I’m heading back from London as I write and send this…
Pick it up and read it over and over.
It’s essentially about the wall street sociopaths who turned greed into a game (And what it truly reveals about human nature)
Michael Lewis exposed the primal psychology that turns ordinary people into money obsessed predators willing to destroy anyone in their path. The same dark patterns these traders used to separate suckers from millions are being used RIGHT NOW by marketers who dominate their industries while their competitors whine about “ethics.”
Read this book and you’ll never look at persuasion, negotiation, or making money the same way again.
Here’s what you’ll steal from reading Liar’s Poker…
• You’ll discover why the biggest winners in any market are the ones who understand that business is tribal warfare, not a gentleman’s game. The Salomon Brothers traders didn’t succeed because they were smarter or worked harder… they succeeded because they grasped the uncomfortable truth that separating people from their money requires understanding human weakness at a molecular level, then exploiting it without mercy or apology.
• You’ll learn the dark art of “positioning” yourself as the authority who makes the rules while everyone else scrambles to play by them. Watch how the top traders at Salomon created their own reality distortion fields where they dictated value, manufactured urgency, and made clients feel privileged to be fleeced… then swipe this exact psychological framework for your marketing.
• You’ll see how creating artificial scarcity and FOMO is the entire game. These traders moved billions by making smart people feel stupid for not acting NOW, and you’ll get a masterclass in manufacturing the perception that hesitation equals devastation.
• You’ll understand why “fake it till you make it” isn’t just motivational nonsense peacocked around by your favourite online Guru. It’s sneakily how empires are built. Lewis shows you how 22 year old kids with zero experience convinced institutional investors to trust them with fortunes by mastering one skill… Appearing supremely confident even when clueless.
• You’ll absorb the brutal lesson that in any market, there are exactly two types of people. Those who eat, and those who get eaten. The traders who thrived weren’t the nicest or most ethical… they were the ones who understood this reality first and acted on it while everyone else was still pretending the world was fair.
(I was inspired by my boy Ben Settle to write those bullets so you can blame him)
Although this book has probably been the most influential on me in the last 5 years.
Give it a stab and tell me what you think.
Stephen Walker.
P.S. I nearly forgot to drop the link while I head my way back up north.