A summary of things you should know about Smartcuts according to Shane Snow:

Introduction

In this episode Shane Snow shares his book Smartcuts where he shows you how hackers, innovators, and icons accelerate success.

In his book, Snow teaches you how you can do more than you are doing and do it faster than you think by thinking about things smarter. He also explains how you can find the business secrets to shorten your path to success in real life and divides the book into three main sections of how this happens based on hundreds of interviews with incredible people.

This book is perfect for the entrepreneur who has the motivation to be super successful but wants to accomplish ideas at a faster pace.

The Book’s Unique Quality (2:01)

I focus on speed and not just success. I focus on the patterns that make for breakthroughs throughout history.

The Best Way To Engage (2:52)

It moves quickly so I would recommend reading it front to back.

The Reader’s Takeaway (23:10)

The one message that I want to get across is that any of us can do more than we are doing and do it faster than we think by thinking about things smarter.

A Deep Dive Into The Book (3:46)

I start the book with the story of how when I was in undergrad my roommate beat the world record for Super Mario Brothers by using the secret ways to shorten the game. I explain how we can find these secrets ways to shorten our own paths to success in real life. I divide the book into three main sections of how this happens based on hundreds of interviews with incredible people of our day and academic research of that I call myths of success. The three sections of Smartcuts are shortened, leverage and soar.

Shortening is about what phycologists call lateral thinking which is when you are given a problem and instead of attacking it head-on, you attack it sideways. Another myth of success is about mentorship. We are told it’s not what you know; it’s who you know that helps you accelerate your success. Research shows that half, if not most of the time, mentorship does not help the mentee at all. This chapter is particularly important for entrepreneurs who are starting from the ground floor who want to learn from master teachers but do it the right way. I talk about the myth of the fail fast, fail often that we hear about in the startup cycle. I explain how heart surgeons who fail don’t get better but the ones who watch their colleagues fail get better at a significate rate. I explain how you can make the idea of failure and feedback work for your business rather than it putting you back at square one.

The second section of the book I talk about leverage. Leverage is about how people who have done great things in their businesses work just as hard as everyone else but they work the smart way by finding ways to amplify their work. The way the world gets changed is not when you do less work but when you amplify your work so that you can do more to accomplish more. In these chapters I talk about how platforms and technologies can help accelerate your learning. I talk about how kids should learn calculators earlier than they learn times tables by hand because the one who do get better at the fundamentals of math faster. I explore the idea of first mover advantage, the myths around that and how the analogy of catching waves in a surfing competition maps to pattern recognition for business owners and how they can spot opportunities and markets. I also talk about something that is dear to my heart which is called super connectors. These are people, businesses and groups that can unlock the trust of large groups of people and help amplify your message when you are trying to market yourself or cause.

The third section of the book is called Soar and is about swinging big and playing at a professional level. I talk about how there is this common myth of waiting for luck to strike. In the final two chapters I talk about radical simplicity, how world class products, businesses, and thinkers manage to simplify what is going on in their markets and companies to focus on the things that will get them much more bang for their buck. And the final chapters is about 10x thinking which is about the concept whether to set realistic goals or should you set goals that you might not hit but shoot for the moon and if you miss you’ll hit the stars. It turns out that the shooting the moon concept has a lot of merit to it.

In this book everything is about my curiosity, about how people did it and the counterintuitive ways that the best of the best accelerate their success.

Notable Quotes From The Book (24:00)

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose.” – Dr. Seuss

The Credibility/Inspiration Of The Author (0:38)

I grew up in Idaho and live in New York City now. I first studied computer science and became a web entrepreneur and then I moved over to journalism. I moved to New York to be a journalist with a dream of writing for Wired Magazine and writing about Tech got me to start my own tech startup.

I was fascinated by people and businesses that seemed to beat expectations. As an entrepreneur myself I was curious how they did it and was looking for the patterns.

Other Books Recommended By The Author (25:09)

The Autobiography of Ben Franklin by Benjamin Franklin

More Information About This Book and The Author

Buy Smartcuts by Shane Snow on Amazon today

Visit ShaneSnow.com to learn more about Shane and his book

Follow Shane Snow on Twitter

More Information About This Episode

Download the full transcript here

Listen on iTunes, Stitcher , and SoundCloud

Related books: People Tools for Business by Alan Fox | Work Smarter by Nick Loper | Getting Things Done by David Allen

Relevant advice and tips: 7 Productivity Tools For Entrepreneurs To Make Life Easier

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Wade Danielson

Wade is a 4-time serial entrepreneur and is the Founder/Host of The Entrepreneurs Library. With a long time passion for reading books, Wade created an online resource and podcast for entrepreneurs who love to read personal and business development books. His long-term goal in life is to start an entrepreneurial home schooling program for children of business-minded families.