Why I Love Daniel Pink

No matter what field you’re in, when you see someone doing it at the most superb level, doesn’t it just put you in a state of awe?  I love Daniel Pink.  Like Malcolm Gladwell, he writes about ordinary things in extraordinary ways.  He gets underneath the subject and explores the research on WHY it is the way it is as well as the practical matter of how we can apply that research in our own lives.  

I just read Pink’s To Sell is Human, and packed it in my bag to re-read on a flight tomorrow because there is just too much good material to absorb in one reading.  Pink’s premise is that, in today’s economy and environment, we are all salespeople—selling our kids on eating their vegetables, selling our clients on trusting us to invest for them, selling our employees on understanding that we have their interests at heart, and on and on.  Pink goes beyond just reporting and tells us HOW to sell, from how to set up the sale, what to do to make the sale, and then how to close it and follow-up.

I love Pink because he says the most profound things in the simplest, most casual way.  I love him because of his sense of humor and his perspective on the human condition.  I love him because he takes his subjects seriously, but doesn’t take himself too seriously—a rarity on the East Coast.  And I love him because each of his books is different and even better than the ones before it.

I’ve marked so many passages in this book that I dare not select one to include here for fear that the others might believe I consider them less noteworthy.  Please, read this book.  Applicable to what each of us does every day, it provides pragmatic, salient tips on how to do what we do better and have more fun in the process.  I wish I had written this book.  In fact, I wish I had a fraction of the insight that Pink demonstrates on every page.