Today I learned I have to mine people for gold. Two weeks ago I took a test that I got a 65% on. I was upset with this grade because I i studied so very hard. After feeling bummed about the grade I sat down and got out my journal and asked myself ‘What did I learn?’ I came up with a lot of insightful answers. One of them being that I needed to Team Up! I realized that virtually all my studying and practicing had been alone. Through reading How to Win Friends and Influence People I’ve come to understand that making a habit of working by myself will cost me a fortune. So I made the effort to organize a study group for the next test. Through doing this I found the benefits of working with people or what I like to call Mining People for Gold. In carrying out this idea I found that the proper way to get people to share their their good with you is to make them feel important, Fred them, share with them all my best and relevent information, and be straightforward with them. The benefits are that one profits from other people’s succcess and failures, one learns alternative methods to solving a shared problem, and one increases their chances of achieving their goal by working in a team. One benefits from another person’s personal experience because people see things differently. Some are better at seeing the grand scheme of things. Some are better at seeing the finer detail. What one can see another may not. In teaming up each person’s sight expands because with what one can see they can bring it to the attention of their teammates. Learning alternative methods to solving a problem is important because to makes one more capable and creative. This helps with solving similar problems down the road. Mining people for gold increases chances of achieving the goal because group effort is more powerful than individual effort. A group of smart and hard working people is more effective than one smart and hardworking person. The negatives of this idea of Mining People for Gold is that an individual most sacrifice resources like time and money to be valuable to a group. Another negative of this idea is that one could say that this notion of Mining People for Gold reduces the value of people to tools. One last negative of this idea is that with carrying it out some will be suspicious of you. Sacrificing resources to be a valuable member of a group of people who just as smart and just as hardworking as you is in my opinion an investment towards increasing the liklihood if achieving the end goal. The notion that Mining People for Gold is false because Inorder to get a person to share with you their good they have to feel like they have been treated with respect. They have to feel that they benefited from interacting with you and they have to feel that you are being honest with them. It doesn’t matter if some are suspicious of me when they see me carrying out this idea because there are no consequence when I don’t receive gold from a person. I could come out of my pocket for snacks, treat each member with respect, and share all my best ideas and still be okay with not receiving anything from them. I will have increased my ability in Mining People for Gold and that’s a profit itself. Mine People for Gold.