What the Most Successful People Do

tl;dr: when you save and respect the time of others, you win.

I had never heard of Sahil Lavingia before listening to his discussion with Shane Parrish on the Knowledge Project podcast, but he said something really simple and profound during it.

The most successful people he’s met go the extra mile to make it easy to work with them.

One super simple example of this is the people who put the Zoom link in the “Location” field and send the invite well in advance. They don’t make you hunt around for a URL or send a note with “where are we meeting?”

Another example is how you title meetings. For example, Sahil and I both share the habit of sending an invite with our names first.

While that may seem self-centered, it’s actually not. If I send you an invite that says “Jeremy/your name,” when YOU look at your calendar, you know you’re talking to me as opposed to when I put your name first, the first thing you see if your own name…not so helpful to remind you with whom the meeting is scheduled.

Successful people also make very specific asks. Instead of saying “hey, do you want to catch up next week?” they don’t ask for more time than is needed, they just say “hey, I’m looking for someone who can help with xxxx, know anyone?”

Putting all of these little time savers together shows a respect for the other person’s time and value and it makes them want to help you more because it is EASY to do so.