Harrison Barnes » Harrison Barnes

Feral Children, Puzzles, Jews, and Filters

Harrison Barnes — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 05:20:44 +0000

I remember growing up around kids with books of puzzles and games in elementary school and junior high school; these were always the kinds of kids that did not fit in. They also got beat up after school, were awkward during gym class, got pushed around on the playground, and sat alone or in small groups looking like outcasts during lunch. They would sit there all through the lunch hour screwing around with these little puzzle books. The kids doing the puzzles would draw the grimaces of other so called “cool” kids. On the weekends these kids who liked their puzzle books would spend time doing things like playing Dungeons & Dragons. I know this is what they did because I once spent the night at a sleepover with a puzzle kid, and he insisted on me being a Dungeons & Dragons character while he played the game against me. I had no idea what the hell was going on. I went to a public school right outside of Detroit for a good portion of my early educational career. To my observation, the smart kids were the ones who liked puzzles. There was always something very isolating to me about these puzzles and they seemed to make loners of the kids who enjoyed them. At a very early age I came to identify these puzzles with something to stay away from. Sometimes a couple of tough kids would approach these smarties and rough them up. I remember once witnessing a kid trying to unlock his bike from the rack, getting pushed to the ground, and punched in the lip. Things like this happened a lot. I happen to know that most of the cool kids now do things like work in hardware stores behind the counter, or mow lawns, and shovel snow for a living, while most of the puzzlers are working in important jobs in major cities. It’s funny how life works out. Looking back on all of this, I think puzzles are actually a pretty good thing. They stretch your mind and force you to think in new directions. It is like a healthy form of exercise. There are many studies that confirm the positive effects of puzzle play. For the past several years I have had a little Nintendo thing I carry around with me everywhere, playing all sorts of puzzles on it. My favorite games are Brain Age and Brain Age 2, which were developed by a neurologist. It is proven that playing these kinds of games regularly can actually make your mind much quicker, and therefore, make you smarter. I play puzzles every chance I get. I managed to avoid puzzles for most of my life; honestly, it was mostly out of a fear of getting my ass kicked. However, when I got into my early 20s I had to study for the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT). I enjoyed every single part of this test except a portion of the test called games. Games was a section of the test that presented me with various puzzles, having me put lists in order and so forth. I never did as well as I could have on the LSAT, and almost all of it had to do with the games section of the test, which was a complete disaster for me. Every other section of the test I aced or missed only one or two questions. When I first saw there was a games section on the test I remember I looked at it with a certain amount of disdain. Everything about those puzzle-playing kids who got their ass kicked on a regular basis came back to me. I did not want to be associated with the games. I thought they were ridiculous and beneath me. I did not put a lot of myself into studying for the games section because I had programmed myself to stay away from them. For such a long time I had associated puzzles and games with so many horrible things–like the person I did not want to become. So, at some point I simply decided I was not going to apply myself to such a “waste of time” despite the fact that I needed to. The more I think about it, the crazier this now seems to me. I had worked hard in high school to get into a good college. I was seriously self-disciplined in college, and after years of intensive study I remained one of the top students in my class. I had been involved in all sorts of leadership activities and other things that made me look good on paper, but when it came right down to the wire I refused to study and apply myself on this one portion of an incredibly important test. All because deep down it represented something that I absolutely did not want to become: One of the kids who get beaten up on the playground. I did not realize any of this at the time of the test, of course. In fact, I just realized this recently. At the time I just knew that I was not interested in the games section of the test, and that what it represented was not me. My aversion to the games was both for conscious and subconscious reasons. Suffice it to say, as a consequence I did not do as well on the test as I should have. Now as you are reading this you might be saying to yourself something along the lines of “that is so completely messed up.” And you would be right to say so; it is totally messed up. This has literally influenced the course and direction of my life. However, my question for you is this: What sort of filters do you view the world through, which are influencing your life in the same way? I am sure you have a ton of filters about what things represent, which are influencing the choices you make and how much you apply yourself every single second of every single day. Many of these filters are not helping you at all. Here is an example: Prejudice. When I was in college, during the school year, I was dating a really nice Jewish girl with whom I fell madly in love at the time. The Detroit neighborhood where I came from was almost 100% white and Christian. Out of the 25,000+ people living there I think there were a couple of Indian families who were also doctors. I never met a single Jewish family living in the area during my entire time growing up in this city. I had never known prejudice until I came home from college and announced to various people that I was dating a Jewish girl. The level of prejudice I encountered was unbelievable. There were people in the town (my age) who I am 100% confident would never be friends with a Jewish person, simply because of their preconceived notions about Jews. “Why would you date a Jewish girl, they’re all slimy and greasy!” one girl I was friends with said to me. “Why would you date a Jewish girl, all they care about is money!” another guy I was friends with said to me. These people had prejudices about an entire group of people that makes up a decent portion of the population. Somehow these folks had decided, for one reason or another that they would never have anything to do with this portion of the population. So they willingly deprived themselves from that type of experience, knowledge, and growth that can only be obtained by associating with different groups of people, of different religions and cultures. And it was due to some filters these people were using to look at the world. Think about how limiting this is. All of their associations and friendships are centered around getting to know only those people who are similar to themselves. Doesn’t this sound ridiculous? It is absurd and something that is shocking on many, many levels. The same thing happened to me due to my own silly preconceptions; I missed out on potential opportunity. If I had chosen to turn off my filter, I could have done better on the test, which may have opened up new doors in my life and career at the time. However, my preconceived notions ended up shaping my destiny on that fateful day of the LSAT test. It is crazy to think about, but it is the something that we all do. Our approach to the world is shaped by preconceived notions we have about this or that. Everything that happens to us and our entire response to the world is shaped by the filters that we use. For example, if someone smiles at us we are likely to smile back. If someone yells at us we are likely to get defensive or yell back. I read the most incredible story today in the London Times about a girl who was raised by dogs and cats. This is a real paper, not a tabloid, and I am confident that this is a true story:

A feral girl who has spent her entire life shut up in a flat in the company of cats and dogs has been taken into care by police in Siberia. The child, 5, was unable to speak and acted like a dog when officers discovered her locked in a squalid, unheated flat in the city of Chita. “For five years, the girl was ‘brought up’ by several dogs and cats and had never been outside,” police said in a statement. “The unwashed girl was dressed in filthy clothes, had the clear attributes of an animal and jumped at people.” Police said that the girl had had a lack of contact with humans, despite sharing the three-room flat with her father, grandmother, grandfather and other relatives, the Ria-Novosti news agency reported. The girl, known as Natasha, is now being monitored by psychologists in an orphanage. She has the appearance of a two-year-old, although police have established that her real age is 5. The child refuses to eat with a spoon, insisting on lapping up her food straight from the plate, and has taken on many other behaviours of the animals with which she lived, police said. “When carers leave the room, the girl jumps at the door and barks,” the police said. Her mother was taken in for questioning when she called at a police station after her daughter was taken away. Her father has not yet been found. Feral children, the stuff of folklore all over the world, usually exhibit the behaviour of the animals with whom they have had closest contact. The condition is known as the Mowgli Syndrome, after the fictional child from Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, who was raised by wolves. Such children have usually built strong ties with the animals with whom they lived and find the transition to normal human contact traumatic. The girl could understand Russian but could not speak it and tried to communicate through barking instead. She was more comfortable with her animal companions than with her relatives. She is being given medical and psychiatric treatment. Police are treating the case as a criminal investigation into alleged child abuse. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6373089.ece

The quality of our lives is not determined by the things we own, the jobs we do, the friends we have, the city we live in, the vacations we take, or the world we live in. Instead, the quality of our lives is determined by the filters we use to view the world.

In the extreme, people will look at the world like an animal would–barking at doors and lapping food off the floor.
In another extreme, someone will blow the most important test of their life due to a deep seated insecurity that being good at puzzles will make them a loser.
In yet another extreme, people will refuse to associate with a group of people, prejudging them based on their culture and religion.

And this brings me to you. Your life and career are being influenced, for better or worse, by a set of conscious and unconscious filters, which you are using to interpret the world around you and make decisions. How we use these filters is probably the most important fuel in our decision making. I believe the secret to a happy and fulfilling life is to have filters that empower our experience, rather than limiting our experience. We should be aware of our filters at all times, as we think and feel our way through life.

Rules, Your Nature, and Your Career

Harrison Barnes — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 05:20:04 +0000

I went into the basement today, and without realizing it, I pulled out an old list of goals and rules I created for myself around 15 years ago. I remember writing them down as I was completing a yearlong clerkship with a federal judge and preparing to move to California, where I would take the Bar Exam. My entire experience in law school and working for the judge had exposed me to a profession with which I was not really that comfortable. The formality of law practice, the focus on detail, working in an office and behind a desk, the degree of formality and so forth were a lot for me to stomach. There was nothing wrong with this and there were certainly many nice people I had met while working for this judge and also practicing law. The thing is, I started to feel like it was not me. Since the age of 18 I had worked as an asphalt contractor. I experienced a ton of freedom, worked outdoors most of the time, and liked the job a great deal. I could swear when I wanted to, I could tell people who I did not like to screw off, and I loved the trucks, crazy machines, smells of tar, bartering, the variety of people I worked with, and more. The asphalt business was just way more fun–a total blast. The money was also pretty good, and I saw a future in it. Perhaps more importantly, I understood the rules. The rules of being a successful asphalt contractor were pretty simple:

You would start out doing really small jobs (driveways), save some money, invest in equipment, and start working on larger jobs (small parking lots, etc.).
You would do good work on larger jobs, save some more money and invest in even bigger and better equipment, and do even larger jobs (auto dealerships, bowling alleys, etc.).
You would get bonded by an insurance company for even larger jobs and start doing work for cities (schools, small municipal roads), doing quality work. You would save some more money and buy even more serious equipment.
You would start bidding on asphalt jobs for states (roads and highways). From there you would eventually be bidding on work for federal highways and so forth (interstates).

I understood the rules of the game and to me they were pretty easy. I could always see where the next milestone was and I knew what I needed to do in order to get there. I thought about the rules of the business every single day. You need to know the rules. The rules are the most important aspect of any business and in any profession. Several years ago I got into the student loan business. I started doing all of these student loans and did not really have any idea about the rules. I knew that if I were going to succeed I needed to understand how everything worked. This meant learning something like how much to pay the people who worked for me doing loans. I also had to learn a certain order of progression for that career path. Every type of business or job has its own rules, and in order to do well you need to understand them. There was a real easy to follow progression in the asphalt business, and none of it involved kissing up, political games, or anything like that. For the most part, if you did good work and followed the rules you could do quite well. You needed to pay your taxes, pay your employees on time, maintain your equipment, make the payments on your equipment, and some other things; however, the path to success was pretty clear and the rules were not that hard to follow. There was no bullshit. If you could do the work according to specification, at the lowest cost, and within the specified timeframe, you would get the job and get paid. It was for this simplicity that I most appreciated the profession. The thing about becoming an attorney for me was that it was just so backward seeming. There were dress codes. There was formality. You were judged on things like an absence of typos in your work, your seriousness, and all sorts of other intangibles. Your job and security came down to whether or not people liked you. The economy was often a factor. You then had to make partner in a law firm and would learn later that the prospect of becoming a partner is not secure. The entire profession did not make a lot of sense to me because I did not understand the rules. So I started making list of rules the year I worked for the judge. I picked them up pretty quickly because there were certain behaviors that were obviously considered positive and others that were considered negative. Depending on how one looks at these goals, they can be perceived as either incredibly disturbing or inspiring. Here is the list as I originally wrote it:

Act more professional.
Become an ideal job candidate.
Act more serious.
Be a harder worker.
Be more focused.
Being serious will make me more respected.
I must not talk about myself.
Be good humored but taken seriously.
I must put in a full effort.
I must consistently study.
I must be considered for promotion.
I must be spoken well of.
I must be respected by clients.
I must have the respect of my peers.
I must be highly esteemed.
I must not make typographical errors.
I must be extremely professional.
I must appear and be extremely organized.
I must be physically fit.
I must fit in.
Being thorough produces positive results.
I must be a consistent thinker.
I want to pass the bar.
I want a good job.
I want the respect of peers.
I want to like what I am doing.
I want to excel at what I am doing.
I must learn to be more calculating.
I want to make a good living.
I want to feel that what I am doing is important.
I need to believe that I really like the law and that it is the only thing for me and what I truly want to do.
I need to have passion and enthusiasm for what I am doing.
I must have drive.
I must change because with no passion for the law I suffer in my daily life. If I do have passion for the law I will have limitless possibilities which are achievable.
I would have to believe that the law has limitless possibilities and opportunities. I would have to believe that I can be respected, admired, and truly become happy practicing law.

Based on applying these rules and goals, I was able to get jobs with two of the top law firms in the world. I worked at these prestigious firms for years, and I continued to get better and better at practicing law. A lot of it had to do with setting goals and carefully and aggressively identifying all of my weaknesses. Writing it all down helped. I knew exactly what it would take for me to get better at my job, and to continually rise above previous expectations. I often referred to my goals, which helped me improve over time. Without these goals and continually expanding on them, success would not have been possible. Many of the rules and goals I set for myself represented everything that I was not. I needed to create goals for myself to become a completely different person than I, in fact, am. Truthfully, I was in a profession I had no business being in, because this very concept goes against my entire nature. Nonetheless, I set a variety of goals for myself, all based on me being a different person than I really am. I had to refer to these goals often like a roadmap to reorient me. I was like someone in a foreign country, using a map to get around. I knew the rules but did not like them. It simply felt all wrong. And this brings me to you. First, you need to insure that whatever you are doing you know the rules. If you do not know the rules for what you are doing, you are never going to succeed. Every job–and in fact every person, has a series of rules that need to be followed if you want to see progress. If you follow the rules, you will do well and if you violate them, you will not. I remember my girlfriend in college had told me she no longer wanted to speak with me after we had broken off our relationship. We had ended the relationship just before her mother came to town. She was from a conservative Jewish family and she told me that due to my Christian religion everything was wrong with our relationship. Somehow I had an instinctive realization that I should go over to her dorm when her mother was there, and tell her that I loved her and would not allow the religious issues to keep us apart. I just knew I needed to do this in front of her mother. I did this and it worked, and we got back together soon afterwards (right after her mother left town). See, she had a rule which I innately understood, which was that she could continue to date me, overlooking our religious differences–as long as I could stick up to her parents about the issue. The thing about rules is there are certain professions and people whose rules we understand instinctively. There are also rules we do not understand instinctively or, sometimes, at all. These are the people we find ourselves having disagreements with out of nowhere, and these are the jobs that make us feel like we are so often completely out of place. My parents are both artist/writer types, and I grew up with them constantly discussing literature and art. I always understood things that involved journalism, writing, art criticism, and so forth instinctively. When I was in college, I used to write papers for various classes without ever reading the book; I would turn them in and get good grades. I understood this stuff completely instinctively. I just knew those rules and how to do those things in a certain way. You may understand accounting instinctively, architecture instinctively, carpentry instinctively, psychology instinctively, music instinctively, and more. I know a guy who sat down at a piano at the age of five for the first time in his life and could play anything and any tune. He just understood music and it came from a deep visceral level inside his brain. I do not understand it, nor do I have to, but here is an example of someone who understood the rules. I became a legal recruiter precisely because, like the asphalt business, the second I encountered it, I understood the rules. Everything about legal recruiting made perfect sense to me. It came naturally. I understood the rules. Careers wherein you instinctively understand the rules will bring you a much higher chance of success. The best thing you can do is put yourself in a situation where the rules are instinctive to you. Also, it can be extremely beneficial to make yourself a list of rules and goals like I once did, in order to learn the essence of your chosen profession. Once you understand and feel the rules everything comes together easier because you seem to be following your own nature–rather than going against it. And if you follow your nature you will find success.

Waiting for the Prize Patrol

Harrison Barnes — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 06:11:43 +0000

Several years ago I realized that there was something horribly wrong with my life during the Super Bowl. I was watching the game on television with my fiancé at the time and noticed that there was a van parked far off in the distance. I could not concentrate on the game because I was under the impression that the van was going to start up, drive towards my house and out would pop the Publisher’s Clearing House Prize Patrol to award me a prize of millions of dollars. And I deserved the prize, didn’t I? I had dutifully filled out the sweepstakes entry and made sure that I returned it promptly when I received it. And, on top of all that, I had worked pretty hard most of my life. ”Is that a brown van?” I asked her. We lived in the country on a dirt road and the van was around 300 yards away. So far away that we could hardly make out the color. She peered out the window, squinting her eyes. ”I think it is a brown van!” she told me. Throughout the next 60 minutes or so I could barely concentrate on the game. I was convinced that I was about to be the next winner of the sweepstakes. For the past several years I had watched every year as the Prize Patrol pulled up to unsuspecting peoples’ homes during the Super Bowl and awarded them multimillion dollar prizes. I wanted to be the next. Convinced that the brown van was going to be arriving with a live news crew any moment, my fiance’ stopped making guacamole and enjoying the game with me and tidied up. We were both quite excited for this big win and were convinced our lives were about to undergo a huge fundamental change. I am sure you know what happened. The Prize Patrol never came. When I realized that I had not enjoyed the Super Bowl because I was waiting for the Prize Patrol, I understood right then and there that I had made a huge fundamental mistake that most people make with their lives: I was basing my future on a ”big win” outside of my control. Some people do this with inheritances. They wait most of their lives for someone to die so they can get that ”big win”—instead of investing in their lives now to make something of their future. Everyone does this sort of thing to some extent and I think it needs to stop. After that Publisher’s Clearinghouse event I realized right then and there that something needed to change. Many people are continually basing their future on ”a big break” or some sort of ”breakthrough” happening in their careers and lives. In fact, I cannot think of the number of people I have met throughout the years who believe that they are going to ”hit a home run” and everything is going to change in their lives. I have seen this more times than I can count. Do people hit home runs and change their lives overnight? Of course. Is counting on the home run a good strategy for your career and life? Absolutely not. The home run and/or ”jackpot” strategy is the worst possible thing you can do. If you base your life and career on a home run you are going to wait a long, long time. This is what most people do. They continue waiting for a long, long time. This is what I was doing with the Prize Patrol. We all have our Prize Patrols we are waiting for. It could be a Prince Charming coming along, the Lotto, a better job, a raise … who knows what we are waiting for. Unless we take action none of these things are ever going to appear in our lives. Last year I rented an apartment in Las Vegas and spent a lot of time there. I did this because I was interested in the ”energy” of the city and in learning more about it. I find Las Vegas absolutely fascinating on so many levels. Las Vegas is a lot like Los Angeles where people go there hoping for ”a big break” and that overnight everything will change for them. Las Vegas casinos are more than happy to nurture this dream for people. The nice casinos on the strip are not really where the dream of ”hitting it big” is playing out. Where it really plays itself out is when you go to casinos like the Sahara, Stratosphere, Binions and so forth — older casinos that have been established in the city for a long time. People actually go into these casinos quite serious about hitting the jackpot or winning it big. Some of these casinos will cash welfare or social security checks. These casinos market themselves as having better odds for locals and ”experienced” gamblers. Inside these casinos you will see people who sit at slot machines and card tables all day long — running down, smoking and hoping for a big win. On the walls there are posters of people just like them who won it big — $10,000, $50,000—or whatever. Many of the posters are faded. This is what these people are aspiring to. To win it big, be a big shot and to achieve something … instantly. Nevertheless, this rarely happens. Some time ago I was on vacation for a few weeks and spent about an hour per day on the treadmill in the gym. Since I was on a resort that did not sell magazines, I had to read what was in the gym every day. The only magazines in the entire gym were ”Mens Fitness” and a few men and women related fitness magazines. I had never read magazines like these before. Most of the magazines have a star on the cover of them (or someone well known) and then inside of the magazine a long, in-depth discussion of their fitness and diet regimen. I could not believe it. Most of the stars you see in magazines (the ones who look really good) have some of the most demanding fitness and diet regimens you can imagine. Stuff like 4 hours a day workouts and calorie restriction and so forth. They did not wake up incredibly fit, or good looking. Most of these stars earn it and it takes them a long, long time. It is like this with everything. You are not going to get it ”overnight” or quickly. You have to earn it and it takes a long, long time. Several years ago I was at a lunch with a man in downtown Los Angeles who was trying to sell me some advertising in a publication that was floundering. Since the business was losing subscribers (and readers) at the time, I did not have a lot of motivation to purchase advertising from him. ”I’m pursuing a couple of deals right now that could really ‘turn things around’,” he told me. ”If this one thing works out then everything will be just fine and I will get increased circulation. If that happens I will still charge you the same for advertising.” He was proposing I take a risk that things would turn around. They never did. In sales it is not uncommon for people to put all of their efforts into trying to close ”one big deal” and exclude other small deals. When people put their effort into this sort of thing they get lucky sometimes … but most of the time they do not. I have seen this more times than I can count. Slow and steady generally wins the race. You need to invest in what you are doing over time. In most cases, the Prize Patrol is never going to come.

How to Get Hired Where There Is Not Even an Opening

Harrison Barnes — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 05:26:43 +0000

For some reason, almost every week (sometimes more than once a week) venture capitalists and private equity companies call me to talk about the various businesses I am involved in. I used to talk to them quite formally, the way average people like me talk to doctors, lawyers and bankers. I assumed (wrongly so), that I needed to be a little bit guarded, not share too much information and such. Do not ask me why I thought this way. I think it probably has something to do with the fact that when they call, they say something like the following: ”Hi. I’m from a private equity firm. We manage a fund of over two billion dollars and are looking for investments.” I do not know about you, but when someone calls and tells you they have two billion dollars to spend, it makes me a little nervous. I just cannot communicate effectively. Nevertheless, I have been taking these phone calls for years and am now far more interested in speaking with these guys. I have probably done over 50+ phone calls with them in the past few years and they have become a focus of intense interest for me. These guys are fascinating to me because they have penetrating insights into “hot” businesses and where the economy is going. Most of the private equity players out there are really smart guys with great educations. They also really know business and their entire job is to identify businesses that are likely to increase and grow rapidly. They basically want to put money into a business that is growing and then ”sell off” their portion of the business when it starts to ”slow down”. Typically, these investors will focus on industries and individual companies that are poised for massive growth. In my opinion, if you are trying to decide what sort of company to work for, you’d be smart taking a look at what the most successful and profitable private equity companies are doing. They are very good at putting their money to work in the industries, companies and geographic locations where there is a cycle of expansion occurring. Expansion cycles are good because they breed ”inefficiencies”. Inefficiencies are good because they create opportunity. When there are inefficiencies, companies (and people) tend to not watch their money as carefully. When I was starting my legal career I applied for jobs in the following areas: Detroit, Los Angeles and New York. In New York City I got so many interviews I could not believe it. I was taking trip after trip there to meet with law firms. I also got a lot of interviews in Los Angeles. When I went into these interviews I was treated very well and found employers eager and excited to hire. They were not that critical, did not ask a lot of questions about my grades and were eager to make offers. Detroit, on the other hand, was a different story. At the particular time I was interviewing, the Detroit market had been contracting for years. The interviews with the firms there were not as easy to come by. Firms were much less likely to make offers easily. The big firms in the city had not been growing for years and had been shrinking for a long time. In simplistic terms: There was not a lot of opportunity. The big law firms in Detroit were looking for reasons not to hire you as opposed to looking for reasons to hire you. I realized early on that working in Detroit was not a good long-term prospect for me. The Los Angeles legal market was growing at the time and so that is where I went. The market was so ”hot” at that point in time that law firms were making me offers during interviews, paying ”signing bonuses” and so forth—it was far different than the sort of thing you would ever see in Detroit at the time. If you are going to succeed in your career to your full potential … seek out geographic locations, industries and companies that are booming. It makes all the difference. When I was in college, I was close friends with a girl who went to school in another state. She shared a dorm building with a friend of mine growing up. My friend was good at science and had majored in a science-related discipline that was very much in demand at the time. He had done a very average job in college. I think he had around a 2.0 grade point average. The issue was that he did a ton of drugs. One day she called me: ”He has been sitting in a chair for 36 hours staring at a wall in the student commons and he has not moved. He is on really bad acid … No one can get him to move.” I never thought that much would come of this guy. By his senior year of college he could scarcely form a sentence- he had done so many drugs. Nevertheless, due to this ”unique” science-related major he received tons of job offers and ended up doing very well. Most of the better students and others in his class were searching for jobs months after he graduated and was earning an incredible living. He is still doing well to this day. What did this guy do that was so smart? He chose a major (and obscure one) where there was a ton of demand. There was so much demand that all he needed was a pulse to get a job. The basic cycle of a business involves a company coming out with a product or service and either succeeding, or failing. When the company succeeds it can succeed in multiple ways. On the one hand it may grow slowly. On the other hand, the company may ”take off” and experience explosive growth. You want to go where there is ”explosive growth.”

Individual companies can experience explosive growth
Geographic regions can experience explosive growth
Certain industries can experience explosive growth

Companies that experience ”explosive growth” generally are able to do so due to the fact that they are not facing lots of competition and are doing things in a way that is competitively different from others. This allows the company to generate ”windfall profits” for some time and the leadership of the company, the company’s employees and others generally fall under the spell that the ”sun will shine forever.” Regions that experience explosive growth are similar. In the ”Wild West”, for example, if you were one of the few businesses in a geographic region selling something you could mark up the price and be virtually assured of making good profits. This is happening in regions of the United States all the time where there is growth—due to an industry, demographic trends, or otherwise. When things are good, companies and the people making hiring decisions inside of them do not give hiring a lot of thought. I have hired people I met at dinner, people who were recommended by friends and family and others — without much regard to whether we had a job opening at all. I just knew that the person had certain skills and could contribute to the overall efforts of the company. That was when things were ”on the up” and explosive growth was occurring. It is like this with lots of companies. When things are good and the company is ”on the way up” the company does not closely scrutinize a lot of its hiring. It is this way with all companies. ”Back in the day” executives in the largest automotive companies had fancy wood paneled dining rooms where they were served gourmet foods and so forth daily. That soon went away as the industry started contracting under pressure. Companies like Google currently have cafeterias that are free and are so ”fat” that they even allow employees to spend part of their work time on independent projects. One of the most interesting things you can and should be doing in your job search is going after companies that are on this ”explosive growth” trend. They will often hire you without giving it much thought—even if they do not have openings. It is the same thing with booming geographic areas and industries—you can often get hired even if there are no openings at a particular company just by ”showing up.” I am going to tell you a job search secret I should not be telling you—but if you’ve read this far you deserve to learn it. If you see a company with a lot of openings proportional to its size—this means things are going very well there. It is the same thing with industries and geographic locations—a ton of openings mean some good stuff is going on. For example, if you see a small city somewhere and there are a ton of openings, then that city is growing. Apply to companies that are growing fast—even if they do not have openings for you. This is a ”contrarian strategy” but I have seen it work more times than I can count. Call them, email them and do whatever you have to do. Companies that are ”on the way up” will often hire you even if they do not have openings. You need to find places, companies and industries on the way up.

Making Others Aware of Your Weaknesses Can Make You More Trusted

Harrison Barnes — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 05:59:11 +0000

Several years ago I was on vacation with my wife in Paris and was trying on shoes and found a pair of dress shoes that I really liked a lot. I had never seen a pair of shoes like this before and they were extremely comfortable. After trying them on and walking around the store in them, I told the salesman that I would take them. ”You would be an idiot to buy them here,” he told me. ”The shoes are made in the United States and there is a duty charged on them, taxes are charged here and they are way more expensive here than back home. Let’s look on the computer. I bet you can save over $200 if you buy them online from a store in America.” To my astonishment, the man logged into a computer and did a few searches and showed me that if I bought them online I could save hundreds of dollars on the shoes. I was very happy that he had made me aware of this and, of course, I did not purchase the shoes. Instead, I browsed around the store and ended up purchasing something else that was unique and I could not have found back home. I have often thought about this incident because the salesman had prevented me from buying something because it was not in my best interest. When you think about this sort of approach to selling, it is incredibly rare. The man had already sold me the shoes (I was ready to buy) and yet he made sure I understood that purchasing the shoes was not in my best interest. Since that time I have shopped in countless stores and do not remember the people I have done business with. I remember this man, however and I trust the store I was in. I will go back there when I am in Paris again. When I used to be a legal recruiter on a full time basis, I was extremely selective about the people I would work with. I was also very upfront in telling certain people I could not work with them because their qualifications were such that they did not match what the market was demanding and looking for at the time. I would tell people: ”Look, I would help you if I could. But my involvement is going to make it harder for you to get a job because there are so many people like you out there with similar qualifications. You are better off applying to employers on your own.” The more I told people I could not work with them, the more people seemed to trust me. They knew that if I worked with them, I was doing so because I believed I could help them. People trusted me. I was looking out for their best interests. The best businesses out there are transparent and are looking out for their clients’ interests. When you go to Amazon.com and do a search, Amazon will show you things that it is selling as well as the same thing that other vendors are selling at what is often a cheaper price. Amazon is happy to show you competing prices and in the process of showing you that you have other options (that may be cheaper) the site is able to earn your trust. I shop at the site because I know they will most often be giving me the best deal possible and will show me the best prices out there even if they do not benefit them. One of the greatest and most successful advertising campaigns of all time came when the first Volkswagen Beetle was introduced to the United States. At the time the Beetle was introduced, American manufacturers were doing well, turning out giant, gas guzzling automobiles that were visually exciting (with fins and so forth). Gasoline was also very cheap at the time and there was not really a very good case to be made for purchasing a small foreign, vehicle. Charged with the seemingly insurmountable task of selling their case in the United States, Volkswagen’s advertising agency did not promote the vehicle’s strengths. For example, they could have pointed out that the car was inexpensive, was well built and had good gas mileage—but they did not. Instead, the agency decided to highlight the fact that the cars were ugly: ”Ugly is only skin deep” their magazine advertisements declared. These ”negative campaigns” actually ended up helping the vehicle get a strong foothold in the country. When you mention the drawbacks of something—regardless of what it is—the people you are speaking to cannot help but reach the conclusion that you are to be trusted. The reason this is such a powerful and persuasive technique is because when you make yourself trusted by someone they are much more likely to believe you when you start talking about your true strengths. In the recruiting realm, pointing out your candidate’s weaknesses can often be a very useful method in getting people to notice them. I have been amazed in the past where there were negative aspects of a candidate’s background such as firings and other issues that I needed to reveal to a law firm about a candidate. Despite all of the negative stuff that was in the candidate’s background, I have seen incidents where they got hired instead of an attorney with nothing negative in their background. It was as if addressing the negatives in the background enabled me to get attention to the positives that never would have been there in the first place. What does all of this mean to your career and life? My opinion is that all of us are aware of our weaknesses no matter how much we may try and hide them. Our lack of certain skills and abilities simply cannot be covered up no matter how hard we try. When you are going into interviews with employers, negotiating promotions and so forth, it can be extremely useful to sometimes bring out and address your weaknesses before you talk about your strengths. People are more likely to pay attention to your strengths if you have also made people aware of your weaknesses. You will have more credibility. In making people aware of your weaknesses it is exceptionally important that you are careful about which ones you make them aware of. Despite how long ago it was, I can still remember the debate that occurred between Walter Mondale and President Ronald Reagan in 1984. At the time many people were discussing the fact that Reagan was very old and might be too old for another term. In the debate Reagan agreed that he was very old but added the caveat: ”I will not make age an issue in this campaign. I am not going to exploit for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.” Reagan used a very effective method to address his age-related weakness. He acknowledged his weakness in a way that was also his strength. You should seek to address your weaknesses in a similar way in your interviews and in negotiations—making your weakness appear to be complementary to your strengths. You need to make sure that when you address weaknesses you are following these up with complementary strengths. In your career you need to remember to always address your weaknesses and attempt to offset them with strengths that are complementary when they become an issue. You want to be trusted and you want your weaknesses to be overlooked.

Challenge Yourself and Get Input from Others

Harrison Barnes — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 06:15:54 +0000

One of the keys to being successful in anything is seeking the input of others. Those who are at the top of their game in just about every discipline are experts at taking criticism and feedback from others. Not only are they experts in seeking criticism—they actively seek out situations where they are going to be challenged and criticized. Think about the newspaper and the stories that are there every day. A good portion of the stories are about business executives and politicians, for example. These executives and politicians are continually being deconstructed, criticized and attacked by the writers in the newspaper. Each day when I read the paper I am amazed at the level of criticism being labeled on various public figures. If I were the President and picked up the paper each day, I think I might reach the conclusion that the whole world hates me on a daily basis. Papers are full of criticism of our leaders. A politician or executive chooses to be in the limelight and chooses to be continually deconstructed by the press. Coincidentally, the people you read about in the paper are also traditionally the people with the longest history of achievement. They have held the best jobs in their communities and done well all their lives. The point is that the higher they go … the more they end up being attacked and criticized. Many presidents and CEOs leave their jobs with their tails between their legs after being attacked like mad once they finally reach the pinnacle of their profession. What is so amazing about this is that it is the highest performers in our society and the people who achieve the most that also face the most criticism. In order to be successful, you need to be prepared for, and take a ton of criticism. In my career, the absolute highest performers and the best people I have worked with have been the people who sought the most input. Instead of believing they knew everything, these people were malleable and interested in learning about what they did wrong, how they could improve—and always were interested in confronting their weaknesses. When I talk to high performers I am continually amazed. They push themselves physically, mentally and every way they possibly can.

One I spoke with a few days ago was training for a marathon—and another was training for a triathlon.
Another was studying for a master’s degree at night—despite being in a job that was paying over $750,000 a year.

These high performers continually amaze me in terms of the lengths they will go to challenge themselves. They want to be strong and have minds that refuse to confront limits. They train themselves to be strong. High performers surround themselves with people who are likely to challenge them. They seek out jobs which are likely to challenge them. They seek out situations where they are likely to get positive or negative feedback. They never accept limits. One of the biggest stumbling blocks I have seen to the success of others is an inability to work with others to get stuff done. High performers actively seek the input of others in just about everything that they do. They want this input because they know that without it they will not have accurate information to make decisions. When you seek the input of others you will learn about approaches and information with which you may not be familiar. Do you know some really intelligent people? I know some people who are so smart it would blow your socks off. They have PhDs from Princeton, have written some incredible papers about math theorems and more. Some people are so intelligent it is hard to believe. But the people I am talking about are not politicians or important people out there in the world. The people I am thinking about have not done much of anything with their careers and lives. When you meet them they will talk to you about all sorts of things and they certainly are intelligent. Nevertheless, they are not interested in what others think. They are so smart they think that they know what to do and can reach their own conclusions without the input of anyone else at all. The danger in being someone who knows everything is that you close yourself off to others’ observations. When you close yourself off to others’ observations you put yourself in a situation where you stop learning. Setting yourself up for criticism and learning from others helps stimulate thinking processes and gives you insights that you simply would not get if you were doing something alone. Group Problem Solving, an interesting textbook written by social scientist and professor at the University of Illinois, Patrick R. Laughlin, discusses that groups cooperating can solve problems far better than individuals can. According to LaughlinL

We found that groups of size three, four, and five outperformed the best individuals and attribute this performance to the ability of people to work together to generate and adopt correct responses, reject erroneous responses, and effectively process information.

The problem is that the smartest and most capable individuals believe that by virtue of their experience, skill and so forth, they do not need to seek the input of others. In some respects, many of the smartest people believe that seeking help is a sign of weakness. To be the best at anything, you need to seek out lots of input from others and put yourself in a situation where you are likely to be critiqued and can experience cooperation with others. For the past several years, at 8:00 am every morning, I have held a staff meeting with various managers in our company. When we first started doing these meetings, I found them a little “off putting” because in the meetings weaknesses in our company and other issues would constantly be highlighted. Groups of managers would point out one thing or another that we were doing wrong and could improve on and it was a source of discomfort. Notwithstanding, for years I have held these meetings and we rarely miss a day of them. Most of the solutions to the issues our companies face are proposed by our staff and because of these meetings the companies operate effectively, are able to respond to issues as they come up and remain competitive. Every member of our staff is our “‘eyes and ears” to the world and gives us insights into what is going on. There is nothing more important to us than these meetings and they are extremely useful in forcing me and the companies to continually adjust. Many people go see ”coaches” on an ongoing basis to get insights. Other people go to ”mastermind” groups where they talk through issues in a group forum. I think this sort of stuff is a great idea because it helps give us insights and solve the problems we are facing. There is nothing more important than getting others’ feedback into what we are doing so that we can improve. If you arrange for regular input from others you can expect to improve in all respects.

The Importance of Endorsements References and Getting Others to Cheer for You

Harrison Barnes — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 07:35:35 +0000

As a legal recruiter, one of the things I spent a lot of time doing was writing long, in-depth letters on behalf of my candidates. In many cases these letters would be over 10 pages long. The letters would contain discussions of the candidate’s character, overflowing praise of the attorney’s accomplishments and would also tell a story. I did such long and in-depth letters because I learned, early on in my legal recruiting career, that the longer and more praiseworthy the letter was the more likely the person was to get a job. Most recruiters do not even write letters on their candidates’ behalf; however, I firmly believe to this day that such letters made a huge difference in whether or not any individual candidate I worked with got hired. The more time I spent learning about the candidate, the more I said about the candidate and the more enthusiasm I said it with, the more likely the candidate was to get hired. It always worked liked this—the better I did my job the more likely the candidate was to get hired. If a poor legal recruiter is working on someone’s behalf, the legal recruiter is going to do more harm than good. Even an ”average” legal recruiter should not be recruiting in my opinion. Nevertheless, a really good legal recruiter can make a huge difference. Their enthusiasm for their candidate is contagious and their endorsement makes a huge difference in whether or not the person gets hired. I have seen a good recruiter get someone multiple offers within a few weeks after the person spent months looking for a job with no success. A good recruiter makes all of the difference. While I know there are recruiters who would disagree with me, I think that what really makes the difference for good recruiters is their endorsement of the candidate. When someone is applying to a law firm on their own (or any employer) they cannot really toot their own horn too much—or else they will risk being disliked. Conversely, when a recruiter gets involved the recruiter can promote the person all they want without making the person look bad. In fact, the recruiter will make the person look much better than they would look on their own — and this makes a huge difference. You would think that law firms would discount the words of an enthusiastic recruiter singing the candidate’s praises; however, this does not happen. The reason this does not occur is because the law firm and people inside it are committing what is called the ”fundamental attribution error.” When we are observing someone’s behavior, we tend to give insufficient weight to situational factors that play in shaping a person’s behavior. In 1967, two researchers, Edward Jones and Victor Harris, asked various people to assess a person’s pro or anti-Castro feelings given in an essay they had written. Despite being informed that the writers had been made to write certain anti-Castro or pro-Castro arguments, the people evaluating the writing still assumed the people believed what they were writing. We focus more on the person than the situation. In terms of me writing about how great my candidate was, the law firms were focusing on what I was saying and not the fact that I was being paid to say good things about my candidate. This is the main reason my letters had such a powerful effect—and also a reason that positive references can do so much good. Having an advocate making your case can be a very good strategy when searching for a job. When you are trying to get a job with people you do not know, knowing someone inside the company who can sing your praises to people doing hiring can also be a very worthwhile strategy—in fact, this is likely to make your application much, much more effective that it would be otherwise. A few years ago I was interviewing people for a position and a woman came in who was very professional. I was absolutely amazed at how professional the woman was: She spoke with poise, had great work experience, a strong educational background and seemed, in all respects, absolutely perfect for the job. She spoke with confidence about how good she would be at the job, how detail oriented she was, what good interpersonal skills she had and how punctual and reliable she was. I was thoroughly impressed with her and as she described her skills I was smitten and wanted to make her an offer right in the interview. However, as I spoke with her I began sensing a ”hardness” about her. I got the feeling that she was hiding something dark and menacing in her past—drugs, prison, scandal…I could not tell. As I reviewed her resume, I realized that there was a five year gap since her last job. She was very elusive about what she had been doing for the past five years—and something just did not seem to add up. When I asked her if she had any personal or business references she could provide me, she immediately clammed up and told me that she did not. She told me she could not think of anyone who would be a reference for her. I wanted to hire her but needed to get a reference to check my instinct that there might be something wrong. A few years ago someone in our company stole from the company when he left. This was a man with a family and he was somewhat talented at his job and he made a good living. Nevertheless, when he left he stole around $500 which was just plain strange to us. Not only did he steal the money, but he admitted it and refused to give it back. To state it mildly, I and everyone else that knew about this were a little shocked. Over the past several years I have gotten a few phone calls from potential employers checking this guy’s references. It is always uncomfortable for me and I am unsure what I am supposed to say. It is odd that someone would use me as a reference when he has stolen from me in the past—and admitted doing so. It makes very little sense at all. Asking for references and having references is extremely important. We all need references and people to speak on our behalf. No matter how persuasive and eloquently we may speak about ourselves, what others say about us generally carries a lot of weight. It is the people we have touched (rightly or wrongly) that ultimately create our persona and the message we leave with the world. What people say about us when we are not around is often the opinion that matters the most. Because the woman I was interviewing could not think of a single reference whatsoever, I was very reluctant to hire her. As the interview wound up, it became very uncomfortable and I wondered if she had spent the past five years in prison, drug rehab, or something along those lines. I am pretty confident that there was a ”skeleton” of some sort in her closet that she did not want me to know about. It is much easier to get a job, make friends and advance along our chosen path when we are recommended by others. An ”endorsement” or recommendation goes a long way to getting doors opened and things accomplished. No matter how poised and professional you are in person, if you cannot get good endorsements from others you typically are going to have a very difficult time when it comes to finding jobs. People who are recommended by others typically have a much easier time getting jobs. When you are interviewing, creating a resume and cover letter and trying to convey your expertise, the danger is that you are going to come across as conceited and arrogant. This is the last thing that you want when looking for a job. When you start singing your own praises you start to be unlikable as well. Most of us do not like people who toot their own horn, for example, and you never want to avoid be unlikable when looking for a job. The best option and the best way to ”brag” is to have someone else do it for you. Whenever you see a professional speaker take the stage, they most often are introduced by someone else. The person introducing them is typically reading a biography prepared by the speaker themselves. The reason speakers do this is because unless they are introduced like this they are worried that people will not pay attention to what they have to say—and they also do not have to worry about the negative implications of ”tooting their own horn” to the audience. When you are in the job market—or doing anything for that matter—do your best to always have other people sing your praises. It will make a huge difference in you getting ahead. Get others to cheer for you.

The Secret Career Tactic of “Lock In”

Harrison Barnes — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 23:19:00 +0000

In my experience, some of the smartest and most dangerous people in the world are insurance salesmen, copier salespeople, and auto salespeople. They have a secret called “the lock in” that you can use to seriously enhance your career. Insurance Salespeople are Dangerous Several years ago I found myself sitting in the office of an insurance salesman. This was no ordinary insurance salesman. In fact, this guy sold so much insurance that he owned three jet airplanes and was worth a few hundred million dollars. It was about a four- hour drive for me to go see this guy. We had been set up for a meeting by a mutual acquaintance. It takes a lot for me to be motivated enough to get in the car and drive four hours to go and see someone I hardly know. There are lots of successful people out there and I love meeting them; notwithstanding, sitting in traffic in Los Angeles is not my idea of fun and there needs to be something pretty significant to get me to go that far. Ostensibly, I was there because the insurance agent had led me to believe he needed my help. He had heard about this thing called “the Internet” and thought that I might be able to help him get his business online—he said we could “do exciting things together” and led me to believe that I could join him in the insurance industry. I am not in the insurance industry, but because he was connected to a friend of mine, I decided to meet this incredibly successful individual and talk to him about the Internet. That alone would not have been enough to motivate me to go and see the insurance agent. However, in the grand scheme of things this was about the most brilliant thing he could have said to get me motivated to go see him. When it really came down to it, the reason I went to see the insurance agent was because I had some questions that puzzled the heck out of me: • How does a man with no significant education amass hundreds of millions of dollars selling insurance? • How does a man with hardly any staff make hundreds of millions of dollars selling insurance? • How does a man who operates with nothing but a telephone and notepad on his desk make hundreds of millions of dollars selling insurance? The agent’s offices were nothing extraordinary. In fact, the insurance agent had built what I might as well call “an empire” with a staff of three secretaries and a few part-time insurance agents who helped him. When I got into his office, the friend of the insurance agent who had accompanied me down to see him started talking about something called “a John Hancock”—some incredible insurance policy that was only granted to the “close associates” of the most successful insurance agents in the country. Apparently, all you had to do was spend $100,000 on the policy and then in two years John Hancock would buy it back for $250,000! This sounded too good to be true and I wanted one! Despite the fact that I was not there to buy insurance, within moments of arriving in the office I was hungry to get this special and coveted John Hancock insurance policy. I was told by a secretary that there might possibly be one available. I was told by my acquaintance that if the insurance agent “really liked me” he might be able to get me one. I am not sure of the exact dynamic that played itself out; however, within moments of arriving in the insurance agent’s office I was more eager to get an insurance policy than I was to learn his success secrets After about 20 minutes of waiting and getting me fully primed to be interested in a special insurance policy, I was introduced to the agent. The insurance agent was a nice guy and he had a bit of charisma and seemed genuinely interested in what he was doing. There was absolutely no impression I got that he was dishonest, or the he did not have my best interest at heart. However, only a few minutes into the meeting I could tell that he was much less interested in the internet than in selling me insurance. Learning about the Internet had been a pretext to get me there. The agent walked out of the office with me as I was leaving and told me that he would fly me in his jet down to an insurance conference in Dallas in the next few weeks to learn more about insurance. I never ended up hearing back from him about that one. What did happen is that a couple of his associates called me the next day to discuss insurance and within a few weeks (after I had a medical exam) I was signing papers for a big life insurance policy that will require me to make payments on it yearly for the next 20 years. Not one, two or three year—20 years. I could scarcely believe what happened and am still trying to figure out how I purchased life insurance to this day. I am glad that I have it, but at the time I was not sure. “He’s going to get back to you about the Internet thing,” the insurance agent told me as I was signing the first of many check for the insurance policy. I never heard back from him on that either. The Lock In What I learned later was that the insurance agent gets paid every time I make a payment—for 20+ years. What is interesting about insurance is also that every single year that goes by, the cost of getting new insurance gets more expensive so you end up getting “locked in” because if you get rid of your insurance you have to get a new policy. The new policy will be more expensive because you will have aged in the interim and life insurance always gets more expensive the older your get. Moreover, you have to get a medical exam every time you get a new insurance policy. It is easier just to get locked in … Copier Salespeople Are Dangerous Around this same time a copier salesperson who had sold me a very expensive copier had “friended” me on Facebook. This copier cost $300,000 but the cost was not the issue. The issue was that each time I turned the copier on it started charging me money. It was connected to the Internet so it could charge me in real time: • It charged me money for every page I printed. • It charged me money every time I used more than one color in the document. • It charged me money if I printed on more than one side. • It charged me more money if I printed ink on more than 20% of the page. • It charged me money for service when it wanted (it automatically called headquarters to send service people to it) The machine just kept charging money. I eventually had to stop using it. It schemed to charge money in every way you can possibly believe. The machine was an evil genius. While I am not a big Facebook user, at the time I was monitoring advertising campaigns our business was doing on Facebook so I was on there a lot. I started noticing all sorts of updates from the copier salesperson. • She was on a cruise. • She was hiking in Nepal. • She was redecorating her house (again!) • She was looking for art in New Orleans Despite the fact that this girl was probably in her mid 30s, she seemed to be making an extremely good living selling these copiers. When I finally realized that she was doing incredibly well was when she announced to all of her friends on Facebook that she was not using her “new” vacation condo at a ski resort enough and would rent it to her friends for $500 a night if they wanted to use it. This entire experience with the copier salesperson left a strange taste in my mouth. Here I was struggling to pay for this ridiculous copier, working like crazy six days a week and here she was off having a great time redecorating, shopping for art and skiing at her condo in her second home! It was almost too much to believe. “I could quit this job and make $800,000 a year selling copiers,” one of my employees said to me once. He was sitting in my office asking for a raise. I was a bit astonished at the time and thought he was a little nuts … but in retrospect he was quite right. I have every belief that copier salespeople can make that much money (and they do). The Lock In Copier salespeople can make so much money because they get paid every time you make a payment on your copier and every time you make a copy—they get a percentage of what you spend. When you get a copier, they have every incentive to keep you “locked in” to using them indefinitely. This is what a copier salesperson does: They sign you up for a contract that just keeps going and going. By the time the copier wears out, or you have paid it off, the salesperson will be there with a new machine that is more enticing than the old one. The process never stops repeating itself. You are locked in … Auto Salespeople are Dangerous For several years I drove Mercedes Benz automobiles. Over the course of around 15 years, I had purchased 4 cars from an auto salesperson at the Mercedes dealership in downtown Los Angeles. Each time he had talked me into getting leases on the cars and always “dangled” low monthly payments in from of me as a way of inducing me to purchase a given car. Every few years I would saunter into the dealership and purchase a new car. The salesman was from India and he liked to brag to me about how much money he was making, how he took his family back to India flying First Class, how he was a member of an expensive country club where he played golf and so forth. Despite the fact I was in the habit of leasing $100,000 automobiles from this man, I generally felt somewhat intimidated by his references to great wealth. Several years ago a new Mercedes came out called the S550, which was a replacement of an old body style. The auto salesperson called me and told me that he “only had one”—a special “launch edition”– and if I wanted this new car I had to get down to the dealership right away. He told me that I was “his favorite customer” he was holding it especially for me. I had been up very late the night before working on something and was a bit disoriented but made the trip anyway. Within a few hours I had traded my old car (just off lease) in on the S550. When I got to the dealership the salesman told me the car was selling for $20,000 over list price since it was “new and exclusive.” As I negotiated the lease, I told him that I refused to pay more than list for the car and wanted to have a buyout that was based on the list price of the car if I wanted to get out of the lease. The salesperson agreed and I felt as if I was getting a good deal on the car since he had started the pricing at $20,000 over list. A few days later, I realized that the while the lease price of the car had been based on the list price of the car, the interest rate I was being charged was going to amount to something like 30% and that after four years of payments I would have paid more than the list price and would still owe a ton more money on the car. I called up Mercedes Benz and converted the lease into a purchase at the agreed-upon list price. This reduced the payments on the car to something like 3.9% for the interest rate. For days the salesperson called me and attempted to talk me into not doing this. He made one argument after another but none of them made any sense. I had paid too much for the lease and he knew it and I knew it. Finally, the salesperson literally came by my office begging … he would make thousands of dollars on “fees” for signing me up for the lease as long as I kept it for at least six months. Would I please keep the lease active as a “favor” to him? Beware of “the Lock In” Automobile companies and auto salespeople have us locked in. Cars get old, become less fashionable, or something emerges with newer and newer features …. And we want a new one. Every time the car salesperson sells us a car they make money. Every time we sign a lease for a new car the salesperson makes money. Our cars become like ATMs for the auto salespeople who sell them to us. We are locked in …

What Does it Mean to Be Locked In?

Without belaboring the point, there are tons of economic forces out there that are constantly trying to lock you in. The longer the lock in … the more money they stand to make off of you.

I am not saying there is anything wrong with this … it is the way of the world. Why does the insurance salesman make so much money? He is able to “draw people in” and then “lock them in.” It works. Marriage is another form of “lock in”. All around us people, organizations and others are trying to “lock us in.” Unions lock us in. If you join a union you will be expected to pay dues. The list goes on and on. Your success in your professional life will be due in no small part to your ability to “lock in” your employer. You want to get your employer and the people you work for to “commit” and keep coming back and using you again and again. The more people are committed to you and the harder it is for them to “switch” the more they will be committed to keeping you around. How does lock in work? Several years ago I had an unusual experience. Someone came to me in response to a job advertisement and offered to do work for me for $10 an hour. They seemed very earnest and excited about the job and they were the best person for the job at the time. Within 6 months this person had learned their job so well they became completely indispensable. Every time he mastered a task, he took on a new one and mastered that too. Eventually he had some involvement in nearly every aspect of the business. He was so indispensable that there was no way I could do without him. The person kept getting raise after raise and continued this pattern for many years. Then the person started missing work. They started doing a poor job at many things. Stuff started to get sloppy. But I did not do anything even after numerous discussions with the person about improving their performance. I was locked in… the person had become indispensable and letting them go would have created a great deal of chaos. The person had been having problems and eventually I found out they needed to return to their home country due to issues back there (this was the reason for the problems) … but I would have worked with them for some time due to their high skills in their job—I was locked in. Why was I locked in? It would have been far too difficult for me to switch employees. The person had learned too much about their job and had a hand in multiple parts of the business. He was also very good at what he did, but more importantly replacing him would have caused disruption to everything my company does. You need to “lock yourself in” to your employer. A car may entice you with a low payment but it locks you in for a long period of time… Insurance entices you with low payments but locks you in for a long period of time … A copier entices you with low payments but locks you in for a long period of time … Lock in is an art form and companies and others are doing it to us all the time. In order to really catapult your career, it is exceptionally important that you too learn to get a job practicing “lock in” and keep a job practicing lock in. You can entice an employer by agreeing to work for free or at a reduced rate for a short period of time. You can then become indispensable. When people get laid off, or not hired, they have done something that has prevented them from effectively locking in the employer. You need to lock in employers and learn from the greatest. After all, if insurance agents, copier salespeople, auto salespeople, and others can live the lives of their dreams with lock in … so too can you.

Prank Phone Calls, Accountability and Your Career

Harrison Barnes — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 21:07:08 +0000

When I was growing up, like many kids my age, my friends and I discovered the joys of making prank phone calls. We never did anything all that serious. We might call a girl from our class and talk in a funny voice, for example. The most serious phone call we ever made was ordering a pizza for our neighbor and watching the pizza man argue with him when he arrived. That was funny. When the neighbor refused the pizza, we went and bought it from the pizza man when he was getting in his car—so the prank was not all that serious but it was still great fun. One day I had a babysitter over watching a friend and myself while we were making prank phone calls. I could not have been in more than sixth grade at the time. She seemed amused by our phone calls and decided to get in on the action. “Here, let me show you how this is done,” she said. She seemed pretty excited and seemed to be bumbling with enthusiasm. She grabbed a phone book from the kitchen and started looking for people to call. “If you call a number and a woman answers you can be pretty sure her husband is at work,” she said. “Then you can say all sorts of things about him and the wife will believe you.” I was not sure what she was up to but over the next 30 minutes or so she made some of the most shocking prank phone calls I had ever heard. For example, she called two separate women and claimed that she was calling from the hospital and their husbands had been “seriously injured” in an accident. She called another woman and spoke with her for around 10 minutes about the fact that she was having an affair with her husband. This was before the days of *69 (to return phone calls) or caller ID, so these were some really sadistic and savage phone calls she made. Following the phone calls, she would call back and scream “it was a joke!” and then slam down the phone; however, despite alerting people that she had been joking her prank phone calls just did not seem right. After watching her do her prank phone calls, I lost interest in doing them myself. They just did not seem right. I was not sure what was so offensive about the prank phone calls; however, the more I thought about it the more I realized that what was so upsetting was their complete “anonymity”. The thrill of a prank phone call is the fact that no one knows who you are and you can do and say anything that you want. For many people, this idea is extremely exciting in many respects because they can say what they ordinarily would not say when someone is around. When I started practicing law, online “chat boards” and gossip sites for associates started to emerge. Attorneys would go on these chat sites anonymously and chat about random things day after day. They would say nasty things about each other, their supervisors, their employers and others. I never understood these sorts of sites (although I run one myself called Judged) and the interest people have in talking about others anonymously. These anonymous conversations almost seem, in my estimation, based on a desire to not be accountable for our actions. In my opinion the people most interested in speaking anonymously and acting anonymously are the people who are most interested in not being accountable for the things they do. A funny story involves the Founder of a site called Infirmation.com (now part of FindLaw) and his history as a prank caller. I have met this person and spoken with him extensively. This attorney was working at a law firm called Cadwalader in New York and was not enjoying practicing law too much. One day he discovered how to “hack in” to the firm phone system and change his bosses’ voicemail greetings. In his best imitation of each of his bosses, he called into the voicemail system and changed their greetings to say things like: “This is Steven Patternson. I am currently getting a blow job from a man and cannot come to the phone right now. Please leave a message.” Or … “Hello, this is George Masterson. I am cheating on my wife with my secretary Linda. We are at the Plaza Hotel every Tuesday between 4:00 and 6:00 pm in a room. My wife does not know but all the people in the office do. Please leave a message.” Since most of these were uptight, patrician and very serious older heterosexual men, this did not go over well and when they traced the phone calls back to him he was summarily fired from the law firm. In response, he started the first “anonymous chat board” for attorneys that within a year or two was acquired by Westlaw. Because he was pretty well-known back in the day, I was excited to meet him and he came to my office in Downtown Los Angeles. To my astonishment, a newspaper reporter and photographer from the Los Angeles Daily Journal (the local legal newspaper) showed up to take his picture and write a story about him. He had become famous for creating an anonymous forum for attorneys to write bad things about others. Many people act far differently when they know that others are watching than when they are not being watched. Several years ago, we had a theft problem in our office. When women would work late at night in our office, someone would go into their purse and steal money while they were in the bathroom. This happened for some time until we narrowed down the person who did it: It was an attorney who LOVED going on to chat boards and chatting anonymously. This attorney’s reputation was destroyed by this one simple action. A few years ago I was representing an attorney I knew who LOVED going on to chat boards and chatting anonymously. This was an incredibly talented attorney who was about to make partner at one of the 3 or 4 largest law firms in the country. A short time into representing him, I learned that he had been fired by the law firm because he had lied about sending a letter (which he did not) and had tried to cover his tracks later by creating the letter (on a computer system … which is traceable) after he said he had mailed the letter. His career was destroyed by this one simple action. More recently, someone started making all sorts of untrue and anonymous statements about me online. These were brought to my attention and I investigated them. I discovered that these were made by someone I knew (also an attorney) who LOVED going on to chat boards and making anonymous comments when I had known them. What is the common thread running through these statements that people are making anonymously in chat rooms and so forth? I think the common thread is that they are made by people who do not want to be accountable for their actions. They are people who take joy in being “immune” from society’s rules and constraints. This is how people act when they are in a car and someone cuts them off. They raise their middle finger and start shouting obscenities. The car is something that allows them to not have to be accountable. Shielded by a ton of metal, a person acts in a way they never would otherwise –raising their voice and acting with a ferocity they never would in any face-to-face meeting. Several times a day I get an email about Viagra or something along those lines spammed into my email box. I am sure that people would not come up to me personally and ask me to buy Viagra 20+ times a day. It is the anonymity of email that makes this happen. What is happening in society with anonymous message boards, email and so forth is that people are increasingly hiding behind being unaccountable for the things that they write, say and do. When there is no accountability people can act (for the most part) without the fear of any sort of retribution from society for their actions. When we are not accountable for our actions, things break down and there are many problems. Most supervisors in all businesses struggle to hire (and keep) people who are accountable. When they are given an assignment, the person who is accountable generally gets the work done and never makes excuses. They do not point fingers at others for something they should have done to assist them in getting the work done—they just make sure it gets done (no matter what). Believe it or not, people who are not accountable on the job are very common. These people will seek to blame others, make excuses and rationalize why something they were asked to do is not done People who are not accountable are found in most companies and they are a “cancer” that most companies try and eliminate but never seem to be able to. People who are accountable are always successful and always get things done. The best people I have ever hired and worked with are also the most accountable. To my astonishment, when given incredibly difficult assignments (that I did not even think they could complete), or very tight deadlines, these people responded like this: “Sure, it will be done.” Or … “I will not fail.” I have been amazed by people like this and have seen them complete assignments that 99% of others would have found excuses for. Sometimes they stayed up all night. Other times they managed to enlist the help of others they did not even know. Other times they pulled strings and found ways to make something happen that should not have. Other times, just through sheer hard work and luck they made it happen. This knack for being accountable and getting things done is one of the strongest skills that you can have in your job. People who are accountable are more likely to get jobs. People who are accountable are more likely to get promoted. People who are accountable are the rarest and strongest sorts of employees there are. All employers want to hire accountable people. In my opinion, the people who hide behind the anonymity of chat boards, are most aggressive in flipping people off while driving and so forth—are often the same people who are the least accountable in their work and careers. In my opinion, there is a crisis of accountability in our country. The government bails out banks and other institutions that fail because of bad decisions. People blame banks for lending them money when they cannot afford their homes. People lose money investing in ponzi schemes with impossibly high returns and blame someone else. We have extended our unemployment benefits to extremely long levels—instead of teaching people how to find a job. We provide huge severance packages to people who run companies and have failed. Regardless of whether or not you want to be, you are accountable for everything that you are involved in—no matter how it turns out.

You are accountable for the results you get in your relationships.
You are accountable for whether or not you get or keep a job.
You are accountable for whether or not you get a raise.
You are accountable for your health.
You are accountable for your children.
You are accountable for everything you are involved in.

Not someone else. You. You are accountable. It may sound hard to believe that you are accountable for your children—but you are. You have control over how they do and how they behave and how they turn out. I grew up with some kids whose parents were phenomenally successful as lawyers, the heads of auto companies and so forth. By the time many of these kids were are 16 or so they had gone off the deep end and were into drugs, doing poorly in school or had other serious problems. Most of the parents believed that the kids were just “bad” and sent them to counselors and private schools in an effort to make someone else accountable for their children. I remember one incident, though, that is really striking to me. One of the worst kids I knew had been kicked out of two schools and was a real troublemaker in all respects. He was absolutely horrible and out of control. I was pretty confident he would be dead, or in prison, by the time he was 20. He was so bad that even other bad kids would not spend time with him. His father was a Harvard educated attorney and a partner at one of the largest law firms in Detroit. His father was very well known and highly regarded. One day the father decided he needed to be accountable for his son. The father took an “indefinite” leave of absence from his job and spent all day, every day with his son. He made sure he studied. He went with him to drug classes. He exercised with him. He went 100% overboard and basically dedicated his entire life and all of his time to his son. Within a year the son was “back on track” and doing very well. I met the boy a year later and he was a 100% different person. It was remarkable. Today the son is a successful banker. I tell this story because to me it is an example of a parent stepping up and being accountable for their children. It is remarkable to me what can happen when we are accountable. It can not only change others lives—it can change our own. Once you realize that you are going to have to be accountable for every single thing you are involved in—you are going to get better results in everything you do. You will also feel a real sense of accomplishment in the things you are involved in as well because you will take credit in everything that happens. You will have better relationships and you will be a happier person. You and no one else has power over the sort of life you are living. You and no one else has this power. What is missing in many peoples’ lives is the mindset that they own the results of their action and are responsible no matter what. You too need to own the results of your actions and everything you are involved in. Other people, the environment and so forth has nothing to do with your success: You do.

If you believe that you are accountable for your own success, I am willing to bet that you are successful.
If you believe that other people, influences and so forth are responsible for your success then I bet you are not nearly as successful as you could be.

At some point, society switched to a place where people are not accountable and can blame others for their lot—instead of taking responsibility. You need to be 100% accountable for everything that happens to you and that you are involved in. You cannot afford not to be. Being accountable is the most important possible thing that you can do. It is going to change your career and your life.

You Must Produce and Do Quality Work

Harrison Barnes — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 06:30:30 +0000

At Toyota’s headquarters in Tokyo, one of the most striking things you see when you first enter is a collection of three pictures. The first is of Toyota’s founder, the second is of Toyota’s chairman, and the third, which is much larger than the other two is of W. Edwards Deming. The company believes Deming is the man whose teachings and philosophies made the company what it is today. Deming taught the Japanese about quality and how to continuously improve quality. In fact, the success of modern Japan after World War II as an economic and industrial power is largely based on the Japanese march towards continuously improving their quality, versus the typical focus of American corporations:

Short-term profits
Mobility of management
Running a company on visible figures alone
Relying on technology to solve problems

Japanese goods used to be the laughing stock of the world in terms of their quality. Today, they are considered among the best, and the phrase “Made in Japan” is considered synonymous with quality. As the quality of Japan’s goods has increased, so too has its standard of living and status in the world. The drive towards quality has served to elevate the country of Japan and its people. If quality can do this for a country, imagine what it can do for your career. Incredible quality does not just change nations, it can change your life as well. The more you stress quality in your job, the better you will do in everything you attempt. You cannot avoid doing quality work and bringing improvement to your life. This is the lesson Deming brings to the way companies and countries are run, and your life. The better you perform your job and the better the quality of your work, the more you will be valued by your employer. In addition, the more you concentrate on doing quality work, the more you will continuously improve. It is rare for people who produce the very best work and demand perfection to ever be out of a job or ever have a hard time finding a job. They get exceptional references from their previous employers, and current employers try to hold on to them, even in the worst economies. Producing quality work is something very rare and, because it is so rare, it is something that’s valued in every marketplace all over the world. We seek out and value the people who are the best at their jobs. The best employers want the people who produce the highest quality results to do work for them. When you produce quality work, you typically do not have to worry about job security, raises, or what other people are doing. When I started practicing law with my first firm, I found myself working 15+ hours per day, seven days a week. I was not working this hard because I thought it necessary. In fact, many of the people I was working with at the firm had the same amount of work I did. I was working so hard because I knew the work I was doing could always be better. I knew I could make the same point in fewer words in a document I was writing. I knew I could make a more persuasive argument by finding better support for it. I knew I could stay a little bit longer and make something the best it possibly could be. I gave my all. The great thing about my continuous quest for quality is, the better I did, the more the most important attorneys at my firm started having me do all their work. In addition, I continued to get better and better at what I did. I will never forget when I quit working at my first firm and decided to go to work for another. For several hours the most important partners in the firm, one after another, came into my office and tried to convince me to stay. At the time I did not know they rarely, if ever, did this when someone was leaving the firm. After the third day of this, I asked one of the younger partners why they were trying so hard to get me to stay. “We want you to stay because you do really good work and you care about what you are doing,” he told me. “You also continue to get better and better and show incredible promise as a litigator.” I was young at the time and those words sort of went in one ear and out the other; however, I remembered them years later when I started to employ people and observe their work ethic. I realized the effort I had been putting in was something quite rare. It is one thing to simply work hard at what you are doing and another to make your job your passion and set out to continuously improve. A year or so later, when I wanted to come back to that firm, I asked the head of the firm if I could return to work. He said “yes” right away. For various reasons, this did not work out, but the fact is the good work I had done made an impression on the head of this firm and on the people in it. In your job the most important thing you can do is make an incredible effort and do the best possible quality of work. When you do the best work you can, you are behaving like a professional, like someone who makes a difference in your company or firm. Your co-workers will also respect you more. You have employment security and, even if the firm you are working for goes away, your employer and co-workers will always recommend you to others. It is a wonderful thing to be known for the quality of your work. Following World War II, the Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers invited Deming to come to Japan and give a series of lectures on how management could improve quality. The Japanese told Deming they would follow his instructions. Deming predicted within five years Japan would be competitive economically, and consumers all over the world would be demanding the products the Japanese produced. The Japanese followed Deming’s suggestions and, within eighteen months of Deming’s first lecture, saw huge strides in both the quality of their goods and productivity. I predict if you start doing everything you can to improve the quality of your work, in less than a year you will start getting promoted and find yourself in a different place than you are today. People who do good work are management, CEO or high-earner material. All you need to do in order to really advance your career and life is improve the quality of your work. Once you do this, everything else quickly falls into place. When Deming initially arrived in Japan after World War II, Japan’s goods were considered shoddy and cheap throughout the world. They were made from the cheapest of materials. They were among the worst products in the world. Today, their goods are considered the envy of the world, whether the products are electronics, cameras, automobiles, or computers. For American and European firms that used to control the world in these fields, the transformation brought about by Deming’s philosophies has been nothing short of catastrophic. In the electronics industry, for example, nearly all components – such as computer chips, transistors, and semiconductor chips – were American inventions. The Japanese advanced so quickly in this field by the 1980s most American television and radio manufacturers were gone, and they rushed to Washington begging for help. The same thing happened with the American automobile industry; as the Japanese gained market share, American companies rushed to Washington and elsewhere asking for help. In my studies of Deming, one of the things that stands out for me is a video of him made shortly before he died in 1993. In the video he offers the words, “It’s all about the quality.” Everything is about the quality. Think about how much different America would be today if we had the same quality of goods the Japanese produced. We do not make the same quality of goods because our emphasis is on other things, such as short-term profits. If our emphasis was on quality, everything else would be falling into place. Deming’s philosophies are quite simple. He believed organizations must create ever improving products and services. The more the product or service improves, the more loyal the customers of the business become. Loyal customers will brag to others about the product or service they are receiving and create new customers. Profits from a sale to a loyal customer are often six to eight times the profits from another customer. The company with the most loyal customers typically has much higher profits than the average company. The results of ever-improving quality are profound. For example, if you are an attorney, you make your writing better and more persuasive. If you are a manufacturer, you make your product better. You never stop questioning and improving to make your product as good as it can be. According to a famous account of Deming’s work:

Dr. Deming’s teachings and philosophy can be seen through the results they produced when they were adopted by the Japanese, as the following example shows: Ford Motor Company was simultaneously manufacturing a car model with transmissions made in Japan and the United States. Soon after the car model was on the market, Ford customers were requesting the model with the Japanese transmission over the USA-made transmission, and they were willing to wait for the Japanese model. As both transmissions were made to the same specifications, Ford engineers could not understand the customer preference for the model with the Japanese transmission. It delivered smoother performance with a lower defect rate. Finally, Ford engineers decided to take apart the two different transmissions. The American-made car parts were all within specified tolerance levels. On the other hand, the Japanese car parts had much closer tolerances than the USA-made parts-i.e., if a part was supposed to be one foot long, plus or minus 1/8 of an inch, then the Japanese parts were within 1/16 of an inch. This made the Japanese cars run more smoothly and customers experienced fewer problems. (From Dr. Deming by Rafael Aguayo, pages 40 & 41.)

According to Deming, as quality is increased, costs decrease. This sets in motion the following reaction:

Better quality leads to higher productivity and lower costs
The firm with lower costs can pass along the savings to consumers in the form of lower prices
When a firm has lower prices and better quality, customers are happier
The firm captures market share and hires more people
The firm stays in business and grows its market share

Under Deming’s philosophy, when you improve the quality of what you are doing, everything simply gets better and this happens rapidly. What does this mean for you? I believe one of the most fundamental and important lessons in the development of a country and an economic power come from the experience of Japan. I believe the philosophies of Deming are profound and can make a major and important difference in your life and career. The more you work on the quality of what you are doing, the better you, too, will get and the better your career will get. When looking at employers, you should also concentrate on working for those whose quality is getting better and better. Employers who strive to create outstanding quality are the same ones likely to be around tomorrow. The better the quality of the product the business is producing, the more opportunities they are likely to have in the future for you. The better the quality of your work, the more opportunities you are also likely to have in the future. Make quality your first priority.