Harrison Barnes » finding jobs

Finding Jobs Where There Are No Job Openings

Harrison Barnes — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 09:00:34 +0000

I’m a businessperson. As a businessperson, I find I get a lot of phone calls from private equity companies and so forth throughout the day. I enjoy getting these phone calls, not necessarily because I’m looking for their investment, because it can come with a lot of strings attached. Rather, I’m interested in learning about their perspective of business. They tend to call about the businesses I’m running that are hot at the moment and doing well, where the revenue’s increasing. People in the investment banking business and private equity business are trained as a general matter to go after and learn about industries that are on an upswing. They have a keen eye for spotting areas where there will be a lot of profits and where they can do very well in the long run in terms of using capital effectively to increase the amount of money they make. An example would be Link Exchange, which was founded by the guy who founded Zappos. A private equity company invested about $5 million into that, and eighteen months later, their investment was worth more than $50 million. That’s an example of a company that was really on its way up. That’s what private equity companies look for. When I talk to these private equity companies, I like to learn about their ideas and perceptions about the businesses that are doing very, very well and are on this upward trajectory, because I can use that to help people track down and get jobs. When a company is on an upward trajectory, they tend not to be very discriminating in terms of who they hire. They’re also not very careful with their money because there’s so much coming in and they’re doing so well that they don’t really think too far in advance for the future. They’re simply thinking, “We’re doing very well now. We’re going to continue to do well.” That’s a great thing. They’re thinking, “We were doing well. We’re going to continue to do well. Even if we bring on extra people, we’re going to continue to grow and absorb the people.” If there’s a company that’s growing like this and doing very well, the odds are you’re going to have a much better chance getting a job there, even if there are no openings. Here’s a story that illustrates this dynamic of going where things are growing, as opposed to where things are stagnant. I’m talking about industries. Industries can be stagnant, different geographical locations can be stagnant, and different companies can be stagnant. Or the opposite may be true. They can be growing. Whether it’s geographic, industry, and company specific, this can happen. Google, which has been a booming company for a long time and doing fairly well in terms of increasing its market share of searchers, is trying to find new revenue streams. I think Google employees are allowed to spend 20 percent of their time on free projects, just doing things they like. In addition to this 20 percent, they have a big cafeteria where everybody gets free meals. That’s a real example of a company that generates a lot of money despite inefficiencies built into the system. When companies get older and more mature, that setup doesn’t necessarily exist because people try to cut costs, make more profit, and are generally more careful about who they hire. In a company like General Motors or Ford back in the 1950s and 1960s, they were on that upward trajectory too, making greater and greater profits. They had the same kind of thing. They had wood-paneled dining rooms where they were serving lobster and stuff for their executives and huge pensions. These companies, when they grow like that, believe the sun is going to shine on them forever. You want to get into companies like that where things are booming, where they’re on an upward trajectory. You can have a good career there for 10, 20, 30, or 40 years sometimes if you find them at the right time. That’s exactly what you need to do. When I got out of law school, and while I was still in law school, I applied to big firms, like 100 plus people, in Detroit where I’m from, in New York City, and Los Angeles. When I applied to firms in Detroit, I sent them my resume and not much happened. They would call maybe two or three weeks later, potentially schedule an interview, and I would have to fly out to Detroit at my own expense to do the interview. In the interview, I would sit there with the people. They were nice but the interview was very difficult. They would go over my grades and say, “These grades aren’t as great as they could be.” They would be almost a little bit suspicious in terms of hiring. The interviewers weren’t as friendly as they could be. This was even true despite the fact that I had lots of connections with the city and had worked in Detroit. The firms in Detroit were contracting and weren’t growing very rapidly. I applied to firms in New York. The firms in New York would fly me out, put me up in nice hotels, take me out to nice dinners, and were very nice. In Los Angeles, it was the same thing. Not only that but I was getting offered starting bonuses and all sorts of perks. It was very nice compared to the reception I was getting in Detroit. I ended up moving to Los Angeles instead of Detroit, to some extent based on the treatment from the law firms, and getting many more offers with firms that are considered much better nationally in both Los Angeles and New York than were in Detroit. What does that mean? What it means and what’s so crucial in all of this is the firms in Detroit were part of a contracting market. The firms in L.A. were in an expanding market and the same thing goes for New York. That meant more jobs in L.A. and New York and that’s how I was able to get such a good job. Geographically, you want to be in markets and places that are aggressively expanding. You need to be. It’s important to be in a market that’s expanding geographically very quickly. It’s important to be in a place where there is lots of opportunity. Had I stayed in Detroit and practiced law there for the rest of my career, I probably wouldn’t have had as much long-term upward potential as I ended up having in Los Angeles or working in New York. That’s something that’s very important for you to think about. Where you are matters. In both cases, in both Los Angeles and New York, I was applying to places that didn’t necessarily have openings but were going to accommodate someone because they had the growth. Places like Detroit were thinking, “Well, we don’t have an opening right now but we might.” This whole idea of job openings is something that’s very important for you to understand. In my opinion, an opening is a good sign that the company has identified something. But growing companies, industries, and geographical locations many times will just hire people because they want to have extra people around to help out with their mission, whatever that may be. They need extra bodies and extra people to really help out because they’re growing. Those are the places you want to be. How do you find these kinds of places? One thing I think is very useful is when you look at the job classified ads online or wherever you’re conducting your job search, you’ll typically see certain companies that have a lot of openings. They’ll just keep coming up again and again. You’ll see certain cities that have lots of openings compared to their size. If you look at a small city and they have tons of openings, that’s a sign that something good is going on there. Who knows what could be going on? They could have discovered an oil well. Who knows? But something is going on. If a company has a lot of openings, it has something going on as well. What do you do? When you apply to a company that has a lot of openings or you find someone inside that company, even if they’re not looking for someone specifically like you, many times it makes sense to apply because you’re going to have a much better chance of getting a job there and the fact that it has openings is going to make a huge difference. To make this work for you, look for places that have a lot of openings. When you are job searching and you find companies that have so many openings, they’re a lot more likely to create a job for you. Creating a job for you will be worthwhile to them, especially if you highlight what you have to bring to the table. Even if you basically tell them, “I need a job,” you will be surprised at what often happens. Apply to jobs in industries where a lot is going on. Apply to jobs in geographic areas where a lot is going on. This is exceptionally important. You need to look for boom industries and boom companies. Here’s how powerful this is. An old friend of mine spent a lot of time messing around when he was in college and he graduated with maybe a C average. Despite that fact, he ended up getting an incredible job when he graduated. How is that possible? He chose a major where things were on an upward cycle and where there was a lot of demand. Everything works by this law of supply and demand. You need to go where the demand is. It sounds like a very simplistic explanation. I’m almost embarrassed saying it because I know it sounds so simple, but sometimes the simplest messages are the most important. The most important messages can sometimes be said quickly. That’s an extremely important lesson for you to understand. You need to go where there’s the most demand. How do you track down these employers that have all this demand or this geographic area that has the most demand? Use the databases available and use employer websites. When you find an employer with a lot of openings, apply. At all points in time, certain industries are booming and others are down. Even in a bad recession and a bad economy, certain things are doing well and others aren’t. You should go where the opportunities are. That’s what the smart people do. They go where the opportunities are. People who do very well in their careers aren’t necessarily any smarter than you or I, but they’re going where the opportunities are. How do you find that? The best bankers or these private equity people that I told you about are good at it. Studying the market and seeing what people are talking about is a very good idea. If you just ask, “What’s booming? What’s doing well?” many times, you‘ll get information. I walked into a Fidelity investment office many years ago. It was at the end of the summer. I had made a couple thousand dollars and wanted to put it in an account. I said, “What is the hot industry? What is going to be growing?” They said, “Automotive. You have to put it in an automotive mutual fund.” I didn’t end up investing there I don’t think, but I remember I looked at what had happened with what they told me a couple of years later. The office was booming and there were all these people in there. This was a while ago, but the mutual fund had doubled. These guys saw where the market was going. They had some understanding of it and knew. Sometimes, you can ask people on the inside, “What’s booming? What’s doing well?” and they’re going to know. Once you identify an industry or geographic area that you think is booming, even if that company doesn’t have specific openings for you, you should just apply there. This has been my philosophy my entire career: to apply. What’s the problem? Apply, call, network, and do everything you can. Apply to these sorts of places that are going to have a lot of openings. Call associations. Many times, associations know who’s hiring and where the opportunities are. You can ask them where you think the opportunities are and they can tell you. They can often tell you what companies or employers they think you should apply to. Many times, they’ll even make the introduction if it’s an industry and association where there’s a lot of demand for people. You need to remember that most companies and places that hire people are not experts in hiring. They’re experts in what they do. Your objective is to be an expert in getting hired. That’s what you need to do. Go after those companies much more aggressively. Then they can come after you and you’ll have a much better chance of getting hired.

Being in the Zone

Harrison Barnes — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 05:20:52 +0000

Nothing is more important to success in your career and life than being in the zone. The problem with most people, however, is that they are not in the zone; instead, they are merely doing what they and others think they should be doing. Most people are following a path that they believe will lead to happiness, wealth, and achievement, rather than doing what comes naturally to them, what they are good at, and the sort of work that makes them happy. You should not be doing anything as a career unless you feel you at least have a shot at being the best in the world at it. It does not matter what you do. Being a waiter might get you excited: If it does, try to be the best in the world at that job. Being a ski instructor might be your dream career–if it is, try to be the best in the world at it. Do not waste your time on earth doing something you do not enjoy, or something in which you know you cannot truly excel. Do what you love. You need to spend your time doing something that gets you excited. Whatever that thing is for you, when you start thinking about it, you should get pumped up and want to talk about it with others. It should “get you charged up” at a deep and fundamental level. When you find something like this and decide to pursue it, your life and career will begin to change. There are things you would choose to do, even if you were not paid to do them. These are the types of things you should be doing for a living. Dr. Abraham Maslow was a famous psychologist who made a career out of studying people who were mentally healthy, rather than studying people with various psychological challenges. In particular, Maslow was interested in a concept called self-actualization–a process whereby people discover what they are best at and then commit to doing the same to the best of their abilities. Dr. Maslow researched the lives of important historical figures, such as Albert Einstein, in order to understand the traits of people who had experienced self-actualization. Lao-Tzu, the founder of Taoism, was another historical figure from whom Maslow drew a lot of his inspiration and understanding of self-actualization. Taoism is based on the idea that one does not obtain personal meaning or pleasure through seeking material things. Maslow charted out a hierarchy of human needs (see diagram below). As one moves up this chart, they are in a position where they can start to fulfill more of their higher needs. The top level of Maslow’s hierarchy is self-actualization, which is a person’s need to do what they are born to do–whether it is writing, making art, public speaking, athletics, or whatever it may be. If people are not meeting these needs, they start to feel restless and a deep sense of lack. Self-actualization is considered the highest motive for humans; it is something that drives every human being from deep within. It is what moves us toward reaching our full potential. The self-actualized person has moved beyond the need for acceptance by society and is operating at a higher level in terms of finding personal fulfillment. This type of person is more concerned with doing what feels right to him or her than being part of social conventions. Self-actualized people are able to move and operate at this state because they have progressed up the chart of needs. You too need to move up the chart toward your own self-actualization. When I was younger I knew a guy who wanted to be a songwriter. I became a good friend of his when we were attending high school in Bangkok, and several months after knowing him I realized he had an interest in writing songs. I remember, while sitting in class with him, he would usually sit there bored out of his mind, unable to concentrate. However, one day he popped out of another class and he was the most animated I had ever seen of him. He had written the lyrics for a song on a piece of paper and started telling me what the tune was. I had never seen him so excited about anything. He started whistling the tune and stopping every thirty feet or so to make a change to the melody he was crafting. Then he started writing songs at lunch and during all his classes. He soon started a band. Earlier, he used to walk slumped over, depressed most of the time, talking in a monotone. After he discovered songwriting, that all changed and he got a glow about him. He started exercising as well, and he became a much happier guy. Girls suddenly were interested in him, and his grades improved, although he was not really doing anything differently as far as I could tell. During the weekends, this guy started going to hotels around Bangkok, listening to jazz bands and other kinds of live music. He got a job playing an instrument in one of the hotel bands, working for free because he loved doing it. When he listened to music, he would hear something different from what most other people would hear. For example, he loved the Ramones, and he would often explain how the music was “layered”–and how brilliant it was. I had no idea what he was talking about, but it enthralled him to no end. When he moved back from Bangkok to Los Angeles a couple of years later, he went to college and ended up getting into the music business. I do not know what ever happened to him, but I would bet he is still in the music business today. I saw this fellow undergo an incredible transformation by his own making, just by discovering something that excited him. Everyone I have ever known has something that can excite them to such a level. When I was younger, I lived in New York City and one of my family members was very close with an artist. This artist had a small loft in Brooklyn and worked incredible hours as a word processor in a law firm to be able to pay her rent. She worked doing her art on small and large canvases every single chance she got. She often lived without heat in the winter or air-conditioning in the summer because she did not have enough money to pay for it. However, she loved her art and was motivated by it to an incredible degree. It was her life.

I know people who love to write and have been doing it for years, despite never being published. They write hours each day, coming up with one story or another.
I know people who work on cars in their spare time. Nothing makes them more excited than cars.
I know people who love plants. They think about plants all the time, and they work with plants and gardens any chance they get.
I met a guy about a year ago who is passionate about goats. Yes, goats. He has hundreds of goats and he has named them all. He can tell you the personalities of each one of his goats. He will not sell certain goats because he is too attached to them. This man’s whole life is about goats.

We remember and are quite struck by the people we meet who have a passion for something. The people with this passion also seem to be the most animated, have the most purpose, be the most driven, and live lives that are the most inspiring to others. When we have this sort of passion for something, others are almost miraculously attracted to us, and opportunities have a habit of simply appearing to us. This passion is an incredibly important thing. The person with passion is driven on a deep psychological and spiritual level, and does not necessarily care about how much money they will make, or whether they will receive promotions or special recognition. These people would actually continue doing their work regardless of what might happen to them in the future. However, rewards often have a way of finding these people. When you see people in entertainment receiving Academy Awards, Olympic athletes winning gold medals, businesspeople making giant fortunes, and so forth, you are generally witnessing the success of people who are doing something for which they have intense passion. It is this passion that carries them through the obstacles of life and gives them the strength to do something when most others would simply give up. When the majority of the world sees someone with passion doing something and reaping all sorts of rewards, this majority is very quick to go and imitate the person’s actions, because they too feel they will be able to reap the same rewards. Imitation rarely works. In fact, there is no better recipe for an unsatisfying and unfulfilled life than to try to imitate someone who has a passion for something. You simply should not be wasting your time in imitation. You need to find something that motivates you personally on a deep and visceral sort of level and then go for it. If you set about trying to imitate others, you are never going to be truly happy, and you will never reach your full potential. The person who has a passion is driven internally, whereas the person who does not have a passion is driven by what he or she observes. This is an important distinction to make, and if you understand it, it can change your life. When I was growing up, there were a lot of kids I knew who went to Michigan State for college. Michigan State is an excellent school in many respects. At the time, I was going to University of Chicago and would spend time with my friends at Michigan State from time to time. Something I noticed about many of the kids I met from Michigan State was that they chose majors based on what would be most likely to get them the best job, not necessarily what they enjoyed. At University of Chicago, the students tended to choose majors based on what they enjoyed, not necessarily what would get them jobs. They often chose things with very little utility that seemed ridiculous to me, and many of them had extraordinarily difficult times finding jobs after graduating. In contrast, I knew people from Michigan State University who loved English and spent all their free time reading. Nevertheless, they ended up taking all sorts of chemistry and difficult math classes in order to major in something like “packaging”–all because this major was most in demand by employers at the time. The kids from Michigan State got tons of job offers before they even graduated. Which path is better? I personally believe that when you do what you love, you will ultimately (not necessarily immediately) make a much more significant impact on the world than when you do something because it is what you think you should be doing. The person who is good at English but pursues a degree in packaging is allowing the outside world to determine their priorities for their life. They are doing what will pay the most and give the most immediate rewards, but they are doing themselves, and possibly the world, an incredible disservice; they may spend their career and life doing something they do not enjoy. The kid who gets a degree in anthropology may graduate with no viable job market skills, but he or she may become a professor, or a writer for National Geographic, for example, and go on to enjoy a fulfilling career and life. It is more important to be doing something you love, because you are likely to go further than if you are doing something for which you have no passion. The majority of lawyers go to law schools with zero passion for law. They are just pursuing this career because they feel it will enable them to get good jobs. They will become lawyers and will work at it not because they enjoy it, but because the job pays well. They will not be motivated by their clients’ needs as much as they will be motivated by the money they will make. Unfortunately this motivation will come through in everything that they do, and it will limit their potential. When you think about attorneys that have a passion for what they do, these are the people we remember most. Whether it is Alan Dershowitz or F. Lee Bailey, the people with a deep connection to the subject matter of their work are the ones that we respect and seek out. We do not seek out the followers; we seek out the trailblazers who truly love their work. The average lawyer is more ambitious about what their work will bring them than about the work itself. The average lawyer is constantly comparing themselves to their peers and other people, instead of improving their performance because doing so would fulfill an intense internal need. When you are doing something you are passionate about, you will do better in the long run than if you just choose a career for reactionary reasons. Becoming a lawyer because it pays well and others are doing it, is an example of a reactionary reason. Becoming a packaging engineer because you know it will get you a job offer is also an example of a reactionary reason. If you look around yourself and you see very successful businesses, they usually started out of a passion. For example, Colonel Sanders, the founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken, had a passion for a chicken recipe, and he put his faith and beliefs behind it. Ray Kroc, the founder of McDonald’s, had a similar passion for another type of restaurant. Henry Ford had a passion for making cars a certain way. These were not people who simply copied others. The drive that these men had was internal and was not motivated by others. These people each had an intense passion for something, and this passion has left a legacy that continues long after they have passed on. If you are going to reach your full potential, you too need to work from a position of passion for whatever it is that you are pursuing. When you have this passion, everything will come from the inside and you will know the path that you should be following. What others are doing will never matter because you will know where you should be going and where you stand. When you are working from a position of passion, your life is driven by long-term thinking, not short-term thinking, and even when short-term failures may arise, it will not matter to you too much, because you will stay focused on your long-term goals. THE LESSON Nothing is more crucial to your career success than being “in the zone”, and genuinely passionate about your work. Most people, rather than existing in the zone, merely go through the motions of what they feel others expect of them in the hopes of achieving wealth and achievement. To reach your full potential, find work that comes naturally to you, at which you are good, and that makes you happy. When you have this passion, everything else will fall into place and outside obstacles will cease to hinder you.

Plant Yourself in Good Soil

Harrison Barnes — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 05:20:47 +0000

There is nothing more important to your long-term success than finding and keeping yourself in a healthy environment. I have known so many people out there with incredible talent who insist on remaining in the wrong environment and, consequently, they never end up reaching their full potential in their careers and lives. If you work alongside or spend your time with people who are negative or lazy, who lack motivation, dislike work, and do not believe there are great possibilities for them out there–you will begin to absorb this negativity. You simply cannot spend time around negative people if you hope to have a positive life and career. If the people you spend your time with are angry, depressed, and defeated, then the odds are you too will feel this way. You need to be honest with yourself; you are never going to pull these people up. But they can definitely pull you down, and will do so whenever they have the opportunity. Several months ago, I met a very powerful and wealthy real estate developer from Texas. He had lately seen one catastrophic setback after another in the real estate business, and he had spent the previous months on the phone dealing with attorneys, tenants who had no money, discouraged real estate agents, and the like. The situation was so dire that he started drinking every night just so he could stop worrying and forget about all the negativity in his life. Only this way could he actually get some much-needed sleep at night. One day this man woke up and decided that he did not need all the negativity anymore. He stated that he now planned on going to at least one self-improvement seminar per month for the next year and spending a lot of his time listening to various self-improvement tapes. He refused to be dragged down by the negativity in his environment and, instead, wanted to make sure that he would thereafter surround himself with happy and inspired people. When I met this fellow, he told me he believed that this decision had transformed his life. Something most of us look forward to all year is taking vacations. Vacations are periods of time when we travel out of town and escape our normal everyday lives. Have you ever gone on a vacation and come back, looked at the people around you, and seen stress, anger, and negativity? I have. It is amazing because once you get back into the thick of daily life and work, your entire outlook can change very rapidly. Oftentimes, taking a vacation makes it feel as if you have escaped from the world of negativity and unhappiness, giving you a momentary reprieve. Many people come back from vacations, look at their surroundings, and decide to quit their jobs. This is a very common occurrence, and I have seen it happen more times than I can count. Like the guy from Texas, I have learned to keep my spirits up as well through inspirational reading and self-help seminars. Anytime I attend a self-help seminar that is a week or so in duration, wherein the seminar participants break up into groups to discuss their lives, I commonly encounter people who suddenly declare that they are going to return home and end a marriage or quit a job. The reason this happens is that being away from the daily grind of life, and being surrounded by positive messages, helps people realize that they may be in destructive relationships or other situations that serve to keep them down, frustrated, and depressed. I have also met many people who returned from seminars after a week or so, then started giant companies or lost a hundred pounds or more–or made other absolutely incredible transformations. The reason these people were able to make these transformations was that they took themselves out of negative environments and put themselves into positive environments. Several years ago, I began dating someone who was incredibly negative. She had some very attractive attributes despite her negativity; however, she was probably the most negative person I have ever met. We did not travel in the same social circles and she attended a different school than I did, so I did not know a lot about her when we started dating. When I had met this woman, of course, she was not at all negative and seemed like a very nice person who was lovely and great to be around. Within a few weeks of starting our relationship, however, the woman told me that she had spent a summer in a “stress camp/mental hospital” when she was younger, because she had been extremely depressed and angry. She had apparently been in the hospital for cutting herself with a razor, and had struggled with numerous psychological issues over the six or seven years preceding that dramatic event. The problems this woman had had in the past seemed to be much more serious than I ever could have guessed. “I’m all better now,” she told me matter-of-factly. “I got a really smart psychiatrist and he helped me figure out all of my problems and issues.” As our relationship progressed I would notice that occasionally she would lie to me, or not tell me about certain things. She would do the same to others. This to me seemed like something I should stay away from, but for whatever reason I wanted to make the relationship work. Over the next few months, I started to feel really depressed all of the time. If I would call her on the phone in the evening to chat, she would invariably spend twenty minutes telling me about how this person or that person was horrible, and that she would never speak with them again. When she would call me it was always to report something negative that had happened, or something negative someone had said, or something that I had done wrong. It could be as simple as my forgetting to throw a Diet Coke can in the recycling bin in her kitchen the previous evening. While this may not seem like a big deal, an offense such as this would be framed in the gravest of terms and would leave me feeling deflated and regretful for hours–so much so that it was difficult to even concentrate after the heavy reprimand. Sometimes when I would speak with this person about something unrelated to her, she would launch into a hysterical rage, as if I had been directly criticizing her. The more I was around this person, the more it wore on me. People who knew me told me that my posture and expression had changed. I began to gain weight. To top all of this off, I started hearing rumors that my girlfriend was seeing someone else behind my back, despite the fact that she had told me she loved me and that we had an exclusive relationship. Unable to balance multiple secretive relationships, she eventually broke up with me, giving me a list of reasons for her doing so. I had never heard any of these criticisms of me before, and I have never heard them since. However, these criticisms and all of the negativity at the time sure did hurt. Nevertheless, once I was out of this negative environment and I was no longer listening to this person’s constant criticism and negativity, my life changed. Everything very quickly improved for me. I became the happy, optimistic person I had been before. Had I stayed with this woman, I am almost certain I would have experienced a very difficult life in all respects. This is how it is with negative people: They can rub off on you and influence the course of your life, for the worse. This sort of negativity is not confined to individuals. It is also common to many organizations, companies, families, and other groups. You simply cannot spend your time with negative people and inside of negative organizations–and have a good life. The differences among people in the world are transparent and obvious if we just pay attention. Kids are the easiest example of how people separate themselves out into distinct groups. This weekend, I went to a high school football game in a small town. This is the sort of town where the entire city shows up for the game. What is interesting is how all the kids group themselves together. There are the stoners who look at the players and make fun of the situation and make negative comments. Then there are the other athletes, who cheer and try to be positive. There are also the smart kids, who sit together as a group and watch. This is what kids do in high school and it is also what adults do in life. People group themselves together according to their outlook on life and their values. Some people have a very positive outlook and are enthusiastic about the future, and others only see negativity. Do you see gloom and doom–or do you see a future that is ripe with possibility? Do the people around you lift you up or do they bring you down? I love the idea of being a farmer because farming is all about creating good conditions so things can grow. The most important element for growing anything is the quality of the soil. If you put something in toxic soil, it will not grow. The conditions for something to grow need to be controlled, and if they are not a certain way, the plant will not be able to thrive. Farmers pay a lot of attention to the quality of the soil. They sometimes fertilize the soil before, during, and after planting. They may create special sorts of irrigation to ensure the crop receives the right amount of water. In fact, they will rarely grow the same crop on a piece of land two years in a row: If a farmer grows soy beans one year, the next year he may grow corn. The reason they rotate crops like this is that the soil will rarely be good for the same sort of crop for several years in a row. Because humans depend on food for their very survival, a farmer usually comes from a long lineage of farmers, stretching back hundreds of years, who learned early on that nothing could grow without the right soil. If we did not know about the importance of maintaining good soil in farming, civilization as we know it would probably not exist. The expansion and growth of the human race has largely been due to the ability of farmers to plant flourishing crops, and this is utterly dependent on the quality of soil. If good soil is so important to a farmer, why then is this something that we often ignore in our own lives? Instead of planting ourselves in good soil, we allow ourselves to be around people and environments that pollute our bodies and our minds. You have enough sense to know that if you eat extremely unhealthy food, do not exercise, and abuse various substances, you are abusing your body. I am sure you also understand that abusing your body will affect your mind. Your physical state directly impacts your emotional state. Several years ago, I lived in a small town where I was working for a federal judge. One of the most popular things for men in the town to do was to go out to the bars for Monday Night Football. One street had about twenty bars that would all get packed with football-watching patrons every Monday night. Virtually every man I knew did this; the men would all sit there, ordering pitcher after pitcher of beer, eating extremely unhealthy food until the game was over. Then they would drink some more. Most of the men had potbellies, and many of them were ineffective the next day at work. Football is a fun sport to watch, but participating in this ritual week after week is not necessarily going to aid you in advancing toward your life goals. While the example of Monday Night Football may seem extreme, we also do this with the people we know. We fall into destructive patterns of behavior. In our families, we might tend to sit around and eat too much, and be unhealthy. If one person in a family has a bad weight problem, it is likely that others will too. They all participate in bad dieting together. It becomes a sort of bonding activity. If one person in the family smokes cigarettes, it is pretty likely that others do as well. The people we associate with and spend time with, rub off on us, and we generally become like them. Your diet and health is related to your body, and your body is related to your mind. One of the most amazing things that I have noticed throughout the years is that people who stay together for a long time as a couple generally end up looking similar to one another. Their facial expressions, mannerisms, and overall appearance all end up basically becoming the same. This is no surprise, for it is yet another example of how we become like those we spend time with. Yesterday, there was a front-page article in the New York Times titled “Out of Work and Too Down to Search On,” about people who have given up looking for employment. The article seemed to give solace and even glorify many people who have spent the past several months doing nothing, because they have given up looking for a job:

Mrs. Salinas was initially confident that she would land somewhere quickly. She seemed to be doing well, too, scoring interview after interview for senior-level corporate marketing positions. But each of those prospects dried up, usually because of a hiring freeze or some other obstacle. So, for the last two months, she has not looked at all. Partly, she has been busy, selling their old house, moving into a new one they are renting at half the monthly expense, seeing her daughter off to kindergarten. She is helped by the fact that her husband, a vice president at an advertising agency, still has his job. After the couple realized that her job search might take time, they decided to cut back on their spending. She has in mind a specific set of companies, but they are all still not hiring. Unwilling to settle for just any job, she said, she would rather bide her time. But the process of searching for work and coming up empty has also left her feeling spent. “I was just discouraged, fed up and angry, feeling like my career had betrayed me,” she said. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/07/us/07worker.html?pagewanted=all

To me, an article like this does not help anybody: We should, instead, be writing about those people who end up finding jobs despite a bad economy. If you are tempted to give up on your job search, or if you think you cannot do something, do not associate with people who will support this negative outlook or you will surely go nowhere. Find people who will push you to do better and to improve–not people who will encourage your self-destructive behavior. Be very careful about spending time around any person who might put a negative spin on your dreams and aspirations. Surround yourself with big thinkers, people who are going to help you be all you can possibly be. I am sure that you have friends, coworkers, relatives, and others who cannot imagine you achieving what you really are capable of achieving. I am not saying that these people are bad people. But you cannot afford to waste your time with people who do not fully support your dreams. It does no one any good to spend valuable time with cynical, unhappy, jealous people. If you do not put yourself in an environment that will support your growth, then your dreams cannot come to fruition. Plant yourself in good soil, and grow into the life you dream of living. THE LESSON Regardless of your other talents and qualifications, a healthy environment is necessary for your success. Do not associate with people who support a negative outlook when you are discouraged in your job search or think you cannot do something, or you will prove them right and go nowhere. Instead, associate yourself with people who push you to do better and improve. Surround yourself with those who think big and motivate you to be the best that you can be.

The Graduate, Andrew Carnegie, and Finding Positive Economic Currents

Harrison Barnes — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 05:01:19 +0000

In the 1967 movie The Graduate, Dustin Hoffman plays a young, recent college graduate, Ben. At a party, Ben is congratulated by his family and their friends:

Guests: We’re all so proud of you, proud, proud, proud, proud, proud, proud, proud. What are you going to do now? Ben: I was going to go upstairs for a minute. Guests: I meant with your future, your life. Ben: Well, that’s a little hard to say.

In one of the most memorable lines in movie history, Ben receives advice from Mr. McGuire (played by Walter Brooke), a family friend:

Mr. McGuire: I just want to say one word to you – just one word. Ben: Yes sir. Mr. McGuire: Are you listening? Ben: Yes I am. Mr. McGuire: ‘Plastics.’ Ben: Exactly how do you mean? Mr. McGuire: There’s a great future in plastics. Think about it. Will you think about it? Ben: Yes I will. Mr. McGuire: Shh! Enough said. That’s a deal.

In an interesting twist, in real life McGuire’s advice would prove to be very good. In fact, at all points in time there are industries and jobs which have a bright future in front of them like plastics. There are industries like this right now. Around a year ago, I received a telephone call from a contractor I know. He told me his 19-year old son wanted to speak with me about ”going into the Internet business.” While people frequently contact me to speak about finding jobs, work, and so forth, it is quite rare that a recent high school graduate contacts me for advice about starting an Internet business. I was excited to meet with the young man to see what had piqued his interest in this category. It turned into one of the most interesting meetings I had ever had. The boy brought his father, and when they arrived for the meeting, I could see they were visibly quite excited. The boy told me that a good friend of his and another kid from his high school had recently started an online business, selling cell phone chargers and other phone accessories online. The friend had started the online store because he kept changing cell phones a few times a year and was always having problems finding cases, car chargers, and other accessories. After some research, they discovered that most of the ”aftermarket” cell phone chargers and other stuff were made in China, and could be purchased very cheaply from distributors there. They found a distributor in China to sell them cell phone chargers and other cell phone accessories, and started purchasing them online. The mark ups they charged were incredible: They might purchase a cell phone charger for 60-cents and then turn around and sell it for $15.00. They were doing this with all sorts of accessories, and they now sold so much stuff online that they had a huge warehouse full of cell phone accessories. The kids were making an absolute fortune. In fact, despite the fact that the kids had no technical background, and no business experience whatsoever, they were earning over $500,000/month. The business was generating over $20,000,000 a year. ”Are you kidding?” I asked. Over the next day or so I would look into their business and based on what I saw, it looked to me like the kids were in all likelihood doing very well. The website they had built was primitive and not that exciting; nevertheless, it apparently was able to attract a lot of visitors and others looking for aftermarket cell phone accessories. The boy wanted my help building a similar website and learning how to import cell phone stuff. ”I know nothing about any of this,” I told him. ”I’d love to help you but I do not like to work on stuff I do not understand.” I hear stories about people who have become incredibly successful virtually overnight quite frequently. Usually, all the stories involve someone seeing something in the market that people want and then being there with the solution. It could be cell phone chargers, or it could be steel. The point is that the person sees a need in the market that is not being filled, and steps in with a solution to fill it. The most important decision you can make is deciding where you are going to put your effort. If you choose the right field for your efforts, you will frequently be richly rewarded (even if you do not have a lot of skill in the field). The kids who suddenly became incredibly wealthy with an online cell phone accessories business were successful mainly (I am guessing) because they chose to do something, and sell a certain type of product at the right place at the right time. When you identify something that the market wants, and provide it, then you can frequently do quite well—even if you are not particularly skilled. It is just a question of being at the right place at the right time and taking action. In your career, very little is more important than where you choose to focus your effort. The kids with the cell phone accessories business focused their effort on a booming business. At the time The Graduate was filmed in 1967, it was plastics. Soon new industries emerged like computers. There is always something that is booming and doing extremely well. All you need to do is find out what that is and act on it. Andrew Carnegie is remembered as someone who retired as the richest man in the world and amassed one of the greatest fortunes in the United States history. His life serves as an example of what is possible when people are able to see opportunity in front of them. Carnegie had donated over $350-million dollars to charity at the time of his death in 1919 (an incredible sum at the time). These donations funded the creation of over 1,600 libraries in the United States. Carnegie also sponsored numerous museums, New York’s Carnegie Hall, and various scientific expeditions. He has left a physical and inspirational legacy on the world. Carnegie sold his company at the age of 66 and retired. He wrote a book called The Gospel of Wealth where he argued that the rich should give away their money to less fortunate people. Carnegie came to the United States from Scotland when he was only thirteen years old. He soon went to work in a cotton mill but very quickly realized that steel presented an incredible opportunity. At the age of thirty, Carnegie started the Carnegie Steel Company in Pittsburgh. The company produced steel for the railroads and various bridges that were crossing the country at the time. Carnegie had the ability to keep costs low, and the huge profits he made eventually enabled him to acquire many of his competitors. What would have happened if Carnegie had stayed in the cotton business? My guess is that his life would not have changed all that much and someone else would have become rich in the steel business instead.

Libraries would be named after someone else.
Foundations would be called something different.
One of the richest men in history would not be called Carnegie.
Carnegie would not still be a name known to most Americans several generations after his death.

Carnegie succeeded because he was in the right place at the right time and took action in a career and business where there was true opportunity. This is something that very few people end up doing. Most people go to the first job they find that seems good, choose a job because it seems interesting, work someplace because they have a friend there … and so on. This is a mistake. You need to choose your employers, where you work, and what you do, based on where there is long-term opportunity. Nothing is more important than working somewhere with opportunity and where you are being carried away by the wind of a positive economic current. THE LESSON Focus on putting your efforts in the right direction. If you choose wisely and direct your efforts towards the right field, you will be richly rewarded even if the field is one in which you do not have a lot of skill. Identify something that the market wants and provide it; your success, more than anything, is a matter of being in the right place at the right time and taking action.

Increasing Efficiency is Your Best Route to Employment Security

Harrison Barnes — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 05:37:20 +0000

The cheapening of any article in common use almost immediately results in a largely increased demand for that article. Take the case of shoes, for instance. The introduction of machinery for doing every element of the work which was formerly done by hand has resulted in making shoes at a fraction of their former labor cost. Now almost every man, woman, and child in the working classes buys one or two pairs of shoes per year, and they wear shoes all the time. Formerly, each workman bought perhaps one pair of shoes every five years, and went barefoot most of the time, wearing shoes only as a luxury or as a matter of the sternest necessity. In spite of the enormously increased output of shoes per workman, which has come with shoe machinery, the demand for shoes has so increased that there are relatively more men working in the shoe industry now than ever before. The workmen in almost every trade have before them an object lesson of this kind, and yet, because they are ignorant of the history of their own trade, they still firmly believe, as their fathers did before them, that it is against their best interests for each man to turn out each day as much work as possible. Under this fallacious idea, a large proportion of workmen deliberately work slowly so as to curtail their output. Almost every labor union has made, or is contemplating making, rules which have for their object curtailing the output of their members. Those men who have the greatest influence with the working people, the labor leaders, as well as many people with philanthropic feelings who are helping them, are daily spreading this fallacy and at the same time telling them that they are overworked. -Frederick Winslow Taylor, The Principles of Scientific Management (1911) From the time I was 18 until I was about 27, I spent most of my summers working as an asphalt sealant and maintenance contractor around Detroit, Michigan. One of the main jobs I did involved putting an asphalt sealant on parking lots and driveways. At the beginning of my first summer doing this work, I used to purchase the sealant in five-gallon pails. Then I starting purchasing the sealant in 55-gallon drums and installing a pipe on the drums to drain the sealant out. After a few years, I did so much asphalt sealing work I had a trailer custom made to hold 550 gallons of the sealant. From the beginning of my second summer through my third, I had two people working for me whose job was to assist me in putting down the sealant. Their names were Larry and Jake. Larry was Jake’s father. Jake was mentally disabled but not overly so. He understood what was going on and followed instructions. He never really said much, however. Neither Larry nor Jake cared much for the work they were doing. While they had decent work ethics and put up with me literally walking into their homes and getting them up for work each day, they were not extremely concerned with the quality of the work they were doing. They frequently cut corners and I needed to watch them pretty carefully. Larry was a guy I remember and respect a great deal because I think deep down he was a really good person. On Sundays, I used to have to wait in front of his house until he got back from church with his wife and children. Larry was a smart man who had made some mistakes throughout his life but worked when he could. He was hungover every day, and I bought him Gatorade after Gatorade at convenience shops to keep him going. We would fill up five-gallon pails from the barrels and then walk the sealant over to an area of the asphalt we wanted to seal. Then, we would spread it around on the asphalt with either squeegees or a large brush. Without going into a lot of detail, this was excruciatingly difficult work because the sealant gets on your skin and burns. You are also outside, and the sun burns you because you are on black asphalt all day, and the sealant is a very heavy tar liquid that you need to pull off your skin at the end of each day. It often takes layers of your skin off when you remove it and needs to be removed with gasoline and a steel wool-like material. As this business grew, I started getting better and better equipment for it. I will never forget the moment I purchased and installed a pumping system and sprayer on the tank. With this new pumping system I was able to pull up to any parking lot or house and, after blowing all the debris off the driveway or parking lot, turn on this spray machine and complete sealing the asphalt without hardly getting dirty at all. Best of all, I did not need to fill up the five-gallon buckets. I simply needed to turn on my sprayer and walk up and down the driveway. One day I pulled up to a driveway that Jake and Larry were working on around 5:30 in the afternoon and turned on the sprayer. They were in the middle of working on the driveway and, by the looks of it, would be working for at least another 35 to 40 minutes. I told them to stop. Then, wearing khaki pants and a fresh shirt from the dry cleaner, I completed the entire job in less than five minutes. I could see they both looked somewhat astonished. They also looked frightened because I think they believed this new sprayer was going to put them out of a job. “This thing does not give as good of a coat as doing it by hand,” Jake said. This was the first time I had ever heard Jake say anything about the quality of the work we were doing. “Yeah, it does not look as good,” said Larry. The strangest thing happened over the next few weeks. Weird things started going wrong with the pump and we never made it through a full day. Belts would suddenly fail. Start switches would break off and disappear. I began to suspect after a week or so of this Larry and Jake were sabotaging the pump because they knew it could put them out of a job. After a few weeks of this I insisted I be the only one allowed to operate the machine, and I made sure I was. While I still have no proof of it to this day, I think Larry and Jake were sabotaging the machine. Change is something that creeps into every single business, and the objective of every business is to lower costs because lower costs mean more profits. This means they are always looking for ways to eliminate your job. That’s right. Your very job is a threat to your company and its profits. When I started in the Internet business in the year 1999, the world was a far different place. One of the most interesting things I witnessed involved computer programmers. In the late 1990s through 2001, computer programmers were like gods to companies in the United States. They could demand six-figure salaries and jumped around between companies at an alarming rate. Everyone wanted to hire them because there were so many Internet companies and businesses believed the Internet was the next great frontier. At our small company we practically needed to beg programmers to work for us. We would offer them pizza and other incentives when they were not on other projects. In some cases, we would pay them as much as $100 an hour to do the work, and then they would stop working after four or five hours because they thought the work was “boring.” Some of the programmers I interviewed even requested stock options just to show up for work. I was baffled by the programmers I worked with and my inability to get the programmers to do any work really held me back. Due to the difficulty surrounding this issue, we started building an office in India. We had no problem getting people to do the work there. In fact, people were enthusiastic about getting the work and wanted more of it. While there were lower costs associated with the work, the real reason for getting the work done abroad was that people were enthusiastic about doing the work. All we wanted was to get the work done. After the dot com crash and the events of September 11, 2001, all of a sudden those American programmers were out of work. Tens of thousands of American programmers were let go in a very short time, and Internet companies dropped like flies. I remember putting an ad out in late 2001 for an in-house programmer and getting overwhelmed with applications. I received so many applications, literally, one every few seconds, that I had to make changes to the settings in my Microsoft Outlook. I ended up hiring one person to work in our Los Angeles office who had just received a PhD from Caltech. I practically could have hired anyone I wanted in the world. There was simply no work for programmers. It had all dried up. The economy did eventually recover. However, I still did not grow our base of programmers in the United States. I had such a bad experience the first time and, in the interim, had built a large group of programmers in our company in India. This was all I needed. I cannot imagine how many jobs went to India due to this. Our company is not alone. Many companies do all their programming in other countries now. It simply makes more sense for them from a financial standpoint. They are not interested in doing work in the United States anymore due to the cost, hassles, and the fact the people are not as enthusiastic about doing the work. There are tons of jobs in the United States and around the world right now that are under fire and are likely to disappear in the near future. There are many reasons jobs disappear, but the main one is because they can be done cheaper elsewhere. Every company and organization is constantly striving for greater efficiency. If your employers can do your job cheaply elsewhere, then they will. There is no reason for them not to. The more cheaply they can produce a product or service, the more they can potentially sell of that product or service. The more of the product or service that’s sold, the more the company will grow and expand. What does this mean for you and your job? It means the best use of your time and skill is finding jobs and employers where your role is one of increasing the efficiency of the company’s work. You always need to embrace efficiency and increase the output of the company at the lowest cost possible. If you fight efficiency, you will be seen as an enemy of the company and its growth. If this happens, you will most likely be looking for a new job shortly. In the past there have been a number of phenomena I’ve watched with great interest: -The emergence of China as a major economic power -The massive decline of the American automobile industry -The rise and massive success of various American companies like Intel, eBay, and Oracle -The huge rise of jobs in places like India China emerged as a force to be reckoned with because they can produce goods more cheaply. People will work for less money in China, and this makes it cheaper to produce products there. Incredibly, it is still cheaper to produce products in China even after accounting for shipping the products on boats all the way to the United States. All over the United States, hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs have disappeared due to the emergence of China as an economic power. If you are someone working in a factory in the present economy, you need to realize your job could be replaced very, very easily. The American automobile industry has experienced a long and steady decline. Cars can be produced more cheaply elsewhere. American unions have set wages and benefits higher for American workers than for competitors. This has given competitors a huge advantage and also given American automobile companies less money to invest in improving their products. The products have continually gotten worse and worse. The companies able to produce the product at the lowest cost are winning. The companies that have done the best in the United States over the past several decades are the companies that are increasing efficiency. While I could go into considerable detail about this, companies like Oracle, for example, creates database software which allows companies to save money by operating more efficiently. The efficient operation of these companies creates huge value. A company like eBay creates efficiencies by allowing people to trade goods without having to travel or do extensive research. This, too, creates efficiency. Companies like Intel make microchips that have not only aided the rapid spread of personal computers, but have also enabled companies to use computers which allow them to operate more efficiently. India has been absorbing many American jobs for decades. They have call centers, programmers, and even legal work is being done there. The country has a lot more people than the United States and a corresponding level of talent. There is another advantage: people are willing to work more cheaply there for most jobs. It only makes sense for American companies to hire people there. These are all examples of efficiency in action. You need to understand the world and your job are constantly being pushed to be more efficient. When you take a job at any company, you are entering an environment where you are at war. You are at war with the fact your employers are doing everything within their power to make their businesses more efficient. That means they want to save money on you and your work to the maximum extent they can. The smartest thing you can do in your career is find companies that are increasing efficiency in the market and go to work for them, or find a company where you can increase the efficiency of what is being done. You need to embrace efficiency. If you fight efficiency, you will ultimately lose your job. We are not secure in our jobs and cannot be secure if we don’t embrace efficiency. The war for and against efficiency is something that is going on in every company and every organization. The employees and people who win this war are the ones who fight to make things more efficient. THE LESSON Companies are constantly striving for greater efficiency, and jobs tend to disappear because they can be done cheaper elsewhere. Consequently, you must constantly seek to improve your own efficiency in order to retain your value to your employer. Work to always increase the company’s output at the lowest possible cost. You will succeed if you find a position where your role is tied to increasing the efficiency of the company’s work.

You Need to Be Connected with Others at Work

Harrison Barnes — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 05:26:16 +0000

Early in my career I used to work directly with attorneys who had lost their jobs or were having extreme difficulty finding their first job. If certain people were persistent enough, and I saw they had real potential, I would generally invite them into my office and offer them work for some time to keep them going. I was not offering them work because they needed the money—most had enough money to survive. Instead, I would offer them work because I knew they needed to be around people in order to get through what they were going through. They needed to feel connected to others around them. More than money or prestige, the most important component of work is the quality of connection we get with others through it. Someone who is confused and let down by the work world will undergo a complete change once they are able to be part of a work environment and start feeling connected with others. For most people, nothing is worse than feeling and being alone—and not having a group. Everyone needs a group to belong to. Losing a job is among the most difficult things that can happen to anyone; however, I do not believe it is the financial impact of losing the job or not being employed that is most painful for people. Instead, the biggest pain comes from the lack of connection the person experiences to those around them. Not being allowed to participate in the activities of the group can be extremely painful. One of my favorite movies is About Schmidt with Jack Nicholson. The movie is about a man who retires from his job and struggles for connection with others. He sponsors a young boy, Ndugu, a six-year-old Tanzanian boy. He writes the boy letters and much of the story takes the form of his letters to Ndugu. When his wife dies, Schmidt decides to go on the road in a thirty-five-foot Winnebago. He feels extremely alone and struggles to find a connection with the world and people around him. He struggles with rage, depression, and all sorts of emotions that the viewer is led to believe he was not facing before his retirement and the death of his wife. Ultimately, the movie shows that Schmidt never was connected to others and never realized he was lonely when he was busy going into the office each day. After a long career, he suddenly realizes he had security in his job as an actuary but was not really valued by others and never really had a connection. Without his job and wife, he realizes how important connection with others is and the fact that he no longer has it. A few years ago, I was spending a lot of time at work. I had all sorts of people doing various jobs in the office, and frankly, there were people doing jobs that did not need to be done. It is bad management when you have more people than you need–but as a young manager I did not understand it at the time. I was eager to hire people and put them to work—even people I did not need. I was seeking connection. One day, my ex-wife said something to me I will never forget: “You have so many people working there, you like hanging out with all those people. You do not need most of them—you just enjoy the company.” At the time, a part of me instinctively knew that she was 100% right. I was running a business that could be much more profitable if it had fewer people—but I enjoyed having a lot of people around. It was as if I had made my office into a social arena. This was during the “dot-com” era, and I made the office a great social place to work. We had fridges filled with soda and beer. We had a Starbucks coffee machine before Starbucks was popular. Dart boards, pool tables, Ping-Pong tables, and foosball tables were scattered throughout the office. Going to work was a ton of fun and I enjoyed it a great deal. Very often, the whole company went out together after work. As hard as it is to believe, people often worked on Sundays because it was fun just hanging out in the office. Connection, friendships, and so forth were highly valued. Work had been turned into a place of connection and fun. There was very little that might be considered “impersonal” and “professional” about the office. Instead, people were able to connect with others around them. Thinking back on these times, the sense of connection I and everyone else got at work was very enjoyable and made work a great place. Life is more enjoyable when we are connected to others. Something very interesting about people who achieve the most success in their careers is that they are often the most alone. They are focused on being extremely successful and this success serves to separate them from others. Instead of making them more liked, or more connected, they generally lose a sense of connection with those around them because they are so “special.” People treat them differently, isolate them, and only connect to them on a superficial level—where they may be trying to get something from them. This is not connection and people who become extremely successful often know this. The cast of famous people who lacked a connection with others is legendary. One example is Michael Jackson, who ended up spending most of his time with young children. He felt these were the only people he could connect with. When someone feels isolated and disconnected, all sorts of strange things can happen. People seek connection in innumerable ways and they really need it. When people do not feel connected to others, they may join radical organizations, gangs, or something similar, to get that feeling of connection. Most people do not get up one day and think that they want to be part of a white supremacist organization, for example. They end up joining the organization and adopting its beliefs because the members of the group accept them and provide them a sense of connection. People will go to great lengths to be connected with others. Some gangs have used rituals such as the “blood in” that require the killing of another person (sometimes a complete stranger) in order to complete the initiation and be accepted as part of the group. The need people have to be connected with others is extremely deep, though. We have religions, churches, community groups, schools, sports teams, and more. Friendships and sex are about connection. Most of our jobs are, of course, about connection. If you look around, the odds are very good you will see the many ways you are trying to connect with others in your life and how much you need this connection. To be successful—and happy in your career–it is important that you work with those you feel you can connect with. Many people believe a key to success is being different and unique. To some extent it is good to be different and unique; however, if you are too different and unique, you will never be connected to others as much as you could be otherwise. Being different separates you from other people. Because the need to be connected with people is so important, you should understand that one of the main needs most people have from work is to connect with others. Perhaps it is on the phone, in person, or otherwise, but we all require connection. You need to ensure you have this connection with others in your work because everyone needs it and requires it.