Share What You Know

Every interaction you have with another person is a chance to make a difference in that person’s life. Every piece of information you have about the world is unique to you and the more you share this information with others, the more others will share information with you. In addition, when you share information, you will be sought out by others.

I’ve noticed many, many people are extremely concerned about protecting every single piece of helpful information, such as a certain way of making a sale in business, a good source of information, a contact who can get things done, or a special method of doing something.

The people and the companies that do the best, I have noticed, are those that do everything they can to share information. In fact, they empower people by sharing information. By doing this, a reciprocal pattern is developed. When there is useful information these people should know about, they are told about it as well.

The most important thing you can have inside a company and at work is information. You may be working for a company right now that is about to file for bankruptcy and lay off all of its employees. If you had this information you could be looking for a job. There may be an incredible position opening up in your company for which you’re qualified. If you had this information, you could start communicating and getting to know the right people inside your company. The benefits of having the right information are huge. Your work colleagues will seek you out to give you information if you start sharing information with them. You need to proactively be a source of information and never try to protect information. Every piece of information you put out in the world will come back to you with more information.

The information others give you could save your career, or get you a raise. There are so many benefits to having access to the right information it’s hard to list them all. Information tells you what to do in order to get ahead. The only way you are going to get access to this sort of information, however, is if you get a reputation for sharing information yourself.

A couple of years ago I learned Mark Victor Hansen, the author of the book Chicken Soup for the Soul, was holding a three day business conference at the Westin near the Los Angeles Airport. A couple of people who’d written books I enjoyed were scheduled to be there and I was eager to attend.

When I got to the conference I immediately noticed huge rows of tables in the halls where vendors were set up, selling various courses. I’d arrived at the conference a bit early and walked from table to table talking to the vendors. In most cases, they were selling courses that cost anywhere from $495 all the way up to a few thousand dollars.

The conference was organized so that each speaker would speak with the audience for about an hour. The topics the speakers discussed were about things like ”How to double your business in 90 days” and ”How to make everyone in the world buy your products.” After a few hours, I quickly realized each of the speakers was offering the audience a small bit of information, but basically they were not giving us any substantial information whatsoever. They were only giving the audience a little taste of what they knew.

Each speaker would get up and tell the audience how smart he was and how valuable what he knew was. Then he would give people in the audience a small peek at the knowledge he had. This took about 40 minutes of the speaker’s time. Then, for the next 20 minutes, the speaker would launch into a sales presentation about CD ROMs of him talking on tape, exclusive access to them via teleconference, and more.

About two days into it I realized how ridiculous I was being. I was at a conference basically being given little information and sold the promise of more information for a couple of days straight. I like Mark Victor Hansen and think he seems like a nice man, but I went to his seminar to gain information. In the end I felt like the seminar was all about trying to sell me more information.

This dynamic is very common in the world. In fact, there are tons of people who refuse to share the information they have with others. They fear if people get hold of the same information they have, they will gain an unfair advantage over them.

At the conference, what happened is that even if you purchased a set of CDs from one of the speakers, he or she would still try to sell you more and more. I enjoyed one of the speakers a great deal and after he spoke I went up to him and told him I liked his talk. He encouraged me to purchase a set of CD ROMs and workbook from him for $3,000, essentially saying ”If you liked my talk so much then purchase my set of CDs and workbook.”

I told him that was fine but I was interested in having him consult for one of our companies. This person had a very good background in sales and I thought he could really make a difference if he analyzed one of the companies I was running at the time that specialized in student loans. He said sure, and a couple of days later called me.

He told me that for $35,000 he would do extensive interviews and write a report about the company and the improvements it needed. I agreed.

A few days before he was scheduled to complete the report he called me and said for an additional $5,000 and travel expenses he would present the report live. I discussed this with someone in our company and this person suggested we should go visit the guru to get the report personally. When I suggested this to the speaker, he said that this would not work because he worked out of his home. We agreed to have him come to our offices and give the presentation live.

The presentation he gave offered some interesting insights into our business but for the most part it was just another sales pitch. He was essentially trying to get control over various resources in our company to set up businesses using our people and make us give him a percentage of the revenue. In addition, he proposed what he called ”CEO Coaching” at $5,000 an hour in 40-hour increments. I did not buy anything. What had happened, of course, was he’d used the knowledge he’d gained through his research to try to sell us more and in addition was holding back even more knowledge for a proposed ”coaching engagement.”

It is not a good idea in business, or in your professional life, to hold back knowledge. You need to make people aware of what you know and put information out there to try to help others do well as quickly as you can. The more you teach others how to do something, the better you’ll end up becoming at what you do.

Another damaging dynamic set up by people who hold back what they know is others pick up on this and know you’re not really interested in helping them. When every action you take is calculated and every piece of information you put out there is carefully apportioned, you are constantly guarding the fort instead of providing value to others. You need to be constantly providing value and not holding it back. When you are constantly holding back, people will choose to deal with others who are willing to provide more information and value than you.

When you are holding information back all the time and not sharing what you know, you start viewing every interaction you have with other people in a competitive sort of way. Your goal is to be on guard and only exchange information if it suits your best interest and you feel like you can get ahead. You need to be seen as someone who will freely provide the information needed to assist others and who will always be there to help.

You should volunteer information about how to do something if you see a co-worker doing something incorrectly, or if you’ve discovered a better way to do something. The more you volunteer information, the more people will look out for you and assist you with information as well.

The smallest piece of information you learn could make a giant difference in the overall course of your career. It is the same with the information you share with others. Many people are stuck in a rut of sorts and believe if they share information with others, those people will somehow think less of them, or the information they share will somehow diminish its value. When you do not share information with others you are preventing yourself from achieving personal growth.

You never want your personal agenda to become an obstacle to your progress. There are many people in the world who do everything they can to preserve their superiority in the eyes of others, and sharing information, they fear, will threaten this superiority. The truth is that the more information you share, the more people will come to you to reciprocate. Being on the receiving end of information is where you want to be.

Builders and Destroyers

Several years ago, I wrote an article for BCG Attorney Search called “Builders and Destroyers”. In this article I discussed the two types of people one may encounter inside a law firm: (1) People whose mission it is to build and improve things around them, and (2) People whose mission seems to be to tear down, criticize, and damage the whole.

In reviewing the financial crisis this past week, and in thinking about my own career and life, I come back more and more to this belief and its importance in the business world.

Organizations surrounding themselves with positive employees – and that even make this attitude a requirement – typically have higher success than those who do not. In the law firm merger space, for example, I have noticed that firms that do not merge, and instead raise and maintain their own positive culture, tend to do much better in the long run (and survive), as compared to law firms that do not do the same. The social culture of law firms, and all organizations, tends to be much healthier, and conducive to success when the organization surrounds itself with positive people.

When organizations grow too quickly and unnaturally, they often end up absorbing at least a few negative people. The forces inside the organization that would have traditionally kept these people out cease to function as they should. On Wall Street, with the advent of mortgages being sold in bulk, a similar lack of accountability has entered the system. The contact bankers used to have with borrowers, and the subsequent understanding of their particular family and work history, is gone. Also, it seems some employers do not care who people are as long as they appear to contribute to the bottom line. People who cannot contribute to the overall system effectively or for a sustained period of time are also allowed in for one reason or another.

It benefits everything, be it a system, organization, or individual, to avoid those who do not contribute positively along the path to success and growth. For example, we have all come across people who continually find fault in the world and in the people around them. We know how draining people like this can be. When organizations bring in these types of individuals, it affects the whole. Staff can become unmotivated and unsure of themselves and their organization. Personally, when I spend time with negative people I tend to get a little depressed. I also notice avoiding them makes me feel better.

While my career advice may be an overly simplistic solution, I do believe that many problems can be solved by having more personal accountability, and by surrounding ourselves with positive, forward-thinking people, those who want and are able to work toward a common goal. As simple as it may seem, I have experienced how big a difference this can make.

Your Life Is Controlled by Your Decisions and Your Commitment to Them

Over 20 years ago, I was at a relative’s house in the country, and he made a crazy statement (which he appeared to believe) that all Japanese were Jewish, and that was why they were in the process of controlling all the car manufacturing in the world just like they were controlling the entertainment and banking industries.

My relative was a truck driver in his 50s, and he made this statement as if what he was saying had a certain level of profoundness to it. Under normal circumstances, when not involved in “intellectual” debate, he was a very nice man and good father. The statement was offensive on many levels – it was racist, stereotyping people, and it was just plain wrong. So wrong it was hard to believe.

“Are you kidding? That is not true at all! They are Buddhist!” I screamed. I was about 16 at the time and absolutely amazed at what I was hearing.

He was a big burly man, probably close to 300 pounds of fat and muscle, and he punched me in the side of the head hard enough that he knocked me out. I am not sure how long I was out. Incredibly, when I regained consciousness, he was still involved in this debate with a couple of other people who were talking like nothing had happened. Those men were sitting outside on picnic tables and plastic folding chairs while all of the women were inside cooking. Seeing stars, I took a seat back on the picnic table next to my uncle while I regained my composure.

After a few moments, I looked up at him. “What the hell!?” I muttered, still semi-conscious.

“You need to keep your mouth shut and not talk about stuff you know nothing about!” he said.

I told my mother about this experience when we were driving home. I was incredulous I’d been punched for asserting the entire nation of Japan was not Jewish, and I expressed profound disappointment at being related to these people. My mother is pretty smart. She said something to me I will never forget. A close relative of hers she’d grown up with – I’ll call her “Patty” – had married this man. My mother told me Patty had been very beautiful and also very intelligent when they were growing up. She said Patty could have married any man she wanted to and instead chose to marry the truck driver. In fact, Patty’s sister had married a man who was the owner of a large bank and they lived an upper crust lifestyle with boats, fancy cars, mansions, and frequent extravagant foreign vacations. At family events at Patty’s house, they would look with disdain at the cars on the front lawn and practically shudder at the bad grammar exchanged by Patty and her friends.

My mother told me Patty had much more going for her than my mother ever did or her sister ever did.

“She chose the life she has,” my mother said. “She could have had any life she wanted, and she chose this life. We were actually talking about this after I found out about you getting knocked out because I was a little upset, too. Patty said she could have had a different life, but this is the one she chose.”

Since I was young at the time, this was a pivotal event for me. I realized right then and there we are in complete control of our lives and what happens to us. It is all about what we choose.

We choose the lives we are going to lead and we choose what happens to us. You have the power to choose in your life, and where you are today is the result of the decisions you made long ago. Think back on your life 10, 20, or more years. Where were you back then? What were you doing? Where are you now compared to where you were back then?

We have the power to choose the lives we lead and what happens to us. We choose:

1. Our jobs
2. Our mates
3. Where we live
4. Our friends
5. What we do with our free time
6. The number of children we have
7. How hard we work
8. How healthy we are
9. How we dress
10. What we eat

The number of things we choose is phenomenal. We choose our lives and what happens to us and shape our own destinies. Most people are more interested in blaming outside events and circumstances for what happens to them in their lives. The truth is what happens to us is almost completely the result of the decisions we make. We are in charge of our own lives and our decisions shape our entire existence.

One of the most important times we are forced to choose is when we are in the position of losing a job or deciding between jobs. This is a time when a lot of people find themselves stressed out and are forced to figure out what they need to do with themselves. People react to stress in different ways. Some people start to drink a lot or use drugs. Others start exercising a lot. Others avoid people who may ask them about what they are doing. Your decision about how to deal with stress and your job search is something that can and will permanently shape your destiny and what happens to you in your life. How are you going to deal with losing a job?

When some people lose a job, they decide to sue their employer. While many law suits against employers are legitimate, most I have seen are not. I make this judgment from having been an attorney who represented both employees and employers. People sue their employers because they decide someone other than them is responsible for their job and their livelihood. People make this decision to go after their employer and often spend years not working and involved in a bitter lawsuit. In the interim, they do not even look for a job. In some cases, they do not want to find a job because if they find one they will receive fewer damages from their lawsuit.

Other people who lose a job take a different approach. Instead of being angry with their employer, they may be angry with themselves. They may withdraw and stop trying. They allow this experience to have such a negative effect on them they stop trying their hardest. This is a very common reaction as well.

Others who lose jobs may launch a new business, go back to school, or try to get even better jobs than the ones they lost. These are all decisions as well. You need to choose to make empowering decisions in your life and your career.

In 1980, Candy Lightner’s 13-year-old daughter, Cari, was killed by a drunk driver as she walked down the street. Instead of feeling sorry for her daughter and herself, Lightner chose to found Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) to crusade against the problem of drunk drivers.

“I promised myself on the day of Cari’s death that I would fight to make this needless homicide count for something positive in the years ahead,” Candy Lightner later wrote. Her organization rapidly rose to national prominence and Lightner appeared on major national television shows, addressed numerous groups around the country, testified before the government, and worked to promote new legislation. She chose to take action in a way which empowered the world and made a difference rather than allowing outside events to negatively influence her.

A similar story exists for John Walsh. Walsh is the host of America’s Most Wanted. Walsh was a successful businessman living in Hollywood, Florida, and the partner in an important hotel management company. On July 27, 1981, Walsh’s wife left their son Adam in the toy department of Sears while she went to look for a lamp. Sixteen days later, Adam’s severed head was found in a drainage canal more than 120 miles from the mall, according to an account on the America’s Most Wanted website.

Walsh’s search for justice and his determination to never let Adam’s death be in vain led him to fight back like few other Americans ever have. Although he’s never held political office, Walsh has been the driving force behind major pieces of child protection legislation. His hard work led to Walsh being honored five times by four presidents: Ronald Reagan (twice), George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush. One of Walsh’s proudest moments was when he and his wife Revè stood beside President George W. Bush, as the “Adam Walsh Child Protection & Safety Act” was signed into law on the 25th anniversary of Adam’s murder.

Walsh became the host of America’s Most Wanted after much of his crusade. The story of Walsh is one of someone who made a decision about how to react to a negative event, and this decision made a huge impact on his life and the world. Think about the things that have happened in your life and the decisions you have made in response to them. What have you done with the things that have happened to you? How can you take a negative and use it to empower the world?

People have so many reasons for not succeeding. Most of them have to do with people and forces outside of ourselves over which we have no control. It is how people react to the world through the decisions they make that ultimately empowers us and changes our place in the world. This is what you need to do. You need to make decisions that will empower you and your place in the world.

The greatest weakness most people have is they never make a commitment to back up their decision. Making a decision is the most powerful thing you can do, but it must be backed up with the power of commitment. You can never do anything or reach great heights if you do not commit to what you are doing. Most people never truly utilize the power of commitment.

There is a huge difference between simply being interested in something and committing to it. For example, Lightner and Walsh certainly had every reason to be interested in putting drunk drivers in jail and finding child killers. They committed to something and made a decision they would fight for what they believed in. Their decisions are what made all of the difference.

In 1519, Hernan Cortes anchored his 11 ships off the Yucatán Peninsula. At the time, the Aztecs, who had tens of thousands of soldiers, ruled Mexico. In contrast, Cortes had only 608 men, 16 horses, and a few cannons. Cortes was committed to win the battle despite having so few men. He made the decision he was going to go back to Spain a winner. Cortes ordered his men off the ships and to shore.

In the middle of the night, people screaming “Fire!” awakened the soldiers. They rose from their sleep and saw all 11 ships burning out in the water. The men rushed to the row boats to go fight the fire. But Cortés stopped them. He told the soldiers he had ordered all of the ships burned. They had no way to retreat – that was the message Cortés sent to his soldiers. They had to win. There was no choice.

Under Cortes, just 608 men, 16 horses, and a few cannons conquered the Aztecs. The power of decision, backed up by commitment, made this incredible feat possible. Cortes made sure his troops were as committed as they could possibly be and that they had no means of retreat.

Most of us decide to do something but deep down we keep the possibility of retreat as an option. What I get out of the story of Cortés, and what makes it so remarkable to me, is it shows how many of us never really truly commit to anything and any decision we are making. The people who achieve the most in this life are the people like Cortés, Lightner, and Walsh who make decisions and then proceed to follow through with them. There is so much power in making decisions and making these decisions with commitment. We may have an interest in doing something or want to make a commitment to something. However, very few of us ever follow through. We must follow through and commit. This is the difference between mediocrity and greatness – commitment to a decision.

Many people are tormented by their inability to make a decision and commit. Soap operas are a perfect example of this. Lives are wrecked over and over again by the inability to commit. No one ever knows who they want to be with in soap operas, and relationships are never characterized by commitment. Everyone is always crying, and entire stories are tragic and insane. The only reasons these stories are so nuts is because the characters in them simply can never commit. You need to commit to succeed. You can go back and forth in:

1. Your choice of a mate
2. Your choice of a job
3. Your choice of a profession
4. Your commitment to your job
5. Your commitment to your mate
6. Your commitment to an education
7. Your commitment to being better at what you do

When you do not commit to a decision about what you want to do, however, you will never have clarity. Instead, you will be in a state of perpetual confusion. This is how most people live their lives. Making a decision and committing to it gives you clarity. Clarity gives you power. Most people say words like “I’ll see how it works out” or “I’ll give it a try.” This is not what you should be doing. You should say “I am doing this!” and move forward by taking action. This is the only way to be empowered by your decisions.

There is a huge danger if you do not make decisions about your life and stand behind them: your life will be made and shaped by someone else. This is what happens to most people. They allow their complete existence to be shaped by someone else. Is this really what you want? You should be the one shaping your life and deciding exactly what happens to you. Do not let others and the world decide what happens to you.

The people who become movie stars, presidents, CEOs, and incredible people in different professions do not just suddenly end up in these positions due to a combination of luck and fate. They generally reach these heights of success because they decide this is what they want and make a commitment to it. You need to realize you have the power to be whomever you want when you decide to do this. Decide what you want for your life and take action. The hardest part of life is making a decision and following through with it.

The most amazing thing about your career is it controls so much of what happens in your life. It controls where you live, the people with whom you socialize, where your kids go to school, how excited you are to go to work in the morning, the kind of car you drive, how many days a week you work, how much you work when you are working, and more. Your career is such an incredibly important thing. Where you are today in your career is due to the power of decisions you have made in your life over the past 10 years. You have the power to change the next 10 years and make them even better than the last by the decisions you make today. You need to make decisions that will empower you and create the life you are entitled to and deserve. Start making decisions based on what you want, and do not want, and commit to those decisions today.

The Importance of Disconnecting from Your Work

Some of the happiest, most well adjusted, and most effective people I know are also people who have a profound ability to disconnect from their work. They can disconnect rapidly and put themselves in another state of mind which does not involve work. People who come to mind include Richard Branson, who set records in balloons, captains of industry who leisurely golf their days away, men in bars who slap each others’ backs while drinking martinis and making deals, or CEO’s of companies in their early 60s who run marathons.

One of the most important things you can do for yourself is learn to disconnect from your work.

Many people never do this, or don’t know how. You see these people walking around with telephones in their ears wherever they go, getting up from dinner to talk on the phone, screwing around with their Blackberries at any given moment, and, in general, working every second of the day.

I have a secret for you: The most important and successful people never behave like this. The most important people simply do not work when they are not working.

If you are working all the time, you are not being nearly as productive as you could be. For example, typical German workers, when they are working, are models of efficiency. They are detail-oriented and more focused than the average worker. When they are not working, however, they are truly not working. They are done for the day.

There is a saying: “Work hard, play hard.” I believe this expression exists for a reason. People who work hard and play hard contribute more value when they are working.

Think about the people – and you may be one of them – who inform you of how stressed out they are about work when they are not even working. Think about the people who are glued to their email and Blackberry and cell phone all weekend, no matter where they go. Think about the people who work on their laptop when they are sitting in front of the television with their family at night.

None of this is generally productive.

In fact, behavior that keeps you constantly attached to work is counterproductive. Your body and mind never has time to recharge. You are constantly at the beck and call of a job and you never get a fresh perspective. You never see the world. You just see the job.

I believe this problem is far more serious than people realize. Success should not necessarily be defined by how much you work, how stressed you are, or how dedicated you are to working all the time. Success should instead be defined by your ability to approach each problem you face at work with a fresh perspective, to maintain a cheery disposition, and be an all around happy and well-balanced person. Success should also be defined by your ability to enjoy your life when you are not working.

Your entire existence is not tied to your job. There is a lot going on in the world besides your job and the work you are doing. When you come home at night, or on the weekend, it is not productive to be focused on your job. Your mind should be on something else – your family, the weather, a book, a hobby.

You should be very aware of what goes on inside your head when you think about work. When you are thinking about work, you are thinking about how you can control and manipulate the objects of your work. If you are a writer, you are thinking about what you are writing; if you are a salesman, you are thinking about what you can sell; if you are a cashier, you are thinking about the transaction in front of you. You are focused on the people you are working with and what they are doing. You are focused on your clients. You are focused on how all of this affects you, what it means to your livelihood, and whether it makes you angry, happy, or sad. You are focused on a raise, a demotion, getting fired, getting a new client. Once you truly get into your job, this focus will become more profound and pronounced.

I am sure you have met people whose minds are totally focused on their jobs and the work they are doing. If they are attorneys, for example, they might be overly logical whenever you speak with them. It is important for people like these to go outside the state of mind they are in when working and start focusing on things not work-related (i.e., the external world). The state of mind that goes along with work is needed to do your job. However, in order for you to improve at your job, you need to be in a different state of mind each day when leaving the workplace.

The reason it is so important to disconnect from work is because much of work is an internal, introverted process. When we work, we are fixated on the object of our work. In order to get out of that mindset, we need to focus on objects outside of our work. There are lots of ways to do this, including exercising, socializing, taking a walk, or simply doing anything entirely unrelated to our jobs.

There are lots of clichés about work. There is the man who returns from the office and snaps at his wife. There is the person who throws himself or herself on the couch the second he or she gets home from the office. There is the person who gets home and talks and complains on the phone to someone for hours about a supervisor or a job he or she does not like. There is the aggressive driver on the road who yells at people on the way home from the office.

High school football players apparently get better grades during football season than the average student. A reason for this, I believe, is these players are able to disconnect from their studies and come back with a new perspective after playing. It is important to always have a new perspective on your work. This keeps you moving towards your goal.

Give yourself the luxury of disconnecting from your job. Remember your life is made all the better when you can see the world outside of your job.

Find the Best Target Audience for Your Skills

When I was about 13 years old, my parents sent me to a small, private school. Children from the wealthiest families in the Detroit area attended there. 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, and a few other kids my age 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 typically received As in both courses. Incredibly, at this school, no matter what I did, I earned Cs and Ds in both subjects. In fact, my performance was so poor that, at the end of the year, the school informed me I was not intelligent enough to proceed to ninth grade. I was told I could go to another school for a year and, if I did well, I could return. They gave my parents – who were extremely upset with me – literature about other schools for people with difficulty learning.

It’s crushing to be told you are no good at something, mentally incapable, or otherwise unfit (I am not, but I will explain more about this later). However, I believed this assessment at the time. Being kicked out of school at the age of 13 on the basis of one’s stupidity is devastating on many psychological levels. I remember going into a bathroom at the school and crying for over 10 minutes when the headmaster told me I did not belong in that learning environment. This is the only time I remember crying when I was growing up. I cried so hard that day when I walked out of the bathroom my entire shirtfront was soaked.

At that age, and after that experience, I began to believe the message I received from the school. I started hanging around with a different crowd. At one time I had been friends with the kids who studied, but I decided instead to spend my time with the bad kids. Within months, I was hanging out with kids who smoked pot, drank, stole, and were generally trouble. I was led to believe these were the people I belonged with, and I convinced myself I did indeed belong with them.

The next year I enrolled in a public school. Despite hanging around with a horrible crowd, I received excellent grades in many of the classes I’d failed the year before, including English and History. I did so well that, a year later, my parents enrolled me in another private school, which was even more prestigious than the previous one. When I got to this school I took the most advanced English classes, and got the best grades. When I graduated, I received an award for being an excellent writer. Slowly, I started to believe again I was smart. Throughout the rest of my scholastic career, I ended up doing well in the same classes in which I had once gotten Cs and Ds. I even became a law professor at one point.

What happened to me during these years? Why did I do poorly in one environment and not another? Who knows? What I do know, however, is you need to work with an audience which recognizes and values your skills. There are plenty of people who do not see your talents. Stay away from employers and people who do not appreciate what you can do. People who do not see your talents can crush you and change the course of your life forever.

When I graduated from law school, my fiancée and I moved to northern Michigan for a year while I was working for a judge. She had a Master’s degree in landscape architecture and had decided to get a job in Michigan as well. The best job she could get was with a local nursery. At the nursery, she was not allowed to talk to clients or do any of the work she was capable of doing (such as drawing properties, grading, choosing plants). She kept asking, but her bosses essentially told her it was all above her at this point in her career. A year later, she got a job with one of the best landscape designers in the United States. Within a few months she was meeting daily with people like David Geffen, Tom Cruise, Michael Eisner’s wife, and others. She had almost complete oversight of their projects and her work was highly valued. Although I am no longer engaged to this woman, I did see her mentioned on the front page of a Los Angeles Times section recently.

There are atmospheres, places, and people who will value you and what you are capable of, and others will not. You need to work in the places that understand what you are capable of and allow you to succeed. You need to be appreciated for what you are and what you can do. By being around people who appreciate you, you can reach your full potential.

Stay away from people who bring you down. Put your skills to work where they are appreciated. The environment you’re in is something that can make or break you. This is one reason schools are so important.

Several years after flunking out of school, I was at a party and ran into one of my old friends from the “bad crowd”. Four years before, he’d been a clean-cut prankster. He received bad grades but was a happy kid. He was much different now. It was a sight I will never forget. He was standing in a stairwell, wearing a denim jacket with hard rock band patches on it. He was definitely “stoned,” or under the influence of some sort of drug, and spoke to me in a slow, monotone voice. He looked like a completely different person, someone who now lived a life on drugs. He might have been dealing drugs in that stairwell, I don’t know. I asked him about one of our old friends.

“He’s in prison,” he told me. “He’s been there for a while.”

At the time, I was about 18 and getting ready to go to college. I had friends who took their educations and futures seriously. I realized that, had I remained in that school and in that environment, I could have ended up in a similar position. If my talents had not been recognized in that public school, I would have continued down a path of self- destruction.

Think about your own life and times when your talents have not been recognized. How did this alter the course of your life? Where would you be now if your talents had or had not been recognized?

If your talents are not recognized, your life will not be as fulfilling as it could be. If your talents are recognized, you can do anything, and nothing can stand in your way, and the life you want for yourself.

Never Measure Yourself against Perfection

When I was in high school, one of the happiest kids I knew was an excellent athlete who 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 went on to play baseball in college. Some of these kids went on to Ivy League schools and planned on doing things like becoming doctors. I remember one of his friends went to Stanford. I don’t think Bill went away to college and he stayed home and attended a local community college for a year or two. After high school, his life did not appear to blossom the way the lives of others around him did. That’s not to say there was anything wrong with his life – he just didn’t appear interested in taking over the world.

When I’d first met Bill he’d been among the happiest people I had ever known. His happiness was very pure and deep. But something horrible happened to him, and I will come back to that in a moment.

What I am about to share with you is one of the most profound ways I know to look at the world and your place in it. If you consider yourself even slightly motivated, this may be one of the more useful things you will ever read. What you are about to read could change your life forever, and it could even save your life.

A few years ago, I was at a Tony Robbins conference in Palm Springs, California. Tony told a story about how his stepson had attended one of the most prestigious boarding schools in the world. An important person from the Middle East was apparently so happy with the assistance Tony had provided him he told Tony he would get his stepson into this ultra prestigious school, which was in Switzerland, as a gift. Tony accepted the offer and sent his stepson off to the school.

Tony made the point of saying before sending his stepson to the school, he’d been a very fit kid, and was also extremely happy. The boy had a positive disposition and lots of friends. He never seemed to care what other kids around him were doing and was mainly interested in just enjoying his own life.

Although Tony didn’t know it, once his stepson started going to this school he started requesting thousands of dollars a month in spending money from his mother. Apparently he felt he needed new clothes and various other things to keep up with the other kids at the school. These kids were the sons of prime ministers and princes from Europe, famous actors, and other titans of industry – the children of some of the most important and well known people in the world.

After Tony’s stepson had been at the school for about six months, Tony traveled to Switzerland to visit him. He immediately noticed his stepson had gained at least 30 pounds. He hardly recognized him. His stepson insisted they go to a certain sushi restaurant for lunch, and the bill was several hundred dollars. Before, his stepson had never been concerned about restaurants and spending a lot of money. Aside from this, what Tony noticed most about his stepson was he now seemed very unhappy. He kept comparing himself with the people around him, and did not seem to feel good about himself.

His stepson had started comparing himself to others and felt like he came up short in every category. The boy simply did not feel good about himself or his family any longer. As Tony was speaking with him, the boy would say things like:

-This person was better than he was in this category.

-This person was better than Tony in this category.

-This person had a newer this or that.

-This person had more important parents.

-Tony was “new money,” and this was not good.

-This family was better than his because of this reason.

According to Tony, it was as if the school had given his stepson reasons to no longer feel good about himself. He compared everything in his life against something or someone else. Consequently, the boy gained tons of weight and became very unhappy with himself. Tony felt the damage was so severe he pulled him out of the school a short time later.

When you’ve achieved a high level of success and are around people with the most privileges and advantages, you often find the people who are the unhappiest with themselves. I think there is some truth to the idea the most successful people are often the unhappiest. The reason this may be true is they constantly measure themselves against ideals they simply cannot attain.

People who want to get very good grades may say to themselves, “nothing less than an ‘A’ is acceptable.” When they fail to get an A grade, they feel badly about themselves. Even if they get all As, if they get one A+, they might feel angry their other grades are not “A+” as well. A thinking process geared towards an ideal leads people to see they are failing to be “perfect”, and to meet a certain ideal in numerous other areas of their life:

-Their relationships with others
-Their wealth
-Their athletic ability
-Their health
-Their attractiveness
-Their popularity
-Their material possessions
-Their social status
-The social status of their parents
-Their weight
-Their natural intelligence
-Their talents of every kind

This list could go on and on. When people see others who are better than them, they often feel a sense of inferiority.

When many of us hear about stars overdosing on drugs or having other severe problems, the reaction often is, “Why would someone with so many advantages do this?” Stars are so programmed to achieve success they often simply feel they do not measure up in a variety of areas. In many cases, it is the people closest to the star who make the person aware he or she does not measure up.

When I started seeing headlines about Britney Spears hanging around with Paris Hilton, I knew it would not be good for Britney Spears, and instinctively knew Britney was likely to start having severe problems. Paris comes from a different background than Britney, having grown up among the upper class, and she has an awareness of society I am sure Britney lacked at the time. In short, Paris’ insight into society could surely make Britney feel as if she were not measuring up, despite her massive fame and fortune. Paris knows what it is like to be from money; Paris knows about the social pecking order better than Britney.

Sure enough, very shortly after the two were announced to be friends and were seen frequently together, all sorts of horrible things started happening to Spears, which were of her own making. She shaved her head, was carted away to a psychiatric ward on a stretcher, and more. I am sure a lot of what happened had to do with Paris showing Britney how she did not measure up. Paris’ influence on Britney might not have been direct, but the effect occurred nonetheless.

There is a real danger in the way most of us have been taught to think about ourselves and the world. This way of thinking about ourselves and others never allows us to measure up. Instead of appreciating where we have come from and what we have achieved, most of us compare ourselves to an impossible ideal. All around us there are ideals we think we need to measure up to. We never can.

I want to propose a way of looking at the world and your place in it that will virtually guarantee you happiness and success throughout your life: you will never achieve the “ideal” in anything. You can keep trying, but you will never, ever be the best at everything. There is always going to be someone better than you.

Compare yourself only to the person you were before. Measure yourself against your own progress in various categories and do not compare yourself to others. Forget about others.

If you can understand this idea and apply it, your life will be changed forever. When you measure yourself against where you have been in the past, you are always going to feel a sense of progress. Each new success you achieve is going to give you a greater sense of satisfaction and push you forward with more positive energy. You can always improve on where you have already been, and what you have already accomplished. If you want to make improvements in any area, write down where you are right now and set out to improve. Measure yourself against where you have been, not where others have been.

Our brains like to set goals. Goals are absolutely necessary to drive us forward and make us achieve in life. But we cannot measure ourselves against others. We need to measure ourselves against ourselves, and gauge our progress in that fashion.

People who measure themselves against an ideal always feel disappointed. It is impossible to achieve every single goal you set for yourself. When you do not reach your ever-elusive goals, you end up feeling like a loser. You cannot possibly achieve every goal you set for yourself. What you can do, however, is constantly improve. This way you will continually feel a sense of victory as you move forward in life.

For example, if your goal is to lose weight, you can look at the scale a week from now after dieting and see that you have lost some weight. You have achieved something and have a reason to celebrate. This small victory will improve your self esteem and help you feel better about yourself.

Now, if you want to weigh 115 pounds like a star you read about in US Magazine, the reality is that you might never be able to achieve this. This is not how you should measure yourself.

I am sure you love watching television as much as I do, but most of the time what we are seeing is not the way the world really is. Nevertheless, many people are led to believe that the outside world is very similar to what they see on television, or read about in books and gossip magazines. There is an ideal that everyone aspires to attain. This ideal is a fantasy that simply does not exist. Comparing yourself to a fantasy world is a recipe for disaster and continual frustration.

Many people believe they can only be happy if their lives match a blueprint of what they believe a perfect life should be. When you really think about this, it is their model of the world that consistently makes them come up short. You need to compare yourself to where you have been and not where you think you should be.

You will start to feel fulfilled when you start comparing yourself to where you have been. You will be experiencing the life that you want. You deserve to feel fulfilled in life and to feel good about yourself.

Growing up, I had the privilege of having relatives who lived out in the country on farms, who did things like drive trucks for a living. In spending time with this family, I also met many of their friends who had far different expectations for their lives than the sort of people you meet in big cities. The people I met from the country typically had very low expectations for themselves and their lives. They were mostly concerned about things like putting food on the table and having a family. They did not believe they would ever be rich, or their children should be attending important schools. This simply was not part of their blueprint.

These were also some of the happiest people I ever met. The fact their expectations were so low meant there was very little to disappoint them. Things we might take for granted (like new tires on a car, for instance) were things that gave these people a great deal of satisfaction.

Conversely, I also grew up with people who had extremely high expectations for themselves. These were the people who went to the private high school I attended. Some of them were continually disappointed in themselves and the world around them, and they often turned to drugs in order to feel better about themselves and their lives. These kids were very intelligent and extremely capable. Many of them ended up going to the very best colleges and today are living in big cities, doing things like working for investment banks. They are also still very unhappy.

One of the kids I went to school with was Bill – the baseball player I mentioned at the beginning of this article. He was from a small town background of lower expectations, like my relatives, or even Britney Spears, who grew up in rural Louisiana. This young man was thrust into a high-expectations environment of a private school, where I am sure he learned to compare himself to numerous ideals:

-It is important to have parents who are rich.
-It is important to drive a nice car.
-It is important to get into the best college.
-It is important to get the best and highest paying job possible.
-It is important to score in the top 10 percent on your SATs.
-It is important to be the best athlete.
-It is important to impress others.

He was a happy kid when I first met him. After college, his first day of work in an “official job” was going to be for his wife’s father. That night, he went to sleep with his wife just like any other night. At least, that’s how it appeared to his wife. In the morning, she woke up and did not see him anywhere. A short time later she checked the basement and found him hanging by his neck from a noose. He had committed suicide.

Who knows what was going on inside his mind or why he ended up killing himself? No one around him ever expected anything like this would ever happen. When I think about this, I bet the young man simply did not measure up to his ideals, or whatever he thought he should be doing with his career. There must have been something in his mind that made him feel like he did not belong on this earth and that he wanted to escape.

You have already achieved so much, and you will continue to achieve great things in your life, step by step. Let yourself be carried forward by the knowledge you have improved and are continually improving. Use your past as a yardstick, and never use an ideal. You are capable of greatness. Just be patient and let your life unfold – and enjoy the process.

Smash Through Whatever Ceiling You Are Seeing by Concentrating on Your Largest Reward

What You Will Learn Realize the potential in you. Push through the myth that others are luckier than you and set your own worth and terms for your life. Believe that you are capable of a lot more than what you think. Mould the glass ceiling which exists only in your mind to simply think greater of you.

When I was about 12 years old I went to look at BMWs with a relative of mine. We spent several hours in the dealership. My relative was trying to figure out if there was a way to get a lower lease payment on the car. Negotiating with the people in the dealership took him a very long time. We were in a not-so-great area of Detroit, and I could see my relative was trying to get a good deal, and was feeling like a big shot in the process. For most of us, buying a car is among the most significant events in our lives, and for this relative it was no different. He was someone who had gone to all the right schools, played by the rules, and continually held jobs for a long time.

About two hours into the negotiation, a couple of men pulled up in a giant, brand new BMW. The stereo was blasting and the car had aftermarket rims that looked expensive. The salesman who had been speaking with my relative said “just a moment” and rushed over to the men in the car. Before the salesman ran over he indicated that the men had paid with actual cash for the car and were drug dealers. He told us that drug dealers were his best customers because they always paid cash and rarely negotiated.

One of the guys had apparently brought one of his friends to look at cars. The salesman completely lost interest in us for several minutes, despite being in the middle of a negotiation.

My relative and I sat together in the salesman’s office for about 20 minutes until the two men who had been in the car appeared with the salesman. Despite the fact I was quite young, I immediately realized the two men were very uneducated and appeared somewhat rough. They wore leather coats and lots of gold jewelry.

“I’ll be right with you,” the salesman said as he popped his head in the door of the office where we were sitting. “I just need to get these guys out of here and deliver their car.”

About five minutes later, one of the men said he might be interested in a second car on the lot, in addition to the one he was already buying. He asked the salesman to show him a second car.

My relative was disgusted. After that, we got up and left. As we were leaving, my relative said something I’ll never forget. He was in his early 50s at the time, and the men buying the car could not have been more than 25.

“I’ve worked hard all of my life and I cannot even afford one of those cars. Those guys who just came in probably never went to college, and look at them.”

I could see my relative was very saddened by what he had seen. It was as if the rules of society were working against him.

A few years later, I saw the movie Scarface and was mesmerized. Scarface is about a man (played brilliantly by Al Pacino) who comes to the United States from Cuba and is placed in a detention center. He is told he can get a green card and earn his freedom if he kills someone in the detention center, and he does. He gets a job in a restaurant as a dishwasher and cook, but soon decides he does not want this life. He is told if he picks up some drugs for someone he will be given a few thousand dollars. He goes over to pick up the drugs and is almost killed, and his brother is killed in the process. He starts working for the drug dealer for whom he was picking up the drugs. Very soon he has mansions, beautiful women, fast cars, and all the material possessions anyone could want.

As the director shows us all of this, a song is playing with the refrain “take it to the limit” over and over again. The implication from the music and the acting is that Pacino’s character has taken his life to the limit and made the most of himself, albeit in a life of crime.

This movie is remarkable because it is so quintessentially American. In the United States, stories like this occur every day. People who come to this country with nothing become huge successes. They can do this without educations, without connections, without any special advantages. The results they accomplish are achieved through the human spirit.

I used to work in a law firm, and I have spent most of my life around people who are well-educated, who are playing by the bureaucratic rules of society – people like my relative at the BMW dealership. When you spend time with these types of people, you notice they have a certain disdain for those who’ve somehow gotten ahead in life without playing by the rules regarding schools, titles, and so forth – the things most of society views as important. These people look at the people around them who are succeeding and decide that achieving success must have everything to do with luck.

This is not true.

What is true is that there is a glass ceiling in your life, my life, and most people’s lives, which we need to push through and shatter. Certain people push through these glass ceilings to achieve what they want in life, and others do not.

The man in Scarface smashed through the glass ceiling.

The customers in the BMW dealership smashed through the glass ceiling.

My relative did not. Most people do not.

The glass ceiling represents your potential, but it also represents a lot more. In order to illustrate the true power of the glass ceiling, I would like to tell you a couple of quick stories about my experience regarding people and glass ceilings. A glass ceiling has more to do with what you think you are worth and what you think you can contribute than anything else. When you establish your own worth and believe you are worth more, your relationships, your way of seeing the world – everything else changes.

BCG Attorney Search is one of the companies I manage. At BCG Attorney Search, we typically hire recruiters out of prestigious law firms to work with attorneys from equally prestigious law firms. The recruiters earn salaries based on a commission structure, and the more placements the recruiters make, the more money they earn.

Prior to becoming recruiters, these individuals were all getting paid law firm salaries. Several years ago, I began to notice a pattern that’s repeated itself to this day. If a recruiter made $100,000 the year before they became a recruiter, they would make $100,000 in commissions in their first year with our company. If they made $250,000 the year before they became recruiter, their first year’s commissions would amount to $250,000.

I wondered, for instance, why very capable people were not making more placements, and therefore more pay, once they started working for us. It is extremely hard to become a recruiter at BCG. We probably interview 100 people for every one person who gets the job. I knew we were not simply seeing this phenomenon because of some sort of error in our screening process, or some lack of ability on the part of our hires. There was more to it than that.

The people who became recruiters for BCG were setting their own value in everything they did. The number of people they spoke with, their passion for the subject matter, and how hard they worked all set the tone for the results they achieved. When you are in a commission-style job, you get paid based on the amount of commissions you generate. Sales is a very complex discipline on numerous levels, and salespeople do essentially control their own incomes.

The recruiters, in these cases, were being trapped by what they thought they were worth. They were self-imposing a limit as to what they could earn. Once we realized the recruiters were trapped, we started doing everything within our power to pull them out of the trap, and to make them see they could earn as much money as they wanted and be anyone they chose to be. In reality, these recruiters were not limited in value to the amount of their previous salaries.

You need to establish your own terms for your life. You need to make these terms the greatest you possibly can. If you are currently in a bureaucratic organization and have played by all the rules, you need to ensure the organization can give you what you want from your life. The point of this is simple: life gives you what you ask of it. Your career gives you what you demand of it.

In the BMW dealership that day there were two ‘meetings of the minds’. In one of the meetings was a mind that had always done whatever others told it, and paid others whatever they asked. Another mind did what it wanted to and set its own goals. Al Pacino in Scarface set his own goals as well.

When you concentrate on your largest perceived reward, you can smash through glass ceilings. Remember the glass ceiling only exists in your mind.

You Are Not Entitled to Anything

What You Will Learn Understand the fact that you are not entitled to anything. Do not blame others for what happens to you. Do not allow others to take control of your lives. Your achievements, life, and income should be the result of what you achieve and not others.

One of the greatest traps people fall into is believing they are entitled to something based on what they have done in the past, or are capable of doing. An even greater problem is believing you are entitled to something for nothing. Incredible as it may seem, most of the people I have seen in the working world throughout the years have an improper sense of entitlement. Rather than helping you, a sense of entitlement holds you back.

Anyone who believes he or she is entitled to something – a parent, an employer, a union, a government, or anyone else, is offering you a Faustian bargain. By making you dependent upon them, they are exerting control over you and your future. There are people and groups that want you to feel entitled and be dependent on them. This is their way of gaining control over you. This is not what you should want. If you have zero sense of entitlement, you can do whatever you want without help. By realizing you are owed nothing, you will go much farther.

The people who are the happiest, the most successful, and in control of their futures realize they are not entitled to anything. They know what happens to them is up to them, not anyone else. The second you give control to others you become a puppet, not a participant, in your own life. I want you to be someone who makes things happen in your own life, and someone who is in control. You can easily seize control of your career and your own life just by changing how you think.

Several years ago, I was sitting in the Kennedy Airport in New York with a relative. We were in a crowded food court with people sitting on both sides of us. My relative had recently learned he was going to inherit a few hundred thousand dollars, and he was planning on leaving it to me.

“Some day you are going to be very rich,” he said.

The people around us looked at me uncomfortably. I did not know what to say. Rich is relative and this was a great deal of money to me at the time. I was young, 26, I believe, and in that moment a dynamic was forming that I could either act upon or not. I could choose to plan my future around this inheritance, which would probably occur in 30 years or more – or I could choose not to care. If I were to plan my future around this inheritance, I might have been happy knowing I would one day have security. However, I could not allow this prospect to affect the way I lived my life.

While I feel it is somewhat crass to bring this point up, I have seen numerous people shape their lives around their family wealth. Some people I knew in school did not apply themselves because they knew they would inherit money one day. This sort of thinking is insane to me.

Your achievements, life, and income should be the result of what you achieve – not others. You should want to create a life based on how you want it to be, instead of waiting for success to come to you. This is an extremely powerful concept I encourage you to really think about. Understanding this can fundamentally change your career and life.

Following World War II, the United States grew at a rapid pace. During this time, our economy grew and trade prospered, and a massive amount of wealth was created. The money that came into the financial system also fueled a larger government, more union representation, and a giant expansion of the middle class. Fair wages, healthcare, and a certain standard of living became the focus of government and unions.

People began to feel the government and large business organizations could take on all of the problems of the world. People began to look to the government, unions, and others as organizations owing them the lives they wanted. While the idea had been percolating for some time, the notion the government could fix all ills was a centerpiece of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society social reforms, which he announced during a commencement speech at the University of Michigan in 1964:

“We are going to assemble the best thought and broadest knowledge from all over the world to find these answers. I intend to establish working groups to prepare a series of conferences and meetings–on the cities, on natural beauty, on the quality of education, and on other emerging challenges. From these studies, we will begin to set our course toward the Great Society.”

Some goals of the Great Society social reforms included the elimination of poverty and racial injustice, the creation of major social programs, and spending geared towards deficits in transportation, urban issues, education, medical care, and more. People came to believe the government could fix anything.

Johnson’s Great Society represented nothing less than perfection. People were promised the government would fix whatever perceived wrongs existed in society. This sent the message to most people that someone else was responsible for what happened to them and their lives. The idea was that a society made up of bureaucrats could essentially take care of the people.

What happened, however, was these solutions never fully worked. People felt cheated and angry when certain promises were made by bureaucrats and others were not met. Companies and other large organizations that were unionized crumbled under the weight of their own entitlement programs. As layoffs and other problems began affecting the United States from the 1970s onward, people began to see themselves as victims of society. They became trapped in a cycle of dependence, resentment, and anger.

As we look around at the world today we see everyone blaming others for the issues they face. If people cannot afford their mortgages, they blame the banks and request government aid. If car makers cannot make a profit they request government help. There is a belief, which politicians and others have helped cultivate in this society, that people are not responsible for their own actions and someone else is to blame. No one is responsible for his or her own situation.

Putting the blame on others sets up a vicious cycle of dependence and disappointment. We begin to look for leaders who promise us various entitlements. We elect people based on their promise to redistribute wealth in society because we feel society owes us something. We base our lives on the hope someone else will take care of this. This sort of thinking is exactly what has led to socialism and, ultimately, communism in some countries. Everyone wants something from the government. If we continue to believe the system is unfair and the demands are great enough, communism promises a society in which everyone is rewarded equally by the government.

What you need to do is realize if your life is controlled by others you will be continually disappointed. You need to be in control of what happens to you, and to realize you are in control of your own life. No one else is responsible for you and no one owes you anything. There is nothing worse than living your life under the assumption someone owes you something. You should always consider you owe something to yourself.

If you go into job interviews believing you are owed something, you will probably won’t get hired. Employers want people who want to contribute. If you go into relationships believing you are owed something, you will fail. If you believe your current employer owes you something, this is also likely to create issues for you.

Accept total and complete responsibility for your career and life. You can do this. If you are from the United States you are part of a long line of people who have done this.

At some point in time, your ancestors came to the United States with great ambitions about what they could become and the people they could be. Chances are they came to this country with very little, if any, money and the simple hope they could become successful. Your ancestors knew this country could give them a tremendous amount of opportunity – the ability to work and achieve what they wanted without intervention from the government, class systems, or other societal restraints that keep people down in many other societies throughout the world.

Your ancestors came here because they knew they could do it on their own. They came here because they knew they controlled their own destinies. They came to a country where no one owed them anything. They came knowing they could make their own dreams come true.

Maybe you’ve gotten caught up in believing the government, your employer, or someone else owes you something. I would say you have been assimilated into this culture and country now. Sometime in the near or distant past, however, one of your family members came to this country believing they were owed nothing. They may have even come to escape the same system of frustrated expectations and entitlements you are now experiencing. You need to step back, take control, and realize that you, and only you, are in control of your destiny.

Look for the Cause

What You Will Learn Look for the cause. Discover the hidden meaning in why a certain thing happened or is happening to you and around you. You should have the ability to understand the reason for everything and use this knowledge to make your life and career strong, tall, successful, and happy.

Everything that occurs in our world and to us has a cause.  The cause may not be immediately obvious, but it is always there waiting to be found.  The result of anything you see always contains its cause, and everything that happens is the result of either good or bad seeds that have been planted at some point in time:

• If some people are living in poverty and alone, spend some time with them and you will understand why they are in their situation. They are most likely in the position they are in not just (1) due to bad things that have happed to them, which were caused by other people (i.e., bad seeds), but (2) due to bad things that they themselves have done (i.e., planting of bad seeds), which have come back to haunt them. The condition they are living in is the growth that has occurred due to the bad seeds they have planted.
• If some people are living in opulence and are surrounded by people who love them, spend some time with them and you will understand why. They are most likely in the position they are in not just (1) due to good things that have happened to them, which were caused by other people (i.e., good seeds), but (2) due to good things they themselves have done (i.e., planting of good seeds) which have grown the persons rich and full lives. The condition they are living in is the growth that has occurred due to the good seeds they have planted.
• If some people have good careers and are happy in what they do, spend some time with them and you will understand why. They are most likely in the position they are in (1) due to good things that have happened to them caused by other people, (such as getting accepted into good schools, gaining immense favor and support of friends and family) and (2) due to good things they have done, such as working hard and making valuable contributions to their work and to others. These people’s lives are a reflection of the good seeds they have planted.
• If some people are unhappy and having bad careers, spend some time with them and you will understand why. They are most likely in the position they are in (1) due to bad things that have happened to them caused by other people, (such as not getting accepted into good schools, not gaining the favor of friends and family) and (2) due to the bad things they have done such as slacking off and making poor, half-hearted contributions to their work and to others, that is not part of their lives. These persons’ lives are a reflection of the good seeds they have planted.

Each outcome has its own unique cause. A person becomes President of the United States because of something he or she did or caused. Likewise someone becomes incarcerated because of something he or she did or caused. Just as every creation that ever comes to fruition was once merely an idea, each type of person that you see in the world–a happy person, an angry person, a powerful person, or a weak person–has a unique cause, a seed that has brought the person into his or her state of being.

It follows that if everything we see has a cause, it might be more valuable to study and understand the cause more than the effect. Once you understand the cause you have the ammunition to make better decisions in your career and your life. There are far fewer things more important than being able to understand why something is the way it is. If someone you work with is very successful you should seek to understand the cause. If someone you work with is unsuccessful you should also seek to understand the cause. The more you understand the causes of things, the more you can make causes work for you and avoid causes that will work against you.

Everyone knows that if you walk into a bank and rob it, the effect of this may be escaping with some money; however, the effect is more likely to be getting hauled off to jail. This is one obvious reason why robbing banks is not that popular. More popular ways of getting ahead involve things such as going to college and working hard at our jobs. Most of society seeks out causes that are positive and more likely to give us better long term results. By and large we avoid things that are likely to cause negative results, and we gravitate towards what is likely to cause positive results–both for us and those around us.

If you look at a chair, the cause of its existence is generally the person who built it. If you wanted more chairs like this chair, the best thing to do would be to find the person who made the chair. If you find the person who made this chair, or the factory that made the chair, you will have discovered the cause.

If you look at a young child of age two or three, who appears incredibly happy and is always laughing and playing, you could study this child as well and find a cause. The cause of the child’s happiness might be a parent; it might be both parents; it might be the way the child naturally sees the world; it might be that the child has never been seriously disciplined. Its disposition might very well be genetic, and the result of its parents’ having similar genetics. There are countless potential explanations for why the child might be happy but there is likely also a cause that can be traced and quantified.

Similarly, if you look at a child who is incredibly unhappy all the time there is generally a cause for this as well. It may be how the child naturally sees the world, the discipline the child has received, the lack of care it has received from parents and relatives. It might very well be genetic. The more you study this child the more you will realize what it is specifically that has made him or her unhappy. There is always a cause.

One of the types of shows I have always enjoyed watching are shows like Forensic Files, Intervention, Power Privilege and Justice and other similar programming that provides in-depth psychological profiles of people who commit various despicable acts. One of the reasons I enjoy these shows so much is that there are often interviews with the families of the person who has committed the crime, which usually has involved murder, prostitution and/or drugs. The more serious the offense, the more interesting to me these interviews seem to be. In watching these shows, in most cases I am always more interested in watching and learning about the parents than the person who committed the crime.

One of the consistent themes I have noticed in these shows is that the mothers of the murderers, drug addicts and so forth are typically very cold. The mothers have typically had a lot of issues themselves and the thing I notice is that they are almost always very detached and unemotional in their speech. The fathers also seem sort of weak in many respects. You do not get a sense that they are all that loving, or willing to take the time to understand their kids.

I am making some gross generalizations; however, I have watched hundreds of these shows throughout the years and this same pattern just seems to repeat itself over and over again. In my opinion, for many of the people out there who are creating mayhem in the world and who are having severe problems, there is always a cause, and the cause is, in most cases, the peoples’ parents.

A few years ago I was complaining to one of my parents about something or another that happened when I was growing up, and my parent said something that was quite memorable: “Grow up and forget about it!”

I thought about this statement a lot at the time because it did seem to resonate with some truth. I had no business being upset about something that happened, or did not happen some 20+ years ago; incidentally I cannot even to this day remember what I was complaining about at the time. Nevertheless, whatever had occurred in the past had apparently planted a seed within me that was still festering in the present.

Another more extreme example: if a man is beaten up by thugs he is going to be a different person in the future in some ways than if he had never been attacked. The attack puts a seed in him. Going to war and being in combat plants seeds in men too. If a woman wins a beauty contest at a young age, this plants another type of seed. If a person goes to college and does horribly this is yet another seed. If a person gets fired from a job, if a person is raised a devout follower of organized religion these too are seeds, life- shaping causes that help form a person and his future.

Once you understand these seeds, you will generally understand their various outcomes, and will quickly come to understand the person.

The problem with understanding the cause for peoples’ situations is often that the causes are hidden. For example, when looking at a giant acorn tree, most people see only the tree. They do not think of the fact that the acorn tree came from the acorn nuts that are now growing out of it. The cause of the acorn tree is the seeds. But what most people see is the tree–not the cause of the tree, which is the seed.

The message I am getting at is very significant and it could change your life. You have many seeds that have been planted within you throughout the years. These seeds have been planted by your parents, your friends, your schools, and by chance events that have occurred. Some of these seeds are good seeds, which can result in positive outcomes, and other seeds are bad seeds, which can result in negative outcomes. The issue is that you probably are not aware of which seeds are which. You are living your life under the constant influence of seeds that were planted long ago within you–and you do not understand or know what they are.

In order for you to make the most of your life and career, it is crucial that you do your best to be influenced by the good seeds, and learn to avoid the bad seeds. When someone goes and spends years on a therapist couch, what they are essentially doing is learning about the bad seeds that have been planted in them, and coming to terms with them, in order to move on in their life. Most of us suppress and do not come to terms with the bad seeds that are influencing our lives; however, by learning to understand them, we are in a much better position to deal with them.

Conversely, there are an incredible number of good seeds out there that have a profound influence on us. These good seeds are the things that make us happy, the people that support us and help us grow, the circumstances that enable us to be better people, the positive things that have helped us get to where we are today and to be the people we are today. Good seeds are something incredibly valuable and we need to make a conscious habit of moving towards good seeds and reinforcing the good seeds in our lives.

I urge you to look at other people that have achieved the levels of success you too desire, and look for the good seeds that have brought them to where they are today. The more you look for the good seeds within people, the more you can use these same tools to move towards where you want to be. You need to adopt good seeds in your own life and bring good seeds into your life to the maximum extent possible.

Seeds do not grow instantly. Seeds take time to grow and they grow based on how they are nourished and the environment they are in. Every single day of your life you are planting seeds. You may be planting seeds that cause good things to happen in the future, or you may be planting seeds that cause bad things to happen in the future, or perhaps nothing at all. This is how it works: the more positive seeds you plant, the better your life will become. It may not all happen instantly, but it will happen.

Advertising is an example of planting seeds. An advertiser goes out and plants ideas in the public’s mind about buying its product or service, with the objective of creating instantly and over time, a harvest of revenue. Businesses plant seeds just as individuals do.

We are addicted to selfish behavior. It is easier to hate than it is to love. We are quick to argue and slow to apologize. Many people drive hard bargains. It is easier for some people to lie than to tell the truth. It is easier for some people to break promises than to do what they say they will do. Selfish behavior is an example of planting a bad seed. It may not happen instantly, but every bad seed you plant will come back to you in some way, making your life more difficult.

If you are not climbing you are falling back. The lower you descend, the more you suffer from depression and turmoil. The further you are from doing good, the unhappier you are likely to be. This can express itself in various forms of illness, financial hardship, social problems, marital problems, fear, anxiety and more. All of these are the result of planting bad seeds.

Reject the selfish impulses that pop into your mind–do not plant bad seeds.

Choose to interact with people who truly enhance your life–plant good seeds.

Choose to interact with people in ways that truly enhance their lives–plant good seeds.

Cheap Beer, Overpriced Chocolate, Being Visible and Approachable

For some reason, lately I have been receiving a lot of invitations from local stores to go and spend an evening looking at stuff–”new fall collections”, for example. It could be women’s shoes, beds, or other wares; however, the invitations just keep coming. They come by mail. The stores call our house. However, lest I think I am special, the stores usually advertise these same events in the paper as well, and promote these special events to the public at large, through their websites.

What You Will Learn Your effectiveness in your work will always be dependent upon your ability to get people to see and purchase your merchandise. Similarly the world and various employers need to be aware that you are around during your job search. The more people realize you exist and are available, the more success you will find. Keep moving and continue to be seen.

I have only attended one of these events so far, at a store inside of the Palazzo Casino in Las Vegas. The event was inside a clothing store, and it did not live up to its promise: the vendor supplied nothing more than a tub of iced Budweiser, placed off to the corner in a metal tub. The invitation had said something about “hors d’oeuvres” and a “romantic evening”–but in reality there was nothing romantic about the evening. There was nothing more than a few cold beers on the floor next to the women’s belt section; they weren’t even imported. My wife had been excited about attending the sales event, because she had received a postcard about it in the mail.

“They probably invited everyone in this zip code,” I told her.

“I don’t care,” she said. “We’re new in town and this is the first thing we have been invited to.” That, technically, was not true. There was a politician (who happened to be gay) who had been inviting me to various events in town, which I had been politely declining. It was an uncomfortable situation because some of the events involved things like going to a dinner event with the Governor. My wife had been out of town when these invitations came about, and I did not want to go alone with the guy because I was nervous it might turn into a date. I was hoping the politician would invite me to an event where I could bring my wife, instead of going as a man-date.

The event at the store made me sad that we do not know more people in Las Vegas. My wife spent about an hour getting ready for the event. It was a real let down when we got there and all that was waiting for us there was some cheap beer. No Diet Coke, no wine, no snacks–not even a really amazing sale on something of interest. Keep in mind, I have not drunk a Bud since I was locked in a room inside my fraternity as a freshman and forced to drink 12 warm ones until I vomited. To this day the smell of Budweiser makes me want to vomit.

I could tell my wife was very disappointed because she had prepared for star treatment. She had even hand-carried a special formal purse, and we had hobbled uncomfortably through the casino because she was wearing high heels. One might have looked at the two of us and thought we were going to a wedding.

The store was very crowded, surprisingly. I looked around and saw a bunch of men wearing primarily cargo shorts and polo shirts, who were equally pissed off to be standing around a woman’s clothing store on a Friday night. One man had two beers in his hands and was working through them in short order. Most of the women were talking with the salespeople and seemed pretty excited to be perusing the store’s new “fall merchandise”–which did not look any different from anything else that was for sale in the store.

I stood around for about fifteen minutes looking at women’s magazines and eventually I became so bored I went to look at a chocolate store that was a few doors over. The chocolate store was selling a little bag of chocolate covered nuts, no bigger than my hand, which held probably no more than forty small nuts inside. Since my wife and I were not going to be eating for a while, I figured that this little snack might tide me over.

When I took the nuts to the counter the salesperson told me the little bag would cost $18.

“Are you kidding?” I asked.

“No, I’m perfectly serious. These are special nuts and the recipe is by our founder.”

“Who’s your founder–the Dali Lama?”

As if the fastidious salesman was telling me about a great religious figure, he told me in hushed tones about the founder, some rich woman living in the suburbs of Chicago. In a story that sounded as if he were describing a great historical figure the likes of which are rarely seen in any human lifetime, the salesperson explained to me how the woman’s husband was a doctor and how she was bored staying at home and began experimenting with chocolate recipes, and now has a thriving business with chocolate stores in four American cities.

“I don’t care if this woman has the ability to fly. There’s no more than twenty-cents worth of nuts in here!” I told the salesman.

Since I was angry I was going to have to spend $18 if I wanted a bag of nuts, I stormed out of the store with a bit of bad will, empty-handed. I felt seriously offended that someone was trying to charge me $18+ tax for around forty little nuts. After my wife and I left the Budweiser event we had been invited to, I took her by the chocolate store to show her my shocking discovery:

“Can you believe someone is charging $18 for forty small nuts! This really pisses me off!” I said handing her the bag of nuts for examination.

The salesperson was giving me a mean look while some other guy was at the counter with his wife, trying to convince her it did not make sense to spend fifteen bucks on a chocolate bar that was no bigger than the size of perhaps two or three average fingers put together.

“They tried to charge me eighteen dollars for a bag of nuts!” I yelled at him from across the chocolate store. The man and his wife looked up at me and did not say anything. I think they thought I was a little nuts. I knew how much that candy bar they were struggling over cost because I had gotten angry at the salesperson about that too a few minutes earlier.

“That’s what the bag of nuts costs,” my wife said.

“I know, but it makes me angry. I wanted a bag of nuts and I could not even buy one for less than eighteen bucks.”

I’d poked around in the chocolate store for around fifteen minutes in total, and the entire time I was there I had not seen a single person purchase anything. Eventually the guy and his wife walked out without getting the candy bar. At the same time, the store that had invited us to its Budweiser party had been selling stuff like crazy. People were literally standing in line with their Budweisers, buying various items.

The store that had thrown the Budweiser party was equally outrageous in terms of its pricing. I saw a $350 pair of tennis shoes, a $220 cotton tee shirt, and a few other things before I had been outright alarmed by the pricing there as well. However, people were actually purchasing the stuff. As I thought about it later in the evening, I realized that that the reason the chocolate shop and the woman’s clothing store were doing such different amounts of business was because the clothing store understood the importance of getting people in front of its merchandise–and the chocolate store was not making any special effort to do this.

The chocolate store had been furnished with expensive white tiles and was kind of intimidating for a candy shop. Everything was laid out in a fashion that made you almost nervous to look at it, much less touch it. The salesman inside the chocolate store was dressed in an expensive suit, had perfect teeth and skin, and spoke with some sort of affect that might have been French, or something even classier–I could not tell. In all, the chocolate store was an intimidating, aloof, expensive, and off-putting place.

In contrast, the clothing store we visited was grossly informal. Clothes were on cheap racks. The salespeople were dressed very casually and spoke with common accents. Some of them even looked a little rough around the edges. In short, the clothing store was “approachable”, and people were not afraid to stop by there. Even with its high prices, the clothing store seemed to be selling a lot of goods, and getting people to stop in. The clothing store had a more human element.

Open houses, free Budweiser, postcards in the mail, and all of these types of things are simply a way of getting people to view what is for sale. In order to sell anything, you need to make sure that you get people through the doors of the store to see what is available. If people do not know what is being sold, they are less likely to purchase anything.

The clothing store was bringing new customers in droves, all due to its open house. I am sure it holds these sorts of open house events every season, and for various other reasons as well. In addition to holding the open houses, the store has called my wife on occasion upon receiving new merchandise. I have seen their advertisements all over the place, and the business is continually doing everything it can to get customers into the store.

While I do not know for sure, I would say that the chocolate store will go out of business long before the clothing store we visited. The clothing store understands the importance of getting people into the store. Even the high prices of the clothing store will not prevent people from buying something if enough people get through those front doors.

Also, the attitude of the clothing store is not something that is going to keep customers away. Being approachable, open, easy to relate to, and more is something that is usually more effective than the opposite. It should go without saying that the easier you are to talk and relate to, the better off you will generally do when it comes to business–or anything.

What does any of this have to do with your career and life? Your effectiveness in your job search, business, and more will always be dependent upon your ability to get people to (1) see and (2) purchase your merchandise. Since you and your work are a piece of merchandise, if people do not know you are available, you simply cannot do well. The clothing store with the Budweiser event understood the importance of getting people into the store, and my wife and I feel for it. A store that is on a busy corner will typically do better than one that is not. You will always do better when more people see your merchandise than if they do not.

When you are looking for a job this means getting yourself in front of every possible person you can. The world and various employers need to be aware that you are around. Do not just wait for the perfect job to come along. Instead, you should be making sure that you get out and meet people who can potentially help you in your job search.

One of the most important things that you need to be aware of in your career and when you are looking for a position is to keep moving and continuing to be seen. The more people realize you exist and are available, the more success you will find.

Finally, you need to be approachable. You need to make it easy for people to relate to you, to talk to you, and to get to know you. Be friendly, open, and honest.

The people who typically do the best in anything are those who are able to (1) be seen and (2) relate to people. In your career you need to make sure that you are always seen and that people can relate to who you are and what you stand for.

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