Today, I had a fun conversation with a girl who I used to be friends with. We hadn’t really had a conversation until today. Here is how she opened up the conversation:

<girl> hey, do you lend out your car at all?

Hrm, I wonder if she wants me to help her out?

<girl>i was trying to go to the beach today with some people, but then a driver backed out, and now i’m trying to find another car last minute, but it’s not as easy as I hoped it would be

Wait for it. Here’s the kicker.

<girl>actually, if you want, you’re welcome to come along

Oh really? If I drive you, it’s okay if I come? As opposed to your first request of just taking my car? Why, thank you so much for the (backhanded) invitation!

The funny thing about this conversation is that it easily could have taken a very different turn if this girl had done a few things differently. These tactics can be used in many situations to make anyone do your bidding.

1. Start a conversation without immediately asking for a favor - It would have been nice if she had started off by asking how I was doing. Maybe even just a ‘hey,’ would have been a hell of a lot better. Keep in mind, I rarely rarely ever talk to this girl: maybe once a month—and I always initiate the conversation. This brings us to #2.
2. If you can imagine ever needing a person’s help, at least keep in touch a little bit - If you don’t hate someone, it is always easy to have a conversation with someone at least once a week or so. This conversation was on INSTANT MESSENGER, it really is not hard to keep in touch with someone when you know exactly when they are available and when they aren’t. I used to IM her about twice a week to say hello, and our conversations were always short, “Hi.” “Hi, I can’t talk right now sorry bye.” That happened SO MUCH it got to the point when I just gave up. Since this is IM, you don’t even need to devote your whole concentration to the conversation, hell you can play a video game while talking to the person. Let’s look at #3.
3. If you want a favor done, you damn well better include them in the activity - You want to go to the beach? That’s cool. Only one person you know has a car? INVITE THEM TOO. She did invite me, it just took her a while to get to that point. First off, she just wanted to ‘borrow’ my car. Taking my car so she can hang out with her better friends isn’t a borrow. It’s a jack.
4. Be at least a little sly about asking for a favor - If you want someone to do you a favor, especially someone you aren’t great friends with, you need to put a little thought into how you are going to ask for the favor. Make it seem like you are talking to them about a problem you are having. Let them offer the solution. If she asked me to come with her to the beach, and then said, “the only problem is we don’t have a car, do you know anyone who could help?” I probably would have driven her.
5. If the person honestly can’t or won’t help you out, don’t burn bridges - After I didn’t respond for a few minutes to her final request for me to drive, here is what she said.
   

   <girl>if you don’t want to lend out your car or come along, that’s fine. i can try and figure something else out

   Now I’m probably over-analyzing this last statement, but it seems like she could’ve been a lot nicer when I said no. The sarcasm in this last comment, coupled with a plea for me to fix her situation just seems, well, bitchy. I sure ain’t gonna help now.

Let’s look at a different way this conversation could’ve gone.

<girl> hey, how are you?
<me> I’m fine, what’s up?
<girl> Not much, I’m planning on going to the beach with a few friends today. Do you want to come along?
<me> Oh really? Yeah, I’d love to. How are you guys getting there?
<girl> I’m not sure yet…Public transportation doesn’t go there, and it’s pretty far. None of us have a car, either, but hopefully we can find someone who does.
<girl> Do you have any ideas?
<me> Yeah, I have a car, sure I’d be glad to go.

So simple, so useful. The major trick here! MAKE SURE THE PERSON YOU WANT THE FAVOR FROM BELIEVES HE IS COMING UP WITH THE IDEA. In this sample conversation, I’m part of the planning process, and I have a solution. Of course I’ll help.

Needless to say, I didn’t drive her anywhere. Also, I deleted her off my buddy list. Lame.

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Update: eBay has removed the link. The google cache of this auction is located here.

This kid, Ron Steen, just put himself up for auction. I mean that literally: 2% of his future income will go to the highest bidder. The minimum bid price is $100,000. Whether or not this is legal in the first place, it is nonetheless a terrible investment, for several reasons.

First of all, note that I do not think that buying stock in a person is a bad idea. My brother pitched me this idea years ago, and just today I was thinking that this would be an interesting enterprise—getting hundreds of students to pitch 1% of their future earnings in return for $25,000, and then selling shares of that return to interested investors. I think that would be a cool business, I might even sell my income in that case.

However, this investment is terrible. First of all, we need to take a look at the proposition he gives. If you win the auction, you begin to make money after he graduates from college, in 2012 only until 2052. Take a look at this chart made by FatAlbert from reddit.com.

If you invest your money now at an average 8% interest (optimistically, you can even make more than that), and you invest every check he gives you, at the end of the day you have lost $600,000. And that is assuming that by 2052, he is making $2,128,327 a year. Do you know anyone graduating straight out of Cal State Fullerton making $250k?
So even if he hits his goal of making $30 million dollars, you have still lost a hell of a lot of money. In the even more likely case, he won’t even approach that $30 million number, and you have just lost way more.
But let’s assume you think he would be able to make this amount of money, because he seems like a standup, trustworthy guy. Right? Wrong. Look at some of the answers to his questions on the auction.

Q: Have you thought about offering something more like 15 or 20%? The current promise of 2% doesn’t make you sound like a very impressive investment. … You might be have better luck just begging somebody for money with no strings attached. –Lizzy
A: : Lizzy, Your ending comment was very rood and insensitive. I am going to make tons of money and if you believe me you can ride the wave, if not than I guess it is your loss. I didn’t think to hard about your idea, since I have more questions than I could possibly answer. If I were even considering selling a whopping 15 % of myself, I would go for millions, because I am worth it….

Really, the comment was rood? What about this one.

Q: You do realize that with a competent money manager, a wealthy person can just let the $100,000 dollars sit and, at modest 7% returns a year, make six times in less than 20 years?
A: Yes, this would be an optimal investment for wealthy people, but investing in companies like Phillip Morris and Altria Co. can gain you 7% but its products are harmful; for example ciggarettes. Also, their is not one can do to increase the value of shares of stock. In my investment, you gain forty checks for the lifetime of the contract and also have an enjoyable time in the process. Thank you for your intrest.

That’s right, they do make harmful products, like ciggarettes. If only investors had an option to invest in whatever company they wanted to, such as companies that don’t make harmful products. Also, he can’t spell intrest, and there are some grammar mistakes too.

At least he has a pretty solid background in education, right? Again, wrong.

He may have a 3.5 GPA. (Not uncommon at all). He might be going to a university (Cal State Fullerton). But he has an impressive 1550 SAT score right? That’s damn high…hell that is higher than 95% of the people at Stanford!

Wait wait, that’s right they changed the test. It’s out of 2400 now. 1550/2400 isn’t so impressive. You know what else isn’t impressive? That the score is a lie. Read that again.

Ron Steen did not get a 1550.

I emailed Ron and asked him for his breakdown in Math/Verbal scores. Here is the response I got.

“900/650 Thank you-Ron”

Read that again, and see if you can catch the error. Oh yeah! SAT SCORES ONLY GO UP TO 800. Ron is literally lying about his SAT scores, and he didn’t even lie well!

Don’t trust this guy. He isn’t even telling the truth about his scores.

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