front of her friends. I began to be in demand among other players.

It was not a burden for me to go even thirty-six holes in a day, as long as they hired me. And, of course, I treated my immediate superior at the club as if he were a king. In my first year of work, I was recognized as the best among the club's service staff, and for this I was assigned to the service of Arnold Palmer, who came to his hometown to take part in competitions. Arnie himself started out the same way as me, and later became the owner of a golf club. I looked at him as an idol. He was living proof to me that success in golf and in life has nothing to do with where you come from. The whole point was that he achieved the right to be accepted into the circle of the elite (of course, talent also played a role). Some get this right due to their origin or money, others, like Arnold Palmer, due to the fact that they achieve fantastic results in their business. I knew that my strengths were initiative and perseverance. Arnie showed me that the past is not always a prologue to the future.

Connections are everything! For a long time in Europe and America, one of the main skills, in particular for an entrepreneur and manager, has been considered networking - the ability to openly and sincerely communicate with a wide variety of people, building a network of useful acquaintances. The author of this book, who has collected in his notebook more than five thousand contacts of the powers that be, shares the secrets of building a wide network of mutually beneficial connections in business and beyond. By following his advice, you will not only realize your ambitions and abilities and help someone else do the same, but also, undoubtedly, decorate your life by communicating with interesting interlocutors.

The book is a must for entrepreneurs and executives and highly recommended for everyone else.

4th edition.

Connections are everything. Everything in the world exists only in connection with everything else. Nothing can exist in isolation. It's enough to pretend that we are independent beings who can live on our own. Margaret Wheatley

Preface

Once upon a time in the recent past, people who know how to create and maintain good connections were ridiculed in cinema and the press, calling this phenomenon pro-Hindia. But this is a special talent, a special lifestyle, which is aimed primarily at creation and advancement; a talent that today is called the fashionable word “networking”.

The book “Never Eat Alone” is not only about how to write down a lot of useful phone numbers in a notebook - it is about something more important: about the desire to help each other, take care of each other, give more than you receive (without expecting nothing in return), making other people happy. This is what Russia really needs today.

Deliberate isolation in a very narrow circle of friends leads to the fact that we limit the range of our interests, deprive ourselves of fateful meetings, and after this, new opportunities that could change our lives for the better. Loneliness among people is becoming an increasing problem in the modern world.

I would like to hope that readers, taking at least a part of Keith Ferrazzi's experience, will be able to make their lives and the lives of their loved ones more rich and exciting. Perhaps this book will push you to get out of the “chest” of consciousness those ideas that you despaired of ever realizing only because the necessary connections did not exist.

There is always an opportunity for everyone to expand the circle of people who could provide you with support and other opportunities in the future. One of the rules that you can arm yourself with right away is to always do good deeds selflessly and without expecting anything in return. Help others, and this will open you up to a world of “accidental” success in different areas of your life. And you will definitely always be able to have breakfast, lunch and dinner with interesting people - if, of course, you want it.

Rostislav Ordovsky-Tanaevsky Blanco, founder of Rosinter Restaurants Holding

Published by permission of The Crown Publishing Group, a division of The Random House, Inc. and Synopsis Literary Agency c/o THE SYNOPSIS NOA LLP


All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the copyright holders.


© Keith Ferrazzi, 2005, 2014. All rights reserved.

© Translation into Russian, publication in Russian, design. Mann, Ivanov and Ferber LLC, 2018

Preface

Once upon a time in the recent past, people who know how to create and maintain good connections were ridiculed in cinema and the press, calling this phenomenon pro-Hindia. But this is a special talent, a special lifestyle, which is aimed primarily at creation and advancement; a talent that today is called the fashionable word “networking”.

The book “Never Eat Alone” is not only about how to write down a lot of useful phone numbers in a notebook - it is about something more important: about the desire to help each other, take care of each other, give more than you receive (without expecting nothing in return), making other people happy. This is what Russia really needs today.

Deliberate isolation in a very narrow circle of friends leads to the fact that we limit the range of our interests, deprive ourselves of fateful meetings, and after this, new opportunities that could change our lives for the better. Loneliness among people is becoming an increasing problem in the modern world.

I would like to hope that readers, taking at least a part of Keith Ferrazzi's experience, will be able to make their lives and the lives of their loved ones more rich and exciting. Perhaps this book will push you to get out of the “chest” of consciousness those ideas that you despaired of ever realizing only because the necessary connections did not exist.

There is always an opportunity for everyone to expand the circle of people who could provide you with support and other opportunities in the future. One of the rules that you can arm yourself with right away is to always do good deeds selflessly and without expecting anything in return. Help others, and this will open you up to a world of “accidental” success in different areas of your life. And you will definitely always be able to have breakfast, lunch and dinner with interesting people - if, of course, you want it.

Rostislav Ordovsky-Tanaevsky Blanco,

founder of Rosinter Restaurants Holding

Preface by the author

Eden, an hour's drive from Salt Lake City, Utah, offers stunning views of snow-covered, forested Powder Mountain. In 2013, a group of enterprising young people no older than thirty raised $40 million to buy a plot of land covering more than four thousand hectares.

They plan to build an eco-resort on it, which will become the second (third, fourth or fifth) home for successful entrepreneurs who decide to change the world for the better.

This is chutzpah at its best. The story of how these young but quickly successful businessmen accomplished their task is an excellent illustration of how the principles and techniques outlined in this book can be applied in practice.

In 2008, twenty-two-year-old Eliot Bisnow, who was working in his father’s small email marketing company, was so active in attracting advertisers that after a while he could not manage and develop the business himself: its scale had grown so much. Bisnow believed that he lacked knowledge, but he did not run to business school because he realized that he was in deep trouble and that the answers were needed yesterday.

Reading the book “Never Eat Alone” at that moment helped Bisnow look at the problem from a different angle. What he really lacked was not knowledge, but people who could give advice, take on the role of mentor and help the rapidly developing business. And this problem – the problem of contacts – had the same “contact” solution.

An already paid day off at a ski resort and the opportunity to change the world for the better? I would immediately agree - moreover, I would pay for participation. As it turned out, I was not the only one who reasoned this way - and time! – Bisnow has a new business. Over the course of several years, business meetings at the ski resort have become a tradition, and the tradition has become a series of Summit Series conferences, with both commercial and non-commercial directions.

These conferences don't just help young entrepreneurs get on their feet; Above all, they help to create a society of personal, mutual support that makes cooperation possible and satisfies our deep human need for connection, a sense of belonging and meaning. This is the most important social capital imaginable. In other words, during these meetings people make friends, mentors and colleagues for life.

Over the past decade, research in the social sciences has shown that the need to create such connections is not simply dictated by vague notions of a “worthy life”, far from it: satisfying these needs is a necessary condition for creativity, innovation, development and, ultimately, profit.

Powder Mountain Resort became the headquarters of the Summit Series conferences. Their regular participants - for example, billionaire Peter Thiel - bought land on the territory for $ 2 million per plot. This allows us to hope that both the conferences themselves and, more importantly, the ideas that ensured their success will exist for many years to come.

Bisnow's story can be seen as a step-by-step and extremely successful implementation of everything this book teaches. First of all, it is generosity in relationships, as well as courage, social arbitration, connecting the personal and professional, establishing contacts through common interests, giving, and pleasure from work.

No matter how flattering it would be for me to think so, the emergence of the Summit Series is not my fault. I was just lucky enough to encourage Bisnow to create this forum along with his support group. However, I can boast that Bisnow calls “Never Eat Alone” a guide to action that helped him clearly articulate and implement his idea. He is one of thousands of people who have responded to this book, claiming to have built not only personal careers but also entire organizations using the concepts and rules described in it.

Here is Summit's unwritten code of ethics.


1. See life as an expedition for knowledge. Everyone can teach something. Everyone can learn something. Embark on a spiritual and intellectual journey!

2. Build friendships. The Summit Series isn't about adding to your address book, it's about making friends for life. You are surrounded by amazing people. Get to know them better.

3. Don't miss a lucky chance. Sometimes the unexpected events are the most important. Appreciate it.

4. Show kindness. The Summit Series values ​​personality, not fancy words on a resume. Show kindness to newcomers and don't fawn over celebrities.

5. Have fun. Why do something you don't like?

Welcome to the age of communication

The achievements of Bisnow and his team, and the many thousands of readers who have shared their success stories with me, suggest that Never Eat Alone is much more than just one man's story of how he achieved his goals. I used to think that making connections and getting out among people was a purely personal, albeit passionate desire of a boy from a poor family in industrial Pittsburgh. However, it turned out that I was being guided by forces of a higher order than those that could be felt on the golf course, where I learned so much by swinging the clubs.

The world was changing, and I was changing with it—or maybe I just happened to have the right genes to thrive in this new ecosystem. In any case, this book has become a guide to business of a completely new era.

In the ten years since its launch, I've built a company that helps clients thrive even in the turbulent seas of change by creating and strengthening better human connections. Together we have invested heavily in research that has long been the subject of study in other disciplines. These are emotions, intuition, behavior, trust, influence, power, reciprocity, networking and everything related to building personal and business relationships with other people.

Two amazing events happened at the same time:


1. The word “connections” has finally lost its bad connotations and has become commonly used. This emphasized the innate human desire to establish these connections not for dirty and selfish purposes, but out of normal motives for interaction and cooperation in new economic conditions. The most valuable investment today is social capital, which consists of information, knowledge, trust and everything that relationships and social networks can provide.

2. Scientists have derived an equation that ten years ago I felt only intuitively:

SUCCESS = THE PEOPLE YOU MEET + WHAT YOU DO TOGETHER.

Your network defines your life. This is confirmed by discoveries made during the study of the newest objects of study - social networks and the theory of social contagion. We are the circle with which we interact. Salary, mood, nervous system health and stomach size all depend on who and how we choose to communicate.

Thus, taking control of your relationships means taking control of your own future and career. When done correctly, “taking control” means sometimes giving it up; I didn’t understand this right away – and only after I became a father. The conclusions that I came to and that I collected in this book have become especially important in our time.

In the future, their relevance will only grow. Today's children connect to the Internet as soon as their umbilical cord is cut. The feeling of belonging to the global community and interaction with it shapes their consciousness already at the earliest stages. Getting into social networks from an early age, they become experts in some areas and complete ignoramuses in others; I suspect that they will spend the next few decades trying to distinguish between these areas (and that’s where the next “revolution” will begin). Fortunately for readers, young and old, this book shows how to connect through social media.

A few mentions of “cybernauts,” PDAs, and the “revolutionary” Plaxo device for organizing contact information were enough to make the first edition of Never Eat Alone the most advanced guide for its time to mastering the latest communication technologies in the era of virtual communication. These days, social media and mobile devices undoubtedly have a huge impact on how we develop relationships, influence and social capital.

As the years passed, fans of the book increasingly asked for revisions and additions to ensure Never Eat Alone continued to live up to its reputation as the ultimate relationship guide.

In making changes and additions to this book, I have tried to retain as much of the original content as possible, because in my opinion, the strategies offered in this book still work. I wrote three more chapters and updated all the others in an effort to make the book as useful as possible for the computer reader.

I will also note that although technology has advanced greatly, the principles on which the book is based, fortunately, have remained unchanged. The main thing remains the belief that anyone can achieve success, regardless of gender and age, family financial status and ethnicity, as long as this person gives society sincerity and generosity, so rare these days. The work of social networks in the modern world is based on these same cultural values.

How to read this book

If you are ready to learn and put into practice the acquired knowledge, this book will become your indispensable assistant.

Master the principles and tactics outlined here as you read. I believe that no matter who we are, our path to greatness begins the moment we find the courage to be generous.

Skills for interacting with other people need to be developed constantly: relationships are not built in one day. If you don't do anything until you have mastered the techniques described here, you will waste months or even years, if you ever decide to start dating.

These are just a few of the long list of things you can do with this book.


1. Develop an effective networking strategy that meets your needs and will serve you well for many years.

2. Increase social capital and manage it wisely in order to achieve more and more ambitious goals each time.

3. Constantly maintain connections with the widest possible circle of friends, combining foresight with the ability to take advantage of a favorable situation.

4. Learn to determine priorities in relationships and highlight among them the most significant for healthy and productive interpersonal interaction.

5. Make your approach your calling card, making others want to share information with you, open new doors, and provide you with resources.

6. Translate this business card into the language of social networks and acquire a cohort of online followers.

7. Increase your own value in the eyes of those with whom you interact, especially management and clients.

8. Capture your own new knowledge to become an expert in the relevant field and increase your online influence.

9. Get noticed and become involved in the most promising projects.

10. Live a life you enjoy with the support of a wide circle of friends.


More than half a million readers, from high school students to corporate executives, in at least sixteen countries around the world have achieved amazing results by mastering the art of interacting with people, an art taught in Never Eat Alone. Become one of them!

Part one. Tune your mind

Chapter 1. How to become a member of the club

Connections are everything. Everything in the world exists only in connection with everything else. Nothing can exist in isolation. It's enough to pretend that we are independent beings who can live on our own.

Margaret Wheatley


“Lord, how can I get into this circle?” I asked my younger self, puzzled, as a first-year student at Harvard Business School.

I had no work experience or financial training behind me. Looking around, I saw around me purposeful young people who already had elementary degrees in business. They already had experience in analytical work at the most prestigious firms on Wall Street. Most of them came from wealthy families with long pedigrees and Roman numerals after their names. Of course, I felt out of place.

How could a guy from a working-class family with a Bachelor of Arts degree and a couple of years of work in a regular factory compete with the purebred scions of the McKinsey and Goldman Sachs families, who, it seemed to me then, already knew business from the cradle?

The first year of study determined my entire future life and career.

I was born in a small provincial town of steelworkers and miners. The area was so rural that even the neighboring houses could not be seen from the threshold of our modest house. My father worked at a steel mill and worked in construction on weekends. My mother cleaned the houses of doctors and lawyers in a nearby town. My brother escaped small town life by choosing a military career. My sister, while still in high school, when I was just starting to attend, got married and left.

As soon as I entered Harvard Business School, all the unpleasant memories of my childhood came back to me. The fact is that, although we did not have much money, my parents decided to provide me with opportunities that my brother and half-sister were deprived of. They pulled me up in every possible way and sacrificed everything to give me the same education that only children from rich families could afford. My memory took me back to the days when my mother would pick me up from private school in a beat-up clunker, and all the other kids would sit in limousines and BMWs. Their constant, merciless mockery of our car, the synthetic fiber clothes I wore, my sneakers, which were knockoffs from a well-known brand, reminded me every day of my status in life.

These life experiences have served me well, strengthening my resolve and motivating my desire to succeed. He showed me a clear boundary between “to have” and “not to have,” and made me hate my own poverty. I felt like an outcast in society, but these feelings made me work much harder than anyone else around me.

It was hard work and dedication that got me into Harvard. However, there was one more circumstance that set me apart from my fellow students and gave me a certain advantage. The fact is that long before arriving at Cambridge I learned one thing that was inaccessible to my peers.

As a boy, I got a job at a golf club, where I carried bags of clubs around the course for wealthy homeowners who lived in the next town and their children. While doing this business, I often wondered why some people succeed in life and others do not. During those days, I made one observation that changed my worldview.

Carrying bags across the field, I watched how people who had reached heights in life that my parents never dreamed of helped each other. They found good jobs for each other, invested money and time in ideas that their friends had, helped each other place their children in the best schools, placed them in internships at the best companies, and eventually found them the most prestigious jobs.

I have learned from my own experience that success breeds success and the rich get richer. Mutual assistance from friends and acquaintances was the most reliable guarantee of success. I realized that poverty is not just a lack of financial resources, but also isolation from a certain circle of people who can help you realize your own abilities.

I have come to understand that life, like golf, is in a sense a game. People who are well versed in the rules of the game are more likely to succeed. And one of the most important rules of life was that if you know the right people and know how to use these connections, you can become a member of the elite club, even if you started life by bringing bags of clubs.

I realized that intelligence, talent and origin are not the most important things in life. Of course, all this also plays a role, but it turns out to be useless if you don’t learn one thing: you can’t do anything alone.

Fortunately, I passionately wanted to achieve something in life (to be honest, at that moment I was very afraid that I would not succeed). Otherwise, I probably would have just stood on the sidelines and watched other people's lives, like many of my friends who served at the club.

I first realized the incredible potential of human relationships while interacting with Mrs. Poland. Carol Poland was married to the owner of a large woodworking factory, and her son Brett was my age and friend. At that time, I really wanted to be like Brett (he played sports, had a large fortune and was very popular with girls).

Carrying the clubs for Mrs. Poland, I did everything possible to help her achieve victory in any tournament. Early in the morning I walked the entire distance, noting for myself all the difficult places. I was checking the speed at which the ball rolls on the grass. Soon victories really began to fall on Mrs. Poland. Every time during the women's tournaments, I did such a volume of work for her that she began to celebrate my achievements in the presence of her friends. I began to be in demand among other players.

It was not a burden for me to go even thirty-six holes in a day, as long as they hired me. And, of course, I treated my immediate superior at the club as if he were a king. In my first year of work, I was recognized as the best among the club's service staff, and for this I was assigned to the service of Arnold Palmer, who came to his hometown to take part in competitions. Arnie himself started out the same way as me, and later became the owner of a golf club. I looked at him as an idol. He was living proof to me that success in golf and in life has nothing to do with where you come from. The whole point was that he achieved the right to be accepted into the circle of the elite (of course, talent also played a role). Some get this right due to their origin or money, others, like Arnold Palmer, due to the fact that they achieve fantastic results in their business. I knew that my strengths were initiative and perseverance. Arnie showed me that the past is not always a prologue to the future.