#44 Feeling Thankful 🦃 Financial Book Recs 📚 And A Flirty Networking Hack 🤝

Good morning and welcome back. And Happy Thanksgiving!

As usual, this edition is stuffed with strong content.

We understand you come to us for personal and professional development and that anything extra is just gravy, but since it’s a special occasion, we thought we’d serve up a side of entertainment.

Here it goes:

What did the turkey say to the computer? “Google, google.”

Now we know what you’re thinking: that was corny. Some might take it a step further and call it fowl.

But this is important to us, so we’re gonna keep working on our sense of humor until telling a good joke is easy as pie…

…or we can just stick to what we do best: bringing you the most easily-digestible (no food pun intended) growth-letter around.

Wishing you and your loved ones all the best.

Here’s What’s on the Menu this Week

📚️ 5 Financial Books For 2024

😉 A Viral Networking Hack

🙏 Major Thanks in Major Moves

➕ Much. More.

Experts’ Advice 🤝 

Who is Neil Patel?

• Check out the above thread right here - it’s very informative surrounding the use of hooks in your marketing. All of his content is like this, providing eye-opening marketing insights to his more than 445K followers on X.

• He’s also a NYT best-selling author and is widely recognized as one of the top digital marketers in the world.

Who is Shane Parrish? 

• He is the author of NYT bestseller Clear Thinking, which through stories, mental models, and more, offers the missing link between behavioral science and real-life outcomes so that you can get better at understanding your thoughts.

• He also writes a pretty epic newsletter called The Brain Food Newsletter where he provides insights and tactics applicable in day-to-day life. It has over 600,000 subscribers.

Hustle Hub 📈 

• THEIR SUCCESS: Learn how Jeff Bezos got rich by understanding this.

• YOUR SUCCESS: Want to boost your Instagram & TikTok views? Check out these 10 Tips from a brand called Full Time Filmmaker (1.9M+ subscribers on YouTube.)
  

• THEIR SUCCESS: Former IBM CEO Ginni Rometty shares life lessons learned from her mother that everyone - including entrepreneurs and side hustlers - can and should apply.

• YOUR SUCCESS: Dive into a nice analysis of the creator economy, which Goldman Sachs estimates will be a $480 billion industry by 2027. (This article is part of a “5 Trends to Bet Your Career On” series.)

Making Cents 💰️ 

What are 5 Financial Books that will actually help you save money?

Short and Sweet: Fox Business recently published an article titled “5 Financial Books That Aren’t Filled With False Promises,” and we found the list strong enough to share.

Why It Matters: Because even though reading about finance isn’t sexy or entertaining, it can teach you discipline and self-control to help you save money.

When reading books like the ones below, we strongly recommend underlining, highlighting, and/or taking notes so that the lessons are seared into your brain.

It also makes it easier to go back and remind yourself of important lessons should you forget.

💡 Here are the 5 books that will actually help you save money that are all under, you guessed it…$15:

1. I Will Teach you To Be Rich: Written by Ramit Sethi (featured on The Wall Street Journal, CNBC, The NY Times and many others), this is the perfect read that provides a step-by-step, six week plan on how to get started with your savings. The book provides topics on paying off student loans, automating finances, investing and saving for big future expenses like a wedding and a house.

2. The Latter Factor: Why You Don’t Have to Be Rich to Live Rich: David Bach & John David Mann write this one with a storytelling approach, making it more engaging. It’s a short read that features Zoey, who works in NYC and is stuck living paycheck to paycheck…until she meets Henry, a barista at a local coffee shop who opens her eyes to new financial ideas.

3. Broke Millennial: Stop Scraping By and Get Your Financial Life Together: If you’re a young professional, you’ll love this one from Erin Lowry, especially if you feel debt has overtaken your life and saving seems impossible.

   
   

4. The Total Money Makeover: Dave Ramsey, who is one of the top money guru’s online, has spent years teaching others about finance through speeches and books. And for under $10 on Amazon, why not try this one?

   
   

5. Rich Dad Poor Dad: An interesting concept where Robert T. Kiyosaki analyzes the mindsets of two men making different financial decisions: his own father (“poor dad”) and his father’s best friend (“rich dad”).

(These could be a great Christmas gift for someone you know…just saying…)

Letter You’ll Love 📧 

Being able to sell is a critical skill for your side-hustle, business or even for your career.

Take it from The Sales Jam Newsletter…

Ready To Learn The Exact Formula For Consistent Sales? 

The Sales Jam Newsletter will help get people in Sales, ahead of all the rest in their industry.

Deep dives on Sales experts, insider tips/hacks, networking directory, resource & tool curation, events, and more!

Conversation Starters 😏

• SELF-INTEREST: Talk about whether or not you’re utilizing “the framework successful people use to become indispensable.”

• HUMAN INTEREST: Talk about the co-founder of Drybar and her “warning for success-hungry entrepreneurs.”
  

• ARTIFICIAL INTEREST: Talk about the rise of AI personal assistants and all the pros and cons.

Networking Hack 🤝 

“Corporate Flirting?”

This is a term coined by Srinidhi Rajesh, who went in-depth with her analysis in a viral TikTok that is no longer available to the public.

She describes it as a “foolproof way to act and speak with charisma in almost every single situation, especially corporate ones.” Here are her suggested tactics:

1. Ask a Basic Question - When meeting someone new, you want to get them talking, especially about themselves (everyone’s favorite topic). Asking something simple like, “Where did you go to college?” gets the ball rolling.
   

2. Respond in a Way That Both Demonstrates You Were Listening and “Pokes Fun” - The first part is essential to good communicating (and being respectful in general) while the second gives you the opportunity to establish a more meaningful relationship. Something light and fun gives the person you’re talking to the opportunity to respond with another joke, increase the levity of the interaction, and keep the conversation going.
   

3. The Extra Thank-You - When you’ve gotten advice from a senior colleague or supervisor, of course you will thank them on the spot. But it’s also a good idea to thank them again at a later date, whether in-person or via email, because it makes you seem thoughtful and helps build camaraderie.

You can read the full article from Insider here.

Major Moves 🗞️ 

 🚗 AMAZON:

Buy your next car where you buy everything else…

We’re thankful for: Convenience.

And often, there’s nothing more inconvenient than buying or leasing a new car. It’s always an all-day experience, an unnecessary waste of time and energy.

Well, Amazon is coming to change that with a groundbreaking deal with Hyundai: Amazon will sell Hyundai vehicles online and “in return, Hyundai will stock Amazon’s Alexa assistants in its cars and use Amazon Web Services as its cloud provider.”

Amazon has additional deals in place to sell other makes and models, but Hyundai will be the first available as soon as 2024.

 👀 openai:

What’s going on over there?

We’re thankful for: Perspective.

On Friday, OpenAI’s board fired Sam Altman in a surprise move. This seems to be the wrong move for two big reasons: first, investors are pissed; and second, most of the remaining staff has threatened to leave.

The interim CEO publicly aligned herself with Altman, and she was swiftly replaced with a new interim CEO…

Meanwhile, Altman (along with OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman) have reportedly already been scooped up by Microsoft.

OTF takeaway: We should always think before we act, which the OpenAI board may not have done fully before their decision.

 🦾 forward:

An “AI Doctor in a Box” sounds good to me

We’re thankful for: Progress.

Digital health startup Forward just got $100 million in new funding. What do they do, you ask? They are providing “AI-powered mall kiosks” called CarePods believed to be the future of healthcare. They will use the funding to “bring 25 of these pods to malls across the country.”

If it’s affordable and helps more people get the medical attention they deserve, we are all for it!

🤔 forever voices:

This headline is everything.

We’re thankful for: Entertainment.

Because who doesn’t love a good laugh every now and then. For this morning’s, look no further than the following headline:

“People Can’t Access Their AI Girlfirend Because the Service Went Down After CEO Jailed for Setting His Apartment on Fire.”

Nothing else needs to be said, which is good because we have no words…

Food For Thought 💭 

Founder’s Note ✍️ 

Hey! If you’re new to the publication, I sometimes jump in from time to time and share a note that comes to mind.

So with that…

It’s only right to recognize our audience during the season of giving thanks, so here we go: a resounding, heartfelt THANK YOU goes out to you and all our readers.

Some epic things have occurred throughout this year, and the continued support from you all remains a blessing.

Additionally, we have received some awesome feedback and referrals from other newsletters, businesses, and content creators over the past several months, and all the support overall is truly humbling.

I am feeling grateful for the relationships we have built and for the growth we have experienced.

I am proud to share that we have now amassed almost 1,100 readers!

There’s a lot more coming in 2024, and I am excited for what we have in store.

Again, thanks so much to all of you; you are the reason OTF continues to do what we do each and every week.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and your loved ones!

With great care,

Dan

P.S: If you’d like to check out the “About OTF” page on our website, here it is.

We recently published this to our page, and I thought it was important to share.

It provides insight into our journey with a reminder of what this newsletter is all about.

You are now On The Fly and In The Know.