What can you learn from the Celebrity Apprentice?

I like watching the Apprentice because the show pushes you to think what would you say or do when you were put in a similar challenging position. By getting celebrities on the show, it just gives you a better reason to watch it and makes the show more entertaining.

In the latest episode, the challenge is to do fundraising by creating a whole-day work-out routine for 24-hour Fitness. The more favorable routine will be honored $24,000 by the gym, and whichever team raise the most money will win the challenge. The difficult part is that you have to have one person physically coming in for the training class to represent each donation.

Somewhat surprisingly, though Tenacity was the bigger fund raiser, Rock Solid was favored by the gym. What would you walk away with this experience then? Let’s focus on the gym routine.

1. Have a good theme
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How NOT to make the same mistake in a night club or at a conference.

I’m sure you’ve been through this before. You walk into the night club with one of your girlfriends, and then 10 minutes later she started talking to this really cute guy and basically you’re left alone for the rest of the night.

I bet you don’t want to put your girlfriend in the same situation. But there is a spark with that guy, and you really want to talk to him and dance with him. So now what?

You SHOULD talk to the guy and dance, for sure, but not too much. The important thing is to raise that interest and curiosity and then leave with him wanting more. Go back to your girlfriend and enjoy the rest of the night. If he is into you, you will get a message in due time. If he doesn’t contact you or you don’t even bother to leave your contact, then I would be really surprised you were hesitating getting back to your girlfriend in the first place.

Now think about a conference you just attended. After a really good panel discussion, you so want to talk to this panelist who is so bright, so knowledgeable, so insightful with what he has to say. You’re not the only one though. So now what?

Instead of blocking other people from talking to the panelist and asking one question after another, I suggest you focus on leaving a positive and strong impression with a few sentences about yourself and just one question (something connects what he does and what you do). After his answer, politely thank him for his time and ask to exchange business card.

Go back home and relax. Write to the panelist in a few days, remind him how you met and ask for an opportunity to call him/visit his office/arrange a coffee chat, etc. Chances are you will be able to lock in a good amount of his time one-on-one.

Respect your other friends in the night club or other attendees at the conference: you will only achieve something better for yourself.

How to Play the "Unfair" Card

It is almost funny how often I hear the phrase "it's unfair for other people."

At college, if you want to due your homework late, the professor will tell you “it’s unfair for the other students” in the same class, who may have skipped their friend’s birthday parties over the weekend to finish the paper.

At work, if you don’t copy other members on your team when you send out an email to someone in another group, if anything goes wrong, your manager will tell you “it’s not fair for him/her or anyone else on the team” because they were not involved in the first place and were not able to correct you in a timely manner, and now everyone looks bad in front of some other team.

Then I started to realize how powerful it is to pull the “unfair” card. I was once organizing a group trip to the west coast and someone decided to pull out last minute due to budget concerns. Besides everything else I said, I told him, “this is not fair for everyone else who committed to the trip” and who believed the price will be at $XX for the hotel, now with you not going, everyone else will have to pay extra.

He ended up going of course, and he had a blast.