Book Review: Love is the Killer App

“Compassion is a talent cultivated by experience.” Tim Sanders, Love is the Killer App

I’ll have to admit that the title of this one caught my attention, Love is the Killer AppTim Sanders has done a masterful job of explaining why love will always get you so much further in life, relationships, business, and any other situation you can imagine.  His theme revolves around differentiating yourself in a world that tends to cater to selfish desires.

One of the most profitable takeaways from this book was the number of other books that Sanders recommended.  I added at least five new books to my Amazon wishlist in the area of leadership development.  I appreciate Sanders doing this and it helps make one of his most valuable points regarding the value of networks, “Almost everyone is my network is a knowledge-transfer agent; they pass along book recommendations, they tell me which new people I should seek out and meet, they inform me of concepts I need to know.”

This book is a pretty quick read and it reads like a conversation over a cup of coffee with a good friend.  I have pasted several things below that I highlighted while reading…

  • Men and women across the country are trying desperately to understand how to maintain their value as professionals in the face of rapidly changing times.
  • Love is the killer app.  Those of us who use love as a point of differentiation in business will separate ourselves from our competitors just as world-class runners separate themselves from the rat of the pack trailing behind them.
  • “Love is the selfless promotion of the growth of the other.”  Milton Mayeroff in Caring (1972)
  • My definition of added-value: The value with you inside a situation is greater than the value without you.
  • Without a network, knowledge is nearly useless.  Knowledge is your power source or your battery, but relationship is your nerve center, your processor.  You get value from your knowledge, but it becomes real when you share it with your network.
  • People are hungry for compassion
  • “Consumers are statistics, customers are people.” Stanley Marcus of Neiman Marcus
  • Considering how much knowledge is out there to dine on, what do you eat?
  • Books give you knowledge.  The news gives you awareness.  The latter is a measurement of today.  Knowledge is a measure of yesterday, today, and tomorrow.  Awareness is finite.  Knowledge is forever.
  • Here’s a practical four-step program designed to make knowledge work for you: aggregation, encoding, processing, and application.
  • Application is the employment and leverage of your knowledge in the workplace.
  • Too many people internalize their new information, turning it into private wisdom that cools in their intellectual cellar.
  • Companies that nurture their intangibles (their reputation, talent, and knowledge) rather than their tangibles (their physical plant, their hardware) will emerge in the new world as shapers.  These companies will shape the market while the others will become reactors.
  • Almost everyone is my network is a knowledge-transfer agent; they pass along book recommendations, they tell me which new people I should seek out and meet, they inform me of concepts I need to know.
  • There is a tremendous opportunity for your compassion to make a difference in how people view you, and how they view themselves.
  • By expressing your compassion, you create an experience that people remember.  When people remember you, it’s good for your business.
  • Showing compassion is a process, not just an action.
  • Compassion is a talent cultivated by experience.
  • Business education without execution is just entertainment.
  • In the words of the great steel magnate Charles Schwab, leaders should be “hearty with their approbation and lavish with their praise.”

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