- Five to Thrive
- Posts
- #119 – Networking & Data
Good morning from Rhodes!
Had an awesome couple of days in Kos and loving my time here in Rhodes.
It’s my first time on this island and it is seriously incredible. Can’t recommend it highly enough.
Let’s jump in.
read online on my website
read time 3 minutes
#119 at a Glance:
Quote: Any action > inaction.
Podcast: Steven Bartlett x Ryan Holiday.
Mental Model: The Ben Franklin Effect.
Hack: Holafly eSIM.
Tweet: Just figure it out.
Quote I’ve been thinking about:
“Don’t let the hope of finding a better way prevent you from starting down the best path you know of right now. This day won’t come again.”
Podcast I listened to:
The Diary Of A CEO: Ryan Holiday
Ryan Holiday is an author renowned for his work on stoic philosophy.
Some of his best-selling books include ‘Ego Is The Enemy’, ‘The Obstacle Is The Way’, ‘Courage Is Calling’, and ‘Discipline Is Destiny’.
Awesome conversation with Steven Bartlett covering:
Ryan’s definition of Stoicism
How Stoicism provides a guide to the big questions of life
The ways ancient philosophy can be applied to the modern world
The timeless questions of the human experience
How exercise creates control over the mind
The importance of keeping commitments to yourself
Why we need struggles and difficulty in life
Why we need to confront our ego
How human nature hasn't changed over the course of history
Reading as a way of living multiple lives
Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube.
[Duration: 1 hour 25 minutes]
Mental Model I’ve been thinking about:
The Ben Franklin Effect
This was an awesome mental model that I came across the other week, known as ‘The Ben Franklin Effect’.
Full credit to Sahil Bloom for sharing this one:
“During his time on the Pennsylvania Assembly, Benjamin Franklin had come into conflict with a rival legislator.
Seeking to defuse and effectively manage the relationship, he took a counterintuitive approach, which he shared in his autobiography:
‘Having heard that he had in his library a certain very scarce and curious book, I wrote a note to him, expressing my desire of perusing that book, and requesting he would do me the favour of lending it to me for a few days. He sent it immediately, and I returned it in about a week with another note, expressing strongly my sense of the favor. When we next met in the House, he spoke to me (which he had never done before), and with great civility; and he ever after manifested a readiness to serve me on all occasions, so that we became great friends, and our friendship continued to his death.’
The experience sparked an observation of an interesting psychological phenomenon:
‘He that has once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have obliged.’
In other words, a person who has performed a favor for you is more likely to perform another than if you had performed a favor for them.
The core insight: Performing a favor for someone makes you like them more.
This idea, now commonly known as the Ben Franklin Effect, has been supported by more recent scientific research:
In 1969, researchers Jon Jecker and David Landy conducted an experiment in which participants were asked to return prize money after participating in a Q&A competition.
One group of participants was asked to return the money directly by the researchers, on the grounds that they had paid it out of their own pockets and were facing money struggles.
Interestingly, that group of participants cited liking the researchers much more than the groups who were asked indirectly or not asked at all.
One hypothesis for the nature of the effect is that our brains seek internal consistency. When we perform a favor for someone, our brain quietly reasons that we must like this person. This makes us more likely to perform another favor in the future.
In the best-selling book, How to Win Friends & Influence People, Dale Carnegie reasons that the request for a favor acts as a subtle form of flattery. It signals that you value the other person's resources, knowledge, or time.
The Ben Franklin Effect offers an interesting networking trick:
If you're trying to create a relationship, or even turn an enemy into a friend, you might consider what small favor you can request, rather than what you can give.
If it seems counterintuitive, it's because it is...
But you may find it works for you just as well as it did for Old Ben!”
By the way, if you like these sort of insights, I couldn’t recommend Sahil’s newsletter highly enough – such consistently high quality content. Check him out.
Hack I’ve been using:
Holafly Digital eSIM
Given I’ve now spent a fair bit of time overseas in the last couple of years, and since I am currently travelling as a write this, I thought it might be timely to share a travel hack this week…
One of the questions I tend to get asked about spending time in another country is the mobile data/internet situation…
It’s part of the logistics of travelling you don’t really think about.
When I began researching the process, there were a few things I knew I wanted to avoid:
a) I didn’t want to have to purchase a new (and dodgy) SIM card from overseas.
b) I didn’t want a data restriction that would have me constantly fretting about whether or not checking Google Maps or researching something online was taking up too many gigs.
c) I didn’t want to spend a fortune.
Enter: Holafly
Holafly is a reliable, low-cost eSIM provider.
An eSIM is a digital (i.e. non-physical) SIM card that enables you to access internet from anywhere in the world.
There are many providers out there, but so far, I’ve found Holafly to be the best.
Very reasonably priced
Website is extremely user-friendly
Customer support is excellent
Instructions are very straightforward
High-speed internet
Unlimited data
Have a look into it next time you’re travelling…
Found this 5% discount on their website: MYESIMNOW5
Tweet I liked:
Just Figure It Out
Thanks for reading! Grateful for your support.
Stay hungry, stay humble, stay curious. ⚡
If you enjoyed this newsletter, it would mean the world if you could forward it to a friend or send them my website.
This goes a long way to helping me reach more people :)
See you in the next one,
Dimi