The Importance of Sacrifice to Our Careers

I am usually up well before 7:00 a.m. However, due to some issues I have been dealing with, today I decided to sleep a little longer than usual. According to a doctor I recently met at a conference, when you are stressed out the best thing you can do for yourself is to sleep more. He said that cancer, heart problems and other things are often caused by a lack of sleep. I am usually up and about well before 7:00 a.m. and had I been up earlier today, I am confident I would [Read more]

Consistency and Commitment Beat Brilliance and Talent

When I was growing up in Detroit, I went to school with kids whose parents were the Chief Executive Officers of major auto companies and were in other high level roles. Sometimes I would turn on the television and see the same men I’d eaten dinner with at a friend’s house on the nightly news giving a press conference in Washington, or speaking about an issue of national importance. Another one of my friend’s fathers was the CEO of a major national bank and, by the time I was 13 or 14, I was smart enough to realize I could learn a lot from these men. I figured they must all be enormously gifted intellectually and have other skills which I could learn. In my spare time I read books such as Iacocca, about Lee Iacocca, and when the Publisher’s Clearing House mail came to my mother’s house I ordered Forbes, Business Week and a ton of other business magazines so I could impress these nationally important men and talk to them about their careers and [Read more]

Anything That is Not Managed Will Deteriorate

Managing your life is like managing a business. When you look at a typical business there are an incredible number of procedures in place to keep the business running. Take a McDonald’s, for example: Each day the restaurant will open at a certain time and people will arrive before opening to make sure the coffee is made, the ovens and grills are heated, the lights are turned on and other procedures are followed. The restaurant will have been cleaned top to bottom the night before. Outside, the parking lot will have been maintained a certain way. The [Read more]

My Lesson From the Missionaries

Several years ago I was working at a law firm and virtually from the moment I arrived a woman I’ll call “Linda” used to come into my office for a few hours a day to talk. Her topic? How bad things were at the law firm. She would share one rumor after the other about how many bad things were going on at the law firm. I was treated to information about allegedly corrupt activities, affairs, who did not like who, incredible insights into who was about to be fired, what different people had said to her, [Read more]

Protect Your Reputation At All Costs

“A risk to reputation is a threat to the survival of the enterprise.”

-Peter J. Firestein

I read an article once about Blackstone executive David Blitzer, whose father-in-law he once charged with trying to shake him down for $7.5 million. The man was ultimately arrested after Blitzer, 38, made a $500,000 payment as part of a deal to get the harassment to stop. Blitzer’s father-in-law had originally requested that Blitzer loan him money, which Blitzer did. However, when Blitzer refused to relinquish more money than originally requested, things turned ugly. According to the article:

“In June, Ross demanded more money and began harassing Blitzer with phone calls and emails, according to the district attorney’s office. Ross allegedly said if Blitzer did not give him at least an additional $50,000, Ross would contact Blackstone executives and law enforcement with accusations he said would ruin Blitzer’s career.

In one voicemail message, Ross threatened to “commit open warfare” against Blitzer if he didn’t send money, the district attorney’s office says.”

When I read that article, [Read more]