The Importance of Sharing Ideas
What You Will Learn
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When I was in law school, I went into the library one afternoon and took a seat at a desk across from a guy I knew quite well. We were not great friends but I had been over to his home a few times and he was a likeable guy in all respects. Both of us were in the same Property class and we had an exam coming up in about two weeks. In your first year of law school, Property is one of the more difficult classes and requires a lot of study and preparation because it is a different way of thinking.
In law school, the way people typically study is through outlines. An outline is essentially a distillation of the reading in class and insights from the Professor. Because there is so much to learn, what typically happens is groups of students get together to create them over a 15 week semester. For example, 15 students will get together and one week one student may do the outline and the next week another student will do the outline.
After about 15 minutes, I looked up and realized that the outline he was studying from was absolutely incredible. It was incredible because it was very well organized and was tracking both the Professor’s comments and everything that had happened in the class very closely. It appeared to be something that was made in a prior year and had distilled the same class the professor had taught over and over again in a really good way.
I asked my friend if I could see the outline. When I asked him this he hesitated a little bit and I could tell it was not something he really wanted to show me. Before he showed it to me he looked around the library to see if anyone was watching us. When he realized we were alone, he handed me the outline but not before telling me that if anyone walked up to not let them see me looking at it. I thought this was unusual but agreed.
As I looked through the outline more closely I realized this was something that would really make my study of Property go a lot better. The outline was exceptionally well done in all respects. I immediately realized I needed this outline.
“Can I copy this outline?” I asked.
“I promised the people I got it from I would not let anyone copy it,” he said.
“Are you kidding?”
“No, I’m sorry. I can’t.”
This sounded absolutely ridiculous to me. For the next 10 minutes or so I sat there and eventually talked him into letting me copy the outline. In order to copy the outline he made me promise to drive to a city called Culpepper, that was around 30 minutes outside of the Charlottesville, Virgina where I was going to law school. He was absolutely paranoid that someone who had given him this outline would see me with the it and then blame him for giving me the outline.
“These people are vicious … ” he told me.
A few hours later I had copied the outline and drove over to his home and dropped it off. I chatted with him for another 10 minutes or so about where he had gotten this outline and who else had the outline. Incredibly, he informed me that he had gotten the outline from the same group of people who were in my outline group for property. He did not name all of the people, but he did name around 10 of the 15 people who were in my outline group as all having this outline. They had been having a “study party” or something along those lines that he had showed up at, and they had all been using this outline. They allowed him to copy it but made him promise never to give it to anyone else. As far as he knew, only these 10 people had a copy of the outline.
The reason these people did not want others to have the outline was because the outline was so good. They believed that this outline was something that gave them and advantage and would enable them to perform much better in the final exam in the Property class. Essentially, the idea was that if they had this and others did not then this “artificial advantage” would enable them to do better, get a better job and be more successful.
The next day in Property class, I looked around when the class began and watched those 10 people very closely. The classroom was a podium and I always sat at the very back of the classroom, so I could see everyone in the class and also look down. About 10 minutes into the class, those 10 people all had this “secret outline” out and were taking notes on it and so forth.
A couple of days later, before the class started, everyone was waiting out in the hall of the classroom for the doors to open. Individually, I went up to several of the 10 people who were in my outline group but also possessed this “secret outline” and asked them if they had any other outlines except the ones that our group was making each week. Each one said something along the lines of the following:
“No, but if you come across any other outlines, please let me know. I could use one.”
I was amazed by this. Some of the people who were claiming not to have outlines were people I thought were my friends. This was something that was quite incredible to me because not only were these people lying to me, they were all sticking together. It almost seemed that they had coordinated responses for anyone who asked them about the outlines. It was not cheating, but it almost seemed worse. What made this so upsetting to me was that these were people who were in an outline group with me, which I mistakenly believed meant that we were all cooperating together to achieve something. I was wrong.
I was in charge of doing the last outline in the Property course. In this week, the Professor decided to cover “new developments in Property law” and discussed some new cases that had happened over the course of the past year. None of this information was on the special outline that the students were hoarding in my class. The last class took place about three or four days before the final exam, if I remember correctly. The final exam was “open book” meaning you could use your notes and other information. Notwithstanding, it was also extremely important to know what the Professor had said.
After the class, I dutifully made my outline. I spent several hours on the outline and made it the absolute best I could. I made 15 copies so that I could give one to each of the members of my outline groups. I put them in their mailboxes in the student commons. However, as I started putting these in the boxes, I decided to play a little bit of the same game that had been played with me. I decided I would not give my outline to the students who had lied to me about not having an outline. I remember throwing away the extra outlines in the trash, right near the mailboxes in the student commons.
This was one of the biggest mistakes I ever made. Without getting into a lot of details, those people became extremely upset with me because about 30% of the final exam was devoted to the last class and things the teacher had talked about in class. Because the last class was so close to final exams, many people had not bothered to show up because they were studying or sleeping in after a late night studying. Many of those people probably believed that they had everything they needed in their “secret outline”.
I will never forget when I got out of the Property exam and was standing in the hall. A girl who was in my outline group came up to me all red in the face, with watery eyes. She was actually was a pretty nice person, besides the fact that she had hid the outline she had from me. She started screaming at me at told me that I had ruined her life and she had probably failed the exam due to me not giving her the outline. I got many mean looks from others who exited the exam, who I had not given the outline to. One guy came up to me and told me my outline had saved his life. But for the most part, I had done something I was not proud of. In retrospect, I really feel like this is one of the worst things I have ever done. I simply should not have played these games with them by withholding information like had been done to me.
Even when the next school year started, there were people who were still upset with me. I remember someone else coming up to me at a party and getting angry with me, telling me they had gotten a horrible grade in property due to me. Then I remember confronting the person with the fact that they had lied to me about their outline and seeing a large group of people actually turn against them. A lot of people learned about this story, and a lot of people were on my side. Still, in my opinion the “tit for tat” was the wrong thing and not something I should have done. In one quick moment, by not providing information to people, I had made several enemies and changed my law school experience in a negative way.
It is largely due to this experience that I run my career the way I do today. I am happy to share any and all information I know about getting jobs. I never hide the ball or hide any sort of information from anyone. I provide people with as much information as I possibly can about everything I know. My goal is to put as much information out there as I possibly can–with jobs, with advice and everything. I have taken what was a bad experience and turned it into something to help others. I want to tell people everything I know and I never hide the ball with or about anything whatsoever.
The idea of hiding information is something that starts very early for many of us. I am reminded of when I was in elementary school and students put their arms around their papers during tests to prevent others around them from seeing their answers. This idea of “hiding answers” and hiding information is something that stays with many of us throughout our entire lives, and ends up having a major influence on our entire lives.
It is the same with our careers. Many people are very secretive about information and their ideas. They do not want others to take credit for what they are doing. When you hoard information, you are constantly playing a “political game” where you are judging if one person or another can know something. In addition, people who hoard information constantly seem to have stale ideas because you only get their information when they deem it is relevant to tell you about them. There are a lot of people out there who are secretive with information. I cannot believe how much I saw this when I was practicing law. I still see it in my job today.
One of my biggest beliefs is that if you are continually giving away all of your ideas, then you constantly put yourself in a need to replenish your ideas. This forces you to be creative and come up with new ideas and information and develops a psychology within you where you are always looking to share what you know with people, instead of looking to hoard what you know. When you share ideas others also tell you their ideas, and this gives you access to more ideas. That is, the ideas you share with others end up coming back to you in the form of access to more ideas.
Several years after graduating from college and after having ended my career as an attorney, I decided to go to business school. I enrolled in Stanford Business School and packed my bags and went up to the school. Prior to classes starting, they had an orientation where all of the new students spent the weekend together getting to know each other and also had the opportunity to meet all of the students who were getting ready to graduate from business school. I remember going to a cocktail party that was being held for the entering students to meet the exiting students. I was excited to see what the exiting students were doing. I was also assigned a “mentor” who was an exiting student I could call with any questions I had.
I spoke with my mentor and asked him what he was doing after graduation. I was very curious. He told me he was starting a business, but that the business was so confidential he could not even tell me what it was about. It was a strange experience standing there, and I wondered what the point was of going to school with someone who could not even tell me what he was doing. I spoke to several other people at the party and I remember another guy did the exact same thing with me. I felt it was very unusual to have no interest whatsoever in sharing what you were doing. It really left a bad taste in my mouth. “Is this what business is about?” I wondered.
In the book Love is the Killer App: How to Win Business and Influence Friends, author Tim Sanders writes:
Over an over I have discovered that the people in the bizworld who are most successful, and happiest, are the lovecats. These are the people who you always like the most, the ones who are passionate from 9 to 5, or 8 to 10, or whatever their hours. They are the ones who are most generous with their knowledge, their address book, and their compassion.
There are real benefits to sharing what you know. Ideas are open knowledge that anyone should have access to. There are never any benefits in not sharing most knowledge with the people around you. I have always believed in the power of sharing ideas and have found that the more I have done this the better our companies (and I) have done.
In closing, I want to share with you an email I sent to every member of our company this morning. It is about ideas and the importance of sharing. I send this email (in one form or another) each year as one of our companies, BCG Attorney Search, completes a book for every law firm in the United States:
Good Morning,
I am happy to enclose The 2009 BCG Attorney Search Guide to America’s Top 50 Law Schools(the “Guide”). Special thanks go to Lalita and her team. Indeed, they have spent the past year working on this important project that signifies what BCG Attorney Search and our other companies represent.
Each year since BCG Attorney Search’s inception we have written the Guide and sent it out to every law firm in the United States. I remember first working on the Guide when the company had less than 5 employees.
Providing the Guide to law firms each year and working on the Guide is more of a symbolic act than anything.
First, it is something that insures that our company always has very strong research skills and is “going deep” and knows how to work with voluminous amounts of information. This focus on research has enabled us to venture into numerous fields where these skills are valued that I never could have imagined–whether it is job sites or researching hiring contacts for Legal Authority.
Recruiters who know how to do good research and find information that others do not know about typically do the best here. Our sites which are best at researching information (LawCrossing) also do much better than newer job sites that are not as good. Our company has been benefited tremendously by the power of research and the more and better we have become at this the better we have done.
Second, working on the Guide each year forces us to pay attention to writing well and our editing skills. Writing is something that is incredibly valuable. Our recruiters are expected to write well. Our companies write hundreds of articles each week. We are always improving our writing-related skills—even in something as simple as how we list jobs. For example, last weekend we did a giant project to eliminate junk characters in our job listings.
The more we have written the better we have done. We owe a lot of our success to our ability to get search engine rankings which has a lot to do with how much we have written. Search engines and others look at us and say “these guys have a lot to talk about” and people come and they listen. We need to always be sharing what we know and writing and speaking. This is an important core value of BCG Attorney Search and it has made our recruiters strong.
Third, the Guide is about sharing information. Our company has always believed and continues to believe that it is best to share information rather than hold it close to the vest like so many other do. We want people to know what we know.
Sharing information brings people to us and allows people to see us as authorities in our field rather than dabblers. We want people to know what we know and we are not afraid to tell them that. If we feel someone cannot get a job through BCG Attorney Search because they do not have the pedigree, our recruiters are happy to share with them another way to get a job. This is not something many other recruiters will do. Our recruiters share information, however, because this is who we are.
Fourth, the Guide is about providing value without expecting something in return. At BCG Attorney Search we spend a great deal of money and time working on the Guide each year and provide it to law schools, law firms and others for free. We want them to benefit from interacting with us and we want to be seen as someone who is an asset and not someone just interested in short term rewards.
It is important to always be providing value. We want to provide value at every turn. I once read something written by Joe Vitale, a well known copyrighter. Vitale started a habit of giving away books to people. Pretty soon he realized that the more books he gave away the more books came back to him. He constantly was giving away books and he realized after doing this for some time that for every book he gave away he received far more books back than just one new book. His library just kept growing and getting bigger and bigger. And if he gave away a book about one idea someone would give him a book about a related idea that he knew nothing about.
The point he was trying to make was that the more you give away and the more you share the more comes back to you and the more you ultimately learn and know. This is an incredible concept but it is something that can really change your life and change our business. It is something that the Guide represents and, if anything, it is its greatest meaning.
A lot of who BCG Attorney Search is and what our companies represent is signified in the Guide. As we go into an incredible economic storm and watch companies and law firms around us that once seemed invincible collapse, I am confident that what is signified by in the Guide is something that will enable us to continue growing and provide for our future.
The more our companies have steered towards the values signified in the Guide the better they have done. The more we have strayed the worse we have done. I believe in these values and that is why I am so proud to present you with the Guide yet again this year. Providing you with the Guide forces me to think about our values each year and what really matters.
–Harrison
Einstein, Visualization and Your Career
What You Will Learn
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One of the most little known facts about Albert Einstein was that he attended a school that followed the teaching methods of the Swiss educator Johann Pestalozzi. Pestalozzi schools taught children in what was know as the Pestalozzi Method (the “Method”). Under the Method, instead of dealing with words, it was believed that children should learn through activity and things. They should be free to pursue their own interests and reach their own conclusions. Much of his teaching methods can be found in a book he published in 1801 called How Gertrude Teaches Her Children. In this book, he discusses the importance of spontaneity and allowing children to arrive at answers themselves. Visualization was a major component in this method. Pestalozi believed that visualization was among the mind’s most powerful features, and that imagery was where all knowledge started.
The school environment created by Pestalozzi’s method of eduction created the perfect environment for Einstein to develop as he did. According to a biography of Einstein, Einstein: His Life and Universe:
It was a perfect school [Aarau] for Einstein. The teaching was based on the philosophy of a Swiss educational reformer of the early nineteenth century, Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, who believed in encouraging students to visualize images….The visual understanding of concepts, as stressed by Pestalozzi and his followers in Aarau, became a significant aspect of Einstein’s genius. ‘Visual understanding is the essential and only true means of teaching how to judge things correctly,’ Pestalozzi wrote, and ‘the learning of numbers and language must be definitely subordinated.
Given his early learning, it is no surprise that Einstein used visualization throughout his entire life. It is well known that at the age of 16, Einstein use
Hypnotists, Worry and Living Your Life Today
What You Will Learn
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I took my wife to Las Vegas about a year ago and we decided to go see a hypnotist show. I had gone to see a hypnotist who had performed for the entire university when I was in law school and had really enjoyed it. The most amazing thing about the show I had seen in law school was when a large man I believe was a football player, had voiced a strong attraction to another man while under hypnosis. It was funny at the time. However, I cannot imagine that coming out in front of 3,000 people was what he had in mind when he was hypnotized. In retrospect, I guess this was probably not that funny. This show was fascinating to me, though, and really drove me to a further study and interest in the subconscious mind–something I had been studying on an off since the age of 16.
If you have not been to a hypnotist show, they are a lot of fun. At the beginning of the show the hypnotist typically stands up in front of the audience and tells some joke. Then he proceeds to bring several volunteers on stage and starts trying to hypnotize all of them. When my wife and I were in Las Vegas, we were the first to volunteer to be hypnotized. This was something that we were very interested in doing–especially in front of several hundred people. After around 5 minutes the hypnotist started tapping various people and asking them to leave the stage if he believed they would not be hypnotized. I was one of these people and was sent down off the stage.
“You’re not even trying,” I remember the hypnotist said to a guy sitting next to me who was also sent down off the stage.
My wife was not sent off the stage. Instead, she seemed to be in full blown hypnosis. I sat down and grabbed a Diet Coke and started enjoyed the entire show. I was very into the show and watching people make fun of themselves, until they sent my wife into the audience with a group of about 20 other people who were hypnotized. The hypnotist had led her to believe she was a gorilla, so he was jumping up and down in the aisle. This was too much for me. I grabbed her and started shaking her as she was going down the aisle on all fours.
“Wake the hell up! You are hypnotized!” There was so much going on that very few people saw this because they were busy laughing at the other people in the audience. I do not know what I was afraid of, but the last thing I wanted to happen to her was something similar to what happened to that football player in law school. It was a good thing that I stopped this. She did wake up and the hypnotist made her sit down. Right after that he had all of the people under hypnosis start telling the audience about their various sexual fantasies. It was very funny–I am just glad my wife was not there for that. I probably would have rushed on stage, punched the hypnotist, and gotten arrested.
I was so fascinated by this hypnosis demonstration that when I got home from Las Vegas I read another book or two about hypnosis, and then decided to find a local hypnotist who would hypnotize me. I found one right across the street! For a couple of months, for about an hour ever Tuesday, the woman would hypnotize me. This is not typically the sort of stuff I do, however, at the time I was under a lot of stress and had been doing a lot of reading about the subconscious mind. I have actually been studying the subconscious mind on and off since the age of 16, and when I learned there was a well known hypnotist right across the street I decided to stop by and give her a try. I had never been to a hypnotist so I was very interested in what I would experience.
It was an enjoyable experience. I would go into her “office” (which was a spare bedroom) and sit down on a lawn chair, put a blanket over me and she would start talking. In the background she would always have on “spa type music” that would make me quite sleepy. Within about 10 minutes of her starting, I would fall asleep and I would then wake up around an hour later. I do not remember much of what went on with the hypnotist because I was hypnotized. But one of the more interesting experiences was when she would make me be a caterpillar and I would be lazily climbing through the trees and so forth. This was a lot of fun until I fell asleep. Each session would last an hour. I decided that going to sleep during the middle of the day for an hour was not really productive for me and stopped seeing this hypnotist after a few months. However, more so than the hypnotism, the most beneficial thing that this hypnotist ever taught me was when I started talking to her about her profession and what she did. She told me that almost all of the people who use her are doing so because of worries that they have. They are worried about things like:
- Quitting smoking
- Losing weight
- Performing well in athletics in the future
- Overcoming various anxieties
The idea she was making clear to me was that most people out there are worried about things, and her role was really to help them stop worrying. If they are quitting smoking, they are worried about how they will deal with tension or social situations if they do not have cigarettes. If they are losing weight, they are worried about being hungry if they are not eating the things they like, or not being able to use food to deal with tension. Regardless of the reasons for the person going to see the hypnotist, the real reason almost all of them went was due to worry about something that they were unsure about how to deal with.
More so than the actual hypnosis, what interested me most about seeing the hypnotist was speaking with her about her profession. She was from Eastern Europe and I assumed had originally learned hypnosis there. I would question her about her profession, what she knew about hypnosis, and what her beliefs were about the discipline and people. She then told me a long story that I no longer remember, but which she seemed to feel very strongly about. The conclusion of the story was very simple, however, and the story ended with these words:
All things will pass, so it does us no good to worry now.
The hypnotist spoke about these words with a considerable amount of passion and believed that understanding these was the key to happiness in life. In fact, the hypnotist seemed to believe that this was all we need to know and understand about anything in order to experience true happiness.
A few months later I was speaking with a well-known author who had just taken a class called The Sedona Method. He could not stop talking about how this had changed his life and was incredibly enthusiastic about this. He sent me a bunch of information and free tapes about it. I was amazed that essentially all the Sedona Method involves is a process of asking yourself a few questions about when you are going to “let go” of various things you are worried about. All you do in the Sedona Method is identify an issue you are worried about, and ask yourself the following questions:
- Could I let it go?
- Would I let it go?
- When?
That is about all there is to it. This was all this guy could talk about and he was incredibly enthusiastic about how much this had permanently changed his life. All he had done was identified a way to let go of worry. The Sedona Method is a big business and teaches thousands of people each year how to use these questions. I was amazed that something so simple could be so popular. It was like what the hypnotist taught me: the biggest problem facing most people is simply worry.
I am sure you have all been around people who worry a lot–you may even be one of them. I have been in business meetings before, or interviewing people, when all of a sudden I look down at their hands and I can see that their nails are bitten to the fingers. I have interviewed people before (more than once) who have shown up to job interviews in the middle of the day drunk and smelling like liquor. What are these people so worried about? There are also certain people who will look at any situation and decide that something awful is going to happen in the future. I have met people who believe the world is going to end in less than a year and they are worried about it.
When I meet the person who has bitten their nails down the their ends, I have a lot of compassion for them. A worrier like this is someone who is likely very concerned about how their actions affect others. They are probably also a good person, and will have thought through their actions before they do something. The person who shows up drunk to an interview is also someone who wants to do well. They are overwhelmed by stress, and worried that in their natural stressful state they may not perform well in the interview. Both people are worriers. Being a worrier does not mean you are a bad person. In my opinion, being a worrier does not even mean you will be a bad employee. What is most wrong with being a worrier, however, is that it is not good for you.
- If you are worried about finding a job, you need to stop being worried.
- If you are worried about losing your job, you need to stop being worried.
- If you are worried about the economy, you need to stop being worried.
- If you are worried about how you will look to others if you do this or that, you need to stop being worried.
- If you are worried about something wrong you did in the past, you need to stop being worried.
- If you worried about how you will be accepted by others, you need to stop being worried.
- If you are worried about what is going to happen in your job next month, you need to stop being worried.
When you meet people who are constantly worrying, you can usually see the signs very easily. Some of the signs of worry are things like:
- Insomnia. People who worry a lot will tell you they are having problems sleeping, and it is often because their minds are worried about this or that.
- Incapacitation. Many people who are worried just shut down because the stress of life is just too much for them. These people can become extremely depressed.
- Irritation. People who worry a lot may become very bothered by people around them and situations around them.
- Irresponsibility. Some worriers become irresponsible to escape the stresses they are facing. They leave jobs and relationships, and may develop different types of addictions.
- Illness. Many people who worry incessantly will simply get sick. Bodies cannot constantly deal with stress and many people who worry constantly will start developing all sorts of illnesses.
You may have your own signs and symptoms of worry. People worry and the signs emerge in different ways for numerous people. What ways are you worrying? Virtually every single person I know is worried about something. If you go out at lunch hour in any American city and listen to two friends sitting together at a table while having lunch, you will generally hear them talk about something they are worried about. They may be worried about their jobs. They may be worried about their health. They may be worried about one of their children. Regardless of what they are talking about, a substantial portion of most conversations will be punctuated by some sort of worry. We all worry.
Worry and anxiety can be extremely disabling for many people and serious, medical-level worry, is something that really affects a lot of people. According to an article I recently reviewed in Psychology Today:
For millions of people, worry disrupts everyday life, restricting it to some degree, or even overshadowing it entirely. An estimated 15 percent of Americans suffer from one or another of the anxiety disorders. These include generalized anxiety, specific phobias, obsessive-compulsive disorder and flat-out panic attacks. As a group, anxiety disorders constitute the most common disorder in the country.
The fact that almost 15 percent of people are suffering from worry to the extent it has become a medical condition is an alarming statistic. This statistic does not even take into account the vast number of people who are suffering from worry to the extent it is not a disorder. We are all worried to some extent. Worry is just not something that really does us much good.
Worry is a huge trap that many people fall into. Worry often affects many of the people who are the most motivated and want to be the best in whatever they are seeking to do. People fall into the mistaken belief that worrying is something that will motivate them to do very well. However, this is simply not the case. Instead, people who are worried all the time are constantly looking towards the past and various alternatives. What ends up happening is they become distracted and not focused on the task at hand, and are lured in the trap of thinking without doing. Worry is confusion and makes it difficult to get anything whatsoever done.
One of the most interesting things you will see when you meet very successful people is that they have an incredible ability to control worry. I have seen this with the most successful Wall Street executives and leaders in virtually every field I have studied. They look at what is in front of them in the here and now, and are not as concerned about what might happen tomorrow as they are doing the best they can today. None of this is to say that the secret of success is not worrying about tomorrow–it is not. You need to prepare for tomorrow, but cannot worry about it all the of the time. Your efforts are better put into doing the best you can with what lies before you today, and this will lead you into a better tomorrow.
Most of the time, worry is not something that does us any good . It paralyzes us and makes our current moments of life much less enjoyable than they could be without worry. In addition to worry, most of us are focused on some sort of different life in the future instead of focusing on what is in front of us today. We should enjoy each day instead of worrying about tomorrow. When we are young we say “when I am older”. When we are in college we say “when I am out of college.” When we are single we say “when I am married.” When we are working we say “when I am retired.” Soon all you have to look forward to is death.
Tomorrow will always come, but there is no use waiting to live and enjoy life until some distant point in the future. You need to live your life today. Instead of worrying about life in the future, worry about life now.
You Will Succeed in Your Job and Job Search When You Are Concerned With Giving and Not Taking
What You Will Learn
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The quality of our lives, in many respects, is determined by our working lives. Being able to enjoy our jobs and being able to get jobs is something that is incredibly important. A job is not just about earning a living; it is about forming a relationship with an institution, or group of people, and being supported by that organization. For example, the organization may provide you with a good outlet for your skills and give you work you enjoy. In your work environment you will also have the opportunity to come into contact with, and interact with, the public. In most respects, if we do not enjoy our jobs, we do not enjoy life. Therefore, we must ensure that we have great skills to both get and keep jobs.
Getting a job and working for an employer is, in many respects, no different than being in a relationship with another human being. There are people who go into relationships with other people from a perspective of wanting to take from others rather than give. I use this example because I am sure you have met people (we all have) that have been more interested in what they could take from you in a relationship rather than what they could give. Perhaps they wanted a place to stay indefinitely, and you did not even know them very well. Perhaps they wanted you to listen to them talk incessantly and never listened to you. Everyone has known people like this who, for one reason or another, seem more interested in what they can take from us, rather than what they can give.
In our personal relationships we have a very simple solution to this: We avoid these people for the most part and do not want anything to do with them. We do not like people who are focused only on taking from us. We learn this from a very young age and by the time we are even six or seven; we are avoiding people whose objective seems more to take from us than to give. This is just how things work. There are people out there who want relationships with us that are one-way streets, where they perceive us as a solution to their problems. Most of us to do not want to be the solutions to other peoples’ problems or to be in a relationship that is a one-way street like this. We want our needs taken care of as well.
One of the most important components of relationships, and one of the most important things with relationships, is that we need to go into them with the intent of giving something–not necessarily taking something out. What you put out does tend to come back to you. In a relationship where two people are going into the relationship to give, both parties are likely to be benefited. One of the most important components in any relationship is understanding what the other person needs. If both parties understand what the other needs, then both are likely to be very happy in the relationship.
Several years ago, I was staying with a young couple who were in their early 30s. Every morning, she would get up early and make her husband a large breakfast and then wait on him while he ate. She would refill his juice, ask him if there was enough salt on his eggs, tell him she could make some more sausage if he needed it. She would not even eat herself until he was long gone to work. He liked being taken care of like this and she would also make him his lunch to take to work. I spoke to him about this and he told me that this is what his mother used to do for him and it made him feel very loved.
Throughout the day he would pick up the phone, what seemed like almost every hour, and ask her what she was doing and how her day was going. She would relate what had happened over the past hour and seek his input on various decisions she wanted to make about one thing or another. She loved having a sounding board for various things she was doing. If she spoke to a friend on the phone she would ask him what he thought about the conversation. If she was deciding between two different priced goods at the grocery store, she might call him and seek his input. She loved getting the input and not having to make certain decisions, and this made him feel important. While I thought all of this was very unusual, the point is that it worked. Both of these individuals had certain emotional needs that were being taken care of extremely well in the relationship. More importantly, it seemed to me that both of them were really in the relationship to give and this made everything work extremely well.
Some people just need certain things. This guy needed a wife that would wait on him and cook for him. She needed a husband who would speak to her every hour. That was just how it was. Everyone has certain buttons that when pushed, fulfill their needs and things that they need out of relationships. Finding these buttons can be difficult but when they are found everything generally falls into place. For many relationships, these buttons are never found. When these buttons are found, however, an incredible amount of trust, happiness and respect can be established between both parties. The buttons are needs that two people have in a relationship.
A relationship with an employer has a lot of similarities to a relationship with another human being. Just as people have certain needs that need to be taken care of, so do employers. Moreover, just as it is advisable to go into a relationship with another human being as something where you are trying to give, you should also go into work relationships with the idea of giving. You need to be more focused on the other person’s interest than your own in order to really experience the level of satisfaction you want out of a work relationship. What you put out comes back to you.
One of the most interesting questions I have when I am asking someone who is unemployed when they can start work is, “We really need someone to start right away. When can you start?”
I have seen that this is a very powerful question over the years, because it tends to really flush out people who are really interested in working from those who are not interested in working. It also immediately shows how important it is for various people to contribute versus those who are seeking a one-sided relationship. There are probably other ways of figuring this out but I believe this is a pretty good one. The answer to this question really shows a lot about how someone is going to be like once they are hired.
Here are some possible responses to this questions:
- “Would it be okay if I checked back with you on that?”
- “I have a trip planned and I would like to take the trip, and then after that I have been hoping to organize some things around the house. I can definitely start within four to five weeks.”
- “I am in the middle of restoring an old car but I can put a lot of the parts away and start by the middle of next week.”
- “I can start on Monday.”
- “I can start tomorrow.”
- “I can start today.”
- “I can start right now.”
- “I can start right now and if you need me to I will work all night. It looks like you have a lot to do.”
The more someone seems eager to start now and begin work immediately, the more likely I am to want to hire this person. This is not some rule I have simply pulled out of thin air or read in a management book. Instead, I have learned that the answer someone gives to this question is likely to really determine their commitment to their job and work going forward. It is a pattern I have seen over and over again , and in the course of having hired hundreds of people and placed hundreds of people in jobs—I know the more eager someone is to do something and start work, the more committed they are likely to be to the job once they start. Hearing that an employer needs help immediately and wanting to help and contribute now is an important characteristic.
There is a psychology out there that certain employees and people in the workplace have that is focused on providing results to others. It is an idea in business, as well, of giving something of value before you expect something in return. It is also a psychology of responding to someone else’s needs before you worry about your won.
The more people are hesitating before starting work, the more likely they are to hesitate when they get into the job as well. In the answer to this question, there is also a push and pull between someones dedication to their job and other things. Obviously, most employers want people who are dedicated to what they do and not the other way around. Most employers are seeking and looking for people who will go forward and get one job or another done. When you are applying for jobs and interviewing, you need to put yourself in the shoes of the employer and not the other way around:
- Put your employer, or potential employer’s needs, first and not your own.
- Try and be selfless and focused on your employer’s needs.
- Find out what your employer (or potential employer’s) needs are, and tailor your approach to them.
By putting your employer or potential employer first you will be able to get jobs and hold on to them in almost all economic climates. Not always, but more often than not.
The psychology of putting the needs of your employer first and understanding their needs may seem overly simplistic and obvious. While it may seem obvious and simplistic, the truth of the matter is that not being able to do this is the reason most people fail to get jobs and others lose jobs. CEOs of major corporations lose jobs when it becomes clear they care more about their bonus than the company. People lose jobs when we learn they are off doing something personal instead of attending to a corporate crisis. Clock watchers are fired and laid off when the economy gets slow because people know these people are more concerned about what they can take (money) than what they can give (time and extra work). People who are applying for jobs who are hungry and appear eager to work are most often hired. People who are taciturn and do not seem eager to work hard are not hired as often. People whose loyalty is to other employees, and not the company in general, more often lose their jobs and are not promoted over those who are not.
We respect loyalty to institutions. It is bred into us. Soldiers have gone off to fight and risked their lives for thousands of years out of loyalty to their institutions. Loyalty and contribution to an “institution” rather than any specific individual, for example, is almost universally respected. When you work for a company or any other sort of institution you need to look at your relationship and determine what you can give to the institution. The more you can give and the more you can contribute, the more the organization will ultimately fulfill your needs as well.
Winning in Your Job Search and Life Means Going Forward No Matter What Criticism You Think You May Receive
What You Will Learn
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Every day when I sit down to work in the morning and turn on my computer, I generally receive several emails and comments about the companies I am running and also, for what it is worth, me personally.
- Some people will write me an email telling me I am the stupidest person they have ever encountered.
- Other people will say something very positive and will tell me how something I have done has benefited them and thank me for this.
- Some people will write me an email telling me they hate a company I am running.
- Some people will write and enclose pictures of their family and tell me I have changed their lives through something one of my company’s has done.
- Some people will post a comment on one of our websites saying they love a company I am running.
- Some people will write me psychotic emails that insult me and my family.
- Other people will write emails telling me that the advice I have given them helped their family.
In addition to stuff that appears simply on my desk, out in the world the same thing is occurring. There are people who are going onto forums and talking about how much they love me and my companies and those who are going onto forums and doing the opposite.
You absolutely cannot please everyone.
Most of us are hungry for praise but detest and fear criticism. If you attempt to go out in the world and do anything that is productive; however, then you are going to be hated and you are going to be criticized. In many respects, I feel that the biggest achievers in our world are the people who are not afraid to act and are not afraid of criticism. Acting and going forward in the face of “criticism” and despite the “fear of criticism” is something that really separates the winners and the losers of the world, in my opinion. You need to act and do things you know are right for you, your family and the world regardless of whether or not you believe that you may be criticized.
The only people who are criticized more often are the people who are actually doing things in the world. If you are never being criticized you are never being noticed, and the price for not being noticed is most often much greater than the price for being noticed.
One of the most interesting things in the world is reading about politicians in the newspaper each day. Since I have been reading the newspaper each day for the past few decades, I have noticed that there are numerous patterns with politicians and others who come into elected office. For every group of people that admire a politician, there are always a group of people who hate the politician. The haters write this and that about the politician and hurl one insult after another at them. I can remember several years ago when George Bush, Jr. was first elected to the Presidency. I was working in an office tower in Los Angeles one Sunday afternoon, and I opened my window and there was a giant protest of thousands of people going on beneath me in Pershing Square. People were shouting over loud speakers that he was a “Nazi Executioner,” a “Failure at Business,” a “Racist Hick” a “Coke Head,” an “Alcoholic,” and all sorts of other terrible things that I no longer remember.
How would you feel if thousands of people were shouting things like that about you? It would not make me all that happy. Imagine thousands of people doing this? I cannot imagine it is something you would be all that happy about. This is what winners do, though.
Winners proceed in the face of criticism. Winners do not care if they are going to be criticized and, if they are, they go forward anyway. Winners know they cannot please everyone.
When you try and please everyone you are going to fail. If a company tries to run a business that pleases everyone, they fail. In order to experience the success you are entitled to in life, it is important for you to choose sides and just do what you think is best. You are going to upset some people and may get criticized but who cares? You cannot please everyone. Action is better than inaction. You need to take action and take sides to go somewhere.
Does it feel bad to be criticized? Yes, if you let it.
Will you be criticized if you take sides on this or that. Maybe, but you cannot worry about that.
What I have found in my experience of working with thousands of people looking for jobs is that most people are frozen with a fear of “how it will look” and “what others will think” if they do something a certain way. More careers and lives have been destroyed by this attitude than I can count. The fear people have of criticism holds them back and prevents them from living up to their full potential. It is probably affecting you too. It affects most people. Those it does not affect the most are the people whose lives you are watching on television and reading about in the papers. They are living lives that are different from most because they know something the rest of us do not.
Several years ago I was working with an extremely talented partner in a major American law firm. This partner had been working at the same law firm for about his entire career and he did not really know how to look for a job. This person had a career that had been characterized by a lot of success and as far as I knew no failure. The attorney was extremely dedicated and knew what he was doing in the realm of practicing the branch of law he did. He had a reputation that was considered stellar in all respects among other attorneys and people who he worked with with.
I had seen articles about him in the legal newspapers and he worked with many very famous clients and celebrities and knew them personally. His wife was also a very important socialite around Los Angeles. I had seen her in the papers as well. After I started working with him, I started recognizing her in pictures in the society section of the Los Angeles Times for this and that. (While it was my job to introduce him to law firms, I remember thinking “I wonder whom he can introduce me to”.)
What was missing, of course, was the fact that this particular attorney needed to find a job. It is one thing to be very powerful and know a lot of very famous people, and it is another to need a job. When you need a job, the entire world may feel like it has kind of clammed up to many people. This is not a fun thing, and it is brutal. It is one thing to be friends with someone, and it is another thing to go to them and ask them about a job.
In the case of this important attorney, for the past 25+ years he had been brutally fighting with opposing lawyers and law firms all around Los Angeles and had been someone to be feared. That was his job, and he was good at it. Then to go to those same law firms and ask for a job I can imagine made him feel as if he was suddenly telegraphing a sort of weakness he never had. This is something I can imagine was going through his mind. I do not know; however, I expect it was.
In January of 2000, I quit a job I had with a law firm. While I had originally given two weeks notice, the law firm told me that I should stay on for the next 12 weeks and at least line up another job if I was unhappy. I had planned on opening up my own legal practice; however, the law firm encouraged me to speak with recruiters and others to see if I might be happy working in another law firm. They explained to me that it would be very difficult for me to find a job with another large law firm if I left a large law firm without another large law firm job. Based on this advice, I started calling recruiters and also friends of mine in other law firms looking for jobs.
I remember how embarrassing it was calling friends in other law firms and explaining to them that I was looking for a job. I explained that I had quit my job and the people I spoke with did not seem to believe me. I think they thought I was fired. After calling a few friends and going through these motions, I decided that I did not want to deal with it anymore. One of the strangest experiences I had was having a meeting with a Russian man whom I believe was running a Ponzi Scheme and wanted me to work for free for him putting together various investment documents in what ostensibly were oil wells he controlled in Russia. He said I would then get paid out of investments he and I solicited from wealthy people in Los Angeles. It is not fun looking for a job, and I did not enjoy this “job interview” in particular. Relying on friends to some extent to assist me in looking for a job was embarrassing and it allowed all sorts of rumors and stuff to start that were simply not warranted–or true. At some point I decided I did not want to rely on friends to help me look for a job.
There are good people out there who can help you get jobs, and using friends is a great way to look for a job in some circumstances. However, the real mistake that I made at this time was even caring what people thought about the fact that I was looking for a job. This is the same mistake that the partner I was working for was making. He was too concerned what people in the community and other lawyers would say if they found out he was looking for a job. He feared the criticism that might come from this information getting out there.
If you are a very highly paid attorney, it is not always the easiest thing to do to find a highly paid job. All of the skills that make you a highly paid attorney do not always translate into getting a job. A highly paid attorney is often feared and some make more enemies than friends. Not all law firms can afford to pay a highly paid attorney.
After he lost his job, the firm was kind enough to give him around four months to find a new job before he had to leave the firm. During those four months, I spoke with him every few days. We met for lunch a few times and went over various scenarios. However, in all of our meetings this attorney was somewhat detached. I could imagine that the people who worked for him must have feared him a great deal. He was imposing and someone I could tell was extremely talented intellectually. However, when it came to what he was doing in terms of looking for a job, I could tell that he was absolutely terrified of what other people would say. He did not know how to look for a job, and I would tell him what he needed to do and he would sort of sit there looking at me not absorbing what I was saying.
If I suggested one law firm for him to apply to, he would tell me it was not as prestigious as the one he was currently working at. He was concerned about what people would say if he went to work in a less prestigious firm.
For some reason, he was also embarrassed to be looking for a job. He was worried what people would say if they found out he was looking for a job, as well. We met in out-of-the-way places that he had investigated in advance where the only people who would be able to see us in the restaurant would be the waiters. I think he was embarrassed to be seen with a legal recruiter. He also wanted to ensure that no one would overhear anything that was being said. I certainly always take those precautions as well; however, in this instance the attorney seemed overly paranoid.
The problem with meeting with this attorney and discussing his job search was that he never took any action. Two months into his search for a new job he had not even applied to a single law firm yet. I was unclear if anyone even knew he had lost his job–including his own family.
“If you are going to get another job, then you are going to need to apply some places,” I eventually told him with a considerable amount of exasperation over lunch one day. “You cannot get a job unless you apply somewhere.”
Eventually I was able to arrange two meetings with him at law firms. They were unusual meetings that occurred in dark restaurants if I recall around 8:00 p.m. in the evening. Only after he realized that the law firm would almost certainly hire him after a few hours of dinner and drinks did he agree to meet with the law firm in their offices during the day. Before he met with each law firm, he made sure that he knew exactly whom he was meeting with and that he did not know any of these people. He ended up receiving job offers by both law firms, but he also ended up making about 50% of the salary he had made at his former firm. If he had not been so afraid of what others would say and so afraid of criticism, then he probably could have doubled his salary and gotten 10+ offers at really good firms. He was afraid to put himself out there, however, and terrified of potential criticism.
The reason this story is so interesting to me is because this was one of the more important attorneys in America, and he was terrified of criticism and people saying bad things about him in terms of the way he looked for a job. He was a tiger and feared in court, and some of the most famous and powerful figures in the world would seek him out for representation, but when it came to his own life and career, he was terrified. The difference between not caring what people think in terms of how you look for a job and caring what people thing is something that will give you massively different results:
- I have seen attorneys who led the offices of major law firms be unemployed for years because the way they looked for a job was controlled primarily by their fear of criticism.
- I have seen numerous attorneys leave the practice of law after very good careers because they were afraid of being criticized in the way they look for a job.
- I have witnessed people who went to the best law schools in the United States graduate from these schools and never be able to find a job as attorneys because they did not know how to look for a job and were afraid of criticism.
I see this sort of thing all the time, and I see it because of the job that I do. My job is to find people jobs, and it is something I take seriously. Every day, when I turn on my computer, I also receive emails from people looking for jobs that have somehow found my personal email address and want me to find them jobs. When I check my voicemail each day, there are messages from people who have tracked me down (despite the fact I have not been a recruiter in years) and want me to find them jobs. Although I am no longer actively a legal recruiter, for years I spoke with all of these people, and I believe that I have enabled myself to really get a good understanding of what it takes for anyone to get a job. I understand this not because I am smarter than anyone else or have any special knowledge or powers: I see this only because I have seen what works and what does not work.
I believe that finding a job is among the most important moments in our lives and careers. When everything is going very well, we can go about doing our jobs and be happy. When we lose our job, a new set of skills come into the realm. The skill of finding a job is dependent upon not caring what other people are saying or will say. You need to do whatever you can within your power to find a job, and the more you do and the less you fear criticism, the better job you will get and the more jobs you will get. You need to lead and not follow.
There are few benefits from doing things the way everyone else is doing and caring what everyone else thinks all the time. One of the more interesting experiences I have is when I drive down the street–any street–anywhere in the United States. Here, you will see countless locally owned businesses that are small and have been sitting in the same location for years, if not decades. It may be a hot dog stand, a local carpet store, or something else. There was a ski store that did this on the corner of the street I grew up on. Across the street from this ski store, there was a small hardware store that did this. And a short distance away from this, there was a small bike store and pet store. A few years ago, I was back in my hometown and went into each of these stores after not having stepped foot in them for over 15 years. What I noticed is that all of the people who owned these small businesses were still working hard and had aged considerably, but nothing else had changed.
These businesses are metaphors in my mind for the lives many of us lead. We work, follow the rules, do our best and nothing ever happens. We stay exactly where we always have been. The reason this occurs is very few people are afraid to step out and take a stand and do things in a way that will subject them to potential criticism. Most people are “in hiding” and not really subjecting themselves to everything they are capable of. It is like the partner of a major American law firm meeting for dinner and drinks in a dark restaurant with people who might hire him. He was in hiding. Most of us are in hiding.
If you are doing anything worthwhile and that is likely to really set you apart to lead, then it has to be worth criticizing. Most businesses and people are boring, and that is why nothing ever happens to them. People who follow the rules and spend their time wondering what others will think rarely achieve very much. The same thing goes for companies.
Most people are terrified of criticism. I hate getting criticized, but try as I might, it comes every day.
- “That is the stupidest blog posting I have ever read.”
- “People are saying bad things about you.”
- “I have spoken with others, as well, and we all agree that we do not like you.”
- “You an an idiot for saying that.”
- “I feel sorry for your children.”
But here is the thing: Despite the criticism, I keep going. I push harder and I do more of what I am doing. I also get more praise than I do criticism, and the praise keeps coming every day. The more I do what I believe is the best thing, the more praise I receive and also the more criticism.
Most people choose not to be everything they are capable of because they fear criticism. They fail to apply to jobs they could do. They fail to call friends who could help them with their job search. They fail to run their businesses in a way that makes people take notice. They fail to dress they way they want to. They fail to marry people who they like and are attracted to. They fail to drive the sort of car they want to drive. They fail to live where they want to live. They fail to do the sorts of things they want to do in their spare time. They fail, and they fail, and they fail to do what they should be doing to live the lives they really want to live. People limit themselves and their lives because they are more concerned about what other people think than what they think, believe and want to do.
Most often just the fear of being criticized is enough to paralyze people. For most people, the criticism does not even need to happen for people to be deterred from doing something. People will just not do something or be everything they are capable of doing and being due to their fears about what others will say. I admit that when people say bad things about me, it is upsetting. But this does not make me upset for very long. The reason is because I know that people are noticing something that I am doing. Lots of people like what I am doing and a few do not. By and large, however, most people in this world are ignored. I would rather be noticed when I am trying to do something positive for the world than to be ignored.
You need to be noticed in order to get a job. You need to be noticed in order to succeed in a job. If your heart and intentions and pure, then you should not fear what others think. If you are criticized, so what? When I am criticized for something I write, or a business I am running, I realize that if I had done something ordinary that did not stimulate people to think, there would be no criticism. No one would care. The things we talk about are the ones that are worth talking about.
As you contemplate your life, you need to ask yourself if taking action is worth being criticized. If the side effect of being criticized is that you will lose a job or an important relationship, then maybe the answer is you should not do whatever you are contemplating. However, if the worst that can happen is you will feel bad about the criticism that may or may not come, then you have to compare that feeling with the incredible benefits you may derive from taking an action that could change your career and life. The rewards for being the best you can be, getting the best possible job and succeeding are huge. A slight or criticism is something that you will soon forget about. The rewards for conquering your fear of criticism are huge, and the penalty for fearing criticism is huge as well. If you fear criticism and run your life around this, you will have an unremarkable career and life and will never be able to be everything you want to be. How can you run your career, life and job search in a way which others will criticize?
The winners in this world are the ones who are acting despite what others may say, or are saying. The losers are the ones who are paralyzed with fear and afraid to take action because of what others may say.
Athens, Sparta, America and Your Job Search
What You Will Learn
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One of the greatest conflicts in the ancient world was between Athens and Sparta. In fact, the history of ancient Greece was dominated by the conflict between these two different cultures. Both cultures ended up leaving an important legacy to the world.
- On the one hand, the culture of Athens left a legacy of art, drama, architecture, philosophy, the enjoyment of wealth and opulence, the idea of a governmental democracy and a strong navy.
- On the other hand, the government of Sparta left a legacy of asceticism, military supremacy on land and oligarchy (rule by a few).
These two societies fought repeatedly between the years of 500 BC and 350 BC. Their clash was a fight between two civilizations in the fullest sense. Each believed that their society and their way of doing things was the correct way. They fought in different ways and they ran their societies in different ways. Most of what we know about the Spartans comes from the writings of the Athenians, because the Athenians were the ones who spent their time writing and thinking. And since the Athenians did not like the Spartans, the writing is somewhat biased. I believe, and have always believed, that being a successful job seeker requires you to be more of a Spartan than an Athenian. In fact, I would propose to you today that a great deal of what is wrong with our current economy is due to many of us approaching our careers and our jobs more like an Athenian would than a Spartan would.
I have been witnessing what appears to be a decline in a solid work ethic, job finding skills and the ability to do good work in the United States since I have been a young child. It seems to me that this decline is just getting worse and worse. Most people use all their sick days each year, even if they are not sick. Many people who are not working spend years unemployed and refuse to take a job unless it pays as much as their last one. In the automobile industry, unions have contributed to a slow death among American automobile companies by demanding more and more benefits and less and less work. Our government is bailing out companies and banks when they cannot make a profit. Our leaders are intellectuals with no experience running armies or groups.
Worst of all, there is something developing in this country where we reward people for making mistakes. For example, between 2000 and 2005 hundreds of thousands of Americans made an incredible amount of money buying and selling houses. Now that the economy has started to slow down and they are no longer making money, we are stepping in to fix all of this. It is like a child running back to their parent for help. Our health care costs are incredibly high compared to other cultures. The people of our country are very unhealthy and do not watch their diets. Our highest paid workers in the law and other disciplines form communities online where they spend more time complaining about what they are making than appreciating what they have.
Our jobs in this country have begun migrating to places where people can do them more cheaply and are hungrier for work. With manufacturing, it happened already with jobs migrating to China. In the information technology sector our jobs are going to places like India. Our country is getting fat, lazy and developing a massive sense of entitlement. We are turning into intellectuals, as opposed to soldiers. Our children spend time playing video games and not learning. Our national test scores are going down on an almost annual basis. We are innovators in many sectors, but something is changing. We have a sense of entitlement about what we deserve and yet we are not delivering. Much of the success we have experienced in the recent past has been the result of financial chicanery and financial manipulation. The cultural icons of our youth are other kids who have never worked. Some of our most popular shows at this point in time are of people who are not even required to memorize lines. Instead, a camera follows around young adults on shows such as The Hills, as they go on dates and socialize. Our country spends more than it saves. Our government has a deficit and most households do as well.
There is something going on in this country that is more “Athens” than it is “Sparta,” and it is dragging us down. I know there is not a lot you can do about what is going on–and I know you may not agree with me as well. However, what you can do personally is be more “Sparta” than “Athens,” and being more “Sparta” than “Athens” is something that can help you reap incredible rewards in your career. As I will discuss below, being more “Sparta” than “Athens” will enable you to: (1) get a job more quickly, (2) be more effective in your existing job and (3) survive in all economic conditions.
In ancient Greece, Sparta had the most feared military force there was. The Spartan soldier was, and still is, legendary. A Spartan soldier’s training began at birth and the Spartan soldiers never lost a battle in the conflicts that waged between the small city-states of ancient Greece. When a baby was very young, it was tested for weakness and deformity. Babies were bathed in wine shortly after being born by their mother. The babies that survived the bathing were brought by their fathers before a governing body of Sparta (a council of elders known as the Geousia). Babies that seemed as if they would be unlikely to become strong soldiers, or who were considered “puny”, were thrown in a gorge to die. (If a baby made it past this stage and died in another manner later on, they were not even allowed a headstone. The only Spartans who were allowed headstones were those of Soldiers who died in battle where Sparta was victorious, and women who died in childbirth or a divine office.)
For those who were allowed to live, the training of the Spartan solider was nonstop and savage. Spartan boys began formal military training at the age of seven in what was called the Agoge system. The boys lived communally, and were given grueling physical training and learned to work with weapons at a young age. Men could not not live with their families until they left active military service at the age of the thirty (Spartan men remained in the reserves until the age of sixty). Plutarch, a Greek historian and essayist, wrote that for many Spartan soldiers going to battle was a welcome relief from the grueling training: “For the Spartans, actual war was a holiday compared to their tough training.”
What is so significant to me about this early aspect of Spartan training, is the incredible focus that the young were forced to develop at a young age. Their lives were all about their jobs and they were toughened and taught to be “warriors”. Instead of being coddled by schools, they were toughened by schools. They were pushed both physically and mentally in these schools. The emphasis in the schools was not on being academic. For example, while Spartan boys studied reading, music and and writing, the boys were punished if they failed to answer questions laconically (i.e., briefly). The idea for Spartans was that they were to be warriors who were educated but did not sit around debating the nature of good and evil, for example. The idea of intellectualism and debate was not something that was part of Spartan society. A Spartan was trained as a soldier whose job it was to get something done.
While I am not sure I personally would be at all comfortable with the Spartan educational system, what makes it so interesting to me is that it emphasized utility and action over the converse. The idea that was being taught was that focus is what is important. By being focused, you are much more likely to reach your point then by talking around the truth. The Spartans’ educational system was geared towards this focus. In modern society, our academics will traditionally sit around debating this or that. Our best students are often those skilled in the art of giving long-winded answers. Lawyers spend a great deal of time debating this or that, and this makes up a giant portion of what goes on in our culture. Students in school are coddled and given the sorts of learning environments that “nurture” them. While I am not going to debate this in great detail, I would go so far as to argue that the nurturing of our modern educational systems gives people in the United States a certain sense of entitlement about what society owes them, instead of what they owe society. This coddling ends up instilling a sense of entitlement that may go on in peoples’ lives forever, and continually put them in the role of being takers rather that doers. This is not something that would have happened in Sparta.
In Sparta, failure was also something that was not allowed. According to Thucydides, when Spartan men were going off to war their mothers, wives, or a woman of significance in their lives would present them with their shield and the statement “With this, or upon this.” This meant that the solider could only return to Sparta having won the battle, with their shield in hand (“with this”) or dead (“upon this”). Spartans who returned to Sparta without their shield were presumed to have thrown it at their enemies and then fled–something that was punishable by death or banishment from Sparta. The entire Spartan culture was one that enforced incredible discipline upon its soldiers. For example, one Spartan legend discussed a man who ran away from battle and back to his mother. Instead of comforting him, the mother chased him around the streets hitting him with sticks.
In our current society, failure is allowed. While there is nothing wrong with failure, it should never be an attractive option. Celebrities and well know figures repeatedly go into rehab for drugs and alcohol. We quit jobs if we do not feel were are being treated as well as we could be. We coddle people for failing and give them “easier” tasks to do if one task seems too difficult for them. Our government steps in if people make horrible economic choices and does not allow them to fail. We pay people unemployment who get fired from their jobs. We bail out companies with government money that are making bad products that no one wants to buy. When a Spartan went off to battle they had no choice but to succeed. There would be no warm homecoming for them if they failed. Consequently, the Spartans did not fail and always won their battles among the city states of ancient Greece.
According to one commentator:
The life of a Spartan male was a life of discipline, self-denial, and simplicity. The Spartans viewed themselves as the true inheritors of the Greek tradition. They did not surround themselves with luxuries, expensive foods, or opportunities for leisure. And this, I think, is the key to understanding the Spartans. While the Athenians and many others thought the Spartans were insane, the life of the Spartans seemed to hark back to a more basic way of life. Discipline, simplicity, and self-denial always remained ideals in the Greek and Roman worlds; civilization was often seen as bringing disorder, enervation, weakness, and a decline in moral values. The Spartan, however, could point to Spartan society and argue that moral values and human courage and strength was as great as it was before civilization. Spartan society, then, exercised a profound pull on the surrounding city-states who admired the simplicity, discipline, and order of Spartan life.
Sparta’s emphasis on military supremacy and a simple lifestyle was the major emphasis behind Plato’s book, The Republic, which was one of the first attempts to formulate an ideal community. Was Sparta ideal? In many ways I believe it was. In our current society everything is just far too complicated. Our emphasis on leisure and eating has made us a nation that is predominantly overweight. Our ability to manufacture goods the world wants to buy continues to decrease. As a group, we do not have discipline. Our military is not valued and held in esteem by many of our highest leaders. We surround ourselves with luxuries and more emphasis seems to be put on this for many of us than on the value of our work.
In contrast to Sparta, Athens was a very different society and far less rigid and militaristic. In Sparta, the emphasis of the society was on the military and in Athens the largest emphasis was upon culture. Some very important accomplishments were made by Athenians in science, art, philosophy and other disciplines. For example, the philosophers Plato, Socrates, Artistotle and the playwrights of Euripides, Aristophanes, Aeschculus all lived during Athen’s golden age in the fifth century BC. Athenians believed that they were culturally superior to the Spartans. The enjoyed luxuries and foods from all over their empire. The homes of wealthy Athenians were very nice and had inner courtyards. A good description of Athens also comes from Pericles famous funeral oration:
Further, we provide many ways to refresh the mind from the burdens of business. We hold contests and offer sacrifices all the year round, and the elegance of our private establishments forms a daily source of pleasure and helps to drive away sorrow. The magnitude of our city draws the produce of the world into our harbor, so that to the Athenian the fruits of other countries are as familiar a luxury as those of his own.
In contrast, Spartan men were taught to get along with almost nothing. Spartan citizens were not permitted to own gold or other luxuries. These differences between the Spartans and Athenians remind me of a conflict I see today all around me. There are people who talk a lot about what they are going to do and read a lot about what others are doing and have done, and there are people out there doing things and actually getting work done. Which are you? I would encourage you to be on the side of action, self denial and create effective contribution, rather than on the side of those who simply talk and do very little.
One of the greatest conflicts I have personally witnessed in working with thousands of job seekers over the years has been a similar conflict–there are job seekers who are Spartans and there are job seekers who are Athenians. The Spartans are always the more successful in the long run.
When I was around 18 years old my parents stopped giving me money completely. I did not have a traditional home to come home to where parents cooked and looked after me, either. Without any money coming in and expenses that included car maintenance, gas for my car, clothes, books for school and other essentials I was put in a position where I had to work. While I resented my parents for their personal situation which put me in this role at the time, it was something that I ultimately came to appreciate as I got into my 30s because I realized how much more scrappy it made me compared to others. In ancient Sparta, the boys were intentionally underfed so they would always be hungry and so they would develop the skill of being able to steal food. Here, without any money coming in, I needed to toughen myself and learn skills that other kids my age were not learning at the time. I sold knives on the street. I worked as a pizza delivery boy. I worked in the school bookstore. I started a business doing asphalt work. I worked on cars in my spare time. I did not have the same luxuries and other accouterments as other kids had. I also knew that I did not have any “backstop” if I failed. If I did not have any money then I would simply not be able to function. I needed to look out for myself. This was something that personally toughened me up. It made me quite self reliant and it put me in a position where I learned over time how to make use of existing resources, find the best deals for things and make the most of what I was given. This is an incredibly valuable skill to have, and as a “Spartan” I toughened myself up quite a bit.
What this means for you and your job search is that you need to put yourself in the position of a Spartan. If a Spartan were looking for a job today they would show up to an interview ready for work. They would not debate the idea of retreat or running home if they did not get the job. They would not debate the idea of quitting the job if they were unhappy with the work conditions or they did not like their boss–they would make it work. They would only accept victory. Moreover, a Spartan would go to work ready to work and would work very hard.
A lot of people enjoy sitting around and talking about things. They are undisciplined when it comes to their job search and quite lazy. Many may purchase a book or two here and there, and not do anything with it. Others may lament the state of the market and cite accounts in newspapers and other sources that there are simply not enough opportunities. They will sit around and try to see what benefits they are entitled to. They will take all of their vacation and sick days. Instead of working on their existing weaknesses and acknowledging them, they may move between jobs to find employers who will not bring to light their weaknesses. None of this does them any good in the long run.
I think a lot of what is wrong with this country today is that we are too Athenian and not Spartan enough. I would encourage you, in your job search and career, to be more Spartan than Athenian.
Noah, Floods, Creative Destruction and Your Career
What You Will Learn
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One of the most important stories in the Bible, from the book of Genesis, is the story of the flood. According to this story, God looked down upon the Earth and became angry at what he perceived to be mankind’s sins. He regretted creating people and decided that they all needed to be destroyed. In reviewing the Earth, however, God noticed that Noah was someone who was blameless and and he told Noah that in seven days he would make it rain for forty days and forty nights. God told Noah that this rain would cause a giant flood. God instructed Noah to build an ark that was large enough to hold himself, his wife, his three sons and their wives, and a male and female species of every type of animal that existed. With these animals, Noah would be able to replenish the Earth after the flood.
This story is part of Western Religious tradition and my purpose here is not necessarily to debate the truth of this story in one way or another–indeed, a myriad of interpretations have been given to this story in Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Instead, what is most interesting about this story, is the importance of the “flood” and how the concept of a “flood” and “renewal” has shaped the thinking of so many people and cultures throughout the world. According to a 1996 book by Norman Cohn, Noah’s Flood: The Genesis Story in Western Thought, around 300 cultures throughout the world have flood stories and they are almost all similar to the story in Genesis. Flood stories that are very similar to the Noah story are also prevalent in many other cultures. For example, one of the earliest flood stories is from Sumeria in around 1600 BC and is almost identical to the story of Noah.
The idea of a “flood” is a very powerful metaphor in our own lives and careers for starting over, washing away the past and starting from zero. We sometimes need a fresh start and to clean away the past. We all do and there is a certain happiness and “rebirth” that comes about when we can do this. There is nothing more important for many of us than a fresh start. I think it is for this reason that stories of “floods” are so prevalent in so many cultures: the idea of a fresh start gives us hope.
One of the most miraculous changes I ever witnessed in a human being was my own mother. For years she lived in Detroit in a small house, in a pretty insular neighborhood. She had been in an on-and-off relationship with the same man for the past 20 years that was very tumultuous. The home was run down and she was quite unhappy for the most part. Over the years, she had many terrible experiences in the home and the home was full of a lot of bad memories for her. One day her house was taken over by the bank and with mine and my sister’s help, she moved to be closer to my sister in Rochester, New York. I moved her into a small retirement community and she set up a completely new life. Within weeks she quit smoking, which was something she had done for the past 40 years. She started exercising every day. She made numerous friends. Her appearance began to change and she started to look much younger and happier. She became a nicer person and began to take more interest in her children and the world around her. She is a completely different person and very happy now. All of this has come about from simply picking up and starting in a different location. This happened to her in her 60s and the change I witnessed in her was nothing short of miraculous.
“If she hadn’t moved she would be dead by now,” my sister told me one day. The more I thought about this the more true I realized it was. What saved my mother’s life was a complete and massive change in venue from where she has been living.
I remember another person I know who had been in a terrible relationship for several decades. One day their mate died and after the funeral, someone I knew remarked that the person was now completely different. “I looked outside and I saw the sun for the first time in years,” they said. While this seems like a pretty harsh sort of statement to make about someone, the idea is that when a profound change comes into some of our lives we end up being better for it. Sometimes a profound change is the most beneficial thing there is for us.
Losing a job is a profound change. It is like a flood coming over our lives. We have no idea what the world will be like after the flood.
There is a real case to be made to simply start over and stop doing something when we are not having any success, not enjoying ourselves or not doing well at what we are doing. In fact, many of us toil for years and years doing something that we are not good at and do not enjoy. Arguably the greatest and most beneficial thing that can happen to many of us is to lose our jobs, or be forced into doing something completely new. If you are in a position where you have lost a job, or you believe that you may be about to lose a job, this may actually be one of the best things that could possibly happen to you. The ability to start over and start something from scratch gives you an opportunity to rebuild your career and life.
In the 1940s the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter came up with the term “creative destruction” to describe something that is a backbone of all of capitalism. In capitalist societies, old forms of value creation are continually being destroyed by new ones that are more efficient and preferred. This is how “life” in capitalism progresses. For example:
- Someone may start out manufacturing shoes by hand and have a business doing this
- Another person may come along and figure out how to manufacture better shoes cheaper and faster, and put the first person out of business
- Then another person may come along and with a machine to manufacture shoes and put the second person out of business
- A fourth person may come along with an even better machine and put the third person out of business
Creative destruction occurs in numerous ways:
- New sources of labor
- New markets
- New ways of organizing or managing
- New equipment
- New methods of marketing and advertising
- New methods of transportation
- New ways of producing products
- New products that are more effective than previous products
This creative destruction process is continually occurring in all businesses and in all economic environments. When a growing industry or business is successful, it starts to attract the attention of many others. After some time a company may begin to rest on its laurels, and when this occurs the company stops innovating or slows down its innovation. The company stops attracting customers at the same rate because it has stopped creating value and it’s focus is now on the status quo. Companies in this position may try and attract people to them through legislation or marketing tactics, or by offering less for more to increase profit. Slowly (or sometimes quickly) the company begins to go into a downward spiral as the best talent leaves and customers go to other companies.
Companies that once dominated and were the chief innovators in various industries, such as Kodak, have seen their dominance fall and profits go away as rivals have manufactured digital camera products. However, just as Kodak has been undone by various innovators, the companies who have replaced Kodak face the exact same sort of threat. Other modern examples include the ability of people to get their news online. Online news is leading to the destruction of traditional newspapers. Innovation and destruction is a cycle that occurs in all companies and across all industries. Creative destruction is something that is also very painful for the people who are affected by it. Workers who are replaced by machines are likely to lose their jobs. In the current economic environment, for example, newspapers seemingly cannot lay people off and let them go fast enough. People do not like losing their jobs. While a continually innovating economy can create opportunities for people to participate in newer and more productive enterprises, it can also cause a tremendous amount of pain in the short term.
The cycle of creative destruction is something that is also relevant to your career and where you are going. Just as companies are forced to innovate and are destroyed by innovation and outside forces in the economy, your career and job are continually under threat from outside forces and innovation within your own employer. Your life is the same way: Your life can stagnate and start withering away. When they are growing, companies tend to hire people very quickly and without a lot of regard to costs. As the growth of companies slows down they begin looking for ways to cut costs and save money. Machines may be introduced into the work place to save money. Moreover, jobs will be eliminated directly and certain functions may even be eliminated in order for the company to experience more profit. When this start occurring, your job and your career may actually be at risk.
You goal in your life is to be in the position “after the flood” when the destruction has occurred and new growth is occurring. You want to be on the side of new growth. Cycles are always occurring in the world and the most important cycle is the one when new growth and opportunities are occurring. Every new cycle starts when someone is doing things a new way and starts creating value. When new things are emerging ,there is a lot of excitement and companies start growing. Word eventually catches on that there is a new way of doing things that is profitable and people are drawn to opportunity. The best people start flocking to this new way and resources are given to support it. The growth stage is where the most opportunities lie.
This process is being repeated all over the world, not just in companies but in our careers and lives. Your goal needs to be to find where the opportunities are being created, where growth has taken hold and things are moving upward. You also need to do the exact same thing with your life–you need to do everything within your power to ensure the structures and ways of doing things are not outdated and ineffective for you. Your goal in life needs to be to be happy and be growing–in just about everything that you do.
Socrates and Your Job Search
What You Will Learn
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Several years ago, we were launching a newsletter for law schools. One of our employees who was working on the project decided that the title of the newsletter should be “The Signal” and he was very enthusiastic about this particular title. In fact, I had never seen him so enthusiastic about anything. I am not sure why this name meant so much to him. However, the more I recall this episode the more I remember that he had very strong reasons for thinking that this name really summarized it all.
The problem with this name was that there was no domain name available for it and it had been taken long ago. In addition, I seem to remember that the person who owned the domain name also had no interest whatsoever in selling the domain. Without a domain name, it did not seem like it made sense to have an important newsletter going out to law schools with this particular name. The reason was that the newsletter was supposed to be electronic, and due to it being electronic, people would start associating the name “The Signal” with the newsletter and looking for it under this URL when they did searches online.
I explained this to my employee and he was having none of it. He did not care what the URL was. He was convinced the newsletter needed to be called “The Signal,” and when I would not agree to this he became extremely irate. He stomped out of work. He stopped working on the project and refused to work on the newsletter the next day.
What had happened to this particular employee is that he had decided that things just needed to be a certain way and he did not want to hear anything that was different from this certain way at all. He had made up his mind that only one name was appropriate and had thrown all of his thinking, energy, and spirit behind something that was really unnecessary. However, this is something that many of us do in one form or another, and we do it with numerous, numerous things.
One of the biggest challenges for me in working with people looking for jobs, is that most people seem to believe that their search needs to work in a certain way. They believe that there is one way of looking for a job and that way is the only way. People are extremely attached to doing things a certain way. For someone who is in their mid 50s, they may believe they should never go online and that the best sources of jobs are always in the newspaper. Other people may believe that networking is the only approach to getting a job. Still, other people may believe they will only be able to ever get a job with a certain type of employer. People are very pigheaded and this pigheadedness is something that really holds them back.
The guy who worked for me was so frustrated by the title of the newsletter, he ended up not coming into work regularly and turned from a very dependable employee to one who was completely unreliable. This was a huge mistake and he ended up losing his job. He was pigheaded about something that did not really matter. Many of us are pigheaded about stuff that does not really matter and it ends up hurting our careers. We believe that something can only be done a certain way, and then we stick to this without questioning everything around us.
For my entire career, I have been preaching in every way I know how and encouraging people to question their assumptions about how to find a job. I believe that questioning assumptions, consistently doing new things and finding new ways to search are among the most important things we can do in a job search. In fact, I believe they are the most important things. The more you question what you are doing and embrace new methods of looking for jobs, the better off you will be.
Socrates is considered by most academics as the Founder of Western philosophy. He lived around 2,500 years ago and since he never wrote a book, everything we know about him comes largely from what others wrote about him. Socrates was considered a very interesting figure around Athens. After having been a distinguished solider he returned to Athens and wandered around the city engaging various people around the city in conversations. At the time there were teachers who traveled around the country called Sophists, who taught various subjects to people who paid them. Unlike the Sophists, Socrates never took payment for his teaching, and most significantly, he claimed that he had nothing to teach. He told people he did not have any actual knowledge and was no smarter than others. Socrates claimed that if he was wiser than others, it was only due to the fact that he was aware that he was ignorant.
Most of what is known about Socrates comes from the writings of his student Plato, and from his dialogues in particular (however, the works of Aristotle and others provide some insights as well). In these dialogues, Socrates will typically confront someone who claims to know something and be an expert on one philosophical topic or another, such as a moral or epistemological issues–for example, the nature of justice or virtue. Through questioning of this person, Socrates will then proceed to show that this person does not know what he claims at all. According to one definition:
The Socratic method is a negative method of hypotheses of elimination, in that better hypotheses are found by steadily identifying and eliminating those which lead to contradictions. The method of Socrates is a search for the underlying hypotheses, assumptions, or axioms, which may subconsciously shape one’s opinion, and to make them the subject of scrutiny, to determine their consistency with other beliefs. The basic form is a series of questions formulated as tests of logic and fact, intended to help a person or group discover their beliefs about some topic, exploring the definitions or logoi (singular logos), seeking to characterize the general characteristics shared by various particular instances. To the extent to which this method is designed to bring out definitions implicit in the interlocutors’ beliefs, or to help them further their understanding, it was called the method of maieutics. Aristotle attributed to Socrates the discovery of the method of definition and induction, which he regarded as the essence of the scientific method. Perhaps oddly, however, Aristotle also claimed that this method is not suitable for ethics.
According to W.K.C. Guthrie’s The Greek Philosophers, while sometimes erroneously believed to be a method by which one seeks the answer to a problem, or knowledge, the Socratic method was actually intended to demonstrate one’s ignorance. Socrates, unlike the Sophists, did believe that knowledge was possible, but believed that the first step to knowledge was recognition of one’s ignorance. Guthrie writes, “[Socrates] was accustomed to say that he did not himself know anything, and that the only way in which he was wiser than other men was that he was conscious of his own ignorance, while they were not. The essence of the Socratic method is to convince the interlocutor that whereas he thought he knew something, in fact he does not.”
Socrates was eventually put on trial and sentenced to death in Athens for allegedly corrupting the youth of Athens with he teachings. It was during this trial that Socrates made the famous statement that the “unexamined life is not worth living.”
The idea that there is one way of doing things is something that needs to be questioned. One of my greatest frustrations with job seekers is trying to get them to realize how many different methods there are for them to get jobs, and the incredible number of paths they can follow in their job searches. You need to be aware that whatever assumptions you have about the way you should be looking for a job may be doing you a tremendous amount of harm. These assumptions need to be questioned, and you need to insure that in questioning these assumptions, you realize that they may be limiting you. Here are some of the assumptions that are not necessarily true that I have seen people make about their job search:
- A recruiter will not help me get a job.
- A recruiter will help me get a job.
- I need to use a recruiter for my job search.
- I would never post my resume on a resume site.
- I need to post my resume on a resume site.
- I would never pay someone to help me get a job.
- I can only get a job if I pay someone to assist me.
- I will never get a job in this economy.
- I am too old to get a job.
- I am too young to get a job.
- I do not have enough experience.
- I have too much experience.
- I need connections to get this job.
- I will never get another job because I was fired.
- I did not go to a good enough school to work there.
The list of things about your candidacy and job search could go on and on. You need to be questioning everything about how you are looking for a job and what this means. Your job search is too important and your career is too important to allow yourself to be stuck in one way of thinking. You need to open your mind and ensure that you do everything within your power to think about your job search in a way that gives you more opportunities and not fewer.
How to Count in Your Career and Life
What You Will Learn
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Most people do not count in the world. In fact, almost all people in the world do not count. They are born, they grow and they die. Their lives are quickly forgotten after they die and the world is no different for them even having been there.
Have you even been to a cemetery? When you walk around the cemetery you will see numerous headstones and most of these people did not count. They may have loved others and been loved; however, they did not really matter to the world. These people may have had a lot of friends, they may have been happy, they may have been wealthy, they may have even been extraordinarily good people.
But they did not really matter to the world.
The simple truth of the matter is that most people simply do not count and regardless what we may want to believe about ourselves, or tell ourselves, most people will never count.
A great deal of our day-to-day struggle in the world is to ensure that we count. People have different measures to try and figure out ways for them to count. For example,
- Some people believe it is important to be good at sports
- Others believe it is important for them to be well read
- Others believe that they need to be very social and know a lot
- Some believe they need to be an authority in the religion they practice
- Some people believe they need to make a lot of money
- Other people believe they need to have many children
- Some believe they need to drive fast sports cars
- Other people believe they need to have a large house in a certain neighborhood
All around us we can see numerous examples of people doing things they believe they need to do in order to count. I remember a couple of years ago, I was taking a class with my wife at a small university in Los Angeles. Every single classroom was named after someone who had donated money to the school. Every single wing of the school was named after someone who had donated money to the school. Every nook and cranny of the school had someones name on it. I am sure that all of the people gave money to the school because they wanted to help the school and had been touched by it in some way. But the school also made a bargain with them. In effect the school said “we will make you count and name this classroom after you if you give money.”
What is it that makes one person really count and not another? When you turn on the television and watch various news stories that are obsessing over one celebrity or another, they are obsessing over people who “count.” In reality, these people really only count a little. Even these well known people are ultimately not going to really count when it comes right down to it. But these people “count” a bit. A powerful politician could be said to “count” and if the person is President, for example, then they almost certainly count. But even Presidents can be forgotten over time if they do not make their impact truly felt.
There are certain people out there who are really and truly making an impact on the world and people around them know who they are. There is a certain power that comes from these people, it emanates from them, and the world pays attention. These people may have an excellent education, or they may not. The education this person has never really matters all that much, or is as important as their ability to make an impact on the world. These people may be brilliant or they may not be. None of this really matters to the people who ultimately end up counting the most.
Two men join a large company at the same time and one is very well educated and gets along with people incredibly well; the other has less of an education and he is very abrupt and makes a lot of people angry with him. People do not like him. Yet, the man with the lesser of an education who cannot get along with people becomes President of the company and soon is one of the most famous CEOs in the world. The other man, who seems better than the other in every way, lives a life of obscurity and has a career of obscurity. He does not ultimately end up mattering to the world. What is it about the man who becomes CEO that makes him different?
One person writes a poorly written book about something which has been written about before, and it becomes a massive best seller. Another person writes a similar book about the same thing that is incredibly well written, and no one cares about it. Both books were promoted the same way but something ends up happening to one book and not the other. It is not about promotion. It is about something else and something that no one seems to understand. What I am trying to say is that there are certain people who possess something that others do not that enables them to “matter” and “count” in the world. This is something that is so, so rare that we don’t encounter it often. We know it when we see it and we feel it when we are around people who have it. We feel this when we shake hands with the person who ends up mattering. We know this when we are around these people. It is a force that certain people have and almost everyone else simply does not.
What is it that people who rise to great heights possess that others around them do not? Think about some of the incredible figures from history such as Gandhi, Jesus, Muhammad and others who made an incredible impact on the world around them and are influencing others long after they have left the Earth. These are people who “counted” and “mattered” to the world and who tapped into some sort of force that made them matter. We remember them and they have been gone a long, long time. There are others, of course, like these men and history is filled with them. The people who leave a massive impact on the world and who ultimately end up mattering to history and even the current world, however, are not the people who accumulated the most material things or held the highest positions. They are instead the people who are able to touch those around them with a certain type of power that others simply cannot and do not possess.
Most of the people I have ever known follow a “religion” of sorts that is based on accumulating material goods and symbols such as titles, degrees and others indicators that we have for what happiness, power and success represents in modern life. People rob banks to get what they think these symbols represent and how they will make them feel. Others steal to get what they think these symbols will make them feel. Some work 12 hours a day in the office for years and years to get access to symbols, money and other accoutrements of success. We want to feel something and we are searching for something through all of this work and effort.
Most of our understanding of the world is based on our relationship with the physical–things, titles and other indicators of success. However, most of us ultimately follow, and are influenced at the highest level, by those who have a relationship with something else and another sort of power. I would call this power the ability to relate to the “spirit” that exists in the world and to translate this spirit into how they relate with the world. There is a physical world and then there is a more ethereal world that is not based on the physical but revolves around something else. There is a relationship with this “something else” that enables us to influence others and it is something that is important and that you need to be aware of.
If you have this relationship with the “something else” that is out there, you will begin to place yourself on the realm of those who matter. The people who matter are those who have this relationship with this “something else” and it is not physical. It is not sexual; however, it is often misinterpreted as this. It is in many senses spiritual, but it does not necessarily have a religious affiliation. It is something that is available to all but something that most people cannot see and never incorporate into their being. It is something that you know is there and have surely felt around you.
Ever since I learned to read, I have been studying different religions. In Buddhism there is a “one” and a spiritual energy that practitioners try to tap into. This “oneness” is something that is achieved based on not having an attachment to earthly things, material goods and emotions. It is an understanding that comes from a lack of attachment. In Christianity there is the “Holy Spirit”. In the Sikh religion there is a “oneness” that comes from lack of attachment. This energy that is being sought and worshiped by religions ought to make us sit up and take notice because it is nondenominational in nature. It is something that is incredibly powerful and has been around for thousands of years. It is something that numerous people have dedicated their lives to and it is also something that most people do not understand.
What I can tell you, however, is that there are people out there who have tapped into this energy and use it. It does not matter what religion they are. This energy is completely nondenominational in nature and it is available to everyone. You too can take this energy and use it. This energy does not care about the physical world and what material goods and titles we have. This energy is completely oblivious to who others think we are as well. This energy is a force of life that exists not just now but a force that has always been.
It is clear from looking around us that we simply cannot understand the world around us and how things work. I go to conferences all the time given by “forward thinkers” and am constantly amazed how one new idea after another comes up that we do not understand. Recently, I heard a man lecture at an extremely prestigious conference about the feet of a Gecko and how science is studying what it is about the feet of a Gecko that allows them to climb walls. Here was a scientists who did not understand how a Gecko could climb walls, and yet there is a force out there that has engineered the Gecko and made it so that it can climb walls. There is a force that has given the Gecko life that allows it to have a beating heart, to think, to reproduce and to move. It is the same force that creates the wind, makes you think about things, and makes all of us more than just objects. It is a life force and a spirituality that everything possesses. It is clear there is a force out there that we do not understand that is capable of allowing something like the Gecko and its remarkable abilities to come into existence. This force is not as simple as “Charles Darwin” and evolution because even he cannot explain what the force of life is inside of a Gecko, and he cannot explain how a man like Gandhi could get hundreds of millions of people to follow him. What a man like Darwin could really teach us, however, was how his ideas (and not that of another) were able to get such widespread acceptance. This is the power of Darwin and it exceeds his ideas. The ability to powerfully leave your impact on the world long after you are gone is a skill scarcely no one comprehends.
What is it about one work of modern art that makes one worth millions and the other worthless? This has always been something that I do not understand. I have seen two pieces of art that were both done by modern artists and appear to be nothing more than paint thrown randomly on a page. One painting may be worth millions and the other is worthless. What is it about the painting that is worth millions compared to the one that is not? I have studied art history and often I am simply dumbfounded by this question. There is something about the artist and the power of their work that others pick up on and go with. I do not know what this is but I do know that there is a force out there that is simply not understood by all.
What I am suggesting is that the more we connect with this energy out there, and the more we are unified with this power, the more likely we are to achieve what we want in every endeavor that we enter into. In fact, the more we use this energy and power in our dealings with the world, the more successful we are likely to be and the more we are likely to matter. I cannot say that I have the recipe for tapping into this power, as I do not fully comprehend it myself. What I can say, however, is that if you can tap into this power you will broaden your horizons and impact the world far more than you are likely doing today. The starting point of connecting with this energy is using your mind to think about the fact that it exists. Once you do this you will leave behind the bondage of your mind and begin to connect with something more.
While everyone wants to be happy and successful and make an impact on the world, none of us can do any of these things if we are in bondage. In the Hindi language a mind that is bound by attachments, desires and dreams for something different is called “pashu”. “Pashu” is also the word for “animal” in the Hindi language and the root of this word “pash” means “rope.” Animals are tied up physically and most humans are tied up mentally. Most of us are bound by attachments to material goods, people, titles and other things that are not spiritual in nature. Men and animals can both be bound: An animal may be bound by a rope but most people are bound by their own minds and this is what keeps them down.
In Hindi the word “Pashupatinath” means “Lord of the Animals”. The Hindu religion believes that people are born with the possibility and ability to become pashupatinath, lord of the animal within. This signifies that unless you are awakened you will never be a master of the senses of your mind. The objective of human life is Shiva–to rise above the mind and senses. When you are the master of your mind you are not a slave to your mind. Most people are bound by a mind that clings to physical things and sensations and does not look beyond this. In the Bible, Jesus said that if you have eyes then see and if you have ears then listen to me. There are, of course, many interpretations of this statement but when he made this statement he was not speaking to deaf and blind people. What I believe he was saying was that it was important to see the spiritual side of the world and not just what the senses show in the physical realm.
We look around us and all we see is separateness. We see people as different from ourselves. We see people of different religions and races. We see people who are poor and those who are rich. We see people we like and people we dislike. We try and figure out how we fit in with the people, places and things around us. We try and see how things are similar to us and how some things are different. We continually desire more and more material goods. We look for approval from others. We give others approval and we give others disapproval. The fact is that we are constantly and consistently looking for differences around us. However, when you study all religions and the people who make the most impact on the world, there is something that is similar to all of them. They are all tapping into and communicating something spiritual in nature that makes us all feel connected. There is a oneness out there to all things that many of us are simply ignoring. We need to tap into this oneness because it is through this oneness that we find true power.
The more you concentrate on what is separate and different from you, the more suffering you are likely to experience. Suffering comes when we concentrate on differences and not similarities and finding common ground. We like people and are friends with certain individuals because we see commonality and share a “oneness”. The most popular people are generally those who find commonality between themselves and others, not differences. Life and happiness is based around tapping into this “oneness” and spiritual side of what is and what can be.
Your life will take on new power when you tap into this oneness and spiritual side of things. This is when you will begin to matter and when you will begin to count. The more we do the right thing, the more we see our connection with all human beings and our oneness, the more we really use our eyes and ears to see the truth of all things, the more we will leave an incredible mark on the world–regardless of what we are doing. You need to be in harmony with this spirit that pervades everything and use it to make an impact on the world. I do not understand this spirit any more than you do; however, what I do know is that it is an incredibly powerful thing and something the greatest figures that are remembered in every walk of life can really tap into and that they understand.
I encourage you to tap into this power and find this in your career and life as well.
How to Explain “Job Hopping”
What You Will Learn
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“Job Hopping”
Most people switch jobs and there is nothing wrong with doing so. However, if you are looking at your third or fourth job within the past few years, something is wrong. I see resumes of people attempting to do this several times a day and, for the most part, cannot help such people. “Employer hopping” is taken into account by employers assessing your qualifications. Having moved several times in a short time span can, in fact, impact your ability to get a job because it leads employers to question your loyalty and long-term commitment to what you are doing.
In addition, moving several times in a short time span gives employers the indication that you may have moved because (1) your work was not well received, (2) you may have been asked to leave or (3) you are unable to get along with others in a work environment. None of this is to say that any of the above factors may be relevant to your reasons for moving in the past. It is important to realize, however, what employers are thinking and that their thoughts (without even hearing your explanation) will have a strong influence on their decision of whether or not to interview you.
Your reasons for moving need to make sense. The reasons which typically make the most sense to potential employers are (A) quality or type of work, (B) structural changes with your employer, or (C) location. While these are the best reasons for making a move, it is important to note that people who have moved several times have done so because (A) their work was not well received, (B) they were asked to leave or (C) they were unable to get along well with others in their work environment. If you mention any of these reasons to an employer, you are unlikely to get hired. It is important in any job search that you emphasize reasons for moving that are likely to not prejudice employers against you.
I. REASONS THAT EMPLOYERS “BUY” FOR MOVING
A. Quality or Type of Work
It is permissible for people to move due to the quality or type of work they are doing. For example, an employee might move to bring about a transition from litigation to transactional work (or vice versa). If that is the case, such a move makes perfect sense and employers will not be prejudicial against the employee for moving for this reason. In addition, if you want to do more sophisticated work, that will also make sense. During the boom in corporate work in the late 1990s and the first part of 2000, many corporate people from smaller law employers moved to larger law employers. Here, a suitable explanation for moving was almost always because they wanted to get more “public company work” or be staffed on larger deals. Explanations such as these were almost always considered permissible.
One of the most perverse reasons for moving, that employers do not like to hear, is that you are interested in moving because your company does not have enough work. This is, in fact, one of the most common reasons that people move. The problem with giving this explanation is that an employer is likely to think that you are moving due to the fact that you are not being given much work because (1) your work is not good, (2) you are not proactive enough in asking for work, or (3) people in charge of doling out work do not like you. In explaining that there is not enough work at your current employer, you need to be clear with potential employers that there is not enough work for anyone in your company and you are not alone. You also need to express this fact in a way which does not make it sound like you are attacking your current employer. Permissible ways to explain this is to mention that there have been key defections in your department, that major work that has occupied you for months (or years) has gone away, or that the employer has recently lost several major clients. However you explain this, you need to do it with tact and without appearing to be attacking your current employer. In addition, you need to be cognizant while giving any explanation that the employer may be wondering, “Is this person short on work because something is wrong with him/her?”
Moving to get higher quality work or a different type of work shows ambition and a need for constant improvement. Most people can explain the need to move in these terms. Conversely, moving because you do not have enough work needs to be explained in a way which connotes ambition.
B. Structural Changes With the Employer
Many employers go through significant structural changes that have an adverse effect on employees. For example, employers merge, offices close and key supervisors leave. When this occurs at the largest employers it is generally known by numerous others in the business community. Each of the reasons discussed above are permissible reasons for leaving a employer if they are handled the correct way.
One way that smart job seekers can often explain moves is to say that because of significant structural changes in their current employer, they do not believe there are opportunities to advance. The former Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison’s real estate practice in San Diego is a perfect example. In early 2000 this practice was staffed by two partners and three lower associates. One partner left in 2001 and then it was staffed by one partner and three associates. In combination with a partner defection and other market forces that were acting on this employer, the amount of available work for the lower level employees obviously decreased quite dramatically. Because this was not a large practice area in the employer’s San Diego office, it should be obvious that there were few opportunities for associates in this office to make partner unless they had a significant book of business or the partner that was left had such extreme amounts of business that he needed to elevate an associate to partner in order to further grow his practice. In this instance, explaining this particular dynamic would make sense.
When structural employer changes do occur, employers are also looking for various “warning signs” that may indicate you are a potentially problematical employee. If a key partner supervisor leaves, the employer will often want to know why the supervisor did not take you with them. Similarly, if an employer merges with another and your position is put at risk, the employer will want to know why there was no one to protect you. After all, if you made yourself indispensable, the key person would want to take you with him and important supervisors would presumably protect you during any merger. Because employers will be thinking these things when they evaluate your candidacy, any explanations you give for your contemplated move should certainly take these factors into account.
Employers experience serious structural changes quite frequently. Most lower level employees that are at employers that close, or where key supervisors leave, are quite successful in finding alternative employment quite quickly. To me this is a very interesting phenomena; however, I believe the reason these people find new employment so quickly is related to the fact that—more so than with most other moves—the move can explained by negative forces completely beyond the employee’s control, rather than anything potentially negative in the employee’s background.
C. Location
Location is often an exceptional reason given for moving. The best location-related reason for moving is that you want to move back to your home city to be near either you or your spouse’s family. Reasons that employers do not like to hear for relocating are (1) to get to better weather, (2) for a change of scenery, and (3) that you are moving to join a girlfriend or spouse.
Employers are generally quite receptive to people who are leaving to be closer to their family. This is especially so if you moved to a large city such as New York and are going home to a much smaller market. Spending your first few years of work in a major market can be explained as a product of your ambition to be exposed to the most sophisticated work possible before settling down at home. You can also explain this based on the fact that you thought this would be your only opportunity to work in a major market before settling down and you therefore enthusiastically embraced the opportunity. If you commenced your career in a smaller market and are now moving to a larger one that is not where you grew up, the above discussion of quality of work should be used. The reason that moving home to work is accepted so readily by employers is due to the fact that it connotes a desire for stability. Individuals moving home to work are likely to remain with the same employers for a long period of time.
Employers do not like to hear that you are moving to get better weather or a change of scenery. Each of these reasons for moving raised the distinct possibility in the employer’s calculus that you are unlikely to be stable with them. Employers all over the country have been “burned” by lower level employees who moved to a certain area only to be disenchanted with where they were living and move again. If you are moving because of the weather, for example, this might indicate to law employers that the weather in a given city is more important to you that loyalty to your employer or the quality of work you are doing. If you are interested in moving to Los Angeles for better weather, what would you do if offered an equally paying job on Maui a few years later? Similarly, if you are tired of big city life and moving to a small town to work, what will happen if you decide you do not like the extreme of a small town and want to move to a more mid-sized town? You get the idea. Moving for reasons related to weather or scenery are never good ideas.
I see people each year who are attempting to relocate to Colorado because they like the Mountains, Las Vegas because they like the nightlife, Paris because they like the culture, San Diego because they like the beach, Portland because they like the music scene, New Orleans because they had so much fun at Mardi Gras … and on, and on, and on. In heated economic climates when employers were literally begging for people, I often made these placements with some frequency. My candidates were more than open regarding their specific reasons for relocating with us, and the employers hired them anyway. In a poor economic climate, though, employers are far more prejudicial and unlikely to accept such reasons. It is simply not in their best interest to do so. Indeed, few people who relocate for reasons such as this are likely to find happiness in their next positions.
Since this is somewhat of a sensitive subject, I have saved the discussion of relocating to join a spouse or significant other for last. At the outset, I should point out that the generalizations we are about to point out do not apply to all employers. Nevertheless, I am repeating something that I have heard over and over from employers. Employers are not always open to you relocating to join a spouse or significant other. The reason they are not always open to you leaving to join a significant other or spouse is because in the employer’s mind, it connotes that someone other than you is responsible for your career. If you are relocating to join a spouse who has found a better job, will you move again if they find a better job a few years down the road? If your significant other or spouse does not like where you are currently living, will they like the next place you move?
At their heart, most employers are craving people who can contribute to their overall stability. Employers do not like to have to contemplate that someone close to you may potentially influence their bottom line and your career at some unstated time in the future. In addition, the higher paying the job, the more likely it is to be extremely demanding. Most people practicing in large cities have a very difficult time holding together families given the demands of their jobs. While the demands of your profession are another topic altogether, employers generally expect their employees to be the ones with the primary job responsibilities and their spouse or significant other to be the ones on the sidelines supporting that effort. This statement sounds extraordinarily wrong and I am not necessarily expressing approval for this line of thought. Nevertheless, this is how most employers think and it is something you need to keep in mind when explaining your reasons for moving.
The fact that relocating to join a spouse may be viewed as a “negative” by a employer needs to be understood as part of employers’ overall desire for stability in the people they hire. Anything that does not suggest stability is viewed as a negative.
D. Conclusions
II. YOU SHOULD DO YOUR BEST TO AVOID SPENDING TOO MUCH TIME HIGHLIGHTING TO EMPLOYERS THE REASONS YOU HAVE FOR MOVING
You will have a very difficult time getting hired if you tell employers you are moving because (A) your work was not well received, (B) you were unable to get along with others or (C) you were asked to leave. If you have moved several times in your career, after your third or fourth move most employers will begin to presume that you are moving due to these reasons. While you need to be honest with every employer you speak with, you should also be very careful how you explain any move that involves one of these three issues.
A. Your Work Was Not Well Received
If you are contemplating moving because your work has not been well received, or if you have moved in the past due to this reason, it is important to do a very careful self analysis before explaining this reason for moving to any employer.
Every employer has different standards for their work. At many insurance defense employers it is quite common to turn in work riddled with typographical and other errors. At some employers a typographical error would be near cause for dismissal. At some employers, there are supervisors that are notoriously difficult to work with and set such a ridiculous standard that no associate could possibly meet it. When economic times are very rough, performance appraisals can become unnecessarily harsh to the degree that they should not be taken as seriously as they appear.
Most lower level professional employees working for large employers have their work criticized with a high degree of severity. While few lower level employees speak about this, even the most talented lower level employees feel a great degree of inadequacy with respect to their professional abilities in a demanding organization, especially in detail-oriented large organizations. The reason large employers often are so harsh in their performance reviews is that they are pushing their lower level employees to think in different ways and have an extremely high standard for their work. While many people are detail oriented by nature before they even go to college or professional school, the level of detail an employee needs to develop with respect to their work product and thinking processes is something that most people do not learn in college or professional school. Most of this is taught through formal and informal reviews of peoples’ work over time. Over time, an employee is expected to develop their skills to the point where their work does not need to be severely criticized. Generally, by an employee’s third year of work, this should no longer be the case.
If you are in your first few years of work and contemplating leaving due to harsh criticism of your work, or you are in a particularly demanding work environment, you should probably give yourself some time and attempt to improve to the level that is expected of you. This is something that most people do. The time that other people take to criticize your work should be something that you appreciate, even if they appear somewhat hostile while doing so. As your work is further criticized your professional abilities should improve.
If you moved or contemplated moving during your first few years due to criticisms of your work, it is probably not a good idea to bring this up. I would estimate that a majority of the people who move during their first few years do so due to harsh criticisms of their work. Most people facing harsh criticism of their work simply do not speak with other people about this with a great degree of frequency due to factors such as internal competition or their own desire to keep this private and not be seen negatively by others. Sadly, many people move for this very reason during their first few years of work and this movement is more related to their self confidence and ability to take criticism than any actual problems with their development as people. Since most people working for the largest and most prestigious employers are unusually accomplished to begin with, the level of criticism they receive from large employers during their first few years of work can be emotionally devastating to them.
After working for a few years for a large or demanding employer, however, you will be in a position to know whether the criticism of your work is justified. If this criticism is justified and you continue to make serious errors, you should probably do your best to find an environment, which you have reason to believe will not be as critical of your work or not have as exacting of standards. This also raises issues such as whether or not you are a good employee, whether you are suited for what you are doing and if it makes sense for you to continue. One important factor to remember is that some employers are more critical than others, and just because your work is not well received in one employer, does not mean it will be poorly received in another. If this pattern continues to repeat itself after a few moves, however, then you need to be realistic that the problem may be your work and not the employer. If this is the case, it might be a good idea to consider whether you want to continue practicing at the same level.
B. You Were Unable To Get Along With Others
It is important to recognize that some degree of politics exist in virtually any employer environment, whether large or small. In fact, they exist in most office environments, including those outside your profession. The key to succeeding, then, is developing the skills to strategically navigate in these sometimes difficult situations. These skills generally develop over time and exposure to a wide variety of situations.
There are numerous different types of personalities and some people are more suited to working in a certain work environment than others. Getting along with others is among the most important aspects of work, and employers want to hire people they believe will get along with others. Since people spend countless hours with each other at work, they do not want to be around (or hire) people that are likely to have personality conflicts with other people. Employers are economic engines and people who are critical of the environment or other factors related to personalities in the employer, are seen as people who put the employer in danger.
“Explaining” the political games you have encountered in your positions at past employers may not be a good idea when interviewing with prospective employers. First, it is generally not a good idea to ‘badmouth’ your current employer to a new potential employer. Depending on the type of environment you are leaving, you may only call into question your ability to integrate yourself into the environment at the employer who is interviewing you. During the interviewing process, employers are generally wary of candidates whose main complaint is some sort of personality conflict or general complaints. You should be clear that your reason for moving is not a problem with the employer environment as a whole, lest you come across as someone who works against the “system.” Employers primarily and perhaps most importantly do want people who are hardworking, flexible, have the ability to deal effectively with other colleagues and with clients, and who ultimately have developed the key skills to understand and deal effectively with political situations within the employer.
You are encouraged to take a strong look at the factors that influenced your past departures from the past employers. If they are all mainly political, you should consider making a list of the characteristics you are looking for in your new employer environment. You should also consider whether your attitude and approach to problems within these large past employers in any way contributed to your overall unhappiness and departure. Also, determine whether there is anything you need to change in your approach. We suggest this because of what was mentioned earlier – you will encounter this in every single professional environment, whether you make a move to a big, medium, or small employer. So it is important to learn through these experiences so that you can enhance your ability to make a successful move this time.
C. You Were Asked To Leave
If you were asked to leave any of your past employers, this is generally not a good topic to bring up as a reason for moving. You need to understand that a large percentage of people have been fired at some point in their careers. How this is handled is the important thing.
The justification that employers give for asking a lower level employee to leave are generally related to the quality of the person’s work. Sometimes this explanation is accurate and a lot of times it is not. You may be asked to leave due to your seniority, the fact that you are not working hard enough, or a major downturn in the employer’s work. In most respects, however, lower level employees are asked to leave because they do not get along well with supervisors or others in authority. Conversely, very few employers actually ask lower level employees to leave because they perceive their work quality as poor (although this is the explanation most frequently given by employers when they do not like someone).
If you have been asked to leave an employer this sends all sorts of negative messages to the potential employer. If you were asked to leave because the employer you were at did not have enough work, you were not going to make partner, the employer will be thinking to themselves that not all lower level employees were asked to leave so why you, in particular. There must have been something about you or your work that motivated the employer to ask you to leave instead of others.
You get the idea. If you are asked to leave an employer you need to de-emphasize this fact in your discussion with future employers. Most employers will not directly ask this question in interviews and if an employer did ask you to leave they will very, very rarely tell this to anyone who calls them to check references. It is interesting to us that the largest employers will often give the best recommendations to the lower level employees they ask to leave. Smaller employers tend to give the harshest recommendations.
While this is something that is not often discussed, the largest employers actually want lower level employees to leave after several years of work because they depend on a constant stream of hungry lower level employees to show up and earn them large profits for several years and then depart before being promoted and taking larger income or, at worse, a share of the profits. Indeed, I have very rarely seen the most prestigious New York City legal employers, for example, ever give a negative evaluation of the work done by one of their former lower level employees. Smaller employers, however, have less at stake and are often not as highly leveraged and dependent upon a constant stream of lower level attorneys.
III. CONCLUSIONS
If you have moved too many times within a short time span, employers will likely conclude that you are likely to move again—regardless of what kind of place they are to work. What is so unusual about this discussion of “job hopping” is that most of the reasons that people actually move are wholly unrelated to the reasons that are actually acceptable reasons (in the employers’ eyes) for moving.
While this article could have spent a considerable amount of time discussing even additional reason to justify moves, each of the acceptable reasons can be summed up in one sentence: I am moving, but I am a stable and good employee. Similarly, the unacceptable reasons for moving can be summed up in one sentence: I am moving because I am unstable and may not be a good employee.
Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss it, you will land among the stars.