Here is the transcript:

Jane: Yes, and it’s good book for thinkers when we find out more with a thinker, who is the author, and it’s Jonar Nader.

Hello, Jonar. Welcome.

Jonar Nader: Hi, thanks. Jane.

Jane: How to Lose Friends and Infuriate People? It’s all about conquering your life and your workplace.

Jonar Nader: Yes. Well, the title is funny that people say, “Do you really mean that I should lose friends?” Surely, it mean for me to win friends and I say,” What I want you to do is to learn the opposites of everything you have been taught.” You can never be successful unless you understand yourself. You can never be successful unless you understand how to work with others. And even then you can’t be successful unless you understand the environment, the modern world, the digital age in which we live. So, therefore, the book is in straight path because it says, “Let’s look at how to develop ourselves, how to work with others, and how to understand the environment in which we work.”

And one of the single biggest things we can do about success, for example, people say “What are the secrets to success?” and I say, “It is not about amassing things, but about discarding things.” I mean, how many of us think, “Well, if I have a lovely car, and lovely home, and lots of money, that’s success.”

No, for me, it’s “Have I gotten rid of the intimidators? Have I gotten rid of the people who set my energy and set my time?” because when you wake in the morning, you have this much energy. And someone steals your car and you – how much energy you’re going to give to that? And then your boss intimidates you, how much energy you’re going to give to that? We have to decide that we are just a little bundle of energy. Let’s not let people steal it away from us.

Jane: What if we don’t have the personality to be like that? What if we’re really frail and shy and we can’t do it?

Jonar Nader: Well, but you see, being powerful to take control of your life isn’t about having this apt of personality, it’s about you deciding. For example, if I say “I don’t’ like your shirt, or your hair” or whatever, are you going to let that thought penetrate you and make you upset? Do you know there are some people who go through the whole day upset because their boss said something? And you go, “Hang on a minute.” No one is authorized to upset you, so you don’t have to have an extrovert personality.

Anybody must realize that no one is authorized to upset you. Why give the key to your confidence to someone else? And many of us live in this abdication society and we give everything to the other person. We give our career to our teachers and we say, ”Go on, educate me.” We give our happiness to our lover and we say, “Go ahead, make me happy.” We give our welfare to our government and we say, “Go ahead, look after me.” And so, all our lives, we give our whole control to other people. It’s not about having…

Jane: And then there’s nothing left for us, and so we’ve been…

Jonar Nader: Well, we don’t know…

Jane: Become insecure.

Jonar Nader: We don’t know how to take charge because then when you are left out in the wind and you’re left to control your own destiny, you can’t because you’ve never actually being taught how to do it.

Jane: Well, I know we’re out of time but this is success in marriage, in work, in laws…

Jonar Nader: In all areas…

Jane: Everything in the book.

Jonar Nader: Because, actually, although we work and some of us don’t work, whatever, we all live. And when you go to bed, ask yourself, “What’s tormenting me?” And usually, it’s just everything to do with life.

Jane: It’s so true. We worry about all the things that we shouldn’t worry about because we haven’t got the power within us. So, let’s just say, “I’m going to get rid of that and think about something positive.” We need to – Robin, we need to read this from cover to cover. It’s 1995 recommended retail in good bookstores available everywhere. Your sixth book?

Jonar Nader: Yes.

Jane: And two more to come, you are a winner.

Jonar Nader: Thank you.

Jane: Thank you. What do you think – what do you think?

Jonar Nader: I think it’s a great idea, and I really subscribe to everything that you’re saying. I’m hundred percent with you.

Here is the transcript:

Michelle: Do you feel that your climb up the corporate ladder is more like a slide? Is there a better way to be a leader in today’s business world? My guest today says there is. Jonar Nader is the author of this book, “How to Lose Friends & Infuriate People.” Thanks for joining us today.

Jonar Nader: Hi, Michelle.

Michelle: The title really kind of says it all. This isn’t about being nice to everyone and doing what they say and going along the lines of what the rules have always – this is the way we’ve always done it and, therefore, this is the way it always will be. You’re really kind of breaking through the walls.

Jonar Nader: Yes, do you know it’s not about being nice or not nice; it is about being true to yourself. So I’m not saying, “Go out and lose friends.” I’m saying “Do what you believe is right” because when you go to bed at night, all that you have is the energy with which you go to bed. It’s not the car in the garage or it’s not the $10 million in the bank account. You are you. Can you sleep with yourself? Have you done what you know should have been done? Or did you think, “Oh, well, I’ll let someone else worry about it,” or, “I’ll ignore it and it might go away,” or, “Hey, you know, there might be no tomorrow. When are you actually going to do what you know is right?”

Michelle: Right. I’ve compromised my integrity just to say okay and not make waves and not because this, “Gosh, they must know more than I do, so I’m going to go ahead and compromise my integrity.”

Jonar Nader: Or I might lose my job, or what will the boss say, because we are taught often one side of the story. We are taught to be nice to people. What about being nice to yourself? We are taught to be diplomatic, but sometimes diplomacy is a waste of time. We are tau ght that patience is a virtue, but sometimes impatience is just as heroic and just as noble and just as important. And if you don’t know how to be impatient gracefully and graciously, then you’ll be awkward with it. So I’m saying to people learn how impatience can be as a wonderful tool as patience. And, for example, we are taught to focus, aren’t we? You had better focus on your career, focus on your job. But, you know, sometimes, being aware is just as important as being focused. And not only now do you need to be focused and aware, you need to do them simultaneously. And there are so many things like that. Fear is another one. How many of us teach our children about fear? By at the age of seven, every child knows the fear of the dog, the boogey man, failure, and all the rest of it. And as they grow up, they have this, say, a level 10 of fear. But do they have a level 10 of courage? Because, you know, the opposite of fear is courage, and when you can engage both of them simultaneously, they disappear. Then you act on conviction, with neither one winning because you have both at your disposal. And that’s why – so the story goes, not only just fear and courage, but also logic and creativity, and so many things in life. So I’m talking about opposites. And the book sounds like an opposite, doesn’t it?

Michelle: Yes.

Jonar Nader: I mean, they go, “Hang on, you’re telling me to lose friends.” I’m saying “Well, it’s just that so many people have told you to win friends so many years. Let me just show you the other side. And then be neither, but use both and be what you have to be when you have to be.”

Michelle: Right.

Jonar Nader: That’s the point, yeah.

Michelle: And yet, on the other hand a lot of us would, again, be afraid to make waves. We’re afraid. Okay, if we start standing up for ourselves, if we start saying the things that probably should be said because, of course, every employee in a company, I think, always knows better than the person on top, right? Everybody’s got an idea of how it should be done. We’re afraid that by standing out, we will be a target.

Jonar Nader: Yes, and we’re not too good at protecting ourselves, too.

Michelle: Right.

Jonar Nader: So, where this book, for example, is so more useful than most of books on market is that it says, “Go and do all these things, but stop, before you go, have you got the strength? Have you got the right equipment, the right prerequisites?” And this book sets the prerequisites. See, so many times, we teach people to go and do something, but there’s like a little rubber band attached to your back.

Michelle: Right.

Jonar Nader: And now it’s a tug of war between you trying to get to where you want to go and the status quo pulling you back. And, now, you either had to rip the rubber band or it’ll catapult you back. And, most often, it will catapult you back because the comfort zone is where you know best. It’s the magnetic process where you go. So, what I’m saying to people then is, “Okay, look. I know you have a comfort zone. Before you venture out, have a backup plan, have some strategy, build your muscle, build your brain, b0uild your heart, build your spirit. Now, you can go and do whatever you want to do.” You see, so many gurus out there say that you go and do whatever you want to do, but they just send you to the wolves. I’m saying there are certain things you have to prepare for.

Michelle: Right.

Jonar Nader: Yeah.

Michelle: And your book starts off really with focusing on yourself because, of course, it would be one thing to say, “Okay, here’s networking. Here’s management styles. Here’s this type of a thing.” But you start off with, of course, the reader of the book.

Jonar Nader: Yes, that’s right. I mean, the book could easily have gone into what is leadership and what is sales and what is management and – but all of that is useless if you don’t have yourself in balance. And balance is more important than just – for example, people say it’s important to be happy. Well, no, it’s not important to be happy. It’s important to know how to deal with life’s knocks. So it’s important to have a good balance in life. And, well, that’s what’s called a healthy attitude. So, I’m not saying, “Go out and forever be happy.” I’m saying, “Go out and forever be able to deal with happiness and sadness equally and learn how to use them both.” See, in the network world – which is a buzz phrase we use, just to describe the world in which we live – in the network world, there are certain things that are also opposite. We are taught that, for example, the weak and the strong is synergy. So, you and I, one of us is weaker than the other, but together we can lift this table. On our own, we couldn’t have done it, but together the weak plus the strong gives synergy. That’s in the tangible world, which we are so good at. Tangible world, you can touch and feel it, and measure it. And I can look at your resume and you know you have the PhD and I can work at how much money you’ve got. Everything is so immeasurable. But in the intangible world, how do I measure how much wisdom you have? How do I measure how much calmness you truly have as in a true person? What spirituality you have. I can’t. So it’s not measurable and, therefore, I can’t see it. And in the world of things you can’t see, the weak plus the strong is the weakest, not the weak plus the strong gives you better.

Michelle: Right.

Jonar Nader: So, if in an office environment, you have 10 good people and one little weak bastard of a manager, then I can tell you that the weakest element will permeate. The worst of that group will permeate, whether it be deceit or lies or backstabbing, because the only way to fight lies in that sense is to fight with lies. And, therefore, most people who are good people are also fickle people. And that’s why the kind of manager I am – who loses friends and infuriates people – I would sack someone on the spot. And they’ll say to me, “Hang on a minute.” I’ve had many a letters from my CEO saying to me, “Jonar, our people are our assets. What are you doing sacking our people?” I’m saying “They’re only an asset when they’re an asset?” And you’d be wise to know when to get rid of them. So, decision-making processes are vital. Do not hesitate. Hesitation spells destruction in this fast-paced world.

Here is the transcript:

(Bassy): Our next guest has a cure to cancer – corporate cancer that is. He tells it as he sees it in his book, “How to Lose Friends and Infuriate People”. Jonar Nader is here to share the secrets to success in the business world. And we thank you so much for joining us. We’re really glad to have you here.

Jonar Nader: Thanks, Bassy

(Bassy): First of all, let’s put to rest the cease and desist order there. So, this is really, really interesting. Dale Carnegie and associates, they were wanting to sue because of their classic novel. Explain that story and where it stands right now.

Jonar Nader: Yes. Well, as you know, my book is called “How to Lose Friends and Infuriate People.”

(Bassy): Right.

Jonar Nader: Theirs is called “How to Win Friends and Influence People”. And they somehow think that they own the title, they’re on a corporate opposite. So, that was little bit of a silly situation. But they’re a huge organization with so much power. They created so much damage by sending me this letter. My first publishers dumped me. A lot of publishers have dumped me in certain countries. They’ve created so much trouble. But my readers are saying to me, “Jonar, in your book, you say, ‘Stand up to bullies.’ Well, let’s see how you’re going to handle this.” So, apparently, according to the legal letter my book and my work is unfair competition. So, it’s quite an honor, really, that I’m unfair competition to an author who has sold 70 million copies of his book.

(Bassy): Absolutely.

Jonar Nader: So, I’m fighting this all the way. And it is a great case study to show how to do it. And I’ll continue to fight.

(Bassy): Where did the name come from?

Jonar Nader: It was in a meeting, and someone was trying to intimidate me. And I said, “Jonar, would you just get on with it? You sure know how to win friends and influence people.” And I turned around and I said, “No. But it sure seems like I know how to lose friends and infuriate people.” And it just came out of the blue. I just had no idea where it came from, but it was the fact that people were trying to intimidate me because I was standing for what I believed. And I went home that night almost crying, thinking, you know, all through of my at school, in the backseat of the bus, everywhere I go, I forever get it wrong. And here I am, a senior executive in a huge corporation, and I still don’t have it right. What’s the problem? And it’s because I always stand up for what I believed was right. And there, the title was born in the boardroom out of stupidity.

(Bassy): There’s so much to talk about. What is the overall philosophy of this book?

Jonar Nader: Well, there are several things. One is to follow your heart, do what you believe is right. But before you do that, you need to build your skills, understand the network world in which we live. You cannot win a fight unless you understand the environment. And there’s no point going out saying, oh, I feel motivated, I think I’m going to do this if you haven’t built your talent, build your skills. So, the book comes in three parts. First is how to develop yourself and build yourself. Second is how to understand how to work with others, and third is you need to understand the network world. These are the three things that form the cycle of success for the modern day. And part of that maze, for example, understanding that in the network world today, the intangibles are the things that win. And in the intangibles world, it’s the weakest element that will win or lose. So, we need to watch the weakest element, whether it be that corporate cancer that comes and goes very quickly…

(Bassy): Right.

Jonar Nader: …or the weakness in ourselves.

(Bassy): You talked about living by halves. You also talk about fluid shares. Can you explain some those? Those are very interesting.

Jonar Nader: Okay. Sure. Look, living by halves first says, “Look at your life and say to yourself, ‘What is not adding value?’” Sometimes, people watch 22 hours of television a week. If that is not adding value, halve it. If you have too much sugar and you know that’s bad for you, halve it. So, you need to live by halves because when you go to bed at night, all that you have is energy. Even if you have $10 million in a bank account and a beautiful car…

(Bassy): Yes.

Jonar Nader: …you only have the energy you have. So you’ve got to take a stock of what’s sapping your energy. Halve it. If it’s an addiction, you’ve got to just chop it. You know, if it’s an addiction of gambling or alcoholism, these are very real, there’s no halving, there’s only cutting.

(Bassy): Okay.

Jonar Nader: The fluid share program says that we need to share, win together, lose together. So many corporations are failing today because there is “them and us” attitude. They go, “Oh, well. What do I care about wasting money, wasting electricity?” Because you can’t feel it. You’re just an employee. I say make everyone on the same salary, on the same bonus, on the same scheme, now everyone works together and says, “I care.” And if I see you stealing something, I care. And if I see you breaking something, I have a reason to say something because I know that that’s going to come out of my salary at the end of the month. We win together, we lose together. Fluid share doesn’t work for everybody. It’s like medicine. You know, some medicine works for you, and it doesn’t. But it is a super, super powerful program that will scare a lot execs around $30 million. “What? I’m not going to give up $30 million to share it with the receptionist.” But little do they know the receptionist is losing the business by the minute.

(Bassy): Absolutely.

Jonar Nader: Because…

(Bassy): Very interesting concept.

Jonar Nader: Yeah.

(Bassy): I bet the station here will really like it today.

Jonar Nader: Yes.

(Bassy): Thank you so much. Very, very interesting book, “How to Lose Friends and Infuriate People”. We appreciate your time.

Jonar Nader: Thanks.

(Bassy): We’ll check in on…

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Female: First this evening, the book has been said to take a hold of you by the scruff of the neck and give you a jolly good shake. Well, it’s called How to Lose Friends and Infuriate People. Its author, Jonar Nader, is a futurist and digital age philosopher.

Jonar Nader: And what did you think of when you think of philosophy? You think of some person who sits on the hill and just with a pipe and a beard. But actually really, a philosopher is a person who asks the right pertinent questions. And really, isn’t life about asking the right pertinent questions?

Female: Indeed.

Jonar Nader: Rather than just wait for something to happen and you go, ‘Oh dear, what happened?’ You should be asking scenarios. So, I’m also a futurist. A futurist is someone who can say, ‘What is the likely scenario to happen if I go this path or if I do it that way?’ Business people should do that and personally, we should do that. And therefore, successful person is one who preempts. Who says, ‘What are the questions I should be asking about my business, my industry, my lifestyle? What is the possibility that could happen?’ And I’ll preempt it happening and maybe open a coffee shop and start selling widgets that everyone will want or – or you know. So, they’re actually, you know, they sound funny. People think I’m loony and loopy.

Jonar Nader: But that’s just something we should all be doing.

Female: Well, you mentioned success and this is what the book is all about, isn’t it? We all measure success differently.

Jonar Nader: Yes.

Donna: Whether it’s money in the bank, whether it’s having a happy home life or a happy work, how do you measure success?

Jonar Nader: Right. Exactly. For me, success is not what you amass, it’s what you discard because actually, if you look at people who amass wealth and great cars and fancy things, they do get it but their trauma and their lifestyle and their health and their blood pressure and everything else comes with it. So, you’re taking the whole baby in the back water and the all the thing together. Success is about being able to say, ‘I shall discard that from my life. I shall get rid of the intimidation from my life. I shall get rid of maybe things I don’t like doing like you know, mowing the lawn or washing the car.’

And so, if you look at life as a pie, how much of that pie is obligatory? You just do by obligation. How much of it is with love? And so, my measure of success is to continue to grow the pie and to continue to reduce the things that I don’t want to do. Not necessarily to have a fancy car or ten homes because …

Donna: Does it mean discarding some people too as the book says, you may have to lose friends along the way?

Jonar Nader: Discarding the energy zappers.

Donna: Okay.

Jonar Nader: Discarding the leeches of life because when – I mean, here you are, when you wake up in the morning and you have a cup like this full of energy and people knock you about and they spill your energy left, right, and center. Who is authorized to make you angry? We go around giving the keys to our heart to everybody. We allow our boss to make us angry, the spouse to make us angry, the kids, the neighbors, everybody. And by 10:00 o’clock, we’re like this and just go, ‘Gosh, why have you given the key to your heart to another person?’

Put the lid on your energy cup and say, ‘No, I won’t allow you into my life and I’ll get rid of you out of my life.’ Because you know, it’s not about being nasty. It’s about saying, ‘Look at this beautiful world in which we live. Isn’t it marvelous?’ None of us are guaranteed a tomorrow. Now, have we done anything today called living or did we just run around on a treadmill and somehow fend off the – the pests? That’s basically what we tend to do.

Female: There’s a lot of uplifting talk about life in your book, how much of the way you regard life now is based on this, and your childhood and your upbringing? Because you have that comparison which a lot of us don’t.

Jonar Nader: Yes. Well, I had a childhood that I couldn’t ever wish on anybody and it started out in Lebanon, which is – actually, Lebanon and Christchurch are so much the same. I was in Christchurch a few years ago and I haven’t mentioned to my sister who is in the Australian Army serving as a lieutenant and they came out here doing some exercises. And I said in passing, I said, ‘You know, everywhere I’ve traveled all around the world, I somehow felt Christchurch was like Lebanon.’ And she said, ‘Darn it you should say that. That’s what I thought.’

And so, mind you, so going back to Lebanon, I saw that, the beauty and I saw distraction when the war started, the absolute killing and the murder and the revenge and the blood and guts and the smell 24 hours a day for years. When you see that, you see how fragile life is and you see how wonderful life is. And then you come back to Australia and everyone is just picking and fighting and backstabbing and you’re thinking, half the world is at war, the world is so beautiful, anyone of us could die tomorrow because death becomes something that is just so there in your face. So, I used to get up from a meeting and say, ‘Excuse me, I have an appointment with life. I am going. I’m not putting up with this nonsense.’ And of course, that loses friends and infuriates people.

Female: Indeed .

Jonar Nader: It does.

Female: You have that background as I see to make that comparison but somebody like me who had, you know, not beautiful childhood, a very happy childhood, is it about looking at what you’ve got and being very grateful?

Jonar Nader: Well, and learning to grow. See, what you’ve got is a seed. Now, if I give you a seed and you look at it, it’s an ugly little piece of nothing. And if I said, ‘Here is a knife. Cut it in half.’ And you look at the seed, you still can’t see it. But can you imagine the intricacies and the beauties of that seed? Well, your life is like that. Yet, do you nurture it? Do you feed it? Do you grow it? Now, when you go home after work, do you have any energy left in your cup to actually grow your life, to enrich your life, to live a zestful, wonderful life? No, because you’ve got to feed the kids, you’ve got to put this up, putting to bed, and whatever it is and it’s still drama.

Well, I need to shed some of that off because how else can I grow? Most people don’t learn a new word after the age of 18. Their vocabulary stays the same thereafter. Most people don’t have a new dream beyond you know, whatever they’ve been. No, that’s it mate. You’re going to be a plumber the rest of your life. We have this sort of we’ll put the lid on the coffin. You’re a plumber mate, that’s it.

Hey, I said to kids, ‘Don’t worry about what are you going to be when you grow up. How are you going to live as you are living?’

Female: Jonar, you talked about courage and audacity. Now, it’s the audacity that’s hard for a lot of us who’ve been brought up to think, you know, with codes of a behavior which say, be patient, be tolerant, be polite to everyone.

Jonar Nader: Well, that’s what we’re taught. And we’re taught that our virtues and somehow, we actually really think there are some religious virtues that you have to be patient and tolerant. And I say, ‘If you are patient and tolerant because that is all you know, you are but a vegetable. You know nothing.’ Because you haven’t chosen to be patient with me, you’re just being an automatic clock. You magnetically sprung that way. I want you to learn how to be patient and impatient so that when I do something to you, you can decide which. People are taught fear. Have you noticed how every child by the age of seven knows fear upside down, inside out? Every – their whole body physiology just gets consumed by that 4-letter word. But how many of us get consumed by that other word called courage, the opposite of fear?

Now, the title to the book sounds the opposite, How to Lose Friends, you think you sure you want me to do that? I say, ‘I say, isn’t that the opposite of what you’re taught? I want you to know both so that you can collide and make a decision with conviction.’ So that you have decided to be fearful or to be courageous not what you’ve been brainwashed for the last 20 years.

Female: It’s so hard to ask, isn’t it?

Jonar Nader: Well, it is now hard. Yes, because you’ve grown to this level and gosh. But what I am saying is as we are growing, as we’re letting our kids grow up, don’t forever instill any one virtue, whatever it is you think is great, teach them the opposite because then otherwise, they cannot call upon it. It then consumes them.

Female: There’s a comforting thought you make in the book about a majority- rule society where it’s the minority who make the difference, isn’t it?

Jonar Nader: Well …

Female: Who actually shape the majority rule society?

Jonar Nader: Absolutely. If you look at any event whether it’s building a Berlin Wall or cracking the Berlin Wall, whether it’s creating communism or killing communism, whether creating the greeny movement or not, whatever it is started with the loony. And even the person who said the world, you know, is round was locked up. And I used to think as a kid, I was teased, I was a wag, I was heated, I couldn’t speak English, I didn’t eat, you know, the things we eat. I couldn’t play cricket. I was always an outcast. And I used to think, ‘Hang on. I will get a better car and I might be like better and I’ll buy fancier clothes, I might have better friends.’

And somehow, if I build my brain, people might revere me. And the more and more knowledge you amassed, the more loopy and loony you become. The more lonely you shall live. And that is why then if you’re going to live an alone life where you shall see things that others can’t see, you had better be very self-confident because that’s where you get loopies. That’s why many scientists got crazy because you feel so burdened by what it is that you see.

See, at the moment, if I put this on my head, people go, ‘What this guy on television got this on his head for?’ Because the visible things everyone is an expert at. They can see that’s wrong. But can they see that I’m a backstabber a manipulator, a hound, a con artist? Can they? I don’t think executives and people in an office environment can see it. And the one ding dong like me who can see it, and I say, ‘Boss, that guy over there is a con artist. He’s destroying our company.’ What does the boss say? ‘Jonar, it’s a personality clash.’ They can’t see it.

Female: Yes.

Jonar Nader: So, I wanted to teach people the invisibles of life, the intangibles of life so that the intangible and the invisible becomes as clear to them as something that you can see quite clearly.

Female: That is the most thought-provoking. When we return, we have Simon Buttress from the Makado.

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Donna: You might remember him from his first book, How to Lose Friends and Infuriate People. Now, it’s How to Lose Friends and Infuriate Your Boss. I’m extremely pleased to re-welcome Jonar Nader. How are you?

Jonar Nader: I didn’t think you’d have me back.

Jonar Nader: After all that.

Donna: Why infuriate your boss?

Jonar Nader: Well, I don’t really necessarily mean, go ahead and infuriate your boss but what I really mean is stop expecting your boss to do you any favors. We go to work and we seem to think that our boss will promote us and we just sit and surrender and wait and when our boss doesn’t promote us, we get angry with ourselves. And that’s because we are used to letting other people take care of our life. We let our teachers take care of our education. We let our government take care of our welfare and our lover to take care of our happiness. And we sort of abdicate everything to someone else and really I’m saying, I think if you really want to be a success, first you have to learn how to follow your heart while at the same time learning how to watch your back. I think they’re the mandatories in business today.

Donna: Yes, because of course the path to promotion never did run smooth and that’s something else that you outline in the book quite frankly I might add that you will encounter issues of personal preference, issues of backstabbing. And what are some of the tools you recommend for people to get pass those?

Jonar Nader: Well, do you know, you can forever blame someone else? For example, racism is a big one. And they say, ‘Oh, I didn’t get the job because I’m a woman or I’m Asian or I’m shorter or I’m tall.’ And you’ll always find a reason why perhaps you didn’t get the promotion you desire whereas at all times it’s within you. The reason you didn’t get the promotion you desire is because you did not engineer it for yourself. And some of the practical tips I can give someone is that if you think you want to be brilliant in the future, you have to be brilliant now. You cannot say, ‘Look, please give me a gold medal and when you give me a gold medal for swimming, I might then swim better.’ No, you have to swim better then you get the gold medal, similarly with the future success. You can’t say, ‘Look, please promote me into a Senior Director and then I’ll work really hard.’ You have to work really hard now except people say, ‘But I don’t like what I’m doing now.’

So, if you don’t really like what you are doing now, all the more reason why you have to be so much better at it. Of course, we have a reverse mentality. If we don’t like what we’re doing now, we sort of hover, go home early, wait, don’t do a good job because we don’t like it. And there you end up in a rot. So, always look at everything you are doing now and say, ‘Am I the absolute best at it?’ even if you hate it because it’s an attitude. It’s a way. It’s a process. And that’s the way to success I think.

Donna: So, this is distinct from ambition in the sense that you have to be really good rather than just really greedy. Is that the best way to explain it?

Jonar Nader: Yes, and – and – but you know, instead of being really good, we put out – we put that on hold and go to university. We say, ‘Oh, I know what. If I have a piece of paper, maybe that – or if I network, maybe someone I know whose brother knows somebody might get me the job.’ And yet again, we expect the piece of paper or someone else but it does lie within you. We don’t really understand our weaknesses. We focused too much on our strengths and we don’t understand our weaknesses. And some of the biggest weaknesses that we have are the opposites of our virtues. We’re told to win friends, not how to lose friends. We’re told to be tolerant, not how and when to be intolerant. And I put it to you that successful people know how and when to be intolerant, know when to stand up for themselves.

Most of our listeners are probably one paycheck away from poverty and therefore, that doesn’t give them the buffer zone to be able to go to the boss and say, ‘Look, excuse me. I am not your employee. You are my client. I am selling to you my services. Now, let’s negotiate on what terms these are.’ But actually, employees don’t think like this. They think the boss is doing them a favor by employing them. And so, they’re like servants. And the boss steals their time all the time. If I went into a bookshop and bought eight books and took another eight with me, they’ll call the police. Yet, I go into my boss. I give my boss eight hours of my life and my boss steals another eight hours and says, ‘You have to work back and you haven’t finished that report.’ I go, ‘Hang on a minute. Why should I give you eight hours?’

So, the mindset has to change and in the process, you have to be so good at what you do so that you can command what you require. And how are you going to get that? How are you going to become good at what you do if you don’t have any energy left when you get home?

Donna: So, talking about intolerance, talking about knowing when enough is enough if somebody is really annoying you, where does that fit within contemporary employment law which is very much supporting in some cases the people that are really bad at their jobs?

Jonar Nader: In fact, I say that the voice you are at your job, the more politics you can muster, the more you will climb the ladder because in today’s corporate world, there is no corporate memory left. People come and go so quickly. Your boss changes every six or eight months so any promises made to you yesterday cannot be fulfilled tomorrow. And it is a dog eat dog world. But unfortunately, the backstabbers do get promoted but I’m not sure if that’s the kind of promotion that we want, is it? I mean who wants to work? You have no clout? What is it that you offer? You see, are you employed here because we want Donna in the chair or are you employed here because we want just a lovely person in the chair? There are many lovely people but only one Donna.

And similarly so, we have to ask our listeners, are you doing what you are doing at your office or place of work because your boss wants you or your boss just wants a person who can do it? You need to be able to step out of that so that you can say, ‘I offer something better, brighter, faster, more brilliantly.’ And until you can do that, you have no negotiating power. And if you hate your boss, do not treat you boss badly. If you don’t like what you are doing, all the more reason to do it better so that you can climb out. You see, another thing I said to people, ‘Stop buying anything of luxury. Stop buying a gold watch, holidays or anything until you have saved 50% of your salary.’ You need at least 50% of your salary in the bank as cash so that you have a buffer. So, you’ll no longer be holding to the boss. So, you’ll no longer feel, ‘Oh gosh, if I lose my job, actually my whole life can deteriorate because I have only one week of buffer left.’ These are the problems. People do not have the buffer zones so they’ll continue to allow the boss to beat them over the head unfortunately and people go home crying as we see all the time.

Donna: Jonar Nader, author of How to Lose Friends and Infuriate Your Boss. Thank you again.

Jonar Nader: Thanks, Donna.

Donna: Always a pleasure to have you on.

Here is the transcript:

Female Speaker: The social observer, philosopher, author and lecturer, Jonar Nader has spent years studying people and their habits and he knows some tricks to surviving in the corporate jungle and he joins us now.

Jonar Nader: So I used to get up from a meeting and say, ‘Excuse me. I have an appointment with life. I am going, not putting up with this nonsense.’

Female Speaker: What? Are you nuts?

Jonar Nader: I almost got caught.

Jonar Nader: Because in the future, I can tell you, money will be linked to performance.

And what next? What will be the next big thing?

The idea about being a futurist is not that you’re this clairvoyant. My friend’s father was a clairvoyant and his mother was a contortionist and as a result, he could foresee his own end.

Jonar Nader: My father said to my mother, ‘You know, we have been married 36 years. And not once have we agreed on anything.’ She said, ‘Thirty-seven.’

Female Speaker: His new book Z is a fictional novel about the worst act of terrorism the world could ever see.

Jonar Nader: Even if I were the president of the world for 10 years, I still could not think of a way to generate peace. I finally did.

Half of the world is in conflict. Half of the world is at war. And I see it as a war on our destiny rather than a war on terror.

You must be forbidden from working anywhere, touching anything if you don’t know what it feels like, what it tastes like. You know, what’s on the menu? Chicken. What does it taste like? I don’t know. I just work here. Well, find me someone who doesn’t work here so I can find out.

Jonar Nader: In the future, companies who put us on hold will have to pay for our time.

And I think there should be two types of managers, the manager that says, ‘Any problem you have, come to me. I’ll fix it,’ or the manager who says, ‘Look, any problem you see, go fix it and I’ll back you up.’

Terminal.

Jonar Nader: They say the bottom line is the most important thing in companies. And I say no, no, no. Then they say, oh, hang on. You know, the triple bottom line is the most important thing. Oh, yes? What’s that? I say, the triple bottom line is you have to take care of profits, you have to take care of the environment and you have to take care of society. That’s called the triple bottom line. It’s being taught all over the MBAs at the moment. I say, that’s still useless. Talk to me about the triple top line. It’s your staff, your quality and your customers.

Teamwork is a lot of nonsense because it doesn’t work. What I want are teams that work.

See, I don’t think you can share energy or you can share power because the most you do, you’ll dissipate it. So, in essence, the function of power for me is to generate momentum. There is this notion of the perceived power. For example, people think that the queen is powerful or that a minister is powerful. What people do not realize is that in fact, it is the department that runs the minister, not the minister that runs the department.

Do you know how we say power corrupts? You know this notion. I don’t believe that power corrupts either. I think certainly corruption is powerful and that’s why people seem to steer away from power but in itself, it is better to have power than not.

Male Speaker: Jonar, you get the last word.

Female Speaker: Stick around, would you?

Jonar Nader: Yes, sure.

Female Speaker: Thank you.

Female Speaker: Jonar Nader is a digital age philosopher. For the past 22 years, he has maintained a dual career as an expert in both technology and management and presents to both kinds of audiences.

Jonar Nader: Are you actually delivering on your promise?

Female Speaker: For example, he was the opening speaker for the IT Summit and the CEO Summit. Sometimes, Jonar wears two hats at the same conference as he did for the Institute of Company Directors where he gave two keynotes, one about leadership and another about technology and the future.

Jonar Nader: So, is it good to always have a bit of dirt in the bottom drawer? On someone.

Male Speaker: How does it come down for you, Jonar Nader?

Jonar Nader: Well, I’m glad you’ve asked me this question now that I’m a consultant…

Jonar Nader: Because I’m making a lot more money now.

Jonar Nader: Whenever I see a bad employee, my first impression is, ‘Who is his boss?’ And so, I would like to know why that happened and spend my energy there because …

Male Speaker: Well, you were his boss…

Female Speaker: Whether he’s humorous or controversial, Jonar delivers tantalizing messages.

Male Speaker: The irrepressible Mr Jonar Nader.

Female Speaker: He’s known for his captivating after dinner speeches like the one he presented at the Australian Business Awards.

Jonar Nader: So, what’s going to be the most important thing for your business is your brand. And when I say brand, I don’t mean just only your logo or your brand awareness of brand image or brand building or brand recall or brand values. As important as they are, the single biggest important thing about brand is the brand bet. That means what the customer is prepared to bet on.

The issue is I know that we all know how to make a cake and we all have flour and we all have sugar and we all have eggs and we all have an oven and we probably have the ingredients sitting right now at home. But how many of us can actually make it? The process of knowing is not good enough.

Female Speaker: Around the world, tens of thousands of people have attended Jonar’s presentations. He’s popular with professionals in finance, law, science, technology, manufacturing and sales.

Jonar Nader: I don’t want to hear any more terms and conditions and conditions apply…

Most people don’t learn a new word after the age of 18. Their vocabulary stays the same thereafter. Most people don’t have a new dream beyond, you know, whatever they’ve been – now, that’s it, mate. You’re going to be a plumber the rest of your life.

I say to kids, don’t worry about what you are going to be when you grow up. How you’re going to live as you are living.

Female Speaker: Jonar Nader is the author of the best-selling book How to Lose Friends and Infuriate People. He has also written a book of modern wisdom called How to Lost Friends and Infuriate Thinkers.

Jonar Nader: If you stand up and rise and say, ‘Look boss, you know, I really don’t think this is the way we should be doing it,’ then others will get – gain energy from you because it usually just takes the minority to create something big.

Female Speaker: What’s your view on anger and what it does to us, our bodies and its purpose?

Jonar Nader: If anger happens, you stop and say, ‘This is great. The alarm bells have gone off. Now is the time to assess why.’ Not go down the pub and, you know, laugh it off but to say, ‘What triggered this? Because this is not the trigger that I will allow into my life.’

Customer service isn’t just about being nice to people. It’s about product knowledge, knowing your industry inside out, knowing everything about everything you can possibly know. If you don’t get out of the way because selling is as much a profession as nuclear physics.

Are you actually delivering on your promise? And if we do that, the rest will take care of itself.

Any executive who has a ticker tape of their stock price or to be sacked on the spot. Your job is not to check the stock price. It’s a check about Mrs. Smith the last time she paid you good money to buy her husband a nice something rather that just doesn’t work and when she calls to complain, you say, ‘Oh, wow. Well, 20 minutes on hold. Your call is important to us. And please bring it down. It might take two weeks to repair it. Theft!

Today on Wall Street, people are just running around for bottom line figures. And what are they doing? They’re really only cheating themselves because Wall Street is a joke and the sooner it blows up, the better.

So many corporations are failing today because there is a them and us attitude. We might think we’re making profits but they’re all manipulated. The real profit comes when people are actually satisfied, happy.

For me, success is not what you amass. It’s what you …

And if you hate your boss, do not treat your boss badly. If you don’t like what you are doing, all the more reason to do it better so that you can climb out.

You know, and who gets promoted in corporate life today? The backstabbers who know how to do it well enough.

Male Speaker:

Jonar Nader: You know, the creative people. Where do they end up?

If I put this on my head, people will go, ‘What’s this guy on television got this on his head for?’ Because the visible things, everyone is an expert at. They can see that’s wrong. But can they see that someone is a back stabber, a manipulator, a hound, a con artist? Can they? I don’t think executives and people in an office environment can see it.

Female Speaker: Jonar is also the author of the best-selling illustrated Dictionary of Computing and the technology writer for Butterworth’s Legal Dictionary and the Student’s Legal Dictionary. He also serves as an expert witness to the legal profession.

Jonar Nader: Unfortunately, the internet will have to collapse before it rebuilds itself.

Male Speaker: It will be exciting, real funny up here.

Male Speaker: That’s a must for everybody.

Male Speaker: Jonar C. Nader.

Male Speaker: Jonar: Stiff!

Female Speaker: Jonar’s last assignment as a corporate executive was at IBM where he led the consumer division in 18 countries. He’s the co-founder of both the Information Technology Society and The Leadership Foundation funded by McKinsey and Company and Qantas. Programs have been held at the Royal Military College and at the University of New South Wales. As a guest lecturer at tertiary institutions, he conducts his courses on technology, leadership, management, advertising, marketing and politics.

Jonar is a coach to high profile executives. He gives thousands of radio and TV interviews worldwide. His articles are published in some of the most respected business and IT publications. As a magazine editor and writer, he has worked for motor racing, art and fashion magazines and has held exclusive interviews with the likes of Stuart Devlin, jeweler to Her Majesty the Queen.

Jonar has interviewed the biggest names in art and design including Count Faber Castell and fashion gurus such as Jean Muir, designer to the late Princess Diana. He has interviewed many fashion giants including Count Zegna, Lagerfeld, Missoni, Kenzo and the late Gianni Versace.

Female Speaker: As the chairman of Logictivity, Jonar Nader guides CEOs and boards to engineer a successful future. To learn more, please visit Logictivity.com and find out how the world’s only post-tentative, virtual surrealist can rearrange your molecules.