The Importance of Being Well-Liked in Your Job

One of the most persistent problems people in the work world have is their failure to collaborate with, and learn from, their co-workers. Several factors are necessary for success in any job and in advancing your career. Being well liked and collaborating are two of the more important factors.

This is at odds with many people’s personalities. Salespeople thrive on competition and being number one. Attorneys, accountants, and engineers, among many others, were once quite competitive at academics and spent a lot of time studying to get an edge over their peers. In some work environments, many people work alone.

Regardless of your job, you are part of a social dynamic inside your organization. Beyond any other single thing – including your work product – the largest obstacle to anyone’s success is a social dynamic turning against you. If your co-workers do not like you, word will spread and your career in your organization may be doomed. If a group of superiors do not like you, the same thing will occur.

Being well-liked in a work environment is an important thing in any job. If you are not liked by your peers, your superiors may think clients will not like you either. If superiors do not like you, you will not get a lot of work. If you are isolated from others within your organization, it is far easier to let you go in times of economic uncertainty. You need to always be in a position where others want to do you a favor and help you out.

There are several keys to being well-liked at work. The most important of these are (1) not getting actively involved in cliques, (2) never saying anything bad about any co-worker, no matter what, (3) making your superiors feel important, (4) listening (do not talk too much) and asking about others, (5) participating in ”group solidarity” activities, and (6) keeping your head down and smiling.

One of the most dangerous things you can do is get actively involved in cliques at work. While there is nothing wrong with being part of a social group, work is likely the wrong place to do this.

First, cliques, like all social organizations, go through their ups and downs. A unifying trait of cliques is the cohesive bond that’s created due to a shared set of circumstances. One of the most unifying types of circumstances cliques experience is when bad things happen to their members. When bad things happen to the members of a clique, the clique tends to come together and unite against the ”negative outside forces” that created the bad circumstances. Rest assured bad things will happen to members of your clique inside virtually any organization.

In most companies and organizations, approximately 50 percent of employees will leave or be fired within the first two to three years. While this is not necessarily a bad thing, many people leave under bad circumstances because they have done something wrong. In addition, a lot of these people will be angry with the organization and its superiors, and the superiors will know they are angry.

If you or a group of very close peers have been seen spending a great deal of time with someone who leaves under bad circumstances, the perception will be that you are angry as well. The firm may even believe you are thinking of leaving for the same reasons. You do not want to be associated with this. You will be perceived as being on the wrong team.

Also, if you are involved in a clique there will be others who, by the very existence of your clique, will feel excluded. They may not be invited to certain lunches, may hear about you doing things outside of work with other clique members, and may walk by the office and see you and other clique members speaking. This will make them feel excluded. When people feel excluded, they generally have a response.

The most typical response inside organizations is the people who feel excluded may form their own clique. Alternatively, they may decide that, since your group is not interested in them (rightly or wrongly), their best course of action is to work harder, kiss up to superiors more, or look better than members of your clique in some way.

Finally, most of the people who advance were never part of cliques. The reason? They did not have the time! Most of the highest-ranking employees in organizations worked extremely hard when they were younger to the point where they had figurative blinders on to everything and everyone that was not relevant to their advancement. Most have very little to fall back on in their professional life other than their work product. Moreover, many of these higher-level people realized cliques were bad news and did not participate in them for that reason.

People advance inside companies because they are extremely committed and never want to telegraph any sort of message that would question their commitment to the organization. When you join a clique, you immediately communicate the message you are not like your superiors were when they were in your shoes.

In addition to not joining cliques, you should never say anything bad about your coworkers, no matter what. In most organizations your interaction with others will invariably involve rumors, statements about other people’s actions, and interesting stories about events in your co-workers’ personal lives. In addition, the professional competence of other associates will be frequently discussed among groups of people.

The reaction of most people is to listen intently and contribute their own negative feelings about the individual in the story. After all, relaying another’s misfortune may give you the sense you are doing very well. Furthermore, most people love telling these sorts of stories and sharing rumors with each other. There are numerous problems with this.

First, you have no way of knowing if the person you’re talking about will eventually hear what you’ve said. If word gets back to that person, he or she will be upset with you. They may be eagerly waiting for you to mess up so they can tell others about your misfortune. You never know. If you are able to avoid this, when you do something that merits gossip, others will be less likely to speak negatively about you.

Second, you do not look like a nice person when you engage in gossip. In fact, to most individuals with serious leadership potential you will look very weak. The weakest people are typically those most interested in gossip. The next time you are in a group, watch how the negative people react to gossip. Oftentimes they will even smile because they are so happy someone else has something negative associated with them. Do not allow yourself to fall into this trap. If you do not engage in gossip, others will respect you more.

Third, be extremely careful when saying negative things about others in your organization, especially subordinates. If you engage in bad mouthing your subordinates, they will find out. If you upset your subordinates, they can create a tremendous amount of difficulty for you in the organization. Most attorneys, for example, make mistakes that staff members cover for every week. Upset a legal staff member and you can kiss that shielding goodbye. They will ensure as many people know about your errors as possible. More importantly, they can tell partners other associates do not like you and more. They can do this in a manner that makes them look good and you bad. You do not want to fight this war. Whatever field you may be in, it is never a good idea to upset your staff members.

You should also consider the feelings of your superiors. Your superiors hired you because they need you to work. They simply cannot do all the work themselves. That is why your job exists. You help them make money and make them look good. Everyone in this world, including you, wants to feel important. You need to make your superiors feel like they are important. If you do this, they will like you and will reward you. It is that simple.

You need to be a soldier, not a general. Soldiers carry out orders and do not question them. Generals give orders, hold authority, and are rewarded for strategy and a job well done. When you work for a superior, you want him or her to be rewarded for your excellent work. You will, in turn, be rewarded.

One of the biggest mistakes young people make in many organizations is presuming they are generals who have a great deal of latitude with decisions and whose advice regarding strategy and more is welcome at any time. It is not. No matter how smart you are, if you are dealing with someone who has substantially more experience than you they probably have a reason for doing things the way they do.

I realize how this language sounds. Nevertheless, when you are younger, your job is to make your superiors look good. You do not make your superiors look good if you constantly question their motives, don’t follow orders, and create your own protocol. You’ll have ample time to be a general later. Before you are a general, though, you must be a soldier.

Your superiors, like you, face a lot of people who make them feel unimportant, whether it’s one of their own superiors, a judge, or a spouse. Your superiors want to surround themselves with people who make them feel good. If the method of advancing to higher levels is a secret to you, I will tell you how it works. Just like you surround yourself in your personal life with people who make you feel good, so too do your superiors in their professional lives. When they like people, they want to help them. Being well-liked by superiors requires that you make them feel important.

It is possible to figure out how to accomplish this by listening. You need to listen to your superiors and coworkers. It is amazing how most of us really like people who ask us about ourselves. People love to talk about themselves. To most of us, we are the most interesting people in the world. Most of the smartest people I have ever encountered are individuals who do a lot of listening and ask others about themselves. Moreover, if you do a lot of listening, you can learn a tremendous amount and grow. Avoid the temptation to talk about yourself.

Very few people take the time to listen to others. If you listen to others and their stories they will like you better. They will also think you are interesting, even if they do all the talking. Think about the people you find interesting. Most likely they are the ones who let you talk about yourself the most.

You should never volunteer a lot of information about yourself or your personal life. Unless you are somehow scandalous or someone with remarkable personality traits, very few people care to listen to what you have to say anyway. I hate to say this, but it is largely true.

You can learn a lot from listening. The more you listen, the more you learn and the more you can help your career. No matter the size of your organization, if you listen you will learn far more than you could on your own. This knowledge will greatly help your career.

To gain the best knowledge you need to spend time with the right people. You need to go to your organization’s parties. You need to be there whenever the organization does something as a group. This is essential. If you are not there, you will telegraph the message that you do not like your co-workers. Go to company functions.

Finally, keep your head down and smile. One of the most remarkable things I ever witnessed was an election in an organization of which I was a part. It came time for the organization to elect a president, and there were several candidates. The problem was, each of the candidates was part of a particular faction of the organization and had enemies. The person who ultimately won was never involved in any organizational conflict, was involved very little overall, and had the fewest friends within the organization. However, the person participated in the organization’s activities, had several acquaintances in the organization, never said anything bad about anyone, and never participated in gossip. This person won the election by a landslide.

And so it is with most organizations. The people who advance are most often the same as this individual. To advance, you need to be non-confrontational and well-liked and keep out of trouble. The best way to do this is to keep your head down, do good work, and be associated with making people feel good. If you do this, and nothing more, you will have a lot of stability in any organization.

Doing a job well is about more than the quality of your work. It is about how well others like you. A discussion about being well liked and what it involves could go on and on. Certainly, a course in human relations could be much more involved than the little we have touched on here. If you follow the above rules, though, you should do just fine.

Consistency is More Important than Brilliance

There once was a speedy hare who bragged about how fast he could run. Tired of hearing him boast, Slow and Steady, the tortoise, challenged him to a race. All the animals in the forest gathered to watch. Speedy ran down the road for a while and then paused to rest. He looked back at Slow and Steady and cried out, ”How do you expect to win this race when you are walking along at your slow, slow pace?”

Speedy stretched himself out alongside the road and fell asleep, thinking that there was plenty of time to relax.

Slow and Steady walked and walked. He never, ever stopped until he came to the finish line.

The animals who were watching cheered so loudly for the tortoise that they woke up Speedy.

Speedy stretched and yawned and began to run again, but it was too late because the tortoise had crossed the finish line.

After that, Speedy always reminded himself, ”Don’t brag about your lightning pace, for Slow and Steady won the race!”

-From Aesop’s Fables

A few years ago I was moving from one house to another. I drove to the local U-Haul and picked up a van.

I am not sure how it is in other cities, but around Los Angeles there are usually about 25 guys who stand in front of U-Hauls on the street waiting to help people move. It’s the same with Home Depot and other stores. I have not seen this in other parts of the world, like Michigan, where I am from. Most of the people who stand in front of the stores are from Mexico. I have never seen an American. To me this says a lot about the work ethic of people from other countries. It seems they are the only ones doing this work. I wonder what makes Americans think they are above doing this sort of work? It makes me a little angry.

If I had grown up in California I’ll bet I would have been the only American standing in front of Home Depots and U-Hauls happily offering to help people paint, do yard work, or move furniture. You need to work to get ahead! You need to find opportunities where others see obstacles. This is what I want for you.

I gathered three guys to help me. It was the day before Christmas. One of the guys helping me was from an Eastern European country and the other two were both from Mexico. After years of picking people up from Home Depots and other places to do work, this was the first time I’d ever picked up one who was not of Hispanic origin. In fact, it was the first time I ever remember seeing one. The Eastern European guy was acting like a maniac. He was being obsessive about how the furniture was covered and moved. He was moving as fast as possible without damaging things, herding the men he was working with from room to room, and barking orders, although I had not asked him to do so. A few times he pulled me aside and told me the other guys were not as hard working as he was and he was ”looking out for me.”

On one occasion, the man started screaming at the men in the truck while they were moving something because they were about to scratch something. I think this was more of a show, however. The men continued what they were doing and started laughing at him.

”He’s crazy!” one of the men said to me. That man’s name was Hillario. He was working with his friend David, who kept his head down and walked by.

At the end of the day, I ended up paying the Eastern European guy a lot more money than either David or Hillario. Mind you, the Eastern European guy argued with me that he deserved more because he had done such a great job. I think I paid him probably close to $40 an hour for the work he had done. This was way too much and I might have made a serious mistake. I have always had a place in my heart for people who make their living doing honest work on the street and I wanted to help him. I respected his work ethic and how hard he had worked. Despite paying him so much money, I did not feel good at the end of the day because he actually made me feel I should have paid him more.

That evening I had a wonderful time. My wife and I had just started dating at the time and she brought over a beautiful plant for the new house. We went out for a nice dinner in the Ritz Carleton and listened to music. It was only our third or fourth date and it was one of the more memorable and fun nights I had ever had. We drank a lot of champagne and I remember we danced to an orchestra. We got home quite late and fell asleep on the couch that had been set up in one of the rooms of the house.

The next morning, Christmas morning, my doorbell rang at around 7:15 a.m. I looked outside and, incredibly, there was the Eastern European man. He was wearing a suit. I could not possibly imagine what was wrong.

I opened the door and let him in.

”Hello,” he said. ”I hope you are enjoying your new home. It must be nice to have your own home like you do. Since I did such a good job yesterday, I would like to ask you to pay me some more money today since it is Christmas. I would very much appreciate your generosity.”

I was very disappointed. The man was not offering to do more work. He was not offering anything except a dose of guilt and a request for more money. His attitude got my day off to a poor start. I was not impressed with his request for more money and it made me feel badly. I had felt very good about helping him the day before.

There is an interesting moral to this story, however. Two of the guys I picked up that day over six years ago are still working for me and my companies today. Along the way one of them got a green card. This made it possible for me to pay him legally to work for one of my companies. The other guy has helped me out with small tasks such as raking leaves and so forth from time to time. I also got them jobs with a contractor I know. Neither of these guys have particularly super work ethics, but they are steady workers and they do what they say they are going to do. This is the most important thing. They do predictable work and do not play any games. They have also stayed employed in one form or another for six years.

I went by the U-Haul several times over the years and saw the Eastern European man standing on the street waiting for work. He was always standing apart from the other workers, or even across the street, because the other workers did not want to stand next to him. I am sure this made it much harder for him to get work. In addition, I also noticed that late in the afternoon he was often there after the other workers had been picked up. He was a pariah of sorts.

While this example involves day laborers, it is no different at all for the highest paid workers in other industries and the same sort of logic applies. Just being really good at something is not enough. You also need to be consistent. Being consistent is one of the most important aspects of your work ethic. The people who are consistent are the ones who have the best careers in the long run. Being consistent is something that is important not just for you but also for those around you.

Despite speaking good English, despite dressing well, despite being the best worker, I am confident the Eastern European man probably worked less and ultimately earned less money than most of the other men who got work from the street in front of the U-Haul.

In my younger days there was a family that lived by my house that never had any money. They often came over and my mother would loan the mother money for food and to buy basic necessities (when she had the money). The father of this family was a plumber, and in the 1970s in Detroit most plumbers did very well. The father never seemed to be able to hold on to a job very long. He also had a difficult time with unions. He simply refused to join one. He thought he was smarter than all the other plumbers. Despite this guy’s brilliance, his family never had the money to eat. If he could have just held a job and done things in a consistent manner, everything would have been fine.

So many people are under the misconception the most important thing in their job is being brilliant and outstanding, but they’re really missing the point. Being consistently good at something, and doing the job day after day is much more important.

There is a certain type of person I have seen in the world of work over and over again. This person comes to the interview unbelievably enthusiastic about work and being part of the company. He shows up for work and his work product is much better than that of others around him. He may even get a quick raise or two. People around him start to notice and the level of insight he puts into his job is incredible.

-If the person is in sales he is the highest performing salesperson

-If the person does a manual job he works harder and faster than others

-If the person is in writing he writes more material that is more insightful than others

In whatever this person is involved, he puts an incredible level of insight into it and does the very best he can with it.

However, the problem I’ve seen countless times is that when someone performs at such a high level in the beginning, it almost always leads to troubling and often bizarre behavior later.

I once worked with a man who started out being extremely enthusiastic. Then he stopped working every day and made strange excuses for missing work. Then the man started disappearing for hours at a time during the day.

The better and more extreme someone’s performance is, the less likely they are to maintain it over time. Things like always showing up for work, always doing the job, cooperating with peers, and more are important characteristics. These are the people who contribute to companies and allow them to continue over time. These are the people companies want on their team. These are the sorts of people you need to emulate, who hold on to their jobs and continue their long and prosperous careers.

A one-shot performance is in no one’s best interest. Companies and organizations need people who are consistent and are consistently ”good enough.”

I’ve spent most of my career in the legal recruiting field. I have seen something occur in legal recruiting so many times it is incredible. Because it’s been quite destructive for our companies and something I have learned to recognize, I would like to share this pattern with you.

When we are looking for legal recruiters, it is often important the person have an outstanding educational pedigree. For that reason, we love people who went to places like Harvard Law School or Yale Law School and who have worked at the very best American law firms. People with experience working for the best American law firms are also typically the most motivated people. Most of the resumes we see from people who have these outstanding backgrounds involve short, one- to two-year stints working in a law firm. Several years ago I would never have questioned this, but now I do.

When someone with this sort of background starts at our recruiting firm, one of the first things we notice is how the person will work very hard at first. However, they often ignore the rules others in the organization are following. Instead, the person decides they can start making up their own rules. In one case I remember one of our Harvard Law School recruiters deciding that instead of following the rules she was going to spend all of her energy concentrating on moving a large group of attorneys over to another firm in one big swoop. She worked for months on this and our company loaned her tens of thousands of dollars. When this did not work out she did not earn any income. Instead of following the rules, she was trying to be brilliant.

Another recruiter (also from Harvard Law School) believed she did not have to work the same hours as other recruiters as long as she pulled a few nights a week. Though this might have worked to get her very good grades, it missed the boat because it didn’t allow her to interact with people looking for jobs during the day.

Over and over again, I have seen people who feel like they do not need to play by the rules in the companies where they work, and, instead, can do whatever they choose. They feel like they can play by their own rules and that a single performance trumps consistency. Consistency is the most important thing. Sustained effort over time is what really matters.

One of the best metaphors for consistency is the Grand Canyon. The Grand Canyon has stood for millions of years and it started out as just a stream. The power of this stream cut through the rock and over millions of years has created a giant swath through the earth. This is the power of consistency. Consistency over time will change the world.

The other day I was interviewing a very nice girl for a position unrelated to practicing law. Her resume was filled with nothing but one public interest job after another. It looked to me like her entire life had been devoted to helping other people. She was also an attorney and had the sort of pedigree I felt meant she could be a very highly paid attorney. In interviewing her, though, I quickly realized the last thing she was interested in doing was making money. Deep down she really wanted to help people.

When I asked her why she wanted to help people she recounted how her father had never held a job for very long and because of this the family had grown up quite poor. She said growing up poor made her realize how many people suffer in the world. She told me she wanted to help the people who were suffering. The more I thought about this, the more I realized she would not have suffered like this had her father simply been able to be consistent. Being consistent is the most important thing in a job.

The benefit of consistency is that it constantly involves the application of measured pressure to a task. Over time, like with the Grand Canyon, measured pressure can break down barriers and make everything go forward. You need to consistently apply measured pressure in your work.

I am not trying to be critical of brilliance and hard work. The point I am trying to make, however, is that life responds better to work that is done in a consistent manner over time. Concentrate your efforts on what you can accomplish over time. This is the path to success. Nothing happens overnight.

The Best Career Advice You Will Ever Receive

When I was around 14 years old, I moved out of my mother’s house and in with my father, his new wife, and her daughter in a different part of town. I would stay there for a few months, attend a different school, then move to Bangkok, Thailand, and attend school there.

At this new school, immediately I learned that one of the most popular girls in the school liked me a lot. She started calling me and having her friends invite me to parties. She would come over with various gorgeous friends to watch television at my house and invite me to go shopping with her on the weekends. I was very flattered and really enjoyed the attention. The only problem was I did not really like this popular girl. She was actually quite vicious and boys in the school were not too crazy about her either. She had become very popular by being extremely calculating politically and was gifted at forming cliques and playing people off one another. To this day, I am confident she is probably the head of the social pecking order wherever she is. Because this girl liked me so much, I suddenly found myself socializing with kids who were a couple of years older than I was. Additionally, everyone seemed to be extremely interested in being my friend.

One day after school I was hanging out with a group of three of the most attractive girls in our class. The girl that was so enamored with me was not there. We were all sitting around one of their bedrooms playing cards. I started talking to one of the girls and we really got along quite well. We were interested in the same things and, to make a long story short, I really liked this girl and she liked me. I invited her over for dinner and we spoke on the phone late into the evening that night.

Things were normal at school the next day (a Friday), but by Sunday I realized not only my admirer but the new girl I had met were not taking or returning my calls. By Monday my “girlfriend” had not only stopped talking to me completely, but she had employed various “goons” around the school to help express her displeasure; they would bump into me in the halls a little too aggressively. I had a few very uncomfortable moments in places like the lunch room where I walked up to groups of people and they dispersed. These were people who had been my friends only a day or so previously.

While I was only attending that school for a short time, I made perhaps the biggest mistake I could have made: I gave up and started feeling bad about the whole thing. Although I had not really done anything all that bad, I felt as if I had really let my “girlfriend” down by socializing with another girl. In terms of responding, my “girlfriend” knew what to do. She proceeded to have her friends and others stop talking to me. In addition, she let her wrath show in other ways that were immature but served a purpose in terms of getting me down. One thing I remember was a prank phone call where she and a bunch of girls (I think, at least) were screaming in the background they hated me.

While I should have reacted in an equally savage way, my reaction was to withdraw. I knew I would only be at the school a short while longer and so I decided to feel depressed about the whole thing. I allowed this to affect:

-My grades

-Meeting new people

-Where I sat at lunch each day

-How I walked from class to class each day

-My social aspirations at the school

-My extracurricular aspirations at the school

In fact, this one little episode was something that really sent me into a serious downward spiral. It was a particularly bad episode because I did not know anyone at the school and once this girl enacted her vengeance I felt defeated. The truth, of course, was I overreacted and it was not that big of a deal. I allowed something quite trivial to really affect me in a negative way.

How many times have you allowed something quite trivial to affect you in a negative way? In your career, have you ever overreacted to an insult? If you were fired from a job, did you get depressed and withdraw? If you searched for a job for a long time with no success, did you let your failure to find the ideal job get you down?

The following story about Michael Jordan relates his key to success, and the key to doing well in everything. Jordan is widely viewed as the best basketball player of all time, but when he tried out for his high school basketball team, he didn’t make it. His reaction could have been exactly like mine when he failed to make the team. He could have become depressed and stopped socializing with the other high school basketball players. He could have given up on athletics and started doing something else, like spending his time with bad kids. He could have allowed himself to get fat and lazy. There are a multitude of things Jordan could have done when he failed to make the high school basketball team.

Think about your own life. What have you done when you failed at something?

Jordan’s reaction was to fight like hell. He started practicing more. He used his disappointment to propel him toward trying harder and harder and getting better and better. After only two years of college basketball (he made his college team), Jordan became a professional player. The rest is history.

In an interview with Jordan several years ago he was describing the secret to his success. In this interview he said when he is insulted by other people he allows these insults to just “build up,” and then he uses them as “jet fuel” for his next game. Anything bad that happens to him and any slight he receives he uses to make himself better at his game and give him passion.

Think of all of the negative things that have happened to you in your life. Think of all of the negative things that have happened to you in your career. Perhaps you have been fired. Perhaps you have been passed over for a promotion. Perhaps someone does not see or realize a particular skill that you have. Perhaps someone has treated you unfairly. Perhaps someone is treating you unfairly now.

I am sure you are like most of us and bad things have happened to you. Your reaction is the key to whether you succeed or fail.

One of my favorite rock bands is Def Leppard. I liked this band even more when I found out their drummer lost one of his arms in a motorcycle accident and kept drumming. Instead of quitting, the drummer learned to drum with one hand. Imagine the passion this must have taken. Isn’t this a wonderful example of perseverance? The drummer is also probably better known now that he works with one arm than he was when he had two.

You need to use every single negative thing that happens to you as “jet fuel” to drive your dreams and ambitions forward. The worst thing you can do is allow something negative to push you down and keep you down. Make negative things the most positive thing that could have ever happened to you. If many negative things happen you can just keep getting more fuel. Keep storing this fuel up and the world will not know what happened once you start going.

A list of some of Abraham Lincoln’s setbacks is below:

1831 – Lost his job
1832 – Defeated in run for Illinois State Legislature
1833 – Failed in business
1834 – Elected to Illinois State Legislature (success)
1835 – Sweetheart died
1836 – Had nervous breakdown
1838 – Defeated in run for Illinois House Speaker
1843 – Defeated in run for nomination for U.S. Congress
1846 – Elected to U.S. Congress (success)
1848 – Lost re-nomination
1849 – Rejected for land officer position
1854 – Defeated in run for U.S. Senate
1856 – Defeated in run for nomination for vice president
1858 – Again defeated in run for U.S. Senate
1860 – Elected U.S. President (success)

Think about all of Lincoln’s failures. Many people would give up on life after a nervous breakdown. Not Lincoln. The message here is more than just perseverance. The message I want you to understand is you need to use every single negative thing that happens to you as fuel to drive you forward. Get passionate.

The success of most individuals is largely based on how they handle setbacks. Bad things can warp and ruin many peoples’ lives. Some examples are:

-Job loss

-Divorce

-Bad relationships

For many people, a bad experience can become a filter for how they view their lives. They begin having an expectation in the future that other bad things will happen and begin to avoid situations where they believe these bad things will occur. They also often begin associating with others who support them in their negative view of the world. Think about negative groups of people you may know like this. Low achievers avoid situations where there has been some sort of pain before. They allow this pain to continue influencing them. Children often close so many doors in their life by simply avoiding areas where they have been in pain before. Adults do the same thing. Instead, imagine the power you would have if you used something negative to change your life and rechanneled your experiences into something more positive.

Another issue I want to bring up briefly involves finding your “jet fuel.” A huge mistake many people make is not being honest with themselves about the emotions they are actually feeling. Many people who may feel angry, sad, or hurt do not allow themselves to ever experience the pain associated with whatever caused them to feel bad. You need to experience the pain; the pain you feel is actually a very good thing. Experience the pain and then use this pain to fire you up to do better in the future. When you know that you can use negative energy in a positive way you will never have to be fearful of bad experiences because you will know these experiences will ultimately help you and not hurt you.

Never close down. Take punishment and learn from it.

The best lessons we get from life are from the bad things that happen to us. You can do more than learn from negative experiences, you can use them to fire you up.

Think about the power of taking intense negative energy and using this energy positively. This is a massive advantage and something that will help you greatly. If something bad happens, channel this energy into something positive. This will change your life and your career.

Try as Hard as You Can

Many people want and demand a lot out of life. They want the happiest family, the best material goods and vacations, the best homes, and the best cars. They demand the best in everything. They also want the best jobs and the most advancement. Often, these same people feel very angry and upset if life does not provide them the things they want.

A lot of people are very upset with the world. They are angry about jobs they have lost. They are angry about advancements and breaks they have not received. In fact, these people believe the world owes them a lot. Most often, when people are angrily telling you how much the world owes them they are sitting around not doing much of anything. They may be talking to someone else in a bar. They may be talking on their cell phone during the day when they are supposed to be working. There are many who believe they are owed something.

I want to tell you one of the more inspiring stories I’ve heard. Several years ago I was practicing law, and a man in the office next to me worked extremely hard. He had a history of high achievement. He’d been the valedictorian at the University of Iowa Law School. He’d come over to this firm from another law firm. He wanted to be a partner. Most law firms require you work at the firm a certain number of years before they will make you a partner, and this law firm was no different. I believe at that time the firm had a charter which said people needed to work there for three full years before they could be considered for a partnership position.

At the end of this man’s second year, after billing over 3,000 hours each year, he was not made partner. The reaction of most attorneys would have been to accept the fact they are not being made partner due to the fact the charter required them to work there for three years. This man was different, however. He was someone who was interested in always trying his hardest, and sometimes trying your hardest means ignoring the rules of how things are working around you.

In the month of January, after not making partner, this man billed over 400 hours. Since there are only 720 hours in the average month, this essentially meant he was working very long days seven days a week and sleeping very little.

He did the same thing in February.

He did the same thing again in March.

After seeing the incredible amount of hours he had been working, in early April the firm decided to call a special meeting, amend their charter, and make him a partner. The firm simply felt it had no choice. They had to make him partner or else the man might have ended up killing himself from too much work. This is an example of really trying your hardest. This is the sort of reaction to a perceived setback very few attorneys would ever have. This man was different, however, and is an example of someone who simply did not give up.

The only excuse for not having the job you want, the life you want, and everything you want out of life is you did your best and did not get it. I have a secret for you, however, and I think it is something you may have failed to realize your entire life: you have never done your best with anything you have attempted. You have never really given 100 percent at anything. Imagine what is going to happen for you when you start trying to give 100 percent. I am very excited to see what happens when you start trying to hit 100 percent.

When you think about the example of this attorney it may not seem that significant until you really think it through. In order to work this hard you need to push your body beyond exhaustion. You need to push your mind well beyond exhaustion. You need to get other attorneys to give you the work that will allow you to bill this much. You need to give everything you can even when the rules appear to be against you. You need to do everything in your power to achieve what you want to do.

Have you ever run a marathon? I have not and wish I had. A marathon is something that teaches people to give their all. The distance they have to run is taxing on their bodies. They need to use their minds to overcome the resistance in their bodies. They need to keep pushing even when they feel they cannot go on.

You can likely point to many instances in your life where you may have come close to giving 100 percent and believe you made a major effort. Perhaps this was trying to get a job, working for a promotion, or related to a personal matter. My belief is you never really gave the full 100 percent, though. In fact, you probably have never given 100 percent at anything you have ever done.

I would like to propose to you a way of life and a way of being in the world where you start giving close to 100 percent and doing your best in every possible thing you can. This means in every single thing you do in the future you need to make a major effort and do your best to succeed. Before I do that, though, I would like to tell you another quick story.

When I played football in high school, I always noticed my grades were better during the season. When you think about this, it does not make a lot of sense. After all, I would be out practicing for several hours a day and even traveling sometimes to play. I was not alone in this. Most football players get better grades during the football season. That’s because when they do sit down to study they are more careful with their time and know it is important to be very focused during this time. Another reason for this, I think, is that they are in better shape. Their minds work better because their bodies are in better shape. They are “at their best,” so to speak.

There is a lot you can do in terms of trying your best. You can discipline your mind to enable you to push yourself harder. You can read and research about how to do better at what you are doing. You can practice. You can pray. You can interview and learn from people who are the best at what you are doing. You can always push yourself to do better in everything that you do.

One of the disciplines I practice is Kundalini yoga. I enjoy this form of yoga not just because it is relaxing but because, at its highest level, what it does through various actions is force your mind and your body to their absolute limits. When you push your mind, you also push your body, and when you go through the various exercises you become a completely different person. You go past what you thought was possible. A Kundalini exercise, for example, may involve holding your arms outstretched, keeping them straight, and flapping them each up and down six inches. An exercise like this can be easily done for a minute or so, but when you keep doing it for, say, seven minutes, it becomes next to impossible. You need to condition your mind to give it your all. Your arms, and your shoulders start hurting tremendously. At some point, however, the pain stops. When you break through the pain you are able to live your life on the other side.

Kundalini yoga is very effective because it can teach people how to give life their all.

Trying your hardest is about coming up against your limits, pushing through, and doing this time and again. You need to continually push through every possible limit you have. If you are going to do the best you can in anything, you need to use your mind and your body. You need to learn from others. You need to become fixated on doing everything possible to succeed. This is how you achieve your dreams and this is how you live the life you want. The people who succeed in life and reach their full potential are the people who push all the way through their limits.

In the book Think and Grow Rich, there is a very inspiring story:

One of the most common causes of failure is the habit of quitting when one is overtaken by temporary defeat. Every person is guilty of this mistake at one time or another. An uncle of R. U. Darby caught the “gold fever” in the gold-rush days, and went west to dig and grow rich. He had never heard that more gold has been mined from the brains of men than has ever been taken from the earth. He staked a claim and went to work with pick and shovel. The going was hard, but his lust for gold was definite.

After weeks of labor, he was rewarded by the discovery of the shining ore. He needed machinery to bring the ore to the surface. Quietly, he covered up the mine, and retraced his footsteps to his home in Williamsburg, Maryland. He then told his relatives and a few neighbors of the “strike.” They got together money for the needed machinery, and had it shipped. The uncle and Darby went back to work the mine.

The first car of ore was mined and shipped to a smelter. The returns proved they had one of the richest mines in Colorado! A few more cars of that ore would clear the debts. Then came the big killing in profits.

Down went the drills! Up went the hopes of Darby and uncle! Then something happened! The vein of gold ore disappeared! They had come to the end of the rainbow, and the pot of gold was no longer there! They drilled on, desperately trying to pick up the vein again – all to no avail.

Finally, they decided to quit. They sold the machinery to a junk man for a few hundred dollars, and took the train back home. Some “junk” men are dumb, but not this one! He called in a mining engineer to look at the mine and do a little calculating. The engineer advised the project had failed because the owners were not familiar with “fault lines.” His calculations showed the vein would be found just three feet from where the Darbys had stopped drilling! That is exactly where they found it!

Most people miss the gold in their life because they do not try their hardest. In this story, the Darbys trying their hardest would have simply involved continuing to drill and researching exactly what needed to be done. The world is composed of so many parts and so many variables. You can always find a variable to push through and will always succeed when you do.

When I was about 10 years old the most important assignment we had in grade school that year was to spend three months writing a report about a country. I was assigned Russia. Over the next three months I made writing about Russia an important goal. I found every book in the elementary school library and even had my father take me to the downtown Detroit library on Saturday to check out as many books as I could possibly find. When the day came for putting my report together I had to put the chapters in multiple rooms because there were so many of them. It took three large binders to fit the entire report together and when all was said and done the report was over 400 pages.

Why would I write a report like this? Why would any 10 year old do something like this? Personally, I did it because I learned somewhere along the line the best thing you can do is try as hard as you can, and that you do not always get the opportunity to shine and do your best. Most people never try as hard as they can or do their best. Who knows why this is? A culture of sorts exists that actually seems to be against people doing their best.

Develop the habit of pushing yourself and always doing your best. I look back on my time in elementary school and know – as ridiculous as this sounds – that I always did my best. People who always do their best are sought out by others, and everyone wants these people to work with them, and for them.

When I was practicing law some of my first clients were people who knew me when I was a very young man. They found out I was an attorney and sought me out from all over the United States. They did this because they knew whatever issues they had I would fight like hell for them and do my best. While kids may have made fun of me when I was in elementary school for working so hard, they practically lined up to talk to me once they knew I could go to work for them.

For years after I stopped practicing law, I used to get calls from former co-workers who were starting their own firms. They wanted me to give up recruiting and come to work with them practicing law. They called me because they knew I would do my best.

People want to work with people who do their absolute best. The rewards from doing your best far eclipse what waits for people who make a mediocre effort. Try your hardest in every single thing that you ever do, and make the most of your life.

The rewards for not trying your best are few and far between. You can choose to live an average life and have average results if you choose. You will not inspire others around you if you do. People will not seek you out to do work. You will not respect yourself as much.

Nothing makes me angrier than someone not trying his best. You have been gifted with a life and this life is your chance to make the most of everything. Try your hardest and never give up. Always do the absolute best you can with everything. This is what you are entitled to, and deserve.

Love Your Work And The People Who Give It To You

From the time I was 19 until I was about 27, I spent a good portion of my summers doing asphalt work around Detroit. That included asphalt sealing, hot tar crack filling, and asphalt patching. It was seasonal work and most people in Michigan only seal their asphalt once a year.

”Around Detroit” is a blanket term because I was working in three counties and in an area ecnompassing hundreds of miles. Essentially, I would travel to areas where people could afford to maintain asphalt. Seven days a week, I would get up as early as I could and go out to start the day at one of my jobs. Sometimes my drive was about an hour. Sometimes it was 15 minutes. Most of the time, I drove about 30 minutes.

I made this drive each day because I had work to do. Every day I had work to do was an extremely exciting day for me. Once I got to a work site, I would count on the people around the area – neighbors, other businesses, and passing traffic – to see the work I was doing. I would stop cars and tell them I was in the neighborhood and willing to work. If I was in a residential area, I would knock on doors and tell them I could do work for them. I would do everything within my power to get work, and I always got business. I worked seven days a week. I worked so hard some of my employees would quit the job from exhaustion only after a few days. There were, however, people who lasted.

In addition, while doing this work I maintained a profound respect for the people for whom I was working. I did everything in my power to do the work to the absolute best of my ability. I took the work incredibly seriously. I loved my job.

The worst thing that could happen to me was not getting work. I knew if I did not do a good job one year, the next year I would not get the work again. I knew people talked, and the better I did in one area, the more work I got. I remember one year I showed up at a house in a certain neighborhood where I’d worked for several years, and a widow answered the door. She told me her husband had died and she could no longer afford the service. Although it was a nice house in an expensive neighborhood (where I normally could have earned a good amount of money), I really liked her husband a great deal and wanted to help her. I did her driveway for free that year and the next year as well. I wanted to work.

I simply would not take no for an answer. I remember a very nice man who owned a Chevy dealership in Warren, Michigan. He also owned a rundown mall in addition to the dealership. I really wanted to resurface his dealership, but he didn’t have the money either. I told him I thought things would one day pick up for him. I offered to do work for him at his rundown mall on days I did not have any work, doing hot tar crack filling for the cost of the goods. He let me do this and, over a couple of months, I worked there for seven or eight days when I did not have any work. I never ended up resurfacing his dealership, but I was glad for the work he had given me. He did not take advantage of me and was a very nice person.

Why would someone work for free? Because you need to fall in love with your job. You need to love what you do. And work attracts work. There is absolutely nothing wrong with doing something good for people. The right people out there will never take advantage of you.

Having work is a privilege. Work deserves to be cherished and held in the highest possible esteem. Work is your lifeblood. Without work, everything stops.

When I was younger I needed to get up each day and drive to go do my work and to find new work. I needed to impress each person I met each day, or else I knew they might not let me work for them the next year. For me, having work was extremely important in all respects. With work I was able to support myself during the summers and school year. In addition, work provided me the knowledge I would always have something to do no matter what happened in the world.

The best opportunity you can ever have is when someone gives you work, because this work can lead to more work.

One of the stupidest mistakes people can make is being suspicious of those who give us work. There are people who measure every single hour of their day and make sure they never under any circumstances give their employer too much of their time. There are people who cheat their employers. There are people who disrespect their customers and clients. There are people who resent being given more work. There are people who feel they have too much work.

Work is what supports your family. The people that give you work to do are the people who are giving that support. You need to respect them and you need to get work at all costs.

The only way to advance is by doing a good job with your work and exceed expectations. The more incredible your work is the more people want to work with you. The more work you are given and the more you do, the more you are seen as someone who is promotable, someone who is an expert. The best supervisors are the people who have done the work they are supervising.

In law firms where I have worked, when someone stopped getting work it meant they were not doing good work. If someone is not doing good work, they are generally in trouble. What bad attorneys do is move around from firm to firm for a while until eventually people stop giving them work and they cannot get a job.

Most attorneys exist almost day to day. They are entirely dependent upon people continually giving them work. If clients do not like an attorney’s work, they will stop giving the attorney work. If lots of clients stop liking the attorney, the attorney will be left with nothing whatsoever to do. Once the attorney has nothing to do, his or her career is over. This happens to more people than you may think.

I have given a lot of thought to the concept of doing ”good work” over the years because I think it is so crucial and important to our lives. When you do not care about the work you are doing, there is no reason for the person paying you to have you do it. When you do not care, whoever is paying you can always find someone who does. It is very easy to find someone who cares about the job he or she is doing.

You need to make each day at work the most important. You need to respect the work you are getting and you need to fall in love with it. Work itself is a wonderful thing.

If you have ever been without work for even a short time you know how hard this can be. It is never good to be without work. Being without work means your skills and value do not currently have a place. People without work are depressed and wallow. You need to make sure that you always have work.

I want to tell you a couple of stories that you may think are sad; however, they are also about two people whom I respect immensely.

I sometimes spend a good portion of my day reviewing the resumes of people who are applying to various jobs being recruited for by BCG Attorney Search, one of our recruiting firms. I have seen some pretty dramatic things happen to attorneys. In a down market even attorneys are at risk of losing their jobs. Conditions can become very, very brutal. When attorneys making $200,000+ a year lose their jobs, they often have a very hard time finding another one. In the middle-class world, from where I hail, there is a belief you should never accept a job that pays less than your last job. The idea is once someone has paid you a certain amount to do a job, that is your worth forever, and you should never take a job that pays less.

This particular belief is so prevalent that all over the United States there are people sitting on their rear ends all day doing nothing because they are waiting for a job to come along that pays as much as their last one. I cannot tell you how many careers have gone down the drain due to this philosophy, which is incredibly short-sighted.

One day I reviewed the resume of an attorney who had lost his job after about 10 years with a major American law firm. I am confident the job he lost paid more than $200,000 a year. He’d lost his job about six months earlier and, instead of doing nothing, he’d taken an entry-level job in a customer service call center. During this time, he’d actually won some awards. He was doing the best he could. When I reviewed his resume I could see he was someone who refused to give up when the going got tough. I respected him. I could see his optimism. He knew the importance of work and did not give up.

For the past couple of years, about once a week on average, I’ve gotten a massage from an older woman who comes to our home to do this. When the economy began to slow I stopped getting regular massages because work was so busy due to the number of people losing their jobs. When the woman did come by, I asked her how the economy had been treating her. It used to be you needed to schedule her at least a week in advance because she was so incredibly busy. One day things were different. She showed up with some information about a spiritual topic she knew I was interested in. She’d never brought me anything like that before. In addition, during the massage she wanted to make sure I was going to get a massage again the following week, and I could sense the desperation in her voice. I started asking her about her business and she told me it had really slowed down. She told me she was going to start doing more marketing. I asked her what she meant and she told me the following:

”I like to go and sit out in front of fancy restaurants with a sign and my massage table. People come up to me and ask me for my card.”

This is how this particular woman was finding work in a recession. Is this pathetic? No. This is someone who was staying busy and doing the very best she could in a tough market. The same goes for the attorney. He was also doing the very best he could.

I am in the career business and I see people take jobs that are beneath them every day. I have seen first-rate attorneys end up on the street after losing jobs, addicted to crystal meth and walking around barefoot. I have seen shocking things happen to people who did not have any work. Work is the absolute most important thing you can have.

My hope for you is that you will make the most of whatever job you have and give it your all. If it does not work out, give your next job your all, whatever it is. You need to put your heart and soul into everything you do. You are a special person and the world will realize this, but you need to keep moving. Never slow down. Keep working. The harder you work, the higher you will climb.

Do Not Get Involved in the Social Side of the Office

Several years ago we had an employee at one of our companies who was extremely intelligent. This person was older and had worked at several jobs before coming to our company. Although he’d never excelled at any of these jobs, he’d done well enough. He was hired as a writer to assist with various tasks for our companies. His abilities were not bad, and had he simply kept his head down and done his job I am confident he would still be here. Instead, this person was our company’s worst nightmare and still is to this day. The characteristics this person exhibited hurts more companies and careers than I can count. There are people like this person in every company and you need to know what to look for and how to stay away from them in order to be successful in your career.

Before this person ever took a job at our company, he was very angry at, and critical of the world. While he didn’t make his criticisms known directly to management of our company, they ended up finding their way back. Most of the criticisms were things that really undermined the company and the people in it. This person seriously disrupted his superiors, the company, and others. It was as if this person’s greatest skill was undermining the company and those around him. For that reason, I refer to this particular employee as “the Underminer.” There are underminers in most companies. I am sure you know one where you are working now, or have known one in the past.

The Underminer would tell other employees things such as:

• They were not being paid enough
• They should be working for a larger company
• The company was poorly managed
• People had been screwed over by the company

His list of criticisms could fill several pages. What was most alarming about this particular person was the pattern we started to notice. The Underminer would often attempt to become friendly with our best employees. If any of them became friendly with this person, in a very short time, formerly enthusiastic employees would change right before our eyes. They would no longer be as enthusiastic about their work, stop completing assignments on time, get a “depressed” look and feel about them, and stop consistently showing up on time for work. If these employees were not fired, they would often quickly quit and leave the company. Sometimes the Underminer would affect the employee so negatively the person would quit and leave the company without having secured another job.

In less than one year I noticed this pattern negatively affect the careers of at least 10 people. People who otherwise could have had excellent careers with our company left or were negatively influenced by this individual. This individual eventually was let go from our company and, incredibly, to this day is still trying to undermine our company and the people in it by spreading negative information. Am I upset by this? Am I hurt? Of course I am. However, you need to understand in every organization you will find people who try to undermine the company.

The most alarming thing about the Underminer is the people this person approached and influenced are still floundering years later in their careers. They have moved from job to job and many are unemployed. Before learning to think negatively about work and the company, these people had been incredibly enthusiastic and talented. It was as if the Underminer had planted so much negativity in their impressionable young minds they were permanently affected.

Over the years I have noticed patterns like this one repeat themselves in our company. Looking back, I’ve even seen this pattern repeat itself in law firms and other companies in which I have worked. It is often not just one person negatively influencing others, but several. What I am about to share with you could be some of the more important career advice you ever receive.

You need to stay away from negative people inside companies. There is something called “guilt by association” that is easy to pick up and that can negatively affect you. If you are spending your time with people who are known as troublemakers or who are hostile towards the company, the implication is you may share these sorts of opinions as well. Once a company picks up on this and associates you with this behavior, you will be marked as someone who is not a friend of the company and is, instead, an enemy.

When I was practicing law I saw many careers stalled and/or ruined in law firms because of the associations people made inside the office. When you associate with the wrong people a firm will view you as someone who is unlikely to be looking out for the firm and, consequently, will avoid promoting you, advancing you, or protecting you. Choosing to associate with the wrong people in the office will create huge problems for you.

You are at work to make a living. Your job at work is to go there, be professional, and leave. You are not expected to go there to make friends or be a participant in various forms of gossip. You can choose to get involved in the social side of the office and watch your career stall, or you can choose to be removed from it.

Not all social activity in companies is bad. In fact, a lot of it is good. However, you want to be removed from the social side of the office because you cannot be viewed as a supervisor by people with whom you’re friends. The further away you are from people in the office socially, the closer you are to being their manager. In addition, the closer you are to colleagues in the office, the more you are going to be affected by their negative behavior.

None of this is to say you can’t be friendly with your co-workers. You need to be friendly with everyone in your company. However, you cannot become too chummy and you do not want to participate in the social network of the office too much.

When I was in high school, one of my best friends got into serious trouble. He was on his way to lacrosse practice and was eating a giant bag of candy while sitting in the passenger seat of a car. He asked a couple of kids walking by if they wanted some of his candy because he noticed they were looking at him. The kids screamed and ran. My friend thought the whole thing was very strange (although he realized they may have misinterpreted this as a kidnapping attempt) until a SWAT team began fanning out on the practice field where we were playing lacrosse and threw his face in the dirt and arrested him.

The entire thing had been a giant misunderstanding; however, the misunderstanding was serious enough he was suspended from school for three months. He would have been kicked out if his father was not an extremely influential person in Detroit who donated a lot of money to the school. During my last year of high school I asked my math teacher to write a recommendation for me for colleges and he agreed to do so. This math teacher had been very close to the parents of the children who had mistakenly believed they were about to be kidnapped.

There were two sides to my friend’s scandal. One side thought the arrest was ridiculous because the offer of candy was genuine and there had been no kidnapping attempt at all. There had been other passengers in the car and they all testified the candy offer was legitimate. The other side thought the mere words were evil and my friend should be expelled.

A few months after my teacher wrote the recommendations for me I was interviewing at a college, and the interviewer said to me, “What’s the problem with this math teacher? Why did he write such a horrible recommendation for you? It is so bad and there is so little substance to it we were actually going to call your school about it.”

I think the math teacher may have gotten in trouble for the recommendation. He sought me out and apologized and one of the deans of the school took me into a meeting and told me the reason he had written the recommendation the way he did was because I had been friends with the kid who was suspended. The teacher actually withdrew his previous recommendation and wrote another. It was a strange episode. In fact, I do not think I ever spoke to my parents or anyone about it. Now that I am thinking about this I am wondering if this had an impact on the colleges I did and did not get into. The more I think about this the more I believe that it probably did.

You need to realize guilt by association can hurt you with companies and other organizations. You also need to realize it is incredibly important you keep your distance from people in the workplace if you want to be considered for supervisory and other such roles. The social side of the office can be a great deal of fun and can also be entertaining. More often than not, however, the social side of the office will cause you far more problems than it is worth.

You Must Produce and Do Quality Work

At Toyota’s headquarters in Tokyo, one of the most striking things you see when you first enter is a collection of three pictures. The first is of Toyota’s founder, the second is of Toyota’s chairman, and the third, which is much larger than the other two is of W. Edwards Deming. The company believes Deming is the man whose teachings and philosophies made the company what it is today.

Deming taught the Japanese about quality and how to continuously improve quality. In fact, the success of modern Japan after World War II as an economic and industrial power is largely based on the Japanese march towards continuously improving their quality, versus the typical focus of American corporations:

1. Short-term profits
2. Mobility of management
3. Running a company on visible figures alone
4. Relying on technology to solve problems

Japanese goods used to be the laughing stock of the world in terms of their quality. Today, they are considered among the best, and the phrase “Made in Japan” is considered synonymous with quality. As the quality of Japan’s goods has increased, so too has its standard of living and status in the world. The drive towards quality has served to elevate the country of Japan and its people. If quality can do this for a country, imagine what it can do for your career.

Incredible quality does not just change nations, it can change your life as well. The more you stress quality in your job, the better you will do in everything you attempt. You cannot avoid doing quality work and bringing improvement to your life. This is the lesson Deming brings to the way companies and countries are run, and your life.

The better you perform your job and the better the quality of your work, the more you will be valued by your employer. In addition, the more you concentrate on doing quality work, the more you will continuously improve. It is rare for people who produce the very best work and demand perfection to ever be out of a job or ever have a hard time finding a job. They get exceptional references from their previous employers, and current employers try to hold on to them, even in the worst economies. Producing quality work is something very rare and, because it is so rare, it is something that’s valued in every marketplace all over the world.

We seek out and value the people who are the best at their jobs. The best employers want the people who produce the highest quality results to do work for them. When you produce quality work, you typically do not have to worry about job security, raises, or what other people are doing.

When I started practicing law with my first firm, I found myself working 15+ hours per day, seven days a week. I was not working this hard because I thought it necessary. In fact, many of the people I was working with at the firm had the same amount of work I did. I was working so hard because I knew the work I was doing could always be better. I knew I could make the same point in fewer words in a document I was writing. I knew I could make a more persuasive argument by finding better support for it. I knew I could stay a little bit longer and make something the best it possibly could be. I gave my all. The great thing about my continuous quest for quality is, the better I did, the more the most important attorneys at my firm started having me do all their work. In addition, I continued to get better and better at what I did.

I will never forget when I quit working at my first firm and decided to go to work for another. For several hours the most important partners in the firm, one after another, came into my office and tried to convince me to stay. At the time I did not know they rarely, if ever, did this when someone was leaving the firm. After the third day of this, I asked one of the younger partners why they were trying so hard to get me to stay.

“We want you to stay because you do really good work and you care about what you are doing,” he told me. “You also continue to get better and better and show incredible promise as a litigator.”

I was young at the time and those words sort of went in one ear and out the other; however, I remembered them years later when I started to employ people and observe their work ethic. I realized the effort I had been putting in was something quite rare. It is one thing to simply work hard at what you are doing and another to make your job your passion and set out to continuously improve.

A year or so later, when I wanted to come back to that firm, I asked the head of the firm if I could return to work. He said “yes” right away. For various reasons, this did not work out, but the fact is the good work I had done made an impression on the head of this firm and on the people in it.

In your job the most important thing you can do is make an incredible effort and do the best possible quality of work. When you do the best work you can, you are behaving like a professional, like someone who makes a difference in your company or firm. Your co-workers will also respect you more. You have employment security and, even if the firm you are working for goes away, your employer and co-workers will always recommend you to others. It is a wonderful thing to be known for the quality of your work.

Following World War II, the Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers invited Deming to come to Japan and give a series of lectures on how management could improve quality. The Japanese told Deming they would follow his instructions. Deming predicted within five years Japan would be competitive economically, and consumers all over the world would be demanding the products the Japanese produced. The Japanese followed Deming’s suggestions and, within eighteen months of Deming’s first lecture, saw huge strides in both the quality of their goods and productivity.

I predict if you start doing everything you can to improve the quality of your work, in less than a year you will start getting promoted and find yourself in a different place than you are today. People who do good work are management, CEO or high-earner material. All you need to do in order to really advance your career and life is improve the quality of your work. Once you do this, everything else quickly falls into place.

When Deming initially arrived in Japan after World War II, Japan’s goods were considered shoddy and cheap throughout the world. They were made from the cheapest of materials. They were among the worst products in the world. Today, their goods are considered the envy of the world, whether the products are electronics, cameras, automobiles, or computers.

For American and European firms that used to control the world in these fields, the transformation brought about by Deming’s philosophies has been nothing short of catastrophic. In the electronics industry, for example, nearly all components – such as computer chips, transistors, and semiconductor chips – were American inventions. The Japanese advanced so quickly in this field by the 1980s most American television and radio manufacturers were gone, and they rushed to Washington begging for help. The same thing happened with the American automobile industry; as the Japanese gained market share, American companies rushed to Washington and elsewhere asking for help.

In my studies of Deming, one of the things that stands out for me is a video of him made shortly before he died in 1993. In the video he offers the words, “It’s all about the quality.” Everything is about the quality. Think about how much different America would be today if we had the same quality of goods the Japanese produced. We do not make the same quality of goods because our emphasis is on other things, such as short-term profits. If our emphasis was on quality, everything else would be falling into place.

Deming’s philosophies are quite simple. He believed organizations must create ever improving products and services. The more the product or service improves, the more loyal the customers of the business become. Loyal customers will brag to others about the product or service they are receiving and create new customers. Profits from a sale to a loyal customer are often six to eight times the profits from another customer. The company with the most loyal customers typically has much higher profits than the average company.

The results of ever-improving quality are profound. For example, if you are an attorney, you make your writing better and more persuasive. If you are a manufacturer, you make your product better. You never stop questioning and improving to make your product as good as it can be. According to a famous account of Deming’s work:

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

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

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

Under Deming’s philosophy, when you improve the quality of what you are doing, everything simply gets better and this happens rapidly. What does this mean for you?

I believe one of the most fundamental and important lessons in the development of a country and an economic power come from the experience of Japan. I believe the philosophies of Deming are profound and can make a major and important difference in your life and career. The more you work on the quality of what you are doing, the better you, too, will get and the better your career will get.

When looking at employers, you should also concentrate on working for those whose quality is getting better and better. Employers who strive to create outstanding quality are the same ones likely to be around tomorrow. The better the quality of the product the business is producing, the more opportunities they are likely to have in the future for you. The better the quality of your work, the more opportunities you are also likely to have in the future. Make quality your first priority.

Increasing Efficiency is Your Best Route to Employment Security

The cheapening of any article in common use almost immediately results in a largely increased demand for that article. Take the case of shoes, for instance. The introduction of machinery for doing every element of the work which was formerly done by hand has resulted in making shoes at a fraction of their former labor cost. Now almost every man, woman, and child in the working classes buys one or two pairs of shoes per year, and they wear shoes all the time. Formerly, each workman bought perhaps one pair of shoes every five years, and went barefoot most of the time, wearing shoes only as a luxury or as a matter of the sternest necessity. In spite of the enormously increased output of shoes per workman, which has come with shoe machinery, the demand for shoes has so increased that there are relatively more men working in the shoe industry now than ever before.

The workmen in almost every trade have before them an object lesson of this kind, and yet, because they are ignorant of the history of their own trade, they still firmly believe, as their fathers did before them, that it is against their best interests for each man to turn out each day as much work as possible.

Under this fallacious idea, a large proportion of workmen deliberately work slowly so as to curtail their output. Almost every labor union has made, or is contemplating making, rules which have for their object curtailing the output of their members. Those men who have the greatest influence with the working people, the labor leaders, as well as many people with philanthropic feelings who are helping them, are daily spreading this fallacy and at the same time telling them that they are overworked.

-Frederick Winslow Taylor, The Principles of Scientific Management (1911)

From the time I was 18 until I was about 27, I spent most of my summers working as an asphalt sealant and maintenance contractor around Detroit, Michigan. One of the main jobs I did involved putting an asphalt sealant on parking lots and driveways. At the beginning of my first summer doing this work, I used to purchase the sealant in five-gallon pails. Then I starting purchasing the sealant in 55-gallon drums and installing a pipe on the drums to drain the sealant out. After a few years, I did so much asphalt sealing work I had a trailer custom made to hold 550 gallons of the sealant.

From the beginning of my second summer through my third, I had two people working for me whose job was to assist me in putting down the sealant. Their names were Larry and Jake. Larry was Jake’s father. Jake was mentally disabled but not overly so. He understood what was going on and followed instructions. He never really said much, however.

Neither Larry nor Jake cared much for the work they were doing. While they had decent work ethics and put up with me literally walking into their homes and getting them up for work each day, they were not extremely concerned with the quality of the work they were doing. They frequently cut corners and I needed to watch them pretty carefully. Larry was a guy I remember and respect a great deal because I think deep down he was a really good person. On Sundays, I used to have to wait in front of his house until he got back from church with his wife and children. Larry was a smart man who had made some mistakes throughout his life but worked when he could. He was hungover every day, and I bought him Gatorade after Gatorade at convenience shops to keep him going.

We would fill up five-gallon pails from the barrels and then walk the sealant over to an area of the asphalt we wanted to seal. Then, we would spread it around on the asphalt with either squeegees or a large brush. Without going into a lot of detail, this was excruciatingly difficult work because the sealant gets on your skin and burns. You are also outside, and the sun burns you because you are on black asphalt all day, and the sealant is a very heavy tar liquid that you need to pull off your skin at the end of each day. It often takes layers of your skin off when you remove it and needs to be removed with gasoline and a steel wool-like material.

As this business grew, I started getting better and better equipment for it. I will never forget the moment I purchased and installed a pumping system and sprayer on the tank. With this new pumping system I was able to pull up to any parking lot or house and, after blowing all the debris off the driveway or parking lot, turn on this spray machine and complete sealing the asphalt without hardly getting dirty at all. Best of all, I did not need to fill up the five-gallon buckets. I simply needed to turn on my sprayer and walk up and down the driveway.

One day I pulled up to a driveway that Jake and Larry were working on around 5:30 in the afternoon and turned on the sprayer. They were in the middle of working on the driveway and, by the looks of it, would be working for at least another 35 to 40 minutes. I told them to stop. Then, wearing khaki pants and a fresh shirt from the dry cleaner, I completed the entire job in less than five minutes.

I could see they both looked somewhat astonished. They also looked frightened because I think they believed this new sprayer was going to put them out of a job.

“This thing does not give as good of a coat as doing it by hand,” Jake said. This was the first time I had ever heard Jake say anything about the quality of the work we were doing.

“Yeah, it does not look as good,” said Larry.

The strangest thing happened over the next few weeks. Weird things started going wrong with the pump and we never made it through a full day. Belts would suddenly fail. Start switches would break off and disappear. I began to suspect after a week or so of this Larry and Jake were sabotaging the pump because they knew it could put them out of a job. After a few weeks of this I insisted I be the only one allowed to operate the machine, and I made sure I was. While I still have no proof of it to this day, I think Larry and Jake were sabotaging the machine.

Change is something that creeps into every single business, and the objective of every business is to lower costs because lower costs mean more profits. This means they are always looking for ways to eliminate your job. That’s right. Your very job is a threat to your company and its profits.

When I started in the Internet business in the year 1999, the world was a far different place. One of the most interesting things I witnessed involved computer programmers. In the late 1990s through 2001, computer programmers were like gods to companies in the United States. They could demand six-figure salaries and jumped around between companies at an alarming rate. Everyone wanted to hire them because there were so many Internet companies and businesses believed the Internet was the next great frontier.

At our small company we practically needed to beg programmers to work for us. We would offer them pizza and other incentives when they were not on other projects. In some cases, we would pay them as much as $100 an hour to do the work, and then they would stop working after four or five hours because they thought the work was “boring.” Some of the programmers I interviewed even requested stock options just to show up for work. I was baffled by the programmers I worked with and my inability to get the programmers to do any work really held me back.

Due to the difficulty surrounding this issue, we started building an office in India. We had no problem getting people to do the work there. In fact, people were enthusiastic about getting the work and wanted more of it. While there were lower costs associated with the work, the real reason for getting the work done abroad was that people were enthusiastic about doing the work. All we wanted was to get the work done.

After the dot com crash and the events of September 11, 2001, all of a sudden those American programmers were out of work. Tens of thousands of American programmers were let go in a very short time, and Internet companies dropped like flies.

I remember putting an ad out in late 2001 for an in-house programmer and getting overwhelmed with applications. I received so many applications, literally, one every few seconds, that I had to make changes to the settings in my Microsoft Outlook. I ended up hiring one person to work in our Los Angeles office who had just received a PhD from Caltech. I practically could have hired anyone I wanted in the world. There was simply no work for programmers. It had all dried up.

The economy did eventually recover. However, I still did not grow our base of programmers in the United States. I had such a bad experience the first time and, in the interim, had built a large group of programmers in our company in India. This was all I needed. I cannot imagine how many jobs went to India due to this.

Our company is not alone. Many companies do all their programming in other countries now. It simply makes more sense for them from a financial standpoint. They are not interested in doing work in the United States anymore due to the cost, hassles, and the fact the people are not as enthusiastic about doing the work.

There are tons of jobs in the United States and around the world right now that are under fire and are likely to disappear in the near future. There are many reasons jobs disappear, but the main one is because they can be done cheaper elsewhere. Every company and organization is constantly striving for greater efficiency. If your employers can do your job cheaply elsewhere, then they will.

There is no reason for them not to. The more cheaply they can produce a product or service, the more they can potentially sell of that product or service. The more of the product or service that’s sold, the more the company will grow and expand.

What does this mean for you and your job? It means the best use of your time and skill is finding jobs and employers where your role is one of increasing the efficiency of the company’s work. You always need to embrace efficiency and increase the output of the company at the lowest cost possible. If you fight efficiency, you will be seen as an enemy of the company and its growth. If this happens, you will most likely be looking for a new job shortly.

In the past there have been a number of phenomena I’ve watched with great interest:

-The emergence of China as a major economic power
-The massive decline of the American automobile industry
-The rise and massive success of various American companies like Intel, eBay, and Oracle
-The huge rise of jobs in places like India

China emerged as a force to be reckoned with because they can produce goods more cheaply. People will work for less money in China, and this makes it cheaper to produce products there. Incredibly, it is still cheaper to produce products in China even after accounting for shipping the products on boats all the way to the United States. All over the United States, hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs have disappeared due to the emergence of China as an economic power. If you are someone working in a factory in the present economy, you need to realize your job could be replaced very, very easily.

The American automobile industry has experienced a long and steady decline. Cars can be produced more cheaply elsewhere. American unions have set wages and benefits higher for American workers than for competitors. This has given competitors a huge advantage and also given American automobile companies less money to invest in improving their products. The products have continually gotten worse and worse. The companies able to produce the product at the lowest cost are winning.

The companies that have done the best in the United States over the past several decades are the companies that are increasing efficiency. While I could go into considerable detail about this, companies like Oracle, for example, creates database software which allows companies to save money by operating more efficiently. The efficient operation of these companies creates huge value. A company like eBay creates efficiencies by allowing people to trade goods without having to travel or do extensive research. This, too, creates efficiency. Companies like Intel make microchips that have not only aided the rapid spread of personal computers, but have also enabled companies to use computers which allow them to operate more efficiently.

India has been absorbing many American jobs for decades. They have call centers, programmers, and even legal work is being done there. The country has a lot more people than the United States and a corresponding level of talent. There is another advantage: people are willing to work more cheaply there for most jobs. It only makes sense for American companies to hire people there.

These are all examples of efficiency in action. You need to understand the world and your job are constantly being pushed to be more efficient. When you take a job at any company, you are entering an environment where you are at war. You are at war with the fact your employers are doing everything within their power to make their businesses more efficient. That means they want to save money on you and your work to the maximum extent they can.

The smartest thing you can do in your career is find companies that are increasing efficiency in the market and go to work for them, or find a company where you can increase the efficiency of what is being done. You need to embrace efficiency. If you fight efficiency, you will ultimately lose your job. We are not secure in our jobs and cannot be secure if we don’t embrace efficiency. The war for and against efficiency is something that is going on in every company and every organization. The employees and people who win this war are the ones who fight to make things more efficient.

Show Up on Time

Several years ago a friend called me and encouraged me to interview at his law firm. He told me people at the firm were involved in various movie deals and hobnobbing with movie stars. He told me all of the lawyers were driving around in Porsche convertibles and the firm represented Los Angeles as I had come to see it in movies and television shows. He told me the firm was so exciting that none of the attorneys actually practiced law, and instead spent their time ”doing deals” and socializing with movie stars.

For several months I kept hearing stories about this magical law firm. I discussed it with my wife on several occasions and, after a lot of soul searching, I decided to send my friend a resume. He called me back a few hours later and told me the firm was excited to see me.

I scheduled my interview with this law firm on a Monday. On Sunday night I drove from my house in Hollywood to the law firm in West Los Angeles to make sure I gave myself enough time to get to the interview. It took me about 30 minutes.

On Monday I decided to give myself 45 minutes. What I had not accounted for was the 405 Freeway interchange. Back then, this was known as the most crowded interchange in America. I sat on this interchange for at least 35 minutes doing absolutely nothing. I became increasingly nervous as the time for my interview came and went. I am sure I was sweating a lot. I may have bitten a nail or two. I started going over all sorts of horror stories in my mind about what would happen when I finally got to the interview.

I ended up arriving to the interview almost 30 minutes late. I was so late by the time I arrived the firm seemed to be debating whether they even wanted to interview me. It was one of the most uncomfortable experiences I have ever had.

Of course, I mentioned the traffic to the person who came out to explain to me that they were ”changing around everyone’s schedules” and would be right with me ”once they figured out how to do this”. I would like to tell you something: no one accepts the traffic excuse. Traffic is the oldest excuse in the book. Traffic is something you simply cannot use. When you are going to an interview remember everyone else ended up making it to the office despite the traffic. These people did not have problems with traffic and were all there waiting to speak with you. Where were you?

When the interview got underway, it went very badly. First of all, the firm was not this mecca of lawyers living a celebrity lifestyle. Instead, people were doing very hard work that was 99 percent unrelated to entertainment law. The people who interviewed me seemed like they belonged locked in a basement lab rather than in a law firm. They were quite introverted. To this day I cannot imagine how they were supposed to have been people who represented movie stars.

Each of the people I spoke with started off the interview by wanting to discuss why I was late. This simply did not get things off to a good start. It put me on the defensive the whole time. I could tell all the people I spoke with seemed at least a little upset by my tardiness.

There is a dynamic that forms in the workplace when you are late for an interview – or anything for that matter. First of all, people are expecting you to be there at a certain time. If they are working, they need to make sure they stop what they are doing at a certain time and block out time to interview you. They wait for you at the appointed time to interview you, ready to speak, and anticipate you walking in the door. They may go to the bathroom before speaking with you so they do not need to interrupt the interview. They may go get coffee before the interview so they have something to drink. They may organize their office right before the interview.

While waiting for you to show up at a certain time, all sorts of things are going through the person’s mind regarding the interview. They feel anticipation and excitement about speaking with you. They have also likely reviewed your resume before the interview and are ready to ask you questions about your experience. If they see some experiences they feel you might have in common, they are probably eager to discuss them with you.

When you do not show up on time for your interview, people are suddenly let down. They feel a little upset. As each minute goes by, people get angrier and angrier you are not there. This erodes the confidence people have in you. The message being sent is:

-I do not respect you

-I do not respect your time

-This interview is not important to me

-This company is not important to me

In the story I told you, there was another dynamic in play that is important to mention. The law firm I was interviewing with was considered less prestigious than the law firm where I currently worked. Therefore, the people at the less prestigious law firm were already on the defensive. By showing up late, I sent them the message I thought I was more important than them. I was not doing this intentionally; however, this is the message that was clearly received.

There is an interesting dynamic at work with employers and law firms. Employers, like people in general, have a need to feel important. In the law firm world, for example, employers will rarely make someone a job offer unless they are almost 100 percent confident the person will accept. There is also a dynamic at work when an attorney searches for a job. When an attorney is looking for a job it is often much easier for him or her to get one with a better law firm than the one he or she is currently working for rather than with a less reputable law firm. Why? Law firms are often suspicious of attorneys who are moving to law firms that are not as prestigious. They think if they are interviewing with a law firm that is not as high in the pecking order, there must be something wrong with them. Additionally, if they are not as highly ranked, law firms may be a little defensive when a person from a better law firm is interviewing because they know the attorney is from a more prestigious ”tribe.” This often makes it harder for the attorney to get a job with a less prestigious firm because the firm is more sensitive to even perceived slights.

Showing up late shows potential employers you do not take them seriously or respect them. This is a huge mistake and something that sends a message you simply do not want to convey.

In show business, you notice all the time when actors start falling out of favor with studios and seeing their careers decline. Remember how popular Lindsay Lohan was just a couple of years ago? She negatively affected her career recently by showing up late repeatedly. Showing up late is simply bad business. As one person said about Lohan:

You can’t show up late. It’s very, very disrespectful… I think what an actor has to realize [is that] when you show up an hour late, 150 people have been scrambling to cover for you. There is not an apology big enough in the world to have to make 150 people scramble. It’s nothing but disrespect. And Lindsay Lohan is not the only one. A lot of actors show up late as if they’re God’s gift to the film. It’s inexcusable…

An interview is the first chance you have to make an impression on a new employer. It sends a message that determines whether you can be trusted and whether you will follow directions and complete work on time when you show up for the job you are interviewing for. An employer will often judge your future performance by whether you arrive on time.

Having hired hundreds of people over the years, I can say unequivocally the worst hires I made were people who failed to show up on time for an interview. The people who do not show up on time are almost always the worst hires because they get the job and do the same thing. In addition to not showing up on time, these people also play by their own rules in other ways. They do work the way they want, and when they want. They disrespect others and their needs constantly. They are the absolute worst employees in most cases and also the ones most likely to make trouble after they leave.

In addition to showing up late for interviews, many people make the mistake of showing up late for other functions. You should never show up late for anything. The reason it is so important to show up on time is it sends the message you respect others and their time. It also sends the message you take others’ needs as seriously as your own. Being on time sends the message you will play by the rules, do what is expected of you, and do your best to get along with others and look out for their needs. You always need to be on time.

Show Value, Do Not Expect Value

If you understand the message I am about to share with you, you will thrive in your career and life, and you will also be very good at identifying organizations and people to avoid. The message is this: people and businesses crash and burn when they start expecting value before giving value.

This may seem like a very trivial thing to say, but this is happening in epidemic proportions around this country. It’s spinning out of control and it’s hurting our economy, individual careers, and your future to the same incredible degree it’s hurting mine.

A few months ago, a friend of mine and I discussed working together on a small business deal. My friend does a show for ESPN and when he is not filming the show the studio just sits there. He thought it would be fun to start filming a show announcing sports scores and streaming this information over the Internet on his website. He wanted someone to help him with some of the business aspects, and I agreed to do so. In order to do this, we needed to draw up a contract outlining our responsibilities.

I have another old friend who’d recently become a partner at a big law firm in Los Angeles. I asked him to put together a simple agreement. The agreement was a standard, “form” type of contract and I knew it would not take him more than an hour. Although our firm has an in-house attorney who could have easily drafted this document, I wanted to give my friend some business, since he was a new partner, and also introduce him to my friend from ESPN. I thought this might result in some work down the road for him. I was trying to do a nice thing.

My friend at the law firm called me after I requested he email over a short form agreement. Pretty soon, he was trying to talk me into spending over $20,000 on this agreement, which included all sorts of unnecessary work. I told him to just email me a form agreement and not to do any work on the project. He said okay. A few weeks later I still had not received anything and called him looking for the agreement. He was out of the office and my call was transferred to a paralegal who said she would get an agreement right over to me. A couple of hours later I received an email from the paralegal with an agreement. I knew all she had to do was a global “search and replace” to change a few words to the name of our company. It was not a lot of work. It probably took her no more than an hour.

A month or so later I received a bill for over $7,000, charging me $600 an hour for work that simply was not done. The bill had such notations in it as, “Review business plan, 3.5 hours, $2,100.”

The problem was there was no business plan. My friend was literally making things up and lying about the work he had supposedly done. Then he started calling me, demanding the money and harassing our accounting department. I was incredibly shocked.

What happened here? Why was this guy doing this?

His attitude was that he deserved something for nothing. This attitude can creep into organizations and destroy them. It can also destroy people.

Around the same time I had referred another friend of mine to the same attorney. The friend I had referred had a very large and serious legal issue. My friend went to Santa Monica to interview the attorney about working for him. After the interview, the attorney said he would send him a fee agreement discussing what the fees would be if he wanted to hire him. Once my friend received the “retainer agreement” (a simple statement of how much the firm will charge for doing the work) he decided he did not want to work with the attorney due to the high costs he was proposing; therefore, my friend did not return the agreement.

A few weeks later, after the attorney realized my friend was not going to work with him, my friend received a bill for $14,000 from the attorney for putting together the retainer agreement. Like me, my friend called this attorney to ask him if he was serious. He told him he was quite serious. My friend refused to pay this bill and is being harassed to this day.

You may find this story as hard to believe as I do but it actually happened. This sort of thing happens in the business world every day. There are tons of people who simply expect something for nothing regardless of whether or not they provide any value. What do you think happened with my friend and this law firm? Exactly what you might expect: the law firm and its owner were indicted for their role in one of the largest scams by a law firm in history. When people start expecting something for nothing it is generally a very good indication something bad is about to go down.

The example of my friend is so serious because he will never get a referral from me again. He will never get business from any of the friends I referred to him. His desire for quick gain has likely cost him millions of dollars in potential referrals throughout his career.

Have you ever focused too much on your rewards? When you focus on getting rewards and not adding value, you stop yourself dead in your tracks. People see right through you.

Your career is not about you at all. Your career is about the fact someone else has a problem that he or she needs you to solve. For any job you have ever had, the company hired you because it had a problem that needed to be solved that it could not solve on its own. Throwing yourself into solving someone else’s problem is essential to growing in your career.

The problem could be as simple as serving clients in a restaurant by bringing them food, or as sophisticated as analyzing the tax issues between a large corporation and a foreign country in which it does business. Regardless of the problem, someone needs you to solve it.

Let me tell you a secret very few people understand: your income, praise, and life will get better in proportion to how well you solve people’s problems, and how dedicated you are, and appear to be, to doing so.

The more you throw yourself into solving other people’s problems, the more dedicated you appear to be to solving other people’s problems. The better you are at delivering results, the better you will do in your life. This is the secret to a great career. It is a simple one but very difficult for most people to do on a day-to-day basis. You are owed nothing by the world or anyone until you go out and create huge sums of value. You need to create value by solving problems to the very best of your ability.

When you look at work simply in terms of the rewards, you are diverting your energy from what creates those rewards in the first place. You need to get into the work you do and make it the best you possibly can. People will hire you and seek you out as long as you create outstanding value for them.

People and companies that expect something without doing work cause enormous damage. Car companies in the United States have experienced this type of damage. One of the fringe benefits of working for car companies, such as General Motors, is their unions often have contracts that prevent people from being laid off. The arrangement is so absurd that if GM wants to close down certain plants, for example, it can, but it needs to keep paying the workers from those plants. For months, and sometimes years, those workers are furloughed in “job banks” where they go and sit all day with no purpose whatsoever in large rooms with nothing to do, all the while getting paid. The absurdity of this is hard to believe. Once a company or group of individuals starts expecting something for nothing, death is often near.

The problems with car companies go even deeper than this. For example, many American car companies do not make cars people want. Refusing to make cars the public wants is an example of not showing value. You cannot get ahead or do anything worthwhile if you do not show value. Once you start expecting something without creating value, the end is often near.

One of the most amazing things about many musicians, movie stars, and other individuals who become really famous is they usually start out creating a lot of value. Their performances contain a lot of passion and they wow audiences with their talents. The same thing goes for businesses that get really popular. They provide tremendous value to people, and people flock to them. However, at some point along the line many businesses and people become famous and something happens – they stop providing value to others, and this leads to their fall.

The indictment of Governor Rod Blagojevich of Illinois was a perfect example of this. Politicians typically start out their careers talking about how they will provide more value to the people than those they are running against. Politicians get elected based on their pronouncements they will help others. At some point, however, for many politicians the office becomes more about providing value to themselves than to others, and this is when politicians typically fall. One quote from the Wall Street Journal really stuck out for me:

Mr. Blagojevich appeared frustrated that the Obama team didn’t appear willing to talk about favors to the governor in exchange for a favorable appointment.

“They’re not willing to give me anything except appreciation. [Expletive] them,” the governor said, according to the affidavit. It further claimed that Mr. Blagojevich expressed frustration at being “stuck” in his job as governor, which pays $177,412, according to one conversation alleged in the affidavit.

Here Blagojevich is complaining about his salary and what he believes is due him. When I think about this I am absolutely amazed. I can imagine it must be a tremendous amount of work to win a governor’s election. People do not run for the position for the money. In this quote you can see the governor has become more focused on his own rewards than on what he can deliver to others.

Creating value for others sets up a natural path for rewards. Contributors focus on the work they are doing and the rewards comes naturally. Focusing on the rewards diverts your energy from what generates rewards in the first place – the value your customers, clients, or audience gets from what you do. People want to align themselves with people who are focused on giving.

I want you to be the best you can possibly be. I want you to be constantly focused on creating value. I want you to be a wonderful and capable person on whom the light of the world’s approval is constantly shining. This will happen to you when you focus all of your energies on creating value for others. Get started today.

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