The Lesson of the Maharaji
Several months ago I was at a party and found myself seated next to a world famous media personality and star. This person is so famous that I see them on the magazine covers all the time, on television all the time, on bill boards in malls and pretty much everywhere I look. I’m not in the entertainment business and by no means travel in that crowd; however, the short conversation I had with this person was extremely elucidating. The person told me that they owed all of their success to listening to and [Read more]
How to Make Any Change You Want
When I was around 14 years old I spent several months going to a public high school on the outskirts of Detroit. Within a short time, I met a couple of kids I liked. These kids had all been using “snuff”—or chewing tobacco for years. Initially, it was a way to fit in; however, within months I was using this snuff daily—and needed it to function. I would get up in the morning and put a pinch of this between my cheek and gum and use it all day. I would use it while I studied at [Read more]
The Importance of Being Extraordinary
Several years ago I was giving a speech at a law school that I think is ranked about number 25 or so in the United States. I was the only speaker and at least 100 law students had turned up to hear me speak to them about the job market. At the time the legal job market in the United States was doing very well. Law school applications were up and lots of people coming out of law school were doing very well. However, as I looked at the kids in this audience I [Read more]
Protect Your Reputation At All Costs
“A risk to reputation is a threat to the survival of the enterprise.”
-Peter J. Firestein
I read an article once about Blackstone executive David Blitzer, whose father-in-law he once charged with trying to shake him down for $7.5 million. The man was ultimately arrested after Blitzer, 38, made a $500,000 payment as part of a deal to get the harassment to stop. Blitzer’s father-in-law had originally requested that Blitzer loan him money, which Blitzer did. However, when Blitzer refused to relinquish more money than originally requested, things turned ugly. According to the article:
In June, Ross demanded more money and began harassing Blitzer with phone calls and emails, according to the district attorney’s office. Ross allegedly said if Blitzer did not give him at least an additional $50,000, Ross would contact Blackstone executives and law enforcement with accusations he said would ruin Blitzer’s career.
In one voicemail message, Ross threatened to “commit open warfare” against Blitzer if he didn’t send money, the district attorney’s office says.
When I read that article, [Read more]
Never Measure Yourself against Perfection
When I was in high school, one of the happiest kids I knew was an excellent athlete whom I’ll call Bill. He was very intelligent and always had the best looking girlfriends. He eventually ended up marrying his high school sweetheart. Bill was from a relatively small town in Michigan, and he ended up going to our private boarding school, where he was surrounded by a lot of very high achievers. I think the type of people he met there really must have changed his perspective. Some of the kids he played baseball with in high school [Read more]
Find the Best Target Audience for Your Skills
When I was about 13 years old, my parents sent me to a small, private school that catered to children from the wealthiest families in the Detroit area. The school was unusual in that it went out of its way to assist the wealthiest students and seemed to pay less attention to others. I was friends with one of the wealthy kids, and the headmaster actually used to go over to help him with his homework. Despite the difference in the way the wealthier kids were treated, there were some extremely good things about the school. Upon entering this school, I enrolled in the English class, which was also my homeroom. I would go into homeroom for about 20 minutes at the start of each day, and not much happened there. I think maybe we were supposed to be studying. My homeroom teacher quickly grew to dislike me as well as a few other kids in the class, because we were quite rowdy. We made fun of the girls in homeroom and acted in ways we shouldn’t have. Our homeroom teacher was quite young, somewhat soft spoken, and never reacted to us. This just made us act out even more. Our homeroom teacher had a brother, who was my history teacher. He was pretty serious and did a good job controlling his students. A strange thing happened when I came to this school. I had always loved English and history, and [Read more]
Concentrate on the Positive, Not the Negative
The most successful people concentrate almost exclusively on the positive and not the negative. In fact, the negative hardly influences them at all. You need to see the world and the people in it as happy, prosperous, and good. Like attracts like. If you look for the negative, then negativity is what you will see. If you look for the positive, then positivity is what you will see. I had an interesting discussion recently with Dr. Surendra Pokharna, an Indian physicist, as we toured some Jain temples in India. Dr. Pokharna said that most people are busy responding to the negative energy of others, and he believed this was quite prevalent in the United States. He is correct. Many people also spend a lot of their time sending out negative energy. Using an example from physics, Dr. Pokharna explained that every force of energy creates an equal and opposing reaction. Therefore, if you put out negativity to [Read more]
Never Worry About What Others Think
Being concerned with what others think is one of the biggest mistakes people make. Rather than focusing on who they want to be and what they want to do, many people live their lives more concerned about how they look to others. Deep down inside you is someone who is capable of achieving great things and becoming a great person. This is the person you should be. Several years ago, I remember turning in a paper to Saul Levmore, who is now the dean of the University of Chicago Law School. I was taking a class with him while I was at the University of Virginia Law School and had not spent a lot of time with him [Read more]
Ask Yourself Empowering Questions
The power of the questions we ask ourselves determines the power we have in our lives. It’s estimated that approximately 60,000 thoughts cross our minds daily. It’s what we do with these thoughts that determines our level of happiness, success, and achievement in the world. When negative thoughts cross your mind, do not allow yourself to wallow in them. You need to turn those negative thoughts into positive ones. The best way to do this is by asking yourself empowering questions. I want to tell you a story about one of the most remarkable placements I ever [Read more]
Cattle, the Importance of Maintaining Fences–and Your Career
When I was in law school, I lived on a cattle ranch in Albemarle County, Virginia. The ranch was over 550 acres, and the cows used to wander all through the property as large groups, eating grass, mooing, sleeping (standing up, as they do), having baby cows and doing what cows do. It was a really fun experience to spend two years living directly next to these cows, watching them go about their day-to-day lives. Since the area where the cows wandered was so large, I rarely saw any people on the property at all. Just cows. [Read more]
