On Social Engineering

March 24th, 2024 (11 months ago) • 2 minutes

I watched a course on Shaan talking about how he utilized his relationships with people to get to where he is at. Here are some of my notes while watching:

1. Many people want to help you, but you have to keep an open mind or skill to be able to leverage them

2. Many people struggle to ask for help

   • The things is you always need help - you will always stagnate in life
   • You don’t see the overall big picture

3. You need people in life that is ahead of you

   • Short term
   • Long term

4. How to ask for help?

   • Go direct - start with a precise and small question (well scoped out)
   • Focus on people 2-3 steps ahead of you

5. Build your surface area -> give people opportunity to reply or help you -> do your outreach

   • Write a one page document with your struggles or things you need help with
   • Video updates
   • Monthly newsletters

6. Anxiety around fear of judgment always hold people back

   • Think about the Spotlight effect - people are not thinking about you as much as you think they are

7. After people helped you, tell them the results after a day or two

   • People will lose incentives to help you otherwise
   • People will never be mad - just tell them if it failed and how you can do better

8. Help = long term relationships to be built

   • They are not one off requests

9. Know what you want

10. On advices

    • Never follow anybody’s advice blindly
    • Think about it as another person’s take
    • Be very wary

11. Be relentless and shameless but respectful