• If we failed as something in the past, we will fail again.
• If we did not get a job in a certain industry in the past, we will fail again.
• If someone hurt us in the past, they will hurt us again.
• If we are hurt in the past when we tried something, we will be hurt when we try it again.
• If we made a mistake doing something in the past, we will make the same mistake again.
• If we continue doing something the same way we are doing it, we will continue to succeed.
• If we stop doing something the way we are doing it, we will fail.

The list of conclusions we draw about our surroundings and lives are generally based on inductive reasoning. Problems arise when we reach conclusions using inductive reasoning that are simply not true. For example, just because you failed at something in the past does not mean you will fail again. Similarly, if you were hurt when you tried something in the past, it does not mean you will be hurt if you try it again. The Scottish philosopher David Hume was the first person to raise the problem of induction. He conceived that there was no reason to believe that using inductive reasoning will lead us to the truth. In fact, inductive reasoning and the conclusions we reach about the world and our lives are a problem many people spend a lifetime either enslaved by or attempting to overcome.

• In every city in the United States there are office parks and buildings full of psychiatrists, psychologists, and others.
• There are also countless life coaches and other self-help people out there.
• There are religions which are based on ”self-help” and people correcting their beliefs about themselves.
• Bookstores are jam-packed with books to help people overcome their doubts and fears.

What the entire psychology and self-help industry is largely doing is helping people correct their mistakes in inductive reasoning. Most people are simply using faulty logic and ideas to evaluate their life. A couple of years ago I was working with a woman whom I had gotten a job at one of the top 2 or 3 law firms in Los Angeles. Most of the attorneys in the law firm (virtually all of them) went to the top 10 law schools. This woman had gone to a school that was probably ranked around 50 at the time (or thereabouts). When she got to the law firm she did not do well and did not fit in. She also did not keep up with the pace of work. She was intellectually capable of doing the work but just did not work hard enough. Within around 18 months or so the woman had lost her job. I spoke with the law firm about it at the time and they told me that she had lost her job because she was not working hard enough. Her hours were somewhat unpredictable and she was also not completing assignments in a timely manner. She could not be counted upon to get things done. She contacted our recruiting firm and started working with another recruiter in the firm to find a job. She did not contact me. When I saw her name in the system, I pulled up her resume to review it. To my astonishment, she had changed the law school she attended from the ”top 50” law school to one of the top 5 or 6 law schools in the United States. I immediately called her and confronted her with this fact. What she told me was amazing to me: She said that she felt she had lost her job because of the law school she had attended. She felt that unless she had another law school on her resume she would never find a good job again. She stated that she felt like a ”second class citizen” at the law firm due to her law school and was fired because of her law school. She had reached the following sort of conclusion: I lost my job because I did not go to a top law school. I will lose my next legal job unless I have a new law school on my resume. I am sure you realize that this logic is nonsensical. Nevertheless, the woman firmly believed this. We, of course, refused to work with her and notified all of the law firms we sent her to about what she had done with the law school on her resume. A few years later I looked her up and could not find her practicing law anywhere in the United States. I am sure a lot of this had to do with the conclusions she reached about her ”employability” due to the law school she attended. Most of us are using some sort of inductive reasoning in how we reach conclusions about our lives and careers. We reach conclusions based on past events that simply are not true. These conclusions are often absolutely crazy and make no sense. In fact, every single person out there is operating under a condition where they are seeing the past and not the present. Because we are seeing the past in most situations, most of us cannot even see what is in front of us in the present (which is the only time there). Because you are not seeing the present, you are, in fact, not really understanding much at all. If you are seeing just the past then you are seeing an illusion. You are actually blocking yourself from seeing the true nature of what is here and in front of you. You are actually seeing nothing as it really is. You are generally only seeing your past experiences in the things that are in front of you. Think about your beliefs, about your potential, and life, and how much they are based on just the past. How many conclusions have your reached about the way something is based on what happened previously? How many false conclusions have you reached about your own life and career due to this sort of information? You are, in fact, limited by faulty beliefs about your past and potential. When I was around 12 years old, I was climbing a temple in Mexico with my father and I had an experience I will never forget. We had gone to a recently discovered ”ruin” and were the only people hiking the temple. There was a chasm that was about 8 feet across that could be jumped to cross between two points of the temple. The only problem with this was that there was a fall of at least 100 feet down if I missed my jump. I would certainly die if I missed the jump. ”Go ahead and jump it if you want,” my father told me. I looked at this jump and was not completely sure I would make it. I was not willing to take that risk with my life. ”Why would you tell me to try that?” I asked my father. I was a little confused. ”Because you need to believe anything is possible,” he told me. ”I knew you would never jump but you should not be setting limits in your mind about what you can do.” Induction is not the same as deductive reasoning. In the classic example of deductive reasoning we would state: (1) Socrates is a man, (2) and all men are mortal, (3) therefore Socrates is mortal. Here, the facts make the conclusion accurate and true. However, when using induction, the facts about the past do not necessarily settle how the future is going to be. Just because we lost our job in the past due to something does not mean we will again. In inductive reasoning, we can argue that evidence might not completely support the conclusion but it makes it likely. However, we do not necessarily have any justification for assuming that the future will, more likely than not, be like the past. In your career and life, it is important that you realize that the past does not equal the future. Realizing when you are using induction incorrectly to reach conclusions about your potential and life can dramatically increase your success when you realize you are not limited about the past. The odds are that your negative conclusions about yourself are simply not true.

Related posts:

1. A Message to Garcia and Your Career
2. The Graduate, Andrew Carnegie, and Finding Positive Economic Currents
3. Moses, Great Religious Figures, the Wilderness, and Your Career

Emotional abuse is the systematic diminishment of another.  It may be intentional or subconscious–or both, but it is always a course of conduct, not a single event.  It is designed to reduce a child’s self-concept to the point where the victim considers himself unworthy–unworthy of respect, friendship, and the natural right of all: love and protection. Inevitably, victims are made to feel guilty–made to believe the abuse they suffer is their own fault. No one ever has the right to abuse you, whether you are a child or an adult. Everyone deserves someone to be crazy about them–to nurture them. –Unknown

What stuck out for me so much about this quote was that I had been told how awful I was for years.  In the relationship I was in I was told I would never be a good businessperson, never worthy of respect in the world, never be a good father and never be a good husband.  These kinds of messages have the tendency to be self-reinforcing because the more we hear negative information about ourselves, the more we tend to believe it.  I can remember that when I was in this relationship all I wanted to do was escape emotionally and physically.  Were I still in this relationship, you might find me as one of those lonely men who sit on a bar stool night after night somewhere.  I’ll bet many of the men who crowd bar stools all over are emotionally abused.  Somewhere in the backgrounds of many unhappy and unsuccessful people is some kind of emotional abuse–and it is probably ongoing in their lives. The reason I am sharing such deeply personal information with you is because in some respects you yourself might be emotionally abused, and I want to offer you insight and support.  You might be, or you might have been, emotionally abused in a relationship, by a parent or relative, or by an employer.  Someone around you, or some group around you, might be telling you that you are negative and incapable.  For whatever reason, you may be led to believe that you are incompetent and unworthy.  When I think about emotional abuse, I also think about our jobs and what many people experience in certain jobs.  Many people simply are not appreciated in their jobs.  They are told that they are doing a bad job, they are threatened constantly with termination, they are made fun of and they are systematically passed up for promotions.  As a result, they feel a constant sense of inferiority in their jobs. There is so much happiness and success available for the taking in the world that, whenever I see people extraordinarily unhappy with their lives and unappreciated, I want nothing more than to intervene with knowledge and guidance.  In my life, once I got out of that abusive relationship, everything miraculously changed.  I started excelling in my job.  I became happier.  My relationships with everyone around me suddenly became fulfilling.  I met a wonderful woman who became my wife, and today I am living the life of my dreams.  This all came from spending the majority of my time with someone who believed in me and supported me, instead of someone who was fighting against my dreams and me. Sometimes the best thing you can do is quit a job for your emotional and psychological health.  People who are abused and not valued by their employers should seek other jobs.  Criticism can achieve a useful purpose and can motivate you to improve.  However, there are also circumstances under which individual employees of various businesses are so severely and commonly abused that it rises to an extremely unhealthy level.  In these cases the criticism actually serves to diminish the employees and it makes them feel as if they are not worthy of their job. When you read stories in the papers about employees going on rampages, the story is usually about an employee who was systematically abused and was made to feel inferior by the employer.  One of the reasons we often hear about this in places like post offices is because the employees there feel trapped, and they feel as if they have skills that would simply not be valued elsewhere.  Given the good size pensions postal employees receive and the fact that the pay is not that bad, postal employees often feel trapped in their jobs.  If you had delivered letters for the past 15 years, what else would you feel qualified to do?  If you are ever in a situation in which you feel trapped or abused, the best thing you can do is look for another job.  No one should remain in a job or position wherein they are demoralized and made to continually feel inferior. Whoever you are and whatever you do, you have skills and personality traits that are in demand somewhere.  You need to do everything within your power to take advantage of these skills and traits, and to put yourself in situation wherein you will be appreciated.  You have skills and abilities which merit profound appreciation.  You just need to be working for an employer that realizes this.  The more positive news and affirmations that you receive, the better you will typically become at your job. About a year ago I was at a conference and spent some time with a man who had apparently lost over 50 pounds during the previous year, had quit drinking on a daily basis, had stopped taking stimulants on a daily basis and gone from emotionally withdrawn to incredibly happy and motivated.  Since I did not know the person as he was before I met him, I was very curious: “How on earth did you do this?” I asked him. “I decided whom to spend my time with and whom not to spend my time with,” he told me. When I thought about this statement I realized that it was no different than the experience I had years earlier.  People’s negative opinions of the world and about us can have a profoundly negative influence on our lives.  This is especially so when we are not appreciated and loved. Several years ago I was working inside of a law firm and there was another attorney who had been there for at least 10 years.   I could not figure out why the law firm had kept him around so long–or why he had stayed.  All anyone did was talk about how stupid this guy was, and constantly make fun of him.  The associates who had just gotten out of law school even talked about how stupid he was and made fun of him.  The partners did the same thing.  Despite the fact that the law firm was going through what seemed to be a full time downsizing of laying people off and firing them, this guy was never let go.  Incredibly, despite mergers and other events at this law firm, and countless firings, he is still there today.  I figure that the law firm must just enjoy keeping him around to harass.  In actuality this attorney is not that bad at his job.  He is, however, someone who has tolerated incredible abuse throughout his career. What makes this so incredible is that this particular guy was earning (10 years ago) probably more than $250,000 a year.  He has since been promoted and, despite all the abuse he has suffered, he has continued to do very well in his job.  I never understood why this guy tolerated so much abuse.  From what I have seen, there are people like this in most law firms and companies.  I remember another law firm I worked in that had hired a similar kind of person.  There are people inside every organization who are systematically made fun of and abused, while others around them enjoy poking fun at them.  These people become like the court jester, and it is as if the organizations pile on them all of their issues and insecurities. In addition to people who are so directly put down and made fun of inside organizations, there are also people who experience a more subtle form of abuse.  They are systematically degraded and put down and their dreams crushed over and over again by their employers.  In the years I have spent studying human performance and what it takes to succeed in a job, one fact that occurs to me is that there are situations in which getting out of this pattern of abuse can be extremely difficult.  For example, if you are working in one of many American small towns it is often very hard to find a job as good as the post office and with as many benefits.  Despite having to endure various types of abuse (often by customers), many people stay employed in the post office year after year. Last night I was watching a special about General Motors and the problems this company has been experiencing for decades.  As part of the special, they were showing the numerous suppliers and others scattered throughout the United States who were dependent upon GM for business.  What made this so interesting was that the suppliers were often in small towns with no other employers, and in some cases a supplier might only employ a few people.  I thought about this and what it would mean for someone who works for one of these suppliers.  Some of the people that were featured on the show had worked for certain suppliers for 20 or more years.  They had lived in small communities that had existed for a long time, thriving on the income solely generated by the suppliers.  In addition, many of the people working in these factories only knew how to do one thing.  For example, they might operate a certain machine that makes bolts. Imagine doing something like this for 20 or more years. Imagine still if you did not like your job and did not have any other skills. Imagine if the people at work were not nice to you and you felt abused.  Being trapped in such a position would be absolutely horrible. You might be in a situation right now, wherein you feel as if you are being abused and not treated the way you should be treated.  You might not feel appreciated in your current job.  If you are being diminished and your work not taken seriously, you should probably look for a different situation.  It does not do you any good to be in a work situation in which you are not appreciated and cherished for who you are.  Two of the most important things you have in your life are your self-worth and your sanity.  You need to realize that you are an important person worthy of immense and genuine respect.

Related posts:

1. Are You More Motivated by the Opinions of Others–or Your Own?
2. Find an Employer With Similar Values
3. Learn Something From the Upper and Lower Class: Do Not Be Paralyzed by Others’ Opinions

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1. First Class Airline Lounges and What Your Employer or Potential Employer Wants
2. In Defense of Long-Term Employment With a Single Employer
3. You Need to Be Relevant to Your Employer

1. Is how you feel determined by the economy?
2. Is how you feel determined by how others treat you?
3. Is how you feel determined by how you think others perceive you?
4. Is how you feel determined by the things you own?

The truth is how you feel is determined by how you direct your mind. The ability to direct your mind and control your emotional and psychological states is about the most important tool you can possibly have. Very few people have the ability to control their minds and their states. You need to be able to control how you feel about yourself and your emotions. I read the papers every day and most of the human interest stories I read are about people who are not able to control their minds and their states. Lately I have been reading a lot of stories about people who have been committing suicide due to dire economic circumstances. These people are not controlling their states. We also continually hear stories about stars and others who die due to drug overdoses. These people are using drugs to try and control how they feel, and it ends up killing them. When I think about people like Chris Farley and Marilyn Monroe, I am thinking about people who, despite an incredible amount of success, could not control how they felt. One of the best writers of all time, Ernest Hemingway, ended up killing himself. He, too, could not control how he felt. Despite a wonderful world around him he did not care. You really need to control the meaning you give things and the meaning you allow things to have. The meaning you give things will control the quality of your life. When my girlfriend found out I did not make the basketball team she did not appear to care at all. She was really nonchalant about the whole thing and told me she was sorry about this. Unfortunately, the meaning I gave this was quite severe. I immediately assumed she would no longer like me at all. The next day I told her that I needed to go to school at a different time and did not ride my bike with her to school. At lunch I felt really out of place with my new friends who had all made the basketball team. That was all they talked about at lunch. In class, several of my teachers started talking about the first game. Despite some decent friendships, I started to feel like I did not belong with this athletic crowd because I hadn’t made the team. I felt like I’d failed horribly. I started blowing off my girlfriend more and more. I started sitting at other tables at lunch and associating with different sorts of kids. My girlfriend broke up with me. I did not really like her all that much so I was not too upset. I knew it was coming. I had allowed myself to get really depressed when I did not make the basketball team. The real low came about a week after the breakup when she called me one day after school and told me she’d bought me a Christmas gift when we were dating and still wanted me to have it. She showed up at my house with half the cheerleading squad who all watched me open the board game Yahtzee. “Wow Yahtzee!! I have always wanted this.” What a pathetic sight it must have been seeing me open that board game. I could not hug her. I could just stare at this board game with 6 gorgeous cheerleaders standing in my messy bedroom with my ex-girlfriend looking on smiling. In retrospect, I now realize that not much would have changed with my friends, my relationship, and more if I had not told myself my failure to make the team represented something it did not. Like people who kill themselves because they cannot control their emotions, I, too, could not control my emotions and what I was telling myself. The thought that crossed my mind was the head of the cheerleading squad would only want to be with someone who was also the captain of the basketball team. On yet another level, I thought the basketball players would only want to be friends with someone who was also a basketball player. The more I thought about all this the less worthy I felt and the more I felt like I needed to fit in somewhere else completely. Within a short time of not making the basketball team I had made new friends who were not athletes and who were more dedicated to getting into trouble than anything. My grades plummeted and were so bad the next year my parents enrolled me in a different school. Most of this happened because of what I told myself not making the basketball team meant. I remember one public high school I attended had a small enclosed courtyard where students were allowed to smoke between classes. These kids wore jean jackets or leather jackets and grew their hair long. These were the bad kids. They also would get stoned out there, and the school must have known about it. These were all kids who at some point probably had dreams, too, but gave up somewhere along the way and looked for a way out of their presumed failure. They started smoking and using drugs and living a life of which they could never be proud. Who knows what sent them over this edge. It could have been a bad grade in an important class, it could have been the divorce of their parents, it could have been a nasty breakup. What I do know is that in the year I attended that school I witnessed kids who were normal and clean-cut go over to the other side and join this group in the courtyard. People look for things outside themselves to help people control their states and how they feel. Many people feel like they cannot control their emotions and so they start looking for stuff outside of themselves to help them feel good. You pay a hefty price when you are not able to manage your states and how you feel about yourself. There are huge rewards when you know how to manage your states. The rewards for managing your states are happiness and the ability to control your destiny and what happens to you and your life. These rewards are something that can pay huge dividends. The problem most of us have is we tell ourselves something means something it does not.

• You may have lost a job and represented to yourself that the reason you lost the job was because you are a bad person. You may have lost the job because the company had no money to pay you.
• A relationship may end and you may represent to yourself it is your fault when, in reality, the person who broke up with you is working through some psychological roadmap that existed long before you came along.
• You cannot find a job and you represent to yourself it’s because you are not good enough instead of the fact the economy in the area of the country you are in is horrible.
• High school kids become “stoners” because they represent to themselves they are losers instead of just normal kids suffering through problems.
• I sabotaged my friendships because I represented to myself that not making the basketball team meant I would be rejected by my girlfriend and friends.

Even if something does mean the worst, it does us little good to hold on to this representation. Instead, we should represent the events in our lives to ourselves in a way that empowers us. How could I have reacted differently to not making the basketball team? I could have decided I was cool enough I did not have to play basketball every day to date the captain of the cheerleader squad. I could have told myself despite not being a good basketball player, I could continue to be good friends with the most popular kids in school. All of these interpretations would have empowered me. Instead, I represented the opposite. The meaning you give things is crucial for your career success. Whatever happens to you in your career you need to choose meanings that make you stronger and not weaker. Bad things happen to everyone and the messages we receive from the world are often not positive. The most important thing you can do is choose meanings that are going to allow you to succeed and do even better. This is what you need to be doing with your career and job right now. You need to ensure you interpret things in a way that serves you and does not hurt you. Don’t fail to reach your full potential or mistakenly classify yourself as someone who is not fit to succeed at the level at which you’re capable. This is not what you want for yourself. You need to take charge of your mind to have the career and life you are entitled to and deserve.

Related posts:

1. Trust Your Intuition in Your Career and Life
2. The Power of Perceptions
3. How You Deal With Problems Will Determine Quality of Your Life

In the mid-1990s, then-General Motors Corp. Chairman John G. Smale decided to bring the world’s biggest automaker a dose of the ‘give-the-people-what-they-want’ethic that’d animated Smale’s old company, Procter & Gamble Co. And what the people wanted was sexy, edgy and a bit off-key – in short, a head-turner. General Motors’ culture took over from there. Design would be by committee, the focus groups extensive. And production would have to stick to a tight budget, with all that sex appeal packed onto an existing minivan platform. The result rolled off the assembly line in 2000: the Pontiac Aztek, considered by many to be one of the ugliest cars produced in decades and a flop from Day One. The Aztek represented all that is wrong with GM’s design process, that official said. The concept car actually did something few GM designs do: arrive before a trend — this time, the crossover SUV that combined the attributes of a truck and a passenger car. And GM had high hopes to sell 50,000 to 70,000 Azteks a year, putting Pontiac on the cutting edge. Then came production, the executive said. The penny-pinchers demanded costs be kept low by putting the concept car on an existing minivan platform. That destroyed the original proportions and produced the vehicle’s bizarre, pushed-up back end. But the designers kept telling themselves it was good enough. “By the time it was done, it came out as this horrible, least-common-denominator vehicle where everyone said, ‘How could you put that on the road?’” the official said. Sales never reached the 30,000 level needed to make money on the Aztek, so it abruptly went out of production. The tongue-in-cheek hosts of National Public Radio’s “Car Talk” named it the ugliest car of 2005. “It looks the way Montezuma’s revenge feels,” one listener quipped. http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000321.html

In an oval office interview in January of 2006, President George Bush said he believed General Motors and Ford needed to produce “a product that’s relevant.” The idea of producing a relevant product is one of the most important things any manufacturer can do. Being a relevant product is also something essential for your success, as well. In a bad economic climate, one of the strangest things people do is try and continue being a ‘product’ that is no longer needed. This is nonsensical. You need to be relevant and understand what the skill is you are offering. The worst thing you can do is not be relevant to the market you are serving. It’s easy to be relevant when you understand what you are doing and what purpose you serve. Being relevant is about much more than just getting a job, however. Being relevant also relates to serving your employer with the skills they need. You need to understand your market and what your customers want. One of the biggest failures in my career was due to not understanding my market. When I got out of law school, I worked for a federal judge who had recently been appointed to the bench. My interest in this job was being brilliant and showing how smart I was, what a good writer I was, and how much detail I could put into opinions and more. I did a very good job with the harder intellectual aspects of the work. The judge I worked for admired my intellectual abilities, but his biggest concern was for me to produce work that was completely error free. Because I was so interested in the intellectual aspects of the work, I did not always give him what he wanted in terms of error free work. This was upsetting to him. Because of my concern with the “meat” of what I was doing, and not the details, I ended up leaving this position after one year, when I’d been hired for two. Had I not left, I am pretty confident I would have lost my job. I was not giving my employer what he wanted and, instead, was making up my own rules. The next legal job I held, I was sought out for my intellectual insight into legal issues. You need to know your audience. When you think about your career, how often have you made up your own rules? You need to understand your audience. You need to know you are in the business of selling a product to people, and you need to give them what they want. You are a product, and your job is to give your audience exactly what it wants. This is the way to get, and keep a job.

Related posts:

1. First Class Airline Lounges and What Your Employer or Potential Employer Wants
2. In Defense of Long-Term Employment With a Single Employer
3. Find an Employer With Similar Values

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

The number of things we choose is phenomenal. We choose our lives and what happens to us and shape our own destinies. Most people are more interested in blaming outside events and circumstances for what happens to them in their lives. The truth is what happens to us is almost completely the result of the decisions we make. We are in charge of our own lives and our decisions shape our entire existence. One of the most important times we are forced to choose is when we are in the position of losing a job or deciding between jobs. This is a time when a lot of people find themselves stressed out and are forced to figure out what they need to do with themselves. People react to stress in different ways. Some people start to drink a lot or use drugs. Others start exercising a lot. Others avoid people who may ask them about what they are doing. Your decision about how to deal with stress and your job search is something that can and will permanently shape your destiny and what happens to you in your life. How are you going to deal with losing a job? When some people lose a job, they decide to sue their employer. While many law suits against employers are legitimate, most I have seen are not. I make this judgment from having been an attorney who represented both employees and employers. People sue their employers because they decide someone other than them is responsible for their job and their livelihood. People make this decision to go after their employer and often spend years not working and involved in a bitter lawsuit. In the interim, they do not even look for a job. In some cases, they do not want to find a job because if they find one they will receive fewer damages from their lawsuit. Other people who lose a job take a different approach. Instead of being angry with their employer, they may be angry with themselves. They may withdraw and stop trying. They allow this experience to have such a negative effect on them they stop trying their hardest. This is a very common reaction as well. Others who lose jobs may launch a new business, go back to school, or try to get even better jobs than the ones they lost. These are all decisions as well. You need to choose to make empowering decisions in your life and your career. In 1980, Candy Lightner’s 13-year-old daughter, Cari, was killed by a drunk driver as she walked down the street. Instead of feeling sorry for her daughter and herself, Lightner chose to found Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) to crusade against the problem of drunk drivers. “I promised myself on the day of Cari’s death that I would fight to make this needless homicide count for something positive in the years ahead,” Candy Lightner later wrote. Her organization rapidly rose to national prominence and Lightner appeared on major national television shows, addressed numerous groups around the country, testified before the government, and worked to promote new legislation. She chose to take action in a way which empowered the world and made a difference rather than allowing outside events to negatively influence her. A similar story exists for John Walsh. Walsh is the host of America’s Most Wanted. Walsh was a successful businessman living in Hollywood, Florida, and the partner in an important hotel management company. On July 27, 1981, Walsh’s wife left their son Adam in the toy department of Sears while she went to look for a lamp. Sixteen days later, Adam’s severed head was found in a drainage canal more than 120 miles from the mall, according to an account on the America’s Most Wanted website. Walsh’s search for justice and his determination to never let Adam’s death be in vain led him to fight back like few other Americans ever have. Although he’s never held political office, Walsh has been the driving force behind major pieces of child protection legislation. His hard work led to Walsh being honored five times by four presidents: Ronald Reagan (twice), George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush. One of Walsh’s proudest moments was when he and his wife Revè stood beside President George W. Bush, as the “Adam Walsh Child Protection & Safety Act” was signed into law on the 25th anniversary of Adam’s murder.

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

People have so many reasons for not succeeding. Most of them have to do with people and forces outside of ourselves over which we have no control. It is how people react to the world through the decisions they make that ultimately empowers us and changes our place in the world. This is what you need to do. You need to make decisions that will empower you and your place in the world. The greatest weakness most people have is they never make a commitment to back up their decision. Making a decision is the most powerful thing you can do, but it must be backed up with the power of commitment. You can never do anything or reach great heights if you do not commit to what you are doing. Most people never truly utilize the power of commitment. There is a huge difference between simply being interested in something and committing to it. For example, Lightner and Walsh certainly had every reason to be interested in putting drunk drivers in jail and finding child killers. They committed to something and made a decision they would fight for what they believed in. Their decisions are what made all of the difference. In 1519, Hernan Cortes anchored his 11 ships off the Yucatán Peninsula. At the time, the Aztecs, who had tens of thousands of soldiers, ruled Mexico. In contrast, Cortes had only 608 men, 16 horses, and a few cannons. Cortes was committed to win the battle despite having so few men. He made the decision he was going to go back to Spain a winner. Cortes ordered his men off the ships and to shore. In the middle of the night, people screaming “Fire!” awakened the soldiers. They rose from their sleep and saw all 11 ships burning out in the water. The men rushed to the row boats to go fight the fire. But Cortés stopped them. He told the soldiers he had ordered all of the ships burned. They had no way to retreat – that was the message Cortés sent to his soldiers. They had to win. There was no choice. Under Cortes, just 608 men, 16 horses, and a few cannons conquered the Aztecs. The power of decision, backed up by commitment, made this incredible feat possible. Cortes made sure his troops were as committed as they could possibly be and that they had no means of retreat. Most of us decide to do something but deep down we keep the possibility of retreat as an option. What I get out of the story of Cortés, and what makes it so remarkable to me, is it shows how many of us never really truly commit to anything and any decision we are making. The people who achieve the most in this life are the people like Cortés, Lightner, and Walsh who make decisions and then proceed to follow through with them. There is so much power in making decisions and making these decisions with commitment. We may have an interest in doing something or want to make a commitment to something. However, very few of us ever follow through. We must follow through and commit. This is the difference between mediocrity and greatness – commitment to a decision. Many people are tormented by their inability to make a decision and commit. Soap operas are a perfect example of this. Lives are wrecked over and over again by the inability to commit. No one ever knows who they want to be with in soap operas, and relationships are never characterized by commitment. Everyone is always crying, and entire stories are tragic and insane. The only reasons these stories are so nuts is because the characters in them simply can never commit. You need to commit to succeed. You can go back and forth in:

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

When you do not commit to a decision about what you want to do, however, you will never have clarity. Instead, you will be in a state of perpetual confusion. This is how most people live their lives. Making a decision and committing to it gives you clarity. Clarity gives you power. Most people say words like “I’ll see how it works out” or “I’ll give it a try.” This is not what you should be doing. You should say “I am doing this!” and move forward by taking action. This is the only way to be empowered by your decisions. There is a huge danger if you do not make decisions about your life and stand behind them: your life will be made and shaped by someone else. This is what happens to most people. They allow their complete existence to be shaped by someone else. Is this really what you want? You should be the one shaping your life and deciding exactly what happens to you. Do not let others and the world decide what happens to you. The people who become movie stars, presidents, CEOs, and incredible people in different professions do not just suddenly end up in these positions due to a combination of luck and fate. They generally reach these heights of success because they decide this is what they want and make a commitment to it. You need to realize you have the power to be whomever you want when you decide to do this. Decide what you want for your life and take action. The hardest part of life is making a decision and following through with it. The most amazing thing about your career is it controls so much of what happens in your life. It controls where you live, the people with whom you socialize, where your kids go to school, how excited you are to go to work in the morning, the kind of car you drive, how many days a week you work, how much you work when you are working, and more. Your career is such an incredibly important thing. Where you are today in your career is due to the power of decisions you have made in your life over the past 10 years. You have the power to change the next 10 years and make them even better than the last by the decisions you make today. You need to make decisions that will empower you and create the life you are entitled to and deserve. Start making decisions based on what you want, and do not want, and commit to those decisions today.

Related posts:

1. Your Commitment Needs to Defy Explanation
2. Do Not Be Controlled By Your Need to Feel Significant
3. Your Perceptions Will Control Your Outcome and Life

It’s also notable that 13.4 percent of the job seekers ended up relocating to take new positions.  That’s up from a first-quarter figure of 8.9 percent, but still lower than the share who relocated in 2006 and most of 2007.

Moving is stressful and expensive, and some people may simply be unwilling to take that step.  However, fewer people are relocating, no doubt, due to the state of the housing market.  Job seekers eager to move for the right job may find themselves trapped by an inability to sell their homes, and perhaps are even wishing they were renters right now. One of the reasons it’s taking so much longer for many to find employment is that many areas of the United States have been devastated by the economy, and there are fewer jobs available in those areas. The troubled automotive industry has had a serious effect on the Michigan economy, for example. Regardless of the economic status of the area where you live and work, you may be in a position in which you should consider relocating to find a job.  If you are under economic pressure, relocating and getting a job may be a crucial priority for you right now. Relocating isn’t always an easy decision to make. However, relocating for a job is perfectly normal and is something you should not hesitate to do.  This is especially true if you’re living in Detroit or another area of the country where your skills are no longer in demand.  Essentially, the entire history of the United States was essentially built around people who relocated here because they felt there were better opportunities. For most of us, our careers and the time we spend at work take up most of our waking hours.  Considering this, you need to be focused on finding an area of the United States or the world where people are seeking and hiring workers with your given skills. It is extremely important you live in an area where your skills are in demand.  Life is in many ways like a game, and so is your career.  If you were a fisherman, would you rather spend your career working in a small lake with a few fish or a large ocean with many fish?  The more opportunities, and the more competition there is for your skills in your market the better off you will be.  You need to put yourself where the action is to survive. Several years ago I was working at a federal judicial clerkship job in Michigan.  In three months, the clerkship would be over and I needed to find a job.  Although I already had a job lined up with a New York City law firm, I wanted to get a job in California.  I sent a targeted mailing of résumés out to legal employers in California. I meant to send my résumés only to major cities, like Los Angeles and San Diego, but also ended up targeting several small towns by mistake.  I received several calls from law firms in small towns, and they all had similar questions: Why was I applying to a law firm in a small town? Who did I know in the small town? Was I also applying to law firms in larger cities? One of the potential employers from a small town firm called me and asked those questions because he was worried that, if I did not have a connection to the small town, I would simply leave if I did not like the job. Employers want you to have a connection to the area if you are relocating, because they are concerned you will not have incentive to stick around. They get nervous if you are looking at employers in larger cities as well because they feel like you are less interested in them. The questions about why I was relocating did not come up as much in larger cities. Employers in cities like New York are generally of the opinion anyone would want to relocate there because New York is New York.  People in smaller markets are a little less confident.  As a general job search strategy, I would recommend you stress the fact you have a real interest in the company and believe it’s a perfect place for you based on your personal interests, as well as your future career goals. Generally, employers like to hear you have close family in a given geographic area. If you do not, you may have a significant other or friends there, or perhaps you went to college or grew up there.  The point is you want to assure them you have some sort of personal connection to the area. Absent family or friends, you should focus on the company and your sincere interest in them. As an aside, I want to bring up an important piece of career advice about applying for a position outside of where you currently live.  The employer receiving your résumé is going to wonder why you are applying there and not in your own geographic area. You never want to send the message you are unemployable or cannot find a job where you currently live.  Employers want to hire people who are “winners” and are employable in all markets. Therefore, you should never approach an employer by telling him or her that you cannot get a job where you live.  Prospective employers should believe you are relocating because of reasons related to your personal long-term growth objectives–not because you have been defeated in trying to get a job in your existing market. In a down market, many people end up stuck with large mortgages and unsold homes. They feel saddled with this and cannot relocate.  If you are in a market that is getting worse and worse by the day, you may have to relocate before you sell your home. This is not something that you should be talking about with your potential employer, however. An employer does not want to feel guilty you may be leaving an unsold home behind. Sharing this sort of information can also hurt you because the employer will suspect you have to return to your hometown to deal with the situation.  Keep such personal matters to yourself in your job search.  Never give them any possible reason to believe you are not their ideal candidate.

Related posts:

1. You Will Succeed in Your Job and Job Search When You Are Concerned With Giving and Not Taking
2. Winning in Your Job Search and Life Means Going Forward No Matter What Criticism You Think You May Receive
3. The Job Search Market in a Bad Economy

• Some people will write me an email telling me I am the stupidest person they have ever encountered.
• Other people will say something very positive and will tell me how something I have done has benefited them and thank me for this.
• Some people will write me an email telling me they hate a company I am running.
• Some people will write and enclose pictures of their family and tell me I have changed their lives through something one of my companies has done.
• Some people will post a comment on one of our websites saying they love a company I am running.
• Some people will write me psychotic emails that insult me and my family.
• Other people will write emails telling me that the advice I have given them helped their family.

In addition to stuff that appears simply on my desk, out in the world the same thing is occurring. There are people who are going onto forums and talking about how much they love me and my companies and those who are going onto forums and doing the opposite. You absolutely cannot please everyone. Most of us are hungry for praise but detest and fear criticism. If you attempt to go out in the world and do anything that is productive; however, then you are going to be hated and you are going to be criticized. In many respects, I feel that the biggest achievers in our world are the people who are not afraid to act and are not afraid of criticism. Acting and going forward in the face of “criticism” and despite the “fear of criticism” is something that really separates the winners and the losers of the world. You need to act and do things you know are right for you, your family and the world regardless of whether or not you believe that you may be criticized. If you are never being criticized you are never being noticed, and the price for not being noticed is most often much greater than the price for being noticed. One of the most interesting things in the world is reading about politicians in the newspaper each day. Since I have been reading the newspaper each day for the past few decades, I have noticed that there are numerous patterns with politicians and others who come into elected office. For every group of people that admire a politician, there are always a group of people who hate the politician. The haters write this and that about the politician and hurl one insult after another at them. I can remember several years ago when George Bush, Jr. was first elected to the Presidency. I was working in an office tower in Los Angeles one Sunday afternoon, and I opened my window and there was a giant protest of thousands of people going on beneath me in Pershing Square. People were shouting over loud speakers that he was a “Nazi Executioner,” a “Failure at Business,” a “Racist Hick” a “Coke Head,” an “Alcoholic,” and all sorts of other terrible things that I no longer remember. How would you feel if thousands of people were shouting things like that about you? It would not make me all that happy. Imagine thousands of people doing this? I cannot imagine it is something you would be all that happy about. This is what winners do, though.

Winners proceed in the face of criticism. Winners do not care if they are going to be criticized and, if they are, they go forward anyway. Winners know they cannot please everyone.

When you try and please everyone you are going to fail. If a company tries to run a business that pleases everyone, they fail. In order to experience the success you are entitled to in life, it is important for you to choose sides and just do what you think is best. You are going to upset some people and may get criticized but who cares? You cannot please everyone. Action is better than inaction. You need to take action and take sides to go somewhere. Does it feel bad to be criticized? Yes, if you let it. Will you be criticized if you take a stand? Maybe, but you cannot worry about that. What I have found in my experience of working with thousands of people looking for jobs is that most people are frozen with a fear of “how it will look” and “what others will think” if they do something a certain way. More careers and lives have been destroyed by this attitude than I can count. The fear people have of criticism holds them back and prevents them from living up to their full potential. It is probably affecting you too. It affects most people. Those it does not affect the most are the people whose lives you are watching on television and reading about in the papers. They are living lives that are different from most because they know something the rest of us do not. Several years ago I was working with an extremely talented partner in a major American law firm. This partner had been working at the same law firm for nearly his entire career and he did not really know how to look for a job. This person had a career that had been characterized by a lot of success and as far as I knew no failure. The attorney was extremely dedicated and knew what he was doing in the realm of practicing the branch of law he did. He had a reputation that was considered stellar in all respects among other attorneys and people who he worked with with. I had seen articles about him in the legal newspapers and he worked with many very famous clients and celebrities and knew them personally. His wife was also a very important socialite around Los Angeles. I had seen her in the papers as well. After I started working with him, I started recognizing her in pictures in the society section of the Los Angeles Times. (While it was my job to introduce him to law firms, I remember thinking “I wonder whom he can introduce me to”.) What was missing, of course, was the fact that this particular attorney needed to find a job. It is one thing to be very powerful and know a lot of very famous people, and it is another to need a job. When you need a job, the entire world may feel like it has kind of clammed up to many people. This is not a fun thing, and it is brutal. It is one thing to be friends with someone, and it is another thing to go to them and ask them about a job. In the case of this important attorney, for the past 25+ years he had been brutally fighting with opposing lawyers and law firms all around Los Angeles and had been someone to be feared. That was his job, and he was good at it. Then to go to those same law firms and ask for a job I can imagine made him feel as if he was suddenly telegraphing a sort of weakness he never had. This is something I can imagine was going through his mind. I do not know; however, I expect it was. In January of 2000, I quit a job I had with a law firm. While I had originally given two weeks notice, the law firm told me that I should stay on for the next 12 weeks and at least line up another job if I was unhappy. I had planned on opening up my own legal practice; however, the law firm encouraged me to speak with recruiters and others to see if I might be happy working in another law firm. They explained to me that it would be very difficult for me to find a job with another large law firm if I left a large law firm without another large law firm job. Based on this advice, I started calling recruiters and also friends of mine in other law firms looking for jobs. I remember how embarrassing it was calling friends in other law firms and explaining to them that I was looking for a job. I explained that I had quit my job and the people I spoke with did not seem to believe me. I think they thought I was fired. After calling a few friends and going through these motions, I decided that I did not want to deal with it anymore. One of the strangest experiences I had was having a meeting with a Russian man whom I believe was running a Ponzi Scheme and wanted me to work for free for him putting together various investment documents in what ostensibly were oil wells he controlled in Russia. He said I would then get paid out of investments he and I solicited from wealthy people in Los Angeles. It is not fun looking for a job, and I did not enjoy this “job interview” in particular. Relying on friends to some extent to assist me in looking for a job was embarrassing and it allowed all sorts of rumors and stuff to start that were simply not warranted–or true. At some point I decided I did not want to rely on friends to help me look for a job. There are good people out there who can help you get jobs, and using friends is a great way to look for a job in some circumstances. However, the real mistake that I made at this time was even caring what people thought about the fact that I was looking for a job. This is the same mistake that the partner I was working for was making. He was too concerned what people in the community and other lawyers would say if they found out he was looking for a job. He feared the criticism that might come from this information getting out there. If you are a very highly paid attorney, it is not always the easiest thing to do to find a highly paid job. All of the skills that make you a highly paid attorney do not always translate into getting a job. A highly paid attorney is often feared and some make more enemies than friends. Not all law firms can afford an attorney of that caliber. After he lost his job, the firm was kind enough to give him around four months to find a new job before he had to leave the firm. During those four months, I spoke with him every few days. We met for lunch a few times and went over various scenarios. However, in all of our meetings this attorney was somewhat detached. I could imagine that the people who worked for him must have feared him a great deal. He was imposing and someone I could tell was extremely talented intellectually. However, when it came to what he was doing in terms of looking for a job, I could tell that he was absolutely terrified of what other people would say. He did not know how to look for a job, and I would tell him what he needed to do and he would sort of sit there looking at me not absorbing what I was saying. If I suggested one law firm for him to apply to, he would tell me it was not as prestigious as the one he was currently working at. He was concerned about what people would say if he went to work in a less prestigious firm. For some reason, he was also embarrassed to be looking for a job. He was worried what people would say if they found out he was looking for a job, as well. We met in out-of-the-way places that he had investigated in advance where the only people who would be able to see us in the restaurant would be the waiters. I think he was embarrassed to be seen with a legal recruiter. He also wanted to ensure that no one would overhear anything that was being said. I certainly always take those precautions as well; however, in this instance the attorney seemed overly paranoid. The problem with meeting with this attorney and discussing his job search was that he never took any action. Two months into his search for a new job he had not even applied to a single law firm yet. I was unclear if anyone even knew he had lost his job–including his own family. “If you are going to get another job, then you are going to need to apply some places,” I eventually told him with a considerable amount of exasperation over lunch one day. “You cannot get a job unless you apply somewhere.” Eventually I was able to arrange two meetings with him at law firms. They were unusual meetings that occurred in dark restaurants if I recall around 8:00 p.m. in the evening. Only after he realized that the law firm would almost certainly hire him after a few hours of dinner and drinks did he agree to meet with the law firm in their offices during the day. Before he met with each law firm, he made sure that he knew exactly whom he was meeting with and that he did not know any of these people. He ended up receiving job offers by both law firms, but he also ended up making about 50% of the salary he had made at his former firm. If he had not been so afraid of what others would say and so afraid of criticism, then he probably could have doubled his salary and gotten 10+ offers at really good firms. He was afraid to put himself out there, however, and terrified of potential criticism. The reason this story is so interesting to me is because this was one of the more important attorneys in America, and he was terrified of criticism and people saying bad things about him in terms of the way he looked for a job. He was a tiger and feared in court, and some of the most famous and powerful figures in the world would seek him out for representation, but when it came to his own life and career, he was terrified. The difference between not caring what people think in terms of how you look for a job and caring what people thing is something that will give you massively different results:

• I have seen attorneys who led the offices of major law firms be unemployed for years because the way they looked for a job was controlled primarily by their fear of criticism.
• I have seen numerous attorneys leave the practice of law after very good careers because they were afraid of being criticized in the way they look for a job.
• I have witnessed people who went to the best law schools in the United States graduate from these schools and never be able to find a job as attorneys because they did not know how to look for a job and were afraid of criticism.

I see this sort of thing all the time, and I see it because of the job that I do. My job is to find people jobs, and it is something I take seriously. Every day, when I turn on my computer, I also receive emails from people looking for jobs that have somehow found my personal email address and want me to find them jobs. When I check my voicemail each day, there are messages from people who have tracked me down (despite the fact I have not been a recruiter in years) and want me to find them jobs. Although I am no longer actively a legal recruiter, for years I spoke with all of these people, and I believe that I have enabled myself to really get a good understanding of what it takes for anyone to get a job. I understand this not because I am smarter than anyone else or have any special knowledge or powers: I see this only because I have seen what works and what does not work. I believe that finding a job is among the most important moments in our lives and careers. When everything is going very well, we can go about doing our jobs and be happy. When we lose our job, a new set of skills come into the realm. The skill of finding a job is dependent upon not caring what other people are saying or will say. You need to do whatever you can within your power to find a job, and the more you do and the less you fear criticism, the better job you will get and the more jobs you will get. You need to lead and not follow. There are few benefits from doing things the way everyone else is doing and caring what everyone else thinks all the time. One of the more interesting experiences I have is when I drive down the street–any street–anywhere in the United States. Here, you will see countless locally owned businesses that are small and have been sitting in the same location for years, if not decades. It may be a hot dog stand, a local carpet store, or something else. There was a ski store that did this on the corner of the street I grew up on. Across the street from this ski store, there was a small hardware store that did this. And a short distance away from this, there was a small bike store and pet store. A few years ago, I was back in my hometown and went into each of these stores after not having stepped foot in them for over 15 years. What I noticed is that all of the people who owned these small businesses were still working hard and had aged considerably, but nothing else had changed. These businesses are metaphors in my mind for the lives many of us lead. We work, follow the rules, do our best and nothing ever happens. We stay exactly where we always have been. The reason this occurs is very few people are afraid to step out and take a stand and do things in a way that will subject them to potential criticism. Most people are “in hiding” and not really subjecting themselves to everything they are capable of. It is like the partner of a major American law firm meeting for dinner and drinks in a dark restaurant with people who might hire him. He was in hiding. Most of us are in hiding. If you are doing anything worthwhile and that is likely to really set you apart to lead, then it has to be worth criticizing. Most businesses and people are boring, and that is why nothing ever happens to them. People who follow the rules and spend their time wondering what others will think rarely achieve very much. The same thing goes for companies. Most people are terrified of criticism. I hate getting criticized, but try as I might, it comes every day.

• “That is the stupidest blog posting I have ever read.”
• “People are saying bad things about you.”
• “I have spoken with others, as well, and we all agree that we do not like you.”
• “You an an idiot for saying that.”
• “I feel sorry for your children.”

But here is the thing: Despite the criticism, I keep going. I push harder and I do more of what I am doing. I also get more praise than I do criticism, and the praise keeps coming every day. The more I do what I believe is the best thing, the more praise I receive and also the more criticism. Most people choose not to be everything they are capable of because they fear criticism. They fail to apply to jobs they could do. They fail to call friends who could help them with their job search. They fail to run their businesses in a way that makes people take notice. They fail to dress they way they want to. They fail to marry people who they like and are attracted to. They fail to drive the sort of car they want to drive. They fail to live where they want to live. They fail to do the sorts of things they want to do in their spare time. They fail, and they fail, and they fail to do what they should be doing to live the lives they really want to live. People limit themselves and their lives because they are more concerned about what other people think than what they think, believe and want to do. Most often just the fear of being criticized is enough to paralyze people. For most people, the criticism does not even need to happen for people to be deterred from doing something. People will just not do something or be everything they are capable of doing and being due to their fears about what others will say. I admit that when people say bad things about me, it is upsetting. But this does not make me upset for very long. The reason is because I know that people are noticing something that I am doing. Lots of people like what I am doing and a few do not. By and large, however, most people in this world are ignored. I would rather be noticed when I am trying to do something positive for the world than to be ignored. You need to be noticed in order to get a job. You need to be noticed in order to succeed in a job. If your heart and intentions and pure, then you should not fear what others think. If you are criticized, so what? When I am criticized for something I write, or a business I am running, I realize that if I had done something ordinary that did not stimulate people to think, there would be no criticism. No one would care. The things we talk about are the ones that are worth talking about. As you contemplate your life, you need to ask yourself if taking action is worth being criticized. If the side effect of being criticized is that you will lose a job or an important relationship, then maybe the answer is you should not do whatever you are contemplating. However, if the worst that can happen is you will feel bad about the criticism that may or may not come, then you have to compare that feeling with the incredible benefits you may derive from taking an action that could change your career and life. The rewards for being the best you can be, getting the best possible job and succeeding are huge. A slight or criticism is something that you will soon forget about. The rewards for conquering your fear of criticism are huge, and the penalty for fearing criticism is huge as well. If you fear criticism and run your life around this, you will have an unremarkable career and life and will never be able to be everything you want to be. How can you run your career, life and job search in a way which others will criticize? The winners in this world are the ones who are acting despite what others may say, or are saying. The losers are the ones who are paralyzed with fear and afraid to take action because of what others may say.

Related posts:

1. Sick Crows, Your Attitude, and Being on the Winning Team
2. Criticism, Your Career, and Your Life
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