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My Most Common Recommendations

1. Psycho-cybernetics

2. The Magic of Thinking Big

3. The 7 Habits...

4. Simple*ology

5. Healing the Shame that Binds

6. To be or Not to be Intimidated

7. The Secrets to Getting a Job


















































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To Be or Not to Be Intimidated

by Robert Ringer

book cover

This book was originally published in 1976 under the title Winning Through Intimidation. I always took the meaning of that title to be "winning by pushing through intimidation" rather than "winning through using intimidation".

Yet despite it being a best-seller even in its day, apparently more people thought that it was a book encouraging people to become intimidating brutes.

It's not.

The premise of this (surprisingly funny!) book is to demonstrate the basic life lessons that the author learnt in the first few years he was in the cut-throat, backstabbing business of selling real estate.

He basically recounts some awful stories about his experiences with people who, variously: treated him like the newbie flunky that he was at first, double-crossed him, tried to back out on legally binding deals, attempted to cheat him out of his commission cheques, actually did cheat him out of his commission cheques, and all other manner of outrageous and dastardly misdoings! It's quite the ride!

I'm amazed that he was ever able to look at these episodes and find the humour that he brings to their retelling. For example, he refers the people who did him each of the grand disservices recounted as his "professors" and talks about them with the type of language usually reserved for great teachers.

For that's essentially how he thinks of them: as people who taught him enormously valuable lessons, which at the time hurt really, really badly in terms of money and ego, but which ultimately made him wiser, stronger, more resilient. And most importantly: forewarned and forearmed.

Lessons that he could apply to his life generally.

And that's why you need to read this book. You may have nothing at all to do with real estate. Or even direct sales for that matter (and if you think you're not in the business of selling at all, then stop deluding yourself: Ever been for a job interview?).

The stories are set in the world of a fledgling real estate agent, but the lessons are relevant to all of us, in many many situations.

A very good friend of mine recently moved to London and I was talking with her on the phone about her experiences there so far: finding work, apartment hunting, meeting people, etc. She agreed (just as I'd told her before she went there—having lived there for two years myself) that it is a really difficult, fast-paced, pushy, dog-eat-dog kind of place to live.

Sidenote: You might live in a city even worse in this regard—I'm not making any claim that London takes top position in these stakes!—but this is just more reason for you to read this book!

I recommended this book to her again because just talking about her experiences reminded me of my own, obviously, but most strikingly it reminded me of this book.

I read it a couple of years after I'd left London, and I remember thinking "Man, this is exactly how I felt! I wish I'd read this before going there!" I met a few of my own "professors" during that time.

To Be or Not to Be Intimidated is a sort of "daily self-defence manual". There is no good reason not to get this book!