It’s no longer just what you know or who you know. Instead, it’s who else wants to know you. In this new era where convergence and connectivity are vital, achieving success depends less on persuading or leading others and more on forging mutually beneficial ties that enable you to become the glue that attracts and keeps the right groups together. As the world flattens, power and responsibility are rapidly flowing from organizations to mutuality-minded individuals. As more people have the freedom to connect with anyone, no skill is more vital than the capacity to inspire others to want to work well together, and with you.
In this book you’ll receive a 52-week Action Plan that you can use to become an Opportunity Maker. Steps include:
- If you are arguing for more than ten minutes, then you may not be discussing the deeper, underlying conflict. Explore what that might be.
- Offer verbal snapshots that penetrate the mind and the gut in an instant then linger, leaving a bright afterimage.
- Reach out to talk with the person who is mostly ignored at a meeting, social mixer, or other gatherings—especially when you are the center of attention—and you may cultivate an appreciative ally for life.
- Since smell is the most directly emotional sense, bypassing much of the brain’s thinking process, consider how to introduce positive, natural, and uplifting scents via your body and environments where others gather with you.
About the Author
Kare Anderson is an Emmy-winning former NBC and Wall Street Journal reporter, now connective behavior and quotability speaker, author, and columnist for Forbes.
Anderson’s TED talk on The Web of Humanity: Be an Opportunity Maker has attracted over 2.2 million views. Her clients are as diverse as Salesforce, Novartis, and The Skoll Foundation. She was a founding board member of Annie’s Homegrown, co-founder of nine political PACs, and author of Mutuality Matters, Moving From Me to We, Getting What You Want, and Resolving Conflict Sooner.
Anderson serves on the advisory boards of The Business Innovation Factory, Gloopt, TEDxMarin, and World Affairs Council Marin.
Author’s Note for the Persian Community
“I am honored that opportunity maker, Reza Ghiabi, has helped make this opportunity happen where you readers can discover the gratifying power of being instrumental in supporting the better side in others. In so doing, you can become even more noble role models, something needed in both our countries. Finding ways to recognize sweet spots of shared interest with others, especially with unexpected allies, has been key to my having a meaningful, more impactful and happy life with diverse others in ways that generate greater collective opportunities for those I meet and thus for me. I am eager to hear and share stories about how you all, the readers of this book, learn and use ways to make your life better, with and for others.”
—Kare Anderson
