The Inner Voices, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Your Life

When you consider all that you are capable of achieving, nothing is more exciting than imagining who and what you can and will become in your life. To do this, you must first learn to ignore that voice inside your head that may tell you otherwise.

You have the ability to become happier.

You have the ability to become more successful.

You have the ability to become healthier.

You have the ability to become a better friend.

You have the ability to become a better wife or husband.

You have the ability to learn new things.

You have the ability to get a better job.

You have the ability to get a raise.

You have the ability to live where you want.

You have the ability to work how you want.

You have the ability to do what you want for a living.

You have the ability to pursue the hobbies you want.

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

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Do and Give More Than Is Expected of You

When I was 18 years old I spent three months working as a garbage man in Detroit.  It was one of the more interesting experiences of my life. I had taken the job out of necessity because I had the good fortune of being cut off from any spending money by my parents. Facing my first year of college in a few months, I wanted to make sure that I had money for my books and other expenses. When I started the work I threw myself into it with a great deal of enthusiasm. I had not [Read more]

Relationships, Inefficiency, and Your Career

One of the greatest obstacles for efficient businesses is the influence of relationships. In fact, relationships are sometimes so strong that they can ultimately end up crippling a business.

Conversely, some of the greatest powers you personally have in your own career and in business are relationships. Relationships are a powerful force that you can use to your advantage in your career. Inefficient and top-heavy organizations are everywhere, and they become this way mostly due to the power of relationships between the people working there. People often get hired and stay employed–due almost entirely to their ability to connect with their employer–and develop strong relationships at the workplace. I would go so far as to say that probably 20% to 30% of the people inside of most organizations are not actually needed at all. These people are kept employed and are allowed to collect salaries, benefits, and so forth because of the power of the relationships they have developed inside the organization. [Read more]

Self-Help Means Helping Others

There is a simple concept that separates those who experience great success from those who do not. I am going to tell you all about this concept in a second, but first I want to talk a little bit about self-help. I have read countless books that discuss various methods of improving one’s life and career. I have always found it interesting that these books are almost always classified as self-help. The first self-help book ever written is generally considered to be Samuel Smiles’ Self Help, originally published in 1859. The book begins with the sentence “Heaven helps those who help themselves.” The principle that self-help seems to be founded on and seems to revolve around, is that people need to take charge of themselves in order to improve their lives. Most books that fall within this classification generally offer the same prescription for improving any area of life:

• Discover what you want!
• Have a positive attitude!
• Create big goals!
• Have discipline!

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Over Deliver Because It’s Not About You

Several years ago, I was in the midst of opening up various legal recruiting offices around the United States.  In my sheer enthusiasm for the business, I would bring new recruiters from around the country to Los Angeles and have them live with me for several months while training them in my method of recruiting.  The new recruiters would sit in my office and I would observe them recruiting and critique their performance.  I would have dinner with them each night and discuss recruiting as well. While I am not good at a lot of things, I [Read more]

Why You Should Never Miss a Company Holiday Party or Invitation to Your Boss’s Home

A few years ago, I spoke with a man (now retired) who had worked in a large corporation for forty years and in his last twenty years, he basically did nothing. He was paid very well and was more or less forgotten—doing very little of anything. He would show up at the office at 9:00 a.m. each day, try to look busy—do a task now and then—and then get in his car at 5:30 p.m. each evening and drive home. When he finally retired from the company, he felt as if he had achieved a great victory. For the past [Read more]

Education Jobs and Teacher Jobs

The field of education—including elementary schools, high schools, colleges, and universities—is a very exciting place to look for a job because of the tremendous number of jobs available. I’m excited to show you how to approach this sector. I think it will open up some doors in terms of how you think about looking for a job. Jobs in education tend to be scattered across an incredible number of sources. Many of these sources are university and school system websites. Because of this, it’s much easier to track down and apply for jobs at these institutions. You also have a better chance of actually getting these positions compared to those that are more widely advertised. In order to explore this thoroughly, let’s start broad with the federal government and work our way down to state governments, universities, and finally, local school systems. Education jobs encompass not just teaching positions, but also those inside educational institutions. I’ll cover each below. Education Jobs with the Federal and State Government [Read more]

The Most Important Person You Communicate With is Yourself

“The mind can make a heaven out of hell or a hell out of heaven”

-John Milton

Several years ago, I was home after graduating from college and I met a guy who was friends with my girlfriend’s brother. He had graduated from Yale University a year or two before and was driving a truck all around Detroit delivering meat to restaurants. He typically drove this meat truck from 4:00am until noon each day. He got paid in cash at the end of each day by his boss. He had been the first person from the public school he had attended to go to Yale in [Read more]

The Magic Asphalt Sealer Tank

When I was in college, my girlfriend had the annoying habit of periodically declaring that the dorms were too noisy for her to sleep. What this really meant to me was that she had decided it was time for me to drive her to an industrial part of town so we could spend the night at a Holiday Inn Express, or a similar hotel. Once we got to the hotel, we would watch HBO on television and go out to eat at Denny’s. Since she never really studied much–or at all, the event would invariably result in an argument of [Read more]

The Job Search Market in a Bad Economy

I recently had a discussion with a manager of Legal Authority, my favorite job search company for attorneys, about exactly what happens in the market when there is a recession.  Specifically we discussed what occurs in the job market for attorneys—who gets hired and who does not get hired.  Since I have been witnessing this process take place for years, I thought learning the dynamics of it would be interesting. On its most basic level, what happens during an economic recession is that the growth of jobs in the legal community involving transactional work slows down for the most part, while the growth of jobs involving litigation speeds up.  Litigation tends to increase when the economy gets bad, because people are more aware of losses in their business dealings caused by the wrongdoing of other parties, and they sue. Growth in corporate, securities, and real estate-related jobs all typically slows down dramatically during a recession.  This may also be the case for patent law, although there is typically a greater lag time.  Patent work already in the system [Read more]

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