In fact, pretty much whatever you want out of life is yours for the taking.

• When you see people who are in a state of perpetual unhappiness, they are most often listening to the negative voices in their heads–those voices that tell them they cannot achieve their goals.
• When you see people who do not enjoy what they are doing for a living, they are listening to the same voices.
• When you see people who have bad relationships, they are listening to the same voices.

Pretty much anyone you know who is in a state of perpetual unhappiness and is not living up to what he or she is capable of, is someone who is listening to the negative voices. The better you become at ignoring the voice, the better off you are going to be. The challenge of shutting out these negative voices is present in everyone’s life, and in some ways, this is the test of our lives. Prisons, for example, are filled with people who have listened to this voice–and doing so has gotten them into serious trouble. Conversely, when we observe a Buddhist monastery, or any group of people that has set itself apart from the world in an effort to live a holy life, we are generally observing a group of people that has successfully tuned out the negative voices. Historical characters who have left significant religious impacts on the world, like Jesus for example, are people who taught and practiced lives of not listening to the voices. What are these voices doing? The voices:

• Push us to do the things we should not be doing, even when we know we should not.
• Tell us to walk past a piece of trash without picking it up.
• Tell us to eat something we should not, even when we are dieting.
• Tell us to pass along a rumor about someone, even when we do not know if it is true.
• Tell us to cheat by doing something the easy way, instead of the correct way.
• Convince us that the easy way of doing something is okay because no one will notice.
• Tell us that there is nothing wrong with cheating if no one notices.
• Tell us we do not need study when we are taking classes.
• Tell us there is nothing wrong with spending more money than we should.
• Tell us we do not need to practice to be good at something.
• Tell us there is nothing wrong with using drugs even when we are addicted.

Anything you know that you should do, that you do not do, is the product of these voices. All of our destructive and harmful actions will generally be justified by these voices. The voices are very good at telling us it is okay to do various things we know we should not. Throughout our entire lives, we are in a constant dialogue with these voices. When people dominate the voices, they have very productive, happy, and meaningful lives, and when the voices dominate them, people have very unproductive, unhappy, and not meaningful lives. If you talk to most people about their lack of success and fulfillment in the world, they will point to something and someone else as the cause of their unhappiness. Most people believe that their greatest enemies are other people, society, their company, and so forth–not the voices they listen to on a daily basis, which exist inside their very own heads. Most people never realize that they are their own greatest enemy in the world. Most of us are controlled all the time by these voices. How many people do you know who spend the majority of their time overcoming this voice so they can get better and better? Something I have found the more I have studied success and looked at the most happy and successful people out there, is that happy, successful people have the greatest self-awareness of this voice. They make the study of their own mind and their weaknesses a major part of what they do. They are constantly training themselves to be stronger and stronger, to realize and overcome their weaknesses. Instead of being complacent, they are continually improving themselves in everything that they do. When you learn to overcome the voices, you have incredible potential and can accomplish great things. I went to watch a boxing match in Las Vegas last night between Floyd Mayweather and Juan Manuel Marquez. I sat a couple of seats away from Arnold Schwarzenegger, and as I sat there watching the fight I began to think of these voices and the power of ignoring them. Both the fighters and Schwarzenegger himself have excelled at this in order to attain great success. Before we left for the fight, my wife and I were waiting for a friend of hers to get ready, and we were all watching the television show The Biggest Loser. In this show, people who are a hundred or more pounds overweight all struggle to lose their excess weight. They are forced to diet, exercise, and change their lifestyles. In the episode I was watching, the participants were all taken to the doctor and were told that they were morbidly obese, and that if they were to keep up their lifestyles, they would all die early deaths. What was so interesting about this show was that the people on the show had, thus far, always struggled against the inner voices, yet the voices had continually won. As a result, the person had become heavier and heavier over the years. The TV show essentially deals with people confronting these voices and doing everything in their power to beat the voices. Throughout the show, people were crying and saying they couldn’t do it. Sometimes people quit. People’s bodies are so out of shape that many of them end up getting sick when they start exercising. The show is fascinating because it depicts how difficult it is for people to win against the inner voices, as well as the damage these voices can inflict on our lives. Last night, looking at Arnold a few seats over, I could not help but think about how much his life has been defined by not listening to the negative voices and by overcoming them. As most people know, Arnold came to fame as a bodybuilder and then became an actor. His work as a bodybuilder inspired an entire generation of men. When you read, watch, and learn about Arnold, you learn about the incredible power available to us in having discipline. One of my favorite Arnold quotes is the following:

A beginner does eight repetitions of a certain exercise with his maximum weight on the barbell. As soon as it hurts, he thinks about stopping. I work beyond this point, which means I tell my mind that as soon as it starts aching it is growing. Growing is something unusual for the body when you are over eighteen. The body isn’t used to ten, eleven, or twelve reps with a maximum weight. Then I do ten or fifteen sets of this in a row. No human body was ever prepared for this and suddenly it is making itself grow to handle this new challenge, growing through this pain area. Experiencing this pain in my muscles and aching and going on is my challenge. The last three or four reps is what makes the muscles grow. This area of pain divides a champion from someone who is not a champion. That’s what most people lack, having the guts to go on and just say they’ll go through the pain no matter what happens. I have no fear of fainting. I do squats until I fall over and pass out. So what? It’s not going to kill me. I wake up five minutes later and I’m OK. A lot of other athletes are afraid of this. So they don’t pass out. They don’t go on.

He is saying that pushing through the pain is what makes him grow. Not listening to the inner voices that make the average person quit is what makes Arnold improve and grow. I wonder what sort of life Arnold would have led if he had been like most people, just listening to the voice that urged him to quit? Most people never reach their potential because they listen to the voice that allows them to quit–usually just when they start to grow. How many people push through when they get to an uncomfortable state like Arnold? The secret to having the most successful life and career possible is to push through and ignore the voices that tell us to cut corners, to not do things the best they should be done, to not see it through when things get difficult, and to not do the absolute best that we can, in everything we do. In the legal profession you can spend up to $1,000 an hour for an attorney. Since an attorney who does work for $100 an hour is capable of doing the same sort of work that the $1,000 an hour attorney does, one might ask why would anyone possibly spend $1,000 an hour for an attorney? The biggest difference between the $100 an hour attorney and the one who charges $1,000 an hour is most often the discipline of thought that that $1,000 an hour attorney exhibits. There are always going to be some other differences, of course, but for the most part, when you pay $1,000 an hour for an attorney, this person is not going to cut corners; he or she is going to do the most difficult things instead of the easiest things; he or she will do more thorough research and will be more certain of their decisions; he or she will be right much more often than wrong. What you find in the legal profession is no different than what you will find in any profession, product, or service. For example, the car that costs $100,000 as opposed to $10,000 is likely to be more carefully put together, with more attention to detail. It is like this with everything. The more thought, discipline, and work it requires, the more valuable it is likely to be. If people were to set out to dream up ways to limit you in your life and career, what they would most certainly do is arouse that negative inner voice within you. They would tell you that it is okay to leave at 5:00 p.m. and finish the project in the morning although it is due at 10:00 a.m. and is very important. They would tell you it is okay to overeat and to not take care of yourself. They would tell you that it is okay to have several drinks every night, despite the fact that it makes you ineffective at work the next day. They would tell you that it is okay to steal if no one notices. They would tell you that it is okay to lie to people when it is more convenient than telling the truth. They would tell you that you should do whatever seems to benefit you the most right now, and whatever feels best to you; never mind others and the long-term consequences of your action. The course of your career and life will be largely determined by how well you resist these inner voices. You can reach incredible heights of success the more you learn to resist the voices. When you are applying to jobs and are pursuing your career, it means you can give 200% effort–not merely 50%. This means you apply to every single job you can find; you call to follow up on applications; you apply a second time after being rejected the first time; you make sure you research every job in the market; you initiate mailing campaigns and do everything you can to make sure you market yourself as effectively as possible. On the job, it means you work extra hard, do not take shortcuts, and continually work at improving yourself. You make your mind tougher and healthier along the way. You develop more and more discipline. You push through the pain zone. People who reach great heights of success and have the most fulfilling lives are those who are not afraid to go farther than others. They ignore the voices that tell them to take the easy way out. They choose to listen to another inner voice–one of discipline, which tells them to push through and to do all things the best way they can be done. You need to listen to the other voice inside of you, which pushes you to the greatest heights and helps you ignore the voices that seek only short-term gratification. By doing this, you will unlock the secret to unlimited potential. THE LESSON When considering your capabilities, nothing is more exciting than imagining who and what you will become in life. To do this, however, you must quash the negative voice in your head telling you to compromise or take the easy way out. When you see the people who are in a perpetual state of unhappiness, they are most often the people who listen and succumb to the negative voices in their heads.

I want to enjoy everyone I know, everything I buy, and every idea I come into contact with to the fullest. I feel that we need to really appreciate what we have to the absolute fullest. A few years ago, I was taking private pilot lessons and was very close to getting my pilot’s license–and then I stopped. It has been at the back of my mind for some time that I have not completed this training, and that I need to do something about it. Accordingly, I drove to the airport to sign up for classes and complete my training. If you dream of doing something, you should never stop close to the finish line. This is what most people do. You should always push through and hit your goal. The Camarillo Airport is a small airport that is about a twenty-five-minute drive from where I live in Malibu. It is sort of in the middle of nowhere, about twenty-five miles from civilization on all sides. I have always loved going to airports and walking around them, and this airport was no exception. Camarillo is not a commercial airport. It is mainly for people who own airplanes and fly for recreation. Since I live on the beach, I see lots of airplanes towing banners and advertising beer, new movies, and so forth, to the people sitting on the beach. All of these airplanes seem to originate from the vicinity of the Camarillo Airport. The flight school at Camarillo is right next to an “executive” airport hangar. So, I decided to go inside the hangar and look around. There was a woman in an office next door and she gave me a tour of the hangar. I spoke with the woman at some length about the airport. She told me that people like the airport because it is low-key and other people do not see them coming and going. She said lots of stars and very important businesspeople fly in and out of the airport regularly because it is more private, away from the “buzz” of Los Angeles. When I got inside the hangar, I was amazed. I saw a collection of around twenty-five airplanes that cost about $3 million each. I could not believe there was a collection of these airplanes right there. In addition, there were several jets, some of which were quite large. “Whose airplanes are these?” I asked. “They are various people’s airplanes. Most of the people fly them rarely. That floatplane right there belongs to Kenny G. He likes to fly out of here and go landing on lakes.” “I do not understand,” I said. “I do not either,” she said. “Can you charter them?” I asked. “Not these airplanes. These are owned by private people. Some of them have their own pilots, whom they hire whenever they travel, though.” As I looked around, I saw what was essentially a huge parking lot of multimillion-dollar airplanes that are very rarely used. It seemed amazing to me that so many people had these dreams of flying, yet their airplanes were grounded and hardly ever used. I wondered how many hangars like this one must exist throughout the world, wherein people’s once magnificent dreams of flying sit parked and waiting. One of the most important things you can do is to go after your dreams. Your dream could be something materialistic like owning an airplane or a boat, or it could be spending your time (or life) with a certain person. What happens, however, when someone achieves his or her dream? Regardless of how your life has gone, I am sure there are many dreams you have already accomplished. But, once you achieve your goals, what then? What you see with airplanes, you also see with boats. I grew up spending a lot of my childhood in marinas around Detroit because my stepfather operated a boat business. People would make all of this money and would purchase an expensive boat, and then end up taking it out only a few times a year–or less. It never made any sense to me. Why would someone spend all of this money on a boat if they had no plans on using it? I imagine the person dreamed of owning the boat for some time and was very excited about it. Then they got the boat and forgot about the fun they could have with it. As the dream of owning a boat was fulfilled, the boat somehow became less interesting or desirable to the person who bought it. We have all had the experience of starting on the road to fulfilling our dreams. To me, the airplanes I saw at the Camarillo Airport represented people who pursued their dreams and ended up reaching them. There are people who do everything they can to reach a goal, to get somewhere that they think is going to make them happy, and then when they get there, they do not appreciate it. They are not happy because their lives have not really changed the way they had hoped they would after achieving their dream. While all people do not live out their dreams by accumulating boats and airplanes, some do exactly the same thing with people. People dream of being close to another person, and often fulfill this goal. A marriage is a perfect example of two people coming together due to what is, in most cases, a dream one or (hopefully) both of them had. Someone told me recently that each year 5% of the adult population gets married. However, despite this percentage of people getting married, more than half of these people end up getting divorced. What happened to their dream? When I see couples fighting and deeply unhappy with each other, it really depresses me, because I know that neither person’s dreams are being fulfilled any longer. Over some time, the people’s wishes to spend their lives together suddenly fall by the wayside. Several years ago, my wife and I were driving someplace with a couple who, a few years previously, had appeared to be deeply in love. The story of how they met and how their relationship developed had been a real source of inspiration to me when I had first heard it. The man had dreamed of being with the woman for a long time and had sought her out for quite a while before she had agreed to go out with him. Soon they were married, but within a few years everything had seemed to change. The man had forgotten what his wife had once represented to him, or at least he was forgetting this more than he should have been. We were sitting in the backseat and the man was driving. The man was saying things to his wife like: “If you do not shut up, you stupid bitch, so help me god I am going to smack you!” He sounded extremely serious and determined in his tone. The woman was crying and shouting various insults to fuel her husband’s fury. There are certain fights that couples have that, when you witness them, you see they are at a level far beyond “normal behavior,” and you may accurately estimate that, as a result, the couple will thereafter divorce or be spending several unhappy years together. This was one of those fights. I did not get involved, but the fight disturbed me to quite a degree, especially since I knew how important both the man and woman were to each other. Nevertheless, they seemed to be in the process of throwing away their dreams. Couples often end up doing a lot of damage to their dreams and lives together. Usually this happens as a result of taking each other for granted, and the people within the couple decide to just throw it all away. When you see boats, exotic planes, and people who had once been the focus of someone’s dream suddenly being ignored and treated poorly, it is very sad. It is as if people reach a point where they do not appreciate what they have accomplished and the fact that they have fulfilled their dreams. If you fulfill your dreams, nothing is more important than being incredibly grateful for what you have done and enjoying the results. The person with the airplane should be getting out and enjoying the airplane. The person with the boat should be enjoying the boat. The person with the friend or spouse they one day dreamed of having, should enjoy his or her partner, and be eternally grateful. There is no use in having a goal or a dream if you do not enjoy and nurture the result when you finally achieve it. Simply put, if you achieve something, you should make the most of it. Far too many people reach a goal and then stop caring. This is the worst thing you can do, because deep down you will never appreciate any goal you attain in the future. Never allow your dreams, goals, and aspirations to sit on the sidelines. Cherish these things while you seek them as well as once you attain them. You need to enjoy what you have now in order to live your life to the fullest. THE LESSON Cherish your dreams, goals, and aspirations both while you are seeking them and after you attain them. If you dream of doing something, never stop short of the finish line. There is no point to goals or dreams if you do not enjoy and nurture the results once you achieve them; if you achieve something, you should make the most of it. If you stop caring once you achieve your goals, then you will never truly appreciate any of the goals you achieve in the future.

• Have you ever known someone whose friends and acquaintances are always getting sick?
• Have you ever known someone whose friends and acquaintances are always having accidents?
• Have you ever known someone whose friends and acquaintances are always getting in trouble?
• Have you ever known someone whose friends and acquaintances are always in crisis?
• Have you ever known someone whose friends and acquaintances are always having financial problems?
• Have you ever known someone whose friends and acquaintances are always losing their jobs?
• Have you ever known someone whose friends and acquaintances are always unhappy?

I have, and I do not think there are a lot of coincidences when it comes to people and the misfortunes that plague their lives. There are, quite simply, people who will generally make those around them unhappy and create problems. While it seems to be a paranoid sort of assertion, I firmly believe that whether or not the people around us are validating or invalidating us is a large cause of our success or failure in life. This also goes for organizations. If you are in a good or bad organization, this can have a tremendous influence over what happens to you. One of my greatest sources of pride is the number of positive stories I could tell you about my former employees. Good things have happened to many of them in their careers after being with me for some time. The fact that good things happen to people associated with a given organization or person reflects well on that organization or person. Conversely, I know of law firms in which nothing much ever happens for the people who leave, and, in most cases, they experience one failure after another following their departure. Much of this has to do, I think, with the level of support the people may have received in their previous positions and the messages they have carried forth into their lives by virtue of this association.

• Did they learn to believe in what is possible?
• Did they feel validated?
• Did they develop confidence?
• Were they able to learn and incorporate a message about their own validity in the world?

If you are spending time with a person who is invalidating your efforts and your life, the odds are you will be negatively affected. Similarly, if you are around someone who is constantly validating you and giving you approval, you may benefit tremendously through your association with this person. The same thing goes for the organizations that we are part of. There are people out there who tend to better the mood, health, and general well-being of those around them, and there are those who do not. I am going to list a few examples of this; some of them may be upsetting and may even relate to you personally, but nonetheless they merit review. I have known of many people throughout the years who were closely connected with someone, whether it be a parent, mate, or someone else. The person they were connected with had a huge fear of the person leaving them, and therefore their personal interest was in keeping the person down, making sure that the person did not improve, or change, to such an extent that they could ever leave them. A parent who does not want his or her child to go away from home may feign all sorts of illnesses to keep the child around and may also discourage any of the child’s efforts at self-improvement. For example, if the child gets into an excellent out-of-state college, the parent may encourage the child to stay home and go to a local community college, for various reasons, instead of finding a way to make the child’s upward mobility to a better school a reality. A parent who has the need to feel superior to his or her child may also keep the child down in subtle ways. In personal relationships, a man or woman may discourage a mate from trying to get a better job, looking better, and so forth, for fear that this might lead to separation and abandonment. This person might relay negative feedback about his or her partner’s accomplishments but hold back positive feedback or information that is likely to be helpful. The objective of such people is to keep other people down. People can hold you back by direct means, and they can also do so through indirect means. For example, a friend or significant other who does not compliment or notice the positive things that you do, or who always finds fault in the positive things that you do, can have a very traumatic effect on you in the long run. Making you self-conscious of your faults and always pointing these out can also be a seriously negative influence. Relating about nothing other than negativity, impossibility, and so forth can also have a very negative effect on you. If any of this sounds familiar to you, it is probably time to evaluate your relationships. In most sports, there is something called the home team advantage, which means that when a team is playing at home, it tends to perform much better than when they play away. When a team is at home, it is encouraged and cheered on by people, and is supported by the spectators, whereas visiting teams are often booed. Consider this explanation from Wikipedia:

In most team sports where the concept of home and away stadiums is found, the home team is considered to have a significant advantage over the visitors. Due to this, many important games (such as playoff or elimination matches) in many sports have special rules for determining what match is played where. In association football, matches with two legs, one played in each team’s “home,” are common; it is also common to hold important games at a neutral site. In many team sports in North America (including baseball, basketball, and ice hockey), playoff series are often held, with a nearly equal number of games at each team’s site; as it is usually beneficial to have an odd number of matches in a series (to prevent ties), the final home game is often awarded to the team that had the most success over the regular season. In some sports, this tends to be a huge ace in the hole, such as basketball, where historically the home team in deciding games has won 78 of 97 games, up until the second round of the 2007 NBA Playoffs. Home field advantage is especially pronounced in NCAA Division I American football, where teams like LSU, USC, Ohio State, Penn State, Florida, Texas, Oklahoma, Georgia, and many others win consistently at home. Many college football stadiums also have nicknames that represent the loudness of the stadium. Autzen Stadium, home of the Oregon Ducks, has been nicknamed the “Autzen Zoo” because of how loud it gets, and Kyle Field, the home of the Texas A&M Aggies has been nicknamed the “12th Man” because of the loudness there. That can be attributed to the fact that many of the largest football stadiums in America are college stadiums, such as Michigan Stadium, which seats 107,501, about 35,000 more than most NFL stadiums. However, teams that are nearby may have less of a home field advantage. Such examples may be UCLA-USC or Cal-Stanford, where the visiting team’s fans often equal or exceed the home crowd and the only effect the visiting team has is they have to wear their road uniforms and play on a nearby field. Sometimes during bowl season, a team will happen to play a bowl game in their home stadium and sometimes be designated as the visiting team in their own home stadium, and thus, receives the home field advantage despite not being the home team. On the high school level, where schools often share stadiums, when the co-tenants play each other, one school manages to pick up a not so rare, but advantageous road game in their home stadium. On the professional level, several teams either get to play road games in their home stadiums or play a road game nearby. When the Jets and the Giants of the NFL meet, whoever the visiting team is gets an extra game at their home stadium. A similar situation occurs when the Lakers and Clippers of the NBA play each other. Other series where teams get to stay close to home on the road include: (NFL) Raiders-49ers, Ravens-Redskins (MLB) A’s-Giants, Dodgers-Angels, Mets-Yankees, Cubs-White Sox, Cubs-Brewers, Orioles-Nationals (NHL) Islanders-Rangers-Devils, Ducks-Kings, Oilers-Flames, Senators-Maple Leafs, Canadians-Senators, and in the NBA, Knicks-Nets, Kings-Warriors and Lakers-Clippers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_advantage

The home team advantage is one of the most important concepts in sports and it is a proven factor in how well teams do. If this concept applies to teams, how do you think it can apply to everyday life? There are people who support us, validate us, and make us feel good, and this helps us do well more often than not. There are also people around us who fail to support us, and this hurts us. When a team away from home scores a goal, people boo or do not make the team feel validated for its efforts. When the team away from home does something wrong, people may cheer. The psychological message transmitted is that people only approve of the team away from home when they are doing poorly. Many people associate with people and groups of people who treat them like they are not the home team; others associate with people who treat them like they are the home team. Your success in your career and in your life will in large part be determined by whether you are living, working, and associating with a “home team” crowd or an “away team” crowd. When I was in high school geometry class, after the first exam, our teacher drew a giant circle on the blackboard, representing the shape of a horse-racing track. He then put little dots in several places along the track and said something that I will never forget:

“This is where you all started in the race, but everyone’s position can change. Some of you will pass one another at some point, and the person who is in first right now may not keep running and may end up in last place. Conversely, the person who is in last may keep running, training, and trying to do better and may end up in first place. You need to realize that the race for the best grade will take all semester, and just because you are one place right now, this does not mean it is where you will end up.”

This is a really simple example and the teacher was talking only about our geometry class at the time; however, it is a metaphor that stands true for our lives. People begin the race in a certain place, and then some people end up doing much better than others, and this is just how it works. The race keeps going and just because someone starts the race in first place does not mean he or she is going to finish the race in first place. When you trace the cause of someone with a lot of potential falling behind in the race, when you see sickness and ill health, when you find people not trying hard enough, when you see failure and despair, generally somewhere along the line you will find someone who has been negatively affected and otherwise discouraged by people somewhere along the way. It is an absolute fact of life that the company you keep will have an effect on what happens to you. In athletics, it is common for some players to be extremely good at a sport despite not being tall enough (in basketball), big enough (in football), and so forth. What generally separates these players who do not have all the physical attributes of success is the sheer determination and self-belief inside of them. Having heart and drive can make all the difference. Heart and drive are what push people to the top of any profession and any job. If you are going to reach your full potential, you must possess heart and drive. This is something that wins races, despite any uncontrollable obstacles that may arise. Heart and drive can be killed, though, if they are not supported. The best thing you can do for yourself is to put yourself in a position where you are supported, where you have the home team advantage. Having the home team advantage is something that can help you win in the game of life.

• Discover what you want!
• Have a positive attitude!
• Create big goals!
• Have discipline!
• Follow through!
• Believe in yourself!
• Keep trying, even when you fail!

Virtually any self-improvement book you may read and any self-improvement seminar you may attend will give you some variation of this advice. I am not criticizing any of this advice, because it works and can help people become very successful. These are concrete, guiding principles that have been proven over many years and in many cases. For example, if you do not follow through with whatever you are seeking to achieve, then it is unlikely you will ever amount to much; you need to follow through. If it were my decision, I would make sure that all schools instruct people about these various principles of self-improvement, because they are so incredibly important. Far too many people are nowhere near reaching their potential because they do not understand the basics of self-improvement. There is a real difference between long-term success and short-term success. Familiarizing yourself with the principles of self-improvement can help you advance in your career and life for a while, but they are not the be all and end all of what it really takes to succeed in the long term. When the economy is good, the people who follow general self-improvement advice can always do well for a time. For example, they can more easily get jobs and, depending on market conditions, get one raise and promotion after another. There is nothing wrong with this; however, to experience consistent and long-lasting success, a completely different set of skills becomes necessary. Real self-improvement and self-development has nothing to do with you. In fact, the people who really end up succeeding in their work are usually those who believe that becoming better means the following:

• helping others discover what they want
• helping others have positive attitudes
• helping others create big goals
• helping others have discipline
• helping others follow through with their goals
• helping others believe in themselves
• helping others keep trying even when they fail

It is like this in every industry and every career path I know about. If you name any profession, I will point out how becoming good at the profession requires you to put others first, and how the more you do this, the more success you will find. Currently, we are in a horrible hiring market for attorneys. One of my jobs is running a legal recruiting firm. Over the past several months, I have seen numerous recruiters fail at their jobs. Many of these legal recruiters got into the business initially because they wanted to make money; they liked the lifestyle associated with being a recruiter, and they had lots of other reasons for choosing the job, all of which revolved around them. These recruiters tend to be suffering the worst in this economy. Conversely, the recruiters who got into the business because they view it as an outlet to help others have continued doing incredibly well. Most likely this is because the best attorney candidates can sense whether their recruiters really want to help them. The attorneys trust these recruiters and flock to them. The self-improvement we seek starts with helping others. Making everything all about ourselves is a huge epidemic in our society, whether one analyzes people in politics, sports, business–or just daily life. I love watching politics from the sidelines. The longer you watch politicians, the more you realize that a lot of them are crooked and are only in it for themselves, not to help others. The politicians are often, it seems, more concerned with getting bribes, steering lucrative contracts to friends, and otherwise benefiting from their position of power. Instead of being concerned about their constituents and society at large, they are often more concerned with making sure that their own needs are met. There will always be scandals such as those with the former Illinois governor, Rod Blagojevich, because the idea of “self-improvement” for many people means enriching themselves at others’ expense. Not too long ago, I met a guy who owns a sports book casino. Since he is taking millions of dollars in bets a day during the sports season, he told me that he and other casino owners have learned that there is a ton of graft and so forth in college sports, for example. It is not uncommon for college football games to be fixed. The casinos can often pick this up due to betting patterns. When games occur that appear to be fixed, the casinos will usually observe players making ridiculous errors and appearing to throw the game. In these cases, the athletes are obviously more concerned with themselves than their team or fans. The same thing happens in business. Many executives get to high places in business and suddenly you see them doing all sorts of things that are more about them than about others. Whether it is an executive doling out stock options that are backdated or some other misdeed, executives are continually under fire for being more concerned with their own “self-improvement” than helping the people around them. This is something I see all the time with high-ranking executives and others: They simply care more about themselves than their customers, coworkers, or anyone else. The key to your own success is simple: Nothing you do in your life is about you. You simply cannot succeed in your life if you believe it is all about you. It is never about you and never will be about you. Ignoring this concept can be dangerous and can crush your chances of success. Your goals and aspirations need to be far greater and larger than focusing solely on your goals and what you want. Whatever you are seeking in your life, you will only find it when you are working to fulfill the goals and aspirations of others. Detroit is a fascinating city to me in so many respects. There was so much wealth there at one time, which was brought about by the automobile industry. Now, over the past five years, homes there have gone down in value by up to four times, as industry and the economy have suffered due to the weakening state of the auto industry. In reality, though, the city has been collapsing for years and has been going downhill for my entire lifetime. One of my first memories is when, in the early 1970s, Detroit started to proclaim itself “the Renaissance City,” and the Renaissance Center was built in downtown Detroit. The idea was that the city was on its way back, experiencing a revival. The problem with this, however, was that the city was not really going to come back. I believe a switchover had occurred in the psychology of the automobile companies in Detroit, from focusing on “what can we provide to the people” to “what the people can provide to us.” Simply stated, the automotive companies became insular and more concerned with their own needs and wants than with providing an exceptional product and service to the American public. Throughout the United States, there are all sorts of towns like Atchison, Kansas, which grew up and thrived at one time due to the railroads coming through. When the train diminished in importance and other forms of transportation became prominent, these towns lost a great deal of their wealth and became shells of their former selves. Detroit is another one of these towns too, and there are countless others. If these towns had been more concerned with what they could give, instead of what they could take, then my thought is that they would still have prospered, no matter what had happened. Lately, I have been reading lots of articles in newspapers, magazines, and so forth about people who formerly had high-level jobs in investment banks and similar “big” employers, who are now doing things like working in restaurants, or in sporting goods stores for close to minimum wage. “I was making $150,000 a year, and now the best job I can get only pays $11.00 an hour!” is the sort of statement you read in these articles again and again. The articles are always the same and they drone on about how the person at issue can no longer afford to go out to eat, how they are selling their house, and how they are so frustrated that employers are not responding to their applications. I have a ton of sympathy for these people. The employment market is bad; however, I often notice there is a problem with the psychology of the people I am reading about when I study these articles. The problem is that, more often than not, the people complaining about the job market and their employment situation are focused on themselves and their woes–instead of being focused on what they can provide for others. In fact, a lot of these unemployed people might not have lost their jobs or had difficult times finding a new job if their focus had been 100% on others. These sorts of articles lead me to question the ultimate value these people were providing, to begin with.

• In almost every case, when people lose their jobs, they are not focused enough on their employers’ needs.
• In almost every case, when an employer goes out of business, it was not focused enough on others’ needs.
• In almost every case, when people have a difficult time finding a job, they are not focusing enough on another’s needs when they are interviewing and putting together their application materials.

Nothing you do in this life is all about you. Your career is not all about you. The company you work for is not all about you. Your family is not all about you. Your friends are not all about you. It is always all about the other person. Your life and the opportunities out there are so much larger and all encompassing than you. Most people spend their time asking questions about themselves and pondering over themselves. They ask questions about what they can do to be better, questions about their goals, questions about their future. Constantly looking within one’s self can actually get in the way of success. You are one person and the world is made up of billions of people. You are always going to find more answers and more satisfying answers when you look outside of yourself instead of inside yourself. When you provide value, help, and support to others, this will provide you with more spiritual, psychological, financial, and other benefits than any other self-improvement concept out there. The way to achieve your greatest potential, and to truly help yourself, is to start helping others. THE LESSON True self-improvement actually has nothing to do with you, but everything to do with helping others towards their goals. Remember that nothing you do in your life is ultimately about you. Your goals and aspirations must be larger and greater than focusing solely on what you want; helping others will provide you with more spiritual, financial, and psychological benefits than any other kind of self-improvement.

• He was not expected to sell anything.
• He was not expected to perform surgery.
• He was not held responsible for the results of a marketing campaign.
• He was not charged with helping people understand their problems.
• He was not responsible for merging two companies together.
• He was not responsible for giving complex stock advice.
• He was not given complex tasks to think about when he went home that evening.

He was just expected to stand there.  For the most part, he could think about what he wanted, when he wanted.  No one was controlling his mind. Towards the end of his life—after a tragedy struck his business, my grandfather was a security guard and sat in a booth at the entrance to a factory every evening not doing much of anything.  He just sat there and there was no expectation that he engage in any type of complex thought, movement, or likewise.  He was just expected to sit there.  After having had a rewarding and exciting career, his life suddenly changed when he was expected to do nothing.  He died a short time after starting the job. Just about everything that you can do that is going to provide substantial economic and societal rewards is going to be difficult, taxing and hard work. It is going require that you remain focused and use your mind in ways that others do not.  It may require that you take risks.

• It may require that you think so hard that you get tired.
• It may require you organize people to help you.
• It may require you move far away.
• It is going to require you do work that others do not want to or cannot do.

When I was growing up, I always heard about how doctors and lawyers made a lot of money.  I never understood why.  Now I do.  Why do they do so well?  Because they do work that others do not want to do and the work they do is hard. First, they have to go to school and stay focused for a decade or more.  They have to sit through classes and do well in them.  They have to take tests and study a lot.  They have to do all this instead of working and potentially enjoying the fruits of their labor right away. Not only do they have to invest all of this effort in school, but they invest all of this effort and risk failing.  They may not get into a medical school or law school.  They may flunk out of medical school or law school.  They may not pass their medical boards or the Bar Exam.  All of this is tough. And it is risky. Second, they have to work very, very hard when they get out of school.  In the case of a doctor, they may have to stay up for 48+ hours several times a week and be responsible for peoples’ lives while they are working. In addition, they need to spend years working for low wages before they even can get a decent salary. A lawyer may work 3,000+ hours a year for years inside of a law firm reading papers, filing things, being yelled at and more.  The work is difficult and it is not easy.  The work has a price.  And even after all of this the lawyer is not guaranteed a good job, salary and so forth. The components that make doctors and lawyers highly paid are Hard work

• Sacrifice
• Risk
• Using their mind
• Always being available
• Committing to something for a long period

…and more. This is far different from what the typical security guard is expected to do.  Most security guards are just expected to stand there. None of the hard work, commitment, sacrifice and so forth is at all necessary. When the most successful people in the world go to work—whether it be Warren Buffet, Steve Jobs, or otherwise—they probably are not working longer hours than you or I are working.  However, the quality of their time and the way they use their minds during work is going to be drastically different than the way we use our minds and time.

• They are going to be more focused.
• They are going to be engaged in complex thoughts and pushing their minds instead of daydreaming.
• They are going to confront difficult issues and concepts instead of avoiding them.
• They are going to be honest with themselves about what they are doing right and wrong.
• They may force themselves into a difficult routine even if it is not comfortable.

The people who succeed are willing to work harder.  It is like this with everything.  The quality of the work you do is about how hard you think, the The most successful salespeople, for example, spend lots of time prospecting.  They follow up with past clients.  They send out birthday cards.  They go out to lots of dinners.  They make phone calls even when they do not want to.  They take pains to make sure they have the best appearance and dress.  They read and think about sales.  They push themselves in ways that people who are not successful do not.  In contrast, the person who is not successful may spend their time not being as “productive” and taxing their mind to the same degree. This is the difference. In your career, you need to do the “hard stuff” and make sure that you are doing what others will not.  This is the key to success and it is going to make all the difference.  You need to use your mind when others are not.  You need to take risks when others are not.  You need to be “on the ball” when others are not.

In 1986, Swaggart exposed fellow Assemblies of God minister Marvin Gorman, who had been accused of having an affair with another pastor’s wife, who was at the time undergoing counseling with Pastor Gorman. Some said this was done out of fear that Gorman was taking away from Swaggart’s audience and donations. Gorman was based in New Orleans and was adding stations throughout the southern region and was beginning to add stations on the west coast and the northeast. Gorman was also in the planning stages for a weekday telecast. Once exposed, Gorman was defrocked from the Assemblies of God and his ministry all but ended. The following year, Swaggart exposed fellow Assemblies Of God televangelist Jim Bakker‘s sexual indiscretions and appeared on the Larry King Show, stating that Bakker was a “cancer in the body of Christ.” He and similarly-minded Baptist evangelist Jerry Falwell investigated Jim Bakker and eventually uncovered his indiscretions. In 1987, Jim Bakker’s ministry was falling apart as a result. As a retaliatory move, Marvin Gorman hired a private detective to follow Swaggart. The detective found Swaggart in a Louisiana motel on Airline Highway with a prostitute, Debra Murphree, and took pictures of the tryst. ^{http://www.answers.com/topic/jimmy-swaggart#Controversies_and_criticisms}

One of the most unusual things that I have witnessed throughout my life is that many of the most religious people I have known have also been the most troubled in many respects and often the most dishonest, perverted and so forth.  Similarly, many of the most seemingly dishonest people in the world who are honest about their “dark sides” are often the most honest and least troubled in the world.  What would have happened had Haggard been honest about being gay?  What would have happened if Swaggart had been open about his attraction to women?  How would the Catholic church be different if all of the Priests who were interested in young men had a different outlet for their sexuality? The point is that none of these people ever learned to be honest about how they felt.  Instead, they hid this information beneath the surface and created personal identities that seemed completely at odds with what was going on inside of them.  There is something very powerful about talking through how we really feel and being open with others about it.  There is also something extremely limiting about not talking about what we believe or how we feel about something.  When we deny how we feel, we tend to attack and be repulsed by others who represent how we feel.  The more you put yourself out there in terms of how you feel, the less likely you are to be affected by your dark side.  Most of us are affected by our dark side and it is continually wreaking havoc throughout our lives and negatively affecting our existences. Your career and life will begin to change when you acknowledge your own dark side. What would you like to do that you cannot justify?  What are you not in congruence with? Several years ago, I was on a small Greek island taking a vacation alone.  I had been playing pool and so forth with the bartender, Niko, who was also the only waiter of the Hotel since there were not really any people staying there.  I was actually very much enjoying the peace of staying on this hotel where there were hardly any other people.  Niko was a really nice guy and very happy.  One evening at around 11:00 pm, while I was dozing off to sleep, he knocked on my door. “C’mon, lets go into town and dance with some girls!” he told me.  I got dressed and walked outside, and we began walking towards town.  We had to cross several large hills and go down numerous dirt paths.  He was not all that proficient in English, but I was enjoying the adventure regardless.  The walk into town must have taken us at least an hour and when we got there we entered a native Greek bar where locals and others were having a nice time talking and dancing. I walked up to the best looking girl who was not dancing, grabbed her hand and pulled her out to the dance floor.  She did not speak more than a few words of English.  At around 4:00 in the morning, she walked back to the hotel with myself and Niko.  It was very late at night and we both ended up falling asleep on separate beds in the hotel room, with our clothes on.  The next morning around 7:00 am, I awoke and went into the bathroom.  Inside the bathroom I saw the girl sitting on the floor. She had taken and entire bottle of shaving cream and sprayed it all over the walls and made various Greek characters.  She was laughing in a strange way at what she had done and appeared to be somewhat delirious.  I thought this entire thing seemed really strange but I was tired and went back to sleep.  I did not know if this was some sort of Greek mating ritual or not, and decided that I better go along with it. Around 11:00 am I woke up again and went into the bathroom. The girl was sleeping on a separate bed.  This time she had taken all of my shampoo, cologne and other stuff and emptied it out all over the the bathroom.  I decided to get up and go down to lunch.  I took a shower without any shampoo and did not shave, and got the girl up and we walked down to the restaurant on the beach. Niko did not start work until around 5:00, so he was sitting at a table.  He was having a great time.  He was smoking a cigarette and drinking shots of a Greek liquor called Ouzo.  He spoke a few works of Greek to the girl I had brought with and she answered back to him in Greek.  He made an unusual face and I sensed something was wrong.  Niko, the girl and I all sat there and the girl did around 5 shots in less than a few minutes.  She seemed to be having a really good time.  I had sort of blocked out a lot of what had happened in the bathroom.  The display she had made on the walls of the bathroom had disturbed me, but I still was not sure what to make of it.  Since she did not speak much English I had no way of asking her to explain any of this, either. “We all have good time last night!” Niko exclaimed, raising a shot glass.  “This is how we live in Greece.  We have good time!” he told me.   He had ordered a giant spread of all sorts of Greek food that was on the table in front of us.  He was very excited as he explained one local delicacy to me after another.  There was no one in the restaurant except us. About 20 minutes into our meal, the the owner of the hotel approached the cafe we were sitting in and started speaking to Niko.  He appeared to be pretty angry.  Niko started speaking to the girl and then she got up and walked away to where I could not see her. Niko and the hotel owner argued back and forth for a few more moments and then the owner left. “What was that all about?”  I asked. “He said you seem like nice person and does not understand why you threw soap all over his bathroom,” Niko said. I explained that I did not do this and that it was the girl.  A few seconds later, the owner who was serving us food came up to me with his wife who had been working back in the kitchen.  They started yelling at Niko as well.  Apparently, the girl I was with had done the exact same thing in the restaurant bathroom.  She had thrown the soap all over the walls and was in the process of emptying the toilet paper canisters all over the bathroom. Niko explained to me that the girl was insane. I was starting to understand this.  What happened next was about the most amazing thing I had ever seen.  The island I was on was very small, and there were not any hospitals.  The woman in the restaurant made some calls and within around 30 minutes several older people from the island appeared, went into the bathroom and grabbed the girl, put her in a car and drove her away. “What are they going to do with her?” I asked. “We are going to talk to her for the next few days, or weeks, until she gets better.  This is how they handle things around here.” Niko explained that this sort of thing happens with people from time to time.  People on the island have sometimes gone crazy and lost their minds and this has been happening from hundreds of years.  When this occurs, the people from the village come and they talk to the person as a group for days and days until the person gets better.  They sit around speaking to the person as a group and do not stop until they are convinced the person is “cured” of whatever is wrong with them.  They ask them thousands of questions. “All they do is force the person to give honest answers and tell everyone what they are really feeling and what is wrong.  Once the person does this, they always get better.” “Will she get better?” I asked Niko. “Sure, of course.  Everyone always gets better.” A month or so after I returned to the United States, Niko sent me a letter and in the letter he talked about the girl and how she had gotten better and was now perfectly normal.  Niko said she had moved to the island from a larger city because she had something bad happened with her friends who had died in an automobile accident she had been involved in.  Apparently, whatever had happened was so bad that the girl had been drawn over the edge and unable to speak about it.  I seem to remember she had been one of the causes of the accident. What was so incredible to me was how the people of this small Greek Island had learned to cure people over the hundreds of years.  With no psychiatric hospitals or psychologist, all they did was put the person in a big circle and start asking them question after question until they were able to confront the truth of whatever was wrong with them.  This girl had not been able to confront the truth, which put her in a position of becoming close to insane. We respect people in the world who are in accord with and understand their dark sides.  We often do not trust people who are not in touch with their dark sides.  We need to be able to talk through our deepest and most profound feelings in order to really be out there in the world.  We need to be in touch with these feelings in order to truly experience the success and power we are capable of.  The lesson I got out of this small Greek island and my experience with this girl, is that confronting our truths can often save us.  What was so fascinating about this experience was that what had happened on the Greek island was not a product of business.  With only a few thousand people living on the island, they did not have a huge medical industry or network of psychologists who would prescribe her drugs or recommend a course of therapy.  All they had on the island was the people and they had a way of coming together that cured people.  They would get people to confront whatever was hurting them and making them not in accord with the small society they lived in.  The society was so small and dependent upon everyone being well that they had devised a “cure” over 100′s of years that actually worked. Carl Jung describes that “shadow” as aspects of ourselves that we are not proud of.  A shadow is part of the unconscious mind that contains shortcomings, repressed weaknesses and various instincts.  The Shadow contains every part of us that is unconscious, denied and undeveloped.  According to Jung, everyone carries a shadow “and the less embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is.”  On the island, there was a part of this girl that was being brought out by the people on the island and then rectified whom she was.  She had not come to terms with something horrible that she had been involved in, and the idea of not coming to terms with this was something that had almost driven her off the edge.  In fact, she had almost become insane. I have known women who were sexually abused by their fathers and did not even remember it until they had been in therapy for years.  People in situations like this may attempt suicide, or cut themselves.  They repress incredible feelings and bury them as far as they can.  While most people do not have experiences like this, we all have aspects of ourselves and our consciousness which we repress.  We blame others for our feelings and try and repress what we really feel. I have been to various retreats throughout the years in which individuals ostensibly experience incredible psychological breakthroughs which transform their lives forever.  Most of these breakthroughs invariably involve bringing feelings from the unconscious to the conscious which have been suppressed.  This is done in various ways.  It is done by people being placed in circles and yelled at until they confront the truth.  It is done by people beating pillows with baseball bats and screaming until they get to the bottom of stuff.  There are multiple ways that people are challenged to confront their unconscious.  People suppress various things and yet the things they are repressing still manage to act themselves out.  The commonality between what Jung is writing about, the girl on the island, and what occurs at these retreats is that people are being forced to be honest with themselves and what is going on beneath the surface. Prior to being honest with themselves, peoples’ lives are affected unconsciously by their shadows.  One of the most common ways we do this is through projection.  For example, we project onto other people the parts of ourselves we want to deny.  We generally will not readily identify with the characteristic we are interested in denying and, instead, put this all onto other people.  People that are carrying a part of ourselves that we deny will make us extremely uncomfortable.  People with this characteristic may repulse us.  We will be highly critical of them and believe they are against our moral ideals and values.  Generally, the things that irritate us the most are those that are part of our shadow that we are denying. One of the most interesting things about the Shadow is that it is something that continues appearing again and again in our lives.  Your career will never reach its full potential until you learn to take control of your personal shadows and see what is affecting your life in a negative way.  You need to be honest with yourself and understand what you are not coming to terms with deep down.  You may be shying away from certain types of work, achieving certain things, or repulsed by certain types of work that really represents who you would like to be.  You may be interested in being a cook, but feel you need to be a business person because this is not respectable enough.  You may be interested in making money but believe people who make money are evil and so shy away from this.  You may be interested in being a farmer, but have negative connotations about what it means to be a farmer.  You have no way of knowing what aspects of yourself that you are repressing are holding you back.  You will begin to achieve more in your career and life when you allow your unconscious to be conscious. THE LESSON Come to terms with how you feel and be open about it, and you will be much less likely to be affected by your dark side. Acknowledge your deepest and most profound feelings in order to improve your career and life. Your career will never reach its full potential unless you gain control of the personal matters that are negatively affecting your life. Allow your unconscious to be conscious and face what you are avoiding deep down to achieve your potential.

1. I certainly have never been on the evening news giving my opinions before the United States Congress.
2. I do not sit in the office of the President of the United States and give him advice about what to talk about in speeches and write speeches for him.
3. My actions and opinions are not mentioned weekly in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal.

I now look at these men with profound respect because the lesson their careers hold is something I have certainly learned from, and you can too: Work ethic and consistency trump brilliance and talent. There are many people with a lot of talent, or who know a lot. These talented people may know more than the next person. They may be better socially. They may have a better idea of what needs to be done. They may have better educations. They may be better sales people. They may be more connected. But when it comes right down to it, none of this really matters if the talented person cannot simply “show up” and do the same thing over and over. The people who win and become the most successful are the ones who generally put in a massive effort over the long run. Nothing is more effective than being consistent. The Grand Canyon could never have been built by one giant flood. Instead, it was built over millions of years by a consistent flow of water that applied a small amount of pressure and erosion over time. So, too, it is with your career. If you are consistent, you will achieve a lot more over time than if you are not. Talent and brilliance have sex appeal. Talent is something that blows us away. Several years ago, I was sitting in the living room of my mother’s house in Detroit, and in the other room was a man who was providing one of the most brilliant analyses of the meaning of the world I have ever heard. The more this man’s mind worked through an idea, the more brilliant I realized he was. At the time, I was 27 and had been through college and law school. In addition to practicing law, I was also teaching in a law school. I had heard a lot of very brilliant men speak in my career, but the person I was listening to was incredible. As I listened to this man speak, I was firmly convinced he was the most brilliant man I had ever heard. After he left, I found out he had an extraordinary IQ and had received a PhD from Princeton. However, he had never applied his skills. Instead, he was living in a small $350 a month apartment and had lived there for years. He did not use his brilliance in his job and, instead, his talent went to waste because it was not being consistently applied. He had worked in multiple jobs in his career. What if this man had decided to spend his career writing? What if this man decided to spend his career teaching? He did none of those things and, despite incredible talent, nothing ever happened. We need to apply our talents. Talent is fickle. Sometimes talent shows up, and other times it does not. In contrast, being consistent requires a high level of tenacity. You need to keep plowing through. You cannot give up. Anyone can be a better performer in one thing or another for a short time. What really takes skill is to consistently perform over time. This is what my friends’ fathers were all doing. Imagine 30+ years of doing the same thing and climbing within the same organization. This consistent effort is what creates the best results and enables people to win over time. Only certain people are born with brilliance and incredible talent, but anyone can exercise their option to work hard. When we are consistent, we make small bits of progress on a daily basis. Making small daily bits of progress are what transform careers and lives. Anything you focus on consistently will make you better. Many people lack the ability to consistently focus over time, and instead believe one small flash of brilliance or talent will make a difference. This is almost never the case. Consistency and work ethic always trump brilliance and talent. THE LESSON Consistency and commitment trump brilliance and talent; the most successful people are those who put massive long-term effort into their careers. Only certain people are born with innate talent or brilliance, but consistent effort lies within the reach of anyone and is ultimately a much greater factor in success. Anything to which you apply consistent focus will show progress.