The Importance of Finding and Creating Demand
In 2000, I needed computer programmers in our company more than anything. At the time, however, it was exceedingly difficult to find a good computer programmer. I went through a lot of tough times trying to hire and keep computer programmers. Computer programmers seemed to have their pick of jobs and they would switch employers every few months, as they were offered better and better jobs, more stock options, and other employee perks. One day I hired a programmer and he immediately started working on an important project that I had. He worked for a few hours and then asked me to order him a pizza. He ate the pizza and afterward he worked for about twenty minutes, then came into my office. “This project is not that interesting,” he said. “I think I am going to just go back to my old job.” As hard as this may be to believe now, at that time a decent programmer could easily go back to a job he or she had quit. The reason was that there was just a huge demand for programmers. Programmers could easily move between jobs, go back to an old job they quit, or find a new job–all in a matter of a few hours. The job market for programmers in California then was absolutely nuts. Programmers would show up to interviews with arrogance and without a care in the world because they knew that they were in control and that the hiring companies really needed them; if they could do the job, they hardly even needed a résumé. By 2001, the market had turned and programmers were barely in demand at all. There were almost no programming jobs available anywhere. It seemed as if, just as quickly as the demand for programmers had arrived, it was gone. Programming résumés started getting much more polished, and prospective employees were humbled. Suddenly programmers started showing up to interviews in suits and ties, talking about what sort of value they could offer. As the 2001 recession grew on, I started getting cold calls from small programming outfits trying to tell me they could offer this or that service to help our business. Programmers came into interviews with suggestions and ideas about what they could do to help the company. In the job market and in life, if we are not in demand, we need to either (1) find the demand, or (2) create the demand for whatever it is that we offer. This is the nature of looking for a job and planning to succeed at everything we do. In order to have the job you want, or the life you want, you need to either find the demand or create a demand for what you are doing or selling. Find the Demand. When I was in college, I had a professor who was grossly overweight. She taught an anthropology course about Africa. She had spent most of her career traveling back and forth to Africa while writing and teaching about it at the University of Chicago. In the rural area of Africa where she had worked and lived, the characteristic that was considered more attractive above all others was to be overweight. Women drank cream and sweetened milk all day in order to be and look as obese as possible. Carrying extra weight was a sign of wealth and the ability to endure famines that stalked the areas; therefore, someone who could be obese while others were starving was considered to be very, very attractive. The woman told our class that she was considered incredibly beautiful in the part of Africa where she worked. “If I spent all my time in the United States, I would probably do everything I could to be thin,” she told our class. When I heard this and later read various anthropology articles on this subject, I found it increasingly fascinating. Here this woman was in demand, even sought out, at least partially due to her attractiveness in one part of the world due to being obese, whereas she did not nearly receive this sort of attention in the United States. This is how it is with many of our careers. We have goods or services that are in demand. We are just [Read more]
Face Reality
A long time ago, more than a decade back, I found myself standing on the side of the road, on a turnpike, somewhere on the East Coast of the United States. I had been dropped off on the side of this strange highway by a woman I was with, who, in a fit of rage, demanded that I get out of the car and had sped away—my luggage and all—in the automobile. I was trying to figure out what had gone wrong. The entire experience of getting kicked out of the car had lasted no more than [Read more]
How to Attract Success
How to Attract Success is a book I know you will enjoy greatly. Here, Sears introduces the concept of the Law of Harmonious Attraction. Under this law, things come to us in the world not because we want them to and make them do so; but because they want to do so. Instead of working to control others, we learn to control ourselves and become powerful and harmonious in our attractive power so that the things we want actually want us and cannot stay away. I know this is a book you will really enjoy.
–Harrison
The Danger of Judging Others
When I was growing up in Grosse Pointe, a suburb outside of Detroit, I lived on a street where all of the other families were married, and my mother was the only single mother on the street. At some point it became clear to me that the other families in the neighborhood did not approve of the fact that my mother was single. Our next-door neighbors, for example, did not particularly like living next door to a single woman. One time I was doing some work on my mother’s front lawn and the father of the family [Read more]
The Greater Your Purpose, the Greater the Obstacles You Will Face
Several years ago, I had a girlfriend who had an older sister who was nothing short of incredible. She was a world-class swimmer and had set countless records in the state. She had times in swimming that would easily have qualified her for the Olympics, and she was planning on going to the Olympic trials in one year. In addition to this, she had been taking college-level course in high school since she was a freshman, and she had gotten the best score possible on all the exams. To top all of this, she had gotten a perfect score on [Read more]
Change Your Reactions
When you see a fight occurring between any two people (or groups of people), it is always the case that one side believes it is right about something and that the other side is therefore wrong. It could be a disagreement over a political or territorial issue, a religious belief, or something else. Countries take sides about one issue or another and entire wars commence and continue for generations–based on one country’s belief that it is right and the other is wrong. When you pick up any newspaper, you will see endless stories of conflict. I see [Read more]
Move Toward the Light
There is a story I heard some time ago about a man named Rabbi Akiva, who lived in Palestine. He was considered an extremely good person and also a sage. He became the greatest scholar of his time (he lived in the second century) through his consistency. He attended school later in life, at age 40, and it was at this same age that he became a ba’al teshuba (a Jew who returned to traditional Judaism). Prior to that time, it is said he actually hated the Jewish sages. Following the Bar Kochba rebellion against the Romans, [Read more]
Happiness, Desire, and the Key to Life
One of the most fundamental things that define every human being is desire. We all desire something and we are all defined, for the most part, by that which we desire. In fact, our desires define us more than any other aspect of our lives. Our very days are filled with desires, starting with the sunrise:
- We desire a glass of water in the morning.
- We desire a shower.
- We desire food.
- We desire sex.
Everyone has certain desires that they work towards fulfilling each day. When you drive down the road and see people all going their own ways, they are [Read more]
The Importance of Sharing
The most happy and successful people in the world are masters of sharing. The most unhappy and consistently challenged people, both emotionally and financially, are poor at sharing. When you find people who are alone and miserable, in most cases they are also not the sharing kind. When you encounter people who persistently are unemployed, or have difficulties getting ahead in their jobs, most of these people too will have problems with sharing. In fact, wherever you go in the world and whomever you meet, as a general rule, the people who do the best in their careers and lives [Read more]
