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.

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.

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.

Concentrate on Your Contribution

There is a secret to being an outstanding performer in any job and getting more raises, more recognition, and more responsibility. The secret is to be 100 percent focused on your work and to be passionate about your job. This is where your energy needs to go. The secret also involves another element that is equally important: don’t think about your anticipated reward. If you are committed to excelling at your job, you should not think for a second about what you are receiving in exchange for the work you are doing.

Virtually everyone I know who has succeeded in any calling has shared these characteristics. People who possess these attributes end up getting hired even when the economy is crashing. In fact, if you have these characteristics, you will do well in whatever calling you decide to pursue. These characteristics breed admiration, rewards, raises, and also have the potential to make people famous.

One of the best employees I ever hired really epitomized these characteristics when he received an unexpected $20,000 raise one day. Instead of seeming really happy about this, he simply said “thanks” and continued talking about the work problem he was involved in right before getting the raise. I could tell that deep down this guy did not even care much about the raise because he was so focused on the work. Throughout the years, I have received emails from him well after hours on numerous occasions, when he has worked late into the night at the office.

He’s never told me about working late into the night. He has never bragged about the work he’s done. He has never asked for a raise. Nevertheless, year after year, the raises keep coming. The contribution he makes continues, and he is never focused on the reward he is going to receive.

Interestingly, numerous people have come and gone during the same time. Every month or two they demand a new raise, show me a list of additional tasks they are working on that merit additional compensation, and when required to work late they often refuse, or, if they do stay late, make a big deal about it. Everything with these people is quid pro quo.

One of our employees once received a paycheck that was $7 less than normal because of a deduction he had set up for insurance. Instead of investigating this and considering the reason behind it, the employee immediately assumed the company had intentionally shortchanged him the seven bucks.

This employee, who was making $80,000 a year at the time, left me a message on my cell phone demanding the $7, and calling me dishonest. Additionally, he sent me an email stating that what had happened was “OUTRAGEOUS!!” (the capital letters and exclamation points are his). This employee also spent the morning he received his check going around telling other employees what had happened, spreading fear throughout the organization. At the time, the company had over 600 employees.

This person did not stay employed with our company for long. He left because he found an opportunity where he believed he could make a few thousand dollars a year more. He lost that job rapidly and after that, I think he did not find work for a couple of years.

That is what happens to people who focus solely on their reward. Despite their potential, they are so focused on protecting what they do have and making sure they have as much as others they do not concentrate on their work. These types of workers are too focused on themselves, and they spend too much time thinking about how they are underpaid and deserve more from their employer.

While the above example may sound extreme, I have actually seen this sort of situation occur many times throughout the years. Some people are so focused on protecting what they have or deserve to have, they never get into their work.

You need to get into your work. People who are focused on their work always rise. The natural tendency of bosses, supervisors, and companies is to generously reward people who are making an extraordinary contribution. We want to help those who are helping us.

People who are focused on the reward are more problematic. If people are going out of their way to ensure they are rewarded all the time, the tendency is to resent them and feel they have gotten more than they are worth. A dynamic is set up wherein employers feel they need to protect themselves from the employee. Also, a tendency is to want to balance the scales by taking back from these sorts of employees.

When you look at really good entrepreneurs who succeed in business, you quickly understand they are focused on providing value before they receive a reward. Entrepreneurs know they can only receive a reward if they make a contribution and somehow enrich a person’s life. Entrepreneurs who fail often do so for the same reason that employees fail in their jobs: they concentrate on taking rather than giving. You need to be focused on giving. Many successful business owners do not even reap any substantial profits until after several years of being in business and providing exceptional value.

If you look around at people you have worked with in the past, you too will see there are generally two groups of people. The first consists of people who are focused on their job and are doing the best they possibly can. The second consists of people who are constantly evaluating the rewards they are getting relative to their efforts. They are overly concerned with what others are getting paid and, in general, they always attempt to get a leg-up, by getting the most they can out of their employers.

Which sort of person do you think ultimately does better? Focusing on the rewards is a huge mistake because in doing so you are diverting your energy from what creates the rewards in the first place – your work. In every industry employers want people who are focused on the job, not the rewards. When you hire people for any task (whether it is a doctor, a barber, a painter, etc.), they are much more likely to hire people who are focused on the job instead of the rewards they are going to receive.

We may brag about how our physician is on special committees, and we like the fact the people who are working for us have received awards – these are indicators that someone is committed to the job. The rewards follow from people doing good and solid work, and being focused on the job.

Love What You Do

If you wish to get and excel at a job, one of the most important things you can do for yourself and for your employer is to love what you are doing. When I say, “love what you are doing,” I truly mean it. You must be so passionate about what you are doing you can hardly believe you’re getting paid for it.

I do not care if you are 20 years old or 65 years old, you need to find and do work you enjoy. People who enjoy their work are the ones who advance and do well in any calling.

Love of your work is a source of inspiration. It is something that makes you more creative in your job and gives you energy to work harder. Being playful in your job makes you happier. Making your job a game makes every moment something to grow from and makes your life much more enjoyable.

Let me tell you about someone I know quite well who loves his job. He has a library of thousands of books. He has so many books he had special shelves built in his office. He has books all over his basement. He has books crowded beside his bedside. He has DVDs all over his living room. He spends weeks away from his family each year going to seminars, in order to learn more.

All of these books, CDs, and DVDs cover topics such as management, getting jobs, finding satisfaction in one’s career, and others relevant to people wanting to improve themselves.

He reads these books before he goes to bed at night and when he gets up in the morning. He reads them when he exercises and uses a stair-master instead of a treadmill to exercise, just so he can read during his cardio workout. He even listens to CDs about whatever he is studying when he is driving.

He’s angered by the thought of people who go to work just to make money. He knows people who go to work just to make money typically work less, contribute less to their employer and the people they are helping, and they are not interested in long-term relationships with their work or their employers. He knows of countless people who think of work as just work, who are miserable. He speaks with these people every single day. He knows if you truly enjoy your work and get into your work, you will have a life that is incredibly meaningful. This person truly believes what he is doing is the most important thing in the world.

If you met this person in a normal situation, you might find him a little boring. But if you ask him about what he does for a living, he will become animated and his face will change. He will sit up and become very excited and talk about what he does for hours if you let him. His enthusiasm for his work is so sincere and profound he smiles whenever he thinks about his job. This person is angry he has to sleep each night because he would rather be doing his work.

The person I am speaking about is I. I have found my passion, and my passion is helping you and others get jobs. I love what I do and I want nothing more than profound success for everyone, because I know what everyone is capable of achieving.

I was once in a job I detested, and I was unhappy. I got out the second I found something that seemed like fun and appealed to me spiritually. I am getting an enormous amount of happiness and satisfaction out of my job and my life because I’m doing what I want.

When I was in high school, I remember sitting in a Denny’s one day at lunch with a group of friends, talking about other people. We must have spoken about 10 other people in depth over the course of 45 minutes. At the end of the conversation, I realized that each person we had spoken about had a special talent. One might have been really good at math, for instance; another person might have been very capable socially; another might have been an outstanding athlete, another an amazing writer, another a very talented saxophone player. I realized each person had a very special gift, or combination of gifts that made him or her unique and special. As I have gone through life, I have come to realize everyone has special and unique abilities.

We need to do what we enjoy because this can give us immeasurable and long lasting happiness. This is the most simple career advice I can give.

One of the most remarkable people I know is a mathematical genius – and no, I am not talking about myself this time. This person was so good at math, physics, and other disciplines as a kid that he was already taking college calculus classes when he was in middle school. He never liked math-related disciplines, though. He was more interested in journalism. Incredibly, he was never a particularly gifted writer, but writing was something he loved to do.

Just because we are good at something does not mean it’s what we like to do. Today, this man is a journalist and he loves his job. He’s good at it, too, and he runs a newsroom in a major city. While he took calculus at the age of 13 at the local community college, he was actually struggling to get by in English and the other classes he enjoyed.

Perhaps he could have designed rockets, been a professor at MIT – who knows. But instead he followed his passion and pursued something he loved.

Today, when I see pictures of him, he looks content and enriched. His family is healthy, and I can tell deep down they are all happy. When this fellow was working complex math problems many years ago, I do not think he was happy at all.

There is something inside of you that lights your fire. What is it? Become passionate about your work and find something that elevates you.

What do you read about in your spare time? What part of yourself would you improve to become better at doing what you love?

In November of 2008 I attended the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco. I saw the CEO of Yahoo!, Al Gore’s boss at Kleiner Perkins, the CEO of Zappos shoes, and other famous people (I missed Lance Armstrong, unfortunately). When I see people like this, I know they love what they are doing, because they speak with so much passion. You too can, and should, love what you are doing. I know many people who do their jobs because they love them.

People who reach great heights in any discipline get there through a love of their job. Love of a job comes from a genuine, heartfelt passion deep inside a person. What motivates you to get out of bed? What would you do if you could do anything with your day? That is exactly where you belong and it is the path you should be following.

Never Focus on the Money: Focus on Your Higher Purpose and Contribution

People fail far too often in the working world because they focus too much on the money they earn at their jobs. The money you are paid is generally commensurate with your contribution to something more important, more meaningful, and much larger than yourself. When you focus on what you are doing for the world and the value of this contribution, you become energized. Being energized by your work brings more and better work your way, and ultimately leads to greater earnings. The money is a byproduct of your contribution to your job. You will be paid in any organization at a rate matching your contribution to the bigger picture.

What is your particular contribution to the bigger picture? Every job makes a contribution to a bigger picture.

I started delivering papers when I was 10 years old. By the time I was 13, I was getting up at 5 a.m. every morning to deliver over 175 papers in a prestigious suburb of Detroit. High-ranking auto executives lived in most of the houses. When I delivered these papers, I found myself energized by the thought I was providing them information they would be using to help run companies that supported the American economy, provided millions of jobs and gave people access to transportation. In a small way, I realized in this job I was fulfilling a larger purpose.

Some years later, I took a second job washing dishes in a cafeteria. I motivated myself in this job by thinking if not for my work, hundreds of people each night might go hungry. I was also providing people enjoyment when they sat down for dinner, and I was helping families spend more time together, and I was making the world a happier place. This motivated me to do good work, and it made me happy.

Whatever you do, there is a higher purpose to your work, and your job is fulfilling a role that is changing the world and making a contribution. Money is just money. When you focus on the money, you lose track of the importance of the contribution you make. My career advice is to find the importance in your contribution, and use this to inspire your job performance.

Don’t focus on money if you want to do well in your job. In the same way a person must focus on his or her relationship in order to have a successful one, a person must focus on his or her work in order to be successful at it. Focus on your job and your performance–nothing else. If you can do this, the money will follow.

It is easy for me to spot people whose eyes are on the money and not the job. They are in every profession and they never have long-term success. Having a larger purpose is incredibly important, and money is not a larger purpose.

The issue I see with people who always focus on the money is that they are constantly interrupting their work to consider if they are getting the short end of the stick. They are extremely concerned about their compensation relative to others. They wonder whether or not their efforts are being adequately compensated every step of the way. They are overly concerned about the accuracy of each paycheck. Their focus on their work is perpetually distracted by an interest in the money, rather than the job.

If you were an employer, who would you want to have working for you? Someone who is committed and enthusiastic about the job? Or someone who appears to be doing the work just for the money?

Several years ago, I was speaking with a young CIA agent and he told me about a meeting he was getting ready to have with a senior agent. The senior agent told him the person they were going to speak with was very dishonest, untrustworthy, and an all-around bad person. However, the agents would be nice, and treat the target nicely. They would only accomplish their assignment if the target were to see them this way. The senior agent said something to the younger agent he thought so profound he remembered it throughout his career:

“Don’t ever think something or else you will show it.”

Basically, the second you start thinking something, you will begin telegraphing your thoughts. People will begin to pick up on it through nonverbal signals, facial expressions, and body language.

Have you ever had the experience of being able to tell something about someone without speaking to the person? You just get a feeling about something. Who knows how we pick up on it, but we do.

When you are focused on the money, your put your purpose in the job on the back burner in favor of your obsession with how much you are going to make. People easily pick up on this – employers, clients, and others. This is one of the worst things you can do in any job.

At the risk of becoming a little too metaphysical, I would like to share a quick side story with you. I was at a dinner once discussing this exact topic of people picking up clues about others through nonverbal communication. The person I was talking with had a background in engineering and the study of energy, and he too was interested in this subject. He told me there is a gland at the very top of the brain – the pituitary gland – that for some strange reason has almost the exact same cellular structure as our eyes. He told me he believes people pick up on information using this. He also observed when a child is born and his or her skull is not yet fused, with only skin separating this gland from the outside world, this gland is pointed outward. He believed this has something to do with how humans pick up signals from the world around them when they are babies.

This may seem like bizarre thinking, but I do believe when people are more concerned with their salary than their work, the people around them pick up on it. You should push any concerns you have about your compensation out of your mind, and focus on your work and your work’s greater purpose. The greater purpose of your work is something that deserves your attention. Regardless of what type of work you do, it has a greater purpose. People will pick up on your passion and will want to work with you.

Every single person I’ve ever known in our company who is outstanding at what he or she does has always focused on the greater purpose of his or her work. Every single attorney I know who is outstanding at his or her job has always focused on the work and not the reward. Get into what you do and realize your higher purpose.

Be Committed to What You Do

What You Will Learn There is power in being committed. It is important to commit to your career, to a single employer or to anything that is important to you. Not being committed to your career will deprive you of success. You should not do any sort of job that your heart is not in, and that you cannot commit to.

I am about to provide you some of the strangest job search and career advice you will ever receive from someone who’s in the recruiting industry. One thing you should know about me is that I’m a straight shooter. If I see a pattern repeat itself enough times, I know it’s something that must be true. The pattern I’m about to explain to you is so powerful it could change your career forever. I know it has changed mine.

The secret is commitment.

When I was in my 20s, I had a girlfriend who watched soap operas. She was committed to those shows. She would watch them every single day, and if she could not watch them, she would record them. I’m ashamed to admit that I would sometimes watch the soaps with her when she would catch up on the missed episodes. The one thing I quickly realized about soap operas was they were all about commitment, in that none of the characters could commit. Each person on every one of the shows would get into a series of relationships, be tempted by others, get out of relationships, get married, cheat, and so forth. This was all the soap operas were ever about. The characters would inevitably suffer hospitalizations for nervous breakdowns or horrible accidents (caused by their distractions). Then there would be horrible, drunken, public confessionals, and all sorts of other malfeasance. Moreover, the people on these shows would always be led to believe that, no matter how good their situation was, the grass was greener elsewhere.

Several years later, when I got into the employment market and started recruiting, I began noticing this same soap opera pattern with clients and coworkers. People would leave a job for any lapse, no matter how small. If they were criticized by an employer, I would see them start looking for another job. If someone heard another employer was paying more, they would send a résumé. If their current company or firm were getting bad press, they would start looking for another job. The reasons were innumerable. Some might seem proactive, while others were purely reactionary. One thing seemed clear to me: There was a major lack of commitment in the marketplace. People could not or would not commit themselves to a single employer, or to anything for that matter.

Commitment is key in order to experience any form of success. You should not do any sort of job if your heart isn’t in it, and you can’t be committed. If you are a public relations intern, you need to be committed to that job. If you are the president of a corporation, you need to be committed to that as well. Not being committed to your career will only have negative consequences.

Several months ago, I was speaking with a proofreader in my company, who resigned because she had found a better job across the street, one that paid more. The amount of the pay increase was minimal. I was actually prepared to give the woman a raise, a higher amount than her new job. In our meeting, the young woman explained she liked working for our company, but she needed to make more money because her husband had been unemployed for some time.

I told her I was very sorry about this and asked how she became aware of the new job. She was a nice girl and I was interested in talking to her about this. The job she was doing at our company was very demanding and had required her to take work home at night, and to work very hard for the most part. In response, she told me she’d been freelancing for the other company for some time, and this was how she came to entertain a new full-time job offer.

Once she told me this, I was no longer interested in trying to keep this person at our company. I knew immediately she was not committed to our company to the degree I wanted her to be. She was not someone I wanted on my team.

Your boss (and we all have bosses) wants employees who are committed to what they do.

Whenever I hear someone tell me they are just doing something until they can find something better, I know that person will never really succeed. When I see someone leave a job for trivial reasons, I also know that person will probably not reach the success for which they’re striving. When I see people watch the clock and leave at 5 p.m. every day because they are not really interested in what they are doing, I know those people will probably have mediocre careers. Commitment shines through, and it is easy to see when it’s not there.

Each morning, I read the Wall Street Journal. I spend at least 45 minutes reading it cover to cover. Most of the stories in this publication are about Fortune 500 companies and other such organizations. At least once a week, I see something along these lines written there:

John Smith started out as a repairman for a local office of X company in 1977. Today, he is CEO of the same company, with 18,000 employees in 26 countries and revenues of $4.2 billion last year…

It’s not coincidental I keep seeing stories like this in the paper. Without a doubt, the people who are rising up in these situations are those who are the most committed. When they join a company they join and remain in a committed fashion. They show up to work. These are the kinds of people who grow within corporations. They usually keep their jobs, but if they ever lose a job they will find another job quickly. Their commitment attracts success.

Being committed also has financial rewards. I have several people working for me on salary, whose incomes have consistently risen (more than tripled) in the past 3-4 years alone, because I know they are committed. I know their hearts and souls are in the job. I have recruiters working for our company who make 2-3 times more money than the average recruiter due to their level of commitment to the job.

It’s very common for people who’ve held too many jobs within a short span of time to never find a job in their industry again. This happens to lawyers all the time. It is well known in the recruiting community that if you have had more than two jobs in five years (or even 5-6 over a 20+ year career), it demonstrates a lack of commitment. Even if you can account for the problems you might have had with those employers, it would seem clear that the problem is not your employer–the problem is almost certainly you.

Prospective employers will want to avoid you because they know you will leave them, too. You will find fault with them just as you have found fault with all of your other employers. You will tell the people you work with why you do not like the company. You will tell other potential employers you are interviewing with why you do not like the company. Who needs that? Most employers avoid these sorts of people like the plague.

It pays to be committed not only to your employer, but to your career. Your commitment will come out in everything you do, and you will shine. There are countless stories of the secretary who becomes the president of the company, the guy in the mailroom who ends up buying the corporation and becoming a billionaire, the worker who sweeps up at the auto dealership, who becomes a salesman, then the top salesman, and eventually buys the auto dealership and another, and another, and so on.

All of that comes through the power of commitment.

I am in the employment industry. I love what I do. I want you to succeed. I want to coach you. I am committed to what I am doing.

Are you?

Sympathy, Morale and the Importance of Being Organized

In every job I have ever had, I have been happy for the most part. When I was an attorney, for example, I liked many aspects of being an attorney. When I worked in the asphalt business, I loved many aspects of that business. Most people are able to find some level of enjoyment in every job that they do. What is interesting, though, is that in every job I ever had, there were always people around me who were more than happy to stop by my office and go out to lunch with me, just to give me the news that my job really sucked–regardless of what I might think of the job.

What You Will Learn There are two types of people – those who go around undermining organizations and people with sympathy and those who are proactive in helping the group to get organized. Sympathy with your coworkers and others is the surest way to create problems – it hurts you and destroys morale. The better organized the company or group you are a part of, the higher the morale. You will generally be the happiest and the most productive in the best organized groups.

• “It is really unfortunate that they are giving you so much work. You should not have to work that hard.”
• “I bet you are starting to see that this is a really bad place to work. There is not enough work to do. I would not be surprised if it went out of business.”
• “There is no opportunity here. I heard that someone was fired so they did not have to give him a promotion.”
• “People make more money at our competitors. There is no reason to stay around here when they are not paying the top of the market salary.”
• “I am going to get out of here just as soon as the economy improves. They do not appreciate anything we are doing.”

One after another, people would stop by my office, take me out to lunch, come up to me at parties and, in general, give me one news flash or another about how awful the place where I was working was. The fact was that when this first started occurring I actually really liked where I was working.

• I thought the work was fun.
• I liked the people I was working with.
• I was excited about the income I was earning.
• I liked working hard because I had enthusiasm for the work I did.
• If I was not working hard at a particular time, I enjoyed having a short respite.

However, regardless of how I felt, there were commentators around me who would always appear and find a tremendous amount of fault in my job for me. This is something that happened in every single job I ever had. I would also watch these “sympathizers” approach other new coworkers at the firms, and change them from happy, enthusiastic and bubbling puppies into dour faced, angry and resentful people–in a short period of time.

What kind of “sympathy” makes someone who was formerly happy become depressed?

What kind of “sympathy” makes someone resentful, or hate their job?

This sort of sympathy typically does not do anybody any good. The sympathizer is rarely a person who is effective in his own job, or in the world. If this person could do something about what he or she argues is a negative situation, the person would. You may notice that the sympathizer never helps you make the situation any better. Instead, the sympathizer makes you resent what you are doing and what you have. The only place the sympathizer is generally going to take you is to the unemployment line or, at best, another job–where you will undoubtedly encounter another sympathizer.

Since I started out as a young attorney I now know many people who are partners in major law firms who have had fantastic careers. These successful people never listened to the sympathizers when they stopped by their offices. They walked away, having other things to do, or they simply avoided the sympathizers completely. I now read the legal newspapers, Wall Street Journal and other publications, and I see these attorneys who “walked away” mentioned regularly.

The sympathizers that I knew have had careers that mostly border on tragic. Despite having gone to good  law schools and having had experiences with good firms, many have done things such as:

• working in five legal jobs and then taking a year off, only to end up in a career teaching pre-algebra in a private school,
• working in the human resources department of a 15-person nonprofit company,
• calling themselves “writers” and sitting around at Starbucks all day doing and publishing nothing.
• becoming “legal consultants” and having no clients and trying to live on a couple of thousand of dollars a month (my personal favorite).
• One attorney, after coming to the United States from Europe or Asia, burned through three jobs in three years and then ended up getting deported to his home country because no one would give him a job in the United States. Four years later I discovered on this person’s Facebook page that he is a waiter in Shanghai, who also repairs BMWs for a sports car dealership.

There is nothing wrong with doing any of these things, of course. But these examples are all far different from making well over a million dollars a year as an attorney, working for the top performing companies in the world, and having a high profile career for which one is highly sought after, and is regularly mentioned in the media.

My point is this: The sympathizers are generally lucky to be employed at all, whereas the people who “just walk away” from the sympathizers are by far the most sought out. Since we all rely on others for jobs, income and a sense of contribution, I believe that the person who can “just walk away” is the person who ultimately has the better career, and makes the most of his or her skills and talents.

Sympathy with your coworkers and others is the surest way to create problems. You tell people their job is crap, that they are mistreated and that the conditions are bad–and what do they do? They get angry and no longer like their job. They go to work each day feeling bad about their jobs and at themselves for having to be there.

Groups of workers may even try to “revolt” and “organize”, due to their newfound beliefs that the job place is extremely unfair. This is the history of communism, for example. Our entire world and many events within it have been influenced by one “worker revolt” after another against “unfair” working conditions, or unfair this or that. The results of these revolts are not always good.

Case in point, is Russia better off for having been under communism? Did communism work for Russia? Moreover, is the American auto industry, which has been dying away, better off in the long run due to the incredible demands it experienced under unions? Is having no job available better than having many jobs available?

Genuine, unselfish sympathy and unmotivated empathy are obviously of value in personal relationships; however, I am unsure if the type of “sympathy” discussed above is ever a good thing. I have an assistant in Las Vegas that has a friend who will not get a job because he makes more money on unemployment than he would make if he were working. He has gone out and applied for jobs and has even gotten them, but ultimately it makes no sense for him to keep these jobs. This does not make a lot of sense to me. So this fellow continues sitting around doing nothing, not being a part of society’s work force. Is this a good thing? I do not think it is. How much good does the “sympathy” of government unemployment payments do here?

When I used to live in the inner city of Detroit many women I knew of refused to get married because they would not be able to get welfare if they got married. Accordingly, many, many women decided they had no use for a man in the household. What did this do for the children? How do you think this made the local men feel? Did this mentality contribute to crime? How much good does the “sympathy” of government welfare payments do here?

Sympathy is something that can really hurt you. Society has rules and procedures, and if you follow these you will generally do very well and rise towards the top. If you sit around seeking sympathy and functioning on others’ sympathy, the opposite will happen: You will fall to the bottom.

Sympathy is something that often destroys morale. The man on unemployment who does not get a job because he makes more on unemployment has low morale. The woman on welfare who refuses to get married and is raising four children by three different husbands probably has low morale. The person who likes his job and suddenly changes his tune due to the insincere “sympathy” of coworkers who plant negative ideas about the pay scale, working conditions and so forth–has poor morale. The person who jumps between jobs and never really gets anywhere because each new employer is “just as bad as the one before” has poor morale.

I am not saying that there is no injustice in the world. There is. However, the people that have real skill in the world are the ones who have the ability to bring order to a situation and fix things. Companies and groups that have the best organization are typically the ones with the highest morale. If a company has good organization then the problems of having extremely low morale and other issues are less likely to become a problem. You should seek out companies and organizations that have the best organization. If you work for a company that is incredibly well organized you are more likely to do better than if you work in one that is not.

When you drive down any decent-sized street in America you are likely to see a McDonald’s, a Starbucks and a number of similar chain restaurants. What is the difference between these companies and your average company out there? Once a McDonald’s is put up in any town in the United States you never hear about the place closing down due to low morale or an inability to attract and retain workers. You do not hear news stories about poor morale in the Midtown Manhattan McDonald’s, or the Starbucks under the Golden Gate Bridge. These businesses just keep humming along, and very few of them fail. This is mostly because these companies and their staffs are incredibly well organized.

• Everyone knows what they are supposed to be doing.
• Everyone knows when they are supposed to be at work.
• Everyone knows exactly what is required of their job.
• Everyone knows when their next review is going to be.
• Everyone knows what their responsibilities will be if they are promoted.
• Everyone knows what they have to do (and not do) in order to get fired.

You know when you go into a Starbucks how the coffee is going to taste, how it is going to be served and so forth. The experience is predictable. The people working there also know how to do their jobs due to a myriad of training procedures they have undergone, and the feeling you get from the average Starbucks employees is not one of horrible morale or job-induced anger. Instead, it is generally a feeling of excitement and pleasure to be of service. The reason for this I believe is due to how well the company and its branches are organized.

Organizations that are well organized like your Starbucks, your McDonalds and your Wal-Marts, are usually also the most successful. They will be there with or without you. They keep going. The reason that poor morale is so difficult to infiltrate all the workers in these companies is because the processes and procedures of the companies are highly fine tuned and organized. If an employee is making trouble and not doing his job correctly, not showing up for work consistently, bad mouthing the boss, bad mouthing the company, not being productive with his time, taking unscheduled breaks and so forth, then the company will “eject” him very quickly, like a virus.

When I see a résumé of someone who has been at a variety of well organized employers in the space of a short period of time I generally know that this person is like a “virus”, who tends to get expelled from the well organized system quickly. Your best hotel chains, your best restaurants and your best companies all use very good organization to keep morale high and to keep the company productive. Efficient organizations build good morale. Poor organization leads to poor morale.

If a McDonald’s, Wal-Mart, Disneyland or Starbucks were not extremely well organized then they would have a variety of serious problems with internal morale.

When I speak with people inside of law firms and companies who are extremely dissatisfied with their jobs, the one complaint I hear over and over again is how poorly organized the employer is. When people are promoted, demoted, or fired who should not be, and when one person has to do too much work, while others are not doing enough, such issues can all be greatly improved by concrete organizational procedures, which let people know where they stand inside the organization. Discomfort, insecurity and other issues creep in when people do not know exactly where they stand in an organization.

In almost every instance where there is extremely poor morale in an organization, beneath this you will find a chaotic lack of organization. People just do not understand how things work, where they fit in and what their responsibilities are. When people understand exactly what they are supposed to be doing and what is expected of them, morale increases.

In your career and life you have the following choices:

First, you can be the sort of person who goes around undermining organizations, people and so forth with “sympathy” about their lives and working conditions. You can tell people how sorry you are about whatever is expected of them and their lives. In this process you will hurt others and create problems.

Second, you can be the sort of person who is proactive and helps a company or group get organized and get procedures in place in order for morale to improve. You can be a champion for organization and in the process raise the morale of the company or organization you are part of. The better organized the company or group you are part of, the higher the morale will generally be. If you take this route, you will find that the people who resist your efforts are most likely the same people who like to find “sympathy” with everyone around them. People who go around giving sympathy are, most often, harmful people whose sense of power comes from grinding at the happiness and egos of those around them, and undermining organization.

You will generally be the happiest and most productive in the best organized groups. The best organized groups are also much harder for people to undermine. A group’s strength is generally related to its ability to be organized.

Pretty soon many of these so-called sympathetic workers may be out of a job. The company will simply close or go elsewhere, where the staff is more friendly and appreciative of the work.

Always Ask and Observe: “How Long Have People Been Around”

There is one very easy and almost fail safe way to evaluate companies, individuals and various groups of people. It can save you a tremendous amount of worry in business deals and it can also insure that you end up working in places that are likely to be good for you in the long term. In fact, the longer I have studied and implemented this method, the more impressed I have been with the results. It is as follows:

• Investigate how long people have stuck with the company, person or organization. For example, are they surrounded by people they recently met? Or are they surrounded by people they have known for decades? In addition, how are those surrounding people doing in their careers and lives?
• When you look at companies, how long have they been around? When you look at the people in the companies, how long have they worked for the company? How do they appear to be doing in their careers and lives?

What You Will Learn Ensure whether you are dealing or associating with the right people. Observe the people around you and remember that the right people are those who are surrounded by old friends and acquaintances and are trusted by a large number of people. Before you can take any important decision about your career or your life, make sure you understand how people and companies have dealt with their relationships. Watch out for the warning signs.

There is nothing more to it. If you do this one thing you will be able to make excellent decisions in your career and life. You will almost always choose correctly regarding which organizations to join, which people to associate with and more.

Some time ago I was in business negotiations with someone who was extremely wealthy (to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars), who had what I thought was a very good reputation in business. I was extremely impressed with this individual, but the more I looked at his situation, the less impressed I became. It was not because of anything the person did, or said, it was because of the people around him: With hardly any exceptions, all of the person’s business advisors, employees and others had been with the person anywhere from a few weeks to less than a year. For someone worth hundreds of millions of dollars who is considered an incredible business person, this just did not seem right.

While there is nothing wrong with having one or two new employees, when someone is getting on in years and surrounded by people who have only worked for him for a short time, it is a real warning sign. When you see the same thing with the person’s personal relationships it is a warning sign as well. If some people are continually finding themselves around new people, they are almost certainly doing something wrong to drive others away. I have seen this time and time again and when you see this it is cause for immediate concern.

When I was growing up I had a relative that would have a new best friend (and only friend) every six months to one year. She would make friends with the person and then something would generally happen. There would be some sort of disagreement that would occur and the two sides would part in a bad way. I watched this occur for something like 20+ years. I have seen this with lawyers I know who get this or that new client. The client and attorney at some point get into some sort of disagreement, and the attorney is soon only working with newer clients.

So, the general line of questioning that runs through your head when meeting a new prospective employer or business associate might go something like this:

Where did all the employees go?

Why is this person surrounded all by new and not old friends?

What kind of disagreements have led to this person not inspiring loyalty from the people around them?

Is this person’s reaction to any disagreement simply to fire people?

What is going on here?

What would this mean for my business?

You get the idea.

Some time ago, I had made friends with someone who was around 10 years older than me, who was an exceptional business person and a very intelligent individual. This person had been involved in numerous lawsuits throughout the years, having been sued by one person after another. He had also sued many people. In addition, many of the people close to this person had been party to numerous lawsuits. Much of our conversation often involved me sympathizing (as a friend does) with how this person had been “screwed” by various people and so forth. One day this person called me about some legal issue that was stressful for him and said something I will never forget:

“I am so glad you are here to listen because I do not have any friends or anyone else to talk to about this.” At the time I taken aback by this statement and became a little uncomfortable. I had not realized that I was this person’s only friend. I was more than happy to listen, although I did feel a little uneasy: I wondered why I was this person’s only friend. It just seemed unusual to me.

A few weeks later I discovered that this person did something behind my back in business, something brutal and dishonest. I was shocked. What he did made absolutely no sense and seemed completely unnecessary. However, looking back on this I should have realized that the person could not be trusted. I should have realized there was a reason that people avoided this person. I should have realized that there was a reason that this person was involved in so many lawsuits. I should have easily seen these warning signs.

Say what you want about him, but many of the people who work for Donald Trump have worked for him for decades. If people are loyal to Trump for that long the chances are very good that he is doing something right. It is like this with any person and any business:

• If you know people who have had the same friends and acquaintances for decades, the chances are these people are doing something right.
• If you have had the same friends and acquaintances for decades, the chances are you are doing something right.
• If you are working in a business where people have worked there for 10, 20 or 30 years, the chances are the business is doing something right.
• If you are considering being friends with someone who is surrounded by people they have been friends with for years, the chances are that person is doing something right.

There are numerous businesses out there which are simply “flash in the pan”. For a spell they may look like the next great thing. When these businesses pop up out of nowhere, they often attract many employees to them, including employees from older and more established companies. They may look good to potential employees because there is less supervision; the company pays more money, or something similar. However, the odds are often very slim that a company such as this will end up being around for long. Most companies fail pretty quickly and almost all of them are gone within 5 years. It is the established companies that are able to keep people employed for long periods of time, and which retain employees over the long term–these are who should inspire real interest.

An established company has had to make countless adjustments over the years to remain competitive and to hold on to its people. When you are evaluating employers, this is something far more useful than simply judging whether the employer looks attractive at the moment. Long term results are much more important than what looks good in the present.

Your Job Search and Future Prospects Will Be Determined by the Company You Keep

What You Will Learn The company you keep will inevitably be a major cause of success or failure in your career and life. Unethical people can repeatedly injure your progress – you need to distance yourself from it. You need to be aware of and understand the people you deal with, to protect yourself from those who could taint you and drag you down.

I have had the most unusual series of interviews over the past few weeks. Yesterday I interviewed a woman who came in smelling like alcohol–to such an extent that my eyes were watering. I asked her about her record and she told me that she had a DUI but that it was “all that was behind her now.” She then wanted to make sure that this was not something that would “prejudice me” against hiring her. I must admit that since I was interviewing this woman for a job that involved a lot of driving it sure as hell did prejudice me.

Earlier in the week I was interviewing a guy and I just started to get a bad feeling while talking to him. Something looked off about him and I just sort of blurted out: “Have you ever been to prison?”

“Well, if you must know …” he began. He then told me that he had just finished serving four years in a federal prison for some incredibly complicated crime involving computers, wire transfers, Pakistanis and the Taliban. It took him at least 20 minutes to explain his story and I had no idea what he was talking about at around 3 minutes in. None of these items were on his résumé; I can assure you I would have remembered it if they were. There was just a time gap there that went unexplained–until I inquired.

“I hope this will not prejudice you against hiring me,” he also said. Of course it did.

No company in its right mind would hire these people and give them a second chance. You might ask: How do I know this? Well, around a decade ago, I used to be the type of employer who took in lots of lost sheep like this, to give them second chances (I have hired two drunk drivers before), and in every single instance these people repeated some sort of indiscretion once hired. The person who hires these people will likely be making a big mistake.

For years I have had the annoying habit of grinding my teeth when I go to sleep. It is not something that actually wakes me up, or bothers my wife; however, over the course of my life it has resulted in some of my teeth being flatter than others. I have a mouth guard for this, which I wear when I sleep, but I guess it is something that I do during the day as well.

A couple of years ago I was at the dentist and he recommended I go see a periodontist to potentially reset my jaw to stop me from grinding my teeth. When he told me the periodontist might have to break my jaw my ears really perked up, and I decided that this was something I needed to investigate. I suddenly had images of a guy in a lab coat rolling up his sleeves while he hauled me off, punching me in the jaw until the bones finally broke. I was not in any sense excited about undergoing this process, mind you; I just thought I should investigate and see what the concept was all about.

I have no idea how I found my dentist, but he is really uptight and detail oriented. He used to walk by my office at the same time every day and his entire office was a model of organization, detail and sterility. He was obviously cut out for this sort of thing. As I was standing there to pay for a tooth cleaning session, in perfect hand writing he wrote down the name of a couple of guys who he said would do a good job of breaking my jaw.

“Which person is better?” I asked.

“I’m afraid I cannot tell you that,” he said very sternly but in a way that remained friendly.

For the next few minutes I stood there trying to deduce through a series of questions which one he thought was better. I really trusted his opinion since he was so uptight and anal. It looked like he probably spent at least 10 minutes shining his shoes every morning. Looking at him I also could not imagine how his dry cleaner could possibly work with so much starch. You could probably break his shirts in half. Finally, I hit on something:

“Why did you put this guy first? It looks like his name would not be alphabetical,” I said.

“Well, I am not sure why I did that….It must be an error.”

“Logically, the rest of these guys are in alphabetical order. Additionally, you must realize that I would probably call the first guy on this list.”

So I called the first guy on the list per my dentist’s recommendation. Unlike my dentist who I generally had to wait six to eight weeks to see, this guy’s appointment scheduler invited me to come right over.

“I have this afternoon at 2:00, 3:30 and 4:00,” she said the first time I called. I scheduled an appointment for the very next day. When I got to the periodontist’s office I was really surprised by how nice it was. The furniture and the entire surrounding made for about the nicest dentist office I had ever seen. Naturally, my immediate thought when I saw this was that my procedure was going to be pretty expensive.

The doctor called me in. He walked right in to greet me as I found myself a seat. I noticed that his teeth were the whitest things I had ever seen, but they were also pretty crooked. I would learn later from one of his dental assistants that he had purchased a whitening machine few years ago for several thousand dollars and he would have his staff use it regularly on his teeth. It seemed to be working really well; his teeth were so white I could barely believe it. An assistant took some x-rays of my mouth and jaw, and then I sat waiting for 25 minutes. When the doctor finally returned he told me that my back teeth were ground down and that he was going to need to take some impressions. 10 minutes later I was sitting there having all of my teeth imprinted on wax, my mouth filled with these God-awful metal trays. I was then instructed to set an appointment to return to have my jaw fixed–in a few weeks. When I got to the front desk the receptionist asked me for a credit card and told me she would be charging me $1,000 today and would be putting this money towards the final bill. I did not ask any questions about what was going to happen from there on out, and should have paid a lot more attention than I did.

A few days before my appointment the doctor’s office called to confirm the appointment. I started asking questions at that point. Then they told me to bring $4,900 along with me.

“What are you going to do, break my jaw? That seems like a lot of money to break my jaw.” I said.

“No, we are going to file down some of your teeth and install temporary crowns and then take impressions before ordering the permanents.”

“New teeth? I am not interested in that. I am going to have to think about this,” I told them.

“But we already ordered the temporaries,” the assistant said to me.

“But I never asked for new teeth in the back of my mouth and no one said anything about that. This is not that big of a deal. A mouth guard costs a few dollars at a sporting goods store. There is no need to spend so much money. Let me think about it.”

I canceled the appointment. The periodontist called me once or twice to reschedule and I would not agree to a date. I was really put off by the idea of having some guy drill down the back of my mouth due to a bad bite. I was not at all interested in having mouth reconstruction due to some teeth grinding.

After this episode I completely forgot about the periodontist. I had paid him $1,000 and, although I figured that it was way too much, I had learned a powerful lesson and knew I would remember this for some time.

About a year later, though, I returned from summer vacation with my wife and I checked my answering machine. There were multiple messages from a guy named “Brian Cash” on my work voice mail. In fact, the guy had been leaving messages at least two or three times a day.

“You’re going to have to pick up or take my calls one of these days!” he said. His messages grew increasingly bothersome and they simply never stopped. I had been on a 10 day Alaskan cruise with my wife and I had to plod through at least 20 of these things. I was positively amazed that anyone could be so persistent in tracking down a person.

I called him back eventually. According to Cash, my dentist was saying that I owed him $5,000 for some molars he ordered for me and he was available any day to do the medical procedure. I was really at a loss for words and explained to Cash that I had not ordered any new teeth. There was no contract or anything for the work, and I had never agreed to the procedure. I was sort of at a loss for words about the entire situation.

“I’ll keep calling until you pay!” Cash promised.

Since the dentist was local to Pasadena, I decided to call him and get to the bottom of everything right away.

“I do not know how we got to this point. It makes no sense to me,” the doctor said. After some discussion we came to an agreement that was comfortable for both of us, which would also make Cash stop calling. However, the more I thought about Cash the more I realized that he could probably help me quite a bit as well. As it was, at the present I was owed more than $1,200,000 for services rendered by one of my companies. It occurred to me that recruiting Cash for these collections might be a good idea.

Around a year ago I offered a special financing service through two of our companies, Legal Authority and Employment Authority. These are job search services that have never been really all that profitable, which help people track down jobs by doing targeted mailings to various employers. Essentially, what these companies do is research all of the employers that match a person’s career interests within a given area of the country, and then they redo the person’s résumé and cover letter and help bulk mail the materials out in unsolicited fashion to all of the prospective employers.

For example, when someone is interested in being a corporate attorney in Las Vegas, Nevada, the service can assist in identifying all of the law firms with corporate groups in Las Vegas. When you go to a traditional job site you might only see a few openings (if any) for corporate attorneys in a city like Las Vegas; however, there may be 100 or more law firms that have corporate practices. Clients of these services have their résumé and cover letters redone and then mailed out to these employers. This is extremely effective because, although most of the time the employers do not have any openings, they are receiving letters from people ostensibly interested in working for them. The letters are addressed to the people in charge of hiring for these organizations; of course, the service researches all this information before sending out the letters. Very few job seekers do mailings to employers like this, which make for a very unique and effective service. In addition, the service allows the job seeker to cover the entire market at one time by mailing the entire universe of prospective employers. I think very highly of this service and believe it is among the most effective ways out there to get a job.

The problem with the service is that is costs money. It costs a couple of hundred dollars to have the résumé and cover letter redone, and then a couple of dollars for each letter that the person sends out. This means that the service can cost anywhere from around $500 to a couple of thousand dollars. Because many people using the service are unemployed, paying for the service is not something high on their priority lists. So, a couple of years ago I decided to offer people financing, if they wanted, in order to find a job. In addition, I offered people free financing while they were in school to use the service with zero interest until they got out of school. I felt like this was a good thing to do because it would make the service affordable to a lot of people who otherwise would not use the service. As I quickly found out, though, extending credit is a completely separate business from helping people find jobs. While most people gladly paid for the service, the amount of people that did not pay quickly built up in number. Pretty soon we were owed $1,200,000+ from people who never made a payment! The worst part about the whole thing is that this business, even charging people the full amount, never made a lot of money either.

$1,200,000 is quite a lot of money and because my focus is on getting people jobs, it had never occurred to me that enlisting the help of a guy like Brian Cash might be a good idea. However, the more I thought about it the more I realized that using a collector like him to push people to make payments, or pay off their balances could be a great idea. Within a few days I was on the phone with Cash and we were negotiating having his Minnesota company going to work collecting debt on our behalf. For the past six months or so we have been using Cash to collect money owed to us from various job seekers around the United States. The process has been working fine overall, but recently things started to go terribly wrong.

A few weeks ago Cash stopped returning our phone calls.

On Friday of last week his website disappeared.

On Friday of last week his number was disconnected.

In trying to figure out what happened we discovered this:

	International Collection Services license suspended
	Printable Content For Immediate Release: June 11, 2009 Minnesota Department of Commerce Summarily Suspends License Of International Collection Services–Bloomington collection agency charged with misappropriating client funds (St. Paul, MN) -The Minnesota Department of Commerce suspended the collection agency license of International Collection Services (ICS) of Bloomington, MN, charging the company with using customer funds to conduct the agency’s business instead of remitting the money to their clients within thirty days of collection as required by Minnesota law. Bloomington Police Department officers and Department of Commerce investigators executed a search warrant on Tuesday, June 9 and recovered financial records and computers from the company and its owner, Tim Peters. The search warrant was necessary because Peters refused to grant access to the company’s records, another violation of Minnesota law. The department received complaints from two out-of-state clients of ICS alleging they had not received money owed to them after ICS had collected on accounts due. Based on the complaints, investigators conducted an audit of the company’s trust accounts and allege that ICS has misappropriated over $125,000 from clients within the past three years. The company allegedly used that money to pay for operating expenses and to pay off Tim Peter’s personal credit card bills. “Consumers have an expectation that when a collection agency collects your money to pay a bill, they actually pay the creditor on your behalf, not spend the money on their own bills,” said Minnesota Commerce Commissioner Glenn Wilson. “When a breech of trust like this occurs, we suspend the license and shut down the agency.” The Department’s order for summary suspension of International Collection Services’ license will be considered at a hearing in front of Administrative Law Judge Eric L. Lipman on June 29, 2009 at 9:30 am in St. Paul

And then we also found this:

State shuts down Bloomington collection agency

by Elizabeth Baier, Minnesota Public Radio

June 11, 2009

St. Paul, Minn. — The Minnesota Department of Commerce has suspended the collection agency license of Bloomington-based International Collection Services, accusing the company of misappropriating more than $125,000 from clients in the last three years.

According to the department’s allegation, ICS used customer funds to conduct business instead of remitting the money to its clients within 30 days of collection, as required by Minnesota law.

Officials with the Bloomington Police Department and Department of Commerce executed a search warrant on June 9, and recovered financial records and computers from the company and its owner, Tim Peters.

The search warrant was necessary because Peters refused to grant access to the company’s records, another violation of Minnesota law, according to officials with the Department of Commerce.

Multiple phone calls by Minnesota Public Radio to the International Collection Services went unanswered Thursday.

On its Web site, the company says it works on a contingency basis and only gets paid if it collects on a client’s debt.

“We are so confident in our ability to collect that we will attempt to collect your debt for FREE,” according to a message on the Web site’s homepage. “If we can’t collect, then you owe us nothing!”

We of course realized a short time later that “Cash” is actually Tim Peters. The entire matter is now being investigated by the authorities. Our estimates for how much money we lost range from a few hundred thousand dollars to perhaps more.

Around four or five months ago something unusual happened. We had originally paid my dentist over the phone with an “echeck” to settle our disputed debt with him. We paid him the day that we had reached our settlement over the phone. However, six months later he attempted to submit a charge with an echeck for the same amount again. We caught this, called the dentist office and they claimed that the entire thing was an error.

But the more I think about this, how could have it been an error? In addition, it seemed to me very unusual that the dentist referred me for collection–for a procedure I did not even approve. What I should have noticed and what I should have understood from all of this was that the dentist was a dishonest guy. In my experience,

(1) dishonest people generally do business with other dishonest people, and

(2) if someone takes advantage of you once, they are likely to take advantage of you again.

My first reaction when I started speaking to Bryan Cash was that he was a very good collector. He called and harassed and harangued me like crazy. He was working for a guy, however, who was trying to collect from me for a questionable transaction in the first place.

Generally, people who commit unsavory acts, associate with other people who commit unsavory acts. There is a reason for this: It generally comes down to the fact that most people doing business with one another are smart enough and decent enough to ask questions to understand if a transaction is honest or dishonest. Here, for example, Cash was attempting to collect on a debt which was not valid. He should have easily known the debt was not valid because there was no contract associated with it. Any honest debt collector would likely ask questions about the legitimacy of a debt in this situation. Cash simply went forward trying to collect the debt. This should have been a clue to me right away that he might not have been an honest guy.

Dishonest and nefarious people typically pal around and do business with other dishonest and nefarious people. This is just the way it is. It has probably always been this way and probably always will be.

Another thing that I should have picked up on was the dishonesty of my own dentist. Once I’d paid him with a check over the phone, I should have realized that he might try something dishonest again. This is exactly what happened when he tried to bill me a second time.

For the most part (although it is not always the case), certain people have a certain nature that they simply will not change. Throughout my life I have preferred to give myself the benefit of the doubt and to believe that most people are honest and decent. I also like to believe that if someone does something dishonest once, that he or she deserves a second chance because he/she might have made a mistake the first time. However, I continue to learn that this often is not the case. Most dishonest people will be dishonest again and if you encounter someone through one bad person, the odds are that the person you encounter will also be a bad person.

If someone lies or takes advantage of you one time the chances are high that they will do it again. You also need to understand that you are likely to meet bad people through other bad people. There are just certain rules that you should follow in terms of anybody you meet–including employers.

In this month’s New Yorker there is a good article about Angelo Mozillo, the disgraced former Chief Executive Officer of Countrywide Mortgage. I read this article with considerable interest yesterday, wondering how I would have felt working for a company if I knew that Mozillo was lying to the public, to bankers, and to others about the quality of the mortgages he was selling. I think I would have been very afraid of the situation and would have gotten out of there. This is what some people did before the company exploded. They got out because they were uncomfortable.

Good people will generally leave bad situations. Good people simply do not want to be associated with people or organizations that are involved in nefarious dealings. Being associated in any way with questionable or unethical behaviors will taint you, and most people want to stay clear away from people of questionable or unethical repute.

For example, if you put on your résumé that you used to work for a company that makes pornography, your odds of future employment are probably going to be tainted. I know this because I have interviewed several people before in our Los Angeles offices who have worked for pornography companies in one capacity or another (accountants, sales people, receptionists and so forth) and they always try and cover up or downplay this fact on their résumé; however it generally ends up coming out when I interview the people. I am not comfortable with this track record of employment. Many employers will not be, as it calls one’s character into question.

It is not ok to go into interviews and talk about the things you have done wrong. It is also generally not a good idea to work for companies where something nefarious is at play. You should not trust someone who has acted unethically or dishonestly once, because the odds are they will do so again. Your job search and future prospects will be determined by the company you keep.

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